The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

[Armenian]

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

The multi-billionaire internationalist who personally delivered the "color" revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia finally speaks up about the Russian Federation:

Soros: Trouble with Russia



PRAGUE -- Russia’s position on Kosovo is more dangerous than that concerning the U.S. missile defense shield, George Soros says.

“The fact that Russia is trying to take over the Kosovo issue is more dangerous for Europe than Kremlin’s criticism and resistance to the U.S. plans to place components of its anti missile shield in the Czech Republic and Poland,” the American billionaire told the Czech Radio in Prague.

“If Russia really does veto [a UN Kosovo resolution], this will be a serious problem for Europe, causing divide within the EU as some countries favor Kosovo’s independence while others do not. Precisely this will demonstrate the lengths Russia will go to in order to create trouble in the world,” Soros was quoted as saying.

“Kosovo needs calming down and consolidating. That is what people in Kosovo are demanding and unless they are granted independence, they will declare it unilaterally. That would create a really huge problem,” Soros continued. Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) vice president and cabinet minister Aleksandar Popović criticized the comments sharply, saying that Soros saw fit to engage in Serbian internal matters, advocating dismemberment of the state and snatching of 15 percent of Serbia’s territory.

“Serbia never called on Soros to deal with her state borders or the issues of her territorial integrity. Perhaps Soros wishes to assume the role of the United Nations Security Council, carving up borders as he sees fit and as fits his capital,” Popović said.

Source: http://www.b92.net/eng/news/comments.php?nav_id=41012

[Armenian]

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

Russia confirms veto on Kosovo independence



Moscow has explicitly threatened to use its UN security council veto on an EU and US-backed plan to give independence to the Serb province of Kosovo, dinting hopes that Russia might abstain from the UN vote.

"A decision based on Martti Ahtisaari's draft will not get through the UN security council," Russia's deputy prime minister Vladimir Titov confirmed on Tuesday (24 April), Russian newswires Interfax and Ria Novosti report.

"The threat of a veto should stimulate the search for mutually acceptable options," he added, following months of hint-dropping by Russian diplomats that they would use the ultimate UN sanction. UN envoy Ahtisaari's proposal would give Kosovo "supervised independence," with Pristina shortly afterward declaring that it is an independent state and with the US and EU recognising its new status. Washington has been pressing for a UN decision in late May, but the UN is unlikely to table a resolution unless it has been pre-arranged that the five UN veto powers will either support the move or abstain from the vote.

The G8 summit in Germany on 6 to 8 June could be used for last-ditch talks, with the UN five - the UK, France, the US, Russia and China - all round the table and with Bush and Putin likely to hold their own bilateral. But some political sources in Serbia suggest Moscow and Belgrade are looking to delay any UN decision until autumn this year or early 2008, with Russia suggesting that Kosovo semi-autonomy would be acceptable to Serbia.

In the meantime, a Russian-orchestrated UN fact-finding mission will between 25 and 28 April tour the region to see what lies behind Serbia's claim that tens of thousands of Serb refugees are still too afraid to go back to Kosovo. Kosovo prime minister and former ethnic Albanian guerilla Agim Ceku showed impatience with the Serb-Russian opposition this week, amid fears that radical Kosovo Albanians could turn to violence if made to wait too long.

"Russia may demand new negotiations as much as it likes...but in the last few days of May, Kosovo will acquire independence," he said, Ria Novosti reports. Kosovo is home to 1.8 million ethnic Albanians and over 100,000 ethnic Serbs as well as Serb holy sites. But it has been under UN supervision since 1999, when NATO intervened to stop Serb attacks against the ethnic Albanian population.

The Titov veto statement comes after a prickly meeting between German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Luxembourg on Monday (23 April). Mr Steinmeier said the EU's "aim is to secure peace and stability" and acknowledged that "there are some differences on the assessment of the situation" between Moscow and Brussels. But with an EU splinter group including Slovakia, Romania, Greece, Spain, Italy and Cyprus recently voicing reservations on the Ahtisaari plan, Mr Steinmeier was unable to say the EU is united on the topic.

"There should be no unilateral efforts to impose solutions because these Balkan nations need to live together," Russia's Mr Lavrov retorted, calling the Ahtisaari plan a "delayed-action land mine."

The Russian also brushed off EU questions about police brutality and arrests of peaceful pro-democracy protesters in Moscow and St Petersburg one week ago. "I think it was Voltaire who said that freedom is following laws," he said.

Source: http://euobserver.com/9/23933

In other related news:

Kosovo will be independent, Daniel Fried says

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Kosovo will be independent with or without a United Nations resolution, and Russia should back an agreement to protect the Kosovo Serb minority, the United States said on Saturday. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried said it was possible the latest Russian criticism of UN mediator Marti Ahtisaari’s plan for the final status of the breakaway Serbian province meant Moscow intended to block a resolution.

"We hope that Russia understands that Kosovo is going to be independent one way or another," Fried told Reuters in an interview at a Brussels Forum on transatlantic relations.

"It will either be done in a controlled, supervised way that provides for the well-being of the Serbian people, or it will take place in an uncontrolled way and the Kosovo Serbs will suffer the most, which would be terrible." Moscow has repeatedly said it will not accept a solution which is unacceptable to Serbia, which is adamantly opposed to any form of independence for Kosovo. A UN Security Council fact-finding mission, which visited Kosovo at Russia’s suggestion, wrapped up its visit on Saturday saying they would deliberate on the proposal for its independence without setting deadlines.

"Deciding on important issues should never be hostage to predetermined deadlines," Belgian ambassador and mission head Johan Verbeke told a news conference in Pristina. Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president, proposes supervised independence with a strong role for an international presence to protect minority rights. Fried acknowledged the European Union could be split over whether or not to recognize Kosovo if there was no UN resolution and Kosovo’s overwhelming Albanian majority declared independence unilaterally.

"I see absolutely no advantage to doing this any other way than through a Security Council resolution. I see merely disadvantages," Fried said. "The alternatives are all worse.”

"A divided Europe is a bad thing in general and a terrible thing in this particular case."

A resolution would provide legal authority to protect the Kosovo Serbs and help the Europeans to unite, he said. Kosovo has been an international protectorate since NATO waged an air war in 1999 to drive out Serbian forces and end ethnic cleansing. Some 90 percent of the province's 2 million population are Albanians.

"Kosovo is in the list of problems that do not improve with age and neglect. The situation there is not inherently stable," said Fried. Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke told the Brussels Forum the next few weeks would be a fundamental test of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s view of his role in the world.

"If he vetoes the Ahtisaari plan in the Security Council, there will be a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo. The United States will recognize them, I hope the same day ... Some of the EU will, some won’t," Holbrooke said.

"There will probably be violence on the ground and it will be Russia's fault."

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt told the Forum he expected a period of "diplomatic trench warfare" over Kosovo at the United Nations and suggested the EU should take the lead in seeking a compromise solution, which would take time. Asked about Holbrooke’s scenario of unilateral independence, he said: "That is playing with fire," FOCUS News Agency reports.

Source: http://www.panarmenian.net/news/eng/?nid=22106

KOSOVO CAN BE SEPARATED FROM SERBIA ONLY BY MEANS OF FORCE

The Serbian Prime Minister Voislav Koshtunitsa has announced that Kosovo will never become a legally independent state and may be separated from Serbia only by means of force. He reminded of the tragic history of NATO bombings of Yugoslavia in 1999 and called on the international community to avoid another mistake while determining the status of Kosovo.

The 1999 NATO bombings of Yugoslavia opened a new chapter in the history of the Kosovo conflict. Seven years ago the peacekeepers not only failed to settle the conflict but caused the creation of another Albanian state in the Balkans. The leaders of the Kosovo Serbs spoke about the main features of this “state” on Sunday. They reminded that since 1999, when a UN mandate for Kosovo came into force, about 200 thousand Serbs were forced to leave. More than 30 thousand of Serbian homes and 150 Orthodox churches and monasteries were destroyed then.

A member of the Serbian delegation at the Vienna talks for determining the future status of Kosovo, Marko Yaksic, compared the present situation with feudal times. And the West is evidently to be blamed for it, because it has never thought that it does only harm conniving at the Albanian extremists. Today two-thirds of the Kosovans are unemployed, and one third live below the poverty line. After Serbian enterprises in Kosovo were privatized by the leaders of criminal groups, the Serbs found themselves deprived of their property. But the West seems not to care at all.

The question is for how long Europe will tolerate numerous Albanian “states”. The Republic of Albania, the Republic of Kosovo, the Preshev Valley in South Serbia, Western Macedonia and the Albanian districts of Montenegro. All these regions need huge economic investments. Basically, they are governed by the mob and may eventually become flare points of interethnic clashes. Europe must admit it faces the threat of a dangerous slide back to feudalism.

Source: http://www.vor.ru/Kosovo/index.html

[Armenian]

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

Armenia and Russia Agree: Foreign Policy Change Unlikely After Elections


Konstantin Zatulin, director of the Russian Institute of CIS Studies, talks about Russian-Armenian relations at a conference at the Moscow House in Yerevan on May 10.

By Haroutiun Khachatrian
Published May 10, 2007

Changes may come after Armenia’s upcoming parliamentary vote, but don’t look for them in the country’s close bilateral ties with Russia, a group of Armenian and Russian experts concluded at a May 10 government-sponsored conference in Yerevan.

“I am often asked: What will happen after the elections? The answer is: nothing will happen in terms of foreign policy,” said political scientist Alexander Iskandarian, head of Yerevan’s Caucauss Media Institute. “Because there are no forces in Armenia which are striving to come to power with the purpose of spoiling its relations either with Russia or the West.”

The most outspoken members of Armenia’s opposition are largely pro-Western; pro-government parties, billed as the frontrunners in the parliamentary race, take a more measured stance; or, in the case of pro-government Prosperous Armenia Party, an avowedly pro-Russian stance. Prosperous Armenia Party leader Gagik Tsarukian recently told one Russian media outlet that 90 percent of Armenia’s foreign relations should be focused on Russia and only 10 percent on the West. A party representative, however, confirmed Prosperous Armenia’s support for the current official government policy of attempting to balance Armenia’s ties with both.

No doubt with such considerations in mind, Russian parliamentarian Konstantin Zatulin, director of the Moscow-based Institute of Commonwealth of Independent States, noted that the timing of the conference was deliberate. The gathering was organized by Zatulin’s institute, which recently opened a Yerevan branch office, and supported by the Armenian government. “It is extremely important for us in Russia to know what will be the situation in Armenia, in a country which is of great importance for Russia,” Zatulin said. Zatulin is one of more than 40 Russian Duma deputies who are observing the May 12 parliamentary vote.

Competition between Russia and the West was among the main topics discussed at the event. In a nod to Armenia’s existing foreign policy, Armenian Justice Minister David Haroutiunian, a leading member of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, assured conference participants that the country wants to preserve its ties with both Russia and other outside powers interested in the South Caucasus, a veiled reference to the United States and other Western states.

Both Russia and the West want stability in the region, he continued, but differ on tactics. “[E]ach side believes that the best way of keep stability is by establishing its own dominance. Armenia does not share this vision, and this is why it will oppose efforts to push Russia out of the region,” the minister said. Haroutiunian named Armenia and Russia’s joint membership in the CIS Collective Security Treaty as the most important aspect of relations between the two states, noting that he preferred the term “alliance” to “partnership.”

In turn, Aleksei Gvinianin, a Russian foreign ministry department head who represented the ministry at the conference, hailed Armenia for providing “a good source of security, given Russia’s problems in both the North and South Caucasus.” In an apparent tit-for-tat overture, Gvinianin did not exclude the possibility that Moscow could join Western countries in encouraging Turkey to reopen its borders with Armenia. Policy-planning cooperation on this front with Yerevan was also proposed.

Sympathy for Armenia’s own sensitive areas in its relations with the West was made clear. Gvinianin went so far as to recommend that Armenians not take recommendations about the parliamentary elections from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe/Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) as “truth of the last instance.” Moscow has a long history of conflicts with the OSCE about the organization’s various activities in the former Soviet Union.

Russian political scientist Vitaly Tretyakov, editor of the Moscow News weekly, added that former Soviet republics might not have any other choice but to ally with Russia on various issues, as the “EU or NATO cannot grow infinitely.” Tretyakov went on to predict that further incentive for strong Armenia-Russia ties could lie in the creation of a new organization of former Soviet republics, in which Russian President Vladimir Putin, would play a leading role. Tretyakov put the timeline for such an event at “less than a year,” but did not provide further details or cite sources for his information.

Nonetheless, as shown at the conference, ties between Moscow and Yerevan are far from trouble-free. Russian representatives did not answer questions from Republican Party parliamentarian Armen Ashotian on whether signatories of the 1992 CIS Collective Security Treaty would help Armenia in case of “possible aggression” from Azerbaijan, nor whether Russia might recognize the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh if Western states recognize the breakaway territory of Kosovo in the Balkans.

Other problems were also raised. Political scientist Iskandarian noted that Russia is losing its traditional influence in Armenia since Moscow “works only with the state and not with [Armenian] citizens.” Among more than 30 think tanks in Armenia, he added, only two or three are supported by Russians. At the same time, he noted, Russian is losing ground to English as a second-language for Armenians. Moscow-based political scientist Andranik Migranian had a simple explanation: Russia is still recovering from the economic collapse of the 1990s, he claimed. Assistance to Armenian civil society will “increase rapidly,” he predicted.

Source: http://www.eurasianet.org/armenia/news/051007b.html

[Armenian]

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

Close cooperation with Russia is Armenia’s security guarantor

In the near future Armenia’s foreign line will be seriously challenged, Ruben Safrastyan, Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the RA National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, told a news conference in Yerevan.

“Complementary policy has already been exhausted and Armenia should be build relations with other states proceeding from its own interests. Regional processes will sooner or later influence on Armenia and we should be ready for reciprocal diplomatic moves. Ankara’s foreign policy targeted at formation of a military and strategic alliance between Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan is to cut Armenia off all regional development programs. The other factor is NATO’s enlargement to the South Caucasus. With receiving a status of NATO aspirant country, Georgia will strengthen ties with Turkey. The third factor is the Iranian problem. To be more correct, the U.S. policy towards Iran’s nuclear file. Hostilities will have grave consequences for the region,” Safrastyan said.

Mr Safrastyan is convinced in necessity of coordination of diplomatic steps and enablement of strong points of Armenia’s foreign policy. “Close cooperation with Russia is one of Armenia’s strongest points. The Armenia-Russia military and strategic cooperation is the guarantor of our security. The 102nd Russian military base is a restraining factor for Turkey. As you remember, in 1992 the Turkish army was planning to intrude into Armenia and only the statement by Russian Defense Minister Yergeny Shaposhnikov, who said, “Any encroachment on Armenia will give a start to World War III,” made Turkey abandon its intentions,” Safrastyan underscored.

Source: http://www.panarmenian.net/news/arm/?nid=22204

[Armenian]

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

Although the following news has not gotten extensive mainstream news coverage, nevertheless, this recent development in Moscow is a major geopolitical and economic victory for the Russian Federation - and a very serious setback for Western Europe, the US and certain westward leaning regional nations. This turn of event will undoubtedly have serious longterm global repercussions as Moscow continues to monopolize the energy distribution of the region in question.

Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan agree on Caspian gas pipe




TURKMENBASHI, May 12 (RIA Novosti) - Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan agreed to build a gas pipeline along the Caspian coast and will sign the deal by September 1, a joint declaration of the three presidents said Saturday. The pipeline will run from Turkmenistan along the Caspian coast of Kazakhstan and on to Russia, the sole re-exporter of the Turkmen gas. It is a rival project to a U.S.-sponsored Trans-Caspian pipeline across the Caspian Sea to carry Turkmen gas to southern Europe bypassing Russia.

Following their summit meeting in Turkmenistan, Vladimir Putin, Nursultan Nazarbayev and Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov instructed their governments to start the construction of the pipeline from the second half of 2008. Putin also said the restoration of Soviet-era Central Asia-Center pipelines going to Russia via Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan would make it possible to increase transportation by at least 12 billion cubic meters by 2012. Russia's energy minister, Viktor Khristenko, said the 1974 pipeline system was capable of transporting more than 90 billion cu m a year after repair. "Two declarations that were signed today basically outline the future development of the largest infrastructure projects in the entire Central Asia," he said.

Alexei Miller, the chief executive of Russian energy giant Gazprom [RTS: GAZP], said the Caspian pipeline project and the Soviet pipeline system, once restored, would help raise supplies of Turkmen gas to 80 billion cu m a year within the Russia-Turkmenistan contract until 2028. In September, Russia and Turkmenistan agreed on terms of Turkmen gas supplies for 2007-2009 at a price of $100 per 1,000 cu m and set the volume at 50 billion cu m a year.

In 2006, Russia imported via Kazakhstan 39 billion cu m of gas from Turkmenistan, 9 billion from Uzbekistan, and 7.5 billion from Kazakhstan proper. In 2007, Central Asian supplies to Russia are expected to be 55.7 billion. Despite the agreement on the Caspian pipeline, Turkmenistan's president said that the Trans-Caspian project bypassing Russia remained on the agenda, thereby rejecting the Russian energy minister's contrary assurances.

"The whole world is looking for ways to diversify gas supplies," Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov said. Putin's Central Asian tour of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan coincided with an energy summit in Poland May 11-13 aimed at reducing energy dependence on Russia. Kazakhstan's Nazarbayev, its key participant, pulled out from the forum also being attended by Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine and Lithuania.

Turkmenistan gas production

The Russian leader signaled his country's readiness to invest in the development of Turkmenistan's gas field on the Caspian shelf. "Russia is ready to invest in gas production as well as in the pipeline system," Putin told reporters. "Our energy companies have already agreed on such investment."

Russia's industry and energy minister, Viktor Khristenko, said Russian companies would develop the gas field under a production-sharing agreement (PSA), a format envisaging substantial privileges to foreign investors.

"The best option is a production-sharing agreement," Khristenko said. "This is the position of the owners of the field." He also said Kazakh companies would fit well into the PSA.

Link: http://en.rian.ru/world/20070512/65373780.html

Russia's comeback to Central Asia is not just pipe dream

MOSCOW. (Mikhail Pereplesnin for RIA Novosti) - When Vladimir Putin became president seven years ago, he made a blitz tour of post-Soviet Central Asia. One of the problems he inherited from Boris Yeltsin was lack of proper relations with the former "fraternal" Central Asian republics, which had become members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The niche voluntarily vacated by Russia did not remain empty for a long time. Central Asian republics were showered with cooperation proposals from all kinds of investors - Turkey, Iran, Arab states, China, Japan and Indonesia. The Americans hastened to proclaim the Caspian a zone of their vital interests. Even Ukraine left Russia far behind in trade with Turkmenistan.

Ashgabat managed to stick to the wait-and-see attitude and avoid choosing a strategic partner during numerous Turkmen visits by wanted and unwanted guests that were rushing to divide the Caspian pie. With many reservations, Putin's trip to Ashgabat seven years ago can be qualified as an attempt at comeback - Russia had lost many good opportunities, and economic cooperation was reduced to the purchase of Turkmen gas in tough competition with Ukraine. However, it was during that visit that a new round of top level meetings was launched. Putin's current visit to Ashgabat will be inevitably analyzed in the historic context as the summing up of his activities in Central Asia. Let's count its pluses and minuses.

The main plus is that Russia has finally got rid of its imperial ambitions towards a former constituent province. A flexible and gradual increase in prices on imported Turkmen gas allowed it to edge out its Ukrainian rivals and sign in 2003 a long-term agreement (valid until 2028) on the purchase of almost all Turkmen gas exports with the exception of 5-7 billion cubic meters that are annually pumped into northern Iran. Moreover, the monopoly position allowed Moscow to derive not only economic but also geopolitical gains by reselling gas to Ukraine.

The biggest minus is that the old Central Asia-Center pipeline that supplies Russia with gas is badly worn out. In 2006, the pipe pumped a little more than 41 billion cubic meters of gas. By comparison, in the Soviet times, the relevant figure was 85 billion. The second plus of Moscow's efforts to upgrade its economic presence in the region is expansion of markets for Russian businesses and introduction of domestic technologies. Ashgabat visits by regional business delegations have become Russia's foreign policy know-how. St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko came to the Turkmen capital with the leading businessmen from her region, while Sverdlovsk Governor Eduard Rossel arrived with their colleagues from the Urals. Direct contacts between producers and consumers have given a considerable impetus to bilateral trade. In the past year, it reached $307.5 million, an almost double increase compared to 10 years ago.

Trade could have been even bigger if Russia risked direct investment in the Turkmen economy instead of limiting itself to strictly commercial relations. At one time, Turkmenistan offered Gazprom a very promising project - exclusive rights to the exploration and industrial development of gas deposits in the Amudarya's right bank. Ashgabat patiently waited for several years for Gazprom to make a decision. Eventually, it offered the project to the Chinese. With a view to future profits, they quickly signed the agreement, showing more flexibility than Russia's gas monopoly.

Japanese, Turkish, Ukrainian and many West European companies have already made investment in the Turkmen economy - processing of agricultural produce, capital construction, and oil production and refinery. Russian companies have just appeared there. This delay is an obvious minus. Russia has even fewer achievements in the cultural and social spheres. During the recent Moscow visit of President Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov it transpired that Russian education technologies were in high demand in Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan has only one Russian-Turkmen general education school. It is more difficult to get into it than into a prestigious college.

The Russian drama theater is also on the Turkmen government payroll. Moscow's long-standing plans to pay for it and create a Russian cultural center on its basis have remained on paper. But humanitarian contacts are secondary to economic relations. If Russia wants to restore its positions in this dynamic region, it should consider big joint projects such as development of hydrocarbon reserves on the Turkmen part of the Caspian shelf and construction of pipelines to link Turkmenistan with Russia "as a crow flies" - along Kazakhstan's eastern Caspian coast. The itinerary of Putin's current trip shows that the political ground for promising long-term tripartite projects is ready.

Link: http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20070508/65139688.html

Russia squeezes out West with crucial pipeline deal

TURKMENBASHI, Turkmenistan - Russia scored a breakthrough Saturday in an intensifying rivalry between world powers for Central Asia's vast energy resources by securing a landmark pipeline deal. The presidents of Russia and the region's main energy producers, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, agreed to build a pipeline along the Caspian Sea coast to ship Turkmen natural gas to western markets via Kazakhstan and Russia.

The deal is a blow to U.S. and European efforts to secure alternatives to Middle East oil and gas that would be independent from Russian influence. It means a great advance for Russia in its increased competition with the West for the influence over the ex-Soviet region since the death last year of President Saparmurat Niyazov of natural gas-rich Turkmenistan. Niyazov had kept both Russia and the West at arm's length, while signing deals to build export pipelines to power-hungry China.

"We are opening the Caspian route at the request of Turkmenistan," Russian President Vladimir Putin said after the announcement of the deal in the Turkmen city of Turkmenbashi on the Caspian shore. The new pipeline's cost was not announced, but the ITAR-Tass news agency cited a 2003 estimate putting it at around US$1 billion. Other details, such as how the costs would be split between the three countries were also unavailable. The presidents ordered their governments to sign an agreement outlining the deal's specifics by Sept. 1. Putin said the actual construction would begin in mid-2008.

Turkmenistan is the second-biggest gas producer in the former Soviet Union after Russia, and its gas resources are playing an increasingly important role in the geopolitics of the region. Russia controls the only export routes for Turkmenistan's gas and the main pipeline for Kazakh oil exports. Russia is already the world's No. 1 natural gas exporter and it would further strengthen its clout by maintaining monopoly on transit of Turkmen and Kazakh exports to Europe. There have been no independent audits of Turkmenistan's proven gas reserves, but the CIA has estimated them at more than two trillion cubic metres.

The United States and the European Union have lobbied hard for a route under the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan and Turkey, bypassing Russia. European fears of excessive energy reliance on Russia, which supplies a quarter of Europe's gas and is its second-biggest supplier of oil, have grown after Russia briefly halted gas supplies to its ex-Soviet neighbours at the start of 2006 and 2007. The shutdowns, amid politically charged price fights, led to shortfalls in supplies to the EU.

The EU has long pushed Russia to ratify an energy pact that would give independent producers access to its export pipelines and oil and gas fields, but Putin has rejected the demand, saying it was against Russia's interests. Putin said the new pipeline may carry "at least" 20 billion cubic metres of gas annually by 2012, while Russian Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko told reporters that it could eventually carry 30 billion cubic metres a year.

Russia bought about 42 billion cubic metres of Turkmen gas last year at US$100 per 1,000 cubic metres, well below its US$250 price for customers in Europe. Building the new pipeline and modernizing the old ones would allow Russia to purchase up to 80 billion cubic metres of gas from Turkmenistan, said Alexei Miller, the head of Russia's state OAO Gazprom gas monopoly. Both Turkmen President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev signalled Saturday that the trans-Caspian pipeline may also be considered in the future.

"We will transport (oil and gas) by whichever route is profitable," Nazarbayev said. The latest deal, however, means that Russia would control the bulk of Central Asian energy exports, thus boosting its role as a major supplier of oil and gas to Europe and strengthening western fears that Moscow could use its energy clout for political purposes. Putin sought to assuage such fears, saying that "we very responsibly take our role in the global energy sector." But when asked whether others could join the new pipeline project, he answered with a curt "no." "It's enough to have three countries," Putin said.

Also on Saturday, the three presidents announced an agreement involving Uzbekistan to revamp the entire Soviet-built pipeline network that carries Central Asian gas to outside markets via Russia. Khristenko said that once upgraded, the system would be capable of carrying 90 billion cubic metres of gas annually. He scoffed at the trans-Caspian pipeline proposal as being economically unfeasible, saying it could only be viewed as a "political project."

In another blow to western hopes of securing Central Asian energy shipments that bypass Russia, Putin and Nazarbayev on Thursday agreed to expand the existing oil pipeline that carries crude oil from Kazakhstan's Tengiz field to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk. Putin also agreed to Kazakhstan's participation in a Russian-controlled pipeline that runs from Bulgaria's Black Sea port of Burgas to Alexandroupolis, in northern Greece. The two deals are likely to reduce Kazakhstan's interest in routes connecting with the U.S.-backed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline that carries Caspian oil to Turkey on a route that bypasses Russia.

Link: http://www.canada.com/topics/news/wo...9563b9&k=54193

[skhara]

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

Russia vs EU

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6668111.stm

[Armenian]

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

I have been in awe watching the Russian Federation reorganize and revitalize itself during the past several years under the strong leadership of Vladimir Putin.

Since he rose to power, Moscow has not neglected a single aspect of its national interests, be it economic, military, geopolitical or cultural. The Russian Federation has since monopolized the distribution of the region's vast natural resources; it has modernized its armed forces; it has imposed its will in various geopolitical matters worldwide. Moscow has also been quite blunt, threatening and demanding upon the world stage. And the recent symbolic reunion of Russia's national Church is a clear testimony of Putin's tireless efforts in attempting to consolidate Russia's national/cultural assets.

With a landmass, abundant with natural resources, stretching from ocean to ocean, an invincible military and petrol/gas exports bringing in hundreds of billions of US dollars in revenues, we are seeing today the rise of Russian supremacy, one that will shape the very nature of geopolitics within the twenty-first century. When history books will be written about the current era, I have no doubt the Russian people will remember Putin as "Vladimir The Great" and his enemies will most probably remember his as "Vladimir The Terrible."

Unfortunately, it seems as if Putin will not run for another term as president of the Russian Federation. It would have been very interesting observing his rule during the next five to ten years especially at this very crucial stage in global politics.

Armenian

2 Russian Churches, Split by War, Reuniting



MOSCOW, May 16 — The atmosphere was tense, laced with nearly a century of mistrust and bitter feelings, when President Vladimir V. Putin met in New York in 2003 with leaders of an émigré church that had broken with the Russian Orthodox Church after the Bolshevik Revolution. The breakaway church had vowed never to return as long as the “godless regime” was in power.

“I want to assure all of you,” Mr. Putin said at the meeting, “that this godless regime is no longer there.” Then, recalled the Rev. Serafim Gan, a senior priest of the breakaway church, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, he added, “You are sitting with a believing president.”

That meeting set in motion years of difficult negotiations that are expected to be capped on Thursday by the signing of a canonical union at Christ the Savior Cathedral here, which was dynamited by Stalin in 1931 and rebuilt in the 1990s. Church members are calling the signing, which coincides with the feast of the Ascension, the symbolic end of Russia’s civil war and the confirmation of the Russian Orthodox Church’s central role in post-Soviet society. Joint services will be held this weekend at Butovo, a Stalinist killing field outside Moscow that is now an Orthodox shrine to the Soviet dictator’s victims, and Dormition Cathedral in the Kremlin.

“This was a place of much sorrow, temptation, suffering and the death of martyrs,” Father Gan said about Butovo. “Now this place serves revival. I think that’s what was deeply touching for all of us.”

In an interview broadcast Monday on Vesti-24, a government-run news channel, Patriarch Aleksy II of the Russian Orthodox Church said, “The Lord is helping us in this time, this time of spiritual revival, to gather up the stones that were so thoughtlessly scattered in the past.”

The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, known informally as the Russian Church Abroad, will retain its name and administrative autonomy, Father Gan said. But Moscow will exercise ultimate authority in appointments and other church matters. Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected political analyst, highlighted the political dividends of impending reunion and suggested that May 17, the day of reunion, be declared a national holiday. Mr. Putin’s quest to reunite the churches is consistent with his effort to consolidate the power and legitimacy of the current Russian state, said Nikolai Mitrokhin, a scholar who studies the Russian Orthodox Church and its relations with the Kremlin.

“The role of Putin is indeed great in this respect, since Putin is striving to demonstrate himself and today’s Russian power as the legal heirs of both the Soviet and the White period of history,” he said, referring to the opposing sides in the Russian civil war of 1917-20. Boris Jordan, a Russian-American businessman who came to Moscow in 1991 and played a prominent role in the privatization of state assets in the 1990s and television management shakeups after Mr. Putin came to power, recalled a private meeting with the Russian president in 2001.

“He said, ‘I understand that you’re involved with the church, that you’re a religious person,’ ” said Mr. Jordan, who grew up in Sea Cliff, N. Y., in a staunch Russian Church Abroad family but became a vocal advocate for union after living in Russia. He said Mr. Putin had told him: “I believe that the reunion of the churches is a very, very important thing. I am certainly absolutely for it. One of the most important things you can do as a repat is to help in the reunification of the churches, much more so than anything you’re doing in television or business. This is probably the most important thing you can do in terms of your legacy.”

To a great extent, the reunion on Thursday will help close a chapter in Russian history that began with the 1917 revolution, church elders said.

“The division of the churches was one of the last remnants of the sad history of the revolution,” the Rev. Alexander Lebedeff of Los Angeles, a chief representative of the Russian Church Abroad, said in the negotiations. “By overcoming this division we are closing the book, or at least a chapter, of one of the most difficult times in Russian and Russian church history.”

The Russian Church Abroad was created in the 1920s by émigrés who fled Russia with the White Army, remaining staunchly anti-Communist and monarchist in exile. Its headquarters are in New York, and nearly half of its 400 parishes were in the United States, a cold war association that made the church doubly dangerous in Soviet eyes. The core of the churches’ differences lay in the Russian Orthodox Church’s fealty to the Soviet state, a policy known as sergianstvo, after Metropolitan Sergius, the acting head of the church in 1927. That year, he tried to end the persecution of the church by declaring loyalty to the Soviet government, which nevertheless killed roughly 80,000 Orthodox priests, monks and nuns and destroyed churches in the 1930s.

Overtures toward reconciliation in the 1990s made little headway in the general chaos of the time. A major obstacle fell in 2000, when a large church council, or sobor, of the Russian Orthodox Church canonized Czar Nicholas II and his family and hundreds of victims of Stalinist terror, something the church abroad had done in 1981. Some members of the Russian Church Abroad remain adamantly opposed to reunion, with some suggesting that Moscow’s real goal is to grab valuable property, including the church’s headquarters, a mansion on East 93rd Street in Manhattan.

Others oppose any form of membership for Moscow in the World Council of Churches, the Geneva-based forum of Protestant and Orthodox churches, arguing that the group promotes an ecumenism that is at odds with the Russian Orthodox Church’s exceptionalism. Some are still leery of Soviet vestiges in the church. The Rev. Nikolai Balashov, the Moscow Patriarchate’s secretary for inter-Orthodox relations, said the decades of distrust between the churches had been palpable at early encounters.

“At first it seemed like there was a solid block of ice between us,” he said. “But gradually, meeting after meeting, we came to understand each other and perceive each other fully as brothers.”

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/17/wo.../17russia.html

[Armenian]

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

Lawyers set out case in suit vs. Bank of New York



Lawyers acting for the Russian customs service set out their client's case Friday for filing a $22.5 billion damage lawsuit against the Bank of New York with the Moscow arbitration court the day before. The Federal Customs Service accused the bank of laundering money received from Russian exported goods in 1996-99. The bank dismissed the claim Thursday, saying case had been resolve. Experts have been wondering about the size of the sum and making suggestions on the possible political and economic implications of the revived scandal.

Speaking at a RIA Novosto news conference, Steven Marx, a Podhurst Orseck lawyer, admitted the sum was huge but legitimate. He said the BoNY board chairman had acknowledged the laundering of about $7.5 billion at the time, and the plaintiff could demand compensation three times as much as the damage under U.S. law. In November 2005, the bank pleaded guilty of violating U.S. laws on control over financial flows, and was ordered to pay a $38 million fine. The Bank of New York case was the first "Russian mafia" inquiry that came into the focus of American justice in the late 1990s. But it later transpired that the funds did not belong to the mafia, but were untaxed profits of Russian exporters.

Marx also said the bank had not hurried to fire the vice president of its London branch, who dealt with clients in Eastern Europe and assisted in money laundering through the Bank of New York, despite auditors' recommendations, thereby exacerbating Russia's damage. He said Lucy Edwards had instead been allowed to use bank software and was able to conduct billion-dollar transactions from her home.

After facing criminal proceedings in 1999, Edwards pleaded guilty and got away with a brief detention and insignificant fines. She acknowledged charges of illegally transferring Russian money and hiding it in offshore accounts for $1.8 million in kickbacks. The bank said the case had been resolved, and that the new claims were unsubstantiated: "Based on our knowledge of the facts, we believe any such suit would be totally without merit, if not frivolous, and we would expect to defend it vigorously."

But the lawyers said the statute of limitation had not expired under both Russian and U.S. law. They also denied the bank's accusations of blackmail, when some lawyers had allegedly suggested that bank officials "settling" the affair for a portion of the damage sum. Marx said they did hold confidential talks with the bank, but that that was the usual practice before referring the case to a court of law.

Media speculation

The Russian media suggested Friday the case could have serious political implications, releasing data on now established companies and business people involved in the murky transactions in the late 1990s.

"Names were not disclosed at the time, but many of those now on the Forbes list of billionaires could surface [in connection with the scandal]," Kommersant daily said. Suggestions were also made on the possibly negative financial effects. The Bank of New York, a global leader in securities servicing, was selected as the depositary bank for the Russian foreign trade VTB bank's global depositary receipt program, and is the depositary for a total of 30 GDR programs.

News source: http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070518/65718460.html

[Armenian]

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

S-400 missile defense systems to start defending Moscow July 1



S-400 missile defense systems will be put on combat duty around Moscow July 1, the commander of the Russian Air Force said Monday. The S-400 Triumf (NATO codename SA-21 Growler) is a new air defense missile system developed by the Almaz Central Design Bureau as an upgrade of the S-300 family. "On July 1, one battalion of S-400 missile defense systems will be put on combat duty to defend the airspace of Moscow and Central Russia," Colonel-General Alexander Zelin said. Zelin said the battalion is at an Air Force range, and after range practice, the battalion, based in the Moscow Region town of Elektrostal, east of the capital, will go on active duty. It has been designed to intercept and destroy airborne targets at a distance of up to 400 kilometers (250 miles), or twice the range of the MIM-104 Patriot, and 2.5 times that of the S-300PMU-2.

In April, Colonel-General Yury Solovyov, commander of the Air Defense Forces Special Command (former Moscow Military District Air Defense Command), said the system could also be used for limited purposes in missile and space defense, but that it is not intended to destroy intercontinental ballistic missiles. However, he said the system is highly capable of destroying stealth aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles with an effective range of up to 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles) and a speed of up to 4.8 kilometers (3 miles) per second. The Russian Air Defense Forces, which are part of the Air Force, currently deploy more than 30 regiments equipped with S-300 missile complexes, which will be gradually replaced with S-400 systems.

Link: http://news.monstersandcritics.com/i..._defend_Moscow

S-400 (video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xihae...elated&search=

More information about the S-400:

S-400 SA-20 Triumf

The Triumf S-400 is a new generation of air defense and theater anti-missile weapon developed by the Almaz Central Design Bureau as an evolution of the S-300PMU [SA-10] family. This new system is intended to detect and destroy airborne targets at a distance of up to 400 km (2- 2.5 times greater than the previous S-300PMU system). The Triumf system includes radars capable of detecting low-signature targets. And the anti-missile capability of the system has been increased to the limits established by the ABM Treaty demarcation agreements -- it can intercept targets with velocities of up to 4.8 km/sec, corresponding to a ballistic missile range of 3,500 km. The system was developed through the cooperation of the Almaz Central Design Bureau, Fakel Machine Building Design Bureau, Novosibirsk Scientific Research Institute of Instruments, St. Petersburg Design Bureau of Special Machine Building and other enterprises. The Fakel Machine Building Design Bureau has developed two new missiles for Triumf.

* The "big" missile [designation otherwise unknown] has a range of up to 400 km and will be able to engage "over- the-horizon [OTH]" targets using a new seeker head developed by Almaz Central Design Bureau. This seeker can operate in both a semiactive and active mode, with the seeker switched to a search mode on ground command and homing on targets independently. Targets for this missile include airborne early warning and control aircraft as well as jammers.

* The 9M96 missile is designed to destroy aircraft and air- delivered weapons at ranges in excess of 120 km. The missile is small-- considerably lighter than the ZUR 48N6Ye used in the S-300PMU1 systems and the Favorit. The missile is equipped with an active homing head and has an estimated single shot kill probability of 0.9 for manned aircraft and 0.8 for unmanned maneuvering aircraft. a gas-dynamic control system enables the 9M96 missile to maneuver at altitudes of up to 35 km at forces of over 20g, which permits engagment of non- strategic ballistic missiles. A mockup of the missile was set up at an Athens arms exhibition in October 1998. One 9M96 modification will become the basic long-range weapon of Air Force combat aircraft, and may become the standardized missile for air defense SAM systems, ship-launched air defense missile systems, and fighter aircraft.

These new missiles can be accomodated on the existing SAM system launchers of the S-300PMU family. A container with four 9M96's can be installed in place of one container with the 5V55 or 48N6 missiles, and thus the the standard launcher intended for four 48N6Ye missiles can accommodate up to 16 9M96Ye missiles. Triumf provides for the greatest possible continuity with systems of the S-300PMU family (PMU1, PMU2), making it possible to smoothly change over to the production of the new generation system. It will include the previous control complex, though supporting not six but eight SAM systems, as well as multifunctional radar systems illumination and guidance, launchers, and associated autonomous detection and target indication systems.

The state tests of the S-400 system reportedly began in 1999, with the initial test on 12 February 1999. As of May 1999 the testing of S-400 air defense system was reportedly nearing completion at Kapustin Yar, with the first systems of this kind to be delivered to the Moscow Air Force and Air Defense District in the fourth quarter of 1999. However, as of August 1999 government testing of the S-400 was slated to begin at the end of 1999, with the first system complex slated for delivery in late 2000. The sources of the apparent one-year delay in the program are unclear, though they may involve some combination of technical and financial problems with this program. Russian air defense troops conducted a test of the new anti-aircraft missile system S-400 on 07 April 2000. At that time, Air Force Commander Anatoly Kornukov said that serial production of the new system would begin in June 2000. Kornukov said air defense troops would get one S-400 launcher system by the end of 2000, but it would be armed with missiles of the available S-300 system.

On condition of normal funding, radars with an acquisition range of 500-600 km should become operational by 2002-2003. However, other sources report that while it was ordered by the Defence Ministry, the military has nothing to pay for it with, so it is unclear when the Russian military will get this new weapon. The Russian Air Force is studying a reduction in the number of types of air defense weapons, and it is possible that Triumf will become the only system being developed, providing defense both in the close-range and mid-range as well long-range zones.

Link: http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/airdef/s-400.htm

[Armenian]

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

Russia Tests Missiles, Says They're Unstoppable



By STEVE GUTTERMAN The Associated Press

MOSCOW - Russia on Tuesday tested new missiles that a Kremlin official boasted could penetrate any defense system, and President Vladimir Putin warned that U.S. plans for an antimissile shield in Europe would turn the region into a "powder keg." First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said Russia tested an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple independent warheads and successfully conducted a preliminary test of a tactical cruise missile that he said could fly farther than existing, similar weapons.

"As of today, Russia has new tactical and strategic complexes that are capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defense systems," Ivanov said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. "So in terms of defense and security, Russians can look calmly to the country's future." Ivanov is a former defense minister seen as a potential Kremlin favorite to succeed Putin next year. Both he and Putin repeatedly have said that Russia would continue to improve its nuclear arsenals and respond to U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic - NATO nations that were in Moscow's front yard during the Cold War as Warsaw Pact members. Russia has bristled at the missile shield plan, saying it would destroy the strategic balance in Europe and dismissing U.S. assertions that the system would be aimed at blocking attacks by Iran. "We consider it harmful and dangerous to turn Europe into a powder keg and to fill it with new kinds of weapons," Putin said at a news conference.

News source: http://www.tbo.com/news/nationworld/MGBE2LN8B2F.html