Did you know that Russia has military and nuclear missile bases in Kazakhstan and most of the rest of the "Former" soviet union?
Mr. Sloganeer, please name the former Soviet countries where Russia has "military missile bases?" We have lots of overseas military bases as well. BTW, you might want to read the following, and see how open the Russians were about allowing an American journalist and film crew into their main missile base at Saratov.
The Director's Story: Behind Russia's Nuclear Front Line (Full article)
Excerpts
For a few weeks recently, we were able to film the day-to-day life of the men and women who command Russia's most sophisticated Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, or ICBM -- the TOPOL M, designed to elude America's proposed missile shield.
"When do you want to come, and what do you want to see?" he asked. We gave him a list of sequences closely related to the material we'd filmed with America's missileers. The general made notes and said this should all be possible. We survived the first of many banquets and many toasts, and agreed to be in touch.
But Pozner also told the general at our first meeting that we would insist on full access, and that any attempt to control our filming would mean the end of the project.
A few weeks later, Pozner sent me a list of suggested ingredients for a film he'd just received from General Khomeinko. It included everything I'd asked for, some things I didn't want, and some surprises. I rejected some obvious public relations stuff, but I was intrigued to hear about the roketchiki song and dance troop. I was certain it would be a long way from the cowboy style of Cheyenne Wyoming. I told Pozner we were coming.
The roketchiki had proposed some individual officers to be filmed, but accepted without question when we chose instead to feature the gold-toothed Colonel Petrovsky and the bright young Lieutenant Evgeny Pavlov. To my surprise, we had as much freedom to choose our characters as we'd had on the base in America. In both countries, we had an accompanying escort when we filmed -- in the U.S., a Press Office sergeant, in Russia a silent and rather forbidding security man. Neither of them prevented us asking anything, but I was startled to find the Russian escort less attentive than his American equivalent. He rarely showed up for our interviews, whereas in Wyoming, our press officer sat in on every conversation.
On our final afternoon, we had a breakthrough. On a few minutes notice, we were suddenly taken out to a missile launch control center. The base commander had either won his battle -- or taken a considerable risk. We filmed deep underground in the tunnels built to withstand a direct nuclear strike, and I felt I was back in the depths of a Cold War nightmare. But the undeniable fact that I was there and filming with a Western crew meant that the Cold War was over, and we had all moved on.
You forgot to mention that Putin was a communist.