Russia Warns of Severe Consequences if Georgia Joins NATO

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and PM Dmitry Medvedev in 2014 / Getty Images

 

Dmitry Medvedev, speaking in an interview with the Kommersant daily broadcast by Russian state television, called NATO’s plans to offer membership to Georgia in the future “absolutely irresponsible” and a “threat to peace,” the Associated Press reports.

“There is an unresolved territorial conflict … and would they bring such a country into the military alliance?” Medvedev said. “Do they understand the possible implications? It could provoke a horrible conflict.”

Struggle for Influence in the Western Pacific (I)

BERLIN/WASHINGTON (Own report) – The US-led RIMPAC 2018, the world’s largest naval maneuver, began yesterday with German soldiers participating. According to the US Navy, the naval exercise will also include operations in the Western Pacific. The region of the Southwest Pacific islands will thus come into focus, which – even though largely ignored by the European public – has been gaining significant global influence. On the one hand, the influence of Western countries has shrunk recently, while that of their strategic rivals, such as Russia and China, has significantly grown. Some Pacific island nations have since then been seeking to pursue a foreign policy independent from the West. On the other hand, the Southwest Pacific has become even more important also for Australia and the Unites States: as the political economic backyard for Australia and “gateway to the Indo-Pacific” for the U.S.A. Germany is also attempting to increase its activities in the region.

While the world watches Syria, Russia is creeping closer to Georgia

Concrete bollards mark the “border” between Georgia and the breakaway region of South Ossetia outside Gori, Georgia. The Russian and Ossetian flags can be seen in the distance. Photo: New York Times

 

Jariasheni, Georgia: Marked in places with barbed wire laid at night, in others by the sudden appearance of green signs declaring the start of a “state border” and elsewhere by the arrival of bulldozers, the reach of Russia keeps inching forward into Georgia – with ever more ingenious markings of a frontier that only Russia and three other states recognise as real.

But while dismissed by most of the world as a make-believe border, the dirt track now running through this tiny Georgian village nonetheless means that Vephivia Tatiashvili can no longer go to his three-storey house because it sits on land now patrolled by Russian border guards.

That track marks the world’s newest and perhaps oddest international frontier; the elastic boundary between Georgian-controlled land and the Republic of South Ossetia, a self-proclaimed breakaway state financed, defended and controlled by Moscow.

The EU as Soviet lite: I’ve seen this movie before and it does not end well

After the Brexit and recent attacks against migrants in Britain I can’t get rid of the deja vu feeling. I’ve already watched this movie, a quarter century ago. I know how its ends.

In summer of 1989, the Lithuanian Sejm decided to withdraw from the Soviet Union and establish Lithuanian laws in the country. It was the beginning of the end for USSR — a giant corrupt monster, which for 70 years had bullied the world and its people under the pretense of communist ideology.

Intimidation and sanctions could not prevent the collapse. The fabricated artificial entity, thoroughly impregnated with falsehood and lies, fell apart like a house of cards.

Russia ‘ready to destabilise half of Eurasia’

Russia does not have a veto on Georgia’s foreign policy and billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili does not rule the country, the Georgian president has said.

The president, Giorgi Margvelashvili, spoke to EUobserver in Brussels after meeting Nato and EU leaders earlier in the week.

There is no imminent prospect of Georgia joining either of the clubs.

Russia and China rush to fill Mideast void left by Obama

It was meant to be a farewell visit by a cherished friend heading for retirement. Instead, Barack Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia Tuesday and Wednesday turned into an unwanted call by an uninvited guest at an inconvenient time.

It started a the airport, when Saudi King Salman sent one of his nephews to greet the US president on arrival in Riyadh. The gesture was specially telling because the Saudi monarch had spent much of the day personally welcoming other leaders at the airport. It ended not much better: forced smiles, unconvincing statements of solidarity.

It was typical of what has become the Obama Doctrine: dropping old allies in the hope of turning adversaries into new friends.

Needless to say, the gamble has failed.

Russia wants to fly surveillance planes over US with advanced cameras, congressional staffer says

WASHINGTON –  Russia will ask permission on Monday to start flying surveillance planes equipped with high-powered digital cameras amid warnings from U.S. intelligence and military officials that such overflights help Moscow collect intelligence on the United States.

Russia and the United States are signatories to the Open Skies Treaty, which allows unarmed observation flights over the entire territory of all 34 member nations to foster transparency about military activity and help monitor arms control and other agreements. Senior intelligence and military officials, however, worry that Russia is taking advantage of technological advances to violate the spirit of the treaty.

Russia looking for regime change in Turkey

NEW YORK – Many have been burned trying to predict Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next foreign policy moves, but it’s a safe bet he will copy whichever U.S. policy he has been criticizing. That’s why Turkey, in particular, should pay close attention to what Russia has to say on regime change.

This pattern of condemn-then-copy foreign policy has been going on for some time. In 2007, Putin made a powerful denunciation of America’s addiction to military force, complaining — presumably as a man of peace — that “there is no one to talk to since Mahatma Gandhi died.” A year later, Russia openly used force beyond its borders for the first time since the end of the Cold War, invading Georgia.

Nuclear Proliferation Has Passed the Point of No Return

And just to think where the world is at now after this 2008 article. The effects of Russian nuclear blackmail have continued for decades now.

 

Caption: Nuclear non-proliferation is a hopeless cause. (Trumpet)

 

Non-proliferation efforts are dwarfed by the sheer magnitude of the task at hand.

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Since the Cold War, the United Nations has logged more than 800 incidents in which nuclear material has disappeared, the Guardian says. The former Soviet storage sites where radioactive material—often large quantities of it—are stored are often dilapidated and poorly secured. Millions of U.S. dollars pouring in notwithstanding, many sites still remain vulnerable to burglary or assault from advanced and not-so-advanced thieves who know how to get a nuclear bomb.

The Siege of Crimea (I)

KIEV/MOSCOW/BERLIN (Own report) – Berlin is watching with apprehension as the conflict between Kiev and Moscow escalates again following Ukraine’s shutting down electrical power to Crimea. Last week, Crimean Tatars and members of the fascist Right Sector are suspected to have blown up several electric pylons, cutting off the supply of power to Crimea. Crimea receives nearly 80 percent of its electricity from Ukraine. The Berlin-sponsored Ukrainian government sees itself as incapable of repairing the power lines. It has imposed – in accordance with the embargo policies of the EU and the USA – its own trade embargo on the peninsula. In the summer 2014, the EU and the USA began imposing economic sanctions on Crimea, which was aggravated by Kiev’s embargo of water and blockade of traffic for over a year. Ukraine will squander its remaining sympathy on the peninsula, warn observers. A similar development had been observed in the Georgian secessionist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia since the 2008 Georgian-Russian war. Early this week, the German government applied pressure on Kiev to restore electricity to Crimea, to avoid another escalation of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which Germany considers detrimental. To no avail – the escalation began yesterday.

Russian Soldiers Hold Over 1,000 Winter Drone Exercises – Defense Ministry

Southern Military District’s press service announced that Russian military personnel have carried out more than 1,000 tactical and special exercises using drones during the winter training period.

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“During the winter training period in South Ossetia’s Dzartsemi and North Ossetia-Alania republic’s Tarskoye training grounds the military base units carried out more than 1,000 tactical and special exercises using unmanned aerial vehicles,” the press release said.

Concerns Russia moving to annex South Ossetia as treaty signed with Georgia breakaway region

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a wide-ranging treaty with the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia, which critics say paves the way for Moscow to annex the territory.

The “Treaty on Alliance and Integration” determines the long-term relations between Russia and South Ossetia, Putin said after signing the document in the Kremlin with Leonid Tibilov, the region’s president.

Massive Rocket Artillery Drills Begin in Crimea, Abkhazia, South Ossetia

Russian army artillery personnel in the Southern Military District began scheduled drills using new Hosta and Tornado-G systems.

Over 8,000 Russian army artillery personnel began exercises in Crimea, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Armenia as well as other areas on Thursday, the Southern Military District’s press service announced.

Russia Is ‘Pulling a Crimea’ in Georgia

Georgia said the signing of a border deal between Russia and its breakaway region of South Ossetia on February 18 means Moscow was one step nearer to officially annexing the territory.

“It’s yet another action directed against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia and an attempt to artificially redraw internationally recognized borders,” said the Georgian Foreign Ministry.

How Vladimir Putin is building alliances around the world

As the Russian president visits his EU ally Viktor Orban, prime minister of Hungary, we look at other leaders around the world who have embraced the divisive Vladimir Putin

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Venezuela

Caracas is a major buyer of Russian weapons and has recognised breakaway pro-Russian territories such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia.

Moscow reciprocates by investing billions of dollars in Venezuelan oil projects.

Vladimir Putin once even gave Hugo Chavez a puppy.