NATO - The African Mirror

Mar

2024

Red Sea politics: why Turkey is helping Somalia defend its waters

SOMALIA and Turkey recently announced that they would expand the terms of a defence agreement first signed on 8 February 2024 to include the maritime sector. This came as tensions rose between Somalia and landlocked Ethiopia. Ethiopia is seeking access to the Red Sea through Somaliland, a breakaway state of Somalia. Federico Donelli, an international relations professor whose research covers Red Sea security and politics, puts this defence agreement into context. FEDERICO DONELLI, Assistant Professor of International Relations, University of Trieste What’s the scope of the relationship between Turkey and Somalia? Turkey’s entry into Somalia in 2011 started out as…

Mar

2024

By VLADIMIR SOLDATKIN and ANDREW OSBORN

Putin warns West of risk of nuclear war, says Moscow can strike Western targets

WORLD

PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin told Western countries they risked provoking a nuclear war if they sent troops to fight in Ukraine, warning that Moscow had the weapons to strike targets in the West. The war in Ukraine has triggered the worst crisis in Moscow's relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Putin has previously spoken of the dangers of a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia, but his nuclear warning on Thursday was one of his most explicit. Addressing lawmakers and other members of the country's elite, Putin, 71, repeated his accusation that the West was bent on…

Dec

2023

By The African Mirror

Putin says Russia has no plan to attack NATO, dismisses Biden remark as ‘nonsense’

WORLD

KREMLIN chief Vladimir Putin dismissed as complete nonsense remarks by U.S. President Joe Biden that Russia would attack a NATO country if it won the war in Ukraine, adding that Russia had no interest in fighting the NATO military alliance. The war in Ukraine has triggered the deepest crisis in Moscow's relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and Biden warned last year that a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia would trigger World War Three. In a plea to Republicans not to block further military aid earlier this month, Biden warned that if Putin was victorious over Ukraine…

Jul

2023

By ANDRIUS SYTAS

NATO flexes muscle to protect Vilnius summit near Russia, Belarus

WORLD

NATO has turned Vilnius into a fortress defended by advanced weaponry to protect U.S. President Joe Biden and other alliance leaders meeting next week only 32 km (20 miles) from Lithuania's razor-wire topped border fence with Russian ally Belarus. Sixteen NATO allies have sent a total of about 1,000 troops to safeguard the July 11-12 summit, which will take place only 151 km (94 miles) from Russia itself. Many are also providing advanced air defence systems which the Baltic states lack. "It would be more than irresponsible to have our sky unprotected as Biden and leaders of 40 countries are…

Jul

2023

By ROBERT MULLER

NATO makes membership pledge to Ukraine as Zelenskiy drums up support

WORLD

THE head of NATO said the military alliance would unite at a summit next week on how to bring Kyiv closer to joining, while Ukraine's president drummed up support for its membership bid on a tour of several NATO states. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited the Czech Republic and Slovakia a day after holding talks in Bulgaria and was due to travel to Turkey later on Friday. In Prague, he won a pledge of support for Ukraine to join NATO "as soon as the war (with Russia) is over", and in Sofia secured backing for membership "as soon as conditions allow".…

Jun

2023

By JOHN IRISH and ANDREW GRAY

Zelenskiy presses NATO bid, case for fighter jets at Europe summit

WORLD

PRESIDENT Volodymyr Zelenskiy pressed his case for Ukraine to be part of the NATO military alliance and said he was confident a coalition of countries would form to provide Kyiv with Western fighter jets and Patriot missile-defence systems. The Ukrainian leader joined a meeting of European leaders in Moldova, seeking to bolster Western solidarity and keep up the pressure for concrete support ahead of his country's expected counter-offensive against Russia's invasion. Addressing leaders at the start of the gathering, Zelenskiy asked NATO members to take a clear decision on whether to admit Ukraine and also reiterated calls for Western fighter…

Feb

2023

By The African Mirror

Putin casts war as a battle for Russia’s survival

WORLD

GUY FAULCONBRIDGE PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin cast the confrontation with the West over the Ukraine war as an existential battle for the survival of Russia and the Russian people - and said he was forced to take into account NATO's nuclear capabilities. A year since ordering the invasion of Ukraine, Putin is increasingly presenting the war as a make-or-break moment in Russian history - and saying that he believes the very future of Russia and its people is in peril. "They have one goal: to disband the former Soviet Union and its fundamental part - the Russian Federation," Putin told Rossiya…

Feb

2023

By ABBEY MAKOE

West must tone down their war cries, negotiate with Russia

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

WAR-MONGERING, threats and gung-ho diplomacy dominated a gathering of Western leaders in Germany over the past weekend during which war - instead of peace – was given yet another chance to prevail. This year’s Munich Security Conference was, predictably, dominated by the war in Ukraine and how the West can continue to shore up Kyiv’s military to “acceptable NATO levels”. The conference was a global spectacle attended by delegates from more than 100 countries. Western heads of state, accompanied by diplomats and other officials, intelligence personnel and various strategic operatives intermingled with a single mission of revising and reviewing the…

Jan

2023

By The African Mirror

Putin ally warns NATO of nuclear war if Russia is defeated in Ukraine

WORLD

GUY FAULCONBRIDGE and FELIX LIGHT AN ally of President Vladimir Putin warned NATO that a defeat of Russia in Ukraine could trigger a nuclear war, while the head of the Russian Orthodox Church said the world would end if the West tried to destroy Russia. Such apocalyptic rhetoric is intended to deter the U.S.-led NATO military alliance from getting even more involved in the war, on the eve of a meeting of Ukraine's allies to discuss sending Kyiv more weapons. But the explicit recognition that Russia might lose on the battlefield marked a rare moment of public doubt from a…

Oct

2022

By The African Mirror

Upcoming Russian nuclear exercises a challenge for the West

WORLD

PHIL STEWART WITH Russia expected to soon carry out large-scale drills of its nuclear forces as President Vladimir Putin threatens to use them, the United States and its allies will be challenged to ensure they can spot the difference between exercises and the real thing. Russia typically holds major annual nuclear exercises around this time of year, and U.S. and Western officials expect them perhaps in just days. They will likely include the test launch of ballistic missiles, U.S. officials say. But with Putin having openly threatened to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia in its unraveling invasion of Ukraine, some…