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Pentagon officials are keeping an eye on a delivery by the Novosibirsk Aircraft Production Association in Russia of three new Su-34 “Fullback”, two-seat, fighter bombers last week. It is part of an effort to create an operational force of 24 aircraft by the end of 2010. Future goals are a complete air regiment of 44 aircraft by 2010 and a total force of 200 Su-34s by 2020. Borts 04 and 05 went to Lipetsk AB combat training center – Russia’s “Top Gun” school – which is 270 mi. southeast of Moscow. Their arrival was the subject of a Russian television...

The close relationship that once existed between Moscow and Pyongyang is a relic of the Cold War. In fact, there is reason to believe that the two neighbors now share little in common. Yet decades ago, the Soviets exercised tremendous influence over the North Korean regime, anecdotally evidenced by Kim Il-sung's fateful request to Josef Stalin asking to invade the South in 1950. Stalin, after much consternation, finally gave his approval.1 By deferring to Stalin, Kim Il-sung sought continued Soviet support, which he received for roughly 40 years until the breakup of the Soviet Union. In the early 1990s, however,...

The recent Bulava launch failure has implications for US-Russian arms control talks (EDM, December 17) and will determine whether the Russian defense industry is capable of delivering advanced weapons systems at qualitative levels competing with analogous systems produced abroad. The issue involves the quality of such systems, their relative costs, and the time for their research, development and deployment. This year the Russian defense ministry has selectively answered that question negatively and has bought advanced unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) from Israel and entered into discussions with France over the purchase of a Mistral-class amphibious assault ship, which so far has...

Growing up in the United States, I was incessantly bombarded by propaganda about the Reds, namely, Russia and China. They were the enemies of freedom, prosperity, progress, and capitalism. We, on the other hand, were the champions of liberty and free markets. Of course, there was more than a little bit of truth behind the propaganda. With mass-murdering leaders such as Stalin and Mao, Russia and China caused the deaths of tens of millions of innocent victims with 5-year plans and Great Leaps Forward, and those numbers are probably way too generous. There is no way to tell how many...

BEIJING - With 30,000 more United States troops on their way to Afghanistan, it is growing clearer that they will not suffice and that larger challenges loom. Afghanistan is also increasingly developing into a political proxy war between India and Pakistan. Pakistan, which backed the mujahideen against the Soviets in the 1980s and offered a safe haven and breeding ground to the Taliban in the 1990s, is now looking askance at the government of President Hamid Karzai in Kabul, which it sees as pro-India. Conversely, India has fond memories of the time when Kabul was firmly under Moscow's hands and...

Global Warming: Russian analysts accuse Britain's Meteorological Office of cherry-picking Russian temperature data to "hide the decline" in global temperatures. Is Copenhagen rooted in a single tree in Siberia? Michael Mann, a Penn State meteorologist, wrote in Friday's Washington Post that "stolen" e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit still don't alter the evidence for climate change. Mann, a creator of the discredited hockey-stick graph used in reports from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to show man-made warming, attacks climate skeptics, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, saying they "confuse the public." Chutzpah has been...

A giant triangular UFO was spotted hovering over the Kremlin in Moscow – in a film that has sent shockwaves throughout Russia. The flying object, which witnesses said could be up to a mile wide, was filmed by two amazed spectators – one at night from a car and another during the day. The hovering pyramid has been likened to Darth Vader’s Imperial Cruiser in Star Wars and has been showed repeatedly on Russian news channels. A clip of the UFO, which reportedly hovered over Moscow’s Red Square for hours, has become a Russian YouTube sensation. Nick Pope, who worked...

US-Russian nuclear arms reduction negotiators seem close to concluding a follow up strategic arms reduction treaty (START). The Russian press reports that Washington has agreed to serious concessions and that the new START treaty will be signed soon. The new verification measures will be less intrusive and “based on trust.” The US military control mission will be permanently removed from the Votkinsk missile factory in Udmurtia in the Urals. The US is reported to have agreed to allow Russia in the future to cipher telemetric data of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test launches. Both sides will be allowed 700 to...

Throughout the totalitarian West, the Marxist internationalist elites, while busily flooding their countries with tens of millions of third worlders, have introduced specific measures to keep the native populations down and in check. These measures have come in the form of hate crimes laws. The laws state that a crime is not just a crime if we can find a deeper motive, such as hate of a specific race, sex, religion or sexual orientation. Thus the Lords of Humanity have given themselves the power of God to know what is inside the hearts of men. In practical terms, what this...

WASHINGTON — Negotiations with Russia to replace an expired Cold War-era arms control treaty have bogged down and now appear unlikely to be concluded by the end of the year as the White House had hoped. As the two sides seek a breakthrough, President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, plan to discuss the nuclear negotiations in a meeting Friday on the sidelines of United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark. The two leaders are not expected to seal a deal. U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, say negotiations with...

A son in Putin's Yule stocking Last Updated: 1:33 PM, December 16, 2009 Posted: 11:50 PM, December 15, 2009 Vladimir Putin has a lot to celebrate this Christmas. Not only has the Russian strongman consolidated his control over the proletariat -- and all their oil and gas -- he's also been given his first son, sources say. Alina Kabaeva, the gorgeous, 26-year-old rhythmic gymnastics champion, recently gave birth to a boy in Moscow and named the baby Dimitry, a moniker he'll share with Putin's handpicked president, Dimitry Medvedev.

US officials said Thursday that US President Barack Obama and Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev plan to meet Friday

In Copenhagen the gathering of the International Church of Global Warming Moonbats is ignoring the Climategate scandal as they do their best to pass their agenda of transferring of income from the developed to the undeveloped world. While the Moonbats were playing a denial Climategate got much, much bigger. The Russians just dropped this huge bombshell just as the world’s big-shots are gathering in Copenhagen to discuss ways of carbon-taxing the developed world back into the stone-age. What the Russians found out is that Dr, Jones and the folks at CPU weren't using all the data from Siberia. In fact...

What is going on with Russia?

Vietnam aims to counter China with sub deal: analysts By Ian Timberlake (AFP) – 2 hours ago HANOI — Vietnam's major arms deal with Russia, reported to involve the purchase of six submarines, aims to bolster claims against China over potentially resource-rich islands in the South China Sea, analysts say. While much of Vietnam's military hardware is antiquated, it has decided to devote substantial resources to developing an underwater fleet as concerns mount over tensions with its giant neighbour over the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos, they say. "I think their primary rationale is to counteract the military build-up that the...

Russian Military Aircrew Numbers Tumble Alexey Komarov/Moscow Douglas Barrie/London Aircrew numbers in the Russian air force are to be cut by 40% as part of a program that will see the service adopt a revised operational-command structure by year-end. Col. Gen. Alexander Zelin, the air force chief, unveiled the far-reaching plan last summer with the aim of transforming his service into an agile force capable of dealing with more diverse types of threats. Zelin says the new structure will consist of operational commands, air force bases and aerospace defense brigades (to counter aircraft and missile threats). Existing air force and...

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen asked Russia on Wednesday to give the Western military alliance more help in Afghanistan but failed to get an immediate pledge of assistance from the Kremlin.

Climategate just got much, much bigger. And all thanks to the Russians who, with perfect timing, dropped this bombshell just as the world’s leaders are gathering in Copenhagen to discuss ways of carbon-taxing us all back to the dark ages. Feast your eyes on this news release from Rionovosta, via the Ria Novosti agency, posted on Icecap. (Hat Tip: Richard North) A discussion of the November 2009 Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, referred to by some sources as “Climategate,” continues against the backdrop of the abortive UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) discussing alternative agreements to replace the 1997...

Moscow, Russia (CNN) -- The remains of Adolf Hitler were burned in 1970 by Soviet KGB agents and thrown into a river in Germany on direct orders from the spy agency's chief, a top Russian security official said this week. The head archivist of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) -- the successor to the former Soviet Union's KGB -- confirmed for the first time the chain of events that led to the disposal of Hitler's body, and who ordered the operation, in an exclusive interview with Russia's Interfax news agency. Gen. Vasily Khristoforov told Interfax in an interview published Monday...

The newly re-elected president of Abkhazia, an unrecognized breakaway region of Georgia, Sergei Bagapsh will pay a visit to Turkey soon, citing the need to reach out to members of the Abkhaz diaspora currently living in the country. At a press conference following his landslide victory in the Abkhaz presidential elections, which Georgia labeled an “immoral comedy,” Bagapsh said he plans to make an informal trip to Turkey very soon. “I will have informal meetings with Turkish officials,” Bagapsh said. Abkhazia has been a battleground for Russia since the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia over the disputed region...

Bears have been spotted in Denmark. And these aren’t the friendly kind who are just looking for picnic baskets. As IBD predicted last week, Russia’s claim to mountains of carbon credits has proved to be a major stumbling block at the international climate talks in Copenhagen. As the AP notes, it has given Russia the rare chance to seize the moral high ground. ... Under the Kyoto treaty, that gives it claim to massive amounts of tradable carbon credits. Russia wants those credits rolled forward before it signs on to any new international carbon treaty. Other countries aren’t keen on...

Russian commercial aircraft manufacturer Irkut has selected an American engine (the Pratt & Whitney PW1000G) for its new twin engine MC-21 airliner. While Russia is competitive in building airframes, it still cannot yet match Western jet engine quality. This is critical, because Western engines use less fuel and are cheaper to maintain. These are decisive factors in the airline business. Russia continues to work at catching up in the high-end jet engine business. For military engines, you can sacrifice some fuel efficiency and reliability, to achieve equal performance. But this still makes your air force inferior (aircraft are unavailable more...

“A 538-yr tree-ring chronology and reconstruction of June temperatures were developed from living and dead Larix dahurica trees. The samples were obtained near the lower Lena River in northern Siberia. Dendrochronological techniques were used to estimate the ages of establishment and mortality of Larix dahurica on the presently treeless uplands and to determine the establishment dates of living trees in the lowlands. ………………………………… It was during the 19th century that the uplands lost much of their tree and soil cover. Recruitment of trees occurred in the lowlands during the 20th century, but trees have not been able to recolonize the...

<p>CHISINAU, Moldova — Dozens of people led by an Orthodox priest smashed a menorah in Moldova's capital, using hammers and iron bars to remove the candelabra during Hanukkah, officials said.</p> <p>The 1.5 meter(5-foot)-tall ceremonial candelabrum was retrieved, reinstalled and is now under police guard.</p>

The claim was both simple and terrifying: that temperatures on planet Earth are now ‘likely the highest in at least the past 1,300 years’. As its authors from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) must have expected, it made headlines around the world. Yet some of the scientists who helped to draft it, The Mail on Sunday can reveal, harboured uncomfortable doubts. In the words of one, David Rind from the US space agency Nasa, it ‘looks like there were years around 1000AD that could have been just as warm’. Keith Briffa from the University of East...

By ELLEN BARRY Published: December 13, 2009 MOSCOW — Voters in Abkhazia, the separatist enclave in Georgia, have re-elected President Sergei V. Bagapsh by a decisive margin, amid protests from the Georgian government that the vote was invalid. In final results of the Saturday vote announced on Sunday, Mr. Bagapsh won 59.4 percent of the vote, more than he needed to avoid a second round of voting. His closest rival among four other candidates, Raul Khajimba, a former agent in the Russian F.S.B. security service, trailed with 15.4 percent. Turnout was 73 percent, election officials said. Mr. Khajimba alleged widespread...

The latest test of Russia new Bulava SLBM (Sea Launched Ballistic Missile) was a spectacular failure. The test took place off the northern coast of Russia early on December 10th. The failure resulted in a brilliant light show, in the pre-dawn sky, that was visible to many in Norway. At first the Russians denied that the spectacular lights had anything to do with them. But within a day, they admitted it was Bulava failing its 13th flight test. Last August Russian political and military leaders became upset (make that VERY upset) at the inept development of the new Bulava missile....

Average Russian Is 8 Times Poorer Than Average European Economics / Russia Dec 13, 2009 - 10:54 AM By: Pravda The latest research indicated that the size of the average European’s savings account is seven times greater than that of the average Russian. It would seem that the reasons are obvious – Russians are seven times poorer than residents of the European Union. However, it’s only a part of the picture. Sociologists say that 70% of Russians do not have bank deposits and 50% of them have no savings at all. Therefore, the average Russian is 8 times poorer than...

...Yes, emails came from here - but we didn't do it, say Russians ...when the ‘warmest for 1,300 years’ claim was published in 2007 in the IPCC’s fourth report, the doubters kept silent. ... the full context of that ‘trick’ email, as shown by a new and until now unreported analysis by the Canadian climate statistician Steve McIntyre, is extremely troubling. ...Briffa changed the way he computed his data and submitted a revised version. This brought his work into line for earlier centuries, and ‘cooled’ them significantly ...‘Any scientist ought to know that you just can’t mix and match proxy...

So much for America getting all the oil it spent billions of dollars, and thousands of lives to "liberate." ----- By SINAN SALAHEDDIN (AP) – 10 hours ago BAGHDAD — A consortium led by Russia's private oil giant won the biggest prize of Iraq's second oil auction this year, nabbing a field initially promised them a decade ago by Saddam Hussein while other companies Saturday showed little interest in offerings outside the secure southern part of the country. Lukoil and Norway's Statoil ASA won rights to develop the 12.88 billion barrel West Qurna Phase 2 field in the Basra region,...

Russia's state repository will sell 30 tonnes of gold worth $1 billion to the central bank next week, a source at the body said on Friday, keeping the metal inside Russia after rethinking a plan to sell it on the market. Central banks worldwide are building up their gold reserves as the metal trades near record highs. Gokhran, the Russian repository, cancelled plans to sell the gold on the open market after information about the sale leaked. "The primary aim is to make sure this gold doesn't hit the market and influence prices," said Olga Okuneva, metals and mining analyst...

Just a day after a Russian rocket launch set off a spate of UFO sightings in Norway, yet another missile test created a similar sky show over the heart of Russia. Like Wednesday's launch of the submarine-based Bulava missile from the White Sea, Thursday's launch of the land-based Topol ballistic missile from the Kapustin Yar missile range on the lower Volga River sparked plenty of sightings. Reports came in from Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Ufa and other cities, said NBC News space analyst James Oberg. The rocket plume created a spiral pattern in the sky, though the pattern wasn't as striking as...

Russia plans to replace most of its older (Cold War era) ICBMs in the next five years. But all of these older missiles will not be retired until 2020. Currently, Russia has 538 ICBMs in service, 71 percent of them the most modern Topols (SS-25 and SS-27). Only 56 are the most modern, Topol-M design. About a dozen of these are the road-mobile versions, that avoid destruction in a first strike, by constantly moving around on the roads 200-300 kilometers northeast of Moscow. The 54 foot long transporter for these 46 ton missiles is a 16 wheel vehicle, using a...

Russia has reneged on an agreement to deliver a total of 10 kilograms of plutonium-238 to the United States in 2010 and 2011 and is insisting on a new deal for the costly material vital to NASA’s deep space exploration plans. The move follows the U.S. Congress’ denial of President Barack Obama’s request for $30 million in 2010 to permit the Department of Energy to begin the painstaking process of restarting domestic production of plutonium-238. Bringing U.S. nuclear laboratories back on line to produce the isotope is expected to cost at least $150 million and take six years to seven...

I look at the people who support the transformation of America in disbelief: They are destroying the very land that gave them so much opportunity. Groomed, well-fed and educated, comfortably living in a prosperous society, they need a mission to give meaning to their lives. These "fighters for the less-fortunate among us" glaze over the fact that hundreds of millions of people from around the world desperately try to come to this country for all it offers, regardless of their economic status, race, class, or gender. Immigrants rightly see this country as the best place to obtain a decent life...

USSR red army tanks graveyard— few km east of Kabul, Afghanistan When Russia left Afghanistan after the war, a lot of their equipment was left behind.

The submarine-based Bulava (Mace) missile has been billed as Russia's newest technological breakthrough to support its nuclear deterrent, but the repeated test failures are an embarrassment for the Kremlin. The missile failed in its 13th test on Wednesday morning, Russia's leading economic dailies Vedomosti and Kommersant reported on Thursday, quoting sources in the military-industrial complex. Hours later, the Defense Ministry admitted the failure, saying the launch had been made by the Dmitry Donskoi nuclear submarine from a submerged position in the White Sea. "It has been established ... that the missile's first two stages worked as normal, but there was...

Iran is already a nuclear weapons power, with externally-acquired nuclear weapons. Iran's present geo-strategic position is also transformed in importance by the end of the Great Game (or at least the component of it which began with the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813, transformed with the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, and arguably concluded with the new Russo-Iranian understandings of the past few years). ShareThis Effective 2010, Iran is part of the Russian-dominated Central Asian energy and strategic framework, as is Turkey. In a parallel, and overlapping, dynamic, the China-Iran historical link has returned to the fore, especially given the PRC's position...

Here is a CNN video report that says Russian officials claim they burned the body of Adolf Hitler in 1970 and threw the ashes in an East German river. In newly released details, the Russians claim they buried the body of Hitler and his wife Eva Braun on an East German Base where they remained until 1970, when the Russians turned the base over to the East Germans. They did not trust the East Germans not to make a shrine out of the graves, so they dug the bodies up and disposed of them. That is the Russian version of...

A mysterious blue spiral light that appeared in the skies above Norway was likely the result of a failed test launch of a jinxed new Russian missile, the UK’s Mail Online reported. Several newspapers in Moscow today ran a story explaining that the Bulava missile was test-fired from the Dmitry Donskoi submarine in the White Sea early on Wednesday but failed at the third stage. However, earlier reports from Moscow denied a missile launch yesterday and even early today there was no formal confirmation from the Russian Defense Ministry. Some speculators felt the lights were connected with the aurora borealis,...

Turns out they're not "out there" after all. Those UFO sighting in Norway this morning weren't actually UFOs -- just a Russian missile test gone wrong. The Russian Defense Ministry admitted today that its Bulava intercontinental missile failed a test launch, following reports of unusual lights in Norway that caused an influx of UFO sightings. Russia's submarine-based Bulava (Mace), which is designed to carry multiple warheads up to 5,000 miles, failed its 13th test launch, something Alexander Khramchikhin, chief analyst at the Institute of Military and Political Analysis in Moscow, called "a catastrophe." "Billions of dollars have been flushed down...

MOSCOW — Russia admitted on Thursday another failed test of its much-touted Bulava intercontinental missile, after unusual lights were spotted in Norway across the border from the launch site. The submarine-based Bulava (Mace) missile has been billed as Russia's newest technological breakthrough to support its nuclear deterrent, but the repeated test failures are an embarrassment for the Kremlin. The missile failed in its 13th test on Wednesday morning, Russia's leading economic dailies Vedomosti and Kommersant reported on Thursday, quoting sources in the military-industrial complex. Hours later, the Defense Ministry admitted the failure, saying the launch had been made by the...

It sounds like something from a James Bond movie: a massive satellite, the largest ever launched, equipped with a powerful laser to take out the American anti-missile shield in advance of a Soviet first strike. It was real, though—or at least the plan was. In fact, when Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev walked out of the October 1986 summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, because President Ronald Reagan wouldn't abandon his Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI, the Soviets were closer to fielding a space-based weapon than the United States was. Less than a year later, as the world continued to criticize Reagan for...

It sounds like something from a James Bond movie: a massive satellite, the largest ever launched, equipped with a powerful laser to take out the American anti-missile shield in advance of a Soviet first strike. It was real, though—or at least the plan was. In fact, when Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev walked out of the October 1986 summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, because President Ronald Reagan wouldn't abandon his Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI, the Soviets were closer to fielding a space-based weapon than the United States was. Less than a year later, as the world continued to criticize Reagan for...

Newly appointed Chief of Staff of the Russian Land Forces, Lieutenant-General Sergey Skokov, recently made a statement that caused a major sensation across the Russian Federation. Speaking about possible conflicts that Russia may face in the future, he outlined three distinct scenarios: fighting in the "western, southern" and eastern" directions...

SNIPPET: "Venezuela's Marxist leader, Hugo Chavez, is receiving "thousands" of reliable, accurate, and very portable Russian ground-to-air missiles as part of a military buildup supposedly in anticipation of an anticipated U.S. assault. Chavez knows that there is no chance that the Obama administration will launch an attack against his regime. The real reason for Chavez's missile purchase and his military buildup in general remains hidden and disturbing. Chavez states that he is enraged that neighboring Colombia is permitting the United States to use six bases on Colombian territory. The troops had been stationed in Ecuador, but were expelled that nation's...

MiG Corporation is 70 years old On December 8, the Russian aircraft corporation MiG, formerly called the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau, celebrates its 70th anniversary. MiG, one of the most popular Soviet aircraft brands, was known all over the world and came to symbolize just about any Soviet warplane, except long-range bombers, in the West during the Cold War. And in fact, MiG's glory was well-deserved. The MiG Design Bureau pioneered the development of post-war turbojet fighters in the Soviet Union. Its first jet fighter, the I-300 later designated the MiG-9 Fargo, performed its maiden flight on April 24, 1946 and...

Russia is negotiating a second weapons deal with Israel, purchasing unmanned spy planes valued at around $100 million, an Israeli defense source says. The new deal with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) would be worth about twice the size of an initial $50 million sale announced in April. "The Russians are going for a triple upgrade of their fleet and its capabilities," an unnamed Israeli source told Reuters on Monday. He added that the pact would also feature improved surveillance equipment on drones. IAI declined to comment. The war between Russia and Georgia in August 2008 has served to bring Israel's...

Russia has assured Iran it will honour a deal to supply the Islamic Republic with advanced S-300 air-defence missiles, Tehran's ambassador to Moscow said Friday. "We had heard reports that Russia would not deliver these systems to Iran, but we asked the Russian side and they denied it," Seyed Mahmoud Reza Sajadi told reporters in Moscow. "The delivery deadline has already passed, but the Russian side has cited technical problems which it is working to fix," he added. "We feel that this question will be resolved in the space of one to two months." The envoy's comments came after Iranian...

* Medvedev offers to help Afghan economy, military, police * Russia allows transit of military cargoes to Afghanistan (Adds quotes, background) ROME, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Russia is willing to do its part to help the United States and Europe achieve peace in Afghanistan, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday. "We are obliged to help in Afghanistan ... what the armies of the United States and Europe are doing (in Afghanistan) is peacekeeping. This is very important because a threat for all Europe came from Afghanistan," Medvedev said. Speaking at a news conference in Rome after meeting Italian Prime...