By Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com, 7/1/24

The US military has raised its alert level at bases in Europe amid soaring tensions with Russia that are the result of the US increasing its support for Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory.

US and Western officials told The New York Times that the alert levels were raised in response to “vague threats” from Russian officials. Russia warned last week that it would retaliate against the US in response to a Ukrainian attack on Crimea using a cluster bomb variant of US-provided ATACM missiles that killed five civilians, including two children, on the beach near Sevastopol.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned in May that there would be “major consequences” for any NATO country that allows Ukraine to use its weapons to strike targets inside the Russian mainland. Putin made the warning before President Biden gave Ukraine the green light to use US-provided missiles on targets across the border.

US military bases are currently at the alert level “Charlie,” which is the second-highest level. According to the Times, it’s the highest level that could be sustained over a long period of time.

US officials said there was no specific intelligence about a potential Russian attack on US bases in Europe. They also accused Russian intelligence of being behind sabotage attacks in Europe, including a fire at an IKEA furniture store, but offered no evidence to back up the claim.

US bases in Europe support the proxy war in Ukraine by training Ukrainian troops, providing intelligence, and serving as hubs for weapons shipments. The US and NATO’s increasing support for Ukrainian strikes in Russia and other escalations risk provoking a Russian response since Moscow has made clear it views the Western nations as direct participants in the war.

After the Ukrainian strike on the beach in Crimea, the Russian Defense Ministry said, “The responsibility for the deliberate missile strike against civilians in Sevastopol lies primarily in Washington, which supplied these weapons to Ukraine.”

Odysee link to video here.

“In Donetsk’s Kievsky district on May 27, I interviewed Dmitry Astrakhan, a war correspondent and journalist who has covered Ukraine’s brutal war on the civilians of the Donbass since its inception one decade ago.

He details Ukraine’s war crimes, attacking Donbass civilians since 2014, along with the complicity of the OSCE in enabling these atrocities. He covered the liberation of Mariupol, and countless other Donbass regions, and saw Ukrainian forces using civilians as human shields, a well-established fact by now, keeping civilians on one or two floors, and putting Ukrainian forces above them who then fired on Russian forces.

“You could see white flags on one level, and machine gun firing from another.”

He took testimonies regarding Ukrainian snipers shooting at civilians, Ukrainian forces exploding buildings knowing there were civilians inside, in Artyomovsk (Bakhmut).

Dmitry spoke of too many Ukrainian war crimes to detail here. Instead, listen to the first-hand experiences of this courageous Donbass journalist.” – Eva Bartlett

Follow Dmitry at:

https://t.me/astrahandm

By Andrew Korybko, Substack, 6/26/24

President Putin proved once again that he’s mature enough of a leader to make tough decisions that disregard public opinion following his government’s tepid response to Ukraine’s US-backed bombing of beachgoers in Sevastopol over the weekend. It was predicted that “Russia Probably Won’t Impose A No-Fly Zone Over The Black Sea After The Sevastopol Attack”, which explained why it was unlikely to capitulate to the public’s demand due to worries about accidentally sparking World War III.

Instead of shooting down or otherwise neutralizing American reconnaissance drones over international waters in the Black Sea, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reaffirmed that President Putin’s ceasefire proposal still stands. Shortly afterwards, Peskov also expressed Russia’s continued openness to talks with France after Emmanuel Macron publicly said that he’s interested in them the other day while also walking back his earlier rhetoric about wanting to conventionally intervene in Ukraine.

These two developments were then followed by new Defense Minister Andrey Belousov talking to his American counterpart in a call where “they exchanged views about the situation around Ukraine”. He also warned him about “the dangers of further escalation in terms of the continuing deliveries of American weapons to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.” Taken together, it’s clearly the case that Russia’s response was once again conciliatory and not escalatory, exactly as the earlier cited analysis predicted.

Interestingly, these developments were interspersed with the viral fake news claim that Russia had already supposedly downed an American drone over the Black Sea in revenge, which was introduced into the information ecosystem here but was then quickly walked back by its originator here. Nevertheless, this claim wildly proliferated across social media because it conformed to many wishful thinking observers’ expectations, most of whom never came across the follow-up post walking it back.

The reason why it’s so important to clarify exactly what Russia’s response to last weekend’s provocation was, namely to continue its conciliatory approach for de-escalation purposes as opposed to risking World War III by miscalculation if it reacted as the public demanded, is to prevent false expectations. Those who get their hopes unrealistically high will inevitably experience deep disappointment, after which some might become susceptible to hostile narratives that Russia “sold out” or whatever.

Whether one agrees with the merits of its saintly restraint or not, the fact of the matter is that this is indeed the policy that President Putin has decided to promulgate for the reasons that were explained. While it’s possible that he might order a symbolic show of force by authorizing the shooting down or neutralization of an American drone in the coming future, his tepid response thus far suggests that he’s disinclined to do so, or that it would solely be a one-off in the unlikely event that it happens.

President Putin isn’t a “madman”, “monster”, or “mastermind” like many imagine that he is, but is a consummate pragmatist at least as how he sees himself and is therefore unlikely to ever do anything that could be spun as emotional or radical. He always takes a long time before making major decisions, with the proof being how long it took for him to commence Russia’s aerial intervention in Syria and the ongoing special operation, usually waiting till the last possible moment.

Likewise, if Russia does indeed decide to seriously escalate against the West, then the track record suggests that it would be a seemingly abrupt game-changer but preceded by clear statements of intent that could be seen in hindsight as “ultimatums” (despite being described differently by its diplomats). Some might interpret a few of its recent signals as hinting at that scenario, but the substance of its response thus far as was explained dispels that notion and suggests that the current policy will continue.

YouTube link here.

Natasha Bertrand doesn’t have a great record for reliability as a journalist, but… – Natylie

By Natasha Bertrand & Oren Liebermann, CNN, 6/26/24

The Biden administration is moving toward lifting a de facto ban on American military contractors deploying to Ukraine, four US officials familiar with the matter told CNN, to help the country’s military maintain and repair US-provided weapons systems.

The change would mark another significant shift in the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy, as the US looks for ways to give Ukraine’s military an upper hand against Russia.

The policy is still being worked on by administration officials and has not received final sign-off yet from President Joe Biden, officials said.

“We have not made any decisions and any discussion of this is premature,” said one administration official. “The president is absolutely firm that he will not be sending US troops to Ukraine.”

Once approved, the change would likely be enacted this year, officials said, and would allow the Pentagon to provide contracts to American companies for work inside Ukraine for the first time since Russia invaded in 2022. Officials said they hope it will speed up the maintenance and repairs of weapons systems being used by the Ukrainian military.

Over the last two years, Biden has insisted that all Americans, and particularly US troops, stay far away from the Ukrainian frontlines. The White House has been determined to limit both the danger to Americans and the perception, particularly by Russia, that the US military is engaged in combat there. The State Department has explicitly warned Americans against traveling to Ukraine since 2022.

As a result, US-provided military equipment that has sustained significant damage in combat has had to be transported out of the country to Poland, Romania, or other NATO countries for repairs, a process which takes time. US troops are also available to help the Ukrainians with more routine maintenance and logistics, but only from afar via video chat or secure phone—an arrangement that has come with inherent limitations, since US troops and contractors are not able to work directly on the systems.

Administration officials began to seriously reconsider those restrictions over the last several months, officials said, as Russia continued to make gains on the battlefield and US funding for Ukraine stalled in Congress. Allowing experienced, US government-funded American contractors to maintain a presence in Ukraine means they will be able to help fix damaged, high-value equipment much faster, officials said. One advanced system that officials say will likely require regular maintenance is the F-16 fighter jet, which Ukraine is set to receive later this year.

Companies bidding for the contracts would be required to develop robust risk mitigation plans to mitigate threats to their employees, an official said.

The discussions follow a series of decisions the US has made in recent months to try to help Ukraine beat back the Russians. In late-May, Biden gave Ukraine permission to strike targets inside Russia, near the border with the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, with US weapons—a request the US had repeatedly denied in the past. Last week, that policy appeared to expand once again, when National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Ukraine could counterstrike anywhere along the Ukraine-Russia border using US weapons.

Current and former officials familiar with the discussions about deploying contractors to Ukraine emphasized that the policy change will not result in the kind of overwhelming American contractor presence there that existed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, it would likely result in anywhere from a few dozen to a couple hundred contractors working in Ukraine at a time.

“This would be a much more focused and thoughtful effort to support Ukraine in country,” said retired Army officer Alex Vindman, who served as the director for European Affairs on former President Donald Trump’s National Security Council.

Vindman has been pushing the administration to lift the restrictions for nearly two years and said the administration has been working on a plan to ease the restrictions since earlier this year.

“Ukraine is an ally,” Vindman told CNN. “The US has keen, critical national security interests in supporting Ukraine, and there are plenty of risk mitigation measures.”