I need ammunition, not a ride!
U-Turns & Actions Edition 53
This isn’t a happy Sunday, so I’ll spare you the banalities and also the news flow bombarding you from every angle. I’ll also spare you any pontification about the dearth of women leaders in dealing with this crisis — I think we all know it and are well aware.
Without going into the blow-by-blow details of all that’s happened since Thursday (you don’t need me to repeat the obvious)— the following I think sums up the bravery and pain of the Ukrainians, the desperation of finding a global solution and the digging in by the Russians, rather well.
“Russian warship, go f--- yourself.” - Ukrainian border guards on Snake Island, killed by a Russian war ship after that response & given the highest honour the country can bestow - ‘Hero of Ukraine’
“The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.” - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejecting an evacuation offer by the U.S. and been hailed for his leadership since.
“Do not allow neo-Nazis and Banderites to use your children, your wives and the elderly as a human shield. Take power into your own hands. It seems that it will be easier for us to come to an agreement than with this gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis.” Russian President Vladimir Putin referring to Ukraine’s Jewish President, while urging Ukrainian soldiers to lay down their arms.
“Finland is not currently facing an immediate military threat, but it is also now clear that the debate on NATO membership in Finland will change.” Finland Prime Minister Sanna Marin on the future security of Finland.
“"Clearly [the] accession of Finland and Sweden into NATO, which is first and foremost a military alliance, would have serious military-political repercussions that would demand a response from our country.” Russia foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova threatens Sweden and Finland’s security
“Ukraine should become a bridge between East and West, not an outpost.” Cold war mentalities must be abandoned to build balanced European mechanisms and all parties should return to diplomacy. China's UN Ambassador Zhang Jun addressing the United Nations Security Council before abstaining from a resolution condemning Russia.
Sunday morning update
Germany did a 180 degree turn on Ukraine this morning. Better late than never! Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a raft of new measures: 1) Supporting SWIFT sanctions (after being the last to agree) 2) €100 billion defence spending package 3) Direct weapons supply to Ukraine (after offering helmets as aid!) This includes 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 surface-to-air missiles 4) Permission given to Estonia and the Netherlands to transfer German-made weapons to Ukraine 5) Diversification of Natural Gas suppliers and investment in renewables to be ramped up.
If Russian airlines plan to fly west, it looks like that possibility may come to a full stop by this evening. In addition to numerous flight bans by different countries Russia is now facing a near-total airspace blockade an EU official said most European countries are set to impose flight bans. A formal decision is expected on the measure later on Sunday.
In the cyber-war that is happening, in parallel to the tanks and heavy shelling, the Anonymous collective breached and leaked the Russian Ministry of Defence’s database and hacked into Belarusian weapons manufacturer Tetraedr. They claim the company has provided President Putin with logistical support in the invasion.
Sanctions Update
US, Canada and the EU will block certain Russian banks' access to the SWIFT international payment system. The decision took a while as Germany and Italy had to reverse their objections. SWIFT is now putting the measures in place to make this happen.
In a bold move, NATO countries have also agreed restrictions/freeze on the Russian central bank's international reserves that will be implemented in the coming days. This will prevent Russia using $630 billion in central bank foreign currency reserves in the invasion or to defend a plunging rouble.
These are two critical measures that NATO allies believe will isolate the Russian economy and are in addition to the sanctions on Russian banks and key Kremlin associated persons, including President Putin and foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.
The sanctions workaround?
While Russia’s Central Bank governor Elvira Nabiullina’s dislike for crypto currency is well documented, this week you could see the finance ministry’s back-up plan to counter tough sanctions on its banks, come out of the dark.
The finance ministry submitted a draft of long-awaited cryptocurrency regulations to the government. Legitimising the crypto market in Russia has been a long running battle between the central bank and the Russian finance ministry which values the Russian crypto market at over $200 billion (as of early February) — that’s around 12% of the global market.
According to the Russian government, $5 billion in transactions are conducted using cryptocurrencies every year in the country, and its population of 144 million owns about $26.5 billion worth of crypto in over 12 million cryptocurrency accounts. The country also has the world’s third-largest crypto currency mining industry, behind the United States and Kazakhstan.
In contrast even as recently as two weeks ago Elvira highlighted crypto’s threats to individual investors and the potential for crypto payments to fund black market goods. The central bank a month ago had been pushing for an outright ban on crypto, with Elvira comparing them to a financial pyramid scheme that “might collapse,” blaming mining for the “unproductive consumption” of energy.
Late last month President Putin had to step in and play peacemaker between the central bank and the ministry. Calling for a compromise, he acknowledged the risks of investing in cryptocurrency, but said the Central Bank will not stand in the way of “technical progress” and citing Russia’s “competitive advantages” in crypto mining.
What can you/your organisation do?
#StandwithUkraine leaders Nina Levchuk and Olga Hamama launched unitedforukraine.org last night. An initiative put together by expat Ukrainians and their friends, the site aims to connect those displaced by the invasion with the assistance they need. From accommodation, navigating legal implications of being a refugee to emergency contacts and coordination.
This project is an evolving one as the founders and their volunteer team collate essential information like shelter, emergency contacts, legal assistance, refugee support, donations and contacts. Here is what they say you can do to help!
Please get in touch with Nina, Olga or their team if you can offer any of the following:
1. Contacts - Provide details of any organisations you know that are willing to take in refugees, organize transport, provide any other support services.
2. Shelter - if you can offer shelter anywhere in Europe to Ukrainians who are fleeing the country.
3. Volunteering - if you are willing to invest your time, and can offer your skills
4. Legal - if you are a lawyer and are willing to provide any legal support that may be required by Ukrainians arriving in Europe.
5. Engagement - use the platform you have in your organisations. Write to your MPs and request heavier sanctions and more support for Ukraine. Join your local demonstrations - if your town is not holding a demonstration, consider organizing one. Your voice matters!
To top their list, I’ll use the ugly word that Nina and Olga would hesitate to — ‘Money’ — If you can afford to donate, there are multiple resources, NGOs and government assistance programs that have been additionally vetted by United for Ukraine, details of which are available on their site. Or just drop either of them a message on LinkedIn.
You can also listen to Nina and Olga talk to me about what Ukraine needs from us, on Twitter.
Corporate fallout
The first movers in acting to suspend business with Russia include: Vattenfall which has suspended deliveries of nuclear fuel from Russia to its nuclear power plants; Dell has suspended sales in Ukraine and Russia; Delta airlines has cancelled its codeshare with Russia’s Aeroflot; Formula One cancelled the 2022 Russian Grand Prix; the European Broadcasting Union banned Russia from this year’s Eurovision song contest; UEFA stripped Russia of hosting the Championship finals.
The global computer chip industry, including the giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, has begun halting sales to Russia in the wake of U.S. sanctions. A number of U.S. and European companies including Siemens have said they are currently evaluating what Russia’s move means for their medium to long term strategy.
Geopolitical fallout
Taiwan has been walking the tightrope for a long time, holding back a China that thinks of the territory in a similar vein to Putin’s ideas about Ukraine. In what’s been often described as ‘the most dangerous place on earth,’ President Tsai Ing-wen ordered her military and national security apparatus to boost its defences, surveillance, and early warning systems, and to strengthen its already sophisticated responses to cognitive warfare. This, after China sent nine warplanes into Taiwan’s air defence zone on Thursday – a slightly larger than average sortie among the near daily incursions of the last two years.
It’s very unlikely China will make a move on Taiwan anytime soon, but Ukraine has highlighted that the world order is changing, and the rules that govern it are changing faster.
What about our future?
As I left the Munich Security Conference last week, I wondered if the potential of war would distract us from the most pressing issue facing our survival - climate change. I’m still trying to figure out if our short-term pain of rising energy prices and potential shortages will upend or delay what we now know is essential - weaning our energy needs off fossil fuels and investing in the green tech we need. Germany for example, seemed in no rush to do so till this morning.
One thing is quite clear — we need to get more women to the negotiating and fallout table. We need their peace-making skills, diverse and wide range thinking for solutions, tough decision making, inputs on reframing a crisis and post crisis world and most critically their honest communication.
War time innovations have historically redefined our lives, and perhaps this stand-off will be just the impetus we need to speed up our green innovations and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), rather than delay them. The women I met at the MSC — this year’s intake of the BMW Foundation’s Futurity Fellows — are pushing to ensure that.
Have you met
Galyna Mykhailiuk is a member of the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada) and Deputy Head of its Committee on Law Enforcement. She also works part-time as a professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and is an associate professor at Ukrainian Free University (UFU) in Munich.
Katie Hill is CEO and Chair of the Management Board of B Lab Europe. She leads the roll out of the B Corp movement across Europe, having set up the UK arm from its inception in 2015.
Lisa Witter is the CEO of the Apolitical Foundation which works to advance the revitalization of democracy through effective and transformational public and political leadership.
Marietje Schaake is international policy director at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center and international policy fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.
Kotchakorn Voraakhom is a landscape architect who works on productive public spaces, tackling climate change in urban dense areas. She created the first critical green infrastructure for Bangkok, Chulalongkorn Centenary Park.
Chloé Pahud is a serial social entrepreneur as well as the founder and CEO of Civocracy, a citizen engagement platform which envisions citizen collaboration with a purpose-built digital tool.
Christiane Höhn is the principal adviser to the EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, for whom she has worked since 2010.
Clare Shine is Director and CEO of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership in 2021. She joined CISL after nine years as Vice President and Chief Program Officer at Salzburg Global Seminar, an international non-profit founded in 1947 to challenge current and future leaders to shape a creative, just, and sustainable world.
Dr. Imke Rajamani is Managing Director at Falling Walls Foundation. She is also an author and editor of several publications on the the history of emotions and is a professionally trained conflict mediator and a systemic coach.
Jessica Berlin is the founder of the consultancy CoStruct, where she advises public, private, and nonprofit organizations on strategy and program design to seed and scale innovative solutions to complex global challenges.
Dr Uta Boellhoff is the Director of External Relations for United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and will be moving to UNICEF this month. She specialises in humanitarian aid and development and has also held various leadership positions in the German government including Director General for Multilateral policy in the BMZ.
Last thoughts
Considering the ugliness of the incessant news flow it has never been more important to take care of yourself. I know I’ve been on the verge of been consumed by worry on so many fronts - concern for friends and acquaintances and their families, economic hardships that are coming for us all, potential all-out war, or a degeneration into a neo–Cold War. All this as I sit comfortably on my couch thousands of miles away, in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, in a country surrounded by a literal moat!
I hope you are doing all the little things that make you happy and help keep life’s train on track - without having to shut out Ukraine’s trauma or the risk the situation represents to democracy as we know it. Staying mentally healthy in order to be alert and aware is essential now. If we are in the right mind space, only then can we put pressure in our own individual ways on our organisations and governments to do the right thing for our future.
I will also be hosting conversations on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter in the coming days and weeks with the women leading various facets of our world, in light of this changing world order and its rules. Keep an eye out for an invitation to join the chat. The world needs to hear your perspective and expertise!
And please do share this edition of The Chief Brief - Spread the word and help get others involved!