Fierce Patriots

Conservative Political News

  • Subscribe

Kremlin

Senior Russian official: The arrest of Putin by a foreign power would be an act of war warranting the launch of ‘all our missiles’

by Leave a Comment

A senior Kremlin official indicated this week that any effort to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin would amount to an act of war and warrant a blizzard of missile strikes.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s security council, made the threat repeatedly in response to the International Criminal Court’s issuance of an arrest warrant for Putin last week for war crimes.

The arrest warrant

The ICC issued warrants of arrest on March 17 for Putin and for Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the Russian president’s commissioner for children’s rights. Both individuals are accused of the war crime of unlawfully deporting children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation and are believed to bear individual criminal responsibility.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan suggested that these acts “demonstrate an intention to permanently remove these children from their own country.”

One hundred twenty-three countries have signed on to the Rome Statute and are therefore legally bound to implement the decisions of the ICC, based in the the Hague in the Netherlands.

The U.S., China, India, and Russia are not among the ICC’s 123 member states.

In addition to not being party to the Rome Statute, the U.S. has a Bush-era law on the books authorizing the use of military force to liberate any American or citizen of a U.S.-allied country being held by the Hague.

Ireland, among the nations obliged to enforce the warrant, has confirmed that it would arrest the Russian president in the unlikely event he sets foot on the island. Canada and Germany similarly welcomed the ICC’s decision.

Not all signatories will respect the warrant, however. While his nation signed the statute in 1999, Hungarian Cabinet Minister Gergely Gulyas indicated that the arrest warrant is not binding in his nation.

The ICC’s decision to indict Putin came nearly one year after the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution condemning Putin as a war criminal.

Reuters reported that the resolution, introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), implored the ICC to follow suit.

Sudan’s former President Omar al-Bashir and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi were the only other leaders indicted by the ICC while still in power.

Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, suggested on Twitter that Putin’s status as an accused war criminal means there will be no further negotiations with the current Russian elite; no return of the Russian Federation to world politics in its prewar status; and no lifting of sanctions so long as the “face of Putin” represents Russia.

Threats

In a video posted to Telegram on Wednesday, Medvedev said, “Let’s imagine — obviously this situation which will never be realized — but nevertheless let’s imagine that it was realized: The current head of the nuclear state went to a territory, say Germany, and was arrested,” reported DW.

“What would that be? It would be a declaration of war on the Russian Federation,” said Medvedev. “And, in that case, all our assets — all our missiles etc. — would fly to the Bundestag, to the chancellor’s office.”

Medvedev issued a similar threat on Twitter Friday, stating Putin’s arrest in Germany, for instance, would be “casus belli, the unequivocal declaration of war against the Russian Federation! In that case, Russia would be forced to attack Berlin, and its means of destruction will rain on the Bundestag, the Chancellery, the Ministry of Defense and other key centres of decision-making. Mr. Scholz has picked himself a truly great team! Poor Germans …”

Days earlier, Medvedev intimated that the Hague could be on the receiving end of hypersonic missiles should the Russian president be arrested.

“I’m afraid, gentlemen, everyone is answerable to God and missiles,” the security official wrote on Telegram. “It’s quite possible to imagine how a hypersonic Oniks fired from a Russian warship in the North Sea strikes the court building in the Hague. It can’t be shot down, I’m afraid.”

The ICC condemned Medvedev’s threats, stating, “The Presidency of the Assembly regrets these attempts to hinder international efforts to ensure accountability for acts that are prohibited under general international law.”

DW reported that Russia has opened its own criminal investigation into the ICC’s Karim Khan. Putin’s Investigative Committee alleges Khan possibly ran afoul of Russian law, accusing an innocent person of a crime and “preparing an attack on a representative of a foreign state enjoying international protection, in order to complicate international relations.”

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

‘Change is coming’: Beijing and Moscow further cement alliance, signal new world order

by Leave a Comment

Russia and Communist China further evidenced their affinities and shared geopolitical aims this week. Chinese dictator Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin met at the Kremlin Tuesday to discuss a “new era” of bilateral ties and greater cooperation on a number of issues spanning the globe.

Following the meeting, Xi told Putin, “Change is coming that hasn’t happened in 100 years. And we are driving this change together.”

New world order

The South China Morning Post reported that the two nations have pledged to collaborate on issues from Southeast Asia to the Middle East and Latin America, likely contesting American supremacy in the process.

While shoring up strength in Asia, in part through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Russia and China will also work together on promoting Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, which permits China to extend its power and influence throughout the developing world.

Through its BRI, China helps poorer nations build ports, rail lines, and telecommunications networks, as well as secure financing. Since this assistance is usually unaffordable by design, the BRI transforms countries into politically malleable debtors.

Russia lauded China’s “objective and unbiased position” as it pertains to the war on Ukraine, noting that Moscow and Beijing “are opposed to any states and their blocs damaging the legitimate security interests of other states in order to obtain military, political and other advantages,” reported Reuters.

This remark is likely a knock not just against NATO in Eastern Europe but against U.S.-led efforts to protect Taiwan from Chinese invasion.

The joint statement also intimated that China is taking on a greater role as an international peacemaker, while it simultaneously hounds dissenters across the world, interferes in foreign elections, engages in brazen espionage campaigns, and grows its military.

Russia indicated it welcomed “China’s readiness to play a positive role in a political-diplomatic settlement of the Ukrainian crisis.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry apparatchik Wang Wenbin claimed this week that China has “no selfish motives on the Ukraine issue, has not stood idly by … or taken the opportunity to profit itself,” reported the Associated Press.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that China has sold Russia over $12 million in drones and drone parts since the invasion of Ukraine, ensuring a “steady supply” of equipment to the front lines.

“What China has done boils down to one word, that is, to promote peace talks,” added Wang, who also accused the U.S. of “fanning the flames” of conflict.

Signaling a power shift in the Middle East, Xi and Putin also suggested they supported the sovereignty and independence of Syria and Libya and were committed to building a security framework for the region.

The U.S. still has nearly 1,000 troops in Syria, most of them sharing bases with Syrian Democratic Forces in the north, reported Stars and Stripes.

Prior to China’s latest commitment to challenging America by proxy in the region, Russia was already doing so, engaging in what Gen. Michael Kurilla, CENTCOM’S commander, has called “unsafe and unprofessional behavior.”

Russia has been harassing U.S. troops in Syria by buzzing their locations with armed ground attack aircraft, reported Task and Purpose.

In another hypocritical knock against the U.S., Xi and Putin denounced “interference in the internal affairs of other countries in the region.”

While contesting American influence in the Middle East, the joint statement also indicated Russia and China were keen on greater involvement in the the Caribbean and Latin America.

In November, Xi told his Cuban counterpart that China intended to “strengthen coordination and cooperation in international and regional affairs” with the Caribbean nation.

The two will “go hand in hand down the road of building socialism with each’s own characteristics,” said Xi.

Xi’s visit to the Kremlin Tuesday was the first time the leader of a major world power visited Moscow since Russia invaded Ukraine. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it amounted to “diplomatic cover for Russia to continue to commit” war crimes.
The Daily Mail reported that following the meeting, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu underscored the the world was just “steps” away from nuclear holocaust.

“Another step has been taken, and there are fewer and fewer left,” said Shoigu.

Russia and Xi’s quest for Chinese hegemony

David Lewis, professor of international relations at the University of Exeter, noted in 2019 that historically, “attempts to reorient Russian policy toward Asia have often sought to compensate for worsening relations with the West.”

Lewis suggested that Putin’s “pivot to the East” risked Russia becoming China’s junior, dependent partner.

Bobo Lo, a former Australian diplomat, noted in October 2021 that following its annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia was prompted to turn to China to “fill the technological gap left by the withdrawal of Western companies in Russia. … And Chinese investment in technology has been absolutely critical to the realization of Russia’s Arctic LNG projects.”

Tensions between Russia and the West have since only worsened, pushing Moscow into Beijing’s lap, even at the risk of Russia becoming a junior partner, or what Harry Kazianis characterized in the New York Post as “the biggest vassal state in modern history.”

According to the 2022 U.S. National Security Strategy, China and Russia “are increasingly aligned with each other but the challenges they pose are, in important ways, distinct. We will prioritize maintaining an enduring competitive edge over [China] while constraining a still profoundly dangerous Russia.”

TheBlaze previously reported that the Chinese foreign minister threatened “conflict and confrontation” earlier this month if the U.S. doesn’t change course as it pertains to its Chinese “containment and suppression” strategy.

Qin Gang, the genocidal communist regime’s new foreign minister, criticized American efforts to outcompete China, claiming that “in reality, the U.S. side’s so-called competition is all-out containment and suppression, a zero-sum game where you die and I live.”

While Qin contended that the U.S. has approached competition with China with a “zero-sum” mentality, a 2021 Pentagon report indicated this may be projection.

The report noted that the CCP’s aim is to “achieve ‘the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’ by 2049 to match or surpass U.S. global influence and power, displace U.S. alliances and security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region, and revise the international order to be more advantageous to Beijing’s authoritarian system.”

Xi stated in October at the opening ceremony of the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th National Congress, “Get the house in good repair before rain comes, and prepare to undergo the major tests of high winds and waves, and even perilous, stormy seas.”

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Xi Jinping in Russia: China Will ‘Stand Guard over the World Order’

by Leave a Comment

Russian leader Vladimir Putin lavished praise on visiting Chinese dictator Xi Jinping on Monday as Xi began his visit to Moscow.

While Xi’s public statements upon arrival were mostly about the growing partnership between China and Russia, Putin played his part as the junior partner in the new axis of tyranny, gushing over the Chinese leader and promising “clarification” for why Putin made things awkward for Beijing by invading Ukraine.

Reuters quoted Putin rhapsodizing over Xi’s amazing leadership qualities, and very delicately explaining why his government has not rushed to embrace the vague “peace plan” China is touting as a towering accomplishment of global diplomacy:

Russia is open to a politico-diplomatic settlement of the Ukrainian crisis. However, back in April 2022, the peace talks were by no means terminated by us. The future of the peace process depends solely on the readiness for a serious conversation, taking into account the prevailing geopolitical realities.

I met Comrade Xi Jinping in March 2010, when he came to Moscow at the head of a representative Chinese delegation. Our first meeting was very businesslike and at the same time sincere and friendly. This style of communication personally impresses me deeply. I know that China attaches great importance to friendship and human relationships. It is no coincidence that the sage Confucius said: ‘Isn’t it a joy when a friend comes from afar!’ We in Russia also highly appreciate these qualities, for us a true friend is like a brother. In this, our peoples are very similar.

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with China’s President Xi Jinping at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 20, 2023. (SERGEI KARPUKHIN/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images)

Putin sang from China’s playbook about how Western notions of human rights and international good behavior are just a scam to keep the rising authoritarian powers of the world under control:

The ‘collective West’ clings more and more desperately to archaic dogmas, to its elusive dominance, putting the fate of entire states and peoples at stake. The course pursued by the United States of dual containment of Russia and China, as well as all those who do not succumb to American dictates, is becoming more acute and assertive. The architecture of international security and cooperation is being dismantled.

The Kremlin said Putin would offer Xi “exhaustive clarifications” on Russia’s plans for Ukraine, giving the Chinese dictator a “first-hand view of the current moment from the Russian side.”

One Year Anniversary of War in Ukraine:

Volodymyr Zelensky via Storyful

This seems like a polite way for Putin to tell Xi that China’s “12-point peace plan” is not good enough to end the fighting in Ukraine. Putin claimed he has “thoroughly studied” China’s proposals and was prepared to discuss them with Xi, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov flat-out dodged questions about if China would be welcomed as a peacemaker and intermediary between Russia and Ukraine’s supporters in the West.

Peskov would say only that China is wasting its time attempting to mediate because the U.S. is “sticking to its position, which is aimed at further provoking the conflict, preventing any decrease in the intensity of hostilities and pumping weapons into Ukraine.”

The Associated Press

Destroyed Russian tanks and armoured vehicles are on display near the St. Michael’s Cathedral in downtown Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, March 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Kravchenko)

Xi is clearly still hoping to build on momentum from the China-brokered rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, perhaps hoping that China could cement its position as the new dominant global power by negotiating an end to Putin’s Ukraine war while the Biden administration glares sullenly from the sidelines.

Xi said when he landed in Moscow that his regime is ready to “stand guard over the world order based on international law” and “resolutely defend the U.N.-centric international system,” which seems like a hollow boast for a leader who refuses to denounce an invasion the U.N. has resoundingly condemned on several occasions over the past year.

The Associated Press

U.S. President Joe Biden, right, stands with Chinese President Xi Jinping before a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit meeting on November 14, 2022, in Bali, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

It is also darkly comical for Xi to boast of his respect for “the unity of the world community’s views” when the International Criminal Court (ICC) swore out a warrant for Putin’s arrest as a war criminal three days ago — and Xi’s Russian partner not only ignored the action but opened a sham “criminal investigation” of the ICC. 

For their part, the Ukrainians have signaled a willingness to accept China at the negotiating table, perhaps even at the head seat, but only if Beijing modifies its sketchy “peace plan” to require that Russia vacates Ukrainian territory.

“The formula for the successful implementation of China’s ‘Peace Plan’. The first and main point is the capitulation or withdrawal of the Russian occupation troops,” Ukrainian national security secretary Oleksiy Danilov said on Monday.

Russia Now Confiscating Passports From Public Officials to Prevent Defections: British Intel

by Leave a Comment

Russia is taking passports from state industry employees and “increasingly disaffected” public officials to prevent them from fleeing abroad, the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) has said.

Russian officials and state company workers are “increasingly disaffected” and are now considered a flight risk by the government which is subjecting them to “increasingly severe foreign travel restrictions”, the MOD had said in their frequent Ukraine war intelligence update.

These extreme moves are necessary to “prevent the flight or defection of increasingly disaffected officials”, the MOD claimed, noting some have “likely had to forfeit their passports… Employees closer to the centre of power face more severe restrictions; Kremlin officials are banned from all international leisure travel.”

The intelligence update suggested these restrictions could continue to tighten with time and will come to encompass a wider group of state employees.

The move to prevent defections does not, perhaps, auger well for the levels of support for Putin’s prosecution of his war against Ukraine, even at the top of Russian society from which Kremlin officials will be drawn. The British MOD compares the development to moves by Russia during the Cold War, when travel between the communist nations of the Soviet Union for work and leisure was possible for many, but going outside was considerably more difficult.

The claims by the UK MOD follow similar reports on the passport crackdown in independent Russian-language media last week, with reports citing an investigation claiming that civil servants with access to state secrets had been asked to hand over their passports to state security for “safe keeping”. Those who refused, it is claimed, were given the option to resign their positions.

In other cases, it is alleged, that lower-level employees in Russian state companies may not have their passports confiscated, if they make a request to take a foreign holiday outside of Russia-ally states, they simply have their time off request turned down. It is claimed the most recent crackdown — similar restrictions, though less severe, have been in place since Russia annexed the Crimea in 2014 — after a Russian politician went on holiday to Mexico earlier this year, causing a scandal in Russia.

The move to snatch passports from government officials is strangely at odds with the eagerness the Russian state has shown to give out passports in Ukraine, however. As part of a push to colonise newly occupied areas, officials issue Russian passports to Ukrainian citizens in what has been described as a “fast track” system. By February 2022 some 720,000 people had been given paperwork in this way, it was claimed.

Putin Troll? Russia Claims Sanctions Means it is ‘Insured’ Against Western Banking Crisis

by Leave a Comment

The Western sanctions levied against Moscow over the war in Ukraine have insulated the Russian financial system from any potential impact of a possible banking crisis, the Kremlin has claimed.

Amid warnings of another global financial crisis in the wake of the failure of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) — the largest bank to collapse since the 2008 crisis — Russia says they believe the sanctions imposed by the United States, United Kingdom, the European Union, among others, have effectively “insured” the Russian economy from negative impacts of the burgeoning banking crisis.

Whether based in fact or not, the comments certainly resemble gloating or ‘trolling’ of the West as anxiety builds over the banking system.

Top Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday, according to the Russian state news TASS agency: “Our banking system has certain connections with some segments of the international financial system, but it is mostly under illegal restrictions from the collective West.”

But Peskov added: “We are, to a certain extent, insured against the negative impact of the crisis that is now unfolding overseas,” suggesting that he believes Russia may fair better than other countries tied into the Western banking system.

Just days after the invasion of Ukraine last February, the European Union in cooperation with the United States, announced sanctions to ban major Russian banks from SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a Belgium-based financial service that allows for banks around the world to conduct transactions quickly and reliably, with trillions being transferred across the system every year.

The ban initially caused chaos for the Russian economy and banking system, with the Ruble currency collapsing as millions of concerned Russians tried to withdraw their money from Russian banks. However, despite the early turmoil, the Russian currency ultimately rebounded to on par with pre-war levels, with the currency being propped up, in part, by Moscow’s ability to continue to sell its energy — albeit at a discount — to willing buyers such as India and Communist China.

The Kremlin has also been instrumental in attempting to use the BRICs alliance of emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) to establish an alternative currency to challenge the U.S. dollar, which has been the dominant global currency since the Second World War.

A key part of this strategy appears to be to woo bitter arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran into joining the alliance, which would threaten the ability of the U.S. currency to function as the so-called ‘petrodollar’.

Should the BRICs nations join forces with Saudi Arabia and possibly Iran and threaten the petrodollar it may post dangers for the U.S. economy, as there could be dumping of dollars on world markets leading to high inflation.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka