The war in Ukraine continues to move ever closer to a nuclear confrontation between the United States and Russia as loggerhead tensions continue to mount between these two super powers with the U.S. resolutely declaring it will ultimately defeat Russia, while Russia resolutely declares it will not loose the war. If this ‘Mexican Standoff’ remains as it is it can only continue to deteriorate until some cataclysmic conclusion is reached.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. This war has been horrendous, though it does not compare with the terrible destruction wrought by the U.S. bombardment of Iraq (“shock and awe”) in 2003. In the Gomel region of Belarus that borders Ukraine, Russian and Ukrainian diplomats met on February 28 to begin negotiations toward a ceasefire. These talks fell apart. Then, in early March, the two sides met again in Belarus to hold a second and third round of talks. On March 10, the foreign ministers of Ukraine and Russia met in Antalya, Türkiye, and finally, at the end of March, senior officials from Ukraine and Russia met in Istanbul, Türkiye, thanks to the initiative of Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. On March 29, Türkiye’s Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said, “We are pleased to see that the rapprochement between the parties has increased at every stage. Consensus and common understanding were reached on some issues.” By April, an agreement regarding a tentative interim deal was reached between Russia and Ukraine, according to an article in Foreign Affairs.
La Russie mène une campagne de désinformation très ciblée en Afrique afin de discréditer les partenaires occidentaux, estiment des parlementaires.
Les parlementaires de la CDU-CSU mettent en garde : l’influence de la Russie en Afrique a augmenté de manière significative au cours des dernières années. Un engagement qui se fait souvent de manière dissimulée par le biais de représentants comme le groupe de mercenaires Wagner.
“For the first time in a quarter of a century,” Vladimir Pastukhov says, “the question of the possible transfer of power by force in Russia has become not a purely theoretical but a practical one. This doesn’t mean that the probability is high … but now such a probability is not equal to zero as was the case even a year ago.”
Ukrainian gains on the battlefield have been met by a widely-anticipated Russian escalation. On September 21, in a rare national address, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the mobilsation of 300,000 reservists who would be called to serve in the war in Ukraine.
Since the beginning of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine on February 24, the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) have not been able to demonstrate success, despite the huge modernization and rearmament efforts of the previous 12 years. The main causes here are not the mistakes of a single individual, but rather the structural problems and challenges that the VKS has faced for years.
Who benefits from the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines which connect Germany to natural gas in Russia? The U.S. has the means, motive, and opportunity and was publicly opposed to the project for many years. Yet the crime victims are strangely silent about identifying the probable perpetrator.“
Ukrainians face new crimes and a punishing winter in their defense against dictators’ wars.
Over the past 48 hours, Russia again escalated its rain of explosives on Ukrainian cities and civilians. As Ukraine’s soldiers drive back Russia’s invasion forces, Vladimir Putin is trying instead to bludgeon millions of Ukrainians into submitting to his will, crippling the power, water and heating systems they need to survive the winter. A war over whether we should govern our world through laws or at gunpoint is in a dangerous new phase — and those who would maintain peace through law need to buttress our support for the Ukrainians bearing that front-line battle.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in an October 19, 2022 address that was aired on Channel 1 (Iran) that in the past, the West had dismissed Iran’s missile and drone technologies, but that today admits that they are very dangerous and complains about Iran supplying them to “so-and-so.” It should be noted that Khamenei’s statement may be a reference to recent reports that Russia has been using Iranian-made drones in Ukraine. Khamenei also said that the drones are the pride of Iran. Later in the address, he said that industrial use of nuclear energy has increased throughout the world, and that if Iran had not begun developing its nuclear project many years ago, it would have had to do so now and suffer the consequences of being so far behind the rest of the world.
Iran has agreed to provide Russia with surface-to-surface missiles, and will provide more drones for use against Ukraine, Reuters reported citing two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats. In addition, other news outlets reported on Tuesday that Iran has sent members of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to a military base in Crimea, where many of the Iranian military drones were sent to Russia, to help train Russian troops in how to operate the unmanned aerial vehicles. Hundreds of Iran’s Shahed-136 drones have been sent to Russia, according to reports.
