Heading towards World War III?

The UK is sending its first long-range missiles to Ukraine, the defence secretary has said, despite a threat from Russia to the West.

Ben Wallace said the M270 multiple-launch rocket system will help Ukraine defend itself against Russia.

The government has not confirmed how many weapons will be sent, but the BBC understands it will be three initially.

The decision comes after the US announced last week it was also supplying a rocket system.

The move by the US to send its own M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) has already angered Moscow and on Sunday Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to expand the list of targets Russia will attack in Ukraine if Western countries send long-range weapons to Kyiv.

The UK government said the Ukrainian military will get training in the UK in the coming weeks on how to use the launchers.

The multiple-launch rocket system can fire 12 surface-to-surface missiles within a minute and can strike targets within 50 miles (80km) with pinpoint accuracy - far further than the artillery Ukraine currently possesses.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-61701055

Germany has been hesitant in sending tanks to Ukraine to counter Russian forces, due to “historical reasons,” government sources told Der Spiegel magazine.

According to the unnamed officials, there is concern within Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government that Kiev could become over-confident if it achieves a series of victories, and might launch an incursion into Russian territory.

Such a development “would mean that German tanks would once again be inside Russia,” Der Spiegel wrote on Friday, in an apparent reference to Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

The fear that German weaponry could be sent into Russia “highlights a certain distrust in Berlin of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. And that, too, is a reason why the defense industry in Germany has not been authorized to deliver battle tanks,” the report claimed.

So far, tanks have only been supplied to the Kiev government by Poland and the Czech Republic, not major arms exporters such as the US, UK and France.

Despite a tank embargo never being discussed at the NATO level, an unofficial agreement on the issue has been reached between Washington, London and Paris, the sources said, and Germany could never be the first country to deliver tanks to Ukraine for “historical reasons.”

The Der Spiegel report quoted politicians and analysts accusing Scholz of being too slow to help Ukraine with weapons to fight Russia. The authors also cited rumours that the chancellor has been forced into every concession he’s so far made on military aid, but then still delayed the deliveries.

Since late February, when the Russian military offensive in Ukraine started, Berlin has only supplied Kiev with lighter weapons, and the size of deliveries has dwindled over time, with Welt am Sonntag reporting that only two German shipments arrived in Ukraine between March 30 and May 26.

Deliveries of heavy weapons, including 30 Gepard anti-aircraft vehicles, seven Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled howitzers and four MARS II multiple-launch rocket systems, have been announced by Berlin, but have not yet materialized.

www.rt.com/news/556670-germany-tank-ukraine-scholz

Ukraine won’t be able to win against Russia, and the US must persuade Kiev to negotiate with Moscow to end the conflict, Hugh De Santis, who oversaw NATO and arms control policy planning in the Reagan administration, has insisted.

Defeating the Russian forces on the battlefield and restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity, including taking back Crimea, “would be condign punishment for Russia’s unprovoked invasion,” De Santis wrote in his opinion piece for The National Interest magazine on Saturday.

“But would it be worth the cost of more carnage in Ukraine, the possibility of a wider war in which chemical or tactical nuclear weapons might be used, further disruption of the world economy, and renewed European polarization?” he asked.

According to the former State Department official, the answer to that question is negative.

“A Ukrainian military victory is not in the cards, and a negotiated outcome is the only realistic goal,” he insisted.

Because of this, “the US and its allies must persuade Kiev to bring this war to an end, including by imposing limits on further military aid as leverage,” De Santis suggested.

Washington has been actively backing Kiev during the conflict, supplying it with weapons, funds and intelligence. In May, US President Joe Biden approved a $40 billion aid package for Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelensky and “his advocates in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states” should come to terms with the fact that Ukraine will become a neutral state and that it would have to hand over the Donbass and Crimea to Russia for the peace talks to be successful, he pointed out.

Current high-ranking US and EU officials have also recently identified negotiations as the preferred outcome of the conflict as Russian forces continue their steady advance in the Donbass.

Last week, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, said that “a negotiated outcome is a logical choice, but both sides have to come to that conclusion on their own.”

A few days before that, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell urged the bloc to increase deliveries of weapons to Ukraine and apply even more sanctions against Russia, but explained that it should be done to help Kiev strengthen its position in future peace talks with Moscow. Just over a month ago, Borrell was insisting that “this war must be won on the battlefield” by Ukraine.

www.rt.com/russia/556701-ukraine-us-negotiations-zelensky

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto on Monday backed the speaker of the parliament Laszlo Kover, saying he was correct to claim Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had a “mental problem” for threatening countries trying to help him. Kover’s comments, voiced in a TV interview over the weekend, prompted a fury of further condemnation from Kiev.

“While tens of thousands of people have worked in Hungary in recent months to help war-torn Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, Ukrainian politicians are constantly talking about Hungary in an unacceptable tone, provoking us, telling lies and trying to blacken us,” Szijjarto said in a Facebook post.

“Based on all of this, Laszlo Kover is absolutely right, even if the Ukrainians are upset,” he added.

Kover presides over the Hungarian National Assembly and is a founding member of the ruling Fidesz party. In an interview with the Hungarian news channel HirTV on Saturday, he complained that Zelensky was being needlessly rude and hostile to countries he was asking for help – and not just Hungary, but Germany as well.

“I can’t recall when a leader of a country in need of help would dare to speak out against anyone in a fashion like President Zelensky did,” said Kover. “One should threaten enemies, not those you want to make your friends. There is some kind of personal mental problem, and I don’t know what can be done about it.”

Officials in Kiev took offense at his remarks. Zelensky’s deputy chief of staff, Andrey Sibiga, responded on Facebook by slamming the “unacceptable, vicious remarks by ‘sub-par politicians’ like the non-respected head of Hungary’s legislature.”

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko insinuated that Kover himself had a mental health diagnosis, and accused Hungary of being on the side of “evil” in history on more than one occasion.

Kiev has repeatedly lashed out at Berlin and Budapest since February, accusing the Germans of not sending enough weapons to Ukraine and the Hungarians of blocking certain EU economic sanctions against Russia. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has criticized the embargo, likening it to an economic nuclear bomb, and pointing out that his country is heavily dependent on imports of Russian oil and gas.

www.rt.com/russia/556723-hungary-ukraine-zelensky-mental

Euroclear, one of the world’s largest financial securities transactions companies, has blocked about $27 billion worth of securities belonging to Russians, according to strategists at ITI Capital.

Frozen assets held by foreign investors reportedly exceed $85 billion.

The Belgium-based settlement and clearing organization announced the suspension of transactions with Russian securities in March. The step came amid Ukraine-related sanctions introduced against Moscow. Later, clearing house Clearstream, which is owned by Deutsche Boerse, followed suit.

The volume of assets of non-residents that were blocked in Russia’s National Settlement Depository (NSD) reportedly exceeded $85 billion, with some $48 billion of the assets being stocks, while the remaining $38 billion accounts for bonds, mainly ruble-denominated sovereign debt (OFZs).

Analysts say that the majority of holders of foreign assets in the NSD are local banks, management companies, non-state pension funds and individuals that are holding structural notes and foreign shares.

www.rt.com/business/556736-eu-frozen-russian-assets

China is building a naval base for its military in Cambodia, with both Beijing and Phnom Penh going to great lengths to conceal the operation, the Washington Post reported on Monday, citing Western officials.

The facility, occupying a portion of Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base on the Gulf of Thailand, is set to become only China’s second foreign outpost after the opening of a base in the East African nation of Djibouti in 2017, a Western official claimed, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The base is reportedly located to the west of the South China Sea, where Beijing has overlapping territorial claims with several countries. It will be capable of hosting large naval vessels, according to the source.

The leadership in Beijing see “the Indo-Pacific as China’s rightful and historic sphere of influence,” one official was quoted as saying. “They view China’s rise there as part of a global trend toward a multipolar world where major powers more forcefully assert their interests in their perceived sphere of influence."

“Essentially, China wants to become so powerful that the region will give in to China’s leadership rather than face the consequences,” the source added.

www.rt.com/news/556744-china-base-cambodia-us