Category: Finland

White House Increasing Surveillance of Russian Exclave as Nuclear Tensions Heighten

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The United States has carried out multiple surveillance flights this week around Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave located on the Baltic Sea coast. The American spy planes are likely assessing Moscow’s nuclear weapons activity as the two sides step up threats and warnings over the ongoing war in Ukraine.

White House Increasing Surveillance of Russian Exclave as Nuclear Tensions Heighten

Related:

U.S. steps up intel, surveillance after Putin’s nuke threats

“We haven’t seen any evidence at this time that Russia will use nuclear weapons,” said Lt. Cmdr. Joshua Kelsey. “We take these threats very seriously, but we have not seen any reason to adjust our own nuclear posture at this time.”

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Intelligence agencies, the official said, are confident that Russia would not risk an all-out nuclear war by launching a massive attack on Ukraine or NATO countries.

Biden Administration Throws Cold Water on Ukraine Joining NATO

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan says Ukrainian efforts to join NATO should be taken up “at a different time,” throwing cold water on the country’s desire to join the international alliance and potentially easing Russian tensions as President Vladimir Putin has begun accelerating rhetoric of potential nuclear war.

Biden Administration Throws Cold Water on Ukraine Joining NATO

U.S. Blew Up Russian Gas Pipelines Nord Stream 1 & 2, Says Former Polish Defense Minister

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

U.S. Blew Up Russian Gas Pipelines Nord Stream 1 & 2, Says Former Polish Defense Minister (archived)

But President Joe Biden promised on February 7 to prevent Nord Stream 2 from becoming operational if Russia invaded Ukraine. “If Russia invades,” said Biden, “then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

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And [Radek] Sikorski is no Putin apologist. In a May debate with Univeristy of Chicago political scientist, John Mearsheimer, Sikorski accused Russia of being in violation of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons. Following the debate, the Chairman of the Russian State, Duma Vyacheslav Volodin, said “Sikorski is causing a nuclear conflict in the center of Europe. He does not think about the future of Ukraine or that of Poland. If his suggestions are fulfilled, these countries will cease to exist, as will Europe.” Sikorski is also married to Anne Applebaum, a journalist known for her hawkish views toward Russia.

Source: archived (original Tweet deleted).

H/T: Der Friedensstifter

Related:

Germany warned by CIA of possible attack on Nord Stream gas pipeline weeks in advance: report

The extent of the damage means the Nord Stream pipelines are unlikely to be able to carry any gas to Europe this winter even if there was political will to bring them online, analysts at the Eurasia Group said. Russia has halted flows on the 760-mile Nord Stream 1 pipeline during the war, while Germany prevented them from ever starting in the parallel Nord Stream 2.

Warning or covering their a$$es?! I suspect the latter, considering the warning was from “unnamed sources”.

On the night of September 26, a sharp drop in pressure was recorded in line A of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline due to a hole in the pipe. In the evening of the same day, the Nord Stream control center recorded a pressure drop in both lines of the gas pipeline, the press service of the Nord Stream operator company reported.

US Ships Suspected Of Sabotage Attack On Nord Stream Pipelines

Angry Customers Demand Explanation As German Energy Bills Soar

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Angry Customers Demand Explanation As German Energy Bills Soar

Apart from already high energy bills, German customers will have a surcharge as of October, as part of a government plan to implement a so-called gas levy on consumers in order to help struggling energy firms.

Germany has recently announced it would impose a gas levy on consumers from October 1 through March 2024 as it aims to help energy providers and importers of natural gas, which are struggling with low Russian gas supply and very expensive alternatives to Russian gas. The new natural gas tax is set to cost German families, who will have to foot the bill for the tax, an extra $500 a year.

Mirotvorets/Myrotvorets: The illegal and extremist activities of the Ukrainian website “Peacemaker” were discussed in Moscow + More

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The illegal and extremist activities of the Ukrainian website “Peacemaker” were discussed in Moscow

Related:

Western media continues to ignore Ukraine’s public ‘kill list’ aimed at those who question the Kiev regime

American military officer Bentley: I am ashamed that the US authorities support the site “Peacemaker”

As he arms Ukraine, Biden readies new weapon pipelines for Eastern Europe

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

Top U.S. officials on Thursday unveiled $2.8 billion in new military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine and Eastern European allies, marking a shift from just-in-time weapons transfers to Ukraine to a longer-term effort to equip nations all across NATO’s eastern front.

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“At some point, particularly if House Republicans win in the elections, I don’t know how we do this in December or in January, it’s going to be really, really difficult,” to get more aid packages passed, one Republican staffer admitted. The staffer spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive political matters.

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“If there were a war in the Taiwan Strait right now, [there are] very serious concerns the U.S. would have sufficient munitions for any kind of prolonged conflict,” Jones said. “The industrial base right now is being severely tested.”

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Thursday’s transfer will pull more material from those stockpiles, including artillery and armored vehicles, bringing total U.S. drawdowns to $8.6 billion, and leaving about $2.9 billion left from the overall amount that Congress authorized to be sent to Ukraine in May. The Pentagon will need to use the funds by the end of this fiscal year on Sept. 30 or else require a waiver from Congress to extend the authority.

As he arms Ukraine, Biden readies new weapon pipelines for Eastern Europe

Related:

Most-accurate US artillery shell Excalibur quietly added to Ukraine aid

New U.K. PM Liz Truss Has “Extreme Neoliberal” Anti-Labor, Anti-Environment Record

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)3 Comments

The United Kingdom’s Conservative Party has voted for Liz Truss to become its new leader, replacing Boris Johnson and making her Britain’s next prime minister. Truss served as foreign secretary under Johnson and has a record of “extreme neoliberal policies,” says British journalist George Monbiot. These include supporting tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulating the fossil fuel industry and refusing to regulate agricultural pollution. Monbiot also warns Truss will undermine the country’s model public health system and labor rights for organizing workers.

New U.K. PM Liz Truss Has “Extreme Neoliberal” Anti-Labor, Anti-Environment Record

Arms Transfers to Ukraine. Detailed Overview of Deliveries, Timeline

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

As tensions mounted in late 2021 and into 2022 concerning a Russian invasion of Ukraine, many countries announced arms transfers to Ukraine. As the invasion began in late February, this resource page was launched to track developments related to such transfers, which thus far includes pledges and/or deliveries from more than 25 countries plus the European Union.

Arms Transfers to Ukraine. Detailed Overview of Deliveries, Timeline

US to Appoint New Arctic Ambassador With Eye on Russia

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

US to Appoint New Arctic Ambassador With Eye on Russia

The US military is preparing for a future conflict in the Arctic with Russia, as well as China, by revamping its forces in the region. The US Army released a strategy document last year that said the Arctic has the “potential to become a contested space where United States’ great power rivals, Russia and China, seek to use military and economic power to gain and maintain access to the region at the expense of US interests.”

The US Navy released a similar strategy document in early 2021. Then-Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite suggested that the US could start challenging Russian claims to the Arctic by sending warships near Russia’s northern coast, similar to how the US Navy makes provocative passages near Chinese-controlled islands in the South China Sea.

Related:

Melting ice will change the economics of extracting resources from the Arctic

Of the 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,700 trillion cubic feet of natural gas estimated to lie north of the Arctic Circle, 84% lies offshore. And while Arctic conditions can still be as harsh as they were on the Seabees, the infrastructure of oil and gas extraction has improved vastly. “If people aren’t drilling all over the Arctic now, I don’t think it’s because there’s a gap in technology,” said Stig-Mortean Knutsen, a petroleum geologist at the Arctic University of Norway. “It’s more to do with cost.”

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These extractive ambitions rub against the urgency of our environmental moment: the need to cut down, rather than pursue, fossil fuel use. As part of their sustainability goals, banks claim they’re now making it difficult for oil firms to get funds for new Arctic projects. Knutsen calls this decision to withhold financing an easy one to make, “like kicking down an open door,” because the upfront expense of a project is so steep today. If those expenses shrink in a warming Arctic, banks might well step up once again, he said. One sustainability executive at a London-based bank, who asked not to be named, pointed out: “In any case, China and Russia will be happy to fund new projects.”

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Ironically, to best transition away from carbon fuels, the Arctic may first have to yield up another kind of resource: metals. The batteries, electric vehicles, and fuel cells of the future will need huge quantities of copper, nickel, manganese, rare earths, and other metals, said Gerard Barron, the CEO of The Metals Company, which hopes to mine the sea floor once the International Seabed Authority, a body within the UN, finalizes an undersea mining code. Barron’s miners are most actively studying the Clarion Clipperton Zone, a region just south of Hawai’i, where there is, Barron believes, enough metal to build 280 million EV batteries.