Alarm 4 News

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russia-ukraine-military-biden-donbas/2021/04/09/99859490-96d3-11eb-8f0a-3384cf4fb399_story.html On Ukraine’s doorstep, Russia boosts military and sends message of regional clout to Biden By Isabelle Khurshudyan, David L. Stern, Loveday Morris and John Hudson April 10, 2021 Russia is steadily massing its largest military presence in years near the Ukrainian border — on land and at sea — as the Kremlin tests Western support for Kyiv and its battles against pro-Moscow separatists less than three months into the Biden administration. Russia’s motivations for the buildup are still unclear and do not necessarily signal a looming offensive, Ukrainian and Western officials said. &&-- http://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russia-review-russian-deployments-near-ukraine-likely-intended-pressure-zelensky-not RUSSIA IN REVIEW: RUSSIAN DEPLOYMENTS NEAR UKRAINE LIKELY INTENDED TO PRESSURE ZELENSKY, NOT BIDEN Apr 1, 2021 - Mason Clark By Mason Clark Ongoing reports of increased Russian troop movements on Ukraine’s borders and violations of the July 2020 ceasefire have drawn widespread attention and alarm but do not likely presage imminent Russian military action against Ukraine. What we know so far: The New York Times reported on March 31 that the US military’s European Command (EUCOM) raised its watch level to the highest level in the last week of March 2021.[1] A Pentagon spokesperson stated EUCOM is “monitoring the situation.”[2] Russia’s proxies in eastern Ukraine escalated attacks on Ukrainian positions throughout March 2021. Neither Russia nor Ukraine has formally revoked the standing July 2020 ceasefire in Donbas, and ceasefire monitors remain in place, but Russia declined a Ukrainian offer to issue a joint reaffirmation of the ceasefire on March 31.[3] Russian force deployments vary considerably. A US official told the New York Times that Russia recently deployed 4,000 additional troops to the Ukrainian border.[4] Ukrainian Commander in Chief Ruslan Komchak claimed on March 30 that Russia is deploying 25 additional Battalion Tactical Groups (BTGs), which would consist of considerably more than 4,000 troops, to Ukraine’s borders beyond the 28 currently deployed BTGs, but did not specify a timeframe for these projected deployments.[5] Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley called his Ukrainian and Russian counterparts on March 31 to discuss the Russian deployments.[6] Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart on April 1.[7] Ukraine invited NATO to organize joint military exercises and air patrols to “stabilize the situation” on April 1. NATO has not yet responded.[8] 1] Andrew E. Kramer, “Fighting Escalates in Eastern Ukraine, Signaling the End to Another Cease-Fire,” New York Times, March 30, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/world/europe/ukraine-russia-fighting..... [2] Max Seddon and Roman Olearchyk, “Tensions Flare Between Russia and Ukraine,” Financial Times, March 31, 2021, https://www.ft.com/content/6a3d49e4-ffc8-4fd2-90c8-8516c2c89c8f. [3] “TCG Talks: Russia Turns Down Offer to Secure Truce in Donbas from April 1,” UNIAN, March 31, 2021, https://www.unian dot info/war/donbas-russia-turns-down-ukraine-s-offer-to-secure-truce-in-donbas-from-april-1-11373031.html; Ukrainian Delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group, Facebook March 31, 2021, https://www.facebook.com/UkrdelegationTCG/posts/239600531283698. [4] Andrew E. Kramer, “Fighting Escalates in Eastern Ukraine, Signaling the End to Another Cease-Fire,” New York Times, March 30, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/world/europe/ukraine-russia-fighting..... [5] Battalion Tactical Groups are motorized rifle or tank battalions with attached ATGM, artillery, reconnaissance, engineer, and rear support units, intended to be self-sufficient ground combat units. BTGs range in size from 700-900 personnel, and each Russian brigade or regiment fields two BTGs. [“The Quantity of Battalion Groups Consisting of Contract Soldiers in the Russian Army Will Reach 125 in Two Years - Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation,”] Interfax, September 14, 2016, https://www.militarynews dot ru/story.asp?rid=1&nid=425709&lang=RU; “Contractees in BTGs,” Russian Defense Policy, September 17, 2016, https://russiandefpolicy.com/2016/09/17/contractees-in-btgs/; [“Russia Draws Troops to the Border with Ukraine, the Armed Forces of Ukraine Are Preparing to Replenish Forces With Reservists If Necessary - Ruslan Khomchak,”] Radio Svoboda, March 30, 2021,https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/zsu-heneral-khomchak-pro-diyi-rosiyi/3117.... &&&& https://www.rferl.org/a/six-questions-russia-ukraine-military-buildup/31191350.html The Guns Of April: Six Questions About The New Russia-Ukraine Tensions April 07, 2021 11:11 GMT By Mike Eckel Isn't There Already A War? Yes. The conflict in the eastern Ukrainian region known as the Donbas began seven years ago this month and despite multiple cease-fire agreements, has never really ended. More than 13,000 people have been killed since April 2014, according to the United Nations, and more than 1 million have been displaced. The last bout of large-scale fightingoccurred in January 2017 in the town of Avdiyivka, but sniper fire and mortar exchanges happen regularly -- the deadliest in months occurring on March 26, near Shumy, north of the city of Donetsk. More than 70 Ukrainian military personnel have been killed and several hundred wounded since the beginning of 2020, Ukrainian officials say. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/29/with-armenian-captives-issue-conflict-over-nagorno-karabakh-continues-rankle/ Opinion: With Armenian captives at issue, conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh continues to rankle Opinion by David Ignatius Columnist March 29, 2021 at 7:58 p.m. EDT Despite a nudge from a senior State Department official, Azerbaijan has so far refused to return more than four dozen Armenian prisoners who were captured after a bloody war for control of the disputed enclave known as Nagorno-Karabakh. The prisoner issue is a bitter legacy of the battle last fall in which Azerbaijan’s forces, backed by Turkish-made drones, regained control of much of the mountainous region that is officially part of Azerbaijan but had been governed by its majority-Armenian population since a 1994 war for independence.  Armenia says it lost more than 4,000 soldiers — a huge number for the small, embattled nation. &--- https://www.rferl.org/a/armenia-accuses-azerbaijan-breaking-truce-deal-over-prisoners-release/31195803.html Armenia Accuses Azerbaijan Of Breaking Truce Deal Over Prisoners' Release April 09, 2021 17:25 GMT By RFE/RL's Armenian Service Armenia has accused Azerbaijan of violating a key term of the Russian-brokered cease-fire deal that ended last fall’s fighting over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region, alleging that Baku is reneging on a pledge to free Armenian soldiers and civilians captured during the conflict. “Unfortunately, the return of prisoners is again delayed,” the office of Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian said in a statement posted on Facebook on April 9. Avinian said that “Russian-mediated negotiations are continuing and we hope that the Azerbaijani side will at last respect” the cease-fire agreement signed in November 2020, putting an end to six weeks of fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in and around Nagorno-Karabakh. There was no immediate reaction from Azerbaijani officials. Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but has been controlled by ethnic Armenians since the early 1990s. Under the Moscow-brokered cease-fire deal, a chunk of Nagorno-Karabakh and all seven districts around it were placed under Azerbaijani administration after almost 30 years of control by ethnic Armenian forces. The agreement also resulted in the deployment of around 2,000 Russian peacekeepers, and provided for an exchange of POWs and other detained people. Several prisoner exchanges have taken place in recent months. &&&&& https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/second-karabakh-war-and-western-strategic-thinking The Second Karabakh War and Western Strategic Thinking By Robert M. Cutler on January 5, 2021 KENNAN INSTITUTE BY ROBERT M. CUTLER The Second Karabakh War has revealed the intellectual bankruptcy of the West’s penchant for grand strategic thinking, which stereotypes the interests of regional powers by viewing them through a pre-twenty-first-century lens. Even the thoroughly discredited trope about Nagorno-Karabakh (“Highland Karabakh”) being a Christian-Muslim conflict made a recent reappearance in a major popular American magazine and among the inside-the-Beltway commentariat, which should certainly know better. Other myths include the inevitability of zero-sum games and a reductionist view of the conflict as an energy-based dispute between Turkey and Russia over the former’s decreased natural gas imports from the latter. Turkey’s imports from Russia have fallen as the country has increased both its natural gas imports from Azerbaijan through the Southern Gas Corridor and its degasification capacity for liquefied natural gas. One clear energy security result of the Second Karabakh War is that no one need be concerned any longer about Armenia cutting off the gas corridor from the Caspian Sea region to Europe. Meanwhile, influential strategic circles in Moscow are finally coming to grips with the fact that the Soviet Union represented the high-water mark of the Russian Empire. It would be surprising if such an evolution in strategic orientation had not occurred by now, nearly thirty years after the breakup of the USSR, during which time an entire generation has grown up and been educated. The political scientist Emil Pain has for some time argued that Russia is “between empire and nation,” while the Russian foreign-po https://www.eurotopics.net/en/259007/eastern-ukraine-how-serious-is-the-situation 21 April 2021 roops abroad.” Andrij Olenin   Original article NV (UA) 20 April 202@ Eastern Ukraine: how serious is the situation? According to media reports, 450,000 citizens of the People's Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk have now been issued Russian passports. This could be a deliberate pretext for an offensive, LB.ua speculates: “In the mid-2000s, Russian passports began to be issued in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The 'protection of compatriots' became the formal pretext for Russia's aggression against Georgia on 8 August 2008. At the time, Dmitry Medvedev cited Article 61, paragraph 2 of the Russian Constitution: 'The Russian Federation guarantees its citizens protection outside its borders'. ... Putin will be meeting with the Federation Council on 21 April, where he could request permission to deploy troops abroad.” Russia will decide to launch a military offensive only when it feels that our state is weakened and the price of aggression will be minimal. Until then, it will focus on hybrid methods to weaken our democratic institutions and social cohesion. ... The presidential office must stop persecuting the opposition, harassing activists and volunteers and dividing society with questionable initiatives.” &&&&& https://www.unian.info/m/politics/donbas-tensions-ukraine-ready-for-war-but-wont-s-stop-fighting-for-peace-through-diplomacy-zelensky-11395333.html Ukraine ready for war, but won't stop fighting for peace in Donbas through diplomacy – Zelensky Read more on UNIAN: https://www.unian.info/m/politics/donbas-tensions-ukraine-ready-for-war-but-wont-s-stop-fighting-for-peace-through-diplomacy-zelensky-11395333.html 11:30, 21.04.21 PO 21 April 2021 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the country is ready for war, but will not stop fighting for peace in Donbas through diplomacy. "What is happening today? A large number of Russian troops have amassed near our state borders. Russia officially calls it an exercise. Unofficially, the whole world calls such things blackmail. Is this a concern for us? Yes. Do Ukraine and its international partners demand that troops be withdrawn from our borders? Yes.

The 6 November 2020 issue of the SUN published an article entitled "How long has Vladimir Putin been President for?" written by Debbie White and Sofia Petkar.

Source:

The Sun,
Debbie
White
and
Sofia
Petkar
(6
Nov
2020):
How
long
has
Vladimir
Putin
been
President
for?

Debbie White and Sofia Petkar write:

"Vladimir Putin, 68 [in 2020], has had two stints as President of Russia."

"The former KGB operative, the authors address, "is already the longest-serving leader since ruthless Soviet dictator Josef Stalin."

The writers explain:

"The former KGB operative is already the longest-serving leader since ruthless Soviet dictator Josef Stalin."

White and Petkar state:

"Putin, a little-known security chief, was appointed acting Prime Minister on August 9, 1999, by then president Boris Yeltsin."

The authors write:

"He has been in office as president or prime minister ever since - a period spanning two decades."

"Plus," the writers add, "a referendum in July 2020 allows Putin to stay in power until 2036."

Source:

The Sun,
Debbie
White
and
Sofia
Petkar
(6
Nov
2020):
How
long
has
Vladimir
Putin
been
President
for?




18 April 2021:
Aleksei
Is
Being
Killed':
Navalny's
Team
Calls
April
21
Protests
Amid
Grave
Concern
Over
His
Health






Aljazeera
News
(20
April
2012):
Ukraine
Tensions
Test
Erdogan
and
Putin's
Relationships

Many different nations within the Russian Federation have been forced to deny their own rights for calling themselves as the nations equal to the Russian nation .

They are imprisoned in a big cage called the Russian Federation:

the Tatars, the Tuvinians, the Chechens or the Yakuts.

Vladimir Putin wants to attack more territories from the former Soviet republics.

Putin wants to make more nations as the slaves to make Russia great.

For the Russian leaders with the colonial mentality all other nations are their slaves.

The Russian leaders have annexed their territories in the past to Russia.

These conquered nations are named only as ethnos or as groups.

The Russian leaders will name those nations as the real nations who are able to detere the Russians from attacking them.

The nations who easily become as the preys for the Russian expansions are called as the ethnos or as the groups of people.

They are not entilted to call themselves as a nation within the territory of the Russian Federation .

Because a nation which losed a war against the Russian invasions cannot expect to be honored by the Russian leaders.

What it is a subject-matter for Vladimir Putin and those Russians with the same colonial ambitions like Putin is "Russianism” or “Russism”.

For Vladimir Putin all regional nations [imprisoned as the ethnic groups but not as nations] must accept the the superiority of the Russian nation.

All regional nations must confess that they are some groups but not as the nations.

These nations soon will disappear from the map.

And soon their children will learn to call themselves as the Russians not as other nations who were forced to accept the Russian superiority as a nation.

Many political experts remember that in the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, the President Boris Yeltsin and his team, realized underlying mechanisms for keeping the superiority of the Russians nation.

They (Yeltsin and co) had reached to a conclusion that federalism in the new established Russia should be the only way to keep the Russian nation out of the other risky options.

They believed the concept of federalism is very attractive.

The concept of a federative Russia will entrapp the other nations living in Russia as the easy preys.

They planned creation of the big prision as the Russian Federation.

Consequently, they thought Russian nation will keep the other nations who are for them as the ethnic groups.

These ethnic groups will be assimiliated into the Russian nation and its culture.

They become as the subjects for the Russian intetests.

The other nations inside of the Russian Feferation are as the Russian subjects or the groups within Russia but they are not as nations.

. By so doing, Boris Yeltsin and his team were able to keep the other nations as the Russian subjects within Russia.

Hence the leaders of the Russian Federation created a quasi-empire after the collapse of the Soviet empire.

Russia kept the other nations in its federation.(as the Russian subjects).

The Russian leaders as their propagandists are claiming that all people within the Russian Federation are united for the sake of Russia.

The Russian leaders constantly pretend that the Russian Federation does not constitute a monoethnic state.

But the Russian nation dictates to the other nations within the Russian Federation they should accept that they are not nations.

The Russian nation wants the other nstions (within the Russian Federation)to accept that they are the ethnic groups, living with the Russian nation within this Federation (which has been named for honoring of the Russian nation not other nations who are living there).

The Russian nationalists believe that all different people in the Russian Federation can demonstrate their powers in the political, economic, social, military areas.

The Russian Federation has incorporated 21 autonomous republics.

These 21 autonomous republics were not established as different nations.

Not as the nations with the equal status to the Russian nation.

Rather they have been named as the ethnic groups or as the ethnic principles.

They should choose the Russian language, the Russian laws and the Russian flag for their national identities.

The other nations whose territories have been occupied by Russia in the past, have been condemned to follow the supremacy of the Russian nation.

They have been imprisoned inside of a big prison called the Russian Federation.

The Russian nation do not see them as the nations but as the ethnic groups.

These nations are forced to assimilate themselves with the Russian culture, the Russian language, the Russian names, the Russian miusic and etc.

These nations are going to be disappeared soon.

They constitute the majority of the populations such as Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Kalmykia, North Ossetia, Tatarstan, Tyva, Chechnya, and Ingushetia.

If we take the phrase of a political scientist like Emil Pain who believed that Russia is “between empire and nation" into consideration then we realize soon that the occupations of the territories in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine confirm that Russia is still an imperial power with the imperialistic ambitions.

Published
online:
08
Dec
2014
(Russian
Politics
& Law
Volume 47,
2009 -
Issue
2):
Original
Article:
Russia
Between
Empire
and
Nation
by
Emil′
Pain
Pages
60-
86
https://doi.org/10.2753/RUP1061-1940470203

For many people around the world Vladimir Putin reptesents a Russian tzar with the imperial ambitions and if somebody asks them what is Putin's Russia today, they will respond it is not a nation rather than it is an empire.

Yes, Putin's Russia is certainly an empire.

Putin is living in the era of tzars and does not care in the current Russian realities with its economical, social and political difficulties it is impossible for him to build a superpower!

Do not expect from Vladimir Putin to build a nation state for Russians.

Modern Russia?

In which Mr. Navalny who reveals the corruptions of Mr. Putin and his friendsand other intellectuals and the political opponents are poisined, imprisoned or killed?

Are imprisonements, tortures and killings of the opponents of Vladimir Putin in Russia stand upon the ruins of the Soviet empire?

What are the agenda of Vladimir Putin in regard to the institutionalization and territorialization of many different ethnicities in Russia?

Does Mr. Putin respect other ethnicities in Russia?

If yes, why Mr. Putin keeps many ethnicities in a big prison called as Russia ?

Russia's territory was near Finland.

Except the small territiries near Finland all other territories in thr current Russian Federation are the occupied territories and all other ethnicities in the current Russia are the enslaved nations.

Are Mr. Navalny and the Russian intlectuals showing the Russian identity or Putin and his corrupt friends (who have seized the powe to capture the wealth behind of their political activities)?

Are Killing, posoning and torturing and imprisonement of the inyellectual people in Russia as an integral part of a positive agenda?

Are the occupation of territories in Azerbaijani region of Karabakh (4000 sqare km) by Russian troops who invaded this region with the fake name of the peacekerping forces (after 10 Nov 2020), as the integral part of building up a Russian state which respects the territorial integrity of other nations?

Are Russian invasions, killings and occupations of the other territories from other sovereign nations Mr. Putin's ways of perfecting the government machinery and conducting of Russian foreign policy?

The “Russian nation” is allowed to enslave the “Tatar nation" or the “Tyva nation” for what reasons?

The term ‘nation’ does not mean and nevee implies that Russian soldiers must invade and kill other nations, to enslave other nations and occupy the territories of other nations by Russia.

The Azerbaijani nation is saturated from hearing of “Russianism” and “Russism” and "Putinisim".

The Azerbaijani people lost thousands of their youths for "Sovietness”.

Under the Sovietness the troops from Bolsheviks occupied the Azerbaijani territories and consequently Bolsheviks stripped the Azerbsijani people of their independent state (President Mohammad Amin Rasoulzade) and for many decades deprived them from an independent territory and sovereignty.

Federalism in Russia is a deception.

This deceptive mechanism to brain wash orher nations as if Russia is advicating a federalism like the German federalism.

The German federalism is a genuin federalism and it provides the optimal solution for different people.

The German federalism guarantees the legal personality of other peoples and allows them for establishing a correct balance between the interests of the central government in Berlin and the federation’s constituents in other Bundes laender.

The Federalism in Russia make no sense because the other nations are not allowed to identify themselves as the nations[they are called groups or ethnos].

The other nations are not equal to the Russians and they are not allowed to free themselves from the joke of the Russian tyranny and hegemony.

The nations in Asian parts of the Russian Federation know very well the Russians are the minority of people who were living around the Kiyev in Ukraine and Finland.

Neither the terms of Russia nor the Kremlin are the Russian words.

Russia's territory is around the Ukraine and around Finland.

All other territories within the Russian Federatuon: in the Caucasus region and Asia are the occupied territories of other nations.

Russia occupies the territories of other nations and enslave those people and call the big prison as the Russian Federation!

Neither Boris Yeltsin nor Vladimir Putin tried to understand the concept of the nation state logic in Russia.

The paramount importance for Vladimir Putin and his like-minded people in Russia is to occupy more territories from the other nations and creating a pan-Russian nation with the imperial ambitions.

Pan-Russian means for example creating of more than 300 Russian language schools in Azerbaijan with the Azerbaijani money and having around 100,000 of the Azerbaijani agents working for Russia as the Fifth colum.

Nobody in Azerbaijan is going to question any complaints against the Russian agents who also have the Russian passports and they are asthe compatriots for the Russians in Russia.

Having the same citizenship of the Russian agents in the former Soviet republics and considering themselves as the Russian nation is the purpose of prividing the Russian passports to the separatists in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldovia and Ukraine.

The co-existence with the Russian agents with the Russian passports within Azerbaijan, Gerorgia, Moldova and Ukraine is meaningless.

In the early days of the Soviet power, Bolshovik government together with the Armenian extremists killed over 130,000 from the Azerbaijani people and occupied the Azerbaijani territories and plundered the oil from Baku, the capital of Axerbaijan.

The Azerbaijani people have kept up in the their minds for more than ten decades through the Soviet as well as the Russian nationalities policies against other nations.

Azerbaijani people rightly questions themselves that over the 25 years following the breakup of the Soviet Union, why the colonial politics of Russia aginst of the former Sovierepublics has not been changed.

Azerbaijani people know what are the Russian intentions to enslave them as it did after 1828 until 1990.

The Azerbaijani people have matured themselves in the political, cultural and social dimensions.

The Azerbaijani self-identity is what Putin's Russia fears.

The “negation principle" of the Azerbaijani people developed to its maturity after Russian tyranny in the past as well as in the present.

The real awareness of what the Azetbaijani people really want as well as what they do not want to be encompasses their inspirations to go away from the tyranny and deception of Russia.

The rulers in the former Soviet Union as well as in the Russian Federation were not able to distinguish what lies between the Azerbaijani nation and the evil Russiam empire.

MN

The other nations aa well as the Russians were well aware of he term ‘civilization’ which made them proud of themselves.

The Russian rulers didn't desire to establish a civilization state and Mr. Putin is following the paths of the former Russian rulers to negate all basic rights of people at the pleasure of his dominance in everything.

Other enslaved nations within the Russian Federation do not want the tolerance from Russians towards other cultures.

The want their own freedom from the big prison of Russia. They are not Russians.

As Patriarch Kirill says, is the sole term that incorporates ethnic identity, in other words, the prevalence of the Russian cultural element, and, on the other hand, tolerance towards other cultures.

The former Soviet republics have hard times ridding themselves of the colonial ambitions of Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin does not recognize Russian Federation as the legal successor with the boundaries of the post-Soviet era.

Russia is too small for Putin to reign when it can revive the old Soviet territories with his military doctrine.

Russia with its imperial ambitions must walk a hard road to deny the rights of the sovereign nations of the former re Soviet republics as the independet countries.

For a 21st century Russian tsar Vladimir Putin is hard ridding himself of illusions of reviving the former Soviet boundaries in the future.

Putin and his cowboys Sergei Lavrov, Sergei Shoigo never want stopping to search for objectivity and truth in the real world.

Neither Vladimir Putin as a new Russian tsar nor his 2 cowboys Sergei Lavrov and Sergei Shoigo want to understand why they havs chosen doctrines for Russia as a country which should try to get back to its colonial roots in the past centuries.

Putin and his cowboys are blind to the political and geopolitical changes in the world in which nations do not want Russia to dictate them how to live.

The former Soviet republics like Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldavia and Ukraine are searching to build a prosperous nations in which Russian president is nobody to dictate them what to do.

The former Soviet republics like Georgia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Moldova are still far from achieving tangible political, social and economical results to guarantee them the ideal countries.

Parallel with the global changes the former Soviet republics are about to enter a new stages of truthfulness with the bitter reallties to overcome the obstacles.

Whether Vladimir Putin and his cowboys want or not, transformations for better future are taking place around the world including the former Soviet republics.

The intellectual individuals in the former Soviet republics understand that the social, economic and political challenges are real and tangible.