Both Republicans and Democrats “are starting to question” Washington’s support for Kiev, Victoria Nuland said
Some US lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are having second thoughts about providing Ukraine with various types of aid amid its conflict with Russia, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said on Monday.
Speaking during a panel discussion hosted by the US Chamber of Commerce, Nuland was asked to comment on the political split in Washington regarding support for Kiev.
The State Department official attempted to downplay friction on the matter, noting that the US “has contributed more than $30 billion to the security, economic prosperity, and humanitarian situation in Ukraine.”
“You can’t do that without overwhelming support of both parties in the Congress,” she added.
However, she proceeded to admit that “on the fringes of both parties, folks are starting to question, but fundamentally, when you look at how this issue is polling around the country, Americans hate a bully.”
According to Nuland, US citizens “understand that if we don’t stop this war here, if we don’t restore international law and respect for the UN Charter, then this thing [will] just keep going.”
Nuland’s remarks come as an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released earlier this month found that 48% of Americans support the US providing weapons to Ukraine, with 29% opposed and 22% remaining on the fence. This is a 12% drop compared to a similar poll in May 2022, when 60% of US adults said they favored American military support for Ukraine.
In recent months, some Republicans have repeatedly called for an audit of US aid to Ukraine, with a relevant resolution narrowly defeated in the House of Representatives in early December. However, in early February, a dozen Republicans in Congress put forward the “Ukraine Fatigue Resolution” calling on Washington to end its military and financial aid to Kiev.
According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, between January 2022 and January 2023, the US government committed some $77.5 billion to Ukraine, with a sizable part of this sum constituting military aid.
Russia has repeatedly warned the West against arming Ukraine, saying it would only prolong the conflict. On Tuesday, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said that, by supporting Ukraine, NATO had become fully involved in hostilities between Moscow and Kiev, adding that the US-led military bloc “is no longer acting as our conditional opponent, but as our enemy.”
Read more
February 28, 2023 at 12:21AM
from RT - Daily news
via IFTTT
Moscow respects the African nation and is a reliable partner, Choguel Kokalla Maiga said
Russia has helped to turn the tide in Mali’s fight against terrorism and has proven that it does not have ulterior motives in its involvement, the African nation’s acting prime minister has said.
“The terror has moved to the other camp. Terrorists no longer instill fear in Malians. On the contrary, the Malian Army scares the terrorists,” Choguel Kokalla Maiga told RIA Novosti.
He credited Russian military assistance for this change in the interview published on Tuesday, and praised Moscow’s approach in dealing with his government. Russia “is a reliable partner and does not double-deal,” he said.
Its assistance is not limited to military hardware, Maiga stated. Russian supplies of food, fertilizers and energy to Mali are growing, and the two governments are working on boosting trade further. Moscow has also offered a 20% discount on market price for some key products, he added.
“We don’t want to be hostage to other states, who would decide whether or not to deliver fuel to our nation and whether or not there would be food on Malians’ tables,” he said.
The prime minister also rebuked the EU for its attitude towards his country, reiterating his criticism of European Council President Charles Michel. In an interview with the French media earlier this month, Michel accused Mali’s transitional authorities of breaking with “traditional partners, and particularly with European partners,” and claimed that “the consequence is a state that is collapsing.” Bamako dismissed the remarks as part of a “disinformation campaign.”
Maiga noted that politicians in Europe tended to make “really laughable statements to the media,” and that his government was not limited in terms of foreign partnerships.
“Those who want to cooperate with Mali should take a note from Russia and respect our principles,” he suggested.
He also reiterated an assessment by his foreign minister that the EU “was to be blamed for the destruction of Libya, which was the major cause of the escalation of terrorism in Africa,” particularly in the region of Sahel.
France and the UK were the primary drivers behind NATO’s 2011 bombing campaign, which ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Militias and arms smugglers looted the national military’s weapons depots amid the conflict. Libya remains fractured more than a decade later.
Read more
February 27, 2023 at 11:07PM
from RT - Daily news
via IFTTT
The US is fueling the Ukraine crisis with weapons, while targeting Beijing over its ties with Moscow, the foreign ministry said
The US is sending weapons worth billions of dollars to Kiev while warning Beijing against assisting Moscow, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman has said, adding that Washington is in no position to dictate Chinese-Russian relations.
“The US has no right to dictate the China-Russia relations, and we will never accept coercion and pressure from the US,” Mao Ning told journalists during a daily briefing on Monday.
She was commenting on allegations by senior US officials that Beijing has likely authorized the delivery of non-lethal aid to Russia despite warnings from Washington, and is considering the supply of artillery shells in the future.
White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan warned on Sunday that providing military assistance to Moscow “will come at real costs to China.” The US has already imposed Ukraine-related sanctions on two Chinese satellite companies.
Mao said Washington was peddling “false information about weapons” and sanctioning Chinese firms “for no reason,” describing this as “hypocritical” and “a blatant act of bullying.”
The US has poured billions of dollars of military aid into Ukraine, while Beijing has maintained a balanced position, promoting peace talks and a political solution, the diplomat claimed. “It is clear at a glance who is adding fuel to the fire,” she said.
The spokesman added that the sale of US weapons to Taiwan, a self-administered Chinese island, was undermining the relationship between the two nations, just like arming Kiev had fanned the flames of the Ukraine crisis.
The US has pledged to support Kiev for “as long as it takes” to defeat Russia. Beijing criticized Russia for sending troops into Ukraine, but blamed the US and NATO’s expansion in Europe for triggering the crisis. It has blasted Washington’s use of unilateral sanctions as a foreign policy tool.
Read more
February 27, 2023 at 12:23AM
from RT - Daily news
via IFTTT
Hungary wants to know who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines and why, the foreign minister said
The UN should provide a framework for investigating last year’s attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has suggested. He called the incident “scandalous” and said Budapest wanted to get to the bottom of it.
“This is basically the first time when such a major European critical infrastructure was attacked. By whoever – but it was attacked,” the diplomat told RIA Novosti news agency. It should be considered an act of terrorism, he added.
Budapest supports a “comprehensive, deep, structured and detailed” probe into what happened, Szijjarto said. Hungary wants to know “who committed it and why.”
He said the UN should have a role in investigating the sabotage, because the organization was not created “as an integration of like-minded countries,” but as a “platform for countries to talk to each other, who even consider each other as enemies.”
“I think the UN should give a framework for such kind of an investigation,” regardless of who initiates one, Szijjarto added.
The Nord Stream natural gas pipelines connecting Russia and Germany were ruptured in late September by explosive devices planted by an unknown party, which is largely presumed to be a nation state. According to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, the clandestine operation was conducted by the US with the assistance of Norway. Both nations have denied any involvement.
Before Hersh published his findings earlier this month, Moscow argued that the US had most to win from disabling the undersea pipelines, as it has long sought to stop the EU from buying Russian energy.
American producers of more expensive liquefied natural gas have captured a large share of the European energy market, since Brussels declared decoupling from Russia as a priority, after the Ukraine conflict escalated into open hostilities a year ago.
In the interview, which the Russian news agency released on Monday, Szijjarto reiterated his country’s commitment to opposing any attempts to ban cooperation with Russia on nuclear energy, and questioned the rationale for the EU’s blacklisting of Russian journalists.
Read more
February 26, 2023 at 11:03PM
from RT - Daily news
via IFTTT
Russia’s embassy says people in Berlin didn’t fall for the “provocation” by Ukraine supporters
People in Berlin have turned a blown-up Russian tank placed in front of Moscow’s embassy in the German capital by supporters of Kiev into a memorial to victims of the fighting in Ukraine, covering the crippled vehicle with flowers.
The T-72 tank appeared in central Berlin on Friday – the first anniversary of the conflict in Ukraine, which broke out on February 24, 2022.
Activists from the Berlin Story Bunker museum had won a lengthy legal battle against the city authorities, to be able to carry out the stunt.
The tank, which is said to have been damaged by a mine in the Kiev suburb of Bucha in late March and later transported to Germany, was intended to symbolize Russia’s failure in Ukraine, the museum’s curator Wieland Giebel explained. “This tank means that the [Russian] regime will crumble, it’ll turn into a pile of junk, just like this tank,” Giebel said.
However, people in Berlin, who took to the streets in their thousands on Saturday to decry the supply of weapons by Germany to Kiev forces, gave a different interpretation. They brought numerous flowers to the tank, and put anti-war banners on it, including: “Make peace, not war.”
Russia’s Embassy in Berlin posted on Telegram on Sunday that the “provocation” organized by supporters of Ukraine “didn’t meet understanding, support and sympathy of the German citizens.”
They “unambiguously spoke out in favor of a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, against escalation by pumping the Kiev regime with German weapons,” it said.
The Russian diplomats thanked everybody who laid flowers on the tank, which it said became “a symbol of the fight against Neo-Nazism in Ukraine.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed that the Ukrainian government of Vladimir Zelensky and its Western backers have allocated “millions” for various stunts dedicated to the anniversary of the conflict. Most of this money has been “stolen,” while the installations that were made using the remaining sums turned out to be “so talentless that they backfired,” she wrote on Telegram.
In recent months, Moscow has repeatedly stressed its readiness to seek a diplomatic solution to the crisis. However, the government has accused Kiev and the West of making “unacceptable” proposals that showed that they were not interested in peace.
Read more
February 26, 2023 at 01:52AM
from RT - Daily news
via IFTTT
The Russian president said his country is opposed to the emergence of a unipolar world that revolves around Washington’s interests
Moscow is striving to create a multipolar world rather than one that is centered around the US, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. In an interview with Rossiya-1 TV channel on Sunday, he argued that Washington was trying to mold the world exclusively to fit its own agenda.
Putin suggested that America’s “satellite states” are also well aware of these “egoistic” intentions. However, for the time being, they have chosen to turn a blind eye to this due to “various reasons connected first and foremost with huge dependence in the economic sphere and defense,” the Russian leader said.
Some of Washington’s allies also see confrontation with Russia as a unifying cause, eclipsing any differences between them and the US, he added.
As an example, Putin cited the US government’s efforts to attract European businesses to American soil, as well as a submarine deal last summer, which saw Canberra abruptly exit a contract with a French manufacturer in favor of a US competitor. That incident was humiliating for Paris, the president said.
Putin emphasized that Moscow “cannot and will not behave like this.”
In the end, such a stance – the fight for a multipolar world, for respect for each and everyone in the international arena, for taking into account everyone’s interests – I don’t have the slightest doubt, will prevail.
Putin also claimed that Western elites will only be satisfied and prepared to “admit us into the so-called family of civilized nations” if Russia disintegrates into several independent states. In such a scenario, he said, the West would “place [the resulting countries] under its control.” He added that the disintegration of Russia in such circumstances would call into question the existence of the Russian people in its current form.
Commenting on his decision earlier this week to suspend Russia’s participation in the New START Treaty – the last remaining nuclear accord between Moscow and Washington – Putin argued that the move was required to safeguard Russia’s security as well as its “strategic stability.”
According to the Russian president, he opted for this course of action in light of a more aggressive NATO, which “has announced as its prime goal” Russia’s strategic defeat.
Read more
February 26, 2023 at 12:55AM
from RT - Daily news
via IFTTT
Berlin’s spending on tackling skyrocketing energy costs has already topped $270 billion
Germany's government will have to allocate more than $1 trillion by 2030 to deal with the risks and challenges that have arisen due to the energy crisis that Europe has been fighting in recent years, Bloomberg reported on Sunday, citing its primary research service.
The enormous costs are expected to include investments in modernization of the country's power grids and a planned phase-out of its nuclear and coal plants. Berlin will reportedly face growing demand from electric vehicles and heating systems. Moreover, the German authorities are obliged to meet climate commitments.
The increase in power demand by some 30% from the country’s current consumption will take to about 250 gigawatts the new capacity projected to be installed by 2030, according to data provided by the country’s network regulator and think tank Agora Energiewende, as quoted by Bloomberg.
The planned transition is also expected to require the installation of solar panels covering the equivalent of 43 soccer fields and 1,600 heat pumps every day, according to the news agency’s analysts. On top of this, the nation’s ambitious plan would need to see 27 new onshore and four offshore wind farms built per week.
Earlier this month, Brussels-based think tank Bruegel reported that EU nations had splashed out nearly €800 billion (nearly $846 billion) on support measures as the region continues to reel from climbing energy costs.
According to the analysis, €681 billion was allocated for subsidizing households and businesses to help them in covering soaring electricity costs. Germany reportedly topped Bruegel’s spending chart, having set aside nearly €270 billion, while the next three highest, UK, Italy and France, each spent around €150 billion.
