[Aljazeera] The top United States military leader, Joint Chiefs Chair General Mark Milley, met with his Russian counterpart, Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov, in Helsinki on Wednesday.
The meeting of the two military leaders comes after the chaotic US military withdrawal from Afghanistan unleashed a new humanitarian crisis in Central Asia and as Washington seeks to coordinate with neighbouring powers on countering armed groups.
"It was a productive meeting. When military leaders of great powers communicate, the world is a safer place," Milley told The Associated Press.
Both sides agreed not to disclose details of the meeting, as has been the practice in previous meetings and calls, the AP reported. But the US basing issue around Afghanistan was a key topic for Milley with NATO counterparts in Greece over the weekend.
Russia and the US have been engaged in a dialogue on strategic stability following the Geneva summit meeting between US President Joe Biden and Russia President Vladimir Putin in June. But the rapid US and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan and the sudden rise of the Taliban government in Kabul have raised new security concerns.
Gerasimov and Milley, meeting at a residence near Helsinki, discussed issues of mutual interest including risk mitigation in military activities, according to a report by RIA Novosti, a Russian news service.
[KHPG] Yury Spasskykh, a former Interior Ministry official, has been remanded in custody in Ukraine and is facing trial on charges linked with the killing of Maidan protesters in the morning of 18 February 2014. Spasskykh is, in fact, charged over a number of Maidan crimes and fled the country in the Spring of 2014, only to end up imprisoned in Russia on bizarre charges.
During the Euromaidan protests in 2013-2014, Spasskykh was the deputy head of a section dealing with mass events within the Kyiv Police Department on Public Security. He appears to have first been arrested in 2018 after returning to Ukraine, but was only remanded in custody, by the Pechersky District Court in Kyiv on 20 September after he went into hiding earlier in the month. He was earlier informed of charges over the violent dispersal (or attempted dispersal) of protesters during the night from 10-11 December 2013, and over the dispersing of protesters on 18 February 2014, the first of the two bloodiest days of Maidan, when peaceful protesters were gunned down.
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Yesterday's report was that the weapon used in the attack was a submachine gun firing 7.62mm slugs. Another, subsequent report said that the weapon used was an AK-47, going by the spent weapons cartridges.
The cartridges were not armory issued, but were commercially produced ammunition in Hungary.
The trail would suggest this was an organized crime attempted hit.
MOSCOW , September 10, 2021 , 08:38 - REGNUMThe Russian Military Historical Society (RVIO) has published declassified documents from the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation related to the Battle of Smolensk during the Great Patriotic War. You can get acquainted with them on the History.rf portal.
"The next collection of documents is dedicated to the Battle of Smolensk on July 10 - September 10, 1941, when, during two months of fierce fighting in the central sector of the Soviet-German front, the Red Army soldiers managed, due to stubborn defense and bold counterattacking actions, to disrupt the offensive dates provided for by the Barbarossa plan Hitlerites to Moscow," said in the RVIO.
The published collection includes declassified combat maps, orders, operational reports, combat and political reports. These documents "reveal the extreme degree of fierce fighting and dedication with which the soldiers and commanders of the Red Army blocked the path of the German Army Group Center on the territory of the Smolensk region and a number of neighboring regions."
"These documents will be of interest to both scientists and researchers, and a wide audience of people interested in the history of the Great Patriotic War," added the society.
The RVIO recalled that it was during the Battle of Smolensk that for the first time the BM-13 "Katyusha" rocket mortars from the first separate experimental rocket artillery battery under the command of Captain Ivan Flerov were brought down on the enemy.
"The soldiers and commanders of the 16th, 19th and 21st armies, fighters of the destroyer battalions, covered themselves with eternal and unfading glory during the Smolensk battle," the Historical Society said.
Recall that the Battle of Smolensk began on July 10, 1941. Until July 20, the Nazis achieved serious successes, and the troops of the Red Army were forced to withdraw to the east. On July 13, during an offensive on the left (southern) flank of the Western Front towards Bobruisk, the Red Army launched an offensive and drove the Germans out of the cities of Rogachev and Zhlobin. However, on July 16, the Nazi troops still managed to capture Smolensk.
Interesting to note that there were in toto, seven Soviet armies involved in the Smolensk defensive operation, though the article only identifies only three. That is because those other four armies were still under command of Stalin's reserve front, which was still forming up armies and moving them to the west.
Even more interestingly, in my estimation, was the commander of the Soviet 24th Army, commanded by NKVD General Konstantin Rakutin. Until this year little data was available about Rakutin's career between the Russian Civil War and his command of 24th Army.
Rakutin was a political instructor (politruk) and a reliable henchman for the Communist Party.
One more fact not mentioned in the Russian article was that directly after the conclusion of the Smolensk Defensive Operation, the first limited offensive of the Red Army were launched in the wake of the defensive. The offensive was conducted by none other than Marshal Semyon Timoshenko
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WIKI: Rakutin was removed from the rolls of the Red Army in 1943 as missing in action. He was declared dead postwar in 1946, but the location and circumstances of his death remained unknown. His place of death was discovered by members of the Search Movement and in 1996 his remains were reburied at the military cemetery in Snegiri. For his "courage and heroism displayed in the struggle against the German Fascist invaders during the Great Patriotic War," Rakutin was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin on 5 May 1990.
Mail in balloting and Dominion computerized vote counting make such archaic action against future political rivals unnecessary.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Aljazeera] The top United States military leader, Joint Chiefs Chair General Mark Milley, met with his Russian counterpart, Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov, in Helsinki on Wednesday.
