The Suwalki Gap: What is it and what’s its geopolitical significance?

Lithuania and Poland will hold joint military drills in the Suwalki Gap in April, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said.

▪️ The Suwalki Gap (a.k.a. the Suwalki Corridor) is a forested area around the border between Lithuania and Poland;

▪️ It is the shortest path between Belarus and the Kaliningrad region (Russia’s westernmost point, bordering both Poland and Lithuania);

▪️ The corridor gained new military significance since Poland and the Baltic States joined NATO (in 1999 and 2004 respectively);

▪️ The strategic importance of this strip of land dates back to WWI. It saw some of the fiercest battles during both World Wars;

▪️ It is believed that before starting WWII, Hitler even tried to negotiate with Poland to claim the strip of land, but without success;

▪️ Lithuania and other Western countries regularly speak of a threat to the Suwalki Gap, noting that in the event of its closure, the country would find itself completely isolated from its NATO partners;

▪️ This sentiment echoes Bild’s recent report on preparations for a “NATO-Russia war” following Ukraine’s defeat. The report was ridiculed and called fake news by Russian authorities.

Both Russia and Belarus have said they have no plans for the territory. President Alexander Lukashenko said Belarus has “absolutely zero interest in it.” Anton Alikhanov, governor of Russia’s Kaliningrad region, has said that the Suwalki Gap is of no interest to anyone and is logistically inconvenient. He emphasized that any discussion of a threat is just “official NATO mythology” concocted by the US.

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❗️ Turkiye’s Grand National Assembly ratified the protocol on Sweden’s accession to NATO, Turkish TRT Haber’s broadcast showed.

The parliament's decision will come into force after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signs a corresponding decree, which will be published in the government's official journal. Should President Erdogan sign the decree, Hungary remains the only NATO country that has not ratified Sweden's application to join.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia had no problems with Finland and Sweden and that their accession to NATO did not pose an immediate threat. But the expansion of military infrastructure in these territories "will cause a response," the president said.

"As for the expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance: yes, this is a problem that is being created, in my opinion, quite artificially in the foreign policy interests of the United States. <...> Russia has no problems ... [with Sweden and Finland].... But the expansion of military infrastructure on the territory of this region will certainly cause our response," Putin said, stressing that the actions of the Scandinavian states could aggravate "an already difficult situation in the sphere of international security."

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US House panel probing Capitol breach finds Democrats deleted files before GOP took control, states Fox News.

Newly surfaced reports have revealed that the former US House panel investigating the 2021 Capitol riot deleted 117 encrypted files from their findings last year, just as Democrats were set to lose their majority in the lower congressional chamber in January. Investigators have since been able to recover the files, according to a digital forensics team hired by the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight which made the discovery.

"The Democrat-led J6 Select Committee obviously took great strides to shield certain information from us...The question is: why? What are they trying to hide? Their whole plan was to 'get to the truth of the matter.' They obviously didn’t want the real truth, just 'their' truth," said Rep. Greg Murphy, a panel member.

Red flags were initially sounded as Rep. Barry Loudermilk, the new chairman of the Jan. 6 panel, wrote his predecessor, Rep. Bennie Thompson, about the data turned over to government officials at the end of the previous congressional term. Thompson relayed that the panel had forked over some four terabytes' worth of findings, but incoming committee members were given just two terabytes.

"One recovered file disclosed the identity of an individual whose testimony was not archived by the Select Committee," per extracts from Loudermilk’s letter seen by media, which implies an earlier admission by Thompson not filing all "specific transcribed interviews and depositions to the White House and Department of Homeland Security."

Loudermilk has since requested the "unedited and unredacted trannoscripts" of the testimonies from the Department of Homeland Security and the White House Counsel’s Office. He demanded their compliance to turn in the files by January 24, 2024.

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Key points from Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov's speech at the UN Security Council:

▪️ The US is impeding all efforts to stop the ongoing conflict in Gaza, as Washington gives carte blanche to collectively punish Palestinians

▪️ The US is trying to create such parameters of the Middle East solution that will benefit US itself before the election

▪️ The risk of epidemics has increased dramatically in the Gaza Strip, the sewage system has been destroyed, some agricultural land will never be restored

▪️ Russia is voicing concerns about the Israeli leadership's stance to call into question the two-state solution formula to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

▪️ Forcible transfer of Palestinians from Gaza is unacceptable under any circumstances and the international community cannot bury the idea of Palestinian sovereignty like it did with the Minsk agreements on Ukraine

▪️ UN Security Council should call for a ceasefire in Gaza

▪️ Russia suggests convening ministerial-level consultations to work out steps to restore Palestinian unity, an international conference on the Middle East settlement process is needed

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❗️ The US military has carried out strikes on three sites of the "pro-Iranian Kataib Hezbollah movement" in Iraq, the Pentagon chief said in a statement.

Federal Court of Canada strikes down Trudeau's use of emergency powers against 2022 “Freedom Convoy”

The Federal Court of Canada has ruled against PM Justin Trudeau's invocation of emergency legislation to manage the 2022 "Freedom Convoy" protests.

The government "cannot invoke the Emergencies Act because it is convenient, or because it may work better than other tools at their disposal or available to the provinces," stated Justice Richard Mosley labeling the government's action as "unreasonable."

This decision comes as a setback to Trudeau's government, which now faces legal and public scrutiny over its handling of the protests against Covid-19 restrictions and vaccine mandates.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has already announced plans to appeal the court's ruling.

The protests, which brought Ottawa and various border crossings to a standstill in 2022, were met with a stern governmental response, including freezing the bank accounts of the protesters.

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The Swiss Foreign Minister Iñazio Cassis, after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, said that the dialogue will continue and that without Russia there will be no peaceful solutions, as Switzerland is discussing the preconditions for a peace summit on Ukraine with "central partners such as Russia."

Previously Cassis said that there was no alternative to Russia's role in the peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian conflict and that it was impossible to hold a peace conference without Russia's participation.

Financial sanctions against Russia were a strategic mistake, said Alexander Chevalier, vice president of the Geneva branch of the Swiss People's Party, the country's largest.

"As for [the content of] the sanctions themselves, it makes me smile. We realised very clearly that these sanctions would be a huge kick in the legs of those who imposed them. We wanted to punish Russia with these restrictions, but we ended up punishing the Europeans and the European nations themselves," Chevalier added.

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🇰🇪 British American Tobacco company forces Kenyan authorities to weaken health warnings on nicotine pouches, reports say

The company threatened the government to withdraw investment from its new factory in the country's capital, Nairobi. Not only were the warnings reduced in size, but the mention of carcinogens was also removed.

In its report, a government task force, concerned about the potential increase in nicotine addiction among young people, called for rigorous regulations to be imposed on the company. However, some politicians are going a step further and insisting on a complete ban on these products.

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres discussed Russia-UN cooperation and noted the importance of strengthening the role of the organization in global politics while taking into account the opinions of its member states, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

"A substantive discussion on various aspects of Russia-UN cooperation, as well as key issues on the international agenda, took place. Both sides noted the importance of further strengthening the central coordinating role of the UN in global politics while taking into account the widest range of opinions of its member states," the ministry said in a statement on the website.

At the meeting, Lavrov emphasized that all UN employees are required by the UN Charter to comply with the principles of impartiality and equidistance.

Lavrov arrived in New York on Monday to participate in UN Security Council meetings. The minister had previously visited New York in September 2023 to attend the UN General Assembly High-level Week 2023.

North Korea launched several cruise missiles toward the Yellow Sea on Wednesday morning, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

"On Wednesday, January 24, around 7:00 a.m. [local time, 22:00 GMT on Thursday], the military detected a launch of several cruise missiles in the direction of the Yellow Sea by North Korea," the South Korean military said in a statement.

The US has already lost the race to develop hypersonic and directed energy weapons to its rivals, Independent Senator Angus King said during a hearing of the US Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

"We are woefully behind on the issue of directed energy," King said. "On hypersonics and directed energy, we have lost the race or we are badly losing the race. We have a lot of catching up to do. This should be a hair on fire catching up priority."

In the Red Sea, the US Navy was currently forced to use multi-million dollar missiles to shoot down inexpensive drones fired by the Houthi rebels in Yemen that cost less than 1% of the price of the US systems, King said.

"The missiles we are using are costing $2 million to $4 million each. That is like using a howitzer to shoot a duck," King added.

❗️ Trump is declared the winner in the Republican New Hampshire primary.

Nikki Haley admitted defeat and congratulated Trump on his victory, adding that despite the defeat she will continue her campaign.

Axios, citing the results of the processing of 25% of ballots, writes that Trump gained 53.6%, Haley - 45.5%.

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Trump’s comments on American Iron Dome shouldn’t be taken literally

The Israeli Iron Dome “is deployed to protect major cities of Israel from rocket attacks from its neighbors and Gaza, and it provides some comfort to the people living in those cities. This denoscription alone explains why the US has not built or deployed such a system for the United States,” retired US Air Force L.t. Col. and former DoD analyst Karen Kwiatkowski told Sputnik, commenting on former President Donald Trump’s proposal to build an American-made “Iron Dome” missile defense system.

“The geography, the threat, the lack of rocket attacks likely from near the US border, and the expense make the Israeli model of the Iron Dome not feasible or useful for the US,” Kwiatkowski explained.

“The concept is psychologically soothing, and Americans, like everyone, want peace and security. It fits with the popular Trump idea of spending our defense money on actual defense, rather than offense. It implies a change in our defense policy, something many in the country are ready for. Politically it sounds good, even if it would be a practical and financial failure if such a plan were actually pursued, even with advances in the technology,” Kwiatkowski added.

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The US military carried out strikes against two Houthi anti-ship missile sites in Yemen, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a press release.

"On January 24 at approximately 2:30 a.m. (Sanaa time), US Central Command forces conducted strikes against two Houthi anti-ship missiles that were aimed into the southern Red Sea and were prepared to launch," the release said on Tuesday night.

The ongoing debate among German establishment parties over if the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party should be banned lift the country to “new, crazy Orwellian heights,” Mark Sleboda, an international relations and security analyst told Radio Sputnik on Tuesday.

“There is definitely a threat to democracy in Germany but it's not the AfD,” Sleboda exclaimed. “It's the forces within the current political establishment parties that want to ban the AfD as more and more German voters turn to them over dissatisfaction with the current government's policies.”

“That is how scared they are of the people, you know, starting to pay attention to these unorthodox ideas diverting from current liberal domestic policy, but also pro-US foreign policy,” Selboda explained, noting that the AfD is the preferred party for 23% of Germans.

The recent explosion of the AfD’s popularity, Sleboda argues, is a direct result of the country’s stance on Russia, not just on aid to Kiev but also related fallout from the conflict.

“[The AfD’s] sudden explosion is almost certainly due to the current government's position on Russia, meaning including not just the support of the Kiev regime, but also the blowback of the sanctions [they] installed [and] the Ukrainian refugees they brought in that have caused the whole, you know, a further exacerbation of the migrant issue, the refugee issue, as well in Germany,” Sleboda said.

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The Biden Administration is not the one “to get the job done” when it comes to pushing Israel toward a two-state solution, Dr. Hasan Unal, a professor of political science and international relations at Bashkent University in Ankara, Turkiye told Sputnik’s Fault Lines.

“Israel is running an existential risk” to its security by opposing the two-state solution, but “you would need real US leadership for that,” Unal explained. “I’m not quite sure Joe Biden’s administration is the one that can actually get the job done.”

Unal explained that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is constrained by internal Israeli politics and it would take a forceful hand from the United States to get him to pull back from Gaza.

“President Reagan basically picked up the phone and called up the Israeli prime minister,” Unal explained, referring to the 1982 occupation of Southern Lebanon by Israel. “[He] said ‘Stop this’ and then they did it,” but for the Gaza situation, Undal said “It is not easy for the American administration, particularly Biden, to do something similar.”

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❗️ Russian air defenses foiled an attack by Ukrainian UAVs by shooting down four drones over the Oryol region, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported