A deal allowing Ukrainian grain exports to pass through the blockaded Black Sea has been extended for 120 days, Ukraine announced Saturday, but Russia again griped that it would only assent to a full rollover if its own exports of food and fertilizer are freed up.
Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov thanked “all our partners for sticking to the agreements” in a tweet Saturday afternoon. “Due our joint efforts, 25M tons of Ukrainian grain” have been “delivered to world markets,” he said.
The announcement comes after a week of wrangling after Russia said Monday that it had agreed to extend the Black Sea grain initiative but only for 60 days. Moscow again dug its heels in on Saturday, however, despite objections from Kyiv and reminders from the United Nations and Turkey that the original agreement foresees a minimum 120-day extension.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, visited Crimea on Saturday on an unannounced trip to mark the ninth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine. Putin was greeted by the Russian-installed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, and taken to see a new children’s center, Reuters reported.
The grain deal — described by aid groups as a lifeline for food insecure countries — was due to expire on Saturday.
Initially brokered by the U.N. and Turkey last July after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 fueled a global food crisis, the pact was extended in November for 120 days.
Russia will only consider further extending the deal if “tangible progress” is achieved in implementing its three-year deal with the U.N. to facilitate its own exports of food and fertilizer, according to a letter posted on Twitter Saturday by its mission to the U.N. in New York.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is due to attend an EU summit in Brussels next week to seek ways to unblock the Russian food and fertilizer shipments, which have been blocked by sanctions targeting Russian oligarchs and the state agricultural bank. The Kremlin argues that these these are to blame for food insecurity in the Global South.
Ukraine and Russia produce a massive chunk of the world’s grain and fertilizer, together supplying some 28 percent of globally traded wheat and 75 percent of sunflower oil during peacetime.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has called on the U.N. to broker a renewal of the deal for a full 12 months, warning that this is necessary to “to help stave off hunger in the most food insecure countries.”
The number of people facing food insecurity rose from 282 million at the end of 2021 to a record 345 million last year, according to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). Africa is one of the hardest-hit regions, with eastern African countries like Somalia and Ethiopia in particular facing extreme hunger.
“Shipments of grain to countries most in need, including Somalia, hinge on the critical renewal of the Black Sea Grain Initiative,” the IRC said, adding that Somalia receives over 90 percent of its grain from Ukraine.
This story has been updated.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
As he jets off for a state visit to Moscow this week, China’s President Xi Jinping is doing so in defiance of massive international pressure. Vladimir Putin, the man Xi once called his “best, most intimate friend,” has just become the world’s most wanted alleged war criminal.
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin on March 17 for his alleged role in illegally transferring Ukrainian civilians into Russian territories. But that isn’t deterring Xi, who broke Communist Party norms and formally secured a third term as Chinese leader this month.
But why is China’s leader so determined to stand by Putin despite the inevitable backlash, at a time when the West is increasingly suspicious of Beijing’s military aims — and scrutinizing prized Chinese companies like TikTok — more closely than ever?
For a start, Beijing’s worldview requires it to stay strategically close to Russia: As Beijing’s leaders see it, the U.S. is blocking China’s path to global leadership, aided by European governments, while most of its own geographical neighbors — from Japan and South Korea to Vietnam and India — are increasingly skeptical rather than supportive.
“The Chinese people are not prone to threats. Paper tigers such as the U.S. would definitely not be able to threaten China,” declared a commentary on Chinese state news agency Xinhua previewing Xi’s trip to Russia. The same article slammed Washington for threatening to sanction China if it provided Russia with weapons for its invasion of Ukraine. “The more the U.S. wants to crush the two superpowers, China and Russia, together … the closer China and Russia lean on each other.”
It’s a view that chimes with the rhetoric from the Kremlin. “Washington does not want this war to end. Washington wants and is doing everything to continue this war. This is the visible hand,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier this month.
10-year bromance
To understand Xi’s preference for Putin even though China’s economy is so intertwined with the West, analysts say it’s not just important to factor in Beijing’s vision for the future, but also to grasp the history that the Chinese and Russian leaders share.
“They’re just six months apart in terms of age. Their fathers both fought in World War II … Both men had hardships in their youths. Both have daughters,” said Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank and an expert on Russo-Chinese relations. “And they are both increasingly like an emperor and a tsar, equally obsessed with Color Revolutions.”
Their “bromance,” as Gabuev put it, began in 2013 when Xi met Putin toward the end of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Bali — on Putin’s birthday. Citing two people present at the impromptu birthday party, Gabuev said the occasion was “not a boozy night, but they opened up and there was a really functioning chemistry.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Nusa Dua in 2013 | Mast Irham/AFP via Getty Images
According to Putin himself, Xi presented him with a cake while the Russian leader pulled out a bottle of vodka for a toast. The pair then reminisced over shots and sandwiches. “I’ve never established such relations or made such arrangements with any other foreign colleague, but I did it with President Xi,” Putin told the Chinese CCTV broadcaster in 2018. “This might seem irrelevant, but to talk about President Xi, this is where I would like to start.”
Those remarks were followed by a trip to Beijing, where Xi presented Putin with China’s first friendship medal. “He is my best, most intimate friend,” Xi said. “No matter what fluctuations there are in the international situation, China and Russia have always firmly taken the development of relations as a priority.”
Xi has stuck to those words, even after Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine just over a year ago. Less than three weeks beforehand, Putin visited Beijing and signed what China once referred to as a “no limits” partnership. Chinese officials have steered clear of criticizing Russia — and they wouldn’t even call it a war — while echoing Putin’s narrative that NATO expansion was to blame.
Close but not equal
Concerns are mounting over Beijing’s potential to provide Russia with weapons. Last week, POLITICO reported that Chinese companies, including one connected to the government in Beijing, have sent Russian entities 1,000 assault rifles and other equipment that could be used for military purposes, including drone parts and body armor, according to customs data.
Chinese and Russian armed forces have also teamed up for joint exercises outside Europe. Most recently, they held naval drills together with Iran in the Gulf of Oman.
During Xi’s visit this week, the two leaders are expected to conclude up to a dozen agreements, according to Russian media TASS. Experts say Xi and Putin are likely to sign further agreements to boost trade — especially in energy — as well as make more efforts to trade in their own currencies.
Xi is also expected to reiterate China’s “position paper” with a view to settling what it calls the “Ukraine crisis.” The paper, released last month, mentions the need to respect sovereignty and resume peace talks, but also includes Russian talking points such as dissuading “expanding military blocs” — a veiled criticism of U.S. support for Ukraine to potentially join NATO. There are also reports that Xi could be talking by phone with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after the Moscow visit.
But Beijing’s overall top priority is to “lock Russia in for the long term as China’s junior partner,” wrote Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a think tank. “For Xi, cementing Russia as China’s junior partner is fundamental to his vision of national rejuvenation.”
To achieve this, Putin’s stay in power is non-negotiable for Beijing, he wrote: “China’s … objective is to guard against Russia failing and Putin falling.”
What better way, then, to show support than attending a state banquet when your notorious friend needs you most?
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Poland will deliver four Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine “in the next few days,” President Andrzej Duda said Thursday.
Poland is the first country to formally commit to sending combat planes to Ukraine, which Kyiv says it urgently needs to repel the Russian invasion, which has become a brutal war of attrition in the eastern Donbas region.
“We will be handing over four fully operational planes,” Duda said at a joint press conference with Czech President Petr Pavel, according to French newswire AFP.
Additional planes which are “currently under maintenance” will be “handed over gradually,” Duda added, and Poland will replace the MiGs with American-made F-35s and South Korean FA-50 fighters.
After convincing its Western allies to supply Ukraine with dozens of tanks following a months-long diplomatic marathon, Kyiv has been intensively lobbying its partners in recent weeks to send modern fighter jets.
As he toured European capitals last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made repeated pleas to the U.K. and France to provide modern jets to boost his country’s aging air force, which is mostly made up of Soviet-era planes.
Yet, Kyiv’s allies have been wary of handing over the latest generation of combat planes, such as American F-16s, out of fear it would only serve to further escalate the conflict.
So far, the U.K. has started training Ukrainian pilots as a “first step” toward sending jets, while the U.S. has welcomed two pilots on an American airbase to assess their flying skills, but will not let them operate American F-16s.
Meanwhile, countries such as France and the Netherlands have expressed openness to the idea, but steered clear of making any formal commitments.
The Polish government — one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022 — had already signaled its intention to send jets in recent days.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Doubts are growing about the wisdom of holding the shattered frontline city of Bakhmut against relentless Russian assaults, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is digging in and insists his top commanders are united in keeping up an attritional defense that has dragged on for months.
Fighting around Bakhmut in the eastern region of Donbas dramatically escalated late last year, with Zelenskyy slamming the Russians for hurling men — many of them convicts recruited by the Wagner mercenary group — forward to almost certain death in “meat waves.” Now the bloodiest battle of the war, Bakhmut offers a vision of conflict close to World War I, with flooded trenches and landscapes blasted by artillery fire.
In the past weeks, as Ukrainian forces have been almost encircled in a salient, lacking shells and facing spiking casualties, there has been increased speculation both in Ukraine and abroad that the time has come to pull back to another defensive line — a retrenchment that would not be widely seen as a massive military setback, although Russia would claim a symbolic victory.
In an address on Wednesday night, however, Zelenskyy explained he remained in favor of slogging it out in Bakhmut.
“There was a clear position of the entire general staff: Reinforce this sector and inflict maximum possible damage upon the occupier,” Zelenskyy said in a video address after meeting with Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyy and other senior generals to discuss a battle that’s prompting mounting anxiety among Ukraine’s allies and is drawing criticism from some Western military analysts.
“All members expressed a common position regarding the further holding and defense of the city,” Zelenskyy said.
This is the second time in as many weeks that Ukraine’s president has cited the backing of his top commanders. Ten days ago, Zelenskyy’s office issued a statement also emphasizing that Zaluzhnyy and Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, agreed with his decision to hold fast at Bakhmut.
The long-running logic of the Ukrainian armed forces has been that Russia has suffered disproportionately high casualties, allowing Kyiv’s forces to grind down the invaders, ahead of a Ukrainian counter-offensive expected shortly, in the spring.
City of glass, brick and debris
Criticism has been growing among some in the Ukrainian ranks — and among Western allies — about continuing with the almost nine-month-long battle. The disquiet was muted at first and expressed behind the scenes, but is now spilling into the open.
On social media some Ukrainian soldiers have been expressing bitterness at their plight, although they say they will do their duty and hold on as ordered. “Bakhmut is a city of glass, bricks and debris, which crackle underfoot like the fates of people who fought here,” tweeted one.
A lieutenant on Facebook noted: “There is a catastrophic shortage of shells.” He said the Russians were well dug in and it was taking five to seven rounds to hit an enemy position. He complained of equipment challenges, saying “Improvements — improvements have already been promised, because everyone who has a mouth makes promises.” But he cautioned his remarks shouldn’t be taken as a plea for a retreat. “WE WILL FULFILL OUR DUTY UNTIL THE END, WHATEVER IT IS!” he concluded ruefully.
Iryna Rybakova, a press officer with Ukraine’s 93rd brigade, also gave a flavor of the risks medics are facing in the town. “Those people who go back and forth to Bakhmut on business are taking an incredible risk. Everything is difficult,” she tweeted.
A Ukrainian serviceman gives food and water to a local elderly woman in the town of Bakhmut | Anatolii Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images
The key strategic question is whether Zelenskyy is being obdurate and whether the fight has become more a test of wills than a tactically necessary engagement that will bleed out Russian forces before Ukraine’s big counter-strike.
“Traveling around the front you hear a lot of grumblings where folks aren’t sure whether the reason they’re holding Bakhmut is because it’s politically important” as opposed to tactically significant, according to Michael Kofman, an American military analyst and director of the Russia Studies Program at the Center for Naval Analyses.
Kofman, who traveled to Bakhmut to observe the ferocious battle first-hand, said in the War on the Rocks podcast that while the battle paid dividends for the Ukrainians a few months ago, allowing it to maintain a high kill ratio, there are now diminishing returns from continuing to engage.
“Happening in the fight now is that the attrition exchange rate is favorable to Ukraine but it’s not nearly as favorable as it was before. The casualties on the Ukrainian side are rather significant and require a substantial amount of replacements on a regular basis,” he said.
The Ukrainians have acknowledged they have also been suffering significant casualties at Bakhmut, which Russia is coming ever closer to encircling. They claim, though, the Russians are losing seven soldiers for each Ukrainian life lost, while NATO military officials put the kill ratio at more like five to one. But Kofman and other military analysts are skeptical, saying both sides are now suffering roughly the same rate of casualties.
“I hope the Ukrainian command really, really, really knows what it’s doing in Bakhmut,” tweeted Illia Ponomarenko, the Kyiv Independent’s defense reporter.
Shifting position
Last week, Zelenskyy received support for his decision to remain engaged at Bakhmut from retired U.S. generals David Petraeus and Mark Hertling on the grounds that the battle was causing a much higher Russian casualty rate. “I think at this moment using Bakhmut to allow the Russians to impale themselves on it is the right course of action, given the extraordinary casualties that the Russians are taking,” retired general and former CIA director Petraeus told POLITICO.
But in the last couple of weeks the situation has shifted, said Rob Lee, a former U.S. Marine officer and now at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and the kill ratio is no longer a valid reason to remain engaged. “Bakhmut is no longer a good place to attrit Russian forces,” he tweeted. Lee says Ukrainian casualties have risen since Russian forces, comprising Wagner mercenaries as well as crack Russian airborne troops, pushed into the north of the town at the end of February.
The Russians have been determined to record a victory at Bakhmut, which is just six miles southwest of the salt-mining town of Soledar, which was overrun two months ago after the Wagner Group sacrificed thousands of its untrained fighters there too.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has hinted several times that he sees no tactical military reason to defend Bakhmut, saying the eastern Ukrainian town was of more symbolic than operational importance, and its fall wouldn’t mean Moscow had regained the initiative in the war.
Ukrainian generals have pushed back at such remarks, saying there’s a tactical reason to defend the town. Zaluzhnyy said on his Telegram channel: “It is key in the stability of the defense of the entire front.”
Volodymyr Zelensky and Sanna Marin attend a memorial service for Dmytro Kotsiubailo, a Ukrainian serviceman killed in Bakhmut | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
Midweek, the Washington Post reported that U.S. officials have been urging the Ukrainians since the end of January to withdraw from Bakhmut, fearing the depletion of their own troops could impact Kyiv’s planned spring offensive. Ukrainian officials say there’s no risk of an impact on the offensive as the troops scheduled to be deployed are not fighting at Bakhmut.
That’s prompted some Ukrainian troops to complain that Kyiv is sacrificing ill-trained reservists at Bakhmut, using them as expendable in much the same way the Russians have been doing with Wagner conscripts. A commander of the 46th brigade — with the call sign Kupol — told the newspaper that inexperienced draftees are being used to plug the losses. He has now been removed from his post, infuriating his soldiers, who have praised him.
Kofman worries that the Ukrainians are not playing to their military strengths at Bakhmut. Located in a punch bowl, the town is not easy to defend, he noted. “Ukraine is a dynamic military” and is good when it is able “to conduct a mobile defense.” He added: “Fixed entrenches, trying to concentrate units there, putting people one after another into positions that have been hit by artillery before doesn’t really play to a lot of Ukraine’s advantages.”
“They’ve mounted a tenacious defense. I don’t think the battle is nearly as favorable as it’s somewhat publicly portrayed but more importantly, I think they somewhat run the risk of encirclement there,” he added.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant Friday for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the forced transfer of children to Russia after the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ukrainians accuse Russia of attempting genocide against them and seeking to destroy their identity — partly through deporting children to Russia.
Putin is “allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children)” and that of “unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation,” the Hague-based court said in a statement Friday.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Putin bears individual criminal responsibility” for these crimes, the statement read.
The Russian president, the court argued, failed “to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts” and who were “under his effective authority and control.”
Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights in the office of the president, was also hit by the ICC warrant for her role in the deportations.
This is the first time the ICC has issued warrants in relation to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began last February. It comes ahead of a visit to Russia next week by Chinese President Xi Jinping and will severely limit Putin’s own potential range of diplomatic visits.
Moscow has previously said it did not recognize the court’s authority.
In response, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said: “The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin. No need to explain WHERE this paper should be used … ” concluding with a toilet paper emoji.
In spite of numerous reports that Russian forces had committed war crimes in Ukraine — including a recent U.N. investigation which said that Russia’s forced deportation of Ukrainian children amounted to a war crime — the Kremlin has denied it committed any crimes.
In a statement, Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, welcomed the announcement, saying the warrant sent “a clear message that giving orders to commit or tolerating serious crimes against civilians may lead to a prison cell.”
This article has been updated.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay a three-day visit to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin next week, Beijing and Moscow announced Friday, with “strategic cooperation” on the agenda.
“On March 20-22, 2023, at the invitation of Vladimir Putin, president of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to Russia,” the Kremlin’s press service said in a statement.
“A number of important bilateral documents will be signed,” the statement reads.
Neither country confirmed previous reports from the Wall Street Journal that Xi would use the opportunity to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — in what would be the first communication between the two leaders since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February.
While China was initially committed to a “no-limit partnership” passed with Moscow days before the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Beijing has since sought to position itself as a peace broker, introducing a 12-point plan for peace.
Yet, Beijing’s attempts have drawn criticism from Western leaders. China, they said, is anything but neutral in the war, and thus not a good fit to be playing the arbiter.
China has been accused by the U.S. of delivering non-lethal “support” to Russia — and, according to exclusive customs data obtained by POLITICO, Chinese companies shipped more than 1,000 assault rifles, drone parts and body armor to Russian entities between June and December of last year.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
BRUSSELS — Add NATO’s military planners to the list of those concerned about having enough shells.
In the comingmonths,the alliance will accelerate efforts to stockpile equipment along the alliance’s eastern edge and designate tens of thousands of forces that can rush to allies’ aid on short notice — a move meant to stop Russia from expanding its war beyond Ukraine.
To make that happen, though, NATO must convince individual countries to contribute various elements: Soldiers, training, better infrastructure — and, most notably, extensive amounts of pricey weapons, equipment and ammunition.
With countries already worried about their own munitions stockpiles and Ukraine in acute need of more shells and weapons from allies, there is a risk that not all NATO allies will live up to their promises to contribute to the alliance’s new plans.
“If there’s not somebody hosting the potluck and telling everybody what to bring, then everyone would bring potato chips because potato chips are cheap, easy to get,” said James J. Townsend Jr., a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy.
“Nations,” he added, “would rather bring potato chips.”
It’s a challenge NATO has faced in the past, and one that experts fear could become a persistent problem for the Western alliance as Russia’s war drags into a second year. While the U.S. and EU are making plans to source more weapons — fast — the restocking process will inevitably take time.
That could run into NATO’s aspirations. Military leaders this spring will submit updated regional defense plans intended to help redefine how the alliance protects its 1 billion citizens.
The numbers will be large, with officials floating the idea of up to 300,000 NATO forces needed to help make the new model work. That means lots of coordinating and cajoling.
“I think you need forces to counter a realistic Russia,” said one senior NATO military official, underscoring the need for significantly “more troops” and especially more forces at “readiness.”
A push for ‘readiness’
There are several tiers of “readiness.”
The first tier — which may consist of about 100,000 soldiers prepared to move within 10 days — could be drawn from Poland, Norway and the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), said Heinrich Brauß, a former NATO assistant secretary general for defense policy and force planning. It may also include multinational battlegroups the alliance has already set up in the eastern flank.
Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army Europe in Orzysz, Poland | Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images
A second tier of troops would then back up those soldiers, ready to deploy from countries like Germany in between 10 to 30 days.
But the process could get tricky. Why? Because moving so quickly, even given a month, requires lots of people, equipment and training — and lots of money.
Some militaries will have to up their recruitment efforts. Many allies will have to increase defense spending. And everyone will have to buy more weapons, ammunition and equipment.
Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army Europe, said that “readiness” is “basically, do you have all the stuff you’re supposed to have to do the mission assigned to a unit of a particular size?”
“An artillery battalion needs to shoot X number of rounds per year for planning purposes in order to maintain its level of proficiency,” he said. A tank battalion needs to hit targets, react to different situations and “demonstrate proficiency on the move, day and night, hitting targets that are moving.”
“It’s all very challenging,” he said, pointing to the need for training ranges and ammunition, as well as maintaining proficiency as personnel changes over time. “This obviously takes time and it’s also expensive.”
And that’s if countries can even find companies to produce quality bullets quickly.
“We have tended to try to stockpile munitions on the cheap … it’s just grossly inadequate,” said Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security. “I think the problems that our allies have in NATO are even more acute because many of them often rely on the U.S. as sort of the backstop.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, meanwhile, has repeatedly said that allies have stepped up work on production in recent months — and that the alliance is working on new requirements for ammunition stockpiles.
But he has also acknowledged the problem.
“The current rate of consumption compared to the current rate of production of ammunition,” he said in early March, “is not sustainable.”
The big test
Once NATO’s military plans are done, capitals will be asked to weigh in — and eventually make available troops, planes, ships and tanks for different parts of the blueprints.
A test for NATO will come this summer when leaders of the alliance’s 30 member countries meet in Lithuania.
German soldiers give directions to M983 HEMTT mounted with a Patriot launcher in Zamosc, Poland | Omar Marques via Getty Images
“We are asking the nations — based on the findings we have out of our three regional plans — what we need to make these plans … executable,” said the senior NATO military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive planning.
“I think the most difficult thing,” the official added, “is the procurement.”
Some allies have already acknowledged that meeting NATO’s needs will take far more investment.
“More speed is needed, whether in terms of material, personnel or infrastructure,” German Colonel André Wüstner, head of the independent Armed Forces Association, told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
The German military, for instance, is carrying out its assigned missions, he said, “but that is nothing compared to what we will have to contribute to NATO in the future.”
And while Berlin now has a much-touted €100 billion modernization fund for upgrading Germany’s military, not a single cent of the money has been spent so far, German Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces Eva Högl said earlier this week.
Underpinning the readiness issue is a contentious debate over defense investments.
In 2014, NATO leaders pledged to aim to spend 2 percent of their economic output on defense within a decade. At the Vilnius summit in July, the leaders will have to decide on a new target.
“Two percent as floor” seems to be the “center of gravity” in the debate at the moment, said one senior NATO official, while cautioning that “2 percent would not be enough for everybody.”
A second issue is the contribution balance. Officials and experts expect the majority of high-readiness troops to come from European allies. But that means European capitals will need to step up as Washington contemplates how to address challenges from China.
The response will show whether NATO is serious about matching its ambitions.
“It’s hard to make sure you remain at the top of your military game during peace when there’s not a threat,” said Townsend, the former U.S. official. NATO, he said, is “in the middle” of a stress test.
“We’re all saying the right things,” he added. “But will we come through atthe end of the day and do the right thing? Or are we going to try to get away with bringing potato chips to the potluck? The jury’s out.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
A provocative Vladimir Putin made a surprise weekend visit to Russian-occupied Mariupol, one of the symbols of Ukrainian resistance.
Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov, is located in Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast and this is the Russian president’s first trip in the region since the start of his war against Ukraine in February 2022.
Mariupol fell to Russia last May, after the Kremlin failed to seize Kyiv. The battle for Mariupol was one of the war’s longest and bloodiest, as Moscow’s troops carried out some of their most notorious strikes. The Russian assaults included an attack on a maternity ward, which the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said was a war crime, and the bombing of a theater that was clearly marked as housing children.
It is the closest to the front lines Putin has been since the yearlong war began. The move is likely to be seen as particularly provoking to Ukrainians. The trip to Mariupol came after Putin travelled to Crimea on Saturday in an unannounced visit to mark the ninth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine, the Kremlin said in a statement.
Putin’s visits come just after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader and top Russian official Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova over the forced transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia.
So far during Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Putin has largely remained inside the Kremlin, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made a number of trips to the battlefield to boost the morale of Kyiv’s troops.
Putin flew by helicopter to Mariupol, Russian new agencies reported, citing the Kremlin. Then he travelled around several parts of the city, driving a car and making stops to talk to residents.
The Kremlin said Putin also examined the coastline of Mariupol, visiting a yacht club and theater building. In the Nevsky district of Mariupol, Putin visited a family in their home. The new residential neighborhood has been built by Russian military with the first people moving in last September, according to media reports.
Residents have been “actively” returning, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, who accompanied Putin, was cited as saying by Russian agencies. “The downtown has been badly damaged,” Khusnullin was reported as saying. “We want to finish [reconstruction] of the center by the end of the year, at least the facade part. The center is very beautiful.”
There were no immediate reaction from Kyiv to the visit.
The Kremlin has not commented yet on the ICC arrest warrant. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said: “The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin. No need to explain WHERE this paper should be used … ” concluding with a toilet paper emoji.
Moscow has previously said it did not recognize the court’s authority.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Germany and Japan agreed on Saturday to strengthen cooperation on economic security in the aftermath of tensions over global supply chains and the economic impact of the war in Ukraine.
In the first high-ministerial government consultations held between the two countries, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reached out to Tokyo to seek to reduce Germany’s dependence on China for imports of raw materials.
“The current challenges of our time make it clear: It is important to expand cooperation with close partners and acquire new partners. We want to reduce dependencies and increase the resilience of our economies.” the German chancellor said in a tweet.
Scholz and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said they believe the agreement will allow both countries to diversify value chains in order to be able to reduce economic risks.
In a joint statement, the two countries said they will work on establishing “a legal framework for bilateral defense and security cooperation activities,” including ways to protect critical infrastructures, trade routes and to secure future supply of sustainable energy.
Germany’s decision to prioritize consultations with Japan came after the Asian country put forward an economic security bill last year aimed at securing the uptake of technology and bolstering critical supply chains.
Japan is Germany’s second-largest trading partner in Asia after China, with a bilateral trade volume of €45.7 billion mainly based on the import and export of machinery, vehicles, electronics and chemical products.
The two leaders also exchanged views on the situation in Ukraine, cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region and the G7 meeting in Hiroshima scheduled for May.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
“After speaking with U.S., Ukrainian, and foreign leaders working to support Ukraine at the Munich Security Conference last month, we believe the U.S. needs to take a hard look at providing F-16 aircraft to Ukraine,” the senators wrote. “This would be a significant capability that could prove to be a game changer on the battlefield.”
The letter was organized by Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.).
The senators requested Austin provide them with assessments by the end of the week on a variety of factors needed to successfully transfer F-16s to Ukraine.
Among their questions, the lawmakers asked how high Ukrainian officials are ranking fighter jets when making requests for weapons and how the F-16s might be sourced if approved — either newly produced or from current inventories. They also sought the military’s assessment of what impact F-16s would have on the conflict and how quickly Ukrainian pilots could be trained on the jets.
The group hailed reports that two Ukrainian pilots came to the U.S. for a fighter skills assessment at Tucson’s Morris Air National Guard Base, in Kelly’s home state, which they called a “critical step in gauging” their readiness to fly F-16s.
Also signing onto the letter were Democrats Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Jacky Rosen of Nevada as well as Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and Ted Budd of North Carolina.
Bipartisan efforts to convince the Biden administration to send F-16s, or facilitate other countries sending them to Ukraine, have been bolstered by assessments such as those of Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Europe. Cavoli told lawmakers behind closed doors at the Munich Security Conference last month that sending advanced weapons, including F-16s and long-range missiles, could help bolster Ukraine’s defenses.
But top civilian officials, including Biden and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, say fighters aren’t an immediate battlefield need compared to other capabilities.
Pentagon policy chief Colin Kahl also defended the administration’s stance, telling the House Armed Services Committee last month that the most optimistic timeline for delivering older F-16s would be roughly 18 months, while producing newer jets could take three to six years to deliver.
“It is a priority for the Ukrainians, but it’s not one of their top three priorities,” Kahl testified. “Their top priorities are air defense systems … artillery and fires, which we’ve talked about, and armor and mechanized systems.”
The Senate letter follows a bipartisan effort in the House, spearheaded by Maine Democrat Jared Golden, to convince Biden to send Kyiv F-16s or similar aircraft.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
