Fuel of the future produced at Russia’s high-tech underground plant

Follow the money

http://rt.com/news/188332-mox-nuclear-fuel-production/
Russia’s ‘Breakthrough’ energy project enables closed a nuclear fuel cycle and a future without radioactive waste. The first batch of MOX nuclear fuel has been manufactured for the world’s only NPP industrially power generating breeder reactors.
The first ten kilograms of the mixed-oxide fuel (MOX) – a mixture of plutonium and uranium dioxides (UO2 and PuO2), have been industrially produced by Russia’s nuclear monopoly, Rosatom, at the Mining & Chemical Combine (GKhK) in the Krasnoyarsk region.
A world first, tablets of the fuel of the future have been put on serial production and are destined for Russia’s next generation BN-800 breeder reactor (880 megawatts), currently undergoing tests at the Beloyarskaya nuclear power plant.
The production line, now undergoing start-up and adjustment, was assembled in a mine 200 meters underground and will become fully operational by the end of 2014.
Fast fission reactors solve the problem of depleted uranium nuclear fuel on the planet. They can ‘burn’ not only ‘classic’ uranium-235, (scarce and already coming to an end), but also uranium-238, which is abundant, and expands the world’s nuclear fuel capacity by an estimated 50 times.
Fuel for breeder reactors could even be made from nuclear waste, which from an ecological point of view is a priceless advantage.
The GKhK facility will be equipped with a unique dissolvent reactor that will break down nuclear waste containing plutonium and extract plutonium dioxide to be used in MOX-fuel production.
Also, while producing electric energy, breeder reactors actually generate more fissile material, and that one also can be used as nuclear fuel.
The GKhK plant is Russia’s leading full nuclear fuel cycle complex, processing nuclear waste from power generating nuclear reactors to establish future nuclear fuel ring closure.
MOX-fuel for previous versions of fast breeder reactors in the USSR and Russia had limited production at Russia’s oldest Mayak nuclear processing facility.
Starting from 2016, industrial-level MOX-fuel production in Russia will run at full capacity.
“Produced MOX-fuel tablets fully conform to the technical specifications,” Rosatom’s statement said, adding that the fuel will now be thoroughly tested.

Leaked transcripts reveal Putin’s secret Ukraine attack

Mary Greeley

Putin: Russia Could Invade Europe Within Two Days

Mary Greeley

Canadian fighter jets intercept Russian bombers in Arctic

CBC News

Tu-95 long-range bombers, codenamed 'Bears' by NATO, have been in service since 1956, early in the Cold War, and have flown hundreds of missions on the perimeter of Canada's airspace. (Reuters)

Fighter jets intercepted two Russian bombers flying about 75 kilometres off Canada’s Arctic coast in the early morning hours Thursday, NORAD revealed to CBC News.

Two CF-18s met the Tupolev Tu-95 long-range bombers, commonly referred to as "Bears," at around 1:30 a.m. PT as they flew a course in “the western reaches” of Canada’s Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the Beaufort Sea, said Maj. Beth Smith, spokeswoman for North American Aerospace Defence Command.

The ADIZ extends approximately 320 kilometres from Canada’s coastlines, a distance far beyond the 22 kilometres, or 12 nautical miles, from the coast that define a nation’s sovereign airspace. Smith made it clear that the Russian bombers never entered Canada’s sovereign airspace, but did come within about 75 kilometres of Canada's mainland. 

The encounter comes one day after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko delivered a speech in Parliament thanking Canada for its ongoing support as his country’s forces battle with pro-Russian separatist rebels.

“This is disturbing. We’ve heard stories like in the past, of Russian bombers challenging Canadian airspace,” said James Bezan, parliamentary secretary to the Minister of National Defence and a Conservative MP from Manitoba.

“This plays into the narrative of a Putin regime that’s more aggressive not just in Crimea, not just in Ukraine, but indeed testing their neighbour in their entire region," he said. 

About six hours before the CF-18s intercepted the Russian bombers, American F-22 fighter jets were scrambled from a base in Alaska to meet a group of Russian aircraft, including two refuelling tankers, two MiG-31 fighters and two long-range bombers.

After the U.S. jets made contact, the group headed west back towards Russian airspace.

“We’re seeing increased aggressive actions being taken by the Russian Federation,” Bezan said during an interview on CBC’s Power & Politics.

Despite the ongoing tensions between Western allies and Russia, it is not the first time Canadian and U.S. aircraft have intercepted Russian bombers seemingly flying toward sovereign airspace.

According to Smith, NORAD has dispatched fighter jets to make contact with Russian long-range bombers “in excess of 50 times” in the last five years.

Canadian jets intercepted the same type of long-range bombers off the coast of Newfoundland in 2010. After that incident, Peter MacKay, then minister of defence, told CBC News that Canadian military aircraft intercept between 12 and 18 Russian bombers annually.

This Man Thinks He's In Charge of "Donetsk People's Republic"

TIME

Theories Fly Over Giant Black Hole in Siberia

Свежие Новости.

Read Here >>

Russia: Man run over in road rage hit and run

ITN

 

Dramatic storm: Freak Russian hailstorm sends beachgoers screaming on hot summer day

ITN

Putin ultima con Rousseff la venta de un sistema de defensa antiaérea a Brasil

EL PAÍS

Antonio Jiménez Barca 

El presidente ruso, Vladímir Putin, y la presidenta brasileña, Dilma Rousseff, se vieron el domingo en la tribuna del estadio de Maracaná, en Río de Janeiro, donde la dirigente de Brasil ejerció el papel de anfitriona, entregó la Copa del Mundo al capitán de la selección alemana y, por último, pasó el testigo a su homólogo ruso, encargado de organizar el próximo Mundial, en 2018. Pero el siguiente encuentro entre los líderes de ambos países, que forman parte del grupo denominado BRICS (en el que también figuran China, India y Sudáfrica), se celebró este lunes en circunstancias muy diferentes, en Brasilia, sede del Gobierno brasileño. Durante más de dos horas, los mandatarios ruso y brasileña, cada uno envuelto en circunstancias políticas convulsas por diferentes razones, dialogaron y llegaron, según las notas divulgadas por el Ejecutivo de Brasilia, a varios pactos económicos. Entre otras materias, suscribieron acuerdos sobre infraestructuras, salud, tecnología, educación y cultura.

Entre todo el paquete destacan, sobre todo, las negociaciones sobre Defensa. Rusia y Brasil llevan regateando desde hace varios años por la venta, por parte de Moscú, de un sistema de defensa antiaérea para las Fuerzas Armadas brasileñas. El documento firmado este lunes especifica que, en agosto de este año, representantes de Brasil participarán en unas maniobras o demostración con fuego real de este sistema de defensa. También se adelantaba que la compra podría llegar a efectuarse “a corto plazo”, sin especificar más detalles. Además, en el encuentro se sellaron acuerdos en otros sectores estratégicos, como el aeronáutico.

Ambos países aspiran a duplicar sus transacciones económicas, que ahora alcanzan los 5.600 millones de dólares (4.110 millones de euros). Tanto Rousseff como Putin han manifestado su voluntad de llegar hasta un nivel de intercambios de 10.000 millones de dólares.

A la salida de la reunión y con el mandatario ruso al lado, la presidenta brasileña insistió en que los inversores rusos tienen en el gigante latinoamericano una gran oportunidad en sectores emergentes del país, como el energético. A este respecto, uno de los puntos del acuerdo prevé la colaboración de ambos países en la exploración, explotación, almacenamiento y transporte de yacimientos de petróleo y de gas en Brasil.

El encuentro de Putin con Rousseff se inscribe en la gira latinoamericana que el dirigente ruso ha emprendido en los últimos días y que le ha llevado ya por Cuba, Nicaragua y Argentina. Putin y Rousseff participarán en la cumbre de los denominados BRICS, que se celebra en Fortaleza, al noreste de Brasil. Este grupo heterogéneo de estados, unidos más por conformar un frente común ante los dictados del FMI y a las directrices de los países desarrollados que por compartir afinidades, tratarán de forjar una alianza más estrecha. En Fortaleza, los presidentes de China, Rusia, Sudáfrica, India y Brasil van a poner en marcha las bases para crear un banco de desarrollo que sirva para financiar proyectos de infraestructuras y un banco de reserva en previsión de crisis financieras.

De cualquier modo, no es el mejor momento ni para Putin, lastrado por la crisis ucrania, ni para Rousseff. Brasil ha perdido el fuerte ritmo de crecimiento de los últimos años y ahora languidece con un alza anual del PIB de apenas el 1%. La inflación, el problema crónico de la economía brasileña, se sitúa ya por encima del 6,5%, el tope que el Gobierno brasileño se ha autoimpuesto para que no descarrile la economía.

En una entrevista celebrada hace pocos días con un grupo de periodistas extranjeros, la presidenta brasileña admitía que el motor económico brasileño se ha ralentizado. Pero después lo justificaba, asegurando que los crecimientos anémicos del PIB no constituyen algo exclusivo de su país.

Rousseff, del Partido de los Trabajadores, se encuentra ahora en un momento político delicado por otra razón: se juega la permanencia en el cargo en las elecciones que se celebrarán en octubre, que se presentan muy disputadas.

Putin's New 'Nuclear' Option

breitbart

By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

The escalating crisis in Ukraine being engineered by Vladimir Putin is taking on the feel of the Guns of August: an inexorable march towards a wider conflict, and perhaps a conflagration. 

Having few good options to prevent the Russian autocrat from taking whatever he wants from Ukraine and possibly other neighboring states in what the Kremlin calls “the Near Abroad,” Europe and the Obama administration have been ratcheting up economic sanctions on individuals, banks, and companies known to be favored by the Putin regime.

The London Daily Telegraph gives a flavor of what is in store in the wake of murderous attacks on Ukrainian military personnel by Russian special forces and others and retaliatory action by the government in Kiev:

The International Monetary Fund said the conflict risks deep damage to Russia’s economy, starving it of foreign funds and knowhow. “Geopolitical tensions have brought the Russian economy to a standstill.
"Russia’s actions in Crimea have increased the uncertainty of doing business in Russia and are having a chilling effect on investment. Capital outflows could reach $100bn (£58.3bn) in 2014.
"This comes at a crucial moment when the old growth model based on energy has been exhausted,” it said.
...
Russia’s central bank chief Elvira Nabiullina said capital flight was playing havoc with exchange rate policy.
“Rouble stability is impossible unless we slow capital outflows,” she said.

If Putin intensifies his interference in Ukrainian affairs, the Russians seem likely to experience still worse economic dislocation. The Telegraph reports that German chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union has issued a strategy paper that “called for a complete change in policy, deeming it impossible to work with the Kremlin so long as Vladimir Putin is in charge.” That would mean that the Western government heretofore most determined to avoid harsh sanctions on Russia (not least because they would harm Moscow’s many trading partners in Germany) will no longer run interference for the Kremlin and will seek the downfall of its longtime master.

So far, Vladimir Putin is responding to such economic measures and strategic developments by doubling down. He declared on July 1, “I want everyone to understand: Our country will continue to defend the rights of Russians abroad and to use our entire arsenal.”

Such statements would be ominous under any circumstance. That arsenal is formidable and has, to varying degrees, already been brought to bear.

Putin has put into place the ground forces needed to seize the industrial heartland of Ukraine. Other nations on Russia’s littorals – including NATO member nations in the Baltics – could also suddenly face Kremlin-manufactured separatist movements that ask Mother Russia for solidarity and protection.

Putin has already engaged in economic warfare against Ukraine, most recently cutting off its access to natural gas imports – ostensibly over payment arrearages, but clearly with an eye toward euchring accommodation of Russian demands.

President Putin has made no secret of his determination to brandish Russia’s nuclear weapons stockpile. He is comprehensively modernizing it, in contrast to the steady atrophying of America’s strategic forces, rationalized by President Obama’s reckless, unilateral pursuit of a “world without nuclear weapons” – starting with ours. The Russian despot has resumed provocative, Cold War-style penetrations by long-range nuclear-capable bombers of U.S. and allied airspace. He has also threatened to engage in nuclear attacks on adversaries, near and far.

It appears, however, that Putin may have just added to his “arsenal” a new weapon, one that could give him a new and devastating “nuclear option.” In fact, the mere threat of its use against the Europeans and the Americans may be sufficient to impel their acquiescence to his demands on Ukraine and, for that matter, just about anything else he wants.

According to a CNBC report on July 1, “The industrial control systems of hundreds of European and U.S. energy companies have been infected by a sophisticated cyber weapon operated by a state-backed group with apparent ties to Russia.” If true, Putin could threaten to unleash at any time via a Stuxnet-like computer worm an attack on the electric grids of the United States and Europe. Such a cyber attack could potentially disrupt the distribution of power to their respective critical infrastructures for protracted periods.

Should that occur, societal breakdowns, economic collapse, and losses that run to the hundreds of millions of lives are distinct possibilities, if not certainties. The Free World as we have known it could cease to exist, without a shot being fired.

Such a scenario was among those validated in London this week at a meeting of top government officials, legislators, public utilities regulators, electric industry leaders, scientists and other experts from the United States, Britain, Israel and a number of other countries. The good news is that, in light of such very bad news about the dangers we face – with or without a Russian Stuxnet 2.0 – this Electric Infrastructure Security Summit seemed to precipitate an unprecedented willingness on the part of the various stakeholders represented to collaborate for the purpose of protecting the grid against all hazards.

The prospect of Vladimir Putin or any other adversaries being able, one way or another, to pose such an existential threat to our nation demands corrective action without further delay. What is needed now is nothing less than a crash, supreme-priority Manhattan Project-style national effort. We must bring to bear the best minds and the necessary resources to protect our critical infrastructure and, thereby, help preserve this country and the rest of the Free World in the face of the present danger – and those in the offing.

Russian pizza chain starts pizza deliveries by drone

ITN

Putin's Rasputin: The Mad Mystic Who Inspired Russia's Leader

breitbart

As Russia continues stepping up its propaganda war, the Putin regime continues to implausibly deny any responsibility for the civil war spawned in the eastern regions of Ukraine. Putin’s cynical denial of responsibility for his operatives’ actions in Crimea strained the imagination of even the most credulous observers; even Putin had to confess that the “little green men” were really his soldiers all along. By some accounts, Kazakhstan and Belarus, Russia’s partners in its new Eurasian Economic Union, may be looking for a way out before the union even goes into effect next year.

Why does Putin risk a war in Ukraine? Because he cannot build a meaningful Eurasian Union without Ukraine—and if that means settling for as much of Ukraine as he can steal, so be it. As Leon Neyfakh recently wrote for The Boston Globe:

Ukraine—with its steel mills, coal plants, bountiful agricultural resources, and massive population of 46 million people—has always, according to Russia experts, been key to Putin’s vision for the Eurasian Union.

Why does Putin risk a war in Ukraine to build his Eurasian Union? Because he is implementing—in whole or in part—the Eurasianist doctrine which was developed by the man know as “Putin’s Brain:” Aleksandr Dugin (pictured, top). Dugin’s Foundations of Geopolitics helped reshape the views of Russia’s political and military elite in the late 1990s and gave a new form to old prejudices against the Western nations by means of the Eurasianist ideology. 

Putin appears to have given support to Dugin’s Eurasianism from the earliest days of his presidency: the Evraziia (Eurasian Movement) was organized in April 2001 as the "brainchild" of presidential counsel Gleb Pavlovsky. Eurasianism has not only found favor with the Putin regime: Gennady Zhuganov of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and Vladimir Zhironovsky of the Liberal Democratic Party have both proclaimed their adherence to varying forms of Eurasianism, and Dugin is credited with having influenced both men.

Eurasianism leaves intact many of the territorial goals of the old Soviet Union while updating the ideology for a world which has grown cold to Bolshevik boilerplate. Gone is the old Marxist-Leninist claptrap about the "class struggle" in favor of a global conflict rooted in “sacred geography” and an "inevitable" conflict between the continental might of Eurasia and the "sea power" of the United Kingdom and United States.

However, Dugin is not only “Putin’s Brain”—he’s also “Putin’s Rasputin.” Dugin’s ideology is filled with invocations of "metaphysical Marxism" and adherence to the Traditionalist views of the "mystical fascist" thinker Julius Evola. Dugin’s ideology is one which claims that a final conflict is coming between Eurasia and (in Dugin’s words) “the kingdom of the Antichrist.” As pertains to this kingdom of the Antichrist, Dugin maintains, “the United States is the center of its expansion.” For Dugin, there is one course which lies open before those who oppose the "Antichrist:" “The American Empire should be destroyed. And at one point, it will be.” 

What remains to be seen is how far Putin will go to implement Eurasianism.

Vladimir Putin: Volgograd Could Be Stalingrad Again With Votes

breitbart

By Mary Chastain 

Russian President Vladimir Putin claims he does not want to put back together the USSR, but the little things he does says otherwise. 

Nikita Krushchev changed the city to Volgograd in 1961 to de-Stalinize the USSR. From the Associated Press:

But regional lawmakers decided last year to use the historic name in some city statements related to the war, angering many in Russia, where Stalin's name and legacy continues to cause fiery disputes. Putin made the statement Friday during a meeting with Russian war veterans in Normandy, France, where he attended D-Day commemorations.
Responding to a veteran's suggestion to restore the name of Stalingrad, Putin said it could be decided by a public vote.

This is not a surprise, though. In January 2013, the Volgograd city council said that for six days in a year the city will be known as Stalingrad. One of the days is February 2, which was the last day of the historic and bloody Battle of Stalingrad. This battle is the reason why the city is so important to Russia. The Russians fought the Nazis from August 23, 1942 to February 2, 1943 at Stalingrad and was the turning point on the Eastern Front. The German 6th Army was destroyed and the Axis started to retreat from the East. A total of 1.7-2 million on both sides, including civilians, were killed.

Yet, it could be renamed for other reasons. Putin said the fall of the USSR was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century. He was a top KGB man in St. Petersburg before he moved to Moscow. During his first presidency and when he was prime minister, he bullied ex-Soviet states in order to dissuade them from forming closer ties to the West and Europe. In 2008, Russia and Georgia engaged in a war over South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It did not last long, but it is one of the reasons why Georgia wants to join NATO.

Former Georgian Prime Minister and representative to NATO Ambassador Grigol Mgaloblishvili told Breitbart News Russia wants to cripple much of Eastern Europe.

“The main objective of Russia is to regain its sphere of influence over the post-Soviet states,” he said. “After violating international law, after invading and occupying territories of European nations and violating the basic principles and consensuses of the post-Cold War order, Moscow has not paid any political price.”

His latest power grab is Ukraine. He bullied President Viktor Yanukovych to turn down a trade deal with the European Union for a $15 billion bailout and cheap gas. Russia cut the price of gas to $268.50. Yanukovych’s actions were met with a three-month protest in Kiev and he was ousted on February 22. In retaliation, Russia and Gazprom decided to use gas as a political tool and raised the price to $485 per 1,000 cubic meters. Gazprom also threatened to cut off gas if Ukraine does not pay off its debt and Putin made a few remarks that Europe’s supply could be in danger if they do not help Ukraine.

In mid-March, Putin annexed Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula, from Ukraine to "protect the ethnic Russians and Russian speakers" in the country. Pro-Russian forces erupted in east Ukraine after Crimea was annexed, but Putin claimed Russia was not involved. Donetsk and Luhansk held a referendum on May 11 and claimed independence from Kiev. On May 25, it was revealed Chechens from Russia were in Donetsk. These men told Courtney Weaver from Financial Times that Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who is very friendly with Putin, sent them. The new prime minister of Donetsk People’s Republic is Alexander Borodai, a Russian citizen from Moscow.

Due to Russia’s actions, other countries believe they might be Putin’s next target. A Russian diplomat told the United Nations Human Rights Council that Moscow is concerned about the treatment of Russian speakers in Estonia. Russia’s ambassador to Latvia told a radio station Russia will grant citizenship to ethnic Russians in the country.

Moscow implemented a new law that accelerates the citizenship process for any ethnic Russian or Russian speakers from another country. They also passed a law that allows them to intervene in a country they feel are mistreating any ethnic Russians or Russian speakers.

'Soviet Times': the Real Russian Catastrophe

americanthinker

By Ross C. Reeves

Vladimir Putin has described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest catastrophe of the 20th Century. Western leaders have been quick to brand this as old-fashioned thinking. 

Their condescension sounds eerily like Neville Chamberlain’s remark that Hitler “missed the bus” in the Czech crisis.

The “bus” the Russians have missed is not failure to accept the breakup of the Soviet Empire. Rather, the great “catastrophe” of the 20th Century was its very existence. Behind this difference lies the amnesia that enables President Putin’s adventurism in the Ukraine and his determination to put the wheels back on a malevolent and lethal machine.

In 1989, the entire world witnessed the defeat of the Soviet Union across every front: ideology, economics, technology, and moral philosophy. This purported “catastrophe” freed enslaved satellite states from the terror and autocracy exported by the Bolsheviks across Eastern Europe.

Initially the Russian people joined with central and eastern Europeans in shedding the corporeal and spiritual chains of totalitarianism. But the moment proved fleeting when the Russians looked into the abyss and recoiled.

Russians now refer to their entire history from 1917 through 1989 as “Soviet Times.” Not Communist Era or the Reign of the Bolsheviks. Not the Red Terror or the Evil Empire. They instead adopted an anodyne phrase that has the ring of a Californian’s recollection of forbears who came from “somewhere back east.”

“Soviet Times” are comfortably moored far away from anyone’s experience or understanding, like a mysterious civilization that melted into the Siberian forests, leaving behind no people, artifacts, or runes. The disastrous policies and practices, the systematized cruelties, the twisted logic, and the murderous paranoia are lodged in some other universe of the mind, providing no leaven for thought or opinion, and certainly no instinct to examine with skepticism the leadership of Russia Redux.

Leningrad has reverted back to St. Petersburg to get the stink off of its name. Yet Lenin’s corpse still molders on display in Red Square. The Communist Party is now a maligned splinter group, but Putin’s United Russia Party is led by the nomenklatura of the old CPSU. Artwork confiscated by the Bolsheviks is still hanging in the Winter Palace innocuously labeled “from the collection of” the victim, while masterpieces looted in World War II are proudly displayed as glorious battle trophies. GUM department store in Red Square is now a luxury mall that would make a Kardashian blush, but the missile parade and goosestepping still headline the May Day parade. 

One looks in vain for Russian literature or journalism exposing the predations of the Communist regime during “Soviet Times.” There is no scholarship that draws lessons from the “success” of the Comintern and Stalin in infiltrating and purging foreign political parties, particularly Social Democrats and other home-grown leftists. There is no accounting of how many of the much vaunted 20 million Soviet dead in the “Great Patriotic War” fell at the hands of grossly incompetent generals, “state security organs,” well-armed commissars, and willfully blind apparatchiks.    

Asked what it was like to live under surveillance by the KGB during Soviet Times, Russians will insist that they personally had never been troubled. They have no stories about how the security system co-opted them to report on the “antisocial” activities and thoughts of schoolmates, coworkers, and neighbors. None of them was a member of the Communist Party; none spent youthful days in Komsomol or the Young Pioneers. No one in their families disappeared into the gulags, and no schoolmates died of head shots in the basement of the Lubyanka -- much less prepared transportation manifeststo the Kamchatka death camps, conducted midnight interrogations, or pulled the triggers on antisocial elements.

If this degree of denial seems implausible, consider this item from ITAR/Izvestia. On April 30, as Russia was digesting the Crimea and roiling Ukraine, a deputy foreign minister denounced Western sanctions as “a revival of a system created in 1949 when Western countries essentially lowered an 'Iron Curtain', cutting off supplies of high-tech goods to the USSR and other countries."

So that’s what Winston Churchill was referring to in his Westminster College speech.

Such obliviousness to the postwar grab of Eastern Europe by the Red Army staggers the imagination. Yet it illuminates Russians’ persistence in denying and rewriting their history. It is the same attitude that is reflected in internal polls showing Russians are fervently behind the new aggressiveness of Putin’s regime. They have easily fallen back into the hands of the same bloodthirsty revanchists who ran the system in Soviet Times; indeed, they treat with indifference the ascendancy of a man whose entire career from KGB High School on is the embodiment of the very secrecy, paranoia, and megalomania that oiled the USSR.

So long as Russians remain in denial of their antecedents they will be a belligerent and dangerous force in the world. It will be equivalent to what would have unfolded if the Allies had not insisted on “de-Nazification” of postwar Germany. Germans were not allowed to rebrand and reinstall the Gauleiters, SS commanders, Gestapo thugs, and Nazi party hacks as leaders of the new republic. Sixty years on, Germans are still called to account for newly discovered instances of Nazi cruelty and kleptomania and the shameful collaboration of industrialists, professors, jurists, politicians, and civil servants.

Japan has faced the same reminders of its past wickedness. Like Germany, it has admirably restored itself and its people to the community of nations, but the reminders still come of their brutality in World War II. Efforts to attribute it to long-dead fanatics invariably fall on deaf ears.

South Africa implemented Truth and Reconciliation procedures to bring to the surface the policies and programs of apartheid and racism. The reborn republic defied expectations of a reign of terror by insisting that reconciliation and the integrity of the process be paramount.

When the USSR disintegrated, the Eastern European nations aggressively confronted their Communist past. East Germans literally seized access to the notorious Stasi files, where ordinary citizens read what their government had done to them and who among them regularly reported on “suspicious” activities of friends and colleagues. Similar stories played out in all the Baltic and Central European States. These painful experiences sharply lessen fears of the people returning to the bad old days or the bad old actors.

By contrast, the Russian people today may be fairly compared with Germans after the “Great War.” They were never forced to confront the implications of their very culture losing a titanic clash with the democracies. A generation later, Germany was back on the path to world war. So too the restored states of the Confederacy refused to examine the social constructs that had created and fostered the evils of slavery, the planter aristocracy, and the Civil War. The South truly “rose again,” but in the hands of the same malevolent forces of racism and resentment.

The “catastrophe”of 1989 was the failure of the Russian people to confront Soviet Times for what they were and to identifythe evil forces that they spawned.The ongoing crisis in Europe will not abate unless and until they remedy this failure

How Russia arms Latin America

Voxxi

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Russia’s push into Ukraine has put many on edge. But less known is that Russia is also strengthening its military links south of the Rio Grande and re-establishing itself as a power in the region.

Vladimir Putin has been strengthening military links here, and Russia is now the largest arms dealer to governments in Latin America, surpassing the United States. Russia has even floated the possibility of building new military bases in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, and putting its warships permanently in the Caribbean.

In the midst of the Ukraine crisis, Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov recently visited Cuba, Peru, Chile, and Nicaragua, where he announced that Russia would also pour money into the new Central American canal project.

Arms selling is a free market, and if Russian companies can offer cheaper and better guns than US or British ones, they have the competitive edge.

Many of this region’s leftist governments are also more suspicious of US military power, which has historically sided with dictatorships across South America, even as it challenges Cuba.

However, the influx of Russian planes and missiles has ruffled some feathers.

Costa Rica’s outgoing foreign minister said the arms build-up in neighboring Nicaragua made him “fear trouble.”

A continued presence of US military bases in countries such as Colombia and Honduras and in Guantanamo Bay also raises the specter of a return to the superpower standoff that ruptured the region during the Cold War.

Brazil

Russia arms America’s southern neighbors such as Brazil.

Latin America’s largest country held meetings on new arms sales from Russian companies during a visit by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in October, and further developments on the deals emerged in March.

Among the weapons on the table are the Pantsir-S, a missile air defense system that can take on targets flying at low altitudes, and the Igla, a portable surface-to-air missile. Russia is also trying to sell its Sukhoi-35 fighter jets to the South American giant.

Estimates put the contracts in the multibillion-dollar range.

Brazil’s left-leaning government has been a heavy critic of the US NSA spying program, while being largely friendly to international business interests.

Venezuela

Minister Shoigu revealed he was in talks to build bases in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua for Russian warships.

The late Hugo Chavez became renowned for his opposition to the United States while he courted countries from Iran to Russia. His replacement, Nicolas Maduro, has carried on the tradition.

Under Chavez, Venezuela bought some $5 billion worth of military hardware from Russia, including fighter planes, helicopters and assault rifles.

Chavez also stirred the pot by allowing Russian warships, including the nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great (below), near its Caribbean coast.

Maduro announced his country would continue to buy Russian weapons when he took power last year.

Then in February, Defense Minister Shoigu revealed he was in talks to build bases in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua for Russian warships.

“The talks are underway, and we are close to signing the relevant documents,” Shoigu told reporters in Moscow.

However, while the announcement raised shockwaves, very few details have emerged.

Cuba

With the history of the Cuban missile crisis, Russian military presence on the Caribbean island perhaps strikes the loudest chord.

Throughout the late 20th century, the Castro government based its defense system — and its economy — on help from the Soviets.

While most of this support evaporated with the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, Russia has revived the relationship in recent years.

In 2011, the allies revealed new contracts for Cuba to make Russian guns and bullets, including an assembly line for 7.62-mm rounds used in Kalashnikovs at the Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara factory.

However, a new base and potential presence of Soviet warships would up the ante considerably.

Nicaragua

The Sandinista government also received some help from the Soviet Union back in the 1980s, to fight the wrath of the US-backed Contras in one of the most notorious Cold War battlegrounds.

While the re-elected President Daniel Ortega has abandoned many of his socialist leanings of old, he has reinvigorated this relationship with Moscow.

Speaking to his army in April, Ortega announced new support from the Russian Federation.

“It’s just as important now to defend our right, the right that we Nicaraguans have to arm ourselves, to strengthen ourselves militarily; we have to modernize the army to provide these services,” Ortega said, according to the Nicaragua Dispatch. “It’s just that simple.”

Among the support, Russia has promised helicopters and Tiger urban assault vehicles for the war on drug gangs.

However, Nicaraguan officials themselves have raised questions about the announcement of the Russian base, which could be against Nicaragua’s constitution.

There have also been significant Russian arms sales to Bolivia and Peru, and discussion of new deals with Chile and Argentina. The United States has particularly strong links to armies in Mexico, Colombia and Honduras, which it supports in antidrug efforts.

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Russia Writes Off Majority of North Korea Debt

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MOSCOW — Russia's parliament has agreed to write off almost $10 billion of North Korea's Soviet-era debt, in a deal expected to facilitate the building of a gas pipeline to South Korea across the reclusive state.

Russia has written off debts to a number of impoverished Soviet-era allies, including Cuba. North Korea's struggling communist economy is just 2 percent of the size of neighboring South Korea's.

The State Duma lower house on Friday ratified a 2012 agreement to write off the bulk of North Korea's debt. It said the total debt stood at $10.96 billion as of Sept. 17, 2012.

The rest of the debt, $1.09 billion, would be redeemed during the next 20 years, to be paid in equal installments every six months. The outstanding debt owed by North Korea will be managed by Russia's state development bank, Vnesheconombank.

Russia's Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak told Russian media that the money could be used to fund mutual projects in North Korea, including a proposed gas pipeline and a railway to South Korea.

The two Koreas remain technically at war and are separated by one of the world's most militarized frontiers. Parts of the international community have been seeking to re-engage with North Korea amid hopes that the reclusive state's government would seek ways to end years of isolation and poverty.

Russia's state-owned top natural producer Gazprom, has long planned to build a gas pipeline via North Korea to South Korea with a view to shipping 10 billion cubic meters of gas annually.

Moscow has been trying to diversify its energy sales to Asia away from Europe, which, in its turn, wants to cut its dependence on oil and gas from the erstwhile Cold War foe. Moscow aims to reach a deal to supply gas to China, after a decade of talks, this May.

Russia launches its new ICBM from Plesetsk space centre

spacewar

The Russian Strategic Missile Troops have successfully test fired an RS-24 Yars intercontinental ballistic missile with a multiple re-entry vehicle from the Plesetsk cosmodrome, a Russian Defence Ministry press service official for the Strategic Missile Troops, Colonel Igor Yegorov, told a news briefing earlier this Monday.

The experimental warheads arrived in the designated area on the Kura test range in the Kamchatka Peninsula. The set goals of the launch have been fully met, Colonel Yegorov said, RIA news reports.

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