Tag: Turkey

Russia running out of cash… while military spending accelarates

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Over the past few years in Russia, two trends have started to converge: Russian funds are drying up very quickly while on the other hand, military spending is accelerating.

After almost two years in recession, the country’s rainy day fund has shrunk to just $32.2 billion this month, according to the Russian Finance Ministry. It was $91.7 billion in September 2014, just before oil prices started to collapse.

rainy day fund drying up

And it’s getting worse. Analysts expect the fund will shrink to just $15 billion by the end of this year and dry up completely soon after that.

“At the current rate, the fund would be depleted in mid-2017, perhaps a few months later,” Ondrej Schneider, chief economist at the Institute of International Finance, wrote in a note this week.

As if to ignore the alarming numbers, the second trend under Putin has become evident; defence spending has been steadily rising since 2011.

spending in Russia on military

Ofcourse, there is only so much defence investment that can be sustained when the country is attempting to steer away from an impending debt crisis, and this observation continues to stoke the anxiety of many a financial observer.

By itself, this national financial predicament is nothing new to Russia, however under the helm of Putin – who has a history of nationalistic & militant behaviour – it suddenly becomes a serious risk to global peace. Here is why;

  1. Putin’s unsustainable polls. 
    Putin pays considerable attention to his popularity as indicated by the polls. The biggest spike in popularity occurred when Putin invaded Crimea, which he considers to be Russian heartland, along with the rest of Ukraine. As western analysts point out, popularity by conquest is not a sustainable approach to politics. As Russian funds deplete and military spending increases, Putin might be pressured to invade Ukraine or Turkey to maintain political popularity.20160206_woc909
  2. Putin’s power is being internally challenged. 
    Over the last 12 months, analysts like STRATFOR and the Brookings institution have noticed that a dangerous feud is occurring amongst the Russian political elite. Putin is beginning to loose control as some of his closest allies are turning against him. For this reason, Putin has had to establish his own “praetorian guard“, and he is now looking to revive the former KGB as the existing FSB is increasingly challenging his interests. Read more here
    .
  3. Putin’s ideologies.
    Since 2012, Putin has been overtly reviving and supporting a number of Roman oriented philosophies and ideologies. They include such things as taking Constantinople, and giving it to “Christendom”. The unification of Catholicism with Orthodoxy, to be led by the Pope as the religious leader, and a Russian Emporer based in Constantinople on the Byzantine model. These ideologies suggest that Russian lands extend as far as Turkey, Egypt and even Israel, infact, some would suggest that Israel is not deserving of its own nation state.  These ideologies are prevalent, particularly in the far right of Russian politics amongst the nationalists, and generally, the Russian people and the clergy are both looking for the realisation of these ideologies. Both Putin’s popularity and power is increasingly dependant on the realisation of these ideologies in Russia.

To students of prophecy, these things are not so surprising, and now that Israel is back in their own land (and has been since 1948) we expect Russia to attempt conquest in the Middle East to secure for itself a spoil.

On that day thoughts will come into your mind and you will devise an evil scheme. You will say, “I will invade a land of unwalled villages; I will attack a peaceful and unsuspecting people—all of them living without walls and without gates and bars. I will plunder and loot and turn my hand against the resettled ruins and the people gathered from the nations, rich in livestock and goods, living at the center of the land. 

Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish and all her villages will say to you, “Have you come to plunder? Have you gathered your hordes to loot, to carry off silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods and to seize much plunder?”’

Ezekiel 38: 10-13

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Putin: Russia may deploy forces back to Syria ‘in mere hours’ if necessary

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“Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm”
– Ezekiel 38

“The king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind”
– Daniel 11

While Russia is withdrawing most of its forces from Syria, they could be deployed there again in a matter of hours if such a need arises, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated. He added that the Russian bases in Syria are well-protected.

Putin was summarizing the results of the Russian five-month-long anti-terror campaign in Syria at a solemn ceremony in Moscow.

The Russian president said Moscow was open in saying from the start of the operation that it was a limited campaign with a set deadline.

“We have created the conditions for a peace process. We have established constructive and positive cooperation with the US and a number of other countries, with respectable opposition forces in Syria, which really want to end the war and find a political solution of the conflict. You, Russian soldiers, paved that way,” Putin told the Russian military personnel who took part in the campaign.

He added that the Syrian Army, with Russia’s support, can now hold out against terrorist forces and take back terrorist-controlled territories.

The president acknowledged that the pull-out may be reversed, if necessary, even though Moscow would not want to see such a development. He also stressed that advanced air defense systems deployed in Syria for protection of Russian military sites remain there and would attack any hostile forces threatening them.

“We stick to the fundamental international laws and believe that nobody has the right to violate Syria’s sovereign airspace. We have created an effective mechanism for prevention of air incidents with the Americans, but all our partners have been warned that we would use our air defense systems against any target that we considered a threat to the Russian troops,” Putin said

Published by RT.com

‘All eyes on Moscow’ – Russian-Turkish suspense is palpable

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DebkaFile Reports:

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan clearly took a calculated risk when he ordered a two hour cross-border artillery bombardment Saturday, Feb. 13 of Syrian army forces positioned around the northern Syrian town of Azaz and the Kurdish YPG militia units which two days earlier took control of the former Syrian military air base of Minagh some six kilometers from the Turkish border.

Kurdish troops backed by the Russian air force seized that base last week from rebel militias as part of the operation for cutting the rebel groups under siege in Aleppo from their supply routes. The Turkish bombardment was therefore an indirect attack on the Russian forces backing pro-Assad forces against the rebels in the Syria war.

Erdogan knows that Moscow hasn’t finished settling accounts with Turkey for the shooting down of a Russian Su-24 on Nov. 24 and is spoiling for more punishment. After that incident, the Russians deployed top-of-line S-400 ground-to-air missile batteries and advanced Sukhoi Su-35 warplanes to their base in Latakia near the Turkish border. Ankara therefore limited its strike to a two-hour artillery bombardment from Turkish soil, reasoning that a Turkish warplane anywhere near the Syrian border would be shot down instantly.

Emboldened by the delay in the Russian response, the Turks took another step: Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu threatened the Kurdish YPG militia with more attacks if they failed to withdraw from the Menagh air base.

Although the Turkish prime minister had called on “allies and supporters” to back the operation against the Russian-backed  Syrian Kurds, Washington took the opposite line by urging Turkey, a fellow member of NATO, to desist from any further attacks.

Washington’s concern is obvious. An outright clash between Turkey and Russia would entitle Ankara to invoke the NATO charter and demand allied protection for a member state under attack.

The Obama administration would have had to spurn this appeal for three reasons:

  1. To avoid getting mixed up in a military clash between two countries, just as the US kept its powder dry in the Russian-Ukraine confrontation after Moscow’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in February 2014.
  2. To avoid upsetting the secret Obama-Putin deal on the allocation of spheres of influence in Syria: the Americans have taken the regions east of the Euphrates River, and the Russians, the west.
    The Kurdish YPG militia forces near Aleppo and the city itself come under the Russian area of influence.
  3. Regional tensions were tightened another notch Saturday by Russian comments: Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that his country and the West have “slid into a new Cold War period,” and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said a third World War is actually underway -“I call this struggle a third World War by other means.,” he said.

Washington will avoid any action that risks further stoking this high state of international tension, but will act instead to de-escalate the cross-border Turkish-Russian confrontation over Syria.

All eyes are now on Moscow, much depends on Russia’s response to the artillery bombardment of its Syrian and Kurdish allies. It is up to Putin to decide when and how to strike back – if at all.

US urges Turkey to stop bombing Syria

On By AdminIn SOT, TurkeyLeave a comment

Russian state media is reporting that Turkey is shelling Syrian and Kurdish positions inside Syria.

Last week, the Russian Prime Minister warned that if Turkey did that, they would set off a ‘World War’.

Video: Turkey attacks Syrian Kurds while Erdogan Slams America

Tweets from the State Department