Category Archives: Russia

15 Kiloton Nuclear Detonation, North Korea

Posted on by

North Korea Claims Nuke Test Proves It Can Miniaturize Warheads

VOA: North Korea has claimed the past two tests involved hydrogen bombs, which are much more powerful than atomic bombs. Analysts, however, said the January blast was not big enough to be a full thermonuclear explosion or “H-bomb.”

South Korea’s meteorological agency said Friday’s test produced a 10-kiloton blast, nearly twice the power of the country’s nuclear test in January but slightly less than the Hiroshima bombing, which was measured about 15 kilotons.

N.Korea conducts fifth and largest nuclear test, drawing broad condemnation

 

AP/MSN: North Korea conducted its fifth and biggest nuclear test on Friday and said it had mastered the ability to mount a warhead on a ballistic missile, ratcheting up a threat that its rivals and the United Nations have been powerless to contain.

The blast, on the 68th anniversary of North Korea’s founding, was more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, according to some estimates, and drew condemnation from the United States as well as China, Pyongyang’s main ally.

Diplomats said the United Nations Security Council would discuss the test at a closed-door meeting on Friday, at the request of the United States, Japan and South Korea.

Under 32-year-old dictator Kim Jong Un, North Korea has accelerated the development of its nuclear and missile programmes, despite U.N. sanctions that were tightened in March and have further isolated the impoverished country.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye, in Laos after a summit of Asian leaders, said Kim was showing “maniacal recklessness” in completely ignoring the world’s call to abandon his pursuit of nuclear weapons.

U.S. President Barack Obama, aboard Air Force One on his way home from Laos, said the test would be met with “serious consequences”, and held talks with Park and with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the White House said.

China said it was resolutely opposed to the test and urged Pyongyang to stop taking any actions that would worsen the situation. It said it would lodge a protest with the North Korean embassy in Beijing.

There were further robust condemnations from Russia, the European Union, NATO, Germany and Britain.

North Korea, which labels the South and the United States as its main enemies, said its “scientists and technicians carried out a nuclear explosion test for the judgment of the power of a nuclear warhead,” according to its official KCNA news agency.

It said the test proved North Korea was capable of mounting a nuclear warhead on a medium-range ballistic missile, which it last tested on Monday when Obama and other world leaders were gathered in China for a G20 summit.

Pyongyang’s claims of being able to miniaturise a nuclear warhead have never been independently verified.

Its continued testing in defiance of sanctions presents a challenge to Obama in the final months of his presidency and could become a factor in the U.S. presidential election in November, and a headache to be inherited by whoever wins.

“Sanctions have already been imposed on almost everything possible, so the policy is at an impasse,” said Tadashi Kimiya, a University of Tokyo professor specialising in Korean issues.

“In reality, the means by which the United States, South Korea and Japan can put pressure on North Korea have reached their limits,” he said.

UNPRECEDENTED RATE

North Korea has been testing different types of missiles at an unprecedented rate this year, and the capability to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile is especially worrisome for its neighbours South Korea and Japan.

“The standardisation of the nuclear warhead will enable the DPRK to produce at will and as many as it wants a variety of smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher strike power,” KCNA said, referring to the country’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

It was not clear whether Pyongyang had notified Beijing or Moscow of its planned nuclear test. Senior officials from Pyongyang were in both capitals this week.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she had no information to provide when asked if China had advance warning of the test, and would not be drawn on whether China would support tougher sanctions against its neighbour.

Although Beijing has criticised North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests, it has repeatedly expressed anger since the United States and South Korea decided in July to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in the South.

China calls THAAD a threat to its own security and will do nothing to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table on its nuclear programme.

Preliminary data collected by the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), which monitors nuclear tests around the world, indicates the magnitude – around 5 – of the seismic event detected in North Korea on Friday was greater than a previous one in January.

Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies said the highest estimates of seismic magnitude suggested this was North Korea’s most powerful nuclear test so far.

He said the seismic magnitude and surface level indicated a blast with a 20- to 30-kilotonne yield. Such a yield would make this test larger than the nuclear bomb dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in World War Two.

“That’s the largest DPRK test to date, 20-30kt, at least. Not a happy day,” Lewis told Reuters.

South Korea’s military put the force of the blast at 10 kilotonnes, which would still be the North’s most powerful nuclear blast to date.

“The important thing is, that five tests in, they now have a lot of nuclear test experience. They aren’t a backwards state any more,” Lewis said.

Executive Orders, Statutes, Rules and Regulations Relating to North Korea

The North Korea sanctions program represents the implementation of multiple legal authorities.  Some of these authorities are in the form of executive orders issued by the President.  Other authorities are public laws (statutes) passed by The Congress.  These authorities are further codified by OFAC in its regulations which are published the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).  Modifications to these regulations are posted in the Federal Register.  In addition to all of these authorites, OFAC may also implement United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs) with regard to the North Korea.
Proclamations

  • Proclamation 8271 – Termination of the Exercise of Authorities Under the Trading With the Enemy Act With Respect to North Korea (Effective Date – June 27, 2008)

Executive Orders

  • 13722 – Blocking Property of the Government of North Korea and the Workers’ Party of Korea, and Prohibiting Certain Transactions With Respect to North Korea (Effective date – March 16, 2016)
  • 13687 – Imposing Additional Sanctions with Respect to North Korea (Effective date – January 2, 2015)
  • 13570 – Prohibiting Certain Transactions With Respect To North Korea (Effective date – April 18, 2011)
  • 13551 – Blocking Property of Certain Persons With Respect to North Korea (Effective date – August 30, 2010)
  • 13466 – Continuing Certain Restrictions With Respect to North Korea and North Korean Nationals (June 26, 2008)

Determinations

Statutes

Aleppo, #Syria: Rather Die in Dignity in Their Homes

Posted on by

If you think you understand the civil war in Syria and the plight of the refugees, you don’t. Not even world leaders understand it all either and furthermore Syria does affect America and the West. Is there a solution? No.

Stripes/AP: GENEVA — American officials played down hopes Friday of an imminent cease-fire agreement for Syria as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held a fourth set of negotiations with his Russian counterpart in the past two weeks. Officials had suggested Kerry wouldn’t travel to Geneva unless a deal was clearly at hand.

The talks between Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov aim to produce a nationwide cease-fire in Syria after more than five years of warfare and as many as 500,000 deaths.

A deal hinges on an unlikely U.S.-Russian military partnership that would come into force if Moscow can pressure its ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government, to halt offensive operations. Washington would have to persuade the anti-Assad rebels it supports to end any coordination with al-Qaida and other extremist groups.

Neither side has succeeded in doing its part despite months of diplomacy. And the task may be getting even more difficult as fighting rages around the divided city of Aleppo, Syria’s most populous and the new focus of the conflict.

Assad’s government appeared to tighten its siege of the former Syrian commercial hub on Thursday, following several gains over the weekend. Forty days of fighting in Aleppo has killed nearly 700 civilians, including 160 children, according to a Syrian  human rights group. Volunteer first-responders said they pulled the bodies of nine people, including four children, from the rubble following air raids on a rebel-held area, after reports of helicopters dropping crude barrel bombs over the area on Friday.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meet in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016, to discuss the crisis in Syria. American officials played down hopes Friday of an imminent cease-fire agreement for Syria.
Kevin Lamarque/Pool Photos via AP

The U.S. officials accompanying Kerry to Geneva said they couldn’t guarantee an agreement Friday and more talks may be needed. Aleppo will be a large part of the day’s discussions, they said, along with the technical details of a cease-fire, defining everything from how far back from demilitarized areas combatants would have to stay to the types of weapons they would need to withdraw from front lines. The officials, who briefed reporters traveling on Kerry’s plane, were not authorized to discuss the developments publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Kerry and Lavrov held several sessions of talks Friday in Geneva. It was unclear how long the talks would go on. A State Department official said late in the day that the two sides were advancing proposals toward a cease-fire and unimpeded humanitarian access for Syrians most in need.

Since Aug. 26, Kerry and Lavrov have now met twice each in Geneva and in China on the sidelines of a global economic summit. They’ve held a flurry of phone calls in recent days. Both governments had said they were close to a package that would go beyond several previous truces between the Syrian government and armed opposition — all of which failed to hold. For Kerry, securing a sustainable peace in Syria has become his biggest objective as America’s top diplomat since last summer’s Iran nuclear deal.

In addition to those killed, Syria’s conflict has chased millions of people from their homes, contributing to Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II. Amid the chaos of fighting between Syria’s government and rebels, the Islamic State group has emerged as a global terror threat.

In part from Rand:

One-third of the population has fled the country or has

been displaced internally. By the end of 2014, more than half

of the population could be living as refugees—a situation conducive

to future terrorism.

Civil wars are devastating. Both sides destroy infrastructure

and wage economic warfare, causing devastation and dislocation.

Beyond the casualties of war, human capital is destroyed

by the lack of health services and education as investment

shifts to weapons. Sectarian conflicts, which Syria’s civil war

has become, further shred the country’s social fabric. They last

a long time.

Syria’s civil war is grinding down the country’s national

institutions while creating the conditions for continuing local

conflict. Brutal government counterinsurgent tactics, the pervasive

lawlessness that comes with the breakdown of authority,

and the imposition of harsh Islamic rule in some rebel zones are

displacing a large portion of the population. It is not yet clear

which side in the contest will be able to offer protection to those

who wish to escape Islamist tyranny but can no longer survive

in sectarian enclaves loyal to the regime. For many Syrians,

flight abroad with slender prospect of return is the only option,

but these same Syrian refugees will add to existing sectarian

tensions in neighboring countries and will become the recruiting

grounds for new cohorts of extremists and the targets of

their enemies, furnishing new generations of fighters and criminals

for employment in Syria and elsewhere. We will be dealing

with the effluent of Syria’s conflict for years to come.

 

Documents: Mahmoud Abbas Former KGB, Syria

Posted on by

KGB document claims Mahmoud Abbas was an agent in Damascus

A KGB document that was revealed by Israel’s Channel 1 claims that in 1983, the Palestinian Authority President was an agent in Damascus. Senior level PA officials rejected the claims and accused Israel of attempting to damage the President’s image.

JerusalemOnline: According to a document that was released this evening (Wednesday) by Israel’s Channel 1, PA President Mahmoud Abbas was an undercover Soviet agent in Syria more than 30 years ago. The story was reported by Channel 1’s foreign news desk editor Oren Nahari.

According to the report, the details were revealed in documents that KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin brought with him to the West. Among the documents was a list from 1938 that included the names of Palestinian sources and agents in Damascus.

image descriptionPhoto Credit: The Mitrokhin Archives/Channel 2 News

In the list, it is clearly listed that Mahmoud Abbas, whose code name was Krotov (mole), was a KGB agent in Syria. Mitrokhin’s archives were made available to researchers recently and the list found its way to the Hebrew University’s Truman Institute researchers Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez.

It is unclear whether Abbas was an agent before or after 1983. In the document, the code name Krotov is listed as “Mahmoud Abbas, born in 1935 of Palestinian origin.”

The PA responded to the report by rejecting the claims. Senior level PA officials asserted that this was a joke and an Israeli attempt to damage Abbas’ name in light of the political deadlock.

Related reading: Mitrokhin’s KGB archive opens to public 

Mitrokhin Archive

The Mitrokhin Archive consists of summarized notes taken by Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin, a former KGB archivist who defected to the United Kingdom after the fall of the Soviet Union. Primarily, this collection contains items from his “Chekist Anthology,” which covers activities of the secret Soviet organization Cheka in places such as Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, and Egypt. For more context, please read the “Note on Sources” and biography of Mitrokhin below, all of which should be read before any other documents. See also Intelligence Operations in the Cold War and the Vassiliev Notebooks. (Image, Mitrokhin) No image found.

Meanwhile:

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The Russian authorities continue talks with the leadership of Israel and Palestine to organize a meeting of their presidents, but such meeting is not on the agenda yet, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday.  

Earlier media reports suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were considering coming to Moscow for Russia-mediated talks in late September.  

“[This meeting] is not on the agenda at the moment,” Peskov told reporters.

“You know that the special presidential representative for the Middle East was in the region, he continues his work, he continues his contacts with the corresponding sides,” he added.

**** YNetNews: The report claims that information was taken from documents smuggled to the West by Vasili Mitrokhin who was a major and senior archivist for the KGB. Mitrokhin eventually became a defector against the Soviet regime and fled to the West in possession of many documents which he smuggled from Russia to London.

The Mitrokhin Archive was opened to public researchers just a few months ago. The relevant document reached researchers at the Truman Institute’s, Dr. Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez, who previously worked for Israel’s Voice of Israel (Kol Yisrael).

Contained in the documents is, among other things, a list list of sources from 1983, aids and Palestinian agents of the KGB in Damascus. Listed among them is Mahmoud Abbas, born in 1935, under the codename of ‘Kortov’—mole—and marked as a KGB agent in Syria.

Mitrokhin’s documents reveal the identities of more than one thousand spies and collaborators who worked for the KGB. Indeed, investigators have emphasized that Mahmoud Abbas is listed not as a collaborator or someone who could be turned into a spy, but categorically as a KGB agent.

“The full archive of Mitrokhin was opened to researchers only last year and we ordered the entire file on the Middle East numbered 24. It was sent to us from Cambridge University and we read it point by point,” Remez said. “The source is extremely reliable when not all the details are known.”

 

According to the list, Abbas was an agent in 1983 but it is not yet known whether he also was before or after that year. A preliminary conclusion that has been drawn is that he was recruited to the KGB when he was a student in Moscow when he wrote a doctoral dissertation in which he grossly played down the crimes of the Holocaust.

 

Russian Air Aggression Happens Again, Black Sea

Posted on by

Russian jet flies within 10 feet of US Navy spy plane, defense official says

FNC: A Russian fighter jet zoomed within just 10 feet of a U.S. Navy spy plane over the Black Sea on Wednesday, the latest in a string of daring maneuvers involving Russian aircraft and the U.S. military, a defense official with knowledge of the incident told Fox News.

The Russian Su-27 Flanker jet flew dangerously close to a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft used primarily for anti-submarine warfare while on routine patrol in international airspace, defense officials said.

The Russian defense ministry accused the Navy plane of flying with its transponder—which emits an identifying signal—turned off. A U.S. defense official would neither confirm nor deny the accusation but told Fox News, “It is not a requirement for a military aircraft to have its transponder turned on.”

The official said Russian military jets routinely fly with their transponders turned off, which helps the U.S. military identify them because other planes in the area are emitting an identifying signal from their transponders. The Navy spy plane was roughly 40 miles from Russia in the Black Sea when the Russian jet approached, according to a separate defense official.

Fox News is told a classified photo of the close call exists, but officials have not decided whether to release it. The entire encounter lasted 19 minutes, according to the Pentagon.

“We have concerns when there is an unsafe maneuver like this. These actions have the potential to unnecessarily escalate tensions, and could result in a miscalculation or accident,” Navy Captain Jeff A. Davis told reporters. Russian defense officials reportedly claimed they did not violate any international rules.

The Black Sea is about 500 miles south of Moscow.

In April, Russian jets buzzed a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Baltic Sea, coming within 30 feet of the Navy ship.

20140603_su27

Photos and video also showed a series of provocative moves from Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard targeting the U.S. military.

On Sunday, the Guard’s fast-attack boats came within some 500 yards of the USS Firebolt, with one stopping right in front of the coastal patrol boat in the Persian Gulf, said Cmdr. Bill Urban, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain. Urban said the USS Firebolt turned and missed the boat by only about 100 yards. Iranian speedboats fired rockets near U.S. warships and commercial traffic in December, and an Iranian drone overflew an American aircraft carrier in January.

This latest Russian provocation comes as Secretary of State John Kerry is negotiating a cease-fire with Russia in Syria. Earlier today, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said Russian officials were “trying to play by their own rules” and making the situation in Syria “more violent.”

Carter added, “Russia’s actions in recent years – with its violations of Ukrainian and Georgian territorial integrity, its unprofessional behavior in the air, in space, and in cyber-space, as well as its nuclear saber-rattling – all have demonstrated that Russia has clear ambition to erode the principled international order.”

Carter was speaking at Oxford University in the United Kingdom.

Russia Deploys a Military Division Within 50 Miles of U.S.

Posted on by

Russia will deploy a division of troops about 50 miles from the US

Chukotka kuril islands Google Maps

BusinessInsider: At a recent event, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that a division of troops would be stationed in Chukotka, Russia’s far-east region, just slightly more than 50 miles from Alaska.

“There are plans to form a coastal defense division in 2018 on the Chukotka operational direction,” said Shoigu.

He said that the deployment was “to ensure control of the closed sea zones of the Kuril Islands and the Bering Strait, cover the routes of Pacific Fleet forces’ deployment in the Far Eastern and Northern sea zones, and increase the combat viability of naval strategic nuclear forces.”

Japan and Russia dispute ownership of the northern Kuril Islands, where Russia plans to deploy missile-defense batteries. The Bering Strait is the narrow waterway that separates Alaska from Russia.

Broadly, Russia has taken the lead in militarizing and exploring the Arctic region, as melting ice caps open up new shipping lanes between the East and West. In that context, the deployment of a division to the sparsely populated Chukotka region makes sense.

In the past, Russia has bemoaned NATO and US troop deployments near to its borders. How the US will respond to this deployment remains to be seen.

****

 IBTimes

Has Putin stolen the Kuril Islands from Japan in the same manner he took over Crimea? You be the judge.

****

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a new interview with Bloomberg News, was asked about the issue of the long-standing dispute between his country and Japan over the Kuril Islands–a series of small islets off the northern coast of Hokkaido, running up to the southern tip of the Kamchatka peninsula. Putin seemingly opened the door to a compromise with Tokyo on the dispute. “We’re not talking about some exchange or some sale,” he said. “We are talking about finding a solution where neither of the parties would feel defeated or a loser.”

Putin began by saying that there will be no trading of territories with Japan, but that Russia “would very much like to find a solution to this problem with our Japanese friends.” The Russian president also cautioned that compromise would likely have to be built on the back of trust; if Moscow “can reach a similarly high level of trust” with Tokyo “then we can find some sort of compromise.”

Are Putin’s latest comments a serious expression of diplomatic interest or a fleeting moment of optimism? After all, in the past two years, the prospects of a resolution to the long-standing Kuril Islands dispute–and Russia-Japan relations more generally–have ebbed and flowed. Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, expressed an interest in pursuing closer relations with Moscow after returning to office in 2012. However, his early overtures, while reciprocated by Russia, were derailed by Tokyo’s alignment with the West in the aftermath of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and ensuing support for separatists in Ukraine. Tokyo, somewhat reluctantly, stood lockstep with the G7 powers against Russia and backed international sanctions.

On the Japanese side, interest in cooperation with Russia has far from evaporated. In fact, a day before Putin’s comments to Bloomberg became public, Abe established a new cabinet-level post for Hiroshige Seko, the minister of economy, trade, and industry, focused on economic cooperation with Russia. The post is meant to carry forward momentum from a brief and informal meeting between Abe and Putin earlier this year in Sochi, on Russia’s Black Sea coast. Abe’s current play with Putin is to position Japan as an enabler for Russian economic dynamism in the country’s far east. Tokyo appears to be betting that economic cooperation can build the sort of trust that Putin alluded to in his comments to Bloomberg.

There’ll be some indicators on whether we’re due for another period of bilateral warmth between Tokyo and Moscow. First of all, keep an eye out for the upcoming Abe-Putin meeting at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, which kicked off on Friday. The two leaders will be able to follow up on their deliberations in Vladivostok a few months down the line at the 2016 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, which will be held in Peru this year.

Finally, Russian military behavior in Japan’s airspace and nearby waters is a good indicator of Moscow’s feelings toward Tokyo. Russia regularly flies Tu-95 Bear strategic bombers around Japanese airspace, causing Japan’s Air Self Defense Force to scramble in response. (Moscow kicked off the year by having two Tu-95s circumnavigate Japan’s main islands.) Similarly, with tensions high in the East China Sea, any Russian involvement alongside Chinese Navy or Coast Guard vessels could be telling. (When a Chinese Navy frigate sailed into the contiguous zone around the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands earlier this summer for the first time, it was flanked by Russian naval vessels.)

Overall, the bilateral situation between the two countries remains precarious, but could be turning around. Putin’s comments and Abe’s determination to operationalize an “Eastern” strategy of sorts to build trust with Moscow might just restore the bonhomie that seemed to exist between the two countries in 2013, when the prospects for a resolution of the 71-year old Kuril Islands dispute appeared bright.