Tuesday marks the 21st anniversary of the decision by then-US President George W. Bush to quit the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a landmark 1972 agreement which limited the anti-ballistic missile capabilities of the US and the USSR (and later Russia). The move became the canary in the coalmine of trouble in relations between Russia and the US.
“I have concluded the ABM Treaty hinders our government’s ways to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attack,” President Bush said, speaking to reporters at the White House Rose Garden on December 13, 2001. “Today I have given formal notice to Russia… that the United States of America is withdrawing from this almost thirty year old treaty,” he said. Six months later, on June 13, 2002, the agreement was history.
The ABM Treaty, signed by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and US President Richard Nixon in May 1972, limited Moscow and Washington’s ability to build ballistic missile interceptors, and was designed to slow the expansion of the superpowers’ arsenals of nuclear warheads and delivery systems, and to prevent either country from trying to gain an advantage over the other which would upset the global strategic balance.
What Did Russia Say and Do at the Time?
Vladimir Putin, then just starting his first term as president, told his US counterpart that Moscow was not surprised by the US decision, but considered the move an “erroneous one,” given that the treaty had served as a “cornerstone” of world security and stability.
A month before that, on November 13, 2001, during a state visit to the US, Putin informed his hosts that Russia and the US had “different points of view about the ABM Treaty,” but would “continue dialogue and discussions… to develop a new strategic framework that enables both of us to meet the true threats of the 21st century as partners and friends, not as adversaries.”
Publicly, Washington maintained at the time that terrorists, or so-called “rogue states” like North Korea or Iran (which the Bush administration labeled as members of an ‘Axis of Evil’) might create or obtain missiles to attack America or its allies.
Behind the scenes, Moscow suspected that the US was bluffing, and that the true purpose of new expanded American missile defenses would be to disarm Russia’s nuclear deterrent, which at the time was one of the only remaining factors standing in the way of total US global hegemony and the ‘new world order’ declared by President Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, in late 1991.
To prove it, Putin and Sergei Lavrov (who became Russia’s Foreign Minister in 2004), concocted a diplomatic maneuver to test Washington’s sincerity. In July 2007, on the sidelines of a G8 summit in Germany, Putin threw Bush a curve ball by proposing the deployment of a joint missile defense system in Azerbaijan. The plan outlined the use of an X-band radar in the post-Soviet republic to guide anti-missile interceptors, and, if approved by the US, would confirm that Washington’s missile shield plans really were aimed at so-called “rogue states,” not Russia.
“This will make it impossible – unnecessary – for us to place our offensive complexes along the borders with Europe,” Putin said, referring to US plans at the time to create a series of radar systems in the Czech Republic, along with missile interceptors in Poland.
The Bush White House politely declined the proposal. “This is a serious issue and we want to make sure that we all understand each other’s positions very clearly,” Bush told Putin.
In April 2008, at a meeting in Sochi – their final one before Putin stepped down as president and became Russia’s prime minister, and less than a year before the end of Bush’s presidency, the leaders failed to come to an agreement on missile defenses. “This is an area we’ve got more work to do to convince the Russian side that the system is not aimed at Russia,” Bush said, speaking to reporters. “I want to be understood correctly. Strategically, no change has taken place in our… attitude to US plans,” Putin responded.
(Re)Birth of Russia’s Hypersonics Program
Still recovering from the catastrophic geopolitical and economic fallout of the collapse of the USSR, and watching closely as NATO expanded into Eastern Europe in several waves between 1999 and 2004, Moscow appeared to have gained the vague impression that behind the US rhetoric of friendship and partnership, Washington had not truly given up on its vision of Russia as an adversary after 1991.
In September 2020, during a meeting with Gerbert Efremov, the former director and chief designer at the legendary NPO Mashinostroyenia rocket design bureau – responsible for the creation of some of Russia’s new hypersonic weapons, Putin revealed that the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty was the singular moment which prompted Moscow to develop these cutting-edge armaments, which the USSR had tinkered with at the twilight of the Cold War.
“America’s withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in 2002 forced Russia to start developing hypersonic weapons. We had to create these weapons in response to the deployment of the US strategic missile defense system, which would have been able to neutralize and render obsolete our entire nuclear potential,” Putin said. Russia’s hypersonic designs, gave Russia, for the first time in its modern history, “the most modern types of weapons, superior in terms of their force, power, speed and, very importantly, in terms of accuracy, compared to all which existed before them and exist today,” Putin said.
Putin returned to the fateful US decision on the ABM Treaty in remarks in October 2021, saying that Washington’s move opened a Pandora’s box of a new global arms race, and demonstrated that America was not looking to defend itself, but trying to “receive strategic superiority, effectively eliminating the nuclear potential of a potential rival.”
“What should we have done in response? I have spoken on this subject many times,” Putin said. “We could have either created a similar system, which would cost immense amounts of money, and it would be unclear in the end if it would work effectively or not. Or we could have created a different system which would definitely overcome missile defenses. I said that we would do this. The response from our American partners was that ‘our missile defenses are not directed against you, do whatever you want, we will proceed from the fact that your projects are not against us.’ We built our systems. What claims do they have against us now? Now they don’t like them,” Putin said.
Russia unveiled a series of new strategic weapons systems in 2018, with the arms, including the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, the Kinzhal aero-ballistic air-to-surface missile, the Sarmat ICBM, and the Poseidon nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed autonomous torpedo, designed to assure that even if Washington did successfully build a missile shield, Russia would still be able to retaliate to hypothetical US aggression.
What Other Treaties With Russia Has the US Unilaterally Ripped Up?
The ABM Treaty wasn’t the only security agreement with Moscow that Washington had unilaterally quit in recent years. In 2018, the United States pulled out of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty – an agreement banning the deployment of ground-based strategic missile in the 500-5,500 km range. In 2020, the US left the 1992 Treaty on Open Skies – which allowed 35 partner nations to perform military reconnaissance overflights over one another’s territory using specialized aircraft. Moscow was forced to follow suit in 2021.
What’s Left?
In January 2021, the incoming Biden administration agreed to renew the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), an arms control treaty which obliges the two countries to reduce their nuclear arsenals to between 1,700 and 2,200 operationally deployed warheads. The Trump administration intended to let the clock run out on the agreement, demanding that China’s modest nuclear arsenal be added to any strategic treaties. The Biden administration agreed to extend it to February 2026.
With the collapse of the ABM Treaty, the INF Treaty and the Treaty on Open Skies, New START is now the last major security treaty between Russia and the United States. But there are two other international agreements, the Outer Space Treaty and the Chemical Weapons Convention, to which both Moscow and Washington are parties, whose future has also been threatened by US behavior.
The resolution was merely a political declaration, and no means exist to enforce it. However, in 2008, Russia and China recommended a binding agreement – the Proposed Prevention of an Arms Race in Space (PAROS) Treaty – outlining specific measures to ban the deployment of space-based weaponry, anti-satellite spacecraft and other technologies which could be used for military purposes, in orbit. Successive US administrations have spurned the proposed treaty, and in 2019, the Trump administration formalized the creation of a new branch of the US military called ‘Space Force’, signaling that Washington will has no plans to rein in its space-based military activities.
Space Force, and other US efforts to militarize space (such as the deployment of large networks of dual-use commercial communications and surveillance satellites), may be a violation of the Outer Space Treaty, a 1967 agreement signed by 112 countries, including the United States, which prohibits the deployment of weapons of mass destruction in space, restricts the use of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes, and forbids military bases, weapons testing and military exercises in space.
US scholars of international law have outlined a series of arguments on how the US may be in violation of the Outer Space Treaty, ranging from former President Trump’s statements about the need to assert US “dominance” in space, to Washington’s designation of space as a new “war-fighting domain.”
“These assertions violate major Outer Space Treaty principles, including the prohibition of establishing sovereignty in space and using space only for peaceful purposes. The creation of the US Space Force can also be seen as a ‘threat of force’ based on its history of aggressive and dominant remarks,” explained Rachel Harp, an associate member of the University of Cincinnati Law Review.
Finally, there is the Chemical Weapons Convention, another arms control treaty to which both the United States and Russia are parties, but where question marks remain regarding Washington’s commitment to the agreement. While Russia completed the destruction of the last of its Soviet-era chemical weapons in September 2017, under the watchful eye of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the United States has consistently revised deadlines to destroy its own chemical arms stockpiles.
Washington originally promised to eliminate the last of its deadly chemical agents by 2012, but now promises to do so by late 2023. With nearly 650 tons of chemical agents and munitions remaining in its arsenal, the United States now has the largest declared chemical weapons stockpile in the world.
Ukrainian officials have failed to present any evidence suggesting Iranian drones have been used by Russia in the ongoing conflict between Kiev and Moscow, Iranian Defense Minister, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Ashtiani said on Monday. His words came following a meeting between Ukrainian and Iranian specialists.
“The Ukrainian side did not present any evidence of Russia’s use of Iranian drones in the war with this nation at the technical meeting,” the minister told several Iranian news agencies. According to Ashtiani, the Ukrainian officials then vowed to present such evidence at the next meeting.
According to the general, claims about Russian forces supposedly employing Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in their campaign in Ukraine are based on “baseless statements and rumors.” Ashtiani admitted that Moscow and Tehran had a long history of military cooperation but it was in no way linked to the alleged use of Iranian drones in the conflict.
His words came as the EU was considering a fresh sanctions batch against Tehran, both over its response to mass protests inside Iran and over alleged weapons supplies to Russia.
Speculation that Tehran has been supplying UAVs to Moscow surfaced in recent months after Russia started to actively use kamikaze drones during its military offensive in Ukraine. Kiev and the Western media outlets have claimed that Russia’s Geran-2 drones are actually Iranian-made Shahed-136 UAVs.
Both Moscow and Tehran repeatedly denied that Iranian drones are used in the conflict in Ukraine. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has confirmed, though, that Tehran did supply a “small number of drones” to Moscow months before the conflict in Ukraine broke out.
The Russian embassy in London has roundly dismissed the “inappropriate statements” of British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, who spuriously claimed Iran was sending armament and munitions to Russia for its military campaign in neighboring Ukraine.
“We categorically reject recent comments by Cleverly, who followed in the footsteps of US authorities and accused the Russian Federation and Iran of some ‘sordid’ deals concerning the Ukraine crisis. The United Kingdom is well aware of the fact that the allegations about Iran’s military supplies to Russia lack any factual basis,” the diplomatic mission said in a statement released on Monday.
“Russia, unlike certain Western governments, is invariably committed to compliance with national legislations as well as international principles as regards its cooperation with third countries,” it added.
The Russian embassy also emphasized that the top British diplomat should be reminded of London’s and its Western allies’ massive military, technical, financial and propaganda assistance to Ukraine when talking about “sordid” transactions between Moscow and Tehran.
The embassy underlined that supplying Ukraine with Western weapons, which is taking place in clear breach of fundamental norms of export control, only led to prolongation of hostilities and an increase in civilian casualties as Ukrainian army forces used the military equipment to launch “de-facto terrorist strikes against civilian targets” on Russian territory.
“We are carefully recording all cases of London’s and its Western allies’ financial and military supplies to the Kiev regime, as well as planned military operations against Russian facilities and military personnel. Such criminal acts will naturally have specific legal consequences for all those involved,” the statement said.
The embassy also drew attention to Cleverly’s “utterly unfounded speculations” that Tehran violated UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorses the 2015 Iran nuclear deal – officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“If London is really concerned about implementation of the resolution, British authorities should pay meticulous attention to its true violator, the United States, whose unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal [in May 2018] has created serious challenges for global security,” the statement added.
Earlier this month, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian rejected claims about the Islamic Republic’s arms sales to Russia to be used in the ongoing war against Ukraine, saying such allegations are aimed at legitimizing the West’s military assistance to Kiev.
In a phone conversation with Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres on December 2, Amir-Abdollahian said the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine is rooted in the wrong policies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), namely its expansion toward the east.
The top diplomat reiterated Iran’s opposition to the dispatch of weapons to the parties involved in the war which he said would only increase human losses and financial costs for both sides.
He said Tehran would continue its efforts to stop the war and promote lasting peace in Europe.
Both Iran and Russia have repeatedly denied claims that Tehran has provided Moscow with drones to be used in the war in Ukraine.
The anti-Iran claims first emerged in July, with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan alleging that Washington had received “information” indicating that the Islamic Republic was preparing to provide Russia with “up to several hundred drones, including weapons-capable UAVs on an expedited timeline” for use in the war.
According to “people with knowledge of the matter”, Bloomberg reported that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not be holding an annual in-person summit with Vladimir Putin after the Russian president allegedly threatened to use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine. The same article was shared on Twitter by Professor Derek J. Grossman, national security and Indo-Pacific analyst at RAND Corporation, who disingenuously wrote: “India isn’t pleased with Russia.”
But what is the actual truth?
“The relationship between India and Russia remains strong but trumpeting the friendship at this point may not be beneficial for Modi, said a senior official with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue,” Bloomberg claimed on December 9, before adding that Russia’s nuclear warning was a tipping point for India.
However, an Indian government source clarified on the same day to Reuters that the annual in-person meeting between Modi and Putin took place on the sidelines of an international event in September.
In addition, New Delhi-based WION reported that “sources pointed out that plans to hold the annual summit could not materialise in November and December because of the elections in the [Indian] states of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.”
“Sources also deny western media reports that the Russian President’s nuclear threat had any role to play in India-Russia Summit not happening…” the report added.
For his part, former Indian Ambassador to Moscow Kanwal Sibal tweeted a response to Grossman, saying: “Article tailored to suit a narrative. India was treating Modi’s bilateral meeting with Putin at the SCO meeting at Samarkand as the annual summit between the two leaders in view of elections in Gujarat in December preventing Modi from visiting Moscow.”
This is not the first case of fake news attributed to India’s position on Russia concocted by Western media. In fact, the majority of 2022 has been defined by Western governments and media making fake claims on India’s relations with Russia, something borne mostly out of the frustration that the world’s second most populous country has deepened its relations with the Eurasian country instead, particularly in the energy sector.
Russia has even offered India help in overcoming the oil price cap being imposed by western countries.
“In order not to depend on the ban on insurance services and tanker chartering in the European Union and Britain, the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Alexander Novak has offered India cooperation on leasing and building large-capacity ships,” the Russian embassy in New Delhi said in a statement on December 9. “In the first eight months of 2022, Russian oil exports to India grew to 16.35 million tonnes; in the summer, Russia ranked second in terms of oil shipments to India.”
Although India calls for peace negotiations over Ukraine, it still has to stand firm in the face of endless Western pressure to end its purchase of Russian oil. New Delhi has not capitulated to Western pressure and continues to stress that it will keep buying oil from wherever it gets the best deal, something that Russia, and not the West, is offering.
“We do not ask our companies to buy Russian oil. We ask our companies to buy oil, what is the best option that they can get. Now it depends on what the market throws up… Again, please do understand, it’s not just that we buy oil from one country. We buy oil from multiple sources, but it is a sensible policy to go where we get the best deal in the interests of the Indian people and that is exactly what we are trying to do,” Jaishankar told parliament on December 7.
It is the very fact that India pursues policies that it perceives to be best for its citizens that frustrates the West and leads them to fake news campaigns in a vain attempt to disrupt Russian-Indian relations. However, this fake news campaign does not change the reality on the ground, such as the fact that three top Indian ministers and officials have visited Russia since the war in Ukraine began —Heath Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Foreign Affairs Minister Jaishankar, or that bilateral ties have deepened in the energy sector.
Meanwhile, The Independent reported that Russia in December is on course to become India’s top oil supplier, a move “that will likely undermine the impact of a price cap imposed by G7 countries and their Western allies.”
“Russian crude oil loadings bound for India climbed to the highest level in November as refiners purchased more than 1 million barrels per day (bpd), according to data provided to The Independent by commodities tracking firm Kpler,” the British outlet reported.
Indian-Russian ties continue to deepen despite the West’s immense frustration.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
In 2008, American President George Bush announced that he would disregard the 1999 peace agreement and support an independent Kosovo protected by NATO. Russia and Serbia condemned this unilateral action. The United States had used massive force to bomb the European state of Serbia without United Nations approval and then violated a peace agreement to redraw its national boundaries while establishing a new American military base in Serbia.
The rapid growth and aggressiveness of NATO concerned Russian leaders, but it was the building of American missile bases in Eastern Europe that alarmed them. In 2009, President Barack Obama announced that American missile bases would be built in Romania and Poland capable of hitting Moscow with long-range cruise missiles. This was a flagrant violation of the Founding Act that barred new NATO bases and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The Soviet Union had disbanded and freed Eastern Europe after assurances that NATO forces would not move east. Yet NATO forces gradually moved east and now assembled on Russian borders and included German troops, from a nation that had invaded Russia twice the past century.
NATO troops also appeared in Ukraine and in Georgia on Russia’s southern border. Russian President Putin appealed to European leaders to stop this madness, noting that efforts for American military domination of all of Europe could lead to war.
The recent visit of Iran’s deputy foreign minister for political affairs, Ali Bagheri Kani, to New Delhi manifested a new chapter of relations between the traditional allies, India and Iran.
India, which used to be among the largest buyers of Iranian oil, stopped its crude imports from Iran in May 2019 after the US banned oil trade with Iran by lifting sanction waivers, a year after Washington unilaterally walked out of the landmark nuclear deal.
The imprudent move resulted in bilateral trade between the two countries nose-diving to $2 billion in the fiscal year 2021-22, compared to $16 billion in 2018-19.
Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine in late February, Russia has slowly edged past other oil-rich countries to become India’s largest crude supplier, with New Delhi refusing to join the Western charade of anti-Moscow sanctions and prioritizing its energy security.
That has opened a window of opportunity for Tehran and New Delhi to recalibrate their ties, and resume oil trade, in defiance of Western sanctions.
According to reports, New Delhi is strongly considering the resumption of oil imports from Tehran amid the simmering energy crisis in the country and no help from the Western countries.
India prioritizing energy security
Deepika Saraswat, an associate fellow at New Delhi-based Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, asserts that New Delhi prioritizes its energy security.
“New Delhi’s purchase of oil from Russia despite the Western sanctions on the country showed the importance of energy security given the context of high energy prices and supply constraints,” Saraswat told the Press TV Website.
“Therefore, India has been an important voice supporting the return of Iranian and Venezuelan oil to the market,” she hastened to add, hinting at the resumption of the Iran-India oil trade.
Bagheri, during his visit to New Delhi, reportedly delivered Tehran’s message to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the country’s willingness and preparedness to resume oil trade with New Delhi.
“Not a choice but a necessity,” Bagheri was quoted as saying on the importance of closer India-Iran ties.
“Both countries enjoy different types of cooperation in the economic sphere. They are partners and complete each other. Iran enjoys a huge energy resource, and thus it can provide energy supplies to India,” Bagheri told the Indian media.
Bagheri’s visit to New Delhi and discussion about oil trade came weeks after the Iranian ambassador to India, Iraj Elahi, stressed the importance of a close partnership between the two sides.
“There is no doubt that Iran and India were the best friends in dealing in oil. Iran was [meeting] the oil needs of India. But unfortunately, cooperation was affected by sanctions,” the envoy said.
“We always express our readiness to increase our economic ties with India. It’s up to India, we are ready to deliver oil.”
Oil trade and sanctions
In September, Tehran had called on New Delhi to resume oil purchases from the country, “ignoring unilateral” sanctions imposed by the US, similar to what New Delhi has done with Russian oil by skirting western sanctions.
Saurabh Kumar Shahi, a New Delhi-based journalist and commentator who mostly covers the Middle East region, is also of the opinion that New Delhi must go ahead with oil purchases from Iran.
“India should not be afraid of the illegal unilateral sanctions imposed on Iran by the US,” he told the Press TV Website in an interview.
Saraswat, referring to the new Iranian government’s ‘look eastward’ policy, said it means Tehran’s relations with regional countries will only improve.
“Since the new government came to power in Iran, its ‘Asian orientation’ in economic diplomacy means that relations with countries like China, Russia, and India have become a priority,” she stressed.
“Foreign Minister Abdollahian’s visit in June gave a much-needed boost to India-Iran ties, especially the commitment the two countries have shown in charting out a long-term roadmap for their relationship.”
Amid the changing geopolitical dynamics, New Delhi has begun to assert itself on the world stage, with top ministers defending the decision to continue importing oil from Russia.
India’s petroleum minister Hardeep Puri during his visit to Washington in October said New Delhi “will buy oil from wherever it has to”, pointing to the country’s new, vibrant foreign policy.
Saraswat said India has a “tradition” of independent foreign policy that is based on the country’s “own national interest calculus.”
What goes around comes around
Amid the raging Ukraine war and the end of the unipolar world order, the power center is gradually shifting towards Asia, according to observers, which means the death of the American hegemony.
The main protagonists of the new world order are Russia, China, Iran and India.
This political atmosphere could act as a perfect catalyst to resurrect different spheres of the relationship between New Delhi and Tehran, according to observers.
“The world is changing at a fast pace, and the Western order is slowly starting to collapse, under these circumstances India also wants to secure its interests in the region and beyond,” Shahi said.
“And in securing those interests, Russia and Iran are very, very important pillars as far as India is concerned,” he hastened to add.
With Iran set to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the BRICS grouping, of which Russia, China, and India are already core members, the future belongs to these countries.
However, not everything is hunky-dory as inimical forces are at play to prevent the partnership between New Delhi and Tehran from blossoming further.
New Delhi has a strategic alliance with the US and it is also part of groups such as I2U2 (India, Israel, US, and UAE), QUAD (United States, Australia, India, and Japan), which may act as obstructions.
“This relationship has not been performing as it should have, as India valued an alliance with the US, it dithered a lot about some of the responsibilities it had towards Iran,” Shahi explained.
Saraswat, however, believes that India has a “tradition of strategic autonomy”.
“It (India) does not believe in alliances against a third state, but partnerships based on mutual interests. In West Asia, India pursues a balanced policy of expanding relations with all key countries,” she said.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way
Amid the disruptions in international trade and transport routes caused by the Ukraine war and Western sanctions on Russia, Iran has emerged as a transit and transport hub connecting China and Central Asia to Europe, and also Russia with India along the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC).
Iran’s geological location in the region is such that it becomes the gateway for India to the INSTC that has sea, rail and road routes between India, Russia, Iran, Europe and Central Asia.
“The INSTC is an important route that links South Asia with Eurasia, it becomes important for India to be a part of it in a more proactive way,” said Shahi.
For India, the gateway to this route is the Chabahar Port in Iran’s southeastern Sistan and Baluchistan province. It not only provides key access to India to reach landlocked countries such as Afghanistan but also acts as the gateway for New Delhi and Tehran’s shared interests in the energy sector, in connecting resource-rich Central Asia to the Indian Ocean and their common security challenges in Afghanistan.
In New Delhi, Bagheri also stressed the importance of the development of the port, saying the project is not only important for Iran and India, but also for other countries in the region as it has a key role in the completion of the INSTC and connectivity in the region.
“In the last two decades, Iran has emerged as the pivot of India’s connectivity to Central Asia, wider Eurasia and also its development and humanitarian role in Afghanistan,” Saraswat said.
Shahi says India is now looking for its interests in the region, bypassing the threat of US sanctions.
In early November, during his address at the 21st Meeting of SCO Council of Heads of Government (CHG), Jaishankar underlined the potential of the Chabahar port in Iran for the economic future of the grouping, saying India will “unlock” the “economic potential” of this (SCO) region in which Chabahar port and the International North-South Transport Corridor could become “enablers.”
“The SCO provides a multilateral framework for India to further cooperation on key issues of counter-terrorism, connectivity with Central Asian countries and regional stability,” said Saraswat.
“With Iran soon becoming a full member of the grouping, the two countries will benefit from their shared positions on several issues of connectivity via Chabahar, on Afghanistan among other things.”
Saurabh said as the world moves towards multipolarity, India and Iran “will need each other’s help”.
Mehdi Moosvi is an Indian journalist, presently based in Tehran.
In the end, the proponents of such claims only embarrass themselves as Russia has not just been quite consistent with using advanced long-range PGMs, but has actually started using even more of them, especially in recent months. This was also recently confirmed by none other than the New York Times, one of the flagships of the political West’s massive mainstream propaganda machine. On December 5, theNYT published a report titled “Russian cruise missiles were made just months ago despite sanctions”, revealing that the so-called “severe PGM shortages” in the Russian military are nothing more than a myth. According to the report, weapons investigators hired by the Kiev regime determined that “at least one Russian Kh-101 cruise missile used in widespread attacks there on November 23 had been made no earlier than October.”
The remnants of Kh-101 cruise missiles found in Kiev had components made months after the supposedly “crippling” Western sanctions were imposed against Russia. The political West promised its favorite puppet regime that the restrictions would halt Moscow’s ability to produce advanced weapons, particularly long-range cruise missiles such as the air-launched Kh-101 or the seaborne “Kalibr”. Yet, since then, hundreds of these missiles have been made and used by the Russian military, resulting in disastrous consequences for the Neo-Nazi junta’s strategically important infrastructure. The damage to the power grid under the Kiev regime’s control has severely degraded the logistics of its forces, further resulting in the erosion of their ability to fight.
The NYT claims the investigators determined that one of the missiles was made sometime during the summer, while another was produced in late September or early October. According to one of the researchers, the findings support the claim that “Russia has continued to make advanced guided missiles like the Kh-101, [suggesting] that it has found ways to acquire semiconductors and other matériel despite the sanctions or that it had significant stockpiles of the components before the war began.” The investigation was conducted by the Conflict Armament Research (CAR), a self-described “independent group based in the UK that identifies and tracks weapons and ammunition used in wars.” Apparently, the Kiev regime security services (presumably the SBU) asked CAR to send a small team of its investigators to study the remnants of missiles used by Russian forces.
The findings were also confirmed by Piotr Butowski, a Polish journalist who specializes in the Russian military. This was further acknowledged by an unnamed US defense intelligence analyst in an interview before the report was released. He stated that “Mr. Butowski’s analysis was consistent with the government’s understanding of how Russian missile producers — including those that make the Kh-101 — mark their weapons.” The US analyst further stated that “reports from Russia indicate that the government has ordered employees at munition plants to work additional hours in an effort to produce more ordnance.” This clearly implies that the US is aware that Russia has all the necessary components to produce advanced weapons such as the Kh-101, once again proving that the reports about the supposed lack of Russian PGMs are nothing more than propaganda.
In contrast, the US Military Industrial Complex, the largest and most powerful arms cartel on the planet, as well as the principal supplier of weapons to the Kiev regime, seems to be having problems with its stocks of advanced weapons. Recent data reveals the extent of production issues the US is faced with while trying to arm the Neo-Nazi junta forces. According to a report by the National Review, dated December 3, Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes warned about the severe depletion of US stockpiles of Javelin ATGMs (anti-tank guided missiles) and Stinger MANPADS (man-portable air defense systems) due to the Biden administration’s insistence that the Kiev regime forces are to be supplied with such weapons.
Speaking during a panel on Ukraine at the Reagan National Defense Forum, Hayes said: “The problem is we have consumed so much supply in the first ten months of the war. We’ve essentially used up 13 years’ worth of Stinger production and five years’ worth of Javelin production.” According to Hayes, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin are jointly producing 400 Javelins per month, but no new Stingers have been made since 2004. However, he stressed that “the ongoing fighting in Ukraine is burning through existing weapons stocks and the question is, how are we going to resupply, restock inventories.”
Russian has a rather complicated adjective недоговороспособны (nedogovorosposobny) for which there isn’t any good English equivalent. Literally it means something like “not together in speaking to find a way”; the clumsy English word used is not-agreement-capable. The meaning is “you can’t make an agreement with them and, even if you could, they’d break it”.
The Minsk agreements were negotiated between Kiev and the breakaway regions of Lugansk and Donetsk with two variants in 2014 and 2015. In essence they agreed to a ceasefire and the start of negotiations on some form of autonomy for Lugansk and Donetsk inside the borders of Ukraine. The second version had big involvement by France (President Hollande) and Germany (Chancellor Angela Merkel) – they were its guarantors. Russia’s role was to force Lugansk and Donetsk to the table (they would have preferred independence or joining Russia.) The agreements never took effect.
Kiev never pretended to try and then-President Poroshenko has recently admitted that Kiev only saw it as a mechanism to buy time and Donetsk and Lugansk could “hole up in basements“. Western consumers/dupes of their media would only have heard of it in the context of “In Ukraine, we have maintained an effort under Ambassador Kurt Volker to provide the means by which Russia can live up to its commitments under the Minsk Agreements.” More lies – Russia had no commitments in the agreement, the obligations were entirely on the part of Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk. Russia delivered the latter two to the signing table and France and Germany were supposed to deliver the first. Had the agreements been lived up to – had France and Germany pressured Ukraine – Kievans would be cooking their meals in lighted rooms after a hot shower and sleeping in their own beds. Thousands of people would be alive and healthy today.
Putin recently told a group of soldiers’ mothers “In hindsight, we are all smart, of course, but we believed that we would manage to come to terms, and Lugansk and Donetsk would be able to reunify with Ukraine somehow under the agreements – the Minsk agreements… We were sincerely moving towards this.”
And the 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give Ukraine time. She also used this time to get stronger, as you can see today. The Ukraine of 2014/15 is not the Ukraine of today. As you saw in the battle for Debaltseve (railway town in Donbass, Donetsk Oblast, ed.) in early 2015, Putin could easily have overrun them at the time. And I very much doubt that the NATO countries could have done as much then as they do now to help Ukraine.
[Sie hat diese Zeit hat auch genutzt, um stärker zu werden, wie man heute sieht. Die Ukraine von 2014/15 ist nicht die Ukraine von heute. Wie man am Kampf um Debalzewe (Eisenbahnerstadt im Donbass, Oblast Donezk, d. Red.) Anfang 2015 gesehen hat, hätte Putin sie damals leicht überrennen können. Und ich bezweifle sehr, dass die Nato-Staaten damals so viel hätten tun können wie heute, um der Ukraine zu helfen.]
So, Poroshenko was right – it was just a delaying tactic, NATO and Kiev never had any intention of negotiating an arrangement in which Lugansk and Donetsk, inside Ukraine, would enjoy a degree of autonomy and Germany, at least, never intended to push Kiev.
Putin was lied to and fooled.
I have three questions.
Why would anybody in Russia ever bother negotiating with these people ever again about anything?
Why would anybody in the rest of the world – China, India, Iran, the Middle East, Africa, South America – ever bother negotiating with these people ever again about anything?
What possessed her to admit this now? An upwelling of conscience? Arrogance – we’re Number One and always will be and we don’t give a damn what you think? You’d think after the catastrophe that is hitting Ukraine and Europe because she (and others) ignored diplomacy and negotiation that she’d keep her mouth shut. (Korybko speculates on her motives.)
Недоговороспособны – even when you think you’ve made an agreement, they’re just trying to fool you.
On November 14, Der Spiegel published a report according to which leaked documents of the German Ministry of Defense indicate that the Bundeswehr is preparing for a war with Russia. The secret draft titled “Operational guidelines for the Armed Forces” was authored by the German Chief of Defense Staff, General Eberhard Zorn. It was written in late September and according to General Zorn, “an attack on Germany can potentially happen without warning and can cause serious damage, even existential. Therefore, the defense capabilities of the Bundeswehr are essential for the survival of the country.” The German Chief of Defense Staff stressed the need for a “mega-reform” of the Bundeswehr, adding that “for approximately 30 years, the focus placed on missions abroad no longer does justice to the current situation, with possible consequences that endanger the system.”
Instead, General Zorn thinks it’s crucial for Germany to focus on “the Atlantic defense of the Alliance,” with the “capacity to provide visible and credible deterrence, to dominate Germany’s military action plan.” In this regard, specifically, “the Bundeswehr must arm itself for a forced war, since a potential confrontation on NATO’s eastern flank has once again become more probable.”
The draft clearly identified Russia as the “immediate threat”. However, the designation makes little sense, as Russia is now over 1,500 km away from Germany, with Belarus, Poland and Ukraine standing between the two countries. While it made some sense for Germany to maintain a large, highly trained military force with constant combat readiness during the (First) Cold War, as the USSR had approximately half a million soldiers in East Germany at the time (in addition to other Warsaw Pact member states), the situation is effectively reversed nowadays.
It’s precisely NATO that’s encroaching on Russia’s western borders, with the crawling expansion including coups and other interventions in various Eastern European and post-Soviet states. This aggression by the political West forced Moscow’s hand, culminating with the February 24 counteroffensive. However, the German plan has already been set in motion and no matter how ill-conceived it is, an analysis of how it could play out is in order. The plan certainly isn’t new, as it has been in the works for well over half a year. Back in early March, the German government announced it would allocate approximately €100 billion to upgrade the Bundeswehr, which has become a mere shadow of what it was during the heydays of the (First) Cold War.
The 2021 budget for Bundeswehr was approximately €50 billion. If Berlin was to increase that by close to 100%, it would put extreme pressure on the struggling German economy. Such a massive upsurge in military spending wouldn’t only take away from other branches of the government, but it would also come at a time when the sanctions boomerang from the failed economic siege of Russia is ravaging all of the European Union. The bloc hasn’t even begun recovery from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it’s already facing severe economic contraction resulting from anti-Russian sanctions and policies. Much of Germany’s prosperity was based on access to cheap Russian energy, which is now a thing of the past thanks to Berlin’s suicidal subservience to “Euro-Atlantic values”.
In essence, this means that Germany is doomed to massively increase military spending while having significantly fewer resources at its disposal to do so. This doesn’t even factor in how the German people would react to such a momentous foreign (and, to a large extent, domestic) policy shift. As the EU’s largest and most important economy, Germany would also cause shockwaves throughout the bloc if it were to go ahead with such a plan. With Russian energy supplies either gone or effectively unaffordable, any government in power in Berlin would have virtually the entire German private sector against it, with the notable exception of the arms industry, which would be the only one not contracting thanks to increased orders for the Bundeswehr.
On the other hand, even this plan is bound to hit several major snags before it’s even put in motion. The US Military Industrial Complex dominates in NATO, making it the primary beneficiary of German (re)militarization. Domestic weapons production has atrophied significantly in the last 30 years, while the globalization of the world economy led to the rest of it being outsourced to other countries, both in Europe and elsewhere around the globe.
At least half a dozen European governments have already fallen, while the neoliberal elites in Brussels are now forced to contend with new anti-liberal political parties in power in several EU member states. This is bound to cause further rifts within the bloc. It will be followed by the general militarization of the EU, which will further erode the already falling living standards and cause more political instability. This will turn Europe into an economically devastated bulwark that serves no other purpose except to contain Russia while the US shifts focus to the Asia-Pacific region.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
A letter provided by Russian insurer, Ingosstrakh, enabled the first oil tanker to sail through Turkish waters in recent days after tougher regulations were imposed by Turkish authorities, a document showed, Reuters reports.
This has led already at least 20 oil tankers backed up in the Turkish Straits as they do not have the right paperwork.
Turkish authorities introduced new requirements, which came into effect on 1 December, in which every ship must have insurance cover in place for all circumstances when sailing through Turkish waters or when calling at ports.
Ingosstrakh provided the requirements for the Liberia flagged “Vladimir Tikhonov” tanker, which included insurance for pollution risks throughout the period in Turkish waters, according to a letter issued to the authorities on 29 November by the insurer and seen by Reuters.
The world’s leading Western ship insurers say they are unable to provide cover for all circumstances, arguing they cannot be liable for payouts if, for instance, there are sanctions breaches with a ship’s cargo.
“Vladimir Tikhonov” completed sailing through the Bosphorus on 3 December, ship tracking data showed.
The EU and G7 price cap on Russian oil went into effect on Monday, but it’s already causing disruptions in global supply chains. The first manifestation comes from Turkey, where the Financial Times reports that a tanker traffic jam is stacking up in Turkish waters and blocking some 18 million barrels of oil from passage, as the country’s authorities demand proof that the vessels have insurance coverage:
“Around 19 crude oil tankers were waiting to cross Turkish waters on Monday, according to ship brokers, oil traders and satellite tracking services. The vessels had dropped anchor near the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, the two straits linking Russia’s Black Sea ports to international markets.”
In a striking demonstration of the price cap’s potential to disrupt markets, most of the oil in the delayed ships isn’t even subject to the sanction regime:It’s from Kazakhstan and has merely transited Russian ports after arriving there via pipeline.
One oil industry insider said Russian shippers have transited with relative ease — it’s shippers covered by western insurers that are anchored and now destined to deliver their cargo late. … Full article
The subject of security guarantees can be raised again if the West is serious about it, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters on Tuesday. Until then, he added, Moscow will continue to respond appropriately to any further NATO expansion.
Talks could begin “when they confirm that they are ready for some kind of more sensible and balanced dialogue in terms of interests,” Ryabkov said.
“If and when we hear that the West really has an interest in this, we will return to the topic,” the diplomat added. “But, as in the situation with the dialogue on strategic stability, which was unilaterally interrupted by the United States, we are not chasing anyone and we are not asking anyone for anything.”
His comments came after French President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday – fresh from a visit to Washington – that NATO should be prepared to offer Russia security guarantees as part of any upcoming talks on ending the conflict in Ukraine.
Russia sent a set of security proposals to NATO and the US in December 2021, with Ryabkov playing a key role in the talks. Among other things, Moscow demanded the withdrawal of NATO’s offensive weapons from its borders and guarantees that Ukraine would never join the bloc.
In January, the US and NATO refused, saying they would only be interested in strategic arms control talks. Since the conflict in Ukraine escalated in February, the bloc has also moved to expand to Sweden and Finland.
Ryabkov said this would receive a “corresponding response” from Russia. “Do the countries who wish to join NATO need that? Why? This is ultimately a question for them to address. We will draw conclusions for ourselves, as we have done so far.”
The “strategic stability” Ryabkov mentioned was a reference to the abortive talks between Russia and the US in Cairo last month, dealing with an impasse over New START. Moscow suspended its participation in the treaty inspections mechanism in August, saying the US sanctions gave Washington an unfair advantage by preventing Russian inspectors from doing their work. Further talks on the treaty are not possible so long as the US continues arming Ukraine, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last month.
Recent comments by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel shed light on the duplicitous game played by Germany, France, Ukraine and the United States in the lead-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February.
While the so-called “collective west” (the U.S., NATO, the E.U. and the G7) continue to claim that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was an act of “unprovoked aggression,” the reality is far different: Russia had been duped into believing there was a diplomatic solution to the violence that had broken out in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine in the aftermath of the 2014 U.S.-backed Maidan coup in Kiev.
Instead, Ukraine and its Western partners were simply buying time until NATO could build a Ukrainian military capable of capturing the Donbass in its entirety, as well as evicting Russia from Crimea.
In an interview last week with Der Spiegel, Merkel alluded to the 1938 Munich compromise. She compared the choices former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had to make regarding Nazi Germany with her decision to oppose Ukrainian membership in NATO, when the issue was raised at the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest.
By holding off on NATO membership, and later by pushing for the Minsk accords, Merkel believed she was buying Ukraine time so that it could better resist a Russian attack, just as Chamberlain believed he was buying the U.K. and France time to gather their strength against Hitler’s Germany
The takeaway from this retrospection is astounding. Forget, for a moment, the fact that Merkel was comparing the threat posed by Hitler’s Nazi regime to that of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and focus instead in on the fact that Merkel knew that inviting Ukraine into NATO would trigger a Russian military response.
Rather than reject this possibility altogether, Merkel instead pursued a policy designed to make Ukraine capable of withstanding such an attack.
Merkel’s comments parallel those made in June by former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to several western media outlets. “Our goal,” Poroshenko declared, “was to, first, stop the threat, or at least to delay the war — to secure eight years to restore economic growth and create powerful armed forces.” Poroshenko made it clear that Ukraine had not come to the negotiating table on the Minsk Accords in good faith.
This is a realization that Putin has come to as well. In a recent meeting with Russian wives and mothers of Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, including a few widows of fallen soldiers, Putin acknowledged that it was a mistake to agree to the Minsk accords, and that the Donbass problem should have been resolved by force of arms at that time, especially given the mandate he had been handed by the Russian Duma regarding authorization to use Russian military forces in “Ukraine,” not just Crimea.
Putin’s belated realization should send shivers down the spine of all those in the West who operate on the misconception that there can now somehow be a negotiated settlement to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
None of Russia’s diplomatic interlocutors have demonstrated a modicum of integrity when it comes to demonstrating any genuine commitment to a peaceful resolution to the ethnic violence which emanated from the bloody events of the Maidan in February 2014, which overthrew an OSCE-certified, democratically-elected Ukrainian president.
Response to Resistance
When Russian speakers in Donbass resisted the coup and defended that democratic election, they declared independence from Ukraine. The response from the Kiev coup regime was to launch an eight-year vicious military attack against them that killed thousands of civilians. Putin waited eight years to recognize their independence and then launched a full-scale invasion of Donbass in February.
He had previously waited on the hope that the Minsk Accords, guaranteed by Germany and France and endorsed unanimously by the U.N. Security Council (including by the U.S.), would resolve the crisis by giving Donbass autonomy while remaining part of Ukraine. But Kiev never implemented the accords and were not sufficiently pressured to do so by the West.
The detachment shown by the West, as every pillar of perceived legitimacy crumbled — from the OSCE observers (some of whom, according to Russia, were providing targeting intelligence about Russian separatist forces to the Ukrainian military); to the Normandy Format pairing of Germany and France, which was supposed to ensure that the Minsk Accords would be implemented; to the United States, whose self-proclaimed “defensive” military assistance to Ukraine from 2015 to 2022 was little more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing — all underscored the harsh reality that there never was going to be a peaceful settlement of the issues underpinning the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
And there never will be.
War, it seems, was the solution sought by the “collective West,” and war is the solution sought by Russia today.
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
On reflection, Merkel was not wrong in citing Munich 1938 as an antecedent to the situation in Ukraine today. The only difference is this wasn’t a case of noble Germans seeking to hold off the brutal Russians, but rather duplicitous Germans (and other Westerners) seeking to deceive gullible Russians.
This will not end well for either Germany, Ukraine, or any of those who shrouded themselves with the cloak of diplomacy, all the while hiding from view the sword they held behind their backs.
Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. His most recent book is Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, published by Clarity Press.
By Mazin Qumsiyeh | Popular Resistance | August 18, 2013
There is no way to say this truth nicely: Politicians lie. That includes Japanese, American, Egyptian, Israeli, and Palestinian politicians! Is there something more common sense than that? Yet, so many citizens around the world believe their own politicians or wistfully acknowledge lies but think it is part of the job needed to run things. They believe even when politicians contradict themselves blatantly. This phenomenon is rather remarkable. It is a dissonance and disconnect from reality that many seem oblivious to. It is very dangerous because it can lead to accepting rationales for going to war. These can be deadly wars that lead to millions of lives lost as happened in what was called World War 1 and WW2. Even when incredible and declassified evidence abound, politicians continue to lie and old mythologies refuse to die. Here are just a few of the countless lies told to us over the past few decades… continue
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