Heading towards World War III?

Washington has no objections to Kiev using Western-supplied weapons to target territories that may decide to join Russia, as the US considers the votes to do so illegitimate, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday.

The US and its allies have supplied Ukraine with a variety of weapons, including tube and rocket artillery. At a joint press conference with his Indian counterpart Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Washington, Blinken was asked if the US had any objections to Ukraine using those weapons to attack targets in Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson, which just wrapped up a vote on joining Russia.

“We will never recognize the annexation of Ukrainian territory by Russia,” Blinken told reporters. “Ukraine has the absolute right to defend itself throughout its territory, including to take back the territory that has been illegally seized, one way or another, by Russia. And the equipment, the weapons that we and many other countries are providing, have been used very effectively to do just that.”

Russia’s “annexation” of the Donbass republics and the two regions will make zero difference to either Ukraine or the US, Blinken insisted. “The Ukrainians will continue to do what they need to do to get back the land that has been taken from them. We will continue to support them in that effort.”

www.rt.com/news/563631-blinken-ukraine-targeting-russia

Washington is finalising a new military aid package for Ukraine amid its conflict with Russia, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

The announcement on the delivery of another $1.1 billion worth of arms to Kiev will be made “in the coming days,” according to unnamed US officials, who spoke to the news agency.

The package is expected to include HIMARS multiple rocket launchers and munitions for them, as well as counter-drone and radar systems, along with spare parts, training and technical support, the sources said.

The aid will be funded under the government’s Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), meaning the hardware will be specifically procured for Kiev from American arms makers, and not taken from US stocks.

The package will come on top of more than $15 billion in military support already provided to President Vladimir Zelensky’s government by Washington since the launch of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine in late February.

Moscow has long been critical of weapons supplies to Ukraine by the US, Canada, EU, UK and some other countries, arguing that they only prolong the conflict and increase the risk of a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia.

Reports of the upcoming US military aid package to Kiev came on the day when referendums on whether to join Russia concluded in the Donbass republics, as well as in Ukraine's Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. Their results suggested overwhelming support for becoming part of Russia, according to the local authorities.

The US previously said it won’t recognize the results of referendums regardless of their outcome, and warned of more sanctions against Russia if it “annexes” those territories.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that Washington had no objections to Kiev using Western-supplied weapons to target “Ukrainian land” viewed by Russia as its own after the referendums.

www.rt.com/news/563640-us-aid-himars-ukraine

Russia will act to defend all of its territory and people, as well as residents of regions in eastern Ukraine that voted to join the Russian Federation this week, Moscow’s ambassador to the United States has said, accusing both Washington and NATO of stoking further violence with military aid to Kiev.

Asked about recent comments from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken – who said the White House has no problem with Kiev using Western arms to attack territories that voted to join Russia – Ambassador Anatoly Antonov warned that the weapons shipments only risk “further escalation of the conflict.”

“In instigating Kiev to continue using the military equipment received from the West, Washington does not realize the riskiness of its actions,” the envoy said on Tuesday, adding that the Joe Biden administration is “approaching the dangerous line that Russia has repeatedly and clearly warned about: the United States becoming a party to the Ukrainian conflict.”

Earlier in the day, Blinken insisted the US “will never recognize the annexation of Ukrainian territory by Russia,” referring to votes in the two Donbass republics already recognized by Moscow – Donetsk and Lugansk – as well as the Ukrainian regions of Zaporozhye and Kherson, which are largely under the control of the Russian military. All four regions voted overwhelmingly to join Russia, according to local referendum observers.

“Ukraine has the absolute right to defend itself throughout its territory, including to take back the territory that has been illegally seized, one way or another, by Russia. And the equipment, the weapons that we and many other countries are providing, have been used very effectively to do just that,” Blinken said.

In response, Antonov said Russia would take “firm and decisive” steps to “defend the Fatherland,” going on to argue that “diplomatic efforts to find a peaceful resolution to the crisis cannot be effective as long as the collective West uses the Zelensky regime as a military mercenary against Russia.”

Four regions vote to join Russia: What’s next?READ MORE: Four regions vote to join Russia: What’s next?
“Civilians and children are being killed. Residential areas, schools and hospitals are being irreparably damaged,” the ambassador continued, accusing both the US and its allies in the NATO alliance of “sowing death and destruction.”

The Biden administration previously said it received “assurances” from the Ukrainian government that US-made long-range rocket artillery systems would not be used for attacks on Russian soil. However, at the time it was not clear whether those guarantees applied to Crimea, which voted to reunite with Russia in a 2014 referendum similar to those that took place this week, and Kiev has since launched strikes on the peninsula.

www.rt.com/russia/563638-ambassador-antonov-us-ukraine-attacks

Three Turkish state-run banks, the only ones in the country processing transactions with Russia’s Mir cards, are planning to pull out, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing an unnamed senior official.

The decision followed a warning from the White House that financial institutions would risk secondary penalties if they help sanction-hit Russia to bypass Ukraine-related punitive measures.

Earlier this month, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that it was ready to impose sanctions on any institution outside Russia using the country’s payment system.

Turkish lenders joined the Mir payment network in early August, allowing tourists from Russia to pay for their purchases in the country.

The forced measures that are expected to be taken by Halkbank, Ziraat Bank and VakıfBank to stop using Mir marks the latest turnaround in the Turkish stance on anti-Russia sanctions.

Last week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has performed a delicate balancing act since Moscow launched the military operation in Ukraine, announced plans to hold an economic meeting with the country’s top officials to evaluate possible decisions on Mir cards in the light of Western sanctions for servicing its cards.

Mir was developed by the Central Bank of Russia as a domestic alternative to Visa and Mastercard after the first round of sanctions was imposed on Moscow in 2014. Since the introduction of the new payment system, Russian banks have issued more than 129 million Mir cards.

Last week, Russian media reported that banks in Kazakhstan and Vietnam had stopped accepting Mir payment cards to avoid the risk of US secondary sanctions.

www.rt.com/business/563642-turkiye-banks-mir-cards-suspension

The US administration intends to develop its “unofficial” ties with Taiwan despite China’s fierce opposition, Vice President Kamala Harris said on Wednesday. She also blasted Beijing for what she described as “aggressive behavior” in the Asia-Pacific region.

Speaking to American sailors aboard a US warship in Japan, Harris lashed out at China, accusing Beijing of “undermining key elements of international rules-based order.” China “has challenged the freedom of the seas and has flexed its military and economic might to coerce and intimidate its neighbors,” she noted.

Harris, in particular, accused Beijing of staging various “provocations” across the Taiwan Strait, an area where the US often deploys its Navy patrols. The vice president also believes that Beijing used the visit to Taipei of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in early August “as a pretext for an unprecedented show of military force.”

In this vein, Harris signaled that, amid the heightened tensions in the region, the Biden administration expects “continued aggressive behavior from Beijing” in what she described as a unilateral Chinese effort to “undermine the status quo.”

Harris pledged that the US would continue to “support Taiwan’s self-defense” and “deepen our unofficial ties” with the self-governed island, stressing, however, that Washington does not seek a Cold War with China.

Her comments come after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned last week that such a conflict would be a “disaster” for both countries and for the whole world, adding that Washington’s perception of Beijing as its most prominent rival in the long-term is totally unwarranted.

The regional tensions have been running high since US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled to Taiwan in a show of support. Beijing, however, views a visit by Washington’s second-in-line for presidential succession as a violation of the ‘One China’ principle by Washington and believes it is detrimental for Sino-US relations.

Beijing considers Taiwan sovereign Chinese territory. Since 1949, the island has been ruled by nationalists, who fled the mainland with US help after losing the Chinese Civil War to the Communists. The US officially recognizes but doesn’t endorse China’s sovereignty over the self-governed island.

www.rt.com/news/563649-us-taiwan-china-harris

Russia has withdrawn its troops from the strategic Ukrainian town of Lyman, in a move seen as a significant setback for its campaign in the east.

The retreat came amid fears thousands of soldiers would be encircled in the town, Russia's defence ministry said.

Recapturing Lyman is of strategic significance for Ukraine.

The town had been used as a logistics hub by Russia, and could give Ukrainian troops access to more territory in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Video footage shared online showed Ukrainian soldiers waving their national flag on the outskirts of the town.

Although the blue and yellow colours were flying in Lyman again, fighting was "still going on" there, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening video address.

However, he gave no further details.

The battlefield setback prompted the Chechen leader and hardline Moscow ally, Ramzan Kadyrov, to comment that Russia should consider using low-yield nuclear weapons in the face of such defeats.

www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63102220

US President Joe Biden has said the risk of nuclear war is at the highest level since the peak of Cold War brinkmanship in the 1960s. He further claimed that Russia could seek to deploy some of its huge arsenal in Ukraine.

Speaking at a fundraiser for Democratic candidates in New York on Thursday, Biden invoked a biblical reference to warn of potential nuclear annihilation, stating that soaring hostilities between Russia, Ukraine and the West could escalate to outright “Armageddon.”

“[For the] first time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have a direct threat of the use [of a] nuclear weapon if in fact things continue down the path they are going,” the president said, apparently referring to the war still raging in Eastern Europe.

“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since [US President John F.] Kennedy.”

Biden went on to assert that the Russian military is “significantly underperforming” in Ukraine, saying that could raise the stakes in the conflict, ultimately leading to a dangerous spike in violence should Moscow become desperate.

Despite the president’s dire warnings, however, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier this week that officials had not seen “any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture,” as there is no indication that Russia is “preparing to imminently to use nuclear weapons.” Pentagon spokesperson Brigadier General Pat Ryder echoed those remarks on Thursday, telling reporters that Russia has not made a decision to use nukes.

Still, US officials have repeatedly pointed to the possibility of an atomic strike throughout the war, as well as the use of biological or chemical weapons. Although Moscow has shown no signs that it intends to deploy such weapons, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a recent speech that his country has “various means of destruction,” and that he would not hesitate to use them to defend Russian territory. “It’s not a bluff,” he added.

The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis erupted after the Soviet Union stationed nuclear-capable munitions in Cuba in retaliation for a similar move by Washington in Turkey. It is generally considered to be the closest the East and West ever came to a full-on nuclear exchange during the decades-long Cold War, but was ultimately resolved after both sides agreed to reverse their deployments.

www.rt.com/news/564197-biden-russia-nuclear-armageddon