Chuyên mục: Russia

Watch The British-Soviet Invasion of Iran (1941)

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

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The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran (Operation Countenance) occurred in August 1941, during World War II.

The invasion was carried out jointly by the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, aiming primarily to secure Iranian territory against Axis influence and protect critical supply routes.

Here’s a comprehensive overview:

Lead-Up and Reasons

Strategic Importance:

  • Iran had a strategically critical position, particularly as a transportation corridor between the Allies and the Soviet Union.
  • Iranian infrastructure, notably the Trans-Iranian Railway, offered a route for delivering vital supplies from the Allies (mostly Britain and the U.S.) to the USSR following Germany’s invasion (Operation Barbarossa) in June 1941.

Iranian Position and Axis Influence:

  • Although officially neutral, the Iranian ruler Reza Shah Pahlavi sympathized with Germany, partially due to historical rivalry with Britain and Russia.
  • Germany had established substantial diplomatic and commercial influence in Iran, with many German nationals working in strategic industries, raising fears of espionage and sabotage among the Allies.

Diplomatic Tensions:

  • Britain and the Soviet Union demanded Iran expel German nationals perceived as threats; Iran hesitated or refused, increasing Allied suspicions and tension.

Invasion: Operation Countenance

Date and Execution:

Began on August 25, 1941, when British forces advanced from the south and west, while Soviet forces attacked from the north.

Rapid military operations overwhelmed Iran’s defenses, which were relatively weak and poorly equipped compared to the invading powers.

Key Events:

  • British forces captured key oil fields in Khuzestan (Abadan), securing critical petroleum resources.
  • Soviet troops quickly took control of northern provinces, including major cities such as Tabriz and Mashhad.
  • Air and naval superiority allowed quick suppression of Iranian resistance.

Iranian Response: The Iranian army, despite fighting briefly in several locations, was rapidly overwhelmed, with significant casualties but limited overall resistance.

Tehran quickly realized the futility of resistance and began negotiations.

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Exploited in Russia: African women forced to make drones

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DW.com June 14, 2025

They hoped for a better career but ended up in Russia’s war factories. A new study reveals how young women, mainly from Africa, have been being exploited. Some of those affected have shared their stories with DW.

The Alabuga production facility manufactures Geran-2 combat drones based on the Iranian Shahed-136 modelImage: picture alliance / abaca

“I like Russia, its language and culture,” Aminata, 20, told DW. She wants to leave her home country of Sierra Leone in a few weeks to pursue an apprenticeship around 7,000 kilometers (4,300 miles) away in Russia.

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Syria thay triều đổi vị

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SÁNG ÁNH – 13/12/2024 14:12 GMT+7

TTCT – Chủ nhật 8-12, Thông tấn xã Tass (Nga) cho biết chuyến bay Syrian Air chở gia đình Tổng thống Syria Bashar al Assad đã đến Matxcơva và ông được Nga cho tị nạn vì lý do nhân đạo.

Thủ lĩnh HTS Abu Mohammad al Julani phát biểu ở đền Hồi Umayyad, thủ đô Damascus, Syria, ngày 8-12. Ảnh: AFP

Vậy là sau 54 năm và hai đời, họ Assad chấm dứt trị vì Syria, 13 năm sau khi đất nước này rơi vào nội chiến và hỗn loạn.

Trước hết, sự sụp đổ của gia tộc Assad cũng là sự sụp đổ của phái Hồi Shia Alawi, vốn chiếm 15% dân số Syria, với 2-3 triệu người ở trong nước, khoảng 1 triệu người đang tị nạn ở Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ (và 100.000-200.000 người nữa mang quốc tịch Lebanon). 

Vào thời thuộc địa, Pháp tuyển giáo phái Alawi vào lực lượng an ninh và quân đội, dùng họ làm công cụ chia rẽ, đàn áp và cai trị Syria, có lúc lập ra một quốc gia riêng cho giáo phái này.

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How the Belarus-Russia axis works together on anti-EU disinformation push

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 euractive.com 26 Jan 2024 (updated:  26 Jan 2024)

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko attends the CSTO Collective Security Council meeting in Minsk, Belarus, 23 November 2023. [EPA-EFE/SERGY GUNEEV / KREMLIN / POOL]

 Belarusian propaganda positions the EU as its main enemy, but several other features make it a unique case among its European neighbours.

*The author of this text remains anonymous due to fear of repercussions in their home country.

The most important and, at the same time, the most destructive peculiarity of disinformation in Belarus is strong Russian influence, which has deep historical roots and covers various spheres, from economy and culture to the military sector.

However, nowadays, Russian propaganda is helped by Belarusian colleagues who work to follow the same narrative.

This narrative includes turning EU countries into an economically and politically unstable military threat in the eyes of Belarusians while ignoring benefits and positives.

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Loạn Ili và Cộng hòa Đông Turkestan đệ Nhị – Lịch sử từ độc lập tới bị bán đứng của Tân Cương

~ Phạm Thu Hương ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Nghiên cứu lịch sử – Đăng Phạm

1

Các lãnh đạo Cộng hòa Đông Turkestan đệ Nhị

Ngày nay, chúng ta thường xuyên được chứng kiến những màn đối đầu ngoại giao xung quanh vấn đề Tân Cương. Trong khi nhiều nước liên tục chỉ trích, thậm chí trừng phạt Trung Quốc vì vấn đề người Duy Ngô Nhĩ, thì Trung Quốc bác bỏ cáo quốc và luôn bảo vệ ”sự thống nhất toàn vẹn Trung Quốc”, tố cáo ”chủ nghĩa ly khai Duy Ngô Nhĩ” bị các nước phương Tây lợi dụng chống Trung Quốc.

Nhưng nếu để ý, sẽ thấy một nước lớn là Nga lại khá im tiếng trong vấn đề này, không hùa theo chống Trung Quốc, nhưng cũng không công khai ủng hộ Trung Quốc về vấn đề Tân Cương. Có gì khó lý giải ở đây? Điều đó hoàn toàn lý giải được nếu biết được lịch sử vùng đất Tân Cương từ những năm 1930-1950, để thấy rằng: không ai khác ngoài Stalin và Liên Xô đã đỡ đầu cho Tân Cương độc lập. Và thậm chí trước kia, chính Đảng Cộng sản Trung Quốc của Mao Trạch Đông từng ủng hộ Tân Cương ly khai khỏi Trung Hoa.

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Russia’s so desperate for soldiers that it’s offering a $5,200 sign-on bonus to recruit from neighboring Kazakhstan

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

businessinsider.com

Russian soldiers in military uniforms operating a howitzer while on a military-training exercise in a field.
Russian soldiers at a military-training exercise in Rostov, Russia, on October 21. 
  • The Russian military has begun recruiting from Kazakhstan amid a personnel crunch, Reuters reported.
  • It’s offering benefits like a $5,200 sign-on bonus and a salary of at least $2,000 to new recruits.
  • It’s not just the military. Russia’s economy is also facing a record labor shortage, RBC reported.

Russia has a military-personnel problem as its war in Ukraine rages on.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime is so desperate for recruits that Moscow is offering a sign-on bonus of 495,000 rubles, or about $5,200, to people in the neighboring country of Kazakhstan if they join the Russian army, Reuters reported on Thursday.

Kazakhstan is a former Soviet republic home to about 3.5 million ethnic Russians, who make up nearly 18% of the country’s population of about 19.5 million people.

The online recruitment ads feature the flags of Russia and Kazakhstan alongside the slogan “Shoulder to shoulder,” per Reuters. The posts offer the 495,000-ruble one-off payment, a monthly 190,000-ruble salary, and other benefits for those who ink a contract with the Russian military, per the news agency.

The ads lead to a website that offers people a chance to join the Russian army in the country’s far eastern Sakhalin region — where an organization set up by the local government is doing the recruitment, according to Reuters.

Russia and Kazakhstan are allies. However, the Kazakh government has not supported Russia’s war in Ukraine and has urged for peace.

Joining military conflicts abroad for financial gain is also illegal under the law in Kazakhstan, according to Reuters.

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How Cyprus rose to become the beating heart of the Putin regime’s shadow financial system

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Russia dominated the island’s banking system under the watch of the European Union.

ICIJ.org

CYPRUS CONFIDENTIAL series

A new investigation by ICIJ and 68 media partners exposes the sprawling financial industry that has powered the Putin regime as it dominates its neighbors — and undermines the West.

n 2014, two senior officials of one of the biggest banks in Cyprus, RCB Ltd., visited Constantinos Petrides, a top aide to the country’s president. They weren’t there to talk banking. Instead, according to a Cyprus government investigation, the officials pressed Petrides to approve the citizenship application of a Russian national he said was under sanction by the European Union.

Petrides balked, and the meeting got heated.

“One of them almost accused me of being a traitor and harming relations between Cyprus and Russia because I didn’t want to naturalize a person,” Petrides told the investigators.

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‘Shadow fleet’ oil tankers pose growing risk in SEA

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southeastasiaglobe.com

An armada of poorly regulated, scrapyard-ready tankers is hauling sanctioned oil through the region’s bustling shipping lanes. With that, they’re carrying an ever-present threat of environmental catastrophe

IAN HOLLINGER AUGUST 29, 2023

‘Shadow fleet’ oil tankers pose growing risk in SEA
Smoke rises from the oil tanker Pablo after it suffered from multiple explosions on 1 May off the coast of Malaysia. The ship was registered to Gabon and was part of the so-called “ghost fleet” of little-regulated tankers. Photo courtesy of the Malaysian coast guard.

On the morning of 3 May, residents of Batam, Indonesia, the largest city of the country’s Riau Islands, woke up to beaches black with oil. 

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How Russia’s timber trade is sidestepping the EU’s Ukraine war sanctions

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icij.org

ICIJ partners in Europe revealed the indirect trade routes used to mask the origins of Russian timber, which continues to flow into the EU despite being banned.

Russia was the EU’s fifth largest trading partner in 2021, exporting more than $3 billion worth of timber to the bloc.

Banned Russian timber is still being imported into the EU despite sanctions to curb timber revenue that helps finance Russia’s war in Ukraine, a new investigation by ICIJ partners in Europe has found.

Paper Trail Media, Der Spiegel, ZDF and others analyzed trade data to trace the pathway of banned wood through third countries, including China, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Russia is one of the world’s largest timber exporters, harboring more than a fifth of the world’s forested areas. In 2021, the country was the European Union’s fifth largest trading partner, exporting more than $3 billion worth of timber to the bloc that year, according to the European Commission.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, sanctions swiftly followed, including a total ban on Russian timber imports into the EU from July 2022. While direct trade between Russia and the EU was stymied, new global pathways emerged to traffic illicit wood into the bloc. 

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One year on, Pandora Papers continues to be anti-corruption ‘tour de force’

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

icij.org

From pivotal legislative pushes in the U.S. and elsewhere, to ongoing probes into deposed leaders and tax dodgers, the impact of the largest ever offshore investigation is still being felt around the world.

n Oct. 3, 2021 — one year ago today — the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and 150 media partners around the globe began rolling out the Pandora Papers, a world-rocking exposé that’s been called “a money bomb with political ripples,” “a financial earthquake” and “one of the essential stories of our time.”

The project took readers deeper than ever inside an offshore financial system that perpetuates corruption and authoritarianism and widens gaps between rich and poor. A U.S. senator called the investigation a “wake-up call to all who care about the future of democracy.”

More than 600 journalists at 151 news organizations in 117 countries worked together to make the Pandora Papers a reality — the largest collaboration in journalism history.

The Pandora Papers’ revelations about the financial secrets of prime ministers, oligarchs, mobsters and other powerful figures spawned action by governments and international groups, triggering investigations, legislation and rule changes in dozens of countries.

Impacts keep coming.

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Dầu Nga lách cấm vận ra sao? – 3 kỳ

~ Phạm Thu Hương ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Dầu Nga lách cấm vận ra sao? – Kỳ 1: Lách qua ‘khe cửa’ của châu Âu

TT – 20/04/2023 13:38 GMT+7 – BẢO ANH

Sau khi bị Liên minh châu Âu (EU) cấm cửa, dầu mỏ Nga tìm đến những khách hàng khác. Song bằng một cách nào đó, dầu mỏ Nga vẫn lách qua được khe cửa của châu Âu.

Tàu chở dầu Yang Mei Hu (Trung Quốc) đang đậu tại trạm dầu thô ở thành phố Nakhodka, Nga vào tháng 6-2022 – Ảnh: Reuters

Trong báo cáo hằng tháng vừa công bố hồi giữa tháng 4, Cơ quan Năng lượng quốc tế (IEA) cho biết hoạt động xuất khẩu dầu thô và các sản phẩm dầu mỏ của Nga đã tăng trong tháng 3-2023 lên mức cao nhất kể từ tháng 4-2020, cụ thể đã tăng thêm 600.000 thùng mỗi ngày, lên tổng cộng 8,1 triệu thùng/ngày. Sự gia tăng này đã nâng doanh thu ước tính của Nga từ xuất khẩu dầu mỏ lên 12,7 tỉ USD vào tháng 3-2023.

Giới quan sát cho rằng trong bối cảnh các nước phương Tây áp dụng những biện pháp trừng phạt nhằm vào dầu mỏ Nga vì cuộc xung đột Nga – Ukraine, lẽ ra lượng dầu Nga xuất khẩu sẽ giảm đi. Vậy rốt cuộc lượng dầu xuất khẩu tăng đáng kể như trên đã cập bến nơi nào?

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Sykes-Picot: Lines in the Sand (2 Eps)

~ Phạm Thu Hương ~ 1 bình luận

Sykes-Picot: Lines in the Sand (Ep 1) | Al Jazeera World

Sykes-Picot: Lines in the sand (Ep 2) | Al Jazeera World

Al Jazeera English – 21-5-2016

This is the story of the secret deal between the British and French, concluded in May 1916, which aimed to carve up the Middle East in ways that most benefited the two European powers.

Modern world history has been heavily influenced by events in the Middle East, whose strategic importance has been magnified by both a global dependence on oil and the Israel-Palestine conflict. Tiếp tục đọc “Sykes-Picot: Lines in the Sand (2 Eps)” →

Norway warns of growing importance of Russian nuclear ‘deterrent’ in Arctic

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

‘Tactical nuclear weapons are a particularly serious threat,’ Norwegian intelligence report says.

RUSSIA-POLITICS-ENVIRONMENT-ARCTIC-ENERGY
A Russian nuclear-powered ice-breaker in Saint Petersburg in 2020 | Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images

BY WILHELMINE PREUSSEN

FEBRUARY 14, 2023 2:04 PM CET, politico.eu

While war rages in Ukraine, Norway’s intelligence service is warning of the increasing importance of Russia’s nuclear “deterrent” in the Arctic waters of the far north.

“As the importance of nuclear weapons and strategic deterrent forces increases, the Northern Fleet’s defense of the military bases in Kola, the Northern Bastion and the Barents Sea is also becoming more important,” the Norwegian Intelligence Service said in its annual report.

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