Details: Hamas and Fatah meet in Moscow tomorrow
Hamas and Fatah are to meet in Moscow on Thursday to discuss a Palestinian unity government, Reuters reports, citing state-run Russian media. The meeting is also said to be about the reconstruction of Gaza after the war.
The terrorist group Hamas rules the Gaza Strip and the Fatah party in the West Bank. The two groups have long been bitter rivals.
This week, Deutsche Welle spoke to several experts about Russia's role as a mediator between the various Palestinian factions. Historically, all attempts to unite the groupings have failed, says the Russian Middle East expert Ruslan Suleymanov, who does not believe that the parties will reach this time either.
- It's really just a dialogue for the sake of dialogue.
Suleymanov believes that Russia's main goal is to show that it has geopolitical influence ahead of the Russian presidential election in March - and he is agreed by several other experts.
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The Russian invasion|The response of the outside world
Macron's outburst about soldiers is met with coldness throughout Europe
The French President Emmanuel Macron's statement that soldiers from the West can be sent to Ukraine is receiving a chilly reception from other European countries, Euractiv and AP write.
Germany, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Portugal, Greece, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria are among the countries that have already expressed skepticism or have completely dismissed the proposal.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was clear during a visit to Freiburg yesterday:
- There will be no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil sent there by European countries or NATO countries.
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The nuclear weapons of the great powers
Leaked documents: Russian threshold for nuclear weapons lower than Putin publicly admits
Russia's threshold for using tactical nuclear weapons is lower than it has ever stated publicly. It shows leaked Russian documents that the Financial Times has obtained through Western informants.
The documents discuss various war strategies and were produced between 2008 and 2014. Despite being over ten years old, experts say the content is relevant.
The documents show that Russia is ready to resort to nuclear weapons in several different scenarios, for example if Russian forces are thinned to the point that "they fail to stop major aggressions". Nuclear weapons can become relevant when enough submarines or airfields are destroyed. Furthermore, they can be used to prevent other countries from escalating conflicts, to avoid losses of Russian territory or to make the Russian navy "more effective".
- The threshold for nuclear weapons is quite low if the desired results cannot be achieved conventionally, says Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center think tank.
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The NATO process|Sweden's application
Expert: Unclear if NATO has been good for world peace
It is difficult to say whether NATO has been positive for world peace on the whole. This is what Kjølv Egeland, disarmament researcher at the Folkerettsinstituttet in Oslo, tells SVT Nyheter.
- NATO may have contributed to peace and stability - but has also to some extent contributed to the opposite.
The neutral countries in Europe have generally played an important role in peace work, he adds.
Egeland does not believe that the situation will change very much for Sweden when membership is a fact - Sweden has practically been a member for several years, he says.
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