Russian Tensions
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USA has said it would send reinforcements to Nato’s eastern flank in response to a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The EU warns Russia
“The message is very clear: should Russia take further aggressive actions against Ukraine, the costs will be severe and the consequences serious”
“We are probably facing the most dangerous situation in the last 30 years, I am talking about not only Ukraine but the eastern flank of NATO,” said Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, a day after EU leaders held a summit with Ukraine and other former Soviet republics in Brussels.
He cited fears that Russia might integrate Belarus, which borders Poland and two Baltic states, into its military systems and use its territory “as a possible platform to attack neighbouring countries”.
Russia has put forward a highly contentious list of security guarantees it says it wants the west to agree to in order to lower tensions in Europe and defuse the crisis over Ukraine.
The eight-point draft treaty was released by Russia’s foreign ministry. The demands include a ban on Ukraine entering Nato and a limit to the deployment of troops and weapons to Nato’s eastern flank, in effect returning Nato forces to where they were stationed in 1997, before an eastward expansion.
Russian jets in the Belarus sky
https://apnews.com/article/europe-russia-ukraine-moscow-belarus-d5a87da9e35af0929f62fdb0a2624118
The Mexican Stand-off. Who blinks first?
Putin has said he will consider a military response if Russia feels threatened by Nato, in a sign that he is not ready to de-escalate tensions over a potential invasion of Ukraine.
“If our western counterparts continue a clearly aggressive line, we will undertake proportionate military-technical countermeasures and will respond firmly to unfriendly steps,” he said in televised remarks. “I’d like to stress that we are fully entitled to do that.”
For what it is worth, Chomsky’s take on the Ukrainian situation
Chomsky: Outdated US Cold War Policy Worsens Ongoing Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Russia and Belarus will hold joint war games early next year.
In a call that lasted 50 minutes, Putin told Biden that any sanctions over Ukraine would be a colossal mistake,
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/30/putin-warns-biden-against-sanctions-over-ukraine-kremlin
Russia is “very likely” to invade Ukraine and might only be deterred by “enormous sanctions”, the chair of the US House intelligence committee said.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/02/russia-invade-ukraine-enormous-sanctions-schiff
Russian troops to be deployed in Kazakhstan to suppress protests
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59880166
Kazakhstan unrest: Dozens killed in crackdownHere’s Labour’s position on Ukraine. Why should we be surprised. They have always taken the side of US imperialism against Russian imperialism. And, despite the sham fight in the House of Commons, it’s, as the saying goes, Labour Tory, Same Old Story.
“In the first overseas trip by a shadow foreign secretary for two years, David Lammy chose to fly to Ukraine in a show of defiance against the Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Lammy flew with the shadow defence secretary John Healey to Kyiv today to meet ministers, officials, and civil society activists.
His choice contrasts markedly with the ambivalence about Putin shown by Labour during periods of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party. Corbyn was sharply criticised for his response to the Salisbury poisoning seeking more evidence that Moscow was behind the attack.
Allies of Lammy said it was vital that Ukraine understood there was cross-party support for its sovereignty across the UK.
The two Labour shadow cabinet members will not be visiting the areas of conflict in the east of the country.
Due to the Covid restrictions Lammy’s predecessor, Lisa Nandy, now transferred to the brief of levelling up, did not make any overseas visits, but as travel restrictions lift Lammy is determined to show his face abroad as much as possible. He already has strong personal contacts with White House Democrats built up since the Obama presidency.
To the extent there are any differences between Labour and the Conservatives on Ukraine, they centre on concerns the government’s integrated review on foreign policy placed too much emphasis on the Indo-Pacific, as opposed to defence of the Euro-Atlantic area. Labour is also pressing the Conservatives to do more to close down the loopholes that allow post Soviet oligarchs to store their cash in the UK.
Last week in the Commons Lammy defended Nato’s strategy on expansion saying:
‘The truth is that Nato and the European Union’s enlargement was not the west moving east, but the east looking west. These were free, sovereign states seeking a future of security, prosperity, co-operation and peace in a democratic Europe.’”A Pentagon spokesman said Russian operatives were planning a “false-flag” operation, to allow Moscow to accuse Ukraine of preparing an attack.
Britain has begun supplying Ukraine with new light anti-tank weapons in response to “the increasingly threatening behaviour from Russia”, the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has announced.
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