US VP in Poland for talks as Russia defies sanctions, moves to annex Crimea

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US VP arrives in Poland for talks as Russia defies sanctions, moves to annex Crimea

 

 

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By KATE BRANNEN | 03/18/14 8:03 AM EDT

By Kate Brannen

 

With Jonathan Topaz

 

BIDEN ARRIVES IN POLAND TO TALK RUSSIA AND UKRAINE: Vice President Joe Biden landed in Warsaw this morning on the first leg of a two-day visit to Poland and Lithuania to reassure allies in the region of U.S. support in the continuing crisis over Russia’s incursion into Ukraine. Particularly, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters aboard Air Force Two, Biden is eager to discuss ways to strengthen NATO so the alliance “emerges from this crisis even stronger than it went into it.” AP: http://bit.ly/PLv0TO

 

SANCTIONS BEGIN BUT WHAT EFFECT WILL THEY HAVE? Yesterday, President Barack Obama announced the U.S. is sanctioning 11 Russian and Ukrainian officials.

 

“Speaking from the White House, he warned that he’s prepared to go even further if Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t reverse course on Crimea,” report POLITICO’s Jennifer Epstein and Edward Isaac Dovere. http://politi.co/1fDndfD

 

While the White House is not directly sanctioning Putin himself, it has not ruled out the possibility, said White House press secretary Jay Carney. Among the targeted individuals are Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and Putin’s aides and advisers.

 

What are Obama’s terms for lifting the sanctions? “Russian troops must return to their bases in Crimea, and Putin must accept international monitors and start a dialogue with the new government in Kiev.”

 

Here’s a White House fact sheet on the sanctions: http://1.usa.gov/1eKGRqM

 

STILL, RUSSIA IS MOVING SWIFTLY TO ABSORB CRIMEA: To make the whole thing official, Putin signed a decree late last night that said Crimea is an independent state and no longer part of Ukraine, report The New York Times’ Steven Lee Myers, Peter Baker and Andrew Higgins. http://nyti.ms/1eM58wE

 

Today, he’s expected to discuss his plans for Ukraine in a speech to the Russian Parliament. And this morning, he has already signed a draft bill for the annexation of Crimea, report The Financial Times’ Christian Oliver, Geoff Dyer and Neil Buckley. http://on.ft.com/1gEVrAd

 

AND — TIT FOR TAT — PUTIN PLANS TO BAN U.S. LAWMAKERS FROM RUSSIA, via The Daily Beast’s Josh Rogin: “Putin is expected to release his retaliation list as early as Tuesday and while the final list is still being crafted, it will include top Obama administration officials and high-profile U.S. senators, in an effort to roughly mirror the U.S. sanctions against Russian officials and lawmakers, according to diplomatic sources. At the top of the list in Congress is Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, who recently co-authored a resolution criticizing Russia’s invasion of Crimea.” http://thebea.st/1iW9V5X

 

WHAT’S THE FALLOUT FROM WORSENING U.S.-RUSSIAN RELATIONS? Put simply, any area where the U.S. and Russia were working together now faces potential setback.

 

The New York Times’ Alissa J. Rubin reports that “Tensions between the West and Russia over events in Ukraine have cast a shadow over the second round of talks set to begin on Tuesday in Vienna on a permanent nuclear agreement with Iran.” http://nyti.ms/1d9hq7p

 

“If Russia signals that its cooperation with the West has weakened, that will reduce pressure on Iran to make concessions,” Rubin reports.

 

And appearing on Charlie Rose yesterday, Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League Joint Special Envoy on Syria, said he had started to see Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov working closer together on Syria, but worries that progress will now disappear. http://imdb.to/PL4QRj

 

— HE’S NOT THE ONLY ONE TO NOTICE: “Even as Syria’s epic suffering is remaking the human geography of the Middle East and beyond, initiatives to ease the crisis have sputtered and failed to offer effective help. Already tenuous hopes for an internationally brokered peace settlement have further faded as Russian-American relations worsen,” reports The New York Times’ Anne Barnard. http://nyti.ms/1p6MAfg

 

IT’S TUESDAY. Survive the snowstorm and the green beer? Let’s hope we see neither again for a while. Of course, send your ideas, defense tips and any feedback to kbrannen@politico.com and follow on Twitter at @k8brannen, @morningdefense and @PoliticoPro.

 

THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE PREDICTED THE U.S. MILITARY WOULD BE DOING A MONTH OR SO AGO:

 

— Beefing up a NATO air patrol mission in the Baltics to send a message to Russia, which is attempting to annex part of Ukraine.

 

— Taking back control of a tanker ship full of stolen Libyan oil.

 

— Searching for a missing airliner lost either somewhere over the Indian Ocean or in Central Asia.

 

Makes doing the QDR seem a little bit daunting …

 

THE LATEST ON THE HUNT FOR FLIGHT 370: Last night, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel spoke to Malaysian Minister of Defense Hishammuddin Tun Hussein to discuss the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.

 

During the call, Hagel said the United States remains committed to working with the Malaysian government to find the plane and that the U.S. Navy has re-tasked reconnaissance aircraft to search the "southern corridor" in the Indian Ocean.

 

At the same time, the Navy is pulling the USS Kidd and its two MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopters off the mission now that the search area has changed, reports Stars and Stripes’ James Kimber. http://1.usa.gov/1ee3OFU

 

Because the new search area covers a vast expanse of the Indian Ocean, the U.S. military’s long-range patrol aircraft such as the P-8A Poseidon and P-3C Orion are more suited to the job, Kimber reports.

 

— THE SEARCH IS ALLOWING DoD TO SHOWCASE ITS PACIFIC PRESENCE, via The Washington Post’s Ernesto Londoño: “Having dedicated sophisticated Navy ships and aircraft to the search, the U.S. military is casting itself as a benign actor capable of working cooperatively with Beijing in a part of the world where it is attempting to strengthen alliances and put its rival on notice.” http://wapo.st/NpzygF

 

— A ‘DRY RUN’ TERRORIST ATTACK? That’s one theory, among many, being floated as of yesterday.

 

“Intelligence agencies haven't connected any of the pilots on the flight to known terrorist groups, but some senior U.S. officials believe the plane may have been taken as part of a ‘dry run’ for a future terrorist attack, testing the ability to take a plane and hide it from radar and satellites,” reports The Wall Street Journal’s Chun Han Wong. http://on.wsj.com/1iXPG3B

 

But in this CBS News story, former acting CIA Director Mike Morell said that scenario is unlikely. “If you were able to get control of an aircraft, you would use it immediately,” he says. http://cbsn.ws/1iXHOyN

 

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REMEMBER THAT NAVY CONTRACTING SCANDAL? Before the days of nuke officers cheating on tests or National Guard recruiters pocketing kickbacks, the Navy had the scandal du jour. And what a scandal it was — involving bribery, prostitutes and a villain named “Fat Leonard.”

 

Well, it’s back in the news — and it probably won’t be the last time.

 

Bloomberg’s Karen Gullo reports that Alex Wisidagama, “a former government contracts manager at Singapore-based Glenn Defense Marine, whose chief executive officer is accused of bribing a Navy commander with cash and prostitutes, will plead guilty, according to a court filing and a federal prosecutor.” http://bloom.bg/1iWdPfb

 

MORE HURDLES TO GETTING NOMINEES OVER THE FINISH LINE, via POLITICO’s Burgess Everett and Josh Gerstein: The nominee in question this time is not defense-related but the fight to get Vivek Murthy confirmed as surgeon general exposes just how difficult a time the White House is having at getting the people they want into top administration jobs.

 

“The nomination battles illustrate how quickly Senate politics have shifted since Democrats unilaterally changed the rules in November — the ‘nuclear option’— to lower the voting threshold needed to advance presidential nominees from 60 to a simple majority,” report Everett and Gerstein. “The nomination process’s power nucleus has shifted from centrist Republicans to conservative and liberal blocs of the Democratic caucus that can reject a nominee just as easily as the GOP could a few months ago.” http://politi.co/1kXOJwn

 

DEFENSE INDUSTRY — SAD TO LOSE YOUNG — GREETS JOLLY WITH INDIFFERENCE, via POLITICO’s Jonathan Topaz: “Defense firms largely sat out the battle between Republican David Jolly and Democrat Alex Sink for Florida’s 13th Congressional District, the seat held for years by the powerful GOP defense appropriator Rep. Bill Young, who died in October.

 

“Now Jolly, a former lobbyist who narrowly defeated Sink last Tuesday, will look to win backing from a defense industry that strongly supported Young, who was chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee when he died.” http://politico.pro/1gvCsra

 

MAKING MOVES

 

— KERRY APPOINTS NEW SYRIA ENVOY: Secretary of State John Kerry has appointed Daniel Rubinstein as special envoy to Syria to replace Robert Ford, who retired last month. In a statement, Kerry praised Rubinstein, a senior foreign service official, as “among our government’s foremost experts on the Middle East.” http://goo.gl/YvfWb3

 

SPEED READ

 

— A suicide bomb in northern Afghanistan kills at least 15 people. The BBC: http://bbc.in/1gwUvNL

 

— A member of the Army National Guard who was on his way to fight with terrorists in Syria is arrested near the U.S.-Canada border. Reuters: http://reut.rs/1mf63xq

 

— Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) urges the White House to install anti-ballistic missiles in Eastern Europe as a counter to Russian actions in Ukraine. The Washington Post: http://wapo.st/1iX0AGN

 

— A team of former congressional investigators says Congress should establish a special panel to determine whether the intelligence community has overstepped its bounds. The Washington Post: http://wapo.st/1d7NfgU

 

— Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics are among the U.S. defense firms believed to be competing to acquire the U.K. Defence Support Group. Defense News: http://goo.gl/1TfFFj

 

— A GAO report says the Pentagon probably won’t meet its schedule on missile defense systems for Poland and Romania. Global Security Newswire: http://goo.gl/ZGwmTH

 

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