The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

[Armenian]

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

The one thing that more-or-less remained constant in Russia after the Soviet collapse was the relative high status enjoyed by the scientific community there, particularly its ballistic missile technology and its aerospace industry. Through good times and bad, the space station "Mir" has become a legendary symbol of Russia's resilient scientific/research field. The space station Mir remains an international center for space exploration as the Russian Federation remains a leader in aerospace engineering. And this comes at a time when the US space agency has suffered series of setbacks and has found itself at times relying on Russian expertize. What's more, anyone with any exposure to the scientific/research fields within the US realizes that a majority of its scientists are in fact imported labor from various nations. Scientists and technicians from former Soviet nations as well as China and India figure prominently within various technological fields within the US. For instance, US based Boeing, one of the largest aerospace and defense corporations in the world, relies to some extent now on Russian knowhow. Nevertheless, one of the amusing things that I have noticed during the last several years has been the curious trend in the West of calling Russia's space station Mir the - International - Space Station.

Armenian

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Russia aims for the Moon, then Mars


(International Space Station "Mir" in Orbit)

Russia plans to send a manned mission to the Moon by 2025, 57 years after Nasa’s Apollo mission in 1968 - and wants to build a permanent base there. Anatoly Perminov, head of the Russian space agency Roskosmos, said that an “inhabited station” could be built between 2027 and 2032. Russia intended to complete construction of its section of the International Space Station by 2015 so that the ISS “becomes a fully fledged space research centre,” he added. Mr Perminov pointed out that Russia’s space programme receives less than 10 per cent of the funding the US receives, yet retains great ambitions. An expedition to Mars remained a long-term ambition for Roskosmos, which hoped to send manned flights there after 2035, he said. However, many difficulties linked to the planet’s extreme physical conditions remain unresolved. “Current spacecraft do not provide the protection needed for the crew to survive and return to Earth,” he said. (AFP)

Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle2364434.ece

Russia plans manned Moon mission by 2025

MOSCOW (AFP)

Russia plans to send a manned mission to the Moon by 2025 and wants to build a permanent base there shortly after, the head of Russian space agency Roskosmos said Friday. "According to our estimates we will be ready for a manned flight to the Moon in 2025," Anatoly Perminov told reporters. An "inhabited station" could be built there between 2027 and 2032, he said. The only moon landing in history is NASA's Apollo expedition in 1968. Laying out Roskmosmos' plans for the next three decades, Perminov said that Russia's space programme receives less than 10 percent the funding the US programme receives, yet retains great ambitions. Russia intends to complete construction of its section of the International Space Station by 2015 so that the ISS "becomes a fully-fledged space research centre," he said. "Major modernisation" will also be carried out to the Soyuz craft used to ferry people and cargo to the space station. An expedition to Mars remains a long-term ambition for Roskosmos, which hopes to mount manned flights there after 2035, he said. Many difficulties linked to the planet's extreme physical conditions remain unresolved, however. "Current spacecraft do not provide the protection needed for the crew to survive and return to Earth," he said. The expected two- to three-year duration of the voyage would also involve huge challenges in terms of storage space and stress on the crew, he said.

Source: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5...3nLf2AkQEzw2GA

Russia to increase orbital group – space agency director

August 31 (Itar-Tass)

Russia is to have 102 spacecraft in orbit by the beginning of 2008, Federal Space Agency Director Anatoly Perminov told a news conference on Friday. He said 95 craft are in orbits at present. “By the end of this year we shall launch six spacecraft of the GLONASS system, as well as several satellites in the interests of the Defense Ministry. Thus, there will be 102-103 spacecraft in the orbital group by the end of the year” Perminov said. He stressed that only 25 percent of launched spacecraft had improved performance a few years ago, while the figure is 60 percent at present. As for prospects of the multi-purpose aerospace system (MAKS), Perminov said it was implemented under the program Air Launch together with Indonesia and envisaged the use of an An-124 plane as a carrier of a booster rocket. The rocket will be launched from a 10,000-kilometer height, allowing replacing the first stage. Perminov said the project had “advantages and shortcomings”. “Whether it will work or not depends on financincial support that that side is to provide,” he said.

Source: http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2....1359&PageNum=0

Russia Space Agency plans protecting Earth from asteroids

August 31 (Itar-Tass)

The Russian Federal Space Agency plans creating a system of anti-asteroid protection after 2026, the agency’s director Anatoly Perminov told a news conference on Friday. As for the Federal Space Agency’s plans Perminov said “we have prepared proposals of the space activity for the years to 2040”. “They have all aspects, including flights of the Moon and Mars. Now it is necessary to formulate the financial and resource support,” he said. The proposals envisage three stages. The first, which is planned for the years to 2015, is completing the assembly of the Russian segment of the International Space Station, enhancing the effectiveness of the transportation system, and preparing a scientific-technological basis for further stages of the space program. The making of means of delivery and a new-generation transportation system is a plan for the second stage. Russia is going to extend the use of the International Space Station to 2020. The third stage envisages preparing manned flights to the Moon and Mars by 2025. The landing on the Moon is to be prepared by 2025, and the setting up of a base on the Moon in 2027-35, Perminov said. The flight to Mars is planned after 2035. The need to create a system of protection of the Earth from asteroids is prompted by computations by specialists, who say that asteroid Apophis is bound to fly at a 40,000-kilometer distance from the Earth in 2009, and there is a risk of it colliding with the Earth in 2036.

Source: http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2....1361&PageNum=0

[Armenian]

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

Children are the future. It's always good to start working on them when they are young. It's something we Armenians need to learn to do as well.

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Russia launches Putin-backed children's TV programming


(Soviet Era Propaganda Poster)

MOSCOW (AFP) — Russia is to launch the country's first TV project aimed at children on Saturday, the start of the new academic year, in an initiative personally backed by President Vladimir Putin. The "Bibigon" project has a 39-million-dollar (29-million-euro) budget and will air more than five hours of children's programming a day on the state-run Rossiya, Kultura and Sport channels, government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta announced Friday. Funding for the channel, named after a children's literature character, will come from advertising revenues on public television, the newspaper said. Russian-produced programming will be favoured over imports. "Bibigon was created at the personal demand of Vladimir Putin," Rossiiskaya Gazeta said. Kommersant daily quoted Oleg Dobrodeyev, head of Russia's public Rossiya channel, as saying that Putin "took part in the creation (of the project) and in debates on a number of details."

Source: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5...boWSSsXNs8WlcA

[Armenian]

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

The following is an excellent article written by the well-known American author and political commentator J.R. Nyquist. For those who are not aware of his writings, Nyquist is an ardent Russophobe. This individual believes that the initial stages of Gorbachev's Perestroika movement that lead to the Soviet collapse was a part of "a long-term strategic deception orchestrated by the Moscow-Beijing Axis." In other words, it was manufactured by top level strategists in the Kremlin in conjunction with the Chinese to undermine the economic supremacy of the western world. According to this line of reasoning, the longterm strategic attempt at the time went sour as the control of the central government was lost and the entire territory of the Soviet Union fell into disarray. Apparently, the recently established Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as well as other geopolitical maneuverings of China and Russia during the last few years, are Moscow's and Shanghai's attempt at realizing their initial anti-American agenda. In my opinion, a lot of the geopolitical matters regarding the "East" that Nyquist writes about does make some sense, if looked upon within a proper context. Nevertheless, this latest piece of his is definitely worth reading.

Armenian

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ECONOMIC WARFARE IN THE FINAL PHASE



by J. R. Nyquist

This week the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, warned against Russia’s use of energy as an instrument of foreign policy. Speaking before his ambassadors, the French President said: “Russia is imposing its return [as a great power] on the world scene by employing its assets, notably oil and gas, with a certain brutality.” A great power ought to be gentle in its economic or political superiority. The Russians, however, are accustomed to a more cynical use of their advantages. The language of the Russian president includes mockery, condescension and threats. The West cringes, the East advances. Who cares what the weak countries think? Their feelings are without consequence.

Russia is not only engaged in a military buildup. Russia wants to use its economic muscles. You might ask what economic muscles Russia could have? It is bankrupt, backward, hobbled, demoralized and generally dismissed as an effective economic actor. We must remember, however, that positions in the world economy can change, that tables can be turned. Last June, at the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, the Russians called for a “new international financial architecture.” Here is Russia’s “Final Phase” economic strategy. The financial vulnerability of capitalism is growing. Keep pushing oil prices higher. Weaken the dollar. Precipitate the inevitable “crisis of capitalism.” Let the have-not nations rise up. Let them throw off their dollar shackles. Let them unite with Russia and China in “one clenched fist.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin believes the United States is vulnerable. The emerging economies of Brazil, India and China – combined with Russia – can shove the hollowed-out American economy aside. After all, American economic ascendancy is “archaic, undemocratic and unwieldy,” according to Putin. As for Europe, its dependence on Russian energy exports will assure a smooth process of “Finlandization.” Such a process begins with gentle warnings from Russia’s ambassadors in Europe and ends with self-censorship. Russia’s economic penetration of Europe gives special leverage to Moscow. In other words, the Kremlin has entered into the Fabric of European political life – through agent networks, influence operations and business pressure. These relationships can be used to influence powerful people, to adversely affect the careers of anyone who opposes Russian interests.

Economic influence means political influence. As America is humiliated, as America retreats, Russia advances. The day might come when Europe pays for its energy in rubles. If this occurs, Europe would have to acquire a large store of Russian currency. Russia’s economic position would grow, and so would Russia’s hold on Europe. Moscow wants to build a global old exchange on Russian territory, knocking big financial players to one side. The Russians want to stun the American economy. They want to weaken an already weakened dollar.

In 1984 a Russian defector named Anatoliy Golitsyn wrote of the period following the collapse of communism. He warned of a renewed attack on the West, engineered by KGB strategists. He said that this attack had an economic dimension. In his 1984 book, New Lies for Old, he wrote: “’Liberalization’ in Eastern Europe on the scale suggested could have a social and political impact on the United States itself, especially if it coincided with a severe economic depression. The communist strategists are on the lookout for such an opportunity.” According to Golitsyn, the communist bloc tracks Western economic developments. They watch for developing weaknesses. “The communist bloc will not repeat its error of failing to exploit a slump as it did in 1929-32.” The smartest political observers know that a financial slump resurrects Marxism and its critique of economic freedom.

Referring to a deceptive phase of self-advertised Russian weakness, Golitsyn warned: “Information from communist sources that the bloc is short of oil and grain should be treated with particular reserve, since it could well be intended to conceal preparation for the final phase of the policy and to induce the West to underestimate the potency of the bloc’s economic weapons.” The economic weakness of Russia led Europe to feel safe about their growing dependence on Russian oil and gas. And now it is too late. Now we see how Russia and China have formed a military bloc. We see them supporting the nuclear ambitions of Iran, the paranoid buildup of Syria and Venezuela – the seduction of Latin America and the bloody unraveling of sub-Saharan Africa.

The U.S. financial situation worsens as the old communist bloc gathers its economic, political and military forces. Look at the new Russian weapons – nuclear missiles, tanks, jet fighters and more. Look at Latin America and notice what is happening in Venezuela, Bolivia and Colombia. The communists are advancing under various false flags. They seek the destruction of the United States. It doesn’t matter who is in the White House. It doesn’t matter what policy the U.S. is following. They want to destroy America, because America stands in the way of their plans.

If you live in America and want your children to be free, you’d better wake up. The actions of Russia are not in reaction to American “aggression” or “imperialism.” They are part of a long-established pattern of deception and exploitation. This is how the Russians behave. This is how they’ve always behaved. Most political pundits and “experts” will scoff at this statement. But let me ask them: Is it a coincidence that a KGB-regime has emerged in “democratic” Russia? Is it happenstance that this regime has formed a military alliance with communist China?

Shortly before her death, the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya asked whether the rise of Putin’s Russia was mere happenstance. In answer to this question she took a bullet in the back of the head. The silencing of those who ask the right questions is part of the old communist pattern. According to Mark Riebling, KGB defector Golitsyn’s 1984 book contains 148 falsifiable predictions. Of these predictions, 139 were “fulfilled by the end of 1993 – an accuracy rate of nearly 94 percent.” Today, Golitsyn’s accuracy rate is higher. Having predicted Russia’s use of oil as a weapon, having predicted a future alliance between Russia and China, it might be said that 141 out 148 of Golitsyn’s predictions have come to pass.

In recent months Russia tried to provoke a war between Israel and Syria. It turns out that the paranoia in Damascus was fueled from Moscow. The conventional analyst thinks the Russians are motivated by the prospect of further arms sales to Syria. But this is not the whole answer. Russia seeks to foment a greater military crisis with which to intensify the economic and energy crisis. The Russians and their allies are making trouble where they can. The hour is ripe. The U.S. president is weak. The American economy is troubled. One great push, one more straw upon the camel’s back, and capitalism might be overthrown – once and for all.

Source: http://www.financialsense.com/stormw...2007/0831.html

[Armenian]

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

As a supplement to Nyquist's piece above, the following article by British journalist and historian Max Hastings is also quite interesting.

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A blundering Bush, Tsar Putin, and the question: will we, in this century, have to fight Russia?


("Putin is 'the new tsar' and Stalin's spiritual heir")

Two years ago, I was in a party of British fishermen on a charter plane to Russia about to descend at Murmansk. "There will be a slight delay," the pilot announced over the broadcast system, "because the airport has lost our landing clearance." Two hours later, he reported: "I'm afraid we shall have to come down in Finland, because the Russians say that unless we leave their airspace immediately, they will send up fighters to escort us out." When the aged bus which eventually conveyed us from Finland to Murmansk reached the Russian frontier, we endured two hours of torment. No one had told the border guards that the Cold War was over. They pored over our passports. They searched every spool of our fishing tackle. Bitterness and resentment about our expensive possessions and their threadbare poverty oozed from their every pore.

At last, grudgingly, stone-faced and without a smile between them, they waved us into their miserable country. Those unhappy petty officials in the forests of the remote Russian north-west embodied the spirit of their president, Vladimir Putin, who on Sunday delivered a brutal broadside against the United States and Britain, avowing his country's enmity for us. Some 25 years ago, when the Cold War was still icy, I asked that great historian Sir Michael Howard whether it was inevitable that the Russians would always be our enemies. Yes, he said sadly, "because they will always resent our success and be embittered by their own failure".

That remains as true today as it was in 1982. For all the oil and gas riches of Putin's country, for all the Russian oligarchs jetting and yachting around the world with their billions, their nation is still characterised by brooding anger. They feel themselves victims of a huge injustice. They have lost their empire. They have endured 20 years of perceived Western slights and condescension, since the economic collapse of the Soviet Union. They see the Americans preparing to deploy missiles in their former East European satellites. They watch Russian dissidents flaunting their wealth and - as they see it - treachery from the heart of London. And thus it is that they applaud Putin to the rafters for telling the West that he will stand no more of it. They welcome the expulsion of BP and other Western oil companies from Russian drilling sites. They delight in our embarrassments with Islamic extremism, and defeat in Iraq.

They are thrilled to discover that agents of Moscow have found means to kill one of Russia's more prominent critics in London, and then to escape back to safety at home, in a manner that makes fools of Britain's James Bonds. For those of us who hoped for the opportunity to build a new relationship with Russia after the end of the Cold War, it is all desperately sad. So much that we interpreted as "progress" under Gorbachev and Yeltsin has crumpled into ashes. The pessimists have been proved right. The great American diplomat and historian George Kennan, who knew Russia intimately for half a century, wrote bleakly in 1992: "That Russia will ever achieve "democracy", in the sense of political, social and economic institutions similar to our own, is not to be expected."

Back in 1944, writing from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, it was Kennan likewise who asserted that it was mistaken to think of Stalin as an extreme communist. Rather, he wrote, he was a peasant tsar. Stalin killed at least as many people as Hitler. In Berlin today, no one would think of displaying publicly an image of the late Fuhrer. Yet in Moscow, it is deemed perfectly acceptable for taxi drivers to stick a picture of Stalin in the corner of their windscreens. "He made Russia great, "I have heard many Russians say. "In Stalin's day, this country was respected."

They do not care that such respect was forged from terror, by Russia's ruthless willingness to inflict death wholesale in order to impose its will. They would much prefer that the world should be made to tremble at Russia's capacity to broadcast fear, rather than acknowledge their abject failure to match the West - and the extraordinary rise of China - in technical imagination, productive power or economic achievement. Putin is the new tsar, Stalin's spiritual heir, in a country which has lost all ideological belief, can make nothing work within its frontiers save its cascading flow of oil and gas, and has fallen prey to institutionalised corruption which afflicts everyone from the highest officials to the humblest traffic policeman on point duty.

It is hard to overstate the ignorance of the outside world, and even of their own history, which afflicts every Russian from the president downwards. Putin has closed Russia's archives to western scholars not on security grounds, but because he is disgusted by the horrors which they exposed to researchers in the 1990s. Western historians explored, for instance, the brutal history of Marshal Zhukov. Russia's most famous general of World War II. Zhukov, we learned, recommended to Stalin in 1942 that the families of all those who allowed themselves to be taken prisoner by the Germans should be shot, to discourage others from surrender. This is the sort of titbit which Putin has determined there should be no more of. He astonished the world, last year, by telling an interviewer in deadly earnest that the biggest catastrophe of the 20th century was the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In truth, of course, the U.S.S.R. was the greatest construction of human misery and economic failure that history has ever seen. Yet Putin's people love him. They care amazingly little that he has stifled free speech and systematically dismantled the fragile instruments of democracy created by Gorbachev and Yeltsin. They decided, in the shambolic and inflationary days of the 1990s, that one cannot eat votes. Democracy matters much less to them than bread, order, and foreign respect for their nation. Ordinary Russians today perceive that they live a little better, and thank their president for this rather than soaring energy prices. They applaud the sort of savage harangue which he gave the West on Sunday. We may expect plenty more like it, whether from Putin or whatever successor he chooses to nominate at the end of the year, if indeed he relinquishes office when his appointed term finishes.

From a Western standpoint, there are some grounds for hope for the future. For all Putin's threats of targeting Europe with new missiles, a return to the direct military confrontation of the Cold War is unlikely. Russia today is as dependent upon banking our cheques as we are upon buying its oil and gas. We should hope that George Bush's successor as U.S. President is less appallingly clumsy, in provoking Moscow with promised missile deployments a few miles from her border. But the notion of Western friendship with Russia is a dead letter. The best we can look for is grudging accommodation. The bear has shown its claws once more, as so often in its bloody history, and its people enjoy the sensation. We may hope that in the 21st century we shall not be obliged to fight Russia. But it would be foolish to suppose that we shall be able to lie beside this dangerous, emotional beast in safety or tranquillity.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1770

[skhara]

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

Few years ago, I posted on a political forum. There was a fella there who is a British Pollack, a Russophile, and a self-described socialist. I have heard of JR Nyquist from him, he constantly used him as a reference. He also posted materials about Russia-China war games, and American wargames that were apparently aimed at Russia. He also posted to certain events happening in Russia as back up to his claims (which were basically in line with Nyquist). Events such as the bringing back of the Soviet anthem as Russia's natioinal anthem. The resurrection of Stalin's statue, etc...

He believed that all the leaders within former Soviet sphere, except for the Baltic states, were well aware and are part of this plan. He believed that the colored upheavals in Georgia and Ukraine were a setback to Russia's plan. I asked him about the Nagorno-Karabakh war and Armenia-Azerbaijan enemy status, and he called it an "interesting problem" but one that will not be in the way of a rebirth of a neo-Soviet Union.

[Armenian]

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

There are definite signs today that some form of a Neo-Soviet Union is currently evolving in Eurasia

And there are clear signs that the current leadership within CIS states are aware of this agenda and are more-or-less going along with it. And it is further obvious that the West is attempting to undermine this effort before it finally matures by implementing various countermeasures. However, my personal feelings is that the situation we are referring to has gradually evolved as a result of post-Soviet geopolitical and economic necessity and circumstance and was not planned by longterm strategists within the Kremlin during the 1980s.

What's more, if the Russian Federation continues its shrewed geopolitical strategies, tight social control over its geographic territories, military buildup and monopolizing of the region's vast natural resources - there is no stopping Moscow from realizing whatever plans it may have for the future. The aforementioned potential of the Russian Federation is greatly increased if they somehow find common ground with the Chinese. And the ultimate longterm danger here is the severe risk the western establishment, the Global Order if you will, faces as the East advances.

It's not a secret that the stability of the western world is highly dependent upon eastern derived gas/oil, eastern manufactured products, and the stability of the mighty US Dollar - which in essence has made the world go round for many decades. It's also not a secret that prosperity of the western world is directly dependent upon the economic/political dependence of non-western nations upon the West. In addition to Moscow slowly monopolizing the vast gas/oil distribution networks of central Asia, and forging strategic alliances across the globe, there has also been serious talk about moving away from the US Dollar who's presence has thus far been ubiquitous in the financial world. If, for instance, the Russian Federation, China, Iran and Venezuela, stops dealing in US Dollars other nations will do so as well. There is a great chance that the United States and its vast global network will collapse as a result.

Thus, in essence, Russia's and China's strategic policies, and to some extent the actions of Iran, Venezuela and various other lesser nations, are directly threatening the long established global elite of the West and its mighty financial system. This threat is a looming crisis taken very seriously by western policy makers and it is somewhat similar to the one posed by the Third Reich during the 1930s and 40s and the Soviet Union during its seventy years existence.

For the financial elite in the West, in other words the western establishment, the Third Reich for all its military might was more-or-less an easy target to destroy for they were inevitably isolated geopolitically and utterly self-destructive in their strategic policy formulations. As a result, there was a temporary alliance, a convergence of interests between East and West, that brought the Soviet Union and the western allies together in order to destroy an urgent problem in Berlin and Tokyo. After the Nazi matter was resolved, the East and the West resumed their hostilities. Nonetheless, the Soviet system, even from its inception, was an utterly hollow power relaying greatly upon sheer force and idealogical propaganda to survive. In the eyes of western financial experts, the Soviet Union would collapse sooner-or-later. Thus, the West merely had to wait for the inevitable. And this expectation was finally realized in the late 1980s when the Soviet Union began to fall apart.

However, the gargantuan potential that the current Russian Federation and China have has had no global precedence. From their control of vast amounts of natural resources, land and manpower to their abilities in the technologies sector; from their immense industrial production capacity to their presence in the global market; from their geopolitical impact in Eurasia to their military capabilities; Moscow and Shanghai can potentially and quite literally control the global order within the Twenty First century.

As a result, there will definitely be a major war waged by the financial elite in the West against the emerging East as they previously did against the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. And this new global war may be as nasty if not more than the previous ones. The current battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan are already the initial stages of this war and the other battlefronts that we most probably will get to see in the near future may very well be the Balkans, the Caucasus, the south Pacific, the Levant and south America. Of course all this is strictly contingent upon Moscow and Shanghai maintaining geopolitical independence and self-sufficiency and not allowing themselves to accept the current geopolitical and geoeconomic status quo of the West.

Nevertheless, the bottom line is: It's all about money and power. It's about the West attempting to maintain the current global/financial system and the East trying somehow to create a new system under its terms.

Armenian

[Armenian]

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

This month Russia commemorated the seventh anniversary of the Kursk tragedy. The following 50 minute film documentary about the incident, initially aired to recored audiences in France, is a must see presentation. It is believed that the mighty Kursk was not lost as a result of an accidental explosion of its on-board torpedoes but rather a deliberate attack by a US submarine. Regardless of this theory's accuracy, the content of this documentary and the geopolitical implications of this tragic incident are directly related to this thread's discussions.

Armenian

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Kursk (a submarin in troubled waters): http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...18731467852276



US accused to have 'torpedoed Kursk nuclear sub'

Daniel Stacey, London May 09, 2005

A FORMER British military official has backed a sensational claim that the Russian nuclear submarine, the Kursk, was torpedoed by US forces in August 2000. An official inquest concluded that the disaster – in which all 118 crew drowned in the Barents Sea, 135km off the Russian coast – was caused by an accidental explosion of an onboard torpedo. But Maurice Stradling, a former torpedo engineer and a key figure in the original investigation, believes a new French documentary, The Kursk: A Submarine in Troubled Waters, should change world opinion on the sinking.

"On the balance of probabilities, the Kursk was sunk by an American MK-48 torpedo," said Mr Stradling, formerly a senior member of the British Defence Ministry.

BBC editor Nick Fraser called the claim a "pack of lies" and has refused to air the documentary, which attracted a record audience of more than 4 million when it screened on French TV. The BBC used Mr Stradling as its main authority for a documentary it made in 2001 – What Sank the Kursk?, in which Mr Stradling theorised that the sinking was caused by the malfunctioning of an old-fashioned HTP torpedo. Mr Stradling, who also appears in the new French documentary, said: "At the time (2001), that was a perfectly reasonable film, given the facts as we knew them then, when there seemed to be no third-party involvement,"

The new explanation for the Kursk's downing is based on film footage of a hole in the side of the vessel, and evidence placing US submarines in the area at the time it was sunk. The French film shows stills of the Kursk raised above the water after being salvaged, with a precise circular hole in its right side. The hole clearly bends inwards, consistent with an attack from outside the submarine. A US military source in the documentary declares the hole to be the trademark evidence of an American MK-48 torpedo, which is made to melt cleanly through steel sheet due to a mechanism at its tip that combusts copper. The film suggests the attack happened while two US submarines, the Toledo and Memphis, were shadowing the Kursk in a routine military exercise.

The documentary says the Toledo accidentally collided with the Kursk, at which point the Russian submarine opened its torpedo tubes, leading to an attack from the Memphis, which was protecting the damaged Toledo while it retreated. The cause of the sinking was covered up at the time in an act of diplomacy between then US presidents Bill Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin – a deal that included the cancellation of $US10 billion ($12.5 billion) of Russian debt, the film states. After the documentary received its only public broadcast in Britain, some claimed the Russian navy had drilled the hole and fed doctored footage to the film-makers to create a false impression.

Source: http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/r...i?ArtNum=94693

[Armenian]

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

Russia to continue advanced missile tests in 2007-SMF commander


(Topol-M (SS-27) road-mobile ICBM)

MOSCOW, September 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Strategic Missile Forces will conduct more tests of new warheads for its intercontinental ballistic missiles later this year, the SMF commander said Saturday. "This year we will continue test and combat-training launches of new types of warheads for the Topol-M and Bulava sea-launched missile complexes," Col. Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov said. He said previously a second missile battalion, equipped with advanced Topol-M (SS-27) road-mobile ICBMs, will be put on combat duty before the end of the year and that the deployment of silo-based Topol-M systems in the Saratov Region and road-mobile systems in the Ivanovo Region (central Russia) would be completed in 2010. As of December 2006, the Strategic Missile Forces operated 44 silo-based and three mobile missile systems.

The commander said the Topol-M system will be equipped with multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV) in the next two or three years, adding that the new system would help penetrate missile defenses more effectively. His statement came against the backdrop of growing tensions between Moscow and the West regarding plans by the United States to deploy elements of its global antiballistic missile defense system in Central Europe. Gen. Solovtsov said the Strategic Missile Forces would factor in the new threats. "If the U.S. proceeds with missile defense plans, despite serious opposition from people in Europe, the Strategic Missile Forces will manage to take adequate measures to counter threats to Russia," he said. The national defense program envisions the deployment of Bulava-M sea-launched ballistic missiles on nuclear submarines. The missiles are expected to become the mainstay of the Russian Navy's strategic nuclear forces in decades to come.

The Russian Armed Forces commissioned more than 30 new types of advanced weapon systems in the first half of 2007, the defense minister said last month. Anatoly Serdyukov said these weapon systems included the submarine-launched R-29RM Sineva ballistic missiles, the S-400 Triumf air defense complex, and the 120-mm Nona SM-1 towed mortar for Ground Forces. Serdykov also said Russia conducted test launches of the Yarts land-based ballistic missile, the X-102 airborne missile, and a new version of the Iskander-M ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple warheads, and launched two military reconnaissance and communication satellites.

Source: http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070901/76058131.html

[Armenian]

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

Russia's Rosneft aiming to become top global oil company


(Rosneft oil refining station in Priobsky)

MOSCOW (AFP) — State-controlled Russian group Rosneft wants to extract 140 million tonnes of oil by 2012 and become a global top three energy company, its chief executive said Sunday. "Today we are the leader of the Russian oil industry, and our medium-range objective is to become a global top three energy company," Sergei Bogdanchikov told Vesti 24 Russian television. "It is necessary for us to augment our production. This year we are extracting more than 100 million tonnes and we estimate that by 2011-2012 we will be able to arrive at a volume of 140 to 145 million tonnes," he added. In 2007 the group, which became Russia's leading extraction and refinement company when it bought former oil giant Yukos's assets at auction, is aiming for a 103-million-tonne production, Bogdanchikov said Saturday, cited by Interfax news agency. It produced about 80 million tonnes last year. Before Rosneft bought Yukos's assets, it had planned to extract 100 million tonnes by 2010. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made returning Russian energy assets to state hands a key part of his presidency, with the country's hydrocarbons a key tool in the country's foreign policy. At the end of 2004, Rosneft had bought Yuganskneftegaz, Yukos's main asset, for 9.35 billion dollars (6.9 billion euros), considered a low price at the time.

Source: http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/02092007/323...l-company.html

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