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MiG-31 Foxhound(click to view full) Russian newspapers are claiming that Russia has begun delivering 5 MiG-31E Foxhound aircraft to Syria under a deal that was reportedly negotiated in autumn 2006. The Russian newspaper Kommersant adds that: "...a lot of MiG-29M/M2 jets was sold to Syria as well. They are being sold abroad for the first time and are similar in their technical specifications to the MiG-35 model Russia is now offering India. The total value of the contract for the MiG-31 and MiG-29M/M2 aircraft is estimated at $1 billion." The paper adds that this amount raises questions, noting the likelihood...

Next weekend's meeting between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin before the Group of Eight (G-8) summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, will likely mark a new post-Cold War low in U.S.-Russian relations. Naturally, both sides will try to put a "happy face" on the Bush-Putin meet - witness attempts to paper over the troubles with a newly-proposed nuclear-cooperation agreement. But serious disagreements remain over key issues, ranging from North Korea to Iran to energy security. While we should seek Russian cooperation wherever possible, it's time for Bush to have a heart-to-heart with Putin about the state - and future...

Russian defence minister Sergei Ivanov today reiterated Moscow’s commitment to supply Iran with sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles, the Interfax news agency reported. “If there are no extraordinary circumstances, it (the contract) will without doubt be fulfilled,” Ivanov was quoted as saying. Defence Ministry officials have previously said Moscow would supply 29 sophisticated Tor-M1 air defence missile systems to Iran under a €546.5m contract, according to Russian media reports. The move was likely to upset the United States, which last month called on all countries to stop all arms exports to Iran and to end all nuclear cooperation with it to put...

MOSCOW — Its only known address is a half-collapsed abandoned building, and its only telephone number doesn't work. But somehow a secretive lobby group, with reputed links to Russia's intelligence services, has emerged as a possible source of inspiration for President Vladimir Putin's state-of-the-union speech. When Mr. Putin gave his annual televised address on May 10, military analyst Ivan Safranchuk immediately thought the President's words about national defence sounded different from the rest of the speech. "That part seemed out of place," the Moscow director of the World Security Institute said a few hours after Mr. Putin's appearance. "Maybe there...

MOSCOW -- President Vladimir Putin warned yesterday that the U.S.-Russian arms race is not over and called for a strengthening of his nation's nuclear and conventional forces so Moscow can better resist foreign pressure.     The remarks, in his seventh state of the nation address since taking power in 2000, follow increasingly sharp criticism of Russia's democratic and foreign policy directions from the United States, including a harsh rebuke by Vice President Dick Cheney last week in Lithuania.     "It is premature to speak of the end of the arms race," said Mr. Putin, who pointed out in the nationally televised address...

Dick Cheney charges Vladimir Putin with limiting freedom and intimidating former Soviet satellites. A sure sign he's right: Russia's last communist premier, Mikhail Gorbachev, cries "provocation." The most dishonest news story of the 20th century was the cover-up of the Soviet Union's forced famine in the Ukraine in the 1930s by New York Times Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty. The Stalin sympathizer knew as many as 10 million Ukrainians died, yet he wrote that famine was not happening. Disgracefully, his Pulitzer Prize was never revoked and his photo still has a place of honor in the Times' offices. In a reminder...

MOSCOW - Call it cold war II, the sequel. An intensifying shouting match between the US and Russia has stirred fears that the two former adversaries could be drifting back to a familiar ideologically charged rivalry. Most experts play down the new mood as a worrisome "chill," and some suggest that a change in leadership - slated for 2008 in both countries - might reverse the slide in mutual ties. But many Russians, who have watched as Western influence has thrust decisively into the former Soviet heartland since the USSR's 1991 demise, see it in darker, more visceral tones. The...

Russia said it had promised emergency aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, breaking with fellow mediators the EU and the US, which have stopped funding to try to force Hamas to recognise Israel.

This is another document CMPC-2003-002611 that shows Russian deep involvement with Saddam Regime and this time it is a letter dated November 23 2002 from a Russian AEROGLOB Company to an Iraqi firm (Iraqi government cover firm) regarding where to deposit the money for Miltary Equipments pertaining to Russian aircraft Mig 29 and Sokhoy. Other pages in the documents ar eltter between the Iraqi Armos Company and the Al Rafidayn bank regarding the deposits for the Russian company. Beginning of the translation of page 8 of document document CMPC-2003-002611 AEROGLOB LIMITED Office 607: Entrance 3 Krasnopresnenskaya NAD, 12 Moscouw,...

MOSCOW -- Amid worsening relations with the West, the Kremlin is boosting its political, economic and military ties with China as both countries look to counterbalance U.S. global influence, analysts said. On a recent visit to Beijing, Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed the burgeoning relationship as a model of international cooperation. "Russia and China are two of the largest powers in the world, and our relations are more than just a factor of geopolitical stability. They are an example of an open international partnership that is not directed against any third country and that helps develop a better and more...

March 23, 2006 — Following are the ABC News Investigative Unit's summaries of five documents from Saddam Hussein's government, which the U.S. government has released. The documents discuss Osama bin Laden, weapons of mass destruction, al Qaeda and more. The full documents can be found on the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office Web site: http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm. Note: Document titles were added by ABC News. "U.S. War Plan Leaked to Iraqis by Russian Ambassador" Documents dated March 5-8, 2003 Two Iraqi documents dated in March 2003 — on the eve of the U.S.-led invasion — and addressed to the secretary of...

Chief of the Russian General Staff Yuri Baluyevsky Russian government may sign arms deal with Hamas during scheduled visit by terror group’s leaders to Moscow in March; Palestinians express their willingness to purchase two M-17 helicopters, some 50 armored vehicles The Russian government may sign an arms deal with Hamas during a scheduled visit by the terror group’s leaders to Moscow, according to Chief of the Russian General Staff Yuri Baluyevsky. The Hamas delegation, headed by Khaled Mashaal, is set to visit Russia sometime next month. “The decision to sell arms to Hamas must be reached through the cooperation of...

ST. PETERSBURG, November 29 (RIA Novosti - North-West, Anna Novak) - The St. Petersburg-based Admiralty Shipyard has begun sea trials of a fourth-generation Project 677 Lada class diesel-electric submarine, the company's press office said Tuesday. During the next few months, the submarine, called St. Petersburg, will undergo maneuverability and submersion tests and operation in extreme conditions. The latest technological advances were used to create the submarine's main energy unit and other systems. After comprehensive testing, the submarine will be transferred to the Russian Navy, the company said.

Russia's top military chief on Thursday warned the United States against launching a military strike against Iran and a top diplomat voiced hope that close cooperation with China could help resolve the Tehran nuclear crisis. With tension mounting over Iran's nuclear programs, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the chief of Russia's general staff, warned the United States against attacking Iran. "A military scenario can't be ruled out," Baluyevsky was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies. He said that while Iran's military potential cannot compare to the United States', "it is hard to predict how the Muslim world will respond to the...

Moscow: Russia's fifth-generation fighter plane will be ready in 2007, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force Vladimir Mikhailov said Tuesday. "Work to build the fifth-generation plane is going according to schedule," he said. Mikhailov said, however, that the project had encountered some financial problems after civilian aircraft were produced using the money allocated in the budget for the fighter planes. "Clearly, the development of aviation technology will depend on specific military and economic conditions, determining the progress of reform in the Russian armed forces and the country's aircraft construction industry. However, Russia will continue to be a leading aircraft-building power,"...

While in the U.S., people speculated about the outcome of the Rose Bowl and the size of Samsung’s new humongous plasma TV at Las Vegas’ Consumer Electronics Show, Europe had a very cold New Year. Flaunting global warming, already freezing temperatures in the Old Continent managed to get colder thanks to Russian President Vladimir Putin. 2006 did not kick off promisingly when Gazprom, Russia’s Kremlin-owned energy monopoly, interrupted Ukraine’s natural gas flow through the ironically named “Brotherhood” pipeline. Ever since the downfall of the USSR, former satellite Soviet republics have benefited from heavily subsidized gas prices. Wanting to update Ukraine’s...

While the United States and the European Union rely on Russia in its 'efforts' to end a standoff between Iran and the West over the Iranian nuclear program, the Kremlin exploits these negotiations to misinform the West as to the actual continuation of the Russian-Iranian strategic partnership. It is not a journalists' anecdote. The Iranian officials talk about it almost openly inside their own country. Russia's proposal to enrich Iranian uranium on Russian soil, as well as the progress of the joint construction of a nuclear power plant in Bushehr are at the top of agenda of bilateral talks between...

The relations between Russia and the Shiite's religious leadership in Lebanon started to develop in the beginning of the seventies. The spiritual leader of the Lebanese Shia community, Imam Moussa Al-Sadr, visited Moscow in 1972 and asked Soviet authorities to issue humanitarian aid to his people. At the same time cooperation between the Marxist factions of the PLO that were active in Lebanon and Soviet military intelligence – GRU, intensified greatly. Several soviet officers (speaking fluent Arabic) even visited Palestinian terrorist training camps in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon between 1972-1975. Using their connections in PLO they managed to establish...

MOSCOW, December 20 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will take Syria's side if charges against Syrian officials with involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri cause a conflict between the United States and Syria, two Russian parliamentary members said Tuesday. "If Russia is to choose between its two strategic allies, it will undoubtedly take Syria's side," said Shamil Sultanov, a coordinator of an inter-faction association, Russia and the Islamic World: A Strategic Dialogue. Nikolai Leonov, a member of parliament's security committee, who had recently visited Syria along with Sultanov and other MPs, said it was primarily beneficial...