Prokhorov angry about billboards

The dirty tricks of regional authorities have made Mikhail Prokhorov, Russian oligarch the newly promoted leader of fringe party Pravoye Delo, frown.

“It’s dementia and weakness!” he told journalists at a press-conference, Kommersant reported. “We’ll explain the laws to those governors who don’t know them.”

Over 400 Pravoye Delo adverts have been taken down in 13 Russian regions, according to the party, and it plans to set up a special website detailing every electoral violation against it.

The businessman plans to start his pre-election tour around the country in September.

Russia retaliates in 'Magnitsky list' row

The row over the Magnitsky list has moved onto the next stage as Russian officials announce they have a black list of American officials.

The ministry of foreign affairs has declined to reveal who is on it but unidentified officials said that those involved in the cases of Viktor Bout, convicted for gun running, and Konstantin Yaroshenko, for drugs smuggling, feature prominently.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Kommersant that a draft blacklist of US officials was being discussed, which included “people linked to problems in Russian-US relations, including those on humanitarian tracks.”

But some in the Duma question the behavior of both the Russian and American sides in the row over the death in custody of the lawyer.

Moscow maintains that Washington seriously violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963 when they arrested Yaroshenko on the territory of a third country, Liberia, and then secretly took him back to the States.

Viktor Bout was portrayed as an international arms dealer and member of a conspiracy before a Thai court had pronounced his verdict. This piece of slander was in contravention of his human rights, they say.

Likely contenders for the Russian black list are drug enforcement officers Derek Odny, Scott Hacker and Robert Zahariasievich.

“They bugged Viktor Bout and arrested him without any permission for either wiretaps or arrest. Most of all, they tried to take him from Thailand without going through the extradition process, as if he were a piece of luggage,” Viktor Burobin, one of Bout’s lawyers, told Kommersant.

“And if we talk of interstate relations and international rights in the broadest sense then our claim is that a person who has not committed any crime on the territory of the US or in relation to [American] citizens or property, cannot be tried in that country,” Burobin said.

They view Yaroshenko’s arrest in a similar light. “Our claims against the US are considerably broader and are not limited to the cases of Bout or Yaroshenko. There is a whole raft of cases concerning violations of Russian citizens,” a ministry source said.

Leonid Kalashnikov of the Communist party and first deputy head of the Duma International Affairs Committee derided the Russian response as an empty “caricature”.

“The ministry of foreign affairs can, of course, draw up its own list. But I doubt that they will find American officials who are trying to get into Russia, who educate their children there or keep their money in Russian banks,” he told Kommersant.

And he advised the Americans to redirect their efforts onto more useful causes, “if they really want to say something about human rights they ought not to deal with [Magnitsky’s old boss William] Browder but, for example, elections in Russia.

“Especially in the run up to the important electoral campaigns of this year and next. Everyone knows that violations are perpetrated over here. Now establishing which governors and officials are guilty of that, that is what I would have welcomed,” he said.

High-flying record

Russia skydivers broke the national record for the largest connected free-fall formation when 186 people joined in the air.

The team of a training centre in Kolomna, a town 100 kilometers south-east of Moscow, beat the previous record of 180.

“On August 11, the efforts of the parachutists bore fruit. An aerial video showed that they were successful in making the 186-man formation,” Aerograd Kolomna head Roman Lezhnev told reporters on Friday.

The team jumped out of 10 planes at a height of 6,500 meters.

Medvedev backs Libya sanctions

President Dmitry Medvedev gave his backing to a UN Security Council resolution which authorized international military action in Libya.

In a decree posted on the Kremlin’s website on Friday, Medvedev banned all Libyan flights in Russian air space with the exception of humanitarian flights and authorized searches of ships for weapons or military personnel.

The decree also bans all financial operations involving the assets of Gaddafi and members of his family and his aides.

Russian President Medvedev meets with journalists

The Kremlin drove 800 journalists to President Dmitry Medvedev's showplace business school outside Moscow on Wednesday for the first major news conference of his presidency, an all-day logistical endeavor that led to high expectations for a big announcement.

Medvedev, however, used his 2 hours 15 minutes with Russian and foreign journalists to tell them he has not yet decided whether to run for another term as president, assure them that he and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin think very much alike, and suggest that the New START nuclear treaty with the United States could fall apart if Russia perceives that the proposed missile defense system in Europe is aimed at Russia, despite U.S. assurances to the contrary, according to the Washington Post..

Russia will boost its strike nuclear capabilities if NATO refuses to cooperate with Moscow in the European missile defense project, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday.

"I hope that they [NATO] would respond to the questions put forward by President Barack Obama and me, and we will be able to forge a missile defense cooperation model. If we don't, then we will have to take retaliatory measures... then we will have to force the development of our strike nuclear potential," Medvedev said,

Russia creates new mega-powerful ballistic missile

Russia's Defense Ministry reported about the progress in the domestic missile industry. First and foremost, the first missile regiment has been rearmed completely with state-of-the-art Yars mobile missile systems. Secondly, Russian engineers have developed Liner sea-based strategic missile. The new missile is said to be twice as more powerful as the Bulava missile, which had a number of failures during test-launches.

Officials from the ministry said that the first missile regiment armed with latest Yars missile complexes was on full duty. The complexes are equipped with RS-24 thermonuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles. The missile was developed by engineers of the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology under the guidance of academician Yuri Solomonov. The missile has been created with the use of technological solutions used in Topol-M systems, which significantly shortened the terms and costs of the production.

The new missile will strengthen the combat capacity of Russian missile troops, as well as the nuclear deterrence potential of Russian strategic nuclear forces. The RS-24 missile will replace the outdated RS-18 and RS-20 ballistic missiles as their service terms are drawing to an end. In the future, Yars and Topol-M missile systems will make the basis of the strike force of Russian missile troops.

The missiles are capable of breaking through any air defense system during the upcoming 15-20 years, Sergei Karakayev, the commander of the Russian missile troops said. This remark is especially important against the background of the current dispute between Moscow and Washington regarding the creation of the missile defense system in Europe.

The sea-based Liner strategic missile, the tests of which started successfully with the launch on May 20, is capable of carrying from nine to twelve warheads. Thus, Liner is more powerful than Bukva, specialists of Makeyev's State Missile Center said.

The Bukava missile can carry only six low power class warheads, whereas the Liner is capable of carrying 1.5-2 times more. Engineers also said that the Liner missile can be equipped with warheads of different power classes.

The Liner missile surpasses all modern solid-fuel strategic missiles of Britain, China, Russia, the USA and France. The military equipment of the missile (four medium power class warheads) is comparable to the US Trident-2 (also four warheads).

Sineva and Liner complexes will guarantee the existence of the group of 667BDRM project submarines for 35-40 years, i.e. till 2025-2030.

It is worthy of note that Russia's Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov approved the start of the serial production of Bulava missiles in the beginning of July. The missiles are to be deployed on board submarines. The Yuri Dolgoruky sub performed a successful launch of the Bulava missile at the end of June. The Bulava will make the basis of the perspective group of strategic nuclear forces of Russia before 2040-2045.

British riots in Russia absolutely impossible

The pogroms in Britain have proved it again that the European ideology of multiculturalism has gone down in flames. This problem is not a threat to Russia at all, but we can also come to certain conclusions after what happened in England.

The things that have been happening recently in British cities, are referred to as youth riots in the media. Let's call a spade a spade, though. The pogroms in Britain were indeed arranged by young people. However, it is enough to look close at the footage of TV reports to see that it is not just young people that went on rampage in British cities. The rioters are non-white young people. They represent the non-native part of the British population. Hundreds of young yobs from the outskirts do not set out any political or social requirements. They simply loot shops and cafes.

This is not a form of protest. This is just a rebellion. It turns out that the British riots, just like the Russian ones, are pointless and brutal. In 2005, the world could see the same in the streets of Paris.

One should not draw any comparisons with the events in the Arab states - these are completely different things. Any comparisons with the Moscow riots on Manezhnaya Square are not appropriate either. Read further to find out why.

There must be some reasons for such massive public disorders. Hundreds of people do not smash shops and torch buildings out of the blue. It turns out that they do and they do not need any visible reasons for that.

Any references to the social motive in the British events are groundless. Unlike Germany and Sweden, Britain can not be called a socialist country. Britain is all about pure capitalism. Nevertheless, social guarantees in Britain are rather strong. One would not say that poor people live in clover there, but no one will let them die from hunger - that's for sure. The fact that the rioters do not set forth any social requirements confirms that the riots are not based on social reasons.

What is the reason then? The killing of a non-native British young man in London was the flashpoint, but not the reason.

The reason is about the crisis of the so-called multiculturalism - the ideology that propagates peaceful co-existence of the people of different mindsets. To put it in a nutshell, the point of the ideology is as follows. You live in our country, you pay taxes and obey the laws, but as for the rest, you can do the things that you are used to doing. You can wear a burqa on your passport photo, you can call people to prayers through loudspeakers on minarets at 5 a.m., ask butchers not to sell pork in their meat shops because the sight of pork insults your religious feelings, etc.

All of the above-mentioned examples are absolutely real. As a result, the "new Europeans" continue to live the way they lived in their native lands. The native people, who want to live in England an France, rather than in Pakistani England or Algerian France, have to move to "white neighborhoods." Several towns in Britain are already populated by Pakistani nationals only. If you find yourself in such a town, you will not believe that you are staying in the good old England.

It goes without saying that the native Britons may not have good feelings about all that. Immigrants respond with similar sentiments, and violence sparks. The pogroms are pointless because they do not have any objective. At the same time, they are strong and violent because they are based on the perceived or unperceived sense of inferiority.

The crisis of multiculturalism exists in practically all European countries. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for example, made a public statement in which she acknowledged that this problem was very serious in Germany too. Nicolas Sarkozy came to power in France because he promised the French to deal with the problem of immigration seriously.

Nationalist sentiments in the tolerant Europe have been rising steadily during the recent years. The blood-chilling terrorist attacks in Norway is a very bright example to prove it.

One may not doubt about the fact that the Europeans will be strong enough to solve their problems themselves. For us, it is more important to realize whether such things can happen in Russia. One can be absolutely certain to say: it is impossible. The reason why is simple: just like in the USA, multiculturalism has never existed in Russia.

Russia has a completely different ideology that has nothing to do with multiculturalism. The Russian ideology is like a melting pot, which creates one single nation that shares more or less common mindset. Russia has problems with natives of the Caucasus just like America has problems with black individuals. However, the category "Russian citizen" is much more relevant than categories "Russian", "Tatar" or "Yakut". The mindset of Russians, Tatars, Yakuts, Udmurts, and the majority of other peoples of Russia has become Russian during hundreds of years of co-existence. This is a huge advantage of Russia as a huge country. Those people who call themselves patriots and chant slogans "Russia for Russians" look ridiculous. There is nothing more non-patriotic than this slogan. If Russia follows this slogan, the country will collapse.

It is worthy of note that the mindset of Uzbeks or Tajiks is of course different than the Russian mindset. However, it is based on the same grounds anyway, thanks to the Soviet Union.

In Russia, no one hurries to grant Russian citizenship to the guests from former Soviet republics. This is another aspect that differs Russia from Europe, where the white population is already the minority in many cities. This detail excludes Uzbek or Tajik riots in Russia: they realize that they will be deported from the country instantly. This has already happened to taxi cab drivers from Central Asia, who arranged a massive fight in Moscow.

What about Manezhnaya Square? This is a completely different story. There were young people rioting on the square too, and the riot had nationalist motives. However, the most important thing that differs the events in Moscow from the riots in France and Britain is that there was the majority, not the minority that went on rampage near the Kremlin walls. This does not justify the rioters, of course, but it makes it all a completely different problem. It also proves that a national riot of non-native minorities in Russia is impossible.