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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 years

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 14, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

Today, President Joe Biden announced that by September the United States will withdraw the 2500 or so troops remaining in Afghanistan. We have been on a military mission in the country for almost 20 years, and have lost 2488 troops and personnel. Another 20,722 Americans have been wounded.

The U.S. invaded Afghanistan a month after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001—which killed almost 3000 people in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania-- to go after Osama bin Laden, who had been behind the attack. The Islamic fundamentalist group that had controlled Afghanistan since 1996, the Taliban, was sheltering him, along with other al Qaeda militants. Joined by an international coalition, the U.S. drove the Taliban from power, but its members quickly regrouped as an insurgent military force that attacked the Afghan government the U.S. propped up in their place. By 2018, the Taliban had reestablished itself in more than two thirds of Afghanistan.

In the years since 2001, three U.S. presidents have tried to strengthen the Afghan government to keep the nation from again becoming a staging ground for terrorists that could attack the U.S. But even a troop surge, like President Barack Obama launched into the region in 2009, could not permanently defeat the Taliban, well funded as it is by foreign investors, mining, opium, and a sophisticated tax system it operates in the shadow of the official government.

Eager to end a military commitment that journalist Dexter Filkins dubbed the “forever war,” the previous president, Donald Trump, sent officials to negotiate with the Taliban, and in February 2020 the U.S. agreed to withdraw all U.S. troops, along with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies, by May 1, so long as the Taliban stopped attacking U.S. troops and cut ties with terrorists.

The U.S. did not include the Afghan government in the talks that led to the deal, leaving it to negotiate its own terms with the Taliban after the U.S. had already announced it was heading home. Observers at the time were concerned that the U.S. withdrawal would essentially allow the Taliban to retake control of the country, where the previous twenty years had permitted the reestablishment of stability and women’s rights. Indeed, almost immediately, Taliban militants began an assassination campaign against Afghan leaders, although they have not killed any American soldiers since the deal was signed.

Biden has made it no secret that he was not comfortable with the seemingly endless engagement in Afghanistan, but he was also boxed in by Trump’s agreement. Meanwhile, by announcing the U.S. intentions, American officials took pressure off the Taliban to negotiate with Afghan leaders. The Pentagon’s inspector general noted in February that “The Taliban intends to stall the negotiations until U.S. and coalition forces withdraw so that it can seek a decisive military victory over the Afghan government.”

Making his announcement in the Treaty Room in the White House, where President George W. Bush announced the initial strikes on terrorist training camps in Afghanistan in October 2001, Biden reminded listeners that we went into Afghanistan to guarantee that it would not again be used as a base for terrorists to attack the U.S. That goal was accomplished and Osama bin Laden was killed… ten years ago, he noted. But the U.S. stayed on, even as the terrorist threat changed, spreading around the world.

Now, Biden says, he will honor Trump’s agreement—“an agreement made by the United States government… means something,” Biden said—and he will begin a final withdrawal on May 1, 2021. It will be complete before September 11, the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Biden acknowledged the arguments of those who say that Afghan diplomacy depends on the presence of U.S. troops. But, he said, that thinking would keep us there indefinitely. “[W]hen will it be the right moment to leave? One more year, two more years, ten more years? Ten, twenty, thirty billion dollars more above the trillion we’ve already spent?” No one seemed to be able to give a clear answer to what conditions would permit us to leave, he said, which suggests there is no clear mission in staying.

Biden denied that withdrawing would hurt U.S. credibility, saying the opposite is true. “We went to Afghanistan because of a horrific attack that happened 20 years ago. That cannot explain why we should remain there in 2021.” He noted that the parents of some of those serving in Afghanistan served in the same military action. “War in Afghanistan was never meant to be a multi-generational undertaking. We were attacked. We went to war with clear goals. We achieved those objectives. Bin Laden is dead, and al Qaeda is degraded in Iraq — in Afghanistan,” he said, “And it’s time to end the forever war.”

Biden has indicated that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is part of a larger plan to readjust our position on the world stage. He made it a point today to say that it is time to fight the battles of the next twenty years, rather than the last twenty, and he called out “an increasingly assertive China” as our main focus. He also called for reinforcing international norms that “are grounded in our democratic values… not those of the autocrats.”

Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan is not an indication that he intends to stop flexing U.S. might, but rather that he is deploying it elsewhere. Last week, the U.S. destroyer the USS John S. McCain passed through the Taiwan Strait and the carrier Theodore Roosevelt entered the South China Sea to “conduct routine operations.” While these are international waters, China strongly objects to foreign naval activity in them, and the U.S. activity there indicates support for a secure Taiwan.

At the same time, Russia is building up its military presence around Ukraine to a level much like that when it invaded Crimea in 2014. Experts speculate that Russia is trying to distract attention from opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s slow decline in a prison camp. It could also be trying to keep Ukraine from making a deal to join NATO or creating a defense pact with Turkey. NATO’s secretary general has warned Putin to cut it out, and the U.S. Navy is apparently sending two destroyers to pass through the straits in Turkey that lead to the Black Sea, on which both Ukraine and Russia sit.

If the Biden administration is showing military strength, perhaps even more powerfully it is demonstrating the nation’s financial might. Today, the administration indicated that it will be announcing sweeping financial sanctions for Russia’s recent cyberattack on the United States, the report that the Russian government offered bounties to Taliban soldiers for killing U.S. troops, and the Russian effort to interfere in U.S. elections since at least 2016.

On April 13, in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden “made clear that the United States will act firmly in defense of its national interests in response to Russia’s actions, such as cyber intrusions and election interference.” He also called for building a “stable and predictable relationship” with Russia, and proposed a meeting in a third country to hash out “the full range of issues facing the United States and Russia.”

Finally, Biden’s attention has turned from Afghanistan likely in part because of the rise of right-wing domestic terrorism to its highest level in 25 years. Combatting domestic terrorism is an imperative part of our foreign policy, for if the U.S. cannot defend democracy at home, it will have no credibility in trying to defend it abroad.

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Quotes #political #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #Afghanistan #Russian #history

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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Trump’s Choice: National Security or Political Obsession https://nyti.ms/2KhfkX5

Trump’s Choice: National Security or Political Obsession

The impeachment inquiry is the first to involve an issue of geopolitical gravity: Whether the president was undercutting American national interests — containing Russia — to bolster his campaign.

By David E. Sanger | Published Nov. 14, 2019 Updated 4:52 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted November 14, 2019 |

The last two impeachment investigations of the past half-century began with a third-rate burglary and an extramarital affair. They quickly expanded to question the credibility and ethics of the president, but never touched on America’s national interests in the weightiest geopolitical confrontations of their eras.

The sober, just-the-facts testimony of two previously little-known diplomats on Wednesday left no doubt that the investigation into President Trump’s actions is fundamentally different. Mr. Trump had a choice between executing his administration’s own strategy for containing Russia or pursuing a political obsession at home.

He chose the obsession.

In an otherwise divided Washington, one of the few issues of bipartisan agreement for the past six years has been countering the Russian president Vladimir V. Putin’s broad plan of disruption. That effort starts in Ukraine, where a hot war has been underway in the east for five years, and a cyberwar underway in the capital, Kiev.

It is exactly that policy that Mr. Trump appears to have been discarding when he made clear, in the haunting words attributed to Gordon D. Sondland, who parlayed political donations into the ambassadorship to the European Union, that “President Trump cares more about the investigation of Biden” than about Ukraine’s confrontation with Mr. Putin’s forces.

It was perhaps the most telling, and to some the most damning, line of the torrent of revelations in the past two months — the distillation of an internal argument inside the Trump administration that the president’s closest aides have endeavored to keep hidden.

That single line, relayed by William B. Taylor Jr., the avuncular, experienced diplomat sent back to Kiev in May by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, encapsulated the now obvious truth that Mr. Trump had little interest in the central national security strategy that his own administration published in late 2017.

That strategy ostensibly reoriented American diplomacy from an 18-year focus on counterterrorism to a new approach to the world’s two “revisionist powers,” Russia and China. Each poses very different challenges to the United States.

Mr. Taylor, a veteran — first of Vietnam and then of the Cold War and its messy aftermath — has devoted much of his career to building fragile democracies from the ruins of the Soviet Union. Those who know him say they do not know his politics. So it was no surprise when he cautioned the committee that he had no desire to take part in impeachment proceedings.

“I am not here to take one side or the other or to advocate for any particular outcome of these proceedings,” he said, a line that brought visible skepticism from those on the committee who believe he epitomizes the diplomatic “deep state.” Instead, Mr. Taylor, who served as ambassador to Ukraine under the George W. Bush administration, portrayed himself as a “fact witness” who had just returned from the Donbas, the eastern area of Ukraine where 14,000 people have already died.

But his facts led him to a pretty politically charged conclusion. “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” Mr. Taylor said. When pressed what he meant, Mr. Taylor added that because “that security assistance was so important for Ukraine as well as our own national interests, to withhold that assistance for no good reason other than help with a political campaign made no sense.”

“It was counterproductive to all of what we had been trying to do,” he added. “It was illogical. It could not be explained. It was crazy.”

The issue is explained away by Mr. Taylor’s superiors in the State Department and the White House, who argue that the story of withheld aid is a political concoction. Ultimately, the funds were released. It was like paying your credit bill on the last day possible — in this case, the deadline was the end of the government’s fiscal year on Sept. 30.

No real harm, no impeachable foul, they contend, and did not President Barack Obama decline to provide the Ukrainians with Javelin antitank missiles? One of Mr. Trump’s senior advisers noted that Washington’s press corps was not writing several years ago that Mr. Obama was, in this official's words, leaving Ukrainians to die. In contrast, Mr. Trump offered them the Javelins. (Mr. Trump’s sale of those weapons prohibited the use of Javelins on the front lines, in an effort to cast them as deterrent weapons.)

But from where Mr. Taylor was sitting in Kiev, withholding the aid hardly seemed harmless. The power of his testimony lay in how starkly he laid out what amounted to an extortion scheme: that Mr. Trump was personally refusing to release the funds unless Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, publicly announced two investigations.

One was into Burisma, the energy company in which the son of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had taken a board seat and payments of as much as $50,000 a month. The other was an investigation into a completely discredited theory that Ukrainian hackers, not Russia’s military intelligence unit, may have been responsible for the 2016 breach of the Democratic National Committee. If that was true, the Justice Department might have to consider withdrawing its indictment of a dozen Russian intelligence officials for masterminding and executing one of the boldest hackings in American political history. The indictment was issued last year by Jeff Sessions, who was then serving as attorney general.

Of the many odd twists in the partisan noise around the impeachment, Mr. Trump’s effort to divert attention from suspicions about the intrusion away from Russia — implicit in his July 25 telephone conversation with Mr. Zelensky — may be the oddest. Ukraine has been Mr. Putin’s favorite cybertarget, the petri dish where the Russian leader has tried out many of the techniques he later turned on the United States, like influence operations, tinkering with voter systems and riddling the electric grid with malware.

As George P. Kent, the assistant secretary of state with responsibility for Ukraine, told the committee Wednesday, the funds appropriated by Congress, and withheld on Mr. Trump’s orders, were meant “to fight Russian aggression in the defense, energy, cyber and information spheres.”

It was clear from the testimony that Mr. Taylor and Mr. Kent have been pressing for — and carrying out — some version of that policy for several administrations, and deeply believe in it. But it has become more urgent. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 unified Republicans, Democrats and Western allies; they issued sanctions and threw Russia out of the Group of 8, where its presence had been intended to integrate the nation with Europe.

When the Senate voted in 2017 to extend sanctions on Russia, the vote was 98 to 2; only Senators Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders voted against it. That veto-proof majority forced Mr. Trump to sign the legislation.

Still, the evidence this pressure is working is scant. Be it Syria or Libya, or elsewhere in Africa and Eastern Europe, Russia has stepped up its actions, and here in the United States, the big question is whether the United States is prepared to stave off Russian interference in next year’s presidential election.

All this made tightening the alliance with Ukraine more important, as a signal, and as a deterrent.

But Mr. Trump has never signed on to that strategy; the evidence now is that he sought to undercut it. In fact, it was an open secret in the White House that the president, who has little patience for long documents, never read the full national strategy published under his name, according to several of his former national security officials.

He has never repeated its main tenets, particularly its references to Russia, in public; instead, he makes vague mention of how it would be a good thing if Russia and the United States got along. His actions, as opposed to his strategy documents, have been a quilt of contradictions. He has pulled out of treaties with the Russians — most recently the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty — and invested in a new nuclear arms race. But he has also questioned why the United States needs to keep up the sanctions imposed on Moscow after the annexation of Crimea and the attacks on Ukraine, and, by pulling back from Syria, he has ceded territory that Mr. Putin coveted.

As it seeks to quash the impeachment parade, the State Department under Mr. Pompeo has added to the confusion by declining to answer questions about what happened this summer, as the aid was frozen. Mr. Pompeo himself has declined to be drawn into those discussions, saying simply that they are internal conversations that should be kept confidential.

That is now over: Mr. Taylor’s lengthy, calm recitation of each interaction over the summer with his colleagues back in Washington, based on his copious notes, gives a window into policymaking unmatched since the revelation in 2010 of the State Department’s internal cables by WikiLeaks.

But what Mr. Taylor’s and Mr. Kent’s accounts reveal is a department that was keeping its own diplomats in the dark. Mr. Taylor, sitting in the Kiev Embassy as a temporary successor to the mysteriously ousted Marie L. Yovanovitch, never received the formal notes from Mr. Trump’s conversation with Mr. Zelensky. He only heard by accident that military aid was frozen. He said he did not figure out how that was related to Mr. Trump’s demands until late in the summer.

The Cold War, too, was filled with incomprehensible moments and quid pro quos. President John F. Kennedy struck the most famous, secretly trading a Russian nuclear presence in Cuba for the withdrawal of American nuclear weapons in Turkey. The details were kept secret for years. But both the quid and the quo were rooted in some plausible definition of American national interest.

That is drastically different from what Mr. Trump sought: American military aid in return for dirt on his opponents.

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Pelosi Points to Possible Bribery Charge Against Trump

The day after the first public impeachment hearing, Speaker Nancy Pelosi used the word “bribery,” mentioned in the Constitution’s impeachment clause, to describe President Trump’s conduct.

By Nicholas Fandos | Published Nov. 14, 2019 Updated 1:47 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted November 14, 2019

WASHINGTON — Speaker Nancy Pelosi sharpened the focus of Democrats’ impeachment case against President Trump on Thursday, accusing the president of committing bribery when he withheld vital military assistance from Ukraine at the same time he was seeking its commitment to publicly investigate his political rivals.

The speaker’s explicit allegation of bribery, a misdeed identified in the Constitution as an impeachable offense, was significant. Even as Ms. Pelosi said that no final decision had been made on whether to impeach Mr. Trump, it suggested that Democrats are increasingly working to put a name to the president’s alleged wrongdoing, and moving toward a more specific set of charges that could be codified in articles of impeachment in the coming weeks.

“The devastating testimony corroborated evidence of bribery uncovered in the inquiry, and that the president abused his power and violated his oath by threatening to withhold military aid and a White House meeting in exchange for an investigation into his political rival — a clear attempt by the president to give himself an advantage in the 2020 election,” Ms. Pelosi told reporters at her weekly news conference in the Capitol.

Democrats have begun using the term “bribery” more freely in recent days to describe what a string of diplomats and career Trump administration officials have said was a highly unusual and inappropriate effort by Mr. Trump and a small group around him to extract a public promise from Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and a discredited theory about Democrats conspiring with Ukraine to interfere in the 2016 election.

The House Intelligence Committee convened the House’s first public impeachment hearing in two decades on Wednesday with testimony from William B. Taylor Jr., the top American diplomat in Ukraine, and George P. Kent, a senior State Department official responsible for policy toward the country.

They told the committee that Mr. Trump and his allies inside and outside of the government placed the president’s political objectives at the center of American policy toward Ukraine, using both $391 million in security assistance that Congress had appropriated for Ukraine’s war with Russia as well as a White House meeting that was coveted by the country’s new leader as leverage.

Asked to clarify her remarks later, Ms. Pelosi said: “The bribe is to grant or withhold military assistance in return for a public statement of a fake investigation into the elections. That’s bribery.”

She added: “We have not even made a decision to impeach, that is what the inquiry is about.”

Ms. Pelosi said Mr. Trump should give Congress exculpatory evidence, if he has it, and said the president would be given an opportunity to defend himself. Republicans and the White House have accused Democrats of denying Mr. Trump a proper say in the proceedings.

Ms. Pelosi’s remarks on impeachment were the first time she discussed the growing inquiry at length with reporters since Congress recessed in late October. She provided other clues as to how she is thinking about the case.

Asked if Democrats were successfully bringing the public along with them, Ms. Pelosi conceded that the country was likely too polarized to ever support impeachment as overwhelmingly as it did when Richard M. Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974. Public opinion polls now suggest a majority of Americans favor the impeachment inquiry, but only by a thin margin.

“Impeaching is a divisive thing in our country — it’s hard,” Ms. Pelosi said. “The place that our country is now, it’s not a time where you’ll go to 70 percent when President Nixon walked out of the White House.”

Indeed, there was no sign from congressional Republicans that the testimony had shaken their conviction that Mr. Trump is innocent.

Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the minority leader, told reporters that the hearing had only confirmed that the accounts from Mr. Taylor, Mr. Kent and other witnesses who have offered damaging information about Mr. Trump are not firsthand, and therefore could not be trusted. And he pointed back to a July phone call between Mr. Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at the heart of the impeachment inquiry.

“The call summary is still the most important piece of evidence we have, and it shows no pressure or even mention of conditionality between the two leaders,” Mr. McCarthy said.

The White House released a reconstructed transcript of the call in September that showed that after the Ukrainian leader thanked Mr. Trump for military assistance, the American president pivoted and asked Mr. Zelensky “to do us a favor, though.” Mr. Trump then asked Mr. Zelensky to investigate unsubstantiated corruption accusations against Mr. Biden and his son Hunter who worked for a Ukrainian energy firm, as well as a conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered with the 2016 election to help Democrats.

The United States intelligence community has concluded that Russia interfered to help Mr. Trump.

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aarushikishore · 3 years

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Discussion Of Solution Of Russo-Ukrainian War || If taking help of BTS ARMY is a feasible solution.

Note: All the dates and times with unmentioned time zone have been given with respect to EET.

Subject

The aim of this blog is to discuss the ways we, the general public, can solve the issue. This seems improbable, but I think at least we need to try. Someone has to start. Every country is trying to stop the destruction being caused but then stepping back immediately due to some or the other reason. Thus, we can't rely on them and we would have to do something on our own. I'm not sure how exactly we are going to do so, but that is the whole point of this mini-blog.

Although, the war now seems to be coming to an end after Zelenskyy suggested a direct meeting with Putin to end the invasion, even after that, bombings have occurred. Such government ideas take time to enact. Sometimes they take more time than the constraint. Mass destruction already takes place by that time. We have to make immediate efforts. Our method might take even more time to enforce, but at least we can say we tried and did not leave to the higher bodies. This might seem idiotic, but it struck me that we can take help of a community that already has a huge influence on multiple things. Of course, the community is made up of general public. What I wanted to suggest was, being a BTS fan, we might take support of BTS fans in this situation. The name of our community is BTS ARMY. This might sound stupid, but I think it is worth a try. If you like the idea, I would be more than delighted if you put an effort and spread the word. I don't know what are the odds, but this is the most I can think of. Please give your own suggestions in the comments so that I can add to the discussion. Also, please correct me if I am wrong in any of the information I have shared in this post.

Introduction

Majority of us already know what is going on in the world right now, but for the ones who have been living under a rock for the past month, not sure what you are doing, this is mainly for you. I will also state a few opinions of mine on it. The Russo-Ukrainian War is an ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. It began in February 2014. It came into life because of a mistake made by the now former President Viktor Yanukovych back in 2013. He rejected a deal for greater integration with the European Union. Signing this deal would have opened borders to goods and set the stage for travel restrictions to be eased. This was supposedly a huge opportunity for Ukraine to develop and would have probably helped it take a huge step in climbing up the standards. However, Yanukovych argued that Ukraine could not afford to sacrifice trade with Russia, which opposed the deal. But the daughter of jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko stated the reasons to be false. The citizens too were disappointed by Yanukovych's decision and held mass protests, which Yanukovych attempted to put down violently. That was probably the last straw for the Ukrainians to believe that Yanukovych had ill intentions. Russia, displaying its parasitic behaviour, backed Yanukovych in the crisis, while the US and Europe supported the protesters. Whatever the intentions were, in February 2014, anti-government protests toppled the government and ran Yanukovych out of the country. Russia, trying to salvage its lost influence in Ukraine, invaded and annexed Crimea the next month. That marked the birth of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Now, it was Russia who wanted to suck out the nutrition from Ukraine. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the goal of the operation is not to occupy Ukraine but to demilitarise and “de-Nazify” Ukraine. He says that he supports the right of the peoples of Ukraine to self-determination. He said the purpose of the "operation" was to "protect the people" in the predominantly Russian-speaking region of Donbas who, according to Putin, "for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kyiv regime". He also expressed Russian irredentist views, questioned Ukraine's right to exist, and stated Ukraine was wrongfully created by Soviet Russia. Personally, I think it is just wrong of him to say that. Maybe, a country was made wrongfully, but now that it is made, you can't just break it apart like that. Let it live as long as there aren't that many problems arising because of its creation. Moreover, war is not an answer to the humiliation faced by the Russian speakers in Donbas. It will just magnify the hatred. NATO accused Russia of planning an invasion, which it denied. Nonetheless, Russia did end up invading Ukraine on 24th of February, 2022. This was after within minutes of Putin's announcement. Explosions were reported in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, and the Donbas region. That is how it all began.

Damage Caused

On 24 February, 2022, Russia began an open military invasion of Ukraine, which is the largest military attack in Europe since World War II. At about 5 am EET, Putin announced a "special military operation" to "demilitarise and denazify" Ukraine. Minutes later, missiles and airstrikes struck throughout Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, shortly followed by a large ground invasion from multiple directions. The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, enacted martial law and general mobilisation. Later, the Russian military also carried air; missile strikes far into Western Ukraine. The wide-ranging attack Russia launched on Ukraine on that Thursday, hit cities and bases with airstrikes.

While Ukraine’s leadership said at least 40 people had been killed so far, Russia also claimed that three people had been injured by what it said were Ukrainian shells.

With the fight spreading almost throughout Ukraine’s territory, Kiev claimed that Russia had carried out 203 attacks since the day broke. During the day, a Ukrainian military plane with as many as 14 people onboard crashed near the capital Kyiv. Ukraine also claimed to have shot down seven Russian planes. The war has caused a major refugee and humanitarian crisis within Europe not seen since the 1990s Yugoslav Wars; the UN has described it as the fastest growing such crisis since World War II.

In the first week of the war, the UN reported over a million refugees had fled Ukraine; this subsequently rose to over 2.6 million as of 13 March. Most refugees were women, children, the elderly, or people with disabilities. Most male Ukrainian nationals aged 18 to 60 were denied exit from Ukraine as part of mandatory conscription.

One of the latest shootings have happened on 13th of March, 2022, showing how the war is still on and heated up. A journalist was killed in that. A shell hit a residential building in Kyiv Monday 14 March early morning, killing two and leaving three injured. To sum up the casualties, the Ukrainian government reported that 400 to 2000 or even more civilians were killed between 24 February and 8 March 2022, while the United Nations accounts for exactly 596. 2000 to 4000 were killed among UAF, NGU and volunteer forces from 24 February to 9 March according to US official, while the Ukrainian government has calculated 1300 between 24 February and 12 March. The Russian government counted that 498 soldiers from the Russian Armed Forces were killed by 2 March. The US official reported 3500 to 6000 by 9 March. According to DPR, 47 to 77 were killed among the DPR forces between 25 February and 7 March. Excluding the Russian soldiers, at least 23 people from eight countries besides Ukraine died because of the war.

Solution Discussion And Analysation

The invasion was widely condemned internationally. All agreed that war was not a solution. The goal could have been secured using a different non-violent plan. The invasion of Ukraine was appraised by many international jurists as a violation of the UN Charter and constituted a crime of aggression according to international criminal law, raising the possibility that the crime of aggression could be prosecuted under universal jurisdiction. The invasion also violated the Rome Statute, which prohibits "the invasion or attack by the armed forces of a State of the territory of another State, or any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such invasion or attack, or any annexation by the use of force of the territory of another State or part thereof". The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution which condemned Russia's invasion and demanded a full withdrawal. Many countries imposed new sanctions which have led to economic consequences for Russia and some other countries. Various countries gave humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine. Protests occurred around the world; those in Russia have been met with mass arrests and increased media censorship, including banning the terms "war" and "invasion". Some companies withdrew their products and services from sale in Russia and Belarus. That, I would say, was a moral and good move on their side, for the fact many are fearing to do the same for a number of reasons. Those reasons are discussed ahead. Russia is an emerging energy giant. It is the world’s third-largest producer of oil and second-largest producer of natural gas. It is the thing holding back many countries from participating in settling down the messed up situation. During President Biden’s meeting with the German Chancellor on the 7th of February, 2022, the US and its allies were seen stressing that they were united on the consequences should Russia actually invades Ukraine. However, there was also a feeling prevailing that anti-US/UKinternal politics of the European Union (EU) as well as its symbiotic relationship with Russia, may undercut this proclaimed solidarity. Number of Central European countries and Germany in particular, who are largely dependent on Russia for its cheap energy needs and in turn competitive manufacturing exports could, though silently, be reluctant to side with the US sanctions on Russia. While Russia depends on revenue from Europe, the latter depends on supply of energy from Russia. Overall, Russia was supplying about one-third of European natural gas consumption, used for heating in the winter as well as electricity generation and industrial production. The EU also depends on Russia for more than one-quarter of its crude oil imports. Russia had, thus, turned out as the largest single energy source for this bloc of Nations. Due to this inter-dependence, imposing tougher sanctions on Russia is going to make a serious dent in its energy supplies and thus eventually the dependent European countries will be the sufferers. In fact, few EU States are far more dependent than others. While Portugal and Spain use little Russian energy, Germany, the largest European economy, was getting more than half of its natural gas and over 30 percent of its crude oil supplies from Russia. France gets most of its electricity from nuclear power; but relied on imports from Russia to meet its fossil fuel needs. Further, plans of Germany and other countries to phase out nuclear and coal power in times ahead, would have only further increased this dependence on Russia for energy supply. As you can see, everyone is trying to solve the issue, but something or the other is stopping them from doing so. Whether it is because of the threat the country is facing, or the economic decline it is foreseeing. After all, Putin warned other countries that any attempt to interfere in Ukraine would “lead to consequences you have never seen in history”. That can indeed terrify countries from taking any actions. Leave that alone, the sentence itself is horrifying me from even typing this whole post. They are locked from both sides, almost like being in a dilemma. That is the reason only a few, that too companies, have managed to risk cutting off with the resources provided by Russia. This is why I am persistently suggesting that only the general public can do something about this. The administration of US President Joe Biden left it for the threat of “severe economic consequences” deterring Russia from invading Ukraine. As much as this seems the wisest action right now, I have a feeling that economic drain would take time. Russia's GPD is high at the moment. Not just that, it ranks the 11th among all countries. I don't have much idea about how much decline can invasion cause in economy, but their GPD still makes me feel like it would take time if we leave it to that. Heavy damage would already be caused by then. I personally believe that it is better to take actions fast, just that they need to be very well thought and planned out. Protests within Russia rose from day one. On 24 February, human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov started a petition to protest the invasion, which gathered more than 1.5 million signatures by 3 March. However, in the seven days from 24 February to 2 March, over 6,500 people in 53 cities across Russia have been detained by police for protesting against the invasion. Since the start of the war until 6 March nearly 13,000 have been detained. They seem to have little success. The point is, protests inside Russia is easier to be detained as they are held by Russians within the Russian boundaries. Many have made efforts for peace by holding meetings too. On 8 March, Zelenskyy suggested a direct meeting with Putin to end the invasion and expressed willingness to discuss Putin's demands. Zelenskyy said he is ready for dialogue, but "not for capitulation". He proposed a new collective security agreement for Ukraine with the United States, Turkey, France, Germany, and Russia as an alternative to the country joining NATO. Zelenskyy's Servant of the People party said that Ukraine would not give up its claims on Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk. It does sound like the war is finally coming to an end. We just can’t be too sure of it for multiple reasons. A commander of Russia's 74th Motorized Rifle Brigade was reportedly quoted as saying; "We were not going to fight - we were collecting information" after the entire platoon was reportedly captured in Chernihiv. These comments seem to be echoed in videos published by the Ukrainian military, of captured Russian soldiers that were potentially made under duress. The soldiers in the video's made comments such as; "I didn't know we were going to Ukraine, I was tricked." and "We were deceived and used like a meat shield". If the said is true, this just shows how well-planned this operation was. Putin knew that if he told the forces his real motive, they would have denied conducting it. Do you really think Putin would just leave all his determination behind and seize the operation just by a dialogue? I mean I hope so, but I think not. Putin had fixed in his mind before the start of the war that no matter who says what, he will not let go his plan. BTS fanbase consists of 90 million ARMYs. My point is, if ARMYs determine to do something, they will most likely succeed, no matter how infeasible it sounds in this situation. The Indian BTS ARMY alone raised Rs 10 lakhs to help the COVID-19 crisis in India. ARMYs from other countries did participate in the donations, though. Bangtan India, BTS Fanclub, posted a donation link on Twitter on Friday urging fans around the world and even the locals to amplify about the fundraiser so that they can spread the word and donate in whatever capacity. Think about it. ARMYs raised US$1 million for Black Lives Matter when Big Hit did the same and US$83,000 for Typhoon Vamco victims. They donated to WWF for RM’s birthday as he loves nature. They got celebrities like John Cena involved in the #MatchAMillion Twitter fundraising campaign. K-media reported on the heartwarming news of BTS Jimin fans donating 709 kg of rice under his name for children affected by the spread of Covid-19. They haven’t only gotten involved in massive donations, but also done activities like adopting animals. For Jungkook’s 21st birthday, BTS fans in Peru adopted a pygmy rabbit in his name, as they wanted to raise awareness about the negative impact of human activities on the endangered animal’s habitat. They also adopted an alpaca and named it RJ, just like Jin’s BT21 character. Along with donating to WWF on BTS leader Namjoon’s birthday, they also adopted a beluga whale, two blue whales, a humpback whale and a narwhal. These examples shows that they are capable of doing more than just charity. You know exactly where I’m heading with these examples. Another charity related example is running BTS exhibitions for charity, like the Wings Chronicles in Toronto, 2017. I gave this example separately to show that they can conduct big physical events if they want to. For J-Hope’s birthday, ARMYs worked with Korea Food for the Hungry International, calling the project “Hope of the Stop Hunger Project.” ARMY also created a project called “A Spoonful of Suga and Hope,” working with the SASCO Senior Citizens’ Home for Singapore. They even donated blood to the American Red Cross organisation and saved lives. Pakistani ARMYs banded together to set up an oral health campaign called “Because Everyone Deserves To Smile”, also in celebration of BTS’s 4th anniversary, which sent out dentists to schools for free. If ARMYs are capable of doing so much, they surely are capable of doing something even bigger; putting efforts in bringing piece between Russia and Ukraine. As crazy as it sounds, we can’t know what we are capable of doing unless we try it out. And what if it works out? We will succeed in seizing a full-pledged war. What I am thinking of is not only work for charity projects for Ukraine and the refugees, but also do something else. I’m not sure what and how to do, so I will be needing your help, but currently I was thinking of protests by outsiders in Russia. Putin can detain protests by Russians by the new illegally enforced laws, but the same laws act differently on foreigners. I could not find any information on if these particular laws differ and if they do, how they differ and what they imply, but if my theory is right, it should be easier for foreigners protesting in Russia as the government doesn’t have the same controls on them. What they can do is forcefully kick them out of the country because they don’t belong over there, and there are chances of jailing them and what not, but there is still some chance for us to win. Protests don’t really work the same way in a foreign country to you, so mass movements would be a better term to go with. Yes, it sounds insane, and this is why I am asking for better methods. ARMYs can do anything if they want to, and that is why we need to also think about how to convince the majority of them. Most won’t participate if we don’t relate our movement to BTS. If I wasn’t so late, we could have done something in Suga’s name, as his birthday was on 9th March. So, we would have to think about that too. Right now, all I can think of is doing this to make BTS proud of us, and this isn’t a method, this is reality. Please spread the word.

Sources

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com

https://www.vox.com

https://en.wikipedia.org

https://www.bbc.com

https://indianexpress.com

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

https://www.indiatoday.in

https://www.moneycontrol.com

https://www.india.com

https://www.scmp.com

https://www.borgenmagazine.com

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opedguy · 4 years

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Iran-backed Houthis Continue Proxy War Against Saudi Arabia

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), March 8, 2021.--Continuing drone and missile strikes at Saudi oil facilities, Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels showed that the proxy war to topple the Saudi monarchy has no let up. President Joe Biden has tried to reconcile with Iran, rejoining the July 15, 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA] AKA the “Iranian Nuke Deal.” Biden’s effort to rejoin the JCPOA is more related to his administration total dismantling of the Trump presidency, finding any excuse, through executive orders or legislation, to undo four years of work under 74-year-old President Donald Trump. Trump irked the P5+1, including the U.K., France, Russia, China and Germany, canceling the JCPOA May 8, 2021 because of Iran’s proxy wars with Saudi Arabia and Israel. Houthi’s March 6 attack on the Ras Tanura oil storage yard demonstrates that Iran’s 81-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khaemenei hasn’t stopped his proxy war.

So when Biden talks of entering into a new Nuke Deal with Iran, there’s even more urgency now to stop Iran’s proxy war against the Kingdom. Biden’s let his foreign policy preference known with his open criticism of Saudi Arabia’s 35-year-old de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Russia’s 68-year-old President Vladimir Putin. Attacking the Aramco Abaiq-Khurais oil refinery Sept. 14, 2019, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels knocked out some 25% of the world’s refined oil products, causing petroleum and pump prices to rise. Crude oil prices hit $64.72 today, reflecting the global uncertainty with the latest Houthi attack on the Kingdom. Getting back into any negotiation with Tehran, Biden must make any new Nuke Deal contingent on Iran agreeing to end its proxy war with Riyadh. Biden’s been outraged with Bin Salman over his murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Shooting missiles and hitting Saudi’s oil facilities with predator drones shows the extent of the Iran’s involvement in the proxy war. Attacks on Saudi oil facilities spiked worldwide oil prices, causing pump prices to rise in the U.S. and Europe. “Such acts of sabotage do not only target the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but also the security and stability of energy supplies to the world, and therefore, the global economy,” said an unnamed military spokesman. Bin Salman sees the role Iran plays in hitting the Kingdom’s cities and airports, or, more recently, Aramco oil facilities. Any effort of Biden to enter into a new Nuke Deal with Iran has to be based on its continued proxy war with Saudi Arabia. Hitting Saudi’s oil infrastructure, Khamenei hopes to get Bin Salman back to the bargaining table when it comes to cutting Tehran a better Nuke Deal, allowing Iran to breach nuclear enrichment limits.

Confirming the March 6 attack on Ras Tanura oil storage unit, Houthi spokesman Yahya Sarea said Houthis fired 14 drones and eight ballistic in a “wide operation in the heard of Saudi Arabia,” making no excuses for the ongoing proxy war fueled by Khamenei to make Bin Salman give up his six-year war in Yemen when Iranian-backed Houthis seized the Yemen capital Sanaa Sept. 16., 2014. Saudi Arabia started its campaign against the Houthis March 25, 2015, prompting Iran to escalate predator drone and ballistic missile shipment with which to attack the Kingdom. When Houthi’s scored on big hit on Aramco’s main oil refinery Sept.14, 2019, it completely vindicated Trump’s get-tough foreign policy with Iran. Instead of backing an old U.S. ally in Saudi Arabia, Biden looks poised to give into Iran’s latest demands for more sanctions relief before returning to the JCPOA.

Escalating strikes on Saudi Arabia, Khamenei hopes to win concessions from the U.S. on ending sanctions imposed by Trump. In his quest to slap Trump politically, Biden has turned U.S. foreign policy on its head sanctioning Saudi Arabia and the Russian Federation. Biden’s 58-year-old Secretary of State Tony Blinken is repeating the same the same mistakes, maybe worse, than former President Barack Obama that drove U.S.-Russian relations to 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis lows. Blinken wants to act tough but has already damaged U.S. national security, antagonizing Bin Salman and Putin. With the situation in Ukraine deteriorating, what are Biden and Blinken going to do now to save Ukraine’s Donbass region if Putin moves in? No one in NATO believes that the U.S. would do anything differently today than Biden and Obama did when Putin invaded Crimea March 1, 2014.

Unbridled Iranian-backed Houthi attacks on the Kingdom continue unabated because Biden has signaled to Tehran that he wants back into the JCPOA at all costs. Trump did the right thing breaking off with Iran because of its ongoing proxy wars with Saudi Arabia and Israel. Iran supplies Hamas terrorists in Gaza and Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon all the missiles and drone needed to attack Israel. Yemen, like Somalia, suffers from the worst famine in the horn of Africa, no concern of Iran-backed Houthis seeking only proxy war with the Kingdom. With Biden and Blinken picking fights with Bin Salman and Putin, the U.S. is in a very vulnerable position in the Mideast, Persian Gulf and Horn of Africa. Instead of focusing on trivial pursuits like the late Jamal Khashoggi or jailed Russian dissident Alexi Navalny, Biden and Blinken should do what’s best for U.S. national security, not the liberal press.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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junker-town · 3 years

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Euro 2020 jerseys, ranked and reviewed by group

Photo by Kirsty O’Connor/PA Images via Getty Images

These are what we’ll see when the best teams in Europe fight for a continental title

It’s been jarring when we consider that next year, there will be a World Cup without there having been a Euros the previous summer.

But that’s where we currently stand. The coronavirus pandemic stopped the entire footballing world in 2020, and the Euros were not the only casualty — but they may have been the biggest. Nevertheless, UEFA has decided to continue with their vision and carry out a bigger and improved European Championship.

Once envisioned as a grand celebration of its 60th anniversary, Euro 2020 has undergone a few notable changes. The biggest is that while it retained its name, it’s actually happening in the summer of 2021 after the Covid-19 pandemic forced it to be moved from the previous summer.

While the idea of hosting it in 11 different countries has endured, some of the specific locations have changed. The initial vision of having games played in multiple countries has undergone massive changes. Dublin, Ireland was set to host matches, but due to restrictions on attendance, they were removed as a host. Spain initially planned on inviting teams to the Estadio San Mames in the northern Basque Country. Instead, they’re moving those hosting duties about as far south as you can go in Spain — to the unused Estadio de La Cartuja in Sevilla.

But the grand vision — a tournament extending as far west as Sevilla, Spain and as far east as Baku, Azerbaijan — still remains. Teams are gearing up to play with the first match between Turkey and Italy set to kick off in Rome on Friday.

To fit the occasion, kit manufacturers are rolling out the best of what they have to offer. Some are beautiful, well-designed, and inspirational. Others need to be forgotten and sent to the dust bin of history located somewhere near the crushed hopes and dreams of the 2018 Germany National Team.

These are all my own takes. I’m reviewing them based on creativity, uniqueness, overall design, execution, and effort. I’ve bought a lot of kits in my day, reviewed a lot of kits in my day, and I try to find the best in each of them. I’ve even recently helped out a NWSL team with the launch of one of their jerseys, so if any teams in MLS or wherever out there want me in a focus group or to help with your jerseys let me kno-

*ducks flying tomatoes*

We’re going about this by group, because if I tried ranking them from 32-1 with commentary this would be a 4,000 word article.

So, let’s start in Group A.

Group A: Turkey, Italy, Wales, Switzerland

via FootyHeadlines

4. Turkey

These jerseys aren’t bad, but it’s something we’ve seen from Turkey before. There’s not much creativity Nike put in these kits, and so others who added more diverse details were put above this one.

3. Switzerland

Throughout this list, you will see me putting these Puma away kits toward the bottom. I do not like them at all. Having a random word mark in the middle of the shirt just naming the country seems lazy and uninspired. When you consider that they’re trying to symbolize the nation they play for, when their country crests already do that and are included in these kits, it seems unnecessary to exist. While I like the Swiss home kit, the away kit sinks it for me.

2. Italy

Again, this away kit is that Puma template and it’s awful. But, of all the Puma templates we will see here, this one might be the best executed. It hops the Switzerland kits because of Italy’s gorgeous third kit:

via FootyHeadlines

I’m a sucker for green and gold, so they slide up to No. 2.

1. Wales

Do I think these are the best kits on this list? Not necessarily, but they do have the least wrong with them. The sleeves on the home kit are fantastic and the green adidas stripes on the shoulder of the away kit tie in really well. Add to that Wales’s new, minimalist crest that was adapted after their last major tournament appearance, and I feel good adding it to the top of the list.

Group B: Denmark, Finland, Belgium, Russia

4. Finland

I’m a fan of the home kit. Incorporating the Finnish flag in the kit is a great way to incorporate some national pride into the shirt. I think the gold accents on both kits look great. But the away kit looks more like a Nike coaches polo than it does the away kit of a team making an appearance in a major tournament for the first time.

3. Russia

The home kit is an adidas template we’ll see later on this list and in our kit review for the Copa América. The away kit incorporates the national flag of Russia well, but the home kit (that doesn’t even incorporate a cool flag motif we see in the other template kits) knocks it down to third.

2. Denmark

The home and away kits are somewhat copy and paste from previous incarnations of Danish kits. Being red for the home, white for the away, and made by Hummel doesn’t come as much of a surprise. But what puts it at second for the group is the waveform graphic on the home kit and inside the collars of both kits. It’s the sound wave from home fans singing the Danish National Anthem before a game against Ireland in June 2019. That sweet homage to fans who haven’t been able to watch the team in over a year is a great nod to them and puts them here.

1. Belgium

Yes, the away kit is that same adidas template that Russia uses. The one thing I’ll give the Belgian one is the incorporation of two of the national flag colors on the cuffs of the sleeves. However, it’s No. 1 on this list because the red shirt might be my favorite home kit of the whole tournament. The paint brush-esque black lines add a cool texture to this kit and certainly stand out from other red jerseys we’ll see during this tournament.

Group C: Netherlands, Ukraine, Austria, North Macedonia

4. Austria

From one of the best kits at the tournament in Belgium, to one of the worst for Austria. The home shirt is nice, traditional and would normally see this team higher in this ranking. But the away kit is - to me - the ugliest jersey in the whole tournament. From the fact that it’s that awful Puma template, to the multiple little Austria crests in a style that went out of fashion in football kits after the 1994 World Cup, the black kit is a train wreck that shouldn’t ever be seen again.

3. The Netherlands

That sublimated lion on the home jersey is awesome, but the lines all over seem a bit over the top. The black and orange on the away kit looks amazing as well. Overall, a great effort from Nike that falls just short.

2. Ukraine

We were all set to post this list with Ukraine at third in this group. Little did we know the kits we THOUGHT were going to be worn were just a false front.

The two jerseys above are their away and third kits. I used them because in the press run for the kit unveiling, only Ukraine’s home jersey showed the whole front. That’s where the controversy comes in.

via FootyHeadlines

Look closely and you’ll see an outline of the map of Ukraine in the center of the kit. Anything stand out as being controversial? No? Let me highlight a part of the kit for you:

That part of the map on the kit circled in red is the Crimean Peninsula. If you recall in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. The annexation and subsequent Russian invasion of the peninsula was met with international criticism. While the people of Crimea voted for their independence and then was adopted by Russia, Ukraine (along with most of the international community) disputed the legitimacy of the elections and recognized the land as Ukrainian.

Looking at the kit itself, I’m not a fan of putting the crest at an awkward place that makes the map look asymmetrical. If that moved to the upper left right over the heart, that’d be fine. The colors and accents are nice. But, more importantly, the sheer audacity to include a part of the country which may or may not be yours depending on who you ask is enough to put it at the No. 2 spot on our list.

1. North Macedonia

Like their Dutch counterparts, North Macedonia also has the national team nickname, The Lynxes, represented by sublimated graphics. However, what puts them over the top is the fact that it’s clearer to see it on these kits from Jako. It helps that the home kit is a darker color than the Dutch orange kits. The motif carries over to all three kits North Macedonia has including this black third kit:

Group D: England, Croatia, Scotland, Czech Republic

4. Czech Republic

The home kit is very nice. The subtle lines on the front and dark blue collar and sleeve accents make this a great home shirt. However, the awful Puma template strikes again. In the pure epitome of laziness, this is the only shirt in the Puma template category that doesn’t have the name of the country written in its native language.

3. Croatia

Croatia’s home kits are always good and never change. The away kits, however, leave a lot to be desired. Their Nike kits from Euro 2016 were good and I loved their away kits from the 2018 World Cup. For some reason, these just don’t do it for me.

2. Scotland

Both kits look really sharp. I love the hoop pattern on the home kit and the sky blue color of the away kit looks amazing. Overall, well done from adidas for a Scotland team making their first appearance in a men’s tournament since the 1998 World Cup.

1. England

I’m not usually a fan of badges in the center of a shirt, but I think Nike got away with it in the home shirt. While it’s not seen here, the red numbers look really nice on the white background. The away kit seems really busy, but the design overall looks cool. I don’t like the fact that the World Cup winners star is the same color as both of the shirts, but it’s not enough for me to knock it down from No. 1.

Group E: Spain, Sweden, Poland, Slovakia

4. Slovakia

I know Slovakia hasn’t been to a lot of major tournaments recently, but I feel like I’ve seen this exact kit combination every single time. When I heard Nike were taking over Slovakia’s kit contract from Puma, I was hoping for some more variety in their color palate. But nope, white away kit, blue home kit. There’s red in your national crest too guys, you can use that as well.

3. Poland

They look good, but there’s nothing too special about them here. Sure, they have different collars, but is that really enough to diversify your shirt selection?

2. Spain

These are both nice looking kits. I like the pattern in the home kit and I like the bottom part of the sleeves on the away kit. It’s a great result from adidas, but there was one shirt that I thought put Spain in second place.

1. Sweden

Yeah sure, the home kit looks nice. The shirt itself is kinda boring but the collar and sleeves look really good together. Now, let’s talk about that gorgeous yellow-pinstripe away kit. It’s unique and simple at the same time. The stripes are small enough to make an impact, but not wide enough that they swallow the kit whole. Adidas did an excellent job on this shirt and that puts it here at No. 1.

Group F: Hungary, Portugal, France, Germany

4. France

This was the hardest group to decide, so let me be clear: I like all of these offerings. I have to pick the ones I like based on execution, effort, uniqueness, etc. So, I had to put someone in 4th and I went with France. The home kit looks really nice and that red stripe in the middle calls back to the 1998 World Cup home kit. But that white away kit seems pretty mundane. The two red and blue stripes on the side don’t make this seem any less like a white Nike t-shirt.

3. Portugal

I’ll be honest, I’m just not that big of a fan of that away jersey. I’ll give it points for being unique, but the size and colors of the stripes being backed by a mint green kit just don’t seem to work. At least Nike was able to give them a good home jersey to look forward to.

2. Hungary

Back in the Euros after a surprise run to the Round of 16 in 2016, Hungary comes out with some classy looking shirts. Their home kit has stripes inspired by the Danube River, which flows through the nation’s capital of Budapest. The away kit is clean, simple, and incorporates the colors of Hungary’s flag. Applause for adidas in making a kit the Magyars can be proud of.

1. Germany

Die Mannschaft went bold with their kit choices for this tournament. For the continental tournaments this year, adidas had the habit of having the cuffs of the sleeves tie in to the national flag (see: Colombia, Argentina, Russia, Belgium). For my money, Germany’s flag motif sleeves are the cleanest executed of the bunch. The pinstripes on the home kit look like they were drawn on with a Sharpie, so they lose some points there. But, that blacked out away kit wins it over for me. The team will have player names and numbers in white, which creates a stark contrast with the black stripes, badge, and stars on the shirt. Excellent execution here.

Let us know who you’re rooting for, and which kit you thought was the best, in the comments.

Jake covers Bayern Munich and German soccer in writing and via podcasting at Bavarian Football Works. He also reviews jerseys for SB Nation. He can be found screaming into the void on Twitter @jeffersonfenner.

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to divide NATO. President Donald Trump is doing that for him.

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the things Trump did when he arrived at the NATO summit this week:

He blasted allies for not spending enough on defense, calling them “delinquent” and even suggesting they double their commitments.

He repeatedly interrupted NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, at one point making Stoltenberg praise him.

He insulted Germany, calling it a “captive to Russia” because it imports energy from the country.

And all of that took place at the opening breakfast of the two-day summit. It just got worse from there.

Trump arrived 30 minutes late to a meeting on Russian aggression, skipped at least two scheduled meetings with world leaders, and threatened to “go it alone” if European allies didn’t pay more, seeming to suggest he might pull the US out of NATO.

Things got so bad that Stoltenberg canceled Thursday afternoon’s meetings to call an emergency session to hear out Trump’s concerns.

Trump ultimately declared the summit a success in a bizarre impromptu press conference shortly after, claiming he got allies to pay up for defense and declaring himself “a very stable genius.” (French President Emmanuel Macron disputes that NATO countries agreed to Trump’s demands.)

But it was too little, too late. “The damage had already been done,” says Rachel Rizzo, a European security expert at the Center for a New American Security think tank. Close US allies were insulted, the stability of the alliance was shaky, and the US commitment to the defense of Europe was uncertain at best.

Putin couldn’t have orchestrated it better himself.

NATO, which stands for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was formed in 1949 by the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and several other European countries. The goal was to create a powerful military alliance to contain Soviet expansionism after World War II.

While NATO leaders probably wouldn’t say this publicly, the alliance still exists mainly as a way to deter Russian aggression on the European continent. The alliance’s Article 5 provision, which states an attack on one is an attack on all, helps to keep Moscow from invading any of NATO’s 29 members, especially those in Eastern Europe. Indeed, if Putin ordered an invasion of, say, Estonia, then the US would be treaty-bound to come to Tallinn’s aid. Putin, surely, doesn’t want to start a war with America.

So instead of all-out war, Putin has long tried to divide and undermine the NATO alliance. For instance, he’s interfered in the elections of NATO members in favor of pro-Russia candidates held large-scale military exercises on the alliance’s eastern flank. Threatening NATO political and militarily leads allies to question their own security the commitment of their friends.

It’s one thing for the president of Russia to actively undermine a military alliance that basically exists to thwart his ambitions. It’s another thing entirely when the president of the United States does it.

To be fair, the Trump administration has done a few things to strengthen NATO. It’s increased the number of US troops to Eastern Europe and upped financial help for Europe’s defense.

But Trump’s behavior at the summit is still really bad for NATO, mostly because he keeps attacking allies — dividing the alliance in a way Putin only wishes he could.

“Putin wants to find cracks in this alliance, and he wants to crawl into those cracks and live in those cracks in order to spread them further,” retired Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, NATO’s top military commander from 2013 to 2016, told me. “We don’t need to be building those cracks for him.” Breedlove doesn’t believe Putin necessarily came out on top during the summit, but still thinks there’s a better way for Trump to interact with America’s allies.

Trump is flying to Helsinki on July 16 to sit down with Putin for a one-on-one meeting — and experts and NATO allies are afraid that Trump might end up agreeing to things in that meeting that would be good for Russia but bad for the US and NATO.

For instance, Putin could capitalize on Trump’s anger over how much the US spends to defend Europe and his desire for a closer relationship with Russia to convince Trump to suspend NATO military exercises, arguing they cost too much and antagonize Russia.

But that would send shivers down the spines of America’s NATO allies, who view those training exercises as a strong deterrent against Russian aggression.

“Putin doesn’t have to overplay it. He could sympathize with Trump about how NATO is useless, a Cold War relic that is encroaching on Russia’s borders, stirring up trouble,” Jill Dougherty, a Russia expert at the University of Washington, told me. “And he will sit back and watch Trump tear the alliance apart.”

Trump could also recognize Crimea — which Putin illegally seized in 2014 — officially as part of Russia. In June, Trump reportedly told leaders at the G7 summit in Quebec that Crimea might as well belong to Russia because the majority of people there speak Russian — a talking point straight out of the Kremlin.

This would be a huge win for Putin and a massive betrayal of America’s European allies. It would effectively end four years of united US and European policy to push back on Russia’s incursion. If Trump gives up on that push back, it could lead allies to wonder Trump’s commitment to broader European security.

It’s unclear if Trump would agree to any of these things, but it’s a real possibility. On Thursday, reporters at the NATO summit asked Trump if he’d consider canceling NATO military exercises if Putin asked him to. Trump declined to give a definitive answer, merely replying, “Perhaps we’ll talk about that.”

That fact alone — that he wouldn’t rule it out even after spending two days with NATO allies — is the clearest sign of all that Putin has won big.

Original Source -> The big winner of the NATO summit? Putin.

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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cleopatrarps · 6 years

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For Putin, Helsinki talks with Trump a win before he even sits down

MOSCOW (Reuters) – For U.S. President Donald Trump, a summit with Vladimir Putin risks a political backlash at home and abroad. For the Russian president, however, the fact the summit is even happening is already a big geopolitical win.

FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo/File Photo

Despite Russia’s semi-pariah status among some Americans and U.S. allies, the Kremlin has long been trying to arrange a summit, betting that Putin and Trump will get on well and stop a sharp downwards spiral in bilateral ties.

While nobody on either side expects big breakthroughs, including on U.S. sanctions, the summit is seen by Moscow as U.S. recognition of Russia’s status as a great power and an overdue U.S. realization that its interests must be taken into account.

“The fact that a Putin-Trump meeting will happen says only one thing: that for all its hysteria, the United States is not able to isolate or ignore Russia,” said Alexei Pushkov, a prominent Russian senator from the ruling United Russia party.

“It took a long time for Washington to get that idea, but it got there in the end.”

Western grievances over Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its backing of pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine and its support for Syria’s Bashar al-Assad haven’t gone away.

Other accusations, denied by Moscow, include that it meddled in U.S. and European politics, supplied the weapon that shot down a passenger plane in 2014 over Ukraine and tried to kill a former Russian spy in Britain with a nerve agent.

Kremlin critics at home and abroad see Trump’s decision to grant Putin a summit against that backdrop as conferring international legitimacy and status on Putin, something they say he doesn’t deserve given the lack of meaningful change in Russia’s policies internationally.

But in Russia, where the political system is obsessed with hierarchy, status and displays of raw power, Putin has “already got his victory,” said Andrey Kortunov, head of RIAC, a foreign policy think-tank close to the Foreign Ministry.

“It allows him to make his point that Russia is not isolated, that Russia is a great power, and to some extent can even claim an equal status with the United States, at least in the security field,” said Kortunov.

Expectations are high in Russia that Putin, with more than 18 years of global experience, will have the edge on Trump, who had not held elected office before he was inaugurated last year. The two men have met twice before at other events and spoken by phone at least eight times.

Vitaly Tretyakov, a political author, described Trump on state TV on the day the summit was agreed as “a neophyte in world politics” to whom Putin could explain Russian thinking and why Russia was right to annex Crimea.

Sergei Mironov, a senior lawmaker from the pro-Kremlin Just Russia party, said in another political talk show that Putin would definitely have the upper hand in Helsinki.

“… Vladimir Putin will give a real master class to the inexperienced politician Donald Trump,” he said.

START OF A THAW?

For older Russians, the summit venue – Helsinki – reinforces Putin’s narrative by evoking memories of Cold War show-downs between the Soviet Union and the United States at a time when Moscow was the capital of a real superpower.

While ties with China, India and the European Union may be even more important in economic terms, Russian politicians still measure their own country’s soft and hard power globally against that of the United States.

Nobody in Russia expects the summit to resolve the differences that have led to painful U.S. sanctions. A survey by state pollster VTsIOM published on Monday showed that more than half of 1,600 Russian adults polled predicted the summit would yield no tangible results.

But for Russian politicians who erupted in applause on learning that Trump won the U.S. election in hopes of rapprochement only to see ties worsen, Helsinki offers a precious opportunity for a possible thaw in relations.

Hard-liners saw a rare visit to Moscow this month of a delegation of Republican lawmakers as proof the tide is turning.

“Six months ago we suggested to them (the lawmakers) that we communicate by Skype. For them it was political suicide, but now it’s not,” pro-Putin lawmaker Vyacheslav Nikonov, the grandson of Stalin’s foreign minister, told state TV this month.

Nikonov said Trump was now strong enough to pursue his own agenda.

“It’s one of the signs that the wind is blowing in our sails, thanks in large part to Trump,” he said. “I don’t remember any pro-Russian (U.S.) presidents, but I want to remind you that he (Trump) is one of the most pro-Russian politicians at the moment in the United States.”

Kremlin-backed media have stressed the importance of the summit taking place on neutral territory to ensure Trump is not seen as having the upper hand.

Dmitry Kiselyov, presenter of Russia’s main weekly TV news show “Vesti Nedeli,” said Moscow had seen how Trump had received other leaders on home soil, showing footage of Trump holding Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s hand in a vice-like grip, brushing dandruff off French President Emmanuel Macron’s shoulder and glowering next to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“On neutral territory everyone will be calmer,” Kiselyov, who is close to the Kremlin, said in a report on the subject.

Editing by Sonya Hepinstall

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dragnews · 6 years

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For Putin, Helsinki talks with Trump a win before he even sits down

“It took a long time for Washington to get that idea, but it got there in the end.”

Western grievances over Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its backing of pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine and its support for Syria’s Bashar al-Assad haven’t gone away.

Sergei Mironov, a senior lawmaker from the pro-Kremlin Just Russia party, said in another political talk show that Putin would definitely have the upper hand in Helsinki.

“… Vladimir Putin will give a real master class to the inexperienced politician Donald Trump,” he said.

START OF A THAW?

Hard-liners saw a rare visit to Moscow this month of a delegation of Republican lawmakers as proof the tide is turning.

Nikonov said Trump was now strong enough to pursue his own agenda.

Kremlin-backed media have stressed the importance of the summit taking place on neutral territory to ensure Trump is not seen as having the upper hand.

“On neutral territory everyone will be calmer,” Kiselyov, who is close to the Kremlin, said in a report on the subject.

Editing by Sonya Hepinstall

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investmart007 · 6 years

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BRUSSELS | Trump claims Germany 'controlled' by Russia, Merkel differs

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BRUSSELS | Trump claims Germany 'controlled' by Russia, Merkel differs

BRUSSELS — President Donald Trump barreled into a NATO summit Wednesday with claims that a natural gas pipeline deal has left Germany “totally controlled” and “captive to Russia” as he lobbed fresh complaints about allies’ “delinquent” defense spending during the opening of what was expected to be a fraught two-day meeting.

Trump also suggested that NATO allies commit to spending 4 percent of their gross domestic product on defense — double the current goal of 2 percent by 2024.

The president, in a testy exchange with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg that kicked off his visit, took issue with the U.S. protecting Germany as it strikes deals with Russia.

“I have to say, I think it’s very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia where we’re supposed to be guarding against Russia,” Trump said at a breakfast with Stoltenberg. “We’re supposed to protect you against Russia but they’re paying billions of dollars to Russia and I think that’s very inappropriate.”

Trump repeatedly described Germany as “captive to Russia” because of the energy deal and urged NATO to look into the issue.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel pushed back firmly, insisting that Germany makes its own decisions and drawing on her own background growing up in communist East Germany behind the Iron Curtain.

“I’ve experienced myself a part of Germany controlled by the Soviet Union and I’m very happy today that we are united in freedom as the Federal Republic of Germany and can thus say that we can determine our own policies and make our own decisions and that’s very good,” she said.

The president appeared to be referring to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would bring gas from Russia to Germany’s northeastern Baltic coast, bypassing Eastern European nations like Poland and Ukraine and doubling the amount of gas Russia can send directly to Germany. The vast undersea pipeline is opposed by the U.S. and some other EU members, who warn it could give Moscow greater leverage over Western Europe. It’s expected to be online at the end of 2019

In their back-and-forth, Stoltenberg stressed to Trump that NATO members have been able to work together despite their differences.

“I think that two world wars and the Cold War taught us that we are stronger together than apart,” he told the president, trying to calm tensions.

Trump’s dramatic exchange with Stoltenberg set the tone for what was already expected to be a tense day of meetings with leaders of the military alliance as Trump presses jittery NATO allies about their military spending ahead of his meeting next week with Putin.

“The United States is paying far too much and other countries are not paying enough, especially some. So we’re going to have a meeting on that,” Trump said, describing the situation as “disproportionate and not fair to the taxpayers of the United States.”

“They will spend more,” he later predicted. “I have great confidence they’ll be spending more.”

And with that, he went on to push allies at the summit to double their commitment on defense spending.

“During the president’s remarks today at the NATO summit, he suggested that countries not only meet their commitment of 2 percent of their GDP on defense spending, but that they increase it to 4 percent,” said White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She said the president raised the same issue at NATO last year and that, “Trump wants to see our allies share more of the burden and at a very minimum meet their already stated obligations.”

However, a formal summit declaration issued by the NATO leaders Wednesday reaffirmed their “unwavering commitment” to the 2 percent pledge set in 2014 and made no reference to any effort to get to 4 percent.

Trump’s pipeline criticism was an unusual line of attack for a president who has proclaimed himself eager to improve relations with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and dismissed the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Russia tried to undermine Western democracy by meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help Trump win. Trump has long argued that improving relaxations with Russia would be good for both nations.

Back in the U.S., Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer issued a joint statement describing Trump’s “brazen insults and denigration of one of America’s most steadfast allies, Germany,” as “an embarrassment.”

“His behavior this morning is another profoundly disturbing signal that the president is more loyal to President Putin than to our NATO allies,” they wrote.

Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch also took issue with Trump, saying “I don’t agree with that. Germans wouldn’t agree with that. They are a very strong people.”

But Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, a strong supporter of the president, said the pipeline issue strikes at the “heart of NATO unity.”

“The pipeline gets cheap Russian gas to Germany while bypassing smaller Eastern European nations, allowing Russia to pressure them while Germany is held harmless,” he tweeted, adding: “No amount of preening in Berlin will cover this nakedly selfish policy.”

The president is also not the first leader to point to the impact of Nord Stream 2 on Europe, echoing complaints from Eastern European allies who note it would cut out transit countries such as Poland and Ukraine.

Trump and Merkel met later Wednesday on the sidelines of the summit and kept their remarks polite during a photo opportunity with the press.

Trump told reporters the two had a “very, very good relationship” and congratulated Merkel on her “tremendous success.” Asked if they had discussed the pipeline, he said they had, but declined to elaborate.

Merkel, for her part, called the two nations “good partners” and said “we wish to continue to cooperate in the future.”

Trump then met with French President Emmanuel Macron, who said he disagreed with Trump’s pipeline assessment. But the two appeared on good terms, with Trump joking about the fact that Macron had been asked about it.

Trump has long pushed NATO members to meet their agreed-to target of 2 percent by 2024 and has accused those who don’t of freeloading off the U.S.

He tweeted from the summit: “What good is NATO if Germany is paying Russia billions of dollars for gas and energy? Why are their only 5 out of 29 countries that have met their commitment? The U.S. is paying for Europe’s protection, then loses billions on Trade. Must pay 2% of GDP IMMEDIATELY, not by 2025.”

NATO estimates that 15 members, or just over half, will meet the benchmark by 2024 based on current trends.

Brussels is the first leg of a weeklong European tour that will include stops in London and Scotland, as well as a highly anticipated meeting next week with Putin.

By JONATHAN LEMIRE and JILL COLVIN , Associated Press

#Brussels #BRUSSELS News #fresh complaints #gas pipeline deal #Germany 'controlled'#gross domestic #Merkel differs #NATO Summit #TodayNews #Trump claims

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mikemortgage · 6 years

Text

Trump claims Germany ‘controlled’ by Russia, Merkel differs

BRUSSELS — President Donald Trump barrelled into a NATO summit Wednesday with claims that a natural gas pipeline deal has left Germany “totally controlled” and “captive to Russia” as he lobbed fresh complaints about allies’ “delinquent” defence spending during the opening of what was expected to be a fraught two-day meeting.

Trump also suggested that NATO allies commit to spending 4 per cent of their gross domestic product on defence — double the current goal of 2 per cent by 2024.

The president, in a testy exchange with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg that kicked off his visit, took issue with the U.S. protecting Germany as it strikes deals with Russia.

Trump repeatedly described Germany as “captive to Russia” because of the energy deal and urged NATO to look into the issue.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel pushed back firmly, insisting that Germany makes its own decisions and drawing on her own background growing up in communist East Germany behind the Iron Curtain.

In their back-and-forth, Stoltenberg stressed to Trump that NATO members have been able to work together despite their differences. “I think that two world wars and the Cold War taught us that we are stronger together than apart,” he told the president, trying to calm tensions.

“They will spend more,” he later predicted. “I have great confidence they’ll be spending more.”

And with that, he went on to push allies at the summit to double their commitment on defence spending.

“During the president’s remarks today at the NATO summit, he suggested that countries not only meet their commitment of 2 per cent of their GDP on defence spending, but that they increase it to 4 per cent,” said White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She said the president raised the same issue at NATO last year and that, “Trump wants to see our allies share more of the burden and at a very minimum meet their already stated obligations.”

However, a formal summit declaration issued by the NATO leaders Wednesday reaffirmed their “unwavering commitment” to the 2 per cent pledge set in 2014 and made no reference to any effort to get to 4 per cent.

“His behaviour this morning is another profoundly disturbing signal that the president is more loyal to President Putin than to our NATO allies,” they wrote.

Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch also took issue with Trump, saying “I don’t agree with that. Germans wouldn’t agree with that. They are a very strong people.”

But Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, a strong supporter of the president, said the pipeline issue strikes at the “heart of NATO unity.”

Despite Trump’s claims about Germany, Merkel served as a forceful advocate for imposing — and maintaining — sanctions on Russia after it annexed Crimea in 2014, arguing that it violated the principles of the international order established after World War II. The president is also not the first leader to point to the impact of Nord Stream 2 on Europe, echoing complaints from Eastern European allies who note it would cut out transit countries such as Poland and Ukraine.

Trump and Merkel met later Wednesday on the sidelines of the summit and kept their remarks polite during a photo opportunity with the press.

Merkel, for her part, called the two nations “good partners” and said “we wish to continue to co-operate in the future.”

Trump has long pushed NATO members to meet their agreed-to target of 2 per cent by 2024 and has accused those who don’t of freeloading off the U.S.

NATO estimates that 15 members, or just over half, will meet the benchmark by 2024 based on current trends.

Brussels is the first leg of a weeklong European tour that will include stops in London and Scotland, as well as a highly anticipated meeting next week with Putin.

—-

Associated Press writers Ken Thomas, Darlene Superville and Zeke Miller in Washington and Maria Danilova in Moscow contributed to this report.

—-

Follow Colvin and Lemire on Twitter at https://twitter.com/colvinj and https://twitter.com/JonLemire

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newestbalance · 6 years

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Deal struck for Putin-Trump summit, Helsinki possible venue

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Moscow and Washington struck a deal on Wednesday to hold a summit soon between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, a move likely to worry some U.S. allies and draw a fiery reaction from some of Trump’s critics at home.

Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov, speaking after Putin met U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton in the Kremlin, said the summit would take place in a mutually convenient third country and that several more weeks were needed to prepare for it.

Moscow and Washington will announce the time and place of the summit on Thursday. In Washington, Trump said their meeting likely would take place after a July 11-12 summit of NATO leaders he is due to attend.

Trump confirmed that Helsinki was a possible site. Other officials said the Russians were pushing for the summit to be in the Austrian capital of Vienna.

Trump listed Syria and Ukraine among the many subjects he said they would discuss. His list did not include warnings from U.S. intelligence officials that Russia will try to interfere in U.S. congressional elections in November.

The two men last met in November on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Vietnam. After those talks, Trump said he believed Putin’s denials Russia had meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election – remarks Trump later backed away from.

A summit could irritate U.S. allies who want to isolate Putin, such as Britain, or who are concerned about what they see as Trump’s overly friendly attitude toward the Russian leader.

It is also likely to go down badly among critics who question Trump’s commitment to the NATO alliance and fret over his desire to rebuild relations with Moscow even as Washington tightens sanctions.

“It is entirely possible for a U.S.–Russia summit to be constructive, but I’m very concerned that after his recent performance at the G7 in Canada, President Trump will once again clash with our closest allies at the upcoming NATO summit, only to then engage in fawning photo ops with President Putin afterwards,” Democratic Senator Chris Coons said in a statement.

Ushakov, who said the Kremlin was pleased with how Bolton’s visit had gone, said Putin and Trump were likely to talk for several hours. He spoke of a possible joint declaration on improving U.S.-Russia relations and international security.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was likely to meet his U.S. counterpart Mike Pompeo beforehand, he added.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (L) shakes hands with U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia June 27, 2018. Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool via REUTERS

‘NOTHING UNUSUAL’

Bolton, a lifelong hawk who warned last year before his own appointment that Washington negotiated with Putin’s Russia at its peril, robustly defended the summit. He said many European politicians had met the Russian leader.

“A lot of the president’s critics have tried to make political capital out of theories and suppositions that have turned out to be completely erroneous. I think the president determined that despite the political noise in the United States that direct communication between him and President Putin was in the interests of the United States,” Bolton told reporters.

Trump congratulated Putin by phone in March after the Russian leader’s landslide re-election victory.

Since then, already poor ties between Washington and Moscow have deteriorated over the conflict in Syria and the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain which sparked big diplomatic expulsions in both countries.

Expectations for a summit are therefore low, even though Trump said before he was elected that he wanted to improve battered U.S.-Russia ties.

A special counsel in the United States has indicted Russian firms and individuals as part of a probe into possible collusion between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Trump denies wrongdoing and calls the investigation a “witch hunt.”

RUSSIA and G7?

Putin told Bolton on Wednesday that U.S.-Russia relations were not “in the best shape,” something he put down to domestic political tussling in the United States.

“But your visit to Moscow gives us hope that we can at least take the first steps to restore full-scale relations between our states,” he said. “Russia never sought confrontation.”

Bolton told reporters he expected Moscow’s meddling in U.S. politics to be discussed at the summit. He said he did not rule out Trump discussing Russia rejoining the G7 to make it the G8 again.

Ushakov said the subject of U.S. sanctions on Russia had not come up on Wednesday and named four main summit themes: strategic nuclear stability, the fight against international terrorism, regional issues like the Ukraine and Syria conflicts, and U.S.-Russia ties.

The United States initially sanctioned Russia over its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and its backing for a pro-Russian uprising in eastern Ukraine. Subsequent sanctions have punished Moscow for what Washington has called its malign behavior and meddling in U.S. politics.

Bolton said he did not necessarily expect the summit to produce specific outcomes.

Slideshow (4 Images)

“I don’t exclude that they will reach concrete agreements, but there are a lot of issues to talk about.”

Additional reporting by Denis Pinchuk, Maria Tsvetkova and Maria Kiselyova in Moscwo and Roberta Rampton in Washington. Editing by Catherine Evans/Mark Heinrich, William Maclean, Howard Goller and Chris Reese

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dani-qrt · 6 years

Text

Deal struck for Putin-Trump summit; Helsinki a possible venue

Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov, speaking after Putin met U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton in the Kremlin, said that the summit would take place in a mutually convenient third country and that several more weeks were needed to prepare for it.

Trump confirmed that Helsinki was a possible site.

The U.S. leader listed Syria and Ukraine among the many subjects he said they would discuss. His list did not include warnings from U.S. intelligence officials that Russia will try to interfere in U.S. congressional elections in November.

The two men last met in November on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Vietnam. After those talks, Trump said he believed Putin’s denials that Russia had meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election – remarks Trump later backed away from.

A summit could irritate U.S. allies who want to isolate Putin, such as Britain, or who are concerned about what they see as Trump’s overly friendly attitude toward the Russian leader.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was likely to meet his U.S. counterpart Mike Pompeo beforehand, he added.

‘NOTHING UNUSUAL’

Trump congratulated Putin by phone in March after the Russian leader’s landslide re-election victory.

Expectations for a summit are therefore low, even though Trump said before he was elected that he wanted to improve battered U.S.-Russia ties.

A special prosecutor in the United States has indicted Russian firms and individuals for meddling in the presidential election to benefit Trump, and is investigating whether anyone in Trump’s campaign helped the Russian effort. Trump denies wrongdoing and calls the investigation a “witch hunt”.

RUSSIA and G7?

Putin told Bolton on Wednesday that U.S.-Russia relations were not “in the best shape,” something he put down to domestic political tussling in the United States.

“But your visit to Moscow gives us hope that we can at least take the first steps to restore full-scale relations between our states,” he said. “Russia never sought confrontation.”

Bolton told reporters he expected Moscow’s meddling in U.S. politics to be discussed at the summit. He said he did not rule out Trump discussing Russia rejoining the G7 to make it the G8 again.

Ushakov said the subject of U.S. sanctions on Russia had not come up on Wednesday and named four main summit themes: Strategic nuclear stability, the fight against international terrorism, regional issues like the Ukraine and Syria conflicts, and U.S.-Russia ties.

Bolton said he did not necessarily expect the summit to produce specific outcomes.

Slideshow (4 Images)

“I don’t exclude that they will reach concrete agreements, but there are a lot of issues to talk about.”

Additional reporting by Denis Pinchuk, Maria Tsvetkova and Maria Kiselyova in Moscwo and Roberta Rampton in Washington. Editing by Catherine Evans/Mark Heinrich, William Maclean and Howard Goller

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