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UKRAINE has blitzed another major Russian oil refinery in a kamikaze drone strike, the explosions sparking a huge inferno near Moscow. Dramatic video from the scene showed flames raging from the Rosneft energy giant facility in the city of Ryazan on Wednesday. Residents of Ryazan, located 125 miles southeast of Moscow, were said to have heard the rumble of drones about 3am. Two explosions followed the sound, triggering the inferno. The attack came after another Ukrainian strike on two oil refineries in Krasnodar region -snip- Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu demanded more "means of destruction" as Western supplies...

Tularemia Outbreak in Russia –443 Cases-Origins Unknown The ProMed site carried a report this morning concerning a Tularemia outbreak in Russia –updated to 08/29/05. The ProMed heading says 334 cases have been reported, but simple arithmetic shows the number to be 443. Breakdown follows: 135 Moscow (Shatursky District) 99 Nizhny Novgorod 83 Vladimir region ( Gorohovetsky) 67 Ryazan 28 Voronezh 29 Sverdlosk region 2 Yekaterinburg 443 Total Laboratory confirmation has been obtained in 128 of the cases,so far. (This is important, because influenza can cause similar symptoms , and there has been extensive migration of infected/infectious wildfowl into much of...

Biowarfare : Another “Sverdlosk Incident” in Russia ? I’ve been looking at two recent (and ongoing) outbreaks of Tularemia in Russia: (Source: ProMed : Archives # 20050824.2503; # 20050822.2467; # 20050718.2066 ) 1. 96 people –66 from Dzerzhinsk region; 30 from Nizhniy Novogorod. 2. 56 people – all from the Ryazan area , which borders on Nizhniy Novogorod and Vladimir. What makes it notable is that Tularemia is a fairly rare disease: the Ryazan area had only 4 known cases in 2004. (No historic stats were furnished on the Nizhniy Novgoros area or Dzerzhinsk , but the number of cases...

It is impossible to evaluate events in Russia today without understanding the mysterious series of bombings in 1999 that killed 300 civilians and created the conditions for Vladimir Putin to become Russia’s dictator for life. The bombings changed the course of Russia’s post-Soviet history. They were blamed on the Chechens. In the wake of initial success, Russia launched a new invasion of Chechnya. Putin, who had just been appointed prime minister, was put in charge of the invasion and his popularity soared. Six months later, he was elected president. On July 14, 2016, I filed a request for documents on...

Archaeologists in southwest Russia have unearthed a trove of medieval silver at a site where treasure was often hidden from an invading Mongol army in the 13th century — but oddly it seems to have been buried there at least 100 years before the Mongols swept through.The trove of silver pendants, bracelets, rings, and ingots was found during excavations earlier this year near the site of Old Ryazan, the fortified capital of a Rus principate that was besieged and sacked by Mongols in 1237.The Mongol attack was particularly bloodthirsty; historical accounts report that the invaders left no one alive in...

Archaeologists find 'Russian Stonehenge' Big News Network.com Friday 28th January, 2005 (UPI) Russian archaeologists have found the site of a 4,000-year-old concentric wooden structure resembling Britain's Stonehenge, the Art Newspaper reported Friday. Evidence of the structure was found near Ryazan southeast of Moscow at the confluence of the Oka and Pronya rivers. The area long known for its archaeological treasures was settled by tribes migrating from Eurasia thousands of years ago. The report quoted Ilha Ahmedov of Moscow's State History Museum as saying a recent dig had uncovered evidence of a circular structure that would have been formed of wooden...

2004-11-12 18:08ARCHEOLOGISTS UNCOVER A RUSSIAN "STONEHENGE" MOSCOW (RIA Novosti commentator Olga Sobolevskaya)-- Russia now has a Stonehenge of its own. In the summer, a 4,000-year-old megalithic structure was uncovered at a Spasskaya Luka site, in the central Russian region of Ryazan. This structure, which, archeologists believe, was built as a sanctuary, sits on a hill overlooking the confluence of the Oka and the Pron rivers. The surrounding area has always been seen as an "archeological encyclopedia," a kaleidoscope of cultures ranging from the Upper Paleolithic to the Dark Ages. "If we look at this archeological site as represented on a...

For the last two and a half years, a specter has haunted the government of Vladimir Putin. This is the possibility of a serious examination of the strange apartment-house bombings that took place in September, 1999 in Moscow, Buinaksk, and Volgodonsk and cost 300 lives. The bombings terrorized Russia. The Russian authorities immediately accused Chechen rebels of responsibility for the attacks and this galvanized public opinion in support of a second war in Chechnya. The war, in turn, made Putin, the former head of the Federal Security Bureau (FSB), an overnight hero and the leading candidate for the Russian presidency....