Free Republic

Russia has provided an "unprecedented" 970 billion roubles (22.6 billion euros, 33.8 billion dollars) to its defence industry this year, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Wednesday. State support for the sector had helped it grow by 3.8 percent since the start of the year despite the economic downturn, Putin said in comments reported by Russian news agencies. "During the recession we have allocated enough money to the military-industrial sector, which is a priority for government support. In 2009 funding reached an unprecedented level for our country: almost 970 billion roubles," Putin said. State aid had taken the form of reduced-rate...

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has often described the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest tragedy” of the 20th century, has now said that the “reunification” of Georgia has “already been decided,” a suggestion some of his listeners believe was a call for restoring Moscow’s control over Georgia and even the former USSR as a whole. In an intriguing commentary published in yesterday’s “Gazeta,” Bozhena Rynska describes both the celebration of the 80th birthday of longtime Soviet and Russian official Yevgeny Primakov and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s two very different toasts on that occasion (www.gazeta.ru/column/rynska/3287611.shtml). The celebration took...

Russia is to build up its navy over the coming decade, President Dmitry Medvedev announced on Monday, as he visited a Russian guided missile cruiser in Singapore. Speaking to sailors on board the Russian Pacific Fleet's Varyag, Medvedev said around half of Russia's military hardware would have to be renewed by 2020. "Yes, an expansion of our naval presence is planned. Russia can only consider itself a full naval power if it has a full fleet that carries out training and combat tasks," he said, according to official Russian news agencies. The Varyag, built in the 1980s under the Soviet...

SINGAPORE: A major pact within tantalizing reach, President Barack Obama aims to nudge forward an arms-control deal in talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum brought Obama to Singapore, but he is focusing on individual meetings Sunday with Medvedev and with Indonesia's Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, president of the world's largest Muslim nation and Obama's home as a boy. The US-Russia meeting takes place as the nations seek a successor to a Cold War-era agreement. Obama planned another milestone: joining a larger meeting that includes the leader of military-ruled Myanmar. Obama is sure to face criticism...

Mikhail Gorbachev—the man who pulled the Soviet Union's troops out of Afghanistan after a decade of stalemate—says the US should do the same.

Nicaragua's President on Monday urged Latin American peoples to unite in order to force the removal of airbases in Colombia that the U.S. military intend to use. President Daniel Orgeta, a main ally to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, announced that the greatest struggle for Latin American countries was to "make dissappear once and for all ... the military bases that threaten the sovereignty, integrity and peace of our people." Ortega denounced the recent Colombia - U.S. military agreement (which he believes to have been initiated by the George W Bush administration) as the greatest threat to Colombia and Latin American...

Moscow (AsiaNews) - The Russian Ministry for Justice has proposed amendments to the law on "Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations" that, if adopted, will introduce stronger restrictions on the activities of Evangelicals in the country. The community is on alert: If the proposal becomes law, among other things the evangelicals can no longer pray freely without a permit and people with a “criminal record” will not be allowed become members of their communities. The latter condition, which also concerns other religious groups because it would clear the path for state interference in the individual freedom of conscience. The document...

Communism is alive and well. ....Far from being dead and buried, communism remains a potent force - one that is still a threat to Western nations that value freedom and capitalism. This is because the ideological roots of communism have not been defeated. Rather than being polar opposites, fascism and Marxism are evil twins. They are both socialist ideologies that espouse one-party rule, economic collectivism and social regimentation. They are implacably opposed to capitalism, the sovereignty of the family and Judeo-Christian civilization. They are aggressively imperialist, seeking world domination. The major difference between them is that while Marxism champions the...

Cold War: The White House has announced our absence at ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Meanwhile, Russia has been practicing a nuclear invasion of an abandoned Poland. The Berlin Wall has been a famous backdrop for American presidents sounding the battle cry of liberty in the struggle against tyranny. It was there that John F. Kennedy expressed our solidarity with the encircled residents of that outpost of freedom with his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner." And it was there that Ronald Reagan, with a defiant "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," voiced our...

SNIPPET: "Lula and Chavez have established a "strategic relationship," and recently agreed upon a joint Brazilian-Venezuelan oil venture worth billions of dollars. Lula and Chavez have joined with Daniel Ortega, the returned Nicaraguan Marxist dictator, to form an anti-U.S. Latin American military alliance - all with Russian assistance - funded by the region's abundant oil reserves. Brazil is engaged in its own arms build-up and Lula is determined that Brazil will become at least a first-rate regional power. Unfortunately, Lula is establishing Brazil as an anti-American military power by aligning with nations hostile or potentially hostile to the U.S. Lula...

Capitalism and democracy have lost popularity in the former Soviet republics of Eastern and Central Europe, where many people felt better off economically under communism, a poll showed Monday. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, research by the Pew Research Center showed the percentage of people approving of democracy was markedly lower in the former Soviet bloc compared to a similar 1991 poll.

As the Ford Taurus slowly approached the signal site, hidden FBI agents readied for a possible arrest. For weeks they had been staking out a path in Foxstone Park in Vienna, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C. Their elusive quarry was a Soviet mole in the FBI, codenamed “Ramon Garcia.”  ver the course of more than two decades, “Ramon” had done incalculable damage to the United States’ security, selling Top Secret information to the Soviet GRU (military intelligence) and KGB, and to the KGB’s Russian successor agency, the FSB, and its foreign arm, the SVR. Would “Ramon” stop this time? More than...

The armed forces are said to have carried out "war games" in which nuclear missiles were fired and troops practised an amphibious landing on the country's coast. Documents obtained by Wprost, one of Poland's leading news magazines, said the exercise was carried out in conjunction with soldiers from Belarus. The manoeuvres are thought to have been held in September and involved about 13,000 Russian and Belarusian troops. The documents state the exercises, code-named "West", were officially classified as "defensive" but many of the operations appeared to have an offensive nature. more...

Russia 'simulates' nuclear attack on Poland Russia has provoked outrage in Poland by simulating an air and sea attack on the country during military exercises. By Matthew Day in Warsaw Published: 4:37PM GMT 01 Nov 2009 The armed forces are said to have carried out "war games" in which nuclear missiles were fired and troops practised an amphibious landing on the country's coast. Documents obtained by Wprost, one of Poland's leading news magazines, said the exercise was carried out in conjunction with soldiers from Belarus. The manoeuvres are thought to have been held in September and involved about 13,000 Russian...

In early October, the Russian Deputy Minister of Defense Vladimir Popovkin announced the decision to take two heavy nuclear-powered missile cruisers (TAKR) out of conservation and restore them to the active fleet. This decision coming just one year after the Petr Velikii (Peter the Great), the fourth ship of its class and the only one then in service, set out on a long-range cruise that took it from Severomorsk, the home port of the Northern Fleet to the Mediterranean, Caribbean, South Atlantic, and the Indian Oceans. On this voyage, which lasted from September 22, 2008, to March 10, 2009, the...

Russia’s new military doctrine, which is to come into force in 2010, has provoked a heated debate, first of all because it stipulates preemptive nuclear strikes. Moreover, it says that nuclear weapons may also be used in local conflicts in case of critical threats to Russia’s national security. The wording has encouraged some people to say that Russia intends to use nuclear weapons in conflicts with its closest neighbors – former Soviet republics. A critical threat to Russia’s national security can come from different types of conflicts, including a large-scale war with a block of countries, or a hypothetical territorial...

US army bases will appear on the Black Sea Coast – in Bulgaria and Romania. About $50 million will be assigned to build the base in Romania, and the Pentagon plans to spend $60 million more for the same purpose in Bulgaria. The Romanian base is expected to be put in operation in 2010, whereas the second one will most likely be launched in 2011 or 2012. Over 4,000 US military men are expected to serve at the two bases: 1,600 in Romania and 2,500 in Bulgaria. The authorities of the two nations expect that the US military men will...

START 'cheating' Republicans in the Senate are gearing up to battle the Obama administration over the high-priority plan to finish a new arms-control treaty with Russia before the end of the year.

WASHINGTON — With a key arms control treaty set to expire soon, the Obama administration is searching for ways to keep inspectors in Russia or else it risks losing American eyes on the world’s second most formidable nuclear weapons arsenal for the first time in decades. The administration has been negotiating a replacement for the pact, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or Start, which goes out of force on Dec. 5. But even if the talks produce a new agreement by then, the Senate and the Russian Parliament will not have time to ratify it before the old one expires...

MOSCOW — Nearly two decades after the collapse of the Communist Party, Russia’s rulers have hit upon a model for future success: the Communist Party. Or at least, the one that reigns next door. Like an envious underachiever, Vladimir V. Putin’s party, United Russia, is increasingly examining how it can emulate the Chinese Communist Party, especially its skill in shepherding China through the financial crisis relatively unbowed. United Russia’s leaders even convened a special meeting this month with senior Chinese Communist Party officials to hear firsthand how they wield power. ..." “The accomplishments of China’s Communist Party in developing its...

Recent defections of noted Iranians mirror those from the old U.S.S.R. Someone is stealing Iran's nuclear experts. Physicist Shahram Amiri, a researcher at Tehran's Malek Ashtar University, went missing in June on the third day of a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. His family says the medical isotope specialist, who worked in an institution identified by the European Union as a possible secret nuclear weapons lab, phoned home when he first arrived but hasn't been heard from since. The pro-government Iranian newspaper Javan (Young) said this week Saudi immigration officials questioned Mr. Amiri extensively when he first arrived for...

Meet Marina Kalashnikova: a Moscow-based historian, researcher and journalist. Last August she criticized foreign “experts� for suggesting that a conflict with Moscow will not happen because Russia’s elite is too closely associated with the West. According to Kalashnikova, “The West does not care to wake from the dream of its wishful thinking, even when Moscow turns to … reanimating Stalin’s cult of personality together with the ideology of the Cheka [i.e., the secret police].� I’m afraid that Marina Kalashnikova is right. The West has been dreaming, and the West will suffer the consequences. If the Kremlin likes Stalin, then there...

A Russian historian investigating the fate of Germans imprisoned in the Soviet Union during the second world war has been arrested, in the latest apparent clampdown on historical research into the Stalin era by the Russian authorities. Mikhail Suprun was detained last month by officers from Russia's security services. They searched his apartment and carried off his entire personal archive. He has now been charged with violating privacy laws and, if convicted, faces up to four years in jail. Suprun had been researching Germans sent to Russia's Arctic gulags. A professor of history at Arkhangelsk's Pomorskiy university, his study included...

Russia in a new review of its policy on use of nuclear weapons will reserve the right to undertake a pre-emptive strike if it feels its security is endangered, a senior Kremlin official told a Russian newspaper. Russian and U.S. negotiators are in talks to find agreement on a new bilateral pact cutting stocks of strategic nuclear weapons. Both sides are working to a December deadline for a new treaty to replace the landmark Cold War-era START pact. While Moscow and Washington have made progress in strategic nuclear arms talks, Russia's security may come under threat from regional conflicts and...

This is a bad Peter Sellers movie. Can you see Ronald Reagan vomiting in his grave? Ayn Rand is weeping. The Republicans need a fierce leader. A Churchill. We are under attack from the White House. US transparency was never an issue. Has Russia ever been transparent? Putin is KGB for pete's sake. We are handing over the keys to the kingdom. It's laughable, only the joke is on us and the stakes could not be higher. Russia has been at war with the US for most of the twentieth century. Reagan bested them, but surely they were not conquered....

Russia and the United States have tentatively agreed to a weapons inspection program that would allow Russians to visit nuclear sites in America to count missiles and warheads. The plan, which Fox News has learned was agreed to in principle during negotiations, would constitute the most intrusive weapons inspection program the U.S. has ever accepted....

Washington will tone down its criticism of Russia's human rights record in order to win Kremlin backing for possible sanctions against Iran, it has been claimed. It is the latest in a number of concessions the US has made to Moscow in order to improve relations and encourage co-operation on international issues. The plan emerged as Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, visited Russia to discuss a range of issues including Iran's rogue nuclear programme. Mrs Clinton's trip was part of what Washington is calling a "reset" with Moscow, a new more constructive relationship with the Kremlin that President...

Yes, I wish that this was a satire piece, but unfortunately it appears that this is real. President Obama's Administration is going to allow Russia to inspect our nuclear facilities-- within the United States. This is an unprecedented move that damages US national security. Not only does it lift the veil of secrecy, but if Russia decided to sell the secret information to terrorists or rogue states, attacks could follow. This is a disgrace.

Just a little follow-up to Ed’s post earlier, tracking the progress of The One’s global disarmament efforts. Hey — the committee did say that Nobel was aspirational. In an interview published today in Izvestia, Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Kremlin’s security council, said the new doctrine offers “different options to allow the use of nuclear weapons, depending on a certain situation and intentions of a would-be enemy. In critical national security situations, one should also not exclude a preventive nuclear strike against the aggressor.” What’s more, Patrushev said, Russia is revising the rules for the employment of nukes to...

MOSCOW (AP) - A top Russian security official says Moscow reserves the right to conduct pre-emptive nuclear strikes to safeguard the country against aggression on both a large and a local scale, according to a newspaper interview published Wednesday. Presidential Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev also singled out the U.S. and NATO, saying Moscow's Cold War foes still pose potential threats to Russia despite what he called a global trend toward local conflicts. The interview appeared in the daily Izvestia during a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, as U.S. and Russian negotiators try to hammer out...

Link only, due to Wired's copyright complaints. Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday MachineI'm posting this without any text, because I think it's important. The "Doomsday" machine is apparently real, and still operational. Read the article for more details.

U.S.-Russia diplomacy is currently dominated by issues such as Iran, missile defense, and the post-Soviet republics. But the Obama administration must not ignore Moscow's role in facilitating the dangerous Venezuelan arms buildup and the nuclear ambitions of Hugo Chávez. On September 13, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez announced triumphantly that Russia had agreed to extend his government a $2.2 billion credit line for the purchase of sophisticated military hardware, including tanks, missiles, and air-defense systems. Chávez insisted that these arms purchases "are necessary for our national defense." But U.S. officials think otherwise--and with good reason. "What they are looking to purchase...

3 Wrongs Don’t Make a Right 17 September 2009 By Robert R. Amsterdam The recent visits to Moscow and Tehran by Hugo Chavez raise a number of concerns about the deepening relations between Russia, Iran and Venezuela. The motivation behind the Russia-Iran-Venezuela alliance is often misunderstood. On the one hand, there is the narrative that these governments are pursuing national interests, seeking to deepen their security against ever-present external threats and accrue regional power. Others argue that the alliance is driven by an attempt to build an “alternative architecture” of global relations, one that is conveniently unconcerned with democracy and...

Russia and Islam are not Separate: Why Russia backs Al-Qaeda By Konstantin Preobrazhensky Konstantin Preobrazhensky, a former Lt. Colonel in the KGB who defected to the United States in 1993, is an intelligence expert and specialist on Japan, about which he has written six books. His newest book Russian-American, A New KGB Asset will be published in late 2007. This article was first published by Gerard Group International, Intel Analyses, 31 August 2007.Americans generally believe that Russia is afraid of Islamic terrorism as much as the U.S.A. They are reminded of the war in Chechnya, the hostage crisis at the...

Czechs are used to betrayal by their Western allies. It was at Munich in 1938 that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sealed their doom in exchange for a piece of paper promising "peace in our time." The fact that this further gutting of missile defense came on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland on Sept. 17, 1939, is an eerie coincidence. "Just after midnight I was informed in a telephone call by President Barack Obama that (his) administration had decided to pull out from the planned missile defense shield installations" in the Czech Republic and Poland, the...

SNIPPET: "Most importantly, Chavez has friends - powerful friends -- around the world who are assisting him in his goal of establishing communism as the dominant force in the world. Both Russia and China are assisting Chavez in spreading the message that the United States is "the most savage, cruel, and murderous empire that has existed in the history of the world," and Chavez's solution: 21st Century Socialism." SNIPPET: "The Moscow elite are not only supporting Chavez the dictator with weapons, but also Chavez the Marxist revolutionary with a high profile platform for his revolutionary rhetoric. In early September 2009...

Scrapping of U.S. missile defense plans hands big victory to Russia's new czar. Was it only April? There was President Barack Obama, speaking (as is his wont) in Prague, about the Iranian nuclear program and ballistic missile capability, and saluting America's plucky allies: "The Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a defense against these missiles," he declared. "As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven." On Thursday, the administration scrapped its missile defense plans for Eastern Europe. The "courageous" Czechs and...

As the Obama administration cuddles up to Moscow and Caracas, America's enemies in the those cities plot the destruction of the West. Economic decline is the least of the West's worries. Neo-Marxist world domination is the real name of the game. Read this excellent and completely accurate article from Toby Westerman Venezuela’s Marxist president-dictator Hugo Chavez addressed an influential university in Moscow stating that America’s influence in the world is “dying,” and will be replaced in “the next decades” by a “multi-polar” world in which Russia plays a leading role. Chavez wants to “accelerate” the process, a sentiment which receives...

Russia said on Saturday it had started talks with France for an unprecedented deal to buy a new helicopter-carrying assault warship from NATO-member France. The Russian government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported last month that the ship, which can carry 16 heavy helicopters, 470 airborne troops and other gear, costs 700 million euros (995 million dollars).

Was it only April? There was President Barack Obama, speaking (as is his wont) in Prague, about the Iranian nuclear program and ballistic missile capability, and saluting America's plucky allies: "The Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a defense against these missiles," he declared. "As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven."

HAVANA, September 18 (RIA Novosti) - Modernization of the Soviet-made military equipment and training of Cuban military personnel will be the focus of Russian-Cuban military cooperation in the near future, the chief of the Russian General Staff said on Friday.

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has announced that the country will soon take delivery of Russian missiles with a range of 300km (185 miles). Returning from a 10-day tour of Africa, Asia and Europe, including Russia, Mr Chavez is also planning to buy Russian T-72 and T-90. "Soon some little rockets are going to be arriving... and they don't fail," he announced at the presidential palace. But he denied they would be used for offensive purposes. "We are not going to attack anybody, these are just defence tools, because we are going to defend our country from any threat, wherever it...

NOVO-OGARYOVO, Russia (Reuters) – Russia's Vladimir Putin on Friday gave his strongest indication yet that he may run again for the presidency at the next election in 2012. Ever since Putin's presidential term expired last year and he made way for his chosen successor Dmitry Medvedev, there has been speculation the move was only temporary. Putin, now serving as prime minister, remains extremely popular among Russian voters despite the economic downturn and he continues to dominate the political scene. Speaking to the Valdai discussion group of Russia experts, Putin said the transition at the top in 2007/8 had been a...

Events were not supposed to have turned out this way: Stalin is making a comeback in Russia, the Chinese Communist Party controls capitalism in China, Venezuela — once a friend of the United States — is now a neo-Marxist state, and Latin America itself is dominated by communist or far left regimes. When the Berlin Wall was destroyed by jubilant West Berlin youth, the nightmare was believed to be over. The communist true believers, however, are again a threat to humanity — even within the U.S. government. It is a story gets little coverage in the centralized media. Instead of...

A CARGO ship that vanished in the Channel was carrying arms to Iran and was being tracked by Mossad, the Israeli security service, according to sources in both Russia and Israel. The Arctic Sea, officially carrying a cargo of timber worth £1.3m, disappeared en route from Finland to Algeria on July 24. It was recovered off west Africa on August 17 when eight alleged hijackers were arrested. The Kremlin has consistently denied that the vessel was carrying a secret cargo. It claims the ship was hijacked by criminals who demanded a £1m ransom. The official version was challenged by sources...

Hugo Chávez ‘evil axis’ tour: Looking for love in all the wrong places? The Venezuelan leader gave Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi a warm hug yesterday during his 11-day tour to Russia, Belarus, Syria, Algeria, Libya, and Iran. By Matthew Clark | Staff writer 09.02.09 It’s like that old country song: “Lookin’ for love in all the wrong places. Lookin’ for love.” (Or as Eddie Murphy would say in his classic SNL skit, “wookin pa nub.”) That’s what Venezuelan firebrand Hugo Chávez appears to be doing this week on an 11-day trip that trip takes him to Russia, Belarus, Syria, Algeria,...

Russia unveiled the first element of its fifth-generation Sukhoi PAK FA/T-50 fighter during the Moscow MAKS air show, with Tikhomirov's NIIP having exhibited the type's active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. The newly unveiled unit is intended for integration with Sukhoi's heavyweight fighter prototype, which air force commander Aleksandr Zelin says is due to fly in November or December. The aircraft was shown to President Vladimir Putin in its assembly phase during his May visit to the KnAAPO production plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Tikhomirov says the AESA antenna entered benchtesting in November 2008, and was mated with the radar's other blocks...

Medvedev: blaming Soviets for WWII a 'cynical lie' By STEVE GUTTERMAN (AP) – 6 hours ago MOSCOW — Russia's president defended Moscow's role in World War II before the 70th anniversary of its outbreak, saying in an interview broadcast Sunday that anyone who lays equal blame on the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany is telling a "cynical lie." Dmitry Medvedev's remarks were the latest salvo in Russia's bitter dispute with its neighbors over the war and its aftermath. The Kremlin has launched a campaign for universal acceptance of its portrayal of the Soviet Union as Europe's liberator. In Eastern Europe,...

Fighter Order Rekindles Russian Air Force By Douglas Barrie and Alexey Komarov Zhukovsky, Russia Russian air force ambitions stretch far beyond the $2.65-billion Sukhoi fighter order at the MAKS 2009 show. Aspirations include fielding an unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) alongside its fifth-generation fighter and developing a next-generation strategic bomber. The fighter deal is a fillip to the air force and Sukhoi. The military will acquire 48 Su-35S fighter aircraft from 2010-15, along with 12 Su-27SMs and four Su-30M2s. Delivery of the last two versions of the Flanker should be completed by 2011. Securing an air force order bolsters Sukhoi’s...

Soviet Subversion of the Free World Press - 1984 Yuri Bezmenov, a Russian born, KGB trained subverter tells about the influence of the Soviet Union on Western media and describes the stages of communist takeovers. This interview was conducted by G. Edward Griffin in 1984.