Tag: russia

Why’s Poland Talking Tough About Possibly Shooting Down Russian Missiles Over Ukraine?

The sequence of events that would have to transpire in order to turn this into a reality are that: the next NATO leader and his team end up being hawkish on this issue; Polish policymakers overcome their differences and agree that it’s worth the risks; and the US gives them the greenlight.

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski told the Financial Times in an interview earlier this week that “Membership in Nato does not trump each country’s responsibility for the protection of its own airspace — it’s our own constitutional duty. I’m personally of the view that, when hostile missiles are on course of entering our airspace, it would be legitimate self-defence [to strike them] because once they do cross into our airspace, the risk of debris injuring someone is significant.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Pawel Wronski clarified that these was Sikorski’s own personal views and don’t reflect Poland’s official ones, elaborating that “If we have the capability and Ukraine agrees, then we should consider it. But ultimately, this is the minister’s personal opinion.” Nevertheless, their comments still suggested that this scenario might once again be in the cards under certain conditions despite having earlier been rebuffed by the US, UK, and NATO. Here are three background briefings:

* 17 April: “It Would Be Surprising If Polish Patriot Systems Were Used To Protect Western Ukraine”

* 18 July: “Ukraine Likely Feels Jaded After NATO Said That It Won’t Allow Poland To Intercept Russian Missiles”

* 30 August: “Poland Finally Maxed Out Its Military Support For Ukraine”

The last of these three included Zelensky’s most recent demand at the time to shoot down Russian missiles over Ukraine. He said that “We have talked a lot about this and we need, as I understand it, the support of several countries. Poland … hesitates to be alone with this decision. It wants the support of other countries in NATO. I think this would lead to a positive decision by Romania.” That same analysis also cited Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz’s response to him too.

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Putin: The Accelerating Conquest of Donbas Is the Main Objective of the War in Ukraine, Ukraine’s Kursk Incursion Has NOT Distracted Russian Forces

Russian president Vladimir Putin, speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum international conference in Vladivostok, has once again highlighted that the conquest (or liberation) of the Donbas region – comprised of the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts – is his military’s ‘first-priority goal’.

Putin says that Kiev made a mistake in deploying ‘fairly large and well-trained units’ to the Kursk offensive in Russian territory.

New York Times reported:

“’The enemy’s goal was to make us nervous and worry and to transfer troops from one sector to another and stop our offensive in key areas, primarily in the Donbas’, Mr. Putin said at the conference. ‘Did it work or no? No’. […] ‘The enemy weakened itself in key areas, and our troops accelerated offensive operations’. […] ‘Most importantly, no actions are taking place to contain our offensive’, he added.”

The fight for the Donbas has been raging since 2014,  and now, in the third year of the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin is nearer than ever in its quest to add this region to its territory, even if some of the most important cities are still to be conquered.

Lately, significant progress has been made in the direction of Pokrovsk, a vital logistics hub for Ukraine, and the largest city to be raided since Bakhmut.

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Ukraine’s allies struggle to supply weapons to Kiev as a difficult winter looms

Ukraine’s allies are struggling to fulfil their own promises to deliver military supplies to Kiev while the volume of Russian military equipment production exceeds that of the West, Bloomberg writes, citing sources. This is creating concerns since Ukraine does not have the means to defend its energy infrastructure, with another difficult winter just weeks away.

“Ukrainian allies meanwhile are scrambling to meet pledges made earlier this year to beef up the war-battered nation’s air-defence systems. Several NATO allies have yet to follow through with commitments reaffirmed at the alliance’s summit in Washington in July,” the report said.

Along with the difficulties of supplying military equipment to Kiev, the agency highlighted the Russian economy’s ability to ensure the production of defence equipment, including missiles and ammunition, in a quantity that exceeds the West’s ability to send weapons to Ukrainian forces.

According to the cited sources, the Ukrainian Army is facing a shortage of weapons and is unable to contain the advance of Russian troops into the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic amid the failed attempt to weaken Moscow’s offensive through Ukraine’s attack on the Kursk region and the observed reduction in Ukraine’s power generation capacity following the destruction of energy infrastructure.

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Kyiv’s Russia incursion plan required Western intel, meaning the U.S. knew in advance what Ukraine was going to do

Washington keeps getting caught in lies as the Western establishment pretends to not be backing Ukraine with its incursion into Russia.

A senior U.S. intelligence officer acknowledged this week that Kyiv had access to a consortium of satellite imagery that the Zelensky regime used to plan and execute their invasion into Russia’s Kursk Region, a claim that Washington denies as false.

According to the powers that be here in the United States, nobody knew in advance that Ukraine was planning the invasion, even though it has already come out that both the U.S. and Great Britain “provided Ukraine with satellite imagery and other information,” to quote a New York Times report.

The Times included a caveat claim that the satellite imagery and other intelligence was not meant “to help Ukraine push deeper into Russia, but to allow its commanders to better track Russian reinforcements that might attack them or cut off their eventual withdrawal back to Ukraine” because it was supposedly delivered after the start of the incursion.

Vice Admiral Frank Whitworth, who directs the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), commented that the Times may be confused. The paper’s sources could have been referring to the commercial satellite imagery that the U.S. has been giving Ukraine access to for years through the Global Enhanced GEOINT Delivery (G-EGD) portal, operated by the space company Maxar.

“There were over 400,000 accounts in that particular portal,” Whitworth said at a recent discussion panel hosted by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance. “And so, the availability of commercial imagery is sustained.”

“If that is what they are using for purposes of this particular campaign, this limited campaign in Kursk, then I’ll defer to them to confirm that. But the availability is always there.”

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US prepares to provide Ukraine with long-range cruise missiles to target deep into Russian territory

The United States is close to an agreement to provide Ukraine with long-range cruise missiles that could reach deep into Russia, but Kyiv will have to wait several months as the United States works through technical issues before delivery, said U.S. officials.

The inclusion of joint air-to-surface standoff missiles (JASSM) in the weapons package is expected to be announced this autumn, three sources told Reuters news agency, although no final decision has been made. The sources declined to be named.

Sending JASSMs to Ukraine could significantly alter the strategic balance of the conflict by putting more of Russia within range of precision munitions — a major concern for the Biden administration.

Military analysts say JASSMs, which are stealthy and can strike further than most other missiles currently in Ukraine’s inventory, could push Russian staging areas and supply depots hundreds of miles back.

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Stand Up to Zelensky: A Plea for Sanity

It is understandable that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is asking the West for all the help they can deliver. It is the primary responsibility of a nation’s leader to protect the citizens of his nation. But by the same accounting, it is the primary responsibility of U.S. President Joe Biden to protect the citizens of his country.

It is partly for that reason that the Biden administration has, from the beginning, formulated its goal in Ukraine as protecting its territory and sovereignty while avoiding direct conflict with Russia that could lead to a larger Russia-NATO war.

But, from a Russian perspective, the recent incursion into Kursk inside Russia’s borders with Western tanks, American mobile Patriot missile batteries and U.S. provided HIMARS rocket launchers looks a lot like a NATO attack on Russia using Ukrainian troops.

Assuaging that perspective is not helped by the lack of condemnation of the invasion from the United States, the absence of any visible attempt to rein it in, the assessment that Ukraine’s invasion into Russian territory with Western weapons does not cross any U.S. red lines and the now evident American cooperation with the provision of “satellite imagery and other information about the Kursk region” to help the Ukrainian invading force “to better track Russian reinforcements that might attack them or cut off their eventual withdrawal back to Ukraine.”

The American stance on the Ukrainian invasion puts Biden’s primary responsibility at risk. And it puts that responsibility on a slippery slope to even greater risk.

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US military officials doubt Kiev’s version of F-16 downing

Ukrainian Lt. Col. Oleksiy Mes was paraded as someone who could change the war in Kiev’s favour by piloting the F-16 fighter jets but was quickly killed when engaging with the Russian military, as expected by all respectable sources. The official story is that he was killed in friendly fire from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, however, the New York Times reported, citing US military officials, that this was most likely not the case.

“The death of a widely celebrated pilot and the loss of one of the long-coveted fighter jets so soon after their deployment cast a pall over the battlefield just as the giddy first days of the incursion into Russia’s Kursk region were fading away and concerns mounted over an advancing Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine,” the outlet reported.

On August 29, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine acknowledged the loss of an F-16 fighter jet transferred to Kiev and a special commission is investigating the causes of the accident. The Wall Street Journal previously wrote that the F-16 crashed due to pilot error, whilst Ukrainian lawmaker Mariana Bezuhla said that Ukraine’s Patriot air defence system shot down the F-16 due to a failure in coordination between units.

The New York Times reported that two senior US military officials said friendly fire was unlikely to have caused the F-16 crash. The publication did not specify what the statement was based on or mention their version of events of the fighter jet’s destruction. At the same time, the US military told the newspaper that American and Ukrainian investigators were considering many possible reasons for Kiev’s loss of the F-16.

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Russia Updating Nuclear Weapon Doctrine Due To Western ‘Escalation’ Of Ukraine War

In the latest worrisome saber-rattling sparked by the US-led proxy war in Ukraine, Russia announced it’s revising its doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons, saying a change has been necessitated by “escalation” initiated by the country’s Western adversaries. 

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told TASS that the update was precipitated by an analysis of  “recent conflicts” including “Western adversaries’ escalation course” in the Ukraine war. The revision is “in the advanced stage,” but Ryabkov said it was too early to project when it would be completed, given “we are talking about the most important aspect of our national security.” While there’s been no indication of the specifics, any revision seems certain to lower the threshold for nuclear weapon use — and increase the potential for a global conflagration.  

Per TASS, under current doctrine set forth in 2020, Russia may use nuclear weapons when:

  • An enemy uses a weapon of mass destruction against Russia or its allies
  • Russia has confirmation of a nuclear launch against it or its allies
  • An enemy attacks “facilities necessary for a response” to a nuclear attack 
  • Conventional warfare threatens the existence of the Russian state.  

That last condition of the current doctrine is particularly noteworthy in light of the Ukraine war. As foreign policy realist and University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer recently told UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers, 

“There is all sorts of talk in the West about defeating Russia inside Ukraine, wrecking its economy, causing regime change and maybe even breaking up Russia the way the Soviet Union was broken up. This is a country that has thousands of nuclear weapons. If its survival is threatened, it’s likely to use them. So we have this perverse paradox here that most people don’t seem to realize…which is that the more successful NATO and Ukraine are against Russia, the more likely it is that the Russians will use nuclear weapons.”   

Russia launched its so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine in February 2022 with stated goals of “protecting people [in the country’s eastern regions] who have been subjected to bullying and genocide” by the Ukrainian government since 2014, and precluding Ukraine’s joining the NATO military alliance. Over time, the West’s backing of Ukraine has been characterized by gradual escalation in which one previously-ruled-out ratcheting after another has been realized.

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Pipeline Wars Again

An interesting development. As you can see at a glance from the map, the Druzhba pipeline feeds into the heart of Central Europe and services countries countries that, by and large, are skeptics regarding war on Russia. Czechia is a partial exception, although it is doubtful that the population in general is as anti-Russian as the current president.

1/ The US backed and led ex-state of Ukraine said that it would block Druzhba oil pipeline toward Central and South Europe.
This is the second US sponsored attack on European infrastructure , after the US blew up NordStream pipelines for Germany.

2/ A few corrections :
– Gazprom’s contracts expire the end of 2024. The Russians wills NYET to new ones. It’s over.
-EU-peons have 4 months to decide which one is better:
green energy…US LNG 20 times more expensive …new European Ice Age
Choices… 

My assumption is that this decision was not left up to Ukraine—it was arrived at by NATO and the EU—which is to say, by the Anglo-Zionists. It looks like an effort to force these countries to toe the Anglo-Zionist line in its war on Russia. The result will be devastating for the economies of these countries, but that’s not the point, is it?

My guess is that this development will be added to the scales in Putin’s consideration of whether to bring the war in Ukraine to an end sooner rather than later. It’s fashionable to say that Russia has written off the West, but “the West” isn’t a simple concept. Are the Central European and Balkan countries “the West”? Some may believe they are, but my impression is that they are not so regarded—except for political and military expediency—by the traditional West: Britain, France, Germany, non-Finnish Scandinavia, Spain and Italy. Poland undoubtedly considers itself to be a Western country, but most of the traditional West simply regards Poland as a pain in the ass—with no offense intended on my part.

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Russia says it will change nuclear doctrine because of Western role in Ukraine

Russia will make changes to its doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons in response to what it regards as Western escalation in the war in Ukraine, state media quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Sunday.

The existing nuclear doctrine, set out in a decree by President Vladimir Putin in 2020, says Russia may use nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear attack by an enemy or a conventional attack that threatens the existence of the state.

Some hawks among Russia’s military analysts have urged Putin to lower the threshold for nuclear use in order to “sober up” Russia’s enemies in the West.

Putin said in June that the nuclear doctrine was a “living instrument” that could change, depending on world events. Ryabkov’s comments on Sunday were the clearest statement yet that changes would indeed be made.

“The work is at an advanced stage, and there is a clear intent to make corrections,” state news agency TASS cited Ryabkov as saying.

He said the decision is “connected with the escalation course of our Western adversaries” in connection with the Ukraine conflict.

Moscow accuses the West of using Ukraine as a proxy to wage war against it, with the aim of inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia and breaking it apart.

The United States and its allies deny that, saying they are helping Ukraine defend itself against a colonial-style war of aggression by Russia.

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