Inbjudan har gått ut till Iran, Saudiarabien, Förenade Arabemiraten, Argentina, Egypten och Etiopien. Länderna kan bli fullvärdiga medlemmar 1 januari 2024, var beskedet under toppmötet i Sydafrika.

– Den här expansionen av medlemmar är historisk, säger Kinas president Xi Jinping, vars nation är den mest inflytelserika i gruppen.

Etiopiens premiärminister Abiy Ahmed säger att det här är ”stort ögonblick” för hans land, som är det näst folkrikaste i Afrika. I Iran beskrev Mohammad Jamshidi, biträdande chef för den iranske presidentens politiska enhet, det som en ”historisk utveckling och en strategisk succé” för Teherans utrikespolitik. Läs artikel

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has canceled a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin set for December as Delhi seeks to distance itself from the Kremlin leader’s threat to use nuclear bombs in Ukraine, Bloomberg reported, citing unidentified officials from both countries. Russia and India have held a summit every year since the beginning of the 2000s with the exception of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. An Indian official told Bloomberg that a meeting with Putin under the current circumstances would not help Modi’s image. Modi criticized Putin publicly in September over his invasion of Ukraine and threat to use any weapons systems to win, saying ”today’s era is not an era of war.” Läs artikel

Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have failed in his attempt at the BRICS summit in Sandton to drum up support from fellow leaders of the bloc for his war effort in Ukraine.

Putin, addressing the summit by video from Moscow, presented a narrative of his invasion of Ukraine as effectively an act of self-defence against Ukraine and the West for mounting a coup in Ukraine in 2014 against the pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych and then attacking pro-Russian elements in Ukraine’s Donbas region.

But the other four BRICS leaders who were physically present at the summit – President Cyril Ramaphosa, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazilian President Lula da Silva and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not publicly support his justification in their responses. […]

In his direct response to Putin, Ramaphosa merely said, “We agree that the war can only be resolved by negotiations which you have always said you support.”

In his speech to the summit, President Lula simply said: “We cannot avoid dealing with the main current conflict taking place in Ukraine with global effects.”

He emphasised that “Brazil’s historic stance is to defend sovereignty, territorial integrity and all the United Nations’ purposes and principles” – principles which Russia has clearly violated by invading Ukraine, though Lula did not spell that out. Läs referatet

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday addressed the 15th BRICS Summit in South Africa’s Johannesburg, urging joint efforts to deepen BRICS cooperation and make global governance more just and equitable. […]

—We should expand political and security cooperation to uphold peace and tranquility. As a Chinese saying suggests, ”Nothing is more beneficial than stability, and nothing is more detrimental than turmoil.” The Cold War mentality is still haunting our world, and the geopolitical situation is getting tense. All nations long for a sound security environment. International security is indivisible. Attempts to seek absolute security at the expense of others will eventually backfire. The Ukraine crisis has evolved to where it is today because of complex reasons. What is pressing now is to encourage peace talks, promote deescalation, end the fighting and realize peace. No one should add fuel to the fire to worsen the situation. […]

BRICS countries should keep to the direction of peaceful development and consolidate the BRICS strategic partnership. We need to make good use of the BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, the Meeting of High Representatives on National Security and other mechanisms, support each other on issues concerning our respective core interests, and enhance coordination on major international and regional issues. We need to tender good offices on hotspot issues, pushing for political settlement and lowering the temperature. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a new area of development. BRICS countries have agreed to launch the AI Study Group of BRICS Institute of Future Networks at an early date. We need to enable the Study Group to play its full role, further expand cooperation on AI, and step up information exchange and technological cooperation. We need to jointly fend off risks, and develop AI governance frameworks and standards with broad-based consensus, so as to make AI technologies more secure, reliable, controllable and equitable. Läs talet

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Enligt försvarsminister  Antti Häkkänen (KOK) har Finland redan visat att Finland söker en aktiv roll som medlem i Försvarsalliansen. Häkkänen redogjorde för Finlands ställning som Nato-land vid ambassadörsmötet på tisdagen. […]

Enligt Häkkänen deltar Finland som Natomedlem i försvarsalliansens fredstida uppgifter. I arbetsuppgifterna ingår till exempel luftövervakning av Baltikum, Polen, Rumänien och Bulgarien samt Island. I fredstida uppgifter ingår dessutom att delta i Natos EFP-styrkor vid alliansens östra gränser.

Häkkänen kan ännu inte säga vilken typ av satsning som kommer att göras i trupperna. Enligt honom förbereds Finlands deltagande i fredstida operationer. Beslut ska tas under hösten.

– Det är väldigt känsliga frågor. Verksamheten påverkas av försvarsmaktens geografiska läge och struktur. Vi måste komma ihåg att vi är ett gränsland mot Ryssland.

Enligt Häkkänen är den avskräckning som kärnvapen skapar en av huvudorsakerna till att Finland gick med i Nato. Finland engagerar sig i kärnvapenpolitiken utan förbehåll.

– Kärnvapenavskräckning skyddar också Finland fullt ut. Läs artikel

Russian strikes on at least 10 regions in Ukraine have left a path of death and destruction over the past 24 hours, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in the country said on Wednesday.

Denise Brown issued a statement deploring this “new wave of massive Russian attacks”, and appealed for the violence to end. “Grain storage facilities, vital for the Ukrainian farmers and global food security, have been hit in the Danube area,” she said. “A school in the Sumy region was damaged, and teachers were killed and injured.”

International media reported that a drone fired by Russia hit the school on Wednesday morning, citing Ukraine’s interior minister. The incident occurred in the city of Romny, located in the northeast. Läs artikel

American nuclear-powered submarines will now receive authorization to make brief service visits to Iceland to receive supplies and exchange crew members, announced the Icelandic government last week.

The background is that Iceland wants to support increased surveillance and response capacity among allies in the North Atlantic.

”These service visits will contribute to strengthening the continuous and active submarine surveillance of allied countries, which ensures better situational awareness and increases the safety of underwater infrastructure such as submarine cables in the waters around Iceland. The frequency of visits will depend on the need at any given time,” writes the government. Läs artikel

The Icelandic government reports that three American B-2 strategic bombers and around 200 airmen are currently placed in Iceland.

The squadron arrived at Keflavík Air Base on the 13th of August. The base serves as the depot for allied exercises in Northern Europe for a couple of weeks. From the American side, this is called a ’Bomber Task Force Mission’. During such missions, strategic bombers are placed in various locations at home and abroad to achieve ”stronger operational resistance” and to ”build lasting advantages and integrated deterrence.”

This is the third time the US Air Force has conducted a placement of this kind in Iceland. This is an important contribution to the deterrence in Northern Europe, maintains the Icelandic government. Läs artikel

This week, American and Finnish air forces are co-training in Lapland, Northern Finland. The aim is to strengthen the Finnish Air Force’s ability to provide host nation support and develop interoperability with NATO allies.

USAFE participates with F-16 fighters, a KC-135 tanker, and C-130 transport aircraft – and will operate out of Rovaniemi Air Base. The Finns are participating with F/A-18 Hornet fighters. […]

At the same time as Finland is working to adapt to NATO, negotiations continue with the US on a bilateral agreement on defense cooperation – similar to the Norwegian-American one that entered into force last year.

The negotiations may potentially lead to military bases in Finland becoming Finnish-American ”agreed areas.”

In that context, the US may be interested in access to and use of Rovaniemi Air Base, according to Charly Salonius-Pasternak, Researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. Läs artikel

[…] Being part of NATO, Finland, like all other allies, is expected to actively partake in NATO’s collective defense during times of peace. These duties encompass air surveillance activities in nations including the Baltic countries, Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania, and occasionally Iceland. Further responsibilities include enhanced forward presence (EFP) forces in the Baltic states, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia as well. The Minister stated that the decisions involving the scale, type and location of Finnish troops will be finalized in the fall while the proposal is still under preparation at the Ministry of Defense.

The Minister emphasized the need for Finland to balance its NATO obligations with its national duty of securing its 1,300 km border with Russia. He underscored the unique structure of the Finnish Defense Forces, which primarily relies on the Army and reservist forces, differing from nations that drive their military strength from professional soldiers. Häkkänen stated that while Finland’s Army and reservist forces are more difficult to deploy at a distance, the nation’s Air Force and naval units are more easily operational overseas. These pre-existing conditions are expected to impact the decisions that will be made for Finland’s defense approach. Läs artikel

Ulf Kristersson visade upp en glättig attityd redan efter uppgörelsen med Turkiet vid Natos toppmöte Vilnius i juli. Utan att blinka deklarerade statsministern att allt var klart: ”Turkiet ska ratificera inom kort och alla förväntar sig en snabb process. Vi förväntar oss att även Ungern gör detsamma” (regeringen.se 11/7).

Nu vet vi att det var en villfarelse. Inget är påskrivet, vare sig i Ankara eller i Budapest. Regeringen tog ut segern i förskott i Vilnius.

Den svagaste punkten i Natofrågan är avtalet från Vilnius. Sverige lovar massor, Turkiets president Erdogan en enda sak: att överlämna det svenska anslutningsprotokollet till parlamentet och verka för att ratificeringen säkerställs. Inget annat. Inget om tidpunkten.

Hans egen utsaga om att det ska ske ”så snart som möjligt” är en modern klassiker. I Erdogans version betyder det att processen påbörjas i oktober när parlamentet öppnar igen, inget är sagt om när den ska vara avslutad. Efter toppmötet har den turkiska ledaren gjort uttalanden som reser tvivel om den ärliga avsikten från Vilnius.

Erdogan ser det som en del av ratificeringsprocessen att Sverige ”fullgör sina skyldigheter” i kampen mot terrorism och ”följer det noga.” Utrikes- och justitieministrarna har fyllt på med att Sverige måste göra mer, inklusive att tillgodose Turkiets krav på utlämning av påstådda terrorister. På listan finns just nu 28 namn (Reuters 21/7, Daily Sabah 21/7, 5/8, 16/8, A Haber 16/8).

Enligt avtalet ska Sverige överlämna en färdplan för ”kampen mot terrorism i alla dess former”. Det står inget om när. Läs artikel