Maybe name-calling is not the most productive thing a president can do with his phone (The Guardian):
In a string of phone calls from a besieged Kyiv, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has persuaded the west to agree to a set of sanctions against Russia that were inconceivable a week ago.
Sensing how European public opinion is responding to the bravery of his people, Zelenskiy has been constantly on the phone to western leaders, using his Twitter feed to cajole, encourage, scold and praise his allies. In the process, sanctions regarded as unthinkable a week ago have become a moral baseline. The pace at which the west has been agreeing to the new sanctions has also left the lawyers, officials and bankers gasping for air, officials admit, as they work under severe pressure to turn headlines into reality.
One leader’s office said: “We are in awe of him. He may not eventually be able to save Ukraine, or change Russia, but he is changing Europe.”
And yet he is changing Russia, temporarily, just not with guns:
London/Moscow (CNN Business) — Russia was scrambling to prevent financial meltdown Monday as its economy was slammed by a broadside of crushing Western sanctions imposed over the weekend in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin was due to hold crisis talks with his top advisers after the ruble crashed to a record low against the US dollar, the Russian central bank more than doubled interest rates to 20%, and the Moscow stock exchange was shuttered for the day.
Meantime, Russia is deploying cluster munitions against civilian areas in Kharkiv, with “dozens dead … hundreds wounded,” per Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister.
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