Thread: Russia on the march - again

Found this in one of links provided by Mr.First (thanks!))on another thread . Rather long , so I just post the link . Moscow Defense Brief . Very interesting article and sums up almost every aspect on the subject of the thread .

Kremlin lays claim to huge chunk of oil-rich North Pole


Map: The Lomonosov ridge

Luke Harding in Moscow
Thursday June 28, 2007
The Guardian

North Pole, Arctic
Under international law, no country owns the North Pole. Photograph: Daisy Gilardini/Getty


It is already the world's biggest country, spanning 11 time zones and stretching from Europe to the far east. But yesterday Russia signalled its intention to get even bigger by announcing an audacious plan to annex a vast 460,000 square mile chunk of the frozen and ice-encrusted Arctic.

According to Russian scientists, there is new evidence backing Russia's claim that its northern Arctic region is directly linked to the North Pole via an underwater shelf.

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Under international law, no country owns the North Pole. Instead, the five surrounding Arctic states, Russia, the US, Canada, Norway and Denmark (via Greenland), are limited to a 200-mile economic zone around their coasts.

On Monday, however, a group of Russian geologists returned from a six-week voyage on a nuclear icebreaker. They had travelled to the Lomonosov ridge, an underwater shelf in Russia's remote and inhospitable eastern Arctic Ocean.

According to Russia's media, the geologists returned with the "sensational news" that the Lomonosov ridge was linked to Russian Federation territory, boosting Russia's claim over the oil-and-gas rich triangle. The territory contained 10bn tonnes of gas and oil deposits, the scientists said.

Russia's Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper celebrated the discovery by printing a large map of the North Pole. It showed the new "addition" to Russia - the size of France, Germany and Italy combined - under a white, blue and red Russian flag.

Yesterday, however, some scientists doubted whether Russia's latest Arctic grab stood up to scrutiny.

To extend a zone, a state has to prove that the structure of the continental shelf is similar to the geological structure within its territory. Under the current UN convention on the laws of the sea, no country's shelf extends to the North Pole. Instead, the International Seabed Authority administers the area around the pole as an international area.

"Frankly I think it's a little bit strange," Sergey Priamikov, the international co-operation director of Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St Petersburg, told the Guardian. "Canada could make exactly the same claim. The Canadians could say that the Lomonosov ridge is part of the Canadian shelf, which means Russia should in fact belong to Canada, together with the whole of Eurasia."

Mr Priamikov said the area was one of breathtaking natural beauty. It was much drier, colder and quieter than the western Arctic, he added. "I've been there many times. It's an oasis for marine life," he said. Asked whether it would be feasible to drill for oil, he said: "Yes".

The shelf was 200 metres deep and oil and gas would be easy to extract, especially with ice melting because of global warming, he said.

Russia has the world's largest gas reserves. It is the second largest exporter of oil after Saudi Arabia. The Kremlin is keen to secure Russia's long-term hegemony over global energy markets, and to find new sources of fuel.

Russia first made a submission in 2001 to the UN commission on the limits of the continental shelf, seeking to push Russia's maritime borders beyond the existing 200-mile zone. It was rejected.

But the latest scientific findings are likely to prompt Russia to lodge another confident bid - and will alarm the US, which is mired in a 13-year debate over ratification of a UN treaty governing international maritime rights.

The Law of the Sea Treaty is the world's primary means of settling disputes over exploitation rights and navigational routes in international waters. Russia and 152 other countries have ratified it.

But the US has refused, arguing it gives too much power to the UN. If the US does not ratify it, Russia's bid for the Arctic's energy wealth will go unchallenged, proponents believe.


Kremlin lays claim to huge chunk of oil-rich North Pole | Russia | Guardian Unlimited

Another input to give the jitters!

US is now caught in a bind.

What Ivanov actually is warning of is the reconquest of Eastern Europe but Russia will not stop with that.

Appeasement is already underway , will accelerate but will ultimately and tragicly fail. Leading to a world war that will make all previous wars combined pale into insignificance

Ivanov warns of new "Berlin Wall" between Russia and EuropeSunday 08 July 2007 15:29Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov on Sunday spoke of the possibility of a new "Berlin Wall" between Russia and Europe triggered by the stationing of US military technology in the Czech Republic and Poland.Speaking on the far-eastern Russian peninsula of Kamchatka, the former defence minister said Russia was ready for close cooperation with the United States over the issue of US missile defence technology.

Should the US accept suggestions made by Russia President Vladimir Putin, an alternative joint global missile defence system could be created.

"This leads inescapably to an exchange of very sensitive military technology, for which Russia is ready," Ivanov said, adding that such cooperation would strengthen trust between the two countries.

In a meeting last week with US President George W Bush, Putin in the United States offered wideranging cooperation in missile defence. The Russian president also proposed widening the dialogue on the issue to include the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. dpa al mga sc


Is this story important?Yes-NoThis story has an importance rating of: 76%

And in response to this:

Moscow Defense Brief

"The growing asymmetry in the economic and political—military capacity of Russia compared to the US, the EU and also China and India will soon preclude the exercise of the traditional Soviet tactic of using force to solve political problems (as the bottom falls out of Russia’s nuclear deterrence), and limit the ability of Russia to deploy economic means in support of foreign policy goals."


The above is an outright falsehood.

And this is at best a gross underestimation of the Russian armed forces in particular its growing and modernisising nuclear capabilities as we speak.:

"Under such conditions, it is obvious that Russia cannot rely on its army and navy alone as “allies” in the defense of its national interests. Given the current scale of global defense spending, Russia’s armed forces are simply not up to the task of responding to the threats that arise from the blurring of the role of nuclear weapons and the development of strategic missile defense."

The entire piece is an effort at grossly misleading propaganda not seen since the 1930s IMHO.

Always remember:

"The policy of Russia is changeless. Its methods, its tactics, its maneuvers may change, but the polar star of its policy, world domination, is a fixed star."

We are friends now, Russia and USA, not enemies.
Remember that.

One more example of cooperation between our great nations:

America buys Russian toilet

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. — In space, a loo costs a lot.

NASA has agreed to pay $19 million for a Russian-built toilet system for the international space station. The figure may sound astronomical for a toilet in space, but NASA officials said it was cheaper than building their own.

"It's akin to building a municipal treatment center on Earth," NASA spokeswoman Lynnette Madison said Thursday, explaining the cost of the new toilet system.

Also, astronauts are familiar with how it works since it's similar to one already in use at the space station. The new system will be able to transfer urine to a device that can produce drinking water.

The new system is scheduled to be delivered to the U.S. side of the space station in 2008. It will offer more privacy than the old toilet system, which will definitely be needed: The space station crew is expected to grow from three to six people by 2009.

The system will be installed on the American side, and the current toilet system on the Russian side will remain in place.

The space station toilet physically resembles those used on Earth, except it has leg restraints and thigh bars to keep astronauts and cosmonauts in place. Fans suck waste into the commode. Crew members also have individual urine funnels which are attached to hoses, and the urine is deposited into a wastewater tank.

Crew members using the current toilet system on the Russian side must transfer tanks of their urine to a cargo ship, which burns up in Earth's atmosphere once undocked from the station.

The $19 million toilet system was part of a larger contract valued at $46 million that NASA signed this week with RSC Energia, a Russian aerospace company. The extra equipment includes software updates for the station's inventory management system, a spare air pump and engineering support for a mechanism which allows space shuttles to dock with the space station.

NASA buys $19 million Russian toilet for space station | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

´´RSC Energia - experts on space crap since 1961 ´´ .
Sorry , couldn´t resist ....

Sorry for dirty detail

I remember visiting this company and one old guy there told what a problem they had encountered when a third lady (first two were launched for short periods) was supposed to be launched into space to visit a space station.... everything was designed for the MAN.... including toilet.... and they had to redesign everything in life support - the biggest problem was a redesign of a toilet.... it is far easier task for a man in zero gravitation......

Friends? Mr First. Wish it were so.

When Russia soon reconquers/conquers ALL of Europe they wont make Hitlers mistake they will crush the UK like a bug. In fact they will probably nuke it off the face of the earth if the Brits dont readily capitulate.

Analysis: Russia rediscovers its swagger | International News | News | Telegraph

Analysis: Russia rediscovers its swagger
By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Last Updated: 8:07pm BST 11/07/2007



UK poised to expel Russian diplomats over spy row
Britain, perhaps more than any other country, has been a victim of Russia's rediscovered swagger on the world stage.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president has been openly scornful, deriding Britain as "a haven for terrorists and criminals" and dismissing a request for Andrei Lugovoi's extradition as "stupid".

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The Kremlin believes it has a genuine gripe against London for refusing to extradite Boris Berezovsky, Mr Putin's most implacable rival, who has been granted political asylum by a British court. But Britain has also become an easy target for a resurgent Russia desperate to affirm its status as a reborn superpower.

A booming economy, buoyed by high international energy prices, has given Russia a confidence it transparently lacked in the decade following the collapse of Communism.

That confidence has inspired Russia to make its presence increasingly felt in the international arena.

The Kremlin believes it has three key weapons — its abundant natural reserves, its vast nuclear arsenal and its permanent seat on the UN Security Council — that make Russia the only country in the world powerful enough to challenge the hegemony of the United States.

Moscow has been flexing its muscles in all three areas with increasing frequency.

Mr Putin has used the energy supplies he commands to keep ex-Soviet states in line, has threaten to use its veto to stop Kosovo achieving independence and has even threatened to retrain nuclear missiles on Europe.

The braggadocio certainly has an international dimension — many senior Kremlin officials, the president included, are ex-KGB agents and share a deeply nationalist philosophy — but much of it is intended for domestic consumption.

"To the outside world Moscow is saying: ‘You can't live without us'," said Andrei Ryabov, a prominent political analyst. "At home this message is required to reinforce the system's legitimacy."

Perhaps in order to distract Russians from its other failings, Mr Putin's government relentlessly broadcasts the message that Russia is again a superpower that the West is trying to destroy in order to steal its natural resources.

"A number of countries firmly intend to prevent Russia's return into world politics as a great power," says Sergei Markov, a commentator with close ties to the Kremlin. "As a result they are trying to surround Russia with a ring of hostile regimes.

"But we know very well that power is not given but taken. The Russian political elite knows this very well and is prepared to wage a big political war to win great power status."

To reinforce the view that the West is trying to weaken Russia, the Kremlin needs proof of some kind.

While Mr Putin has stepped up its criticism of Washington, Russia does not feel confident enough to challenge the United States directly. Britain, however, provides easier pickings — with the added value that it is widely seen in Moscow as America's sidekick.

Thus it is British interests that have become the target for a campaign of intimidation and Britain is frequently accused of spying against Russia — proof for the domestic audience of the West's nefariousness.

In recent weeks two investigations have been opened into allegations of British espionage.

Last year Russia accused four British diplomats of working for MI6 undercover, saying they used a high-technology transmitter, concealed in a fake rock, to gather intelligence.

It is though the diplomats were not expelled because Mr Putin did not want to damage Russia's reputation ahead of last year's G8 summit, which it hosted for the first time.

With the summit out of the way, Russia may feel less compunction this year — leaving many British diplomats feeling anxious about their future as diplomatic relations deteriorate.

Our constitution prohibits extradition of Russian citizens to foreign countries. This is strange the British authorities want Russian government to break Russian law.