There are updates on the war between Russia and Ukraine
Why did Ukraine invade Ukraine in February 2014? When Vladimir Kortunov, the Kremlin’s international affairs council, sees it, and how it affects the Western world
Putin’s logical option, Kortunov says, is to declare victory and get out on his own terms. For this to happen, he needs a considerable achievement on the ground. Russia can’t simply get to where it was on Feburary 24th, you know, that’s fine Our mission has been accomplished. So we go home… …There should be something that can be presented to the public as a victory.”
He called on Ukrainians to cease fire, but insisted that they wouldn’t negotiate the choice of the people. It has been made. Russia will not betray it.”
Andrey Kortunov, who runs the Kremlin-backed Russian International Affairs Council in Moscow, sees it, too. President Putin wants to end it as quickly as possible, he told CNN.
The recent drive for 300,000 troops won’t change Putin’s battlefield losses, but it will backfire at home, running him up a political tab.
Above all, many of the best and brightest in virtually every field have now fled Russia. This includes writers, artists and journalists as well as some of the most creative technologists, scientists and engineers.
CNN is unable to verify the Russian figures, but the 40 kilometers (around 25 miles) traffic tailbacks at the border with Georgia, and the long lines at crossings into Kazakhstan and Finland, speak to the backlash and the strengthening perception that Putin is losing his fabled touch at reading Russia’s mood.
Kortunov says he doesn’t know what goes on in the Kremlin but that he understands the public mood over the huge costs and loss of life in the war. “Many people would start asking questions, why did we get into this mess? Why, you know, we lost so many people.”
He used the same playbook annexing Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and now, like then, threatens potential nuclear strikes should Ukraine, backed by its Western allies, try to take the annexed territories back.
The leaders of the Western world are fighting with Putin. Last Sunday US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Washington would respond decisively if Russia deployed nuclear weapons against Ukraine and has made clear to Moscow the “catastrophic consequences” it would face.
The Russian Interaction between the Nord Stream Pipeline and the Nuclear Threat: Does Putin Really Want to Make Good on his Nuclear Threats?
Both Danish and Swedish seismologists recorded explosive shockwaves from close to the seabed: the first, at around 2 a.m. local time, hitting 2.3 magnitude, then again, at around 7 p.m., registering 2.1.
Within hours, roiling patches of sea were discovered, the Danes and the Germans sent warships to secure the area, and Norway increased security around its oil and gas facilities.
The Nord Stream pipeline sabotage could, according to Hill, be a last roll of the dice by Putin, so that “there’s no kind of turning back on the gas issues. Europe will not be able to continue to build up its gas reserves for the winter. Putin is throwing everything he has at this right now.
Brennan’s analysis is that Russia is the most likely culprit for the sabotage, and that Putin is likely trying to send a message: “It’s a signal to Europe that Russia can reach beyond Ukraine’s borders. So who knows what he might be planning next.”
Europe rushed to replenish gas reserves ahead of the winter and used up Russian supplies while searching for replacement providers, prompting Putin to shut down Nord Stream 2.
Russia was suspected of planning Monday’s missile attacks since last week, before the bridge blast. The strikes showed that Putin is desperate because of battlefield losses and uses missile terror to change the pace of war in his favor, according to the Foreign Minister.
No one knows what’s really going on in Putin’s mind. Kortunov doubts Putin will be willing to compromise beyond his own terms for peace, “not on the terms that are offered by President Zelensky, not on the terms which are offered by the West… .[though] he should be ready to exercise a degree of flexibility. But we have no idea what these degrees are likely to be.
Volker expects Putin to begin the dialogue by telling France and Germany that they need to end the war and use all of their resources to put pressure on the Ukrainians.
Putin knows he is in a corner, but doesn’t seem to realize how small a space he has, and that of course is what’s most worrying – would he really make good on his nuclear threats?
The blasts will be accompanied by concerns that Putin may seek to escalate the conflict in Ukraine, after Moscow’s stuttering ground campaign and the damage to the Crimean bridge dealt a major blow to the Russian President.
Moscow fired at least 84 cruise missiles toward Ukraine on Monday, the Ukrainian military said, 43 of which were neutralized by missile defense systems. The Russian attack drones were also used in the battle.
Kyiv has not claimed responsibility for the blast on the enormous 19-kilometer (about 12-mile) bridge, which was built after Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, an annexation regarded by the West as illegal. The crossing was opened by Putin himself in 2018, and Ukrainian reaction to the explosion has been gleeful and triumphant.
“It is simply impossible to leave such crimes unanswered,” Putin said in a brief television appearance on Monday. Russia will respond to terrorist attacks on our territory with tough measures, which will correspond to the level of threats to the Russian Federation.
Kiev attacks on Kyiv’s subway system as terrorist attack on Monday night: Putin’s Security Council meets with the Ukrainian Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov
For several hours on Monday morning Kyiv’s subway system was suspended, with underground stations serving as bunkers. Rescue workers attempted to pull people out of the rubble that was caused by the air raid, as the air raid alert was lifted at midday.
The Prime Minister said Monday that a total of 11 important infrastructure facilities in eight regions had been damaged.
As of Monday afternoon, the electricity supply had been cut in Lviv, Poltava, Sumy, and Ternopil, said the Ukrainian State Emergency Services. Electricity was “partially disrupted” in the rest of the country.
The Security Council of Putin held a meeting on Monday, a day after he said the attacks on the bridge were a terrorist attack and the organizers were Ukrainian special services.
The Russian-appointed head of annexed Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, said he had “good news” Monday, claiming that Russia’s approaches to what it calls its special military operation in Ukraine “have changed.”
“I have been saying from the first day of the special military operation that if such actions to destroy the enemy’s infrastructure had been taken every day, we would have finished everything in May and the Kyiv regime would have been defeated,” he added.
“They are trying to annihilate us and wipe us off the face of the earth,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram on Monday as the scale of the attacks became clear. That is what it is, in a nutshell. They are trying to kill people in their homes. There are people on their way to work who are being killed.
The EU Foreign Policy Chief, Josep Boellner, wrote on his tweeter that additional military support from the EU is on its way.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that Putin was endangering innocent civilians. The Netherlands condemns these acts. Putin does not seem to understand that the will of the Ukrainian people is unbreakable.”
The Secretary-General of the UN said the attacks were unacceptable and that civilians were paying the highest price.
The Russian-Polish War on Ukraine: The Case for a More Global View of Putin and his Infighting with the G7 Security Council
The G7 group of nations will hold an emergency meeting via video conference on Tuesday, the office of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirmed to CNN, and Zelensky said on Twitter that he would address that meeting.
Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of “A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen” and blogs at Andelman Unleashed. He was a correspondent for CBS News in Europe and Asia. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has more opinion.
There is a chance that the Russian missile that landed in Poland on Tuesday was shot down by a Ukrainian rocket, according to Polish and NATO leaders. The missile was not Ukrainian, as claimed by President Zelensky.
One thing is clear, no matter the circumstances of the missile. “Russia bears ultimate responsibility, as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Wednesday.
There is a laundry list of horrors that Putin has launched that appears to have driven his nation further away from the civilized powers he once sought to join.
His forces planted mines in large swaths of Kherson where they have recently withdrawn, like they did in Cambodia during the 1970s. Indeed, Cambodian de-mining experts have even been called in to assist with the herculean task facing Ukraine in 2022. At the same time, Russian armies have also left behind evidence of unspeakable atrocities and torture, also reminiscent of the Khmer Rouge.
That said, a growing number of Russian soldiers have rebelled at what they have been asked to do and refused to fight. Amid plummeting morale, the UK’s Defense Ministry believes Russian troops may be prepared to shoot retreating or deserting soldiers.
Indeed a hotline and Telegram channel, launched as a Ukrainian military intelligence project called “I want to live,” designed to assist Russian soldiers eager to defect, has taken off, reportedly booking some 3,500 calls in its first two months of activity.
Putin has also tried, though he has been stymied at most turns, to establish black market networks abroad to source what he needs to fuel his war machine – much as Kim Jong-un has done in North Korea. The United States has already uncovered and recently sanctioned vast networks of such shadow companies and individuals centered in hubs from Taiwan to Armenia, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, France, and Luxembourg to source high-tech goods for Russia’s collapsing military-industrial complex.
Putin finds himself isolated on the world stage. He was the only head of state to stay away from a session of the G20, which Zelensky dubbed the “G19.” Though Putin once lusted after a return to the G7 (known as the G8 before he was ousted after his seizure of Crimea), inclusion now seems but a distant dream. The comparison with North Korea was more striking after Russia banned 100 Canadians, including Jim Carrey, from entering.
One leading Russian journalist, Mikhail Zygar, who has settled in Berlin after fleeing in March, told me last week that while he hoped this is not the case, he is prepared to accept the reality – like many of his countrymen, he may never be able to return to his homeland, to which he remains deeply attached.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/17/opinions/putin-poland-missile-ukraine-nato-andelman/index.html
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Visit to Ukraine: Summary of the G20 Conference on the Status of the EU’s Future Combat Air System (FAIRS)
The west is attempting to separate away from Russian oil and gas in order to deny the country resources to pursue this war. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European commission said at the G20 on Tuesday that they have learned that dependency is unsustainable and they want reliable and forward looking connections.
Moreover, Putin’s dream that this conflict, along with the enormous burden it has proven to be on Western countries, would only drive further wedges into the Western alliance are proving unfulfilled. On Monday, word began circulating in aerospace circles that the long-stalled joint French-German project for a next-generation jet fighter at the heart of the Future Combat Air System – Europe’s largest weapons program – was beginning to move forward.
There is no evidence that Putin has learned that revenge is not an appropriate way to act on the battlefield, and in the end it will most likely cause Russia to be isolated and weakened.
Still, he continues to hold, as he did in a Tuesday address in the Kremlin, that “attempts made by certain countries to rewrite and reshape world history are becoming increasingly aggressive, ultimately and obviously seeking to divide our society, take away our guiding lines and eventually weaken Russia.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a surprise Europe tour, meeting leaders in London, Paris and Brussels, and reiterating his call for allies to send fighter jets to Ukraine.
Russian forces began their next major offensive in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, attacking Ukrainian defensive lines and making marginal advances, according to the Institute for the Study of War. The analysts at the Atlantic Council said that Russian forces are trying to encircle the city of Bkahmut in eastern Ukraine.
Biden’s historic visit came days before the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, providing a symbolic boost to Kyiv at a crucial juncture in the conflict.
The international team that investigated the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 said there was “strong indication” that Russian President Putin gave the go-ahead to supply anti-aircraft weapons to the rebels.
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The surprise visit by President Joe Biden to Ukraine caused outrage among Russia’s military pundits who felt that they needed to put more pressure on Putin.
According to the statement on Telegram, Biden received security guarantees in advance and finally went to Kyiv. “And of course, there were mutual incantations about the victory that would come with new weapons and a courageous people. And here it is important to note that the West already delivers weapons and money to Kyiv quite regularly. NATO countries are allowed to earn money and steal weapons from other countries in huge quantities.
Russian army veteran and former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer Igor Girkin meanwhile suggested that Biden could have visited the frontlines in eastern Ukraine and escaped unharmed.
“Wouldn’t be surprised if the grandfather (he is not good for anything but simple provocations anyway) is brought to Bakhmut as well… AND NOTHING WILL HAPPEN TO HIM,” Girkin said.
Many of the hardline military websites, which have hundreds of thousands of followers and give analysis of the conflict for large swaths of the Russian population, have criticized what they consider a ” soft approach” on the battlefield by Putin’s generals.
While serving as deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, he was known for making provocative statements in order to shore up his nationalist credentials.
Participants of what Russia refers to as its “special military operation” will be in attendance but foreign guests or representatives will not be invited, the Kremlin’s spokesperson told reporters Monday.
The Kremlin insisted the visit was “spontaneous.” It is not clear when it took place, although on Saturday Putin visited Crimea to mark the ninth anniversary of its annexation.
The visit was condemned by the defense ministry in Ukraine which said that Putin was a thief and the city had been reduced to ruins.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova. The court said the two are “allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation” and transfer of children from Ukraine to Russia.
The visit is particularly provocative to Ukrainians as Mariupol was long a symbol of resistance and witnessed some of the most intense fighting since Russia launched its invasion.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, who accompanied him, spoke in detail to Putin about “ongoing construction and restoration work” in the city, including its airport.
It was in Mariupol that Russian forces carried out some of their most notorious strikes, including an attack on a maternity hospital last March and the bombing of a theater in which hundreds of civilians had sought refuge.
Xi Jinping meets Vladimir Putin in Kiev: the ninth anniversary of Crimea’s annexation by the U.S. drone and implications for the Black Sea Grain Initiative
Chinese leader Xi Jinping is visiting Russia to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. There are reports that the Chinese leader may have a virtual meeting with Zelenskyy.
The war-battered country of Ukraine may be able to get a loan from the International Monetary Fund after the fund made a rule change.
Putin also visited Crimea to mark the ninth anniversary of the peninsula’s annexation from Ukraine, which most governments condemned and consider illegal.
A Russian warplane collided with a U.S. drone, forcing the American uncrewed aircraft to crash into the Black Sea, the U.S. military said. U.S. officials said the drone was flying in international airspace when two Russian fighter jets intercepted it, one of them clipping the drone’s propeller. Russia’s government denied the collision but awarded the pilots of the two fighter jets.
Poland and Slovakia will send MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, the first NATO countries to answer Kyiv’s call for allies to share their warplanes to fight Russian forces. The U.S. has refused Ukraine’s request for F-16s.
The Black Sea Grain Initiative was brokered by the United Nations and Turkey and was due to end Saturday, but Russia and Ukraine extended it.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/20/1160415730/latest-on-ukraine-xi-jinping-visits-moscow-to-meet-putin-march-20
Belarus and Iran: a Kremlin ally of China and Iran — and what has it to do about it: Gallup’s analysis
Leaders of Belarus and Iran hailed their countries’ ties in meetings in Tehran. Wedged between Ukraine and Russia, Belarus is a Kremlin ally and has followed its footsteps in warming up to China and Iran, which has supplied attack drones to Russia.
Gallup shows that Russians have the lowest approval rating in America since the Soviets, with just 9% saying they have a favorable view of the country.
