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Russia’s Continuing Ties to Southeast Asia—and How They Factor Into the Ukraine War: Part 1

Longstanding ties and weapons sales to a number of countries in Southeast Asia insulate Russia from ASEAN criticism over Ukraine war.

Blog Post by Joshua Kurlantzick

March 8, 2022 4:08 pm (EST)

In recent years, Russia, which had not had much of a strategic or economic presence in Southeast Asia, has become a more involved player once again. It has cultivated close ties with Myanmar, regularly selling weapons to Myanmar and cultivating strategic ties. Particularly after the February 2021 Myanmar coup, when even Beijing seemed to have doubts about how the coup had destabilized the country and led to potential risks to China’s investments, Russia stood strongly behind the junta. Russian officials participated in a prominent military ceremony in Myanmar after the coup, Russian continued to supply large numbers of arms to the junta, even as it launched a scorched earth policy against coup opponents and ethnic minority groups, and the Kremlin invited junta leader Min Aung Hlaing to Moscow in June (before he had any major visits to Beijing), sending a strong signal of support to Naypyidaw.

07.04.2022 – Press release

1. We, the G7 Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, and the High Representative of the European Union, condemn in the strongest terms the atrocities committed by the Russian armed forces in Bucha and a number of other Ukrainian towns. Haunting images of civilian deaths, victims of torture, and apparent executions, as well as reports of sexual violence and destruction of civilian infrastructure show the true face of Russia’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine and its people. The massacres in the town of Bucha and other Ukrainian towns will be inscribed in the list of atrocities and severe violations of international law, including international humanitarian law and human rights, committed by the aggressor on Ukrainian soil.
2. In the presence of the Foreign Minister of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, we expressed today our heart-felt solidarity with the Ukrainian people and our deepest condolences to the victims of this war and their families. We underline our unwavering support for Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders and express our readiness to assist further, including with military equipment and financial means, to allow Ukraine to defend itself against Russia’s aggression and to rebuild Ukraine.
3. We underscore that those responsible for these heinous acts and atrocities, including any attacks targeting civilians and destruction of civilian infrastructure, will be held accountable and prosecuted. We welcome and support the ongoing work to investigate and gather evidence of these and other potential war crimes and crimes against humanity, including by the ICC Office of the Prosecutor, the Commission of Inquiry mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, the Human Rights Monitoring Mission Ukraine of the OHCHR, and the OSCE’s mission of experts mandated by OSCE Participating States. We will provide investigative support, technical experts and funding. We will continue to promote accountability for all those complicit in Moscow’s war of choice, including the Lukashenka regime in Belarus. We are convinced that now is the time to suspend Russian membership of the Human Rights Council.
4. Russia must immediately comply with the legally binding order of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to suspend the military operations that it commenced on 24 February 2022 in the territory of Ukraine. Further, we urge Russia to withdraw completely its military forces and equipment from the entire territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders.
5. We warn against any threat or use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. We recall Russia’s obligations under international treaties of which it is a party, and which protect us all. Any use by Russia of such a weapon would be unacceptable and result in severe consequences. We condemn Russia’s unsubstantiated claims and false allegations against Ukraine, a respected member of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention that is in compliance with its legal obligations under those instruments. We express concern about other countries and actors that have amplified Russia’s disinformation campaign.
6. We express our gravest concern with Russia forcefully seizing control of nuclear facilities, and other violent actions in connection with a number of nuclear facilities, nuclear and other radioactive material, which have caused and continue to pose serious and direct threats to the safety and security of these facilities and their civilian personnel, significantly raising the risk of a nuclear accident or incident, which endangers the population of Ukraine, neighbouring States and the international community.
7. We reiterate our demand that Russia upholds its obligations under international humanitarian law and desists from further blatant abuses. The Russian leadership must immediately provide for safe, rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access and make safe passages work, enabling humanitarian aid to be delivered to besieged cities and civilians to reach safety.
8. We commit to supporting the Government of Ukraine’s humanitarian coordination structure and to disburse humanitarian support quickly. We ask others to join in this effort. A humanitarian push including more funding is urgently needed for Ukraine and beyond as Russia’s ruthless war and actions are having massive consequences on global commodity and food prices. The resulting rise in food insecurity is being felt disproportionately by the most vulnerable. We stand in solidarity with our partners across the world who have to bear the rising price of President Putin’s unilateral choice to wage war in Europe. We will make coherent use of all instruments and funding mechanisms to address food insecurity, keep markets open, and build resilience in the agriculture sector on all continents. We will actively counter Russia’s narrative that Western sanctions have caused the rise in global food prices and call it out for what it is: a blatant lie.
9. In light of Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine, carried out with Belarus’ complicity, we have already adopted unprecedented and coordinated economic and financial sanctions against Russia that impose a significant cost on its economy. We stress the necessity of further increasing the economic pressure inflicted on Russia and the Lukashenka regime in Belarus. Together with international partners, the G7 will sustain and increase pressure on Russia by imposing coordinated additional restrictive measures to effectively thwart Russian abilities to continue the aggression against Ukraine. We will work together to stop any attempts to circumvent sanctions or to aid Russia by other means. We are taking further steps to expedite plans to reduce our reliance on Russian energy, and will work together to this end.
10. We commend those neighbouring states to Ukraine that demonstrated great solidarity and humanity by welcoming Ukrainian refugees and third country nationals affected by the conflict. We confirm the need for increased international assistance and will continue to support these countries, including by receiving more refugees. President Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine has already forced millions of civilians, especially women, children, and elderly, to flee their homes. Over 4.2 million crossed the border to other countries, almost all of them to the EU and the Republic of Moldova. We reiterate our concern about the risk to this vulnerable population, including the risk of human trafficking  and our commitment to protect these refugees.
11. Ministers paid special attention to the Republic of Moldova, which hosts the largest group of refugees from Ukraine per capita. The Ministers agreed to further coordinate their assistance for Moldova’s humanitarian response and long-term resilience following the Moldova Support Conference co-hosted by Germany, France and Romania on 5 April in Berlin and the establishment of the Moldova Support Platform.

March 11, 2022 CSIS

Southeast Asian nations have been rather subdued in their responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, although all but two—Vietnam and Laos—voted in the United Nations in early March to condemn Moscow’s aggression. The fighting erupted thousands of miles away, but the effects, particularly of the sanctions imposed by the United States, Europe, Japan, Australia, and others, will still have economic reverberations in Southeast Asia.

Overall, Russia and Ukraine are relatively minor economic players in Southeast Asia, with Russia making up just over 0.64 percent of global trade with the region while Ukraine accounts for just 0.11 percent, according to ASEANstats. But Moscow’s Economic Development Ministry has said that it will work to boost trade and economic links with Asia to balance sanctions.

Liên Xô và Nga đã 4 lần xin gia nhập khối Nato nhưng đều không được khối này chấp nhận.

Mời quý vị truy cập thêm website http://www.moquocte.com của VN Youtuber để cập nhật thêm các tin tức quốc tế và thế giới nói về Việt Nam khác.

US State Department – Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations

LETTER FROM PRESIDENT BIDEN

READ THE 2022 PROLOGUE

• Download Prologue (PDF)

READ THE STRATEGY

• Download Strategy (PDF)

ACCESS THE FACT SHEET

Message from the Secretary of State

The United States is committed to strengthening global resiliency and democratic renewal, and promoting peaceful, self-reliant nations that become strong economic and security partners capable of addressing shared challenges. To that end, the U.S. Government is moving forward in the spirit of partnership with Haiti, Libya, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, and five countries in the Coastal West Africa region (Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, and Togo) to implement the ten-year U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability.

The names of the places that families are fleeing create a map of human suffering.

By Keith Gessen

newyorker – March 29, 2022

In Lviv, on the western edge of Ukraine, most of the time the war felt very far away. Its shadow appeared, fleetingly, in the beautiful old cavernous Greek Catholic churches throughout the city, where people filled the pews and wept, and the priests, who perform the Byzantine liturgy in Ukrainian, called for God to protect the nation from its enemies; and in the basements and hallways and underground parking garages where people sheltered during the frequent air-raid sirens, most often at night; and in the old city after 8 p.m., when the curfew was approaching and all the many small restaurants and cafés closed; and in the many schools and nonprofits that had been turned into shelters for the people fleeing the bombing in the east of the country; but, still, most of the time, during the fourth week of the war, people in Lviv followed the bloodshed in the same way that everyone else in the world did: on television.

The one place in Lviv where the war was never far away was the train station. Built in the early twentieth century, when Lviv was a cosmopolitan, multiethnic city called Lemberg and was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it is a grand, attractive building two miles from the old town. It has also been, since the start of the invasion, as the Lviv-based sociologist Alona Liasheva put it to me, “a hell on earth.” It was the westernmost hub of the Ukrainian train system, in a country that still relies primarily on trains; most of the three million people who had fled abroad in the past weeks had passed through it, as did the hundreds of thousands who had fled westward but remained in Ukraine, including in Lviv.

Continue reading The one place in Lviv where the war is never far away →

YÊN BA 26/3/2022 6:00 GMT+7

TTCT – Để hiểu được cuộc xung đột ở Ukraine hiện tại, không thể không nhìn lại một lịch sử rất dài, ít ra là từ những ngày ngay sau cuộc chiến lớn gần nhất ở châu Âu.

Ngày 5-3-1946, trong bài phát biểu tại Đại học Westminster, bang Missouri, Mỹ, Thủ tướng Anh Winston Churchill, người kiên định sự nghi kỵ không giới hạn với nhà lãnh đạo Liên Xô Joseph Stalin (ngược lại cũng thế), tuyên bố: “Từ Stettin ở Baltic tới Trieste ở Adriatic, một bức màn sắt đã buông xuống trên khắp lục địa”.

Continue reading NATO: Lịch sử một tổ chức quân sự →

US Department of State

2022 Hong Kong Policy Act Report

REPORT

BUREAU OF EAST ASIAN AND PACIFIC AFFAIRS

MARCH 31, 2022Share

Consistent with Sections 205 and 301 of the United States-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992 (the “Act”) (22 U.S.C. §§ 5725 and 5731) and section 7043(f)(3)(C) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2022 (Div. K, P.L. 117-103), the Department submits this report and the enclosed certification on conditions in Hong Kong from March 2021 through March 2022 (“covered period”).

Summary

The Department of State assesses that during the covered period, the central government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) took new actions directly threatening U.S. interests in Hong Kong and that are inconsistent with the Basic Law and the PRC’s obligation pursuant to the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984 (Sino-British Joint Declaration) to allow Hong Kong to enjoy a high degree of autonomy.  In the Certification of Hong Kong’s Treatment under United States Laws, the Secretary of State certified Hong Kong does not warrant treatment under U.S. law in the same manner as U.S. laws were applied to Hong Kong before July 1, 1997.

 

This week, as Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine, we revisit this piece by Oliver Bullough from 2018. For decades, politicians have welcomed the super-rich with open arms. Now they’re finally having second thoughts. But is it too late?

 theguardian – Fri 4 Mar 2022 10.00 GMT

Listen here

Read the text version here

Continue reading How Britain let Russia hide its dirty money – podcast →

To understand the tragedy of this war, it is worth going back beyond the last few weeks and months, and even beyond Vladimir Putin

For the hardline conservatives ruling Poland and Hungary, the transition from communism to liberal democracy was a mirage. They fervently believe a more decisive break with the past is needed to achieve national liberation. By Nicholas Mulder

theguardian

Written by Nicholas Mulder, read by Tanya Cubric and produced by Esther Opoku-Gyeni

Sat 21 Aug 2021 12.00 BST – Last modified on Mon 23 Aug 2021 09.19 BST

Listen here

• Read the text version here

Continue reading The revolt against liberalism: what’s driving Poland and Hungary’s nativist turn? – podcast →

Soha –  Đại sứ Nguyễn Quang Khai – 24/03/2022 20:12

Ngày 20/3 năm nay, người Iraq tưởng nhớ lại 19 năm ngày liên quân 49 nước do Mỹ cầm đầu xâm lược đất nước của họ vào năm 2003, lật đổ chế độ của Tổng thống Saddam Hussein.

Rạng sáng ngày 20/3/2003, cuộc tấn công mở màn bằng các cuộc không kích nhắm vào toà nhà chính phủ và bộ máy lãnh đạo Iraq. Tổng thống Mỹ George W. Bush tuyên bố chiến dịch “Tự do cho Iraq – Operation Iraqi Freedom” bắt đầu. Các lực lượng bộ binh của Mỹ và Anh được máy bay, xe tăng, đại bác… yểm trợ từ Kuwait vượt biên giới tràn vào lãnh thổ Iraq.

Iraq bị đánh hội đồng. Hội đồng Bảo an Liên hợp quốc không có cuộc họp nào, không có lệnh trừng phạt được áp đặt, không có nghị quyết lên án Mỹ và đồng minh.

Continue reading 19 năm cuộc chiến Iraq: Kế hoạch loại bỏ Saddam Hussein được chuẩn bị “bài bản” thế nào? →