Weekend Edition.

Game Ready.

1. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said he had ordered the police and army to shoot without warning and signaled a broader crackdown against opponents as his security forces, backed by Russian troops, moved to restore control after days of unrest triggered by a fuel-price increase. He said his government had largely restored order and told a meeting of security chiefs Friday that what he called a counterterrorism operation would continue “until the full liquidation of the militants,” who he said were still using weapons. (via wsj.com)

2. Vladimir Putin’s lightning deployment of troops took less than a day to help turn the tide against anti-government protesters in Kazakhstan. Ahead of high-stakes security talks with the U.S., it also sent a reminder of just how determined the Russian president is to defend what he sees as his own neighborhood. “If it made an impression, that’s all for the better,” said Konstantin Kosachyov, deputy speaker of the upper house of Russia’s parliament. The dramatic operation — the first of its kind by the Russian-led military bloc Moscow sees as its version of NATO — came just days before the U.S. and its allies sit down with Kremlin negotiators to try to address Moscow’s concerns about the Western alliance’s expansion toward its borders and head off an invasion of Ukraine that the West fears the Kremlin is planning. (via japantimes.co.jp)

3. Nato’s secretary-general has ruled out creating “second-class” members of the military alliance to appease Moscow, ahead of a week of high-stakes diplomacy between the Kremlin and western powers that aims to avoid a feared Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia will hold talks with the US and Nato next week for discussions on security proposals drawn up by Moscow, which include a ban on Ukraine joining the US-led military alliance and giving the Kremlin a veto on military deployments in member states close to Russia. Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said these two proposals were unacceptable, after an extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers from the alliance convened to discuss the upcoming Russia talks. (via ft.com)

4. The head of the UK’s armed forces has warned Russia that any attempt by Moscow to sever crucial underwater communication cables could be considered an act of war. Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, 56, the new chief of the defense staff, has raised concerns about the increase in Russia’s underwater activity. “There’s been a phenomenal increase in Russian submarine and underwater activity over the last 20 years,” Radakin told The Times in his first interview since being appointed. He said the underwater program was “more than about submarines”. It was about being able to “put at risk and potentially exploit the world’s real information system, which is undersea cables that go all around the world. (via thetimes.co.uk)

5. Bruce Hoffman: “Accelerationism holds that the modern, Western democratic state is so mired in corruption and ineptitude that true patriots should instigate a violent insurrection to hasten its destruction to allow a new, white-dominated order to emerge…The objective of accelerationism is to foment divisiveness and polarization that will induce the collapse of the existing order and spark a second civil war….The atmosphere today is ominously reminiscent of the period leading up to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing—the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history. Then, extreme right-wing rhetoric was calling on so-called patriots such as Timothy McVeigh to defend their fellow Americans against a predatory federal government. Today, there are many more McVeighs out there. Sadly, it might require another horrific tragedy like the Oklahoma City bombing before the U.S. government takes decisive action against this threat. (via cfr.org)