Some 6,000 Chinese nationals had returned to China in March after Beijing started a large-scale evacuation in Ukraine following Russia “special military operation” on February 24. The evacuation was triggered based on safety concerns as a result of increasing hostility from angry Ukrainians, who were targeting Chinese citizens due to China-Russia friendship.
The Chinese citizens, mostly in Ukraine for work and study, had to travel by bus to neighbouring Moldova, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania or southern port city of Odessa under embassy escort and local police protection. While countries like the U.S., UK and Japan evacuated diplomats and citizens in the weeks before the invasion, China had waited till the last minute.
However, a small number of Chinese nationals have returned to Ukraine to continue study or to run businesses. On Saturday (Oct 15), however, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued an urgent notice – ordering all Chinese nationals in Ukraine to evacuate. Later on the same day, the Chinese Embassy in Ukraine said via WeChat that it will offer assistance to help in the evacuation process.
Crucially, the Chinese Embassy has issued “three notices” since Monday (Oct 17), warning the “grave safety situation” in Ukraine and reminding its citizens to take “emergency shelter and prepare emergency supplies”. The embassy said – “Please do not stay in the country unless it is urgent and necessary, and leave the country as soon as it is safe to do so.”
Likewise, eight other countries have told their respective citizens to leave the country, including Serbia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Krygyzstan, Tajikistan, Belarus and Egypt. There are also reports that Kazakhstan has closed its embassy in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Interestingly, all those countries have close political relationship with Russia.
So, does China know something that we don’t know? Given Beijing’s close relationship with Moscow, the sudden announcement indicates that Russia may be preparing an escalation of its invasion of Ukraine. At best, Vladimir Putin may increase missile strikes against Ukraine. At worst, the Russian president might launch a nuclear attack in Ukraine.
It didn’t help that about 9,000 Russian troops have arrived in Belarus. On October 10, the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, said that Russia and Belarus had agreed to deploy a joint regional group of troops due to the “escalation” on the western borders of Belarus – suggesting that the Ukraine War could spread, even dragging NATO forces directly into the conflict.
The Ukraine-Russia conflict escalates after the attack on the Crimean Bridge on Oct 8. The Kerch Strait Bridge – the longest bridge in Europe at 19 kilometres – is a symbol of Russian pride and engineering. More importantly, the US$3.6 billion bridge is a strategic supply and logistics assets not only for Crimea, but also for Russian forces in southern Ukraine.
While the Russian investigating agencies said the attack was caused by a truck bomb, a report by independent military experts from Molfar said it could be U.S. drone that had attacked the strategic Crimean Bridge. Russian FSB, after detaining eight suspects, said the attack was carried out by Ukraine’s military intelligence – with assistance from British intelligence.
Apparently, the Grayzone has obtained an April 2022 presentation from an anonymous source involving senior British intelligence officers. It elaborated a secret scheme to blow up Crimea’s Kerch Bridge with the involvement of specially trained Ukrainian soldiers. The plan was requested by Chris Donnelly, a senior British Army intelligence operative and veteran high ranking NATO advisor.
Nevertheless, the attack was a huge mistake. First, Putin condemned the bridge explosion as a “terrorist attack”. Then, in retaliation, Russia rained more than 80 cruise missiles on Ukraine’s energy, military command and communications facilities. Critical infrastructure facilities were damaged in Kyiv and 12 regions of the country, disrupting electricity supply in 15 regions.
The attack on the Crimean Bridge was a slap in the face of Putin, who personally opened the bridge himself in 2018. Worse, the attack happened just a day after the Russian supremo’s 70th birthday. Putin had to retaliate as the terrorism was seen as an attack on Russian sovereignty. He has also appointed General “Armageddon” Sergei Surovikin as commander of Russian forces in Ukraine.
General Surovikin was the architect of “unconventional” warfare in Syria, which kept President Bashar al-Assad in power against all the odds. Along with cruise missiles, Russia has unleashed Iranian-made “kamikaze” drones under the leadership of Surovikin. Like the Japanese fighter pilots who flew suicide missions in World War 2, the kamikaze drones provide cheap and effective weapons against Ukraine.
Known as the “Shahed-136”, the Iranian drones would loiter above a target before attacking. Packed with explosives which detonate upon impact, the drones are not only difficult to spot on radar, but only cost US$20,000 each. Western analysts believe Russia is running out of precision missiles, but the Iranian drones help Putin to continue long-range attacks.
The cheap and effective drones have inflicted so much damage on Ukrainian forces that the U.S. and Western powers have complained that the Iranian weapons – repainted in Russian colours and rebranded as Geranium 2, -violate UN Security Council Resolution 2231. The drones managed to destroy American self-propelled howitzers, and could potentially target high-tech weapon systems like the Himars missile launchers.
With a range of 2,500 kilometers, the Iranian drones have been used to attack Saudi Arabia’s oil industry, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, American soldiers in Syria. Iran has emerged as one of the world’s developers of combat drones thanks to years of reverse-engineering American drones that went astray over the past 2 decades in Afghanistan and Iraq.
To be fair, Ukraine also uses kamikaze drones such as Polish-made Warmate and U.S.-made Switchblade drones. However, they have a much shorter range and flying time than Shahed-136 drones. It’s only now that Iran provides hundreds of kamikaze drones to tilt the balance in Putin’s favour that the U.S. and NATO are so upset they have started sanctioning Iranian senior military figures.
While the Biden administration has been warning that Iran was preparing to provide Russia with hundreds of drones to use in Ukraine, the U.S. never thought that the drones would be kamikaze-type. Washington thought Tehran would be shipping missile-capable drones. Of course, Iran’s government has denied it supplies drones to Russia to use in Ukraine War.
But weaponising kamikaze drones is just one of the options to teach Ukraine and the West a lesson. The attack on the Crimean Bridge has crossed the red lines. And if the U.S. decides to send more sophisticated military hardware to Ukraine to attack Russia, eventually Putin has to retaliate. Despite having threatened to unleash nuclear weapons, Moscow has not physically moved its tactical nuclear weapons.
Because Russia’s nuclear weapons storage sites are known and are being watched very closely by the U.S., any procedures to deploy the weapons would be visible. Western nations have reportedly engaged in “planning” behind the scenes to prevent chaos and panic in their home countries in the event Russia was to detonate a nuclear bomb in or near Ukraine.
U.S. President Joe Biden has admitted that the current risk of Russia deploying a tactical nuclear weapon is greater than it has been at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis. However, French President Emmanuel Macron broke ranks and said he would not order a nuclear attack as part of retaliation if there was a Russian nuclear strike in Ukraine.
Even though Washington had warned Moscow that there would be “catastrophic consequences” for the country if nuclear weapons are used, in reality, it’s hard to believe that the U.S. would risk starting the world’s first nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine. American has more to lose than the Kremlin in the event nuclear weapons fly around.
In 1945, when the U.S. destroyed two Japanese cities – Hiroshima and Nagasaki – with atomic bombs, it was the world’s sole nuclear power. Today, nine countries possess nuclear weapons, including Russia. It was indeed disturbing when Putin said last month that the U.S. had created a “precedent” by using nuclear weapons against Japan – an indication that it’s justifiable for Russia to use the weapon.
On Tuesday (Oct 18), Russia said that four Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – which it annexed last month are under the protection of its nuclear arsenal. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that since Crimea is considered a core part of Russia and is also of critical national security importance to Russia, losing Crimea would be like the U.S. losing Hawaii and Pearl Harbour.
Warning that a nuclear war is increasingly possible, Elon Musk tweeted – “If Russia is faced with the choice of losing Crimea or using battlefield nukes, they will choose the latter. We’ve already sanctioned/cutoff Russia in every possible way, so what more do they have left to lose? If we nuke Russia back, they will nuke us and then we have World War 3“.
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October 19th, 2022 by financetwitter
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