President Vladimir Putin

Poland Wants a Permanent US Base to Counter Russian Aggression

Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak wants a permanent U.S. presence in his country to balance against Russian aggression and has already had talks with American officials about establishing a base there.

The Poles are even willing to pay up to $2 billion dollars to help build the base and needed infrastructure for a permanent U.S. base there.

Blaszczak said he had the talks recently in Washington that were prompted by security concerns following Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and its support for pro-Russia separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine.
“The result of our efforts is that the U.S. Senate has contacted the Pentagon about an assessment of…[the] permanent presence of U.S. troops in Poland,” Blaszczak said on state Radio 1. “Such presence is of great importance because it deters the adversary.”
Poland currently hosts a contingent of U.S. troops on a rotational, temporary, but open-ended mission.
In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that an increase in NATO’s military presence near Russia’s borders “certainly does not contribute to security and stability on the continent in any way.”
“These expansionist steps, certainly, result in counteractions of the Russian side to balance the parity which is violated every time this way,” Peskov told Russia’s state-run TASS news agency on May 28.

Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy head of the Russian Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said that “Poland becomes the object of a retaliatory strike by placing the base.” Dzhabarov, added that this “makes Poland one of the main targets in case of a possible conflict.”

To read the entire article from Radio Free Europe, click here:

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Putin, Russia Appears Pleased Where the Syrian Conflict Is

The Syrian Civil War is moving towards a stalemate with the government of President Assad regaining control of 60 percent of his territory. The U.S.-led coalition will continue to hold ground in the east and the Turks have made it clear they will not return Syrian territory around Idlib.

And Russian President Vladimir Putin is fine with all of that. He’s already managing similar conflicts like this in Georgia and Ukraine.

Other significant players in Syria, including Israel, the United States, Turkey, and the remaining Sunni Arab rebels, may likewise discover they’d be satisfied with this new reality. The clearest losers, by contrast, would be the Assad regime and Iran.
What are the indications Syria is moving in the direction of frozen conflict? Consider the recent visit by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to Russia to meet with Putin. At the press conference following the meeting, Putin told reporters that, “Following the Syrian Army’s notable successes in fighting terrorism, and with the activation of the political process, the foreign forces based in Syria will start to withdraw from the country.” This seemed to hint that the Russian president wasn’t interested in assisting the Assad regime’s reconquest of the entirety of Syria. And absent the Russian air support that the Syrian military has relied on in major combat operations (including the siege of Aleppo and the destruction of rebel-controlled Eastern Ghouta), such reconquest would be impossible.
Some have speculated that Putin was referring only to the withdrawal of foreign forces opposed to the regime. In the past, Moscow has sought to differentiate between its own presence in Syria (at the invitation of the “legitimate” Syrian authorities) and the uninvited presence of other foreign elements. On this occasion, however, Russia’s Syria envoy, Alexander Lavrentiev, clarified that the president was referring to “all foreign military forces stationed in Syria, including American, Turkish, Hezbollah, and Iranian [forces].”
The Russian statement was followed by an angry response from Tehran. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi told reporters in Tehran that, “No one can force Iran to do anything. … As long as terrorism exists and the Syrian government wants, Iran will have presence [in Syria].” The dueling statements are just one indication among many of differences between Moscow and some of its allies about the future of Syria.
Iran has been pushing for the regime to attempt an assault on remaining rebel enclaves in southwest Syria. The arrival of Iran-supported units to the border, however, brings with it the possibility of a large-scale Israeli response. Russia has no interest in such an outcome, which could plunge Syria into a new war and threaten the gains the Assad regime has already made.

Putin it seems is content with the consolidation of his main ally in the Assad regime and continuing to work with both Turkey and Israel as well as the continuing undermining of the West’s influence in the area.

To read the entire article from Foreign Policy, click here:

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Theresa May: Russia and Syria Are Blocking Evidence of Gas Attack

Using the ridiculous excuse of “Security Issues”, the Russians and Syrians are blocking the efforts of the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) to gather evidence are actively trying “to conceal the facts” of the latest chemical weapons attack, according to the United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May.

“The Syrian regime has reportedly been seeking to conceal the evidence by searching evacuees from Douma to ensure samples are not being smuggled from this area, and a wider operation to conceal the facts of the attack is underway, supported by the Russians,” May told the British House of Commons on Monday.
May aired that accusation after the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons announced that a team of investigators had deployed to Syria, only to be barred from the site of the attack due to “pending security issues.” The role of the OPCW investigators has been a central part of the debate between Russian and western diplomats over the last several days, as Russia denied that any gas attack had taken place and tried to forestall western airstrikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.
“It would be possible to make greater efforts on the ground to establish now what has happened in Douma if Russia and the regime were not blocking the opportunity for the OPCW to go to the site, and if efforts were not being made by the regime to ensure that material from the site is not available for that sort of analysis,” May added.
Russian officials maintain that the United Kingdom faked the apparent evidence for the latest attack, which reportedly killed dozens of civilians and injured hundreds more, and then rushed to attack Assad before the OPCW investigation could take place.
“We do not think that these reports could be falsified on this scale,” she said. “The opposition does not operate helicopters or use barrel bombs. [ISIS] does not even have a presence in Douma, and the reports of this attack are consistent with previous regime attacks.”

This latest sham by the Russians and Syrians is the typical maneuver. Cry foul, block an independent investigation and try to erase any evidence before claiming the attacks were staged.

To read the entire article from the Washington Examiner, click here:

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It is Time For Strong Action Against Assad, And It Isn’t Just a US Issue

Opinion: Once again the Syrian forces of the dictator Assad have shown the world their true colors. The chemical attack on the civilians of Douma on April 7 wasn’t the first time that Assad has used chemical weapons on his own people, nor the second.

The videos that have surfaced have clearly shown why the civilized world has banned them and made the use of a war crime. And that is exactly what Assad is, he is a war criminal and guilty of crimes against humanity. The Russians and President Putin are just as guilty as they’ve supported and enabled this murderous regime.

Condemnation from across the world was swift but with the usual trite, weak wording that is ignored by leaders such as Assad. They only understand force and that is exactly what they should get. And it shouldn’t be, which thankfully seems to be the case, of just the United States, stepping up to the plate.

President Trump, never one to miss an opportunity to take to social media, stated in his typical “understated” fashion but correctly so, that the attack was an atrocity. And he called out the Russians, Iranians and even he pal Putin for “backing Animal Assad.”

But the U.S. isn’t alone this time, the French have stepped up to the plate. French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to join the United States in coordinating “ a strong, joint response” to these chemical attacks. It was France a century ago that was the site for so many of the chemical attacks during the First World War. So they know better than anyone the

Macron said the U.S. and France will coordinate their efforts within the United Nations Security Council in the emergency meeting scheduled for tomorrow (Monday, April 9) that was called for by the United States, France, Britain, Sweden, Poland, the Netherlands, Kuwait, Peru, and Ivory Coast.

Trump promised Syria that there would be a big price to pay for yet another chemical attack on his own people. Late Sunday night, a Syrian airbase T-4 was hit with a missile attack. Syria immediately blamed the United States but the Pentagon issued a denial.

A spokesman released a message stating”at this time, the Department of Defense is not conducting airstrikes in Syria.”

“However, we continue to closely watch the situation and support the ongoing diplomatic efforts to hold those who use chemical weapons, in Syria and otherwise, accountable,” the message added.

Not much later, Syrians withdrew their accusation at the U.S. However, the Russians called out Israel for launching missiles at Syria from Lebanon airspace using F-15 fighters. Syria then claimed that its air defenses shot down eight of the missiles. The Israelis are under no illusion that if Assad and his Russian and especially his Iranian support are willing to abet his gassing of his own people, know that they’ll do the same to the Israeli population. They hit the airbase, which not coincidentally houses Iranian troops. Something the Israelis insist that they will not abide, having the Iranians establish bases so close to their border.

Last year around this time, the U.S. launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Shayrat airfield after learning that Syrian government aircraft had departed from the airfield loaded with sarin gas for a chemical attack on the town of Khan Sheikhun. The Syrians and Russian denied that any chemical attack took place on Khan Sheikhun and that the U.S. fabricated it. This is despite the fact that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had come to the same conclusion, that Syria had carried out the attacks.

The Russians showed their hand in their duplicity by declaring since early March that the United States was going to try to frame Assad for an impending chemical attack. So they knew a month ago that chemical attacks were planned. But again, the town of Douma is besieged by Russian, Syrian and Iranian forces.

But thus far, the Russians won’t allow independent chemical investigators into the town of Douma to inspect the site of where a reported 100 civilians were killed in a chlorine gas attack. The only issue which could set a new precedent is that chlorine isn’t banned from the Chemical Weapons Convention that Syria signed.

While the European Union declared that an international response is called for against Russia and Syria for these chemical attacks, they’ve done nothing else…yet. But the French are stepping to the forefront. The latest attack is the “red line” that the Assad regime has crossed. France has threatened to carry out military strikes.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that “the use of chemical weapons is a war crime,” and added that France will “do its duty” once the chemical attack on Douma is verified. So what does the rest of the European Union and other countries have to say about this? This shouldn’t be a unilateral U.S. response. Most of the rest of the countries of the west have gotten a free ride for the past 70 years while Uncle Sam played the bad cop every time a rogue nation steps out of line.

The time for action is now and the rest of the United Nations needs to be heard. Chemical weapons are forbidden now and haven’t been used in European battlefields since World War I. The U.S. classifies them as weapons of mass destruction.

This isn’t the first or even the second time the Assad regime has poison gassed the people of Syria. As much as President Trump can be over the top with his social media proclamations, he’s right about this. Anyone who will poison gas their own people is nothing more than an animal.

So what will the U.N. do? Will they finally step up to the plate and do something worthy of its own name? Or will it revert to what it’s done for the last 70 years or so? And word some milquetoast proclamation that says little and does even less? I am not so sure but I’m guessing on the latter rather than the former.

Photo: Wikipedia

Nerve Agent Poisoning Puts Secret Russian Military Labs in the Spotlight

The recent events that unfolded in the UK with the nerve agent poisoning of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter on a bench in Salisbury is putting the secret labs of the Russians that research and manufacture these weapons in the spotlight.

During his last run for the presidency, in 2012, Russian leader Vladimir Putin startled U.S. military experts with a mysterious pledge to develop novel kinds of weapons to counter the West’s technological edge. Armies of the future, he said, would need weapons “based on new physical principles” including “genetic” and “psychophysical” science.
“Such high-tech weapons systems will be comparable in effect to nuclear weapons,” Putin said in an essay published in Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the Russian government’s newspaper of record, “but will be more ‘acceptable’ in terms of political and military ideology.”
Since the start of Putin’s second term, a construction boom has been underway at more than two dozen institutes that were once part of the Soviet Union’s biological and chemical weapons establishment, according to Russian documents and photos compiled by independent researchers. That expansion, which includes multiple new or refurbished testing facilities, is particularly apparent at secret Defense Ministry laboratories that have long drawn the suspicions of U.S. officials over possible arms-treaty violations.
“The big question is, why are they doing this?” said Raymond Zilinskas, a chemical and biological weapons expert with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif. In a newly released book, “Biosecurity in Putin’s Russia,” Zilinskas and co-author Philippe Mauger analyze hundreds of contract documents and other records that show a surge in Russian research interest in subjects ranging from genetically modified pathogens to nonlethal chemical weapons used for crowd control.
During the Cold War, Soviet leaders spent vast sums to create weaponized versions of 11 different pathogens — including the microbes that cause anthrax, smallpox and the plague — while also experimenting with genetically altered strains. They created new classes of chemical toxins, such as Novichok, reportedly used in the attempted assassination of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury, England.
A fourth-generation nerve agent more deadly than VX, Novichok is the stuff of legend. Russia denies that it ever researched or manufactured such nerve agents, but it arrested a former Soviet weapons scientist on charges of divulging state secrets after he published details about Soviet Novichok production in newspaper articles and a memoir.

Even after the fall of the former Soviet Union, the Russians didn’t allow inspectors inside their former chemical warfare research labs. Some thought the shape of the labs was part of the reason but many in the intelligence field believed that they were hiding something.

To read the entire article from Washington Post, click here:

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Russia Stockpiling Nerve Agent, Says British Foreign Secretary Johnson

The British government isn’t backing down from accusing the Russians of being behind the attack on ex-spy Sergei Skripal with Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson saying that the Russians are stockpiling the nerve agent used in the attack.

Sergei and his daughter Yulia Skripal remain critically ill in hospital after being found slumped on a bench and exposed to the substance in Salisbury.

Johnson also dismissed a suggestion by Russia’s EU ambassador that the agent might have come from a UK laboratory.
Vladimir Chizhov had said the Porton Down lab in Wiltshire may have been the source of the substance.
Prime Minister Theresa May has said Russia is “culpable” for the attack.
On Sunday, newly elected President Vladimir Putin denied Russia was behind the incident but added that he was “ready for co-operation” with the UK.
He told reporters: “Any reasonable person understands that it would be total rubbish, ravings and nonsense for anyone in Russia to allow themselves such antics ahead of the election and the World Cup.”
UK Prime Minister Theresa May told MPs that Porton Down – Britain’s military research base – identified the substance used as being part of a group of military-grade nerve agents known as Novichok developed by the Soviet Union.
Mr Johnson told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “We actually have evidence within the last 10 years that Russia has not only been investigating the delivery of nerve agents for the purposes of assassination, but has also been creating and stockpiling Novichok.”
He said Russia’s reaction to the incident “was not the response of a country that really believes itself to be innocent”.

Meanwhile, the Russians deny the accusations and claim that the British are to blame for the attack and have said it is a plot by the West to alienate Russia due to setbacks in the Middle East, particularly Syria as an excuse.

To read the entire article from BBC, click here:

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British PM Theresa May: Russia Seeking to “Weaponize” Information

British Prime Minister Theresa May spared no words in her criticism of Russia and President Vladimir Putin on Monday, accusing Moscow of attempting to undermine the West by election meddling and seeking to “weaponize” information.

May’s sharp criticism of Putin contrasts sharply with that of President Trump who mostly skirted around the issue and cast doubt on allegations by the U.S. intelligence community about Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“I have a very simple message for Russia,” the British leader said. “We know what you are doing and you will not succeed, because you underestimate the resilience of our democracies, the enduring attraction of free and open societies, and the commitment of Western nations to the alliances that bind us.”
She told the audience at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in London that “it is Russia’s actions which threaten the international order on which we all depend.”
“Russia can, and I hope one day will, choose this different path,” she said. “But for as long as Russia does not, we will act together to protect our interests and the international order on which they depend.”
Russia, she said, “is seeking to weaponize information, deploying its state-run media organizations to plant fake stories and Photoshopped images in an attempt to sow discord in the West and undermine our institutions.”

Russia linked material permeated Facebook and Instagram during the election campaign and the Russians are also accused of running “troll” factories that generate fake news and propaganda.

To read the entire article from NBC News click here:

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