Russia Playing the "Long Game" to Protect Energy Exports
Russia's sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 plant may soon receive its first domestically built ice-class tanker, expanding its fleet as the project anticipates potential easing of Western energy restrictions. The Zvezda shipyard in Russia's Far East is completing construction of several LNG carriers, dubbed the Alexey Kosygin series after their lead tanker, Igor Tonkovidov, chief executive officer for Russia's largest shipping company Sovcomflot, said at a conference in Murmansk. Leslie Palti-Guzman, Senior Associate with a focus on energy security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, breaks down what she sees as the Kremlin's long-term energy export strategy once the War in Ukraine comes to and end. She also explains why the plan may create an economic conflict between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Leslie speaks with Paul Sweeney and Alix Steel on Bloomberg Radio. (Source: Bloomberg)
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- Atlantic
Trump Insults America—Again
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Oops, he did it again. On Sunday, President Donald Trump had a rambling conversation with the Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo. It was a typical Trump performance: He leaned into his trademark edge-of-the-chair crouch and spooled off long strings of words that were only sometimes on topic or related to one another. ('They call it 'magnets,'' he helpfully informed Bartimoro at one point when she asked about rare-earth minerals.) But when it came to China, Trump returned to one of his favorite themes: moral equivalence between the United States and authoritarian regimes. Bartiromo noted that authorities recently arrested some Chinese nationals accused of smuggling in biological materials that could threaten the U.S. food supply. 'We don't know where that came from,' Trump said, waving away the arrests as possibly nothing more than the apprehension of a few 'whackos.' Bartiromo pressed on: The Chinese have hacked 'into our telecom system; they've been stealing intellectual property; fentanyl, COVID, I mean, you know, all of this stuff, so how do you negotiate with obviously a bad actor and trust them on economics?' And then Trump went for it. 'You don't think we do that to them?' he said with a smirk. 'You don't think we do that to them?' he repeated as Bartiromo struggled during a few seconds of silence. 'We do,' the president said. 'We do a lot of things.' 'So,' Bartiromo asked, 'that's the way the world works?' Trump shrugged. 'That's the way the world works. It's a nasty world.' As a card-carrying expert who taught international relations for more than three decades, I can affirm the president's assertion that we do, in fact, live in a nasty world. But as a patriotic American, I have a bit more trouble with the idea that the United States of America and the People's Republic of China are just two bad kids on the playground. In my many travels to university campuses over the years, I have often heard that America is only one of many horrendous regimes in the world. Usually these pronouncements came from students trying out new intellectual clothes in the safety of an American classroom, or from radicals on the faculty for whom anti-Americanism was a central part of their academic credo. And I know, especially from studying the Cold War, that presidents in my lifetime did a lot of shady, immoral, and illegal things. But I have never heard a president of the United States sound like a graduate student who's woozy from imbibing too much Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn. This isn't the first time that Trump has resorted to this kind of embarrassing equivocation. In early 2017, then–Fox host Bill O'Reilly asked Trump about U.S. relations with Russia and how he might get along with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'He's a killer,' O'Reilly said. 'Putin's a killer.' Trump bristled—and rose to Putin's defense. 'There are a lot of killers,' Trump said, with the same kind of half-smiling smirk he deployed at Bartiromo. 'We've got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country's so innocent?' Of course, Trump's only consistent foreign-policy principle during the past 10 years has been to side with Russia whenever possible. But leaving aside his obsession with Putin, the president's smears on his own country are not the result of a deeply considered moral position, or even some kind of strategic big-think. Principles are inconvenient, and if they get in the way of winning the moment—the news cycle, a trade negotiation, an argument with a reporter—then they are of no use. Indeed, Trump has shown, over and over, that he has no real ability to make moral distinctions about anything. Perhaps nothing illustrates this vacuousness more than Bob Woodward's report that when Trump decided to run for president, an aide told him that his previous pro-choice stances and donations to Democrats would be a problem. 'That can be fixed,' Trump said. 'I'm—what do you call it? Pro-life.' As Groucho Marx is rumored to have said: 'Those are my principles, and if you don't like them … well, I have others.' But there is also a laziness in Trump's casual slanders against America. If Trump admits that the United States is a far better nation than Russia or China, with a heritage of liberty and democracy that imposes unique responsibilities on the United States as the leader of the free world, then he would have to do something. He would have to take a stand against Russia's military aggression and China's economic predations. He'd have to take the hard path of working with a national-security team to forge policies that are in the long-term interests of the United States rather than the short-term interests of Donald Trump. Likewise, when Trump depicts America as an unending nightmare of crime and carnage, he's not only trying to trigger a cortisol rush among his followers; he's also creating a narrative of despair. It's a clever approach. He tells Americans that because the world is nasty, all that 'shining city on a hill' talk is just stupid and all that matters is making some deals to get them stuff they need. Meanwhile, he paints America as something out of a medieval woodcut of hell, implicitly warning that he can't really extinguish the lava and the fires but promising to at least put on a show of punishing some of the demons. This nihilism and helplessness is poisonous to a democracy, a system that only works when citizens take responsibility for their government. It is a narrative that encourages citizens to think of themselves as both scoundrels and victims, crabs in life's giant bucket who must claw their way up over the backs of their fellow Americans. The modern global order itself—a system of peace, trade, and security built by the genius of American diplomacy and the sacrifices of the American armed forces—is, in Trump's view, one big criminal struggle among countries that are no better than mob families. In his world, the United States isn't a leader or an example; it's just another mook throwing dice against the wall in a back alley. Some people support Trump because they want certain policies on immigration or taxes or judges. Others enjoy his reality-TV approach to politics. Some of his critics reject his plans; others reject everything about the man and his character. But none of us, as Americans, have to accept Trump's calumnies about the United States. We are a nation better than the dictatorships in Moscow and Beijing; we enjoy peace and prosperity that predated Trump and will remain when he is gone. We live in an America governed by Trump. But we do not have to accept that we live in Trump's America. Here are four new stories from The Atlantic: Today's News A suspect, found dead, is believed to have set a brush fire and ambushed firefighters, killing two in Idaho yesterday. The Senate is in the midst of an extended vote-a-rama session on amendments for President Donald Trump's sweeping policy bill. An Israeli strike on a popular waterfront café in Gaza killed at least 41 people and injured dozens, according to a hospital official. Dispatches Work in Progress: The whole country is starting to look like California, Rogé Karma writes. Housing prices are rising fast in red and purple states known for being easy places to build. How can that be? Evening Read The Conservative Attack on Empathy By Elizabeth Bruenig Five years ago, Elon Musk told Joe Rogan during a podcast taping that 'the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit.' By that time, the idea that people in the West are too concerned with the pain of others to adequately advocate for their own best interests was already a well-established conservative idea. Instead of thinking and acting rationally, the theory goes, they're moved to make emotional decisions that compromise their well-being and that of their home country. In this line of thought, empathetic approaches to politics favor liberal beliefs … But the current ascendancy of this anti-empathy worldview, now a regular topic in right-wing social-media posts, articles, and books, might be less a reasonable point of argumentation and more a sort of coping mechanism. Read the full article. More From The Atlantic Culture Break Extending lifespans. America has more great-grandparents than ever. It also has a new caretaking challenge, Faith Hill writes. Express yourself. What are emoji? Megan Garber unpacks the 🍑, the ️🤡, and the 👍. Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.
an hour ago
A Russian media outlet is raided in Azerbaijan's capital as tensions rise between Moscow and Baku
BAKU, Azerbaijan -- Police in Azerbaijan's capital of Baku searched the offices of Russia's state-funded news outlet Sputnik on Monday, local media reported, as tensions rose between the two countries after the deaths of two ethnic Azerbaijanis during a police raid last week in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg. Sputnik had continued working in the country via 'illegal financing,' despite having its official accreditation revoked in February 2025, the Ministry of Internal Affairs said. Arrests were made during the search, it said, without elaborating. Images on Azerbaijani media outlets appeared to show two men taken away by masked police. They included Sputnik's Azerbaijan's editor-in-chief, Yevgeny Belousov, and its director, Igor Kartavykh, according to Sputnik's sister outlet, state-owned RIA Novosti. In Moscow, Azerbaijan Ambassador Rahman Mustafayev was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry after the raid and notified of 'the illegal detention of Russian journalists,' according to ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, as cited by the Russian news service Interfax. The search followed official protests from Baku after Russian police raided the homes of ethnic Azerbaijanis in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg on Friday. Two brothers, Ziyaddin and Huseyn Safarov, were killed, and several others were seriously injured during the raids, officials said, with nine people detained. Sayfaddin Huseynli, a brother of the two dead Azerbaijanis, told The Associated Press the raids were 'an inhumane, cruel act by Russia against migrants — an act of intimidation.' One of the dead was a Russian citizen and the other held both Russian and Azerbaijani citizenship, Huseynli said. Their bodies were being returned to Azerbaijan on Monday. He earlier told Azerbaijani public broadcaster ITV that the men were beaten and subjected to electric shocks 'without any trial or investigation.' 'The so-called Russian law enforcement agencies broke into houses in the middle of the night, beat and took people away like animals,' he told the broadcaster. Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry said it expected 'that the matter will be investigated and all perpetrators of violence brought to justice as soon as possible.' Russia's Investigative Committee said Monday that one of the deaths was from heart failure. It did not provide details on the second victim, but said a medical examination would be conducted to determine the exact cause of death for both men. It also said the raids were part of an investigation into several murders spanning more than two decades. Officials in Baku responded by canceling a scheduled trip to Moscow by Azerbaijani officials, citing the 'targeted extrajudicial killings and violence against Azerbaijanis on the basis of their nationality' by Russian law enforcement. It also canceled a planned visit to Baku by a Russian deputy prime minister, and the Culture Ministry called off concerts, exhibitions, festivals and performances by Russian state and private institutions. Moscow has maintained a muted response to Azerbaijan's actions. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday he 'sincerely regretted' Baku's decision to cancel the events. He also said Moscow would continue to 'explain the reason and nature' of the Yekaterinburg raids. 'Everything that took place is related to the work of law enforcement agencies, and that cannot and should not be a reason for such a reaction. We are interested in further developing our good relations with Azerbaijan,' he said. Ties between Moscow and Baku have been strained for months. On Dec. 25, 2024, an Azerbaijani passenger jet was hit by fire from the ground as it approached Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, Azerbaijani officials said. It diverted to nearby Kazakhstan, where it crashed while attempting to land, killing 38 of 67 people aboard. Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev said it was shot down over Russia, albeit unintentionally, and rendered uncontrollable by electronic warfare measures amid allegations that Russian air defense systems were trying to fend off a Ukrainian drone strike near Grozny. Aliyev accused Russia of trying to 'hush up' what happened for several days. Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to Aliyev for what he called a 'tragic incident' but stopped short of acknowledging responsibility. In May, Aliyev declined to attend Russia's Victory Day parade in Moscow.
an hour ago
International Criminal Court hit with cyber security attack
THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- The International Criminal Court has been targeted by a 'sophisticated' cyberattack and is taking measures to limit any damage, the global tribunal announced Monday. The ICC, which also was hit by a cyberattack in 2023, said the latest incident had been contained but did not elaborate further on the impact or possible motive. 'A Court-wide impact analysis is being carried out, and steps are already being taken to mitigate any effects of the incident,' the court said in a statement. The attack happened last week. 'All necessary measures have been taken to ensure the business continuity,' court spokesman Fadi El Abdallah told The Associated Press. The incident happened in the same week that The Hague hosted a summit of 32 NATO leaders at a conference center near the court amid tight security including measures to guard against cyberattacks. The court declined to say whether any confidential information had been compromised. The ICC has a number of high-profile investigations and preliminary inquiries underway in nations around the world and has in the past been the target of espionage. In 2022, a Dutch intelligence agency said it had foiled a plot by a Russian spy using a false Brazilian identity to work as an intern at the court, which is investigating allegations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine and has issued a war crimes arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine. Arrest warrants Israel's campaign against Hamas in Gaza have also drawn ire. U.S. President Donald Trump slapped sanctions on its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, in February and earlier this month also sanctioned four judges at the court.
