The Week In Opinion
What spooks knew about Ukraine invasion; trademark breaches in Russia
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A satellite picture shows ground forces deployment in Yelnya, Russia, on Nov 1, 2021.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Instead of remaining secret, intelligence information the United States had about Russia's intentions to invade Ukraine was released to the public in large quantities for at least a month before the actual invasion took place.
The view in Washington and other Western capitals has been that the need to puncture the image of Russia as an invincible and cunning power, outweighs the very real risks of revealing intelligence information, says global affairs correspondent Jonathan Eyal in this commentary.
This is the strategy that came to the fore as the US began in late November last year to release information about the concentration of Russian forces at Ukraine's borders.
"From the start of the crisis, Western governments exposed the justifications Russia is likely to use in ordering an invasion, the so-called 'false flag' incidents that would allow Moscow to claim it needed to intervene in order to protect ethnic Russians or Russian-speakers in Ukraine from 'genocide'," he writes.
"Needless to say, Russia dismissed these Western scenarios as fabrications. But when Russia did invade, using exactly such arguments, nobody believed Moscow precisely because these justifications were already well-known and largely discredited."
The danger, he adds, is that nations planning future offensive operations may well start by conducting a number of false military mobilisations in order to preempt and discredit US information campaigns, before they really strike when few expect it.
When McDonald's becomes Uncle Vanya
Can't find a Macca's in Russia since it closed more than 800 stores in the country? Enter Uncle Vanya.
On March 12, a Russian company filed an application to trademark the McDonald's logo, turned 90 degrees to the right like a toppled "M".
The Russian government has decreed that trademark and patent rights can be suspended, and owners of Russian patents who live in "unfriendly countries" are not entitled to compensation in the event of infringement. Russian President Vladimir Putin has also supported a plan to nationalise foreign-owned companies that have left the country.
Experts I spoke to in this commentary said the high degree of similarity between the McDonald's and Uncle Vanya logos can be seen as a form of "bad faith" filing.
As for the decree that Russian companies need not compensate owners from "unfriendly" countries for the use of their patents, utility models and industrial designs, one lawyer said this constitutes a breach of Russia's international law obligations under IP-related multilateral treaties such as the World Trade Organisation Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.
I wrote: "With the rouble crashing and Russian banks unable to transact with the West, ordinary Russians are not going to be able to pay for goods in stores. Now, with a state decree that effectively undermines all IP rights in Russia, companies will have even less confidence and incentive to do business there."
Uncle Vanya may have a bite of the Russian burger business today, but the economic and reputational damage to the country will have longer-lasting repercussions.
Elsewhere in Opinion
- How the Ukraine war could reset the global economy.
- Putin cares about only one thing, and it's not oligarchs.
- The White Paper on Singapore women's development is another milestone on the journey to gender equality that began in 1961 with the adoption of the Women's Charter.
- Former director-general of education Wong Siew Hoong retired on March 31 after almost 40 years as an educator. He describes efforts over the years to prepare students to be digitally and future-ready.
