Russia Cancels Joint Exercises With U.S.

"unresolved questions connected with the status of foreign military personnel arriving on the territory of the Russian Federation." I only wonder what questions...

They are focused on a bigger threat perhaps.

Members of the Georgievtsy youth movement protest against the concert of US star Madonna in central Moscow. A dozen young Russian Orthodox believers have clashed with police on Moscow's Red Square while protesting an upcoming September 11 concert by Madonna in the Russian capital.

Demonstrators carry posters on their backs demanding the September 11 concert of U.S. pop singer Madonna be cancelled, during a protest near the Kremlin August 25, 2006. The poster reads: 'We demand Madonna's Moscow concert be cancelled, because it would insult the religious feelings of believers, the memory of those who perished in the September 11 attacks in New York five years ago and provoke new terrorist attacks on a grand scale'.

or the russian military would be utterly embarassed with what they could currently bring to the exercises.

I think it would have been bad if the Russian and American military were smoking all those joints anyway.

The 'Russian Federation' has a different map inside of Russia me thinks. The former satellite(slave) countries are still on it maybe?

LOL Yeah, that's very likely bearing in mind that KGB guys are in power and kicking. But what worse they seem to revitilize the spirit of cold war competition, instead of cooperation.

Russia Cancels Joint Exercises With U.S.

Well, I guess a lot of Russians won't be learning how to roll their own.

No Exercises with the Americans

// Russia is mad over the WTO

The Russian Defense Ministry informed the United States yesterday that there would be no Torgau 2006 Russian-American military exercises in Nizhny Novgorod Region this year. Officially, the exercises may take place later and the rescheduling is related to a disagreement over the status of American soldiers. A source in the Defense Ministry told Kommersant, however, that Moscow's decision is a response to the “anti-Russian” policy of the United States.

A report that the Torgau 2006 exercises would not take place between September 21 and October 8, as scheduled, appeared yesterday morning on the Interfax agency news wire. A Defense Ministry representative told Interfax that the cause of the cancellation was “unsettled questions about the status of American personnel commandeered for participation in the exercises.” He specified that the U.S. demanded that Russian jurisdiction not extend to American soldiers, but “the Russian side does not have the possibility to give the American personnel the requested status, because Russia's refusing to exercise its jurisdiction over foreign contingents present contradicts legislation of the Russian Federation.”

Closer to the evening, the Defense Ministry officially confirmed that information, adding only that the exercises were not cancelled, but indefinitely postponed.

The first joint exercises with the Americans on Russian territory took place in April 17-24, 1993, on Stolbovoe Island in the Arctic Ocean, 340 km. from the city of Tiksi. Thirty-four members of the U.S. Navy and Air Force took part with 70 Russians to develop a rescue operation in the Arctic. Since then, 12 joint Russian-American military exercises have been conducted in Russia or its waters that have involved a total of 4500 people, 100 pieces of equipment and 10 ships from the U.S. side. The largest exercises were a landing of 250 U.S. Marines in Slavyansky Bay in Maritime Territory in June 1994 and joint maneuvers with 250 U.S. soldiers and 50 pieces of equipment in September of the same year at Totsky Range in Orenburg Region. The only cancellation of planned exercises was in Peacekeeper-99 in the summer of that year because of the rocket attack by the U.S. on Baghdad in December 1998, which Moscow called “ungrounded.”

Last year, Russia considered it possible to allow American servicemen in for the Torgau exercises, although the Americans used Russian equipment in the Russian part of the exercises, which took place outside Solnechnogorsk, near Moscow. They used their own equipment at the second part of the exercises, in Germany.

Russia initially proposed conducted all of the Torgau 2006 exercises in Russia. The Americans agreed, but wanted to bring nine M2A3 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and their own firearms with them to Russia. That was the chief formal reason for postponing the exercises. A high-placed Defense Ministry official told Kommersant that “the American side wanted significantly to expand the scale of the conduct of the exercises as part of Torgau 2006, bringing American weapons and military equipment into our range. However, at the present time, there is no legislative base in Russia for conducting such as large-scale exercises.” They noted at the ministry that similar documents exist, for example, for the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Military units from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan conduct exercises within that organization. International agreements have been signed with those countries and ratified by the State Duma. “We don't have such agreements with the U.S.,” the source explained. “Therefore, American servicemen cannot enter Russia with their own arms. We proposed that they limit large-scale exercises to computers, without using military equipment. But that plan for the exercises didn't interest the Americans.”

The Communist Party was also concerned about the approaching exercises. Last month, the Nizhny Novgorod division of the party spoke out against holding the exercises in that region, threatening protests of the type that were held in Ukraine in July before the Sea Breeze exercises with NATO in the Crimea. The local communists declared their intentions to hold a protest march against Torgau 2006 on September 14 and to block the Americans' access to the Mulinsky Range on the day exercises begin. The communist faction in the regional legislative assembly wrote a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin demanding that he refuse to hold the exercises. No officials yesterday connected the cancellation of Torgau 2006 with communist protests, however. On the contrary, the Defense Ministry representative told Interfax that “the agitation fanned by some political forces over the maneuvers was out of proportion with the exercises planned.”

Another ministry source admitted to Kommersant that the cancellation of Torgau 2006 has political causes. “Recently our overseas allies have actively supported states that are, to put it mildly, oriented against Russia in issues of settling conflicts in the Caucasus and Transdniestria,” the source said. “It is kind of awkward to hold large-scale Russian-American exercises in these conditions.”

The cancellation of the exercises seems to be in keeping with Russian-American relations now, which leave much to be desired. Those relations became especially strained after the G8 summit in St. Petersburg, during which the U.S. refused to sign a bilateral protocol on Russia's accession to the WTO. In response, Minister of Economic Development and Trade German Gref threatened last month to reconsider agreements reached earlier on U.S. deliveries of meat to Russia if the bilateral protocol is not signed by October of this year. Since the breakdown of WTO negotiations, relations between Russia and the U.S. have been a series of mutual attacks. Soon after the end of the summit, Putin received Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the Kremlin and signed a number of contracts on Russian arms supplies to Caracas, a regime that the U.S. considers hostile to it. Washington did not hide its annoyance. Soon after Chavez' visit to Moscow, Washington imposed sanctions on the Russian companies Rosoboroneksport and Sukhoi. Last week, head of the U.S. Senate International Relations Committee Richard Lugar ranked Russia with Iran and Venezuela as threats to American security. On September 1, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticized the U.S. more harshly than ever before, saying that U.D. foreign policy is leading to “the expansion of the conflict areas in the world” and that “the domination of international politics by a chosen group of countries is past.” In such a situation, Moscow decided that it would be inexpedient to hold military exercises with the U.S. right now. The Russian Defense Ministry announcement that the exercises are being postponed is probably one more reminder of the necessity of accepting Russia into the WTO within the deadline set by the Kremlin – October. If the U.S. does not meet that demand, bilateral cooperation will obviously be reduced to a minimum, and joint exercises can be forgotten.

http://www.kommersant.com/page.asp?id=702701

Thank you. Kommiersant's article is far more informative.

"If the U.S. does not meet that demand, bilateral cooperation will obviously be reduced to a minimum, and joint exercises can be forgotten."

So WTO, not NATO expansion seems to be an underlying problem, here.

So WTO, not NATO expansion seems to be an underlying problem, here.

No! NATO is the problem. After the Iron Curtain fell the US gave their word that NATO would not expand into former SU countries after Russian forces withdrew from those countries. NATO did go into Poland, the Baltics, and has recently held exercises in Ukraine.

The Moscow Times
Wednesday, September 6, 2006.
Outcries Delay Joint U.S. Exercises
By Carl Schreck
Staff Writer
The Defense Ministry announced Tuesday that an annual joint military exercise with U.S. forces had been postponed in what appeared to be the latest sign of worsening U.S.-Russian relations.

The delay of the Torgau military exercises came amid protests from Communist Party officials, who accused the United States of encroaching on a strategically important Russian region.

The protests echoed anti-NATO demonstrations in the Crimea last May, which came in advance of a planned joint military operation there that was subsequently canceled.

The Torgau exercises have been conducted without incident for the past two years. They had been scheduled to begin in late September in the Novgorod region.

The exercises will only be rescheduled when the question of foreign troops' legal status is resolved, Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Kostyshin said.

(In other words-NATO)

"This does not affect only U.S. or NATO forces," he said, "but all foreign military personnel."

Still, the Russians were willing to accommodate U.S. military personnel in 2004 and 2005, noted Kevin Ryan, a retired brigardier general who was the U.S. defense attache to Russia from 2000-03.

"Maybe this time they simply were not able to do it or were hoping for a cooling-off period for domestic reasons," Ryan said. He added that there might not have been enough money in the federal budget to conduct the exercises.

Kostyshin said the ministry had sent an official notification of the postponement to the U.S. government through diplomatic channels.

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow would not comment Tuesday.

Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Commander Joe Carpenter said Tuesday that Defense Department officials were aware of the situation but had not received any official notice of the postponement.

Communist Party officials had planned nationwide protests Sept. 14 of the Torgau exercises.

"After the Balkans, the Middle East, aggression in Iran, the unpardonable behavior of the Americans -- be it in the Baltics or North Caucasus -- these exercises have no point other than being an attempt [by the United States] to stake out a claim in one of the key regions of the Russian Federation," Communist Party head Gennady Zyuganov said Monday.

Tuesday's announcement did not appear to assuage Zyuganov's concerns. Communist Duma deputies have begun collecting signatures from other deputies for an open letter to be sent to President Vladimir Putin protesting the exercises, Zyuganov said.

In an apparent reference to the Communist outcry, an unidentified Defense Ministry official told Interfax on Tuesday that the "hullabaloo created by certain political forces doesn't correspond to the scope of the planned exercises."

Clarifying the legal status of foreign military personnel on Russian territory appears to be merely an excuse for the government and military to buy time to figure out whether to conduct this year's Torgau exercises at all, independent defense analyst Alexander Golts said Tuesday.

"The powers-that-be find themselves in a difficult situation after the Russian press took huge pleasure in reporting the unpleasant events the U.S. military faced in Feodosia," Golts said, referring to the Crimean port city where the May anti-U.S. and anti-NATO protests took place. "All of this comes at a time of worsening relations between United States and Russia. Such exercises have become inconvenient for Russia."

Golts said it was unclear whether the exercises would be conducted at all. "It appears that the Communists aren't going to drop the issue," Golts said.

Alexander Khramchikhin, an analyst with the Institute of Military and Political Analysis in Moscow, said the Torgau ruckus only superficially resembled those in Ukraine.

"In Ukraine, the protests were used by [Viktor] Yanukovych to help him secure power, which he eventually did," Khramchikhin said, referring to the Party of the Regions leader who recently became his country's prime minister. "Here it is not a question of who stands to gain, but rather a general worsening of U.S.-Russian relations since Sept. 11 five years ago."

Khramchikhin stressed that the postponement was not a strategic move. "It wasn't the Defense Ministry's decision to make," Khramchikhin said. "It was a political decision."

Ryan, the former defense attache, agreed. "Torgau was certainly blessed up and down the chain of the [Russian] ground forces," Ryan said.

The first Torgau exercises, in May 2004, were held at the Vystrel training center, 30 kilometers north of Moscow, and included more than 100 Russian and U.S. officers.

The event takes its name from the German city where advancing Soviet and U.S. troops met in April 1945, toward the end of World War II.

Ryan called the Torgau exercise "an example of the very substantive and close working relationship that the uniformed militaries have been quietly developing since the rupture following NATO operations in the Balkans."

During the 1999 NATO-led war in Yugoslavia, Russia deployed 200 troops to Pristina International Airport in Kosovo, causing a brief, highly flammable flare-up.

(Gen Wesley Clark almost started WWIII at Pristina, when he commanded the Brits General Jackson to attack the Russians)

It was unknown Tuesday if the Torgau exercises came up at a recent meeting between Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Alaska.

Of course.
I know that losing sattelites and the position of global player hurt bad so suspected this to be the actual reason for Russian-American tension (that intensifies proportionally to the increasing oil prices), but I couldn't resist teasing to be reminded about real factors. ;)

You missed the point. It's not losing the satellites that bothers Russia, rather they don't like NATO or any other large foreign army on their border, and that includes China, which they do attempt to have good relations. At least with the satellites they had a buffer, but now that is gone.

Thats exactly it. They may impress the chinese but their forces are crude very crude.

losing the satelillites = foreign army on their border
(i.e. Poland, Baltics, soon Ukraine). So where exactly did I miss the point?
BTW
And if talks in Washington go smooth it will be US anti ballistic infrastructure in one of these countries.

The question is broader I think: - what are the areas of common interest for both counties today? GWB advisors few years back thought that maybe it was the WOT. But the common ground of Islamic threat in Russia and USA is artificial, as they both spring from different ethnic background, have different ideological reasons, enemies etc. China? Not at all - in spite of obvious demographic threat from Chinese side Russia's chosen policy of winning time and favors of chicom authorities. So it's been agreed that on a global scene (Security Council) Russia and China act together to counterbalance USA's influence.

Central Asia? I wonder what happens there. Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazachstan are oil-rich and have natral gas they can sell to just one client only. Not a very comfortable situation... Politically they seem completely dependant on Russia but in longer period of time China and India will definitely join the game there.

Another place of real importance is the Middle East where both Russia and USA have vital interests, but of course they support different sides of the conflict. In a longer run USA gained nothing assuming Russia's friendship and common values. Russia criticized Iraqi operation and sold weapons to countries who openly attacked the US. On the other hand Russia won acclaim and quiet approval for brutal solutions on its own yard. The competence will intensify as long as resources prices keep getting higher and Russia will try to downplay USA's influence in today's world. There is no realistic alternative to that.

Russia needs to fulfill its treaty obligations and pull its occupation forces out of Georgian territories Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as well as Transdniester. The final remnants of the Soviet EVIL EMPIRE must be swept away. Let the Russian occupiers return to their own soil.

You recognized the right of others to secede from the Soviet Union, but apparently do not recognize South Ossetia's right to secede from a union with Georgia, which they attempted in 1989. I think it is important to note the union of the two was forced on both by the SU after the Revolution.

That's right, I respect Georgia's right to maintain its territorial integrity. Georgia is not an EVIL EMPIRE like the Soviet Union, but an independent nation and a US ally. Russia wants everyone to respect their right to crush separatists inside their own borders but they don't afford Georgia the same respect.