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Member states of both NATO and the European Union, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have repeatedly called on NATO to provide a substantial increase in the number of foreign troops stationed in the region following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. The Baltic countries have also pushed for an urgent update to the alliance’s so-called “tripwire” approach. That’s because, under NATO’s existing strategy, Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has warned that the former Soviet state and its historic capital city of Tallinn would be “wiped off the map” in the event of a Russian attack, according to The Financial Times....

WASHINGTON (AP) — Western weaponry pouring into Ukraine helped blunt Russia’s initial offensive and seems certain to play a central role in the approaching, potentially decisive, battle for Ukraine’s contested Donbas region. Yet the Russian military is making little headway halting what has become a historic arms express. The U.S. numbers alone are mounting: more than 12,000 weapons designed to defeat armored vehicles, some 1,400 shoulder-fired Stinger missiles to shoot down aircraft and more than 50 million rounds of ammunition, among many other things. Dozens of other nations are adding to the totals. The Biden administration is preparing yet...

The man who 'invented Putinism' has been detained in Russia and is under house arrest, say reports in Moscow. If confirmed, the move against Vladislav Surkov appears to show Vladimir Putin is turning on his inner circle, and also deep splits among his closest henchmen. Unconfirmed accounts say Putin's 'ideologist' is being held in a wide-ranging criminal probe that has also seen the arrest of 150 FSB agents. The case evidently involves the alleged embezzlement of $5 billion (£3.85billion) by the secret services to create an undercover and intelligence network in Ukraine. The shadowy Surkov, seen as crucial to Putin's...

Putin's regime branded Latvia a 'neo-Nazi' state in a chilling echo of Moscow's threats to Ukraine after the Baltic state made May 9 a day of remembrance for victims of Russian aggression. In an extraordinary rant, Moscow called Riga's decision to commemorate Ukrainian war victims next month - on the same day as Russia's Victory Day to mark the surrender of Nazi Germany - 'blasphemous'. Latvian MPs passed the legislation to draw attention to ' Russia's military aggression'. Latvian national flags will be raised alongside Ukrainian flags at every residence and government building. According to Kremlin-backed media, Russian Foreign Ministry...

RUSSIAN state TV has aired a discussion on seizing the Baltic states as Nato bolster Eastern European allies with thousands more troops. ....Just such a scenario was outlined on Russian state TV channel Rossiya 1 by Colonel Igor Korotchenko, formerly of the Russian General Staff and air force and currently a reserve officer...

Moscow demanded Saturday that authorities in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania take measures to protect Russia's embassies after a Russian diplomat was attacked in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, the Russian RIA news agency said.,/A>"We are warning Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn that they are responsible for the consequences of the anti-Russian psychosis they have unleashed," the Russian foreign ministry was quoted as saying. "A Russian diplomat in the Lithuanian capital was attacked with the use of physical force, attempts were made to put pressure on the ambassador," it added. Lithuania's national broadcaster reported last week a third secretary of the Russian embassy...

TOKYO -- Despite fielding a smaller army, Ukrainian forces have put up a tougher response than anticipated to Russia's invasion thanks in no small part to the multitude of Javelin missiles provided by Western nations. Measuring 1.2 meters in length, the Javelin can be transported and fired by a single soldier. Yet the weapon, made by American contractors Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, has enough firepower to pierce tank armor from 2.5 km away. The traits have made the Javelin the weapon of choice for repelling tank invasions in urban settings. A Javelin operator can covertly approach and engage a target...

Viewed from Paris, London and Washington, the events unfolding in Ukraine may seem like a new Cold War taking shape in Europe. From the Baltic countries, it looks much worse. To Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians — particularly those old enough to have lived under Soviet control — Russia’s belligerence toward Ukraine has some worried that they could be the next target. The escalating tensions which preceded an attack Thursday brought back memories of mass deportations and oppression. “My grandparents were sent away to Siberia. My father was persecuted by the KGB. Now I live in a free democratic country, but...

An 80-tonne shipment of US anti-tank missiles has arrived in Ukraine - just the latest delivery of high-tech weapons aimed at inflicting maximum death and destruction on Putin's forces if he decides to invade. A plane loaded with 300 Javelin missiles worth some $50million landed in capital Kiev late Tuesday, the third part of a $200million shipment of American military aid that is being sent to help its ally. The shipment also contained grenade launchers, as well as ammunition and other non-lethal weapons systems, and comes in addition to other anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons already supplied by the UK, Estonia,...

nce a rarity, cows with light blue or dark ultramarine hides may again be glimpsed grazing on the Latvian countryside among the regular brown, black or white spotted cattle. The unique and hardy breed, driven to near extinction during the Soviet era, has made a comeback over the last few decades as an unlikely symbol of Latvian national identity.... In 2000 there were only 18 blue cows in Latvia, but today they number around 1,500 -- thoroughbreds as well as hybrids. Originally found only on the Baltic coast in the Kurzeme region...

That stark warning followed the release of a “draft treaty” proposal from Moscow that Russian officials portray as a resolution to the standoff, which has intensified as Russian forces amass near Ukraine's borders. Yet the Russian document demands not only that NATO promise never to admit Ukraine to the alliance, but it also goes so far as to demand the removal of U.S. and Western European forces from Central and Eastern Europe — a rollback that would amount to a practical breakup of NATO. “It’s not even valid to consider it,” a Baltic official told the Washington Examiner on condition...

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that the emergence of the omicron coronavirus variant demonstrates the need to vaccinate the global population in order to get past the pandemic. “We know that none of us will be fully safe until everyone is,” Blinken told reporters in Latvia. “And we've been saying that as long as the virus is replicating somewhere, it could be mutating, and if it's mutating, we might wind up with a variant that poses a new threat and that can defeat the existing vaccines or induce greater illness or be more transmissible, all the questions we're...

According to unofficial information obtained by PAP, a meeting of Polish officials is planned for Tuesday at which the possibility of triggering Nato's Article 4 will likely be discussed. The meeting is to be attended by the president, Andrzej Duda, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and the defence and interior ministers as well as officials of the foreign ministry, armed forces, police, Border Guard and other services. Nato's Article 4 provides for joint consultations should a member state consider its territorial integrity, political independence or security to be under threat. Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have been tackling an escalating migration crisis...

A charity named after Winston Churchill has provoked fury by rebranding itself amid concerns over his views on race. The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust has removed pictures of the wartime leader from its website and is changing its name to the Churchill Fellowship. Volunteers at the trust said it was 'rewriting history'. One told The Sun: 'He was voted, by the people, as the Greatest Briton in a BBC poll in 2002 but is now erased from his own charity by the woke brigade. ... ...Controversies surrounding his rule include whether he could have acted more decisively to prevent the...

Most EU countries, including Hungary, have voiced solidarity with LGBTIQ protesters in Georgia after a violent mob halted their Pride march on Monday (4 July). “We condemn today’s violent attacks on the civic activists, community members, and journalists, as well as the failure of the government leaders and religious officials to condemn this violence,” the EU states’ embassies in Tbilisi said in a joint statement. “Participation in peaceful gatherings is a human right guaranteed by Georgia’s constitution. Violence is simply unacceptable and cannot be excused,” they also said. And they called on those who incited or carried out hate-crimes to...

Highlights Yersinia pestis is discovered in a 5,000-year-old hunter-gatherer from Latvia Y. pestis emerged ∼7,000 years ago at the beginning of the Neolithic The infected individual might represent a case of septicemic plague due to zoonosis Summary A 5,000-year-old Yersinia pestis genome (RV 2039) is reconstructed from a hunter-fisher-gatherer (5300–5050 cal BP) buried at Riņņukalns, Latvia. RV 2039 is the first in a series of ancient strains that evolved shortly after the split of Y. pestis from its antecessor Y. pseudotuberculosis ∼7,000 years ago. The genomic and phylogenetic characteristics of RV 2039 are consistent with the hypothesis that this very...

Kremlin official referred to having to defend civilians from a 'second Srebrenica' Moscow claims that Ukraine is inflaming tensions by beefing up border security It comes as new footage emerged showing tanks being transported to frontier Vladimir Putin insists deployment is defensive and to check 'combat readiness\\ A senior Kremlin official today warned that if Russia is forced to defend its citizens in the disputed Donbass region it would be 'the beginning of the end Ukraine.' Tensions have soared in eastern Ukraine in recent weeks after Vladimir Putin dispatched tanks, helicopters and thousands of troops to the Ukrainian border. Ukraine's...

The United States on Tuesday joined more than a dozen other nations to express shared concerns about a World Health Organization study into the origins of the CCP virus, pointing to the report’s delay and lack of access to crucial data. “Together, we support a transparent and independent analysis and evaluation, free from interference and undue influence, of the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic,” reads the statement signed by the governments of Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, South Korea, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. “In this regard, we join in...

Throughout this month, Latvia has suspended up to seventeen Russian television channels that have been an aggressive and subversive force within the Baltic nation. Earlier this month, a Russian channel named Rossija RTR was banned from Latvia by that nation’s National Electronic Mass Media Council (NEPLP). The NEPLP reasons given for that action were that Rossija RTR had engaged in “incitement to hatred or discrimination against a person or group of persons on grounds of sex, race or ethnic origin. To summon to war or to cause military conflict on grounds of origin, nationality, religion or belief, disability, age or...

Some of these countries come in with numbers that, while lower than ours, are not much lower — for example, Brazil at 1,021. Many numbers are spectacularly lower: Poland, 943; Chile, 938; Romania, 936. Or lower yet: Germany, 642; Latvia, 601; Ireland, 591. And there are about 75 nations that have fewer than 100 deaths per million, among them Iceland, Bangladesh, and Japan. What are these countries doing that the United States should be and considering? Granted, there are a multitude of reasons why any nation may have lower rates than another — for example, remoteness, climate, wealth, even religion....