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BRUSSELS, Nov 18 (Reuters) - NATO countries voiced concern on Wednesday at Russian and Belarusian exercises held near the Polish border in September, saying they were at odds with improved relations with Moscow. Ambassadors from the 28 NATO states meeting in Brussels expressed concerns about the large scale of the exercises and a scenario that envisioned an attack from the West, NATO spokesman James Appathurai said. "There was the general sense that the political message of the exercise was incongruous with the general improvement in political relations and practical cooperation which is under way between NATO and Russia," Appathurai said....

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has often described the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest tragedy” of the 20th century, has now said that the “reunification” of Georgia has “already been decided,” a suggestion some of his listeners believe was a call for restoring Moscow’s control over Georgia and even the former USSR as a whole. In an intriguing commentary published in yesterday’s “Gazeta,” Bozhena Rynska describes both the celebration of the 80th birthday of longtime Soviet and Russian official Yevgeny Primakov and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s two very different toasts on that occasion (www.gazeta.ru/column/rynska/3287611.shtml). The celebration took...

Capitalism and democracy have lost popularity in the former Soviet republics of Eastern and Central Europe, where many people felt better off economically under communism, a poll showed Monday. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, research by the Pew Research Center showed the percentage of people approving of democracy was markedly lower in the former Soviet bloc compared to a similar 1991 poll.

In early October, the Russian Deputy Minister of Defense Vladimir Popovkin announced the decision to take two heavy nuclear-powered missile cruisers (TAKR) out of conservation and restore them to the active fleet. This decision coming just one year after the Petr Velikii (Peter the Great), the fourth ship of its class and the only one then in service, set out on a long-range cruise that took it from Severomorsk, the home port of the Northern Fleet to the Mediterranean, Caribbean, South Atlantic, and the Indian Oceans. On this voyage, which lasted from September 22, 2008, to March 10, 2009, the...

START 'cheating' Republicans in the Senate are gearing up to battle the Obama administration over the high-priority plan to finish a new arms-control treaty with Russia before the end of the year.

Meet Marina Kalashnikova: a Moscow-based historian, researcher and journalist. Last August she criticized foreign “experts� for suggesting that a conflict with Moscow will not happen because Russia’s elite is too closely associated with the West. According to Kalashnikova, “The West does not care to wake from the dream of its wishful thinking, even when Moscow turns to … reanimating Stalin’s cult of personality together with the ideology of the Cheka [i.e., the secret police].� I’m afraid that Marina Kalashnikova is right. The West has been dreaming, and the West will suffer the consequences. If the Kremlin likes Stalin, then there...

MOSCOW (AP) - A top Russian security official says Moscow reserves the right to conduct pre-emptive nuclear strikes to safeguard the country against aggression on both a large and a local scale, according to a newspaper interview published Wednesday. Presidential Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev also singled out the U.S. and NATO, saying Moscow's Cold War foes still pose potential threats to Russia despite what he called a global trend toward local conflicts. The interview appeared in the daily Izvestia during a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, as U.S. and Russian negotiators try to hammer out...

Russia practices war in the west The last ten days of September have seen the final phase of the Zapad-2009 and Ladoga-2009 military exercises of the Russian Armed Forces in cooperation with the Belarusian army. The two drills were the largest exercises to be held on the western borders of Russia and Belarus since the end of the Cold War. The field exercices taking place in Russia and Belarus' border districts from Murmansk to Brest, in the Kaliningrad oblast and on the Baltic Sea featured a total of at least 30,000 soldiers and navy servicemen. From the military perspective, the...

HAVANA, September 18 (RIA Novosti) - Modernization of the Soviet-made military equipment and training of Cuban military personnel will be the focus of Russian-Cuban military cooperation in the near future, the chief of the Russian General Staff said on Friday.

Events were not supposed to have turned out this way: Stalin is making a comeback in Russia, the Chinese Communist Party controls capitalism in China, Venezuela — once a friend of the United States — is now a neo-Marxist state, and Latin America itself is dominated by communist or far left regimes. When the Berlin Wall was destroyed by jubilant West Berlin youth, the nightmare was believed to be over. The communist true believers, however, are again a threat to humanity — even within the U.S. government. It is a story gets little coverage in the centralized media. Instead of...

Hugo Chávez ‘evil axis’ tour: Looking for love in all the wrong places? The Venezuelan leader gave Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi a warm hug yesterday during his 11-day tour to Russia, Belarus, Syria, Algeria, Libya, and Iran. By Matthew Clark | Staff writer 09.02.09 It’s like that old country song: “Lookin’ for love in all the wrong places. Lookin’ for love.” (Or as Eddie Murphy would say in his classic SNL skit, “wookin pa nub.”) That’s what Venezuelan firebrand Hugo Chávez appears to be doing this week on an 11-day trip that trip takes him to Russia, Belarus, Syria, Algeria,...

Belarus: Church Evicted Forum 18 News reports that on Aug. 20, New Life Full Gospel Church in Minsk, Moscow, was issued an eviction notice by government officials, forcing them to abandon their church building purchased in 2002. The church is adamant they do not fear the government’s threats. “We’re here praying and believe God will protect us,” Sergei Lukanin, the church’s lawyer told Forum 18 News. “As a lawyer I believe the state could do anything, including the use of force. But as a believer I rely on God.” Government authorities have not disclosed why the church is being evicted,...

Two Belarussian pilots killed at Polish air show Sun Aug 30, 2009 8:30pm IST RADOM, Poland (Reuters) - Two Belarussian Air Force pilots were killed on Sunday when their SU-27 fighter plane crashed during an aerial acrobatics display at an air show in central Poland, police said. "The two pilots did not manage to catapult to safety and were killed in the crash but there were no other casualties," police spokeswoman Agnieszka Humelusz in Radom, a city about 100 km (62 miles) south of Warsaw, told Reuters. Witness Leszek Kopec told Reuters by telephone: "The SU-27 crashed far beyond the...

MOSCOW, August 21 (RIA Novosti) - South Ossetia will seek to join the union being formed by Russia and Belarus, the former Georgian republic's leader said on Friday. "We will seek this with great pleasure," Eduard Kokoity told reporters, suggesting that Belarus would recognize South Ossetia as an independent state soon. The only country so far to have followed Russia's example in recognizing South Ossetia and the other self-proclaimed Georgian republic, Abkhazia, is Nicaragua. Belarus has sent mixed signals on whether it will recognize the two regions. Last month, Belarus's foreign ministry advised Belarusian nationals to abide by Georgian laws...

Russia and China, two potential U.S. adversaries in a future war, are committed to big increases in defense spending and global military adventures in the coming years, just as President Obama is forcing the Pentagon to scale back. The imbalance has defense experts worried that re-emergent Russia and China will be able to defeat U.S. forces in an air, sea and ground conflict because they will field superior fighters, ships and tanks in the next decades. This week, China announced its most ambitious military exercise to date. The People's Liberation Army is sending 50,000 troops to far reaches of the...

Lenin statue collapses, kills man in Belarus MINSK, Belarus — A massive statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin collapsed on a man who was hanging from it Monday, killing him on the spot, authorities said. The 21-year-old man was drunk when he climbed onto the five-meter (16-foot)-high plaster monument and hung from its arm, the Emergency Situations ministry said. It then broke into pieces and he was crushed. The statue in the southeastern Belarus town of Uvarovichi was built in 1939. "The monument's heavy head tumbled on him," said Nataliya Bolbas, a principal at a school in Uvarovichi facing the...

HOMEL, Belarus -- A 21-year-old man from the southeastern Belarusian town of Uvaravichy in Belarus was killed when a piece of a statue to Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin fell on him as he tried to climb it, RFE/RL's Belarus Service reports. Early this morning, the unnamed man climbed atop the seven-meter monument and tried to hang from Lenin's famous outstretched arm.

Acknowledging the Deception::by J. R. Nyquist Weekly Column Published: 07.24.2009 Meet Victor Kalashnikov: former KGB officer, scholar, analyst, and writer. He is married to historian and journalist Marina Kalashnikova, the subject of last week’s column. Before the Soviet Union collapsed Victor worked for the KGB in Vienna. After Gorbachev’s bizarre abdication in December 1991, Victor found himself drawn into the Presidential administration of Boris Yeltsin on orders of KGB General Yevgeny Primakov. There he became a research director in the Russian Public Policy Center. “So I turned my attention 180 degrees from Europe to Russia,” Victor explained. “I was quite...

The remains of more than 20 suspected victims of Joseph Stalin's secret police have been found in the basement of a church in northern Belarus. Soviet bullets were found with the remains at Glubokoye, a village which had been in Poland but fell into Soviet hands in 1939. A youth group discovered the remains earlier this week, reports say. Local historians said the victims had most probably been shot by the NKVD secret police between 1939 and 1941. "I think we can all but rule out any suggestion that these people were shot by the Germans during the occupation," historian...

Russian soldiers train before a joint military exercise between China and Russia in Taonan, in northeast China's Jilin province, July 21, 2009. Generals from both armies directed the drill. The exercise with live ammunition lasted for over one and a half hour. It trained the two armies in strategies and coordination to jointly encircle and suppress terrorists. The five-day "Peace Mission 2009" involve 26-hundred army and air force personnel and special forces, and more than 40 fighter aircraft and helicopters as well as other special reconnaissance equipment. It showcases the determination to fight terrorism and enhance partnership between China and...

Why was the "collapse of Communism" staged in the Soviet Union and not China? Well, I believe first, because the Soviet Union, especially Russia, is the fountain-head of Communism; if the Soviet Union collapses, one could loosely say Communism had collapsed, But there's another reason, according to Golitsyn:

President Dmitry Medvedev and US counterpart Barack Obama are next week planning to sign a framework declaration replacing a key Cold War-era missile treaty, Medvedev's top foreign aide said on Friday. Sergei Prikhodko also said Russia wanted to agree with the US a replacement of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) -- set to expire in early December -- by end of this year or early 2010.

Congressional computers have been penetrated, probably by the Chinese. The avionics system of the F-22 fighter may be compromised. Computers of our presidential candidates were hacked into -- and probably not by teenagers...Last year's advance of Russian tanks into Georgia was accompanied by the disruption of Georgian government computer systems. ...Attacks on computer systems will be an integral element of future conflict, and the United States is more dependent on computer networks than any other nation. ...policymakers and the military are in the early stages of coming to grips with this. We need to take some important first steps to...

he relationship between Russia and China serve as an example of how countries can develop their cooperation, while their experience of building consensus can be used worldwide, President Dmitry Medvedev said. “Having analysed how our relations were built since 1992, I came to the conclusion that such relations can be rightfully called exemplary, and this is important not only for our countries but for the whole world,” Medvedev said on Wednesday, speaking at the Bolshoi Theatre between a gala concert marking the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Russia and China. “I believe our experience of reaching agreements on the...

China continued to consider a “super-sovereignty” currency among the countries of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), an intergovernmental mutual-security organization that met today in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, in the Urals at the division of Asia and Europe. Members include China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, with India as one of its four observers. Right after the SCO meeting, the BRIC country (Brazil, Russia, India and China) leaders met formally for the first time. It is not merely coincident that three of them have expressed a desire to adjust their foreign exchange reserve portfolios by reducing the share or...

Belarus-Russia rift widens, Minsk snubs Moscow meet Sun Jun 14, 7:53 am ET MINSK (Reuters) – Belarus on Sunday signaled a growing rift with Russia, saying President Alexander Lukashenko did not attend a security summit in Moscow in protest against a Russian ban on dairy imports from Belarus. Ties between the former Soviet republics have been strained since 2007. Minsk is angry at rising prices for Russian gas and Moscow by Lukashenko's growing overtures to the West. Lukashenko was due at a summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which groups Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan....

Russian President may push 'new world currency'

Westernism is giving way to Orientalism in Moscow's outlook, if the past week's happenings are any guide. As Russia's ties with the West deteriorate, an upswing in its strategic partnership with China becomes almost inevitable. The resumption of Russia-NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) dialogue has gone awry. And the nascent hopes regarding a "reset of the button" of the Russian-American relationship are belied. With Moscow under multiple pressures from the West, two top Chinese officials have arrived in the Russian capital to offer support - Defense Minister Liang Guanglie and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. Moscow angrily reacted to NATO's expulsion...

Moscow sources disclose that the Russian, Iranian and Damascus governments have cooked up a scheme to get around Vladimir Putin's undertaking as president to refrain from selling Iran and Syria advanced Iskander-M cruise missiles: The transaction will go through Belarus. Sources in Moscow and Minsk confirmed Sunday, May 3, that the Iskander-M sale to Tehran has gone through and negotiations are ongoing for Iran and Syria for another transaction: the sale of Russia's advanced S-300 anti-air anti-missile multi-targeting shield systems as well. Western military sources have reported in the past that Israel cannot afford to allow this high-performance hardware enter...

MOSCOW, April 29 (RIA Novosti) - Joint military exercises of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states will be held in 2010 in southern Kazakhstan, Anatoly Serdyukov said Wednesday after a session of the SCO defense ministers. "Specific anti-terror activities will be practiced at drills in Kazakhstan. All previous and upcoming military exercises involving SCO countries are of a counterterrorism nature," the Russian defense minister said. The decision to hold the exercises entitled Peace Mission 2010 was made last May in Dushanbe at a similar meeting. The SCO regional security group comprises Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. Russia...

Vatican City, Apr 27, 2009 / 10:37 am (CNA).- This morning Benedict XVI met with both Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall, as well as the President of Belarus.  During both meetings he emphasized the importance of inter-cultural dialogue for promoting peace in the world.At the Pope’s 15 minute audience with Prince Charles of Wales and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, the trio discussed matters such as “human promotion and development of peoples, environmental protection, and the importance of inter-cultural and inter-religious dialogue for furthering peace and justice in the world."Prince Charles presented the Holy Father with 12 dessert...

Ukrainians and Belarusians are marking the 23rd anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster by commemorating those who died and objecting to plans for new atomic energy stations. The explosion of a reactor at the plant in then-Soviet Ukraine spread a cloud of radiation over much of Europe, forcing evacuation of swaths of countryside. Thirty-one people died of radiation illnesses in the two months after the blast, and there is debate over how many eventually will fall victim. Concern is particularly high for workers sent in to clean up after the blast. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko laid a wreath...

Russia has stationed its forces just 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the Georgian capital, in violation of the EU-brokered cease-fire that ended last year's brief war. And in recent weeks, it has sent even more troops and armored vehicles to within striking distance of the city ahead of street protests against Georgia's president.

WASHINGTON, April 15 (UPI) -- It comes as no real surprise, but Russia's decision to supply neighboring Belarus with its most advanced anti-missile defense system has profound geopolitical implications and adds significantly to the growing divisions and tensions that are once again tearing Europe in half. A senior Russian air force general announced on April 9 that the Kremlin would be supplying Belarus with the new S-400 Triumf -- NATO designation SA-21 Growler -- anti-aircraft and anti-missile interceptor system as part of the joint agreement concluded in February for joint air defense between the two countries.

MINSK, April 8 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is to deliver S-400 Triumf (SA-21 Growler) surface-to-air missile systems to Belarus under an integrated air-defense agreement, a senior Belarusian military official said on Wednesday. Igor Azarenok, commander of the Air Force and Air Defense Forces, said the countries' defense ministries were currently discussing delivery terms. 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 1/2 times that of the S-300PMU-2. The system is also believed to be able to destroy stealth...

A Kremlin academic has predicted that the global economic crisis will pave the way for Vladimir Putin to rule over a reconstituted Soviet empire stretching from central Europe to the Canadian border within four years. Igor Panarin, the dean of the Russian foreign ministry's diplomatic academy, gave fellow patriots the opportunity to indulge their wildest imperial fantasies with a startling projection of how geopolitics will change over the next decade. In an interview with the venerable Izvestia newspaper, famous for its turgid outpourings during the Cold War, he predicted the birth of a powerful "Eurasian Alliance", led by the Russian...

WASHINGTON, March 26 (UPI) -- The continuing tensions over Russia's refusal to sell its state-of-the-art land warfare advanced weapons systems to China hasn't interrupted the rhythm of major joint military exercises between the two major land powers on the Eurasian landmass. The latest in the regular, biennial series of exercises between the two nations has been confirmed for this summer. The next in the now well-established series of exercises called Peace Mission 2009 will be carried out in northeastern China, the Russian Defense Ministry announced March 18, according to a report carried by the RIA Novosti news agency. The first...

Asia's six-member Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or SCO, held a meeting in Moscow Friday to discuss ways of combating terrorism, drug-trafficking, and organized crime in Afghanistan. Among those invited to the meeting were diplomats from the United States and Iran. U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Patrick Moon, and Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Mehdi Akhonzadeh spoke within minutes of one another at the SCO's Special Conference on Afghanistan.

MOSCOW, March 18 (RIA Novosti) - Russian-Chinese military exercises dubbed Peace Mission 2009 will be held in the summer in northeastern China, the Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday. The first bilateral counterterrorist exercises Peace Mission were held in Russia and the eastern Chinese province of Shandong in August 2005, involving warships, aviation, and over 10,000 servicemen including marines and paratroopers. "The final decision on the date, venue, name and forces involved will be made at bilateral consultations to be held in the last 10 days of March," a ministry source said. The Chinese Defense Ministry said Tuesday that joint maneuvers...

Nikolai Ilyuchik was 11 when his mother first told him how the Nazis killed all the Jewish men in their Belarusian village during World War II. Three decades later, in defiance of the local government, Ilyuchik has built his own memorial to the six men shot Aug. 2, 1941, on the outskirts of Bogdanovka. It was something he just had to do. "I was shaken by my mother's stories, because there was almost nothing in our textbooks about the Holocaust," the 42-year-old fireman said. "I built the monument to honor the memory, not for money or glory."

MOSCOW, March 17 (RIA Novosti) - A comprehensive rearmament of Russia's Armed Forces will begin in 2011, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday. "Last year we equipped a number of military units with new weaponry, and we will start large-scale rearmament of the Armed Forces in 2011," Medvedev said at a meeting with Defense Ministry officials. He said that the current military-political situation in the world calls for a thorough modernization of the Russian Armed Forces, primarily its strategic nuclear forces. "They must be able to accomplish all tasks aimed at ensuring Russia's military security," Medvedev said, adding that this...

Communist Bloc Military Updates: Soviets' Red Dawn coalition emerges as Cuba, Venezuela reiterate offers to host strategic bombers - Kremlin Delighted Faux Rightist President Sarkozy Preparing to Reintegrate French Military into NATO Command Structure - Russian and Chinese Foreign Ministers Promote the Moscow-Beijing Axis' "One Clenched Fist" Last July the Kremlin media cautiously broached the subject of basing strategic bombers in Cuba and Venezuela. The Russian Defense Ministry promptly distanced itself from the "revelation," while America's top general warned the Russians against contemplating such a move. This trial balloon released by the Soviets took place during the Bush Administration, which...

MINSK, March 10 (RIA Novosti) - Belarus and Russia will stage a large-scale strategic military exercise in the fall, the Belarusian defense minister said on Tuesday. The drill, called Zapad 2009 (West 2009), will involve around 13,000 service personnel on both sides. Leonid Maltsev said the Russian military would contribute "Ground Forces, Air Force, Air Defense Forces and reconnaissance units." He added that the drill would, among other things, rehearse interoperability within the framework of the Belarusian-Russian integrated air defense system, which the two countries agreed to establish recently. The exercise scenario has been approved by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko....

MOSCOW -- Russia is reasserting its role in Central Asia with a Kremlin push to eject the U.S. from a vital air base, along with a Moscow-led pact to form an international military force to rival NATO. The moves potentially complicate the new U.S. war strategy in Afghanistan. The moves mark Russia's most aggressive steps yet to counter a U.S. military presence in the region that it has long resented. They pose a challenge for the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, which sees Afghanistan as its top foreign-policy priority and is preparing to double the size of the American...

MOSCOW, February 4 (RIA Novosti) - The collective rapid-reaction force to be created by a post-Soviet regional security bloc will be just as good as comparable NATO forces, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) agreed on Wednesday at a summit in Moscow to set up the new force, to be based in Russia. Medvedev said the force, to be comprised of a "sufficient" number of units, would be "well trained and well equipped." "Russia is ready to contribute a division and a brigade," he said. "This gives you an idea of the scale."...

Three international military initiatives have been announced in the Kremlin over the past two days, one of them involving an important Central Asian air base used to support U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. These developments appear to represent an attempt to increase Russian influence in the Eurasia region. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev has announced agreement to create a rapid reaction force as part of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, or CSTO. Presidents of the member states: Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - held a Kremlin summit in which Mr. Medvedev says they discussed mechanisms to confront what...

NORFOLK The 22 suspects charged in a widespread immigration fraud conspiracy case are linked to an organized crime ring that has tentacles throughout Eastern Europe and Russia and across the United States, prosecutors said this week. "The organization has not been totally dismantled," Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph E. DePadilla told a magistrate judge Friday during bond hearings for 13 defendants. The operation was run from the former Soviet bloc country of Belarus by Viktar Krus, one of the 22 charged in the case, DePadilla said in a court filing. Krus owns a home in Virginia Beach but spent a lot...

A sensual, super-charged, Belarusian bombshell, 21-year-old Maryna Linchuk can engulf a fur with her fierce beauty like few other women. And those never ending legs. The epitome of leggy transcendence, they sleekly stretch forever. Linchuk has graced the runways highstepping for everyone from Victoria’s Secret to Gucci.

Russia will station missiles in neighbouring Belarus if the United States goes ahead with plans for a missile defence shield based in Poland and the Czech Republic. The report comes from the Interfax news agency, which quotes a Russian defence ministry source. An official ministry spokesman has declined to comment on the report.

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "(CNSNews.com) – A United Nations committee has passed a controversial “defamation of religions” draft resolution but, amid freedom of expression concerns, the measure looks set to get less support when it comes to a final vote next month, than in previous years." ARTICLE SNPPEPT: "‘Wrongly associated with terrorism’ This year the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has the support of two non-Muslim allies – Venezuela and Belarus – in co-sponsoring the resolution. Although the OIC says the campaign is aimed at protecting all faiths, once again only Islam is cited by name."