The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

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And this...

Russia's resurgent military



Fueled by billions in oil wealth, it looks to reclaim the USSR's status as a global military power. As a newly self-confident, oil-rich Russia teams up with China in joint military exercises Friday, it is moving to reclaim the former Soviet Union's status as a global military power. A seven-year, $200-billion rearmament plan signed by President Vladimir Putin earlier this year will purchase new generations of missiles, planes, and perhaps aircraft carriers to rebuild Russia's arsenal. Already, the new military posture is on display: This summer, Russian bombers have extended their patrol ranges far into the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, forcing US and NATO interceptors to scramble for the first time since the cold war's end.



"Diplomacy between Russia and the West is increasingly being overshadowed by military gestures," says Sergei Strokan, a foreign-policy expert with the independent daily Kommersant. "It's clear that the Kremlin is listening more and more to the generals and giving them more of what they want."

Economic bloc ups military teamwork

On Friday, Mr. Putin will join leaders of China and other members of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Russia's Chelyabinsk region to view the final stage of the group's most ambitious joint military maneuvers yet, to include 6,500 troops and over 100 aircraft. Also on hand will be leaders of SCO observer states and prospective members, among them India, Pakistan, Iran, and Mongolia. At an SCO summit in Kyrgyzstan Thursday, Putin stressed that while Russia is not seeking to build a cold war-style "military bloc," he does see the SCO expanding from its original purpose as an economic association to take on a greater military role.



"Year by year, the SCO is becoming a more substantial factor in ensuring security in the region," he said. "Russia, like other SCO states, favors strengthening the multipolar international system providing equal security and development potential for all countries. Any attempts to solve global and regional problems unilaterally have no future," he added. The SCO, founded in 2001, is often referred to as a "club of dictators" due to less-than-democratic ex-Soviet members such as Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan. The group has been holding joint war games since 2005, when it also demanded that the US vacate military bases it had acquired after 9/11 in former Soviet Central Asia, whose oil and gas reserves are garnering increased attention from the West.



"The SCO clearly wants the US to leave Central Asia; that's a basic political demand," says Ivan Safranchuk, Moscow director of the independent World Security Institute. "That's one reason why the SCO is holding military exercises, to demonstrate its capability to take responsibility for stability in Central Asia after the US leaves."



New naval base, long-range missiles

Moscow's growing military footprint – and the apprehensions of others about it – is evident in a spate of recent news events.

• Last week the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia accused Russian warplanes of invading its airspace and firing a missile, which failed to explode, at a radio station. Russian officials denied the allegation and suggested that Georgian leaders fabricated the incident. Tensions have been high between Russia and Georgia over Moscow's support for two breakaway Georgian regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which are protected by Russian "peacekeeping" troops.

• Russian naval chief Admiral Vladimir Masorin announced this month that Russia may reclaim a naval base at Tartus, in Syria, from which Soviet warships used to keep tabs on US ships. "The Mediterranean is an important theater of operations for the Russian Black Sea Fleet," he said. "We must restore a permanent presence of the Russian Navy in this region."

• In July, amid worsening relations between Russia and Britain over the still unsolved poisoning death of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, two Russian Tu-95 bombers flew deep into NATO territory for the first time since the cold war's end and, according to Britain's defense ministry, briefly entered British airspace before being escorted away by British fighter planes.

Last week, in another post-Soviet first, Russian bombers "revived the tradition of our long-range aviation to fly far into the ocean, to meet US aircraft carriers and greet US pilots visually," ending up near the American Pacific base of Guam, Russian Air Force Maj. Gen. Pavel Androsov told Russian media. He added that the pilots on both sides "exchanged grins."

• Russia has recently conducted tests of new land- and sea-based intercontinental missiles, which are expected to soon replace the country's aging Soviet-era nuclear deterrent. As a partial response to US missile defense plans, Russia will develop a missile defense "project that will include not only air defense systems but also antiballistic missile and space defense systems" to protect Moscow and other Russian centers, Russian Air Force chief Col. Gen. Alexandr Zelin told Russian media last week. Critics are skeptical that, despite major Putin-era infusions of cash, Russia's weak industrial base can deliver on the Kremlin's ambitions to restore a global military presence.



"Now our military leaders have enough money to create a kind of caricature of the Soviet armed forces, and they want to do a lot of the same old things," says Alexander Goltz, military expert with the independent online magazine Yezhednevny Zhurnal. "But their plans are a confused mixture of realistic goals and unworkable Soviet-style symbolism," says Mr. Goltz.

Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0817/p01s06-woeu.htm

[Armenian]

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

And this.

The West Lost Russia



In contrast to the purported global warming, Russian-Western relations are undergoing a real cooling. The mounting frigidity in the relationship was symbolized in Moscow's surprise rush to the Arctic. The aim of this expedition was to gather scientific evidence to support a legal territorial claim to the Lomonosov Ridge. But this was just one salvo in a summer flurry that underscored a new, resurgent Russia. Others include:

• A diplomatic offensive across the Middle East and Asia that included hints of forming a natural gas cartel.

• President Vladimir Putin's moves to withdraw from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe.

• The resumption of long-range strategic bomber flights that will patrol areas bordering European and U.S. airspace.

• An announcement to expand the Navy's global presence, including basing once again some of its forces in the Mediterranean Sea.

• The militarization of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as members and Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia as observers.

In short, Russia is back as a global player, and it is no longer a starry-eyed admirer of the United States. These are the bitter fruits of the West's -- and in particular the United States' -- mistaken policies toward Russia since the end of the Cold War. Instead of treating Moscow magnanimously, as historian Richard Pipes once urged, the West declared victory.

Unlike the victory in World War II over Nazi Germany, however, no Marshall Plan was forthcoming. Instead, the West promised but did not deliver timely economic assistance in the early 1990s. It also backed a disastrous and broadly unpopular privatization and economic reform program. Worst of all, it alienated the entire Russian elite by expanding NATO to include Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Baltic states. Further rounds of expansion may very well bring Georgia and Ukraine into the alliance. The NATO and European Union expansion, which did not include a substantive role for Russia, effectively locked Moscow out of a Western orbit that the Kremlin thought it was joining.

Early on, U.S. President Bill Clinton wondered aloud to his top Russia hand, Undersecretary of State Strobe Talbott, about how long they could continue to shove things down Moscow's throat. U.S. President George W. Bush followed Clinton's lead by declaring initially that Russia was no longer a major player in global affairs or a major focus of U.S. foreign policy. Shortly thereafter, Bush announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the expansion of NATO closer to Russia's borders. Now Moscow's bitter disappointment with the West has taken the form of harsh anti-Americanism. It has also translated into a burning desire among the Russian elite and public to finally show the West that it would regret its policies once Russia "got up from its knees." That time has surely come.

Some analysts warned that this would be the inevitable result of NATO expansion and other flawed U.S. and Western policies. Only a partnership with Russia and a firm policy of drawing it into the West would prevent Moscow's turn to the East. This also would have prevented the revival of traditional Russian suspicion -- if not outright antagonism -- toward the West. Finally, a closer cooperation with Russia may have prevented Moscow's disenchantment with democracy, which it has interpreted as being no more than an insidious and cynical Western ploy to weaken Russia. The cost of NATO expansion is that Russia has been lost in the medium term -- and perhaps in the long term as well -- as a powerful, committed democracy and Western ally. Moreover, the West has pushed Russia closer to China and Iran.

If these are the costs of NATO expansion, what are the advantages? Few, if any. The alliance received from its new member states: a few thousand additional troops that are stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq, a three-jet Latvian air force and five Estonian nurses. Compare these benefits to Russia's vast military and intelligence resources and experience -- particularly in Afghanistan. Moreover, Moscow has helped to track down global jihadists, prevent the proliferation of weapons and materials of mass destruction and reconstruct Afghanistan. As a true ally, Russia could contribute much more to the Western alliance than the small new NATO members. All opinion polls now show that a plurality or majority of Russians regard the United States as the greatest threat to Russia and the world. Putin has repeatedly decried the U.S. impetus for a "unipolar" international structure -- which is to say, global hegemony.

The Russian elite's consensus is even harsher. Alexander Solzhenitsyn recently said the United States seeks to encircle and weaken Russia. This statement is highly symbolic, coming from the esteemed writer who once took refuge in the United States as a political refugee from the Soviet state. It also underscores how cold U.S.-Russian relations have become. One hopes the next U.S. administration will not repeat Clinton and Bush's mistakes of insulting and underestimating Moscow. Even in the best of circumstances, the next U.S. president and his or her Western allies will face the daunting task of piercing through the unfortunate and unforgiving perceptual lens through which resurgent Moscow views the West, especially Washington.

Source: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/storie...08/29/006.html

[Armenian]

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

And this...

RAF fighter jets scrambled to intercept Russian bombers


(Close call: An RAF Typhoon intercepts a Russian bomber that had approached UK airspace)

This is the moment when the growing tension between Britain and Russia became almost tangible. Bombers approached British airspace at the weekend - and defence chiefs scrambled supersonic Eurofighter Typhoon jets to counteract the potential threat. The close encounter follows an announcement from Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, that bombers should resume the tactics of the Cold War, when incursions by long-range Soviet bombers testing UK air defences were a familiar routine. Yesterday, the Ministry of Defence released the picture of a Typhoon intercepting the Russian Bear-H bomber as proof of the Russian spy flights. It is the first time the Typhoon, Britain's most advanced warplane, has been seen in action against a potentially hostile target. The MoD would not specify the number of bombers, although there were thought to be more than one.

The Russian planes had been detected approaching British airspace on Friday across the North Atlantic, at high altitude. Unlike commercial airliners, they filed no flight plan in advance. And as ground controllers grew increasingly concerned about their intentions, two Tornado fighters took off from RAF Leeming in North Yorkshire, armed with air-to-air missiles. But the Russians refused to leave the area and the Tornadoes, running short on fuel, were replaced by a second pair. Then two of the Typhoons, from XI Squadron at RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire, were sent up. Eventually,the Russian aircrew turned for home - without crossing the line into UK air space.

One RAF insider said: "It seems to be largely political - almost a statement of pride by the Russians, or Putin telling us not to take him for granted. "It's an old, old game which we played for years during the Cold War and now we're playing it. You can glean a certain amount of information about our defences this way, particularly if some helpful Russian chap stands outside the wire at Leeming or Coningsby and notes what time our aircraft take off. "Quite how all this really helps the Russians is another matter, but we take it seriously." The first known incident of this type in recent years was in May, when Russian spy planes flew from their base at Murmansk to watch a Nato naval exercise off the Scottish coast.

Source: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/a...ace/article.do

Russian Bear bombers fly along Alaskan, Canadian coastline



MOSCOW, September 20 (RIA Novosti) - Two Russian strategic Tu-95MS Bear-H bombers carried out a flight along the coasts of Alaska and Canada during recent command and post exercises, the Russian Air Force announced Thursday. "Each Tu-95 plane took about 30 tons of fuel on board, for the first time since the Soviet era. Their average flight duration was about 17 hours, during which the planes covered a distance of over 13,000 km [8,000 miles]," said Alexander Drobyshevsky, an aide to the Air Force commander. According to the Air Force, the bombers were refueled in the air by Il-78 Midas tankers.

Drobyshevsky also said another pair of Tu-95MS flew around Greenland into the eastern Atlantic, a flight that took about 12 hours. President Vladimir Putin announced the resumption of strategic patrol flights on August 17, saying that although the country halted long-distance strategic flights to remote regions in 1992, other nations had continued the practice, compromising Russian national security. The latest flights were in line with an air patrolling plan, and the planes were accompanied by NATO fighters. According to various sources, the Russian Air Force currently deploys 141 Tu-22M3 bombers, 40 Tu-95MS bombers, and 14 Tu-160 planes.

Source: http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070920/80150569.html

RAF jets intercept eight Russian bombers


Royal Air Force F3 Tornado escorting Russian TU-95 bomber.

Telegraph (06/09/2007), The RAF carried out its biggest operation to protect British airspace since the Cold War when four Tornados were scrambled to intercept eight Russian bombers approaching over the Atlantic. An early warning aircraft and a VC-10 tanker were also launched to support the British fighters responding to apparent sabre-rattling by President Vladimir Putin. The Russian aircraft, all Tupolev 95s, codenamed "Bears" by Nato, turned back before reaching British airspace. This was the biggest deployment of Russian bombers to probe British air defences since the Cold War. Although the ''Bear'' is obsolescent, dating from the 1950s, Russia uses it for long-range reconnaissance missions, designed to test an opponent's reaction time. Flush with oil wealth, Russia has become increasingly assertive in recent months. President Putin has consciously revived memories of the Cold War by sending bombers to test the air defences of Nato countries, notably Norway and America as well as Britain.

In Thursday's incident Norway's air force was the first to intercept the Russian formation over the Barents Sea. Shadowed by Norwegian F-16 fighters, the ''Bears'' continued their patrol and entered airspace over the Atlantic which Britain is responsible for protecting. The RAF keeps four fighters - either Tornado F3s or Eurofighter Typhoons - on "quick reaction alert" to intercept intruders, which yesterday launched from RAF Leeming in Yorkshire. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said the Tornadoes were scrambled at first light. Because of the size of the Russian formation and the need to "monitor the air picture", a Boeing E3 Sentry early warning aircraft, capable of providing long-range radar coverage and guidance for the fighters, was launched from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. The distance the RAF jets would have to travel and the time they might spend shadowing the Russian bombers was unclear. So a VC-10 tanker, able to provide air-to-air refuelling, also took off from RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire. By sunrise, four of the jets that Britain relies on to guard its airspace were heading towards the North Atlantic. But an MoD spokesman denied that the country was left undefended for any period.

''Once the first two aircraft are launched, we stand up another two, we arm them and we get the crews ready. We can do that in pretty in short order. So for every two that go up, we make sure that another two are ready," he said. The Tornados intercepted the Russian aircraft over the Atlantic, using procedures developed during the Cold War. They shadowed the ''Bears'', carefully tracking their progress. The MoD said that all the Russian aircraft turned back before reaching British airspace.

"People may believe this is all pretty simple. But in fact there's a lot to this and that's why we have to be very well practised and coordinated," said an RAF officer. The incident is the latest in a campaign of muscle-flexing by the Kremlin designed to put pressure on both the West and Russia's neighbours. The former Soviet Republics of Georgia and Ukraine, have come under direct pressure from the Kremlin. Both have seen their crucial supplies of natural gas disrupted after defying Russia. But a British official said that despite recent tensions, Russia was still seen as "key international partner".

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...07/nraf107.xml

[Armenian]

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

Putin to visit embattled Iran



RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin's trip to Iran this week, the first by a Kremlin leader in three decades, comes at a vital moment for the Islamic republic's controversial Russian-backed nuclear program.

Mr Putin will be attending a summit of Caspian Sea countries on Tuesday, joined by the leaders of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan for talks focusing on how to divide the landlocked and energy-rich Caspian. But his visit also throws a potential diplomatic lifeline to Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who faces international isolation and massive US-led pressure against his nuclear power project. His critics in the West allege it has a secret military component.

"This is crucial against the background of tensions around the Iranian nuclear program," said Alexander Shumilin, a specialist on Middle Eastern issues.

The last Kremlin leader to visit Iran was Soviet chief Leonid Brezhnev, 32 years ago. Since the Soviet collapse Russia has emerged as one of Iran's most important partners and a bulwark against Western and Israeli diplomatic pressure. For Mr Putin the regional meeting provides a handy opportunity to sit down with Mr Ahmadinejad in bilateral talks without actually going as far as a formal summit.

"Mr Putin has been invited numerous times to make an official visit to Iran, but that kind of visit would have been considered a challenge to the West," said Radzhab Safarov, at the Centre for Studies on Modern Iran.

Mr Ahamadinejad could certainly use some powerful friends and Russia, which is building Iran's first nuclear power station in the Bushehr, is the most crucial ally of all. The International Atomic Energy Agency and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana are due to report to the UN Security Council and the major powers next month on Iran's level of cooperation with nuclear inspectors.

This comes amid growing pressure from Washington and its allies against Iran, which they claim is deceiving inspectors in order to hide a bomb-making project behind a civilian electricity generating program. Yet Russia has so far resisted calls for new, tougher sanctions to punish Iran. On Wednesday, Mr Putin rejected Western claims, saying he sees no threat from the Islamic republic.

"We do not have information that Iran is trying to create a nuclear weapon. We operate on the principle that Iran does not have those plans," he told French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Moscow. Russia is also ignoring US complaints by selling Iran sophisticated weapons, not least $US700 million ($A779.03 million) worth of Tor-M1 ground-to-air missiles this year - a system Iran says would be used to protect nuclear sites from air attack.

But as constant delays to the completion of Bushehr indicate, the Iranian-Russian partnership is far from smooth. Russia has angered Tehran by inviting the US military to use a radar station in the Caucasus region to monitor Iran as part of a proposed anti-missile shield, said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor at the journal Russia in Global Politics. The result is that Moscow "has bad relations with the West because of Iran, but at the same time a worsening relationship with Iran itself," Mr Lukyanov said.

The best Russia can hope for, analysts say, is to carve out a unique role as mediator within the six-nation group - Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States - in charge of the Iran dossier. Russia is "practically the only partner that Iran wants to see as a mediator," Alexander Shumilin said. But events may escape Moscow's control, warned Anton Khlopkov, at the PIR think tank in Moscow.

"Europe and the United States stress the importance of unity among the six, but they are on the side of unilateral sanctions and even military action. Russia risks seeing a decision taken without consensus."

Source: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sto...005961,00.html

[Armenian]

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

Georgia says 250,000 soldiers ready to fight "external threat"



Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said a quarter of a million soldiers were available to defend his country against any possible "external threat". Saakashvili's statement was an apparent reference to Russia at a time when relations between the two former Soviet republics have hit their lowest point.

"There is no U.S.S.R. any more but the threat exists, and if need be, Georgia will be able to deploy 250,000 soldiers tomorrow," Saakashvili said.

The pro-West Georgian leader symbolically made his statement in Finland, a country that was attacked by the Soviet Union in 1939, but retained its sovereignty and most of its territory despite its army being considerably outnumbered. During his visit to Helsinki, the Georgian president laid a wreath at the Cross of Heroes and the tomb of Marshal Carl Mannerheim, who led the Finnish troops in the fight against the Soviets.

"The Finnish people were not mislead by provocations, and were not afraid to face such an enemy as the U.S.S.R.," Saakashvili said. "This must be a good example for the Georgian people."

The Georgian leadership, which is seeking to bring the country into the European Union and NATO, has accused Russia of trying to regain Soviet-time influence over the country, and of supporting separatists in Georgia's breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia introduced economic and transport sanctions against Georgia last year over the country's espionage allegations against Russian peacekeeping officers.

Source: http://en.rian.ru/world/20071011/83492176.html

[Armenian]

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

Rice assails Putin's growing power in Russia



The Russian government under Vladimir Putin has amassed so much central authority that the power-grab may undermine Moscow's commitment to democracy, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday.

"In any country, if you don't have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development," she told reporters after meeting with human-rights activists.

"I think there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin ... Everybody has doubts about the full independence of the judiciary. There are clearly questions about the independence of the electronic media and there are, I think, questions about the strength of the Duma," she said, referring to the Russian parliament. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not respond to telephone requests for a comment last night.

Rice encouraged the activists to build institutions of democracy. The United States is concerned about democratic backsliding ahead of Russia's elections in December and March. Putin will step down in the spring as president and has said he would lead the ticket of the main pro-Kremlin party in parliamentary elections and could take the prime minister's job later. Rice sought assessments of the situation from eight prominent rights leaders.

She and Defense Secretary Robert Gates had received a chilly reception Friday from Putin and senior Russian officials on U.S. proposals for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe that Russia vehemently opposes, but she declined to comment on Putin's possible political future and said she did not raise the matter in her official discussions. Alexander Brod of the Moscow Human Rights Bureau said he disagreed with "the opinion that we had a flourishing democracy in the 1990s and that we have a setback now ... Not all is ideal in America, either. We see protests against the war in Iraq and violations of human rights on the part of security services and violations of human rights in countering terrorism."

Source: http://www.newsday.com/news/printedi...,5047549.story

[Armenian]

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

Plot to assassinate Putin' in Iran



The Russian president has been warned of a plot to assassinate him during a planned visit to Iran next week, according to Russia's Interfax news agency. But Tehran has described as "totally baseless" the report, which said Russian security services had been told suicide bombers and kidnappers were training to kill or capture Vladimir Putin.

"Reports published by some media are totally baseless and are in line with the psychological war launched by enemies who want to harm Iran and Russia's relationship," Mohammad Ali Hosseini, foreign ministry spokesman, said on Sunday. The Russian president is travelling to Tehran to attend a meeting a summit of the five states that surround the Caspian Sea, and Hosseini said this would go ahead as planned. Putin is the first Kremlin leader to travel to Iran since Josef Stalin, the former Soviet leader, attended a wartime summit with Winston Churchill, former British prime minister, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, former US president, in 1943.

'Bombers preparing'

The Interfax report said that: "a reliable source in one of the Russian special services, has received information from several sources outside Russia, that during the president of Russia's visit to Tehran an assassination attempt is being plotted. The news agency quoted Kremlin sources as saying they had no comment on the report, but that the president had been informed. Fred Weir, Moscow correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor newspaper, told Al Jazeera that assassination plots against the Russian leader had previously been discovered in Ukraine and Azerbaijan, both reportedly connected to the separatist movement in Chechnya.

"It could be some international scheme, perhaps connected with Russia's enemies like the Chechens," he said.

"Or it could be some elaborate rumour, in Russia we have this transitional phase, we are not sure if Putin is leaving his job or changing his job next year. All of this sort of thing excites power struggles and rumours are a major weapon in that."

Putin's second term as president ends next year and the constitution prevents him standing for a third consecutive term. He has said he will stand for parliament and could become prime minister.

Nuclear standoff

Putin is expected to meet Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president during his visit, giving him a chance to attempt to find a peaceful solution to the standoff over Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Although Russia has backed two rounds of punitive UN sanctions against Iran, Moscow says engagement is a more effective way of tackling the situation. It has sold weapons to Iran, in defiance of US concerns, and is building a nuclear power station at Bushehr on the Persian Gulf. Putin was visiting Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, on Sunday before travelling to the Iranian capital on Monday.

Source: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...BADEA49A52.htm

[skhara]

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

Just out of curiosity, assuming something does happen to Putin -- who takes over?

[Armenian]

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

Just out of curiosity, assuming something does happen to Putin -- who takes over?

I'm sure who will replace Putin in the event of an assassination has been decided. As you know, there has been a lot of talk about who will succeed him after the presidential elections next year. According to their media, the most likely individuals that can take control of the government are Victor Zubkov, Dmitry Medvedev or Sergei Ivanov. Anyway, I imagine it won't be an issue, God forbid anything happens to the man.

Let's take a quick look at the presidential front runners:

Victor Zubkov



Current position: Prime Minister

Well, in September the promised Dark Horse was marched out of the stable. A virtual unknown, Zubkov was days from retirement when Putin elevated him to the PM job after sacking the government. Zubkov has extensive experience in rooting out financial corruption and in agriculture. More important, he has ridden Putin's coattails for the last decade and is widely seen to be a loyal caretaker option.

Sergei Ivanov



Current position: 1st Deputy Minister

The new top-dog, Ivanov has the national security brief going for him (as well as a long career in the KGB, SVR and FSB). He is also fairly well trusted by Russians and now second oldest (53) of the front runners. Attempts to carry himself with a sense of nobility, he has the whole FSB persona going for him, which the public does not yet seem to have tired of. Oh, and he speaks English really well. He spread his lead over Medvedev during 2007, such that by this fall, he is getting much more media coverage and has been the one at crucial unveilings, and giving crucial speeches.

Dmitry Medvedev



Current position: 1st Deputy Prime Minister

A youthful 41, Medvedev was once the bookie's strong horse and Russians' most trusted politician after Putin, he seems to have fallen from grace over 2007, but that could easily change on a Putiny whim. A moderate, he is one of Putin's longest-serving and most trusted aides, having come to Moscow from St. Petersburg in 1999. Trim (having lost a good bit of weight in the last year) and often tense-looking, he has a reputation for delivering dry, read-from-the-sheet speeches.

Source: http://www.russianlife.com/store/ind...y&Product_ID=6

[Armenian]

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

The CIA directer makes a fool of himself in front of five hundred military officers of the General Staff Academy in Moscow:

He noted that Mr. Putin also emerged from the intelligence services. “Although he is considerably younger than I am, clearly his career has been more successful,” Mr. Gates said. What was intended a joke elicited approving murmurs of the audience.



Armenian

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After Rebuff, U.S. Visitors Reach Out to Russians



A day after a tense round of talks with Russian officials, the American secretaries of state and defense reached out to different constituencies here on Saturday in an effort to patch over what are widely seen as deepening differences between the countries. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates failed Friday to overcome the deep Russian distrust of an American missile defense system in Europe, which President Vladimir V. Putin publicly mocked as an obstacle to agreement on more immediate security matters. On Saturday, they sought to show that the United States and Russia could find common ground, or at least outward civility, even if their relationship was fraught with disputes. Ms. Rice met with civic and human rights advocates at the American ambassador’s residence here and then, meeting with reporters, indirectly chided Mr. Putin for overseeing a steady erosion of the independent media, the courts and the legislative branch.

“In any country, if you don’t have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development,” she said.

Ms. Rice, who was a competitive figure-skater in her youth, attended figure-skating practice at the Central Sporting Club of the Army, where lithe Olympic aspirants on ice gave her what was almost certainly the warmest reception of her visit. She did not skate, though. Her appearances were in keeping with a clear strategy of trying to put the American-Russian relations back on at least an even footing. Mr. Gates, for his part, delivered an unusual speech to the General Staff Academy, attended by the future elite of the Russian military, and followed it with a lively exchange of questions and answers with 500 officers. He even credited the Russian military with pioneering concepts of how to use sensors, reconnaissance and combat-management systems to transform how armies fight wars. For the American military, quick and initial military victories in Iraq and Afghanistan “have given way to long, complex and grinding campaigns against violent, adaptive insurgencies,” he said.

Mr. Gates told the group, mostly senior colonels and junior generals, that he spent his career studying Kremlin affairs as an American intelligence officer, culminating with his stint as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He noted that Mr. Putin also emerged from the intelligence services. “Although he is considerably younger than I am, clearly his career has been more successful,” Mr. Gates said. What was intended a joke elicited approving murmurs of the audience. Answering questions, Mr. Gates said the United States has no plans to station American troops in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine, an issue that is an obsession here. Asked how the United States could criticize Russian weapons sales abroad when America was the largest dealer in conventional weapons in 2006, Mr. Gates acknowledged that he had sparred with senior Russian officials on Friday over that exact question.

The United States complained about Russian weapons sales to Iran, a country that Mr. Gates said had “made no secret of its aggressive ambitions,” and to Syria, which he said has armed Hezbollah, labeled a terrorist group by the State Department. He and his Russian counterparts “decided to agree to disagree” on that topic, Mr. Gates said. That appeared to be the conclusion on many of the areas the secretaries and their counterparts discussed, from missile defense to the array of conventional forces in Europe, from Iran’s nuclear program to the future of American and Russian arms control agreements. Ms. Rice also met with businessmen and with the country’s new prime minister, Viktor A. Zubkov, whom Mr. Putin plucked from relative obscurity in a cabinet shakeup last month. Ms. Rice said American officials had in fact worked extensively with Mr. Zubkov in his capacity overseeing financial crime. “He wasn’t unknown to us,” she said, adding that they had discussed economic and trade issues in their meeting on Saturday.

Over the two days of talks, Ms. Rice, Mr. Gates and their aides were eager to portray the meetings as constructive, if not successful. Although they achieved neither breakthrough nor breakdown, as Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, framed the matter on Friday, they did reach one agreement: the Americans would be hosts to the Russians in a new round of talks in about six months.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/wo...4gates.html?hp