US Secretary of State Blinken Heads to Eastern Europe

U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken left Thursday for eastern Europe to hold meetings with NATO allies and other European leaders in an effort to find a diplomatic solution to the situation in Ukraine.

In a release, State Department spokesman Ned Price said Blinken will first travel to Brussels for a NATO Foreign Ministerial, as well as meet with his European Union counterparts for the G-7 Ministerial Meeting.

Blinken travels to Poland on Saturday for meetings with Polish leaders, including Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau, “to discuss further security assistance in the face of Russia’s continued aggression.”

Price said the secretary of state also will thank Poland for generously welcoming hundreds of thousands of displaced persons from Ukraine and discuss how the United States can augment humanitarian assistance efforts for those fleeing Putin’s war.

Later Saturday, Blinken is scheduled to travel to Moldova to meet with President Maia Sandu, Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita, and Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu to discuss Moldova’s efforts to receive and assist refugees, and underscore U.S. support for that effort.

From March 6 through March 8, Blinken travels to Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia to meet with leaders in those countries to discuss joint efforts to support Ukraine, strengthen NATO’s deterrence and defense, and promote democracy and human rights.

At a news briefing Wednesday, Blinken said intensive diplomacy with allies and partners continues with the aim of ending the crisis in Ukraine.

He said, “If there are diplomatic steps that we can take that the Ukrainian government believes would be helpful, we’re prepared to take them — even as we continue to support Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.”

Police frustrate ELN terrorist plan against station in eastern Cali - Cali - Colombia

Everything indicated that the Eln was going to launch a terrorist plan with an explosive attack against a police station in the east of Cali.

According to the Metropolitan Police, in the Desepaz neighborhood area, in commune 21 and one of the most violent in the city, uniformed officers found hidden explosives, including shrapnel and black powder.

(Also read: Debate over the causes of death of the murdered athlete’s brother)

Apparently, they were going to be detonated on the night of this Wednesday, February 23.

behind the fact would be ‘Chigüiro’, who is the leader of the ‘Ernesto Che Guevara’ front, a group that has influence in the Restrepo municipality, in the north of Valle del Cauca.

According to authorities and the National Government, the corridor between the north of Cauca and the south of the Valley, but in the vicinity of the Cauca River, as the northeastern, eastern and southeastern limits of Cali, is one of the key areas to dismantle the illegal business. of drug trafficking.

(Also: Blow to a network of scams with lots in the east and hillsides of Cali)

It is one hour from the so-called ‘marijuana and coca triangle’, between the north of Cauca and the Valley, from where thousands of tons of narcotic drugs enter and leave, produced in four enclaves of a blood-soaked market that passes through these departments and He arrives in Narino.

The Cauca River is one of the main corridors along which organized armed groups are based in alliance with drug traffickers.

In this step between the two departments there is an entire chain financed with millions of dollars and pesos from organized crime to transport the hallucinogens to Cali, a task for which they have two route options.

(You may be interested: In Cali you must continue to use the mask in open spaces)

One of the drug routes that will be monitored by river and land reaches Santander de Quilichao, passing through Corinto and Miranda (north of Cauca) to then go to Florida and Pradera, in Valle del Cauca.

In this eastern area with commune 21 and those that make up the District of Aguablanca, communes 13, 14 and 15, as well as the western slope or side, in the Mayor’s Office of Cali They have detected forced recruitment of minors by organized armed groups with drug trafficking and criminal gangs. Therefore, authorities offer rewards of up to 50 million pesos to find those who are committing such recruitment.

Likewise, the Minister of Defense, Diego Molano, had announced at the end of last January, a river patrol on the Cauca River to stop the actions of these armed groups and more operations with 6,500 police and 2,300 soldiers.

Meanwhile, in the development of four search and raid procedures in commune 13 of Cali, the Metropolitan Police captured members of the ‘Los del polvero’ gang, a dangerous criminal structure dedicated to committing homicides, thefts and forced displacement in this part of the capital of the Valley.

In total, eight people were captured by court order, of which two will respond to the criminal responsibility system for Children and Adolescents for having committed the acts when they were minors.

A minor under 16 years of age was also apprehended, another person was arrested in flagrante delicto, and charges were filed against five others who are already deprived of their liberty.

“These criminal actors were known in the criminal world as ‘Gomelita’, in charge of planning criminal acts; ‘Blanquillo’, second in the structure, and dedicated to the commission of homicides in the contract killing modality; ‘Armandito’, ‘Cacuero ‘ and ‘Léyder’. Among all those captured, there are 32 judicial annotations for crimes related to homicide, theft, drug trafficking, conspiracy to commit a crime and illegal possession of firearms,” ​​reported the commander of the Cali Metropolitan Police, General Juan Carlos Leon.

CALI

US lawmakers Condemn Russian Incursion into Eastern Ukraine

Washington — 

U.S. lawmakers stepped up calls Tuesday for sanctions against Russia, urging the Biden administration to act swiftly to penalize Russian President Vladimir Putin for recognizing the occupied regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine as independent states.

Despite significant bipartisan unity for deterring Russian aggression in Ukraine, Democrats and Republicans have struggled to agree on how to sequence sanctions to discourage and penalize Putin for incursions into the independent eastern European nation.

But Putin’s televised national speech Monday characterizing Ukraine as historically part of Russia and “never a true nation” drew swift condemnation from top U.S. lawmakers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, chairs a Security Council meeting in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Feb. 21, 2022.

“Vladimir Putin’s illegal recognition of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics is an act of unprovoked aggression and a brazen violation of international law,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez said in a statement.

“This illegal recognition is an attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty. To be clear, if any additional Russian troops or proxy forces cross into Donbas, the Biden administration and our European allies must not hesitate in imposing crushing sanctions,” Menendez continued.

An estimated 150,000 Russian troops have massed at the border with Ukraine in recent weeks. Putin’s claim that the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk are no longer a part of Ukraine opens the door for so-called Russian “peacekeeping” troops to go into those areas. The U.S. and its allies say this mission is a false flag operation to allow further incursion into Ukraine.

Many Republicans have criticized the White House’s approach to the crisis, calling the Russian leader’s move an invasion and accusing the Biden administration of waiting until it is too late to deter Putin.

“Setting the trigger for meaningful sanctions to Russian tanks rolling across Ukraine’s border was a dangerous mistake,” Rep. Mike McCaul and Mike Rogers, the ranking Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs and House Armed Services Committees, said in a statement Monday. “Secretary Blinken committed to a “swift and firm response’ by the United States and its allies if Putin recognized Russian-backed separatist Republics in Donbas. Now that the Kremlin has done so, we must immediately impose real costs for this blatant act of aggression.”

Donetsk and Luhansk regions

The United States has already announced an executive order prohibiting new American investment and trade in those regions. The White House said additional “swift and severe” actions would follow Tuesday.

But some Republicans said these actions had come too late to be effective.

“Biden-Harris officials are to an enormous extent directly responsible for this crisis. He and his administration instead settled for an endlessly deferred and wholly uncredible strategy of responding to Putin’s aggression after an invasion. They have pursued bizarre tactics like declassifying American intelligence and trying to shame Putin. That approach has failed,” Republican Senator Ted Cruz said Monday.

Congressional Democrats praised Biden for preparing for this moment and said it marked a turning point in triggering sanctions on the Kremlin.

“The time for taking action to impose significant costs on President Putin and the Kremlin starts now,” Senator Chris Coons, a top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement Monday.

“President Biden has ably led months of preparation for this moment with our allies in NATO and Europe, and I’m encouraged by clear condemnations of Putin’s actions as well as statements of unity from our partners and allies. We must swiftly join our NATO allies and partners in the European Union to impose forceful new sanctions on Russia,” Coons continued.

Both Menendez and Risch have introduced sanctions legislation in the U.S. Senate that would end Russian access to international banking transactions, provide hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine as well as cutting off funding for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives are in recess this week and not set to be back in session until the end of the month.

Russia Extends Troop Drills in Belarus Amid Sustained Shelling in Eastern Ukraine

Washington — 

Russia on Sunday extended its military drills in Belarus, along Ukraine’s northern border, after two days of sustained shelling in eastern Ukraine between Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces.

The Russian exercises with Belarusian forces had been scheduled to end Sunday. They were extended amid Russian President Vladimir Putin’s show of force along the Ukrainian border with the massing of some 150,000 troops, accompanied by naval exercises in the Black Sea to the south of Ukraine.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN’s “State of the Union” show that the sharp increase in Russian troop deployments in recent weeks, cyberattacks on the Ukrainian defense ministry and major banks last week and now the new outbreak in fighting in eastern Ukraine that killed two Ukrainian soldiers, signal that Moscow is “following its playbook” ahead of large-scale warfare.

“Everything leading up to the invasion is already taking place,” Blinken said.

The separatists in eastern Ukraine have claimed that Kyiv’s forces are planning an attack there, which Ukraine denies.

At the Munich Security Conference over the weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy questioned why the United States and its Western allies, who have vowed to impose swift and tough economic sanctions on Russia if it invades Ukraine, are not already doing so.

Blinken said, “As soon as you impose them, you lose the deterrence” to try to prevent an invasion, and if the West were to announce specific sanctions it would impose, Russia “could plan against them.”

The top U.S. diplomat said, however, “Until the tanks are moving” and missiles launched, Western leaders will “try to do everything to reverse” Putin’s mind, “to get him off the course he’s decided.”

Asked whether Putin might be bluffing an invasion with his military buildup, Blinken said, “There’s always a chance.” But Blinken added, “He’s following the script to the letter on the brink of an invasion.”

Still, Blinken said he would meet with his counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in Europe on Thursday for more negotiations, on condition that Moscow has not launched an invasion before then.

U.S. President Joe Biden, who said Friday he is “convinced” Putin plans to invade, is meeting Sunday with his National Security Council to discuss the latest developments.

The U.S. and its NATO allies fear that the Russian forces in Belarus could be deployed in an attack southward on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, while tens of thousands more troops could invade from the east and south into Ukraine.

Despite their belief that Putin has his mind made up to invade, Biden and other Western leaders are holding out hope for a settlement to the crisis, 11th hour diplomacy to avert the first massive warfare in Europe since the end of World War II.

Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, said Sunday, “The big question remains: Does the Kremlin want dialogue?”

“We cannot forever offer an olive branch while Russia conducts missile tests and continues to amass troops,” Michel said at the Munich Security Conference. “One thing is certain: if there is further military aggression, we will react with massive (economic) sanctions.”

Some of the Western allies, including the U.S., have shipped arms to Ukraine, but none of its leaders is planning to deploy troops to fight alongside Ukrainian forces in the event of an invasion.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Sunday the United Kingdom will use the “toughest possible” economic sanctions against Russia if it invades Ukraine.

Johnson told the BBC the sanctions would not only target Putin and his associates, “but also all companies and organizations with strategic importance to Russia.”

The British leader said, “We are going to stop Russian companies raising money on U.K. markets, and we are even with our American friends going to stop them trading in pounds and dollars.”

French President Emmanuel Macron had a telephone conversation with Putin Sunday, with Macron’s office saying afterward that the two leaders agreed on the need to find a diplomatic solution.

The two countries’ foreign ministers will meet in the coming days to work on a possible summit involving Russia, Ukraine and allies to establish a new security order in Europe.

Western allies say they are willing to discuss their missile positioning and military exercises in Europe but have balked at Putin’s demand to rule out possible NATO membership for Ukraine and other former Soviet states.

“We need to stop Putin because he will not stop at Ukraine,” Liz Truss, Britain’s foreign secretary, said in an interview Sunday in The Daily Mail about Putin’s apparently imminent invasion of Ukraine.

“Putin has said all this publicly, that he wants to create the Greater Russia, that he wants to go back to the situation as it was before where Russia had control over huge swaths of eastern Europe.”

Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Union’s executive commission, said, “The Kremlin’s dangerous thinking, which comes straight out of a dark past, may cost Russia a prosperous future.”

She said if Russia invades Ukraine, Moscow would have limited access to financial markets and tech goods, according to the sanctions package being prepared.

NATO Welcomes Additional US Troops to Bolster Alliance’s Eastern Flank

WASHINGTON — 

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday welcomed U.S. plans to deploy more troops to Europe and said NATO is considering sending additional battle groups to the southeastern part of its alliance amid tensions along the Russia-Ukraine border.

Stoltenberg told reporters that while NATO is preparing for the possibility that Russia may take military action, NATO remains ready to engage in “meaningful dialogue” and find a diplomatic resolution to the crisis.

“NATO continues to call on Russia to deescalate. Any further Russian aggression would have severe consequences and carry a heavy price,” he said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday that the U.S. deployment is heightening tensions in the region.

The United States and other Western allies have been preparing economic sanctions to level against Russia in hopes of persuading Russian President Vladimir Putin to pull back the more than 100,000 troops Russia has near the border. Russia has denied it plans to invade Ukraine.

Stoltenberg said Thursday there has been a “significant movement of Russian military forces into Belarus,” Ukraine’s northern neighbor where Russia is set to take part in joint military drills this month.

“This is the biggest Russian deployment there since the Cold War,” Stoltenberg said.

Russia has demanded NATO pull back troops and weapons deployed in eastern European member countries, and to make clear that Ukraine cannot join the 30-member military alliance.

NATO and Ukraine have rejected those demands, saying countries are free to pick their allies.

But Stoltenberg said Thursday that NATO is ready to talk to Russia about relations between the two sides, and about risk reduction, increased transparency and arms control.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is meeting Thursday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the latest in a series of visits to Kyiv by world leaders and diplomats to show support for Ukraine and try to advance a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

Erdogan has suggested Turkey, a NATO member that also has good relations with Russia, could act as a mediator.

Talks Wednesday between Putin and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson did not provide any breakthroughs. French President Emmanuel Macron was expected to have a phone conversation with Putin later Thursday.

Macron and U.S. President Joe Biden discussed the Russia-Ukraine situation in a call Wednesday, with the White House saying the two leaders reviewed diplomatic efforts and “preparations to impose swift and severe economic costs on Russia should it further invade Ukraine.”

The Norwegian Rights Council also warned Thursday about the effects on those living in eastern Ukraine if the crisis escalates.

After years of violence in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where Ukrainian forces have been battling Russia-backed separatists, the aid organization said the humanitarian needs are already high with nearly 3 million people relying on aid.

Increased fighting “would devastate already damaged civil infrastructure, further restrict peoples’ movements, block access to communities in need, and disrupt essential public services such as water, power, transport and banking,” the NRC said in a statement.

The U.S. said Wednesday it is dispatching 2,000 more troops to Europe, most of them to Poland, and moving 1,000 troops from Germany to Romania to bolster NATO’s eastern flank countries.

The additional U.S. troops, part of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, are “not going to fight in Ukraine” in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. Rather, he said, they are intended as an “unmistakable signal that we stand with NATO.”

Kirby said the new deployment is not permanent, but that the U.S. could dispatch more troops as warranted. Kirby said the deployment is separate from the 8,500 U.S. troops placed on heightened alert last week for possible dispatch to Europe.

The Defense Department spokesperson said the U.S. still does not believe Putin has “made a decision on invading Ukraine.”

But Kirby said the Russian leader is “showing no signs of being willing to de-escalate” and has continued to add troops in Russian-aligned Belarus to Ukraine’s north and along Russia’s border with eastern Ukraine.

Kirby said the U.S. is “prepared for a range of contingencies” involving Putin’s actions toward Ukraine. The spokesman said the new deployment is “not the sum total of the deterrence.”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba addressed the conflict in a broader context at a news conference Wednesday, saying, “I’m confident that Russia’s war on Ukraine and wider Europe will ultimately end when two fundamental issues are resolved. First, the West should turn from reactive to proactive strategies when dealing with Russia.”

He added, “Ambiguity on Ukraine’s role as an indivisible part of the West has to be put to an end. The Ukrainian people chose this course and defended it at a high price.”

“We are historically, politically and culturally a part of the West,” Kuleba said. “It is time to end harmful ambiguity which serves as a temptation for the Kremlin to continue its attempts to undermine Ukraine or reverse its course against the will of the Ukrainian people.”

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.