They’re bringing the war to Africa because they need the resources again. Expect another era of coups, regime change, flow of weapons, Islamists and information wars with manipulation in disguise as fighting Russia.
Can you read or are you just daft ?
"To direct the Secretary of State to develop and submit to Congress a strategy and implementation plan outlining United States efforts to counter the malign influence and activities of the Russian Federation and its proxies in Africa, and for other purposes."
Where does it say that the US declared war on Africa ?
SUPERPACK: The UK, US and NATO are all taking part in the Syrian war where Russia have helped Syrian government to reclaim 70% of their country. They should defeat Russia there first before boasting of winning one on one vs Russia. If e sure for UK they should go ahead and declare a one on one war with Russia and tell NATO to back off and watch. Fighting in packs like wild dogs doesn't make you king of the jungle, the bear is always ready.
SUPERPACK: Alliance of 2 mushroom countries. Russia be like if I don't fear NATO with 30 countries na one I get am before country I go dey fear
The UK has enough nuclear weapons to be a serious deterrent to Russia. The UK has almost the same quantity of nukes that China has. Only 30 nukes are required to turn Russia into planet mars.
But when it comes to a conventional war, the UK will deal with Russia. War is no longer won by numbers or size, but technology and competency.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday signed a defense agreement with Finland.
"The Russian invasion of Ukraine has changed the equation of European security and it has rewritten our reality and reshaped our future," Johnson said, speaking at a news conference in Helsinki.
"We've seen the end of the post-Cold War period, and the invasion of Ukraine sadly has opened a new chapter," he said, adding that the war had brought Finland and the UK "even closer together."
"That invasion has already failed for two reasons. Firstly, because of the unbreakable spirit of the Ukrainian people who have fought back and rallied the world behind them.
"Second, because that Ukrainian struggle for freedom, that heroic fight, has brought the world together in condemnation of this assault on our values," said Johnson.
He added that the defense pact meant Britain and Finland could intensify their partnership and "take it to unparalleled heights."
"Our armed forces will train, operate, and exercise together, marrying our defense and security capabilities and formalizing a pledge that we will always come to one another's aid," said the premier.
He vowed that the agreement would serve not as "a short term stop gap" as Finland considers NATO membership, but as an "enduring assurance" between the two countries.
Earlier in the day, Britain signed a similar pact with Sweden.
Both Finland and Sweden are weighing whether to join NATO after Russia launched a war on Ukraine in late February.
They are expected to make their decisions later this month.
Putin has an estimated 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons at his disposal and some have the power to kill tens of thousands at a time. With Russia's invasion of Ukraine being met with unexpectedly fierce resistance, there are fears that Putin could resort to using his nuclear arsenal to turn the tide of the conflict.
Dominic Sandbrook, an expert in modern history, has said one plausible scenario that could spark a tactical nuclear strike is if the Ukrainians launch a counterattack in the Donbass - a region Putin is desperate to hang on to. Mr Sandbrook wrote in the Daily Mail : "One plausible scenario is that if the Ukrainians mount a counterattack in the Donbas — and especially if they threaten his grip on Crimea — Mr Putin might authorise a 'tactical' nuclear strike, using short-range weapons devised for use on the battlefield.
"And even somebody as drunk on his own nationalist resentments as Vladimir Putin must realise that a nuclear war would mean the end of Russian civilisation — the end of Moscow, St Petersburg and everything he and his cronies claim to revere." Using a tactical nuclear weapon would "cause all horror of Hiroshima" on a "smaller scale", according to the journal Scientific American.
"It would also cause all the horrors of Hiroshima, albeit on a smaller scale," the journal added, according to the Mirror. "A tactical nuclear weapon would produce a fireball, shock waves, and deadly radiation that would cause long-term health damage in survivors. Radioactive fallout would contaminate air, soil, water and the food supply (Ukrainians are already familiar with this kind of outcome because of the disastrous meltdown of the Chornobyl nuclear reactor in 1986).
"No one knows if using a tactical nuclear weapon would trigger a full-scale nuclear war. Nevertheless, the risk of escalation is very real. Those on the receiving end of a nuclear strike are not likely to ask whether it was tactical or strategic." The warning comes after Russian state media propagandists called on Putin to unleash his nuclear arsenal on Ukraine.
Alexander Sladkov, a pro-Kremlin media figure, said there would soon be "no way back" but for Putin to strike with nuclear weapons. Sladkov told his 730,000 followers time may be approaching for the “last resort” because some 40 countries are now arming Ukraine with weapons that are being used against the Russians. And Dmitry Kiselyov, the deputy head of the company behind the state-controlled Rossiya 1 channel, said that the British Isles should be struck with an underwater nuclear weapon that would trigger a 1,600-foot radioactive tidal wave and wipe Britain off the map.
"Surging over Britain, it will turn whatever is left of them into radioactive desert, unusable for anything," he said of the wave, pointing to a simulated graphic of the attack. "How do you like this prospect?"
British tanks join Nato war games in Finland as Defence Secretary warns Putin that UK would support Finns or Swedes if Russians invaded even if they don't join defence alliance.
British tanks have been pictured in war games action alongside their Nato allies as the UK warned they would come to the aid of Finland and Sweden if they were attacked by Vladimir Putin's forces.
Challenger 2 tanks and troops from the Queen's Royal Hussars worked alongside members of the Finnish Armoured Brigade and American, Latvian and Estonian allies in as the military alliance today flexed its muscles in response to Russian aggression.
The war games, dubbed Exercise Arrow, will see Nato troops work alongside Finnish units to improve joint responses and to improve mechanised units' operational land viability in varied environments.
Service personnel, reservists and conscripts will also be tested on their abilities as the exercise kicked off today and will last until Friday, May 13.
Tens of thousands of Nato and Joint Expeditionary Force troops are expected to be involved in war drills across the continent this summer in the wake of Putin's bloody invasion in Ukraine.
The developments come as Defence Secretary Ben Wallace warned it was 'inconceivable' that the UK would not 'support' the Scandinavian states, which have been threatened by Moscow.
Finland and its neighbour Sweden have expressed a desire to join the military pact since Putin launched his savage invasion of Ukraine in February.
Reuters reported this week that Helsinki will formally announce its bid to join on May 12 with Sweden following suit days later.
Flanking his Finnish counterpart Antti Kaikkonen on a visit to Finland to see UK troops take part in military exercises, Mr Wallace said stressed that alliances between European countries 'make us safer'.
He told reporters it is 'entirely for the freedom of Finland to choose' whether it wants to become a Nato member, and added he is not going to 'lobby or direct' what it should do.
Mr Wallace said: 'Do I think if Finland didn't join Nato Britain wouldn't come along to help? No. Britain will always be here in the Nordics, to be part of you, to help you, to support you.
'It is inconceivable that Britain would not come to the support of Finland, or Sweden, if it was ever attacked, without any big formal agreement. We are European countries who share the same values, who have deep, long histories.
'A significant number of the British population seem to be descended from Vikings anyhow, so we have that cultural link.
'I cannot conceive a time when we wouldn't come to support Finland and Sweden no matter where they were with the Nato debate or where they are with agreements.'
Finland and Sweden have historically avoided NATO membership, despite close alignment with the West, in an effort not to provoke Russia.
Both have been militarily non-aligned since the Second World War. Sweden had maintained its policy of neutrality - which had begun in the early 19th century - throughout the war wanting to avoid being drawn into a conflict that was engulfing the nearby powers of Germany and the Soviet Union.
The Brimstone missiles the UK will be sending have been in service with the RAF since 2005 and used extensively in Afghanistan.
They can be modified to target ships.
Such missiles will most likely be used to help defend Odesa, a major Ukrainian port city.
Each missile costs around £175,000.
They can hit targets by tracking a laser fired by troops, aircraft or vehicles, or select its own target from a pre-programmed list through the use of an extremely high frequency millimetric wave radar.
This helps the targeting system select the most important targets, as well as avoiding civilian ones.
James Heappey, the armed forces minister, said the Brimstone missiles would be sent to Ukraine in the "next few weeks".
NATO forces "outnumber and outgun" Russia, the UK Defence Secretary said on April 28 after Russian President Vladimir Putin issued his latest frightening nuclear hint.
Ben Wallace warned that the crews onboard Britain's nuclear weapon-armed submarines were "deep underwater, hiding, waiting, in case Britain needs to be protected".
Russia's President warned on April 27 that he would mount a “lightning-fast” retaliation if the west decided to intervene in the Ukraine conflict, stating "we have all the tools" and "we will use them if necessary".
However, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said “I don’t think Putin will” use nuclear weapons, The Mirror reports.
The Tory said that Putin has committed “massive strategic blunders”, noting: His so-called lightning invasion of Ukraine hasn’t gone too well.”
In February Putin ordered Russia’s nuclear weapons to be put on high alert and he has made several hints since about the country’s nuclear arsenal.
Mr Wallace, however, told LBC Radio: “I don’t feel rattled by it.
“Because we have strong Armed Forces and a nuclear deterrent and we’re part of a NATO partnership of 30 nations who outgun him, outnumber him and have potentially all the capabilities at our disposal.
“I don’t fear him. I think we should be very grateful in this country that we have a nuclear deterrent, I think that is a really important part of his calculations.
“There are many, as we know, who wanted to get rid of it over the years.
“I’m very grateful that somewhere under the sea, some amazing men and women are deep underwater, hiding, waiting, in case Britain needs to be protected. That’s important”
Russia has told the United States to stop sending arms to Ukraine, saying large Western deliveries of weapons were inflaming the conflict.
Moscow has also hit out at the UK for saying Britain would support Ukraine’s right to hit Russian military targets on Russian soil, using UK weapons.
Addressing lawmakers in St Petersburg on Wednesday, Putin said according to video supplied by Russian media: “If someone intends to intervene in the ongoing events from the outside, and create strategic threats for Russia that are unacceptable to us, they should know that our retaliatory strikes will be lightning-fast.
"We have all the tools for this, things no one else can boast of having now. And we will not boast, we will use them if necessary. And I want everyone to know that."
Britain last night demanded “cancerous growth” Vladimir Putin’s forces are pushed out of all Ukrainian territory - including Crimea, which they invaded eight years ago.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss made the clearest statement yet of the UK’s intentions - as she warned the war may last a decade.
Ms Truss said in a speech at Mansion House, in the City of London: “We are doubling down. We will keep going further and faster to push Russia out of the whole of Ukraine.”
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace backed the statement today, saying: “The international community believes Russia should leave Ukraine.
“The international community has condemned Russia for its invasion of Crimea, which was illegal in 2014.
"We've constantly said that Russia should leave Ukraine sovereign territory so that hasn't changed".
Russia’s neighbor Finland will focus on defense as its no. 1 priority, whether the Nordic nation joins the NATO defense alliance or not, according to Finance Minister Annika Saarikko.
The northernmost euro member, which has a 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) border with Russia, began to reconsider its long-term stance of remaining outside of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization after its former imperial overlord on Feb. 24 invaded Ukraine. While the extent of the attack came as a surprise, Finland wasn’t caught off guard, Saarikko said.
“We have always acknowledged the geographical realities and made sure our defenses hold,” she said in an interview at her office in Helsinki on Friday. “The first priority is always Finland’s defenses.”
The parliament this week began reviewing a white paper on security submitted by the government, which is seen paving way for a bid to join NATO within weeks. The debate hasn’t gone unnoticed in Russia, which has repeatedly warned Finland and Sweden against joining.
Finns and Swedes “should closely observe what has happened to the Azovstal” steel plant in Ukraine’s Mariupol, a target of massive Russian bombing campaign, according to Andrei Klimov. The deputy chair of the foreign affairs committee in the parliament’s upper chamber, the Federation Council, also called NATO “a suicide club,” in remarks published on his Telegram channel on Friday.
The parliament should have time to review the issue with care “because it needs to withstand time,” Saarikko said. “It’s not enough to back NATO membership this spring. One needs to be able to say it’s the right decision next spring and the spring after that, and that’s why this needs careful consideration.”
Still, her personal stance is clear. “My Finland is an open, western democracy that’s part of the European Union, and joining NATO would be a very natural step,” Saarikko said.
The country of 5.5 million people has a reserve of 900,000 troops and is able to deploy 280,000 of them in war time. It’s held on to a conscription-based system where most men and some women undergo military training lasting from six months to a year. Its military equipment are NATO compatible, and the country in December decided to buy 64 Lockheed Martin Corp. F-35A multi-role fighter jets in a 10 billion-euro ($11 billion) procurement.
This month, the government unveiled more than 2 billion euros of extra defense spending, mostly on weapons and training, representing about a 70% increase relative to the Nordic country’s regular 2022 military budget of about 2.8 billion euros. It meets the 2% of GDP NATO spending threshold.
“Finland’s decision to increase defense spending significantly is independent of any decision on joining NATO” and “will take place under all circumstances,” Saarikko said.
Finland’s economy is among the most exposed in the European Union to the impact of the war in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia, and the pace of growth will slow by half to 1.5% this year, according to a recent forecast from the ministry Saarikko runs. Still, promoting growth will help pay for additional outlays, she said.
Sweden, the biggest Nordic neighbor, is also weighing the merits of entering the defense bloc, with Foreign Minister Ann Linde on Thursday saying it should speed up the review to mid-May to keep up with Finland. Sweden’s long-term plan is to increase funding for the armed forces by almost 30% from 2021 to 2024.
According to a recent survey, 84% of Finns think that Russia poses a significant military threat, and they’re nearly unanimous in saying their neighbor is “unstable and unpredictable,” with just 2% saying they did not agree with that characterization of Russia in the poll.
“This situation reminds us of how wise it has been to ensure defenses already in more stable times,” Saarikko said. “We do not have to make up for missed spending, like some other countries will have to do.”
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, April 21 (Reuters) - Islamic State claimed responsibility for an explosion that it said killed or injured 30 people at a market where alcohol was sold in Taraba State, Nigeria, marking an expansion of the area where the extremist group operates in the country.
Northeast Nigeria, especially the states of Borno and Yobe, have been in the grip of Islamist insurgencies for over a decade, but Taraba, located at the eastern end of Nigeria's Middle Belt central region, has not previously been attacked.
The explosion took place on Tuesday in Iware, a rural town, and local police initially said three people were killed and 19 injured. They could not immediately be reached on Thursday to comment on the Islamic State claim or casualty count. read more
In a statement posted late on Wednesday on a Telegram messaging channel used by Islamic State to distribute its propaganda, the group described those who detonated the bomb in the market as "soldiers of the caliphate in central Nigeria".
The statement said the attack had struck "a gathering of infidel Christians" and expressed satisfaction that the drinking spot had been damaged. It did not break down the casualty figure into dead and injured.
The whole of Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, has been suffering from a rise in crime and violence, exacerbated by the economic hardship caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Armed robberies are rife everywhere, kidnappings for ransom have become increasingly common, and the northwest has been hit by mass abductions of children from schools as well as indiscriminate attacks on towns and village by armed gangs.
The worst and longest-running crisis, however, is in the northeast, where rival Islamist groups Boko Haram and Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP) have killed, abducted and looted on a massive scale whilst fighting against the Nigerian military.
In the latest attack, on the town of Geidam in Yobe State, Boko Haram fighters came in the early hours of Thursday and burnt down a school and several private buildings, according to two residents and two security sources.
The residents said a local drinking spot selling beer had been attacked. One said he had seen nine dead bodies, while the other said he had seen several dead including two women. The authorities were yet to release a death toll.
The US ability to store nuclear weapons in the UK is to be upgraded with new money for military infrastructure, US defense documents show.
Biden's 2023 Department of Defense budget request to NATO shows that the military alliance has added the UK to a list of countries receiving $384 million in investments to store "special weapons."
Other countries receiving this funding are Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey, where the USA stores an estimated 150 American B-61 nuclear gravity bombs, according to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
The director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists, Hans Kristensen, first broke the story of the UK "quietly" being added to the infrastructure program. While not detailed in the budget, the former US airbase at RAF Lakenheath, near Cambridge, eastern England, was the most likely site being upgraded to store nuclear weapons, Kristensen's said.
The US decommissioned its Lakenheath base and the nuclear weapons store in 2008. Before they were mothballed, the 33 underground storage vaults could hold 110 nuclear bombs.
In his article, Kristensen added that he does not believe this signifies a new deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe. It would not be in line with NATO's "cautious nuclear response" to Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
Kristensen believes the upgrade at the airbase is to "increase the flexibility of the existing nuclear deployment within Europe, without increasing the number of weapons."
The executive director of the Arms Control Association, Daryl Kimball, told the Guardian that this upgrade is "an early sign that the US and Nato are preparing to engage in a protracted and maybe heightened standoff with Putin's Russia."
He said that the Biden administration "should provide some clarity about the military necessity and goals of possibly bringing nuclear weapons back to the UK."
Russian Major General Vladimir Frolov, deputy commander of the 8th Army, was buried Saturday after being killed in combat in Ukraine, Russian state media reported, which would make him the eighth Russian general killed in Moscow’s invasion, if Ukrainian claims are true.
St. Petersburg Gov. Alexander Beglov said Frolov fought in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, TASS reported, without elaborating.
Some of the generals who were killed were veterans of Russian operations in Georgia and Syria, the Wall Street Journal reported, depriving the Kremlin of experienced leaders.
WASHINGTON ― The U.S. State Department has cleared the sale of 12 AH-1Z Cobra attack helicopters to Nigeria worth nearly $1 billion, apparently after U.S. lawmakers lifted objections over human rights concerns.
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency on Thursday announced the sale of the helicopters and related defense systems to the Nigerian military. The package includes $25 million for human rights-related training.
The sale includes the Bell-made Cobras; 28 General Electric-made T700-401C engines; 2,000 Advanced Precision Kill Weapon Systems used to convert unguided missies into precision-guided missiles; and night vision, targeting and navigation systems.
The case highlights the Biden administration’s attempts to balance human rights concerns in the arms sale process.
Foreign Policy reported in July that the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee delayed the sale amid concerns Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari was drifting toward authoritarianism. The country is facing multiple security challenges, including terrorism.
“Nigeria requires a fundamental rethink of the framework of our overall engagement,” committee Chairman Bob Menendez, D-N.J., told Secretary of State Antony Blinken during the diplomat’s testimony before the panel last year.
Menendez also tweeted that “the Nigerian government must get serious about security” after the militant group Boko Haram kidnapped more than 300 schoolboys in December 2020. The Nigerian government also ran afoul of the New Jersey Democrat in 2019 after arresting one of his constituents, Nigerian-American journalist Omoyele Sowore.
According to the announcement, $25 million in the package will be dedicated to “institutional and technical assistance” to Nigeria’s military to continue its Air-to-Ground Integration program, which concerns targeting processes that are consistent with international humanitarian law and the laws of armed conflict.
“The proposed sale will better equip Nigeria to contribute to shared security objectives, promote regional stability and build interoperability with the U.S. and other Western partners,” the announcement read. “This sale will be a major contribution to U.S. and Nigerian security goals.”
About Joe Gould and Bryant Harris Joe Gould is senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry.
Bryant Harris is the Congress reporter for Defense News. He has covered the intersection of U.S. foreign policy and national security in Washington since 2014. He previously wrote for Foreign Policy, Al-Monitor, Al Jazeera English and IPS News.
AllKnowing: Hundreds of Sailors dead really? Or did you forget that particular ship was being hulled back to Moscow after the fire onboard destroyed its hull?
I see a lot of topics here that are deliberately sensational to drive traffic to Nairaland.
About 50 sailors were rescued.
The initial missile hit took out most of the sailors.
Do your research and stop crying more than the bereaved.
The United States does not “take lightly” the possibility that Russia could seek to use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine as Moscow continues to face difficulties on the battlefield, CIA Director Bill Burns said Thursday.
"Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they've faced so far militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low yield nuclear weapons,” he said in public remarks at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
The CIA “watch[es] for that very intently,” Burns said. But he emphasized that the US has yet to see any signs that Russia is preparing to take such a step.
"While we've seen some rhetorical posturing on the part of the Kremlin about moving to higher nuclear alert levels, so far we haven't seen a lot of practical evidence of the kind of deployments or military dispositions that would reinforce that concern—but we watch for that very intently,” Burns said.
Still, in the same remarks, Burns warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin has become increasingly isolated and his "risk appetite has grown as his grip on Russia has tightened.”
“His circle of advisors has narrowed and in that small circle it has never been career-enhancing to question his judgment or his stubborn, almost mystical belief that his destiny is to restore Russia's sphere of influence,” Burns said.
Russia's 'broken arrow': Fears that nuclear missiles sank with Putin's flagship Moskva amid claims that HUNDREDS of the 510 crew have drowned after being 'hit by Ukrainian missile'
- Moskva, the flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet, has been confirmed to have sunk near port of Sevastopol - Experts and analysts are now warning that the warship may have been carrying two nuclear warheads - They are calling for an urgent probe into 'broken arrow' incident - military slang for an accident with nukes - Meanwhile questions remain over the fate of Moskva's 510-strong crew, most of whom are unaccounted for
Russia's Black Sea flagship which sank yesterday after an explosion on board may have been carrying nuclear warheads, analysts and experts have warned today, as they called for an emergency investigation into the threat.
The Moskva, a Soviet-era guided missile cruiser, sank near the port of Sevastopol on Thursday after Ukraine said it hit the ship with two cruise missiles, causing it to roll over. Russia has admitted the vessel sank after a fire and explosion on board, but has not said what caused the blaze.
There are now fears that the Moskva could have taken two nuclear warheads into the depths in what could turn into a 'broken arrow' incident - American military slang for an accident involving nuclear weapons.
Mykhailo Samus, director of a Lviv-based military think-tank; Andriy Klymenko, editor of Black Sea News; and Ukrainian newspaper Defence Express all warned today that the Moskva was designed to carry warheads which could be fitting into the nose of its supersonic P-1000 missiles - designed to take out American aircraft carriers.
'On board the Moskva could be nuclear warheads - two units,' Samus said, while Klymenko called on other Black Sea nations - Turkey, Romania, Georgia, and Bulgaria - to insist on an explanation. Where are these warheads? Where were they when the ammunition exploded,' he asked.
Meanwhile Defence Express said that it had 'interviewed experts, including designers and naval officers, who unanimously and independently gave the following answer - there is a real possibility that the affected flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet could have had nuclear munitions on board.
The paper added: 'Are nuclear munitions always on board, or are they loaded only by special order?'
Speculation about a nuclear disaster swirled as questions also remained over the Moskva's 510-strong crew, who have been largely unaccounted for since the ship was struck amid the expectation that hundreds will have died in the on-board explosion.
So-far, only around 50 of the crew are accounted for - having been picked up by a Turkish vessel - with another 14 reportedly flown to the port of Sevastopol, leaving around 450 whose fates are unknown. Russia claims to have evacuated the entire crew, but video taken in Sevastopol overnight shows dozens of cars purportedly belonging to the sailors still parked in the port - suggesting their owners had not returned to collect them.
Explosions on comparably-sized ships often produce hundreds of deaths. When the General Belgrano - an Argentinian warship - was struck by two British torpedoes during the Falklands War, the resulting blast killed a total of 334 people. The Belgrano was smaller than the Moskva, and its ammunition did not explode.
The Moskva got into trouble overnight Wednesday as it sailed around 60 miles off the coast of Odesa, Ukraine's largest port and main naval base. The Ukrainian military said it was struck with two Neptune cruise missiles fired by a coastal battery, which struck the port side of the vessel.
Russian military sources said the ship had rolled on to its side and caught fire after the blast, while US intelligence sources said the vessel suffered a 'large' explosion that left it heavily damaged before it sank.
Moscow has said only that the vessel suffered a fire and blast before its navy attempted to tow the ship back to Sevastopol, but during the operation it sank in rough seas. The exact location of the wreck is unknown.
The loss of the Moskva - the flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet and the vessel that was told to 'go f*** yourself' by Ukrainian troops as it demanded their surrender on Snake Island - is a huge propaganda win for Kyiv as well as another embarrassing loss for Putin's beleaguered armed forces.
Moskva's sinking also has practical implications for Russia. As flagship, the vessel was likely tasked with coordinating the movements of other ships in the Black Sea which may cause further confusion among Russia's already-strained command structure.
Its role was also to provide cover for Russia's other ships using its anti-air missiles while they launched cruise missiles attacks against cities and military sites. Its loss will make them more-vulnerable to Ukrainian strikes, including by fast jets or drones.
Earlier, a United States defence official said that Russia had moved its other vessels 80 miles away from the Ukrainian shore - a suspected attempt to get out of missile range - after the ship was damaged.
Questions will inevitably be asked inside the Kremlin over how one of its capital ships was destroyed by a country with no operational navy. Since the war broke out, Russia's naval forces have been positioned off the coast of Ukraine to provide support to its ground troops, and to block off Kyiv's access to the coast.
H I Sutton, a respected naval analyst, points out that the vessel has spent the last two months sailing in a 'predictable' pattern around the Black Sea - generally sitting in waters close to Snake Island.
Sutton also points out that the ship's defences were 'dated'. It was initially built in 1983 by the Soviet Union, and underwent a major refit and recommissioning in 2000. But updates since then have been piecemeal with a major refit in 2015 cancelled - potentially leaving it vulnerable to modern weaponry.
On Thursday night, Western officials said Ukrainian reports of the operation were ‘credible’ and the attack demonstrated their ability to strike the Russians in areas where they assumed they were invulnerable.
One said: ‘The incident represents another enormous loss in terms of Russian credibility. They’ve been shown again to be vulnerable to attack. This is a question of competence. This is supposed to be a military which has modernised itself over the last decade.
princeeze1: That is the level of their ignorance. A local government in Lagos is more populated than Lithuania. Lagos has 15m people, Lithuania has 2.5m people. So their gas consumption is very insignificant, they can afford to buy one shipment that will last their generation ages. When big economies like Germany are talking, a local government will still be talking.
As we speak, deals are being made in the background between major gas suppliers and Europe. Don’t be surprised that over the next few months, before the next winter, most countries in Europe would have come off Russian gas.
VALLETTA, Malta (AP) — Pope Francis said Saturday he is studying a possible visit to Kyiv and he blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin for launching a “savage” war. Speaking after his arrival in Malta, he delivered his most pointed and personalized denunciation yet of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Francis didn’t cite Putin by name, but the reference was clear when he said that “some potentate” had unleashed the threat of nuclear war on the world in an “infantile and destructive aggression” under the guise of “anachronist claims of nationalistic interests.”
“We had thought that invasions of other countries, savage street fighting and atomic threats were grim memories of a distant past,” Francis told Maltese officials and diplomats on the Mediterranean island nation at the start of a weekend visit.
Francis has to date avoided referring to Russia or Putin by name. But Saturday’s personalization of the powerful figure responsible marked a new level of outrage for the pope.
“Once again, some potentate, sadly caught up in anachronistic claims of nationalist interest, is provoking and fomenting conflicts, whereas ordinary people sense the need to build a future that will either be shared or not be at all,” he said.
The Vatican tends to not call out aggressors in hopes of keeping open options for dialogue. The Vatican, which in recent years has forged unprecedented new relations with the Putin-allied Russian Orthodox Church, had offered itself as a potential mediator but to date has been largely left on the diplomatic sidelines.
Francis told reporters en route to Malta that a possible visit to Kyiv was “on the table,” but no dates have been set or trip confirmed. The mayor of the Ukrainian capital had invited Francis to come as a messenger of peace along with other religious figures.
Francis also said that the war had pained his heart so much that he sometimes forgets about the pain in his knees. Francis has been suffering for months from a strained ligament in his right knee. The inflammation got so bad that the Vatican arranged for a tarmac elevator to get him onto and off the plane for Saturday’s flight to Malta.
The visit, originally scheduled for May 2020, was always supposed to focus on migration, given Malta’s role at the heart of Europe’s migration debate.
Speaking with Malta’s president by his side, Francis denounced the “sordid agreements” the European Union has made with Libya to turn back migrants and said Europe must show humanity in welcoming them. He called for the Mediterranean to be a “theater of solidarity, not the harbinger of a tragic shipwreck of civilization.”
Francis was referring to the seven-year-old European Union (EU) program to train Libya’s coast guard, which patrols the North African country’s Mediterranean coast for migrant smuggling operations and brings the would-be refugees back to shore. The program was adopted and strongly backed by Italy and other front-line Mediterranean countries to try to stem the flow of hundreds of thousands of desperate migrants who pay Libyan-based smugglers to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
Human rights groups have condemned the EU-funded program as a violation of the migrants’ rights and documented gross abuses in the detention camps where returned migrants are then held. Just this past week, Germany said its military would no longer provide training to the Libyan coast guard given its “unacceptable,” and in some cases illegal, treatment of migrants.
Francis has condemned the Libyan detention facilities as concentration camps, but he went further on Saturday in shaming the EU for its complicity in the abuses committed.
“Civilized countries cannot approve for their own interest sordid agreements with criminals who enslave other human beings,” he said. “Unfortunately, this is happening.”
“Today, when those who cross the Mediterranean in search of salvation are met with fear and the narrative of ‘invasion,’ and safeguarding one’s own security at any price seems to be the primary goal, let us help one another not to view the migrant as a threat and not to yield to the temptation of raising drawbridges and erecting walls,” he said.
Other people are not a virus from which we need to be protected, but persons to be accepted,” he said.
Malta, the European Union’s smallest country with a half-million people, has long been on the front lines of the flow of migrants and refugees across the Mediterranean. It has frequently called upon its bigger European neighbors to shoulder more of the burden receiving would-be refugees.
Francis has frequently echoed that call, and linked it on Saturday to the welcome the Maltese once gave the Apostle Paul, who according to the biblical account was shipwrecked off Malta in around A.D. 60 while en route to Rome and was shown unusual kindness by the islanders.
Politics › Re: Deborah Samuel: OPM Awards Scholarship To All Her Siblings, To Relocate Parents by SeeThisLoser: 2:39pm On May 16, 2022
