TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
23 March 2014 Last updated at 14:48 ET
Nato warns of Russian army build-up on Ukraine border
Nato's military commander in Europe has issued a warning about the build-up of Russian forces on Ukraine's border.
Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen Philip Breedlove said Nato was in particular concerned about the threat to Moldova's Trans-Dniester region.
Russia said its forces east of Ukraine complied with international agreements.
The build-up has been allied with Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, following the removal of Ukraine's pro-Moscow president.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia warned that the risk of war with Russia was growing.
"The problem is with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is that he doesn't want to talk to - not only to the Ukrainian government - but also to the Western leaders," Mr Deshchytsia told the BBC.
"And this is quite a danger for the decision-making process. We could only expect that he might invade."
Meanwhile, US Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken said Washington was reviewing every request Ukraine was making for help.
"When it comes to military assistance, we're looking at it," he told CNN.
But he added: "The facts are these: even if assistance were to go to Ukraine, that is very unlikely to change Russia's calculus or prevent any invasion."
President Barack Obama earlier ruled out sending US troops to Ukraine.
Moscow formally annexed Crimea after the predominantly ethnic-Russian region held a referendum which backed joining Russia.
Kiev and the West have condemned the vote as "illegal".
Russian flags have now been hoisted at 189 Ukrainian military units and facilities in Crimea, the Interfax news agency reports.
Moscow's ambassador to the EU told the BBC the "reunification" had not been pre-planned but was the end of an "abnormality" which had lasted for 60 years.
Vladimir Chizhov also said said Moscow did not have any "expansionist views" and that "nobody should fear Russia".
But he warned the US against sending troops or military aid to Ukraine, saying it would be a "grave mistake".
Also on Sunday, Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council chief Andriy Parubiy told a big rally in Kiev: "The aim of [President Vladimir] Putin is not Crimea, but all of Ukraine... His troops massed at the border are ready to attack at any moment."
'Adversary'
The comments by Gen Breedlove came at an event held by the German Marshall Fund think-tank in Brussels.
He said: "The [Russian] force that is at the Ukrainian border now to the east is very, very sizeable and very, very ready."
He added: "There is absolutely sufficient force postured on the eastern border of Ukraine to run to Trans-Dniester if the decision was made to do that and that is very worrisome.
"Russia is acting much more like an adversary than a partner."
Trans-Dniester is a narrow strip of land between the Dniester river and Ukraine's south-western border and it proclaimed independence from Moldova in 1990.
The international community has not recognised its self-declared statehood.
As Crimea was annexed, the Trans-Dniester Supreme Soviet sent a request asking to join the Russian Federation.
Meanwhile, Russia's Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov told the Itar-Tass agency: "The Russian Defence Ministry is in compliance with all international agreements limiting the number of troops in the border areas with Ukraine."
Bases stormed
Correspondents say Russian forces appear to be stepping up their efforts to secure full military control of all of Crimea.
The BBC's Ian Pannell, in Belbek, says the few remaining Ukrainian troops on the peninsula feel beleaguered and abandoned by their commanders.
He saw Russian troops use stun grenades and automatic weapons in a raid on the Belbek airbase, near Sevastopol, on Saturday.
The BBC's Mark Lowen also witnessed the takeover of the Novofedorivka base in western Crimea by Russian troops.
Russian soldiers and pro-Russian protesters stormed the base and forced Ukrainian troops to leave.
Russia annexed Crimea following a referendum on 16 March, which came after the overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February.
The Kremlin said it had acted to protect its "compatriots" in Crimea from "fascists" moving in from the mainland Ukraine.
The US and EU have responded with a series of sanctions targeting those individuals - including senior officials - involved in Crimea's annexation.
Ukraine says top commander held after base stormed
Mar. 23, 2014 - 12:26PM |
By Jim Heintz
The Associated Press
Obama aide: 'Possible' Russia could enter Ukraine
KIEV, UKRAINE — A Ukrainian air force commander is being held after his base in Crimea was stormed by pro-Russian forces, and the acting president called for his release Sunday.
Col. Yuliy Mamchur is the commander of the Belbek Air Force base near Sevastopol, which was taken over Saturday by forces who sent armored personnel carriers smashing through the base’s walls and fired shots and stun grenades. One Ukrainian serviceman was reported wounded in the clash. It was unclear if the forces, who didn’t bear insignia, were Russian military or local pro-Russia militia.
President Oleksandr Turchynov, in a statement, said Mamchur was “abducted” by the forces. He didn’t specify where Mamchur is believed to be held.
However, prominent politician Vitali Klitschko said Sunday that Mamchur is being held by the Russian military in a jail in Sevastopol, the Crimean city that is the base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
Klitschko was one of the leaders of the three months of protests in Ukraine that culminated in late February with President Viktor Yanukovych fleeing the country and interim authorities taking power before a May 25 presidential election. The protests were triggered by Yanukovych’s decision to reject a deal for closer ties with the European Union and turn to Moscow instead.
Yanukovych’s ouster was denounced by Russia and much of Ukraine’s ethnic Russian population as a coup. Soon thereafter, Russian forces took control of Crimea and the region held a referendum to break off from Ukraine and join Russia.
Russia formally annexed Crimea last week, a move that Western countries say is illegitimate. The U.S. and the EU have imposed sanctions on Russia in the dispute, but Moscow appears unmoved.
On Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry said the Russian flag was now flying over 189 military facilities in Crimea. It didn’t specify whether any Ukrainian military operations there remained under Ukrainian control.
In Donetsk, one of the major cities in eastern Ukraine, about 5,000 people demonstrated in favor of holding a referendum on secession and absorption into Russia similar to Crimea’s.
Eastern Ukraine is the country’s industrial heartland and was Yanukovych’s support base. Donetsk authorities on Friday formed a working group to hold a referendum, but no date for it has been set.
Russia has deployed thousands of troops in its regions near the Ukrainian border and concerns are high that it could use unrest in the east as a pretext for crossing the border.
Yuras Karmanau in Donetsk contributed to this report.
Ukraine crisis prompts security rethink in Europe
Mar. 21, 2014 - 06:00AM |
By Karl Ritter
The Associated Press
Putin formally gets Crimea; Ukraine, EU sign deal
STOCKHOLM — After the Cold War, Sweden refocused its national security strategy to give more weight to deployments in faraway conflict zones and even non-military challenges like climate change. Critics who dwelled on a Russian threat were dismissed as dinosaurs.
They are now having an “I-told-you-so” moment.
“An obvious misjudgment,” said former Swedish defense minister Mikael Odenberg, who resigned in 2007 to protest military spending cuts.
Russia’s readiness to use military force in Ukraine has been a wake-up call for many European countries, which since the Iron Curtain crumbled have slashed defense spending. Some shifted their priorities toward international missions in Afghanistan and elsewhere rather than deterring potential aggression from the East. Now, a serious recalibration is underway, particularly in countries with memories of Soviet tanks rumbling across their borders.
“If we don’t do something quickly about it, some of our capabilities will be degraded to such an extent that they cease to exist,” Czech armed forces chief Petr Pavel warned last week at a conference marking the 15th anniversary of his country’s entry into NATO.
Only a handful of NATO’s European members meet the alliance’s goal of spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. Meanwhile, Moscow spends more than 4 percent of GDP on its military.
Strained by the financial crisis, European defense budgets dropped even as Russia resumed muscle-flexing exercises and patrols near European borders, including the resumption of long-range strategic bomber flights in 2007. Although Russia’s brief war with Georgia in 2008 was a warning, Russia’s buildup was widely seen as just modernizing military forces that had fallen into disrepair.
“I think a lot of people did underestimate the willingness of Russia to actually use them,” said Samuel Perlo-Freeman, a global military spending analyst at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
He said it’s very likely that Moscow’s assertiveness in the Ukraine crisis will prompt an increase in military budgets in countries near or bordering Russia in central Europe and around the Baltic Sea.
There are signs of that already. The Czech defense minister recently called for raising military spending to 1.5 percent of GDP, although there’s no concrete budget proposal yet. Such outlays are down to 1.1 percent after a series of cuts that military officials say have eroded the country’s military readiness.
Lithuania spends less than 1 percent of its output on the military but plans to ramp that up now, although “it is unrealistic that Lithuania will reach (NATO’s) 2 percent objective in the short run,” Finance Minister Rimantas Sadzius said this month.
Officials in Lithuania and Baltic neighbors Estonia and Latvia have called on NATO to move more resources there including ground troops and missile defenses. The U.S.-led alliance has boosted its air patrols over the Baltic countries and France offered Friday to add four more fighter jets.
The three former Soviet republics have a history of quarrels with Moscow over the situation of Russian-speaking minorities in their countries. Russian President Vladimir Putin cited protecting Russians as the reason for seizing Crimea from Ukraine, and for fighting Georgia in 2008.
However, the Ukraine crisis has not produced any talk in Obama’s administration of altering the downward direction of U.S. defense budgets — still by far the biggest in the world — or of putting additional U.S. military resources in Europe. In February, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said while at NATO headquarters that the U.S. is shrinking the size of its military without compromising its capabilities. He said European allies need to take the same approach.
Overall, Europe’s defense spending is likely to remain constrained by broader fiscal pressures, said Giri Rajendran of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
Western Europe’s two largest military spenders, Britain and France, are unlikely to depart from existing budget trajectories, while in Southern Europe, “fiscal austerity has already seen some of the largest percentage reductions in defense outlays in Europe,” Rajendran wrote in an email.
Italian Premier Matteo Renzi wants to cut 3 billion euros ($4.1 billion) from the defense budget, by rolling back on commitments to buy jets, selling disused barracks and restructuring the military, among other things.
In contrast, countries in central and northern Europe “are likely to consider additional budgetary allocations in light of now-heightened threat perceptions,” Rajendran added.
In Sweden — which is not a NATO member and therefore has no guarantees that anyone will come to its aid in a conflict — the Ukraine crisis has triggered nervous discussions about the state of the country’s armed forces.
At the height of the Cold War, neutral Sweden had some 400 fighter jets — four times more than today — and an ability to mobilize nearly 1 million troops. Now there are less than 20,000 personnel in active service.
After the Soviet collapse, Sweden’s emphasis shifted toward nimbler, specialized units designed to join international coalitions in peacekeeping operations overseas. The defense budget was slashed by both left and right-leaning governments and military bases were closed across the country. The last nail in the coffin for a military doctrine based on territorial defense came in 2010, when Sweden abolished mandatory conscription.
Two years later Sweden’s supreme commander made the startling assessment that the armed forces could defend the country’s borders for no more than a week.
Perhaps even that was too optimistic.
Last Easter, when Russian warplanes exercising over the Baltic Sea unexpectedly turned toward Swedish air space and appeared to simulate attacks on targets in Stockholm, the Swedish Air Force didn’t scramble any jets because none were on standby.
Even so, the prime minister said there was no risk of a real attack from Russia and some analysts dismissed calls for re-armament as fits of “Russophobia.”
Now, both the left-leaning opposition and the center-right government suddenly agree that Sweden’s military readiness is inadequate, with Finance Minister Anders Borg this week calling for “a substantial scaling-up” of capabilities.
The problem is, analysts say, that rebuilding a robust territorial defense would take up to 10 years.
Neighboring Finland has maintained a more “realistic” outlook toward Russia, with which it shares a 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) border, said Charly Salonius-Pasternak, a researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
Finland has kept a strong line of defense toward the east, and maintained annual conscription of about 25,000 soldiers in addition to 14,500 permanent defense personnel.
“In the post-Cold War euphoria that gripped Europe,” he said, “the Finnish military, the political establishment and the population that supports it did not dramatically change its view of what is the potential existential threat to Finland: Russia.”
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Associated Press reporters David Mac Dougall and Matti Huuhtanen in Helsinki, Karel Janicek in Prague, Robert Burns in Washington, Colleen Barry in Milan, Jari Tanner in Tallinn, Estonia and Liudas Dapkus in Vilnius, Lithuania, contributed to his report.
Vladimir Putin is the three times "Democratically Elected" President of the Russian Federation, That does not mean that one has to agree with his policies or that he actually leads a democratic government, He has gone out of his way to ensure that only those who agree with his policy and political line are placed to the fore front. His mindset was forged in his history. He was once and always will be KGB to his black soul. His actions on the Crimea are not the first evidence of that. Pussy Riot, the Georgian campaign, the Suspicious deaths of members of the Russian Press and former FSB members who actually took the time to investigate corruption. I remember when I was A child I read a story written by a Russian Voter who took part in the election of The President of USSR, There was only one choice on the ballet. any other choice was write in... One had to get a pencil from election officers, and when he got the pencil it was broken so he had to sharpen it, the the election officials were very cross when he left the pencil in the booth.
Need I remind you that Saddam Hussein received a 99% "Election" just before the second gulf.
So Piodr when I hear the term "Democratically Elected", I am reminded of the old Joke from here in the USA. The joke goes that a Connecticut Woman and life long Democrat placed in her will that she was to be buried in Chicago, Illinois. When her lawyer asked why she wanted to be buried in a place she had never lived or been to, She Said "She had served the Democratic party all her life, and she wanted to continue to do so well after she was gone..."
"Vote Early, Vote Often... "
Al "Scar face" Capone
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