Free Republic

Cold War: The White House has announced our absence at ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Meanwhile, Russia has been practicing a nuclear invasion of an abandoned Poland. The Berlin Wall has been a famous backdrop for American presidents sounding the battle cry of liberty in the struggle against tyranny. It was there that John F. Kennedy expressed our solidarity with the encircled residents of that outpost of freedom with his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner." And it was there that Ronald Reagan, with a defiant "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," voiced our...

SNIPPET: "Lula and Chavez have established a "strategic relationship," and recently agreed upon a joint Brazilian-Venezuelan oil venture worth billions of dollars. Lula and Chavez have joined with Daniel Ortega, the returned Nicaraguan Marxist dictator, to form an anti-U.S. Latin American military alliance - all with Russian assistance - funded by the region's abundant oil reserves. Brazil is engaged in its own arms build-up and Lula is determined that Brazil will become at least a first-rate regional power. Unfortunately, Lula is establishing Brazil as an anti-American military power by aligning with nations hostile or potentially hostile to the U.S. Lula...

Russia’s Eternal Military-Industrial Kolkhoz 03 November 2009 By Alexander Golts It seems that professional observers of Russia’s endless political antics have something new to add to their list. People have long ceased to be amazed by the fact that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has a habit of meddling in Russia’s military affairs, national security and foreign policy — all of which belong to the constitutional domain of President Dmitry Medvedev. But the president has unexpectedly stuck his nose into an area that had previously belonged to Putin alone. Last week, Medvedev visited the NPO Mashinostroyenia missile design bureau in Reutov,...

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.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said Ukraine might be having problems paying for gas, raising new concerns over European supplies. Mr Putin said the European Union had not yet given Ukraine the money it had promised to help provide stable supplies of Russian gas to Europe. He also blamed Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko for blocking payment. In January, many countries were left short of gas because of a payment dispute between Moscow and Kiev. 'Blocking funds' "It appears we are again having problems with payments for our energy supplies, which is extremely regrettable. The EU has still not provided...

The armed forces are said to have carried out "war games" in which nuclear missiles were fired and troops practised an amphibious landing on the country's coast. Documents obtained by Wprost, one of Poland's leading news magazines, said the exercise was carried out in conjunction with soldiers from Belarus. The manoeuvres are thought to have been held in September and involved about 13,000 Russian and Belarusian troops. The documents state the exercises, code-named "West", were officially classified as "defensive" but many of the operations appeared to have an offensive nature. more...

Wow. I just noticed something. Our commander-in-chief is the least alpha of any of the leaders of our former enemies from World War II and the Cold War: Germany, Italy, and Russia. While I knew Obama exhibited beta behavior, I had no idea it was this bad. Give me a minute and I’ll lay out pictorial proof. We all know that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi holds the title of “Intergalactic Alpha”. The 73 year-old silverback is banging 18 year-olds, has amassed a fortune, laid the smack down on his wife, and avoided indictment and/or lynching for his shenanigans....

A BUST of Russia's muscle-flexing strongman Vladimir Putin is being created as a gift for ex-Hollywood bodybuilder and California's current governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bust is currently being made in Putin's home city of Saint Petersburg on an order of Russia's Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation and will be delivered to the movie star-turned-politician in March. "Putin is such a complex personality. He's left no one indifferent," Alexander Chernoshchyokov, a Saint Petersburg-based sculptor who has been working on the Putin bust since June... In 1991 the Russian artist made a sculpture of Schwarzenegger and Vladimir Dubinin, the president of the bodybuilding...

The Dragon and the Amoeba 21 October 2009 By Yulia Latynina At a meeting in New York in September, President Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao signed a wide-ranging cooperation agreement through 2018. It calls for Russia to become a raw-materials appendage of China. Russia will provide China with raw materials such as coal, iron, gold and manganese, and China-based factories will process it all. In reality, though, this is only a preliminary agreement because the Kremlin has a compulsive fear of China. Russians love conspiracy theories, and they avidly read the apocalyptic prophecies of Alexander Khramchikhin about how...

MOSCOW — Nearly two decades after the collapse of the Communist Party, Russia’s rulers have hit upon a model for future success: the Communist Party. Or at least, the one that reigns next door. Like an envious underachiever, Vladimir V. Putin’s party, United Russia, is increasingly examining how it can emulate the Chinese Communist Party, especially its skill in shepherding China through the financial crisis relatively unbowed. United Russia’s leaders even convened a special meeting this month with senior Chinese Communist Party officials to hear firsthand how they wield power. ..." “The accomplishments of China’s Communist Party in developing its...

A Russian historian investigating the fate of Germans imprisoned in the Soviet Union during the second world war has been arrested, in the latest apparent clampdown on historical research into the Stalin era by the Russian authorities. Mikhail Suprun was detained last month by officers from Russia's security services. They searched his apartment and carried off his entire personal archive. He has now been charged with violating privacy laws and, if convicted, faces up to four years in jail. Suprun had been researching Germans sent to Russia's Arctic gulags. A professor of history at Arkhangelsk's Pomorskiy university, his study included...

Vladimir Putin, No Sanctions on Iran: Obama Sold Out Poland for Nothing By Beth Shaw It appears that Barack Obama sold out Poland for nothing. In spite of his preemptively giving in to Russia and promising to not use a missile shield to protect Poland and the Czech Republic, Vladimir Putin is saying no to sanctions on Iran. After all, how can we be absolutely 100% certain they are going to nuke us! Let’s just wait and see before we do anything. It seems the only preventative measures the United States can take against our enemies anymore is to give...

Its not that Russian's aren't giving birth to children, its just that the number of births is exceeding the number of deaths for the first time in fifteen years. Russia's Health Ministry is taking credit for increase in birth rate, citing the economic stimulus program approved by the Kremlin as the reason why more mothers in Russia are giving birth and fewer people are dying. But you can't argue with the numbers. On an annualized basis, Russia's birth rate is up between 7 and 8 percent. In August alone, 1000 more people were born than died. According to UN, Russia's...

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...

Just a little follow-up to Ed’s post earlier, tracking the progress of The One’s global disarmament efforts. Hey — the committee did say that Nobel was aspirational. In an interview published today in Izvestia, Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Kremlin’s security council, said the new doctrine offers “different options to allow the use of nuclear weapons, depending on a certain situation and intentions of a would-be enemy. In critical national security situations, one should also not exclude a preventive nuclear strike against the aggressor.” What’s more, Patrushev said, Russia is revising the rules for the employment of nukes to...

Link only, due to Wired's copyright complaints. Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday MachineI'm posting this without any text, because I think it's important. The "Doomsday" machine is apparently real, and still operational. Read the article for more details.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Wednesday warned major powers against intimidating Iran and said that talk of sanctions against the Islamic Republic was "premature". "There is no need to frighten the Iranians," Putin told reporters in Beijing. "We need to look for a compromise. If a compromise is not found, and the discussions end in a fiasco, then we will see," he said, adding that talks of sanctions was "premature" at present.

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...

Mr. Podrabinek is one of a literally dying breed: Russian journalists who are not afraid to tell the truth even if it gets them murdered. Reuters reports: “New York-based press watchdog the Committee to Protect Journalists ranks Russia the world’s third most dangerous country for journalists, with 17 killed since 2000 including Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya in 2006.” Over at my blog La Russophobe, we’ve translated Podrabinek’s column on the valiant Russian website Yezhedevny Zhurnal many times. He’s written about official corruption, state propaganda, human rights atrocities in the Chechnya region, persecuted dissidents and opposition leaders, and the essential lack...

After Russia invaded the Nation of Georgia last year, Senator John McCain quickly condemned the action by the Russians, and declared that we are all "Georgians" today. Considering we have had at least two freedom movements in the past eight months which have been ignored by Obama, that should have been reason enough to support McCain in the Presidential election. Obama at first blamed both the Russians and the Georgians in an utter disregard for the Nation of Georgia, a small yet staunch ally of the United States, after several days of being called out by John McCain, Obama quickly...

Iran's traditional emblem has been the Persian lion. Russia's should be a vulture: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin intends to feed on the carcass left by any confrontation with Iran. For Moscow, this crisis isn't about Tehran's acquisition of nukes. It's about Russia's acquisition of a stranglehold on global energy markets. Putin's playing with fire -- but he's sure we'll be the ones burned. As for the Obama administration's desperate (and stunningly naive) hope that economic sanctions can deter President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and his fellow thugs-for-Allah from pursuing nuclear weapons, forget it.

Today Putin, Tomorrow a Prison Toilet 23 September 2009 By Yulia Latynina There is a rather wealthy fellow named Andrei Boiko who co-owns the Burevestnik Yacht Club on the Moscow River. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin recently paid a visit to the club. Boiko couldn’t have been happier. He showed the prime minister around, saying, “This is mine, and that over there is mine, too.” A week later, Boiko was in jail. Maybe Putin didn’t like the club members’ opulent lifestyle during the economic crisis. Or maybe someone in Putin’s retinue has his eye on Boiko’s business. Either way, it is...

Russia and Islam are not Separate: Why Russia backs Al-Qaeda By Konstantin Preobrazhensky Konstantin Preobrazhensky, a former Lt. Colonel in the KGB who defected to the United States in 1993, is an intelligence expert and specialist on Japan, about which he has written six books. His newest book Russian-American, A New KGB Asset will be published in late 2007. This article was first published by Gerard Group International, Intel Analyses, 31 August 2007.Americans generally believe that Russia is afraid of Islamic terrorism as much as the U.S.A. They are reminded of the war in Chechnya, the hostage crisis at the...

Czechs are used to betrayal by their Western allies. It was at Munich in 1938 that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sealed their doom in exchange for a piece of paper promising "peace in our time." The fact that this further gutting of missile defense came on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland on Sept. 17, 1939, is an eerie coincidence. "Just after midnight I was informed in a telephone call by President Barack Obama that (his) administration had decided to pull out from the planned missile defense shield installations" in the Czech Republic and Poland, the...

It's the Obama administration that has pressed the "reset button" on relations with Russia, scrapped plans for a missile-defense system in Eastern Europe, and toned down the rhetoric on NATO expansion. But it seems Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin still pines for Obama's predecessor. At his annual meeting with academics, think-tankers, and journalists, Putin barely mentioned Obama but "repeatedly expressed fondness for his friend 'George,' " says Cliff Kupchan, a Russia analyst at the Eurasia Group consultancy. "He clearly has a personal softness for George Bush," says Kupchan, who attended the meeting. Why the nostalgia? After all, Bush put in...

The AP Reports from Havana, Cuba: —  Obama's anti-American agenda or a call for action on climate change and his admission that capitalist nations have a particular responsibility to lead has received strong praise from his communist ally — U.S. nemesis and mass murderer Fidel Castro.

When a tyrannical regime dies, you can see the symptoms in the little things. Late Friday afternoon, after millions (yes, millions–this according to Le Monde, France 2, and L’Express, with the BBC saying that the demonstrations were bigger than those at the time of the Revolution) of Greens mobbed the streets and squares of more than thirty towns and cities to call for the end of the regime, there was a soccer game in Azadi Stadium in Tehran. It holds about a hundred thousand fans, and it was full of men wearing green and carrying green balloons. When state-run tv...

I was reading an article from The New York Times and this jumped out at me: Although the White House denied that its decision was made to curry favor with the Kremlin, it took some satisfaction in comments by Russian leaders suggesting more flexibility. Obama advisers pointed to a few specific areas where they have won concessions from other countries. Russia, for example, has agreed to a framework for nuclear arms cuts and gave permission for American troops to fly to Afghanistan through its airspace.(emphasis added) Then I read an article on RFERL that had the following: BISHKEK -- A...

SNIPPET: "Most importantly, Chavez has friends - powerful friends -- around the world who are assisting him in his goal of establishing communism as the dominant force in the world. Both Russia and China are assisting Chavez in spreading the message that the United States is "the most savage, cruel, and murderous empire that has existed in the history of the world," and Chavez's solution: 21st Century Socialism." SNIPPET: "The Moscow elite are not only supporting Chavez the dictator with weapons, but also Chavez the Marxist revolutionary with a high profile platform for his revolutionary rhetoric. In early September 2009...

Has anyone heard of this before? I did a search but came up negative.Very interesting and if you list to the tape the man sounds very genuine.Here’s his written confession which happened to a physicist when he was in Russia:The leader of the Communist Party USA may not be the only one doing Communist cartwheels. Brace yourself for what I’m about to say next. Last fall, prior to the presidential election, a friend of mine, Dr. Wiley Drake, former second vice president for the Southern Baptist Convention, sent me an e-mail on which I didn’t report. It just seemed too...

What Putin thinks of Obama

There was much talk about Obama's Waterloo being health care reform. His last stand on having any chance of having any respectability in his presidency will soon fade-away and that last stand is his approval ratings on foreign policy. Those approval ratings will be soon to fall. Unfortunately, the United States' Waterloo is the Obama presidency. The fact is, if you look at each topic like the economy, health care reform and foreign policy, Obama is implementing policies in the United States that will hurt the United States. Enter now, the foreign policy blunders that Obama is about to embark...

Was it only April? There was President Barack Obama, speaking (as is his wont) in Prague, about the Iranian nuclear program and ballistic missile capability, and saluting America's plucky allies: "The Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a defense against these missiles," he declared. "As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven."

SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Friday a decision by the United States to scrap plans for a missile defense shield in Europe was positive. Putin, speaking to investors in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, said he now expected the United States to back a bid by Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan to join the World Trade Organisation. "I expect that after this correct and brave decision, others will follow, including the complete removal of all restrictions on the transfer of high technology to Russia and activity to widen the membership of the World Trade...

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President Obama is making so many foreign-policy blunders that he is starting to make us yearn for the national-security acumen of the Carter administration. His official announcement scrapping the planned missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic was long expected but still landed with a thud. It is hard to remember a strategic choice that is so obviously wrong on so many levels.

Reuters reports an interesting nugget in the wake of President Barack Obama's decision to grant Vladimir Putin his wish and kill the Eastern European missile shield: Shortly after the pullback on the shield programme was announced, Russia's government said Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would meet several U.S. executives on Friday from firms including General Electric, Morgan Stanley as well as TPG, one of the world's largest private equity firms General Electric may be the company with the closest ties to the Obama administration (if not, GE is second only to Goldman Sachs), and here we see the company benefiting from...

Strategic Defense: With Iran on the verge of a deliverable nuke, the administration tells our allies in the dead of night that we will scuttle missile defense plans in Eastern Europe to please the Russians.Czechs are used to betrayal by their Western allies. It was at Munich in 1938 that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sealed their doom in exchange for a piece of paper promising "peace in our time." The fact that this further gutting of missile defense came on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland on Sept. 17, 1939, is an eerie coincidence. "Just after...

WASHINGTON -- The White House will shelve Bush administration plans to build a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, according to people familiar with the matter, a move likely to cheer Moscow and roil the security debate in Europe.

Venezuela's Marxist president-dictator Hugo Chavez addressed an influential university in Moscow stating that America's influence in the world is "dying," and will be replaced in "the next decades" by a "multi-polar" world in which Russia plays a leading role. Chavez wants to "accelerate" the process, a sentiment which receives support from the Moscow elite. During his Sept. 9-10 2009 visit,Chavez received an enthusiastic reception from about 1,000 students at Moscow's Patrice Lumumba Peoples Friendship University, an institution founded in 1960 as a KGB training ground for communist revolutionaries and pro-Soviet activists. The university's namesake was a prime minister of the...

He skis down volcanoes, strips off in Siberian rivers and even ventures to the bottom of lakes in mini-submarines. Hardly surprising then that Vladimir Putin – Russia's action-man prime minister and judo black belt – is a fan of Swiss watches. Expensive ones. Yesterday, Putin stunned workers at a factory in the town of Tula when he gave away his latest timepiece to a worker. Dressed in blue overalls, factory employee Viktor Zagaevsky approached Russia's tsar-like leader and asked him whether he might like to offer a memento. Apparently unable to think of an appropriate souvenir, Russia's premier swiftly took...

If his spokesman Dmitry Peskov is to be believed, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in his Valdai club discussions with foreign experts came out against both military action and against imposing further sanctions on Iran. The paradox here is that it was the Kremlin's decision not to support the UN Security Council proposal to impose new sanctions that pushed Washington, Israel, the Persian Gulf, and Europe closer to consensus on a military solution to Iran's nuclear crisis. By blocking sanctions, Moscow is trying to deprive the international community of any leverage against Tehran. In the short term, Moscow's approach is...

Dmitry Medvedev says he would not rule out running again for president in 2012 elections, keeping up the uncertainty about the future political intentions of Russia's ruling duo. Mr Medvedev's refusal to dismiss the idea of a second term came amid frenzied speculation about the intentions of strongman prime minister Vladimir Putin, who many believe is plotting a return to the Kremlim. "Some time ago I did not intend to stand for president," Mr Medvedev said today, referring to his emergence from relative obscurity to sweep the 2008 polls. "But fate worked out that way and therefore I'm not going...

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday criticized US dominance and asserted countries had a right to weigh in even on the domestic policy of a state whose actions affected the world. "We see more and more often how problems on the territory of one state acquire a global character," Medvedev said in an address to a conference in the central Russian city of Yaroslavl. "This happens immediately and incompetence and reluctance to solve one's own problems inflict a damage not only to your country but to a huge number of other countries." The Russian president lashed out at the "ill-thought...

My aunt is in town from Russia for a week or so. I spent sometime with her and my mom, her sister, over the weekend. She told me that she and her friends are all buzzing over an article in GQ Magazine that was less than flattering toward Vladimir Putin. The article is supposed to be scathing but that's not why many of her friends were buzzing.

In an act of publishing cowardice, Condé Nast has gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent Russians from reading a GQ article criticizing Vladimir Putin. As a public service, we're running it here and ask for your help in translating it.

The September issue of GQ carries an interesting article by Scott Anderson on the September 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow that left hundreds dead and led to Vladimir Putin's rise to power. The piece profiles former Russian FSB officer Mikhail Trepashkin and collects evidence suggesting that the bombings were perpetrated by the FSB rather than by Chechen terrorists.

Why? Because Russia said to. This is pathetic.

NOVO-OGARYOVO, Russia (Reuters) – Russia's Vladimir Putin on Friday gave his strongest indication yet that he may run again for the presidency at the next election in 2012. Ever since Putin's presidential term expired last year and he made way for his chosen successor Dmitry Medvedev, there has been speculation the move was only temporary. Putin, now serving as prime minister, remains extremely popular among Russian voters despite the economic downturn and he continues to dominate the political scene. Speaking to the Valdai discussion group of Russia experts, Putin said the transition at the top in 2007/8 had been a...

Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, has given his strongest signal yet that he may reassume the presidency at the next election in 2012 but said a final decision would be taken nearer the time. In comments that suggest he is actively considering a return to a job he held for eight years, Mr Putin said that he and Dmitry Medvedev, the sitting president, would decide the matter between them when the time came. "In 2012 we shall think together and take into account the realities of the time, our personal plans, the political landscape and we will take a decision,"...