Natylie Baldwin's Blog, page 77

US surprised at speed Russia built new alliances – WSJ

So according to anonymous intel sources speaking to the WSJ recently, they didn’t see Russia’s outreach to China and North Korea coming. Just like they didn’t foresee Russia’s defense of its perceived interests in Crimea and Syria, or its resilience against every sanction the west could think up. What do these Russia experts and intelligence analysts do all day? I would have been fired long ago for this level of incompetence. I guess the Peter Principle is alive and well in Washington and Virginia. – Natylie

RT, 6/19/24

Moscow’s security partnerships with Beijing, Pyongyang and other US “adversaries” were not anticipated by Washington, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing anonymous intelligence sources.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a strategic partnership and mutual defense treaty with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on Wednesday, before flying on to Vietnam. Putin’s trip to China last month prompted one US policymaker to declare that decades of American efforts to keep Moscow and Beijing apart have come to naught.

“The speed and depth of the expanding security ties involving the US adversaries has at times surprised American intelligence analysts. Russia and the other nations have set aside historic frictions to collectively counter what they regard as a US-dominated global system, they said,” the WSJ reported on Wednesday.

Washington has accused Pyongyang of “sending workers to Russia to help man weapons production lines,” as well as selling missiles and artillery shells to Moscow, for use against Ukraine.

Russia and North Korea agree on mutual aid against aggression – PutinREAD MORE: Russia and North Korea agree on mutual aid against aggression – Putin

The US also believes China has enabled Russia’s military industry to circumvent Western sanctions, by delivering “massive quantities of dual-use equipment, including machine tools, microelectronics … optics for tanks and armored vehicles, and turbo engines for cruise missiles,” according to the Journal’s sources. They also alleged that China has helped Russia “improve its satellite and other space-based capabilities for use in Ukraine.”

Beijing has rejected US allegations, called the sanctions unilateral and illegitimate, and accused Washington of hypocrisy for fueling the conflict by arming and supplying Kiev.

Iran has become “Russia’s primary weapons supplier,” unnamed Pentagon officials told the Journal, accusing Tehran of helping build a factory in Tatarstan Region capable of making Shahed-136 drones by the thousands.

Russia’s “expanded security ties” with the DPRK, China and Iran don’t amount to a NATO-like military alliance but appear to be “a series of bilateral exchanges,” anonymous Americans told the Journal. The technology transfers involved risk improving the long-term capabilities of all countries involved, thereby threatening the US, they added.

Earlier this month, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin announced that Russia’s strategy of economic relations with the ‘Global South’ would involve partnerships based on “technology and competency transfers rather than market control.”

Moscow has also signaled it would turn to the ‘Global South’, which has been alienated by the West’s behavior in the Ukraine conflict. The attempts by the US and its allies to isolate Russia have suffered a “complete failure,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in February.

Anatol Lieven: What I saw and heard about the Ukraine war in Moscow

By Anatol Lieven, Responsible Statecraft, 7/19/24

Perhaps the most striking thing about Moscow today is its calm. This is a city that has been barely touched by war. Indeed, until you turn on the television — where propaganda is omnipresent — you would hardly know that there is a war.

Any economic damage from Western sanctions has been offset by the large number of wealthy Russians who have returned due to sanctions. The Russian government has deliberately limited conscription in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and this, together with a degree of repression, explains why there have been few protests by educated youth. No longer fearing conscription, many of the younger Muscovites who fled Russia at the start of the war have now returned.

As to the shops in central Moscow, I couldn’t say if the Louis Vuitton handbags are the genuine articles or Chinese knock-offs, but there is no lack of them. And far more important, Russia since the war demonstrates something that Germany once understood and the rest of Europe would do well to understand: that in an uncertain world, it is very important indeed to be able to grow all your own food.

In the provinces, it is reportedly very different. There, conscription, and casualties, really have bitten deep. This however has been balanced by the fact that the industrial provinces have experienced a huge economic boom due to military spending, with labor shortages pushing up wages. Stories abound of technical workers well into their seventies being recalled to work, fostering their income and restoring the self-respect they lost with the collapse of the 1990s. As I heard from many Russians, “the war has finally forced us to do many of the things that we should have done in the 1990s.”

In Moscow at least, there is, however, little positive enthusiasm for the war. Both opinion polls, and my own conversations with Russian elites, suggest that a majority of Russians do not want to fight for a complete victory (whatever that means) and would like to see a compromise peace now. Even large majorities however are against surrender, and oppose the return to Ukraine of any land in the five provinces “annexed” by Russia.

In the elites, the desire for a compromise peace is linked to opposition to the idea of trying to storm major Ukrainian cities by force, as was the case with Mariupol — and Kharkov is at least three times the size of Mariupol. “Even if we succeeded, our casualties would be huge, so would the deaths of civilians, and we would inherit great heaps of ruins that we would have to rebuild,” one Russian analyst told me. “I don’t think most Russians want to see that.”

Despite efforts by some figures like former president Dmitri Medvedev, there is very little hatred of the Ukrainian people (as opposed to the Ukrainian government) — in part because so many Russians are themselves Ukrainian by origin. Hence perhaps another reason why Putin has presented this as a war with NATO, not Ukraine. This recalled the attitudes to Russia of people I met in the Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine last year, a great many of whom are themselves wholly or partly Russian. They hated the Russian government, not the Russian people.

In the foreign and security elites, various ideas for a compromise peace are circulating: a treaty ratified by the United Nations, guaranteeing Ukrainian (and Russian) security without Ukraine joining NATO; the creation of demilitarized zones patrolled by U.N. peacekeepers as opposed to the annexation of more territory; territorial swaps, in which Russia would return land in Kharkov to Ukraine in exchange for land in the Donbas or Zaporozhia. The great majority of Russian analysts with whom I spoke believe however that only the U.S. can initiate peace talks, and that this will not happen until after the U.S. elections, if it happens at all.

The overall mood therefore seems to be one of accepting the inevitability of continued war, rather than positive enthusiasm for the war; and the Putin administration seems content with this. Putin remains very distrustful of the Russian people; hence his refusal so far to mobilize more than a fraction of Russia’s available manpower. This is not a regime that wants mass participation, and hence is also wary about mass enthusiasm. Its maxim seems rather, “Calm is the first duty of every citizen.”

A German version of this article was published in the Berliner Zeitung on June 29, 2024.

ACURA ViewPoint: William M. Drew: The Hoover Institution Declares War on Russia

By Michael M. Drew, ACURA, 6/19/24

In sharp contrast to the original Cold War of 1946-1989 which generally differentiated between Russia as a nation and its then-Communist government, the renewed hostilities between Russia and the West over the Ukraine conflict have seen an ominous wave of Russophobic propaganda targeting the history and culture of Russia. The West’s ideological crusade has repeatedly shown a total disregard for the basic facts of history in its attempt to brand Russia as an evil, aggressive force led by a madman menacing democracy. 

A glaring example of this brand of polemics is a recent two-minute video called “Why Russia Fights” produced for the Hoover Institution in an obvious attempt to drum up support for the US proxy war in Ukraine (The video can be accessed here:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6kae...).

Far from limiting its criticism to the policies of Vladimir Putin’s administration, the video from the Hoover Institution paints Russia throughout rice centuries of its history as a unified state as a sinister force intent on dominating the world due to an ideology based on moral superiority. Accepting this premise rules out any hope of the West ever peacefully coexisting with Russia unless it is weakened and its vast territory broken up into various small vassal states—as some in the West have argued. 

This is a far more extreme position than was ever advanced by influential people and institutions in the earlier Cold War when the principal objection in the West to the Soviet Union was centered its Communist system rather than its overall history and culture. 

By painting Russia as the aggressor and never once mentioning the devastating invasions from the West that Russia suffered over centuries, the Hoover video stands history on its head. Western aggression against Russia was the salient theme in The Battle of Russia, the celebrated wartime documentary produced by Frank Capra for his Why We Fight series. This series was so well known for so long that it seems almost impossible that today’s Western propagandists could ignore it. Indeed, it is likely that those at the Hoover Institution chose the title “Why Russia Fights” as a deliberate attempt to counter Capra’s Why We Fight series. I’m certain the neoconservatives who made the Russophobic video are far from stupid or as ignorant of the basic facts of Russian history as they assume the American public to be. But they clearly believe that the end justifies the means and hence are willing to lie about the past in order to further their cause in the present. 

The Hoover Institution apparently calculated that their propaganda will succeed in the present age of disinformation and widespread historical and cultural illiteracy. Unfortunately, they may be right. Surveys have revealed that many Americans do not even know in what century their own Civil War took place or which side Russia was on in World War II. Only a relatively select number of Americans today have seen Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky or Mikhail Kalatazov’s The Cranes Are Flying. I doubt if many among the current generation in the US have ever read Tolstoy’s War and Peace or seen the memorable film adaptations by King Vidor and Sergei Bondarchuk. 

The new Russophobia that came to the fore in the West during the Maidan coup of 2014—and became especially virulent in the wake of Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine in 2022— has been far more sweeping than which swept the country during the Cold War or the earlier period of tsarist rule. The attempt in the West to “cancel” Russian culture in the last few years, eerily reminiscent of the campaign against German culture in the US in 1917-18 during World War I, has no parallel in previous periods of tension between Russia and the West, whether in tsarist or Soviet times. Distinctions were once made in the West between Russian artists and their government, with the artist viewed as expressing a spirit of freedom whatever the constraints imposed on him by the particular regime in power. 

Now, however, in the wake of the Ukraine crisis, in a manner all too typical of decades of Western political correctness, there have sprung up various analysts who claim to see the hand of Russian autocracy and ethnocentrism in the country’s great writers, a critique in synch with the deplorable efforts of Ukrainian nationalists to suppress Russia’s classic artists as vestiges of imperial oppression. 

That Western leaders’ present attitude toward the Russian Federation is guided by old stereotypes of “darkest Russia” is glaringly apparent from a statement by President Joe Biden who said at the Munich Security Conference in February 2018 that “the time will come—it may not come in the near future—but eventually the people of Russia will look West and out of that deep black hole they have been staring into for the last 150 years or longer.” If he was referring to the decade of the 1860s, then he is clearly unfamiliar with the great reforms of Alexander II including the introduction of trial by jury and the emancipation of the serfs which inspired American abolitionists in their own efforts to get rid of slavery. Culturally, what Biden dismissed as a “deep black hole” was an age of incredible artistic achievements—the great novels of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Turgenev and the great music of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, and Mussorgsky.

But the wave of Russophobia has not only sought to erase the achievements of Russia’s distant past—they seek to distort more recent history as well.  In his book, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America, Timothy Snyder, an Establishment historian committed to the new Cold War, consistent with his view that Russia has always been a land of tyrannical darkness, wrote of the “faked 1996 election” in which Boris Yeltsin retained his presidential office but conveniently omitted the major role President Clinton’s advisers played in ensuring that victory. The Hoover Institution once made Alexander Solzhenitsyn an honorary fellow but now condemns as a mortal enemy to Western values the Russian traditions that the writer so powerfully expressed in his works. The West’s chronicle of the new Cold War ignores all of its actions that made February 24, 2022 all but inevitable: the violation of the promise never to expand NATO eastward; the Clinton administration’s strong support of Yeltsin’s autocratic regime in the 1990s and the economic disaster that followed from its policies; the US withdrawal from its arms control treaties with Russia; the US instigation of so-called “color revolutions” hostile to Russia in former Soviet republics, of which the 2014 Maidan coup— which installed a violently Russophobic regime in Ukraine—has been the most disastrous; and the West’s refusal to implement the Minsk accords intended to resolve this crisis. 

With the US complicity in Israel’s monstrous Gaza genocide now plainly in evidence, all the West’s high-flown rhetoric about its response to the Ukraine crisis being part of some cosmic struggle between Western democracy and Eastern authoritarianism has been unmasked as nothing more than a hypocritical cover for continued world domination by American military and corporate elites. 

The attempt by the Western political and media establishment to whip up fears of the East by simultaneously appealing to Russophobia, Islamophobia and Sinophobia is rooted in centuries of anxieties about “the Other” going back to antiquity. When Western countries have looked eastward, they have experienced uneasiness by the sheer size of these lands, the vastness of their populations, the “strange” customs and cultures of these civilizations, their wealth and power seen as a threat to the West’s planetary domination. At a time when cooperation between East and West is absolutely essential to human survival, there must be a concerted effort by all those who care about continued life on this fragile planet to fight the West’s ancient prejudices. Instead of promulgating as inevitable a “clash of civilizations” between East and West, we must strive for a new consciousness of our shared humanity. 

William M. Drew is a writer, film historian, researcher, and college lecturer. He is the author of Speaking of Silents: First Ladies of the Screen (1990) and At the Center of the Frame: Leading Ladies of the Twenties and Thirties (1999).

Ben Aris: Russia’s economy is booming

By Ben Aris, Intellinews, 6/10/24

Russia’s economy is booming. In the first quarter, Russian GDP grew by 5.4%, higher than in the fourth quarter of last year, albeit boosted by an extra day in February. The economy is on course to expand by over 3% this year or more, ahead of expectations.

The growth has gone beyond the military Keynesian boost Russia enjoyed in the first year of the war in Ukraine due to the torrent of military spending. A number of factors have come together to put the wind at the economy’s back as the changes in the economic growth become structural.

On the plus side of the balance sheet is higher than expected oil and gas revenues, as the West oil price sanctions have largely failed. Russia has also managed to almost entirely dodge the technology sanctions, with technology imports in 2023 only 2% less than a year earlier. Russian companies rallied to the challenge of sanctions and have been investing heavily in retooling their production lines to deal with the difficulties of obtaining Western inputs. Investments in fixed capital in Russia moved up by 14.5% year on year in the first quarter of 2024, RosStat recently reported to RUB5.93 trillion ($66.2bn) over the reported period. Fixed capital investments as of 2023 year-end gained 9.8% y/y and amounted to more than RUB34.04 trillion ($379.6bn). 

The growth in industry shows up in Russia’s PMI manufacturing index, which was 54.4 in May, far ahead of the 50 no-change benchmark and one of the strongest expansions in Europe.

At the same time, the labour shortage – unemployment fell to a fresh all-time low of 2.6% in April – has driven nominal wages up about twice as fast as inflation (7.8% in April), which has seen real wages rise strongly for the first time in a decade and is fuelling a consumption boom. S&P Global reports that job creation in Russia in May was at its highest level in 26 years.

Another unintended side-effect of the war is that Russia’s poorest regions have been the biggest winners from the militarisation of the Russian economy, and that has gone a long way to undoing Russia’s legendary income inequality, leading to a broader-based and more equitable growth in the whole country, not just the leading cities.

“Additional demand from the state was transferred to the population and business through government procurement, budget transfers and payments to households. The same processes spurred lending, including as a result of the improvement in the financial situation of borrowers: wages in March increased by 21.6% y/y in nominal terms and by 12.9% in real terms,” The Bell reports.

On the negative side of the balance sheet is that inflation remains stubbornly high and that the economy is running very hot, according to CBR Governor Elvira Nabiullina. The CBR’s forecast for the end of the year is that inflation will fall to 5.6% before returning to its target rate of 4% in 2025, but that is starting to look increasingly unlikely. However, the central bank has hiked rates to 16% and economists speculate that it may hike them again by as much 100bp in July in an effort to check inflation.

Another more worrying trend is that Russian productivity is falling, despite the record 81% capacity utilisation rate, as even with the government’s heavy investment into the military industrial complex Russian industry remains in desperate need of modernisation. However, this is on the agenda, as laid out in President Vladimir Putin’s recent guns and butter speech, and is at the heart of the National Projects 2.1, the Kremlin’s blueprint for developing the whole economy, not just the military industrial segment.

By all measures the Russian economy is experiencing a boom, based on three significant factors, The Bell reports.

One of the unintended consequences of sanctions, and especially self-sanctions by multinationals working in Russia, is that their departure has opened large niches in various sectors into which other countries have gleefully stepped. The most obvious is the automotive sector, which was probably the most hurt by sanctions and came to a screeching halt in the summer of 2022. However, as reported by bne IntelliNews, the car market had almost entirely recovered by April, as China neatly stepped into the shoes left empty by the European and US multinationals. And after the pull-out of franchises that offered goods like iPhones, these have been almost entirely replaced with the 90s-era traders that used to supply Russia with Western consumer goods before the franchises arrived.

According to estimates by the Kyiv School of Economics, since the start of the war in Ukraine, more than 1,600 transnational companies have suspended their activities or left Russia. Only 666 companies can be considered to have truly gone, that is, liquidated or sold, according to the recent report “The Place of Exiting Foreign Companies in the Economy of Industries and Regions of Russia.” In 2022, there were 223 actual companies that left. The growth in 2023 was caused by long periods of closure of a company or its transition to new owners, The Bell reports.

Russian companies have also stepped into these niches, fuelling an investment boom. Many of the multinationals staff and ran their Russian operations with locals, who have simply taken over. That means profits that used to accrue to the owners of the intellectual property now all stays in Russia and are being reinvested into rapid expansion. One of the most iconic foreign investments into Russia was the opening of the Pushkin Square branch of McDonald’s in 1990, which went on to build a country-wide network of restaurants. After more than two decades of work, the chain was taken over by Vkusno I Totchka (Tasty. Period), which has continued to expand the rebranded chain and claimed in June of last year to be more profitable than the original.

Similar stories are now playing out in other sectors with a big hole left in them after the abrupt departure of famous international brands.

“In the first quarter of 2024, the profits of companies in the insurance and financial sector increased by 2.3 times; in the tourism sector, 52 times; construction, 41 times,” The Bell reports.

And this trend is only being driven by the state’s ideological commitment to import substitution over and above the practical need to set up domestic production of goods that used to be imported.

The prototype of this change was cheese production. For decades it was cheaper to import high-quality European cheese than to try to make lower-quality and more expensive Russian cheese. After the Kremlin slapped tit-for-tat agricultural sanctions on European imports in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea, French and Swiss cheese disappeared from Russian supermarket shelves overnight. It took about two years, but a Russian domestic cheese-making industry sprang up to meet demand. Since then the Kremlin has been pouring money into the agricultural sector and food production to turn Russia into an agricultural powerhouse.

The 2022 sanctions are far more extreme, creating similar opportunities in products across the board, and Russian entrepreneurs are rising again to the challenge.

These changes have all been made easier by the robust health of the domestic banking sector. After taking over as governor in 2013, Nabiullina set out on a large-scale clean-up of the banking sector that was more or less complete by 2018, well before the war in Ukraine started. Despite its lack of access to dollars, the domestic market is large enough to fuel a vibrant, liquid and well capitalised banking sector that has been able to fund the investment and growth. Last year Russian banks reported more profits than at any time since the 2014 sanctions were imposed and are on course to have the most profitable year in modern history this year. Corporate and retail loans are growing strongly and the various rounds of sanctions mean that banks and companies remain underleveraged, giving them plenty of room to grow.

The strength of the growth, rising demand and the need to invest into import substitution is outweighing the painfully high interest rates for the moment. Lending growth doubled in the first quarter of this year, despite the Central Bank’s double-digit interest rate. The issuance of retail loans rose by 3.7% compared to the previous quarter. Car lending is increasing: the average car loan size for 2023 expanded from RUB1.2 to RUB1.4mn, The Bell reports.

In addition, a new class of borrowers has emerged: people with high incomes prefer to save their earnings on deposits (this is facilitated by rates of 17%), and finance current consumption through loans. The CBR reported in May that most of the new borrowing is on credit cards which are less sensitive to high interest rates, as consumers prefer to borrow short term to make purchases and leave their deposits in high-earning bank accounts.

“Those who were [not] creditworthy yesterday become creditworthy, and they begin to take out more loans despite the fact that loan rates are quite high,” explained the head of the country’s largest bank, Sberbank, German Gref.

The corporate portfolio also continued to grow (1.9% in April and 1.8% in March), the Bank of Russia reported: developers received the most loans as part of project financing for housing construction, as well as transport and IT companies. Industry, especially engaged in performing.

A positive feedback loop of heavy state spending on the war that is pumping the economy full of money has been established and as long as the war continues and as long as the state keeps running healthy current account surpluses thanks to oil exports, this virtuous circle will continue to spin.

It is similar to the virtuous circle that was established following the 1998 financial crisis. The devaluation of the ruble by 75% overnight cut Russian oil prices operating cost by the same amount, but the revenue they earned from exports was denominated in dollars and the leading oil companies became fantastically profitable overnight. Collectively they invested more in boosting production in 1999 than had been invested in the previous decade following the fall of the Soviet Union. The cash from the oil companies poured into the economy, fuelling a virtuous circle of investment, increased wages, higher consumption, rising profits and circled back to more investment. Russia’s economy doubled in size over the next decade.

While the virtuous circle that has started now is not as robust as the previous episode, it is likely to continue as long as oil prices remain high and the ruble remains relatively weak. However, Russia’s economy is also exposed to a sudden shock if the elevated military spending comes to a halt and high inflation eats into the fast growth and growing real incomes. Making the sanctions regime more effective could bring this virtuous circle to an abrupt halt.

The Bell: Rich Russians are bringing their money back home

The Bell, 5/27/24

The Great Repatriation: Russian millionaires bring their cash back to the Motherland

After trying to send their money overseas in the immediate aftermath of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, wealthy Russians are now bringing their millions back home, new data shows. The number of high net worth individuals jumped back above pre-war levels last year, after falling in 2022. Some 22,000 wealthy Russians account for almost $150 billion stashed in domestic bank accounts — around a quarter of the national total.

In 2023, the funds held by high net worth clients — defined as those with more than 100 million rubles ($1.1 million) — in Russian banks and investment companies jumped by 62% to 13.1 trillion rubles ($148 billion), research from banking consultancy Frank RG showed. The number of those who qualify among the ranks of the country’s wealthiest jumped 50% to 22,000, with their combined assets accounting for 23% of Russia’s total financial capital. The cohort of super-rich banking clients, with at least $5.5 million of assets, grew even faster, up 62%.That marks a major reversal from 2022, when capital flowed in the opposite direction. Frank RG figures for the first year of the war showed a 21% fall in the number of high-net worth individuals, and a 27% drop among the super-rich category. The combined capital they held dropped by more than 20%. A panicked transfer of funds abroad after Russia invaded, combined with the plummeting stock market and the transfer of cash into non-liquid assets such as gold and foreign property also had an impact on bank balances.Many factors are behind the revival in 2023. Thanks to high interest rates (the central bank’s key rate is currently 16%), Russian banks are currently a profitable place to deposit cash. And after a collapse in 2022, the Russian stock market was up 44% in 2023. No less important than these financial factors was the political climate. Russian money turned out to be unwelcome in the West. Threatened with sanctions and the freezing of their assets, billionaires transferred tens of billions back into the relative safety of Russian jurisdiction. Bloomberg reported earlier this month that the richest Russians were continuing to repatriate their funds, even while they recognized the increasing domestic threat of forced nationalization.It is not just double-digit interest rates and the chance to strike it rich on the back of the militarization of the economy that await rich Russians investing at home. Higher taxes are also on the cards. Last week the State Duma was busy discussing tax reforms — the central plank of which will be an increase in income tax for the upper middle class (those with monthly income above $1,700) and corporate tax. President Vladimir Putin is leaning on the poorer segments of Russian society more and more for his support, meaning the country’s economic policy is inevitably drifting to the left. In the 2024 May decrees, Putin’s program for his latest presidential term, reducing wealth inequality was named a “national goal” for the first time.

Why the world should care

We never tire of pointing out that sanctions against individual Russian billionaires are probably the most dangerously ineffective of the West’s measures against Moscow. From day one, Western countries have put obstacles in the way of capital flowing out from Russia — something that could have seriously weakened the Russian economy — meaning wealthy Russians had little choice but to bring their money home. Now those funds are being tapped to spend on the war.

Europe’s last land border closes to Russian tourists

Norway has announced that it is closing its land border with Russia, the last remaining land crossing to Europe that was open to Russian tourists. During the 2022 mobilization, this was a popular way for Russians who did not want to be forced into the war to leave the country.

From May 29, Norway will ban entry for Russian citizens traveling as tourists and “non-essential” purposes. Exceptions may be possible for those traveling to visit close relatives, for work or study. The Norwegian government said the new restrictions were needed to support its allies in their response to Russia’s war in Ukraine.Norway was the last European country bordering Russia that had not closed its borders to Russians traveling only on tourist visas. Although Norway is not an EU member, it is part of the Schengen visa-free zone, meaning once in Norway, Russians were free to travel onwards to most other countries in Europe.The decision could have implications for Russians trying to flee military call-ups. When Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization in September 2022, tens of thousands of men immediately tried to leave the country, triggering prices for air tickets to rocket and huge lines at Russia’s land borders with Georgia and Kazakhstan. Suddenly, the remote northern Norwegian border turned into an unexpected escape route: with a simple tourist visa for any Schengen country, it was enough to spend $100-$300 on a ticket from Moscow to Murmansk, then ride a couple of hours to the Norwegian border on a bus. A few hours after that, you could be in Oslo, able to fly to almost anywhere in Europe. Now this route will no longer be possible.All other European countries that border Russia — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland — had long ago closed their borders to Russian tourists.

Why the world should care

The FT reported a figure close to the Russian military saying that by the end of 2024 or beginning of 2025 another round of mobilization would be “inevitable.” When it does happen, this time it will be far harder for men to get away than it was in 2022 — Russia’s repressive new conscription legislation, the creation of a digital register of call-ups and Europe’s border closures will see to that.

Russia moves towards recognising the Taliban

Russia is planning to recognise the Taliban as the lawful government of Afghanistan and remove it from the list of “banned” organizations. This will put an end to the absurd situation where Taliban representatives are officially received in the Kremlin, while journalists can be jailed for mentioning them in their articles.

Russia is set to remove the Taliban, which seized power in Afghanistan in 2021, from its list of banned organizations, TASS reported on Monday. The step has been agreed upon by the foreign ministry and the justice ministry, and has been reported to Vladimir Putin. The foreign ministry anticipates that after this, Moscow will recognize the Taliban as the legal government in Afghanistan. The move could come ahead of Aug. 19, when the Taliban celebrates Afghanistan’s independence day — the date it seized control from the US-backed government and, as it says, threw off “three empires in three centuries”:  Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States.The Taliban has been a banned organization in Russia since 2003. However, the more Russia’s relations with the West deteriorated, the warmer the relationship with the Taliban became. The true start of closer contacts came in 2015, when Russia got involved in the conflict in Syria. At that time, the Russian authorities relied on the Taliban’s enmity towards ISIS and Al-Qaeda (also banned in Russia). Moscow’s position was partially rewarded when the Taliban seizure of power became inevitable — at a time of total panic in Kabul in August 2021, Russia’s embassy worked normally under a guard of militants.Since their return to power, Taliban delegations have regularly visited Russia. This year, the Taliban-run foreign ministry strongly condemned the terror attack on the Crocus City Hall in Moscow, blaming it on ISIS, and in May an official Taliban delegation attended the “Russia – Islamic World” forum. Throughout all this, Russian state media have continued to accompany any mention of the Taliban with the label “banned organization.” For everyone else, even a mention of the Taliban carries the threat of a criminal charge. Just two weeks ago, journalist Nadezhda Kevorkova was arrested in Moscow on charges of “justifying terrorism.” One of the two accusations against her is justifying the Taliban’s terrorist activities. She faces up to seven years in jail.

Why the world should care

Despite grinding poverty at home, Afghanistan holds significant natural resources, including globally significant stocks of lithium and nickel (read more about this here). However, developing these resources is difficult, whether due to the lack of protection for investors or the absence of infrastructure and technology. For now, Russia’s relationship with the Taliban remains political, and the common factor remains their shared anti-Western agenda. Afghanistan’s main international partners are Iran, China and Pakistan. The Taliban mostly wants Russian cheap grain and fuel.

Russia Matters: Poll – Majority of Russians Believe Situation in Ukraine Could Escalate to Direct Armed Conflict Between Russia & NATO

Russia Matters, 7/12/24

The share of Russians who believe the “situation in Ukraine can escalate into an armed conflict between Russia and NATO” increased from 44% in January 2024 to 58% in June 2024, according to the Levada Center. Even more worryingly, the share of Russians who are very worried about “the threat of the use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict” increased from 71% in April 2023 to 73% in June 2024, according to this independent [western-backed] Russian pollster. The period of April 2023–June 2024 also saw the share of Russians who definitely believe or rather believe “the use of nuclear weapons by Russia in the course of the current conflict in Ukraine” would be justified, increase to more than one-third. The past week has seen Hungary’s Viktor Orban embark on a series of meetings, which he said were meant to discuss potential options for negotiating peace between Russia and Ukraine. During that tour he visited Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Xi Jinping in Beijing and Donald Trump in Florida. But even before the first leg of Orban’s journey, Putin cooled down expectations by declaring at the SCO summit in Astana that a halt to fighting can only occur if Ukraine agrees to take “irreversible” steps demanded by Moscow. Putin didn’t specify what those would be, but he has recently conditioned ceasefire on Ukraine withdrawing fully from Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia and giving up its bid to join NATO, among other things. Upon meeting Putin on July 5 Orban then flew to China to hear Xi tell him that “a ceasefire can only be realized soon if all major powers exert a positive rather than negative influence.” Following his meetings in Moscow and Beijing, Orban told the EU that Russian and Chinese leaders expect Ukrainian peace talks by the end of 2024, according to El Pais. He then met with Trump, promising him to “fix this problem,” according to BNE. Putin also discussed Ukraine in a separate meeting on July 9 with India’s Shri Narendra Modi, thanking the latter for “trying” to find ways to resolve the conflict. Modi said their lengthy discussion yielded “several ideas” that left him “hopeful” of a way forward, without providing further details, according to Bloomberg.

Putin Answers Questions from Russian Media After SCO Meeting in Astana | Gilbert Doctorow’s Analysis

Kremlin website, 7/4/24

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon. Go ahead, please.

Anton Vernitsky: Mr President, my name is Anton Vernitsky, Channel One. Are you satisfied with the SCO’s effectiveness in this turbulent global envoronment? Does the Organisation manage to respond to all the challenges? Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: The SCO is a useful organisation. Let me remind you that it was created to finally settle all the issues that arose after the USSR collapsed, border issues with China that remained unresolved backing the Soviet times between China and the newly established states. Gradually, the organisation started to gain steam and definitely became more necessary in today’s world, because it is clearly an independent centre of the new multipolar world. This is the feature that attracted the organisation members and those who wanted to maintain close contacts with it at various levels, as guests or as observers. As you can see, the will to join the SCO is growing. It has definitely become a powerful and global organisation: its member countries represent almost half of the Earth’s population. This is the firs point.

Second, it is a platform to agree positions among the member countries: China, Russia, India and Pakistan. As you understand, contacts never go amiss. In addition to this, once the organisation has grown to be so powerful and large, then the principles it declares are also significant, when they are known all over the world. For example, all the member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation have agreed that they stand against the deployment of any weapons in outer space, which is reflected in the declaration and other documents as well. This is a signal for the rest of the world on how we feel about the militarisation of outer space.

There are also other serious and important things, as I have said. First, a trillion-worth mutual trade matters. Discussing issues related to economic cooperation, both bilaterally and multilaterally, is crucial. As I have said, the GDP grew by 5.4 or 5.3 percent, and the industrial production grew 4.5 percent at the inflation rate of 2.4 percent. This is a good growth rate and good quality of the economy. I mean the low level of inflation.

Finally, cultural and humanitarian issues in various fields are agreed on, including youth, culture, education, and sports cooperation, all of which are very important and have good prospects.

Alexander Gamov: I am Alexander Gamov, Komsomolskaya Pravda.

Mr President, statements are already made that we consider Verkhovna Rada the only legitimate authority in Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin: It is not we who say this but the constitution of Ukraine.

Alexander Gamov: Yes, this is according to the constitution. Perhaps Russia could address Verkhovna Rada directly, so that everyone in Ukraine and the West knows it.

A question arises related to Ukraine, which was spoken about a lot today. Back in December 1999, it was decided to create the Union State of Russia and Belarus, and we were dreaming about a common constitution, common currency etc. Today, integration processes have reached an unprecedented level, even considering our defence ties. Isn’t it time to return to creating the union we dreamed about in 1999? Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: First, as for Ukraine, we could address Verkhovna Rada but this makes no sense while the power is usurped by the ruling elite, because the majority at the Verkhovna Rada is under its command. It holds the power illegally and does not even appeal to the constitutional court to confirm its powers. As I said, back in 2015, the Supreme Court of Ukraine ruled that a presidential term was limited to five years, and there were no reasons to extend powers in accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine. All powers should go to the Rada, but it does not take these powers upon itself. Therefore, of course, we can address it, but it is pointless considering the real-life situation.

The Union State is developing, and we remember all the goals and tasks set in the original documents. This is the path we are going along.

The President of Belarus believes, and I support him, that not political but economic issues must be addressed at the first stage. A foundation for further rapprochement on the political track must be created, though everything works smoothly in the political sphere: there are both interparliamentary and intergovernmental associations. It is a question of time whether it would be necessary to establish a single parliament. I agree with Mr Lukashenko that we have to properly strengthen our economic relations first.

The same goes for our finances and a single currency. Nobody is saying that this is impossible or that we cannot do this. We have to get ready for this economically, because, as you know, when a single currency was introduced in the European Union, many countries with weak economies suffered from this, because nothing could be regulated using inflation since everything was pegged to euro. For example, there was no drachma, so Greece could not regulate its domestic economic processes using its national currency. Therefore, it is important that we have a relevant level of economic cooperation. We have taken very serious steps in this direction.

This concerns tax and customs regulations. You know, this is very significant, if not revolutionary. We move forward while relying on international experience, too. I believe we are correct in doing so.

Donald Courter: Donald Courter, Russia today.

Mr President, terrorist organisations on Afghan territory pose a serious threat to security of the SCO space, including Central Asian countries and Russia. The Islamic State is the most dangerous of them, and Russia has already had to face it this year.

My question is, should the Taliban join the dialogue on terrorist threats? Do you think they are allies or enemies here?

Vladimir Putin: The Taliban movement has taken on certain obligations, and in general there are issues that require constant attention both within the country and from the international community. In fact, we should keep in mind that the Taliban controls the country. In this sense, the Taliban are, of course, our allies in countering terrorism, because any authority in power is interested in its own stability and the stability of the country it leads.

I believe that the Taliban are also interested in Afghanistan being stable, calm, and subject to certain rules. We have received repeated signals from the Taliban that they are ready to work with us on the anti-terrorism track.

Dmitry Laru: My name is Dmitry Laru, Izvestia newspaper.

Afghanistan remains a SCO observer state, but the Kabul authorities have said many times that they are interested in fully joining the Organisation. Has this topic been discussed at the SCO, considering that the [SCO – Afghanistan] Contact Group has resumed its work?

Is Russia planning to remove the Taliban from the list of banned organisations? If so, when might this happen?

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: I have already said that we maintain contact with the Taliban. We have received repeated signals that the Taliban movement is ready to cooperate with Russia in various areas, including on the anti-terrorism track, and we welcome it.

As for full membership in the SCO, it is not for Russia alone to decide. This is always decided by a consensus. There are issues with several SCO member states which concern the inclusiveness of power in Afghanistan.

I believe all these issues can be resolved. We must maintain relations with Afghanistan and the real political forces that control the country. We will do this. I do not see why we should turn away from this now.

The timing will depend on how the situation will develop.

Pavel Zarubin: Good evening. Pavel Zarubin, Rossiya TV Channel.

Several months ago, I was lucky to ask you: who is better for us, Biden or Trump? And then you said that Biden. But now it turns out that that “bet” has become questionable because after the recent debates in the United States everyone is terrified of Biden, and, in general, his participation in the election race is in question.

Maybe you managed to see some pieces of these debates. What are your impressions? And, let us put it as follows, have your political preferences changed?

Vladimir Putin: You said: “That “bet” has become questionable.” Nothing has become questionable. Then I said … What has changed? Nothing has changed. Do you think we didn’t know what would happen? We did. Nothing has changed in that sense.

As for watching or not watching it – I watched some pieces. I have enough to do, so I don’t particularly follow what’s going on there, especially in the media comments. They always have certain preferences: someone is in favour, someone is against. On the whole, of course, I have seen it, it is impossible to turn away from this, especially since the United States remains a great power with certain economic, security, and military capabilities, and the United States, a permanent member of the Security Council, certainly has such an influence on the situation in Ukraine. Of course, we are not indifferent to what is happening there. Still, this is their own internal affair.

Please, go ahead.

Aisel Gereikhanova: Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Aisel Gereikhanova.

And yet, regarding the debates and specifically Donald Trump’s statements. He has already said on many occasions during the debates that he is ready to finish the conflict in Ukraine literally overnight. There are also some reports that Trump may stop NATO expansion to the East. How seriously do you take such promises yourself?

Vladimir Putin: You know, we take seriously enough the things that Mr Trump is saying as a presidential candidate about his readiness and wish to stop the war in Ukraine. Naturally, I do not know his possible proposals as to how he is going to do it – and this is, of course, the key question. However, I have no doubt that he is saying it sincerely, and we support it.

Andrei Kolesnikov: My name is Andrei Kolesnkov, Kommersant newspaper.

Mr President, do you believe a ceasefire along the contact line with Ukraine is possible before peace negotiations begin, without any preconditions, in order to have a better chance of success? Or is it also subject to negotiation?

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Let me remind you some things. When our troops were near Kiev, we received a proposal and even a plea from our Western partners to cease fire and stop hostilities in order for certain things to be done on the Ukrainian side. We did it. There was a moment when we did it. The Ukrainian side did not cease hostilities. Later we were told that the official Ukrainian authorities could not control all their military units, because there were allegedly those that were not subordinate to the central authorities. This is what we were told, no more and no less. This is first.

Second, we were asked to move our troops away from Kiev in order to create conditions to finally sign a peace treaty. We did this and faced deception once again: all the agreements reached in Istanbul were thrown in the trash. Such things happened repeatedly.

Therefore, we cannot just declare a ceasefire hoping that the opposing side will take some positive steps. This is first.

Second, we cannot allow the adversary to take advantage of this ceasefire to improve its positions, rearm itself, fill up its army through forced mobilization, and get prepared to continue the armed conflict.We must ensure that the opposing side agrees to take steps that would be irreversible and acceptable to the Russian Federation.

Therefore, a ceasefire is impossible without reaching this agreement.

Yelena Mukhametshina: Vedomosti newspaper.

Several days ago, Vladimir Zelensky said that he considered negotiations with Russia possible through mediators, the way it was with the grain deal. What do you think about this idea, and who could serve as mediator in this case?

Vladimir Putin: We have always been in favour of negotiations, as you know. We never rejected them. The problem is that I consider it improbable that the conflict can be settled through mediators alone, above all because a mediator will not be authorised to sign any final documents, and moreover, even bring them for signing. The competencies of these mediators are not the only crucial issue, but their authority, too. Who can vest the authority to any mediator to put this conflict to an end? I find this improbable.

However, we welcome mediation, for example, like that of Mr Erdogan during our negotiation process in Istanbul.

Rossina Bodrova: Rossina Bodrova, Zvezda TV channel.

What do we know about Washington’s plans to deploy intermediate- and shorter-range missiles? What territories might be used to deploy them, and what kind of threat will this pose for our security?

You recently spoke about the need to begin the production of intermediate- and shorter-range missile strike systems. Are we talking about a new weapon? Is it just production, or does that include deployment as well?

Vladimir Putin: As you may remember, I said that in connection with the United States withdrawing from this treaty and announcing that it would begin the production, we, too, believe we can begin the R&D work, and production in the future. We are carrying out the R&D work. We are ready to start the production. In principle, we have already instructed the industry accordingly.

As far as deployment is concerned, as you may remember, and if you do not, I will remind you, I said we were declaring a moratorium on the possible deployment of our respective systems in the future until the time these missile systems are deployed in another region of the world. If US-made medium-range and shorter-range missiles appear in some place, we reserve the right to respond tit-for-tat. Everything that we said remains valid.

Alexander Yunashev: Alexander Yunashev, Life.

Mr President, yesterday you had several bilateral meetings, and the spotlight was on your talks with President Erdogan, whom you saw in person a long time ago, even though trade between our countries is declining.

Vladimir Putin: It is growing now.

Alexander Yunashev: Still not as much we would like.

If it is not a secret, what did you discuss when the reporters left? What is the most important issue in Russia-Turkiye relations? What, or who, is standing in our way?

Vladimir Putin: It is well known who is standing in our way. What helps us is President Erdogan’s political will. Technically, it is about calculations, and everyone is well aware of it. Even though our Turkish partners mentioned yesterday that, in value terms, our trade had fallen from US$63 billion to US$55 billion. These figures need to be checked, of course. According to them, this is primarily cost-related, because they used to purchase our energy carriers at higher prices, and prices have fallen in recent months, at least compared to 2022. So we are witnessing a decline in value terms as well.

According to them, not much has changed in absolute terms and in terms of volume. I will run a check on it. The point is not to check things, though, but to step up our work, and both sides are interested in doing so.

There are also objective considerations that have nothing to do with someone being in our way, but have more to do with what things actually are. For example, the harvest in Turkiye was good, and their storage facilities are full of grain. They buy less grain. Or, take their tax restrictions related to our metallurgical industry. This has nothing to do with restrictions from outside. It is simply the dynamics of domestic production and our bilateral relations. All these issues can be dealt with.

Please go ahead.

Anna Derkach: Good afternoon, Mr President. My name is Anna Derkach, MIR.

As of today, Belarus is officially a SCO member. What prospects does this bring to the organisation, and what opportunities does it open up for cooperation between the SCO and the Eurasian Economic Union?

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Belarus’s size, territory, economy, or population cannot be compared with China or India with over 1.5 billion people each, probably, even more now. However, it is still an important element of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, because Belarus is Eastern Europe, so the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation has officially entered the European continent. I also believe that this is a great advantage for Belarus, because, for example, it now has a way to the Caspian Sea via Russia, and then, say, via Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, further to Iran. It is important for Belarus, because it remains a large exporter of mineral fertiliser. It is important for Belarus to have routes and countries where it can export its agricultural equipment or import something from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation countries.

Therefore, I believe that this is a mutually beneficial decision, and, to a certain degree, Mr Lukashenko and his Foreign Ministry’s success.

Ksenia Chernyayeva: My name is Ksenia Chernyayeva, Interfax agency.

At the moment, in fact, the entire previous system of strategic stability has been cancelled: START-3, the INF Treaty and the CTBT are not in effect. Is it possible to renew these agreements in the future, or will they never be relevant again? Should we come up with something new, such as a unified concept, convention, or some other framework document? With whom and on what platform should this topic be discussed and such agreements recorded?

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: The first thing I would like to point out is that indeed the United States has destroyed the fundamental documents that underpinned international stability and security. We did not withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which was a cornerstone, or the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or the CTBT.

Many elements in the foundation of international stability have been destroyed in recent years. Nothing if this was done by us. All of this was done by the US. What were we supposed to do? Only to take note and respond to those actions. And so we did. For example, what have we done in the military sphere to overcome the missile defence system being created by the United States? We successfully invented systems to overcome antimissile defences, such as intercontinental Avandards, hypersonic gliding blocks, or intercontinental-range ballistic missile technology to break through missile defence systems, and some other things, too. We were forced to do this.

However, the issue of creating a legal framework for international security and strategic stability is still on our to-do list. Should these be new agreements or should we return to the old ones? This is up to the experts to decide. You know, even when I was studying at the university, I did not study public international law, I studied private international law and my thesis was about it. Then, I did economics.

But it is not even about that, not about the formal, or the legal aspect, but about the root of the matters that we should address as a team.

We have articulated our proposals. I mentioned when I spoke before the Foreign Ministry’s senior officials. As a matter of fact, it was put on paper. But there must be goodwill on the part of those who are interested in seeing this happen. We sometimes hear from the United States that they are willing to resume talks on this subject. But they appear to be undecided. At some point they seem to want it, next thing you know they do not. During the latter stint of President Obama’s administration, they let us know that they wanted to, but then all of a sudden they changed their mind.

I believe everyone here, and in general, people who follow the developments, realise that establishing any kind of a constructive dialogue with the United States at this point, amid the presidential campaign marked by acute domestic political strife – we should discuss this matter primarily with the United States – is impossible. We should wait for the elections in the United States to take place and see the future administration’s disposition and preferences. We are ready for that.

Yulia Bubnova: Speaking at the Foreign Ministry, you outlined your vision of the future security system, and now you mentioned that these ideas would be put on paper. What will it be, if it is not a secret? Will it be new treaties, our written proposals to the West, or something else? More broadly, are there any contacts underway to follow up on your proposals regarding Ukraine and the global security system in general, or do they remain unanswered by the West?

Vladimir Putin: As far as global security is concerned, I have just covered it. We need to wait for the new [US] administration to be formed, to understand their preferences, views, and plans, and whether they are willing to discuss this matter. To reiterate, they are letting us know from time to time that they are willing to resume this dialogue with us. However, shortly after, they vanish and then come up with abstract topics that are not directly related to matters of strategic stability. To reiterate, let us wait until the new administration is formed and see what its plans and preferences are. Once again, we are ready for that.

Thank you very much. All the best.

***

Significance of the latest Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Astana, Kazakhstan

By Gilbert Doctorow, Website, 7/5/24

Yesterday saw the conclusion of the two-day summit in Astana, Kazakhstan that brought together the heads of state and government of eight of the nine members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The only missing prime minister was Modi from India, but he will shortly make amends by paying a state visit in Moscow in the coming week. On the positive side of the ledger, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus was present to witness the rise of his country from observer status to full membership. Among the several candidate states for entry into this club represented in Astana at the highest level, the most notable was President Erdogan of Turkey.

As for what may have been accomplished in Astana, we can say that at a minimum it provided its participants with the opportunity for confidential bilateral talks at a time that is fraught with risk, given the hearths of war in Ukraine, in Gaza and in the Straits of Taiwan. We know that Vladimir Putin made good use of the visit to line up a full day’s sequence of tête-à-têtes, the most important of which, surely, was with Chinese President Xi.

So far, the texts of official documents signed by the participants have not been published or even described. We may assume these are mostly of an economic nature. However, the news about Belarus gaining full membership and the announcement on the sidelines of the summit by President Xi that China will back SCO host Kazakhstan’s bid to join BRICS give us clear indications that this summit marks a turning point in the repurposing of the SCO from a regional club that ensures security in Central Asia, which was its founding mission in 2001, to become the security provider to the Eurasian continent, and also that it may ultimately, before 2030, merge with BRICS.

At the founding of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in 2001, Islamic terror emanating from Afghanistan was a real threat to the Central Asian region which borders China in the East and Russia in the West and North. This region was central to American and British efforts to weaken the security and divert attention of these two Great Powers from their presence at the global level. Moreover, both terror and the intervention of Western powers complicated efforts of China and Russia to avoid conflict between their own competing political and economic ambitions in the region. Creation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization made it possible to manage these challenges effectively.

The durability of this solution was proven most recently, when U.S. efforts by Tony Blinken in the past year and British efforts by Lord Cameron in the past several months to draw the various Central Asian states away from Russia and China and into the U.S.-led world order failed miserably. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remain solidly embedded in the Russian-Chinese spheres of influence, and Russia’s clear victory in its military confrontation with the Collective West in and over Ukraine has brought to bear on the attractions of the regional status quo the luster of being on the winning side in the worldwide competition. One can put paid to the notion of a revival of the 19th century British-Russian Great Game in this part of the world.

The admission of India and Pakistan in 2017, then, in 2023, the admission of Iran to full membership in the SCO pointed to its repurposing to come. From that point on it represented the lion’s share of the population of Asia. The addition of Belarus now adds a distinctly European dimension to the membershjp, since Belarus, unlike Russia, is strictly a European geographic entity. This suits the new interest of both Russia and China to create a security architecture for the entire Eurasian land mass built upon the nation states residing there and excluding outside powers, most notably the United States.

We are moving on metaphorically from the Mercator Projection maps to a Eurasia-centric map of the word which has no tolerance for Atlanticism. In this new map, the outlying fringes of the world are not somewhere in Africa or Southeast Asia: the outlying fringe is Europe, which is reduced to a peninsula at the western extreme of the Eurasian continent. Put in geopolitical terms, Russia and China are presently declaring their own version of the Monroe Doctrine and telling the United States to clear out.

This changed view of the world and of how security can be assured is a direct result of what Russia has experienced these past two years plus of the war in Ukraine.

Back in 2008, in the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been tasked with presenting and negotiating with NATO member states a revised security architecture for Europe that would bring Russia in from the cold. As we know, that initiative was haughtily snubbed by Angela Merkel and by the other decision makers in Europe and North America.

As recently as December 2021, President Putin had attempted to renew dialogue with the United States and with NATO over a revised security architecture for Europe that would move back NATO’s troops and installations from the easternmost member states to where they stood before the NATO expansion of the Clinton years.

The new concept of a Eurasian security architecture that we now see developing within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization marks a break from all those past Russian initiatives and presents the greatest challenge to the existence of NATO at the very time when a possible return of Donald Trump to the presidency puts that organization in jeopardy from withdrawal of support by its single biggest contributor.

Active Measures: NYT Admits Ukrainian War Crimes

Warning: This video contains graphic descriptions of war crimes.

YouTube link here.

Kit Klarenberg Interviews Nebojša Malić on the Srebenica “Sham”

YouTube link here.

Andrew Korybko: Germany Is Preparing To Assume Partial Responsibility For Poland’s Eastern Border Security

By Andrew Korybko, Substack, 7/5/24

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s supporters had hitherto dismissed opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s claims of him being a “German agent” as a conspiracy theory, but they now have egg on their face after Tusk invited Germany to assume partial responsibility for Poland’s eastern border security. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who openly expressed hegemonic intentions in a manifesto for Foreign Affairs back in December 2022, readily agreed on the pretext that their security is linked.

Right as Tusk was hosting Scholz in Warsaw, Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz was in Vilnius where he and his Lithuanian counterpart called for NATO and the EU to “internationalize” their borders with Belarus and Russia, which followed them demanding that Brussels finance a “defense line”. Latvia and Estonia are also participating in this project, and it’s likely that nearby Finland will join as well, with their requested German-led EU support being facilitated by them joining the “military Schengen”.

This concept refers to the deal that was agreed to in mid-February between Poland, Germany, and the Netherlands for optimizing military logistics between them. France just joined, and it’s likely that the Baltic States and perhaps a few others might sign on to this as well during next week’s NATO Summit. The end goal is to construct “Fortress Europe”, or a German-led European-wide military zone that’ll enable Berlin to contain Russia on Washington’s behalf as the US “Pivots (back) to Asia” to contain China.

Poland was already poised to play an indispensable role in this arrangement as was explained here earlier in the spring, with the preceding hyperlinked analysis’ forecast rapidly entering into fruition after the latest interconnected developments in Warsaw and Vilnius last week. Interestingly, these trends align with Trump’s reported plan for NATO that was first proposed nearly a year and a half ago in February 2023 but only recently generated media attention, which readers can learn more about here.

In a nutshell, it envisages the US retrenching from Europe in favor of refocusing its military efforts on Asia, with sub-bloc coalitions forming in its wake to contain Russia. That’s precisely what’s unfolding in part at present with respect to the latest progress made in implementing the German-led “Fortress Europe” policy. The key difference is that the US hasn’t (yet?) redeployed its forces from Europe to Asia, however, nor has it (yet?) threatened to remove its nuclear umbrella from thrifty NATO members.

Nevertheless, what’s been achieved thus far is already strategically significant since it represents the unprecedented expansion of Germany military influence in the post-World War II era, which is being advanced on a false anti-Russian pretext with full American backing. Germany is preparing to assume partial responsibility for Poland’s eastern border security, facilitated as it will be by the “military Schengen”, which could easily lead to it expanding its influence throughout the Baltics once they join.

Half of the NATO-Russian border might therefore soon come under partial German control, with the other half possibly falling under it as well in the event that Finland signs up for the “military Schengen” and joins the “EU defense line”, thus ominously resembling the run-up to Operation Barbarossa. That’s not to imply that Germany is once again preparing to invade Russia, but just that this undoubtedly sends a very strong message and will certainly have a strong psychological impact on Russian policymakers.

Within the span of two and a half years, Germany transformed from their closest partner in Europe to among its greatest rivals, though it’ll still take a lot of time for Germany to rebuild its military capacity to the point where it could once again pose a credible threat to Russia on its own. Counterintuitively, Germany’s new US-backed military-strategic plans might therefore increase the chances of freezing the Ukrainian Conflict on better terms for Russia since Berlin and its subordinates need time to rearm.

Russia is beating NATO in the “race of logistics”/ “war of attrition” by such a large margin that Sky News shockingly reported in late May that it’s building three times as many shells at a quarter of the price. Most NATO members already expended their stockpiles arming Ukraine and can’t replace them so long as everything that they’re producing is being sent to that former Soviet Republic as the conflict rages. Accordingly, there’s a logic in freezing it by year’s end, thus enabling the EU to rearm by 2030 or so.

That said, the West’s ruling liberal–globalist faction remains ideologically committed to the lost cause of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia as proven by their latest escalations from late May till now, which readers can learn more about in this analysis here that also enumerates several related ones. With an eye on the impending German-led European military buildup along its western borders, Russia might therefore be less likely to freeze the conflict without first achieving some of its national security goals.

After all, the European security architecture fundamentally changed for the worse throughout the course of the special operation as NATO exploited Russia’s game-changing move to intensify the threats that it poses on that country’s borders, thus leaving Ukraine the only place for Russia to achieve a buffer zone. The failure to do that even in part, such as by ensuring the partial demilitarization of Kiev-controlled Ukrainian regions east of the Dnieper as proposed here, would make matters even worse for Russia.

Russian policymakers were already keenly aware of this, but now they’re being reminded of Operation Barbarossa as a result of Germany ominously recreating the buildup to the world’s largest invasion via its military-strategic moves in Poland and likely soon the Baltic States and possibly Finland too. If Russia accordingly holds firm on at least the partial demilitarization aspect of its national security goals in this conflict, then NATO could be coerced into agreeing to this out of desperation to buy time to rearm.

Turning the Ukrainian Conflict into the latest “forever war” like the liberal-globalists plan to do risks sparking World War III by miscalculation if Russia achieves a military breakthrough across the front lines that’s then taken advantage of by NATO to commence a conventional intervention to stop its advance. Even if that scenario doesn’t transpire and the front lines remain largely static for the indefinite future, then “Fortress Europe” will still fall flat since only the structure will be implemented, not the substance.

Having more countries join the “military Schengen” in parallel with Germany bolstering its military presence along the bloc’s eastern border by leading the construction of its “defense line” won’t amount to much so long as the EU’s stockpiles remain empty if they continue sending everything to Ukraine. Since Russia is less likely as a result of Germany’s moves to freeze the conflict if it doesn’t achieve a buffer zone of some sort in Ukraine, the odds are now growing that NATO might agree to a compromise.