Free Republic

Russia and China Vie for Najin Port Russia is trying to strengthen ties with North Korea, citing a "China threat" in Korea and the Far East. The Gudok, the daily newspaper of Russian Railways, said in an article Tuesday, "If China takes control of Najin port in North Korea, Russia may suffer huge losses in the project to link the TKR (Trans-Korea Railway) and the TSR (Trans-Siberian Railway)." Gudok is published by Vladimir Yakunin, the president and CEO of Russian Railways and one of the closest allies of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Sources say the report can be viewed as...

Russia has opened the home port of its Pacific naval fleet to Chinese commercial shipping, a sign of deepening ties between the two nations amid the Russia-Ukraine war. The Russian port of Vladivostok opens to China on June 1 for “cross-border transport of domestic goods,” according to China’s state-run Global Times newspaper on Monday, which cited the General Administrations of Customs China, the nation’s customs ministry.

The Novaya Gazeta newspaper has shared a short video showing a convoy of military trucks and armored vehicles moving towards the Russian border. Official Minsk fears that Russia may take advantage of the instability in the country and carry out the Ukrainian scenario to occupy part of the territories ahead of August’s presidential election. The state-controlled Belta news agency said last week that Belarus has arrested dozens of Russian mercenaries after receiving information that more than 200 fighters had entered the country to destabilize it before a presidential election. The mercenaries worked for Wagner, Russia’s best-known private military contractor

The State Department has informed Congress that it plans to shutter its last two consulates in Russia over caps set by Moscow on the number of diplomats that are allowed in the country. In a letter to congressional leaders sent Dec. 10 and obtained by The Hill, the administration said it will permanently close its Vladivostok consulate and temporarily halt work at the consulate in Yekaterinburg. The letter confirming the closures was sent three days before news broke of a major hack of U.S. government agencies that is believed to have been conducted by an elite Russian cyber espionage unit....

Do you get the feeling we are experiencing a modern day version of the 1930's all over again... You have a resurgent China claiming territory on every front....first it was the South China Sea, then in the Himalayan Mountains along their border with India, now some in the Chinese Media are beginning to assert claims on the Russian City of Vladivostok..... Hitler was insane to start a two front war, but China is engaging on at least 3 fronts as they move forward.... Certainly something to keep your eyes on the next few years....

A video posted on Chinese microblogging website Weibo by the Russian embassy of a party held today to celebrate the 160th anniversary of Vladivostok sparked online outrage with Chinese diplomats, journalists and users referring to the city by its old name ‘Haishenwai’. Vladivostok which once used to be part of China’s Qing dynasty and was known as Haishenwai was annexed by the Russian empire in 1860 after China’s defeat by the British and the French in the Second Opium war. Reacting to Russian embassy’s tweet, Shen Shiwei, a journalist working with the state-owned broadcaster CGTN, tweeted: “This “tweet” of #Russian...

RUSSIA’S CZECHOSLOVAK LEGION of World War One was an army without a country. The 60,000-man unit, raised between 1915 and 1917, was made up of Czech and Slovak patriots keen to free their ancestral homeland from Austrian rule. By taking up arms in the name of the Russian Tsar, the men of the unit hoped that after the war the great powers would reward them with statehood. But when in 1917, the Bolsheviks rose to power following the collapse of Russia’s Romanov dynasty and then made a separate peace with the Central Powers, the Czechoslovak Legion suddenly found itself trapped...

Russia orders MASS EVACUATION over North Korea missile launch RUSSIA has dramatically relocated 1,500 people from its border with North Korea after Kim Jong-un's latest missile launch, it was reported today. By Joshua Nevett / Published 29th August 2017 Russian civil defence officials were reportedly ordered to shift residents in the country's far east to "safe areas" in a extraordinary move amid fears of a worldwide conflict. North Korea angered the international community by launching a missile that flew directly over Japan. In response, US President Donald Trump threatened the communist state with military action, warning "all options are on...

Striking at sea: How the Styx strategy paid off January 7, 2013 Rakesh Krishnan Simha The latest in the series of 1971 war stories describes the Indian Navy’s ingenious – and audacious – use of its newly acquired Russian missile boats that played a huge role in India’s victory. In the summer of 1971 when Babru Bhan Yadav returned after a year of naval training in Vladivostok, Russia, he carried with him a secret that he could not tell even his family. Yadav had been made the Squadron Commander of the 25th Missile Squadron based at Mumbai. Under his command...

Vladivostok Teeming with N.Korean Laborers In the scorching afternoon heat last Thursday, two Asian laborers sat in front of a grocery store near a building site in Vladivostok, Russia, cooling themselves with mugs of draft beer. When asked if they were North Koreans, the men asked, "Are you from South Korea?" One of the laborers, who was in his 40s, then said there were around 50 workers from all over North Korea, including Pyongyang and Nampo, at this particular site alone, and they can be seen at practically every construction site in Vladivostok. The entire Siberian city has turned into...

Hospitals in Russia's far-eastern city of Vladivostok have seen an influx of patients with a rare form of fish poisoning. Several people have died. The culprit is the fugu fish – a traditional and popular Japanese delicacy. The catch is you have to cook it very carefully because just one fish contains a poison capable of killing over 30 people. In Japan, only very experienced, specially trained cooks are allowed to dress fugu. Fugu fish are not usually found off Vladivostok, but the warm summer saw their numbers grow. Hungry anglers took it upon themselves to make what they thought...

US intelligence services and other countries in the Far East are closely monitoring the grand naval drills being conducted by the Russian Navy. “The naval phase of Russia's Vostok-2010 (Orient-2010) military exercises has drawn increased attention from the intelligence services of the United States and Asia-Pacific countries,” a senior Russian Navy source was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti. On June 29, Russia launched the biggest ever post-Soviet war games in the eastern part of the country involving 20,000 troops, up to 70 combat aircraft and 30 warships, including North Fleet's nuclear powered guided missile cruiser ‘Pyotr Veliky’ (Peter-the-Great), world's...

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...

Troops in the Russian Far East have not been put on high alert following the brewing crisis between North and South Korea, several military officials said on Wednesday. "We have not received any orders from Moscow to put the Pacific Fleet on high alert due to the conflict between the two Koreas. The fleet is currently carrying out scheduled exercises at sea and on land," a Pacific Fleet spokesman said on Wednesday. The official said the arrival of Russia's most powerful warships in the Pacific had been planned long ago as part of the biennial Vostok strategic exercises and was...

The US Navy's Seventh Fleet command ship USS Blue Ridge arrive in Vladivostok on Friday to take part in festivities dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the Allied victory in the World War II. Seventh Fleet Commander, Vice Adm. John M. Bird who also arrived in Vladivostok will attend the Victory Day celebrations. RIA Novosti quoting a spokesman for the US Consulate-General in Russia's Far East said, the Blue Ridge crew would take part in a military parade in downtown Vladivostok to symbolize the allied relations between the United States and Russia during the Second World War. The cultural agenda...

A mixed task force from the Russian Pacific Fleet started on Wednesday a series of anti-submarine warfare (ASW) drills in the Sea of Japan, a fleet spokesman said. "Two task forces comprising missile destroyers and diesel-powered submarines are taking part in the drills in line with a regular training program," Capt. 1st Rank Roman Martov said. The exercises involve a number of search-and-destroy missions, simulated torpedo attacks and live-fire drills with on-board artillery and air defense systems. The Admiral Tributs and Admiral Vinogradov destroyers, which carried out patrol missions in the Gulf of Aden as part of international efforts to...

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia — Vladimir Kirillov and Vitaly Sukhinin and their co-conspirators once had little interest in politics. They were rat-a-tat-tat salesmen here in Russia’s Far East who did a thriving trade in secondhand vehicles imported from Japan. But then the government reacted to the financial crisis by imposing steep tariffs on their industry. [...]

We know that history holds many surprises. One doesn't expect to learn more about the secret history of of the Gulag than we already know from both Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Acrcipelago" and Anne Applebaum's "Gulag: A history." This feat, however, is exactly what author Tim Tzouliadis has accomplished: the previously unknown story of the thousands of Americans who, during the Depression, sought employment and a better future in the "worker's paradise" built by the Bolsheviks. All kinds of Americans joined the exodus. Some of them were Communists or fellow-travelors but the majority were average Americans - skilled workers promised paid passage,...

VLADIVOSTOK — U.S. Navy ships arrived at port here for joint Navy exercises with the Russian Navy's Pacific Fleet, based in this city. They will also be participating in celebrations for the city's 145th anniversary and U.S. Independence Day on July 4. The U.S. delegation will hold a meeting with the fleet's commanding officers and the city mayor, and take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Pacific Fleet Battle Memorial, dedicated to Russian soldiers and sailors who died in World War II. The American sailors will also take a tour of the city during their visit and play sports...

Moscow (CNSNews.com) - Russia has for the first time agreed to open its remote far eastern region to U.S. officials searching for American servicemen missing in action from past wars. The U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs is to undertake an expedition that will take in the region bordering the Korean peninsula, including the major urban centers of Vladivostok and Khabarovsk. Details are scarce, but the mission will take place from Sept. 21-30. In the past the commission's work has mostly taken place in Moscow. Established by the U.S. and Russian presidents in March 1992, the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission (USRJC)is designed...