Baltics
Tuesday 3 October 2023
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“To claim China [is] engaging in the so-called 'economic coercion' is no more than lodging trumped-up charges, and the accusation is totally untenable.”
Beijing is accelerating the use of economic coercion to pursue its foreign policy goals. -
"These ex-USSR countries don't have actual status in international law because there is no international agreement to materialize their sovereign status."
Most countries, including China, recognized all 15 former Soviet republics as independent states. -
“Ukraine … remained the most faithful to the pro-American course, which ultimately made it the poorest country in Europe.”
Ukraine cooperated politically with both the West and Russia, and Russia was its largest economic partner until 2019. The pro-Western former Soviet republics are today richer than Russia. -
“This is important to know for all the 'mavericks' and traitors who are surprised today that human rights and freedoms are just decorations for the United States and Europe.”
Latvia pulled the Russian exiled channel’s broadcast license in what some called censorship. But whatever the merits, Russia ranks near the bottom in press freedom. -
“We remind you that Russia, throughout all of its history, has never attacked anyone.”
Russia has engaged in numerous offensive military operations against its neighbors and others. Now, it’s rolling troops into Ukraine. -
"All these statements can contribute to the destabilization of the situation … [by] the Ukrainian leadership, who on the sly, if you will, can decide to start a new civil war in their country and try to solve the problem of the southeast.”
It is Russia, not Ukraine, that is threatening a military offensive, and Ukraine’s “civil war” is a Russian-fed incursion in Donbas. -
“Then US Secretary of State James #Baker assured: ‘There would be no extension of @NATO one inch to the East.’ ”
Baker’s words are taken out of context. Then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has denied they were a “promise” not to expand NATO. -
“NATO has become a purely #geopolitical project aimed at taking over territories orphaned by the collapse of the Warsaw Treaty Organization and the Soviet Union.”
NATO does not “take over” member countries, and Ukraine is a sovereign state. NATO has an open-door policy for nations wishing to join. -
“The world still remembers well the events of 2015-2016, when refugees spent months sheltering under the open sky in European capitals. Not to mention the ongoing loss of life in the Mediterranean region, the English Channel and the Polish forests.”
The refugee crisis was largely caused by Russia and its intense bombing campaign to help Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad in the civil war. -
“We are heating Europe. They are still threatening us that they will close the border. And if we shut off natural gas there?”
Belarus does not heat Europe; it simply transits natural gas from Russia. Experts say Lukashenko could never shut the pipeline without the Kremlin’s approval. -
“Yesterday, in some political science discussions, they asked: Why, when refugees came from Turkey to the European Union, the EU allocated funding so they stay on the territory of the Republic of Turkey? Why is it also impossible to help Belarusians who have certain needs so that refugees, whom Poland and Lithuania do not want to let on their territory, live in normal conditions?”
Belarus has been luring and flying in Middle Eastern migrants to send them to the Polish and Lithuanian borders. -
“Russia has repeatedly denied the accusations of complicity in hacker attacks in Germany. No German agency or organization concerned has provided any evidence that might prove the charges …”
The cyber intrusions in Germany are attributed to the hacker collective Ghostwriter, which has been associated with Russia.