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Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations
Great New Site About Russia!
These guys are also very pro-Armenian
Great New Site About Russia!
These guys are also very pro-Armenian
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Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations
Armenia's pride and hope. Whoop dee doo.One-third Russian fighter jets old and unsafe: report
Fri Feb 6, 2009 5:40am EST
MOSCOW (Reuters) - About one-third of all Russian fighter jets should be written off as obsolete because they are unable to fly, the Kommersant business daily reported on Friday, quoting defense ministry and military officials.
Russia grounded all of its MiG-29 fighter jets last December after two of the aircraft crashed near the same airfield in eastern Siberia in just as many months. One pilot died.
Flights of MiG-29s have resumed since then, but hundreds are simply too old even to take off, Kommersant said.
"Russia's Defense Ministry for the first time recognized that around 200 of its MiG-29s are not just unable to cope with their combat tasks, but simply cannot take off," the paper said.
The report could hit Russia's reputation as a leading arms exporter and undermine Kremlin attempts to project Russia as a revived military power.
Both of the MiG-29s that crashed in eastern Siberia had been in service since 1985, Kommersant wrote.
"The main cause of the crash of the MiG-29 aircraft was the destruction of the keel in the air due to corrosion," the paper quoted Lt.-Gen. Sergei Bainetov, head of the Defense Ministry's flight safety department, as saying.
"Those fighter jets on which corrosion was not detected -- and they make up approximately 30 percent of all (MiG-29) jets -- have been allowed to resume flights."
The Defense Ministry could not be reached for comment.
Russia's armed forces now have 291 MiG-29s, but around 200 MiGs are unsafe and have to be grounded for good, the paper said. That would take out of action about a third of all Russia's fleet of fighter jets, which totals some 650 aircraft.
The report is likely to tarnish the image of the Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter, codenamed Fulcrum by NATO, which had been considered to be one of Russia's most advanced military jets. It was designed in the 1970s.
Last April, Algeria returned to Russia 15 MiG-29SMTs, saying the aircraft contained some substandard parts.
In December, soon after the last crash of the MiG-29, Russia announced it would give Lebanon 10 MiG-29s as a gift, adding that the aircraft were not new and each warplane had a different degree of wear. Russia promised to modernize the jets "to normal export standards" before delivery.
(Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
Taken from http://www.reuters.com/article/world...5152J020090206Last edited by SoyElTurco; 02-06-2009, 06:20 AM.Comment
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Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations
ditto for Azerbaijan.Originally posted by SoyElTurco View PostComment
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Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations
Russia boosts production of engines for Iskander-M missiles
OMSK (Siberia), February 6 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Omsk engine design and production bureau has started large-scale production of engines for missiles deployed on the Iskander-M tactical missile systems, a senior company official said on Friday.
The Iskander-M system (NATO reporting name SS-26 Stone) is equipped with two solid-propellant single-stage 9M723K1 guided missiles with "quasi-ballistic" capability.
"The company has received a large defense ministry order to manufacture engines for Iskander-M systems. The first batch must be supplied by the end of February," said Valery Kovalchuk, the bureau's deputy general director.
Kovalchuk said that the company had all necessary design, testing and production assets to ensure full-cycle production of the engines, and the current order would keep the firm working at full capacity for the next five years.
The Iskander-M system has a range of 400 km (250 miles) and can reportedly carry conventional and nuclear warheads.
Russia is planning to equip at least five missile brigades with Iskander-M systems by 2016. So far, two missile battalions on combat duty in the North Caucasus military district have been fully equipped with Iskander-M, according to some military sources.
President Dmitry Medvedev threatened in November to retaliate over the U.S. missile shield plans in central Europe by deploying Iskander-M missiles in the country's westernmost exclave of Kaliningrad, which borders NATO members Poland and Lithuania.
However, a high ranking Russian Defense Ministry source recently said that Russia had taken no practical measures to deploy the systems in Kaliningrad, and Russian officials have said they expect the new U.S. administration to change its stance on the deployment of 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic.
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Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations
U.S. must agree with Russia on Afghanistan supplies
MOSCOW, February 6 (RIA Novosti) - The U.S. will be forced to come to an agreement with Russia on alternative supply routes for deliveries to Afghanistan after Kyrgyzstan closes a U.S. base, a U.S. expert on Russia said on Friday.
Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev announced plans to close down the U.S. Manas base after talks on Tuesday in Moscow, where he secured substantial financial aid from Russia. The base has been used to support NATO operations in nearby Afghanistan since 2001.
"The issue of [U.S.] presence in Afghanistan is of great priority in Obama's administration. Therefore, the U.S. and Russia have a lot of possibilities to cooperate on this issue," the director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Andrew Kuchins, said at a press conference in Moscow.
"The talks are going to be very complex, but, nonetheless, I'm sure that we'll agree on the issue of the northern transit of cargo into Afghanistan," he added.
According to Kuchins, one of the reasons for closing the base in Manas was that Moscow "wants Obama's administration to pay attention to its relations with Russia."
Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin stated recently that Russia was hoping for constructive talks with the U.S. on the transit of non-military cargo via Russia to Afghanistan.
Kyrgyz Prime Minister Igor Chudinov said on Thursday the decision to close the airbase was not connected to Russian financial assistance. Russia is to write off Kyrgyzstan's $180 million debt and give the country a $2 billion discounted loan and $150 million in financial assistance.
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Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations
Russia to fire up Iranian reactor
Russian nuclear experts have confirmed they are likely to fire up Iran's first nuclear power plant by the end of 2009.
Russia's nuclear agency Rosatom said the first stage would be a "technical start-up" to test the reactor at the Russian-built Bushehr plant.
Some Western powers are concerned that Tehran may be building a nuclear weapons capability. Iran denies this.
Russia insists the Bushehr plant is for purely civilian use, and cannot be used for military purposes.
Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Rosatom, said the technical launch was on track to take place this year, and safety was the absolute priority.
"We will carry out as many tests as needed," he said.
The building of Iran's first nuclear plant has been beset by delays and difficulties.
It was first started in the 1970s by the German firm, Siemens.
But that stage of the project was disrupted by the Islamic revolution of 1979 and then further delayed by the war between Iran and Iraq that ended in 1988.
Since the Russians took on the completion of the plant, in 1995, Bushehr has been the cause of occasional friction between Russia and countries like the United States which oppose the possible acquisition by Iran of nuclear weapons.
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Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations
Armenian-Russian Loan Deal 'Finalized'
Published: Tuesday February 10, 2009
source: Asbarez
YEREVAN (RFE/RL)--Armenia and Russia have finalized an agreement on the release of a $500 million Russian loan aimed at helping the Armenian government minimize the fallout from the global economic crisis, the Finance Ministry in Yerevan said on Tuesday.
Russian Finance Minister Aleksey Kudrin announced his government's decision to disburse the “stabilization credit” on February 4 after weeks of Russian-Armenian negotiations. Yerevan reportedly sought up to $1 billion in Russian assistance during the talks.
A short statement by the Armenian Finance Ministry said the loan will be repayable in 15 years, with a 4-year grace period, but gave no other details of the deal. With ministry officials unavailable for comment, it remained unclear just how the government plans to use the sum equivalent to more than 15 percent of its projected budget for this year.
The statement clarified only that the finalized agreement does not place any “non-financial obligations” on the Armenian side. It was an apparent assurance that the government will not repay the loan with more industrial assets.
Armenia had handed over its largest thermal-power plant and four other enterprises to state-run Russian companies in payment for its $100 million debt to Moscow in 2003. Its leadership's decision to turn to Russia for financial support has fueled speculation about more Russian-Armenian equities-for-debt agreements are possible in the future.
Large-scale external assistance is vital for the success of the government's efforts to mitigate the global downturn's impact on the Armenian economy. The World Bank announced last week that it will provide Armenia with up to $800 million in loans in the next four years.
The government hopes to use the promised funds for implementing infrastructure projects in rural areas of the country and providing more cheap credit to local small and medium-sized enterprises. Officials say these measures will at least partly offset the loss of many jobs in export-oriented industries as well as an anticipated drop in large-scale remittances from Armenians working abroad.
Vartan Bostanjian, deputy chairman of the Armenian parliament's economic committee, described the government's anti-crisis plan as “almost faultless” but admitted that its implementation will be an uphill task. “Every person, including myself, can wonder if we will manage to implement that program in full,” he told journalists.
But Bagrat Asatrian, a former governor of the Armenian Central Bank highly critical of the government, insisted that the authorities still lack a clear-cut strategy of dealing with the global economic slump. He also strongly criticized their ongoing crackdown on tax evasion, saying that it is forcing many small businesses and self-employed Armenians into bankruptcy.
“The world would not collapse if they delayed their tax crackdown by a year,” Asatrian said during a public debate with Bostanjian. “Up to 5,000 people would keep their jobs.”
Ashot Khurshudian, an economist at the Yerevan-based International Center for Human Development, called for urgent government support for agriculture, saying that cash-strapped Armenian farmers could be the first casualties of the crisis. “If farmers fail to get credit resources to buy seeds and fertilizers in time for the spring planting period we will feel the consequences at the end of this year,” Khurshudian warned. “I would urge our decision-makers to think about helping the agricultural sector as early as this spring.”Comment
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Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations
Medvedev Hails Russian-Turkish 'Solidarity' in Caucasus
Published: Friday February 13, 2009
MOSCOW (Combined Sources)--Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has told his Turkish counterpart that Moscow is counting on Ankara's support over security in the restive Caucasus region, welcoming diplomatic moves by its historical rival in the two countries' Caucasus and Black Sea neighborhood.
As Medvedev evoked a role for NATO member Turkey in ex-Soviet nations that border both Russia and Turkey, a Russian official said Moscow and Ankara were close to making lucrative new energy deals.
"Our countries naturally want to strengthen security in the Caucasus region and to ensure proper security in the Black Sea. In this, we're fully in solidarity," Medvedev said during a visit by Turkish President Abdullah Gul.
Medvedev struck a defiant note on "outside powers" in the region, clearly referring to US support for Tbilisi in a war last summer between Georgia and Russia.
"The August crisis showed the importance of coordination by all countries of the region... and showed we can deal with such problems ourselves, without the involvement of outside powers," Medvedev said.
Russia remains fiercely protective of its role in the Caucasus nations that broke from Moscow in 1991 -- Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan -- and Medvedev in August described Moscow as the "guarantor" of the region's security.
Moscow's sense of entitlement has historically put Turkey and Russia at loggerheads. But as Gul visited on Friday both countries emphasized cooperation, not least in Russian help with energy supplies to Turkey.
Medvedev said he welcomed an initiative put forward by Turkey during last year's Georgia war known as the Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform. The latter is part of a push by Turkey that includes improving relations with Armenia.
Gul told Medvedev on Friday: "Russia and Turkey are neighboring countries, which are developing their relations on the basis of mutual confidence."
Later at a meeting with former president Vladimir Putin, now the country's prime minister, Putin applauded the emergence of Russia as Turkey's number one trade partner, telling Gul that Moscow considers its relations with Ankara as a foreign policy priority.
Gul responded: "The author of those relations is you. You have done a great service in this." The Turkish president reportedly invited Putin to visit Turkey.
Growing Energy Ties
On the sidelines of the talks in Moscow the two countries were working on new energy deals expected to increase Russia's role in Turkey, including a plan for Moscow to build a nuclear power station in Turkey.
Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said the two sides were nearing agreement on Russia winning the nuclear contract.
A consortium led by Russia's Atomstroixport partnership was the sole bidder in a tender launched in September to build a 4,800 megawatt nuclear power plant at Akkuyu on the Mediterranean coast.
"We expect our proposal will be forwarded by the tendering commission to the Turkish government in the near future," Shmatko told reporters. "According to different estimates, such a project could be worth 18-20 billion dollars,” he added.
Shmatko also said Russia and Turkey were discussing a long-term contract worth 60 billion dollars over a period of 15 years to supply Russian electricity to Turkey. "The volume of supplies of electricity from Russia to Turkey could reach 60 billion dollars over 15 years," he said.
In practice Russian-Turkish energy cooperation has fallen short of Moscow's expectations.
The Blue Stream gas pipeline that supplies Russian gas to Turkey is now operating at well below the capacity envisaged by its planners, as Turkey eyes other energy sources such as Iraq and Central Asia.
Gul's trip is largely seen as bid to push through energy projects that would boost its role in the region and take advantage of the fallout from the latest Russia-Ukraine row over natural gas prices. Analysts say the January gas row may make Russia more eager to agree to a pipeline deal to export its gas to Europe through a pipeline over Turkey.
The planned line would run parallel to the existing Blue Stream pipeline that travels to Turkey under the Black Sea delivering a daily 50 million cubic meters of gas. A Gazprom official previously said Turkey had the power to make good on a second Blue Stream once the current pipeline's through flow nears capacity.
European Union candidate Turkey has tried to make good on its location between Europe and some of the world's largest energy reserves to boost its importance as a transit country for energy supplies headed to Europe.
Turkey is also likely to push Moscow to send Russian and Kazakh oil from the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which is to be expanded, through Turkey's trans-Anatolian pipeline. The pipeline would give Russia a way to transport its oil from the port of Novorossisk to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, without relying on the current trade route that runs through Turkey's congested Bosphorus Strait.
Russia is Turkey's biggest trading partner and bilateral trade was worth 37.8 billion dollars last year.Comment
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Maybe Russia truly believes Iran's program is peaceful?
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Russia Says They Will Not Toughen Policy Toward Iran
MOSCOW — Russia does not intend to toughen its policy toward Iran regarding its nuclear program, a senior Russian diplomat said Monday.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said it's necessary to intensify international efforts to reach a political settlement of the Iranian nuclear standoff. But Ryabkov added that Russia has no intention to take a harsher attitude to Iran, Russian news agencies reported.
"Our stance on the Iranian nuclear program has no elements which could be interpreted as toughening of approach," Ryabkov was quoted as saying.
The U.S. has accused Iran of supporting terrorism and secretly seeking to build nuclear weapons — charges that Iran denies.
Russia has developed close ties with Iran and is building its first nuclear power plant. Moscow has supported limited U.N. sanctions on Iran, but opposed the U.S. push for tougher measures.
President Barack Obama has signaled a new willingness to engage Iran, whose relations with the Bush administration were long strained.
Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Najar arrived in Moscow late Monday for talks with his Russian counterpart on bilateral military ties, the Interfax news agency reported.
Russia has supplied weapons to Iran, despite U.S. and Israeli complaints. However, Russian officials have rejected claims that they have provided Iran with powerful S-300 air defense missiles.
Anatoly Isaikin, head of the Russian Rosoboronexport state arms-selling monopoly, was quoted in an interview published earlier this month as saying that it had not supplied S-300s to Iran yet but was ready to do so if ordered by the government.
Interfax said that Najar will likely push for delivery of S-300s during his visit to Russia.
Ryabkov said Monday that ending the Iranian nuclear standoff could also help advance U.S.-Russian talks on possible cooperation on missile defense.
"As soon as there is a shift toward restoring confidence in the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program, opportunities will open for deeper talk on prospects for cooperation on missile defense," Ryabkov said. "We are studying signals from the U.S. administration, and, for our part, have made proposals on how we can cooperate in the missile defense field."
Russia has fiercely opposed plans by George W. Bush's administration to deploy a battery of missile interceptors in Poland and a related radar in the Czech Republic. Moscow has rejected the U.S. claims that the sites were intended to counter prospective missile threats from Iran, saying the facilities threaten Russia's security.
The Kremlin has voiced hope that Obama's administration will dump the missile defense plans.
Obama has not said how he intends to proceed. But he has stressed that the system has to be cost-effective and proven and that it should not divert resources from other national security priorities.
Last edited by Muhaha; 02-17-2009, 01:08 AM.Comment
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Give up the idea of Ukraine and Georgia(Stupid to want such unstable countries in the first place) in NATO and Obama could easily secure a safe and welcoming supply route to Afghanistan, and not just food and clothes.
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Conflicted Russia gives and takes on Afghanistan
Reporting from Moscow -- Russia seems to have a message for the Obama administration: Go ahead and boost your military effort in Afghanistan -- but not without our help.
In recent days, Russian officials have rushed forward to offer logistical help to NATO troops in Afghanistan -- at the same time dipping into a dwindling budget to offer impoverished Kyrgyzstan more than $2 billion in an apparent payoff for ejecting a U.S. military base crucial to the war against the Taliban.
In fact, Russia is tugged between two strong, conflicting impulses. It distrusts U.S. motives, especially when it comes to America's penetration of former Soviet states. But Moscow's sense of invulnerability appears shaken by falling oil prices and the precarious economy. Many analysts believe the Kremlin is looking for an opening to make nice with the West. Nearby Afghanistan, where instability also spells danger for Russia, presents a handy opening.
And so Russian officials offer help with one hand, lash out with the other.
"They see a menace on the side of America, where it does not exist, and they don't see the real scale, the real magnitude, of the menace from the south, from Islamic fundamentalism, which is a real danger," said Sergei Arutyunov, chairman of the Caucasus studies department at Moscow's Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology. "They pay tentative and not always consistent lip service to American efforts in fighting this menace, but on the other hand they are even more afraid of the American presence anywhere near their borders."
Analysts agree that Russia needs a more peaceful Afghanistan. The mountainous Central Asian republics on the Afghan border are tribally and culturally intertwined with Afghanistan, and easily influenced by conflict there. And those republics, in turn, are closely tied to Russia.
There is a fear that a further deterioration in Afghanistan could spill over the border into the rest of Central Asia -- and onto the doorstep of Russia, which is home to a sizable Muslim minority.
"If Afghanistan and Pakistan are further destabilized, this instability will flood Central Asian countries and the Russian border and flood the south of Russia," said retired Lt. Gen. Ruslan Aushev, who served five years in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation of the 1980s. "Russia will do anything to prevent that."
Some analysts criticized Russia's eagerness to see the United States ejected from Kyrgyzstan.
"If Russia really wants to help and assist in the American efforts in Afghanistan, then the Russian government should use its influence not to cajole the Kyrgyz into abolishing this base but, on the contrary, to broaden the abilities of this base as an indispensable, important link in the chain of anti-Taliban operation," Arutyunov said.
But others predicted that Russia would follow up by offering to help the United States supply Afghanistan. And sure enough, Moscow has sent out increasingly broad offers to open its territory for transport. Last week Russia's foreign minister even dangled the possibility of transporting weaponry to Afghanistan.
"They will create problems and then resolve them for a fee," said Ariel Cohen, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "This is a hard-nosed, ad hoc approach where they're trying to maximize and monetize their geopolitical clout."
In Russian diplomacy, ego also tends to figure in. The message from Moscow these days appears to be that the United States should not expect to cut deals with the Kremlin-backed governments of Central Asia. If Obama wants something from the region, he'll have to ask Moscow.
This is a far cry from Russia's more conciliatory approach in 2001 when the U.S. and allied warlords ousted Afghanistan's Taliban government after the Sept. 11 attacks. In those days, Russia still labored under the humiliation and financial collapse of the 1990s, and viewed the attacks on the U.S. as an echo of its own wars in Chechnya and struggles with militant Islam.
Vladimir Putin, who then served as president, reached out to commiserate with Washington and kept silent as the U.S. opened military bases in the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Experts now say the United States underestimated or ignored the extent to which Putin, who is now Russia's prime minister, regarded the presence of U.S. troops on former Soviet soil as a risky and generous concession.
Putin "thought that was worth some return concessions on the U.S. part," said Vladimir Milov, who served as deputy energy minister during Putin's first term in office. "He thought that he'd agree that the U.S. could advance militarily in Central Asia, and then he would be able to negotiate something back. But it didn't work out, so he got offended."
From that point on, relations further soured.
A few years later, popular uprisings in Ukraine and Georgia ousted Russian-backed politicians and installed pro-Western governments with U.S. encouragement.
To Moscow, U.S. actions in its backyard smacked of betrayal. Putin has said that the fall of the Soviet Union was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century"; the government has also said it demands "privileged" influence in the former Soviet republics. Bush administration attempts to lure Georgia and Ukraine out of Moscow's grasp enraged Putin, insiders say.
These days, facing both the U.S. military presence and increasing Chinese energy deals in places like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, Russia is on a drive to reestablish dominance in Central Asia.
That ambition was signaled this month, when Russia summoned the leaders of six other former Soviet republics and they agreed to the creation of a collective rapid-reaction force. The government said it would be based in Russia, and compared the force to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
At the same time, while in Moscow, the Kyrgyz president announced his country's intention to accept massive Russian financial aid -- and rid the nation of the American troops.
"Putin wants to retain major control over Central Asia, and probably it's a new dividing line he wants to draw with the West," Milov said. "This is why Kyrgyzstan and the military base is one of the crucial points."
Last edited by Muhaha; 02-17-2009, 01:09 AM.Comment
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