Guardian:

Russia’s star conductor, Valery Gergiev, has been dropped by his management over his close ties to Vladimir Putin as he faces a looming deadline to publicly denounce the Russian president or lose yet another role in his rapidly crumbling career.

The 68-year-old Russian, an old friend and supporter of Putin, has faced increasing pressure to speak out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine over the last week. He has been removed from performances around the world and faces more professional punishment if he does not condemn Putin’s aggression in the next 24 hours.

On Sunday, his manager, Marcus Felsner, announced he would be dropping Gergiev, who he called “the greatest conductor alive and an extraordinary human being with a profound sense of decency”, but who “will not, or cannot, publicly end his long-expressed support for a regime that has come to commit such crimes.”

“In the light of the criminal war waged by the Russian regime against the democratic and independent nation of Ukraine, and against the European open society as a whole, it has become impossible for us, and clearly unwelcome, to defend the interests of Maestro Gergiev,” Felsner said in a statement, calling it “the saddest day of my professional life.”

The move by Gergiev’s management comes just before a Monday deadline imposed by the mayor of Munich, Dieter Reiter, on Gergiev to publicly denounce the invasion. If Gergiev does not comply, Reiter said he would be fired as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic.

faces more professional punishment if he does not condemn Putin’s aggression in the next 24 hours – I didn’t make this line up. It is a direct quote. The article really does say this.

Germany has the handy concept of Berufsverbot – just ask anyone who lived through the 1960s/70s maintaining a posture critical of the US war against Vietnam. As this article makes clear, however, cities in Italy, the Netherlands, and the US have already made the opportunity to direct music conditional upon public declarations of state-sanctioned political beliefs.

Guardian:

Republican Tom Cotton refuses four times to condemn Trump on Ukraine
The former president’s views are clear. Trump has repeatedly praised Putin and though at CPAC on Saturday he condemned the invasion, he again called the Russian leader “smart”.

…

Stephanopoulos cited Trump calling Putin “smart” and “savvy” and “say[ing] Nato and the US are dumb”, and asked: “Are you prepared to condemn that kind of rhetoric from the leader of your party?”

Cotton said: “George, you heard what I had to say about Vladimir Putin. That he is a ruthless dictator who’s launched a naked, unprovoked war of aggression.

…

Stephanopoulos asked: “Why can’t you condemn Donald Trump for those comments?”

The public instruction is clear: Putin is a „ruthless [as opposed to merciful] dictator“. Putin is not „smart“ or „savvy“. Nato and the US are not „dumb”. Presumably this means Nato and the US are „smart“ and „savvy“?

Die Abgeordneten erheben sich für den anwesenden ukrainischen Botschafter. Und Bundespräsident Gauck macht das einzig richtige und umarmt ihn.

After bravely shipping two trucks of helmets towards Ukraine (not actually into Ukraine – there’s a war on, after all) Germany embraces the Ukrainian Ambassador, Covid distancing be damned, ‚cause here in the Bundestag that’s just how we roll! 💪🏻

FAZ:

Ein EU-Land nach dem nächsten schloss sich der Forderung an, Russland vom internationalen Zahlungsdienst SWIFT auszuschließen. Am Ende änderte auch Deutschland seinen Kurs.

Als Reaktion auf die fortgesetzten Angriffe Russlands in der Ukraine haben die westlichen Verbündeten den Ausschluss russischer Banken aus dem internationalen Zahlungssystem SWIFT beschlossen. Das teilte der Sprecher der Bundesregierung, Steffen Hebestreit, am Samstagabend in Berlin mit. Der Beschluss wurde von den USA, Frankreich, Kanada, Italien, Großbritannien, der EU-Kommission und Deutschland getroffen.

This conceit of The Allies against The Evil Madman seems an easy one for mass media consumers to adopt. Ukraine is A Western Democracy defending The West against Tyranny.

At a high tech company in San Francisco a few short years ago a Ukrainian coworker recognized the portrait on the cover of the Zhukov biography I was reading. He was quite interested, thought it curious, but then it was curious that an engineer anywhere on the floor would be 1) reading a book, 2) reading non-fiction, 3) reading non-fiction that was not Malcolm Gladwell-type popular scrap, 4) reading history, 5) reading history that was not US history. This man was regularly condescended to by young engineers because of his accent and imperfect English. For his work colleagues he was someone who had fled the economic collapse of the ex-USSR, period. Where was Ukraine? Somewhere „over there“. Trying to talk to anyone about 2014 got me absolutely nowhere.

In 2018 when the Odessa police insisted on US dollars to hand me my driver’s license back after a traffic stop several Ukrainian-American coworkers gently explained to me I should  never have rolled down my car window, then should have bargained harder to reduce the extortion. „Everyone knew“ the Ukrainian police were hopelessly corrupt – what was I doing turning off my car engine and rolling down my window?

So now Silicon Valley worker drones are changing their social media profile picture frames to include Ukrainian colors, and laud brave Ukrainian citizens for defending the democratic rights of freedom-loving San Franciscans. The Allies: you know, it’s one of the sides you can choose on the drop-down menu in that new Playstation 5 game.