Russia wants details of del Ponte’s controversial book

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has asked the Hague to provide details on crimes described in a book by former chief criminal prosecutor Carla del Ponte, the ministry said on Tuesday.

In her book called The Hunt: Me and War Criminals, Carla del Ponte described atrocities against Kosovo Serbs and other ethnic groups committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

“Batching freedom of speech concerning crimes against civilians, one may assume, is aimed at softening the reaction within international social and political circles to the facts revealing the criminal prehistory to the illegitimate sovereignty of Kosovo,” the ministry said.

On Monday, the ministry denounced a ruling by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia last week which saw a former Kosovo prime minister acquitted for crimes committed during the conflict between Kosovo and Serbia in 1998-1999.

Ramush Haradinaj, 39, a former KLA guerilla leader, accused of organizing the rape, murder and intimidation of thousands of Serbs and Roma was found ‘not guilty’ on April 3.

The ministry said in an official statement the verdict “questions the impartibility and objectiveness of the International Criminal Tribunal” and accused the court of “double standards” in their treatment of conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.

According to claims made in del Ponte’s book, Haradinaj was involved in the sale of organs, taken from prisoners executed in Kosovo.

She alleges that there was sufficient evidence for prosecution of Kosovo Albanians involved in war crimes, but it “was nipped in the bud” focusing on “the crimes committed by Serbia.”

The claims have caused a storm in Serbia and among the international community. The president of the Association of Families of Kidnapped and Missing Serbs in Kosovo, Simo Spasic, said he wanted to sue Carla del Ponte for “concealing the crimes.”

International terrorists recruit in Russia via foreign NGOs – FSB – 2

International terrorists carry out recruiting activities in Russia’s regions with the support of some foreign non-governmental organizations, the Russian Federal Security Service chief said on Tuesday.

“International terrorists and religious extremists enjoy the support of certain foreign non-governmental organizations when carrying out recruitment activities,” Nikolai Patrushev told a session of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NATC).

In late 2005, the Russian parliament passed a Kremlin-sponsored bill preventing foreign NGOs from having branch offices in the country and making Russian groups ineligible for most sources of foreign funding.

“The results of an analysis of the operational situation in the Southern Federal District bear witness to the fact that bandits and their accomplices are endeavoring to swell their ranks by brainwashing young people. Emissaries of foreign terrorist and religious extremist groups are taking advantage of existing socio-economic problems and ethnic and religious discord to carry out recruiting work in this and other Russian regions,” Patrushev added.

But NGOs are blamed for recruiting terrorists not only in Russia, but also abroad. Alexander Torshin, deputy speaker of the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, said after the NATC meeting on Tuesday:

“Foreign NGOs often become platforms for recruiting terrorists and extremists.”

He also said dozens of anti-Russian activities are carried out in Poland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Turkey, some other Scandinavian, and Baltic states.

Torshin, a NATC member, said another threat was coming from the Internet which is playing an increasingly important role in spreading terrorist ideology.

“While in 1998, only 12 sites supported terrorist organizations on the Internet, some estimates say that today there are 5,000-6,000 of them, including 150 Russian-language sites.”

Torshin called for a universal method to be developed to identify and shut down such websites worldwide.

The Russian government has faced criticism from Western leaders for restrictions imposed on rights groups and NGOs operating in the country, and the issue is often cited as an example of Russia’s alleged backsliding on democracy.

In January, prosecutors in Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, which is part of the Southern Federal District, requested that a British NGO promoting peacekeeping and community development be closed down, saying that its accreditation had expired.

Russia’s Azimut Hotels Company buys European hotel chain

An affiliate of a Russian hotel chain has bought 20 three-star hotels in Europe with 1,875 rooms from the Austrian Hotel Company (AHC), the company director general said on Tuesday.

Central European Hotel Investment (C.E.H.I.) part of the Azimut Hotels Company said the amount of the purchase for the hotels, which are located in three EU countries namely Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic, has not been disclosed.

“With this acquisition we laid the foundation for developing a large hotel chain,” Sergei Lysenkov said.

Franz Eichenauer, CEO at Azimut Hotels Company, said one of the company’s development goals was the recognition of the Azimut brand as a hotel chain providing four-star services at three-star prices.

Azimut Hotels Company operates one of Russia’s largest hotel chains, Azimut Hotel Network, established in 2004. The network runs business class hotels in a number of large Russian cities. Last year the company’s business was worth $54 million.

Established in 2007, Central European Hotel Investment runs a hotel business and is also developing eight business class projects in Germany, Austria and Bulgaria.

Marina Rudneva, CEO of C.E.H.I, said her company planned to invest around 80 million euros in business development programs within the next three years.

“We plan to channel around 80 million euros in our business development in 2008-2010. The funds will be invested in hotel construction and modernization and the acquisition of hotels currently controlled by the company,” she said.

NATO fighters again accompany Russian bombers near Alaska

 

NATO fighters accompanied Russian Tu-95 Bear strategic bombers on a regular strategic patrol flight on Wednesday, a Russian Air Force spokesman said.

Four Bear bombers and four Il-78 aerial tankers conducted a patrol mission over the Arctic and the Pacific Ocean and performed aerial refueling, which is the second exercise of Russian bombers near Alaska in three weeks.

“During the flight over neutral waters near Alaska, the Russian planes were accompanied by NATO fighters,” Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky said.

Interceptions of Russian combat aircraft by NATO fighters have been a common occurrence since Russia resumed strategic bomber patrol flights over the Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic oceans last August, following an order signed by President Vladimir Putin.

Drobyshevsky reiterated that regular patrols of Russian strategic bombers do not pose a threat to other countries, and Russia always issues prior warnings of their patrols.

He said that the main purpose of these missions was to train pilots in instrument flight and aerial refueling.

 

Russian forces in Kosovo senseless – Lavrov

 

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Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a national radio station on Tuesday he could see no sense in sending troops to Serbia’s breakaway province of Kosovo.

Kosovo unilaterally declared independence on February 17 and has been so far recognized by 37 countries, including the U.S. and most European nations.

“I can see no sense in sending Russian troops there as part of KFOR [Kosovo Force] or under the [UN] Security Council mandate, which does not rule out such an action,” the minister told the Moscow-based Ekho Moskvy radio station.

Lavrov said that in order to stabilize the situation in Kosovo “[UN Security Council] Resolution 1244 should be taken as a guideline.”

He also said the recognition has failed to go as scheduled by “those who incited Kosovo to declare independence” adding that they planned to “persuade or force around 100 countries”, but only 37 have agreed with over “50 states clearly stating that they will not” recognize Kosovo.

The U.S. representative office in Pristina was officially renamed the United States Embassy in Kosovo at a ceremony attended by both local and foreign officials on Tuesday.

Russia has consistently backed Belgrade’s position that Kosovo will always remain a part of Serbia.

 

“It makes me crazy to be Russian”

 

No comment …

Putin Hints At Splitting Up Ukraine – “Do you understand, George, that Ukraine is not even a state!” (Putin)

President Vladimir Putin hinted at last week’s NATO summit in Romania that Russia would work to break up Ukraine, should the former Soviet republic join the military alliance, Kommersant reported Monday.

Putin “lost his temper” at the NATO-Russia Council in Bucharest during Friday’s discussions of Ukraine’s bid to join NATO, Kommersant cited an unidentified foreign delegate to the summit as saying.

“Do you understand, George, that Ukraine is not even a state!” Putin told U.S. President George W. Bush at the closed meeting, the diplomat told Kommersant.

After saying most of Ukraine’s territory was “given away” by Russia, Putin said that if Ukraine joined NATO it would cease to exist as a state, the diplomat said.

Putin threatened to encourage the secession of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and eastern Ukraine, where anti-NATO and pro-Moscow sentiment is strong, the diplomat said, Kommersant reported.

Putin also offered broader economic cooperation with Georgia’s separatist republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as Tbilisi sought NATO approval for eventual membership in the alliance.

In a letter sent to the leaders of the breakaway provinces Thursday — when NATO members were deciding whether to grant Membership Action Plans to Ukraine and Georgia — Putin said Russia would move beyond symbolic declarations and offer real economic support to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Just days before the summit, Moscow officially lifted long-standing embargoes on trade, transportation and financial transactions with Abkhazia.

France, Germany and several other NATO members opposed putting Ukraine and Georgia on the path toward NATO to avoid provoking Russia, and the alliance postponed consideration of their eventual membership.

Diplomat gagged over Kosovo organ sale claim

Switzerland has gagged one its Ambassadors from promoting a controversial new book about war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. Carla Del Ponte, who prosecuted crimes at The Hague, claims some current Kosovo leaders once sold vital organs from Serb prisoners.

Switzerland says Del Ponte role as Ambassador to Argentina will not complement any promotion campaign.

The book, “The Hunt: Me and War Criminals”, was due to be launched in Milan.

It details atrocities committed by Albanians against Kosovo Serbs in the late 1990s and says that some of those currently in power in Kosovo made money selling Serb organs.

Russia to hand paedophiles life

Russia’s lower house of Parliament, the State Duma, is to consider a draft law that would allow heavier punishments for those convicted of sex crimes against minors. If the law’s passed, offenders would face longer prison terms and wouldn’t be eligible for parole, while repeated sex crimes against children could lead to a life sentence.The number of sex crimes against children in Russia has grown by 50% over recent years according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Last week two girls aged 13 and 14 were raped and killed, while a seven-year-old girl – the sister of one of the murder victims – was badly injured in an attack in the Chelyabinsk region.

A reward of $US 40,000 has been offered for information, but so far no one has been arrested. Experts say there are several reasons behind the rise in sex crimes against children.

One is that the country’s laws are too lenient, according to psychiatrist Mikhail Vinogradov.

“A paedophile in Russia can get a maximum of four years in prison for the sexual abuse of a child, but I don’t even hear about such sentences, it’s usually two years or even a suspended sentence,” said Vinogradov.

If the draft law before the State Duma is adopted the minimum punishment for child rape or sexual abuse would be set at eight years in prison, with a maximum sentence of 20 years.

There would also be no parole for any such offenders, which would have made a difference in the case of Dmitry Voronenko. Last month a court in St. Petersburg sentenced him to life imprisonment for the rape and murder of three young women and two children – he was a convicted rapist who’d been released early.

“Regarding that case in St. Petersburg – before being caught the criminal was sentenced to five and a half years in prison, but after serving a year he was released on parole. I know of at least three cases where child rapists were released on parole. No other country in the world allows that.” Vinogradov added.

The mothers of Dmitry Voronenko’s victims are demanding his execution, but capital punishment in Russia hasn’t been carried out for 12 years due to a moratorium.

There have been calls to introduce chemical castration for rapists, a practice carried out by several American states. However, there is a consensus that releasing rapists on parole doesn’t make sense.

“With sex crimes we have a 100% rate of recidivism. Not a single paedophile, not a single sexual maniac changes his ways in prison.” Vinogradov stressed.

Experts believe that the only way to reduce the number of sexual offences against children is by cracking down on child pornography, and by the creation of a national database of those convicted of sex crimes.

 

Police station attacked in Chechen capital

One officer was injured when a police station in Grozny, the capital of Russia’s Chechen Republic, came under fire from unknown assailants armed with automatic weapons, a police source said on Tuesday.

“The incident took place around midnight [on Monday],” he said. “A senior police official was hospitalized with a gunshot wound.” A search for the assailants is underway.

The North Caucasus republic was the site of two devastating separatist wars in the 1990s and early 2000s. Militants have been increasingly active in neighboring Ingushetia.

Two Tajik nationals charged with murder of Russian reporter

The Tajik Prosecutor General’s Office has charged two men with the murder of the Russian TV reporter, Ilyas Shurpayev, a law enforcement source said on Tuesday.

“Masrurdzhon Yatimov and Nadzhmiddin Mukhiddinov have been charged under the provisions of Article 104/2 of the Penal Code of Tajikistan [premeditated murder under aggravating circumstances],” he said.

The accused, both Tajik nationals, are now in a pre-trial detention center.

Shurpayev, a reporter from Russia’s volatile North Caucasus republic of Daghestan who worked for Russia’s state-run Channel One TV station, was found stabbed and strangled in his rented Moscow apartment on March 21.

The Tajik Interior Ministry has rejected suggestions that Shurpayev’s murder was related to his professional activities, saying instead that it was the result of a simple robbery gone wrong.

Masrurdzhon Yatimov, 24, and Nadzhmiddin Mukhiddinov, 20, said they had not planned to kill Shurpayev, but they had been forced to do so after the Russian journalist resisted their attempts to rob him.

Yatimov, believed to be the main suspect in the murder, said he had met the reporter on March 12 and that Shurpayev had offered him money for sex. It was then that the men learnt that Shurpayev had recently received a large sum of money from Daghestan and decided to rob the reporter.

After killing him, the two men set fire to Shurpayev’s apartment. However, the blaze was put out before it could spread, and Russian police later discovered him with a belt around his neck and multiple stab wounds.

A third man, Mukhiddinov’s brother, was also arrested by Tajik authorities. Although he did not participate in the murder, he is believed to have known about it and may now be charged with failure to report a serious crime.

The Tajik Interior Ministry spokesman said the extradition of Yatimov and Mukhiddinov to Russia would be considered by the two countries’ prosecutor generals under the 1993 Minsk Convention.

On the same day that Shurpayev’s body was found, Gadzhi Abashilov, the head of Daghestan’s state-run television station, was killed when unidentified gunmen opened fire on his car.

Russia remains one of the world’s most dangerous countries for reporters. According to data from the international organization Reporters Without Borders, 21 journalists were murdered in Russia between 2000 and 2007.

Russian Air Force to hold live-fire exercise in East Siberia

 

Russian Air Force antiaircraft units are to conduct a live-fire tactical exercise in East Siberia, an aide to the Air Force commander said on Tuesday.

“In the course of the exercise, to be held from April 14-19, antiaircraft and missile units will test-fire S-300 SAM systems,” said Col. Alexander Drobyshevsky.

He said Air Force and Air Defense units were redeployed to the Telemba training ground in East Siberia’s Chita region by rail on April 1, while sub-units of an electronic warfare (EW) brigade arrived at the site by road on the same day.

“After they had arrived at the designated areas, the units started making preparations for the exercise,” he said.

The S-300 is a medium-range surface-to-air missile system developed by the Almaz Science and Production Association for use against aircraft and cruise missiles. Later variations were also developed to intercept ballistic missiles.

 

International terrorists recruit in Russia via foreign NGOs – FSB

 

 

International terrorists carry out recruiting activities in Russia’s regions with the support of some foreign non-governmental organizations, the Russian Federal Security Service chief said on Tuesday.

“International terrorists and religious extremists enjoy the support of certain foreign non-governmental organizations when carrying out recruitment activities,” Nikolai Patrushev told a session of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee.

In late 2005, the Russian parliament passed a Kremlin-sponsored bill preventing foreign NGOs from having branch offices in the country and making Russian groups ineligible for most sources of foreign funding.

“The results of an analysis of the operational situation in the Southern Federal District bear witness to the fact that bandits and their accomplices are endeavoring to swell their ranks by brainwashing young people. Emissaries of foreign terrorist and religious extremist groups are taking advantage of existing socio-economic problems and ethnic and religious discord to carry out recruiting work in this and other Russian regions,” Patrushev added.

The Russian government has faced criticism from Western leaders for restrictions imposed on rights groups and NGOs operating in the country, and the issue is often cited as an example of Russia’s alleged backsliding on democracy.

In January, prosecutors in Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, which is part of the Southern Federal District, requested that a British NGO promoting peacekeeping and community development be closed down, saying that its accreditation had expired.

 

Fidel Castro weighs in on U.S.-Russia missile shield debate

Retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro said U.S. plans for a global anti-missile shield were a menace to Russia, and advised Moscow to seek its main allies in Asia.

The U.S. is developing a global missile defense system which it claims is needed to counter possible strikes from rogue states such as Iran. The system’s components are located in Alaska and California with preparations underway for a third site in Central Europe – Poland and the Czech Republic.

“Why should the United States have its space ports, radars and launch pads in Europe if not to threaten Russia?” Castro said in an interview with Cuban daily Granma.

Russia is opposed to the U.S. plans, calling them a threat to national security and a destabilizing factor for Europe.

Castro said the U.S. military plans were also threatening “China and all other countries without exception, to turn them into allies or enemies of an empire with an unsustainable economic and political system.”

He said that although Europe is a cultural and scientific center and the main consumer of Russian oil and gas, Moscow should be oriented towards Asia, whose international trade institutions via the Shanghai Cooperation Organization are more eager to cooperate with Moscow than the World Trade Organization, in which Russia is seeking membership.

EU (Bilderberg) prolongs sanctions against Belarus officials

European Friends of Belarus

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Flag of European part of Bilderberg

 

The Council of the European Union has prolonged sanctions against Belarusian officials by another year, until April 10, 2009, an EU spokesman said on Tuesday.

The sanctions were originally introduced after the EU refused to recognize the results of parliamentary elections in Belarus in October 2004. The sanctions include restrictions on entering the EU and the freezing of bank accounts. In April 2006, the list was extended from six persons to 37, including President Alexander Lukashenko.

Lukashenko, who was re-elected for a third term in 2006, and other senior Belarusian officials have been blacklisted from entering the U.S. and EU. The U.S. and the European Union have accused Lukashenko of clamping down on dissent, stifling the media and rigging elections.

Tensions between the two countries heightened after Washington imposed sanctions last November against Belarus’s state-controlled petrochemical company, Belneftekhim, and froze the assets of its U.S. subsidiary. American companies were also banned from dealing with it.

Minsk announced last week it would be making additional cuts to its embassy staff in Washington and urged the United States to do the same.

Belarus advised the U.S. ambassador to leave the country in early March, and recalled its own ambassador from Washington for consultations. It also demanded that the U.S. cut by half the number of embassy staff in Belarus. The U.S. agreed.

Flying aces plan Victory Day extravaganza

The Russian Air Force has being carrying out rehearsals ahead of the Victory Day military parade in Moscow. Twenty-eight planes are due to fly over Red Square on May 9 in a spectacular display that has been several months in the planning.

 

Russia’s long-range fleet and top aerobatic teams have been refining their airborne skills. Practice sessions were carried out simultaneously at three different aerodromes in the Moscow and Kaluga regions.

The rehearsals will continue throughout the week.

 

Russian aid gets warm welcome in Kosovo

European Friends of Serbia

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More humanitarian aid has arrived at Belgrade airport as Russia continues to deliver emergency supplies to Serbian minorities in Kosovo. President Vladimir Putin insists it isn’t a political gesture. In fact, the deliveries are in response to an official request from the Serbian government.

 

The food and medication will be delivered to Mitrovica. It’s the biggest remaining Serbian settlement in the newly-independent Kosovo. With supplies of food and medicine running low, the aid is well received.

This time forty tonnes of corned beef have been unloaded from the plane. It is then passed on to the Serbian Red Cross for distribution. There are more than 11,000 people living on its humanitarian aid in Kosovo.

In the local hospital, some of the wards haven’t been renovated for fifty years. Dr Aleksandr Bozhovic is one of the doctors who decided to stay in Kosovo after his hospital in Pristina was taken over by ethnic Albanian immigrants.

While people living in large settlements such as Mitrovica get help, there are those in more dire need of aid. “It is rather different to be in a small enclave of about ten houses, when you’re surrounded by people who aren’t ready to support you, than it is when you’re in a big enclave,” said Ljubomir Miladinovic from the Serbian Red Cross.

Stranded and isolated, it is ordinary Serbs in Kosovo who still pay the price for the legacy of the Milosevic regime. Although Russian aid will help, no amount will make it a comfortable homeland for them again.

Sea of Okhotsk is Russian territory – tabloid

 

 

Russian geologists intend to prove that the Sea of Okhotsk’s central enclave, as well as all its other parts excluding a small piece in the south, belong to Russia, a Russian tabloid wrote Monday.

Moskovsky Komsomolets said the question concerns 56,400 square kilometers (21,780 square miles) of deepened continental shelf under the Sea of Okhotsk, a part of the western Pacific Ocean, which is legally beyond the 200-mile Russian economic zone.

In 2001, Russia addressed the UN continental shelf commission with a similar request, which was turned down at the time. The UN demanded more data and evidence that the enclave is a continuation of the continental shelf, said Viktor Poselov, a deputy director of the ocean and geology research institute.

The Federal Agency for the Management of Mineral Resources and the institute sent a new special expedition to the Sea of Okhotsk to gather evidence for Russia’s claim. Poselov said the collected data clearly indicates the sea is Russian territory with only some of the Kuril Islands being under dispute.

The Russian research is now being examined by the Natural Resources Ministry, and in three months a new request could be filed with the UN, Poselov said.

Moskovsky Komsomolets said the UN commission is not yet satisfied with Russian scientists’ arguments that the Lomonosov Ridge belongs to Russia. The UN said Russian geologists plan to gather more data in 2009.

Last August, as part of a scientific expedition, two Russian mini-subs made a symbolic eight-hour dive beneath the North Pole to bolster the country’s claim that the Arctic’s Lomonosov Ridge lies in the country’s economic zone. A titanium Russian flag was also planted on the seabed.

The expedition irritated a number of Western countries, particularly Canada, and Peter MacKay, the Canadian foreign minister, accused Moscow of making an unsubstantiated claim to the area.

Russia’s oceanology research institute has undertaken two Arctic expeditions – to the Mendeleyev underwater chain in 2005 and to the Lomonosov ridge last summer – to back Russian claims to the region, believed to contain vast oil and gas reserves and other mineral riches, likely to become accessible in future decades due to man-made global warming.

Russia and Japan have contested the ownership of the Kuril Islands for over 60 years, a dispute that has kept the two countries from signing a formal peace treaty after World War II.

 

 

Russian military base found on the border with Estonia

If you look at the Google Earth map and follow the route A-212 to the west of the Russian town Pskov, you can notice a secret Russian military base not far from the border with Estonia. The Economist magazine states that to the north of the road you can see an oval that is nothing but a “shadow from the satellite dish f at least 66 feet diameter” with 5 small and 1 medium dishes situated nearby. Six years ago the place where today the base stands was empty. The magazine also states that this object isn’t listed in any catalogs. This means that the base was built recently.

 

The Economist referring to the important western politician, states that the location of the base allows monitoring the super modern sputnik Inmarsat 4 F-2. Considered one of the strongest sputniks in the International naval satellite navigation, sputnik Inmarsat transmits a large amount of information from different continents.

“If you live in the USA or Europe and your computer has a USB-port, the information you send most probably goes through Inmarsat 4 F-2”, – the magazine says.

“Take into consideration the fact that sputnik Inmarsat, that Russian base is to monitor, may receive information concerning Estonia, NATO and the EU, and you’ll understand that the issue might become quite urgent”, – says the Estonian newspaper Postimees in reference to ETV24.

The authors of the investigation think that military base belongs to Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information. Note that in March, 2003, the FAGCI was modified into the Service of special communication and information under the Federal Protection Service.

For ordinary mobile users the sputnik’s signal could appear too weak, but things become much easier with the help of a 20-diameter dish. When the authors tried to track where the shadow of the dish’s northern border leads to, they found it was the island of Gogland in the Gulf of Finland. The island is 33miles away from Estonia and 24 miles away from Finland. It belongs to Russia since Russian-Finnish war.

The Estonian authorities announced that Russian defense campaign will lead to “increased tension between the countries”.

“The fact itself that Russia increases military power in our region is an alarm”, – said the head of Defense Forces of Estonia major general Antsa Laaneotsa.

He thinks that the announced reason for the radar installation is just a “visible side of the iceberg”. “The main purpose of the radar to show Russia’s presence in the Gulf of Finland and to enhance security to the Nord Stream gas line”, – he reveals.

Kaarel Kaas, the minor member of the International Center of Defense Research, says: “In theory it will be possible to track at least the informational space of Estonia and Finland. It’s especially important that Estonia is a NATO and EU member, because it will be possible to receive not just the domestic information, but also the classified data of NATO and the EU”.

Today the Estonian specialists say the existence of this base is possible, because it meets the increasing power of Russia in the world arena, but nobody can say what the true purpose of the base is.

“We don’t know what’s going on. What we know is that the equipment which monitors the information from the sputnik is no good for anything else”, – Kaarel Kaas says.

Source: newsru.com

 

US sniper meets Bush with his pants down

Last weekend the US President George Bush took a two-day visit to Sochi. There had been held the strictest security measures. The day before George Bush arrived several planes with the security guards landed in the city. The planes also contained personal cars for the Bushes, and such great amount of special equipment that it was decided to rent some extra local transportation.

 

An hour before the Bushes arrived in the airport the whole area was penetrated with the US security. Special Forces soldiers were placed almost in every 5 feet of the summer field whereas the snipers occupied the roofs of all the houses nearby.

Russian side also took the most serious security measures for the special guests. The road traffic was limited, and each 300 feet of the road to Vladimir Putin’s residence “Bocharov ruchey” was guarded by the representatives of Road Patrol Service. Everyone has been longing for the arrival of the №1 American plane.

The moment the plane was landing in the airport, there happened an awkward accident on the airport’s roof. The sniper that was watching the plane land in the airport from the airport roof gave his gun to the mate and slowly started to pull his pants off and empty his intestinal canal right there, on the airport roof, seen by photographers and journalists!

It remains uncertain what the sniper would have done if he had at that very time to maintain defense of George Bush. Perhaps he would be able to protest his president with a different type of gun.

Luckily, the US president had nothing to worry about, so the sniper confidently pulled up his pants took back the gun and confidently strode away.

 

US snipers allowed to kill Ukrainians during Bush’s visit !

Throughout the last week the members of the Ukraine Ministry of Home Affairs and the Special Forces have been checking public organizations and parties. Their aim was to prevent them from participating in protest actions against the arrival of the US president in Kiev.

Starting form the Crimea and the South-East of the Ukraine, such “information war” with the opposition has spread to Kiev. During the last days all heads of the parties that have at least once taken part in public meetings, protests and marches have been invited for a serious talk with the authorities. Some representatives of such parties that have already been talked to say they were forced not to participate in any protest actions and not to appear anywhere close to the places where the US president might be.

The information that Bush will be guarded by the special branch of American snipers has recently leaked into the Ukrainian media. In case this information is true, any American officer, if concerned that Bush might be endangered, will be allowed to shoot any Ukrainian person that will show his protest to the US President. The question is what sovereignty of the Ukraine we are talking about if the US Forces act in the way they behave in the Ukraine only in conquered Iraq, segodnia.ru reports.

Bush arrived in Kiev late Monday for a two-day visit aimed at showing U.S. support for Ukraine’s membership bid.

After Kiev, Bush travels to Bucharest, Romania, for a NATO summit that is turning into a critical test for the alliance, which is split on the issue of Ukraine and Georgia.

Ukrainians are also split on the prospect of joining NATO. Hours before Bush was to arrive, several thousand protesters rallied outside the U.S. Embassy, shouting “Yankee, go home” and burning his effigy.

The United States, Canada and Eastern European members back the two ex-Soviet republics. Germany is leading Western European opposition and warns that granting the membership plan would torpedo hopes of improving relations with Russia, which fiercely opposes NATO‘s further eastward expansion and has been lobbying NATO members.

Taylor told reporters that during his visit, Bush will seek to convince skeptics in the alliance that Ukraine deserves an initial welcome, the AP reports.

“Strong statements coming from the leadership, the government of Ukraine are very useful in that regard,” Taylor said.

“President Bush is also eager to talk himself with these leaders and with other people in this city so that he can go to Bucharest with even stronger arguments,” he said.

Moscow has threatened to target nuclear weapons at Ukraine if it joins NATO and accepts the deployment of anti-missile defenses on its territory. Moscow also has warned it could recognize two Georgian breakaway provinces — Abkhazia and South Ossetia — if Georgia is given membership.

“The sharpest problems are Georgia and Ukraine. They are being impudently drawn into NATO. Even though, as is known, the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians are against this and in Abkhazia and South Ossetia they won’t even hear of it,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview published Monday in the Russian daily Izvestia.

Ukrainians stand strongly against NATO membership

The Ukrainians do not support the idea for their nation to become a NATO member, a recent opinion poll showed. Almost 35 percent of the Ukrainians stand strongly against such membership, whereas 11.1 percent of the polled say that Ukraine should become a member of the alliance. The research was held from February 27 to March 8 of this year in all regions of Ukraine among 2,500 respondents.

 

The issue of Ukraine’s NATO membership raises heated debate in the nation. The Party of Regions and the Communist Party in Ukraine blocked the work of the national parliament for almost a month claiming a national referendum should be held regarding Ukraine’s NATO Membership Action Plan. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko positively estimates the nation’s perspectives in NATO.

The issue will be raised at the NATO summit in Bucharest in April. US President Bush supports Ukraine and Georgia’s participation in the plan. Bush will visit Kiev on April 1 on the threshold of the summit to have official meetings with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Julia Tymoshenko.

The United States said on Monday possible membership for Ukraine and Georgia will be decided by all members of the organization but not by the United States.

“In terms of what NATO decisions will be taken, obviously that’s something that’s not determined by the United States but by all of the members of NATO,” State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said at a briefing.

“But certainly those decisions will be made based on whether countries have met the qualifications and criteria, either for membership, in some cases, or to engage in a closer relationship through a membership action plan, and others,” Casey said.

Ukraine ’s intentions to become a member of NATO raise serious concerns with Russia. The Russian administration believes that the expansion of NATO is another effort of Washington to build the unipolar world.

Prepared by Dmitry Sudakov
Pravda.ru

Solzhenitsyn battles illness to complete final volumes

ussia’s greatest living novelist, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, is working feverishly to complete his collected works and is writing every day despite failing health, a missing vertebra and being unable to walk, his wife, Natalia, revealed yesterday.

In a rare interview, Natalia Solzhenitsyn told The Observer that her Nobel prize-winning husband – who turns 90 in December – is still working on several major literary projects in his west Moscow dacha, and is determined to oversee the publication of a 30-volume edition of his selected works.

‘He hasn’t left the house for five years. He has several serious problems, including with his spine – he’s missing a vertebra – and he practically can’t walk. Physically it’s very difficult for him. His health is weak. But every day he sits and works,’ she said.

‘He writes on his own. His 30-volume selected works are currently being published; seven volumes are already out and five are appearing this year. This doesn’t include his letters and notes, only finished books.’

Asked what her husband was now interested in, she replied: ‘Everything connected with repression in the Soviet Union, the gulag archipelago, and the fate of the peasantry. We are working on two historical series. I’m editing one; he’s editing the other. The law [after the war] turned the peasants into slaves.’

The interview came after Solzhenitsyn unleashed a memorable broadside last week against US President George Bush who, during a two-day visit to Ukraine, laid a wreath at a monument to victims of the great famine of the 1930s, in which millions of Ukrainians died. Ukraine’s pro-Western-zionist government has dubbed the catastrophic 1932-33 famine holodomor (literally, ‘death by hunger’). It claims that it was a genocide.

In a vituperative piece, however, Solzhenitsyn dismissed the claim as ‘rakish juggling’ and said that millions of non-Ukrainians also perished in the famine, which was engineered by the Soviet Union’s leadership. ‘This provocative outcry about “genocide”… has been elevated to the top government level in contemporary Ukraine. Does this mean that they have even outdone the Bolshevik propaganda-mongers with their rakish juggling?’ an incensed Solzhenistyn wrote. Bush had been duped by a ‘loony fable’, he added.

Yesterday Natalia Solzhenitsyn said that her husband felt passionately about the ‘Ukrainian people’ because his mother’s family came from Ukraine.

Asked about Solzhenitsyn’s views on Bush, she said: ‘Bush was only in Kiev for a few hours. He didn’t go to the monument to the victims of fascism but to the holodomor memorial. We don’t know whether Bush went there cynically, or because the level of his historical knowledge [is low].’

Solzhenitsyn, who exposed the horrors of the Soviet gulag with his astonishing novella One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970. He was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974, returning from the US in 1994. His later statements have demonstrated an increasingly nationalist and anti-Western tone. He enjoys a better relationship with the hawkish Vladimir Putin than he did with Boris Yeltsin.

Some point out that Solzhenitsyn’s views have not changed greatly, and his preoccupation with Russian culture, history and language are central to his novels, which are themselves proof of his genius and his status as one of the 20th century’s moral giants. Yesterday Natalia Solzhenitsyn said her husband, who uses a wheelchair, remained stubbornly politically independent. She said neither of them voted in last month’s heavily managed presidential election, which saw Putin’s handpicked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, win by a landslide. ‘We live outside town,’ she explained.

Yesterday DM Thomas, Solzhenitsyn’s biographer, said it would be simplistic to describe the novelist as either nationalistic or reactionary. ‘Patriotic and religiously conservative might suit,’ he told The Observer. ‘He disliked the secularism of the West almost as much as he disliked communism. He is in no way nationalistic in the sense of elevating Russia above others, or wishing for territorial aggrandisement… Above all, I think, he is or was a strong Orthodox believer. He hated the Bolshevik revolution, and because Jews played such an important role in that, he has laid himself open to the charge of being anti-semitic. I argued in my biography that this was based on a misunderstanding of his views.’

Asked about Solzhenitsyn’s attitude towards Putin, and his relationship with today’s Kremlin, Thomas said: ‘I might guess that he’d be not entirely unsympathetic to Putin, for standing up for Russia when Nato and the EU are bent on increasing the West’s empire.’

Natalia Solzhenitsyn said her husband was delighted with his recognition by the Kremlin, but he did not depend on anyone for support. ‘When we came back [to Russia] he wasn’t published much, because everybody felt they knew him already. But now he’s being published much more. Russia is reading him again, and that’s good,’ she said.

Solzhenitsyn’s most recent years have been characterised by frantic activity – and an austere preoccupation with historical patterns rather than fleeting events, she added.

‘We don’t use the internet. We only watch the news in the evenings. We don’t allow ourselves to look at it any earlier. We work. That’s it,’ she said.

Ukrainians rally against Bush visit, NATO bid

“No war – No NATO !”

 

NATO = war !

Police release Bolshevik activists detained for Red Square rally -2

 

RIA Novosti

 

All but one of the 25 National Bolshevik Party activists arrested on Saturday for staging an unsanctioned rally on Red Square have been released, a party spokesman told RIA Novosti on Sunday.

The party led by radical writer Eduard Limonov has been banned in Russia and branded an extremist organization by the authorities.

“All of the detainees, except one girl from St. Petersburg who is under 18, have been released,” Alexander Averin said. “No criminal charges have been pressed so far.”

The activists were detained on Saturday morning after entering Red Square under the guise of a wedding procession and holding a rally. A police spokesman said the activists resisted arrest, and that one of them let off a pepper spray in the face of a police officer.

On Sunday morning, police arrested 16 people for holding an unsanctioned rally outside the Altai Hotel in north Moscow. A police spokesman told RIA Novosti the activists were National Bolshevik members, but the party spokesman denied this.

“This was a provocation, we don’t know this people,” Averin said.

On Tuesday Limonov, who has a strong youth following, said he would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg over the Russian Supreme Court’s refusal to lift the ban on his party.

The NBP has pursued ‘direct action’ tactics by publicly attacking people they considered symbols of President Putin’s regime or its allies.

Group members are known to have thrown mayonnaise and tomatoes at prominent public figures, including ex-Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, former NATO Secretary Lord George Robertson, Russian film director Nikita Mikhalkov. Activists have also staged protests by breaking into government offices in Moscow.

For such actions, which the radical group dubs “velvet terror,” many of its activists were arrested and sentenced to prison terms.

Since founding the group in 1994, Limonov, 65, dropped his anti-capitalism rhetoric while preserving his nationalist message. In recent years, he has sided with the liberal opposition in Russia, which has been desperate to strengthen its ranks.

Ukraine’s nuclear authorities are playing with fire

RIA Novosti commentator Tatyana Sinitsyna

 

Ukrainian politicians have made one more move aimed at easing their dependence on Russia’s nuclear fuel supplies.

In late March, Ukraine’s nuclear power company Energoatom signed a five-year contract with U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric Company to provide nuclear fuel to three Ukrainian reactors at the Yuzhnoukrainsky nuclear power plant in 2011-2015.

Last year, it held energetic talks with Canadian companies on the construction of CANDU (CANada Deuterium Uranium) reactors, the older relatives of the Chernobyl reactor, which exploded in 1986.

These two instances show Ukraine’s desire to ease its dependence on Russia. Ukraine has 15 VVER water-moderated water-cooled reactors built during Soviet times, which use fuel imported from Russia. Westinghouse is to supply 630 fuel assemblies for the annual recharging of at least three VVER blocks.

Although diversification is a noble goal, the operation of nuclear power plants is highly complicated. Safety alone should encourage Ukraine to use nuclear fuel for which its nuclear power plants were designed, i.e. fuel made in Russia.

The Chernobyl tragedy should have been enough warning for Ukraine, but political ambitions have proven to be stronger than fear.

Khusein Chechenov, a member of the Russian parliamentary subcommittee on nuclear energy, said, “It was a political decision taken without due regard for economic or scientific considerations.”

According to him, the contract is a mistake made deliberately to spite Moscow.

Westinghouse’s fuel assemblies are 25% more expensive than those provided by Russia’s TVEL Corporation and their quality is questionable. Ukraine acted impulsively, signing the contract with the U.S. company during negotiations on Russian fuel deliveries after 2010.

The contract includes quite a few reservations, such as Ukraine’s right to terminate it if its regulators do not permit the use of American fuel, or if the assemblies malfunction.

Why sign an agreement with such reservations? Experts say that the use of Westinghouse assemblies in Russian-made reactors will considerably increase the risk of an accident at the Yuzhnoukrainsky nuclear power plant.

Finland has recently decided to continue buying Russian fuel for its Russian-built reactors and declined Westinghouse’s offer, and the use of American fuel at the Temelin plant in the Czech Republic nearly caused an accident. Accordingly, Czech authorities have decided to use Russian technologies despite political considerations.

The management of the Paks nuclear power plant in Hungary entrusted the cleaning of fuel assemblies at its second block to the French-German company Framatome ANP. The use of an “alien” technology resulted in the malfunction of 30 fuel assemblies and almost caused an accident. The Hungarian authorities called on Russian specialists for help, who managed to remedy the situation only three and a half years later.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which investigated the fuel-cleaning incident at Paks, rated it Level 3, a serious incident, by the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES).

The transition to new technology is a very expensive and difficult process that entails changing the mentality, infrastructure and technical policy, and retraining specialists. Countries hardly ever do this without proper preparation.

Sergei Komarov, deputy director of the Russian Institute of Regional Energy Development, said, “Using Westinghouse fuel in Russian-made reactors at Ukrainian nuclear power plants is highly risky. I would say that using equipment that has proved unreliable is an irresponsible decision.”

Yuri Stuzhev, former director of Russia’s first nuclear power plant in Obninsk, near Moscow, said, “Ukraine should have studied the experience of other countries. Or are diversification plans more important to it than the safety of its people? What if an accident happens at the nuclear power plant because of the use of low-quality American fuel assemblies? Who would be held responsible?”

Russian Air Force preparing to deploy second S-400 regiment

 

Russia’s Air Force is preparing to deploy a second regiment equipped with new S-400 air defense systems, the Air Force commander said on Friday.

“A second S-400 regiment will soon be deployed,” Colonel General Alexander Zelin told journalists.

The new systems will protect the air space around Moscow and industrial zones in the center of Russia’s European territory. The S-400 Triumf (SA-21 Growler) air defense system is expected to form the new cornerstone of Russia’s theater air and missile defenses up to 2020 or even 2025.

Russia successfully conducted last year live firing tests of the S-400 air defense complex at the Kapustin Yar firing range in south Russia’s Astrakhan Region, and deployed a battalion of the first missile regiment equipped with the new system to protect the airspace surrounding Moscow.

The S-400 is designed to intercept and destroy airborne targets at a distance of up to 400 kilometers (250 miles), twice the range of the U.S. MIM-104 Patriot, and 2.5 times that of the S-300PMU-2.

The system is also believed to be able to destroy stealth aircraft, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles, with an effective range of up to 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles) and a speed of up to 4.8 kilometers (3 miles) per second.

A regular S-400 battalion comprises at least eight launchers with 32 missiles and a mobile command post, according to various sources. The new state arms procurement program until 2015 stipulates the purchase of enough S-400 air defense systems to arm 18 battalions during this period.

Russia to fly 20-30 strategic patrol missions every month

 

Russia is set to drastically increase its number of strategic aviation patrol flights over the world’s oceans to 20-30 a month, the Air Force commander said on Friday.

“We will be making 20-30 flights a month, not two or three, as was the case until recently,” Col. Gen. Alexander Zelin said.

He said that during their patrol missions Russian aircraft are accompanied by NATO F-15, F-16 and F-22 fighters, adding that the military alliance’s planes do not always comply with international rules.

“They behave tactlessly, to put it mildly – they approach too close [in breach of international regulations],” the commander said.

Russia resumed strategic bomber patrol flights over the Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic oceans last August, following an order signed by President Vladimir Putin. The move has been widely seen by the West as a sign of Russia’s increasingly aggressive military stance.

Russian bombers have since carried out over 70 strategic patrol flights.

The Air Force command earlier said that all flights by Russian aircraft were performed by skilled pilots in strict compliance with international laws on the use of air space over neutral waters, without violating the borders of other states.

New Russian nuclear submarine to go to sea this year

 

Russia will put its first Borey-class strategic nuclear submarine through sea trials in the second half of 2008, the Russian Navy commander said on Friday.

The fourth generation Yury Dolgoruky was built at the Sevmash plant in the northern Arkhangelsk Region and was taken out of dry dock last April. It will be equipped with Bulava ballistic missiles upgraded from Topol-M (SS-27) missiles.

“The Yury Dolgoruky will go to sea in July. If not in July, then in October or November,” Adm. Vladimir Vysotsky said.

The submarine has a length of 170 meters (580 feet), a body diameter around 13 meters (42 feet), and a submerged speed of about 29 knots. It can carry up to 16 ballistic missiles.

Two other Borey-class nuclear submarines, the Alexander Nevsky and the Vladimir Monomakh, are currently under construction at the Sevmash plant.

Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that fourth-generation submarines armed with Bulava missiles would form the core of Russia’s fleet of modern submarines.

Russia to complete tests of Bulava-M missile in 2008

 

Tests of Russia’s new Bulava-M (NATO reporting name SS-NX-30) sea-launched ballistic missile will be completed in 2008, the Navy commander said on Friday.

“The missile will fly, and will fly this year,” Adm. Vladimir Vysotsky told journalists.

He linked the missile’s previous unsuccessful launches to technical problems, which “can be resolved.”

The Bulava, designed by the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology, will be carried by Borei-class Project 955 nuclear powered submarines, each to be outfitted with sixteen missiles.

Police arrest 25 National Bolshevik activists on Red Square

 

Moscow police detained 25 National Bolshevik Party (NBP) activists for attempting to hold an unsanctioned rally on Saturday, a police spokesman said.

The party led by radical writer Eduard Limonov has been banned in Russia and branded an extremist organization by the authorities.

The incident took place at around 11:45 a.m. Moscow time (07:45 GMT), when a group of young people imitating a wedding procession tried to enter Red Square and hold an unsanctioned rally.

“The detainees say they are members of the banned National Bolshevik Party. Several placards and NBP symbols have been confiscated. A rubber-bullet pistol was seized from one of them.”

The activists resisted arrest, and one of them let off a pepper spray in the face of a police officer. They could face criminal charges.

On Tuesday Limonov, who has a strong youth following, said he would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg over the Russian Supreme Court’s refusal to lift the ban on his party.

The NBP has pursued ‘direct action’ tactics by publicly attacking people they considered symbols of President Putin’s regime or its allies.

Group members are known to have thrown mayonnaise and tomatoes at prominent public figures, including ex-Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, former NATO Secretary Lord George Robertson, Russian film director Nikita Mikhalkov. Activists have also staged protests by breaking into government offices in Moscow.

For such actions, which the radical group dubs “velvet terror,” many of its activists were arrested and sentenced to prison terms.

Since founding the group in 1994, Limonov, 65, dropped his anti-capitalism rhetoric while preserving his nationalist message. In recent years, he has sided with the liberal opposition in Russia, which has been desperate to strengthen its ranks.

Putin triumphs against NATO expansion

President Vladimir Putin joined the NATO summit Thursday after triumphing in a bitter campaign to scupper the membership hopes of pro-Western Georgia and Ukraine.Putin arrived in the Romanian capital Bucharest for dinner and was to deliver an address on Friday with expectations high that he will invite the alliance to use Russia for transit to the war in Afghanistan.

The ex-KGB officer, who is due to move to the prime minister’s post in May after eight years in the Kremlin, is the alliance’s most bitter critic, particularly over eastward expansion into the former Soviet bloc.

He won a victory even before arriving Thursday when after months of Russian pressure NATO declined to give Membership Action Plan (MAP) status to ex-Soviet Georgia and Ukraine.

Putin had threatened to target nuclear missiles at Ukraine if the country joined the alliance and his angry rhetoric helped cause a public split in NATO.

The United States pushed for expansion, while western European powers France and Germany, which rely heavily on Russian oil and gas imports, warned against angering Moscow.

Konstantin Kosachev, head of the Russian lower house of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said France and Germany had confirmed “the importance of maintaining good relations with Russia.”

Despite the row over expansion, Putin appeared keen to use his international swansong as president to help realign relations between Moscow and the West in time for his successor Dmitry Medvedev, who will be sworn in on May 7.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Putin was set to offer unprecedented cooperation by letting NATO use Russia for transit to the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Scheffer said: “We hope that tomorrow’s meeting … will have as one of the results the land transportation agreement of non-lethal goods for ISAF in Afghanistan.”

Another major sticking point — a planned US missile shield in central Europe — was to be aired at a separate summit between Putin and US President George W. Bush in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi over the weekend.

In a sign of will to cooperate, NATO said Thursday it was “ready to explore the potential” for linking US, NATO and Russia’s own missile defence systems in a unified network.

The push for reconciliation did not mean that the principal problems were entirely resolved.

NATO may have kept Georgia and Ukraine out of the MAP scheme for now, but strong US lobbying meant that the door remains wide open for the future.

“We agree today that these countries will become members of NATO,” Scheffer said.

Georgia’s minister for Euro-Atlantic integration, Giorgi Baramidze, described that statement as a “historic” breakthrough for his country, while Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko also hailed a “victory.”

Russia’s deputy foreign minister Alexander Grushko warned of “a big strategic mistake” if NATO embraced Georgia and Ukraine, and “most serious consequences for common European security.”

NATO also showed unity over Washington’s plans for missile defence in the Czech Republic and Poland, which the Pentagon says is necessary to guard against Iran, but Moscow describes as an attack on its security.

The allied leaders stated their support for the US plan and particularly the “substantial contribution to the protection of allies … to be provided by the planned deployment of European-based United States missile defence assets”.

Down with Windows! Russian schools turn to free software

A free online alternative to the Windows operating system is set to be introduced in schools in three Russian regions by 2009. If the pilot project proves successful, all schools across the country will make the switch a year later.

 

Linux is a piece of open source software, free online to anyone who wants it, and Russian schools are switching to it to save cash. 
 
Using pirate software is common in Russia and for schools who need word processing, the alternative is to pay Microsoft over a hundred dollars for every computer.

 

Aleksandr Ponosov, a former headmaster in the Perm Region, is a strong supporter of the move. He was prosecuted for using a pirate version of Windows on the school’s computers.
 
“The problem that I’ve faced threatens most of my colleagues across Russia. The use of pirate software is common. And often there’s no choice. So I’ve started a non-profit organisation to tell everyone about the advantages of free software,” Aleksandr Ponosov explained.
 
And some experts say that Microsoft faces a major challenge as more people move towards free software.
 
But Microsoft remains positive about its market leading position. 
 
“We are glad that people will have a possibility to choose different operating systems. But we try to make our product the best one. We want to make it easier for the user to realise one’s potential. And perhaps this is the most important for schools,” said Vladimir Gabriel from Microsoft Russia.  
 
The Armada Company is the main developer of Linux in Russia. It recently won the right to introduce the software in schools.

 

It believes working with an alternative programme has major advantages.
 


“Linux could be better for teaching children at school. The programme consists of multiple blocks like LEGO. It’s open for everyone to see how it works. And the pupils can even learn how to modify such programmes,” said Igor Gorbatov, Armada deputy general director. 
 


Russia isn’t the first to look at this open source operation system as a classroom alternative. 
 


Some schools in India, France and even in the U.S. are already using Linux.
 


Teachers and pupils are quite positive about the innovation. 
 


“I didn’t work with Linux myself. But I have friends of my age that use it. They say that Linux is much more comfortable. But adjusting many programmes to it could be a big problem,” said Roman, a pupil.
 


“I’ve tried the programme. It’s a bit difficult to switch over immediately, because we all grew up using Windows. But it’s just a matter of experience,” believes Elena Nedelina, a teacher.


Russian banks flooded by foreign billions

Foreign banks are flooding into Russia, despite tight regulations and lack of liquidity. Analysts say merger and acquisition activity could bring as much as $US 2 billion into Russia this year alone.

Economic and Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina says foreigners can bring healthy competition to the sector and address the shortage of long term lending.State-run banks currently dominate the Russian market with almost 50% of banking operations. They say they are ready for competition which could force them to cut high interest rates of around 10%, closer to the G7 average of under 4%.“Russia still has too many banks and that partly explains why Russia banking sector is still relatively weak in comparison with other leading economies. So the entrance of international financial institutions to the Russian market will lead to further consolidation of the Russian banking sector. We are ready to compete with them, we are not afraid of this,” Andrey Kostin, president of VTB Bank, said.Launching a subsidiary bank in Russia takes up to 2 years. That’s why foreign players are keen to buy established retail banking operations.“Currently 14 from 30 largest foreign banks are already in Russia. There are 79 banks that are more than 50% controlled by foreigners. Also there are about 10 banks to enter the Russian market this year,” Mikhail Sukhov, the director of Central Bank of Russia, said.Despite its negotiations to join the World Trade Organisation, Finance Minister Aleksey Kudrin says Russia will retain its 50% limit on the share capital acquired by foreign banks.

Nobel winner accuses Ukrainian authorities of ‘historical revisionism’

The famous Russian writer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, says Ukrainian efforts to have the 1930s famine recognised as Russian genocide against Ukraine is an act of historical revisionism.

 

In an interview with Izvestia newspaper the Nobel-winning author explains that the famine was caused by the corrupt ideals of the Communist regime, under which all suffered equally. It was not an assault by the Russian people against the people of Ukraine, and that the wish to view it as such is only a recent development.

”This provocative outcry of genocide was voiced only decades later. At first, it thrived secretly in the stale chauvinist minds opposing the “bloody Russians”. Now it has got hold of political minds in modern Ukraine. It seems they’ve surpassed the wild suggestions of the Bolshevik propaganda machine. “To the parliaments of the world” – a nice teaser for the Western ears. They have never cared about our history. All they need is a fable, no matter how loony it appears.”

Russia’s Duma has reviewed the arguments concerning the famine in Ukraine in the 1930’s.   

A clear majority of the delegates has concluded that political and economic reasons were behind forced collectivisation – not ethnic prejudices. 

Dmitri Rogozin, interview on Russia Today

Russia Today http://www.russiatoday.ru/guests/detail/1098 

 

Bucharest is hosting its first NATO summit this week. Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s envoy to NATO, commented on the results of the summit for RT.

Russia Today: What was really discussed at the NATO summit meetings, and what was the result of these discussions?





Dmitry Rogozin: Well, we weren’t present there – the NATO Council meetings take place behind closed doors, in an atmosphere of confidence and trust. As far as we know, though, the discussion was tough, and led by major European countries. They don’t believe now is the right time to make final decisions on MAPs to Ukraine and Georgia in Bucharest. It’s most likely they’ll decide to leave the doors open but delay the final decision until later, for instance, until the end of the year, when foreign ministers of NATO countries will meet and review this question. Personally, I don’t think we’ll see any serious changes either in Ukraine or Georgia during this time. What can you do during in six months: in Georgia’s case to solve the territorial disputes, or in Ukraine’s case to make people love NATO? I really doubt that this will happen.



 

RT: What do Germany and France base their position on when they say Ukraine and Georgia are not yet ready to join NATO?



 

D.R.: There are a number of factors. One of the most important factors is the domestic situation in these countries. In Ukraine the majority of the population is against joining NATO. Love can’t be forced, you know. No means no. In Georgia the situation is different. NATO doesn’t want anyone else’s headaches, like the so-called ‘frozen conflicts’. 

The second factor they’re obviously considering is that nobody wants to make Russia angry. We’ve said a firm ‘no’ because we think it could destabilise the situation on our borders and it seems our opinion has been taken into account. Third, the more NATO expands by embracing either countries of the former Warsaw Treaty Organisation or ex-Soviet republics, the larger the block spreading Washington’s propaganda. The European democracies don’t always like that. They have their own point of view on the European security policy, and they don’t want Washington ‘boy scouts’, like the fresh NATO members, to keep hammering out decisions without coordination with Europe. Decisions on Ukraine and Georgia are not a simple ones. Of course, NATO will continue to stress that NATO’s doors are open to everybody, and simply shutting them in front of Ukraine and Georgia is out of the question.



 

RT: What are the other future prospects for NATO development? Yesterday Jaap de Hoop Scheffer mentioned talks about Israel and a number of other countries joining NATO.



 

D.R.: You know, even penguins and polar bears can now join NATO. Joking aside, though, I don’t think it is a rational approach. If you want to have an alliance that’s well organised, disciplined and mobile in facing modern challenges, it shouldn’t swell with countries which are internally even less ready for such discipline. What’s happening now can be called a substitution of notions. NATO is taking on the role of the UN more and more. This isn’t right – not because of what we think, but because it isn’t right for NATO itself. Less is more.



 

RT: Will NATO try to limit its membership or will it continue expanding in the future?



 

D.R.: Even if we the Bucharest summit had made a positive decision on Ukraine and Georgia, it would still be some 10-15 years before they actually join the alliance. It’s 50 years in Israel’s case. Well, we shall see what we shall see. Today, there’s no use speaking about the expansion of NATO into the Middle East…



 

RT: What about Moldova and Transdniester?



 

D.R.: Moldova, Transdniester, Serbia… This is more fiction than reality.



 

RT: What about Russia-NATO relations? Will Friday’s meeting result in any global decisions?



 

D.R.: Afghanistan, I believe, is a very real contact point, and very important for NATO. The alliance’s military contingent has not had much success in Afghanistan. It’s impossible to solve any problems there without Russia’s input, especially considering Russia’s rich military experience in the region, both positive and negative. Other issues are more problematic: the future of the American AMD initiative, the CFE treaty, Kosovo – we’re likely to see more tough discussions here.



 

RT: Could you speak more on the cooperation in Afghanistan?



 

D.R.: Tomorrow we’re hoping to see an exchange of letters which will signify Russia’s sovereign decision, a goodwill act, to provide assistance to International Security Assistance Forces in Afghanistan by enabling the transfer of non-military ISAF cargo through the Russian territory. 

We won’t get involved in any military conflicts in the region. Been there, done that – didn’t like it. Still, we understand that the resolution of the UN Security Council should be backed. We have great potential for such support, and we’re ready to help with the cargo necessary to provide essential living conditions for the contingent deployed in the region. We’re speaking about railroad transportation of non-military cargo.



 

RT: What does Russia expect from relations with NATO?



 

D.R.: Partnership – the essence of the relations between Russia and NATO boils down to this.

The security of NATO members cannot be achieved at the expense of the security of the Russian Federation or vice versa.

The partnership always involves mutual consideration of the national interests between the partners.



 

RT: What does NATO expect from relations with Russia?



 

D.R.: Up until now the military block of NATO has been spreading like an oil slick where there was no other power.

It’s always like that in international relations -there’s never a vacuum – it is always filled with another more dynamic power. So it’s been travelling east until it clashed with Russia’s interests because we obviously don’t want someone else’s war machine to be parked near our gates.

Dmitry Rogozin

Russia’s envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin says Moscow needs a robust military to make sure its point of view is respected and understood. He joined Russia Today to clarify his words.

Ukraine’s anti-NATO supporters rejoice

 Protesters in Kiev are going ahead with their planned anti-NATO demonstrations, turning them into celebrations instead. It follows NATO’s rejection of the government’s application to join the Western military alliance. 

Around 2,000 people have taken to the streets to celebrate. The Party of the Regions has organised a concert in the centre of Kiev, inviting singers from Russia to take part. Similar events have been planned across eastern Ukraine, the stronghold of the anti-NATO lobby. They see relations with Russia as more important than a union with NATO. The bid to join NATO has been a divisive issue in the country for some time. Opinion polls conducted in Ukraine over the last 15 years consistently show that more than half of the population is against joining the alliance – almost 62% of Ukrainians voted against NATO membership.Even a government-sponsored ‘information’ campaign has failed to win over the public. Despite these figures, Ukraine’s government continues to push for membership.

NATO expansion a ‘direct threat to Russia – Putin

President Putin says NATO’s expansion eastwards is a direct threat to Russia’s security. He made the comment after talks between Moscow and NATO broke up without agreement in Romania. One of the major sticking points is NATO’s support for a U.S. anti-missile system in Europe.

NATO hands Rusia a small victory

At its summit in Bucharest, NATO decided not to move Ukraine and Georgia into the Membership Action Plan, telling the two states that at sometime in the future they would get their invitations to membership, but just not now. Instead, NATO focused its membership drive on the Balkans, offering invitations to Albania and Croatia, a delayed invitation to Macedonia (effective once the name issue is sorted out with Greece) and offering intensified dialogue plans to Montenegro and Bosnia (and saying it would be willing to offer similar status to Serbia should the latter chose to apply).

Leading up to the summit, there was a great deal of attention focused on the issue of Ukraine and Georgia — and the showdown between the United States and Russia being fought in the halls and meeting rooms in Bucharest. Washington backed membership invitations to Kiev and Tbilisi. Russia adamantly opposed (but had no say in the decision). And ultimately Germany and France cast the deciding votes for delay. This was a small victory for Russia, which has seen its periphery eaten away since the collapse of the Soviet Union and has its eyes (and strategic position) set on returning influence to its former republics.

NATO Risks Georgia Rebels’ Secession: Russia

New York Times

Georgia’s Moscow-backed rebel regions will secede if NATO moves to make Georgia a member, a senior Russian official said on Tuesday.

Russia says NATO expansion threatens its national security due to fears that Washington will use former Soviet republics like Georgia as a new beach-head to deploy troops and weapons close to Russia’s borders.

Georgia’s Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions broke with Tbilisi following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union that weakened Moscow’s ambitions in the south Caucasus. They have relied on Moscow’s support since.

The Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions already run their own affairs but have no international recognition.
”Abkhazia and South Ossetia do not intend to join NATO. They have a completely different view,” Russian ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said in an interview from Brussels.

“As soon as Georgia gets some kind of prospect from Washington of NATO membership, the next day the process of real secession of these two territories from Georgia will begin.”

He signaled this could mean Russia throwing its weight behind the separatists’ campaign for international recognition, a possibility that alarms Georgia’s Western allies who say its territorial integrity should be respected.

His warning comes just three weeks after Kosovo broke away from Russia’s ally Serbia — a move Moscow condemned as a threat to stability and said could trigger secession movements.

The European Union voiced concern on Monday at signs that Russia may be preparing to recognize Abkhazia, the bigger of the two rebel regions which lies a few kilometers (miles) from the site where Russia will host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.

Moscow announced earlier this month it will drop formal trade restrictions on Abkhazia, a largely symbolic move to signal its support for the separatists.

But Western diplomats at the United Nations say Russia’s Abkhazia position is Moscow’s revenge for U.S. and European support (and Bilderberg, Euro-Rusredaction)) for Kosovo’s independence against the wishes of Serbia.

The U.S. envoy to the United Nations said on Tuesday Washington regretted Russia’s decision to end the Abkhazia sanctions and urged respect for Georgian territory.
”Most alarming is the prospect that Russia’s withdrawal from the sanctions could lead to arms transfers to the separatists,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters in New York.

He lied Kosovo was a special case and the two issues had no connection.

Responding to Rogozin’s comments, NATO spokesman James Appathurai said the alliance had taken no decision on whether to offer Georgia a Membership Action Plan, the first step to membership.
”That being said, NATO allies fully and strongly support the territorial integrity of Georgia under any possible scenarios.” (And the territorial integrity of Serbia ?, Euro-Rusredaction)

 

Top investigator says Berezovsky ordered Politkovskaya’s murder

  

A Russian chief investigator has claimed that fugitive tycoon Boris Berezovsky was behind the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a respected daily said on Thursday.

In an interview published by the Izvestia newspaper on Thursday, Dmitry Dovgy, a chief investigator at the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, claimed that Berezovsky, who lives in London, ordered the murder of the well-known journalist and author of several books critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Politkovskaya was gunned down in an elevator in her Moscow apartment building in October 2006.

President Putin responded by saying that the killing, which took place on his birthday, had been carried out by forces seeking to “create a wave of anti-Russian sentiment in the world.”

Although he was unable to offer any proof to support his allegations, Dovgy said he was convinced that the murder had been carried out by “Boris Berezovsky, through Khozh-Akhmed Nukhayev,” and that her death had been “advantageous” for the former Kremlin insider at that particular moment in time.

Khozh-Akhmed Nukhayev is a fugitive Chechen criminal gang leader also accused by the Russian government of ordering the murder of former Forbes editor Paul Khlebnikov in Moscow in 2004.

Dovgy added that the murder was also aimed at undermining confidence in law and order in Russia.

“She was such a strong character, in opposition to the authorities. She met with Berezovsky, and, well, they killed her. They didn’t believe that we would solve the case so quickly,” he added.

“The organizers [of Politkovskaya’s murder] wanted to show that well-known people can be killed here in broad daylight, with the law enforcement agencies seemingly unable to solve such crimes,” he said.

Russian authorities announced last week that Politkovskaya’s killer had been identified and placed on the country’s ‘most wanted’ list.

Twelve criminal investigations have so far been launched in Russia against Berezovsky, a one-time close associate of the late president Boris Yeltsin, and he also faces a criminal probe in Brazil.

The businessman has also been accused of plotting to stage a coup in Russia, as well as embezzling $13 million from a leading Russian bank. These two cases were opened in the spring and summer of 2007, respectively.

Russia has issued multiple warrants for Berezovsky’s arrest and has repeatedly demanded that the U.K. extradite him. Berezovsky, a business partner of George Bush’s brother, Neil Bush, has been granted political asylum in Britain.

 

NATO puts off membership plan for Georgia, Ukraine – Germany & France opposed

NATO members meeting at a summit in Romania have decided to postpone offering the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine the chance to join the alliance’s Membership Action Plan (MAP). Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s envoy to the alliance, said that in making its decision on Ukraine, NATO had taken into account the fact that the majority of the country’s population was opposed to NATO membership.As for Georgia, he continued, countries with “blurry” borders are not admitted to NATO, since the North Atlantic alliance “does not consider it appropriate to have to deal with Georgia’s territorial disputes.”Georgia does not fully control its territory due to so-called frozen conflicts in its breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both of which have recently appealed to Russia for recognition.For countries to join MAP, a precursor to membership in the military alliance, all 26 allies must give their approval. However, concerns voiced by France and Germany that bringing Russia’s neighbors into the alliance would unnecessarily provoke Moscow seem to have swung the argument in favor of the ‘no’ camp.Moscow has consistently expressed its opposition to membership of NATO for neighboring Ukraine and Georgia. Russian President Vladimir Putin had earlier threatened to retarget Russian missiles at Kiev if Ukraine joined the alliance.NATO members meeting at a summit in Romania have decided to postpone offering the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine the chance to join the alliance’s Membership Action Plan (MAP). Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s envoy to the alliance, said that in making its decision on Ukraine, NATO had taken into account the fact that the majority of the country’s population was opposed to NATO membership.

As for Georgia, he continued, countries with “blurry” borders are not admitted to NATO, since the North Atlantic alliance “does not consider it appropriate to have to deal with Georgia’s territorial disputes.”

Georgia does not fully control its territory due to so-called frozen conflicts in its breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both of which have recently appealed to Russia for recognition.

For countries to join MAP, a precursor to membership in the military alliance, all 26 allies must give their approval. However, concerns voiced by France and Germany that bringing Russia’s neighbors into the alliance would unnecessarily provoke Moscow seem to have swung the argument in favor of the ‘no’ camp.

Moscow has consistently expressed its opposition to membership of NATO for neighboring Ukraine and Georgia. Russian President Vladimir Putin had earlier threatened to retarget Russian missiles at Kiev if Ukraine joined the alliance.

U.S. President George Bush had campaigned strongly for MAP for Ukraine and Georgia, visiting Kiev on the eve of the Bucharest summit for talks with Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yushchenko.

“My country’s position is clear – NATO should welcome Georgia and Ukraine into the Membership Action Plan,” Bush said.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said NATO leaders endorsed Ukraine and Georgia’s accession to the Membership Action Plan, but that NATO would reconsider Georgia and Ukraine’s bid to join MAP in December.

 

U.S. President George Bush had campaigned strongly for MAP for Ukraine and Georgia, visiting Kiev on the eve of the Bucharest summit for talks with Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yushchenko.”My country’s position is clear – NATO should welcome Georgia and Ukraine into the Membership Action Plan,” Bush said.Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said NATO leaders endorsed Ukraine and Georgia’s accession to the Membership Action Plan, but that NATO would reconsider Georgia and Ukraine’s bid to join MAP in December. 

Outside View: Russia’s tank woes — Part 2

The Russian T-90 – no plans for installation of battlefield information management systems  

Russian tanks are behind those of the United States and other nations in using modern electronics. Commander in Chief of the Ground Forces General of the Army Alexei Maslov does not conceal that fact.

 

He said, “Although work to develop a tank battlefield information management system — BIMS — is already under way, its installation on outdated models is too costly and therefore not recommended. The new equipment is planned to be mounted on newly designed armored vehicles.”

 

The general said that even the T-90 — which is considered a modern unit and with which only the elite Kantemirovskaya and Tamanskaya tank divisions will be equipped by 2010 — is outdated and no BIMS will be installed on it. That is to say, in battlefield conditions Russian tanks will still be shooting in the dark. Maybe the adoption of the T-95 will lighten the skies?

 

Rumors of the new tank have been circulating for more than 15 years. It was reportedly to have been adopted for service as early as 1994. There is also a hypothetical description of the tank. It is supposed to have an engine of no less than 1,500 horsepower, most likely multi-fueled and diesel-powered; a cannon 135 mm in caliber; active protection; and a control system that can be incorporated into the “digital battlefield” system. Its hull and turret are made of composite armor.

A distinctive feature of the T-95 is its new layout with an uninhabited turret and a crew accommodation in an armored capsule. It is still difficult to judge whether the new battle vehicle will have all these features.

 

Russian bureaucrats have created many myths and legends about the survival of the nucleus of Russia’s defense sector. Actually, its present condition is critical, and the reasons are well known.

One is the aging of highly qualified production personnel, many of whom are approaching retirement age. Engineering school graduates are unwilling to take jobs in the defense sector because of low wages. No worker replacements are trained anywhere in the country either.

Earlier, it was taboo to draft workers from defense factories into the army. Now this privilege is abandoned, and graduates of the few surviving vocational schools seek employment elsewhere, but not in the defense sector where receiving a foreign travel passport is a problem.

 

Another problem is the aging of the equipment in the defense industry: Its production lines and machine tools have long passed the 30-year limit. Many key technologies have been lost, as have co-production links. The uncontrolled growth of energy costs is outstripping inflation and is well above the deflators provided by the Economic Development and Trade Ministry. It is obvious that the 2006-2015 government defense order will fall short in both the range and quality of products ordered.

Perhaps a factor contributing to the preservation of large-scale mass tank production in Russia will be the establishment of an armor holding, which began last fall. As a first step, it will embrace all incorporated plants headed by the research and production corporation Uralvagonzavod, which is 100 percent federally owned.

As the second step, the holding will include private enterprises, among them ChTZ-Uraltrac, which develops and manufactures diesel tank engines.

 

But nearly all plants being incorporated into the holding call for massive economic rehabilitation and retooling. A lot here will depend on how active the state will be in this process. And still the situation is unlikely to be radically improved.

Too many problems exist in the defense sector and in tank building specifically. There is little confidence, therefore, that plans for the new tank and its mass production will be translated into reality, at least not in the timeline announced.

 

(Yury Zaitsev is an adviser at the Russian Academy of Engineering Sciences. This article is reprinted by permission of RIA Novosti. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.)

 

New theory emerges in Gagarin death mystery

Russia’s popular Komsomolskaya Pravda daily has put forward a new theory for the death of Soviet hero Yury Gagarin, the first man in space, in a fighter jet crash 40 years ago.

 

Gagarin’s death has generated countless theories over the years, ranging from a contract killing out of envy by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev to the idea that aliens may have taken their revenge on the space pioneer.

But the true culprit may have been a banal technical fault and an excessively fast descent for an emergency landing, Komsomolskaya Pravda said, quoting a member of the original inquiry into the 1968 crash.

 

Gagarin died at the age of 34 on March 27, 1968 — just seven years after his historic space flight — during a training flight on a Mig-15 in the region of Vladimir, some 190 kilometres (118 miles) east of Moscow.

 

The results of an inquiry into the crash have never been made public.

But former aviation engineer Igor Kuznetsov told Komsomolskaya Pravda that the jet’s cabin had not been hermetically sealed and that Gagarin and co-pilot Vladimir Seryogin were forced to attempt an emergency landing.

Gagarin and Seryogin followed rules on descending for the landing from an altitude of around 4,000 metres to 2,000 metres but the drop was too sharp and they probably lost consciousness, causing the crash, Kuznetsov said.

“Somewhere between the altitudes of 4,100 and 2,000 metres they either lost consciousness or found themselves in a pre-fainting state. That’s what would happen in a non-hermetic cabin,” Kuznetsov said.

 

The death is likely to continue to be a mystery, however, as long as it is shrouded in official secrecy. The Kremlin in 2005 turned down a request by journalists and engineers to open archives on the crash.

On Thursday, an official from the research institute that keeps the remains of the fighter jet sealed in metal containers, was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying there was “no need” for another inquiry into the crash.

Russia’s Progress Develops New Bion-M Biosatellite

 

Russia’ Progress design and production center is developing a new Bion-M biosatellite for scientific and applied research in space biology and medicine, a spokesman for the center said on Tuesday. He said the new Bion-M being developed by the Samara-based company (European Russia) will be capable of “spending around six months in orbit compared to the current 14 days.”

He also said a more advanced engine will allow the new research craft to reach a higher orbit of 400-500 km compared with 200-300 km.

The first Bion-M is scheduled for launch in 2010 with the second to follow three years later.

Experts say that the scientific data obtained through Bion-M research will extend the time humans can stay in space by up to two or three years.

A total of 11 Bions have been launched since 1973 with over 37 kinds of biological species on board, including single-cell organisms, plants, rats, tortoises and monkeys.

 

Russia-China space deal to counter US shield move: diplomats

Russian and Chinese ambitions for a new treaty banning weapons in space are aimed at countering US plans to construct a missile defence shield, diplomats said. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the plans in a speech to the Conference on Disarmament meeting in Geneva.

The new treaty would prohibit the deployment of weapons of any kind in space, and the use or threat of force against space objects, he said.

“Without preventing an arms race in space, international security will be wanting,” Lavrov told the conference.

Washington’s plans for satellite and missile defence remain shrouded in secrecy but have sparked fears of an arms race with both Russia and China.

Concerns over a new arms race in space have been growing since China tested an anti-satellite missile in January last year.

“There is a link between the US missile shield and the treaty. The Russians can see that the American project is getting off the ground, and they’re worried,” a European diplomat told AFP.

The US says the sites are needed as part of a gradually-developing shield to ward off potential attacks by what it calls “rogue states,” notably Iran.

But Russia warned that an encroaching US military presence in what it considers its strategic backyard risked ratcheting up tensions.

“Our position is based on facts. Iran will not possess in the long term such missiles. Such measures take aim at a non-existent threat,” Lavrov told a press briefing after his speech.

The US pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001, giving it leeway to develop its new “shield” project.

The ABM Treaty was signed at the height of the Cold War, in Moscow in 1972.

“We cannot but feel concerned over a situation where… there are increasing efforts by the United States to deploy its global ABM system,” Lavrov said.

“The desire to acquire an anti-missile ‘shield’ while dismantling the ‘sheath’ where the nuclear ‘sword’ is kept is extremely dangerous,” he warned.

Moscow fears the combined effects of the missile defence shield and growing US anti-satellite missile projects could spark a new arms race and threaten the global balance of power.

“Russia’s security should be ensured by a more just and genuinely democratic architecture of international relations,” Lavrov said.

“Unfortunately, the world that shook off the ‘Cold War’, has so far failed to attain a new equilibrium. The conflict potential, including in the areas close to the Russian frontiers, is very high,” he added.

Russia capable of defeating U.S. missile shield in Europe – Bush

The U.S. president said the missile shield planned for Central Europe would be no threat to Moscow, as Russia has sufficient firepower to overcome the proposed defense system.

 President Bush, currently on a visit to Kiev, told journalists following a meeting with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, that: “Russia could easily overwhelm the missile defense systems that we have envisioned.”

Poland against permanent Russian presence at U.S. missile base

Poland will not agree to the permanent presence of Russian military observers at a proposed U.S. missile base on its territory, the foreign minister said on Wednesday.The idea of allowing Russians to monitor proposed U.S. missile defense bases in Central Europe was one of the proposals put forward by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates during their talks in Moscow on March 18 with Russia’s Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.”We will not allow the permanent presence of Russian military officers at a U.S. missile base [in Poland], but they will be able to conduct temporary inspections and monitoring,” Radoslaw Sikorski said in an interview with the Polish Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper.The minister reiterated that Poland has not yet decided whether to allow the placement of a U.S. missile interceptor base on its territory, despite rumors circulated in Polish media.”We are ready to expedite this process, but only after reaching a consensus [with the U.S.] on some conditions that I am not going to divulge,” he said.The George W. Bush administration earlier said it backed Warsaw’s request for aid in modernizing its missile defenses.The U.S. plans to deploy 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic citing a threat from Iran and other “rogue states,” while Russia views these plans as a destabilizing factor for Europe and a threat to its national security.Poland’s new government led by Donald Tusk, which came to power in November last year, has taken a more cautious approach to the U.S. proposal than former Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s cabinet, which fully supported the plan.Sikorski said Poland will not share the cost of the construction of a missile base with the U.S.In his 2009 budget proposal, President Bush requested $96 million for the development of missile shield elements, $382.6 million for the actual deployment of the complexes in Poland and the Czech Republic, and $241.2 million for construction works.However, U.S. Congress said it would not allow the Bush administration to spend the allocated budget for the construction of the missile defense infrastructure in Poland and the Czech Republic in 2008, unless Washington signed bilateral agreements with these countries.

Gagarin 40 !

 

Yuri Gagarin (first man in space) & Valentina Tereshkova (first woman in space) 

First man and first woman in space were Russian ! 

 

Outside View: Russia’s tank woes

By Yury ZaitsevMoscow (UPI) Mar 31, 2008  http://www.spacewar.com Although warfare featuring tank armadas over vast territories is already a thing of the past, armor still remains the main striking force of modern armies.

Requirements for any new tank are protection, mobility and firepower. Historically, Russia has always tackled these problems by developing new models and continuing to exploit existing ones. For that reason its armed forces today are an amazing mix of all types of tanks, something not seen anywhere else in the world. Their maintenance costs are enormous.

Four-star General of the Army Nikolai Makarov, Russia’s current chief of armaments, looks forward to a breakthrough in tank building soon. In 2009 the Russian army will get a new tank — the T-95 — far superior to existing models. This is an entirely new battle tank, with new running gear, power plant, armaments, fire control, reconnaissance and target identification facilities.

The tank is currently undergoing tests, expected to be completed this year. Its adoption for service will, hopefully, bring the long-awaited unification to this sphere.

Russia’s is the only army in the world using two types of main battle tank: the gas turbine T-80 — T-80U — and the diesel-powered tank T-90 — T-90S. Both have the same weight, size and identical combat characteristics. Other types in service include the T-62, T-64, T-72 and their versions, and even the T-55.

This range of types creates many problems for providing fuel, lubricants, spare parts, tools, equipment and maintenance. It is also economically wasteful to maintain such diverse models. Large numbers of tanks and their ammunition require annual utilization, the funds for which have never been fully available.

In a global perspective, tank-building policy has remained unchanged since the 1960s and 1980s when the T-64, T-72 and T-80 were designed. A comparison of tank characteristics — including the T-80M1 Bars and advanced Black Eagle, which never reached the mass production stage — shows the hallmarks of “creeping” modernization.

But since tanks have remained the main offensive factor for ground forces, many countries have been proactive in developing and manufacturing cutting-edge anti-tank missiles. Equipped with non-contact fuses, they effectively penetrate all types of explosive reactive armor.

Also under development are devices that disable the engine fuel system, rendering tanks immobile. Moreover, despite its high firepower, the modern tank is unable to deal with air attacks.

The fitting of Russian tanks with anti-tank missiles fired through the gun barrel has greatly increased the effectiveness of tank armament. Its kill radius is now over 5 kilometers — 3 miles. But this advantage is offset by the absence of up-to-date reconnaissance and observation systems — aerial, let alone space-based ones.

The line of sight and fire are set so low that it is practically impossible to see and, moreover, aim at a target from the tank. Nor are there high-quality communications available, affecting control over tank units.

So we can say that the “tank crisis” that has hit the Russian army has been largely provoked by the diversity of its tank fleet.

According to Alexei Maslov, commander in chief of the ground forces and general of the army, the ultimate solution is only possible in the long term.

(Yury Zaitsev is an adviser at the Russian Academy of Engineering Sciences. This article is reprinted by permission of RIA Novosti. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.)