President Dmitry Medvedev made his debut as the commander in chief of Russia’s armed forces Thursday, touring a missile base and promising to provide the funding needed for nuclear forces to counter global threats.
Medvedev inspected Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missiles and spoke to officers at the base near Teikovo, a town in the Ivanovo region some [...]

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A more plausible explanation of Russia’s propaganda offensive and increase in the numbers of both regular and irregular forces in Abkhazia is not fear of a Georgian attack, but plans for the opposite: an attempt to retake the Kodori Gorge. This would humiliate, perhaps topple, Georgia’s pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili. Russia would see it as [...]

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Are the BRIC countries an emerging threat?
From the article:
The concept of the BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — was coined five years ago in a research paper from the Goldman Sachs investment bank.
This week, reality takes over from theory as the foreign ministers of the BRIC countries hold their first formal meeting [...]

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It’s A Growing Threat To America’s Security - And Two Men Infiltrated It: The Russian Mafia
The Justice Department is launching a bold 21st Century attack to combat what Attorney General Michael Mukasey calls the “growing threat” that international organized crime is posing to “U.S. security and stability.” CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian looks [...]

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Former president Putin initiated Russia’s move to regain “great power” status by consolidating Soviet-style control over resources, infrastructure, the economy, and security. He used the Kremlin’s full powers to quash all serious political opposition by recreating a virtual one-party state. He tapped national nostalgia by restoring former communist symbols such as the Soviet anthem and [...]

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I don’t know about you, but the sight of Russian missiles rolling across Red Square made me a little nervous. It’s the Russian way of subtle intimidation.
From the article:
If anyone was having trouble grasping the fact that Russia has an image problem, the sight of intercontinental ballistic missiles rolling across Red Square on Victory Day [...]

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ON a frigid evening in February, the hottest place to be here was the Kremlin Palace theater. The draw inside the towering hall wasn’t Tina Turner or Deep Purple — rock icons well past their prime — but Gazprom, Russia’s most powerful corporate leviathan, which was celebrating its 15th anniversary.
Gazprom certainly had reason to party: [...]

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Dmitry Medvedev may be the new president, but his predecessor is still the one with power.
We can expect a few proclamations and perhaps even token policy changes. Unfortunately, the early signs show that Medvedev’s statement about developing civil freedoms and ending “legal nihilism” were only a show for the West. Such displays are needed to [...]

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Russia’s new President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have surveyed a massive military parade in Moscow’s Red Square a day after the State Duma confirmed Putin in the premiership.
Flag-carriers from a military honour guard led the parade to mark the 63rd anniversary of Russia’s victory over Germany in World war II.
The cadets carried [...]

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When Boris Yeltsin left the Kremlin eight years ago, he gave Vladimir Putin the pen he had used to sign important documents and decrees, a gesture symbolizing the transfer of power to Russia’s new president. When Putin left the Kremlin, he took the pen with him. Putin, who became prime minister Thursday, has signaled that [...]

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Russia’s oil industry
WHEN the price of oil reached another record on May 6th, of over $122 a barrel, analysts pointed to attacks on pipelines in Nigeria and turmoil in Iraq as the immediate causes. Even small disruptions to supplies from such places can cause the price to jump, since only Saudi Arabia has the capacity [...]

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Russia’s deployment of extra troops in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia has brought the prospect of war “very close,” a minister of ex-Soviet Georgia said on Tuesday.
Read More…

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Dmitry Oreshkin, a Russian political analyst, says beefing up the Victory Day parade is just one of many steps that Putin has taken toward resurrecting the hallmarks of the Soviet empire and the country’s former glory.
“He gives free rein to the Soviet dream,” Oreshkin says. “The huge number of people who were brought up in [...]

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Russian President Vladimir Putin and his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, have promised a harmonious dual leadership. But as Medvedev prepares to be inaugurated as Russia’s new president, the two leaders’ supporters are already gearing up for a power struggle. By Uwe Klussmann in Moscow more…

Photo Gallery: The ‘Putvedev’ Era Begins
EU Condemns Saber Rattling: Russia and Georgia [...]

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But the army, the pension system, public health, secondary education and the road system have all eroded on Putin’s watch, former government ministers Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov wrote in a recent report, “Putin: The Bottom Line.”
The main cause, they charge, is “Russia’s dive into an unprecedented mire of corruption” that flows throughout the government.
INDEM, [...]

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The Topol-M series, which has the NATO reporting designation of SS-27, has a range of around 7,000 miles and the ability to evade any future U.S. missile defense system deployed in central Europe.
The system is reportedly capable of withstanding a direct hit from laser weapons, electromagnetic pulse and a nuclear blast, the report said.
Solovtsov said [...]

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The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) has registered the reduction of combat duties of Russian submarines, while the duties of nuclear submarines became more frequent in such countries as the USA, the UK and France.
Today about 20 percent of Russian ballistic missiles (624 warheads in all) have naval deployment. By 2015 their number may increase [...]

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THE United Nations Population Fund projected last week that Russia’s population will drop from 142 million today to 100 million in the next 40 to 50 years. The agency’s report praised recent government efforts to increase birth rates and extend lives. But not enough is being done to counter stark demographic forces: an impending decrease [...]

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It’s true China is booming, Russia is growing more assertive, terrorism is a threat. But if America is losing the ability to dictate to this new world, it has not lost the ability to lead. American anxiety springs from something much deeper, a sense that large and disruptive forces are coursing through the world. [...]

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Russia’s new president, Dmitry Medvedev, is stepping into the vortex of the superpowers’ race for global pre-eminence. Here are some of the challenges he faces.
NATO AND MISSILES
NATO’s readiness to give Georgia and Ukraine eventual membership has exacerbated Kremlin suspicions that the West’s goal is to surround and weaken Russia. Lately tensions have escalated along Russia’s [...]

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The “moment of truth” has come for Europe to resist hardliners in Russia who are bent on stopping the spread of democracy in the former Soviet Union, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said on Thursday.
Moscow has sparked an international crisis by ordering extra troops and equipment to Abkhazia, a Black Sea province which threw off [...]

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