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Washington rejected Moscow’s offer of complete reset in Russia-US relations shortly after inauguration of Biden: Lavrov

By Jonny Tickle | RT | April 28, 2021

The Kremlin proposed a complete reset in the strained relationship between Moscow and Washington after the inauguration of US President Joe Biden, but it was turned down by the White House, Russia’s chief diplomat said on Tuesday.

Speaking to journalist Dmitry Kiselyov, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov explained that Russia wants to get back on a sound footing in its relationship with the US.

“If it only depended on us, we would return to normal relations,” Lavrov explained, noting that the first step would be to cancel the expulsions of Russian diplomats from Washington, and US diplomats from Moscow.

“We offered this to President Biden’s Administration as soon as he took all the necessary oaths and assumed power,” he continued. “I mentioned this to Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken.”

According to Lavrov, the crisis began when former President Barack Obama took measures against Russia prior to his leaving office. After the election of Donald Trump, Moscow remained patient and waited for the new administration to reverse the “excesses” of the outgoing president, but it never happened.

“I very much hope that Washington, as we do, recognizes their responsibility for stability in the world,” Lavrov continued. “There are not only problems between Russia and the US that complicate the lives of our citizens… but also disagreements that put international security at serious risk, in the broadest sense of the word.”

In recent weeks, relations between Moscow and Washington have become even more strained.

On April 15, Biden signed an executive order imposing further sanctions against Russia. Targeting more than 30 individuals and organizations, the measures are said to be punishment for alleged interference in the US presidential election, as well as the infamous SolarWinds cyber-espionage case, which Washington says was ordered by the Russian government. Biden also announced the expulsion of 10 people from the Russian diplomatic mission.

In response, Moscow sent 10 US diplomats back home.

April 28, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

All of liquified natural gas from Russia’s Arctic for next 20 years sold in advance

RT | April 28, 2021

Russia’s energy giant Novatek said on Wednesday it has inked 20-year agreements with the shareholders of its Arctic LNG 2 project on the sale and purchase of the entire volume of liquified natural gas.

The LNG sales from the plant’s first liquefaction train are planned to commence in 2023, according to the company.

The agreements “provide for LNG supplies from Arctic LNG 2 on FOB Murmansk and FOB Kamchatka basis with pricing formulas linked to international oil and gas benchmarks. The LNG offtake volumes are set in proportion to the respective participants’ ownership stakes in the project,” Novatek said.

The company’s chairman of the management board, Leonid Mikhelson, said that “The long-term offtake agreements between Arctic LNG 2 and its participants ensure the future revenue stream from LNG sales and de-risks the project. This represents one of the most important milestones in attracting the project’s external financing that will be completed in 2021.”

Mikhelson said earlier that the Arctic LNG 2 plant is 39% complete and will be launched as planned.

Arctic LNG 2 envisages constructing three LNG liquefaction trains of 6.6 million tons per annum each, as well as cumulative gas condensate production capacity of 1.6 million tons per annum. The total LNG capacity of the three liquefaction trains will be 19.8 million tons. The first train of Arctic LNG 2 is 53% ready and is scheduled to start operations in two years.

Novatek owns the majority stake (60%) in the project, with minority stakes held by foreign companies. The list of foreign investors includes French oil and gas company Total (10%), Chinese firms CNPC (10%) and CNOOC (10%), and the Japanese consortium of Mitsui and JOGMEC (10%).

April 28, 2021 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Russian Media Watchdog Demands That Google Remove Restrictions on RT’s YouTube Channel

Sputnik – 24.04.2021

MOSCOW – Russia’s Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) on Saturday demanded that Google lift restrictions on the English-language YouTube channel of the RT broadcaster.

“Roskomnadzor sent a letter to the leadership of Google LLC demanding that all restrictions be lifted from the RT YouTube Channel as soon as possible”, the statement said.

YouTube previously made a number of videos on RT’s English YouTube channel inaccessible to viewers, and also restricted the channel’s ability to make live broadcasts, citing alleged COVID-19 disinformation.

According to Roskomnadzor, such actions by YouTube’s administration violate the key principles of free distribution of information and constitute an act of censorship against the Russian media outlet.

The watchdog has repeatedly pointed to restrictions that YouTube imposes on access to certain Russian video content. Last autumn, the watchdog sent several letters to Google, demanding that it stop censoring videos published by Russian media, including a documentary about the 2004 Beslan tragedy.

April 24, 2021 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Anti-Syrian OPCW Resolution Adopted After Pressure on Some Countries, Russian Envoy Says

Sputnik – 22.04.2021

The 25th Session of the Conference of the States Parties to the OPCW was held in the Hague on 20-22 April. During this session, France presented a draft resolution, which provides for the suspension of the rights and privileges of Syria in the organisation due to the alleged violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) by Damascus. Members of the organisation adopted the resolution by a majority vote.

“At the 25th conference of the participating States that ended in The Hague, an anti-Syrian resolution on the deprivation of Syria of its rights and privileges was adopted. This means that Damascus is deprived of the right to vote at sessions of the highest governing body, the conference; it cannot be elected to the executive board of the organization, and also to any of its other subsidiary bodies, the Syrians will be denied access to posts in the technical secretariat,” Russia’s Permanent Representative to the OPCW Alexander Shulgin said.

He noted that this was the first such precedent on The Hague site when a state party was declared a persistent violator of the CWC and sanctions were applied against it.

“And this is done by falsifying facts, massive propaganda, blackmail and twisting arms of some countries to ensure the necessary voting results on the relevant documents. To our great regret, this is what the OPCW is turning into. All this is done by the efforts of the United States, France, the United Kingdom and others. countries that do not cease to nurture plans to remove the government of Bashar Assad, which they hate, from the political arena,” the permanent representative emphasized.

Opponents of official Damascus, by their actions to advance geopolitical interests, are destroying the OPCW and leading it to collapse, he added.

April 23, 2021 Posted by | Deception | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Amid increased tensions in Donbass, Putin invites Ukrainian President Zelensky to Moscow for discussions on ‘bilateral relations’

By Jonny Tickle | RT | April 23, 2021

Russian President Vladimir Putin has revealed that he is ready to welcome his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky “at any convenient time in Moscow.” The suggestion comes after Kiev offered to meet in war-torn Donbass.

Speaking before talks with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday, Putin said Zelensky should first discuss the problems of Donbass with the heads of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics before speaking with representatives of third countries. He included Russia in this category.

“And if we are talking about the development of bilateral relations, then, please, we will receive the president of Ukraine in Moscow at any time convenient for him,” Putin said. “If President Zelensky wants to start restoring relations, Russia will only welcome it.”

The Russian leader’s statement comes after Zelensky suggested a summit “anywhere in the Ukrainian Donbass where the war is going on,” earlier this week.

“Ukraine and Russia, despite their shared past, look to the future in different ways. We are us. You are you,” Zelensky said. “But this is not necessarily a problem; it is an opportunity. At the very least, an opportunity, before it is too late, to stop the murderous mathematics of future war losses.”

The conflict in Donbass started in April 2014, when two pro-Moscow breakaway republics unilaterally declared independence from Kiev. These regions – the self-declared Donetsk (DNR) and Lugansk People’s Republics (LNR) – are unrecognized by both Russia and Ukraine. However, according to Kiev, they are under the control of the Kremlin, a charge Moscow denies.

Following Zelensky’s invite to Putin, the heads of both the DNR and LNR invited the Ukrainian leader to meet and hold talks in Donbass, suggesting he deals directly with them instead.

“I urge you, Mr. Zelensky, not to invite the leaders of third countries to the line of contact, but rather to go there yourself for an honest and open conversation with us,” said Denis Pushilin, the leader in Donetsk.

The situation in Donbass has escalated in recent weeks, although it now seems to be calming down. Media reports from the region revealed a build-up of both Russian manpower and equipment near the border, following news that the Ukrainian Army was increasing its number of forces in the area. However, on Thursday, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced that troops deployed near the frontier would soon begin returning to base, as military exercises had concluded.

April 23, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

As British Warships Deploy to Black Sea, Putin Warns of Red Lines

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | April 22, 2021

Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a stern warning to countries trying to provoke military tensions, saying that his nation is drawing up red lines for defense.

Putin delivered the sharp remarks during his annual state-of-the-nation address to lawmakers from both chambers of the Russian parliament. The stark warning comes amid spiraling tensions over Ukraine between Western supporters of the Kiev regime and Russia.

Specifically, days before Putin’s set-piece speech, British media reported that Britain’s Royal Navy is planning to deploy two warships to the Black Sea: a Type-45 destroyer armed with anti-aircraft missiles; and a frigate for hunting submarines. A British ministry of defense spokesman is quoted as saying the move was a sign of “unwavering support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity” in the face of alleged Russian aggression.

The British deployment is planned to take place in the coming weeks. The two warships will transit Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait to enter the Black Sea. International shipping is permitted under the Montreux Convention. However, the British plan seems far from an innocent passage, and a rather more calculated provocation.

The two ships will be part of a bigger battle group, the newly launched HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier which will station in the East Mediterranean. The battle group will be able to supply F-35B Lightning fighter jets and Merlin helicopters with submarine-hunting missiles. All in all, it is a pretty audacious attempt by the British to raise tensions with Russia.

It is notable that the United States last week abruptly cancelled sending two of its guided-missile destroyers to the Black Sea after Russia mobilized its own fleet in the region and warned the Americans to “stay away”. Days later, the British seem to have stepped into the breach with their proposed Black Sea operation. Did the Biden administration ask London to step up to the plate and to show “solidarity”, or is the British maneuver a gambit to curry favor with Washington by flexing AngloSaxon muscles for Uncle Sam?

In any case, London’s move comes on the back of an already brazen buildup of British military forces in the Black Sea. Britain has previously sent naval personnel and equipment to train Ukrainian warships. The Royal Air Force has also dispatched a squadron of Typhoon fighter jets to patrol the Black Sea in support of the Kiev regime and its claim to take back control of the Crimean Peninsula. The Peninsula voted in a referendum in March 2014 to join the Russian Federation after a NATO-backed coup d’état in Kiev the previous month which ushered in an anti-Russian regime.

The Kiev regime has also been stepping up its violations of the ceasefire in Eastern Ukraine where ethnic Russian populations have declared breakaway republics in defiance of the 2014 NATO-backed coup. Civilian centers in Donetsk and Luhansk are being shelled on a daily basis. This is clearly a cynical attempt by the Kiev regime to escalate the civil war in such a way as to drag NATO further into the conflict. Russia has mobilized sizable army divisions on the border with Ukraine in what Moscow says is a matter of national self-defense. Yet, ironically, the United States, Britain, and other NATO powers are demanding Russia to “de-escalate” tensions.

NATO’s very public backing for the Kiev regime and the supply of American lethal weaponry is no doubt emboldening the regime to step up its offensive fire on Eastern Ukraine and making menacing moves towards Crimea.

The British are in particular giving the Kiev regime a dangerous sense of military license for its bravado towards Moscow.

The situation is an extremely dangerous powder-keg. One wrong move, even unintended, could spark off a wider war involving the NATO powers and Russia.

In this highly combustible context, Russia is right to close off areas in the Black Sea that encompass its territorial waters. Those areas include the coastal waters off the Crimean Peninsula.

NATO powers sending warships into the region is the height of criminal folly. If Britain and other members of the U.S.-led alliance contend that they are “defending Ukraine’s territorial integrity” then the logic of that position dictates that they will attempt to make an incursion into Crimean coastal water since they don’t recognize Russia’s sovereignty. In that event, a military confrontation is bound to happen.

President Putin’s declaration of red lines is not so much a rhetorical putting it up to the West. It is a responsible position to prevent a war from breaking out.

The British are being told that they cannot just sail their warships into the Black Sea and rattle their sabers in Russia’s face. Putin is telling the Brits and anyone else not to even think about getting that close.

April 23, 2021 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Putin keeps the door open for diplomacy with the US; too bad it’s falling on deaf ears

By Scott Ritter | RT | April 22, 2021

Putin warns of Russia’s ‘red lines’, comparing the West’s actions to ‘The Jungle Book’, but says Moscow doesn’t want to burn bridges with anyone. His message falls on deaf ears in the US, largely thanks to establishment media.

In his annual address to the Federal Assembly – the Russian parliament – President Putin devoted most of his time to domestic issues. His comments regarding national security and foreign affairs were brief, but telling.

While many pundits had predicted he would use the occasion to announce major actions that would signify a decisive break with the West in the aftermath of the US imposing a new round of economic sanctions, Putin, while lamenting the “unfriendly actions” and “outright rudeness” of the US and its allies, highlighted the fact that Moscow wants to maintain good relations with them.

“We don’t want to burn bridges,” Putin declared.

Lest those in the West who were listening to the speech mistake Russia’s “good intentions as indifference or weakness,” Putin waxed poetic in putting down a marker that Russia would have none of it.

He alluded to Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Jungle Book’ in describing the present situation vis-à-vis Russia and the West, observing that there are “all kinds of small Tabaquis [a reference to the sniveling jackal featured in the book] running around Shere Khan [a tyrannical Bengal tiger]… howling to gain the favor of their ruler.” While not naming names, Putin’s allusion is clear – the US (Shere Khan) and its Tabaquis (NATO) are harassing Russia (Mowgli, the unmentioned hero of the tale.)

The Jungle Book reference takes on a darker meaning when the Russian president warns those countries who have “made it a habit to pick on Russia,” that if “they want to burn bridges, or even blow up these bridges, they must know that Russia’s response will be asymmetric, swift and tough.”

It should be noted that in ‘The Jungle Book’, Tabaqui the jackal was killed by Mowgli’s allies, while Shere Khan died at the hands of Mowgli himself, led into a fiery trap – the ultimate form of asymmetrical combat.

To the would-be Shere Khans and Tabaquis listening to Putin’s address, the Russian president could not have made his message any clearer – do not provoke the Russian bear. “Russia has its interests which we defend and will defend within the framework of international law,” he declared.

While some observers have interpreted Putin’s brief comments on foreign and national security as ‘war-mongering’ and ‘bellicose’, it was anything but. Putin made it clear that diplomacy, not military action, was Russia’s preferred methodology, emphasizing Russia’s “good intentions” and its desire to keep the existing bridges linking it and the West open, as opposed to burning them down.

Putin’s posture was consistent with the evaluation contained in the US intelligence community’s Global Threat Assessment for 2021, which described Russian intent as follows: “We expect Moscow to seek opportunities for pragmatic cooperation with Washington on its own terms, and we assess that Russia does not want a direct conflict with US forces.”

The document further noted that “Russia seeks an accommodation with the United States on mutual noninterference in both countries’ domestic affairs and US recognition of Russia’s claimed sphere of influence over much of the former Soviet Union.”

There is no sunlight between this assessment and the tone and content of Putin’s address.

But to read the US media’s reaction to his speech, one would get the impression that America occupied an alternative reality where the constant threat posed to Russia by the real-life Shere Khans and Tabaquis of the world has been flipped, with the Russian government assuming the role of the predatory figure threatening the existence of ‘democracy’ – apparently personified in the form of the Western-backed opposition figure Alexey Navalny, and the perpetually victimized Ukraine.

While providing dismissive lip service to the content of Putin’s address, the Washington Post instead highlighted what it reported as “a wave of protests” which “started rolling across Russia’s Far East in support of imprisoned opposition leader Alexey Navalny.” The New York Times followed suit injecting the Navalny drama, while Newsweek took a different tack and ran an article with the inflammatory headline, “Ukraine President Zelensky Is Ready for War With Russia, Vows to ‘Stand to the Last Man.’” It covered a speech delivered by Volodymyr Zelensky as if it were the geopolitical equivalent of Putin’s address. “Does Ukraine want war?” Zelensky asked. “No. Is it ready for it? Yes,” he said, adding that while “Ukraine does not start a war first,” it “always stands to the last man.” Zelensky urged Putin to meet with him “anywhere in the Ukrainian Donbas where there is war” for peace talks.

By emphasizing Navalny and the conflict in the Donbass region while simultaneously giving short shrift to the content and intent of Putin’s address, the US media has continued a course which has sought to minimize Russian statesmanship and diplomacy in favor of a Hollywood-like narrative which paints that nation and its leader as the quintessential bad guys.

Given the role played by the US mainstream media in creating an environment that compels US leaders to craft policy which conforms to domestic political imperative as opposed to legitimate national security interests, this emphasis is unfortunate. The failure on the part of the US media, and by extension, the Biden administration, to recognize this reality is reflective of the suicidal hubris and arrogance that has gripped what passes for an understanding of modern-day Russia. Read ‘The Jungle book’; it’s not an ending any would-be Shere Khan should desire.

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.

April 22, 2021 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

As demand for natural gas skyrockets in booming China, Russia says it’s ready to meet Beijing’s needs

By Jonny Tickle | RT | April 21, 2021

China’s fast-growing economy has an insatiable need for natural gas, and Russia is ready to heavily ramp up its cross-border supplies. That’s according to Viktor Zubkov, the chairman of Russian energy giant Gazprom.

As things stand, gas is sent from Far-Eastern Yakutia to China through the Gazprom-operated Power of Siberia pipeline, which first became operational in December 2019. Its construction secured another economic partnership for Moscow, while its gas connections to Europe face increasing resistance.

On Wednesday, when speaking to Moscow news agency TASS, Zubkov revealed that China’s demand for gas increases every two years at the rate of the entire capacity of the Power of Siberia pipeline, which transports 38 billion cubic meters every year.

According to Zubkov, China has already become the largest importer and the third-biggest consumer of natural gas globally.

“It will remain the most promising gas market for the foreseeable future as well,” he said. “We are sure that China needs additional gas supplies from Russia, and Gazprom is ready to supply them.”

He also noted that Chinese gas consumption is growing at an accelerated, ‘double-digit’ rate and in the next 15 years could double from its current level.

In recent years, Russia and China started to move closer economically, with both countries sending a large volume of exports across their shared border. Beijing is now Moscow’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade exceeding $100 billion annually.

“Asia acts as a locomotive in the development of the global economy,” Zubkov concluded. “In 2020, the world economy faced its worst pandemic crisis in recent memory, and it was Asia, with its strong growth, that laid the foundation for a global recovery from the downturn.”

On April 13, Gazprom approved the analysis of a project to build the Soyuz Vostok gas pipeline through Mongolia to China, another route that would send more fuel to Asia.

April 21, 2021 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

Russian Foreign Ministry statement on measures in response to hostile US actions

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation | April 16, 2021

The latest attack by the Biden administration against our country cannot go unanswered. It seems Washington is unwilling to accept that there is no room for unilateral dictates in the new geopolitical reality. Meanwhile, the bankrupt scenarios for deterring Moscow that the US myopically continues to pursue only promise to further degrade Russian-US relations.

In this context, the appeals from across the ocean to refrain from escalation and essentially accept this attempt to talk to us from a position of strength sound hypocritical. We have repeatedly warned and demonstrated in practice that sanctions and any other pressure will never succeed and will only have dire consequences for those who dare attempt such provocations.

We will introduce the following countermeasures in response to anti-Russian sanctions in the near future:

  •  Employees of US diplomatic missions will be expelled on a reciprocal basis in numbers proportional to the actions taken by the US authorities against Russian diplomats.
  • Incidentally, we noted how quickly Warsaw played up to the US administration by demanding the departure of three Russian diplomats from Poland. In turn, five Polish diplomats will be expelled from Russia.
  •  The US Embassy’s practice of using short-term trips by State Department staff to support the functioning of diplomatic missions will be restricted. The issuance of visas to them will be reduced to a minimum: up to 10 people per year on a reciprocal basis.
  •  In strict conformity with the Vienna conventions on diplomatic relations and Russian law, including the Labour Code, measures will be taken to discontinue completely the practice of US diplomatic missions employing citizens of the Russian Federation and third countries as administrative and technical staff.
  •  The bilateral 1992 memorandum of understanding on open ground is declared invalid due to systematic violations of rules for trips in the Russian Federation by employees of US diplomatic missions.
  •  Plans are in place to halt the activities in the Russian Federation of American foundations and NGOs controlled by the Department of State and other US government agencies. These consistent, long-term efforts will be brought to an end, all the more so since the United States shows no intention of scaling back its systematic subversive efforts underpinned by a wide array of laws.
  •  Obviously, this very tense situation objectively requires the ambassadors of our countries to be in their respective capitals to analyse developments and hold consultations.

These steps represent just a fraction of the capabilities at our disposal. Unfortunately, US statements threatening to introduce new forms of punishment show that Washington is not willing to listen and does not appreciate the restraint that we have displayed despite the tensions that have been purposefully fuelled since the presidency of Barack Obama.

Recall that after a large-scale expulsion of Russian diplomats in December 2016 and the seizure of Russian diplomatic property in the US, we did not take any response measures for seven months. We responded only when Russia was declared a US adversary legislatively in August 2017.

In general, compared to the Russian diplomatic missions in the United States, the US Embassy in Moscow operates in better conditions, enjoying a numerical advantage and actively benefitting from the work of Russian citizens hired in-country. This form of disparity frees up “titular” diplomats to interfere in our domestic affairs, which is one of the main tenets of Washington’s foreign policy doctrine.

Incidentally, soon the Foreign Ministry will publish on its website the names of eight incumbent and former high-ranking US officials and other figures involved in drafting and implementing anti-Russia policy. They will be permanently banned from entering the Russian Federation. This is our equivalent response to the sanctions against Russian officials that the US blacklisted last month.

Now is the time for the United States to show common sense and pull back from this confrontational course. Otherwise, the US will face a host of painful decisions, for instance, an order for US diplomatic missions to reduce personnel in Russia to 300 people. This will establish real parity at bilateral foreign offices because the US quota of 455 employees still includes the 155 people sent to the Russian Permanent Mission to the UN in New York. However, this has nothing to do with our bilateral mission.

There are also other options. Of course, we realise that we are limited in our ability to squeeze the Americans economically as they have us. However, we have some resources in this respect and they will also be used if Washington chooses to follow the path of spiraling sanctions.

None of this is our choice. We would like to avoid further escalation with the US. We are ready to engage in calm and professional dialogue with the US in order to find ways of normalising bilateral ties. However, the reality is that we hear one thing from Washington but see something completely different in practice. There must be no doubt – not a single round of sanctions will go unanswered.

We have obviously heard President Joe Biden express interest in stable, constructive and predictable relations with Russia, including a proposed Russian-US summit. When this offer was made, it was received positively and is now being considered in the context of concrete developments.

Press release on a ban on entry of certain US citizens into the Russian Federation

In response to the sanctions against Russian officials imposed by the US administration on March 2 of this year, the following incumbent and former US high-ranking officials and figures complicit in pursuing the anti-Russia policy, are denied entry to the Russian Federation:

  1. Merrick Brian Garland, United States Attorney General;
  2. Michael D. Carvajal, Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons;
  3. Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas, United States Secretary of Homeland Security;
  4. Susan Elizabeth Rice, Director of the United States Domestic Policy Council, former US Permanent Representative to the United Nations and National Security Advisor;
  5. Christopher Asher Wray, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation;
  6. Avril Danica Haines, Director of US National Intelligence.

In addition, entry is denied to John Robert Bolton, former National Security Advisor to the United States President, former US Permanent Representative to the United Nations, and Robert James Woolsey Jr., former director of the US Central Intelligence Agency.

In view of the unprecedented complications in Russia-US relations provoked by Washington, it was decided to deviate from the usual practice of not making public the response measures taken by the Russian side.

April 17, 2021 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

The US Strengthens Its Presence in Mongolia

By Vladimir Odintsov – New Eastern Outlook – 14.04.2021

In recent years, Mongolia has received increasing attention in a comprehensive and multifaceted US strategy aimed at dominating the Eurasian continent. To a certain extent, this is due to the colossal amounts of natural resources and economic opportunities the country has, which are of undoubted interest for American industrial and business circles. However, this is even more connected with Washington’s intentions to use the “ancestral home of Genghis Khan” to oppose Russia and the PRC, with an emphasis on the “separation” of the Mongolian people, taking into account the presence in China of Inner Mongolia a very extensive autonomous region bordering with it and with Russia.

Experts have reported that the Americans are clearly striving to establish bilateral ties with Ulaanbaatar and include Mongolia in its closest allies (along with Singapore, Taiwan and New Zealand) in the Indo-Pacific region. Analysts think that the idea of cooperating with Ulaanbaatar has become especially relevant for the United States in light of its tense relations with both Russia and China in recent years.

In terms of the total volume of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Mongolia, the United States ranks 6th (3.3%), behind China and Japan, but ahead of Russia. To a large extent, US investors are showing interest in the Mongolian mining industry, in particular in the development of the largest coal deposit, Tavan Tolgoi. Although American investors consider Mongolia one of the most promising markets in East Asia, their investment activities in this country are hampered by a cumbersome and ineffective bureaucracy, high levels of corruption and recurring financial conflicts caused by the Mongolian “resource nationalism”.

Recently, in the speeches of American politicians, one can hear more and more “about the pride of the United States that it is Mongolia’s third neighbor”. On the subject, the United States refers to a concept that appeared in the vocabulary of Mongolian politicians after the revolution of the early 1990s. Geographically, Mongolia shares borders with only two countries, Russia and China, but Ulaanbaatar has already repeatedly declared that today it does not intend to close all its military-political and economic contacts on these two states alone. That is why Mongolia is considered a third neighbor to those countries with which the republic maintains its closest relations, naming, in particular, the United States, Japan, South Korea, Australia and the EU countries, with which Mongolia expects to balance the Russian and Chinese influence in region.

The vector of Washington’s expansion of it’s spheres of influence in Asia has been visible for a long time. Back in 2011, Democratic Party representative Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of State, announced that the presence of the United States in Asia is a prerequisite for maintaining American global leadership, since it is in Asia that “the bulk of 21st century history will be written.” The key adversary of Washington in the region today remains China, which appears in the doctrinal documents of the United States as one of the key threats.

In the US national security document “Strategic Framework for Engineering and Technology” recently declassified by the White House and adopted in 2018, Mongolia is considered, along with Japan, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan, among the main partners in containing China’s “economic aggression” by engaging in various American projects. One of the expressions of this policy was the allocation of $ 350 million to Ulaanbaatar to modernize the capital’s water supply system, which became the largest one-time US investment in the region. Meanwhile, Washington systematically seeks to emphasize that the gratuitous nature of American aid supposedly compares favorably with China’s infrastructure programs, which, as a rule, imply the development of connected loans.

In order to increase America’s presence in Mongolia in 2019, the USAID resumed its work, which in early 2021 announced the financing of two programs to promote agricultural development in the amount of $ 4.3 million.

With the active participation of the USAID, there has recently been an active expansion of activities in Mongolia by numerous NGOs, many of which were created in various directions to “expand democracy.” So, according to the Ministry of Justice and Internal Affairs of Mongolia, in 2019 more than 20 thousand NGOs were officially registered in this country (and this is for 3 million of the population!), Most of which are financed from abroad. For example, activists of the Mongolian Youth Union NGO are implementing a project according to which Mongolian politicians are included in the black or white list according to the degree of their corruption. But at the same time, it turns out that the MSM coordinates these lists with the leadership of such American structures as the Peace Corps and USAID! Now it is clear why those Mongolian politicians who are considered to be “pro-Russian” are mainly included in the so-called “black” list. Being put on such a “black” list, it is already unlikely that you will be included in the number of deputies of the Mongolian parliament…

Another example is the active work in Mongolia with local politicians (mainly with parliamentarians) and their electorate of another NGO, the International Republican Institute (IRI), which in 2016 was banned in Russia due to gross interference in internal affairs countries. This NGO regularly organizes trips for Mongolian legislators and other prominent Mongolian political leaders to the United States, which can reasonably be regarded as bribery.

In addition, with the active support of the US Embassy in Mongolia, the Soros Foundation, such a religious sect as the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, banned in Russia, and a number of others, are operating today.  Judging by the financial statements, money is not spared for Mongolia, especially American structures disguised as NGOs and acting to promote “American-style democracy.” Taking into account their significant number for a modest 3 million population, Mongolia should have long ago become a “world stronghold of democracy and prosperity,” which, however, is clearly not visible… the goals and objectives set for them, primarily in the confrontation between Russia and China.

In order to avoid becoming completely controlled by foreign influence, for Mongolia it is long overdue to adopt a law “on foreign agents”, as, incidentally, did the United States itself, having adopted the FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) law back in 1938. By the way, not only in the United States, but also in many other countries, such activities with foreign participation are strictly controlled, in particular, in Great Britain, Israel, India, Germany and other countries that responsibly approach their security and political sovereignty.

In 2018, the military was added to the political and economic aspect of American policy towards Mongolia. Ulaanbaatar has come to be regarded as one of the leading regional partners of the Global Peace Operation Initiative to support peacekeeping operations, and US-Mongolian cooperation is being built up through UN peacekeeping in Africa and NATO in Afghanistan.

Within the framework of the American State Partnership Program, the engineering and technical staff intensified cooperation between the Alaska Guard and the armed forces of Mongolia, in particular, at the international exercises “In Search of Khan” and “Gobi Wolf” held annually in Mongolia.

Washington’s increased attention to Mongolia and its relations with its two natural neighbors, Russia and China, demonstrates what happened in January this year, expansion of the staff of the US Embassy in Ulaanbaatar by 12 diplomats at once, 4 of whom are specialists in Russia and China. Two more USAID employees arrived in Mongolia last summer.

Therefore, the residents of Mongolia should not relax in the coming months, especially on the eve of the upcoming presidential elections in the country in the summer, in which the United States has already begun to actively prepare for intervention, and not only through the already tested option of using controlled NGOs and the media.

April 14, 2021 Posted by | Corruption, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Kremlin Reveals Details About Putin-Biden Phone Call

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 14.04.2021

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Joe Biden held a telephone conversation on Tuesday. According to the White House account of the discussion, issues raised included strategic stability, Russia’s alleged ‘cyber intrusions’ and election meddling, and America’s “unwavering commitment” to Ukraine. A summit meeting was proposed.

Tuesday’s phone call between Presidents Putin and Biden was “businesslike” and of considerable duration, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov indicated.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Peskov said the two men had agreed that the possibility of their meeting would be discussed through diplomatic channels. Moscow, he said, is only now starting to receive information about organisational and other aspects related to a possible summit.

“Before now there was simply a dearth of information about how it would take place, in what order, who would speak, who would chair it, what the outcome is expected to be, whether a final document would be issued, etc. We are just starting to get answers to all these questions; we are still studying them,” the presidential spokesman said. He added that it was “too early” to discuss the proposed meeting’s possible place and time.

Earlier Wednesday, Finnish media reported that Finland had offered to facilitate the meeting of the Russian and US presidents, and that Austria and Iceland had similarly offered their diplomatic services.

Commenting on the escalation of Russia-US tensions surrounding Ukraine, Peskov stressed that a de-escalation of the situation in the civil war-torn Eastern European nation would only be possible if the Ukrainian army indicated that it wouldn’t engage in any provocative behaviour.

“We consider the ‘expression of any concerns’ from any side, including the United States, in connection with the movements of Russia’s armed forces inside Russia, to be groundless. On the territory of Ukraine, de-escalation can only occur if the Ukrainian armed forces reject provocative actions,” he said.

Earlier, the White House readout of Tuesday’s telephone conversation between Putin and Biden said that the US president had “voiced” Washington’s “concerns over the sudden Russian military buildup in occupied Crimea and on Ukraine’s borders, and called on Russia to de-escalate tensions”.

Recent weeks have seen a major deterioration of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, with officials from the breakaway Donbass republics accusing Kiev of preparing for a new military offensive. Moscow has urged both sides to stick to the terms of the Minsk ceasefire. Washington, its NATO allies and Kiev have instead accused Russia of “aggression”.

In his remarks Wednesday, Peskov also indicated that he would not comment on whether the Russian side would ask Biden to apologise over last month’s remarks, in which he agreed with a journalist’s characterisation of the Russian president as a “killer” and threatened to make him “pay a price” over alleged meddling in America’s elections.

“I will leave this issue without comment,” the spokesman said.

Finally, asked to comment on whether Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition vlogger whom the US and its allies accused Moscow of poisoning, was brought up in the Putin-Biden telephone talks, Peskov said his name was not mentioned.

The United States and the European Union slapped Russia with new sanctions last month over the Navalny case. The opposition vlogger and anti-corruption activist collapsed on a domestic flight in Siberia last August, and was rushed for emergency treatment in the Siberian city of Omsk. At the request of his family, he was then transferred out of the country for further treatment at a hospital in Germany. German authorities then claimed that doctors had found traces of a deadly nerve agent in his system, going on to accuse the Kremlin of poisoning him. Moscow denied the allegations, saying no toxic substances had been found in his system at the time of his treatment in Russia. Washington sought to use the Navalny situation to poison Russian-European relations, and called on Western European nations to cancel construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Navalny returned to Russia in January and was jailed over multiple breaches of his probation in a 2014 fraud case.

April 14, 2021 Posted by | Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

RUSSIA, THE ARCTIC, AND THE HEALTHY NATURE OF THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER

By Paul Robinson | IRRUSSIANALITY | April 13, 2021

The Arctic tends not to get a lot of headlines. But here in Canada, it’s a big deal. Or at least it is rhetorically speaking. Canadians like to think of themselves as a wintery, northern people – as Gilles Vigneault sang: ‘Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver.’ We get all emotional about the north, and pump ourselves up with stirring speeches about defending our sovereignty. After which, we then do nothing – at least until the next time somebody else does something we don’t like in the Arctic. At that point, we make some more stirring speeches, before slinking off back to our local Timmy’s in Toronto or some other place as far from the Arctic as we can get without actually ending up in the United States.

And so it is that the Canadian press was none too happy this week when the Russian Federation deposited its latest submission to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf to advance its claim to a large portion of the Arctic Ocean seabed. ‘That’s our Arctic Ocean seabed, you wretched Russians! How dare you?”

The Commission in question is a product of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), that gives states the right to exclusive exploitation of the seabed up to 200 nautical miles from their continental shelf. To claim such a right, however, states have to provide the Commission with scientific evidence of where the continental shelf extends under the sea. If they can satisfactorily show where the shelf goes, then the UN will approve the claim. If they can’t, then the UN won’t.

This is a well-recognized procedure under UNCLOS, and Arctic nations have been spending the past few years busily surveying the Arctic seabed in order to promote the case that their own continental shelf extends outwards far from the coastline – the further the better, because the further the shelf goes, the more of the seabed can be claimed.

Particularly important is the status of the Lomonosov Ridge, a massive formation that stretches across the Arctic from Russian waters to Canadian ones. Russia, Canada, and Denmark (Greenland) are all seeking to prove that the Ridge is an extension of their own continental shelf. Whoever wins the argument gets the grand prize – control over a huge chunk of the Arctic Ocean.

Russia submitted its first claim to the UN Commission back in 2001, but was told to go away and do more research. Having done so, it submitted its new evidence in 2015, and has now further updated its submission, all backed up with new scientific evidence. The latest Russian bid has some Canadians fuming, as it expands Russia’s claim over Arctic waters by about 750,000 square kilometers compared to the original submission.

“This is a maximalist submission. You cannot claim any more,” complains Robert Huebert, an Arctic expert at the University of Calgary. “In effect, they’re claiming the entire Arctic Ocean as their continental shelf … they’re claiming the entire Canadian and Danish continental shelf as their continental shelf,” adds Huebert.

This is true in the sense that Russia is clearly pushing its claim as far as it thinks the science will allow. But it’s hardly alone in doing so. In 2014, for instance, Denmark submitted a claim to the UN Commission that has been described as “an unexpectedly massive demand … [that] stretch the demand as much as legally possible all to the way to Russia’s exclusive economic zone.”

Canada in turn presented its submission to the UN in 2019. Adam Lajeunesse of St Francis Xavier University noted in response that, “There was [some conjecture] that we would sort of do a quid pro quo and stop our claim at about the pole as a means of facilitating a political settlement. But like the Danes, we’ve gone well over the North Pole and are claiming an enormous chunk of the Arctic continental shelf.”

Russia, therefore, is only following where others have already gone. Furthermore, it seems pretty confident in the validity of the scientific evidence it has amassed. That, though, will be a matter for the Commission to determine. In the meantime, what’s interesting about all this is the manner in which Russia has operated.

For as Whitney Lackenbauer, a circumpolar expert at Trent University, notes, ‘Russia is playing by the rules. And for those of us who are concerned about Russia’s flouting of the rules-based order, I actually take a great deal of comfort in seeking Russia go through the established process in this particular case. … I’m not worried about Russia’s action as an Arctic coastal state seeking to determine the outermost limits of its extended continental shelf.”

Lackenbauer hits the nail on the head. Western leaders regularly accuse Russia of wanting to destroy the international order. But reality is rather different. On occasion, when vital interests are at stake, the Russian Federation flouts the rules, just as other powers do. But most of the time, it operates within them. The Arctic is a case in point. Google ‘Russia, Arctic, aggression’, and you get all sorts of headlines, such as ‘What is behind Russia’s aggressive Arctic strategy?’, ‘Meeting Russia’s Arctic aggression’, ‘Arctic aggression: Russia is better prepared for a North Pole conflict than America is’, and so on. Yet, in practice, the Russian Federation has entirely respected the ‘rules-based international order’ as far as the Arctic is concerned. It’s an example that should give pundits pause to thought.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has declared that Arctic territorial issues ‘can be tackled solely on the basis of international law, the International Convention on the Law of the Sea, and in the framework of the mechanisms that have in accordance with it been created for determining the borders of states which have a continental shelf.’ This is what is happening. It’s an illustration that, for all the talk of the collapse of the international order, international law continues to operate and most states respect it most of the time. Instead of focusing on the few cases when the opposite happens, international affairs analysts might usefully pay a bit more attention to the instances when things work the way they should. If they did, their analyses might be less alarmist, and also rather more realistic.

April 14, 2021 Posted by | Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

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