Baltic Blog......Security & Intelligence Briefs, International, Baltic & Russia News June 27, 2008

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Breaking news & commentary Quote:
"America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold:its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life.If we can undermine these three areas,America will collapse from within."
-- Josef Stalin
The Fifth Generation Warfare
By Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. LappenFrontPageMagazine.com 6/20/2008
[From Armed Groups: Studies in National Security, Counterterrorism, and Counterinsurgency; Edited by Jeffrey Norwitz; U.S. Naval War College, June 2008, chapter 28.]

The United States and the West cannot win the war against radical Islam merely with the most sophisticated military strategies. Winning requires understanding the role of shari'a and the Muslim Brotherhood in developing a global ideological and political movement supported by a parallel "Islamic" financial system to exploit and undermine Western economies and markets. This movement is the foundation and the major funding source for the political, economic, and military initiatives of the global Islamic movement.1

Shari'a finance is a new weapon in the arsenal of what might be termed fifth-generation warfare (5GW).2 The perpetrators include both states and organizations, advancing a global totalitarian ideology disguised as a religion. The end goal is to impose that ideology worldwide, making the Islamic "nation," or ummah, supreme.3

Rising oil prices and the West's dependency on Middle East oil, combined with willful blindness and political correctness, provide a surge of petrodollars, making financial and economic jihad so much easier to carry out. Moreover, according to shari'a, Muslims hold all property in trust for Allah.4 Therefore, under the shari'a, all current and historic Muslim acquisitions everywhere, including the United States, belong to the ummah, in trust for Allah. Full report via active link: http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Printable.aspx?GUID=5BF32F00-2C8F-47CF-8C69-93644CCFA710=========================================
Nicaragua: The Inherent Dangers of Being a Militant Mecca
Stratfor Today »-->June 25, 2008


By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
Diplomatic relations between Colombia and Nicaragua are once again in the news, with the two countries trading broadsides over the Nicaraguan government’s recent decision to grant asylum to three female members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega in June said that the FARC members in question reportedly survived the March 1 attack on a FARC camp just over the Colombian border in Ecuador that resulted in the death of Raul Reyes (Luis Edgar Devia Silva), FARC’s No. 2 and one of its most long-standing and experienced operational commanders. After the March 1 raid, Nicaragua briefly severed diplomatic relations with Colombia in protest of the country’s violation of Ecuador’s sovereignty.
Ortega accused the Colombian government of conducting “state-sponsored terrorism” against the FARC members in his explanation of why he granted them asylum. To emphasize this point, Ortega further accused the Colombian government of plotting to assassinate the three FARC members in Nicaragua. He then stressed that the three need Nicaraguan protection so they can serve as witnesses in a future trial of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez for “crimes against humanity.”
Nicaragua’s granting of asylum and Ortega’s rhetoric have outraged the Colombian government, which had formally requested extradition of the three FARC members. Colombia has said it finds it inconceivable that the Nicaraguan government should make heroines out of people who had been residing in the camp of a recognized “terrorist” organization — a group that has killed thousands of Colombian citizens, kidnapped more than 700 people and constantly attempted to overthrow the Colombian government. The Colombians have also said that it is unacceptable, offensive and irresponsible for the Nicaraguan president to accuse Uribe of committing crimes against humanity.
Ortega’s granting of asylum to the FARC members is consistent with the way the Sandinistas granted shelter, and even citizenship, to hundreds of Marxist militants when the Sandinistas ruled Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990. Similarly, Nicaragua’s growing relationship with Iran is very similar to the relationships it enjoyed with U.S. foes such as Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein during the first Sandinista reign.
Nicaragua’s status as a sanctuary (and even an operational base) for these militants nearly resulted in terrible consequences for Ortega and his Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in 1993, when a group of jihadist militants attacked the World Trade Center in New York and one of the militants was found to have Nicaraguan identification documents in his jacket pocket.
Friend of Pariahs and a Marxist Sanctuary
There has always been a tight relationship between the Marxist FSLN and its ideological brethren and patrons in places like Cuba and the Soviet Union. This relationship manifested not only in terms of military training and equipment, but also in terms of foreign aid such as food, health care and education. This aid was made doubly important by the trade embargo placed on Nicaragua by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1985. In addition to receiving aid, the FSLN also assisted the Cubans and Soviets in providing aid to like-minded revolutionary groups in the region, such as the Salvadoran Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG), FARC and others.
As the Soviet Union suffered economically in the late 1980s and eventually collapsed in early 1990, the amount of aid Soviets could provide to their Marxist friends and proxies declined dramatically. This drop in aid significantly affected Cuba’s economy. As a consequence, Cuba lost much of its ability to assist partners in the hemisphere such as the FSLN. This caused the Sandinistas to seek new sources of funding, and they found some help from the pariah nations of Libya and Iraq. In fact, at the end of the first Sandinista reign in 1990, the Libyan Embassy in Managua was several times larger than the U.S. Embassy there. The Libyans were situated in a large and imposing building, while the U.S. Embassy was literally housed in trailers — a temporary setup established after the 1972 Managua earthquake destroyed the former embassy.
The Libyans did have a presence at the United Nations in New York, but since those personnel were so closely scrutinized by U.S. authorities, they decided to use their embassy in Managua as the base for the vast majority of their intelligence operations in the Western Hemisphere.
However, the fall of the Soviet Union affected more than just economics. As the political landscape shifted in the late 1980s, places that had served as havens and training bases for Marxist militants, such as South Yemen and East Germany, became less welcoming. In 1990, both of those countries ceased to exist. This left a lot of fugitive Marxist militants looking for a place to go, and many of them relocated to Managua. What resulted was an influx of Marxist militants from European groups such as the Irish Republican Army, ETA and the Red Brigades, as well as Middle Eastern militants, such as representatives of the various Palestinian Marxist-oriented groups.
Some of the fugitives who moved to Managua were educated, skilled and surprisingly entrepreneurial. A couple from the Italian Red Brigades opened a popular Italian restaurant in downtown Managua, and members of the Basque group ETA opened an automobile repair garage in Managua’s Santa Rosa neighborhood.
Operational Base
Managua was not only a place of refuge, but also a base for operations. The automobile repair shop run by the ETA members made headlines on May 23, 1993, when a powerful explosion ripped through an arms and document cache stored in a sophisticated vault hidden under the shop. The explosion, which resulted in the deaths of two men, emphasized how unwise it is to store mortar rounds with their fuses installed (especially if those rounds get knocked over). It also provided an unprecedented glimpse into the activities of the international Marxist networks that called Managua home in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
While much attention was paid to the arms found in the cache (which included 19 surface-to-air missiles and a number of other weapons), it was a stack of surviving documents that shed the most light on the group’s activities. The stack included a large number of identification documents (more than 300 passports) as well as a number of targeting dossiers that had been assembled — and several actually used — to kidnap a number of industrialists in other Latin American countries, such as Mexico and Brazil. The cache was owned by the Popular Liberation Forces (PLF) faction of FMLN, which had to admit ownership after identification documents bearing the photographs of several PLF leaders were uncovered in the cache.
A U.S. team scanned the thousands of pages of documents, then loaded them in digital form onto a searchable database contained on a set of CDs. The documents revealed that as financial aid from the Soviet Union and Cuba began to diminish, the FMLN sought new ways to fund its revolution. One PLF group decided to use its foreign allies to kidnap wealthy industrialists in Latin America and hold them for ransom. The kidnapping scheme was truly an international endeavor, with the muscle for the operation being provided by experienced Chilean and Argentine Marxists and the cover provided by young Canadians. The Canadians, David Spencer and Christine Lamont, were members of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) who moved to Managua to help the FMLN and became involved with the PLF. The Canadians rented the safe-houses and cars used in the abductions, and they also conducted much of the pre-operational surveillance for the kidnappings. One way they ac complished the surveillance was by posing as graduate students and conducting ruse interviews of the victims as a way to assess their personal security arrangements. The industrialists seemed especially vulnerable to the wiles of Lamont, a beautiful young redhead.
The wheels fell off the kidnapping scheme in 1989, when Brazilian police stormed a safe-house the group was using to hold Brazilian supermarket mogul Abilio dos Santos Diniz. The police arrested five Chileans, two Argentines and a Brazilian, along with Spencer and Lamont, in connection with the crime. In addition to the targeting dossier on Diniz and newspaper accounts of the kidnapping and police raid, the Managua cache also contained a number of personal documents belonging to Spencer and Lamont — including Lamont’s Canadian passport, which had been oddly altered by attaching the photo of a middle-aged FMLN leader to the young woman’s identity document. The FMLN had managed to deny any connection to the case until the 1993 mishap at the arms cache made further denial impossible.
The U.S. investigation into the case uncovered that members of the Sandinista government, including the powerful Sandinista politician Tomas Borge, had known of and even sanctioned the group’s unorthodox fundraising activities. Borge also knew about the secret FMLN arms cache that exploded. According to credible eyewitness reports, Borge was among the first to respond to the scene of the blast — in his bathrobe.
Blowback
Ortega and the Sandinistas lost the presidential election in 1990 to Violeta Chamorro and the National Opposition Union. In the two months between the election and the inauguration of Chamorro, the Sandinistas held a sort of “going out of business” sale on Nicaraguan citizenship. During that time, the Sandinistas granted citizenship (and passports) to 890 foreigners from more than 30 countries. The list of naturalized people contained not only Marxists from Spain, Italy, Germany, Argentina and Chile, but also Palestinians, Iraqis, Algerians, Lebanese and Libyans. Although the Sandinistas would maintain tight control over Nicaragua’s military, police and interior ministry even after the inauguration, they would no longer control the entire executive branch. By granting citizenship to their friends, they hoped to protect them from extradition or deportation.
This policy was nearly disastrous for the Sandinistas. In March 1993, shortly after the bombing of the World Trade Center, U.S. federal agents executed a search warrant at the address listed on the driver’s license of Mohammed Salameh, the Palestinian jihadist who rented the van used in the bombing. Living at the address was Ibrahim Elgabrowny, an Egyptian who attempted to assault one of the agents executing the search warrant. Upon arresting him, the agents found a packet of Nicaraguan identity documents in Elgabrowny’s jacket pocket.
The documents — birth certificates, passports, cedulas (national identity cards) and driver’s licenses — had been issued under innocuous names but bore the photos of Elgabrowny’s cousin, El Sayyid Nosair, his wife Karen and their three children. At the time of this discovery, Nosair was serving time in Attica Prison for a conviction related to the 1990 assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane, and Elgabrowny and his colleagues were planning an operation to free Nosair from prison.
Initially, there was strong suspicion that the Sandinista government had knowingly assisted the militants in issuing the documents — especially in light of their 1990 last-minute citizenship-granting spree. However, an exhaustive U.S. government investigation determined that the documents found in Elgabrowny’s possession had been issued in a very different manner from those the Sandinistas knowingly issued to militants. Some U.S. politicians had hoped the Nicaraguan documents would provide them with a smoking gun they could use to go after the Sandinistas with both barrels, and they were very disappointed by the results of the investigation. In fact, one powerful senator’s staff attempted to pressure the lead investigator in the case to change the findings of his investigation to show Sandinista complicity in the bombing in New York. Unfortunately for these politicians, the case was not an elaborate Sandinista plot to strike the United States. It was just plain old fraud, something that occurs with great frequency in Latin America as in other regions.
However, this case could provide a relevant warning for the Sandinistas today in the post-9/11 world. In 1993, the U.S. response to Sandinista complicity in an attack against the United States would likely have consisted of a renewal of the trade boycott and a ton of international pressure intended to drive them out of their posts in the Nicaraguan military, intelligence and police. But the world is a different place in 2008. The blowback on the Sandinistas could prove to be very severe if militants taking refuge in Nicaragua (or based out of a diplomatic mission in Managua) are implicated in a terrorist attack — especially an attack against the United States.
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Geopolitical Diary: A U.S.-Iranian Dance of Diplomacy
Stratfor Today »-->June 25, 2008

The United States has raised the possibility of opening a diplomatic interests section in Iran. To avoid giving the impression that the idea was an unqualified U.S. position, State Department officials carefully leaked word of an ongoing debate about the plan to the press. But the news was not met with immediate denial by U.S. officials. In fact, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refused to rule the idea out — instead Rice said she preferred not to comment on internal U.S. deliberations.
Hours after her statement, the official Iranian news agency said Iran was prepared, in principle, to consider the request if it is officially made by the United States. So, a week after word was leaked to The New York Times of Israeli maneuvers in preparation for a possible air strike on Iran, the Administration has opened a diplomatic door.
Currently, American affairs in Iran are handled by the Swiss Embassy, without U.S. diplomats present. Under full diplomatic relations, which this new deal still would not be, the United States would have an embassy and ambassador in Tehran, and the Iranians would have one in Washington. This is a step short of diplomatic recognition. U.S. diplomats would be present in Tehran — and Iranians in Washington — but likely working under the auspices of the Swiss and Pakistani Embassies, which house their respective interest sections presently. The United States has this sort of arrangement with Cuba. It allows diplomatic presence and representation without full recognition.
Cuba is hardly a model of international warmth for the United States, but the question is trajectory. At the moment, there is no formal diplomatic presence in Iran. There would be if this were to happen. And that would obviously represent a major psychological shift in U.S.-Iranian relations. It is not that the Americans and Iranians don’t talk. Apart from direct meetings in Baghdad, the Iranians have high-level diplomats in New York. There have also been meetings, varying in degrees of formality, in Switzerland and other venues. In fact, the Americans and Iranians talk all the time, directly, indirectly and sometimes it appears in Haiku poetry. The idea that the United States and Iran don’t talk just isn’t true.
The importance of this offer is not what it would yield, but that it was made. The United States took the first step, even if it did not take it irrevocably and no formal offer was made. The administration is being cautious. The Americans still recall how in 2003 they were embarrassed by the Iranians who rebuffed an offer by the United States to send help and a visit by a high-level U.S. delegation, including the elder George Bush, to the earthquake-ravaged city of Bam.
Today the United States is not offering diplomatic exchanges. While it said it might offer them, the United States emphasized its division on the subject. U.S. diplomatic translation: “We’d like to exchange diplomats but if you say no, we never asked.” The Iranians quickly replied that if asked, they might agree. Iranian diplomatic translation: “Ask and we’ll say yes.” The speed of the Iranian response is telling. They were not surprised by the request. Their answer was ready. Which means, as one would expect, they were sounded out before.
So on Friday it appeared that the world was on the verge of war between Israel and Iran, with the United States supporting Israel. By late Monday, the United States was proposing raising the level of diplomatic relations and the Iranians were indicating that they were open to it. In our mind this reinforces the idea that the careful leaking of putative Israeli war games was part of a “bad cop, somewhat better cop” routine, designed to work the Iranians psychologically. They were offered the choice between Israeli air strikes or improving diplomatic relations. The second offer sounded much better than the first.
Setting aside the purple rhetoric on all sides, we have long believed that the Americans and Iranians were talking and actually working together in Iraq. The massive decline in casualties in Iraq is not simply due to U.S. military operations. The decision by the Iranians to rein in Shiite Iraqi militias had a significant impact on it. Indeed, in our view, the Iraq issue has always been more important to both countries than the nuclear weapon issue, and in Iraq, there has been progress.
Both governments are urgently concerned with face. Neither wants to appear to be conceding anything to the other. When the Great Satan meets the Axis of Evil, no public compromise is possible. So all compromising is done privately. And that’s what makes this important. The tentative offer is very public and comes from the highest levels of government. It has been acknowledged officially. Now, this is the United States and Iran so anything public can collapse quickly. But the offer itself, no matter how it was couched, is extremely significant as is the response. In many ways we regard this as more significant than the Israeli exercises. www.stratfor.com============================================
Russian state backs films that push Kremlin agenda
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
MOSCOW: When Vladimir Putin visited the set of the latest movie by Oscar-winning filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov, he sat in the director's chair while actors playing Soviet soldiers marched toward the front.
Putin didn't direct the action — he left that to his host. But the prime minister's presence at the $55 million "Burnt by the Sun 2," the most expensive film in Russia's post-Soviet history, was a potent symbol of his government's expanding role in the country's film industry.
Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin called cinema "the most important of all arts," and film was regarded by the Communist leadership as one of its most powerful propaganda weapons. Legendary directors such as Sergei Eisenstein, who made "The Battleship Potemkin," and Andrei Tarkovsky, whose brooding classics can still astonish, won acclaim even as they bent to the will of the totalitarian state.
Now the Russian government is trying to revive the Soviet film tradition, helping to produce movies and miniseries that push the Kremlin's political views, vilify its critics and glorify the military and intelligence services.
Artistically, the results have been decidedly mixed.
Outside of the work of Mikhalkov, whose international fame dates back to the 1960s and who won a best foreign film Oscar for 1994's "Burnt by the Sun," few government-sponsored films have won either critical acclaim or box-office success.
"History repeats itself with a farce, so this new propaganda seems ridiculous compared to textbook Soviet examples," said Yuri Valkov, a historian of Russian culture.
Throughout the 1990s, the Russian film industry was mostly limited to imitations of Hollywood blockbusters and attempts to preserve the old artistic traditions.
In the new millennium, Russian filmmakers have found themselves in a business-oriented environment of investments and profits. But the government has taken a greater role in film projects, and remains the country's largest film producer. Putin recently proposed a merger of three Soviet-era film studios into a mammoth, state-owned concern.
Some in the film industry — the largest in Europe alongside France — welcome the influence of authorities over what movies get made and the political lessons they teach.
"Law enforcement agencies are part of our state, and the government has the right to propagate whatever it considers necessary," said producer Leonid Vereshchagin of 3T, Mikhalkov's own production company, which has released several highly patriotic films.
But critics say government influence has stifled most critical and creative artists. Russian documentary filmmakers, for example, could probably never produce documentaries directly critical of the government, said Vyacheslav Shmyrov, chief editor of the Kinoprotsess magazine.
"A Michael Moore is impossible in Russia," he said, referring to the American filmmaker whose documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" was a scathing critique of the Bush administration.
This year's most controversial Russian documentary, "The Destruction of the Empire: a Byzantine Lesson," was written by an Orthodox monk who argued that Western ideas and institutions would ruin Russia as they did Byzantium centuries earlier.
Unlike in the Soviet era, there is no centrally directed state effort to use cinema for indoctrination. Instead, artists know that they can win state support for film projects that promote the views of those in power.
"There are attempts of artists, producers and film directors to profit from patriotic themes and get government funding for their projects," said political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky.
Films critical of the government or at odds with the Kremlin's view of Russian history can face problems getting made, or gaining recognition after their release. The macabre 2007 film "Cargo 200," with its Orwellian vision of Soviet society, provoked a scandal at last year's Kinotavr film festival and was rated X for limited distribution.
The result is films like this year's "Alexander: The Battle on the Neva," which celebrates a 13th century prince who repels a Swedish invasion on his city, puts down a riot of Western-leaning nobles and vows fealty to the Mongol empire.
The message could not be more clear: Russia needs a strong leader to defend it from a hostile West. The film was advertised as a prequel to Eisenstein's 1938 epic, "Alexander Nevsky," which was personally commissioned by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to stir anti-German sentiment on the eve of World War II.
Russian intelligence, police and military agencies have underwritten at least a dozen television series or films in recent years, spending tens of millions of dollars to polish their images.
Last year, the Fund to Support Patriotic Films — a nonprofit backed by the FSB, the main successor agency to the KGB — produced "The Apocalypse Code," a $15 million James Bond knockoff.
In the film, a seductively dressed female FSB spy blasts bad guys, outwits her rivals and saves the world from nuclear annihilation. The film flopped with critics and filmgoers. "The Code is a raving of a drunken horse," said critic Victor Matezen.
But failure didn't discourage the film's backers. Olesya Bykova, executive director of the Fund, said it plans a feature film, television series and interactive online projects targeted at a younger audience.
State-financed films have featured Kremlin foes, thinly disguised as fictional characters, as the bad guys. A character apparently modeled on the billionaire Boris Berezovsky plots terrorist attacks in the 2004 film "Personal Number." Berezovsky fled to London in 2001 after a falling out with Putin.
"The Apocalypse Code" and "Personal Number" were among the winners of the revived Soviet-era award for best works of art that "form a positive image of FSB officers."====================================================
Post-Soviet 'frozen conflicts' heat up as big-power interests collide
Tensions are growing as NATO and a resurgent Russia divide over future of breakaway statelets.
By Fred Weir Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the June 25, 2008 edition
OstIngur, AbkhazGeorgia border - Tensions are again spiking here on the lush, subtropical Black Sea coastal plain, where heavily armed Russian troops aided by United Nations observers have held apart the warring armies of Georgia and insurgent Abkhazia for 15 years.
Last Wednesday, two powerful bombs exploded in the Abkhaz capital of Sukhumi, destroying a section of a railroad recently repaired by Russian construction troops that Georgia says are illegally in the rebel statelet, which Tbilisi – supported by most of the world – views as Georgian territory.
The next day, a few miles from this border post, Georgian police arrested four of the Russian peacekeepers, who have been in place under a 1994 cease-fire deal, leading a top Russian general, Alexander Burutin, to warn that if it happens again, "the consequences will be grave and there could be bloodshed."
If the fragile 1991 settlement that enabled the former Soviet Union to break relatively peacefully into 15 countries starts to unravel, the flash point may well be right here. But the antagonists would not be ragtag irregulars of the 1993 war but real armies, probably backed on one side by a resurgent Russia, on the other by NATO.
Peering over the half-mile-long bridge that separates Abkhazia from the Georgian town of Zugdidi, Ruslan, a burly Abkhaz border guard, says he helped to drive the fleeing Georgian Army across that bridge 15 years ago and expects to see them – now trained and equipped by the US – attempt a return any day now. "We will never agree to be part of Georgia again," he says. "I intend to live as an Abkhazian in a free country, and I'll fight for as long as it takes."
Most of the world breathed a sigh of relief when the USSR's collapse did not bring vast Yugoslavia-like upheavals, and cheerful scenarios seemed to be borne out when the former Soviet Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania joined the European Union and the NATO alliance in 2004.
Little-noticed wars
Amid the hopeful 1990s, few people noticed the savage wars of secession that rocked the Caucasus region, leading to the emergence of fiercely pro-Moscow statelets like Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh in Azerbaijan.
Along with Transdniestria, a rebel Slavic republic in Moldova, these little pieces of post-Soviet unfinished business were tagged "frozen conflicts" because it seemed unlikely that any big country, even Russia, would ever recognize their de facto independence.
But dramatic geopolitical changes are threatening a return to hot war, this time with an oil-rich, stronger Russia standing unambiguously behind the separatist territories.
After many Western countries recognized the former Serbian territory of Kosovo earlier this year, despite Moscow's angry opposition, Russia eased its 14-year-old economic embargo on Abkhazia and the State Duma passed a resolution demanding full recognition. The prospect of NATO expansion into Georgia and Ukraine – a question that was postponed at NATO's Bucharest summit in April – has prompted Moscow to crank up its rhetoric against Georgia and send construction troops, not covered by the 1994 agreement, into Abkhazia. Those troops were tasked with reopening a dormant railroad link that runs from Rostov, Russia, through Sochi to Sukhumi, and would be crucial for supplying troops in the event of a conflict.
Though war does not appear to be on the immediate horizon, many here fear that it's coming. "Tensions are growing very fast, and we find ourselves on the line of confrontation between Russia and the West," says Oleg Damenia, director of the Center for Strategic Studies, an official think tank in Sukhumi. "Georgia's military budget is now 10 times larger than Abkhazia's. In this situation, we have no choice but to turn to Russia for support."
The Kremlin says the existence of separatist statelets in Georgia should make Europe wary of admitting such a fissiparous country to NATO. At the Bucharest summit, then-President Putin reportedly told President Bush that Ukraine is a similarly unstable place, whose pro-Russian east could tear away.
"Russia is trying to demonstrate the possible price of NATO expansion, by warning that Ukraine is an extremely fragile entity," says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a leading Moscow foreign policy journal. "If NATO will push toward Ukraine, Russia might turn to very ugly means. There is huge potential for Russian irredentism in Ukraine," he says.
Last month Moscow's nationalist mayor, Yury Luzkhov, was declared persona non grata in Ukraine after he said that Moscow should take back Crimea, a Russian-populated peninsula that is still headquarters of the Russian Navy's Black Sea fleet and which was a "gift" to Ukraine from former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954.
Some Russian nationalists go further and suggest the time is approaching for a wholesale redrawing of the post-Soviet map, to gather in Russian minorities and other pro-Moscow ethnic groups who felt stranded on foreign soil by the USSR's collapse.
"NATO expansion endangers our national interests, but at the same time Russia has grown much stronger and is in a position to revisit the status quo in the post-Soviet space," says Alexander Dugin, head of the International Eurasian Movement, a Moscow-based group of nationalist intellectuals, businessmen, and policymakers. "Russia understands that we cannot allow Ukraine to enter NATO as a whole state. We will witness a wave of separatism in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Russia is no longer weak and at the West's mercy; it's on its way to recreating itself as an imperial power."
Future redivision of territory?
Mr. Lukyanov says that such extreme views are unlikely to get much traction in the Kremlin, but neither do Russia's leaders rule out a future redivision of post-Soviet territory. "The Russian elite does not consider the current status quo as final," he says. "All the countries of this region are highly unstable, and subject to unpredictable shocks. No one here believes that the transition of the post-Soviet space has reached its final destination."
The new tone in Moscow is music to the ears of Abkhazia's rebel leaders, who believe all the attention now being paid them after 15 years of isolation could be their ticket to full statehood.
"Until now the world community has only recognized the partial collapse of the Soviet Union. But why can't the captive nations inside those states also have their freedom?" asks Garry Kupalba, Abkhazia's deputy defense minister.
"The world thinks we don't exist, but we do. We're building our own state, with all the attributes of a state, including armed forces. And Russia is helping us," he says. ========================================
Germany's Berlin Airlift saved city from falling to Soviets 60 years ago
Germany's Berlin Airlift saved city from falling to Soviets 60 years ago
26.06.2008
Source: AP ©
URL: http://english.pravda.ru/society/105603-berlin_airlift-0
Germany marked the 60th anniversary of the start of the Berlin Airlift on Thursday, celebrating an unprecedented undertaking that likely saved the city from falling to the Soviets and helped mend German-American wounds from World War II.
Often called the first battle of the Cold War, the airlift pitted the U.S. and the Soviets against one another for the first time and set the tone for the decades to come.
"I find the courage with which this operation was carried out truly admirable," German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said at a ceremony at the U.S. Army Airfield in Wiesbaden, from which many of the flights originated.
The airlift's significance wasn't immediately apparent, however, when it began on June 26, 1948.
The future looked "bleak" to Berliners at the time, said Helmut Trotnow, director of Berlin's Allied Museum. "There was no light at the end of the tunnel, but the airlift brought this light."
"If it hadn't been for the success of the airlift, history would have looked very different," he said. "It really is a turning point."
After the war, zones of western Germany were handed to Britain, France and the U.S. to administer, while the Soviet Union was handed the east. Berlin was inside the Soviet sector, but also divided among the four powers.
In an effort to squeeze the Western powers out of Berlin, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in June 1948 blockaded all rail, road and ship traffic into the city.
On June 26, the U.S. and Britain launched "Operation Vittles" - an unprecedented airlift that would supply some 2 million West Berliners with food and fuel for 11 months until the Soviets lifted the blockade; and several months after that in case Stalin decided to change his mind.
"It changed my life entirely," retired airlift pilot Gail Halvorsen, who lives in Utah, said at the Wiesbaden event. "We were operating with our former enemies for one common goal: freedom."
Neither side resorted to force - setting the tone for the Cold War - though 39 Britons, 31 Americans and at least five Germans were killed in accidents.
During the airlift, American, British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and South African pilots flew 278,000 flights to Berlin, carrying 2.3 million tons of food, coal, medicine and other supplies.
In one amazing day - April 16, 1949 - some 1,400 planes carried in nearly 13,000 tons over a 24 hour period. That was an average of one plane landing every 62 seconds.
On the ground in Berlin, ex-Luftwaffe mechanics were enlisted to help maintain aircraft, and 19,000 Berliners - almost half women - worked around the clock for three months to build Tegel Airport, providing crucial relief for the British Gatow and American Tempelhof airfields.
American airlift pilot Bill Voigt remembers that seeing the suffering - and determination - of the Berliners quickly erased any resentment lingering from the war.
"Regardless of how you felt about the Germans, you had to pay due homage to them for their determination," Voigt, 87, said on a recent trip to Berlin. "Most of the people in my squadron and the people I knew felt the same way - that they were putting up a gutsy fight to keep out of the hands of the Russians."
On the other side, Germans - especially Berliners - were shown the human face of their former enemies, working with the occupying western forces on a large scale for the first time against the Russians.
In an earlier interview, Halvorsen said it is too often forgotten that the Soviets offered better rations to West Berliners willing to register with communist authorities - an offer that only 20,000 accepted.
"If they had said 'we can't stand your dried eggs, we can't eat your dried potatoes, we can't eat your dried carrots, your dried milk' - if they had said that, they would have been Russian and West Germany would have been Russian," he said.
Halvorsen, 87, is probably the best known of the airlift pilots - remembered for dropping candy to Berlin children on parachutes made out of handkerchiefs. After he started "Operation Little Vittles" other pilots also joined in.
The operation really took off after a short Aug. 19, 1948 story by The Associated Press ran in newspapers across the U.S. with the headline "Lollipop Bomber Flies Over Berlin" - prompting a wave of candy and handkerchief donations. =====================================================
Fuel woes overshadow EU-Russia talks
By James Rodgers BBC News, Moscow
President Medvedev symbolises the power of Gazprom
They often admit that they don't see eye-to-eye, but Russia and the European Union are neighbours who know that being next door to each other can bring massive mutual benefits.
Russia is the EU's third biggest trading partner and half of all Russian exports go to the EU.
The two-day summit opening on Thursday will launch negotiations on a new partnership and co-operation agreement.
"It's most important that we start now, and have a speedy process. But it's of course a complex negotiation," admitted the EU's Commissioner for External Relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, on a visit to Moscow earlier this month.
No one is willing to say for sure how long it will take to reach a final agreement.
New wealth
Energy supplies are a key issue. Russia supplies around a quarter of the EU's gas. Past gas rows with its former Soviet neighbours - especially Ukraine - made Europe nervous.
The choice of the summit venue, Khanty-Mansiysk in Siberia, is no accident. Russia's European guests will find themselves at the heart of the region which is making Russia rich and powerful.
Russia wants to build further on that - by expanding westwards. So far, that has proved difficult.
"I think the key word is motivation. Russia wants to get as much of a role as possible in distribution and assets in Europe. The role of just a provider of gas and oil is not sufficient," says Mikhail Kroutikhin of the energy information group rusenergy.com.
As well as highlighting Russia's resource wealth, the Siberian summit venue also points to one of the challenges.
"Reserves are very costly to develop because they are scattered in the middle of nowhere," Mr Kroutikhin explains. "This is why Russia is more interested in getting something of value abroad than in developing these costly reserves, until prices are even higher than now."
The Kremlin is putting its weight behind those efforts. As a former chairman of Russia's energy giant, Gazprom, President Dmitry Medvedev is well acquainted with the business.
His foreign affairs adviser, Sergei Prikhodko, says the question of what he terms "the unfair prevention of Russian investment" in Europe will feature at the Siberian summit.
Mr Medvedev's recent arrival in office marks a new phase in the Russia-EU relationship.
Western Siberia's oil is very expensive to extract
How democratic is Russia?
Vladimir Putin, Mr Medvedev's predecessor in the Kremlin, and now Russia's prime minister, is not expected to attend the summit.
Differences during Mr Putin's time as president focused on Western concerns that Russia was moving away from the democratic path it chose following the collapse of communism.
"The new agreement should, of course, have a strong mention of democratic values and human rights," Ms Ferrero-Waldner told the Russian parliament during her visit.
Russia would insist that should include the question of "revision of history and the situation of our compatriots," as Mr Prikhodko puts it - a reference to Russia's recent rows with the Baltic States.
Russia was especially angered by the relocation of a Red Army war memorial in Estonia - and by the alleged ill-treatment of Russians still resident in the former Soviet republics.
The westward political and military movement of former members of the Soviet bloc has frustrated many in Moscow. The expansion of Nato has infuriated some.
Those sorts of concerns are expected to be played down at this summit. There is a sense in diplomatic circles here that whatever disagreements Russia may have with the West, Russia has to have a good working relationship with the EU.
"These questions aren't decided in Brussels, but in Washington," says a Kremlin source of Nato membership.
"The European Union isn't the initiator of the expansion of Nato."
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7474865.stm=============================================
"Russians tired of Norwegian arrogance"
2008-06-26

Photo: NRK.no Fishery cooperation in the Barents Sea could face problems in the future because of Norwegian arrogance towards Russian scientists, a new scientific report reveals.
The recently published report from Bodø University College and Fritjof Nansen Institute in Norway, studies the relationship between marine scientists in Norway and Russia, Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten writes.
The report reveals that there is a growing discontent among Russian scientists of the Norwegian knowledge control for management of the cod stock in the Barents Sea. The importance of the High North and the fish resources in the region is higher than ever. Russian acceptance of Norwegian control of the management is therefore no longer obvious.
Earlier the marine resources have been managed by the Institute of Marine Research in Norway and the Russian PINRO institute in Murmansk. In the past years the Russian federal marine research institute, VINRO in Moscow, has been more active in the management. VINRO has presented some alternative methods of estimating the stock of cod in the Barents Sea, but these methods has been firmly rejected by Norwegian scientists. This has led to discontent among Russian scientist and talks about Norwegian arrogance.
The Norwegian Institute of Marine Research does not agree with the reports description of the situation, but says to Aftenposten that they of course should be careful to appear with a Norwegian know-all attitude. ============================================Russian hackers planning attacks against Baltic countries and Ukraine
Recent Tweets on Twitter are pointing to grumblings in the blogosphere around suspicion of a planned attack against Baltic countries and the Ukraine. An article posted at The Baltic Course describes the planned attacks, as originally reported by Estonian television channel ETV24:
Recently, there have been multiple appeals in Russian Internet forums, calling for Russian hackers to unite and launch a large-scale attack on Internet websites of Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian government institutions.
Russian hackers are dissatisfied with “the way Russian-speakers are treated in the Baltic countries”, and the ban on use of Soviet and Communist symbols.
Ukraine, on the other hand, has caused Russian hackers’ disapproval with its NATO aspirations.
“All the hackers of the country have decided to unite, to counter the impudent actions of Western superpowers. We are fed up with NATO’s encroachment on our motherland, we have had enough of Ukrainian politicians who have forgotten their nation and only think about their own interests. And we are fed up with Estonian government institutions that blatantly re-write history and support fascism,” says the appeal that is being circulated on Russian Internet forums.
Russian hackers plan to replace the original content of the websites that they hack into with huge red stars and photographs of Soviet soldiers. This would not be the first politically motivated attack by Russian hackers against another country. Hopefully the advanced notice will help these governments prepare some.============================================
Probe: Jewish graves under Vilnius building?
By DPA
VILNIUS - Israeli experts launched a 10-day research project yesterday to determine if newly constructed offices and apartments sit on an old Jewish cemetery in Lithuania's capital. Questions about the site's past have caused international controversy. Lithuanian Jews, who opposed the construction work, say the site was a 15th century cemetery. Developers dispute their claim. Protests from abroad include a letter from then-U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a resolution condemning the construction on the possible cemetery site. Last year, Jews from across Europe rallied in protest outside the headquarters of European Union institutions in Brussels. The Jewish community in Vilnius - called the Jerusalem of Europe - was almost wiped in the Holocaust during the World War II. Czarist Russian authorities shut down the cemetery in 1831 and partly built over it. In the 1950s, the Soviets built a stadium and concert hall on part of the site, allowing the remains of the Vilna Gaon to be removed. ================================================
USA and Lithuania possibly in missile shield talks, Moscow says
RBC, 25.06.2008, Moscow 09:32:22.Russia does not rule out that Lithuania and the USA could be engaged in unofficial talks to deploy missile defense systems in the Baltic state, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was cited by the Vesti channel as saying. This is partly confirmed by the fact that Russia has not yet received any official response from the USA to its query regarding possible negotiations with Lithuania. However, the US has said that as the talks with Poland were progressing slowly, it was considering some other options. According to Lavrov, Russia is concerned with the missile defense system in Eastern Europe as a whole, rather than in Lithuania in particular. =======================================
U.S. Missile Shield in Lithuania?
2008-06-25
The United States is holding talks with Lithuania on the possibility of locating parts of its National Missile Defense shield there if talks with Poland fail, Witold Waszczykowski, Poland's deputy foreign minister responsible for negotiations on the matter, said June 17.Waszczykowski added that the United States wanted to reach an agreement on the shield before the end of President George W. Bush's term in office. He added that the Americans were looking for an "emergency" solution, and Lithuania's proposal to host parts of the anti-missile shield meets those needs. He also said Poland was still negotiating the matter, awaiting an answer to the question of who would defend the base and whether the anti-missile system would be part of NATO in the future.As a condition for agreeing to host the anti-missile base, the Polish government wants extra American funding for the Polish armed forces. The U.S. government has refused and says it will seek another site in Europe for parts of the system.Lithuanian Foreign Minister Petras Vaitiekunas has refused to comment. Tom Casey, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, has said that only "general" talks have been held with the Lithuanians. The Pentagon has denied that any detailed negotiations are being held.America wants to locate parts of the anti-missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. The United States wants to place 10 interceptor missiles in Poland, while a radar base to guide them is planned for the Czech Republic. A U.S.-Czech agreement is due to be signed in early July.
(The Warsaw Voice)
===============================================Baltic MidSummer Feast Draws on Distant PastBy Aleks TapinshRiga (Latvia), June 23 (DPA) Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians around the world are set to celebrate midsummer festivals Monday night with rites drawing deeply on pagan traditions of the Baltic people. Marking the two longest days of the year, the celebration is called Jani in Latvia, Jaanipaev in Estonia, and Saint Jonas festival in Lithuania.
Christianity adopted the sun-worship holiday as the one dedicated to John the Baptist, but centuries later, pagan traditions still remain an integral part of the celebration.
On June 23, Latvians crowned with wreaths of oak leaves flock to the countryside. Regarded as a holy tree in pagan times, the oak still features widely in Latvian folk songs.
As the evening draws in, Latvians and Estonians light bonfires and sing folk songs or jump through the flames, seen as a way to guarantee prosperity. The white sandy beaches of the Gulf of Riga light up with bonfires as Latvians and Estonians flee cities to nature.
Balts also grill shashliks, eat cheese and consume copious quantities of alcohol, although these are not generally seen as being specifically pagan traditions.
In Estonia and Latvia, the holiday has a meaning for lovers, who are set to seek a fern flower that is said to bloom only once a year on that night.
Estonian folklore tells a tale of two lovers, Koit (dawn) and Hamarik (dusk), who meet once each year to exchange kisses on the shortest night of the year. Single folks can find out whom they will marry.
None of the three Baltic nations quit celebrating the holiday when they were part of the Soviet Union between 1945 and 1991.
Those who fled their occupied homeland for the West because of the Soviet occupation continued celebrating the holiday in their homes in the United States, Australia and Britain - just like those who stayed behind.
It cemented their ethnic identities, connecting them to their distant ancestors, whether Latvians, Estonians, and Lithuanians found themselves in a foreign land or in the occupied home.
Early Tuesday, at least two Latvian towns will host a more modern tradition - pre-dawn naked runs. Police will be on hand for any “puritan” protesters, while the runners will be rewarded with beer.DPA===============================================
Adamkus forgives Germany for Nazi occupation
Jun 18, 2008By Adam Mullett
VILNIUS - The president has dismissed the idea of asking Germany for money for the World War II occupation, saying it might hurt relations between the two countries. Parliamentarians had previously suggested that Germany should foot the bill for their occupation of the country during World War II, but President Valdas Adamkus has vetoed the proposal. ========================================
Education Minister turns away university students
Jun 18, 2008By Adam Mullett

STUDENT LIFE NO MORE: The new education minister said that Universities are turning out too many chiefs and not enough Indians.
VILNIUS - The new Education and Science Minister, Algirdas Monkevicius, has spoken out against too many students wanting to go to university. In a statement which is bound to cause controversy in some circles he called the situation “unnatural.” About 90 percent of school graduates want to go to university directly after high school. Monkevicius said that he believes that young people should pursue vocational studies. ==========================================
EU blasts Parliament on gay rights vote
Jun 11, 2008By Adam Mullett
VILNIUS - The European Parliament threatened to slap Lithuania with sanctions after politicians moved to eliminate the provisions for gay people from the Law of Equal Treatment. The changes were shot down in a preliminary hearing, but another vote on the issue was scheduled to take place on June 12. The proposed amendments involve removing provisions protecting homosexuals in the Equal Treatment Law.========================================
Soldiers choose to stay the course
Jun 04, 2008By Sgt. Daniel T. West

Soldiers were faced with a difficult decision.
DELTA BASE, IRAQ - With only a week remaining in their six-month tour in Iraq, soldiers from Lithuanian Contingent 10, the Iron Wolf Brigade, faced a difficult choice. Two options remained following the news that the Lithuanian government had voted to extend the unit’s tour for two more months – the soldiers could volunteer for the extension or continue their redeployment. “Since [their things] were already packed and I knew how difficult it would be, I chose to ask for volunteers to stay.=============================================