Month: January 2022

Ukraine’s leader and his defense and security aides are assessing Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s intentions differently from many of their Western counterparts. Are they just more stoical after eight years of persistent Russian provocations and a long-running war in eastern Ukraine—or are they misreading their Russian adversary?

Washington and London have both warned the chances are high that Putin will order an invasion of Ukraine. U.S. President Joe Biden has been warning for weeks of the “distinct possibility” Russia might invade Ukraine next month, and he reiterated the point Thursday in a phone discussion with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy, according to the White House.

Britain’s defense secretary, Ben Wallace, says he is “not optimistic” a Russian incursion into Ukraine can be stopped. He told the BBC while visiting Berlin there was still “a chance” an invasion could be halted, but added, “I’m not optimistic.”

Russia denies it is preparing to launch a major assault on Ukraine, accusing Western powers of alarmism. The Kremlin insists the more than 100,000 troops it has deployed along Ukraine’s borders are just taking part in exercises.

But Zelenskiy appears to suspect Moscow will do something short of launching a full-scale invasion and more likely will continue to wage the highly sophisticated form of psychological and hybrid warfare it has been using against Ukraine and Europe with growing intensity for the past decade and more.

The Ukrainian president has been calling for calm ahead of Wednesday’s meeting among officials of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France — known as the “Normandy format” — to discuss once again the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, nearly half of which has been occupied since 2014 by Russian soldiers and armed local proxies.

Asked at a news conference Friday for foreign media about the different assessments and of a possible rift with Biden, Zelenskiy cited his concerns over Ukraine’s economy, saying that talk of an imminent invasion is adversely affecting the economy. “For me, the question of the possible escalation is not less acute as for the United States and other partners,” he said.

But he complained the media was giving the impression we have an army in the streets and “that’s not the case.” And he said Ukraine doesn’t “need this panic” because it is damaging the economy. “We may lose the current economy,” he added.

The Ukrainian leader pointedly took issue last week when the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia announced evacuations of personnel from their embassies. Zelenskiy and his aides expressed frustration, saying the withdrawal of some diplomatic staff was premature.

One official told VOA the evacuations undermined efforts to calm the fears of ordinary Ukrainians. The United States and Britain also have told their nationals to leave Ukraine.

According to Ukrainian officials, Zelenskiy has broached the issue of evacuations with U.S. officials, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, saying the withdrawal of staff is an “overreaction” and something Russia can exploit to sow fear and to destabilize.

Aside from worries about the economy and Ukrainian morale, though, Kyiv appears to be at odds with Washington and London over Putin’s strategy, as well as over how near he is to completing a military buildup that would allow him to launch a full throttle invasion.

According to Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, Russia doesn’t have enough troops in place to mount a full-scale invasion. He told reporters this week, “The number of Russian troops massed along the border of Ukraine and occupied territories of Ukraine is large, it poses a threat to Ukraine, a direct threat to Ukraine, however, at the moment, as we speak, this number is insufficient for a full-scale offensive against Ukraine along the entire Ukrainian border.”

Some independent Ukrainian analysts agree with Kyiv’s assessment that a full-scale invasion isn’t likely. “I don’t believe there will be a full-scale military invasion,” said Taras Kuzio, an analyst at the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based research group, and a professor at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy.

“In that sense, I agree with Ukrainian military officials,” he said in a recent British television debate. “There aren’t enough troops there. Ukraine is a huge territory. It has the third largest army in Europe. And if you’re working on the basis of a three-to-one ratio of invading versus defending armies, which is the number you need to be successful, then Russia would need 500,000 to 600,000 troops to overcome Ukraine. It doesn’t have that, and it’s not projected to have that.”

Kuzio believes it is more likely Russia may mount an incursion around the Black Sea coast and expand on territory it holds in the Donbass region.

Ukrainian officials admit privately they are caught somewhat in a quandary. They need Western military assistance and materiel—from anti-tank rockets to surface-to-air missiles—and they need the West to be strong, to stand up to Putin and to deter Russia from any kind of attack, limited or otherwise. But they don’t want to talk up the threat, wreck their economy and panic their people. It is a fine line they’re walking, several officials told VOA.

Western officials say they have to be ready for all eventualities and they don’t want to be caught wrong-footed, as they were in 2014 when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Russia then encouraged and assisted armed proxies to seize part of the Donbass in the wake of a popular uprising that toppled Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, a Putin ally.  

That means, they say, reinforcing NATO’s military presence in eastern Europe, in neighboring NATO countries, and making sure everyone understands the stakes are high. “Putin is unpredictable and any gaps he sees he will jump through; any weakness, he will exploit,” a senior NATO official told VOA.
…

your ad here

By filing a formal complaint against China at the World Trade Organization this week, the European Union is throwing its weight into support for member state Lithuania in what is being cast as a test of the EU’s willingness to defend the interests of even its smallest members in the face of Chinese power and aggression.

The complaint, which seeks a ruling from the WTO, alleges that China has violated the trade body’s rules by carrying out against Lithuania coercive actions that also interfered with the EU’s all-member-inclusive single market and supply chain.

China’s actions are widely seen as intending to punish the Baltic country of 2.8 million people for leaving the 17+1, a regional group Beijing established, and agreeing to host in its capital a Taiwanese representative office bearing the name “Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania” rather than “Taipei Representative Office,” as such offices are titled elsewhere.

“Over the past weeks, the European Commission has built up evidence of … a refusal to clear Lithuanian goods through customs, rejection of import applications from Lithuania, and pressuring EU companies operating out of other EU Member States to remove Lithuanian inputs from their supply chains when exporting to China,” the EU said in a statement Thursday, adding that China’s actions “appear to be discriminatory and illegal under WTO rules.”

Before the announcement, a European Commission spokesperson in Brussels told VOA, “As we have consistently stressed, the EU will stand up against all types of political pressure and coercive measures applied against any Member State. We stand by Lithuania. Lithuanian exports are EU exports.”

Jonathan Hackenbroich, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told VOA that while some within the EU initially questioned the extent to which Lithuania had consulted other member states prior to announcing its decisions concerning China and Taiwan, those concerns paled compared with the seriousness of the threat China’s actions posed to the political and economic integrity of the 27-member bloc.

If China’s action is left unchallenged, EU member states and businesses will end up losing more of their freedom, Hackenbroich warned in a recent essay, Coercion With Chinese Characteristics: How Europe Should Respond to Interference in Its Internal Trade.

The essay states that while China’s aggressive thinking and deeds “should be a source of great worry for European businesses and governments,” the EU must urgently do more to promptly identify and effectively counter China’s coercive methods against nations that defy its wishes.

“Look, everyone can understand this is a test,” said Benjamin Haddad, senior director of the Europe Center at the Washington-based Atlantic Council. “This is a test of whether Europeans will break off their solidarity with one of their smaller members in exchange of economic interests.”

Haddad told VOA that he wouldn’t be surprised if the EU came up with strong measures in support of Lithuania. “Because I think there’s just this feeling that Lithuania should not be left on its own.”

Besides, doing so is consistent with the vision for Europe spelled out by French President Emmanuel Macron. France took over the six-month EU presidency Jan. 1. “If you talk about sovereignty, or if you talk about strategic autonomy, that means defending all of the EU members against external challenges and threats. Clearly we have China being aggressive against one of the smaller (EU) members.”

French and EU policymakers are no doubt mindful of “a broader shift in European mindsets about China,” Haddad said.

“Three years ago, the EU released a paper saying China is a trade partner, an economic competitor but also a systemic rival; I think now you see more and more of the systemic rival piece take precedence.”

The battle between Beijing and Vilnius has been closely watched around the world. Analysts in Poland recently wrote that China’s new, more aggressive tactics are also meant to intimidate other EU countries, mainly those in central Europe, “where the economic cooperation model with China is similar to Lithuania’s.”

That model involves only minor direct sales to China but significant indirect export through the supply chains of Western European companies. China is applying its punitive measures to products containing any Lithuanian-made content, in effect issuing what analysts describe as secondary sanctions that also harm businesses and industries from third countries, including other nations in the EU.

Lithuania’s direct exports to China constitute only 1% of its total exports, but its industry and manufacturing are closely linked with German and other multinational corporations that Beijing is pressuring to stop sourcing from Lithuania.

Given Germany’s status as an economic powerhouse in the EU, the reaction of the German businesses and government to China’s pressure is considered crucial.

Observers noticed that the Federation of German Industries, or BDI, supported the EU’s WTO filing, saying the union needs to take decisive measures.

New message from Berlin

Addressing an audience gathered at the Mercator Institute to discuss its China 2022 forecast, Tobias Lindner, a German deputy foreign minister, described the disagreements with China as touching “the core of European values and interests — not addressing this now will cost us dearly in the long run.”

“We will continue to seek cooperation between China and the EU and Germany,” Lindner said. “However, the partnership that we seek will be looked at strategically: Does it conform with our values? Is it in our interest?”

Lithuania’s top economic official said her government hasn’t ruled out a diplomatic solution, while also underscoring the EU’s role going forward. “If the EU talks in one voice, then there is always a solution,” Ausrine Armonaite told Politico.

“When it comes to a situation that Lithuania is in, today it’s Lithuania; day after tomorrow it may be any other European countries,” she said.

There are signs that mutual support and solidarity are taking root among EU nations as the bloc and member states individually face challenges from multiple directions.

“The fact that we’re a member of the European Union, it means we have to defend other member states of the EU should they feel they’re being coerced by third parties,” Anze Logar, Slovenian foreign minister, told VOA in an interview last month.

 

In September, Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa wrote a letter to fellow EU member states urging them to support Lithuania as the latter started to receive punitive blows from Beijing.

Asked whether Slovenia came under fire from Beijing because of the letter, Logar said it wouldn’t have mattered.

“It’s a matter of principle,” he said. “If you’re a member of a club, you have to defend your partners in this club, because we expect we’ll be defended when somebody from outside attacks us, that other member states will come to our own defense.”

Slovenia may need help from the EU club quite soon. Slovenian businesses reported their contracts were being canceled by China after Jansa described the tactics China deployed against Lithuania as “terrifying” and said his government is in talks with Taiwan to establish representative offices.

On Thursday, following the EU’s WTO filing announcement, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office announced that “the United States will request to join these @WTO consultations in solidarity with Lithuania and the European Union.”

 

The State Department announced Friday that Undersecretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Jose Fernandez will travel to Vilnius on Sunday, followed by a stop in Brussels.

Washington’s “continuing strong support for Lithuania in the face of political pressure and economic coercion from the People’s Republic of China” is on the agenda of discussions between Fernandez and his Lithuanian counterparts, the State Department said. Fernandez will also be discussing measures to counter economic coercion with EU officials in Brussels. 

 

 

 
…

your ad here

Relations have rarely been good between Albania and Serbia. But for Serbian footballers playing in the land of their erstwhile foes, the sport transcends the long-standing differences between the rivals.

“Football is a fabulous tool for learning to live together,” said Luka Milanovic, 29, who is one of 15 Serbian footballers playing professionally in Albania.

Ties between Albania and Serbia have long been beset by differences, especially their conflicting views over the status of Kosovo.

Following a bloody war in the late 1990s, Belgrade continues to view the territory as a renegade province and has never recognized its independence declaration made in 2008.

The mistrust between Kosovo — with its Albanian and Muslim majority — and Serbia — a largely Orthodox nation — is far from Milanovic’s thoughts on the pitch.

He has been given a “warm welcome” since arriving four months ago to play professionally in Albania for Kukes, a first division team hailing from a mountainous region bordering Kosovo.

The area once hosted more than 500,000 ethnic Albanians fleeing attacks by Serb forces during the war in Kosovo.

Now, the region is peaceful and home to Kosovar Albanians, Montenegrins and Croatians who also play football professionally for Kukes.

“I’m here for the love of football,” Luka told AFP.

For him, competing in Albania is a natural continuation of a career that has seen him play for Red Star and OFK Belgrade in Serbia along with stints in Belgium, Malaysia, Greece and Hungary.

‘The language of football’

“For the players and supporters, Luka is one of us,” said Erjon Allaraj, the club’s spokesman.

“We speak different languages, but we all know the language of football,” added Kukes’ captain Gjelberim Taip — an Albanian from the southern Serbian town of Bujanovac.

For the birth of Milanovic’s first child in December, the whole team joined him in celebrating.

His experience is far from the exception.

On the other side of the country not far from the shores of the Adriatic, Aleksandar Ignjatovic, 33, remembers the shock and concern from his friends when he told them he was moving to Albania to play with KF Lac.

“Now, when they look on Instagram at my life in Albania, many tell me they want to come visit me,” Ignjatovic tells AFP.

With an eye towards retirement, Ignjatovic says he hopes to draw on his experiences in Albania to develop a post-football career.

“I am thinking of opening a tourism agency that will allow me to work in Albania and Serbia. I now know all the beautiful places in Albania,” he says, with the hopes of cashing in on Serbia’s growing tourism industry.

Ignjatovic also prides himself in having many Albanian friends and scoffs at the ethnic prejudices that have long divided many communities in the region.

‘How it should be’

“Football allows us to strengthen our ties. Football and politics are two completely different worlds,” says Ignjatovic, who has been living in Tirana for three years with his wife Mila, his son Ignjat and his three-month-old daughter Iskra.

But for Vladimir Novakovic, a football analyst with the Serbian sports channel Sportklub, the willingness of Serbs to play in Albania may ultimately boil down to finding a job that pays.

And while sports has the ability to unite, it has also served as a powerful venue for nationalist sentiment over the years, especially in the Balkans where football ultras have embraced virulent xenophobia during matches.

In 2014, violence broke out during a qualifying match for the European Championships between Serbia and Albania after a drone flew over the pitch with a flag used by Albanian nationalists.

And during the World Cup in 2018, the Swiss pair Xherdan Shaqiri and Granit Xhaka — both of whom have Kosovo lineage — were fined by FIFA for celebrating their goals against Serbia by making a pro-Kosovan “double eagle” — a gesture which represents the Albanian flag.

The incident was widely panned in Serbia, where to date no Albanians are playing in the country’s professional football leagues.

For 82-year-old Borisav Stojacic, the absence of Albanians in Serbia is a more recent aberration, as he reminisced about the simpler times during “the Yugoslav era, when the presence of Albanian players… was nothing extraordinary”.

“That’s how it should be,” he tells AFP. “Emphasizing someone’s nationality is a problem that appeared only a few decades ago.” 
…

your ad here

Portuguese voters go to the polls Sunday, two years earlier than scheduled, after a political crisis over a blocked spending bill brought down the minority Socialist government and triggered a snap election.

The Socialist Party has been in power since 2015, with Portugal one of only a half-dozen European countries having a left-of-center government. It faces a strong challenge from the center-right Social Democratic Party, its traditional rival.

Some 10.8 million voters are eligible to choose 230 lawmakers in the Republican Assembly, Portugal’s parliament, where political parties then decide who forms a government.

Here’s a look at what’s happening:

Why have an early election? Parliament last November rejected the Socialist government’s spending plan for 2022.

In previous years, the Socialists had relied on the support of their left-of-center sympathizers in parliament — the Left Bloc and the Portuguese Communist Party — to ensure the state budget had enough votes to pass.

But this time their differences, especially over health spending and workers’ rights, were too hard to bridge, and Socialist Prime Minister António Costa was left short of votes to pass his party’s plan.

Portugal’s president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, said the 2022 budget is “crucial,” because it needs to relaunch the economy after the pandemic. He called a snap election so the Portuguese can decide what path the country should take.

What’s at stake? Portugal is poised to begin deploying some $50 billion of aid from the European Union to help fire up the economy post-pandemic.

Two-thirds of that sum is meant for public projects, such as major infrastructure, giving the next government a huge windfall to spend. The rest is to help selected private sector projects.

The 2022 state budget forecast GDP growth of 5.5% this year, one of the highest among countries that use the euro currency, with a jobless rate of around 6.5% — roughly the same as now.

The new government will be sworn in for a four-year term.

What are the choices? The Socialist Party is promising to increase the minimum monthly salary, earned by more than 800,000 people, to $1,021 by 2026. It is currently $800. Low wages are a common grievance among voters.

The Socialists also want to “start a national conversation” about cutting the working week to four days, from five.

The Social Democratic Party is promising income tax cuts and more help for private companies. Party leader Rui Rio wants to cut corporate tax from the current 21% to 17% by 2024.

Those two parties traditionally collect around 70% of the vote.

The Portuguese Communist Party and the Left Bloc are potential allies for the Socialists. The conservative Popular Party has in the past allied with the Social Democratic Party.

Several other smaller parties are presenting candidates nationwide and could become kingmakers by supporting a minority government.

They range from the populist Chega! (Enough!), which opposes large-scale immigration and demands more support for the police, to the People-Animals-Nature party which wants tougher animal welfare protection and tighter environmental controls.

Who’s favored to win? Opinion polls suggest a close race between the Socialists and Social Democrats. That likely means the ballot will produce another vulnerable minority government and a rocky period of horse-trading for parliamentary votes before a budget can be passed.

The Socialists, smarting from the collapse of their outgoing government, say they no longer trust their allies on the left.

The Social Democrats, meanwhile, may have to address a surge in support for the Chega! populists, whose policies they find distasteful.

Has the pandemic affected the ballot? More than a million eligible voters could be in home confinement on election day, authorities say, and officials have struggled to reconcile the constitutional right to vote with their duty to protect public health.

The highly contagious omicron variant has brought record daily infections of over 50,000 recently, compared with fewer than 1,000 in November. Portugal’s high vaccination rate of 89% of the population has largely safeguarded the health system, officials say.

The main parties shunned their traditional flag-waving campaign rallies to avoid large gatherings. Party leaders attended 36 live television debates in the first half of January — many more than usual.

Thousands of poll workers got a booster shot ahead of the ballot.

Early voting possibilities were extended, and infected people are exceptionally allowed to leave isolation to vote, with the government recommending they cast their ballot in the slower evening period.
…

your ad here

Many in Taiwan do not see parallels between Russia’s threats against Ukraine and their situation with China. Instead, much of the concern in Taiwan has focused on whether their closest ally, the United States, would become distracted by Europe or act in bad faith toward Ukraine — hinting at how Taiwan might be treated one day.

“I think people in Taiwan, or people that I am closest to, they haven’t expressed any concerns regarding the issues of a Russian possible invasion in Ukraine. They have mentioned briefly saying that the crisis in Europe is worsening, but they’ve kept it quite vague,” said Daniel Ha, who helps manage a co-working space in Taipei.

“I think people are always concerned about [whether] China could use this opportunity to flex its muscles again or move forward with their plans of unifying Taiwan,” he said. “I personally am concerned that it would be a big distraction if the West began a full-blown invasion trying to protect Ukraine. Taiwan could easily be sidelined.”

Syrena Lin, who works at a headhunting firm in Taipei, told VOA that while she was following the conflict in Ukraine, she had also not found much discussion of it in her daily life.

“I don’t think Taiwanese people are really treating this as a big deal, especially as I have a lot of friends in politics and I don’t really see any discussion among them,” Lin said.

“I am interested in this issue, and I care about how it’s going because the U.S. and China are both involved in it,” she added. “I think China is watching how the U.S. is reacting to military offensives and maybe China will take it as an example to how the U.S. would react when China really [attacks] Taiwan one day.”

Taiwan’s government has expressed similar sympathetic but measured views about Ukraine. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Joanne Ou said in a statement that Taiwan was “concerned about the current situation of Russia-Ukraine relations” and called for dialogue as soon as possible.

One reason for the relative distance may be that many Taiwanese — including young professionals like Ha — see more distance between themselves and China than between Russia and Ukraine, who were united for much of modern history by the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union.

 

“Communist China has never ruled Taiwan officially or ever,” Ha told VOA, adding that the last time Beijing direct controlled Taiwan was in the 19th century.

“It was Qing dynasty that predated the Japanese colonial period so if you’re talking about historical facts, the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t have a right to claim Taiwan,” he said.

Ha said some Taiwanese may disagree with his view, particularly those who are descended from Chinese emigres to Taiwan in the 1950s after the end of the Chinese revolution, but their numbers are also waning with demographic shifts and the rise in Taiwanese nationalism among young people.

His feeling were shared by other Taiwanese, such as Kuan-ting Chen, CEO of the think tank Taiwan NextGen Foundation, who also found Ukraine and Taiwan to be a “false comparison” because of vastly different historic and logistical factors.

Chen said there are few geographic obstacles for Russia to invade Ukraine, but Taiwan has notoriously difficult geographical defenses like the 130-kilometer Taiwan Strait that would be a “nightmare” for China — at least for the next few years until the People’s Liberation Army completes a major modernization program.

China and Taiwan have had three close calls in the past that could have led to military conflict, although the last time China came close to landing on Taiwanese soil was in the 1950s. The most recent conflict was in 1996 when China fired missiles in the direction of Taiwan, but since then it has focused primarily on “grey zone” tactics such as flying military planes in the direction of Taiwan to erode morale.

 

For those who are closely watching the conflict in Ukraine, most of their focus has instead been on how the U.S. will respond, said Kwei-Bo Huang, an associate professor in diplomacy at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in September raised uncomfortable questions in Taiwan about whether Washington might abandon another long-time ally, and the Ukraine conflict could resurrect many of these concerns.

“I can sense that in Taiwan, those having some knowledge of the Ukraine-Russia case are waiting to see whether the U.S. will fulfil its commitment to Ukraine and make more direct and strong responses to Russia’s threat of use of force. If the U.S. doesn’t do so, then the U.S. commitment to Taiwan in accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act will be doubted (again) by many in Taiwan,” he said by email, citing a major piece of U.S. legislation.

In the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act the U.S. has pledged to help Taiwan to defend itself against an attack but that does not guarantee that it will provide military assistance.

Many Taiwanese are also aware that while the U.S. and Taiwan have recently grown closer under the presidencies of Donald Trump and now Joe Biden, U.S. interest in the East Asian democracy has fluctuated over the decades. 

 
…

your ad here

The most senior U.S. military officer warns Russia will end up blazing a path of death and devastation, for all sides, should it decide to resolve its differences with Ukraine by using military force. 

U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley issued the blunt admonishment Friday during a rare news conference at the Pentagon with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, where both men insisted tragedy could be avoided if Moscow was willing to pull back from the brink. 

“Given the type of forces that are arrayed, the ground maneuver forces, the artillery, the ballistic missiles, the air forces, all of it packaged together, if that was unleashed on Ukraine, it would be significant, very significant,” Milley told reporters. 

“It would result in a significant amount of casualties. And you can imagine what that might look like in dense urban areas,” he said. “It would be horrific. It would be terrible. And it’s not necessary.” 

The U.S. warning Friday comes as the standoff between Russia and Ukraine appears to have reached a tipping point. 

Putin’s call with Macron 

Senior U.S. defense officials cautioned that Russia had amassed sufficient firepower to launch a full-scale invasion at any time, while Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted in a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron that the West had failed to adequately address Moscow’s security concerns. 

Putin, according to the Kremlin, told Macron that the most recent Western diplomatic responses did not consider Russia’s concerns about NATO expansion such as stopping the deployment of alliance weapons near Russia’s border and rolling back its forces from Eastern Europe.  

Separately, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Russian radio stations Friday that Russia did not want war with Ukraine but that it would protect its interests against the West if necessary.   

“If it depends on Russia, then there will be no war. We don’t want wars,” Lavrov said. “But we also won’t allow our interests to be rudely trampled, to be ignored.”   

Escalating tensions and rhetoric 

But the U.S. defense secretary pushed back, telling Pentagon reporters Friday that no one has done anything to lead Russia to encircle Ukraine with more than 100,000 troops. 

“There was no provocation that caused them to move those forces,” Austin said Friday at the Pentagon, calling out Moscow for a new wave of disinformation campaigns.

“Indeed, we’re seeing Russian state media spouting off now about alleged activities in eastern Ukraine,” he said. “This is straight out of the Russian playbook. And they’re not fooling us.” 

Austin also painted Moscow’s saber-rattling as counterproductive. 

“A move on Ukraine will accomplish the very thing Russia says it does not want — a NATO alliance strengthened and resolved on its western flank,” he said. 

But with no sign of give from any side — U.S. and NATO officials have repeatedly rejected Russia’s demands — there are growing concerns that fear or hysteria could spread, making an already fragile situation more perilous. 

“We don’t need this panic,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told a news conference in Kyiv on Friday, accusing U.S. leaders of talking up the possibility of conflict.

“Are tanks driving here on our streets? No. But it feels like this (reading the media),” he said. “In my opinion, this is a mistake. Because those are signals of how the world reacts.”

Despite the disagreement over rhetoric, U.S. and European officials said they continue to hold out hope that diplomacy can prevail. 

One senior U.S. administration official, talking to reporters on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss developments, said remarks like those Friday by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov are a positive sign. 

“We welcome the message,” the official said. “We need to see it backed up by swift action.” 

The official added that Monday’s United Nations Security Council meeting on Ukraine will be “an opportunity for Russia to explain what it is doing, and we’ve come prepared to listen.” 

Ramping up military preparations 

    

While Russia and the U.S. and its allies have spent much of the past week trading demands, both sides have also ramped up military preparations.

Russia has launched military drills involving motorized infantry and artillery units in southwestern Russia, warplanes in Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea, dozens of warships in the Black Sea and the Arctic, and Russian fighter jets and paratroopers in Belarus.   

Ukraine’s military held artillery and anti-aircraft drills in the country’s southern Kherson region Friday near the border with Russian-annexed Crimea.

And the U.S., which has been providing Kyiv with anti-tank missiles, grenade launchers, artillery and ammunition, said another shipment arrived Friday to help bolster Ukrainian defenses. 

Also Friday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the military alliance has already bolstered its troop presence in Eastern Europe and continues to watch Russia’s military movements, including the positioning of aircraft and S-400 anti-aircraft systems in Belarus, closely. 

“The aim now is to try to reduce tensions,” Stoltenberg said, speaking online from Brussels at a Washington think-tank event. 

“We urge Russia, we call on Russia to engage in talks,” he said, adding that opting for the use of force will not work out well for Moscow.

“When it comes to Ukraine, I am absolutely certain that Russia understands they will have to pay a high price (for invading),” Stoltenberg said. “I am certain President Putin and Russia takes NATO very serious when it comes to our ability to protect and defend all allies.” 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.  
…

your ad here

Editor’s note: Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this past week, as seen from the United Nations perch. 

UN chief: We cannot abandon the Afghan people 

The U.N. secretary-general warned on Wednesday that Afghanistan is “hanging by a thread,” as the organization appealed for a total of $8 billion to scale up humanitarian assistance to more than 22 million Afghans this year. 

UN Chief: Afghanistan ‘Hanging by a Thread’ 

Norway hosts talks between Taliban and Afghan civil society

Norway hosted three days of talks in Oslo between a Taliban delegation and members of Afghan civil society. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said at the U.N. this week that the meeting did not confer recognition or legitimacy on the Taliban but was “a first step” in dealing with the de facto Afghan authorities to prevent a humanitarian disaster in that country. 

Norway Defends Hosting Talks with Afghan Taliban 

Military coup in Burkina Faso

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern about the January 23 military coup in the West African nation of Burkina Faso that deposed President Roch Marc Christian Kabore and his government. Guterres said the role of militaries must be to defend their countries and people, not attack their governments and fight for power. 

The secretary-general’s special representative for West Africa and the Sahel, Mahamat Saleh Annadif, will travel to Burkina Faso this weekend on a good offices mission. 

West African Nations See String of Coups 

In brief

A U.N. team of experts arrived in Lima, Peru, on January 24 to assess the social and environmental impacts of an oil spill linked to the underwater volcanic eruption that triggered a tsunami in the Pacific island nation of Tonga. The team is specialized in contamination assessment and will advise authorities on how to manage and coordinate their response. 

Some good news

World Health Organization chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a meeting of the agency’s executive board on January 24 that if countries change the conditions driving the spread of coronavirus infections, it is possible to end the acute phase of the global pandemic this year. That includes vaccinating 70% of their populations, monitoring the emergence of new variants and boosting testing. 

A small but important glimmer of hope in Libya: the U.N. political chief told the Security Council on January 24 that the overall humanitarian situation improved in 2021. Rosemary DiCarlo said the U.N. recorded a 36% decrease in the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance, from 1.3 million at the start of 2021 to 803,000 by the end of the year. Additionally, about 100,000 of the more than quarter million displaced Libyans returned home last year. 

Quote of note

“Were we to observe a minute of silence for each victim, that silence would last more than eleven years.” 

— U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, addressing a virtual U.N. memorial ceremony marking the International Day for Holocaust remembrance on January 27. 

What we are watching next week

On January 31, the U.N. Security Council will hold an open meeting to discuss tensions between Russia and Ukraine. The meeting was requested by the United States, and Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters, “This is just one more step in our diplomatic approach to bring the Russians to de-escalate and look for an opportunity to move forward.” The meeting will take place one day before Russia assumes the rotating presidency of the 15-nation council for the month of February. 

 

Did you know? 

The ancient Greek tradition of an Olympic truce goes into effect on January 28. It starts seven days before this year’s Winter Olympics open in Beijing and continues for a week after the close of the Paralympic Games. The U.N. General Assembly endorsed the truce during a meeting on January 20. The U.N. secretary-general is headed to Beijing for the opening ceremony on February 4. 

 
…

your ad here

Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine has expanded to include supplies of blood along with other medical materials that would allow it to treat casualties, in yet another key indicator of Moscow’s military readiness, three U.S. officials tell Reuters.

Current and former U.S. officials say concrete indicators — like blood supplies — are critical in determining whether Moscow would be prepared to carry out an invasion, if Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to do so.

The disclosure of the blood supplies by U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, adds another piece of context to growing U.S. warnings that Russia could be preparing for a new invasion of Ukraine as it masses more than 100,000 troops near its borders.

These warnings have included President Joe Biden’s prediction that a Russian assault was likely and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s remarks that Russia could launch a new attack on Ukraine at “very short notice.”

The Pentagon has previously acknowledged the deployment of “medical support” as part of Russia’s buildup. But the disclosure of blood supplies adds a level of detail that experts say is critical to determining Russian military readiness.

“It doesn’t guarantee that there’s going to be another attack, but you would not execute another attack unless you have that in hand,” said Ben Hodges, a retired U.S. lieutenant general now with the Center for European Policy Analysis research institute.

The Russian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a written request for comment.

A White House spokesperson did not immediately comment on any Russian movement of blood supplies but noted repeated public U.S. warnings about Russian military readiness.

The Pentagon declined to discuss intelligence assessments. The three U.S. officials who spoke about the blood supplies declined to say specifically when the United States detected their movement to formations near Ukraine. However, two of them said it was within recent weeks.

Russian officials have repeatedly denied planning to invade. But Moscow says it feels menaced by Kyiv’s growing ties with the West.

Eight years ago, Russia seized Crimea and backed separatist forces who took control of large parts of eastern Ukraine.

Russia’s security demands, presented in December, include an end to further NATO enlargement, barring Ukraine from ever joining and pulling back the alliance’s forces and weaponry from eastern European countries that joined after the Cold War.

Putin said Friday the United States and NATO had not addressed Russia’s main security demands in their standoff over Ukraine, but that Moscow was ready to keep talking.

Biden has said he will not send U.S. or allied troops to fight Russia in Ukraine but told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a phone call Thursday that Washington and its allies stand ready to respond decisively if Russia invades the former Soviet state, the White House said.

The United States and its allies have said Russia will face tough economic sanctions if it attacks Ukraine.

Western countries already have imposed repeated rounds of economic sanctions since Russian troops seized and annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014.

But such moves have had scant impact on Russian policy, with Moscow, Europe’s main energy supplier, calculating that the West would stop short of steps serious enough to interfere with gas exports.
…

your ad here

Germany’s health minister said Friday the omicron variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is “well under control” in the nation, even though he said he expects the number of daily cases to double to nearly 400,000 cases before it begins to drop. 

Speaking at a news conference Friday in Berlin, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach explained that while the wave of infections itself cannot be controlled, the consequences can be minimized by taking the proper steps.

He said he expects daily cases to double to nearly 400,000 cases by mid-February, but he then expects them to drop, probably by the end of next month.

Cases are currently rising, with the country’s Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases, or RKI, reporting 190,148 new cases as of Friday. Speaking at the same news briefing, RKI President Lothar Wieler said about 890,000 new cases were reported – nearly “1 percent of the entire population in just one week.” 

The RKI reports the infection rate per 100,000 people, as of Friday, was 1,073. 

Lauterbach says the government’s goal is to get through the wave with as few elderly people falling ill and as few deaths as possible, and he says so far, they are succeeding.

The health minister sought to dissuade people of the notion that just because the omicron variant is believed to be less severe, that vaccinations were not needed, saying that is wrong and not helpful. He encouraged everyone to get vaccinated and all those eligible to get booster shots. 

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press and Reuters.

 
…

your ad here