Russia holds nuclear drills, Ukraine seeks Swedish fighter jets • FRANCE 24 English

Russia holds nuclear drills, Ukraine seeks Swedish fighter jets • FRANCE 24 English

Well, the Russian President Vladimir Putin and his key staff, those who will decide on a nuclear strike or not, they were directing drills of the country’s strategic nuclear forces this Wednesday. Drills that featured practice missile launches. The Kremlin said that as part of the maneuvers involving all parts of Moscow’s nuclear force, the chief of the military general staff, General Val Garasimoff reported to Putin via video links that the drills were intended to practice procedures for authorizing the use of nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, Putin sitting alone at a round white table, as you see here, face big screens showing Garasimoff and Defense Minister Andre Belusov. They are the three men who would be involved in launching nuclear weapons in case of conflict. Now Vladimir Zilinski has had some good news this Wednesday on his visit to Sweden. Douglas, our international affairs commentator to give us more well on what we’ve been hearing about Putin the nuclear drills. He’s doing those nuclear drills. What was Zilinsky up to? What has happened in Ukraine of course with the strikes and people being killed overnight which is I think something that needs to be repeated loudly. So, uh, naysayers in some parts of the globe will will hear what is actually going on because I think sometimes they shut their eyes to it all. Uh, but also this issue about Zilinski’s good news in Sweden. Tell us about that. Yeah, look, Zilinski has been on a Nordic swing. Uh, Mark, he is scrambling. He is on a shopping tour. Basically, he is scrambling to get what he’s been after for years now. Really, air defenses, uh, missiles, things to fend off those swarms night after night of Russian missiles and drones. So he his first swing was in Norway and and Norway didn’t help him with the weapons, but it did help with something he really needs and will need this winter for heat and electricity and that’s natural gas. So about 150 million euros from Norway. And then he swung on over to Sweden and that so cutting to the chase, what he got from Sweden is the beginnings of what looks like a long-term cooperation deal, the beginning of a new era of cooperation where he’s going to get a lot of high-tech jet fighters, uh jet fighter aircrafts. They’re called the the Grippin 3. They’re the Grippin E. They’re part of a new generation. They are light single engine supersonic jet fighters. And the reason they’re attracted to Zalinsky, aside from the fact that the US isn’t really given Ukraine directly weapons anymore, it’s only doing it by selling them to Europe and Europe then gives them to Ukraine. Uh the reason they’re attractive is they are seen as a highly efficient but lowcost alternative to the high-tech US F-35s. Now, another US jet fighter aircraft, right, was deployed last August. Um, and and those were the F-16s. This is why these uh Swedish jet fighters had been under consideration for like 2 years now, but they’ve been held up until now because the F-16s were seen as taking precedence. So, US retreats from that weapon supply front and just retreats from the war in general. countries such as Sweden, let’s not forget a recent NATO uh joinney joined uh back last year 2024 are really stepping up and showing that they are going to put their um their money where their mouth is with these weapons. And this is exactly by the way what Zinsky needs. Why? Because these jet fighters, yeah, their fighters, their planes, they do air-to-air combat. They can do uh aerial bombing and they could do reconnaissance. We’re talking about a war here. Reconnaissance is extremely important. So, they’re like a one-sizefits-all sort of jet fighter package. This is what Zalinski wanted. Guess what? Needs a lot more of that. Where that came from, there’s been the the EU leaders um meeting in Brussels regarding Ukraine. Yeah, that’s uh tomorrow. The EU uh it’s called the EU European Council. What it is is fancy name for the heads of state, the leaders of the countries. They’re all huddling together. I know it sounds like they’re huddling all the time, right? How many meetings have we had on Ukraine? Well, this is right now cutting the chase because we’ve seen Donald Trump once again seeming in recent days to Hemingh Hall sway back towards into into Putin’s orbit a little bit. Uh seen as perhaps retreating a little, seen as perhaps uh laying down the gauntlet to Zilinski to shape up or ship out, meaning he’s not going to necessarily get what he wants. He better make settle on terms. So what the Europeans are trying to do is make sure that Ukraine that they have the wherewithal, the resources to give Ukraine what it needs in terms of defense since the US isn’t doing it anymore. Ukraine needs tens of billions of euros worth of weapons. There’s this talk over years now. Sounds confusing. It’s not really that confusing. Russia’s frozen assets, right? When Russia launched its full-scale invasion, all of these assets, both state, meaning sovereign assets, but also private assets, things like bank accounts, like yachts, um you know, all sort of shops, whatever, people’s private funds were all seized about 335 billion bucks. And we’re essentially talking oligarch, oligarch, citizens. That was private. But then there was also state and the state assets were the the bank of Russia. And those assets happen to be sitting most of them about maybe over $200 billion dollars of them in Belgium in something called Euroclear. Europeans want to get it out. They’ve been using the interest on those assets until now because that’s less controversial. Seizing the assets has been fighting words, especially for a lot of lawyers who see uh dangerous obstacles, technical and financial. They want to get that money. They think that maybe at this meeting they’re getting close. And what’s been perhaps pivotal is Germany’s chancellor, Frederick Mertz, getting on board with this idea, saying, “Let’s give Ukraine $140 billion as a loan.” They’re calling it a reparations loan secured by Russian assets. I’ll end with this. Why is that a problem? Because the loan is dependent on the assumption or the presumption that at the end of this war, Russia will pay this money back by way of reparations to Ukraine. Dr. Deal with that one, Mark. Dr. Herbert, thank you as always. Thanks very much. And Doug, our international affairs commentator.

Russia held planned strategic nuclear drills on Wednesday, a week after NATO began similar annual exercises, as tensions in Europe over the Ukraine war run high. The exercises come as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky clinched a deal to acquire 150 Gripen fighter jets from Sweden, hours after fatal Russian attacks battered Ukraine’s energy grid and spurred nationwide outages. FRANCE 24’s International Affairs Commentator Douglas Herbert has more.
#Ukraine #Russia #war

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