Ukrainian strike on Russian nuclear radar system causes alarm in West

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Written by Super User

Category: Europe

Published: 27 May 2024

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LONDON - A Ukrainian drone strike on a Russian radar station that can track nuclear missiles has sparked alarm in the West.

Kyiv hit the Armavir radar station in the Krasnodar border region on May 23, damaging the state-of-the-art facility, which provides conventional air-defence as well as forming part of Moscow’s nuclear warning system.

Ukrainian officials confirmed on Saturday that their forces had carried out the strike, saying the facility monitors airspace over the country and occupied Crimea.

The radar station has reportedly been able to track long-range Atacms missiles, delivered by the US to Ukraine earlier this year.

Mauro Gilli, a senior researcher at the Centre for Security Studies at ETH Zurich, said the drone strike had been a tactical success because it will force Russia to redeploy air defence systems and it also put down a marker that no Russian military site was untouchable.

“We can debate the effectiveness and merit but strategically there is logic,” he said.

Other Western analysts, though, were more hesitant and said that Ukraine should avoid striking Russia’s nuclear infrastructure.

“Not a wise decision on the part of Ukraine,” said Hans Kristensen, a nuclear arsenal expert at the Federation of American Scientists. “Bombers and military sites in general are different because they’re used to attack Ukraine.”

Thord Are Iversen, a Norwegian military analyst, said striking a part of Russia’s nuclear-warning system was “not a particularly good idea… especially in times of tension.”

“It’s in everyone’s best interest that Russia’s ballistic missile warning system works well,” he said.

One of Russia’s most modern radar systems, the Kremlin has deployed 10 Voronezh class installations along the Russian border. Each has a range of around 4,000 miles and can track 500 objects simultaneously.

Russia has yet to comment on the alleged attack, but it fits a pattern of intensified Ukrainian drone strikes this year on targets deep inside Russia, including oil refineries and transport hubs.

The strike came shortly after Moscow began tactical nuclear missile exercises in its Southern Military District.

Olaf Scholz has pointedly refused to deliver Germany’s long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine, saying he fears potential nuclear escalation.

The US has so far not relented to Ukrainian requests that it be allowed to use Western weapons in cross-border strikes.

Frustrated Ukrainian military commanders said they had to watch as Russia built up forces across the border in a de facto harbour area that they were not allowed to strike.

Since then, Russian forces have captured several villages and pounded Kharkiv with missiles fired from launch sites and warplanes inside Russia.

Britain has already given permission to Ukraine to use its missiles to strike Russia and now pressure is building on the White House to follow.

Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, is reportedly in favour of the change and this weekend Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato Secretary General, told the Economist that it was time to “lift some of the restrictions”.

Ukraine and its Nato allies still need to be cautious, said Fabian Hoffmann, a missile technology doctoral research fellow at the University of Oslo, because some US officials and some of Ukraine’s European allies will view the radar strike as reckless.

“I have some concerns about how politically wise this decision was, as it may have negative repercussions for Ukraine down the road in terms of targeting restrictions,” he said.

UN establishes International Day of reflection for Srebrenica genocide

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Written by Super User

Category: Europe

Published: 26 May 2024

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NEW YORK - The UN General Assembly on Thursday designated 11 July as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica, in which at least 8,372 people were killed, thousands displaced and whole communities destroyed.

Adopting a resolution with the same title, the Assembly also asked the Secretary-General to establish an outreach programme on the Srebrenica genocide in preparation for the 30th anniversary next year.

It further condemned any denial of the Srebrenica genocide as a historical event and called on Member States to preserve the established facts, including through their educational systems, towards preventing denial and distortion, and any occurrence of genocide in the future.

The text, sponsored by Germany and Rwanda, was adopted by a recorded vote of 84 nations in favour, 19 against and 68 abstentions.

The massacre in Srebrenica

The massacre in Srebrenica marked one of the darkest chapters of the war that erupted after the breakup of former Yugoslavia.

In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb army overran Srebrenica, which was previously declared a safe area by the Security Council, and brutally murdered thousands of men and teenagers there, and expelled 20,000 people from the town.

A small and lightly armed unit of Dutch peacekeepers under the UN flag were unable to resist the Bosnian Serb force.

The brutal killings of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica by the army of Republika Srpska was recognized as an act of genocide by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as well as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Firmly against denial

Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, welcomed the resolution as “further recognition” of the victims and survivors, and their pursuit of justice, truth and guarantees of non-recurrence.

“The resolution is all the more important given the persistent revisionism, denial of the Srebrenica genocide and hate speech by high-level political leaders in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as in neighbouring countries,” he said in a statement.

He also underscored the responsibility of political leaders in the region to engage in constructive dialogue to build peaceful societies “where people can live safely and freely, without discrimination or fear of conflict and violence”.

Germany: To honour victims

Introducing the draft resolution, Antje Leendertse, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Germany to the UN, said that the initiative was about honouring the victims and supporting survivors, “who continue to live with scars of that fateful time”.

The text is modelled on the General Assembly resolution that designated 7 April as the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

“It also underscores the role of international courts in fighting impunity and ensuring accountability for genocide, and contains language against genocide denial and glorification of perpetrators,” she added.

She also spoke against “false allegations”, stating that the resolution “is not directed against anybody”.

“Not against Serbia, a valued member of this Organization. If at all, it is directed against perpetrators of the genocide,” Ambassador Leendertse added.

“I therefore invite everybody to judge the text on its merits and to support our call to commemorate and reflect on what happened in Srebrenica almost thirty years ago.”

Serbia: A Pandora’s box

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić labelled the text “highly politicized” saying it would “open a Pandora’s box”.

The draft resolution “was hidden” by its authors, he said, adding that it lacked an inclusive process compared with “the resolution for Rwanda”, which was prepared in a “very transparent way”.

He recalled discussions over the issue at the Security Council in March.

“When we wanted to discuss the bombing of Serbia in 1999, they said to us ‘don’t look at the past, look at the future – it happened 25 years ago’. Two days after that, we found out that they were preparing this kind of resolution relating to events even four years prior to [1999],” he said.

“When they have some needs – political needs, they can go deep into the past. When someone else is referring to the past, in that case the facts – they don’t matter.”

With verdicts and convictions already delivered through the judicial process, the resolution would now only deepen divisions and lead to instability, President Vučić added.

“This is not about reconciliation, not about memories, this is something that will just open an old wound and create complete political havoc. Not only in our region, but even here, in this hall”, he argued.

G7 finance summit kicks off seeking unity on Ukraine, China

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Written by Super User

Category: Europe

Published: 24 May 2024

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By David Lawder and Gavin Jones

STRESA, Italy - Finance chiefs from the Group of Seven industrial democracies began a two-day meeting in Italy on Friday seeking to present a common front on the need to provide a loan to Ukraine and oppose China's "unfair" industrial policies.

However, comments from officials ahead of the gathering in Stresa, northern Italy, suggest no hard details will emerge on a U.S push for a loan to Ukraine backed by the future income from some $300 billion of frozen Russian assets.

"We will be putting a proposal to use the windfall profits for the Russian assets for the years to come," French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told reporters ahead of the opening session, a broad review of the global economy.

"So let's compare the proposals. Let's see what is the most convenient, the most efficient, the most rapid proposal that could be put in place," Le Maire said.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said a loan could amount to some $50 billion, but that no amounts have been agreed. Other G7 officials involved in the negotiations voiced caution, citing thorny legal and technical aspects to be hammered out.

The ministers will be joined on Saturday by Ukraine's Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko, whose war-torn country is struggling to contain a Russian offensive in the north and the east, more than two years after Moscow invaded its neighbour.

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said many questions remained open on the loan proposal and he did not expect the G7 to reach any concrete decision in Stresa.

In that case, officials will continue to negotiate in the hope of making progress by the time G7 heads of government meet in the southern Italian region of Puglia on June 13-15.

Combating China's growing export strength will be another central theme of the meeting, after the U.S. last week unveiled steep tariff hikes on an array of Chinese imports including electric vehicle batteries, computer chips and medical products.
The United States is not calling on its partners to take similar measures, but Yellen said on Thursday she wanted the U.S' G7 partners - Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada - to show they stood with Washington.

AVOIDING TRADE WAR

France's Le Maire said it was necessary to avoid a trade war with Beijing, which was "our economic partner", but the G7 needed to protect its industrial interests.
"A trade war is neither in the interest of the U.S., nor China nor Europe nor any country in the world," he said.

"Nevertheless, we have an issue with the unfair trade practices, with the high level of subsidies, and with (China's) industrial overcapacities."

Italian Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti, chairing the Stresa gathering as Rome holds the G7 presidency this year, said it may only be a matter of time before the European Union followed the U.S. lead on tariffs.

"The United States have taken very tough decisions and Europe will probably have to consider whether to do the same," he told Italian state television RAI on Friday.

Italy had been hoping to use the summit to revive blocked talks on a global minimum tax on multinationals, but Giorgetti said the deal would not be finalised by June, as was previously planned.

He said the U.S, India and China all have reservations over the terms of the deal, which was signed by around 140 countries in 2021 but has never been fully implemented.

The G7 will also address a proposed global wealth tax on billionaires, promoted by Brazil and France among the broader Group of 20 developed countries.
Yellen said on Thursday the U.S. could not back it in the formulation currently proposed.

Le Maire said on Friday that France would continue to push for the scheme. "It is no longer acceptable for the wealthiest to escape taxation and everyone - everyone - must pay their fair share," he said.