Moscow now has ‘no relations’ with EU

[JustJohn or JJ]

Moscow now has ‘no relations’ with EU because Brussels has ‘destroyed’ once friendly ties, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov claims

23 Mar, 2021 09:02

Months of political tension and a wave of new sanctions have severed all links between the EU and Russia, Moscow’s top diplomat has said, adding that his country is ready to resume cooperation if Brussels decides it is interested.

Speaking at a press conference alongside his Chinese counterpart on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that currently, “there are no relations with the EU as an organization. The entire infrastructure of these relations has been destroyed by unilateral decisions made from Brussels.”

Some individual European countries, he argued, are still seeking closer ties with Moscow, “guided by their national interests.” However, these are being fast outpaced by growing partnerships with China, Lavrov told journalists.

“If and when Europeans decide to eliminate these anomalies in contacts with their largest neighbor, of course, we will be ready to build up these relations based on equality,” the diplomat confirmed, “while in the East, in my opinion, we have a very intensive agenda, which is becoming more diverse every year.”

In February, the foreign minister stated that Moscow’s relations with the bloc had taken a tumble in 2014, after the EU “blamed the Russian Federation for everything that is happening” in Ukraine following the Maidan. Since then, he argued, Brussels “has consistently destroyed all mechanisms without exception that existed on the basis of an agreement on partnership and cooperation.”
As part of a fiery broadcast interview, Lavrov warned that if the bloc’s leadership sought to impose sanctions on Russia that hit sensitive areas of the economy, Moscow could break off diplomatic contact altogether as a last resort. “Of course, we do not want to isolate ourselves from living in the world, but we must be ready for this. If you want peace, prepare for war,” he stressed.

Earlier this month, the EU unveiled a new package of sanctions against four Russian officials it claimed were responsible for the detention of opposition figure Alexey Navalny, and “human rights violations” during the policing of subsequent protests held in his support. At the time, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said the bloc had “missed yet another opportunity to review its … approach to relations with Russia.”

The Kremlin added that the package of measures being imposed would be ineffective, because “if you look at the people on whom these restrictions have been imposed,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “this is actually a duplication of those restrictions that they are already subject to under Russian law.”

According to Peskov, the officials targeted “do not travel abroad anyway, [and] do not have the right to open accounts in foreign banks [or] to own property abroad.” Russia has tough rules restricting the actions and assets of state employees, particularly those in sensitive roles.

[Jaga]

Putin was messing up with Ukraine in the Crimea;s crisis, he is messing up with Belarus and also with the US elections, since he believed he could control Trump (and he could to the big extend), so now he bears the consequences.

[pieter]

Jaga/John,

Despite international politics and tensions I sometimes think there is a constant anti-Russian agenda comming from the USA, Western Europe and other European countries and other Western nations. I think beating the constant war drum is not wise. Confiscating Crimea was a bad decision of Russia. Fact is that a large part of the population of Eastern-Ukraine is Russian or Russified Ukrainians due to mixed marriages between Russians and Ukrainians in the SovjetUnion and Post-Sovjet Ukraine.

Russians believe the USA and the EU are against them. Fact is that the Russian Federation is a large country, an Orthodox Christian country with a Czarist Russian and Sovjet heritage. In my opinion present day Russia has elements of the Monarchist, Royalist and Imperialist Russia mixed with some Sovjet Patriotic elements. The present day Russian cities, towns, modern villages, infrastructures, Russian army, the Special Forces Spetsnaz, the Russian Secret service FSB (with it's KGB roots and foundation), the Russian Military Intelligence GRU (G.U.) (Glavnoje Razvedyvatel'noje Upravlenije), the Russian Oligarchs and the Russian president Putin (Old KGB member and KGB employee in Dresden, East Germany), Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia and Prime Minister of Russia Mikhail Mishustin have all roots in the SovjetUnion.



The Russian Orthodox church, the Russian population, the Russian culture, the Russian sciences, the Russian spirituality, the huge Russian inner market, the Russian future is not only dependent on Putin or the Russian Oligarchs. Do we continue to constantly bash Russia, be negative about Russia and put sanctions on Russia or do we let diplomacy, negotiations, finding a common ground, building bridges and cooperation have a chance. In the Future Russia is our European gateway to China via the Trans-Siberian Railway. There lies huge potention for extensive trade in the connection from China via Russia to Central-Europe and Western-Europe.



We have to be critical and with our NATO organisation have to defend the Baltic States, Poland and other countries with borders with Russia against intelligence, military and Agitprop (Agitation Propaganda) and Fake News and Deep Fake invasions, but we have to respect Russia as a nation, society, culture, people with a civilization and culture and as a sovereign state.

Cheers,
Pieter

[pieter]

[pieter]

[pieter]

Dear friends,

You know that I am not particular Moscow friendly in the historical context of the Partitions of Poland and the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 123 years. The fact that the occupational powers fought much of their Eastern Front part of the First World War on Polish soil (with Poles fighting on both sides, because they were forced too). Poland's geographical position between the fighting powers meant that much fighting and terrific human and material losses occurred on the Polish lands between 1914 and 1918. One side affect of that terrible war was the re-emergence of Independent Poland in 2018 with the Second Polish Republic (commonly known as Interwar Poland 1918–1939). The Second Polish Republic was destroyed and removed by the Nazi German and Sovjet occupation of Poland in september 1939 an the Nazi and Stalinist terror that followed with that occupation. The Generalgouvernement (Polish: Generalne Gubernatorstwo), Reichsgau Wartheland (Polish: Kraj Warty), Provinz Ostpreußen (Prusy Wschodnie), Reichsgau Danzig Westpreußen (Gdańsk-Prusy Zachodnie), Provinz Niederschlesien (Dolny Śląsk (prowincja)), Provinz Oberschlesien (Górny Śląsk (prowincja)), Distrikt Galizien (Dystrykt Galicja) of the German and Austrian Nazi occupation lead by high Nazi Party NSDAP functionary, hight ranking SS- und Polizeiführer (SSPF) (SS- and Police leaders), SA Gauleiter, Wehrmacht generals and others and on the Sovjet side the Soviet administrators used slogans about class struggle and dictatorship of the proletariat, as they applied the policies of Stalinism and Sovietization in occupied eastern Poland. The Soviet authorities in Eastern-Poland attempted to remove all signs of Polish existence and activity in the area in the period 1939-1941. All the media became controlled by Moscow. Soviet occupation implemented a police state type political regime, based on terror. All Polish parties and organisations were disbanded. The Soviets exploited past ethnic tensions between Poles and other ethnic groups, inciting and encouraging violence against Poles by calling upon the minorities to "rectify the wrongs they had suffered during twenty years of Polish rule". The hostile propaganda resulted in instances of bloody repression. According to a 2009 estimate by the IPN, around 150,000 Polish citizens died as a result of the Soviet occupation. The number of deportees was estimated at around 320,000.

After the Second World War we know that Poland came under the influence of the Sovjet communist rulers of the Kremlin in Moscow. We know that most Poles favored Freedom & Democracy and an Independent and Sovereign Poland as part of the Free West, Great Britain, France, Italy, the USA and Canada. Unfortunately for the Poles from 1945 until 1989 the Marxist-Leninist and Stalinist Polish communists and their East-German-, Czech-, Slovak-, Hungarian-, Baltic-, Belarussian-, Ukrainian- and Russian Brethern of the Communist Peoples republics surrounded them and dominated them with their Warsaw Pact, Comecon, Urząd Bezpieczeństwa (1945–1954), Służba Bezpieczeństwa (1954-1989), Główny Zarząd Informacji Wojska (the Communist Peoples Army -Ludowe Wojsko Polskie- Main Directorate of Information) and the terror of the Milicja Obywatelska (Citizens' Militia) and the notorious ZOMO (Zmotoryzowane Odwody Milicji Obywatelskiej) motorized riot troops (From the 1960s through the 1980s, ORMO forces, which at one time numbered as many as 600,000 civilian volunteers, were used to augment regular police personnel at key trouble spots. In the early 1980s, ORMO harassed Solidarity members and prevented independent groups from organizing.)

This pretext shows the negative influence of Czarrist Russia, Sovjet Russia and present day Russia on Poland. The Russian sanctions hit the Polish farmers and entrepreneurs hard. The Russian pressure on Eastern-European and Central-European countries (states) is hard. Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia, Austria and German, French and Italian politicians have good relations with the Russian president, his United Russia (Russian: Единая Россия) party and other Russians. This worries Poland which is strengthening it's defence and has close ties with the Americans and the Baltic states.

Nord Stream projects, a system of offshore natural gas pipelines running under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, have been opposed by the United States as well as by several Central and Eastern European countries because of concerns that the pipelines would increase Russia's influence in the region.

Cheers,
Pieter

[Jaga]

As Pieter said Russia has the history of dishonest politicians and lack of freedom. The last serious example includes poisoning Navalny and then sending him to the prison. He is in the concentration camp now:

www.cnn.com/2021/03/25/europe/navalny-russia-health-concerns-intl/index.html

Alexey Navalny is suffering 'torture by sleep deprivation' and severe pain, lawyers say
By Anna Chernova, Zahra Ullah, Matthew Chance and Zamira Rahim, CNN

[pieter]

Jaga,

In this world, time, Polish society and thus in the reality we live in nothing is black and white. Poles themselves, the Polish government, the Polish opposition, Polish entrepreneurs, Polish diplomats in the Polish embassy in Moscow and consulates-general in Irkutsk, Kaliningrad and Saint Petersburg. There are currently 73,000 Polish nationals living in the Russian Federation. This includes autochthonous Poles as well as those forcibly deported during and after World War II; the total number of Poles in what was the former Soviet Union is estimated at up to 3 million.

Military, geopolitically, Financially, economically and in it's border policy Poland must have a strong defence, a heavily protected modern border with Lithuania, the Russian Federation (Kaliningrad), Belarus, Ukraine, Slovakia (for a possible Russian future invasion via Ukraine and Slovakia) and even with the Czech Republic and Germany. Due to Schengen the borders must be open in the EU, but in the case of a worst case scenario Poland must be able to secure it borders.

In my opinion the Polish armed forces should be doubled or tripled with huge and heavy investments in the Polish defence, military equipment, modern attack tanks, artillery, a large fleet of Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II single-seat, single-engine, all-weather stealth multirole combat aircrafts. Poland has 32 F-35 Lightning II on order and should double or triple that to 64 or 96. Next to that Poland should purchase more F-16 Fighting Falcon single-engine multirole fighter aircrafts from other nations (the USA, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK and others). Poland has 48 F16's today and should double that to 96 F16 planes. Second hand planes of other nations which can be modernised by Polish and American experts. It is good that Poland has stil 23 excellent MiG-29 planes. The Poles should copy that excellent MiG-29 plane and compare it with the F16 and F35. The Poles could combine the best element and build a Polish Fighting yet, like it build it's own tank. Poland should have at least 50 Boeing AH-64 Apache, American twin-turboshaft attack helicopter with a tailwheel-type landing gear arrangement and a tandem cockpit for a crew of two for fighting missions abroad. Poland has no AH-64 Apaches today. Poland has only 5 Lockheed C-130 Hercules, American four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft from Lockheed Martin. The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is capable of using unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings, the C-130 was originally designed as a troop, medevac, and cargo transport aircraft. Poland should have more Lockheed C-130 Hercules four-engine turboprop military transport aircrafts. At least 30 of them for troop transport, better is 40 or 50. Maybe Poland could also purchaise more EADS CASA C-295 twin-turboprop tactical military transport aircraft planes. It has now 16 EADS CASA C-295 planes, maybe it should expand it's amount of these Spanish EADS CASA C-295 transport planes to 30.

Modernization of Land Forces


A PT-91 Twardy main battle tank

A new long-term program, designed to modernize the Polish Armed Forces, was introduced in 2019. Over the period of the next 10 to 14 years large portion of the equipment currently used by the Polish Army will be either upgraded or replaced. Some elements of this program are already in place. Polish Ministry of Defence signed a contract on modernization of all Leopard 2 tanks used by the Polish Army to Leopard 2PL standard prior to 2023 (first Leopard 2 PL arrived in March 2018). At present, Polish Army has a stock of 1009 tanks (2017). There are a total of 249 Leopard 2 tanks (137 Leopard 2 A4, 105 Leopard 2 A5, 5 Leopard 2PL, 2 Leopard 2 NJ), 232 PT-91 tanks that underwent modernization in 2016, and 328 T-72 tanks. 230 of the T-72 are being upgraded in Bumar-Labedy arms manufacturer plant. Some of the improvements are: installation of new radio communication systems, digital engine control and start-up system, 3rd generation thermal imaging cameras, external transport baskets, and any necessary overhauls and repairs that can improve their longevity and combat ability on the modern battlefield. Jaga, I do believe that this modernisation of the Polish armed forces is a good thing, but not enough. Poland should have the strongest and largest army in the EU. History has proven that Poland can't depend on others on the short term nor on the long term. A strong Polish army is good for Poland, good for the Visegrád Group (Visegrád Four, or V4), good for the Baltic States, good for the region, good for NATO and good for Europe.

Poland has excellent Special Forces and these speciual forces should go to other friendly nations and get the best training techniques of the British SAS (Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army), the German Kommando Spezialkräfte (KSK), the German army EGB Forces (Specialized Army Forces with Expanded Capabilities for Special Operations) (German Spezialisierte Kräfte des Heeres mit Erweiterter Grundbefähigung für Spezielle Operationen is a specialized operations force of the German Bundeswehr, organized under the Rapid Forces Division.), the French Commandement des Opérations Spéciales (COS; Special Operations Command), the American Navy Seals, the Israeli Mista'arvim (Hebrew: מסתערבים‎, lit. Arabized; Arabic: مستعربين‎, Musta'arabin) counter-terrorism units, 89th "Oz" Brigade ("Courage" in Hebrew), Unit 269 (Sayeret Matkal), and the 1st "Golani" Brigade (Hebrew: חֲטִיבַת גּוֹלָנִי‎), and the Dutch Korps Commandotroepen (KCT) (English: Commando Corps) and the Netherlands Maritime Special Operations Forces (NLMARSOF, also simply referred to as MARSOF) is the special forces unit of the Marine Corps of the Royal Netherlands Navy.

The Polish JW GROM (full name: Jednostka Wojskowa GROM im. Cichociemnych Spadochroniarzy Armii Krajowej, English: Military Unit GROM named in honour of the Silent Unseen of the Home Army) one of Poland's premier special missions units and the Jednostka Wojskowa Komandosów, commonly called JWK and formerly known as 1 Pułk Specjalny Komandosów (1 PSK), is one of six special forces units currently operating within Poland's Centrum Operacji Specjalnych - Dowództwo Komponentu Wojsk Specjalnych (COS - DKWS, en. Special Operations Center - Special Forces Component Command) are excellent, but these Polish special forces could learn from others and improve their skills. In the same time other special forces could learn from the Poles, Polish special forces techniques and experiance and expertise.

In have also to mention Jednostka Wojskowa Formoza, (en. Military Unit Formoza) (2007-2011 Morska Jednostka Działań Specjalnych, MJDS) (en. Naval Special Operations Unit), previous names: Sekcje Działań Specjalnych Marynarki Wojennej (Polish Navy Special Operations Sections), Grupy Specjalne Płetwonurków (Special Frogmen Groups). And the Jednostka Wojskowa AGAT is a specialized light infantry unit of the Polish Armed Forces. A relatively new unit, its name is shortened for “anti-gestapo” in honor of a WWII Polish Home Army Combat Diversion unit. As an advanced infantry unit, its role is comparable to that of the 75th Ranger Regiment.

The Polish army today has an Active personnel today of 114,050 people. This is to little and the seize of the army should be doubled to 228,100 people. The budget for the Polish army in 2020 was PLN 50 billion ($13 billion), this should be doubled to PLN 100 billion ($26 billion) or more.

Next to this Poland has to invest in Signals intelligence, counter espionage, ICT-specialized units, and infiltration of foreign nations with Polish spies who speak the language of these countries fluently and look like the people in these nations and have pasports of these nations like if they are nationals of these nations. This is counter intelligence of the Agencja Wywiadu (Polish pronunciation: [aˈɡɛnt͡sja vɨˈvʲadu]; English: Foreign Intelligence Agency) or AW, a Polish intelligence agency.

You can't be weak in Central Europe on the border with Eastern-Europe, Northern Europe, Western-Europe and Southern-Europe. Next to the military and intelligence option Poland should invest heavily in diplomacy, it's foreign policy (the department of Foreign affairs), the Polish embassies and consulates abroad and in the Adam Mickiewicz Institute (Polish: Instytut Adama Mickiewicza) to promote the Polish language and Polish culture abroad. It is good that the Adam Mickiewicz Institute operates a trilingual Polish-English-Russian portal, "Culture.pl", founded in 2001.

Next to this I think that Poland should invest a lot in foreign languages education in Polish primary schools, high schools, vocational universities and universities. The best thing would be if Polish pupils have English, Russian and German lessons in their primary schools next to Polish lessons. In the Netherlands in the past we had Dutch, English, German and French as subjects at school next to the other subjects. I have had these 4 languages as subject on high school. At least part of the Poles should speak Russian and Russian language, culture, society, history, and present day Russian politics should be tought at Polish schools. You have to know your history and neighbours. Russian is a slavic language, maybe it would be easier for Polish kids to study it than for instance German or Dutch kids.

Present day Polish Russian relations


Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) and new Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin arrive to attend a cabinet meeting in Moscow

Modern Polish–Russian relations begin with the fall of communism – 1989 in Poland (Solidarity and the Polish Round Table Agreement) and 1991 in Russia (dissolution of the Soviet Union). With a new democratic government after the 1989 elections, Poland regained full sovereignty, and what was the Soviet Union, became 15 newly independent states, including the Russian Federation. Relations between modern Poland and Russia suffer from constant ups and downs. Among the constantly revisited issues is the fact that Poland has moved away from the Russian sphere of influence (joining NATO and the European Union) and pursuing an independent politic, including establishing a significant relations with post-Soviet states; for example, Poland was the first nation to recognize Ukraine's independence and Polish support for the pro-democratic Orange Revolution in 2004 in Ukraine has resulted in a temporary crisis in the Polish–Russian relations. Occasionally, relations will worsen due to remembrance of uneasy historical events and anniversaries, such as when Polish politicians bring up the issue of Russia apologizing for the '39 invasion, the Katyn massacre (which many Polish citizens and politicians see as genocide, but Russian officials refer to as a war crime rather than a genocide), or for the ensuing decades of Soviet occupation; in turn, Russians criticize Poles' perceived lack of thankfulness for liberation from Nazi occupation. During the 1990s, assistance granted by Polish government and civilian agencies to members of the Chechen separatist movement had been met with criticism by Russian authorities. In 2009, there had been controversy over the Russian government and state media publishing claims that Nazi Germany, the Empire of Japan and the Second Polish Republic had allied or intended to ally against the Soviet Union before the Second World War. These claims were denounced by Polish politicians and diplomats as an attempt at historical revision. Other issues important in the recent Polish–Russian relations include the establishment of visas for Russian citizens, US plans for an anti-missile site in Poland, the Nord Stream pipeline (Poland, which imports over 90 percent of oil and 60 percent of gas from Russia, continues to be concerned about its energy security which the pipeline threatens to undermine), Polish influence on the EU–Russian relations and various economic issues (ex. Russian ban on Polish food imports). Since the fall of the Soviet Union, with Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus regaining independence, the Polish–Russian border has mostly been replaced by borders with the respective countries, but there still is a 210 km long border between Poland and the Russian Kaliningrad exclave.

Cheers,
Pieter

[pieter]

I repeat, being strong doesn't have to imply that you have to constanlty beat the anti-Russian Cold War drum. Give diplomacy a chance.

[karl]

Mar 28, 2021 15:37:05 GMT -7 pieter said:

I repeat, being strong doesn't have to imply that you have to constanlty beat the anti-Russian Cold War drum. Give diplomacy a chance.

I do agree with Pieter, for Diplomacy is the key, for words are often stronger then steel, with this, the written word last whilst the spoken word is only for a short time.

Karl

[kaima]

The Arms Merchant in the Sights of Russia’s Elite Assassination Squad
Russian spies have twice tried to poison Emilian Gebrev. Now, revelations in the Czech Republic show they also destroyed shipments of his military supplies.[/b]



Inspecting the damage after an explosion at an ammunition depot near Vrbetice in October 2014. 
Inspecting the damage after an explosion at an ammunition depot near Vrbetice in October 2014. Credit... Police of the Czech Republic, via Shutterstock

Michael Schwirtz
By Michael Schwirtz
April 24, 2021


For a major arms merchant, Emilian Gebrev cuts the modest figure of a bemused grandfather, preferring soccer jerseys and polo shirts to suits and ties, driving his own car and insisting that he is of little importance outside his native Bulgaria.

But this week it became clear just how significant Mr. Gebrev is, at least to an elite squad of Russian operatives within the Kremlin’s military intelligence service.

Days after the Czech authorities accused the assassination team, known as Unit 29155, of being behind a series of 2014 explosions at weapons depots that killed two people, Mr. Gebrev acknowledged that his supplies were stored at the depots. And according to Czech officials, Mr. Gebrev’s stocks were the target.

The revelation is a new and startling development, given that the authorities say the group also twice tried to kill Mr. Gebrev. In 2015, the Bulgarian authorities say that officers with the unit traveled to Bulgaria and poisoned him with a substance resembling the same Novichok nerve agent used against former spies and obstinate critics of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. After the first attempt failed to kill him, they returned and poisoned him again.

There has always been an uncertainty about why the Russians were so determined to get Mr. Gebrev. Now the Czech case adds further evidence that the Kremlin was after him because of his business dealings.

In an email to The New York Times, Mr. Gebrev acknowledged that he was storing ammunition at the Czech arms depot and admitted something that he had long denied: that his company, Emco, had shipped military equipment to Ukraine after 2014, when separatists backed by the Russian military and intelligence services started a war with Ukrainian forces.


Image

The Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev in Sofia in 2017.
The Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev in Sofia in 2017.Credit...Nikolay Doychinov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The Russian team’s involvement in the explosions in the Czech Republic add to a growing list of operations attributed to Unit 29155, and have further inflamed an intensifying standoff between Russia and the West.

On Thursday, the Czech government said it would expel as many as 60 Russian diplomats on top of the 18 it had already kicked out of the country in response to the explosions, potentially dismantling Russia’s diplomatic presence in the country. Russia has vowed to respond accordingly, and has already expelled 20 officials from the Czech Embassy in Moscow.



The tit for tat came just days after the United States announced that it would expel 10 Russian diplomats and impose sanctions as punishment for a huge breach of U.S. government computers systems that the White House blamed on Russia’s foreign intelligence agency. It also coincided with Russia massing troops on the Ukraine border, only to partly pull back this week.

For years, Unit 29155 operated in Europe before Western intelligence agencies even discovered it. A 2019 investigation by The New York Times revealed the purpose of the unit and showed that its officers had carried out the attempted assassination a year earlier of a former Russian spy named Sergei V. Skripal, who was poisoned in Salisbury, England.

Numerous other examples of the unit’s handiwork have since been exposed. Last year, the Times revealed a C.I.A. assessment that officers from the unit may have carried out a secret operation to pay bounties to a network of criminal militants in Afghanistan in exchange for attacks on U.S. and coalition troops.

Bulgarian prosecutors charged three officers from Unit 29155 with poisoning Mr. Gebrev in January 2020 and issued warrants for their arrest. They also released surveillance video of one of the assailants apparently smearing poison on the door handles of cars belonging to Mr. Gebrev, his son and a senior manager in a garage near their offices in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital.

But Mr. Gebrev questions whether the unit acted alone, suggesting that even if Russian assassins were responsible for his poisoning, they were likely in cahoots with his enemies in Bulgaria.



Image
Czech diplomats and their families leaving the Czech Embassy in Moscow on Monday.
Czech diplomats and their families leaving the Czech Embassy in Moscow on Monday.Credit...Yuri Kochetkov/EPA, via Shutterstock
In the summer and fall of 2019, I met with Mr. Gebrev several times and even toured one of his ammunition factories near a Bulgarian town called Montana, where mortar rounds of various sizes are packed into green boxes and shipped around the world. He never revealed his connection with the Czech bombings and only reluctantly talked about the two times he was poisoned.



“If this is going to be some newspaper gossip, I’m not going to talk about it,” he said at the start of one of our meetings.

Mr. Gebrev has also been reluctant to discuss his company’s relationship with Ukraine. Initially, he said it had ceased all ammunition exports to the country at the start of the war in 2014. But on Friday, he acknowledged that Emco signed a contract with “authorized Ukrainian companies” in late 2014 after the war had begun. In an earlier email, Mr. Gebrev insisted that the weapons stored in the Czech depots had not been earmarked for Ukraine.

One current and one former Ukrainian official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified military information, said Emco signed a contract in 2014 to provide artillery ammunition for the Ukrainian military. To prevent Russian sympathizers in the Bulgarian government from blocking the shipments, the boxes of ammunition were labeled as if they were destined for Thailand, the former official said. (Mr. Gebrev denied that his company had mislabeled any of its exports.)

The Russian government discovered the shipments anyway, according the former official, and pressured the Bulgarian government to put an end to them.

Providing military assistance to the Ukrainian government at any time since 2014 would have been playing with fire.

After pro-democracy protesters toppled the Kremlin’s puppet government there, Russian special forces units wearing unmarked uniforms seized and annexed the Crimean Peninsula and also instigated a separatist uprising that is still ongoing in the east. Meanwhile, Russian assassins fanned out across the country, killing senior Ukrainian military and intelligence officials who were central to the war effort, according to Ukrainian officials.



Image
Russian soldiers at a Ukrainian military base in Perevalnoe, in the Crimean Peninsula, in 2014.
Russian soldiers at a Ukrainian military base in Perevalnoe, in the Crimean Peninsula, in 2014.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
In a news conference this week, the Czech Republic’s prime minister, Andrej Babis, said the explosions were “an unprecedented attack on Czech soil,” but made clear that the real target was not his country but “goods belonging to a Bulgarian arms dealer.”

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The explosions, which took place in October and December 2014, were initially attributed to a technical malfunction. It is unclear how, seven years later, the Czech authorities concluded that the blasts were acts of Russian sabotage.

Czech security officials identified two suspects, whom they said arrived in the country just before the first explosion and visited the depot near the city of Vrbetice, pretending to be buyers from Tajikistan’s military. The fake names they used to enter the facility, Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov, were the same as those used four years later by the two men who poisoned Mr. Skripal in Salisbury.

The Czech Republic has long been a staging area for Russian intelligence operations, Western security experts say. The Russian Embassy in Prague, the capital, is one of the country’s largest in Europe. All of the 18 embassy officials expelled by the Czech government so far in response to the explosions are believed to be spies.

One person in the embassy, Viktor Budyak, received his accreditation in early 2020 to serve as deputy military attaché. He had once served as a senior officer with Unit 29155 and likely was involved in supporting the unit’s activities in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in Eastern Europe in recent years, according to a European security official who has tracked Mr. Budyak’s career.

There are indications that the mission was a top priority for the Kremlin. Using travel records, the investigative organization Bellingcat determined that Maj. Gen. Andrei V. Averyanov, the commander of Unit 29155, traveled undercover to Vienna days before the explosions and possibly drove into the Czech Republic to the town of Ostrava where, according to the Czech authorities, the men using the names Petrov and Boshirov stayed during the operation.

That Russian spies would carryout military-style sabotage operations outside wartime has shaken many in Europe.

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“I think for public opinion, not only in the Czech Republic, but for others in the European Union, this is shocking,” said David Stulik, a senior analyst at the Prague-based European Values Center for Security Policy. “It sheds light on how Russia is treating our countries.”

Boryana Dzhambazova contributed reporting from Sofia, Bulgaria, and Hana de Goeij from Prague.

Russian Assassination Squad

[Jaga]

I saw this strange development of Putin's Russia with Europe and I am glad that EU finally reacts. Even in Poland Czech's revelations of Russians spies made the news.
Putin is excellent with doing underground work for Russia abroad.

I actually have some pro-Trump friends who believe that what Russian propaganda (RT) says is right and they would defend Russia against Ukraine and accuse Biden of escalation against Putin and Russia. Russia is so good in their propaganda now....

[karl]

Mr. Putin has of a few days previous given the word to his commanders to pull back Russian troops from the Ukraine border as news provided in the following: Bloomberg should be a reliable news source as their version appears to be accurate:

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-22/russia-to-begin-pulling-troops-back-from-ukraine-border-friday#:~:text=Russia%20said%20it%20will%20begin%20pulling%20thousands%20of,move%2C%20saying%20in%20a%20tweet%20it%20%E2%80%9Creduces%20tension.%E2%80%9D

Karl

[Jaga]

Hello Pieter, referring to doubling Polish army. I see your point - to be able to survive Russian confrontation, but at what cause? Polish army is still corrupted and not transparent. We would need a real change to build a better army, but just bigger...

I am not sure Poland is ready for it yet. Building the armies also causes the conflicts, since sometimes generals are bored and there is a growth in "industrial-military" conflict, so I am not sure

[karl]

Friends are made-Enemies are created. It would so appear diplomacy is last or forgotten as a skill.


Karl