Archive for the ‘European Union’ Category

Posted on April 20, 2010 - by Venik

Why Russia and Poland Will Never be Friends

You probably heard the story by now: a plane full of Polish russophobes flew into a tree in Russia. Too bad Dante is dead: a lot of good material for a Commedia sequel. There is a veritable flurry of news reports and editorials predicting an epic thaw in relations between Russia and Poland. A brief [...]

Posted on February 18, 2010 - by Venik

Mistral for Russia

France’s decision to sell four Mistral-class helicopter carriers to Russia was met with heavy criticism in the US, Georgia and the Baltic States. Interestingly enough, Russia’s decision to buy the four vessels for more than $2 billion was met with a lot of criticism within Russia as well. This is really the first time in [...]

Posted on October 1, 2009 - by Venik

War in Georgia: Reviewing EU Findings

As some of you may have heard, the international fact-finding mission (IIFFMCG) organized by the EU to investigate the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia has finally released its final report. As was expected, most of the blame for starting the war went to Georgia. Russia’s “fault”, according to the investigators, for the most part [...]

Posted on August 22, 2009 - by Venik

Victims with Guns

Tomorrow’s seventy-year anniversary of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact is giving some historians and journalists pretending to be historians an unbearable urge to write nonsense. The Pact and, most importantly, its secret provisions are blamed by the Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians for the years of “Soviet occupation”. This was a difficult period in the history of [...]

Posted on May 17, 2009 - by Venik

Pipeline Business

The EU continues waging a losing battle for its energy independence from Russia. Gazprom, hit hard by the global economic recession and dropping energy demands, may be skating on thin ice, but it is still well ahead of the EU. Following the August war with Georgia, Russia moved to consolidate its gains in the region [...]

Posted on February 17, 2009 - by Venik

When subs collide

As we now know, a British and a French nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed submarines collided in the Atlantic earlier this month. Amazingly, the first newspaper to report the incident and to prompt the official admission of the accident was The Sun tabloid. The Royal Navy said that the subs “came into contact at very low speeds”, calling [...]

Posted on January 8, 2009 - by Venik

Paying Ukraine’s Gas Bill

Bloomberg reports that Ukraine’s president is using the gas war with Russia as a way to endear himself to the West and to improve EU’s disposition toward his country. What dark twisted alleys of logic led Bloomberg analysts to this extraordinary conclusion we will probably never know. Luckily. “Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko may be calculating [...]

Posted on November 15, 2008 - by Venik

“Peter the Great” in Toulon

During November 5-8 missile cruiser “Peter the Great” and destroyer “Admiral Chabanenko” of Russia’s Northern Fleet visited the French naval base in Toulon. The Northern Fleet taskforce, consisting of four surface vessels and two nuclear-powered attack submarines, is conducting excersices in the Meditteranian before heading to Venezuela for joint maneuvers with the Mariscal Sucre-class “General [...]

Posted on November 7, 2008 - by Venik

Saakashvili’s Endgame

As waning wartime patriotism in Georgia gives way to realistic assessments of the facts, Saakashvili can now see the end of his political career rapidly approaching. As predicted, the situation in Tbilisi is developing rapidly and Saakashvili may be expected to make his endgame early next year, probably soon after Obama’s inaugural speech in Washington. [...]

Posted on September 18, 2008 - by Venik

The War in Georgia: Who Said What

The difficulties Russia encounters dealing with Saakashvili’s propaganda machine are caused primarily by the West’s desire to believe the Georgian side of the story. Why does the West want to believe Saakashvili? Probably because the alternative to believing Georgian propaganda is to admit that for the past five years the West has been propping up [...]

Posted on September 13, 2008 - by Venik

International Monitors in Georgia

According to AP, some Western (American) diplomats are accusing Russia of stalling negotiations over sending international observers to Georgia. “For three weeks now, we have been fighting on how to deploy these extra 80 monitors without delay,” the Western official said. “Everyone but Russia has said they should be able to get into all of [...]

Posted on September 1, 2008 - by Venik

The EU Gets the Pipe

As expected, the EU resolution on Russia was all gasconade and bravado. Russia’s unspoken threat to restrict energy supplies to the European Union did the trick. Gordon Brown found out that a “root-and-branch” review of relations with Russia may be difficult when you are covered head to toe in Russian oil. Today Russia is supplying [...]

Posted on August 31, 2008 - by Venik

Operation Coverass

On Monday the EU is expected to announce countermeasures to Russia’s recognition of independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russian diplomatic sources hinted that any practical economic sanctions against Russia may lead to reduced oil supplies to the European Union. And so the question is: does the Brussels have the balls to take on Moscow [...]

Posted on August 20, 2008 - by Venik

BBC is not Paying Attention

In the Russia scales down Georgia toll BBC claims: Russia has issued new, reduced casualty figures for the Georgian conflict, with 133 civilians now listed as dead in the disputed region of South Ossetia. The figure is far lower than the 1,600 people Russia initially said had died. In reality, however, Russian prosecutors announced that [...]