Russia sends military to protect Arctic oil region after Sweden deploys troops

   (Examiner) --- As the crisis over a 'mysterious' and unknown Russian submarine believed to be trapped in Swedish coastal waters escalates, President Vladimir Putin is taking no chances that their Northern European neighbour will use its military to threaten discovered oil fields Russia has made claim to in the Arctic region. And on Oct. 21, the Russian leader has decided to react with force and is deploying troops and robotic sentries to the Arctic to ensure the dispute reaches no further than its current location.

   Over the weekend, Swedish news sources reported that a disabled Russian submarine had gone down in the Stockholm archipelago, and that attempts to contact the boat were met with silence. In fact, Russian authorities irrefutably denied that any ship or submarine had entered or was disabled in Swedish waters, but over the past two days tensions have risen between the two neighboring countries that Sweden has now deployed their military in an attempt to track and find this mysterious unknown vessel.

   On the heels of Sweden's military deployment (following the discovery of a damaged Russian sub), it appears Russia is taking no chances with its access to Arctic resources.As Reuters reports, the Russian defense minister announced today that Russian military units will be deployed along the entire Arctic border from Murmansk to Chukotka in 2014.

   Interfax adds that combat robots are also being deployed to protect Russian oil and gas infrastructure in the harsh environment of the Arctic. This should be no surprise as The Guardian notes, the Arctic's hydrocarbon resources nevertheless exert a powerful pull. It has been compared to "a second Middle East", with oil and gas reserves thought to represent 17% and 30%, respectively, of the global total. - Zerohedge

   Control over the Arctic oil reserves is of supreme importance to Russia, and any Northern latitude country that seeks economic and political power for the future as energy resources in the Middle East continue to dwindle. In fact, the past 40 years has seen the U.S., and in particular Saudi Arabia, control a large portion of economic policy around the world through their petro-dollar agreement, and OPEC's domination of energy production. But as the world quickly moves away from the dollar, and as the Middle East begins to decline from peak production, nations who can control the next energy frontier will have the power to dictate new economic policies which will also equate to political dominance.

   More than at anytime since the height of the Cold War, it seems like the entire world is on the edge economically, militarily, and geo-politically. And where something as small as a foreign vessel being believed to reside in another nation's waters seems trivial in the big picture, the consequences of small events today can quickly lead to escalating tensions, just as the assassination of the Arch-Duke Ferdinand 100 years ago set the dominoes in motion to begin World War I, and a truly global conflict.

Russia Says It Won't Bow Over Sanctions, Denies Navy Craft In Trouble Off Sweden

   (RFE/RL) --- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Moscow will not do the West's bidding in order to have sanctions removed.

   Speaking on October 19 on Russia's NTV channel, Lavrov said, "We are told, 'If you help settle the crisis in Ukraine, we will cancel the sanctions. Let us name a criteria for you -- take one step, see to it that the militia would allow monitors to the border with Russia,' and so on.'"

   He said: "Our answer is very simple -- we will not fulfill or agree to any criteria or conditions."

   Lavrov also accused Western powers of using the Ukraine crisis as a pretext to press Russia "to  alter its approach to key, crucial  issues for us and force us to accept  the approach of the West."

   But he called that "bygone century, bygone epoch, colonial thinking of the past."

   Meanwhile, Russia said that none of its submarines was involved in what Sweden is calling "foreign underwater activity" in waters near Stockholm.

   The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on October 19 that "there have been no irregular situations and, even less so, accidents involving Russian naval vessels."

   The respected Swedish daily "Svenska Dagbladet" has reported that a damaged Russian submarine is at the center of a search by Swedish boats, troops, and helicopters for an unidentified submarine that began on October 17.

   The newspaper says the Swedish military had intercepted a distress signal in Russian that was sent to a naval base at the Baltic seaport in Kaliningrad.

   The Swedish military has refused to comment on the newspaper's reports.

   The search operation comes amid increasing tension with Russia among the Scandinavian and Baltic states over the crisis in Ukraine, where Western states have accused Russia of supplying troops and material to pro-Russian separatists and otherwise fomenting violence.

   Russia has also sought to exert leverage over Ukraine through gas supplies.

   Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said late on October 18 that his country will have natural gas from Russia this winter, suggesting a breakthrough in stubborn talks with senior Russian and Gazprom officials.

   Poroshenko said in an interview on Ukrainian television that Russia and Ukraine must only agree on the price for that gas.

   He said Russia would supply Ukraine with gas through March at a price of $385 per 1,000 cubic meters, down from the current prince of $485.

   He also said he expected the deal to be signed when Russian, Ukrainian, and EU officials meet on October 21 in Brussels for their next round of gas talks.

   The Ukrainian leader -- who met with Russian President Vladimir Putin three times in Milan on October 17 -- added that Kiev had proposed to pay $325 per 1,000 cubic meters for gas used by Ukraine during the summer of next year.

   But he said Russia was insisting on the price of $385 per 1,000 cubic meters for all parts of the year.

   The EU-brokered talks with Ukraine and Russia have produced a draft accord under which cash-strapped Kiev would pay Moscow $3.1 billion in unpaid bills for already deliver gas by the end of October.

   When Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine in June over unpaid bills, it risked leaving not only Ukraine without heat in the winter, but that Russia could also cut off flows to Europe if Ukraine began siphoning off gas from the pipelines crossing its territory.

   Russia provides about one-third of the EU's natural-gas consumption, half of which transits via Ukraine, and previous disruptions in 2006 and 2009 led to sharp increases in prices.

U.S. sends 'Ironhorse' tanks to NATO's nervous Baltic front line

   WASHINGTON/RIGA (Reuters) --- U.S. troops and tanks will deploy across the three Baltic states and Poland in the next two weeks on a mission designed to deliver an unmistakeable message of NATO resolve to Moscow.

   The "Ironhorse" armored cavalry unit, with around 700 soldiers, some 20 M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks with Bradley and Stryker armored fighting vehicles, is one of the most formidable U.S. military forces to be sent onto former Soviet soil. Several of the bases and training areas it will operate from were built for the old Soviet Red Army.

   The aim is to convince Moscow that - unlike in non-NATO Ukraine - any Russian interference in Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia would put it at war with the Western alliance.

   All three countries were once part of the Soviet Union and analysts say Moscow would dearly like to reassert its influence there, particularly in ethnic Russian areas.

   Poland too, which was under Soviet domination during the Cold War and is now a NATO and European Union member state like the three Baltic republics, remains distinctly nervous and has lobbied hard for further U.S. forces.

   "The purpose is to be a very visible demonstration of commitment to our allies," says Captain John Farmer, public affairs officer for the Ironhorse, formal designation of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division.

   "We may take slightly longer to deploy than lighter forces, but there's nothing like a tank if you really want to achieve effect."

   The U.S. military says it is the first time it has had to ship armored reinforcements to Europe since the end of the Cold War at the start of the 1990s.

   The unit was given barely a month's notice it would be sent across the Atlantic from its Texas base to the Baltic states and Poland. Its personnel are now in Germany and starting to move east with their equipment.

   They will replace a similar number of much more lightly armed U.S. paratroopers deployed at short notice after Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimea region in March.

   The annexation was closely followed by the outbreak of separatist war in eastern Ukraine, where NATO accused Russia in August of sending in arms and troops to support pro-Moscow rebels, something the Kremlin denied.   

NEW COLD WAR?

   Faced with the gravest East-West crisis since the Cold War, NATO pledged at a summit in Wales in September to maintain a  high level of exercises in Eastern Europe, as a tough signal to Moscow and a gesture of reassurance to nervous ex-communist member states that were once in the Soviet Union's orbit.

   Outright conflict, most experts believe, remains almost unthinkable. More likely, they say, Russia might choose to destabilize the Baltics by stirring up dissent among ethnic Russians there and perhaps deploying covert special forces.  

   NATO states are discussing how they would react to such "ambiguous warfare" tactics in member states.

   But deterring Russia means demonstrating an ability and will to fight it, military analysts say - hence deployments like Ironhorse. The symbolism of its tanks is all the more important given that none of the Baltic states have any modern tanks of their own, although Poland retains one of the largest such forces in Europe.

   Permanently stationing U.S. and other units in the Baltics  remains off the table, in part due to concerns this would breach a 1997 Russia-NATO agreement. For now, NATO and U.S. officials talk of a "rotational persistent presence" of overlapping units coming and going. A further new high-readiness force, likely to be headquartered in Poland, will also be able to deploy within 48 hours, officials say.

   "We will have the right forces and the right equipment in the right place at the right time," Danish General Knud Bartels, chairman of NATO's military committee, said last week.

   Several Danish Leopard-2 tanks deployed to the region for around a week for exercises earlier this year but the Ironhorse will stay much longer, likely three months.

   Even after the troops return, some U.S. officials suspect the tanks and vehicles will remain, ready for use by other units, although no final decision has yet been made.     

DECADE OF RISING TENSION 

   Military tensions between Russia and nearby NATO states have been increasing for the past decade, now supercharged by worries over Ukraine. Last year, some 6,000 personnel took part in NATO's "Steadfast Jazz" exercise in the Baltics and Poland.

   That followed a major Russian exercise just across the border in Belarus that senior Western officials say concluded with a mock nuclear strike on Warsaw, a suggestion Moscow denies.

   Having boosted its military spending some 30 percent since 2008, Russia has considerably stepped up its own military footprint and activity.

   Last year, it reopened a Cold War-era air base near its border with Latvia and another in Belarus housing several dozen attack helicopters and Su-27 fighters.

   According to a report earlier this year by an Estonian defense think tank, the International Centre for Defence Studies (ICDS), most Russian army units in the region have also received new armored vehicles.

   Russia also has several hundred main battle tanks in the region, according to Western and Russian analysts.

   Russia's Baltic Fleet has also seen new warships and Cold War vessels upgraded, including with new missiles.

   Perhaps most important, in the last four years Russia has deployed Iskander ballistic missiles and upgraded S-400 anti-aircraft missiles including in its Kaliningrad enclave, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.

   Those missiles, ICDS said, would allow Russia to strike almost without warning across an arc from Poland to Finland while making it much more able to defend its own bases from air attack. Unlike jets or cruise missiles, the Iskanders could evade much of NATO's defenses. 

   Their deployment, Moscow says, was a direct reaction to U.S. missile defense batteries being installed in Eastern Europe.

   The Baltic states say Russian military aircraft have this year sharply increased the number of aggressive flights near their air space, although it is down slightly from its peak in May-June.

   In response, the United States, Britain and others have also stepped up their commitment to NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission.

   Down on the ground, there are no plans to send Ironhorse troops and tanks right up to Russia's border. But officials say that is as much down to practical considerations about churning up roads and causing disruption as to any diplomatic factors. 

   "Everyone loves tanks," said U.S. Army Capt Farmer. "But they can make a real mess."

September 2014 — US

Two Russian strategic bombers carried out simulated cruise missile strikes against the US during a NATO summit in Wales. The Tu-95s flew to an optimum site for launching the missiles in Canada's north east. US fighters were not scrambled to respond to the threat, as the Russian aircraft stayed out of the North American Air Defense Identification Zone.

Violation of Swedish airspace

INCIDENT: Two Russian military aircraft cross into Swedish air-space south of the island of Oland.

CATEGORY: Serious. Su-24 bombers intentionally violated Swedish airspace. Swedish Foreign Minister described it as 'most serious aerial incursion' in years.

Abduction of an Estonian security service operative

INCIDENT: Estonian security service operative captured by Russian agents on Estonian territory in a raid involving communications jamming and smoke grenades. Incident took place immediately after Obama’s assurances to the Baltic States.

CATEGORY: High Risk. Incursion into NATO member state’s territory. Had the Estonian official or his colleagues resisted, fatalities on either side would have been a catalyst for further escalation.

August 2014 — US

During a ten day period from the end of July into the beginning of August, Russian strategic nuclear bombers carried out at least 16 incursions into US air defense zones in the northwest of the country. The Russian planes included Tu-95 heavy bombers and intelligence aircraft.