Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #Baltic

Most recents (24)

(1. Touched down in #Dublin🇮🇪earlier today. Good to be in #Ireland for a few days. Been following some commentary on the Consultative Forum closely,disappointed at some of the false binaries we are imposing on ourselves: pro-#NATO/anti-NATO or pro-#neutrality/anti-neutrality.
(2.What we need is better knowledge&depth as well as workable #security options that public want to unify behind & sooner rather than later. Inducing more polarization only weakens #Ireland's national #security further--diametric opposite to what we are looking for.
(3. If politicians, academics&policy experts fail to help in developing options along these lines&if some chose to side-track themselves with bitter disputes or false binaries then I think this will be a big opportunity missed to improve matters & history will be a harsh judge.
Read 5 tweets
#France and #Macron deserve a thread in the context of #Ukraine, #Russia and beyond.

- First, some historical context: France, just like #Britain, is a declining power. This process started with the loss of colonies after the World War 2.

🧵 ...

1/18

theguardian.com/world/2023/may…
- A clear geopolitical shift happen with the Suez Crisis in 1956, which marked the emergence of #USA and #USSR as the world powers.

- #France also experienced a humiliating military defeat by #Germany during the World War 2. That shaped rather pretentious politics of ...

2/18
.. Charles de Gaulle, who tried to restore the French power with dissenting views vis-a-vis #Americans and #British (or the "collective Anglo-Saxons"). In 1966, #France withdrawn from the #NATO's military command.

3/18
Read 19 tweets
#putin escalates by voicing his plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on #Belarusian territory.

It was planned well before. In 2020 #Lukashenko illegally seized power. In February 2022, he conducted an unlawful referendum that ditched the country's non-nuclear status. ⏬
putin voices a plan to modernize Belarusian aircraft to make them nuclear-capable and train Belarusian pilots to operate them. In December 2022, putin deployed, and in February 2023, the Belarusian reported that they started operating the #Iskander-M dual-capable missile systems.
On February 25, 2023, putin played an idiot linking his nuclear proliferation plans to armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium to be provided to Ukraine by the U.K.
Read 11 tweets
🇷🇺🇳🇴⚡️ For the first time in 30 years, Russia has deployed tactical ships with nuclear weapons in the Baltic Sea, according to a report by the Norwegian Intelligence Service.
1/5
#russia #baltic #ukrainewar #nato etterretningstjenesten.no/publikasjoner/… Image
These ships belong to the Northern Fleet of Russia, and the report highlights that tactical nuclear weapons pose a serious threat in several operational scenarios involving NATO countries.
2/5
The report also states that Russia has capabilities for submarines, anti-satellite weapons, and cyber capabilities that could threaten Norway and the Alliance.
3/5
Read 5 tweets
(1/16) Today again a more theoretical thread about #Germanic #history. It is about a theory of the origin of the first Germanic major #tribes:
the #Iron and #Amber theory!

(Many used images are from external sources, which I will gladly share if needed.) ImageImage
(2/16) But let's start from the beginning. What is a #Germanic "major #tribe" anyway?
Around the year 0, hundreds of small #tribes lived in #Germania. About 400 years later, however, they were seemingly replaced by a few large tribes, such as the #Goths, #Franks, or #Alemanni. Image
(3/16) #Researchers therefore asked themselves early on how this development had come about. It was usually assumed that #Germanic #tribes living near the #borders of the #Roman #Empire formed #raiding parties, in order to be able to undertake more successful #raids. ImageImage
Read 16 tweets
1/12 Lessons from @rusi_org #Finland. The overall military doctrine of #Finland is correct against the expected adversary. As situation, particularly in long-distance precision fires is better than #Ukraine, the results can be expected faster.
2/12 The area defence doctrine can be expected to blunt, wear out and destroy an invading force, possibly in space of days or couple of weeks if the supply chain can be destroyed. The #Ukraine fighting resembled closely #Finland doctrine.
3/12 The mobilization plan of #Finland cannot be blocked by #Russia entirely, but dispersal must take place, and the first stages of mobilization must be ordered early enough. The mobilization of the remaining force must take place in short time.
Read 14 tweets
Thread: 26 October 2022: Day 245 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
Latest @DefenceHQ update: the governor of Belgorod within #Russia announced on Oct. 24 that the main rail line linking Russia and #Belarus was sabotaged by "Stop the Wagons" (StW), ostensibly a "Russian anti-war group".
It does not take an especially suspicious mind to believe that "Stop the Wagons" (StW) is supported by, if not fabricated by, #Ukraine's intelligence services, which suggests a serious issue for #Russia, at least in the key war staging areas on the border.
Read 50 tweets
🧵 #RUSSIA, OR #PUTIN?
In the West we have an effort of understanding to make

"Obviously, you can’t abstractly accuse an entire nation," says DG of the Estonian Internal Security Service, Arnold Sinisalu. "But a society and a nation constitute a whole.
1
ekspress.delfi.ee/artikkel/12008…
The state may brainwash, but the germ of chauvinism still springs from the people itself."

That is precisely how Baltic counterintelligence officers refer to Russia – not ‘it’, but ‘they’. The war in Ukraine is not Putin’s war. The cruelty is not Putin’s. The rapes, murders...
2
gouged eyes, hangings, and burned corpses aren’t special tactics employed by Russia’s leader. It is Russia as a whole.

"The majority of Russians are to blame," says Sinisalu.
3
Read 25 tweets
"Our imagination does´nt has any scenario left in which this could not be a targeted attack" @Tagesspiegel quotes a person involved in the assessment of the German gov regarding the incidents at the #Nordstream #pipelines in the #Balticsea

A first thread ⚠️ #Druckabfall
Yesterday, authorities acknowledged a decrease in pressure in both pipelines; first in NS2, later also in NS1. The 3(!) leakages are to be found in the East of Danish Bornholm (NS2), and also two leaks in the Northeast of the Island (NS1)
Two leaks are within the Danish Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), one is in the Swedish EEZ. Sea depth in the region is around 50m.
Read 27 tweets
Casually or not, the #Baltic & North Sea region is getting riskier during the last 24hours.

🇳🇴🇬🇧Norway declared the risk of drones over its gas & oil offshore platforms.
🇩🇰Denmark reported several gas leaks on #NordStream 1 and 2.
🇷🇺'000s of Russians refugees.

#OOTT #ONGT
🧵
Certainly, the #Article5 is clear. But seems like #Russia is doing hybrids interventions exploiting some gray areas.

Pipelines (left) and tankers (right) are vulnerable.🧵
The North Sea has an important development of 512 offshore platforms. Static targets.

🧵
Read 6 tweets
About "referendums" in #Ukraine. Many have asked, why #Russia even makes the effort to stage "#referendums", which look so fake to any Western country. But let's go back a bit and look at the #Baltic states under Soviet occupation.(1/x) 🧵
- In Baltic states we know this "referendum"-play very well: the USSR occupied Baltic states through performances that bears similarities to these "referendums". (2/x)
- As a result in my textbooks in #Finland there was no word about occupation, but I was told how Balts "joined" happily to the family of Soviet republics. This is what Finnish curriculum taught at school a decade after decade.(3/x)
Read 16 tweets
Thread: 13 September 2022: Day 202 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
Latest @DefenceHQ update: #Russia's 1st Guards Tank Army (1 GTA), "one of the most prestigious" units, operating under the Western Military District, "had not been fully reconstituted" before #Ukraine began the #Kharkiv counter-offensive; has now suffered further "heavy" losses. Image
#Russia "recently requested to purchase ammunition for its Uragan rocket artillery from #Tajikistan, along with shells for Pion howitzers and armored personnel carrier (APC) engines." yahoo.com/now/moscow-see…
Read 40 tweets
After all that the occupiers have done in #Ukraine, there can be only one attitude towards Russia – as towards a ter'rorist state. And, by the way, it is from this point of view that the attitude towards the citizens of Russia should be determined.
/1
I thank the #Czech Republic, the #Baltic states and other European countries, which brought the issue of visas for citizens of a ter'rorist state to the official level of discussion in the European Union.
/2
There must be a guarantee that #Russian murderers and facilitators of state ter'ror will not use Schengen. One cannot destroy the very idea of Europe, our common European values, that is, one cannot turn Europe into a supermarket where it does not matter who enters. /3
Read 4 tweets
Seria „kosmiczna” – część 2

Cz.1 tutaj:
Obok wiodących zastosowań militarnych należy uznać, że zobrazowania satelitarne, a zwłaszcza #SAR, mają gigantyczny pozytywny wpływ na cywilne bezpieczeństwo państw z takimi możliwościami 1/n
2/n
Zobrazowania SAR są trudniejsze do interpretacji niż zdjęcia optyczne, ale pozwalają dostarczyć unikalnych danych np. w obszarach takich jak zwalczanie kłusownictwa morskiego oraz…piractwa, monitorowanie szkód górniczych, katastrof naturalnych, wyrębu lasów,
3/n
A nawet w zakresie nawigacji morskiej pokrytych krą lodową. Zastosowań jest wiele. W kontekście Polski za bardzo ciekawe można uznać monitorowanie szkód górniczych na terenach wydobycia. Z takich usług korzystało już np. @JastrzebieZdr
Read 12 tweets
#Russian state television #Russia1 says when #Russians “reach the western borders of #Ukraine, the rest will certainly not be about” #Kiev. A “safe corridor” to #Kaliningrad “has to be created” regardless of #NATO “waving their #Article5.” He warns “taming of #Lithuania... [1/2]
...is being considered” but “the issue is with” their masters in #Washington and #Brussels. He suggests striking #Energy & #Logistics infrastructure of #EU as the “spigot closes from here.” He says “#Nuclear weapons might be used.” [2/2]
Speaking on #Russian state television #Russia1, retired General and current #StateDuma deputy, #AndreyGurulyov, says “not one normal member of the military would go for” capturing the #SuwalkiGap with “#NATO forces” on “both sides.” He proposes instead a corridor “from... [1/2]
Read 14 tweets
#Kaliningrad - "The land border between the 3
#Baltic states & #Russia, #Belarus, which for all intents & purposes a military district of the Russian Federation, & Kaliningrad is 1,635 km..." #Latvia National Security Advisor Jānis Kažociņš tells #EUDFF22
"The land border between the #Baltic states & @NATO is a massive 104km" per #Latvia's Kažociņš

Kažociņš calls it "a massive challenge"
EU currently providing #Ukraine w/long-rage artillery, tanks & #MLRS, per @eu_eeas Amb Charles Fries at #EUDFF22

"We have adapted our offers to the #Ukrainian needs"
Read 12 tweets
Thread: 23 May 2022: Day 89 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
#Britain's intel: #Russia has lost more men in three months in #Ukraine than the Soviets did in nine years in Afghanistan b/c of "poor low-level tactics, limited air cover ... and a command approach ... [that] reinforce[s] failure and repeat[s] mistakes"
#Russian soldier ranting about the war on #Ukraine being for the "future of the white nation ... We are all that's left". The West, he says, is lost to Arabs, blacks, Asians, and homosexuals (he uses different words).

[Video via @sternenko, English subs added by @ZeroZhvk]
Read 24 tweets
This article by @andrewduffEU is sadly typical of group think in & around the Brussels bubble.

“Nobody who knows how the Brussels institutions work-without a strong government-can be confident the EU is fit to internalize #Ukraine’s national problem.” 1/

politico.eu/article/ukrain…
It’s a well informed piece (from an #EU perspective) that on the surface might sound eminently reasonable- like some other recent attempts to fob off #Ukraine with 2nd class options. BUT, the quote in the previous tweet gives the game away. It shows 🇺🇦 is seen as a problem 2/
Rather than being recognised as the #EU’s best geopolitical opportunity in a generation, #Ukraine is presented as a cost, a burden to be borne, not a huge potential benefit to be embraced, or a possibility for EU renewal to be welcomed. 3/

ip-quarterly.com/en/integrating…
Read 12 tweets
Thread: 11 May 2022: Day 77 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
#Croatia alarmed by #Hungary's irredentist noises. Have been similar problems with #Ukraine.
The equivalent of the whole population of Estonia has been deported from Ukraine to Russia.
Read 34 tweets
Thread: 3 May 2022: Day 69 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
Pentagon says #China is avoiding direct military assistance to #Russia's attempt to erase #Ukraine ... for now
Truly bizarre for #Russia to have picked this fight with #Israel; so needless. Jerusalem had kept quiet for two months about Moscow's use of the "Nazi" pretext for the attack on #Ukraine and walked a fine line in general over the war, now forced to change
Read 38 tweets
1/ Dear all, many among you have asked me about my opinion on #oil, #logistics, #pipelines, price movements and a reality check on the #german #embargo plans. So I decided to make another explanatory thread. Grab a beer, this may take a while to read.
2/ It has often been said that oil is a global #commodity that travels on the seas. That view is not wrong, but incomplete. In fact, much oil is shipped by pipelines, on all continents. For an imcomplete but illustrative overview, see
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_o…
3/ Most pipelines either distribute incoming seaborne supplies to inland consumers (e.g., refineries), or they route domestically produced oil to seaports where it is loaded on #tankers.
Read 25 tweets
1/ Dear all, before everyone freaks out complete re the #supply #disruption of #natural #gas to #poland and #bulgaria which was initiated by #gazprom yesterday, i thought i'd make a little explanatory thread.
2/ first, consider poland. it exports about 10 bn m3 annually from russia. Image
3/ however, natural gas is not so important for its primary energy supply. poland still heavily depends on #coal, in particular for its electrical energy production. Image
Read 12 tweets
BREAKING: #Druzhbana oil depot near #Bryansk, Russia is apparently on fire. I’m not yet sure if this is a junction of the #Baltic Pipeline System-2 (BPS-2) - the longest pipeline in the world. Very bad news for Russia if so. 1/5
The BPS-2 pipeline begins in #Unecha, runs North (passing through #Bryansk & #Smolensk) & ends at #Ust-Luga at the Gulf of Finland. 2/5
The pipeline I was constructed (at a cost to 🇷🇺 of over $4bn) so Russia could have an alternate route to bring oil to Europe so it didn’t have to go through Belarus. 3/5
Read 8 tweets
Just in: A new plea from #Ukraine's @ZelenskyyUa for more weapons/security assistance

"Without additional weapons, this war will turn into an endless bloodbath that will spread misery, suffering and destruction...No one will stop Russia except Ukraine with heavy weapons"
"We have destroyed more #Russia|n weapons & military equipment than some armies in #Europe currently possess" per @ZelenskyyUa in the video

"But this is not enough"
"#Russia still has the capacity to attack & not only against #Ukraine" warns @ZelenskyyUa

"#Poland, #Moldova, #Romania & the #Baltic states will become the next targets if the freedom of #Ukraine falls"
Read 6 tweets

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