The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

[Mizzike]

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

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"The Azerbaijani foreign ministry voices strong protest in connection with the transfer of arms to Armenia and calls on Russia to take all necessary steps to avert the consequences," the ministry said in a statement.

[Federate]

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

Russia requests Azerbaijan for copy of document on armament delivery to Armenia
16.01.2009 14:33 GMT+04:00


/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Azerbaijani media reports on delivery of military hardware to Armenia were studied and turned out to be untrue, Russia’s Foreign Minister said.

“We have carried out an investigation. The man whose last name is mentioned in Azeri reports has never signed any documents,” Sergei Lavrov said when commenting on recent publication of a list of military hardware allegedly delivered to Armenia by Russia.

“We requested our Azeri counterpart to provide us with a copy of this document for an expertise,” he added.

At the same time, Mr. Lavrov emphasized that Russia implements military cooperation programs both with Armenia and Azerbaijan. “At that, Armenia, as a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, enjoys preferential terms, and Azerbaijan is well aware of this fact,” the Minister said, RIA Novosti reports.

http://www.panarmenian.net/news/eng/?nid=28209

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Russia Again Denies Arms Supplies To Armenia

By Emil Danielyan

Faced with continuing protests from Azerbaijan, Russia on Friday again denied Azerbaijani media claims that it supplied large quantities of military hardware and other weapons to Armenia last year.

An Azerbaijani news website published late last week a scanned copy of what it called a document certifying the transfer of the weapons that belonged to Russian troops stationed in Armenia.

The document, purportedly signed by a deputy commander of Russia’s North Caucasus Military District, contained a long list of armaments allegedly handed over to the Armenian military free of charge. Those included 21 battle tanks, 50 armored vehicles, as well as more than 40 artillery systems and 4,000 automatic rifles along with ammunition for them.

The Russian Defense Ministry denied the report on Wednesday after Baku demanded an explanation from Russia’s ambassador to Azerbaijan. But that did not stop the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry from expressing “strong protest in connection with the transfer of arms to Armenia” the next day.

“The person whose name was mentioned by mass media did not sign any documents, and no deliveries were carried out,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov insisted at a news conference on Friday. Russian news agencies quoted him as saying that he will reiterate these assurances during his upcoming visit to Baku.

Lavrov noted at the same time that as a member of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Armenia is entitled to receiving Russian weapons at cut-down prices. “Armenia is a member of the CSTO and enjoys more privileged terms,” he said. “Our Azerbaijani colleagues are aware of that and have no questions.”

http://www.armenialiberty.org/armeniareport/report/en/2009/01/F59FEC4E-B745-4010-8245-B7E965598396.ASP

[Armenian]

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

One of the greatest statesmen of modern history speaks.

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Sergey Lavrov Sums up the Year 2008

FM Sergey Lavrov sums up the year 2008, P1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6rTsUgaNHw

"Not simple, and at times – dramatic” – Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sums up the year 2008 at a news conference on the results of Russian foreign policy. "The world entered the year 2009 accompanied by the combat operation in the Gaza Strip and with artificially created problems of gas supply to Europe," Sergey Lavrov said on Friday. He stressed that the world problems nowadays cannot be settled through the use of force or illegal methods, adding that "there should be no room for national egoism."

Russia - US relations

The minister expressed hope for changes for the better in Russia–U.S. relations once Barack Obama’s administration comes into power. "We are certainly ready for any scenario,” he said. “But, like a large number of other countries, we have serious hopes that changes for the better will take place in the policy of the United States, including Washington's policy in the international arena." "We are prepared for such changes and hope for close cooperation," the Foreign Minister added. Lavrov expressed hope that the new U.S. administration will not see the inclusion of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO as a priority. The Russian minister said that tackling the financial crisis will probably be more important for the United States than the geopolitical project that would “undermine stability” and “create tension” in the area. He said that he believes Russia and the U.S. need an agenda that would unite them, rather than divide.

Caucasus concerns

The Russian minister has also touched upon the situation with Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, stressing that Georgia should fulfill its obligations in accordance with the plan by Medvedev and Sarkozy. He expressed Russia’s concern at the buildup of Georgian forces near its borders with the South Ossetia and Abkhazia. "EU monitors working in areas adjacent to South Ossetia and Abkhazia have been reporting a buildup of Georgian military units and special forces near the borders with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and our 'technical devices' have also recorded this,” he said. Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow insists on the criminal prosecution of those “responsible for giving orders to attack Tskhinval.” “I can assure you that we are not forgetting this subject," he stressed. Lavrov has also stressed that the recognition of Kosovo’s independence is drastically different from that of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. "In Kosovo’s case Belgrade never violated resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council accepted by the sides of the conflict, while Tbilisi constantly violated its obligations on peace agreements accepted after its failed attempt to conquer South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the early 90s," Sergey Lavrov said. He closely watches the situation in the Caucasus and receives daily reports on the region. The minister also noted that both Russia and international monitoring bodies are seeing increasing numbers of Georgian troops on the borders with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and that it’s an alarming sign. The Russian minister has urged OSCE presence in the South Ossetia, saying that Russia will support it.

Russia-Ukraine gas conflict

In regards to the longest gas supply crisis in history, Sergey Lavrov said that moving towards market principles in foreign policy is a healthy tendency that “will make the basis for real collaboration stronger and will make integration processes more effective”. Russia’s foreign policy is based on legitimate interests. The country wants to collaborate with others without confrontations and on an international legal basis, and also on market principles, he added. “This also concerns the problem that was created by Ukraine in supplying gas to Europe. The President and Prime Minister are doing everything possible to find a way out of this situation with gas supplies to Europe and with absolute respect to the existing agreements and contracts. Most western partners understand well that Russia today has clear foreign policy based on clear interests, legitimate interests.” “Everyone wanted market relations, now we live with market relations, and need to play according to the rules of the market,” he noted. Russia hopes that all parties interested in the resolution of the current gas conflict will take part in the ‘gas summit’ planned for January 17 in Moscow. Members of the European Union and other countries affected by the shut-off, like Serbia, are invited. When asked about alternative routes to deliver Russian gas to European consumers, Lavrov said the pipeline projects South Stream and North Stream will be finished in due time, and no financial crisis will interrupt the construction.

Russia in Iraq

Russia’s presence in Iraq was also discussed. Currently there are a number of contracts including those of oil extraction in West Qurna Phase 2. “We are constantly in touch with Iraqi authorities. Our business circles, foreign ministry delegations and other ministries’ representatives visit Iraq regularly”, the minister said. “We see there’s a mutual interest with our Iraqi partners to develop trade and economic collaboration. We want the contracts signed with our companies to be respected.” Russia and Iraq have a long history of collaboration, and not just in economic terms. From the Soviet times Iraqi specialists received higher education in Russian universities.

Source: http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/35988

[Armenian]

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

Russia has no alternative to Sevastopol base - naval experts

Establishing naval facilities in foreign countries will not replace Russia's Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol, former fleet commanders said on Tuesday. Russian media recently reported that Russia was planning to set up naval facilities in Yemen (Socotra), Syria (Tartus), Libya (Tripoli), Vietnam (Cam Ranh), among other countries, in the next few years as an alternative to the Sevastopol base in Ukraine's Crimea. "Even 10 Tartuses or Cam Rahns can't replace Sevastopol for the Russian Navy," said Adm. Viktor Kravchenko, commander of the Black Sea Fleet in 1996-1998. Russia's Black Sea Fleet uses a range of naval facilities in Ukraine's Crimea, including the main base in Sevastopol, as part of a 1997 agreement, under which Ukraine agreed to lease the bases to Russia until 2017. Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko announced in the summer that Ukraine would not extend the lease of the Sevastopol base beyond 2017, and urged the Russian fleet to start preparations for a withdrawal.

Although the agreement for Russia's use of the base includes a possible extension of the lease, with Moscow repeatedly saying it wants to negotiate on the issue, Ukraine reiterated in October that it would not permit an extension of Russia's naval presence in the country after 2017. "Sevastopol is a unique Russian base, which includes the entire infrastructure: piers, ammunition depots, food stores, roads, maintenance facilities, airstrips, etc," Kravchenko said. At the same time, the admiral emphasized the importance of the network of Russian naval bases around the world, including in the Mediterranean, for the quick deployment of the Russian Navy in urgent situations. Adm. Igor Kasatonov, commander of the Black Sea Fleet in 1991-1992, said the Mediterranean had always been an important region for Russia because it provides easy access to the Indian Ocean through the Suez Canal and to the Atlantic through Gibraltar. "In this respect, bases in Syria can largely expand the capabilities and combat effectiveness of the Russian Navy. However, the facilities at Tartus, for example, will never be able to replace Sevastopol," the admiral said. The Soviet-era Navy maintenance site near Tartus in Syria is the only Russian foothold in the Mediterranean.

Russian media reports have suggested the facility could be turned into a base for the country's Black Sea Fleet, which could lose its current main base in Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula in 2017. About 50 naval personnel and three floating piers are reportedly deployed at the Tartus site, which can accommodate up to a dozen warships, and Russia is expanding the port and building a pier in nearby Latakia. Meanwhile, the deputy chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces said last week that it was too soon to name any countries where the Russian Navy would like to deploy "basing points," but confirmed that the General Staff had backed the Navy command's proposal to develop naval infrastructure outside Russia. "At this stage it is too early to talk about the geographic location of the basing points. Negotiations are under way with the governments of the countries in question. Any premature disclosure could have a negative impact on the course of these negotiations," Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn said.

Source: http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090120/119711396.html

[Armenian]

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

Spring cleaning has begun early in Russia.

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More Moscow Murder - Two critics of Vladimir Putin take bullets in the head

ANOTHER RUSSIAN fighting for human rights and the rule of law has been murdered in Vladimir Putin's Moscow. Stanislav Markelov, a lawyer who defended Chechens brutalized by Russian troops and journalists who wrote about the abuses, was shot in the head yesterday by a masked man carrying a silencer-equipped pistol. An opposition journalist who tried to intervene, Anastasia Baburova, was also fatally shot in the head. This occurred in broad daylight, on a busy street in central Moscow less than half a mile from the Kremlin. It was another demonstration that assassinations are a dominating feature of political life under Mr. Putin's regime. Mr. Markelov, 34, was killed just after holding a news conference. In recent days, he had been fighting against the early release from prison of a Russian colonel who had been convicted of brutally murdering a Chechen woman. The officer, Yuri Budanov, has become a symbol for many of Russia's gross violations of human rights in Chechnya, since he was one of the few officers ever held accountable. Mr. Budanov's release a year before the end of his sentence prompted protest demonstrations in Chechnya; Mr. Markelov pointed out that Mr. Budanov's release contrasted sharply with the treatment of nonviolent political prisoners such as former Yukos oil executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was denied parole. The larger story here is of serial murders of Mr. Putin's opponents, at home and abroad. Ms. Baburova, 25, is at least the 15th journalist to be slain since Mr. Putin took power. No one has been held accountable in any of the cases -- including that of Anna Politkovskaya, a former client of Mr. Markelov who also was murdered execution-style in broad daylight, on Mr. Putin's birthday in 2006. In London, dissident former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned; so was Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who survived. Karina Moskalenko, another opposition lawyer who has represented Ms. Politkovkaya's family, fell ill from mercury poisoning in Strasbourg, France, in October, just before a hearing in the case. Last week in Vienna, a Chechen dissident who had received political asylum was murdered on the street -- shot twice in the head. It is possible that Mr. Putin and his security services had nothing to do with any of these murders. But it is a fact that the Russian leader has not pressed for justice; on the contrary, he has protected the suspects identified by Scotland Yard in the Litvinenko case. What is indisputable is that Russians live in a political climate in which those who criticize Mr. Putin or the human rights violations of his government can be murdered with impunity. Although some of the killings have occurred in their cities, Western governments have made no attempt to hold Mr. Putin or the Russian government accountable. Their silence helps keep brazen murder a part of Russia's politics.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...011902604.html

Critic of Chechen President Is Killed in Exile in Vienna

A Chechen who had formally accused the president of Chechnya of participating in kidnappings and torture sessions was fatally shot Tuesday as he walked out of a grocery store in Vienna, according to his lawyer and family friends. The shooting appeared to be another politically motivated killing of a Russian citizen who had criticized government conduct. The slain man, Umar S. Israilov, 27, had been detained as a separatist rebel, then was given amnesty, and briefly became a bodyguard to President Ramzan A. Kadyrov of Chechnya. He ultimately fled Chechnya for Europe. In late 2006, Mr. Israilov filed a complaint against Russia in the European Court of Human Rights that detailed his claims of the systematic use of abductions and torture by Mr. Kadyrov, and indigenous security forces under Mr. Kadyrov’s command, to punish suspected insurgents and their families. The complaint covered events from 2003 through 2005, when Mr. Kadyrov led a state-sponsored militia and became the republic’s deputy prime minister. It included Mr. Israilov’s experiences as one of Mr. Kadyrov’s victims and later as a witness to what he said were Mr. Kadyrov’s crimes against others.

In an interview with The New York Times last fall, Mr. Israilov described several of the allegations, including the beating and kicking of detainees by Mr. Kadyrov and his fighters, the rape of a detainee by one of Mr. Kadyrov’s subordinates, and Mr. Kadyrov’s use of a device that delivered electric shocks to prisoners. Mr. Israilov said Mr. Kadyrov had used the electrical device on him, turning a hand-crank to deliver an excruciating charge. “It feels as if all of your muscles are going to explode,” he said. “It was as if you were being torn apart.” After Mr. Israilov fled Russia, his father was abducted, tortured by Mr. Kadyrov and held illegally for more than 10 months, in an effort to force the son to return home, according to both victims and a human rights worker who investigated the case. Mr. Israilov’s father, who has received asylum in another European country, planned to travel to Vienna this week to arrange his son’s funeral, a friend of the family’s said by telephone.

The news of Mr. Israilov’s killing became public late Tuesday night in Russia. Mr. Kadyrov’s spokesmen could not be reached. Mr. Kadyrov has long been accused of human rights abuses and of ruling Chechnya through patterns of organized sadism and fear. He has always vehemently denied the accusations. As the allegations have mounted over the years, his rise to power has been nurtured by the Kremlin. He has remained closely associated with Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who in 2004, as president, awarded him the Hero of Russia medal, the nation’s highest honor. Mr. Israilov’s complaint presented one of the first formal challenges in Europe to Mr. Kadyrov’s official stature in Russia and raised implicit questions about his privileged place in Mr. Putin’s circle.

Mr. Israilov had been granted asylum by Austria, but his life there had been filled with worries about his safety. In the interview last fall, he said he limited his movements and contacts with strangers after an emissary from Mr. Kadyrov visited Austria and tried to dupe him into returning home. “Ramzan is a very powerful man,” Mr. Israilov said, “and he can have anyone killed.” Nadja Lorenz, his lawyer in Vienna, said by telephone that she had recently sought protection for Mr. Israilov from the Austrian authorities, but that the request had been denied. A family friend of Mr. Israilov’s gave this account of his killing: He was ambushed at lunchtime on Tuesday near his apartment as he left a grocery store where he had stopped to buy yogurt. At least four men in two cars were waiting for him. Mr. Israilov tried to run away but was quickly overtaken and shot. The family friend, out of fear for his own safety, asked that his name be withheld.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/wo...html?ref=world

[Armanen]

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

Russia has no alternative to Sevastopol base

What about the naval base in Abkhazia? That seems like a better long term bet, although I'm sure official Moscow would like to keep both for obvious reasons.

[Armenian]

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

What about the naval base in Abkhazia? That seems like a better long term bet, although I'm sure official Moscow would like to keep both for obvious reasons.

The obvious point of the article is that Crimea is way too important for Russia to lose. The naval base at Sevastopol is strategically better positioned to impact Ukraine and other eastern European nations. Moreover, the naval base in Sevastopol is vast and fully developed. It would require billions of dollars to bring the naval base in Sukhumi Abkhazia to the level of Sevastopol.

[Armanen]

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

The obvious point of the article is that Crimea is way too important for Russia to lose. The naval base at Sevastopol is strategically better positioned to impact Ukraine and other eastern European nations. Moreover, the naval base in Sevastopol is vast and fully developed. It would require billions of dollars to bring the naval base in Sukhumi Abkhazia to the level of Sevastopol.

I realize the historic and strategic importance of Sevastopol. However, there are alternatives to it, such as the base in Sukhumi and although Moscow has big plans for the future in regards to keeping ukraine under check, they should also consider the fact that things may not go their way. Russia needs a strong presence in the Black Sea, losing Sevastopol wouldn't be good at all, but the fact that they at least will have Sukhumi plus the bases on Russian Black Sea coast should give them some breathing room.

The more interesting issue for me is how soon will Russia have naval bases in Latin America, Asia and the eastern Mediterranean. Also what country in Latin America, Cuba or Venezuela.

[Azad]

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

Moreover, the naval base in Sevastopol is vast and fully developed. It would require billions of dollars to bring the naval base in Sukhumi Abkhazia to the level of Sevastopol.

Russia is building its naval bases outside the Bosporus entrapment.

[Armenian]

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

Russia is building its naval bases outside the Bosporus entrapment.

Yes, but that does not mean Moscow will be willing to give up the Crimea.