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Post by DavidH on Mar 18, 2017 13:39:56 GMT
About the author: Andrei Sannikov is an exiled opposition politician who ran for president in 2010 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Sannikov'We are not slaves': Europe's most repressive state is reawakening “Basta!” the placards read. “We are not slaves.” These are the most popular slogans brandished at the street protests that have been rippling through Belarus. The trigger for the demonstrations was a presidential decree imposing a tax on people who declare fewer than 183 days of work a year. The underlying cause is general despondency about life in Europe’s most repressive state. The protests, which have seen thousands take to the streets and more than 100 people detained in a government crackdown, could come to a head on 25 March, when thousands are set to gather in the centre of Minsk on Freedom Day. Belarusians are protesting peacefully so far, and they want to keep it that way. www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/17/we-are-not-slaves-europe-most-repressive-state-reawakening-belarus?CMP=share_btn_fb
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Post by DavidH on Mar 18, 2017 14:10:18 GMT
NATO heightens maritime readiness with Ukraine, Black Sea alliesAdmiral James Stavridis, dean of the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy and former NATO supreme allied commander Europe (2009-2013) explained to The Kyiv Post what these developments will mean for the region. “[We can] expect to see expanded naval deployments to both the Black and Baltic Seas, with an emphasis on NATO operations but including working with partners like Sweden, Finland and Ukraine,” says Stavridis. “I would anticipate a 20-30 percent increase in forward deployments of NATO ships, both surface combatants and amphibious ships [in the Black and Baltic seas].” This is a substantive increase, building upon the tailored forward presence agreed upon at the 2016 Warsaw Summit, This year has already seen several exercises in the Black Sea to improve interoperability and readiness between partner nations, namely Sea Shield in February and Poseidon, which concluded this past week. Continues- www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/nato-heightens-maritime-readiness-ukraine-black-sea-allies.html
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Post by DavidH on Mar 18, 2017 18:35:31 GMT
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Post by DavidH on Mar 18, 2017 18:56:11 GMT
Geolocated: Russian Military Convoys Near Ukrainian BorderThis week, the commander of Russia’s Southern Military District announced snap checks for a number of the military units in the south of Russia. Some of these military units were in the Krasnodar Krai, Rostov Oblast, Astrakhan Oblast, and at Russian bases in Armenia and Abkhazia, among other locations. According to Russian news service TASS, about 6,000 soldiers were involved in the combat readiness check. Earlier in March, another readiness check was instituted for military units in occupied Crimea and the North Caucasus, which are also in the Southern Military District. We can observe much of the equipment involved in these snap checks through videos shared by ordinary Russians who noticed military convoys driving past them. A number of these videos were shot in the Rostov Oblast, bordering Ukraine. These military convoys were a common sight in the summer of 2014 throughout the Rostov Oblast, where they were transported to large bases that served as the staging ground for Russia’s intervention in the war in the Donbas. medium.com/dfrlab/geolocated-russian-military-convoys-near-ukrainian-border-afee48a52527#.yhmg3k7ev
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Post by DavidH on Mar 18, 2017 19:44:35 GMT
Russia-backed Crimea chief says Putin should be president for lifeThe Russian-backed prime minister of Crimea said on Saturday that Vladimir Putin should be made president of Russia for life and that the Soviet Union would never have collapsed had Putin been in charge. Sergei Aksyonov, marking the third anniversary of the day he signed off on Russia's annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula, said Russia needed continuous strong leadership to contend with multiple external threats. "If our president Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) was in charge of things when the Soviet Union existed, the Soviet Union would not have fallen apart," said Aksyonov, who said a few days ago that Russia needed a monarchic style of government. "Vladimir Vladimirovich must be president for life," Aksyonov told the Rossiya 24 channel. www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-russia-crimea-idUSKBN16P0SI
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Post by DavidH on Mar 19, 2017 13:20:01 GMT
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Post by DavidH on Mar 19, 2017 13:25:15 GMT
Belarus protests: Up to 300 protesters today in Slonim, Grodno region via @svaboda
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Post by DavidH on Mar 19, 2017 21:45:15 GMT
Russia to respond if Norway joins European missile shield - envoyOslo should understand that its possible move to join the NATO European missile shield will not be left unanswered by its neighbor Russia, Russian Ambassador to Norway Teimuraz Ramishvili said in an interview with Norway’s state-run NRK TV channel. "In this case we will have to make military-level technical decisions needed to neutralize the effect of the possible creation of a missile shield element. Naturally, it will trigger a vigorous reaction in Norway, which will claim that Russia poses a military threat to the country," he said in an NRK interview aired late Saturday. "Norway has to understand that after becoming an outpost of NATO, it will have to face head-on Russia and the Russian military might," Ramishvili said, adding that the move "will become a new factor that will be included in our strategic planning as an additional problem in the Arctic Region." "Therefore, there will be no peaceful Arctic anymore," he added. More: tass.com/politics/936322
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Post by DavidH on Mar 20, 2017 10:48:00 GMT
Large-scale drills of Airborne, Aerospace Forces and Black Sea Fleet begin in CrimeaDrills involving three large units of Russia’s Airborne Forces, Aerospace Forces and the Black Sea Fleet began in Crimea’s Opuk firing range on Monday, Airborne Force Commander Colonel-General Andrei Serdyukov said. "For the first time in the Russian army’s history the Airborne Forces’ three large units were simultaneously alerted as part of the drills and partly redeployed to Crimea with weapons and equipment," said Serdyukov, who is in charge of the manoeuvres. More than 2,500 paratroopers and some 600 pieces of equipment are involved in the drills. Servicemen from Novorossiysk, Kamyshinsk and Ulan Ude units, as well as the fourth army of the Aerospace Forces and Air Defense Forces of the Southern military district take part in the exercises. During the drills, the troops will train to conduct operations "as part of a group of rapid reaction forces" against terrorists and regular forces of a simulated enemy, Serdyukov said. The exercises are held in the new format in Crimea due to the "increased terrorist threat and also a broad range of use of the Airborne Forces as rapid reaction forces to solve crises in various regions of the world," he said. The servicemen will be tasked to take under control crucial facilities, practice amphibious landing and airdrops, and also firing during the offensive and defensive operations. More: tass.com/defense/936406
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Post by DavidH on Mar 20, 2017 11:10:51 GMT
Lukashenka demands to allow NATO observers to exercises in Russia and BelarusPresident of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said that the joint Russian-Belarusian exercise "West-2017", which will be held in the fall on Belarusian territory, should be accessible for observation of international organizations, including NATO. "The forthcoming event is absolutely transparent, and I demand from all of you that this event in the territory of our country be transparent and all events are accessible not only to our friends in the CSTO, the UN, the CIS, but also to the representatives of the North Atlantic bloc - NATO," - Said Lukashenko, taking with the report the leadership of the power bloc. "We do not hide anything and should not hide it." If the NATO members want to attend our teaching, you are welcome, especially since I already receive such information and such signals, "the president said. According to the Belarusian leader, "we do not close ourselves from anyone." He stressed that everyone will be invited to the maneuvers, who will be able to be convinced of their exclusively defensive character. "Neither we nor the Russian Federation in this direction are going not to attack someone, we are not going to provoke anyone here, just in case we are preparing to ensure our security in any situation," Lukashenko said. ria.ru/world/20170320/1490388394.html
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Post by DavidH on Mar 20, 2017 11:31:05 GMT
Lukashenka: Belarus is not going to curtail military cooperation with RussiaBelarus is not going to curtail its military cooperation with Russia over certain disagreements in other fields, Belarusian president Alyaksandr Lukashenka said on Monday. “Oil, gas, food and other issues in our relations are solvable. These are the issues of Belarus and Russia. However, it is inadmissible to be careless about the security and defense of our common borders,” the Belarusian leader stressed. In his words, the international situation is such that the armed forces do their best to improve skills and raise the level of training of the regional Belarus-Russia taskforce for the protection of the western borders of the Union State. In his opinion, the forthcoming joint strategic army exercise West 2017 is the best way to test the readiness of soldiers of the two countries for interaction. “In case of a conflict or, God forbid, a war the Belarusian Armed Forces will use a certain battle scenario and will be immediately enforced by the corresponding army units from the Russian Federation. We have always believed that you need to keep powder dry in peacetime,” Alyaksandr Lukashenka added. belsat.eu/en/news/lukashenka-belarus-is-not-going-to-curtail-military-cooperation-with-russia/
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Post by DavidH on Mar 20, 2017 12:24:38 GMT
Montenegro to join EU through urgent procedure?Montenegrin could be accepted into the EU through an urgent procedure. This could imply the reduction of the current projection for accession in five years to three or even two years, Dnevne Novine newspaper learns from several sources within the EU administration. The idea, first initiated by the Slovakian prime minister Robert Fico, has been brought up again after the last Thursday’s European Parliament’s (EP) session. That’s when MEP’s said that Montenegro was displaying readiness to become an EU member through daily reforms. In addition to EU members, Montenegro has the strong support of the United States. The US Senate is expected very soon to vote on the Montenegro-NATO accession protocol. At least 98 out of the 100 senators support the protocol adoption. cdm.me/english/montenegro-join-eu-urgent-procedure/
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Post by DavidH on Mar 20, 2017 12:51:16 GMT
Large-scale camp gatherings of [Russian] missile forces and artillery will be held in the South
Today in the Southern Military District (YUVO) camp camps for missile forces and artillery began.
Training events will be held at 19 training grounds in the Southern and North Caucasus Federal Districts, as well as in South Ossetia, Armenia and Abkhazia.
Marches to the venues of the exercises are carried out in a combined way, both by their own course in the composition of the columns, and by the use of railway transport. In this case, the units have to overcome the distance of up to 1000 km.
In total, more than 13,000 servicemen will take part in the camp camps. It will involve about 3 thousand weapons and military equipment, including the Tornado, Grad and Uragan multi-launch rocket launchers, Khosta, Msta-S and Akatsiya self-propelled gun mounts , Self-propelled antitank missile systems "Chrysanthemum."
For the first time, self-propelled artillery battalions of large capacity stationed in Ingushetia, as well as artillery units of the 150th motorized rifle division deployed in the Rostov region and formed in December of last year, will take part in the artillery camps of the South-East Division. The arms of the large-capacity divisions contain 240-mm self-propelled mortars "Tulip" and a 203-mm self-propelled artillery cannon "Malka".
A feature of the forthcoming exercises will be the maximum involvement of unmanned aerial vehicles and artillery reconnaissance vehicles, such as the mobile radar complexes Zoopark, Aistenok and others, in the performance of fire missions.
In the course of combat shooting, each artillery unit will expend more than 1,000 munitions of various types and calibres. This will allow us to qualitatively work out the issues of fire control and improve the accuracy of target destruction.
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Post by DavidH on Mar 20, 2017 13:07:02 GMT
Volunteers reported heavy fighting near Mariupol including tanks and GradThe fighting in Mariupol continues. This is reported in Facebook, the Voluntary Fund "Come back alive." "At the moment, the enemy continues to intensively shell our forward positions from large-caliber mortars and barrel artillery. There is confirmation that around 12:00 the terrorists used the Grad rocket fire systems. The shelling is so powerful that the echoes of ruptures are heard in Mariupol itself, where the first ambulances are already arriving, "the message says. Volunteers specify that the armed forces have wounded, but they are waiting for confirmation of the information. inforesist.org/volonteryi-soobshhayut-o-tyazhelyih-boyah-u-mariupolya-boeviki-prut-na-tankah-i-strelyayut-iz-grada/
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Post by DavidH on Mar 20, 2017 15:35:19 GMT
Euromaidan PR @euromaidanpr 1 minute ago
Video of the intense shelling today near Mariupol of the town Vodyane.
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