Yesterday the Defence Minister flew into Komsomolsk on the Amur in Siberia to save the Russian aircraft industry, which only managed to sustain itself in the 1990s with the aid of Chinese and Indian contracts for aircraft. On this occasion Shoigu was able to offer credits of 280 million roubles for future aircraft production, both … Continue reading Saving the Russian Aircraft Industry

The hardline Vzglyad ru has a headline for today (Russian time) which reads: "Biden has chosen the next president of America." It points out that half the time Democrat candidate Joe Biden has no idea where he is or what he has to say, so it is logical to suggest that if he wins the … Continue reading Biden and Russia

Today Izvestiya publicised the view of an American academic who believes that Biden will win the US presidential election. The article was reiterated in Nezavisimaya gazeta. This would seem to belie the notion recently spread in the United States that the Russians were hoping President Trump would win a second term. The article fails to … Continue reading Russian Official Newspaper Pro-Biden

An interesting article - counter-factual in nature - on the run up to the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939 appeared today in the hardline Vzglyad ru. It is written by Evgenii Krutikov, now a commentator, who once played a shadowy role in Ossetia (Georgia) and then in Bosnia during the Serbian war to destroy Croatia and … Continue reading The Nazi-Soviet Pact: Was it Necessary?

I thought I had seen some bizarre press coverage in my time but this really takes the biscuit. Maria Berk (can that name be real?) writes an entire article devoted to A.O.C., as she is known, the young socialist congresswomen who is supposed to have studied international relations with economics at Boston University but has … Continue reading Russians Bat for Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez

The hardliners in Russia are beginning to celebrate their good luck. US Secretary of State Pompeo appears to some to have launched a Cold War against China. The newspaper Vzglyad.ru has a headline declaring "Russia Has Lost its Status as the Main Enemy of the USA." And specialists on defence matters have warned the Americans … Continue reading USA and Russia: The Best of Enemies?

Whereas for Russia Syria is not even what they call "the near abroad" - the former republics of the USSR which constitute a potential defence cordon around the homeland - for Israel Syria is and always was a threatening neighbour. Thus, as they say, when push comes to shove, the Israelis will always go further … Continue reading Israel and Russia: A Delicate Balance

It is without doubt true and easily demonstrated that the Russian security organs have meddled in Britain in a manner unimaginable during the Cold War. The murder of Litvinenko and the attempt on the life of Skripal' - see previous blog entries - are all one needs to confirm that fact. But now there is … Continue reading Russian Subversion and Great Britain

When Vladimir Putin first took power at the end of the 1990s and consolidated it in the new century, one crucial weapon that lay to hand was the brazen way in which oligarchs swepped up the shareholdings distributed to factory workers in return for chicken feed and then, not without the threat of violence and … Continue reading Russians Protest Injustice, Not Poverty

Vladimir Putin and his entourage are fiercely engaged in a once and for all attempt to monopolise effective political power and propaganda in Russia into the indefinite future; something that only Stalin succeeded in doing, spilling rivers of blood to achieve and sustain it. As in contemporary Africa, Putin is also aiming at life long … Continue reading Russia: Mass Unrest in Khabarovsk