Marianne Heron

Ukraine: the peaceful weapon of women’s power

AS I SEE IT

MARIANNE HERON

I am literally climbing the walls. My beloved has Covid and as a close contact I am isolating. I can’t nd my usual solace in the radio or the papers; I nd the reports on Putin’s genocidal war on Ukraine unbearable. I feel shame and despair at that as yet nothing e ective has been done to stop millions being driven from their homes as refugees from the death and destruction rained on people and cities in the Ukraine by Putin’s Russian army.

Sorrow and the presence of Covid can turn you to other pursuits and so for distraction I am climbing the walls of my study to repaint them. As I try not to drip paint, I nd myself thinking: “How can any woman bear what Putin is commanding his soldiers to do?”

How can Russian mothers, wives or sweethearts send out their men to kill and bomb the innocent people of Ukraine with whom they have a close relationship? It’s like killing your sisters and brothers. How can any woman close to Putin bear to look him in the eye if they know what is really happening?

Do his daughters Maria and Katerina or former wife Lyudmila know the devastation Putin is causing or are they blinded by Russian propaganda about the assumed ‘threat’ of the Ukraine joining NATO and Putin’s ambition to balkanise Ukraine and control the Crimea, Donbas and access to the Black Sea?

Would this be happening if Russia had a woman as president? It is unbearable for Ukrainian women to have to ee their homes with their children, leaving behind their men to defend their country in the face of advancing tanks and indiscriminate bombing. It is unbearable to watch the tragedy unfolding and in response so many people here in Ireland are rallying to do anything they can to help. e EU, US and UK are applying sanctions but sanctions take time to work; meantime people are being slaughtered and the Ukraine is being brought to its knees. As a neutral country the dilemma over whether to call out Putin’s bullying by threatening to strike back, (Putin can hardly be that crazy that he would opt for MAD,( mutually assured destruction,) or to deploy a no- y zone over Ukraine are not our decisions to take.

Distractedly dripping paint, I wonder, short of mustering an international peace march into the Ukraine what kind of collective action women could take to stop this heinous war? First, it seems to me that those with connections in Russia need to let women there know the truth about the apocalypse waged on Ukraine. Confronted with unbearable reality, Russian women need to act and to do so in the most e ective manner possible... call a nationwide strike.

When women stop, the world stops. When women put their boots on the ground to strike, change happens. Everyday life cannot function without women’s contribution: not only in employment but in all areas where women’s work is taken for granted. Children are not minded, meals are not cooked, no housework done and sex would be unavailable.

When thousands of women took the day o to protest in Iceland in 1975 banks, schools and shops were forced to close, men had to take their children to work. Today Iceland comes top of the world Economic Forum’s equality list. After the Ford sewing machinists in Dagenham went on strike in 1968 and clothing workers in Leeds went on strike in 1970 equal pay in the UK followed.

Women’s power to stop is an e ective, peaceful weapon. If Russian women were to use it and put their boots on the ground, it could be the most e ective way to end this unbearable war.

See Ukraine, Page 14

Let’s celebrate Mother’s day

CLAIR WHITTY

MOTHER’S Day 2022. It’s di cult to believe that after two years we can nally meet up for Mother’s Day and maybe go for co ee or lunch, and hug each other properly to celebrate the occasion. is year I have fantastic news, my daughter is now a mother too, she had her rst baby on Valentine’s Day 2022. I am now a grandmother and have entered a new phase of life which I am sure I am going to enjoy.

I don’t put too much pass on gifts for Mother’s Day, I used to say to the lads when they were younger not to be buying me things, that a hug, a home-made card, or maybe do some little thing in the house for me would be good, any of those ideas would be perfect. at was and still is all I need. Or a phone call if they can’t make it home and they have the time in their lives to call. I do however treat it as my day, and I generally take it easy, that usually works out quite well.

Now, if I was to treat myself to a gift, and there is no harm in that, I would get myself one of the Trilogy Facial Serums, I haven’t had one in a while. I forgot to replace the last one I had. I have tried several of the Trilogy Serums and I have to say I like them. But I think I prefer the CoQ10 Booster Serum most of all. I think it’s partly psychological, the word booster on the pack, my skin always has a lovely glow when I use it. And now that the masks are coming o , I know I will be more conscious of how my skin looks so it’s a perfect time to treat myself. e Serum should boost skin recovery, improve radiance, and smooth the appearance of ne lines and wrinkles too. is CoQ10 Booster Serum has proven results showing an average reduction of wrinkles by 27% over six weeks, I like the sound of that. It contains tamanu, macadamia, and black caraway oils to nourish and refresh the skin.

Whatever way you celebrate Mother’s Day, I hope it will be a good one and that you have a great day.

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THE world, virtually, united in its rush to slap sanctions on Russia following President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. Most target its major industries, like defence, oil and gas. But much of Russia’s ostensible wealth is held by dozens of billionaires, and they keep it in accounts and assets, like super-yachts, around the world. For them, national sanctions are easily evaded.

Seeing that, and noting oligarchs’ potential leverage with Putin and other Russian government o cials, nations have imposed sanctions on those oligarchs personally, freezing their assets and frustrating their e orts to make — or spend — money.

What’s an oligarch?

Oligarchy is a term for governance by a few at the very top. Oligarch has become a common term for wealthy Russian elites who are thought to be close with the Kremlin or Putin himself, and who are believed to have derived their wealth at least in part from their relationship with the state. In 2019, Putin himself de ned oligarchs as “those who use their proximity to the authorities to receive super pro ts”.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian government transferred many state-run industries to private ownership, and much of the nation’s wealth came under the control of a small group of men with political connections. Brooke Harrington, a sociology professor at Dartmouth College, recently explained the practical function oligarchs serve in Putin’s Russia: “ ey provide invaluable public support for the regime, lead key companies and institutions, and distract attention from and, by some accounts, help conceal the president’s own enormous wealth.”

How many oligarchs does Russia have?

An oligarch sanctioned: Roman Abramovich, billionaire owner of Chelsea

Your guide to who or what an oligarch is....

Because ‘oligarch’ is not a formal designation, there is no exact count. In 2018, the US Treasury Department produced a list of 96 Russian individuals it considered to be oligarchs. It was drawn up mostly by pulling Russian names from Forbes’ list of wealthiest people. Russian dissident Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation has identi ed 35 “kleptocrats and human rights abusers” it deems worthy of sanction, although some on the list are government functionaries, not wealthy oligarchs.

How many Russian oligarchs are facing sanctions?

With so many countries considering and levying sanctions in response to Russia’s invasion, the answer is a moving target. To date, the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Switzerland and the European Union have placed sanctions against at least 24 wealthy Russian individuals.

How do sanctions against an individual work?

First, his or her name and any aliases, business names, sometimes even identi ers of their boats or planes are put on a public list maintained by the sanctioning government. at list tells banks who they should avoid. Financial institutions are expected to do the rest.

Sanctions aren’t bulletproof. Banks don’t closely vet every transaction they handle, and if a sanctioned name is not obviously linked to an account or transaction, banks may not act. Anonymous shell companies, numbered cryptocurrency accounts and straw-man arrangements (having someone else make transactions on behalf of a sanctioned individual) are possible tools to avoid sanctions. Another popular strategy: Moving assets to countries that don’t cooperate with sanction regimes.

How are sanctions on oligarchs supposed to stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? e logic is straightforward: Sanctions pressure those with in uence in Russia to change the direction of the war in Ukraine. If oligarchs are the most in uential gures in Russian politics, sanctions are a direct way to twist their arm to get on the side of peace. e impacts of these sanctions can be immediate. Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov reportedly had to say goodbye to his superyacht crew, for instance, because U.S. and EU sanctions meant he had no way to pay his crew’s wages. Usmanov also had a practical reason to let his crew go: German authorities have prevented the vessel from leaving its dock in Hamburg.

Oligarch Roman Abramovich (pictured), sensing sanctions were possible, tried to unload his ownership of the Chelsea FC British soccer club earlier this month. With British sanctions against Abramovich in place ursday, Abramovich’s assets are frozen. He is barred from transactions that would allow him to transfer ownership of the team. Recently, Abramovich and a few other Russian oligarchs have made public statements against the war. Some believe that’s a sign the threat and imposition of individual sanctions are working.

Human trafficking concern for fleeing refugees

AT LEAST one man has been detained in Poland suspected of raping a 19-year-old refugee he’d lured with o ers of shelter after she ed wartorn Ukraine. Another was overheard promising work and a room to a 16-year-old girl before authorities intervened.

Another case inside a refugee camp at Poland’s Medyka border, raised suspicions when a man was o ering help only to women and children. When questioned by police, he changed his story.

As millions of women and children ee across Ukraine’s borders , concerns are growing over how to protect the most vulnerable refugees from being targeted by human tra ckers or becoming victims of other forms of exploitation.

“Obviously all the refugees are women and children,” Joung-ah Ghedini-Williams, the UNHCR’s head of global communications, told the Associated Press as he visited borders in Romania, Poland and Moldova.

“You have to worry about any potential risks for tra cking — but also exploitation, and sexual exploitation and abuse. ese are the kinds of situations that people like tra ckers ... look to take advantage of,” she said. e UN refugee agency says more than 2.5 million people, including more than a million children, have already ed war-torn Ukraine in what has become an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Europe and its fastest exodus since World War II. In countries throughout Europe, including the border nations of Romania, Poland, Hungary, Moldova and Slovakia, private citizens and volunteers have been greeting and o ering help to those whose lives have been shattered by war. From free shelter to free transport to work opportunities and other forms of assistance — help isn’t far away.

But neither are the risks.

Police in Wrocław, Poland, said they detained a 49-yearold suspect on rape charges after he allegedly assaulted a 19-year-old Ukrainian refugee he lured with o ers of help over the internet. e suspect could face up to 12 years in prison for the “brutal crime,” authorities said.

“He met the girl by o ering his help via an internet portal,” police said in a statement. “She escaped from wartorn Ukraine, did not speak Polish. She trusted a man who promised to help and shelter her. Unfortunately, all this turned out to be deceitful manipulation.”

Police in Berlin warned women and children in a post on social media in Ukrainian and Russian against accepting o ers of overnight stays, and urged them to report anything suspicious.

Tamara Barnett, director of operations at the Human Tra cking Foundation, a U.based charity which grew out of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Human Tra cking, said that such a rapid, mass displacement of people could be a “recipe for disaster.”

“When you’ve suddenly got a huge cohort of really vulnerable people who need money and assistance immediately,” she said, “it’s sort of a breeding ground for exploitative situations and sexual exploitation. When I saw all these volunteers o ering their houses ... that agged a worry in my head.” e Migration Data Portal notes that humanitarian crises such as those associated with con icts “can exacerbate pre-existing tra cking trends and give rise to new ones” and that tra ckers can thrive on “the inability of families and communities to protect themselves and their children.”

Security o cials in Romania and Poland told e Associated Press that plain-clothed intelligence o cers were on the lookout for criminal elements. In the Romanian border town of Siret, authorities said men o ering free car and bus trips to women have been sent away by the local o cials.