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RUSSIAN DENVER / HORIZON
4
By Lidia Kelly
July 4 Message From Putin to Obama: Let’s Have Better Ties
BY NATALIYA VASILYEVA
The Associated Press
Russian President Vladimir
Putin said Monday in a July
Fourth message to President
Barack Obama that he hopes ties
between the two countries will
get back on track.
Relations between Moscow
and Washington hit a post-Cold
War low in 2014, when Russia
annexed Ukraine’s Crimean
Peninsula and threw its weight
behind separatists in eastern
Ukraine. The Kremlin, however,
has recently sought rapprochement
with the United States.
In the Independence Day
message released by the Kremlin,
Putin recalled the history of
Russia-U.S. ties, saying that at
one time the two countries were
able to solve «the most difficult
international problems to the
benefit of both our nations and
all humankind.» Putin expressed
hope that this experience will
help the two countries get back
to working together.
Elsewhere in Moscow, a youth
wing of the ruling United Russia
party staged an impromptu exhibit
on a central square to condemn
U.S. military involvement
in other countries. The Young
Guard activists put up easels
with the portraits and quotes of
former world leaders that the
activists claim were toppled by
the United States, like Ukrainian
President Viktor Yanukovych
or Libyan President Moammar
Gadhafi.
«Under its current leadership,
the United States has become a
parasite state that attacks other
Russia’s Baltic outpost digs in for standoff with NATO
(R) – On the curbside outside
the civilian airport in Kaliningrad,
Russia’s Baltic Sea outpost,
a group of about 20 servicemen
in Russian navy uniforms lined
up earlier this month, waiting for
a bus to take them to their base.
«We are an additional reinforcement,»
one of the young
men, who said he and his colleagues
had flown in that day,
told Reuters as they waited on
the rain-soaked tarmac. He gave
no further details.
Russia and NATO are each
building up their military capability
across eastern Europe,
spurred by the conflict in
Ukraine which has prompted
officials on both sides to talk of
the risk of a new, Cold War-style
confrontation.
For Russia, a strategic centerpiece
is here in Kaliningrad.
A relic of the Soviet Union, it is
a small piece of Russian territory
sandwiched between NATO
members Poland and Lithuania,
allowing the Kremlin to project
its military power into the alliance’s
northern flank.
During a three-day visit by
Reuters earlier this month, there
was ample visible evidence of
Russia enhancing its military
presence.
Trucks moved military equipment
from a port to locations inland,
small groups of servicemen
flew in, work was under way to
boost security near one base and
extensive construction was taking
place at another base housing
a military radar system.
Reuters was able to see only
a glimpse of what the Russian
military is doing in Kaliningrad.
Much of the region is off-limits
to foreigners without a special
permit and at one point men in
civilian clothes ordered photos
of military infrastructure deleted.
The Russian defense ministry
did not respond to questions
about its deployments in Kaliningrad.
But much of the activity tallied
with what military analysts
and Western diplomats say Russia
is doing: preparing to station
new missiles in Kaliningrad and
build a web of anti-aircraft systems
that could challenge NATO
aircraft over the Baltic states and
parts of Poland.
Russia’s military build-up will
be on the agenda when leaders
of NATO member states meet
in Warsaw on July 8 for an alliance
summit. Russia says it has
been forced to respond because
NATO is drawing closer to its
borders.
«When it comes to threats in
the (Kaliningrad) area, indeed
we can talk of an increase in the
intensity of Russia’s aggression in
recent days,» Poland’s Defence
Minister Antoni Macierewicz
told Reuters.
«These threats have a very important,
dangerous role, always
present in NATO’s thinking –
these are anti-access activities,
which are a serious threat to the
alliance.»
RADAR STATION
Kaliningrad was born after
World War Two when Soviet
troops occupied the German
port of Koenigsberg.
The war left most of the
city bombed to rubble. The
remaining German population
was expelled and the city
annexed to the Soviet Union,
resettled with Russians and
N26/855 от 07.08.2016 e-mail: info@gorizont.com Simply the best
renamed Kaliningrad in honor
of a Soviet leader who died in
1946. After the breakup of the
Soviet Union in 1991 it became
a Russian exclave, with
no land borders with other
parts of Russia.
According to NATO planners,
Russia is using Kaliningrad
to pursue what is known as an
anti-access/area denial (A2/AD)
strategy for surrounding areas.
That involves a strategic layering
of surface-to-air missiles
to block off NATO’s air access, if
needed, to the three Baltic states
and about a third of Poland.
Some Western officials believe
the Baltic states, which have
large ethnic Russian minorities,
could be seized by Moscow,
much as Russia took control of
Ukraine’s Crimea region two
years ago. Moscow says it has no
such intention, but needs to beef
up its defenses because of NATO
buildup in the Baltic.
Unlike Ukraine, the Baltic
states are part of NATO, which
means the alliance would be
bound to act to protect them
from any threat to their territory.
A European Union diplomat
who focuses on security said
Russia’s strategy for adding anti-air
capability in Kaliningrad
«will only progress – the process
is centralized and well-coordinated.»
«And the
Russians spend
the greatest
amount of financial
resources
on those capabilities,»
the
diplomat said.
«The question
is what is it intended
for?»
The biggest
construction
works seen by
Reuters were at
the Pionersky
Radar Station,
on Kaliningrad’s
northern coast.
The radar itself,
whose range
covers all of Europe
and which gives early warning
of air attack, became operational
in 2014.
Now, the military is expanding
the infrastructure around it.
Trucks carrying sand and gravel
could be seen driving into the
base. Dump trucks, a truckmounted
crane and an excavator
were parked nearby. Construction
workers walked in and out
of the base, some in camouflage
trousers.
«The station is strategic for
Russia, that’s where a lot of work
is going on,» said a soldier based
there.
Information posted on the
website of Russia’s Federal Agency
for Special Construction,
which carries out construction
projects for the military, said
work was underway to build barracks,
a heating plant, canteens, a
medical station, storage units, a
firefighting station, a social club
and sports facilities.
New buildings could be seen
behind the gate into the base.
Two local sources said the new
accommodation could house up
to several hundred service personnel.
Military activity could also
be observed in the region’s main
city, also called Kaliningrad.
Military trucks could be seen
emerging from the Kaliningrad
port – a civilian facility that has a
countries under any pretext,
violating their sovereignty, causing
revolutions, using military
force, killing civilians and their
destroying statehood,» activist
Denis Davydov said. «We call
on the United States on the Independence
Day not only to preserve
their own independence
but also respect the independence
of other countries.»
Putin officially is not a United
Russia member despite having
canvassed for the party in the
past. Prime Minister Dmitry
Medvedev has been recently announced
as party leader for the
upcoming parliamentary campaign.
military section – and heading to
other parts of the region.
Several of the trucks were carrying
small artillery pieces. Others
had containers on the back,
and in other cases the cargo was
concealed beneath a tarpaulin.
At a third location, near the
town of Svetlyi, a watchtower
just off the road had been renovated,
and a swathe of forest
around it had been freshly felled
to improve sight lines from the
tower.
Two local sources familiar
with the military set-up in the
region said the watchtower was
part of a chain of security to protect
a military compound near
Svetlyi that stored the arsenal of
Russia’s Baltic Fleet, headquartered
at the nearby port of Baltiysk.
MISSILE PREPARATIONS
Russia is likely to deploy the
Iskander-M ballistic missiles in
Kaliningrad within the next two
to three years, sources close to its
military have told Reuters.
That deployment is part of a
long-standing plan to modernize
Russia’s non-nuclear ballistic
missile system, but Russia is
likely to cast it as its response to
NATO’s own build-up.
In Kaliningrad, Reuters did
not see any evidence of preparations
to deploy the missiles.
However, two local sources,
one with direct knowledge of
the Baltiysk naval base, said that
the infrastructure work to house
an unspecified number of the
Iskander missiles has been completed
at the base.
Moscow’s plan for Kaliningrad
is not to flood it with troops
and firepower, but to modernize
its military infrastructure, said
Vladimir Abramov, a Kaliningrad-based
analyst who said he
believed the West and Russia
were equally to blame for their
stand-off.
«The Kaliningrad contingent
is being heavily upgraded qualitatively,
not quantitatively,» said
Abramov. «Our general staff understands
the folly of a large deployment
here.