June 30, 2023
1. Poland wants US nuclear weapons – PM
Warsaw is asking NATO to include it into the bloc’s Nuclear Sharing Program, also known as nuclear sharing agreements program, Polish Prime Minister Mateus Morawiecki told journalists in Brussels this week. The program allows the deployment of US nuclear bombs on the territory of other NATO non-nuclear nations in violation of the NPT Article 1 and II.
Morawiecki called Poland’s appeal a response to Moscow’s decision to station its tactical nuclear arms in neighboring Belarus. “Due to the fact that Russia intends to deploy tactical nuclear weapons [TNW] in Belarus, we are… appealing to … NATO to [allow us] take part in the Nuclear Sharing Program,” the PM said. It is not the first attempt made by Polish high-ranking officials to deploy the US TNW in Poland.
The first recorded statements from Warsaw were made in 2015, and there are signs that the US TNW have already arrived to Poland.
The final decision on the issue would rest with Washington, Morawiecki said, adding that Warsaw declared its intention to “act quickly in this regard.” Poland “does not want to sit idly,” he said.
Launched in 2009, the NATO Nuclear Sharing Program has seen as many as nearly 400 US B-61 nuclear bombs have been deployed to various locations around Europe, including in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and in the Asian part of Turkey.
Some nations then seemingly regretted allowing the US nuclear weapons deployment to their territory. Back in 2010, German lawmakers made a decision on the withdrawal of America’s nuclear weapons from Germany but the arms have still been in place ever since. In April 2023, Sevim Dagdelen, the deputy head of the Left party’s faction in the Bundestag, demanded a US troops withdrawal from Germany, alongside America’s nuclear weapons, again.
A new US A-bomb that is being delivered to Europe named B 61-12 has yield between 0.3 kiloton to 50 kiloton.
If Polish demands for TNW are met, Europe will become
‘a huge US nuclear powder keg’.
2. Ukraine issued ultimatum to NATO
President Zelensky will not attend the bloc’s summit unless it shows “courage” on Ukrainian accession process, a top Kiev official has said.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky will only attend NATO’s summit in July if the bloc begins to seriously consider Kiev’s request for membership, a deputy head of the country’s presidential office said on June 29. “The president will not travel... to the summit [on July 11-12] if the leaders will tend to or will show a deficit of courage,” Igor Zhovka told Reuters, adding that Ukraine only wants the bloc “to start the procedure.”
Ukraine formally applied to join NATO last autumn, after four of its former territories overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in public referendums, which were not recognized by Kiev or its allies. While NATO maintains its “open door” policy on Ukraine’s membership, it has not officially granted the request.
Earlier this week, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said serious discussions on the accession process could start on the condition that Kiev “prevails as a sovereign and independent nation in Europe,” and pledged that the bloc would “address Ukraine’s membership aspirations” only after the Vilnius summit. Some NATO officials add: and after the current war is over completely.
3. Ukraine holding back its Western tanks – WSJ
Kiev is holding back its Western-made tanks and avoiding major attacks on Russian positions after its initial failure to achieve significant battlefield successes during this month’s counteroffensive, the Wall Street Journal has reported. Ukrainian troops “haven’t yet approached” the defenses constructed by Russia, according to the report released on July 30. After encountering stiff resistance in prior weeks, “Ukrainian commanders have largely held off sending large infantry formations and Western tanks to assault Russian positions.”
The WSJ described the pause as giving the Ukrainians time to map Russian minefields and “soften” the defenses with long-range attacks.
The team’s commander, a sergeant named Grigory Volkov, said his side was “kind of shocked” by the scale of Russian defenses, which have multiple layers and were well prepared to fend off storming forces. Now the Ukrainians are moving slowly and trying to conserve their limited supplies of ammunition.
The Russian military reported on June 27 that since June 4, 2023 when AFU began its unprepared offensive it had destroyed 259 Ukrainian tanks, including 13 produced in Western nations, and 780 armored vehicles
In the area of the city of Orekhov, which the adversary considers its principal attack direction, over the past seven days alone the enemy lost 280 units of military hardware, including 41 tanks and 102 armored vehicles.
Russia has seven very effective types of anti-tank weapons produced recently.
4. Why Prigozhin has staged a mutiny?
Businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, associated with the "Wagner" PMC, refused to comply with the decision of the Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) to reassign the fighters involved in the Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine, said the head of the Duma Defense Committee Andrei Kartapolov."A few days before the attempted mutiny, the Defense Ministry announced that all formations that perform combat tasks must sign a contract with the MoD <...>. And everyone began to implement this decision, absolutely the right decision. Everyone, except Mr. Prigozhin," said the deputy.
According to him, then Prigozhin was told that if he refused to sign the agreement with the Russian MoD on the direct subordination to it, PMC employees would not be able to participate in the SMO, and the company itself would lose Government funding.
As to Government funding, Prigozhin used a special privilege to spend a substantial amount of money offered to him and the PMC members. Addressing military personnel of the Russian MoD on June 27, Vladimir Putin announced that all of the funding the Wagner Group received came from the state budget, namely from the Defence Ministry. Between May 2022 and May 2023 alone, the Wagner PMC received more than 86 billion Rubles [about 1 billion Euros] from the state to pay military salaries and bonuses, including 70,384 billion Rubles for payroll and 15,877 billion Rubles for paying out bonuses.
President continued: “But while the state covered all of the Wagner Group’s funding needs, the company’s owner, Concord, earned, 80 billion Rubles through Voentorg [military shopping system] as the Army’s food and canteen provider. The state covered all its funding needs, while part of the group – I mean Concord [Company] – made 80 billion rubles, all at the same time. I do hope that no one stole anything in the process or, at least, did not steal a lot. It goes without saying that we will look into all of this.”
At the same time the President outlined that the Russian Federation has always treated Wagner Group fighters and commanders “with a lot of respect because they did demonstrate courage and heroism. Soldiers and officers from the Russian Army, as well as volunteers operated in combat with the same dedication, heroism and self-sacrifice. But those who served and worked for this company, Wagner, were respected in Russia.”
5. Putin’s popularity in Russia is still very high
The Russian public’s level of confidence in President Vladimir Putin is 78.6% on June 19-25, 2023 according to a poll released by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center on June 30 (a 0.3 percentage point drop).
"When asked if they trusted Putin, 78.6% of the poll’s participants said ‘yes’ (). Meanwhile, the share of people who approve of the way the president is handling his job fell by 1.3 percentage points to 74.8%," the pollster said.
A total of 50.1% of those polled said they approved of the Russian Government’s work (a 0.6 percentage point drop) and 51.7% approved of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s activity (a 1.6 percentage point decline). As many as 60.9% of respondents said they trusted PM Mishustin (a 0.9 percentage point fall).
As for the leaders of the parliamentary parties, 31.3% of those surveyed trust leader of the Russian Communist Party Gennady Zyuganov (a 4.4 percentage point decline), 31.6% trust leader of the A Just Russia - For Truth party Sergey Mironov (a 1 percentage point drop), 16.4% of the poll’s participants trust leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) Leonid Slutsky (a 2 percentage point fall) and 7.6% said they trusted Chairman of the New People party Alexey Nechayev (a 1.3 percentage point drop).
The level of popular support for the United Russia party stood at 37.9% (a 1.4 percentage point drop). The level increased by 0.4% percentage points to 10.4% for the Russian Communist Party and by 0.6 percentage points to 9.2% for the Russian Liberal Democratic Party party. The A Just Russia - For Truth party saw a 0.2 percentage point decline to 5.6%, while popular support for the New People party dropped by 0.1 percentage points to 4.3%.
The poll involved 1,600 adult respondents.
Written by Vladimir P. Kozin
