Free Republic

Top security actors, including Swedish Civil Defence Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin and the country’s Commander-in-Chief, Micael Bydén, agree that Sweden could soon be facing a war and called for increased resilience, including among the civilian population. As Sweden is expected to join NATO in 2024 and the broader context of Russia’s war in Ukraine, Sweden’s Civil Defence Minister, Carl-Oskar Bohlin, urged his fellow citizens to prepare for war at the Folk och Försvar conference in Sälen. Bohlin expressed concern that the modernisation of the Swedish civil defence system was not happening fast enough and urged everyone, from managers and local councillors...

Google says it has been working around the clock alongside other Big Tech companies to fight Russian cyberattackers waging a digital war against Ukraine, guarding against some of the same ransomware attackers who previously hit the U.S. The tech Titan published a “Fog of War” report Thursday saying the Ukrainian government is under “near-constant digital attack” from Russia, including via its military intelligence service, the GRU. Google said it disrupted government-backed attackers to protect people from exploitation and notified users of products such as Gmail that they had been targeted, when the company deemed it appropriate. The U.S. government is...

A newly discovered document from March 1991 shows US, UK, French, and German officials discussing a pledge made to Russia that NATO will not expand to Poland and beyond. Its publication by the German magazine Der Spiegel on Friday proves Moscow right and NATO wrong on the matter. The minutes of a March 6, 1991 meeting in Bonn between political directors of the foreign ministries of the US, UK, France, and Germany contain multiple references to “2+4” talks on German unification in which the West made it “clear” to the Soviet Union that NATO will not expand past the eastern...

Once upon a time the Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation helped to maintain a certain focus. America and its European allies were supposedly upholding capitalism and freedom against Soviet Communism. Then the Soviet Union broke apart and we got our hands on the “peace dividend.” Money could be diverted from weapons to social programs. The West was free to pursue its own socialism – leading to bankruptcy. In 1990 a Soviet dissident named Sergei Grigoryants, who was twice imprisoned by the KGB, gave a speech in which he warned of the deceptive reality behind of the collapse...

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...