Important Takeaways:
- Russia and China on Friday vetoed a U.S. draft UN Security Council resolution which called for an “immediate and sustained ceasefire” in Gaza along with “the release of all remaining hostages” held by Hamas.
- This was the fourth time since the war began in October that the Security Council failed to agree on a resolution calling for a ceasefire.
- This time, the dispute was over the U.S. insistence on linking the ceasefire call to a hostage deal and condemnation of Hamas, rather than the unconditional ceasefire resolution demanded by Russia and China.
- S. and Israeli officials said the Biden administration had been working for weeks on mobilizing support for its draft resolution.
- In order to garner more votes, the U.S. strengthened the paragraph in the draft resolution that referred to the ceasefire.
- The U.S. draft resolution also included strong language expressing concern about a possible Israeli ground offensive in Rafah.
- The Security Council is expected to vote on an alternative resolution put forward by eight member states, calling for an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan to lead to a permanent ceasefire.
- The U.S. is expected to veto.
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Important Takeaways:
- Russia issues chilling four-word warning to NATO country over £2.14bn project
- Russia has reacted with blistering remarks to reports Romania is working at what is set to become the NATO alliance’s largest military base in Europe. One of the most chilling warnings coming from Russia in response to the base was voiced by a senator and vice president of the Committee for Foreign Affairs of the Council of the Russian Federation, Andrey Klimov – who branded the Western military alliance the “NATO suicide club”.
- The politician claimed this multi-billion project represents a “threat” to Bucharest and, the closest it is to Russian borders, the “more likely it is to be among the first targets for retaliatory strikes”.
- He added: “If the Romanians like it, it’s their business, of course, but the NATO suicide club drags ordinary civilians into such adventures that can end very badly for their families and children. I’m not trying to scare anyone; I’m just reasoning logically. There won’t be any benefit for Romania from this and there will be more threats.”
- In a four-word warning, he concluded: “This is a fact.”
- The £2.14billion project will see the expansion of the Romanian Air Force 57th Air Base Mihail Kogălniceanu, located close to the Black Sea port city of Constanța.
- The new massive base, with a perimeter of almost 20 miles, will bolster the eastern flank of the transatlantic alliance and will become the home of around 10,000 NATO personnel and their families.
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Important Takeaways:
- The tally, virtually unimaginable in any democratic nation, suggests that the Kremlin is now less focused on manufacturing a veneer of electoral legitimacy and more on creating a cult of personality around Putin as Russia’s undisputed national patriarch and leader for life.
- We should see elections under Putin as not being about popular sovereignty, but about popular subordination
- It is about the masses voting to accept Putin as their czar
- It’s not just that the Kremlin is no longer embarrassed to rig the election. I think it’s almost, ‘So, what you can do about it?’
- Western leaders face a strident, emboldened adversary in command of a nuclear arsenal.
- Appearing supremely confident, Putin shrugged off the “unfortunate” death of his main rival, Alexei Navalny, in prison last month, which has left Putin with no conceivable challenger.
- Nobody from the very beginning considered these elections to be elections
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Important Takeaways:
- Belarus has reportedly deployed tanks near its border with NATO, while tensions between Russia and the strategic alliance continue to simmer amid the war in Ukraine.
- The Belarusian military “mobilized reservists and kicked off major military maneuvers,” according to a report published by The Kyiv Post on Thursday. Troops and equipment including tanks from Belarus’ 19th Guards Mechanized Brigade were reportedly deployed near the country’s western border with NATO member country Lithuania.
- The Community of Railway Workers of Belarus—a group opposed to the policies of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who is a close ally to Russian President Vladimir Putin—said that a train loaded with military equipment and personnel arrived on Wednesday night in Oshmyany, an area located less than 15 miles from the border with Lithuania.
- The group said that the train arriving at Oshmyany station consisted of four passenger cars filled with Belarusian troops and 42 cars loaded with equipment, including nine T-72B tanks. Belarus’ Ministry of Defense later confirmed that the deployment included T-72B tanks and BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles, according to the Belarusian Hajun news project.
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Important Takeaways:
- With increasing audacity, Russia is making its presence felt in the Atlantic Ocean, as demonstrated by the amplified deployment of its nuclear submarines. The escalating numbers of Russian nuclear submarines maneuvering in the Atlantic are a clear signal for NATO to remain vigilant. It’s been speculated by various analysts that Russia has designated as many as eleven nuclear submarines to operate in this specific region.
- In the most explicit warning yet regarding the potential threat Russia poses, General Cavoli’s analysis sounds the alarm for the United States and its Western allies supporting Ukraine.
- A few months earlier, a wave of concern swept over Western nations when Russian President Vladimir Putin dispatched surface warships to the Atlantic Ocean. A significant number of these vessels were armed with hypersonic cruise missiles, capable of outpacing US air defense systems.
- Michael Peterson, a prominent figure at the Russian Maritime Research Institute [RMSI] and celebrated for his extensive knowledge of Russian naval prowess, has highlighted numerous indicators that suggest Russia’s increasing tendencies to place their nuclear submarines along the United States coastlines.
- Peterson, the insightful researcher, observes an uncanny resemblance between these tactics and those employed by the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War conflict.
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Important Takeaways:
- Russia is beating us in Ukraine. China’s Navy outnumbers the US. The Army is collapsing – and the Air Force is falling from the sky. So, as Biden inexplicably CUTS defense budgets, ANDREW NEIL blasts: Does he have a death wish?
- From the very start of his State of the Union address last week, President Biden positioned himself as a war president.
- He posed as the champion of freedom and democracy which are threatened across the globe by autocrats on the march
- All the more remarkable then that, within days, the Biden administration produced plans for defense spending with all the hallmarks of a peace president who no longer thinks the US military need be a priority.
- The autocrats must be both baffled and amused. The rest of us should be frightened and angry.
- Biden proposes that defense spending should rise to $895 billion in the next (2025) financial year — an increase of barely 1 percent.
- It’s not that there’s no extra money around. The Biden budget will add over a trillion to federal spending and take it to a record peacetime, non-pandemic share of GDP (25 percent).
- Be in no doubt that the autocrats in Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang are taking serious notice.
- The Chinese Naval fleet is already bigger than America’s and is on target to be over 400-strong before the decade is out — a formidable armada that will undoubtedly be used to intimidate Taiwan.
- Americans have rightly criticized the Europeans for putting welfare above military needs. But under Biden, America is doing the same — just another example of how he is ‘Europeanizing’ the USA.
- Yet the Russian economy is now on a total war footing, able to resupply its invaders in Ukraine at a greater scale than we are resupplying Kyiv and, as America struggles to find an extra 1 percent for its military, China has just announced an increase of over 7 percent for its armed forces.
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Important Takeaways:
- Tense moment Swedish fighter jets intercept Russian warplanes over the Baltic Sea – on the day Scandinavian nation’s flag was raised at NATO HQ
- Swedish fighter jets intercepted Russian warplanes over the Baltic Sea, marking a significant moment in their integration with NATO.
- The Swedish JAS-39 Gripen jets stormed the skies in their first real-world mission alongside German and Belgian aircraft on Monday morning after their flag was hoisted at NATO headquarters, in Brussels.
- Following Sweden’s official accession to the alliance on March 7, its multirole jets participated in their first visual identification mission as part of the NATO Air Policing mission over the Baltic Sea.
- In a show of operational readiness, the JAS-39 Gripens were scrambled twice on March 11 to identify and intercept Russian military aircraft.
- NATO’s Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) at Uedem had spotted an unidentified track over the Baltic Sea stretching from Kaliningrad to mainland Russia – sparking controllers to launch the Swedish jets from Sweden.
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Important Takeaways:
- Russia producing three times more artillery shells than US and Europe for Ukraine
- Russia appears on track to produce nearly three times more artillery munitions than the US and Europe, a key advantage ahead of what is expected to be another Russian offensive in Ukraine later this year.
- Russia is producing about 250,000 artillery munitions per month, or about 3 million a year, according to NATO intelligence estimates of Russian defense production shared with CNN, as well as sources familiar with Western efforts to arm Ukraine. Collectively, the US and Europe have the capacity to generate only about 1.2 million munitions annually to send to Kyiv, a senior European intelligence official told CNN.
- “What we are in now is a production war,” a senior NATO official told CNN. “The outcome in Ukraine depends on how each side is equipped to conduct this war.”
- Officials say Russia is currently firing around 10,000 shells a day, compared to just 2,000 a day from the Ukrainian side. The ratio is worse in some places along the 600-mile front, according to a European intelligence official
- Russia is running artillery factories “24/7” on rotating 12-hour shifts, the NATO official said. About 3.5 million Russians now work in the defense sector, up from somewhere between 2 and 2.5 million before the war. Russia is also importing ammunition: Iran sent at least 300,000 artillery shells last year — “probably more than that,” the official said — and North Korea provided at least 6,700 containers of ammunition carrying millions of shells.
- Russia has “put everything they have in the game,” the intelligence official said. “Their war machine works in full gear.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday warned France that Russia has “no more red lines” for the country.
- His warning was directed at French President Emmanuel Macron, who earlier in the day reaffirmed Paris’ firm support for Kyiv in its war against Russia’s invading forces while meeting with France’s other party leaders at the Elysee Palace.
- Le Monde reported that after the meeting, Fabien Roussel—national secretary of the French Communist Party—said Macron had expressed how “France’s position has changed” regarding the war, and that “there are no more red lines, there are no more limits.
- Medvedev addressed the report from the French newspaper in a threatening X post.
- “Macron has said, ‘there are no more red lines, there are no more limits’ in terms of supporting Ukraine (Le Monde). Then that means, Russia has no more red lines left for France,” Medvedev wrote.
- The Kremlin official then added, “In hostem omina licita,” a Latin phrase that roughly translates as “everything is legal if it is done to an enemy.”
- “Nothing should be excluded,” the French President said, following a gathering of Ukraine’s backers in Paris on February 26. “We will do anything we can to prevent Russia from winning this war.”
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Important Takeaways:
- The F-35A Joint Strike Fighter has been certified to carry thermonuclear weapons as tensions between Russia and NATO hit a breaking point.
- The F-35A Joint Strike Fighter has become the first stealth fighter of its class to be green-lit to carry nuclear weapons.
- A spokesperson for the F-35 Joint Program Office told Breaking Defense: “The F-35A is the first 5th generation nuclear-capable aircraft ever, and the first new platform (fighter or bomber) to achieve this status since the early 1990s.
- The move comes as tensions between NATO and Russia continue to escalate
- On Thursday, Sweden officially joined the NATO alliance, breaking from decades of neutrality
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