Shades of the Soviet era

Russia is back at their old parlor tricks.

Shades of the Soviet era
By Bogdan Kipling

WASHINGTON: The communists may have been banished from the Kremlin, but many of the Soviet-era thugs remain. Earlier this month — a year after he ordered his Federal Security to crack down on foreign non-government organisations operating in Russia — the increasingly paranoid Vladimir Putin let it be known that the United States is in the avant garde of the enemies he sees everywhere.
Russia grew rich on oil and gas exports after the United States and Western Europe bailed out its dumpster economy a decade ago. Now, the autocratic former KGB operative is throwing his weight around — price-gouging Western European and former Soviet-bloc nations for the natural gas and petroleum their economies so desperately need.
This is the same man whose eyes and soul President Bush gazed into at the start of his presidency and pronounced them brimming with good will.
Ah, well! Fast-forward six years and Putin appears to be on the verge of a launching a sequel to the long-playing Cold War. Not a comforting thought when you consider that the Kremlin is hording thousands of nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons and its treasury is overflowing with billions of US dollars and euros.

More.

Russia intensifies efforts to rebuild its military machine

Its burgeoning military-industrial complex is increasingly capable of turning out cutting-edge weaponry – and selling it.

By Fred Weir | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

MOSCOW - At a major security conference this past weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin blasted the US for its militaristic approach to foreign policy, saying its actions were "nourishing an arms race."

But little noticed amid the sharp US and European response to Mr. Putin's comments is Russia's burgeoning military-industrial complex, generally thought to have collapsed with the Soviet Union.

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Russian Journalist Who Fell to His Death Worked on Weapons Story

MOSCOW A journalist who fell to his death from a fifth-story window had received threats while gathering material for a report claiming Russia planned to provide sophisticated weapons to Syria and Iran, his newspaper said Tuesday.

Prosecutors have opened an inquest into the death of Ivan Safronov, a military affairs writer for the daily Kommersant who died Friday in what some media said could have been murder.

More.

Russia has fallen off our radar because of terrorism. They need to be brought back into focus.
into focus.