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According to information from the German Press Agency, there are informal agreements among the NATO states to refrain from delivering certain weapon systems to Ukraine. As the dpa was confirmed in alliance circles in Brussels on Wednesday, the risk of a direct military confrontation between NATO states and Russia should be kept as low as possible. There are fears, for example, that Russia could officially see the delivery of Western battle tanks and combat aircraft as entering the war and then take military retaliatory measures. Weapon systems of this type have not yet been delivered to Ukraine. According to information...

Jeez, this guy is good. A few years back, I wrote that Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was the most impressive major leader on today's world stage. Since then, he's gotten better. Back then, he was eating President George W. Bush for breakfast. Now he's snacking on President Obama as sushi -- eating him raw, in happy little bites. Putin's ruthless, unforgiving and murderous. He also has a clear vision of what he wants, the strength of will to get it -- and a stunning ability to spot the weaknesses in his foreign counterparts. Putin's the Evil Empire's belated answer...

Russia says Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will personally head the investigation into an aeroplane crash that killed Poland's president. A total of 96 people were on board the plane that crashed near the western Russian city of Smolensk, all of whom are believed to be dead. Polish president Lech Kaczynski was on board the Russian-built Tupolev 154 jet when it went down in heavy fog near a military airport. Russian authorities have already said they suspect pilot error in the crash, near Smolensk, in Western Russia. There are reports the jet made several attempted landings before the crash. Also on...

“Uncle Joe” New National Hero Modern Russia Displays Red Roots thelastcrusade.org Joseph Stalin sent over 30 million Russians to their deaths during his reign of terror. His body was removed from the Kremlin. His name was taboo for decades. But the ruthless Soviet dictator is the new hero of modern Russia, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin now openly praises “Uncle Joe’s” achievements. In a recent appearance on national television, Mr. Putin gave credit to Stalin for making the Soviet Union an industrial superpower and for defeating Hitler in the Second World War. “It’s obvious that, from 1924 to 1953,...

Russian TV - 'Poland planned to invade USSR' 22.06.2009 15:59 Russian state television has broadcast a report in which it accuses Poland of collaboration with Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union. The report says that the government in Warsaw was in a secret alliance with Nazi Germany and japan to invade the Soviet Union. Today Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians celebrate National Remembrance and Mourning Day to commemorate victims of WW II, popularly known as the Great Patriotic War. To mark the occasion, as well as the 70th anniversary of the signing of Ribbentrop – Molotow pact, Russian television has broadcast...

Eastern Europeans who believe their countries were occupied by the Soviet Union after the Second World War could soon be barred from Russia under new proposals given official weight by the Kremlin. Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, created a commission of 28 legislators and senior intelligence officers which will identify foreign "revisionists" who "disparage the international prestige of the Russian Federation". The move, condemned as "Orwellian" by its critics, comes shortly before the Russian parliament is expected to pass controversial legislation outlawing the "rehabilitation of Nazism". The bill has attracted criticism because of its definition of Nazi rehabilitation, with those...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is plotting to stage a comeback as the president of that nation by stripping the judiciary's right to elect the head of the powerful constitutional court, a media report said on Thursday. Although he is legally allowed to run as president in the year 2012, the loss of the judiciary's last "quasi-independent" position would remove any "lingering potential" for a legal challenge should Putin make an early presidential comeback, 'The Daily Telegraph' reported.

CARACAS: President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday that Russian President Dimitri Medvedev wants to send a Russian naval fleet to visit Venezuela. "Russia has informed us they intend to visit Venezuela, that is, the intention that a Russian fleet should come to the Caribbean," Chavez said on his weekly radio program. "I told the president (Medvedev), 'If you're coming to the Caribbean, we'll welcome you,'" Chavez said, adding that the Russian naval fleet would pay "a friendly and working" visit to Venezuela. Under leftist President Chavez, Venezuela has been seeking closer relations with Moscow, in part to buy military hardware,...

THE Russians are alcohol-sodden barbarians, but now and then they vomit up a genius. Prime Minister - and now generalissimo - Vladimir Putin is Mother Russia's latest world-class wonder. Let's be honest: Putin's the most effective leader in the world today. That doesn't mean he's good news for anybody - not even for the Russians, in the long run. His ruthless ambition and gambler's audacity may end terribly. But, for now, give the devil his due: After a long string of successes, from his personal mastery of Russia's government and media to his coldblooded energy brinkmanship, Putin has capped his...

MOSCOW - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has created an inner cabinet of key ministers that will meet weekly, further strengthening his grip over Russia's levers of power. The new forum mimics a format used by Putin as president before he handed over the Kremlin to his close ally Dmitry Medvedev last week. "The full government is a rather big body," Putin's chief spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. "That is why it was decided to set up a managerial staff that can handle certain issues without the need to summon the full cabinet." Medvedev could in theory choose to attend...

Russia showcased its military might and youthful new president to the world Friday, as heavy tanks and missile launchers rumbled across Red Square in a Victory In a nationally broadcast speech two days after his inauguration, President Dmitry Medvedev avoided the bellicose rhetoric of his mentor and predecessor, Vladimir Putin, who drew parallels between United States and Nazi Germany during last year's parade. However, in his speech marking victory over Adolf Hitler's Germany, the 42-year-old Medvedev said the history of World War II demonstrated that military conflicts are rooted in "irresponsible ambitions which prevail over interests of nations and entire...

PRAGUE (Thomson Financial) - Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev attacked US plans to site an anti-missile system in central and eastern Europe, saying that it was aimed at Russia and China and not Iran. 'You believe that (the system) will be used against Iran? No, the whole system is aimed against Russia and China,' Gorbachev said in an interview broadcast by Czech public television today. He dismissed sustained US statements that the anti-missile system is aimed exclusively at countering the threat from 'rogue states' such as Iran. 'The US radar is a serious question and the Czech government has been...

More than 4,000 people are facing eviction to make room for the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, according to campaigners, who say that many will receive little or no compensation. “My family has lived on this land for five generations,” said Dmitry Drofichev, a farmer. “We are being offered a fraction of what the land is worth. They’ll have to bulldoze me and the house to make me move.” The authorities have already begun forcibly removing people from areas where Olympic facilities are to be built. Fifteen families of refugees from a war in the...

MOSCOW - Though more than a dozen parties are on the ballot for Russia's parliamentary election Sunday, one would hardly know it. The pro-Kremlin United Russia (UR) party, whose standing has jumped more than 25 percent since President Vladimir Putin announced he would head its candidate list last month, could fairly win up to two-thirds of votes for the 450-seat State Duma, according to most polls. But in what some experts say may be the least democratic election since the USSR collapsed, boycotted by Europe's election-monitoring body, the campaign has been marred by complaints from opposition parties of official interference,...

MOSCOW (Thomson Financial) - A Moscow court has given the green light for the seizure of 100 pct of the shares of the Russian oil group Russneft, Russian news agencies reported, citing a Russian interior ministry statement. 'A Moscow court has approved the seizure of 100 pct of the shares of the company. Russneft shares have now been seized,' the statement said. The ministerial press office was unavailable for comment. The seizure follows a judicial procedure launched in January by the interior ministry's committee responsible for tax arrears. Another Moscow court had found in favour of the Russian fiscal authorities...

Russian bombers test UK patience again By Wojciech Moskwa in Oslo July 20, 2007 09:59pm TWO Russian Tu-95 bombers made unusually long sorties over the North Sea yesterday, forcing both Norway and Britain to scramble fighter jets to follow the Russian planes, Norway's armed forces said. The Russian bombers stayed in international air space during their flight, which took them as far south as the region between Norway's Stavanger and Aberdeen in Scotland - centres of the North Sea oil industry. The incident, the latest of several such sorties in past days, occurred during a period of heightened diplomatic tensions...

Former commander in chief of the Soviet Ground Forces Gen. Valentin Varennikov, left, presents a saber to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, during the opening of Venezuela's cultural center in Moscow, Thursday, June 28, 2007. Chavez arrived in Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart as Russian news media speculated about a major weapons deal. As deputy head of the Soviet General Staff from 1979-84, Varennikov was a key planner of the Soviet Union's strategy in Afghanistan Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, 2nd from left, and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov share a joke while opening Venezuela's cultural center in Moscow, Thursday,...

MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin of Russia obliquely compared the foreign policy of the United States to the Third Reich in a speech Wednesday commemorating the 62nd anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, in an apparent escalation of anti-American rhetoric within the Russian government. Putin did not specifically name the United States or NATO but used phrasing similar to that which he has used previously to criticize American foreign policy while making an analogy to Nazi Germany. The comments marked the latest in a series of sharply worded Russian criticisms of the foreign policy of the Untied States - on...

MOSCOW, March 29 (Itar-Tass) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent a letter to participants in the Arab summit in Al-Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the Kremlin press service said on Thursday. “The development of the situation in Iraq causes concern. In order to hold country from sliding to a full-scale civil war and disintegration, a speedy achievement of real national reconciliation and accord is necessary. A way to the realization of this priority task lies through the development of a broad dialogue with the participation of all leading Iraqi political forces and ethic-confessional groups with the clear determination of a timeline...

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his aides at the Kremlin say they feel surrounded, and they're not going to take it anymore. Russian corporations are being foiled abroad; the Russian state is being unfairly blamed for volatility in global energy markets; and suggestions that the state is eliminating its critics are just preposterous. Why all the bad press? Because of "Russophobia" — an unreasoning Western hostility toward Russia — according to the Kremlin. "I see a campaign here," Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said in a TV interview last week. Amid all the allegations that the Kremlin — in a...