Free Republic

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who is one of President Vladimir Putin's closest confidants and is regularly mentioned as a possible successor to Putin in 2008, made some uncharacteristic political statements in a 1 March interview with "Moskovskii komsomolets." "Only democrats, with their split personalities, could believe that we might get help from abroad," Ivanov said. "Nobody will help us except ourselves. Therefore we should be powerful and capable of guaranteeing our national security in any situation."' He also criticized Russian liberals for viewing Russia only as "a money-making enterprise." Recent Russian media reports indicate that the Kremlin has ordered...

TBILISI, Georgia Dozens of residents of Josef Stalin's hometown celebrated the 125th anniversary of his birth Tuesday, singing, dancing and drinking champagne toasts to the late Soviet dictator. People cried and kissed a 6-foot-tall cardboard cutout of Stalin and laid wreaths at the base of a monument in the small town of Gori, 50 miles west of the capital, Tbilisi, paying honor to the man who oversaw years of brutal purges and remarkable industrialization of an agricultural society. "Not a few difficulties we lived through. We stood up to the Germans in the war. We built a great state," said...