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Ukraine’s prized drone fleet almost grounded

RT | May 29, 2023

Turkish Bayraktar UAVs were touted as wonder weapons, with officials in Kiev saying they would give them an advantage against Russia. One year later, however, only a few remaining units are being used far from the battlefield, and for reconnaissance rather than attack missions, a Pentagon-linked analyst has told Business Insider.

Ukraine purchased dozens of Bayraktar TB2 drones and used them to strike Donbass in violation of a ceasefire agreement at least once, even before the conflict with Russia began last February. Kiev also claims to have received an unspecified number of additional drones during the past year, despite Türkiye’s official neutrality.

In the first months of the conflict, Kiev routinely claimed to have conducted successful strikes using TB2s, but by July, the Bayraktars became “almost useless,” and Kiev reserved them for “rare special operations,” Ukrainian pilots told Foreign Policy at the time.

Russian forces destroyed “more than 100 Bayraktar drones” in Ukraine, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Air Force, Lieutenant-General Andrey Demin, claimed in April.

As of now, the Ukrainian fleet of “once-prized drones have almost entirely been shot down,” Business Insider wrote on Sunday, citing an expert in unmanned and robotic military systems at the Center for Naval Analyses, Samuel Bendett.

“As a relatively slow and low-flying UAV, it can become a target for a range of air defense systems that are well organized,” Bendett said, adding that “once the Russian military got its act together, it was able to down many TB2s.”

The Bayraktar TB2 is a design of Turkish company Baykar Makina, which costs around $2 million per unit. Ankara has touted the drones since 2020, when they were said to have helped Azerbaijan prevail in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Turkish troops have also deployed them in Syria and Libya.

Responding to a prank caller last year, the head of the Association of Defense Enterprises of Ukraine admitted there was “more PR and corruption in Bayraktar than combat use,” and claimed “they were all shot down within a week.”

Earlier this month, a Bayraktar TB2 was destroyed after it reportedly went rogue over the Ukrainian capital, with a video showing the drone being taken down by a shoulder-fired rocket.

While pro-Ukrainian ‘open source intel’ accounts initially claimed it was a Russian Corsair, the Ukrainian military later admitted that they had to destroy their own drone after the operators failed to regain control.

May 29, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Post-Bakhmut scenario in Ukraine war

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | MAY 28, 2023 

Ukraine President Zelensky and US President Biden met on the sideline of the G7 Summit at Hiroshima within hours of the statement  from the Kremlin at 1 am last Sunday, transmitting President Vladimir Putin’s greetings to the Russian forces for the “completion of the operation to liberate Artemovsk” (known as Bakhmut in Ukraine.) 

The operation lasted 224 days and turned into an epic battle. Ukraine paid a heavy price in blood in trying to hold onto Bakhmut, which came to be called a “Meat Grinder”. American analysts have listed twenty five Ukrainian brigades and at least 9 battalions and 5 regiments —  an estimated deployment 120,000 troops at the very least — thrown into the battle by Kiev. An estimated 70% casualties would mean that Ukraine suffered as many as 94,150 killed and wounded. It is a devastating defeat. 

Conventional military doctrine says that an army attacking an entrenched force will need at least three times more soldiers than the defending force entrenched in fortifications. But Wagner fighters numbering 32,000 fighters faced off with a NATO proxy force almost 4 times bigger in numbers and equipped with modern weaponry. 

The shock over the crushing defeat was writ large on the faces of US President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky as they faced the media at Hiroshima a few hours after the Kremlin statement appeared. Reading from a prepared text, Biden announced, in a major reversal of policy, that the US would be “launching some new joint efforts with our partners to train Ukrainian pilots on a fourth-generation fighter aircraft like the F-16.” 

Meanwhile, in a series of showy incidents, Ukraine began hitting targets in Russia with US and British supplied weapons. There have been sporadic artillery and Himars missile attacks on Russian civilians in border towns; two drone attacks on the Kremlin; and British Storm Shadow cruise missile strikes on targets in Russia. In one particular instance last week, there has been a cross border incursion in the Belgorod region with US supplied vehicles and weapons. But none of these attacks can be deemed as “game changers.”

While the US and the rest of NATO are feigning ignorance about these attacks, the key fact is that Ukraine gets targeting data that only NATO intelligence sources could provide. Thus, the decades-old red line dating back to Cold War has been breached — namely, that neither the US nor Russia would attack the other side’s territory directly or indirectly. (They held the guardrails even during the Afghan jihad in the 1980s.)

There are going to be consequences. The first sign of it came with the news that nuclear weapons are already being deployed in Belarus and Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu was in Minsk to sign the necessary agreement detailing the logistics of deployment. Biden told reporters on Friday after returning from Japan that his reaction to the Russian deployment is “extremely negative.”

But in reality, Moscow’s intention is to provide Belarus with deterrent capability against any rash moved by NATO such as cutting off access to Kaliningrad. Incidentally, the US too has been keeping nuclear weapons on European soil for many years. 

But a flashpoint can always arise. The upcoming NATO exercise codenamed Air Defender 23 (June 12-23) will be the most significant military exercise ever carried out over the European skies and the most extensive deployment exercise of air forces in the history of the western alliance — involving 25 NATO countries, 10,000 military personnel and approximately 220 aircraft. 

According to Larry Johnson, well-known American blogger and former analyst at the CIA, “a training operation of this size and scale against the backdrop of heightened tensions in the region is akin to lighting a match in a gasoline storage tank.” That said, at the tactical level, the Russian military is also positioning itself for further operations to complete the liberation of Donbass, after having gained control of Bakhmut, which is a major communication hub through which all Ukrainian logistics passed along the Donetsk arc up to Seversk.

A report in Izvestia on Wednesday said, quoting expert opinion, that Avdiivka and Maryinka are “next in line… so that there will be no shelling of Donetsk city… Next, we will have to turn off the big Donetsk arc — from Ugledar to Seversk with access to Konstantinovka and Slavyansk. These are the last two cities of the large Donbass agglomeration, followed by the steppe (leading toward Dnieper River) where it will be very difficult for the enemy to hold on.” 

Again, the Wagner fighters being replaced by regular Russian forces for further operations. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview on Russian TV on Friday: “It’s hard to say where the breaking point is… Obviously, the degree of direct and indirect involvement in this conflict by the countries of the collective West is surging day by day. This may protract the conflict, but will not turn the tide drastically. It cannot turn the tide at all. Russia will press on with the operation, and Russia will ensure its interests one way or another and achieve the designated objectives.” 

Meanwhile, Russia has been conducting an intensive bombing campaign to make it difficult for Kiev to assemble the manpower and firepower required to launch and sustain an offensive operation beyond a few days, and is  intensifying its operations overall to decimate Ukraine’s military capabilities. 

The “known unknown” is how the 2024 US election campaign will affect the trajectory of the war. Biden’s shift on F-16s can be seen as a knee-jerk reaction. Even Gen. Mark Milley, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff admits  that F-16 isn’t a “magic weapon.”

Meanwhile, Russia continues to probe the US intentions. In an interview with the prestigious International Affairs magazine, Russian Deputy Defence Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Friday that “The US ruling elite has consolidated itself to a great extent on an anti-Russian basis, regardless of party affiliation. In my opinion, the situation is turning into a force majeure.” 

However, Ryabkov who is the highest ranking “point person” for relations with the US at the foreign ministry also added, “No matter how things turn out, we are willing to maintain dialogue with whoever comes to power (in the US), stays in power.”

Therefore, Ukraine relinquishing the accession to NATO and the EU and returning to neutral non-aligned status will remain one of the key conditions of a successful peace process in Ukraine. The big question is how far the NATO will go at its forthcoming summit in July in Vilnius; would this mean Ukraine’s full membership or something else? The likelihood of any big decisions in Vilnius doesn’t seem to be in the cards.

Interestingly, the Kremlin instinctively warmed up to the idea of a phone call to Putin “in due course,” voiced by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz after his return to Berlin from the G7 summit in Hiroshima. Berlin has consistently disfavoured any precipitate move by NATO apropos Ukraine’s membership.

In an interview with Wall Street Journal on Friday celebrating his centennial, Henry Kissinger also remarked that “the offer to put Ukraine into NATO was a grave mistake and led to this war.” Kissinger advocated instead greater clarity in Russia’s stance on Europe, flagging that while Russia is interested in fostering ties with Europe for its own development, it is also cautious of potential threats coming from the West. 

May 28, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Canada’s ‘shocking’ new report on foreign interference has found none

By Rachel Marsden | RT | May 27, 2023

The special rapporteur tasked by the Trudeau government with looking into foreign interference in Canadian politics didn’t find much. But he said he’ll nonetheless hold a “series of public hearings with Canadians” to talk about the “problem of foreign interference,” which he couldn’t really qualify with much actual evidence.

Former Canadian governor general David Johnston took all of two months to come up with his report, sparked by allegations that China had meddled in recent Canadian federal elections. The hysteria had reached such fever pitch that Ottawa expelled Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei after allegations arose in the Canadian press that China had threatened the Hong Kong-based family of Canadian member of parliament, Michael Chong. But after talking to Canadian spy services, Johnston said he found “no intelligence indicating that the PRC took steps to threaten his family.”

He did find evidence that Chinese officials had “sought to build profiles” on this MP and others. Oh wow, stop the press! Because some people might be shocked to learn that the actual job of diplomats serving in foreign countries is to liaise with local officials to advocate in favor of cooperation that’s self-serving to at least some degree, although ideally mutually beneficial as well. And to do that, you probably want to make sure that you know something about the guy to at least the same degree that a used car salesman would make an effort to know what would interest or appeal to a specific customer – if only because national interests should ideally be worth as much as a Twingo.

Your neighbor compiling a dossier on you is creepy. A diplomat compiling a dossier on a government official he’s dealing with is just basic professionalism.

Johnston also found that there was no shady partisan favoritism of one party over any other by Chinese officials in Canada, contrary to reporting that suggested favoritism of Liberals over Conservatives. It’s not as though either of the establishment parties is friendly towards China. Johnson said Chinese officials were more interested in supporting pro-China candidates, but also had to point out to the pearl-clutchers that a foreign diplomat saying he or she favors a particular candidate in a foreign election isn’t actually foreign interference. After all, Western officials couldn’t shut up about how much they wanted former President Donald Trump to lose to whomever the Democrats put up against him in the last two US elections. So if that’s not foreign interference, then why should other countries be held to a different standard just because they aren’t in the same club?

There have been press allegations that China sought the electoral defeat of certain candidates, like former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu, who sponsored foreign agent registry legislation. However, Johnston found that, while “it is clear that PRC diplomats did not like Mr. Chiu, who is of Hong Kong descent and not from mainland China… it is much less clear that they did anything particular about it” beyond not inviting him to their sponsored events.

Despite the lack of qualified evidence of interference in the report, and the focus on a single country – China – Johnston nonetheless came to the conclusion that “there is no doubt that foreign governments are attempting to influence candidates and voters… This is a growing threat to our democratic system and must be resisted as effectively as possible by government.”

No need to dig further, Johnston figures, discounting a public inquiry in favor of “public hearings.” But doesn’t that risk just batting around all the various fallacies and misconceptions that have been put out there by the Western press and officials – like those that Johnston himself had to correct in his report? Without an objective and full inquiry, the opportunity to exploit hearings to promote propaganda seems substantial. What about Ukrainian influence on Canadian politicians? Or Israeli influence?

Johnston focuses exclusively on China, and takes the odd swipe at Russia, in passing, but never mentions the kind of foreign interference brought to light at the recent French National Assembly commission into the same subject.

“Foreign interference, yes, I encountered it. Most of the time, it came from a friendly and allied country called the United States. I was listened to with President Sarkozy for five years by the NSA,” said Sarkozy’s former prime minister Francois Fillon. He confirmed WikiLeaks disclosures from US intercepts published in 2015 indicating that the National Security Agency was conducting electronic surveillance of French officials from the American embassy in Paris. Or that it was listening in on conversations of German allies at the highest level, including those of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“I was not directly affected by Russian interference,” Fillon clarified, noting that like all great powers, Russia tries to “assert its point of view,” but that didn’t happen with him personally when he was in office. So then why make such a big deal about it, unless it’s just for propaganda purposes?

Canada, like Europe, suffers from tunnel vision when it comes to protecting its own interests and independence. The proof lies in the fact that both have failed to diversify away from their chronic over-reliance on the US. While it makes sense that the country sharing the world’s longest land border with the US would go for the low-hanging fruit when it comes to trade, it would nonetheless be interesting to qualify the pressures on Canadian officials and critical interests that have resulted in the Canadian establishment marching in lockstep with Washington, repeating the same propaganda and naming the same foes.

The idea that the US – the most powerful country on Earth – has absolutely no influence on its resource-rich next-door neighbor is absurd. The fact that the influence is so systemic that it’s not even worth a glance or a mention in a report into foreign interference is glaring. Does the Canadian government care to look under that rock? Or are they just going to keep scapegoating Russia and China when the most existential, insidious threat to Canadian independence lies inward and southward?

May 27, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Iran Unveils New Precision-Guided Kheibar Ballistic Missile

Al-Manar – May 25, 2023

Iran’s Ministry of Defense has unveiled the newest version of the domestically-manufactured Khorramshahr ballistic missile, a medium-range precision-guided projectile named Kheibar.

Kheibar (Khoramshahr 4) was unveiled Thursday morning in the presence of Defense Minister Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Ashtian during a ceremony marking the 41st anniversary of the liberation of the southwestern city of Khorramshahr.

The missile’s extended range, advanced guidance and control system, and improved structural features further solidify Iran’s status as a formidable missile power.

Kheibar is one of the most advanced missiles designed by the experts of the Ministry of Defense’s Aerospace Industries Organization.

It is a liquid-fueled missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers and a warhead weighing 1,500 kilograms with impressive strategic and tactical capabilities.

The Khorramshahr class of missiles is known for its unique guidance and control system during the mid-flight phase.

This feature allows the missile to control and adjust its trajectory outside the Earth’s atmosphere, and to deactivate its guidance system upon entering the atmosphere, giving it complete immunity against electronic warfare attacks.

Thanks to this advanced control system, Kheibar’s warhead does not require the typical thin-wing arrangement, which in turn allows the missile to pack up a heavier explosive load.

The Kheibar missile also boasts an incredibly short preparation and launch time.

The use of self-igniting (hypergolic) fuel and the absence of the need for fuel injection and horizontal alignment after the verticalization phase have cut Kheibar’s launch time to less than 12 minutes.

Thanks to its powerful engine, the Kheibar missile possesses an exceptional impact force, with a ground impact force of 280 and a vacuum impact force of 300 seconds.

The high speed at which the warhead makes impact with the designated target prevents enemy air defense systems from detecting, tracking, and taking action to shoot down the missile.

Additionally, the engine enables the missile to reach speeds of 16 Mach outside the atmosphere and 8 Mach within the atmosphere.

The unveiling of Kheibar marks a significant advancement in Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities and demonstrates the country’s commitment to enhancing its defense and deterrent power.

Iranian officials have long asserted that the country’s military capabilities are entirely meant for defense, and that its missile program will never be up for negotiations.

May 25, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Chinese War Simulation Finds Top US Carrier Group Could Be ‘Destroyed With Certainty’

By Wyatt Reed – Sputnik – 25.05.2023

War games conducted by Chinese researchers found the US military’s most prized aircraft carrier could be reliably sunk with relative ease in the event of a hot war in the South China Sea.

A volley of hypersonic missiles could reliably sink the US military’s most powerful aircraft carrier group in a potential conflict, according to war game simulations carried out by a team of Chinese military planners.

Using 24 of their most advanced anti-ship missiles, Chinese forces consistently destroyed a carrier fleet led by the USS Gerald R. Ford over the course of 20 mock battles in simulations which were run on a war game platform employed by the People’s Liberation Army.

In the simulation, the US ships came under fire after ignoring multiple Chinese warnings not to approach an island in the South China Sea controlled by Beijing.

For test purposes, the war games’ designers used a carrier group made up of six surface ships which were selected for their “unparalleled strength and advanced technology.”

A major Hong Kong-based newspaper reported that the military planners “selected vessels deemed the US Navy’s most superior – the CVN-78 Gerald R. Ford, accompanied by a CG56 Ticonderoga-class cruiser the San Jacinto, and four DDG-103 Arleigh Burke-class Flight IIA guided missile destroyers.”

Led by Cao Hongsong from the North University of China, the researchers found that virtually every US surface vessel was ravaged by the attack and eventually sank.

According to researchers, the Ford carrier group – which was once thought to be all but unsinkable – could actually be “destroyed with certainty” using just a handful of hypersonic missile strikes.

Chinese military planners placed a number of constraints on themselves in the simulation, including cutting their access to space-based spy satellites and limiting the number of hypersonic missiles available.

The basic principle underlying the exercise was to be “lenient with the enemy and strict with oneself,” Cao explained.

As the Hong Kong-based outlet explained, “during the simulation, the PLA used its sea-based surveillance network to detect and identify the US carrier group before firing eight of the less-reliable hypersonic missiles simultaneously from southern and central sites in China.”

Though “some of the missiles were intercepted, the attack depleted the US fleet’s SM-3 munitions, paving the way for the PLA to launch “eight of its more accurate hypersonic missiles from northern and western China, with four focused on the aircraft carrier while the others targeted the destroyers,” the outlet noted.

“After the attack, four ships survived from the blue [US] team, with the destroyers having the most remaining, on average.”

A “mop-up” operation with six of the less accurate hypersonic missiles was able to dispatch with the remaining vessels, the research paper determined.

After the simulation was run 20 times to allow for different variables which could affect the outcome of the engagement, the team’s strategy was ultimately able to eliminate an average of 5.6 out of 6 surface vessels – effectively meaning the “total destruction” of the carrier group.

The release of a paper detailing the war game in May marked “the first time the results of simulated hypersonic strikes against a US carrier group have been made public” by China’s military, the Honk Kong outlet noted.

But it’s likely to be seen as a warning to Washington against any provocations in the South China Sea.

An anonymous Beijing-based researcher interviewed by the outlet suggested that “greater transparency about China’s military capabilities and intentions could help to reduce misunderstandings and miscalculations on both sides, which could in turn help to reduce the risk of conflict.”

May 25, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

The Devil’s In The Details When It Comes To Pashinyan’s Karabakh Peace Proposal

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | MAY 23, 2023

Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan proposed recognizing Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity in full in exchange for it doing the same to his country, though the caveat is that he’ll only do so if the security of local Armenians there is guaranteed. This naturally raises the question of how to satisfy his requirement in a way that’s also acceptable to Azerbaijan, with one possibility being to prolong the deployment of Russia’s peacekeepers there.

It can’t be taken for granted that Azerbaijan would approve of this for the extended period of time that Pashinyan appears to be implying is required to guarantee their safety, however, since it appears to be growing frustrated with the status quo. Azerbaijan only agreed to the presence of these forces in November 2020 because it expected that they’d expedite the removal of Armenian forces in parallel with facilitating the reasserting of the state’s sovereignty over the rest of its territory.

That outcome hasn’t yet materialized, and instead, these South Caucasus rivals have even clashed several times along their internationally recognized border. Armenia also accuses Azerbaijan of violating the same Moscow-mediated ceasefire that it agreed to after self-described “activists” blocked the Lachin Corridor, while Azerbaijan accuses Armenia of doing the same by still launching attacks from Karabakh. These factors have combined to make many worry about whether another war might soon erupt.

As a self-respecting state, Azerbaijan regards it as offensive for Armenia to hint that it can’t guarantee the security of its citizens, which includes those Armenians who’ve been in Karabakh since Soviet times but not those who moved to the region as colonists after its occupation by neighboring Armenia. Its rising confidence and regional prestige as a result of its victory two and a half years ago reduces the chances that Azerbaijan would agree to prolong the deployment of Russia’s peacekeepers.

Those calculations indirectly pose a problem for Russian-Armenian relations since Moscow must prove its military-security worth to Yerevan in order to prevent its “defection” from the CSTO, with the scenario of it prolonging the deployment of its peacekeepers in Azerbaijan being the best way to do so. Armenia surprised Russia by participating in joint NATO drills last month, which was followed by its Deputy Foreign Minister revealing this month that it contemplated leaving the CSTO last September.

Pashinyan added earlier this week that Armenia’s withdrawal might indeed still happen if it concludes that the CSTO has “become a non-functional organization”, which prompted Kremlin spokesman Peskov to promise that Russia will retain relevant dialogue with its partner in an effort to prevent this. The unstated threat that was just conveyed by Yerevan is that it’ll ditch the CSTO and thus deal a major blow to Moscow if Russia can’t convince Azerbaijan to guarantee the security of Armenians there.

In the event that Armenia “defects” from this Russian-led military-security bloc, then it would immediately raise questions about Moscow’s reliability to its other partners such as those in Central Asia, thus possibly emboldening those countries to distance themselves from it too like the West wants. With Armenia out of the CSTO, it might then apply for expedited entry into NATO, which could possibly lead to it and Georgia joining together like was supposed to be the case with Finland and Sweden.

Russia must therefore do its utmost to avert this dark scenario from unfolding, to which end it’s pressed to politically resolve the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict once and for all as soon as possible before Yerevan’s patience runs out. That said, it wouldn’t be in Armenia’s best interests to ditch the CSTO until it gets what it wants since otherwise it’ll be without Russia’s protection if Azerbaijan and/or Turkiye decide to invade its internationally recognized territory in order to resolve this conflict on their own terms.

Nevertheless, it might end up being the case that Armenia could secretly reach an agreement with the US for the latter to extend security assurances to it prior to that country’s membership in NATO upon it formally announcing its withdrawal from the CSTO and intention to join that enemy bloc. The precedent for doing so was already established last May after the US gave exactly these sort of assurances to Finland and Sweden until they joined NATO, which is still relevant to the latter since it hasn’t yet done so.

Russia’s challenge is therefore threefold since it must: 1) broker a sustainable peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan as soon as possible to preempt Yerevan’s “defection” from the CSTO on the pretext that this group is “non-functional”; 2) to which end Moscow must likely get Baku to agree to at least prolong the presence of Russian peacekeepers for the next few years; and 3) then ensure that Armenia still doesn’t “defect” from that bloc after it already gets what it wants from Russia.

Each of these tasks presents a formidable challenge in and of themselves, let alone having to be tackled all at once due to Armenia hinting that it’ll dump the CSTO if it doesn’t get what it wants sometime soon, and not to mention that this is happening amidst Russia’s ongoing special operation. Even so, if there’s any country whose diplomats are capable of rising to the occasion, it’s Russia’s. This doesn’t mean that they’ll succeed, but just that nobody should doubt that they’ll give this their best shot.

May 24, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Russian vessel attacked by Ukrainian sea drones off Bosporus – MOD

RT | May 24, 2023

The Russian Navy’s reconnaissance ship, ‘Ivan Churs’, has been attacked by three unmanned speed boats launched by the Ukrainian military, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.

The vessel was targeted early in the morning by the drones in Türkiye’s exclusive economic zone, some 140km (86 miles) to the northeast of the Bosporus Strait, the ministry’s spokesman, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov, said during a daily briefing.

The ship was patrolling areas near the TurkStream and Blue Stream natural gas pipelines, Konashenkov noted, adding that the naval patrols were deployed after the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last September.

“All of the enemy boats were destroyed by fire with the onboard weapons of the Russian ship,” the spokesman added.

The military shared footage of the incident, showing a small, black speedboat coming under large-caliber gunfire. The vessel suffers a direct hit and explodes, leaving a plume of black smoke on the water.

May 24, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Orban: Relations With Sweden ‘Awfully Wrong’, Preclude It From Joining NATO

By Igor Kuznetsov – Sputnik – 24.05.2023

According to various reports, faced with resistance from Turkiye and Hungary alike, the Swedish government has considered postponing the goal of entering NATO from the July summit in Vilnius to the bloc’s meeting in Washington next April.

Relations between Hungary and Sweden are poor and must improve before the Nordic state’s bid for NATO membership is approved, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said at the Qatar Economic Forum.

“The political relationship between Sweden and Hungary is awfully wrong, and we have to improve first,” Orban said. “We would not like to import conflicts into NATO first.”

Earlier, Orban’s chief of staff said that the bilateral ties between Hungary and Sweden have hit an all-time low. He also accused Swedish politicians of “making a habit of continually questioning the state of democracy in Hungary,” as well as “insulting Hungarian voters and MPs, and, through them, the whole of Hungary.”

No date has been set yet as to when the Hungarian parliament will vote on the Swedish bid for admission, which has to be ratified by all current members.

While commenting on Orban’s latest statement, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reiterated his hope that Sweden’s application will be approved and recommended doing so. Among others, Stoltenberg cited the Turkish election and Sweden’s new anti-terror laws as factors that may facilitate the Nordic country’s accession. At the same time, Stoltenberg said that the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania merely offers “a possibility, not a guarantee.”

However, Swedish media have been circulating reports that the government’s plan for Swedish NATO entry may be about to be postponed. Instead of being approved in Vilnius in July, a possibility of entering NATO only at the bloc’s meeting in Washington next April is now under consideration. Among others, this has sparked criticism from the Social Democrats, a heavyweight party that has dominated Sweden’s politics since the 1930s, over the lack of a plan B. For their part, the Social Democrats, now in opposition, have called for deepening Nordic cooperation, should the NATO entry be delayed.

Still, Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom of the liberal-conservative Moderate Party that leads the current minority government confirmed that the goal for Stockholm is to join NATO in connection with the Vilnius summit.

Sweden and its neighbor Finland asked to join NATO last year, citing changes in the European security landscape following the conflict in Ukraine. While Finland went on to become a member, Sweden’s bid has been held up by Turkiye and Hungary, with Budapest citing grievances over Stockholm’s criticism of Orban’s record on democracy and the rule of law and Ankara accusing Sweden of harboring what it sees as Kurdish terrorists and, most recently, meddling in the Turkish elections.

May 24, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine losing 10,000 drones per month to Russia: UK think tank

Press TV – May 23, 2023

Ukraine has suffered a massive loss of 10,000 drones per month in its war against Russia, which has effectively utilized electronic warfare to down the UAVs provided by the Western countries, a British think tank reports.

Russia’s use of technology-based defense systems has contributed to the staggering loss of Ukrainian drones amid the persisting use of navigational interference by the Russian military in the battle area as a form of electronic protection, the UK-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) unveiled in a new report.

The report appears to entirely dismiss earlier media campaigns by Western news outlets, blaming Russian use of a large number of “Iranian drones” for major losses inflicted on Ukrainian side. Both Tehran and Moscow had totally rejected such reports.

RUSI further insisted, Russia has demonstrated that it is “highly capable” of intercepting and decrypting Ukrainian military communications.

“Russian EW is also apparently achieving real-time interception and decryption of Ukrainian [US-made] Motorola 256-bit encrypted tactical communications systems, which are widely employed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” the report added.

It also pointed out that Russian troops have adjusted their sending of electronic warfare systems, setting one around each 10 kilometer along the front lines, which run through Ukraine’s eastern and southern districts.

According to the report, Ukraine’s monumental losses of drones include both military and commercial UAVs that have been heavily utilized for its war with Russia.

It then noted that Gyrocopter, a commercial drone, has been used for “reconnaissance” while other types have been used in direct assaults as well as targeting tools to coordinate artillery barrages.

Despite its incredibly high losses of UAVs, the report further underlines that Kiev is capable of making, purchasing and acquiring the required number of drones, without elaborating on the funding amid the country’s broken economy and the widely reported fact that it obtains nearly all of its weaponry through military grants from the US and the European Union.

Other changes have been identified in Russian military operations during the second year of the war, the RUSI report adds. It found that Russian forces are flexible and make changes to redress their deficiencies.

Although the Ukraine conflict has witnessed “high-tech tactics stalled or countered by rough terrain, electronic jammers and older tactics such as trench warfare, the use of drones has been a major part of both side’s doctrine,” the report emphasizes.

“In addition to reconnaissance purposes, they’ve been used in direct assaults as well as targeting tools to coordinate artillery barrages, the latter of which has been a dominant element in the conflict.”

The West has supplied Kiev with tens of billions of dollars worth of various weaponry since the onset of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine last year.

Moscow insists it launched the operation as a security measure against persisting eastern advance of the US-led NATO military alliance and the protection of the Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine from abusive treatment by Kiev forces.

Western countries, led by the US, have been providing massive amounts of arms and munitions to Ukraine with a declared objective of prolonging the war against Russia and keeping Moscow engaged in a protracted conflict with neighboring Ukraine.

May 23, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

US must make security deal with Russia – Hungary

RT | May 23, 2023

An agreement between the US and Russia is the only thing that can end the conflict in Ukraine, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban stated on Monday. Orban has repeatedly accused EU leaders of serving American, rather than European, interests by continuing to bankroll Kiev.

Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha on Tuesday, Orban reiterated his position that Ukraine cannot win on the battlefield, and that Kiev and its Western backers must pursue peace talks with Russia.

“First we should have a ceasefire,” he said. “Then let’s talk about the new security architecture of the European continent.”

“The only peace agreement that could close this whole conflict is if it is between Russia and the United States,” he elaborated. “What is at stake is the future security of Europe. It’s obvious that without the US there is no security architecture for Europe, and now the war can only be stopped if the Russians can make an agreement with the United States.”

“As a European I am not happy with that,” he added. “But this is the only way out.”

Throughout the conflict, Orban has repeatedly spoken out against the West’s twin policies of military aid to Kiev and sanctions on Moscow, arguing that the former risks escalating the conflict to a global war and the latter harms Europe’s economy more than Russia’s.

The Hungarian prime minister has also argued that only Washington has the power to pressure Kiev into peace talks, and that decisions made in Brussels “reflect American interests more often than European ones.”

With the US dragging Europe into a conflict it cannot win, Orban has suggested that “the solution would be a European NATO” without the US as a member.

Hungary is currently blocking a €500 million ($540 million) EU military aid package for Ukraine. Apart from his long-standing opposition to escalating the conflict, Orban cited Ukraine’s sanctioning of a Hungarian bank as a reason for the hold up.

“If a country like Ukraine would like to get our financial support, they can’t put our companies on a blacklist,” he said on Tuesday. “If you need our money, please respect us.”

May 23, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Beijing Banning Micron Means China Has Mastered Chip-Making

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 22.05.2023

China has slapped a ban on US chipmaker Micron, prohibiting it from selling to Chinese companies involved in key infrastructure projects. Beijing has mirrored Washington’s sanctions on the People’s Republic’s hi-tech technology, Asia-Pacific consultant Thomas W. Pauken told Sputnik, adding that there’s more to the development than meets the eye.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) announced on May 21, that a cybersecurity review indicated Micron Technology’s products “have relatively serious cybersecurity risks, which pose significant security risks to the country’s critical information infrastructure supply chain and would affect national security.” Thus, the CAC banned the US chipmaker from participating in the People’s Republic’s domestic critical infrastructural projects. In response, the US Commerce Department expressed its opposition to the restrictions, insisting that they “have no basis in fact.” Micron’s shares plummeted roughly 6% on Monday, given that the American company used to derive over 10% of its revenue from the People’s Republic.

“It’s rather interesting that the Washington side may be shocked or surprised by this news,” said Thomas W. Pauken II, the author of US vs China: From Trade War to Reciprocal Deal, consultant on Asia-Pacific affairs, and geopolitical commentator. “However, they have taken similar measures themselves to stop Chinese semiconductors and Chinese chips manufacturers or companies that are connected with the chips manufacturing and semiconductor manufacturing to be more involved with the supply chains in the United States as well. So this is not a case where there’s a shock or a surprise announcement. It’s actually basically China doing the same thing that the US has been doing to China.”

US President Joe Biden speaks about how the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will rebuild the US and the progress made since he signed the bill into law, in the South Court
Since October 2022, Washington has imposed sweeping export curbs on advanced chips and chip-making equipment to China, trying to cut off the nation’s access to critical technology. Prior to that, under the Trump administration, the US and its Western allies kicked off nothing short of a crusade against the People’s Republic’s telecom giants, including its flagship Huawei, citing “security” concerns.

“This is a very simple response for Beijing to make and say, ‘Well, has the US not acted similarly to what we’ve been doing?'” noted Pauken. “So it would be hypocritical on the US side to criticize Beijing for taking actions that are similar to Washington’s actions. This is hypocrisy at its finest, in regards to Washington and how they’re complaining and criticizing China when they’re doing the exact same thing that they’re criticizing China for. It’s laughable. It’s just absurd for them to make such an argument when they’re doing the same thing.”

The Asia-Pacific consultant suggested that Micron had not been caught off guard: Pauken revealed that when he visited Taiwan last month, he learned from his source that the Micron senior executive in the Kaohsiung office had started laying off employees in April.

As per Pauken, plausibly, the Taiwanese Micron branch had anticipated these instructions, so it could have been the case that they were alerted by Beijing that there was an investigation and they likely realized that the chances of continuing to sell their chip technologies to the mainland were slim.

They had already started to do layoffs even before this announcement happened, the commentator noted. Nonetheless, even if they were prepared for the CAC announcement, it had a devastating impact: “From what I heard, the layoffs in the Taiwan offices were very massive,” Pauken emphasized. “Definitely it’s a major problem for Micron.”

However, there is more to the development than meets the eye, continued Pauken: according to him, it clearly indicates that Beijing has made considerable advancements in chip-making despite the US trying to contain the country’s technological rise.

“You also have to think about this from a strategic level,” the author said. “There’s no way China would have blocked any chips from Micron if it would cause extreme damage to the Chinese economy. Obviously, they have probably set up supply chains in place and have chips made in China that are maybe not equal in quality to Micron, but close enough so that they could handle the impact of no more Micron chips coming to China.”

“So what I’m getting at is that there’s no way Beijing took this announcement all of a sudden. They have prepared for it well in advance in anticipation that, of course, the US and Micron would complain. But they, of course, also took the right steps to protect their economy from being severely damaged by this announcement,” Pauken concluded.

May 22, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

China says it sees no point in dialogue with US amid sanctions

Press TV – May 22, 2023

China says it sees no reason to keep talking with the United States as long as it pursues a wholly disingenuous policy and continues to step up pressure on the country through sanctions.

“Where is the sincerity and sense of dialogue, when the US side talks about the need to maintain contacts only to use them as a means to put pressure on China and hamstring our country,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters in Beijing on Monday.

The Chinese official called on Washington to “immediately lift sanctions” against China.

“It is necessary to create a favorable atmosphere and favorable conditions for dialogue and contact,” Mao explained.

Beijing maintains “necessary contact” with Washington, she stated.

“The United States applies sanctions against individuals and organizations of the PRC,” Mao reiterated.

“China is strongly against such unilateral restrictions, which are unlawful. We have strictly set forth Beijing’s stance on this issue to the American side,” she added.

The Chinese spokesperson called on the United States to have the right understanding of China, meet it halfway and bring bilateral relations back on track.

China views its relations with the US under the three principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation as proposed by President Xi Jinping, she said.

China to US: Stop interfering in our internal affairs

Elsewhere in her remarks, Mao urged the United States to immediately stop interfering in China’s internal affairs.

“We urge the US to form a correct perception of China, stop interfering in China’s internal affairs and harming China’s sovereignty, security and development interests, and work with China to bring China-US relations back to the right track with concrete actions,” she added.

The spokeswoman made the remarks in response to US President Joe Biden suggesting that a shift in US-China relations could occur soon.

Biden said on Sunday during the Group of Seven (G7) summit in the Japanese city of Hiroshima, that he expected a thaw in Chinese-US relations in the near future.

“We should have an open hotline,” Biden stressed.

Biden has said he expects to see a “thaw” in US relations with Beijing, even as he concluded a G7 summit in Japan that made a concerted effort to counter alleged military and economic security threats from China.

The US president said in a news conference at the end of the three-day summit that talks between the two countries had shut down after a “silly balloon” carrying spying equipment flew over North America in February, before being shot down by the US military.

“Everything changed in terms of talking to one another. I think you’re gonna see that begin to thaw very shortly,” Biden said.

Biden added that his administration was considering lifting sanctions against Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu.

Beijing recently refused to agree to a meeting with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin when the two men attended the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore next month due to the sanctions.

US officials had previously said privately that the Biden administration would not remove the sanctions.

Biden: US stands by ‘one China’ policy

Biden reiterated at the news conference that the US stood by the “one China” policy, which recognizes Beijing as the sole government of China, and Washington did not support any move by the self-ruled Taiwan to declare independence.

China has sovereignty over Taiwan. The US does not recognize Taiwan as an independent country and officially supports the “One China” policy, but regularly oversteps its own principles. The island nation has become China’s most sensitive territorial issue and a major bone of contention with Washington.

Washington continues to antagonize Beijing by siding with Taipei’s secessionist administration, engaging in frequent military missions around the island, and serving as its largest weapons supplier.

May 22, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

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