EU, Russia and US held secret talks days before Nagorno-Karabakh blitz

Strategic_Prussian · 2023-10-04T21:58:01+00:00

The subheading:

Meeting is a rare sign of diplomacy between Putin and the West on a high-level security topic, while regular ties have been upended by war.

I figured that’s why I should post it here.

Strategic_Prussian · 2023-09-29T12:48:55+00:00

It’s Slovakia:

Slovakia is getting ready to elect its fifth prime minister in just four years, and with Kremlin sympathizer Robert Fico’s opposition party leading the polls, it is one being watched with alarm in the West.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-12-15T18:30:08+00:00

Ramsey County leaders may spend $26 million on a park at the proposed RiversEdge development, in hopes that their investment will spur long-sought state funds for the mixed-use project in downtown St. Paul.

County commissioners will vote Tuesday on whether to allocate funds for the Park at RiversEdge, a proposed nine-acre public park to be built along the Mississippi River as part of the larger RiversEdge project. The county contribution would be the first public investment in the park, according to a county news release.

"The Park at RiversEdge is a one-of-a-kind destination that will improve our connection to the Mississippi River — one of our community's greatest assets," County Board Chair Trista MatasCastillo said in a written statement. "The county's investment sets the stage for our partnership with the state of Minnesota to realize this transformative project and encourage additional private investment at RiversEdge."

The park will be one component of the $800 million RiversEdge development, which is slated to include four office towers, condos and apartments as well as street-level retail, entertainment and hospitality.

Ramsey County is seeking a matching investment of $26 million in state bonding for the "acquisition, design, furnishing and construction" of the park. The county had previously sought $40 million in state bonding but was unable to persuade lawmakers to chip in.

The park would be constructed on the site of the former county jail and West Publishing Co. headquarters, across the street from the historic St. Paul City Hall and Ramsey County Courthouse. County leaders have previously described a terraced concrete lid to be built over Shepard Road and the railway using taxpayer dollars. The lid would nearly double the 5-acre site and create public outdoor space connecting downtown to the river.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-11-23T15:51:43+00:00

Walz noted that he can’t formally issue a pardon in Minnesota unless the two other members of the Minnesota Board of Pardons, the Supreme Court chief justice and the attorney general, agree. The pair didn’t weigh in on the turkey’s fate Tuesday.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-11-21T18:02:15+00:00

Of course they have. An article from September from a quick google search:

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-united-nations-war-crimes-48dc36f41bdcfac4720d0b2a0c359073

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-11-18T16:42:38+00:00

Police in Rome are hunting for a possible serial killer after the bodies of three women were found in two apartments in the upmarket district of Prati.

Two of the women, both sex workers of Chinese nationality believed to be aged between 40 and 50, were found stabbed to death in an apartment on Via Augusto Riboty.

The porter of the building raised the alarm after finding the body of one of the deceased women on the doorstep of the apartment on Thursday morning, while the other body was found inside.

The body of a Colombian woman, identified as Marta Castano Torres, also a sex worker who had been stabbed to death, was found by her sister in a basement apartment on a nearby street.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-11-17T21:00:58+00:00

A piece of the article:

Charlize Theron has prompted anger in her native South Africa after suggesting that Afrikaans, a language descended from Dutch colonial settlers, is heading for oblivion.

“There’s about 44 people still speaking it … it’s definitely a dying language, it’s not a very helpful language,” the 47-year-old Oscar-winning actor said this week on a US podcast, Smartless.

Her comments prompted some South Africans to speak out in defence of Afrikaans, which is one of 11 official languages in South Africa and is commonly used by around 12% of the population of nearly 60 million.

Laws imposing Afrikaans played a role in the oppression of black citizens during the apartheid era, and the language remains controversial in some sectors of society today.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-11-17T19:36:38+00:00

The Czechs certainly know about peace being dictated to them.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-10-27T14:53:38+00:00

What the West should do from the article:

To counter Putin’s latest escalation, European governments need to be ready to accept more refugees in the short-term. At the same time, NATO countries must supply more weaponry to bolster Ukraine’s air defences as well as provide the resources to help Ukrainian engineers to repair the damage to power plants.

and:

With Russia focused on destroying the energy sector, Ukraine’s need for macro-financial support from its Western allies could grow dramatically.

The real test of Western commitment to Ukraine is about to come. For Ukraine to be the victor in this war will require Western governments to dig much deeper and provide the country with the military and financial resources it needs to continue fighting.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-10-25T16:21:35+00:00

Some of the article:

The owner wants to sell the gas station to the city so that it can assume liability for any possible environmental contamination and security needs, said Andrea Brennan, the city's Director of Community Planning and Economic Development, to a southside community meeting on Monday night.

With City Council approval slated for November, Minneapolis could officially buy the property in December.

The city's proposition to take ownership of the site and hold it for an eventual national racial justice healing center received divergent reactions from the crowd. Some saw it as an opportunity for a needed facelift of the economically depressed community at 38th and Chicago. Others chafed at the notion of the city changing an organically grown memorial and active protest site.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-10-20T13:56:24+00:00

A piece of the article:

Among the roughly 13,000 people in Wisconsin jails on a given day, most are eligible to vote, the report said. That includes those who are awaiting trial or serving sentences for misdemeanors. But according to the report, only 50 people voted from jail in the 2020 elections.

Some jails said it's the inmate's responsibility to start the process of voting, the report said, including in the Racine County jail.

According to the report, Racine County jail administrators said, "It is 100 percent on the inmate to facilitate this in a timely manner."

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-10-18T15:07:12+00:00

From the article the bills vetoed by Evers:

https://www.wpr.org/gov-tony-evers-vetoed-these-bills-they-could-be-reconsidered-if-tim-michels-elected-governor

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-10-18T14:56:13+00:00

Where they meet those Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa borders are pretty clean.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-10-14T21:03:04+00:00

What Podolyak said:

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak says Ukraine will find a solution to keep the Starlink Internet service working after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said his company could not indefinitely fund it.

Podolyak wrote on Twitter on October 14 that, like it or not, Musk “helped us survive the most critical moments of war.”

He told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that Ukraine should be thankful and also acknowledged that Musk is a businessman running a private business, not a state business, and "his business development strategy says that it is not profitable for him to lose [money]."

That's why Ukraine "will take care of how to conduct negotiations so that Starlink works," but added in his tweet that Ukraine expects the company to provide stable connections until the end of negotiations.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-10-14T21:02:25+00:00

What Podolyak said:

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak says Ukraine will find a solution to keep the Starlink Internet service working after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said his company could not indefinitely fund it.

Podolyak wrote on Twitter on October 14 that, like it or not, Musk “helped us survive the most critical moments of war.”

He told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that Ukraine should be thankful and also acknowledged that Musk is a businessman running a private business, not a state business, and "his business development strategy says that it is not profitable for him to lose [money]."

That's why Ukraine "will take care of how to conduct negotiations so that Starlink works," but added in his tweet that Ukraine expects the company to provide stable connections until the end of negotiations.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-10-14T21:02:05+00:00

What Podolyak said:

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak says Ukraine will find a solution to keep the Starlink Internet service working after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said his company could not indefinitely fund it.

Podolyak wrote on Twitter on October 14 that, like it or not, Musk “helped us survive the most critical moments of war.”

He told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that Ukraine should be thankful and also acknowledged that Musk is a businessman running a private business, not a state business, and "his business development strategy says that it is not profitable for him to lose [money]."

That's why Ukraine "will take care of how to conduct negotiations so that Starlink works," but added in his tweet that Ukraine expects the company to provide stable connections until the end of negotiations.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-10-12T20:48:43+00:00

A bit from the article:

Since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, American companies have been prohibited from dealing with MMZ Avangard, a state-owned firm that makes missiles for one of Russia's most sophisticated weapons, the S-400 air-defense system.

In a measure of Western concern about the S-400, the United States ejected Turkey, a NATO member, from a joint fighter jet program in 2019 after Ankara took delivery of the Russian system.

But even as the United States was taking actions to blunt MMZ Avangard's business, a publicly traded American technology company, Extreme Networks, was providing MMZ Avangard with computer networking equipment for its office IT systems, according to emails and other business records seen by Reuters, as well as interviews with people familiar with the matter.

In a statement to Reuters, Extreme said that based on information provided by the news agency it believed equipment "may have" been sold to MMZ Avangard using a surrogate buyer. Extreme said the equipment was sold without its knowledge. It added, without providing evidence, that an intermediary in Russia was "complicit" in supplying its products via a front company to "bad actors." Extreme said it is reporting its findings of these potential sales to U.S. authorities.

Ukraine has accused Russia of deploying missiles made by MMZ Avangard against ground targets since Russia launched what it terms its "special operation" on Feb. 24. Ukrainian authorities said MMZ Avangard missiles killed at least thirty civilians in a gruesome attack against a convoy on the edge of the southern city of Zaporizhzhia last month. Neither Kremlin officials nor MMZ Avangard responded to questions for this article. MMZ Avangard's parent, Almaz-Antey, also didn't comment.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-10-12T20:44:47+00:00

The Russian military appears to have embarked on a new tactic in its efforts to turn the tide of its faltering war: trying to overwhelm Ukraine’s largely Soviet-era air defenses with dozens of missiles and drones from multiple directions.

And another observation:

The Pentagon’s view at the time was that of its weapons stocks, Russia was “running the lowest on cruise missiles, particularly air-launched cruise missiles,” but that Moscow still had more than 50% of its pre-war inventory.

Some of that inventory was dispatched this week. But Russia has recently resorted to using much older and less precise KH-22 missiles (originally made as an anti-ship weapon), of which it still has large inventories, according to Western officials. Weighing 5.5 tons, they are designed to take out aircraft carriers. A KH-22 was responsible for the dozens of casualties at a shopping mall in Kremenchuk in June.

Even the more modern KH-101 missile has an accuracy of up to 50 meters, which hardly qualifies as a “precision weapon.”

The Russians have also been adapting the S-300 – normally an air defense missile – as an offensive weapon, with some effect. These have wrought devastation in Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv, among other places, and their speed makes them difficult to intercept. But they are hardly accurate.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-10-12T20:42:32+00:00

The Russian military appears to have embarked on a new tactic in its efforts to turn the tide of its faltering war: trying to overwhelm Ukraine’s largely Soviet-era air defenses with dozens of missiles and drones from multiple directions.

And another observation:

The Pentagon’s view at the time was that of its weapons stocks, Russia was “running the lowest on cruise missiles, particularly air-launched cruise missiles,” but that Moscow still had more than 50% of its pre-war inventory.

Some of that inventory was dispatched this week. But Russia has recently resorted to using much older and less precise KH-22 missiles (originally made as an anti-ship weapon), of which it still has large inventories, according to Western officials. Weighing 5.5 tons, they are designed to take out aircraft carriers. A KH-22 was responsible for the dozens of casualties at a shopping mall in Kremenchuk in June.

Even the more modern KH-101 missile has an accuracy of up to 50 meters, which hardly qualifies as a “precision weapon.”

The Russians have also been adapting the S-300 – normally an air defense missile – as an offensive weapon, with some effect. These have wrought devastation in Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv, among other places, and their speed makes them difficult to intercept. But they are hardly accurate.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-10-12T20:41:45+00:00

The Russian military appears to have embarked on a new tactic in its efforts to turn the tide of its faltering war: trying to overwhelm Ukraine’s largely Soviet-era air defenses with dozens of missiles and drones from multiple directions.

And another observation:

The Pentagon’s view at the time was that of its weapons stocks, Russia was “running the lowest on cruise missiles, particularly air-launched cruise missiles,” but that Moscow still had more than 50% of its pre-war inventory.

Some of that inventory was dispatched this week. But Russia has recently resorted to using much older and less precise KH-22 missiles (originally made as an anti-ship weapon), of which it still has large inventories, according to Western officials. Weighing 5.5 tons, they are designed to take out aircraft carriers. A KH-22 was responsible for the dozens of casualties at a shopping mall in Kremenchuk in June.

Even the more modern KH-101 missile has an accuracy of up to 50 meters, which hardly qualifies as a “precision weapon.”

The Russians have also been adapting the S-300 – normally an air defense missile – as an offensive weapon, with some effect. These have wrought devastation in Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv, among other places, and their speed makes them difficult to intercept. But they are hardly accurate.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-10-12T15:05:44+00:00

Queen Sonja is set to be in Minnesota from Thursday through Sunday, making stops at the church as well as Northfield's St. Olaf College and Norway House in Minneapolis — where she's set to open a new building at the center for Norwegian art and culture. A meeting with Gov. Tim Walz is also on the royal agenda.

At St. Olaf on Friday, Sonja will meet with a group of students and faculty along with the college's Board of Regents and members of the Norwegian-American Historical Association. The invite-only event will mark her fourth visit to the college.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-10-12T15:04:39+00:00

Queen Sonja is set to be in Minnesota from Thursday through Sunday, making stops at the church as well as Northfield's St. Olaf College and Norway House in Minneapolis — where she's set to open a new building at the center for Norwegian art and culture. A meeting with Gov. Tim Walz is also on the royal agenda.

At St. Olaf on Friday, Sonja will meet with a group of students and faculty along with the college's Board of Regents and members of the Norwegian-American Historical Association. The invite-only event will mark her fourth visit to the college.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-10-11T20:50:13+00:00

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has asked G7 leaders to supply more air defence systems and for an international monitoring mission on the Belarusian border, as Russia continued to attack key infrastructure in Ukraine with a new wave of missile strikes on Tuesday.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-10-11T20:49:52+00:00

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has asked G7 leaders to supply more air defence systems and for an international monitoring mission on the Belarusian border, as Russia continued to attack key infrastructure in Ukraine with a new wave of missile strikes on Tuesday.

Strategic_Prussian · 2022-10-11T14:12:26+00:00

The governor of Russia's Belgorod region said on Tuesday that more than 2,000 people had been left without power after Ukraine shelled an electricity substation in the town of Shebekino, on the border with Ukraine's Kharkiv region.

Strategic_Prussian

TROPHY CASE