Important Takeaways:
- The strange, Zeppelin-like aircraft had been spotted on the Russian side of the frontier near Narva, a Russian-speaking Estonian town on the far edges of Nato territory.
- After some debate, Estonian police chose to ignore the blimp and hoped that would be the end of the matter. But the next day, it came back – this time marked with a “Z”, the symbol of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
- “We are seeing things like this nearly every week,” Egert Belitšev, the director-general of the Estonian police, said during a tour of Narva’s border checkpoint, the day before Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, arrived in the country for a security summit with Baltic and Nordic leaders.
- “It was intentionally made visible to everyone, to say: ‘We are watching you.’”
- “Two years ago we had 18 border incidents and this year we had 96,”
- “We have seen constant attempts to destabilize the situation.”
- In one of the more serious incidents in May, Russian border guards removed 20 buoys from the Narva river in the middle of the night in an apparent attempt to redraw the edges of Russia’s territory.
- “They did it at 3am – this is not something you do if it is a proper or normal thing,” Mr. Belitšev said.
- Moscow is also trying to push irregular migrants across the Estonian border, and across the Baltic Sea into Finland.
- Police say there have even been cases of Russians trying to smuggle drone parts across the Estonia border to support Putin’s war.
- “Russia will remain a threat for a very significant time, we don’t see any changes in the mindset of the Russian regime,” Mr. Tori said.
- “Russia’s understanding is that we will become more tired and they can outlast us in this war of aggression. Russia sees itself as being at war with Nato and therefore the ends justify the means.”
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Important Takeaways:
- NATO fighter jets have been scrambled in Poland and along the Alliance’s eastern flank
- Russia staged a brutal attack on Ukraine this morning, targeting energy and military facilities to plunge civilians into darkness and misery ahead of the festive season.
- A massive Russian onslaught had been expected, but there were no immediate reports of fearsome medium range ballistic missile Oreshnik being deployed, as had been predicted, although it may yet come.
- Instead, Ukraine was hit with Iskander, Kalibr, Kinzhal [or Dagger] missiles and Iranian-designed Shahed kamikaze drones, launched from Tu-95MS strategic bombers and MiG-31Ks.
- The capital Kyiv was hit by major power cuts – and underground trains stopped running, while people huddled in metro stations to escape the bombardment.
- There were reports of an airbase being hit, along with warehouses and a plant producing drones and repairing helicopters.
- Ukraine’s national power operator Ukrenergo warned that today half the country would be without power – with temperatures of minus 5C – due to the latest Putin onslaught, ahead the Christmas festivities.
- Explosions ranged across Ukraine from Ivano-Frankivsk in the west to Kharkiv in the east.
- Among the other regions hit were Kyiv, Odesa, Poltava, Vinnytsia, Cherkasy, Khmelnitsk, Lviv, and Ternopil.
- Russia had warned of a powerful response to a Ukrainian strike this week with US-supplied ATACMS missiles on a military airbase in Taganrog.
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Important Takeaways:
- Britain and other members of Nato have been urged to shift to a ‘wartime mindset’ amid the ongoing threats from Russia.
- Head of the military alliance, Mark Rutte, warned that nations are not ready for the coming years – and that much higher defense spending is needed to keep the enemy at bay.
- He said more than 3% of GDP had been splurged during the Cold War, but that future spending would have to be much higher than the current target of 2%.
- ‘Russia is preparing for long-term confrontation, with Ukraine and with us,’ Rutte said in a speech in Brussels.
- ‘We are not ready for what is coming our way in four to five years,’ the Nato secretary-general said.
- He added: ‘It is time to shift to a wartime mindset and turbocharge defense production and defense spending.’
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Important Takeaways:
- One question is whether the new administration and Europe will provide security guarantees to prevent Russia from taking more territory.
- The one gold-standard security guarantee that Ukraine wants is an invitation to join NATO. But it could not get that under Mr. Biden, and an invitation is unlikely during Mr. Trump’s presidency.
- So, U.S. and European officials are discussing deterrence as a possible security guarantee for Ukraine, such as stockpiling a conventional arsenal sufficient to strike a punishing blow if Russia violates a cease-fire.
- Several officials even suggested that Mr. Biden could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union. That would be an instant and enormous deterrent. But such a step would be complicated and have serious implications.
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Important Takeaways:
- A top NATO military official on Monday urged businesses to be prepared for a wartime scenario and adjust their production and distribution lines accordingly, in order to be less vulnerable to blackmail from countries such as Russia and China.
- “If we can make sure that all crucial services and goods can be delivered no matter what, then that is a key part of our deterrence,” the chair of NATO’s military committee, Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, said in Brussels.
- Speaking at an event of the European Policy Centre think tank, he described deterrence as going far beyond military capability alone, since all available instruments could and would be used in war.
- “We’re seeing that with the growing number of sabotage acts, and Europe has seen that with energy supply,” Bauer said.
- “We thought we had a deal with Gazprom, but we actually had a deal with Mr. Putin. And the same goes for Chinese-owned infrastructure and goods. We actually have a deal with (Chinese President) Xi (Jinping).”
- Bauer noted western dependencies on supplies from China, with 60% of all rare earth materials produced and 90% processed there. He said chemical ingredients for sedatives, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and low blood pressure medicines were also coming from China.
- “We are naive if we think the Communist Party will never use that power. Business leaders in Europe and America need to realize that the commercial decisions they make have strategic consequences for the security of their nation,” Bauer stressed.
- “Businesses need to be prepared for a wartime scenario and adjust their production and distribution lines accordingly. Because while it may be the military who wins battles, it’s the economies that win wars.”
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Important Takeaways:
- North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to Russia to train and fight in Ukraine within “the next several weeks,” the Pentagon said Monday, in a move that Western leaders say will intensify the almost three-year war and jolt relations in the Indo-Pacific region.
- Some of the North Korean soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said, and were believed to be heading for the Kursk border region, where Russia has been struggling to push back a Ukrainian incursion.
- Earlier Monday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte NATO confirmed recent Ukrainian intelligence reports that some North Korean military units were already in the Kursk region.
- Adding thousands of North Korean soldiers to Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II will pile more pressure on Ukraine’s weary and overstretched army. It will also stoke geopolitical tensions in the Korean Peninsula and the wider Indo-Pacific region, including Japan and Australia, Western officials say.
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Important Takeaways:
- The minister, Andrei Belousov, delivered this stark warning during a high-stakes meeting with Belarusian defense officials in Minsk. “The increasing involvement of Western countries in the conflict in Ukraine creates global risks,” he declared. “The desire to inflict maximum damage on Russia could lead to a direct military clash between nuclear powers.” This statement is one of Russia’s clearest indications yet that it views the Ukraine conflict as a potential flashpoint for global warfare, particularly as NATO members continue to supply Ukraine with weapons and military aid.
- Belousov’s remarks have raised fears that Russia may resort to using nuclear weapons in response to any attack on Belarus, its closest military ally. “Changes in the military-political situation have necessitated the clarification of the Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the field of nuclear deterrence,” Belousov stated, hinting at a possible nuclear retaliation if Belarus is threatened. He added that Moscow is adapting its defense strategies to new global realities, heightening concerns that the Ukraine war could spiral into a wider and more catastrophic conflict.
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Important Takeaways:
- South Korea warned Tuesday it could consider supplying weapons to Ukraine in response to North Korea allegedly dispatching troops to Russia, as both North Korea and Russia denied the movements. NATO’s secretary general said that would mark a “significant escalation.”
- South Korean officials worry that Russia may reward North Korea by giving it sophisticated weapons technologies that can boost the North’s nuclear and missile programs that target South Korea.
- The officials agreed to take phased countermeasures, linking the level of their responses to progress in Russian-North Korean military cooperation, according to the statement.
- Possible steps include diplomatic, economic and military options, and South Korea could consider sending both defensive and offensive weapons to Ukraine, a senior South Korean presidential official told reporters on condition of anonymity in a background briefing.
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Important Takeaways:
- Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has flatly stated that any long-range missile strikes carried out by Ukraine against the territory of Russia will constitute an act of war against the Russian Federation by NATO.
- He warns that if Ukraine is empowered to strike Russia with long-range missiles supplied by NATO, the alliance would be at war with his country:
- Putin notes that Ukrainian drone attacks have already taken place within Russia, most recently in Moscow. However, “When it comes to using high-precision long-range Western-made weapons, it’s a completely different story.”
- “The Ukrainian army is not able to strike with modern long-range precision systems of Western manufacture. It cannot do this. It can only do so using intelligence from satellites, which Ukraine does not have. This is data from [European Union] satellites, or from the United States, in general from NATO,” he said.
- Putin believes only NATO servicemen can enter flight assignments for the missile systems, arguing the real question is whether NATO wants to be directly involved in the war in Ukraine or not.
- Putin’s ominous words come after Biden-Harris Secretary of State Anthony Blinken hinted that Ukraine may get the green light to use long-range missiles against Russia earlier this week.
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Important Takeaways:
- NATO is planning to deploy an armored brigade in Finland to serve as a deterrent against Russia, newspaper Iltalehti reported on Thursday, citing sources within the US-led military bloc and the government in Helsinki.
- The unit, which could range in size from 4,000 to 5,000 troops, will be stationed at Mikkeli in the south-eastern part of Finland, according to the daily. Mikkeli, which has a population of 51,000, is just 87 miles (140 kilometers) from the border with Russia.
- According to the newspaper’s sources, the brigade will comprise NATO troops from neighboring Sweden and Norway.
- Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen told state-owned broadcaster Yle on Wednesday that Helsinki was in talks with several NATO states about deploying their soldiers to Finland even if the country does not face an immediate military threat. The bloc’s contingent should be “comprehensive and large enough to form a sufficient presence in crisis situations,” he stressed. According to Hakkanen, soldiers from his own and from other NATO countries could, among other activities, stage large-scale military exercises if there is a “tense atmosphere at the border” with Russia.
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