Free Republic

"Thwy wil be lined up against the wakk and shot"

TRIPOLI, Libya — Three Russian warships — including a nuclear-powered missile cruiser — have called on the Libyan port of Tripoli for a two-day stop on their way to the Caribbean.

Somehow, I doubt that Russia’s latest diplomatic project will gain much traction with its closest European neighbors, but it does at least expose the Russians as something other than allies to the US. Dmitry Medvedev has called on France and other European nations to form an anti-American front. Nicolas Sarkozy declined direct comment: THE President of Russia has called on Europe’s leaders to create a new world order that would minimise the role of the United States. Confident that a row with Europe prompted by Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August was over, Dmitry Medvedev arrived in the French spa...

Are we in another Cold War with Russia? I don't think so. It's more a case, perhaps, of history appearing to repeat itself--the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. The trouble with the real Cold War was that, although the West won it in the sense that Russia abandoned communism and lost much of its empire, the elite of the old regime remained in charge. ...Russia has no ideology, other than the ruthless retention and exploitation of power. It is not burdened by the rule of law, which does not exist there. It has no moral principles of...

MOSCOW (AP) — There's no doubt what Vladimir Putin's favorite birthday present is this year — a rare Ussuri tiger cub. State television showed the Russian prime minister affectionately petting the two-month-old female cub on Friday. The tiger weighs only about 20 pounds and sleeps in a wicker basket at Putin's residence outside Moscow. . . . Putin refuses to say who gave him the cub for his 56th birthday, which was Tuesday. The Ussuri tiger is also known as the Siberian, Amur or Manchurian tiger. Fewer than 400 are believed to survive in the wild.

People go bankrupt all the time. Companies do, too. But countries? Iceland was on the verge of doing exactly that on Thursday as the government shut down the stock market and seized control of its last major independent bank. That brought trading in the country's currency to a halt, with foreign banks no longer willing to take Icelandic krona, even at fire-sale rates. As the meltdown in the Icelandic financial system quickened, with the government seemingly powerless to do anything about it, analysts said there was probably only one realistic option left: for Iceland to be bailed out by the...

The Russian's alleged role was disclosed in a document, obtained by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which describes complex and highly sensitive experiments supposedly conducted inside Iran.

As the United States gets closer to electing its 44th president, there is a keen sense of interest in Russia in the outcome of a most thrilling race for the White House, but also a palpable feeling of detachment about the possible implications for Russian-U.S. relations. There is a consensus that, after eight years of George W. Bush, America will enter a period of major foreign policy adjustment, but Russia will not be at the heart of it. No one seriously expects a magical transformation of U.S. foreign policy, but there is a hope that the state of world affairs...

As the post-Georgia chill in U.S.-Russian relations continues, the Russian govern-ment has repeatedly declared its readiness to resume a friendly partnership if the United States will reciprocate and abandon its Cold War rhetoric. Yet, at the same time, Moscow has encouraged an orgy of anti-American hysteria in the loyalist Russian media. On September 12, the America-bashing reached a new low: a prime-time special on national television peddling the notion that the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks of September 11, 2001, were an inside job by American warmongers. The special, aired in a program called Closed Screening on the government-controlled...

MOSCOW (AP) — The financial crisis has irreparably damaged the image of the U.S. as the leader of the free world and the global economy, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Thursday. Putin's remarks during a Communist Party meeting were the latest Russian attack singling out the U.S. as the chief culprit in the global financial turmoil. "Trust in the United States as the leader of the free world and the free economy, and confidence in Wall Street as the center of that trust, has been damaged, I believe, forever," Putin said. "There will be no return to the previous...

The Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, has called on European leaders to create a new world order that minimises the role of the US. Confident that a spat with Europe prompted by Russia's invasion of Georgia in August was over, Mr Medvedev arrived in the French spa town of Evian determined to woo his fellow leaders into creating an anti-US front. Gone was the kind of war time rhetoric that saw Mr Medvedev lash out at the West and characterise his Georgian counterpart Mikheil Saakashvili as a "lunatic". Instead Mr Medvedev spoke of a Russia that was "absolutely not interested in...

Macho Putin in yet ANOTHER display of masculinity as he releases 'Let's learn judo with Vladimir' DVD First we saw him shirtless while fishing. Then he was pictured at the wheel of a massive racing truck and shooting a tiger in the Siberian forest... with a tranquiliser. He has also appeared operating a train, sailing on a submarine and co-piloting a fighter jet. Now Vladimir Putin - the world's most manly leader - has released yet another display of his own masculinity: a DVD entitled 'Let's learn judo with Vladimir Putin'. The world's most fearless leader: Vladimir Putin attends a...

Russia has granted Iceland a EUR 4 billion (USD 6 billion) loan, as Russia’s Ambassador to Iceland Victor I. Tatarintsev announced to Davíd Oddsson, chairman of Iceland’s Central Bank’s board of directors, this morning. The loan will be to three or four years and the interest rates between 30 and 50 points above Libor rates, ruv.is reports. The decision has been confirmed by Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. According to ruv.is, Iceland’s Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde has been investigating the possibility of such a loan from Russia since mid-summer. Experts from the Central Bank of Iceland and Iceland’s Prime...

MOSCOW (AFP) — Military exercises due to be held by Russian and Venezuelan navy are not aimed against the United States, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview published Tuesday. "Russia and Venezuela have no plans of attacking anybody, they cooperate on the basis of international law," Lavrov told the state Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily, slamming "hypothetical scenarios of unimaginable attacks on the United States". "Among the US leadership and that of several other countries that chose absolute loyalty to Washington's way of thinking, the geopolitical ideology of doing everything possible to rein in Russia prevails," the minister deplored....

Macho Putin in yet ANOTHER display of masculinity as he releases 'Let's learn judo with Vladimir' DVD By Mail Foreign Service Last updated at 5:51 PM on 07th October 2008 First we saw him shirtless while fishing. Then he was pictured at the wheel of a massive racing truck and shooting a tiger in the Siberian forest with a tranquiliser. He has also appeared operating a train, sailing on a submarine and co-piloting a fighter jet. Now Vladimir Putin - the world's most manly leader - has released yet another display of his own masculinity: a DVD entitled 'Let's learn...

Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs James K. Glassman FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog Commentary by Ted Lipien, October 4, 2008, San Francisco -- James Glassman, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, gave incomplete and misleading answers when asked Friday whether the elimination of vernacular broadcasts to Georgia, Russia, and India is going to hurt his "war of ideas" effort. Speaking in Washington at a National Press Club luncheon on "The New Age of Public Diplomacy," Glassman seemed surprised and annoyed by the question. His answer that the U.S. is not...

Georgia’s democratic credentials are again being questioned, and tested, as the country finds itself on the front line of a confrontation between Russia and the West. Georgia and its American backers, including the Republican and Democratic United States presidential contenders, have presented Georgia as a plucky little democracy in an unstable region, a country deserving of generous aid and NATO membership. But a growing number of critics inside and outside the country argue that it falls well short of Western democratic standards and cite a lack of press freedom as a glaring example. Mr. Saakashvili, a telegenic New York-trained lawyer,...

Russia is committed to stopping Iranian nuclearization for military purposes, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Moscow on Monday night.

Now that the Republic of Georgia has been moved off the front pages, it is time to assess what was really behind Russia's heavy-handed invasion of that pro-Western fledgling democratic country. Clearly Russia precipitated the war by using its proxy thugs in South Ossetia to force a confrontation through repeated provocations with Tbilisi. Aside from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's hatred of President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, was this payback for Kosovo or a signal to those border states from the Baltic to the Black Sea to reverse their pro-Western trend? Perhaps, but if it was, it didn't work. Poland,...

Ehud Olmert is off to Moscow today in what may well be his last overseas visit as prime minister. He will arrive at the Kremlin bearing a valuable gift - or more accurately, a concession - one the Russians have been adamantly demanding as their due. Olmert will turn over to the Russians nine acres, known as Sergei's Courtyard, inside the Russian Compound in the heart of downtown Jerusalem. The courtyard is named for and dominated by a sumptuous guest house constructed in 1890 for aristocratic pilgrims by grand duke Sergei Alexandrovich, then president of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society...

Source of Money Outflow Hasn’t Drained Under the CBR estimate, Russia’s foreign exchange assets amounted to $562.8 billion as of September 26, having shown the growth first time since late August. Regardless, the capital outflow continues, it may reach $45 billion from early August and the quarterly net capital outflow will be probably posted in the third quarter. Russia’s foreign exchange assets grew by $3.4 billion to $562.8 billion September 19 to 26. They widened first time over a month; overall, they narrowed by $23.1 billion in the first three weeks of September. The assets lost $34.7 billion vs. the...

Not since 1984, just before the fall of the Soviet Union, has Russia ventured to launch dozens of nuclear bombers for an exercise in which Tu-95 Bear bombers will fire live cruise missiles. Exercise Stability 2008 will take place Oct.-6-12 over sub-Arctic Russia uncomfortably close to the US state of Alaska, and Belarus. DEBKAfile's military sources report that the exercise is part of a month-long war game described by Russian air force spokesman Col. Vladimir Drik as "practicing the strategic deployment of the armed forces including the nuclear triad." As part of the exercise, our sources reported exclusively on Oct.1,...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia blamed Georgia on Saturday for an explosion that killed Russian soldiers in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia. A senior Russian peacekeeping officer was among seven soldiers killed on Friday when a car blew up at the Russian peacekeepers' base in Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, the Russian military said. Russia's Interfax news agency quoted South Ossetia's Interior Ministry as saying a total of 11 people had been killed, including civilians. The RIA agency quoted a military spokesman as saying Colonel Ivan Petrik, the Russian peacekeepers' chief of staff, had been killed in his office.

The question whether marriage as an institution should be abolished is now being debated all over Russia with a violence and depth of passion unknown since the turbulent early days of the Revolution. Last October a bill eliminating distinctions between registered and unregistered marriages and giving the unmarried consort the status and property rights of the legal wife was introduced in the Tzik, or Central Executive Committee. So much unforeseen opposition to the proposed law developed that the Tzik decided to postpone its final adoption until the next session, meanwhile initiating a broad popular discussion of the project. Since that...

MOSCOW: The Russian president said in a speech Thursday that the financial crisis in the United States should be taken as a sign that America's global economic leadership is drawing to a close, reiterating an argument that leaders here have been making for some time, though investors in recent weeks have been fleeing Russia and depositing money in U.S. Treasury bills.

The bear is back. That's what all too many Russia-watchers have been saying since Russian troops steamrolled Georgia in August, warning that the country's strongman, Vladimir Putin, was clawing his way back toward superpower status. The new Russia's resurgence has been fueled -- quite literally -- by windfall profits from gas and oil, a big jump in defense spending and the cocky attitude on such display during the mauling of Georgia, its U.S.-backed neighbor to the south. Many now believe that the powerful Russian bear of the Cold War years is coming out of hibernation. Not so fast. Predictions that...

Moscow - A Russian military chief was one of those killed in Friday's car-bomb blast in the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia, Interfax news agency reported Saturday, citing a military spokesman in Moscow. Colonel Ivan Petrik, who was the commander of the Russian troops in South Ossetia, was fatally wounded in his office when the 20- kilogram bomb went off next to a Russian army base. The spokesman was confirming a report in Saturday's Kommersant newspaper. Seven Russian soldiers were killed in the attack and seven injured.

MOSCOW — A car bomb in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali killed seven Russian peacekeepers and two others on Friday, raising tensions in the separatist enclave days before a scheduled pullback of Russian troops from Georgian territory. President Eduard Kokoity of South Ossetia said he had “no doubt” that Georgian special forces were behind the explosion. The acts, he said, “undermine international efforts to stabilize the situation and torpedo the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan.” The blast comes six days before a Russian deadline to pull back from the so-called buffer zone outside South Ossetia, returning a large swath of land to...

Their progress watched closely by increasingly jittery western militaries, dozens of nuclear bombers will take part in the exercise. Tu-95 Bear bombers will fire cruise missiles at targets in sub-Arctic Russia for the first time since 1984. While Russia insists that the war games are not meant as a gesture of aggression, the West is growing increasingly uneasy about the scale of the manoeuvres. The aerial exercises, which will take place close to American airspace in Alaska, are part of a month-long war game known as Stability 2008 that Russia claims is the biggest for 20 years.

The U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) is a little bipartisan body, which currently has six members. All but one, voted to terminate Voice of America (VOA) radio broadcasts to Russia and also wanted to end VOA radio broadcasts to Georgia and Ukraine. Ignoring Congressional warnings, the BBG eliminated Russian radio broadcasts just 12 days before Russia invaded Georgia last August. They still refuse to resume them. One of the BBG members who voted to stop VOA from broadcasting radio to Russia was Senator Biden's former chief of staff, Ted Kaufman, who now helps Biden with his vice presidential campaign....

Russia's foreign minister has called for joint international action to halt pirate attacks off the Horn of Africa. "Russia aims to stop the outrageous actions of Somali pirates," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. A Russian warship has already been despatched to Somali waters following last week's seizure of a Ukrainian ship laden with 33 Russian-made tanks. The pirates are demanding a $20m (£11m) ransom for the vessel which is surrounded by US navy warships. On Thursday, the European Union agreed to establish an anti-piracy security operation off the coast of Somalia to become operational in November. Mr Lavrov said the...

A car bomb blast near Russia's peacekeeping headquarters in South Ossetia has left six military personnel killed and four others injured. The explosion took place on Friday near the command post of the Russian peacekeepers in Tskhinvali, the capital of the independence-leaning republic. The car, with some quantities of arms in it, was seized earlier in a nearby village, said South Ossetia's press department, AP reported.

Regulators shut down Russia's benchmark stock exchange, RTS, for an hour after shares plunged. Stocks had opened lower, after a torrid trading session on Thursday in the US amid fears over the success of a federal bailout plan to stave off a recession. The RTS index dropped 7.1% to 1,070.5 points before trading was halted. The MICEX exchange - where most of Russia's trading takes place - plunged by 6.9% to 916.7 points. Mining company Norilsk Nickel dived by 12.2%, state-owned oil major Rosneft by 7.1% and private oil company Lukoil by 6.1%. Stocks in the US plunged in the...

In Reykjavik, Iceland, on October 12, 1986, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev seriously discussed the possibility of the two countries completely eliminating their nuclear weapons. An agreement could not be reached, but the Reykjavik Summit laid the groundwork for treaties aimed at eliminating intermediate range nuclear missiles and making deep cuts in each country's strategic arsenals. The result is that the number of nuclear weapons has been cut in half—down from 65,000 to 26,000 since the height of the Cold War. However, the U.S. retains 10,685 nuclear bombs and Russia is estimated to have around...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of sending military personnel to fight against Russia in Georgia. Mr Putin said that Ukrainian specialists operated anti-aircraft missile systems used against Russian aircraft during the August war. Russia has said Ukraine helped arm Georgia before the war, but Mr Putin said missile sales may have been conducted after the war already stated. And he said the systems were operated by Ukrainians. Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said a parliamentary panel in Ukraine would investigate allegations of arms sales. She said that under Ukrainian law the president and his Security Council is...

Putin and the Polite PunditsArthur Herman October 2008 E-mail This Article to a Friend Subject: Putin and the Polite Pundits Yes, I would like to receive periodic updates and information via e-mail from Commentary. Recipient Addresses: Separate each address with a comma.Your E-mail Address:Message: E-mail This Article to a Friend Thank You A link to "Putin and the Polite Pundits"has been emailed to your friends. Most E-mailed articles: Obama's LeftismJews and Their DNAHow to Manage SavageryPutin and the Polite PunditsObama’s “Talking” Cure On September 1, the leaders of the European Union, having already warned Moscow several times of its...

ROSTOV-ON-DON, October 2 (RIA Novosti) - Two soldiers were killed and three injured in separate attacks by militants in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia on Thursday, the local Interior Ministry said. A ministry spokesman told RIA Novosti said that unknown assailants had opened fire on ministry troops who were in a Lada car on the Caucasus highway near Ingushetia's largest city, Nazran. Two soldiers were killed and one was wounded in the attack. In a separate incident, a motorized column of military servicemen was involved in a road accident near Nazran. When soldiers left their vehicles, militants opened fire...

There are 9 parts to this video and it is a must watch for everyone as it explains the useful idiots that abound in America today. Part 1 of 9Part 2 of 9Part 3 of 9Part 4 of 9Part 5 of 9Part 6 of 9Part 7 of 9Part 8 of 9Part 9 of 9

The Russian army draft starts on the first day of October. According to the presidential decree of September 28 more than 200,000 young Russian men are eligible for military service this year. Compared to previous draft, held in the spring, the number of young men eligible for army service has almost doubled. This is due to a change in legislation, before which 26 categories of young men were eligible for deferment of service. Now this number has been reduced to 21.

MOSCOW - Celebrated political cartoonist Boris Yefimov, who drew brutally satirical images of the Soviet Union's foes in the service of Josef Stalin, died Wednesday. He was 108. Yefimov's death was given wide coverage on Russian state television. No cause was given. His cartoons spanned virtually the entire history of the communist state, from shortly after the 1917 revolution to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Among his most memorable drawings was one showing a wretched-looking Hitler, who is said to have ordered Yefimov shot if the Nazis captured Moscow in World War II. Instead, Yefimov was sent...

GORI, Georgia — With his signature mustache, medal-encrusted Soviet marshal’s uniform and determination to be addressed as “Comrade,� the Stalin impersonator Jamil Ziyadaliev should perhaps be out of work in Georgia, a country still reeling from a war with Russia. But Mr. Ziyadaliev, 64, an avuncular father of two who dresses as Stalin even on days off, insists that business has seldom been better. He is a frequent hired guest at weddings, where he dances to Soviet Katyusha music from World War II. The benefits of looking eerily like the former dictator, he boasts, include free meals, free car repairs...

Comments comparing Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler, and a decision to have dinner in Ukraine have put Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt on Russia's black-list. In the past, Bildt has received criticism at home for having ties with Russia that are too close for comfort. But following statements in August at the height of the conflict between Russia and Georgia, the foreign minister learned that Moscow had decided to roll up the welcome mat. In criticizing Russia's rationale for invading Georgia, Bildt likened the behaviour to that of Adolf Hilter and Nazi Germany. "No state has the right to intervene...

MOSCOW — Moscow says four warships carrying out the Russian navy's first deployment to the Western Hemisphere since the Cold War will make a side trip to the Mediterranean. The nuclear-powered missile cruiser Peter the Great and three accompanying ships are expected to sail through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean on Sunday. Naval spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo says the ships will call at the Libyan port of Tripoli and also visit several other unspecified Mediterranean ports before heading to Venezuela. Russian news reports have said the squadron is expected to visit the Syrian port of Tartus, which hosted...

Soldier posted to Siberia for online whinge Roger Boyes, Moscow If Russian soldiers have anything to sing about they usually do so in foot-stomping Cossack choirs, belting out the words to "Kalinka". Lieutenant Vitaly Efremov, however, decided to take a more modern approach: he made a rap video, released onto the internet, complaining about the rotten state of his barracks. The clip has hit a nerve with the top brass who have now decided to post him to Siberia where he can exercise his musical talents in the windswept tundra. He can probably consider himself lucky that he is not...

President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev during a meeting with the military in Orenburg, held at the end of last week, voiced plan for the development of the armed forces of Russia until 2020. For the first time in many years that have elapsed since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian leader expressed the need to improve defense system as an integral part of the overall development of Russian statehood. Naturally, the reason for such statements was the recent direct military confrontation with the enemy on the borders of the country. Developments in the Caucasus showed that the war...

The former Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, is to launch a new political party with a Russian billionaire, Alexander Lebedev. Lebedev, a businessman and banker whose company, National Reserve Corps, controls more than 30% of the Russian national carrier, Aeroflot, announced the launch today and said the party would campaign for legal and economic reform. Other policies are a stronger role for parliament, "less state capitalism" and the expansion of Russia's independent media. Lebedev and Gorbachev between them own 49% of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which employed the reporter Anna Politkovskya, a fierce critic of the Kremlin who was reknowned...

Russia is suffering its own bitter version of financial turmoil, partly because of the summer of antagonism led by Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister. Yesterday Russia suspended its stock market for the fourth day in a fortnight, to try to stem falling share prices. The move headed off a rout, although investors have been fleeing for four months and the market is down by more than half since May. Those on the receiving end of Mr Putin's belligerence might hope that the plunge will undermine him. His power has rested on his claim to have steered Russia out of chaos...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30, 2008 – Some 30 Russian tanks and various munitions aboard a Ukrainian vessel that was hijacked by Somali pirates Sept. 25 has caused serious concern for Defense Department officials, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters here today. “[The Defense Department] has seen a dramatic increase in piracy in this area, and it is a matter of real concern,” Morrell said. “This particular vessel has on it a number of Russian tanks, ammo and [rocket-propelled grenades] and anti-aircraft weapons that raise this to another level of concern.” The Ukrainian cargo ship, the Faina, was transporting an estimated...

Former soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev announced that he would be forming a new political party with billionare Alexander Lebdev.

September 30, 2008 Putin Wants to Follow Peter the Great By Carlos Alberto Montaner Russian ships no longer carry the names of heroic comrades but rather of figures from imperial history. As I write this column, the nuclear cruiser Peter the Great is sailing toward Latin America heading a flotilla of four imposing vessels. Some ships from the Venezuelan Navy will meet up with them to conduct joint maneuvers. Moscow wants to send a bill to Washington for the latter's support of Georgia, as well as for the independence of Kosovo. The Peter the Great is the largest cruiser in...