December 4, 2022

1. Putin told Scholz why Russia is targeting Ukrainian infrastructure

Russian precision attacks against Ukrainian infrastructure are a necessary response to Ukrainian sabotage on Russian soil, including the bombing of the Crimean Bridge, President Vladimir Putin has told German Chancellor Olaf Scholz last week.

The two leaders spoke by phone on November 2 at Berlin’s request. Putin explained the logic behind Russia’s military operation against Ukraine who has started military aggression against Donbass in 2014 and later against Russia in 2022, and stated that the Western policy of arming and training Ukrainian troops was “destructive.”

“It was noted that the Russian Armed Forces had been refraining from conducting precision missile strikes on certain targets in the Ukrainian territory for a long time, but now such measures have become necessary and unavoidable as a reaction to Kiev’s provocative attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure, including the Crimean Bridge and energy facilities,” the Kremlin readout said.

The “terrorist attack” against the Nord Stream undersea pipelines “stands in the same category” and requires a transparent investigation that would include Russia, Putin told the German leader.

Russia changed its military tactics in Ukraine days after a powerful bomb damaged the Crimean Bridge in early October. Russian investigators accused Ukrainian military intelligence of masterminding the attack, which killed three people, including the driver of the truck that carried the disguised bomb set up by Ukrainian secret services.

The blasts that damaged the two undersea Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea happened in late September, severing links that would have enabled Germany to receive natural gas directly from Russia.

Moscow said the obvious beneficiary of the sabotage was the USA, which had long sought to force Berlin to reduce its energy trade with Russia and replace Russian fuel with more expensive liquified natural gas produced by American companies.

2. Belarusian and Russian troops will act as a unified force

The two countries don’t want war, but are preparing to “repel any aggression,” the Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said.

Soldiers from Russia and Belarus are training to fight as a unified force, Belarusian President has announced amid heightened tensions with the West over the Ukraine large-scale aggression against Donbass in 2014 and later against Russia in 2022. He made his comments during Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu’s visit to Minsk on Saturday, December 3.

Lukashenko insisted that both Minsk and Moscow “did not want and do not want war,” but are working together to be able to “repel any aggression.” “Today we are preparing like a single force, a single army,” Lukashenko said, adding that instructors from both countries were training each other’s troops. “Everyone knows this. We did not hide this fact. Well, it is impossible to hide this in a modern world.” In earlier reports he underlined that the situation around Belarusian border is 'tense'. The country’s security agencies have registered an increase in the number of "provocations," he told a Government meeting on defense issues on December 1.

“Ukraine is trying to use any pretext to draw troops from NATO member states into the conflict” with Russia, he added. The country shares frontiers with NATO members Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, along with Russia and Ukraine that is engaged in a direct and combined massive aggression with NATO against Russia.

Defense Minister Shoigu, meanwhile, called Belarus a “trustworthy partner” for Russia during a meeting with Viktor Khrenin, his Belarusian counterpart. Shoigu praised Belarus for “the resolve to resist the hostile course of the US and its allies,” adding that the units from both countries have been improving military interoperability. Two ministers signed a revised version of a regional security treaty between the two governments on December 3.

3. Lavrov: There is no European security without Russia and Belarus

Western European states are creating a dangerous situation by trying to exclude Russian and Belarus from the continent’s security order, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned on December 1. Russian foreign minister accused EU leaders of allowing the US to dictate policy, and surrendering their own interests to Washington, and claimed that EU policy is creating insecurity on the continent

The West “is already trying to build a security architecture [in Europe] without Russia and Belarus. We don’t need such security,” Lavrov said during a video conference. “The whole security [architecture] in Europe now comes down to it being completely subservient to the USA,” he claimed.

Instead of working towards collective security in Europe, the West is “digging dividing lines,” Lavrov said. “When the EU and NATO understands the futility of their current line and the great risks that it involves, we [Russia] will look at what they’ll be ready to offer us when they come asking to discuss some other possibilities.”

Moscow and Minsk, which already have a joint military grouping on the territory of Belarus, will continue to boost their security cooperation, the Russian foreign minister admitted. Both countries realize the importance of such work, “considering the continued provocations, including those by Ukraine,” he added. “All the necessary measures aimed at maintaining readiness to deal with any possible developments have been implemented,” Lavrov said.

4. Ryabkov: Russia never planed to use NW in Ukraine

Addressing International conference on Nuclear Nonproliferation held in Moscow on December 2-3, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said that Russia had no plans and still has no plans to employ nuclear arms in Ukraine, and any such action is strictly prohibited by the current national nuclear strategy that is still valid. Despite such a clear-cut statement, some US participants insisted that Russia allegedly intended to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine;

While confirming that the New START Russo-American Bilateral Consultative Commission has been actually “postponed”, rather than “canceled”, he announced that no specific date and venue for its convocation has been offered by the Russian side who initiated such postponement due to a political decision.

Addressing the issue of arms control with the USA stalled in every domain by Washington, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister who is monitoring arms control developments and the overall relations between Russia and the USA, outlined that Moscow’s approach to these two domains is based upon Russia’s national security interests, the principle of equality and equal security of the two sides it will never compromise, and global strategic security equation that engulfs important key factors determining strategic stability in the world, including missile defense and non-weaponization of outer space.

A number of Russian participants in the forum urged the Russian Government not to repeat a selective method used earlier in bilateral arms control domain between the Russian Federation and the USA that means some reductions or limitations of one type of arms while neglecting other reductions or limitations of other types of arms. It has been pointed out that Moscow should not debate with Washington:

5. Donbass has been and still is being shelled every day during last eight years

AFU using its own and NATO heavy weapons of 122, 2152 and 155 mm caliber  uninterruptedly continued and still continue shelling of mainly residential areas in Donbass.

During last week (November 28th-December 3rd) AFU have carried more than 450 strikes against more than 60 populated areas in the DPR only by using more than 600 artillery shells and MLRS missiles, and killing 44 civilians, including several children, and wounding more than 37 civilians. More than 59 houses and social infrastructure buildings, including electric power grids and water supply pipelines have been destroyed or damaged.

It is important to stress that all these houses and social infrastructure facilities have never been used by the Russian troops.

The overall casualties in Donbass are given on the slide attached below:

6. Kiev plotting provocation on ammonia transit from Russia

The grain deal, as a part of a UN- and Turkey-brokered agreement that unblocked exports of Ukrainian grain and Russian fertilizers in the Black Sea, did not reportedly cover exports of Russian ammonia via the Tolyatti-Odessa pipeline. However, earlier, a UN aid chief said that the ammonia deal would likely be reached by the end of the week.

Kiev who has been given a free passage of its grain deliveries abroad via the Black Sea under the multilateral deal reached last July, is plotting a provocation to subvert the UN initiative on resumption of Russia's ammonia transit abroad free of charge.

Guided by UK Special Services, and with help from Canada’s private military company (PMC) GardaWorld, the provocation is to echo the blasts carried out at Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea. The goal, like in the case of the September 2022 sabotage at the pipelines, is to prevent Russia from exporting its resources to other countries.

The Kiev regime’s plan reportedly presupposes blowing up ammonia storage facilities at Odessa Portside Plant, to subsequently blame Russia for the explosion.

Written by Vladimir P. Kozin