The White House plans to send a clear message to its European partners in the economic war against Russia, "you are either with us or against us." Two US Treasury officials will visit European and Central Asian partners next month to demand all sanctions on Russia be implemented.
Treasury officials Liz Rosenberg and Brian Nelson will meet with leaders of financial institutions in Switzerland, Italy and Germany. The AP reports the officials will have a simple message, "1. Continue to provide Moscow with material support or 2. Keep doing business with countries that represent 50 percent of the global economy."
Rosenberg and Nelson will provide their European counterparts with intelligence on alleged sanctions evaders. If those countries fail to crack down on those still doing business with Russia, then Washington is threatening to issue "penalties." It is unclear how far the Joe Biden administration is willing to punish NATO allies for violating sanctions.
The policy echoes President George W. Bush’s doctrine that countries must either actively align with Washington in its Middle East wars, or else be judged as working "with the terrorists."
It is unclear how Europe will respond to the Joe Biden administration’s threats. Some EU members were in favor of a plan that would lift sanctions on the Belarusian fertilizer industry.
Additionally, stricter sanctions implementation could threaten the Black Sea grain export agreement. The deal, brokered by Turkey and the UN, allows Ukraine’s heavily mined Black Sea ports to export agricultural products. Moscow has been willing to extend the agreement several times but is threatening to terminate it over Western sanctions preventing Russia from reaping the agreement’s benefits.
After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, the White House unleashed a series of sanctions that it considered an economic nuclear weapon. However, the attempt to isolate Moscow’s economy has largely floundered. While the Russian rouble has dipped in recent days, throughout most of the war Moscow has weathered the sanctions by increasing trade with Asia.
Washington has only rallied its NATO allies and other close partners to adopt the sanctions. Meanwhile, China has added more countries to its Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and Saudi Arabia and Turkey are two of the latest prospective members.
Upon becoming a member of the SCO, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi observed that the more countries the US sanctions, the more these targeted nations may cooperate as trading partners."The relationship between countries that are sanctioned by the US, such as Iran, Russia or other countries, can overcome many problems and issues and make them stronger," he said. "The Americans think whichever country they impose sanctions on, it will be stopped, their perception is a wrong one."
Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com, news editor of the Libertarian Institute, and co-host of Conflicts of Interest.
At some point, one of the European states must stand up and tell the emperor, he doesn’t have any pants on.
The emperor has no pants on because he is f***ing his minor partners.
But they have pants: Europe is under a very tight grip by the USA at multiple levels. There is that secret army of NATO, Gladio Network, which nobody wants to discuss nor investigate but is very real, but maybe more importantly the quasi-monopolistic control of the European economy by US oligarchs (Black Rock and such) is enormous, and who controls the economy controls the media and thus controls politics. This also applies to North America internally but in that case it’s internal politics while in the case of Europe it means very strong neocolonialism. Europe is chained and the only resistance, barring the rather pro-Russian right winger government of Hungary, is the French people on intermittent strike, everybody else is like floating in awe and fear or just pretending nothing abnormal is happening.
Speaking of Blackrock, FED chairman Powell has Blackrock managing his $6,000,000 account there.
1. Credit starvation of Germany, France, Italy, Hungary would collapse Wall St. and Brussels as well. And Wall St. doesn’t take orders from Washington; it gives them. ??
2. Resistance to Washington would require strong leaders or chaos in the streets. The latter will likely obtain; the former (Orban excepted) …??
3. Please explain “Gladio”.
Gladio is a bit too long to explain in comment format but, since c. 1990, when Italian President and courts denounced/investigated it (also in Belgium but less intense, in Spain it was silenced by the press owners), we know that NATO has always had a secret organization made up largely of fascists that stops at nothing, for example they organized the Bologna station massacre but that’s surely only the tip of the iceberg: political murders and alleged Islamist terrorist attacks are surely on their account often.
Chaos in the streets is already happening in France for a month and will continue, but that’s not enough IMO: a democratic and armed counterpower (“soviets” or “commune”) will be needed to topple the Regime probably.
Not sure what to say about “credit starvation”, I’m more concerned about petrodollar collapse and US looting of Europe to finance their head-butting against China.
“armed counterpower” is the trap they set for us. They have all the goons, guns & money.
All revolutions have needed to go through some sort of “civil war” phase in which the antagonist forces confront the stagnant regime with overwhelming force. Even in relatively peaceful revolutions that happened: Gandhi competed with an independentist guerrilla, in Tunisia and Egypt more recently the masses confronted the police with force and that was decisive. It is precisely because they have all the goons and they attack us all the time, making civil resistance impossible, that some other means are necessary. In any case organizing the democratic counter-power is the most fundamental phase but a counter-power that is massacred ceases to exist. The Regime at some point will stop at nothing whatsoever, all kinds of crimes would be accepted as necessary in order to defend their privilege of ownership of our collective work product and the land we live on.
Civil resistance is never “impossible”. We must be willing to sacrifice some of our own lives for the greater good. I for one would do so if it meant a better world for my grandchildren. I’m afraid of NOTHING. ( With the exception of tornadoes!) —-possibly because this is my last life here on this earth.
I spent a great deal of time in Ann Arbor during the ‘60’s when my brother attended university there. It had a profound influence in my belief that CHANGE IS POSSIBLE.
Easier said than done. Still waiting for the “we must” columns of millions Europeans to interpose ourselves as human shields in the Bosnia War of the 1990s. It was then when my faith in nonviolence began to be eroded. I’m not against nonviolence or in general more or less peaceful political action and accumulation of forces, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a moment when the spell of civism is absolutely broken (the snipers of Sarajevo massacring the protesters for example) and things get bloody real, literally bloody.
I have to acknowledge the truth of what you say. We all saw what Reagan did to the Theology of Liberation resistance in Cnetral Am. On the other hand we saw what the Sandinistas did to each other as well But anyway it appears this time there’s a good chance the system will destroy itself.
I did not mean that armed revolutions are ideal, just that they are and are part of the historical process. Definitely a most serious risk in such processes is all related to militarization (hierarchies, discipline, disregard for participation/democracy) and clandestinity (secrecy, extreme distrust, etc.) But it’s not the simplistic issue that the regime has the goons and guns, the monopoly of violence, it’s a much more complex issue on how violence and militarization promotes authoritarianism even among “the good guys”.
Again, yes & no. Clearly that’s been the rule throughout history. But as Seamus Heaney said (Nobel acceptance speech) “history is an abattoir”. The brute law of nature, the food-chain, the strong eat the weak, survival of the fittest, etc., these can’t be denied; but the human species is a duality, brute & spirit, and in order to advance the history of civilization it’s required to oppose power with an antithesis. In early Western Civ the cathedral opposed the castle, and that dialectic produced transcendent cultural value. Brute revolutions have only exchanged the old oppressor for the new. But again I agree, the need to eat precedes logically & chronologically even the possibility of reading Shakespeare. So finally, in the immediate circumstance there ‘s the hope “the Neocon/Putin event” will set up the West for a crisis of spirit without destroying the means of production. Tragedy is also unavoidable in the world, but surely enough have been butchered already.
Maybe it takes time to wake up and realize it is not just a nightmare, it is real.
NATO members could have used their combined power and told the US, not with us, you are on your own.
There must be more to it, bribery and meddling in elections is normal for the US. The US always interferes in elections, the CIA is everywhere. Embassies have more CIA people than diplomats.
NATO is suffering a pandemic of incompetence, but normally incompetence is not that contagious. In Germany US ambassadors were, to say the least flaky and without any skills of diplomacy, Bannon was moping around in Germany too. The US is in total control in Europe, and international institutions including the UN, now it is out in the open. It is time to say it out loud.
But we’re realizing now that they (governments) have near zero autonomy, that all they do is to follow US directives. Just look at Germany not even protesting the North Stream terrorist attacks and Merkel and Hollande admitting that Minsk Accords were never a honest deal but a trap.
“Incompetence”, while arguably real, is not the word to describe what we’re living through, rather very “conscious mischief” and, as European, I’d add “high treason” (to Europe, not to the US Empire).
There is always room for improvement but…The US is becoming more and more of a smacked a–. Power goes to the head and not to the balls…
I totally agree, extortion and bribery are also involved, the US meddles in elections in support for right of center governments.
Germany never became a sovereign nation after the war. What saved Germany was the fear of Capitalists of communism. That is what NATO is about, and now it is the tool to preserve the US hegemony.
Now even Russians are fighting to save Europe.
You are right the Europeans are not autonomic, the US is in control of the economy was well as militarily. I think they could have simply dissolved NATO and put the USA on the spot, would they dare use military force to make the Europeans comply to be traitors of their nations best interests as they are doing? Even now, they could tell Nuland no more weapons for Ukraine, get to the table to negotiate an end of the butchery.
Biden does not count, he is deranged.
Then we’d get the right to vote, and you know how “communist” we are in Europe with our pathetic but still a zillion better “welfare state” than in the USA. There’s a reason why decolonization happened even where there was no pro-independence movements or even where the referendum was against independence (Gabon): otherwise the colonials would have demanded and got the right to vote, changing everything: an “ally”, a protectorate, a vassal by another name… that’s much easier to manage for any modern empire, just make sure they don’t backstab you like Saudia just did.
The US WW II booty in Germany contained about 500 000 patents, mostly international, and about 60% of German industry. That is what wars are about.
Germany was not permitted to build airplanes for many years or have German airline, it still is not a sovereign nation.
It looks like American economic war against Europe. Why they don’t dare to talk like that, for example, to India which, unlike EU, is trading openly with Russia? By the way, US import from Russia in February 2023 increased by 25% comparing to January 2023.
The Elephant in the room is the NATO alliance leaders have to show solidarity altho most of the time they don`t agree what the yanks are doing , like Ukraine many of Europe`s leaders where willing to listern to Putins security concerns but the yanks / Brits where having none of it they wanted a proxy war and got one , NATO isn`t as solid as they would like you to think it is if it was why would the yanks be making a special trip to beat them into line , and why is it no European leaders want to talk about the act of war on the NS2 pipe line ? , the answer is simple they all know it was the Americans who did it and if evidence ever comes into the public domain to prove it was them it will result in the end of NATO .
Of course all of them have a good reason to believe that Americans destroyed the pipelines but they are too corrupt to defend the national interests of their countries. They are working for American MIC. It is impossible to explain their behavior otherwise. They are always giving in to American pressure. Germans are looking particular pathetic. It was Merkel who persuaded Kremlin to construct together Nord Stream Two. They started it when Russia was already under serious American sanctions (Obama said that Russian economy was already in tatters). Still Kremlin agreed and they finished the new pipeline but it never worked. The construction itself was delayed for a couple of years because of artificially created problems and in the end they exploded it and German politicians don’t dare even to start a proper investigation. And yet Merkel boasted how clever she and Hollande cheated Putin about Minsk Agreements. It is really disgusting.
The only two countries that show real courage in the face of the whores of Europe are Hungary and Serbia, whose leadership puts the vital interests of the people of their own countries before all else, as leaders should.
Serbia is not in EU and, of course, Serbia is not a member of NATO.
“the whores of Europe” are also quite different among themselves in the degree of their pro-American enthusiasm. In France, Germany, Italy the demand for the normal trade with Russia is much stronger than in Baltic states and Poland where Russo-phobia became the main national ideology. Greece is much less pro-Ukrainian than the west Europe.
It is very much important for the rulers of US to keep their European satellites in line. So far they are successful but the permanent coercion is necessary.
I’m aware of Serbia’s status in Europe.
But thanks for the lesson.
US Will Threaten Europe To Implement Sanctions on Russia
wow that is actually comical.
gee i wonder who has convinced the current uncle sams that russia needs to be the bad guy. things that make you go hmmm.
What’s crazy about this is the majority of Europeans actually believe doing so is for “democracy and freedom.” You can’t get there with one hole in your head for brainwashing. You need two holes. In fact it must be getting drafty in there. (Sarcasm alert)
Is there a gun involved in this process?…..
Maybe lobotomy? 🙁
Russia has been the bad guy for hundreds of years , the Brits have hated Russia in all that time , you never hear the Brits thank Russia for saving their asses do you , the only war film that ever gives the Russians the credit they deserve is the WORLD AT WAR documentary series .
This seems suicidal.
I cannot imagine what their hoped for response is. And this could … is likely to … majorly backfire.
To preserve NATO the Europeans will sell their souls to the devil , i have lost count over 65 years the number of time i have heard a NATO member say we have to show solidarity to confront Russia .
Maybe the rest of the world will kick us back to our own shores and force us to stay here. I can’t wait.
George Washington’s ghost would likely smile.
Sanction Nation may sanction themselves right out from control of the their European puppets. There does eventually come a breaking point when others see that the their controller has no concern about their interests, only concerned about pushing their warped agenda and they are the ones paying the cost of the sanctions.
ec”US Will Threaten Europe To Implement Sanctions on Russia Two officials from the Treasury Department will visit European allies to demand trade with Russia ends”
Soon America will be isolated screaming in the dark and no other nation will listen or acknowledge this senile old broken man!
Agreed. Xi already stopped taking phone calls. But dude, do you agree that you would have to be a masochist to enjoy those calls? So far, it seems the Europeans are really enjoying the pain. (Sarcasm alert)
I wouldn`t count on it the yanks with their strangle hold on the worlds financial institutions hold all the cards , the only thing that would surprise me if the EU told the yanks to get lost , however i will not be holding my breath on it .
WTF is wrong with the Biden administration,and the congressmen/women who are going along with this. The only word to describe how I feel at this moment is DISGUST! Europe should take the message and pull back all support. Germany should sue the U.S. for bombing the Nord Stream lines. Let me add PISSED to DISGUSTED.
Thank you for speaking plain English!
Could not agree more, the major European countries have incompetent governments just like the US. My disgust has reached the boiling point. The Germans should have opened the faucets of the pipeline, Gazprom had delivered its part, The had to honor the business agreement and let American troops storm the Reichstag in Berlin if they did not like it. That could have ended the people’s coma.
I do not see in the immediate future the American people doing must be done and rising up to smite their oppressors via National strikes and boycotts,
I am inclined to agree but, you never know for sure. We may yet be surprised…
Because of the brainwashing, Wendell. We need to do our part to wake Amerikkkans up if we can.
I am convinced the Globalist American Empire’s strategists are morons. First they get every economy so interconnected we can’t live without each other and then they want sanctions that create artificial shortages where we cannot buy what we need bacause the GAE says so. No rhyme nor reason, just the threat of the blunt force of economic and military power.
Remember this the Americans do nothing unless it benefits them , like SWIFT no one who joined ever thought the yanks would weaponize it , but the yanks new from the get go just how much power it gave them over the finances of the world , and now they are all finding out to their costs , there`s a old saying , JOIN IN HAST REPENT AT LEISURE . if the yanks say it is to good to be true then it probably is.
“Globalist American Empire’s strategists are morons” – no, they are not. They invested a lot in China and in other Asian countries because the labor was much cheaper over there than in US. Capitalism is about the profit. The huge investments in MIC are also logical; they needed to keep the trade routes under control and make sure that dollar remains the world currency. So, from the viewpoint of the normal functioning of Empire, those hundreds of military bases oversea were justified. The weak point of the system was that they couldn’t make the rest of the world to pay for their militarism. So it were American taxpayers who paid for the empire while the profit from it went to the pockets of the oligarchs. The other timebomb under the future of the global empire was the prosperous and strong China which they themselves helped to create and which must be kept under American control the same as EU and Japan. The crucial element in keeping China in line was, the loyal to American oligarchy, Russian government. Actually, the pro-American oligarchy system was installed in Russia after the collapse of USSR, but the job never was accomplished. The big miscalculation was that US rulers acted too hastily in what does concern Russia. The traditional blind Russo-phobia prevented them to appreciate the situation in Russia adequately. So the pro-American oligarchy system wasn’t installed in Russia properly and soon was replaced by the national pro-Russian government. Russia/China alliance created a new center of power in the world which can outcompete American Empire both militarily and in economics.
You have written a very erudite summing up of the issues and problems of the US ruling class.
Moments like these remind me of “the tighter you squeeze, the more nations will slip through your iron fist” or something like that.
Russia can send it by Rivers to the Northern Route to the Caspian Sea and out from Chabahar. That is the easiest way to get it to African Ports which is where they want to send it anyway.
It ain’t 2015 and Russia ain’t iran … this sh_t is not gonna fly, boys and girls …
Really really time for the adults in Europe to make an appearance …
But the problem is there are no adults in the European leader ships , they are LACKEYS of the US , if they where adults they would tell the yanks to get lost .
Agree on the political side … but surely, there are still some adults left on the business side with some modicum of patriotism?? What the hell has happened to the Germans, French, Italians, etc. these past thirty years?
A very interesting development. It suggests to me another effort by the US neoconservatives to escalate the Ukraine conflict — even if it means twisting the arms of its NATO allies to achieve that.
And the imperative language of the Treasury Dept. officials indicates that the sanctions alliance is no longer sustained by feelings of solidarity with Ukraine, but instead requires a coercive nudge from the US.
Threaten? The US already attacked Europe. Nordstream.
But military action by US army uniforms would have been visible and for all the world to see. An open military attack on a big ally, how would that have ended?
US crybaby generals and spies accuse China of planning to sell munitions to Russia but what if China quits selling ammo to the US?
This should be interesting to read about in RT as well as informative
Chinese and Venezuelan websites. Overweight American consumers are dying of consumption and brain fog.
The EU leaders have probably already wet their pants out of fear.
It dosen`t take much to get the Europeans to soil their under wear , i give you WW2 where the only country fighting the Nazis in Europe UNTIL 1943 was the RUSSIAN RED ARMY .
Iraqi deaths up to this very hour are the collective damocles sword hanging over any word coming out of any American govt representative be it the president to the clerk in an obscure building.
They will have to answer. For he takes the time to count even the very hairs on your head.
The entire society of Iraq was destroyed, that was the seed planted. What will the farmer harvest
So Europeans have to trash their economies and impoverish their citizens to please the yanks ? , if the Europeans had any guts they would tell the yanks to get stuffed , it is quite obvious Putin is winning in Ukraine and the yanks don`t like it one bit after all the billions of Dollars and weapons they have sent there .
“It is unclear how far the Joe Biden administration is willing to punish NATO allies for violating sanctions.”
Let me take a guess. Sanctions.
Sanctions on sanctions… very recursive.
This is how we lose all if our friends…EU has already sanctioned itself hard enough at the behest of the Empire and now has continent wide inflation and recession. Now we got “demand” they go do more…
Cluelessness is the one real consistency in everything the BidBlinkenNulander-Velociraptor team has possessed in spades from the beginning of this godforsaken failure of a foreign policy
One day, perhaps very soon, Europe and Japan are going to realize that the US needs trade with them as much as they need trade with the US. If they band together to defy the fiats of emperor Joe, the costs for him will be very high.
It gets worse. I think we can assume that every nation is now working on plans to deal with the US. With every insult and every imposition, the incentives to oppose the emperor increase. We are not talking about if they will push back so much as when.
Even more than that; they SHOULD recognize that they need trade with resource-producing nations like Russia, Brazil, and South Africa FAR more than they need trade with the USA.
Empire Decline 101
1 – people do what the ’empire’ wants because it makes sense.
2 – people do what the empire wants out of ‘respect’.
3 – the empire has to threaten people to ‘get in line’.
4 – people start to ignore the empire.
5 – empire ends.
Good and cheerful summary. Unfortunately, we may be standing at the one missing/alternative step 5 of “Empire goes to war against its enemies and its own subjects.” That step would be the end for the Human kind–not only the Empire. Sorry… I’m a glass half empty person and immediately was looking for doom and gloom. (Sarcasm alert)
against its enemies and his own subjects and ALLIES, granted, ALLIES is a new one.
Be careful when issuing ultimatums- you might not get the response you’re looking for. Now Finland is going to find out the hard way the cost of getting in bed with Washington. Germany already has a good reason to ditch the US on principle- NS2- and France is just so French they might do the same.
Remember Freedom Fries? LOL
Turkey has been SCO member on a partner levrl since 2013.
It is amazing how little interest exists in organizations such as SCO, Even levels of membership are constantly misunderstood. Process for applying, SCO approval, folliwed by negotiation of chapters of accession are not understood. And the actual role of partners. observers and full voting memberd thoroughly misunderstood.
To only consider members with full voting rights as the only members is the same as saying that countries that are not on Security Council are not really UN members. Among approved members are many more countries, almost never mentioned like Egypt.
Just shows how desperate the Biden administation has become. Blowing up the pipeline wasn’t enough so if the European nations don’t quickly get on board with the U.S. demands expect to see another major false flag from Sanction Nation.
Some alliance if it take a whip to hold it together. It fits in with the pipeline sabotage.
The USA has no friends left.
Good job, Joe, he could not do better, add the humiliation of Macron and von der Leyen in Beijing. And the Fins and Swedes want to join that outfit? They give up their sovereignty and neutrality for what?
Was it extortion or bribery that made them do that?
I just don’t see how backing a losing effort in Ukraine helps U.S. interests in the slightest. Throughout history most countries generally avoided that or took losses on the strategy.
Pretty devastating tweet with 9 million views:
He’s absolutely right. The US government is a blatant hypocrite. No worse, maybe, than the other governments it deals with, but certainly no better.
I don’t see what democracy has to do with Trump getting “indicated”. Anyone suspected of committing a crime should get the exact same treatment. Actually, it might set a wonderful precedent. Every living president, minus Carter, should be in prison. And they should exhume the dead ones and charge them with their crimes. Afterward they could stuff them back in the ground or flush them down the toilet.
I admire your verbosity wars but, let me ask…. Are
we talking about holding a seance?
I prefer that latter, Wars!
Me too.
Hear hear.
Switzerland is a neutral country. Forcing them to adhere to sanctions is an attack on their neutrality. I hope the Swiss laugh in Biden’s face. And, until Biden answers for bombing the nordstream pipeline, Germany should refuse to even talk to his representatives.
It starts as an “economic war” but it can evolve into all out war… Let’s hope not.
Pressuring the EU even more – but everyone knows Biden has mishandled diplomacy badly, after first failing when he claimed he could destroy Russia’s economy. At everyone’s expense.
Saudi Arabia is Diplomacy Exhibit A.
Funny comment on Twitter: “Peace is breaking out between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Our prayers are with Washington in these difficult times.”
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister shaking hands with Iran’s ditto in China, together with Xi Jinping before the cameras. SA looking for a permanent truce in Yemen. SA and Egypt bringing Syria back into the Arab League after 12 years. SA allows a Russian warship to dock in Jeddah for the first time in ten years, for fuel and water. SA increasing its purchases of Russian oil. SA’s crown prince MbS says, “I no longer care what Biden thinks of me.”
When Biden has lost Saudi Arabia, because he tried to control the price of Russian oil and thereby make all oil producers his to control, everyone knows he isn’t cut out for the job. He gravely insulted Xi Jinping when he went off-script in his February speech, and when he shot down a weather balloon pretending it was a Chinese spy balloon.
Washington’s relations to Saudi Arabia, Russia and China are crucial. Biden has failed in all of these. It only remains for him to declare war on the EU or something. Oh wait – sanctions destroying Europe’s economy. Never mind.
Desperation to keep hegemony…. But the once glorious world hegemony is becoming an ugly Europe Only hegemony with every passing days…!
The Nuland Clinton Biden Juggernaut is gaining speed and rolling past all moderation and sense. Almost makes the Bush Riestag fire 911 look like a minor infraction in impropriety and scope by comparison. To attack and end the functionality of one of a peer nuclear adversaries major sources of sustenance is one of the most reckless affronts in all of our history. Then when outed, to try hiding their madness by gagging the press and media. You would think that they would have realized at some point just how dangerous, demented and juvenile their acting out was. But you would be wrong. For their final encore they. float a most implausable tale imaginable to two news outlets, the Washington Post and one German outlet,
The US is fast becoming a smacked a–. I’m a peace loving person, not much of a ball buster but there are moments, I think about smashing some heads together, hopefully to implement deeper thinking.
Let me just add that I do not support acts of aggression.
As far as being a “ball-buster”—Donna, let me help you with that 😉
Typical imperial behaviour. Dish out the orders to the vassals.
“US Will Threaten Europe To Implement Sanctions on Russia Two officials from the Treasury Department will visit European allies to demand trade with Russia ends”
Two American clowns threaten Europe and drive more nations away in a de-dollarization drive.
What will America do when all those petrodollars come home to roost and hyperinflation sets in?
America will be penniless and friendless.
This article’s narrative is somewhat difficult to believe. Then again, when reading stories about “The Ugly American” who’s on vacation or business overseas, we shouldn’t be surprised how we’ve become universally persona non grata.
Humans are predisposed to personality and character flaws, but at a political level, it takes on a level of avarice and schadenfreude. Existential desperation?
https://journal-neo.org/2023/04/10/stand-with-ukraine-and-shun-god/