RAF jets scrambled after 'act of Russian aggression' RAF jets were scrambled to intercept a Russian aircraft approaching the Baltic skies, in the first such intervention as part of their latest mission to keep airspace there secure. The Typhoon fighter jets were launched from Amari air base in Estonia, after the Russian military transport aircraft did not transmit a recognised identification code and appeared to be unresponsive. Defence Secretary Michael Fallon described it as an "act of Russian aggression". He said: "This is another example of just how important the UK's contribution to the Baltic Air Policing Mission is. We were able to instantly respond to this act of Russian aggression - demonstration of our commitment to Nato's collective defence." Four RAF jets were deployed to join the Baltic Air Policing mission - which sees Nato members help others who do not have their own policing capabilities - last month and will remain there until the end of August. One of the pilots involved in the mission said it went smoothly. They said: "The scramble went exactly as planned, we launched our Typhoon aircraft quickly and then using our advanced sensors and mission systems, combined with support from our Battlespace Managers on the ground, carried out textbook intercepts of the three aircraft."... http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/raf-jets-scrambled-after-act-of-russian-aggression/ar-BBsYzky
Very little good can come from this. Eventually, an accident will happen with loss of life, at which point whoever the US president is at the time will come out on national TV and say that any aircraft posturing in an aggressive manner at US military forces in legal international space will be shot down after three warnings to put distance between the two forces. Then, whatever happens, so be it. Threat from Russian and Chinese warplanes mounts "WASHINGTON — Chinese and Russian warplanes have been increasingly aggressive intercepting U.S. military aircraft and patrolling near America’s West Coast, prompting the Air Force’s top combat officer to label their provocations one of his top worries. Air Force Gen. Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle, who leads Air Combat Command, said in an interview with USA TODAY that meeting the challenge from the Russian and Chinese to flights in international airspace is essential but dangerous. “Our concern is a resurgent Russia and a very, very aggressive China,” Carlisle said...." http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/th...hinese-warplanes-mounts/ar-BBtkG1B?li=BBnbfcL
I guess the guy got tired of the circus flying planes in an intimidating manner. Now he is intimidating with words.
Predicting a serious US/Russia event - perhaps even something on the scale of the Cuban Missile Crisis. When I can't tell, probably within the next six months, but I suspect Obama will not be dragged into it. So maybe after January 17, 2017. Imo, this is now reaching a fever pitch that is beyond words back and forth. US talks of Russia making a "mistake". No chance, just look back on this thread. In the meantime, Russia kills and repeatedly defies the US backed troops. That is asymmetric. Pentagon slams Russia for striking US-backed Syrian rebels Pentagon chief Ashton Carter on Friday hit out at Russia for bombing US-backed forces in southern Syria who he said were fighting the Islamic State group, calling their actions "problematic." "This was an attack on forces, first of all, that were fighting ISIL. Obviously that's the first thing that's problematic about this Russian conduct," Carter told reporters, using an alternate acronym for the IS group. Carter admitted that perhaps Russian forces made a mistake when they conducted a series of air strikes on Thursday near al-Tanaf -- but said in that case, it highlighted poor intelligence on their side. "If it was their intention, it is the opposite of what they said they were going to do," he said. "If not, it says something about the quality of information upon which they make their strikes." On Thursday, a senior US defense official said that Russian aircraft had not been active in the al-Tanaf area on Syria's border with Iraq "for some time" and that there were "no Syrian regime or Russian ground forces in the vicinity." The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two US-backed fighters -- one Syrian and one Iraqi -- were killed in the strikes... http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...us-backed-syrian-rebels/ar-AAheGlW?li=BBnb7Kz
I don't know the details of this. It seems crazy to me that unless you have incontrovertible proof that the boat is of some sort of immediate danger, it is simply unacceptable to fire on, a fishing boat? Seriously? Surely, a navy destroyer has other ways to intimidate a, fishing boat!!? "Stealing" fish is a crime? Are these people in high school? Must be near starvation to risk war over a fucking fish. Maybe global warming has having a far more disastrous near-term effect on the food chain than I thought. If I were China, I would be fuming. Hopefully, calmer heads will prevail. Indonesia defends opening fire on Chinese boat "Indonesia on Monday defended opening fire on Chinese sailors as an action aimed at stopping illegal fishing, after the latest confrontation between the nations in the South China Sea. Beijing has protested strongly over Friday's clash near Indonesia's Natuna Islands, saying one Chinese fisherman was injured. The Indonesian navy said that seven sailors and a Chinese-flagged vessel were detained but insisted no one was hurt. It was the third such skirmish in recent months between Indonesia and China near the Natunas, which are west of Borneo, as tensions rise between Beijing and several nations over its growing assertiveness in the disputed South China Sea. Unlike some of its Southeast Asian neighbours, Indonesia does not dispute ownership of reefs or islets in the sea. But there have been tensions as Beijing's claims overlap with Indonesia's exclusive economic zone around the Natunas. Indonesian Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti, who is leading a campaign to crack down on illegal fishing, defended the navy's actions. "The Indonesian navy made the right move by maintaining the sovereignty of our seas," she tweeted. "The shooting was definitely according to procedure." She added that "stealing fish is a crime. It is impossible that there is an agreement between countries that allows for stealing fish". President Joko Widodo met with Security Minister Luhut Panjaitan on Monday following the clash and ordered him to defend Indonesia's sovereignty, presidential spokesman Johan Budi said. "The president ordered him to defend Indonesia's territorial sovereignty that we have struggled to build up since our independence," he said...." http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...ng-fire-on-chinese-boat/ar-AAhkzPV?li=BBnb7Kz
Expecting invasion in the Baltics. Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg Putin’s Military Buildup in the Baltic Stokes Invasion Fears Baltic officials say NATO forces are not enough to deter Russia. Henry Meyer meyerhenry4 July 6, 2016 — 6:01 PM CDT Share on FacebookShare on Twitter Vadim Kuznetsov says his excursion-boat business along Russia’s border with Poland has been torpedoed by a new Cold War. “They’re scared,” Kuznetsov said of the Poles, once his main customers, who no longer venture across the border for fishing trips. “What have they got to be afraid of?” he asked, his idle boat moored at a jetty. Some of the explanation is anchored just a few hundred meters away at the main base for Russia’s Baltic Fleet. A minesweeper and a guided-missile cruiser give a hint of the biggest Russian military build-up in the region since Communism collapsed. Ships moored in Vistula Lagoon, Kaliningrad. Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg For most of that period, Kaliningrad, an enclave wedged between Poland and Lithuania, tried to turn itself into a gateway for European investment. But amid Russia’s recent rearmament, the region has increasingly returned to its Soviet-era role as a garrison on the strategic Baltic Sea coast. For more on rising tensions with Russia, click here. This time, however, the countries just to Kaliningrad’s east -- the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia -- are members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, not part of the Soviet Union. How to protect them, which was a largely hypothetical question for the alliance until Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, has now become a central challenge for NATO. Impossible to Defend Their location, all but cut off from the rest of the alliance by Kaliningrad, has turned them into an oversized version of West Berlin, which had to rely on Western airlifts during a Soviet blockade during 1948-49. Largely surrounded by Russia, the Baltics are too exposed to defend effectively but too important for the alliance not to protect. QUICKTAKECool War “NATO could not have militarily prevented a determined Soviet effort to overrun West Berlin, nor can it militarily prevent a determined Russian effort to overrun the Baltic states. But if the Soviets had overrun West Berlin, that would have meant war with NATO,” said Thomas Graham, a senior White House aide at the time the three countries joined the alliance more than a decade ago. “In theory, the same thing should hold true if the Russians made an effort to overrun any Baltic state.” Warships moored at Vistula Lagoon in Kaliningrad. Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg To help dispel doubts about its commitment, NATO this week will approve plans to deploy four battalions to rotate through the region. But though bigger than what the military bloc has ever placed there before, the units will still be dwarfed by Russia’s forces on the other side of the border. The Kremlin, which is spending 20 trillion rubles (about $313 billion) on an ambitious defense upgrade through 2020, argues that it’s just responding to NATO’s encroachment toward Russian borders. In May, Russia announced plans to put two new divisions in the Western region and another in the south. That could be about 30,000 troops, compared to 4,000 in NATO’s plan. Countries like Sweden and Finland that remained neutral through the Cold War are now considering joining NATO. ‘Russia Is Feared’ “In the Baltic States – and elsewhere – Russia is feared,” Finnish President Sauli Niinistoe said last week after a meeting with Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader responded that NATO’s buildup was a risk to his country’s security. “All this creates an obvious threat for us that no one wants to notice," he said, suggesting that if Finland joined the alliance, Russia could respond by moving troops closer to its border. Russia already has contingency plans for an attack on the Baltic states, as they belong to a hostile military alliance, according to a person close to the Russian Defense Ministry. The Kremlin could intervene militarily to defend ethnic Russia minorities there, for example, though this scenario is highly unlikely, the person said. Even short of a full-scale attack, uncertainties about NATO’s ability to defend its members cast a shadow across the entire region. In 2007, for example, Estonia suffered a cyber-attack that crippled its highly computerized government and economy over a period of several weeks. Western officials blamed Russia, though the Kremlin denied any role. “What the Russians would like to do politically is to undermine the confidence the Baltic states have in NATO’s Article Five guarantee,” said Steven Pifer, who served as U.S. deputy assistant of state from 2001-2004, referring to the treaty provision on mutual defense. Sowing Insecurity Some say the Kremlin has succeeded in creating a climate of insecurity without actually needing to fight. Putin “wants to divide Europe, divide NATO, and he’s got a multitude of policies that he keeps pursuing to achieve those ends,” said Michael McFaul, who was U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2011-2014. “Raising the specter of conflict in the Baltic states increases the debate in other capitals in Europe, is this such a good idea for us?” At the same time, major additional NATO deployments in the region could provoke a further Russian buildup as the Kremlin seeks to protect St. Petersburg, the country’s second-largest city. “It’s a vicious circle,” Finnish President Niinistoe warned in his appearance with Putin last week. RAND Corporation think tank, which was based on a series of war games staged between summer 2014 and spring 2015. “The balance of forces in the region is such that Russia has the potential to present NATO with something of a fait accompli in the Baltics,” said RAND’s David Shlapak. Forces stationed in the region, including more than 50 ships and two submarines and advanced S-400 air-defense systems, together with other land, naval and air assets on Russia’s western flank, would allow it to effectively close off the Baltic Sea and skies to NATO reinforcements, defense experts say. Boris Kosenkov. Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg “Air space is going to be contested in a way the U.S. and its allies haven’t had to deal with for over two decades,” said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. Seized from Germany at the end of World War II, when it was known as Koenigsberg, Kaliningrad would be a key base in any Russian operation in the region. “Before the U.S. takes any aggressive actions against Russia, they should think very carefully what they’ll get in response,” said Boris Kosenkov, head of the Kaliningrad veterans’ association and a former general who served in East Germany in the 1980s. --With assistance from Ott Ummelas and Aaron Eglitis. Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. LEARN MORE Merkel Says Russia Has ‘Deeply Shaken’ NATO’s Eastern Members Warsaw NATO Summit to Be About Deterrence, Polish Official Says Brexit Doesn’t Mean NATO Can Stop Worrying About Russia Czech President Calls for Referendum on EU, NATO Membership Russia Military Vladimir Putin Soviet Union War http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...y-buildup-in-the-baltic-stokes-invasion-fears
Although I have zero evidence, I would not be surprised if this coup is somehow backed by Russia. This is no small thing. Turkey is the gateway to Europe from the middle east.
Good thread. Disturbing news out of Russia in the past few weeks. See the clip where Putin flips out on journalists? Says he doesn't know how to get thru to them? NATO and Russia a few years away from nuclear war? Putin just sacked every naval commander in his Baltic fleet (~60) for not confronting NATO warships....
It is indeed troubling if Russian hackers broke into the DNC and then help leaked them. What purpose could that serve except to help Trump, and what exactly about Trump does Russia like - the quote that Trump wants NATO to pay their way otherwise no military help? Hmmmm....