Archive for the ‘Russia’ Category
Posted on April 16, 2009 - by Venik
Costly NATO Ambitions
Besieged in his new glass-domed presidential palace in Tbilisi by thousands of protesters demanding his resignation, Mikheil Saakashvili is desperately searching for any opportunity to strengthen his slipping hold on power. The EU, rattled by the brief but eventful 2009 gas war between Russia and Ukraine, is almost just as anxious to help Misha keep [...]
Posted on April 11, 2009 - by Venik
Choose Your Justice
The New York Times recently ran a story about Telenor losing a $1.7 billion lawsuit in Russia. To summarize: Telenor – a Norwegian telecom firm – and Alfa Group – one of Russia’s largest private investment banks got into a squabble over VimpelCom (Beeline) – their joint telecom business in Ukraine. Alfa wanted to acquire [...]
Posted on March 26, 2009 - by Venik
Round Two
CNBC’s Jim Cramer believes that the economic recession might have reached the bottom and that we already are beginning to see signs of improvement. Indeed, the slightly-lower-than-expected quarterly decline reported by Best Buy infused financial analysts with much optimism. But even superficial analysis of Best Buy’s performance during the past quarter reveals the true reason [...]
Posted on March 15, 2009 - by Venik
Russian Military Reform
Putin and his cabinet have embarked on the most dangerous journey of their political careers: the 2009-2012 military reform. And by “dangerous” I don’t mean just unpopular but life-threatening. The decision to cut nearly 200,000 senior officers, special forces, and intelligence operatives will have serious consequences for Russia’s internal stability. Essentially, over a relatively short [...]
Posted on February 18, 2009 - by Venik
Space lawyers
The recent collision between an in-service US-made Iridium 33 communications satellite launched by Russia in 1997 and a defunct Russian Strela-2M-class Kosmos-2251 communications satellite launched in 1993 created a stir among the small but hungry community of space lawyers in the US. There are about 8,000 man-made objects orbiting Earth. These include about 560 operational [...]
Posted on February 9, 2009 - by Venik
Russia Stepping on Obama’s Afghan Plans
For nearly eight years Manas International Airport in Kyrgyzstan has been a key element in the US tactics and strategy in Afghanistan. The airport supported a high volume of flights by USAF aircraft, primarily by heavy-lift transports and aerial tankers but also by F/A-18, F-15E, and A-10 ground attack aircraft, as well as by other [...]
Posted on January 29, 2009 - by Venik
Russia to reopen airbase in Abkhazia
According to reports in the Russian media, the Bomborski airbase in Abkhazia is soon to be reopened for use by the Russian Air Force. The plan calls for two squadrons of Su-27 fighter-bombers and Su-25 ground attack aircraft, plus some additional An-26 or An-72 transports to be permanently based in Abkhazia. The Bomborski airbase is [...]
Posted on January 8, 2009 - by Venik
Paying Ukraine’s Gas Bill
Bloomberg reports that Ukraine’s president is using the gas war with Russia as a way to endear himself to the West and to improve EU’s disposition toward his country. What dark twisted alleys of logic led Bloomberg analysts to this extraordinary conclusion we will probably never know. Luckily. “Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko may be calculating [...]
Posted on December 27, 2008 - by Venik
Uncomplicated Perspective
Long time, no posts. I resolved to not use a computer during my vacation. Quitting smoking was easier. Anyway, I just ran across an amusing editorial in NY Times about what Obama should do vis-à-vis Vladimir Putin. I am not sure if the author was trying to be entertaining, being coyly naive, or if he [...]
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 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, [...]
