Russia shows military power in Soviet-style parade

AFP ^ | 05/08/09 | Stuart Williams

[TigerLikesRooster]

Russia shows military power in Soviet-style parade

by Stuart Williams Fri May 8, 10:51 pm ET

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia was Saturday to show off its military might at a Red Square parade to mark its victory in World War II, in the latest revival of a Soviet-era tradition amid renewed tensions with NATO.

Ten thousand soldiers and 100 key items of military hardware were to be on display at the parade, which features heavy weaponry in a revival of large-scale show of power ordered by former president Vladimir Putin last year.

"Our armed forces... must be capable of reliably protecting the sovereignty of Russia and the peaceful life of our people, repelling any aggression against our citizens," President Dmitry Medvedev said in the Kremlin on Friday.

[freedumb2003]

Wanna bet most of the armaments are show dummies, like in the 60s and 70s?

[ASOC]

Another question - is this a sop to the military to a lid on the disaffection growing inn the TOP ranks?

Remember, the military was a player in protecting the demise of the old Soviet...

To say things are in a flux is ann ubderstatement.

[ameribbean expat]

http://rusnavy.com/news/navy/index.php?ELEMENT_ID=6913

The Russian Pacific Fleet will reduce its size by shedding 5,000 personnel in the coming few years, an official with the headquarters of the Pacific Fleet told Ria Novosti.

The cuts will touch first and foremost commissioned officers, warrant officers, and noncommissioned officers(NCOs); those whose military service is coming to an end or have voiced the desire to leave voluntarily. All will receive severance payments and housing, the source said.

In the framework of the reorganization of the armed forces, a process set to complete in 2016, 117 units and divisions out the Russian Navy’s 240 will be dissolved.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Vladie probably needs some Mid-East crisis to recover his credibility. Probably engineered through Iran.
Higher oil price and more revenue (at least in the medium-term) to provide spanky new toys to Russian military.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Russia is planning to cut its officer corps by half. They say it is too top-heavy.

[GAB-1955]

I wouldn’t bet on that now. One of the Russian commentators last year noted that the outsides of many of these weapons systems are the same, but the interiors have upgraded optics, electronics, and computers.

I noticed the parade started off without the WW2 uniforms and equipment. Dmitri looked happy; Vladimir Vladmimirovich seemed to be annoyed.

[freedumb2003]

>>I wouldn’t bet on that now. One of the Russian commentators last year noted that the outsides of many of these weapons systems are the same, but the interiors have upgraded optics, electronics, and computers.

If I was them, with ayers/soros running the presidency, I would definitely build up in the next 4 years while the US throttles down.

[ETL]

"the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century" -Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the collapse of the Soviet Union...
"World democratic opinion has yet to realize the alarming implications of President Vladimir Putin's State of the Union speech on April 25, 2005, in which he said that the collapse of the Soviet Union represented the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.'
http://www.hooverdigest.org/053/beichman.html

Photos are from the 2008 "Victory Day" parade in Moscow:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22russia%22%22parade%22%222008%22&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz2
_____________________________________________________________

Russian nuclear bombers in Cuba?
July 23, 2008

The media has been abuzz today at the prospect of Russian nuclear bombers being stationed in Cuba if the US goes ahead with plans for missile defense bases in Eastern Europe.

The story has riled the US enough that a US general has been wheeled out to tell the world’s press that any Russian attempt to build another nuclear base in Cuba would cross US “red line”.

The story broke earlier this week, when Russian newspaper Izvestia quoted an un-named source from within the Russian military. He told the Russian daily:

“While they are deploying the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, our strategic bombers will already be landing in Cuba.”

The quote hasn’t been independently confirmed, but the Russian Defense Ministry added fuel to the fire when they refused to comment on the story.

The prospect of Russian nuclear forces being stationed in Cuba - which is, after all, only 90 miles from the US coast - would bring back some rather unpleasant memories for the US of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, where the Soviet Union under Nikita Kruschev launched an audacious and foolhardy bid to station nuclear missiles on the Caribbean island.

http://www.siberianlight.net/2008/07/23/russian-nuclear-bombers-cuba/
_____________________________________________________________

Venezuela Set to Develop Nuclear Power With Russia
September 29, 2008
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that Russia will help Venezuela develop nuclear energy — a move likely to raise U.S. concerns over increasingly close cooperation between Caracas and Moscow.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,429441,00.html
_____________________________________________________________

Venezuela's Chavez welcomes Russian warships
Nov 25, 2008
LA GUAIRA, Venezuela – Russian warships arrived off Venezuela's coast Tuesday in a show of strength aimed at the United States as Moscow seeks to expand its influence in Latin America. The deployment is the first of its kind in the Caribbean since the Cold War and was timed to coincide with President Dmitry Medvedev's visit to Caracas — the first ever by a Russian president.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22Venezuela%27s+Chavez+welcomes+Russian+warships%22&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz2

More Yahoo search results for Russia and Venezuela connections:
http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0geu_X30pZJCJEAfCtXNyoA?p=Russia+Venezuela+bombers+tanks+arms&y=Search&fr=404_news
_____________________________________________________________

From the Russian News and Information Agency:
July 27, 2006
"'I am determined to expand relations with Russia,' Chavez, known as an outspoken critic of what he calls the United States' unilateralism, told the Russian leader, adding that his determination stemmed from their shared vision of the global order.":
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060727/51913498.html
_____________________________________________________________

President Obama and Venezuela dictator Hugo
Chavez at the 2009 Summit of the Americas in Trinidad

Obama, Chavez shake hands at Americas Summit:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D97KK2T00&show_article=1
_____________________________________________________________

Russia's Medvedev hails "comrade" Obama

Associated Foreign Press (AFP) ^ | April 2, 2009 | Anna Smolchenko

"Russia's Dmitry Medvedev hailed Barack Obama as "my new comrade" Thursday after their first face-to-face talks"

http://www.france24.com/en/20090402-russias-medvedev-hails-comrade-obama

April 1, 2009:
"Obama, Medvedev pledge new era of relations":
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090401/wl_afp/usrussiadiplomacynuclear_20090401152002

[ETL]

Russia and China have been holding joint war games every other year since 2005. The next one is scheduled for this summer...

[2009] Russia, China plan new joint military exercises

By MARTIN SIEFF, UPI Senior News Analyst
Published: March 26, 2009

WASHINGTON, March 26 (UPI) -- The continuing tensions over Russia's refusal to sell its state-of-the-art land warfare advanced weapons systems to China hasn't interrupted the rhythm of major joint military exercises between the two major land powers on the Eurasian landmass. The latest in the regular, biennial series of exercises between the two nations has been confirmed for this summer.

The next in the now well-established series of exercises called Peace Mission 2009 will be carried out in northeastern China, the Russian Defense Ministry announced March 18, according to a report carried by the RIA Novosti news agency.

The first bilateral Peace Mission maneuvers -- described at the time as counter-terrorism exercises -- were held in Russia and the eastern Chinese province of Shandong in August 2005. As we reported at that time, they were a lot bigger than mere counter-terrorism exercises. Warships, squadrons of combat aircraft and more than 10,000 troops were involved carrying out landings against hypothetically hostile shores. The maneuvers also involved large-scale paratroops drops. The scale and nature of those exercises suggested a trial run for a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan with Russian support. ..."

http://www.upi.com/Security_Industry/2009/03/26/Russia_China_plan_new_joint_military_exercises/UPI-25021238094858/From the Sino-Russian Joint Statement of April 23, 1997:
"The two sides [China and Russia] shall, in the spirit of partnership, strive to promote the multipolarization of the world and the establishment of a new international order."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/HI29Ag01.html
_____________________________________________________________

From National Public Radio (NPR):
August 29, 2006
"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been visiting countries such as China, Iran and Russia as part of an effort to build a 'strategic alliance' of interests not beholden to the United States. He considers the United States his arch enemy.":
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5729764

[ETL]

Barack Obama, from Dreams from My Father, Three Rivers Press, New York, Revised Edition, 2004, ISBN 1-4000-8277-3, p. 76-7:
"But by the time I met Frank [Frank Marshall Davis] he must have been pushing eighty, with a big, dewlapped face and an ill-kempt gray Afro that made him look like an old, shaggy-maned lion. He would read us his poetry whenever we stopped by his house, sharing whiskey with Gramps out of an emptied jelly jar."

___________________________________________________________

From Accuracy In Media | AIM.ORG

Obama’s Red Mentor Praised Red Army
AIM Report | By Cliff Kincaid | April 30, 2008

Frank Marshall Davis

Barack Obama’s childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, a member of the Moscow-controlled Communist Party USA (CPUSA), wrote a poem dedicated to the Soviet Red Army. “Smash on, victory-eating Red Army,” he declared. He also wrote poems attacking traditional Christianity and the work of Christian missionaries.

The “Red Army” poem goes beyond hoping for the communists to beat the Nazis in World War II and hails the Soviet revolution. It says:

Show the marveling multitudes
Americans, British, all your allied brothers
How strong you are
How great you are
How your young tree of new unity
Planted twenty-five years ago
Bears today the golden fruit of victory!

http://www.aim.org/aim-report/obamas-red-mentor-praised-red-army/

[Steve Van Doorn]

I know I am going to get slammed for this but.. so what.

After Kosovo I have been reading more about Russia.

After I heard Putin a couple months ago warned us not to take the same Socialistic path they did we should consider coming to terms with them.

Russia has done a lot of bad things over the years there is no getting around that. Killing 40 million of there own people and millions around the world is unforgivable.

I think the US made a huge mistake invading Russia and we should apologize for it. The North Russia Campaign isn’t even talked about. It is almost like it was written out of our history books.

I think the US really does owe Russia an apology for the Polar Bear Expedition of 1919 so we can move on and maybe get along better with them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_Bear_Expedition

[Colonel Kangaroo]

If Davis lived only five more years he could have seen the glorious collapse of the glorious Soviet Union.

Tidwell says that Davis “felt betrayed” when Soviet dictator Stalin signed the 1939 nonaggression pact with Nazi Germany, which triggered World War II, but that Stalin’s eventual decision to join the U.S. and its allies in a war on the Axis powers “restored a measure of Davis’ confidence in the USSR.”

Stalin's decision? Hitler made that decision for him when he double crossed Uncle Joe and invaded the USSR. Stalin would have been quite happy to stay on the sidelines and pick up the pieces after the rest of the world ruined itself.

[ETL]

If Davis lived only five more years he could have seen the glorious collapse of the glorious Soviet Union.

And if he lived til the present, he would witness their reemergence.

[birg]

My oh my... the American invasion of Russia

[Steve Van Doorn]

yes it was a weak attempt but that was an invasion.

I don't think Russia has forgotten about it and we should assume that they have.

[DesertRhino]

Well, cold war aside. A key to understanding the mentality of Russians is the idea of being invaded. They have never invaded western Europe, except in counterattack to the Nazis. When you talk to them as individuals, they stayed in firm control of eastern europe to guarantee they would prevent any repeats of Europes invasions.

For the 180 years prior, they will point to Europe and Germany invading them with Napoleon, and Moscow burning before they fled that winter.
Next the horrifyingly bloody Anglo/French invasion of Crimea that had no sane cause. The British simply didnt like eastern orthodox (locals) in control of Turkey.

Next again, the Germans invaded deeply into Russia during WWI. (the misery created by that war unleashed the communist revolt, heavily encouraged by Germany to take russia out of the war)
Then last, Hitler and the Nazis invaded and tens of millions died.

So ok, communism aside (which while they are *fine* with hard nationalist strongmen, you are hard pressed to find a Russian who wants communists back in charge)
But communism aside, say you are a Russian, it’s after WWII. Now you hold Berlin and half of Europe, do you give it back to their control? Or do you say “That was it, Never again!”?

Last, what is your response as a Russian when the Warsaw pact desolves, and you quietly watch as NATO expands right across eastern Europe, into every country surrounding you. Even into Stalin’ home in Georgia. Georgia fell at the hands of a euro financier,,Soros. And this Soros brought the Ruble to its knees by shorting it, crashing it, then demanding it float and NOT be tied to the dollar. This brought a decade of depression as bad as the Soviet times to Russia.
And as you look at the EU, you see they are hungry to control your oil and gas, its delivery routes, and its prices, and are doing so through Yukos.

You watch, incredulous at American criticism for you fighting Osama’s boys in Chechnya, and the Ossetians who murdered those school kids in Beslan. After all, after 9/11 you gave them immediate use of a former Soviet Air Force base to attack Afghanistan.

If you were a Russian, and you saw all this, you would say, “Here we go again”. And that is why Putin is behaving the way he is.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Are you serious?

We invaded Russia to help the Russians fight the Bolsheviks!

Russia should thank us!

[Thunder90]

Many nations, like Russia’s army and China’s PLA, are shrinking their top-heavy officer corps in exchange for more NCO’s.

[Thunder90]

However, many of those officers in Russia/CIS/China are being moved into reserve units, so many of them will still have part-time work. This way, you can maintain larger units for much less money

Finally , The comblock countries finally learned from the NATO playbook, that NCO’s and not commissioned officers, are the backbone of any military force.