Free Republic

Anyone naively hoping for Obama's failed Russia policy to work out might be forgiven- I too thought we could forge a far more constructive relationship with them back in the early 90's... then again in the wake of 9/11, considering the common enemies that emerged. But years after those harsh lessons in Russian intransigence and strategic opportunism, you'd think the current administration might have known a little better than to just waltz into the Kremlin and try to lay some hopenchange on 'em... and with no 'Plan B' in sight. Wishful thinking aside, if Russia isn't a full-blown enemy...

A Hidden History of Evil Why doesn’t anyone care about the unread Soviet archives? In the world’s collective consciousness, the word “Nazi” is synonymous with evil. It is widely understood that the Nazis’ ideology—nationalism, anti-Semitism, the autarkic ethnic state, the Führer principle—led directly to the furnaces of Auschwitz. It is not nearly as well understood that Communism led just as inexorably, everywhere on the globe where it was applied, to starvation, torture, and slave-labor camps. Nor is it widely acknowledged that Communism was responsible for the deaths of some 150 million human beings during the twentieth century. The world remains...

Note: Photo included. SNIPPET: "Bout and American-born pal Richard Chichakli were accused of creating a new business, Samar Airlines, which they thought was clean of any connection to their own bloody dealings. Starting in the summer of 2007, Samar Airlines started making deals for airplanes and crews to ferry contraband between the United States and Tajikistan, the indictment said." SNIPPET: "The Russian-born Bout is accused of wiring $1.7 million from bank accounts in Kazakhstan, Cyprus, Russia through banks in New York City and Salt Lake City to finance the scheme." SNIPPET: "Bout, who is accused of supplying weapons to real...

Icky LeaksSensitive diplomatic communications have been published by the Wikileaks Web site, and some of this sensitive material concerns Russia. The importance of Russia as a global power has been downplayed since the fall of the Soviet Union. Leaked U.S. State Department cables give us a glimpse of how dangerous Russia is becoming. The true nature of the Russian regime has not been a popular topic of public discussion; but in secret meetings between diplomats, statesmen and law enforcement officials, there is growing concern. Russia has become the center of international corruption, drawing other states into her orbit.From the leaked...

First, some Tire Repair 101 How to set the bead on a giant off-road tire... with just starter fluid and a lighter! while stuck in the boonies: [video clip here] -MechanicsHubdotCom on Vimeo- _________________________________________________________ NOW- speaking of resourceful types...  Russian arms smuggler Viktor Bout -major supplier to Afghanistan's Northern Alliance in their 2001 war against the Taliban- has been extradited from Thailand to the United States to face terrorism charges: CNN: He's known as the "Merchant of Death" and the "Lord of War," -an alleged international arms dealer straight out of a cloak-and-dagger spy novel who eluded authorities for years and...

On 3 December 2007 a curious item appeared in the Russian media. It concerned Igor Ivanovich Sechin, a Russian political figure close to then President Vladimir Putin. Kommersant [2] featured a quote from Oleg Shvartsman, head of the Financial-Industrial Group: "For us, the Party is represented by the power bloc headed by Igor Ivanovich [Sechin]." This statement was offered in response to a journalist's question about Shvartman's strategic task of velvet re-privatization. "Who set this task for you?" asked the journalist. Shvartsman's extraordinary answer slipped inadvertently from his post-Soviet lips: "The party! (laughing)." On 3 December 2007 a curious item...

THE PARASAILING donkey saved by The Sun is to be whisked to the KREMLIN'S five-star stables to help her forget her nightmare ordeal. Anapka the ass will be lavished with VIP treatment including SUNBEDS and ORGANIC CARROTS. In an extraordinary move, the rescued mule will have the red carpet rolled out at stables established by President Dmitry Medvedev's security service for Russia's famed elite ceremonial cavalry horses. The donkey will get Tsar treatment at the prestigious Kremlin Horse Riding School close to Moscow while she undergoes quarantine and medical tests before travelling to her new home in Britain. Here's some...

Russia, in wake of its support for United Nations sanctions, was expected to deliver long-range air defense systems to Iran. A leading Russian analyst said the Kremlin would launch efforts to supply the S-300PMU1 air defense system to Teheran. The analyst said the United States has agreed not to block the S-300 and other Russian defensive exports to Iran. "Clearly, there is realization that this contract will take place," Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, said. On June 10, Pukhov said Russia's defense industry has been pressing the Kremlin to implement the S-300...

Russia signalled on Friday it was scrapping the controversial sale of S-300 missiles to Iran in a major shift the Kremlin said was needed after fresh UN sanctions over Tehran's nuclear programme. "S-300 supplies to Iran fall under UN sanctions," a Kremlin source said in Tashkent where President Dmitry Medvedev was attending a summit of a regional security body led by Moscow and Beijing. "Thus this type of weapon cannot be delivered to Iran," said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. In a flurry of statements, a number of other senior Russian officials made clear that Moscow was changing...

A distinctive feature of the Russian power vertical is that leaders do not bother determining what government officials have already said on a particular subject before preparing their own remarks. At a meeting on security agency budgets on May 24, President Dmitry Medvedev set the goal of modernizing at least 30 percent of Russia’s weaponry by 2015. The president was apparently unaware of the previous arms program, announced by then-Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov three years ago. In 2007, Ivanov told State Duma deputies that the program would rearm 45 percent of the military by 2015. It failed miserably. In addition,...

Russia will hold large-scale naval exercises near North Korea next month that were planned before the current stand-off on the Korean peninsula, naval officials said on Thursday. Tensions between the two Koreas are at their highest level in years, a week after international investigators accused the North of torpedoing a South Korean warship in March, killing 46 sailors. Moscow, which maintains ties with North Korea, has issued repeated calls for calm and restraint from both sides to prevent tension from bubbling over into armed conflict. The Kremlin says it wants more information about the accusations that a North Korea torpedo...

A Russian MP has called for officials to investigate claims by a regional president that he met aliens onboard a spaceship -- in case he revealed any state secrets. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov of Kalmykia recently told a TV interviewer that in 1997 he was met by aliens at his Moscow apartment and that he spent several hour with them. He said he'd been falling asleep when he heard someone calling him from his balcony. When he went to look, he was met by human-like aliens in yellow spacesuits. The aliens then apparently took him onboard their spaceship where chatted to them...

Who knew? The nuclear-freeze movement, an enterprise run from the Kremlin during the 1970s and '80s, is alive and well. The Obama administration wants to push the reset button on America's nuclear deterrent, essentially by defining WMDs down. Under George W. Bush and his predecessors, Democratic and Republican, an enemy that launched a biological or chemical attack could face a retaliatory nuclear strike. President Obama would not use nuclear weapons in such an instance unless the attacker had nuclear weapons as well. "Those threats, Mr. Obama argued, could be deterred with 'a series of graded options,' a combination of old...

The tragic news of the 29 March twin suicide bombings of two Moscow Metro stations during the morning rush hour has produced outrage worldwide, with the Kremlin quickly adding that the attacks were carried out by the Caucasus Mujaheddin, a northern Caucasus-based militant Islamist guerrilla group that claimed responsibility for the bombing of a Moscow to St. Petersburg express train last November. The grim death toll can be seen as yet another statistic in the Kremlin’s ongoing war with Chechnya separatists that erupted in December 1994. Underneath and driving the savagery of the last 16 years is a resource that...

For the first time, U.S. and British troops will participate in Moscow's Victory Day celebrations, marking the 65th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. But if Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has his way, they may see an old familiar face around town when they get there: Posters of Josef Stalin may be put up in Moscow for the first time in decades as part of the May 9 observance of Victory Day. And they will be marching past the tomb of Lenin!!

At least 25 people are reported to have been killed in an explosion on the Metro system in central Moscow, with a second blast coming shortly afterwards. The first blast happened at the city's central Lubyanka station, reports quoting security sources said. A second explosion happened at the Park Kultury station, Russian news agency Tass reported. Ten people were injured in the first blast, Tass said, quoting the emergencies ministry. The number of casualties at the second blast is not yet clear.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen expressed surprise Saturday that Russia still considers the military alliance a major security threat just as their ties are improving. "I was surprised to read that Russia considers NATO a main threat in its new doctrine. This does not reflect the real world," he said, according to his spokesman James Appathurai. "NATO is not an enemy of Russia. We want a strategic partnership with Russia because we share common threats," he said, a day after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a new military strategy document, naming NATO as a threat. The document, published on...

A giant triangular UFO was spotted hovering over the Kremlin in Moscow – in a film that has sent shockwaves throughout Russia. The flying object, which witnesses said could be up to a mile wide, was filmed by two amazed spectators – one at night from a car and another during the day. The hovering pyramid has been likened to Darth Vader’s Imperial Cruiser in Star Wars and has been showed repeatedly on Russian news channels. A clip of the UFO, which reportedly hovered over Moscow’s Red Square for hours, has become a Russian YouTube sensation. Nick Pope, who worked...

CARACAS (Reuters) - Russia is building arms plants in Venezuela to produce AK-103 automatic rifles and cartridges and is finalizing contracts to send 53 military helicopters to the Andean nation, Moscow's envoy to Venezuela saidMonday. Ambassador Vladmir Zaemskiy told a news conference that Russian engineers and Venezuelan construction firms were building the rifle and cartridge plants which, when operational, would employ more than 1,500 workers. He gave no completion date for the plants under construction in the central state of Aragua. Details about Moscow's military shipments and projects have been scarce since socialist President Hugo Chavez's government began signing military...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The crash of a luxury train in Russia killed 25 people and injured up to 63 more, an official said on Saturday, and sources suggested it may have been an act of terrorism. "Twenty-five people died in the accident," an official reported to Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu during a meeting televised by Vesti-25 television, hours after the crash. Several carriages of the Nevsky Express traveling from Moscow to St Petersburg were derailed at 9:30 p.m. (1830 GMT) on Friday near the town of Bologoye, 350 km (200 miles) from Moscow. Estimates of the number of injured ranged...