In The Midst Of War, Russia Hits At Patents

As US-EU sanctions deepen, Moscow passes a law to allow free use of patents owned by "unfriendly countries"

- Latha Jishnu

WARS LAUNCHED by the US and its allies at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have become increasingly vicious in recent decades, worse than the atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki or the savage conflict in Vietnam, some would say. America's newer wars are more horrific because of their lasting effect on millions of civilians in the countries they have chosen to attack. Vast numbers have been killed, millions displaced and entire generations destroyed through the systematic annihilation of infrastructure and the use of harsh economic sanctions.

The ongoing Ukraine conflict, in which both the attacker and the attacked are European countries, follows a familiar pattern but with certain refinements. Rattled by a challenge to their hegemony, the US and Europe, along with their allies across the globe, have galvanised all the multinational forums under their control to act swiftly. These include the UN, the Bretton Woods institutions, the International Court of Justice et al, working to censure Russia while pumping arms into Ukraine. With the help of powerful multinationals and international lending institutions, the alliance is deploying the most comprehensive range of sanctions to clamp down on almost every Russian economic activity.

The sanctions cover banking, energy, shipping, commercial entities, state-owned enterprises, businesspersons and, rather bizarrely, Russian officials and their families, including President Vladimir Putin's daughters and the kin of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Along with imposing a ban on new investment in Russia, western countries have also frozen the assets of Russia's central bank, which means that Moscow will be unable to use its US $630 billion foreign currency reserves.