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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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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But look today at Europe’s political leadership: Nicolas Sarkozy in France has replaced the bitterly anti-American Jacques Chirac. In Germany, Angela Merkel has replaced the dyspeptic and anti-Iraq war Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Prime Minister Gordon Brown in Britain now once again speaks about the US-UK “special relationship.” And now, Berlusconi will soon return to the [...]

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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 “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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Many believe that when Chinese and Russian leaders stopped believing in communism, they stopped believing in anything. They had become pragmatists, pursuing their own and their nation’s interests. But Chinese and Russian rulers, like past rulers of autocracies, do have a set of beliefs that guide their domestic and foreign policies. They believe in the [...]

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NATO warned Russia Wednesday to stop undermining Georgia’s territorial integrity, after Moscow announced it would send more peacekeepers to two rebel Georgian regions.
Russia’s move, to counter what it said was the massing of Georgian troops near Abkhazia and South Ossetia, raised concern in the United States while the European Union has said that any [...]

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Russia’s defence ministry is sending extra peacekeeping troops to two Georgian separatist regions in response to what it calls aggressive moves by Georgia.
“Analysis of the structure of the armed forces in this region leads to the conclusion that a bridgehead is being prepared… for military operations against Abkhazia,” the ministry said.
Russia maintains a peacekeeping force [...]

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China on Monday hailed a new military hot line with Russia as a sign of strengthened cooperation, in sharp contrast with sluggish efforts to set up a similar link with Washington.
The hot line with Moscow “reflects the level of political trust and strategic coordination between the two countries,” state media quoted Chinese Defense Minister Liang [...]

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In 1914, on the eve of the Great War, British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey observed, “The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.” Whether he was proposing a solution to global warming is unclear. But he would be impressed to hear that nine decades [...]

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MOSCOW, April 17, 2007 (UPI) — Experts have two main questions about the situation in Iran: First, are the Iranians close to developing a nuclear bomb? And second, are the Americans going to start a war there?
Several thousand centrifuges are enough to enrich uranium to 90 percent and produce a nuclear bomb within a year. [...]

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Russia, Iran, Qatar, Venezuela, and other members of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (G.E.C.F.) met in Doha on April 9 amidst Western fears that Moscow may encourage the birth of a “gas O.P.E.C.” Western decision-makers fear that such a new organization could give producers of natural gas an advantage over consumers.
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Moscow’s growing attention to the Middle East continues, part of a new global strategy espoused by a more assertive and ambitious Russia. President Vladimir Putin pays much more attention to the region than his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, ever did. In the last two years, he has paid a historic first visit to Israel, visited oil- [...]

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Moscow (CNSNews.com) - Russia has renewed its pledge to build its strategic partnership with China, in a thinly veiled attempt to oppose what Moscow views as American unilateralism.
President Vladimir Putin told visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao Monday that the positions of both countries on Iran and North Korea “either coincide or are similar.”
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Russian efforts to on U.S. political and military decision-making have reached levels not seen since the Cold War, the top U.S. counterintelligence official said on Thursday.
Joel Brenner, the Bush administration’s National Counterintelligence Executive, said a new intensive assault by Moscow is intent on gaining insights into “the upper echelon of U.S. decision-making” rather than stealing [...]

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Moscow’s decision against delivering nuclear fuel to Iran’s Bushehr reactor demonstrates a change in Russian foreign policy. Previously, Russia has supported Iran throughout its confrontation with the United States and with the West over its nuclear research program. Russia saw relations with Iran as positive for a number of reasons: Iran is a major purchaser [...]

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“Moscow’s developing bilateral security relations with Latin American governments have become a matter of some concern for Washington,” the study says. It contains both official reports and information leaks about Russia’s contacts with Venezuela, Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, and Mexico on past and future deliveries of Russian weapons, including fighter and transport planes, helicopters, [...]

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MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti defense commentator Viktor Litovkin) - In an announcement that would have been sensational if it had not been so logical, Chief of Staff of the Russian military Army General Yury Baluevsky said that the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) were planning their first theater-level military exercise.
Link [...]

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Link to this article.
Earlier this year, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in China � and quickly made himself at home. The occasion was a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional group linking China, Russia and Central Asia. During the summit, Mr. Ahmadinejad seemed to be everywhere. He delivered a major address broadcast [...]

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