Uranium miners rise after Putin says Russia should limit exports
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Democrats, Republicans want Biden to ease Ukraine weapons restrictions
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In Kyiv, US and UK diplomats offer aid but no breakthrough on strikes into Russia
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Russia's actions in Ukraine are 'fascism', says Lammy
Lammy described Russia’s actions in Ukraine as “imperialism” and “fascism”, comparing it to his own ancestors’ experience of being enslaved.
He told a press conference in Kyiv: “Putin’s barbaric actions are the latest example of a very old and evil story.
“One of my ancestors was taken from their home, enslaved, chained on a ship and forced to work for the profit of a foreign empire. He knew only too well what imperialism was.
“No act of authoritarianism is ever exactly the same, but 80 years after Stalin deported the Crimean Tartars, 240 years after Catherine the Great annexed Crimea, (Vladimir) Putin has revealed the same arrogance, the same greed and the same disdain for the rights of others individuals and nations.
“This is imperialism. This is fascism.
“And this week we have been reminded of how other authoritarian regimes are aiding Putin with Iran going even further in support for Moscow by providing ballistic missiles, a significant and dangerous escalation.”
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West’s missile go-ahead to Ukraine would hold no shortage of risks
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Antony Blinken and David Lammy’s joint trip to Kyiv, to be followed by Keir Starmer’s trip to Washington DC to see Joe Biden on Friday, has inevitably lifted expectations that Ukraine will shortly be given permission to fire Anglo-French Storm Shadow and US Atacms missiles, which have a range of 190 miles plus, into Russia.
There are no shortage of risks. Allowing Ukraine to fire western-made weapons deep into Russia could have a dramatic political impact on the course of a war mired in a grim, attritional slog that appears to be favouring Moscow, whose forces are bearing down on the strategic town of Pokrovsk.
Blinken and Lammy provided a potential justification for the missile escalation on Tuesday, censuring Iran for supplying a first batch of short-range, high-speed Fath-360 ballistic missiles to Russia, a step up from the slower Shahed drones it has given Moscow until now. Russia was likely to use the missiles “within weeks”, Blinken warned.
The Fath-360 missiles have a range of about 75 miles, according to the US. They could be used to strike Ukrainian cities close to the frontline such as Kharkiv or Zaporizhzhia, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk in the Donbas, and even theoretically Kyiv, and allow Russian to use its own stock of longer-range cruise and ballistic missiles to attack targets elsewhere in Ukraine, as it has done throughout the war.
The missile war in Ukraine may appear unceasing, but it follows its own logic of inventories, with Russia’s goal being to exhaust Ukraine’s air defences. Kyiv has already run out of short-range Buk and S-300 systems, which left its power stations defenceless earlier this year. Ukrainian sources estimate that about two-thirds of its energy generation has been destroyed, and it will not be possible to repair more than a fraction before what is likely to be the country’s hardest winter since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion.
A similar strategy will be in the Kremlin’s mind when it comes to higher-value air defence systems, notably the US-made Patriots. Biden announced the donation of four Patriot systems at the Nato summit in July, but a limiting factor is the number of interceptor missiles that can be manufactured. This year Lockheed Martin, which makes the most capable PAC-3 MSE interceptors, expects to manufacture 550.
Ukrainian sources are concerned that the number of offensive missiles the Russians can fire could exceed the world’s ability to manufacture interceptors, even if Kyiv has other air defences such as Samp/T and Nasams. One estimate circulating in Kyiv is that Russia can make 1,200 missiles a year, though reliable numbers are impossible to come by. Other figures are lower: an estimate from the Rusi thinktank puts it at 420 Kh-101 cruise missiles plus a handful of high-speed ballistics.
The key point is that as long as the Kremlin believes it can win, or can retain the initiative, in an attritional war, it has no incentive to consider negotiations. Even allowing for the surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk province, it is Kyiv that is struggling. Experts hope that Ukraine can hold on to Pokrovsk, the gateway to the Donbas, for the rest of this year, but Russia holds a force advantage estimated at four or five to one – and soldier numbers are the one area where the west cannot help.
What infuriates Ukraine is that it cannot hit back at military targets inside Russia with powerful missiles because the west, led by the White House, has not allowed Storm Shadow and Atacms to be used there. However, the signals of the last few days are that the prohibition is not absolute. Bill Burns, the CIA chief, said on Saturday he was sure Biden “will consider other ways” that Ukraine could be helped as the war heads towards its third winter.
The complication is that it is hard to imagine the US, the UK or the other countries involved in the manufacture of Storm Shadow, France and Italy, simply giving Ukraine a free hand in where it might bomb inside Russia. It would not be hard to work out if either weapon had been used, and a miscalculation by Kyiv, perhaps killing a lot of civilians, would have wider consequences. Nor are there large stocks of either weapon, prompting scepticism in the US that they could turn the tide.
An effective use of long-range missiles might come only as part of a wider military plan, if Ukraine has one. At the end of August, Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff to Voldoymyr Zelenskiy, visited Washington, where it was reported that he would present a list of targets that Ukraine believed could be effectively bombed. The complication is that such discussions appear to bring the US and the UK closer to the heart of Ukrainian planning on how it wants to attack Russia.
Ukrainian insiders have also talked about using the threat of long-range missiles against Russia to try to force an end to the war, through a “demonstration strike” that would make clear to the Kremlin that it is possible to threaten the heartlands around Moscow. It is not obvious if Moscow would react so benignly, however, which may be why Burns, starkly, said the west should not be intimidated by Russian threats of nuclear escalation, raising the possibility that Putin may do just that.
Zelenskiy argued at a meeting of western defence ministers in Germany last week that being able to strike into its enemy’s territory would help ensure “Russia is motivated to seek peace”. But the calibration has to be careful. Time may be short for Ukraine, given that a US election looms in less than two months, and on Tuesday, one of the candidates, Donald Trump, would not say if he wanted Ukraine to win.
Missile diplomacy may not have been so significant since the time of the cold war.
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Rosja grozi ograniczeniem eksportu trzech cennych surowców
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Czy jednak to realne?
W przypadku niklu Rosja jest czwartym co do wielkości producentem tego metalu. Odpowiada za około 7 proc. światowej podaży. Znikniecie rosyjskiego niklu będzie oznaczało, że zmaleje tylko nadpodaż niklu. Szczególnie ucieszyłaby się Indonezja, odpowiadająca za ponad połowę światowych dostaw niklu i dysponująca rezerwami produkcyjnymi.
Silniejszą pozycję ma Rosja w uranie. Choć jest tylko 6-7. co do wielkości jego producentem, to ze względu na wieloletnią współpracę aktywnie uczestniczy w produkcji uranu w Kazachstanie (największy dostawca pierwiastka) i Uzbekistanie (piąty co do wielkości producent). Ewentualne rosyjskie sankcje mogłyby negatywnie wpłynąć na rynek.
Najbardziej światowa gospodarka odczułaby jednak ewentualne sankcje związane z tytanem. Ten poszukiwany ze względu na swoje właściwości metal w Rosji jest produkowany w ilości około 30 tys. ton. To z grubsza około 11-12 proc. światowej podaży. Większymi dostawcami są tylko Chiny i Japonia. Jednak w przypadku tych pierwszych jakość tytanowych produktów oceniana jest często jako bardzo niska. Rosja obok Japonii oferuje najlepsze wyroby z tytanu. Stąd też w przypadku ograniczeń w eksporcie właśnie tego metalu świat mógłby zostać dotknięty najbardziej.
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Putin says Russia should consider restricting exports of uranium, titanium and nickel
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Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Moscow should consider limiting exports of uranium, titanium and nickel in retaliation against the West.
“Please take a look at some of the types of goods that we supply to the world market... Maybe we should think about certain restrictions - uranium, titanium, nickel,” Putin told Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin in televised comments to a government meeting.
Russia is the world’s fourth largest uranium producer, according to the World Nuclear Association’s data. President Joe Biden has signed into law a ban of enriched uranium imports from Russia, a trade worth around $1 billion annually.
In 2023 the United States and China topped the list of Russian uranium importers, followed by South Korea, France and Kazakhstan and Germany.
Russia is also the world’s third largest producer of titanium sponge which is turned into metal for industrial applications in aerospace, marine and auto industries but has law titanium mineral reserves of its own.
Russia’s Nornickel is the world’s largest producer of refined nickel.
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Clearing Ukraine’s mines is crucial for global food security, say Howard Buffett and Tony Blair
UKRAINE IS NOW the most heavily mined country on Earth, with up to 139,300 square kilometres of land—an area larger than England—studded with millions of landmines. It is a huge impediment to Ukraine’s post-war recovery and economic development—and to safeguarding the food security of millions of the world’s most vulnerable people. Clearing those mines will require a historic investment and new approaches to demining.
Landmines have been a problem in Ukraine since Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. However, the scale of their deployment increased significantly following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Vast minefields were left behind by Russian troops who advanced and were then forced to retreat, in some of the most productive agricultural soil in the world. The war has also led to the proliferation of other unexploded ordnance, including grenades and cluster munitions, which can retain the ability to detonate for years.
Beyond their humanitarian impact, the presence of landmines and other explosive remnants of war (ERW) poses an enormous challenge for the Ukrainian economy. In particular, landmines and ERW have forced farmers to abandon large swathes of land, threatening the productivity of the country’s agricultural sector. In a new report, “From Economic Recovery to Global Food Security: The Urgent Need to Demine Ukraine”, produced in co-operation with Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) estimates that landmines and ERW cost the Ukrainian economy $11.2bn in lost GDP each year—equivalent to 5.6% of the country’s pre-war GDP. Agricultural exports have been most affected; the TBI estimates that annual Ukrainian exports are $8.9bn (13.2%) lower than they otherwise would be owing to landmines and ERW.
The costs stretch far beyond Ukraine’s borders. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide rely on Ukrainian agricultural production. Loss of agricultural exports from Ukraine has hit the most food-insecure communities of the global south hardest. Before the war, nearly 90% of Ukraine’s wheat exports went to food-insecure countries in Africa and Asia. As those exports approach a ten-year low, it is imperative that Ukraine’s agricultural land is demined as quickly as possible to ensure the affordability and availability of food to the most at-risk communities across the world.
It will take significant funding—the World Bank estimates $34.6bn—and extraordinary innovation to demine Ukraine safely and at a pace that ensures its ability to recover economically. At current levels of funding and using conventional approaches to demining, it would take more than 100 years. To meet the Ukrainian government’s target of returning 80% of potentially mined land to productive use within ten years, funding will need to rise to approximately $2.8bn annually and Ukraine will have to set a new standard for demining that increases speed without sacrificing safety.
The Ukrainians are already making progress on both fronts. More than 35,000 square kilometres have been surveyed and marked as safe in the past year and a half, and new technologies for verifying land as mine-free are being tested and manufactured in-country. Nevertheless, the funding available for demining is still far short of what Ukraine needs.
Innovative financing models can help Ukraine tap into new pools of private capital. Two such models that have proven successful in similar development contexts were identified in a report by the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining and Symbio Impact: front-loading funding and thematic bonds. An agricultural bond market for demining Ukraine, for example, could help finance the clearing of economically productive land, with repayments made via cash flows generated after clearance. A front-loading funding mechanism, meanwhile, would use long-term government-donor pledges to raise bonds on capital markets, with the proceeds being used to fund demining immediately.
In terms of innovations in mechanised demining, the combination of drone surveys and AI technology has shown great promise in driving down the cost of demining and increasing the effectiveness and safety of operations. Using autonomous or semi-autonomous machinery with guidance systems and GPS-mapping can help speed up the surveying of large agricultural fields where landmines or ERW are suspected but not confirmed, giving farmers the confidence they need to return to land that is mine-free.
Increasing the pace of demining is a challenge of global importance and Ukraine needs the world’s support. With innovative approaches to financing and clearance, the country’s farmers can return to their land to continue feeding the world’s most vulnerable populations while helping to revive Ukraine’s economy.
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[url=https://ya.ru/images/search?text=открытия+Александровской+колонны&isize=large] Источник иллюстраций.[/url]
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С церемонией торжественного открытия Александровской колонны была связана любопытная история, а именно «дипломатическая болезнь» посла Франции в России маршала Николя Жозефа Мэзона.
Торжественное открытие монумента состоялось 30 августа (11 сентября) 1834 года «в присутствии государя, всей царской фамилии, многих русских и иностранных вельмож».
Члены дипломатического корпуса также были приглашены на это мероприятие. Однако приглашение стало непосильной тяжестью для маршала Мэзона: старый вояка, ветеран Наполеоновских войн, он не смог присутствовать на праздновании поражения своей страны в войне с Россией.
По всей видимости, маршал Мэзон долгое время искренне полагал, что колонна, воздвигаемая на Дворцовой площади, будет просто памятником покойному императору Александру, лишенным какой-либо политической окраски. Откуда французскому послу было знать, что Николай Павлович еще на стадии утверждения проекта Огюста Монферрана внес свои коррективы в замысел архитектора, став, по существу, его соавтором. Об этом Мэзону сообщил сам Монферран, спешно вызванный для разъяснений в посольство Франции.
К слову сказать, маршал уклонился и от присутствия на открытии Триумфальной арки 17 (29) августа 1834 года. Тогда он срочно выехал в Москву, где провел несколько дней.
А на церемонии открытия колонны отсутствовал якобы по причине недавно им полученной и обострившейся травмы (Мэзон, действительно, упал с лошади, сопровождая на маневрах императора Николая, так что предлог для «дипломатической болезни» был найден).
Отсутствие посла не осталось незамеченным, породив множество противоречивых слухов и домыслов. Не то, чтобы именно это стало причиной его отставки, но в 1835 году французский король Луи-Филипп направил в Петербург нового дипломата, теперь штатского — барона Проспера де Баранта.
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С сожалением и понятными пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
You thought this was bad! As a new sculpture of Queen Elizabeth II is slated, how does it compare to other infamous statues?
A bronze sculpture that was meant to depict Queen Elizabeth II had a grand unveiling - but triggered outrage and attracted mockery from locals.
The controversial statue created by Anto Brennan was unveiled in Northern Ireland on the weekend.
But comments on a Facebook post announcing the sculpture have been turned off after a slew of mocking remarks - with one person saying the Queen looked more like Mrs Doubtfire from the 1993 comedy starring Robin Williams .
However, it's not the first statue to be proudly shown off by the artist just for shocked onlookers to demand it be torn down.
Here MailOnline looks at some of the most slated sculptures depicting famous faces, from Kate Moss to Andy Murray.[/size]
A bronze sculpture meant to depict Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip and two corgis has triggered outrage as the public insist it looks nothing like them
Giant garden heads of royalty
A man who discovered a gigantic 12ft terracotta head of the late Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip for sale loved them so much he put them in his garden.
Owner Ben Bennett found the regal sculptures - complete with green hair - in a house clearance and erected them on his lawn in Windsor.
After owning them for 12 years since the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, he put them up for sale for £2,000.
'Poorest ever' statue of Prince Phillip
But in a less successful tale, it was announced in March that a statue of Prince Philip would be torn down after the city council described it as 'possibly the poorest quality work' ever submitted.
The £150,000 13-ft bronze sculpture called 'The Don', was installed to represent Prince Philip in his role as Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University.
But the City Council has issued an enforcement notice for the statue to be removed over its 'harmful material impact' on the appearance of the area.
City planners refused permission for the statue to be displayed outside a new office block on Hills Road in 2014, describing it as the worst piece of public art they had ever seen.
Cambridge City Council public art officer Nadine Black said it was 'possibly the poorest quality work that has ever been submitted to the council.'
She added: 'It is not site-specific and is a work already purchased and has no relationship to this site. It is too large a scale for the context of the space it will be located within and will compromise the quality of the new development.'
The statue was originally attributed to Uruguayan sculptor Pablo Atchugarry, but he later disowned the piece.
Greta Thunberg statue moved to where it won't be seen
In 2021, the University of Winchester proudly announced a new £24,000 sculpture of activist Greta Thunberg.
But locals questioned why she was chosen, having absolutely no connection to the city all.
Furious students slammed it as a waste of money and it became a target for anti-social behaviour.
The statue was later moved as the university insisted they did so to 'provide a more stable plinth' for it... in a far more secluded spot.
The infamous bust of Cristiano Ronaldo
One of the most memorable - and mocked - sculptures which failed to impress would be the bronze bust of Cristiano Ronaldo unveiled in 2017, that became famous around the world for its bizarre facial expression.
Artist Emanuel Santos, who crafted the bust, publicly defended his work and insisted the Real Madrid striker liked it.
He admitted it took him 15 days to complete the statue and had to work off photos of the footballer because it would have been impossible to get the 'very busy' Ronaldo to model for him in person.
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'Pets for Trump' AI memes explode on social media after ex president claimed Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs in debate rant
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Social media has been flooded with 'Pets for Trump' memes after he accused migrants of 'eating dogs and cats' during a debate with Kamala Harris last night.
The former president appeared visibly irritated as Harris goaded him live on ABC over his rally crowd sizes, his record on abortion and his criminal trials.
Trump went on to accuse Haitian migrants of 'eating pets' in Springfield, Ohio, an unsubstantiated claim that first appeared on social media.
'In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in, they're eating the cats,' the former president said. 'They're eating the pets of the people that live there.'
Harris could be heard muttering 'What? This is unbelievable' before adding 'talk about extreme' and laughing.
Social media users seized on the bizarre exchange and started sharing dozens of memes under the hashtag #PetsForTrump.
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С сожалением и понятными пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
К сожалению а.п., приходится констатировать, что адекватной реакции на предупреждения практически нет, за исключением одной-двух фантазий на тему.
Либо не поверили, либо им всё равно
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Похоже, что без «предупредительного пуска», ситуация не изменится.
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Формат видео и его приоритет говорят сами за себя.
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Одна из первых реакций на выступление с точной цитатой(без пересказа) появилась в 22.40, т.е. через 3 часа 40 минут после публикации.
«Putin warns that lifting Ukraine missile restrictions will put Nato at war with Russia»
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West risks 'war' if it backs Ukraine long-range strikes, warns Putin
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The stark warning came as US and UK officials discussed Kyiv's demand for them to ease rules on firing Western weapons into Russia, more than two and a half years into Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
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Putin: lifting Ukraine missile restrictions would put Nato ‘at war’ with Russia
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Vladimir Putin has said that a western move to let Kyiv use longer-range weapons against targets inside Russia would mean Nato would be “at war” with Moscow.
Putin spoke as US and UK top diplomats discussed easing rules on firing western weapons into Russia, which Kyiv has been pressing for, more than two and a half years into Moscow’s offensive.
“This would in a significant way change the very nature of the conflict,” Putin told a state television reporter.
“It would mean that Nato countries, the US, European countries, are at war with Russia,” he added. “If that’s the case, then taking into account the change of nature of the conflict, we will take the appropriate decisions based on the threats that we will face.”
Clearing Kyiv to strike deep into Russia “is a decision on whether Nato countries are directly involved in the military conflict or not”.
Putin’s comments came a day after the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, gave his strongest hint yet that the White House is about to lift its restrictions on Ukraine using long-range weapons supplied by the west on key military targets inside Russia.
Speaking in Kyiv alongside the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, Blinken said the US had “from day one” been willing to adapt its policy as the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine changed. “We will continue to do this,” he emphasised.
Blinken said he and Lammy would report back to their “bosses” – Joe Biden and Keir Starmer – after their talks on Wednesday with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The foreign secretary suggested that Iran’s dispatch of ballistic missiles to Moscow – revealed this week – had changed strategic thinking in London and Washington. It was a “significant and dangerous escalation”, he said.
He added: “The escalator here is Putin. Putin has escalated with the shipment of missiles from Iran. We see a new axis of Russia, Iran and North Korea.” Lammy urged China “not to throw in its lot” with what he called “a group of renegades”.
British government sources indicated that a decision had already been made to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow cruise missiles on targets inside Russia, although it is not expected to be publicly announced on Friday when Starmer meets Biden in Washington DC.
The two leaders are planning to discuss the war in Ukraine, and how it could be ended, as part of a wide-ranging foreign policy discussion, though they will avoid an intense focus on any individual weapons system, as the focus of the conversation is strategic.
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Putin will launch sabotage attacks in Europe if Ukraine uses US long-range missiles, warns expert
*** Видео опубликовано за час (около 18.00) до выступления Путина (около 19.00).
Шведы начали копировать тактику НАТО в Чёрном море?
До сих пор обсуждается история с запуском беспилотников у северных границ России. Все дроны, понятное дело, были сбиты после обнаружения, но важно совсем не это.
Перед тем, как в небе в этом районе появились беспилотники, вдоль российской границы летали два самолёта-разведчика ВС Швеции. И вдобавок важно, что именно это за самолёты.
Первый — самолёт радиотехнической разведки S102B Korpen. Задолго до начала полётов у северных границ России этот самолёт мониторил деятельность российских военных...в Сирии. Там он работал параллельно с другими самолётами НАТО, в частности, с Boeing RC-135 ВВС США, хотя Швеция ещё не была членом НАТО.
Второй самолёт, находившийся у северных границ РФ перед полётом БПЛА — (тоже шведский) самолёт радиоэлектронной разведки Gulfstream Aerospace TP 102C (G-IV-SP).
Такая тактика с предварительной разведкой хорошо знакома по действиям НАТО под Крымом и в Чёрном море в целом. Сценарий всегда один - сначала появляются самолёты-разведчики, потом появляются морские/воздушные дроны ВСУ.
Если шведы решили самостоятельно поиграть в игру «поищи дроy у своих границ», то относиться к этому нужно максимально серьёзно. Особенно с учётом того, сколько важных военных объектов находится на севере России.
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Riski kasvaa Pohjolassa kaiken aikaa – venäläiset sabotöörit kartoittavat iskukohteita koptereilla
Turvallisuusviranomaiset varoittivat kesällä Venäjän todennäköisestä sabotaasista länsimaisia kohteita vastaan Euroopassa. Ruotsissa uhka on jo konkretisoinut: puolustusyritysten alueelle tunkeuduttu väkivalloin ja droonit lentelevät laitosten yllä tarkkaillen yritysten logistiikkaa ja selvittäen mahdollisia iskukohteita.
Turvallisuuspoliisi Säpon mukaan riski venäläisestä sabotaasista liittyy Ruotsin laajaan tukeen Ukrainalle. Sabotaasin kohteena ovat energia- ja viestintäverkkoihin liittyvien kohteiden lisäksi puolustusteollisuuden yritykset, joita Ruotsissa perinteisesti on viljalti.
-Olemme turvallisuuspoliisissa jo vuosien ajan korostaneet ja tuoneet esille vieraan vallan lisääntynyttä tiedustelutoimintaa. Ero entiseen liittyy nyt selvästi kasvaneeseen riskinottoon. Otamme sen erittäin vakavasti ja toimimme sen mukaisesti, muotoilee Säpon viestintäpäällikkö Karl Melin SVT:m uutisissa.
Venäjä, Kiina ja Iran
Venäjän vaikuttamistoimet lähtevät kybervaikuttamisesta ja päätyvät sabotaasiin, jonka kohteena ovat kaikki Ukrainaa tukevat länsimaat. Turvallisuus- ja puolustusyritysten etujärjestöstä (Försvarsföretagen) kerrotaan, että jäsenyritykset ovat rekisteröineet muun muassa droonien lennättämistä sekä tunkeutumisyrityksiä.
– Yrityksen tiloihin on yritetty tunkeutua väkivalloin ja droonit ovat kuvanneet yritysten alueita ja liikennettä alueelle ja sieltä pois, kertoo pääsihteeri Robert Limmergård.
Etujärjestö on lähettänyt maan hallitukselle kirjelmän, jossa se penää valtuuksia toimiin drooneja vastaan. Tarve on myös lisäresrsseille viranomaisten ja yrityste väliselle tiedonvaihdolle.
– Ei ole väliä sillä, onko kyseessä viranomainen vai yritys, hyökkääjä etsii aina heikointa lenkkiä. Venäjä, Kiina sekä Iran ovat laskeneet kynnystä tehdääkseen omia operaatioitaan.
Paikalliset konnat kätyreinä
Mielenkiintoinen piirre Venäjän toimissa on se, että tiedustelupalvelut ovat tiettävästi rekrytoineet paikallisia rikollisia suorittamaan käytännön operaatioita. Värväys tapahtuu jengirikollisten malliin sosiaalisen median eri sovellusten kautta.
Norjan tiedustelupalvelu PST tutkii parhaillaan “useampia tapauksia”, joiden takana todennäköisesti on venäläinen toimija. Dagbladet viittaa artikkelissaan myös suomalaisiin vesilaitoksiin tehtyihin selvittämättömiin tunkeutumisiin.
hjän huökkäu.
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Дроны снова пытались атаковать аэродром "Оленья", где базируются стратегические бомбардировщики РФ.
Два беспилотника сбили в 7 км от объекта в Оленегорске Мурманской области.
Закрыты аэропорты в Мурмашах и Хибинах.
Вчера этот аэродром также пытались атаковать (https://t.me/stranaua/168965) два дрона.
_________________(12.09.2024)
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Один из БПЛА, замеченных в Мурманской области летел со стороны Норвегии
По информации SHOT, его заметили около 11 часов. Предварительно, он летел в сторону аэродрома Оленья. За 2,5 часа до этого в небе над Мурманской областью заметили ещё два БПЛА, летевших со стороны Архангельской области. По ним работала система ПВО.
Wyprzedziliśmy Francję i Niemcy. Import z Rosji kwitnie
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Największy polski producent nawozów mineralnych i drugi w Unii Europejskiej - Grupa Azoty pierwsze półrocze miała bardzo słabe. Straty finansowe, ujemne marże przyczyniły się do tego, że firma ma problemy finansowe. A jednym z powodów takiego stanu rzeczy jest wypieranie - nawet z naszego rynku - nawozów produkowanych przez Grupę Azoty.
Polska europejskim liderem w imporcie rosyjskich nawozów
Jak przyznaje Hubert Kamola, prezes Grupy Azoty Puławy i wiceprezes Grupy Azoty, Polska była unijnym liderem w imporcie rosyjskich nawozów. Aż 30 proc. dostarczanych do UE tych związków ostatecznie lądowało w naszym kraju. Na kolejnych miejscach wśród krajów importujących najwięcej nawozów z Rosji były Francja i Niemcy.
Przy rosyjskim eksporcie nawozów do Unii Europejskiej na poziomie ponad 680 tys. ton w pierwszym półroczu, nasz udział oznacza, że prawie 200 tys. ton nawozów wylądowało w Polsce.
Rosyjskie nawozy wypierają nasza rodzimą produkcję, ponieważ zwyczajnie są tańsze. To oznacza zaś, że przy znacznym osłabieniu zdolności finansowych naszych rolników, znajdują licznych klientów.
Co ciekawe, aby uniknąć kryzysu związanego z krajem pochodzenia, rosyjskie nawozy często wjeżdżają pod "fałszywą flagą". Zdarzały się już przypadki, że nawozy pochodziły z krajów, które nie dysponują przemysłem nawozowym.
Problem znany od lat, ale trudno z nim jest walczyć
Dlaczego jednak rosyjskie nawozy nie tylko mogą być w krajach Unii Europejskiej, ale w dodatku są oferowane w atrakcyjnych cenach?
Kluczowym kosztem w produkcji nawozów jest koszt zakupu surowców. W tym przypadku Rosja posiada zarówno zasoby gazu ziemnego, jak i fosforytów. W Rosji producenci nawozów azotowych (surowcem jest gaz ziemny) mogą liczyć na bardzo atrakcyjne ceny surowca. Gazprom ma bowiem problem z jego sprzedażą do Europy. To efekt wojny na Ukrainie i nałożonych licznych sankcji.
Układ jest więc taki, że Gazprom i pozostali producenci gazu w Rosji dostarczają w niskich cenach gaz do miejscowych firm nawozowych. Gaz, po przerobieniu, trafia na europejskie rynki, a więc także i rynek polski.
Z importem rosyjskiego gazu próbują walczyć firmy. Jednak część krajów UE, które nie mają własnego przemysłu nawozowego, nie pali się do tego, aby zamykać rynek dla rosyjskich produktów.
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С сожалением и понятными пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
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What Starmer’s Washington visit could mean for Ukraine
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This not-so-little spat has now apparently been settled, with the UK adopting a new phrase that qualifies the UK’s Ukraine-policy as “Nato First” – a term used by David Lammy at his London press conference with Blinken and by the defence secretary, John Healey, in his House of Commons statement on Ukraine the same day. It appears to mean that the UK agrees not to go “off-piste” in its military relations with Ukraine and accepts that Nato – ie the United States – will always have the last word.
If the joint UK-US visit to Kyiv closed that particular chapter, however, it opened another, which appeared to set up the rationale that the US – and its allies – might use in defence of any decision to free Ukraine to strike targets in Russia.
It was clear that there were two points Blinken and Lammy were concerned to get across. One was what they presented as the changed situation, now that Iran had agreed to supply Shahed drones to Russia – a development that has also drawn new US and UK sanctions against Iran.
The other point concerned what was said to be the increased incidence of hostile Russian activity affecting Nato countries. The new Ukrainian foreign minister, for instance, who was also at the press conference, stressed what he said was the growing number of Russian missiles and drones landing on Nato territory, including Romania.
It has to be said there is less than complete clarity either about the effect of Iranian drones on Russia’s war or about alleged Russian strikes into Nato territory. The latter is, in fact, a reprise of an episode in the first autumn of the war, when Ukraine called for a Nato response to what it said was a Russian missile strike just inside Poland (which turned out to be a misfired Ukrainian missile).
The likely purpose of such claims, however, is evident – as justification for a change in the conditions attached to Ukraine’s use of its long-range missiles, and the need to respond to a direct threat to Nato security. What we have here is a rehearsal of the rationale that could well be deployed by the US and the UK to convince worried allies, if and when a decision is taken on Ukraine’s requests to strike Russia.
Even then, it will not be an easy argument to have, one indication being the number of high-level meetings that have taken place in the past 10 days or so. They include the unprecedented joint appearance on a public stage of the head of MI6, Richard Moore, and the CIA director, William Burns (which was surely augmented by at least one private meeting). There was an extraordinary meeting in Washington between a high-level Ukrainian delegation and the national security advisers of the US, and the UK, as well as France and Germany. And at the end of last week, there was a meeting at Ramstein near Frankfurt of the group that coordinates international help for Ukraine.
Among Nato countries, Germany could be a particular obstacle to any relaxing of the rules on Ukraine’s use of missiles. Chancellor Olaf Scholz faces growing opposition to Germany’s help for Ukraine, as shown in recent regional election results, and has personally refused Ukrainian requests for Taurus missiles, on the grounds that they would need German personnel to maintain them and he will not expose German troops to that risk.
France could also be a problem, given that President Macron, who was once a cheerleader for more Western intervention, is now otherwise engaged in a political crisis that may or may not have been resolved with the appointment of Michel Barnier as prime minister.
From all this, it is not hard to extrapolate an all too familiar scenario. A UK prime minister setting off for the United States; the UK being feted as the United States’ closest ally, and the prospect of the UK, once again perhaps, giving the US a semblance of international cover for a potentially risky military decision.
It will be worth not only listening to the public statements of both leaders at the end of their meeting, but examining the small print of any agreements as well. And stand by, if there is a decision to free Ukraine’s hand on the use of its Western-supplied long-range missiles, for Russia’s response.
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Starmer stares down Putin as he and Biden prepare to escalate Ukraine war with missiles
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But in a message apparently timed for when Sir Keir and his entourage were over the Atlantic on their way to the US, President Putin said such a move would mean that Russia would be “at war with Nato”.
“So this is not a question of allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It is a question of deciding whether or not Nato countries are directly involved in a military conflict,” Mr Putin told Russian state TV.
But a determined prime minister told journalists on the flight: “First, to reiterate, it was Russia who started this in the first place. They caused the conflict, they’re the ones who are acting unlawfully. And Ukraine obviously has the right to self-defence.
“That is why we have been providing training and capability. And, you know, there are obviously further discussions to be had about the nature of that capability.
“What I want to do is make sure that those discussions, tactical discussions, are set in the proper strategic context of the situation in Ukraine. And there are, equally, tactical issues in relation to the Middle East, which need to be set in a context which is strategic, not just tactical.”
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He said: “We are key allies with the US, and very, very closely aligned, particularly on issues like Ukraine and the Middle East.
“There are really important developments likely in the next few weeks and months, both in Ukraine and the Middle East, and therefore a number of tactical decisions [will need] to be taken.
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Kyiv has supplies of the Anglo-French missiles but currently does not have permission to fire them at targets in Russia.
Mr Zelensky’s government has been pleading for the ability to extend the war further into Russia as a means of counterattacking and preventing further advances from Mr Putin’s forces.
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The discussions on Storm Shadow missiles follow a significant escalation in the war on Ukraine after it was also confirmed this week that Iran has transferred ballistic missiles to Russia – bolstering Mr Putin’s capacity to continue his illegal war.
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The prime minister said Ms Harris “will not be in Washington because she will be campaigning in swing states, as you would expect”
(выделено а.п.)
------------------------------------------- Не самая адекватная статья:
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Putin says West will be fighting directly with Russia if it lets Kyiv use long-range missiles
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September 12, 20248:52 PM GMT+3Updated 2 hours ago
President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the West would be directly fighting with Russia if it allowed Ukraine to strike Russian territory with Western-made long-range missiles, a move he said would alter the nature and scope of the conflict.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been pleading with Kyiv's allies for months to let Ukraine fire Western missiles including long-range U.S. ATACMS and British Storm Shadows deep into Russian territory to limit Moscow's ability to launch attacks.
In some of his most hawkish comments on the subject yet, Putin said such a move would drag the countries supplying Kyiv with long-range missiles directly into the war since satellite targeting data and the actual programming of the missiles' flight paths would have to be done by NATO military personnel because Kyiv did not have the capabilities itself.
"So this is not a question of allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It is a question of deciding whether or not NATO countries are directly involved in a military conflict," Putin told Russian state TV.
"If this decision is taken, it will mean nothing less than the direct involvement of NATO countries, the United States and European countries in the war in Ukraine. This will be their direct participation, and this, of course, will significantly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict."
Russia would be forced to take what Putin called "appropriate decisions" based on the new threats.
He did not spell out what those measures could be, but he has spoken in the past of the option of arming the West's enemies with Russian weapons to strike Western targets abroad and in June spoke of deploying conventional missiles within striking distance of the United States and its European allies.
Russia, the world's largest nuclear power, is also in the process of revising its nuclear doctrine - the circumstances in which Moscow would use nuclear weapons - and Putin is being pressed by an influential foreign policy hawk to change it to state Russia's willingness to use nuclear arms against countries that "support NATO aggression in Ukraine."
Russia is also currently holding major naval exercises with China and considering curbs on major commodity exports.
The West casts its discussion around whether it should allow Kyiv to use its long-range weapons to strike Russia as part of an answer to what it says is an escalation of the war by Moscow, which is says has received ballistic missiles from Iran. Tehran said the claims were "ugly propaganda".
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 with tens of thousands of troops, triggering the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the depths of the Cold War.
Putin casts the conflict as part of an existential battle with a declining and decadent West which he says humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 by encroaching on what he considers Moscow's sphere of influence, including Ukraine.
The West and Ukraine describe the invasion as an imperial-style land grab and have vowed to defeat Russia on the battlefield. Russia controls over 18% of Ukrainian territory.
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0.12. 13.09.24.
“The use of these missiles means NATO's war with Russia," Putin warned the West
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0.50. 13.09.24.
Putin says West will be fighting directly with Russia if it lets Kyiv use long-range missiles
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------------------------------------ Самая адекватная статья опубликованная ещё до вечернего обращения Путина.
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US, UK to announce expansion of NATO weapons strikes inside Russia
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The announcement will come just days after Ukraine launched its largest drone barrage deep inside Russian territory on Monday, for the first time killing someone in Moscow and destroying dozens of homes in the capital city of a nuclear-armed state.
The move was discussed between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Minister David Lammy during their meetings with Ukrainian officials in Kiev on Wednesday.
When asked whether “Ukraine needs this long-range capability of striking into Russian territory,” Blinken replied that “we discussed long-range fires” with Ukrainian officials and that it would be further discussed when US President Joe Biden meets UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Washington on Friday.
He continued, “From day one, as you heard me say, we have adjusted and adapted as needs have changed, as the battlefield has changed, and I have no doubt that we will continue to do so as this evolves.”
Regarding the discussions, the Guardian reported, “British government sources indicated that a decision had already been made to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow cruise missiles on targets inside Russia, although it is not expected to be publicly announced on Friday when Starmer meets Biden in Washington DC.”
When asked on Tuesday about allowing expanded strikes inside Russia, Biden replied, “We’re working that out now.”
Politico cited Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Ben Cardin as saying he “would not be surprised” if the decision had already been made. The report continued, “Wednesday’s joint visit to Kyiv by Blinken and Lammy to meet Zelenskiy would not be taking place had there been no positive decision regarding Storm Shadow, the sources added.”
The news outlet noted, “But it would be considered unnecessarily provocative to make a public announcement about long-range missiles in Kyiv.”
In other words, the announcement will take place in a proverbial “Friday night news dump” to make the fact that NATO weapons will be raining down on Russian cities appear less “provocative” and to keep this development, which threatens to dramatically escalate the war, out of public consciousness.
In a statement on X, Lammy declared, “I am in Kyiv today with @SecBlinken to reiterate our united and ironclad support for Ukraine. We must stand up to Vladimir Putin’s imperialism. Our collective security depends on it.”
Blinken framed the massively provocative action being prepared by the US and UK as a response to an “escalation” by Russia. “And we’ve now seen this action of Russia, Russia acquiring ballistic missiles from Iran, which will further empower their aggression in Ukraine. So if anyone is taking escalatory action, it would appear to be Mr. Putin and Russia,” Blinken said.
On Monday, a group of leading House Republicans published a letter to President Biden calling for the lifting of all remaining restrictions on the use of NATO-provided weapons from Ukraine.
The letter demanded, “We write to urge you to lift the remaining restrictions on Ukraine’s use of U.S.-provided long-range systems, specifically Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), against legitimate military targets deeper inside Russia.”
The letter declared that “concerns about escalation” have been “consistently invalidated since day one of the war.” It asserted, “Neither Ukraine’s use of U.S.-provided weapons in Russia nor its military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region—the first foreign occupation of Russian territory since World War II—has triggered a Russian escalatory response.”
Commenting on the reporting by the Guardian, Russian Senator Aleksey Pushkov wrote on Telegram, “The decision to strike Russian territory is clearly being prepared. ... There are too many conversations and hints about it for it to be reversed. Even if it has not been made yet, it looks like it will be a matter of days. The leak via The Guardian is not accidental. Public opinion is being prepared.”
Anatoly Antonov, the Russian Ambassador to the US, declared that Washington “continues to test the limits of our tolerance for hostile steps” and is “paving the way to World War III.”
On Wednesday, former Kremlin adviser Sergey Karaganov gave an interview to the Kommersant daily in which he urged the country to be prepared to use nuclear weapons in response to NATO attacks. “We have allowed the situation to deteriorate to a point when our adversaries believe we will not use nuclear weapons under any circumstances. ... Having nuclear weapons without being able to convince your enemies that you are ready to use them is suicide.”
He added, “The main goal of a doctrine should be in convincing all current and future enemies that Russia is ready to use nuclear weapons.” He added, “It’s high time we stated that any massive strikes against our territory give us a right to respond with a nuclear strike.”
The massive escalation of the US-NATO war against Russia forms the backdrop of Wednesday’s presidential debate in which Vice President Kamala Harris pledged that her candidacy would be dedicated to “ensuring we have the most lethal fighting force in the world” in order to defend America’s “standing” in the world.
Navy to commission first sub designed for both men and women sailors
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The Navy is slated to commission its very first Virginia-class submarine designed for a fully gender-integrated crew on Saturday.
A submarine designed and built for both genders has been a long time coming. The New Jersey is entering the fleet roughly 14 years after then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates ended the ban on women serving on subs in 2010.
Female officers did not join the submarine force until 2011, and such roles only opened up to enlisted sailors in 2015.
A commissioning ceremony for the submarine will occur in Leonardo, New Jersey, according to the Navy. It is the third Navy vessel bearing the name of the Garden State.
HII-Newport News Shipbuilding delivered the New Jersey to the Navy in April.
Female trailblazers in the submarine community include Lt. Cmdr. Amber Cowan, who became the first woman to serve as the executive officer of a submarine in 2022 aboard the ballistic missile submarine Kentucky.
Master Chief Information Systems Technician (Submarine) Angela Koogler also became the first woman to serve as a chief of the boat, the senior enlisted adviser to the commanding and executive officers, aboard the nuclear ballistic missile submarine Louisiana that same year.
Plans are underway to expand the number of submarine vessels with women.
Adm. William Houston, then-commander of Naval Submarine Forces, said last year that he signed a “major revision” to the Navy’s plan to integrate women into the submarine fleet. The new guidance calls for women officers to serve on 40 submarines – up from the original 30.
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С сожалением и понятными пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
Putin's options for Ukraine missiles response include nuclear test, experts say
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Ulrich Kuehn, an arms expert at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy in Hamburg, said he did not rule out Putin choosing to send some kind of nuclear message - for example testing a nuclear weapon in an effort to cow the West.
"This would be a dramatic escalation of the conflict," he said in an interview. "Because the point is, what kind of arrows has Mr Putin then left to shoot if the West then still continues, apart from actual nuclear use?"
Russia has not conducted a nuclear weapons test since 1990, the year before the fall of the Soviet Union, and a nuclear explosion would signal the start of a more dangerous era, Kuehn said, cautioning that Putin may feel he is seen as weak in his responses to increasing NATO support for Ukraine.
"Nuclear testing would be new. I would not exclude that, and it would be in line with Russia shattering a number of international security arrangements that it has signed up to over the decades during the last couple of years," he said.
Gerhard Mangott, a security specialist at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, said in an interview he also thought it was possible, though in his view not likely, that Russia's response could include some form of nuclear signal.
"The Russians could conduct a nuclear test. They have made all the preparations needed. They could explode a tactical nuclear weapon somewhere in the east of the country just to demonstrate that (they) mean it when they say we will eventually resort to nuclear weapons."
Russia's U.N. ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the U.N. Security Council on Friday that NATO would "be a direct party to hostilities against a nuclear power," if it allowed Ukraine to use longer range weapons against Russia.
"You shouldn’t forget about this and think about the consequences," he said.
Russia, the world's largest nuclear power, is also in the process of revising its nuclear doctrine - the circumstances in which Moscow would use nuclear weapons. Putin is being pressed by an influential foreign policy hawk to make it more flexible in order to open the door to conducting a limited nuclear strike on a NATO country.
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Putin has tried and failed to draw red lines for the West before, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy - who is urging the West to be less cautious when it comes to confronting Moscow - to dismiss their importance.
But Putin's latest warning on long-range missiles is being seen inside and outside Russia as something he will have to act on if London or Washington allow their missiles to be used against Russia.
University of Innsbruck's Mangott said the way Putin's warning has been shown repeatedly on Russian state television created an expectation that he would need to deliver.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, told a press briefing on Friday that Putin's message had been "extremely clear and unambiguous."
Markov, the former Kremlin advisor, said "Russia has decided to break" the strategy of "boiling a frog on a slow flame," referring to the West's incremental increases in help to Ukraine aimed at not provoking a sharp Russian response.
"The step that the West is now planning next, it's a small step, but it crosses a red line that we will actually be forced to respond to. We will consider that you are at war with us."
Sergei Mironov, the leader of a pro-Kremlin political party, said in a press statement on Friday: "The moment of truth has come for the West, whether it desires a full-scale war with Russia."
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Short of nuclear sabre rattling or strikes on British assets, more predictable responses might include Russia stepping up attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, Kuehn said.
Mangott predicted Kyiv would bear the brunt of Russia's military response if the West gave it the requested green light, and he did not expect a Russian military attack on NATO territory.
Another option would be for Russia to escalate "hybrid" actions such as sabotage in Europe or interference in the U.S. election campaign, Kuehn said.
Mangott said the danger for the West was that it did not know where Putin's red lines really were.
"Allowing Ukraine to use Western weaponry, assisted with Western satellite images (and) Western military advisers is something that very closely encroaches on vital Russian interests," he said.
"So I think those (people) are wrong who say 'Well nothing will happen, let's just do it.'"
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Biden Hasn’t Let Kyiv Strike Deep Into Russia. Could Britain Change That?
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When Prime Minister Keir Starmer swept out the Conservative government in July, he promised a new era for British politics and a reset of its relations with the European Union. One thing hasn’t changed: Britain’s bitter dealings with an aggressive Russia. If anything, the bad blood has gotten worse.
Tensions between London and Moscow spiked this week over signs that the United States, prodded by Britain, was moving toward allowing Ukraine to use Western-supplied missiles to strike military targets deep inside Russian territory.
As Mr. Starmer arrived in Washington on Friday for talks with President Biden, he and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia traded harsh words, while Russia said it had expelled six British diplomats.
The missiles are becoming the first major foreign policy test of Mr. Starmer’s premiership — one with security implications for all of Europe. Britain’s diplomatic offensive has put it at the vanguard of a broader European campaign for support of Ukraine, at a moment of deep political uncertainty in the United States, which could limit a future American role in resisting an advancing Russia.
Mr. Starmer and Mr. Biden were expected to discuss the terms under which Ukraine could get a green light to use Britain’s “Storm Shadow” long-range missiles inside Russia. Getting Mr. Biden to sign off on such strikes is critical, analysts said, for symbolic and operational reasons: The missiles use satellite data and other technology supplied by the United States.
“We want to move with the Americans on this,” said Peter Ricketts, a former British national security adviser. “We’re now in a period where Biden isn’t running for office, so he can focus completely on his legacy. Starmer wants to play into that to encourage him to go as far as he can on Ukraine.”
British officials played down the likelihood of an announcement immediately after the meeting. But a drumbeat of statements this week by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and the British foreign secretary, David Lammy — who traveled together to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky — suggested that a shift in the policy was in the offing.
That, in turn, drew a threat from Mr. Putin, who seemed to suggest that he would view this step as a de facto declaration of war. “This will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia,” he said, according to state media.
Hours later, en route to Washington, Mr. Starmer shot back, facing down Mr. Putin’s threat while saying he was not seeking war. “Russia started this conflict. Russia illegally invaded Ukraine. Russia can end this conflict straight away,” he told reporters. “Ukraine has the right to self-defense.”
On Friday, Russia announced it had revoked the accreditation of six British diplomats in Moscow — an act it carried out a month ago — on the grounds that they were involved in espionage and sabotage. Britain’s Foreign Office dismissed the charges as “completely baseless,” and added, “We are unapologetic about protecting our national interests.”
In May, Britain expelled a senior Russian diplomat in London, claiming that he was an “undeclared” military intelligence officer, and shut down several Russian diplomatic facilities in the country.
Bolstering Ukraine before an uncertain U.S. election
Britain has long viewed itself as a catalyst for military support of Ukraine by its allies. Its shipment of Storm Shadow missiles in 2023 paved the way for the United States to send surface-to-surface Army Tactical Missile Systems, known as ATACMS. Its decision that same year to send Challenger tanks opened the door for the United States and Germany to send their own tanks.
Unlike in the United States, where former President Donald J. Trump has vowed a very different approach to Russia than Mr. Biden, there is remarkable continuity on the war between Mr. Starmer’s Labour Party and the Conservatives.
Mr. Starmer threw his support behind the last government when it pledged to increase military aid in January. “We will remain united across our political parties in defense of Ukraine against that aggression from Putin,” he said, warning of the problems that fester “when politics goes soft on Putin.”
It is the prospect of a drastic change in the White House, analysts said, that drove Mr. Starmer to get into a room with Mr. Biden now. He opted to make the 24-hour visit to Washington, even though he also plans to travel to New York in two weeks for the United Nations General Assembly. Busy schedules would have made it difficult for Mr. Starmer and Mr. Biden to get this much one-on-one time at the United Nations, according to a British diplomat.
With long-term American support no longer something the West can take for granted, diplomats and analysts said, Britain’s ultimate goal is to give Ukraine the best chance to hold its own in a future peace negotiation with Russia.
“People in the U.K. are very nervous about what Trump will do,” said Malcolm Chalmers, the deputy director general of the Royal United Services Institute, a research organization in London. “What does it mean when he says he wants a settlement? Maybe even he doesn’t know.”
Those fears — that Mr. Trump could promote a peace deal with Russia that would leave large parts of Ukraine in Russian hands — have also fueled Britain’s diplomatic outreach to France and Germany. Mr. Lammy’s first stop after becoming foreign secretary in July was Berlin, and Mr. Starmer traveled to meet President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany.
France collaborates with Britain in building the Storm Shadow system, so its support is also viewed as important. In the run-up to the war, Mr. Macron worked harder than Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister at the time, to find a diplomatic solution with Mr. Putin. But France has become increasingly robust in its support of Ukraine as the conflict has dragged on.
“One of the reasons for the U.K. to have good relations with Europe is that it will have to rely on them if the Americans are absent,” Mr. Chalmers said.
A long history of distrust
For all his support of Ukraine, Mr. Starmer has also made it clear Britain is not seeking a conflict with Russia. “That’s not our intention in the slightest,” he said to reporters on his plane Thursday.
And Britain’s defense secretary, John Healey, has stressed the need for Ukrainians to adhere to international humanitarian law in using British-supplied weapons. That is in keeping with the Labour government’s broader emphasis on international law in conflict. It recently announced it would suspend the shipment of some weapons to Israel, citing a legal review.
“We’re providing weapons to Ukraine for their defense of their sovereign country,” Mr. Healey said in July. “That does not preclude them hitting targets in Russia, but that must be done by the Ukrainians. It must be done within the parameters and the bounds of international humanitarian law.”
Mr. Starmer is the first Labour prime minister in decades to face a Cold War-style freeze with Russia. One of his predecessors, Tony Blair, once spoke of his desire to give Mr. Putin a seat at the “top table,” reflecting a widely held view that Russia could play a constructive role in counterterrorism in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Still, Britain has instinctively taken a hard line toward Russia, ever since Winston Churchill warned of an “Iron Curtain” after World War II. Recent relations never recovered from 2018, when a former Russian intelligence agent and his daughter were poisoned with a nerve agent in Salisbury, England. Britain blamed the operation on Russia’s military intelligence.
Given that rancorous history, foreign policy experts brushed off Russia’s latest expulsion of British diplomats.
“This is just punishment treatment for the U.K. being cheerleaders in the supplying of weapons to Ukraine,” said Mr. Ricketts, who also served as Britain’s representative to NATO. “It’s a typical example of Russian intimidation tactics.”
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Authorizing NATO weapons strikes in Russia, US prepares major escalation of global war
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Commenting on the expected announcements by NATO officials, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, “If this decision is made, it will mean nothing less than the direct participation of NATO countries, the US and European countries, in the conflict in Ukraine.”
He added, “Their direct participation, of course, significantly changes the very essence, the very nature of the conflict.”
Within the Russian political establishment, there are growing demands for Russia to retaliate against the NATO powers, including with nuclear weapons.
On Wednesday, former Kremlin adviser Sergey Karaganov gave an interview to the Kommersant daily in which he urged the country to be prepared to use nuclear weapons in response to NATO attacks. “It’s high time we stated that any massive strikes against our territory give us the right to respond with a nuclear strike,” he said.
The US and its NATO allies are acting with staggering recklessness. The NATO powers have justified their actions by baldly asserting that Putin will not retaliate in kind to US actions.
On Monday, a group of leading House Republicans published a letter to President Joe Biden calling for the lifting of all remaining restrictions on the use of NATO-provided weapons by Ukraine. The letter declared that “concerns about escalation” have been “consistently invalidated since Day One of the war.” It asserted, “Neither Ukraine’s use of US-provided weapons in Russia nor its military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region – the first foreign occupation of Russian territory since World War II – has triggered a Russian escalatory response.”
These arguments do not stand up to the most basic scrutiny. Why would the fact that Russia has not retaliated against lesser provocations in the past mean that it will not respond to greater ones in the future? In fact, the failure to respond in the past could raise the pressure on Putin to escalate in kind.
Biden has called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “murderous madman on the march.” But why would a “madman” president be expected to respond to attacks on his cities with restraint and moderation?
When the Soviet Union stationed nuclear weapons on the island of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, US President John F. Kennedy declared that it “shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”
What keeps Putin from repeating Kennedy’s words back to Biden? “It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any missile launched from Ukraine against any nation in the Eastern Hemisphere as an attack by the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the NATO alliance.”
Indeed, there is an element of conscious and deliberate provocation in the actions of the NATO powers.
Russia appears to be on the brink of a significant military breakthrough in the Donbas and is launching a new offensive against Ukrainian troops in Kharkiv. Amid mounting domestic opposition within Ukraine to the war, the entire eastern front is at risk of collapsing without a substantial intervention from NATO.
Just two months ahead of a pivotal US presidential election, the US and NATO powers are seeking to create “facts on the ground” that would force an escalation of the war regardless of the outcome of the election.
The escalating eruption of US militarism is compelled by the deepening and protracted crisis of US global economic hegemony. The price of gold—a proxy for concerns about the future of the dollar—has increased in value against the US dollar by 3 percent in the past month, 15 percent in the past 6 months, 30 percent in the past year, and nearly 70 percent in the past five years.
Meanwhile, the US federal debt continues to balloon, reaching $35.3 trillion. The United States is now paying a staggering $3 billion per day in interest alone on the federal debt.
A substantial devaluation of the dollar would make this massive debt, together with the debts of major US corporations, impossible to repay.
In other words, ensuring global hegemony through whatever means necessary is a desperate and existential question for US imperialism, and Washington will go to any means to secure it.
As Vice President Kamala Harris said during this week’s presidential debate, “sustaining America’s standing in the world” means “ensuring we have the most lethal fighting force in the world.”
The war with Russia is part of a global drive to reorganize the world under US domination; including the Gaza genocide and war with Iran in the Middle East, and preparations for war with China. In pursuit of this monomaniacal drive for global domination, American imperialism is prepared to sacrifice the lives of millions of men, women, and children in every country around the world.
This escalating global war must be stopped! The horrors of the 20th century, including the use of nuclear weapons, must not be repeated!
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The US and Russia on the verge of open war
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The United States and Russia are on the verge of open warfare. This is the significance of the reports that the US and UK will soon allow Ukraine to use NATO missiles to strike Russian territory.
On Friday, US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer met to discuss the plans. The New York Times, reporting on the meeting, referred to the “deliberations” about a decision that “could be far more consequential than previous concessions by [Biden] that delivered largely defensive weapons to Ukraine during the past two and a half years.”
In fact, the meeting with Starmer and Biden can only be read as a final signing off on a decision that has already been made. Referring to remarks by Starmer after the meeting, the Times article stated that Starmer “hinted that he expected a decision about the missiles to come soon.”
The Guardian reported Wednesday that “a decision had already been made to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow cruise missiles on targets inside Russia.”
Starmer flew to Washington less than two weeks before he was scheduled to attend the United Nations General Assembly on September 24. Clearly, it was decided that that Labour Party prime minister had to have emergency discussions with the Democratic Party president to finalize the plans.
The meeting between Biden and Starmer took place just one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the use of NATO weapons to attack Russian cities would make NATO a party to the war, raising the threat of Russian retaliation against NATO members.
Responding to the planned announcement, Putin declared, “If this decision is made, it will mean nothing less than the direct participation of NATO countries, the US and European countries, in the conflict in Ukraine.” He added, “Their direct participation, of course, significantly changes the very essence, the very nature of the conflict.”
A vast escalation of the war, with all its catastrophic consequences, is being implemented entirely behind the backs of the population. After his meeting with Starmer, Biden was directly asked by a reporter, “What do you say to Vladimir Putin’s threat of war?” With staggering arrogance, Biden barked, “Be quiet.” These words were directed to the press, but it was a threat to the entire population: Don’t question us.
Asked the same question again, Biden replied, “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin,” before White House staff loudly ushered the press out of the room.
The US and UK are preparing to take a decision that threatens to lead to a full-scale war between nuclear-armed states. Even if it does not start with nuclear weapons, the consequences are enormous.
Whatever the timing of the announcement that NATO weapons will be used to strike deep inside of Russia, the undeniable reality is that the United States and Russia are on the verge of open warfare.
A relentless military logic is at work. The NATO powers are responding to a situation in which their Ukrainian proxy force has been exhausted and is facing a military debacle. Only through greater and more direct intervention by NATO can the entire project of the war be salvaged.
The Biden administration, however, is attempting to downplay the vast dangers posed by their reckless escalation of the war by claiming that Putin is bluffing and would not respond to NATO attacks on Russian cities.
Asked to respond to Putin’s statements, the State Department said Friday:
That’s very similar to things that he has said over the course of the past two and a half years, we’ve seen him make similar statements... So it’s not really a new statement by President Putin.
This assertion echoed the declaration in a letter by Republican lawmakers encouraging strikes on Russian cities with NATO weapons, which declared:
Neither Ukraine’s use of US-provided weapons in Russia nor its military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region – the first foreign occupation of Russian territory since World War II – has triggered a Russian escalatory response.
The claim that because Putin has not retaliated to US provocations in the past he would not do so again is false and, frankly, insane. What if this assumption is wrong?
The strategy of the reactionary “Special Military Operation” pursued by the Russian ruling class, that a limited military action against Ukraine would result in a negotiated settlement with NATO and its Kyiv proxies, has collapsed.
Now, Putin is himself under enormous pressure to respond to NATO’s escalation, and he has run out of room to retreat. A high level adviser to Putin, in a widely read interview, has stated that nuclear weapons were created to defend Russia and the government must be willing to use them.
For its part, facing a collapse of Ukraine’s military position, the Biden administration is seeking to ensure that, no matter the outcome of the US presidential election, less than two months away, the “facts on the ground” will compel a major escalation of war.
The conditions are being created for a massive escalatory spiral of war between NATO and Russia, with incalculable consequences.
This month, Mehring Books published Sounding the Alarm: Socialism Against War, consisting of speeches given by WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North to the online May Day rallies organized by the International Committee of the Fourth International that began in 2014. In his remarks to the first May Day rally, North warned:
Those who believe that war with China and Russia is an impossibility – that the major imperialist powers would not risk war with nuclear powers – are deluding themselves. The history of the 20th century, with its two devastating world wars and its innumerable and very bloody localized conflicts, has provided sufficient evidence of the risks the imperialist ruling classes are prepared to take. Indeed, they are prepared to risk the fate of all humanity and the planet itself. One hundred years after the outbreak of World War I and 75 years after the start of World War II, the struggle against the danger of a third imperialist cataclysm confronts the international working class.
Every warning made by the ICFI and WSWS about the threat of global war has been confirmed. Without an intervention by the working class and the development of mass anti-war protests, nothing can stop the march towards war.
The same contradictions that give rise to imperialist war create the objective basis for social revolution. In this sense, the strike by over 30,000 workers at Boeing, which has crippled not only a major provider of passenger aircraft but a significant US military defense contractor, is of immense significance. Whatever the immediate contractual issues, it expresses the growing opposition of the working class to the deepening crisis of capitalism of which the war itself is an expression.
This opposition must be developed not just along trade union lines, but along political lines. The movement by the workers at Boeing must become a rallying point for class action against the military pyromaniacs, and the struggle by the working class to defend its social and economic rights must be fused with the struggle against war, based on a socialist perspective.
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NATO military committee chair, others back Ukraine’s use of long range weapons to hit Russia
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The head of NATO’s military committee said Saturday that Ukraine has the solid legal and military right to strike deep inside Russia to gain combat advantage — reflecting the beliefs of a number of U.S. allies — even as the Biden administration balks at allowing Kyiv to do so using American-made weapons.
“Every nation that is attacked has the right to defend itself. And that right doesn’t stop at the border of your own nation,” said Adm. Rob Bauer, speaking at the close of the committee’s annual meeting, also attended by U.S. Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Bauer, of Netherlands, also added that nations have the sovereign right to put limits on the weapons they send to Ukraine. But, standing next to him at a press briefing, Lt. Gen. Karel Řehka, chief of the General Staff of the Czech Armed Forces, made it clear his nation places no such weapons restrictions on Kyiv.
“We believe that the Ukrainians should decide themselves how to use it,” Řehka said.
Their comments came as U.S. President Joe Biden is weighing whether to allow Ukraine to use American-provided long-range weapons to hit deep into Russia. And they hint at the divisions over the issue.
Biden met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday, after this week’s visit to Kyiv by their top diplomats, who came under fresh pressure to loosen weapons restrictions. U.S. officials familiar with discussions said they believed Starmer was seeking Biden’s approval to allow Ukraine to use British Storm Shadow missiles for expanded strikes in Russia.
Biden’s approval may be needed because Storm Shadow components are made in the U.S. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to share the status of private conversations, said they believed Biden would be amenable, but there has been no decision announced yet.
Providing additional support and training for Ukraine was a key topic at the NATO chiefs’ meeting, but it wasn’t clear Saturday if the debate over the U.S. restrictions was discussed.
Many of the European nations have been vigorously supportive of Ukraine in part because they worry about being the next victim of an empowered Russia.
At the opening of the meeting, Czech Republic President Petr Pavel broadly urged the military chiefs gathered in the room to be ”bold and open in articulating your assessments and recommendations. The rounder and the softer they are, the less they will be understood by the political level.”
The allies, he said, must “take the right steps and the right decisions to protect our countries and our way of life.”
The military leaders routinely develop plans and recommendations that are then sent to the civilian NATO defense secretaries for discussion and then on to the nations’ leaders in the alliance.
The U.S. allows Ukraine to use American-provided weapons in cross-border strikes to counter attacks by Russian forces. But it doesn’t allow Kyiv to fire long-range missiles, such as the ATACMS, deep into Russia. The U.S. has argued that Ukraine has drones that can strike far and should use ATACMS judiciously because they only have a limited number.
Ukraine has increased its pleas with Washington to lift the restrictions, particularly as winter looms and Kyiv worries about Russian gains during the colder months.
“You want to weaken the enemy that attacks you in order to not only fight the arrows that come your way, but also attack the archer that is, as we see, very often operating from Russia proper into Ukraine,” said Bauer. “So militarily, there’s a good reason to do that, to weaken the enemy, to weaken its logistic lines, fuel, ammunition that comes to the front. That is what you want to stop, if at all possible.”
Brown, for his part, told reporters traveling with him to the meeting that the U.S. policy on long-range weapons remains in place.
But, he added, “by the same token, what we want to do is — regardless of that policy — we want to continue to make Ukraine successful with the capabilities that have been provided” by the U.S. and other nations in the coalition, as well as the weapons Kyiv has been able to build itself.
“They’ve proven themselves fairly effective in building out uncrewed aerial vehicles, in building out drones,” Brown told reporters traveling with him to meetings in Europe.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has made similar points, arguing that one weapons system won’t determine success in the war.
“There are a number of things that go into the overall equation as to whether or not you know you want to provide one capability or another,” Austin said Friday. “There is no silver bullet when it comes to things like this.”
He also noted that Ukraine has already been able to strike inside Russia with its own internally produced systems, including drones.
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Putin's options for Ukraine missiles response include nuclear test, experts say
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Vladimir Putin's options to retaliate if the West lets Ukraine use its long-range missiles to strike Russia could include striking British military assets near Russia or, in extremis, conducting a nuclear test to show intent, three analysts said.
As East-West tensions over Ukraine enter a new and dangerous phase, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and U.S. President Joe Biden are holding talks in Washington on Friday on whether to allow Kyiv to use long-range U.S. ATACMS or British Storm Shadow missiles against targets in Russia.
President Putin, in his clearest warning yet, said on Thursday that the West would be directly fighting Russia if it went ahead with such a move, which he said would alter the nature of the conflict.
He promised an "appropriate" response but did not say what it would entail. In June, however, he spoke of the option of arming the West's enemies with Russian weapons to strike Western targets abroad, and of deploying conventional missiles within striking distance of the United States and its European allies.
Ulrich Kuehn, an arms expert at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy in Hamburg, said he did not rule out Putin choosing to send some kind of nuclear message - for example testing a nuclear weapon in an effort to cow the West.
"This would be a dramatic escalation of the conflict," he said in an interview. "Because the point is, what kind of arrows has Mr Putin then left to shoot if the West then still continues, apart from actual nuclear use?"
Russia has not conducted a nuclear weapons test since 1990, the year before the fall of the Soviet Union, and a nuclear explosion would signal the start of a more dangerous era, Kuehn said, cautioning that Putin may feel he is seen as weak in his responses to increasing NATO support for Ukraine.
"Nuclear testing would be new. I would not exclude that, and it would be in line with Russia shattering a number of international security arrangements that it has signed up to over the decades during the last couple of years," he said.
Gerhard Mangott, a security specialist at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, said in an interview he also thought it was possible, though in his view not likely, that Russia's response could include some form of nuclear signal.
"The Russians could conduct a nuclear test. They have made all the preparations needed. They could explode a tactical nuclear weapon somewhere in the east of the country just to demonstrate that (they) mean it when they say we will eventually resort to nuclear weapons."
Russia's U.N. ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the U.N. Security Council on Friday that NATO would "be a direct party to hostilities against a nuclear power," if it allowed Ukraine to use longer range weapons against Russia.
"You shouldn’t forget about this and think about the consequences," he said.
Russia, the world's largest nuclear power, is also in the process of revising its nuclear doctrine - the circumstances in which Moscow would use nuclear weapons. Putin is being pressed by an influential foreign policy hawk to make it more flexible in order to open the door to conducting a limited nuclear strike on a NATO country.
BRITISH BLOWBACK
In the case of Britain, Moscow was likely to declare that London had gone from a hybrid proxy war with Russia to direct armed aggression if it allows Kyiv to fire Storm Shadow missiles at Russia, former Kremlin adviser Sergei Markov said on social media platform Telegram on Friday.
Russia was likely to close the British embassy in Moscow and its own in London, strike British drones and warplanes close to Russia, for example over the Black Sea, and possibly fire missiles at F-16 warplanes that carry the Storm Shadows at their bases in Romania and Poland, Markov predicted.
Putin has tried and failed to draw red lines for the West before, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy - who is urging the West to be less cautious when it comes to confronting Moscow - to dismiss their importance.
But Putin's latest warning on long-range missiles is being seen inside and outside Russia as something he will have to act on if London or Washington allow their missiles to be used against Russia.
University of Innsbruck's Mangott said the way Putin's warning has been shown repeatedly on Russian state television created an expectation that he would need to deliver.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, told a press briefing on Friday that Putin's message had been "extremely clear and unambiguous."
Markov, the former Kremlin advisor, said "Russia has decided to break" the strategy of "boiling a frog on a slow flame," referring to the West's incremental increases in help to Ukraine aimed at not provoking a sharp Russian response.
"The step that the West is now planning next, it's a small step, but it crosses a red line that we will actually be forced to respond to. We will consider that you are at war with us."
Sergei Mironov, the leader of a pro-Kremlin political party, said in a press statement on Friday: "The moment of truth has come for the West, whether it desires a full-scale war with Russia."
UKRAINE ESCALATION
Short of nuclear sabre rattling or strikes on British assets, more predictable responses might include Russia stepping up attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, Kuehn said.
Mangott predicted Kyiv would bear the brunt of Russia's military response if the West gave it the requested green light, and he did not expect a Russian military attack on NATO territory.
Another option would be for Russia to escalate "hybrid" actions such as sabotage in Europe or interference in the U.S. election campaign, Kuehn said.
Mangott said the danger for the West was that it did not know where Putin's red lines really were.
"Allowing Ukraine to use Western weaponry, assisted with Western satellite images (and) Western military advisers is something that very closely encroaches on vital Russian interests," he said.
"So I think those (people) are wrong who say 'Well nothing will happen, let's just do it.'"
(This story has been refiled to fix a typo in the headline)
The name’s Bond... ‘Biffy’ Bond? The real-life sailor, spy and friend of Ian Fleming who ‘inspired 007’
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“The name is Dunderdale, ‘Biffy’ Wilfred Dunderdale,” doesn’t quite have the same steely ring as “Bond, James Bond”, but a new book suggests that 007 was based on this improbably named sailor, spy and best friend of Ian Fleming.
The claims are made in a biography of Wilfred Dunderdale by Colonel Tim Spicer, a veteran British army soldier and adventurer who once led the biggest private army in Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and Sierra Leone.
“Biffy was a gentleman sailor, brave, eccentric and at the centre of international spy-craft, it makes him the perfect role model for 007,” said Spicer, who spent three years researching this unsung hero for his book, A Suspicion of Spies, published this week.
The absurd nickname Biffy stems from his fast right hook, perfected in the waterfront bars of Odessa, where he was born. He became a close friend of Ian Fleming and they remained in touch for almost 25 years until the novelist’s death in 1964.
As a spy, he led a colourful life with glorious Bond-like glamour and danger, allegedly driving around Paris in an armoured Rolls Royce and paying off British women in the sultan of Constantinople’s Harem with gold sovereigns before finding an escape route for them in a naval cruiser.
Born in 1899, he joined the British Secret Service in 1921 and headed the Paris station five years later, eventually playing a key role as an intelligence officer during the Second World War.
Fleming hints that Bond was based on people he knew. “My plots are fantastic, but [the] whole idea is based on truth and everything I write has a precedent in truth,” he wrote.
Circumstantial evidence that Biffy helped the Bond author can be seen in a copy of Diamonds are Forever inscribed: “To Bill, who has helped me with the next one, with affection from Ian”. That next book was From Russia with Love.
Fleming confirmed that much of the information for that book about the Soviet spy network came from a Colonel Grigori Tokaev – crucially this defector was handled by Biffy.
An attempt to kill Bond on the Orient Express was based on the death of Captain Eugene Karpe, a US naval attaché, who was pushed from the Arlberg Express in 1950. Biffy would have known how Karpe had to leave Romania in a hurry after exposing a blown US network in Russia. A Romanian agent later admitted to murdering him on the orders of Russia.
Part of the circumstantial evidence for Biffy being Bond is a gun used by Red Grant, the Spectre spy in From Russia with Love. It was based on a KGB cigarette case developed for the assassinations carried out by the Russian Nikolai Khoklov who defected to the US in 1954.
There is no conclusive proof that Biffy was the only model for Bond, but like Bond, he certainly was a bon viveur who dressed immaculately, enjoyed champagne and was a connoisseur of vodka. It is not clear if he liked his martinis shaken but not stirred, but he did drink dry martinis at the bar of the Hotel George V in Paris. He also shared his enjoyment of smoking Turkish cigarettes, using a long black ivory cigarette holder. Bond had three gold bands embossed on each cigarette, an embellishment differing from Biffy’s.
The Bond-like adventures of Biffy began in 1916 in Russia and appear straight from the pages of the 007 thrillers. The 17-year-old worked for his father, taking submarines from Vladivostok to St Petersburg for the Russian Imperial Navy. He took a submarine out for sea trials and after spotting some German ships, he gave the order to attack and sink four.
On returning to Kronstadt, breaking free from an anti-submarine net with just 30 minutes of oxygen left, he opens the hatch to find every gun in the port facing him and his crew. Fluent in Russian, he quickly defuses the situation. For this action, he is awarded by Tsar Nicholas II the Order of St. Stanislav and the Order of St. Anne, imperial Russia’s highest knighthood for military valour and ‘bravery in battle’.
Aged 18, he was engaged by British Naval Intelligence as an interpreter on account of his language skills – English, Russian, French, Polish and German. He would soon grow into a buccaneering member of the British Secret Intelligence Service in a career spanning forty years which Biffy described as “40 years of licensed thuggery.”
Biffy appears in over 60 books and websites, but no one has ever written his life story. “He was rather like a ghost one knew was there, but the apparition never stood still long enough for a clear view,” says Spicer, adding, “he was an extraordinary man – suave, sophisticated, genial and rich but also a ruthless and effective spymaster in a career that spanned the Russian Revolution to the Cold War and beyond. Certainly, the action and intrigue in his life could be taken straight from the pages of From Russia with Love, for which Biffy acted as a ‘consultant’.”
The historian Andrew Roberts gives a ringing endorsement to this Bond-buster, stating, “With trained assassins, aliases, rendezvous, booby-trapped safes, messenger pigeons, clandestine air-drops, brothels, and Gestapo raids at dawn, this book reads like a terrific movie script, but every word of it is true.”.
P.S.
Кому интересно, «007» - подпись, которую Флеминг позаимствовал у сэра Джона Ди, которую тот ставил в своих донесениях короне.
Помимо всего прочего, сэр Джон Ди, как считается, причастен к гибели «Великой Армады», которую, как известно разметало штормом…
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С сожалением и понятными пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
PETER HITCHENS: We'd barely beat Legoland in a war - yet our leaders still think they're Churchill
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In a real war, this country could not defend itself from an attack by anyone much bigger than Legoland. As my Daily Mail colleague Mark Nicol has pointed out in some superb reporting, the Royal Navy is in its most pathetic state since the Dutch fleet sailed up the River Medway in 1667.
None of our six attack submarines are at sea, so our supposedly independent nuclear deterrent (itself decrepit and under great strain) is probably being guarded by American warships.
Our surface fleet, until recently kept at a total of about 50 destroyers and frigates, is now a pitiful remnant. Down to 15 ships, much of it is silent and immobile, tied up alongside being repaired or just rusting.
The Navy’s two gigantic new aircraft carriers, obsolete before they were laid down, and given to conking out suddenly, cannot be properly protected if they go to sea and are, to all intents and purposes, great fat targets. We even have to borrow aircraft from US President Joe Biden to put on them, as we do not have enough of our own.
We are losing key men and women, as recruitment difficulties make the life harder and less family-friendly, and experienced people quit. The same is broadly true of all the forces, poorly-equipped, short of resources for training, losing good people who cannot easily be replaced.
And yet amidst all this our leaders – of both major parties – constantly beat the jingo drum over Ukraine as if we were a mighty power and a rich one.
Now Britain boldly proposes to supply Ukraine with Anglo-French Storm Shadow cruise missiles – after humbly seeking US permission to do so. Maybe this rather silly decision to make the war worse will not create a more general conflict in Europe. Perhaps it will. I remain wholly baffled about why Britain is even taking part in a proxy war between the US and Russia on Ukrainian soil. I here repeat again my invitation to ‘Boris’ Johnson to debate with me on this subject.
But if it does spread the war, we certainly cannot fight it. And where is the money to come from, in a country that cannot afford to keep violent criminals in prison, which claims to be drowning in a fiscal black hole, and which has far more potholes on its roads than it has properly-trained soldiers?
A hundred and fifty years ago there was a music-hall song which ran: ‘We don’t want to fight, but by jingo, if we do, we’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too!’
The 2024 version runs: ‘We do want to fight, but, midst all the ballyhoo, we’ve got no ships, we’ve got no men, we’ve got no money too!’
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UK 'will not go it alone' by allowing Ukraine to use long-range missiles on targets inside Russia, report claims after Putin warned go-ahead would end in 'war' with US and NATO
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Britain will not 'go it alone' and let Ukraine use long-range missiles against targets in Russia without the backing of the United States, The Times reports.
Five former defence secretaries and former Prime Minister Boris Johnson have urged Britain to allow the use of Storm Shadow missiles without American support.
And Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has called on the UK and US to move past their 'fear' and act with 'decisiveness' as momentum slows in Kursk and Belgorod.
But Britain's action is still bound by its US guidance systems, judged crucial to ensuring the missiles hit their targets, The Times reports.
The UK nonetheless expects the US is likely to support its backing of Ukraine with a decision expected next week, and the Foreign Secretary insisted over the weekend that Putin's threats of nuclear war with the US and NATO would not deter action.
'It's important that as allies supporting Ukraine, we have a shared strategy to win going forward,' Mr Lammy told Laura Kuenssberg on BBC1 on Sunday.
'We've been discussing this with the United States and with other key allies, but of course, we head to the UN general assembly, where we will all meet with in just under 12 days' time.'
Despite opposition within the United States, it is expected the US will back the plan at the UN general assembly in New York next week.
Keir Starmer and Joe Biden held talks in the Blue Room of the White House on Friday to discuss strategy on how to bring the war in Ukraine to an end, including whether to hand over Storm Shadow missiles to Zelenskyy.
Disappointingly for both parties, John Kirby, a spokesman for the US national security council, announced afterwards that there would be 'no change to our policy' on letting Ukraine use long-range missiles.
Vladimir Putin also warned the West would be at war with Moscow should this change, with many of his air bases and logistics hubs vulnerable to Ukrainian attacks if the restrictions were lifted.
According to US sources, Mr Biden has not yet made a final decision.
Despite Vladimir Putin's threats that use of the weapons would be tantamount to direct action against Russia from the UK, former defence officials and an ex-Prime Minister have urged the government to press on with the plan.
Boris Johnson urged Sir Keir Starmer to break the impasse, warning that every day's delay is costing lives.
Mr Johnson said after a visit to war casualties in Kyiv: 'It is heartbreaking to visit wounded veterans in recovery centres – as I have in Kyiv this weekend – where Ukrainian heroes are being treated for the injuries they have suffered in the past few months, and to think that some of these casualties could have been avoided if we had given Storm Shadow permissions earlier.
'There is no conceivable case for delay. The only person who fears escalation is Vladimir Putin, and every day that goes by is a lost opportunity to save lives and bring about a just conclusion to this war.'
In his most outspoken comments of the conflict, Mr Zelensky asked whether Western politicians actually wanted Ukraine to win.
He posted on X on Friday: 'It is difficult to repeatedly hear, "We are working on this" while Putin continues to burn down our cities and villages. He doesn't need anyone's approval.
'Anyone who looks at a map clearly understands why Ukraine needs long-range capabilities. Russian logistics and military sites are safe because we cannot reach them.
'We know where they are located. All of this can be destroyed in months. So what is missing to end it? Strength? Decisions? Or the will?'
Under the Tories, Lord Cameron - then Foreign Secretary - suggested it was up to Ukraine to determine how its missiles were used.
He said in May: 'In terms of what the Ukrainians do, in our view, it is their decision about how to use these weapons, they're defending their country, they were illegally invaded by Putin and they must take those steps.
'We don't discuss any caveats that we put on on those things. But let's be absolutely clear, Russia has launched an attack into Ukraine and Ukraine absolutely has the right to strike back at Russia.'
French President Emmanuel Macron even entertained the possibility of sending French troops to Ukraine to help defend the country if needed.
Soon after, Russia reopened its counter-offensive in Kharkiv.
The assault was Russia's biggest gain in 17 months, the Telegraph reported, swallowing up 250sq-km.
Russian troops made it six miles before Ukraine stabilised the situation.
The sudden incursion invited the US to concede the restrictions it had placed on only using its supplied weapons on Russian targets within Ukraine.
'The hallmark of our engagement has been to adapt and adjust as necessary, to meet what's actually going on on the battlefield, to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs, when it needs it,' US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the time.
So far, the US has allowed Kyiv to use American-provided weapons only in a limited area inside Russia's border with Ukraine.
Soon followed Ukrainian attacks with foreign missiles over the border, drawing outrage from Putin and his cronies - and threats of nuclear annihilation towards Ukraine's western backers.
Ukraine was able to launch an offensive back into Russia in early August, taking scores of villages in Kursk and Belgorod oblasts.
But momentum has waned in recent days, with Russia mobilising to halt the attack.
Trump attempted assassination suspect Ryan Wesley Routh is seen in video footage from Ukraine as his shock role in war against Russia is revealed
The man named as the suspect in a possible assassination attempt near Donald Trump's Florida golf club on Sunday posted video of himself in Ukraine in 2022 as he worked to recruit foreign fighters.
Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, claimed to have helped rally soldiers for the International Legion, Ukraine's military unit for foreign volunteer fighters, but was keen to get involved in the fighting and accepted he might not return home.
'I am willing to fly to Krakow and go to the border of Ukraine to volunteer and fight and die,' he wrote on X weeks after the Russian invasion.
Realizing he was not eligible on the frontline due to his age, Routh instead tried to recruit Afghan soldiers fleeing the Taliban to fight in Ukraine, he said in a 2023 interview with The New York Times.
A former construction worker from Greensboro, North Carolina, Routh spent several months in Ukraine in 2022.
In video footage posted online, Routh outlined his role for those wondering why he had travelled to the war-torn country.
'Most wonder what I'm doing in Ukraine. This is a center to help people when they come from other countries have a location, someone to talk to as a greeting committee to get them in the location they need to be,' he said while wearing a stars and stripes kerchief around his neck.
'We're helping foreigners be as useful as possible, to maximize their potential. Everyone here is self-funded. Everyone is struggling with money to be fuel. Any support would be tremendously appreciated,' he pleaded.
Routh, who had no military experience, outlined his plan to recruit fighters by moving Afghan soldiers, in some cases illegally from Pakistan and Iran to Ukraine. At the time he said dozens had expressed interest.
'We can probably purchase some passports through Pakistan, since it's such a corrupt country,' he said in during an interview at the time.
Writing on the messaging app Signal, Routh stated: 'Civilians must change this war and prevent future wars' as part of his profile bio.
Shortly after the war began, Routh directed an X message to Elon Musk, in which he wrote: 'I would like to buy a rocket from you. I wish to load it with a warhead for Putin's Black sea mansion bunker to end him. Can you give me a price please.'.
So dedicated was Routh to Ukraine's war effort he even helped cut the grass at Independence Square in Kyiv using scissors.
Speaking to Newsweek Romania Routh said he believed the war with Russia was a simple case of good versus evil.
'The question as far as why I'm here -- to me, a lot of the other conflicts are grey, but this conflict is definitely black and white,' Routh explained.
'This is about good versus evil. This is a storybook, you know, any movie we've ever watched, this is definitely evil against good.
'We need thousands and thousands and thousands of people here fighting with Ukrainians,' he added.
Routh told how he wanted to go to battle despite having no experience.
'My original goal was to come and fight. All of us, from the entire planet, should be motivated to support the Ukrainian army, but I'm 56 years old and have no military experience, so I'm not an ideal candidate to actually fight.
'So plan B was to come to Kiev and promote the idea of many others coming to join the International Legion. We need thousands of people here to fight alongside the Ukrainians.'
It is unclear how successful Routh's recruitment drive might have been, but at least one former Afghan soldier told the Times he had been contacted by him and expressed an interested in fighting if it meant getting out of Iran.
In an interview with Semafor one year later, Routh expressed frustration with Ukrainians.
'Ukraine is very often hard to work with,' he said. 'Many foreign soldiers leave after a week in Ukraine or must move from unit to unit to find a place they are respected and appreciated,'
Routh frequently posted on social media about the war in Ukraine and had a website where he sought to raise money and recruit volunteers to go to Kyiv to join the fight against the Russian invasion.
…
_________________
С сожалением и понятными пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
Map shows how Russia could be impacted by Western long-range missiles
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KYIV, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Monday it had asked the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to join humanitarian efforts in Russia's Kursk region following a cross-border incursion by Ukrainian forces.
Ukraine's army remains in the Kursk region more than a month after launching the assault, in which President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Kyiv has taken control of about 100 settlements. Russia's Defence Ministry said on Monday its forces had regained control of two more villages.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said he had instructed his ministry to invite the UN and ICRC to work in the Kursk region on Sunday. The ministry confirmed that it had issued the requests.
"Ukraine is ready to facilitate their work and prove its adherence to international humanitarian law," Sybiha said on X after visiting the Sumy region, from where Ukrainian forces launched the cross-borer attack.
He said the Ukrainian army was ensuring humanitarian assistance and safe passage to civilians in the Kursk region.
The Foreign Ministry said the invitations had been sent to the ICRC and UN, "taking into account the humanitarian situation and the need to properly ensure basic human rights in the territory of the Kursk region."
It said it had asked the ICRC to monitor Ukraine's compliance with the principles of international humanitarian law.
It was not immediately clear how or whether the UN or ICRC had responded.
Russia's state-run TASS news agency quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying such statements were "provocative". He made clear Moscow, which began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, expected the UN and ICRC not to accept the invitations.
A Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the Kremlin's reaction showed a disregard for the humanitarian needs of its own people and a fear of letting international observers see the situation in Kursk.
Russia's state-run RIA news agency said ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric had arrived on a visit to Moscow and planned to meet Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Last week, Russian shelling killed three Ukrainians working for the ICRC and wounded two others in a village in the frontline Donetsk region, Ukrainian officials said. Spoljaric has condemned the attacks.
Цитата:
Szwecja będzie dowodzić kwaterą główną NATO na północy Finlandii
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"Jesteśmy zaszczyceni, że zostaliśmy poproszeni o wzięcie odpowiedzialności za fińską kwaterę" - podkreślił minister obrony Szwecji Pal Jonson.
Zastrzegł, że sprawa jest na "wstępnym etapie" i musi być jeszcze zaakceptowana przez pozostałych członków NATO. Szacuje się, że kwatera zacznie funkcjonować w 2026 roku, a Szwecja wyśle do Finlandii 15-30 oficerów sztabowych.
"Jest wiele powodów, dla których zwróciliśmy się do Szwecji, m.in. dzielimy to samo środowisko bezpieczeństwa" - zaznaczył szef resortu obrony Finlandii Antti Haekkaenen.
Nowa siedziba NATO ma ułatwić wysłanie pomocy Finlandii z innych krajów, w tym USA, Norwegii i Szwecji, w przypadku wojny lub konfliktu. Zadaniem szwedzkich wojskowych będzie również koordynacja ćwiczeń NATO na północy Finlandii.
Według wstępnych zapowiedzi w fińskiej bazie w czasie pokoju nie będą stacjonować wielonarodowe siły NATO, jak ma to miejsce na przykład na Łotwie, gdzie żołnierzami z dziesięciu państw Sojuszu dowodzą Kanadyjczycy.
Inna rola to odstraszanie. Na wschód od Finlandii na Półwyspie Kolskim znajduje się baza rosyjskiej marynarki wojennej. Podobne kwatery Sojuszu istnieją już w ośmiu frontowych państwach NATO.
Szwecja oraz Finlandia współpracowały w zakresie wojskowości jeszcze przed wejściem obu krajów do NATO w 2024 i 2023 roku. Wówczas ustalono, że szwedzka brygada z Boden na północy kraju będzie w stanie gotowości, aby móc przemieścić się do Finlandii.
Według komunikatu rządu w Sztokholmie tematami poniedziałkowego wspólnego posiedzenia rady ministrów Szwecji i Finlandii są m.in. kwestie bezpieczeństwa, gotowość UE na wypadek kryzysu i wojny, członkostwo w NATO oraz dalsze wsparcie Ukrainy.
In sharing nuclear secrets with Iran, Putin may have crossed his own ‘red line’
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Prime minister Keir Starmer’s visit to Washington to discuss the possibility of Ukraine using longer range Western missiles against Russia was a damp squib, but the US secretary of state Antony Blinken’s charge that Russia has been sharing nuclear technology with Iran has raised the spectre of revived nuclear brinksmanship between Washington and Moscow.
For Ukrainians, the bad news is that Iran is providing Russia with new missiles with which to bombard it. For the wider world, the real alarm is that Vladimir Putin seems willing to drop the Kremlin’s decades-old opposition to nuclear proliferation.
Even at the height of the East-West Cold War, the old Soviet Union did not share its nuclear weapons technology. While the US provided Britain with the Polaris system (and more recently Trident), then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev refused to share nuclear technology with China, causing Mao’s split with the Kremlin in the early 1960s.
Too many Western commentators glibly charge Putin with being an old cold warrior in his geopolitical behaviour. Not so. His predecessors in Stalin’s office in the Kremlin, including the great leader himself, were ruthless but cautious.
As he has got older, Putin has become progressively more willing to raise the stakes so that he can leave behind a Russia secure from the Western-sponsored threats – as he sees them – to its territorial integrity and place in the world.
Aggression has generally been a young man’s characteristic. Alexander the Great or Napoleon embarked on careers of conquest almost 50 years younger than Putin.
Let’s leave it to psychiatrists to explain elderly aggressive risk taking, but as Putin approached 70, he dumped the caution instilled in him as a young KGB officer, going rogue. Invading Ukraine in February 2022 marked his clear break with the past.
It is true that in 2008 he sent the Russian army across the border into Georgia, but only after the Georgian army had attacked the pro-Russian breakaway region of South Ossetia, and even then Putin stopped the war after five days when his forces had routed Georgia’s. He did not go for broke by occupying the whole country.
Even in 2014, when Russia’s “little green men” swarmed out of their bases in Crimea to seize that strategic peninsula, Putin again stopped short of all-out war against Ukraine.
Now in old age, he has abandoned the international norms that he upheld after entering the Kremlin in 1999.
Back then, Putin’s Russia cooperated with the West to impose sanctions on Iran for its non-transparent nuclear programme. Why would the Kremlin reverse that policy now? Putin’s Russia also voted for UN Security Council resolutions imposing the most severe sanctions ever on North Korea, which has since flagrantly staged underground nuclear tests and launched missiles capable of reaching across the USA. Yet recently, Putin has met and dealt with Kim Jong-un, importing North Korean munitions and missiles to fire against Ukraine.
As with Iran, now the suspicion is that Russia shares its advanced nuclear and missile guidance technology with pariahs like Pyongyang and Tehran as a payoff for conventional help.
Iran in particular could speed up dramatically any ambition it has to convert its steadily enriching uranium into a viable bomb with Russian technical aid.
An ironic continuity from the hated Shah’s regime, overthrown by the Islamic Revolution in 1979, is the mullahs’ adoption of his three-part approach to getting a viable nuclear weapon, and what the Ayatollahs’ regime might be doing now as pressure mounts on it from Washington and Israel.
In the late 1970s, the Shah authorised three separate projects: enrichment of uranium, missile development and thirdly – an often forgotten vital component in a workable nuclear weapon – detonation technology to trigger an explosion. In a crisis with a neighbour, the USSR or Iraq, he hoped to be able to quickly bring all three together.
The Shah fell, but decades later Ayatollah Khamenei may be about to drop his Islamic theological condemnation of nuclear weapons. But he’ll be aware that an underground bomb test by Iran would cause a small earthquake, alerting Israel in particular to the imminence of Iran gaining a viable nuclear weapon.
What Russia can offer Iran is tried-and-tested nuclear weapons knowledge to bypass a giveaway bomb test, and so equip Iran’s military with viable warheads for its vast missile arsenal.
Some in the West say that Nato has crossed several of Putin’s Ukrainian “red lines” without him hitting back directly, so there is no need to worry now. Maybe the Kremlin just cries wolf, but Russian spokespeople have said that their country’s response to Western aid to Ukraine could well be “asymmetrical”.
That’s to say that Moscow could cause pain to America and its allies well away from the front line in Ukraine.
Diverting American attention from the Ukraine to the Middle East would serve Putin’s goals against Ukraine well. Already Donald Trump and his vice-presidential partner, JD Vance, are accusing Joe Biden’s waning administration of ignoring threats to US interests away from Ukraine like Iran and its proxies against Israel, and of course China on the Pacific rim.
Old Soviet leaders feared that sharing their bomb with allies could let them loose to cause nuclear havoc which the Kremlin did not want. Now the question must be how far the septuagenarian leader of post-Communist Russia is prepared to go in raising the nuclear stakes by sharing technology with rogue regimes. Alarmingly, only Putin knows.
Opinion
Donald Trump should be protected as if he were a sitting president
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Another chilling security threat, another collective sigh of relief — and a stroke of good fortune: an alert Secret Service agent who spotted the barrel of a gun in the bushes and fired his own weapon at the threat while Donald Trump golfed in Florida on Sunday afternoon. Still, Ryan Wesley Routh should never have been able to get between 300 and 500 yards from the former president, armed with an SKS-style rifle.
Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw acknowledged that the area was not cordoned off because Mr. Trump is not receiving the level of protection he did when he was president. “If he was, we would have had the entire golf course surrounded,” Mr. Bradshaw said at a news conference. “Because he’s not, security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible.”
This needs to change. Fifty days before a neck-and-neck election, after what are now two attempts on his life, Mr. Trump ought to get presidential-level coverage. Protecting Mr. Trump as he campaigns is as essential a part of ensuring political stability and continuity of government as one could imagine.
Acting Secret Service director Ronald L. Rowe Jr. defended the agency’s handling of the situation as “textbook,” noting that Mr. Routh never had Mr. Trump in his line of sight nor did he get off a shot. Mr. Rowe added that the agency had already significantly enhanced Mr. Trump’s security posture. “If we need to ratchet up additionally, we will,” he said.
(выделено а.п.)
It takes little imagination to recognize that the Secret Service has been stretched thin and agents overwhelmed for a long time. Serious questions remain following the July 13 assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., in which a 20-year-old sniper shot and wounded the former president and killed a rally attendee before the Secret Service returned fire and killed him. Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned in July. When Congress acts on a bill to fund the government this month, it should provide additional resources to help the agency fulfill its zero-fail mission.
Strong bipartisan support exists for doing so, even as it exists for investigating and correcting the Secret Service’s own shortcomings. President Joe Biden said he has directed his administration “to continue to ensure that Secret Service has every resource, capability and protective measure necessary to ensure the former president’s continued safety.” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) announced legislation Monday to ensure that both major-party nominees receive the same level of Secret Service protection as a sitting president. “We are demanding in the House that he have every asset available,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said on Fox News.
Mr. Routh, suspected of possibly trying to assassinate Mr. Trump, was charged Monday with possession of a firearm by a felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. It appears that he had been staking out the golf course in anticipation that Mr. Trump would play a round on Sunday, as he often does. Court documents say his cellphone was at the scene in West Palm Beach, Fla., from about 1:59 a.m. until he fled after the Secret Service shot at him, around 1:31 p.m. Authorities recovered a loaded SKS-style, 7.62x39-caliber rifle with a scope.
Mr. Routh appears to be a deeply troubled man whose unstable mind jumps from one political fixation to another. He has expressed animosity toward Mr. Trump, for reasons ranging from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol to the former president’s abrogation of the Iran nuclear deal. He recently claimed to be recruiting volunteers to fight against Russia in Ukraine. He was previously convicted of possessing “a weapon of mass death and destruction” in 2002 and for possessing stolen goods in 2010. Vice President Kamala Harris and Mr. Biden unequivocally condemned political violence and said that they’re relieved Mr. Trump is okay. That — not indulging the temptation to use the news to one-up political opponents — is the only reasonable response.
We don’t envy the Secret Service. Its agents get little credit when, day in and day out, they successfully protect the nation’s leaders. Any slip-up could be disastrous. Yet sequestering candidates and incumbent politicians from the public would prevent voters from evaluating those who act in their name. Washington is tightly controlled by cordons and barriers that separate people from their government. Striking the right balance between security and access is not easy. But it is the job. Congress should ensure the Secret Service has the resources to do it.
Цитата:
Ryan Routh, reported suspect in Trump assassination attempt, backed Ukraine
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KYIV, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Ryan Routh, the reported suspect in an apparent assassination attempt on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, visited Kyiv in the summer of 2022 to encourage people to fight for Ukraine, he told a news outlet that year.
Ukrainian officials distanced themselves from Routh on Monday, saying they had no links with him and warning that Russia would use his support for Ukraine as propaganda.
CNN, Fox News and the New York Times identified Routh, 58, of Hawaii, as the suspect in Sunday's incident, citing unidentified law enforcement officials. The FBI declined to comment and Reuters could not independently verify his identity.
"A lot of the other conflicts are grey but this conflict is definitely black and white. This is about good versus evil," Routh said in an interview posted by Newsweek Romania in June 2022. His comments suggested he was in Kyiv at the time.
Reuters video footage showed him in Kyiv in May 2022 at protests calling for international support for Ukrainian fighters. A photograph taken in Kyiv at the time shows him holding a Ukrainian flag and wearing a scarf with the U.S. stars and stripes on it.
Videos posted on X also showed Routh attending events that month backing Ukraine, including a protest held in support of the Azov brigade, which took part in the particularly fierce battle for the southern city of Mariupol.
Some four months into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Routh perceived the war to be at a critical juncture and called for more international support.
Routh told Newsweek Romania his initial goal in Ukraine was to fight but the plan did not work out because his age and lack of military experience meant he was not accepted. Instead, he turned to promoting the cause to others, he said.
"If the governments will not send their official military, then we, civilians, have to pick up the torch and make this thing happen and we have gotten some wonderful people here but it is a small fraction of the number that should be here," Routh said.
Reuters could not independently verify his assertions.
Hundreds of non-Ukrainians have fought against Russian forces in Ukraine and others have helped try to recruit them.
PROPAGANDA WARNING
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned the suspected assassination attempt, saying on X: "I am glad to hear that Donald Trump is safe and unharmed."
The Kremlin said Routh's reported association with Ukraine showed that "playing with fire" had consequences.
Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation said Sunday's incident was already a "topic for Russian propaganda" and suggested Moscow would spread conspiracy theories attempting to show a "Ukrainian trace" to the apparent assassination attempt.
"Of course, all of this is a lie," Andriy Kovalenko, who leads the center, said.
The Azov brigade's press service denied any connections with Routh, saying it had never communicated with him.
The International Legion, where many of the foreign fighters serve, also said it had no links with Routh and that he had never been part of it.
Routh told the Semafor news outlet in March 2023 that he had tried to recruit U.S.-trained Afghan fighters to fight for Ukraine against Russia but that Ukraine's defence ministry had not agreed to issue visas to them.
An official source in Kyiv said authorities were looking into his role, if any, in Ukraine. The defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Semafor article identified Routh as the head of the International Volunteer Center, which it said helped foreigners wanting to support Ukraine through military and humanitarian means.
Reuters contacted an aid group with the same name. Its founder said the NGO had no connection with Routh.
Цитата:
Hillary Clinton on helping a potential President Harris: "It's all hands on deck"
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"Together, we've put a lot of cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling," Clinton said at the convention.
"And tonight, tonight's so close to breaking through once and for all.
(выделено а.п.) … And you know what? On the other side of that glass ceiling is Kamala Harris raising her hand and taking the oath of office as our 47th President of the United States. Because my friends, when a barrier falls for one of us, it falls and clears the way for all of us."
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White House blasts Elon Musk for X post about Biden and Harris assassination
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The White House has condemned Elon Musk for tweeting “no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala” in response to an X user asking “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?”
The president’s office issued a statement Monday criticizing the “irresponsible” post, which was accompanied by an emoji face with a raised eyebrow. The White House said: “Violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about. This rhetoric is irresponsible.” The statement added that there should be “no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country”.
The Secret Service also said on Monday it was aware of a post by the billionaire on the X social network. Musk, who owns the platform, formerly known as Twitter, made the post after a man suspected of planning to assassinate Donald Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach was arrested on Sunday.
Musk, himself a Trump supporter, was quickly criticized by X users from the left and right, who said they were concerned his words to his nearly 200m X followers could incite violence against Biden and Harris.
The tech billionaire deleted the post but not before the Secret Service, tasked with protecting current and former presidents, vice-presidents and other notable officials, took notice.
“The Secret Service is aware of the social media post made by Elon Musk and as a matter of practice, we do not comment on matters involving protective intelligence,” a spokesperson said in an email. “We can say, however, that the Secret Service investigates all threats related to our protectees.”
The spokesperson declined to specify whether the agency had reached out to Musk, who seemed to suggest in follow-up posts that he had been making a joke.
“Well, one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on X,” he later wrote. “Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text.”
Harris, a Democrat running against the Republican nominee Trump in the 2024 election, and Biden both issued statements on Sunday night expressing relief that Trump had not been harmed.
Цитата:
Biden has spoken with Trump – White House
A White House official says that Biden has spoken with Trump following the apparent assassination attempt.
According to the press pool, the White House said, “Biden just spoke with former President Trump, and conveyed his relief that he is safe. The two shared a cordial conversation and former President Trump expressed his thanks for the call.”
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С сожалением и понятными пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
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На днях глава Форин-офиса Дэвид Лэмми в эфире одного из британских телеканалов договорился до того, что употребил в отношении нашей страны, судя по всему, свое собственное изобретение из двух слов — «империалистический фашизм». Наше посольство в Лондоне моментально прокомментировало этот малограмотный выпад. А я пообещала опубликовать отдельный материал о нацистском прошлом английских элит, о том, как Британия замарала себя взаимодействием с нацистами.
Ранее мы многократно обращались к этой теме, когда предшественники Дэвида Лэмми давали нам повод. Например, когда англосаксы в 2014 году развязали информационную войну против Олимпиады в Сочи, а в 2018-м повторили русофобский залп по чемпионату мира по футболу в России.
На этот раз пройдемся по самому нутру — переплетению Третьего рейха и Британии. Можно без преувеличения сказать, что идеологические основы и худшие практики нацизма были заложены именно в Туманном Альбионе. Взаимные симпатии правящих кругов в Берлине и Лондоне сыграли роль спускового крючка Второй мировой войны, в ходе которой Гитлер не прекращал попыток через своих тайных британских сторонников создать единый антисоветский фронт. А после войны уже Британия заботливо собрала остатки формирований коллаборационистов, частично пригрев у себя, частично отправив за океан — в США и Канаду, для использования против СССР и возложила на себя фашистскую миссию по борьбе с нашим народом.
Но обо всём по порядку. Что дает основание изучать британские корни германского нацизма? Работы известных островных ученых на стыке XVIII–XIX веков, прежде всего Томаса Карлайля («массы — это только орудие в руках великих личностей»), расового теоретика Хьюстона Чемберлена, а также двоюродного брата Дарвина и основоположника псевдонауки евгеники о селекции человека Фрэнсиса Гальтона.
Об их духовной связи с основоположниками Третьего рейха говорит запись в дневниках будущего министра пропаганды Йозефа Геббельса от 8 мая 1926 года: «Чемберлен на ложе. Разбитый, лепечущий… Он держит меня за руку и не хочет отпускать… Отец нашего духа, привет тебе. Пионер. Первопроходец…»
Английский аристократ, социолог и философ Хьюстон Стюарт Чемберлен написал самые значимые работы о превосходстве арийской расы и праве истреблять других. Наиболее известная книга Чемберлена — эссе «Основы XIX века». Именно этот труд впоследствии лег в основу ныне запрещенного «Майн кампфа» Гитлера.
Чемберлен относил к расе «белых господ» саксов, немцев и англичан, заимствовав эту классификацию у шотландца Томаса Карлайля, корифея британской литературы и философской мысли XIX века и одновременно первого идеолога нацизма.
Учитель Дарвина, медик Роберт Нокс так обосновал право Британии на геноцид коренных народов по всему миру: «Европейцы могут надеяться на процветание, поскольку… черные скоро исчезнут… Если отстреливать туземцев так же, как в некоторых странах отстреливают ворон, то численность туземного населения со временем должна сильно сократиться».
Сама теория расизма была изобретена англичанами. Расовая антропология в конце XIX века считалась официальной наукой, которая систематизировала людей по различным антропологическим принципам. Кузен Дарвина Фрэнсис Гальтон стал основоположником так называемой евгеники — лженауки о человеческой селекции для выведения идеальной расы. У него была собственная лаборатория в Лондоне, где он измерял черепа мужчин, женщин и детей. Этим же занимались потом немцы в своих лабораториях и концлагерях.
На брифинге в апреле 2018 года мы подробно рассказывали о британских государственных преступлениях: внедрении концентрационных лагерей во время англо-бурской войны, вдохновивших позднее нацистов на создание своих лагерей смерти, полном культурном уничтожении государств на пространстве от Ашанти в Африке до Китая, кровавых расправах, совершенных британской армией в Ирландии, разграблении Бенгалии, эксплуатации природных ресурсов в промышленных масштабах, глобальной работорговле и т.д. Тогда мы не стали обозначать этот фактологический свод примерами настоящего имперского нацизма. Теперь грех не сделать это.
В 30-е годы XX века Британский союз фашистов был легальным и очень влиятельным межклассовым политическим объединением, чьи ряды и влияние росли вплоть до 1940 года. Союз возглавлял сэр Освальд Мосли. Члены этой национал-социалистической организации выезжали в Германию на стажировку, а по возвращении обучали британцев превосходству национал-социалистической идеологии.
Среди симпатизантов Гитлера и Третьего рейха было немало членов королевской семьи. Сочувствовали они и своим родственникам в Германии. Например, двоюродному брату английского короля Георга V Карлу Эдуарду, последнему герцогу Саксен-Кобург-Готскому, при этом группенфюреру, имперскому уполномоченному по делам транспорта, депутату рейхстага и президенту германского Красного Креста. У супруга королевы Елизаветы II принца Филиппа было четыре сестры. Маргарита вышла замуж за Готфрида Гогенлоэ-Лангенбургского, сына немецкого князя и британской принцессы. Готфрид был убежденным нацистом, членом НСДАП, главой разведки вермахта на Восточном фронте. Другая сестра британского принца, София, стала женой немецкого принца Кристофа Гессенского, также члена НСДАП, занимавшего высокий пост в ВВС Третьего рейха.
До поры Виндзоры не скрывали своих связей с Третьим рейхом и всячески их демонстрировали. В 2015 году всплыло «нехорошее видео» 1933–1934 годов, в кадрах которого запечатлена королевская семья: юная на тот момент королева Великобритании Елизавета II (семь лет), ее сестра Маргарет, их мать Елизавета Ангела Маргарет Боуз-Лайон, а также дядя Елизаветы II принц Уэльский Эдуард. Девочки и взрослые с энтузиазмом вскидывают руки в нацистском приветствии.
Принц Уэльский Эдуард, впоследствии английский король Эдуард VIII, прославился тем, что направлял поздравительные телеграммы Гитлеру ко дню рождения, тепло отзывался о его деятельности. Уже после отречения от престола Эдуард с супругой посещал нацистскую Германию, встречался с Гитлером и другими высшими руководителями Третьего рейха. Более того, уже после начала Второй мировой войны Эдуард занял «пораженческую» позицию и даже косвенно побуждал Германию продолжать бомбардировки Англии, чтобы обеспечить ее скорейшую капитуляцию.
В 30-е годы англосаксы делали всё для возрождения военной мощи Германии и направления ее агрессивных планов на восток — против СССР.
К власти Гитлер пришел буквально на британские деньги. Финансирование нацистского режима Гитлера осуществлялось банковскими структурами Великобритании при помощи американских банкиров. Причем все стороны эти факты не сильно скрывали. Глава Рейхсбанка Ялмар Шахт имел тесные дружеские связи с главой Банка Англии Монтегю Норманном. Банк Англии переводил деньги на избирательную кампанию Гитлера. Для этого был создан банк международных расчетов с центральным офисом в Базеле, через который и шли переводы от англо-американских компаний — немецким.
В 1934 году члены британского парламента создали имперскую политическую группу, которая лоббировала сотрудничество с Гитлером, а в 1935 году, когда Нюрнбергские расовые законы, ограничивающие евреев в правах, уже были приняты, образуется еще и Англо-германское братство под руководством лорда Маунт Темпла.
Вновь возвращаемся к ранее озвученной нами информации. На брифинге 29 марта 2018 года был представлен хранящийся в наших архивах оригинальный экземпляр официальной брошюры фашистского министерства пропаганды, посвященной XI Олимпийским играм. В ней перечислены все прибывшие в Берлин из Лондона высокие гости, члены палаты лордов, банкиры, министры, высокопоставленные спортивные функционеры, в том числе:
1) лорд П. Лаверсток, председатель Национального олимпийского комитета Великобритании;
2) капитан Э. Хантер, генеральный секретарь Национального олимпийского комитета Великобритании.
Представители Великобритании в Международном олимпийском комитете:
1) лорд Абердар;
2) лорд Д. Джордж Бергли, маркиз д’Эксетер;
3) сэр Н. Кертис Беннет.
Международные спортивные федерации:
1) У. Джонс, генеральный секретарь Международной федерации баскетбола;
2) сэр У. Бертон, председатель Международной федерации парусного спорта;
3) майор Х. Смит, секретарь Международной федерации парусного спорта.
В это время, в 1936 году, немецкие войска вторглись в Рейнскую область, в Германии уже действуют концлагеря. В 1937 году в своей резиденции Бергхоф Гитлер принимает лидера палаты лордов Великобритании Галифакса. Доверенное лицо британского премьера Невилла Чемберлена прибывает обсудить общие цели внешней политики двух стратегических союзников — Великобритании и нацистской Германии. Из стенограммы их беседы:
«Члены английского правительства проникнуты сознанием, что фюрер достиг многого не только в самой Германии, но что в результате уничтожения коммунизма в своей стране он преградил путь последнему в Западную Европу, и поэтому Германия по праву может считаться бастионом Запада против большевизма».
В марте 1938 году Германия совершила аншлюс Австрии, прямо нарушив Версальский договор, без какой-либо внятной реакции Лондона. Характерный эпизод, о котором мы в свое время тоже напоминали предшественнику Дэвида Лэмми, — нацистское приветствие английских футболистов в мае 1938 года перед матчем в Берлине. Оказывается, их к тому сподвиг английский посол в Германии сэр Невилл Хендерсон. Вместе с секретарем английской Ассоциации футбола Стэнли Роузом он убеждал футболистов, что поднять руки необходимо ради… англо-германских отношений.
В сентябре 1938 года Лондон вместе с Парижем отдали на растерзание Третьему рейху Чехословакию. Этот Мюнхенский сговор, по мнению многих историков, как раз и привел к началу Второй мировой войны.
СССР тогда оказался на пороге войны одновременно с Германией в Европе и Японией на Дальнем Востоке. Британская дипломатия в попытке ускорить начало полномасштабной войны Японии с Советским Союзом заключила 22 июля 1939 года с Токио «дальневосточный Мюнхен» — соглашение Ариты-Крейги. Лондон пошел на признание японских территориальных захватов в Китае и гарантию невмешательства в действия Токио.
Такое решение Великобритании было ускорено событиями на Халхин-Голе. Рассчитывая на расширение халхин-гольских событий до масштабов войны, правительство Великобритании обязалось не создавать Японии проблем в тылу: «Правительство Его Величества не намерено предпринимать какие-либо действия или меры, наносящие ущерб осуществлению […] задач японской армии».
Заключенное в разгар халхин-гольских событий, это соглашение поощряло Японию на расширение военных действий против СССР. При этом трехсторонние переговоры о заключении договора о взаимопомощи между СССР, Великобританией и Францией в августе 1939 года в Москве усилиями западников были заведены в тупик.
Кстати, если Лондону нечего скрывать о своих связях с нацистской Германией, призываем Дэвида Лэмми рассекретить остающиеся «под грифом» документы о визите для переговоров в Британию в 1941 году заместителя Гитлера по партии Рудольфа Гесса. Пора уже поставить в этой истории все точки над i.
Наше посольство в Британии уже заявило, что своими выпадами Дэвид Лэмми оскорбляет не столько руководство нашей страны, сколько память всех тех, кто сражался с «коричневой чумой» в годы Второй мировой войны, включая своих же соотечественников. В этой связи можно вспомнить, что руки британской дипломатии замараны многочисленными попытками ведения закулисных переговоров с посланцами Гитлера о сепаратном мире — в 1944 году (в Стокгольме), в 1945 году (в Швейцарии). Благодаря усилиям советской разведки эти факты стали известны руководству СССР, предпринявшему в итоге необходимые демарши союзникам.
Еще более оскорбительным для британцев, сражавшихся вместе с воинами Красной армии против нацистов, было бы узнать в свое время о планах Лондона продолжить Вторую мировую войну вместе с немцами против СССР. В октябре 1998 года в английской и мировой печати были опубликованы сообщения о военных планах кабинета Уинстона Черчилля в отношении Советского Союза, разработанных весной 1945 года. Ключевым из них является датированный 22 мая 1945 года план экстренной операции «Немыслимое», подготовленный объединенным штабом планирования военного кабинета. Война, согласно этому плану, должна была начаться 1 июля 1945 года внезапным нападением войск англо-американцев на позиции Красной армии.
Целью операции было принудить Москву к подчинению воле Соединенных Штатов и Британской империи. Конкретно имелось в виду «вытеснить Красную армию за пределы Польши». Мотивы этого решения в документе не раскрываются.
Далее высказывалась мысль о том, что тотальная война является единственным надежным средством достижения цели и для этого необходимо
«оккупировать те районы внутренней России, лишившись которых, эта страна утратит материальные возможности ведения войны и дальнейшего сопротивления».
Те события, которые сейчас разворачиваются на Украине, очевидно, являются логическим развитием плана «Немыслимое». Киевские неонацисты при идеологической поддержке заботливо сохраненных у себя англосаксами бандеровцев и материальной помощи коллективного Запада пытаются достичь цели, которую в свое время ставили перед собой британские идеологи расовой чистоты и их гитлеровские последователи — освобождение «жизненного пространства». Просто сегодня оно потребовалось либеральным фашистским режимам.
А фразу про «империалистический фашизм» нынешний глава Форин-офиса Дэвид Лэмми, пожалуй, не сам придумал. Он просто использовал устойчивое выражение, характеризующее британскую историю. У кого что болит, как говорится.
…
Среди раненных оказались в том числе офицеры ливанской группировки, а также посол Исламской Республики Иран в Ливане Моджтаба Хаменеи. Пейджера у него не было, однако таким устройством обладал один из его спутников.
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«Физик объяснил, как мог произойти массовый взрыв пейджеров в Ливане»: Реальная опасность от гаджетов пришла не оттуда, откуда ждали.
«Взорвавшиеся по всему Ливану пейджеры были из новой партии компании Gold+. Конкретно: модель AP700. Их используют для ухода от слежки за GSM-телефонами.
Как рассказал физик и военный специалист Александр Широкорад, есть всего два объяснения такого массового взрыва: либо удалённый взлом — в таком случае на батарее отключается плата защиты и он просто взрывается, либо на рынок Ближнего Востока "Моссад" вбросил партию заминированных пейджеров — для этого устройства заменили на "свои", со взрывчаткой внутри. Такие операции спецслужбы Израиля проворачивали ранее.
Пейджерами основное население в Ливане практически не пользуется, их юзают только спецслужбы, чиновники и военные. Также специалисты рассматривают третью версию, по которой израильские хакеры взломали встроенную в аппараты систему самоликвидации "Хезболлы". Её представители организации устанавливали на случай, если устройства попадут в руки противника. Число пострадавших в Ливане возросло до 1800 человек».
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Более 2800 человек ранены и 8 погибли в результате детонации пейджеров в различных районах Ливана — министр здравоохранения.
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С сожалением и понятными пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
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Владимир Нерюев, заместитель Генерального директора коммуникационного агентства АУРА (в составе Газпром-Медиа Холдинга) поделился мнением, как искусственный интеллект (ИИ) стал неотъемлемой частью многих сфер нашей жизни, включая рекламу.
Чего не хватает радио, чтобы увеличить свою долю на рекламном рынке? Аудиопиратство: угроза или возможности для отрасли? Каковы первые результаты общероссийской кампании по продвижению индустриального радиоплеера? Эти и другие вопросы были рассмотрены на конференции «Радио в глобальной медиаконкуренции», спикерами и участниками которой стали эксперты ГПМ Радио.
Деловая программа 28-й международной специализированной выставки технологий и услуг для производителей и заказчиков рекламы «Реклама-2021» открылась десятым юбилейным форумом «Матрица рекламы». Его организовали КВК «Империя» и «Экспоцентр».
28 марта в Центральном доме художника состоялась 25-ая выставка маркетинговых коммуникаций «Дизайн и реклама NEXT». Одним из самых ярких её событий стал День социальной рекламы, который организовала Ассоциация директоров по коммуникациям и корпоративным медиа России (АКМР) совместно с АНО «Лаборатория социальной рекламы» и оргкомитетом LIME.
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