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Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was mocked by his own countrymen today after urging Russians to start having more sex to put a stop to the country's declining population. In one of his more controversial presidential election campaign pledges, Putin vowed to give cash incentives to mothers who have a third child, to help encourage more births. Russia is the largest geographical country in the world but its 142 million population is smaller than both Pakistan and Bangladesh. Putin, who served two consecutive presidential terms between 2000 and 2008 followed by his current term as prime minister, warned that the current...

Russia's young people are growing up with more freedom than ever. Twenty years after the end of communism, the first post-Soviet generation is transforming the country -- whether the once and future president likes it or not.It's just before dawn at the Kremlin, and Marat Dupri is about to climb a monument to Czar Peter the Great. The 20-year-old with brown, curly hair is wearing a green, plaid jacket and blue gloves to fight the icy wind. He is standing on the bank of the Moskva River, facing the 98-meter (321-foot) colossus of dark, gray steel. Marat and his three...

Moscow, February 8, Interfax - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin promised on Wednesday it would be one of the tasks of Russia's foreign policy to defend Christians in other countries who are persecuted for their faith. "You needn't have any doubt that that's the way it will be," Putin said at a meeting with Russian religious leaders when Metropolitan Hilarion, foreign relations chief of the Russian Orthodox Church, expressed hope that Russia's government would stand up for persecuted Christian communities abroad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KAzrlLaLv8 http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/02/04/putin-surprised-by-large-show-of-support?videoId=229640517&videoChannel=1

The protests come in advance of Russia’s March 4 presidential elections. Putin served two terms as president before term limits forced him from office in 2008. Putin announced in September he would run for a third non-consecutive presidential term as allowed by the Russian constitution. Dmitry Medvedev, whom Putin picked to succeed him as president in 2008, is stepping aside to allow Putin to return to power. Reports have estimated the Moscow turnout at 50,000 to 120,000 people. Similar Anti-Putin protests erupted in December with demonstrators alleging election fraud by Putin’s United Russia party, which managed to hold onto a...

A rock band made up of Russian former paratroopers has scored a surprise hit with a song that labels Vladimir Putin a "tyrant", registering half a million hits on YouTube. Beefy, tattooed, wearing berets and military decorations on their chests, two singers and three back-up musicians let rip at Putin, the prime minister who is seeking to return to the presidency in March 4 elections. "You've destroyed the military, the army is broken and you've spat on the soldiers and sent the officers packing," they sing. "We're asking you nicely: Go, tyrant!"

Thousands of cars flying white ribbons or white balloons circled central Moscow on Sunday in a show of protest against Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The cars jammed the inner lanes all along the 16-kilometre Garden Ring, which has as many as 16 lanes of traffic at its widest points. More protesters stood along the side of the road waving white ribbons and flags as the cars passed, their horns blaring.

Is WikiLeaks biased against the West and the US in particular? This news item would tend to indicate so. According to Christian Science monitor Moscow correspondent Fred Weir, Kremlin funded media outlet Russia Today, is to hire WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. This despite the fact that Assange remains under house arrest in Britain, awaiting a Supreme Court decision on his extradition to Sweden to face sexual assault allegations

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has warned ethnic tensions could tear Russia apart, saying he would toughen migration rules on reassuming the presidency and keep a tight rein on Russia's regions to prevent it following the Soviet Union into oblivion. Putin, in power since 2000 and favored to win a six-year presidential term in March, described a Soviet-style vision of a country in which the rights of ethnic minorities would be respected but Russian language and culture would dominate. "With the collapse of the country (the Soviet Union), we were on the edge -- and in some regions...

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...

Last week, Americans learned that they are, or soon may be, at war with Vladimir Putin's Russia. That is, of course, unless they do just exactly what the Kremlin asks, which is pretty simple, really, and consists largely of re-electing Barack H. Obama, the best friend the Kremlin ever had, as president of the United States. The word came down from two of Russia's highest-ranking politicians, Nikolai Patrushev (head of Russia's National Security Council) and Dmitri Rogozin (formerly Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, recently elevated to deputy prime minister). Both chose to use Iran as the focal point of...

Reporting from London— Calling the espionage episode "embarrassing," a former British government official has admitted that a fake rock discovered by the Russian security service in a Moscow park in 2006 concealed a listening device planted by British spies. "They had us bang to rights," Jonathan Powell, the chief of staff to former Prime Minister Tony Blair, says in a BBC documentary, using a British expression for being caught red-handed. "Clearly, they had known about it for some time and had been saving it up for a political purpose." The multi-part documentary, "Putin, Russia and the West," scheduled to begin...

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....

Putin ejects Kremlin "puppet master" after protestsBy Guy Faulconbridge | Reuters – 1 hr 39 mins ago MOSCOW (Reuters) - The architect of Vladimir Putin's tightly controlled political system became one of its most senior victims on Tuesday when he was shunted out of the Kremlin in the wake of the biggest opposition protests of Putin's 12-year rule. The sacrifice of Vladislav Surkov, branded the Kremlin's 'puppet master' by enemies and friends alike, is also a rare admission of failure for Russia's 'alpha dog' leader: Surkov's system was Putin's system. With irony worthy of Surkov's cynical novels, the Kremlin's 47-year-old...

Twenty years ago this Christmas day, Mikhail Gorbachev gave a speech announcing “I hereby discontinue my activities at the post of President of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.” And with that, the totalitarian and murderous construct of the USSR, already uncoupled earlier that month by Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the presidents of Ukraine and Belarus, was no more. These were monumental events. Yet so tumultuous is the world right now that the 20th anniversary of the Soviet collapse is figuring as little more than a footnote in the news. In Russia itself, the events of the hour are...

Mikhail Gorbachev called on Prime Minister Vladimir Putin not to seek a third term as president next year. He told the Moscow Echo radio: "I would advise Vladimir Putin to leave now. He has had three terms: two as president and one as prime minister. Three terms – that is enough." Mr Gorbachev, 80, has been virulently critical of the elections that took place on December 4. Soon after the poll he said that the results of the poll should be annulled and new elections held due to "numerous falsifications and rigging." "The results do not reflect the will of...

Tens of thousands of flag-waving and chanting protesters called Saturday for a disputed parliamentary election to be rerun and an end to Vladimir Putin's rule, increasing pressure on the Russian leader as he tries to win back the presidency. The protesters shouted "Russia without Putin" and "New elections, New elections" as one speaker after another called for an end to Putin's 12-year domination of the country at the second big opposition rally in two weeks in central Moscow. "Do you want Putin to return to the presidency?" novelist Boris Akunin asked from a large stage. Whistling and jeering, protesters chanted:...

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...

This week the U.S. Congress held hearings on human rights in Russia. The first remarks by Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), conducting the hearings, and they were pretty tough. This was not surprising, since long ago she signed a bill named for Sergey L. Magnitsky, a Russian attorney killed in police custody. This bill now has twenty-five senators supporting it in the upper house of the U.S. Congress, and may well be adopted. Further testimony was given Phillip H. Gordon, Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of European and Eurasian affairs, and Thomas O. Melia, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the...

MOSCOW — Russia's Vladimir Putin implicated Washington on Thursday in the killing of Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi and launched a tirade against Senator John McCain in an extraordinary attack on US policies. The Russian premier used his annual televised phone-in to unleash the type of no-holds-barred attack that characterised his 2000-2008 term as president and threatens to shadow his expected return to the Kremlin in March polls. Putin turned stone-faced when asked about a tweet from McCain -- one of Washington's fiercest critics of Putin -- warning Russia it faced an "Arab spring" revolt over the disputed December 4 parliamentary...

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.

Vladimir Putin has launched an extraordinary attack on US Senator John McCain in which he also implicated Washington in the killing of Libyan dictator Col Muammar Gaddafi. The Russian prime minister called the former presidential candidate “nuts” in response to Twitter comment about Russia’s parliamentary elections that drew allegations of fraud and triggered large protests. Mr McCain’s tweet read: "Dear Vlad, The Arab Spring is coming to a neighbourhood near you." Mr Putin turned stony faced when asked about the tweet on his annual televised phone-in. "Mr McCain fought in Vietnam. I think that he has enough blood of peaceful...

Twenty years after the break-up of the Soviet Union, tectonic shifts are once again under way in Russia. Tens of thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets in Moscow and other Russian cities to protest the alleged rigging of parliamentary elections held on December 4. Russia has not seen such a public outpouring since the early 1990s. The trigger that set off the protests was the official tally of the December 4 election, which gave the ruling party, United Russia, 49.3 per cent of the votes. The party lost 15 per cent compared with the last election four years...

It is generally believed that many Americans have poor knowledge of geography. This theory has found another proof the other day. Fox News TV channel showed the footage of the "revolution in Moscow." The footage, which the channel aired, showed typical revolutionary events with angered protesters, armed police officers, tear gas and Molotov cocktails. The producers of the US-based channel probably hoped that TV viewers would not understand what the report was actually about.The Western media could not leave the events in the Russian capital out of their attention, of course. It is easy to understand, of course: Arab spring...

Brave new world: Russian president faces Facebook backlash after pledge to probe election fraudBy Laura Rozen | The Envoy – 2 hrs 38 mins ago Responding to the largest protests Russia has seen in two decades, Russia's social-networking president Dmitry Medvedev took to Facebook on Sunday to announce a new public inquiry into the country's disputed parliamentary elections. Critics of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's ruling party allege that it engaged in widespread voter fraud to win a parliamentary majority in the recent balloting. But if Medvedev was hoping to quell public outrage via his rather cursory Facebook announcement, the...

If he's not wearing a Kevlar suit and riding in the back of an  APC... Mr. Prokhorov may be well-advised to campaign for  next March's Russian presidential election from the States...  or a bunker (or both) Riding a fortune started in the metals industry,  Mikhail Prokhorov is one of Russia's richest men... With the largest Russian political protests in years rattling the Kremlin and activists humiliating current president/Putin lickspittle Dmitri Medvedev online, now a young (46) Russian billionaire says he will challenge Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in next March's presidential election. Saturday's huge demonstration -the largest since the early 90s- called for fresh parliamentary polls over...

From an apparently impromptu remark on Monday, the United States has elevated the Russian parliamentary election held on December 5 to a core issue of US-Russia ties. The dramatic escalation of rhetoric scatters the continued pretences over the Barack Obama administration's "reset" of relations. In a swift move, Beijing has also stepped forward to express understanding for Moscow. The faultlines will impact on the regional and international situation on a host of issues in the coming period. To recap, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost no time to offer comment on the Russian parliamentary election when speaking on the...

MOSCOW – Tens of thousands of people held the largest anti-government protests that post-Soviet Russia has ever seen on Saturday to criticize electoral fraud and demand an end to Vladimir Putin's rule. Police showed surprising restraint and state-controlled TV gave the nationwide demonstrations unexpected airtime, but there is no indication the opposition is strong enough to push for real change from the prime minister or his ruling party. Nonetheless, the prime minister seems to be in a weaker position than he was a week ago, before Russians voted in parliamentary elections. His United Party lost a substantial share of its...

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Moscow today, in the largest of more than 70 protests across Russia, to voice their anger at alleged election fraud and to demand that the results of the parliamentary elections be cancelled, a new election be held, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin resign. Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, one of the organizers of the rally, explained the protesters’ demands to ABC News. “Our demand is to cancel these criminal elections, because Putin stole about 13 million votes. Secondly, to fire Mr. [Vladimir] Churov, who is responsible for the election and to...

Thousands gather for Moscow protest Tens of thousands of Russians turned out in central Moscow and across the country Saturday to protest what they believe were rigged parliamentary elections. United Russia, the party of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, suffered big losses in the election, but retained its parliamentary majority. On Saturday, protesters chanted "Putin out," according to a correspondent from state-run RIA Novosti news agency. Between 20,000 and 25,000 protesters had gathered in the capital, Moscow, Ria Novosti said Saturday, citing police. There have been no reports of unrest and security has been tight. Vladimir Ryzhkov, co-chairman of the Party...

Police say at least 15,000 people - among them communists, nationalists and liberals - have so far thronged in Moscow, and more crowds are heading towards the rally. In Moscow, the two sides reached a deal by which authorities would allow a high turnout if the rally was relocated from central Revolution Square to Bolotnaya Square, a narrow island in the Moscow River where access points can be easily controlled. Hundreds of police are standing by to make sure they don't rally in Revolution Square, though Reuters news agency said hundreds of people had gathered there anyway. "This is history...

Tens of thousands of security force personnel have been deployed in Moscow ahead of the rally Moscow is braced for what the opposition claims will be the biggest demonstration in Russia for 20 years. Tens of thousands are expected to gather in a square south of the Kremlin, in the latest show of anger over disputed parliamentary polls. Smaller rallies are due to take place in cities across the country. The demonstrators say Sunday's elections - which gave Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia party a small lead - were falsified. Hundreds of people have been arrested by the...

In happier times Russian university students could expect a bright future as part of the country’s elite. Instead the country is experiencing a serious brain drain as graduates head abroad, and many other young people dream of doing so: 40 percent, according to one survey. It is of serious concern to the authorities in the run-up to parliamentary elections on December 4. One first year maths student at Moscow State University said if she continued her studies she would probably go abroad, because she did not believe the government was putting enough money into science development. The loss of more...

<p>Supporters of Russian communist party hold a rally in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. Protests against the recent election results are growing across Russia.</p> <p>Vladimir Putin is set to face the biggest show of opposition yet to his strongman rule with tens of thousands of Russians promising to take to the streets on Saturday in a popular wave of discontent unseen since he came to power 12 years ago.</p>

The UK’s “The Guardian” has an excellent article by Simon Tisdall entitled: “Putin prepares the Russian empire to strike back.” (HERE) Mr. Tisdall, right at the outset of his article, states what to Americans, on the right side of the political spectrum, is obvious. He says: “The reincarnation of the current PM as president poses a challenge to western powers for which they seem ill-prepared.” Mr. Tisdall is absolutely “spot-on.” The recreation of the Russian Empire is another reason the United States MUST relieve Mr. Obama of his seat in the Oval Office and replace him with a realist –...

China’s Nobel-naysaying alternative honors Putin with Confucius Peace Prize By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, December 9, 5:34 PM BEIJING — The sponsors of a would-be Chinese alternative to the Nobel Peace Prize held their second award ceremony on Friday, handing a gold Confucius statue and a certificate meant for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to a pair of exchange students, an organizer said. The Confucius Prize ceremony comes a day before the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize is to be awarded in Oslo, Norway, and as a group of Nobel laureates launched a new campaign calling for China to release last...

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman met with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday, and said that he believes the recent elections in Russia were fair and democratic, the Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported. According to the report, Lieberman said that he shares the view of the Israeli observers who oversaw the election in Russia, who said they were fair and democratic. The elections, which were recently described by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as neither free nor fair, resulted with Putin's United Russia party winning less than 50 percent of Sunday's vote – a steep fall from...

Reuters) - Jonibek Kosimov had been missing for nearly a week when his cousin found his body in the morgue. Kosimov, 24, had been discovered in the early autumn sunlight of a forest clearing near the monastery city of Sergiev Posad outside Moscow. His throat had been slit, his face slashed by 21 knife wounds. Turning to relatives and friends -- migrant laborers, mostly -- the dead man's cousin Shaukatulloh Makhmudov collected the nearly 25,000 roubles ($810) he needed to pay the morgue and send his cousin home. Three days later, on September 10, the corpse was laid in a...

'...not normal and very worrying' IOL News After a clearly sketchy election 'victory' by Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party, authorities in central Moscow were clearly caught off-guard by social-network-driven demonstrations (largest in years) from those who less than thrilled with Putin's authoritarian streak, official corruption and cronyism, and dubious return to the top of the ticket.  Youngish crowds shouted "Russia without Putin!" filled Red Square as the Russian Interior Ministry pledged 'as many troops as needed'.  Many were reportedly injured over the last few hours, with over 2000 hauled off in police vans as the crackdown arrived in full...

Thousands of police and interior ministry troops are being deployed in Moscow, after protesters accused the authorities of rigging the election. Troop lorries were seen heading for the centre as the interior ministry said it aimed "to ensure the security of the citizens". Several thousand people attended Monday's protest, one of the biggest in the centre of the capital in years. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has played down his party's poll reverses

Sunday's parliamentary elections in Russia marked the beginning of the end of the Putin era. It won't feel like it for another few years, as the Russian strongman ascends to the nation's Presidency again and bestrides the international stage. But when future historians come to examine post-Putin Russia, the end of 2011 will be seen as the point at which the transition began. Exit polls showed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party with less than 50 per cent of the vote. United Russia held a two-thirds majority in the outgoing State Duma. The significant drop in support for United...

MOSCOW (AP) — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's party was struggling to reach 50 percent in Russia's parliamentary election, polls and official results showed Sunday, suggesting Russians were wearying of the man who has dominated Russian politics for more than a decade. Rival parties and election monitors said even this figure was inflated, alleging ballot-stuffing and other significant violations at the polls. Many expressed fears that the vote count would be manipulated.

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.

The first cracks have appeared in the façade of massive public support in Russia for Vladimir Putin. The reaction in Russia to his nomination for a third term as president was muted, and in a rare show of public disapproval, Putin was booed at a recent martial-arts match in Moscow. The reason is that the Putin era was built on pretense, but without the advantage of the Soviet era’s complete control over information. Inevitably, the pretense is beginning to wear thin. The first charade was, of course, the Medvedev presidency. Many in the West put faith in Medvedev’s liberal statements....

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...

On Sunday night, Russian mixed martial arts star Fedor Emelianenko defeated American Jeff Monson in three rounds. The match had been widely advertised as an almost historic sports event and was broadcast live on Russian national television. After Emelianenko was declared the winner, Vladimir Putin - Russia's prime minister and former (and future) president - appeared on the stage. He had prepared a speech to celebrate the victory of the Russian wrestler. But as soon as the long-time ruler of Russia took the microphone, the 20,000-strong audience began to boo, whistle and yell at him. Putin paused, looked around in...

Ever since America booted Russia out of the northwest territory of America, Russia has had a chip on its shoulder… at least, as far as America is concerned. We go through cycles with Russia in which Russia loves America for a while, and then Russia hates America for a while. The cycle seems to continue ad infinitum. The one thing Russian governments seem to respect is American strength. Every time America elects a weak President, Russia arches her back, raises her hackles, and begins to growl threateningly. And that is exactly what Russia’s Putin is doing right now. For those...

It is already unambigously confirmed that the Polish government's plane carrying president Lech Kaczynski and other the highest ranking military and state officials did not collided with the birch. It also did not turned upside down due to this collision as the Russian investigators claim. The cause of the TU-154 plane that crashed on April 10, 2010 must be different.

A report Thursday said that Russia has supplied Syria with advanced S-300 missiles, and has sent advisers to help Syria run the system. Russian warships that have reached waters off Syria in recent days were carrying, among other things, Russian technical advisors who will help the Syrians set up an array of S-300 missiles Damascus has received in recent weeks, a report in the London-based Arabic language Al Quds-Al Arabi said Thursday. Citing sources in Syria and Russia, the paper said that Moscow sees a Western attack on Syria as a "red line" that it will not tolerate.

"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...