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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Minister of Economic Defense. Why did Putin change Shoigu to Belousov?

2024-05-15

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Petr Akopov [REGNUM] The appointment of Andrei Belousov as Minister of Defense was one of Vladimir Putin’s most unexpected personnel decisions in a quarter of a century. However, it is not illogical - and it is certainly not atypical for the president. From the very beginning, the army was one of Putin’s main priorities - it is no coincidence that almost immediately, in 2001, Sergei Ivanov, the president’s closest ally and friend, was appointed to the Ministry of Defense. It was under him that the army reform began, which they developed together with Putin and the General Staff. But the qualities of a professional intelligence officer and analyst were not enough to restore order in the extremely neglected military economy - and it was also necessary to rebuild both the Ministry of Defense itself and the army as such.

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Europe

Dutch say they arrested 2 Russians planning to hack Swiss chemical warfare lab

2018-09-16

[IsraelTimes] Alleged spies caught as institute was analyzing data on Novichok poison used in UK attack, as well as on chemical attacks in Syria Dutch intelligence services snatched two alleged Russian spies earlier this year on suspicion of planning to hack a sensitive Swiss laboratory used by the world’s chemical warfare watchdog, reports and officials said Friday. The two agents, believed to be working for Russia’s GRU military intelligence service, targeted the Spiez laboratory near Bern, Dutch-based NRC newspaper and Swiss daily Tages-Anzeiger said. At the time, Spiez was analyzing data related to poison gas attacks in Syria, as well as the March 4 attack using the nerve agent Novichok on Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK, they reported. The laboratory does analytical work for the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The two were detained "early this year" by Dutch military intelligence (MIVD) working together with several other countries, the newspapers reported. "The duo, according to sources within the investigation, carried equipment which they wanted to use to break into the computer network" of the Spiez laboratory. Exact details of the alleged agents’ arrest are unknown. But on March 26, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced that his cabinet had decided to expel "two Russian intelligence workers from the Russian embassy" as a result of the Skripal attack, without giving further details. Swiss intelligence officials Friday confirmed they were aware of the incident. "The case of the Russian spies discovered in The Hague and then expelled from The Hague is known to Swiss authorities," Isabelle Graber, spokeswoman for the Swiss intelligence services (SRC), told AFP. The Swiss spy agency "actively participated in this operation in collaboration with its Dutch and British partners in prevention of illegal actions against critical Swiss infrastructure," she said. Dutch intelligence services declined to comment when contacted by AFP, saying "we don’t give information about operations." Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service information head Sergei Ivanov also told the RIA Novosti state news agency that "the SVR does not comment on this information." However, a woman is only as old as she admits... in April Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the OPCW of "manipulating" the results of the Skripal probe by omitting findings from the Spiez laboratory. According to the results from Spiez, the samples sent by the OPCW contained a nerve agent called "BZ" which was manufactured by the West, Lavrov said, citing "confidential information." Two men who were accused by Britannia of being GRU agents involved in the murder attempt on Skripal insisted in an interview that they were merely tourists who had come to visit Salisbury cathedral. But the two men in the interview, named by British security services as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, "were not the two agents intercepted" by the Netherlands, the papers said.

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Terror Networks

Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan agree anti-Daesh bid

2018-07-15

[PRESSTV] Senior intelligence officials from Iran, Russia, China, and Pakistain have reportedly reached an agreement to join efforts against ISIS terror group in Afghanistan. The officials agreed over integrated efforts for rooting out the outfit from Afghanistan during a meeting in the Pak capital of Islamabad, English-language Pak daily The Nation reported on Friday, citing defense sources. Sergei Ivanov, the chief of the press bureau of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, had also told Russia’s TASS news agency about the meeting on Tuesday. The quartet also agreed on confronting "all other Lions of Islam groups" in the Central Asian country, the daily said. The drive, it wrote, was aimed at "ensuring regional peace and to eliminate terrorism from the region." The meeting also discussed ways to stop the arrival of ISIS Takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who must be killed... Lions of Islam from Iraq and Syria in Afghanistan. The participants further agreed to share intelligence towards fighting terror. The Russian side cited the Russian intelligence agency as saying that around 10,000 ISIS Lions of Islam were functioning actively in nine provinces in Afghanistan. Goodness. That's a lot more than were there last time I looked. Have they come seeking safer hunting grounds than are to be found in Iraq and Syria nowadays? The Iranian side cited concerns regarding ISIS’s growing influence in Afghanistan, according to The Nation. The group’s Afghanistan branch, known as ISIS-Khurasan, was "involved in planning continued suicide kabooms especially in Pakistain," the meeting was told. Most recently, the group grabbed credit for an kaboom that killed at least 128 people targeting an election rally in Pakistain's southwestern province of Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... on Friday.

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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Putin dissolves RIA/Novosti, tightens grip on Russia media

2013-12-10

[REUTERS] President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... tightened his control over Russia's media on Monday by dissolving the main state news agency and replacing it with an organization that is to promote Moscow's image abroad. The move to abolish RIA Novosti and create a news agency to be known as Rossiya Segodnya is the second in two weeks strengthening Putin's hold on the media as he tries to reassert his authority after protests against his rule. Most Russian media outlets are already loyal to Putin, and opponents get little air time, but the shake-up underlined their importance to Putin keeping power and the Kremlin's concern about the president's ratings and image. The head of the new agency, to be built from the ashes of RIA Novosti, is a conservative news anchor, Dmitry Kiselyov, who once caused outrage by saying the organs of homosexuals should not be used in transplants. "The main focus of ... Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today) is to highlight abroad the state policy and public life of the Russian Federation," said a decree signed by Putin. Sergei Ivanov, the head of the presidential administration, told news hounds that the changes were intended to save money and improve the state media.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Russia May Change Syria Position if Assad 'Cheats'

2013-09-22

[An Nahar] Russia may change its position on Syria if it sees any "cheating" by the regime, a senior Kremlin official said Saturday as Damascus disclosed details of its chemical stockpile in the first step of a disarmament plan. Some people's definitions of "cheating" are less slippery than others. "I am speaking theoretically and hypothetically, but if we become convinced that (Syrian President Bashar) Assad is cheating, we can change our position," the Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Ivanov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies. He was speaking at a conference in Stockholm organised by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Ivanov did not clarify his remarks, and reiterated Russia's opposition to intervention in the country wracked by civil war that has killed more than 110,000 in 30 months. He added that he expects the locations of the Syrian chemical arsenal to be disclosed within a week, but cautioned that the army does not control the entire country. "We still don't know where the chemical weapons are located geographically. I think this will become clear within a week," Ivanov said. The U.S.-Russian plan to dismantle the chemical arms stockpile has helped prevent U.S.-led military action following a chemical attack last month that killed hundreds of people and which Washington blames on the regime. Under the plan, Assad's regime had until Saturday to supply details of its arsenal.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Moscow sends plane to evacuate Russians from Syria

2013-09-09

A Russian plane landed in the Syrian port city of Latakia on Sunday, the government said, as it seeks to evacuate its citizens from the escalating conflict. The plane would collect citizens of Russia and other ex-Soviet states “who have expressed a desire to leave the zone of conflict,” Russian emergencies ministry spokeswoman Irina Rossius said in a statement. It was not clear how many people would be evacuated on the flight but Russian news agencies said those who wanted to leave were already waiting at Latakia airport. The flights come as expectations grow of Western military action against President Bashar Al Assad’s regime over claims it used chemical weapons in an attack outside the Syrian capital in August. Russia has evacuated hundreds of citizens on similar flights since the conflict began. It took 116 Russian citizens and nationals of other ex-Soviet states out of Syria on two flights in late August. Russia has insisted it was not engaged in a full-scale evacuation of the many thousands of Russian passport-holders still believed to be in Syria. However, Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Ivanov said on Thursday Russian warships currently in the Mediterranean could be used for the evacuation of Russian citizens.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Russian ships near Syria to evacuate civilians

2013-09-08

[TIMESUNION] The Kremlin's chief of staff says Russia has been sending warships to the Mediterranean Sea for possible evacuation of Russian citizens from Syria. Russian news agencies on Thursday quoted Sergei Ivanov as saying that Russia has been boosting its naval presence in the Mediterranean "primarily" in order to organize a possible evacuation of Russians from Syria. Russia has been one of Syrian leader Bashir al-Assad's staunchest allies in the civil war that has been raging for more than two years. Reports of increased Russian naval presence in the area have stoked fears about a larger international conflict if the United States orders Arclight airstrikes over a chemical weapons attack last month.

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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Russia successfully retests Bulava nuclear missile

2010-10-30

MOSCOW - Russia successfully carried out a new test of an intercontinental missile on Friday that Moscow hopes to make the cornerstone of its nuclear missile programme. The military said the 12-metre long Bulava, or Mace, fired from a submarine near Russia’s border with Finland, successfully hit its target some 6,000 km (3,370 miles) away in the peninsula of Kamchatka in Russia’s far east. “Today at 5:10 a.m. (the missile) was launched from the submarine Dmitry Donskoi,” said Igor Konoshenkov, press officer of the Defence Ministry. “The launch, from an underwater location, was carried out normally and everything was up to standard,” he told Reuters by telephone. Military analysts saw Friday’s test of the Bulava, which had failed seven of 13 previous trials, as a crucial hurdle in proving the reliability of the missile as a mainstay of the Russian army. In some previous tests the missile self-destructed, causing concerns over the reliability of the missile itself. Further failures of the missile were expected to prompt fundamental changes to the costly project. The Bulava missiles, which weigh 36.8 tonnes and can travel a distance of 8,000 km, are designed to be fitted on the Russian Borei class of submarines. One missile can hold 6-10 nuclear warheads. Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov told RIA news agency six more successful tests of the rocket were needed before it would be ready for use in the navy. The next test of the ballistic missile is expected to be carried out at the beginning of December, a high-ranking source in Russia’s military industry commission told state-news agency Itar-Tass.

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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Russia giving US advice on Afghanistan: Ivanov

2010-06-06

Russia is giving discreet advice to US officials on Afghanistan but will "never again" send troops to the war-torn country, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Sunday. "By the way, next year I think the ISAF will break the Soviet record of the duration of stay in Afghanistan," Ivanov said during a question-and-answer session with delegates to a regional security conference in Singapore. He was referring to the US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operating in Afghanistan since a US-led invasion toppled the hardline Taliban regime in the wake of the September 2001 attacks in the United States. Ivanov, a former defence minister, declined to comment on US tactics in Afghanistan but called for more to be done to improve the socio-economic infrastructure to back up military efforts against militants. "I can't give advice, particularly publicly," Ivanov told an audience of defence ministers, military officials and scholars as the annual forum known as the Shangri-La Dialogue drew to a close. "I have to confess... meeting American defence secretaries, central intelligence chiefs, state department chiefs, we discussed it. "If we are asked, we answer, but it's difficult to comment publicly, really difficult." Ivanov said Russia was providing various forms of support to the ISAF including logistics, transport and intelligence, but ruled out Moscow ever sending its troops into Afghanistan. "Never again a Russian soldier would enter Afghanistan," said Ivanov. "I think you understand why. It's like asking the United States whether they will send troops to Vietnam," he said. "It's something like that. It's totally impossible." The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, which lasted from from 1979-1989, cost over 13,000 Soviet lives and contributed to the breakup of the Soviet Union.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Russia rejects sanctions on Irans economy

2010-02-07

[Iran Press TV Latest] Russia has indicated that it will agree to any new sanctions against Iran only if the punitive measures target the country's nuclear program and not its economy. "If in future hypothetically, if new sanctions are imposed, we are sure that sanctions should be limited to non-proliferation only," Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov told reporters in the German city of Munich. The sanctions, he explained, should "not be expanded to cultural, humanitarian, economic parts of Iranian activity." The annual security conference was also attended by the Iranian Foreign Minster, Manouchehr Mottaki, who was upbeat on his meeting with the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, Yukiya Amano. "Today I had a very good meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano," Iran's top diplomat said on the sidelines of the conference in southern Germany. When asked about the nature of the discussions, the IAEA chief said their meeting had "covered a variety of areas." "That included of course in Iran and the Tehran research reactor. We had a very interesting discussion, and on my part I can currently say that dialogue is continuing and should be accelerated," he added. The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany, also known as the P5+1 group, failed to agree on new punitive measures against Iran last month. The West has been pressuring Tehran to accept a UN-backed draft deal which requires Iran to send most of its domestically produced low-enriched uranium (LEU) abroad for conversion into a more refined fuel for the Tehran nuclear reactor that produces medical isotopes. Iran, however, has not accepted the proposal, calling for "concrete guarantees" for the return of the refined fuel since some Western countries, namely France and Germany, have previously failed to honor their nuclear commitments to Tehran without any repercussions. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday declared that Tehran would have "no problem" sending out its stock of LEU for further refinement into the nuclear fuel required for the Tehran reactor. EU and US officials have, however, rejected Iran's concerns, accusing the Islamic Republic of trying to buy time to delay planned sanctions on Iran's entire energy sector, including its oil and natural gas industries.

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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Russia plans to build aircraft carriers

2009-06-10

A Russian news agency reported Tuesday that the country plans to build five or six aircraft carriers as part of efforts to rebuild its once-formidable navy. The Interfax news agency quoted an unidentified Russian navy official as saying construction of the ships should start in 2012-2013. The official was quoted as saying that plans to build the carriers are a top priority for the military, and they will not be derailed by the financial crisis. The statement appears to contradict comments by Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov earlier this year that the navy should focus on smaller ships, no bigger than frigates or corvettes. Ivanov's statement indicated that the Kremlin was revising its lavish expansion plans under the impact of the financial crisis, which drained government coffers. A military official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said that the navy remains committed to building aircraft carriers, but added that terms of their construction will depend on availability of funds. The official, who was not authorized to speak to the media on the record, said that it was too early to say yet when the construction of carriers could begin. Russia now only has one Soviet-built carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, which is much smaller than U.S. carriers and has been plagued by mechanical problems and accidents. The navy had to scrap numerous relatively new warships for lack of funds and could not properly maintain many others in the 1990s, leaving only a handful of big surface ships in seaworthy condition.

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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Report: Russian navy to get at least 3 carriers

2009-02-28

MOSCOW - A Russian news agency is reporting that an admiral said the navy may commission at least three nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. RIA-Novosti has quoted Vice Adm. Anatoly Shlemov as saying that engineers have begun work to design a new carrier. Shlemov said Friday the prospective carriers will be nuclear-powered and have a displacement of 50,000-60,000 tons, according to the report. His statement appeared to contradict comments by Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov that the navy should focus on smaller ships, no bigger than frigates or corvettes.

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