Dầu Nga lách cấm vận ra sao? – 3 kỳ

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?

Tiếp tục đọc “Dầu Nga lách cấm vận ra sao? – 3 kỳ”

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

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

‘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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Russia is planning coup in Moldova, says President Maia Sandu

‘The plan included sabotage and militarily trained people disguised as civilians to carry out violent actions,’ according to Moldovan leader.

FRANCE-MOLDOVA-DIPLOMACY
Maia Sandu’s remarks come after she nominated a new prime minister on Friday to keep her country on a pro-EU trajectory | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images

BY WILHELMINE PREUSSEN

FEBRUARY 13, 2023 5:31 PM CET Politico

Russia wants to stage a coup d’état in Moldova, the country’s President Maia Sandu said Monday.

Sandu called for heightened security measures in Moldova after the pro-EU government resigned last week, following months of pressure from Moscow which is waging an all-out war on neighboring Ukraine.

“The plan included sabotage and militarily trained people disguised as civilians to carry out violent actions, attacks on government buildings and taking hostages,” Sandu told reporters at a press conference Monday.

She added that citizens of Russia, Montenegro, Belarus and Serbia would be among those entering Moldova to try to spark protests in an attempt to “change the legitimate government to an illegitimate government, controlled by the Russian Federation to stop the EU integration process.”

Tiếp tục đọc “Russia is planning coup in Moldova, says President Maia Sandu”

The Nord Stream gas pineline leaks the worst ever greenhouse gas event? Why it happened and what are the damages to the climate?

*Nord Stream is a network of natural gas pipelines run under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany

Nord Stream gas leaks may be biggest ever, with warning of ‘large climate risk’

theguardian.com

‘Colossal amount’ of leaked methane, twice initial estimates, is equivalent to third of Denmark’s annual CO2 emissions or 1.3m cars

gas leak bubbling to surface of Baltic Sea
Scientists estimate the leaks could release up to 400,000 tonnes of methane into the atmosphere. Photograph: Danish Defence/AFP/Getty

Seascape: the state of our oceans is supported by

Scientists fear methane erupting from the burst Nord Stream pipelines into the Baltic Sea could be one of the worst natural gas leaks ever and pose significant climate risks.

Neither of the two breached Nord Stream pipelines, which run between Russia and Germany, was operational, but both contained natural gas. This mostly consists of methane – a greenhouse gas that is the biggest cause of climate heating after carbon dioxide.

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Inside the Biden administration’s decision to reverse course and give tanks to Ukraine

Biden warmed to a path suggested by Blinken and Sullivan and a plan proposed by Milley and Austin.

02:15 /02:29 ABC News

Jan. 26, 2023, 4:30 AM EST

By Courtney Kube, Carol E. Lee and Abigail Williams

When he announced his decision to provide Abrams tanks to Ukraine, President Joe Biden made a point to say Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had recommended the move. But Austin, along with other military leaders, had for weeks argued it didn’t make sense for the U.S. to send the tanks to Ukraine, and he made his recommendation about how to provide them only after it was clear Biden wanted to send them, about 48 hours before his announcement, three U.S. officials said.

Biden wasn’t initially sold on sending the tanks, despite pressure to do so to give cover to Germany to send Ukraine some Leopard 2 tanks, the officials said. He warmed to the idea after Secretary of State Antony Blinken presented him with potential solutions to an issue that was very publicly exposing divisions within the U.S.-European alliance, the officials said.

In this file photo taken on May 19, 2022, a US Abrams tank is seen as troops from Poland, USA, France and Sweden take part in the DEFENDER-Europe 22 military exercise, in Nowogrod, Poland. - US President Joe Biden will address Americans on January 25, 2023, about US support for Ukraine, the White House announced, amid expectations that the US will announce future delivery of Abrams tanks. The White House gave no details of the remarks scheduled for 12:00 pm (1700 GMT), other than saying Biden "will deliver remarks on continued support for Ukraine."
A U.S. Abrams tank crew participates in a military exercise with troops from Poland, France and Sweden in Nowogrod, Poland, on May 19, 2022.Wojtek Radwanski / AFP – Getty Images file
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The World Economy No Longer Needs Russia

With alternative sources in place, Putin’s attempt at blackmailing Europe on energy has failed.

By Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the Lester Crown professor in management practice and a senior associate dean at the Yale School of Management, and Steven Tian, the director of research at the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute.

Vladimir Putin meets with workers at a missile manufacturing plant in St. Petersburg.
Vladimir Putin meets with workers at a missile manufacturing plant in St. Petersburg.

JANUARY 19, 2023, 10:38 AM FP

For much of the past year, and since his invasion of Ukraine last February, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been riding high on his supposed energy omnipotence, holding the global economy hostage to his whims. Since last summer, Putin has choked off natural gas supplies to Europe, hoping that Europeans, shivering and without heat during the winter, would turn on their leaders and make it politically infeasible to continue support for Ukraine.

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Russian missiles rain down on Ukraine towns on Christmas Day

euractiv.com

EURACTIV.com with Reuters 26 Dec 2022

People from the collective ‘Kyivska Kolyada’ ride in the train after singing Christmas carols and collect money for the Ukrainian army at a metro station in Kyiv, Ukraine, 25 December 2022. 2022 is the first year Orthodox churches were allowed to hold a Christmas prayer service on 24 December. Traditionally, the Orthodox church celebrates Christmas on 6 January. [EPA-EFE/OLEG PETRASYUK]

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Russian forces bombarded scores of towns in Ukraine on Christmas Day as Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was open to negotiations, a stance Washington has dismissed as posturing because of continued Russian attacks.

Russia on Sunday launched more than 10 rocket attacks on the Kupiansk district in the Kharkiv region, shelled more than 25 towns along the Kupiansk-Lyman frontline, and in Zaporizhzhia hit nearly 20 towns, said Ukraine’s top military command.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday that it had killed about 60 Ukrainian servicemen the previous day along the Kupiansk-Lyman line of contact and destroyed numerous pieces of Ukrainian military equipment.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports.

Putin’s 24 February invasion of Ukraine – which Moscow calls a “special military operation” – has triggered the biggest European conflict since World War Two and confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Despite Putin’s latest offer to negotiate, there is no end in sight to the 10-month conflict.

“We are ready to negotiate with everyone involved about acceptable solutions, but that is up to them – we are not the ones refusing to negotiate, they are,” Putin told Rossiya 1 state television in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Putin needed to return to reality and acknowledge it was Russia that did not want talks.

“Russia single-handedly attacked Ukraine and is killing citizens,” the adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, tweeted. “Russia doesn’t want negotiations, but tries to avoid responsibility.”

Russian attacks on power stations have left millions without electricity, and Zelenskyy said Moscow would aim to make the last few days of 2022 dark and difficult.

“Russia has lost everything it could this year. … I know darkness will not prevent us from leading the occupiers to new defeats. But we have to be ready for any scenario,” he said in an evening video address on Christmas Day.

Ukraine has traditionally not celebrated Christmas on 25 December, but 7 January, the same as Russia. However, this year some Orthodox Ukrainians decided to celebrate the holiday on 25 December and Ukrainian officials, starting with Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s prime minister, issued Christmas wishes on Sunday.

The Kremlin says it will fight until all its territorial aims are achieved, while Kyiv says it will not rest until every Russian soldier is ejected from the country.

Asked if the geopolitical conflict with the West was approaching a dangerous level, Putin on Sunday said: “I don’t think it’s so dangerous.”

Kyiv and the West say Putin has no justification for what they cast as an imperial-style war of occupation.

Blasts at Engels airbase

Blasts were heard at Russia’s Engels air base, hundreds of kilometres (miles) from the Ukraine frontlines, Ukrainian and Russian media reported on Monday.

Russia’s governor of Saratov region, home to the Engels air-base, said law enforcement agencies were checking information about “an incident at a military facility”.

“There were no emergencies in residential areas of the (Engels) city,” Roman Busargin, the governor of the region, said on the Telegram messaging app. “Civil infrastructure facilities were not damaged.”

The air base, near the city of Saratov, about 730 km (450 miles) southeast of Moscow, was hit on 5 December in what Russia said were Ukrainian drone attacks on two Russian air bases that day. The strikes dealt Moscow a major reputational blow and raised questions about why its defences failed, analysts said.

Ukraine has never publicly claimed responsibility for attacks inside Russia, but has said, however, that such incidents are “karma” for Russia’s invasion.

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Russia, Vietnam slowly but surely parting strategic ways

Asiatimes Hanoi is now openly diversifying its weaponry purchases away from Moscow, an emerging break driven by the war in Ukraine

By RICHARD JAVAD HEYDARIANDECEMBER 17, 2022

When Vietnam hosted this month its first-ever International Defense Expo at a military airstrip in Hanoi, the event signaled a quiet but evolving shift in the communist nation’s defense policy.

Tiếp tục đọc “Russia, Vietnam slowly but surely parting strategic ways”

U.S., Russia vie to sell arms to Vietnam at first Hanoi fair

reuters – December 8, 20223:17 PM GMT+7

By Francesco Guarascio  and Khanh Vu

Vietnam holds first international arms expo in Hanoi

Military arms are displayed at the Vietnam International Defence Expo 2022, in Hanoi, Vietnam, December 8, 2022. REUTERS/Khanh Vu

HANOI, Dec 8 (Reuters) – U.S. and Russian defence firms on Thursday displayed weapons and promoted models of aircraft at Vietnam’s first large-scale arms fair, as the two powers vie for influence and arms sales in the strategic Southeast Asian country that borders China.

The event at a Hanoi airbase attracted 174 exhibitors from 30 countries, including all large arms-making nations except China.

Tiếp tục đọc “U.S., Russia vie to sell arms to Vietnam at first Hanoi fair”

Analysis: Vietnam shifts gears on arms trade as it loosens ties with Russia

December 7, 20225:18 PM GMT+7

By Francesco Guarascio and Khanh Vu

International Army Games 2022 in Moscow region
T-72 B3 tank operated by a crew from Vietnam fires during the Tank Biathlon competition at the International Army Games 2022 in Alabino, outside Moscow, Russia August 16, 2022. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

HANOI, Dec 7 (Reuters) – Vietnam is eyeing a major defence shift as it seeks to reduce its reliance on Russian arms and launch a push to export locally made weapons, officials and analysts said, with possible buyers in Africa, Asia – and potentially even Moscow.

The Southeast Asian nation is one of the world’s 20 biggest buyers of weapons amid on-and-off tensions with China, with an annual budget for arms imports estimated at about $1 billion and set to grow, according to GlobalData, a provider of military procurement intelligence.

Most of that money has historically gone to Russia, which was for decades Vietnam’s main supplier of weapons and defence systems. That made Vietnam one of the top buyers of Russian arms, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which tracks global military expenditures.

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Russia’s war in Ukraine challenges old comrades in Southeast Asia

AljazeeraVladimir Putin’s absence from the G20 Summit in Bali also undermines talk of a Russian pivot to the Asia-Pacific region.

Indonesian police line up during a security parade on November 7, 2022 in preparation for the G20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia.
Indonesian police line up during a security parade on November 7, 2022, in preparation for the G20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia [File: Firdia Lisnawati/AP] (AP Photo)

By Al Jazeera Staff

Published On 15 Nov 202215 Nov 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin has oozed a casual resentment when describing the “irreversible and even tectonic changes” that he says have led the West to become a spent force in the world.

“Western countries are striving to maintain a former world order that is beneficial only to them,” he told attendees at the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian city of Vladivostok in September.

Tiếp tục đọc “Russia’s war in Ukraine challenges old comrades in Southeast Asia”

Anti-Western and hyper macho, Putin’s appeal in Southeast Asia

AljazeeraSoviet-era nostalgia and anti-Western sentiment fuel online support for Russia’s Vladimir Putin and his war on Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin looks through the scope as he shoots a Chukavin sniper rifle (SVC-380) during a visit to the military Patriot Park in Kubinka, outside Moscow, in September 2018 [File: Alexey Nilkolsky/Sputnik/ AFP]
Russian President Vladimir Putin looks through a scope as he shoots a Chukavin sniper rifle (SVCh-380) during a visit to the military Patriot Park in Kubinka, outside Moscow, in September 2018 [File: Alexey Nilkolsky/Sputnik/ AFP]

By Al Jazeera Staff

Published On 18 Nov 202218 Nov 2022

While the West has united in condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, opinions differ markedly in parts of the developing world where Russia is not reviled but revered for what some see as its stance against the West and its hypocrisies.

In Southeast Asia, a region dominated for decades by “strongman” political leaders and where nostalgia for the Soviet Union persists in some quarters, Russian President Vladimir Putin has a strong following among social media users who are sympathetic to his invasion of Ukraine and find his macho self-image appealing.

Tiếp tục đọc “Anti-Western and hyper macho, Putin’s appeal in Southeast Asia”

Ukraine’s true detectives: the investigators closing in on Russian war criminals – podcast

the guardian

Written by Lauren Wolfe, read by Kelly Burke and produced by Jessica Beck. The executive producer was Max Sanderson

Fri 11 Nov 2022 05.00 GMT Last modified on Fri 11 Nov 2022 17.40 GMT

Across the country, fact-finding teams are tirelessly gathering evidence and testimony about Russian atrocities, often within hours of troops retreating. Turning this into convictions will not be easy, or quick, but the task has begun 

empty graves after the exhumation of bodies in the mass grave created during the Russian's occupation in the town of Izyum, Kharkiv region, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine
 Photograph: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images

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