Daily Archives: June 15, 2022

JAKOBSELV, Norway Pvt. Magnus Vikan Trettenes is staring out across the ocean, perched on a rocky outcrop far above the Arctic Circle.

With the Barents Sea stretching out to the horizon, a traveller arriving here might feel theyve reached the end of the world, but this is the razors edge of NATO.

Trettenes, 20, is one of four soldiers guarding the desolate final stretch of the 120-mile-long Norwegian-Russian border.

We sat here in this tower the day Russia invaded Ukraine, he says, looking out across the river that separates East from West. The dream scenario would be that nothing happens, but in times like these, theres no room for slacking on the job.

Trettenes is a conscript in the Norwegian armed forces, a member of the vaunted Sr Varanger Battalion defending NATOs northern flank.

Aside from the waves crashing on the sandy beach below, its calm at the border today. But the tension here is rising. The invasion of Ukraine has left all of Russias neighbours wondering what trouble the Kremlin will decide to stir up next. The prospect of a European war feels like a reality here now.

On the day the war began, I didn't look at the videos, says Marit sttun, 23, leader of the battalions Quick Reaction Unit. It was too close. I was too aware of what I would face if they came over the border here.

Soldiers like sttun are the eyes and ears of NATO.

Her job here is both simple and infinitely complex. Should a military threat arise, sttun would need to mobilise her troops and meet it in under five minutes, battling the clock in a treacherous land of ice bogs and subzero temperatures, where skis are the primary form of transport and nature is out to get you.

It may seem odd that sttun is defending this barren tundra. But make no mistake: Control of the Arctic is of vital strategic importance for the Kremlin.

Much of Russias oil and gas production sits within the Arctic Circle, and about 20 percent of Russian exports are generated here. As global warming thaws the ice, sea trade routes are beginning to open up too. Controlling these may give Russia influence over global commerce in decades to come, and the invasion of Ukraine has shown just how far Vladimir Putin is willing to go to achieve his strategic goals. Not since the Cold War has Arctic security been such a high priority for NATO.

Norway isnt the only treaty member with an Arctic presence the US, Canada, Denmark and Iceland all have control over northern waters but it is the only one sharing a land border with Russia. That puts this Scandinavian nation in a difficult position. Here, unlike in the US or Britain, Russia is not a distant bogeyman but an ever-present danger. The notorious Russian security service the FSB the main successor to the Soviet Unions KGB staffs the border towers just over the Jakobselv river; a constant reminder of the nature of this violent and unpredictable neighbour.

As the conflict in Ukraine has dragged on, once positive relations between Russia and Norway have deteriorated. The geopolitical fault lines in the Arctic are deepening, and the role of conscripts like sttun and Trettenes is more important than ever.

As a founding member of NATO, Norway has long carried the heavy weight of Arctic security on its shoulders. But soon, it wont be alone: After decades of military non-alignment, Sweden and Finland could be poised to become part of the alliance.

The countries submitted joint membership applications in May. Finland Prime Minister Sanna Marin said the move was an act of peace", while Swedish leader Magdalena Andersson said, with a characteristic lack of bombast, that the country was "leaving one era and beginning another.

But the shift in policy cannot be overstated. If the bids are successful and NATO member Turkey has said it will veto them because of what it sees as their support for Kurdish groups it will mark the most significant geopolitical realignment in the region since the Iron Curtain came down 30 years ago.

Finland has an 830-mile border with Russia, and it was invaded by the Soviet Union in the 1940s. But despite a difficult history, polls have shown consistent opposition to NATO membership in the Finnish population. That changed when Vladimir Putin rolled tanks into Ukraine.

I think theres this sense that the eastern bear has shown its face, says Charly Salonius-Pasternak, lead researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. As the president [of Finland] said, the masks are off now.

You have a young generation of Finns who didn't have this personal connection to World War II, but now they've seen [the invasion of Ukraine] and they realize this is what the Russians could do and that Finns just need to prepare and prepare and prepare.

While Sweden shares no border with Russia, it has been at pains to avoid conflict with the Kremlin. The country has remained neutral for more than 200 years, and the change in attitude marks a momentous shift.

The fact that both Sweden and Finland are on track to join the alliance is perhaps the greatest irony of Putins assault on Ukraine. The man who has repeatedly warned against NATO expansion has inspired it.

But who could be surprised by the Nordic change of heart?

Both Sweden and Finland are Davids to the Kremlins Goliath, and as evidence of Russian atrocities in Ukraine have come to light, fear and loathing for Putins war machine has grown.

It was very predictable; the Russian army even has a culture of violence against its own people, says Pekka Toveri, former chief intelligence officer for the Finnish Army.

That has happened in every fucking war that [Russia] has done. Its always been war crimes, rapes, looting. In the Chechnyan wars, in Georgia.

Its amazing how stupid the Russians can be not understanding that this creates a huge reaction in the Western government against them.

Many defence experts have predicted that Finland and Sweden may officially join the organisation during this years NATO conference, taking place in Madrid at the end of July.

But this is by no means a done deal as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has opposed ratification of these potential member states. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Ankara will come around, but behind closed doors NATO officials have said that their applications could take up to a year.

During that time, Sweden and Finland will remain exposed.

Putin has made ominous warnings against both countries following their bids. As a show of support, a number of Western nations, including the US and the UK, have promised to step in should the Kremlin decide to start yet another war.

But with most of his troops tied up in Ukraine, another invasion may be a bridge too far, even for Putin.

Russia has proved to be amateurish when it comes to conventional warfare, says Kjell Inge Bjerga, director of the Norwegian Institute for Defense. It's not likely at all that we see some kind of conventional attack on the Nordic countries.

But this will make them more focused on developing their hybrid and cyber toolbox, and we are already in the midst of a hybrid war.

Bjerga says that such hybrid attacks could see Russia attempt more large-scale hacks of Nordic computer systems, airspace violations or increased radio jamming in the Arctic.

Of course, even if the Kremlin did decide to strike out with conventional military force against its neighbor, Toveri says the Finns would be ready:

We have this total defence concept, he says. We have general conscription all males are required to serve and civil society is prepared for a crisis too.

In Finland if you build a block of flats, youre legally required to have a [bomb] shelter in the basement. Bridges are built so that they are easy to rig with explosives, so Finnish engineers can blow them up.

Finland doesnt have a defence force; Finland is a defence force.

Sweden boasts an impressive airforce and financial muscle. Strategically, the Swedish island of Gotland is also a huge boon for Baltic defence. Should a conflict with Russia ever arise, the alliance could use it as a staging point for air and naval forces.

On the Russian border itself, the battle-ready Finns can field almost a million reservists, and figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute show that the country already spends more per capita on its military than any other in the EU. While that still doesn't amount to the 2 percent of GDP technically required of NATO members, both Sweden and Finland say they will build up to this in the coming years.

Bjerga, of the Norwegian Institute for Defence, says that if and when these Nordic nations join forces with Norway, they will form a bulwark against future aggression.

Norway takes care of the navy, Sweden has the air force, Finland has the army. From Moscow this is close to a catastrophe. Because you have a very strong NATO complement close to the border.

All three nations are set to increase military spending, and in Norway, that money will flow toward the Arctic. In March, its government announced hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending, for frigates, corvettes and subs to defend the northern sea passage. The border guard will see a marked increase too.

The defence establishment in Norway is definitely worried. says Bjerga, at his office in Oslos Akershus Fortress, a 13th-century castle, parts of which are still used by defence authorities. They started to worry in Georgia in 2008 and more so after the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Defence spending has increased by 30 percent since 2015. Parliament bought the argument about a much more dangerous Russia [even before the invasion of Ukraine].

Of course we have this government line in which they tell the public that there is no tension in the High North.

Norway has long walked a diplomatic tightrope with the Kremlin. While inviting NATO forces into its Arctic seas, Norway has secured deals with Russia on everything from fishing to environmental policy. For years it has tried, and arguably succeeded, to fly under the radar.

But Eivind Vad Petersson, state secretary of the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, told VICE World News that the days of working closely with Russia are largely over: Norway built a broad, practical cooperation with Russia through 30 years. Continuing this is impossible. We have reduced our cooperation to a minimum and are facing an uncertain future.

While the national conversation in Norway has shifted, the story isnt so simple in the border regions.

A keystone of the Norwegian policy on Russia has been its people-to-people strategy. The country has poured cash into schemes that promote better relations through trade, sports and cultural exchange.

Nowhere in Norway is this policy more important than in Kirkenes, a northern settlement that sits just 10 miles from the Russian border across from its twin city of Nickel. Out of around 3,500 Kirkenes residents, more than 400 are Russian citizens. Street signs in the town are written in Cyrillic, and the decks of local fishing trawlers ring out with voices from Murmansk, just three hours down the road.

People here played sports with Russians, or married them. Others drove over the border just to fill up their cars with cheap Russian petrol. Now, due to sanctions, that border is closed.

Many in the town have mixed feelings about it. When asked about the invasion of Ukraine, some here shrugged their shoulders and said they werent political or that they didnt like talking about it.

Dragging on a cigarette outside the only pub in town, Je Jorstad said he was unimpressed with restrictions: We always had a common border here, since the Viking times, and well have to deal with them after [the war] anyway.

Jorstad said since the crossing shut, Norwegians didnt have any input on their Russian neighbours who would now hear only lies about the war from Putins propaganda machine.

Thats the problem today, he added. Everything is treated like its black and white. But real life is in colour. And if you dont talk to people, history is going to repeat itself.

However, it seems some of the propaganda Jorstad complained about is seeping over the border into Norway itself.

In addition to its sizable Russian population, northern Norway is also home to a minority of Ukrainian citizens. One of them, Nataliia Kolesnik, 45, moved to the town of Neiden three years ago from Kyiv.

Having found a steady job as a receptionist, she counted herself lucky, but when the war began, she started to receive abusive messages from a Russian woman living in Norway.

I thought she was my close friend, Kolesnik said. But when the war began, she was writing to me drunk, saying, Your President [Zelenskyy] is a Nazi.

Her husband is Norwegian and he wrote to me too. Things like Ukraine, bye-bye and Russia will win. Many people here watch Russian TV. They think the war is Americas fault.

Kolesnik is originally from the Donetsk region of Ukraine, an area now largely under Russian control. Over the course of an hour, she told me that a close friend back home had recently had her leg blown off in a bombing raid, and that her childhood school had been levelled.

For the most part, Kolesnik told these horrific tales with a steady gaze. But her voice trembled when she spoke of her family.

I am calm because my daughter is here, she says. She came 10 days before the war started, just to visit, along with my brother's daughter. Now theyve been here for three months. They have an apartment, and some money. But they want to go home.

After speaking of the challenges shed faced since the war, Kolesnik said she was surprised that some people shed met in Norway were taken in by Kremin misinformation. She had watched several Russian news reports and was unimpressed.

They even showed a Molotov cocktail made from a plastic bottle. Its easy to see that its stupid. It's propaganda. Its wrong information. Just cinema, you know?

Strangely, perhaps, Kolesniks experience had not diminished her opinion of Russians in general. She even hoped to patch things up with her abusive neighbor. Like many things here, the situation was more complicated than it first appeared. As we wrapped up our conversation, we were interrupted by a group of her friends. All were Russian and all spoke out against the invasion of Ukraine.

In the Kirkenes church the next day, Matvey Schetnev was rigging up lights below the altar. The 21-year-old Russian was spending his Sunday setting the stage for a concert.

It's for a charity gig for Ukraine, he said. I look at the war like a Norwegian, not as a Russian.

Schetnev had moved to Norway a few years before and still has friends and family in Russia.

For me its difficult now to hold contact with my family over the border. We try not to speak about [the war] because you don't want to argue and fight over that. You understand that you can't be friends with them if they are thinking that way.

Schetnev said any support of the war was the result of Russian media and that the older generation were more likely to be taken in by it.

Many Russian people here have Russian TV; they have the exact same channels. I think that's frustrating. How can you live here for more than one year and still believe the Russian version?

The divisions have been stoked by the local Russian consul. On the day of Victory Day celebrations in Moscow last month, its leader held his own event in Kirkenes. As traditional pepper cakes were handed out, he spoke to a small crowd.

The consul said it was very sad that in the West you could now see a rehabilitation of Nazi criminals and Nazi history, recalled local resident Brd Ramberg, 49.

Some of these local Russians living in Norway were moved to tears about how much the Soviet Union sacrificed in WWII and said how sad it is that they had to go and fight fascism today. Its surreal to me.

When the war in Ukraine began, Ramberg started a campaign to get Cyrillic signs taken down in the town, but he didnt get much support from the community.

I just thought: What can I do as a family man in a tiny town in Norway? What can I do? We have Russian street signs that were put up as an effort to better relations with the border communities in the early 2000s. And I thought, this is a message I dont want my community to send.

When I watch the news from Ukraine, I substitute the village names [with Kirkenes]. Its very personal because I live on the border with this terror state. But I am clearly in the minority, and I dont know why.

The range of Russian opinions in Kirkenes speaks to the complex problem that border towns in Norway, Finland, and other Baltic states face.

Unlike in the UK or US, people in these places deal with their Russian neighbours on a personal level. The face of Russia is not that of Vladimir Putin but of the local fisherman, soccer coach or bartender.

Pikene p Broen is a Norwegian gallery that runs inter-border art projects and offers residency programmes to Russian artists to visit Norway. Since the border closed, the gallery is now running what it calls Quadrenic Rooms to connect digitally with Russian artists and collaborating partners in Murmansk.

Gallery curators Neal Calhoon, 33, from Northern Ireland, and Ingrid Valan, 37, a Kirkenes local, said maintaining cultural links was important for the future of the Arctic region.

The reality is that there are Russians on the other side who are against the war. If we cut all contact, then it's impossible for them to be heard on our side, said Calhoon.

The people-to-people work that we do through art and culture is even more important now, said Ingrid. I don't think it helps any situation to have this Iron Curtain again.

Lars Georg Fordal, director of the Barents Secretariat, which helps fund the gallery, echoed their sentiments. Standing at the empty Russian border crossing, he said that cooperation had helped keep jobs in the area and Kirkenes afloat.

The polar town is losing young people in droves, as they head south toward bigger cities and away from winters where the sun doesnt rise for two months of the year.

But the cross-border soccer matches and ski races his organisation promoted are no longer going ahead. Putting the sanctions to one side, the reality, he said, was that many young Norwegians just didnt want to be associated with the Russians any more.

A few miles from Kirkenes, on the Sr Varanger military base, the concerns of the nearby town fade. The focus here is on the military might of the Kremlin.

Here Sr Varanger Battalion Commander Michael Rozmara, who has spearheaded NATO missions in Georgia, is looking forward to the addition of new Nordic members: We had contributions from Sweden and Finland on that mission, and both have something to give us.

When asked about the change in tone toward Russia, and the caution with which Prime Minister Jonas Gare Stre has approached the Kremlin, Rozmara says he had faith in the Norwegian approach.

We need to put this in perspective: How does a small nation build a relationship with a much larger power? In many aspects, we have succeeded with our relationship with Russia.

Norway has never been to war with Russia, he continues. It could be a war in the future which we thought 6 months ago was highly likely would never happen, he says.

So in a sense. We are leaning a bit more forward than we did 3 months ago. My units motto is Always Ready and now I would say that we are even a little bit more ready.

When asked whether his troops were ready for any future conflict, Rozmara was confident. He has utmost faith in his troops. Norwegian border guards are specially chosen for their mental and physical toughness. Many have been champion skiers and typically around 50 percent of the Norwegian special forces start here in Rozmaras platoon.

Soldiers from Sr Varanger find strange and some would say masochistic ways to pass the time. In the winter, the temperature drops to a consistent minus 30 degrees Celsius, or minus 22 Fahrenheit. But nevertheless, some surf these Arctic waves.

They used to drive out every Saturday to the beach winter or summer, rain or snow and go for a swim, says sttun, the 23-year-old leader of the battalions Quick Reaction Unit.

After the dip they have to hike over plunging cliff lines, and through snow-packed tunnels to get back to their post. Looking down from the Jakobselv border tower once more, the Arctic waters dont look so appealing. Youd have to be pretty bored to brave the beach up here.

Asked if he ever gets tired of the long days and quiet nights, Pvt. Trettenes looks to the horizon and shrugs.

You don't get views like this anywhere else in the world. In my eyes, its the best place to be.

More:
Beyond the Wall: The NATO Soldiers Guarding the Arctic from Russia - VICE

Tariffs, price caps, export controls, and embargoes can effectively promote democracy globally

Commentary

Democracies are finally figuring out that they need to use their trump cardeconomicsto defend themselves.

The United States and Europe together have double the economic power of China and Russia combined, and could use it more effectively and proactively to put pressure on Moscow and Beijing through tariffs, sanctions, embargoes, export controls, and price caps. Economic pressure could end Russia and Chinas territorial aggression or even democratize these two recalcitrant dictatorships.

A proposal for an economic version of NATO, the Western security alliance, is being advanced by former NATO leaders. Current administrations in the United States, Canada, Italy, and Ukraine support related economic coordination.

If China imposed economic sanctions on Australia or Lithuania, for example, a new alliance focused on leveraging the market power of democracies could hit back as a group with their own embargoes, sanctions, tariffs, and price caps.

Joint economic action would protect smaller with bigger democracies. The economically weakest at the edges of the herd would thus be less vulnerable to getting picked off or influenced.

Former NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen is calling for the creation of an economic version of the Article 5 mutual defence pledge that defines the transatlantic military alliance in order to thwart commercial coercion by authoritarian states, according to a June 9 article in the Financial Times.

Rasmussen proposed that all democracies should immediately halt Russian oil and gas imports.

This would serve as the first step toward better economic coordination against the worlds worst dictators. However, it may require secondary sanctions against any countries that violate the agreements for short-term gain.

India, for example, has taken advantage of sanctions on Russia, which decreased Russian energy prices relative to the global market price, to negotiate for an approximate 35 percent discount on oil. This finking severely weakens the power of democratic sanctions against Moscow.

An alternate approach is for all democracies to impose a 35 percent tariff on Russian exports, which would keep oil flowing but punish Moscow and deprive it of funds for its military.

Whatever the strategy, a more coordinated approach is needed, according to Rasmussen. He is exactly right.

The United States, Canada, and Ukraine proposed a democratic buyers cartel in May that would impose a price cap or tariff on Russian oil and gas.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghiproposed similar measures and said they could be applied to oil on a global level. Draghi is the former president of the European Central Bank.

The idea is to create a cartel of buyers, or to persuade the big producers, and Opec in particular, to increase production, which is perhaps the preferred path, Draghi told the Times. On both paths, theres a lot of work to do.

A democratic buyers cartel also decreases energy inflation in countries that participate, either by forcing Russia to sell its energy cheaper or by reinvesting tariff revenues in energy infrastructure, renewable energy, or subsidized hydrocarbon extraction, for example.

It could also put pressure on other illiberal dictatorships, in China, Iran, and Venezuela, for example, to liberalize their economies and political systems. It would serve as a counterbalance against OPEC, which is an oil exporters cartel.

Europeans would act in concert to set a lower price than they are currently paying for Russian energy, according to The Washington Post.

The calculus is thatif Europe moves in unisonRussia would be forced to accept the lower price or suffer a collapse in oil revenue. Some experts have suggested that secondary sanctions could be considered for other nations, such as India, that try to undercut the price cap by paying higher prices.

The same buyers cartel could also negotiate Chinas export prices lower to deter its territorial aggression and human rights abuse.

The economic NATO proposal is inspired by Natos Article 5, which states that a military attack on one ally is considered an attack on all, Rasmussen and Ivo Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, wrote in a report, according to the Times.

The aim is to produce the same deterrence and solidarity in the economic realm among democracies that Nato produces in the security realm. Its time to tell the bullies that if they poke one of us in the eye, well all poke back.

Rasmussen and Daalder are proposing that an economic Article 5 commitment could be implemented through existing structures such as the G7, according to the Times. But Rasmussen and Daalder said other democracies would have to be involved and a standalone organization may have to be set up to manage the new guarantee.

Russia has weaponized its energy exports to Europe in an attemptwhich so far failedto deter NATO involvement in defense of Ukraine. If Russia denies oil and gas exports to Europe this winter, it could cause not only worse energy price inflation, but extensive electricity blackouts. Many European and British electricity-generating power plants rely on gas imports, much of which come from Russia.

Daalder told the Times that sanctions, tariffs, and secondary sanctions would help concentrate supply chains in democracies.

That would alleviate future supply chain risks to European electricity grids.

There are geostrategic interests, Daalder said, that may have to trump economic interests in a way that wasnt probably true in the last 30 years, but needs to be true in the next.

In addition to an economic NATO and democratic buyers cartel, the democracies should coordinate tougher controls on strategic commodity and technology exports to China and Russia.

The U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), and the Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom), which was active during the Cold War, can serve as models.

The Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies, which replaced CoCom in 1996, has been less effective.

If Washington broadened CFIUS to include all democracies, it would mean that Beijing could not go to Taiwan, for example, if the United States and Europe denied semiconductor technology to China.

A revival, strengthening, and broadening of the CoCom and CFIUS concepts could stop the export of sensitive technology and strategic materials, including energy and other important commodities, to China and Russia. This would help block them from building the massive economies and militaries required for their territorial expansion.

Germany, as usual, is dragging its feet on any economic measures against Moscow, and the Biden administration is essentially deferring while soft-selling the idea of more coordination.

The world has tried coordination-liteagainst dictators, which didnt work very well. The International Energy Agency (IEA), for example, was founded in 1974 to counter the power of OPEC. But it was ineffective at even mild coordination, for example, of strategic petroleum reserve releases.

The worlds democracies will need more leadership from Washington to coordinate the level of price caps, tariffs, embargoes, and sanctions.

These could and should be adopted at upcoming NATO and G7 summits in Spain and Germany, respectively. But Washington will have to do more than soft-sell the ideas. Countries like Germany and India, which resist economic measures against Moscow, may have to pay a short-term price to follow their long-term interests.

Washington must take the initiativebefore it is too late. That will require real leadership and harder-hitting strategies.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Follow

Anders Corr has a bachelor's/master's in political science from Yale University (2001) and a doctorate in government from Harvard University (2008). He is a principal at Corr Analytics Inc., publisher of the Journal of Political Risk, and has conducted extensive research in North America, Europe, and Asia. His latest books are The Concentration of Power: Institutionalization, Hierarchy, and Hegemony (2021) and Great Powers, Grand Strategies: the New Game in the South China Sea" (2018).

Here is the original post:
NATO Should Better Coordinate Its Economic Power Against Russia and China - The Epoch Times

A group of US military veterans currently training Ukrainian soldiers said Ukraine needs more NATO weapons to win its war with Russia.

Officers in the Mozart Group toldNewsweek that modern, long-range artillery would help Ukrainian forces fend off the Russian offensive.

The Mozart Group is a cadre of US military veterans helpingtrain Ukrainian soldiers.Established at the start of the Ukraine war by Andrew Milburn, a Marine veteran, the group has been described as the Western counterpoint to Putin's elite Wagner Group.

"It's a bit of a slugfest," Martin Wetterauer, a Marine veteran and the Mozart Group's chief operations officer, told Newsweek from the organization's outpost in Zaporizhzhia.

Wetterauer told the outlet that the Ukrainians were under heavy fire from Russian artillery and said that NATO's artillery systems and aircraft would be essential to help eliminate Russian defense lines in the Donbas region.

Steve K., an operations manager in the group who declined to give Newsweek his full name, agreed with Wetterauer and highlighted the US-made Multiple Launch Rocket System and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System as being vital tools for the Ukrainian war effort.

"They need the artillery, they need rounds," Steve K. told the outlet. "If we do not continue with that supply, they won't be able to hold them back."

Per Newsweek, Wetterauer added that the Ukrainians do not underestimate the Russians' capabilities and expressed confidence in their chances of winning if they received the right equipment.

"If we can increase their skill set, then ultimately over time hopefully they'll get better and more advanced weapon systems," Wetterauer said, per the outlet. "With the fighting spirit that they have, there's no doubt they will turn this war. It's just going to take a while."

Ukraine's forces are currently engaged in a critical fight in the Donbas region, which has come under heavy artillery fire from Russian troops. In June, Ukraine estimated that Russia has 10 to 15 times more artillery than its forces, appealing to the West to send more weapons.

This week, reports emerged thatcases of desertion are growing among Ukrainian forces after they suffered significant losses. A senior US official also told The Washington Postthis week thatRussia will likely gain control of eastern Ukraine within weeks, after doubling down on its military efforts in the Donbas.

However, intelligence from the UK suggests that Russia may soon struggle to produce enough military equipment to fuel a prolonged conflict in Ukraine.

Read the original:
Military veterans training Ukrainians say NATO weapons needed to win - Business Insider

Wiley of counsel Adam M. Teslik is joined by Matthew C. Klein, Jordan Schneider, and Dr. David Talbot, authors of Foreign Policy article Only a Financial NATO Can Win the Economic War, to take a closer look at the issues facing the international economic order today and their pitch for a Freedom Fund to respond to threats and sustain constructive international trade and economic relations.

What would this proposed alliance look like and what are its potential benefits? What role would it play in Seemore+

What would this proposed alliance look like and what are its potential benefits? What role would it play in responding to developments such as Chinas emergence as a global power and Russias invasion of Ukraine? What does it mean for the future of globalization? Listen as we discuss these questions and more on this episode as part of Wileys 2022 International Trade Series. Seeless-

Read more here:
Freedom Fund: Looking Towards a Financial NATO | Wiley Rein LLP - JDSupra - JD Supra

Robert Abela will attend an informal dinner on the fringes of a NATO summit this month in Spain, a foreign ministry spokesperson has confirmed.

Russias invasion of Ukraine and potential expansion of the intergovernmental security alliance are expected to top the agenda of the summit in Madrid on June 29-30.

Finland and Sweden have both expressed an interest in joining the military alliance in response to Vladimir Putins decision to invade Ukraine.

Although Malta is not a NATO member, the spokesperson confirmed that the prime minister has been invited to an informal dinner between a number of leaders on the margins of the summit.

Maltas neutrality, as enshrined in the constitution, has over the years seen it shy away from any military alliances.

RELATED STORIES

Last year, Abela played down calls by the European Commission president for the formation of an EU-wide military force, saying Malta will stick to its neutrality obligations.

Questioned about Abelas trip to Madrid, the foreign ministry spokesperson said the government feels that engagement with international partners is crucial and dialogue remains very important to Malta, within the context allowed for by the constitution.

The peaceful resolution of conflicts and disputes through diplomacyremains the main message that will be relayed, the foreign ministry spokesperson said.

Former foreign minister Evarist Bartolo this month proposed a review of Maltas neutrality stance by a group of experts.

He said that, though he does not think Malta should scrap neutrality, the constitutional amendments introduced 35 years ago should be updated.

His successor, Ian Borg has, in turn, said a rewrite of the neutrality clause is not on the governments agenda.

Russias unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has once again cast a spotlight on the countrys policy of avoiding military conflict.

RELATED STORIES

Sparks flew in parliament last month when Speaker Anlu Farrugia described the invasion as a conflict best solved through diplomacy.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pounced on the declaration, saying Russia is the clear aggressor in the ongoing war. We do not have a conflict. We have a war going on. We have bombs, shellings and killings happening, Zelensky hit back.

In a subsequent speech, Abela oscillated between describing the invasion as a conflict and a war.

Independent journalism costs money. Support Times of Malta for the price of a coffee.

More:
Prime Minister will attend an 'informal' dinner on the fringes of NATO summit - Times of Malta