[Majorityrights News] Trump will ‘arm Ukraine to the teeth’ if Putin won’t negotiate ceasefire Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 12 November 2024 16:20.
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Minister of Defence Jüri Luik (Isamaa). Source: Siim Lõvi/ERR
Defense minister Jüri Luik (Isamaa) has condemned the actions of Belrusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, saying the newly re-elected leader has been creating a straw man enemy which might give neighboring Russia a pretext to intervene, as well as continuing repression against the Belarusian people in the aftermath of the election over two weeks ago.
‘By emphasizing the threat of NATO, Lukashenko is trying to shift the blame for the domestic crisis on a phantom enemy which doesn’t exist and to give Russia an excuse to intervene,” Luik said Wednesday, according to a ministry press release.
The defense minister was in Berlin, meeting with his German opposite number Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer as part of a wider EU defense ministers’ get together, the first of its kind since the coronavirus pandemic began in spring.
“At the same time, Lukashenko has embarked on a series of new domestic repressions, which are now directed primarily against protest movement leaders,” Luik added.
Both ministers said of key importance is how to support the democratic will of the Belarusian people. Democratic values and their fostering in Belarus was at stake, not whether that country could one day become an EU member, Kramp-Karrenbauer added.
The pair also discussed the recent poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which Luik called another sad example of Russia’s disregard for both human life and democratic freedoms.
Navalny, 44, is in a German hospital, having been taken there last Saturday, where he remains in an artificially-induced coma.
That Navalny was poisoned is beyond question, the German defense minister added, though it was currently not clear what toxin had been used or what Navalny’s long-term situation might be.
The ministers also discussed broader EU, NATO and bilateral security issues, and Luik thanked Germany for its contribution to Baltic Air policing duties ahead of its air force’s arrival at Ämari Air Base, where it will replace the French Air Force planes currently based there as part of the Baltic air policing rotational system.
A total of 13 EU defense minister were in Berlin Wednesday; other topics for discussion included the situation in the West African country of Mali – whose French-led peace-keeping efforts Estonia’s defense forces contribute to – and in the Mediterranean.
Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny (2nd right) poses for a picture with supporters in Tomsk on August 19.
MOSCOW—When Aleksei Navalny arrived in Novosibirsk earlier this month to meet with local opposition activists, security services in the Siberian city were already tracking his moves.
After he and three colleagues left on August 18 to drive 250 kilometers south to Tomsk, a group of plainclothes officers trailed him. In Tomsk itself, every detail of his two-day visit—including the location of his rented apartment and the names of people he met—was recorded.
“Law enforcement noted no suspicious contacts that could be linked to a poisoning,” read an article by the Moskovsky komsomolets tabloid that detailed the depth of this surveillance and cited anonymous officials in Russia’s security services.
Tens of thousands protest against Putin in Russian far east
KHABAROVSK/MOSCOW (Reuters) 25 July 2020 - Tens of thousands marched in the Russian far east on Saturday, the third such weekend protest in a row, to express their anger over what they say is President Vladimir Putin’s mishandling of a local political crisis.
Residents of Khabarovsk, around 3,800 miles (6,110 km) and seven time zones east of Moscow, are unhappy about the detention this month of the wider region’s popular governor, Sergei Furgal, who was arrested on murder charges he denies.
His arrest, which his supporters say was politically motivated, triggered the protests and created a headache for the Kremlin which is trying to troubleshoot a COVID-19-induced drop in real incomes and keep a lid on unrest.
Protesters chanted “Putin resign!” and “Putin is a thief!”. Demonstrators say they want Furgal, who they think has been set up, to be flown back from Moscow and put on trial in Khabarovsk.
City authorities estimated around 6,500 people had taken part. One local media outlet put the number at up to 20,000, while other outlets and opposition activists said upwards of 50,000 had attended and that it was the biggest protest of its kind so far.
“Give us our Furgal back,” said a local businesswoman called Viktoria. “This is our choice.”
The protests have highlighted anger among some over what they see as policies emanating from detached Moscow-based authorities.
Supporters of Furgal, a member of the nationalist LDPR party, feel he is being belatedly punished for defeating a candidate from the ruling pro-Putin United Russia party in 2018. The Kremlin says Furgal has serious charges to answer.
Such sustained demonstrations are unusual for Russia’s regions, as is the fact that the authorities have not yet moved to break them up.
In an apparent move to defuse tensions, Putin on Monday named a new acting governor. But protesters said they felt insulted by the choice of Mikhail Degtyaryov, who has no connection with the region, and have demanded he step down.
Reporting by Yury Zolotarev and Andrew Osborn; Editing by Louise Heavens and Grant McCool
Plans for a new Baltic–Black Sea waterway, passing through Ukraine, Belarus and Poland, have the potential to revolutionize the geopolitics of Europe’s East as well as exacerbate East-West tensions (see EDM, February 18). The European Union has labeled the project “E40,” and the United States has signaled its support. And were the E40 waterway to be incorporated within the broader regional framework of the Three Seas Initiative (3SI), the transit project would not only help the economies of all three participating countries and their neighbors but also promote trilateral cooperation on other issues, including security, and make each one of them more attractive partners for the West. This development would thus transform the frequently dismissed “countries in between” Russia and Western Europe—the geopolitical equivalent of “flyover states”—into a unified, collective player in its own right. Not surprisingly, such prospects are gaining support in the US and part of the EU but generating ever more opposition in Moscow. Russia rightfully views E40 as a threat to its influence in the region and even, according to some analysts, as an existential threat to Russia itself. Nonetheless, Moscow faces increasing difficulty in blocking the project by using the means it has employed in the past (Ura.news, Sept 14, 2019; Deutsche Welle—Russian service, Sept 14, 2019).
For a century, Moscow has been leery of any efforts to promote East European unity, viewing them as an attempt to erect a cordon sanitaire against it and as a Polish plot against Russia. Indeed, Poland took the lead in such projects in the 1920s and 1930s with its Promethean League and regional confederal arrangements (Marek Chodakiewicz, Intermarium: The Land Between the Black and Baltic Seas, 2012). After World War II, however, the idea faded due to Soviet occupation and the division of Europe, which prompted all involved to think only in East-West terms rather than in the potential for North-South cooperation. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the notion again became realistic but gained relatively little traction at first because Central and Eastern Europeans saw their salvation in joining the West. In addition, many Westerners drew a new line between the former Eastern Bloc countries (including the three Baltic States and the former Yugoslavia) and the new republics that emerged from the disintegration of the Soviet Empire. Few in the West gave much consideration to the notion of there existing a larger region straddling both sides of this new dividing line.
Affidavit quotes Trump confidant Roger Stone being told by a Jerusalem contact: ‘He is going to be defeated unless we intervene. We have critical intell. The key is in your hands!’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, and US President Donald Trump shake hands at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, May 23, 2017. (AP/Sebastian Scheiner)
Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of President Donald Trump who was convicted last year in Robert Mueller’s investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, was in contact with one or more apparently well-connected Israelis at the height of the 2016 US presidential campaign, one of whom warned Stone that Trump was “going to be defeated unless we intervene” and promised “we have critical intell[sic].”
The exchange between Stone and this Jerusalem-based contact appears in FBI documents made public on Tuesday. The documents — FBI affidavits submitted to obtain search warrants in the criminal investigation into Stone — were released following a court case brought by The Associated Press and other media organizations.
A longtime adviser to Trump, Stone officially worked on the 2016 presidential campaign until August 2015, when he said he left and Trump said he was fired. However he continued to communicate with the campaign, according to Mueller’s investigation.
The FBI material, which is heavily redacted, includes one explicit reference to Israel and one to Jerusalem, and a series of references to a minister, a cabinet minister, a “minister without portfolio in the cabinet dealing with issues concerning defense and foreign affairs,” the PM, and the Prime Minister. In all these references the names and countries of the minister and prime minister are redacted.
Section of FBI document with heavily redacted references to a minister, a cabinet minister, a “minister without portfolio in the cabinet dealing with issues concerning defense and foreign affairs,” the PM, and the Prime Minister.
Benjamin Netanyahu was Israel’s prime minister in 2016, and the Israeli government included a minister without portfolio, Tzachi Hanegbi, appointed in May with responsibility for defense and foreign affairs. One reference to the unnamed PM in the material reads as follows: “On or about June 28, 2016, [NAME REDACTED] messaged STONE, “RETURNING TO DC AFTER URGENT CONSULTATIONS WITH PM IN ROME.MUST MEET WITH YOU WED. EVE AND WITH DJ TRUMP THURSDAY IN NYC.” Netanyahu made a state visit to Italy at the end of June 2016.
Erdogan to Greece: “Don’t be stupid. The migrants don’t want to stay in your country. Just let them through to other countries in Europe.”
Erdogan: “Greece, these people won’t remain in your country. They will pass through and go to another country in Europe. Why do you feel disturbed? We told you! We said that if it goes on like this, we’ll open the gates, but you didn’t believe us. Oh, Greece, now I’m calling on you to open your gates. Get out from under this burden! Let them go to other countries of Europe. There is no other way. The burden must be shared and we are looking for partners.”
