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GOP Lawmakers Warn Against More Military Coordination With Russia

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Top Republicans in the House and Senate on Monday pushed back on the Pentagon’s recent call to increase coordination between the U.S. and Russian militaries, saying they were “deeply troubled” by the news.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley last week said U.S. and Russian forces should “have an effective means of military-to-military communications in order to clearly understand each other’s positions on very difficult issues” and help “de-escalate any kind of crisis situation.”

Milley’s comments come as the U.S. government is hoping to make inroads with Russia to gain Moscow’s help in fighting extremist groups in Afghanistan.

With the U.S. military completely out of Afghanistan as of Aug. 31, Biden administration officials want to secure basing rights and counterterrorism support in the nations that border the country.

But such interactions could have negative consequences, according to the ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senate Armed Services Committee, House Foreign Affairs Committee and House Armed Services Committee. (Read more from “GOP Lawmakers Warn Against More Military Coordination With Russia” HERE)

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Voting App Disappears After Russia Pressures Tech Companies Ahead of Elections

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Silicon Valley companies might need to offer an explanation after a voting app created by allies of imprisoned Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny vanished from Google and Apple stores on Friday.

The Russian people head to the polls on Friday to elect a new parliament. The vote lasts three days and the current party in charge, the United Russia, is anticipating a win. The app disappeared when voting started across Russia for the elections, raising concerns about what the reasoning was behind the move.

“Allies of Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest domestic opponent, planned to use the mobile app to organise a tactical voting campaign to deal a blow to United Russia,” Reuters reported.

As The Washington Post reported, “Roskomnadzor, the Russian censorship agency, had threatened to fine the Silicon Valley giants if the app, which encourages voters to cast ballots against the party of President Vladimir Putin, was not removed. The censorship agency argued that the companies were interfering in the nation’s electoral processes.”

The top companies appeared to cave to Russian authorities instead of standing up to them, upsetting opposition allies and digital rights advocates around the world. (Read more from “Voting App Disappears After Russia Pressures Tech Companies Ahead of Elections” HERE)

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Lawyer Who Made up Trump-Russia Collusion Might Be Indicted for Lying to the FBI

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The special counsel appointed by the Trump administration to review the Russia investigation will reportedly ask a grand jury to indict a prominent lawyer with Democratic ties for lying to the FBI, people familiar with the matter told The New York Times.

Special Counsel John Durham reportedly told the Justice Department he will seek to indict cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann, who represented the Democratic National Committee after Russia hacked its servers in 2016, the NYT reported.

Sussmann is a partner at Perkins Coie. The firm’s political law group, which is separate from the division Sussmann works in, represented Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and the Democratic Party, the NYT reported.

Durham’s case focuses on who Sussmann’s client was in September 2016 when he gave the FBI data and analysis that he said could indicate the computer servers of the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, a Kremlin-linked Russian financial institution, had a covert communications channel, the NYT reported. (Read more from “Lawyer Who Made up Trump-Russia Collusion Might Be Indicted for Lying to the FBI” HERE)

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Top Admiral Warns of Rapid Chinese, Russian Nuclear Arms Buildup

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Admiral Charles Richard, chief of U.S. Strategic Command, warned that China and Russia are building up their nuclear stockpiles at an unprecedented rate.

Richard said Thursday that China’s nuclear weapons Buildup and Russia’s advanced nuclear capabilities have prompted a reassessment of America’s ability to defend itself.

“We are in uncharted waters,” Richard said at a Hudson Institute event. “We are facing a class of potential adversaries that we haven’t had to deal with in 30 years.”

Richard’s remarks come amid a heated fight over the future of America’s nuclear arsenal, as national security staff in the White House and lawmakers such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) Push for a smaller U.S. stockpile. (Read more from “Top Admiral Warns of Rapid Chinese, Russian Nuclear Arms Buildup” HERE)

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China, Russia to Train Against Terror as Last U.S. Troops Exit Afghanistan

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China is set to host Russia for mass drills together involving counterterrorism training next month just as the last of the U.S. soldiers are set to exit Afghanistan.

The Chinese Defense Ministry and Russian Defense Ministry issued a joint statement Thursday stating that the Western Theater Command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army will join troops from Russia’s Eastern Military District for a large-scale exercise called West-Interaction 2021, which will be held in early and mid-August in the city of Qingtongxia, which lies along the Yellow River in China’s northern Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

The two militaries are set to establish a joint command center overseeing the activities of some 10,000 troops along with various aircraft, artillery and armored equipment. The plan is to mix personnel from both sides for enhanced interoperability for the combined maneuvers involving an array of objectives.

“The two sides’ participating troops will be mixed into teams to make plans jointly and conduct training together,” the statements said, “in a bid to verify and improve both troops’ capabilities of joint reconnaissance, search and early warning, electronic information attack, and joint attack and elimination.” (Read more from “China, Russia to Train Against Terror as Last U.S. Troops Exit Afghanistan” HERE)

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Report: Putin Extends Allied Hand to Biden as He ‘Offers Russian Bases to Spy on Taliban’

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The offer comes after Moscow warned Washington last week against trying to establish its own military bases in former Soviet countries which neighbour Afghanistan. The US withdrawal has led to a resurgence in the Taliban, which continues to rout government troops in its advance towards the capital, Kabul. The Islamist group claims to control up to 85 percent of the country. . .

Russia also has a large Muslim population and has, in recent years, been battling the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, particularly in the Caucasus.

Sources told newspaper the Kommersant that Mr Putin had offered the use of Russian bases in both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan for intelligence gathering at the summit in Geneva last month.

The alleged proposal would allow the US military to use drones in its operations, but as yet it’s unclear whether US troops would be allowed to stay permanently at the bases. (Read more from “Report: Putin Extends Allied Hand to Biden as He ‘Offers Russian Bases to Spy on Taliban'” HERE)

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Russia Sends Former U.S. Marine To Soviet-era Prison

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A former U.S. Marine who is serving a nine-year sentence in Russia was being transferred from a remand cell in Moscow on Friday to the Mordovia region which has a large number of tough, Soviet-era prisons.

Trevor Reed was convicted last year of endangering the lives of two policemen in Moscow while drunk, a charge he denied. He said the ruling was “clearly political”, and Washington called the trial “theatre of the absurd”. . .

“This morning Trevor Reed was (taken) from Moscow, he will serve his punishment in one of Mordovia’s (prison) colonies,” Alexei Melnikov, a member of a prison oversight commission was quoted as saying by the RIA news agency. (Read more from “Russia Sends Former U.S. Marine To Soviet-era Prison” HERE)

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jumilla/8667657401

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Taliban Tells Russia It Controls 85% Of Afghanistan, Seeks Peace With Moscow

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A delegation of the Taliban terror group met with representatives of the Russian foreign ministry in Moscow, where one delegate claimed the Taliban currently controls about “85 percent of Afghanistan’s territory,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Friday.

The Taliban, a jihadist terror group based in Afghanistan, controls roughly “85 percent of Afghanistan’s territory,” Taliban delegate Shahabuddin Delawar told reporters, as quoted by AFP.

Members of the Taliban delegation specifically claimed to hold sway over “about 250 of Afghanistan’s nearly 400 districts,” according to AFP. The French news agency noted the Taliban’s assertion was “impossible to independently verify and disputed by the government,” referring to Afghanistan’s internationally recognized government based in Kabul.

Taliban terrorists have allegedly “captured the [Afghan] border town of Islam Qala on the Iranian frontier and the Torghundi crossing with Turkmenistan,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP on July 8.

A delegation of Taliban representatives landed in Moscow on Thursday to “assure” Russia the group would not “allow” any other jihadist organizations to use Afghanistan as a base for their operations. (Read more from “Taliban Tells Russia It Controls 85% Of Afghanistan, Seeks Peace With Moscow” HERE)

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Biden Sends Message to Putin about U.S. Ability to Retaliate for Ransomware Attacks

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President Joe Biden sent a thinly veiled threat to Russian leaders Tuesday, saying a ransomware attack allegedly launched from its soil did “minimal” damage in the United States while touting Washington’s ability to strike back.

An offshoot of the Russia-based group REvil has been pinpointed in a weekend attack called the largest cyberattack in world history, impacting thousands of businesses. The gang says it will unlock the affected systems for $70 million in cryptocurrency, which the Biden administration is urging the companies not to pay. . .

The U.S. leader was asked about the attack on Miami-based Kaseya, a software company, just weeks after Biden says he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin to crack down on cybercriminal groups that operate inside his country. (Read more from “Biden Sends Message to Putin about U.S. Ability to Retaliate for Ransomware Attacks” HERE)

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Military Official Warns U.S. Of Potential Surprise Attack On Hawaii

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Russia and China are coordinating military exercises to threaten not only Taiwan but also Hawaii, according to a senior Japanese defense official who warned the United States to beware of a Pearl Harbor-style surprise attack.

“We have to show the deterrence towards China, and not just China but also the Russians, because, as I told you, that they are doing their exercises together,” Japanese deputy Yasuhide Nakayama told the Hudson Institute this week.

Taiwan’s vulnerability to an invasion from mainland China has become a preoccupation of Indo-Pacific strategists in recent months, as Chinese Communist forces escalate their military drills around the island. Nakayama, who was unusually frank about the need for democratic nations to ensure Taiwan’s survival, implied that Russia and China are working as allies preparing for a major conflict.

“I think the Taiwanese are really concerned,” he said. “And also, they’re focusing on the two big countries collaborating and [presenting] a lot of threat towards Taiwan.”

Chinese Communist officials regard Taiwan as a renegade province, one that they have claimed since coming to power in 1949 but never governed. Most countries recognize the regime in Beijing as the official Chinese government and do not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, although the U.S. has maintained a friendly relationship and provided weaponry to help Taiwanese authorities deter an invasion from the mainland. (Read more from “Military Official Warns U.S. Of Potential Surprise Attack On Hawaii” HERE)

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