Månad: september 2022

While formerly neutral, Sweden and Finland have jointly decided to join NATO in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Finland’s accession in particular will impact the military balance in the Baltic-Nordic theater of contention between Russia and the alliance. Joining NATO would be the culmination of a longer alignment process for Finland. […]

Lastly, this leads to the issue of strategic stability. In particular, the Finnish air force already on paper has the potential to hit the Russian Northern Fleet’s submarine bases in Murmansk Oblast, only 400 km from the FDF’s northernmost active airbase in Lapland. Adding NATO and especially the US Air Force to this equa[1]tion might cause concerns in Moscow that the seaborne component of its nuclear archi[1]tecture is permanently under threat. Further South, NATO’s aerial firepower would equally put Kaliningrad under in[1]creased threat, especially once Sweden and Finland are added. This would likely force Moscow to increase its surveillance and air defense infrastructure in the Kola Penin[1]sula, increasing the strain on its war and sanctions-hit economy or at least diverting resources earmarked for other areas of mil[1]itary modernization.

In deterrence equa[1]tions, perceptions are more important than one-sided inferences. With the attrition suffered by conventional forces in Ukraine, Russia by default will have to lean on nu[1]clear threats to coerce its neighbors and to, in its view, deter NATO. It may thus be an even more volatile actor in crisis situations if the Northern Fleet and Kaliningrad are deemed at threat. Consequently, while Fin[1]land NATO membership will likely in[1]crease its own and NATO’s security signif[1]icantly, it will likely have side-effects that impact alliance-Russian dynamics going forward. Läs artikel

U.S.-trained Ukrainian soldiers sank two Russian ships in June, according to Bill LaPlante, the Pentagon’s top acquisitions official. The incident came just two months after Washington gave Ukraine intelligence that helped it sink the Moskva, then Russia’s most powerful warship in the Black Sea.

Washington trained the combatants on how to use Harpoon anti-ship missiles over Memorial Day weekend earlier this year. “The next week, two Russian ships were sunk,” LaPlante said during an interview with Defense News.

The revelation emerged less than a week after news broke that Washington conducted war games with Kyiv in order to plan for its counter-offensive in Kherson, highlighting the close operational ties between the U.S. and Ukrainian militaries. The news adds to concerns that the United States is engaged in a full-scale proxy war with Russia, as Kelley Vlahos recently argued in Responsible Statecraft.

“As usual it appears that the administration wants to have it both ways: assure the American people that it is being ‘restrained’ and that we are not ‘at war’ with the Russians, but doing everything but planting a U.S. soldier and a flag inside Ukraine,” Vlahos wrote. […]

“Proxy wars are longstanding tools of great-power rivalry because they allow one side to bleed the other without a direct clash of arms,” Hal Brands of the American Enterprise Institute wrote back in May. “The key to the strategy is to find a committed local partner — a proxy willing to do the killing and dying — and then load it up with the arms, money and intelligence needed to inflict shattering blows on a vulnerable rival.” (Brands, who favors this approach, warned that the U.S. would be better served if it carried out such a strategy more quietly.) Läs artikel

Greece has sent letters to NATO and the United Nations, complaining over what it called ”inflammatory” statements by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and asking them to condemn Ankara’s behaviour, diplomatic sources said on Wednesday.

The two countries – North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies but historic foes – have been at odds for decades over a range of issues including where their continental shelves start and end, overflights in the Aegean Sea, and divided Cyprus. […]

According to Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu news agency, Ankara sent letters this week to the European Union, NATO and the United Nations explaining its stance and views on issues including overlapping claims on airspace, territorial waters and the demilitarisation status of the Aegean islands, among other issues. Läs artikel

Läs också: Erdogan accuses Greece of ’occupying’ demilitarised islands

Europe’s largest nuclear plant has come under repeated shelling in recent weeks, sparking fears of a potential nuclear disaster.

Highlighting his continued grave concern over the situation, the UN chief again warned that any damage to Zaporizhzhia, or to any other nuclear facility in Ukraine, could result in a wide-reaching catastrophe.  […]

“As a first step, Russian and Ukrainian forces must commit not to engage in any military activity towards the plant site or from the plant site. The Zaporizhzhia facility and its surroundings must not be a target or a platform for military operations,” he said.

The second step would entail securing an agreement on a demilitarized perimeter.

“Specifically, that would include a commitment by Russian forces to withdraw all military personnel and equipment from that perimeter and a commitment by Ukrainian forces not to move into it. Operators at the plant must be able to carry out their responsibilities, and communications must be maintained”. Läs artikel

Internationella atomenergiorganet IAEA efterlyser en säkerhet

szon kring kärnkraftverket Zaporizjzja i Ukraina för att undvika att en förödande olycka inträffar. IAEA föreslår att å det snaraste inleda förhandlingar för att lyckas upprätta en säkerhetszon.

IAEA besökte Zaporizjzja med en delegation bestående av 14 observatörer förra veckan. Två av observatörerna stannade kvar med målet att upprätta en permanent närvaro vid kärnkraftverket. […]

Internationella atomenergiorganet IAEA uppger att man observerade ryska soldater, militärfordon och militärutrustning i kärnkraftverkets utrymmen. Bland annat observerades flera militärfordon på första våningen i turbinhallarna i två enheter, enhet ett och två.

Enligt IAEA är en expertgrupp från det ryska statliga bolaget Rosenergoatom också på plats i kärnkraftverket.

Ukraina har tidigare anklagat Ryssland för att stationera tunga vapen inne på området, och för att använda kärnkraftverket som militärbas. […]

IAEA rekommenderar att man ser till att personalen får arbeta i en passande arbetsmiljö där de också har tillgång till stöd från sina familjer. Läs artikel

Försvarsminister Peter Hultqvist (S).

Mats Nordberg (SD) har frågat utrikesministern hur ministern och regeringen agerar för att svenskt och europeiskt stöd med utrustning till Ukraina ska skyndas på och öka. […]

Sex stödpaket med militär utrustning har hittills skänkts till Ukraina. Därutöver fattade regeringen den 4 augusti 2022 ett beslut om att låta Försvarsmakten skicka instruktörer till Storbritannien för att genomföra militär grundutbildning för ukrainska medborgare, som sedan kan tjänstgöra i Ukrainas försvarsmakt. Syftet är att möjliggöra för Ukraina att upprätthålla och stärka sin försvarsförmåga. Försvarsmakten kommer att till och med den 31 december 2022 skicka upp till 120 instruktörer, fördelat på flera utbildningsomgångar.

Detta arbete måste hela tiden vägas mot våra nationella behov för att upprätthålla försvarsförmågan i Sverige. […]

Sverige kommer att fortsätta stödja Ukraina. Ytterligare militärt och civilt stöd kan bli aktuellt och kommer då, liksom tidigare, utgå från vad som är specifikt efterfråga av Ukraina och vägas mot de behov vi har för vårt eget försvar. Läs svaret

French President Emmanuel Macron defended his continued diplomatic efforts and telephone calls to Russian President Vladimir Putin following the invasion of Ukraine, slamming criticism of his efforts as “mistaken morality.”

Speaking to French ambassadors gathered at the Elysée Palace on Thursday, Macron questioned the decision in western capitals to close lines of communication with the Kremlin.

“The job of a diplomat is to talk to everybody and particularly to the people we disagree with,” he said at his yearly address on foreign policy. “Who wants Turkey to be the only world power that is talking to Russia? … We must not give in to any form of mistaken morality that would seek to weaken us.” Läs artikel

En domstol i Moskva har beslutat att dra tillbaka den oberoende ryska tidningen Novaja Gazetas tillstånd. ”Det här är tydligt ett politiskt beslut”, säger Salla Nazarenko, expert på internationella frågor vid Finlands Journalistförbund.

På måndagen kom beskedet att den oberoende tidningen Novaja Gazetas medielicens upphävs. Det här innebär att tidningen inte längre får verka inom Rysslands gränser. Det var den ryska censurmyndigheten Roskomnadzor som anmält tidningen, med hänvisning till att tidningen inte kunnat redovisa dokument gällande ett ägarbyte år 2006.

Novaja Gazetas chefredaktör Dmitrij Muratov var på plats i rätten i Moskva och sade efteråt att domen var politiskt motiverad, “utan någon som helst laglig grund”, rapporterar Reuters. Läs artikel

President Vladimir Putin on Monday approved a new foreign policy doctrine based around the concept of a ”Russian World”, a notion that conservative ideologues have used to justify intervention abroad in support of Russian-speakers.

The 31-page ”humanitarian policy”, published more than six months into the war in Ukraine, says Russia should ”protect, safeguard and advance the traditions and ideals of the Russian World”. […]

It said that Russia’s ties with its compatriots abroad allowed it to ”strengthen on the international stage its image as a democratic country striving for the creating of a multi-polar world.”

Putin has for years been highlighting what he sees as the tragic fate of some 25 million ethnic Russians who found themselves living outside Russia in newly independent states when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, an event he has called a geopolitical catastrophe. […]

Russia has continued to regard the former Soviet space, from the Baltics to Central Asia, as its legitimate sphere of influence – a notion fiercely resisted by many of those countries as well as by the West.The new policy says Russia should increase cooperation with Slavic nations, China, and India, and further strengthen its ties to the Middle East, Latin America and Africa.

It said Moscow should further deepen its ties with Abkhazia and Ossetia, two Georgian regions recognised as independent by Moscow after its war against Georgia in 2008, as well as the two breakaway entities in eastern Ukraine, the self-styled Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic. Läs artikel

Tisdag 6 september anlöper USS Arlington (LPD 24) till Visby på Gotland. Det amerikanska amfibietransportfartyget kommer till kaj för att vila sin personal och för att fylla på sina förråd av bränsle och förnödenheter, ett rutinbesök med andra ord. Besöket varar tills den 8 september.

Amfibiestridsfartyget är av San Antonio-klass och används bland annat för att transportera och landsätta trupper.

Fartyget befinner sig i Östersjön och deltar fortlöpande i övningar med Nato- och partnerländer, vilket bidrar till ökad stabilitet och säkerhet i Sveriges närområde. Läs pressmeddelande