Russia ready to start WWIII..

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Prepare for Russian invasion of Ukraine, US warns European allies

Tens of thousands of troops massed on the border, Washington officials tell EU counterparts

By Joe Barnes Brussels ; Nataliya Vasilyeva Moscow and Nick Allen Washington 11 November 2021 • 8:00pm

New satellite photos show that Russia is once again massing troops and military equipment on the border with Ukraine

The United States has warned European allies that Russia could be plotting to invade Ukraine in a repeat of the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
US officials have privately briefed their EU counterparts on a possible military operation as tens of thousands of Russian troops amass near the border.
Senior Whitehall sources told The Telegraph that the Government was concerned about the reports and that there was "twitchiness" and "anxiety" among officials.
It came amid heightened tensions, with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, accused of orchestrating a migration crisis on the border between Belarus and Poland to destabilise Europe.
On Thursday, the Kremlin claimed it had scrambled a fighter jet to intercept a British spy plane operating in the Black Sea region.
Russian forces, including elite units, are gathering near the Ukraine border, with some deployed covertly at night. The invasion assessments are believed to be based on US intelligence not yet shared with Europe, multiple sources told Bloomberg.

Joe Biden, the US president discussed the Ukraine situation with Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, at the White House on Wednesday. Kamala Harris, the US vice president, met Emmanuel Macron, the French president, in Paris this week.
Last week, Mr Biden sent William Burns, the CIA director and former US ambassador to Russia, to Moscow, where he spoke to Mr Putin by phone and conveyed the US president's concerns.
US officials warned Moscow against making a "serious mistake" amid the build-up of troops. They have shared intelligence on the Russian movements with allies and briefed them on the possibility of a military operation.
The Kremlin has denied it is an aggressor and has accused the US and its Nato allies of provocation. Mr Putin repeated that message in a call with Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, on Thursday.
Russia's defence ministry claimed the incident involving the British plane was part of a wider uptick in military activity by the US and its allies. Moscow said a British Boeing RC-135 Rivet Joint reconnaissance plane was trying to get close to Crimea.
It said the Russian military scrambled a Sukhoi SU-30 fighter jet to intercept and the British plane changed course away from Crimea after being approached.
Moscow – which published pictures of the UK plane – also claimed increased Nato activity in the Black Sea region had involved two US warships and four Nato spy planes, including the British one, in a 24-hour period.

Maj Gen Igor Konashenkov, of Russia's defence ministry, claimed one of its fighter jets chased away a British spy plane
"The Russian defence ministry treats the military activity of the US and its allies in the Black Sea region as scouting out a potential theatre of war in case Ukraine prepares a military operation to solve the crisis in eastern Ukraine," Maj Gen Igor Konashenkov, the Russian military spokesman said.
The Ministry of Defence said its planes operate in accordance with international law. A spokesman said: "We do not recognise these claims. Wherever the RAF operates, it does so in full compliance with international laws and exercises its right to freedom of overflight."
Sources said the British plane had responded to unwarranted military action from a Russian aircraft.
Tony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, said: "We don't have clarity into Moscow's intentions, but we do know its playbook, and our concern is that Russia may make the serious mistake of attempting to rehash what it undertook back in 2014.
"We are concerned with the reports of the unusual Russian activity near Ukraine. We’re looking at this very, very closely. We’re also consulting very closely with allies and partners."
Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, who met Mr Blinken in Washington this week, said the US had shared new information about the troop build-up. He added: "What we heard and saw in Washington corresponds to our own findings and analysis, adds some new elements which allow us to get a better and more comprehensive picture."

Russia has recently kept tens of thousands of troops not far from the Ukraine border after exercises. Ukraine's defence ministry has said about 90,000 Russian troops are stationed not far from the border.
It has said units of the Russian 41st army have remained in Yelnya, 160 miles north of the Ukraine frontier.
Russia has backed a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine that has left more than 14,000 dead, but the Kremlin has repeatedly denied any presence of its troops in eastern Ukraine.
Washington's top US diplomat for Europe said Russian officials had been warned of the consequences of threatening Ukraine.
Karen Donfried, assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, who was with Mr Burns when he visited Moscow, said: "Director Burns was effective in sending the messages that he thought it was appropriate to send." In Washington, the US said its commitment to Ukraine's security was "iron clad".
A Pentagon spokesman said the troop movement by Russia was "unusual in its size and scope" and added: "We urge Russia to be clear about their intentions."
Meanwhile, Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian dictator, was threatening to cut gas supplies to Europe amid the escalating migration crisis on its border. Poland has sent 15,000 troops to the border and closed down a key crossing.

 

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https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/06/01/are-the-minsk-ii-peace-accords-worth-preserving-a74069

Are the Minsk II Peace Accords Worth Preserving?
It is time to recognize that the Minsk process has run its course — and may if anything be blocking any more meaningful dialogue.




Is a peace plan that seems to be going nowhere better than no peace plan at all? Is it more dangerous to face grim facts or to pretend to believe comforting fictions? When applied to the Minsk peace process over the Donbass conflict, these seemingly philosophical quandaries have a weekly toll in blood and treasure.
The Minsk peace process is hardly looking in good shape.
Just as it is often said that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, so too this is no longer anchored in Minsk — as Kiev has said that it cannot trust Lukashenko to be an honest broker — nor has it ensured peace, nor can it really be said to be ‘“processing.”
To be sure, it had its day and its moment. Two of them, in fact. They were, to be blunt, never likely to be the basis for any lasting resolution of the conflict, just a way of forestalling escalation (above all, Russian escalation).
The first Minsk Protocol of 2014 and then the 2015 Minsk II package led to short-lived and patchy ceasefires and above all managed to forestall Russian escalations that could have triggered full-scale war. They also brought some small-scale remedies, from prisoner exchanges to monitoring by the Organisation for Security Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
That was more than six years ago, though. In many ways it says it all that the OSCE’s role is essentially to provide as complete as possible a daily list of breaches of the ceasefire, of crossing points over the line of contact arbitrarily closed, of tanks and heavy weapons spotted close to the frontline, in contravention of the deal. Much of this has to be gathered by remote monitoring and by drone — when the drones aren’t jammed by Russian electronic warfare systems.
Let it go
Last week, the Council on Geostrategy, a new thinktank devoted to exploring the prospects for a global Britain in a post-Brexit era, published a piece in which I advanced a deliberately provocative suggestion, that we ought to recognize that:
"The trouble is that Minsk is not only dead, it is a rotting corpse slumped over the conference table. It is not only failing to bring peace to the Donbass, it prevents potential new negotiations, or even an honest conversation about the conflict."
It is not that I want to see a resumption of full-scale hostilities: quite the opposite. Rather, I do not believe it is a moribund, six-year old document that constrains any of the sides in this toxic conflict.


Instead of the inchoate collection of militias of 2014-15, Ukraine now has increasingly confident 250,000-strong armed forces.
The rebel forces could not prevail against them; frankly, they could not even in the early years of the war, which was why Moscow had periodically to send in its regulars to prevent a government victory. At the same time, Russia can still defeat Ukraine on the battlefield, but only if it is prepared to show its hand openly and throw in the scale of forces needed – and also accept the substantial losses this would mean. This is a balance of terror.
Not least for the people on both sides of the line of contact, and especially in the pseudo-states. Subject to arbitrary local thug-states, deprived of their Ukrainian social benefits, facing economic hardship and rising levels of coronavirus, their lives have been left hostage to an illusory — delusory — peace process that simply isn’t going anywhere.
The problem is that neither side will give way on a fundamental point. Moscow argues that Kiev must grant the rebels special status now that elections have been held. Kiev denounces these elections as shams, and says it needs first to have its authority to the regions restored. Neither will or can give ground.
My suggestion was thus that it was time to recognize that the Minsk process had run its course — and may if anything be blocking any more meaningful dialogue.
Ukraine, Russia and the pseudo-states cannot be the ones to say this first, lest they lay themselves open to being denounced as warmongers and dealbreakers.


Besides, both Germany and France injudiciously threw their weight behind Minsk II and still stand as its bankrupt guarantors. If they are not willing to start this conversation, I suggested, maybe it could be the U.K.?
Better than nothing?
The responses, both public and private, were interesting. Some sought, predictably enough, to paint one side or the other as the villains of the peace. This may be satisfying, but it is exactly the kind of zero-sum politics that perpetuates the current volatile status quo. Others sought to salvage the reputations of Paris or Berlin, which is another problem, as both countries are unwilling to admit they may have done long-term harm in the name of short-term good.
A more thoughtful line of argument was best exemplified by Russian scholar Sergei Utkin of the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), who felt it was a “surprisingly adventurous and potentially disastrous proposal.” In an exchange we held on Twitter, he argued that
"If negotiations fail in an ongoing conflict, arms speak (and they can do it much louder than at the current imperfect ceasefire). Keeping things at the negotiations table is important even if no progress is achieved in years — a balance, albeit shaky, is valuable."
This is a perfectly defensible and honorable position.
continued...

 

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To do away with a peace process when there is nothing ready to take its place is a scary move. Yet it also rests ultimately on the assumption that it is Minsk II, not the day-by-day realities on the ground, that prevents escalation. As the fears over spring’s build-up of Russian forces demonstrate, it is hard to take that guarantee as read.
The trouble is that the status quo is too bearable for all the players.
Kiev has little real incentive to reintegrate a restive and now war-ravaged badlands. Moscow is having to subsidize the Donbass, but better that than acknowledge defeat and lose what little traction it may have on Ukraine.
The warlords of the pseudo-states can enrich themselves and avoid trial. And while the West may get an occasional scare, such as during the spring’s Russian build-up of forces, it can generally reassure itself with the antiseptic language of ‘frozen conflicts’ and unresolved disputes.’
It is arguably rather less tolerable on the ground. Ordinary Ukrainians in the pseudo-states face unemployment, hardship, and vicious crackdowns when they try to protest or unionize. Water supplies are becoming contaminated and whole industries dying, all of which also poses massive challenges for any future reintegration. As Brian Milakovsky has recently argued in Krytyka,
"The time has passed when we could leave the resolution of economic and infrastructure issues to be naturally resolved when the elusive comprehensive political settlement is negotiated in Minsk, or any other platform."
I would note, after all, that all the voices I heard from inside the Donbass, as well as many in both Kiev and Moscow, admitted Minsk was both unworkable and unrepairable.
Ukrainian president Zelenskyy has called for movement, arguing that “we can change the Minsk format, adjust it. Or we can use some other format,” but there seems little scope for the former, as the disagreement is nor about format but goals and political will.
Instead, something needs to be done to break the logjam. Dispensing with the tired mantra that “Minsk is the only deal on the table” and instead clearing the table. There is no reason why prisoner exchanges, family reunion rights, OSCE monitoring and the rest cannot be maintained outside a single, overarching document. And maybe, this would provide the incentive and opportunity for something new.
But this is one of those cases where the tolerable is the enemy of the better. What may work in Moscow, Paris and Berlin may not work so well in Kiev — and be positively oppressive in Donetsk and Luhansk, Perevalsk and Ilovaisk.

The views expressed in opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the position of The Moscow Times.


Mark Galeotti
Prof. Mark Galeotti is a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and an Honorary Professor at the UCL School of Slavonic & East European Studies. He is the author of “We Need To Talk About Putin.” @MarkGaleotti

 

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It's clear that Russia will now go full-on to integrate East Ukraine, and further support Donbass.

Biden is seen as a weakened and aging President who will run at every opportunity rather than deal with confrontation. Nato is badly weakened and the EU is doing nothing but sucking up to Putin.

It's clear he doesn't believe that a quick strike in force across the border can be stopped by anyone and is encouraged by the West's now near desperation to avoid conflict.

China is emboldened, do nothing here and they'll strike at Taiwan in months, or next year, but long before Biden is awoken from his dotage.