WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
The United States announced new military aid for Ukraine on Friday and vowed to disrupt Russian ties with Iran, which a British envoy said involved Moscow seeking hundreds of ballistic missiles and offering unprecedented military support in return.
Tehran and Moscow have denied Western accusations that Russia is using Iranian drones to attack targets in Ukraine, where officials warned on Friday of a winter-long power deficit after repeated Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure.
Two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats told Reuters in October that Iran had promised to provide Russia with surface-to-surface missiles as well as more drones.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters Washington was very concerned about the "deepening and burgeoning defence partnership" between Iran and Russia, and would work to disrupt that relationship, including on drones.
Washington was sending a $275 million package of aid to Ukraine to strengthen air defences and defeat drones, he said.
Britain's U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward said Iran had sent hundreds of drones that Russia had used in Ukraine.
"Russia is now attempting to obtain more weapons, including hundreds of ballistic missiles," she told reporters. "In return, Russia is offering Iran an unprecedented level of military and technical support."
The Iranian and Russian missions to the United Nations did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier said Moscow would probably do a deal over Ukraine one day but that Russia's near-total loss of trust in the West would make an eventual settlement, which he did not elaborate on, much harder to reach.
Russia has clamped down on dissent since it invaded Ukraine in February, and a Moscow court on Friday sentenced opposition politician Ilya Yashin to eight and a half years in prison on charges of spreading "false information" about the army.
Yashin had discussed in a YouTube video evidence uncovered by Western journalists of Russian war crimes in Ukraine. Moscow denies committing war crimes. In a post on his Telegram channel, Yashin urged supporters to continue opposing the war.
On the ground in Ukraine, the entire front line in the east of the country was being shelled, said the governor of the Donetsk region, which is partly occupied by Russia. Five civilians were killed and two wounded in Ukrainian-controlled areas, the governor said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces were standing their ground in the Donbas, made up of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, despite huge difficulties, but that Russian forces had reduced the town of Bakhmut to ruins.
"The situation on the front line remains very tough," he said in an evening address. "I thank all our heroes, all soldiers and commanders who are... repelling assaults and inflicting significant losses on the enemy."
Reuters was not able to verify those battlefield reports.
'THE QUESTION OF TRUST'
Putin earlier repeated an accusation that the West was "exploiting" Ukraine and using its people as "cannon fodder" in a conflict with Russia, and said the West's desire to maintain its global dominance was increasing risks.
"They deliberately multiply chaos and aggravate the international situation," Putin said in a video message to a summit of defence ministers from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and a group of ex-Soviet states.
He later specifically criticized France and Germany, which in 2014 and 2015 brokered ceasefire accords between Kyiv and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, saying they had betrayed Moscow by supplying Ukraine with weapons.
"The question of trust arises. And trust of course is almost at zero... But nevertheless, in the final analysis we have to come to agreements. I have already said many times that we are ready for these agreements," Putin said.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin criticized Putin on Friday as he voiced concern about Russia's expanding nuclear arsenal. His comments came hours after Putin vowed that any country that dared attack Russia with nuclear weapons would be wiped from the face of the earth.
"As the Kremlin continues its cruel and unprovoked war of choice against Ukraine, the whole world has seen Putin engage in deeply irresponsible nuclear sabre-rattling," Austin said, speaking at U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees America's nuclear forces.
PRISONER SWAP
Yet in a reminder that, despite the hostilities, Russia maintains lines of communication with the West, Moscow on Thursday freed U.S. basketball player Brittney Griner in return for the release of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
A plane carrying Griner landed in the United States early on Friday, nearly 10 months after she was detained in Russia on drug charges, while television images showed Bout being hugged by his mother and wife after landing in Moscow.
Putin said further prisoner swaps were possible and the White House said it would work to gain the release of Paul Whelan, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran convicted of espionage in 2020 in a trial that U.S. diplomats said was unfair and opaque.
Separately, Russian and U.S. diplomats met in Istanbul on Friday to discuss a number of technical issues in their vexed relationship, both sides confirmed, though the Ukraine war was not part of those talks.
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with reporters after the Eurasian Economic Union summit in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek on Friday. Among the topics he addressed were the latest revelations from former German chancellor Angela Merkel, the military operation in Ukraine, the threat of nuclear war, the high-profile prisoner swap with the US, and Russian relations with the EU and Africa.
Merkel’s comments vindicate Ukraine operation
Putin found German chancellor Angela Merkel’s confession – that the purpose of the Minsk agreements was to “buy time” for Ukraine – surprising and disappointing, but said it only means the decision to launch the special military operation was correct. “Their point was only to load up Ukraine with weapons and prepare it for hostilities. We see that. Honestly, we may have realized that too late, and maybe should have started all this sooner,” Putin said.
While he knew that Ukraine did not intend to implement the deal, “I thought other participants in that process were honest. Turns out they too were deceiving us,”said the Russian president.
How to negotiate with “trust at zero”
The deception about Minsk now raises a “question of trust,” said Putin, noting that it is currently “almost at zero.” The real question now is whether negotiations about anything with anyone are even possible, and what would guarantee any eventual deal, he added. “In the end, there will have to be talks. We are ready for them, I have said that many times. But it does make us think, who we’re dealing with.”
What he meant by Ukraine “taking a long time”
Asked about his earlier statement that the military operation might be a “long process,” Putin explained that he was actually referring to the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine. “The special military operation is proceeding apace, everything is stable, there are no questions or problems with it today,” he said. Resolving the whole situation will “probably not be easy and will take some time, but one way or another, all participants in this process will have to agree with the realities that are taking shape on the ground.”
On launching a nuclear first strike
The US has long had a doctrine of a “disarming” attack against command and control systems, for which they developed cruise missiles the Soviet Union lacked, Putin said. Now Russia has hypersonic missiles that are “more modern and even more effective,” so “perhaps we should think about adopting the developments and ideas of our American partners when it comes to ensuring security.”
While the US doctrine envisions a pre-emptive nuclear strike, Russia’s doctrine is about retaliation, Putin explained. If the Russian early warning system detects a missile attack, “hundreds of our missiles will fly and it will be impossible to stop them.” While some attacking missiles will strike Russia, “nothing will remain of the enemy,” and that is how nuclear deterrence works, he explained.
More swaps like Bout-Griner are possible
Russia does not consider the success of talks to trade Brittney Griner for Viktor Bout as an opening to discuss other subjects with the US. While the negotiations “created a certain atmosphere, ”no other issues were brought up within their framework, Putin said.
He added that contacts between Russian and US security services “continue, and in fact never stopped,” but that this specific trade was initiated by US President Joe Biden.
“Are other exchanges possible? Yes, everything is possible. This is the result of negotiations and the search for compromise. In this case, a compromise was found,” the Russian president said.
On the need for another mobilization
There are “no considerations” of another call-up, Putin said when asked if more Russians will need to take up arms in 2023. Of the 300,000 that were called up, some 150,000 have been deployed, but only 77,000 in the fighting units, while others are engaged in other duties at the moment. The remaining 150,000 troops are not yet deployed, but undergoing additional training, he explained.
“Half of those called up are a battle reserve, so why would anyone talk of an additional call-up?” Putin concluded.
Answering Borrell’s Africa comment
Responding to the claim by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell that many Africans perhaps don’t know where Donbass is or who Putin may be, the Russian president said that the continent knows all too well who helped their liberation from European colonialism.
EU politicians should “stop talking about their love for the African peoples and start helping these countries,” Putin said. “If the people you spoke about knew where Africa was and what condition the peoples of Africa were in, they would not interfere with the supply of Russian food and fertilizers to the African continent, on which the harvest in African countries ultimately depends and the salvation of hundreds of thousands of people in Africa from starvation.”
** Western military assistance to Ukraine is only prolonging its conflict with Russia, the Iranian foreign minister claimed on Thursday. Iran has repeatedly voiced a stance of “active neutrality” on the crisis.
Speaking with his Finnish counterpart by phone, Hossein Amirabdollahian stressed that Tehran is “opposed to the continuation of war, including in Ukraine.”
Iran believes that “the uncontrolled shipment of US and European arms to Ukraine has further complicated the situation” in the country, the diplomat told Pekka Haavisto, according to a readout of the call released by the Iranian Foreign Ministry.
In recent months, Kiev and Western countries have accused Iran of providing Russia with weaponry, including military drones. Tehran has on numerous occasions said it is not involved in the hostilities in any way and has not supplied Moscow with drones to be used on the battlefield.
“Iran has not sent and nor will it send any weapons to Russia to use in the Ukraine war, because Iranian officials believe that there should be a political solution to that crisis”, Amirabdollahian said in October.
In early November, however, the minister acknowledged that Iran had sent a “small number” of drones to Russia, but explained that the shipment took place several months before large-scale fighting in Ukraine broke out.
The same month, the Ukrainian military said the alleged Iranian drones contained mostly US-made components, and elements from a number of other countries, including Ukraine itself. Kiev also said it was “determining how it could have gotten there.”
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said all weapons used by Russian troops in Ukraine come from domestic stockpiles.
Moscow has repeatedly warned the West against pumping Kiev with weapons, arguing that this would only prolong the hostilities.
** Minsk has information that the West planned to launch a military offensive against Russia in case of the successful outcome of an attempted coup in Belarus in 2020, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Friday.
"You [the West] were preparing for it. We know it for sure," Lukashenko said speaking in an interview with Russia’s Rossiya-24 television channel.
"I have already told [Russian President Vladimir] Putin that we will shortly make this information public, the facts in particular on how - in the successful outcome of the 2020 uprising in Belarus - they planned to seize authority in our country and approach the border at the Smolensk Region and unleash a war against Russia and Donbass. The war would have started in 2021-2022," Lukashenko stressed.
On August 9, 2020, Belarus held presidential elections. According to the Central Electoral Commission, Alexander Lukashenko won the election.
Immediately after the outcome was announced, mass protests engulfed Belarus, which initially led to clashes with the police. The West did not recognize the results of the presidential election. The EU introduced five sanctions packages against Belarusian officials and a number of companies.
Developments in Ukraine
The situation along the line of engagement in Donbass escalated on February 17. The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) reported the most massive bombardments by the Ukrainian military back then, which damaged civilian infrastructure and caused civilian casualties.
On February 21, President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow was recognizing the sovereignty of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Russia signed agreements on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance with their leaders. Moscow recognized the Donbass republics in accordance with the DPR and LPR constitutions within the boundaries of the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions as of the beginning of 2014.
Russian President Putin announced on February 24 that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics for assistance he had decided to carry out a special military operation in Ukraine. The DPR and the LPR launched an operation to liberate their territories under Kiev’s control.
Reuters/RT/TASS
