ill
Superstar
Long as democracy is at work
If you mean fascism and selective democracy when it works for the west then yes it's working.
Another Big Win For Putin!!!
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If you mean fascism and selective democracy when it works for the west then yes it's working.
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Putin warns Israel against selling arms to Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin makes a speech during the Victory Parade on Moscow's Red Square. (photo credit:REUTERS)
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Israel against supplying weapons to the Ukrainian government, which is battling a Russian- backed insurgency in its eastern province.
“This is a choice, a choice of the Israeli leadership; they have the right to do what they consider appropriate. I think it is counterproductive, if it concerns lethal weapons, because it will only lead to yet another swirl of confrontation, to more human casualties, but the result will be the same,” Putin said in an interview on Rossiya 1 TV on Saturday.
His words were reported as well on the English-language news website for Sputnik International.
In Israel, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Defense Ministry had no response to the report.
Israel has been upset by Russia’s decision last week to lift its five-year ban on the sale of the S-300 anti-missile system to Iran and to deliver those weapons by the end of 2015.
It had voluntarily halted the sale of the weapons to Iran in 2010 under pressure from the West and because it was believed that such a ban would help sway Iran to enter negotiations over its nuclear program.
Earlier this month, six world powers – Russia, the US, China, France, the UK and Germany – reached a framework agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program. Israel has argued that the deal, which has yet to be finalized, would not prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons. Russia’s actions, it has said, is proof of the deal’s danger.
On Thursday, Putin explained the deal in a special call-in broadcast on Rossiya 1 TV, in which he answered questions from the public.
“Now that there is obvious progress on the Iranian track, we do not see why we should continue imposing this ban unilaterally,” he said.
The S-300, Putin said, “does not pose any threat to Israel whatsoever. It is a solely defensive weapon. Moreover, we believe that under the current circumstances in the region, especially in view of the events in Yemen, supplies of this kind of weapon could be a restraining factor.”
The Iranian Army held its annual parade in Tehran on Saturday to mark Army Day.
Many new domestic weapons were unveiled during the event, including the Bavar-373 air-defense missile system. The system received much attention, as it was said by the Iranian media as being equivalent to Russia’s S-300 missile system.
Meanwhile, the US military option to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and to encourage a diplomatic solution, remains intact despite Russia’s decision to deliver the S-300 system to Tehran, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a news conference on Thursday.
“We’ve known about the potential for that system to be sold to Iran for several years and have accounted for it in all of our planning,” Dempsey said.
“The military option that I owe the president to both encourage the diplomatic solution and, if the diplomacy fails, to ensure that Iran doesn’t achieve a nuclear weapon, is intact.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Putin-warns-Israel-against-selling-arms-to-Ukraine-398497
Putin is furious
- Analysis: Framework deal opens floodgates for investm...
- 'Iranian anti-aircraft missiles pose challenge, but n...
Russian President Vladimir Putin makes a speech during the Victory Parade on Moscow's Red Square. (photo credit:REUTERS)
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Israel against supplying weapons to the Ukrainian government, which is battling a Russian- backed insurgency in its eastern province.
“This is a choice, a choice of the Israeli leadership; they have the right to do what they consider appropriate. I think it is counterproductive, if it concerns lethal weapons, because it will only lead to yet another swirl of confrontation, to more human casualties, but the result will be the same,” Putin said in an interview on Rossiya 1 TV on Saturday.
His words were reported as well on the English-language news website for Sputnik International.
In Israel, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Defense Ministry had no response to the report.
Israel has been upset by Russia’s decision last week to lift its five-year ban on the sale of the S-300 anti-missile system to Iran and to deliver those weapons by the end of 2015.
It had voluntarily halted the sale of the weapons to Iran in 2010 under pressure from the West and because it was believed that such a ban would help sway Iran to enter negotiations over its nuclear program.
Earlier this month, six world powers – Russia, the US, China, France, the UK and Germany – reached a framework agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program. Israel has argued that the deal, which has yet to be finalized, would not prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons. Russia’s actions, it has said, is proof of the deal’s danger.
On Thursday, Putin explained the deal in a special call-in broadcast on Rossiya 1 TV, in which he answered questions from the public.
“Now that there is obvious progress on the Iranian track, we do not see why we should continue imposing this ban unilaterally,” he said.
The S-300, Putin said, “does not pose any threat to Israel whatsoever. It is a solely defensive weapon. Moreover, we believe that under the current circumstances in the region, especially in view of the events in Yemen, supplies of this kind of weapon could be a restraining factor.”
The Iranian Army held its annual parade in Tehran on Saturday to mark Army Day.
Many new domestic weapons were unveiled during the event, including the Bavar-373 air-defense missile system. The system received much attention, as it was said by the Iranian media as being equivalent to Russia’s S-300 missile system.
Meanwhile, the US military option to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and to encourage a diplomatic solution, remains intact despite Russia’s decision to deliver the S-300 system to Tehran, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a news conference on Thursday.
“We’ve known about the potential for that system to be sold to Iran for several years and have accounted for it in all of our planning,” Dempsey said.
“The military option that I owe the president to both encourage the diplomatic solution and, if the diplomacy fails, to ensure that Iran doesn’t achieve a nuclear weapon, is intact.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Putin-warns-Israel-against-selling-arms-to-Ukraine-398497
Putin is furious
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Why Putin's Next War Will Be at Home
A pollster and a former Putin adviser predict new popularity problems—and renewed focus on domestic enemies
byLeonid Ragozin
2:24 PM EDT
April 17, 2015
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his annual televised call-in show on April 16.
Photographer: Mikhail Klimentyev/AFP via Getty Images
Vladimir Putin appeared this week in his annual marathon television broadcast to answer questions posed by viewers from across Russia. Of course, the four-hour show, Direct Line With Vladimir Putin, was carefully choreographed to avoid anything that could embarrass the Russian leader. But that doesn’t mean the broadcast shied away from criticism and thorny issues. Putin used this year's broadcast to deliver a rebuke to his former finance minister, ruminate on the murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, and opine on the war in Ukraine.
The show has become a yearly fixture dating back to 2001. Why has Putin embraced the call-in format? “It is the most powerful opinion poll,” he explained during Thursday's show. “Millions of questions have been submitted via different channels, which allows us to get a realistic idea of what makes people worried.”
While Putin’s Russia is not a democracy, its leadership remains obsessed with feedback. Policies are shaped by frequent opinion polls and focus-group surveys. This helps explain some of the seemingly reckless and self-defeating moves made by the Kremlin, most of which miraculously result in high approval ratings and greater consolidation behind the regime.
Think back to January 2014, a time when Putin’s approval rating was at a record low of 65 percent (the sort of popularity that would be a high-water mark by the standards of more democratic countries). That all changed overnight following Russia's occupation of Crimea. His approval rating shot to 88 percent and has remained more or less the same ever since. “One could expect some kind of a rise, but this result surprised everyone—Putin included,” says Gleb Pavlovsky, who served as Putin’s domestic policy adviser from 1999 to 2011.
A year after the seizure of Crimea, Putin's ratings remain phenomenally high. Yet he now must contend sharply with the level of frustration caused by Russia's economic downfall, exacerbated by Western sanctions and low oil prices. Lev Gudkov, the head of Levada Centre, an independent polling agency, predicts that before long, Putin’s approval ratings will start going down, too.
“The bubble of ideological patriotism is already quite weak. A relative calm in the Ukrainian conflict will give rise to protest sentiments in Russia,” Gudkov says. During the call-in show, Putin stressed that unity was vital for Russians: “If we keep the current level of consolidation in society,” he told the nation, “we will not be afraid of any threats.”
Russian Interior troops stay in line during a rally in Moscow organized by pro-Kremlin activists on Feb. 1.
Photographer: Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images
Gudkov believes Putin will soon need a fresh escalation to prevent the newly achieved unity from falling apart. But this escalation is unlikely to come in the form of a fresh attack on Ukraine or another neighbor. The takeover of Crimea was hailed by Russians exactly because it was relatively bloodless and welcomed by the majority of Crimeans. But the overall appetite for war is quite low, according to Gudkov.
“The system will be pressed into inventing a new emergency, but probably inside the country rather than outside, where it has already gone too far,” says Putin’s ex-adviser Pavlovsky. He sees Russia’s supposed imperialism as more of a PR bubble than a predominant ideology: “It is a show themed on the Cold War. It is a soap opera with empire-related props, not an imperial project.”
The new target will be those who are seen as agents of the external enemy: the relatively small but vocal and influential part of society that adheres to liberal values and favors integration with the West. Kremlin propaganda likes to refer to this group as a fifth column. “There will be more repression and more acts of provocation [against dissidents],” predicts Gudkov.
Although there isn't yet repression on the Soviet scale in modern-day Russia, domestic tensions have been rising over the past few months. Some 30,000 Putin supporters marched through Moscow in February to demand that the government crush the “fifth column” and put opposition leaders behind bars. A week later came the death of Boris Nemtsov, an opposition leader, who was gunned down a few hundred feet from the Kremlin. Putin condemned the killing at the time and once again called it “a shameful act” during Thursday's television broadcast.
In the months that followed, toxic anti-opposition rhetoric has filled TV airtime and pro-government newspapers as never before. The pressure from zealous officials and pro-Kremlin activists has reached past the political opposition to target theater directors and film distributors. On Friday, for example, Putin’s envoy who coordinates the army and law enforcement in Siberia accused the opposition of starting forest fires that have devastated dozens of villages in his region.
Putin hasn't been immune to overheated rhetoric: Last month he claimed that Western secret services planned to use Russian political groups and nongovernmental organizations to disrupt next year's national elections. He avoided this kind of talk during the call-in broadcast, instead welcoming the opposition to take part in the election and enter parliament.
Yet as he fielded question for nearly four hours, police raided the office of Open Russia, an NGO funded by former political prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, which spreads information about repressions and protest actions.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-17/why-putin-s-next-war-will-be-at-home
A pollster and a former Putin adviser predict new popularity problems—and renewed focus on domestic enemies
byLeonid Ragozin
2:24 PM EDT
April 17, 2015
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his annual televised call-in show on April 16.
Photographer: Mikhail Klimentyev/AFP via Getty Images
Vladimir Putin appeared this week in his annual marathon television broadcast to answer questions posed by viewers from across Russia. Of course, the four-hour show, Direct Line With Vladimir Putin, was carefully choreographed to avoid anything that could embarrass the Russian leader. But that doesn’t mean the broadcast shied away from criticism and thorny issues. Putin used this year's broadcast to deliver a rebuke to his former finance minister, ruminate on the murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, and opine on the war in Ukraine.
The show has become a yearly fixture dating back to 2001. Why has Putin embraced the call-in format? “It is the most powerful opinion poll,” he explained during Thursday's show. “Millions of questions have been submitted via different channels, which allows us to get a realistic idea of what makes people worried.”
While Putin’s Russia is not a democracy, its leadership remains obsessed with feedback. Policies are shaped by frequent opinion polls and focus-group surveys. This helps explain some of the seemingly reckless and self-defeating moves made by the Kremlin, most of which miraculously result in high approval ratings and greater consolidation behind the regime.
Think back to January 2014, a time when Putin’s approval rating was at a record low of 65 percent (the sort of popularity that would be a high-water mark by the standards of more democratic countries). That all changed overnight following Russia's occupation of Crimea. His approval rating shot to 88 percent and has remained more or less the same ever since. “One could expect some kind of a rise, but this result surprised everyone—Putin included,” says Gleb Pavlovsky, who served as Putin’s domestic policy adviser from 1999 to 2011.
A year after the seizure of Crimea, Putin's ratings remain phenomenally high. Yet he now must contend sharply with the level of frustration caused by Russia's economic downfall, exacerbated by Western sanctions and low oil prices. Lev Gudkov, the head of Levada Centre, an independent polling agency, predicts that before long, Putin’s approval ratings will start going down, too.
“The bubble of ideological patriotism is already quite weak. A relative calm in the Ukrainian conflict will give rise to protest sentiments in Russia,” Gudkov says. During the call-in show, Putin stressed that unity was vital for Russians: “If we keep the current level of consolidation in society,” he told the nation, “we will not be afraid of any threats.”
Russian Interior troops stay in line during a rally in Moscow organized by pro-Kremlin activists on Feb. 1.
Photographer: Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images
Gudkov believes Putin will soon need a fresh escalation to prevent the newly achieved unity from falling apart. But this escalation is unlikely to come in the form of a fresh attack on Ukraine or another neighbor. The takeover of Crimea was hailed by Russians exactly because it was relatively bloodless and welcomed by the majority of Crimeans. But the overall appetite for war is quite low, according to Gudkov.
“The system will be pressed into inventing a new emergency, but probably inside the country rather than outside, where it has already gone too far,” says Putin’s ex-adviser Pavlovsky. He sees Russia’s supposed imperialism as more of a PR bubble than a predominant ideology: “It is a show themed on the Cold War. It is a soap opera with empire-related props, not an imperial project.”
The new target will be those who are seen as agents of the external enemy: the relatively small but vocal and influential part of society that adheres to liberal values and favors integration with the West. Kremlin propaganda likes to refer to this group as a fifth column. “There will be more repression and more acts of provocation [against dissidents],” predicts Gudkov.
Although there isn't yet repression on the Soviet scale in modern-day Russia, domestic tensions have been rising over the past few months. Some 30,000 Putin supporters marched through Moscow in February to demand that the government crush the “fifth column” and put opposition leaders behind bars. A week later came the death of Boris Nemtsov, an opposition leader, who was gunned down a few hundred feet from the Kremlin. Putin condemned the killing at the time and once again called it “a shameful act” during Thursday's television broadcast.
In the months that followed, toxic anti-opposition rhetoric has filled TV airtime and pro-government newspapers as never before. The pressure from zealous officials and pro-Kremlin activists has reached past the political opposition to target theater directors and film distributors. On Friday, for example, Putin’s envoy who coordinates the army and law enforcement in Siberia accused the opposition of starting forest fires that have devastated dozens of villages in his region.
Putin hasn't been immune to overheated rhetoric: Last month he claimed that Western secret services planned to use Russian political groups and nongovernmental organizations to disrupt next year's national elections. He avoided this kind of talk during the call-in broadcast, instead welcoming the opposition to take part in the election and enter parliament.
Yet as he fielded question for nearly four hours, police raided the office of Open Russia, an NGO funded by former political prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, which spreads information about repressions and protest actions.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-17/why-putin-s-next-war-will-be-at-home
Amphibious
Land, water, wherever.
for putting it to Israel and those snaky lizard Jews.
Like clockwork the cac-Jew
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Russian Workers Take Aim at Putin as Economy Exacts Its Toll
By ANDREW E. KRAMERAPRIL 21, 2015
Photo
The Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, in Moscow last week. Workers across Russia are starting to protest against unpaid wages and go on strike, in the first nationwide backlash against Mr. Putin's economic policies.CreditAlexander Nemenov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
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By ANDREW E. KRAMERAPRIL 21, 2015
Photo
The Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, in Moscow last week. Workers across Russia are starting to protest against unpaid wages and go on strike, in the first nationwide backlash against Mr. Putin's economic policies.CreditAlexander Nemenov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Continue reading the main storyShare This Page
- Russia, it was the employees of a metallurgical plant. In St. Petersburg, autoworkers laid down their tools. And at a remote construction site in Siberia, laborers painted their complaints in gigantic white letters on the roofs of their dormitories.
“Dear Putin, V.V.,” the message said. “Four months without pay.”
After months of frustration with an economy sagging under the weight of international sanctions and falling energy prices, workers across Russia are starting to protest against unpaid wages and go on strike, in the first nationwide backlash against President Vladimir V. Putin’s economic policies.
Continue reading the main story
RELATED COVERAGE-
Putin Takes Questions: More Economy, Less UkraineAPRIL 16, 2015 -
graphic
Russia’s Endgame in UkraineMARCH 9, 2015
Photo
A member of a Russian trade union protested outside the Ministry of Trade in Moscow in March in support of automobile workers at a Ford assembly plant who were on strike.CreditIvan Sekretarev/Associated Press
Unpaid wages, or wage arrears, an old scourge in Russia, rose on April 1 to 2.9 billion rubles, or about $56 million, according to the Russian statistical service. That is a 15 percent increase over a year earlier, but experts say that still does not capture the scope of the diminished pay of workers involuntarily idled during the slowdown.
Discontent over unpaid wages was tamped down for a while by a surge in national pride after the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine a year ago, and by repeated messages on state television that the hardship is an unavoidable price to pay for standing up for Russia’s interests. The strikes, in any case, have not been widely publicized in state news media.
Yet the strikes and protests in the hinterlands — like the huge graffiti addressed to the president — are posing a new challenge to Mr. Putin’s government, which presided over an energy-driven economic expansion for most of the past 15 years.
During that time, most high-profile antigovernment protests, including the so-called White Ribbon movement in Moscow in 2011, promulgated political causes rather than economic ones. Those were met with corresponding political measures by the Kremlin such as arrests and stricter laws on staging rallies. A further chill fell over the liberal political opposition this winter after the assassination of a prominent leader, Boris Y. Nemtsov.
But the labor actions are putting forward financial demands, and are being staged in Russian rust belt towns where the government is unlikely to find easy economic solutions to resolve the grievances so long as the recession lasts and oil prices remain low.
Regional newspapers described the teachers’ strike this month, in Zabaikal Province bordering China, as the first such labor action by teachers in Russia in years. The strike went ahead even though a regional governor had implored the teachers to work unpaid for patriotic reasons, which suggested some waning of the nationalistic pride over the Crimean annexation.
“Yes, it is serious when salaries are not paid, but not serious enough not to come to work,” the governor, Konstantin Ilkovsky, had insisted. Mr. Ilkovksy said the federal government had delayed transferring tax revenue to the region, causing the delay in payments.
In the Ural Mountains, workers at the Kachkanarsk metallurgical plant that enriches vanadium, an alloy of steel, went on a work-to-rule strike in March over layoffs.
In the nearby city of Chelyabinsk, managers at the Chelyabinsk Tractor Factory, which has a rich and storied history as a showcase of industry in the Communist era, sent workers home on mandatory vacations for one day a week, presumably to spend in their apartments in the wintertime.
And not far from the Estonian border, automobile workers at a Ford assembly plant went on strike to protest cutbacks brought on by the dismal automotive market in Russia.
The actions fall in line with economists’ predictions that the recession caused by the Ukraine crisis and falling oil prices will bite Russia hardest in rural areas and single-industry towns.
In those places, public-sector employees like teachers and postal workers, whose salaries are capped under austerity measures this year, make up a larger percentage of the population than they do in cities, according to Vladimir Tikhomirov, the chief economist at BCS Financial Group.
Russia’s one-factory towns, called monotowns, barely tread water economically in the best of times. After the collapse of the ruble in December, the rising cost of imported parts hurt manufacturers such as automotive assembly plants.
“If they are not laid off, workers could be sent on unpaid vacation because of falling demand,” Mr. Tikhomirov said.
The construction worker protest in Siberia was all the more remarkable for coming at a highly prestigious site, the new national space center, the Vostochny Cosmodrome. There, deep in a coniferous forest off a spur of the Trans-Siberian Railway, laborers laid concrete and built gigantic hangars for rockets long after salaries stopped being paid in December.
“We haven’t seen a kopek since December,” Anton I. Tyurishev, an engineer, said in a telephone interview. Some people walked away, but he stayed on his job burrowing tunnels through the frozen soil for communications wires near the launchpad, hoping to be paid. “The company should have laid people off if they didn’t have enough money.”
In all, 1,123 employees of a main subcontractor, the Pacific Bridge-Building Company, have not been paid since December. Most work stopped on March 1, though dozens of employees stayed at the site to guard equipment. Their labor protest took the form of writing the giant message to President Putin on the roofs of their dormitories.
In a rare twist for Russia’s unpaid workers, somebody finally noticed this time.
After the message appeared, a Russian state television crew showed up to ask the workers to appear on a televised call-in show with Mr. Putin on Thursday. Hours before the show, the general contractor paid about 80 percent of the salaries to the 70 or so employees who remained at the space center, Mr. Tyurishev said. The contractor, Spetsstroy, earlier paid a portion of back wages for all employees for December.
“Because of the indifference toward us, we just despaired, and decided on this original means to appeal directly to you,” Mr. Tyurishev told Mr. Putin on the call-in show, referring to the sign the workers had painted. “So you saw us, and helped in our situation, to resolve our problem.”
Mr. Putin said he would ensure the whole group was paid in full.
“It is one of the most important construction projects in the country,” he said of the new space center. “Not because I initiated the project, but because the country needs a new launchpad.”
Before the show, a boss had asked the remaining workers to paint over their message, to show that this dispute, at least, was resolved.
Mr. Tyurishev said no, not until all the employees had been paid in full. But in a compromise, he agreed to update it to read, “Three months without pay.”
-
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
ill
Superstar
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Russia wants to build a supercarrier, and it's a total waste
Russia's plan to expand its navy through the construction of an aircraft supercarrier is pretty much a tremendous waste, Nicholas Varangis of the Atlantic Council argues.
Supercarriers, by nature, allow a country to project power throughout the world.
An individual US supercarrier, for instance, can carry 70 aircraft anywhere in the world. This allows the US to hypothetically strike targets and make its influence felt the world over.
In the growing tensions between the US and Russia, it is only natural that Moscow would like to challenge US naval supremacy and acquire a supercarrier of its own. Currently, Russia only has one aging aircraft carrier compared to the US's fleet of 10 active carriers with two in reserve.
Russia's proposed supercarrier will be able to carry over 100 aircraft, would feature catapults on the ship's top to launch aircraft during storms, and would be larger than US Nimitz-class supercarriers.
However, as Varangis notes, the overall cost of the supercarrier would be "astronomical" and would involve "the cost of reorientating a naval industry around producing a ship of significant size."
And even then, after Russia actually builds the ship, it would have to invest heavily in the development of overseas ports in willing partner countries, which Russia is currently lacking, for the ship to have any strategic value.
Even then, a supercarrier is only worth the expense if combined with a global foreign policy. Although Russia has increasingly aimed to increase its influence throughout Central and South America, by and large Moscow is confined in direct influence to its neighboring states in Eurasia. And even there, Russia is facing increased pushback from its distressed neighbors.
Wikimedia CommonsRussia's current aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov
The move to construct a supercarrier could be a move by Moscow to develop more global reach, but without the proper investments in global partnerships the carrier would become nothing more than an expensive vanity project.
WikimediaA diagram of the unfinished Soviet super-carrier Ulyanovsk.
"A supercarrier is not a means unto itself," Varangis writes. "It is a unit of investment. Building a supercarrier without a corresponding foreign policy and supportive foreign naval bases is like buying a multi-billion-dollar casino chip and not playing any of the games."
"Russia’s plan to build a supercarrier, if pursued, will likely involve tremendous expenses to retrofit Russia’s navy and foreign policy with a ship that serves no strategic purpose," he concludes.
In any case, the project is clearly in an ambitious, conceptual stage. Dmitry Gorenburg, an expert in the Russian navy at the Virginia-based CNA Corporation, told The Moscow Times that construction is years away and that even then it would take "at least 10, maybe 15 years" to build. A lot can happen in the meantime.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/russias-plan-to-build-a-supercarrier-is-a-waste-2015-4#ixzz3Y6IWrvHg
build aircraft carries without a flat deck in 20 whatever, brehs
- JEREMY BENDER
- APR. 22, 2015, 3:13 PM
Russia's plan to expand its navy through the construction of an aircraft supercarrier is pretty much a tremendous waste, Nicholas Varangis of the Atlantic Council argues.
Supercarriers, by nature, allow a country to project power throughout the world.
An individual US supercarrier, for instance, can carry 70 aircraft anywhere in the world. This allows the US to hypothetically strike targets and make its influence felt the world over.
In the growing tensions between the US and Russia, it is only natural that Moscow would like to challenge US naval supremacy and acquire a supercarrier of its own. Currently, Russia only has one aging aircraft carrier compared to the US's fleet of 10 active carriers with two in reserve.
Russia's proposed supercarrier will be able to carry over 100 aircraft, would feature catapults on the ship's top to launch aircraft during storms, and would be larger than US Nimitz-class supercarriers.
However, as Varangis notes, the overall cost of the supercarrier would be "astronomical" and would involve "the cost of reorientating a naval industry around producing a ship of significant size."
And even then, after Russia actually builds the ship, it would have to invest heavily in the development of overseas ports in willing partner countries, which Russia is currently lacking, for the ship to have any strategic value.
Even then, a supercarrier is only worth the expense if combined with a global foreign policy. Although Russia has increasingly aimed to increase its influence throughout Central and South America, by and large Moscow is confined in direct influence to its neighboring states in Eurasia. And even there, Russia is facing increased pushback from its distressed neighbors.
The move to construct a supercarrier could be a move by Moscow to develop more global reach, but without the proper investments in global partnerships the carrier would become nothing more than an expensive vanity project.
"A supercarrier is not a means unto itself," Varangis writes. "It is a unit of investment. Building a supercarrier without a corresponding foreign policy and supportive foreign naval bases is like buying a multi-billion-dollar casino chip and not playing any of the games."
"Russia’s plan to build a supercarrier, if pursued, will likely involve tremendous expenses to retrofit Russia’s navy and foreign policy with a ship that serves no strategic purpose," he concludes.
In any case, the project is clearly in an ambitious, conceptual stage. Dmitry Gorenburg, an expert in the Russian navy at the Virginia-based CNA Corporation, told The Moscow Times that construction is years away and that even then it would take "at least 10, maybe 15 years" to build. A lot can happen in the meantime.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/russias-plan-to-build-a-supercarrier-is-a-waste-2015-4#ixzz3Y6IWrvHg
build aircraft carries without a flat deck in 20 whatever, brehs
Spidey Man
Superstar
Russia wants to build a supercarrier, and it's a total waste
- JEREMY BENDER
- APR. 22, 2015, 3:13 PM
Russia's plan to expand its navy through the construction of an aircraft supercarrier is pretty much a tremendous waste, Nicholas Varangis of the Atlantic Council argues.
Supercarriers, by nature, allow a country to project power throughout the world.
An individual US supercarrier, for instance, can carry 70 aircraft anywhere in the world. This allows the US to hypothetically strike targets and make its influence felt the world over.
In the growing tensions between the US and Russia, it is only natural that Moscow would like to challenge US naval supremacy and acquire a supercarrier of its own. Currently, Russia only has one aging aircraft carrier compared to the US's fleet of 10 active carriers with two in reserve.
Russia's proposed supercarrier will be able to carry over 100 aircraft, would feature catapults on the ship's top to launch aircraft during storms, and would be larger than US Nimitz-class supercarriers.
However, as Varangis notes, the overall cost of the supercarrier would be "astronomical" and would involve "the cost of reorientating a naval industry around producing a ship of significant size."
And even then, after Russia actually builds the ship, it would have to invest heavily in the development of overseas ports in willing partner countries, which Russia is currently lacking, for the ship to have any strategic value.
Even then, a supercarrier is only worth the expense if combined with a global foreign policy. Although Russia has increasingly aimed to increase its influence throughout Central and South America, by and large Moscow is confined in direct influence to its neighboring states in Eurasia. And even there, Russia is facing increased pushback from its distressed neighbors.
Wikimedia CommonsRussia's current aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov
The move to construct a supercarrier could be a move by Moscow to develop more global reach, but without the proper investments in global partnerships the carrier would become nothing more than an expensive vanity project.
WikimediaA diagram of the unfinished Soviet super-carrier Ulyanovsk.
"A supercarrier is not a means unto itself," Varangis writes. "It is a unit of investment. Building a supercarrier without a corresponding foreign policy and supportive foreign naval bases is like buying a multi-billion-dollar casino chip and not playing any of the games."
"Russia’s plan to build a supercarrier, if pursued, will likely involve tremendous expenses to retrofit Russia’s navy and foreign policy with a ship that serves no strategic purpose," he concludes.
In any case, the project is clearly in an ambitious, conceptual stage. Dmitry Gorenburg, an expert in the Russian navy at the Virginia-based CNA Corporation, told The Moscow Times that construction is years away and that even then it would take "at least 10, maybe 15 years" to build. A lot can happen in the meantime.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/russias-plan-to-build-a-supercarrier-is-a-waste-2015-4#ixzz3Y6IWrvHg
build aircraft carries without a flat deck in 20 whatever, brehs
But I thought everybody said carriers are the modern battleship and obsolete.
*watches China, Japan, India, and Russia build them*
Domingo Halliburton
Handmade in USA
(Reuters) - U.S. troops are in the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine and are training Ukrainian forces, Interfax news agency quoted a spokesman for Russia's Defense Ministry as saying on Thursday.
A day earlier, Washington accused Russia of building up air defense systems inside eastern Ukraine and of involvement in training exercises of pro-Russian rebels in breach of a European-brokered truce.
Igor Konashenkov was quoted as saying that U.S. troops were training Ukrainian forces not only in western Ukraine "as Ukrainian TV channels show, but directly in the combat zone in the area of Mariupol, Severodonetsk, Artyomovsk and Volnovakha".
The Defense Ministry confirmed the report.
A day earlier, Washington accused Russia of building up air defense systems inside eastern Ukraine and of involvement in training exercises of pro-Russian rebels in breach of a European-brokered truce.
Igor Konashenkov was quoted as saying that U.S. troops were training Ukrainian forces not only in western Ukraine "as Ukrainian TV channels show, but directly in the combat zone in the area of Mariupol, Severodonetsk, Artyomovsk and Volnovakha".
The Defense Ministry confirmed the report.
ill
Superstar
Yeah I skimmed it. Something about one of the sides faking a little girls death or something? Not too sure. The Lavrov interview is golden. He talks about a lot of truths in the Ukraine situation as well as showing the devilish side of American foreign policy.
ill
Superstar
I think this is fukked up. US and Russia were allies in WW2 and the Russian sacrifice was much larger than any other nations. Its highly disrespectful to dismantle WW2 monuments.
I think this is the biggest thing people are missing. We're focused on the Cold War aspect but in reality this fukkery is to ruin the new Germany-Russian alliance.
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Russia: Police stage mayor's disappearance to thwart killing
By News from Elsewhere......as found by BBC Monitoring
A "missing" notice was posted on the local police force's website on Saturday
Police in Russia have staged the disappearance of a city mayor to prevent his contract killing, it's reported.
Pavel Plotnikov, the mayor of Yoshkar Ola in central Russia, was reported missing on Saturday, after apparently failing to meet his wife as planned a day earlier. "All police patrols, criminal investigators - practically all police in Yoshkar Ola" were looking for the mayor, the city's police spokeswoman Olga Plotnikova told the media at the time. But early on Monday, the mayor's own website issued a statement saying that his disappearance had actually been staged. "The mayor's 'disappearance' was necessitated by operational activities of Russia's Interior Ministry staff," the statement says. "They implemented measures to prevent a planned killing of the mayor and his family."
Later in the day, Mr Plotnikov gave a news conference to shed more light on what had happened. Because of his "principled position", the mayor said, he was supposed to have been killed in a forest some time between Friday night and Saturday morning. Thanks to swift action by the security services, the would-be killers and those who took out a contract on the mayor have been arrested, Mr Plotnikov told the news conference, adding: "Many thanks to the police for saving my life." The police have simply said that the mayor "has been found" and that "he's alive and well, and is currently with his family".
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-32380001
- 20 April 2015
A "missing" notice was posted on the local police force's website on Saturday
Police in Russia have staged the disappearance of a city mayor to prevent his contract killing, it's reported.
Pavel Plotnikov, the mayor of Yoshkar Ola in central Russia, was reported missing on Saturday, after apparently failing to meet his wife as planned a day earlier. "All police patrols, criminal investigators - practically all police in Yoshkar Ola" were looking for the mayor, the city's police spokeswoman Olga Plotnikova told the media at the time. But early on Monday, the mayor's own website issued a statement saying that his disappearance had actually been staged. "The mayor's 'disappearance' was necessitated by operational activities of Russia's Interior Ministry staff," the statement says. "They implemented measures to prevent a planned killing of the mayor and his family."
Later in the day, Mr Plotnikov gave a news conference to shed more light on what had happened. Because of his "principled position", the mayor said, he was supposed to have been killed in a forest some time between Friday night and Saturday morning. Thanks to swift action by the security services, the would-be killers and those who took out a contract on the mayor have been arrested, Mr Plotnikov told the news conference, adding: "Many thanks to the police for saving my life." The police have simply said that the mayor "has been found" and that "he's alive and well, and is currently with his family".
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-32380001
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Chechen leader Kadyrov hits back over Russian shooting
Chechnya's Ramzan Kadyrov has a close working relationship with the Kremlin
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has told his security forces to fire on Russian federal troops if they operate in Chechnya without his permission.
His comments follow the killing of a man in the Chechen capital this week by security forces from a nearby region.
The man, who was on the federal wanted list, put up armed resistance in the operation, Russian media report.
Mr Kadyrov took charge of Chechnya with Kremlin support in 2007, and continued a long fight against Islamist rebels.
In exchange for loyalty to Russia, the authoritarian Chechen leader has been allowed to maintain his own security force and has largely had a free hand to run the southern Russian republic as he sees fit.
'Shot in the heart'
"I would like to officially state: Open fire if someone from Moscow or Stavropol, it doesn't matter, appears on your turf without your knowledge,'' Mr Kadyrov told Chechen security officials, in televised comments. "We have to be reckoned with."
Mr Kadyrov was angered after an operation by security officers from Russia's Stavropol region, which led to the killing of a Chechen man in Grozny on 19 April.
Chechen human rights official Nurdi Nukhazhiyev told Chechen Grozny TV he had heard from witnesses who said the man was unarmed and had tried to surrender.
"But masked people fired at him point-blank and then finished him off by shooting him in the heart," he added.
Mr Nukhazhiyev said he would ask Russia's interior minister and state prosecutor to investigate.
The Russian government has not yet reacted to Mr Kadyrov's new command.
Human rights groups accuse Mr Kadyrov's security forces of abuses, including torture and extrajudicial killings.
Last month, he defended a Chechen man arrested over the high-profile killing of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in Moscow.
Critics have linked Ramzan Kadyrov to several assassinations - but he strenuously denies involvement.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32435820
- 23 April 2015
- From the sectionEurope
Chechnya's Ramzan Kadyrov has a close working relationship with the Kremlin
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has told his security forces to fire on Russian federal troops if they operate in Chechnya without his permission.
His comments follow the killing of a man in the Chechen capital this week by security forces from a nearby region.
The man, who was on the federal wanted list, put up armed resistance in the operation, Russian media report.
Mr Kadyrov took charge of Chechnya with Kremlin support in 2007, and continued a long fight against Islamist rebels.
In exchange for loyalty to Russia, the authoritarian Chechen leader has been allowed to maintain his own security force and has largely had a free hand to run the southern Russian republic as he sees fit.
'Shot in the heart'
"I would like to officially state: Open fire if someone from Moscow or Stavropol, it doesn't matter, appears on your turf without your knowledge,'' Mr Kadyrov told Chechen security officials, in televised comments. "We have to be reckoned with."
Mr Kadyrov was angered after an operation by security officers from Russia's Stavropol region, which led to the killing of a Chechen man in Grozny on 19 April.
Chechen human rights official Nurdi Nukhazhiyev told Chechen Grozny TV he had heard from witnesses who said the man was unarmed and had tried to surrender.
"But masked people fired at him point-blank and then finished him off by shooting him in the heart," he added.
Mr Nukhazhiyev said he would ask Russia's interior minister and state prosecutor to investigate.
The Russian government has not yet reacted to Mr Kadyrov's new command.
Human rights groups accuse Mr Kadyrov's security forces of abuses, including torture and extrajudicial killings.
Last month, he defended a Chechen man arrested over the high-profile killing of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in Moscow.
Critics have linked Ramzan Kadyrov to several assassinations - but he strenuously denies involvement.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32435820