Scalp on Rafale

John Irish Reuters July 11, 2023

France will join Britain in supplying Ukraine with long-range cruise missiles, which can travel 250 km (155 miles), a move that allows Ukrainian forces to hit Russian troops and supplies deep behind front lines, French officials said on Tuesday.

Emmanuel Macron said he had decided to boost military aid to Ukraine to help its counteroffensive as the French President arrived at a summit of the 31-member NATO alliance in Lithuania.

I have decided to increase deliveries of weapons and equipment to enable the Ukrainians to have the capacity to strike deeply, Macron said, while declining to say how many missiles would be sent.

A French diplomatic source said they were talking about 50 SCALP missiles produced by European manufacturer MBDA.

The missiles would come from existing French military stocks, a French military source told reporters, adding that it would be a significant number.

Paris has previously supplied Mistral shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine and Crotale short-range anti-air missiles, which are used to intercept low-flying missiles and aircraft.

Ukraine has been asking for months for longer-range missiles but the United States, its main supplier, has yet to agree to supply them.

Britain said in May it was supplying the Franco-British missile, produced by MBDA, that it calls the Storm Shadow.

The French version, known as SCALP, has a range of about 250 km, three times as far as Ukraines existing missile capacities.

The missiles were being integrated into Ukrainian Russian-made warplanes, the French military source said.

The source dismissed suggestions that the missiles were an escalation, saying their use was proportional and noting that Russia was using cruise missiles launched from thousands of kilometres away.

It rebalances things and enables Ukraine to hit deep into Russian lines and can penetrate tougher targets, he said.

Macron said the delivery would adhere to Frances policy of assisting Ukraine to defend its territory, implying that Paris had received assurances from Kyiv that the missiles would not be fired into Russia.

There are guarantees for (restricting) the use of these missiles to internationally-recognised borders of Ukraine, the military source said.

Source

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• On July 11, Turkish warplanes struck PKK positions in the Metina region;
• On July 10, Iraq and French Total Energies signed a $27 billion contract to develop Iraqs oil, gas, and renewable energies sectors;
• Two Turkish servicemen were killed by PKK in northern Iraq.

MORE ON THE TOPIC:

• Military Situation In Iraq On July 9, 2023 (Map Update)
• Military Situation In Iraq On July 4, 2023 (Map Update)

The post Military Situation In Iraq On July 11, 2023 (Map Update) appeared first on South Front.

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | JULY 11, 2023

Theres a growing consensus that the failure of Kievs NATObacked counteroffensive and Moscows edge over NATO in their race of logistics/war of attrition will result in the resumption of Russian-Ukrainian talks in some form by the end of the year as was explained here. This will at the very least be aimed at reaching a ceasefire, but Zelensky is prohibited by the Rada from conducting talks with Russia, ergo the need for a mediator. Here are five reasons why India could play this role:

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1. The US Wants To De-Sinify The Peace Process

China has the diplomatic power to implement its plan for freezing the NATO-Russian proxy war, but only if the US allows Kiev to participate in talks under its aegis, which is unlikely to be approved. Theres no way that Washington would let its systemic rival go down in history as the country that helped end the most geostrategically significant conflict since World War II, with it instead preferring to de-Sinify the peace process by having someone else play this role in order to deprive Beijing of that diplomatic victory.

2. Russia Might Not Trust Turkiye To Mediate Again

Turkish President Erdogans violation of the Azovstal deal that he reached last year with his Russian counterpart might have irreparably damaged trust between them to the point where President Putin no longer feels comfortable with Turkiye mediating between it and Kiev e...

Sweden-Nato: F-16s and ending Canada's arms embargo win Erdogan's approval

By Ahmed Adel | July 11, 2023

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged the European Union on July 9 to open the doors for his country to join the bloc if they want to secure support for Swedens accession to NATO. His blackmailing of the EU, which ultimately produced results, comes only days after he controversially broke an agreement with Moscow by releasing neo-Nazi Azov Battalion members under Turkeys custody to Ukraine.

Turkey has been waiting at the door of the European Union for over 50 years now, and almost all of the NATO member countries are now members of the European Union. I am making this call to these countries that have kept Turkey waiting at the gates of the European Union for more than 50 years, Erdogan said. First, open the way to Turkeys membership of the European Union, and then we will open it for Sweden, just as we had opened it for Finland.

Turkey has been an EU member candidate since 1999. Since 2016, negotiations on a visa-free regime between Turkey and the EU have been on hold. The countrys bid for EU membership has been stalled due to democratic backsliding and an unrelenting occupation of the northern portion of EU-member Cyprus since 1974.

Ultimately, Erdogan backflipped just mere hours after issuing his blackmail.

Im glad to announce that President Erdogan has agreed to forward the accession protocol for Sweden to the grand national assembly as soon as possible, and work closely with the assembly to ensure ratification, said NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg on the eve of the alliance summit in Vilnius, which will be held on July 11-12.

Finland and Sweden applied to join the bloc in May 2022. Finland gained its membership on April 4, 2023, while the Swedes await approval from Hungary and Turkey. As Turkey will never surrender its occupation of northern Cyprus, its EU membership will be forever stalled, making Erdogans ultimatum either a desperate action or a calculated manoeuvre to advance other interests.

Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrm told public broadcaster SVT that he expects Turkey will eventually signal that it will let Sweden join the alliance, though he could not say whether that would happen at the NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital. Swedens top diplomat said he expects Hungary, which also has not ratified Swedens accession, to do so before Turkey.

Turkey and Hungary remain the only NATO members still standing in the way of Sweden becoming the 32nd member of the US-led bloc, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban strongly signalling he will follow Erdogans lead and approve Swedens membership only if Turkey does the same.

Now that Erdogan has reportedly unblocked Swedens path, the question is what was offered to appease the Turkish leader. Presumably, Erdogan would have only unblocked the accession process with the promise of rec......