Catégorie : Anti Russia Crusade

HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTIONNISM AND RESPONSABILITY TO PROTECT, THE WEST DOUBLE STANDARD

Auteur de l’article Par Faouzi Elmir
Date de l’article 27 mars 2022

Obviously, comparaison is not reason, but it is not irrelevant to compare the motives that drive Russia to launch its military operation in Ukraine and those that triggered NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999 and Libya in 2011.

Here are the motives that NATO put forward to justify Serbia’s bombing.

NATO has been leading a peace-support operation in Kosovo – the Kosovo Force (KFOR) – since June 1999.
KFOR was established when NATO’s 78-day air campaign against Milosevic’s regime, aimed at putting an end to violence in Kosovo, was over.
The operation derives its mandate from United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999) and the Military-Technical Agreement between NATO, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Serbia.
KFOR’s original objectives were to deter renewed hostilities, establish a secure environment and ensure public safety and order, demilitarise the Kosovo Liberation Army, support the international humanitarian effort and coordinate with the international civil presence.
Today, KFOR continues to contribute towards maintaining a safe and secure environment in Kosovo and freedom of movement for all.
NATO strongly supports the Belgrade-Pristina EU-brokered Normalisation Agreement (2013).

Aiming at regime change in the rich oil Libya, fomenting violence and demonstrations behind the scene in the city of Benghazi starting on February 17,2011, the USA, France,UK and their lackeys in the Arab world and in Africa, have used the United Nations as tool to impose a no fly zone in the North African nation and providing a veneer of legality to their war of aggression by invoking humanitarian interventionism and the responsibility to protect civilians threatened by horrible dictator.

On 17 March 2011, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1973 authorizing the use of force in Libya.2 While Germany, Brazil, China, India, and Russia abstained, the resolution drafted by France and the United Kingdom and cosponsored by Lebanon and the United States received ten favourable votes out of fifteen (South Africa, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, France, Gabon, Lebanon, Nigeria, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States).

Focusing on protecting the civilian population, Resolution 1973 called for an immediate cease-fire and the complete cessation of violence against civilians. It authorized Member States to take all necessary measures to protect civilians under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, while excluding any form of occupation of Libyan territory.3 In addition, it allowed Member States to take all measures required to implement the flight ban over Libyan airspace (the ‘No-Fly Zone’). Finally, the text strengthened the arms embargo, banning flights of Libyan airlines and freezing Libyan financial assets such as those already defined in Resolution 1970 of 26 February 2011. Implicitly underlying this call for the protection of civilians was the concept of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), although the R2P concept was not always explicitly raised in the debates leading to the adoption of the resolutions.

Russia’s humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect of civilian population in Ukraine’s Donbass

Russia’s military operation in Ukraine a month ago, on February 24 provoked hysteric response in the West denouncing Putin’s invasion and his so called war crimes. If we compare NATO’s bombing of Serbia and Libya in the name of humanitarian interventionism and the responsibility to protect, one can observe Putin has used the same humanitarian interventionism and the responsibility to protect as justification to intervene militarily in Ukraine.

President Putin announced on February 24 that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in Ukraine in order to protect people « who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years. »

The situation on the line of engagement in Donbass escalated on February 17. At that time, Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) reported the most massive bombardments by the Ukrainian military over past months, which damaged civilian infrastructure and caused civilian casualties. On February 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree recognizing the sovereignty of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Subsequent treaties of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance were signed with their leaders.

NATO’s relentless and pervasive propaganda wants us to make believe its bombing of Serbia and Libya has been motivated by mere humanitarian and moral principles while Putin’s military intervention in Ukraine is presented as a war of aggression and invasion of «independent state». In fact, Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine has really the form of humanitarian intervention and applying the principle of the responsibility to protect the civilian population in the two popular republics in Donbass and by no means invasion and war of aggression according to NATO’s motives by bombing Serbia and Libya. In looking at things in this way, Imperial west shows its binary mind and the dominance of the principle of double standard when it comes to protect its strategic and economic interests all over the world, to perform a regime change or to topple recalcitrant leaders looking for a genuine independence and development of their nation.

Étiquettes humanitarian interventionnism, NATO, responsability to protect, Russia, Ukraine

Anti Russia Crusade Blog European Union fascism Geopolitics NATO Nazism Propaganda WARS & CRISES

HOW RUSSIA HAS FOILED NATO’S PLANNED ATTACK ON HER TERRITORY USING UKRAINE AS SPEARHEAD

Auteur de l’article Par Faouzi Elmir
Date de l’article 25 mars 2022

One month ago, February 24, Russia’s Putin launched what Moscow called a limited military operation with two main objectives, to disarm and denazify Ukraine. In order to brainwash the western public opinions, to manufacture consent and to silence dissenting opinions, NATO imposed unprecedented censorship of all media banning Russian outlets medias, RT and Sputnik among others. Control of narrative on Ukraine is aiming at slashing from the collective memory all deadly and bloody wars waged by NATO since 30 years all over the world and by focusing only on the ongoing «war of agression» and «invasion» of «independent state» by «Putin’s army»

For western propaganda, Putin is presented as crazy and mindless by ordering military operation in neighbouring Ukraine. It will be unthinkable that the man who ruled the destiny of Russia during 22 years ordered the military to take action without a context and circonstances pushing to send Russian armed forces there. Instructed by the history of the collapse of the Soviet Union on one hand and by the current encirclement of Russia’s borders by NATO’s bases in eastern Europe, Putin has took the right decision at the appropriate moment to quell agressive and expansionist western hybrid war. This is global conttext that pushed Putin to move against Ukraine. But there is another factor that played key role in Russian military operation, often hidden from the public eye, a planned and already attack by NATO against Russian territory through Ukraine used as a rear base.

In fact, during a briefing on Thursday,Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Washington’s was enraged because the plan to turn Ukraine into anti-Russia » and use it as a bridgehead for delivering all types of strikes » on the territory of the Russian Federation failed. »

« Apparently, it was not expected that Russia would withstand this blow, and the aggressive rhetoric and personal insults reflect internal turmoil, uncertainty, irritation with the fact that it did not work out, as it always worked before, and as it was planned this time, » the diplomat noted.

Russia’s military exercices that took place during the weeks preceding military operation were but a response to NATO’s already planned attack on Russian territory since 2014 coup d’etat and the integration of Crimea into the Russian federation.

On February 19 in Munich, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy made his threat to deploy nuclear weapons on Ukrainian territory. He expressed this as his unilateral revocation of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, although Ukraine was not a signatory of the agreement. Two days later on the evening of February 21, Putin made his speech recognizing the sovereign independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, and the start of the military campaign in the Ukraine. He explicitly referenced Zelenskyy’s Munich nuclear weapons pledge: “This is not empty bravado,” Putin stressed in his speech.

It now begins to become more clear that Putin had serious reason to react at the Ukraine nuclear threat. A Ukrainian nuclear missile within six minutes of Moscow would present existential danger whether Ukraine were in NATO or not.

The primary bomb research facility was located at the National Scientific Center, “Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology.” As of this writing reports of fierce fighting underway between Russian forces and neo-nazi Ukrainian Azov fighters who reportedly are planning to blow up the research reactor site and blame it on Russia. [v] The battle for control of the large Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is also apparently part of the attempt to conceal the illegal Ukraine bomb project.

For years Washington moved one after the other former Warsaw Pact countries including Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, Baltic States into NATO and closer to striking distance to Russia.After the demise of the USSR, Nato’s members passed from 16 to 30 members.

Kiev coup regime proceeded after February 22, 2014 to wage a war of extermination and ethnic cleansing of Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine, led to a large degree by a private army of literal neo-nazis from Pravy Sektor (Right Sector), the same ones who ran security in Maidan Square and launched a reign of terror against Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Battalions were formed of neo-nazi mercenaries. They were given official state status as “Ukrainian National Guard” soldiers, the Azov Battalion, financed by Ukrainian mafia boss and billionaire oligarch, Ihor Kolomoisky, the financial backer of Zelenskyy as president.

There was more. Ukrainian press reported a year ago about new Western-built de facto NATO naval bases in Ochakov and Berdyansk as, “modern infrastructure facilities capable of receiving ships of all types, equipped according to NATO standards and built with the money of the alliance countries.” The media boasted, “In three years we will be able to strike at Russian ships in the Black Sea with our mosquito fleet. And if we combine with Georgia and Turkey, the Russian Federation will be blocked,’ Ukrainian military experts boasted.

In addition, the US Pentagon had no less than eight, perhaps as many as 30 top-secret bioweapons research labs across Ukraine testing DNA of some 4,000 military volunteers. Once Russian soldiers moved to secure the evidence, the US Embassy in Kiew deleted previous mention of the sites from its website, and Ukrainians reportedly moved to destroy the lab evidence. Ukrainian labs in Kharkiv and elsewhere were operating in cooperation with the United States. Stocks of such weapons were being secretly stored in direct violation of international conventions.

A full month before the Russian military action on 22 February in Ukraine, independent biowarfare researcher, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, obtained documents detailing “US Pentagon biological experiments with a potentially lethal outcome on 4,400 soldiers in Ukraine and 1,000 soldiers in Georgia. According to the leaked documents, all volunteer deaths should be reported within 24 h (in Ukraine) and 48 h (in Georgia).” She details the human experiments, which include testing for antibodies against some 14 pathogens including Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, Borrelia species (Lyme disease) and others. According to the documents the labs in Ukraine and Georgia are part of a Pentagon “$2.5 billion Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) Biological engagement program which includes research on bio agents, deadly viruses and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”

Étiquettes NATO, propaganda, Russia, Ukraine

Anti Russia Crusade Blog Geopolitics NATO Nazism Propaganda WARS & CRISES

THE LATEST HYPE OF WESTERN NARRATIVE: RESISTANCE,CONTAIN AND ATTACK OF UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES

Auteur de l’article Par Faouzi Elmir
Date de l’article 23 mars 2022

Of course, NATO is not engaged directly in Ukraine, it is arming Ukrainian Armed forces and training foreign mercenaries brought in the country to fight the «invaders», the so called «Putin’s army». But NATO’s non lethal weapon that annihilated Russia, is the infowar and the western unrivalled and unparalleled methods and techniques of propaganda that have been improved and developed thanks to the endless wars waged by the United States and its allies since the end of the WWII and chiefly since the demise of the USSR 30 years ago.

By listening to the western propaganda,especially during prime time,we have in the menu of TV news, the evil and crazy Putin, inefficiency and disorganized Russian army killing innocent civilian, sowing death and destruction in the besieged city of Mariupol, and but least not last, the heroic resistance of Ukrainian people who don’t hesitate to bear arms to fight the «Russky». Military high ranking, paid journalists list the Russian human and material losses presented in such a way obliging the viewers or the listeners to draw the inevitable and previsible conclusion that the Russian army has bogged down and even has lost the «war». This is psychological warfare waged by the West in order to hide its powerless and its incapacity to influence the course of events on the theatre of operations while in the past it was the west that commanded the course of events.

Over the past days, we are witnessing the latest hype of western propaganda fabricated by the US Pentagon according to which, Ukraine’s armed forces not only resist to the Russians advance but they take the initiative to contain and even to attack Russian armed forces.

Don’t be fooled by western narrative and its powerful psychological warfare. The Russian armed forces have achieved complete theatre control in many key areas, destroying the capacity of the Ukrainian armed forces to operate the types of major coordinated defensive and counter-offensive operations that would be necessary to reverse this fact. Even if major ground operations were successful, a large part of Ukraine’s heavy military equipment has been destroyed and the Russians will still have complete air superiority. The destruction of NATO tarining center in Ivarivo is an example of Russian control of Ukraine’s space.

Western media outlets harbour the illusions that the Russians can be defeated militarily and that NATO will protect and support them. Meanwhile, the longer and more intense the futile resistance of what remains of the Ukrainian armed forces goes on, the greater and more enduring the destruction and suffering will be. The only winner will be the United States and NATO , its military wing that caused the ongoing conflict with Russia and responsable for huge destruction and death in Ukraine.

Étiquettes propaganda, Russia, Ukraine

Anti Russia Crusade Blog Conservative Revolution European Union fascism Geopolitics militarismus NATO Nazism Propaganda WARS & CRISES

THE UNAVOIDABLE REGIME CHANGE IN KIEV TO DENAZIFY UKRAINE

Auteur de l’article Par Faouzi Elmir
Date de l’article 22 mars 2022

Western propaganda doesn’t recognize the existence of neo nazi groups nor nazi ideology that became since the coup d’etat of 2014 fomented by the West through its proxy and neo nazi stooges, throwing democratically elected president and neutralist Viktor Yanokuvich. Instead of Nazism or neo nazi militants, western propaganda has to resort to a euphemism by using nationalism and nationalists. A genuine nationalist is who refuses to align with one side against another one and in that regard,we can say without being fooled that the toppled president Yanukovich was a genuine nationalist as he refused to sign a leonine treaty of 500 pages with the European Union and the International Monetary fund seeking systematically to bleed the country. These were the real reasons behind the coup d’etat of 2014.

Since the 2014 regime-change in Ukraine, Ukraine is ruled by U.S.-installed nazis; and they became immediately installed in the new government’s top ‘national security’ posts, and every elected leader in Ukraine now knows that to oppose their (those nazis’) demands would lead to the Ukrainian official’s overthrow and even to the person’s possible assassination by Ukraine’s nazi forces. The new regime installed in Kiev after 2914 was overtly neo nazi inspiration as the first measure implemented was to crush any dissent by prohibiting like Hitler regime after 1933, the Communist party and a dozen of opposition parties and then by fighting Russian speaking Ukrainians,those who massively voted for Yanukovich in the Donbass region and in North-eastern and south-eastern region. The Kiev regime started its pogrom on May 2,2014 in the trade Union House in Odessa where more than 52 people were burned alive.The responsable of the tragedy is Azov Battalion, a Neo-Nazi outfit which sports swastikas. They are fascists and murderers. And they have been integrated in Ukraine’s Armed Forces at the nod of the Pentagon.

The very nature of Kiev regime ideology may be seen through the UN resolutions condemning any sort of racism, including Nazism. The first such vote at the U.N. occurred just months after the regime-change in Ukraine, and was taken on 21 November 2014. Only 3 Countries, the US, Ukraine and Canada backed officially at U.N. Nazism & Holocaust-Denial; Germany Abstained After the 16 November 2017 U.S. backed once more Nazism as Trump Continued Obama’s nefarious Support of Nazism. The latest such vote occurred on 16 December 2021.

Current Russophobic hysteria speaks volumes about the dissemination and the widespread of Nazi ideology among Ukrainians as well among the country’s leadership as among the populace. The West was behind the nazification of Ukraine as many of its NGO and organizations invested Ukraine after the coup of 2014 brainwashing the Ukrainians and rewriting the history by glorifying nazi past represented by the infamous Ukrainian nazi, Stepen Bandera and minimizing or bluntly slashing the glorious Soviet victory over Nazism during the WWII where the URSS has paid costly price in terms of human losses and injuries estimated at 27 million people.

26 days ago, Russia launched special military operation with two main objectives: disarming and denazification of Ukraine. Belying western propaganda inventing fake resistance and fake heroes, the military objective was achieved as Ukraine main military infrastructure and equipment were destroyed. It remains the denazification whose stronghold in Mariupol is besieged but refuses to surrender which will be a matter of days. But Mariupol surrender is not all, and even with the fall of the next third city of Odessa will not give Russia full satisfaction as long as the puppet government originating in the coup d’etat of 2014 remains in position. To really denazify Ukraine, Russia has no choice but to change regime in kiev and to install new leadership vowed to pick up the pieces and to restart a long process that will take time and perseverance.

Étiquettes denazification, regime change, Russia, Ukraine

Anti Russia Crusade Blog European Union fascism Geopolitics NATO Nazism OIL Propaganda WAR ON TERROR WARS & CRISES

HOW WESTERN PROPAGANDA INVENTS FAKE RESISTANCE AND FAKE VICTORY TO HIDE UKRAINE’S DEFEAT ?

Auteur de l’article Par Faouzi Elmir
Date de l’article 19 mars 2022

The West is waging ferocious and relentless psychological warfare since Russia’s military special operations in Ukraine, a campaign aiming at brainwashing the populations according to basic principles of Nazi minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels that played key role in the manufactured consent and the mobilisation of the Germans for war against Bolshevism, communism in general and the Soviet Union in particular.

One can observe that there are the same so called experts who appear in the MSM and they repeat invariably the same words and the same things about the conflict in Ukraine. Their basic strategy is the strategy of delusion and deception by hammering the same message home, parroting without checking out all the facts what they have heard and told by the experts of manipulation working within the PSYOP. For example, such so called experts try to convince themselves and the viewers through TV that Russian’s losses are too big to win the war and the Ukraine’s resistance is so strong that Russian invaders would be sonner or later be repealed and even Ukrainian fighters would reach Moscow.

From day one, Ukraine’s fate has been sealed. Russian’s special operations have been focused on the destruction of Ukrainian principal military locations and command centers. This is largely accomplished since the beginning.
Consequently, Putin’s military Blitzkrieg paved the way for the second objective, removal of criminal regime in Kiev and establishing Ukraine as fully neutral nation. This main political objective would be achieved through

1. Demilitarization of Ukraine, meaning destruction of Ukraine’s Armed Forces and her military-industrial complex;

2.Denazification is only partially met by means of physical annihilation of military arm of the Ukrainian Neo-Nazism, the police and state security. The imminent fall of Mariupol gives the final blow to the last neo nazi stronghold. The fall of Mariupol would allow the Russian to affect more forces for besieging Ukraine third city, Odessa.It is a matter of one or two weeks. During the WWII, France capitulated. Germany and Japan capitulated. Why not Ukraine ?

Anti China Crusade Anti Russia Crusade Blog Geopolitics OIL WARS & CRISES

US NEW STRATEGY TO COUNTER CHINA AND RUSSIA

Auteur de l’article Par Faouzi Elmir
Date de l’article 13 octobre 2021

In 2018, the United States government has declassified its Indo-Pacific strategy initially set to be released to the public at the end of 2042. The strategy was initially devised throughout 2017, going on to be approved and enforced by President Donald Trump in 2018 shortly after the US National Defense Strategy was finalised. At its heart, the strategy highlights a deep concern with China’s rising influence in the Western and Central Pacific and plans to deal with an increasingly belligerent North Korea, while seeking to use its South-East Asian allies to contend with China and North Korea and to strengthen India to counter Chinese military power.

Countering China in the South China Sea

The strategists highlight China’s growing dominance in the Indo-Pacific and consider Beijing as is the United State’s primary adversary and strategic opponent in the area. While the document does not mention the South China sea dispute, it reflects a concern over China’s claims there and in other parts of the Western Pacific. The strategy to counter China aims to build US capabilities until they are “capable of, but not limited to” denying China control of the air and the sea in the “first island chain”, referring to a string of Pacific islands surrounding China that include Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam. China claims most of these waters. Second, it emphasizes the strategy emphasizes the need to defend the first island chain, and dominate all areas outside it.

disputed zones in the South China Sea

A US Navy oceanographic survey

Since last September, a US Navy oceanographic survey ship has been conducting extensive activities in a large area of the South China Sea to collect underwater geographical and hydrological data to support its submarine warfare in the region against China.

This situation also drew attention from some military observers after a US nuclear-powered attack submarine struck an unidentified underwater object in the South China Sea earlier this month, which again highlighted the US Navy’s need to learn more about the region.

The USNS Mary Sears (T-AGS 65), a Pathfinder-class oceanographic survey ship, entered the South China Sea on September 26 and started extensive surveys. From October 1 to 4, the ship operated in waters south of China’s Hainan Island, from October 5 to 9, it approached the coastline of Vietnam, and by Sunday it had arrived in waters near the Nansha Islands. The Pathfinder-class oceanographic survey ship is specialized in the detection and surveying of underwater terrain, meteorology and hydrology.

The USNS Mary Sears (T-AGS 65)

While the ship seems to be conducting scientific research, its true mission is to support submarine and anti-submarine warfare, the USS Connecticut, a Seawolf-class nuclear-powered attack submarine, struck an underwater object in the South China sea on October 2.

the USS Connecticut, a Seawolf-class nuclear-

This accident means the sea map the submarine was using was outdated, and the US Navy was conducting scientific research to draw underrates maps with the mission to support submarine and anti submarine warfare and help navigate friendly submarines or place detection device to locate hostile submarines.

Countering China and Russia in the Middle East

President Joe Biden’s Interim National Security Strategic Guidance Lt. Gen. Ronald Clark, who spoke at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference Oct. 12 emphasized the challenges of strategic competition with Russia and China to American interests, including nonmilitary events taking place across the Middle East. The major challenges to the command’s operations are China, Russia, Iran and “violent extremist organizations around the world,” he said. But the commander primarily cited Russia and China, which he said are making moves in the Middle East to “set conditions for future operations.”

Both nations blur the lines between competition, crisis and conflict. While it falls short of actual conflict, Clark said these actions are a part of strategic competition and will shape future conflicts in the Middle East and beyond. “Events in one theater will spill over — undoubtedly — to another,” he said. “Bottom line: All of our competitors are setting conditions in the [command’s area of responsibility] right now that we need to respond to.”

Middle East map

For example, China engages in unrestricted warfare, which consciously expands the battlefield from traditional domains such as land, air and sea to social spaces, politics, culture and economics. An important piece of that in the Middle East is the Belt and Road Initiative, which consists of a number of economic investments by the Chinese government and Chinese-owned companies in foreign countries. “The Belt and Road Initiative touches virtually every country in [the command’s area of responsibility],” said Clark, pointing to a $300 billion investment by a Chinese-owned company into the port of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. China continues to import massive amounts of oil from the Middle East, helping Iran build a new export facility that will allow it to continue pumping oil past the Strait of Hormuz.

Hormuz Strait

Meanwhile, Russia is practicing its own form of hybrid warfare using nonmilitary means to create an operational environment where a smaller military force can come in and achieve its objective, Clark said. For example, a 2017 deal allowed Russia to expand the Port of Tartus in Syria, and it can now hold up to 12 nuclear-powered ships or submarines, he added. “That now allows the Russians — if they want to — to project power into the Mediterranean and into Eastern Europe,” he said.

Syria’s Tartus port

The US Central command’s area of responsibility is vast. It includes 21 countries that make up more than 4 million square miles and are home to 550 million people in 22 ethnic groups speaking 20 different languages.

Oil locations in the Middle east

Importantly for American interests, he added, it’s also home to vast oil reserves. Nearly 30 percent of the petroleum and crude oil products from around the world flow through three chokepoints that fall under the command’s purview. Clark pointed to when the supercargo ship Ever Given recently clogged up the Suez Canal for days as an example of the importance of those chokepoints. That incident disrupted 12 percent of global trade with an estimated cost of $9 billion.

Étiquettes China, geopolitics, naval power, Pacific, Russia, South China Sea, US

Anti Russia Crusade Blog capitalism European Union NATO Propaganda WARS & CRISES

The West calls for more agressive militarism against Russia

Auteur de l’article Par Faouzi Elmir
Date de l’article 7 octobre 2021

In Poland’s capital, Warsaw, took place the Warsaw Security Forum convened by the Casimir Pulaski Foundation (Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego, FKP) presenting itself as independent, non-profit, and non-partisan think tank based in Warsaw, but it is in fact an Atlantist organization funded by NATO members and the EU with the main objective, disseminating anti Russian propaganda by exaggerating Russia’s threat used as pretext for arms race and more military spending.

Speaking at the the Warsaw Security Forum, an event organized by the Casimir Pulaski Foundation think tank, Polish President Andrzej Duda said Oct. 5 that closer ties between NATO and the EU are required to combat Russia’s military-driven expansionism : “We need a strong partnership between NATO and the European Union that ensures a synergy of both organizations,” Duda said. “Russia is expanding its military presence and it endangers NATO not only from the east, but also from the north and south.”

Polish president Duda

The president’s remarks were echoed in the speech by Paweł Soloch, the head of Poland’s National Security Bureau.

“There is an ongoing development of the military potential of the Russian Federation. On our part, this creates a need for a further adaptation of NATO’s capacities, also with the use of the instruments held by the European Union,” Soloch said. “Naturally, NATO has a significantly larger potential than Russia, but on the alliance’s borders, the forces accumulated by Russia give a tactical, and, for a defined time, also an operational advantage to this country.” He added, Europe “needs to have a single strategy that merges the potential of NATO and the European Union”

Croatia’s President Zoran Milanovic, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda and U.S. President Joe Biden pose for a family photo as part of the NATO summit at the Alliance’s headquarters, in Brussels, on June 14, 2021

Speaking during a panel at the Warsaw Security Forum on Wednesday, Lt. Gen. Tomasz Piotrowski, who leads Poland’s Armed Forces Operational Command, said the exercise enabled Moscow to test offensive measures against the alliance’s Eastern European members. The Polish commander has said Russia’s Zapad 2021 military drill with Belarus featured a wide range of hybrid warfare tools that Moscow is using to advance its regional influence.

NATO Headquarter in Brussels

According to Piotrowski, this year’s edition of Zapad “was bigger than Zapad 2020 and 2019 — not by the number of troops, but for sure by the capabilities that were used, types of units, such as airborne, special forces, maritime and others.”

RUSSIA AND BELARUS ZAPAD 21

The Russian military “announced already in January 2021 that the Zapad exercise had begun. Land exercises will take place until October 2021,” he added.

Russian government news agency Tass reported July 2 that the country’s National Guard would hold the Zaslon 2021 drill later that month as part of the overarching Zapad exercise.

Putin and the defense minister during ZAPAD drill 2021

Russia’s Defence Ministry described the exercise as “strategic,” stating that more than 200,000 troops from Russia and Belarus participated.

However, Lt. Gen. Andreas Marlow, commander of the 1st German-Dutch Corps in Münster, Germany, said during the same panel that one of the challenges NATO faces is “a difference of threat perception.”

NATO’s STOOGES IN THE EASTERN EUROPE

Last May took place in Tapa, Estonia, large-scale exercise titled Spring Storm (Kevadtorm) with the participation of NATO troops and the Estonian Defence Forces (EDF) “Last May, we announced that, together with our neighbors Latvia and Lithuania we will buy the MLRS for our militaries,” Laanet told Defense News during the first day of the Warsaw Security Forum, an event organized by the Casimir Pulaski Foundation think tank. “My opinion is that the Baltic states should have common capabilities to fight, but also deter any aggressor, so that they have to take us seriously.”

WARSAW, Poland — Estonia is developing its defense capacities in response to Russia’s actions in the region, with multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), air defense systems, coastal missile defense systems as well as unmanned and cyber defense capabilities ranking high in its acquisition plans, according to Estonian Defense Minister Kalle Laanet.

NATO’s presence in the eastern Europe

In 2017, Lithuania signed a deal with Norway’s Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace to acquire the network centric air defense system (NASAMS). Under Estonia’s National Defence Development Plan for the years 2017 to 2026, the country is also planning to purchase a similar short- to mid-range air defense system. New unmanned capacities for the Estonian armed forces, and investing in cyber defense capabilities, developed by Estonian company Milrem Robotics producing unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) that could be supplied to the country’s military. A pilot project to build unmanned vessels for the Estonian Navy. A consortium of defense companies has been put together, and the first vessel of this type is expected to be launched in 2026.

NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission was launched on 30 March 2004, one day after the three countries joined the alliance. Today, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania still depend on other allies, as they lack their own fighters that could be deployed to such missions.

UK’s MILITARISM IN EUROPE AND THE INDO PACIFIC REGION

The chairman of a parliamentary defense panel Tobias Ellwood insists London is not losing sight of its own backyard in Europe, and therefore should increase defense spending “We don’t have the luxury to work independently given the challenges we all face,” Tobias Ellwood told Defense News during the second day of the Warsaw Security Forum, an event organized by the Casimir Pulaski Foundation think tank. He added that London is intensifying efforts to boost its space and cyber capacities “But we also need a bigger Navy, and we are investing in it.”

Tobias Ellwood

However, more funds are also required to expand the U.K.’s capabilities in other fields amid cuts to some programs. Budget cuts have already forced the country to reduce its initial F-35 fighter jet order from 138 to 48 aircraft, he noted, and the British-led effort for a sixth-generation combat jet, dubbed Tempest, is still in flux. BAE Systems is developing the aircraft in partnership with Leonardo UK, Rolls-Royce and MBDA UK.

“Britain is only spending 2 percent of its [gross domestic product] on defense. But the threats ahead are collectively greater than the ones from the Cold War when we were spending 4 percent,” Ellwood said

Étiquettes militarism, NATO, Poland, propaganda, Russia