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nicklloydnow · 6 months ago

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On today’s episode of ‘The March Towards World War 3’:

“The Biden administration has quietly given Ukraine permission to strike inside Russia — solely near the area of Kharkiv — using U.S.-provided weapons, three U.S. officials and two other people familiar with the move said Thursday, a major reversal that will help Ukraine to better defend its second-largest city.

“The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use U.S. weapons for counter-fire purposes in Kharkiv so Ukraine can hit back at Russian forces hitting them or preparing to hit them,” one of the U.S. officials said, adding that the policy of not allowing long-range strikes inside Russia “has not changed.”

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In effect, Ukraine can now use American-provided weapons, such as rockets and rocket launchers, to shoot down launched Russian missiles heading toward Kharkiv, at troops massing just over the Russian border near the city, or Russian bombers launching bombs toward Ukrainian territory. But the official said Ukraine cannot use those weapons to hit civilian infrastructure or launch long-range missiles, such as the Army Tactical Missile System, to hit military targets deep inside Russia.

It’s a stunning shift the administration initially said would escalate the war by more directly involving the U.S. in the fight. But worsening conditions for Ukraine on the battlefield –– namely Russia’s advances and improved position in Kharkiv –– led the president to change his mind.

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The Biden administration hinted that a decision had either been secretly made or forthcoming in recent days. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who supports a restriction lift, became the first U.S. official to publicly hint that Biden may shift course and allow such strikes, telling reporters that U.S. policy toward Ukraine would evolve as needed. White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby later did not rule out a potential change.

Those messages came after top U.S. allies, such as the United Kingdom and France, said Ukraine should have the right to attack inside Russia using Western weapons. Lawmakers from both parties also supported the move publicly and privately, while top U.S. military officials briefed Congress behind closed doors that relaxing the restriction had “military value,” POLITICO first reported.

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Some officials are concerned that Ukraine, when it attacks inside Russia using its own drones, has hit military targets unrelated to Russia’s invasion. The U.S. has strongly delivered the message that Kyiv must use American weapons only to directly hit Russian military sites used for its invasion of Ukraine, but not civilian infrastructure.

Ukrainian officials, from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on down, have pushed for the Biden administration to change its policy ever since Russia launched a large assault on Kharkiv. For weeks they’ve said an inability to attack Russian troop positions over the border complicated Ukraine’s defense of Kharkiv and the country writ large.

In a discussion with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov made a “hard push” to use U.S. weapons in Russia, according to a person with knowledge of the call.”

“Dmitry Suslov, who hosts the program Bolshaya Igra (Big Game) on Russia's First Channel, weighed in on the debate surrounding whether Kyiv should be allowed to use American-supplied weapons to hit targets within Russia. Newsweek has emailed the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment.

The U.S. has stipulated Ukraine not use long-range missile systems such as ATACAMS (Army Tactical Missile System) on Russian territory for fear of escalation. However, Kyiv has said that this leaves it vulnerable, especially in light of a Russian offensive launched on May 10 in the Kharkiv region.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is among world figures who have said that Ukraine should be able to use the weapons, with others backing the move, including lawmakers in Lithuanian, Germany and the U.S. itself.

Meanwhile, Cezary Tomczyk, Poland's deputy defense secretary, told Polish radio that Warsaw has given Ukraine the green light to use its weapons to strike targets inside Russia and "does not apply any restrictions."

Suslov, a member of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy (SVOP), considered Russia's leading foreign-policy think tank, wrote an op-ed for Russian publication Profile. It said that, to show Russia was serious about its readiness to escalate, "it is worth thinking about conducting a demonstration (that is, not combat) nuclear explosion."

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In Suslov's view, such a move would "bring the conflict to a fundamentally different level," erasing one of the main "red lines" that have existed since the start of the war, and meaning "the direct entry of the United States and NATO into the war against Russia."

As such, Moscow should conduct exercises not only on the use of tactical nuclear weapons, but also on the use of strategic nuclear forces, said Suslov. He is also a deputy director at Moscow's Higher School of Economics (HSE).

"The political and psychological effect of a mushroom cloud shown live on all global TV channels would I hope focus the minds of Western politicians back to what was the only thing that prevented wars between the great powers after 1945 which they have lost—the fear of nuclear war," said Suslov.

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Another prominent figure in the SVOP, Sergei Karaganov, wrote an article for state agency RIA Novosti titled, "There is no choice: Russia will have to launch a nuclear strike on Europe." However, it prompted a backlash from other SVOP members, who published a statement condemning rhetoric pushed in Russia about nuclear weapons as "the height of irresponsibility."”

“France’s President, Emmanuel Macron, and Germany’s Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, became the latest and most powerful leaders to give at least a conditional green light to Ukraine using military aid for cross-border strikes on the French leader’s visit to Germany this week.

Mr Macron said late on Tuesday that Ukraine should be allowed to “neutralise military sites from which the missiles are fired” – following Ukrainian complaints that Russia is launching attacks from within its borders using assets that Ukraine cannot strike.

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Mr Scholz’s spokesperson said on Wednesday that “defensive action is not limited to one’s own territory, but also includes the territory of the aggressor”, adding that Germany’s terms for use of its weapons were “confidential”.

Ukraine’s allies have also stepped up military aid commitments in the face of Russian advances across the front line. Sweden pledged more than £1bn in new weapons on Wednesday, following major new commitments from Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium this week.

The shift by two of Europe’s major powers and leading arms suppliers to Kyiv follows a wider trend across the continent. Foreign Secretary Lord David Cameron said earlier this month that Ukraine “has the right” to use British weapons against targets in Russia. Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Czechia have all made the same commitment.

Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of influential Russian think-tank Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, advocated on Wednesday a “demonstration nuclear explosion” to strengthen deterrence.

It followed President Vladmir Putin’s warning to European governments to “be aware of what they are playing with”, given their smaller land areas and dense populations. “This is a factor that they should keep in mind before talking about striking deep into Russian territory,” he said.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last week that Moscow will retaliate with strikes on British targets in and outside Ukraine if British weapons are used to strike Russian territory.

(…)

Dr Emma Salisbury, associate fellow at the Council on Geostrategy, noted that the Kremlin has issued threats throughout the war to deter support for Ukraine.

“Fears of escalation to a Russia-Nato conflict are understandable, but we should remember that such fears have been expressed during every discussion about an increase of support to Ukraine,” she said. “Ultimately, if Putin wants to attack Nato, he will find an excuse to do so no matter what we do.”

Retired US army commander and military analyst Ben Hodges suggested that Russia would assess a nuclear strike as damaging to its own interests.

“You always have to be concerned that Russia might use a nuclear weapon because they have thousands of them,” he said. “But the likelihood is very low because there are no positive outcomes for Russia once they use a nuclear weapon. The benefit is the threat.

“I think the Chinese are signalling to them that they would not accept that. And I think the Russians also believed President Biden when [he] said that Russia would suffer ‘catastrophic consequences’ if they used a nuclear weapon.”

Russia’s response is likely to focus on the new weapons shipments arriving in Ukraine, suggests Dr Marina Miron of the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London.

“I’m sure we will hear more about tactical nuclear weapons because I don’t see any good options in terms of responding by force, at least not on Nato territory,” she said. “In terms of a covered response, we are seeing it right now in the increased activity of Russian intelligence services in Europe.

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The impact of Ukraine being able to use Western weapons such as French Scalp missiles or British Storm Shadows against targets in Russia would be an “annoyance” to the Russian military, but is unlikely to turn the tide of a war in Ukraine’s favour, Dr Miron added.

Mr Hodges said the decision was important to “build momentum” and that he hoped the Biden Adminstration would soon follow suit and lift restrictions from the use of US weapons.”

“Russia has already begun to more actively prepare covert bombings, arson attacks and damage to infrastructure on European soil, directly and via proxies, with little apparent concern about causing civilian fatalities, intelligence officials believe.

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“We assess the risk of state-controlled acts of sabotage to be significantly increased,” said Thomas Haldenwang, head of German domestic intelligence. Russia now seems comfortable carrying out operations on European soil “[with] a high potential for damage,” he told a security conference last month hosted by his agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

Haldenwang spoke just days after two German-Russian nationals were arrested in Bayreuth, Bavaria, for allegedly plotting to attack military and logistics sites in Germany on behalf of Russia.

Two men were charged in the UK in late April with having started a fire at a warehouse containing aid shipments for Ukraine. English prosecutors accuse them of working for the Russian government.

In Sweden, security services are meanwhile investigating a series of recent railway derailments, which they suspect may be acts of state-backed sabotage.

Russia has attempted to destroy the signalling systems on Czech railways, the country’s transport minister told the FT last month.

In Estonia, an attack on the interior minister’s car in February and those of journalists were perpetrated by Russian intelligence operatives, the country’s Internal Security Service has said. France’s ministry of defence also warned this year of possible sabotage attacks by Russia on military sites.

“The obvious conclusion is that there has been a real stepping up of Russian activity,” said Keir Giles, senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, the think-tank.

“One cannot tell if that’s a reflection of the fact that the Russians are throwing more resources at it; whether they are being more sloppy and getting caught; or whether western counter-intelligence has simply become better at detecting and stopping it,” he added. “Whatever it is though — there is a lot going on.”

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In the weeks following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, more than 600 Russian intelligence officers operating in Europe with diplomatic cover were ejected, dealing serious damage to the Kremlin’s spy network across the continent.

In a recent report, analysts at the UK’s Royal United Services Institute highlighted the efforts to which Russia had gone to reconstitute its presence in Europe, often using proxies. Those include members of the Russian diaspora as well as organised crime groups with which the Kremlin has long-standing ties.

A key strategic shift has also occurred, with so-called “Committees of Special Influence” coordinating intelligence operations country-by-country for the Kremlin, drawing together what were previously piecemeal efforts by the country’s fractious security services and other Kremlin players.

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Questions have been raised, for instance, over a so-far unexplained explosion at a BAE Systems munitions factory in Wales that supplies shells used by Ukraine. In October 2014 a Czech arms depot where weapons for Kyiv were being stored was destroyed; Russian military intelligence agents were later revealed to have planted explosives at the site.

A huge fire broke out on Friday at a factory in Berlin owned by the arms company Diehl, which also supplies Ukraine. More than 160 specialist firefighters were called to tackle the blaze, with residents in a huge swath of the west of the capital told to keep windows closed due to possible toxic fumes.

“As ever with Russia, it’s wise not to look for a single explanation of why they are doing anything. There’s always a combination of things going on,” said Giles.

“These pinprick attacks we’ve seen so far are of course to create disruption, but they can also be used for disinformation. And then there is what Russia learns from these attacks if they want to immobilise Europe for real . . . They’re practice runs.”

#russia #ukraine #war #invasion #nuclear #world war 3 #wwiii #Biden #putin #macron #scholz #nato #ben hodges #suslov #zelensky #terrorism #tactical #strategic

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cantsayidont · 8 months ago

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More hateration holleration. No poster art; I didn't like any of these movies and don't feel like looking at their posters again.

ABOUT HIM & HER (2023): Experimental romantic drama, set in 1989 and "based on a true memory," about an unnamed man (Callan McAuliffe) and an unnamed woman (Cristina Spruell) who are accidentally connected by a phone company mishap. Over a series of subsequent long-distance conversations, they become emotionally entangled and eventually agree to meet, but they're both so afraid that finally seeing each other face-to-face will shatter their delicate intimacy that they spend the entire second half of the film trying to avoid looking at one another, even though they both desperately want to. The characters' interactions are carefully staged throughout (at first, they're just voices, and we don't get a look at either of their faces until they're both in the hotel room), but this initially touching conceit eventually becomes SO contrived that the story's genuine poignancy is undercut by a growing resentment at being jerked around in such a heavy-handed way. This is perhaps the ultimate romantic idiot plot: Despite their insecurity, the characters are both skinny, conventionally attractive, straight white cisgender adults of similar age and class; the only thing keeping them apart is their reluctance to (literally) just open their eyes, and there's no reason to assume that even a failure of nerve on that front would be irreconcilable save for the filmmakers' stubborn commitment to the melancholy bit. (The end credits claim that the lead actors never saw each other or even learned each other's name until the film's premiere.)

I.S.S. (2023): Upsettingly grim apocalyptic drama — not really a thriller, though billed as one — about six astronauts aboard the International Space Station, three Americans (Ariana DeBose, Chris Messina, and John Gallagher Jr.) and three Russians (Masha Mashkova, Costa Ronin, and Pilou Asbæk), whose respective governments order them to turn on each other as nuclear war breaks out on Earth. Well-acted and generally well-made, but there's little real suspense because an unbearably bleak outcome is always a certainty, making the fates of the individual characters a more or less moot point; the only leavening factor the script can offer is a contrived subplot involving an experimental treatment for radiation poisoning, which is clearly too little, too late in the face of the global nuclear holocaust the characters see unfolding on the surface below. A stressful downer that makes Lars von Trier's nightmarish 2011 end-of-the-world movie MELANCHOLIA seem like a screwball comedy by comparison.

PARALLEL (2024): Unconvincing sci-fi drama, cowritten by stars Aldis and Edwin Hodge (and based on a 2019 Chinese film) about unhappy spouses Vanessa (Danielle Deadwyler) and Alex (Aldis Hodge), who are staying in a remote lake house with Alex's brother Martel (Edwin Hodge) as they struggle to come to grips with the recent death of their young son. The woods surrounding the house are also a nexus of parallel timelines, where alternate versions of the characters seek to supplant one another in what they hope will be better versions of their previous lives. It's nice to see this kind of sci-fi allegory with an all-Black cast, but it doesn't really work dramatically, marred by an over-reliance on exposition and some rather arbitrary rules (which the characters accept far more readily than it seems like they should under the circumstances) that make the plot's rapidly escalating violence hard to swallow. Aldis Hodge comes across well as always, but Deadwyler's part doesn't allow for much emotional nuance, and Edwin Hodge is stuck in an awkward third-wheel role.

PASSAGES (2023): Glum, dishearteningly biphobic French drama about a married man called Tomas (Franz Rogowski) who spurns his husband Martin (Ben Whishaw) for a younger woman called Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos) and then attempts to retreat to Martin after Agathe becomes pregnant, eventually managing to alienate them both. Why either was ever interested in him in the first place is never very clear, as Tomas is unattractive, solipsistic, and thoroughly unsympathetic (though Martin is no prize himself, leaving Agathe as the most tolerable character basically by default). All of the characters are thinly drawn, and some interesting directorial choices can't make up for the film's conspicuous lack of warmth or its aggravating determination to equate Tomas's bisexuality (a word the script studiously avoids) with his consuming selfishness and inability to commit emotionally.

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