The Russian Ministry of Defence offer of surrender terms to the personnel of the extreme nationalist neo-Nazi battalions and foreign mercenaries in the Azovstal iron and steel works to end hostilities by 1.00 pm Moscow time on Sunday would only have been a proforma gesture. Moscow’s statement said, that radio interceptions at Azovstal — as …
Russia’s Ukraine operation has no deadline
Fall is imminent of Azovstal iron and steel works, Mariupol, where thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and NATO officers are trapped. In his first extended remarks in nearly a month about the conflict in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that peace talks had reached a “dead end” and pledged that Russia’s “military operation …
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Asian fault lines of Biden’s war on Russia
As relations with Tokyo sour, Moscow beefs up the coastal defence systems on the Kuril Islands that Japan claims as its own The tremors of the United States’ tensions with Russia playing out in Europe are being felt in different ways already in Asia. The hypothesis of Ukraine being in Europe and the conflict being …
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Iran-backed Houthi is the winner in Yemen
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (R) received Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council , Riyadh, April 7, 2022 These are early days and Yemen has witnessed many a ceasefire in its tortuous civil war that began in September 2014 when Houthi forces took over the capital city Sanaa, which was followed by a rapid Houthi takeover of …
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Israel reaches out to China, again
The Bay Port at Haifa on the Mediterranean, will be operated by Shanghai International Port Group for a 25-year period The phone call to the Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Wednesday by Israel’s alternate Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid adds to the tectonic shifts in the geopolitics of the …
India’s dilemma over West vs. Russia
There is a notion among some mainstream Indian strategic analysts, including some who held top positions in the security establishment in past regimes that what is unfolding in Ukraine is quintessentially “a war between Europeans over the European security order.” No matter the basis of this notion, such contrived naïveté can do incalculable damage …
Fake news in Kiev heralds cruel April
Ukrainian troops prepare to fight Russian forces in Donbass An indignant Moscow has angrily demanded a United Nations Security Council meeting on Monday over the allegations of atrocities by Russian troops in areas around Kiev through the past month. Prima facie, this allegation is fake news but it can mould misperceptions by the time it …
Donbass still remains key battleground
Chechen soldiers deployed to city of Mariupol, Mar. 31, 2022 The Russian General Staff gave an in-depth briefing on March 30 on the military strategy behind the special operation in Ukraine culminating in the decision to decrease the military activities in the Kiev and northern Chernihiv regions. Broadly, the MOD messaging is that the twin …
China’s diplomacy on a roll in Kabul
China’s State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) with Acting Prime Minister of Interim Government Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, Kabul, March 24, 2022 Last Thursday, the Acting Foreign Minister of the Taliban interim government Amir Khan Muttaqi made a stunning remark to greet the visiting Chinese Councilor and …
US resets the containment of Iran
The summit of Arab diplomats on March 27-28 hosted by Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid in the southern Negev Desert is doubtless a landmark event. The UAE’s Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Bahrain’s Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani, Morocco’s Nasser Bourita, and Egypt’s Sameh Shoukry are the Arab participants, while the visiting US Secretary of State …