Free Republic

Despite the slow pace of introducing new or modernized weapons and equipment into the table of organization and equipment (TOE) in Russia’s Armed Forces, there are signs that progress is more sporadic and prioritizes one strategic direction. The South Military District (SMD) is receiving new combat hardware and weapons systems at a much faster rate than other military districts. In some areas of the TOE, the share of modern equipment has now surpassed more than 70 percent (Interfax, May 4). Russian T-90 tank (Source: freerepublic.com) According to the press service of the SMD, the district will receive over 40 new...

    Summer 2000 (8.2) Scandinavian Ancestry Tracing Roots to Azerbaijan by Thor Heyerdahl Above: Thor Heyerdahl with Peruvian children who still construct traditional boats made of reeds, the principle material that enabled early migrations on trans-oceanic voyages. Courtesy: Thor Heyerdahl. Archeologist and historian Thor Heyerdahl, 85, has visited Azerbaijan on several occasions during the past two decades. Each time, he garners more evidence to prove his tantalizing theory - that Scandinavian ancestry can be traced to the region now known as Azerbaijan. Heyerdahl first began forming this hypothesis after visiting Gobustan, an ancient cave dwelling found 30 miles ...

Russian Black Sea Fleet to receive 6 new diesel subs Sevastopol © RIA Novosti. Sergey Petrosjan MOSCOW, July 29 (RIA Novosti) Russia's Black Sea Fleet will be strengthened with six Kilo class diesel-electric submarines in the next few years, Navy Commander Adm. Vladimir Vysotsky said on Friday. "Six diesel-electric submarines of Project 636 [Kilo class] will be built for the Black Sea Fleet in the next few years," Vysotsky said in an exclusive interview with RIA Novosti. The Black Sea Fleet, based in Sevastopol, has only one submarine, the Project 877 Alrosa, which is undergoing scheduled repairs in Kaliningrad. Vysotsky...

A promotional campaign linked to the 2014 Winter Olympics is stirring debate in Russia because of its use of allegedly "fascist" imagery. The campaign employs images of blue-eyed, blond sportsmen and women which have been described by critics as "neo-Hitlerite" and "like something from a Leni Riefenstahl film". Images of an Aryan-looking snowboarder and an ice-skater gazing into the middle distance dominate giant billboards in Moscow and feature on the cover of brochures to advertise Gorky Gorod, an elite housing complex being built at Krasnaya Polyana near Sochi on Russia's Black Sea coast. The complex is a private-public partnership which...

Six days after Putin's puppet President Medvedev made his first-ever visit to and repledged Russia's support for a new jihadi cancer to be implanted in Israel, Abbas' fellow koranimals from Chechnya blew up the airport outside of Moscow, killing 35 and wounding over 150. Along with our condolences, and the "surprise... you reap what you sow" factor, astute readers will note that Al-Reuters had an interesting little tidbit in their "reporting":Islamist rebels [ah, how nice, Al Reuters calls them rebels....] have vowed to take their bombing campaign from the North Caucasus to the Russian heartland in the year before presidential...

Russia says it tracked hijacked Arctic Sea all along, but questions grow over cargo Tony Halpin in Moscow Russia’s top general hinted today that the ship allegedly hijacked by pirates earlier this month may have been carrying a secret cargo, as it emerged that the country’s Navy tracked the vessel throughout its journey. President Medvedev sent the Russian Navy to find the Arctic Sea after it apparently disappeared while passing through the English Channel en route to Algeria from Finland. However, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow now says that Russian and international agencies had monitored the ship throughout its strange...

Moscow, Aug 21 (DPA) A Russian newspaper claimed Friday that suspected pirates who boarded the freighter Arctic Sea were actually agents of the Israeli secret service trying to stop it from smuggling arms into Iran. According to Russian media, the Arctic Sea may have been carrying illegal X-55 cruise missiles destined for Iran hidden among its cargo of lumber. Men acting on behalf of the Israeli Mossad secret service commandeered the ship to divert the weapons away from Israel's regional enemy, the daily Novaya Gazeta said. Citing Moscow publicist Yulia Latynina, the daily pointed to the surprise visit of Israeli...

The military airlifted the suspected hijackers of the Arctic Sea and most of its Russian crew from Cape Verde to Moscow on Thursday, after the lumber freighter mysteriously vanished and reappeared in the Atlantic. Eleven of the 15 crew members arrived in Moscow, while the captain and three sailors remained on the ship, which was adrift about 200 nautical miles from the West African island nation of Cape Verde. Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said the freighter was sailing to the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk. The sailors and their suspected captors arrived in two separate Il-76 cargo jets at the...

Just a year ago Ukraine was insisting that Russia would be required to vacate the Crimean naval base of Sevastopol when its old lease expired in 2017. That would have posed serious problems for Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet, which is headquartered there. But today, after pro-Moscow President President Viktor Yanukovych took office in February, Russia appears completely secure in its military foothold on Ukrainian soil until at least 2042. In a quiet announcement Monday, Moscow revealed that – with Ukrainian consent – it will "upgrade" its Black Sea fleet over the next decade with at least 18 new warships,...

Parts of St. John the Baptist's relics might have been discovered during archaeological excavations in Bulgaria's southern Black Sea town of Sozopol, report Bulgarian media. Archaeologists investigating the Sv. Ivan (St. John) island off Sozopol have found an exquisite reliquary – a relic urn – built in the altar of an ancient church bearing the name of St. John the Baptist The reliquary has the shape of a sarcophagus and is dated end of 4th - beginning of 5th c. AD. It was discovered by the team of Prof. Kazimir Popkonstantinov. The church's name, as well as the fact that...

Turkey and Russia signed 17 agreements on Wednesday to enhance cooperation in energy and other fields, including pacts to build Turkey’s first nuclear power plant and furthering plans for an oil pipeline from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. The pipeline would allow Russia to expand its oil exports from the Black Sea, bypassing the Bosporus, whose shipping lines are already at capacity. The deal follows several rounds of agreements between Russia and Turkey in recent years that have helped Russia maintain its dominance of Eurasian energy routes. On his first official visit to Turkey, the Russian president, Dmitri A....

ON ONE LEVEL, maybe it's not surprising that France would sell an ultramodern helicopter carrier to Russia's navy, even as Russia continues to occupy illegally a sovereign nation that enjoys, at least in theory, good relations with France. After all, times are tough. Three-quarters of a billion dollars is three-quarters of a billion dollars. And France has never hidden its inclination to submerge principle when it comes to maintaining a profitable commercial relationship with the nation that supplies so much of Europe's oil and gas. Still, we do find it surprising -- maybe because we remember French President Nicolas Sarkozy's...

Russia's Black Sea Fleet based in Ukraine's Crimea will receive new frigate-type vessels and diesel-powered submarines by 2015, a top naval officer said Friday. The unnamed admiral gave his reaction to RIA Novosti on some media reports that had earlier said at least two corvettes and three subs would join the Black Sea Fleet within the next five years. "In line with the approved shipbuilding program and armaments program until 2015, the Black Sea Fleet is to receive two frigates and three diesel submarines," the admiral said, stressing that he indeed meant frigates, which are capable of traveling much longer...

The Ice Age has been a longstanding problem for uniformitarian thinking, with many unsolved mysteries. No mere tweaking of today's climate conditions would cause such a catastrophe. A creationist model based on the revealed events of Scripture, however, offers a possible answer...

A dugout probably dating back to the prehistoric age has been discovered the bottom of the Black Sea, National History Museum Director professor Bozhidar Dimitrov told Focus News Agency. On Friday evening at some 15 miles in the sea, east of Maslen Cape, between the seaside cities of Sozopol and Primorsko, a fishing ship found an enormous dugout, he added. "You can find nowhere similar dugouts, as well as any type of vessels older than 3 years of age, because water rots the wood away, but in the Black Sea below a certain depth there is dissolved sulphuretted hydrogen, which...

Russia's deputy PM has told the BBC the country's Black Sea Fleet will vacate its naval base in Sevastopol in 2017 if the Ukrainian government demands it. Speaking exclusively to Panorama, Sergei Ivanov said Russia would seek to renew its lease on the Crimean port, but will move the Fleet if it cannot. The move will anger nationalists who consider Sevastopol a part of Russia. It is feared the port could become a flashpoint in already strained relations between Russia and the West. Asked if he could envisage the Fleet not being based in the Crimea - its home for...

By treaty, the fleet is supposed to leave Sevastopol and the rest of Crimea by 2017, but the Russian navy has shown little sign that it's planning to do so. ... Giving up Crimea would "be like a defeat in battle," said Capt. Igor Dygalo, a chief navy spokesman. Rear Adm. Andrei Baranov, the deputy commander of the fleet, said his government would honor legal obligations but added that: "History can't be crossed out." Suggestions that Ukraine may want the fleet to leave sooner — a potentially crucial step in its NATO efforts — have been ignored. Ukrainian court orders...

BRUSSELS, September 17 (RIA Novosti) - Russian warships will continue patrolling waters off the coast of Abkhazia until all U.S. ships leave the Black Sea, Russia's NATO envoy said on Wednesday. Russia sent warships from its Black Sea fleet (Image gallery) to ensure security along the coast of Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia following an attempt in early August by Georgian forces to retake South Ossetia, another breakaway republic. "I think our ships will stay near the coast of Abkhazia as long as it is necessary to ensure security [in the region]," Dmitry Rogozin told a news conference in Brussels....

A visit to Georgia by senior Nato officials this week was anti-Russian and showed the alliance is driven by Cold War-style thinking, Russia's Foreign Ministry said today. "Decisions taken ... confirmed that in Nato, the Cold War-era reflexes of 'them and us' are at work once again," a statement said. "We cannot view steps to intensify relations between the alliance and Georgia any other way than as encouragement for new adventures ... We believe the alliance's session in Tbilisi in the current conditions was not timely and does not help stabilisation in the region." The statement said the visit showed...

Excerpt - SEVASTOPOL, September 16 (RIA Novosti) - The U.S. Pathfinder ship entered on Tuesday the Sevastopol harbor that is home to the Ukrainian navy and Russia's Black Sea Fleet, a Russian naval source said. "This is the second planned visit of Pathfinder at the invitation of Ukraine in the past 10 days," the source said. USNS Pathfinder (T-AGS 60) is an oceanographic survey ship owned by the Military Sealift Command and has a civilian crew and scientists on board. According to official statements, Pathfinder is searching for a ship which sank in the harbor during World War II. The...

From his giant monument overlooking Sevastopol, Vladimir Lenin gazes dreamily out towards the Black Sea. In the harbour, elderly ladies in floral swimming costumes bob in the warm lilac water. Shimmering in the distance is the grey Russian battleship Moskva, framed by steep chalky-coloured mountains. The port of Sevastopol on Crimea's rocky southern coast is the historic home of Russia's Black Sea fleet. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, Ukraine allowed Russia to lease Sevastopol as a military base until 2017. But after last month's war in Georgia the peninsula is at the centre of growing speculation. The fear...

Russian troops withdrew from Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti today, in adherence to a deadline set for the first phase of a withdrawal brokered by France. Troops in armoured personnel carriers and trucks were observed withdrawing from positions on the outskirts of Poti. Russian forces hold other positions on the way to the nearby town of Senaki but were seen as they prepared to leave yesterday. Russia sent forces deep into Georgia last month after repelling an attempt by Tbilisi to retake the breakaway, pro-Russian South Ossetia region. On Monday, Moscow agreed to withdraw its troops from Georgia's heartland...

via translation - Moscow denounces politics "unfriendly act" of Ukraine to Russia MOSCOW - Moscow has accused Ukraine on Thursday pursue a policy "unfriendly" to Russia in the context of Russian-Georgian conflict and "complicate" the activity of the Fleet of the Russian Black Sea based in Crimea. "Lately the Ukrainian authorities are conducting a policy toward Russia that can only be described as unfriendly," said Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement. "We are seriously concerned by the fact that Ukrainian leaders constantly blown up the question of the duration of the presence of the fleet in the Black Sea from...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8, 2008 – With the off-loading of 17 tons of humanitarian supplies from the USS Mount Whitney over the weekend, the Defense Department’s part in providing relief to Georgia is over, Pentagon officials said here today. The Mount Whitney – the flagship of the U.S. fleet in the Mediterranean – delivered the supplies to the Georgian port of Poti over the weekend. The USS McFaul and Coast Guard Cutter Dallas had previously delivered supplies to the port of Batumi. DoD delivered 1,145 short tons of relief to Tbilisi via 62 air sorties since Russia invaded the Caucasus republic...

The US is negotiating with Georgia and Turkey to establish a naval base at one of the two key Georgian ports of Batumi or Poti, reports say. Turkey, in an attempt to avoid political tension with Russia, has not officially revealed its position regarding the plan, said Gruzya Online, a Russian-language internet site. Russia had previously announced its intention to station its own special forces at the Georgian ports. One of the responsibilities of US Special Forces in the region is to ensure the security of an oil pipeline passing through Georgia.

Vladimir Putin Set To Bait US With Nuclear Aid For Tehran September 07, 2008 The Sunday Times Russia is considering increasing its assistance to Iran’s nuclear programme in response to America’s calls for Nato expansion eastwards and the presence of US Navy vessels in the Black Sea delivering aid to Georgia. The Kremlin is discussing sending teams of Russian nuclear experts to Tehran and inviting Iranian nuclear scientists to Moscow for training, according to sources close to the Russian military. Moscow has been angered by Washington’s promise to give Georgia £564m in aid following the Russian invasion of parts of...

ABOARD THE USS MOUNT WHITNEY (AP) — The flagship of the U.S. Navy's Mediterranean fleet has delivered 17 tons of humanitarian aid to a strategic Georgian port — and Russian troops have been watching every move. (snip) U.S. Naval officers say a Russian warship trailed the American ship across the Black Sea. They also say Russian military forces onshore were keeping a close eye on the Mount Whitney from a position just 3 miles away...

A US Navy flagship carrying humanitarian aid yesterday steamed into a Georgian port where Russian troops are still stationed, stoking tensions once again in the tinderbox Caucasus region. A previous trip by US warships was cancelled at the last minute a week ago amid fears that an armed stand-off could intensify in the Black Sea port of Poti. The arrival of the USS Mount Whitney, flagship of the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean, came as Moscow accused Dick Cheney, the hawkish US Vice-President, of stoking tensions during a visit to Tbilisi this week. After meeting President Saakashvili, Mr Cheney vowed...

A US warship anchored at the disputed Georgian port of Poti as Russia declared it would not challenge Nato vessels bringing relief to the beleaguered democracy through the Black Sea. The USS Whitney, flagship of America's Mediterranean Sixth Fleet, arrived in the port which was bombed and occupied by Russian forces during the incursion into Georgia last month. A small Russian detachment remains dug in on the outskirts of the town. America had previously aborted an attempt to dock the guided-missile destroyer USS McFaul at the port, fearing an accidental clash with the Russians. Russia said it would not authorise...

A US navy flagship has steamed into a Georgian port where Russian troops are still stationed, stoking tensions once again in the tinderbox Caucasus region. A previous trip by American warships was cancelled at the last minute a week ago amid fears that an armed stand off could erupt in the Black Sea port of Poti.

US navy ship steams into port where Russian troops stationed James Hider in Tbilisi A US navy flagship has steamed into a Georgian port where Russian troops are still stationed, stoking tensions once again in the tinderbox Caucasus region. A previous trip by American warships was cancelled at the last minute a week ago amid fears that an armed stand off could erupt in the Black Sea port of Poti. The arrival of the USS Mount Whitney came as Moscow accused Dick Cheney, the hawkish US vice-president, of stoking tensions during a visit to Tbilisi yesterday, in which he vowed...

A US navy flagship has steamed into a Georgian port where Russian troops are still stationed, stoking tensions once again in the tinderbox Caucasus region. A previous trip by American warships was cancelled at the last minute a week ago amid fears that an armed stand off could erupt in the Black Sea port of Poti. The arrival of the USS Mount Whitney came as Moscow accused Dick Cheney, the hawkish US vice-president, of stoking tensions during a visit to Tbilisi yesterday, in which he vowed to bring Georgia into the Nato alliance. Russia sees any such move as a...

Russia will not respond with military action to strengthening of NATO group in Black Sea - Russian Foreign Ministry MOSCOW. Sept 5 (Interfax) - Russia will not respond with military action to the strengthening of the NATO group in the Black Sea, but may raise this issue with the UN, said the Russian Foreign Ministry. "We are not talking about any possibility of military actions or anything like that," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko told reporters on Friday.

Russian and US warships moved to within less than 200 miles of each other today as tensions over Georgia continued to rise between the two countries. A US coast guard ship docked at the a southern Georgian port prompting Russia to send a missile cruiser and two support vessels to another Georgian port. The manoeuvrings came a day after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev officially recognised the two Georgian rebel territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states. The US cutter Dallas, carrying 34 tons of humanitarian aid, arrived in the Black Sea port of Batumi, south of the zone...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday Russia would calmly respond the presence of NATO warships in the Black Sea that arrived there after the short war between his country and neighboring Georgia, but nonetheless promised "there will be an answer." Currently there are two U.S., one Polish, one Spanish and one German ship in the Black Sea. Shortly after a Russian-Georgian cease-fire, the NATO flotilla arrived in the region to deliver humanitarian aid to ally Georgia. Foreign Ministry official Andrei Nesterenko and others say the U.S. could be delivering weapons to the Georgian government under the guise of humanitarian...

MOSCOW - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia will respond calmly to an increase in NATO ships in the Black Sea in the aftermath of the short war with Georgia, but promised that "there will be an answer." Meanwhile, President Dmitry Medvedev sternly warned the West that it would lose more than Moscow would if it tried to punish Russia with sanctions over the war with Georgia. Russia has repeatedly complained that NATO has too many warships in the Black Sea. Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said Tuesday that currently there are two U.S., one Polish, one Spanish...

From January 1, 2009, the Ukrainian leadership is planning to put up the rent for the Crimean territories where Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is stationed, according to Russia’s Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper. It claims the corresponding documents are being prepared by Ukraine’s Ministries of Foreign Relations and Defence. The rent price was calculated in 1997 and defined in the treaty of disposition of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet on the territory of Ukraine. The calculations took into consideration the Ukraine’s debt to Russia, which at the time was $US 2 billion, and the cost of renting port facilities was agreed at $US...

To be sure, the killing of tens of hundreds of people in the Caucasian region of South Ossetia in a sudden military onslaught by Georgia will turn out to be a landmark event in post-Soviet Russia’s relations with the West. Conceivably, a chapter in the post-Cold War era is ending. Blood has been drawn in the Caucasus, which history shows, is never easy to wipe away. Feuds are known to run for decades even if they bear verisimilitude to family squabbles. The crisis in southern Caucasus was slowly building up ever since Kosovo, the breakaway province of Serbia, declared independence...

NORMALLY you’ll find HMS Liverpool and Clyde enjoying temperate climes. But who says such things are set in stone? Not the planners at Fleet HQ, who decided to dispatch the Clyde and Liverpool to a land of a snow and ice. The patrol vessel and destroyer, plus their trusty tanker RFA Black Rover, headed to South Georgia to take charge of a disaster relief/emergency exercise. Equally important, however, was a chance to test the speed with which units based in the Falklands, more than 850 miles away, could respond to the need to defend South Georgia against a hostile invader,...

MOSCOW, August 29 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Black Sea Fleet is capable of destroying NATO's naval strike group currently deployed in the sea within 20 minutes, a former fleet commander said on Friday. Russia's General Staff said on Tuesday there were 10 NATO ships in the Black Sea - three U.S. warships, the Polish frigate General Pulaski, the German frigate FGS Lubeck, and the Spanish guided missile frigate Admiral Juan de Borbon, as well as four Turkish vessels. Eight more warships are expected to join the group. "Despite the apparent strength, the NATO naval group in the Black Sea is...

Turkey threatened on Friday to restrict imports from Russia in a trade dispute that has highlighted Ankara’s precarious diplomatic position between its Nato allies and Moscow. Kursad Tuzmen, Turkey’s foreign trade minister, said his country would impose unspecified curbs on Russian goods after thousands of Turkish lorries were held up at Russian border posts. Turkish ministers fear that the disagreement is more significant than past export rows and could mark a Russian attempt to punish Turkey for allowing US warships to pass through the Bosphorus into the Black Sea. The dispute comes in spite of Ankara’s efforts to maintain good...

NATO's naval squad is no match for Russia's Black Sea Fleet and would fall to pieces should the fleet launch a 'single missile salvo.' Former Russian commander Admiral Eduard Baltin said "a single missile salvo from the Moskva missile cruiser and two or three missile boats would be enough to annihilate the entire group." The one-time fleet commander was quoted by Ria Novosti as saying that the NATO squad looked better than they fought. "Despite the apparent strength" the 10-pieace NATO armada in the Black Sea "is not battle-worthy." He noted that the entire squadron could only brave the Black...

Fears are mounting that Russia may restrict oil deliveries to Western Europe over coming days, in response to the threat of EU sanctions and Nato naval actions in the Black Sea. Any such move would be a dramatic escalation of the Georgia crisis and play havoc with the oil markets. Reports have begun to circulate in Moscow that Russian oil companies are under orders from the Kremlin to prepare for a supply cut to Germany and Poland through the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline. It is believed that executives from lead-producer LUKoil have been put on weekend alert.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 28, 2008 – The Coast Guard Cutter Dallas has finished off-loading humanitarian relief supplies in the Georgian city of Batumi and has left port, a Defense Department official said here today. Since Russia invaded Georgia on Aug. 9, all of the U.S. aid that has gone to the nation has been humanitarian relief, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters. Defense officials said that Russia still has troops in Georgia and is not living up to the terms of a cease-fire agreement. The Dallas unloaded 34 short tons of aid at the port, raising the U.S. total to 947...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 28, 2008 – The Defense Department and U.S. European Command stand ready to assist as required to save lives and alleviate human suffering during the humanitarian crisis in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, a senior EuCom official said yesterday. “Working side by side with the republic of Georgia and international organizations, U.S. European Command is providing immediate life-saving support and restoring essential life-support systems as part of a coordinated interagency effort,” Michael Ritchie, EuCom’s director of interagency engagement, said in a teleconference with bloggers and online journalists to discuss the relief effort dubbed Operation Assured Delivery. Operation...

Landlocked and poor, Armenia is looking even more vulnerable. Most of its fuel and much of its grain comes through Georgia's Black Sea ports, which are virtually paralyzed. The capital city of Yerevan is already experiencing a serious fuel shortage, where many filling stations have halted sales of gasoline and supplies of key commodities such as jet fuel and wheat are dwindling. Armenia is reportedly trying to secure additional fuel supplies through Iran, its only remaining neighbor whose border remains open. This is the moment for Turkey to step forward. By re-opening the rail line linking the eastern province of...

A couple of points. Russia bluster against Moldova is just noise. Moldova has no intention of changing the status of Trans-Dniester. Russia is feeling an emotional high in it success in hurting Saakashvili and rubbing his nose in his impotence to do anything about it on the ground. I am hearing a lot about who is at fault and would like to point you to Michael Totten interview in Georgia about that subject http://www.michaeltotten.com. Supposedly in July Medevev had advised his diplomatic staff that the status had changed and that Russia was going to act from an attitude of strength...

Russia said U.S. ships could only stay in the Black Sea for 21 days according to the Montreux Convention, and warned if they do not leave by then Turkey would be responsible. Russia's deputy military chief Anatoly Nogovitsyn said the NATO warships' entrance to the Black Sea is a "serious threat to our security," Hurriyet daily reported on Thursday. He said under the Montreux Convention, signed in 1936 on the status of the Turkish Straits, the warships can only stay in the Black Sea for 21 days. "If the NATO ships continue to stay in the Black Sea after the...

A new Cold War between Russia and the West grew steadily closer yesterday after the Kremlin gave a warning about “direct confrontation” between American and Russian warships in the Black Sea. Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister, declared that Russia was taking “measures of precaution” against American and Nato naval ships. “Let’s hope we do not see any direct confrontation in that,” he said. Any attempt by countries in the West to isolate Russia would “definitely harm the economic interests of those states”, he said. A day after the Kremlin said that it was ready to...

Cold War tension rises as Putin talks of Black Sea confrontation Russia has criticised the US for using naval ships to deliver aid to Georgia Michael Evans, Defence Editor A new Cold War between Russia and the West grew steadily closer yesterday after the Kremlin gave a warning about “direct confrontation” between American and Russian warships in the Black Sea. Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister, declared that Russia was taking “measures of precaution” against American and Nato naval ships. “Let’s hope we do not see any direct confrontation in that,” he said. Any attempt by...