Important Takeaways:
- UK Warns It Could Restrict Arms Sales To Israel If Rafah Offensive Proceeds
- Fresh headlines Wednesday say the United Kingdom is mulling restricting arms sales to Israel if it goes ahead with its planned major offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which is packed with over a million Palestinian refugees who’ve been forcibly relocated from other parts of the Strip.
- “Further escalation of Israel’s military action in Gaza without more effort to protect civilians could put it in breach of international humanitarian law, depending on how it conducts the operation, UK officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity about internal assessments,” Bloomberg reports.
- Not only has London’s High Court recently dealt with petitions from legal advocacy groups alleging British arms sent to Israel are being used to commit war crimes (petitions which thus far have been rejected), but the UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron has just issued a letter to Netanyahu’s office calling for Israel to “stop and think seriously about the repercussions of a military offensive” on Rafah.
- The Foreign Secretary’s office wrote that “we continue to urge Israel to ensure that it limits its operations to military targets and take all possible steps to avoid harming civilians and destroying homes.” Importantly that’s when the letter emphasized that in the case of a military assault on Rafah “it is difficult to see how this could be achieved.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Russia Has Used North Korean Ballistic Missiles in Ukraine and Is Seeking Iranian Missiles, US Says
- U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russia has acquired ballistic missiles from North Korea and is seeking close-range ballistic missiles from Iran as Moscow struggles to replenish supplies for its war with Ukraine, the White House said Thursday.
- Recently declassified intelligence found that North Korea has provided Russia with ballistic missile launchers and several ballistic missiles, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. Russian forces fired at least one of those ballistic missiles into Ukraine on Dec. 30 and it landed in an open field in the Zaporizhzhia region, he said.
- Russia launched multiple North Korean ballistic missiles on Tuesday as part of an overnight attack, and the U.S. was assessing the impact, he said. The missiles have a range of about 550 miles (885 kilometers).
- S. intelligence officials believe that North Korea, in return for its arms support, wants Russia to provide it with aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, armored vehicles, ballistic missile production equipment and other advanced technologies.
- The White House in October said that North Korea delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- Russia and Ukraine just turned much of the Black Sea into a dangerous no man’s land
- On Thursday, Moscow’s defense ministry declared that “all vessels sailing in the waters of the Black Sea to Ukrainian ports will be regarded as potential carriers of military cargo,” a warning that has sent wheat prices rising.
- “Accordingly, the countries of such vessels will be considered to be involved in the Ukrainian conflict on the side Kyiv, the defense ministry said in a Wednesday statement. It added that several pockets of international water are “declared temporarily dangerous for navigation,” and vessels have been warned that there are no longer safety guarantees.
- The move from both sides comes shortly after Russia killed the crucial Black Sea grain deal, a United Nations-brokered agreement that allowed Ukraine to export food and fertilizer from several key ports to avoid a global food crisis. The Kremlin then went much further, warning it may attack any vessels it believes are bound for Ukraine, effectively turning the Black Sea into a no man’s land.
- [On the other side] Ukraine, however, went on to issue its own measures in response to Moscow’s initial escalation. Kyiv’s defense ministry said that beginning on Friday, any vessels heading to ports in mainland Russia and in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine — like in Crimea or along the Sea of Azov — may likewise be viewed as transporters of military cargo.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- The end of Ukraine aid is rapidly approaching. Reupping it won’t be easy
- The $48 billion Ukraine aid package that Congress approved in December has about $6 billion left, meaning U.S. funding for weapons and supplies could dry up by midsummer.
- The original $48 billion package approved in December included about $36 billion for the Pentagon to craft a wide range of military aid to Kyiv.
- The Biden administration has settled into a mostly regular pace of doling out several hundred million dollars every week to 10 days.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- Sy Hersh: West Knows Ukraine Weapons End Up on Black Market
- Western countries’ weapon supplies to Ukraine show no sign of abating, with Russia warning that such deliveries will only prolong the conflict.
- The West knows the weapons they deliver to Ukraine are being sold on the black market, something mainstream media has tried to hush up, US investigative journalist Seymour “Sy” Hersh has told Russian media.
- “In other words, commanders of various […] levels – often they were generals or colonels and others – were given with shipments of some weapons [and] personally [they] re-sold or retailed them back to the black or dark market,” the Pulitzer Prize-winner stressed.
- According to the journalist, the weapons included “hand missile guns” designed to down a warplane flying “at a considerable height.”
- “Where will weapons pop up? Who will bear responsibility when the materiel falls into the hands of some terrorist groups and criminal organizations?” Antonov said
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- ‘A serious problem’: Secretary of State Antony Blinken says China pondering supplying weapons to Russia. Live Ukraine updates
- Secretary of State Antony Blinken said from the Munich Security Conference that the Chinese – who a year ago declared their friendship with Russia has “no limits” – are pondering expanding their backing of Moscow, which so far has not included weapons.
- “The concern that we have now is based on information we have that they’re considering providing lethal support,” Blinken told CBS’s “Face the Nation” in an interview that aired Sunday, “and we’ve made very clear to them that that would cause a serious problem for us and in our relationship.”
- Boosting the Kremlin’s diminishing arsenal could not only stack the odds against Western-backed Ukraine but raise the specter of escalating the conflict into a world war. Russia is already getting assistance from Iran, which has supplied it explosive drones mostly used to damage Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.
- Latest Developments:
- The Netherlands is expelling several Russian diplomats it accuses of serving as spies “under diplomatic cover,” Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Wopke Hoekstra said.
- Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is requesting supporting countries that they provide fighter jet training to its pilots while debating whether to supply the aircraft.
- Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said the West should not restore normal relations with Russia until the Kremlin pays for its actions in Ukraine. “I don’t think there can be any relations as usual with a pariah state that hasn’t really given up the imperialistic goals,” Kallas said.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- UK seizes Iranian missiles in international waters with US assist
- The U.K. announced Thursday it had seized “sophisticated” Iranian missiles from smugglers in the Gulf of Oman earlier this year in what officials have pointed to as proof Tehran is supporting Houthi rebels in Yemen.
- In direct violation of a 2015 arms embargo enforced by the UN Security Council, the smugglers were found to have been carrying “dozens of packages” containing surface-to-air missiles and engines for land-attack cruise missiles.
- The embassy said, adding that 358 surface-to-air missiles and 351 land-attack cruise missiles were discovered.
- The U.S. and the U.K. have said they are committed to working together to stop Iran’s illegal smuggling of weapons to Yemen, which is the site of one of the greatest humanitarian crises in the world.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- Russia warns NATO: transport carrying weapons in Ukraine is a ‘target’
- Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the Russian military would consider NATO transport carrying weapons in Ukraine as targets to be destroyed
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Revelations 6:3-4 “ when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- Biden refuses to rule out first-strike use of US nuclear weapons under ‘extreme circumstances’ in dramatic reversal of his campaign vow after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine
- Since the Cold War, American policy has allowed for first-strike use of nuclear weapons under ‘extreme circumstances,’ such as responding to an invasion by conventional forces, or chemical or biological attacks.
- But on the campaign trail, Biden had vowed to switch to a ‘sole purpose’ doctrine, which maintains that the US would only use nuclear weapons to respond to another nation’s nuclear attack.
- As Russian forces continue their bloody assault on Ukraine, Biden is under pressure from NATO allies not to abandon the right to use nuclear weapons to deter conventional attacks.
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Matthew 24:6 “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.”
Important Takeaways:
- US: Over 130,000 Russian troops now staged outside Ukraine
- Some airlines canceled flights to the Ukrainian capital and troops there unloaded fresh shipments of weapons from NATO
- President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke to President Joe Biden for about an hour, insisting that Ukrainians had the country under “safe and reliable protection” against feared attack by a far stronger Russian military, aides said afterward. The White House said both agreed to keep pushing both deterrence and diplomacy to try to stave off a feared Russian military offensive.
- S. and European intelligence findings in recent days have sparked worries that Russia may try to target a scheduled Ukrainian military exercise slated for Tuesday in eastern Ukraine to launch such a “false-flag operation,” according to two people familiar with the matter. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about it.
- The United States was pulling most of its staff from the embassy in Kyiv and urged all American citizens to leave Ukraine immediately. Britain joined other European nations in telling its citizens to leave.
- Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter conflict since 2014, when Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly leader was driven from office by a popular uprising. Moscow responded by annexing the Crimean Peninsula and then backing a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, where fighting has killed over 14,000 people.
- S. officials in recent days that Russia could be planning to invade as soon as midweek.
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