Military and political experts both in Russia and Central Asia say the timing of Russia’s ratification of the bilateral agreement with Tajikistan and its plans to reinforce the Kant air base are not coincidental, and show Moscow’s seriousness about fortifying its influence in Central Asia.
Vladimir Mukhin, a Moscow-based journalist and expert on military affairs, says [...]

read more....

Putin may be endangering Russia’s future by revisiting the past.
The Byzantine Empire fell in 1453. But you wouldn’t know it in Russia, where Vladimir V. Putin has been behaving as though the 15th century never ended, as though he is the direct descendant of the Byzantine kings and Moscow remains the “Third Rome” it declared [...]

read more....

JUDGING from the news lately, Russia is well on its way to restoring that old Evil Empire image. Military parades have returned to Red Square. Key businesses are choked by corruption or are under state control. Journalists who probe too deeply turn up dead. And critics of the Kremlin are jailed, pushed out of elections [...]

read more....

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: [...]

read more....

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, [...]

read more....

Speaking about technical characteristics it is already known that the new Russian aircraft carrier will not compete in size with the American ships. It will be a nuclear aircraft carrier with the displacement of bout 50 thousand tons with around 30 planes and helicopters. Vladimir Masorin assured that Russia will not build giants with 100-130 [...]

read more....