“I for one will not sleep by the light of a Communist Moon!” -- LBJ “The Right Stuff”

BTW, Obama’s planned butchering of our NASA space program has us paying for tickets on Russia’s space program. That’s like depending on Chavez for all our oil, or China for all our debt— Woops!

MOSCOW — Russia will launch its manned space missions from a new center in the Far East in 2018, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Saturday, as the country seeks greater independence for its space program.

Putin made the comments as he inaugurated the start of construction for the new cosmodrome at the former missile defense base of Vostochny, outside the town of Uglegorsk, 3,600 miles (5,800 kilometers) east of Moscow, and a few hundred miles away from China.

Russia currently uses the Soviet-built Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan for all of its manned space missions and other commercial launches as well as a smaller center in northern Russia for military satellite launches.

Russia has a lease on Baikonur until 2050 and has paid around $115 million to Kazakhstan in rent since the agreement in 2004.

Putin stressed the “strategic” need for Moscow to have “an independent access to the space.” Although Baikonur is located in a “friendly state,” it is still owned by another country, he said.

Russia’s prime minister said on state-run Rossiya channel that Vostochny will host all launches of Russian-manned spacecraft beginning in 2018. Launches of first unmanned spacecraft from the new center are expected in 2015.

Putin described the construction as “one of the biggest and ambitious projects of modern Russia” which “gives opportunity to thousands of young professionals to use their talent.”

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that the first stage of the construction will take more than 24 billion rubles ($779 million).

Like Baikonur in Kazakhstan, Russia’s Amur Region in the Far East, where the new center is being built, is sparsely populated. New technologies will allow the new launch pad to be ten times smaller compared to what Baikonur occupies in the Kazakh steppe, said Russia’s space agency chief Anatoly Perminov.

Windfall from oil revenues over the past years have allowed the Kremlin to spend more on Russia’s space program, which had suffered in the post-Soviet economic meltdown.

Putin and the rest of the world say, “Thanks, Barry” for spreading around that space-race ‘wealth’, you goofy-golfer asshat!

Netanyahu asks Putin to stop deal involving sale of advanced P-800 Yakhont supersonic cruise missiles; Israel considers this weaponry dangerous to its navy vessels in Mediterranean Sea.

Israel is trying to prevent an arms deal between Russia and Syria, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to stop the arms sale involving advanced anti-shipping missiles.

The deal involves the sale of advanced P-800 Yakhont supersonic cruise missiles to the Syrian military. Israel considers this weaponry capable of posing significant danger to its navy vessels in the Mediterranean Sea.

In a conversation with Putin, Netanyahu told the Russian leader that missiles his country had delivered to Syria were then transferred to Hezbollah and used against IDF troops during the Second Lebanon War.

Meanwhile, Ehud Barak is scheduled to travel to Moscow for what will be the first-ever visit by an Israeli Defense Minister to the Russian capital, where he plans to discuss the matter with his host, Anatoly Serdyukov.

A senior Israeli official who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the issue, said Israel and Russia have been engaged in discreet dialogue over arms deals to the region.

But as these talks have not yielded any results, the decision was made to upgrade the level of discussions with a senior political figure.

“We have been working on such a visit for more than a year and it is very important to us,” the official said.

As the Russian Defense Ministry is considered to be overwhelmingly pro-Arab, the opportunity for an Israeli Defense Minister to make an official visit is considered a historic development.

Netanyahu called Putin on Friday, after a long period of time in which the two had not communicated. The prime minister updated his Russian counterpart on the direct talks with the Palestinians that are expected to begin next week, and some of the conversation centered on the arms deal with Syria.

In addition to Syria’s transfer of advanced Russian anti-tank missiles to Hezbollah, Netanyahu also mentioned the incident in which Syrian-acquired Chinese-made C-802 anti-shipping missiles were used by Hezbollah to target an Israeli destroyer. He expressed Israel’s concern that the new missiles from Russia will also make their way to Hezbollah.

The latest arms deal was first reported in the foreign press in late 2009, and is said to include P-800 missiles which now come in models that can be launched from land.

The highly accurate missiles have a maximum range of 300 kilometers and carry a 200-kilogram warhead. The weapon’s unique feature is its ability to cruise several meters above the surface, making it difficult to identify on radar and therefore intercept.

The C-802 missiles currently in the Syrian arsenal have a range of 120 kilometers, carry a smaller warhead and lack the accuracy of the more advanced missiles.

Israel’s defense analysts are concerned that these missiles in the hands of Hezbollah would pose a serious threat to Israel Navy ships operating out of the Haifa port, and possibly also out of Ashdod. – HAARETZ

Canadian Fighter Jets Intercept Russian Bombers
by Hugh Collins
FoxNews.com
August 25, 2010

Canadian fighter jets turned away two Russian bombers that were heading for Canadian airspace, a government spokesman said today.

Two Canadian CF-18s shadowed the Russian bombers that were detected to the north of Canada on Tuesday. The planes flew within 30 nautical miles of Canada’s airspace before the Russians flew away, according to Dimitri Soudas, a spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

This photo shows a Canadian Air Force F-18 Hornet jet, left, escorting a Russian TU-95 Bear heavy bomber out of Canadian airspace, according to U.S. military. Fighter jets similar to the Canadian jet shown were scrambled to intercept two Russian bombers on Tuesday.

“Thanks to the rapid response of the Canadian Forces, at no time did the Russian aircraft enter sovereign Canadian airspace,” Soudas said, according to The Associated Press.

Fighter jets from Canada and the United States have intercepted between 12 and 18 Russian bombers a year since 2007, according to The Calgary Sun.

A similar incident occurred last month when Canadian planes were scrambled to intercept Russian bombers that had entered a zone claimed by Canada but not part of the country’s sovereign airspace.

The encounters heightened a debate over planned defense spending in Canada.

Last month, Defense Minister Peter MacKay said Canada will spend about $9 billion Canadian on 65 new fighter jets, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported.

Lawmakers from the opposition Liberal Party vowed to cancel the purchase if they win control of Parliament.

Harper is on a trip this week to the Arctic region of Canada, which is a potential area of dispute between Canada and Russia because of its vast oil and mineral resources.

MOSCOW – Russia says its security forces have killed Magomedali Vagabov, a top militant thought to have been behind the attacks on the Moscow Metro, which killed 40 people in March.

The Islamist militant suspected of being the mastermind behind two suicide attacks on the Moscow subway in March has been killed during a clash with police in the Caucasus region of Dagestan, according to Russia’s national anti-terror committee.

Magomedali Vagabov, whom Russia describes as the number-two figure after Doku Umarov in the Islamist insurgency that is plaguing the Russian Northern Caucasus, was killed in the city of Gunib in the mountains of Dagestan, along with four other militants.

“Vagabov was the organizer of the suicide bombings on the Moscow Metro, was actively involved in recruiting youth for the underground and organized the training for the suicide bombers,” the committee said in a statement.

String of attacks

On March 29, 40 people were killed and hundreds injured when two suicide bombers blew themselves up in separate subway stations in Moscow.

Vagabov is believed to have been married to one of the bombers, according to Russian media.

Russia says Vagabov had been planning a whole host of attacks against security forces and railway infrastructure.

Russia had targeted Vagabov in previous operations, but had been unable to track him down. The Islamist insurgence in the North Caucasus follows the two wars Russia fought against rebels in Chechnya in the 1990s.

Leader Umarov’s aim is to establish Islamic rule across the Caucasus.

Russia’s Nuclear Help To Iran Stirs Questions About Its ‘Improved’ Relations With U.S.
FoxNews.com
August 14, 2010

The Russians know that Obamao is out to weaken the U.S. as much as he can. And they are more than happy to help him on his way.

Apr. 8: President Obama signs the New START treaty with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the Prague Castle.

Russia’s announcement that it will help Iran get nuclear fuel is raising questions about what President Obama calls the “better-than- ever” relationship between Russia and the U.S. after the two former Cold War adversaries recently signed a nuclear reduction treaty.

Obama also recently declared his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Medvedev, would help the U.S. “secure strong, tough sanctions on Iran.”

But Moscow announced Friday it will start loading fuel into Iran’s first and only nuclear power plant next Saturday, giving Tehran a boost as it struggles with international sanctions and highlighting differences between Moscow and Washington over pressuring the Islamic Republic to give up activities that could be used to make nuclear arms.

Uranium fuel shipped by Russia will be loaded into the Bushehr reactor on August 21, beginning a process that will last about a month and end with the reactor sending electricity to Iranian cities, Russian and Iranian officials said Friday.

While the UN nuclear watchdog and U.S. officials say the Bushehr reactor is not a proliferation risk, Russia’s decision to supply the fuel calls into question why Iran is enriching uranium in the first place.

“It quite clearly I think underscores that Iran does not need its own enrichment capability if its intentions as it states are for a peaceful program,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

If Russia carries out its plan, it will end years of foot-dragging on Bushehr. While Moscow signed a $1 billion contract to build the plant in 1995, its completion has been put off for years.

Delaying the project has given Russia continued influence with Tehran in international attempts to have it stop uranium enrichment — a program Iran says it needs to make fuel for an envisaged reactor network but which also can be used to create fissile warhead material. The delays also have served to placate the U.S., which opposes rewarding Iran while it continues to defy the U.N. Security Council with its nuclear activities.

After Russia said in March that Bushehr would be launched this year, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that until Iran reassures the world it is not trying to build a nuclear weapon, “it would be premature to go ahead with any project at this time.”

Formally, the U.S. has no problem with Bushehr.

Although at first opposed to Russian participation in the project, Washington and its allies agreed to remove any reference to it in the first set of Security Council sanctions passed in 2006 in exchange for Moscow’s support for those penalties. Three subsequent sanctions resolutions also have no mention of Bushehr.

Still, the U.S. sees the Russian move as a false signal to Tehran as Washington strives to isolate Iran politically and economically to force it to compromise on enrichment.

Moscow has cited technical reasons for the delays. But Bushehr has also been an ideal way to gain leverage with both Tehran and Washington.

Delaying the project has given Russia continued influence with Tehran in international attempts to have it stop uranium enrichment — a program Iran says it needs to make fuel for an envisaged reactor network but which also can be used to create fissile warhead material. The delays also have served to placate the U.S., which opposes rewarding Iran while it continues to defy the U.N. Security Council with its nuclear activities.

After Russia said in March that Bushehr would be launched this year, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that until Iran reassures the world it is not trying to build a nuclear weapon, “it would be premature to go ahead with any project at this time.”

Formally, the U.S. has no problem with Bushehr.

Although at first opposed to Russian participation in the project, Washington and its allies agreed to remove any reference to it in the first set of Security Council sanctions passed in 2006 in exchange for Moscow’s support for those penalties. Three subsequent sanctions resolutions also have no mention of Bushehr.

Still, the U.S. sees the Russian move as a false signal to Tehran as Washington strives to isolate Iran politically and economically to force it to compromise on enrichment.

Defending The Nukes As Russia Burns

MOSCOW – Russia fought a deadly battle Tuesday to prevent wildfires from engulfing key nuclear sites as alarm mounted over the impact on health of a toxic smoke cloud shrouded over Moscow.

Two soldiers were killed by blazing trees as they worked to put out a fire dangerously close to Russia’s main nuclear research centre, while workers were also mobilised to fight blazes near a nuclear reprocessing plant.

After almost two weeks of fires that have claimed over 50 lives and even part destroyed a military storage site, the authorities said they were making progress in fighting fires that still covered 174,035 hectares of land

“A positive dynamic in liquidating the wildfires continues to be observed,” said the head of the emergencies ministry’s crisis unit, Vladimir Stepanov.

“The numbers (of emergency workers) have been increased in those regions where there is a difficult situation with the fires,” he added.

The emergencies ministry said that over the last 24 hours, 247 new fires had appeared, more than the 239 that were extinguished, and 557 fires were still raging across the affected region.

Two members of the Russian armed forces were killed Monday fighting wildfires around the major nuclear research centre in Sarov, a town still closed to foreigners as in Soviet times.

Reporting the first death, Interfax news agency said “A burning tree fell on the soldier. He died of cranial trauma on the way to the hospital,” quoting defence ministry spokesman Vasily Panchenkov.

The local crisis unit later confirmed that another serviceman, who usually worked at a local prison camp, was also killed by a burning tree while fighting the fire, Interfax said.

Meanwhile, officials said fires close to the town of Snezhinsk in the Urals and home to one of Russia’s top nuclear research centres had been localised.

The acrid smog from wildfires 100 kilometres (60 miles) out in the countryside that descended over Moscow lightened Tuesday morning but forecasters warned it could return and the air quality was still dangerously poor.

The Moscow authorities acknowledged for the first time on Monday that the daily mortality rate in Moscow had doubled and morgues were overflowing with bodies but the federal government has yet to confirm that statistic.

Carbon monoxide in the Moscow air was 1.4 times higher than acceptable levels Tuesday, the state pollution watchdog said, a slight improvement from the day before. On Saturday they had been an alarming 6.6 times worse.

Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, meeting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for the first time since returning from a much-criticised holiday, said calls to the emergency health services in Moscow had grown by one-fifth.

Luzhkov initially refused to return from holiday, with his aides earning ridicule in the tabloid press by denying there was any crisis in the city.

“You of course did the right thing by coming back from holiday. You did it on time,” Putin said pointedly.

The authorities have rejected criticism that they were poorly prepared for the heatwave, which meteorologists have said is the worst in the 1,000 year history of Russia.

“Even if we had started (preparing for the heatwave and fires) 10 years ago we would not have been able to do anything,” President Dmitry Medvedev said late Monday on a visit to one of the worst affected regions.

Moreover Russia is such a vast country. “Putting out fires in Luxembourg is presumably easier than in Russia,” he remarked.

The heatwave has a huge impact on all areas of Russian society and economists warned Tuesday the record temperatures could have cost the country 15 billion dollars and undercut a modest economic revival.

Worst hit has been the agriculture industry, which has seen 10 million hectares of land destroyed.

Putin, who shocked international markets last week by announcing that Russia was banning grain exports, slashed the grain harvest forecast by another 10 million tonnes.

He also warned the Moscow could even extend the export ban, due to expire on December 31, saying that anyone waiting for that date was doing so “in vain”.

Moscow Death Rate Doubles as Many Flee Heat, Smog

MOSCOW – Moscow’s death rate has doubled, a city health official said today, as a nearly unprecedented heat wave and acrid smog from wildfires grip the capital, causing tens of thousands to flee.

“On normal days, between 360 and 380 die. Now it’s around 700,” Moscow’s health chief, Andrei Seltsovsky, told the Interfax news agency, according to several media reports.

The capital has 1,500 places available in its morgues, and 1,300 of them are now filled, he said, blaming the heat wave and pollutants for the deaths.

Meanwhile, a state of emergency has been declared because of wildfires burning around a major nuclear reprocessing plant in Ozersk, in the southern Urals, according to a statement posted on the district’s website, Agence France-Presse reported.

Residents were told to stay away from the region’s picturesque woodlands until further notice. An explosion at the Mayak plutonium-producing plant there in 1957 (when it was still known as Chelyabinsk) killed hundreds of people and contaminated large areas with radioactive waste.

Russian officials on Friday voiced similar concerns that the fires could stir up contamination from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, but no further word has been issued. At the same time the Defense Ministry ordered missiles moved from a depot outside Moscow.

Soon after Seltsovsky’s announcement, Russian Health Minister Tatyana Golikova said she was “puzzled by the unofficial figures quoted at the briefing” and demanded clarification, the BBC reported.

But as the heat wave continued, the Russian capital was covered for a sixth straight day by smog from nearby peat bog fires, leading more than 104,400 people to flee Moscow by air Sunday, Bloomberg News said. They joined 95,000 people who left Saturday, according to the Federal Air Transportation Agency.

Conditions in the city have reached the point where carbon monoxide and airborne pollutants are at least twice the levels deemed safe.

Today the head of the state weather service, Alexander Frolov, said the heat wave was the worst in 1,000 years of recorded Russian history, with temperatures above 95 degrees forecast for Moscow until Thursday.

A total of 557 wildfires continued to blaze today in Russia, mostly in the west, the emergencies ministry said, 25 of them burning peat bogs, and 10,000 firefighters are backing up soldiers trying to bring the blazes under control. The ministry said the death toll is at least 52.

Public criticism of the government’s response to the fires has been high. Reuters reported that a Moscow doctor wrote on a now-deleted Internet blog Sunday that he was hesitant to diagnose people with heat-related illnesses for fear he would be fired.

The doctor, who was not identified, said the refrigerators at his clinic were full of dead bodies, leaving a “rotting stench.” Further bodies of people who had died from heatstroke and smoke-induced illnesses were piling up in the basement, he said.

VIENNA – The spy swap between the United States and Russia has been successfully carried out, the Justice Department announced Friday.

The switch took place in Vienna, the department said, with the United States transferring 10 Russian agents arrested in the U.S. on June 27 and the release by Russia of four people who had been imprisoned there.

“The exchange of these individuals … has been completed,” said the statement by Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd.

Meanwhile, a Russian news agency said a plane carrying the 10 has landed in Moscow.

British media say the U.S. plane later brought the four Russians convicted of spying for the West to a U.K. military base in southern England.

Earlier at the airport in Vienna, two planes — one from New York’s La Guardia airport and another from Moscow — had arrived within minutes of each other, parked nose-to-tail at a remote section on the tarmac, then spent about an hour and a half before departing just as quickly. A small bus was seen driving between the two planes.

Previous story:

The U.S. and Russia orchestrated the largest spy swap since the end of the Cold War, exchanging 10 spies arrested in the U.S. for four convicted in Russia in a tightly choreographed diplomatic dance Friday at Vienna’s airport.

Two planes — one from New York’s La Guardia airport and another from Moscow — arrived in Vienna within minutes of each other, parked nose-to-tail at a remote section on the tarmac, then spent about an hour and a half before departing just as quickly. A small bus was seen driving between the two planes.

The swap completed, a Russian Emergencies Ministry Yakovlvev Yak-42 plane left Vienna reportedly carrying the 10 people deported from the U.S. Shortly afterward, a maroon-and-white Boeing 767-200 that brought those agents in from New York took off, apparently with four Russians who had confessed to spying for the West.

No information was immediately available as to the planes’ destinations. But the Russian flight was thought to heading for Moscow, while the U.S. charter was likely flying to London.

Igor Sutyagin, an arms control researcher convicted of spying for the United States, had told relatives of the spy swap while still in prison and said he was being sent to Vienna and then London.

Vienna has long been involved in such Cold War-like machinations, the capital of neutral Austria being a preferred place to work on treaties and agreements meant to reduce U.S.-Soviet tensions.

Both countries won admissions of crimes from the subjects of the exchange — guilty pleas in the U.S. and signed confessions in Russia.

In exchange for the 10 Russian agents, the U.S. won freedom for and access to two former Russian intelligence colonels who had been convicted in their home country of compromising dozens of valuable Soviet-era and Russian agents operating in the West. Two others also convicted of betraying Moscow were wrapped into the deal.

One ex-colonel, Alexander Zaporozhsky, may have exposed information leading to the capture of Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames, two of the most damaging spies ever caught in the U.S.

U.S. officials said some of those freed by Russia were ailing, and cited humanitarian concerns in part for arranging the swap in such a hurry. They said no substantial benefit to national security was seen from keeping the captured agents in prison for years.

“This sends a powerful signal to people who cooperate with us that we will stay loyal to you,” said former CIA officer Peter Earnest. “Even if you have been in jail for years, we will not forget you.”

The 10 Russian agents arrested in the U.S. had tried to blend into American suburbia but been under watch for up to a decade by the FBI. Their access to top U.S. national security secrets appeared spotty at best, although the extent of what they knew and passed on is not publicly known.

The lawyer for one of them, Vicky Pelaez, said the Russian government offered her $2,000 a month for life, housing and help with her children — rather than the years behind bars she could have faced in the U.S. if she had not agreed to the deal.

In an elaborate round of dealmaking, U.S. officials met Monday in Russia with the convicted spies and offered them a chance for freedom if they left their homeland. Russian officials in the U.S. held similar meetings with the agents captured by the FBI.

On Thursday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree pardoning the four after officials forced them to sign confessions.

The Kremlin identified the four as Zaporozhsky, Sutyagin, Gennady Vasilenko and Sergei Skripal.

Zaporozhsky, a former colonel in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, sentenced in 2003 to 18 years in prison for espionage on behalf of the United States. He was convicted on charges of passing secret information about Russian agents working undercover in the United States and about American sources working for Russian intelligence.

Skripal, a former colonel in the Russian military intelligence, was found guilty of passing state secrets to Britain and sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2006. He was accused of revealing the names of several dozen Russian agents working in Europe.

Sutyagin, a military analyst, asserts his innocence despite the confession. He worked with the U.S.A. and Canada Institute, a respected Moscow-based think-tank, before being sentenced to 15 years in 2004 on charges of passing information on nuclear submarines and other weapons to a British company that Russia claimed was a CIA cover. Sutyagin says the information he provided was available from open sources.

Gennady Vasilenko, a former KGB officer employed as a security officer by Russia’s NTV television, was sentenced in 2006 to three years in prison on murky charges of illegal weapons possession and resistance to authorities. It was not exactly clear why he was involved in the spy swap.

Deal in Works to Free Alleged Russian Spies, Lawyer Says

The U.S. may soon deport 10 alleged Russian spies and is attempting to “get rid of” their case as quickly as possible, a lawyer for one of the defendants told Fox News, as a prisoner swap agreement appeared to emerge that could free a nuclear researcher incarcerated in Russia on charges of spying for the U.S.

Members of an alleged network of spies for Russia, which was rounded up on June 27 after years of FBI investigations, could plead guilty to lesser charges and face little jail time — or be sent directly home to Russia to avoid a diplomatic dustup, Fox News confirmed.

Genesis Peduto, who represents defendant Juan Lázaro, says she expects to get “papers on the deal” as soon as today. She told Fox News she believes the U.S. government wants to “get rid of this case as soon as possible.”

In Moscow, representatives for a Russian academic convicted in 2004 of spying for the U.S. said he has agreed to be part of a deal to exchange prisoners held in Russia for the suspected spies arrested last month by U.S. authorities, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Dmitry Sutyagin said his brother Igor was told by Russian officials that he would be released and sent to Britain in exchange for an unknown number of spies. The officials met Igor Sutyagin on Monday at a prison in Arkhangelsk, in northwestern Russia, and U.S. officials were at the meeting, his brother said.

Sutyagin, a Russian, said he was made to sign a confession, although he maintains his innocence and does not want to leave Russia, his brother said. After the meeting, Sutyagin was transferred to Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, his brother said.

He was arrested in 1999 and convicted in 2004 on charges of passing information on nuclear submarines and missile-warning systems to a British company that investigators claimed was a CIA cover.

The Russian Foreign Ministry and the Federal Penitentiary Service said they had no comment on the claim and a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy was not immediately available for comment.

Sutyagin denied that he was spying, saying the information he provided was available from open sources. His case was one of several incidents of Russian academics and scientists being targeted by the Federal Security Service and accused of misusing classified information, revealing state secrets or, in some cases, espionage.

The United States last week arrested 10 people in an alleged spy ring that prosecutors say for the last decade has engaged in secret global travel with false passports, secret code words, fake names, invisible ink and encrypted radio. The spies were allegedly trying to obtain information about American business, scientific and political affairs. They have been charged with acting as unregistered foreign agents.

The arrests came just days after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited President Obama during a freewheeling and friendly trip in Washington. Though both the U.S. and Russia said the case would not damage bilateral relations, the arrests clearly nettled the Russian foreign ministry. Plea deals and deportation would speed up the case avoid a public legal battle that could fray nerves and relations in Washington and Moscow.

An 11th suspect was detained in Cyprus last week, but disappeared after being released on bail, triggering a wide manhunt by embarrassed Cypriot authorities.

The U.S. government has opposed the release on bail of any of the defendants, saying they would flee if they had the opportunity. – FOX News

Red-hot beauty snared in Russia ‘espionage’ shock: High-Living NYC Beauty Allegedly Among 11 Working as Russian Moles

NEW YORK – A ring of 11 Russian moles right out of a Cold War spy novel was smashed yesterday — and among those busted was a flame-haired, 007-worthy beauty who flitted from high-profile parties to top-secret meetings around Manhattan.

Russian national Anna Chapman — a 28-year-old divorcee with a masters in economics, an online real-estate business, a fancy Financial District apartment and a Victoria’s Secret body — had been passing information to a Russian government official every Wednesday since January, authorities charged.

In one particularly slick spy exchange on St. Patrick’s Day, Chapman pulled a laptop out of a tote bag in a bookstore at Warren and Greenwich streets in the West Village while her handler lurked outside, receiving her message on his own computer, the feds said. A similar exchange occurred at a Midtown coffee shop at 47th Street and 8th Ave.

The FBI claimed the two were corresponding via a secret online network.

Last week, an undercover agent pretending to be a Russian official arranged a meeting to talk about the weekly laptop exchanges, pretending to be ready to send the sexy spy on a mission to deliver a fake passport to another female agent, according to the federal complaint.

“Are you ready for this step?” he asked. “S¤-¤-¤-, yes,” Chapman allegedly gushed.

The undercover instructed her on how she would recognize her fellow spy and how to report back on the handoff, the feds said.

“Haven’t we met in California last summer?” the spy expecting the fake passport was supposed to say. Chapman was to respond, “No, I think it was the Hamptons,” according to the FBI.

Chapman allegedly was also supposed to hold a magazine under her arm so her counterpart would recognize her, and plant a stamp on a wall map indicate the handoff was a success.

It never took place.

Another spy-movie-like maneuver took place in Brooklyn shortly after the meeting with the undercover agent when Chapman darted into a Verizon phone store to buy a cell using the name Irine Kutsov, and an address of “99 Fake Street,” the feds said. She only planned to use the phone to “avoid detection of her conversations,” the FBI alleged.

At her arraignment last night, she was held without bail as federal prosecutor Michael Farbiarz called her a “highly trained agent” and a “practiced deceiver.”

The other suspects, including four middle-aged couples living seemingly ordinary professional lives, were supplied with bogus names and documents and told by Moscow to become “Americanized,” infiltrate “policymaking circles” in the United States and send secrets back to the Kremlin, the feds said.

All allegedly were on deep-cover assignments and schooled in spying tradecraft — from using high-tech methods like digital gadgets to traditional methods like invisible ink, sending encoded radio bursts of data and using innocent-looking “brush-by” encounters to pass documents.

Among the extraordinary allegations detailed in documents filed in Manhattan federal court yesterday:

* A senior Russian spy who used the name Christopher Metsos served as a go-between for agents across the country. He buried cash under five inches of dirt in upstate Wurtsboro that was dug up two years later by a Yonkers couple who were members of the ring. He was arrested this morning trying to board a plane in Cyprus.

* Metsos turned over an orange bag of cash to a Russian government official in May 2004 when they passed one another on a stairway at the Forest Hills, Queens, LIRR stop.

Other handovers and meetings between spies occurred in a Fort Greene, Brooklyn, coffee shop, a Sunnyside, Queens, restaurant and a subway entrance at Columbus Circle, the feds said.

* In May 2006, spies based in Boston gave their handlers information about changes at the CIA and about the 2008 presidential election. The information came from a well-connected “former legislative counsel for the US Congress,” they told Moscow.

* The Boston spies also boasted in 2004 that one of their agents had talks with a US nuclear expert about research on bunker-buster warheads.

* A spy in Montclair, NJ, who used the name Cynthia Murphy, told Moscow in February 2009 that she had “several work-related personal meetings” with a prominent New York financier, who was a big campaign fund-raiser and friend of a former Cabinet member.

“Of course, he is a very interesting target,” Moscow replied.

* Her husband, who used the name Richard Murphy, was told last January how he would be able to identify another spy when he traveled to Rome to get a bogus Irish passport.

“Excuse me, could we have met in Malta in 1999?” he was told to ask.

If the contact was legitimate, he would reply, “Yes, indeed I was in La Valetta, but in 2000.”

But if his contact was carrying a copy of Time magazine in his left hand, it was a signal that the meeting was in danger, according to the instructions from Moscow.

“You were sent to USA for long-term service trip,” one message said. “Your education, bank accounts, car, house etc. — all these serve one goal: fulfill your main mission, i.e. to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in US and [send] intels.”

The court documents also reveal day-to-day travails of the spy business.

Last March, two of the suspects were watched as they met at a payphone at DeKalb and Vanderbilt avenues in Brooklyn. They went from there to a coffee house for a long chat. One alleged agent complained about the computer Moscow had given him.

“They don’t understand what we go through over here,” he kvetched.

Before they left, one spy gave the other a package believed to contain cash, the feds said.

Moscow Center, the infamous headquarters of Russian intelligence going back decades, closely monitored how much it was spending. In one message, it listed all the expenses for two Boston spies, including $8,500 for rent, $160 for telephone and $180 for a car lease.

The Yonkers spies, meanwhile, struggled financially, and after one of them flew to an unidentified South American country to collect eight bags each packed with $10,000, he used some of it to pay off nearly $8,000 in back taxes to the country and city, the FBI said.

Neighbors of the suspects were stunned.

The two Montclair “Murphys” moved to the neighborhood about a year ago and were described by one neighbor as very normal. “They were suburbia personified,” he said. Near the crowded, book-filled Yonkers home of suspect Vicky Pelaez — an op-ed columnist for El Diario — and another defendant, Juan Lazaro, neighbors were stunned.

One, Ellen Shaffren, said that the couple had lived there 12 to 15 years and that one of their two sons is a piano prodigy.

Shaffren said Lazaro was an economics professor.

Two other defendants, Michael Zottoli and Patricia Mills, were arrested at their residence in Arlington, Va.

Mikhail Semenko, was busted Sunday at his home in Arlington.

Donald Howard Heathfield and Tracey Lee Ann Foley, were arrested at their Boston residence Sunday.

Outside their home near Harvard Square, local residents said the couple never quite fit in the offbeat neighborhood.

“There was no interaction,” said neighbor Lila Hexner. “Everything was very nondescript.”

Metsos, who apparently was able to enter the United States repeatedly over several year, is not in custody.

Each of the 10 arrested was charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison on conviction.

Nine were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum 20 years in prison.

MOSCOW — Russia wants the ruble to be one of the world’s reserve currencies as President Dmitry Medvedev renews his push to reduce the dollar’s dominance and make Moscow a global financial hub.

“Only three, five years ago it seemed like a fantasy” to create a new reserve currency, Medvedev said yesterday in a speech in St. Petersburg, Russia. “Now we are seriously discussing it.”

Medvedev, who has repeatedly called for a supranational currency to match the dollar, said discussions with China are continuing on broadening the global options. Russia sold U.S. Treasuries for a fifth consecutive month in April, the U.S. Treasury Department said June 15. The world may need as many as six reserve currencies, Medvedev said.

“It’s something that’s obviously needed,” he said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. “Developing a financial center in Moscow will considerably help to strengthen the ruble’s position as one of the reserve currencies.”

Medvedev’s comments underline Russia’s ambition to reassert its global power following the financial crisis. Gross domestic product shrank 7.9 percent last year, the worst contraction since the fall of communism in 1991, after the credit crunch sent commodity prices plunging.

If a country wants to alter the world economic order, including the number of reserve currencies, it must become an international financial center, Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer said in an interview yesterday.

‘Don’t Emerge by Fiat’

“For a currency to be a reserve currency, you have to have capital markets in which you can sell it and buy it very easily,” Fischer said. “New reserve currencies don’t emerge by fiat. They emerge as countries change.”

Medvedev said he envisages a new economic hierarchy allowing emerging-market giants such as Russia and China to drive the global agenda as the world emerges from the first global recession since the 1930s.

“We really live at a unique time, and we should use it to build a modern, prosperous and stron Russia, a Russia that will be a co-founder of the new world economic order,” he said.

The BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — were net sellers of U.S. assets in April, driven mainly by Russian divestments, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. Senior Currency Strategist Win Thin said in a June 15 note.

Russia may add the Australian and Canadian dollars to its international reserves as the central bank diversifies the world’s third-largest stockpile away from the greenback, central bank First Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev said in a June 16 interview.

Though Russia is “very carefully monitoring what’s happening in the euro zone,” the emergence of the euro as a currency to rival the dollar’s dominance helped soften the impact of the global crisis, Medvedev said.

“If the world depended completely on the dollar, the situation would have been more difficult,” Medvedev said.

FT: Medvedev sees chance for new world order

Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, said Moscow was bidding to help lead efforts to build a new world economic order after the old system collapsed in the global financial crisis.

Opening Russia’s annual economic forum in St Petersburg where hundreds of global chief executives have flocked, Mr Medvedev said the renewed interest in Russia this year was a sign of a changing world in which the institutions of the western-dominated world order had had their day amid thousands of corporate defaults and the threat of sovereign defaults.

“What had seemed untouchable has collapsed. The bubbles that created the illusion of flourishing economies have burst,” Mr Medvedev said. “For Russia this situation is a challenge and an opportunity. We are living in a unique time. And we should use it to build a modern, flourishing and strong Russia … which will be a co-founder of the new world economic order and a full participant in the collective political leadership of the post-crisis world.”

Mr Medvedev insisted “Russia has changed” in the past year as it sought to pursue a course of “smart politics” that would leverage its competitive advantages in the raw materials sector, while shifting emphasis towards modernising the economy and focusing on boosting innovation over resources.

Acknowledging that the country still had a great deal to do to meet these aims, Mr Medvedev laid out a series of new initiatives that aim to boost its attractiveness as an investment destination. “Russia needs a real investment boom”, in order to achieve its modernisation goals, he said. To stimulate that, Mr Medvedev announced Moscow would introduce zero taxation on capital gains for companies working on long-term investments starting from January next year and said Russia was improving the legal system to provide better protection for businesses against the long arm of bureaucracy.

He added Russia had already simplified migration procedures to help attract “highly-qualified specialists” working in investment and high-tech sectors into the country.

Responding to criticism that Russia’s approach to building an innovation economy was driven from the top down and state interference could hinder development, Mr Medvedev said the state would concentrate its efforts on fostering a good business climate. “No matter how many state-owned companies we have, modernization will happen, above all, through private business. And only if there is competition,” he said. “The state should not tear down the apples from the tree of economics. What the government should do is help grow our apple orchard, develop our economic environment.”

Mr Medvedev said he was cutting the list of strategic enterprises five fold in order to reduce the role of the state in the economy and foster more private initiatives.

Kyrgyzstan asks for Russian troops to halt ethnic rioting; City of Osh in flames, Uzbeks flee
June 12, 2010
FoxNews.com (AP)

OSH, Kyrgyzstan (AP) — Kyrgyzstan begged Russia for military help Saturday to quell ethnic rioting as the country’s second largest city burned and thousands of minority Uzbeks fled to the border. More than 60 people were reported killed and nearly 850 wounded in the violence.

Interim President Roza Otunbayeva acknowledged that her government has lost control over the south as its main city of Osh slid further into chaos. Her government sent troops and armor into the city of 250,000, but they have failed to stop the rampage.

Much of central Osh was on fire Saturday, and the sky was black with smoke. Gangs of young Kyrgyz men armed with firearms and metal bars marched on minority Uzbek neighborhoods and set homes on fire. Stores were looted and the city was running out of food.

Thousands of terrified ethnic Uzbeks were rushing toward the nearby border with Uzbekistan. An Associated Press reporter at the border saw the bodies of children killed in the panicky stampede.

“The situation in the Osh region has spun out of control,” Otunbayeva told reporters. “Attempts to establish a dialogue have failed and fighting and rampages are continuing. We need outside forces to quell confrontation.”

The unrest is the worst violence since former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was toppled in a bloody uprising in April and fled the country. It comes as a crucial test of the interim government’s ability to control the country, hold a June 27 vote on a new constitution and go ahead with new parliamentary elections scheduled for October.

Otunbayeva on Saturday blamed Bakiyev’s family for instigating the unrest in Osh, saying they aimed to derail the constitutional referendum.

There was no immediate response from Moscow to Otunbayeva’s plea for help, even though she wrote to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and talked on the phone with Russia’s powerful Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Yet Russia dominates a security pact of several ex-Soviet nations that includes Kyrgyzstan. Both its obligations under the Collective Security Treaty Organization and its strategic interests in the impoverish Central Asian nation suggest it will be open to Otunbayeva’s call for help.

Kyrgyzstan hosts both U.S. and Russian military air bases, but they are in the north. Russia has about 500 troops there, mostly air force personnel, and would have to send more in. The United States has the Manas air base in the capital of Bishkek that is a crucial supply hub for the coalition fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan but it was not known if interim government had asked for any U.S. military help.

Ethnic tensions have long simmered in the Ferghana Valley, split by whimsically carved borders between Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan draw up on Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s orders. In 1990, hundreds were killed in a violent land dispute between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in Osh, and only the quick deployment of Soviet troops quelled the fighting.

The official toll rose Saturday to least 63 people dead and 835 wounded, the Health Ministry said. The real figures may be much higher, because doctors and human rights workers said ethnic Uzbeks were too afraid to seek hospital treatment.

At a hospital in the Nariman district, near Osh airport, an AP photographer saw the bodies of ten people killed in fighting, and a health worker said a pregnant woman also died after being unsuccessfully treated for gunshot wounds.

In mainly Uzbek areas on the edge of Osh, residents painted the letters “SOS” on the road in a futile bid for help.

Otunbayeva said there were food shortages in Osh after virtually all stores were looted or shut. A state of emergency was declared around Osh and the government sent armored vehicles, troops and helicopters to pacify fighting that erupted late Thursday. Fighting quieted down Friday night but resumed with new strength Saturday.

“Young men in white masks are marauding and stealing from the remaining stores, offices and houses, and then setting them on fire,” said Bakyt Omorkulov, a member of the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society, a non-governmental organization.

Omorkulov said ethnic Uzbeks called to say their houses were on fire and they were terrified. “They called us and were sobbing into the phone, but what can we do?” Omorkulov said.

From the Osh airport, where hundreds of arriving passengers were stranded, fire from heavy machine guns and automatic weapons was heard as troops tried to gain control of roads into the city.

Omurbek Suvanaliyev, a leader of the Ata-Zhurt political party that tried to organize local militia, said the warring parties even used armored vehicles in fighting.

“It’s a real war,” he said. “Everything is burning, and bodies are lying on the streets.”

Police and residents said young Kyrgyz men with metal bars and guns were streaming into Osh by road from other parts of the country and marching toward Uzbek neighborhoods.

At one border crossing, a crowd of refugees, mostly women and children, fashioned improvised flimsy bridges out of planks and ladders to traverse the ditches marking the border.

Additional reinforcements were arriving at the Osh airport, including 100 elite police officers from Bishkek. “Our task is to restore the constitutional order,” said the group’s leader Nur Mambetaliyev.

Saralayeva reported from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. AP Writer Vladimir Isachenkov also contributed to this story from Moscow.

April 10, 2010
Plane Polish President Was On Crashed Before
(AP) FoxNews.com

Recent fatal plane crashes involved the Soviet-built Tupolev-154.

— April 10, 2010: The Polish presidential plane crashes on approach to Smolensk airport, Russia, killing all on board.

— July 15, 2009: A Caspian Airlines Tu-154 flying from Iran to Armenia nosedives into a field, killing 168 people.

— Sept. 1, 2006: A Tu-154 jetliner operated by Iran Airtour skids off the runway and catches fire while landing in the northern city of Mashad, Iran, killing 80 of 147 passengers.

— Aug. 22, 2006: A Tu-154 of Russia’s Pulkovo Airlines with about 170 people aboard crashes during a thunderstorm in Ukraine en route from a Black Sea resort to St. Petersburg, killing all aboard.

— Aug. 24, 2004: A Tu-154 operated by Sibir Airlines crashes en route from Moscow to the Black Sea resort of Sochi, killing all 46 people aboard. The crash was later determined to be caused by explosives brought on board by a Chechen suicide bomber.

— July 1, 2002: A Bashkirian Airlines Tu-154 flying to Barcelona, Spain, from Ufa, Russia, collides with a cargo plane over Germany, killing 71, including 52 children.

— Feb. 12, 2002: A Tu-154 airliner operated by Iran Airtour carrying 119 people smashed into snow-covered mountains near its destination of Khorramabad, 230 miles southwest of Tehran, killing all aboard.

— Oct. 4, 2001: A Sibir Airlines Tu-154 flying from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Novosibirsk, Russia, explodes and plunges into the Black Sea, killing 78 people, most of them Israeli citizens. It was later determined the plane was hit by a Ukrainian missile during military training exercises.

— July 3, 2001: A Tu-154 operated by the Vladivostokavia airline en route from Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains to Vladivostok crashes in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, killing all 145 on board.

— Feb. 24, 1999: A China Southwest Airlines Tu-154 flying from Chengdu crashes on approach to Wenzhou, 800 miles southeast of Beijing, killing all 61 people aboard.

— Aug. 29, 1998: A Cubana Tu-154 flight from Quito to Havana crashes just after takeoff, killing 79 people, including 10 on the ground when the plane plowed into a soccer field.

— Dec. 15, 1997: A Tajikistan Airlines Tu-154 crashes in the United Arab Emirates, killing 85 passengers and crew.

— Aug. 29, 1996: A Vnukovo Airlines Tu-154 passenger plane carrying Russian and Ukrainian miners and their families from Moscow to Norway crashes into a mountain, killing all 141 on board.

— Dec. 7, 1995: A Tu-154 operated by Aeroflot Khabarovsk Airlines with 97 people on board disappeared flying to the far eastern Russian city of Khabarovsk. The remains were found 11 days later by a helicopter pilot in mountains near the Pacific coast.

— June 6, 1994: A China Northwest Airlines Tu-154 bound for Guangzhou crashes minutes after takeoff from Xian, a tourist city in northern China, killing all 160 people aboard.

— Jan. 3, 1994: All 124 people aboard a Moscow-bound Baikal Airlines Tu-154 are killed when it crashes into a snowy field near the town of Irkutsk. A farmer on the ground was also killed.

March 29, 2010
Homicide Bombers Kill 35 On Moscow Subway
(AP)

Moscow officials said two female homicide bombers blew themselves up on the city subway system.

Mar. 29: Emergency Ministry officers and firefighters carry a body from Lubyanka metro station in downtown Moscow.

MOSCOW — Two female homicide bombers blew themselves up on Moscow’s subway system as it was jam-packed with rush-hour passengers Monday, killing at least 35 people and wounding 38, the city’s mayor and other officials said.

Emergency Ministry spokeswoman Svetlana Chumikova said 23 people were killed in an explosion shortly before 8 a.m. at the Lubyanka station in central Moscow. The station is underneath the building that houses the main offices of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the KGB’s main successor agency.

A second explosion hit the Park Kultury station about 45 minutes later. Chumikova said at least 12 were dead there. The ministry later said 38 people were injured.

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said both explosions were believed to have been set off on the trains.

“The first data that the FSB has given us is that there were two female suicide bombers,” Luzhkov told reporters at the Park Kultury site.

The blasts practically paralyzed movement in the city center as emergency vehicles sped to the stations.

In the Park Kultury blast, the bomber was wearing a belt packed with plastic explosive and set it off as the train’s doors opened, said Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for Russia’s top investigative body. The woman has not been identified, he told reporters.

The last confirmed terrorist attack in Moscow was in August 2004, when a homicide bomber blew herself up outside a city subway station, killing 10 people.

Responsibility for that blast was claimed by Chechen rebels and suspicion in Monday’s explosions is likely to focus on them and other separatist groups in the restive North Caucasus region.

In February, Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov warned in an interview on a rebel-affiliated Website that “the zone of military operations will be extended to the territory of Russia … the war is coming to their cities.”

Umarov also claimed his fighters were responsible for the November bombing of the Nevsky Express passenger train that killed 26 people en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

The Moscow subway system is one of the world’s busiest, carrying around 7 million passengers on an average workday, and is a key element in running the sprawling and traffic-choked city.

Helicopters hovered over the Park Kultury station area, which is near the renowned Gorky Park.

Passengers, many of them in tears, streamed out of the station, one man exclaiming over and over “This is how we live!”

Editorial: The Russians are coming – to drill in our own backyard

The Obama administration is poised to ban offshore oil drilling on the outer continental shelf until 2012 or beyond. Meanwhile, Russia is making a bold strategic leap to begin drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. While the United States attempts to shift gears to alternative fuels to battle the purported evils of carbon emissions, Russia will erect oil derricks off the Cuban coast.

Offshore oil production makes economic sense. It creates jobs and helps fulfill America’s vast energy needs. It contributes to the gross domestic product and does not increase the trade deficit. Higher oil supply helps keep a lid on rising prices, and greater American production gives the United States more influence over the global market.

Drilling is also wildly popular with the public. A Pew Research Center poll from February showed 63 percent support for offshore drilling for oil and natural gas. Americans understand the fundamental points: The oil is there, and we need it. If we don’t drill it out, we have to buy it from other countries. Last year, the U.S. government even helped Brazil underwrite offshore drilling in the Tupi oil field near Rio de Janeiro. The current price of oil makes drilling economically feasible, so why not let the private sector go ahead and get our oil?

The Obama administration, however, views energy policy through green eyeshades. Every aspect of its approach to energy is subordinated to radical environmental concerns. This unprecedented lack of balance is placing offshore oil resources off-limits. The O Force would prefer the country shift its energy production to alternative sources, such as nuclear, solar and wind power. In theory, there’s nothing wrong with that, in the long run, assuming technology can catch up to demand. But we have not yet reached the green utopia, we won’t get there anytime soon, and America needs more oil now.

Russia more sensibly views energy primarily as a strategic resource. Energy is critical to Russia’s economy, as fuel and as a source of profit through export. Russia also has used energy as a coercive diplomatic tool, shutting off natural gas piped to Eastern Europe in the middle of winter to make a point about how dependent the countries are that do business with the Russians.

Now Russia is using oil exploration to establish a new presence in the Western Hemisphere. It recently concluded four contracts securing oil-exploration rights in Cuba’s economic zone in the Gulf of Mexico. A Russian-Cuban joint partnership will exploit oil found in the deep waters of the Gulf.

[Read more...]

The Foundry-Protect America
The Heritage Foundation
On Nukes, Obama is Playing Right into Putin’s Hands
December 30th, 2009

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has made it clear that he plans for Russia to respond to the fielding of missile defense systems by the United States by modernizing Russia’s nuclear force in order to overcome the defense.

This is not surprising because Russian officials have been stating for some time that they plan to seek offensive nuclear capabilities to counter U.S. non-nuclear defenses and have been actively pursuing a nuclear modernization program. The Russian offensive nuclear response to the U.S. non-nuclear defensive program is grounded in Prime Minister Putin’s view that an adversarial relationship between the U.S. and Russia is appropriate and should be pursued on the basis of Russia having both the right and the capability to annihilate the U.S. with nuclear weapons.

While President Obama should respond to Putin with a long-term and energetic diplomatic campaign to convince Russia that the better alternative is a non-adversarial relationship with the U.S. that is reflected in defensive strategic postures on both sides, he is showing no inclination to pursue this course. Rather, he seems committed to a course that permits the early achievement of an arms control treaty with Russia that codifies the adversarial relationship with Russia that Prime Minister Putin is seeking.

In a bizarre twist for a President that wants to “reset” relations with Russia and seeks a world without nuclear weapons, Russia’s Prime Minister is stating that he wants Russia to posture its strategic forces to threaten the U.S. with nuclear attack and the President is responding with, “I am okay with that.”
Author: Baker Spring