Brexit and pandemic have cost UK businesses £250bn each but EU departure tally now rising faster than Covid disruption

BY:MICHIEL WILLEMS

 TUESDAY 25 JANUARY 2022 

The political choice of Brexit has cost UK businesses as much as the unforeseeable Covid pandemic.

British companies have lost over £250bn to Covid and an equal amount to Brexit by the end of 2021, but the Brexit tally is now rising faster,

The Centre for Economics and Business Research found that Covid-19 lockdowns had cost UK businesses £251bn by March of last year.

It revealed the value of the goods and services produced by the economy was more than £250bn lower than it would otherwise have been.

It calculated the Gross value added (GVA), which measures the value of the goods and services produced by the economy, minus the costs of inputs and raw materials needed to deliver them.

Covid-19 cost small businesses alone an estimated £126.6bn, according to the business insurer Simply Business, while a November 2021 Government report revealed the UK lost almost £365 billion in GDP from Covid overall.

Commenting on the figures, David Jinks, who is head of consumer research at delivery firm ParcelHero, said: “British businesses have had a torrid few years.”

“Brexit or Covid, which has been the heavier burden for them to bear? The shocking answer is that the entirely avoidable Brexit crisis has had as much of an impact on UK businesses as the unforeseeable Covid-19 tragedy, and its costs are still rising,” he added.

“The impact of either Covid-19 or Brexit would have been bad enough; together they have proved disastrous.” 

David Jinks

“No one could have foreseen the arrival of the pandemic and there was little that could have been done to shield UK businesses in advance. However, this is certainly not the case for the impact of Brexit on UK businesses,” Jinks said.

Negotiations

The confrontational handling of trade negotiations with the European Union made “a bad situation worse,” he stated.

Before Brexit had even happened, a 2020 report by Bloomberg Economics revealed that, by the end of that year, the economic cost of Brexit already exceeded £200bn in lost revenues to UK companies. It calculated the British economy was 3 per cent smaller than it otherwise would have been.

Since Brexit actually happened, on 1 January, 2021, the UK Trade Policy Observatory reveals that the reduction in trade has lost UK businesses a further £44bn.

“That breaks down to £32.5bn lost in potential imports to the UK and £11bn in exports to the EU,” Jinks pointed out.

The UK Government splashed a further £8.1bn on preparing for Brexit and the end of the transition period, according to the Institute for Government.

“In our view, that was money that should have been spent on promoting UK trade across the EU and beyond, not battening down the hatches,” noted Jinks.

“Brexit shock is forecast to be two to three times greater than the impact of Covid-19.”

Thomas Sampson, Associate Professor at the London School of Economics

 

The figures mean that the combined costs of Brexit and of the pandemic both equal around £250bn.

However, in the long term, Brexit could end up costing even more than Covid-19.

Thomas Sampson, Associate Professor at the London School of Economics, said: “When measured in terms of their impact on the present value of UK GDP, the Brexit shock is forecast to be two to three times greater than the impact of Covid-19.

Moreover, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) told the BBC last October that leaving the EU would “reduce our long run GDP by around 4 per cent.”

It is believed the effect of the pandemic will reduce GDP output by only a further 2 per cent.

READ MORE

Brexit: Finland, Luxembourg, Portugal and Greece are exploiting Brexit as UK exporters are being ‘replaced’

End of Covid restrictions

With the end of lockdown and travel restrictions, the impact of Covid measures is now receding but the Brexit bill continues to mount.

The most recent Government Business Insights report has revealed that, last month, 66 per cent of UK businesses experienced challenges with exporting and 79 per cent with importing.

“This has had a knock-on effect on transport and logistics companies. A staggering 36.7 per cent of transport and logistics companies either closed, paused trading entirely or continued trading only partially in December,” Jinks shared.

This is only how much the loss of physical goods sales has cost.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies say idexports of professional services to the EU slumped from 44 per cent of the UK’s entire international services trade in 2016, before Brexit negotiations got underway, to just 30 per cent in 2021. It forecast a net drop in overall UK services exports.

Meta’s new AI supercomputer will create the backbone for the metaverse

IS THAT A REAL SUPERCOMPUTER 

OR A METAVERSE SUPERCOMPUTER

Meta says the AI Research SuperCluster will be the ‘world’s fastest AI supercomputer’.

(Image credit: Meta)


Meta (née Facebook) has announced it is building its own AI supercomputer in support of its efforts to bring the metaverse to fruition.

The AI Research SuperCluster (RSC) is already up and running at reduced capacity. But once complete, Meta says the RSC will be the world’s fastest supercomputer of its kind.

The new machine will be used to train massive new speech recognition, language processing and computer vision models, which will underpin the company’s next generation of AI-driven applications.

A supercomputer for the metaverse

The fully-formed RSC will be powered by 16,000 Nvidia A100 GPUs, collected into compute nodes and hooked up using the latest InfiniBand interconnect fabric.

Meta is also partnering with PureStorage, whose high-performance FlashBlade and FlashArray technologies will help build out a storage system for the RSC capable of housing up to an exabyte of data (equal to one million TBs).

Early benchmarks show that RSC as it exists today is capable of outperforming Meta’s previous-generation AI infrastructure by roughly 20x across some workloads, a figure that will obviously rise once construction is completed later this year.

Meta researchers are already using the RSC to train large-scale natural language processing (NLP) and computer vision models much more quickly than previously possible. And in future, the company hopes to train models with upwards of one trillion parameters, which will go on to play a role in its metaverse product portfolio.

“We expect such a step function change in compute capability to enable us not only to create more accurate AI models for our existing services, but also to enable completely new user experiences, especially in the metaverse,” wrote Meta.

“Our long-term investments in self-supervised learning and in building next-generation AI infrastructure with RSC are helping create the foundational technologies that will power the metaverse and advance the broader AI community as well.”

Although the firm offered no specifics as to what these new metaverse experiences might look like, a similar sentiment was reiterated in a Facebook post by CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

“The experiences we’re building for the metaverse require enormous compute power (quintillions of operations/second) and RSC will enable new AI models that can learn from trillions of examples, understand hundreds of languages and more,” he said.
Also check out our lists of the best cloud hosting, best dedicated server hosting and best bare metal hosting services

Joel Khalili is a Staff Writer working across both TechRadar Pro and ITProPortal. He's interested in receiving pitches around cybersecurity, data privacy, cloud, storage, internet infrastructure, mobile, 5G and business hardware.

Tonga undersea volcano eruption released up to 18 megatons of energy


By Mike Wall 

That's about 1,200 times more powerful than the atomic bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

Volcanic ash above the Pacific Ocean after the eruption of the Hunga Tonga volcano in January 2022 seen from the International Space Station. (Image credit: NASA)

Scientists are starting to take the measure of the monster volcanic eruption that rocked the South Pacific kingdom of Tonga earlier this month.

The undersea volcano had been burbling since late December 2021, shaking the seas near Tonga with a series of outbursts. Things kicked into higher gear this month, with powerful blasts on Jan. 13 and Jan. 14 and then an even bigger eruption on Jan. 15 that sent ash and dust 25 miles (40 kilometers) into the Pacific sky.

Satellite photos showed the most recent eruption to be titanic, and researchers are now putting some numbers on it.

The recently formed Tongan volcanic island of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, as it looked in April 2021. (Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens, using elevation data courtesy of Dan Slayback/NASA/GSFC)

"This is a preliminary estimate, but we think the amount of energy released by the eruption was equivalent to somewhere between 4 to 18 megatons of TNT," Jim Garvin, chief scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement

"That number is based on how much was removed, how resistant the rock was and how high the eruption cloud was blown into the atmosphere at a range of velocities," Garvin added.

For perspective: The 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens in Washington released about 24 megatons of TNT equivalent, and the famous 1883 explosion of Indonesia's Krakatau is estimated to have unleashed 200 megatons or so, NASA officials said in the same statement.

The atomic bomb that the United States dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in July 1945 released the energy of roughly 15 kilotons of TNT. There are 1,000 kilotons in a megaton, so the high end of the Tonga volcano estimate is equivalent to about 1,200 Hiroshima bombs.

Garvin is part of a team of researchers who have been monitoring the Tonga volcano closely since 2015, when its activity pushed new land above the Pacific waves and joined two small pre-existing islands known as Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha'apai.

The recent eruptions enlarged that newly created island, at least initially.

"By early January, our data showed the island had expanded by about 60% compared to before the December activity started," Garvin said. "The whole island had been completely covered by a tenth of [a] cubic kilometer [0.02 cubic miles] of new ash. All of this was pretty normal, expected behavior, and very exciting to our team."

The recently formed Tongan island of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai was destroyed by powerful volcanic eruptions in mid-January 2022, leaving two small remnants separated by the sea. (Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens, using elevation data courtesy of Dan Slayback/NASA/GSFC)

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The mid-January eruptions undid this island-building work, however, blasting away the recently created land and leaving small, separated remnants of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha'apai. Such activity provides more data for Garvin and other researchers to analyze, to help them better understand volcanoes here on Earth and on other worlds as well.


"Small volcanic islands, freshly made, evolving rapidly, are windows [into] the role of surface waters on Mars and how they may have affected similar small volcanic landforms," Garvin said. "We actually see fields of similar-looking features on Mars in several regions."

Chile buries its own brainchild – neoliberalism

Chile is revisiting the plan, which was conceived by Salvador Allende, but then trampled as a result of the US-instigated coup.

Gabriel Boric brings hope back to Chile

 Author`s name Lyuba Lulko

 29.12.2021 20:59

Chile has held landmark presidential elections. The country of Salvador Allende, Pablo Neruda, Luis Corvalan and Victor Jara — the symbols of the revolution of the 1970s — returns with the election of President Gabriel Boric.

Boric is only 36 years old, but he has defeated not only the followers of dictator Augusto Pinochet, but also the pseudo-socialists from the Socialist Party, who would always be opposed to the right, while walking the path of anti-popular neoliberalism.

His rival was Jose Antonio Kast — the son of a Wehrmacht soldier, who had fled Germany in the post-war years. According to Kast, there was no coup d'etat in 1973 — it was the people who got Allende out.

Boric won eleven percent of the vote against his opponent in the second round, gaining 55.87 percent of the vote. Kast gained 44.13 percent of the vote, and his 3.65 million supporters show that Boric will have a hard time proving that Chile was bidding a farewell to the Pinochet regime.

In one of his speeches, Chile's new leader said that the country was "the grave of neoliberalism" and pledged to "tax the rich."

Chile as a laboratory of neoliberalism

Latin America has become a test ground for Chicago boys. Chile was one of the first that got to taste the free market after Pinochet's bloody regime came to power. The country abandoned principles of state economic planning, as it could allegedly take the nation to totalitarianism. Chile also rejected the state social security system, including the pension system (Chile's private pension funds belong to US companies).

All natural resources were privatized. Chile is the only country in the world that has privatized water sources. However, taxation for multinational (i.e. American) companies was super soft.

The dismantling of the state and its withdrawal from the social sphere contributed to the growth of the gap between the richest and the poorest. According to the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), Chile has the worst income and wealth taxes in the world.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Chile had to face a plethora of difficulties in terms of

• decrease in the income of the population,
• omnipresent unemployment,
• inability to recover at public expense,
• two-million-strong protests in 2019.

A new generation of politicians has come to the fore. They have formed the "I Approve Dignity" coalition, the main forces of which are the Broad Front movement and the Chilean Communist Party.

What Boric offers

Boric proposes a tax reform that will increase the tax burden for the super-rich by collecting an additional five percent of GDP. It will be used to expand the participation of the state in providing social security to the population.

In addition:

• a progressive income tax is introduced;
• the burden of tax collection is put on the VAT, which will be increased;
• exemptions and subsidies for fuel and other sectors, such as stock trading will be lifted;
• licensing fees will be introduced in mining, the most lucrative sector of the Chilean economy;
• the National Development Bank will be created;
• a state-owned lithium company will be established;
• a network of private medical companies will be abolished to create a universal health care system;
• the development of public schools and housing was announced.

Globalists are not going to like the new Chile

Thus, the new president is going to terminate the long 48-year reign of the fascist Pinochet regime, which has given Chile's economy and natural resources to the mercy of globalist companies.

The president will have to lead the creation of a new constitution, the work on which began following a referendum in October 2020. The referendum confirmed the desire of the majority of the population to bury the 1990 Magna Carta, written by the Pinochet regime.

The agreement on a new redistribution of power is not going to come easy. The left have a simple majority in parliament, and globalists own and control the country's wealth. They will resist.

A situation in which, as Boric put it, hope defeated fear fits into a series of significant changes in Chile, the backyard of the United States.

The state of affairs in Latin America after the fall of leftist governments in Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and so on has been gradually changing in the opposite direction.

The victories of Alberto Fernandez in Argentina, Pedro Castillo in Peru, Xiomara Castro in Honduras, Luis Arce in Bolivia show that the leftist forces are coming back to power on the continent to displace the dominance of the United States. Washington may have to pay more attention to its own borders, rather than to the borders in Eastern Europe.

Editor: Dmitry Sudakov

Читайте больше на https://english.pravda.ru/world/149985-chile/

FLASHBACK 1962

Russia to decide on the deployment of nuclear arms in Venezuela this week

Russia may make a decision on the deployment of nuclear weapons in Latin America within a week.

Russia is ready to make a decision about the deployment of nuclear weapons, missiles, military bases and infrastructure in Latin American countries after the US and NATO give a written official response to Russia's security guarantees demands.

Given the talks held on January 12 and 14 that the USA and NATO sabotaged, the latter will officially refuse to provide Russia with any security guarantees.

For the time being, it is known that Russia has already held preliminary negotiations with Venezuela and Cuba on the possible deployment of Russian military infrastructure on the territory of these states, Avia.pro website reports. This is evidenced by the fact that Caracas has already confirmed its readiness to provide the necessary support to Russia in the event the Venezuelan administration receives an official request from Russia.

Given the explicit threat to Russia's national security and sovereignty, the decision to deploy Russian military bases in Venezuela and Cuba could be made within one week. It appears that Russia will firstly discuss an opportunity to deploy strategic bomber aircraft in the Latin American countries.

On January 24, Russian President Putin held a telephone conversation with this Cuban counterpart Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez.

Читайте больше на https://english.pravda.ru/news/world/150123-russia_venezuela_nuclear/

In Open Letter, prominent leaders urge nations to adopt policies to reduce nuclear dangers and eliminate nuclear weapons

25 JANUARY 2022


An Open Letter urging nuclear weapons states to adopt no-first-use and other policies to ensure a nuclear war is never fought has been endorsed by prominent signatories, and was delivered today to leaders of the “nuclear five” or N5 countries

-- China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States (also known as the P5 because they are permanent members of the UN Security Council) -- and to leaders of the other 185 countries which are States Parties to the NPT.

The Open Letter, entitled “Fulfil the NPT: From nuclear threats to human security,” was organized by NoFirstUse Global, a global network of organizations, academics, policy makers and civil society advocates. It has so far been endorsed by over 1000 signatories from 69 countries, including former government ministers, ambassadors, and parliamentarians, two former presidents of the UN General Assembly, former military commanders, Nobel laureates, leading scientists, religious leaders, business leaders, and leading representatives of civil society organizations from around the world.

Today’s delivery date is significant as January 24 is the anniversary of the very first resolution of the United Nations in 1946, passed by consensus, which adopted the universal goal to eliminate all nuclear weapons.

The Open Letter calls on nuclear weapon states to end the nuclear arms race by stopping nuclear weapons production, to phase out the role of nuclear weapons in security policies starting by adopting no-first-use policies, to commit to eliminating their nuclear weapons no later than 2045 – the 75th anniversary of the NPT , and to shift budgets and public investments from the nuclear weapons industry to supporting public health, climate stabilization, and sustainable development. It reminds the States Parties to the NPT that they have a legal and moral obligation to prevent nuclear war and to work in good faith to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world, and also that they currently have opportunities to do so.

“First-use options are literally playing with fire in very combustible situations, and have nearly led to a nuclear war being initiated by mistake or miscalculation,” the Open Letter states. “Unilateral no-first-use declarations, bilateral no-first-use agreements and/or a multilateral no-first-use agreement can reduce these risks.…These can be followed by nuclear force restructuring and operational controls to implement no-first-use policies, and to build credibility and confidence in the policies to further reduce nuclear risks. And most importantly, the adoption of no-first-use or sole purpose policies could open the door to the nuclear armed states and their allies joining negotiations for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.”
The Open Letter was prompted by growing tensions between nuclear weapons states, with their nuclear weapons in a state of high readiness, and a renewed nuclear arms race in which all of the N5/P5 countries are modernizing their nuclear arsenals. These conditions have elevated the risk of nuclear war breaking out, whether by malice (intentional escalation), miscalculation, misinformation, malfeasance (unauthorised use), or malfunction (accidental use).

Last week the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced that its Doomsday Clock would remain set at 100 seconds to midnight for the third year in a row -- closer to midnight than ever in its history – attesting to a continued high level of risk from today’s nuclear arsenals and nuclear policies.

On January 3, 2022, the N5/P5 countries released a joint statement in preparation for the 2022 Review Conference of the NPT (now postponed until August due to Covid-19) in which they affirmed that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” But the statement also re-affirmed the role of nuclear weapons in their security policies.

Today, endorsers of the Open Letter commented on these current conditions as follows:

“Nuclear weapons threaten current and future generations,” said Maria Fernanda Espinosa, former Foreign Minister of Ecuador and President of the 73rd UN General Assembly. “They cannot resolve the conflicts between countries, and they are counter-productive to the human security issues of today and tomorrow - the COVID pandemic, climate crisis, food security, cybersecurity, and achievement of the sustainable development goals. It’s time to fulfil the NPT and the goal established by the UN in 1946 to eliminate nuclear weapons globally.”

“Tensions generated by the Iran situation, the North Korean issue, rapidly increasing temperatures from climate change and other critical issues have made the possibility of nuclear war more likely today than 10-15 years ago,” said Ambassador Thomas Graham Jr. Chair of the Global Security Institute Nonpartisan Security Group and Head of the United States Delegation to the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference. “One significant way to address this is if the United States were to formally declare that it will never use nuclear weapons first, and ask other nuclear weapon States to join such a pledge."

“It’s high time the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council sat down and had a serious discussion of how to reduce the risks of nuclear war, including such concepts as No First Use and Sole Purpose,” said Lord David Hannay, Co-chair of the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Global Security and Non-proliferation and former UK Ambassador to the United Nations and the European Union. “After all it is only days since they collectively re-affirmed the Reagan / Gorbachev view that a nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought.”

“Embracing ‘no first use’ is the litmus test,” said Gareth Evans, Founder of the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network a former foreign minister of Australia. “Without that the P5 declaration that ‘a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought’, as overdue and welcome as it is, is just empty rhetoric.”

“The Non-Proliferation Treaty has been respected by the non-nuclear-countries, but the nuclear-countries have not respected their obligations,” said Professor Giorgio Parisi, the 2021 Nobel Laureate in Physics. “As a citizen of a non-nuclear-country I am particularly offended by their refusal to start the negotiations for achieving the global elimination of nuclear weapons.”

“Our growing understanding of the many mutual vulnerabilities of modern societies is a new deterrent to all-out wars,” says Frank von Hippel, Professor of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and Former Assistant Director for National Security in the White House “That understanding should make it easier to commit to no first nuclear use as a first step toward nuclear disarmament.”

Former military commanders and veterans who endorsed the Open Letter believe that current policies which leave open the option of first use of nuclear weapons increase the risk of a nuclear catastrophe and put military commanders in impossible positions, especially if they are ordered to launch their nuclear weapons. For example, Commander Robert Forsyth, UK Royal Navy (retired), said, “Submerged on patrol, commanding officers of strategic submarines have no way of knowing why they have been ordered to fire, what the target is, or the consequences on civil population of doing so. As such, I was not prepared to launch a first strike with Polaris missiles from my submarine in the 1970’s and remain strongly opposed to First Use of any nuclear weapons.”

"War is not the answer to the problems we face in the 21st century,” said Adrienne Kinne, outgoing President of Veterans for Peace. “This is also true of nuclear weapons and equipment which have already had dire impacts on people and our environment and will for generations to come. It is past time to divert our money, resources, and intelligence into finding solutions that meet the needs of the world today."

Signatories to the Open Letter also affirmed that adopting no-first-use policies could transform current gridlock in nuclear arms control and disarmament negotiations, opening the door to significant steps toward a nuclear weapon free world. For example, Vladimir P. Kozin, Member of the Russian Academies of Military Sciences and Natural Sciences, said, “Nuclear weapons states are increasing the accuracy of their missiles and bombs, proliferating dual-capable air-based delivery systems, and moving to new types of nuclear weapons such as forward-based assets outside their national territory. All this adds up to more justifications for using strategic and tactical nuclear weapons in their national nuclear strategies. These are dramatic and dangerous developments, made worse by the fact that so far nuclear weapons states have never conducted official negotiations on downsizing or banning use of their tactical nuclear arsenals and delivery systems. On the other hand, if a pledge of no first use of nuclear weapons were accepted by all nuclear weapons states, it could produce a revolutionary turn initially leading to the erosion of nuclear weapons and finally to the complete elimination of such weapons of mass destruction from our planet, for the benefits of all its inhabitants and international security at large.”

Military and political feasibility and advisability of nuclear armed states adopting no-first-use policies is assessed in the working paper, No-First Use of Nuclear Weapons: An Exploration of Unilateral, Bilateral and Plurilateral Approaches and their Security, Risk-reduction and Disarmament Implications. The paper was sent to the NPT States Parties along with the Open Letter.

Source: NoFirstUse Global

World War Three: What Russia can do to bury Ukraine and herself

 Author`s name Alexander Shtorm

 25.01.2022 

PRAVDA.RU

World » Former USSR

The situation around Ukraine has become very unhealthy recently. For some reason, Western policy-makers and mass media assume that Russia's imminent invasion of Ukraine is a fact. These days, we have witnessed a series of bizarre actions via the diplomatic line.

Western diplomats flee Kiev

The US State Department ordered the "evacuation" of diplomatic staff and members of their families from the US Embassy in Kiev.

In particular, The Washington Post, citing an official letter from the US State Department, wrote:

"The State Department ordered the departure of all family members of U. S. Embassy personnel serving in Kyiv on Sunday, citing the "threat of Russian military action. The department also told nonessential staff they can leave the country."

The British Foreign Office released a similar statement via its official Twitter account. The British Foreign Office is "evacuating" its staff with the following wording:

"Some embassy staff and dependants are being withdrawn from Kiev in response to the growing threat from Russia. The British embassy remains open and will continue to carry out essential work.”

Interestingly, The New York Times accused Russia of the same move. However, as it turned out, Russian diplomats and members of their families temporarily left Kiev in late December and early January.

Provocations possible on the border between Russia and Ukraine

Nevertheless, the decision to "evacuate" American diplomats from Kiev, of course, raised legitimate questions. Many now wonder what the US and other "Western partners" plan to do in terms of military provocations against Russia.

According to Russian officials, the US is readying a number of provocations near the borders of the breakaway Donbass republics.

Speaking at a meeting of the Board of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on December 21, 2021, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu announced the presence of about 120 "military instructors" from American PMCs in the areas adjacent to the borders of the People's Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.

According to the Russian Defense Minister, "tanks with unidentified chemical components were delivered to commit provocations in the settlement of Avdiivka and Krasny Lyman."

In this context, it is worth recalling the speech from Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby, who said in January of this year:

"We do have information that indicates that Russia is already working actively to create a pretext for a potential invasion, for a move on Ukraine."

Alexander Pavlyuk, the commander of the joint forces of Ukraine, was even more eloquent when he stressed in an interview with The Times that the Ukrainians would be tearing the Russians apart with their bare hands in the Donbass.

However, taking into account the information from the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, everything seems to be leading to an operation, in which British or American saboteurs will stage a provocation in the region of the breakaway republics. It also appears that it is going to be a major provocation, because both British and American embassies in Kiev have been evacuated.

Major redeployment of NATO troops to the eastern borders of the alliance, that is to the border between Russia and Ukraine, also suggests large-scale military operations.

It appears that the whole situation is leading to the outbreak of another war, which could quickly evolve into Third World War. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky speaks about the need for the Ukrainian army to go on the offensive to return the territories that Ukraine lost in 2014.

What Russia can do to Ukraine

In this situation, many analysts wonder what Russia can do to prevent another massacre in Donbass that the West is so looking forward to.

Russia can do many things, and not all of them envisage a military scenario.

For example, Russia could recognize the People's Republic of Donetsk and Luhansk as sovereign territories, independent states to promote their urgent admission to the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO). This organization has proved to be highly effective in early January in putting down the uprising in Kazakhstan.

Another, more radical method is to include the unrecognised people's republics in the structure of the Russian Federation. These two steps will bury the process of negotiations in accordance with the Minsk format, but it has actually come to an impasse anyway: the Ukrainian administration does not abide by the obligations of the Minsk Accords.

It appears that Russia's move to annex the breakaway republics will cool the military ardor of NATO and the United States. The confrontation may easily develop into a nuclear conflict that will have no winners.

There are, of course, intermediate ways: Russia could temporarily make the "people's republics" part of Russia temporarily, to protect them in an emergency. Afterwards, Russia could acknowledge those territories as Ukrainian, provided that Kiev abides to follow the Minsk Accords.

The Minsk Accords provide a constitutional reform of Ukraine to federalise the state and grant broad autonomy rights to Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

As for military scenarios, many analysts already try to predict the Russian tactics and strategy in the event of a conflict.

"Who said that Russia will send troops, infantry or an armada of tanks to Ukraine? There is no need to do it as Russia has super efficient military aircraft, MLRS systems and missile complexes, such as Caliber and Iskander missiles. There are also air defense battalions, Buk, Tor, S-300 and S-400 systems that make enemy aircraft useless, not to mention the Caspian and Black Sea fleets, which "close" ports.

At the same time, the scenario of a full-fledged military intervention also involves various options.

1. The Russian army will be limited only to the territory of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, including possibly the adjacent Kharkov region, where pro-Russian sentiments are also extremely strong.
2. The second scenario allows the accession of the entire Left-Bank Ukraine along the Dnieper River to Russia. This is an excellent natural water barrier for Ukraine's counterattacks. In this case, the he blockade of Crimea, which the peninsula has been suffering from for years now, will be finally lifted completely.
3. The most daring option is to stop at the borders of 1938. In this case, Ukraine will be left with its western regions only.

Needless to mention that all that will trigger a tsunami of sanctions against Russia, let alone bellicose statements, saber-rattling and other global processes that Russia will have to deal with.

All in all, if the Ukrainian army invades the People's Republic of Donetsk and the People's Republic of Luhansk, Russia will have nothing to lose. Sanctions will be the least of the problems that our country will face.

Editor: Dmitry Sudakov

Читайте больше на https://english.pravda.ru/world/150127-russia_ukraine_war/

WAIT, WHERE?!

Tom Clonan: Russia's decision to locate off Ireland gives the two-fingers to the US, EU & NATO

The security analyst says it also demonstrates the pathetic state of Ireland’s capacity to meet the minimum standards of our Neutral status.

Tom Clonan

RUSSIA’S NAVAL EXERCISES off the southwest coast next month expose significant weaknesses in Ireland’s defence in the air, maritime and cyber domains.

Ireland spends a tiny 0.27% of its GDP on Defence. This is the lowest in Western Europe. Ireland’s defence spend is a fraction of the EU average at approximately 1.2% of GDP.

Consequently, Ireland is Europe’s weakest link when it comes to defence, security and intelligence. This is precisely the reason why the Russians have chosen to conduct their Atlantic exercise in Ireland’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

Under the radar

In terms of Irish airspace, the Russians know that Ireland is the only country in the EU that does not possess primary radar. Ireland’s air traffic control systems use secondary radar, which relies on the use of transponders in civilian commercial aircraft.

Russian military aircraft do not use these transponders and are invisible in Irish controlled airspace. Irish controlled airspace is one of the busiest – and strategically important – air corridors in the world. Approximately 75% of all European transatlantic flights to the US pass through our controlled airspace.

In addition, since 2002, the US has used Shannon Airport as a forward airbase for their military with millions of US troops transiting through Ireland to wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The Russians plan to conduct ‘live firing’ exercises off the Irish coast in the coming weeks. This will include the firing of surface-to-surface naval gunnery systems and surface to air missiles. Because of the threat that this poses to air traffic overhead, the Irish authorities have had to close a sector of our transatlantic air corridor for the duration of the Russian manoeuvers.

Whilst the Russian exercise may be legal under international law – their decision to locate it in this vital air corridor between the EU and US is designed to disrupt international air traffic at a time of heightened tension over Ukraine. The Russians are signalling their capacity to project force far beyond their borders to Europe – and NATO’s – western approaches. The Russians could have chosen to conduct these exercises far out into the Atlantic or elsewhere. Their decision to locate off Ireland gives the two-fingers to the US, EU and NATO. And here’s why.

Russia rocks the boat

The Russians know that Ireland is the only country in the EU that does not have the technology to monitor their manoeuvers. By locating their activities off the Irish coast, they will be in a position to monitor and measure NATO and US response times.

In recent years, Russian military aircraft have repeatedly incurred into Irish controlled airspace – forcing the RAF to scramble, intercept and shadow these intruders out of EU airspace. Most recently, at the outset of Covid in March 2020, RAF Typhoons intercepted Russian ‘Bear’ Tupolev bombers off the west coast of Ireland.

These incursions are very provocative as the Russian aircraft are flying through our busy airspace with transponders turned off – they cannot be detected or monitored by our air traffic control systems and represent a grave risk to civilian aircraft from mid-air collision or other issues.

These incursions also demonstrate the pathetic state of Ireland’s capacity to meet the minimum standards of our Neutral status. Under an agreement between the UK MOD and Ireland’s Department of Defence, the RAF patrols Irish controlled airspace. This undermines our sovereignty and casts doubt on our Neutral status.

When the Russians deploy off our coast in February, the US and NATO will watch their activities very closely. The Russian Navy has equipped its corvettes, frigates and submarines with a new generation of ‘Kalibr’ missiles – most notably the 3M-14 and 3M-14T variants. These are cruise missiles – Sea Launched Land Attack Missiles – known by NATO as SS-N-30A weapons.

They have a range of up to 2,500 Km and were recently fired from Russian vessels in the Mediterranean at targets throughout Syria in support of the Assad regime’s forces.

Western intelligence analysts believe that the Russians may test-fire some of these missile types – perhaps shorter range 3M-54 or 3M542 missiles – to demonstrate to NATO and the EU that they have the ability to launch missile attacks on European targets from off the Irish coast. This would be alarming for NATO and the EU as such a hypothetical scenario would involve an attack from Europe’s blind spot – namely Ireland.

The Russians have repeatedly stated that they intend to conduct ‘live firing’ exercises off our coast. By doing so in Irish controlled airspace – knowing that Ireland has zero capacity to even monitor their activities – they will be actively measuring the US and NATO reaction times and monitoring assets in the coming weeks. These will range from US and NATO surface vessels – operating at a discreet distance – and ‘national technical means’ including satellite technology and high altitude aerial surveillance.

Ireland the data hub

In terms of the maritime domain, Ireland is responsible for patrolling 220 million maritime acres of ocean – 15% of the EU’s waters. The Russian exercises are taking place just 150 miles off our coast. Our Naval Service capacity to patrol, monitor and protect our maritime environment has fallen off a cliff in recent years.

Out of a fleet of nine small vessels, four have been recently tied up due to crew shortages. As a consequence, the Irish Sea Fisheries Authority had to ask the European Fisheries Control Agency to supply EU vessels to patrol Irish waters. In this appalling vista – through no fault of the Naval Service – the EU and the Russians know that Ireland cannot monitor its activities off our coasts.

This is particularly troubling. Ireland currently holds approximately 30% of the EU’s data in 54 data centres here. Ireland is also the digital connector between Europe and the US. There are 19 sub-sea fibre-optic oceanic cables – in Ireland’s coastal and inshore waters – that connect Europe to the United States.

The Russians have shown intense interest in this maritime critical infrastructure and have been monitoring it. In August of last year, the Russian spy ship ‘Yantar’ was spotted and monitored off the Irish coastline – surveilling our vital digital infrastructure. Our Defence Forces – Naval Service and Air Corps are unable to meaningfully surveil and protect our airspace or maritime environment. Nor can we mount a credible Cyber defence. Last year’s Wizard Spider attack on the HSE – which originated in Russia – demonstrated how vulnerable Ireland is to Cyber-attack.

Recognise our weaknesses

In short, Ireland is Europe’s weakest link in terms of our security and defence in the air, maritime, ground and cyber domains. This is a direct consequence of the lack of investment in our Defence Forces and the loss of critical skills in our forces due to recruitment and retention issues associated with abysmal pay and conditions.

Ireland sees itself as a global digital player and relies heavily on foreign direct investment from US multinationals in the digital, tech and pharmaceutical areas. The current gaps in our defence and security – which fall far below the minimum standard of a Neutral, self-sufficient state – are being exploited by the Russians in the context of the Ukraine crisis.

All eyes will be on Russia in the coming weeks. The focus will also fall on Ireland and our status as a Neutral state. Questions will be asked about Ireland’s de-facto status as Europe’s blind spot – the EU’s weakest link in terms of security, defence and intelligence.

Multinational firms may also ponder the wisdom of investing in a country with such weak security infrastructure – particularly in the cyber domain.

Ireland is powerless to intervene in or prevent the upcoming Russian manoeuvers – aside from diplomatic means. Ireland has become strategically important in the newly evolving geopolitical realities of the 21st century.

As we confront the uncertainties of growing security instability in Europe and worldwide – we need to invest in our Neutral Status. We need to invest in our Defence Forces to restore their ground, air, maritime and cyber capability. To do so is to invest in our economic future.

Dr Tom Clonan is a former Captain in the Irish armed forces. He is a security analyst and academic, lecturing in the School of Media in DIT. You can follow him on Twitter.