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Israel is looking into reports that Russia plans to sell 250 advanced long-range Sukhoi-30 fighter jets to Iran in an unprecedented billion-dollar deal. According to reports, in addition to the fighter jets, Teheran also plans to purchase a number of aerial fuel tankers that are compatible with the Sukhoi and capable of extending its range by thousands of kilometers. Defense officials said the Sukhoi sale would grant Iran long-range offensive capabilities. Government officials voiced concern over the reports. They said Russia could be trying to compete with the United States, which announced over the weekend a billion-dollar arms sale to...

During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union embarked on the most massive military buildups in history. Part of President Reagan's strategy for winning was to entice the Soviets into a competition it could never even hope to win. A communist economy by its very nature is ill-equipped to compete with a free-market, capitalist system whether it's foreign trade or weapons technology. And so, slowly the Soviet economy became a basket case due to the communists desire to exceed America in an enormously expensive arms race. After the Cold War, with the Soviet threat gone and with...

The United States appealed anew to Russia yesterday to stop the sale of air-defense missile systems to Iran, but Moscow reiterated its intention to proceed with the deal. The public dispute underscored the considerable difficulty still confronting the Bush administration as it looks for ways to intensify international pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear program. At a news conference in Washington yesterday, the State Department's third-highest-ranking officer, R. Nicholas Burns, said the time has come for countries "to use their leverage with Iran" and halt exports of weapons and nuclear-related technologies. He singled out the sale of 29 Tor-M1...

This is another document CMPC-2003-002611 that shows Russian deep involvement with Saddam Regime and this time it is a letter dated November 23 2002 from a Russian AEROGLOB Company to an Iraqi firm (Iraqi government cover firm) regarding where to deposit the money for Miltary Equipments pertaining to Russian aircraft Mig 29 and Sokhoy. Other pages in the documents ar eltter between the Iraqi Armos Company and the Al Rafidayn bank regarding the deposits for the Russian company. Beginning of the translation of page 8 of document document CMPC-2003-002611 AEROGLOB LIMITED Office 607: Entrance 3 Krasnopresnenskaya NAD, 12 Moscouw,...

WASHINGTON — Russian diplomats passed detailed but sometimes inaccurate information about American troop movements to senior Iraqi officials even as U.S. troops closed in on Baghdad during the 2003 invasion, according to a Pentagon study released Friday. The revelations, based on captured Iraqi intelligence documents, could jeopardize U.S.-Russian relations more than any single event since the end of the Cold War, analysts said. Although they cautioned that Moscow might have an explanation, the analysts said some of the details were so sensitive that they would be difficult for the government of President Vladimir V. Putin to justify. One of the...

Sooner or later, we’re going to have to admit that the Russians aren't half the ally they pretend to be, or should have been. For a while after the fall of the USSR, it seemed that the long fight was over, but it’s beginning to look as though that was just wishful thinking. Oh, the happy-go-lucky nineties, when we thought we had no enemies. Russia has been moving backwards from democracy towards a more totalitarian government for years, a process that has accelerated under former KGB officer Vladimir Putin. Russia has tightened its grip on the former provinces of the...

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's foreign spy agency denied Saturday that Moscow gave Saddam Hussein information on U.S. troop movements and plans during the invasion of Iraq, while analysts speculated the Pentagon claim was tied to a growing rift between the West and the Kremlin. A Pentagon report Friday cited two captured Iraqi documents as saying Russia obtained information from sources "inside the American Central Command" in Qatar and passed battlefield intelligence to Saddam through the former Russian ambassador in Baghdad, Vladimir Titorenko. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service dismissed the claims. "Similar, baseless accusations concerning Russia's intelligence have been made more...

Russia Spies Operated in Iraq Through 2003 Mar 24 3:48 PM US/Eastern By MIKE ECKEL Associated Press Writer MOSCOW Russia had a military intelligence unit operating in Iraq up through the 2003 U.S. invasion and fall of Baghdad, a Russian analyst said Friday. A Pentagon report said Russia provided Saddam Hussein with intelligence on U.S. military movements and plans. The unclassified report does not assess the value of the information or provide details beyond citing two captured Iraqi documents that say the Russians collected information from sources "inside the American Central Command" and that battlefield intelligence was provided to Saddam...

WASHINGTON - The Russian government provided Saddam Hussein with intelligence on U.S. military movements and plans during the opening days of the war in 2003, according to a Pentagon report released Friday. The unclassified report does not assess the value of the information or provide details beyond citing an Iraqi document that says the battlefield intelligence was provided to Saddam through the Russian ambassador in Baghdad.A classified version of the Pentagon report, titled "Iraqi Perspectives Project," is not being made public.Whether by chance or design, one piece of Russian intelligence actually contributed to an important U.S. military deception effort. By...

LONDON, May 21 (IranMania) - Head of Russia's Atomic Energy Agency Alexander Rumyantsev reiterated on Friday that Moscow will continue its nuclear cooperation with Tehran. "Even the US cannot inflict the least damage on Russia's cooperation with Iran," Rumyantsev said in a meeting with Iran's outgoing Ambassador to Russia Gholam Reza Shafei, according to IRNA. Noting that President Vladimir Putin of Russia attached great importance to all-out cooperation between Moscow and Tehran, particularly in the area of nuclear activities, Rumyantsev stressed that the president considered Tehran as Moscow's "strategic ally in southern Russia." As to the Bushehr power plant which...

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran said Sunday that it plans to build a second nuclear reactor with Russia's help and that at least two other European states have expressed interest in such a project, brushing aside U.S. accusations that the Islamic state wants to build atomic weapons. Russia is building Iran's first nuclear reactor, which was begun by West Germany but interrupted during the 1979 Islamic revolution. Damage caused to the nearly completed facility in Bushehr during Iran's 1980-88 war with Iraq also led to the postponement of its planned inauguration from 2003 to August 2006. Despite the delays and the...

U.S. Bars Iraq Contracts for Nations That Opposed War By DOUGLAS JEHL WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 — The Pentagon has barred French, German and Russian companies from competing for $18.6 billion in contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq, saying the step "is necessary for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States." The directive, which was issued by the deputy defense secretary, Paul D. Wolfowitz, represents perhaps the most substantive retaliation to date by the Bush administration against American allies who opposed its decision to go to war in Iraq. The administration had warned before the war...

<p>At their weekend Camp David tete-a-tete, George W. Bush and Russia's Vladimir Putin were all smiles as usual. Yet the Russian president gave little ground on a key issue, Russia's $800 million contract to help Iran build a nuclear power plant at Bushehr. This despite clear evidence of Iran's nuclear bomb ambitions with the discovery of weapons grade uranium there. Mr. Putin only offered to urge Iran to accept fuller United Nations weapons inspections, for whatever that might accomplish.</p>

<p>Americans, in the White House and on down, ought to be livid over reports that Russian companies are selling equipment and technical services to Iraq's military - with the apparent knowledge of the Putin government. And even as coalition forces are fighting to disarm the Iraqi regime.</p>

WASHINGTON, 23 March (AFP - The United States think that some technician Russian help the Iraq to scramble some signal satellite crucial for the guidance of bomb and apparatus American and British, have affirm Sunday a high person in charge American under cover of anonymat. Ce responsible have declare with AFP that Washington have of evidence that of personnel of a firm Russian be currently in Iraq and seek à help the force Iraqi to develop au point a system sophisticate some jamming of system of guidance américain. "Ce system be complex and it there have some evidence that...

Russia vows to block moves to legitimise Iraq war MOSCOW, March 22 (Reuters) - Russia vowed on Saturday to block any future moves by the United States and its allies to secure U.N. approval for the military action in Iraq and the post-war power structures they might set up there. "Attempts will undoubtedly be made in the U.N. Security Council to find ways which would help legitimise the military operations and the post-war (political) set-up in Iraq," Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told a conference outside Moscow. "We will follow this very carefully and we will not, of course, give legitimacy...

According to available information, this morning during the invasion of southern Iraq a column of American troops, after moving about 15 kilometers from the border fell under fire from the Iraqi army and sustained serious losses. Practically all helicopters of the combat support units were destroyed. The White House is in complete disarray. According to www.irak.ru, American troops were stopped by fire from a Malyutka-2 (Baby-2) anti-tank missile system of Soviet construction (NATO classification SAGGER). Fire also came from machine guns and small arms. A stroll through Iraq, whose troops, according to propaganda, are hurrying to surrender to the...

Friday March 21, 6:57 PM Putin warns of instability from Iraq war MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin says the conflict in Iraq could spill over into other regions, including ex-Soviet states, Interfax news agency says. "The crisis has gone beyond the framework of a local conflict and is now a potential source of instability for other regions of the world, including the Commonwealth of Independent States," Putin said, referring to the grouping of 12 former Soviet republics. Interfax said he was addressing a meeting of senior officials from ex-Soviet states.

Russia's Putin warns of instability from Iraq war MOSCOW, March 21 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday the conflict in Iraq could spill over into other regions, including ex-Soviet states, and sow instability there. "We think that the crisis has gone beyond the framework of a local conflict and is now a potential source of instability for other regions of the world, including the Commonwealth of Independent States," Putin said. The Russian president, who said on Thursday that the military action against Iraq was unjustified and called for the quickest possible end to it, was addressing senior...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian parliament on Tuesday postponed a vote on ratification of a U.S.-Russia nuclear arms treaty because of differences over the Iraq crisis, a parliamentary official said. Sergei Shishkaryov, deputy chairman of the State Duma's foreign affairs committee, was quoted by Itar-Tass news agency as saying deputies had been due to discuss ratification of the so-called Moscow Treaty on March 21 but this had been now put back to at least the beginning of April. Shishkaryov, referring to a U.S. push for military action against Iraq's Saddam Hussein, said the decision had been taken because of "unprecedented...