Dear Friends of CCI,

Our nation is in a Catch-22. I believe a major awakening could be ahead. Coronavirus, the tip of the iceberg of fear, has finally gotten the attention of America’s upper classes. Outstanding articles appearing in prominent places are questioning the very basis of America’s current national and international policies. Hopefully this will continue until there is a better understanding of our place in the world and treaties are in place.

Katrina vanden Heuvel captures our dilemma in the article below.

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Many of Russia’s official reactions are similar to those in the United States.

The Nation
April 9, 2020
By Stephen F. Cohen

Russia is on the front line of the coronavirus crisis in that it shares a very long territorial border with China/Asia. Nonetheless, many of its official reactions are similar to those in the United States.

Citizens are being told to self-isolate. New responsibilities, authority, and public prominence are being devolved to regional governors and mayors of large cities, particularly Sergei Sobyanian, the already accomplished and widely admired mayor of Moscow.  And leaders at all levels are suddenly relying heavily on, and deferring to, the expert opinion of medical authorities and other specialists.

But at this moment in Russian history, something else is being tested: not only Vladimir Putin’s personal leadership but the efficacy of the political-administrative system he has created since 2000—the “vertical” stretching from the Kremlin to all of the regions and cities of the world’s largest territorial country. Though Putin and his evolving system have faced previous crises—in particular, the Chechen War—this is the most serious and ramifying.

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Dear CCI Readers,

A number of you have asked how Russia is faring during this pandemic, what are their COVID-19 numbers and what is the Russian government doing about it.  We have the following just in from Andrew Korybko, an American Moscow-based political analyst.

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

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Dear CCI Readers,

For years I intellectually dismissed the issue of Sanctions.

To me they were economic and somehow weren’t really all that important. You may have had the same experience. Looking back, it seems that Sanctions may have been somehow sanitized for U.S. readership.

Along the way Sanctions became an issue for me when I realized that up to 500,000 Iraqi children died due to our U.S. Sanctions. No longer could I remain indifferent.

Those Iraqi mothers and children were, in my mind, equivalent to me and my four children.

How would I have felt knowing that lifesaving milk, food and medicine were being kept from my four dying children by a wealthy nation across the ocean? It is unbelievable and really totally inexcusable to try to imagine!

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Dear CCI Readers,

It will be interesting to see how President Putin’s exposure to COVID-19 turns out. If he is positive, he should do well by current metrics even though he is over 60 years. He eats healthily, exercises and swims daily, maintains low weight and uses alcohol only for toasts. The most at risk patients are older persons who are smokers, alcohol users, those with heart and kidney disease and obese persons.

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

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