Free Republic

Russia plans effectively to revive the KGB under a massive shake-up of its security forces, a respected business daily has reported. A State Security Ministry, or MGB, would be created from the current Federal Security Service (FSB) , and would incorporate the foreign intelligence service (SVR) and the state guard service (FSO), under the plans. It would be handed all-encompassing powers once possessed by the KGB, the Kommersant newspaper said, citing security service sources. Like the much-feared KGB, it would also oversee the prosecutions of Kremlin critics, a task currently undertaken by the Investigative Committee, headed by Alexander Bastrykin, a...

Vladimir Putin has proposed setting up a NATO-style joint task force of post-Soviet states to secure the borders of Central Asia amid fears of Taliban “spillover” from Afghanistan. A fresh sign of the Russian president’s new military assertiveness, the deployment raises the possibility of Russian and allied troops being deployed along Tajikistan’s 800-mile border with Afghanistan, and Moscow tightening its influence of governments in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. It comes a day after Barack Obama said American troops would stay in Afghanistan for at least two more years—itself a tacit admission that the Afghan government is unable to tackle the...

Germany’s Angela Merkel has said Ukraine is free to “go to” Russia’s “Eurasian Union”, amid signs of a new willingness to make peace with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Speaking to German public broadcaster ARD on Sunday (24 August), the German chancellor said her visit to Kiev on Saturday was designed to prepare for peace talks between Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko and Putin in Minsk on Tuesday, but warned the public not to expect a “breakthrough”. She mentioned Ukrainian “decentralization”, a deal on gas prices, and Ukraine’s “trade relations” with Russia as elements that could bring about an accord. “And if...