Satellite images taken over the past two days show new road construction and a tactical bridge being built across a key river in Belarus less than four miles from the Ukrainian border
CNN: Satellite images taken over the past two days show new road construction and a tactical bridge being built across a key river in Belarus less than four miles from the Ukrainian border pic.twitter.com/aN5uDhSkym
— gandalf greybeard (@gerrydogma) February 16, 2022
This is close to where my in-laws live!
Escalation! Russian proxies launch 49 attacks on 🇺🇦positions in Donetsk, Luhansk&Mariupol sectors
2 🇺🇦 soldiers wounded, 1 seriously; 2 civilians injured
As of 19:30 Feb 16, OSCE SMM recorded 189 violations in Donetsk Obl; 402 in Luhansk Obl
Past 24 hours in the war zone
Escalation! Russian proxies launch 49 attacks on 🇺🇦positions in Donetsk, Luhansk&Mariupol sectors
2 🇺🇦 soldiers wounded, 1 seriously; 2 civilians injured
As of 19:30 Feb 16, OSCE SMM recorded 189 violations in Donetsk Obl; 402 in Luhansk Obl pic.twitter.com/hfYaSLKetk
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) February 18, 2022
https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1494449798216359936
62% of Ukrainians wish their country to be a NATO member, 30% are against. 68% are for the EU membership, 24% are against. This is all-time high support for both NATO and EU in Ukraine. Stop spreading Russian propaganda about “divided nation”. A 2/3 majority is not a division.
Ukraine officially asked the Biden admin last spring to be transferred Iron Dome missiles to Ukraine – something that Democratic and Republican lawmakers supporters. But Israel vetoed the transfer, fearing that it would damage its relationship with Russia.
Fredrik Löjdquist – Director of the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies (SCEEUS) at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs Previously Sweden’s Ambassador to the OSCE & for Hybrid Threats. Here also in private capacity.
https://twitter.com/FLojdquist/status/1493721841763975174
1.A thread on where we are in the Russia crisis. We don’t know what will happen next. Either it will be a Russian military escalation against Ukraine in the next weeks, or not. There are rational arguments for either way from a Russian POV.
2. Clear risk that absence of escalation will be misinterpreted as de-escalation, it is not. Russia’s long-term strategic goals remain the same: a) political control over Ukraine & establishing a zone of influence around it, with less than fully sovereign countries
3. b) shift in military balance in Europe, i e weakened USA & NATO and strengthened Russia, leaving Eastern parts of Europe indefensible c) new security order in Europe, away from Helsinki & Paris twrds an order where military might, not right, sets the parameters & has final say
4. d) regime security, i e no more talk abt democracy and human rights. – All in all a more permanent tectonic shift to Russia’s advantage in the European security system. These are long-term, strategic goals, they are antagonistic to the existing European security order.
5. The means to achieve these goals, military & hybrid threats and blackmail, are also antagonistic. Kremlin’s ambitions & goals will not change or go away. This is not a problem that can be solved, but must be managed. It requires a long-term, structured approach.
6. Kremlin has the initiative & has set the agenda, West has reacted on a playing field defined by Russia. Putin has already achieved much: a) West willing to discuss military posture in Europe (scope of exercises, arms control etc) b) no more talk about democracy & human rights
7. c) nor any more talk abt Crimea, Georgia & Moldova d) renewed pressure on Kyiv to make concessions on its sovereignty e) “respect” for Russia’s great power status & full attention of world leaders, many of them travelling to Moscow
8. e) part of the Western commentariat trying to see the Russian angle, looking for compromises at the arithmetic mean, prepared to compromise the basic principles of int’l law & OSCE principles in the name of “realism” & political expediency.
9. All of this is a slippery slope, undermining the European security order and amounts to the “moral hazard” of security policy. Trying to find short term fixes & compromises undermines long term security.
10. Minsk agreements implementation is a minefield, which could mean a number of violations of principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity & right to choose own security arrangements. Important to remember that UN Charter art 51, right to self-defense, is key to security.
11. Forcing Kyiv to make concessions on its sovereignty, territorial integrity and self-determination will not solve problems, it will create more problems, also for other countries. Ukraine is not a suitable pawn sacrifice.
12. Sometimes constructive ambiguity is a useful and necessary diplomatic tool. However, there is also destructive ambiguity.
13. Ultimately, what’s at stake is whether using military violence to achieve political goals is something that should be condoned in today’s Europe or not. This has far-reaching consequences far beyond Ukraine.
14. Again, this is not a Ukraine crisis, it’s a Russia crisis, part of which that concerns Ukraine, but not only. The responsibility & solution lay in Moscow, not in Kyiv, nor in Brussels or Washington.
15. No war in the next weeks will not mean that the problem has gone away. Absence of escalation should not be mistaken for de-escalation. Short-term sighs of relief are not an adequate way to manage a long-term, structural problem.
16. Putin has clearly shown that status quo (which in itself was problematic) is no longer an option. Patience is a Russian virtue. It should be Western one as well.
17. We must make sure that our pain threshold isn’t numbed, that we don’t get used to & accept “new facts on the ground” & constantly moving baselines. The criteria to judge & measure what’s going on are int’l law & underlying principles/commitments of the European security order
18. These are rules & norms that everyone has signed up to. They are not flexible and for open for creative interpretations. Accountability is key for upholding any rules-based order. Violations must come at a cost.
19. Finally, a new European (dis-)order is more likely to be established by default, de facto, by tacitly, silently & implicitly accepting a series of violations of the key principles (as “necessary compromises”) than being put on paper “de jure”.
I also have posts in the history of this blog about the atrocities committed about pro-Ukraine demonstrators in Donetsk and Kharkiv.
Hard to know what to think of such a precise prediction for . . . 4 hours from now.
Kremlin chiefs will order an attack on Ukraine at 3am local time tomorrow, American intelligence agencies believe.
They could target Kyiv’s military and government command and control centres with a barrage of air strikes before tanks roll over the border.
At the same time Russian amphibious warships could storm Ukraine’s southern coastline. It comes as Foreign Secretary Liz Truss warned a Russian invasion ‘would not stop at Ukraine’.
Europe could be just a few hours from all-out war in Ukraine, despite last ditch diplomatic moves and a possible standing down of some Moscow troops.
The ominous news arrives hours after Russia pulled back forces from the Ukraine border.
Senior sources said a Moscow attack would be “almost certainly from multiple points” over Ukraine’s southern, eastern and northern flanks.
The Mirror’s senior American source warned our team in Kyiv with a simple one line message saying: “3am Wednesday.”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/breaking-russian-invasion-ukraine-set-26232612
My wife and I got away for a dinner out together at Pravda Beer Theater
This wonderful history cites the author Shane O’Rourke, who wrote “The Cossacks”.
I briefly reviewed his book here.
Aircraft traveling through Ukrainian airspace will no longer be insured by international insurance companies from Feb. 14, forcing flights to be grounded or canceled, according to Ukrainian publication Ukrainska Pravda.
The outlet quoted information from unnamed sources in the aviation industry.
Anatoliy Ivantsiv, head of Ukrainian insurance firm Expo, told Interfax that British reinsurance giant Lloyds announced it would temporaroly cease all conflict risk insurance over Ukrainian airspace from Feb. 14.
Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry announced on Feb. 13 that it would provide “additional financial guarantees” to carriers to ensure the continuation of international routes.
This happened 10 February, 2022, driving near Malyn, Ukraine after a blockchain meetup in Kyiv.
It’s about 30 miles (48 km) from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, where wildlife is flourishing.
When the moose stood up again and another truck was approaching from the other direction, I, and the driver from the other vehicle which stopped both scrambled into the ditch, thinking the moose would be hit in our direction, and possibly have an out-of-control truck behind it.
I hear from a friend, that their readiness, morale, and quality of training is sky high. I’m glad.
The plan to have a 2-million-strong Territorial Defense Force reserve in 🇺🇦Ukraine feels extremely ambitious, dare I say.
It’s like 5% of the country’s population now.
But I must say many people are very interested in joining — yours truly included.— Illia Ponomarenko (@IAPonomarenko) February 11, 2022
https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko
ps – follow me too! https://twitter.com/shchedri
“According to several diplomats & military officials, the US gave many details…Routes for the Russian invasion were specifically described, as well as individual Russian units and what tasks they were to take on. Feb 16 was given as the possible date”
Russia cannot accept the response of the European Union and NATO to the letter sent by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov about “security proposals”. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that such “collective response” looks like a “coverup.” In addition, Lavrov’s letter was not addressed to Stoltenberg and Borrell, said the press secretary of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova.
She recalled that Lavrov sent his letter to the foreign ministers of 37 countries- the United States, Canada and European countries, and it was emphasized that Russia expects a “detailed response at the country level.”
“Instead, we got a reply from Jens Stoltenberg and Josep Borrell, whom we have not addressed. Such a step can only be described as a manifestation of diplomatic incivility and disrespect for our request,” Zakharova said.
The representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry noted that the OSCE and Russia-NATO documents, which enshrine the principle of indivisibility of security, were signed by the heads and governments of the respective countries.
“Countries participate in a national capacity in the OSCE, and it is in this capacity that they have pledged not to strengthen their security at the expense of the security of others,” she said.
Zakharova stressed that because of this, Russia cannot accept the “collective response” which looks like a “coverup” and expects a “detailed reaction to the question posed by us from each addressee.”
