Posted on 09/06/2007 7:49:27 AM PDT by Michael_Michaelangelo
President Vladimir Putin flexed Russia's military muscles once again yesterday when his government said that 12 strategic bombers would practise firing cruise missiles during a show-of-strength exercise over the Arctic.
The giant Tupolev 95 aircraft were due to take off from five air bases, including one near the Bering Straits, separating Russia from Alaska.
Mr Putin has made great efforts to extend Russian influence over the Arctic, which may have untapped mineral wealth. Russia has dispatched a scientific expedition to the polar ice-cap and last month a submarine dropped the national flag on the seabed beneath the North Pole.
Monday's launch of a "tactical exercise" by the Russian air force, which is due to last for 48 hours, was the Kremlin's latest attempt to send a message of national resurgence.
Symbolic
But there was a symbolic ring to the occasion. The Tu-95 aircraft, which Nato codenames the 'Bear,' is an obsolescent model. Powered by four turbo-prop engines, the Bear is packed with antiquated technology dating from its first flight 53 years ago.
The long-range aircraft was originally designed to compete with the American B-29 Superfortress -- the Second World War bomber responsible for dropping the atomic bomb in 1945.
Today, the Bear is designed to steer clear of hostile air space and fire cruise missiles at targets hundreds of miles away.
This "stand off" role is the only way the Bear can be used as a strike aircraft because the lumbering, propeller-driven giant cannot defend itself against even the weakest air forces.
The only weapons the Bear carries for its own safety are machine guns mounted on rotating turrets of the kind that German bombers used against Spitfires during the Battle of Britain 67 years ago.
Until this year, Russia's armed forces were in such a parlous state that they could not even conduct strategic patrols with Bears.
The Russian air force halted this regular feature of the Cold War in 1992 in order to save money.
Mr Putin's resumption of strategic patrols -- even with obsolescent aircraft -- has echoes of the Cold War when Soviet bombers and Nato fighters regularly fenced over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Last month, a Bear ventured towards British air space and was intercepted by two Eurofighter Typhoons, which belonged to the RAF.
Parliamentary elections will take place in Russia in December and a new president will succeed Mr Putin next year. The Kremlin's increasingly assertive foreign policy is designed to show the Russian people that their country is a global player once again.
Maybe we should use the opportunity to "practice" shooting those cruise missiles down.
Red Storm Rising....
Obviously Putin is trying to give the impression that Russia is an expanding empire by posturing over a mostly empty ice cap
Exactly. The slumbering bear is back awake. Ezekiel 38 coming on.
Drudge’s headline re Syria shooting at an Israeli plane also hearkens to a certain biblical “burden” that has yet to be fulfilled. Could be a catalyst to the bear making his march.
Have they filed an EIR for this and where is greenpeace?
This exercise is already completed.
The TU-95 is a much more recent design. It was the Russian answer to the B-52.
Ironically, it is an evolutionary development of the B-29. The first post-war Tupolev strategic bomber was the TU-4, a rivet for rivet copy of the B-29.
And the Russian Federation is different from the Soviet Union....how?
Russians are still Russians, paranoid, suspicious and with delusions of being a world power, which they can achieve by making threatening gestures.
Odd they should direct this toward Great Britain and indirectly, the US, rather than Iran or Syria.
My take on this:
Russia is muscle-flexing in regards to our imminent hit on Iran.
For better or worce, Iran and Russia have a kind of alliance.
Russia is really displeased with the way things are going on this planned hit.
I would guess that in addition to this overt show of power, (which has to be hurting Russian pocketbooks plenty)is all kinds of back-channel jaw boning and outright threats.
Puty-Pute is up to his neck in this thing. His message?
Nuking Iran would be a serious mistake.
IMHO
a certain Biblical “burden”? Am not sure what that means.
But do know if Russia is not the sponsor of a massive war involving Israel, then the Bible is a lie.
It is NOT a lie, so we know these ancient words from God himself, shall come to pass. We should be on our knees in prayer, those who believe in prayer, for God’s grace during the evidently approaching war.
Ezekiel 38 and 39
Russian oil which fuels the resurgent military now joins Saudi oil as a dangerous instrument of anti-Western foreign policy. And still our Congress sleeps.
Burden of Damascus. Syria is not in the nations in Ezek 38 & 39.
It's all about the oil. Russia wants to extend right up to the North Pole the territory it controls in the Arctic, believed to hold vast reserves of untapped oil and natural gas.
Well, since they got that wrong...
The TU-4 was the matchup for (and a copy of) the B-29. The Bear is a contemporary of the B-52.
YEs, exactly.
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