News round-up, Wenesday, November 23, 2022.
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BORIS BLAST
Boris Johnson claims Germany wanted Ukraine to FOLD quickly after Russia invasion – but says it would’ve been a disaster
Published: 9:21, 23 Nov 2022
The Sun
BORIS Johnson last night accused Germany of initially wanting Ukraine to be quickly crushed by Russia, rather than fight a drawn-out war.
The ex-PM also claimed France was “in denial right up until the last moment” about Mad Vlad Putin launching a full-scale invasion.
Boris Johnson has claimed Germany initially wanted Ukraine to fold quickly after Russia invadedCredit: EPA
In a candid interview with CNN in Portugal, the BoJo said: “The German view was at one stage that if it were going to happen, which would be a disaster, then it would be better for the whole thing to be over quickly and for Ukraine to fold.”
Boris explained that Germany had “all sorts of sound economic reasons” for wanting to avoid a prolonged conflict.
But he added: “I couldn’t support that, I thought that was a disastrous way of looking at it. I can understand why they thought and felt as they did.”
Turning his attention to Italy, Boris said that former PM Marco Draghi at one stage thought he couldn’t offer UK-level support to Ukraine because of his country’s reliance on Russian hydrocarbons.
Johnson was PM when Russian tanks rolled across the border on February 24, triggering a major ramp up of the 8 year long conflict.
Rishi Sunak warns of winter of inflation, chaotic strikes & stretched NHS
The ex-PM's interview with CNN comes days after Rishi Sunak made his first visit to Kyiv, where he met hero President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Mr Sunak announced the UK was to provide Ukraine with £50 million worth of weapons, including anti-aircraft guns to shoot down Russian drones.
The Ukrainian leader in turn praised Britain for its ongoing backing in the war with Russia.
“Since the first days of the war, Ukraine and the UK have been the strongest of allies," he said.
"With friends like you by our side, we are confident in our victory. Both of our nations know what it means to stand up for freedom."
In Kyiv, the PM laid flowers at a memorial for the war dead and lit a candle at a memorial for victims of the Holodomor famine, before meeting emergency personnel at a fire station.
He said it was "deeply humbling" to be in Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine continues to devastate the lives of millions of innocent civillians.
Just last night a newborn baby was reportedly killed after a Russian missile strike hit a maternity ward in the southern Zaporizhzhia region overnight.
EU parliament declares Russia a 'state sponsor of terrorism'
The European Parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly backed a resolution calling Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, with 494 MEPs backing the resolution.
Le Monde with AFP
Published on November 23, 2022 at 13h24
The European Parliament on Wednesday, November 23, recognized Russia as a "state sponsor of terrorism," accusing its forces of carrying out atrocities during its war on Ukraine.
The move by the European legislators is a symbolic political step with no legal consequences, but MEPs urged the governments of the 27-nation EU to follow their lead. "The deliberate attacks and atrocities carried out by the Russian Federation against the civilian population of Ukraine, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and other serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law amount to acts of terror," a resolution approved by EU lawmakers said.
The parliament said it "recognizes Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism and as a state which uses means of terrorism."
Kyiv has been calling on the international community to declare Russia a "terrorist state" over its invasion of the country, and the Strasbourg parliament's decision will likely anger Moscow. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the vote. "Russia must be isolated at all levels and held accountable in order to end its long-standing policy of terrorism in Ukraine and across the globe," he said in a social media post.
The European Union – unlike the United States – does not have a legal framework to designate countries as a "state sponsor of terrorism." Washington has so far steered clear of putting Russia on its list, a move that triggers more sanctions and would remove the state immunity of Moscow's officials.
The resolution, backed by 494 MEPs and opposed by 58, calls on Brussels to put in place the "legal framework" to take the move and consider adding Russia. "We called a spade a spade. Russia is not only a state sponsoring terrorism, but the state, which is using means of terrorism," said Lithuanian MEP Andrius Kubilius, who spearheaded the push for the resolution. "The recognition of this fact by the European Parliament sends a clear political signal. Europe, Europeans do not want to remain passive, when their big neighbor violates all humanitarian and international standards."
Lawmakers in several eastern EU countries have already voted to condemn Russian "terrorism." The EU has imposed eight rounds of unprecedented sanctions targeting Russia's key oil exports and top officials since President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to attack in February.
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European diplomats say work is underway on preparing a new package of sanctions after Moscow unleashed a ferocious missile and drone blitz against Ukraine's energy infrastructure following losses on the battlefield.
The European Parliament resolution also urged the EU to include the Wagner mercenary group and troops loyal to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov on the bloc's sanctions list of "terrorist" organizations.
Le Monde with AFP
Missiles for Poland Raise Questions on NATO Stance in Ukraine War
NATO is determined to help Ukraine battle Russia, but wants no direct part of the war. A new promise of air defense weapons for Poland may make that more complicated.
An American Patriot surface-to-air missile system at a military training center in Torun, Poland, in October.Credit...Tytus Zmijewski/EPA, via Shutterstock
NYT
Nov. 23, 2022, 12:01 a.m. ET
WARSAW — When a missile slammed into a Polish village just a few miles from Ukraine last week and killed two local residents, fears surged that Russia had attacked a NATO country and threatened a global conflagration — until it turned out that it was probably a wayward Ukrainian air defense missile that had fallen into Poland by accident.
Just how risky the situation remains, however, was put into focus this week when Poland announced that it had accepted a German offer of Patriot air defense systems and would deploy them “near the border” with Ukraine.
Poland, like the United States, has provided steadfast support to Ukraine since Russia invaded in February, supplying weapons and unwavering diplomatic backing, but it has no desire to get into a war with Moscow.
Still, even though the new missiles from Germany will not be fully operational for years, by which time the war in Ukraine may well be over, Poland’s plans to deploy them close to the conflict zone signals growing worries that its own security may be at risk, and that the war next door could spread, by accident or by design.
Putting American-made Patriot interceptor missiles, some of which should be working at least partially by next August, close to Ukraine raises a host of difficult questions rooted in NATO’s eagerness to help Ukraine while staying outside the conflict zone.
“What happens if our radar shows rockets are coming and they need to be intercepted inside Ukraine?” asked Jacek Bartosiak, the head of Strategy and Future, a Warsaw research group focused on security issues.
That scenario, he said, is unlikely to drag NATO into a direct clash with Russia, but would push it into an uncharted “gray zone.”
Russian warplanes, Mr. Bartosiak said, no longer venture into regions of western Ukraine next to Poland, so there is no real risk of their being hit accidentally by a missile fired from Polish territory. And the PAC-3 Patriot missiles offered by Germany have a range of around only 20 miles, which means they would not reach into areas of Ukraine where Russian air or ground forces now operate.
But, Mr. Bartosiak said, there is still the possibility of “Patriot missiles operating in Ukrainian air space.” That would undermine NATO’s hands-off approach to the war, and its strong commitment to support Ukraine with weapons while avoiding at all costs any involvement inside the country that could be used as a pretext by Moscow to escalate.
The State of the War
Dnipro River: A volunteer Ukrainian special forces team has been conducting secret raids under the cover of darkness traveling across the strategic waterway, which has become the dividing line of the southern front.
Evacuation Plans: The Ukrainian government is preparing to help evacuate residents from the southern cities of Kherson and Mykolaiv, where shattered infrastructure has raised fears of a humanitarian crisis when winter sets in.
A Race to Rebuild: Ukrainian attempts to stabilize some of the country’s battered electricity supply and make a dent in the seemingly endless task of demining swaths of the country offered a glimpse into the Herculean effort that lies ahead off the battlefield.
Visual Investigation: Videos circulating on social media have ignited a debate over whether Ukrainian forces committed war crimes or acted in self-defense as they tried to capture a group of Russian soldiers who were then killed. Here's what we know.
Russia, which has railed for years against American missiles deployed in Poland — the Pentagon says they are part of a program to defend against ballistic missiles fired by rogue states like Iran — has had no official comment on the Patriot systems being sent to Poland.
Russian military bloggers, who often reflect the views of Russia’s defense establishment, scoffed at the effectiveness of Patriot air defense missiles but accused NATO of using last week’s incident in eastern Poland as a pretext for deploying missiles close to Ukraine to help shoot down Russian munitions.
In a post on Telegram, Rybar, an unofficial but influential pro-war Russian blog, said that “a couple of additional air defense systems will not provide a ‘no-fly zone’ over Ukraine,” but warned against NATO’s “tacit potential participation in repelling missile attacks by the Russian armed forces on targets” in western Ukraine.
A NATO spokesperson, Oana Lungescu, said the alliance “welcomed” Germany’s offer to help Poland with new missiles but stressed that their mission was to defend alliance territory. “In response to Russia’s war against Ukraine, we are strengthening our defenses in the East,” she said.
Germany has already sent Patriot missiles to Slovakia, which also borders Ukraine, and the United States military in April installed its own Patriot batteries at the Polish airport of Rzeszow, a key transit hub near the Ukrainian border for Western weapons flowing into Ukraine.
None of these air-defense systems has been involved in clashes with Russia inside Ukraine.
Whether any of the additional Patriot missiles provided to Poland by Germany are fired into Ukraine could depend in part on who controls them: Polish or German military personnel.
The defense ministry in Warsaw did not respond to questions about who would be in charge. Normal procedures within the NATO alliance leave the nation providing air defense systems in control, not the host nation. The Patriots installed in April at Rzeszow airport, for example, are operated by American personnel.
Robert Czulda, a security expert at the University of Lodz in central Poland, said that Germans would most likely be in control of the new missiles, at least initially, because “our army is not trained in how to use Patriots.”
On Monday, Col. Michal Marciniak, who oversees air defense at the Polish defense ministry, told the national news agency, PAP, that the first battery of Patriot missiles offered by Germany had arrived in Poland and was being tested. Years of training will be needed, and the systems will not reach full combat readiness until 2024 or 2025, he said.
That postpones difficult decisions on whether the missiles can be fired into Ukraine and under what circumstances.
Colonel Marciniak said the main task of the Patriots from Germany would be to “protect population centers, critical infrastructure and army groups.” He did not address the question of whether this might mean firing them into Ukrainian skies. The American-operated Patriots in Rzeszow, he said, did not cover the Polish village of Przewodow that was hit last week by the errant missile.
The United States, to Ukraine’s chagrin, has been careful to avoid anything that would risk NATO getting sucked into the war directly. And Poland shares American wariness of any direct involvement in the conflict.
“We want Ukraine to win, but our priority is to keep Polish and other NATO territory safe,” said Mr. Czulda, the Lodz University expert. “We are happy to assist them and deliver arms, but there is no discussion of direct involvement. Nobody here wants that.”
That was clear, he said, from Poland’s swift response last week to claims by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine that Russia had attacked Polish territory and that a firm response from NATO was needed. Poland’s president said the explosion was most likely an “unfortunate accident,” not an “intentional attack.”
“I understand Ukraine’s point of view, but they have their own goals and interests,” Mr. Czulda said. “Zelensky wants to get NATO involved, and we want to stay away.”
In the early months after Russia invaded, Mr. Zelensky called in vain for NATO to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukrainian territory. Washington dismissed the idea as a non-starter because it would have risked Russian and Western warplanes shooting at each other. But his plea for action last week after the missile hit a grain-processing plant in the Polish village shows that he has not given up on trying to get NATO involved.
Mr. Czulda said there was “very, very minimal risk” of the new Patriot systems dragging NATO into a confrontation with Russia in Ukraine.
“These missiles will not engage Russian aircraft in Ukraine,” he said. “But if Russians fly into Poland, that is their problem.”
He questioned whether the German-supplied Patriot missiles would add much to Poland’s military capabilities, saying they were “mainly a symbolic and political move to show that Germany is committed to Polish security” and to calm often-tense relations between Warsaw and Berlin.
Poland’s nationalist governing party, Law and Justice, has clashed repeatedly with the German government, mostly over disputes dating back to World War II. It keeps reviving what Berlin views as long-settled arguments over wartime reparation payments and has even accused Germany, Europe’s biggest economy and the dominant voice within the European Union, of working to establish a “Fourth Reich.”
If nothing else, the Patriot missile offer should help put relations back on a more even keel and curb Law and Justice’s desire to stoke the often anti-German sentiments of its political base.
Poland’s deputy prime minister, Jacek Sasin, on Tuesday hailed Germany’s offer of missiles as “an important gesture” that would ease tensions with Berlin and lead to a “real strengthening of Poland’s defenses.” Polish-German relations, he said, “are correct, although there are also a lot of problems.”
Anatol Magdziarz contributed reporting from Warsaw, and Ivan Nechepurenko from Tbilisi, Georgia.