Tag: Russia

You just have to love the hypocrites in the Russian and Chinese military who come out against THAAD deployment to South Korea with comments like this:

Washington was using the North’s actions as a pretext to gain military superiority over China, Chinese general Cai Jun told defence officials at a briefing on the forum’s sidelines.

Deploying the system in South Korea, he said, was “not conducive to the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula”, he said, adding “it has increased the risk of military conflict in the region”. [AFP]

You know what is not conducive to “peace and stability” North Korea continuous provocations, missile firings and nuclear tests.

Beijing fears that THAAD could be used against its own missiles, effectively undermining its nuclear deterrence capabilities against the US.

From a global perspective, Cai said, the US’s insistence on developing its missile defence programme could trigger “an arms race at a high level, even to outer space.”

It is pretty ironic that the Chinese are worried about an arms race when their unilateral territorial grabs in the South China Sea and the East China Sea is causing an arms race with neighboring countries in the reasons.

Speaking on a panel during the forum, Russian deputy defence minister Anatoly Antonov also slammed the agreement.

“We are concerned about the attempts of certain nations to exploit the complex situation in the Korean peninsula,” he said, “pumping this sub-region with clearly excessive defence capabilities.”

The decision has “aggravated regional tension” and “adds problems to solving the situation.”

You can read more at the link, but if the Russians are so concerned about aggravating regional tensions and adding problems then why don’t they do something to stop North Korea nuclear and missile programs that are the main cause of all the regional tensions and problems?

A group of grandchildren of Koreans who were forcibly taken to work on Russia’s far east island of Sakhalin during the Japanese colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula (1910-45), arrives at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, on Aug. 2, 2016. A civic organization in Busan invited the group to a five-day history tour program. Some 43,000 Koreans were sent to the icy island that was a part of the Japanese empire at the time. (Yonhap)

Yonhap is reporting that the deployment of THAAD to South Korea was not a major issue discussed during recent diplomatic meetings with Russia:

The top diplomats of South Korea and Russia barely discussed the controversial issue of deploying an advanced U.S. missile defense system on Korean soil during their talks earlier this week, a Seoul official said.

The senior official told South Korean reporters during a luncheon in St. Petersburg on Tuesday that the topic of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system was raised in the meeting between South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, but only in passing.

“(The Russian side) mentioned a confrontational structure in Asia but barely talked about it,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “This showed (Moscow’s) will to focus more on bilateral relations and the North Korean nuclear issue.”

Russia and China have strongly opposed the possible deployment of a THAAD battery to South Korea, claiming it would undermine the strategic balance in the region. Seoul and Washington insist the missile defense system, if placed in the South, would be purely defensive in the face of North Korea’s evolving nuclear and missile threats.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link, but in the past the Russian ambassador to North Korea complained that THAAD could potentially be used to shoot down Russian missiles fired at South Korea.

#DPRK reportedly releases detained Russian yacht, Russia still requesting explanation from DPRK over detention of vessel.

— Nathan J Hunt (@ISNJH) May 15, 2016

On "the prospect that Russia is becoming a 'raw-material appendage' of China" https://t.co/jOvlNrvsTY @TonyVRinna @Sino_NK

— Adam Cathcart (@adamcathcart) April 6, 2016

If anyone should be apologizing it is the Russians who continue to support the Kim regime.  As far as the issue at hand I would think the Russians probably covered their tracks really well in regards to any rocket components transferred to the North Koreans:

Russia demanded an apology from South Korea on Wednesday for raising suspicions that key components of North Korea’s recently tested rocket are from Russia.

Mikhail Ulyanov, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s nonproliferation and arms control department, said in a news conference that South Korea should present evidence backing up the suspicions or retract them and apologize.

“This statement is irresponsible and unprofessional. One cannot come forward with such accusations without having clear evidence,” the official said.

After the North’s missile launch on Sunday, officials of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said in a closed-door emergency briefing to the parliamentary intelligence committee that key components of the missile appear to have come from Russia, according to lawmakers.  [Yonhap]

https://twitter.com/RainerRippe/status/694398009837137920

Is Putin borrowing a tactic from the comfort women protesters in South Korea to stick it the US?:

Last week it was made known that the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation—a Russian analogue to the U.S. House Committee on Oversight, which has consultative powers—is planning to put forward a proposal for the installation of a memorial by the site of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, dedicated to the “genocide of the American Indians,” according to the RIA News Agency.

The request for permission to install such a monument was sent to the Administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin, to the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation and to the Moscow city authorities.

“The initiative to install the monument [near the US Embassy] is very timely as an act that will remind [people today] from where the history of the USA started,” stated member of the Civic Chamber Valery Korovin, who supported the proposal. “This monument must become the silent reproach to the modern American elites which had significantly deviated from the idealistic principles that were laid into the foundation of the American state.”

According to Mr. Korovin, the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation should also appeal to the U.S. Congress to consider the “rehabilitation” of American Indians “as the native people of the United States, to admit the fact of their genocide by the US Government, to carry out the act of national repentance and thus to close this dark chapter of the U.S. history.”  [The Observer]

You can read more at the link.

Something to think about the next time you decide to buy seafood:

Radioactive material was discovered at detectable levels in domestic and Russian seafood products, a recent study confirms.The news comes amid growing concerns about radiation contamination in seafood products entering the country since the 2011 disaster at Japan’s Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. In response, environmental groups are calling for more intensive inspections of seafood for radioactivity.The findings were announced on Dec. 23 after a study by three groups: the Institute for Environment & Community Development Studies (IECDS), the Korea Radiation Watch Center, and the Gwangju chapter of the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement.

Analysis of 150 samples of mackerel, pollock, cod, kelp, and sea mustard taken from discount stores and markets in Seoul, Busan, and Gwangju between March and November showed the presence of radioactive cesium-137 in eight of them, or 5.3%.Cesium-137 is considered one of the chief examples of a radioactive isotope detected in the process of artificial nuclear fission, with an acceptable standard of 100 becquerels per kilogram.The isotope was found in samples of pollock and cod from Russia and domestic mackerel and kelp at levels of 0.37 to 1.09 becquerels per kilogram.The highest rate of detection was for Russian cod at 13%, followed by Russian pollock at 11.5%, Korean kelp at 7.7%, and Korean mackerel at 3.3%.  [Hankyoreh]

You can read the rest at the link.

Navy coordinated with Japan SDF, Korean Navy as Russian planes approached USS Ronald Reagan https://t.co/GQMHhza58p

— Erik Slavin (@eslavin_stripes) October 30, 2015