Vladimir Putin bolsters border with North Korea by relocating tanks and troops

Vladimir Putin has reinforced Russia’s border with North Korea by relocating troops and equipment [YouTube]

 

VLADIMIR PUTIN is reinforcing his border with North Korea by relocating troops and equipment, according to reports today.

The move comes as tension remains high despite revelations that a Donald Trump naval armada is not – anyway yet – in position off the Korean peninsula.

A video purports to show one of three trains loaded with military equipment moving towards the 11 mile-long land frontier between Russia and the repressive state.

Another evidently highlights military helicopter movements towards the North Korean border and manoeuvres across rough terrain by army combat vehicles.

Other reports suggest there have been military moves by road as well.

Russian Military Forces Staging Near Ukraine

Remember, although not guaranteed, August is the month of war.

 

Russian T-80 tanks take part in a tactical military exercise in Armenia / AP

 

EUCOM: ‘Extremely concerned’ by regional tensions

The Pentagon has identified eight staging areas in Russia where large numbers of military forces appear to be preparing for incursions into Ukraine, according to U.S. defense officials.

As many as 40,000 Russian troops, including tanks, armored vehicles, and air force units, are now arrayed along Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia.

Additionally, large numbers of Russian military forces will conduct exercises in the coming days that Pentagon officials say could be used as cover for an attack on Ukraine.

Moscow Building Spy Site in Nicaragua

If you think a Russian presence in Nicaragua is new, you might be in store for a shock. The Soviet-Nicaraguan runs decades long, even before the Cold War.

The Russians actually have built and kept airfields there maintained. They’re large enough to support heavy strategic bombers. These are also decades old, but were built with future use in mind. They also wanted (and likely still want) to build a deep water port there. Nicaragua will be used as a staging ground for a Soviet invasion from an almost undefended Southern United States. This is a strategic spot not only for bombings from America’s south, but also a means to control the strategic sea gate(s) in Panama.

This is likely more than a spy station that they want now, as a spy station is unsettling, but less unsettling than announcing plans for a strategic attack launching area in the open. Either way, it just shows you that Nicaragua was communist and still remains communist, and that the decade old plans for both against the West never died.

Here are three sources on this, one of which is from a Ronald Reagan address to the nation:

Address to the Nation on the Situation in Nicaragua – March 16, 1986

Russia reality check: Red invasion from Nicaragua

Red Dawn Alert: Russia, Nicaragua to reactivate Punta Huete; Soviets built strategic bomber-capable runway in 1987, MiG-21s expected but never arrived

 

Signals intelligence facility part of deal for 50 Russian tanks

The Russian government is building an electronic intelligence-gathering facility in Nicaragua as part of Moscow’s efforts to increase military and intelligence activities in the Western Hemisphere.

The signals intelligence site is part of a recent deal between Moscow and Managua involving the sale of 50 T-72 Russian tanks, said defense officials familiar with reports of the arrangement.

How the Pentagon is Preparing for a Tank War With Russia

Don’t forget the new Russian Armata tank can penetrate over 1 meter of steel. Russia is also not getting rid of their old tank units, but turning them into remotely controlled vehicles. Meanwhile, America sends their old ones back to the scrap heap.

Russia is now on par with America in terms of military capability and technology.

 

Reactive armor and cross-domain fire capabilities are just some of the items on the Army’s must-have list.

When Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster briefs, it’s like Gen. Patton giving a TED talk — a domineering physical presence with bristling intellectual intensity.

These days, the charismatic commander of the U.S. Army’s Training and Doctrine Command is knee-deep in a project called The Russia New Generation Warfare study, an analysis of how Russia is re-inventing land warfare in the mud of Eastern Ukraine. Speaking recently at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., McMaster said that the two-year-old conflict had revealed that the Russians have superior artillery firepower, better combat vehicles, and have learned sophisticated use of UAVs for tactical effect. Should U.S. forces find themselves in a  land war with Russia, he said, they would be in for a rude, cold awakening.

Heavy armour rolls in: Now convoy of Russian tanks arrive by rail at border with Ukraine days after military trucks and rocket launchers were spotted nearby

 

• Nine tanks arrived in southern Russian town of Matveev Kurgan on Monday
• Mobile phone snaps show them arriving on the back of a freight train
• Town is just 17 miles from Ukrainian border, where battles continue

A freight train pictured carrying a convoy tanks towards the Ukrainian border looks to escalate tensions between the two sides even further.

The nine tanks arrived in the southern town of Matveev Kurgan on Monday, before being driven along the streets on Tuesday.

The picture, taken on a mobile phone, comes just days after a huge convoy, including rocket launchers, military trucks without licence plates and armoured personnel carriers, was photographed driving along a road near the town.

From Račak to Maidan

KIEV/BELGRADE/BERLIN (Own report) – A year after Berlin helped instigate the putsch in Ukraine, new information is coming to light about the February 20, 2014 Kiev Massacre. That bloodbath, of more than 50 people killed, accelerated the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych and was also used – even in Germany – to justify the putsch. As has now been confirmed by witnesses, armed demonstrators were the first to open fire on police, and only then, did repressive forces return fire, when they were caught in a hail of bullets while retreating. If this proves to be true, it could not have been a government-planned massacre. Furthermore, evidence indicates that also the snipers, who had shot to kill, were on the side of the government’s opponents. Today, the responsibility for that bloodbath is as unsolved as that for the deaths of more than 40 Kosovo Albanians in Račak in mid-January 1999, which the West labeled a mass execution – in spite of all contradicting evidence. Račak served as a decisive justification for the military aggression on Yugoslavia. The political and media establishments’ other forgeries and lies preceding and during the war on Yugoslavia demonstrate that manipulations, such as the ones we are currently seeing in the Ukraine conflict, are nothing new. They are rather consistent props in the German establishment’s standard repertoire for escalating conflicts.

Russia marches on uninhibited in eastern Ukraine

VLADIMIR PUTIN’S latest victory in Ukraine is turning into a rout. Having already induced Western leaders to endorse a peace plan that virtually guarantees continued Russian control over parts of two provinces, the Russian ruler ordered a large Ukrainian force holding Debaltseve, a key crossroads in the region, to surrender. His forces, including regular Russian army troops, then assaulted the city in brazen violation of a cease-fire. On Wednesday morning, Ukrainian forces withdrew from Debaltseve under fire, suffering a devastating defeat that will further destabilize the shaky Kiev government of Petro Poroshenko.

Mr. Putin was so pleased that he indulged in some taunting of the Ukrainians. “Of course, it’s always bad to lose,” he said at a news conference Tuesday. “It’s always a hardship when you lose to yesterday’s miners or yesterday’s tractor drivers.” That was another lie, of course — the forces who seized Debaltseve were not former Ukrainian workers but Russian regulars; one Western reporter encountered soldiers who had been dispatched from Siberia.

Pentagon confirms ISIL captured tanks, building ‘faster’ military force

WASHINGTON — The United States has determined that Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant was building an armored force.

Officials said the U.S. intelligence community detected a presence of U.S. and Russian-origin armored vehicle platforms at ISIL facilities in northern Iraq.

The officials said the platforms included armored personnel carriers, main battle tanks and armored combat vehicles.

Ukraine conflict: Russian soldiers seen with ‘up to 100’ military vehicles in Ukrainian villages

A convoy of “up to 100” tanks, armoured vehicles and rocket launchers was seen travelling on a road toward Telmanove, a town about 80 kilometres south of rebel stronghold Donetsk and 20 kilometres from the Russian border, Ukraine’s army said in a statement.

The army did not give details about the personnel on board the vehicles or when the column was thought to have entered Ukraine.

A military source said the convoy had come from Russia.

Assad Prepares Offensive as Obama Promises Rebels Arms

It looks as if we’ve moved from “years away from war” to months away, or even weeks. As mentioned in previous submissions, the Assad regime is not going to give up easy and is going to bring down the entire Middle East with him should he realize he has only moments left of being in power. The entire region is at a critical boiling point.

President Barack Obama’s decision to send some light weapons to Syrian rebels may be too little and too late to thwart a regime offensive to retake Aleppo, the nation’s largest city and commercial capital.

Regime forces supported by fighters from the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah have moved north after defeating rebels in al-Qusair, a setback that triggered concern in Washington that Iran and its Lebanese ally are tipping the balance in favor of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

“Arming the Syrian rebels is unlikely to tip the balance in their favor,” said Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center. “It might have made a difference a year ago, but, today, the Assad regime — particularly after re-taking Qusair — has the advantage.”