Experts May Have Recorded A Third Blast Connected To The Nord Stream Gas Leaks Geological Agency Says
Experts May Have Recorded A Third Blast Connected To The Nord Stream Gas Leaks, Geological Agency Says https://digitalarizonanews.com/experts-may-have-recorded-a-third-blast-connected-to-the-nord-stream-gas-leaks-geological-agency-says/
7 hr 33 min ago
Experts may have recorded a third blast connected to the Nord Stream gas leaks, geological agency says
From CNN’s Arnaud Siad and Chris Liakos
Seismologists with a Danish geological agency may have recorded a third explosion connected to the Nord Stream gas pipeline leaks this week, officials said.
The blast may have occurred at the same time as the second explosion recorded Monday, the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) said in a statement Thursday.
GEUS cautioned its seismologists had “reservations” about the analysis, “because the signals from the potential third blast may also be reflections from the second blast that occurred at 07.03 PM on 26 September.”
The agency said further study could produce more knowledge.
Earlier this week, GEUS announced that it recorded “shaking” twice Monday in the Baltic Sea. Experts said the signals recorded “do not resemble signals from earthquakes” but “resemble the signals typically recorded from blasts.”
The Swedish National Seismic Network also said it detected two explosions near the area of the Nord Stream pipelines during that timeframe.
Some context: NATO’s chief and several European leaders have described the leaks as “acts of sabotage,” but Western officials have stopped short of attributing the attack to Russia or any nation.
European security officials observed Russian navy ships in the vicinity of leaks Monday and Tuesday, according to Western intelligence officials and one other source.
The Kremlin has said any claims it targeted the pipelines are “absurd” and spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Thursday the “unprecedented nature” of the leaks suggests they may have been the result of a possible “terrorist attack.”
6 hr 32 min ago
More than 200,000 people have left Russia since Putin’s mobilization announcement, collective data shows
From CNN’s Sharon Braithwaite, Anna Chernova, Eve Brennan and Radina Gigova
Russian citizens entering Georgia at the Kazbegi border, on Wednesday. (Davit Kachkachishvili/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
More than 200,000 people have traveled from Russia into Georgia, Kazakhstan and the EU since Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the immediate “partial mobilization” of Russian citizens on Sept. 21, collective data from various countries shows.
Here’s a breakdown of the numbers:
Approximately 100,000 Russians have crossed into Kazakhstan in the last week, Marat Kozheyev, Kazakh deputy minister of internal affairs, said Wednesday, according to Kazinform, a state-owned news agency.
At least 53,136 people have crossed the Georgian-Russian border between Sept. 21-26, data released by Georgia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs Tuesday shows.
Nearly 66,000 Russian citizens have entered the European Union over the past week (Sept. 19-25) — a more than 30% increase in comparison to the past week, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex said Tuesday.
This information does not include data from Mongolia and Armenia, where Russian citizens have also traveled in the past days. Official data from Russia has not been publicly available on how many Russian citizens have left the country since Sept. 21.
More on Putin’s order: Russia’s mobilization announcement for its war in Ukraine sparked protests and an exodus of Russian citizens from the country, as the Kremlin tightened rules around evading military orders. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced on Sept. 21 that up to 300,000 men with previous military experience will be drafted.
The number of Russians fleeing country to avoid call-up “likely exceeds” the number of troops that invaded Ukraine in February, the UK Ministry of Defense said Thursday.
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday he does not know the number of people who have left the country since the announcement. Independent Russian media outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe on Tuesday cited a source in the Russian presidential administration as saying the FSB (Federal Security Service of Russia) reported 261,000 men fled Russia since the announcement of the mobilization on Sept. 21.
10 hr 31 min ago
Analysis: Why Putin wants to annex Ukrainian territory
Analysis by CNN’s Tim Lister
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his annual press conference on December 23, in Moscow, Russia (Natalya Zamboska/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
President Vladimir Putin is set to sign agreements Friday that will absorb into Russia thousands of square miles of Ukrainian territory in what will be the largest forcible annexation of land in Europe since 1945.
The agreements will be signed at a ceremony at the Kremlin, three days after hastily-conducted referendums concluded in the four areas of Ukraine that Moscow will now consider Russian territory.
Putin will deliver a speech and meet with Russian-backed leaders of the four occupied regions, according to the Kremlin.
Ukraine and its western allies have categorically rejected the planned annexation of the four regions – Donetsk, Luhansk and much of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, a swathe of Ukrainian land that contains heavy industry, rich farmland and a critical freshwater conduit for Crimea.
Donetsk and Luhansk are home to two breakaway republics that Moscow has backed since 2014, while Kherson and parts of Zaporizhzhia have been controlled by Russian forces since shortly after the invasion began in late February.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has asserted that if the Kremlin presses ahead with annexation, any negotiation with Putin will be impossible.
In all, Russia plans to raise its flag over some 100,000 square kilometers (38,600 square miles) of Ukrainian territory in what is a flagrant breach of international law and after votes dismissed by the great majority of countries, including some friends of Russia like Serbia, as null and void.
While the international community will reject Russia’s plan almost in unison (expect a few outliers like Syria and North Korea), annexation does change the “facts on the ground” and diminishes the prospects for any negotiated settlement.
There’s a huge difference between withdrawing from occupied land (as the Russians did in April when they pulled back from much of northern Ukraine) and giving up areas that has been formally and ceremonially absorbed into the motherland – especially for a leader like Putin who is fixated with a “greater Russia.”
Keep reading here.
11 hr 12 min ago
Ukrainian forces are closing in on an occupied railroad hub in Donetsk, Russian-backed official says
From CNN’s Tim Lister and Olga Voitovych
Rail infrastructure on fire after a shelling near the Lyman station in Lyman, eastern Ukraine, on April 28. (Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images)
Ukrainian forces continue to press closer to the occupied town of Lyman in the eastern Donetsk region, according to a Russian-backed leader there.
The railroad hub fell to Russian forces and their allied militia at the end of May, but the situation has grown “difficult” for the forces trying to hold the territory, said Alexander Petrikin, the pro-Russian head of the city administration.
“Today, September 29. The situation in the city is difficult. Ukrainian militants keep shelling Krasny Liman [Lyman in Ukrainian] and Krasny Liman district,” Petrikin said in a short video on the vk.com social network.
Ukrainian forces have made gains to the south, west and north of Lyman — with just one road to the east still under control of the pro-Russian groups.
12 hr 3 min ago
EU readies new sanctions as Russia’s parliament plans to consider annexation of occupied Ukrainian regions
From CNN’s Jo Shelley in London and Anna Chernova
Russia’s two houses of parliament — the State Duma and Federation Council — will consider the annexation of occupied Ukrainian territories next week, as EU readies additional sanctions in retaliation for the plan.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend a ceremony on Friday where agreements for Russia to take over four Ukrainian territories will be signed, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Thursday. The ceremony will start a legislative process in Moscow to annex Russian-occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – a move that would be illegal under international law.
Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, will meet on Oct. 3 and Oct. 4, its chairman, Vyacheslav Volodin, said according to RIA Novosti. The state news agency cited Volodin as saying that the State Duma’s schedule had been adjusted so the deputies could make legislative decisions based on the supposed results of the polls.
The Federation Council, Russia’s upper house, will consider the annexation of the occupied Ukrainian territories on Oct. 4, Andrey Klishas, chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation, said in a Telegram post on Thursday.
“The Federation Council can consider all issues related to the entry of new regions into Russia only after the signing of the relevant Treaties, and that is exactly what will be done at the next meeting of the Chamber on October 4,” he wrote.
Remember: The declared annexation comes after so-called referendums on Ukrainian territory on joining Russia — votes that were not observed by independent monitors and have been widely condemned by western governments as a “sham.”
The EU proposed a new package of sanctions against Russia on Wednesday, targeting “those involved in Russia occupation and illegal annexation of areas of Ukraine,” including “the proxy Russian authorities in Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia and other Russian individuals who organized and facilitated the sham referenda in these four occupied territories of Ukraine.”
12 hr 37 min...
