Here is a short item from our news desk on General Breedlove's statement in Washington on the state of the U.S. European Command:
NATO's top military commander says Russia could destabilize other neighboring countries if Western nations do not punish Moscow sufficiently for its actions in the Ukraine crisis.
U.S. General Philip Breedlove told a February 25 hearing of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee that "Russia is learning lessons from our responses to their actions. If they feel rewarded by the outcomes, this might embolden them to try them again elsewhere."
He said a "revanchist" Russia is "blatantly challenging the rules and principles that have been the bedrock of European security for decades."
Breedlove accused Russian forces of fighting "hard to change the facts on the ground" in eastern Ukraine ahead of a February 12 cease-fire agreement between pro-Moscow separatists and Ukrainian forces.
Russia has denied accusations from Ukraine, western countries, NATO, and others that it is backing the rebels.
It seems Vladimir Putin has been making more comments that seem bound to make the headlines (from our news desk):
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Ukraine faces a natural-gas cutoff that could leave Europe with shortages while saying Kyiv's suspension of gas supplies to separatist parts of eastern Ukraine "smacks of genocide."
Putin said on February 25 that Russia hopes it will not halt the delivery of gas to Ukraine but it depends on Kyiv's "financial discipline."
Russian company Gazprom said it would stop sending gas to Ukraine on February 26 if Kyiv does not make a prepayment for more gas.
But Ukraine's state energy company Naftogaz said earlier this week it had only received about half the gas it has paid for and would not pay for new supplies until it received all the gas it is due.
Gazprom said the missing gas was being sent to rebel-controlled parts of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions that were no longer receiving gas from Ukraine.
Putin said Ukraine's reported failure to provide some areas in those regions with gas amounts to "genocide."
(Reuters, AFP, TASS, Interfax)
You can watch a live stream of General Philip Breedlove presenting his annual statement on the state of the European command here. (Needless to say, Ukraine has been figuring highly.)
The commander of the U.S. European Command, General Philip Mark Breedlove has issued his annual statement or "posture" on the state of his sphere of responsibility. Our news desk will be issuing a report on this statement shortly, but here is an excerpt worth perusing until then. (You can statement the report in full here)
For almost two decades, the United States and Europe have engaged with Russia as a
partner, seeking to build relationships militarily, economically, and culturally. In 1994, Russia became a Partnership for Peace member with NATO. That same year, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom signed the Budapest Memorandum, reaffirming commitments made by all parties under the Helsinki Final Act and the UN Charter to “respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.”
Under the 1997 Founding Act, NATO made a political commitment that, “in the current and foreseeable security environment,” the Alliance would carry out its collective defense and other missions without “additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces.” In 2009, the United States sought to “reset” its relationship with Russia, which had been damaged by the 2008 Russian invasion of the Republicof Georgia. During this period, the Department of Defense made security and force posture determinations significantly reducing European force structure based on the assumption that Russia was a partner.
Despite these and many other U.S. and European overtures of partnership, Russia has
continued to view its own security from a zero-sum point of view. Since the beginning of 2014, President Putin’s Russia has abandoned all pretense of participating in a collaborative security process with its neighbors and the international community. Instead, Russia has employed “hybrid warfare” (which includes regular, irregular, and cyber forms of war as well as political and economic intimidations) to illegally seize Crimea, foment separatist fever in several sovereign nations, and maintain frozen conflicts within its so-called “sphere of influence” or “near abroad.” Undergirding all of these direct approaches is the pervasive presence of the Russia propaganda machine, which inserts itself into media outlets globally and attempts to exploit potential sympathetic or aggrieved populations.
Russia uses energy as a tool of coercion. Many former-Soviet bloc and Eastern and
Central European states have long been concerned about Russia’s intentions in Europe and they consider the Ukraine crisis the latest validation of their concerns. Recent Ukrainian and Russian energy negotiations show how Russian coercion threatens broader European cooperation as individual countries must weigh their own security and economic concerns. Russia’s coercion using energy has grown along with Russia’s threats and outright use of force.
[...]
Russia views Ukraine as part of its sphere of influence, regardless of the views of the Ukrainian people. While Russia’s aggressive actions in Ukraine are the most current manifestation in a pattern of continuing behavior to coerce its neighbors in Central and Eastern Europe. Beyond its actions in Georgia and Ukraine, other examples of this pattern are abandoning the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaties; the ZAPAD 2013 snap exercise along the borders of the Baltics and Poland; intercepts of U.S. aircraft and shadowing of U.S. ships in international airspace and waters; basing Russian fighter aircraft in Belarus; threats to deploy nuclear-capable Iskander-M missiles in Kaliningrad; and pressure on former Soviet states through the manipulation of prolonged, “frozen” conflicts.