Richard Murphy

[Alexander Kokcharov @alex_kokcharov]

I finally collected my thoughts on Melnichenko's essay in last week's issue of @TheEconomist .

Melnichenko claims to offer a pragmatic warning about the dangers of a weakened Russia, but his core argument rests on a massive logical fallacy: it completely divorces Russia’s current instability from the exact Kremlin policies that created it. It treats Russia's predicament as if it were the weather or some other natural phenomenon, rather than the direct result of Putin's actions over the 26 years of his rule.

By framing Russia's internal and economic fragility as abstract geopolitical risks, the essay conveniently omits the principal drivers of its isolation: the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the ongoing occupations in Georgia and Moldova, and the systematic dismantling of domestic freedoms and rights.

Here are the three major flaws in this "geopolitical realism" approach:

- The essay ignores Ukrainian agency: It treats Ukraine as a passive chessboard for a superpower showdown, entirely ignoring that Ukrainians are sovereign actors who have repeatedly chosen their own political future through elections, mobilisation, and fierce resistance.

- The essay recycles Kremlin narratives: It subtly shifts the blame away from Kremlin's ongoing aggression abroad and repression at home and onto Western policies, implicitly arguing that European security depends on accommodating Russia's revisionist demands.

- The essay is based on analytical asymmetry: It treats Russia’s violent behaviour as an unchangeable, fixed constraint while demanding that the choices of Ukraine and the West be the variables that must bend.

Ultimately, this perspective doesn't analyse the crisis - it normalises it by ignoring the root causes. I honestly have no idea why The Economist chose to provide a platform for Melnichenko’s - or the Kremlin’s - voice.

[Vatnik Soup @P_Kallioniemi]

Elon Musk's foundation paid Tommy Robinson's trip to Russia.

This system of international far-right oligarchy should make more people angry.

[Richard Murphy @murphatroid]

https://t.co/TUU6jDqonu

[Richard Murphy @murphatroid]

@mr_ZM https://t.co/hclMAH2UUG

[Richard Murphy @murphatroid]

@mr_ZM @MyringNikolia @tomgordonLD https://t.co/Bh8cctZ2pZ


[Richard Murphy @murphatroid]

@nhk_world @NHKWORLD_News

[Zarina Zabrisky 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @ZarinaZabrisky]

🇯🇵 friends: can we tell Svitlana’s story in Japan? It was her dream to speak your language (I am sure she wanted to visit your amazing country.)

Maybe people in Japan can hear about her and keep her memory alive.

Svitlana was killed by Russian human safari on a bus in Kherson.

[Caolan @CaolanReports]

A European capital is on fire because Russia spent the night firing missiles at civilians in their beds.

Kyiv is full of smoke. People are buried under rubble.

This is terrorism.

[✙Debbïe✙ 🍉🌻🇺🇦🌻🇺🇦 @deberd99]

Fellas this account is a very important account. russians hate it and their trolls got it suspended. WE NEED TO REBUILD DecodingTrolls.

[Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla]

It’s an amazing report which nails how Russia’s hybrid warfare programme actually works & how Russia is explicitly & directly inciting racialised violence in UK - & working with Tommy Robinson to do so - as well as directing acts of violence
against PM.
2/

[Richard Murphy @murphatroid]

@IsabeauAnvers @MargoGontar @Prota10827 https://t.co/pLPh79ocvh

'In that conversation, Putin mentioned to Skuratov that he himself was also secretly video-taped making sex at the same bed. (But of course, he did not tell it was pedophilia [sic] rather than normal sex.)'

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

This is really stupid, and it’s not getting enough attention.

The Trump administration is pulling a working $368 million ocean monitoring system out of the water, equipment taxpayers already bought, built, and sank into the deep ocean.

And they are doing it right when the oceans are behaving in ways that alarm the scientists who study them.

Record-breaking temperatures.

A system of Atlantic currents that may be lurching toward collapse.

The response?

Yank out the instruments and walk away.

That is not budgeting. That is smashing the gauges while the engine is on fire and calling it efficiency.

For what? The Trump administration dressed it up as a “nimbler approach” and “smart lifecycle management,” which is fancy nonsense for “we shut it off and hoped nobody would ask why.” There is no return-on-investment analysis. They cannot show taxpayers save a dime, because the gear is already paid for and the science it produces protects real money and real lives.

The kicker: the same people killing the monitors want to mine the deep sea for minerals. So they are destroying the only tools that could measure what that mining does. That is not an accident.

That is the point. You cannot see the damage if you break the instruments first.
https://t.co/MzE4AW1QBv

[Richard Murphy @murphatroid]

@davidkurten

[olexander scherba🇺🇦 @olex_scherba]

If you didn’t notice, Russia presented in St Petersburg a “positive scenario” for Europe’s future:

- nuclear strike on Ukraine,
- war till 2036;
- occupation of Kyiv;
- disintegration of EU;
- Russia’s domination in Europe.

Think about it next time when saying 🇷🇺 means well.

[L’Atlantista 🇮🇹🇺🇦 @Latlantista]

Non ho mai scritto a riguardo della raffineria di alluminio ad Aughinish in Irlanda; pensavo erroneamente: quanto alluminio può mai produrre l’Irlanda per la Russia?

Mi sbagliavo. La raffineria di Aughinsh, posseduta dal colosso russo “Rusal” (posseduto dall’oligarca Deripaska) produce un terzo di tutto il (poco) alluminio ancora prodotto in Europa. Tutto questo alluminio è trasportato in Russia dove viene usato per nutrire lo stesso complesso militare industriale che rade al suolo le città ucraine facendo stragi di civili.

Ma lo scandalo è ancora maggiore di quello che potrebbe sembrare: che le sanzioni europee non siano affatto complete e permettano ancora tali follie non era una novità. Quello che personalmente mi ha scandalizzato è il modo in cui i politici irlandesi, incalzati dal bravissimo reporter Caolan, neghino che la raffineria abbia una qualche connessione con il complesso militare russo, nonostante tutto, a partire dalle insegne fuori dalla struttura, porti a tale conclusione.

Questa roba deve finire all’istante. La raffineria va sanzionata, chiusa e basta.

[Richard Murphy @murphatroid]

@Eirinn76 @andrewhaak77 @CaolanReports

[Richard Murphy @murphatroid]

@CorkGarden @oida @JoOou_Sama2 @realLangerDan 

[Richard Murphy @murphatroid]

@Eirinn76 @andrewhaak77 @CaolanReports 🤖

[Caolan @CaolanReports]

Every sign at this refinery in Ireland is in russian. The official website is a .RU domain.

There’s no reason to hide it because local politicians are openly doing it for them.

[Richard Murphy @murphatroid]

@PCASOSpodcast @jurgen_nauditt Not at war with, no, actively aiding in the case of Ireland. What’s your point? Honestly, do you think this is ok, a positive for Irish industry?, that Caolan should pipe down?Quite a weird take (or quite staggeringly hypocritical) when your band account posts stuff like this:

[The Bonnevilles @thebonnevilles]

Honoured to be playing another gig for Palestine with an amazing lineup of musicians.

Silence is complicity and we're inspired by the actions of our brothers and sisters like @ConchurWhite and others rejecting @sxsw and their collision with the military industrial complex

[Richard Murphy @murphatroid]

@realgerhardtvdm https://t.co/zXVpiEouQJ https://t.co/zXVpiEouQJ

[Anders Åslund @anders_aslund]

Russia announces that it will systematically bomb Kyiv, including diplomatic missions.
Trump & the US do not even protest.
Trump is the greatest coward the US has ever had as president.