Thread by @Mylovanov

The African delegation brokering peace between Ukraine and Russia achieves nothing.

Putin interrupted the arguments of the delegation after they stated that the peace should be based on internationally recognized borders.

Putin made several claims. Let’s address them. 1/

1. Ukraine and its Western allies had started the conflict long before Russia sent its armed forces over the border in February last year

Refutation: Ukraine and the West did nothing to provoke the war.

There are two standard Russian narratives justifying the war. 2/

One goes on about Ukrainian killing ethnic Russians in the East. This has been debunked. Here is a thread. 3/

https://twitter.com/mylovanov/status/1653391410362548225

There is a lighter version about intolerance of Ukrainians towards Russians and pushing the language issue. Here is another thread showing that people are free to speak whatever. 4/

https://twitter.com/mylovanov/status/1654385195703828482

The second argument is that NATO expansion provoked Russia. But there was no NATO explanation or weapons in Ukraine before the war, even after annexation of Crimea and Russian troops in the East of Ukraine in 2014. It is the Ukrainian desire to join the EU that angers Russia 5/

https://twitter.com/mylovanov/status/1661857051725709314

2. Putin claims that the West, not Russia, was responsible for a sharp rise in global food prices last year.

Refutation. The prices respond to supply and demand. The West has not disrupted supply, logistics, or demand in any way. 6/

It Russia’s invasion that caused Ukraine to lose 30% of its farmers land to produce grain, increased logistical costs, and made full export impossible.

The Russian blockade of the ports further contributed to the supply restrictions. There you go! 7/

3. Putin said that Ukrainian grain exports from Black Sea ports that Russia has permitted for the past year were doing nothing to alleviate Africa's difficulties with high food prices because they had largely gone to wealthy countries. 8/

That’s easy to refute too. This is basic economics again. First, Russia continues to blockade most of the ports, and even with the Grain Deal most of the Ukrainian supplies are not feasible to export.

Second, there is substitution effect. 9/

If Ukraine supplies it’s grain to another country that that country demand is satisfied and there is more grain for others. It is optimal for Ukraine to supply grain to those countries that are logistically closer.

Third, Ukraine did supply to Africa too. 10/

4. Russia had never refused talks with the Ukrainian side, which had been blocked by Kyiv. Moscow has, however, repeatedly said any peace must allow for "new realities", meaning its declared annexation of five Ukrainian provinces, four of which it only partially controls 11/

Well, yes, it did. Since 2019, the meeting in Paris, Putin has refused all attempts by Zelensky to talk to him. Then, he invaded.

Russia is willing to talk under one assumption: Ukraine de facto surrender and oath of loyalty. That’s what he said and that’s what this war is abt.

But it won’t happen. The new reality that Putin alludes to is that Russia has lost in Ukraine, isolated itself from the world, and showed its military to be incompetent. Russia is losing its last war and Putin will go down in history as the person who commuted Russia to a tragic… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

The source of the Putins claims is here: reuters.com/world/europe/a…