Category Archives: NATO

This Windows Bug Was Used To Spy On NATO, Ukraine
Cyber intelligence firm iSight Partners has identified a bug in Microsoft Windows that Russian hackers have exploited to target Western governments. Follow Elizabeth Hagedorn: http://www.twitter.c...

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This Windows Bug Was Used To Spy On NATO, Ukraine - Video

Helsinki, Finland Seven months ago, when Russia seized and annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine, Finns seemed relatively unconcerned. The world's northernmost country shares some 800 miles of border with its huge neighbor, but just a quarter of Finns said they felt threatened by Moscow. And a similar number told pollsters their country should consider joining NATO in interest of self-defense.

Since then, Russia's behavior has become more provocative, and not just in eastern Ukraine. During one week in August, Russian military aircraft conducted three unauthorized overflightsof Finnish airspace. The Finnish public reacted accordingly. A poll last month by Finnish daily Aamulehti showed that 43 percent of those polled perceived Russia as a danger, an increase of nearly 20 percent from March.

But support for Finland joining NATO remained almost unchanged: a mere two percent higher, the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation (YLE) found. Why hasnt Finnish wariness translated into stronger support for NATO membership? And what, if anything, would persuade Finns to join the defense pact?

Defense Minister Carl Haglund says that the foundation for the Finnish publics aversion to NATO membership stems from its complicated, and oft-misunderstood relationship with Russia. This [reluctance] goes back to [our] history, he says, especially the end of the Second World War and the cold war.

Put it this way," says Pekka Ervasti, political editor of YLE. "Finnish neutrality dies hard.

The 1948 treaty which Finland signed with the USSR which defeated Finland in two wars during World War II codified its enforced rapprochement with the Kremlin. Finland agreed not to join or assist NATO, which was established the following year. The treaty laid the basis for the peaceable and mutually beneficial relationship between Finland and the USSR which followed, along with half a century of Finnish military non-alignment. Active neutrality, Helsinki called it.

Critics had another term for it: Finlandization the process by which a democracy such as Finland avoided provoking Moscow, in return for independence and trading privileges. It's a policy that served Finns well for decades, and many are reluctant toabandon it.

A dose ofanti-Americanism is also at play, adds Ervasti. People feel that NATO is run by Americans and they fear that the US will drag us into foreign wars, like Iraq. Others worry that nuclear weapons will be stationed here.

Then there's the bottom line for business.Im not sure whether joining NATO is such a great idea in the long run, says Ami Hasan, head of Hasan & Partners, a leading Helsinki ad agency. Russia with its 150 million people is a huge potential trading partner for Finland and we have 1,300 kilometers of shared border. I doubt that Russia would be thrilled to share it with NATO.

Despite the generally warm relationship between the two countries in recent years, Russian officials have explicitly warned Finland against joining NATO. In June 2012, Russian Chief of Staff Nikolai Makarov, sounding much like the Soviet bear of yore, said that cooperation between NATO and Finland, which joined NATOs Partnership for Peace affiliate program in 1994, threatened Russias security.

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Could Putin's Russia push neutral Finland into NATO's arms?

Published October 15, 2014

THESSALONIKI, Greece NATO's top military commander says the alliance would welcome the withdrawal of Russian troops from a Russian region bordering Ukraine, but that it has seen no "major movement" so far.

U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told The Associated Press in Thessaloniki Wednesday that a withdrawal of all Russian troops was an "important part of bringing normalcy" to the area.

On Saturday Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered about 17,600 Russian troops to return to their bases from Rostov. The region in Russia borders east Ukraine, where pro-Russian insurgents have been battling government troops since April.

The Kremlin has said troops stationed there were participating in drills, but Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of fueling the insurgency with arms, expertise and fighters.

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NATO chief: alliance seen no 'major movement' of Russian troop withdrawal from Ukraine border

DALLAS, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- A Russian group of hackers exploited a flaw in a computer operating system to spy on NATO and other security targets, a report says.

The Dallas based cybersecurity firm that uncovered the plot, iSight Partners, said a previously undiscovered flaw in Microsoft's Windows system allowed sensitive documents pertaining to the NATO summit held in Wales in September to be targeted.

ISight dubbed the hacking group the Sandworm Team, the Washington Post reported. It was presumably working for the Russian government and has been active since at least 2009, the report said, adding that a Polish energy firm, the Ukrainian government's computers and at least one nation in Western Europe were also targeted.

The flaw, known as zero-day for the amount of time programmers are aware of it, likely allowed hackers to find e-mails, Power Point presentations and encryption keys in computers considered secure.

Although policy statements were released after the NATO summit, much of the planning occurred in secret. The agenda included preparing a unified response to Russia's influence in Crimea and Ukraine, and plans for confronting the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

U.S. President Barack Obama attended the meeting, as did Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and high-level military and civilian leaders from each NATO country.

2014 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

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Report: Russian hackers spied on NATO

Islamabad, Oct 15 (IANS): NATO gunship helicopters violated Pakistani airspace by entering territory near its border with Afghanistan, media reported Wednesday.

According to officials, at least five helicopters were seen flying near the border and two of them entered Pakistani territory in Torkham and Pasidkhel, Dawn online reported.

The helicopters remained in Pakistani airspace for 10 minutes and returned without any action.

Sources said the helicopters crossed over through Shamshad mountains situated between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

A few days back, NATO had carried out a massive assault on Taliban positions in the Shamshad mountains and had killed scores of Afghan Taliban members.

Pakistan is yet to respond to the violation and it has not yet been ascertained whether the incursion was deliberate or a slipping over of the helicopters into Pakistani airspace during routine patrolling on account of the rugged mountainous terrain.

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NATO helicopters violate Pakistani airspace

Polish: New NATO chief visits Poland, promises "spearhead force" to deal with "threats"
Video ID: 20141007-010 W/S Polish Prime Minister Eva Kopacz and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg arriving SOT, Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary-General (in English): "We will maintain...

By: RuptlyTV

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Polish: New NATO chief visits Poland, promises "spearhead force" to deal with "threats" - Video

A mountain ambush by Taliban fighters killed at least 14 Afghan security force troops, authorities said Monday, as villagers elsewhere in the country alleged a NATO airstrike that the coalition said targeted militants actually killed civilians.

The fighting in Sari Pul province, as well as the disputed NATO airstrike in eastern Paktia province, show the serious challenges facing new Afghan President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai. Former President Hamid Karzai repeatedly clashed with NATO forces over civilian casualties from airstrikes, straining relations as public anger against the coalition grew.

The ambush in Sari Pul, where Taliban fighters reportedly have been massing for days, happened Sunday in its Kohistanat district. There, militants opened fire on an Afghan Army unit heading back to the capital after several months being deployed there, killing 12 soldiers and two police officers, said Kazim Kenhan, a spokesman for the provincial police chief.

Kenhan said 13 troops and four police officers were wounded and six troops are missing after the ambush there, some 340 kilometers (210 miles) northwest of the capital, Kabul.

"A very intensive gun battle is going on right now and the casualty number might change overnight," Kenhan said Monday. "It is a mountainous area and very difficult to reach. We do need air support as we requested from the international forces, but they didn't help us."

In Paktia province, hundreds of villagers protested over their allegation that a NATO airstrike killed seven civilians in an operation NATO said killed "eight armed enemy combatants."

The protesters brought seven corpses to the governor's office there, claiming they were civilians killed Sunday during a NATO airstrike in a mountainous area on the outskirts of the city of Gardez. The villagers said the strike targeted eight people collecting firewood and left one man wounded.

"From the evidence it seems that all seven who have been killed in the airstrike of the coalition forces are civilians, but this needs to be investigated more to find out why and how this incident has happened," said Abdul Wali Sahee, deputy provincial governor of Paktia province.

Sahee said that there was a dead body of a 12-year-old boy among those brought to the provincial capital.

Protesting villagers shouted slogans against the foreign forces that have been in the country since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. They demanded the Afghan government prevent such attacks in their area.

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Taliban Mountain Ambush Kills 14 Afghan Troops

A U.S. army soldier, center, takes his position at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Oct. 13, 2014. An Afghan official said a suicide bomber targeting a NATO convoy in Kabul killed one civilian and wounded three others. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini)

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) A mountain ambush by Taliban fighters killed at least 14 Afghan security force troops, authorities said Monday, as villagers elsewhere in the country alleged a NATO airstrike that the coalition said targeted militants actually killed civilians.

The fighting in Sari Pul province, as well as the disputed NATO airstrike in eastern Paktia province, show the serious challenges facing new Afghan President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai. Former President Hamid Karzai repeatedly clashed with NATO forces over civilian casualties from airstrikes, straining relations as public anger against the coalition grew.

The ambush in Sari Pul, where Taliban fighters reportedly have been massing for days, happened Sunday in its Kohistanat district. There, militants opened fire on an Afghan Army unit heading back to the capital after several months being deployed there, killing 12 soldiers and two police officers, said Kazim Kenhan, a spokesman for the provincial police chief.

Kenhan said 13 troops and four police officers were wounded and six troops are missing after the ambush there, some 340 kilometers (210 miles) northwest of the capital, Kabul.

"A very intensive gun battle is going on right now and the casualty number might change overnight," Kenhan said Monday. "It is a mountainous area and very difficult to reach. We do need air support as we requested from the international forces, but they didn't help us."

In Paktia province, hundreds of villagers protested over their allegation that a NATO airstrike killed seven civilians in an operation NATO said killed "eight armed enemy combatants."

The protesters brought seven corpses to the governor's office there, claiming they were civilians killed Sunday during a NATO airstrike in a mountainous area on the outskirts of the city of Gardez. The villagers said the strike targeted eight people collecting firewood and left one man wounded.

"From the evidence it seems that all seven who have been killed in the airstrike of the coalition forces are civilians, but this needs to be investigated more to find out why and how this incident has happened," said Abdul Wali Sahee, deputy provincial governor of Paktia province.

Sahee said that there was a dead body of a 12-year-old boy among those brought to the provincial capital.

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Afghans allege NATO airstrike kills 7 civilians

NATO Secretary General - Joint Press Point with Polish Prime Minister 06 OCT 2014
Joint press point by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the Prime Minister of Poland Ewa Kopacz Warsaw, Poland - Monday 6 October 2014.

By: NATO

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NATO Secretary General - Joint Press Point with Polish Prime Minister 06 OCT 2014 - Video

Turkey: "ISIL poses threat to Iraq, Syria and NATO nations," warns Stoltenberg
Video ID: 20141009-015 W/S NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Istanbul [BUG AT SOURCE] SOT, Jens Stoltenb...

By: RuptlyTV

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Turkey: "ISIL poses threat to Iraq, Syria and NATO nations," warns Stoltenberg - Video