Nato's Baltic drills are part of preparations for a potential clash with Russia
Nato's Baltic drills are part of the alliance's preparations for a potential military clash with Russia, Tass news agency reported Russia's deputy foreign minister Alexander Grushko as saying in remarks published on Wednesday.
'We assess Nato's military activity as part of preparations for military clashes with Russia,' Tass reported Grushko as saying.
'If we look at the focus of these exercises, the concept, the structure of the deployment of forces, the forces themselves, their quality, the tasks that are formulated for these exercises, then this is a fight against a comparable adversary,' Grushko said according to Tass.
BALTOPS — Nato's annual exercise in the Baltic Sea and the regions surrounding it — is being held this month.
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IOL News
2 days ago
- IOL News
Europe's Left Must Unite to Oppose NATO's Rearmament and Austerity
U.S. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth (left) and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in conversation ahead of the meeting of NATO defence ministers at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on June 5, 2025. Image: AFP John Ross As Europe approaches NATO's 24–26 June summit in The Hague, its 750 million people face a decisive strategic choice that will affect their lives for years to come – and one with a far wider global impact. The policies implemented in Europe in recent years have been disastrous socially, economically, politically, and militarily. Europe is experiencing worsening social conditions, its largest war since 1945 in Ukraine, and the biggest rise of far-right authoritarian, racist, and xenophobic forces since the Nazis in the 1930s. The proposals to the NATO summit would worsen that situation. The key question is therefore whether Europe will continue down this destructive, disastrous path or adopt policies that offer a way out. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has proposed to the 32 NATO members that 'the NATO summit… aim for 3.5% hard military spending by 2032' – a 75% increase from the previous 2.0% GDP target. Trump calls for even higher military expenditure of 5% of GDP. Rutte opened the door to this by supporting a commitment to '1.5% related spending, such as infrastructure, cybersecurity and things like that. Also achievable by 2032'. The 3.5% plus 1.5% adds up to Trump's 5%. The social and political consequences of such a course are already clear. Europe's economies are nearly stagnant, with the EU's annual per capita GDP growth averaging less than 1% from 2007 to 2024. The IMF, somewhat optimistically, projects an increase to only 1.3% by 2030. With rising inequality and reductions in social spending due to austerity policies, hundreds of millions of people in Europe have already experienced stagnant or declining living standards. Diverting more resources into military spending, already being accompanied by social spending cuts to finance it, will worsen that situation further. The political consequences are also clear. Far-right and neo-fascist forces, exploiting the worsening conditions, which are caused by austerity measures and increased military spending, by demagogically blaming immigrants and ethnic and religious minorities, will gain further strength. The disastrous consequences for traditional left-wing and progressive parties supporting or enacting these rearmament and austerity policies, even before their support for the new NATO rearmament policies, are already known in major European countries. The SPD in Germany in 2025 saw its vote drop to 16%, the lowest since 1887. In the last elections at which they stood independently, the French Socialist Party gained only 6%. In Britain, the Labour Party, which already received one of its lowest votes since the 1930s at the last election, is now in the polls behind the far-right Reform Party. In contrast, left-wing parties that have opposed austerity and NATO policies – La France Insoumise in France, Die Linke in Germany, and the Belgian Workers Party – have maintained or significantly increased their support. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ This disastrous collapse suffered by traditional left-wing parties that have supported war and austerity is extremely dangerous in the context of the rise of far-right parties across Europe. The reason for the collapsing support for such parties is obvious. Such policies attack the population's living standards. If parties claiming to be on the left continue to support austerity and rearmament, this trend of decline will just continue. The only way out of this situation for both Europe's population and the left is a complete policy reversal to one that prioritises social progress and economic development. Following the end of the Cold War, Europe should have focused on fostering economic cooperation and minimising military tensions and expenditures. This would have created a balanced economic area, equivalent to the US, with a strong potential for growth by combining Western Europe's manufacturing and services with Russia's energy and raw materials. What was possible was shown in Asia by ASEAN, which, in a continent that had suffered the worst conflicts of the Cold War, the Korean and Vietnam wars, became the world's most rapidly growing economic region through a concentration on economic development and the absence of military blocs. But, because an economically cooperating Europe could have been a successful competitor to the United States, US administrations pursued a path to prevent it – primarily through NATO's eastward expansion, which was carried out in direct violation of US promises to then-Soviet Premier Gorbachev that NATO would not advance 'an inch' eastward after Germany's reunification. Instead, in 1999, 2004, 2009, 2017, and 2020, new countries were added to NATO, and the door was deliberately left open to admitting Ukraine, known to be a red line for Russia due to Ukraine's proximity to Russia and its position as a historical route for invasion. Numerous US experts on Eastern Europe opposed this, led by George Kennan, the original architect of US Cold War strategy, who warned NATO expansion would be 'the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era'. But their warnings were ignored, with results culminating in the Ukraine war. Now NATO demands rearmament and cuts in social protection to finance this war. NATO forces simultaneously expanded outside Europe to participate in wars in the Global South, Afghanistan and Libya, and set up numerous organisations and initiatives to prepare for intervention in the Global South – such as the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, the Strategic Direction-South HUB, the Liaison Office in Addis Ababa – and has begun to expand into the Pacific – with Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea attending every NATO summit since 2022. Such NATO expansion would involve Europe in even more conflicts and more calls for military expenditure. What is required is the complete opposite – priority to social progress and investment for economic growth. Both require more spending and are therefore directly contrary to a military build-up. Europe's need for social spending is obvious. But Europe's investment, the key to economic growth, has also collapsed. In the EU, investment, once depreciation (the wearing out of existing means of production) is taken into account, has halved from 7.4% of GDP in 2007 to only 3.5% on the latest data. International comparisons show this is enough only to generate 1% annual economic growth. Additionally, the US is now pressing for further policies harmful to Europe and its people. The US has already enormously damaged Europe by its conscious policy of cutting off Western Europe's source of cheap energy from Russia, achieved via the Ukraine war and the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline, which anyone who looks seriously at the matter knows was carried out by the US.
IOL News
4 days ago
- IOL News
How Ukraine's drone attacks jeopardise peace efforts with Russia
Since the outbreak of the war, the US has been the biggest supporter of Ukraine through military hardware, capital injection and international diplomatic offensive that has seen Ukraine's now acting President Volodymyr Zelensky treated with pomp and ceremony across many capitals, particularly in Europe. Image: Tetiana Dzhafarova / AFP IN a much-anticipated telephone call this week, US President Donald Trump was at pains explaining to his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin, that Washington absolutely had nothing to do with Ukraine's astoundingly provocative drone attacks on five Russian airbases. The airbases, attacked simultaneously, house Russia's strategic bomber fleet. The attacks appear to put a spanner in the works for Trump's strenuous efforts to broker a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv. The timing is also curious. The well-orchestrated drone attacks took place at a time when the light at the end of the tunnel was beginning to beam with brightness. Despite the deep-seated mistrust and tension between the two next-door neighbours who've been at war since February 2022, the latest round of rare face-to-face talks between the two nations has taken place in the Turkish capital, Istanbul. Trump had been visibly encouraged by their direct negotiations, which resulted in the mass exchange of prisoners of war. A leading German-based civil society organisation, the Schiller Institute, has been vehemently campaigning for an end to the war, actively supporting dialogue in an effort to give peace a chance. Responding to Ukraine's provocative attack on Russia on June 1, Dennis Small of the Schiller Institute wrote: 'Whether 40% or only 10% of Russia's airborne nuclear capability was destroyed in the attack is irrelevant; the fact is that whoever prepared, trained and gave the final green light for Kiev's drone operation was itching to unleash a nuclear-strategic conflict between the world's two greatest nuclear weapons superpowers.' Trump told Putin that the White House was not even given any prior warning about the attacks. Therefore, like most of the international community, Washington was caught off guard, totally taken by surprise. Now, since the outbreak of the war, the US has been the biggest supporter of Ukraine through military hardware, capital injection and international diplomatic offensive that has seen Ukraine's now acting President Volodymyr Zelensky treated with pomp and ceremony across many capitals, particularly in Europe. NATO has also been visible and loud in defence of Ukraine, supplying intelligence and weaponry to Kyiv, among others. All this support was provided on the back of the imposition of an unprecedented barrage of economic sanctions on Moscow. As things were, the entire script was written by Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, who had vowed that the West would support Ukraine 'for as long as it takes'. When Biden and his Democrats lost the elections last November, Trump's Republican Party was determined to end the war in Ukraine. 'This is a war that would never have started if I were in office,' Trump has said repeatedly. It is therefore no wonder that since assuming office at the beginning of 2025, Trump has prioritised peace in Ukraine. He came into office at a time of great antagonism and mistrust between Washington and Moscow. In the midst of it all, he managed to re-establish contact with the Kremlin, leading to the accentuation of bilateral diplomacy between the two nuclear powers. Through it all, some in Europe had not been too pleased about the looming brokering of peace between Ukraine and Russia. Key EU powers in the form of the UK, France and Germany have publicly displayed displeasure at Trump's approach and efforts. As Washington was pushing too hard to bring a reluctant Zelensky to the negotiating table, the three European powers stated above were actively mobilising for an 'alternative' approach. They birthed a curious idea labelled a 'Coalition of the Willing', a military force to be deployed to Ukraine in the event Trump succeeded with his peace mission. Their rationale is premised on their deep mistrust of Russia that borders on downright Russophobia. They claim that their mooted indefinite military presence inside Ukraine would deter Russia from attacking Ukraine again. The EU's biggest powers are trapped in the Joe Biden war-mongering era that has passed. They speak of no approach to peace, nor how they could engage with Russia at the negotiating table to reach an amicable settlement to the war. Of great interest, the pro-war EU states want Trump's US to guarantee what they call a back-stop, some military assurance that in an event of confrontation with Russia, whilst 'guarding' Ukraine, the US would jump in to defend their Coalition of the Willing. Of course, Trump has already disappointed most of the war-mongering European powers by expressing no taste for military activities inside Ukraine post-war. Trump's offer of a guarantee for the protection of Ukraine will instead come in the form of the economic deal between Kyiv and Washington that includes rare earth minerals. The minerals would contribute toward Ukraine repaying the US for the unconditional assistance Zelensky received during the tenure of Biden, which totalled several billions of dollars. Ukraine's audacious drone attacks of recent days beg for more questions. For instance, where does Zelensky get the guts to launch such a sensitive attack on Russia without informing the White House? As the Schiller Institute puts it: 'Who has the (usurped) power to launch an attack targeting the nuclear deterrent forces of the planet's leading nuclear weapons nation, without telling the of the United States?' Clearly, and surely, an attack of that kind and magnitude would inevitably and logically trigger a response? The Zelensky regime is not politically naive to be unaware of the consequential ramifications of their actions, but then, what is the end-game? The Schiller Institute's conclusion is rather ominous. It read: 'The world may have dodged the bullet of nuclear war — for the moment. But that gun is still loaded, and it is still being wielded by the British and American intelligence circles that are intent on driving a permanent wedge between Trump and Putin, and who are prepared to stage a coup d'état and even assassinate both heads of state, as well as launch another nuclear provocation.' I believe that the UK, France and Germany, that is now under the war-mongering Chancellor Friedrich Merz, need to be confronted by Washington to come out clean about their role in ordering or advising Kiev to attack Russia in this manner. Trump and Putin spoke by phone for one hour and 15 minutes in the aftermath of the attacks. Trump said afterwards: 'We discussed the attack on Russia's docked aeroplanes, by Ukraine,' he posted on his Truth Social account on June 4, adding: 'It was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate Peace. Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields.' In my book, that's the scary part indeed!
The Citizen
4 days ago
- The Citizen
Ukraine war ‘existential,' Kremlin says, launching revenge strikes
Kyiv hit hard as Russia launches over 400 drones and dozens of missiles, killing civilians and igniting widespread fires. A person looks out from a broken window in a residential building damaged during a Russian air strike in Kyiv on June 6, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia carried out a barrage of drone strikes across Ukraine overnight, killing at least four people and wounding 20 in the capital Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said on June 6. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP) The Kremlin said on Friday that the Ukraine war was 'existential' for Russia, after it launched a wave of retaliatory drone and missile strikes that killed at least three in Kyiv. AFP journalists heard air raid sirens and explosions ring out over the capital throughout the night as Ukrainian air defence batteries intercepted waves of Russian drones and missiles. Kyiv announced that Russia had fired 45 missiles and 407 drones in the barrage, after Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed retaliation for an audacious Ukrainian attack on several Russian airbases. President Volodymyr Zelensky in response urged allies to 'decisively' ramp up pressure on Russia to halt the war, which has left tens of thousands dead over more than three years of fighting. 'We heard a drone — we heard it coming very close, and then there was an explosion,' Ksenia, a Kyiv resident, told AFP outside a multiple-storey housing block that was left with a charred and gaping hole. 'Our windows and window panes were blown out, but we got away with a slight shock,' she added, standing in a courtyard littered with broken glass and debris. ALSO READ: Russia signals severe retaliation after Ukraine's strikes The Kremlin on Friday cast its three-year invasion as nothing short of a battle for the 'future' of Russia. 'For us it is an existential issue, an issue on our national interest, safety, on our future and the future of our children, of our country,' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, responding to US President Donald Trump's comparison of Moscow and Kyiv to brawling children. 'Act decisively' Zelensky said at least three people had been killed in the capital, and that Russia had targeted nine regions of Ukraine, including Lviv and Volyn in the west, which border EU and NATO member Poland. 'If someone does not put pressure and gives the war more time to take lives, they are complicit and responsible. We need to act decisively,' Zelensky wrote on social media. Deadly attacks have escalated in recent weeks even as the two sides hold talks aimed at ending the conflict triggered by Russia's February 2022 invasion. Cities and villages have been destroyed across eastern Ukraine and millions forced to flee their homes, with Russia's forces controlling around one-fifth of Ukraine's territory. ALSO READ: Ukraine shows it's far from finished with Russian warplanes bombing Russian aerial assaults have become larger in recent weeks as concerns build over Ukraine's strained air defence capacity. The defence ministry in Moscow said its forces had launched the 'massive' missile and drone strike in 'response' to recent attacks by Kyiv on its territory. Putin earlier this week told Trump that Moscow would retaliate over the Ukrainian attack on Sunday in which drones damaged nuclear-capable military planes at Russian air bases, including thousands of kilometres behind the front lines in Siberia. The brazen operation, 18 months in the planning, saw Kyiv smuggle more than 100 small drones into Russia, park them near Russian air bases and unleash them in a coordinated attack. Retaliation Despite several recent rounds of meetings between Ukrainian and Russian delegations, Putin has repeatedly rejected a ceasefire, and has issued a host of sweeping demands on Ukraine if it wants to halt the fighting. They include completely pulling troops out of four regions claimed by Russia, but which its army does not fully control, an end to Western military support, and a ban on Ukraine joining NATO. ALSO READ: Kremlin denies dragging out Ukraine peace talks The overnight Russian attack left multiple fires burning in various districts of the capital. Three first responders from the state emergency service were killed while dealing with an earlier strike, Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said. 'They were working under fire to help people,' he said, adding nine more were wounded and that 'doctors are fighting for their lives.' Kyiv's mayor said earlier that four were killed in the capital but later revised down that toll. Several strikes also hit the city of Lutsk and the Ternopil region in western Ukraine. At least 49 people were wounded in total, Zelensky said. ALSO READ: Zelensky says won't play Putin's 'games' with short truce Moscow meanwhile said Ukrainian strikes overnight on Russia wounded three people in the western Tula region, while Kyiv claimed to have staged successful attacks on two air fields deep inside Russian territory. Footage shared on social media showed a large fire and smoke billowing into the air at an oil facility that serves a military site in Russia's Saratov region, which has been frequently targeted. The Russian defence ministry said it downed 174 Ukrainian drones overnight. Ten downed drones were headed for the Russian capital, according to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. – By: © Agence France-Presse
