Russia's Iskander-M missile kills a NATO F-16 pilot who was in Ukraine to train soldiers
Though Denmark did not confirm the death of F-16 pilot Jepp Hansen, his friends have put up a post on social media
A Danish F-16 pilot was killed after a Russian Iskander-M missile struck a Ukrainian Armed Forces training centre in Ukraine's Dnepropetrovsk Region, according to Russian media reports.
Russian military sources confirmed to TASS News Agency that Jepp Hansen was killed after a Russian missile struck a training centre in the city of Krivoy Rog in Central Ukraine. Hansen who had significant experience operating the F-16, was in Ukraine to train Ukrainian pilots. His friends posted on social media that Hansen had trained "hundreds of Ukrainians" to operate the planes. However, neither Denmark nor the Russian Defense Ministry has officially commented on the reports.
The attack happened at a university building which had been converted into barracks. The attack almost destroyed the fourth storey.
A Danish instructor, Jepp Hansen, who was training Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets, has reportedly been killed in a Russian missile strike in Ukraine, according to TASS. Russian law enforcement sources claimed Hansen died in an attack on a training center in Krivoy Rog,… pic.twitter.com/BgaQmwppWu
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) January 19, 2025
Hansen was probably sent to Ukraine by Denmark which delivered 20 F-16s to Ukraine last year. Moscow had already warned NATO against the shipment of weapons, especially the American F-16, citing that the delivery represented an escalation of hostilities.
Close encounter over the Baltic
A Russian pilot flying a Su-27P forced a Danish Air Force F-16 pilot to change course when he attempted to violate Russia's air border over the Baltic Sea.
The video shows a Russian interceptor approaching the intruder from the side and forcing… pic.twitter.com/k7gYoNYGqC
— Sprinter Observer (@SprinterObserve) June 30, 2024
Besides Denmark, the Netherlands also donated F-16 fighters to the Ukrainian Air Force. Both countries procured the F-16s in the 1980s and replaced them recently with modern F-35As, following which they permitted Ukraine to use the fighters for deep strikes across Russian territory.
The first F-16 was delivered to Ukraine on August 1 but Kyiv lost the first F-16 some 26 days later under unclear circumstances. Ukraine has had a lot of limitations in its use, including its short-range, obsolete sensors and lack of long-range weapons.
Despite Ukraine boasting about the jets, touting them as the most advanced fighter jets in their inventory, military experts believe the F-16s provided to Kyiv by its Western partners are outdated models, which meant they are not as capable as Russia’s top combat aircraft.
US Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Davis said the F-16s have “some issues with range and vulnerability” due to their age. Davis added that Russia has "some pretty advanced aircraft" such as the Su-35S, Su-30SM, and the MiG-31, which all pose a significant threat to Kyiv’s F-16s. "Even the best systems we can put on those [old F-16s] will still not make them superior to some of the Russian best aircraft," the former general told Business Insider.
Besides, the Netherlands and Denmark, the United Kingdom is also training the next generation of Ukrainian pilots, who were sent to a European training centre in Romania for theoretical training.
Цитата:
Ukrainian Air Force F-16
Iskander Missile Strike Kills Danish F-16 Pilot in Ukraine - Reports
Royal Danish Air Force F-16
Danish pilot and F-16 fighter instructor Jepp Hansen was reported killed in a missile strike on a Ukrainian Armed Forces training centre in Krivoy Rog in central Ukraine’s Dnepropetrovsk Region, according to Russian sources. Hansen had significant experience operating the F-16, and had reportedly helped to train dozens of Ukrainian personnel. An Iskander-M missile strike was reportedly used destroy a university building which had been converted into barracks, with the attack almost completely destroying the fourth storey. Denmark and the Netherlands were the first countries to donate American F-16 fighters to the Ukrainian Air Force, with the ageing aircraft procured in the 1980s having already been retired as both countries acquired modern F-35As to replace them. First delivered on August 1, the Ukrainian Air Force lost its first fighter under unclear circumstances on August 26, with this confirmed three days later. Both Denmark and the Netherlands have given Ukraine permission to use its F-16s to participate in deep strikes across Russian territory, although the lightweight aircraft’s short range, obsolete sensors and lack of long range weapons has limited its value in this regard. The fighters are expected to be modified to integrate a number of long range missile classes, with the United States reported to be considering supplying JASSM cruise missiles which would revolutionise their offensive potential.
The significant differences between the F-16 and prior Ukrainian fourth generation fighters such as the MiG-29 has raised serious questions regarding how quickly Ukrainian pilots could convert to the new aircraft, and fuelled speculation that the aircraft may be operated by contractors from NATO member states. Similar questions have been raised regarding other complex hardware such as Ukraine’s Patriot air defence systems, which were delivered in a fraction of the time that it would take to train Ukrainian operators. Western advisors, logisticians, combatants, and other personnel operating newly delivered NATO-standard hardware have played a central and growing role in the war effort since early 2022, with the New York Times observing that year regarding their operations: “Commandos from other NATO countries, including Britain, France, Canada and Lithuania, also have been working inside Ukraine... training and advising Ukrainian troops and providing an on-the-ground conduit for weapons and other aid.” The report emphasised the sheer “scale of the secretive effort to assist Ukraine that is underway.” It was confirmed near the end of the year that British Royal Marines were deployed for frontline combat operations from April, with further information on the operations of Western personnel emerging over the next two years. While conversion to the F-16 is less complex than conversion of air defence crews for Soviet missile systems to operate the new Patriot systems, the role of foreign contractors is nevertheless estimated to be significant.
Цитата:
Putin Launches War Against NATO Just Before Trump Inauguration? F-16 Pilot Killed In Russian Strike
NATO’s Baltic Sentinel Mission: Defending Undersea Cables from Russian Sabotage
Цитата:
Hundreds of Swedish forces arrive in Latvia in largest deployment with NATO to date
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Hundreds of Swedish troops arrived in Latvia on Saturday to join a Canadian-led multinational brigade along NATO’s eastern flank, a mission Sweden is calling its most significant operation so far as a member of the Western defense alliance.
A ship carrying parts of a mechanized infantry battalion arrived early Saturday in the port of Riga, the Latvian capital, escorted by the Swedish air force and units from the Swedish and Latvian navies, the Swedish armed forces said in a statement.
Latvia borders Russia to its east and Russia ally Belarus to its southeast. Tensions are high across Central Europe due to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Sweden’s armed forces said the mission of 550 troops will contribute to the alliance’s deterrence and defense efforts, and ensure stability in the region, and that it “marks Sweden’s largest commitment yet since joining NATO” last year.
Commander Lieutenant Colonel Henrik Rosdahl of the 71st Battalion said he felt great pride in contributing to the alliance’s collective defense.
“It’s a historic day, but at the same time, it’s our new normal,” he said.
The Swedish troops join one of eight NATO brigades along the alliance’s eastern flank. The battalion is stationed outside the town of Adazi, near Riga.
Sweden formally joined NATO in March as the 32nd member of the trans-Atlantic military alliance, ending decades of post-World War II neutrality and centuries of broader nonalignment with major powers as security concerns in Europe spiked following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Finland also abandoned its longstanding military neutrality to join NATO in April 2023.
Цитата:
Hundreds of Swedish forces arrive in Latvia in largest deployment with NATO to date
Nato flotilla assembles off Estonia to protect undersea cables in Baltic Sea
Taskforce to act as ‘security camera of the Baltic’ after string of suspected sabotage incidents on critical infrastructure
A Nato flotilla likened to “the security camera of the Baltic” has assembled off the coast of Estonia as the military alliance seeks to protect European undersea cables and pipelines from sabotage.
In a move that ratchets up a struggle with Russia over the seabed that has remained largely covert until now, a Dutch frigate and naval research ship, as well as a German minesweeper have all arrived in Tallinn under a thick January sea fog.
A French minesweeper is expected and more Nato vessels are on the way in support of a joint effort, called Baltic Sentry, that was agreed in Helsinki last week.
“The group will grow in the near future, with other ships joining us, so in the end, we will be about six, seven ships,” said Cmdr Erik Kockx, the Belgian head of a mine countermeasures taskforce that has been drawn into Baltic Sentry.
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“We will in the first case function as the security cameras of the Baltic Sea, which means that nobody can undertake any actions against critical underwater infrastructure without us having seen them and being able to react in a proper way.”
The latest incident which triggered the Nato response took place on Christmas Day when the Estlink 2 power cable between Finland and Estonia, and four data cables were damaged, according to Finnish authorities, by an oil tanker, the Eagle S, dragging its anchor along the seabed for 60 miles (100km) until it snagged on the cables.
The Eagle S was ordered into Finnish territorial waters, boarded by a special police squad descending from helicopters, and is now detained off the small port of Porvoo, east of Helsinki. The ship was found to be missing an anchor that was later salvaged from the seabed where it appears to have separated from its chains, and nine of the crew have been banned from leaving Finland while the inquiry is under way.
The Eagle S embodies the grey, amorphous nature of the tense situation in this corner of the Baltic, where it is hard to distinguish between careless accidents and deliberate acts of hybrid warfare.
The 74,000-tonne Chinese-built tanker has had three previous names, and is now sailing under the flag of the Cook Islands, owned by a corporation in Dubai but managed by an Indian company, with a Georgian captain and a Georgian-Indian crew.
The ship was reportedly on its way from the Russian port of Ust-Luga with 35,000 tonnes of petrol bound for Turkey. Nato and the Finnish authorities believe it is part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” of vessels from around the world quietly commissioned by Moscow to transport Russian oil in defiance of sanctions imposed after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The working theory of the Finnish police is that ships and crews that can be commissioned to bust sanctions can also be hired to carry out sabotage.
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The Eagle S’s Dubai-based owner, Caravella, has denied the allegations and challenged the ship’s detention through its Finnish lawyer, Herman Ljungberg.
“The vessel and its master, which I represent, has not been provided with any information of the investigations,” Ljungberg said in a written statement to the Guardian.
“We have not given any decisions nor legal basis for the boarding which took place over three weeks ago which I dare to call the action of hijacking.”
Ljungberg said the seizure of the Eagle S contravened the law of the sea and the Finnish criminal code.
“The Finnish authorities did not have jurisdiction whatsoever to board the vessel and conduct investigations. FULL STOP,”
(выделено а.п.) the lawyer wrote.
It has emerged that the Eagle S was also involved in an incident off the Dutch coast in November, in which it was allegedly observed to sail to and fro over the Atlantic Crossing 1, a telecommunications cable linking the US to Britain, the Netherlands and Germany.
The shipping website Lloyd’s List cited an anonymous source as saying the tanker was found to be “loaded with spying equipment”, including sensors that had been dropped over the side of the ship. According to Finnish authorities, however, no unusual equipment was found when it was boarded in December.
The Eagle S incident is the third time in recent months that critical infrastructure on the Baltic seabed has been damaged in murky circumstances. In October 2023, the Balticconnector gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia was sheared by the anchor of a Hong Kong-flagged container ship, the Newnew Polar Bear. The Chinese government conducted an investigation and admitted the ship was responsible but claimed it was an accident.
On 20 November, another Chinese bulk carrier, the Yi Peng 3, was accused of dragging its anchor over two fibre-optic communications cables, one running between Finland and Germany, the other between Lithuania and the Swedish island of Gotland.
Again the Chinese government carried out its own investigation but despite a pledge of cooperation, Beijing did not allow Swedish investigators onboard and the Yi Peng 3 left the Baltic while the Swedish inquiry was still under way. The two incidents raised questions over whether China too had become a protagonist in hybrid warfare in the Baltic.
“One can say that incidents in which the undersea infrastructure is damaged are very frequent worldwide. However, in the Baltic Sea, we have not witnessed such a string of episodes with most important strategic infrastructure – gas pipelines, power lines, and major data cables – since it became operational,” Tomas Jermalavičius, the head of studies at Tallinn’s International Centre for Defence and Security, said.
The severing of the Estlink 2 on Christmas Day has not led to immediate power cuts, as supplies have been diverted from elsewhere in the grid, but it will take months to repair during which time the region’s power supply will be significantly more fragile.
The breach came at a time of heightening tension leading up to 8 February when the three Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, will sever one of the last vestiges of their distant Soviet past and decouple their power networks from the Russia energy grid, synchronising with the European grid instead through a power link to Poland.
“Moscow would certainly be interested in disrupting the process of our desynchronisation (perhaps even preventing it from happening), raising its costs, and discrediting the Baltic governments by causing chaos, confusion, and fear,” Jermalavičius said. “The prospect of power blackouts is a chilling one.”
The Dutch head of the Nato marine group assigned to protect the seabed infrastructure, Commodore Arjen Warnaar, had few doubts about who was responsible for the Estlink 2 rupture.
“That is something that is still being evaluated and we’re always keeping that possibility in mind,” Warnaar said on Friday, speaking on the bridge of the Dutch frigate Tromp, moored in Tallinn.
Asked if there was another possibility, he replied: “Yes – aliens.”
When Baltic Sentry was agreed by Baltic Nato members at a summit meeting in Helsinki on Tuesday, the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, described the recent incidents as “possible sabotage” and underlined the stakes in protecting the undersea energy and internet cables, noting that 1.3m km of undersea cables were responsible for an estimated $10tn (£8.2tn) worth of financial transactions every day.
“Ship captains must understand that potential threats to our infrastructure will have consequences, including possible boarding, impounding, and arrest,” Rutte said.
The naval taskforce assembling in Tallinn can draw on Nato members’ intelligence on shipping, surveillance from the air and space, underwater sonars repurposed from hunting mines, drone submersibles and a new generation of underwater sensors.
“Any ship that is leaving St Petersburg will know that it is being followed,” Kockx said. “And if that ship has the intention to undertake any unlawful actions, it will think twice.”
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Цитата:
NATO announces further militarisation of Baltic Sea
NATO announced Tuesday a major strengthening of its military presence in the Baltic Sea, seizing as a pretext recent damage to undersea cables allegedly caused by ships associated with Russia’s “shadow fleet.” The move marks yet another step in the systematic military encircling of Russia by the US-led military alliance, which continues to back the far-right Ukrainian regime in a war aimed at inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia and subjugating its territory to semi-colonial status.
The operation, labelled “Baltic Sentry,” was unveiled following a NATO ministers meeting of member states with Baltic Sea coasts in the Finnish capital Helsinki. A statement issued after the summit underscored the aggressive character of the operation, which will involve ships, surveillance planes, air and undersea drones, and other intelligence gathering. The statement, signed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden, declared,
We are determined to deter, detect and counter any attempts at sabotage. Any attack against our infrastructure will be met with a robust and determined response. We stand ready to attribute hostile actions committed by malign actors, as appropriate.
We welcome that NATO has launched the enhanced Vigilance Activity “Baltic Sentry” to improve situational awareness and deter hostile activities. We welcome the efforts of Allies to deploy additional assets at sea, in the air, on land and below the surface of the sea, to enhance vigilance and deterrence.
Although NATO officials indicated the operation would continue for an undisclosed period, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz commented that the initial stage would last for three months. The recently established Commander Task Force Baltic command centre in Rostock, Germany, will play a key role in overseeing the increased military activity throughout the Baltic. Scholz stressed that Germany would participate with “everything available to us in maritime operational infrastructure.”
Since Finland and Sweden joined NATO in 2023 and 2024 respectively, the Baltic Sea has effectively been turned into a NATO lake. Russia, which has used the Baltic for centuries as a key trading route and maintains a Baltic fleet, confronts hostile states on all sides of the Baltic, and can only access it from the port of St. Petersburg and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, located between Poland and Lithuania.
Following Russia’s US-instigated invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow has utilised a so-called “shadow fleet” of freighters to continue and in many cases expand the sale of oil and natural gas to Asia in spite of sanctions imposed by the US and European powers. The ships sail under the flags of other states and are usually registered to offshore firms. The bourgeois-nationalist Putin regime, which emerged out of capitalist restoration following the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union, is eager to cut a deal with the imperialists to remove the sanctions.
NATO’s operation aims ultimately to restrict Russia’s oil and gas trade, which is key to the Kremlin’s revenue. Just days before Baltic Sentry was announced, the Biden administration slapped new sanctions on some 180 ships believed to be part of the “shadow fleet” in another bid to curb Russian trade and undermine Moscow’s ability to fund the war in Ukraine.
The fact that the latest measures move the NATO powers ever closer to a position of outright war with Russia is acknowledged by the participants at Tuesday’s meeting. Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson recently declared that while his country is not at war, it is no longer at peace. In November, the Swedish government sent an updated version of a pamphlet, “In case of crisis or war,” to all households with advice on how to survive a military conflict. The Norwegian government sent 2.2 million copies of a similar pamphlet to all households last summer.
Speaking after Tuesday’s meeting, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said, “We can no longer think that we are in peacetime,” according to public broadcaster DR. She insisted that Denmark would contribute to “concrete military cooperation,” and insisted that 2 percent of GDP for defence spending is not enough.
NATO’s determination to wage war in pursuit of the interests of the American and European imperialist powers extends far beyond the Baltic Sea region, a fact underscored by comments made by Rutte to the European Parliament Monday. The NATO Secretary-General demanded the destruction of what remains of Europe’s social welfare programmes to pay for close to a doubling of military spending on top of the 2 percent of GDP for defence spending “floor” agreed among the NATO member states.
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Researcher: Hybrid tactics likely spreading from Taiwan Strait to the Baltic Sea
Hybrid tactics are "likely" spreading from the Taiwan Strait to the Baltic Sea, says Toomas Hanso, a junior research fellow at the Estonia-based International Center for Defense and Security, after several broken undersea cables were reported in both regions in recent months
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Over the past 18 months, several pipelines and electricity and internet cables have been damaged in the Baltic Sea mostly connecting Finland with other countries in the region such as Estonia, Sweden and Germany. The most recent was on Christmas Day.
In at least two cases, ships dragging their anchors are thought to be the cause. Sabotage is suspected, but difficult to prove – as is typical of hybrid warfare.
Vessels have been flagged from Hong Kong, China and the Cook Islands in the South Pacific. There are also connections to Russia.
But these incidents are not unique. More than 30 fiber-optic data cables connecting Taiwan to surrounding islands have been broken – potentially deliberately – by Chinese ships as political relations have soured in recent years. The most recent was on January 3.
Toomas Hanso, junior research fellow at the International Center for Defense and Security (ICDS), said there are similarities and differences in both cases.
Tactics likely spreading from East to West
"Commonalities between the Taiwan Strait and Baltic Sea seems to be the frequency of incidents and both being geopolitically tense regions. The incidents have had direct impact on national security and communication infrastructure," the researcher said.
"Judging by the frequency in the Taiwan Strait from 2017-2022 and the frequency in the Baltic Sea from 2023 onwards, it looks like a spread of tactics from the Taiwan Strait to the Baltic Sea."
Are Moscow and Beijing cooperating? China (PRC) is assumed to have given tacit support for Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, even if it has never said so publicly. But there is evidence the countries are in other areas. Last October, a Chinese coast guard fleet entered the Arctic sea for the first time in a joint patrol with Russian counterparts, Reuters news agency reported.
The Russian Navy has been "sporadically active" in the Taiwan Strait, Hanso said, often in coordination with the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy. Russian shipping vessels may also pass through those waters
"But there's no concrete, public evidence suggesting that Russian naval or commercial vessels have directly been involved in cutting undersea cables in the Taiwan Strait. It is also questionable how active China would actually want Russia to be in those waters, Beijing may prefer to limit Russian presence there," he said.
But the case is "stronger" in the Baltic Sea.
"First, in the sense that this tactic has likely been taken over from the Taiwan Strait, where it began to be used frequently before the same practice began appearing in the Baltic Sea. Second, considering the involvement of Chinese ships, Newnew Polar Bear and Yi Peng 3 in the Baltic Sea," the researcher said.
China ramping up hybrid tactics in Taiwan Strait
Hanso said China is using grey-zone tactics and cable cutting is a clearer example than many others. These "grey-zone" activities do not breach escalatory thresholds but still apply coercive pressure, he explained: "PRC practices fit this general pattern."
"While Taiwan often suspects China's involvement, especially given the geopolitical context, the government typically stops short of definitively blaming the PRC without concrete evidence," Hanso said. "If Taiwanese officials were to directly attribute it to the PRC, this could escalate tensions or chances of conflict."
Incidents have spread from the South China Sea, the East China Sea and into the Taiwan Strait since the 2000s.
These include the gradual encirclement and establishment of effective control over disputed island territories, Enforcement of PRC jurisdiction over water and air space surrounding disputed territories, interference with legitimate commercial activity by coastal states, challenges to lawful freedoms of navigation and overflight by the United States and its allies and the undermining the credibility of U.S. alliances, Hanso outlined.
"China is increasingly using grey-zone tactics in the Taiwan Strait," he concluded.
Outlining what Taipei can do, the researcher said: "On preventive measures, there is currently little Taiwan can do to stop Chinese cargo ships carrying out such activities. On increasing resilience, Taiwan can increase the number of cables it has so that cutting one cable does not create a complete outage and cables can be buried deeper to make damaging them harder. Satellite communications are an alternative that Taiwan is investing in to reduce reliance on undersea cables, but these are inferior to undersea cables in terms of transmission capacity."
Wider region watching closely
Hanso said, unlike in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea has not seen frequent cable cutting incidents.
"But other countries in the region will certainly be watching closely," he said, citing Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam as examples.
"Especially the Philippines which has increasing military cooperation with the U.S. and increasing friction with China in the South China Sea, will probably be very concerned about potential incidents."
Hanso said several incidents between 2017 and 2023, including harassment by Chinese ships of other countries' vessels, has raised concerns about maritime security and protection of undersea infrastructure in the region.
In 2020, the Indonesian authorities called for better protection of critical infrastructure.
Changing maritime regulations depends on China
After the damage to EstLink 2 last month, several countries including Estonia, Finland and Lithuania have suggested changing international maritime regulations to prevent further incidents.
However, this will be difficult and need the agreement of countries such as Russia and China, experts agree.
Hanso said countries in the South China Sea may prefer to prioritize economic ties with Beijing over security.
"All countries in the region probably wish for more secure undersea cables, as these constitute critical infrastructure. However, all countries in the region must also consider their relationship with China," he said.
"If openly supporting a change in maritime law had a negative impact on their trade or security relationship with China, then these countries would have to weigh up whether a perceived increase in maritime security might offset a deterioration in relations with China. Considering that China is the top trading partner of all South China Sea countries except Brunei, they might be hesitant to support a such a law, if it is perceived as "anti-China"."
The situation in the South China Sea has also become increasingly tense in recent years, the researcher said: "Regional countries would probably prefer not to aggravate China and worsen the situation. So, South China Sea countries' support for such a law, might depend largely on how China perceives the law."
NATO's Baltic Sea members will discuss maritime legislation at a summit in Helsinki this week.
Цитата:
WP: Suomi uskoo kaapelivaurioiden olleen vahinko – KRP:n tutkinnanjohtaja Ylelle: Jätän tiedot omaan arvoonsa
Washington Postin tiedustelulähteiden mukaan Suomen tiedusteluviranomaiset ovat eurooppalaisten ja yhdysvaltalaisten kollegoidensa kanssa sitä mieltä, että Eagle S katkaisi kaapelit vahingossa.
Yhdysvaltalaislehti Washington Post (WP) kertoo, että sen eurooppalaiset ja yhdysvaltalaiset tiedustelulähteet arvioivat Itämerellä tapahtuneiden kaapelivaurioiden olleen vahinkoja, eivät sabotaasia.
Lehden lähteiden mukaan Suomen tiedusteluviranomaiset ovat kansainvälisten kollegoidensa kanssa samaa mieltä siitä, että joulupäivänä Eagle S -tankkerin aiheuttama vaurio olisi ollut vahinko. Washingon Post kirjoittaa, että suomalaisten mukaan Venäjän osuuden poissulkeminen kokonaan voi kuitenkin olla mahdotonta.
Lehden tiedustelulähteet ovat anonyymeja. He perustavat tietonsa muun muassa ”kaapattuihin viesteihin ja muihin salassa pidettäviin tietoihin”.
Keskusrikospoliisin (KRP) tutkinnanjohtaja, rikoskomisario Sami Liimatainen on Washington Postin kanssa eri mieltä.
– En lähde edes kommentoimaan tuollaista, vaan jätän ulkomaalaisten lehtien tiedot omaan arvoonsa. KRP tutkii rikosta, Liimatainen sanoo Ylelle.
Liimatainen sanoo, ettei ole kuullut Washington Postin artikkelin väittämiä aiemmin.
KRP epäilee, että Eagle S -öljytankkerin ankkurilla katkaistiin Suomen ja Viron välinen sähkökaapeli sekä vahingoitettiin neljää datakaapelia joulupäivänä.
– Rikoksia tutkitaan ja selvitellään. Mikään ei ole muuttunut, Liimatainen sanoo.
Pekka Toveri: ”Täyttä roskaa”
WP:n haastattelema europarlamentaarikko Pekka Toveri (kok.) sanoo lehdelle, että väitteet siitä, että kaapelivauriot olisivat olleet vahinko ovat ”täyttä roskaa”.
Toveri sanoo, että Venäjän turvallisuuspalvelu on ehkä onnistunut toimimaan niin, ettei jää sellaista jälkeä, joka kävisi todisteeksi oikeudessa.
– Kaikissa hybridioperaatioissa on tärkeintä kieltämisen mahdollisuus, Toveri sanoo.
Toveri ja yhdysvaltalainen asiantuntija Mike Plunkett sanovat WP:lle, että ankkurin putoaminen ei voisi jäädä huomaamatta laivalla. Plunkett ei myöskään oikein usko, että kolme samankaltaista vahinkoa voisi sattua lyhyen ajan sisällä samalla alueella.
Keskusrikospoliisi on takavarikoinut Eagle S:n ankkurin tutkimuksia varten.
Цитата:
Laivalla nähtiin ”hurja näytelmä”, joka oli katkaista Tukholmasta sähköt – paljastamme kaapelirikot, joista moni ei tiedä
Laivojen ankkurit ovat vaurioittaneet kaapeleita Suomessa ainakin vuodesta 1925.
Kaapeleita on katkennut Suomen merialueilla ainakin sadan vuoden ajan.
Ylen selvityksen mukaan vuodesta 1925 lähtien Suomessa tai Suomeen vaikuttaen on tapahtunut kymmenkunta laivan aiheuttamaa merikaapelin rikkoutumista.
Yhdessäkään niistä ei tähän mennessä ole tiettävästi voitu osoittaa tahallisuutta.
On todennäköistä, että kaapelitapauksia on enemmän, sillä kaikista Itämerellä tai edes Suomenlahdella tapahtuneista vaurioitumisista ei välttämättä ole kerrottu julkisuuteen.
Tällä hetkellä keskusrikospoliisi (KRP) tutkii, katkaisiko Eagle S -öljytankkerin miehistö tahallaan aluksen ankkurilla sähkö- ja tietoliikennekaapeleita joulupäivänä Suomenlahdella.
Lokakuussa 2023 kiinalaisalus Newnew Polarbear rikkoi Balticconnector-kaasuputken ja vahingoitti tietoliikennekaapeleita.
Marraskuussa 2024 hajosi Ruotsin ja Liettuan sekä Suomen ja Saksan välinen datakaapeli. Jälleen epäiltynä oli kiinalainen alus, Yi Peng 3.
На фоне обострения ситуации в Балтийском регионе, в эфире финского телевидения вновь поднимается вопрос о расширении акватории Финляндии и Эстонии.
▪️Эксперт по международным отношениям Ристо Пенттиля предлагает увеличить территориальные воды двух стран в акватории Финского залива для того, чтобы заблокировать российский теневой флот, который используется для обхода санкций и совершения диверсий.
Напоминаю, что поводом для голословного обвинения России в умышленном повреждении подводной инфраструктуры послужил обрыв якорной цепи на танкере «Eagle S», перевозящим нефтепродукты из России в Египет. По версии финских властей, судно протащило якорь по дну залива, вызвав обрыв силового кабеля между Финляндией и Эстонией.
🔺Между тем, журналисты американской газеты Washington Post, ссылаясь на неназванные источники в европейских и американских спецслужбах, утверждают, что причиной повреждения энергетического и коммуникационных кабелей в Финском заливе является несчастный случай и вины России в этом нет.
Свои выводы источники в разведывательном сообществе основывают, в том числе, на перехваченных сообщениях и другой конфиденциальной информации:
Собранные на сегодняшний день доказательства, в том числе перехваченные сообщения и другие секретные разведданные, указывают на несчастные случаи, вызванные неопытными экипажами, служащими на борту плохо обслуживаемых судов
❓Так что же получается? Увеличение военного присутствия НАТО в Балтийском море, вооруженный захват торгового судна в международных водах - все это сделано под надуманным предлогом?
А как же полицейское расследование, ведь финские власти до сих пор удерживают членов экипажа «Eagle S» и конфисковали якорь судна, поднятный со дна Балтийского моря?
- Да пошли вы, - обиделся шеф финской полиции и ушел в закат. Глава отдела расследований NBI Сами Лиимайтанен в интервью телерадиовещательной компании Yle отказался комментировать статьи в иностранных изданиях.
Преступления расследуются и раскрываются, ничего не изменилось.
❗️Все это еще раз доказывает, что лидеры европейских государств использовали дезинформацию и манипулировали общественным сознанием, чтобы взвинтить ситуацию в Балтийском регионе.
И похоже, что они к этому готовились давно, а инцидент с танкером «Eagle S» послужил спусковым механизмом в последующей агрессивной кампании против России.
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На примере последних событий в Прибалтике четко прослеживается деградация международного права. Порядки все больше скатываются к действиям, ранее характеризовавшим страны третьего мира.
Захват танкера под надуманным предлогом – это был первый шаг для реализации задуманного. Сейчас все постепенно идет к последней стадии, которая заключается в получении тотального контроля над Финским заливом.
И те, кто смеется над прибалтийскими вымиратами в этой ситуации, лучше задуматься о последствиях. Такие страны как Эстония – это марионетки. Если им скажут идти на пролом и блокировать залив или провести диверсию, то они это сделают.
Это своего рода разменная монета, которую глобальным игрокам нежалко разменять в угоду более важного результата – блокады важнейшего для России экономического коридора через Балтийское море.
И пока все идет к тому, что события в Балтике, а также в Арктическом регионе, будут нарастать как снежный ком. И в конце концов нас, скорее всего, ждет крайне серьезная эскалация наподобие взрыва на «Северном потоке».
Важно это предусматривать и искать выходы из возможного развития событий, учитывая определенную ограниченность нашего флота.
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Профессор морского права предупреждает о рисках расширения акватории Финляндии и Эстонии
Территориальное море государства имеет максимальную протяженность 12 морских миль, от которого может простираться дополнительная зона длиной не более 12 морских миль.
Профессор морского права предупреждает о рисках расширения акватории Финляндии и Эстонии
Расширение акватории Финляндии и Эстонии связано с политическими и юридическими рисками. Об этом предупреждает профессор морского права из Академии Або Хенрик Рингбом.
Накануне эксперт по международным отношениям Ристо Э. Й. Пенттиля предложил при помощи расширения акватории бороться с теневым флотом России.
Однако Рингбом настаивает, что такое расширение предоставило бы новые возможности для принятия мер, но при этом создало бы новые риски, как политические, так и юридические.
– Такое расширение территориальных вод предполагает, что часть Финского залива перейдет под юрисдикцию Эстонии и Финляндии, если обе страны на это пойдут. Это может повлиять на правовую ситуацию во многих аспектах.
Рингбом напоминает, что территориальное море государства может составлять максимум 12 морских миль, от которого может простираться дополнительная зона длиной максимум 12 морских миль. У Финляндии есть эта дополнительная зона, но она не простирается так далеко. У Эстонии этой зоны нет.
Эксперт указывает, что создание дополнительной зоны – это собственное решение государства.
Профессор морского права придерживается точки зрения, что расширение дополнительной зоны вряд ли поможет в борьбе с теневым флотом России.
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Эксперт предложил расширить акватории Финляндии и Эстонии для борьбы с российским теневым флотом.
Эксперт по международным отношениям указывает, что действия России в Балтийском море наносят вред ей самой.
Эксперт по международным отношениям и исполнительный директор консалтинговой компании Nordic West Office Ристо Э. Й. Пенттиля в эфире утренней программы Yle выступил с предложением создать в Балтийском море совместную дополнительную зону для Финляндии и Эстонии.
Он считает, что страны моли бы расширить свои территории, чтобы в Финском заливе не осталось международных вод. Таким образом, можно было бы эффективно противодействовать деятельности российского теневого флота.
По словам эксперта, действия России в Балтийском море наносят вред ей самой.
– Когда Россия через своих пособников вырывает кабели со дна моря, она, можно сказать, стреляет себе в ногу. Для России было бы лучше всего не создавать никаких помех, чтобы самой иметь возможность использовать Балтийское море. Но, вероятно, такова природа скорпиона. Там просто действует общий приказ, что нужно создавать помехи и заниматься саботажем. И именно этим они занимаются, – заявил Пенттиля.
Estonians send another sauna to Ukraine
Charitable organization Saunad Ukrainasse (Saunas to Ukraine) has dispatched its sixth sauna truck from Tartu, heading toward Ukraine.
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Mobile sauna headed to Ukraine. Source: "Aktuaalne kaamera"/ERR
In cooperation with the Estonian Embassy in Ukraine, it was decided to deliver the sauna to the 15th Artillery Reconnaissance Brigade.
The construction of the sauna and accompanying vehicles was supported by more than a thousand individuals and several companies. According to the organizers, the saunas help soldiers recover more effectively and maintain team morale.
The sauna is expected to arrive in Kyiv on Monday, where it will be handed over to the fighters.
"The sauna complex includes a sauna, a shower room and a laundry facility," said Siim Nellis, board member of NGO Saunad Ukrainasse.
"The laundry facility is equipped with industrial washing machines, dryers, a water supply system and a generator that powers everything, including hot water production. Additionally, two escort vehicles provided by the people of Peipsiääre will accompany the delivery, making it a convoy of five vehicles in total," Nellis explained.
The sauna is being sent to a unit with the call sign "Black Forest". "Altogether, they have destroyed approximately half a billion euros' worth of enemy equipment," Nellis added.
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С интересом и понятными ожиданиями, Dimitriy.
Sweden Breaks 200 Years of Neutrality with Bold NATO Move in Latvia | AC1G
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Спикер парламента Халла-ахо допустил начало третьей мировой войны – у министра обороны эта оценка не нашла поддержки
Заявление спикера парламента вызвало общественную дискуссию.
Спикер парламента Юсси Халла-ахо (Истинные финны) в минувшие выходные в интервью газете Turun Sanomat выразил свои опасения о возможности начала третьей мировой войны. Политик сравнил нынешнюю ситуацию с тем, как началась Вторая мировая война – только постфактум стало понятно, где началась война.
Заявление спикера парламента вызвало общественную дискуссию.
Глава Минобороны Антти Хяккянен (Коалиционная партия) на брифинге Национальных курсов по обороне не согласился с оценкой Халла-ахо.
– Историю не следует рассматривать как зеркальные события, как будто сейчас [мы наблюддаем] неизбежный ход событий, – считает Хяккянен.
Министр обороны отметил, что некоторые диктаторы шаг за шагом действуют примерно так же, как и до Второй мировой войны. Однако вступление в войну предотвращается путем подготовки и строительства оборонительных сооружений.
– Я бы отнесся к этому немного спокойнее, – сообщил Хяккянен.
Командующий Оборонительными силами Янне Яаккола, в свою очередь, не стал занимать позицию по поводу мнения спикера парламента.
– Мы перешли от этапа сотрудничества к большей конфронтации и конкуренции, к сожалению, на другом конце спектра могут быть кризисы и конфликты, – заметил Яаккола.
Командующий Оборонительными силами заявил, что в настоящее время непосредственной военной угрозы Финляндии нет.
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Halla-aho varoitti kolmannesta maailmansodasta – tutkija: ”Analogiat voivat johtaa virhepäätelmiin”
Historiakäsityksiä tutkiva Heino Nyyssönen pitää Halla-ahon puhetta räväkkänä ja korostaa, että vertaukset voivat vahvistaa sotilaallista uhkakuvaa ja kiihdyttää spekulaatiota tulevista konflikteista.
– Pelkään, että me olemme jo kolmannessa maailmansodassa, mutta me emme näe sitä, koska yritämme niin kovasti välttää sitä, Eduskunnan puhemies Jussi Halla-aho (ps.) sanoi Turun Sanomissa lauantaina.
– Ja juuri tosiasioiden sivuuttaminen tekee suuremmasta katastrofista todennäköisemmän.
Halla-aho haki vertauskuvan historiasta. Toisen maailmansodan ei oikein uskottu alkaneen. Halla-aho vertasi Saksan hyökkäystä Puolaan 1939 Venäjän hyökkäykseen Ukrainaan. Aikalaiset eivät nähneet toisen maailmasodan alkua.
Ylen tavoittama tutkija Heino Nyyssönen sanoo, että vertaus on ongelmallinen. Hän ei ole valmis allekirjoittamaan kolmannen maailmansodan alkua.
Nyyssonen on politiikan tutkija Turun yliopistossa sekä valtio-opin, kansainvälisen politiikan ja poliittisen historian dosentti. Tutkimuksissaan Heino Nyyssönen on tarkastellut historiakäsityksiä ja niiden suhdetta nykypäivään sekä historiapolitiikan käsitteitä. Siis juuri tämänkaltaista historiankäyttöä.
Eskaloidaanko konflikteja vai haetaanko rauhaa?
Nyyssönen pitää Halla-ahon puhetta räväkkänä ja korostaa, että tällaiset vertaukset voivat vahvistaa sotilaallista uhkakuvaa ja kiihdyttää spekulaatiota tulevista konflikteista.
Hän toteaa, että vastaavat analogiat ovat nousseet esiin yhä vahvemmin osana julkista keskustelua, erityisesti Ukrainan sodan yhteydessä. Nyyssösen mukaan yksi yleisimmistä esimerkeistä on vuoden 1938 tapahtumien, erityisesti Münchenin sopimuksen, vertailu nykyhetkeen.
Münchenin sopimus allekirjoitettiin 30. syyskuuta 1938 Saksan, Italian, Ison-Britannian ja Ranskan välillä, ja siinä Tšekkoslovakian sudeettialueet luovutettiin Saksalle. Sopimus oli yritys välttää sotaa myöntymällä Adolf Hitlerin aluevaatimuksiin, mutta se johti myöhemmin Saksan laajempaan aggressioon ja toisen maailmansodan puhkeamiseen.
Sopimusta pidetään esimerkkinä epäonnistuneesta myöntyvyyspolitiikasta, koska se ei pysäyttänyt Hitlerin laajentumispyrkimyksiä.
Niin kutsuttu ”Münchenin paradigma” viittaa siihen, kuinka länsivallat eivät pysäyttäneet Hitleriä, mikä johti Tšekkoslovakian jakamiseen. Tällaiset analogiat voivat kuitenkin olla ongelmallisia.
– Näiden analogioiden keskeinen kysymys on, missä vaiheessa historiaa olemme. Ne voivat varoittaa, mutta samalla myös houkutella varustautumaan liikaa, mikä voi itsessään ajaa konflikteja eteenpäin, Nyyssönen huomauttaa.
Hän korostaa, että analogiat voivat olla kahdenlaisia: sotaa edistäviä ja eskaloivia tai toisaalta rauhanomaisempia ja konfliktia hillitseviä.
Esimerkiksi Kuuban kriisin aikana Yhdysvaltain presidentti John F. Kennedy otti oppia Barbara Tuchmanin kirjasta The Guns of August ja pyrki tietoisesti välttämään tilanteen eskaloitumisen. Ohjuskriisi ajoi maailman ydinsodan partaalle, mutta juuri pyrkimys rauhanomaiseen ratkaisuun esti sen.
Toisin sanoen on poliittinen valinta, millaisia analogioita ja vertauksia tehdään. Ja ne saattavat vaikuttaa myös siihen, mitä lopputulosta kohti lähdetään varautumaan.
Sotaisa analogia lisää varustautumista
Nyyssösen mukaan nykykeskustelussa korostuvat nimenomaan sotaiset analogiat, jotka vahvistavat varustautumisen tarvetta. Hänen mielestään tällaiset tulkinnat voivat lisätä riskiä joutua kohti konfliktia, vaikka tarkoitus olisi päinvastainen.
– Olemme ajautuneet tilanteeseen, jossa keskustelu painottuu varustautumiseen eikä niinkään sodan ehkäisemiseen. Tämä on huolestuttava kehitys, hän toteaa.
Hän kuitenkin muistuttaa, että analogioiden käyttö voi myös johtaa virhetulkintoihin. Esimerkiksi vuoden 1956 Suezin kriisissä Britannia tulkitsi Egyptin presidentti Gamal Abdel Nasserin Hitlerinä, mikä johti väärään päätöksentekoon ja tilanteen kärjistymiseen.
– Nykykeskustelussa on vahva spekulatiivinen ulottuvuus: mitä tapahtuu, jos Venäjä voittaa, ja mitä seuraavaksi tapahtuu? Tämä voi johtaa siihen, että ryhdymme varautumaan tilanteisiin, jotka eivät välttämättä edes toteudu, Nyyssönen pohtii.
Aivan vastaavasti analogioita voisi hakea esimerkiksi Grönlannin tilanteesta, jossa Donald Trump on väläytellyt alueen ottamista Yhdysvalloille, tai puheista Gazan kansanmurhasta. Siinä mielessä tilanne on maailmassa kärjistynyt, Nyyssönen sanoo.
Historiallisten analogioiden vastuu
Nyyssönen korostaa, että historiallisten analogioiden käytössä on oltava varovainen. Vaikka ne voivat auttaa ymmärtämään nykytilannetta, niiden liiallinen tai väärä käyttö voi johtaa virheellisiin päätöksiin. Hän peräänkuuluttaa rauhanomaisten ja eskalaatiota hillitsevien analogioiden tuomista osaksi keskustelua.
– Historian tutkijana minun on tärkeää pitää mielessä, että analogiat voivat myös johtaa harhaan. Meidän tulisi pyrkiä tarkastelemaan konflikteja monipuolisesti ja miettiä, miten voisimme ehkäistä niitä.
Myös Ylen uudessa Yle Uutiset Sunnuntai -ohjelmassa käsiteltiin aihetta.
Professori Juhana Aunesluoma Helsingin yliopistosta kommentoi nykyajan vertailua 1930-lukuun. Viime aikojen kehityskulkuja on verrattu synkkiin hetkiin Euroopan historiassa, Hitlerin valtaan nousuun ja myös kylmän sodan aikaan.
Näin Juhana Aunesluona kommentoi nykyajan vertailua menneisyyteen Yle Uutiset Sunnuntai -ohjelmassa.
– Historian vertaukset ovat aina jollain lailla ongelmallisia, koska historia ei toista itseään. Nämä tilanteet eivät toistu sellaisinaan. Usein analogiat, tällaiset vertauskuvat ja näiden termien käyttö kertoo siitä, että yritetään vaan jotenkin hahmottaa tätä aikaa.
Aunesluoman mukaan historiaan vertaaminen on helposti harhaanjohtavaa. Hän ajattelee, että uusia tilanteita varten pitäisi keksiä uusia termejä ja käsitteitä.
– Täytyy aina muistaa se, että historiasta ei sellaisia pikavoittoja tule, että ikään kuin löydettäisiin sieltä jotain avaimia siihen, miten maailma nyt makaa. Historiaa täytyy käsitellä kokonaisuutena, ja siihen täytyy paneutua.
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Ambassador: What happens in the Baltic immediately affects the High North
While Norway and Estonia may seem far apart, the two countries share many similarities when it comes to defense and their eastern neighbor. In short, what happens in the Baltic effects the Arctic, and vice versa. ERR News spoke with Norwegian Ambassador Marius Dirdal about the security situation in the High North, Russia and Norway's activity in the Baltics.
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A Norwegian Navy vessel in Bergen, Norway Source: Johnny Larsen / Forsvaret.
Norway is a founding member of NATO and was the only member state bordering Russia for 50 years until Poland joined the alliance in 1999 — taking the border to Kaliningrad — followed by Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 2004.
The country contributes forces to the EFP (NATO's Enhanced Forward Presence — ed.) in Lithuania and Poland and regularly holds military exercises in northern Norway, in which the Estonian Navy participated last year. NATO recently opened an amphibious warfare center on the country's west coast.
Estonia and Norway's land borders are almost the same length, 135.6 km compared to 198 km. They also share the same eastern neighbor and the security situation has been heating up on both fronts since at least 2022. But that's where the similarities end. Norway and Russia's demarked sea border is 1,750 km.
While northern Norway — the High North — seems far away, Dirdal said events in the Baltic Sea never occur in isolation. The Russian port of Murmansk is home to Russia's Northern Fleet — and strategic nuclear arsenal which is in a constant state of readiness — and is close to the border.
Russians keep both ballistic missile submarines and facilities for storing nuclear warheads on the Kola Peninsula. These submarines, with nuclear warheads, are a central strategic resource, part of the nuclear triad, which is crucial to Russian strategy, the ambassador said in an interview in mid-December.
The ambassador presenting his credentials to President Alar Karis. Source: Office of the President
If Estonia and Finland should ever close the Gulf of Finland to Russia's vessels due to a security threat — something discussed by the head of the Estonian Defense Forces — the Russian Navy's only room for maneuver is in the Arctic (with the exception of Kaliningrad.)
"The Baltic Sea has become extremely difficult for them, extremely narrow in a sense, surrounded by what they perceive as the enemy. So whatever happens in the Baltic Sea area will immediately have an effect on the Arctic. So we see that there is a very strong link," the ambassador said.
Norway has also seen a rise in hybrid attacks and grey zone aggression in recent years. Ship tracking data shows civilian ships are mapping its infrastructure, the air force is regularly scrambled to respond to Russian military jets flying close to Norwegian air space without prior warning, while the country has also experienced GPS jamming.
But while Estonia hiked its defense spending to reach NATO's 2 percent target in 2014, Norway only reached it this year. Its current spending is 2.1 percent. Last month, in Tallinn at the Joint Expeditionary Force summit, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said this will rise, but gave no timeline and stressed he would not pressure other countries to ramp up their spending either.
While the summit missed Estonia's targets for defense spending, an agreement was struck by 12 countries on Russia's shadow fleet, old and underinsured vessels used to transport oil. Hundreds of ships are being used for this purpose in the Baltic and High North. Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal called the situation an "environmental disaster" waiting to happen. The only questions are when and where it happens, he said.
Estonian, Norweigan and British prime ministers discuss security at the JEF summit on December 16, 2024.t Source: Aron Urb/Stenbocki maja
The countries agreed to work together to check insurance documents. The issue will be discussed again later this week by NATO members after breakages to undersea cables by a suspected shadow fleet ship on Christmas Day.
"We have the other end of the shadow fleet problems," the ambassador said, highlighting the areas on a map where Russia extracts gas and oil close to Norwegian waters.
"The ships collect Russian oil in the Russian Arctic and then travel south close to the Norwegian coastline. We have the same issues in the Arctic as in the Baltic Sea — only at another end of Europe," he explained.
Asked if Russia is concerned about the environmental impact, he said: "Not very, no."
The ambassador described bilateral relations with Russia as "shut down". Unlike Estonia, Norway still has an ambassador in Moscow and Russia has a representative in Oslo. There is minimal communication among the border and coast guards, but it is there in case of emergencies. He said the commanders of both defense forces have a "hotline" that is tested regularly.
Eagle S and boat from the Finnish Coast Guard. Source: Finnish Border Guard.
Asked if this looks like the red telephones you see in movies, Dirdal laughed: "No, it's a Skype connection. It's very boring. There has been no contact through this hotline since 2014, but they actually test that it works. So they can reach each other if something happens."
But one area of cooperation that has almost ground to a halt in recent years is the Arctic Council, a forum for members in the region to tackle common problems and develop best practices and recommendations for safe and sustainable operations. Russia was all but frozen out in 2022 after it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Members no longer meet in person and the rotating chairmanship is handed over virtually.
But the ambassador said the grouping is still "useful." But one feature of the council is its official observer nations – interested countries not located in the region. Estonia lost a bid to join in 2021. Dirdal said the process is now in total "deadlock."
"The Arctic Council is a consensus organization, So in order to allow new observers in, you would have to achieve consensus. So now we're stuck with what we have. There is no chance of getting anyone in because Russia would say no to the ones we might be positive to."
One country that is interested in joining the forum is China: "It has claimed the status as a near-Arctic state, that's what they call themselves now." Norway can see that Moscow and Beijing are already cooperating in the region, the ambassador said. "The Russian and Chinese coast guard have entered into a into cooperation."
Norwegian forces in northern Norway Source: Sondre Mosdal / Forsvaret
"So the Chinese are increasingly active in the area. They have so far have not been in breach of international maritime law — as far as we can tell — but we expect them to be more active in the future as well," he said.
If speculation about Russia and China working together in the Baltic Sea to break undersea cables turns out to be true, this sort of scenario could also occur in the Arctic and North Seas.
"We have, of course, very important cables going between our territories, I mean mainland Norway and Svalbard. So we know that the Russians are interested in those," he said.
There are areas in the High North bordering Russia where NATO exercises are not held. While some have suggested this policy should change, the Norwegian prime minister has stood firm. Dirdal stressed "stability and predictability."
Norwegian troops and everything [can still] go there and it's a unilateral decision that we can change at any time we want," he stressed, adding some of the discussion around the subject is "often exaggerated."
"It's important for us to have stability there and we are pretty sure it's important for the Russians too to have a stable situation because they have their strategic resources there. So we believe it's a wise policy."
French and Norwegian soldiers cooperating during Exercise Iron Spear in Lithuania. Source: Ole-Sverre Haugli/ Norwegian Armed Forces
Dirdal, who has been in the role for two years, said part of his job is to make sure Norway's positions and situations are known by outsiders.
He said it is "extremely important" that there is more awareness in Estonia and Norway of what is happening in both countries. The JEF (Joint Expeditionary Force) summit was also a good opportunity for people to get a wider understanding of regional defense, he added.
But one area where no encouragement is needed is the defense forces. The Norwegian armed forces are also part of the eFP in Lithuania and Poland.
Approximately 150 soldiers from the Norwegian Army's Brigade Nord are stationed in Lithuania as part of the German-led multinational battalion around 90 km outside the capital Vilnius. The current contingent is Norway's 14th since 2017.
The Norwegians train and exercise together with soldiers from Belgium, Czechia, Germany, the Netherlands and the host country Lithuania. They also participate in exercises across the region.
But Dirdal says: "The troops that we have in Lithuania, they are there for the region. Our troops in Lithuania are there also for Estonia in a sense and that's something that I forget and everybody else forgets it, of course, because they're not here."
Smoking-gun proof Biden was never in charge, utterly selfish and America's worst President ever! MAUREEN CALLAHAN's damning final verdict on a legacy of total failure
After the longest of goodbyes, the worst president in modern American history is finally, thankfully, gone.
It's been equal parts enraging and entertaining to watch Joe Biden take what he clearly feels is a well-earned victory lap: A slurry farewell address from the Oval Office, followed by a fawning exit interview in which he insisted, again and deludedly, that if he had stayed in the race he would have won.
As Biden himself would say: No joke!
And so begins the political obituary for a presidency like no other — a president who was never really there, who held office in name only, who was but a puppet for a shadowy Democrat cabal (Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, cough-cough) that installed him and ran the country into the ground.
Not that Joe or Bad Doctor Jill would ever admit as much. But that's par for the course with a family that put ill-gotten gains and an unslakable thirst for power ahead of what is good and right. Ahead of the country's best interests.
'You answered all the questions, Joe!'
That was Jill Biden to her enfeebled dotard of a husband, who had just walked off that infamous debate stage back in June. A truly loving wife would surely have shuffled him home, held his hand and told him it was time to go.
Not Lady MacBiden. No: Her husband may have just humiliated himself and the country — not to mention showing our enemies that the leader of the free world was asleep at the wheel — but she figured she could write that off as 'just a bad night'.
It's been equal parts enraging and entertaining to watch Joe Biden take what he clearly feels is a well-earned victory lap.
And so begins the political obituary for a presidency like no other: a president who was never really there, who held office in name only, who was but a puppet for a shadowy Democrat cabal that installed him and ran the country into the ground. (Joe and wife Jill are pictured on January 16).
That's how stupid the Democrat establishment thought the electorate was.
Face it: Biden's first and only term was always destined to end badly. He began by defying his top military advisers who warned against pulling US forces out of Afghanistan.
Bob Gates, former secretary of defense under George W. Bush and Obama, wrote of Biden in his 2014 memoir: 'I think he has been wrong on every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.'
Obama, ahead of Biden's presidential run in 2020: 'Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f*** things up.'
Of course, Old Joey thought he knew best. And the result was the worst American retreat since Saigon.
Desperate Afghanis, children among them, clung to an American C-17 plane during takeoff and plummeted to their deaths.
Babies were tossed over barbed wire to American servicemen. Afghanis who risked life and limb to help Americans — who were promised protection— were left behind.
Thirteen US service members died when a terrorist suicide-bomber struck at Kabul airport.
President Biden honored their ultimate sacrifice by checking his watch repeatedly as their coffins were delivered for 'dignified transfer' at Dover Air Force Base. Surviving family members were left repulsed by Biden's callousness. By his insistence on talking not about their needless losses but about his own deceased son, Beau.
We later learned that he'd also reportedly kept those grieving families waiting while he dozed on Air Force One.
Roice McCollum, whose 20-year-old brother Rylee was among the fallen, told the Mail that Biden 'made us wait an extra three hours to receive the bodies of our dead family members because he couldn't pull it together.'
Perhaps this was the moment Biden's presidency, then only nine months old, died.
After his administration released a report blaming — you guessed it — Donald Trump for the Afghanistan debacle, Roice McCollum spoke for the bulk of America.
'This administration is a disgrace to this country,' she said. 'Of course Biden would blame it on Trump. He said a couple of days ago they have to do everything in their power to keep Trump from getting elected again. It's just propaganda. They are trying to manipulate public opinion'.
How right she was.
Obama, ahead of Biden's presidential run in 2020, said: 'Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f*** things up.' (Obama and Biden are pictured in 2016).
'Cheap fakes', we were told, every time we saw footage of Biden wandering off, or standing with his mouth agape, clearly confused about where he was and what he was doing — a lie repeated over and over by an overwhelmingly liberal media hellbent on keeping Trump from running again.
Winning again.
'Deceptively edited videos, known as "cheap fakes", have become staples of Republican attacks against President Biden' — The Washington Post, June 11, 2024
'The videos… are cropped or edited in a way that is misleading' — The Hill, June 19, 2024
And this, from the New York Times, dated June 21, 2024: 'There is the distorted, online version of [Biden], a product of often misleading videos that play into and reinforce voters' longstanding concerns about his age and abilities.'
This talking point was clearly being spoon-fed to a toothless press by the Biden White House right up to that June TV debate — you know, the one that 'reinforced voter concerns about his age and abilities'.
Then the mask was off. Biden wasn't a well-meaning, somewhat forgetful but thoroughly decent man saving 'the soul of the nation' from Trump.
He — clearly cognitively impaired, by his own admission able to work just four hours a day, left by his staff to sleep through all manner of crises — was the real threat.
After the Afghanistan withdrawal, which revealed a shambolic America in retreat, Putin invaded Ukraine. Hamas unleashed a terror attack on Israeli soil to rival 9/11. Al-Qaeda and Isis are on the rise once again.
The Taliban in Afghanistan has banned women from speaking in public.
Criminals, gangs and rapists have flowed freely through our open southern border with Mexico.
But Biden's top priorities have seemingly been trans rights — stripping protections for real girls and women — DEI and wokeism.
Should we be surprised? Biden has always given so many women the creeps, sniffing the hair of little girls, squeezing their shoulders, kissing them on the lips.
'Showers w/my dad (probably not appropriate),' Biden's daughter Ashley wrote in a diary that she herself admits is real.
Imagine if that were in Ivanka Trump's authenticated diary entries. It would have been the mainstream media's top story for months.
Not so for Biden. But, ever the small man, he has remained — to the bitter end — full of grudges, gripes and grift.
His largest concern has seemed to be not for the country but himself and his family. Somehow — don't ask Joe — his corrupt, degenerate son Hunter found himself with a sweetheart plea deal on tax evasion and a federal gun charge.
Until he didn't. Just like Hunter's sordid laptop was fake, or a Russian plant, until it wasn't.
Once Hunter pleaded guilty in federal court in September — weeks before the election — Joe said over and over that under no circumstances would he pardon his son.
After Trump won, Biden pardoned his son, for crimes known and unknown.
That kind of brazen duplicity, shameless hypocrisy — rules for thee, but not for me — is synonymous with the Biden family and the entire Democrat machine.
'Showers w/my dad (probably not appropriate),' Biden's daughter Ashley wrote in a diary that she herself now admits is real. (Ashley and Joe are pictured at the DNC in August).
Biden's corrupt, degenerate son Hunter initially found himself with a sweetheart plea deal on tax evasion and a federal gun charge. (Hunter is pictured with two prostitutes).
After Trump won, Biden pardoned his son, for crimes known and unknown. (Pictured: Recently surfaced photos of Joe and Hunter meeting with Hunter's Chinese business partners).
It's the endless moralizing and lecturing and hectoring to America about what a terrible country this is — what racists, sexists, homophobes, transphobes and xenophobes we are — that led to a second Trump term.
It was the hysteria that 'Trump was Hitler' and a threat to democracy, while they quietly installed a senile figurehead and executed a palace coup to give Kamala Harris, she of epic word salad and not one original thought, the nomination.
While delivering his farewell address last week, Biden quoted President Dwight D. Eisenhower in a warning about the looming second Trump term: 'the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power, end of quote.'
End of quote, end of times.
Yes, Joe Biden's been a total downer on his way out, warning us of the dark, dangerous America that — hello! — he himself worked to destroy.
He foisted Kamala, a woman who couldn't articulate a single reason for running besides 'I'm not Donald Trump', upon his party — his nation — as revenge for getting pushed off the ticket.
His approval numbers are in the toilet, the lowest of any outgoing president since Nixon. His one-time mega donors have reportedly snapped shut their wallets — no presidential library for you, Joe! — so disgusted are they. He lost the Hollywood elite the moment George Clooney turned on him in the pages of The New York Times last July.
Yet Biden, whether it's dementia or defiance, thinks he's going out on a high! He thinks America really wants to hear what he has to say — or stumble through, as the case may be.
He thinks he is going to be missed. He seems to see himself as a quasi-religious figure and that, without him, America may not be saved.
From that farewell address: 'Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy.'
You mean, Joe, like the Chinese businessmen you swore you never met, let alone introduced to Hunter? Despite the photos that surfaced just days ago, showing you, Hunter, and those Chinese businessmen?
Despite emails and texts from Hunter to his various foreign connections, confirming payouts of ten percent 'for The Big Guy'?
Or the pressure your Justice Department put on tech companies, Facebook and Twitter among them, to suppress the Hunter laptop story?
Or the lies you told a complicit liberal media about your cognitive health and physical fitness?
Does that not sound to you like concentrated wealth and stolen power threatening our very democracy?
Americans are not fooled by Joe Biden. We never really have been. He won in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, voted in by a panicked electorate — a vote for change that saw nearly every incumbent in the Western world voted out.
He ran on the premise of restoring normalcy and stabilizing the nation. On that, he failed.
New Year's Day saw a deadly terror attack in New Orleans and another bombing outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas.
Americans remain held hostage by Hamas and, until mere days ago, there was no ceasefire in sight.
Biden foisted Kamala Harris (pictured in late November), a woman who couldn't articulate a single reason for running besides 'I'm not Donald Trump', upon his party, his nation, as revenge for getting pushed off the ticket.
As Biden walks out the door, Los Angeles endures Week 3 of devastating wildfires — the ultimate metaphor for Biden's bonfire of vanities, one that elevated incompetent virtue-signalers and DEI hires over competence and common sense.
Biden, despite trying to salvage his legacy, will go down in history as a minor footnote, the aberrant hiccup between Trump's first and second term.
That's if he's lucky. That's if he's not remembered as the most useful idiot the left ever installed. As he turns to go on Monday morning, LA will still be on fire, and that will be his true legacy: An America left burning, hopeless, desperate, neglected.
But we sussed out the real threat. And it wasn't Donald Trump.
_________________
С интересом и понятными ожиданиями, Dimitriy.
Ukraine risks being ‘Trump’s Vietnam,’ says Steve Bannon
Trump’s former chief strategist fears his old boss won’t make a clean break and stop military aid to Kyiv.
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump is in danger of failing to make a clean break with Ukraine and could be sucked deeper into Vladimir Putin’s war — just as Richard Nixon was stung in his attempts to pull out of Vietnam — Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon warned in a wide-ranging interview with POLITICO.
The host of the influential “War Room” podcast is girding for a major political showdown over United States intervention in Ukraine. He advocates ending America’s all-important military aid to Kyiv, but fears his old boss is going to fall into a trap being set by an unlikely alliance of the U.S. defense industry, the Europeans and even some of Bannon’s own friends, whom he argues are now misguided. These include Keith Kellogg, a retired U.S. general who is Trump’s pick to be special envoy to Ukraine and Russia.
“If we aren’t careful, it will turn into Trump’s Vietnam. That’s what happened to Richard Nixon. He ended up owning the war and it went down as his war not Lyndon Johnson’s,” Bannon said.
Kellogg argues any deal to end the three-year-long war needs to include solid security guarantees for Ukraine to ensure Russia won’t just invade again. And Kellogg has talked about maintaining U.S. military aid to apply pressure on Moscow to agree a decent deal.
Despite his friendship with Kellogg, Bannon thinks this kind of delay will only heighten the risk of the U.S. being pulled deeper into a war he believes is unwinnable and one that isn’t in America’s national interest. Behind the scenes, he’s lobbying furiously for Trump to declare in his inauguration speech on Monday that he will end the war quickly.
On his daily radio show and podcast, Bannon’s been campaigning for this announcement on Day One. “I’m going nuts right now to make sure there’s something on Monday, an announcement. Because you have Kellogg saying it will take 100 days, the old foreign policy establishment are saying six months,” Bannon said.
He argues Trump should spell out to Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “there’s a new sheriff in town, and we’re going to get a deal done and we’re going to get it done quickly.” Zelenskyy should, he goes on, take note of how Trump steamrollered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into accepting a cease-fire-for-hostages deal with Hamas.
Not losing sleep over Europe
The 71-year-old was in a feisty mood, exhilarated by Trump’s election win but ready to do battle to ensure that America is remade along MAGA lines. Looking less rumpled than he can on occasion, he sported stubble and had combed his signature long gray hair.
Wearing slippers for the early morning interview in the front room of his Capitol Hill home, Bannon told POLITICO he didn’t think Europe appreciated how consequential Trump’s second term would be — and reckoned Trump’s domestic political opponents weren’t properly prepared either.
He talked about the “days of thunder” to come and said the slew of executive orders to be announced after Trump is sworn in on Monday will likely include ones on immigration, diversity hiring in the federal workforce, energy and possibly tariffs. He reckoned about 50 orders would be announced, though more than 100 others were locked and loaded, awaiting sign off by government lawyers.
Bannon compared 2025 to 1932 when Franklin D. Roosevelt was first elected and launched the New Deal. “Our [electoral] coalition is much bigger than it was in 2016, much broader, much deeper,” allowing more to be done, Bannon said, including the “deconstruction of the administrative state.”
But a larger coalition also brings risks. Bannon worried the new Silicon Valley converts, including the tech billionaire Elon Musk, with whom he has been publicly skirmishing, may divert Trump and strike deals for their own benefit.
He was scathing about the Europeans and the transatlantic alliance. “If you look at NATO, I don’t think it can put together two combat divisions of Europeans that are ready to fight,” he scoffed, complaining NATO had turned into an American protectorate, rather than being an alliance.
“Europe has gotten away with early retirement and full health care because they don’t pay for their own defense,” he protested.
But Bannon is equally emphatic he’s no fan of Russia’s leader.
“Putin’s a bad guy. He’s a very bad guy. The KGB are bad guys. But I don’t stay up at night worrying about Russian influence on Europe. No. 1, their military hasn’t even got to Kyiv. In three years, they couldn’t get there. They haven’t taken Kharkiv even. You know why I don’t stay awake at night? Because the Europeans don’t stay awake at night. They don’t consider Russia a real threat. If they did they would throw a lot more money and troops into the game,” he went on.
He’s a big fan of Trump’s ploy to buy Greenland, and as a former naval warfare officer he says he sees the Arctic as crucial to ensure the American homeland is safe from both Russia and China. “Trump’s not going to invade Greenland,” he said, waving a dismissive hand. “He doesn’t have to. They’re going to vote for independence, and then they’re going to vote to join the United States.”
Likewise, gaining control of the Panama Canal is important for American defense. “The people in Panama have been ripped off by the elites down there. They basically cut deals. It’s an open secret. They cut deals with the CCP [Chinese Communist Party]. They’re bought and paid for, and they turned the canal over to them. That’s ending.”
He argues too many European leaders fancied themselves as Winston Churchill, especially zeroing in on former British Conservative leader Boris Johnson, whom he called a “war criminal.”
“The Ukraine war is the central screw up of Europe over the last couple of years. You have a million dead or wounded Ukrainians. And we’re going to end up, best case, we’re going to end up exactly where this thing started, as I said three years ago. And it’s because you have Boris Johnson and [French President Emmanuel] Macron, all these fantasists that won’t pay for their own defense. They want to be big shots. They all want to be Winston Churchill with other people’s money and other people’s lives,” he says.
MAGA maniacs
It is difficult to gauge how influential Bannon is now on Trump.
The pair fell out after Bannon criticized Trump’s family, mocked the then-president’s intellect and criticized the operations of the White House in comments published in a book by journalist Michael Wolff. Trump disavowed Bannon and accused him of losing his mind.
But the two patched things up less than a year later with Trump calling Bannon “one of my best pupils” and said he “loved working with” him. In 2018, Bannon released a pro-Trump documentary aimed at galvanizing Trump supporters ahead of the 2018 midterm elections in a bid to maintain a Republican majority in the House of Representatives. He wouldn’t disclose how often he talks with Trump, but said he knew Trump listens to the “War Room” and often sends along notes of praise.
One European populist sponsor, who’s been a guest at Trump’s Florida resort in recent weeks, confided that some in Trump’s inner circle see Bannon and other die-hard early Trump supporters as “MAGA maniacs.” “It surprised me a lot,” the sponsor added. Asking not to be identified by name in order to be candid, he added: “But they’re also wary of Bannon. They appreciate he wields a lot of influence on MAGA die-hards and they don’t want to get the movement against them.”
Indeed Bannon can whip up an online MAGA crowd. When skeptical Republican senators expressed doubts about the wisdom of nominating Fox News host Pete Hegseth, a former Army National Guard officer, as defense secretary Bannon was a key figure in organizing a grassroots MAGA campaign to save his nomination. And there’s no shortage of MAGA figures and top Republicans clamoring to appear on Bannon’s “War Room” show, in testimony to its political clout.
Bannon broke off the interview to discuss a huge oil painting hanging over the fireplace depicting the USS Ranger, a sloop of war captained by John Paul Jones during the American revolutionary war. The Ranger took the war to the shores of England, captured five British ships and launched a raid on England’s northwest coast, prompting Royal Navy warships to be dispatched against her in the Irish Sea.
Bannon also means to take the political war to Europe. He segued to discuss how Britain’s populist leader Nigel Farage plotted his Brexit referendum campaign over dinner in Bannon’s Capitol Hill home. He clearly relishes upcoming opportunities to back European populists and amplify the radical populist message in Europe.
And he sees Elon Musk as crucial in that endeavor.
That is not to say he is an unalloyed fan of Musk. He has been vitriolic in his criticism of the tech billionaire for calling for more visas for highly skilled foreign workers. Bannon wants a moratorium on immigration. He was disappointed with Musk for recently turning on Farage and for saying he should be replaced as the leader of Britain’s Reform UK party.
Bannon and Musk are also in sharp disagreement over Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Musk is a fan. Bannon was, too, until recently. For weeks, he has been launching ferocious attacks on her in interviews with the Italian media describing her as a lefty disguised as a populist. This marks a stark contrast with his original support.
“I saw in her tremendous potential. She’s got the best skill set of any politician except for Trump on the globe. Tough, personable, smart. What happened is that once she got into office, she immediately became, not just moderated, she flipped and gave support to the central powers in Brussels, and particularly NATO, and NATO is a huge problem. She was an ardent backer of the Ukraine war,” he explained.
But he added: “My mission is to get her back on track.”
He also hopes to get Musk in the right groove, too.
“I’ve told him this, and that as soon as I make him a populist nationalist instead of a techno-feudal globalist, we’ll be fine. But until that time, we’re going to be at loggerheads,” he said.
While complaining Musk could be “a random element,” he said the money and support he gave to Trump in the election was important. And he predicted Musk would have a huge impact on Europe.
“I don’t think Europe is ready for him. He has two tactical nuclear weapons — unlimited money and a social media platform. He can drive what’s important and he can crush everybody else,” he added.
“There’s not a centrist right or centrist left government on the European continent that can withstand his onslaught, if he gets fully engaged as he has in the U.S.”
В Украине затевается большая реформа средней школы.
Как заявили в Министерстве образования, с 2027 года физика, биология, химия, зарубежная литература, всемирная история, география перестанут быть обязательными для изучения в 10,11 и 12 классах.
Обязательными останутся только украинский язык и литература, история Украины, английский язык, математика, физкультура и "Защита Отечества". Также будет внедрена система индивидуального подбора предметов, то есть, своего рода профильная подготовка, которая должна помочь выпускникам более качественно подготовится к поступлению в вуз. В МОН говорят, что, разрабатывая новую образовательную систему, ориентировались на европейскую практику. И считают, что ее внедрение позволит сделать среднее образование более качественным.
Впрочем, в украинских реалиях такая реформа может дать обратный эффект.
"Главное в этой цепочке - учителя, а о них "забыли". При том дефиците педагогов, что есть сейчас, многие директора школ перекрестятся, после того, как масса предметов станет необязательными. И по максимуму "упростят" обучение - раз физика, биология и химия необязательные, то можно и не учить, а если очень хочется - идите в частную школу", - говорит ректор технологического университета ШАГ Виталий Зайцев.
Он прогнозирует, что после того, как в государственных школах "обрежут" часть предметов, вырастет спрос на услуги репетиторов и частных учебных заведений.
"Надеюсь, никакой "отмены" важных предметов все же не будет", - говорит нам директор Киевского лицея бизнеса Людмила Паращенко.
Зайцев также добавил, что "с такой реформой школы о серьезных достижениях в науке и технологических прорывах Украине придется забыть". И ожидает, что придется серьезно "подтягивать" в университет студентов, которые закончат реформированную школу.
Высоцкий - В заповедных и дремучих... (Песня про нечисть)
Цитата:
Trump and Melania meet Joe and Jill Biden as they prepare to pick up keys to the White House
Donald Trump and Joe Biden exchanged smiles for the cameras as they met at the White House on Monday morning ahead of the president-elect formally taking power.
The president-elect and Melania Trump walked up the front stairs hand-in-hand, where President Biden and first lady Jill Biden awaited them.
'Welcome home,' Biden told Trump.
The two couples shook hands and briefly posed for pictures, looking visibly cold in the wind. Unlike eight years ago, when Melania arrived with a gift wrapped in Tiffany blue for Michelle Obama, she was empty-handed when she greeted Jill Biden.
The two couples will enjoy coffee and tea in the White House residence before riding to the Capitol together for Trump's inauguration.
When Biden leaves the White House, it will be his last time as president. Trump takes the reins at noon ET.
Ahead of the president-elect's arrival, Biden told reporters he was feeling 'good. It’s a beautiful day.' He said his message for the day was 'joy.'
He and wife Jill Biden took one last selfie outside of the Oval Office before departing the building, posting it to the White House social media accounts.
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden greet President-elect Donald Trump and Melania Trump as they arrive at the White House
Outgoing first lady Jill Biden and outgoing President Joe Biden pose at the White House with incoming President Donald Trump and incoming first lady Melania Trump
Usha Vance, Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff, Vice President Kamala Harris and Vice President-elect JD Vance at the White House
Melania Trump hangs on to her hat on the windy day
'Welcome home,' President Joe Biden told incoming President Donald Trump
Melania Trump and Jill Biden walk into the White House together
Before the Trumps arrived, incoming Vice President J.D. Vance and wife Usha were greeted at the White House by outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff.
'Congratulations,' Harris told Vance. She had declined to host him at the vice presidential residence ahead of his swearing-in ceremony.
Harris, who lost to Trump in a landslide, described today as 'democracy in action.'
It will be a long day for the Trumps and the Vances, who, after they are sworn into office, have a lunch in the Capitol, and inaugural parade and then three balls.
Donald Trump kicked off the ceremonies for his historic second inauguration alongside wife Melania, son Barron and his family at a church service early Monday morning.
The president-elect took the front row of St. John’s Episcopal Church - just a block away from the White House - and smiled to Vance, who was sat alongside wife Usha.
The president-elect, wearing a suit and dark red tie, shook his fist to photographers as he stepped out of the crowd. Melania, in a navy blue suit and matching hat with white trim, was at his side. Their son Barron walked with them.
The Trump family joined them inside the church - Ivanka and Jared Kushner and their kids; Don Jr., his ex-wife Vanessa and their kids; Tiffany Trump and husband Michael Boulos; and Eric and Lara Trump and their two children.
Incoming Vice President J.D. Vance and his wife Usha sat in the front pew with Donald, Melania and Barron.
Also in the church were Rupert Murdoch, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez, former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard, Sean Duffy, TikTok CEO Shou Chew, Elon Musk, Rep. Mike Waltz, Pam Bondi, Howard Lutnick, Doug Burgum, and Argentinian President Javier Milei.
Donald and Melania Trump walk up the stairs of the White House to meet Joe and Jill Biden
J.D. Vance and Usha Vance walk up the White House stairs to greet Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff
Melania Trump and President-elect Donald Trump are greeted by Rev. Robert W. Fisher as they arrive for service at St. John's Church
Barron Trump follows parents Melania Trump and Donald Trump into church
Donald Trump chats with J.D. Vance and Usha Vance as Melania and Baron look on
Trump's swearing-in has been moved inside the Capitol rotunda due to the below-freezing weather and cold winds in Washington D.C. Much of the ground is frozen and icy from Sunday's rain and snow fall.
Biden and Trump haven't spoken since shortly after the election, when Biden welcomed the president-elect to the Oval Office.
Trump, in the interim, has blasted the outgoing president for being 'sneaky' during the transition process by setting up a series of roadblocks designed to hinder his first days in office.
Biden, for his part, started off the morning with a series of preemptive pardons for those who might face Trump retribution: General Mark Milley, Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Rep. Liz Cheney.
He got a final security briefing as commander in chief. After Trump is sworn in, the Bidens will board Marine One at the Capitol and head to Joint Base Andrews, where Biden will give farewell remarks. The couple then heads to California for some time with family.
President-elect Donald Trump, Melania Trump and Barron Trump, Victor Knavs arrive for a service at St. John's Church - at left are Vice President-elect JD Vance and Usha Vance
Meta and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (L) CEO of Apple Tim Cook, Founder of Amazon and Blue Origin Jeff Bezos at church with Trump
Ivanka Trump with her children
Melania Trump wears a navy suit and hat as she enters church with Donald Trump
US Vice President-elect JD Vance and Usha Vance and the rest of the guests at St. John's Episcopal Church wait for Donald Trump's arrival
Ivanka Trump with Arabella, Joseph and Theodore
Tiffany Trump with husband Michael Boulos - the couple is expecting their first child
Trump has been in Washington D.C. since Saturday, celebrating his second term in office. He and his supporters celebrated with fireworks at his Trump Golf Club in Sterling, Va.
On Sunday, he addressed supporters at a rally at the Capitol One Arena. And then he joined supporters at a candlelight dinner.
When Trump returns to the White House on Monday afternoon, it will be as president of the United States.
He plans an immediate blitz of executive orders, designed to overturn many Biden initiatives. He'll have a crackdown on illegal immigration, put tariffs on trading partners and pardon supporters who were prosecuted for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Keir Starmer? Is he a serial killer? What happened when the Mail asked New Yorkers if they'd heard of the PM
Sir Keir Starmer is working hard to cosy up to Donald Trump’s incoming administration.
But on the streets of America, few people even know who the Prime Minister is.
A snap survey found barely eight per cent of New York residents know who Sir Keir is.
A Mail reporter on the streets of Manhattan yesterday asked 100 people whether they had ever heard of the Prime Minister and only eight people successfully identified him - but two of them were British tourists, and another was from Australia.
The others were either clueless or incorrectly guessed he was a TV star or even a ‘serial killer’.
The poll comes after a Trump ally told the Mail on Sunday ‘no one [in the US] knows’ who Sir Keir is. ‘Keir who? Ask most Americans in the street,’ the ally said.
‘I have no idea,’ said 19-year-old Eli, a New York resident. ‘A serial killer?’
‘I don’t care about who that is,’ 24-year-old John, from Atlanta, Georgia, said. ‘I thought it was Boris Johnson.’
A snap survey found barely eight per cent of New York residents know who Sir Keir (pictured at the Capitol Building in Washington DC in July last year) is
President-elect Donald Trump at a rally in Washington DC before his inauguration today
A Mail reporter on the streets of Manhattan yesterday asked 100 people whether they had ever heard of the Prime Minister and only eight people successfully identified him - but two of them were British tourists, and another was from Australia (file image)
Lord Mandelson (pictured in June last year in London) is set to be the next US ambassador. But will the new Donald Trump administration accept him?
Another person said: ‘We have too many of our own problems to know who that is.’
Jane, 20, from New York, correctly guessed that Sir Keir was British as she asked: ‘Is he an advocate or something of Brexit?’
Another Manhattan resident said: ‘I’ve definitely seen him on TV. He’s definitely an actor but I don’t know what he’s in.’
Some respondents had a loose idea, including one who doubtfully said: ‘Yes.... is he the president of some European or Scandinavian country or something?’
Charlie Clark, 24, from the UK, described Starmer as being ‘sort of... limp’.
The Prime Minister’s relationship with Mr Trump is already strained after a string of senior Labour figures made disparaging remarks about him in the past.
The Labour Mayor of London, recently knighted Sir Sadiq Khan, said in a column for the Observer yesterday that Mr Trump’s election is part of ‘resurgent fascism haunting the West’.
He said: ‘The hard-right and far-right are on the march. These are deeply worrying times, especially if you’re a member of a minority community.’
Downing Street were forced to distance themselves yesterday, with Cabinet Minister Darren Jones saying: ‘I don’t agree with it. I speak on behalf of the government, and we don’t agree with it.’
Jane, 20, from New York, correctly guessed that Sir Keir (pictured in Poland last week) was British as she asked: ‘Is he an advocate or something of Brexit?’
Sir Sadiq Khan (pictured in September at Labour conference in Liverpool) said in a column for the Observer that Mr Trump’s election is part of ‘resurgent fascism haunting the West’
Just two years go, the Prime Minister himself attacked the Conservative Party by saying: ‘These aren’t Churchill’s Tories any more.
‘If anything, they behave more and more like Donald Trump. They look at the politics of America and want to bring that here.’
Health Secretary West Streeting branded Mr Trump an ‘odious, sad little man’, while Energy Secretary Ed Miliband suggested the UK should not share values with a ‘racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper.’
Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in 2018: ‘Trump is not only a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath, he is also a profound threat to the international order that has been the foundation of Western progress for so long.’
Labour have since softened their gone, however, with Sir Keir and his senior ministers striking a more diplomatic and conciliatory tone since Mr Trump’s election victory.
_________________
С интересом и понятными ожиданиями, Dimitriy.
Putin is 'creating the conditions' to attack NATO and has already replaced the thousands of tanks and missiles destroyed in war on Ukraine, Germany warns
Vladimir Putin is 'creating the conditions' to attack NATO and has already replaced the thousands of tanks and missiles destroyed in his illegal war in Ukraine, a leading German military official has warned.
Major General Christian Freuding said that Russia's armed forces are 'not just able to compensate for their enormous personnel and material losses... they are successfully rearming'.
Freuding told Die Welt that while Putin has suffered huge casualties in the war, losing his 'well-trained troops', his 'imperialist impulse' remains unbroken and the military is 'successfully rearming'.
While it was not clear whether Russia plans to attack NATO, Freuding said Putin was 'clearly creating the conditions for it', claiming supplies in Russia's depots are 'growing'.
Russia has significantly expanded its military in the last 12 months, boosting the size of its army to 1.5 million active personnel in September to become the second largest in the world, according to Russian media.
While NATO claims it 'does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia', Putin and his allies have increasingly sent warnings of nuclear Armageddon to the West in a bid to undermine support for Ukraine.
Russian service members drive a BTR-82A armoured personnel carrier along Red Square during a rehearsal for a military parade on May 5, 2024
Putin is said to be 'clearly creating the conditions' for war with NATO (pictured January 17)
Russian S-300 missile systems take part in the Victory Day military parade general rehearsal on the Red Square in Moscow, Russia, May 5, 2024
Germany, among Ukraine's top backers in the West, has been locked in intense discussions over whether to back a £2.5bn aid package - a package Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said would be contingent upon loosening Germany's own spending restraints.
The aid package, mostly to fund air defence, has received support from leaders across the political spectrum seeking to bolster Ukraine before the German snap election on February 23.
If it goes through, it would be the largest single package to date from any ally, and would supplement four billion euros in aid already allocated to Ukraine for 2025 in a provision budget.
It comes at a delicate time, with Vladimir Putin and his MPs threatening parties offering to support Kyiv's defence of its territory.
Aleksey Zhuravlyov, deputy head of Russia's parliamentary defence committee, urged last week that Russia should be ready for World War Three within three years.
The pro-Putin MP urged that while Russia has enough volunteers to fight, it must start to prepare the male population for a major confrontation with the West by 2028-29.
'Europe explains to us that in 2028–2029 [it and its allies] will be ready to fight Russia,' he assessed.
'Here it is necessary to prepare the male population and, naturally, defend the Motherland. We must talk about this and not be ashamed of it.'
Responding to the comments, Yuri Shvytkin, deputy chair of the State Duma Defence Committee, firmly agreed with the assessment, telling Ridus that 'every Russian must understand that in the event of external aggression, he must take up arms and defend the Motherland.'
He shied away from calling for immediate mobilisation, suggesting the threat from NATO was not yet a pressing issue.
Russian tanks and motorized artillery systems seized by Ukrainian forces, August 25, 2022
Maj Gen Christian Freuding (pictured last February) said Russia is 'successfully rearming'
Ukrainian servicemen of the 24 Separate Mechanized Brigade firing 155mm M-109 'Paladin' howitzer towards Russian forces near the town Chasiv Yar
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz attends the day of remembrance '80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz - what now?', in Frankfurt, Germany, January 19
Putin himself said in late December that a global conflict could erupt if the West continues 'escalating the situation'.
'You know, there is no need to scare anyone,' he told a state TV reporter, caveating, 'there are many dangers - they are increasing'.
'And we see what our enemy is doing today, escalating the situation. If they want to, let them live badly, let them escalate further.
'We will always respond to any challenge, always,' he said.
Putin glossed over his role in escalating conflict in Europe with the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, instead boasting of his personal role in the 'historic' development of the Oreshnik hypersonic missile.
The Russian dictator today welcomed Donald Trump's decision to restore direct contacts with Russia and prevent World War Three, after insisted he would fight for Russia's interests on the world stage.
Ukraine meanwhile attacked a Russian-occupied town in the southern Kherson region on Monday, killing two people and wounding more than a dozen others, Russian state media reported.
The region's Moscow-installed governor said Ukrainian forces had fired 'cluster munitions' near a school in the town of Bekhtery when students and teachers were on their way to lessons and that children were among the wounded.
Both Russia and Ukraine have ramped up hostilities in recent months, trying to secure the upper hand in the almost three-year conflict ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration later on Monday.
Vladimir Putin (R) during his meeting with the President of the National Medical Research Centre for Endocrinology Ivan Dedov in Moscow, Russia, 18 January
Priests and worshippers clear debris inside St. Andrew's Cathedral damaged by Russian missile strikes, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine on January 18
Recently mobilized Ukrainian infantry soldiers of the 59th Separate Mechanized Brigade practice shooting assault rifles on a training ground near the southeastern city of Pokrovsk, which has been under threat for months from advancing Russian troops, on January 19, 2025
The attack came as Russian forces advanced further in east Ukraine.
The Russian defence ministry said they had captured two more villages, including one just a few kilometres (miles) from the Ukrainian-held supply hub of Pokrovsk.
It said its army units 'liberated' Shevchenko - around three kilometres (two miles) from Pokrovsk, as well as Novoyegorivka in the eastern Lugansk region.
Russia accelerated its advances in Ukraine last year, capturing seven times more territory in 2024 than in 2023, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War.
Moscow is also pressing into the hilltop city of Chasiv Yar, a frontline stronghold whose capture would allow it to drive deeper into the Donetsk region.
Цитата:
„Die modernen russischen Streitkräfte sind de facto zerstört“
Kommt bald eine große russische Offensive gegen die Ukraine? Generalmajor Freuding sieht gewichtige Gründe, die dagegen sprächen. So seien die „gut ausgebildeten Truppenteile“ der Russen vernichtet. Putins „imperialistischer Impuls“ sei aber ungebrochen – darauf müsse die Nato deutlich antworten.
...
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Генеральный директор агентства мобильного маркетинга Mobisharks (входит в ГК Kokoc Group) — об эффективном мобильном маркетинге и примерах успешных стратегий.
За последние пару лет реклама банков изменилась. Появились новые сюжеты и герои. Реклама по-прежнему — не только инструмент продвижения услуг, но и способ формирования доверия к финансовым организациям. Главный тренд, который отмечают эксперты,— переход от сухого перечисления выгод к эмоционально окрашенным коммуникациям.
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.
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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