The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

[Armenian]

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

Major Russian War Games Underway

TSENTER-2008: http://www.zvezdanews.ru/video/day_events/0021812/

Russian war games: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyow0fxB1BM

Medvedev observes missile test-launch in Urals

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev observed the test launch of a tactical missile in a command and staff exercise in the southern Urals on Friday, a senior military commander said. A Tochka-U (SS-21 Scarab) short-range tactical ballistic missile was launched at 3:10 p.m. Moscow time (11:10 GMT) at the Donguz proving ground in the Orenburg Region as part of a 74-day exercise, Ground Forces Commander Gen. Vladimir Boldyrev said. He said a total of 40,000 servicemen were taking part in the exercise in the Volga-Urals Military District, named Tsentr-2008, and that it was the largest exercise of its kind in 20 years. The drills involve motorized rifle, tank, artillery, antiaircraft, missile, and support units with over 700 armored vehicles (tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and self-propelled artillery systems) and more than 40 combat aircraft and helicopters. The Tochka-U is a 1989 modification of the Tochka missile system that went into service with the Soviet military in 1976. It has an effective range of 120 km.

Source: http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080926/117145587.html

Russia plans own nuclear umbrella

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has announced plans to build a "guaranteed nuclear deterrent system" to be in place by 2020. He said he wanted military chiefs to submit plans by December. He called for a programme to build new nuclear submarines as well as "a system of aerospace defence". The announcement comes just weeks after Russia accused America of starting a new arms race by siting part of its missile defence shield in Poland. "We must guarantee nuclear deterrence under various political and military conditions by 2020," Mr Medvedev told military commanders. He said it was necessary to build "new types of armaments", and to "achieve dominance in airspace", according to quotes carried by the Itar-Tass news agency. "We plan to start serial production of warships, primarily nuclear-powered submarines carrying cruise missiles and multifunctional submarines," Mr Medvedev said. "We will develop an aerospace defense system, as well," he added.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7638356.stm

Submarine Force Added Medvedev’s Words to Arsenal

Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev inspected Kamchatka yesterday. He visited Saint George the Victorious submarine, where he talked over the financial crisis with sailors. In the next effort, the president chaired a meeting on the Far East problems. Similar to the previous days, Medvedev urged bureaucrats to work more actively, and his rhetoric was very heated. Once in Kamchatka, Medvedev immediately headed for the submarine base located close to Vilyuchinsk village. It was raining heavily, and the president descended to Saint George the Victorious submarine to see its interior and speak with the sailors in the chief cabin. “The events are pushing us, and we will speed up organization of our armed forces,” Medvedev explained to the crew. “First of all, it is upgrading the armed forces; secondly, it is strengthening the status of a serviceman, including increased allowances, normal and qualitative dwellings, sound set of social services.” The global financial crisis won’t affect Russia’s fleet, the president assured sailors, pointing out that the construction of new submarines will continue irrespective of any crisis and the country has the force and the funds for it. At the final meeting dedicated to Far East development, the president focused on the key concern of the region – low living standards and outflow of residents as a result of it. The president urged ministers to accelerate elaboration of the concept for Far East’s social and economic development up to 2020.

Source: http://www.kommersant.com/p1031441/r...edev_Far_East/

[Armenian]

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

Russian Moves Show Military Ambitions

Russia stepped up efforts to project its increased might on the world stage on Friday, welcoming President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela by signing a $1 billion military loan to Venezuela and announcing wide-ranging plans to modernize its nuclear deterrence. The Russian Navy also dispatched a warship to the Indian Ocean to try to intercept a Ukrainian vessel carrying 30 battle tanks that was seized by pirates, as the United States also sent a warship in hot pursuit. After a military exercise in the southern city of Orenburg, near the border with Kazakhstan, the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev declared that by 2020 Russia would construct new types of warships, including nuclear submarines carrying cruise missiles, and an unspecified space defense system.

"A guaranteed nuclear deterrent system for various military and political circumstances must be provided by 2020," Mr. Medvedev said, in comments reported by Reuters. "Large-scale construction of new types of warships is planned, primarily of nuclear submarines armed with cruise missiles, and multi-purpose submarines," he was quoted as saying. “A system of air and space defense will be created.”

Russia, irritated by Western recognition of Kosovo’s independence, NATO’s expansion into the former Soviet realm, and the United States’ insistence on establishing a missile defense system in eastern Europe, has become increasingly keen to project its military might, defiantly ignoring American and European warnings when it sent troops into Georgia last month. In a sign of increasing antagonism, Russia has withheld some cooperation with other Western countries on international efforts to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The Russian government said Tuesday that it would boycott a meeting that had been scheduled at the United Nations for Thursday to discuss a fourth round of sanctions to force Iran to give up what many countries think is a program to develop nuclear weapons. The session was to have included the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany. The Russian announcement was viewed by many diplomats as retribution for a tough speech that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice delivered last week in which she denounced Russia’s behavior in the Georgian crisis.

On Friday, Russia and the United States agreed to seek a new United Nations resolution calling on Iran to comply with earlier demands to suspend uranium enrichment — a sign that the two countries at least were talking, but the statement only reiterated previous positions, The Associated Press reported.British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the brief resolution will affirm the three previous ones, which imposed progressively tougher sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt its enrichment program and urged Tehran to comply, The A.P. reported. Emboldened by lucrative oil revenues, and the United States’ distractions in Iraq and Afghanistan, Russia has also said it wants to build alliances to stand up to American power in the world, and has sought closer relations with Mr. Chávez, a longtime critic of the United States. Mr. Chávez, on his second visit to Russia in two months, met with Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin on Thursday, and on Friday traveled to Orenburg to meet with Mr. Medvedev.

The $1 billion loan for arms purchases and military development was announced in a Kremlin statement released Thursday night. The statement said Mr. Putin and Mr. Chávez had spoken on enhancing economic cooperation and trade in commercial goods as well as military technologies. The $1 billion loan will help finance programs related to military-technical cooperation, the statement said. The Kremlin would not elaborate on the details of the deal. Between 2005 and 2007 Venezuela has signed 12 contracts for weapons purchases from Russia for a total of more than $4.4 billion, the Kremlin statement said. The move is the latest gesture of military friendship between Russia and Venezuela, two counties that have increasingly positioned themselves as mavericks vis-à-vis the West. The Kremlin says its economic and political stability have allowed it to broaden the scope of its military and economic cooperation beyond what it calls its traditional sphere of influence.

Earlier this month a pair of Russian Tu-160 long-range bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons received a warm welcome when they landed in Venezuela. Russia has also dispatched a squadron from its North Sea Fleet to the Caribbean to take part in joint naval exercises with the Venezuelan Navy sometime in November. “Latin America, of course, is becoming an obvious link in the chain making up a multipolar world,” Mr. Putin said during his meeting with Mr. Chávez. “We will allocate more and more attention to this vector of our economics and foreign policy.” Russia has already delivered Sukhoi Su-30 fighters, Mi-17 transport helicopters, and thousands of Kalashnikov assault rifles to Venezuela. There are also plans to build a factory in the country that will manufacture these weapons under license.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/27/wo...russia.html?em

Venezuela to control oil, gas consortium to be set up with Russia

Venezuela's state oil and natural gas company PDVSA will hold a controlling stake in an oil and gas consortium to be set up with Russia, Russia's energy minister said on Friday. Sergei Shmatko said the consortium, to be created by next spring, will include Russian producers Gazprom, Rosneft, TNK-BP, Surgutneftegaz and LUKoil, and that investment from the Russian companies would total tens of millions of dollars. "I think formal issues on setting it up will be concluded by next spring at the latest," Shmatko said. He said the two countries' energy ministries had signed a memorandum pledging to draft an intergovernmental agreement on the consortium in the near future. Alexei Miller, CEO of Russian energy giant Gazprom, said on Friday his company would be the operator of the consortium, which will have its headquarters in Caracas.

Miller also said Gazprom and Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) will jointly work in third countries, including Bolivia. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is currently on a visit to Russia. He met with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday evening near Moscow and with President Dmitry Medvedev in Orenburg on Friday. Venezuela is a major purchaser of Russian weapons and hardware. In 2005-2006, the country ordered weaponry from Russia worth $3.4 billion, including 24 Su-30MK2V Flanker fighters, Tor-M1 air defense missile systems, Mi-17B multi-role helicopters, Mi-35 Hind E attack helicopters and Mi-26 Halo heavy transport helicopters. The two countries have also prioritized cooperation in the energy and mining sectors. State-run Gazprom, the country's largest independent oil producer LUKoil, Russian-British joint oil venture TNK-BP, aluminum giant RusAl and a number of other companies are active on the Venezuelan market.

Russian energy companies signed cooperation agreements with Venezuela's state oil and gas company as part of Hugo Chavez's last visit to Russia in July. Venezuela is one of the world's largest oil producing states, with about 87 billion barrels of proven conventional oil reserves. In addition, it has huge non-conventional oil deposits (heavy oil). Most of these deposits are located in the Orinoco oil belt. Miller also told journalists that presidents Medvedev and Chavez discussed plans to set up an international natural gas cartel, but did not give further details. The idea of creating a cartel of gas producer countries has long been considered by exporter states. However, no specific agreements were reached on the issue at April's forum of gas producer states in Qatar.

After the presidents' talks, Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko also said Gazprom could start drilling work in the Gulf of Venezuela in October, adding that such cooperation would benefit both sides, as Venezuela has no previous experience of working on the shelf on its own. Putin said on Thursday at his meeting with Chavez that Gazprom planned to launch a drilling unit in the Gulf of Venezuela in late October. In September 2005, Gazprom won a tender to prospect and develop natural gas deposits in the Gulf of Venezuela, receiving licenses for the Urumaco-1 and Urumaco-2 blocks. Estimated reserves of natural gas are about 100 billion cubic meters. In line with tender terms, the Russian energy giant set up the UrdanetaGazprom-1 and UrdanetaGazprom-2 companies, which took up the functions of operators. The first stage of geological prospecting work was completed in May 2007.

Source: http://en.rian.ru/world/20080926/117150433.html

[Angessa]

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

Here is more footage of the war games. http://rutube.ru/tracks/1048225.html...3def2fc372a135

I try to find uncut and without commentary footage.

[ZORAVAR]

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

Wow, I've seen tanks ford water, but I've never seen them totally submerged!

Btw, Zoravar, do you understand Russian?

I am not fluent in Russian. I can compose simple sentences and run a very basic conversation.

[Armenian]

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

RUSSIA'S GLOBAL WAR GAMES

This week the Russian armed forces began month-long strategic military exercises called Stability 2008. According to the Defense Ministry, the scenario suggests "a worsening of the situation and an escalation of crisis situations into military confrontation" (www.mil.ru, September 20). The composition of the forces and ministries that will be involved in the exercise does not leave any doubt—it’s a scenario of a nuclear war in which Russia and its ally Belarus will face the United States. and NATO. The Russian military, intelligence and special services, and other executive government agencies and ministries, including local governments, together with their Belarusian counterparts must jointly "liquidate military conflicts, insuring strategic stability." The exercises will involve mobilization and deployment to forward positions of forces in the Moscow and Far East Military Districts and the deployment of the navy in the North Sea, the Atlantic, the Baltic Sea, and the Pacific. Three air armies and one air defense corps, the Strategic Rocket Troops, strategic bombers, and Space Troops will be involved as well as Belarusian military formations. This exercise involves all of Russia’s nuclear forces, most of the battle-ready navy, and the Air Force, but only partially the army. This implies a predominantly indirect war with a far-off enemy—the United States—on sea, in the air, and in space, using nuclear weapons, with a limited engagement of army ground forces (www.mil.ru, September 20).

Of course, only a fraction of the manpower and hardware that would be needed in a real military confrontation between Russia and NATO will be deployed during Stability-2008 maneuvers. This is mostly a staff exercise to prepare the military, the Interior Ministry, the special services and civilian executive government to work together in a possible future confrontation with the West. Russia may some day move to secure its vital interests and defend its citizens (as was the case with Georgia in August) in other parts of the former USSR, say, in Ukraine's Crimea. The West may decide to intervene. According to Air Force chief General Alexander Zelin, during Stability 2008, Russia’s air defenses will repulse an enemy air onslaught, while Russia will use its strategic bombers and other nuclear capabilities to enforce peace and "stability".

According to Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, the maneuvers have been planned for a year; they are not a reaction to current political events (RIA-Novosti, September 23). Indeed, such massive military exercises with an outright anti-Western scenario could not have been improvised at short notice in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Georgia in August. Apparently, the present atmosphere of East-West confrontation was envisaged long before by military planners in the Defense Ministry just as the invasion of Georgia itself was planned in advance. While military staffs and other parts of the executive branch will be preparing to meet the challenges and consequences of an air, sea, and space confrontation with the West on home turf, a small naval force led by the nuclear cruiser Pyotr Velikii will sail to the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Caribbean to show the flag and the finger to the United States, Russia's archrival. Long-range bombers will fly out to far-off waters and coordinate their maneuvers with the Pyotr Velikii. Russian journalists and TV crews specially selected by military authorities have been posted on board the Pyotr Velikii to cover the planned two-month voyage. Since the ship sailed on September 23, Russian state TV has been showing daily satellite-transmitted reports on the progress of the mission from on board. The exercises Stability-2008 and the voyage of the naval force are getting massive coverage in the government-controlled Russian press. It was reported that the Pyotr Velikii will visit the Russian naval outpost in Tartus, Syria, that ten Russian warships are already in Syria, and that "aircraft carriers and cruisers may be based there" in the future. The visit of the Pyotr Velikii to Syria, it is said, will transform Russia into a naval superpower.

There is, in fact, not a single Russian warship based in the run-down Soviet-era naval outpost in Tartus, and the Pyotr Velikii is too big to dock there. Russia's only aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov is again in disrepair and not ready to sail. The Kuznetsov was built in a shipyard in Mykolaiv, Ukraine. Russia does not have a shipyard capable of building any more carriers. The voyage of the Pyotr Velikii and the Stability 2008 exercises seem to be mostly publicity stunts to boost anti-Western propaganda at home and send a clear message to Washington. Russia's rulers want to be taken seriously and can make trouble in different parts of the world if not respected; but they are ready to make deals: Do not send warships to the Black Sea to help Georgia and we will not go into your backyard; respect our sphere of influence and we will respect yours—or else. The offer resembles youth gangland politics, but Vladimir Putin grew up in a bad neighborhood in St. Petersburg.

Source: http://jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2373395

[Armenian]

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

Russia Flexes Muscles in Oil Deal With Chávez

Chavez wants stronger arms trade with Russia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJpqEC9eJ6c

Russia continued its international muscle-flexing on Friday, strengthening its ties to Venezuela through a $1 billion military loan and a new oil consortium as it announced an upgrade of its own military focusing on nuclear deterrence and permanent combat readiness. After a military exercise on Friday in the southern city of Orenburg, near the border with Kazakhstan, the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, declared that by 2020 Russia would construct new types of warships, including nuclear submarines carrying cruise missiles and an unspecified air and space defense system. The moves point to continuing tension between Russia and the West after the five-day war in Georgia. Response in Washington was muted, as officials weighed whether the moves were merely a restatement of existing initiatives or should be interpreted as one early sign of a new, if slow-motion, arms race. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview with Reuters: “The balance of power in terms of nuclear deterrence is not going to be affected by those measures.”

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon news conference that his Russian counterparts had in the past made it “very clear to me that their intention was to modernize their strategic forces.” The current plans, he said, are consistent with Russian policy going “as far back as a couple of years.” But the war in Georgia has clearly reordered priorities. With Europe and the United States united in condemnation of Russia’s military actions, Russian leaders began reaching out to countries like Venezuela, which are eager to provide a counterweight to United States power. On Thursday, Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, arrived on his second visit here. On Friday, Mr. Medvedev said the conflict also proved “the acuteness” of Russia’s need to modernize its military. Defense spending will increase by 26 percent next year, bringing it to 1.3 trillion rubles ($50 billion), its highest level since the collapse of the Soviet Union. “Just recently we have had to rebuff an aggression by the Georgian regime and, as we found, a war can flare up suddenly and can be absolutely real,” he said. “Local, smoldering conflicts, which are sometimes even called ‘frozen conflicts,’ will turn into a real military conflagration.”

The conflict in Georgia flared on the night of Aug. 7, when Georgia ordered an attack against Russian-backed separatists in South Ossetia. In response, Russia sent troops flooding over its border and deep into Georgia. Russia has recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a second separatist enclave, as sovereign states and plans to defend their borders. The conflict revealed serious weaknesses in Russian military readiness. Georgian air defenses shot down at least six Russian jets, pointing to poor maintenance and inadequate training. Russians took losses because they lacked air cover as they entered South Ossetia, and a Russian general, apparently operating without sufficient intelligence, was wounded when he led a column into Georgian ambush. By 2020, Mr. Medvedev said, Russia will shore up nuclear deterrents like nuclear submarines armed with cruise missiles and a combined air-space defense system. In the same period, he said, the Russian armed forces will be upgraded to a state of “permanent combat readiness.” He said Russia would also improve military training and research. “We should seek superiority in the air, in carrying out precision strikes against ground and sea targets, and in the prompt redeployment of forces,” he said, according to a statement on the Kremlin’s Web site.

Aleksandr Golts, an independent Russian military analyst, said the announcement conveyed a clear message, both to Russians and foreigners: that Russia “has risen from its knees.” “Russia wants to behave as a great power,” he said. “I have to agree with Mr. Gates, your defense secretary, who said that the existing Russian armed forces are only a shadow of the Soviet ones,” he said. At a meeting with Mr. Chávez, Mr. Medvedev agreed to a form a Russian-Venezuelan energy consortium that would share resources to produce and sell oil and gas. Russian companies are already at work exploring oil fields in Venezuela, but the agreement will allow them to expand their reach into more areas, including fields in Ecuador and Bolivia. Mr. Chávez described the agreement as “a colossus being born.” More cooperative efforts are in the works: On Thursday, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin said Russia would consider working with Venezuela to build nuclear power facilities. Mr. Chávez said he would like to see the two countries join forces to create a Russian-Venezuelan bank, and the two countries are planning joint large-scale naval exercises in late November.

Mr. Chávez reaffirmed his support for Russia’s military campaign in South Ossetia, saying Venezuelans were “well aware of the reasons behind the conflict — who attacked the people of South Ossetia and how.” He also passed on greetings from President Raúl Castro of Cuba, whom he recently met in Havana, and from the Chinese president, Hu Jintao. Admiral Mullen, of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, played down the joint efforts. Russia and Venezuela, he said, have the right to work together “if they see fit.” Some White House officials have privately urged a more punitive response to Russia’s invasion of Georgia, but Ms. Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates have urged a calm and deliberate response as being less likely to escalate tensions. That strategy has been adopted by the Bush administration.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/27/wo.../27russia.html

[North Pole]

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

Russia will pursue its goal to build a multipolar world to bring down the American Empire and negate the US one world government idea.

Chavez Invites In Russian Oil Firms

29 September 2008

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez agreed Friday to give broad access to his country's oil riches to five Russian companies, Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said.

The deal came after a meeting between President Dmitry Medvedev and Chavez in Orenburg, where the Venezuelan leader reiterated his support for Russia's actions in last month's military conflict with Georgia.

It also came a day after the announcement of a $1 billion loan for Venezuela to buy Russian military hardware.

State-controlled Gazprom and Rosneft, as well as private companies Lukoil, TNK-BP and Surgutneftegaz, plan to pour "tens of billions of dollars" of investment into Venezuela, Shmatko said. :clap:

The Russian and Venezuelan energy ministries signed a memorandum of understanding Friday that calls for the Russian companies to link up in a consortium to form a joint venture with Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, Shmatko said.

"It is a colossus being born," Chavez said live on Venezuelan state television from Russia.

Venezuela is the fourth-largest supplier of crude to the United States. It holds 7 percent of the world's proved oil reserves, Gazprom said.

This visit was the second for Chavez, a fervent critic of the United States, since July, as relations with the two energy-rich nations appear to be on the rise after Russia drew scathing criticism from the West over the brief war with Georgia and its subsequent recognition of the independence of the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Chavez said Venezuela fully supported Russia in the conflict.

"We know how the peaceful people of South Ossetia were attacked," he said. "Our support may be modest, but it is full and firm."

Chavez did not, as some had expected, follow Russia's lead in offering official recognition of South Ossetian and Abkhazian independence. Nicaragua remains the only country to have joined Russia in the move.

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/articles/detail.php?ID=371258

Russia, India to develop new BrahMos cruise missile

NEW DELHI, September 29 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and India will jointly develop a new BrahMos-2 hypersonic cruise missile, the head of the BrahMos company said on Monday.

"Today, at a meeting of the Russian-Indian intergovernmental commission on military-technical cooperation, we decided to set up a working group on the development of the BrahMos-2 missile," the company's CEO, Sivathanu Pillai said.

"The new hypersonic missile will have a top speed of over Mach 5, which would make it impossible to intercept," he added.

Established in 1998, BrahMos Aerospace, a joint Indian-Russian venture, produces and markets BrahMos supersonic missiles, whose sea-based and land-based versions have been successfully tested and put into service with the Indian army and navy.

Pillai said that the company had finished the development of the airborne version of the BrahMos missile and the Indian air force had chosen the SU-30 MKI Flanker-H multirole fighter as a trial platform for the missile.

The BrahMos missile has a range of 290 km (180 miles) and can carry a conventional warhead of up to 300 kg (660 pounds). It can hit ground targets flying at an altitude as low as 10 meters (30 feet) and has a top speed of Mach 2.8, which is about three times faster than the U.S.-made subsonic Tomahawk cruise missile.

The head of BrahMos Aerospace earlier said that the recent acquisition of an assembly plant in the state of Kerala from Kerala Hightech Industries Ltd, in addition to the main plant in Hyderabad, would allow the company to increase production to 50 BrahMos missiles a year and fulfill orders from the army on schedule.

Analysts estimate that India could purchase up to 1,000 BrahMos missiles for its armed forces in the next decade, and export 2,000 to other countries during the same period.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20080929/117254958.html

[North Pole]

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

Russia Flexes Muscles in Oil Deal With Chávez

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/27/wo.../27russia.html

So this is where we are going to drill, Dmitry, to screw the Yanks....




Exellent, Hugo!

[Armenian]

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

To hell ecumenism, Russia is the last bastion of Christianity.

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

Russia Condemned Religious Freedom Report of the U.S. Department of State

The annual International Religious Freedom Report of the U.S. Department of State is biased and contains a standard set of claims to Russia, the RF Foreign Ministry commented. “The regular annual International Religious Freedom Report of the U.S. Department of State that has been recently released at its Internet site traditionally swarms with the tendentious approach to Russia,” the RF Foreign Ministry commented Monday. “In general, while reading the current report of the U.S. Department of State, a certain standard set of claims to Russia, wandering from one report to another, will catch your eye,” Russia’s diplomats said. In particular, Russia’s Federal Act on Freedom of Worship, Religious Associations allegedly obstructs non-traditional confessions. The report again exaggerates privileged standing of Russian Orthodox Church. “The given reason is that the Orthodox Christmas is the day-off in Russia (as if, in the multi-confessional United States, they don’t officially celebrate the Catholic Christmas,” the document says.

Source: http://www.kommersant.com/p-13308/Re...te_religious_/

[Armanen]

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

Russia is the last bastion of Christianity.

Don't forget about our Hayrenik enker.