Author: Cheng Mo
Executive summary: This article focuses on the response of Russia, Hamas, and TikTok to the latest U.S. foreign aid law.
There isn't much important information about the Russia-Ukraine war today, but I'll give you a brief overview of the latest foreign aid laws that the United States has just introduced, Russia and Hamas, which have been hurt the most, and TikTok's response.
In response to the possible "confiscation" of frozen Russian assets by Western countries, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Pankin said on April 24 that if Western countries confiscate Russian assets, Russia will use all mechanisms and tools to respond. "Russia is also freezing enough assets of Western businesses," he noted. There will be consequences if Europe and the United States move in this direction. ”
The Western camp has frozen more than $300 billion in Russian assets, almost all of which are the property of the Russian government, state-owned enterprises and high-level officials. However, the assets of foreign enterprises frozen by Russia, except for the assets of large state-owned enterprises such as the Bank of China, have hardly been frozen to the assets of the governments and state-owned enterprises of any Western countries, and all of them are the assets of some private enterprises in the West, and the scale of the assets frozen is not large. I really don't see any countermeasures from Russia.
Of course, most of Russia's overseas assets are frozen by European countries, and the scale of assets frozen by the United States is actually not large. The European Union and the United Kingdom are now only preparing to use the interest generated from the freezing of Russian assets to aid Ukraine, and have not yet legislated to confiscate Russian property for aid to Ukraine like the United States. Russia's fate depends on victory in the war, not on the invincibility of the world with its mouth. Once Russia is defeated, Russia's frozen assets overseas will certainly not be enough to pay war reparations to Ukraine. Many may think that this is a fantasy, but it seems to me that it is an inevitable result.
A day later (April 25), Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov said that if the West confiscated Russia's frozen assets, Russia would consider downgrading diplomatic relations with the United States. I think this is okay, but this relationship between the United States and Russia is already frozen, and the number of diplomats has been greatly reduced, and even if the two sides sever relations, it will not have any impact on the United States. Apart from winning on the battlefield, the Russian side has no way out.
Interestingly, after such a big incident, Lavrov never showed up to say a few words, and it seems that they do not want to argue with the United States at a higher level. This shows that the Russian top brass has some sober understanding, which is a good thing for the Russians.
(Russia only has a hard mouth left)
The latest U.S. foreign aid law, which has come into effect, includes $26 billion in aid to Israel. This made the Palestinian Authority and Hamas very unhappy, but they only condemned the relevant bill in the US House of Representatives, and did not say anything when the Senate passed the bill and Biden signed it into law.
The spokesman of the Palestinian president said in a statement on 21 April that the US military aid plan to Israel will lead to a large number of Palestinian casualties, risk escalating the situation in the region, and be a violation of the Palestinian people, and will give Israel a "green light" to expand the scope of the conflict to the entire region.
On the same day, Hamas issued a statement condemning the aid bill to Israel voted by the US House of Representatives. The statement said the aid bill violated international law and gave the Israeli government a "green light" for continuing to violate the people of Gaza.
The fate of TikTok, which Chinese people are most concerned about, has a clear answer: TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, has made it clear that it will never transfer equity to other parties, even if it closes its business in the United States after failing to protect its rights in accordance with the law, only in this way can the company's advanced algorithm technology be protected from leakage.
ByteDance issued a statement on its social media platform "Toutiao" on April 25, saying that foreign media reports about ByteDance's exploration of selling TikTok were untrue, and reiterating that ByteDance has no plans to sell TikTok.
Earlier media reported that ByteDance is exploring options to sell TikTok's U.S. business, but does not include an algorithm that recommends videos to TikTok users.
I think that since the United States has enacted legislation, TikTok can only defend its rights in accordance with the law, that is, to sue the U.S. Supreme Court for the unconstitutionality of TikTok's "ban or sell it" related clauses involved in the law. If it fails to defend its rights through judicial channels, it means that TikTok, which is valued at more than $170 billion in the U.S. market, will eventually be forced to withdraw, and there will never be an intergovernmental negotiation to overturn this law or use administrative measures to obstruct or delay the implementation of this law - the U.S. government never has such power, nor does it have the courage to violate the law.
(A large amount of equipment of the Russian army was destroyed)
The Russian army has recently continued to advance in the western part of Avdiivka, successively capturing the positions of the Ukrainian army, forming a small salient. However, the positions of the Ukrainian army around the salient of the Russian army are still firmly controlled by the Ukrainian army, and it cannot be said that the Russian army has formed a new major breakthrough.
Geolocation videos released on April 25 suggest that Russian forces may have advanced from Novobakhmutivka to central Soloviev in northwestern Avdiivka after capturing all of Novobakhmutivka on the night of April 24-25. The 2nd Motorized Infantry Brigade and a battalion of the Arbat Special Forces, which were subordinate to the 15th Army of the Central Military District of Russia, took up the main attack mission.
As of April 18, the Russian army had put about four brigades of troops on the front line northwest of Avdiivka, making considerable progress through a sustained onslaught. Since April 18, the Russian army has advanced about 5 kilometers to the Ukrainian positions, for which the Russian army has paid huge losses in personnel and equipment.
On the 793rd day of the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the Ukrainian General Staff announced that the battle losses of the Russian army (including Russian local, enterprise, and separatist groups) in the past 24 hours were as follows: 950 Russian troops were annihilated (dead and seriously wounded), and a total of 463,900 Russian troops were annihilated; Destroyed 7 tanks, 15 armored vehicles, 35 tanker trucks and logistics heavy-duty vehicles, 16 sets of special equipment (mainly electronic warfare equipment), 31 artillery pieces, intercepted 12 suicide drones, 1 missile.
(The battle losses of the Russian army counted by the Ukrainian side on April 26)
Based on various information, I roughly estimated that the losses of Ukrainian officers and soldiers were about 96,000, of which the number of dead and seriously injured was also 1:1, and more than 20,000 Ukrainian civilians were killed. The warriors of Ukraine who died defending their homeland will return to heaven with glory and be with God.
Let us continue to pray that God will give peace and put an end to wars, that the wicked may be rewarded and the good be sheltered.