Gog and Magog in the news

[HisDaughter]

Russia Warns West Against Georgia Support
Monday , September 01, 2008

 MOSCOW —

Russia warned the West on Monday against supporting Georgia's leadership and called for an arms embargo against the ex-Soviet republic nation until a different government is in place.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks are likely to anger the United States and Europe and enrage Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. He made it clear Moscow wants Saakashvili out of power in Georgia.

"If instead of choosing their national interests and the interests of the Georgian people, the United States and its allies choose the Saakashvili regime, this will be a mistake of truly historic proportions," he said.

"For a start it would be right to impose an embargo on weapons to this regime, until different authorities turn Georgia a normal state," he said in an address at Russia's top foreign policy graduate school.

Lavrov spoke as the European Union prepared for a summit Monday to discuss the Georgia crisis and further relations with Russia.

"Today's EU summit should clear up a great deal. We hope the choice they make will be based on Europe's fundamental interests," he said. He said Russia's relations with NATO are facing a "moment of truth."

Russia's ties to the West have been driven to their lowest point since the Soviet collapse of 1991 by the war last month in Georgia, where Saakashvili angered Moscow by courting the West and seeking NATO membership.

Russia repelled a Georgian offensive against the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia and sent troops, tanks and bombers deep into undisputed Georgian territory, where some still maintain positions. Moscow last week recognized South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia, as independent countries.

The U.S. and Europe have accused Russia of using disproportionate force and of violating the terms of a cease-fire that called for the sides to withdraw their forces to pre-conflict positions. They have also denounced Russia's recognition of the separatist regions, saying Georgia's borders must remain intact.

Russia says it was provoked. Russian peacekeeping forces were stationed in South Ossetia before the war and Moscow had given most of South Ossetia's residents Russian passports in recent years, enabling the Kremlin to argue that it was defending its citizens when it responded to Georgia's Aug. 7 offensive in the separatist province.

"With its reaction to the Georgian aggression, Russia has set a certain standard of responding that fully complies with international law," Lavrov said. Russian soldiers, he said, followed "our deeply Christian tradition of dying for our friends."

The reactions of some Western countries to the crisis "illustrates a deficit of morality," he said. "It's high time for Europe to get back to simple, non-politicized and non-geopolitical values," Lavrov said.

Lavrov reserved particular criticism for the United States, which has trained Georgian troops, saying such aid had failed to give the U.S. sufficient leverage to restrain the Georgian government.

Instead, he said, "It encouraged the irresponsible and unpredictable regime in its gambles."

While Western governments have expressed regret at the Georgian offensive targeting South Ossetia, the Russian call for an arms embargo on a nation still bristling with Russian forces is likely to irritate the U.S. and Europe.

Lavrov's remarks will likely deepen Georgian suspicions that Russia's aim throughout the crisis has been to remove the pro-Western Saakashvili from power.

European Union leaders seeking to punish Russia for its war with Georgia and its recognition of independence for two breakaway Georgian provinces have few options and are likely to choose diplomatic pressure to isolate Moscow at their summit Monday.

Lavrov's implication that continued support for Saakashvili would further undermine relations with Russia were the latest in a bitter back-and-forth between Moscow and the West, with each saying it is up to the other to avoid plunging the world into a new Cold War.

"It's up to Russia today to make a fundamental choice" and to engage neighbors and partners in settling disputes peacefully," French President Nicolas Sarkozy wrote in a pre-summit letter to EU leaders. "Russia's commitment to a relationship of understanding and cooperation with the rest of Europe is in doubt."

[Shammu]

Russian PM Putin vows 'an answer' to NATO's naval buildup in Black Sea

1 day ago

MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia will respond calmly to an increase in NATO ships in the Black Sea in the aftermath of the short war with Georgia, but promised that "there will be an answer."

Meanwhile, President Dmitry Medvedev sternly warned the West that it would lose more than Moscow would if it tried to punish Russia with sanctions over the war with Georgia.

Russia has repeatedly complained that NATO has too many warships in the Black Sea. Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said Tuesday that currently there are two U.S., one Polish, one Spanish and one German ship there.

"We don't understand what American ships are doing on the Georgian shores, but this is a question of taste, it's a decision by our American colleagues," Putin reportedly said. "The second question is why the humanitarian aid is being delivered on naval vessels armed with the newest rocket systems."

Russia's reaction to NATO ships "will be calm, without any sort of hysteria. But of course, there will be an answer," Interfax quoted Putin as saying during a visit to Uzbekistan.

Asked by exactly what measures Russia would take in response to NATO ships in the Black Sea, Putin was quoted as answering, "You'll see."

As if to emphasize the country's strength - its control over a growing percentage of European energy supplies - Putin travelled to Uzbekistan to announce a deal that would tighten Russia's hand on Central Asian energy exports to the West.

In an interview with Italy's RAI television broadcast Tuesday, Medvedev said that Russia doesn't fear expulsion from the Group of Eight leading industrialized countries.

"The G8 will be practically unable to function without Russia, because it can make decisions only if they reflect the opinion of top global economies and leading political players of the world," Medvedev said. "That's why we don't fear being expelled from the G8."

U.S. presidential candidate John McCain is among those who called for Russia's expulsion from the elite club of the world's richest countries.

Medvedev also warned that NATO would suffer more than Russia if its ties with Moscow were severed.

"We don't see anything dramatic or difficult about suspending our relations if that's the wish of our partners," Medvedev said. "But I think that our partners will lose more from that."

NATO nations depend on Russia as a transit route for supplies going to the alliance's troops in Afghanistan.

At a summit Monday, the European Union issued a declaration saying Russia was violating the terms of its ceasefire with Georgia. It warned that talks on a political and economic agreement with the Kremlin would be postponed unless Russian troops pulled back from positions in Georgia.

Britain and eastern European countries held out for a tougher line, but Europe's dependence on Russian oil and natural gas deterred stronger sanctions.

Russia supplies the EU with a third of its oil and 40 per cent of its natural gas, a dependence that the EU's administrative body says will rise significantly in the future.

Putin announced Tuesday that Russia and Uzbekistan will build a new natural gas pipeline that will pump Turkmen and Uzbek gas into Russia's pipeline system, which Russia will re-export to Europe.

The project, which has been under discussions for several months, will strengthen Moscow's hold over Central Asian gas and undermine western-backed efforts for a rival trans-Caspian route.

Russian PM Putin vows 'an answer' to NATO's naval buildup in Black Sea

[Shammu]

New Russian world order: the five principles
1 September 2008
By Paul Reynolds
World affairs correspondent BBC News website

In the aftermath of the Georgian conflict, the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has laid down five principles that he says will guide Russian foreign policy.

The new Moscow rules are not a blueprint for a new "Cold War". That was a worldwide ideological and economic struggle. This is much more about defending national interests.

Going back to the 19th Century?

The principles, with their references to "privileged interests" and the protection of Russian citizens, would probably seem rather obvious to Russian leaders of the 19th Century. They would seem rather mild to Stalin and his successors, who saw the Soviet Union extending communism across the globe.

In some ways, we are going back to the century before last, with a nationalistic Russia very much looking out for its own interests, but open to co-operation with the outside world on issues where it is willing to be flexible.

President Medvedev's principles do not, for example, necessarily exclude Russian agreement to continuing the strong diplomatic stance against Iran. And energy contracts are not necessarily threatened.

Above all, what they tell us is that the Georgia conflict was for Russia, in Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's words, a "long-cherished moment of truth", which has created a new "clarity".

Here are the principles, in the words which President Medvedev used in an interview with the three main Russian TV channels (translated by the BBC Monitoring Service).

1. International law

"Russia recognises the primacy of the basic principles of international law, which define relations between civilised nations. It is in the framework of these principles, of this concept of international law, that we will develop our relations with other states."

2. Multi-polar world

"The world should be multi-polar. Unipolarity is unacceptable, domination is impermissible. We cannot accept a world order in which all decisions are taken by one country, even such a serious and authoritative country as the United States of America. This kind of world is unstable and fraught with conflict."

3. No isolation

"Russia does not want confrontation with any country; Russia has no intention of isolating itself. We will develop, as far as possible, friendly relations both with Europe and with the United State of America, as well as with other countries of the world."

4. Protect citizens

"Our unquestionable priority is to protect the life and dignity of our citizens, wherever they are. We will also proceed from this in pursuing our foreign policy. We will also protect the interest of our business community abroad. And it should be clear to everyone that if someone makes aggressive forays, he will get a response."

5. Spheres of influence

"Russia, just like other countries in the world, has regions where it has its privileged interests. In these regions, there are countries with which we have traditionally had friendly cordial relations, historically special relations. We will work very attentively in these regions and develop these friendly relations with these states, with our close neighbours."

Asked if these "priority regions" were those that bordered on Russia he replied: "Certainly the regions bordering [on Russia], but not only them."

And he stated: "As regards the future, it depends not just on us. It also depends on our friends, our partners in the international community. They have a choice."

The implications

Those therefore are the stated principles. What implications do they have?

To take them in the order he presented them:

The primacy of International Law: This on the face of it sounds encouraging. But Russia signed up to Security Council resolution 1808 in April this year, which reaffirmed "the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Georgia... " - and has since abandoned that position.

It argues that a Georgian attack on South Ossetia on 7/8 August invalidated its commitment and required that it defend its citizens there. But it perhaps cannot proclaim its faith in international law and at the same time take unilateral action.

This principle therefore has to be seen as rather vague.

The world is multi-polar: This means that Russia will not accept the primacy of the United States (or a combination of the US and its allies) in determining world policy. It will require that its own interests are taken into account.

The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hinted at what this really means. "There is a feeling that Nato again needs frontline states to justify its existence," he said in a speech. He was putting down another marker against the extension of Nato membership to Ukraine and Georgia.

Russia does not seek confrontation: Again this sounds hopeful but it is based on the requirement that Russia's needs are met first. If the world agrees to its demands, then it is happy to be friends. But if not... therein lies the warning.

Protecting its citizens: The key phrase here is "wherever they are". This was the basis on which Russia went to war in South Ossetia and it contains within it the potential for future interventions - over Crimea, for example, populated by a majority Russian-background population yet owned by Ukraine only since 1954. If Ukraine looked set to join Nato, would Russia claim the protection of its "citizens" there?

Privileged interests: In this principle President Medvedev was getting down to the heart of the matter. Russia is demanding its own spheres of influence, especially, but not only, over states on its borders. This has the potential for further conflict if those "interests" are ignored.

New Russian world order: the five principles

[Shammu]

Moscow claims victory at EU climbdown

1 day ago

MOSCOW (AFP) — Moscow claimed victory Tuesday after EU leaders stepped back from imposing sanctions over Russia's partial occupation of neighbouring Georgia.

As Russia and its critics kept up their diplomatic offensives, US Vice President Dick Cheney was to head to Georgia in a show of support while Russia's foreign minister visited Turkey.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who retains huge power after leaving the presidency earlier this year, praised what he called the European Union's "common sense."

EU leaders decided at an emergency summit in Brussels on Monday to freeze talks on a new strategic EU-Russia accord.

But the bloc did not accept proposals by Britain and eastern European nations for harder measures, including sanctions, over Russia's August military offensive in Georgia and recognition of two separatist regions.

"Thank God, common sense prevailed. We saw no extreme conclusions and proposals, and this is very good," Putin said in comments shown on NTV television.

However, Georgia's pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili, pointed to the freezing of EU-Russia partnership talks as proof of Western solidarity behind Georgia.

"Russia failed to break the unity at the heart of Europe," he told France 24 television.

US President George W. Bush, one of Moscow's harshest critics during the crisis, also "expressed appreciation for the EU sending strong messages," the White House said.

The Russian foreign ministry said that "the intention to freeze talks about a new partnership agreement is a cause for regret."

President Dmitry Medvedev also criticised what he called the European Union's failure to understand Russian motives for going to war in Georgia.

"Unfortunately there is still no full understanding of the motives of the leadership of the Russian Federation when it took the decision to repel the aggression of Georgia," Medvedev said, according to state news agency ITAR-TASS.

"This is sad, but not fatal," he was quoted as saying.

Moscow says that troops were sent to repulse an attempt by Georgia to restore control over South Ossetia, a tiny region where the local ethnic Ossetian population broke away with Russian backing in the 1990s.

Last week the Kremlin recognised the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. No other country has yet followed suit.

Georgia says the Russian incursion was part of a plan to annex its territory and bring down Saakashvili's government, which wants Georgia to join NATO and has positioned the country as a key export route for Caspian Sea energy.

On Tuesday, Georgia confirmed that it had cut diplomatic ties with Moscow. The previous day, hundreds of thousands of people -- one million, according to the authorities -- demonstrated against Russia's occupation.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a visit to NATO-member Turkey that the alliance had been arming Georgia ahead of the conflict.

He also reiterated Russia's support for sending an international police mission to Georgia to help maintain security around South Ossetia and the similarly secessionist region of Abhkazia.

However, the Russian envoy to the European Union was cautious on this issue, saying that the rebel governments in Abkhazia and South Ossetia would also have to agree.

"So far they said they would accept only Russian peacekeepers," he said.

Both rebel areas have made formal requests to host Russian military bases -- a move that Georgia says underlines Moscow's desire to annex the territories and weaken its statehood.

"Russian military bases are a guarantee of stability and security. There has been such a request from our administration," Abkhaz president Sergei Bagapsh told journalists Tuesday.

Moscow claims victory at EU climbdown

[Shammu]

If people think that appeasement will win the Muslims, then why not win Russia. This is very dangerous and will cause more bad than good. The world should, but won't stand up to Russia, Iran, or North Korea. Unfortunately the Europeans are stuck between a rock and a hard place and this will only make Russia bolder in it's actions.

[Shammu]

Eurasian alliance against the U.S.??

Aleksander Dugin, a popular theorist in hard-line circles, advocates an alliance between the former Soviet Union and the Middle East. He says Georgia crisis could be start of a real conflict with U.S.

By Megan K. Stack, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 4, 2008

MOSCOW -- Writer, political activist and father figure for contemporary Russian nationalism, Aleksandr Dugin is the founder of Russia's International Eurasian Movement and a popular theorist among Russia's hard-line elite. He envisions a strategic bloc comprising the former Soviet Union and the Middle East to rival the U.S.-dominated Atlantic alliance. The Times interviewed Dugin this week at his Moscow office, a room draped with flags bearing the slogan "Pax Russica." The following are excerpts.

What is your assessment of Russia's place in the world now, and how should Russia be behaving with respect to the West?

First of all, I advocate strongly a multipolar construction of the world. I think that the pretension of the United States to be the unique pole of the world . . . is completely wrong, immoral and unacceptable by the other great centers of power.

We support the creation of great space, a few great spaces, instead of only one point of decision, the United States' decision. We think Russia should be in the vanguard of this process.

We consider -- not only myself, not only I, but our political chiefs -- we consider that in Georgia, [President Mikheil] Saakashvili has committed not only a moral crime, but also he tested what is behind the Russian words, behind the Russian protests against American domination. They wanted to test up to which point is this only words, and what Russia could oppose directly, in concrete acts.

Many in the West believe that Moscow deliberately provoked a confrontation over Georgia's breakaway republics. Who do you believe is responsible for the eruption of armed conflict?

It was too risky for us to begin it. And I think, also, that as long as I have known [Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V.] Putin and [President Dmitry] Medvedev, they would like to avoid at any price direct confrontation with the United States.

Their idea was that they should gain the time to prepare Russia to attack or to withstand the possible attack of the United States, and they needed 10 years. The reaction of Putin -- of Putin and Medvedev -- was such as it was only because they considered this an offensive, impossible and unacceptable provocation from the Georgians. And that was a reaction, not a planned strategic offensive. . . . [Putin and Medvedev] were not ready to start by themselves, by their will, such a difficult situation and a difficult war that doesn't seem to end. We political analysts we see that we could start such a war, but we could not end it.

It is very far from the end. It is only the beginning of a real, and maybe very serious, and very dangerous for all of the sides, confrontation between us and Americans.

What was the strategic purpose in recognizing the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia? Russia is, so far, completely alone in the recognition.

First of all, by this step Russia confirmed its will to go until the end in this conflict. . . . It was a kind of demonstration of our serious and profound will to continue.

Second, we needed, and now we have gotten, juridical explication of what our armed forces were doing on the Georgian territory. Now it is more or less clear. . . .

Regarding recognition, I think that if Russia will stay in this confrontation, if Russia will continue this demonstration of the firm decision and power, the other countries will, little by little, step by step, join the attitude toward South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

It is not the rule that from now on we will recognize all the separatist regions. Absolutely no. We will recognize those separatists' regions that would be geopolitically on our side -- either on our side or on our friends' -- and opposed to the United States.

The United States showed us this double morality. They recognized pro-American Kosovo and don't recognize anti-American, pro-Russian South Ossetia and Abkhazia. They don't recognize the integrity of Serbia, but they recognize the integrity of Georgia.

How does Russia view the development of friendly relations between the United States and former Soviet republics such as Ukraine and Georgia?

As a declaration of war. As a declaration of psychological, geopolitical, economic and open war.

Putin was pro-Western at the beginning. He was pro-American. That was the reason of our criticism of his conduct. For example, after Sept. 11 we were against his help to United States and his steps toward United States.

But little by little, he was confronted with the complete neglect of all Russian interests. With these neoconservatives, with Richard Perle or Dick Cheney, we always were helping. "We will sign here, it is so."

Step by step, with the economy and the trade of energy resources, we finally found the force and the will to respond against this war. Because this war was not desired by us. It was a challenge. It was imposed on us by the United States.

We consider that all of the post-Soviet space -- except the Baltic states -- we are dealing with Eurasian civilization. Not with European, not with the West. And to try to get these spaces out of our control, or out of our dialogue, or out of our special relations with them, based on history -- it was a kind of attack, a declaration of war. It is not, as Americans like to put it, a competition. . . . It was perceived to be not a competition but an act of aggression, as Napoleon or Hitler, and nothing else.

cont'd next post

[Shammu]

When Russia faced a separatist movement in Chechnya, it reacted with a large-scale military attack and an air assault that turned [the Chechen capital of] Grozny to rubble. Yet Moscow has been quick to criticize [the Georgian capital of] Tbilisi for launching a military operation in its breakaway republic. Isn't there a double standard at work here?

Yes. Yes. . . . It was reaction to a double standard by a double standard. I agree.

If it's going to be a reaction to a double standard with another double standard, where does the cycle end?

The United States behaves as a unique pole that could define what is good and what is bad. . . . It will never end if something would not say, "stop it." . . . So we should demonstrate, stop it or you will repent. Maybe we also will repent, but you will repent. Stop it.

You have been banned from visiting Ukraine. Do you believe that Ukraine will join NATO, and if so, how will Russia react?

I think that most of the population of Ukraine doesn't want to come into NATO. The majority of the population, after the Georgian case more than before, wants to have a good relationship with Russia. Entrance to NATO will signify complete abolishment of any kind of relationship, and real, hard confrontation.

Half the Ukrainian population consider themselves to be Russian -- politically, geopolitically, culturally, ethnically and so on.

We could not conserve Ukraine without either a split or a compromise between two parts.

President [Viktor] Yushchenko hollered to put me out of Ukraine and to prohibit me from entering in this state. I think it is his right. It's a sovereign state. . . . But I think by doing so he diminished his respect for different kinds of Ukrainian people. Because, you know, my ideas are very popular in eastern Ukraine and Crimea and there are many, many hundreds of thousands of people who are supporters of the Eurasian movement there.

If Ukraine were to move into NATO, what do you think the Russian reaction would be?

I think that Russian reaction would be to support an uprising in eastern parts and Crimea and I could not exclude the entrance of armed force there, as in the Ossetian scenario.

But the difference is that half of the Ukrainian population is Russian, is directly Russian, and this half of the population regards itself as being oppressed by the values, by the language, by the geopolitical issues, completely against their will. So I don't think that, in this case, direct intervention of Russian armed force will be needed. I think on the eve of the entrance into NATO there will be public riots and the split of Ukraine into two parts.

What do you think would happen if Ukraine were to push Russia's Black Sea Fleet out of [the Ukrainian port of] Sevastopol?

I think it could be armed conflict there, because now we feel ourselves at ease, more or less.

We are ready to continue in Georgia. But at the same time, we haven't finished in Georgia. It's far from the end, the situation there. We need Saakashvili's head. We consider him to be an aggressor and author of war crimes.

Morally, I think our army and our political leaders are completely prepared to play hard, to play tough with the Ukrainian leader because we consider him to be an accomplice of Saakashvili.

You have spoken of Iran as an alternative to American power. Are you still thinking of Tehran in this light?

I think that Iran should and could be an ally of Russia. . . . Working with Iran, exchanging weapons and the possibility of resources and the base to transport natural resources from Eurasia and Iran, to combine our efforts in strategy, military, economy and energy -- we could create a real force to influence the whole Middle East. . . .

With Iranians we have common interests . . . because I consider that to stop American unipolarity is the most important thing, the absolute thing. . . . These parties, these pro-Westerners here in the Russian government, they insisted that Iran, being fundamentalist, could at some time aggress us. But . . . that was a kind of propaganda against Iranians made by pro-American, pro-Western forces in Moscow.

Your views on Vladimir Putin have fluctuated.

I appreciated very much his concrete steps to reinforce political order in Russia, his steps to get away the oligarchs, to diminish influence of Westerners and to save Russian territorial unity in the Chechnya situation.

But also I saw that he was encircled by pro-Western, pro-liberal politicians and advisors and experts . . . and that was main reason for my criticism toward him.

But I think that now, after [Russia's military intervention in Georgia on] Aug. 8, Putin and Medvedev have passed the irreversible point. They have shown that the will and the decision to put the words into practice are in fact irreversible. So my support to Putin and Medvedev is now absolute.

I was deceived by these circles. But at the same time, maybe the West also was deceived by them.

And by Medvedev, also! Because I considered Medvedev to be the revenge of the liberals, and I protested. I think Washington and Brussels also saw the same and we were all deceived. Medvedev proved to be a real hard-core Russian patriot and statesman. So I admire such deception -- even if I was also the victim.

Is Moscow overplaying its hand? Many analysts question whether Russia has the military strength and economic stability to risk isolation.

Russia will be not isolated -- not from Europe nor from Asia. From the United States, maybe, but that doesn't mean anything for us.

Eurasian alliance against the U.S.??

[Shammu]

Russia: US needs Georgia to strike Iran

Thursday, September 04, 2008
 
A senior Russian official says the White House assists Georgia in a bid to secure Georgian territory for a potential attack on Iran, PressTV reported.

LONDON, September 4 (IranMania) - A senior Russian official says the White House assists Georgia in a bid to secure Georgian territory for a potential attack on Iran, PressTV reported.

In an interview with Press TV on Wednesday, Russian Duma Deputy Sergei Markov said Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili 'brought some support from Israel' before he launched an attack on South Ossetia.

Georgian military forces launched a large-scale military offensive against South Ossetia on August 7. Russia, in response, moved its forces into the region.

The conflict in South Ossetia claimed the lives of some 2,000 people and displaced 40,000 others.

When asked if an attack on South Ossetia was a prelude to an attack on Iran, the State Duma Deputy said, "We know that this war in South Ossetia is somehow connected with the aggression of Washington against Iran, possible bombing of Iran."

"Washington helped Georgia to take control of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, (because) Washington needs Georgian territory to use for bombing against Iran," he added.

The US and Israel have long threatened to launch air strikes against Iranian nuclear installations under the pretext that Tehran, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has plans to develop nuclear weaponry.

This is while the UN nuclear watchdog has confirmed that Iran enriches uranium-235 to a level of 3.7 percent - a rate consistent with the construction of a nuclear power plant. Nuclear arms production requires an enrichment level of above 90 percent.

Currently suffering from electricity shortage, Iran has been forced to adopt a rationing program by scheduling power outages - of up to two hours a day - across both urban and rural areas in the country.

Russia: US needs Georgia to strike Iran

[Shammu]

Russia sends cash, builders to S. Ossetia

By YURAS KARMANAU, Associated Press Writer Wed Sep 3, 3:19 PM ET

TSKHINVALI, Georgia - Russia has sent hundreds of workers to rebuild this shattered rebel capital just weeks after its military routed Georgian forces here, and has promised cash payments for every South Ossetian — the latest in efforts to shore up its alliance with the breakaway Georgian province.

Russian builder Igor Semyonov is proud just to be a part of the substantial reconstruction effort his country is funding.

Semyonov stood in the center of what is now called Three Tank Square, where the scorched remains of Georgian tanks are surrounded by battle-scarred buildings including one with a tank turret sitting on its front steps.

"It will be more beautiful than ever," the he promised as he worked to reconstruct a shattered labor union headquarters.

Moscow is matching in South Ossetia what the U.S. and its allies are doing in Georgia, pouring in aid to support its ally along the new confrontation line that has grown up between Russia and the West.

Russian authorities have dispatched 500 construction workers to repair and rebuild scores of damaged or destroyed administrative buildings and schools, as well as the region's main hospital in Tskhinvali. It's a massive effort made possible by Russia's oil-fueled economic resurgence.

Znaur Gassiyev, speaker of South Ossetia's legislature, said it will cost $400 million to repair the destruction.

In addition to the construction effort, South Ossetian Prime Minister Boris Chochiyev said that Russia has promised to pay South Ossetians up to $2,000 each in compensation for war damage.

Russia has provided financial, military and political support to South Ossetia, as well as another separatist-held Georgian territory, Abkhazia, since the early 1990s. Last year alone, Russia spent an estimated $66 million in subsidies for South Ossetia, Gassiyev said.

The territory has no economy of its own and Russian subsidies are its only source of income, officials here said.

Russia is the only country to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent nations. Over the next few years, many expect Moscow formally to annex one or both of them — calling their citizens victims of Georgian aggression.

In the meantime, there is plenty of work to do.

Both areas bear the scars of earlier conflicts from the 1990s, and both show the ravages of struggling for nearly two decades with barely functioning economies. Tskhinvali's newest apartment building was built in 1989, a few years before the region sank into the bloody chaos of its first separatist war.

A Georgian artillery shell hit the regional prison during the latest fighting, prompting its warden to open the gates and let all inmates run free. Now prison chief Valentin Gobozov is looking to Moscow to pay for the repairs.

"I hope that Russia will come to our rescue," he said.

The Kremlin isn't the only source of reconstruction aid. The city of Moscow has promised to build a new residential area on Tskhinvali's northern outskirts — to be named Moskovsky.

Ethnic Ossetians are grateful for the support.

"Together with united Russia!" declares a sign painted on a fence. "Thank you, Russia!" trumpets another.

But Tskhinvali residents, many of whom live in half-shattered houses, are increasingly impatient about receiving their promised compensation. A disappointed Madina Ikoyeva, 48, shows a reporter what she has received so far: a box of spaghetti with a Russian flag.

"We have got no other aid, and I have been begging for mattresses and blankets for a week," she said, huddling amid the rubble in a corner of her half-destroyed house.

Ikoyeva said her husband was killed on the first day of fighting as he sought shelter for his family. She fled to neighbors' basement with her daughter and two young granddaughters.

Although the reconstruction of Tskhinvali has begun, it will take part without the ethnic Georgians who lived here before the war in August. Almost all Georgians fled in the aftermath of the fighting, and many ethnic Ossetians don't want them to return.

"I hate the Georgians, there is no place for them here," said the 69-year old Sonya Gagloyeva, who lives in a tent because her house was ruined in the fighting.

Her grandson, Alan Kadzhayev brought her a trolley filled with wooden panels, pillows and half-broken pottery from the nearby ethnic Georgian village of Prisi. Asked whether he stole the items, he said: "Everyone has been doing it."

"These things are nothing compared to what I lost, look at my ruined house," Gagloyeva snapped.

Both Russian troops and local authorities have turned a blind eye to the extensive looting and burning of ethnic Georgian homes.

David Sanakoyev, South Ossetia's human rights ombudsman, even says the destruction of Georgian homes is understandable.

"Look at what they have done to Tskhinvali!" Sanakoyev said. "Now the time has come to even the score."

Still, some Ossetians are uncomfortable with the postwar lawlessness.

"Ossetians have had trouble maintaining order in the city," admitted Zarema Kukoeva, a 40-year old drug store clerk. "Shooting and robberies are going on all around. But the main thing is that my children will live in an Ossetia that will be independent from Georgia."

Russia sends cash, builders to S. Ossetia

[Shammu]

Medvedev adopts tough tone, echoing Putin

By DOUGLAS BIRCH, Associated Press Writer Thu Sep 4, 3:00 AM ET

MOSCOW - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, whose name derives from the Russian word for bear, has been showing his claws.

On Tuesday, he used some of his harshest rhetoric to date, calling Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili a "political corpse" and suggesting the U.S. somehow instigated the war in Georgia to bolster Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign.

Does this tough talk mean Medvedev is eclipsing Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as Russia's leading political figure? Not likely.

It has been Putin who throughout the crisis has set Russia's defiant tone — a line that others in the Kremlin team, from Medvedev down to Russia's NATO envoy Dmitry Rogozin, have echoed, clarified and amplified.

It was Putin, for example, who first accused the U.S. of encouraging Georgia's military assault on South Ossetia last week, claiming it was engineered by the party in power — presumably the Republicans — to help their presidential candidate.

Putin was also the one who first suggested that U.S. aid deliveries to Georgia masked arms shipments. The statement was followed up by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who called for an arms embargo against Georgia.

Squaring his shoulders, looking grim and punctuating his speeches with uncharacteristically blunt language, the 42-year-old Medvedev has in recent months sounded like Putin, his predecessor and mentor. On Aug. 11, he used the words "lunatic" and "bastard" in talking about Saakashvili.

But Russia's prime minister has been the harshest and most consistent critic of the West in general and the U.S. in particular during the war and in its aftermath.

Putin, for example, accused the U.S. of fanning the flames of anti-Russian sentiment so it can maintain troops in Europe. The prime minister also compared Georgia's attack on South Ossetia with the organized execution of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Serbian forces near Srebrenica in 1995.

And it was Putin who really got down and dirty in terms of rhetoric Thursday, when he accused a U.S. television correspondent of doing everything but defecate in his pants to interrupt a South Ossetian girl from criticizing Georgia during a live interview.

Putin may no longer occupy the president's office in the Kremlin, but many suspect he still calls Russia's shots as prime minister and the head of United Russia, which dominates Russia's national and regional governments.

He talks to Medvedev daily and has created a mini-cabinet of his own to shadow that of the president's.

Experts, business analysts and journalists here scrutinize every move and utterance by Medvedev and Putin, looking for signs of a rift between the two or for evidence that Medvedev's power is on the rise and Putin's is finally on the wane.

Any signs of a shift of power in Russia could send shockwaves through the world, thanks to Russia's surging economy, its role as a major energy supplier to Europe and its assertive new foreign policy. Many believe that, left to his own, Medvedev would be more sympathetic to Western political and economic reforms.

So far, though, there has been no seismic shift of power in the Kremlin. Only a few small tremors.

There certainly seems to be a strong rivalry between those who work with Putin in Russia's White House, the location of the prime minister's offices, and those who work with Medvedev in the Kremlin. This judgment is based on the whispers in the press and the comments of experts with links to one camp or the other.

But so far there are few signs Medvedev is chafing at the power sharing arrangement.

Certainly the Russian public does not view Medvedev as the senior figure in the Russian government. According to a July poll by the respected Levada center here, more than one-third of Russians thought Putin held real power in the country while just 9 percent thought Medvedev was the true leader.

Almost half, 47 percent, said they thought both shared power equally — the Kremlin's line, which is repeated in Russia's state-controlled television networks — while 8 percent didn't answer.

So far, Medvedev has not deviated from the policies laid down by Putin, who during his eight years as president sought to restore the dominance of the Kremlin at home and Russia's influence abroad.

Days after Medvedev agreed to sanctions against Zimbabwe with Group of Eight leaders in Japan in July, Russia vetoed United Nations sanctions against the African country. Someone, it appeared, had overruled the young Russian president.

In mid-August, Medvedev had a chance to break decisively with his predecessor when a Siberian court held a parole hearing for Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former chief of Yukos Oil, now serving time in a Siberian prison on fraud and tax evasion charges.

Medvedev has repeatedly complained of the country's "legal nihilism" as part of his highly publicized campaign for court reform and against government corruption.

The case against Khodorkovsky was widely regarded as emblematic of Russia's weak court system — a court system critics charge was manipulated by the Kremlin to jail a powerful political foe and bring Yukos' rich assets under state control.

But the Siberian court denied the former oil tycoon parole on what appeared to be dubious grounds — that he failed to keep his hands behind his back during a stroll through the prison grounds.

Some urged Medvedev to pardon the former tycoon, but he declined to intervene.

Medvedev's recent harsh statements are a break with the usual pattern. After Putin's sometimes angry statements, Medvedev has generally followed up with softer language that nonetheless drives home Putin's point.

Following Putin's recent broadsides against the U.S. and warnings to Europe, Medvedev followed with a round-table interview Sunday with Russia's Kremlin-controlled television networks, in which he laid out Russia's five-point foreign policy.

He said that "regions in which Russia has privileged interests. These regions are home to countries with which we share special historical relations and are bound together as friends and good neighbors."

Stripped of the soothing diplomatic euphemisms, Medvedev appeared to assert Russia's right to intervene militarily in what it regards its sphere of influence — a zone of "privileged interests" along its borders.

It was precisely the policy that Putin has long pursued.

Medvedev adopts tough tone, echoing Putin

[Shammu]

Russia threatens to target US missile shield sites
09.10.08, 5:38 AM ET

 MOSCOW - Russia could point missiles at strategic US targets in central Europe, including planned American missile shield sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, a senior Russian general said Wednesday.

'I can't exclude that if such decisions are taken by our military-political leadership, the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic and other such objects could be chosen as designated targets for some of our inter-continental ballistic missiles,' General Nikolai Solovtsov said, quoted by Interfax.

Moscow 'is obliged to take corresponding measures that prevent under any circumstances the devaluing of Russia's nuclear deterrent.

'We should be sure that the current and future strategic missile forces... are guaranteed to fulfil the task of strategic deterrence,' said Solovtsov, the head of Russia's strategic missile forces.

Solovtsov added that by the end of the year Russia planned to carry out four strategic missile tests, including a test of the new RS-24, capable of carrying a clutch of independently targetable warheads.

The comments came as tensions mounted between Russia and the United States over last month's Russian military surge into Georgia and the fraught question of missile defence.

While the 10 missile interceptors planned for Poland could not themselves undermine Russia's arsenal, Moscow was troubled by a lack of transparency in the project, Solovtsov said.

Moscow sees the plans for new US missile defence facilities in central Europe as part of an effort to encircle Russia.

Washington insists the planned facilities are directed against 'rogue states' such as Iran and in no way threaten Russia.

Russia threatens to target US missile shield sites

[HisDaughter]

Russia to establish long term presence in Georgia with close to 8,000 troops 

Prophecy News Watch

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Russia will station nearly 8,000 troops in two breakaway Georgian provinces, officials said Tuesday, announcing an imposing long-term presence less than a day after agreeing to pull forces back from areas surrounding the provinces.

Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov told President Dmitry Medvedev about 3,800 troops will each be based in South Ossetia and in Abkhazia — a far larger presence than before last month's war with Georgia.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that level of military staffing was needed to prevent Georgia from trying to regain control of the two regions, which Russia has recognized as independent.

In a goodwill gesture, Russia pulled troops back from a Georgian town outside Abkhazia on Tuesday, one of 24 positions in Georgia that officials say are still held by the Russians.

It was the first sign of Russia's promised pullback from posts outside Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgian television showed residents of Ganmukhuri rejoicing.

Georgian security council chief Alexander Lomaia said the Russians had maintained three or four armored personnel carriers and a few dozen troops at Ganmukhuri.

On Monday, Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy revised the European Union-brokered deal to end the fighting between Russia and Georgia, whose European and American allies have struggled to respond to Moscow's assertion of regional military clout.

"Russian troops will remain on the territory of South Ossetia and Abkhazia on request of their leaders in parliament," Lavrov said at a briefing. "They will remain there for a long time. Their presence there will be needed at least for the foreseeable future to prevent any relapses of aggressive actions."

Russia has established diplomatic relations with the two regions.

Lavrov said he and his counterparts in the two regions also worked out treaties that envisaged close military and other links.

"Russia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia will take all the necessary measures to avert threats to peace," Lavrov said. "They will provide all kinds of assistance to each other, including in the military field."

The deal with Sarkozy envisaged the deployment of at least 200 EU monitors in the area surrounding the two breakaway regions by next month. The deal obliges Russia to pull out of those regions in 10 days following the deployment of EU monitors.

Lavrov cast the deal, accompanied by the EU guarantees that Georgia would not use force against the two provinces, as a victory for Russia.

He said Abkhazia and South Ossetia will be represented at an international conference on security in the region in Geneva next month.

War erupted between Georgia and Russia erupted on Aug. 7 when Georgia launched an attack to regain control over South Ossetia. Russia sent in troops who quickly routed the Georgian forces and pushed deep into Georgia.

[HisDaughter]

Russia aims to corner energy market: U.S. official   

Prophecy New Watch
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Russia aims to extend its control over energy deliveries to the West and it is important that European countries push forward on efforts to diversify routes for oil and gas supplies, a senior U.S. official said on Monday.

As Vice President Dick Cheney visited Italy to seek support for Georgia after its brief war with Russia, the official, said: "The fact is Russia has worked hard to try to corner the market, so to speak, and is working to foreclose options to transit for those energy products across Russia.

"They want everything to come out through Russia and a lot of us think it's more important that there be diverse means of gaining access to those resources," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"No one country ought to be able to totally dominate those deliveries."

Italy was the last stop on a weeklong trip for Cheney that began with Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine to reinforce U.S. support for the former Soviet states after the conflict between Tbilisi and Moscow.

The crisis erupted in early August when Georgia tried to retake the breakaway region of South Ossetia and Russia responded with overwhelming force. Cheney, in a weekend speech in Cernobbio, Italy, called Moscow's actions "brutality against a neighbor".

In those remarks, he also accused Russia, the world's second largest oil producer, of using "energy as a tool of force and manipulation" in Central Asia, the Caucasus and elsewhere by threatening to interrupt the flow of oil or natural gas.

Europe and the United States are concerned about transit routes for oil and gas through eastern European countries which are seen as alternatives to Russian supplies.

"We think diversity of supply is important," the U.S. official told reporters traveling with Cheney.

Azerbaijan and Georgia are links in a Western-backed energy corridor that bypasses Russia, which the West fears could be in jeopardy following Moscow's military actions on Georgia.

In discussions with private sector representatives and public officials, "there were concerns expressed that one of the things that happened as a result of the Russian military operations in Georgia was to raise questions about the security of that trans-Georgian corridor for moving Caspian energy resources out to the West," the U.S. official said.

Europe is interested in finding ways to move forward with projects like the Nabucco pipeline project, the official said of a U.S.- and EU-backed project that would take Azeri gas to Europe through Georgia and Turkey. But concern about instability in the Caucasus has been scaring off investors.

Europe also wants to ensure that the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which ships 850,000 barrels per day of high quality Azeri crude from the Caspian to the Mediterranean, remains open and functioning, the U.S. official said.

[Shammu]

CNN Getting Kicked Out of Russia?
By Yasha Levine, eXiled Online
September 12, 2008

You probably didn't know that CNN censored Putin for being just too darn sensible. Yep, it's true. About two weeks ago, Putin gave the network an exclusive 30-minute interview. And you know what happened? Nothing. It was never allowed to air. CNN doesn't know it yet, but that decision might have cost them their Russian broadcasting rights.

On August 29, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with senior political correspondent Matthew Chance for a CNN exclusive interview. "This was unprecedented access to Russia's powerful prime minister, the former KGB spy now increasingly at odds with Washington," an overly dramatic voice-over introduced the segment as Chance and Putin enjoyed pre-game banter and a walk through the courtyard of Putin's palatial Sochi residence. Once seated, Chance didn't waste any time with his provocative questions:

    Matthew Chance: But it's been no secret either that for years you've been urging the West to take more seriously Russia's concerns about international issues. For instance, about NATO's expansion, about deployment of missile defense systems in eastern Europe. Wasn't this conflict a way of demonstrating that in this region, it's Russia that's the power, not NATO and certainly not the United States?

    Vladimir Putin: Of course not. What is more, we did not seek such conflicts and do not want them in the future.

    That this conflict has taken place -- that it broke out nevertheless -- is only due to the fact that no one had heeded our concerns.

    I think both you and your -- our -- viewers today will be interested to learn a little more about the history of relations between the peoples and ethnic groups in this regions of the world. Because people know little or nothing about it.

    If you think that this is unimportant, you may cut it from the program. Don't hesitate, I wouldn't mind.

It was a prescient comment. Not only did CNN delete Putin's historical roundup of relations between Russia, Georgia and South Ossetia going back to the 18th century that followed, the network cut out almost everything else as well. Despite the "unprecedented access" hook, for its U.S. feed, CNN reduced the 30-minute interview into a series of sound bites that seized and ridiculed Putin's crackpot theory that the Republican party started the war to boost McCain's ratings. CNN's international audience, enjoying the news from hotel rooms all round the world, got to see a little more of the the footage. But most of it had to do with Russia's ridiculous "non political" decision to ban some American poultry importers from doing business with Russia because of their poor quality control standards. CNN's intentions were clear: Putin must come off looking like a fool. And it seemed Putin gave them the perfect material. Embargoes on dead chickens and global neocon conspiracies? Gosh, what serious self-respecting world leader would start talking this kind of gibberish? Even Ahmadinejad doesn't sink that low. Well, the chicken meat embargo might have been a little weak, but the neocon conspiracy I'm not so sure about. But more on that later.  (You can see the heavily edited interview clips on CNN website, but the network never made the full version available. But you can see it on Russian TV.)

Not surprisingly, this didn't go down none too good with the Prime Minister. See, as it turns out, when Putin told CNN he wouldn't mind if they cut some of his comments, he wasn't exactly being honest. Not only did he mind, but he was sovereignly gotcha8ed off to find the entire interview censored. After all, he is the one that usually does the censoring. And it's not like he gives out TV interviews every month, or even every year. If I'm not mistaken, the last interview Putin gave to American TV was waaaay back in 2000, when he was on Larry King Live making crude comments about the sinking of the Kursk submarine.

And then there's the issue of Saakashvili's CNN time. Just in the past month, Saakashvili has appeared a dozen times on the network giving interviews averaging 5 to 10 minutes each. As CNN correctly pointed out, Putin is a former KGB spy, so he knows all the details, down to the nearest second. And that's exactly why he's taken it as a personal insult from CNN's headquarters (and probably more proof of an international media/government conspiracy against him). But he just might have the last word.

The word on the street here is Putin is out for blood. It's payback time. According to a source with high-level government connections, the Russians are planning punitive actions against CNN. At this point, it is just a rumor, but they are preparing to kick out about half of the half-dozen Western journalists working at CNN's Moscow bureau. Sooner or later they're going to have to apply for a visa renewal and that's when it's gonna go down. They'll be denied, clean and quiet like. We can only pray that the tool Matthew Chance is up for a new visa soon.

So why did CNN decide to cut the interview? The thing is, Putin came off pretty darn well. Sure, the chicken embargo was embarrassing, but the McCain/neocon conspiracy theory wasn't as crazy as some would want you to believe. Gary Brecher has been saying all along that this little war had the mark of a half-baked neocon plan for world domination. As Gary says, Georgia's move makes no sense at all from a Georgian perspective. Somebody must have told those idiots they'd be safe to retake South Ossetia. And who better than Cheney?

In general, Putin was able to strike an unusually sympathetic chord during the interview. It sure wasn't anything like the grotesque interview he gave eight years ago, where he made that cruel "it sank" Kursk joke. This time around, he was level headed, reasonable and, most importantly, very convincing and believable -- not what you'd expect from the evil Stalin/Hitler hybrid personality being pushed on the American public. And that worried the hell out of CNN editorial staff, enough to make them crudely censor the entire thing and hope no one noticed.

So, what parts of Putin did CNN leave on the cutting room floor?

Putin the anti-Stalinist:

    Therefore, those who insist that those territories must continue to belong to Georgia are Stalinists: They defend the decision of Josef Vissarionovich Stalin. [It was Stalin who first split up Ossetia and gave the southern half to Georgia.]

Putin the caring:

    For us, it is a special tragedy, because during the many years that we were living together the Georgian culture -- the Georgian people being a nation of ancient culture -- became, without a doubt, a part of the multinational culture of Russia.[C]onsidering the fact that almost a million, even more than a million Georgians have moved here, we have special spiritual links with that country and its people. For us, this is a special tragedy.

Putin the peaceful:

    You and I are sitting here now, having a quiet conversation in the city of Sochi. Within a few hundred kilometers from here, U.S. Navy ships have approached, carrying missiles whose range is precisely several hundred kilometers. It is not our ships that have approached your shores; it's your ships that have approached ours. So what's our choice?

    We don't want any complications; we don't want to quarrel with anyone; we don't want to fight anyone. We want normal cooperation and a respectful attitude toward us and our interests. Is that too much?

Putin the conscientious business man:

    Construction of the first gas pipeline system was started during the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, and for all those years, from the 1960s until this day, Russia has been fulfilling its contract obligations in a very consistent and reliable way, regardless of the political situation.

    We never politicize economic relations, and we are quite astonished at the position of some U.S. administration officials who travel to European capitals trying to persuade the Europeans not to buy our products, natural gas for example, in a truly amazing effort to politicize the economic sphere. In fact, it's quite pernicious.

    It's true that the Europeans depend on our supplies but we too depend on whoever buys our gas. That's interdependence; that's precisely the guarantee of stability.

CNN Getting Kicked Out of Russia?

[HisDaughter]

Russia to sell Iran missiles for defense of nuke sites

Prophecy News Watch

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Russia snubbed its nose at the United States today by announcing plans to sell military equipment to both Iran and Venezuela.

The head of the state arms exporter said that Russia was negotiating to sell new anti-aircraft systems to Iran despite American objections.

"Contacts between our countries are continuing and we do not see any reason to suspend them," Anatoly Isaikin, general director of Rosoboronexport, told Ria-Novosti at an arms fair in South Africa.

Reports have circulated for some time that Russia is preparing to sell its S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Iran, offering greater protection against a possible US or Israeli attack on the Islamic republic's nuclear facilities. The missiles have a range of more than 150 kilometres and can intercept jets approaching at low altitudes.

Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow, said that it was logical to conclude a lucrative contract with Iran "in the current situation, when the US and the West in general are stubbornly gearing toward a confrontation with Russia".

Russia has already delivered 29 Tor-M1 missile systems under a $700 million deal with Iran in 2005.

Sergei Chemezov, the head of state-owned Russian Technologies also disclosed that Venezuela's leader Hugo Chavez wanted to buy anti-aircraft systems, armoured personnel carriers, and new SU-35 fighter jets when they come into production in 2010.

US plans to site an anti-missile shield in eastern Europe to deter surprise attacks from Iran have outraged Russia, which believes the system in Poland and the Czech Republic is aimed at weakening its defences.

Strains between Nato and Russia after the war in Georgia have also contributed to a sharp deterioration in relations.

Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, one of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's closest allies, has visited Venezuela and Cuba this week. Kommersant said that Russia was forming "alliance relations" with the two anti-American regimes as a response to US involvement in former Soviet republics.

Mr Sechin said that "military-technological cooperation" between Russia and Venezuela was increasing, adding that the two sides were also in talks on oil and shipbuilding projects.

President Chavez is expected to visit Moscow next week. Two Russian long-range strategic nuclear bombers landed in the Venezuelan capital Caracas last week, the first time they had visited the Latin American state.

The TU-160 Blackjack supersonic bombers took off last night for the return journey to Russia after completing their patrol mission along the South American coast, air force spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Vladimir Drik said.

Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, voiced concern at Russian bomber flights close to American shores last month and warned Moscow that it was playing a "dangerous game".

Mr Sechin travelled to Nicaragua yesterday as part of Russia's efforts to revive its influence on America's doorstep in Latin America. Nicaragua was the only state to join Russia in recognising the independence of Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and President Daniel Ortega is also due to visit Moscow soon.