Russian troops have begun a major military deployment to Syria.
The Russian government has been denying the moves, but the American government sent a terse warning to Russia about escalating the conflict. Russian officials claim they are just helping the fight against terrorism.
“We have always supplied equipment to them for their struggle against terrorists,” Maria V. Zakharova, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said in an interview with the New York Times. “We are supporting them, we were supporting them and we will be supporting them.”
The US has gone as far as to ask nations such as Greece to deny use of their airspace to Russian aircraft transporting troops and weapons to Syria.
Analysts say that it’s likely Russia is using the fact the US has not really attempted to put a force into Syria to their advantage.
“It is basically a chance to play on Obama’s checkerboard,” said Konstantin Von Eggert, an independent political analyst, told the Times, stating it’s as if Russian President Putin is saying: “You want to fight the Islamic State. I am there. I am ready. Ah, sorry, you don’t really want to fight.”
Russia has a key naval base in Syria.
Sweden has for 200 years maintained a military posture of neutrality when it comes to world affairs and conflicts.
Now, government officials are seriously looking at aligning with NATO out of fears of Russian aggression.
“I think it’s the combination of the perceived threat from Russia and a discussion about the armed forces’ inability to carry out their tasks which leads to more Swedes being in favor of Swedish NATO membership,” Ulf Bjereld, a political science professor at Gothenburg University, told Swedish Radio.
Russian naval and air forces have been making more forays into Swedish territory. In October, Russian forces moved into the Stockholm archipelago to look for a “missing Russian submarine.” No missing vessel was ever found.
The Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea has had a major impact on the citizens of Sweden. The public was almost unanimous in not wanting to join NATO before the invasion and now 33% of the nation wants to join NATO.
Russia has threatened military action if Sweden joins NATO.
“I don’t think it will become relevant in the near future, even though there has been a certain swing in public opinion. But if it happens there will be counter measures,” Russia’s ambassador to Sweden, Viktor Tatarintsev, told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper in June. “Putin pointed out that there will be consequences, that Russia will have to resort to a response of the military kind and reorientate our troops and missiles. The country that joins NATO needs to be aware of the risks it is exposing itself to.”
U.S. officials are looking at imposing sanctions against Russia and China for cyberattacks on the government’s servers.
The officials, who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity, said no final decision has been made because the sanctions could cause strain in relations between the countries. The Chinese president is scheduled to visit the U.S. this month.
Chinese and Russian hackers have accessed secure databases to steal information about military members and intelligence personnel and Russian hackers monitored the emails of state department officials for several months last fall.
Chinese hackers are believed to have caused the breach at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) earlier this year.
“Frustration has been growing for years about cyber economic espionage and then the scale of the OPM attack was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said a former senior administration official.
Chinese officials responded to the anonymous claims by saying they are firmly against cybercrime.
“The Chinese government staunchly upholds cyber security, firmly opposes and combats all forms of cyber attacks in accordance with law,” Chinese Embassy spokesman Zhu Haiquan said in a statement.
Zhu added he doesn’t want U.S. officials to engage in “groundless speculation.”
Russian citizens are protesting a government decision to burn 350 tons of food rather than distributing it to the nation’s poor.
Government troops intercepted a contraband food shipment including Irish pork and cheeses, Italian kiwis and more. Apparently some of the food was being shipped to the BMW car racing team that is participating in an event in Moscow.
“The department decided to impound goods at the checkpoint due to gross violation of sanitary rules,” Tass quoted food watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor as saying.
A spokesman for the Kremlin said that the policy of destroying food is likely to continue.
“I agree that it does not look pleasant,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov conceded in an interview to RBC News.
The Moscow Times was critical of the government’s action, stating “starvation and deprivation weren’t abstract concepts to Soviet people — even privileged Soviet people — just a couple of generations ago.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin banned Western food imports in 2014 in retaliation for sanctions placed against Russia due to their invasion of Ukraine.
State run media in both Russia and China are reporting that the largest naval exercise between the two nations will begin this week in the Pacific.
The operation, called Joint Sea 2015 II, will begin Thursday and run through August 28th in the Sea of Japan and off the coast of the Russian city of Vladivostok. More than 20 naval vessels from the two nations will conduct “joint amphibious assault” drills.
The exercise will also include various air units including fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.
“A source close to the operation said navies of the two countries will join forces to simulate anti-submarine combat and air defense and other relevant missions. A joint beach landing of troops is also planned,” read a report in the Chinese state-controlled Xinhua news service.
“The source said the drills ‘are not targeted at any third party and are not relevant to regional status-quo’.”
The state run news outlets called the event part of “an annual exchange program between Chinese and Russian militaries.”
The exercise is the first time the Chinese navy will conduct joint exercises in the Sea of Japan, bordering North and South Korea, Russia and Japan.
In November 2014, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu admitted the exercises are in response to the United States.
“We believe that the main goal of pooling our effort is to shape a collective regional security system,” Shoigu said in November. “We also expressed concern over U.S. attempts to strengthen its military and political clout in the [Asia-Pacific Region].”
Ten people are dead in eastern Ukraine after pro-Russian rebels opened fire on government forces and buildings.
The attacks by the Russian proxies killed two Ukrainian soldiers and eight civilians.
“We really strongly condemn this escalation of fighting and we call all sides to cease it and to observe the ceasefire,” European Commission spokeswoman Catherine Ray told journalists in Brussels.
Ukrainian military officials say that pro-Russian forces are continually violating the cease-fire agreed to in the Minsk II accord.
“This war looks like a war of attrition,” Gen. Viktor Muzhenko, the chief of staff of Ukraine’s armed forces, told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s Russia’s intent to demoralize our forces, and using that mechanism they want to influence Ukraine’s military leadership as well as the state leadership.”
The United Nations says the conflict in Ukraine has killed over 6,000 people since April 2014. At least 1.4 million people have been forced to leave their homes.
Investigations into a hacking attack on the email system for the Joint Chiefs of Staff has revealed that Russia is behind the cyberassault that shut down their system for 11 days.
The hackers broke into an unclassified email network using malware or “phishing” attempts, meaning an email recipient had to open an infected attachment to an e-mail to allow the malicious programs to access the system.
An official with the joint chiefs called the attack the “most sophisticated” attack on their network.
Another official told CBS News that the attack impacted the 4,000 personnel who work for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Most of those personnel are military members.
Pentagon officials repeatedly stated that the classified email network was not impacted and said the Joint Chiefs were given an alternative method to send unclassified emails while the system was shut down to clear out the malicious software.
The attack is the latest in several high-profile attacks on the U.S. Government’s email systems this year. Previous attacks were attributed to Chinese hackers.
China is inviting Russia to join them for a series of military drills in the Sea of Japan.
The action comes amid the United States working with allies throughout the Asian region to counter Beijing’s aggressive moves to claim more waters in the South and East China Seas as “territorial waters” despite the waters being claimed by other nations.
The exercises will happen at the end of August and will happen both at the Russian port city of Vladivostok and in the South China Sea according to Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun.
“[The] purpose of the exercise is to consolidate and develop the China-Russia all-round strategic coordination partnership, to deepen the pragmatic and friendly cooperation between the Chinese and Russian militaries, and to enhance the organization and command capabilities and the levels of the two militaries in jointly conducting the joint traffic defense activities and joint landing activities, so as to further enhance their capabilities of jointly coping with maritime security threats,” Yujun said.
The exercises will include anti-submarine and anti-ship targeting with Chinese fighter jets, frigates, destroyers and supply vessels. The Russians will send ships, subs and fixed wing aircraft. Both will send marines and helicopters.
The two nations have already held joint naval exercises in the Mediterranean Sea.
A plague of locusts has struck large areas of southern Russia, threatening to destroy crops and even darkening skies in some places.
A video shot in the town of Achikulak showed tens of thousands of locusts flying through the sky and blanketing the ground.
The regional agriculture ministry for the Stavropol region said the waves of locusts began to invade the region around July 20th. The government officials claim that they have locusts every year but they’re usually destroyed before they hatch.
Vasilli Yegorov, deputy agricultural minister, told ABC News that this year the locust came from neighboring regions.
The region is one of Russia’s major agricultural areas.
A state of emergency has been declared in three regions near Stavropol. The locusts have been found from Chechnya to the Caspian Sea. In one part of Stavropol, one effort to eradicate the locusts covered over 350 miles.
Officials at NORAD have confirmed that four Russian long-range bombers flew close to U.S. shores on Independence Day.
The first set of two bombers was intercepted by military fighter jets off the Alaskan coast. The second pair were intercepted off the California coast. Both sets stayed just far enough away from the coastline to be international airspace.
The first incident happened around 7:30 a.m. Pacific Time when two Air Force F-22 jets scrambled to intercept two Tupolev Tu-95 bombers. Both of the two Russian planes were capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
The second incident happened 30 minutes later off the central California coast. The bombers in this case were the same as the previous incident where they could carry nuclear payloads.
Officials would not say how close to American airspace the bombers reached before being intercepted by American aircraft.
“These are not unprecedented flights, but we are postured to respond whether Alaska or California,” NORAD spokesman Michael Kucharek said. “At no time did the bombers enter North American sovereign airspace.”