ALERT RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE - Consolidated Thread
- Thread starter danielboon
- Start date
northern watch
TB Fanatic
"Our prepo armor is in Germany and the Netherlands I believe. Don't imagine the Germans will let that move if we fly in troops." Then Germany is no longer a member of NATO
northern watch
TB Fanatic
I fully agree. Russia will not tolerate Germany moving any of it's forces to a country neighboring Russia. If any German forces were to actually engage Russian forces, then the prospect of Russian retaliation against Germany itself will increase exponentially.
That doesn't even consider German reliance on Russian energy or Germany's woefully depleted military readiness. Germany has sold 100s of it's Leopard II main battle tanks to foreign countries.
Some Canadian Leopard II's used in Afghanistan were actually leased from Germany.
Last edited:
northern watch
TB Fanatic
jward
passin' thru
West no longer considering cutting Russia off Swift - Handelsblatt
Mon, January 17, 2022, 10:00 AM·1 min read
BERLIN, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Western governments are no longer considering cutting Russian banks off from the Swift global payments system, Germany's Handelsblatt newspaper reported, citing German government sources.
Handelsblatt reported that, according to its government sources, economic sanctions targeting major Russian banks were being considered as an alternative.
The Russian rouble gained on the report.
Excluding Russia from Swift, which would effectively cut the country off from the global economy, has long been considered the ultimate sanction western countries could take against Russia to deter it from taking further military action against its neighbour Ukraine.
The Swift system is a global network used by almost all financial institutions worldwide to wire sums of money to each other and a cornerstone of the international payments system. (Reporting by Thomas Escritt, Editing by Miranda Murray)
finance.yahoo.com
Mon, January 17, 2022, 10:00 AM·1 min read
BERLIN, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Western governments are no longer considering cutting Russian banks off from the Swift global payments system, Germany's Handelsblatt newspaper reported, citing German government sources.
Handelsblatt reported that, according to its government sources, economic sanctions targeting major Russian banks were being considered as an alternative.
The Russian rouble gained on the report.
Excluding Russia from Swift, which would effectively cut the country off from the global economy, has long been considered the ultimate sanction western countries could take against Russia to deter it from taking further military action against its neighbour Ukraine.
The Swift system is a global network used by almost all financial institutions worldwide to wire sums of money to each other and a cornerstone of the international payments system. (Reporting by Thomas Escritt, Editing by Miranda Murray)
West no longer considering cutting Russia off Swift - Handelsblatt
Western governments are no longer considering cutting Russian banks off from the Swift global payments system, Germany's Handelsblatt newspaper reported, citing German government sources. Handelsblatt reported that, according to its government sources, economic sanctions targeting major Russian...
I should probably add this for maybe a expanded view of things. Nevada/Australian
Mining tax: it's time for all Australians to realise they are being ripped off | Mining | The Guardian
From 2012 to 2016, up to $50bn of dividends of Australian wealth will leave Australia. What could that buy? If we increased taxation rates to Norwegian levels, imagine what that would purchase.
It is not xenophobic to believe that Australians should receive the maximum benefit from their property. Australia’s mineral wealth is owned by the Crown; the Crown holds those resources in trust so they may benefit citizens. Those resources ought to be exploited by the Australian citizenry because they belong to them.
Australian company begins drilling for lithium in Oregon - OPB
McDermitt Caldera - Wikipedia
jward
passin' thru
Seth G. Jones
@SethGJones
Thanks to @ErinBurnett for covering Russia’s most recent move: military exercises in Belarus. This puts Russian ground forces right near the Ukraine-Belarus border for a potential flanking maneuver
View: https://twitter.com/SethGJones/status/1483289640593465344?s=20
@SethGJones
Thanks to @ErinBurnett for covering Russia’s most recent move: military exercises in Belarus. This puts Russian ground forces right near the Ukraine-Belarus border for a potential flanking maneuver
View: https://twitter.com/SethGJones/status/1483289640593465344?s=20
jward
passin' thru
Russia Thins Out Its Embassy in Ukraine, a Possible Clue to Putin’s Next Move
The slow evacuation may be part propaganda, part preparation for a conflict or part feint, Ukrainian and U.S. officials say. It could be all three.
The Russian Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, in April.Credit...Andrei Ratmirov/TASS via Getty Images
By Michael Schwirtz and David E. Sanger
Jan. 17, 2022
KYIV, Ukraine — The week before intensive diplomatic meetings began over the buildup of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, American and Ukrainian officials watched from afar as Russia began emptying out its embassy in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.
On Jan. 5, 18 people — mostly the children and wives of Russian diplomats — boarded buses and embarked on a 15-hour drive home to Moscow, according to a senior Ukrainian security official.
About 30 more followed in the next few days, from Kyiv and a consulate in Lviv, in western Ukraine. Diplomats at two other Russian consulates have been told to prepare to leave Ukraine, the security official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss national security matters.
How to interpret the evacuation has become part of the mystery of divining the next play by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Thinning out the Russian Embassy may be part propaganda, part preparation for a looming conflict or part feint, Ukrainian and U.S. officials say. It could be all three.
In recent days, the slow departures — which the Russians most likely knew that the Americans and the Ukrainians would see — have become part of the puzzle of what happens next. They are a more ominous data point, in addition to cyberattacks on Ukrainian ministries last week, and reports from Microsoft and the U.S. government that far more destructive malware has been planted in Ukrainian networks but not activated.
Enormous train convoys loaded with tanks, missiles and troops continue to push west through Russia, apparently heading for the Ukrainian border. Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, the authoritarian leader of Belarus, announced on Monday that Russian forces and equipment had begun arriving in his country for a joint military exercise that would be held in two places: on Belarus’s western edge, near Poland and Lithuania, two NATO countries; and along the Ukrainian border, which could prove another pathway for invasion.
The exercise has been given a very American-sounding name: Allied Resolve. But in Kyiv, Ukrainian officials fully expect any Russian troops deployed to Belarus for the exercises to remain in place indefinitely, leaving Ukraine open to attack from the north, the east and the south
“We’ll be fully surrounded by equal forces,” the senior Ukrainian security official said.
In Washington, U.S. officials say they still assess that Mr. Putin has not yet made a decision to invade. They describe him as more a tactician than a grand strategist, and they believe that he is constantly weighing a host of different factors. Among them is how well he could weather the threatened sanctions on his banks and industry, and whether his demands that Ukraine stop veering toward NATO — and that NATO stop spreading toward Russia — are receiving enough attention.
But the U.S. officials say Mr. Putin may also have concluded that with the United States and other countries arming Ukraine, his military advantage is at risk of slipping away. Britain’s defense secretary, Ben Wallace, announced in an address to Parliament on Monday that the country would begin providing Ukraine with light, anti-armor defensive weapons. Mr. Putin may become tempted to act sooner rather than later.
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U.S. officials saw Russia’s embassy evacuations coming. “We have information that indicates the Russian government was preparing to evacuate their family members from the Russian Embassy in Ukraine in late December and early January,” a U.S. official said in a statement.
Ukrainian officials say they saw the Russians leave.
But that leaves open the question of what, if anything, the Russians were signaling.
It is possible they were trying to bolster the case that the United States and its Western allies should take seriously their demands that Ukraine can never join NATO, and that troops, nuclear weapons and other heavy weaponry must be removed from former Warsaw Pact states, like Poland, that were once allied with the Soviet Union.
It could also be that the Russians were trying to indicate that an attack was brewing, though there were no other signals. In fact, the buildup of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border is not increasing at a rate that Pentagon officials expected a month ago.
The latest U.S. estimates are that about 60 battalion tactical groups, known as B.T.G.s and each with an average of 800 soldiers, are now in place at the border with Ukraine. Combined with other local forces, the Russians have about 77,000 troops at the border, with more on the way. Others put the figure at closer to 100,000 — much depends on how different forces are counted — but that is well short of the Pentagon’s estimate more than a month ago that the total number could rise to 175,000.
U.S. and European intelligence and military officials say Mr. Putin may be waiting for the ground to freeze, making it easier to get heavy equipment over the border. Or he may be building up slowly, for diplomatic advantage, as he awaits a written reply from the Biden administration and NATO to his demands that they roll back NATO’s military posture to what it was 15 years ago — much farther from Russia’s borders.
While U.S. officials still believe Mr. Putin is undecided about his next move, officials in Kyiv are assessing what an attack may look like, if it happens. It could come in the form of a full-on invasion, the Ukrainian security official said. Or Russia could launch a cyberattack on the Ukrainian energy grid — far larger than the ones conducted in 2015 and 2016 — combined with military escalation in Ukraine’s east, where Russian-backed separatist forces remain deeply entrenched.
No one but the leaders in the Kremlin seem to know for sure how the next days and weeks might play out.
Against this backdrop, a senior delegation of U.S. senators arrived in Kyiv on Monday. Their trip followed a visit to Kyiv last Wednesday by the C.I.A. director, William J. Burns, who consulted with intelligence officials and met with Mr. Zelensky to discuss efforts to de-escalate tensions with Moscow, a U.S. official said. Mr. Burns’s trip was reported earlier by CNN.
Understand the Escalating Tensions Over Ukraine
Card 1 of 5
A brewing conflict. Antagonism between Ukraine and Russia has been simmering since 2014, when the Russian military crossed into Ukrainian territory, annexing Crimea and whipping up a rebellion in the east. A tenuous cease-fire was reached in 2015, but peace has been elusive.
A spike in hostilities. Russia has recently been building up forces near its border with Ukraine, and the Kremlin’s rhetoric toward its neighbor has hardened. Concern grew in late October, when Ukraine used an armed drone to attack a howitzer operated by Russian-backed separatists.
Ominous warnings. Russia called the strike a destabilizing act that violated the cease-fire agreement, raising fears of a new intervention in Ukraine that could draw the United States and Europe into a new phase of the conflict.
The Kremlin’s position. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has increasingly portrayed NATO’s eastward expansion as an existential threat to his country, said that Moscow’s military buildup was a response to Ukraine’s deepening partnership with the alliance
Rising tension. Western countries have tried to maintain a dialogue with Moscow. But administration officials recently warned that the U.S. could throw its weight behind a Ukrainian insurgency should Russia invade.
The senators’ visit was a bipartisan show of support from Ukraine’s most powerful ally, even if they brought few specific proposals for staving off a Russian attack.
“Russia’s actions in eastern Ukraine and Crimea, and the actions that they are planning today, represent the most serious assault on the post-World War II order in our lifetime,” Senator Christopher S. Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, said at a news conference in Kyiv.
Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and instigated a violent separatist uprising that effectively cleaved away two Ukrainian provinces. More than 13,000 people were killed in the fighting.
At the news conference, Mr. Murphy said he hoped legislation that outlines punishing sanctions against Russia’s leadership, including Mr. Putin, would reach President Biden’s desk before any Russian action and possibly help deter it. In a meeting with the senators late Monday, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine urged them to impose sanctions quickly “to counter the aggression” from Russia.
The senators’ pledges to defend democracy and vanquish tyranny seemed a throwback to the Cold War. Indeed, observers have argued that Mr. Putin’s threats against Ukraine are rooted in a desire to reconstitute a Moscow-led Eastern bloc reminiscent of Soviet times.
Similarly, Mr. Lukashenko, the Belarusian leader who is close to Mr. Putin, made his own argument that the Russians were responding to the Americans.
“What are the Americans doing here?” Mr. Lukashenko said. “There are these hotheads who are calling for war.”
It is possibly in that spirit that Russian troops will begin military exercises in Belarus next month. Security officials fear that the exercises could become a pretext for long-term deployment of Russian forces in the former Soviet republic, which shares a lengthy western border with the European Union and NATO.
Mr. Lukashenko has pledged to follow Mr. Putin’s lead on any action in Ukraine.
Julian E. Barnes contributed reporting.
Russia, Ukraine and the West
Russia Thins Out Its Embassy in Ukraine, a Possible Clue to Putin’s Next Move
The slow evacuation may be part propaganda, part preparation for a conflict or part feint, Ukrainian and U.S. officials say. It could be all three.
jward
passin' thru
U.S. and NATO Will Support an Anti-Russian Insurgency if Kremlin Attacks
By Roman Woronowycz.
Published Jan. 17. Updated Jan. 17 at 12:01 pm
Ukrainian Defense Ministry Press Service. In this image released by Ukrainian Defense Ministry Press Service, Ukrainian soldiers use a launcher with US Javelin missiles during military exercises in Donetsk region, Ukraine, Thursday, Dec. 23, 2021. (Ukrainian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
The United States indicated on Dec. 14, 2021 that it would provide strong support for an anti-Russian insurgency should the Kremlin decide to invade Ukraine, the New York Times reported.
The article noted that both U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have warned their Russian counterparts in recent telephone calls that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would probably be followed by a bloody insurgency that the U.S. would support. It states that senior Biden officials have also made clear that the Ukrainian insurgency would involve both the CIA and the Pentagon.
“If Putin invades Ukraine with a major military force, U.S. and NATO military assistance — intelligence, cyber, anti-armor and anti-air weapons, offensive naval missiles — would ratchet up significantly,” said James Stavridis, a retired four-star Navy admiral who was the supreme allied commander at NATO. “And if it turned into a Ukrainian insurgency, Putin should realize that after fighting insurgencies ourselves for two decades, we know how to arm, train and energize them.”
With 100,000 Russian troops already massed on Ukraine’s eastern border, Russia continues to escalate and prepare for war. On Dec. 14, Ukraine experienced a massive cyber-attack that brought down many government websites. Experts say that all indications are that the source of the attacks leads back to Russia. The New York Times reported the same day that Russian saboteurs “trained in urban warfare and in using explosives” have entered Ukraine to prepare the groundwork for an invasion.
Yet, perhaps Ukraine’s best chances for success in an all-out war with Russia would be not in a direct confrontation but through an asymmetrical military approach.
In an article for the Atlantic Council, former Defense Minister Andrii Zahorodniuk, currently chairman of the Center for Defense Strategies, noted that while Ukraine has a military force of 500,000 well-trained and sufficiently motivated personnel, that may not be enough. He suggests that a better alternative for success against a Russian invasion force would be asymmetrical warfare with Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces playing “a crucial leadership role in the guerilla warfare efforts.”
Zahorodniuk enumerated a list of military items that would help Ukraine to undertake an effective asymmetrical military campaign, including portable air defense systems, anti-tank missiles, anti-ship missiles, and counter-battery radars. He also put drones, sniper rifles, anti-sniper equipment, night vision goggles, encrypted radio communication devices, and satellite communication devices on his list.
Several U.S. legislators are supporting increased military support for Ukraine and the strengthening of sanctions against Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project through a legislative proposal deemed the Guaranteeing Ukraine’s Autonomy by Reinforcing its Defense Act (GUARD Act).
Found a spelling error? Let us know – highlight it and press Ctrl + Enter.
www.kyivpost.com
By Roman Woronowycz.
Published Jan. 17. Updated Jan. 17 at 12:01 pm
Ukrainian Defense Ministry Press Service. In this image released by Ukrainian Defense Ministry Press Service, Ukrainian soldiers use a launcher with US Javelin missiles during military exercises in Donetsk region, Ukraine, Thursday, Dec. 23, 2021. (Ukrainian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
The United States indicated on Dec. 14, 2021 that it would provide strong support for an anti-Russian insurgency should the Kremlin decide to invade Ukraine, the New York Times reported.
The article noted that both U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have warned their Russian counterparts in recent telephone calls that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would probably be followed by a bloody insurgency that the U.S. would support. It states that senior Biden officials have also made clear that the Ukrainian insurgency would involve both the CIA and the Pentagon.
“If Putin invades Ukraine with a major military force, U.S. and NATO military assistance — intelligence, cyber, anti-armor and anti-air weapons, offensive naval missiles — would ratchet up significantly,” said James Stavridis, a retired four-star Navy admiral who was the supreme allied commander at NATO. “And if it turned into a Ukrainian insurgency, Putin should realize that after fighting insurgencies ourselves for two decades, we know how to arm, train and energize them.”
With 100,000 Russian troops already massed on Ukraine’s eastern border, Russia continues to escalate and prepare for war. On Dec. 14, Ukraine experienced a massive cyber-attack that brought down many government websites. Experts say that all indications are that the source of the attacks leads back to Russia. The New York Times reported the same day that Russian saboteurs “trained in urban warfare and in using explosives” have entered Ukraine to prepare the groundwork for an invasion.
“The number one thing we can do is real time actionable intelligence that says, ‘The Russians are coming over the berm,’” said Evelyn Farkas, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia in the Obama administration, in a Dec. 23 New York Times article. “We tell them, and they use that to target the Russians.”
Yet, perhaps Ukraine’s best chances for success in an all-out war with Russia would be not in a direct confrontation but through an asymmetrical military approach.
In an article for the Atlantic Council, former Defense Minister Andrii Zahorodniuk, currently chairman of the Center for Defense Strategies, noted that while Ukraine has a military force of 500,000 well-trained and sufficiently motivated personnel, that may not be enough. He suggests that a better alternative for success against a Russian invasion force would be asymmetrical warfare with Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces playing “a crucial leadership role in the guerilla warfare efforts.”
Zahorodniuk enumerated a list of military items that would help Ukraine to undertake an effective asymmetrical military campaign, including portable air defense systems, anti-tank missiles, anti-ship missiles, and counter-battery radars. He also put drones, sniper rifles, anti-sniper equipment, night vision goggles, encrypted radio communication devices, and satellite communication devices on his list.
Several U.S. legislators are supporting increased military support for Ukraine and the strengthening of sanctions against Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project through a legislative proposal deemed the Guaranteeing Ukraine’s Autonomy by Reinforcing its Defense Act (GUARD Act).
Found a spelling error? Let us know – highlight it and press Ctrl + Enter.
U.S. and NATO Will Support an Anti-Russian Insurgency if Kremlin Attacks - Kyiv Post - Ukraine's Global Voice
The United States indicated on Dec. 14, 2021 that it would provide strong support for an anti-Russian… - Jan. 17, 2022. By Roman Woronowycz
OldAndCrazy
Pureblood Forever
Why are we itching so much to, literally, poke da bear?
Seeker22
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Ah, Build Back Better no workee so good, huh? It is interesting (like watching a train wreck interesting) watching technology being used as a weapon. Cede something as simple as heating your hovel to others and it has a chance of not happening because of things you do not control. A lesson here.
Seeker22
Has No Life - Lives on TB
After living through the big Texas freeze fiasco last year, I can attest to just how delicate the electric grid can be, even in peacetime. War is a whole other ugly.
jward
passin' thru
An article by the Defence Secretary on the situation in Ukraine
Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace discusses NATO, Ukraine and Russia.
From: Ministry of Defence Published 17 January 2022
Defence Secretary in Olsztyn, Poland.
I have lost count of how many times recently I have to had to explain the meaning of the English term “straw man” to my European allies. That is because the best living, breathing “straw man” at the moment is the Kremlin’s claim to be under threat from NATO. In recent weeks the Russian Defence Minister’s comment that the US is “preparing a provocation with chemical components in eastern Ukraine” has made that “straw man” even bigger.
It is obviously the Kremlin’s desire that we all engage with this bogus allegation, instead of challenging the real agenda of the President of the Russian Federation. An examination of the facts rapidly puts a match to the allegations against NATO.
First, NATO is, to its core, defensive in nature. At the heart of the organisation is Article 5 that obliges all members to come to the aid of a fellow member if it is under attack. No ifs and no buts. Mutual self-defence is NATO’s cornerstone. This obligation protects us all. Allies from as far apart as Turkey and Norway; or as close as Latvia and Poland all benefit from the pact and are obliged to respond. It is a truly defensive alliance.
Second, former Soviet states have not been expanded ‘into’ by NATO, but joined at their own request. The Kremlin attempts to present NATO as a Western plot to encroach upon its territory, but in reality the growth in Alliance membership is the natural response of those states to its own malign activities and threats.
Third, the allegation that NATO is seeking to encircle the Russian Federation is without foundation. Only five of the thirty allies neighbour Russia, with just 1/16th of its borders abutted by NATO. If the definition of being surrounded is 6% of your perimeter being blocked then no doubt the brave men who fought at Arnhem or Leningrad in the Second World War would have something strong to say about it.
It is not the disposition of NATO forces but the appeal of its values that actually threatens the Kremlin. Just as we know that its actions are really about what President Putin’s interpretation of history is and his unfinished ambitions for Ukraine.
We know that because last summer he published, via the official Government website, his own article “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”. I urge you to read it, if you have time, because while it is comprehensive on his arguments it is short on accuracy and long on contradictions.
We should all worry because what flows from the pen of President Putin himself is a seven-thousand-word essay that puts ethnonationalism at the heart of his ambitions. Not the narrative now being peddled. Not the straw man of NATO encroachment. It provides the skewed and selective reasoning to justify, at best, the subjugation of Ukraine and at worse the forced unification of that sovereign country.
President Putin’s article completely ignores the wishes of the citizens of Ukraine, while evoking that same type of ethnonationalism which played out across Europe for centuries and still has the potential to awaken the same destructive forces of ancient hatred. Readers will not only be shocked at the tone of the article but they will also be surprised at how little NATO is mentioned. After all, is NATO ‘expansionism’ not the fountain of all the Kremlin’s concerns? In fact, just a single paragraph is devoted to NATO.
The essay makes in it three claims. One: that the West seeks to use division to “rule” Russia. Two: that anything other than a single nation of Great Russia, Little Russia and White Russia (Velikorussians, Malorussians, Belorussians) in the image advanced in the 17th Century is an artificial construct and defies the desires of a single people, with a single language and church. Third, that anyone who disagrees does so out of a hatred or phobia of Russia.
We can dispense with the first allegation. No one wants to rule Russia. It is stating the obvious that just like any other state it is for the citizens of a country to determine their own future. Russia’s own lessons from such conflicts as Chechnya must surely be that ethnic and sectarian conflicts cost thousands of innocent lives with the protagonists getting bogged down in decades of strife.
As for Ukraine, Russia itself recognised the sovereignty of it as an independent country and guaranteed its territorial integrity, not just by signing the Budapest Memorandum in 1994 but also its Friendship Treaty with Ukraine itself in 1997. Yet it is the Kremlin not the West that set about magnifying divisions in that country and several others in the Europe. It has been well documented the numerous efforts of the GRU and other Russian agencies to interfere in democratic elections and domestic disputes is well documented. The divide and rule cap sits prettiest on Moscow’s head not NATO’s.
Probably the most important and strongly believed claim that Ukraine is Russia and Russia is Ukraine is not quite as presented. Ukraine has been separate from Russia for far longer in its history than it was ever united. Secondly the charge that all peoples in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are descendants of the ‘Ancient Rus’ and are therefore somehow all Russians. But in reality, according to historian Professor Andrew Wilson in his excellent essay for RUSI entitled “Russia and Ukraine: ‘One People’ as Putin Claims?” they are at best “kin but not the same people”. In the same way Britain around 900AD consisted of Mercia, Wessex, York, Strathclyde and other pre-modern kingdoms, but it was a civic nation of many peoples, origins and ethnicities that eventually formed the United Kingdom.
If you start and stop your view of Russian history between 1654 and 1917 then you can fabricate a case for a more expansive Russia, perhaps along the lines of the motto of the Russian Tsar before the Russian Empire “Sovereign of all of Rus: the Great, the Little, and the White” – Russia, Ukraine and Belarus respectively. And crucially you must also forget the before and after in history. You must ignore the existence of the Soviet Union, breaking of the Russian-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty, and the occupation of Crimea. Far more than footnotes in history, I am sure you will agree.
Ironically, President Putin himself admits in his essay that “things change: countries and communities are no exception. Of course, some part of a people in the process of its development, influenced by a number of reasons and historical circumstances, can become aware of itself as a separate nation at a certain moment. How should we treat that? There is only one answer: with respect!” However, he then goes on to discard some of those “historical circumstances” to fit his own claims.
Dubious to say the least, and not in anyway a perspective that justifies both the occupation of Crimea (in the same way Russia occupied Crimea in 1783 in defiance of the Russo-Turkish Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji in 1774) or any further invasion of modern Ukraine, as an independent sovereign country.
The last charge against the West by many in the Russian Government is that those who disagree with the Kremlin are somehow Russophobes. Leaving aside that GRU officers deployed nerve agents on British streets or that cyber hacking and targeted assassinations emanate from the Russian state, nothing could be further than the truth.
Russia and the UK share a deep and often mutually beneficial history. Our allegiances helped to finally defeat Napoleon and later Hitler. Outside of conflict, across the centuries we shared technology, medicine and culture. During the 18th Century Russia and Britain were deeply tied. Between 1704 to 1854, from age of Peter the Great through Catherine the Great and well into the 19th Century the British were to be found as admirals, generals, surgeons, and architects at the highest level of the Russian Court. The father of the Russian Navy – one Samuel Greig – was born in Inverkeithing in Fife.
That shared admiration is still true today. The British Government is not in dispute with Russia and the Russian people – far from it – but it does take issue with the malign activity of the Kremlin.
So, if one cold January or February night Russian Military forces once more cross into sovereign Ukraine, ignore the ‘straw man’ narratives and ‘false flag’ stories of NATO aggression and remember the President of Russia’s own words in that essay from last summer. Remember it and ask yourself what it means, not just for Ukraine, but for all of us in Europe. What it means the next time…
www.gov.uk
Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace discusses NATO, Ukraine and Russia.
From: Ministry of Defence Published 17 January 2022
Defence Secretary in Olsztyn, Poland.
I have lost count of how many times recently I have to had to explain the meaning of the English term “straw man” to my European allies. That is because the best living, breathing “straw man” at the moment is the Kremlin’s claim to be under threat from NATO. In recent weeks the Russian Defence Minister’s comment that the US is “preparing a provocation with chemical components in eastern Ukraine” has made that “straw man” even bigger.
It is obviously the Kremlin’s desire that we all engage with this bogus allegation, instead of challenging the real agenda of the President of the Russian Federation. An examination of the facts rapidly puts a match to the allegations against NATO.
First, NATO is, to its core, defensive in nature. At the heart of the organisation is Article 5 that obliges all members to come to the aid of a fellow member if it is under attack. No ifs and no buts. Mutual self-defence is NATO’s cornerstone. This obligation protects us all. Allies from as far apart as Turkey and Norway; or as close as Latvia and Poland all benefit from the pact and are obliged to respond. It is a truly defensive alliance.
Second, former Soviet states have not been expanded ‘into’ by NATO, but joined at their own request. The Kremlin attempts to present NATO as a Western plot to encroach upon its territory, but in reality the growth in Alliance membership is the natural response of those states to its own malign activities and threats.
Third, the allegation that NATO is seeking to encircle the Russian Federation is without foundation. Only five of the thirty allies neighbour Russia, with just 1/16th of its borders abutted by NATO. If the definition of being surrounded is 6% of your perimeter being blocked then no doubt the brave men who fought at Arnhem or Leningrad in the Second World War would have something strong to say about it.
It is not the disposition of NATO forces but the appeal of its values that actually threatens the Kremlin. Just as we know that its actions are really about what President Putin’s interpretation of history is and his unfinished ambitions for Ukraine.
We know that because last summer he published, via the official Government website, his own article “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”. I urge you to read it, if you have time, because while it is comprehensive on his arguments it is short on accuracy and long on contradictions.
We should all worry because what flows from the pen of President Putin himself is a seven-thousand-word essay that puts ethnonationalism at the heart of his ambitions. Not the narrative now being peddled. Not the straw man of NATO encroachment. It provides the skewed and selective reasoning to justify, at best, the subjugation of Ukraine and at worse the forced unification of that sovereign country.
President Putin’s article completely ignores the wishes of the citizens of Ukraine, while evoking that same type of ethnonationalism which played out across Europe for centuries and still has the potential to awaken the same destructive forces of ancient hatred. Readers will not only be shocked at the tone of the article but they will also be surprised at how little NATO is mentioned. After all, is NATO ‘expansionism’ not the fountain of all the Kremlin’s concerns? In fact, just a single paragraph is devoted to NATO.
The essay makes in it three claims. One: that the West seeks to use division to “rule” Russia. Two: that anything other than a single nation of Great Russia, Little Russia and White Russia (Velikorussians, Malorussians, Belorussians) in the image advanced in the 17th Century is an artificial construct and defies the desires of a single people, with a single language and church. Third, that anyone who disagrees does so out of a hatred or phobia of Russia.
We can dispense with the first allegation. No one wants to rule Russia. It is stating the obvious that just like any other state it is for the citizens of a country to determine their own future. Russia’s own lessons from such conflicts as Chechnya must surely be that ethnic and sectarian conflicts cost thousands of innocent lives with the protagonists getting bogged down in decades of strife.
As for Ukraine, Russia itself recognised the sovereignty of it as an independent country and guaranteed its territorial integrity, not just by signing the Budapest Memorandum in 1994 but also its Friendship Treaty with Ukraine itself in 1997. Yet it is the Kremlin not the West that set about magnifying divisions in that country and several others in the Europe. It has been well documented the numerous efforts of the GRU and other Russian agencies to interfere in democratic elections and domestic disputes is well documented. The divide and rule cap sits prettiest on Moscow’s head not NATO’s.
Probably the most important and strongly believed claim that Ukraine is Russia and Russia is Ukraine is not quite as presented. Ukraine has been separate from Russia for far longer in its history than it was ever united. Secondly the charge that all peoples in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are descendants of the ‘Ancient Rus’ and are therefore somehow all Russians. But in reality, according to historian Professor Andrew Wilson in his excellent essay for RUSI entitled “Russia and Ukraine: ‘One People’ as Putin Claims?” they are at best “kin but not the same people”. In the same way Britain around 900AD consisted of Mercia, Wessex, York, Strathclyde and other pre-modern kingdoms, but it was a civic nation of many peoples, origins and ethnicities that eventually formed the United Kingdom.
If you start and stop your view of Russian history between 1654 and 1917 then you can fabricate a case for a more expansive Russia, perhaps along the lines of the motto of the Russian Tsar before the Russian Empire “Sovereign of all of Rus: the Great, the Little, and the White” – Russia, Ukraine and Belarus respectively. And crucially you must also forget the before and after in history. You must ignore the existence of the Soviet Union, breaking of the Russian-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty, and the occupation of Crimea. Far more than footnotes in history, I am sure you will agree.
Ironically, President Putin himself admits in his essay that “things change: countries and communities are no exception. Of course, some part of a people in the process of its development, influenced by a number of reasons and historical circumstances, can become aware of itself as a separate nation at a certain moment. How should we treat that? There is only one answer: with respect!” However, he then goes on to discard some of those “historical circumstances” to fit his own claims.
Dubious to say the least, and not in anyway a perspective that justifies both the occupation of Crimea (in the same way Russia occupied Crimea in 1783 in defiance of the Russo-Turkish Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji in 1774) or any further invasion of modern Ukraine, as an independent sovereign country.
The last charge against the West by many in the Russian Government is that those who disagree with the Kremlin are somehow Russophobes. Leaving aside that GRU officers deployed nerve agents on British streets or that cyber hacking and targeted assassinations emanate from the Russian state, nothing could be further than the truth.
Russia and the UK share a deep and often mutually beneficial history. Our allegiances helped to finally defeat Napoleon and later Hitler. Outside of conflict, across the centuries we shared technology, medicine and culture. During the 18th Century Russia and Britain were deeply tied. Between 1704 to 1854, from age of Peter the Great through Catherine the Great and well into the 19th Century the British were to be found as admirals, generals, surgeons, and architects at the highest level of the Russian Court. The father of the Russian Navy – one Samuel Greig – was born in Inverkeithing in Fife.
That shared admiration is still true today. The British Government is not in dispute with Russia and the Russian people – far from it – but it does take issue with the malign activity of the Kremlin.
So, if one cold January or February night Russian Military forces once more cross into sovereign Ukraine, ignore the ‘straw man’ narratives and ‘false flag’ stories of NATO aggression and remember the President of Russia’s own words in that essay from last summer. Remember it and ask yourself what it means, not just for Ukraine, but for all of us in Europe. What it means the next time…
An article by the Defence Secretary on the situation in Ukraine
Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace discusses NATO, Ukraine and Russia.
Heliobas Disciple
TB Fanatic
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/JWAIRDE76NNJDANJKYMMKZZT4A.jpg)
US senators promise solidarity and weapons for Ukraine in warning to Putin
A bipartisan group of United States senators promised solidarity and weapons on a visit to Kyiv on Monday while warning Russian President Vladimir Putin against launching a new military offensive against Ukraine.
www.reuters.com
US senators promise solidarity and weapons for Ukraine in warning to Putin
January 17, 20222:40 PM EST | Last Updated 12 hours ago
KYIV, Jan 17 (Reuters) - A bipartisan group of United States senators promised solidarity and weapons on a visit to Kyiv on Monday while warning Russian President Vladimir Putin against launching a new military offensive against Ukraine.
Kyiv and its Western allies have sounded the alarm after Russia massed tens of thousands of troops near Ukraine's borders and pressed the United States for security guarantees, including a block on Ukraine joining the NATO alliance.
Russia denies planning a new military offensive.
The United States has been Ukraine's most powerful backer in its standoff with Moscow after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the outbreak of the war in eastern Ukraine.
"I think Vladimir Putin has made the biggest mistake of his career in underestimating how courageously the people of Ukraine will fight him if he invades," Senator Richard Blumenthal told reporters.
"And we will impose crippling economic sanctions, but more important we will give the people of Ukraine the arms, lethal arms they need to defend their lives and livelihoods," he said after the delegation met President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
These weapons could include Javelin anti-tank missiles, Stinger missiles, small arms and boats, he said.
"And so our message is: there will be consequences if he chooses to violate the sanctity of this democracy," Senator Amy Klobuchar added.
Marthanoir
TB Fanatic
Due to increase in demand for electricity and the problems with renewable sources, output from NG fuelled electricity generating plants has been ramped up over the past couple of years across the EU.
Marthanoir
TB Fanatic
The British Army uses Javelin same as the US and Ukraine, although the British manufactured Javelins are an improved design.
They're sending Ukraine further supplies of the system they already have used, more than likely the 'advisors' will be training them in hit & run guerilla tactics, same as they taught the Mudjahadeen in Afganistan ( mostly in Scotland) ,
IEDs , ambush techniques, along with Stinger training , up till then the Mudj were using the Soviet 'Grail' which wasn't up to the job.
Melodi
Disaster Cat
Unfortunately, when West Germany inherited East Germany they discovered that almost all the Soviet Ear public and private buildings were heated with gas, most of them having simply one giant furnace for the entire building.
There are also several buildings in former West Germany powered this way though not nearly as many.
In a perfect world, the Germans would have retrofitted all these Soviet Era buildings (where most of the population lives) but they were instead spending huge amounts of the public purse just to try to integrate now jobless people (their industries were in really bad shape and mostly just shutdown) and that retrofitting didn't happen.
During WW1 and WW2, those buildings had not been made yet, and most people lived in buildings with fireplaces and other forms of alternative heat. A good deal of that was lost during the allied bombing and rebuilt in both East and West Germany as high rise and low rise apartment buildings, many of which have that central gas heating and NO fireplaces.
Even older buildings, like ones my friends lived in off-base which was a converted 200 plus-year-old barn, had no fireplaces and only central heating from one heater in the basement for several apartments.
There is simply no way to reverse this overnight - I suspect the only thing the Germans might manage in a short-term emergency is setting up massive heat shelters in public buildings for the first Winter.
They are between a rock and a hard place, if they anger Russia thousands (or more) could freeze to death and if they go against NATO, the EU is toast.
northern watch
TB Fanatic
northern watch
TB Fanatic
Oil Prices Hit Seven Year High on Rising Geopolitical Tensions; Concerns over the Omicron variant and tensions in Europe and the Middle East are factors driving the rally
Tuesday, January 18, 2022, 8:13 AM ET
By Joe Wallace
Wall Street Journal
Crude prices rose to their highest level since the 2014 shale-induced oil crash, a milestone in a rally that is gathering momentum as geopolitical tensions threaten to knock supply.
Futures for West Texas Intermediate, the main grade of U.S. crude, added 1.7% to $85.20 a barrel Tuesday morning. If the contracts settle above $84.65 a barrel, it will mark their highest closing level since October 2014, when oil prices were moving in the opposite direction as a gusher of U.S. crude flooded the market.
It took the oil market several years to recover from the price decline set in motion by America’s re-emergence as an oil-producing superpower. The rebound from the coronavirus crash of 2020—when U.S. crude futures turned negative as the world struggled to find places to store oil—has been much faster.
Among the factors driving the rally are concerns that tensions in the Middle East and Europe will spill into energy markets by denting supplies from major crude producers, particularly Russia and the United Arab Emirates. Any outages are likely to goose prices in a market where demand is rising and stockpiles have fallen below recent norms, traders and analysts say.
Adding to oil’s gains, the wave of infection caused by Omicron hasn’t reduced demand as much as traders thought it might when the variant was identified in late November. In a report published Tuesday, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries forecast that the world would consume 100.8 million barrels of oil a day this year, up 4.2 million barrels a day from 2021. The rise has been driven by rising demand for light distillates used in the petrochemical industry.
Investors are bidding up shares of energy companies, making the sector the best performer on the S&P 500 so far in 2022. Chevron Corp. has gained 9.9% and Exxon Mobil Corp. 17%.
Gasoline prices are rising, adding to inflationary pressures and complicating matters for President Biden, who released crude from the strategic reserve in the fall in an attempt to help drivers facing sticker shock. National average gasoline prices stand at $3.314 a gallon, according to AAA, up from $2.386 a year ago.
It isn’t just crude futures that are rising. In the physical oil market, prices have jumped for grades of crude such as Forties, produced in the North Sea, and Nigeria’s Bonny Light, a sign that traders and refiners are snapping up barrels in a tightening market.
The market “perceives a capacity crunch could happen later in the year and is trying to get ahead of that,” said Paul Horsnell, head of commodities strategy at Standard Chartered. He said traders worry energy exports from Russia will take a hit from tensions with the U.S. over troops at the border with Ukraine, and are also concerned by attacks on the United Arab Emirates.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they were behind aerial attacks that killed three people in the top-10 crude producer Monday. One of the strikes hit fuel trucks at Musaffah, near a major depot owned by Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., known as Adnoc, about 15 miles from the center of Abu Dhabi where trucks stock up on gasoline and diesel to distribute to forecourts.
The attacks showed the Houthis are willing to strike in the heart of a country seen as the region’s main hub for international business. U.S., European and Israeli defense officials say the growing ability of Iran and its allies to deploy drones is changing the security equation in the Middle East.
Adnoc is working closely with authorities to determine what happened, a spokesman said. The state-owned company said in November it was investing almost $6 billion to raise production capacity to 5 million barrels a day, part of an effort to sell as much crude as possible before demand dries up.
Also pushing oil prices higher, a shortage of natural gas outside the U.S. has boosted demand for fuel oil. Analysts at Goldman Sachs Group this week said gas-to-oil switching at power stations in Europe and Asia raised oil demand by half a million barrels a day in December. They forecast a further 300,000 barrel increase each day in January and February and figure demand for crude will reach record highs this year and next.
Spot prices for crude have risen above prices for oil further in the future, showing traders are willing to pay up to secure tight supplies immediately. Futures for U.S. crude to be delivered next month cost $9.75 a barrel more than those for crude to be delivered 12 months later Tuesday, among the highest premiums of the past 10 years.
Higher spot prices can add momentum to commodity markets by encouraging investors seeking a kind of return known as roll yield to buy futures contracts.
Write to Joe Wallace at joe.wallace@wsj.com
Oil Prices Hit Seven-Year High on Rising Geopolitical Tensions - WSJ
Tuesday, January 18, 2022, 8:13 AM ET
By Joe Wallace
Wall Street Journal
Crude prices rose to their highest level since the 2014 shale-induced oil crash, a milestone in a rally that is gathering momentum as geopolitical tensions threaten to knock supply.
Futures for West Texas Intermediate, the main grade of U.S. crude, added 1.7% to $85.20 a barrel Tuesday morning. If the contracts settle above $84.65 a barrel, it will mark their highest closing level since October 2014, when oil prices were moving in the opposite direction as a gusher of U.S. crude flooded the market.
It took the oil market several years to recover from the price decline set in motion by America’s re-emergence as an oil-producing superpower. The rebound from the coronavirus crash of 2020—when U.S. crude futures turned negative as the world struggled to find places to store oil—has been much faster.
Among the factors driving the rally are concerns that tensions in the Middle East and Europe will spill into energy markets by denting supplies from major crude producers, particularly Russia and the United Arab Emirates. Any outages are likely to goose prices in a market where demand is rising and stockpiles have fallen below recent norms, traders and analysts say.
Adding to oil’s gains, the wave of infection caused by Omicron hasn’t reduced demand as much as traders thought it might when the variant was identified in late November. In a report published Tuesday, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries forecast that the world would consume 100.8 million barrels of oil a day this year, up 4.2 million barrels a day from 2021. The rise has been driven by rising demand for light distillates used in the petrochemical industry.
Investors are bidding up shares of energy companies, making the sector the best performer on the S&P 500 so far in 2022. Chevron Corp. has gained 9.9% and Exxon Mobil Corp. 17%.
Gasoline prices are rising, adding to inflationary pressures and complicating matters for President Biden, who released crude from the strategic reserve in the fall in an attempt to help drivers facing sticker shock. National average gasoline prices stand at $3.314 a gallon, according to AAA, up from $2.386 a year ago.
It isn’t just crude futures that are rising. In the physical oil market, prices have jumped for grades of crude such as Forties, produced in the North Sea, and Nigeria’s Bonny Light, a sign that traders and refiners are snapping up barrels in a tightening market.
The market “perceives a capacity crunch could happen later in the year and is trying to get ahead of that,” said Paul Horsnell, head of commodities strategy at Standard Chartered. He said traders worry energy exports from Russia will take a hit from tensions with the U.S. over troops at the border with Ukraine, and are also concerned by attacks on the United Arab Emirates.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they were behind aerial attacks that killed three people in the top-10 crude producer Monday. One of the strikes hit fuel trucks at Musaffah, near a major depot owned by Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., known as Adnoc, about 15 miles from the center of Abu Dhabi where trucks stock up on gasoline and diesel to distribute to forecourts.
The attacks showed the Houthis are willing to strike in the heart of a country seen as the region’s main hub for international business. U.S., European and Israeli defense officials say the growing ability of Iran and its allies to deploy drones is changing the security equation in the Middle East.
Adnoc is working closely with authorities to determine what happened, a spokesman said. The state-owned company said in November it was investing almost $6 billion to raise production capacity to 5 million barrels a day, part of an effort to sell as much crude as possible before demand dries up.
Also pushing oil prices higher, a shortage of natural gas outside the U.S. has boosted demand for fuel oil. Analysts at Goldman Sachs Group this week said gas-to-oil switching at power stations in Europe and Asia raised oil demand by half a million barrels a day in December. They forecast a further 300,000 barrel increase each day in January and February and figure demand for crude will reach record highs this year and next.
Spot prices for crude have risen above prices for oil further in the future, showing traders are willing to pay up to secure tight supplies immediately. Futures for U.S. crude to be delivered next month cost $9.75 a barrel more than those for crude to be delivered 12 months later Tuesday, among the highest premiums of the past 10 years.
Higher spot prices can add momentum to commodity markets by encouraging investors seeking a kind of return known as roll yield to buy futures contracts.
Write to Joe Wallace at joe.wallace@wsj.com
Oil Prices Hit Seven-Year High on Rising Geopolitical Tensions - WSJ
danielboon
TB Fanatic
northern watch
TB Fanatic
The time of crisis for Turkey & Russia: The USA sold Greece and East-Med for Ankara to close the Straits to Russian ships! And the French ambassador "kills" the East Med pipeline.
18/01/2022 - 15:48
War News 24 / 7
Columnist: Vassilis Kapoulas
Britain, the U.S. and France promised the Turkish ULA, H.Akar, the cancellation of the East-Med in order for Turkey to help in the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine by closing the Bosporus Straits to Russian ships!
Russian sources point out that "a meeting of US-British-Turkish officials was held recently" on the Ukrainian Issue.
It is no coincidence that at this stage and with a view to 2024, the East-Med pipeline is "frozen" but not 100% cancelled.
It temporarily freezes all discussions on the pipeline due to the impending Russian-Ukrainian conflagration and NATO's demand that Turkey implement 'Plan B' .
What's that? The closure of the Straits to Russian warships and merchant ships. The latter looks set to be part of a package of economic sanctions.
And the French ambassador "kills" the East Med pipeline...
Another country seems to appreciate that the East Med pipeline is no longer economically viable as after the US non-paper, the French Ambassador to Greece, Patrick Mezonav, made it clear that Paris believes that "economic conditions support the search for other sources of energy supply".
"East Med remains a project of interest, but today economic conditions are suggesting the search for other ways of supplying energy, notably electricity interconnection or liquefied natural gas. There is no intention to make East Med a strategic or political affair, but to look only at the facts that show that economically it makes more sense to promote other projects," the French ambassador said during a briefing in the Greek press on Monday afternoon on the occasion of the French presidency's assumption of the European Council.
At the same time, when asked about the possibility of a crisis in Anat. In the midst of the French Presidency, he replied that "today I have no evidence that would lead me to the thought that we are going into a crisis in Anat.
Mediterranean", recalling, at the same time, "the events that took place recently, to which France reacted and did so in a stable and clear way by supporting Greece and Cyprus".
US-UK requirements and offers
"Turkey will close the Bosphorus Strait to Russian ships in case hostilities begin in Ukraine.
Moscow believes Turkey is already in negotiations with the US to block Russian ships on the Bosphorus in the event of an attack on Ukraine.
Let's not forget that Turkey is still in NATO. It is therefore obliged to implement the Alliance's mandates.
Turkey is obliged to block or restrict the movement of Russian ships in the Straits.
At the moment Turkey is discussing this issue with Britain and the USA. These are the two countries that are pushing Turkey for immediate action against Russia.
All Russian actions in Ukraine and the Ukrainian question in general are on the table.
The details of the meeting are still unknown. Nevertheless, authoritative sources say That Turkey reaffirmed its commitment to the objectives of the Atlantic Alliance.
In addition, Turkey expressed its concern about a possible escalation of the conflict in Donbass.
The closure of the Straits had been discussed again as a measure against Russia a few years before, when again there was a risk of an immediate Russian-Ukrainian conflict," Russian sources said.
Reports say that it is Hulusi Akar himself who is handling the negotiations on the part of Turkey, not M. Çavusoglu and Erdogan.
However, Turkey will lose points with whatever choice it makes. The time of crisis is approaching for Ankara.
The time of crisis for Turkey & Russia: The USA sold Greece and East-Med for Ankara to close the Straits to Russian ships! - WarNews247
18/01/2022 - 15:48
War News 24 / 7
Columnist: Vassilis Kapoulas
Britain, the U.S. and France promised the Turkish ULA, H.Akar, the cancellation of the East-Med in order for Turkey to help in the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine by closing the Bosporus Straits to Russian ships!
Russian sources point out that "a meeting of US-British-Turkish officials was held recently" on the Ukrainian Issue.
It is no coincidence that at this stage and with a view to 2024, the East-Med pipeline is "frozen" but not 100% cancelled.
It temporarily freezes all discussions on the pipeline due to the impending Russian-Ukrainian conflagration and NATO's demand that Turkey implement 'Plan B' .
What's that? The closure of the Straits to Russian warships and merchant ships. The latter looks set to be part of a package of economic sanctions.
And the French ambassador "kills" the East Med pipeline...
Another country seems to appreciate that the East Med pipeline is no longer economically viable as after the US non-paper, the French Ambassador to Greece, Patrick Mezonav, made it clear that Paris believes that "economic conditions support the search for other sources of energy supply".
"East Med remains a project of interest, but today economic conditions are suggesting the search for other ways of supplying energy, notably electricity interconnection or liquefied natural gas. There is no intention to make East Med a strategic or political affair, but to look only at the facts that show that economically it makes more sense to promote other projects," the French ambassador said during a briefing in the Greek press on Monday afternoon on the occasion of the French presidency's assumption of the European Council.
At the same time, when asked about the possibility of a crisis in Anat. In the midst of the French Presidency, he replied that "today I have no evidence that would lead me to the thought that we are going into a crisis in Anat.
Mediterranean", recalling, at the same time, "the events that took place recently, to which France reacted and did so in a stable and clear way by supporting Greece and Cyprus".
US-UK requirements and offers
- Turkey to supply Ukraine with human resources (jihadists, etc.)
- To continuously provide logistical support to the Ukrainian Armed Forces
- Imposition of a naval blockade on Russian ships through the Straits
- Cancel Turkish Stream
- Ratification of East-Med
- Support for NATO's aeronautical forces in the Black Sea.
- Implementation of the Turkish-Libyan Memorandum
"Turkey will close the Bosphorus Strait to Russian ships in case hostilities begin in Ukraine.
Moscow believes Turkey is already in negotiations with the US to block Russian ships on the Bosphorus in the event of an attack on Ukraine.
Let's not forget that Turkey is still in NATO. It is therefore obliged to implement the Alliance's mandates.
Turkey is obliged to block or restrict the movement of Russian ships in the Straits.
At the moment Turkey is discussing this issue with Britain and the USA. These are the two countries that are pushing Turkey for immediate action against Russia.
All Russian actions in Ukraine and the Ukrainian question in general are on the table.
The details of the meeting are still unknown. Nevertheless, authoritative sources say That Turkey reaffirmed its commitment to the objectives of the Atlantic Alliance.
In addition, Turkey expressed its concern about a possible escalation of the conflict in Donbass.
The closure of the Straits had been discussed again as a measure against Russia a few years before, when again there was a risk of an immediate Russian-Ukrainian conflict," Russian sources said.
Reports say that it is Hulusi Akar himself who is handling the negotiations on the part of Turkey, not M. Çavusoglu and Erdogan.
However, Turkey will lose points with whatever choice it makes. The time of crisis is approaching for Ankara.
The time of crisis for Turkey & Russia: The USA sold Greece and East-Med for Ankara to close the Straits to Russian ships! - WarNews247
northern watch
TB Fanatic
War News 24 / 7 reports seem to be taken from other sources.
Having said that, if Turkey closes the Bosporus Straits to Russian ships if Russia invades the Ukraine then we are truly into a major war.
Having said that, if Turkey closes the Bosporus Straits to Russian ships if Russia invades the Ukraine then we are truly into a major war.
CaryC
Has No Life - Lives on TB
That is probably true.
What they used was coal, and wood, and they have long moved away from that.
CaryC
Has No Life - Lives on TB
I was wondering the same thing.
For those who may not know the USS Nevada is a submarine, that just surfaced, and docked ...in Guam (?).
What’s the big deal? Guam is the location of a large naval base, airbases, and Army, Marine, and Air Force bases, as well as strong infrastructure. It is an enemy’s nightmare- until it isn’t. You can be sure that our enemies have Guam bore-sighted. As tensions rise with China, more forces and capabilities will be funneled there. One would hope that our best defensive technologies would find a home there, as well as strongest offensive capabilities. Just remember, Guam is an island. Last time I was there, it couldn’t move. It could be swarmed. An enemy would most likely have to use extensive resources to take it out. However…
OA
CaryC
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Because the same idiots that masterminded the evac from Afghanistan, are still in charge.
northern watch
TB Fanatic
CaryC
Has No Life - Lives on TB
A lot of what this guy says is true. Going back into the historical aspects.An article by the Defence Secretary on the situation in Ukraine
Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace discusses NATO, Ukraine and Russia.
From: Ministry of Defence Published 17 January 2022
Defence Secretary in Olsztyn, Poland.
I have lost count of how many times recently I have to had to explain the meaning of the English term “straw man” to my European allies. That is because the best living, breathing “straw man” at the moment is the Kremlin’s claim to be under threat from NATO. In recent weeks the Russian Defence Minister’s comment that the US is “preparing a provocation with chemical components in eastern Ukraine” has made that “straw man” even bigger.
It is obviously the Kremlin’s desire that we all engage with this bogus allegation, instead of challenging the real agenda of the President of the Russian Federation. An examination of the facts rapidly puts a match to the allegations against NATO.
First, NATO is, to its core, defensive in nature. At the heart of the organisation is Article 5 that obliges all members to come to the aid of a fellow member if it is under attack. No ifs and no buts. Mutual self-defence is NATO’s cornerstone. This obligation protects us all. Allies from as far apart as Turkey and Norway; or as close as Latvia and Poland all benefit from the pact and are obliged to respond. It is a truly defensive alliance.
Second, former Soviet states have not been expanded ‘into’ by NATO, but joined at their own request. The Kremlin attempts to present NATO as a Western plot to encroach upon its territory, but in reality the growth in Alliance membership is the natural response of those states to its own malign activities and threats.
Third, the allegation that NATO is seeking to encircle the Russian Federation is without foundation. Only five of the thirty allies neighbour Russia, with just 1/16th of its borders abutted by NATO. If the definition of being surrounded is 6% of your perimeter being blocked then no doubt the brave men who fought at Arnhem or Leningrad in the Second World War would have something strong to say about it.
It is not the disposition of NATO forces but the appeal of its values that actually threatens the Kremlin. Just as we know that its actions are really about what President Putin’s interpretation of history is and his unfinished ambitions for Ukraine.
We know that because last summer he published, via the official Government website, his own article “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”. I urge you to read it, if you have time, because while it is comprehensive on his arguments it is short on accuracy and long on contradictions.
We should all worry because what flows from the pen of President Putin himself is a seven-thousand-word essay that puts ethnonationalism at the heart of his ambitions. Not the narrative now being peddled. Not the straw man of NATO encroachment. It provides the skewed and selective reasoning to justify, at best, the subjugation of Ukraine and at worse the forced unification of that sovereign country.
President Putin’s article completely ignores the wishes of the citizens of Ukraine, while evoking that same type of ethnonationalism which played out across Europe for centuries and still has the potential to awaken the same destructive forces of ancient hatred. Readers will not only be shocked at the tone of the article but they will also be surprised at how little NATO is mentioned. After all, is NATO ‘expansionism’ not the fountain of all the Kremlin’s concerns? In fact, just a single paragraph is devoted to NATO.
The essay makes in it three claims. One: that the West seeks to use division to “rule” Russia. Two: that anything other than a single nation of Great Russia, Little Russia and White Russia (Velikorussians, Malorussians, Belorussians) in the image advanced in the 17th Century is an artificial construct and defies the desires of a single people, with a single language and church. Third, that anyone who disagrees does so out of a hatred or phobia of Russia.
We can dispense with the first allegation. No one wants to rule Russia. It is stating the obvious that just like any other state it is for the citizens of a country to determine their own future. Russia’s own lessons from such conflicts as Chechnya must surely be that ethnic and sectarian conflicts cost thousands of innocent lives with the protagonists getting bogged down in decades of strife.
As for Ukraine, Russia itself recognised the sovereignty of it as an independent country and guaranteed its territorial integrity, not just by signing the Budapest Memorandum in 1994 but also its Friendship Treaty with Ukraine itself in 1997. Yet it is the Kremlin not the West that set about magnifying divisions in that country and several others in the Europe. It has been well documented the numerous efforts of the GRU and other Russian agencies to interfere in democratic elections and domestic disputes is well documented. The divide and rule cap sits prettiest on Moscow’s head not NATO’s.
Probably the most important and strongly believed claim that Ukraine is Russia and Russia is Ukraine is not quite as presented. Ukraine has been separate from Russia for far longer in its history than it was ever united. Secondly the charge that all peoples in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are descendants of the ‘Ancient Rus’ and are therefore somehow all Russians. But in reality, according to historian Professor Andrew Wilson in his excellent essay for RUSI entitled “Russia and Ukraine: ‘One People’ as Putin Claims?” they are at best “kin but not the same people”. In the same way Britain around 900AD consisted of Mercia, Wessex, York, Strathclyde and other pre-modern kingdoms, but it was a civic nation of many peoples, origins and ethnicities that eventually formed the United Kingdom.
If you start and stop your view of Russian history between 1654 and 1917 then you can fabricate a case for a more expansive Russia, perhaps along the lines of the motto of the Russian Tsar before the Russian Empire “Sovereign of all of Rus: the Great, the Little, and the White” – Russia, Ukraine and Belarus respectively. And crucially you must also forget the before and after in history. You must ignore the existence of the Soviet Union, breaking of the Russian-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty, and the occupation of Crimea. Far more than footnotes in history, I am sure you will agree.
Ironically, President Putin himself admits in his essay that “things change: countries and communities are no exception. Of course, some part of a people in the process of its development, influenced by a number of reasons and historical circumstances, can become aware of itself as a separate nation at a certain moment. How should we treat that? There is only one answer: with respect!” However, he then goes on to discard some of those “historical circumstances” to fit his own claims.
Dubious to say the least, and not in anyway a perspective that justifies both the occupation of Crimea (in the same way Russia occupied Crimea in 1783 in defiance of the Russo-Turkish Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji in 1774) or any further invasion of modern Ukraine, as an independent sovereign country.
The last charge against the West by many in the Russian Government is that those who disagree with the Kremlin are somehow Russophobes. Leaving aside that GRU officers deployed nerve agents on British streets or that cyber hacking and targeted assassinations emanate from the Russian state, nothing could be further than the truth.
Russia and the UK share a deep and often mutually beneficial history. Our allegiances helped to finally defeat Napoleon and later Hitler. Outside of conflict, across the centuries we shared technology, medicine and culture. During the 18th Century Russia and Britain were deeply tied. Between 1704 to 1854, from age of Peter the Great through Catherine the Great and well into the 19th Century the British were to be found as admirals, generals, surgeons, and architects at the highest level of the Russian Court. The father of the Russian Navy – one Samuel Greig – was born in Inverkeithing in Fife.
That shared admiration is still true today. The British Government is not in dispute with Russia and the Russian people – far from it – but it does take issue with the malign activity of the Kremlin.
So, if one cold January or February night Russian Military forces once more cross into sovereign Ukraine, ignore the ‘straw man’ narratives and ‘false flag’ stories of NATO aggression and remember the President of Russia’s own words in that essay from last summer. Remember it and ask yourself what it means, not just for Ukraine, but for all of us in Europe. What it means the next time…
An article by the Defence Secretary on the situation in Ukraine
Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace discusses NATO, Ukraine and Russia.
The last Czar Nicholaus, and King George V looked to be identical twins. But weren't.
All of the rulers of Europe had a single Grandmother Queen Victoria, at that time. (WWI)
King George V changed his name from the German Hanover to Windsor in 1917 due to WWI, and the battle between Germany and England. The Russian Czar and the King of England were quite close.
What Putin says may not be correct, but the view that NATO as a strictly defensive organization, while true today is only true until it isn't.
Tanks sitting on a border can be viewed as defensive in nature, until they invade. As NATO is accusing Russia of doing now. (meaning Russia is saying their tanks are there in only a defensive mode, while the world thinks its there for offence. Which is the same language this guy is using.)
So while they guy may be getting his history right, that doesn't mean his heart is pure.
CaryC
Has No Life - Lives on TB
US Scrambles For 'Contingency Plans' From Energy Firms On Gas Supply Crunch Amid Russia-Ukraine Crisis
It appears that both Washington and Kiev are still convinced that Russia is preparing a military offensive against Ukraine to happen at some point by the close of January. Despite Western estimates echoed over the past couple months that some 100,000 Russian troops are currently near the border, Moscow has been vehement in its denial that it's planning any kind of invasion.
But Moscow is pointing the finger right back at NATO, with on Sunday Putin's spokesman admitting Russian troops are on the border because it can no longer "tolerate" NATO's own "gradual invasion" of Ukraine.
Image source: Bloomberg News
Sunday comments by Dmitry Peskov were firm in their denunciation of NATO's continued expansion right up to Russia's doorstep. "Unfortunately, not fixed in a juridical, in a legally binding guaranteeing document, but it — there was a guarantee that NATO would never... expand its military infrastructure or political infrastructure eastwards," Peskov told CNN.
"Unfortunately, the opposite thing started to happen since then, and NATO's military infrastructure started to get closer and closer to the borders of the Russian Federation," he added. Russia now sees its national security as directly threatened and "endangered" - the Kremlin spokesman added.
Within the past days of ratcheting tit-for-tat accusations, it's also been revealed that the Biden administration is seeking to reassure European partners of 'contingency plans' should a Ukraine-Russia conflict disrupt the transfer of energy supplies to the European Union. Russia is source fpr up to one-third of all of Europe's critical gas supplies.
The Biden White House is still threatening severe sanctions, which also holds the potential for Russia using its energy supplies as a retaliatory weapon. Reuters revealed in its weekend reporting that "State Department officials approached the companies to ask where additional supplies might come from if they were needed, two industry sources familiar with the discussions told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter."
"The companies told the U.S. government officials that global gas supplies are tight and that there is little gas available to substitute large volumes from Russia, the industry sources said" - in what amounts to stating the obvious to a US administration that seems bent on escalating a showdown with Russia.
"We've discussed a range of contingencies and we've talked about all that we're doing with our nation state partners and allies," the State Department sources told Reuters of these ongoing attempts to engage international energy companies. "We've done this with the European Commission, but we've also done it with energy companies. It's accurate to say that we've spoken to them about our concerns and spoken to them about a range of contingencies, but there wasn't any sort of ask when it comes to production."
Talks with the international companies were reportedly led by the US admin's senior advisor for energy security Amos Hochstein: "The State Department did not ask the companies to increase output, the official added." The report adds,"As well as asking companies what capacity they had to raise supplies, U.S. officials also asked whether companies had the capacity to increase exports and postpone field maintenance if necessary, the sources said."
And of the major companies which were likely approached, Reuters notes, "It was unclear which companies U.S. officials contacted. Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips and Exxon declined to comment when asked if they had been contacted. Chevron Corp, Total, Equinor and Qatar Energy did not immediately respond to a request for comment."
Should Russia dial back supplies via its Eastern European pipelines, the Biden administration would in actuality find itself with no counter-leverage, as Europe would feel the immediate pain of further heightened energy prices and lack of supply amid a frigid winter. And yet still these vague promises are being made:
Meanwhile, Germany is still trying to figure out how to delicately position itself in all of this, given NS2 has resulted in accusation of compromise from the US and other Western partners...
US Scrambles For 'Contingency Plans' From Energy Firms On Gas Supply Crunch Amid Russia-Ukraine Crisis | ZeroHedge
It appears that both Washington and Kiev are still convinced that Russia is preparing a military offensive against Ukraine to happen at some point by the close of January. Despite Western estimates echoed over the past couple months that some 100,000 Russian troops are currently near the border, Moscow has been vehement in its denial that it's planning any kind of invasion.
But Moscow is pointing the finger right back at NATO, with on Sunday Putin's spokesman admitting Russian troops are on the border because it can no longer "tolerate" NATO's own "gradual invasion" of Ukraine.
Image source: Bloomberg NewsSunday comments by Dmitry Peskov were firm in their denunciation of NATO's continued expansion right up to Russia's doorstep. "Unfortunately, not fixed in a juridical, in a legally binding guaranteeing document, but it — there was a guarantee that NATO would never... expand its military infrastructure or political infrastructure eastwards," Peskov told CNN.
"Unfortunately, the opposite thing started to happen since then, and NATO's military infrastructure started to get closer and closer to the borders of the Russian Federation," he added. Russia now sees its national security as directly threatened and "endangered" - the Kremlin spokesman added.
Within the past days of ratcheting tit-for-tat accusations, it's also been revealed that the Biden administration is seeking to reassure European partners of 'contingency plans' should a Ukraine-Russia conflict disrupt the transfer of energy supplies to the European Union. Russia is source fpr up to one-third of all of Europe's critical gas supplies.
The Biden White House is still threatening severe sanctions, which also holds the potential for Russia using its energy supplies as a retaliatory weapon. Reuters revealed in its weekend reporting that "State Department officials approached the companies to ask where additional supplies might come from if they were needed, two industry sources familiar with the discussions told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter."
"The companies told the U.S. government officials that global gas supplies are tight and that there is little gas available to substitute large volumes from Russia, the industry sources said" - in what amounts to stating the obvious to a US administration that seems bent on escalating a showdown with Russia.
"We've discussed a range of contingencies and we've talked about all that we're doing with our nation state partners and allies," the State Department sources told Reuters of these ongoing attempts to engage international energy companies. "We've done this with the European Commission, but we've also done it with energy companies. It's accurate to say that we've spoken to them about our concerns and spoken to them about a range of contingencies, but there wasn't any sort of ask when it comes to production."
Talks with the international companies were reportedly led by the US admin's senior advisor for energy security Amos Hochstein: "The State Department did not ask the companies to increase output, the official added." The report adds,"As well as asking companies what capacity they had to raise supplies, U.S. officials also asked whether companies had the capacity to increase exports and postpone field maintenance if necessary, the sources said."
And of the major companies which were likely approached, Reuters notes, "It was unclear which companies U.S. officials contacted. Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips and Exxon declined to comment when asked if they had been contacted. Chevron Corp, Total, Equinor and Qatar Energy did not immediately respond to a request for comment."
Should Russia dial back supplies via its Eastern European pipelines, the Biden administration would in actuality find itself with no counter-leverage, as Europe would feel the immediate pain of further heightened energy prices and lack of supply amid a frigid winter. And yet still these vague promises are being made:
While the above suggests some level of desperation, the US has also continued putting the option of additional sanctions on the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream 2 pipeline on the table. Putin at the same time has recently cast the project as stabilizing soaring gas prices for Europe, even as America's Western allies have charged him with doing precisely the opposite.
Meanwhile, Germany is still trying to figure out how to delicately position itself in all of this, given NS2 has resulted in accusation of compromise from the US and other Western partners...
US Scrambles For 'Contingency Plans' From Energy Firms On Gas Supply Crunch Amid Russia-Ukraine Crisis | ZeroHedge
CaryC
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Russia unleashes a politics-cyber-camouflage strategy against Ukraine
Russia appeared to unleash a three-prong strategy against Ukraine on Friday.
The first element was designed to give domestic (an underreported concern) and foreign justification to Russia's impending escalation. It came from Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who warned that the United States had not taken seriously Russian demands over NATO enlargement and the West's relationship with Ukraine. Lavrov declared, "Our patience has been exhausted. We are very patient. You know what they say about how long Russians take to harness their horses: We harness them slowly, but then it’s time to ride."
Translation: We may decide to ride into battle. While Lavrov is a devoted showman, matched against Russia's now rapidly escalating military encirclement of Ukraine, his rhetoric cannot be ignored as bluster.
The second element of Russia's strategy appears to be a Russian plot to conduct an attack on pro-Russian interests in Ukraine. Russia would then blame this "false flag" attack on Ukrainian forces or partisans, thus giving Moscow a moral pretense to launch a re-invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow hinted that it was developing such a plot in December. As reported on Dec. 30, the U.S. and Britain have grown concerned by the deployment of boutique Russian special forces units in Ukraine. Such plots are a favorite of Russian President Vladimir Putin and are centered in the Soviet military strategy of "maskirovka," or "camouflage/masking."
The third element, designed to intimidate Ukraine and possibly to deter the European Union from joining U.S. sanctions, came with a cyberattack against Ukrainian government websites. This temporarily disabled the websites in lieu of offensive messages in Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish. The attack is unlikely to be directly traced to an SVR or GRU cyber-intelligence unit, the most capable in the Russian cyber-offensive inventory. Instead, it seems relatively simplistic, designed for short-term effect and public intimidation. Considering the obvious benefit to Russian strategic interests, it is likely that nominally private hackers associated with Russian ransomware groups were responsible. These groups operate with varying degrees of subservience to the Russian state, specifically the FSB domestic security service.
Notably, this wasn't the only Russia-related cyber incident on Friday.
In what strongly appears to be an attempt to warn the U.S. of its ability to provide either cybersecurity carrots or sticks, the FSB announced that it has spent the past two months arresting a number of hackers belonging to the REvil ransomware group. Russian state media gave the arrests heavy coverage, evincing Moscow's desire to get U.S. attention.
Regardless, these arrests represent the tip of the iceberg. Many ransomware offices such as Maksim Yakubets's continue to operate with the support, direction, and reciprocal patronage of the state.
Ultimately, what we saw on Friday was a threefold Russian effort to intimidate and demoralize Ukraine and the West simultaneously and lay the political and moral ground for a military attack on Ukraine.
Russia unleashes a politics-cyber-camouflage strategy against Ukraine | Washington Examiner
Russia appeared to unleash a three-prong strategy against Ukraine on Friday.
The first element was designed to give domestic (an underreported concern) and foreign justification to Russia's impending escalation. It came from Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who warned that the United States had not taken seriously Russian demands over NATO enlargement and the West's relationship with Ukraine. Lavrov declared, "Our patience has been exhausted. We are very patient. You know what they say about how long Russians take to harness their horses: We harness them slowly, but then it’s time to ride."
Translation: We may decide to ride into battle. While Lavrov is a devoted showman, matched against Russia's now rapidly escalating military encirclement of Ukraine, his rhetoric cannot be ignored as bluster.
The second element of Russia's strategy appears to be a Russian plot to conduct an attack on pro-Russian interests in Ukraine. Russia would then blame this "false flag" attack on Ukrainian forces or partisans, thus giving Moscow a moral pretense to launch a re-invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow hinted that it was developing such a plot in December. As reported on Dec. 30, the U.S. and Britain have grown concerned by the deployment of boutique Russian special forces units in Ukraine. Such plots are a favorite of Russian President Vladimir Putin and are centered in the Soviet military strategy of "maskirovka," or "camouflage/masking."
The third element, designed to intimidate Ukraine and possibly to deter the European Union from joining U.S. sanctions, came with a cyberattack against Ukrainian government websites. This temporarily disabled the websites in lieu of offensive messages in Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish. The attack is unlikely to be directly traced to an SVR or GRU cyber-intelligence unit, the most capable in the Russian cyber-offensive inventory. Instead, it seems relatively simplistic, designed for short-term effect and public intimidation. Considering the obvious benefit to Russian strategic interests, it is likely that nominally private hackers associated with Russian ransomware groups were responsible. These groups operate with varying degrees of subservience to the Russian state, specifically the FSB domestic security service.
Notably, this wasn't the only Russia-related cyber incident on Friday.
In what strongly appears to be an attempt to warn the U.S. of its ability to provide either cybersecurity carrots or sticks, the FSB announced that it has spent the past two months arresting a number of hackers belonging to the REvil ransomware group. Russian state media gave the arrests heavy coverage, evincing Moscow's desire to get U.S. attention.
Regardless, these arrests represent the tip of the iceberg. Many ransomware offices such as Maksim Yakubets's continue to operate with the support, direction, and reciprocal patronage of the state.
Ultimately, what we saw on Friday was a threefold Russian effort to intimidate and demoralize Ukraine and the West simultaneously and lay the political and moral ground for a military attack on Ukraine.
Russia unleashes a politics-cyber-camouflage strategy against Ukraine | Washington Examiner
northern watch
TB Fanatic
Soviet, then continued more quietly under both FSB and GRU, mandates civilian flights, aircraft, be used in reconnaissance and intelligence capabilities, vis-a-vis overflights of potential adversaries. Many such “civilian” aircraft are used, as intelligence gathering force multipliers. Russians take very seriously, their need for intel, being by their very nature, xenophobic. Institutional paranoia is the norm. This behavior, as in Russian overflight of Finland, is going to continue, and as tensions ratchet-up, increase. Eventually, such flights may be pathfinders, armed, able to take-out high priority targets, deep in “enemy” territory. Think of this is the philosophy of “familiarity breeds contempt.” Perhaps this can be considered a “canary in the coal mine…”
Russians use civilian freighters AND civilian passenger aircraft, with passengers not the wiser.
OA
