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The world enters 2009 with Russia in play in a way it hasn't seen in decades. The relevant comparison isn't 1998, when the Russians engaged in default and devaluation but remained within the bounds of their existing political and economic system (as Lenin said, two steps forward, one step back). The history to consider is 1989--as key aspects of the Russian system could change for the worse. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin certainly isn't a risk taker. The carefully managed "transition" to President Dmitry Medvedev and the extension of presidential terms to six years underscore that Putin prefers to leave...

LONDON - Russian billionaire and former KGB spy Alexander Lebedev is trying to buy London's Evening Standard newspaper, British media outlets reported Thursday. > He also is part owner of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, one of the few media outlets critical of the Russian government.

If Russia was supposed to shut off the natural gas supply to Ukraine in a pricing dispute that is a repeat of what happened three-years ago, why is it that gas was also turned off in Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Austria, the Czech Republic and Greece? It does not really matter that gas will start flowing again soon. Europe’s dependence on a country that is willing and -- especially, is able -- to push it into freezing cold and darkness, is the crux of the issue. Russia relishes that role. And, the ongoing gas dispute with Ukraine and last summer’s invasion...

Russian gas flow to Austria plunges 90 percent Tue Jan 6, 2009 9:14am GMT FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Russian gas flows to Austria dropped 90 percent on Tuesday amid a dispute between Moscow and Ukraine, oil and gas group OMV said, but added it was using its natural gas reserves to cover the shortfall. Russia cut off supplies to Ukraine on January 1 over debts, pledging supplies to western Europe would be safeguarded, but some southern and eastern European countries have seen flows fall or stop. OMV said it had been informed by its Russian partners that gas supplies would fall...

Hungary says Russian gas supplies via Ukraine stopped Tue Jan 6, 2009 10:06pm IST BUDAPEST, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Russian gas shipments via Ukraine to Hungary halted on Tuesday and the Hungarian government said it would ask some power plants to switch to alternative fuel by 1000 GMT on Wednesday. "I would like to inform you that gas shipments from Ukraine continuously declined today and at 1430 GMT they completely stopped," Transport and Energy Minister Csaba Molnar told a news conference. The government would consider freeing up strategic gas reserves and make a decision on Wednesday morning if necessary, he...

Europe has been plunged into an energy crisis after Vladimir Putin ordered Russia's state-run gas company to cut supplies by 20 per cent... As temperatures dropped below zero across much of Europe, the Russian prime minister instructed the head of Gazprom: "Cut it - starting today." The cut was ordered to punish neighbouring Ukraine, which Russia accuses of topping up its own gas supply by siphoning off energy meant for European consumers and sent through its pipelines. without paying Russia.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's military leaders approved a plan by the navy on Sunday to station warships permanently in friendly ports across the globe. Underfunded since the 1991 break up of the Soviet Union , the Russian navy has been reasserting itself over the last year by chasing Somali pirates around the coast of east Africa and steaming across the Atlantic to visit allies in South America. "The General Staff has given its position on this issue and it fully supports the position of the (Navy's) main committee," deputy chief of staff Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn told RIA Novosti news agency....

Greece's armed forces national defence general staff (GEEThA) on Friday announced that the Russian aircraft carrier "Adm. Kuznetsov", currently sailing in the southeastern Mediterranean, has requested use of areas within the Athens Flight Information Region (FIR) in order to conduct aeronautical exercises. Greece's Civil Aviation Authority (YPA) approved the request, with the Russian air/sea exercises scheduled to take place southeast of the major Dodecanese island of Rhodes on Jan. 3, 4, 8 and 10, and south of the large island of Crete on Jan. 11, a GEEThA announcement stated.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's president said Wednesday he hopes his country will be able to develop better ties with the United states under Barack Obama's administration. President Dmitry Medvedev said the two countries have tried to improve ties...

The Russian military will commission 70 strategic nuclear missiles over the next three years, a senior government official said Monday, according to Russian news agencies. The statement by Vladislav Putilin, a deputy head of the Cabinet's military-industrial commission in charge of weapons industries, indicates the government's intention to significantly increase the tempo of rearming Russia's Strategic Missile Forces. Putilin, who spoke after a government session chaired by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that discussed the weapons purchases, said the Cabinet has decided to spend about 4 trillion rubles, or $141 billion, on new weapons over the next three years, Interfax and...

TBILISI (Reuters) – Georgia said on Saturday hundreds of Russian soldiers had moved into a disputed Georgian village near breakaway South Ossetia and had pushed out Georgian police, fuelling fears of confrontation. A regional police official and an interior ministry spokesman said between 500 and 600 Russian soldiers were in the village of Perevi, close to the de facto border with the region.

MOSCOW, December 12 (Itar-Tass) - Russia and China are launching a new stage of military cooperation, with an emphasis on high technologies, director of Russia's Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation Mikhail Dmitriyev said, in comments on the 13th session of the Russian-Chinese intergovernmental commission for military cooperation, which took place in Beijing on Thursday. The parties agreed to begin joint development of new high-tech military products, according to Dmitriyev.

KIEV, Ukraine — With the Ukrainian government reeling from a financial crisis and internal power struggles, the country’s pro-Russian opposition has been leveling potentially damaging accusations of improper arms sales to Georgia during that country’s brief war with Russia. And Russia’s leaders, furious with Ukraine’s president over his pro-Western leanings and vocal support of Georgia, have personally weighed in, making accusations of their own. It may not matter that the opposition has provided no conclusive evidence of the claims, despite weeks of pronouncements that the evidence — once released — will be explosive. The claims alone, which have made headlines,...

MOSCOW, November 24 (RIA Novosti) - A leading Russian political analyst has said the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the country is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts. Professor Igor Panarin said in an interview with the respected daily Izvestia published on Monday: "The dollar is not secured by anything. The country's foreign debt has grown like an avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This...

HAVANA (Reuters) – Russia welcomes a decision by the U.S. government to back away from granting fast-track NATO membership to ex-Soviet republics Georgia and Ukraine at the alliance's summit later this month, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday. "I am satisfied common sense prevailed," he told reporters during a visit to Havana. "Whatever the reasons, European pressure or whatever else, the main thing is that they (Washington) no longer push ahead with their previous ferociousness and senselessness."

HAVANA (Reuters) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met former Cuban leader Fidel Castro on Friday as Moscow rebuilt ties with an old Cold War ally during a trip to strengthen its political and economic clout in Latin America. The meeting came at the end of Medvedev's tour of the region, which has been seen as an attempt by Russia to taunt Washington in its traditional backyard as well as boost Moscow's trade with the region. "This has been a great visit, a magnificent visit, and now he is going to see Fidel," Cuban President and Fidel's brother, Raul Castro, told...

Shadow World:  Resurgent Russia, The Global New Left, and Radical Islam By Robert Chandler Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2008 622 pp., $29.95 The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 is viewed by the West as the end of the Cold War and the death knell for Communism. In reality, Communists continued to push for the same ultimate goal -- creating a socialist world order -- but their violent Marxist-Leninist revolutionary tactics were supplanted by an insidious cultural Marxism. Today, that push has evolved into a Moscow-led,  global strategic quadrangle consisting of Russia, China, Iran and a collection of Latin...

WASHINGTON – Senior military leaders took the exceptional step of briefing President Bush this week on a severe and widespread electronic attack on U.S. Defense Department computers that might have originated in Russia, posing unusual concern among commanders and potential implications for national security.

PORT OF LA GUAIRA, November 27 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia will continue military cooperation with Venezuela in order to preserve stability in the Caribbean, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday. “We are grateful for the friendly attitude to the Russian Fleet and the Russian Armed Forces,” Medvedev told Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez during a visit to the Russian naval ship The Admiral Chabanenko. “The Russian-Venezuelan naval exercise is a measure that enhances stability in the region and the world over.”

The Russians have started the push that might come to shove and the heat has been turned up on Barack Obama. Because of the sagging price of oil, the Russians have to do something or watch their country slip into anarchy. They need a crisis to move oil prices back up and Cuba is a very handy place to ferment one. They are probing Obama for weakness with President Dmitry Medvedev’s just concluded four country visit to South America. He stopped in Peru and Brazil but his real targets were Venezuela and Guantanamo Cuba. In oil rich Venezuela Medvedev talked...

Russia to help Venezuela develop nuclear energy By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER, Associated Press Writer Christopher Toothaker, Associated Press Writer 1 min ago LA GUAIRA, Venezuela – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to help start a nuclear energy program in Venezuela and said Moscow is willing to participate in a socialist trade bloc in Latin America led by President Hugo Chavez. Medvedev used his visit to Venezuela — the first by a Russian president — to extend Moscow's reach into Latin America and deepen trade and military ties. Chavez denied trying to provoke the United States, but he welcomed Russia's growing presence...

LIMA -- Chinese President Hu Jintao said Sunday that China and Russia should strengthen strategic coordination at a time when the global political and economic structures are undergoing the most profound changes since the end of the Cold War. Hu made the remarks at a meeting with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on the sidelines of the 16th Economic Leaders' Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Lima, Peru. China and Russia should make concerted efforts to overcome the impact of the ongoing global financial crisis, maintain the sound momentum of their economic growth, and push ahead with...

Keep missile shield out of Poland, Czech Republic, Obama warned By Moscow correspondent Scott Bevan Posted 9 hours 26 minutes ago Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has warned the President-elect Barack Obama that Moscow will respond if he pushes on with plans for a missile defence system in Europe. Speaking at a human rights law conference in St Petersburg, Mr Putin has said the US plan for the missile defence shield is aimed at Russia's strategic potential. Russia can only give the project an adequate response, the Prime Minister added. Mr Putin has urged Mr Obama to drop the plan...

HAVANA — Russia's president visited old Cold War ally Cuba on Thursday after meeting with his nation's new friends in Latin America in a tour aimed at reviving relationships that have frayed since the Soviet Union's collapse. Dmitry Medvedev arrived in Havana from Venezuela, where he met with socialist President Hugo Chavez and agreed to help the oil-rich South American country start a nuclear energy program. Russian officials deny that Medvedev's trip to Latin America — traditionally considered in the U.S. sphere of influence — is meant to provoke the United States, but the voyage included meetings with Washington's staunchest...

MOSCOW: Russia on Wednesday successfully test-fired for the third time its new RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile, designed to counter air defence systems like the controversial US missile shield. The missile was fired from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in north Russia and hit targets on the Kamchatka Peninsula that juts into the Pacific Ocean 6,000 kilometres to the east, Russian news agencies reported. "The targets that were set were reached. The tasks were fully carried out," the commander of Russia's strategic missile forces, Nikolai Solovtsov, was quoted as saying by Interfax. "The deployment of the RS-24 missiles, which have a detachable warhead,...

Georgian Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili said Wednesday that Russian forces were erecting a "Berlin Wall" as part of a campaign to cut off rebel regions from the rest of the country. Russia is trying to divide Abkhazia and South Ossetia from the rest of Georgia, she said in a speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies think-tank in London. Tkeshelashvili said Russia was building a wall at Zugdidi, a city at the Abkhaz border. "Russia physically destroys physical links between the regions of Georgia," she said. "It is blowing up bridges in Gali region so that it is harder...

Poland, Georgia fates linked vs Russia--Kaczynski 26 Nov 2008 14:31:10 GMT Source: Reuters WARSAW, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Poland must stand firm with Georgia in its conflict with Russia because the two countries' fates are intertwined, the leader of Poland's main opposition party and twin brother of its president said on Wednesday. Jaroslaw Kaczynski was defending a decision by Polish President Lech Kaczynski to join Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili on a trip last Sunday to the de facto border between Georgia and breakaway South Ossetia, which is backed by Moscow. The two presidents' convoy came under fire in an incident...

Russian NO to Katyn massacre victims 25.11.2008 The Municipal Court in Moscow has dismissed a legal complaint filed by families of Polish officers murdered in Katyn in 1940 concerning the rehabilitation of the victims. Thus the October verdict of the lower Regional Court has been upheld. Russian lawyers representing the Katyn victims’ families have complained against proceedings of the Supreme Military Prosecutors Office which denied the rehabilitation of the murdered Polish officers on grounds of incomplete records contained in Russian military archives. Attorney Anna Stawicka said her clients would be filing the case with the European Human Rights Tribunal in...

"...It takes some doing to keep up with the financial meltdown that has been wrought in Russia by the misguided policies of the nation’s dictator, Vladimir Putin. At the end of the week, Reuters reported that the Putin regime had squandered a breathtaking $58 billion in September and October alone defending the value of the Russian ruble. Another $14 billion had been washed down the rathole of the regime’s efforts to bail out its corrupt and decrepit banking system, bringing the total to a stunning $72 billion before even considering the vast undisclosed amounts being spent to prop up the...

A disaster awaits us, one more devastating and detrimental to our existence than anything we have before encountered. While Obama sits in Chicago picking over the rancid carcass of the Clinton administration in hopes of finding another stooge to fill his cabinet, to our south a storm is brewing. The Russian Bear, now fully awakened from its decades long hibernation, is once again seeking to extend its influence and military might into the western hemisphere. The danger we face from the sinful alliance between the Russians and that criminal Chaves poses a threat not only to US hegemony in our...

On Nov. 6, in a long expository article, The New York Times informed us that, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Tbilisi had (a) initiated the hostilities and (b) done so with indiscriminate bombing of the South Ossetian capital without regard to civilian casualties--despite Georgian claims to the contrary. All sides consider the OSCE to be a highly dependable, impartial, monitoring body with long experience in the region. Whatever the BBC is pretending to report there, their subtext sneaks through loud and clear--Georgia invaded first. If Georgia invaded first, Russia was provoked, Russia could not...

Venezuela will keep buying weapons from Russia, China and Belarus in the next five years to build up “a sufficient force” to defend its oil reserves from countries like the United States, Operations Command chief Jesus Gonzalez said in an interview last week. “The enemies of Venezuela are all those who want to set up here. I don't doubt that the United States wants to come to look for oil. We have to be prepared: 'If you want peace, prepare for war,’'' said General Gonzalez, who oversees weapon procurement for the Venezuelan armed forces. Even with new president-elect Barack Obama,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite objections by Russia, the outgoing head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency urged President-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday to stick to the Bush administration's plans to place missile defenses in Eastern Europe. Dropping the planned installation of missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic "would severely hurt" U.S. ability to protect against Iran's growing missile force, said Lt. Gen. Henry Obering of the Air Force. It would also undermine U.S. leadership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which fears "an emerging threat from Iran that must be addressed," he told reporters in a teleconference. Obering,...

Moscow, Nov 12: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said Cuba is one of Russia's key partners in Latin America, while announcing a renewal of economic ties and the visit to Moscow next year of Cuban leader Raul Castro, EFE reported Wednesday. "Cuba has been and is one of our key partners in Latin America," Medvedev said after receiving Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque. Medvedev announced Russia's intention to increase its political and trade relations with Cuba, a country almost forgotten by the Kremlin in the decade after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

MINSK, Belarus -- President Alexander Lukashenko is in talks with Moscow about placing in Belarus advanced Iskander missiles that could hit targets deep inside Europe. President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, left, who met Oct. 26 near Moscow with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev The talks raise the ante in the debate over a U.S. plan to deploy missile defense in Europe. They also complicate Western hopes for warmer ties with Belarus, which some in the U.S. and Europe hope could help to counterbalance an increasingly hostile Kremlin. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Lukashenko said that he would...

The Gathering Storm in the Caribbean   By Kathy ShaidleFrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, November 13, 2008 Like Russian military invasions and a one-party government in Moscow, the Russo-Cuban alliance is one of those Cold War relics currently making a comeback. In sign of a reinvigorated alliance between the two former allies, the Kremlin announced on Tuesday that Cuban President Raul Castro will visit Russia in 2009. Castro’s Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, called the visit “another contribution to the development of ties” between Cuba and Russia. Those ties, he said, “are developing in a very dynamic way.”“Dynamic” is a fitting word...

Modern Russia is built on Black Sea oil. Russia was never any good at producing consumer goods so she has evolved into a major oil exporter since the Soviet Union collapsed. Russia absolutely depends on oil money. With help from America’s Democrats Russia has become a wealth parody of everything the old Russia pretended not to be. New millionaires are partnering with Russia’s criminal class that has always been a part of life on Moscow’s streets. They have become rich on the oil they could sell at twice its actual price thanks to the Democrats’ insistence upon putting caribou ahead...

A Russian scholar is predicting that the United States' current financial crisis will lead to the breakup of the country. Igor Panarin, a professor at the diplomatic academy of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told the newspaper Izvestia on Monday that America will break apart into six regions following the crisis. "Dissatisfaction is growing, and it is only being held back at the moment by the elections, and the hope that [President-elect] Obama can work miracles," according to a translation by Bloomberg. "But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

MOSCOW (AP) — India's navy was supposed to lease the brand-new Russian nuclear submarine that suffered an accident over the weekend which killed 20 people, news reports said Monday. An Indian naval spokesman would not comment Monday on leasing this or any submarine from Russia — but his boss has said previously that India was interested... Full read... http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j3kNPOn62KBcB4-4G9VnNlTG2KgwD94C3TMG0

Security: As Russian warships steam into Venezuelan waters, the show is dismissed by some as rust-bucket bravado. But for all its navy's flaws, Russia's maneuvers herald challenges to the U.S. — and not just in Venezuela.Russian warships from its Northern Fleet reached the Venezuelan port of La Guaira in a first 15,000-mile global journey in decades. Led by the missile cruiser Peter the Great, and conducting live-fire exercises, it's the first Russian demonstration of force in waters adjacent to our own shores in 20 years. The White House downplayed it, and the State Department said they don't view the maneuver...

DMITRY Medvedev, the Russian president, looks to have committed a strategic blunder by sending Barack Obama a message on his election day threatening the deployment of nuclear missiles to Kaliningrad. On an occasion, when even America's twin nemeses, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, sent telegrams of good wishes, Mr Medvedev's act stood out. The truth is that the Obama administration, facing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the nuclear ambitions of Iran has assigned Russia a low priority.

The president-elect is caught between bellicose threats from Moscow and hawks at home. Russia didn't waste any time in putting President-elect Barack Obama on notice. A day after the election, President Dmitry Medvedev renewed Russian warnings that he would base short-range Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, on the border of Poland, if the U.S. proceeds with plans to base a missile defense system in Europe, with the hardware in Poland and the Czech Republic. And this week, the Kremlin rejected new proposals put forward by the Bush administration to assuage concerns that the system could be used to neutralize Russia's nuclear...

After Barack Obama's election win, Kremlin officials argued over whether Russian President Dmitry Medvedev should congratulate him with a warm, handwritten letter or an impersonal note, according to one analyst. Russia's intense dislike of U.S. policies and its resolve to stand up to them are not in doubt but the anecdote illustrates a dilemma the Kremlin is wrestling with about what tactics to use in dealing with an Obama White House. Do they pile on the pressure to force him to drop disputed projects like the missile defense system in Europe, or take a more conciliatory tone, hoping that if...

Russia will offer to share its air defence expertise with Cuba when a military delegation visits the Caribbean island this week, Interfax news agency reported on Monday. "The Russian and Cuban military will exchange experience in organising tactical air defence and in training officers," Interfax quoted Russian Land Forces spokesman Igor Konashenkov as saying. The two sides will "discuss the prospect of training Cuban servicemen at the tactical air defence academies and training centres in Russia, using upgraded Russian-made military hardware," Interfax quoted him as saying. The delegation, led by the chief of Russia's tactical air defence headquarters, Lieutenant General...

resident Dmitry Medvedev is to visit Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez has been cultivating stronger military and economic relations with Russia. Stops in Brazil and Cuba are also planned. By Chris Kraul November 15, 2008 Reporting from Bogota, Colombia -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev plans to travel this month to Venezuela, Brazil and Cuba to strengthen regional ties, a tour that underscores a foreign policy challenge close to home that awaits the Obama administration. Medvedev's visit to Venezuela comes as Russia and the Latin American nation strengthen their economic and military relationship. In July, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a strident...

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, arriving in Washington for international economic talks, Saturday struck a conciliatory tone toward the United States and expressed hope that President-elect Barack Obama will help improve the deteriorating U.S.-Russian relationship. Medvedev, who spoke defiantly of the United States hours after Obama was elected, told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington that Russia believes Obama will act to overcome problems that have been accumulating in the relationship between the two countries. He said he believed that a meeting with Obama should take place soon, and felt that Obama shared that view. Obama has...

A spy at the heart of Nato may have passed secrets on the US missile shield and cyber-defence to Russian Intelligence, it has emerged. Herman Simm, 61, an Estonian defence ministry official who was arrested in September, was responsible for handling all of his country's classified information at Nato, giving him access to every top-secret graded document from other alliance countries. He was recruited by the Russians in the late 1980s and has been charged in Estonia with supplying information to a foreign power. Several investigation teams from both the EU and Nato, under the supervision of a US officer,...

Venezuelan President says the agreement for the Humberto Fernandez Moran Nuclear Facility will be signed when Russian President Medvedev visits Venezuela accompanied by a Russian fleet of warships next week. Chavez also revealed that Russian nuclear technicians are already at work in Venezuela. CARACAS -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said that his country and Russia intend to build a nuclear reactor in the oil-rich state of Zulia. "A nuclear reactor, to produce energy for peaceful purposes, will soon be built in the state of Zulia and named in honor of the Venezuelan scientist of the last century Humberto Fernandez Moran,"...

Russia's banal reality lies in between energy superpower and bankrupt state Russia has been losing $10bn in foreign reserves a week since it snatched South Ossetia and ramped up the new Cold War with nuclear threats. By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Last Updated: 3:47PM GMT 17 Nov 2008 A fifth of the Kremlin’s fire-fighting fund has gone before the economic crisis even starts. Would the Medvedev-Putin duo have provoked the West so nonchalantly had they known that global recession would soon cut the price of Urals crude oil to $49.35 a barrel, knocking away the chief prop of Kremlin finance and Russian...

I shot down McCain A retired Red Army Lieutenant who fought in Vietnam has confessed to shooting down the plane of defeated presidential candidate, John McCain. Colonel Yuriy Trushechkin told Russia’s Moskovsky Komsomolets he had no regrets about downing the future Senator’s aircraft back in 1967. Journalists from Russia’s most popular tabloid paper found the veteran in a St Petersburg hospital. Trushechkin said he still hated John McCain and wasn’t at all sorry for what he had done all those years ago. He added he was very happy that McCain didn’t make to the White House. ”He always hated the...