Ramms: NATO will defend Estonia

The following information comes from the Newsru.com web site:

General Egon Ramms, NATO’s Operational Level Commander, is reported to have said on Estonian television today that in the event of military conflict the Alliance will defend Estonia against any aggressor. “NATO has a programme of action on the territory of the Baltic countries in the event that they need to invoke the fifth article of the NATO treaty,” Ramms is quoted as saying on Tuesday at a press conference in Tallinn at the end of a two-day visit to Estonia.

Ramm also rejected a statement by Estonian author and former military NCO Leo Kunnas, who had claimed it would take the alliance at least a month to provide military aid to Estonia if a conflict began. Estonian Defence Forces Commander Lt. Gen. Ants Laaneots accused the country’s media of creating a climate of nervousness in connection with doubts of assistance from NATO in case of an attack on Estonia. “Newspapers should not continually raise this topic, you will ruin everyone’s nerves,” Laaneots is reported as saying. According to him, NATO would be able to come to Estonia’s assistance within at least 7 days after a possible outbreak of conflict.

Tomorrow General Ramms will go to Riga, Latvia.

Putin: Russia will respond to NATO Black Sea presence

Vladimir Putin has said that Russia will respond to what he called “the build-up of the NATO grouping in the Black Sea”, but “without any kind of hysteria”, Interfax reports. When asked what kind of measures were involved, he said only: “You’ll find out.”

Putin also claimed that European leaders have begun to use the word “regime” when referring to the Georgian government. “This tends to suggest that it is not a democratic state, but a regime of personal power, the nature of which is in need of examination. Clearly, there is nothing democratic about it,” he is reported as saying.

Sarkozy was,  however, apparently using the French word “régime”  in its neutral sense of “government”. So Putin “misunderstood”.

A state of euphoria

Alexander Dugin, interviewed on August 27, 2008 – Excerpt: [my tr.]

“At present we are in a state of euphoria: we have defeated Georgia’s military machine, destroyed it, have recognized the our friends’ independence. Now we must hold on to that situation. But this is not a local issue. Holding on to the situation does not mean simply preventing a counter-attack by the Georgian aggressors. Now we will have to stave off a massed attack by the United States on the territory of these republics. The most difficult part is still to come: we have won a battle, but by no means the war. In order to deal with this situation, Russia must rebuild its society, its economy, its politics, its media and educational spheres – everything, in fact – along military lines. We have gone to war. We need reinforcement, the consolidation of society. We will never go back to the Russia of before August 8, 2008. We will now stand on the brink of nuclear conflict for a long time. So now, in my opinion, South Ossetia and Abkhazia will become less important than the global restructuring of the world’s architecture with which we dealing. The fate of their peoples is secondary to what now awaits the entire world. For the world stands on the brink of nuclear catastrophe.

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“The masks have fallen. We have gone to war. Now Russia must fight not only outside but also within, with its fifth column. The liberal westernizers, the employees of all the various NGOs and foundations, must now be interned. In war as in war. If prior to August 8 these people had a right to their point of view, today they have only one right: to be isolated and saved from inevitable retribution, for I do not think that in this situation the patriots will sit idly by. The hour of the patriot is at hand. The hour of revenge for the humiliation that we have endured from these citizens for more than a decade. I think that some Georgian public figures who are particularly active in Russia must also share the same fate, as they are representatives of the country with which we are at war.”

Russian media crow over EU "defeat"

Russian newspapers are almost unanimous in declaring that yesterday’s EU joint statement on the crisis in Georgia was a “victory” for Russia, as the statement failed to include a call for economic sanctions. Tvoi Den’s headline reads: “Europe to go on sucking our oil and gas – European leaders didn’t risk turning their backs on Russia’’s energy carriers.” The paper calls the line taken by Britain and Poland “hysterical”. Izvestia considers that several European countries don’t want a serious and protracted dispute with Moscow, and a survey of the British press claims to show that opinion within the U.K. is divided, special attention being focused on an article by political analyst Anatol Lieven published in the Times newspaper. Kommersant sees the result of the EU meeting as a victory for Russian diplomacy, and points to the fact that Europe is to be given a warning in the shape of Gazprom’s decision to turn off the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline for “repairs” from today until September 4.

Beslan 4 years on

Via AFP:

The remembrance ceremonies climax Wednesday, exactly four years after a battle between besieging Russian special forces and hostage-takers demanding withdrawal of troops from nearby Chechnya.

But anguish mixed with anger at the authorities in Moscow and here in North Ossetia, a mountainous region bordering Georgia’s South Ossetia province, which Russian troops occupied last month.

The head of the survivors’ group Voice of Beslan, Ella Kesayeva, said a petition had been filed with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to try to force out the truth.

Survivors want to know why no-one, other than the one surviving hostage taker, has been punished for the episode in which more than 1,000 people were held for three days inside the school.

A handful of police were tried for negligence in allowing a heavily armed group to reach the school on September 1, but they were either cleared or amnestied.

An official enquiry has cleared the security services of blame in the disastrous battle where heavy weapons were used to crush fierce resistance by hostage-takers inside the packed school building.

Many believe there has been a cover-up.