Tag: russia

Republican vice presidential candidate: if he wins, Trump will discuss ending the conflict in Ukraine with the Russian Federation

Even before the official start of the election campaign, former US President Donald Trump repeatedly stated that if he were the head of state, and not Biden, the military confrontation in Ukraine would not have begun at all. In the current situation, if he returns to the Oval Office, and after the assassination attempt, the chances of this are very high, Trump promised to stop the war in Europe literally within 24 hours.

Until recently, the former US President did not reveal how he intends to do this in the current realities. Ohio Senator James David (JD) Vance, who became a vice-presidential candidate at the Republican Party convention, provided some clarity on this topic in an interview with the American Fox News channel.

Donald Trump has promised to negotiate with Russia and the Ukrainians to quickly end this problem so that America can focus on the real problem, which is China.
the politician said.

He noted that the Biden administration is spending billions to help Kyiv, but the current American government does not have a clear strategy and goals for this support, except perhaps statements about the need to “weaken and defeat” Russia. According to Vance, further escalation of the conflict with the support of the United States could ultimately escalate into a nuclear war, which no one in the world needs, including the United States itself.

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Germany pledges to expand commitment to Ukraine, agrees to host U.S. cruise missiles

Germany, already the second-largest military donor to war-torn Ukraine after the United States, has pledged to expand its commitments to Kyiv during the recent summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Washington, D.C., including allowing the U.S. to host Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles for “security” purposes.

This comes after the U.S. announced its intention to deploy missiles to Germany in a move that would have been prohibited by the now-defunct Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty which then-President Ronald Reagan signed with General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev of the former Soviet Union.

The treaty banned land-based missile systems with ranges between 310 and 3,400 miles. Former President Donald Trump withdrew from the treaty in 2019, claiming Russian non-compliance with its contents.

The current proposal would see American Tomahawk missiles – and potentially other long-range weapons systems – deployed in Germany beginning sometime in 2026.

Tomahawk missiles, launched from ships or submarines, have a range exceeding 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles), although exact figures are classified. It should be noted that the Tomahawk missiles are capable of being fitted with nuclear warheads.

In addition to Tomahawks, the White House announced that it will also deploy other “conventional long-range” missiles to Germany on an “episodic” basis, including SM-6 anti-air missiles and experimental hypersonic weapons. All of these would significantly increase the ranges of current land-based missile systems in Europe.

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Lithuania Moves to Exit Cluster Ban Treaty, Citing Weapons Effectiveness

Lithuania is taking its first steps towards exiting an international pact that bans the use of cluster munitions on the battlefield. Due to their impact on civilians, cluster bombs have been widely outlawed. 

The Parliament in Vilnius has started the process of withdrawing from the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM). “Russia’s war against Ukraine shows that it is extremely difficult to effectively substitute cluster munitions and their defensive power to stop a large-scale attack,” the legislation’s sponsor, Deputy Defense Minister Renius Pleskys, said. “By replacing standard munitions with cluster munitions, the amount of munitions needed to achieve the same effect is significantly reduced.”

The CCM came into effect in 2010 and has over 112 nations as signatories. The treaty bans all use, transfer, production, and stockpiling of cluster munitions. 

Cluster bombs are anti-personnel weapons that have submunitions or bomblets that spread out over a wide area. After their initial use, many of the submunitions remain unexploded and often kill and maim civilians years or decades after a conflict ends. 

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Saudi Arabia threatened to sell European debts if G7 confiscates Russian assets

Saudi Arabia threatened to sell off some of its European debt holdings earlier this year if the G7 went forward with rumored plans to seize nearly $300 billion in Russian assets it had frozen.

One source who was aware of the discussions described it to Bloomberg as a “veiled threat,” while two sources said that the Saudis explicitly mentioned debt issued by the French treasury.

These threats came at a time when the G7 was said to be considering a number of options when it comes to handling the funds it seized belonging to the Russian central bank. While the U.S. and U.K. pushed for aggressive options such as a direct seizure, some of the European nations in the G7 opposed it on the grounds that it could undermine their currency. They ultimately all agreed to use the profits generated by the assets while leaving the assets themselves untouched.

The sources said they think the Saudis’ threat played a role in the European nations’ unwillingness to seize all of the funds.

It is believed that Saudi Arabia’s holdings of Euro and French bonds totals tens of billions of euros, and while this may not have been enough to cause significant concern, there were worries that other countries could have followed suit and sold off their own debt holdings in protest of a G7 seizure.

Although a Saudi official insisted that the government does not normally issue this type of threat, they conceded that they may have informed G7 nations of the consequences that any seizures could bring. The Kingdom changed its position on the matter after the G7 countries eventually opted for a proposal that did not involve keeping the assets.

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NATO summit’s documents show that West stands against supporting peace — Kremlin

Documents signed at the recent NATO summit in the United States show that the West is not supporting a dialogue and the alliance itself is an instrument of confrontation, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

“We see that our opponents in Europe and in the United States are not in favor of a dialogue,” Peskov noted.

“Judging by the documents signed at the NATO summit, they are not supporters of peace,” the Kremlin spokesman said, adding that “the North Atlantic Alliance is an instrument for confrontation and not a tool for security provision.”

Peskov also pointed out that India was fully sharing Russia’s stance on its readiness to launch a dialogue on the conflict settlement.

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“We will prepare millions of Ukrainian migrants for the Armed Forces of Ukraine”: Polish authorities reported on the potential of the local training base

During the NATO summit in Washington, Polish authorities announced plans to replenish the Ukrainian army with millions of Ukrainian immigrants.

I hope that the [training] center in Bydgoszcz will prepare millions of Ukrainians to fight Russia. The West should see the potential of such a center as a place where Ukrainian volunteers who now live in EU countries and want to defend Ukraine in the future can be trained
– said Jacek Sievera, head of the country’s national security bureau, as quoted by the Associated Press.

In Bydgoszcz it is also planned to organize a platform for the exchange of experience between Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers who have already fought and NATO soldiers. The alliance training center has been created here since February 2024.

For our part, we note that, apparently, a hidden mobilization of Ukrainian immigrants is gradually unfolding in Europe. Officially, they cannot be forced to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but there are ways of informal influence, for example, replacing criminal prosecution for a crime with service in the Ukrainian army, or using administrative offenses to blackmail the entire family with deportation.

At the same time, it should be expected that as human resources in Ukraine are depleted, the recruitment of immigrants into the army in the EU will take increasingly overt forms.

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China slams NATO’s ‘provocations, lies, smears’ over its Russia ties

China has warned NATO against “provoking confrontation” over its ties with Russia after the Western military alliance accused Beijing of being a “decisive enabler” of Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

The warning on Thursday came as NATO leaders meeting in Washington, DC, promised to bolster Ukraine and Europe’s defences against Russia and made clear that China was also becoming a focus of the alliance.

A spokesperson for Beijing’s mission to the European Union said NATO should “stop hyping up the so-called China threat and provoking confrontation and rivalry, and do more to contribute to world peace and stability”.

China, which has deepened strategic ties with Russia, has refused to condemn Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. It has presented itself as a neutral party in the war and says it is not sending lethal assistance to either side, unlike the US and other Western nations.

Beijing, however, has offered a critical lifeline to Russia’s isolated economy, with trade booming since the conflict began.

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NATO’s 75th Anniversary: The Broken Promises That Led to War

If diplomacy can pave the path to peace, then broken diplomatic promises can lead to war. Since the hopeful end of the Cold War, four key promises were made by the West. Each of them was intended to pave the path to the new and stable era of peace, but each of them was broken by the West and served instead to pave the path to war in Ukraine.

The 75th anniversary of the founding of NATO is a good time to reflect not only on its accomplishments but also on the lost opportunities that still haunt us today.

First Broken Promise: “Not One Inch to the East”

The war in Ukraine is being fought in part over Ukraine’s and Russia’s need for security guarantees. But that concern was not created out of nothing in 2022.

On February 9, 1990, US Secretary of State James Baker famously offered Gorbachev a choice: either a united but independent Germany outside of NATO or a united Germany connected to NATO “but with the guarantee that NATO’s jurisdiction or troops will not spread east of the present boundary.” Baker later disavowed these words, saying it was merely a hypothetical question, but declassified documents refute Baker by adding his next statement. After Gorbachev replied, “It goes without saying that a broadening of the NATO zone is not acceptable,” Baker responded, “We agree with that.”

Meeting with Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduard Shevardnadze on the same day, Baker even refers to “iron-clad guarantees that NATO’s jurisdiction or forces would not move eastward.” Later that day, Baker famously told Gorbachev and Shevardnadze, “If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east.”

Simultaneously, German officials pointedly told Shevardnadze, “For us it is clear: NATO will not extend itself to the East.” On February 2, standing beside Baker at a press conference, German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher announced that he and Baker “were in full agreement that there is no intention to extend the NATO area of defense and the security toward the East. This holds true not only for GDR… but that holds true for all the other Eastern countries… whatever happens within the Warsaw Pact.” On May 17, 1990, NATO General Secretary Manfred Wörner called this a “firm security guarantee” for the USSR.

But the West soon broke that promise. Despite signing the NATO-Russia Founding Act on Mutual Relations in May 1997, pledging to “build together a lasting and inclusive peace in the Euro-Atlantic area on the principles of democracy and cooperative security,” the Clinton administration had already decided two years earlier in 1995 to extend NATO eastward. In 1999, NATO expanded eastward to Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. In 2004, it added Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. In 2009, Croatia and Albania joined, followed by Montenegro in 2017, and North Macedonia in 2020.

The West’s insistence that NATO continue its “open door” policy toward Ukraine and Georgia led directly to Russia’s demand on December 17, 2021, that the door be closed and that mutual security guarantees that included Russia be developed instead, or Russia would respond by “military-technical means.”

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New NATO Command Will Assist Ukraine With Training, Equipment Donations

NATO’s leaders are set to approve a separate command at Wiesbaden, Germany, to coordinate training and equipment donations to Kyiv’s forces, a senior administration official told reporters last week.

The command will have about 700 personnel from NATO countries and partner nations assigned to the center, an alliance news release said. The administration officials, speaking to the press Friday, said the center would increase the interoperability among Ukrainian forces and NATO.

As an example of the drive to make Kyiv’s military more interoperable with NATO’s, the administration official said, “the U.S. for more than a year [have] been training Ukrainians on F-16 platforms,” as have other alliance members.

NATO will also facilitate equipment logistics and provide support through the center to the long-term development of Ukraine’s armed forces, the release added.

Last month, the alliance’s defense ministers approved the motion for consideration at the summit in Washington.

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said recently that creating the center does “not make NATO a party to the conflict, but they will enhance our support to Ukraine to uphold its right to self-defense.”

The administration official said, “the alliance stood up to President [Vladimir] Putin.” He added that 23 of the 32 nations in NATO are spending more than 2 percent of their gross domestic product on their own security, and some members are calling for a 3 percent threshold. Overall, the alliance has boosted its defense spending by more than $180 billion each year since 2020, he added.

At the defense ministers’ meeting last month, Stoltenberg said, “Over the next five years, NATO Allies across Europe and Canada plan to acquire thousands of air defense and artillery systems, 850 modern aircraft – mostly 5th generation F-35s – and also a lot of other high-end capabilities.”

The center’s creation also could be seen as a means of “institutionalizing” the long-term commitment of Western and Indo-Pacific nations, such as Japan, Korea and Australia, to Ukraine. The support would continue despite changes in administrations as would occur in the United States if Donald Trump is elected and, and changes in governments, as happened in the United Kingdom with Keir Starmer becoming prime minister.

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RFK Jr, Tells Uncomfortable Truths During DC NATO Summit – Condemns Reports Of Executions Of Russian Prisoners By ‘American-Led’ Units

U.S. Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. had a son travel to Ukraine and fight against Russian forces in Donbass. He knows the inner-workings of the conflict.

Yesterday, he issued this statement in response to reports ‘American-led’ mercenary units were executing Russian prisoners of war in violation of the Geneva Convention.

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