Putinova Rusija

Citat:
But on May 1, during a clutch with journalists in the Belarusian city of Brest, it was the turn of Aleksandr Zaldostanov, the leader of the notorious pro-Putin Night Wolves motorcycle club, to indulge in some significant historical revisionism.

A reporter from the independent Belsat asked Zaldostanov to comment on the fact that in the early days of the war, Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany were allies.

"The U.S.S.R. sided with Hitler!" Zaldostanov replied in astonishment. "You see how messed up this guy is. Here is a clear example of the mess in some people's heads. The U.S.S.R. sided with Hitler, he's telling me. Either he is insane or he's trolling. What else can I say?"

A few seconds later, he pushed the persistent reporter aside and moved on to the next question.

Ironically, the incident happened in the city of Brest, which in 1939 was in Poland -- and formed part of the border between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany that was agreed as part of the secret protocol to the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the West on September 1, 1939, and the Soviet Union invaded from the east on September 17.

Just a few days later, Poland was all but finished militarily, and the two invading armies held a joint military parade in Brest on September 22, 1939, in a dark parallel to the more famous meeting toward the end of the war of Soviet and American troops on Germany's Elbe River on April 25, 1945.

Although Germany was forbidden by the Versailles Treaty from having an air force, the Junkers firm created a factory outside Moscow and Luftwaffe pilots trained near Lipetsk. The Germans practiced the blitzkrieg at a tank school in Kazan and produced banned chemical weapons in Samara Oblast. German submarines hid from Versailles inspectors at a base near Murmansk.

Relations slowed considerably after Hitler's rise to power, mostly because of Hitler's avowed anticommunism and anti-Slavic racism. The 1930s were a difficult time in European international relations, with all countries struggling to boost their security in a growing atmosphere of mutual mistrust. Numerous bids at various collective-security arrangements failed, as did the West's de facto policy of appeasing Hitler.

Klikni za razširitev

Citat:
Top German MEP joins foes of controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline

The head of the largest party in the European Parliament has launched a scathing attack on the $11bn Nord Stream 2 project to pipe more Russian gas into Germany.

Manfred Weber, chairman of the centre-right European People’s party, said the proposed pipeline would undermine the EU’s foreign and security goals by increasing dependence on Gazprom, Russia’s gas export monopoly.

“The EU risks creating detrimental consequences for the gas supply in central and eastern Europe, including Ukraine, in particular against the background of Gazprom’s announcement to stop gas delivery through Ukraine once Nord Stream 2 is finalised,” he wrote in a letter to Sigmar Gabriel, German economy minister, and Miguel Arias Cañete, EU energy commissioner.

..

Mr Weber’s intervention is significant because he is a senior German politician whose party is allied to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s within the EPP. Germany is seen as the prime agitator in favour of Nord Stream 2, while Italy and Poland are bitterly opposed.

Klikni za razširitev

Citat:
Eastern European countries and Italy are still angered by the collapse last year of the planned South Stream project, which would have brought Russian gas to south-eastern Europe under the Black Sea.

The $50bn project failed largely because Brussels insisted on competition rules within an EU energy liberalisation known as the Third Energy Package. Under this legal framework, the European Commission argued that Gazprom would be in violation of the law by providing both the gas and owning the pipeline, without giving other vendors access to the pipeline.

Supporters of Nord Stream 2 argue that it should enjoy a different legal status from South Stream because it will not cross land but will run mainly through international waters in the Baltic.

Mr Weber argued it was critical to resist that potential loophole and for Brussels to insist the project comply with the Third Energy Package. He added the project should also be denied any European financial support. “It would be crucial to know what the German government and the European Commission intend to do to ensure compliance with EU legislation and energy security priorities.”

Klikni za razširitev

Citat:
Why Europe’s energy policy has been a strategic success story

...

For many years, analysts and policymakers have debated the question of Europe's dependence on natural gas from Russia. Today, this problem is largely solved. Russia provides only one-third of Europe’s gas. Importantly, Europe’s internal infrastructure for transporting natural gas in all desired directions has improved greatly. So have its available storage options, as well as its possibilities to import alternatives either by pipeline or in the form of liquefied natural gas. As a result, almost all member states are currently well-positioned to withstand even a worst-case scenario.

...

The notion that Europe is weak and dependent on Russian natural gas is a relic from the past. Europe has a strong regulatory framework with which commercial entities, including Gazprom, have to abide. For those who doubt the impact of these regulations, just ask Google or Microsoft.

...

In theory, Europe could even substantially wean itself off Russian gas if need be. To be sure, that would come at a major expense: over 200 billion euros of additional investments over a period of two years or more, and then an annual 35 billion euros, according to some calculations. That will almost surely not happen. But as a way of bounding the worst-case scenario, it is still informative. One might say that Europe has escalation dominance over Russia; the latter needs to export to Europe more than Europe need Russian hydrocarbons.

Klikni za razširitev

Citat:
Tver engineer who reposted a post titled "Crimea is Ukraine" was sentenced to two years "for separatism". The irony.

THIS is a modern RU hero.Asked in court if he acknowledges guilt, he said he "strongly believes" Russia stole Crimea

Ru TV: "BBC hypocritically criticizes us for jailing blogger who reposted "Crimea=Ukraine", but forgets UK jails people who offend blacks"

Remember this name:Andrey Bubeev. 2 years + 3 months in penal colony for REPOSTING "Crimea=Ukraine", + 1 FURTHER year ban on using Internet

Klikni za razširitev

Citat:
The day we discovered our parents were Russian spies

For years Donald Heathfield, Tracey Foley and their two children lived the American dream. Then an FBI raid revealed the truth: they were agents of Putin’s Russia. Their sons tell their story

Tim Foley turned 20 on 27 June 2010. To celebrate, his parents took him and his younger brother Alex out for lunch at an Indian restaurant not far from their home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

...

After a buffet lunch, the four returned home and opened a bottle of champagne to toast Tim reaching his third decade.

...

There came a knock at the door, and Tim’s mother called up that his friends must have come early, as a surprise.

At the door, she was met by a different kind of surprise altogether: a team of armed, black-clad men holding a battering ram. They streamed into the house, screaming, “FBI!” Another team entered from the back; men dashed up the stairs, shouting at everyone to put their hands in the air. Upstairs, Tim had heard the knock and the shouting, and his first thought was that the police could be after him for underage drinking: nobody at the party the night before had been 21, and Boston police took alcohol regulations seriously.

When he emerged on to the landing, it became clear the FBI was here for something far more serious. The two brothers watched, stunned, as their parents were put in handcuffs and driven away in separate black cars. Tim and Alex were left behind with a number of agents, who said they needed to begin a 24-hour forensic search of the home; they had prepared a hotel room for the brothers. One of the men told them their parents had been arrested on suspicion of being “unlawful agents of a foreign government”.

Alex presumed there had been some mistake – the wrong house, or a mix-up over his father’s consultancy work.

...

But the FBI had not made a mistake, and the truth was so outlandish, it defied comprehension. Not only were their parents indeed Russian spies, they were Russians. The man and woman the boys knew as Mom and Dad really were their parents, but their names were not Donald Heathfield and Tracey Foley. Those were Canadians who had died long ago, as children; their identities had been stolen and adopted by the boys’ parents.

Their real names were Andrei Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova. They were both born in the Soviet Union, had undergone training in the KGB and been dispatched abroad as part of a Soviet programme of deep-cover secret agents, known in Russia as the “illegals”.

Klikni za razširitev

Citat:
Russian Interior Ministry troops were fed dog food earlier this year to save money, a former officer in the ministry said Thursday.

A rare whistleblower in Russia's expansive security forces, ex-Major Igor Matveyev said officers tried to cover up the scandal and other alleged wrongdoing at the Interior Ministry troops base where he served in the far east city of Vladivostok.

...

"It's embarrassing to say but soldiers here were fed dog food. It was fed to them as stew," Matveyev said in an interview with Reuters, adding that dog food labels were covered up with labels reading 'premium quality beef'.

He said he would contest a dismissal order issued by a superior after he posted the nearly 10-minute video, in which he asked President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to intervene.

...

He added that 18 illegal migrant laborers were housed at the Vladivostok base for a month and a half and were used for clean-up and construction jobs.

"They were Koreans or Chinese, I don't know because they did not have any documents," he said.

He also said that property on the base had been sold off without permission to make money for the officers, but did not specify what had been sold or to whom.

Klikni za razširitev

Citat:
In the spring of 2011, Major Matveev reported to the command of a number of corruption, crimes and violations of military unit 6890 and the 107th Brigade RMC MVD of Russia. It was about

concealment of cases of beatings in the brigade soldiers,

residence in the territory of the military regime of foreign nationals (Koreans, Chinese, and others.), carrying out construction work,

fraud and the use of corruption schemes in the construction of various facilities in the military units of the brigade;

shortage of products in the warehouses of the military unit 3411, perekleivanie labels on canned meat canned food, non-food for dogs "Belka and Strelka", the use of canned food for the military [2] [11] .

Klikni za razširitev

Citat:
Why I hate the Western Team Russia Fanatics: A parable

The loudest Team Russia fanatics are typically not Russian. They are usually American or British expats, but some of them don’t live in Russia and indeed many never have set foot in the country. Yet they all take it upon themselves to lecture Russians about their alleged patriotic duties. I realize some people may not understand the roots of the hatred I have for these people. The simplistic explanation is that from the time I visited Russia in 1999 to the time I moved back, I was one of these people and I was an insufferable little shit. My only redeeming quality was that when I learned through personal experience that Putin’s Russia wasn’t in fact the bastion of morality, stability, pride, and strength I thought it had become, I realized I needed to change my views to fit reality instead of vice versa. Like John Maynard Keynes said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?”

...

Klikni za razširitev

Citat:
EU #Energy Chief @MAC_europa debates #NordStream2 with EU Parliament.

"EU's concerns on #NordStream2 are of legal, geopolitical, and economic nature." -

"#NordStream2 will create EXCESS #NATGAS CAPACITY from #Russia|n gas to Europe." -

"Good to talk about #NordStream2 on #EuropeDay: it poses threat to EU #unity & #solidarity." -

"We MUST deliver our EU #EnergyUnion. Where does #NordStream2 fit in? Nowhere!" -

"We should prevent becoming even MORE DEPENDENT on #Russia|n #natgas. #NordStream2 is fit for waste basket." -

"We CANNOT allow #Russia|n #natgas monopoly to operate on EU #EnergyUnion market." -

"For #EUEnergySecurity: much better to increase #EE & #renewables than lining #Putin's pockets."-

"It's very clear: #NordStream2 will MAKE EU MORE DEPENDENT on #Russia|n #natgas." -

Energy Chief @MAC_europa says he will take EU Parliament positions on #NordStream2 very seriously.

Tonight only 1 MEP spoke in favour...

Klikni za razširitev

Citat:
There's some support from Austrian nationalist Barbara Kappel, who says the project is being back by a "highly respectable consortium" and could boost the supply of energy to Europe.

Klikni za razširitev