Category Archives: Russia

3 More Russian Locations in U.S. Shuttered

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Putin promises retaliation in growing diplomatic feud with US

Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to retaliate against the State Department’s latest rebuke of his policies, his spokesman warned.

“We regret the unconstructive stance taken by our counterparts in the United States and, of course, we cannot afford to leave unfriendly, and sometimes hostile steps towards us without retaliation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday, according to state-run media.

That statement suggests that the diplomatic feud will escalate following the State Department’s decision to close three Russian facilities in the United States. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s team justified that move as a response to Putin’s requirement that the United States cut hundreds of personnel operating in Russia. But the State Department called for an end to the tit-for-tat, saying that the two sides had reached “parity” in the fight.

Tillerson ordered the closure of Russia’s consulate general in San Francisco, as well as two other facilities in New York and Washington, D.C., respectively.

“While there will continue to be a disparity in the number of diplomatic and consular annexes, we have chosen to allow the Russian government to maintain some of its annexes in an effort to arrest the downward spiral of our relationship,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Thursday.

The State Department said it had implemented the Putin team’s order to remove hundreds of U.S. personnel from Russia. Putin issued that requirement in response to Congress passing legislation that sanctions Russia on three fronts: the cyberattacks against the Democratic party and state election systems in 2016; the invasion of Ukraine; and Russia’s support for Syrian President Bashar Assad.

“The United States hopes that, having moved toward the Russian Federation’s desire for parity, we can avoid further retaliatory actions by both sides and move forward to achieve the stated down of both of our presidents: improved relations between our two countries and increased cooperation on areas of mutual concern,” Nauert said.

Russian diplomats maintain that the United States is to blame for the strained ties between the former Cold War rivals. “By tradition we are for good-natured relations with the United States,” Peskov said. “Moreover, we believe that these relations must be advanced in the interests of peace and global stability and in the interests of settling crucial world and regional problems.”

*** Meanwhile, this Dmitry Peskov cat is well know to the Trump orbit and described below.

Moscow (CNN) Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed Wednesday he got an email from Michael Cohen, US President Donald Trump’s lawyer, asking for help moving a Moscow real estate deal forward, but said he did not respond and did not pass it to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Peskov was responding to a question from CNN on a conference call with reporters.
Cohen — who was executive vice president of the Trump Organization at the time he sent the email — said Monday that he had contacted the Kremlin for assistance in mid-January 2016 about building a Trump Tower in Moscow when the mogul was running for president, but denied that the project was related to Trump’s campaign. But the revelation appears to contradict Trump’s vehement denials of any such business connections to Russia in the past.
Cohen told CNN on Monday his message to Peskov was “an email that went unanswered that was solely regarding a real estate deal and nothing more.”
Peskov confirmed that his office had located a copy of the email, which said the development deal wasn’t moving forward and requested support.

 

The Crash of MH17, a Case Still Being Pursued

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Putin reminded Oliver Stone about the “Spanish dispatcher” in answering the question about the crash of MH17: for the full article, go here but you will need to translate.

Suspects in the downing of Malaysian airlines flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine in 2014, in which all 298 people aboard were killed, will be tried in a Dutch court and under Dutch law, the Netherlands’ foreign ministry. 

Victims of the disaster, which occurred over territory held by pro-Russia separatists fighting Ukrainian government forces, came from 17 countries, and included 196 Dutch citizens.

The Dutch Safety Board, which investigated the cause of the crash, concluded in October 2015 that the plane was shot down by a Russian-made ground-to-air rocket.

Moscow, which denies any involvement in the fighting in eastern Ukraine, also denies one of its rockets could have been used against MH17. More here.

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Memo on MH17 info exchange between Ukraine, Netherlands to help Kyiv sue Russia

Ukraine and the Netherlands will soon sign a memorandum on the exchange of information on the case of Boeing 777 flight MH17 shot down in 2014, which will help Kyiv in its lawsuit against Russia, Deputy Foreign Minister Olena Zerkal said.

“The Dutch do not want the work done to be questioned. We are now working on signing a memorandum on the exchange of information, since the downed Boeing is part of our lawsuit against Russia regarding the financing of terrorism, namely the supply of weapons which destroyed this aircraft,” Zerkal said on the air of Channel 5 on Wednesday.

At the same time, the Deputy Foreign Minister added: “We are already at the final stage of signing this memorandum.”

As reported, Ukrainian Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko and Dutch Minister of Security and Justice Stef Blok signed a bilateral agreement on international legal cooperation on criminal matters relating to the 2014 crash of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing.

The Dutch government noted that a bilateral treaty with Ukraine allows for the prosecution of those responsible for the death of all 298 victims from 17 countries, not just Dutch citizens. “The agreement envisages that prosecution of suspects in the downed MH17 flight will be for all 298 people killed in the crash. This gives all relatives equal rights in the Dutch process,” the report said.

In addition, the agreement gives an opportunity to question Ukrainian suspects via a video linkup with the Netherlands. “The issue of the potential transfer of convicts has also been settled, which is important, because the Ukrainian Constitution does not allow extradition of its citizens,” the report says.

As reported, the Boeing 777 belonging to Malaysia Airlines flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) was shot out of the sky killing all 298 passengers on board.

The international joint investigatory group (Joint Investigation Team, JIT), which is comprised of prosecutors and law-enforcement officials from Ukraine, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, and Malaysia, as well as EU legal officials, on September 28, 2016 presented its findings in the criminal investigation of the tragedy.

“The JIT concluded that MH17 was downed by a rocket, Series 9M38, launched from a self-propelled ground-to-missile launcher BUK-TELAR, in a farming area in the region of Pervomaiske village. The area is currently held by pro-Russian militant groups. Investigators said missile complex was delivered to Ukraine from the Russian Federation and returned there after the downing,” the findings said.

In early June 2017, the British investigative journalists group Bellingcat said it found a photo of the Buk 323 missile launcher of the Russian 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade taken before the launcher was used to down the MH17 passenger flight in Donetsk region in 2014.

In mid-November 2016, Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said that investigators had established the names of a hundred individuals suspected of involvement in the crime and that they will be named in 2017.

Representatives of the countries cooperating in the inquiry into this crash – the Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia, Ukraine and Belgium agreed that the cases against suspects in the case on the downing of the MH17 flight are planned to be considered in the Netherlands under the Dutch law.

World’s Wealthiest Saying No to Jared

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It could be that the Forbes list of the richest in the world is on the top of Kushner’s desk and others are working the phones. When payments are due in the billion dollar range comes due within months, panic sets in when there are no prospects to meet that demand.

Some of these foreign trips made by Kushner have dual purposes such that they are labeled and envoys where they are contrary to State Department diplomatic operations and Secretary of State Tillerson is working to terminate on the fly envoys that are not coordinated with the agency’s personnel.

‘Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser, wakes up each morning to a growing problem that will not go away. His family’s real estate business, Kushner Cos., owes hundreds of millions of dollars on a 41-story office building on Fifth Avenue. It has failed to secure foreign investors, despite an extensive search, and its resources are more limited than generally understood. As a result, the company faces significant challenges.

Over the past two years, executives and family members have sought substantial overseas investment from previously undisclosed places: South Korea’s sovereign-wealth fund, France’s richest man, Israeli banks and insurance companies, and exploratory talks with a Saudi developer, according to former and current executives. These were in addition to previously reported attempts to raise money in China and Qatar.

Jared Kushner
Photographer: Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg via Getty Images

The family, once one of the largest landlords on the East Coast, sold thousands of apartments to finance its purchase of the tower in 2007 and has borrowed extensively for other purchases. They are walking away from a Brooklyn hotel once considered central to their plans for an office hub. From other properties, they are extracting cash, including tens of millions in borrowed funds from the recently acquired former New York Times building. What’s more, their partner in the Fifth Avenue building, Vornado Realty Trust, headed by Steve Roth, has stood aside, allowing the Kushners to pursue financing on their own.

Kushner Cos. says it will prevail. Laurent Morali, the president, said the company has a variety of contingency plans for the building and its broader portfolio will allow it to sustain any setback. He said he is encouraged by the interest of several potential investors, but declined to name them.

“Reports that portray it as a distressed situation are just not accurate for the building or for the company,” Morali said in an interview on the 15th floor of the building, 666 Fifth Avenue.

But there are challenges all around. The mortgage on their tower is due in 18 months. This has led to concerns that Kushner could use—or has perhaps already used—his official position to prop up the family business despite having divested to close relatives his ownership in many projects to conform with government ethics requirements. Federal investigators are examining Kushner’s finances and business dealings, along with those of other Trump associates, as they probe possible collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign. Kushner has already testified twice before closed congressional committees and denies mixing family business with his official role.

This article, which describes new details of the company’s troubled finances and its overseas fundraising efforts, is based on a review of thousands of pages of financial documents and interviews with more than two dozen executives, business partners, real estate agents, deal participants and analysts. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deals. Some feared legal reprisals or other retaliation from one of the country’s most powerful families.

The portrait that emerges is that of a real estate company established by a pair of penniless Holocaust survivors, its extraordinary expansion by their children, the rise of a grandson to a top White House role and a big bet that has complicated its financial future.

It was 2006—the height of the real-estate market boom—when Kushner Cos. agreed to buy 666 Fifth Avenue for $1.8 billion, then a record for a Manhattan building. All of it was borrowed except for $50 million. The company still holds half of a $1.2 billion mortgage, on which it hasn’t paid a cent. The full amount is due in February 2019.

The strain has become increasingly evident across their holdings. One person familiar with the company’s finances describes the tower, with its low ceilings and outdated floor plan, as the Jenga puzzle piece that could set the empire teetering.

Continue the long read here with graphics to understand the names, the travels, this history and why Robert Mueller is investigating some of the connective tissue going beyond the Russian bank(s) and where some criminal activity is being investigated.’

Hawaii, Missile Defense Test MRBM Success

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Aegis BMD System Intercepts Target Missile

Aug. 30, 2017

The Missile Defense Agency and U.S. Navy sailors aboard the USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53) successfully conducted a complex missile defense flight test, resulting in the intercept of a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) target using Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) guided missiles during a test off the coast of Hawaii today.

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John Paul Jones detected and tracked a target missile launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, Hawaii with its onboard AN/SPY-1 radar, and onboard SM-6 missiles executed the intercept.

“We are working closely with the fleet to develop this important new capability, and this was a key milestone in giving our Aegis BMD ships an enhanced capability to defeat ballistic missiles in their terminal phase,” said MDA Director Lt. Gen. Sam Greaves. “We will continue developing ballistic missile defense technologies to stay ahead of the threat as it evolves.”

ddg 53 uss john paul jones rim-174 standard eram sm-6 missile     Photo

This test, designated Flight Test Standard Missile-27 Event 2 (FTM-27 E2), marks the second time that an SM-6 missile has successfully intercepted a medium-range ballistic missile target.

Aegis BMD is the naval component of the Ballistic Missile Defense System. MDA and the U.S. Navy cooperatively manage the Aegis BMD program. Additional information about all elements of the ballistic missile defense system can be found here.

*** Meanwhile in Nevada, testing of upgraded nuclear weapons components were performed.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) and U.S. Air Force completed two qualification flight tests of B61-12 gravity bombs August 8 at Tonopah Test Range in Nevada.

The non-nuclear test assemblies, which were dropped from an F-15E based at Nellis Air Force Base, evaluated the weapon’s non-nuclear functions and the aircraft’s capability to deliver the weapon.

These tests are part of a series over the next three years to qualify the B61-12 for service. The first qualification flight test occurred in March.

“The B61-12 life extension program is progressing on schedule to meet national security requirements,” said Phil Calbos, acting NNSA deputy administrator for Defense Programs. “These realistic flight qualification tests validate the design of the B61-12 when it comes to system performance.”

The flight test included hardware designed by Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories, manufactured by the Nuclear Security Enterprise plants, and mated to the tail-kit assembly section, designed by the Boeing Company under contract with the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center.

The B61-12 consolidates and replaces four B61 bomb variants in the nation’s nuclear arsenal. The first production unit is scheduled to be completed by March 2020.

These activities are not exclusive to the nuclear threat posed by North Korea, but include other rogue nations such as Iran, Pakistan, Russia and those allied such that any weapons are transferred to another nation as in Syria or worse Venezuela.

The United States is not alone in these activities which does bring some comfort.

Theresa May refuses to rule out military action and cyber attacks over North Korea missile launches

Theresa May has refused to rule out using cyber warfare or even taking part in military action against North Korea if it does not stop firing missiles in “illegal” acts of provocation.

Mrs May arrived in Japan on Wednesday morning in the midst of an escalating crisis over Pyongyang’s latest missile launch, and will have lengthy discussions with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe about what can be done.

She arrived with a message for China’s President Xi Jinping, telling him in no uncertain terms that it is his responsibility to rein in Kim Jong-un.

She said China, which has the military might to remove Mr Kim from power if it chose to, must do “everything it can” to make North Korea desist from firing more missiles.

On Tuesday, Pyongyang launched a missile that flew over Japan before landing in the Pacific, triggering the national J-alert system which tells the Japanese population to take cover.

President Donald Trump has made it clear that all options remain on the table for dealing with North Korea, and during her overnight flight to Osaka Mrs May was asked four times by journalists if she would rule out joining military action against the Kim regime. Each time, she refused to address the question directly.

She also refused to rule out cyber warfare. Separately, a Whitehall source even raised the possibility that cyber warfare might already be in use, saying: “If we were doing that we certainly wouldn’t be telling you.”

Mrs May said: “The actions of North Korea are illegal, they are significant actions of provocation, it’s outrageous, that’s why we will be redoubling our efforts with our international partners to put pressure on North Korea to stop these illegal activities.

“China has a key role to play in this… I have said this to President Xi, I know others have as well, we think that China has that important role to play and we would encourage China to do everything it can to bring pressure to bear on North Korea to stop this.

“The UK is looking at the discussion around further sanctions and the sort of change that China can bring. We see China as being the key in this.”

During her three-day visit to Japan, Mrs May will become only the second foreign leader to attend a meeting of the country’s national security council, at which she will speak to Mr Abe and his advisers.

One of the key aims of the trip is to strengthen Britain’s cooperation with Japan over security and defence, and Mrs May will tomorrow board the aircraft carrier Izumo, the flagship of the Japanese Navy, where she will be briefed by Japanese and British military personnel.

She said: “It’s an important, long-standing relationship between the UK and Japan, they’re our closest partner in Asia and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to talk about a number of subjects – trade, of course, but also building on our defence and security co-operation.”

The Prime Minister’s visit came as  the United Nations condemned North Korea’s “outrageous” firing of a ballistic missile over Japan on Tuesday, demanding Pyongyang halt its weapons programme but holding back on any threat of new sanctions on the isolated regime.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley said “something serious has to happen” but didn’t specify what.

British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft suggested members need to look at further strengthening of sanctions. Read more here to include graphics and video.

 

Sater, Cohen, Trump and Moscow

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Felix Sater pled guilty, 2002.

Page 4, item A.

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Forbes: Felix Sater is not a name that has come up much during the presidential campaign. That he has a colorful past is an understatement: The Russian-born Sater served a year in prison for stabbing a man in the face with a margarita glass during a bar fight, pleaded guilty to racketeering as part of a mafia-driven “pump-and-dump” stock fraud and then escaped jail time by becoming a highly valued government informant.

He was also an important figure at Bayrock, a development company and key Trump real estate partner during the 2000s, notably with the Trump SoHo hotel-condominium in New York City, and has said under oath that he represented Trump in Russia and subsequently billed himself as a senior Trump advisor, with an office in Trump Tower.

Seems now some emails are leaking and have been seen by the New York Times:

TheHill: A business associate of President Trump in 2015 told Trump’s longtime lawyer that he would enlist Russian President Vladimir Putin in a proposed real estate deal that he boasted would help Trump win the presidency, according to emails obtained by The New York Times.

In a series of emails to Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, the business associate, Felix Sater, argued that building a Trump Tower in Moscow would benefit the businessman’s candidacy.

“I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected,” Sater wrote on Nov. 3, 2015, almost exactly a year before Election Day. “Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”

The Justice Department is now investigating the Trump campaign’s ties to Moscow, under the authority of special counsel Robert Mueller, as part of the federal investigation into Russian interference in the election.

There is no evidence in the emails that Sater, a Russian immigrant who was then acting as a broker for the Trump Organization, delivered on his promises, according to The Times. The plan for a Trump Tower in Moscow never materialized, and negotiations ended before Trump’s business ties to Russia had become a major campaign issue.

Cohen suggested that the emails were braggadocio.

“He has sometimes used colorful language and has been prone to ‘salesmanship,'” Cohen said in a statement to The Times. “I ultimately determined that the proposal was not feasible and never agreed to make a trip to Russia.”

Sater also claimed to have helped organize a 2006 trip to Moscow for Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son Donald Trump Jr.

“I arranged for Ivanka to sit in Putin’s private chair at his desk and office in the Kremlin,” Sater wrote.

Ivanka Trump told the Times in a statement that she took “a brief tour of Red Square and the Kremlin but I have never met President Vladimir Putin.” Alan Garten, the general counsel of the Trump Organization, said that Sater only happened to be in Moscow at the same time as the two Trump children.

“There was no accompanying them to Moscow,” Garten said.

Trump has long downplayed his relationship to Sater, suggesting under oath in 2013 that he would not recognize him if they were sitting in the same room.

Sater served time in jail after stabbing a man in the face with the stem of a margarita glass during a 1991 bar fight; in 1998, he pleaded guilty to his role in a Mafia-orchestrated stock fraud scheme.

But his sentencing was delayed for years in the latter case while he cooperated with federal law enforcement on other investigations, according to The Washington Post. During that time, he worked in a real estate firm with offices in Trump Tower and in 2010 went to work for Trump directly, carrying a Trump Organization card that identified him as a “senior advisor to Donald Trump.”

After Sater made an August 2016 visit to Trump Tower, Garten told Politico that Sater was not advising the Trump Organization and that the Trump Organization was not seeking business in Russia.

President Trump has repeatedly said that he has no business ties to Russia. In May, the White House released a letter from two of his lawyers saying that his income tax returns do not show income from or debt owed to Russian sources — with the exception of $95 million paid by a Russian billionaire for a Trump-owned estate in Florida and $12.2 million in payments related to holding the Trump-owned Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013.

The Trump Organization on Monday turned over emails to the House Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russian interference in the election and whether any Trump associates were involved.