Archive for November, 2008
Posted on November 22, 2008 - by Venik
Gas Wars: Episode V
Russia’s natural gas monopoly Gazprom says Ukraine has a $2.4 billion past-due balance. Ukraine acknowledges the debt, but say the amount is $1.3 billion. The $1-billion difference in the two positions is due to Ukraine only counting what it owes for September-October period, while Gazprom also counts November plus various past-due fees and fines. Medvedev [...]
Posted on November 20, 2008 - by Venik
New Interface for Xbox 360
As of last night Microsoft went in and changed one of the best things about its Xbox 360 gaming console – its graphical user interface. Instead of a functional, neatly-organized folder view, now you get a childish design with avatar selection reminiscent of Sierra’s vintage Leisure Suit Larry characters. Microsoft succeeded in creating an interface [...]
Posted on November 17, 2008 - by Venik
Exploding UAVs in Georgia
After nearly four months of ridiculous allegations against Russia, Saakashvili’s regime still has the capacity to surprise. In the latest PR move, Georgian so-called leadership claimed that a Russian UAV crashed on its territory and later exploded, killing two policemen and injuring eight others. If this claim was true, this would have been the first [...]
Posted on November 15, 2008 - by Venik
“Peter the Great” in Toulon
During November 5-8 missile cruiser “Peter the Great” and destroyer “Admiral Chabanenko” of Russia’s Northern Fleet visited the French naval base in Toulon. The Northern Fleet taskforce, consisting of four surface vessels and two nuclear-powered attack submarines, is conducting excersices in the Meditteranian before heading to Venezuela for joint maneuvers with the Mariscal Sucre-class “General [...]
Posted on November 15, 2008 - by Venik
Photos: Russians in Georgia
“The 2008 South Ossetia War was a land, air and sea war fought between Georgia on one side, and Russia, and the break-away regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia on the other. A civil war fought after the breakup of the Soviet Union left parts of South Ossetia in control of an unrecognized separatist government [...]
Posted on November 15, 2008 - by Venik
Russian Missiles: the Minsk Option
A number of times over the past months and even years various Russian government officials mentioned a possibility of a ballistic missile deployment in Belarus. The independent-minded Lukashenko kept Putin at an arm’s length, while managing to achieve a seemingly impossible task: to annoy Moscow, Brussels, and Washington all at the same time. Lately, however, [...]
Posted on November 11, 2008 - by Venik
Medvedev’s Missile Myth. Or Not…
In his recent article in the Moscow Times entitled “Medvedev’s Missile Myth“, Alexander Golts – a Russian defense analyst (without technical education or military background, as seems to be the rule for Russian military “experts”) popular among Western journalists in Moscow – expressed the following idea: “Imagine the following scenario: After the standoff between the [...]
Posted on November 8, 2008 - by Venik
Obama, Biden Complicate Relations with Russia
Paradoxical as this may sound, the victory of pacifist Obama over his saber-rattling Republican opponent makes the Kremlin very concerned. One reason for this is simple: an idiot in the White House was good for Moscow. Russians joke that Dubya was their best president ever. Indeed, Russians have Bush – not Putin – to thank [...]
Posted on November 7, 2008 - by Venik
Saakashvili’s Endgame
As waning wartime patriotism in Georgia gives way to realistic assessments of the facts, Saakashvili can now see the end of his political career rapidly approaching. As predicted, the situation in Tbilisi is developing rapidly and Saakashvili may be expected to make his endgame early next year, probably soon after Obama’s inaugural speech in Washington. [...]
Posted on November 4, 2008 - by Venik
Russia’s Financial Crisis and Beluga Caviar
I just ran across a rather amusing article in the Financial Times by Robert Skidelsky. The point of his rant is nicely summarized in the last paragraph: “Russia needs to scale down its geopolitical ambition to its real weight – that of an emerging economy with only 3 per cent of the world’s gross domestic [...]
