UN court rejects Georgia case against Russia over war

The United Nations’ top court has dismissed a case filed by Georgia that accuses Russia and separatist rebels of ethnic cleansing.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague said it could not examine Georgia’s complaint because negotiations had not taken place.

Georgia said Russia and the rebels had used ethnic violence against Georgians in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Russia took control of the two Georgian regions in a brief war in August 2008.

Thousands of ethnic Georgians fled the regions during the conflict and many remain internally displaced in Georgia.

(Via BBC)

The US-Russia Space Race: An exercise in Cold War brinkmanship (More Key Events)

The US-Russia Space Race: An exercise in Cold War brinkmanship

October 4, 1957: The Soviet Union launches the world’s first satellite, Sputnik 1, stunning the United States November 3, 1957: The Soviet Union puts the first animal in space, a dog called Laika who orbits the Earth but dies in the process.

January 1, 1958: America successfully launches its first Earth satellite.

October 1, 1958: America sets up the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA.

September 12, 1959: The Soviet Union launches the first spacecraft, Luna 2, to reach the surface of the Moon.

August 19, 1960: The Soviet Union launches a spacecraft carrying two dogs, Belka and Strelka. The two dogs survive the mission and return to Earth, paving the way for the first manned space flight.

April 12, 1961: Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to journey into outer space orbiting the Earth once in a flight that lasted 108 minutes.

May 5, 1961: America’s Alan Shepard completes a suborbital journey into space.

February 20, 1962: America’s John Glenn orbits the Earth three times.

June 16, 1963: Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman to travel into space.

January 27, 1967: America’s Apollo 1 Moon mission ends in tragedy as it catches fire during a launch test killing three crew members.

July 16, 1969: America’s historic Apollo 11 mission lands on the Moon.

July 20, 1969: America’s Neil Armstrong becomes the first human to walk on the Moon.

November 17, 1970: The Soviet Union lands a remote-controlled robot on the Moon in another world first. America does the same the following year.

April 19,1971: The Soviet Union launches the first space station, Salyut 1.

April 12, 1981: America launches its first Space Shuttle in orbit.

1986: The Soviet Union launches what will become the first permanently-manned space station. Mir. It is permanently manned from 1989-1999 but decommissioned in 2001 by Russia which is struggling to fund what is left of the Soviet space programme.

 

Russian military stops issuing soldiers with cigarettes, offers candy instead

Russian military stops issuing soldiers with cigarettes, offers candy instead

Real changes in culture?  Or more cosmetic façades?

Russian Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Dmitry Bulgakov has announced that the Defense Ministry will no longer purchase cigarettes for soldiers, Russian website Gazeta.ru reports.

“There are no cigarettes in our new military allowance. We have replaced cigarettes for the army with caramel candies and sugar. However, we can’t prohibit smoking completely. If a soldier wants to smoke, he will have to buy cigarettes with his own money at a store during his period of leave,” Bulgakov said.

Bulgakov also announced that all Russian officers will change their footwear by 2013.

“We have developed special office shoes for officers. They are lightweight shoes made of high-quality leather, which let soldier’s feet breathe. Women’s boots will be substituted too. Now we will distribute refined shoes for our beautiful military women. And, of course, the unpleasant naval jacket with a high collar will be replaced by a convenient sweater.” Bulgakov said.

(Via MosNews)

Loss of Chechnya: the case for the defence

Loss of Chechnya: the case for the defence

Chechnya’s ex-foreign minister Ilyas Akhmadov has published a book chronicling the loss of his republic to Russia. Politicians from other countries with similar tales of loss and betrayal have tried to justify their actions in the same way. Oliver Bullough examines the current situation in the light of some of their accounts.

If a politician has lost an election, he writes a book about it. If he has lost a whole country, however, you might expect him to keep it quiet. Nonetheless, over the centuries, a few men have taken on the task of explaining away the most enormous failure that a political career can end with.

Russia has tended to be the villain in these memoirs because of its habit of periodically swallowing its neighbours. As a result, it looked as though the genre might die with the Cold War, when Moscow finally lost its empire. In previous centuries, exiled ex-leaders of briefly-independent Georgia or Ukraine committed their excuses to paper, but those states are free now. So who could be left to remind us how we abandoned their small nations to Russian vengeance?

Enter Ilyas Akhmadov, who ably fulfils that role on behalf of the Chechens – for whom he was briefly foreign minister, although he lacked a ministry even before he lacked a country. And his memoir does so in bewildering detail. I already knew the names and biographies of many of the people he mentions, but even I struggled with sentences like this one: “it must have been when I was praising his house that Aushev asked me about the cement factory in Chiri Yurt”.

From the progression of the exiles’ memoirs, you can trace the development of the world order, as the leadership of the Western world swings away from Europe. The Polish captain blamed the French in the 1830s, while Zhordania and many others blamed the British in the 1930s and after.

“For the 250,000 Polish Servicemen who fought under British command, the Yalta agreements came as an unbelievable shock,” wrote Kazimierz Sabbat, Poland’s last president in exile before the collapse of communist rule, in Polonia Restituta, with admirable restraint considering the vastness of Poland’s betrayal at the Yalta conference.

Writing today, Akhmadov blames the Americans.

“The lack of a principled assessment in the West contributed to the radicalization of the Chechen resistance; the West was seen as acquiescing to Russia, leaving only two available paths: submission to (Russia’s ally) Kadyrov or jihad,” he writes sadly.

“It is either Kadyrov or extermination and that choice is being hailed by the outside world, somehow, as a sign of progress.”


(Via Open-Democracy: Russia; Post Soviet World)

Russia employs Arctic brigade to defend oil and gas reserves

Russia employs Arctic brigade to defend oil and gas reserves

The move follows a muscular series of comments from the deputy head of Russia’s Border Service Colonel-General Vycheslav Dorokhin who said the Kremlin planned to build up its forces in the region to better patrol its Arctic territorial waters.

The troops will be based in the far northern town of Pechenga on Russia’s Kola Peninsula close to the Norwegian and Finnish borders and will be combat-ready later this year.

Russian military planners said they had studied the way Arctic troops in Norway and Finland operated and had ordered in the necessary winterised clothing and arms for the new brigade which could number up to 8,000 troops.

In particular, he said Russia wanted to step up patrols of the strategically important North East shipping passage.

“Our potential there will be built up. We won’t let anyone feel themselves free (to move about as they please) in the Arctic.”

Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark and Norway are all locked in a race to grab a slice of the northern wilderness after US researchers predicted that global warming might leave the area ice-free, and therefore more easily navigable and explored, as early as 2030.

Experts say the region potentially contains one fifth of the world’s oil and gas reserves and that the swath of Arctic territory claimed specifically by Russia could be home to oil supplies double the size of Saudi Arabia’s proven reserves.

(Via The Telegraph; by the interesting journalist Andrew Osborn)

Sacked ambassador stokes Russian tension over Libya

Sacked ambassador stokes Russian tension over Libya

Russia’s former ambassador to Libya has stoked new tension between President Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, after calling the Kremlin’s acquiescence to air strikes targeting Libya a “betrayal of Russia’s interests”.

Chamov, who was sacked as ambassador to Tripoli by Medvedev earlier this month, told reporters that Moscow’s failure to oppose the bombing raids would lose Russian companies huge sums of money in arms and other contracts.

Russia abstained last week during the UN security council vote which approved military intervention in Libya.

Chamov, who was reportedly greeted at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport by Russian nationalists bearing bunches of flowers, declined to comment on Medvedev personally.

Analysts said Putin’s comments reflected his desire to please patriotic voters, while Medvedev had acted shrewdly to preserve respect in the west while bolstering Russian interests.

Medvedev and Putin have both said they will agree together who contests the Russian presidency next March. Some observers think any disagreements between the two are cosmetic.

(Via The Guardian)

Lavrov Opposes Arming Libyan Rebels

Lavrov Opposes Arming Libyan Rebels

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the West on Wednesday against arming rebels battling Moammar Gadhafi’s forces and said Libyans must forge their political future without any outside interference.

With Western leaders saying they were not ruling out arming the rebels, Lavrov emphasized Russia’s opposition.

Russia, a veto-wielding permanent UN Security Council member, backed sanctions against Gadhafi’s government and abstained in the vote on the resolution authorizing military action to enforce no-fly zones, allowing it to pass.

Turning to the future, Lavrov said “the Libyan sides must agree on what the Libyan state should be.”

(Via The Moscow Times)

Russian bombers ‘intercepted in British airspace’

Russian bombers ‘intercepted in British airspace’

March 25, 2010 (last year)

Rare photos of Russian strategic bomber jets purportedly intercepted in British airspace show Moscow’s war machine is becoming increasingly bold, analysts said Thursday as Russia denied any territorial violations.

Britain’s Ministry of Defence released images it said were taken earlier this month of two Russian Tu-160 bombers — known as Blackjacks by NATO forces — as they entered UK airspace near the Outer Hebrides islands off Scotland’s northwest coast.

It said the March 10 incident, which resulted in crystal clear images of the planes against clear blue skies and a dramatic sunset, was one of many intercepts carried out by British Royal Air Force crews in just over 12 months.

“This is not an unusual incident, and many people may be surprised to know that our crews have successfully scrambled to intercept Russian aircraft on more than 20 occasions since the start of 2009,” Wing Cdr. Mark Gorringe, of the RAF’s 111 Squadron, said in a statement.

(Via CNN)