The US is seeking domination over the Mediterranean Sea as tensions with Moscow mount. NATO and Russia have built-up their forces in the region to the most significant level in a generation.
Thibault Lavernhe, regional communication officer of the French army in the Mediterranean, said, “Ukraine has changed things. The Americans are back. This hasn’t been the case since the Cold War.” He added, “Russia has doubled, if not tripled, its military capacity in the area.”
The French military official estimates Russia has 20 ships in the Mediterranean. Lavernhe says the US has moved warships from the Atlantic Ocean to double its presence in the sea.
Before Russia invaded Ukraine, NATO was operating with three aircraft carrier strike groups in the region. Three weeks ago, the US extended the deployment of the USS Truman aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean.
Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said last month that Truman’s current role could allow it to be used as a weapon for another nation.
"The role of Truman, with other allies, is to deter Russians from further aggression and to be on constant standby for orders that might be given from our president or from other leaders around the world for the protection of Ukraine and the people of Ukraine."
In addition to the massive naval presence, NATO has stepped up its intelligence gathering. The French Atlantique 2 spy planes are deployed to Crete to surveil the sea.
A NATO military officer speaking with AFP said the purpose of the deployment is “to show the Russians that the eastern Mediterranean is a NATO area.”
Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com, news editor of the Libertarian Institute, and co-host of Conflicts of Interest.
The Eastern Mediterranean might just belong to Mr. Hypersonic Missile.
Space based lasers have not enough wiggle time to ID, track and resolve an intercept.
Even if they could our interceptors on our jets were faced with hitting a speeding bullet years ago and all is fudged to intercept ICBMS and re-entry warheads. These missiles have no seams – they are ceramic or another compound and are One Piece housings.
Hypersonics are a missile we have not developed to practice on, we are in the dark on this because it was not reported to the world that Russia had them until they disclosed AFTER meeting Trump in Private.
Trump talked about Ukraine monkey business with Putin privately and the result shortly after was the Hypersonic disclosure by Russia.
It was detente.
Since then, they sent six cruise missiles and some were intercepted to make sure the radar was working and then a single hypersonic was sent and it made its intended mark.
We watched it approach with no defenses to intercept in West Ukraine.
There is no reason for Russia to be in the Med.
How many amphibious NATO troops are mustered in the east Med now?
“deter Russians from further aggression “but NEVER stop the NATO aggression which has caused the whole disastrous situation now.
My thoughts as well…
The whole disastrous sh*t show. FIFY
Russia has at least 2 Mig 31 with kinzhal hypersonic missiles covering the entire Med in the air 24/7 as well as subs and long range coastal defences in Syria. All these render a naval fleet obsolete and a thing of the past really.
Russia’s subs have the targets locked into the missile guidance systems, as have the U.S. and France. The world will end with the missiles fired from the subs. This is the war that the “best and brightest” have wanted since the end of WWII ( declassified documents reveal a military plan utilizing the armies of the U.K., U.S. and even Germany, to turn against Russia. Perhaps that was why Patton was murdered. He was all in on attacking Russia).
No the world will not end because of NATO’S irrational naval build.
If Russia uses hypersonics (they’ve had decades since Ronny Raygun wanted real “space based” Starwars Laser Phased Arrays intended to intercept ICBMS to PERFECT THEM),..If they use Hypersonics, they have a known range from a static launch to service and so far that is known to be 2,000 km. SPEED IS MACH 5+ ~6,125 km/h so the time it takes to reach a target is less than 20 minutes at spec.
We cannot track them, we cannot target them. We are Defenseless in stopping them unless we get them while still in their tube.
NATO can trigger this war, they are all-in ready to fight Great Gog as all the snakeoil sells it.
I can imagine that an air born launch would or could have an imaginable range much greater because these missiles can re-enter the atmosphere and still function.
10,000 Mile’s is not impossible for a service range as long as speeds are observed in re-entry: it need not enter space proper to do this.
enjoy your war
What about the Bosporus? Is Turkey still refusing passage to Russian war ships?
The Black sea is close enough for ship to ship battles.
Russia is not Gog as the USA RR taught in Ukraine . Is not going to bomb Israel and definitely not the Temple Mount, Mount Moriah.
Our whole war plan is based on very wrong speculation and scriptural interpretations.
Any good Military general has to take in the Prophecy as intel and they do. Our playbook follows an errant sequence of events and we are not going to re-think it and make corrections, if we did reconsider we would not be arming Nazis with jet interceptors and anti tank weapons, we would be Fighting Nazis like Russia is.
lol.
2 kitty
out
“Any good Military general has to take in the Prophecy as intel”
You’re probably right. Deep in some old manila file folder at CIA headquarters there’s probably a paper from the 1970s about how some people base their military predictions on some guy getting into the magic mushrooms 2,700 years ago, and how knowing this might be useful in f*cking with their heads.
okay, you made your point that you don’t have to believe things, I understand Tom.
I write to inform.
The military plan being affiliated with Religous doctrines are popular reads, FYI.
Hal Lindsey published much of the same Russia is gog stuff, but the disadvantages you have are just from ignoring them. You don’t know Tom. You don’t know the degree this one chapter steers whole nations into preparations.
Whether it is true is not important because right up to the moment Christ Appears, there will be doubters. Some just do not believe until they see something that really moves them and their bowels.
In fact, those 144,000 could be considered as rank unbelievers of today.
You might find yourself wanting some of that oil to light your path but, I suggest to get it now because scripture says that you might not get a gift later on.
Really, we have, and NATO has, Church and State on this one.
This Armageddon might be a myth to you but it is Written.
Our business in Ukraine was all about fighting Gog.
That is why Robertson is their Billy Graham, a snakeoil salesman, a wolf.
“Hal Lindsey published much of the same Russia is gog stuff, but the disadvantages you have are just from ignoring them.”
I didn’t ignore Hal Lindsey, et al. — I grew up on Lindsey, PTL, Jimmy Swaggart, etc. in a Pentecostal household, and rejected them when I was old enough to figure out they were con artists.
Good Lord! (No pun intended!) Well Thomas, you turned out pretty darn good! And many of us are glad for that!
It seems to me, logically, that you were able to see thru the BS of organized religion (scams) and that made you an excellent truth seeker…………………………………………..
That is a good thing!
Life is a journey and you never know where it’s going to go. The best we can do is guess, and use our best logic to deduce and continue forward…
Though I should add, I believe in everyones spiritual path….
I wouldn’t say I necessarily “see through the BS of organized religion.” I mostly keep my religious beliefs to myself and don’t plan to discuss them in detail here, but I’m not e.g. a militant atheist or anything.
But the PARTICULAR organized religion I was brought up in was Pentecostal. My grandmother converted to it as a teen when a revival came through southern Missouri in the 1920s. Of her four children, one is a Pentecostal minister, one is married to a Pentecostal minister, one is the black sheep (a Baptist minister), and my dad did not go into the ministry, but I was definitely raised in it.
And here’s the thing: One of the main tenets of Pentecostalism is being “filled with the Holy Ghost” and “speaking in tongues” or having “the gift of interpreting tongues.”
Early on, I noticed that one lady would “speak in tongues” every week, and it would be the same seemingly nonsense syllables, in the same order, every week. And another person with the “gift of interpreting” would throw out a completely different translation of exactly the same syllables in exactly the same order. Oh, and that interpretation was always in English styled after the King James Bible, never in normal English. So I got skeptical. And as soon as I got old enough to have a job in high school, I begged to be given Sunday shifts so that I “wouldn’t be able” to go sit through that.
It was also around that time that the PTL scandal happened, and then later Jimmy Swaggart got caught with a hooker (twice!) and my parents (who had donated to PTL when I was younger) eventually decided to go be Baptists with my black sheep uncle. But not, IIRC, until after my grandmother died so they wouldn’t face HER thunder over it.
All of the aforementioned people (except Swaggart and Bakker, anyway) were, in my opinion, decent folks who were just caught up in a weird version of Christianity (actually, so far as I can tell, a combination of the Christianized Voudon of the freed slaves and 19th century “holiness movement” Christianity).
I tend to be more interested in the history than in the doctrine, which is why I’m having fun with Dua-Kketi — I’ve read quite a bit about the “Jesus’s bloodline moved to Europe” theories and find them fascinating although not necessarily entirely persuasive. They do explain why the historical church has played down the scriptural evidence of Jesus’ marriage and fatherhood, etc., but I’m not sure the explanation is true.
Hi Thomas:
Thanks for sharing some of your story… I also think we do not get the entire story on such things as religion and I guess that is why ‘they’ tell people to have faith. (!)
So, I came up with my own foundation and that is what I live by…
God Bless you Tom
Nicely stated…
The rules are different in wartime.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Ukraine-war/Turkey-rejects-Russia-s-request-for-navy-ships-to-pass-Bosporus
Russian warships with a home port on the Black Sea can transit without restriction. Warships without a home port on the Black Sea can be restricted. Commercial vessels continue to enjoy free passage (though I wonder about vessels providing military gear/support.)
“… This paved the way for Turkey to invoke Article 19 of the convention, which notes that vessels of war belonging to belligerent powers shall not pass through the straits. Ships with home ports in the Black Sea are exceptions.
Cavusoglu [Turkey] said that if the ships are registered at Black Sea home bases, “they can return back to their bases and we cannot prevent it.”
Novaya Gazeta reported on April 22 that several Russian officers have been fired or imprisoned for failures in Ukraine.
Russian authorities arrested the Commander of the Black Sea Fleet Admiral Osipov and are investigating Black Sea Fleet Chief of Staff Vice Admiral S. Pinchuk, likely for the loss of the Moskva. The commander of the 6th CAA, the commander and deputy commander of the 1st Guards Tank Army, and the commander of the 22nd Army Corps have all been removed from their posts for unsatisfactory performance.
Purges of Russian officers are unlikely to improve Russian capabilities, as replacement commanders will likely be less experienced and under intense pressure to achieve likely unreasonable objectives set by the Kremlin.
those missile intercept guns Russia has are incredibly awesome.
It throws bullets and antiaircraft loads.
I suppose if NATO can claim that the Eastern Med. is NATO territory (ahem), Russia can claim Eastern Texas and we can all have a bbq.! (or be bbqued…)
Almost seems like the “good old days”….
I want to be in on that Donna!
Kremlin censorship of Russian and international media seeks to maintain its narrative that Russian forces are only targeting Ukrainian military personnel and key strategic infrastructure, not Ukrainian civilians.
Russian state censorship body Roskomnadzor further restricted access to independent publications and international coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the past week. Roskomnadzor is particularly targeting international reports of Russian war crimes, as such reporting could undermine the Kremlin’s false framing that Ukraine is responsible for all civilian deaths in Ukraine. The Kremlin has likely ordered intimidation tactics to be used against opposition journalists, activists, and concerned citizens within Russia to deter any realistic coverage of the Russian invasion.[29] The Russian Ministry of Defense classified information on the relatives of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine on April 20 (which was previously available through civilian institutions due to the families of deceased personnel receiving state benefits), citing security risks. Limiting the publication of such data will enable the Kremlin to disguise the full scope of Russian losses from the Russian public.
The Kremlin is watching you right now, Don. They’re monitoring your every move. If they arrest you then try to hold out for as long as you can. When they waterboard you, just hold your breath, but try to make it look like you’re suffering. You’ll be fine. Eventually they’ll find out that you don’t know anything and let you go.
Your parents are watching you in your room, Johnnyo.
At least pretend to do your homework…
This is my homework.
Another delusional Putin lover.
It’s just a joke, Don.
The entire situation is almost identical to the prelude to WW I. And the clowns masquerading as world leaders keep feigning outrage at Russia as if the attacks by the same bozos in the Middle East never happened.
‘Truman’ – no doubt named after the movie rather than the president….