Russia is actively seeking political influence in the Sahel through ostensible support for counter-insurgency efforts amid the drawdown of the longstanding French counterterrorism forces in that region.
Russian has capitalized on cold U.S. relationships with Sahelian states that are confronting challenges in democratic governance in its attempt to create a new Russian-led security order in the region.
As Vladimir Putin’s world-altering war against Ukraine enters its second year, any hope of reviving the post-Cold War European security order depends on defeating Russia in Ukraine. But that will only be the first step in what will be a long struggle—one that calls for an updated strategy of containment.
Introduction
Russia’s military operation in Ukraine started on 24 February 2022. During this one year of conflict, the situation in the world has drifted into dangerous situation with the world getting divided virtually into two camps. While Washington took the lead in building a coalition of NATO and others to send arms and other supplies to Ukraine, Russia and China suddenly found a new bonhomie.
On February 2, 2023, former U.S. Marine Peter Reed was killed in Ukraine while evacuating civilians in the front-line city of Bakhmut. Two days later on February 4, the bodies of two British volunteers, Christopher Perry and Andrew Bagshaw, were returned as part of a prisoner swap deal with Russian forces. Their deaths mark some of the latest Western casualties in Ukraine one year after Russian forces invaded the country in February 2022.
Ordinea mondială este pe cale să sufere schimbări, în contextul împlinirii unui an de la invazia rusească din Ucraina. Războiul a împărțit lumea, iar cele două blocuri economico-militare antagonice se consolidează. Pe de altă parte, globalizarea pare să se apropie de final, iar Europa și Rusia ar putea deveni sateliți ai Statelor Unite și ai Chinei.
“As a result of coordinated investigative measures on the territory of Moscow as well as in the Kirov and Penza Regions, five people were detained on suspicion of providing assistance to terrorist formation Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham [formerly Jabhat al-Nusra], which operates in Syria,” the FSB’s press office said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that the suspects were apprehended in three different regions of Russia.
Russia needs Novorossiya and Malorossiya – at least the part of Malorossiya that is east of the Dnepr river. These parts are not “ukrainian”, they never were and they never will be! These parts are as genuinely russian as Moscow or St Peterburg but because of a historical mistake – the break-up of the Soviet Union in stead of the modernisation of it – these parts are now outside of mother Russia. That would not be a catastrophe if these lands were part of a democratic, pro-russian “Ukraine” or if they were a sovreign and pro-russian country like Belarus or Kazahstan. Then they would still be a part of the Russian World with very close ties to the Motherland. But now these lands are occupied by a nazi junta in Kiev, placed there by the USA after an armed coup against the legal governmment and president Yanukovich!
The socio-cultural and political clarifications shared in this analysis are essential to accept if one wants to truly understand the strategic dynamics of the New Cold War. This worldwide struggle over the direction of the global systemic transition is just as much about socio-cultural issues and states’ rights (or lack thereof) to determine/protect them as it is about geopolitics.
As early as 2023, Poland is has contracted to buy 50 Javelin LWCLU launchers, as well as about 500 FGM-148F Javelin missiles, as well as an additional training and logistics package.
Other U.S. partners are also receiving weapons. Poland also bought K2 tanks and K9A1 howitzers from South Korea. According to the contract signed in July 2022, a total of 1,000 K2 and K2PL tanks and 672 K9A1/K9PL howitzers will be delivered to Poland. Some of the equipment has already begun to be delivered.
In recent years, the Eastern European countries that have become members of NATO have shown excessive zeal in promoting Atlanticism, becoming more pro-American than the old guard from Western Europe. The logic can be explained not only by the desire to please the patron from Washington, but also by Halford Mackinder’s famous geopolitical imperative – whoever controls Eastern Europe controls Eurasia, and whoever controls Eurasia controls the world.