A Russia-NATO conflict is just one step from WW3, Putin warns the West

A Russia-NATO conflict is just one step from WW3, Putin warns the West
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People take part in an anti-Putin rally as voters queue outside the Russian embassy in Washington, DC, on March 17, 2024. (AFP)
A Russia-NATO conflict is just one step from WW3, Putin warns the West
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People take part in an anti-Putin rally as voters queue outside the Russian embassy in Washington, DC, on March 17, 2024. (AFP)
A Russia-NATO conflict is just one step from WW3, Putin warns the West
3 / 3
People take part in an anti-Putin rally as voters queue outside the Russian embassy in Washington, DC, on March 17, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 18 March 2024
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A Russia-NATO conflict is just one step from WW3, Putin warns the West

A Russia-NATO conflict is just one step from WW3, Putin warns the West
  • Russian ruler issues warning as he claims NATO personnel are already in Ukraine
  • Tells Macron to stop seeking to aggravate the war in Ukraine

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Monday that a direct conflict between Russia and the US-led NATO military alliance would mean the planet was one step away from World War Three but said hardly anyone wanted such a scenario.

The Ukraine war has triggered the deepest crisis in Moscow’s relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Putin has often warned of the risks of nuclear war but says he has never felt the need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
French President Emmanuel Macron last month said he could not rule out the deployment of ground troops in Ukraine in the future, with many Western countries distancing themselves from that while others, especially in eastern Europe, expressed support.
Asked by Reuters about Macron's remarks and the risks and possibility of a conflict between Russia and NATO, Putin quipped: “Everything is possible in the modern world.”
“It is clear to everyone, that this will be one step away from a full-scale World War Three. I think hardly anyone is interested in this,” Putin told reporters after winning the biggest-ever landslide in post-Soviet Russian history.
Putin added, though, that NATO military personnel were present already in Ukraine, saying that Russia had picked up both English and French being spoken on the battlefield.
“There is nothing good in this, first of all for them, because they are dying there and in large numbers,” he said.

Buffer zone
Ahead of the March 15-17 Russian election, Ukraine stepped up attacks against Russia, shelling border regions and even used proxies to try to pierce Russia’s borders.
Asked if he considered it necessary to take Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, Putin said if the attacks continued, Russia would create a buffer zone out of more Ukrainian territory to defend Russian territory.
“I do not exclude that, bearing in mind the tragic events taking place today, we will be forced at some point, when we deem it appropriate, to create a certain ‘sanitary zone’ in the territories today under the Kyiv regime,” Putin said.
He declined to give any further details but said such a zone might have to be big enough to preclude foreign-made armaments from reaching Russian territory.
Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, triggering a major European war after eight years of conflict in eastern Ukraine between Ukrainian forces on one side and pro-Russian Ukrainians and Russian proxies on the other.
Putin said he wished Macron would stop seeking to aggravate the war in Ukraine and play a role in finding peace: “It seems that France could play a role. All is not lost yet.”
“I’ve been saying it over and over again and I’ll say it again. We are for peace talks, but not just because the enemy is running out of bullets,” Putin said.
“If they really, seriously, want to build peaceful, good-neighborly relations between the two states in the long term, and not simply take a break for rearmament for 1.5-2 years.”

US democracy
Putin dismissed US and Western criticism of the election, which the White House said was not free and fair, saying US elections were not democratic and criticizing the use of state power against Donald Trump.
“The whole world is laughing at what is happening there,” Putin said of the United States. “It is just a catastrophe — it is not democracy — what on earth is it?“
When asked about the fate of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in unexplained circumstances at a Russian prison in the Arctic on Feb. 16, Putin said he had simply “passed away” using Navalny’s name for one of the first times in public.
Putin said he had agreed several days before Navalny’s death to swap him. Reuters reported in February that a prisoner exchange deal had been agreed for Navalny shortly before his death.
“I said: ‘I am agreed’,” Putin said about his approval of the prisoner swap. “I had one condition — we exchange him but he never returns.”
Navalny’s widow, Yulia, has accused Putin of killing her husband. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that claim was simply wrong.


Police say suspect in UnitedHealthcare CEO killing wasn’t a client of the insurer

Police say suspect in UnitedHealthcare CEO killing wasn’t a client of the insurer
Updated 5 sec ago
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Police say suspect in UnitedHealthcare CEO killing wasn’t a client of the insurer

Police say suspect in UnitedHealthcare CEO killing wasn’t a client of the insurer
  • Mangione’s arrest came five days after the caught-on-camera killing of Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel

NEW YORK: The man charged with killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was never a client of the medical insurer and may have targeted it because of its size and influence, a senior police official said Thursday.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told NBC New York in an interview Thursday that investigators have uncovered evidence that Luigi Mangione had prior knowledge UnitedHealthcare was holding its annual investor conference in New York City.
Mangione also mentioned the company in a note found in his possession when he was detained by police in Pennsylvania.
“We have no indication that he was ever a client of United Healthcare, but he does make mention that it is the fifth largest corporation in America, which would make it the largest health care organization in America. So that’s possibly why he targeted that that company,” said Kenny.
Mangione remains jailed without bail in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested Monday after being spotted at a McDonald’s in the city of Altoona, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of New York City. His lawyer there said he hasn’t seen any evidence yet linking him to the crime.
Mangione’s arrest came five days after the caught-on-camera killing of Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel.
Police say the shooter waited outside the hotel, where the health insurer was holding its investor conference, early on the morning of Dec. 4. He approached Thompson from behind and shot him before fleeing on a bicycle through Central Park, then heading to a bus depot.
Mangione is fighting attempts to extradite him back to New York so that he can face a murder charge in Thompson’s killing. A hearing has been scheduled for Dec. 30.
The 26-year-old, who police say was found with a ” ghost gun ” matching shell casings found at the site of the shooting, is charged in Pennsylvania with possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to police. His lawyer, Thomas Dickey, said his client is not guilty.
Mangione is an Ivy League graduate from a prominent Maryland real estate family. On Wednesday, police said investigators are looking into an accident that injured Mangione’s back and sent him to an emergency room in July 2023. They’re also looking at his writings about the injury and his criticism of corporate America and the US health care system.
Kenny said in the NBC interview that Mangione’s family reported him missing to San Francisco authorities in November.


Trump says automation causes more harm to longshoremen than it’s worth

Trump says automation causes more harm to longshoremen than it’s worth
Updated 5 min 20 sec ago
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Trump says automation causes more harm to longshoremen than it’s worth

Trump says automation causes more harm to longshoremen than it’s worth

WASHINGTON: US President-elect Donald Trump said on Thursday the money saved by automation in the workplace is not enough to justify the harm it causes to workers, especially longshoremen.
Trump made the comment in a post on Truth Social after a meeting with International Longshoremen’s Association President Harold Daggett and Executive Vice President Dennis Daggett.


Panama asks Trump to maintain US aid for deporting migrants

Panama asks Trump to maintain US aid for deporting migrants
Updated 16 min 34 sec ago
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Panama asks Trump to maintain US aid for deporting migrants

Panama asks Trump to maintain US aid for deporting migrants

PANAMA CITY: Panama’s president appealed to US President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday to maintain the aid Washington gives his central American country for deporting US-bound migrants.
The United States has contributed $1 million toward the cost of deporting over 1,000 migrants who tried to cross the Darien jungle from Colombia into Panama since July.
“I believe it must be maintained under the Trump administration,” said the right-wing Jose Raul Mulino, who was elected in May on a promise to end the migrant transit through Panama.
His government has organized some 30 deportation flights to Colombia, Ecuador and India.
Mulino has not however deported Venezuelans — who account for the bulk of the migrants crossing the jungle — because Panamanian planes have been barred from landing in Venezuela.
Caracas instituted the ban on Panama and several other Latin American countries after they criticized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s claim to have won re-election.
The Darien jungle is a key route for the smuggling of South American migrants trying to reach the United States through Central America.
In 2023, more than half a million migrants braved fast-flowing rivers, wild animals and criminal gangs as they crossed the jungle.
So far this year, nearly 300,000 people have crossed the Darien, 41 percent less than in the same period of 2023, a decrease which Mulino attributed partly to the deportation flights.
Trump has threatened to carry out the largest deportation of migrants in US history when he becomes president on January 20.
His transition team has reportedly drawn up a list of countries, including Panama, to which it wants to deport undocumented migrants when their home countries refuse to take them back.
But Panama has stressed it will only take back its own citizens.


Trump ‘vehemently’ opposed to Ukraine firing missiles deep into Russia

Trump ‘vehemently’ opposed to Ukraine firing missiles deep into Russia
Updated 36 min 7 sec ago
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Trump ‘vehemently’ opposed to Ukraine firing missiles deep into Russia

Trump ‘vehemently’ opposed to Ukraine firing missiles deep into Russia

NEW YORK: US President-elect Donald Trump said in an interview published Thursday that he disagrees “very vehemently” with Ukraine firing American-supplied missiles deep into Russia.
But Trump insisted he would not abandon Ukraine as US support for Kyiv would be key leverage in efforts to bring the war to a close.
Outgoing President Joe Biden’s administration has supplied long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine which can penetrate inside Russia, provoking angry retaliation from Moscow which has responded with its new hypersonic missile.
“I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that?” Trump said in an interview with Time Magazine which named him its “person of the year” on Thursday.
“I think it’s a foolish decision.”
ATACMS missiles have a maximum range of 190 miles (300 kilometers) according to publicly available data.
The interview was conducted before Thanksgiving and Trump’s high-profile meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky brokered by France’s president on the sidelines of the reopening of Notre Dame cathedral.
“We’re just escalating this war and making it worse,” he added.
Pressed on his support for Ukraine, which has been lukewarm with the Republican questioning the cost of backing Kyiv, Trump said he would use Washington’s backing as leverage to bring the war to a close.
“I want to reach an agreement and the only way you’re going to reach an agreement is not to abandon.”
Russian news agencies have jumped on Trump’s comments, drawing attention to the Republican’s apparent criticism of Kyiv’s approach.
White House spokesman John Kirby said he was “not going to get into a back and forth” with Trump’s incoming administration over the remarks.
“All I can do is reiterate what President Biden’s policy and guidance has been, and that is to do everything we can... so that if and when this comes to some sort of negotiation, that President Zelensky is in the best possible position,” he told reporters.


US ‘welcomes’ Ethiopia-Somalia deal on sea access

US ‘welcomes’ Ethiopia-Somalia deal on sea access
Updated 12 December 2024
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US ‘welcomes’ Ethiopia-Somalia deal on sea access

US ‘welcomes’ Ethiopia-Somalia deal on sea access
  • Countries had been at loggerheads since landlocked Ethiopia struck a deal in Jan. with Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland to lease a stretch of coastline for a port and military base
  • Turkiye, which had brokered talks between Somalia and Ethiopia, announced the two sides had reached a deal that would ensure ‘reliable, safe and sustainable access’ to the sea for Ethiopia

WASHINGTON: The United States on Thursday said it welcomed the accord reached by Somalia and Ethiopia to end regional tensions, sparked by Addis Ababa’s push for maritime access.
The two countries had been at loggerheads since landlocked Ethiopia struck a deal in January with Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland to lease a stretch of coastline for a port and military base.
But on Wednesday, regional power Turkiye, which had brokered talks between Somalia and Ethiopia, announced the two sides had reached a deal that would ensure “reliable, safe and sustainable access” to the sea for Ethiopia, “under the sovereign authority of the Federal Republic of Somalia.”
“The United States welcomes the December 11 Declaration between the Federal Republic of Somalia and the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia reaffirming each country’s sovereignty, unity, independence, and territorial integrity,” top US diplomat Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Blinken added the United States was looking forward to the “technical negotiations” that would spell out Ethiopia’s sea access “while respecting Somalia’s territorial integrity.”
After Ethiopia had announced its original deal with Somaliland — which unilaterally declared independence from Somalia in 1991 — authorities in the region said Ethiopia would give their government formal recognition.
The pledge was never confirmed by Addis Ababa.
Somalia branded the deal a violation of its sovereignty, setting international alarm bells ringing over the risk of renewed conflict in the volatile region.
Blinken also thanked Turkiye for “facilitating” the new agreement.
The statement came as he was in talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on the situation in Syria.
“We encourage Ethiopia and Somalia to intensify their cooperation on mutual security interests, particularly the fight against Al-Shabab,” Blinken said.