The war continues with dogged Russian attacks on Severodonetsk as artillery bombardment remains the dominant mode of attack and counterattack. There are still casualties, even as the war in the final analysis was about resources and not Nazis or Nato, or even some delusional image of regaining empire.
For large and small nations around the globe, the prospect of averting a recession is fading.
That grim prognosis came in a report Tuesday from the World Bank, which warned that the grinding war in Ukraine, supply chain chokeholds, Covid-related lockdowns in China, and dizzying rises in energy and food prices are exacting a growing toll on economies all along the income ladder. This suite of problems is “hammering growth,” David Malpass, the bank’s president, said in a statement. “For many countries, recession will be hard to avoid.”
World growth is expected to slow to 2.9 percent this year from 5.7 percent in 2021. The outlook, delivered in the bank’s Global Economic Prospects report, is not only darker than one produced six months ago, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but also below the 3.6 percent forecast in April by the International Monetary Fund.
Growth is expected to remain muted next year. And for the remainder of this decade, it is forecast to fall below the average achieved in the previous decade.
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To understand how the planes will be worthless thanks to a few unapproved parts, it's worth clarifying that a commercial aircraft is not like a personal car. You cannot run into AutoZone and purchase random components off of a shelf as needed. Traceability—records to show not just when parts were replaced, but also where those parts came from—is critical to ensure that the parts used are genuine and actually safe to fly. Generally, this means purchasing parts through either a certified, trustworthy company whose parts have passed quality checks or from the airplane manufacturer itself. Failure to follow this process generally makes an airplane worthless, as without clear documentation of the plane's history, most companies will not fly it.
In Russia's case, it cannot source original, traceable parts for hundreds and hundreds of Airbus and Boeing commercial airliners because sanctions and business-level bans have cut off most of its supply of new parts for Western airplanes. Further complicating things is that Russia doesn't actually own most of the jets it's about to make completely worthless; rather, roughly half of the country's 700-plus Western-built commercial airliners were originally leased, but never returned when leasing companies requested them back (in other words: stolen). Even if these leasing companies could somehow repossess their airplanes to recoup some of their losses, now they will likely never be certified to fly commercially again, meaning those firms will assuredly need to write off hundreds of airliners. As a result, the stolen jets are likely to remain in Russia eternally regardless of future sanctions, as Russia is probably the only country they'll be allowed to fly in (even countries otherwise neutral towards the invasion of Ukraine, such as China, won't let stolen planes use their airspace).
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Russia uses cyberattacks in three different ways. First, it deploys cyberattacks to prepare and facilitate military conflict by attacking critical infrastructure such as government websites, IT servers, banks, media outlets, and power plants. As the Second Ukraine War shows, Russia seeks to disrupt and disable critical infrastructure to advance its military goals.
Russia also deploys cyberattacks as part of a hybrid war strategy that substitutes for war. These attacks may be persistent over longer periods of time. However, Russia deploys cyberattacks in smaller quantities and often combined with other hybrid or political war techniques, such as disinformation campaigns and civil actions in targeted countries. In these instances, Russia does not appear to intend imminent military action, but may seek to degrade defensive capabilities.
Cyberattacks may also be deployed as a more isolated threat signal and complement to diplomatic warnings, when a country takes actions that Russia interprets as unfriendly. For these purposes, cyberattacks are more frequently combined with traditional diplomacy.
In conclusion, Russia uses cyberattacks as a method of disrupting societies and organizations. While in wartime, Russia deploys cyberattacks with greater frequency, and the attacks are often more destructive, the central difference appears to be the accompanying actions. Wartime cyberattacks accompany military action. In political or hybrid war situations, cyberattacks accompany disinformation and civil actions and seek to substitute for military action by achieving some goals without the risks. At other times, cyberattacks accompany diplomatic warnings against other countries and international organizations.
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