Nobody Knows the Limit
by Kennedy Applebaum
Quemado Institute
September 23, 2015
(–telegraph.co.uk)
Today seems the worst of days. We’re nowhere near witnessing a European nuclear war. But the haunting question looms: how much threat can the continent stand before it hits the breaking point?
Washington, Berlin, Kiev and NATO seem hellbent on determining that point right down to the hour, as they push ever closer to a real war as if to see when it happens. Once Europe explodes, we can thank American and German policy makers for enriching future history, as scholars will be able to look back and tell just where that breaking point was, a fascinating item of human knowledge that eludes analysts today.
Jens Stoltenberg, Petro Poroshenko (–framtidinord.no)
With NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s provocative visit to Kiev earlier this week, along with Berlin’s voracious consumption of 20 more American quadruple-Hiroshima nuclear bombs, the West is posing intolerable threats to Russia and the Donbass Republics. Not only is Kiev flouting Minsk 2.0 while Western officials applaud, but Petro Poroshenko is busy making deals for more NATO aid to his pro-terrorist operation, flaunting all the while his plans to join the alliance.
Alexander Zakharchenko of the Donetsk People’s Republic and top leaders in Russia are right to draw the line here and now. If the world has a future, Western provocations must stop. And since the West isn’t going to stop them, that role falls to those nations most courageous.
Today’s story unfolds in the following articles:
U.S. Will Station New Nuclear Weapons in Germany Against Russia
by Eric Zeusse
Global Research
September 21, 2015
(–globalresearch.ca)
Germany’s ZDF public television network headlines on Tuesday September 22nd, “New U.S. Atomic Weapons to Be Stationed in Germany,” and reports that the U.S. will bring into Germany 20 new nuclear bombs, each being four times the destructive power of the one that was used on Hiroshima. Hans Kristensen, the Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, says, “With the new bombs the boundaries blur between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons.” A former Parliamentary State Secretary in Germany’s Defense Ministry, Willy Wimmer, of Chancellor Merkel’s own conservative party, the Christian Democratic Union, warns that these “new attack options against Russia” constitute “a conscious provocation of our Russian neighbors.”
German Economic News also reports on Chancellor Merkel’s decision to allow these terror-weapons against Russia: “The Bundestag decided in 2009, expressing the will of most Germans, that the US should withdraw its nuclear weapons from Germany. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel did nothing.” And now she okays the U.S. to increase America’s German-based nuclear arsenal against Russia. Maria Zakharova, of the Russian Foreign Ministry, says: “This is an infringement of Articles 1 and 2 of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” which is the treaty that provides non-nuclear states the assurance that the existing nuclear powers will not try to use their nuclear status so as to take over the world.
German Economic News says: “The federal government had demanded the exact opposite: The Bundestag decided in March 2010 by a large majority, that the federal government should ‘press for the withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from Germany.’ Even the coalition agreement between the CDU and FDP, the German government in 2009 had promised the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Büchel. But instead there will be these new bombs.”
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US Nuclear Weapons In Germany:
Russia Concerned By American Plans To Add To Stockpile
by Christopher Harress
International Business Times
September 22, 2015
Surface-to-surface Agni-V missile launched from Wheeler Island off India, Sept. 15, 2013. (–Reuters)
Russia is concerned about U.S. plans to modernize and station additional nuclear weapons in Germany, according to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who spoke with a German TV channel Tuesday. The channel had reported earlier in the day that the U.S. planned to station 20 nuclear weapons in the European country, as per a line in the 2015 U.S. defense budget. “We are concerned that these states actually have nuclear weapons as part of the framework of NATO’s nuclear sharing program,” said Zakharova in an interview with Germany’s ZDF television, according to Russian news site Sputnik. Zakharova also said that the move would contravene the Treaty of Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which was ratified by 191 nations in 1970 to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. “At the same time in Europe — not just in Germany, but also in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Turkey — U.S. tactical nuclear armaments remain deployed,” said Zakharova, who also claimed that Russia had reduced its own stockpiles fourfold since the 1990s, despite the U.S. keeping its arsenal at strength. “The Americans are modernizing their aerial bombs, and the NATO European members are modernizing their aircraft that carry these weapons,” he said.
The U.S. continues to maintain nuclear carrying facilities in the countries mentioned by Zakharova through a NATO sharing program. As part of nuclear sharing, host countries carry out consultations, make decisions on weapons policy and maintain equipment required for the use of nuclear weapons, including warplanes capable of delivering them. The United Kingdom and France are the only countries in Europe that maintain state-owned nuclear arsenals.
As part of the renewed hostilities between the U.S.-led NATO and Russia, who are clashing over Moscow’s military actions in Ukraine, Russia has threatened to place short- to medium-range nuclear capable missiles in Kaliningrad, an enclave on the Baltic coast controlled by Russia, according to a BBC report. The missiles would have the ability to reach nearly all areas of Europe.
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Kremlin: Ukraine’s Plans to Join NATO
Force Russia to Take Countermeasures
TASS
September 23, 2015
Petro Poroshenko, NATO Secretary Gen. Jens Stoltenberg
(–Nikolay Lazarenko/Ukr. presidential press service/TASS )
Ukraine’s plans to join NATO will force Russia to take countermeasures, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned on Tuesday. “Of course, any expansion of an organization like NATO in the direction of our borders will make it imperative for us to take countermeasures to ensure our own national security,” Peskov told TASS. He said that President Putin had warned about that many times. “The plans which are being declared by the Ukrainian leaders can only be regretful,” the Kremlin spokesman went on to say. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told a meeting of the Council for National Security and Defense in Kiev on Tuesday that Ukraine’s cooperation with NATO was strategic. He also said that Ukraine and NATO had never been closer than they were today. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg took part in the meeting. “Naturally, NATO has never changed and is incapable of changing its intended purpose given the initial goals behind its creation,” the Kremlin spokesman said. “In this case we should remember that this organization was created for the purpose of confrontation and at the time of confrontation,” Peskov explained adding that NATO could not change its nature and the main purpose of existence.
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DPR Will Exit Minsk Agreement if Ukraine Prepares
Procedure for Entry into NATO – Zakharchenko
Donetsk News Agency
Edited autotranslation by Quemado Institute
September 23, 2015
Alexander Zakharchenko (–newcoldwar.org)
DONETSK / The Donetsk People’s Republic will be out of the Minsk Agreement if Kiev begins to prepare the procedure for the entry of Ukraine into NATO. This was stated by the head of he DPR Alexander Zakharchenko. “Statements by Poroshenko and his representative in the Minsk talks [Leonid] Kuchma about the need for Ukraine to join NATO are aimed at the destruction of the Minsk Agreement,” it was said in the text of the statement received by DAN. “If Ukraine starts to prepare the referendum on accession to NATO or other procedures, the DPR is immediately released from the Minsk agreements and will proceed toward elimination of the Kiev occupation of the entire territory of Donbass.” Zakharchenko also expressed confidence that in this case Ukraine will abandon many of its regions [tr?]. On the eve of September 22, Ukrainian President Poroshenko said that his country had signed a joint declaration on the strengthening of NATO’s military and technical cooperation, and expanding the presence of a military bloc on Ukrainian territory. According to Poroshenko, the relationship between NATO and Ukraine is “unique”, and the country’s entry into the Western military alliance serves the majority of citizens. The president’s statements on the subject were made at a meeting of the Ukrainian Council, attended by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
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Ukraine’s Intention to Join NATO Aimed at Destruction of
Minsk Agreement – DPR Head Alexander Zakharchenko
dnr-online (official DPR government website)
September 23, 2015
DONETSK / The Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic Alexander Zakharchenko issued the following statement to officials of Kiev: “Statements by Poroshenko and his representative in Minsk, Leonid Kuchma, talking about the necessity of Ukraine’s accession to NATO are aimed at the destruction of the Minsk Agreement. If Ukraine starts to prepare the referendum on accession to NATO or other procedures, the DPR is immediately released from the Minsk agreements and will proceed to the elimination of the occupation by Kiev of the entire territory of Donbass. I am sure that many other regions of Ukraine in this case will withdraw their membership,” said the Head of the Republic.
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Donetsk Republic to Withdraw from Minsk Peace
Deal if Kiev Attempts to Join NATO — Leader
TASS
September 23, 2015
Alexander Zakharchenko
MOSCOW / The unrecognized republic will start “clearing the whole territory of Donbas from Kiev’s occupation” in case of a NATO accession referendum, the leader said. / The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic will pull out from the Minsk accords and start liberating Donbass if Kiev attempts to join NATO, DPR’s leader Alexander Zakharchenko said. The statements of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Kiev’s negotiator Leonid Kuchma on the need for Ukraine to join the alliance are aimed at undermining the Minsk peace deal, Zakharchenko said. “If Ukraine begins preparing a referendum on joining NATO or other procedures, then the DPR will immediately withdraw from the Minsk agreements and start clearing the whole territory of Donbas from Kiev’s occupation,” Zakharchenko was quoted by the Donetsk news agency as saying. “I’m sure that many other Ukrainian regions in this case will leave it,” he stressed. Poroshenko said at a joint news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Monday that Ukraine needs to prepare for accession to NATO. He said the reforms that the country’s leadership has launched meet the alliance’s demands by 99%. “Is Ukraine ready to become a member now? The answer is no. We need to prepare for this. Is NATO ready for Ukraine to become a member of the alliance? No. But my country needs to prepare for this.” Poroshenko has repeatedly said that the issue on joining NATO will be put up for a referendum. Stoltenberg said: “NATO can rely on Ukraine and Ukraine can rely on NATO. Our partnership is already very strong and today we took steps to strengthen our partnership even further.”
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Poroshenko’s Ukraine Becomes “Eastern
Outpost of Euro-Atlantic Civilization”
by Vitaly Varavka
Integrative*Mind (from Odna Rodyna)
Autotranslation with minor editing by Quemado Institute
September 23, 2015
The NATO Secretary General visited Ukraine during two-day stay and found that, although between Ukraine and the NATO alliance “there is a wide range of cooperation in very different areas,” this is not sufficient for Kiev’s accession into NATO. …
Jens Stoltenberg, assessing the situation diplomatically, pointed out that “NATO is working together with Ukraine and supporting it in reforms, including adaptation of the armed forces so that they are more suited to NATO.” However, no exception to the standard procedure will be made for Kiev, he promises. “After these reforms, Ukraine will decide whether to file an application to join NATO, and then we will evaluate this statement on a common basis.” […]
Poroshenko was at pains to emphasize the special character of relations between Ukraine and NATO. “Yes, Ukraine is not a member of NATO. Unfortunately, de jure, we are not allies, but de facto, I cannot emphasize this enough, we are much more than partners,“ Poroshenko said at a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), which was attended by the Secretary General of the alliance.
Stoltenberg, at a meeting of the National Security Council, noted that Ukraine “can rely on NATO.” However, he also paid attention to the topic hated by the leaders of the Kiev — the Minsk agreements. “We (the Alliance) support the full implementation of the Minsk agreements, since it is the only way out of the crisis … It is very important for Ukraine to continue to go through the enforcement of all aspects of the Minsk accords and to ensure peace, stability and sovereignty,” said the secretary general. […]
During the visit, Stoltenberg signed a number of documents. In particular, the Road Map program Partnership for Strategic Communications, a joint declaration on strengthening military-technical cooperation between Ukraine and NATO, and the agreement on the status of NATO representation in Ukraine.
[For full autotranslated article Click here.]
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