CIA warns desperate Putin poses nuclear threat

WASHINGTON — Russia's setbacks in its invasion of Ukraine could lead President Vladimir Putin to resort to using a tactical or low-yield nuclear weapon, CIA director William Burns said Friday.

"Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they've faced so far, militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons," Burns said during a speech in Atlanta.

The Kremlin said it placed Russian nuclear forces on high alert shortly after the assault began Feb. 24, but the United States has not seen "a lot of practical evidence" of actual deployments that would cause more worry, Burns added, speaking to students at Georgia Tech university.

"We're obviously very concerned. I know President Biden is deeply concerned about avoiding a third world war, about avoiding a threshold in which, you know, nuclear conflict becomes possible," said Burns.

Russia has many tactical nuclear weapons, which are less powerful than the bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima during World War II.

Russian military doctrine features a principle called escalate to de-escalate, which would involve launching a first strike nuclear weapon of low yield to regain the initiative if things go badly in a conventional conflict with the West.

But under this hypothesis, "NATO would intervene militarily on the ground in Ukraine in the course of this conflict, and that's not something, as President Biden has made very clear, that's in the cards."

Recalling that he once served as US ambassador to Russia, Burns had very harsh words for Putin, calling him an "apostle of payback" who over the years "has stood in a combustible combination of grievance and ambition and insecurity."

"Every day, Putin demonstrates that declining powers can be at least as disruptive as rising ones," Burns said.

Agence France-Presse

All eyes on first Trump-Putin face-to-face at G20

HAMBURG — U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to size each other up in person for the first time on Friday in what promises to be the most highly anticipated meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit.

Trump has said he wants to find ways to work with Putin, a goal made more difficult by sharp differences over Russia’s actions in Syria and Ukraine, and allegations Moscow meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

That means every facial expression and physical gesture will be analyzed as much as any words the two leaders utter as the world tries to read how well Trump, a real estate magnate and former reality television star, gets along with Putin, a former spy.

The fear is that the Republican president, a political novice whose team is still developing its Russia policy, will be less prepared than Putin, who has dealt with the past two U.S. presidents and scores of other world leaders.

“There’s nothing … the Kremlin would like to see more than a (U.S.) president who will settle for a grip and a grin and walk away saying that he had this fabulous meeting with the Kremlin autocrat,” Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee, said in an interview on MSNBC.

As investigations at home continue into whether there was any collusion between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia the U.S. president has come under pressure to take a hard line against the Kremlin.

Moscow has denied any interference and Trump says his campaign did not collude with Russia.

On Thursday, Trump won praise from at least one Republican hawk in the U.S. Congress after his speech in Warsaw in which he urged Russia to stop its “destabilizing activities” and end its support for Syria and Iran.

“This is a great start to an important week of American foreign policy,” said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who has often been critical of Trump on security issues.

But earlier in the day, Trump declined to say definitively whether he believed U.S. intelligence officials who have said that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

“I think it was Russia but I think it was probably other people and/or countries, and I see nothing wrong with that statement. Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows for sure,” Trump said at a news conference, before slamming Democratic former President Barack Obama for not doing more to stop hacking.

Senators’ concerns

Ahead of Trump’s meeting with Putin, three U.S. senators wrote to Trump to express “deep concern” about reports that his administration planned to discuss the return to Russia of diplomatic compounds in Maryland and New York that were seized by the Obama administration last year in response to alleged Russian election meddling.

Republican Senators Johnny Isakson and Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen said returning the facilities would “embolden” Putin and encourage further efforts by Russia to interfere in Western elections. All three are on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The White House declined to offer details on what Trump would request of Putin and what he might offer in exchange for cooperation.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Trump wanted to talk about how the two countries can work together to stabilize war-ravaged Syria.

“The United States is prepared to explore the possibility of establishing with Russia joint mechanisms for ensuring stability, including no-fly zones, on-the-ground ceasefire observers, and coordinated delivery of humanitarian assistance,” Tillerson said before leaving the United States to join Trump in Germany.

Trump was also grappling with a response to North Korea’s successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, which analysts say had a long enough range to reach Alaska.

Curbing Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions has been Trump’s most pressing foreign policy priority, and he met with leaders from Japan and South Korea on Thursday evening to discuss it. He is also slated to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20.

“I’d like to see the president figure out how to engage Russia on North Korea,” said Representative Francis Rooney, a Republican from Florida who is on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“What I suggested to the president here a while back was that since we have all these conflicting issues about Russia right now and we’re still reeling from the fact that they took Crimea, maybe this is an opportunity to reset the Russia relationship in a positive manner,” Rooney said in an interview.

source: interaksyon.com

Evictions, sanctions as US strikes back at Russia over election hacks

HONOLULU/WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian suspected spies and imposed sanctions on two Russian intelligence agencies over their involvement in hacking US political groups in the 2016 presidential election.

The measures, taken during the last days of Obama's presidency, mark a new post-Cold War low in US-Russian ties which have deteriorated over Ukraine and Syria.

Allegations by US intelligence agencies that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally directed efforts to intervene in the US election process by hacking mostly Democrats have made relations even worse.

"These actions follow repeated private and public warnings that we have issued to the Russian government, and are a necessary and appropriate response to efforts to harm US interests in violation of established international norms of behavior," Obama said in a statement from vacation in Hawaii.

It was not immediately clear whether President-elect Donald Trump, who has repeatedly praised Putin and nominated people seen as friendly toward Moscow to senior administration posts, would seek to roll back the measures once he takes office on January 20.

The Kremlin, which denounced the sanctions as unlawful and promised "adequate" retaliation, questioned whether Trump approved of the new sanctions. Moscow denies the hacking allegations.

US intelligence agencies say Russia was behind hacks into Democratic Party organizations and operatives ahead of the November 8 presidential election. US intelligence officials also say that the Russian cyberattacks were aimed at helping Trump, a Republican, defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Trump has rejected that conclusion and said on Wednesday that "we ought to get on with our lives," when asked about possible tough sanctions for the cyberattacks.

Should Trump seek to overturn Obama's measures, he would likely encounter wide bipartisan Congressional opposition.

US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the top Republican in Congress, said Russia "has consistently sought to undermine" US interests and the sanctions were overdue.

Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham said they intended to lead effort in Congress to "impose stronger sanctions on Russia."

The actions on Thursday were the strongest response by the Obama administration to Russia's cyber activities, however, a senior administration official acknowledged that Trump could reverse them and allow Russian intelligence officials back into the United States once he takes office. He said that would be "inadvisable".

"We believe these steps are important because Russia is not going to stop," one official said. "We have every indication that they will interfere in democratic elections in other countries, including some of our European allies," the official said.

Persona non grata

Obama is seeking to deter Russia and other foreign governments from leveraging cyberattacks in the future to meddle in US politics, former officials and cyber security experts said.

Obama put sanctions on two Russian intelligence agencies, the GRU and the FSB, four GRU officers and three companies "that provided material support to the GRU’s cyber operations.

Obama said the State Department declared as "persona non grata" 35 Russian intelligence operatives and is closing two Russian compounds in New York and Maryland that were used by Russian personnel for "intelligence-related purposes". The State Department originally said the 35 were diplomats.

A senior US official told Reuters the expulsions would come from the Russian embassy in Washington and consulate in San Francisco. The Russian embassy declined to comment on the expulsions.

The Russians have 72 hours to leave the United States, the official said. Access to the two compounds will be denied to all Russian officials as of noon on Friday, the senior US official added.

"These actions were taken to respond to Russian harassment of American diplomats and actions by the diplomats that we have assessed to be not consistent with diplomatic practice," the official said.

The State Department has long complained that Russian security agents and traffic police have harassed US diplomats in Moscow, and US Secretary of State John Kerry has raised the issue with Putin and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.

The US official declined to name the Russian diplomats who would be affected, although it is understood that Russia's ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, will not be one of those expelled.

The United States also released an analysis report by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security examining forensic evidence officials said linked the cyberattacks to computer systems used by Russian intelligence services.

The report largely corroborates the existing findings of private sector cyber firms that investigated the breach at the Democratic National Committee and elsewhere.

source: interaksyon.com

Lindsay Lohan wants to meet Putin, Russian TV host says

MOSCOW | Troubled U.S. star Lindsay Lohan has demanded a meeting with President Vladimir Putin in return for appearing on a Russian chat show, its host said, confirming U.S. media reports.

Andrei Malakhov, who hosts the top-rating “Pust Govoryat” or “Let Them Talk” show, told LifeNews Russian website late Sunday that Lohan “really does have a desire to meet the Russian president.”

“I don’t know what she wants to discuss with him — saving Amur tigers or the problems of people with drug addiction,” he said.

U.S. entertainment news site TMZ earlier said that Lohan sent Russian Channel One television a list of demands including a meeting with Putin and photos with him as well as a private jet, a one-year visa and a fee of 500,000 British pounds ($650,000).

“The actual fee was a little lower,” Malakhov told LifeNews.

“I also want to earn 80 million a year and have dinner with the Queen, but dreams and reality are different things. You need to look at the situation soberly — unlike Lindsay Lohan,” Malakhov was quoted as saying.

He posted a link to the LifeNews report on his official Twitter account, along with a message calling Lohan a “naughty girl.”

A spokeswoman for Channel One earlier on Sunday confirmed to RIA Novosti news agency that Lohan had been asked to appear on the show, but said the conditions had not yet been discussed and the TMZ report “did not correspond to reality.”

Lohan, a 30-year-old former child star who appeared in hit films “The Parent Trap,” “Freaky Friday” and “Mean Girls” has struggled with drug addiction.

Russian television wants to interview her about her relationship with Russian-born Egor Tarabasov, whose father is reportedly a businessman from Moscow. Lohan has accused Tarabasov of violent abuse.

Putin in 2010 met Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio at a summit on protecting tigers but has failed to set a date for a meeting with British singer Elton John to discuss gay rights.

source: interaksyon.com

Abbott to Putin: back up MH17 assurances with action

SYDNEY - Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott Monday hit out at the "shambolic" situation at the MH17 crash site as he demanded Russian President Vladimir Putin back up assurances with action.

"As anyone who has been watching the footage will know, this is still an absolutely shambolic situation," he said.

"The site is being treated more like a garden clean-up than a forensic investigation."

Abbott and Putin spoke by telephone overnight in their first conversation since the Malaysia Airlines plane, carrying 298 people, crashed in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, apparently shot down by pro-Russian rebels with a surface-to-air missile.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, British counterpart David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande also piled pressure on Putin over the weekend in phone calls.

While Abbott would not divulge details of what was discussed, he said the onus was now on Moscow to act, using its influence with pro-Russian separatists to ensure experts can access the site of the crash.

"To President Putin's credit he did say all the right things. I want to stress what he said was fine," Abbott told a press conference.

"The challenge now is to hold the president to his word. That is certainly my intention, and it should be the intention of the family of nations to hold the president to his word."

Rutte talked with Putin on Sunday, with the Russian leader promising to help retrieve bodies and black boxes, a spokeswoman for Dutch government press service RVD told AFP.

Abbott has been particularly vocal among world leaders in his outrage at Russia's perceived lack of cooperation in the investigation into the disaster.

He has branded the plane's downing "a crime", and accused Moscow of trying to wash its hands of the tragedy while failing to properly secure the crash site.

Moscow denies any involvement in the disaster.

Twenty-eight Australian nationals and nine residents were among the 298 people from a dozen countries on board who died.

Abbott said every day that went by the bodies were deteriorating and the crash site was being further contaminated.

He added that his key goals were "to retrieve the bodies, we want to investigate the site, and we want to punish the guilty. That's what we want to do".

source: interaksyon.com