MOSCOW: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday he accepted an invitation from his Chinese counterpart to visit China in October during the Belt and Road Summit.
Speaking after a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Moscow, Putin said Russia and China are “integrating our ideas of creating a large Eurasian space,” noting that China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a part of that.
The Initiative is a huge program in which Beijing has been expanding its influence in developing regions through infrastructure projects.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Putin has pivoted the country toward China, selling it more energy, and increasingly carrying out joint military exercises.
China has adopted a neutral stance on the war in Ukraine and even denounced Western sanctions against Moscow. It also accused NATO and the United States of provoking Putin’s military action and declared last year that it had a “no-limits” friendship with Russia.
On Tuesday, senior Russian security official, Nikolai Patrushev, called for closer policy coordination between Moscow and Beijing to counter what he described as Western efforts to contain them as he hosted Wang Yi for security talks.
The Kremlin has continuously expressed support for Beijing as Russia and China have grown closer as their relations with the West deteriorate.
Wang arrived in Russia on Monday on a four-day visit following his talks with US President Joe Biden’s national security adviser in Malta over the weekend.
Putin’s plan to visit China was initially announced in July.
Putin accepts invitation to visit China in October after meeting Chinese foreign minister in Moscow
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Putin accepts invitation to visit China in October after meeting Chinese foreign minister in Moscow
- The Initiative is a huge program in which Beijing has been expanding its influence in developing regions through infrastructure projects
- Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Putin has pivoted the country toward China, selling it more energy, and increasingly carrying out joint military exercises
NATO wants ‘automated’ defenses along borders with Russia: German general
- That zone would act as a defensive buffer before any enemy forces advanced into “a sort of hot zone,” said Lowin
- The AI-guided system would reinforce existing NATO weapons and deployed forces, the general said
FRANKFURT: NATO is moving to boost its defenses along European borders with Russia by creating an AI-assisted “automated zone” not reliant on human ground forces, a German general said in comments published Saturday.
That zone would act as a defensive buffer before any enemy forces advanced into “a sort of hot zone” where traditional combat could happen, said General Thomas Lowin, NATO’s deputy chief of staff for operations.
He was speaking to the German Sunday newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
The automated area would have sensors to detect enemy forces and activate defenses such as drones, semi-autonomous combat vehicles, land-based robots, as well as automatic air defenses and anti-missile systems, Lowin said.
He added, however, that any decision to use lethal weapons would “always be under human responsibility.”
The sensors — located “on the ground, in space, in cyberspace and in the air” — would cover an area of several thousand kilometers (miles) and detect enemy movements or deployment of weapons, and inform “all NATO countries in real time,” he said.
The AI-guided system would reinforce existing NATO weapons and deployed forces, the general said.
The German newspaper reported that there were test programs in Poland and Romania trying out the proposed capabilities, and all of NATO should be working to make the system operational by the end of 2027.
NATO’s European members are stepping up preparedness out of concern that Russia — whose economy is on a war footing because of its conflict in Ukraine — could seek to further expand, into EU territory.
Poland is about to sign a contract for “the biggest anti-drone system in Europe,” its defense minister, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.
Kosiniak-Kamysz did not say how much the deal, involving “different types of weaponry,” would cost, nor which consortium would ink the contract at the end of January.
He said it was being made to respond to “an urgent operational demand.”
