The three Baltic states have been trampled over by everybody from the Russians and Soviets to the Germans, Swedes and even Ottomans prior to now few centuries. However, even because the world wonders whether or not they are going to be subsequent on Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion record after Ukraine, there’s a counterintuitive sense in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that they’re as secure as they ever have been.
“If you happen to take a look at the previous 800 to 900 years of historical past, an argument may very well be made that now we have by no means been so safe. As a result of now we have so many very highly effective allies, we’re an unbiased nation with our personal standing military, a free and open and flourishing commerce and funding setting,” says Krisjanis Karins, Latvia’s prime minister.
This confidence is essentially as a result of backing of the US and Nato, that are collectively speeding to bolster and reassure these nations on the frontline between the navy alliance’s japanese flank and Russia.
In a stand-off between the west and Russia that many are calling a second chilly struggle, the Baltic states are more and more seen as this era’s West Berlin. Part of Nato territory which may be all however unattainable to defend in itself, however which western officers underscore to Moscow will likely be closely avenged within the case of any assault.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, reiterated this on Tuesday after a whistle-stop tour of all three Baltic nations. He informed an viewers in Estonia that the US and the navy alliance would “defend each inch of Nato territory”.
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In additional than a dozen interviews with senior Baltic officers, together with all three presidents and quite a few ministers, all counsel there isn’t a instant menace to their area however that they’re prepared for no matter Russia may throw at them, as they’ve been for many years. There are nonetheless safety weaknesses that they hope Nato may also help to plug. However for each the navy alliance and the EU there’s a clear sense that the Baltics are on the entrance line towards Russia’s revanchism.
“There may be an understanding that we’re the area the place Nato, by defending its territory, both succeeds or fails,” says Edgars Rinkevics, Latvia’s overseas minister. “This can be a life or demise concern for Nato. So you may draw comparisons with West Berlin.”
Forcibly and illegally annexed by the Soviet Union after the second world struggle, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania solely regained their independence in 1990-91 and promptly made it their aim to affix each Nato and the EU, which they did in 2004 — the one ex-Soviet states to take action.
Officers within the three capitals, Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius, are clear that the Baltics aren’t Ukraine, in methods each good and unhealthy. One large distinction is that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are all coated by Nato’s collective defence pledge of article 5, which says that an assault on one nation is an assault on all.
However Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, final week linked the destiny of his nation immediately with that of the Baltic states telling reporters that, “if we aren’t any extra then, God forbid, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia will likely be subsequent”.
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Requested if the Baltics “will likely be subsequent”, politicians within the area are inclined to say it will be Nato subsequent whether or not the assault had been on Latvia, the UK or Germany. “We have now no instant threats,” says Egils Levits, Latvia’s president. “Or to place it one other manner: we’re experiencing the identical threats as Nato on the whole.”
Nato positioned multinational battle teams of about 1,000 troopers every in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland in 2017, designed to behave as a tripwire in case of a Russian assault. “It is vital, so [Nato allies] can’t fake it’s not taking place,” says one former senior Baltic intelligence official. Artis Pabriks, Latvia’s defence minister, provides: “We see from the Ukrainian expertise that the primary 72 hours is essential when everyone is confused.”
The nations main every battalion — Britain, Canada, Germany and the US respectively — have all despatched additional troops in latest weeks. However even then, Russia nonetheless has as much as 10 instances extra forces on its aspect. “We really feel we’re within the zone the place now we have a deficit rising, particularly with the troop build-up in Belarus,” says Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithuania’s overseas minister.
The defence of the Baltics can be far harder than that of Ukraine, which has a floor space virtually 4 instances the three Baltic states mixed, and a prewar inhabitants of 44mn folks, seven instances bigger. “Within the Baltics it’s very clear that we’re dwelling in an uneven scenario, as a result of the powers of Russia and Belarus are bigger than us. In the event that they wish to have some navy intervention, and so they didn’t have their arms tied in Ukraine, after all they might overwhelm us,” says Pabriks.
The Baltics are basically a peninsula, connected to the remainder of Europe by a slender, 65km-wide land border between Lithuania and Poland. Referred to as the Suwalki Hole, it’s bordered to the west by the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and to the east by Belarus. The Suwalki Hole is extensively considered certainly one of Nato’s largest vulnerabilities.
“In Kaliningrad [Russia has] one of the militarised areas in Europe,” says Gitanas Nauseda, Lithuania’s president. “Lithuania feels sandwiched between this closely militarised space and Belarus.”
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The US presence is seen as important by Baltic leaders. Earlier than the Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, the US had about 500 troops on rotation in Lithuania however has now despatched a further 400 to Latvia and 20 Apache helicopters, which one Baltic official quipped was “extra firepower than all our armies collectively”. Now all three nations wish to see US and Nato troops based mostly completely within the Baltics, a situation not on the desk earlier than the Ukraine invasion.
Latvia has carefully studied the struggle in Ukraine and drawn conclusions on what it wants from its allies. A number of ministers level to the necessity for improved air defence, lengthy a weak spot within the area the place jets from varied Nato allies make up the Baltic air policing mission. Rinkevics says Latvia feels safe however provides: “We perceive that there aren’t any good instances forward. So we have to enhance our defence funds. We have to work with our allies to make their presence right here long-term, if not everlasting.”
All three Baltic nations are actually dedicated to spending 2.5 per cent of gross home product yearly on defence, forward of Nato’s goal of two per cent. However given the scale of their economies, monetary help will likely be wanted from Nato, notably for air and coastal defence.
A full Russian invasion of the Baltics is seen as unlikely, given the implications of attacking members of Nato and the EU. “I do imagine that the Baltic states, if Nato and the EU are severe about territorial defence, aren’t going to be subsequent because the navy invasion targets,” says Rinkevics. “However you can’t exclude checks [by the Russians].”
A Baltic nationwide safety official believes an enormous cyber assault is extra seemingly. Putin has type, attacking Estonia in 2007 together with authorities, banks and media. There may be an unresolved debate in Nato about whether or not a cyber assault can set off Article 5 and the way huge it must be to take action.
One other risk is a restricted Russian incursion into the Baltics, maybe by forces claiming to be separatists. “Essentially the most harmful situation for us is a really restricted incursion. It may be onerous to seek out an instantaneous Nato response,” says a second Baltic nationwide safety official who fears such a transfer might divide the allies. Nonetheless, most officers assume the “little inexperienced males” utilized by Russia in Crimea are unlikely to be tried a second time. Latvia’s former president as soon as mentioned the tactic for use towards such an incursion can be easy: shoot them on sight.
Different potential checks might embrace utilizing vitality or migration as a weapon, or psychological or info warfare, officers say. “I’m not panicking about any Russian strikes or a Russian assault. I don’t have this sense of concern or nervousness,” says Rinkevics, who provides that it’s nonetheless necessary to not get complacent.
‘Russia woke us up’
There may be intense horror throughout the Baltic states at what is occurring in Ukraine and a eager need to assist Kyiv as a lot as potential. There may be additionally a way that it might have been them had that they had not joined Nato and the EU once they did. “I’ve by no means been extra grateful to be in Nato,” says one senior Estonian official.
The three nations, in addition to Poland, have warned about Russia loudly since not less than its struggle with Georgia in 2008, if not earlier than. “They thought this was due to our peculiar historical past: that we had been harm and we are able to’t forgive. However we don’t dwell in harm. We merely see them. We all know how Russians act,” says Ainars Latkovskis, chair of the defence committee in Latvia’s parliament.
The Estonian and Latvian prime ministers speak of the “naivety” of earlier western leaders, considering that Putin was a politician like them, and as a substitute providing him compromises and displaying him weak spot. Each are heartened by the unity and energy of the west’s response up to now to the invasion of Ukraine.
“That is the correct response, a response out of energy. I’ve no curiosity to brag or say I informed you so. That is meaningless,” provides Karins. “We’re all on this collectively.”
The Baltics now advocate making ready for a long-term confrontation with Russia whereas supporting Ukraine and persevering with to inflict financial ache on Moscow. Pabriks says that “lastly, Russia woke us up”. He provides that though Latvia feels “comparatively secure”, there may be additionally a way that Nato and the EU can’t afford to desert Kyiv to its destiny.
“The Russians can’t win this struggle,” says Pabriks. “So what’s the finish recreation for them? No one desires Russian destruction, no one desires Russia to vanish from the map, no one desires nuclear struggle. We merely need Russia to cease threatening its neighbours and change into a standard state.”
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Russian voices
Latvia and Estonia have a selected potential vulnerability: giant populations of Russian audio system. Most got here within the Soviet-era as a part of a deliberate coverage by authorities to suppress the native tradition, traditions and language. About 37 per cent of individuals in Latvia converse Russian as their mom tongue, though a few of these are Ukrainians or Belarusians; it’s a couple of quarter in Estonia.
Officers are fast to minimize any thought they may very well be exploited by Putin, nonetheless. “We by no means noticed the ethnic Russians right here as a hazard for our safety or our democracy. Putin’s aggression is opening the eyes not solely of western Europeans but additionally of many native Russians,” says Pabriks.
The Russian audio system are concentrated in japanese Estonia and Latvia in addition to each capital cities, however even when some have beforehand expressed sympathy with Russia and Putin, they’re effectively conscious that wages and pensions are considerably higher the place they’re. “The extra the Russian-speaking minority dwell in Estonia, the extra they realise that is their very own nation and it’s higher to dwell right here,” says Alar Karis, Estonia’s president.
One distinction between Estonia and Latvia is in politics. In Estonia, the political celebration that appeals most to Russians, the Centre celebration, is totally built-in within the system and is a member of the ruling coalition. However in Latvia there has lengthy been suspicion and sometimes open hostility to Concord, the celebration most interesting to Russians, which has come first in each parliamentary election since 2011, however has by no means been capable of type a authorities.
Karins hails Concord’s resolution to help a parliamentary movement vital of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a possible watershed. “It appears that evidently in each nation, there are all the time definitive moments, and moments that additional change at a way more fast tempo than earlier than. This might effectively be certainly one of them,” he provides.
Latvia’s prime minister says the bombing of locations corresponding to Kharkiv, a predominantly Russian-speaking metropolis in Ukraine, has led to a “profound realisation” amongst Russian-speakers in Latvia that “we actually may very well be threatened”. Karins provides: “If the bombs began to fly in Latvia, sadly they might not be discriminatory, taking a look at one’s household make-up or political views.”
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Officers are seeing an uptick in Russian disinformation makes an attempt. Janis Sarts, director of the Nato Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Riga, says there are two present ways: one, instilling concern through social media and Russian TV channels by saying “you’re subsequent — we’re going to assault you and wipe you out”; and secondly, trying to sow division by spreading rumours of native Russians being mistreated. But, says Sarts, the variety of native Russian audio system supporting the Kremlin — already a minority — has fallen in latest weeks.
Latvia has had points with Russian cash in its monetary system prior to now, however beneath heavy strain from the US and worldwide authorities it launched into a clean-up of its banks and is now advising different EU nations on the best way to enhance their anti-money-laundering controls. Non-resident deposits — these from outdoors the nation, principally Russia — have fallen sharply prior to now 5 years.
There have additionally been questions raised in regards to the affect of Russian oligarchs in Latvia, the place they congregate within the seaside city of Jurmala. However President Levits has a blunt evaluation: “The investments of Russian oligarchs in Latvia are peanuts in contrast with the presence of them in London.” He provides that Latvia is way much less inclined than many western nations to “poisonous investments and the political affect of oligarchs”.
Karins says he’s ready for a prolonged stand-off between democratic Europe and autocratic Russia. He provides: “If we don’t cease Putin in Ukraine, Putin won’t cease. And any western democracy may very well be subsequent.
“This can be a struggle towards democracy,” provides the Latvian prime minister, “it’s a struggle of imperialistic growth whereby Putin blatantly says he doesn’t respect the proper of self-determination of Ukraine. It’s anachronistic however true.”
It seemed as if the sky was raining fire on Orly Israel’s home. With embers whipping through the air, trees blazing and alarms blaring, Mr. Israel raced through the yard, hosing down bushes in a desperate attempt to save the house.
Mr. Israel, 30, had returned to the house in the Alphabet Streets neighborhood of Pacific Palisades on Tuesday evening with a friend after evacuating that morning with his brother and parents. “You could see it from the bedroom window,” he said of their view from the house on Tuesday morning. “You could see the flames coming down the hill.”
Ordered to evacuate, his family rushed to pack the cars with their most precious possessions — books, memories, a crate of notebooks and journals for Mr. Israel. “The embers were just flying through the sky,” said Mr. Israel, who said he moved into the house on his 10th birthday.
After leaving, Mr. Israel and a friend watched from a distant vantage point as the fire approached his family’s neighborhood. They decided to go back to try to protect the house, driving through “thick and black” smoke that limited their visibility to several feet.
Wearing swimming pool goggles and N-95 masks, they sprayed down spot fires and moved flammable furniture inside. But the intense heat and swirling embers pushed them back.
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“It wasn’t even safe being there at all,” said Mr. Israel.
“His whole backyard was basically on fire,” said Mr. Israel’s friend, Tanner Charles Schaaf, a content creator who chases storms. But he had never seen anything like this before, he said.
“I just stood there and was like, it’s over,” Mr. Schaaf said. “We can’t fight it.” He recorded a video and prayed as the two men gave up their efforts and ran out the front door into an apocalyptic-looking night.
As they fled the house, Mr. Israel saw a large tree with flames licking its trunk in the front yard. “When that tree falls, it’s going to destroy our house,” he said. In videos sent by other friends in the neighborhood, he said, it looked like every home on the street was on fire.
“I’m thinking about my family. I’m thinking that any future plans I had that are totally out the window,” he said, adding that he had felt unprepared for the ferocity of the fire. Hours later, he said, his eyes were still stinging from the embers, and he didn’t know what his family would do next.
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“It’s just, wait for the bad news that the house is completely gone, and then wait until they let us come pick through the rubble,” he said. “And then, I don’t know. I have no idea. Do I move to another state where they don’t have fires?”
“What happens to the city?” he added. “Neighborhoods are going to be completely gone.”
Elon Musk’s recent obsession with UK politics is being fuelled by a series of popular accounts on his social media platform X, which the billionaire appears to be turning to for information on the grooming gangs scandal and Sir Keir Starmer’s track record as a prosecutor.
An analysis of the entrepreneur’s feed by the Financial Times found that Musk — whose attacks on the British prime minister and senior politicians have become more scathing over the past week — has amplified or responded to a handful of X accounts that have posted extensively about the handling of historic sex crimes in the country.
They include Viségrad 24 — an account with more than 1.2mn followers run by British-born Stefan Tompson — social media personality Mario Nawfal, and Malaysian influencer Ian Miles Cheong, alongside several less popular right-leaning accounts purportedly based in the UK.
Posts by the accounts that Musk has engaged with blamed the “British political elite” for covering up the scandal, and referred to “horrific failures” by prosecutors, alleging they “turned a blind eye to the raping of children”.
The accounts cited snippets from reports by British newspapers, and summarised findings from previous inquiries into the matter, mostly without linking to the source material or providing further context.
They also highlighted isolated passages from a book called Easy Meat: Multiculturalism, Islam And Child Sex Slavery, without naming the publication. One post linked to testimony by Telford survivor Samantha Smith saying she was asked by the British police if she consented to sexual activity, even though she was a five-year-old when first abused.
Musk’s posts have rocketed the grooming scandal to the top of the news agenda in the UK and led to renewed calls for action, with Conservative MPs attempting to force a vote on whether to hold a new inquiry. Professor Alexis Jay, chair of the original inquiry, has been drawn in, saying it would be better to implement the measures already recommended.
Musk, the world’s richest man, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Saturday, Nawfal posted that Phillips “nixed a broader investigation into Oldham’s rape gangs”, to which Musk responded calling her a “wicked witch”. He also replied to an earlier post by the influencer — who frequently jumps on significant news developments and with whom Musk has long engaged — that claimed “cultural sensitivities” were prioritised over pursuing justice, calling the alleged cover-up “unconscionable”.
In the past week, Musk has reposted Nawfal almost 40 times. The 53-year-old billionaire has posted or reposted 616 times on X during the same period, at least 225 of which were about UK politics, according to FT analysis as of Wednesday morning. Including replies, he has posted more than 1180 times in seven days.
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Musk, who spent more than $250mn supporting Donald Trump’s campaign, has been an almost constant presence at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago home over the past two months, from where he has joined calls with world leaders and criticised the governments of Germany and Canada.
He has claimed that Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions in England and Wales, was “deeply complicit in the mass rapes in exchange for votes”.
He also called for the King to dissolve parliament and call new elections.
One person who interacted with Musk this week said he had not been relying on conversations with a UK source for his information, but preferred to do his own research online. Others formerly close to the billionaire said that they believed his outrage was largely driven by posts from social media accounts that Musk does not directly follow, but that appear on his algorithmically curated “for you” feed on X.
Questions about which individuals or organisations are colouring Musk’s take on the UK government have also preoccupied some British officials.
Several believe that a small cast of conservative-leaning British commentators and analysts based in the US are shaping views about the UK among the wider milieu of Trump’s allies.
The officials said they include Douglas Murray, a neoconservative author who has written books on western decline and “Islamophilia,” who Musk has referred to in tweets on the grooming scandal, and Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the DC-based Heritage Foundation.
A second UK official said that the growth of Islam in the UK was another key theme pushed by influential US-based British commentators, highlighting that UK media stories last month about “Muhammad” becoming the most popular boy’s name in England and Wales were shared widely among Maga figures on X and other social media sites.
In the past week, Musk has also amplified posts on the grooming scandal by former prime minister Liz Truss, former Labour MP Kate Hoey, former Reform politician Ben Habib and people linked to broadcaster GB News. He has amplified several posts by Reform MP Rupert Lowe, who he has suggested should replace Nigel Farage as the head of the party.
X allows users to switch between a feed of the accounts they follow only, and an algorithmic feed, dubbed “For You”, showing content that might match their interests and previous activity. The more Musk engages with content about the UK from the far right or niche sources, the more he will be served similar content in his “For You” page, according to experts.
“Musk has seemingly become the first tech leader to fall down the rabbit hole of radicalisation by his own product,” said Bruce Daisley, former head of Twitter’s operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
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He said that TikTok, which also has a version of the algorithmically curated “For You” page, “is far more optimised for fun, surprise and amusement”. Meanwhile Musk “simultaneously says ‘let’s post more positive stuff’ then retweets extremists from Britain First and Tommy Robinson,” he added.
Dr Jen Golbeck, a professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, who focuses on social media and extremism, said the ease with which users can pay for X’s subscription service, and consequently be featured more prominently in its users’ feeds, has played a major role in amplifying accounts that post inaccurate information.
“On the algorithmic side, I think a really important feature is the boosting of the blue checks,” she said, referring to the X users with a subscription to X Premium, signified by a blue tick on their profiles. The change to the X verification process by Musk meant that he was more likely to see posts from people who “share his increasingly radical ideology”, Golbeck added.
On Tuesday, Musk said that he had a personal reason to be interested in the UK, posting that his British grandmother, Cora Amelia Robinson, “grew up very poor in England” and was important to him as a child.
“My Nana was one of the poor working-class girls with no one to protect her who might have been abducted in present day Britain,” Musk claimed.
A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 is de-iced before takeoff at Salt Lake City International Airport on Feb. 22, 2023. The wings, fuselage and tail must be de-iced before it can fly whenever there’s snow, ice or frost.
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WASHINGTON — When the temperature plunges, the de-icing crews go to work.
First the big truck pulls up alongside a plane. Then the bucket operator sprays the wings, tail and fuselage with a mixture of hot fluids that melts ice so the jet can take off safely.
“It’s just one of those frustrating times of year,” said Chris Manno, a retired airline pilot who spent 35 years at American Airlines. “Everything’s being done safely. There’s no good way to do it, other than slowly.”
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This has been a challenging week for air travelers, as a major winter storm forced airlines to cancel thousands of flights and delay thousands more. Those problems were especially acute at airports around the nation’s capital, which saw more than half a foot of snow. A second storm is forecast to bring more precipitation to major airports in Dallas and Atlanta later this week.
The winter weather leaves airlines no choice but to de-ice planes before takeoff in order to keep them in the air, because even a small amount of ice on the wings can lead to serious problems.
“Not just heavy snow but actually very thin layers of frost can also have a very negative effect on lift,” said Kathleen Bangs, a former commercial airline pilot who is now a spokesperson for FlightAware, the flight-tracking website.
A Frontier Airlines plane approaches a de-icing station before takeoff in Denver in this file photo. Two powerful winter storms are disrupting the U.S. air travel system this week.
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“Aircraft can be rolling down the runway,” Bangs explained. “And they will accelerate, and frequently get to liftoff speed. But when they try to take off, or they do get just a few feet off the ground, they’ll lose substantial lift, and the aircraft will no longer be able to fly.”
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The de-icing process typically takes about 20 minutes for a smaller plane, Manno said. For larger jets, de-icing can add a delay of up to 40 minutes or more to each flight.
“It’s kind of a big logistics task,” he said. “Most airlines are doing a pretty good job of handling that. It’s just, it’s a slow process, and it has to be done right.”
If it’s not done right, the results can be catastrophic. In January 1982, an Air Florida jet crashed into the Potomac River moments after taking off from what was then called Washington National Airport, killing most of the passengers and crew on board. That accident – along with the crash of a USAir jet in New York City a decade later – led to more rigorous standards for de-icing.
Airlines now typically use two different types of chemical mixtures, depending on the situation: de-icing fluid and anti-icing fluid. De-icing fluid is heated to 140 degrees to remove frost, snow and ice from the wings and other critical surfaces, while anti-icing fluid prevents ice from forming. Glycol is the key ingredient in both fluids.
While the technology behind de-icing has improved over the years, some things about the job have not changed.
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“You’re in the elements. It’s snowing. You can barely see sometimes,” said Thomas Stevenson, a de-icer for Southwest Airlines based in Denver, in a video the company posted on YouTube. “It definitely gets cold. But I mean, that’s something you kind of signed up for when you took the job.”
His colleague, Jamie Martinez, says it’s an “awesome responsibility” to make sure a full plane carrying more than 140 passengers and crew members is ready for takeoff.
“We really try to consider every airplane as having a family member on that airplane,” Martinez said. “And that’s what we keep in mind to make sure that we’re doing the job correctly.”
It’s not just cold-weather climates where airlines have to worry about de-icing. It’s also a concern in warmer climates like Texas, Georgia and Florida.
“It is a necessity even this far down south,” said John Murphy, the assistant director of airside operations at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. He says the airport has already seen more than a dozen days this winter when planes have required de-icing – even without any significant snowfall.
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The airport is preparing for a major winter storm later this week that’s forecast to bring snow or freezing rain to a wide stretch of the South from Dallas to Atlanta. Murphy expects de-icing will once again be necessary.
“So you could see delays of upwards of an hour. That’s normal,” he said. “The name of the game is always safety.”
Those delays can be frustrating for travelers. But Kathleen Bangs with FlightAware says U.S. airlines and airports deserve credit for their performance during this week’s storm — even though thousands of flights were canceled or delayed.
“The truth is, they kept going. They kept operating. They did it safely,” she said. “You do the best you can. I mean, when you’ve got a foot of snow falling in some places, or ice covered runways, there’s you know, there’s a lot of places around the world that just shut down and don’t operate at all.”
