Russia and the Middle East
· 1 hour ago by Matthew Wilson

Where does Moscow stand in the fight against Islamism and the global war against terror? Facing the Chechen threat at home, the Russian government might be sympathetic to U.S. and even Israeli concerns. Not so. Despite U.S. declarations that Washington and Moscow were “increasingly united by common values” and that Russia was “a partner in the war on terror,”[1] examination of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s policy toward the Middle East suggests that Moscow has become an impediment both to the fight against Islamist terror and Washington’s desire to promote democracy in the Middle East. The 2006 U.S. National Security Strategy reinforces that U.S. policymakers should not only “encourage Russia to respect the values of freedom and democracy at home” but also cease “imped[ing] the cause of freedom and democracy” in regions vital to the war on terror.[2] While Russian officials denounce U.S. criticism, the Kremlin’s coddling of Iranian hard-liners, its reaction to the “cartoon jihad,” its invitation to Hamas to Moscow, and its flawed Chechen policy all cast doubt on Moscow’s motivations.

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Get Yer Cheap Nukes Now
· 1 day ago by Matthew Wilson

Russia is following the IKEA model, promising reliable, inexpensive goods that are easy to assemble. Only in this case, the goods are nuclear-power plants.

Are discount nuclear plants a good idea? Russia thinks so. The Kremlin has set about recasting Russia’s once top-secret nuclear industry as the world’s leading mass marketer of cheap, reliable reactors. As energy prices soar, nuclear power has been gaining in popularity, and Russia is the market leader in cut-price reactors. Current models of its VVER1000 cold-water reactors cost just $750 per kilowatt of capacity, compared with $1,900 to $2,300 for a French reactor. Russia also offers small reactors of 300 to 400 megawatts for countries with small budgets. “Our power stations are not a bit worse than anyone else’s,” says Sergei Shmatko, the president of Atomstroyexport, Russia’s atomic-power-station construction company. “My dream,” he adds, “is to make the export and construction of our nuclear stations as simple and as fast as putting IKEA furniture together.”

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General Gareyev: Russia changing its military doctrine
· 2 days ago by Matthew Wilson

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Viktor Litovkin) – The Academy of Military Sciences will hold a conference in the Defense Ministry in Moscow on January 20. Its president, Army General Makhmut Gareyev, will deliver a report on Russia’s new military doctrine. Military leaders and academics will discuss the changes and amendments to this key document, which will be presented to the military community.

General Gareyev discusses the new doctrine in an interview with Viktor Litovkin.

Question: Why is Russia going to adopt a new military doctrine? What new features will it have? Why does it concern the Academy of Military Sciences, a public organization?

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The Bear is back in business
· 2 days ago by Matthew Wilson

In the last seven years, he has brought Russia back into international reckoning. Today, the Russians feel sufficiently confident to be able to cancel their production sharing agreement with Royal Dutch Shell in Sakhalin-2 and, Gazprom, the Russian energy giant has taken over. There is steely determination in approach, bordering on ruthlessness at times. Chechnya and the Dubrovka theatre hostage episode are indications of the latter; the manner in which the vast energy resources have been used as a strategic and tactical weapon is a sign of a single-minded desire — to protect Russia’s national interests.

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Russia: Back to the future?
· 3 days ago by Matthew Wilson

It’s no longer politically incorrect to be skeptical about Vladimir Putin’s Russia. In fact, said a leading European expert on Russia, speaking privately in Washington, “Russia is a far different political construct than the one we Europeans thought we were dealing with for the past five years.”

The authority’s other conclusions:

Parts of Russia are still stuck in mid-19th century while other parts of the economy are already globalized. Nothing indicates Russia’s new nomenklatura wishes to emulate the political democracies of the rest of Europe. After the Cold War, it was a “huge mistake” to assume otherwise. Besides, no democracy is possible without a vibrant middle class, and Russia is yet to develop one, let alone a satisfied strata in the middle between extreme wealth and extreme poverty.

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Beware Russia, energy superpower
· 3 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Putin’s control of oil and gas may bring the West to its knees.

In a world concerned with terrorism, genocide and nuclear-powered despots, Vladimir Putin’s Russia is assembling an economic machine powerful enough to force Europe, the US and Asia to their knees.

It does not involve uranium, explosives or suicide bombers, but the natural resources that power the global economy. Russia will soon exert such sway over the supply of oil and natural gas that the OPEC crisis of the mid-1970s could seem trivial. Its pipelines will flow east into Asia and west into Europe and tankers will sail from Siberia to California.

Russia will soon have such control over energy supply and pricing that it will be able to do anything it wants politically.

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Russia Delivers Missiles to Syria
· 3 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Moscow, Jan 16 (Prensa Latina) One of the Russian companies recently sanctioned by the US, the Machine-building Design Bureau, handed over to Syria the Strelets missile systems it had contracted, Valeri Kashin, chief designer of that firm said Tuesday.

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Russia Pledges Military Cooperation to Ortega’s Nicaragua
· 3 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Russia will resume military and technical cooperation with Nicaragua, the head of the Russian Audit Chamber, former Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, told journalists Jan. 12 in Managua.

“The whole Nicaraguan Army and other power agencies use arms and vehicles mostly of the Soviet and Russian production,” Stepashin said. “We do not return to a bare field in Nicaragua, but resume our relations on a very serious basis, both technological and human.”

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Ivanov: Russian Missiles Delivered to Iran
· 3 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has confirmed that Russia has sold new anti-aircraft missiles to Iran.

Ivanov told reporters in Moscow Tuesday that Russia has supplied the TOR-M1 air defense missiles, in keeping with a contract between the two countries.

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Cold War was paradise compared with modern threats - Ivanov
· 3 days ago by Matthew Wilson

MOSCOW, January 16 (Itar-Tass) – The world is changing dynamically, and threats to it are increasing at kaleidoscopic rate, Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said at the first session of the Public Council on Tuesday.

“The times of the “Cold War” compared with today were a paradise; all was predictable and calculated in advance then,” he said.

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Moscow's Mideast myopia
· 4 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Russia sees its relations with Iran as leverage to influence diplomacy in the wider Middle East, where the U.S. has successfully sought to exclude the Kremlin since the end of the Cold War. Russia’s other self-interest has been to exempt from sanctions the Bushehr nuclear reactor that it is building for Iran (to be in operation later this year), and to ward off a UN-sponsored financial squeeze on Iran that might put at risk the profits Russia hopes to earn from providing nuclear fuel for the reactor.

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Overtones ominous for 2007 global woes
· 5 days ago by Matthew Wilson

In the realm of foreign affairs, many issues will appear to be the same in 2007: the threat of global terrorism, the struggle in Iraq, tension in the Middle East, global warming, international drug trafficking, the spread of infectious diseases, the U.S trade deficit, etc.
The most pressing issues, however, and the ones most likely to plunge the world into crisis in the next year or two are interconnected:

? the spread of nuclear weapons;
? the ambitions of Russia and China; and
? the competition for energy resources.

A cloud over Putin

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“Freedom vs. Non-Freedom: A View from Russia”
· 5 days ago by Matthew Wilson

The story of the destruction of freedom in my own country, Russia, is sad. But this story should be told, should be known, and should be remembered—to avoid repeating it and in order one day to reverse it.

First, there was an assault on the people of Chechnya. Many Russian people thought that it was not their business to defend the freedom of the Chechen people. People in Chechnya lost their independence, their political rights and—many of them—their lives. Many Russians lost their lives as well.

Then there was an assault on the Russian media. This time many Russian people thought that it was not their business to defend the freedom of the media. As a result, the media lost its independence—first television channels, then radio stations and newspapers. And now the censors are turning their attention to the Internet.

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Russia Wields A Crude Weapon
· 5 days ago by Matthew Wilson

It seems no longer in doubt: Post-Soviet Russia, under President Vladimir Putin, sees its immense energy resources not merely as a means to economic advancement, but as a weapon to get back in the Superpower game with the U.S.

Make no mistake, Russia’s energy weapon is indeed formidable. It has the largest national gas reserves in the world and is thought to be No. 3 in oil assets. But last year’s production of 9.2 million barrels a day was more than any other country’s, including Saudi Arabia.

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Hugging Russian bear may lead to a mauling for EU
· 5 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Not for the first or last time, Europe ignored American warnings. Now EU free-traders who believe in the efficiency-enhancing effects of the free flow of capital see their theoretical belief foundering on the rock of their energy dependence. Russia has billions available to invest in overseas companies. It refuses to allow foreign investment in its own renationalised energy infrastructure, but insists on its right to buy up the energy infrastructure of other countries. Result: the Russians have pipeline monopolies into Europe, and want to extend the reach of those monopolies beyond Russia’s borders, deep into the heart of Europe.

Gazprom is believed to be planning to make a bid for Centrica, the British gas distributor that also supplies gas and electricity to 1.5m customers in nine American states. It will then move on to attempt takeovers of key energy infrastructure projects in America.

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The Middle East Press Cheers the Rise of Russia
· 5 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Many articles in the Middle Eastern press have been discussing Russia’s growing influence and activities in the region, which are in direct opposition to American policy and are playing a negative role in the war on terror. To date, it is unclear what the American government is doing about it. One thing is for certain: Russia has big plans for itself in the Middle East.

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Reporting from the Russian Front
· 17 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Russia is no longer Russia. It is now “Putin’s Russia,” a country ruled by Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, whose centralization of power and crackdown on the press have alarmed the West and all but stifled dissent.

Who is to blame for the former KGB spy’s election, in 2000, as president of one-sixth of the world’s landmass, and his re-election, with a stunning 70% of the vote, in 2004? Whose fault is it that, as Anna Politkovskaya writes in “ Putin’s Russia” (Henry Holt & Company, 255 pages, $25), “more than six thousand ex-KGB/FSB people followed Putin to power and now occupy the highest offices” in Russia?

According to Politkovskaya, the responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of the Russian people: “It is we who are responsible for Putin’s policies, we first and foremost, not Putin. The fact that our reactions to him and his cynical manipulation of Russia have been confined to gossiping in the kitchen has enabled him to do all the things he has done in the past four years.”

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Russia to assist China in space
· 18 days ago by Matthew Wilson

MOSCOW – Russia will cooperate with China on space projects, but will not transfer sensitive technologies that could enable Beijing to become a rival in a space race, the head of Russia?s space agency announced last week.

Anatoly Perminov, chief of Russia?s Federal Space Agency, said Moscow and Beijing would cooperate in robotic missions to the moon. He added, however, that Russia would maintain restrictions on sharing technology.

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Belarus-Russia gas dispute threatens Poland, Europe: officials
· 20 days ago by Matthew Wilson

WARSAW (AFP) – The dispute between Belarus and Moscow over natural gas prices threatens the energy security of Poland and the rest of Europe, an official at the Polish foreign ministry has said.
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“This problem poses a threat to us and this is why we have had heated debate in the past few months about Polish-Russian relations and relations between Europe and Russia,” Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Kowal said Wednesday.

“Energy security today is a fundamental issue for Poland and we want to convince the rest of the world that it is also fundamental to Europe. This example is yet another illustration,” he said.

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tags: belarus , energy , europe , gas , poland , russia

The Kremlin's oil grab
· 29 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Big oil has a long history of having assets appropriated by hostile governments. Yet no one has been quite prepared for the land grab by Gazprom of a 50% stake in the Sakhalin-2 project.

This will come as a nasty blow to all overseas investors in President Putin’s Russia and emphasises the vulnerability of European energy supplies to the whims of the Kremlin.

The way in which the Russian authorities slowly tightened the noose on Shell can be seen as carefully orchestrated blackmail.

It will send shivers down the spine of BP investors who are heavily exposed to Russia through the TNKBP joint venture.

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Motherless Russia - Muslims and Chinese Vie For Huge Assets of Dying Nation
· 29 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Some think that France will be the first European country in modern times to be taken over by Muslims due to her very large, violent immigrant population and effeminate native populace. Others point to the Netherlands, from which native Dutch people are beginning to flee in the face of hostile Islamism among the immigrants in that densely-populated nation. But Russia—a huge nation with vast natural resources, thousands of nuclear warheads, and until recently a global superpower—-may be the first to go under. This seems possible even though Russia suffers little from the suicidal tolerance and multiculturalism that afflicts Western Europeans.

All the would-be conquerors, tyrannical tsars, and sinister Communists could not destroy Russia. Yet there is a force more powerful than all these, a force which can overcome comparatively minor factors such as wealth, size, and military power, and that is demographics. And it is demographics that will deliver Russia into the hands of chaos, Islam, China, or most likely a combination of all three.

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Lavrov Lashes Out at the West
· 30 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday blasted Western leaders for criticizing President Vladimir Putin to score points at home and contain Russian power.

Speaking at his traditional, end-of-the-year news conference, Lavrov stressed that Russia’s resurgence to the status of global player would continue and defended Russian policy in the former Soviet Union.

“We very often take into account recommendations when our partners pose concrete questions that are rooted in the conviction that we have something wrong somewhere, or when these questions are posed with an eye toward helping us correct ourselves in the international arena or domestically,” Lavrov told reporters at the Foreign Ministry’s offices in central Moscow.

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The Rise of Russia and the Coming Resource Wars
· 30 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Russia’s move in rejecting all outside help for the development of the Shtokmas field is a small subtle but potentially dangerous long term warning signal to nations that are low in natural resources, especially to the United States which imports the bulk of its oil. Let’s take this move one step further. If a nation or for that matter certain companies start to feel that the price of the commodity is too low they can hold back on developing new fields or maybe even drastically cut down production in anticipation of much higher prices in the future. Essentially oil, natural gas, coal etc can now be considered as money in the bank and the longer someone holds out the higher the rate of return (interest). Russia is loaded with dollars and it wants to drastically reduce its holdings and come up with an alternative currency to price oil and other natural resources. Don’t be surprised if they start of by giving the appearance that they want to embrace other currencies but actually make a push for their own resources to be priced in Russian Rubles.

Putin made the following comments on May 10, 2006

Our goods are traded on global markets. Why are not they traded in Russia?” Putin said. “The ruble must become a more widespread means of international transactions. To this end, we need to open a stock exchange in Russia to trade in oil, gas, and other goods to be paid for with rubles,” Putin said Wednesday.

In his Wednesday’s address, Putin urged work on achieving ruble convertibility sped up and completed by July, six months ahead of the original January 1, 2007 deadline.

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Assad Is in Moscow with Half-Billion Iranian Dollars to Upgrade His Army
· 31 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Syrian president Bashar Asad arrived in Moscow Monday night, Dec. 18, with two items for his host, President Vladimir Putin: A shopping list for weapons and half a billion dollars put up by Iran – in cash if needed – to purchase Russian arms.

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U.S. Relations With Russia Chill Despite Bush Eyeing Putin's Soul
· 31 days ago by Matthew Wilson

WASHINGTON — The now familiar face of deceased Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, the victim of a lethal dose of radiation poisoning, has left many Americans wondering if Russia today is as alien to them as it was during the Cold War.

Before dying, Litvinenko pointed his finger directly at Russian President Vladimir Putin, who denied committing any crime, and while the case will likely never be resolved, at least two U.S. senators say the former KGB colonel is moving the country away from democracy and other U.S. ideals.

“I think this guy is taking Russia backward,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

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The Kremlin’s Shell Game
· 31 days ago by Matthew Wilson

President Vladimir Putin believes that a powerful, state-controlled energy sector is the key to Russia’s economic future, even if he has to strong-arm foreign investors to get it. But trampling property rights is risky. It is as likely to leave Russia an economic pariah as an energy superpower.

The latest intrigue centers on a huge oil and natural-gas project off of Russia’s eastern coast. The project, Sakhalin 2, includes offshore platforms and the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas plant. It is also the single largest foreign investment in Russia. Royal Dutch Shell owns a 55 percent stake, but won’t for much longer from the looks of things.

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The Russians Have Never Stopped Spying on Us
· 32 days ago by Matthew Wilson

It is not for nothing that Vladimir Putin, the president of the Russian Republic, is a former member of the KGB. From its earliest days, Soviet Russia maintained a vast army of spies around the world and penetrating the United States remained high on its list of priorities.

In 2001, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Robert Hanssen, a FBI special agent who was a Russian spy, judged to be one of the most damaging moles in U.S. history. As Bill Gertz, a Washington Times reporter, notes in his latest book, “Enemies: How America’s Foes Steal Our Vital Secrets—and How We Let It Happen”, “Today, nearly 140 nations and some 35 known and suspected terrorist groups target the United States through espionage, according to intelligence officials.”

“Over the past several decades, foreign agents have penetrated every U.S. national security agency except the Coast Guard. That includes the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Defense Department, the State Department, and the Energy Department.”

My thoughts turned to espionage as the saga of the murder of Alexander Litvenko, a former member of the KGB’s counterintelligence now known as the Federal Security Service (FSB) unfolded. In 2000, he had fled with his wife and son to Great Britain where he was granted asylum. He became an author and outspoken critic of the Putin regime.

Silencing the enemies of Russian ambitions has a very long history including the famed ghulags of the Stalinist era.

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Report: Russia to refit nuclear missiles
· 32 days ago by Matthew Wilson

MOSCOW — Russia will replace single nuclear warheads on some of its strategic missiles with multiple warheads, Russian news agencies reported Friday, allowing Moscow to modernize its nuclear arsenal while building fewer new missiles – and spending less.

In theory, the shift would also make it easier for Russian nuclear weapons to evade a U.S. missile defense system.

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Brazil close to purchase of Russian military gear, possibly helicopters
· 36 days ago by Matthew Wilson

BRASILIA, Brazil: Brazil is close to buying more Russian military equipment, including helicopters, Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said Thursday.

Amorim met Thursday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for talks ranging from the Middle East conflict to increasing bilateral trade, now at around US$4 billion (€3 billion) a year.

Amorim said the two nations plan to raise trade to US$10 billion (€7.5 billion) a year by 2010.

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tags: brazil , military , russia

The Resurgent Bear
· 36 days ago by Matthew Wilson

“I shall be an autocrat, that’s my trade.” Thus quipped the Empress of Russia, Catherine the Great, who stamped Russian authority onto the international stage, seizing vast swathes of territory and establishing Russia as a formidable power in the middle of the eighteenth century. It appears that Vladimir Putin has taken her example to heart.

Buoyed up by high energy prices, Putin has embarked on an aggressive foreign policy agenda which seeks to re-establish Russia as a pre-eminent international power in opposition to what it perceives to be American and European hegemony. This foreign policy agenda is based around two primary goals, namely tightening Russian control over the former Soviet Republics and tightening alliances and friendships with like-minded states and in areas of strategic importance.

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Russia's Great Gas Grab
· 36 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Russia is in effect muscling in on the highly promising but very expensive natural gas field Shell Oil and its Japanese partners Mitsui & Company and Mitsubishi Corporation have developed off Sakhalin Island, east of Siberia and north of Japan. Much of the construction work is done, but further work has been delayed by administrative considerations. The project had experienced substantial cost overruns. [Full disclosure: the author has worked as a consultant for both Mitsui and Mitsubishi over a considerable period of years in the past.]

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Russia, Argentina to move from words to action – Lavrov
· 37 days ago by Matthew Wilson BUENOS AIRES, December 13 (Itar-Tass) – Russia and Argentina will move from words to action in their bilateral relations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after talks with his Argentine counterpart Jorge Taiana on Wednesday.

“We have a large package of important agreements, which we have agreed to put on a practical footing,” Lavrov said.

He said, “The agreement on military-technical cooperation was signed in 2004. … Argentina has already ratified it. Russia is completing the procedure for making the document effective.”

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Syria President Bashar al-Assad Summoned to Moscow
· 37 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Night Watch: MOSCOW – Syria President Bashar al-Assad has been summoned by Moscow to meet Russia President Vladmir Putin on December 19. RIA reports the two are to discuss regional developments and bilateral issues, but for obvious reasons gives no details. So much can happen between now and then. The details revolve around Moscow’s concern over the Damascus-Tehran security axis as they prepare for next wave of fighting against Israel while at the same time Syria-Iran are increasing their control over Lebanon through the expanded coalition parties demonstrating in Beirut. Moscow knows the next wave of war will engulf the European forces in UNIFIL since Tehran had al-Qaeda designate them to be an enemy of Islam (Iran). [RIA]

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Russian general staff chief warns NATO against embracing Georgia, Ukraine
· 37 days ago by Matthew Wilson

MOSCOW: NATO’s efforts to embrace Ukraine and Georgia would result in “serious problems and risks,” Russia’s military general staff chief said Wednesday, according to news reports.

Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky warned the alliance that putting Ukraine and Georgia on a fast accession track “will not strengthen regional security, the security of the Russian Federation or security of those nations,” the ITAR-Tass, Interfax and RIA Novosti news agencies reported.

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tags: georgia , military , nato , russia , ukraine

The Nightmare Scenario
· 38 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Editor’s note: A former arms control expert in the Soviet Union argues that Bush, in his obsession with North Korea and Iran’s relatively minuscule nuclear threat, has effectively ignored the much more perilous threat of Russia’s 10,000-strong nuclear arsenal.

This is the gist of the scenario, called Vigilant Shield ‘07, for this year’s Homeland Defense Exercise, currently being conducted by the U.S. Northern Command:

This week, the international crisis that started in September with U.S. discovery of stepped-up uranium enrichment activities in Iran is expected to trigger a nuclear war between Russia and the United States. In the past few weeks, international attempts to defuse the crisis failed, as Russia, supported by China and North Korea, increased the readiness of its armed forces and made several threatening moves. In his address to the citizens of Russia, President Valdimir Putin called the situation “grave” and expelled U.S. diplomats from Moscow. President Bush invoked the War Powers Act. A Russian reconnaissance plane collided in midair with a U.S. plane in the vicinity of U.S. ballistic missile defense installations. It is expected that in the next few days, Russia will launch a strategic nuclear strike at American command centers and armed forces. The U.S. will retaliate.

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$20bn gas project seized by Russia
· 38 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Shell is being forced by the Russian government to hand over its controlling stake in the world’s biggest liquefied gas project, provoking fresh fears about the Kremlin’s willingness to use the country’s growing strength in natural resources as a political weapon.

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Budding Alliance: Iran-Russia Cooperation Deepens
· 39 days ago by Matthew Wilson

In the Face of UN Sanctions Over Weapons Fears, Russia and Iran Are Expanding Their Partnership Beyond Just Nuclear Ties.

While the United States, Britain and France are said to begin a push to finally bring a sanctions vote on Iran before the United Nations Security Council, Russia and Iran today announced the deepening nature of their nuclear partnership. In meetings between the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Golam Reza Agazade, and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Kiriyenko, the two increasingly close countries discussed ways to move forward and solidify their existing nuclear bond.

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Russia Has Energy Stranglehold Over Europe
· 43 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Marshall Goldman, a long-time student of Russia, says energy wealth and control over export pipelines have made Russia more powerful than at any time in its history. VOA’s Barry Wood reports the Harvard University professor spoke at a forum Thursday in Washington.

Professor Goldman told the Jamestown Foundation that Russia’s post-cold war power is built on its oil and gas resources. He said both eastern and western Europe have become dependent on Russia for oil and gas and that alternative supplies are not available. The recent boom in oil and gas prices, said Professor Goldman, has greatly boosted Russia’s economic and political clout.

“I end up arguing, and I’m putting my neck out, that Russia is more powerful now than it ever was during the czarist era or the Soviet era,” he noted. “In the Soviet era there was mutually assured destruction. They had nuclear weapons. We had nuclear weapons. We didn’t use them, because we were worried they would and vice versa. Here you don’t have that kind of restraint.”

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tags: energy , europe , oil , russia

Russia Successfully Tests Own Missile Defense
· 44 days ago by Matthew Wilson

The Russian military on Tuesday conducted a successful test launch of an interceptor missile used in the nation’s missile defense system, officials are quoted by the Associated Press news agency.

The missile was launched from the Sary-Shagan testing range, which Russia leases from Kazakhstan, Russian space forces spokesman Col. Alexei Kuznetsov told The Associated Press.

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Don't play dead for Putin
· 44 days ago by Matthew Wilson

What the West can do help stop the authoritarian Russian president from garnering too much influence in the world.

THERE ARE A lot of ways to make a man’s death look like an accident, suicide or a street crime. That wasn’t the intent of whoever murdered former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London. By using such an exotic murder weapon — a radioactive isotope known as polonium-210 — his killers sent a message: Don’t mess with the powers that be in Russia.

The identity of his murderers is likely to remain unknown, but in all probability Litvinenko was poisoned because of his campaign against Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and the KGB’s successor, the FSB. He is only the latest to pay with his life for offending Russia’s ruling clique. The list of prominent people murdered in the last few years includes crusading journalists such as Anna Politkovskaya (whose death Litvinenko was investigating), politicians, executives and government officials. Others, such as Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, have narrowly survived assassination attempts or have been exiled or silenced with threats of violence or legal charges.

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The Unexpected New World: Russia and China against America
· 49 days ago by Matthew Wilson

In the aftermath of the recent Middle East war, it is not difficult to imagine that the map of the recent world, but after the Lebanon war, has, like an undeveloped photographic print, just been dipped into a pan of solution, and we are watching as an image emerges before our eyes. That image is very different both to what we have known and what we have expected.

The new map, now out of the developer and drying, shows new problems and new international configurations that will pose serious issues for the United States, her democratic allies, and even her undemocratic allies.

Above all we see the two powers that we have tried hardest of all to befriend over past decades, China and Russia, working actively against us, strategically and militarily, and not just in the Middle East, but effectively everywhere.

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U.S. may risk breach with Russia on Iran sanctions
· 50 days ago by Matthew Wilson

DEAD SEA, Jordan — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signaled Thursday that the United States is willing to risk a breach with Russia if the Russians do not soon sign on to a U.N. Security Council resolution to punish Iran for its nuclear activities.

“I am all for maintaining unity, but I am also in favor of action,” Rice told reporters as she devoted much of her day to other Middle East crises: trying to nurture a fledging truce between Israel and the Palestinians, and attending talks in Amman, Jordan, between President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

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Russia On The Brink
· 50 days ago by Matthew Wilson

American Jews have a lot on their communal plate right now, what with Lebanon, Iran and the chaos in Gaza. But the situation in Russia cries out for our attention, as well. With more than a half-million vulnerable Jews remaining in the country, Russia’s turn back to authoritarian rule should be a matter of worldwide Jewish concern.

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Blood and Oil
· 51 days ago by Matthew Wilson

With the gruesome killing of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, Vladimir Putin’s Russia stands accused of poisoning yet another critic.

Meanwhile, Syria continues to mastermind the murders of Lebanese democrats. Israeli-free Gaza is as violent as ever. Hezbollah is busy replenishing its stock of Iranian missiles. The theocracy in Iran keeps promising an end to Israel. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is slowly strangling democracy in Latin America in a manner that an impoverished Fidel Castro never could.

And then, of course, there’s Afghanistan and Iraq.

It’s easy to think that all of this violent instability across the globe is unconnected. But, in fact, in one way or another, oil and its huge profits are at the bottom of a lot of it.

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Russia's Interest in Litvinenko
· 51 days ago by Matthew Wilson

The recent death of a former Russian intelligence agent, Alexander Litvinenko, apparently after being poisoned with polonium-210, raises three interesting questions. First: Was he poisoned by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the KGB? Second: If so, what were they trying to achieve? Third: Why were they using polonium-210, instead of other poisons the KGB used in the past? In short, the question is, what in the world is going on?

Litvinenko would seem to have cut a traditional figure in Russian
and Soviet history, at least on the surface. The first part of his
life was spent as a functionary of the state. Then, for reasons
that are not altogether clear, he became an exile and a strident
critic of the state he had served. He published two books that made explosive allegations about the FSB and President Vladimir Putin, and he recently had been investigating the shooting death of a Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, who also was a critic of the Putin government. Clearly, he was intent on stirring up trouble for Moscow.

Russian and Soviet tradition on this is clear: Turncoats like
Litvinenko must be dealt with, for two reasons. First, they
represent an ongoing embarrassment to the state. And second, if
they are permitted to continue with their criticisms, they will
encourage other dissidents — making it appear that, having once
worked for the FSB, you can settle safely in a city like London and
hurl thunderbolts at the motherland with impunity. The state must
demonstrate that this will not be permitted — that turncoats will
be dealt with no matter what the circumstances.

The death of Litvinenko, then, certainly makes sense from a
political perspective. But it is the perspective of the old Soviet
Union — not of the new Russia that many believed was being born,
slowly and painfully, with economic opening some 15 years ago. This does not mean, however, that the killing would not serve a purpose for the Russian administration, in the current geopolitical
context.

For years, we have been forecasting and following the
transformation of Russia under Vladimir Putin. Putin became
president of Russia to reverse the catastrophe of the Yeltsin
years. Under communism, Russia led an empire that was relatively poor but enormously powerful in the international system. After the fall of communism, Russia lost its empire, stopped being enormously powerful, and became even poorer than before. Though Westerners celebrated the fall of communism and the Soviet Union, these turned out to be, for most Russians, a catastrophe with few mitigating tradeoffs.

Obviously, the new Russia was of enormous benefit to a small class of entrepreneurs, led by what became known as the oligarchs. These men appeared to be the cutting edge of capitalism in Russia. They were nothing of the sort. They were simply people who knew how to game the chaos of the fall of communism, figuring out how to reverse Soviet expropriation with private expropriation. The ability to turn state property into their own property represented free enterprise only to the most superficial or cynical viewers.

The West was filled with both in the 1990s. Many academics and
journalists saw the process going on in Russia as the painful birth
of a new liberal democracy. Western financial interests saw it as a
tremendous opportunity to tap into the enormous value of a
collapsing empire. The critical thing is that the creation of
value, the justification of capitalism, was not what was going on.
Rather, the expropriation of existing value was the name of the
game. Bankers loved it, analysts misunderstood it and the Russians were crushed by it.

It was this kind of chaos into which Putin stepped when he became
president, and which he has slowly, inexorably, been bringing to
heel for several years. This is the context in which Litvinenko’s
death — which, admittedly, raises many questions — must be
understood.

The Andropov Doctrine

Let’s go back to Yuri Andropov, who was the legendary head of the KGB in the 1970s and early 1980s, and the man who first realized that the Soviet Union was in massive trouble. Of all the
institutions in the world, the KGB alone had the clearest idea of
the condition of the Soviet Union. Andropov realized in the early
1980s that the Soviet economy was failing and that, with economic
failure, it would collapse. Andropov knew that the exploitation of
Western innovation had always been vital to the Soviet economy. The KGB had been tasked with economic and technical espionage in the West. Rather than developing their own technology, in many
instances, the Soviets innovated by stealing Western technology via the KGB, essentially using the KGB as an research and development system. Andropov understood just how badly the Soviet Union needed this innovation and how inefficient the Soviet kleptocracy was.

Andropov engineered a new concept. If the Soviet Union was to
survive, it had to forge a new relationship with the West. The
regime needed not only Western technology, but also Western-style management systems and, above all, Western capital. Andropov realized that so long as the Soviet Union was perceived as a geopolitical threat to the West and, particularly, to the United
States, this transfer was not going to take place. Therefore, the
Soviet Union had to shift its global strategy and stop threatening
Western geopolitical interests.

The Andropov doctrine argued that the Soviet Union could not
survive if it did not end, or at least mitigate, the Cold War.
Furthermore, if it was to entice Western investment and utilize
that investment efficiently, it needed to do two things. First,
there had to be a restructuring of the Soviet economy
(perestroika). Second, the Soviet system had to be opened to accept innovation (glasnost). Andropov’s dream for the Soviet Union never really took hold during his lifetime, as he died several months after becoming the Soviet leader. He was replaced by a nonentity, Konstantin Chernenko, who also died after a short time in office. And then there was Mikhail Gorbachev, who came to embody the KGB’s strategy.

Gorbachev was clearly perceived by the West as a reformer, which he certainly was. But less clear to the West were his motives for reform. He was in favor of glasnost and perestroika, but not because he rejected the Soviet system. Rather, Gorbachev embraced these because, like the KGB, he was desperately trying to save the system. Gorbachev pursued the core vision of Yuri Andropov — and by the time he took over, he was the last hope for that vision. His task was to end the Cold War and trade geopolitical concessions for economic relations with the West.

It was a well-thought-out policy, but it was ultimately a desperate
one — and it failed. In conceding Central Europe, allowing it to
break away without Soviet resistance, Gorbachev lost control of the entire empire, and it collapsed. At that point, the economic
restructuring went out of control, and openness became the cover
for chaos — with the rising oligarchs and others looting the state
for personal gain. But one thing remained: The KGB, both as an
institution and as a group of individuals, continued to operate.

Saving the System: A Motive for Murder?

As a young KGB operative, Vladimir Putin was a follower of
Andropov. Like Andropov, Putin was committed to the restructuring of the Soviet Union in order to save it. He was a foot soldier in that process.

Putin and his FSB faction realized in the late 1990s that, however
lucrative the economic opening process might have been for some, the net effect on Russia was catastrophic. Unlike the oligarchs, many of whom were indifferent to the fate of Russia, Putin understood that the path they were on would only lead to another revolution — one even more catastrophic than the first. Outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg, there was hunger and desperation. The conditions for disaster were all there.

Putin also realized that Russia had not reaped the sought-after
payoff with its loss of prestige and power in the world. Russia had
traded geopolitics but had not gotten sufficient benefits in
return. This was driven home during the Kosovo crisis, when the
United States treated fundamental Russian interests in the Balkans
with indifference and contempt. It was clear to Putin by then that
Boris Yeltsin had to go. And go he did, with Putin taking over.

Putin is a creation of Andropov. In his bones, he believes in the
need for a close economic relationship with the West. But his
motives are not those of the oligarchs, and certainly not those of
the West. His goal, like that of the KGB, is the preservation and
reconstruction of the Russian state. For Putin, perestroika and
glasnost were tactical necessities that caused a strategic
disaster. He came into office with the intention of reversing that
disaster. He continued to believe in the need for openness and
restructuring, but only as a means toward the end of Russian power, not as an end in itself.

For Putin, the only solution to Russian chaos was the reassertion
of Russian value. The state was the center of Russian society, and
the intelligence apparatus was the center of the Russian state.
Thus, Putin embarked on a new, slowly implemented policy. First,
bring the oligarchs under control; don’t necessarily destroy them,
but compel them to work in parallel with the state. Second,
increase Moscow’s control over the outlying regions. Third,
recreate a Russian sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union.
Fourth, use the intelligence services internally to achieve these
ends and externally to reassert Russian global authority.

None of these goals could be accomplished if a former intelligence
officer could betray the organs of the state and sit in London
hurling insults at Putin, the FSB and Russia. For a KGB man trained
by Andropov, this would show how far Russia had fallen. Something would have to be done about it. Litvinenko’s death, seen from this standpoint, was a necessary and inevitable step if Putin’s new strategy to save the Russian state is to have meaning.

Anomaly

That, at least, is the logic. It makes sense that Litvinenko would
have been killed by the FSB. But there is an oddity: The KGB/FSB
have tended to use poison mostly in cases where they wanted someone dead, but wanted to leave it unclear how he died and who killed him. Poison traditionally has been used when someone wants to leave a corpse in a way that would not incur an autopsy or, if a normal autopsy is conducted, the real cause of death would not be discovered (as the poisons used would rapidly degrade or leave the body). When the KGB/FSB wanted someone dead, and wanted the world to know why he had been killed — or by whom — they would use two bullets to the brain. A professional hit leaves no ambiguity.

The use of polonium-210 in this case, then, is very odd. First, it
took a long time to kill Litvinenko — giving him plenty of time to
give interviews to the press and level charges against the Kremlin.
Second, there was no way to rationalize his death as a heart attack or brain aneurysm. Radiation poisoning doesn’t look like anything but what it is. Third, polonium-210 is not widely available. It is not something you pick up at your local pharmacy. The average homicidal maniac would not be able to get hold of it or use it.

So, we have a poisoning that was unmistakably deliberate.
Litvinenko was killed slowly, leaving him plenty of time to confirm
that he thought Putin did it. And the poison would be very
difficult to obtain by anyone other than a state agency. Whether it
was delivered from Russia — something the Russians have denied — or stolen and deployed in the United Kingdom, this is not something to be tried at home, kids. So, there was a killing, designed to look like what it was — a sophisticated hit.

This certainly raises questions among conspiracy theorists and
others. The linkage back to the Russian state appears so direct
that some might argue it points to other actors or factions out to
stir up trouble for Putin, rather than to Putin himself. Others
might say that Litvinenko was killed slowly, yet with an obvious
poisoning signature, so that he in effect could help broadcast the
Kremlin’s message — and cause other dissidents to think seriously
about their actions.

We know only what everyone else knows about this case, and we are working deductively. For all we know, Litvinenko had a very angry former girlfriend who worked in a nuclear lab. But while that’s possible, one cannot dismiss the fact that his death — in so
public a manner — fits in directly with the logic of today’s
Russia and the interests of Vladimir Putin and his group. It is not
that we know or necessarily believe Putin personally ordered a
killing, but we do know that, in the vast apparatus of the FSB,
giving such an order would not have been contrary to the current
inclinations of the leadership.

And whatever the public’s impression of the case might be, the
KGB/FSB has not suddenly returned to the scene. In fact, it never
left. Putin has been getting the system back under control for
years. The free-for-all over economic matters has ended, and Putin has been restructuring the Russian economy for several years to increase state control, without totally reversing openness. This process, however, requires the existence of a highly disciplined FSB — and that is not compatible with someone like a Litvinenko publicly criticizing the Kremlin from London. Litvinenko’s death would certainly make that point very clear.

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Russia-NATO relations remain difficult
· 52 days ago by Matthew Wilson

MOSCOW. (Andrei Kokoshin for RIA Novosti) – One of the reasons behind Russia’s difficult relations with NATO is the latter’s expansion to the east.

We believe that NATO’s decision to invite former Warsaw Treaty and Baltic countries to join it is unjustified. Moreover, this decision contradicted the repeated assurances given by the Western leaders to their Soviet counterparts in the late 1980s, and in 1991.

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Report: Russian defense minister says U.S. missile defense in Europe meant to weaken Russian deterrence
· 52 days ago by Matthew Wilson

MOSCOW: The planned deployment of a U.S. missile defense system in Europe is intended to weaken Russia’s capacity for deterrence, the defense minister said, according to a report Tuesday by the Interfax news agency.

“We are told that this system is allegedly intended to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles. But Iran has no missiles of this class and is unlikely to obtain them in the foreseeable future,” Interfax quoted Ivanov as saying in Belarus’ Soyuznoye Gosudarstvo magazine.

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What Does Putin Want?
· 52 days ago by Matthew Wilson

By now, however, it has become evident that Putin is taking Russia in a direction not only unmistakably different from the one pursued by Yeltsin but, in many regards, its opposite. For the United States no less than for the Russian people, this turn of events carries profoundly unsettling implications. Not only is the survival of Russian democracy at stake, but so too is Russia’s reliability as a key oil producer and as an actor in the world.

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America: Open your eyes to the evil
· 52 days ago by Matthew Wilson

The American left will never open its eyes with regard to Russia. As for the so-called neo-conservatives and traditional conservatives (plus the attending libertarians), to the extent that it’s worth noting at all, neither side knows its country’s real enemy. All are addicted to their respective “conservative” ideologies, considering only those facts that support their own preconceptions. What follows is a conscious decision to put any facts about Russia aside.

For the neo-cons it’s simply too much to realize that we are at war with a combination of countries that can turn America into a heap of rubble overnight. The only reason the neo-cons propose such bold projects in Iraq and now Iran has to do with their belief that America is the unchallengeable superpower, that Russia is no longer a factor, that American military superiority is axiomatic. If they recognized the actual situation, given Russia and China’s actual military buildup, they would be screaming for 30 Army divisions and a draft. But the neo-cons live in a sheltered reality, worried about the advance of al Qaeda when a larger enemy is at work. The adventure in Iraq shows that they do not know how to make basic measurements. Their fantasies dovetail with their ambitions, simultaneously blotting out any realistic analysis of the actual situation.

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The Grand Chess Masters: The Bear and the Dragon
· 53 days ago by Matthew Wilson

While the Iraq crisis continues, the strategy of the Grand Chess Masters—Russia the bear and China the dragon along with their pawns the Leftists, Marxists and Islamists continue to develop and put in place their strategy for the ultimate goal of world domination.

General John Abizaid, the top US commander in the Middle East and John McCain argue about toop strengths. Many Democrats, including Carl Levin, who will become chairman of the Senate armed services committee in January, argue that the US needs to pressure the Iraqis by announcing a timetable to start withdrawing troops within four to six months. The Baker-Hamilton “Iraq Study Group” (ISG) is deciding whether to talk to Syria and Iran to request assistance in establishing stability in Iraq. And most are attempting to wage the war on the basis of Political Correctness and Social Justice. Few are addressing who are the enemies and what are their goal. In effect the West is still rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, deciding how may tables to have and what time the games should start and of course when they should end.

The game has started, the strategies for “Checkmate” are in place. It is time for the America and the West to wake up. The “Cold War” has not ended, the nuclear armed totalitarian regimes have united, and this time they have added the Isalmists who are willing to die for the cause.

Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Novemeber 13 drew a direct analogy between Iran and Nazi Germany.

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Russia’s soaring corruption ‘puts investors off’
· 53 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Russia’s inefficient and corrupt state administration is a key impediment to investment – both foreign and domestic – as well as to the government’s ability to implement any of its policies, according to the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation.

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Who Killed Litvinenko?
· 54 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Try asking Vladimir Putin.

MOSCOW— Until a week ago, Alexander Litvinenko, a former colonel in the Russian Federal Security Service, the FSB, was virtually unknown outside the murky world of Russian intelligence. With his death in London from a massive dose of the radioactive element polonium 210, however, his fate may lead to a fundamentally different relationship between Russia and the West.

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The 1939 parallel?
· 54 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Sixty-seven years later it seems that once again Russia has yielded to the destructive ambitions of a tyrant and an anti-Semite. By refusing to support tough sanctions on Iran over its dangerous nuclear enrichment program, Russia is once again exposing the world to unimaginable carnage, certainly much worse than that of World War II. While Russia’s failure to learn from history is particularly shocking, and has made it the chief stumbling block to the U.N. confronting Iran, it is not alone in averting its gaze from the pending disaster, as detailed below.

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Russia must remain a major nuclear power
· 54 days ago by Matthew Wilson

An all-out war or armed conflict between the great powers no longer seems possible. However, the five official nuclear powers are in no hurry to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their policy, a fact attested to by the US’s new nuclear doctrine, loose rules of engagement for using nuclear weapons in the event of a crisis and greater regional tensions.

Russia therefore has no choice but to remain a major nuclear power in the foreseeable future.

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Russia-China Security Cooperation
· 54 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Russia and China have joined together in a strategic partnership aimed at countering the U.S. and Western “monopoly in world affairs,” as was made clear in a joint statement released by the Chinese and Russian presidents in July 2005. The long standing border disputes between the two countries were settled in agreements in 2005, and joint military exercises were carried out in the same year. Furthermore, Russia, in addition to its arms exports, has been increasing its oil and gas commitments to China. Clearly, the recent comprehensive improvement of bilateral relations between China and Russia is a remarkable development. What is the meaning of this military and security related cooperation, and is the Sino-Russian military liaison likely to expand? Should this rapprochement be considered as a structural shift of power with the goal of repelling Western influence from Central Asia and the adjacent areas?

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What is polonium-210 and how can it kill you?
· 54 days ago by Matthew Wilson

LONDON — Polonium-210 — the radioactive substance that killed a former Russian spy in London — is one of the world’s rarest elements, first discovered in the 19th century by scientists Marie and Pierre Curie.

It is highly lethal when ingested and extremely hard to detect, experts said Friday.

For days doctors struggled to identify the poison that led to the rapid deterioration of Alexander Litvinenko’s health, and ultimately his death late Thursday.

Britain’s Health Protection Agency said Friday that polonium-210 was found in his urine.

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Sino-Russian Cooperation in Killing Putin's Enemies?
· 54 days ago by Matthew Wilson

MI6 believe the Polonium 210, which killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, could have come from China. It is one of the few countries – the United States is another – with the specialist laboratory to produce Polonium 210 as a deadly weapon. It is normally used in the Chinese space programme.

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Report: Russia Supplying Iran With Advanced Defense System
· 54 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Iran’s news agency reported that Russia is providing Tehran with TOR-M1 ground-to-air missiles. The move is seen as preparing Iran for a strike by Israel or the U.S. against its nuclear program.

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DEBKAfile reports: Russia sells Iran sophisticated missile systems capable of repelling US or Israeli air or missile assaults
· 55 days ago by Matthew Wilson

The first of 29 Tor-M1 systems in the $700m deal have been delivered to Iran by Moscow despite US opposition to their sale of a weapon widely regarded as the most advanced of its kind in the world. Some Iranian and Russian air defense experts say its full deployment at Iran’s nuclear installations will make them virtually invulnerable to American or Israeli attack in the foreseeable future. Therefore, no more than six months remain, until the Russian Tor-M1 systems are in place, for any attempt to knock out Iran’s nuclear weapons industry.

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If not the EU, then who?
· 55 days ago by Matthew Wilson

MOSCOW: During the Soviet era, Russian human-rights defenders looked to the West as our only hope for leverage on a government that was utterly unaccountable to its people. It is surreal to find myself in that position again today.

Outside pressure is now the only hope of stopping President Vladimir Putin from leading Russia back to the past, but the governments of the European Union don’t seem keen to exert such pressure. The EU-Russia summit on Friday, which comes after a particularly bleak period for human rights in Russia, is a test of the EU’s mettle. As a Russian working in human rights since the Soviet era, I am watching closely with hope that the EU will reverse years of speaking softly to Russia, and use a big stick.

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PUTIN'S KILLED ME
· 56 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Ex-spy’s dramatic deathbed blast at Russian president

POISONED ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko yesterday accused Russia’s President Vladimir Putin of murdering him – in a scathing denunciation written on his deathbed.

Litvinenko, who dictated the statement as he lay in a London hospital dying from a massive dose of powerful radioactive poison, said Putin had proved he was “ruthless and barbaric”.

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Cold War History Lessons
· 56 days ago by Matthew Wilson

A rogue Russian spy is killed in mysterious circumstances in London. Some of the Russian president’s leading domestic opponents are exiled, imprisoned or murdered. The Kremlin, in the grip of a steely former KGB colonel, destabilises unfriendly neighbouring countries, temporarily severing gas supplies to Ukraine and bullying Georgia.

Is this the start of a new cold war?

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The Return of the KGB
· 56 days ago by Matthew Wilson

November 25, 2006: The recent opening of a $300 million headquarters for GRU (Russian military intelligence), was but another demonstration of Russia’s increased interest in espionage. The 670,000 square foot GRU complex contains the latest of everything for one of the smallest of Russia’s intelligence services (the domestic, and foreign, intelligence services are larger). Over the past five years, the increasing flood of oil revenue has made it possible to rebuild the intelligence services. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, there followed a decade of decline for the intelligence services. The feared KGB became the threadbare SVB, with domestic intelligence taken over by the FSB. Many Soviet spies defected, and sold their secrets to Western intelligence agencies.

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Putin issues veiled warning to Poland on EU talks
· 59 days ago by Matthew Wilson

LONDON (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin said in a veiled warning to Poland and other East European nations on Wednesday they risked creating fresh divisions in Europe by treating Russia as an enemy instead of a strategic partner.

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GLONASS to be fully operational in Russia by late 2007
· 59 days ago by Matthew Wilson MOSCOW, November 22 (Itar-Tass) – Russia’s satellite navigation system GLONASS will become fully operational by the end of 2007, Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Wednesday.

“We have to secure the functioning of the whole system in the territory of Russia by the end of 2007,” Ivanov said at a meeting with Krasnoyarsk territory governor Alexander Khloponin.

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Nuclear strikes from 'rogue states' possible - Russian Air Force
· 59 days ago by Matthew Wilson

MOSCOW, November 22 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s Air Force commander said Wednesday he considers nuclear missile launches by terrorists or ‘rogue states’ to be a genuine threat.

“Increasingly probable and dangerous for the U.S., Russia and European countries are single or multiple missile strikes from third countries, known as rogue states, countries with unstable, non-democratic regimes, or terrorist organizations with access to missile technology,” Vladimir Mikhailov said.

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tags: missiles , nuclear , rogue-states , russia

Russia tips the balance
· 59 days ago by Matthew Wilson

THE NEW WORLD OIL ORDER, Part 2

Russia has set the agenda for the global transition to an entirely new model of international energy security designed to address intensifying concerns, especially those of the rising East.

Russia, possessing unequaled energy-based leverage, has taken the leadership among the world’s producers and the rising powerhouse economies of the East to promote a vast worldwide web of alliances and ties prominently featuring rigid bilateral, private long-term supply contracts.

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tags: oil , russia , west

Russia attacks the West's Achilles' heel
· 59 days ago by Matthew Wilson

THE NEW WORLD OIL ORDER, Part 1

Russia has found the Achilles’ heel of the US colossus. In concert with its oil-producing partners and the rising powerhouse economies of the East, Russia is altering the foundations of the current US-led liberal global oil-market order, insidiously working to undermine its US-centric nature and slanting it toward serving first and foremost the energy-security needs and the geopolitical aspirations of the rising East.

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tags: energy , oil , russia , west

Russia may aid Hanoi on nuclear energy
· 60 days ago by Matthew Wilson

HANOI: Russia and Vietnam agreed Monday to step up economic cooperation and work together to combat terrorism during a visit by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, meant to fortify ties between the two Cold War allies.

Russia could extend cooperation in the energy sector to include nuclear power, Putin said.

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tags: asia , nuclear , russia , vietnam

Russia Implementing Arms Contract With Iran: Official
· 60 days ago by Matthew Wilson Russia is going ahead with a contract to deliver sophisticated air defense systems to Iran, a Russian Defense Ministry official said Nov. 17, despite appeals from Washington to reconsider.

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tags: arms , iran , military , russia

FROM RUSSIA WITH RAT POISON
· 60 days ago by Matthew Wilson

On Sunday, the British press exploded with reports about the poisoning in London of KGB defector Colonel Alexander Litvinenko (pictured above, circa 2002), who had been in the process of investigating the murder of Anna Politkovskaya to see whether the KGB (now called the FSB) was involved. The Associated Press reported that “Toxicologist Dr. John Henry, who has been treating Litvinenko, told the BBC that the former agent had been poisoned by thallium — a toxic metal commonly found in rat poison. ‘It points to that in his blood stream,’ he said.” The Times of London reported that the symptoms appeared just after a meal at a restaurant with a former friend who ate nothing and had promised leads on the investigation. The New York Times explains:

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tags: britain , russia

Muslim birthrate worries Russia
· 60 days ago by Matthew Wilson

MOSCOW — Low domestic birthrates and rising immigration from the former Soviet republics are producing explosive growth in Russia’s Muslim community, which is on a track to account for more than half the population by midcentury.

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tags: demographics , muslim , russia

NATO warning over Russian power
· 61 days ago by Matthew Wilson

NATO needs to guard against Russian attempts to establish an “OPEC for gas” as a means of increasing its power in Europe, advisors to the military alliance have warned in a confidential report, British daily the Financial Times said last week.

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tags: energy , europe , gas , nato , russia

Message from Ottawa to Russia: We're watching you
· 63 days ago by Matthew Wilson

His arrest, based on information gathered by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, amounts to a clear message from Ottawa to Russia and other spying nations: We’re watching you and we know what you’re doing.

Similar scenes have played out in many cities of late. In Prague this September, authorities kicked out an alleged Russian spy for trying to steal NATO and European Union secrets. A year earlier, in Japan, another alleged Russian spy — posing as an Italian consultant — was arrested for trying to steal semi-conductors that could be used in military guidance systems. Not long before that, an Irish businessman was arrested at Los Angeles airport, the FBI accusing him of touring Silicon Valley to buy electronic eavesdropping equipment for Russia.

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tags: canada , russia , spying

Russia is Asking for It
· 63 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Just as Poland and Lithuania are sending a message to Russia on the EU, Georgia is doing the same with the WTO.

It has been a week that the Kremlin probably would prefer to forget.

First, Poland held up a new partnership agreement between Russia and the European Union as Lithuania sent strong signals that it supported Warsaw’s efforts. Then, Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli reiterated Tbilisi’s threat to veto Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization. And if that wasn’t enough, Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin and Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili pledged to cooperate in resolving “frozen conflicts” in the pro-Moscow enclaves of Transdniester, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia.

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Sweden Afraid of Russian Spooks
· 65 days ago by Matthew Wilson

First it was Poland which came out against the planned Baltic Sea pipeline from Russia to Germany. Now, though, Sweden says it is worried that the Russians will use the installation for spying.

The public relations operation is impeccable. Nord Stream AG has given every assurance that its planned gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea will respect not only the environment, but also the socio-economic and military sensibilities of every country en route from Vyborg, Russia to Greifswald, Germany.

Nice try.

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tags: energy , russia , sweden

The rebirth of Russian power
· 66 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Recent leaders of the lone superpower, the United States, are increasingly criticised for allowing the economies of East Asia to hollow out its industry, siphon off much of its technological superiority and build a dangerous American dependency on imports and financial borrowings from East Asia.

Will they soon be criticised for allowing a much diminished, erstwhile major rival, Russia, to make the most unlikely comeback after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991? Will they be criticised for allowing the American military industrial complex to lag behind the military technology of its old adversary and for being inept in developing and preserving America’s own strategic alliances?

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NATO report says Russia aims to form a gas cartel
· 66 days ago by Matthew Wilson

BRUSSELS: NATO advisers have warned that Russia may be seeking to create a natural gas cartel stretching from Algeria to Central Asia to use as a political weapon in dealings with Europe, alliance sources said Tuesday.

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tags: energy , gas , russia

Doubts about Russia's strategic missile
· 68 days ago by Matthew Wilson

The second failed test launch of Russia’s experimental Bulava (R-30 SS-NX-30) submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) has renewed doubts about the viability of the country’s strategic nuclear deterrent.

The Bulava is a three-staged missile designed to carry up to six individually targeted nuclear warheads for a range of approximately 8,000-10,000 kilometers. It is currently scheduled to enter service in 2008 after completing at least 10 additional test launches, though continuing failures could easily delay matters.

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Oil fuels national ambitions
· 68 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Iran, Russia and Venezuela have swollen treasuries

LONDON – Iran maintains a costly nuclear program while spending billions to subsidize everything from apartments to gasoline. Russia defies international demands to give up a monopoly on oil pipelines to Europe. Venezuela sends aid to countries around the globe in an effort to expand its influence.

What all three have in common are treasuries swollen by the high price of oil.

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tags: iran , oil , russia , venezuela

RUSSIA'S SHIFTING NUCLEAR STRATEGY
· 69 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Amid growing concern in Moscow about the potential impact of a U.S. missile defense deployment in Europe, Russian strategists are retooling their country’s nuclear posture and warfighting strategy. “NATO is so close to the Russian borders nowadays that strategic bombers cannot hope to take off in case of a sudden attack (the order will take too long reaching them, and besides, they will have to be fuelled and outfitted first),” writes analyst Aleksei Vaschenko in the November 10th edition of Defense and Security. Likewise, although “[r]ailroad missile complexes posed a bona fide threat to the Americans,” these systems have been largely dismantled over the past two decades thanks to the policies of Presidents Gorbachev and Yeltsin.

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An outer-space war of words escalates
· 70 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Russians overreacting on the basis of overwrought reports on U.S. policy

International frictions over space policy took a rising turn this week, with Russian President Vladimir Putin accusing unnamed countries — clearly meaning the United States and perhaps Israel — of “seeking to untie their hands in order to take weapons to outer space, including nuclear weapons.”

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tags: russia , space , u.s.

Futuristic Novel Explores Possibility of World War III
· 70 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Set in the not-so-distant future, Jaden’s novel focuses on what could happen in the next decade. On Jan. 24, 2012, the world changes forever. After a massive attack on Iranian nuclear/chemical facilities in October 2006 and the bombing of Turkey’s military in December, the leaders of China orchestrate a secret world coalition against the United States, including Russia, radical Islamic sects, North Korea and Indonesia. The plan is to enact Operation Dragon’s Claw, a sprawling plan to invade four continents and take over the world after weakening them with Operation Dragon’s Breath.

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tags: china , nuclear , russia , u.s. , war

Russia: U.S. Election Expected To Chill Relations Further
· 70 days ago by Matthew Wilson

PRAGUE, November 9, 2006 (RFE/RL) — Russian media today are predicting a chill in U.S.-Russia ties following the results of the November 7 U.S. elections, which appeared to hand both chambers of Congress to the opposition Democrats and have led to the surprise resignation of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Many Russian newspapers predict the changes to the U.S. Congress will mean increased criticism of Russia’s human rights standards, and a deterioration in cooperation on foreign-policy issues like Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. RFE/RL correspondent Claire Bigg spoke to Aleksandr Golts, a political and defense expert for the Moscow-based “Yezhednevny zhurnal.”

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France, Russia test missiles
· 71 days ago by Matthew Wilson

France carried out a first test on its new M-51 ballistic missile which is to carry submarine-based nuclear weapons, the Defence Ministry said. The unarmed missile was fired over the Bay of Biscay from a launch test centre on France’s southern Atlantic coast. The M51, with a range of some 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles), is to replace France’s existing submarine-based missiles by 2010.

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tags: france , missiles , russia

THE SINO-RUSSIAN ARMS DILEMMA
· 71 days ago by Matthew Wilson

For over a decade, Russian military exports to China have constituted the most important dimension of the two countries’ security relationship. Since the two governments signed an agreement on military-technical cooperation in December 1992, China has purchased more weapons platforms and hardware-related items from Russia than from all other countries combined. During the 1990s, the value of these deliveries ranged up to US$1 billion annually. In recent years, this figure has approached $2 billion per year. Through these dealings, the various branches of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have acquired Su-27 and Su-30 advanced fighter aircraft, Mi-17 transport helicopters, Il-72 transport aircraft, A-50 warning and control aircraft, SA-10 and SA-15 air defense missiles, T-72 main battle tanks, Kilo-class diesel submarines, and two Sovremenny-class destroyers [1]. Furthermore, in early November, Beijing and Moscow appeared to be finalizing a deal in which China would purchase the Su-33, an advanced carrier-based variant of the Su-27 (Sankei Shimbun, November 6).

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tags: arms , china , military , russia

Russian Expert Predicts Deterioration of Relations With U.S.
· 72 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Relations between Russia and the United States will continue to worsen regardless of which political party is at the helm of the American legislature, the RIA Novosti news agency quoted a leading Russian expert as saying.

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China-Egypt nuclear energy deal
· 73 days ago by Matthew Wilson

China says it has reached an agreement with the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, to co-operate on the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Egypt plans to revive its nuclear energy programme, frozen 20 years ago after the Chernobyl nuclear accident.

Russia has also said it is willing to help Egypt to develop a nuclear energy programme.

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tags: china , egypt , nuclear , russia

Watch out for Putin, say peril mappers
· 74 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Businesses operating in Russia are expected to confront increasing hostility in the next year as President Putin tries to force through a renationalisation programme before he steps down, global security experts have predicted.

The warning by the Control Risks Group in its RiskMap for 2007 comes amid the dispute over foreign licences in the Sakhalin oil and gas project and question marks over exploration licences in the Shtokman gasfield.

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tags: business , oil , russia

Russia: Kremlin Pursues Special Relationship With Germany
· 74 days ago by Matthew Wilson PRAGUE, November 7, 2006 (RFE/RL) — First there was “sovereign democracy,” the Kremlin’s euphemism for its tightening controls over society. Now Kremlin spin doctors are talking more and more about a new strategy: “sovereign economy.”

Given Russia’s growing international confidence, the strategy comes as no surprise. It is now affecting Russia’s relations with the European Union, in particular Germany.

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tags: germany , russia

CSTO/SCO: learning to act together
· 76 days ago by Matthew Wilson

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti defense commentator Viktor Litovkin) – In an announcement that would have been sensational if it had not been so logical, Chief of Staff of the Russian military Army General Yury Baluevsky said that the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) were planning their first theater-level military exercise.

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tags: csto , military , russia , sco

Russia: The Enemy
· 77 days ago by Matthew Wilson

There was a glorious time when the Berlin Wall came down and Russia seemed headed toward democracy. At long last, the Cold War was over. All things seemed possible.

Thanks first to Boris Yeltsin and now Vladimir Putin, those happy days are in the distant past. So far back we can barely remember our optimism. Democracy is as dead in Russia as the hundreds of thousands who perished at Stalingrad and elsewhere in the Second World War. In its place has come a new autocracy that — minus the communist rhetoric — slams the doors of freedom shut all the same.

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How Russia Arms Terror
· 78 days ago by Matthew Wilson

But it is Russia’s supplying of weapons to rogue countries like Iran and Venezuela that is causing friction with America. Sadly, Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose outward democratic façade hides the heart of the former Cold War KGB official that he once was, sees nothing wrong with arming nations that have made no secret of their intent to use them against their neighbors and to destabilize their regions. Russian arms have also been used against American forces and allies, making one wonder with friends like Russia, who needs enemies?

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tags: arms , military , russia

Russia, China won't back Iran sanctions
· 79 days ago by Matthew Wilson

MOSCOW — Russian and China indicated that they will not support a draft U.N. resolution imposing tough sanctions on Iran for its refusal to halt its nuclear enrichment program.

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tags: china , iran , russia

Russia-Iran Arms Trade
· 79 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Last year, Russia surpassed the United States as the developing world’s leader in arms deals, according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). But Russia has increased military shipments to anti-U.S. states like Iran and Venezuela, not to mention potential adversaries like China, which concerns U.S. policymakers far more. Experts say Iran—as well as Syria—may have transferred some of these small arms to groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. Also, Russia’s arms relationship with Iran, the thinking goes, further complicates efforts to impose punitive sanctions against Tehran for its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons.

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tags: arms , iran , military , russia

PUTIN'S MILITARY NUMBERS JUST DON'T ADD UP
· 79 days ago by Matthew Wilson Last week Russian President Vladimir Putin held a well-staged national televised phone-in to answer rehearsed questions from selected citizens. Such phone-ins are performed in Russia once a year and provide an opportunity to state the Kremlin’s position on different aspects of Russian political and bureaucratic life.

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The Russian-made antitank missile Metis-M9 is returning to the battle field – this time to the Gaza Strip
· 80 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Exclusive to DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources: Early Wednesday morning, Nov. 1, the IDF embarked on a large operation in the Beit Hanun area in northern Gaza to halt the firing of Qassam rockets and eliminate terrorist cells. But the primary purpose is to thwart the new military option Hamas has been using against the IDF – squads that fire antitank missiles, a tactic Hizballah employed during the recent war in Lebanon.

IDF troops exchanged heavy fire with Palestinian gunmen in the northern Gaza Strip. Nine Palestinians were killed and 40 were wounded, the IDF reported.

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tags: gaza , israel , middle-east , military , russia

Russian Moves in Mideast Raising Concern and Questions in Jerusalem
· 80 days ago by Matthew Wilson

JERUSALEM, Oct. 30 (JTA) — A Russian plan to send a separate peacekeeping force to Lebanon has raised eyebrows in Israel, but officials say they have no objections to it.

But other steps by Russia — such as ties and arms supplies to radicals like Syria and Iran, and differences with Israel on key issues like Iran’s nuclear weapons drive — are raising questions about Russia’s role in the region.

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tags: iran , middle-east , russia , syria

Russia defends sale of missiles to Iran
· 80 days ago by Matthew Wilson

AP – The Russian defence minister defended Moscow’s deal to supply air defence missiles to Iran, saying they were purely defensive weapons with a limited range.

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Russia calls for gas alliance with Iran
· 80 days ago by Matthew Wilson

A SENIOR Russian parliamentarian has called for a gas alliance to unite former Soviet republics and Iran to help Russia stand up to the European Union’s “cartel” of gas consumers, Russian media reported.

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Iran and Russia: The Who-e and the P-mp
· 80 days ago by Matthew Wilson

It’s time to wake up and smell the roses – before they are blown to smithereens.

Iran and Russia are in cahoots. Iran wants nuclear capability and Russia has the capability to make it happen. And unless they are stopped, it will happen. It is up to us. Neither of these countries has a global conscious. Neither country could care less.

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tags: iran , nuclear , russia

Gas pipeline threatens Europe's energy security
· 81 days ago by Matthew Wilson

New pipeline has the potential to increase the dependence of the European Union (EU) on Rus­sia, thereby making Russia even more powerful and, possibly, more assertive in the international arena.

Russia is building a strategic new pipeline to Europe that will affect European energy security for years to come. Called the North European Gas Pipe­line (NEGP), it will cross the Baltic Sea, directly con­necting Russia to Germany, and will bypass the Soviet-era, land-based energy transit infrastructure that traverses several former Soviet Bloc countries, including Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland.

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tags: energy , europe , russia

US criticises Russia-Germany gas deal
· 82 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Germany’s big gas pipeline deal with Russia has been criticised by a US official, in a sign of Washington’s mounting unease about Berlin’s ties with Moscow.

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tags: gas , germany , russia , u.s.

The Really Cold War With Russia
· 82 days ago by Matthew Wilson

The Berlin Wall fell almost 17 years ago. At the time, the future seemed clear: The fall of the wall would unleash an unstoppable tide of free markets and free people – and for about 15 years it did just that. Today, though, when you stand where the Berlin Wall once stood and look east, you see a counter tide coming your way. It is a black tide of petro-authoritarianism emanating from Russia, and it is blunting the Berlin Wall tide of free markets and free people.

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Argentina interested in Russian armaments
· 84 days ago by Matthew Wilson

MOSCOW, October 27 (RIA Novosti) – Argentina is interested in Russian armaments, Russia’s defense minister said Friday.

“The Argentine side has handed over to us a specific list of military equipment it is interested in,” Sergei Ivanov, who is also a deputy prime minister, said following a meeting with his Argentine counterpart. “We have created a commission on military-technical cooperation, which will soon work on specific items.”

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tags: argentina , military , russia

Russia to adjust its military policy due to NATO transformation
· 85 days ago by Matthew Wilson MOSCOW, October 26 (RIA Novosti) – Russia will have to adjust its military policy in response to NATO’s political transformation, the Russian defense minister said Thursday.

Russia has in the past expressed concern over the expansion of NATO bases into the Baltic Region and Central Asia, and has voiced its displeasure over the proposed accession of Georgia and Ukraine to the military alliance.

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tags: military , nato , russia

Colloids in Russia: Have Plutonium, Will Travel
· 85 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Among the list of environmental disasters created by Soviet central planning, Mayak must rank high. Commissioned as a plant in southern Russia to manufacture plutonium for bombs in 1948, it soon segued into a long life as a reprocessing center for nuclear material from reactors and decommissioned weapons. But Mayak, or “beacon” in Russian, created its own radioactive waste as well—uranium, plutonium and other actinides—and, at least in the beginning and possibly well into the 1950s, dumped them into surrounding waterways, including the now dry Lake Karachai as well as two adjacent rivers: the Techa and Mishelyak. “If you need a well-contaminated site, it’s a dream come true,” deadpans Rod Ewing, a nuclear materials scientist at the University of Michigan. “They put a lot of actinides right into the groundwater.”

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Putin's Superpower Play
· 85 days ago by Matthew Wilson

The pipeline came too late for the Soviets but Putin never forgot what he was taught in Moscow: Russia’s massive energy resources are a powerful weapon in the global power stakes. He reheated the idea in 1997 when he wrote an influential article for a Russian journal recommending that Russia regain control of its energy industry; now, at the height of his powers as President of Russia, he is busily putting his old plans into practice. In doing so this veteran Cold War warrior is waging a new Cold War, as was all too apparent from a disastrous meeting with European ministers last week, though this time Russian power – and the threat that goes with it – is dependent not on Marxism or missiles but on oil and gas.

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Putin says he'll step down in 2008, suggests he'll still have influence
· 85 days ago by Matthew Wilson

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday reaffirmed his intent to leave the presidency in 2008 at the end of his second term, as required by the constitution, but suggested that he might continue to wield influence.

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tags: politics , putin , russia

The North European Gas Pipeline Threatens Europe’s Energy Security
· 85 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Russia is building a strategic new pipeline to Europe that will affect European energy security for years to come. Called the North European Gas Pipe­line (NEGP), it will cross the Baltic Sea, directly con­necting Russia to Germany, and will bypass the Soviet-era, land-based energy transit infrastructure that traverses several former Soviet Bloc countries, including Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland.

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tags: energy , europe , russia

Vanishing Russia
· 86 days ago by Matthew Wilson

According to a recent Los Angeles Times article, Russia “has lost the equivalent of a city of 700,000 people every year since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.” We’re talking about the population of San Francisco or Baltimore—a grim reminder of how fruitless some worldviews can be.

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tags: demographics , russia

New strategic nuclear subs to join Russian fleet soon - Putin
· 87 days ago by Matthew Wilson

MOSCOW. Oct 25 (Interfax-AVN) – New strategic nuclear submarines will join the Russian fleet in the near future, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during Wednesday’s televised question and answer session on Wednesday.

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tags: military , nuclear , russia , submarines

THE EMERGING RUSSIAN GIANT - Washington's nightmare
· 87 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Ironically, the aggressive Washington foreign policy of the era of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld since 2001 has done more to nurture the one strategic combination in Eurasia most dreaded by Washington political realists such as Henry Kissinger or Zbigniew Brzezinski, namely a strategic military and economic cooperation on a deep, long-term basis between two former Cold War foes, China and President Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

This is part II.

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Here’s part I of this article – Moscow plays its cards strategically.

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Russia Holds the Cards, West Folding in Foreign Policy Game
· 87 days ago by Matthew Wilson

I volki syty i ovtsy tsely. “The wolves are full and the sheep are still alive.” That Russian version of “having one’s cake and eating it too” describes the current state of Russian foreign affairs in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In the few past weeks, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not only intensified Russia’s policy regarding Georgia, but convinced the United Nations Security Council, led by the United States, to pass a resolution that gives Russia unprecedented clout in the sovereign territory of its struggling southern neighbor.

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tags: foreign-policy , russia

Warmth in Moscow; reality in Iran
· 89 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Prime Minister Olmert received a very welcoming reception from President Putin, but only on the surface.

Vlada, the name Russian cynics have given Putin, serves Russia’s interests. Russia’s path back to the golden era passes through Teheran and Damascus. The prime minister’s office on Kaplan Street in Jerusalem may serve as the location for a polite courtesy call, no more.

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tags: iran , israel , middle-east , russia , syria

5 Russians, 1 Spaniard & a Drunk Dead Bear
· 91 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Except for the communists, terrorists and animal rights activists, Juan Carlos is fairly beloved in Spain. On the other side, Spain was home to the Spanish Inquisition.

Right now, the Russian government is investigating whether the king, on a recent visit, shot a drunk bear.

The King of Spain shot a Drunk Bear.

Sounds like a song from a naughty light opera, doesn’t it?

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My Comments:

This is another one of those off-beat articles that I stumbled onto why researching new articles to post.

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tags: russia , spain

Russia Suspends Scores of Foreign Groups
· 92 days ago by Matthew Wilson

MOSCOW, Oct. 19 — Scores of foreign private organizations were forced to cease their operations in Russia on Thursday while the government considered whether to register them under a new law that has received sharp international criticism.

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Israel Finds 39 Russian-Made Missiles in Hezbollah Hides
· 92 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Military sources said the Israel Army has collected 39 Russian-origin anti-tank missiles from Hezbollah outposts in southern Lebanon, the World Tribune has reported. They said the missiles included the AT-14 Kornet and the AT-13 Metis.

“Some of the missiles were still in their original packaging, which identified them as having been manufactured in Russia,” a military source said.

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tags: hezbollah , israel , missiles , russia

Poll indicates Finns distrust Putin as Russian leader heads to Finland for EU summit
· 92 days ago by Matthew Wilson

Two-thirds of those polled said they had little or no trust in Putin, while 19 percent disagreed. Thirty-three percent said they felt threatened by Finland’s huge neighbor, while 45 percent said they felt no danger from Moscow.

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My Comments:

Putin is an evil leader that is capable of bringing the world to a major world war.

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tags: europe , finland , russia

Russia, between the hammer and the anvil
· 93 days ago by Matthew Wilson

The Olmert-Putin meeting, just a week after the UN vote for sanctions against North Korea because of its nuclear test, could not wish for a better agenda. The very concrete punishment inflicted upon the regime of Pyongyang ought to cause Russia — and hopefully also China— to think twice about mistaken alliances which could turn out to be disastrous for its diplomatic future.

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tags: israel , middle-east , russia

Olmert in Russia: Iranians should be afraid
· 93 days ago by Matthew Wilson

MOSCOW – Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Wednesday that Israel will not allow a situation in which Iran gains access to unconventional weapons and warned Iranians to “be afraid.”

“I will not address sensitive issues, if we will do this or do that, but the Iranians should be afraid,” Olmert told reporters following his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov in Moscow.

“The Iranians need to be afraid that something will happen that they do not want to happen to them,” Olmert continued.

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tags: iran , israel , nuclear , russia

Deployment of U.S. Missile Defense in Europe Is Threat to Russia — Military Chief
· 93 days ago by Matthew Wilson

A top Russian general said his country would view the planned deployment of U.S. missile defense components in eastern and central Europe as a security threat and take retaliatory measures, according to an article published Tuesday and quoted by AP.

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tags: europe , missiles , russia , u.s.

Tyrants and the Bomb
· 94 days ago by Matthew Wilson

During his May 2006 state of the nation speech President Vladimir Putin raised the specter of a new Cold War. Russia’s president portrayed the United States as his country’s “main adversary” and pledged to increase the nuclear triad of land, sea and air-based strategic weapons. “It is premature to speak of the end of the arms race,” he said in his televised address to the Russian people. “Moreover, it is going faster today. It is rising to a new technological level.”

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tags: china , north-korea , nuclear , russia

The Dangers of Russia's Statism
· 95 days ago by Matthew Wilson

There are two certainties in today’s Russia under Vladimir Putin’s government: the country’s economy will likely implode before long, and a major confrontation with the United States and Europe may occur even sooner.

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Axis of oil
· 96 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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Earlier this year, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in China – and quickly made himself at home. The occasion was a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional group linking China, Russia and Central Asia. During the summit, Mr. Ahmadinejad seemed to be everywhere. He delivered a major address broadcast on Chinese state television. He touted Moscow, Tehran and Beijing’s “identical” views on world issues. And he proposed making “the SCO into a strong and influential economic, political and trade institution [to] thwart the threat of domineering powers.” One can guess which domineering power he had in mind.

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tags: china , iran , oil , russia , sco

Once-mighty Russia fades to a dying population
· 96 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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Russia is the only major industrial nation that is losing population. Its people are succumbing to one of the world’s fastest-growing AIDS epidemics, resurgent tuberculosis, rampant cardiovascular disease, alcohol and drug abuse, smoking, suicide, and the lethal effects of unchecked industrial pollution.

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tags: demographics , russia

The case of the vanishing Russians
· 97 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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Concern is rising in the US about the rapidly changing face of Russia after a government expert on Russian nationalities recently predicted that Russia could have a Muslim majority within the next 30 years.

In addition to its own citizens, many of the up to 10 million illegal immigrants working in Russia come from predominantly Muslim former Soviet republics in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

The city of Moscow has swelled to 10.4 million people, and one-fifth are Muslims. The Russian capital has the biggest Muslim population of any city in Europe.

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tags: demographics , muslims , russia

Russian energy: Europe's pride, US's envy
· 99 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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Buried beneath the heaps of hot words on North Korea’s nuclear test, the announcement in Moscow on Monday about the Shtokman natural-gas deposit off Russia’s Arctic coast almost escaped attention, despite its comparable lethal fallout in world politics.

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Russia, Egypt Bet on Nuke Cooperation
· 100 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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Russian and Egyptian Presidents Vladimir Putin and Hosni Mubarak will pay special attention to bilateral cooperation in the field of peaceful usage of nuclear energy during their next meeting, national media highlighted on Monday.

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U.S. Fears Export of Technology
· 100 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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Preventing North Korea from selling nuclear materials would depend on China and Russia.

WASHINGTON — The sanctions demanded by U.S. officials in response to North Korea’s announcement this week that it had tested a nuclear device would focus on closing pathways to proliferation of weapons technology.

But U.S. officials say any such effort would have to focus on the air and land routes through China and Russia that the government in Pyongyang has used in response to American monitoring on the high seas.

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Russia is playing with fire
· 100 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union there have been worrying signs of a virulent strain of radical nationalism in Russia. The popularity of Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s ultranationalist and inaptly named Liberal Democratic Party, the rise of neo-Bolshevik racist groups that combine Nazi and communist imagery, and the rising tide of racially motivated attacks on anyone who looks vaguely foreign has worried many, but the Russian government has managed to steer a relatively steady course through the treacherous waters of ethnic nationalism.

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Putin has joined the "Axis of Evil"
· 100 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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For about 45 minutes, we discused how since taking office in 2000, former KGB chief-turned Russian President Vladimir Putin has built strong personal, political and military ties to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il. Putin has sold Iran and North Korea billions of dollars worth of arms and even nuclear technology. He is arming America’s worst enemies for war, and in so doing, Russia has joined the “Axis of Evil.” Yet on this critical issue, official Washington seems to be in a true state of denial.

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tags: iran , north-korea , russia

China and Russia: North Korea Enablers
· 101 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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A Chinese-Russian alliance is forming. The Chinese client state is North Korea; the Russian and Chinese trading partner is Iran. Like China, Russia is a capitalism-utilizing dictatorship with a history of Marxism and a belief in its eventual historical conquest. Like Russia, China is a Machiavellian political actor willing to play both sides of the Islamic-Western conflict against the middle. China and Russia are the global beneficiaries of the Islamic-Western clash of civilizations. They remain largely outside its purview while benefiting from its externalities. Stalinist Russia and Maoist China began as allies. History has conspired to force them once more into the same bed.

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KGB had regularly told Russia on Pakistan-China-North Korea nuke ties
· 101 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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Moscow, Oct 10: The Soviet-era intelligence agency had regularly updated Kremlin about the atomic technology transfer by Pakistan and China to North Korea, which has conducted its first nuclear test, a top Russian nuclear expert said on Tuesday.

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Russia Seeks Greater Economic Influence in Europe
· 102 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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Armed with oil and natural gas revenues worth billions of dollars, Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to buy his way into Germany’s and Europe’s key industries. But he is likely to encounter a skeptical Chancellor Angela Merkel when he visits Berlin this week.

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Nuclear Exercise: Russia Supports North Korea in Nuclear War
· 102 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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When nuclear war breaks out in December between the United States, Russia and North Korea, American taxpayers should be furious.

The war is just another U.S. military exercise.

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The Emerging Russian Giant Plays its Cards Strategically
· 105 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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The September 2006 summit in Paris between Russia’s Vladimir Putin, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, underscored the re-emerging of Russia as a major global power. The new Russia is gaining in influence through a series of strategic moves revolving around its geopolitical assets in energy—most notably its oil and natural gas. It’s doing so by shrewdly taking advantage of the strategic follies and major political blunders of Washington. The new Russia also realizes that if it does not act decisively, it soon will be encircled and trumped by a military rival, USA, for which it has little defenses left. The battle, largely unspoken, is the highest stakes battle in world politics today. Iran and Syria are seen by Washington strategists as mere steps to this great Russian End Game.

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RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN ROW COULD SERIOUSLY SOUR RUSSIA-WEST RELATIONS
· 105 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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The latest crisis in the chronically uneasy relationship between Moscow and Tbilisi is not likely to fizzle out any time soon, as the positions of the two sides appear to be irreconcilable. This poses a painful dilemma for the West: do the United States and the European Union want to make the fate of Georgia and its breakaway regions a central issue in their relationship with Russia?

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A Ballistic Missile Defense Arms Race
· 106 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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If December full-scale tests of interceptor missiles by the United States are successful, they will mark a watershed in today’s contradictory history of strategic missile defense. Is there a danger in this? There is. Lieutenant-General Henry Obering, director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, said the December tests would attempt an actual capture of a target rocket in outer space. He described the coming firing as a final stage in the testing.

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Russia's Rising Oil Star
· 106 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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According to the Oil and Gas Journal, an industry publication, Russia holds the world’s largest natural gas reserves, the second largest coal reserves and has the eighth largest oil reserves. The once hopelessly outdated Russian energy sector has accelerated production to over 9 million barrels per day (bpd), making the country the world’s second largest producer of crude oil behind energy giant Saudi Arabia.

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Between Washington and Beijing
· 106 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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I worked in China in the 1980s as a Soviet diplomat and had many contacts among Chinese scientists, journalists and military personnel. Some of them complained that they were so afraid of Soviet missiles that they could not sleep well at night. At the time, my colleagues and I made fun of these fears. Now, however, these old acquaintances of mine have a condescending attitude toward Russia, its armed forces in particular.

As China’s ambitions grow, the security situation in Asia is changing. China is competing with the United States for leadership—not only in Asia, but globally—and this rivalry is one of the factors pushing Russia and China towards the current state of rapprochement.

The reasons behind this are obvious. In Beijing’s rivalry with Washington, China is definitely the weaker side, lagging behind in its development. Therefore, Beijing needs partners. Moscow can be such a partner, but this kind of relationship would be one of “fellow travelers” rather than allies.

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Brothers in Arms
· 107 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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Military Cooperation a Hallmark of Sino-Russian Relations

While the Pentagon views China as a future military threat, Russia’s Defense Ministry seems happy to have China as a neighbor. The Russian government does not appear to be overly concerned with the advancement of Chinese troops into the Far East, and for good reason the recent state of Sino-Russian relations has been consistently good. All territorial claims and border disputes have recently been resolved and all detachments of regular Chinese soldiers have been moved from the Russian border 200 kilometers into China under a bilateral agreement aimed at increasing trust in the military sphere.

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Russian nuclear forces, 2006
· 107 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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Russia continues to transition from its Cold War nuclear stockpile, further reducing its total nuclear forces in 2005 but also announcing plans for new weapon systems and upgrades of existing ones. [1] The Russian government appears to be attempting to reassert its nuclear strength after years of decline in order to underscore its status as a powerful nation. To this end, President Vladimir Putin said Russia has reinstated large-scale military exercises, and military officials made several statements about the role of Russia’s nuclear posture.

We estimate that as of early 2006, Russia has approximately 5,830 operational nuclear warheads in its active arsenal. This includes about 3,500 strategic warheads, a decrease of some 300 from last year’s level due to the withdrawal of approximately 36 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) from operational service. Our estimate of operational nonstrategic nuclear weapons is 2,330 warheads, more than a thousand warheads fewer than our previous estimate (see “Russian Nuclear Forces, 2005,” March/April 2005 Bulletin) due to a recount of operational launch platforms and Russian statements about reductions.

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Defeating Islam, Russian Style
· 108 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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The rest of the world may not have noticed, but Russia’s president has won the Chechen war. He did not start it, but he prosecuted it with the full might of Russia’s military. The conflict was as brutal as any Europe has known in the last century. Grozny was bombed flat, along with half of Chechnya’s towns. Nearly a million Chechens were displaced; 80,000 were killed, mostly civilians, and thousands more disappeared into a nightmarish network of Russian “filtration” camps, never to be seen again. There were atrocities, mass killings, the most flagrant of human-rights abuses. Yet all the while the Kremlin claimed that the conflict was little more than a police operation.

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Unswayed by West, Russia Continues Georgia Blockade
· 108 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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MOSCOW Oct. 3—Russia signaled Tuesday that it would not lift a transportation blockade on Georgia despite the release of four Russian officers detained on espionage charges and calls from the European Union and the United States for the two countries to find ways to ease tensions.

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Russia's space defenses stage a revival
· 108 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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By the end of the year we plan to put the station on trial combat duty, and in 2007 on full combat duty. A network of such stations will be deployed both at existing sites and in new areas threatened by missiles. The first step will be to replace old stations outside Russia – one in Azerbaijan, two stations in Ukraine, and stations in Kazakhstan and Belarus. Strategic priority will be given to the southern border. Such a network will spell the end of the problems related to perimeter coverage created by the break-up of the U.S.S.R.

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UK: Fox warns over Russian military
· 108 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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The UK underestimates the threat to its future security posed by Russia, shadow defence secretary Liam Fox has warned.

Dr Fox claimed Russia was increasing its defence spending this year by 25%.

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Syria, Iran and Russia provided Hezbollah with intelligence information
· 109 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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Russia also operated indirectly in favour of Hezbollah through the many anti-tank rockets it sent to Syria and transferred to Hezbollah. Moreover, Russia not only got out arms sales but also first-hand intelligence data collected by the listening posts it manages with the Syrians.

If Syrian-Russian intelligence cooperation goes back a few years, that with Iran is more recent and is part of broader strategic cooperation agreements signed in November of last year and confirmed during Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent visit to Damascus earlier this year.

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tags: hezbollah , iran , military , russia , syria

Russia warns US on placing missile defenses in Poland
· 109 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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MOSCOW – Russia warned the United States on Tuesday against basing elements of a planned missile defense system in Poland, saying this would undermine strategic stability and require a ‘corresponding’ response from Moscow, Interfax news agency said.

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Intelligence Brief: Escalating Tension between Georgia and Russia
· 109 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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Russian troops in Georgia were put on “high alert” on Sunday and ordered to “shoot to kill if provoked” while defending Moscow’s two military bases in the Caucasian country. Tensions between Russia and Georgia are escalating after Tbilisi arrested four Russian officers on September 27 on spying charges.

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Oil weapon: It's time for a long, hard look at Russia
· 110 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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LONDON A global economic challenge has been presented by Russia, driven by energy markets and threatening to distort the foundations of international trade.

This challenge to the world follows grand-scale state theft and the subjugation of the rule of law in Russia. It is based on a flawed meta-narrative avowing that Russia is a victim: The West victimized Russia in the 1990s through shock therapy and Market Bolshevism, resulting in the domination of the country by oligarchs and its enfeeblement on the geopolitical stage.

Therefore whatever path Russia takes today is somehow deemed acceptable as an antidote or corrective to the penuries of the 1990s.

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Rosneft and Gazprom ready to give Putin his ultimate weapon – control of worldwide energy sources
· 111 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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Rosneft and Gazprom is in the process of acquiring more oil and gas resources to control not only Russian but also global energy resources.

They will control soon more than half of Russian fossil based energy resources. That gives a tremendous power for Putin and Kremlin.

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Senate Passes Iran Sanctions Bill
· 111 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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(AP) The Senate, with no debate Saturday, passed and sent to the president legislation that would impose mandatory sanctions on entities that provide goods or services for Iran’s weapons programs.

This means you, Russia and China.

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Photo of NORAD jet intercepting Russian bomber
· 111 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has released this photograph, taken on Thursday, of an F-15C Eagle from the 12th Fighter Squadron at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, flying next to a Russian Tu-95 Bear Bomber during a “training opportunity” provided by the Russian 137th Air Army.

The following statement was issued by NORAD:

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Reports: Russia's long-range bombers approach Alaska during massive military exercise
· 112 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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MOSCOW The Russian air force held a massive exercise that involved strategic bombers flying across the North Pole and approaching Alaska, the Aleutian Islands and Japan, a top general said Friday.

Lt. Gen. Igor Khvorov, the commander of Russian long-range aviation, said the exercise that began Tuesday and finished Friday had nothing to do with heightening tensions between Russia and Georgia, Russian news reports said.

Russian Bombers Penetrate N. American Buffer Zone, Intercepted by U.S., Canadian Jet Fighters

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A new U.S. push for greater Russian military openness collided with Cold War habits last week as Russian long-range bombers flew within 15 miles of U.S. airspace off Alaska, Denver Post website reported.

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Russia deploys military to the border with Georgia
· 112 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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He said Russia has deployed military units of 58th troop dislocated in Northern Ossetia to the border with Georgia. Russia military bases have become active in Akhalkalaki, and they will conduct military trainings in the Black Sea soon.

“Russia’s such actions are unacceptable,” he said.

Speaking about Russian officers’ espionage, Minister said that video films proving their espionage have been displayed in all TV channels of the world. They pay money to Georgians for fulfilling their instructions.

Georgia hits out at Russian military’s ‘sabre rattling’

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Georgia has accused Russia of redeploying troops closer to its border and said it expected the Russian Black Sea fleet to start maneouvres in the next few days.

Vano Merabishvili, Georgia’s Interior Minister, said the fleet maneouvres and the movement of Russian ground troops closer to the border had caused bewilderment in Georgia. “I would advise our colleagues to stop sabre-rattling,” said Mr Merabishvili. “This is unacceptable for a democratic country and we don’t understand that.”

Russia Suspends Withdrawal From Georgia

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ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia—Russia said Saturday that it has suspended plans for further withdrawal of its troops from Georgia amid worsening relations between the two neighbors.

Russia has been gradually withdrawing equipment and troops from its two military bases in Georgia, which it had planned to close completely by the end of 2008.

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Russia worried by NATO expansion
· 112 days ago by Matthew Wilson

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PORTOROZ (Slovenia), September 29 (RIA Novosti) – Russia is concerned about the expansion of NATO’s infrastructure in the new member states of the northern alliance, Russia’s defense minister said.

Sergei Ivanov, who is also deputy prime minister, said at a session of the Russia-NATO Council: “We are worried by the reconfiguration of NATO’s infrastructure without prospects for the ratification of the Adapted Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe [CFE].”

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China Brief's Coverage of the PRC's Weaponization of Space
· 5 hours ago by Matthew Wilson

WASHINGTON, DC (1/19/07)—China’s recent anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons test comes just a few months after the release of its “China’s Space Activities in 2006” white paper, in which Beijing declared that it would only “utilize outer space for peaceful purposes.” Is this launch a marked departure from China’s space doctrine or simply evidence of Beijing’s long-standing strategy to bolster its military capabilities, particularly in the areas of information and space warfare? Moreover, given that China’s current ASAT capabilities are based on kinetic kill vehicles in the form of land-based ballistic missiles, what does the modernization of the Second Artillery Corps, China’s strategic missile force, tell us about the direction of its developments?

These and other questions have been previously explored and answered by China Brief’s analysts and may be found below:

January 19, 2007 – Volume 7, Issue 1
“Competing Perceptions of the U.S. and Chinese Space Programs”
By Kevin Pollpeter

December 19, 2006 – Volume 6, Issue 25
“China’s Second Artillery Corps: New Trends in Force Modernization, Doctrine and Training”
By Michael Chase

November 22, 2005 – Volume 5, Issue 24
“Shenzhou and China’s Space Odyssey”
By Jing-dong Yuan

March 15, 2005 – Volume 5, Issue 6
“China’s Long March into Space”
By Eugene Kogan

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U.S. tells China concerned by satellite-killer test
· 1 day ago by Matthew Wilson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States, Australia and Canada have voiced concerns to China over a test in space of a satellite-killing weapon last week, the White House said on Thursday.
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“The U.S. believes China’s development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of cooperation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area,” National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. “We and other countries have expressed our concern regarding this action to the Chinese.”

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Chinese Test Anti-Satellite Weapon
· 2 days ago by Matthew Wilson U. S. intelligence agencies believe China performed a successful anti-satellite (asat) weapons test at more than 500 mi. altitude Jan. 11 destroying an aging Chinese weather satellite target with a kinetic kill vehicle launched on board a ballistic missile.

The Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, NASA and other government organizations have a full court press underway to obtain data on the alleged test, Aviation Week & Space Technology will report in its Jan. 22 issue.

If the test is verified it will signify a major new Chinese military capability.

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Australia, a longtime U.S. ally, drifting towards new suitor China
· 2 days ago by Matthew Wilson So it may come as a surprise that a recent poll found that Australians feel about as warmly toward a new suitor in the region – China – as they do toward longtime ally America. Moreover, the poll found that Australians think China is the strongest power in Asia, eclipsing the United States.

The results of the poll, conducted for the Lowy Institute, a think tank in Sydney, and released in October, underscore the intensifying ties between Australia and China. Australia increasingly feels the gravitational pull of China’s rise as a global power, and the trend is leaving ripples in its traditionally warm relations with Washington.

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Report Says US Military Equipment Gets to Iran, China
· 3 days ago by Matthew Wilson

A U.S. news agency reports that surplus American military equipment has made its way to Iran and China through unscrupulous dealers and a lack of security in a Defense Department program. VOA’s Al Pessin reports from the Pentagon.

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