Ukraine’s Defence Minister Rustem Umierov has signed an order approving the Military Personnel Policy Concept through to 2028, which focuses on meeting the human resources needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).

Quote: “The document defines a strategic vision for developing military personnel policy in defence over the next five years, both during martial law and peacetime.

The main emphasis of the concept is to ensure that the needs of the AFU in personnel are met during a full-scale war, integration into the Euro-Atlantic security space, and interoperability of the AFU with the armed forces of NATO member states.”

Details: The Ukrainian Defence Ministry expects the following effects:

The AFU will switch to contract military service. Conscript military service will be replaced by intensive military training for citizens of draft age;

Ukraine will have an effective system of recruiting professional and motivated personnel for the AFU;

A human-centred approach to career management of military personnel, taking into account their education;

Professional development, and gender equality. Equal opportunities for men and women in the AFU;

Improved electronic military registration system;

Automated and digitalised personnel management processes;

Expanded cooperation between Ukrainian higher education institutions and those of NATO and EU member states;

An effective and transparent system of financial support for servicemen and women and provision of housing;

Improved psychological support;

A new style of relations between commanders and subordinates;

Proper conditions for transitioning from military career to civilian life for service members subject to discharge from military service.

Source : Yahoo

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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated that Ukraine needs to get used to the fact that the country’s policies are bringing it closer to the moment when the Ukrainian flag will be hoisted alongside the flags of other EU member states in Brussels.

Quote: “Ukraine has walked a very long path – from a point where many didn’t believe in the possibility of our alignment with the European Union during a full-scale war, to achieving the status of a candidate country at record speed and fulfilling the necessary prerequisites for opening negotiations.

This is proof, time and time again, that Ukraine can accomplish significant achievements when we work in a united and confident manner, in the interests of our independence and of all Ukrainians…

All of us in Ukraine now need to get used to the fact that our domestic policy is a policy of European integration, and that is what is bringing us closer to the moment when the Ukrainian flag will be flying in Brussels alongside the flags of all the other EU member states.”

Details: Zelenskyy added that his team is doing everything possible to be ready for full accession to the European Union and to adapt all institutions and standards to European rules.

Source : Yahoo

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The assessment published by Finland’s Ministry of the Interior covers 21 nationally significant threat scenarios and disruptions, ranging from hybrid influence activities and armed conflicts to natural disasters, industrial accidents and climate phenomena.

The previous risk assessment was published in 2018.

The assessment anticipates sudden incidents targeted at Finland that have an impact on the vital functions of society and require the authorities to adopt exceptional measures or even request help from other countries.

According to the report, climate change, the digitalization of societies, hybrid influence activities and networked value and production chains are further examples of development trends and phenomena in the operating environment of threats and disruptions.

There are two new threats compared with the previous report: multiple simultaneous large wildfires and an extremely powerful space storm, national broadcaster Yle said.

There is also a high probability of a new pandemic, the report noted. However, it is impossible to estimate the magnitude of the risk and the severity of the pandemic in advance, it said.

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“We understand that countries have different approaches when it comes to supporting Ukraine, and we respect the debate that’s been taking place in Korea,” Landsbergis said.

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This massive haul will be shipped to Ukraine through Poland over the coming weeks.

Even as millions of people across Pakistan continue to struggle in dire misery due to a severe food shortage and worsening economic crisis, the country is all set to send another consignment of weapons and ammunition to help Ukraine fight the ongoing invasion by Russia.

The Economic Times reported that Project Shipping – a Pakistani shipping and brokerage firm – will transport the consignment from the Karachi Port to the Gdansk Port in Poland later this month with a ship named BBC Vesuvius.

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“The total inadequacy of decisions and actions of the current Kyiv regime, whose politicians are notorious for their carelessness, inability to negotiate, and blatant Russophobia, is obvious. And, although Russia does not reject the option for negotiations and a political resolution of the conflict, we are not going to talk under the preconditions put forth by the Kyiv authorities. Everything now depends exclusively on the readiness of Kyiv and its Western puppeteers for a true political and diplomatic resolution of the crisis,” the senior diplomat told TASS.

Galuzin also called the “so-called peace initiatives” of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky “that, if implemented, he allegedly is ready for a truce with Russia under” totally unacceptable.

“The Ukrainian leader’s proposal to make a ‘gesture of goodwill’ and withdraw Russian forces from Ukrainian territory for Christmas is also absurd. It is also unclear how all these slogans and calls correspond with Zelensky’s decree, signed on September 30, about the ‘impossibility’ of negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin,” the Deputy Foreign Minister added.

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“Russia isn’t at the negotiation table at all. And so our goal right now is just to reinforce Ukraine’s position on the ground through military aid, intelligence sharing and financial support,” said Mélanie Joly. “Because when we do that, we’re actually reinforcing their position at the negotiation table. There will be a diplomatic solution eventually. That’s been the case in every single conflict. But we’re not there yet.”

Despite reports that western allies are growing wary of continued and costly arms shipment – and concerned at the speed with which Ukraine is using up its ammunition – Joly said there was “strong support for Ukraine” ahead of the Nato summit.

She pointed to Canada’s pledge of C$500m (£310m) in new military aid to Ukraine, announced at the G20 summit in Jakarta.

Russia’s targeting of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, particularly power plants, had only increased support from allies, Joly said.

“We need to make sure that Ukrainians are able to get through this difficult winter,” she said, adding that energy ministers from Nato countries were looking for solutions to the looming energy crisis.

Russia has pounded energy facilities around Kyiv with missile strikes, resulting in power outages and breaks in water supplies.

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The president of Ukraine also noted the beginning of the confiscation of Russian assets and called for tougher sanctions pressure on the Russian Federation.

In addition, the politicians agreed on positions on the eve of the NATO summit and other international events.

The NATO summit will be held in Vilnius (Lithuania) on July 11-12.

Zelenskyy was invited to take part in the summit.

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The European Union is rushing to appease enraged Eastern European farmers after Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Bulgaria banned Ukrainian grain imports, contentious moves that threaten to undermine EU solidarity over Ukraine and compound pressures on already-vulnerable Ukrainian producers. 

The breadbasket of Europe, Ukraine has for years exported vast quantities of grain through the Black Sea. But after Russia’s invasion disrupted those routes, the EU stepped in, removing tariffs and establishing solidarity lanes, or alternative land routes that would allow Ukrainian cereals to reach other countries by passing through Eastern Europe. Rather than just transiting those countries, however, cheap Ukrainian grain entered their markets, and stayed—sparking an uproar among local farmers.

Desperate to win the farmers’ favor, some right-wing leaders have moved to ban Ukrainian grain and score political points. Poland was the first domino to fall when it announced it would block imports of Ukrainian grain and other goods on Saturday; Hungary followed suit later the same day. On Monday and Wednesday, Slovakia and Bulgaria also adopted similar measures. As frustrations boil over, governments must ensure the pitchforks aren’t pointed at them.  

“Super right-wing populist parties have always relied on farmers, and they haven’t done much for farmers at all in the last couple of years,” said Scott Reynolds Nelson, a historian at the University of Georgia and the author of Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World. “Suddenly they’re trying to do something quick to get farmers on their side, and a very simple thing to do is to threaten to cut off” Ukrainian grain. 

While falling prices are a serious problem for farmers, he added, “I do think that this is a cheap political gesture on the part of Poland and Hungary just to get more money out of the EU and to look good in front of farmers who are increasingly frustrated with all of these cheap goods.”

Russia tried to play the energy card to hive off Europe from Ukraine; that failed. But the grains play might just do what gas shortages couldn’t.

“I think that Russia obviously understands that this is a major consequence of its blockade of the Black Sea,” said Caitlin Welsh, the director of the Global Food Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s not just about blocking Ukraine’s grains from being exported; it’s about reducing support for Ukraine within the EU.”

The influx of Ukrainian grain has been an especially explosive political issue for Warsaw, which has otherwise been a staunch supporter of Kyiv throughout the war. For weeks, Polish farmers have angrily protested the flood of Ukrainian grain and their resulting financial losses, questioning the quality of Kyiv’s goods and even threatening to “spoil” and “ruin” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s recent trip to Warsaw.

All the turmoil is because Russia disrupted the normal state of affairs with a multi-pronged invasion of Ukraine last February. Ukraine’s usual export routes from the Black Sea were for a time closed; even now they are tenuous.

“This is just one of the consequences of the war, in the sense that this isn’t where grain would normally be traded,” said Joseph Glauber, a former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture currently at the International Food Policy Research Institute. “If you’re a Ukraine exporter, you’re not typically selling it to other countries in Eastern Europe that have their own grain supplies. You’re selling it to places where there are grain deficits.”

With elections looming later this year, Poland’s Law and Justice Party (PiS) has been scrambling to placate its rural base and quickly shore up support. In early April, Polish Agriculture Minister Henryk Kowalczyk resigned as public frustration grew. To appease protesters, his successor has vowed to test the quality of Ukrainian grain imports.  

After condemning the countries’ moves, the European Union is now working to end their bans and bring them back into the fold, announcing on Wednesday more than $100 million to compensate farmers and emergency “preventive measures” that would curb the entry of Ukrainian grain, unless it is set to be exported elsewhere. Warsaw, for now, also appears to have softened its stance, agreeing on Tuesday to end its ban as long as the transiting Ukrainian grain is completely monitored and traced, as well as transported in sealed convoys. 

Given “how quickly they backtracked, that demonstrates that they’ve realized how bad the look is not only toward Ukraine, but also toward Brussels,” said Liana Fix, a fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations.

These fractures come as uncertainty shrouds the future of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, the breakthrough wartime agreement that has helped drag down global food prices by allowing some 24 million tons of grain to reach the world market since it was signed in July 2022. Russia has continuously threatened to withdraw from the agreement to extract other concessions, and Ukrainian officials recently warned that the fragile deal is at risk of “shutdown.”  The deadline to extend the latest deal is May 18.

If Eastern European countries press ahead with their import bans, experts warn that Ukrainian producers—already struggling to sell their grain and facing lower prices amid shipping challenges and delayed inspections—will be the ones who are hit the hardest.

“If those countries were to shut off any access out through the solidarity lanes, that would create even more problems within Ukraine in terms of lower prices,” Glauber said. Losing the solidarity lanes won’t necessarily mean that more grain can swiftly reach other markets through the Black Sea routes, either. “If you shut off one of them, it’s not like the other one can immediately just pick up,” he added.

Source: Foreign Policy

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The new conservative House of Representatives has taken power and is ready to take on President Joe Biden and his foreign policy.

As part of the deal that emerged as Rep. Kevin McCarthy persevered through 15 rounds of votes to secure the speakership last week, a group of 20 far-right lawmakers reportedly won concessions to cap the federal budget at 2022 levels in exchange for agreeing to raise the debt ceiling. If McCarthy’s caucus does follow through on that, it would put the gargantuan military budget — $817 billion of the $1.7 trillion federal budget this fiscal year — under the microscope. It could lead to significant cuts, perhaps up to $75 billion.

That may be unlikely for many reasons, particularly the bipartisan consensus on the threat of China. The Republican House committee chairs tasked with national security are certain to push back against calls to slash defense spending, even if it means confronting members of their own party, and both parties are eager to avoid the defense cuts triggered by the 2013 debt ceiling crisis. But the proposal, and the backlash to it, say a lot about how Washington is thinking about its role in the world, and how the new GOP House majority might add its own flavor of oversight to Biden’s statecraft.

Republicans are also entering Congress with some members pushing for more scrutiny of US policy toward the Ukraine war, which has included about $50 billion of military and financial assistance to Kyiv. McCarthy had brought attention to that “blank check” in November. His criticisms may have been the impetus for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s surprise Washington visit just before Christmas, to reinforce support for his country in advance of the Republican takeover. Despite Zelenskyy’s appeal to Americans, polling shows that Republican voters are increasingly skeptical of continuing aid in perpetuity as the war approaches its one-year mark.

Now, members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus that, after much jockeying, allowed McCarthy to clinch the speakership are trying to express a clear message on national security. “We can be both a budget hawk and a defense hawk,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said on the Hugh Hewitt Show. “I support us going to absolute war, so to speak, to make sure that our defense is strong enough and our country is strong enough to take on China. But look, we have to do it responsibly and we haven’t been. We’re letting the swamp beat us. We’re letting the swamp set the terms.”

But looking ahead, defense cuts seem aspirational. Roy himself has disavowed them. And the staying power of the Republican Party’s leadership in key House committees, namely the many Mikes — Rep. Mike D. Rogers on Armed Services, Rep. Michael McCaul on Foreign Affairs, Rep. Mike Bost on Veterans Affairs, and Rep. Mike Turner on Intelligence — as well as the Biden White House’s own position, cannot be understated. “This push to defund our military in the name of politics is senseless and out of line with our national security needs,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said.

Or as one senior Democratic aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, texted me, “There’s waaaaay too many hawks on their side. And for that matter on our side.”

Three reasons the budget won’t change

The hawkish consensus around the threat of China is a primary reason that cuts to the military budget are highly improbable.

Andrew Lautz, a policy director at the National Taxpayers Union, says that, even without compromising US national security, big cuts are possible on outdated military programs.

But he is pessimistic that those would happen in the near future and pointed out how quickly Republican leaders, even some of the holdouts that McCarthy negotiated with, are starting to dispute the notion that defense cuts have ever been on the table. And so-called Reagan Republicans want to see a bigger budget to counter China.

“The solution is always more spending,” Lautz told me. “I don’t think we will, anytime in the next two years, see meaningful cuts to the defense budget happening through the appropriations process.”

A second reason for the unlikelihood of significant defense budget cuts is the mess that unfolded in 2013, when debt ceiling negotiations led to the complex wrangling of a congressional super-committee and a sequestration process that caused mandated, across-the-board defense budget cuts that the military and lawmakers of both parties hated.

No one wants to repeat what happened with knock-on effects of the Budget Control Act of 2011. “Congress has to be a critical partner in resourcing the military and it must be done through a predictable process that allows for discussion, debate, and careful decision-making,” Joseph Votel, a retired general who is now president of the nonprofit trade group Business Executives for National Security, wrote in an email. “What appears to be happening now does not reflect any of those qualities.”

A third reason: The political energy that might go into pushing for a military budget cut is likely to be channeled into probing the utility and the limits of US aid to Ukraine.

Since 2021, the Biden administration has provided almost $25 billion of military aid to Ukraine as well as $24 billion in financial and humanitarian assistance. There are right-wing voices who support the aid, and progressives too see the importance of maintaining aid to beat Russia’s invasion even if it comes at the expense of empowering military contractors. National security officials argue staunchly in favor of it. “We need to make sure that we hold together the political support here,” former acting CIA director Michael Morell, who is currently a consultant at Beacon Global Strategies, said recently.

Even if that aid continues, House Republicans are likely to expand oversight. Republican concerns about the US public debt, longstanding worries about corrupt practices in Ukraine that could lead to difficulty in monitoring the use of weapons, and the aid’s effect on the US’s own national security, will all likely be raised in hearings.

The US is sending so many weapons to Ukraine that supply chains are strained and stockpiles have been depleted. “Our current policy toward Ukraine is just not sustainable financially and in terms of what we are actually giving Ukrainians,” says Dan Caldwell, vice president for foreign policy at the conservative organization Stand Together. “You can’t indefinitely provide the types of support we’re doing. We’re running out of ammunition to give them, we’re running out of certain types of equipment to get them.”

Not all Republicans agree. “The people who want to cut Ukraine aid are probably in the minority. I think often when you’re in the minority, you maybe speak louder, because you want to be heard,” says Mira Ricardel, a former deputy national security adviser during the Trump administration.

Even those who support Ukraine’s defense say that renewed congressional attention will be positive. Ricardel, who now works at the Chertoff Group consultancy, says that oversight will force the White House to sharpen its thinking. “The beauty of having two branches of government working on this particular matter [is] it forces you to articulate what you stand for, why, and how you are going to do things and to defend them,” she told me.

The defense budget might not change, but there is a growing group of lawmakers pushing for it nevertheless

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates says there is “bipartisan opposition” to military budget cuts — but there is also bipartisan support.

A loose coalition of Republicans and Democrats has been calling for a more restrained and realistic US foreign policy. It’s not an organized cohort by any means. Some push for views that might be called isolationist. Others have voted for aid to Ukraine, just continuing to advocate for a negotiated end to the war. What unites them is their criticism of some of the articles of faith of US foreign policy that have led to an over-reliance on military force abroad.

The Koch-backed nonprofit Stand Together, where Caldwell is an executive, supports many think-tank experts who are pushing for a rethink of such entrenched policies. “We have seemingly unstoppable growth in the defense budget that is not tied to a realistic strategy,” he told me. “The only way that you can realistically reduce defense spending is by effectively changing America’s grand strategy.”

The military budget has been growing — by 4.3 percent, adjusted for inflation, over the past two years. Rep. Mike Rogers, who will chair the influential House Armed Services Committee, has advocated for increases of up to 5 percent each year.

Though in so many senses the US is more polarized along partisan lines than ever, progressives and far-right Republicans at times agree that the military budget is inflated and wasteful. It’s not clear they agree about enough else on national security to challenge the status quo.

Many former senior Trump administration officials have decamped to the America First Policy Institute. The organization notes that “Maintaining a strong military is not exclusively about having a large top-line budget,” though some of its suggestions for cuts would make progressives bristle, like eliminating “non-military issues such as climate change and democracy promotion from military doctrine and defense policies.” (Though many progressives would agree with the sentiment of ending the “use of military or tax dollars for nation building.”)

It’s also not clear what role the so-called rebel wing of the Republican Party will play in the House. As the backroom negotiations that brought McCarthy the speakership become clearer, the experts I spoke with told me that defense budget cuts seem unlikely — a sign that the disruption could reach its limit here.

Nevertheless, the mainstream discussion presents an opportunity to consider how massive spending outlays on the US military reflect the inertia of military adventurism that followed the September 11, 2001, attacks, bolstered by the entrenched financial interests of the military-industrial complex.

Interestingly, it is Hewitt, the right-wing talk show host, who said the House rebels’ messaging was too muddled. On his program, he pushed Rep. Chip Roy to more clearly articulate how Republicans can be China hawks while limiting the debt. The answer didn’t offer much: “We must end woke and weaponized government, and stop funding bureaucrats that are engaged in tyranny over the American people,” Roy replied. “We can have a strong national defense, we can beat up DOD to be non-woke, go find savings, and then stretch and increase what we need to to beat China.”

Source : Vox

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