Putin will be around for as long he wants to be throughout the foreseeable future.
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Originally Posted by
Stan
From the
New York Times Opinion Section: For Mr. Putin, taking on the job of prime minister would be not just “stepping down” but wallowing in self-abnegation.
More at the link
Mr. Putin is not the sort of man people enjoy saying no to, and he is the sort of man that gets what he wants. He is genuinely popular in much of Russia, respected (and especially feared) at home and abroad, and there is no ambiguity at all about who's in charge. This is a man whose wielding of power often reaches the state of a High Art Form, even as he uses such power for sometimes not so lofty things.
I don't think that Putin would need to hold on to the Presidency; no one is likely to oppose him even if he were to become "simply" the Prime Minister. Everyone knows where the real power lies; titles are effectively just a formality in this regard. Augustus was merely the "Princeps" - First Citizen - and technically the Senate had supreme authority (just as the Republic technically existed in Roman law until 284 A.D.). Putin could easily be with us for a generation, and good or not, this is likely what everyone will have to adapt to, if they haven't already.
Would reluctantly agree, Norfolk !
Perhaps I've been watching this 'transition' too long to see what's coming (which is basicaly nothing as far as change is concerned).
The public is right behind him, even as of today ?
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People Want Vladimir Putin for 3rd Term
Russia undergoes a wave of public rallies in support of extending Vladimir Putin's powers for the third presidential term. The opposition believes the rallies were organized by the United Russia party. However, both the Kremlin and the United Russia said the initiative is coming from the people.
In Chechnya, the rallies in support of President Putin took place in Grozny, Gudermes, and Achkhoi-Martan. The rally in Grozny consisted mostly of university students. “We have been warned that we should secure the attendance of all students,” said an employee of the University of Grozny. Files of young people dressed in T-shirts depicting Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov and Vladimir Putin, and carrying banners with “Let’s give third term to Putin!”
Picket in Tallinn supports defenders of Soldier-Liberator Monument
“Free Anti-Fascists Dmitry Linter and Maxim Reva!” and “Form an International Commission to Investigate into April Events” run the placards of the protesters.
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Russia's ITAR-TASS reports on activists of the Night Watch movement in support of the Soviet WW2 memorial in Estonia, Linter and Reva, were charged with instigating the April riots in Tallinn, which followed the Estonian government’s decision to dismantle the monument and exhume the remains of Soviet soldiers who died in the city liberation from the Nazi in September 1944.
The police detained over 2,000 protesters. More than 200 of them were arrested, and about 50 were convicted, mostly with suspended sentences.
Linter and Reva are serving their six months in custody pending trial. “Their prison time expired on October 27, but they are still in custody,” said Linter’s mother Leonora. “Previously, the lawyers were told that my son and Maxim Reva might try to put pressure on witnesses. Now the investigation is over, and their case is referred to court. Reasons for their further custody are totally unclear.”
Estonia calls for halt to Russian gas pipeline
"Recent speculation that Russia could use its Baltic naval fleet to guard the pipeline during construction and might even to use submarines to patrol the sea bed have hardened Estonian opposition to the project.
"Why did Russia have to make such an announcement? Why did the economic project have to be tied down militarily and politically?" Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet asked in his interview."
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Estonia: underwater gas pipeline poses threat
Poland and several Baltic states intend to call on the European Commission to find an alternative route for the Nord Stream northern European gas pipeline. A Finnish newspaper reported the move was called for by Estonia.
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania "joined the Soviet Union"
Those sneaky devils at Putin's HQs, pounding on the Baltic States for the last 9 months over rewriting history, all the while master minding a new novel for the kids :confused:
Helsinki's Sanomat reports
"Stalin portrayed as hero in new Russian school textbook
Novel interpretations presented concerning Winter War of 1939-1940"
By Jukka Rislakki
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At the beginning of this school year, school pupils in Russia will be getting a new history textbook in which the policies of Josif Stalin are portrayed in a positive light, and which offers an interesting interpretation of the Finnish-Soviet Winter War of 1939 - 1940.
The book also gives the impression that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania joined the Soviet Union voluntarily. In this connection it is not mentioned that the Red Army occupied the Baltic countries, that their leaders were imprisoned, and that the occupier organised "elections". (Another history textbook, previously approved for use at the upper secondary school level, describes this in greater detail.)
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 is mentioned in the book without legal or historical assessments.
The policies of the Western powers are seen to be partly to blame for the events, and "many experts" are said to be of the opinion that the Soviet Union had no option but to agree to a pact with Hitler. By doing so Stalin managed to improve the country’s security.
More at the link...
Imagine What Dr. Price would do with this one :D
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The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 is mentioned in the book without legal or historical assessments.
Western partners, They are too naďve in evaluating Russia
As It Rises, Russia Stirs Baltic Fears
From the NYT, By ADAM B. ELLICK, Published: November 11, 2007
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Russian power is rapidly returning to the Baltics, only this time the weapons are oil and money, not tanks.
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General Kronkaitis (now retired as Lithuania’s top general) has a unique perspective. He fled Lithuania to America as a boy in 1944, and served nearly 30 years in the United States Army before returning to command his newly independent country’s military in the 1990’s. He engineered its entry into NATO in 2004, thinking this would help cement security for the tiny Baltic nation. Now he says his hopeful view was wrong.
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The Baltic countries are trying to challenge Russia’s energy monopoly.
All three are resisting an ambitious Russian-German plan to build a pipeline under the Baltic Sea that would send gas directly from Russia to Western Europe — bypassing the Baltics and cutting them out of transit fees and access to the flow.
Gazprom, the Russian oil giant, already controls more than 35 percent of Baltic gas companies. Latvia has been cut off from an old Russian oil pipeline since 2003 and Lithuania since 2006, forcing them to import more expensive oil by ship. The Russians blame pipeline problems, but Latvians and Lithuanians don’t believe that; Estonia was shut off for several weeks after the spring riots.
Calling on Russians to boycott visits to Estonia
From the Baltic Times review of press reports, "If you're a real Russian, don't have any fun in Tallinn"
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Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda is calling on Russians to boycott visits to Estonia and Estonian goods over the Christmas and New Year period.
According to press reports, Komsomolskaya Pravda is running a campaign under the slogan ‘I don’t travel to eSStonia’ which portrays Estonia as a neo-Nazi state. As a result, the paper urges Russians to refrain from shopping trips and holiday breaks in the Estonian capital, which is traditionally a popular destination with Russian tourists over the festive season.
Estonian-made chocolate and beer are singled out as goods that should not be found in any patriotic Russian’s Christmas stocking.
Russian Chief of Staff blames Baltics for CFE moratorium
General Yuri Baluyevsky, Russia's military forces Chief of Staff, told lawmakers that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were rapidly building up their military forces.
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TALLINN - Russia has cited what it terms a military buildup in the Baltic states among the reasons for its Nov. 7 decision to suspend participation in the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty. Both the suspension and the accusations have drawn swift criticism from Baltic leaders and commentators.
“The Baltic states have a particular attitude toward the CFE Treaty,” the general said. “Guided by the common NATO approach, they do not join the regime of limitations imposed by the treaty and today they remain a so-called gray zone in terms of arms control.”
The number of armored vehicles in the Baltic states has increased nearly tenfold since 1999 and they now number 431, Baluyevsky said. He also said that the number of artillery guns larger than 100 mm has tripled to 320.
Meanwhile the Baltic press has painted the Russian accusations of a Baltic military buildup as laughable.
“Formally, there are no quantitative limitations on military equipment in our country, but it is foolish to think that the Latvian army’s three old-fashioned tanks will create any threats against neighboring Russia or Belarus,” commentator Askolds Rodins wrote in Latvia’s Diena on Nov. 12.
He also speculated that the real reasons behind the Russian decision had more to do with domestic politics than with military strategy.
“Russia’s influential mass media outlets have for years been going on about the ‘circle of hostile countries’ which is supposedly gathering around the Russian motherland. Suspension of participation in the CFE is a dandy way of strengthening this particular myth,” he wrote.
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BRUSSELS, November 14 (RIA Novosti) - A moratorium on Russia's Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty obligations will take effect on December 12, the chief of the Armed Forces General Staff said on Wednesday.
"There will be no changes to Russia's position: The law will come into force as it should, on December 12," Gen. Yury Baluyevsky said.
Russia has repeatedly urged its NATO colleagues to ratify the CFE Treaty and then amend it to eliminate flank limitations, he said.
Estonia considers joining adapted CFE before Russian moratorium
In a last minute ditch effort, Estonia plays her trump card (some here say 'bails'). Notwithstanding and less than a month before Russian law commits to the moratorium, Estonia still has to convince her neighbors it's a good idea.
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Estonia's government decided on Thursday to set up a commission on joining the adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty before Russia's moratorium comes in force on December 12.
The modified version of the arms control treaty, which Western countries consider a cornerstone of European security, was signed on November 19, 1999 by all NATO countries except Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Slovenia.
The governmental commission will assess the possibility of joining the adapted CFE treaty, conduct consultations with NATO partners, and formulate Estonia's position on the issue ahead of the Russian moratorium.
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Russia, whose relations with Estonia are at their lowest ebb since independence in 1991, has also signaled it is weighing new force deployments on its western flank, raising jitters in the Baltic states about their giant neighbor's motives.
The Myth of Genocide: Repressions by Soviet authorities in Estonia in 1940-53
“The Myth of Genocide: Repressions by Soviet authorities in Estonia in 1940-53” book by Alexander Dyukov.
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The author brings together and systematizes sources about true history of the Soviet repressions of those times in Estonia. Without taking positions of “revisionism” or rehabilitation of Stalinism, the author draws special attention to the fact that repeatedly presented by Estonian top officials.
Alexander Dyukov comes to a conclusion that the repressions in Estonia were not selective grounding on ethnic character (which means they were not genocide) and that the total number of victims of repressions is overestimated by Estonian politicians by 2.5 times and the number of those killed in repressions by 6 times.
The Baltic Times has once again done her homework. A much better version...if you will.
Deportations were like a family picnic - claim
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TALLINN -- A new book by a Russian historian claims Estonia's recollection of the 1941 forced deportations to Siberia is too harsh. In The Myth About Genocide, revisionist historian Alexander Dyukov paints a picture of Soviet repressions as little worse than a family picnic, Eesti Ekspess reports.
"If Baltic nationalists had not cooperated with German special services and had not prepared for acts of diversion, there would have been no need for deportation. It was the activity of nationalists and of Nazi agents that provoked the deportations - and Estonian historians prefer to keep silent about it," the historian writes.
Eesti Ekspress points out that at the time of the first deportations, the war with Germany had not yet begun. At that time, the Soviet Union was itself collaborating with Germany by means of the notorious Molotov-Ribbentrop 'pact of steel'. Despite that fact, Dykov describes the June 1941 deportations as if they had taken place in a frontline situation.
In Dyukov's interpretation the 1941 deportation did not greatly differ from a family outing to the countryside, albeit in somewhat cramped circumstances. The Soviet Union generally took good care the people it decided to resettle, he said
Two ethnic Russians charged with masterminding unrest in Estonia
Estonian Ethnic Russians In Court Over Statue Riots - AFP
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A court in the capital Tallinn was to decide whether to release Dmitri Linter and Maksim Reva from custody for the duration of their trial.
Estonia's state prosecutor's office said the full trial, in which Linter and Reva will be joined by two other defendants, would begin Jan. 14.
Linter and Reva have been in jail since April, when they were arrested during an unprecedented two-night outburst of looting and violence which rocked Tallinn as authorities shifted the so-called Bronze Soldier memorial from the city center to a military cemetery.
Another of the accused, Mark Sirok, was also detained in April but later released. The fourth defendant, Dimitri Klenski, wasn't arrested.
The four men were charged in October after Estonian police wrapped up a five- month probe.
Estonian prosecutors have said the April 26-28 unrest was far from spontaneous, arguing preparations for the riots began already in mid-2006.
They have also said the organizers had support from Russia, although it wasn't clear whether they were referring to the Russian government itself or simply to groups based in Russia.
Sirok is particularly controversial in Estonia because he heads the Estonian branch of the pro-Kremlin Nashi youth group, which blockaded the Estonian embassy in Moscow for a week after the memorial was moved.
Moscow has blamed the riots on the use of force by the Estonian police against Russians who were "defending" the memorial to Red Army soldiers.
Russia’s transport strategy for the Baltic Sea
No Loyalty, No Cargo
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Stability gave Russia an opportunity to pay attention to the political and security aspects of economic growth and trade with the three Baltic republics, which have been thorns in Moscow’s side for 15 years over their treatment of the Russian minorities and their aspirations to join NATO and the European Union.
Russia’s basic position in external affairs has been stated, or demonstrated, time and again: Without proven loyalty or cooperation, no economic benefits. This is the case with Georgia, whose Borjomi mineral water can be purchased in many countries but not in Russia, ostensibly for health reasons, or with Polish meat, banned on the same grounds.
Estonia's Singing Revolution Film debut in the US & Canada
Maureen & Jim Tusty - producers/directors of "The Singing Revolution"
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When we set out to make "The Singing Revolution", we envisioned North Americans seeing the film. The Baltic people know their history, it's the rest of the world that does not. We want to share this inspiring story with those who know little about Estonia. Those who take the time to see the extraordinary events that comprise the Singing Revolution are often deeply moved by this remarkable human story.
Most people don’t think about singing when they think about revolution. But song was the weapon of choice when Estonians sought to free themselves from decades of Soviet occupation. "The Singing Revolution" is an inspiring account of one nation’s dramatic rebirth. It is the story of humankind’s irrepressible drive for freedom and self-determination.
More on adapted CFE before Russian moratorium
From Estonia's Daily, Eesti Paevaleht...
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The media are discussing the law on the moratorium of Russia's participation in the CFE in the context of the Russian-U.S. geopolitical confrontation. Commentators are furious that under the circumstances Estonia has to set up a commission on preparations for its membership in the adapted treaty. "U.S. diplomats are losing nerve. They say Moscow has been promised that the Baltic nations will start getting ready to join the treaty and that some of its provisions may be revised. This explains why Estonia made the decision to form the commission. Estonia must do everything to implement the previous provisions of the treaty. But its new version cannot be regarded as natural. Estonia is not a pawn in a political game between Washington and Moscow."
The media believe that Russia needs the moratorium in order to revise the adapted treaty once again and include provisions convenient for it. "Russia's aim is clear - to turn the existing security structure upside down and start new talks in order to lay down its own terms. Russia is a champion at playing such games."
Former Speaker's comments spark sharp reactions
Former Speaker of Finnish Parliament Paavo Lipponen criticises Estonia's Russia policy.
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In an interview with Estonian television, Lipponen questioned the wisdom of Estonian security cooperation with Georgia and Ukraine if it hurts relations with Russia.
In the interview, Lipponen suggested that there is no realism in security cooperation with Georgia and Ukraine, and said that he does not feel that such cooperation should be implemented in a way that it makes relations with Russia more difficult.
Lipponen was in the Estonian capital Tallinn taking part in a seminar of the International Defence Research Centre.
Marko Mihkelson, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Estonian Parliament, wrote in his blog that Lipponen's comments amount to a denunciation of Estonia's foreign policy.
"The former leader of Finland's Social Democrats gets to say, in practice, that Estonia's foreign policy is worth nothing", Mihkelson writes.
"He should know that good relations with Russia do not come about on the basis of the wishes of one side", he continues.
The director of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute, Andres Kasekamp, noted that Georgia and Ukraine share some of Estonia's misfortunes, and that Estonia cannot be indifferent to them. He said that Lipponen's views are typical of Finnish foreign policy thinking.
Unintentional incursions by Russian aircraft in recent years
Meeting on Russian Airspace Violations
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Military officials from Russia, Finland and Estonia agreed on steps Wednesday to limit airspace violations in the region...
In September, Russia acknowledged that one of its military transporters flew about 4 1/2 kilometers, or three miles, into Finnish airspace along the southern coast for three minutes, prompting the neutral Nordic country to demand an explanation.
Russia said the incursion was unintentional and proposed a meeting of experts to help prevent such incidents.
Last year, Moscow apologized for airspace violations after a dozen such incidents over a period of two years prompted a protest from Finland.
Similar complaints have been made by Finland's southern neighbors, Estonia and the other Baltic states. In October 2005, a Russian fighter jet crashed in Lithuania.