Free Republic

US army bases will appear on the Black Sea Coast – in Bulgaria and Romania. About $50 million will be assigned to build the base in Romania, and the Pentagon plans to spend $60 million more for the same purpose in Bulgaria. The Romanian base is expected to be put in operation in 2010, whereas the second one will most likely be launched in 2011 or 2012. Over 4,000 US military men are expected to serve at the two bases: 1,600 in Romania and 2,500 in Bulgaria. The authorities of the two nations expect that the US military men will...

Russia says it has no plan to restrict its military cooperation with Iran, stressing that Moscow would not allow "competitors a chance to take advantage of the situation". The announcement came one day after a source, quoted by Interfax news agency, claimed that the Russian government had not received any payments as it had not given its final approval for the sale of the S-300 missiles to Iran yet. However, Russia's Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation said in a statement that Moscow would fulfill its commitment according to its 'international obligations'. "The Russian Federation implements and plans to...

The scene could have come straight out of The Godfather. More than 1,000 mourners, mainly burly men wearing black leather jackets and chunky gold chains, gathered to pay their last respects to Vyacheslav Ivankov, Russia’s most notorious crime boss. Watched by police, the mourners placed elaborate wreaths beside the luxurious coffin, which was fitted with lights and air-conditioning. A gold-lettered card on one wreath read “From the Dagestani Bros”. Another came from “the Kazakh Bros”. The most conspicuous was sent “To our brother from Grandpa Khasan” — the nickname of a powerful mafia boss. Ivankov, 69, died of his wounds...

Hope this hasn't already been posted.

Enter the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations. This is anything but a minor ministry in the Russian government. Shoigu has essentially run the ministry since 1994. He is a member of the powerful and selective Russian Security Council -- a key advisory body to the Russian executive on national security -- and has roots in the foreign military intelligence directorate, better known as the GRU, which is one of the most powerful and shadowy institutions in Russia. The ministry is an unofficial wing of the GRU and an outgrowth of its activities. It handles more than natural emergencies: It is...

Twenty years later, historians still can't figure out why the West won.The Year That Changed the World: The Untold Story Behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall, by Michael Meyer, New York: Scribner, 272 pages, $26The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War, by James Mann, New York: Viking, 416 pages, $27.95 We don’t know the exact hierarchy of motives, but it is certain that Chris Gueffroy was willing to leave his family and friends to avoid conscription into the army. Considering the associated risks, it’s likely that the 20-year-old was also strongly motivated...

October 22, 2009, 0:00 a.m. The Kitty-Cat Who RoaredThe loud reformer Obama himself proves even emptier in his promises than Bush. By Victor Davis Hanson President Obama keeps roaring out deadlines like a lion — only later to meow like a little kitty. Remember, for example, how he bellowed to cheering partisan crowds that he would close down the detainment facility at Guantanamo within a year? The clock ticks — and Guantanamo isn’t close to being shut down. It once was easy for candidate Obama to deplore George W. Bush’s supposed gulag. Now it proves harder to decide between...

October 22, 2009, 0:00 a.m. Disconnecting the Dots An Afghanistan strategy is not enough. By Clifford D. May Don’t fault President Obama for reconsidering his strategy in Afghanistan. Fault him for reconsidering his strategy only in Afghanistan. Nearing the end of his first year in office, his administration has not yet developed a coherent and comprehensive plan to defend Americans from the movements, groups, and regimes that declare themselves our enemies, explicitly state their intentions — e.g. “A world without America�— and, unless we take steps to prevent it, will soon have nuclear capabilities to help them accomplish their...

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.

The case for supporting Georgia is fundamentally based on American ideals. "The leader of the free world does not abandon its friends," Mr. Bakradze told us. "American diplomacy is more than European-style realpolitik. Yours is a country of values. We share the same values. They are worth defending." "In the end, America stands for something," he said. We fervently hope that this is still true.

BELGRADE -- Russian Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu says that Serbia, as a part of Europe, will be part of a common European security concept. Sergei Shoigu (Beta, archive) He refused to get into details regarding the concept after his meeting with Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Da�ić, and advised journalists to them to ask Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who was in Serbia yesterday. “It is best to ask Medvedev about it, because he has discussed it several times, even in detail recently, so I would not like to give any misinformation on the issue,� Shoigu said. Da�ić added that the...

The United States on Tuesday sought to quell Russian concerns that new US missile defence facilities might be installed in Moscow's backyard, insisting that only NATO countries were being considered. US Assistant Defence Secretary Alexander Vershbow said in the Georgian capital that Washington was consulting only with members of the alliance after the United States scrapped a previous plan that had angered Russia. "We are not consulting with any non-NATO countries and we do not envisage the emplacement of elements of our new architecture on the territory of any non-NATO states," he told reporters. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov voiced...

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia—As an engineer pulls the throttle, villagers track side gawk at the bullet-shaped train as it gathers speed. Soon, forests and wooden shacks are a blur as a dashboard display reads 250 kilometers an hour (155 miles per hour). Ten years in the making, Russia's state-owned railway is testing eight aerodynamic trains that in December will rush travelers from here to Moscow in less than four hours. With fancy kitchens and leather seats in first class, the Sapsans (Russian for peregrine falcons) mark a change in Russia's egalitarian rail tradition. More broadly, though, Russia's new trains mirror a...

18.10.2009, 20.31 BELGRADE, October 18 (Itar-Tass) -- The October 20 visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Belgrade will have a historic significance for Serbia from the point of view of political and economic cooperation, Serbian Vice-Premier, Interior Minister and Cochair of the Serbian-Russian Intergovernmental Committee for Trade and Economic Cooperation Ivica Dacic said on Sunday. Medvedev will visit Serbia at the invitation of Serbian President Boris Tadic to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the Belgrade liberation from the Nazi. “The sides think alike about many important international problems, including the Kosovo status and preservation of Serbia’s territorial integrity,� Dacic...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8LHOdZGRdo

Just how can the dragonfly perform its energetically-demanding aerial acrobatics—flying backwards or forwards, fast, slow or hovering—and remain airborne for such extended periods? The answer, in part, is that it...

The naïveté of the Obama administration was on full display this past week after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s trip to Russia failed to drum up support for tough sanctions against Iran. Clinton and Obama had hoped that Russia would join the United States in bringing heavy pressure to bear to stop Tehran’s nuclear program. They had been led to believe as much just a few weeks ago by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. But Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Clinton that diplomacy needed to be given a chance to work and that sanctions would be “counterproductive.” Clinton was clearly disappointed...

WASHINGTON — With a key arms control treaty set to expire soon, the Obama administration is searching for ways to keep inspectors in Russia or else it risks losing American eyes on the world’s second most formidable nuclear weapons arsenal for the first time in decades. The administration has been negotiating a replacement for the pact, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or Start, which goes out of force on Dec. 5. But even if the talks produce a new agreement by then, the Senate and the Russian Parliament will not have time to ratify it before the old one expires...

Libya to buy Russian fighter jets: report (AFP) – 19 hours ago MOSCOW — Libya is planning to buy more than 20 Russian fighter jets in a billion-dollar arms deal with Moscow, the Interfax news agency reported on Monday, citing a military-diplomatic source. "Libya is planning to buy 12 to 15 Su-35 multipurpose fighters, four Su-30s and six Yak-130 combat training planes from Russia," the unnamed source was quoted as saying. The contracts could be signed at the end of this year or the beginning of 2010 and would have a total value of about one billion dollars (670 million...

Actual image of Cyclone Mark V engine. Company receives patent for its award-winning heat regenerative engine. Pompano Beach, FL – Cyclone Power Technologies has announced that Russia has granted the company a patent on its award-winning, heat regenerative external combustion engine. Russia initially issued a notice of allowance in January 2009, but this recent event marks the official approval and issuance of full patent protection for Cyclone's engine technology. Initially filed in 2005, the Russian patent is valid through September 2025. Cyclone has received many requests for information from companies in Russia, as well as other eastern European nations,...

Eight years into the war in Afghanistan: the most senior defence official running the conflict receives a letter from one of his officers. It is a depressing list of political and tactical failures. "We should honestly admit," he writes, "that our efforts over the last eight years have not led to the expected results. Huge material resources and considerable casualties did not produce a positive end result – stabilisation of military-political situation in the country. The protracted character of the military struggle and the absence of any serious success, which could lead to a breakthrough in the entire strategic situation,...

Moscow, October 17, Interfax ""A bag containing a Vepr hunter carbine, a Baikal handgun and 100-gram TNT mine with an electric detonator was found under reinforced concrete slabs at the church construction site," a source at law enforcement agencies told Interfax on Friday."

The Obama administration was elated a month ago when the Russian president said sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program could become "inevitable." Washington's reaction may have been significantly premature. Dmitry Medvedev's words were seen as a major Kremlin shift and one that would buttress U.S. attempts to combine renewed negotiations with Tehran and a united front that threatened Iran with punishing global sanctions for failure to come clean about its nuclear ambitions. The United States, Britain, France and Germany believe Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon behind the cover of what Tehran says is a program designed...

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...

If only the world matched President Obama’s rosy image of it. Perhaps then pre-emptive concessions to other nations, in the hope of prompting reciprocation, might make sense. Alas, the world doesn’t work that way. And nothing demonstrates this more than Moscow’s increasingly problematic position on Iran, despite the White House’s “goodwill.” This sorry lesson began last month, when the president unilaterally scrapped plans to deploy an Eastern European missile-defense shield meant to take out incoming Iranian missiles. The decision broke a Bush administration pledge to US allies in Poland and the Czech Republic. But Obama officials spun it as a...

Moscow Mayor Promises a Winter Without SnowBy SIMON SHUSTER Sat Oct 17, 9:15 am ET Pigs still can't fly, but this winter, the mayor of Moscow promises to keep it from snowing. For just a few million dollars, the mayor's office will hire the Russian Air Force to spray a fine chemical mist over the clouds before they reach the capital, forcing them to dump their snow outside the city. Authorities say this will be a boon for Moscow, which is typically covered with a blanket of snow from November to March. Road crews won't need to constantly clear the...

A Taliban victory would have devastating consequences for U.S. interests. But to avoid disaster, America must beware the Soviet Union’s mistakes -- and learn from its own three decades of failure in South Asia. The United States has two compelling interests at issue in the Afghan conflict. One is the ongoing, increasingly successful but incomplete effort to reduce the threat posed by al Qaeda and related jihadi groups, and to finally eliminate the al Qaeda leadership that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks. The second is the pursuit of a South and Central Asian region that is at least stable...

The defeat of communism 20 years ago was the most liberating moment in history. So why don't we talk about it more? On August 23, 1989, officials from the newly reformed and soon-to-be-renamed Communist Party of Hungary ceased policing the country's militarized border with Austria. Some 13,000 East Germans, many of whom had been vacationing at nearby Lake Balaton, fled across the frontier to the free world. It was the largest breach of the Iron Curtain in a generation, and it kicked off a remarkable chain of events that ended 11 weeks later with the righteous citizen dismantling of the...

This picture of a donut-shaped cloud in the skies above Moscow has the internet world buzzing. Millions witnessed an ominous ring-shaped cloud appear over Moscow's western districts, prompting citizens to stop in their tracks to record the phenomenon and put it on YouTube. Some think it's a UFO. Others say it must have been photo-shopped or digitally enhanced. But now a spokesperson with the Moscow weather department says the explanation is quite simple. They say the formation is a cloud formed by an intrusion of arctic air and the sun shining from the west.

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...

A military delegation from Iraq will visit Moscow in the near future to discuss the purchase of Russian weaponry, an Iraqi parliament member has said. "A large delegation from the Iraqi Defense Ministry will travel soon to Moscow for talks on arms purchases [from Russia]," Abbas al-Bayati said in an interview with the Al Iraqiya television. According to the Iraqi MP, Baghdad is seeking to sign arms contracts with Russia, Germany, France, Serbia and the United States by the end of 2011 "to complete the creation of Iraqi Armed Forces and security forces." Al-Bayati said the Iraqi leadership is interested...

Washington is "concerned"

Policies pursued by Turkey regarding the Georgian separatist regions are viewed as pro-Russian, according to Russian and Turkish academics who participated in a workshop in Istanbul on Tuesday. The relationship between Moscow and Tbilisi deteriorated sharply in July and August, with each side trading fresh threats of hostilities. Moscow quickly exploited its victory in the August war with Georgia by recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent and deploying thousands of troops to the area. With the situation still tense, experts expect discussions to yield few results. The visit of a Turkish diplomat to Abkhazia means that Turkey will recognize...

KAZAN, Russia — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday visited Kazan, the capital of Russia's predominantly Muslim Tatarstan region, lauding it as an example of multi-ethnic tolerance and peace. .... Over half of the region's population are Tatars, a Muslim Turkic people who live alongside a large ethnic Russian Orthodox Christian population and other minorities. Clinton, donning a yellow headscarf and taking off her shoes in line with Islamic custom, visited the gigantic Kul Sharif mosque in the Kazan Kremlin alongside the regional leader Mintimer Shaimiyev. "You are well known as someone who has fostered religious tolerance. It's...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian court on Friday jailed a Serbian national for eight years for attempting to pass secrets about Russian missile and other defense projects to a Pentagon intermediary, Interfax news agency reported on Friday. Aleksandar Georgijevic took his orders from a U.S. citizen who worked for a firm acting on behalf of the U.S. Department of Defense, Interfax reported. In 1998, Georgijevic attempted to collect information on a number of Russian military projects, including the Iskander tactical missiles and the R-500, a supersonic cruise missile. But only information on the "Arena" tank protection system was passed on...

--snip--The Russian leadership, hardly believing its luck, needs no interpreter to understand that when the Obama team clownishly rushes in bearing gifts and "reset" buttons, there is nothing ulterior, diabolical, clever or even serious behind it. It is amateurishness, wrapped in naivete, inside credulity. In short, the very stuff of Nobels.

An American company is offering two Su-27 fighters, for the bargain price of $5 million each. The aircraft are demilitarized, but recently refurbished. Since the refurbishment, the aircraft have been in the air only 16 hours, and the engines only have 19 hours of use. The aircraft were purchased, from Ukraine, last year by an American firm (Tac Air), to assist the U.S. Air Force is determining how the Su-27 performs. This work is apparently done, and now the Su-27s are no longer needed. The electronics are up to date, and qualified maintenance services are available, in Nevada (where Tac...

The government is very touchy about its nuclear weapons, apparently because it's only the nukes that can dissuade a foreign nation threatening invasion. The Russian armed forces can do it, as it has shrunk 80 percent since the end of the Cold War in 1991, and fallen apart as well. Lack of money means that Russian military technology has not kept up. This includes the nuclear weapons. While Russia got the new Topol M ICBM into service since 1991, this was a Cold War era project, meant to replace the older, and much less effective and reliable ICBMs. But while...

President Barack Obama's name was spelt wrongly in an official release from the White House. Following President Obama's trip to Russia, an official release touting the agreement between the US president and President Dmitry Medvedev over how to craft a follow-up to the START arms reduction treaty was put out. But the White House claimed the document had been signed by one "Barak Obama" - missing the 'c' from his first name. Russian and American negotiators salvaged the summit by agreeing the text of a preliminary deal on nuclear disarmament, deflecting fears that the most important element of Mr Obama's...

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...

Vlad "the poisoner" Putin isn't such a tough guy after all. He's a sucker for Russian power and glory. That is why he has just proclaimed that it's OK for Ahmadinejad and the Twelver Suicide Cult of Tehran to have nuclear weapons. Putin is a fool. Like all the Soviet leaders, he is going to end up harming his nation to pursue his own grandiosity. The Russian inferiority complex is a cliché of European history. It has always existed, but it is often dated back to Peter the Great, who tried desperately to bring Imperial Russia into the 17th century....

Scott is on record as believing that he is; I have reserved judgment. President Obama's apparently unilateral concession to Russia in abandoning our anti-missile defense system in central Europe, with no publicly-acknowledged quid pro quo, may support the view that in international relations, at least, Obama is a fool. But we need to be fair here: it is possible that this seemingly unilateral giveaway was, in fact, a bargain, and that Obama got something from the Russians, presumably in relation to Russia's client Iran, that has not yet become public. So this report on Hillary Clinton's trip to Russia is...

Among the training regimes that Russian cosmonauts pass before being admitted into orbit is the shooting range. The reason is that they must learn how to use a special three-barreled gun found on every Soyuz spacecraft.

Russia and the United States have tentatively agreed to a weapons inspection program that would allow Russians to visit nuclear sites in America to count missiles and warheads.

Russia in a new review of its policy on use of nuclear weapons will reserve the right to undertake a pre-emptive strike if it feels its security is endangered, a senior Kremlin official told a Russian newspaper. Russian and U.S. negotiators are in talks to find agreement on a new bilateral pact cutting stocks of strategic nuclear weapons. Both sides are working to a December deadline for a new treaty to replace the landmark Cold War-era START pact. While Moscow and Washington have made progress in strategic nuclear arms talks, Russia's security may come under threat from regional conflicts and...

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...

BEIJING, October 14 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia does not object to selling energy resources to China for roubles, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said. “We discussed the possibility of using our national currency in bilateral settlements between Russia and China, and our energy companies raised this issue, even Gazprom. In principle, we do not object to considering the possibility of selling our energy resources for roubles,” Putin told journalists after the end of his official visit to China on Wednesday. “But this mean that our Chinese partners should have those roubles … We are even ready to buy something for yuan, but...

Washington will tone down its criticism of Russia's human rights record in order to win Kremlin backing for possible sanctions against Iran, it has been claimed. It is the latest in a number of concessions the US has made to Moscow in order to improve relations and encourage co-operation on international issues. The plan emerged as Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, visited Russia to discuss a range of issues including Iran's rogue nuclear programme. Mrs Clinton's trip was part of what Washington is calling a "reset" with Moscow, a new more constructive relationship with the Kremlin that President...

Russia and the United States have tentatively agreed to a weapons inspection program that would allow Russians to visit nuclear sites in America to count missiles and warheads. The plan, which Fox News has learned was agreed to in principle during negotiations, would constitute the most intrusive weapons inspection program the U.S. has ever accepted....