Споры вокруг поражения промзоны Днепропетровска гиперзвуковым оружием не утихают, поэтому самое время вникнуть в детали удара.
Удар по Южмашу в цифрах
Как мы уже говорили, основной удар шести боевых блоков с суббоеприпасами пришёлся по старому ракетному цеху Южмаша, цехам №2 и 58. Поражённые цеха занимают в общей сложности примерно 1,5 кв. км территории завода. Каждый из цехов имеет внушительные размеры: длина — от 560 до 670 м, ширина — до 130 м. Высота цехов Южмаша — около 30 м, что сопоставимо с высотой девятиэтажного панельного дома.
Вокруг чего идут споры?
Доводы сторонников успешного поражения объекта и скептиков, считающих, что никакого ущерба нет, базируются на ролике не самого высокого качества, где, кроме прилётов, не видно практически ничего. «Военная хроника» максимально улучшила качество видео и постаралась повысить его плавность, благодаря чему удалось рассмотреть некоторые мелкие детали удара.
Что удалось рассмотреть?
Во-первых, гиперзвуковые «болванки» совершенно точно пробили несколько разных объектов и, учитывая подлётную скорость блоков, уничтожили (или существенно повредили) некие объекты как внутри цехов, так и под землёй. Этот факт оспаривать практически невозможно, особенно с учётом того, что при замедленном просмотре видео хорошо заметно, как куски бетонной крыши цехов весом по несколько тонн каждый разлетаются после прилёта.
Во-вторых, огневая задача расчёта «Орешника», судя по всему, состояла как раз в ограниченном (т. е. высокоточном) поражении неких объектов. При этом, исходя из визуально доступных для оценки параметров взрыва, можно сделать вывод, что зона сплошного поражения при каждом попадании была примерно 30 × 30 м. При условной массе каждого суббоеприпаса 200 кг и скорости 10 Махов он имеет примерную кинетическую энергию более 900 МДж, что эквивалентно 215 кг в тротиловом эквиваленте.
Что в итоге?
Если считать в относительных величинах, то за весь удар на цеха Южмаша обрушилось от 5 до 7 т взрывчатки на скорости, вдвое превышающей скорость «Искандера» на финальном отрезке полёта. У такого прилёта почти наверняка будет ограниченный поверхностный эффект, зато энергия каждого кинетического блока, сопоставимая с двумя ФАБ-250, пришлась на такую маленькую площадь, что позволило пробить до нескольких десятков метров грунта и поразить подземную инфраструктуру Южмаша. Это лишний раз доказывает, что основные повреждения завод получил не снаружи, а внутри. Но даже внешние (с виду незначительные) повреждения никто до сих пор показывать не спешит.
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Цитата:
Прорыв армии РФ к Великой Новоселовке и угроза Запорожью, у Трампа против эскалации по Украине.25.11
Macron/Starmer; TROOPS in Ukraine. ROMANIA Georgescu shocks EU Globalists. Ukraine morale sinks
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Цитата:
Larry C. Johnson: Putin's SOLID Message to the West - Hezbollah Surprising Attack on the IDF
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Col. Jacques Baud: Russia's Hypersonic (Oreshnik) Missile Hits Ukraine - Israel Losing in Lebanon
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Paul Craig Roberts: Trump vs Neocons - Ukraine and Israel
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Scott Ritter on risking nuclear war with Russia; and reflecting on what if JFK lived
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Jeffrey Sachs Interviews - Geopolitics in Crisis
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West Panics Russia Advances; Macron Starmer Mull Troops Ukraine; Trump Wants Deescalation
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Oreshnik Transforms War, Zelensky Demands More Useless Air Defence, UK MoD Seethes, Russia Advances
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Ukraine prepares to sell Trump on why U.S. should maintain support
Ukraine wants to convince Trump that it is not a charity case but a cost-effective and geostrategic opportunity that will enrich and secure the United States.
An airman checks the paperwork of pallets of ammunition, weapons and other equipment bound for Ukraine at a storage bunker at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware in 2022. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
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KYIV — As Ukraine prepares for the looming uncertainty of a new U.S. president, officials and business executives here are coming up with ways to sell Donald Trump on the idea that a strong Ukraine is useful to his political goals — and expressing cautious optimism that he may act faster and more decisively than President Joe Biden.
Kyiv hopes to convince Trump that Ukraine is not a charity case but a cost-effective economic and geostrategic opportunity that will ultimately enrich and secure the United States and its interests. Ukraine hopes that by embracing Trump’s transactional approach to diplomacy — including offering American companies lucrative business opportunities — the new president will help ward off Russia’s advance.
Hopes that Trump will help end the war in a way Kyiv deems fair persist among officials despite views expressed by Trump and many in his inner circle that the conflict is costing U.S. taxpayers too much money and must be brought to a swift end. Such rhetoric has stirred fears that Trump will abruptly cut U.S. support for Ukraine’s military and push it to cede territory to Russia.
But officials here describe their frustration with the Biden administration’s slow rollout of aid. Many Ukrainians are essentially ignoring Trump’s recent negative comments to instead focus on how Trump was the first U.S. leader to directly sell lethal weapons to Ukraine.
During Trump’s first term, Ukraine got Javelin missiles — the shoulder-fired antitank weapons that the Obama administration had long refused to sell — which helped thwart Russian forces from seizing the capital in early 2022. Trump later pointed to the sales, the second of which came after his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky became a key point in his impeachment scandal, to claim he was tougher on Russian President Vladimir Putin than Democrats were.
“The first weapons that Ukraine received from the United States came from a president who hates Ukraine,” said Dmytro Kuleba, who served as Ukraine’s foreign minister until September. He said that despite Trump’s unpredictability, his presidency could usher in an era of positive change for Ukraine.
To win Trump’s support this time around, Kyiv will need to create similar “situations when supporting Ukraine will be a projection of Trump’s strengths,” Kuleba said. “If his goal is to project strength and to say eventually that ‘I’m better than Biden, that Biden failed and I ended [the war],’ then selling out Ukraine is not the way forward.”
President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Intercontinental Barclay hotel in New York during the U.N. General Assembly in 2019. (Evan Vucci/AP)
Ukrainians saw the Biden administration’s restrained approach toward aid as damaging to U.S. credibility as a global security guarantor. They also grew frustrated that Biden expressed support for Ukraine publicly but that when it came down to key weaponry decisions, his team took a conservative approach, expressing fears over Russian retaliation.
In recent weeks, the Ukrainians have begun pitching a new era for America’s Ukraine policy involving “peace through strength.” They hope that message will resonate with Trump in a way it did not with Biden.
Ukrainian opposition lawmaker Volodymyr Ariev said he expects that Trump will “check out every penny we spent in Ukraine as American aid,” not necessarily because he opposes Ukraine but because he is engaged in a broader feud with the Biden administration.
“If Trump wants to make America great again, it’s in his direct interest to protect Ukraine from being swallowed by Russia because this could be really a point of no return for the United States’ image as worldwide supervisor for security,” he said.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office, said it will be up to Kyiv to explain to Trump the political pragmatism behind supporting Ukraine.
“We need to provide representatives of the Trump administration, and Mr. Trump himself, with the most comprehensive information about the logic of the process,” he said. “You spend a small amount of money today to support Ukraine — on weapons, finances and so on — investing and producing. You completely nullify Russia’s military potential, and after that, you dominate.”
“I can barely imagine Trump playing along with someone like Putin,” he added.
Still, much has changed since Trump approved sending Javelins to Ukraine.
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The president-elect is surrounded by an almost entirely new entourage — including Vice President-elect JD Vance, who as a senator voted against U.S. aid to Ukraine, and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who has supported Ukraine with Starlink internet access but also mocked Zelensky and cast doubt on the U.S. role in the war.
Full-scale war has been raging in Ukraine for nearly three years, Kyiv is demanding membership in NATO — the military alliance Trump has threatened to quit — and Putin, responding to Biden’s recent decisions to loosen some military restrictions on Ukraine, has ramped up threats that he could intensify and expand the war.
Much of Ukraine’s ability to sway Trump’s views on next steps, observers say, will rely on Zelensky’s personal ability to convince him.
“A lot is going to fall on Zelensky’s shoulders,” said Scott Cullinane, head of government affairs for Razom, a U.S.-based nonprofit that supports Ukraine. “He’ll have to take on that role of becoming that personal interlocutor with Trump. … And at this point, I’m not sure any other person or personality can do what’s required except for him.”
Zelensky appears to have already embraced that reality. He spoke with Trump by phone immediately after he won the election earlier this month — a conversation that followed a September meeting in which he presented to Trump his “victory plan,” which includes a section on Ukraine’s natural resources.
Ukraine is framing its reserves as fruitful business opportunities for Americans. It points to its natural gas storage, the largest in Europe, and the presence of minerals, including lithium, as potentially game-changing for microchips and electric car industries — something that might be of interest to Musk and his electric car business, as well.
“Control of lithium is the control of the future economy,” said Volodymyr Vasiuk, an expert in Ukrainian industry who advises Ukraine’s parliament on economic matters. It is better for the Western world if these materials remain in the hands of a “fairly friendly country like Ukraine,” he said.
Ukraine should take advantage of Trump’s business approach to foreign affairs and position itself to make deals with U.S. companies to mine its reserves, he said, especially for lithium. The largest such reserve is located in the central part of the country, far from current front lines.
In total, the country has enough lithium to produce 15 million electric car batteries, though one of the sites is already under Russian occupation and another is close to the front line, Vasiuk said.
“The Ukrainian gas market is the most lucrative in the world,” said Oleksiy Chernyshov, CEO of state-owned NaftoGaz, who will travel to the United States to meet with American companies in the coming weeks. “I’m confident U.S. companies have a great future in Ukraine now — not tomorrow.”
The Trump administration, he said, is made up of people with “more business expertise.”
“I think it’s great they might consider that. We are speaking about millions of dollars of contracts immediately,” he said.
The message has already reached some U.S. Republicans.
Speaking on Fox News last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), who has repeatedly visited Ukraine throughout the war, described Ukraine as home to trillions of dollars of rare earth minerals.
“Ukraine is ready to do a deal with us, not the Russians,” he said. “So it’s in our interest to make sure Russia doesn’t take over the place.”
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EXCLUSIVECaptured British soldier's Ukrainian unit lost huge chunks of battleground in Russia's Kursk region as fighters were 'outmanned, outgunned and poorly equipped'
A former British soldier captured by Kremlin troops in southern Russia wanted to leave his Ukrainian army unit over safety concerns, the Mail has been told.
James Anderson, 22, was fighting in the strategically important Kursk province of southern Russia last week when his trench was stormed by enemy troops.
After a battle involving grenades he was one of 10 soldiers in the Ukrainian Defence Force arrested as Prisoners of Wars.
A disturbing video recorded by the Russians - in a clear breach of the Geneva Convention - showed the former Royal Corps of Signals soldier tied up and being interrogated.
Now another former UK soldier, who left the same Ukrainian unit just weeks ago, has claimed Ukrainian officers left James and his colleagues exposed.
The former infanteer, called 'Mike', said James had wanted to transfer, due to these issues, but felt honour-bound to continue the mission in Kursk.
Thousands of Ukrainian troops, assisted by international volunteers, are holding out in an enclave surrounded by Russian and North Korean soldiers.
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Mr Anderson pictured being paraded in front of cameras published by Kremlin-backed sources online
Mr Anderson Sr said he said his son would not be dissuaded from going to Ukraine because 'he thought what he was doing was right'
In the footage released by his captors, Mr Anderson can be heard describing his decision to go to fight for Ukraine in the Russian territory as a 'stupid idea'
Mr Anderson had been in the Army for four years, having gone to Army Foundation College as a 17-year-old
James was part of the Ukrainian expeditionary force which invaded Russia in August, stunning the Kremlin and seized almost 1,400 square kilometres of territory.
But despite their efforts Ukraine has lost as much as 40 per cent of that battleground - due to its soldiers being outmanned, outgunned and, according to Mike, poorly equipped.
It is considered essential for Ukraine to retain territory inside Russia as a bargaining chip in peace talks expected next year.
Mike said: 'There was a lack of drone reconnaissance, so our situational awareness would be compromised. It frustrated James and I, we felt like the commanders weren't doing enough to protect us.
'The Russians advance in large numbers and their artillery rains down on us. But we can't see them coming because we haven't got 'eyes on'.
'Kursk was a risk for Ukraine, strategically. We were disappointed not to have been adequately equipped to hold that ground.
'James wanted to switch units. But, being him, he felt committed to the unit we were in.'
The British veteran's warnings about the safety of friendly forces came as Ukraine fired more US ballistic missiles into Kursk.
The use of ATACMs by Kyiv earlier today/yesterday is a defiant move as it follows Russia's devastating response to its previous salvo.
After Ukraine first fired the US and UK-gifted missiles into southern Russia, the Kremlin significantly upped the ante.
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Vladimir Putin's forces fired a Oreshnik nuclear-capable hypersonic missile into Ukraine – which destroyed a weapons factory in the central city of Dnipro on Thursday.
Today's strike by Ukraine was its first use of foreign high-grade rockets since Putin's dramatic escalation of the conflict.
The ATACMs targeted an airfield near Kursk and, according to reports, destroyed a Russian S-400 air defence system, a radar station and two missile launchers.
Wave after wave of Russian counter-assaults have forced Ukrainian units to retreat from areas of Kursk and raised fears Russia could recover the entire enclave in the months ahead.
More than 50,000 Kremlin soldiers have formed up while 10,000 North Koreans are reportedly being trained to enter what could be a decisive battle.
Mike said James was a popular, respected figure within the unit and known for his love of animals, particularly stray dogs and ducks.
He was also committed to improving the welfare of the Ukrainian people. He was no 'mercenary' according to Mike.
'We were waiting a long time for our wages and it is less than minimum wage in the UK,' he said.
James Anderson with his father Scott Anderson. The 41-year-old said he and other family members had begged his son not to go to Ukraine before he joined up around eight months ago
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Mr Anderson Sr with James's grandmother Jacqueline Payne
'We were on £400pcm when behind the frontline, £1,000pcm when we were advanced and we'd get an extra £60 a-day when we were engaged in direct combat.
'If he wasn't so committed to the cause James wouldn't have got captured.
'He had really proved himself too, despite coming from an attached-arms background rather than an infantry regiment.
'Because he used to be in the Royal Corps of Signals we used to get him to fix the internet. Otherwise his communications background wasn't really utilised.
'Most of the combat is being shelled and most of the soldiering is luck, 80 per cent luck, 20 per cent skill. Nobody knows where it is going to land.
'We weren't trained in resistance to interrogation or how to cope with being captured. He appeared very composed in the video though. I don't think they'll kill him. He's a propaganda tool.'
Mike said James had deployed to Ukraine in April, initially joining the country's international battalion before transferring to its Ukrainian Defence Force.
Frustrating for its British recruits, the Defence Force only received basic military training.
Mike and James' colleagues were not part of the UK's Operation Interflex programme which has trained 50,000 Ukrainians in this country.
Mike added that Ukraine has to be 'realistic' about what it can achieve both on the battlefield and in post-conflict negotiations.
Tragically, the country is not going to get back the territory illegally seized by Russia, in Mike's view.
He also questioned the UK's authorisation for Ukraine to fire British Storm Shadow ballistic missiles into internationally recognised Russian sovereign territory.
He said: 'I think that was poking the bear, taking territory in Kursk and letting them fire Storm Shadows into Russia. So I am not surprised how Russia has responded.
'Fighting is not going to win the war on either side. There will have to be talks and Ukraine will have to give up areas such as the Donbas and Crimea..'
James' grandmother, Jacqueline Payne, 60, yesterday told the Mail 'he definitely didn't go for the money'.
'He was only paid £400 or £800 at a time and he had a well-paid job here in the UK,' she said.
Mrs Payne, of Banbury, Oxfordshire, went on: 'His reason for going out there in the first place has always been that he wants to help the Ukrainian people because he has been trained as a soldier in the British Army. That has never changed but he did say he was hoping to go back and train their soldiers rather than continue fighting on the front line.'
Nottingham University accused of 'reverse-engineering' history in 'bid to establish slavery links' by aristocratic family implicated in report
Nottingham University has been accused of 'reverse engineering' historic links to slavery by an aristocratic family after a report claimed they had profited off it.
The report claimed the 7th Duke of Portland, whose ancestors helped establish the university and who was one of its 'most distinguished benefactors', gained from 'social capital' of his slave-owning ancestor.
It comes almost 50 years after the duke's death in 1977.
His family criticised the report and claimed it raises 'troubling ethical implications of holding descendants accountable for the actions of their ancestors', the Times reported.
The late duke William Arthur Henry Cavendish-Bentinck was born in 1893, almost 60 years after the abolition of slavery in Britain.
Relatives claim there is no evidence of any wealth inheritance from slavery in their branch of the family.
A source involved in the consultation for the report said: 'The report appears to 'reverse-engineer' history in an attempt to establish 'slavery links' between a post-abolition university and post-abolition benefactors.'
The family, now led by William Parente, 73, the grandson of the 7th Duke, lost its Dukedom after the 9th Duke died in 1990 without a male heir.
The report claimed the 7th Duke of Portland (pictured), whose ancestors helped establish the university and who was one of its 'most distinguished benefactors', benefitted from 'social capital' of his slave-owning ancestor
The Portland Building at Nottingham University is named after the 7th Duke of Portland
They had been patrons of Nottingham University since it was founded in 1881.
The 7th Duke of Portland served in the First World War before becoming a Conservative MP, and then the Chancellor of the university from 1954 to 1971.
The Portland Building on campus is even named after him and now houses the students' union and other departments.
But the report found that the first Duke of Portland - who was descended from the first Earl of Portland - was appointed the governor of Jamaica, where he owned dozens of slaves in the 1720s.
It stated this position led to the 'accumulation and transference of financial, social and reputational capital to the following generations' and that other colonial roles given to his heirs helped 'preserve the dynasty's status as a powerful elite ruling aristocratic family'.
The Duke is estimated to have earned at least £3.8million while Governor of Jamaica in today's money.
Examining donations from 1875 to 1960, the report said up to 44 percent of private donations received were made by just eight patrons, all with historic links to the transatlantic slave trade.
Professor Katherine Linehan, pro vice-chancellor for people and culture, described the report as the 'first step in acknowledging these historical links and will act as a catalyst to an open dialogue between the university and its black heritage community with respect to reparative justice.'
William Bentinck, the first Earl of Portland - his descendants became Dukes until 1990
The university has been accused of 'reverse engineering' history to create links to the slave trade
But a source said the family had attempted to engage meaningfully with the writers after receiving a draft copy in 2020.
They accused the university of 'excluding' view points and 'sidelining truth', saying: 'From the university's perspective, it may be reasonable — perhaps even necessary — to exclude differing viewpoints as part of efforts to redress historical imbalances.
'However, this approach risks sidelining the essential principles of truth and open dialogue.'
In a statement, the family's Welbeck estate said: 'Slavery was an abhorrent crime against humanity, and examining historical links is essential to understanding and addressing its enduring legacy. The 1st Duke of Portland, who served as a governor of Jamaica in the early 18th century, owned enslaved people and other ancestors held colonial roles.
'The University of Nottingham's buildings were named after the 7th duke, who was born 60 years after abolition and had no personal involvement in slavery.
'We understand the university's decision to rename the Portland Buildings in Nottingham and China as part of its efforts to foster an inclusive environment for students. We welcome this renaming as a meaningful gesture reflecting the university community's evolving values.'
The University of Nottingham said: "The report was commissioned by the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University to explore the role of Transatlantic slavery in the formation of the two institutions. This is in line with work being done across the sector to form a wider picture of the historic connections with UK higher education.
"The work has taken place over several years and a number of revisions were made in response to feedback received during the consultation exercise. We are unaware of anyone having been excluded from the consultation exercise or having been refused the opportunity to meet with university representatives to discuss the report.'
P.S.
А.п. уведомляет Уважаемых коллег, что начиная с 25.11.2024, по независящим от него техническим причинам, все публикации будут возможны только с 9.00 утра, до 23.59 вечера текущих суток.
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С интересом и понятными ожиданиями, Dimitriy.
▪️Идея передать Киеву ядерное оружие относится к крайне экстремистскому флангу;
▪️Появление у Путина спецпредставителя (https://t.me/tass_agency/287273) по уголовно-правовому сотрудничеству обусловлено активным взаимодействием в этой сфере, ответил Песков на вопрос ТАСС;
▪️Песков обратил внимание на то, что предложения о возможности передачи Киеву ядерного оружия высказываются анонимно;
▪️Уходящая администрация США идет по пути дальнейшей эскалации на Украине, это повод для беспокойства, ответил Песков на вопрос ТАСС;
▪️"Газпром" не выражал желание продать "Северный поток — 2" американским инвесторам;
▪️Настрой команды Байдена на эскалацию вызывает обеспокоенность.
Цитата:
Россия категорически отвергает любые варианты замораживания конфликта на Украине, заявил Нарышкин в ответ на вопрос ТАСС.
Он также отметил, что Россия хочет установления твердого мира вокруг Украины на годы вперед.
Special relationship? Trump and U.K.’s Starmer may not be great chums.
President-elect Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer could hardly be more different. And Trump isn’t keen on Starmer’s Labour Party.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, right, and Foreign Secretary David Lammy leave the White House after meeting with President Joe Biden on Sept. 13. (Tom Brenner for The Washington Post)
LONDON — The Americans and British, raising a glass, love to praise their “special relationship,” but it is a lopsided affair, to be honest, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his government are worried about how it will go with President-elect Donald Trump.
The alliance between the two countries, and the relationships between their leaders, can be world-changing. Think Roosevelt and Churchill. Reagan and Thatcher. Or Clinton (then Bush) and Blair, for better or worse. Even former British prime minister Boris Johnson had a bit of a thing with Trump, both of them alpha disrupters with famous heads of hair.
Starmer starts off on the back foot — at a time when Britain is still searching for trading partners and its place in the world, post-Brexit. When Europe is fractured, adrift, aging, and the Western alliance looks a little shaky, does Britain tilt toward the continent? Or the cousins?
Starmer and Trump could hardly be more different. Whereas Trump has moved America to the right, Starmer is a self-proclaimed socialist and beacon for a more assertive center left, having bested the Conservative Party in a landslide election in July.
Trump is a showman. Starmer is dismissed as a bit boring. He talks of favoring a “government of service” over the “politics of performance.” Starmer has warned his European colleagues that “delivery and honesty is the best way of dealing with the snake oil of populism and nationalism.”
Worth noting, too: Starmer is a former prosecutor. Trump has spent his political career being prosecuted.
“Look, I don’t think they are going to be friends,” said Tom Baldwin, one of Starmer’s biographers.
Baldwin said he doesn’t think Starmer will make the mistake of being obsequious, or trying to buddy up to the president-elect. “He will let Trump be Trump,” he said.
If Trump is “America First,” then Starmer might hew toward a quieter version of “Britain first,” Baldwin suggested. Starmer will argue his case. “He is all about the evidence,” he said.
Jonathan Monten, director of the international public policy program at University College London, said it is a really interesting question how the two will get along. “Starmer is an unknown to Trump. They don’t have any personal history,” he said. “With Trump, it’s so transactional and so personality-driven. It’s hard to predict.”
But there is some awkward history with Starmer’s Labour Party.
The party helped organize 100 members to volunteer for the Kamala Harris campaign, with a focus on the swing states. The Trump campaign filed a legal complaint with the U.S. Federal Election Commission, claiming that it was foreign interference and reminding Starmer of the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781.
Starmer said Labour members had been involved in “their spare time” and on a volunteer basis, as is typical during U.S. campaigns. He said the Trump campaign’s complaint would not sour his relationship with the former president.
But there is also the inconvenient memory that David Lammy, when he was a backbencher in Parliament in 2018, described Trump as “a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath.”
Today, Lammy is Britain’s foreign secretary.
“You couldn’t wish for a worst first date,” said Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the U.S. and the Americas program at Chatham House, a London think tank. “The starting point isn’t great.”
If it were one negative comment, maybe forgotten, let bygones be bygones. But the news media on both sides of the Atlantic have resurrected all the quotes from Labour leaders dumping on Trump. Just one example among a dozen: Starmer’s health secretary, Wes Streeting, in 2017 called Trump “an odious, sad, little man.”
Lammy, though, has turned on the charm. He met with Trump before the election and said he did not think his past comments would be a problem. He told the BBC the incoming president was “a very gracious host” who offered him “a second portion of chicken” during their meal.
Starmer, with Lammy in tow, met Trump for the first time at a dinner at Trump Tower during the U.N. General Assembly meeting in September. The three reportedly talked about Trump’s fondness for Scotland, where Trump’s mother was born. Before the sit-down, Trump congratulated Starmer on his win, saying the prime minister “ran a great race, he did very well. … He’s very popular.”
On the big issues, though, there may be friction.
Starmer sat down with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 summit in Brazil last week and said Britain seeks a “strong” relationship with China, focused on international stability, climate change and economic growth.
Trump is going tougher on Beijing, threatening huge tariffs.
On the climate crisis, Starmer loves wind turbines. Trump, famously, does not.
Starmer would be less willing than Trump to give Israel carte blanche for the wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
In September, he broke with the Biden administration by announcing that Britain was suspending some arms export licenses to Israel because of a “clear risk” the weapons may be used to facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law. Later, exemptions were made for components of F-35 fighter jets and other materiel.
Ukraine could also be a difficult conversation for Starmer and Trump.
Starmer is a stalwart backer of President Volodymyr Zelensky. At the G-20, on the 1,000-day anniversary of Russia’s invasion, Starmer said President Vladimir Putin was “the author of his own exile” from the group, and told Russia to “get out of Ukraine.”
Trump has been reluctant to say whether Ukraine should win. During the campaign, he said he could end the war within 24 hours, without providing details.
Trump might approve of Starmer’s vow to make “wealth creation” the centerpiece of his new government, as the prime minister struggles to turn around Britain’s low productivity and sluggish growth.
On the other hand, Britain’s Labour Party government just unveiled the biggest tax increase in a generation.
After Britain left the European Union, Starmer’s predecessors sought a sweeping trade deal with the United States. It never happened. One reason: British farmers and consumers are wary of accepting and competing with chlorinated chicken or hormone-fed beef from America.
Stephen Moore, who served as an economic adviser to Trump when he was president, told the BBC that Britain “really has to choose between the Europe economic model of more socialism and the U.S. model, which is more based on a free enterprise system.”
Moore said the United Kingdom was “caught in the middle of these two forms of an economic model. I believe that Britain would be better off moving towards more of the American model of economic freedom” if it wants to avoid the higher tariffs that Trump may introduce.
An early test of the U.S.-U.K. relationship under Trump could involve what’s known as the Chagos Islands deal.
Starmer’s government agreed last month to hand over sovereignty of the disputed islands in the Indian Ocean to Mauritius. The move was celebrated in some corners as the end of “Britain’s last African colony.”
The United States has a vested interest, because it shares a military base with Britain on the island. The agreed-upon deal would allow that base to remain under U.K. and U.S. jurisdiction for the next 99 years. But critics, including secretary of state pick Marco Rubio, a Republican senator from Florida, say it reads weak and could embolden China.
Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform Party in Britain who is close to Trump, suggested that the president-elect would view the move with “outright hostility.”
But Lammy told the New Statesman that he was confident the new administration would support it. “Donald Trump knows what a good deal looks like, and this is a good deal,” he said.
Цитата:
Trump and his allies see a role model in Argentina’s Milei
The chainsaw-wielding libertarian’s record of slashing government spending has won him admirers in Trumpworld. .
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Argentine President Javier Milei, center, appears at Mar-a-Lago on Nov. 14 with, from left, Argentine Foreign Minister Gerardo Werthein, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, President-elect Donald Trump and Argentine Secretary General of the Presidency Karina Milei. (Argentinian Presidency/AFP/Getty Images)
For the American right, there’s a new icon on the bloc. The week after Donald Trump’s election victory,
Argentine President Javier Milei appeared at a black-tie bash at the President-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, where he was received with the same effusive enthusiasm that he himself took to the proceedings.
Milei — a colorful showman who came to politics after building his celebrity as a loudmouthed, strangely coiffed television pundit — was the first world leader to meet Trump in person after the Nov. 5 election. He beamed through photos with Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk. He danced and jerked his arms about to the disco song “Y.M.C.A.” In a short speech, the libertarian economist exulted in Trump’s win, saying “the forces of heaven [were] on our side.”
Trump’s first term overlapped with that of Brazil’s hard-right firebrand former president Jair Bolsonaro. The duo had an ideological affinity, anchored in a shared contempt for their countries’ perceived left-leaning political and cultural establishments. They vowed to tear it all down; their opponents saw them as dangerous demagogues harnessing societal polarization to subvert their nations’ democracies.
The political landscape of the hemisphere has further shifted ahead of Trump’s second term: Bolsonaro, though out of office and entangled in prosecutions of his and his supporters’ alleged attempts to overthrow a 2022 election defeat, remains an influential figure in Brazil, and his allies represent a major electoral bloc. Republicans also have the example of El Salvador’s wildly popular President Nayib Bukele, the “bitcoin bro” strongman who has presided over a comprehensive — and highly popular — crackdown on gang violence in his impoverished nation, defied the constitution to serve beyond its one-term limit and jokingly described himself as the world’s “coolest dictator.”
And they have Milei, who emerged from the fringes of Argentine politics in bolsonarista fashion, chainsaw in hand, to surge to power a year ago.
Since taking office in December, he has moved quickly and radically, slashing public spending, erasing several governmental ministries and deregulating broad swaths of the economy. His zeal has won admirers in Trumpworld, where Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, tasked with leading the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” — in reality, a nongovernment advisory board — are keen to follow Milei’s example. Ramaswamy, pushing for mass federal layoffs, has called for “Milei-style cuts, on steroids” as Trump and his allies act on their long-held desire to dismantle the administrative state.
Never mind the vast differences between the contexts in each country. Milei’s ascent followed decades of economic dysfunction in Argentina, cycles of hyperinflation and sclerotic governance. Trump seems to have successfully convinced a segment of U.S. voters that similar crises exist in their own country, though the data and evidence indicate otherwise. What’s more real is their shared political animus — deep anger and grievance against a supposedly leftist status quo, and a radical vision to turn the tables. In that project, they have the support of a cast of powerful financial elites, including prominent Silicon Valley would-be oligarchs.
Musk, Milei told a podcaster recently, is “a great fighter for the ideas of freedom. He’s helping the world nowadays wake up once and for all and become aware of the socialist virus. That in itself makes him a hero in the history of humanity.”
That affinity could shape Trump’s dealings with the hemisphere in the years to come. “Trump’s close relations with these presidents and politicians will be ideological and personal, shifting White House policy to partisan support for outsider, nationalist populists inspired by him,” wrote Christopher Sabatini, a Latin America specialist at the Chatham House think tank. “In Latin America and the Caribbean, a region scarred by U.S. meddling, Washington’s intervention will now likely be in the service of a personalistic and narrowly ideological vision.”
Milei’s own record is still up for debate.
His methods have undoubtedly had an effect. “Inflation is tumbling, just as he promised, from a peak of almost 300 percent; a long-running budget deficit has turned into a surplus; government bonds, once seen as almost certain to sink back into default, are rallying; and the long-moribund economy is finally starting to rebound,” Bloomberg News reported this month. “Not bad for an outsider with an agenda so radical that people were speculating openly a year ago on how many months he’d last before having to surrender power.”
Milei himself is bullish. “What lies ahead in 2025 is more of what we’ve already done: strict fiscal balance, no money growth and deregulation,” he wrote in the Economist. “Argentina has suffered from an overdose of deficits, money-printing and useless regulations. All that needs to go.”
But more than half of Argentina’s population finds itself in stifling poverty, with millions affected by Milei’s cuts. State welfare has dried up, pensions are frozen and soup kitchens shuttered. Poverty in the country is at its highest rate in two decades. “This new economic program is not protecting the poor,” Kirsten Sehnbruch, an expert on Latin America at the London School of Economics and Political Science, told the Guardian. “The jump is absolutely horrendous.”
Opinion polls show support for Milei is holding. It’s unclear, though, what sort of dividend Trump’s presidency may yield for Milei. Deeper U.S. economic engagement is unlikely. “There’s a pretty high threshold for U.S. companies to have confidence in Argentina,” Benjamin Gedan, director of the Latin America program at the Wilson Center, told the Wall Street Journal. “And a friendship between the Argentine and U.S. presidents is not nearly enough to move the needle on investment decisions.”
And Trump’s sweeping tariffs would cut against Milei’s laissez-faire principles, and almost certainly damage Argentina’s struggling economy. Their evolving bromance may prove to be more about style and optics than policy.
“Another four years of Trump will likely deepen internal division in the Western Hemisphere between hard-right populist and centrist and leftist leaders,” Sabatini concluded. “But it will probably fail to advance any consistent force globally, in relation to Trump’s inchoate, transactional and partisan world view.”
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Opinion /
Why the resistance went quiet after Trump’s victory
he fight against supposed fascism is not much of a fight, and that’s a good thing.
President Joe Biden hosts President-elect Donald Trump at the White House on Nov. 13. (Al Drago/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Something odd has happened. A “fascist” has risen to power in the world’s oldest democracy. A fascist is, in fact, what Kamala Harris called Donald Trump just weeks ago. In those tense days before the election, a host of Trump critics and opponents used similarly alarmist language, such as Rep. Dan Goldman (D-New York) suggesting that Trump “is paving the way to become … an Adolf Hitler.”
None of this rhetoric was new. In a major 2022 address, ahead of the midterm elections, President Joe Biden warned Americans that democracy itself was “on the ballot.” The question in front of voters, he declared, was whether “democracy will long endure.”
Today, a verdict has been handed down, yet the language of autocratic doom has dissipated, a faint memory of a different era. Biden welcomed the would-be dictator to the White House and seemed in good spirits, pledging to do everything he could to make sure the president-elect was accommodated. In Harris’s concession speech, she did not seem overly troubled by the prospect — for the first time in U.S. history — of a fascist in the most powerful office in the land. Instead, she offered a succession of motivational platitudes. “To the young people who are watching,” she intoned, “it is okay to feel sad and disappointed. But please know it’s going to be okay.”
If this is what the fight against fascism looks like, it’s not much of a fight. It sounds more like a dishonorable surrender. The shift away from “existential” rhetoric is welcome: The challenge of democracy, as I have written, is one of coming to terms with frightening electoral outcomes. This sudden softening, however, raises questions about whether Democrats ever truly believed their own words — or whether they were engaging in a cynical effort to motivate and even shame Americans into voting against Trump in the absence of compelling reasons to vote for their candidate.
But it’s not just politicians who embraced hyperbole. It’s the hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens who, last time around, in 2016, quickly fashioned themselves into the “resistance” — a moniker that “unless you are burying weapons in the forests of Poland or hiding in the basements of French country houses, one has no right to assume,” as the author James Kirchick archly put it.
This time around, they appear strangely subdued, victims of the dual reality of what Sam Adler-Bell terms “pre-exhaustion” and “non-novelty.” In 2016, Trump’s win could be explained away as a fluke of the electoral college, an aberration in time’s march of progress. To resist was to pave the way for a restoration, a restoration that came with Biden’s endearingly boring bid for normalcy.
Now, though, for many Harris supporters, there is a sense of being humbled, even mugged, by reality. We thought this was our country, but we discovered that much of the country had left us behind, indifferent to our warnings. Just enough Hispanics, Black men and Arab Americans apparently decided that (supposed) white supremacy was an acceptable price to pay to bring down a system that promised much but delivered little.
Perhaps, too, there is a bit of shame, that most paralyzing of emotions. In his bracing postmortem, Adler-Bell wrote: “One feels shame for having missed something, misapprehending political reality. … One feels shame for risking too much hope, for encouraging others to do the same. And most of all, one feels shame — humiliation, even — over feeling powerless: powerless to stop bad things from happening to people we love but also simply less powerful, ousted from the driver’s seat of history.”
Emotions of despair are different from those of hope. Hope spurs action. Despair more often leads to retreat. In this vein, a growing number of former activists are proposing rest and self-care as better, saner propositions than political action. As activist David Hogg, who survived the Parkland school shooting in Florida, reflected: “We’ve marched so much. We’re tired of doing the same thing over and over.”
There is also a sense that protests might not exactly work, that people power isn’t particularly powerful. As the political scientist Erica Chenoweth noted in a 2022 article, nonviolent campaigns are “seeing their lowest success rates in more than a century.” The reasons vary depending on whether the countries in question are democracies or dictatorships. In the United States, heightened polarization means that leaders perceive politics in zero-sum terms and more readily ignore the demands of members of the opposing party. But even sympathetic elected officials — as with the 2020 George Floyd protests — tend to respond with cosmetic reforms and symbolic statements of solidarity that don’t actually have much measurable impact, as the sociologist Musa al-Gharbi has documented.
Perhaps some of this demobilization is for the best. Four more years of civil unrest would probably have little effect on someone like Trump and might even trigger him to invoke the Insurrection Act to quell protests, as he has already threatened to do.
It might be tantalizing to see ourselves as radicals and revolutionaries against the tide of dictatorship. But it’s presumptuous and even self-indulgent to make ourselves the center of the story. We are not revolutionaries. America, for all its flaws, is still a democracy. And in democracies, there probably shouldn’t be revolutionaries. There are citizens. And that should be enough.
Luckily, the alternative to protest is as obvious as it is urgent. We should allow Trump’s victory to chasten us, to force us to reflect on why so many of our fellow Americans cast their lot with Trump despite being well aware of his flaws. And then we must focus not on inchoate expressions of rage but on persuading voters to vote differently next time around. That’s the more difficult work, since there will be no immediate gratification to be found.
But it is also perfectly legitimate for individuals to make other, more personal calculations. As Cheri Hall, a diversity, equity and inclusion consultant who is Black, told her social media followers, now might be the time to take a “great Black step back.” This is also a time to remember that living a good life is not the same as having the right politics. If our time on Earth is finite — we have only about 4,000 weeks to live on average — then we must choose carefully how to spend it.
Despite how it might feel in this moment, there is no shame in defeat, and there should be no embarrassment in pulling back, even if temporarily. Life is too short, but it is also long.
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С интересом и понятными пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
Американские политики и журналисты всерьёз обсуждают последствия передачи Киеву ядерного оружия. Похоже, моя печальная шутка про безумного маразматика Байдена, решившего красиво уйти из жизни, забрав с собой значительную часть человечества, превращается в пугающую реальность. Передать ядерное оружие стране, которая воюет с крупнейшей ядерной державой? Сама мысль настолько абсурдна, что вызывает подозрение о наличии параноидального психоза у Joe The Walking Dead и всех тех, кто рассуждает о целесообразности такого шага.
И всё же приходится комментировать бред:
1) сама угроза передачи ЯО киевскому режиму может рассматриваться как подготовка к ядерному конфликту с Россией;
2) фактическая передача такого оружия может быть приравнена к свершившемуся акту нападения на нашу страну в смысле п. 19 Основ госполитики в области ядерного сдерживания.
Последствия очевидны.
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Trump’s Vow to End the War Could Leave Ukraine With Few Options
One question is whether the new administration and Europe will provide security guarantees to prevent Russia from taking more territory.
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Two years ago, Gen. Mark A. Milley, then the chief military adviser to President Biden, suggested that neither Russia nor Ukraine could win the war. A negotiated settlement, he argued, was the only route to peace.
His remarks caused a furor among senior officials. But President-elect Donald J. Trump’s win is turning General Milley’s prediction into reality. Mr. Trump has made clear his distaste for continuing to help Ukraine take back territory seized by Russia, making a negotiated settlement the only real viable option left.
The ascendance of Mr. Trump as Ukraine suffers losses on the battlefield in fact means less room for Ukraine to maneuver.
One of the biggest unknowns for Ukraine is whether the Trump administration and Europe will provide any kind of security guarantees that would prevent Russia from trying to take more territory. Mr. Trump has said he would end the war quickly, though he has not explained how. But Vice President-elect JD Vance has outlined a plan that would allow Russia to keep the Ukrainian territory it has taken.
A phone call just after the election between Mr. Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine shed little light on the question of security guarantees. Aides to both men simply described the tone of the call as “positive.”
Some officials in the Biden administration have suggested taking more assertive measures in the remaining two months they have to help Ukraine, such as allowing the country to use U.S.-supplied longer-range missiles to strike inside Russia for the first time.
In recent days, Mr. Biden authorized the use of those missiles, known as ATACMS, for Army Tactical Missile Systems. Ukraine used them on Tuesday to strike an ammunition depot in southwestern Russia, according to Ukrainian officials.
On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said the Biden administration had approved supplying Ukraine with American anti-personnel mines to bolster defenses against Russian attacks as front lines in Ukraine’s east buckled.
But Mr. Biden’s last-minute steps to give Ukraine weaponry it has been requesting for years are unlikely to change much on the battlefield.
The White House has said it will allocate the remaining $9 billion in security assistance before Mr. Trump takes office. Of that amount, the administration plans to give Ukraine just over $7 billion worth of arms and munitions from Pentagon stocks, and about $2.1 billion to order more weapons from U.S. defense contractors.
In meetings in Kyiv last month, Mr. Austin and top Ukrainian military officials discussed which arms and munitions the United States was likely to send in the next five months — or roughly through March — so that Ukraine’s commanders could budget their war plans accordingly.
Of course, the new administration could put those shipments on hold. But Pentagon officials have expressed confidence that it would be challenging for the Trump administration to suspend aid that has already been approved by Congress and set into motion.
In another shift this month, the Pentagon said it was lifting a ban on U.S. military contractors deploying to Ukraine to help the country’s military maintain and repair U.S.-provided weapons systems, particularly F-16 fighter jets and Patriot air defenses.
The Defense Department is soliciting bids for a small number of contractors who would be far from the front lines and would not be fighting Russian forces, a Pentagon official said.
Pentagon officials are aiming to award contracts before Mr. Biden leaves office, though the process typically takes four to nine months.
Several U.S. companies already have personnel in Ukraine fulfilling contracts for the Ukrainian government.
The administration’s decision to allow Ukraine to use the ATACMS missiles to strike inside Russia was a major change in U.S. policy. It came partly in response to Russia’s decision to bring North Korean troops into the war, officials have said.
Mr. Biden and his top aides had repeatedly rejected such requests from Ukraine, arguing that the Pentagon had few of the missiles to spare and that Ukraine could more effectively hit targets deep inside Russia with the one-way attack drones it manufactured in large quantities.
But the escalation risk of allowing Ukraine to strike Russia with U.S.-supplied weaponry has diminished with the election of Mr. Trump, Biden administration officials believe, calculating that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia knows he has to wait only two months for the new administration. Mr. Trump is believed to view Russia more favorably, and his choice for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has often repeated Kremlin talking points.
Even with additional aid, officials in the intelligence community as well as at the Pentagon say it will be difficult for Ukraine to regain the ground that Russia has steadily seized over the past few months.
Ukraine is losing territory in the east, and its forces in the Kursk region in western Russia have been partly pushed back as North Korean recruits join the fight.
Sagging morale among Ukrainian troops and uncertainty over Mr. Trump also continue to threaten their war effort.
The Ukrainian military is struggling to recruit soldiers and equip new units. The number of its soldiers killed in action, about 57,000, is half of Russia’s losses but significant for the much smaller country.
U.S. spy agencies have assessed that speeding up the provisions of weapons, ammunition and matériel for Ukraine will do little to change the course of the war in the short term, according to American officials briefed on the intelligence.
But speeding up U.S. weaponry in the waning months of the Biden administration could help Ukraine enforce a cease-fire or armistice line if there were to be a settlement, officials said.
The one gold-standard security guarantee that Ukraine wants is an invitation to join NATO. But it could not get that under Mr. Biden, and an invitation is unlikely during Mr. Trump’s presidency.
So U.S. and European officials are discussing deterrence as a possible security guarantee for Ukraine, such as stockpiling a conventional arsenal sufficient to strike a punishing blow if Russia violates a cease-fire.
Several officials even suggested that Mr. Biden could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union. That would be an instant and enormous deterrent. But such a step would be complicated and have serious implications.
Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defense minister, said in an interview that for a successful cease-fire, Ukraine and its allies must reverse the momentum on the front line to set conditions for talks.
Ukraine must also have sufficient firepower in reserve to deter any cease-fire violations, he said, for example with an arsenal of longer-range weaponry to inflict immediate damage if Russia resumes hostilities.
Ukraine’s army, though on a back foot now, has held out for more than two and a half years against a larger, more powerful opponent. “The fact that we went 10 rounds with Mike Tyson is a success,” Mr. Zagorodnyuk said.
But that was with billions of dollars in U.S. and European weapons. Now that supply is about to dry up, officials on both sides of the Atlantic say.
DHL plane crash in Lithuania may be result of sabotage, says German minister
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The fatal crash of a DHL cargo plane as it approached Vilnius airport could have been the result of sabotage or an accident, Germany’s foreign minister has said.
A Spanish crew member was killed and three others injured when the German plane crashed into a house near the Lithuanian capital on Monday.
Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, raised the possibility that the crash had been caused on purpose, telling reporters: “We must now seriously ask ourselves whether this was an accident or whether it was another hybrid incident,” in an allusion to the recent severing of cables in the Baltic Sea that officials have said could have been sabotage.
“The German authorities are working very closely with the Lithuanian authorities to get to the bottom of this,” she added.
Germany’s defence minister Boris Pistorius later said later that there were as yet “no findings” suggesting there had been an explosive charge on the aircraft.
Germany is already investigating several fires caused by incendiary devices hidden inside parcels at DHL warehouses earlier this year, the country’s prosecutor general has said.
Lithuanian authorities stopped short of linking the crash with that investigation.
“So far, there are no signs or evidence suggesting this was sabotage or a terrorist act,” the Lithuanian defence minister, Laurynas Kasčiūnas, told reporters, adding that the investigation to establish the cause could take “about a week”.
German officials said they would be launching their own investigation and were in “close contact with the relevant institutions here and abroad to get to the bottom of the situation as quickly as possible”, a security source told the news weekly Die Zeit.
The flight was operated by Swiftair on behalf of DHL and had taken off from Leipzig, Germany, before the plane crashed in overcast conditions at about 03.30 GMT, a spokesperson for Lithuania’s national crisis management centre said.
“Thankfully, despite the crash occurring in a residential area, no lives have been lost among the local population,” the Lithuanian prime minister, Ingrida Šimonytė, said after meeting with rescue officials. She cautioned against speculation, saying investigators needed time to do their job.
“The responsible agencies are working diligently,” Šimonytė said. “I urge everyone to have confidence in the investigating authorities’ ability to conduct a thorough and professional investigation within an optimal timeframe. Only these investigations will uncover the true causes of the incident; speculation and guesswork will not help establish the truth.”
The crisis management centre spokesperson said there was nothing to suggest an explosion preceded the crash. “At the moment we don’t have any data that there was an explosion,” he said.
Lithuania’s counter-intelligence chief, Darius Jauniškis, told reporters: “We cannot reject the possibility of terrorism … But at the moment we can’t make attributions or point fingers, because we don’t have such information.”
The general commissioner of the Lithuanian police, Arūnas Paulauskas, said investigators were considering possible causes, including technical failure and human error.
An airport spokesperson said the plane was a Boeing 737-400. The airport said in a statement that because of rescue work in the area, several departures were delayed and one incoming flight was diverted to Riga.
Police told a press conference that 12 people had been evacuated from the house hit by the plane. Rescue services said the aircraft hit the ground and slid at least 100 metres (110 yards) before crashing into the building, setting it ablaze.
Stanislovas Jakimavicius, who lives about 300 metres from the crash site, told AFP: “We were woken by the sound of an explosion. Through the window, we saw the wave of explosions and a cloud of fire. Like fireworks.”
The three crew members who were injured were Spanish, German and Lithuanian citizens, said Ramūnas Matonis, the head of communications for Lithuanian police.
Firefighters were seen at 05.30 GMT pouring water on to a smoking building 0.8 miles (1.3km) north of the airport runway. A large police and ambulance presence was seen nearby and main streets nearby were cordoned off.
The flight had departed from Leipzig at 02.08 GMT, Flightradar24 said on X. Neither DHL nor Swiftair, a Madrid-based contractor, offered immediate comment.
Earlier this month, Lithuania carried out arrests as part of a criminal investigation into the sending of incendiary devices on western-bound planes. According to Polish and Lithuanian media, the devices, including electric massagers implanted with a flammable substance, were sent from Lithuania to the UK in July and could have been behind a lorry fire outside Warsaw.
Poland and Lithuania, both Nato members bordering Russia, are staunch allies of Ukraine and have frequently warned of Russian-inspired sabotage on EU soil. Moscow has denied any involvement.
In October, after Germany’s investigation came to light, British counter-terrorism police said they were investigating a warehouse blaze in July which was caused by a package catching fire, and liaising with other European law enforcement agencies to see if there was a connection with similar incidents elsewhere.
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Цитата:
Sweden urges Chinese ship to return for undersea cable investigation
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COPENHAGEN, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Sweden is asking a Chinese vessel to return to Swedish waters to help facilitate the Nordic country's investigation into recent breaches of undersea fibre-optic cables in the Baltic Sea, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Tuesday.
Two subsea cables, one linking Finland and Germany and the other connecting Sweden to Lithuania, were damaged in less than 24 hours on Nov. 17-18, raising suspicions of sabotage, countries and companies involved said.
Denmark's military said soon afterwards that its vessels were staying close to Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3, which travelled through the Baltic Sea at the time and now sits idle in international waters but inside Denmark's exclusive economic zone.
The breaches occurred in Sweden's exclusive economic zone, leading Swedish prosecutors to launch a preliminary investigation.
"From the Swedish side we have had contact with the ship and contact with China and said that we want the ship to move towards Swedish waters," Kristersson told a press conference.
The Chinese ship left the Russian port of Ust-Luga on Nov. 15 and was in the areas where the cable damage occurred, according to traffic data, which showed other ships had also been in the area.
"We're not making any accusations but we seek clarity on what has happened," Kristersson said.
"This is the second time in a relatively short period of time that there have been serious physical cable breaches," he said.
Sweden was hopeful that China would respond positively to the request, Kristersson added.
China's foreign ministry said on Monday that Beijing has maintained "smooth communication" with all parties involved.
Last year a subsea gas pipeline and several telecoms cables running along the bottom of the Baltic Sea were severely damaged, and Finnish police have said they believe the incident was caused by a Chinese ship dragging its anchor.
But the investigators have not said whether they believe the damage in 2023 was accidental or intentional.
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Finlandia: Na Bałtyku rozpoczęto naprawę przeciętego kabla przesyłowego do Niemiec
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Według doniesień mediów skandynawskich związek z uszkodzeniem kabli może mieć chiński statek towarowy Yi Peng 3, który przepływał w pobliżu miejsca uszkodzeń. Jednostka kotwiczy obecnie między Danią a Szwecją w cieśninie Kattegat u wyjścia z Morza Bałtyckiego.
Duński nadawca podał w poniedziałek, że władze z różnych krajów prowadzą obecnie z Chinami negocjacje w sprawie możliwości wejścia na pokład statku i przesłuchania załogi. "Helsingin Sanomat" pisze z kolei, że oprócz jednostek marynarki wojennej i straży przybrzeżnej z Danii, Szwecji i Niemiec śledzących ruch chińskiego statku, w regionie pojawiła się także rosyjska korweta Merkury. Rosja także monitoruje sytuację, a obecność jej okrętu wojennego w cieśninie to "demonstracja siły" - ocenili komentatorzy.
Один из лидеров российской оппозиции Владимир Кара-Мурза* назвал «подлой» статью посла Украины в Германии Макеева, который раскритиковал берлинский марш российской оппозиции.
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«Статья нечестная, откровенно подлая, основанная на подлогах. Достаточно того, что он весь пафос своей статьи выстраивает на критике в адрес нас троих - Юлии Навальной*, Ильи Яшина* и меня. И как-то он случайно забывает упомянуть, что у одной мужа убил путинский режим, а двое других сидели в тюрьме за то, что они выступили против войны в Украине», - сказал Кара-Мурза в интервью DW.
Он также критикует тезис о коллективной ответственности всех россиян за войну в Украине.
«Я категорически отвергаю принцип так называемой "коллективной вины". Об этом в свое время написала хорошо Ханна Арендт - историк, которая много занималась темой нацистской Германии. Она написала, что если виноваты все, то не виноват никто. И на самом деле принцип этой коллективной вины очень удобен для тех, кто виновен по-настоящему. Есть огромное количество действительно виновных людей, это не только Путин. И эти люди все должны быть привлечены к ответственности. Это было одним из требований нашего марша. Но это, извините, не все россияне. Я думаю, что все здравомыслящие люди это прекрасно понимают. Поэтому форма, в которой господин посол написал эту статью, это саморазоблачение какое-то», - сказал Кара-Мурза*.
Он также сказал, что единственный способ «обеспечить нам всем нормальное будущее - не только России, но и Украине, и всей Европе - это чтобы Россия стала нормальной свободной демократической страной. Чтобы это произошло, свободный мир должен строить диалог с теми российскими гражданами, кто являются единомышленниками, а не мазать всех черной краской».
«Здравомыслящие и умные люди понимают, что Россия и Украина всегда будут оставаться соседями - это просто географический факт, и поэтому вместо того, чтобы всех огульно обвинять и нападать, нужно находить возможность выстраивать диалог. Это будет очень сложной, но очень важной задачей. Это будет очень тяжело после тех страшных преступлений, но я знаю как историк, что это возможно», - заявил Кара-Мурза*.
(* иноагенты, осуждённые в России)
Цитата:
Завтра, 17 ноября, представители российской оппозиции собираются устроить антивоенный марш в Берлине.
Акция пройдет под лозунгами "Нет Путину!", "Нет войне в Украине!", "Свободу политзаключенным!".
Ее организаторами выступают Юлия Навальная*, Илья Яшин* и Владимир Кара-Мурза*.
При этом акцию уже раскритиковал посол Украины в Германии Алексей Макеев.
В статье для издания Die Zeit он написал, что марш российских оппозиционеров - не более чем «прогулка, лишенная достоинства и последствий».
Он назвал планируемое мероприятие PR-акцией, «целевой аудиторией которой является не российское население, а немецкие медиа и политики». Борьба в данном случае идет «не против российского режима, а за внимание Германии».
Также Макеев критикует российскую оппозицию за то, что она обвиняет в начале войны только одного человека - Путина и «стремится уйти от коллективной ответственности» российского народа.
Кроме того, Макеев обвинил антипутинскую оппозицию в империализме.
"В российском сознании критический самоанализ постоянно заменяется империалистической озабоченностью собой", - считает посол Украины.
UK’s highest court set to rule on definition of a woman
Supreme Court judges set to hear legal challenge over whether trans women can be regarded as female
The appeal at the UK Supreme Court is set to last for two days (Aaron Chown/PA) (PA Archive)
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Judges at the Supreme Court are to begin examining a legal challenge over whether trans women can be regarded as female for the purposes of the 2010 Equality Act.
The action is the latest in a series of challenges brought by the campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS) over the definition of “woman” in Scottish legislation mandating 50 per cent female representation on public boards.
The case centres on whether or not somebody with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) recognising their gender as female should be treated as a woman under the 2010 Equality Act.
It will set out exactly how the law is meant to treat trans people and could have future implications on single-sex spaces, and will address how “sex” is defined within our legal system.
The latest action is seeking to overturn a decision by the Scottish courts in 2023 which found that treating someone with a GRC as a woman under the Equality Act was lawful.
Campaigners from For Women Scotland protest outside Holyrood (PA) (PA Wire)
The Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 is a piece of legislation intended to increase the proportion of women on public boards in Scotland.
In 2022, FWS successfully challenged the original act over its inclusion of trans women in its definition of women.
The Court of Session ruled that changing the definition of a woman in the act was unlawful, as it dealt with matters falling outside the Scottish Parliament’s legal competence.
Following the challenge, the Scottish Government dropped the definition from the act and issued revised statutory guidance – essentially, advice on how to comply with the law.
This stated that under the 2018 Act the definition of a woman was the same as that set out in the Equality Act 2010, and also that a person with a GRC recognising their gender as female had the sex of a woman.
FWS challenged this revised guidance on the grounds sex under the Equality Act referred to its biological meaning and said the Government was overstepping its powers by effectively redefining the meaning of “woman”.
However, their challenge was rejected by the Court of Session’s Outer House on December 13 2022.
The ramifications of this case are much more far reaching, and all sex-based rights protected by the Equality Act are at risk.
Trina Budge, For Women Scotland.
The Inner House upheld that decision on 1 November 2023 – but did grant FWS permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court.
When the group’s legal argument was published ahead of the appeal last month, FWS director Trina Budge said: “Not tying the definition of sex to its ordinary meaning means that public boards could conceivably comprise of 50 per cent men, and 50 per cent men with certificates, yet still lawfully meet the targets for female representation.
“However, the ramifications of this case are much more far-reaching and all sex-based rights protected by the Equality Act are at risk.
“The stakes are high and the court’s decision will have consequences for everyday single-sex services such as toilets and hospital wards.
“It will determine whether a pregnant woman with a GRC is entitled to maternity leave, what it means to be same-sex attracted, and whether a man with a GRC’s entitlement to join a group of lesbians takes priority over their right to freely associate with only women.
“Trans rights are protected under the separate category of gender reassignment but to fully guarantee women’s rights it is increasingly clear that a consistent, biological and factual understanding of sex is the only workable solution.”
The Scottish Government said they were unable to comment on live legal proceedings.
The appeal before Lord Reed, Lord Hodge, Lord Lloyd-Jones, Lady Rose and Lady Simler is expected to last two days.
_________________
С интересом и понятными пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
Минобороны РФ заявило, что готовит ответные действия на атаки ВСУ ракетами ATACMS в Курской области.
Цитата:
Вооруженные силы Украины использовали американские ракеты ATACMS при ударе по аэродрому Курск-Восточный, семь ракет было сбито, одна достигла цели, сообщило Минобороны РФ.
"25 ноября 2024 года киевский режим нанес еще один удар восемью оперативно-тактическими ракетами ATACMS по аэродрому Курск - Восточный (н.п. ХАЛИНО). Семь ракет были сбиты боевыми расчетами ЗРС С-400 и ЗРПК "Панцирь", одна – достигла цели. В результате падения осколков ракет два военнослужащих получили легкие ранения, незначительно повреждены объекты инфраструктуры", - говорится в сообщении.
В ходе обследования мест, подвергшихся атакам, достоверно подтверждено, что ВСУ наносили удары оперативно-тактическими ракетами ATACMS американского производства, подчеркивается в сообщении Минобороны.
Цитата:
Первый удар американскими ракетами ATACMS по объектам в Курской области был нанесен 23 ноября пятью ракетами ATACMS по позиции зенитного дивизиона С-400, из них две достигли цели. Повреждена радиолокационная станция, есть пострадавшие, сообщили в Минобороны РФ.
"23 ноября противник пятью оперативно-тактическими ракетами ATACMS американского производства нанес удар в районе Лотаревки (37 км северо-западней Курска) по позиции зенитного ракетного дивизиона С-400. В ходе противоракетного боя боевым расчетом ЗРПК "Панцирь", осуществлявшим прикрытие этого дивизиона, три ракеты ATACMS были уничтожены, а две достигли цели. В результате удара повреждена РЛС. Среди личного состава есть пострадавшие", - сообщили там.
ФСБ РФ сообщила о лишении аккредитации второго секретаря политического отдела посольства Великобритании в Москве Уилкса Эдварда Прайора, указавшего ложные данные о себе при получении разрешения на въезд в Россию.
"Достоверно установлено, что направленный в Москву по линии Директората Восточной Европы и Центральной Азии МИД Великобритании второй секретарь политического отдела посольства Великобритании в Москве Уилкс Эдвард Прайор, сменивший на должности прикрытия одного из шестерых британских разведчиков, высланных из России в августе сего года, при получении разрешения на въезд в нашу страну намеренно указал ложные данные, чем нарушил российское законодательство",- сообщил Центр общественных связей спецслужбы.
В ФСБ России также заявили, что "выявлены признаки проведения указанным дипломатом разведывательно-подрывной работы, угрожающей безопасности Российской Федерации".
Цитата:
During a recent House of Lords debate, Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle raised questions about the continued investment in Britain’s nuclear weapons programme.
...
Referencing a Financial Times article by Philip Stephens, she asked whether the Government might reconsider its stance, given the high costs and reliance on the United States.
“Should those difficult decisions—or at least, difficult considerations—not include giving serious consideration as to whether we should continue a nuclear weapons programme?”
she queried.
Lord Coaker, Minister of State for Defence, was unequivocal in his response.
“We are certainly a brave Government, but it has been a consistent policy of whatever Government have been in power to support the nuclear deterrent. The nuclear deterrent will continue; we will renew the nuclear deterrent,”
he stated.
Highlighting the current geopolitical climate, Lord Coaker pointed to the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The irresponsible threats at the present time raise the prospect of it. Let us be clear about this: we support the nuclear deterrent, and we support its renewal. That is an important part of our defence,”
he added.
Цитата:
British forces lead ten nation exercise in Latvia
The UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), comprising ten northern European nations, has successfully completed Exercise Joint Protector, a month-long operation conducted across multiple locations in Latvia.
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The exercise demonstrated the partnership’s ability to rapidly bolster NATO’s eastern flank in response to emerging threats, according to the Ministry of Defence.
Military personnel from JEF member nations practised swift deployment from their home bases to strategic positions across Latvia. This year’s exercise also marked the first-time Ukrainian military officers joined, highlighting the alliance’s emphasis on learning from Ukraine’s combat experiences during the ongoing conflict with Russia.
The UK’s Minister for the Armed Forces, Luke Pollard, stated:
“Exercise Joint Protector demonstrates our unwavering commitment to regional security, keeping us secure at home and strong abroad, as well as the strength and depth of our international partnerships.
The participation of our Ukrainian partners highlights the exercise’s importance, ensuring that we can learn from Ukraine’s hard-fought combat experience.”
(выделенно а.п.)
The exercise focused on improving coordination and interoperability among JEF nations during the early phases of deployment. The JEF—comprising the UK, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden, and Finland—operates as a flexible and rapidly deployable force capable of addressing security challenges in Northern Europe.
The MOD highlighted that the
Joint Expeditionary Force
adds significant value to regional security, complementing NATO’s broader defence framework.
“The value added by the JEF is a significant contribution to both security and deterrence, giving JEF Participant Nation governments, and NATO, more options in times of crisis.”
This year’s exercise tested how quickly forces could integrate and deploy alongside key equipment across Latvia. The presence of Ukrainian officers reflected the growing partnership between the JEF and Ukraine, emphasising shared lessons from frontline combat operations.
As a NATO-aligned force, the JEF aims to enhance the alliance’s readiness while addressing specific regional security needs. The MOD affirmed the partnership’s strategic importance:
“Our collective vision for the JEF’s long-term development is for it to be a key component of Northern European security: supporting our members, delivering region-specific and multi-domain defence activities, and contributing to the security of Europe as one of NATO’s Framework Nation Concepts.”
Материал полностью.
Цитата:
Putin’s approval bump offers little reassurance on strategy
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Two recent studies by Western academics have concluded that public support for Vladimir Putin strengthened dramatically following Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, and again during its subsequent invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
One of these studies even found evidence that Western sanctions had improved the electoral fortunes of Putin and his ‘United Russia’ party (Единая Россия) in the 2018 presidential and 2016 parliamentary elections.
Yet these findings are based on questionable data from a country where political freedom is severely constrained, and where a sizeable proportion of the electorate are woefully ill-informed by the government-controlled media they depend on for news.
Setting aside the increased likelihood of voter suppression and electoral manipulation, public opinion surveys and elections in countries practising ‘electoral authoritarianism’ are highly vulnerable to self-censorship and low levels of trust in ballot confidentiality.
Together these factors conspire to undermine any confidence Russia’s regime might place in apparent improvements in domestic approval attributed to Putin’s evolving military strategy.
Putin’s Political Vulnerability Amid Conflict
Instead, the pervasive uncertainties involved underpin the regime’s political vulnerability to both a prolonged conflict in Ukraine and to further ‘special military operations’ elsewhere.
The first of these studies – published at the end of 2023 by academics from the University of Vienna and the JF Kennedy School of Government at Harvard – used public opinion data from inside Russia to reveal an almost instantaneous increase of around 20% in Putin’s personal approval rating following both the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the 2022 invasion of Ukraine (as evident in the graphic, below).
They argued that this was evidence of what is known as a “rally ‘round the flag” effect – one that has been observed during many crises across a variety of different countries in the past (including, for example, the so-called ‘Falklands Factor’, and the surge in public support for Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, following his country’s invasion by Russia on 24 February 2022).
[Graphic legend] Percentage of respondents asked the question “Do you approve the activities of V. Putin as the President (Prime Minister) of Russia?” who approved, disapproved or did not provide an answer. Data sourced from Russia’s Levada Center – an independent polling agency offering what a recent blog from the London School of Economics has described as the “most reputable public opinion data available in Russia”.
Sanctions and Putin’s Electoral Gains
The second study – published as a Working Paper by the Munich-based CESifo network in March this year – explored the impact of Western sanctions following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea on voting patterns in subsequent presidential and parliamentary elections.
By comparing constituencies experiencing differing economic effects as a result of these sanctions, the authors were able to demonstrate that the worse the effects the greater the share of the vote received by Putin and other United Russia party candidates.
On the face of it, these studies support the view that increased regime support may have played a significant role in Putin’s rationale for both the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine eight years later.
However, the dramatic increase in Putin’s domestic approval in 2014 is also likely to have been somewhat unanticipated. It may have therefore become an even more propitious incentive for further military action in 2022 when his domestic approval had waned (and briefly fell to its lowest level since he was first elected President in 2000).
Both interpretations seem plausible given the 2014 uplift in Putin’s personal approval was unprecedented in magnitude and duration. There is certainly no indication that a similarly profound shift in public opinion had occurred at any previous time in the 25 years that Putin has held high public office in Russia – the only possible exceptions being: the rapid decline in public approval that occurred in 2000; and a similarly rapid decline following his re-election as President in 2018. There is also little evidence of any improvement in popular support for Putin following Russia’s brief and successful campaign in the 2018 Russo-Georgian war – which concluded with Russian international relations largely unscathed despite the contested secession of two Russian-backed regions (Abkhazia and South Ossetia). To the contrary, Putin’s approval subsequently suffered a gradual but sustained decline over the six years that followed, only briefly (and modestly) interrupted by the Presidential election in 2012 when he was re-elected for his third term as President.
Media Control Fuels Apparent Support
It therefore appears likely that the dramatic and sustained increase in Putin’s approval ratings during the annexation of Crimea in 2014, reflected other changes that had taken place during his preceding years in office. These included the tightening of media censorship and increasing political repression – both of which will have accentuated any apparent uplift in public opinion in 2014.
If Putin’s regime mistook this as a genuine increase in support for the President – and his willingness to embark on military conflict with Russia’s neighbours – then it would not be surprising if the 2022 invasion of Ukraine had been viewed as a timely opportunity to rekindle his dwindling political fortunes at home. While the ongoing war with Ukraine has also been accompanied by a comparable (20%) bump in Putin’s approval rating – and one that has been sustained for two years thus far – it is too soon to tell whether this will also be sustained for (at least) four years, or will decline once more in the absence of further censorship, repression or renewed military action elsewhere.
Uncertainty in Russian Public Opinion
Such uncertainty may yet prove to be the least of Putin’s worries. This is because the data used by both of these studies are vulnerable to a number of intractable weaknesses and inherent biases which mean they are likely to have substantially overestimated popular domestic support for Putin. These biases include a tendency for individuals and groups who believe they hold unpopular or minority views to suppress or conceal their opinions in public. This is an effect known as the ‘spiral of silence’, and is an issue that has led some analysts to voice concern that such opinions are substantively underrepresented in Russian opinion poll data (and, potentially, in Russian election results).
Public opinion may also be woefully ill-informed and ‘soft’ in those contexts where access to independent news is limited or constrained. In this regard it is telling that the first of the studies examined for this analysis piece found that those Russian citizens who were dependent on State media for news were significantly more likely to trust the President than those with access to independent and uncensored sources.
For these reasons, even a pronounced bump in domestic approval may not provide the reassurance or confidence that Putin may need for a prolonged invasion of Ukraine, or to prosecute further military adventures primarily for political approval and regime survival at home.
Цитата:
Affordable Combat Mass - Herne XLAUV demonstrates adaptability and autonomy
24 нояб. 2024 г.
We were invited to take a look at BAE Systems’ Herne XLAUV, an advanced autonomous underwater platform designed for flexibility and adaptability in modern naval operations. This video showcases the Herne on the barge, in the water, and navigating—highlighting part of a demonstration of its potential to take on high-risk missions. Thanks to BAE Systems for providing the underwater clip of the submarine in action. Herne is built to be expendable yet highly capable, balancing affordability and mission effectiveness. With modular payload bays and the cutting-edge Nautomate system, it’s designed to adapt to various tasks, from surveillance to deploying advanced effectors like torpedoes and mine neutralisers. This platform is a glimpse into the future of autonomous naval technology. In the next 18 months, BAE Systems plans to integrate an array of cutting-edge effectors to enhance Herne's operational role. These capabilities will transform Herne from an intelligence-gathering platform into a multi-role system capable of addressing a wide range of underwater threats.
FakeHunter: Eksperci: rosyjska kampania propagandowa o III wojnie światowej to blef
...
Polityczni liderzy Zachodu są bardziej niż kiedyś odporni na nuklearny szantaż Moskwy, ale społeczeństwa mogą być na rosyjskie groźby podatne – powiedział PAP Marek Kohv, szef programu bezpieczeństwa i odporności w Międzynarodowym Centrum Obrony i Bezpieczeństwa z siedzibą w Tallinie.
Rosyjscy propagandyści zaczęli grozić wybuchem wojny jądrowej zaraz po tym, jak 17 listopada na łamach dziennika "The New York Times" pojawiła się informacja o zgodzie administracji prezydenta Joe Bidena na użycie przez Ukraińców rakiet balistycznych ATACMS do rażenia celów w głębi Rosji. 19 listopada informacja ta została potwierdzona przez doradcę sekretarza stanu USA Briana A. Nicholsa i tego samego dnia prezydent Rosji Władimir Putin ogłosił zmiany w rosyjskiej doktrynie nuklearnej, wedle których próg możliwości użycia broni jądrowej przeciwko wrogom suwerenności Federacji Rosyjskiej został obniżony. Sekretarz prasowy Putina Dmitrij Pieskow komentując te zmiany podkreślił, że jest to "zdecydowany sygnał dla Zachodu".
W mediach społecznościowych zaroiło się od cyfrowych symulacji wybuchów jądrowych w europejskich stolicach, a porosyjscy influencerzy przekonywali, że decyzja prezydenta Bidena może sprowokować wybuch globalnego konfliktu jądrowego. Jednak według Marka Kohva, szefa programu bezpieczeństwa i odporności w Międzynarodowym Centrum Obrony i Bezpieczeństwa z siedzibą w Tallinie, rosyjski szantaż nuklearny już nie działa tak skutecznie jak kiedyś, ponieważ wbrew własnej propagandzie Kreml nie dysponuje potężnym i innowacyjnym przemysłem zbrojeniowym.
"W odbiorze zachodnich liderów politycznych Moskwa nadużywa więc szantażu nuklearnego" - powiedział PAP Kohv i dodał, że dowodzi tego amerykańska reakcja na wystrzelenie przez Rosję rakiety "Oriesznik", którą Kreml starał się przedstawić jako nową jakość w rosyjskim systemie obronnym. "Amerykanie natychmiast ogłosili, że to tylko modyfikacja starszej rakiety (międzykontynentalnego pocisku RS-26 "Rubież" - PAP), a nie innowacja. Rosja nie ma w tej chwili zdolności innowacyjnych w przemyśle zbrojeniowym. To można zobaczyć na froncie, gdzie Rosjanie używają np. słabej jakości amunicji artyleryjskiej pochodzącej z Korei Północnej" - przekonywał w rozmowie z PAP Kohv.
Według Kohva względna odporność polityków na nuklearny szantaż Putina nie dotyczy jednak zachodnich społeczeństw. Rosyjska narracja o tym, że wojna się skończy, kiedy Zachód przestanie pomagać Ukrainie, jest szeroko rozpowszechniana w zachodnich mediach. "Tymczasem to Rosja zaczęła tę wojnę i ona musi ją skończyć. Dlatego trzeba tłumaczyć, także w mediach społecznościowych, że Kreml blefuje, że uprawia propagandę i próbuje jedynie zasiać strach" - powiedział Kohv.
Estoński ekspert podkreślił, że w sprawie użycia broni nuklearnej nie ma miejsca na przypadkowe sprowokowanie konfliktu, ponieważ między Rosją i USA funkcjonują specjalne kanały komunikacyjne. "Nawet teraz, kiedy Rosja próbuje posługiwać się szantażem nuklearnym, Moskwa ostrzegła Amerykę zanim wystrzeliła swój hipersoniczny pocisk balistyczny średniego zasięgu w kierunku Ukrainy" - przypomniał Kohv i dodał, że Putin jest świadomy tego, że Stany Zjednoczone dysponują globalnym systemem wykrywającym rakiety balistyczne.
Jest to - jak napisała agencja Reuters - system z czasów zimnej wojny, który przekształcono w niezawodną globalną sieć. Dzięki satelitom Lockheed Martin i Northrop Grumman, znanych jako SBIRS (kosmiczny system podczerwieni), znajdujących się na orbicie okołoziemskiej i sieci mniejszych satelitów, Amerykanie widzą każdy start rakiety balistycznej.
Jak zauważył brytyjski "Times", użycie strategicznej broni nuklearnej przez którąkolwiek ze stron grozi wzajemnym zniszczeniem, dlatego Putin straszy także uderzeniem w Ukrainę taktycznymi pociskami jądrowymi. Według dr Jasutisa Grazvydasa, eksperta ds. bezpieczeństwa narodowego i wykładowcy w Instytucie Stosunków Międzynarodowych i Nauk Politycznych na Uniwersytecie Wileńskim, to kolejny blef.
"Putin się nie odważy, bo ze względu na możliwe ofiary będzie bał się reperkusji. Pamiętamy przecież, jak skokowo wzrosła pomoc wojskowa dla Ukrainy po tragedii w Buczy. Użycie broni nuklearnej, nawet jeśli miałaby to być broń taktyczna, miałoby analogiczny efekt i spowodowałoby drastyczne zwiększenie wsparcia dla Kijowa ze strony Zachodu" - powiedział PAP dr Grazvydas i dodał, że użycie broni nuklearnej na Ukrainie nie jest teraz Rosji w ogóle potrzebne, bo robi postępy na froncie.
Według Marka Kohva Rosja próbuje obecnie na froncie zająć jak najwięcej terenu zanim prezydent elekt Donald Trump obejmie urząd prezydenta USA. "Wiatr wieje im w żagle. Uważają, że zachodnia pomoc dla Ukrainy słabnie, a przyszła administracja Trumpa nie będzie tak jak Biden wspierać Kijowa. W tej sytuacji Rosji może nie zależeć na negocjacjach" - stwierdził Kohv i dodał, że nawet jeśli zasiądą do rozmów, albo zażądają wszystkiego, co do tej pory zdobyli oraz zainstalowania w Kijowie prorosyjskiego rządu, albo na coś się zgodzą, ale nie dotrzymają porozumienia kupując jedynie czas na przezbrojenie armii i przygotowanie kolejnego ataku.
Z kolei zdaniem dr Grazvydasa kampania straszenia wojną światową i zwiększanie eskalacji ma oczywiście zmiękczyć europejskich i amerykańskich polityków przed negocjacjami pokojowymi, ale jest także odpowiedzią na oczekiwania niektórych z nich. "Na Zachodzie wciąż funkcjonują przecież ekonomiczne, biznesowe związki z Rosją i są tacy, którzy szukają wymówek, aby zmniejszyć pomoc dla ukraińskiego rządu. Także zmiany w doktrynie nuklearnej Rosji mogą posłużyć za taki pretekst przedefiniowania strategii pomocy dla Ukrainy" - powiedział dr Grazvydas.
Unidentified drones spotted over bases used by U.S. Air Force in Britain
The drones were detected last week over three bases in eastern England, the Air Force said.
Royal Air Force Lakenheath in England, shown in 2020, is home of the U.S. Air Force's 48th Fighter Wing. (Chris Radburn/AFP/Getty Images)
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Multiple unidentified drones were seen last week near three British air bases used by American forces, the U.S. Air Force said in a statement Monday.
The drones were detected between Wednesday and Sunday, near Royal Air Force Lakenheath, Royal Air Force Mildenhall and Royal Air Force Feltwell, all three of which are in eastern England. The bases house thousands of U.S. service members, primarily Air Force personnel.
“The number of [drone] systems fluctuated, and they ranged in sizes and configurations,” the U.S. Air Force said in a statement. The drones were “actively monitored and installation leaders determined that none of the incursions impacted base residents, facilities or assets,” the Air Force said.
“To protect operational security, we do not discuss our specific force protection measures but retain the right to protect the installation,” the statement said. “We continue to monitor our airspace and are working with host-nation authorities and mission partners to ensure the safety of base personnel, facilities and assets.”
The Air Force did not provide information on who might be behind the incident.
It’s the latest in a series of drone encounters near American military and intelligence installations, though other incursions have occurred within the United States.
National security officials detected drones of unknown origin hovering around bases in Virginia for more than two weeks last year, the Wall Street Journal reported. Drones were also seen near an experimental nuclear-weapons site in Nevada in 2023, the Journal reported.
According to the Air Force website, RAF Lakenheath houses the 48th Fighter Wing and is the largest Air Force-operated base in England.
The unit also maintains Joint Direct Attack Munitions missiles used by F-35A and F-15E fighter jets.
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С интересом и понятными пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
Минобороны РФ подтвердило новые удары ракетами ATACMS по Курской области и заявило, что готовит ответные меры.
Заявлено, что 23 ноября пять ракет ATACMS нанесли удар в районе населенного пункта Лотаревка, две ракеты поразили ЗРК С-400.
А 25 ноября 7 ракет ATACMS ударили по аэродрому Курск, одна поразила цель, двое военных получили легкие ранения.
Напомним, после недавних ударов западными ракетами по Курской и Брянской областям, Россия нанесли удар по Днепру новой ракетой средней дальности, предназначенной для ядерной войны с НАТО.
В Кремле после этого заявили, что подобные удары по Украине могут повториться.
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Russia preparing to retaliate after it says Ukraine hit it with US-made Atacms twice in last three days
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The Kremlin has said it is preparing retaliatory measures after Ukraine twice fired US-made Atacms missiles into Russia in the last three days.
Moscow said both strikes targeted air defence positions in the Kursk region and claimed on both occasions either one or two missiles reached their targets, while most were shot down.
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Russia says Ukraine hit it with US-made ATACMS twice in last three days
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Ukraine hit Russia with US-produced ATACMS missiles twice over the last three days and Russia is preparing retaliatory measures, Russia's defence ministry said on Tuesday.
It said both strikes targeted air defence positions in the Kursk region and on both occasions either one or two missiles reached their targets, while most were shot down.
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Ukraine-Russia war latest: Moscow expels British diplomat for ‘spying’ and summons ambassador as row erupts
Comes as Kremlin calls claims Ukraine may be armed with nuclear weapons by West ‘absolutely irresponsible’
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Moscow has expelled a British diplomat, accusing him of espionage, Russia’s FSB security service has said.
The TASS news agency cited Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying that the ministry had summoned the British ambassador.
According to the FSB, the British diplomat was a replacement for one of six UK diplomats expelled in August, also on espionage charges. It said the diplomat had provided false information on his documents and carried out espionage and sabotage activities.
There was no immediate comment from Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. The British embassy in Moscow did not respond to a request for comment.
It comes as the Kremlin has called claims Ukraine may be armed with nuclear weapons by the West “absolutely irresponsible”.
The New York Times reported last week that some unidentified Western officials had suggested that US President Joe Biden could give Ukraine nuclear weapons, though there were fears such a step would have serious implications.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that the anonymous sources making the comments do not feel “a shred of responsibility”, warning the West to listen carefully to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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Moscow warns 'retaliatory actions are being prepared' after accusing Ukraine of launching another round of ATACMS strikes into Russian territory
Moscow has warned that retaliatory actions are being prepared after accusing Ukraine of launching another round of ATACMS strikes into Russian territory.
Russian military on Tuesday pledged a response to the fresh air attacks using the US-supplied missiles, which Russia's defence ministry said were carried out on November 23 and 25.
'Retaliatory actions are being prepared,' it said in a post on Telegram, without providing any further details.
In a rare admission, Russia said the fresh strikes had caused damage to military hardware and wounded some of its personnel on the ground.
A strike on the Kursk Vostochny air base wounded two servicemen, the defence ministry said, while a strike on an air defence battery damaged a radar system and also caused 'casualties'.
It said three of the five missiles fired in the first strike were shot down, while seven of the eight used in the second were destroyed.
Moscow rarely provides such specific details on Ukrainian aerial attacks and almost never admits missiles have reached their intended target.
The defence ministry also posted photos of what it said were the missile fragments, showing large casings with English-language inscriptions on the side.
Remains of US-produced ATACMS missiles, fired by Ukrainian armed forces on November 25, according Russia's defence ministry, are seen at the Kursk-Vostochny airport (Khalino) in the Kursk region, Russia, on November 26
Russia's defence ministry said three of the five missiles fired in the first strike were shot down, while seven of the eight used in the second were destroyed
US Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) is seen in action
The United States gave Ukraine permission to use the weapons to hit Russian territory just over a week ago, after months of requests from Kyiv.
The latest attacks come after war-torn country launched its first strike on Russian territory using the US-supplied long-range missiles last week.
An explosion at an ammunition depot in Karachev around 75 miles from the Ukrainian border in Russia's Bryansk region lit up the night sky in the early hours of Tuesday morning on what was the 1,000th day of the war.
The reports emerged within minutes of the Kremlin threatening a 'nuclear response' should Ukraine hit targets on Russian soil with Western-supplied long-range munitions.
'The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against it with the use of conventional weapons,' Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Russia this morning.
His statement followed Vladimir Putin's approval of an updated nuclear doctrine that allows his strategic forces to deploy nuclear weapons if Russian or Belarusian territory is threatened by a non-nuclear nation supported by a nuclear power.
Threats that could make Russia's leadership consider a nuclear strike include an attack with conventional missiles, drones or other aircraft, according to the updated document.
A Ukrainian strike on Russian territory with US-supplied missiles meets these criteria, raising fears that Moscow may now consider a dramatic escalation in the conflict.
The strike carried out by Ukraineon November 20 was the first time UK Storm Shadow missiles had been used blast targets deep inside Russia. One image following the attack showed a written indentation on a chunk of metal reading: 'Storm Shadow'
Now, as fears grow over the potential fallout of Western missiles striking targets in Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is insisting that 2025 will prove a 'decisive year' in determining who wins the war.
'In the decisive moments - and they are coming next year - we must not allow anyone in the world to doubt the resilience of our entire state,' the Ukrainian president told Parliament in a rousing address today.
'At this stage, it is being decided who will prevail.'
On November 20, Ukraine then used British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles in Russia for the first time when 12 rockets were fired at targets in Kursk – the southern Russian province where Kyiv troops have seized territory.
The attacks were reportedly personally approved by UK PM, Sir Keir Starmer.
The rockets destroyed a building with an underground 'control room' where Russian and North Korean military officials were believed to be holed up, according to Ukrainian defence experts.
Britain conceded permission to use the Storm Shadow missiles against attacks within Ukraine earlier this year.
The missiles will allow Ukraine to take out military targets and airbases previously unreachable, capable of hitting hard into Ukraine.
Storm Shadow's are capable of dodging air defences - making them a nightmare attack weapon for their enemy.
This is the moment missiles believed to be British Storm Shadow missiles struck inside Russia
Britain's Storm Shadow missiles are capable of dodging air defences - making them a nightmare attack weapon for their enemy
The £800,000 rockets use GPS technology to precisely blast targets, and can travel through the air at 600mph.
When quizzed on letting Ukraine use the UK-made missiles, the PM last week said: 'I've been doubling down in my clear message that we need to ensure Ukraine has what is needed for as long as needed to win this war against Putin.
'I am not going to go into operational details. You would not expect me to. The only winner in that would be Putin and it would undermine Ukraine.
'The single simplest way to end this conflict is for Russia to stop the aggression and to stop it today. We are on day 1,000 of that aggression'.
Russia then responded to the strikes by launching Putin's hypersonic Oreshnik missile at Ukraine on November 21.
The debris from the medium-range ballistic missile that was fired at the city of Dnipro on Thursday is now being studied by Ukrainian investigators as it historically became the first time such a powerful weapon has been used in the war.
Ukraine said the weapon reached a top speed of more than 8,000mph as it headed towards Dnipro.
Zelensky called the use of the weapon, which is capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads, a severe escalation and urged his allies to respond.
Following the series of air attacks, there are growing concerns around the potential beginnings of World War Three.
The moment Russia used the Oreshnik for the first time to strike Dnipro, on November 21
A view shows a site of a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Dnipro
Russia on November 21 fired an experimental missile at Ukraine, officials from Western governments said. Ukraine initially accused Russia of firing in an attack on Dnipro an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in combat for the first time in history
Fragments of a rocket which struck Dnipro on November 21 are seen at a center for forensic analysis in an undisclosed location in Ukraine, November 24
Ukraine's former military chief on Friday warned that WW3 is already underway - with Vladimir Putin's autocratic allies, North Korea, Iran and China, openly supporting his forces on the battlefield.
Valery Zaluzhny, who is now Ukraine's envoy to the United Kingdom, told the UP100 award ceremony in Kyiv: 'I believe that in 2024 we can absolutely believe that the Third World War has begun.'
The General said that as of this year, 'Ukraine is no longer facing Russia. Soldiers from North Korea are standing in front of Ukraine.'
He made the comments after reports emerged that around 10,000 soldiers had been sent by Pyongyang to fight alongside Russian troops in the Kursk region, as Moscow aims to replenish its forces and reclaim the territory taken from it three months ago.
It comes after Moscow's ambassador to the UK declared that Britain is now 'directly involved' in the war after Kyiv's Storm Shadow attack on Russian territory.
Asked if the UK is 'at war', the Starmer told BBC local radio: 'We're not at war, but Ukraine certainly is.' Sir Keir slammed Putin's 'irresponsible rhetoric'.
'Russia is the aggressor,' he said. 'This war could end today if Putin stopped being the aggressor.'
⚡️ Заявление МИД России о персональных санкциях в отношении представителей политического истеблишмента, военного блока, околовоенных структур и журналистского корпуса Соединённого Королевства
❗️МИД России в очередной раз вынужден обратить внимание на непрекращающуюся агрессивную антироссийскую риторику властей Британии, системно вводимые Лондоном против нашей страны нелегитимные односторонние ограничения, а также бездумную политику руководства этой страны по поддержке неонацистского киевского режима, преследующую сугубо корыстные геополитические интересы и ведущую к бессмысленному затягиванию украинского конфликта.
Русофобская политика, сочетающая в себе попытки дискредитации действий России и её изоляции на международной арене, распространение дезинформации о нашей стране, в том числе в контексте специальной военной операции, вкупе с военной поддержкой ВСУ, граничащей с прямым вовлечением Британии в конфликт со всеми сопутствующими эскалационными рисками, свидетельствуют о настрое Лондона на дальнейшее системное противостояние в отношении России.
Москва вновь акцентирует бесперспективность подобного курса и призывает Лондон отказаться от него в пользу взаимоуважительного и конструктивного взаимодействия ради безопасности и стабильности в мире.
❌ В качестве ответной меры на враждебные действия британской стороны принято решение о включении в российский «стоп-лист» ряда проявивших себя на антироссийской ниве представителей политического истеблишмента, военного блока, предприятий высокотехнологичного сектора, а также журналистского корпуса Британии.
👉 Список британских подданных, которым отныне закрыт въезд в Российскую Федерацию.
Работа над расширением российского «стоп-листа» в ответ на враждебные действия властей Британии будет продолжена.
Russia Launches Record Number of Drones in Overnight Attack, Ukraine Says
The assault, which the Ukrainian Air Force said involved 188 drones, came as both sides intensify air bombardments.
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Ukraine’s military said on Tuesday that Russia launched 188 attack drones against the country overnight, calling it a record number as both sides intensify aerial assaults.
The Ukrainian Air Force said that it had shot down 76 of the drones in the “massive attack” but that nearly all the rest had disappeared from radar. It was unclear how many of those drones had been intercepted by other means, such as electronic interference, and how many had struck targets.
Some critical infrastructure was hit and residential buildings were damaged in several regions, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. Damage to the power grid in Ternopil, a city in western Ukraine, caused electricity and water outages, the local authorities said.
Russia’s military has attacked Ukrainian cities with waves of drones almost every night since September in a campaign that analysts say is intended to test and wear down air defenses. The drones have also targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in a renewed effort to plunge the population into cold and darkness as winter sets in.
The overnight drone assault, however, stood out for its sheer scale. It came as both Ukraine and Russia have been stepping up tit-for-tat air attacks over the past week.
Last Tuesday, Ukraine struck deep inside Russia with U.S.-made missiles for the first time. Moscow vowed to respond and test fired an intermediate-range missile designed to deliver nuclear weapons, though it was not armed with nuclear warheads. The strikes represented a demonstration of force by both sides and shifted the focus away from ground assaults to a Cold War-style missile brinkmanship.
On Tuesday, ambassadors from Ukraine and NATO’s member states were set to discuss a possible response to Russia’s use of the intermediate-range missile, which was fired at the city of Dnipro in central Ukraine. The strike caused little damage, but it raised alarm in Ukraine at a time when Moscow has been elevating threats of nuclear war.
Ukrainian officials were expected to use the Tuesday meeting, to be held in Brussels, to reiterate their requests for allies to send more air-defense systems to counter Russian attacks.
Months of Russian drone and missile bombardments have depleted Ukraine’s air defenses. In recent weeks, Russian drones have increasingly penetrated central Kyiv, home to government administration buildings and the presidential palace. The once rare buzz of drones flying overhead at night and the rat-tat-tat of heavy machine guns trying to take them down now echo regularly through the heart of the capital.
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Annalena Baerbock zur Lage in Nahost und zum Ukraine-Krieg am 26.11.24
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Vor den Neuwahlen - wie grün wird die Zukunft, Herr Habeck? | Caren Miosga
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Vitali Klitschko warnt vor nachlassender Ukraine-Hilfe | RONZHEIMER.
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NOVEMBER 26 After Election Day for USA Funny Cartoon - American Political Caricature - Trump Kamala
P.S.
А.п. напоминает Уважаемым коллегам, что начиная с 25.11.2024, по независящим от него техническим причинам, все публикации будут возможны только с 9.00 утра, до 23.59 вечера текущих суток.
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С интересом и понятными ожиданиями, Dimitriy.
Уровень доступа: Вы не можете начинать темы, Вы не можете отвечать на сообщения, Вы не можете редактировать свои сообщения, Вы не можете удалять свои сообщения, Вы не можете голосовать в опросах
Антитрендами наружной рекламы в текущем году стали прямолинейность и чрезмерная перегруженность сообщений. Наружная реклама продолжает показывать рост: число рекламных конструкций за последний год увеличилось более чем на 2 тысячи.
В компании Sellty спрогнозировали развитие рынка электронной коммерции в сегменте СМБ на ближайший год. По оценке основателя Sellty Марии Бар-Бирюковой, число собственных интернет-магазинов среднего, малого и микробизнеса продолжит расти и увеличится минимум на 40% до конца 2025 года. Компании будут и дальше развиваться на маркетплейсах, но станут чаще комбинировать несколько каналов продаж.
10 сентября – Всемирный день психического здоровья. Специально к этой дате компания HINT опросила коллег в сфере маркетинга, рекламы и пиара, чтобы понять, как представители этих профессий могут помочь себе и другим поддержать в норме психическое здоровье.
Как не ошибиться с выбором формата обучения и предстать перед будущим работодателем успешным специалистом. Директор по маркетингу ведущего IT-холдинга Fplus Ирина Васильева рассказала, на что теперь смотрят работодатели при приеме на работу, как нестандартно можно развиваться в профессии и стоит ли действующим маркетологам обучаться на онлайн-курсах.
Эксперты ЮKassa (сервис для приёма онлайн- и офлайн-платежей финтех-компании ЮMoney) и RetailCRM (решение для управления заказами и клиентскими данными) провели исследование* и выяснили, почему пользователи не завершают покупки в интернет-магазинах. По данным опроса, две трети респондентов хотя бы раз оставляли заказы незавершёнными, чаще всего это электроника и бытовая техника, одежда и товары для ремонта. Вернуться к брошенным корзинам многих мотивируют скидки, кэшбэк и промокоды.
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.
На VII Международном форуме «Матрица рекламы», прошедшем в ЦВК «Экспоцентр» в рамках международной выставки «Реклама-2018», большой интерес у профессиональной аудитории вызвала VI Конференция «Интернет-реклама».
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