Russia

Russian treason bill could target Kremlin critics
By David Nowak | Yahoo!News.com

Under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, people who fraternized with foreigners or criticized the Kremlin were "enemies of the people" and sent to the gulag. Now there's new legislation backed by Vladimir Putin's government that human rights activists say could throw Russia back to the days of the Great Terror.

The legislation, outspoken government critic and rights activist Lev Ponomaryov charged Wednesday, creates "a base for a totalitarian state."

Russia says US mercenaries, others fought for Georgia | Alternet.org

Russia has evidence that citizens from NATO member states including the United States and Turkey fought for Georgia in the five-day August war, Russia's top investigator said on Monday.

A senior security official in Tbilisi dismissed the statement and said by law only Georgian nationals could serve in the country's armed forces.

Asked to list the nationalities of the foreign fighters it believes were involved, Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Prosecutor-General's investigative committee said: "America, the Czech Republic, Chechnya, the Baltic States, Ukraine and Turkey."

"It was a fairly small number of people. They mainly fulfilled support roles", Bastrykin told reporters in Russia's second city of St Petersburg.

Russia's Medvedev calls for talks with Obama, says US and Russia could be partners
By Lynn Berry | ABCNews.com

Medvedev said his Nov. 5 speech — his first state of the nation address — was not "blackmail" intended to pressure the new president-elect. He had postponed the address twice, which he said Saturday was because he was unhappy with the material that had been prepared. When he finally set the date, he said he forgot about the U.S. election. "It was nothing personal," he said.

The Dmitry Medvedev that made his first appearance in the U.S. capital as Russia's president was not the same man Russians usually see at home.

He was confident, even charming, in reaching out Saturday in a spirit of cooperation to the incoming administration of Barack Obama.

Russia builds ties in United States' backyard
By Chris Kraul | LA Times

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev plans to travel this month to Venezuela, Brazil and Cuba to strengthen regional ties, a tour that underscores a foreign policy challenge close to home that awaits the Obama administration.

Medvedev's visit to Venezuela comes as Russia and the Latin American nation strengthen their economic and military relationship. In July, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a strident critic of President Bush, told reporters in Moscow that he might spend as much as $30 billion buying Russian arms through 2012.

Which Was It?
By Bruce K. Gagnon | Organizing Notes

Obama has not even been sworn into office yet and already the sparks are flying across the Atlantic.

The BBC reported on November 8 that Polish President Lech Kaczynski said in a statement published on his website that during a phone call with Mr. Obama the president-elect had "emphasised the importance of the strategic partnership of Poland and the U.S. and expressed hope in the continuation of political and military co-operation between our countries."

"He also said that the missile defence project [Bush's plan to deploy U.S. interceptor missiles in Poland] would continue," the statement added.

During his campaign Obama had said otherwise.

Fears of new war rise around separatist Abkhazia
By Matt Siegel | Yahoo!News.com

The crackle of gunfire at night makes sleep all but impossible along Georgia's border with separatist Abkhazia, feeding the fears of so many here that the war they hoped was over may be erupting anew.

A cease-fire ended major hostilities between Georgia and Russia after August's five-day war. But shootings and bombings continue — and nowhere more so than here along the poorly defined, porous border that separates Georgia proper from Abkhazia.

Most of the world's attention has focused on the uneasy peace around war-ravaged South Ossetia, the other Russian-backed separatist region that was at the heart of the fighting.

Nuclear Materials Secretly Transported | CNN.com

Enough processed uranium to make six nuclear weapons was secretly transported thousands of miles by truck, rail and ship on a monthlong trip from a research reactor in Budapest, Hungary, to a facility in Russia so it could be more closely protected against theft, U.S. officials revealed Wednesday.

The shipment, conducted under tight secrecy and security, included a three-week trip by cargo ship through the Mediterranean, up the English Channel and the North Sea to Russia's Arctic seaport of Murmansk, the only port Russia allows for handling nuclear material.