The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

[Armenian]

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

Russia Test-Fires Ballistic Missile 6,700 Kilometers to Pacific

Russia successfully fired its newest intercontinental ballistic missile from a submarine located in the White Sea to a target on the Pacific coast 6,700 kilometers (4,200 miles) away, the military said. The Bulava missile was fired from the Dmitry Donskoi submarine at 6:45 p.m. and struck the Kura range on the Kamchatka Peninsula at 7:05 p.m. Moscow time yesterday, state television said. "Initial data indicates the missile performed according to plan,'' it cited the Defense Ministry as saying. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said Russia can produce missiles capable of piercing any defenses. Yesterday's test of the Bulava, which has an estimated maximum range of 8,000 kilometers, comes as the country upgrades its rocket forces to counter a planned U.S. anti-missile shield in eastern Europe. Russia rejects the Bush administration's assertion that the system is aimed at defending Europe from a nuclear-armed Iran and sees it as part of a plan to isolate the country that began with NATO's expansion. Ties with the U.S. were further strained when Russia sent warplanes and troops into Georgia last month in its biggest foreign military operation since the Cold War. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned in a speech yesterday that Russia had taken a "dark turn'' characterized by authoritarianism at home and aggression abroad and called for U.S. and European unity to meet the challenge.

`Paranoid, Aggressive'

The "paranoid, aggressive impulse, which has manifested itself before in Russian history, to view the emergence of free and independent democratic neighbors'' not as a source of security but as a source of threat, has re-emerged, she said. Rice rejected suggestions that the West provoked Russia by pledging in April that Georgia and Ukraine would ultimately be admitted to NATO. Russia's behavior "cannot be blamed on NATO enlargement,'' she said. NATO has transformed itself from a Cold War alliance in a divided Europe to "a means for nurturing the growth of a Europe whole, free and at peace, and for confronting dangers, like terrorism, that also threaten Russia,'' she said. Russia's invasion followed a Georgian attack on the Russia- backed breakaway region of South Ossetia. The government in Moscow said last week it will boost defense spending by 26 percent to a post-Soviet record 1.28 trillion rubles ($50 billion). Funding will be directed toward its Topol intercontinental ballistic missile program, upgrading nuclear-weapons-equipped Tu-160 bombers and completing the Borei-class submarine Yuriy Dolgoruky, said Andrei Frolov, a defense specialist at the Moscow-based Center for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies. Russia says the U.S. anti-missile shield, comprising a radar installation in the Czech Republic and interceptors in Poland, is designed to undermine its nuclear deterrent. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization expanded to Russia's borders when the former Soviet republics of Estonia and Latvia joined the alliance in 2004. Past tests of the Bulava, designed for a new generation of nuclear submarines, have had mixed success, with three failing in 2006 and one in 2005.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...tUM&refer=home

[North Pole]

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

Bloodied, but unbowed

Sep 18th 2008
From The Economist:

Desperate for international aid, hurricane-torn Cuba turns down any relief from its old foe, the United States

Gustav and Ike woz here“NEVER in the history of Cuba have we had a case like this,” President Raúl Castro lamented after two powerful hurricanes, barely a week apart, struck the island, severely damaging crops and leaving some 200,000 homeless. Miraculously, Havana, the capital, was left virtually unscathed, as were the main tourist resorts, the oil industry and nickel mining. But with estimated losses of $5 billion, one of the world’s last communist regimes is facing a daunting task.

In the aftermath of the storms, Cuba’s main allies leapt to the rescue. Russia sent four large cargo planes carrying 200 tonnes of relief supplies. Brazil and Spain sent smaller shipments. Venezuela is expected to make a big contribution, though details are not yet known.

But not even hurricanes of this ferocity could break down the lack of trust between Cuba and its old foe, the United States. Instead, the two have plunged into yet another round of political argy-bargy. The Bush administration offered Cuba $100,000 in immediate relief aid, later raised to $5m, but Mr Castro turned it down, demanding instead that America lift its trade embargo to enable it to buy urgently needed reconstruction materials. (In neighbouring Haiti by contrast, where the storm damage was worse, the United States promptly dispatched a helicopter-laden warship to help relief efforts, as well as pledging $19.5m in aid.)

In Havana, food markets are already running out of supplies and prices have shot up. Although some Miami-based Cubans may be eagerly anticipating anti-government protests, analysts do not consider this is on the cards—unless the government bungles the relief effort. “It’s rather unlikely that sweating and starving Cubans go rioting in the streets, even less so against a government that has been effective in disaster preparation and response,” said Johannes Werner, editor of Cuba Trade and Investment News. “Cubans have a track record of coming out stronger in far worse situations,” he noted.

http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12262213&fsrc=rss

1 week ago: Workers unload humanitarian aid from a Russian plane in Havana September 5, 2008.
Russia, Cuba's former Cold War ally, flew in four planeloads of tents, electric cables and glass panels as part of the international help flowing into the island working to recover from devastating Hurricane Gustav.

1 week ago: Russian crew members unload wooden boxes containing glass panels from a cargo plane after landing in Havana September 5, 2008.

[Angessa]

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

I think Russia should do a mass tourism campaign for English nations to promote Russia in a better light.( or least I do know of any if they did?). In the style of this one for Kazan, Russia but for the entire nation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIClcVQ_meQ

[jgk3]

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

wow, what a way to make Kazan sound like a land of masters and of understanding. I know that the Tatars and the Russians get along there, but they really wanted to extrapolate this with the video as some miraculous accomplishment between East and West!

Oh well, their point was to give the idea to visit Kazan, something that I would like to do myself, so kudoos to the video for reminding me :P

[Anoush]

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

I think Russia should do a mass tourism campaign for English nations to promote Russia in a better light.( or least I do know of any if they did?). In the style of this one for Kazan, Russia but for the entire nation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIClcVQ_meQ

Also create another Hollywood to get their real messages across the entire world.

[Armenian]

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

I think Russia should do a mass tourism campaign for English nations to promote Russia in a better light.( or least I do know of any if they did?). In the style of this one for Kazan, Russia but for the entire nation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIClcVQ_meQ

Angessa, videos like this worry me about Russia's future. As long as there are large numbers of Muslims and Tatars (Turks) in Russia there will be a potential for future problems. Look closely at your history. The West took advantage of the socialist movement in the turn of the last century to create Bolshevism as a means to undermine Russian power. In the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse, the West took advantage of the Caucasus region's Muslim population to create militant Islam to undermine the newly created Russian Federation. With Russia regaining its strenght, the West will again try to destabilize Russia from within. Therefore, Muslims, Jews and Tatars in Russia are ideal for this agenda. Russia's non-Christian population will always be a breeding ground for anti-Russian activity.

This report came out in the reputable New York Times couple of weeks ago:

Russia’s Recognition of Georgian Areas Raises Hopes of Its Own Separatists

Tatarstan is a long way from South Ossetia. While South Ossetia is a poor border region of Georgia battered by war, Tatarstan is an economic powerhouse in the heart of Russia, boasting both oil reserves and the political stability that is catnip to investors. But the two places have one thing in common: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, both have given rise to separatist movements. And when President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia formally recognized the breakaway areas of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent nations two weeks ago, activists in Kazan, the Tatar capital, took notice.

An association of nationalist groups, the All-Tatar Civic Center, swiftly published an appeal that “for the first time in recent history, Russia has recognized the state independence of its own citizens” and expressed the devout wish that Tatarstan would be next. The declaration was far-fetched, its authors knew: One of Vladimir V. Putin’s signal achievements as Mr. Medvedev’s predecessor was to suppress separatism. The Tatar movement was at its lowest ebb in 20 years. But Moscow’s decision to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia made Tatarstan’s cause seem, as Raxxxx Akhmetov put it, “not hopeless.” Mr. Akhmetov, editor in chief of Zvezda Povolzhya, an opposition newspaper in Kazan, said, “Russia has lost the moral right not to recognize us.”

Mr. Medvedev’s decision to formally recognize the two disputed areas in Georgia — an option long debated in Moscow’s foreign policy circles — has had far-reaching consequences. Most immediately, it has deepened the rift between Russia and its erstwhile negotiating partners in the West. But some also see Moscow departing from its longstanding insistence on territorial integrity, leaving an opening for ethnic groups within its borders to demand autonomy or independence. “In the long term, they could have signed their own death warrant,” said Lawrence Scott Sheets, the Caucasus program director for the International Crisis Group, an independent organization that tries to prevent and resolve global conflicts. “It’s an abstraction now, but 20 years down the road, it won’t be such an abstraction.”

Moscow’s position is that South Ossetia and Abkhazia were extreme situations, in which decisions were driven by the threat to the lives of its citizens. Russian troops poured across the border early in August, after Georgian forces attacked civilian areas in the city of Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, with rocket and artillery fire. The attack made it “completely impossible” to conceive of South Ossetia returning to Georgian control, said Dmitri S. Peskov, a spokesman for Mr. Putin, now Russia’s prime minister. Mr. Peskov said Russia stood firmly behind the principle of territorial integrity and saw no major separatist movements within its borders. “We do have some separatist movements, some extremist elements, especially in the northern Caucasus, but they are very minor,” he said. “These are very fragmented and very small groups.” He added that the circumstances of South Ossetia and Abkhazia belonged in a “totally different category.”

The picture looked very different before Mr. Putin took office. In the 1990s, President Boris N. Yeltsin urged regional leaders to “take as much sovereignty as you can swallow.” Movements toward self-rule were taking hold in some of Russia’s most valuable territory: in Tatarstan, home not only to an oil industry but also to a major truck factory and an aircraft plant; in Bashkiria, a major source of natural gas; in Komi, a northern province that produces coal. All this came to a halt in Chechnya, an oil-rich patch of land in the north Caucasus. Chechnya was the only region to declare independence outright. In 1994, Russia sent troops into Chechnya, and two years of fighting left tens of thousands dead. In 1999, amid a crescendo of violence throughout the north Caucasus, Mr. Putin, then the prime minister, oversaw a second war that obliterated the Chechen rebel movement

The message from Moscow — empowered and newly rich with petrodollars — was clear. “Russia has shown the inhuman price it will pay to preserve its territorial integrity,” said Sergei A. Karaganov, a political scientist who leads the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy. “The fighting in Chechnya was not just against the Chechen rebels, it was against movements all around.” In fact, the threat of separatism has largely faded from the Russian landscape, and Mr. Putin has granted enough freedom to quiet internal opposition in many of Russia’s trouble spots. Even in the north Caucasus, one of Russia’s most volatile regions, the government now helps Muslims with visas and airfare to go on the pilgrimage to Mecca, the hajj. At the same time, Mr. Putin greatly strengthened his executive power, abolishing the direct election of governors in 2004. Handpicked bosses improved local economies and clamped down harshly on opposition groups.

Tatarstan was a case in point. Tatars still commemorate the day in 1552 when Kazan fell to Ivan the Terrible, absorbing their country into Holy Russia. When Mr. Yeltsin encouraged regions to assume sovereignty, Tatarstan complied with gusto, adopting its own taxes and license plates. Gleaming new mosques competed with Kazan’s onion domes, and ethnic Tatars, who made up 48 percent of the population to the Russians’ 43 percent, opened their own schools. The Tatar Parliament declared that local conscripts could not fight outside the Volga region. When Mr. Putin eliminated regional elections, the Tatar president, Mintimer Shaimiyev, protested vociferously, calling the plan a “forced and painful measure.” But in the years that followed, Mr. Akhmetov, the editor of the opposition newspaper in Kazan, saw prospects for autonomy drop to a new low.

“We understood that our president could be removed at any time, within 24 hours,” Mr. Akhmetov said. But Mr. Medvedev’s decision to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia, he said, “created a precedent, kind of a guideline” for gaining independence. Moscow is confident that it wields strict control over politics in the outlying regions, he said, but that could change in 10 or 20 years. “The seeds of self-destruction are built into the authoritarian system,” Mr. Akhmetov said. “It’s Moscow’s mistake.” A similar stirring came out of Bashkortostan, a major petrochemical center where ethnic Bashkirs make up about 30 percent of the population. A small organization called Kuk Bure, which has pushed for the Bashkir language to be required in public schools, issued a manifesto accusing Moscow of “double standards” for championing ethnic groups like the Abkhaz and Ossetians while ignoring their platform.

“The time has come to ask each federal official — and they have multiplied by the thousands in Bashkortostan in recent years — ‘What are you doing for the Bashkir people?’ ” said the statement, which was posted on the group’s Web site. Timur Mukhtarov, a lawyer and one of the movement’s co-founders, said the group’s mission stopped far short of independence. Though some may discuss that notion in private, laws against extremism have made it dangerous to espouse publicly. At 31, he feels some nostalgia for the Yeltsin years, a time of “more chaos, but less fear.” The Russian stand for self-determination in Georgia may not change Moscow’s attitude toward Bashkortostan, he said, “but at least it gives us something to discuss.”

Russia’s act could also stir movements in the northwest Caucasus, where a number of groups called for autonomy or separation in the early 1990s, said Charles King, a professor of international affairs and government at Georgetown University. Those calls had gone quiet since Mr. Putin took power. But few people have watched events in Abkhazia more closely than their ethnic kin, the Circassians. Many Circassians still live in Russia, in the republics of Kabardino-Balkariya, Karachayevo-Cherkesiya and Adygeya; the vast majority live outside Russia yet look back at the Caucasus as their homeland. “They’re ecstatic,” said Professor King, author of “The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus.” “Their cousins have gotten independence. They see this as something quite big, that could have real implications for Russia.“

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/wo...html?ref=world

[Armenian]

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

Stratfor thinks Ankara's recent maneuverings in the Caucasus, including Gul's Yerevan appearance, was done independent of Moscow. The "analysis" contains a lot of improbable presumptions. I don't buy it.

*******************************

Russia, Turkey: A Reduction in Tensions

Summary

Events have indicated that Moscow has decided to take a softer approach with Turkey. Whether this works depends on how much Russia is willing to concede to the Turks in the Caucasus, and how much patience Turkey has for further Russian moves against the West.

Analysis

Recent developments suggest the Russians have at least temporarily decided to go easy on the Turks. How long this cooling down of tensions will last will depend on how much tolerance Ankara has for further Russian aggression. The Aug. 8 Russian invasion of Georgia naturally precipitated a standoff between the Russians and the Turks. Turkey, a NATO member with a historic foothold in the Caucasus, was not happy to see the Russians taking aggressive action in the region — especially action that cut off the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and hurt Turkish energy revenues. The Turks reminded Moscow of the risks of angering Ankara by permitting a NATO naval buildup in the Black Sea in late August. The Russians promptly responded by holding up a large amount of Turkish goods at various Russian border checkpoints to put the squeeze on Turkish exports. But as Stratfor pointed out, the Russians were playing a very risky game in provoking Turkey. As the gatekeeper to the Black Sea, Turkey is NATO’s key to cutting to the Russian underbelly with the Western alliance’s superior naval forces.

The Turks have recently gone on a diplomatic frenzy to reassert their influence in the Caucasus and undermine Russian power in the region, even going so far as to engage longtime foe Armenia. In the Middle East, the Turks are just as busy talking to the Iranians and keeping the Syrians close to keep the Russians from meddling too close to Turkey. Turkey still has a range of options — from restricting Russian disruptions of the transport of Russian energy through the Black Sea to riling up ethnic minorities in the Russian Federation — at its disposal should the Russians push Ankara too far. And so it appears the Russians have chosen to placate the Turks for the time being. Two recent developments point in this direction. First, the previously mentioned trade spat between Turkey and Russia reportedly was resolved Sept. 18. According to Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Hayati Yazici, Turkey and Russia signed a protocol bringing an end to the “customs crisis.” Second, Turkish newspapers reported Sept. 19 that Ankara and Moscow have signed a $100 million agreement for 800 anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs). For years a crucial Cold War ally of Washington, Turkey has a military heavily outfitted with U.S. — and to a lesser extent Western European — hardware. The international ATGM market is fairly broad, and Ankara’s more traditional suppliers also have late-model ATGMs available for sale. In other words, there is no clear military need for Turkey to get these ATGMs from the Russians. While the deal is not unprecedented (the Turks field a great many Russian-built BTR-80 wheeled armored personnel carriers), it is somewhat anomalous for Turkey to be signing big defense deals with Russia against this revived Cold War backdrop. It is not yet clear which ATGM the Russian arms monopoly Rosoboronexport will deliver to the Turks, but Moscow does offer an ATGM system for the Russian-built BTR series. If that system proves to be the one just purchased, it would make Russia the logical choice — if not the only eligible supplier.

But at this point, given what we know, this is another instance in which all obstacles seemed to have suddenly melted away. Above all else, we notice the timing of this arms deal. While it appears that Turkey is entertaining Russian offers for cooperation, this apparent respite could prove to be short-lived, depending on Russia’s next moves. With hints of the Russians already making moves in the Middle East through covert activity in Lebanon and talk of arms deals to the Iranians, the Turks (along with the Israelis) are on guard. Moreover, the Europeans are quite intentionally playing up the idea that Turkey is central to NATO strategy against Russia, and that Turkish-European relations must be protected at all costs.

For Turkey to take any big steps in smoothing over things with Russia, it will expect Moscow to cede significant influence to the Turks in the Caucasus. This is particularly true in Azerbaijan, where Turkey’s foothold is the strongest and where it can access Caspian Sea energy reserves. For Turkey to have direct access to Azerbaijan, it must bring Armenia under its wing. From the Russian point of view, however, this could prove to be a nonnegotiable point. As much as the Russians do not wish to get drawn into a geopolitical battle with the Turks, Moscow has a strategic need to consolidate its influence in the Caucasus. Turkey will have a difficult balancing act to play in the coming weeks and months, as conflicts will inevitably arise between its commitment to NATO and its separate dealings with Russia (Turkey’s largest trading partner). Russia, meanwhile, will carefully weigh the risks of offending Ankara as it plans its next moves against the West.

Source: http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/200...ction_tensions

[Lucin]

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

Stratfor thinks Ankara's recent maneuverings in the Caucasus, including Gul's Yerevan appearance, was done independent of Moscow. The "analysis" contains a lot of improbable presumptions. I don't buy it.

It's interesting. It's a completely different perspective placing Turkey in the position of strength and dictating its will to Russia. I don't buy it either. If they wanted to "reassert their influence" in the region and engage Armenia then why did Armenia make the first move by inviting Gul (and doing it repeatedly) to Yerevan rather than the opposite? An invitation which was accepted with some reservation.

[Armanen]

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

I don't agree with the central premise of the article either.

The article claims turkey has been actively talking with syria and Iran, as if either of these two would pick turkey over Russia, and the very fact that Iran is not included in the new stability platform only goes to show that Tehran and ankara are still regional rivals. Plus, the original zionist state would never get too close with Iran as long as their masters in washington/tel aviv have a problem with official Tehran. The article goes on to say that turkey is "on guard" because of possible weapons transfers to Iran so basically all the talk (with Iran) they mention earlier in the article hasn't changed anything.

Second, as Lucin mentioned, the article completely glides over Sargsyan's initial invitation, and treats it as if the turks were the original iniators, when it seems more likely that it was Russia.

Further, the article claims turkey could rile up tensions in the Russian parts of the Caucasus, true, but Russia has ethnic cards to play as well inside turkey, not only with kurds but laz, Assyrians and some others.
About the only thing I agree with the article is that Russia will not agree to lose influence over Armenia in order to placate the turks.

Poor "analysis" from stratfor.

[Armenian]

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

Putting aside many of the serious obstacles that exists in developing better relations between Armenia and Turkey, the other flaw in the analysis was the strange suggestion that while Turkey is on one side of the political fence and Russia the other, Turkey is attempting to win over... Armenia? Does the analysis take Armenia's close partnership with Russia into consideration, or the simple fact that Moscow more-or-less controls politics in Yerevan? This goes to show you that so-called "experts" and "political analysts" more often than not talk out their asses.