#Russia's border guard removed more than 20 buoys demarcating shipping lanes from the #Narva River on Thursday (May 23), #Estonia's PPA said.
Estonia installed the markers in its waters based on the State Borders Act and the buoys' location were agreed by the border agencies in 2022.
However, this year Russia disagreed with the locations of approximately half of the 250 markers. Some of those removed on Thursday morning were those disputed by Russia
#Russia embassy in Poland boasts of ‘rebuilding Mariupol’. Only it omits a minor detail - the Russians are not rebuilding #Mariupol in the sense of renovating or rebuilding existing buildings for their existing residents.
What they do is demolishing existing buildings and raising new multi-family houses in their place, offered on the open market, which are unaffordable for existing residents…. because no one will give a mortgage to a person whose flat has been demolished! Residents rendered homeless by the Russian army are thus left in the lurch, as can be seen from the many desperate appeals they publish on Telegram.
The Mariupol authorities also officially run a housing restitution programme but, in typical Russian government fashion, they use many tricks to make it a sham - for example, the new buildings have a slightly different address and plot number and the allocation is no longer ‘due’! Or it turns out that the person in question still has a (also ruined) allotment garden, so as a ‘holder of two properties’ the return of the flat is also ‘not due’!
Such ‘reconstruction of Mariupol’ thus has the character of a exploitative colonisation of the city by the new owners rather than a real reconstruction of the city, and on top of that it only concerns attractive plots of land near the sea and in the centre. Hundreds of blocks of flats in popular bedroom neighbourhoods have remained without water, electricity, without windows and with holes in the roofs for two years.
P.S. I can provide numerous appeals from Mariupol residents on request
🇪🇺 New details of Latvian MEP Tatjana Ždanoka’s espionage for #Russia
The Insider and Re:Baltica examined 19,000 of Ždanoka's emails, revealing her extensive correspondence with FSB agents and work for the Kremlin — while being an MEP.
How #Russia understands Western #deescalation? Margarita Simonyan’s husband Tigran Keosayan explains to his colleagues:
Everything we wanted to know about NATO is now quite clear: we can start a war with any NATO country, almost any, and US will not intervene. As long as US doesn’t intervene, they are just a bunch of paper tigers.
#Russia war correspondent Romanov doesn’t hide the fact he’s personally engaging in fighting, quite the opposite - he proudly publishes videos of himself firing a mortar. What ICRC says about journalists protection at war time?
Journalists and their equipment enjoy immunity, the former as civilians, the latter as a result of the general protection that international humanitarian law grants to civilian objects. However, this immunity is not absolute. Journalists are protected only as long as they do not take a direct part in the hostilities. News media, even when used for propaganda purposes, enjoy immunity from attacks, except when they are used for military purposes or to incite war crimes, genocide or acts of violence.
🇷🇺 #Russia is still recruiting enough men willing to fight for money, but it looks increasingly stretched. Some regions have doubled sign-up bonuses. Analysts say a new mobilisation is “just a question of when.”
🇷🇺 The leader of Russia's #Chechnya region, Ramzan Kadyrov, said early on Thursday he had met Putin in the Kremlin and offered to send more fighters to help Moscow in its more than two-year-old conflict in #Ukraine
The leader of #Russia's #Chechnya region, Ramzan #Kadyrov, said early on Thursday he had met President Vladimir #Putin in the #Kremlin and offered to send more fighters to help Moscow in its more than two-year-old conflict in #Ukraine.
He said tens of thousands of "well trained and equipped fighters from the reserves" were prepared to fight for Russia in Ukraine if such an order were given.
Inside the White House, a Debate Over Letting #Ukraine Shoot #US Weapons Into #Russia
After a sobering trip to #Kyiv, Secretary of State Antony J. #Blinken is urging the president to lift restrictions on how Ukraine can use American arms.
By deepening economic relations with both #China and #Russia, #Orbán hopes to give #Hungary an oversized say in global decision-making. And his “friendship” with #Putin is feeding the ever-growing clientelism within his government and funding his cronies.
For example, while other European countries have been downgrading the size of their staff at Russian embassies and consulates, staff numbers at the Russian Embassy in Budapest are on the rise.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja #Kallas says #Russia is conducting a “shadow war” against the West.
Kallas cited a warning from an intelligence agency to a European country that one of its warehouses was targeted by Russian military intelligence. When a fire occurred at the warehouse two weeks later, officials in the country suggested that “we don’t know it is the Russians,” she said. Kallas did not identify the country.
> The system also opens the possibility of using them to ambush Russian aircraft as they take-off or land on Crimean air bases. The USVs can sit off the Crimean coast and pick off the aircraft as they approach unawares. There is at least circumstantial evidence to suggest that this may have already been done.
After a sobering trip to #Kyiv, Secy of State Antony J. #Blinken is urging #POTUS#Biden to lift some restrictions on how Ukraine can use American arms.
So the President thinks the US is responsible for what others do with the weapons we give them? That is interesting. #israel#palestine#ukraine#russia#war
#Russia has declared an intention to unilaterally extend its territorial waters on #Baltic sea in a way that collides with territorial waters of #Finland and #Lithuania. Russian Ministry of Defense (!) proposed to cancel the 1985 #USSR decision of demarcation of the sea borders and redraw them according to “new geographical references”, and then declare them “internal waters”.
Obviously, this looks very much like a poorly disguised attempt to create an strategic dilemma for #NATO by unilaterally opening a territorial dispute with two NATO members without really invading anyone yet. In case of NATO inaction the next step will be Russian actually enforcing their “new territorial waters” by threatening or sinking ships sailing to Finland and Lithuania. And if the inaction continues, the next step will be likely establishing “new geographical references” on one of the land borders of NATO countries.
Russian forces have started military drills near Ukraine simulating the use of tactical nuclear weapons in response to what Moscow deems threats from western officials about increased involvement in the conflict. Vladimir Putin ordered the drills earlier this month in a move Russian officials said was a warning to the west not...
"A Russian Defence Ministry proposal to revise Russia’s maritime border in the eastern #BalticSea was deleted on May 22 from an official portal after creating confusion and concern among #Nato members such as #Finland, #Sweden, #Lithuania and #Estonia. According to the draft decree dated May 21, the ministry proposed adjusting the border around Russian islands in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland and around #Kaliningrad
"If Re-Elected, Trump Vows Fascist Regime from Day One
Interview with Jason Stanley, professor of philosophy at Yale University and author of “How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them," conducted by Scott Harris"
🇵🇱🇺🇸 #Poland signed an agreement with the United States for the delivery of a $960 million airspace reconnaissance system to monitor its north-eastern borders, defence minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on Wednesday.
ATACMS are Ripping Apart Russian Forces
by #JakeBroe
23:58
The helicopter crash site of #Iran's President has been found and there were no survivors.
Given Russia's attempt to exploit the West's rule of not using Western weapons on Russian territory, there might soon be a policy change given Russia's tactics in #Kharkiv.
🇺🇸 🇺🇦
Jake Broe is a US Air Force veteran covering #Russia 's war in #Ukraine several times a week since February 2022.
"Ernst Jünger’s Narratives of Complicity
A morally compromised writer can project a strange kind of honesty—especially when his society is compromised to the same degree."
Russia begins tactical nuclear weapon drills near Ukraine border (www.theguardian.com)
Russian forces have started military drills near Ukraine simulating the use of tactical nuclear weapons in response to what Moscow deems threats from western officials about increased involvement in the conflict. Vladimir Putin ordered the drills earlier this month in a move Russian officials said was a warning to the west not...