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ALMATY (Reuters) - NATO member Turkey signed up on Friday to became a "dialogue partner" of a security bloc dominated by China and Russia, and declared that its destiny is in Asia. "This is really a historic day for us," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in Kazakhstan's commercial capital Almaty after signing a memorandum of understanding with Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Secretary General Dmitry Mezentsev. "Now, with this choice, Turkey is declaring that our destiny is the same as the destiny of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) countries." China, Russia and four Central Asian nations - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and...

After months of fierce negotiations prior to President Xi Jinping’s Moscow visit (March 22-24) China and Russian signed an agreement on supplying 24 Russian Su-35 fighter jets to China and for the joint construction of four Lada-class diesel submarines. The purchases are China’s most significant from Russia in the past 10 years, the Interfax news agency reports, and are intended to provide a basis for future bilateral military cooperation. [Editor’s Note: Su-35 is Russia’s most advanced 4th generation multipurpose fighter jet. The Lada-class submarine specializes in anti-submarine defense and conducting independent missions against enemy subs and ships in coastal, narrow...

China continued moving tanks and armored vehicles and flying flights near North Korea this week as part of a military buildup in the northeastern part of the country that U.S. officials say is related to the crisis with North Korea. The Obama administration, meanwhile, sought to play down the Chinese military buildup along the border with Beijing’s fraternal communist ally despite the growing danger of conflict following unprecedented threats by Pyongyang to attack the United States and South Korea with nuclear weapons. Officials said one key military unit involved in the mobilization is the 190th Mechanized Infantry Brigade based in...

Russia The mentality of Russian-Soviet leadership is much different than that of their Western counterparts. The Soviets are long range strategists and in spite of any surface changes in leadership, they always maintain continuity in their long-term goal and objective. American politicians, on the other hand, think and operate based on short-term goals. In general, American politicians are so obsessed with personnel career objectives that they don’t focus much of their concern on what might happen in the future after their term of office is over. In March 1994, just before his death, Richard Nixon said, "Those who suggest that...

An Egyptian magazine claims that six American Islamist activists who work with the Obama administration are Muslim Brotherhood operatives who enjoy strong influence over U.S. policy. The Dec. 22 story published in Egypt's Rose El-Youssef magazine (read an IPT translation here) suggests the six turned the White House "from a position hostile to Islamic groups and organizations in the world to the largest and most important supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood." The story is largely unsourced, but its publication is considered significant in raising the issue to Egyptian readers. The six named people include: Arif Alikhan, assistant secretary of Homeland...

Putin has called for Communist leader Vladimir Lenin's body to be preserved in its mausoleum on Red Square, comparing the embalmed body of the founder of the Soviet state to the relics of saints. "Many are saying that having Lenin's Mausoleum runs counter to the tradition. But what runs counter to tradition?" Putin told a meeting with celebrities who campaigned for him in the March 2012 presidential election, according to the Kremlin website. "Just go to Kiev Pechersk Lavra or check out Pskov Monastery or Mount Athos. You'll see the relics of saints there." Putin cited almost word-for-word the present-day...

A Russian nuclear-powered attack submarine cruised within 200 miles of the East Coast recently in the latest sign Russia is continuing to flex its naval and aerial power against the United States, defense officials said. The submarine was identified by its NATO designation as a Russian Seirra-2 class submarine believed to be based with Russia’s Northern Fleet. It was the first time that class of Russian submarine had been detected near a U.S. coast, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of anti-submarine warfare efforts. One defense official said the submarine was believed to...

President Vladimir Putin took a leading role in the latest tests of Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal, the most comprehensive since the 1991 Soviet collapse, the Kremlin said on Saturday. The exercises, held mostly on Friday, featured prominently in news reports on state television which seemed aimed to show Russians and the world that Putin is the hands-on chief of a resurgent power. Tests involving command systems and all three components of the nuclear "triad" - land and sea-launched long-range nuclear missiles and strategic bombers - were conducted "under the personal leadership of Vladimir Putin", the Kremlin said. An RS-12M Topol...

As violent mobs shouting Islamist slogans rampaged against U.S. diplomats across the Middle East and Southeast Asia in the weeks following the fatal Sept. 11, 2012 attack on U.S. officials in Libya, Russian President Vladimir Putin saw a chance to kick the United States when it was down. He did it by expelling the U.S. Agency for International Development, whose work -- advising private groups on democracy, as it has done since the 1990s -- he evidently resented. For good measure, he just cancelled the longstanding Nunn-Lugar program of cooperation on destroying and securing old Soviet weapons of mass destruction....

(Reuters) - Russia will not renew a decades-old agreement with Washington on dismantling nuclear and chemical weapons when it expires next year, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying on Wednesday. The death of the 1991 agreement, which had been renewed twice, is the latest in a series of hitches in relations between the United States and Russia and casts doubt on the future of the much-vaunted "reset" in relations between the Cold War-era foes. "The basis of the program is an agreement of 1991 which, by virtue of the time when it was conceived, the way it...

NOVO-OGARYOVO, Russia, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Russia needs a "leap forward" to rejuvenate its sprawling defence industry, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday, harkening back to the ambitious industrialisation carried out by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in the runup to World War Two. "We should carry out the same powerful, all-embracing leap forward in modernisation of the defence industry as the one carried out in the 1930s," Putin told his Security Council, without mentioning Stalin by name. Stalin, who ruled the Soviet empire with an iron fist for 27 years, is blamed for the death of about six million people...

A Russian nuclear-powered attack submarine armed with long-range cruise missiles operated undetected in the Gulf of Mexico for several weeks and its travel in strategic U.S. waters was only confirmed after it left the region, the Washington Free Beacon has learned. It is only the second time since 2009 that a Russian attack submarine has patrolled so close to U.S. shores. The stealth underwater incursion in the Gulf took place at the same time Russian strategic bombers made incursions into restricted U.S. airspace near Alaska and California in June and July, and highlights a growing military assertiveness by Moscow. The...

Russia Test Fires new ICBM Friday, 08 June 2012 Russian military announced Thursday they have successfully test-fired a new version of the Topol-M series codenamed RS-12M. The rocket, an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), was fired from a military base in southeast Russia, Interfax news agency quoted military sources as saying. The missile hit its target in Kazakhstan republic in central Asia precisely. The new generation of the Topol-M family aims to counter the US-developed missile shield system being deployed in Western countries. It will be the mainstay of the Russian Strategic Missile Troops, according to the report.

State's GRU military intelligence source says Russians are investigating theory crash was 'industrial sabotage Aircraft was on a demonstration flight aimed at securing lucrative orders when it slammed into a mountain killing all 45 passengers and crew Russian intelligence official claims US have 'special technology' capable of jamming signals from the ground or causing systems to malfunction Spy sources in Moscow today made the astonishing claim that a US undercover operation may have sabotaged a new Russian Superjet plane that crashed in Indonesia two weeks ago. The aircraft was on a demonstration flight aimed at securing lucrative orders when it...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - Russia Wants Obama Re-ElectedPosted By David Meir-Levi On May 11, 2012 @ 12:46 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments Well, now we know what the “hot mic” incident was all about. The Wall Street Journal’s “Moscow Raises Alarm over Missile-Defense Plan for Europe” (Friday, May 4, 2012), makes the connection.At an international conference on Thursday, May 3, organized at Russia’s initiative, the Russian delegates showed computer-generated images of a hypothetical Russian pre-emptive missile attack on segments of a missile defense shield and early warning system that the US and NATO want to put...

Kamov vs. Mil: prospects for Russian chopper fleet By the end of this year, Russia’s Far East air base of Chernigovka will be fully reequipped with new Mi-8AMTSh and Ka-52 attack choppers that will replace the obsolete Mi-8s and Mi-24s. Designed as a special forces' support helicopter, the Ka-52 is gradually growing to become the army’s main attack gunship. Plans to launch Ka-52 batch production were announced as early as in 2006. Under the modernization initiative, Ka-52s were to make up only a small portion of the 300 attack helicopters – just several squadrons of 70 to 80 choppers –...

Russia announces plans for zombie gun, prepare your bunkers Memories of the cold war have been raised from the dead this week with the confirmation from Russian officials they are testing an energy gun that would essentially turn people into zombies. The "psychotronic" gun would not only inflict pain but also attack the central nervous system leaving enemies scrambled. The weapon, which is said to use electromagnetic radiation, was announced by Russian defense minister Anatoly Serdyukov and was confirmed by Russian Prime Minister and President-elect Vladimir Putin. It has apparently in some form been tested for crowd control. If this...

Reporting from Seoul— U.S. politics combined with diplomacy as Russian President Dmitri Medvedev took a swipe at Mitt Romney and President Obama, pointing to an uncooperative Congress and a toxic political environment at home to explain why he was delaying negotiations with Russian leaders over missile defense. Romney, in a CNN interview Monday, had referred to Russia as "our No. 1 geopolitical foe," prompting Medvedev to tell reporters here that the Republican front-runner's language seemed out of date and "smelled of Hollywood" stereotypes. "Regarding ideological cliches, every time this or that side uses phrases like 'enemy No. 1', this always...

Team Obama has revealed its election campaign strategy to cover up the president's momentous whisper gaffe with the Russians last week: Attack Mitt Romney as naive and still living in an era when the Russians couldn't be trusted. According to Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, the democratic backsliding in Russia is nothing to worry about. The Russians under returning President Vladimir Putin are our friends. And Joe even revealed Sunday that if Iran closes or disrupts the Straits of Hormuz, shutting off 20% of the world's daily oil flow, Russia has agreed to consider selling Europe more of its oil....

President Barack Obama offered a private request Monday to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for some “space” on missile defense ahead of November’s elections. “On all these issues, particularly on missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space,” Obama said, referring to incoming Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a TV pool reporter who heard audio recorded by a Russian reporter who was in the room moments before the two leaders spoke to reporters after their 90-minute meeting. “Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you,” Medvedev responded. A...

The government repeated assurances that it would continue military cooperation with Syria. Several hundred Russian personnel are building facilities for the Russian Navy at the Syrian port of Tartus and Russia continues to deliver weapons and military equipment to Syria. State controlled media blames outsiders for the violence in Syria. This programming is similar to the kind of stuff the old Soviet Union constantly used during the Cold War, blaming the West, and especially the United States, for all the world's ills. But most of the world blames the decades old Assad dictatorship for the problems in Syria and condemns...

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s current prime minister and future president, has shown a strong interest in Asian affairs. In his second term, Putin would undoubtedly like to maintain good ties with China, consolidate Moscow’s first-among-equals status in Central Asia, manage the regional repercussions of the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, prevent a war or major crisis in the Koreas, and deepen Russia’s integration into East Asia’s more dynamic and prosperous economic networks. At the same time, Putin is eager to strengthen Russia’s position in Europe. It’s a big to-do list, but Russia has already succeeded in raising its profile in Asia...

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned against military intervention in Syria or an attack on Iran in scathing criticism of the West on Monday as he laid out his foreign policy priorities less than a week before Russia's presidential election.

Vladimir Putin praised Cold War-era scientists on Thursday for stealing U.S. nuclear secrets so that United States would not be the world's sole atomic power, in comments reflecting his vision of Russia as a counterweight to U.S. power. Spies with suitcases full of data helped the Soviet Union build its atomic bomb, he told military commanders. "You know, when the States already had nuclear weapons and the Soviet Union was only building them, we got a significant amount of information through Soviet foreign intelligence channels," Putin said, according to state-run Itar-Tass. "The were carrying the information away not on microfilm...

Russia needs to launch a major military buildup to prepare for life in a dangerous world where international law is breaking down, the West feels free to intervene in sovereign countries, and rivals could invade Russia to seize its rich trove of natural resources, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has warned. In his fifth programmatic article detailing what he will do if he wins a new six-year presidential term in elections that are now less than two weeks off, Mr. Putin pledged, among other things, the biggest rearmament program in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Over the next...

Putin Pledges 400 ICBMs for Russia in Ten Years Russia’s armed forces will receive over 400 modern intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), more than 100 military spacecraft and over 2,300 new tanks within the next ten years, Prime Minister and presidential candidate Vladimir Putin said. Earlier media voiced fears that by 2020, Russia’ ICBM arsenal could reduce by more than half as over 400 missiles would go beyond their maximum service life without timely replacement. “Within the next decade, the armed forces will receive more than 400 modern ground- and sea-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, eight ballistic missile submarines, about 20 general...

The race for the Republican Party presidential nomination in the United States has been a contest of "idiocy and ignorance," former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on Wednesday in a column in Cuba's state-run press. Castro and the communist Cuba he created have been the target of much rhetoric in the lead-up to Florida's Republican primary next week, with top candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich taking hard-line positions to appeal to the state's large population of Cuban exiles. Castro did not cite them, but expressed his general disgust with the Republican field. "The selection of a Republican candidate for...

It appears that Barack Obama has again ignored the rule of law by signing a defense appropriations bill that prohibits him sharing vital United States leading-edge strategic US missile technology with Russia, yet he has told both houses of Congress that he plans to share the US missile technology anyway. Why is this important? Because it goes light-years beyond partisan politics and into an area where our national defense will be put at unreasonable risk. It is believed that the Russians will pass this technology onto China, Iran and North Korea. I find it bitterly ironic that this president pushes...

Russia has given Iran its bear hug and warns Israel and the West that an attack on Tehran would be considered an attack on Moscow. The threat heightens the prospect of World War III in the event of a military strike on Iran. “Iran is our neighbor,” Russia's outgoing ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, told reporters in Brussels. “And if Iran is involved in any military action, it’s a direct threat to our security.”

Russia fears Israel will push the United States into a military conflict with Iran which could retaliate by blocking oil shipments from the Gulf, a confidant of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said. "There is a likelihood of military escalation of the conflict, towards which Israel is pushing the Americans," Nikolai Patrushev, who heads the Kremlin's Security Council, told Interfax news agency. Patrushev, a former head of the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said Tehran could respond by blocking the Strait of Hormuz between Oman and Iran, through which 35 percent of the world's seaborne traded oil passes. "It cannot...

Last weekend’s massive protest in Moscow’s Prospekt Sakharova will result in a new Soviet-style Russia not an Arab Spring-like revolution. The West had better beware because the Russian bear is coming out of hibernation. Twenty years ago this month the Soviet Union crumbled and from those ashes rose a promising Russian democratic republic. But Soviet-era corruption reared its ugly head in Russia’s December 4th parliamentary elections. That corruption sparked numerous protests, calls for new elections and earned Russia’s prime minister an accusatory message from a U.S. senator. Senator John McCain​ (R-AZ) tweeted Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin a satirical message....

Soviet nationalism in its most influential form goes back to World War II, when the Soviet Union's victory was made possible by a new brand of nationalism: Russian in that it fit within a thousand-year-old history of expansionism, but Soviet in that it was achieved via modern technology, bureaucratic organization, and civic-mindedness. This new ideology kept the USSR afloat after 1945.... In the end, the sclerotic Soviet economy wasn't able to satisfy citizens' demands. Mikhail Gorbachev had hoped to transform the Soviet Union into a modern socialist state "with a human face." Instead, he hastened its collapse.... Boris Yeltsin, Russia's...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday expressed regret that the leaders of the USSR did not fight to the last to prevent its collapse two decades ago. "The USSR should have started timely economic reforms and changes as well as reforms to strengthen democratic change in the country," ex-KGB agent Putin told Russian television viewers in a phone-in. "They should have consistently, fearlessly and steadfastly -- without burying their heads in the sand or waving their arses in the air -- fought for the territorial integrity of our country," he said.

As prime minister for the past four years, Vladimir Putin never really went away. But his looming reincarnation as the all-powerful, executive president of Russia – the country's "paramount leader" in Chinese parlance – poses a stark challenge for which the US, Britain and other beleaguered western powers seem ill-prepared. As president, potentially until 2024, Putin has one overriding objective: the creation of a third, post-tsarist, post-Soviet Russian empire.

Russia has turned on a new incoming missile early warning system in its westernmost region in response to US plans for a missile shield in Europe. President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the system to be activated on a visit to the radar unit in Kaliningrad, a Baltic region bordering EU countries. The unit is equipped with the new Voronezh-DM radar system. Mr Medvedev has warned Russian missiles could be deployed on the EU's borders if the shield is installed. Washington wants an anti-missile shield ready by 2020, arguing that it is necessary to provide protection from the potential missile threat posed...

"First, I am instructing the Defense Ministry to immediately put the missile attack early warning radar station in Kaliningrad on combat alert. Second, protective cover of Russia's strategic nuclear weapons, will be reinforced as a priority measure under the programme to develop out air and space defenses. Third, the new strategic ballistic missiles commissioned by the Strategic Missile Forces and the Navy will be equipped with advanced missile defense penetration systems and new highly-effective warheads. Fourth, I have instructed the Armed Forces to draw up measures for disabling missile defense system data and guidance systems if need be... Fifth, if...

Russian warships are due to arrive at Syrian territorial waters, a Syrian news agency said on Thursday, indicating that the move represented a clear message to the West that Moscow would resist any foreign intervention in the country's civil unrest.

But are they all talk? Some advice for where to take action.From Tymoshenko in Kiev to Khodorkovsky in Chita, a new iron curtain has descended across the continent.Last week, Speaker of the House John Boehner finally confronted President Barack Obama regarding his failed “reset” policy in Russia. He pointed out that despite Obama’s plans and promises, Russia is standing with Iran, not us, in the confrontation over revelations about Iran’s nuclear program. The news came even as the world learned that a Russian scientist had been helping Iran to develop those lethal nukes, and that Russia intended to bestow even...

MANAGUA (Reuters) - Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla leader, looks likely to win re-election on Sunday after heavy social spending won him strong support among the country's poor. Ortega has overseen a period of economic progress in his five years in power, backed by financial aid from his socialist ally in Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez.

Twenty-first-century Russia may look like a liberal democracy, with elections, law courts and parliament. In truth there are two parallel states. One is for show. The other is almost completely corrupt, with part of it run by a clique of secret servicemen who owe their allegiance ultimately to the prime minister, Vladimir Putin, and the small group of former KGB thugs who surround him. Stay in with them, and you stay safe. Fail to pay your dues, and you risk personal destruction. ....the so-called siloviki, the strongmen who control modern Russia, with a career background in the intelligence or security...

In China, Russia's Putin calls US a parasite AP– 8 hrs ago BEIJING (AP) — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is likening the U.S. to a parasite following his meetings with Chinese leaders to push ahead energy deals and draw the once wary neighbors closer. In an interview with Chinese state media released Tuesday, Putin said that the U.S. itself is not a parasite for the world economy but that its dollar monopoly is. Putin said his criticism was meant to help find a solution to problems in the world economy.

Freedom: A Ukraine court's decision Tuesday to imprison Orange Revolution heroine and former Premier Yulia Tymoshenko on bogus charges over a gas deal she made with Russia is a travesty. Now only Russia can benefit. Ukraine's internal politics reared its ugly head again when Judge Radion Kireyev found Tymoshenko "guilty" of exceeding her authority as prime minister over a gas deal she signed with Russia in 2009 and sentenced her to seven years' prison. Her crime? That she didn't get a low enough price for the gas Ukraine buys from the barons of Moscow — who hold a monopoly on...

Progressive TV and radio star Thom Hartmann took time off from covering Van Jones and his “Rebuild the Dream” movement on Wednesday to briefly talk to this columnist about his relationship with the Vladimir Putin regime of Russia. The conversation quickly went sour when Hartmann objected to questions about how much he is being paid by Moscow. He grabbed my video camera, covering the lens briefly in the process, and stomped away, objecting to “gotcha” questions.The entire spectacle was captured on camera and posted on YouTube.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9Rz9fKXXdE During another embarrassing incident, Van Jones refused to sign a copy of his...

This week at the UN left the distinct feeling of Cold War deיja vu. Russia and China were arrayed against the United States and Western Europe in blocking an anti-Syrian resolution at the UN. .... The Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the defeated resolution as one that fomented tension, and "contained one-sided accusations against Damascus and an ultimatum-like threat of sanctions against the Syrian authorities.” .... Xinhua, the Chinese news agency, approvingly quoted the Syrian ambassador who claimed that the US and the Western Europeans "are undermining international legality and they are leading the whole world into a new colonial era...

THE prevailing wisdom is that Vladimir Putin's return to the Russian presidency is bad news. That may be, but there is also reason to welcome his not-so-surprising Kremlin homecoming, because it will remove the fiction of Russian reform and modernisation that the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev represented. This in turn should allow US and European policymakers to see the country as it is, rather than as they would prefer to imagine it. For the past several years, Putin has served, nominally, as Prime Minister under Medvedev. Medvedev assumed the presidency in 2008 as part of a carefully choreographed process by...

Russia's Putin says wants to build "Eurasian Union" Mon, Oct 3 2011 By Gleb Bryanski MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he wants to bring ex-Soviet states into a "Eurasian Union" in an article which outlined his first foreign policy initiative as he prepares to return to the Kremlin as the country's next president. Putin said the new union would build on an existing Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan which from next year will remove all barriers to trade, capital and labor movement between the three countries. "We are not going to stop there and are...

In September 2010, Germany’s Der Spiegel explained that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has a “soft spot for the Arctic,” with Putin saying Russia “will put huge amounts of money into environmental protection” and is “planning to do a serious spring cleaning of our Arctic territories.” He was up there petting polar bears to drive home his new heartfelt cause. I’m not kidding. Researchers had to first sedate the bear he caressed as he spoke, though. Putin also didn’t let the bear go without first attaching a transmitter. Old KGB habits die hard, I guess. That was then. Today, Putin...

In April 2006, two years into the second term of “President” Vladimir Putin of Russia, I formed a Russia blog called La Russophobe for one purpose: to warn the world that Putin, a proud KGB spy, would not surrender power as the Russian constitution required him to do in 2008 after two terms as “president.” Instead, we at LR warned, Putin would hold power forever — just like Brezhnev and Stalin, his heroes. When Putin announced he would become prime minister in 2008, the writing was on the wall. LR begged the world continuously thereafter to see that Putin was...

9/21/11 The most senior US military officer has accused Pakistan's spy agency of supporting the Haqqani group in planning and conducting last week's attack on the US embassy in Kabul. "The Haqqani network... acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency," Adm Mike Mullen told a Senate panel. In July he said Pakistan sanctioned the killing of journalist Saleem Shahzad. Pakistan's government called that statement "irresponsible". Pakistani officials have consistently denied links with militant groups. 'Credible intelligence' At least 25 people died during the 20-hour attack on the US embassy, Nato headquarters and police buildings in Kabul on...

Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski in a private conversation with US diplomats in 2008 said that Germany protects Russian interests in Nato in return for access to the Russian market. According to a US cable recently published by Wikileaks, Sikorski, in a conversation with the then US under secretary for global affairs Paula Dobriansky in Warsaw on 23 April 2008 "Wryly commented that many accused Poland of being the US Trojan horse in the EU when it joined in 2004, but there is another Trojan horse in Nato". The cable went on: "Asked what the US strategy should be towards...