The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

[Illuminator]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

I agree. But don't hold your breath for this may only be a publicity stunt by Moscow. At best, they may set up something insignificant merely for symbolic reasons. There is no way for Russia to compete with the vast multi-billion dollar network of western sponsored NGOs engaging in various sociopolitical activities around the globe

Don't be so sure of that. Moscow is learning FAST, real fast. I think they mean business.

[crusader1492]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Don't be so sure of that. Moscow is learning FAST, real fast. I think they mean business.

Your statement reminds me of last year when I was in Yerevan...

I was at a freind's apartment who was watching a Russian variety show via satalite. He made an observation that the quality and production Russian programing was better than American programing (he lives in LA part of the year too).
After watching the show, I could not disagree with him. Although I did not understand what was being said, I could tell that the production was just as polished (if not more polished) than American TV.

...you' re right, the Russians are learning fast.

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

I am trying to figure out if this is an article or if you wrote the entire thing or where does an article begin and end? Excellent analysis in any case.

The commentary you referred to are my personal convictions based upon my exposure to and comprehension of the region's history and politics. I often sit at cafes and brainstorm about these topics. I make written/mental notes of them and place them aside. When the opportune times comes, as it did with Armosurvival, I take these notes, mental and written, I modify/alter them for proper fit and I post them. That is why they sometimes look choppy. Anyway, thank you for the compliment.

you' re right, the Russians are learning fast.

It will be a looooooong time (if ever) before Russia can compete with the West, not in the category of making 'snazzy' television shows, but in the category of influencing taste/culture around the world and specially in the category of meddling unhindered into internal affairs of nations world-wide. Russia's political/financial establishment is fledgling. Russia's global reach is minimal. Simply put, Russia does not have the long lineage, limitless funds, vast experience and global networks of its counterparts in the West. Nor does Russia have the appropriate pedigree. What's more, for the past sixty years, the English language has been intrusive tool used as a catalyst, a vehicle, in which the West's globalist/neo-imperialist agenda has been driven upon unsuspecting peoples worldwide.

When I begin seeing nations around the world 'imitating' Russian pop-culture, seeking to 'migrate' to Russia in droves, and yearning to learn 'Russian', I will begin to believe that Russia is finally playing on a level field with the West. Let's be realistic regarding Russia's capabilities and weaknesses, after all, Armenia's survival is dependent upon them. As I have said in the past, know your enemies but know your friends better. Having said that, in my opinion, Russia is a formidable nation in the realms of Eurasian geopolitics, military capability/industry and energy production and export. However, how they will hold up to the challenges of facing down the West is a question that has yet to be answered.

This brings me to Globalism, better described as the Neo-Imperialism of the West: Much of today's wars and conflicts have to do with the West's longterm geopolitical agendas, in which the isolation or destruction of the Russian Federation plays a significant role. In the eyes of the western political/financial elite, the concepts of God, nationalism and traditional family are obstacles that which require systematic eradication. For without God, Nation and Family, the world can potentially be treated as one mega-corporation and it's population as employees/servants - headed by a consortium. In this world, nations that don't fit the 'agenda' - nations such as Russia, Iran, Serbia, Syria, etc - are considered to be dangerous totalitarian states, or terrorist states, in urgent need of social/political reform (a code word for revolution) not to mention "freedom" and "democracy" (code word for corporate slavery).

How to combat this Globalism/Neo-Imperialism of the West:

Reject the notion that the western world is the standard to which the rest of the world must live up to

Reject new age religions, institutionalized atheism, and attacks against traditional Christianity

Reject international organizations such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, etc

Reject extreme forms of liberalism and extreme forms of conservatism

Reject None Governmental Organizations that engage in sociopolitical agendas

Reject wars in the name of "freedom" and "democracy"

Reject wars that are said to be fought against "terrorism"

Reject government intrusion into family life

Reject public education systems

Reject entertainment industries in all their forms

Reject English as an international language

Reject mainstream news media outlets

Reject mega-corporations

Reject politicians representing special interests

[skhara]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Russia ready to use nuclear weapons if threatened - army chief

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080119/97339084.html

MOSCOW, January 19 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's top military commander said on Saturday that the country is prepared to use its nuclear weapons to defend itself and allies in the event of a severe external threat.

The Chief of the Russian General Staff, Gen. Yury Baluyevsky, told a conference at the Academy of Military Sciences in Moscow: "We do not intend to attack anyone, but consider it necessary that all our partners clearly understand, and that no one has any doubts, that the Armed Forces will be used to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia and its allies, including preventative action, and including the use of nuclear weapons."

Baluyevsky's comments come amid growing tensions between Russia and NATO over the alliance's expansion into the former Eastern Bloc, the United States' plans to deploy missile defense elements in Poland and the Czech Republic, and Moscow's increasingly assertive military stance.

Russia resumed strategic bomber patrol flights over the Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic oceans last August, and on December 12, 2007 imposed a unilateral moratorium on the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, a key arms reduction pact.

Baluyevsky said that in order to protect Russia's interests, military force "can and must be used" when "all other means prove ineffective."

Programs to develop Russia's military must be closely linked to national fiscal planning, "taking into account the state's economic resources," he said.

[Lernakan]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

'Russian vigilante' becomes Deputy Minister

Vitaly Kaloev has been appointed as Deputy Minister of Construction and Architecture in Russia's Republic of North Ossetia. Last year Kaloev was freed on parole from the Swiss jail after serving two thirds of his sentence for murder.

He was found guilty of killing a Swiss air traffic controller who was one of those responsible for an air collision in 2002.

Kaloev lost his wife and child among the 70 people who died in the tragedy.

http://www.russiatoday.ru/news/news/19814

[jgk3]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

'Russian vigilante' becomes Deputy Minister

Vitaly Kaloev has been appointed as Deputy Minister of Construction and Architecture in Russia's Republic of North Ossetia. Last year Kaloev was freed on parole from the Swiss jail after serving two thirds of his sentence for murder.

He was found guilty of killing a Swiss air traffic controller who was one of those responsible for an air collision in 2002.

Kaloev lost his wife and child among the 70 people who died in the tragedy.

http://www.russiatoday.ru/news/news/19814

hehe

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Outspoken Russian General Yuri Baluyevsky claims Russia would resort to the use of its military might (preventively if need be) including the use of nuclear weapons in the event of a serious attack against it, or against an ally. Although most will dismiss this claim as "just talk" we must be reminded that relations between Moscow and the West was this volatile only during the hight of the Cold War in the early 1960s. The shoe, however, seems to be on the other foot now. During Soviet times it was NATO that would often state it would resort to nuclear defense if it was attacked. This was done because of the overwhelming conventional military might that the Soviets possessed at the time. Now, with Russian armed forces still recovering from the catastrophe of the 1990s, Moscow similarly feels compelled to reveal its defensive posture in such blunt terms. Nevertheless, I am glad to see this kind of agrressive rhetoric coming out of Moscow. Whether they mean it or not is not important here, the point of the matter is, are there any forces that would be willing to test Moscow's resolve?

Armenian

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Russia: Could Use Nuclear Weapons

Russia's military chief of staff said Saturday that Moscow could use nuclear weapons in preventive strikes to protect itself and its allies, the latest aggressive remarks from increasingly assertive Russian authorities.

Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky's comment did not mark a policy shift, military analysts said. Amid disputes with the West over security issues, it may have been meant as a warning that Russia is prepared to use its nuclear might. "We do not intend to attack anyone, but we consider it necessary for all our partners in the world community to clearly understand ... that to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia and its allies, military forces will be used, including preventively, including with the use of nuclear weapons," Baluyevsky said at a military conference in a remark broadcast on state-run cable channel Vesti-24. According to the state-run news agency RIA-Novosti, Baluyevsky added that Russia would use nuclear weapons and carry out preventive strikes only in accordance with Russia's military doctrine.

The military doctrine adopted in 2000 says Russia may use nuclear weapons to counter a nuclear attack on Russia or an ally, or a large-scale conventional attack that poses a critical risk to Russia's security. Retired Gen. Vladimir Dvorkin, formerly a top arms control expert with the Russian Defense Ministry, said he saw "nothing new" in Baluyevsky's statement. "He was restating the doctrine in his own words," Dvorkin said. Moscow-based military analyst Alexander Golts said that when Russia broke with stated Soviet-era policy in the 2000 doctrine and declared it could use nuclear weapons first against an aggressor, it reflected the decline of Russia's conventional forces in the decade following the 1991 Soviet collapse.

"Baluyevsky's statement means that, as before, we cannot count on our conventional forces to counter aggression," Golts told Ekho Moskvy radio. "It means that as before, the main factor in containing aggression against Russia is nuclear weapons."

Putin and other Russian officials have stressed the need to maintain a powerful nuclear deterrent and reserved the right to carry out preventive strikes. But in most of their public remarks on preventive strikes, Russian officials have not specifically mentioned nuclear weapons. Baluyevsky spoke amid persistent disputes between Moscow and the West over issues including U.S. plans for missile defense facilities in former Soviet satellites, NATO members' refusal to ratify an updated European conventional arms treaty, and Kosovo's bid for independence from Serbia. Like Golts, Moscow-based military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said Russia plays up its nuclear deterrent because of its weakness in terms of conventional arms. "We threaten the West that in any kind of serious conflict, we'll go nuclear almost immediately," he said. But in the absence of a real threat from the West, he said, "It's just talk."

Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i...OJTZAD8U92Q881

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Rising Anti-Americanism in Russia

Vladimir Dobrovinsky, 33, a teacher at a design school in Moscow, says he's not interested in politics. But bring up America and the well-traveled, university-educated Dobrovinsky holds forth. He criticizes Washington's "crude interference" in world affairs. He complains that Russia is not treated as an important partner by the Bush administration. "A lot of Russians," he says, "are angry that America deals with us like we're Thailand."

Dobrovinsky is hardly alone in such sentiments. Russia is witnessing a revival of the anti-Americanism that had dissipated with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Taking their cues from President Vladimir Putin and the state-controlled media, almost half of Russians now believe America's objective is the complete destruction of Russia, according to a recent survey by the independent Levada Center. And a poll by the state-owned Russian Public Opinion Research Center suggests that Russians consider the United States to be Russia's greatest enemy (and China its greatest friend). "In the last six or seven years, anti-Americanism has been getting worse and worse. It's staggering," says Nina Khrushcheva, a professor of international relations at the New School in New York and the granddaughter of Cold War-era Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

While there are echoes of old Soviet-style antagonisms in the Putin-era anti-Americanism, there are differences. Earlier, the clash was in large part ideological and seemed to herald a fight to the death—"We will bury you," Khrushchev warned western nations in 1956. Today, Putin is using anti-American rhetoric to boost his own popularity, tapping into widespread resentment of western-backed economic reforms made during the rapacious 1990s as well as of U.S. foreign policy. Borrowing from the same playbook as Hugo Chávez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he has accused the Bush administration of trying to tilt the outcome of parliamentary elections, and he blames Washington for all manner of misdeeds including "plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts."

This attitude has carried over into Russia's foreign policy, and the compliant partner that Washington had hoped for has become a belligerent opponent that fosters ties with Iran and China. The Kremlin's opposition to Washington's proposed European missile defense system and its hosting of Hamas leaders in Moscow early last year may provoke ire in the United States, though they improve Putin's ratings at home. It's a far cry from the warm U.S.-Russia relations that seemed in store in 2001, when Bush met Putin for the first time and said, "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy."

As the repressive Soviet regime crumbled in the late 1980s, antipathy to America fell away. "There was a belief that if we opted for western values and civil liberties, life would become better," says Masha Lipman, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center. After western-backed economic "shock therapy" reforms, however, when Soviet-era price and currency controls were removed, inflation rocketed and people's savings were wiped out. Oligarchs close to Boris Yeltsin later bought up Russia's prime assets at fire-sale prices. The United States, as well as Russia's liberal parties, have consequently lost face.

In its foreign policy, meanwhile, Washington is seen as marginalizing Russia. Russia opposed the war in Iraq and resents the proposed missile system and the expansion of NATO into eastern Europe as an encroachment on its strategic backyard. "The U.S. views these as its zones of interest, but for Russia they're vitally important," argues Mikhail Leontyev, the anchor of a political talk show on one of Russia's most popular television channels.

Putin has cultivated Russians' resentments, making strident nationalism and bitter anti-westernism a regular part of his public addresses. Before the parliamentary elections, he said in a nationally televised speech that his liberal opponents "scavenge like jackals at foreign embassies." Meanwhile, billboards around Moscow proclaimed that "Putin's Plan Is Russia's Victory." His message is reinforced by Russia's state-owned television channels, which dominate the airwaves, and many of Russia's major papers. "The enlargement of NATO, America's actions in Iraq and Georgia—they irritate people, and they want an explanation," explains Andrei Baranov, a political editor at Putin-friendly Komsomolskaya Pravda, one of Russia's largest papers.

Russians are evidently sympathetic to Putin. His United Russia party took a landslide 64 percent of the parliamentary vote with a 63 percent turnout, an election his party would have won easily even without repressing his opponents, judging by opinion polls. He has attracted a devoted, nationalistic following among students—Kremlin-linked youth groups supervised the December voting to prevent a feared U.S.-funded revolution.

If there's any consolation for Washington, it's that, as bitter as it may be, this sentiment is not universal. It is in part fostered by Putin, and, as Condoleezza Rice suggested on a visit to Moscow last year, talk of a new Cold War seems premature. Russia may have withdrawn in July from a 1990 treaty limiting military-force numbers in Europe, but it continues to cooperate with Washington on counterterrorism, among other issues. "Americans and Russians have more in common than differences," says Alexander Lebedev, a former Duma deputy and billionaire part owner of the airline Aeroflot. "They're not facing each other across the Berlin Wall any more."

Moreover, Russia's presidential elections take place in March, and the politician backed by Putin as his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, is considered to be sympathetic toward the West (he is expected to win). Medvedev has said Russia should position itself as part of Europe and that confrontation with the United States is unnecessary. At any rate, if Russia does have a change of heart, it would not be unprecedented. "The Russian mentality is of dashing from one extreme to another," says Khrushcheva. "The embrace of the West turns into the embrace of anti-Americanism and back again."

Source: http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/...in-russia.html

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Action movie an allegory for Putin's Russia

In a film that hit cinema screens this week, patriotic Russians despairing at the lack of a strong leader rise up, throw out their Western overlords and make Russia a proud country once again. It could be a documentary about how President Vladimir Putin put an end to the turmoil that followed the Soviet Union's collapse. In fact, it is based on a period in the 17th century known as the "Time of Troubles".

But the parallels may be more than a coincidence: the film was commissioned by the Kremlin to mark National Unity Day on Sunday, and the director makes little secret that it is an allegory for modern Russia. The film is being released a month before Russia votes in a parliamentary election that many observers say is a referendum on Putin's rule, during which he has accumulated huge power and hit back at what he calls Western encroachment. "I ... consider the 17th century an extremely important period in our history, without which you simply cannot understand Russia," director Vladimir Khotinenko said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper. "And now those times are really relevant," he said. "I am talking about the period after Perestroika. We lived in a Time of Troubles. Its duration even coincided with the one in the 17th century." He added: "I'm convinced -- and I have nothing against democracy -- that Russians have a strong desire for a Tsar."

FIGHT SCENES

The film, called "1612", centres around a ragtag group of Russian peasants who assemble what cannons they can and employ the services of wayward knight to dispatch their Polish occupiers. It is an action movie, featuring huge battle scenes, sword-fighting in period costume, stunt horse-riding and a siege at a castle. It also has mythical elements: talking fish and a unicorn feature in the story. At a lavish premiere in Moscow this week, limousines disgorged VIP guests onto a red carpet and two models in white leather outfits handed out glasses of birch-flavoured vodka. The Time of Troubles is the term used in Russia to describe the period starting in 1598, when a ruling family dynasty in what was then known as Muscovy died out. In the absence of a true royal descendant, Russian peasants fell under the rule of foreign powers, including Swedish, Lithuanian, German and Polish occupiers. That period ended when the Romanov dynasty took over the throne in 1613. Many Russians see Putin as a leader who brought stability and prosperity to the country after a new Time of Trouble -- the post-Soviet 1990s marked with economic chaos, political turmoil and Western blocs moving closer to Russia's borders.

Critics though say he has sacrificed democracy to achieve stability and has taken on the role of a new Tsar. The film has an impeccable pro-Kremlin pedigree. It was produced by Nikita Mikhalkov, a director who won the 1994 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for his "Burnt by the Sun". Last month he put his name to an open letter asking Putin -- required by the constitution to step down when his second term ends next year -- to stay in office. The Gazeta.ru Internet news site reported that oil tycoon Viktor Vekselberg pitched in $4 million of his fortune to help finance the film. He has made a name for himself by using his wealth to buy back Russian cultural treasures -- including a collection of Faberge eggs -- that had been sold abroad.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/asiaE...30309520071103

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

RUSSIAN-ARMENIAN ECONOMY FORUM IN YEREVAN

A joint forum of the Russian Armenians’ Union and of the Trade and Economy Development Ministry of Armenia shall be held in Yerevan, January 20-21. Prime Minister of Armenia Serge Sarkisian shall take port in the forum. The delegation from Russia shall be lead by the head of the Russian Armenians’ Union Ara Abramian. With the participation of the Transport Ministers of Armenia and Russia as well as a number of Government members of both the states, the businessmen shall discuss the perspectives of finance investments in Armenia. Trade and Economy Development Minister of Armenia Nerses Yeritsian shall represent the priorities for investments in the Armenian economy and its development perspectives.

Source: http://www.azg.am/EN/2008011901