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Putin blames Ukraine for standoff, boosts defences in Crimea
KIEV, Ukraine — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday blamed the latest standoff with
Ukraine, for its part, released what it said was the exact location where its ships were fired on Sunday by Russia, showing that they were in international waters approaching Kerch Strait from the west, not from the east, as Putin suggested.
Russia and Ukraine are still reeling from their first overt military confrontation since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, a clash Sunday in the Kerch Strait near Russia-occupied Crimea. Russian border guards fired on three Ukrainian ships, seizing them and their 24 crewmembers. Ukraine insists its vessels were operating in line with international maritime rules, while Russia says they had failed to get permission to pass through a Russia-controlled area.
The strait links the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov and is where Russia has built a long new bridge — the only land link between Crimea and the Russian mainland.
The incident has drawn strong criticism of Russia by the United States and its allies and has fueled fears of wider fighting in the region. It’s part of the long-simmering conflict between the two countries, in which Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and supported separatists in Ukraine’s east with clandestine dispatches of troops and weapons. That fighting has killed at least 10,000 people since 2014 but eased somewhat with a 2015 truce.
Putin on Wednesday broke his silence on the maritime clash, blaming it on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s desire to get re-elected.
“That was a provocation which was certainly organized by the sitting officials, including the president,” ahead of Ukraine’s presidential election in March, Putin said.
Poroshenko’s original proposal — to impose martial law in Ukraine for two months after the clash with Russia — would have meant the March president vote would have to be scrapped due to election rules. He later halved the martial law time frame to a month, which would allow the election to go ahead as planned.
The Kremlin has warned that Ukraine’s declaration of martial law in areas that border Russia could re-ignite the fighting in eastern Ukraine.
Putin also claimed the Ukrainian vessels refused to communicate with Russian border guards and were in violation of the Russian territorial waters off the country’s south, which, unlike the Crimean coast, is Russia’s internationally recognized border. This runs counter to the claims of the Ukrainian government, which said the ships were approaching from another direction and were firmly in international waters.
Kurt Volker, the U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, told reporters in Berlin that Washington sees no reason to doubt the information from
Putin insisted that the Russian border guards were acting in line with the usual protocol when they decided to fire on the Ukrainian ships.
“What were they supposed to do?” he said of the Russian border guards in televised remarks Wednesday. “If they had done something differently, they should have been put on trial for that.”
U.S. authorities, however, believe that there was “no conceivable justification … for the use of force in this scenario.”
Earlier Wednesday, the Russian military announced it would be boosting the
In Ukraine, Poroshenko on Wednesday toured a military training
In Crimea, nine of the captured Ukrainian seamen were expected to face court hearings in the regional capital of Simferopol later Wednesday. On Tuesday, the court ordered 15 of their compatriots to stay behind bars for the next two months.
Russia is treating the seamen as individuals who violated the Russian border, an
Earlier this week, Russian state television broadcast separate interviews with three of the seamen, who said the Russian coast guard repeatedly warned them that they were violating Russia’s territorial waters and urged them to leave. It was not clear if the men were talking under duress, but one was clearly reading from a script.
Ukraine has called that broadcast “a crime” committed by Russia.
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Vasilyeva reported from Moscow. David Rising in Berlin contributed to this report.
Nataliya Vasilyeva And Yuras Karmanau, The Associated Press
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Border Patrol Agent Lashes Out At Biden-Harris Admin, Calling Job ‘Migrant Concierge Service’ Amid Border Crisis
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
The border agent stated he is prepared to risk his career to bring attention to what he views as grave mismanagement and potential dangers posed by current border policies.
A Border Patrol agent criticized the recent changes in his role under the Biden-Harris administration, condemning it as transforming into a “migrant concierge service,” according to The New York Post Friday.
Zachary Apotheker, who joined the force in 2020, voiced his frustration over the shift in his duties under the Biden administration from intercepting drug traffickers and apprehending illegal entrants to what he now sees as aiding migrant entry, in an interview with the NYP. Apotheker highlighted concerns about security and vetting under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, noting that over 8 million migrants have crossed the southern border since January 2021, including members of the Venezuelan prison gang, Tren de Aragua.
“I don’t want to bring people into the country. That’s not what I signed up to do,” Apotheker told NYP. Apotheker’s distress is further compounded by over 1.7 million illegal migrants who have evaded capture since Jan. 2021, as he shared encounters with victims of migrant-committed crimes, naming individuals and emphasizing the personal toll on him.
Border Patrol agent sounds off on job under Harris-Biden administration: ‘Not what I signed up to do’ https://t.co/ELqWSRIKLu pic.twitter.com/HAKH2ZEuzT
— New York Post (@nypost) September 13, 2024
“I’m an apolitical person and I just want to do my job and protect this country,” the agent said, the NYP reported. “When I see people from another country coming here, getting resources beyond what the American citizen can get, that’s where I have to draw the line. And then they’re going out and committing crimes and we’re still not removing them and American citizens are being killed, women are being raped.”
Apotheker and multiple Border Patrol sources have raised concerns to the NYP about the inadequate documentation for unaccompanied migrant children under 14, including missing biometric data, complicating their safe relocation to families or sponsors in the U.S. He highlighted a backlog in the immigration system, noting that 291,000 migrant children have been released in the U.S. without court dates, with an additional 32,000 failing to appear for their scheduled hearings.
The border agent stated he is prepared to risk his career to bring attention to what he views as grave mismanagement and potential dangers posed by current border policies. “However bad you think it is now, it’s only going to be worse,” he warned.
The White House and Border Patrol did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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Rumored deal with Bloc Quebec party could keep Trudeau Liberals in power, stave off election
From LifeSiteNews
“The federal government does not have a mandate to bargain with Quebec separatists at the expense of Alberta, the West and the rest of the country”
The possibility of an early Canadian election may not come to fruition after Bloc Québécois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet hinted that an alliance between the separatist party and the Liberals under Justin Trudeau could become a reality.
Rumors began to swirl that a Bloc-Liberal deal could happen after Bloc House leader Alain Therrien said Sunday that the party’s “objectives remain the same, but the means to get there will be much easier.”
“We will negotiate and seek gains for Quebec … our balance of power has improved, that’s for sure,” he said, as reported by the Canadian Press.
Therrien made the comments in light of the possibility of a federal election taking place before fall 2025 after New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh pulled his official support for Trudeau’s Liberals last week.
Late last month, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre called on Singh to pull his support for Trudeau’s Liberals so that an election could be held.
Therrien also noted that the NDP pulling its support of the Trudeau Liberals has created a “window of opportunity” that his party may exploit. The Canadian Press reported that a person close to the Bloc party said directly that the NDP had in essence handed the party the balance of power.
As it stands now, the Bloc has 32 seats to the NDP’s 24, which is more than enough to prop up the Liberals, who have 154 seats.
As for Blanchet, he told the media on Monday that he was feeling “good” about his party’s newfound power. He then took a shot at Poilievre, saying he is more or less like Trudeau. “There are plenty of issues on which (Poilievre’s) in the same position as Justin Trudeau,” Blanchet said.
“Show us that you’re different, Justin Trudeau, apart from being against abortion, then we’ll see what you have to offer,” he said.
“If the Liberals don’t get into the frame of mind to let us make some very clear gains for Quebec, they’d better pump up the tires on their election truck right away.”
While most Conservative MPs are pro-life, Poilievre supports abortion and has a poor track record when it comes to life and family issues, with Campaign Life Coalition having given him a “red light” rating.
News of a possible Bloc-Liberal deal to keep Trudeau in power drew the immediate ire of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
“The federal government does not have a mandate to bargain with Quebec separatists at the expense of Alberta, the West and the rest of the country,” she wrote Monday on X. “If the Liberals go down this path, we need an election to be called immediately.”
On Tuesday, Blanchet responded to Smith’s comments to reporters by saying he found her remarks “funny,” adding that “Canadians are suddenly very interested in us.”
As for Trudeau, his woes continue to mount. LifeSiteNews recently reported how national elections campaign director for Canada’s federal Liberal Party announced he was stepping down because, according to sources close to the party, he does not think Trudeau can win a fourth consecutive election.
Recent polls show that the Conservatives under Poilievre would win a majority government in a landslide in an election held today. Singh’s NDP and Trudeau’s Liberals would lose a massive number of seats.
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