Ukraine: US and Russia battle

[pieter]

[pieter]

Speaking on the second day of the Munich Security Conference, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy challenged members of the European Union and NATO to take their relationship with Ukraine seriously. In emotional remarks, he thanked partners for their rhetorical and material support in the face of Russia's military build up on Ukraine's borders. But he said they have Ukraine to thank for standing up to Russian aggression for years, and protecting the rest of Europe from it. Still, Zelenskyy said diplomacy is the only means for Ukraine to regain the territory it lost when Russia attacked in 2014. That led him to question Russian claims that they are not seeking to do so again now. The British-Iranian journalist and television host Christiane Amanpour Chief International Anchor for CNN and host of CNN International's nightly interview program Amanpour was on hand to conduct an in-depth follow-up interview with Zelenskyy. Amanpour is also the host of Amanpour & Company on PBS.





Dear friends,

I have respect for the position and of president Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy (Ukrainian: Володимир Олександрович Зеленський) who tries his upmost best to represent his country and does not want to be lured into speculation, manipulation nor appeasement policies. I understand that he wants to become part of NATO. I hope that he understands who there is resistance towards Ukraine's membership of NATO in the West. Of course Ukraine wants to be part of the EU and NATO. The huge problem is that in Europe there is a huge resistance towards the very existence of the EU itself and also against expansion of the EU with Ukraine. Although the Ukrainian administration is fighting hard against corruption, clientelism, bribes, fraud, nepotism and other bad things in the Ukrainian system fact is that corruption and nepotism still exist in Ukraine. And corruption, nepotism, clientelism, fraud and bribes is something Western-European nations and reformed Central-European nations like Poland and the Czech Republic are allergic of. Despite that reality Poland supports the Ukrainian campaign and attempts to join NATO and the EU. Poland know what Czarist Russian and Soviet occupation are, because Poland was occupied by the Russians in the past. Therefor the Poles can empathise with the Ukrainians. For some strange reasons the Germans can't. I have to say that Germany has experienced Soviet Russian revenge at the end of the Second World War. The rapes of millions of German women and the killing of many German citizens by advancing Red Army troops of the Soviets. Revengeful Poles and Czechs also killed and imprisoned German citizens in camps. Eastern-Germany was occupied by the Soviets and experienced the rule of Soviet military rulers, the Red army and the NKVD troops for years.


Ukrainian president Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy on an Ukrainian Navy vessel

The East German uprising of 1953 (German: Volksaufstand vom 17. Juni 1953 ) was an uprising that occurred in East Germany from 16 to 17 June 1953 was violently suppressed by tanks of the Soviet forces in Germany and the Kasernierte Volkspolizei, while demonstrations continued in over 500 towns and villages for several more days before dying out. The East-German uprising of 1953 began with a strike action by construction workers in East Berlin on 16 June against work quotas during the Sovietization process in East Germany. Demonstrations in East Berlin turned into a widespread uprising against the Government of East Germany and the Socialist Unity Party the next day, involving over one million people in about 700 localities across the country. Protests against declining living standards and unpopular Sovietization policies led to a wave of strikes and protests that were not easily brought under control and threatened to overthrow the East German government.

Germany has a different position than the USA with ties to both Russian and Ukraine in the economical field. The German Ostpolitik policy was dramatically shaken after 2014 as Russia threatened Ukraine, seized Crimea, and sponsored fighting in eastern Ukraine bordering on civil war. Berlin denounced Moscow’s actions as a violation of international law, and took a leadership role in formulating EU sanctions. However, Germany depends heavily on Russian energy supplies via the Nord Stream pipeline, so it has proceeded cautiously and opposes American efforts to cancel Nord Stream.

2022 - Germany blocks arms supplies to Ukraine. during the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis. British Royal Air Force C-17 planes take a long detour around German air space to deliver thousands of NLAW anti-tank weapons to Kyiv. Ukraine's foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba states that Ukrainians will remember Germany's position "for decades".

Today the Ukrainians and Russians take strong positions, Ukraine seems to take a middle position between Washington D.C. and Moscow criticising both the USA and the Russian Federation, the White House and the Kremlin. In the same time Ukraine received foreign military aid and has it's own arms industries.
The defense industry of Ukraine is a strategically important sector and a large employer in Ukraine. After working for several decades mostly for the arms export markets, in 2014 it has moved significantly into increased Ukrainian military procurement since the start of the war in Donbas.

rior to 2014, Ukraine's export-oriented arms industry had reached the status of world's 4th largest arms exporter in 2012. Since the start of the War in Donbas, Ukraine's military industry has focused more on its internal arms market and as a result slipped to the 9th spot among top global arms exporters by 2015, 11th spot by 2018 and the 12th spot among global arms exporters by 2019.

In 2019 the main importers of Ukrainian weapons were India, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The Defense industry of Ukraine is the most advanced branch of the state-controlled sector of Ukraine's economy. Ukraine's defense industry employs more than one million people and produces advanced hardware and continues to design and build new military systems.


BM Oplot, produced by the KMDB guided onto a tank transporter

Defense industry of Ukraine is the most advanced branch of the state-controlled sector of Ukraine's economy. Ukraine's defense industry employs more than one million people and produces advanced hardware and continues to design and build new military systems.

Ukraine's defense industry is organized around Ukroboronprom, a state owned conglomerate of over 130 companies. These companies include Soviet era giants such as Ivchenko-Progress aircraft design bureau that was opened in 1945, to newer companies such as RPC Fort which came into existence in the 1990s.

In August 2018 the Groysman government simplified the procedure for granting economic entities the right to export and import military goods and goods that contain data that constitute a state secret. This opened the market for private defense companies, which previously could only work with foreign clients through a state-owned company.

On 22 July 2020 the new government ministry Ministry of Strategic Industries of Ukraine was established to aid and develop Ukraine's defence industry.


The Antonov An-70 (Ukrainian: Антонов Ан-70) is a four-engine medium-range transport aircraft, and the first aircraft to take flight powered only by propfan engines. It was developed in the late 1980s by the Antonov Design Bureau to replace the obsolete An-12 military transport aircraft.

Cheers,
Pieter

Sources: Wikipedia, YouTube, MSNBC, DW (Deutsche Welle) and Crux

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[pieter]

Speaking live from eastern Ukraine, Radek discusses the current situation. He is part of a European Parlaiment high-level delegation that is visiting Ukraine for both fact-finding purposes and to show solidarity with Ukrainian citizens.

Radek Sikorski is a member of the European Parliament for Poland, sitting on Committees for Foreign Affairs, the Special Committee on Artificial Intelligence and the Security and Defence Subcommittee. He is the Chairman of the Delegation for relations with the United States, Chairman of the EU-USA Delegation, Vice President of EU-UK friendship group and delegate to the UK-EU Parliamentary Partnership Assembly. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard and Distinguished Statesman at CSIS in Washington D.C.

He was Poland’s Minister of Defence (2005-2007), Foreign Minister (2007-2014) and Speaker of Parliament (2014-2015).

In Polish for Polish visitors and Polish Americans who speak Polish

[Jaga]

I would not consider attack of Russia into Ukraine as the battle between the US and Russia. This is just Russian initiative and Putin hopes that Ukraine would never become a part of independent Europe. The US is not overly involved in EU, NATO is just for security, so Ukraine is not really important for the US from strategic point of view.