Higgins was laid off from his job as an administrator at a nonprofit providing housing for asylum seekers. (NGO connections to recent asylum seekers)

Although Higgins has never been to Syria, and until recently had no connection to the country (he became the go to guy)

It’s very incongruous, this high-intensity conflict being monitored by a guy in Leicester,” Stuart Hughes, a BBC News producer in London, told me. “He’s probably broken more stories than most journalists do in a career.”

Yes, it’s very incongruous (out of place) – some alleged random guy breaking stories and feeding them to main stream outlets. Brown Moses morphed into Bellingcat- Anyway spook then, spook now. Let’s bring this up to speed as Bellingcat continues to carry out it’s duties

Ukrainian British Plot to Hijack Fighter Jet- Bellingcat Involvement

Moscow alleged on Tuesday that it had uncovered an operation by Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR) and its “British handlers” to hijack a Russian MiG-31 fighter jet.

According to a statement from the Public Relations Center of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Ukrainian military intelligence officers attempted to recruit Russian pilots for the purported scheme, “offering them a payment of three million U.S. dollars” in exchange for stealing the jet.

“The intelligence service then planned to send the aircraft, armed with a Kinzhal missile, toward the largest NATO air base in southeastern Europe, located in Constanta, Romania, where it could have been shot down by air defenses,” the FSB claimed.

The agency also released a video featuring a person wearing a flight helmet that conceals his face. The man appears against a backdrop of military aircraft, his voice digitally distorted. In the clip, he claims that in the fall of 2024, he was contacted on Telegram by someone using the name “Sergey Lugovsky,” who said he was a journalist from Bellingcat and offered to pay him for “consulting on military issues.” To confirm his identity, the man says, Lugovsky sent him a press card. “I believe Sergey’s real goal in contacting me was to compromise me and later use that to the advantage of intelligence services,” he says.

An FSB operative told Russian state news agency TASS that “the intelligence service used the so-called journalistic organization Bellingcat, which is controlled by the U.K.’s CIS.” The source added that in 2022, the FSB had already accused journalist Christo Grozev, who worked for Bellingcat at the time, of involvement in a “failed HUR operation to hijack a Su-34 fighter jet.”

The man goes on to say that shortly afterward, he received an anonymous email offering him one million dollars to hijack an aircraft. If the plane carried a Kinzhal missile, the payment would rise to three million. A man named Alexander allegedly kept in touch with him through “various foreign messaging apps,” at one point sending him a video showing a large amount of cash.

According to the man, when he said he “did not have sufficient skills to land a MiG-31 on his own,” Alexander arranged a phone call with a Ukrainian Air Force pilot who attempted to train him remotely, assuring him that “there was nothing difficult or complicated about it.”

You can, of course, read the rest for yourself- I don’t doubt Bellingcat was involved in some sort an attempt at afalse flag operation. I don’t doubt if for a second.

Still in Ukraine.. who here remembers the Oligarch Kolomoisky? Yes, he is a dual citizen with Israel. He is Jewish. And yes, he funded the Ukrnazi brigades as his private militia until they were integrated into the Ukraine military.

Bloomberg calls him and his criminal consort “tycoons”. It’s a nice way of whitewashing their criminality. Via archive.ph

Two former Ukrainian billionaires (they left Ukraine for Israel and they are both still extremely wealthy!) were ordered to pay more than $3 billion by a London judge after they were found liable for a fraud that cost the state-owned lender Privatbank PJSC billions of dollars.

Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov must pay about $1.8 billion in damages and a further $1.2 billion in interest along with the £76 million ($100 million) that the bank spent on the long running litigation, the judge said in a judgment on Monday.

The decision follows a July ruling that found the two businessmen ran “a highly complex loan recycling scheme.

The bank was forced to take a bailout and nationalized in 2016. Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov’s global assets were frozen in 2017.

“To the extent that these sums are not paid voluntarily, PrivatBank will immediately commence the recovery stage of the process and seek to enforce the judgment against the former owners’ assets to obtain compensation for the Bank and, by extension, its shareholder, the Ukrainian Government,” a bank’s spokesperson said.

Kolomoisky is currently being held in a detention center, standing trial on various charges ranging from fraud to contract murder, while Bogolyubov fled Ukraine last year in anticipation of criminal charges against him.

Just a couple of nice fellas.

And lastly, in case you thought it impossible a Jewish billionaire would fund a Nazi brigade in nazified Ukraine.. Read this

Batallion Backed by Jewish Billionaire Sent to Fight Pro-Russian Militias

Russian gas has stopped flowing to Europe, leaving Transnistria without an energy supply. Moldova, dependent on electricity from the breakaway region, is now facing soaring inflation months away from a crucial parliamentary election

Why has Russian gas stopped flowing to Europe? Well, when we read the above linked oped we may conclude that this stoppage just happened. It did happen, but, it happened because Ukraine stopped the transit. That's right Ukraine stopped the gas from flowing.

Russian gas era in Europe ends as Ukraine stops transit

Russia’s gas firm Gazprom said it had stopped at 0500 GMT after Ukraine refused to renew a transit agreement.

No agreement, no contract, no gas.. It’s on Ukraine. I’ll say it again the gas does not flow because Ukraine refused to renew a transit agreement.

Back to ECFR oped;

Problem

Transnistria has so far refused Moldova’s help. Russia could also supply Transnistria through the TurkStream pipeline. But by leaving Transnistria out in the cold, Moscow is hoping to weaken the pro-European government in Chisinau in the run-up to the parliamentary election due by the summer. Because Moldova proper is now not getting its normal electricity supply from Transnistria, it has been forced to buy half its electricity from Romania. Tariffs have already doubled. Moscow hopes this will trigger a second wave of inflation after Chisinau successfully reduced it to 5%. While pro-European president Maia Sandu was narrowly re-elected in November, her party is not as popular and faces a difficult election campaign – especially up against the Kremlin’s latest push.

To boost its efforts, Russia is also running a coordinated disinformation campaign to blame the government – as with recent coordinated statements by the Russian embassy in Moldova and Transnistrian ‘Ministry of Foreign Affairs’. These statements blame Ukraine and the West for the crisis, claiming that “some ‘hotheads’ are proposing to resolve the Transnistrian issue by force”.

Solution

The European Union should be aware that this is a part of Russia’s broader destabilisation of Moldova. To convince Transnistria to accept help and supply Moldova’s electricity, the EU could support Moldova in energy round-tripping: Moldova can buy gas for Transnistria, which helps it make electricity, which Moldova then buys. To finance the added cost, the EU could top up Moldova’s Energy Efficiency Fund and donate more to the EU- and UN-led Energy Vulnerability Reduction Fund. In previous crises, this has helped Chisinau compensate for higher tariffs.

Above all, Moldova needs more resources to combat Russian election interference, particularly in information warfare. Moldova has produced some excellent pro-EU videos; but the government and civil society needs to operate on a much bigger scale to compete with pro-Russian efforts on Telegram and through local influencers. The EU can achieve a lot by helping Moldova blame the right people for the current crisis.

The right people to blame are in Ukraine. That’s obvious enough

Context

Transnistria was unprepared for the cut-off. The authorities talked about large reserves and switching to coal; but its main electricity station uses specific coal from the Donbas in occupied Ukraine and reserves are likely to run out by the end of January. What began as one or two hours of power cuts are now reaching eight hours a day. Industry and water supply are also affected. School holidays have been extended to 20 January. For the moment, Transnistria seems to have been told to suffer. Russia will then likely provide humanitarian relief, just as electricity supplies were resumed to Abkhazia in December. The narrative of ‘saving’ Russian-speakers will swing into action, as will the narrative that this option was denied to Moldova proper by its government. Or Russia may continue the crisis to further pressure

Eight hours a day with no electricity? This article say's it's 5 hours daily. All players are going to spin to their own advantage. Either way it’s got to be difficult.

Atlantic Council- Moldova is the real loser from the end of Russian gas transit through Ukraine

I guess Ukraine’s leadership just didn’t care enough about Moldova?

A combination of circumstance, Russian malign influence, and its own failure to prepare has left Moldova the country hardest hit by the end of Russian gas transit through Ukraine. Upon the January 1, 2025, cessation of transit, Moldova finds itself in an energy crisis and facing political instability. The Russian-backed separatist region of Transnistria is experiencing major power cuts and is without an alternate source of gas, having rejected bailout offers from the European Union (EU) and Chișinău. The rest of Moldova is suffering from its reliance on Transnistria for electricity, as well as Chișinău’s consolidation of its gas market under the majority Russian-owned company Moldovagaz. Neither the Moldovan government nor Transnistria were prepared for the long-anticipated post-Russian gas transit reality.

The five-year natural gas transit contract between Russia’s Gazprom and Ukraine’s Naftogaz expired on January 1, ending a long history of Russian gas reaching Europe—and Moldova’s 2.5 million citizens—through Ukrainian pipelines. Kyiv elected not to extend the contract because, although it was earning approximately $800 million per year in transit revenue

Apparently Kiev doesn’t need the 800 million dollars, yearly?? Since they’re being propped up by western governments?

But whereas Moldova proper, on the “Left Bank” of the Dniester, can import both electricity and gas from Europe—at a massively higher price than it was paying for Russian gas—the Right Bank has refused offers of in kind aid, including humanitarian aid and generators, as well as financial support from Europe with which to get through the winter. Buoyed by foreign assistance funds, Chișinău offered to help Transnistria buy gas and power imports from Europe, but the Right Bank has thus far declined any assistance. Instead, Transnistria seems to be waiting for Russia to turn the gas taps back on

Failure to prepare

This situation is years in the making. Moldova is one of the world’s most energy insecure countries and has long been reliant on Russian gas transited through Ukraine. Despite Moldova’s declaration of independence at the fall of the Soviet Union and much more recent disavowal of Russian gas, Russia’s majority state-owned gas giant Gazprom owns a 51 percent stake in Moldova’s state-owned gas company, Moldovagaz, and it has remained the country’s sole source of gas, whether directly or indirectly supplied. 

Meanwhile, Transnistria houses Moldova’s only power plant, the Ciciurgan gas-fueled station, which it sold in 2004 to a Russian state-owned enterprise. Chișinău does not recognize the sale. Although Moldova has been importing some electricity from the EU, it is nonetheless dependent on Transnistrian electricity for about 70 percent of its needs. Moreover, the only high-voltage transmission line through which Moldova can import European electricity passes through Transnistria, although a new transmission line to Romania is currently under construction. In practice, this means that the Left Bank depends on the Right Bank for power, and the Right Bank depends on the Left Bank for the gas to generate that electricity. Historically, each has found this arrangement convenient for less than strictly above-board reasons. It was also a very affordable arrangement so long as Russia was providing the gas, so both sides have therefore long been dependent on Russia. 

The Biden administration will deliver new air defense systems to Ukraine by delaying shipments to other U.S. allies, according to multiple reports on Thursday.

The United States will prioritize deliveries of anti-air missiles to Kyiv, sending the desperately needed munitions to Ukraine ahead of other countries that have placed orders, the White House said Thursday.

“We’re going to reprioritize the deliveries of these exports so that those missiles rolling off the production line will now be provided to Ukraine,” particularly Patriot and NASAMS missiles, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

“Deliveries of these missiles to other countries that are currently in the queue will have to be delayed,” he said.

The decision to fast-track the munitions to Ukraine “will increase their inventories more quickly to enable them to continue to defend that critical infrastructure and the civilian population as we go into the winter,” Ryder said.

The United States has been a key military backer of Ukraine, committing more than $51 billion in weapons, ammunition and other security assistance since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

“The U.S. has told Ukraine it can use American-supplied weapons to hit any Russian forces attacking from across the border — not just those in the region near Kharkiv,” Politico reports.

“The subtle shift in messaging — which officials insist is not a change in policy — comes just weeks after the U.S. quietly gave Kyiv the green light to strike inside Russia in response to a cross-border assault on the city of Kharkiv. At the time, U.S. officials stressed that the policy was limited to the Kharkiv region, among other restrictions.”

US Authorizes Ukrainian Forces to Use American Weapons to Target Russian Territory.

Romania donates patriot system to Ukraine

Ukraine and Poland put the finishing touches on their bilateral security agreement

On the instructions of the President of Ukraine and the Head of the Presidential Office, Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Ihor Zhovkva held the final round of negotiations on signing a bilateral security agreement with Poland.

Yesterday’s Military Summary featured Dima covering what seems to be a big escalation being readied as part of a last ditch Ukrainian offensive. Dangerous. I simply couldn’t or didn’t want to believe the west was intentionally worsening this situation. It seems, based on the news I found this morning and Dima’s report- Yes, the Western nations aka NATO nutters are that dangerous.

Five EU countries have said massive imports of cheaper Ukrainian grain are putting local farmers under pressure. They’re pushing Brussels to help.

But farmers in Poland then began protesting that they were being flooded by Ukrainian grain imports and felt they were being undercut, even if the grain was supposed to be destined for sale outside the EU.

In recent days and after months of discontent, Ukraine’s western neighbors Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia have all announced import restrictions on Ukrainian grain. The European Commission has criticized the moves, but is now working on a fresh round of funding to relieve farmers and come up with a common approach. In the past few days, Warsaw and Bucharest have indicated they would lift some of the restrictive measures.

Why hasn’t Ukraine taken advantage of the Black Sea Grain Initiative? Maybe the future is unclear but this information is talking past and present. What’s going on?

In the meantime, the future of the Black Sea Grain Initiative   — up and running since August — currently looks unclear. Russia has been indicating it might stop abiding by the export facilitation deal, brokered by the UN and Turkey and designed to keep food supplies flowing out of the region and feeding the world. On Sunday, agriculture ministers from the seven wealthy industrial G7 countries called for its extension

Theoretically, the member states striking out on their own could be sanctioned if they were found to have broken EU rules, but the EU executive branch seems more interested in finding a solution.

The European Commission is looking at pulling together another package of aid worth around €100 million ($110 million), a senior EU official said on condition of anonymity at a briefing. This comes after a €56 million package earlier this year, plus national relief plans financed in part by the relaxation of EU state aid rules.

The current focus is finding a common EU measure that ensures Ukrainian grain makes its way out of the country and then onward to the non-EU markets it is intended for, according to the senior EU source.

I’m not sure why Ukrainian grain hasn’t been making it’s way to non-EU markets? Anyone?

Hungary will not support Ukraine’s EU/NATO while Hungarian minority rights are eroded

Tamás Menczer tells Ukraine it must first resolve its treatment of the Hungarian minority residing in the country

Hungary will not support Ukraine’s integration into the European Union or NATO until the rights of the Hungarian national community are restored, said Tamás Menczer, state secretary for bilateral relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, told the M1 news channel on Wednesday.

Menczer stressed that Ukraine’s membership in the EU and NATO is being opposed due to the erosion of Hungarian minority rights in relation to education, culture, and the use of the Hungarian language since 2015.

Hungary’s position remains unchanged, and the integration process requires a unanimous position, whether in the EU or NATO, the minister reminded viewers.

Based on numerous reports I’ve read, it seems Ukraine has a penchant to send/ kidnap the ethnic Hungarians for military service.

Szilágyi: Hungary provides Transcarpathian Hungarian community all the support it possibly can

Péter Szilágyi, the deputy state secretary for the policy for Hungarian communities abroad, said Hungary is providing the Transcarpathian Hungarian community with all the support it possibly can to ensure that Hungarians living in western Ukraine can stay where they are.

Speaking in Toronto at a fundraising event, Szilágyi said the relationship between the diaspora and Hungarians of the Carpathian Basin was deepening thanks to the work of the past years. He said that Hungary in 2023, “the year of the caring nation”, was dedicated to nurturing national values and looking after Hungarian communities in neighboring countries and in the diaspora. Regarding the war in Ukraine, he said at the event held on Saturday local time that Hungary was determined not to get dragged into it, and it called for a ceasefire and peace negotiations. Hungary continues to give priority to supporting schools and organisations of the Transcarpathian Hungarian community, he said, thanking the National Alliance of Hungarians in Canada for organising the fundraising event.

And yes there are many ethnic Hungarians and their descendants here! In fact, you will still see the Hungarian flag flying in some parts of my city.

The ties might mask the history but the history exists and many, many Poles remember.

Archive.ph

Poland has emerged as one Ukraine’s most committed supporters during Russia’s invasion despite historical grievances between the neighboring nations that stir up bad feelings to this day.
The tensions between the country at war and its staunch ally were acknowledged Wednesday when President Zelensky made a state visit to Poland, where he was welcomed with honors.
President Duda promised that Poland would keep helping Ukraine fight off Russia’s aggression, but he also acknowledged at a joint news conference with Mr. Zelensky that the relationship was complicated.
“There are still open wounds in the memory of many people,” Mr. Duda said, an obvious reference to the massacres of some 100,000 Poles by Ukrainian nationalists during the 1940s. Poland considers the killings genocide.

The difficult past in Poland-Ukraine relations goes back even further than that. In a part of Europe where entire nations have disappeared from maps for generations before returning from the ashes of collapsed empires, sometimes at the expense of neighbors, Poles and Ukrainians share a history of existential rivalry.

Polish and Ukrainian officials have mostly avoided addressing the old grievances openly as they focus on Ukraine’s survival and worry that Russian could exploit any divisions. It is, after all, a war whose outcome will determine Ukraine’s very existence and Poland’s own security for decades to come.

“In the future, there will be no borders between our peoples: political, economic and — what is very important — historical,” Mr. Zelensky said in a Telegram message before his meeting with Mr. Duda. “But for that we still need to gain victory. For that, we need to walk side by side a little more.“

Mr. Duda and other nationalist authorities face political pressure to make sure Polish suffering at Ukrainian hands is not forgotten, especially with the growing strength of a far-right party, Confederation, that has sometimes expressed anti-Ukrainian views. That party is also openly hostile to the European Union, which Ukraine hopes to join in the future.

A parliamentary election in Poland before the end of the year will be a test for the ruling party, Law and Justice, and determine whether it wins a third term.

Mr. Zelensky called Mr. Duda a friend and said Polish-Ukrainian relations have never been so good. At the same time, Mr. Duda insisted the past must not be forgotten and now was the right time to confront it.
“We cannot forget those who have perished in the past,” he said. “There are no taboo themes between us.”
Probably the thorniest point of contention is how to remember one of Ukraine’s national heroes, Stepan Bandera, the far-right leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists who briefly allied himself with Germany’s Nazis.
Efforts by Bandera-led forces to carve out an independent territory for Ukraine led them to perpetrate atrocities against Poles, Jews, and Soviets. Such subjects were off-limits during the Soviet era, when Ukraine was a Soviet republic and Moscow also controlled Poland.
Historians say that more than 100,000 Poles, including women and young children, perished at the hands of their Ukrainian neighbors in areas that were then situated in southeastern Poland and are mostly in Ukraine now.
The peak of the violence was on July 11, 1943, known as “Bloody Sunday,” when the Ukrainian insurgent fighters carried out coordinated attacks on Poles praying in or leaving churches in more than 100 villages, chiefly in the Volhynia region.

All is not well with Poland either... There will be borders. As Poland takes back it’s territory. That’s the outcome I’m seeing at this time.

Romanian’s are NOT exactly enthralled with Ukraine and this is causing their government some discomfort.

Romania’s leaders are increasingly ambivalent about Ukraine, writes Magyar Nemzet columnist

Romania’s leadership is in a quandary over the disputes with Ukraine that have come into focus in recent months. Bucharest, under pressure from some sections of the press, has been forced to react to the measures taken in Kyiv that are damaging to Romanian interests, but at the same time, it is also theatrically trying to avoid accusations of anti-Ukrainianism and pro-Russianism.

A section of the population is getting fed up with the unconditional support for Ukrainians under attack from Russia, and political forces, including those with extremist, anti-Hungarian messages, are trying to ride the wave of discontent.

In 2004, Bucharest filed a case with the International Court of Justice in The Hague over the ownership of the oil and gas-rich continental shelf surrounding the Ukrainian-controlled Snake Rock (also known as Snake Island) in the Black Sea. The panel ruled in favor of Romania five years later. The war, which broke out in February last year, came amid chilly Romanian-Ukrainian relations, with Bucharest taking a much more cautious approach than Poland.

With a strong U.S. military presence in Romania, the Romanian leadership has made increasingly radical statements and commitments in defense of its northern neighbor, which has been hit by Russian aggression, but has so far refused to commit to supplying arms. On this latter, we do not know anything concrete, as Romania is concealing the amount and nature of the military assistance it has provided and continues to provide to Ukraine.

The issue has caused uncomfortable moments for Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu, who was recently asked on BBC Hard Talk about the reason for the secrecy. The head of Romanian diplomacy replied, in his notoriously patronizing manner, that the reason for not disclosing the data was because the government had decided not to. In response to further questions from the reporter, Aurescu declined to comment.

However, there are political actors in Romania who openly support Russia. One of them is Senator Diana o oacă, known for her hysterical outbursts on various issues; she won a seat on the list of the Alliance for the Unification of Romanians (AUR) and is now a member of the S.O.S. Romania Party, which she founded. She also introduced a bill in the Bucharest parliament on the annexation of Romanian-inhabited or formerly Romanian-owned Ukrainian territories. Senator Sosoaca, who has since left the AUR, but also AUR President George Simion, may have a Russian intelligence background, and the latter is currently banned from entering the territory of the Republic of Moldova.

According to a recent survey, a large majority of Romanians polled do not support Romania sending arms and ammunition to Ukraine, although they do approve of aid to refugees.

The question was asked..

Is Moldova getting it’s war footing ready?

Seems to me they were and the latest claim of a Russian back coup seems to solidify my suspicions

Moldova’s pro-EU President Sandu accuses Russia of coup plot

Moldova’s president has accused Russia of plotting to use foreign “saboteurs” to overthrow her pro-EU government.

Last week Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv’s intelligence service had uncovered a Russian plan to destroy Moldova.

Well if Zelensky claims this is true it simply must be

She urged Moldova’s parliament to adopt laws to give the country’s Intelligence and Security Service (SIS) and prosecutors “the necessary means to fight more efficiently against national security threats”. She added that “the Kremlin’s attempts to bring violence to our country will fail”.

War footing- definitely

From the previous report- last linked article

Destabilization in Moldova incited by Russia could prompt Kyiv and its allies to deprive Moscow of all its levers of influence there once and for all by purging the self-proclaimed Transnistria republic of Russia’s military presence there.

Link

As we have already mentioned, the Ministry of Defense of Russia monitors and records the stay in Ukraine of every representative of this international gathering of “headless horsemen”. Moreover, our databases now include not only mercenaries who are directly involved in hostilities as part of Ukrainian units. We also take into account the instructors who arrived to train, assist in the work and repair of Western weapons delivered to Ukraine.

Today we publish these statistics.

– So, among European countries, Poland is the undisputed leader in the number of mercenaries who arrived and died. Since the beginning of the special military operation, 1831 people have arrived in Ukraine, of which 378 have already been destroyed, while 272 mercenaries have returned to their country. Romania follows – 504 arrived, 102 dead, 98 returned. In the third place is Great Britain – 422 came, 101 died, 95 spun. From the American continent, Canada is in the lead - 601 arrived, 162 destroyed, 169 returned. In second place are the United States – 530 arrived, 214 died, 227 returned.

– From the Middle East, the Caucasus and Asia, first of all, 355 mercenaries arrived from Georgia, of which 120 were destroyed, and 90 left Ukraine. Then there are the militants of the terrorist groups deployed from the area of ​​the Syrian Trans-Euphrates under the control of the USA – 200 people. To date, 80 have been destroyed and 66 have left Ukraine.

– In total, from our list from June 17, 2022, which includes mercenaries and weapons specialists from 64 countries, 6956 people have arrived in Ukraine since the beginning of the special military operation. Of that, 1956 had already been destroyed, and 1779 returned.

Russia is calling for “withdrawal of foreign forces, hardware and arms” from countries that were not NATO members before 1997. Both Bulgaria and Romania were formerly part of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact that was created to rival NATO during the Cold War years. The two east European countries later joined NATO in 2004.

“It is about withdrawing foreign troops, equipment and weapons, as well as about other steps aimed at restoring the 1997 configuration of those countries who weren’t NATO members at that time and that includes both Bulgaria and Romania,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a statement published by the ministry on its website on Friday.

Lavrov was meeting the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Geneva on Friday to continue a flurry of diplomatic efforts to ease soaring tensions between Russia and the West.

Western Critics Call for NATO To end their Open Door Policy..

Meanwhile, even some Western critics have called for NATO to end its open-door policy, saying the Western military alliance is “too large and too provocative” for its own good and therefore “ill suited” to 21st-century Europe.

“This is not because Russian President Vladimir Putin says it is or because Putin is trying to use the threat of a wider war in Ukraine to force neutrality on that country and to halt the alliance’s expansion,” reasoned Michael Kimmage, a history professor at the Catholic University of America, in a scathing opinion piece published by Foreign Affairs magazine earlier this week.

“Rather, it is because NATO suffers from a severe design flaw: extending deep into the cauldron of eastern European geopolitics, it is too large, too poorly defined, and too provocative for its own good,” argued Kimmage, also the author of ‘The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy.’

He warned that the sheer enormity of the alliance, that is “a loose and baggy monster of 30 countries, encompassing North America, western Europe, the Baltic states, and Turkey,” and the murkiness of its mission risk embroiling NATO in a major European war.

“Ending the open-door policy, tricky as it would be to execute, and rethinking the security architecture of central and eastern Europe would not be a concession to Putin. To the contrary, it is necessary in order for the most successful alliance of the 20th century to endure and prosper in the 21st,” he concluded.

Hundreds of British Combat Ready Troops Could Be Sent to Ukraine’s NATO neighbours

Hundreds of combat ready British troops could be sent to Ukraine’s NATO neighbours to bolster their security forces amid the threat of a Russian invasion.

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland could all see an increase in NATO personnel after its member states held talks over expanding their presence in the region.

Britain already has 830 troops, tanks armoured military vehicles, self-propelled artillery, air-defence, intelligence assets and engineers in Estonia, where it is leading a battle group of 1,200. More than 300 French troops are set to join them.

Poland is also playing host to 140 British troops as part of NATO’s enhanced Forward Presence mission, while around 100 British troops are currently in Ukraine.

US Military Base in Romania- Major Black Sea Hub for NATO Aircraft

Romania ready to host French troops: president

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis on Thursday welcomed French counterpart Emmanuel Macron’s announcement of a possible troop deployment on NATO’s Eastern flank as fears rise of a Russian attack on Ukraine.

Macron on Wednesday expressed France’s “readiness to go further, and within the framework of NATO to commit to new missions … in particular in Romania”.

“I warmly welcome President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement on France’s readiness to participate in NATO’s forward military presence in Romania,” Iohannis tweeted.

“The Romania-France strategic partnership will thus be reinforced on the Eastern flank, in the Black Sea region”, he added.

Romania, a NATO member since 2004 and which already hosts around 1,000 US troops on its territory, also said it was ready to welcome more American soldiers.

US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that Washington would “actually increase troop presence in Poland, in Romania, et cetera, if in fact he (the Russian president) moves because we have a sacred obligation in Article 5 to defend those countries. They are part of NATO”.

“I welcome the explicit announcement of President Joe Biden to increase the US military presence in Romania, on the eastern flank, if the security situation deteriorates further”, Iohannis said.