Heading towards World War III?

The Polish government has announced it terminating a Russian natural gas contract without waiting for its expiry at the end of 2022. Along with Bulgaria and Finland, Warsaw has refused to accept Russia’s new ruble-based payment mechanism introduced in late March.

“After 30 years, it can be stated that relations in the gas industry between Poland and Russia have ceased,” Piotr Naimsky, Polish Commissioner for Strategic Energy Infrastructure said.

The official added that the Polish section of the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline, which was previously used to pump natural gas from Russia, could be used for supplies from Germany.

“This section of the gas transmission infrastructure is owned by EuroPolGaz. The section, as well as the entire gas transmission system in Poland, is operated by GAZ-Sistem,” Naimsky said.

Moscow's ruble payment demand applies to countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia over its military operation in Ukraine, and have frozen the country’s foreign currency reserves.

A number of European energy companies have complied with Russia's new payment scheme. Earlier this month, Brussels issued updated guidance on how EU businesses can pay for Russian gas in rubles without breaching the sanctions introduced against the country.

Russia’s Gazprom halted gas deliveries to Poland in late April after the country’s energy company PGNiG refused to pay for supplies in rubles. Poland continued to receive reverse Russian gas supplies from Germany, according to Gazprom.

www.rt.com/business/555934-poland-ends-russia-gas-contract

US President Joe Biden indicated on Monday that Washington is willing to use military force to defend Taiwan if necessary. Speaking at a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, in Tokyo, he explained that the US sees the idea of China “going in” with its troops as unacceptable.

When asked if the US would become directly involved in a conflict between China and Taiwan, including through the use of military force, Biden said “Yes,” adding that “it’s a commitment we made.” The US leader has previously said Washington respects the ‘One China’ policy, by which it recognizes that there is only one China led by Beijing.

Biden, however, maintained that China has no “jurisdiction to go in and use force to take over Taiwan.” The idea that the island nation “can be taken by force is just not appropriate. It will dislocate the whole region,” the US president added.

www.rt.com/news/555938-us-use-force-defend-taiwan

Prisoner exchanges are the purview of the military, which means that any possible requests to swap Ukrainian captives from the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, for Russian POWs, would have to go through the defense ministry, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

And when asked by journalists about jailed Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk, he reiterated that Russia had no intention of doing a swap, despite the politician’s request for such action.

“Medvedchuk is a Ukrainian citizen who has nothing to do with Russia and is not military,” Peskov told the media. Ukrainian soldiers and members of the Neo-Nazi Azov National Guard unit “are a different category” he added.

Medvedchuk led the biggest opposition faction in the Ukrainian parliament before the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky launched a crackdown on its opponents. The politician is currently in the custody of the SBU, Ukraine’s domestic security agency.

www.rt.com/russia/555953-azovstal-prisoners-exchange-medvedchuk

Russian soldier Vadim Shishimarin has been sentenced to life in prison for war crimes by a court in Kiev. Prosecutors accused the 21-year-old sergeant of shooting dead an elderly civilian in the northeastern Sumy Region of Ukraine during the first days of the Russian military offensive, which was launched in February.

The Russian serviceman received the harshest punishment possible under Ukrainian law, as the death penalty has been banned in the country since 2000.

Shishimarin has “violated the rules and customs of war” and should be “found guilty and assigned a penalty of life in prison,” the judge said.

Shishimarin’s lawyers say they are going to appeal the ruling, with plans to go all the way to the European Court of Human Rights if higher Ukrainian courts uphold the sentence.

Earlier on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow has been concerned with the soldier’s trial, especially considering that Russia currently lacked the ability to “protect his interests on site.”

Russian institutions are currently unable to carry out their activities in Ukraine, Peskov explained. “But this doesn’t mean that we won’t consider the possibility of continuing attempts [to help the serviceman] through other channels,” he added.

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Ukrainian Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova has not ruled out the possibility of exchanging Vadim Shishimarin, the first Russian soldier sentenced for war crimes by a court in Kiev.

On Monday, the 21-year-old sergeant was sentenced to life for fatally shooting an elderly civilian named Alexander Shelipov in the northeastern Sumy Region of Ukraine. Shishimarin’s lawyers say they are going to appeal the court’s decision.

Speaking during the national telethon on Tuesday, Venediktova stressed that exchanges of prisoners of war were a matter for politicians and diplomats, so she could only talk about the case from the perspective of criminal justice.

“Our scenarios can be completely different. You can exchange a person after court rulings. Yes, technically it is possible,” she claimed.

www.rt.com/russia/556034-soldier-sentence-exchange-prosecutor

Moscow expects increased economic cooperation with China as the West takes a more dictatorial stance, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday. Russia intends to build relations with independent countries and will decide how to deal with the West if and when it comes to its senses, he added.

“Now that the West is taking the position of a dictator, our economic ties with China will grow even faster,” Lavrov told students at the Primakov School, an elite Moscow high school named after one of his predecessors.

“In addition to direct income to the treasury, this will give us the opportunity to implement plans for the development of the Far East and Eastern Siberia,” he added. “The majority of projects with China are concentrated there. This is an opportunity for us to realize our potential in the field of high technology, including nuclear energy, but also in a number of other areas.”

Lavrov’s remarks were made at the ‘100 Questions for the Leader’, a traditional event organized by the Moscow academy named after Evgeny Primakov, who served as foreign minister from 1996-98 and after that as prime minister.

Addressing the ongoing turmoil in Ukraine, Lavrov said that Moscow had tried to resolve the Donbass crisis by having Kiev implement the Minsk Protocol, but the West only pretended to care about the talks, and instead “encouraged the arrogant position of the Kiev regime.”

www.rt.com/russia/555983-lavrov-russia-china-west

Turkey will soon launch a new military operation in northern Syria, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday. Though he did not provide any specifics, the incursion is likely to target areas held by US-backed Kurdish militias, which Turkey has already done on three occasions since 2016.

“We will soon take new steps regarding the incomplete portions of the project we started on the 30-km deep safe zone we established along our southern border,” Erdogan said after a cabinet meeting, according to AP.

“The main target of these operations will be areas which are centers of attacks to our country and safe zones,” he added, according to Reuters. Operations will begin once Turkey’s military, intelligence and security forces complete their preparations, Erdogan said without elaborating further.

Ankara has sent troops into Syria thrice already, starting with Operation Euphrates Shield in 2016. The most recent incursion, 2019’s Operation Peace Spring, was met with US sanctions and a war of words between Erdogan and French President Emmanuel Macron. Turkey currently controls portions of Syria’s Aleppo, Raqqa and Hasakah governorates, in addition to supporting militants in Idlib.

Last month, Turkey also sent troops into Iraq, targeting Kurdish militias in the northern regions of Metina, Zap, and Avasin-Basyan in what it called Operation Claw-Lock. Baghdad condemned the operation as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty, but has been unable to do anything about it.

Turkey has accused the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG of links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Ankara has designated as a terrorist organization. Since 2015, the US has used YPG as the basis of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a proxy militia it armed and supplies to fight against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorists – and deny the liberated territory to the government in Damascus, which Washington seeks to overthrow.

Backed by as many as 2,000 US troops, the SDF currently holds the northeastern portion of Syria, including most of its oil wells and arable land.

Erdogan has recently voiced objections to Finland and Sweden joining NATO, due to the fact the two Scandinavian governments have granted political asylum to a number of Kurdish activists that Turkey considers terrorists.

www.rt.com/news/555984-erdogan-turkey-syria-operation

US President Joe Biden signed a memorandum on Monday designating Colombia as a major non-NATO ally of the United States, a special status that will grant Bogota multiple defense and trade privileges in its relations with Washington.

Although the Biden Administration made a pledge to grant the special status to Colombia back in March, the official declaration comes only now, coinciding with the South American country's offer of military aid to Ukraine.

After his country was designated a major non-NATO ally, Colombian President Ivan Duque took to Twitter to praise Washington for a “decision that reaffirms the good moment of our bilateral relations.”

Earlier on Monday, Colombian defense minister Diego Molano announced that a group of his country’s troops would help train Ukrainian soldiers in de-mining techniques, following a request from Washington.

“This training will be given by 11 military engineers who will go to a NATO member country which is a neighbor of Ukraine,” the defense chief said.

The major non-NATO ally status has been granted to 19 nations around the world, recently including Qatar. It provides US partners with economic privileges such as loans, cooperative research, and exclusive defense contracts with NATO countries. The status, however, does not provide any defense guarantees to the designated countries.

www.rt.com/news/555986-colombia-major-nato-ally