Madrid's NATO summit

Good news from the Madrid's NATO summit: the North Atlantic intergovernmental military alliance at the moment doesn't have specific plan in deploying weapons to Sweden and Finland, for the simple reason that the two nordic countries are not members of NATO for now.

The problem is that Putin said Russia would have to answer in kind if NATO infrastructure were to be deployed to Sweden and Finland.

A friend of mine took the two pictures above some years ago in Sweden. 

Flames close to Rome

 

There is bad news in Rome and its surrondings from an environmental point of view. Last week, more than 90 firefighters were on the waste management centre located close to Rome, as flames engulfed the site. The picture above shows the fire in the waste storage facility. It wasn't easy to extinguish. There is evidence that the fire in the Rome's municipal waste produced high levels of emissions of environmetally significant chemical species, such as dioxins.

Exit of the biggest Italian energy company from Russia

 

This week the great news is that Italy's biggest manufacturer and distributor of energy and gas, Enel SpA, will sell in the next three months its 56.43% stake in Russia to local investors. Established in Russia in 2004, the Italian group will follow similar moves by the world's biggest energy companies, such as Shell and BP after Russian government's invasion of East Ukraine.

In addition, the deal is expected to have a positive effect on the group's consolidated net debt of about 550 million euros. The global reach of the Italian biggest utility extends from Europe to Latin America and India, that's why the company's ordinary financial results would not be affected by the deal to sell the stake in the Russian subsidiary.

Its easy to forecast that other Western multinational companies, which have been established in Russia since long time, are going to do the same.

Wheat shortage crisis

 

There is a great talk about global food crisis fueled by the war in East Europe, as Ukraine plays a major role in the global food system. So while the Ukraine-Russia war directly threatens global food security, wheat prices hit record high in recent days. According to Wionews.com, Russia and Ukraine are two of the top wheat exporters, with respectively 17% and 10% of global export. 

The big question is when will wheat prices come down? Russia and Ukraine have been exchanging accusations over obstructing the movement of wheat shipment through the Black Sea. In my opinion this is a false problem rather than a real barrier, which can't be solved thanks to Intermodal transfer. 

With regards to Ukraine, the wheat could be shipped from the two ports of Costanta (Romania) and Varna (Bulgaria), considering there is an efficient railway system from Odesa (Ukraine) to the two towns just mentioned. Intermodal transfer may involve rail and ship, due to the fact that the four biggest wheat importers (Egypt, Sudan, Turkey, and Yemen) are located close to the Mediterranean area.

China's military drills

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, two Western governments have been pushing for Taiwan to order missiles and smaller arms. In the meanwhile, China is conducting military drills near Taiwan, as it seems Chinese are practicing how to invade the island. 

According to WionNews, in the first week of May 2022 China carried out another round of drills near Taiwan. A large number of Chinese warplanes, warships and conventional missiles surrounded the island.

The U.S. has never officially supported Taiwan independence. And the sentence "Taiwan is part of China" had been written on U.S. State Department's website for decades. The fact that this sentence has been recently removed signals a shift. Consequently, the message is clear: America is ready to back an independent Taiwan. In other words, the U.S. would be ready to supply their weapons to Taiwan.

New arms race in Europe

I've noticed that world's policy-makers are not worried about the new arms race that has been triggered in East Europe. On the contrary, since Russia-Ukraine war began about three months ago the US has sent more the $ 3 billion in military equipments to Ukraine. Not to mention of other countries, such as China and the UK that are also involved in shipping weapons respectively to Russia and Ukraine. 

In addition, other European countries located close to Russian and Ukrainian border, such as Poland, Estonia, and Romania, have also been buying weapons and missiles. With its 37% of global arms export, the U.S. is world's largest weapons exporter. There are no doubts that military-industry complex and contractors are winning this war.

The picture above, which shows the Azovstal steelworks in the devastated Ukrainian city of Mariupol, was published on 6th May, 2020 by the BBC website: 

https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-61348541 

I have got that powerful picture via email from Willie, our blogging friend from Blandford.

2021 military exercises close to the Russian border

If we were to get a wider perspective of the Russian's invasion of the East Ukraine's territories, we would need same information about the military drills held in 2021 on the Ukrainian territory by US and UK. 

In June 2021 US, UK, and Australia (which is not a NATO member), held naval exercises in the Black Sea and Southern Ukraine. One month later, The US, Poland, and Lithuania held another military exercise involving more than 1200 troops in West Ukraine. In addition, from 20th September to 1st October 2021 large scale war games with US, UK, and same NATO and Ukrainians troops took place close to the Belarus border. 

As it is known, Since early 1990s Ukraine has been a buffer state between Westerners and Russia. On the other hand, according to a core principle of international law, there is the right of people to decide their own destiny in the international order (principle of self-determination). That's why it's not easy to say who is right. Obviously, that has nothing to do with shellings of residential neighborhoods, railway stations and hospitals, as we have already seen in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya, etc.   

Since Ukraine war began in late February, Russians have been knoking on Finland's door. In this viewpoint, the geopolitical neutral Scandinavian country was recently hit by two cyberattacks and an airspace violation by a Russian plane. If Finland's people or policy-makers of Finland try to join NATO, it would be a strategic mistake. Finland has been successfully developing economic ties with both Russia and EU. I think it would be a terrible mess for the Finnish people.