Alla Dzhioyeva voting in South Ossetia's disputed 2011 Presidential Election

Their suspicions have been aroused by the timing of her hospitalization – less than 24 hours before her planned (and unauthorised) inauguration ceremony, and almost immediately after South Ossetia’s acting President Vadim Brovtsev announced that he would take immediate and necessary steps to prevent a coup.

One of her advisors claimed that she was hit with a rifle butt as prosecutors tried to take her into custody. Violetta Dasaeva, an assistant, told Komsomolskaya Pravda that “special police forces in masks broke in. They started kicking Alla Alekseevna [Dzhioyeva], hitting her with a rifle butt… They grabbed her like a cat, tied her feet and arms and threw her into the car.”

Others have claimed that she suffered a stroke after a telephone conversation with Dzhambolat Tedeyev, former Russian wrestling champion and potential future contender for the South Ossetian Presidency, in which he advised her to abandon her plans to hold her unauthorised inauguration tomorrow.

South Ossetian officials have quickly denied the reports. Valery Valiev, head of South Ossetia’s Interior Ministry released a statement saying “We categorically refute rumors circulated that Dzhioeva was allegedly hit on the head with a rifle butt, which allegedly caused the internal bleeding.” Other officials added that Dzhioyeva had, in fact, suffered a stroke while being questioned (or, depending on the source, being taken in for questioning).

Dzhioyeva has now reportedly regained consciousness but remains in intensive care. RIA Novosti quotes a doctor as saying “Her condition is grave, but she is conscious”, and adding that she did not appear to have any visible injuries. She has reportedly refused an offer to transport her to a larger hospital in Vladikavkaz, inside Russia.

Update, 5pm GMT: More on this story from Eurasia.net who report that Violetta Dasaeva, the aide quoted above, told Echo Moscow that 100 armed riot police stormed Dzhioyeva’s offices before arresting her, and that other South Ossetian opposition members are also reporting being searched by the local FSB.

South Ossetia’s Dzhioyeva hospitalised in mysterious circumstances is a post from: Siberian Light

Lake Vostok is more than 2 miles below Antarctica

A breathlessly excited Alexander Yelagin, head of the Russian Vostok mission, told reporters that “An event that has been keeping the world scientific community on tenterhooks for the last few months occurred on February 5 at 8.25 p.m. Moscow time… specialists with the glaciological and drilling unit of the 57th Russian Antarctic expedition through deep ice borehole 5G penetrated the relict waters of sub-glacial Vostok.”

Is there life in Lake Vostok?

It has long been suspected that Lake Vostok, which has been cut off by ice for tens of millions of years, contains life forms that will have developed along a separate evolutionary path. The question is important not just because of what it will tell us about the development of life on earth, but because of what it might tell us about the chances of life developing on other planets – for example Europa, Jupiter’s icy moon, or even below the surface of Mars.

Russian scientists have big plans to test this theory. Their next step will be to take samples from the lake, to establish whether any life exists so far below the Antarctic ice. Although, unfortunately for the impatient among us, they’ll have to wait until the Antarctic summer begins in May to start work on this.

The lake is thought to be more than 300 metres deep, though, and it may take some time to establish whether or not there is life under Antarctica. The first samples will only be taken at the surface of the lake, so even if they don’t contain any life it is still quite possible that life exists deeper down, and robot probes are also being developed to explore the lake further.

British and American competition

Although Russian scientists are the only ones exploring Lake Vostok, there are hundreds of other subglacial lakes scattered around Antarctica, and there is a race underway to see which team can be the first to return with water samples from other subglacial lakes.

A British team is drilling down to Lake Ellsworth, almost 2 miles belolw Western Antactica, and an American team is drilling down to Lake Whillans.

The British and American teams have an edge over the Russians, in that they are using much more modern hot water drills, which can drill through ice in a matter of days and not years. Rather boringly each of the teams seems to be stressing that it’s about bringing back scientific knowledge, and not who is first:

“It’s not a race for penetrating a glacial lake,” said Martin Siegert from the British team drilling down to Lake Ellsworth. “We’re not adventurers. We’re doing science. There are questions we’re asking and trying to answer.”

But, frankly, who is he trying to kid?

Russians drill into Antarctic Lake Vostok is a post from: Siberian Light

Russian Aircraft Carrier Admiral Kuznetsov

At a press conference Rogozin – Russia’s straight-talking former ambassador to NATO – told reporters that by next year “production capacity will allow us to build six submarines and an aircraft carrier every year”.

He went on to say that this would increase Russian naval production levels beyond those of the Soviet Union.

A Realistic proposal

The announcement follows a similar one, four years ago, that Russia would build six new aircraft carriers and it’s worth noting that no actual construction has begun since that announcement.

So, it’s not surprising that today’s news has been greeted with skepticism from analysts, who argue that this level of production is way beyond Russia’s capacity – or, for that matter, the capacity of any country in the world. Streetwise Professor points to the US aircraft carrier programme, and notes that construction of the USS Gerald Ford is expected to take 10 years. If Russia took roughly the same amount of time to build a carrier, then it would have to have at least ten of them in construction at any one time.

The Streetwise Professor points to news about delays in the construction of the new Russian Graney submarines as further evidence that Russia simply isn’t ready to ramp up its production of submarines. Indeed, post-Soviet Russian submarine construction has a very checkered history, and the last major submarine project – the construction of the Russian Nerpa submarine, which was recently leased to India, was beset by problems which ultimately led to the deaths of 20 Russian sailors.

Financial incentive

A Russian Akula II Submarine

But I’m increasingly wondering whether – assuming that production targets can actually be met – the Russian Navy will be the recipient of all of these new submarines. Or whether Russia actually has an eye to meeting the demands of the international market, and plans to set up a cottage industry supplying the world’s navies with state of the art submarines.

Last week I noted that many Asia-Pacific countries were investing heavily in their navies, particularly their submarines, and linked to this interesting article at the Boston Globe.

As well as strong links with India and China, Russia already has deals to supply submarines to Vietnam and to support the development of Taiwan’s navy. Moving further afield, it’s also done a deal with Venezuela to supply submarines.

There’s definitely a market out there for Russian naval technology, and if Russia can ally it to its proven experience elsewhere in the arms trade, this could prove to be a very lucrative market for it indeed.

Six new Russian submarines and a new aircraft carrier – every year is a post from: Siberian Light

Alla Dzhioyeva voting in South Ossetia's disputed 2011 Presidential Election

“I will assume office on February 10,” Dzhioyeva told reporters, adding that “I can’t tell you about the place of the inauguration so far. I will turn to the South Ossetia acting head with a request for a civilized transfer of power as befits a legitimately elected president.”

Dzhioyeva received almost 57% of the vote in November, but the poll was annulled by the South Ossetian Supreme Court on the grounds that Dzhioyeva’s had used illegal campaigning tactics. A re-run has been scheduled for March, although it still remains unclear whether Dzhioyeva would be allowed to participate.

Dzhioyeva Tricked

Dzhioyeva’s decision to hold the inauguration independently marks an escalation of tensions in the former Georgian republic, and appears to put a negotiated settlement beyond reach.

In announcing her decision, Dzhioyeva told reporters that she felt she had been tricked into a previous agreement to pull her supporters from the streets of South Ossetia’s capital city and agree to a March re-run of the election:

“Mediators, who have arrived from Moscow, in particular Sergey Vinokurov, to put it bluntly, have bamboozled us. I am telling you with absolute sincerity, that I could have never imagined that such a senior level official, under whose mediation this agreement was signed, would have simply exploited our tiredness and would have made us sign an agreement which was disadvantageous for us.”

Other developments

As well as Dzhioyeva’s announcement about the inauguration, there have been a couple of other interesting developments in the past few days.

Jambolat Tedeyev, the coach of Russia’s national wrestling team who was barred from participating in the November election, is apparently considering running in the March election. Co-incidentally, or perhaps not, Tedeyev was questioned by Russian police a few days later. Nothing seems to have come of it yet, but there is speculation that he may soon be charged with attempting to engineer a coup in South Ossetia.

And, in a demonstration of how important the issue of South Ossetia remains to both Russia and Georgia, both countries are both engaging in a diplomatic charm offensive – in Fiji of all places. Georgia, which clearly is awash with un-needed technology, has just donated 200 unwanted netbook computers to the Fijian Government. The donation was announced just days before the Russian Foreign Minister’s visit to the Pacific country.

Disputed South Ossetian presidential election – candidate announces own inauguration is a post from: Siberian Light

A Russian Akula II Submarine

Russia has formally handed over the Nerpa, an Akula class nuclear submarine, to India.

The Nerpa, along with a second Akula submarine to be handed over shortly, will be leased to India for ten years in a deal thought to be worth $2 billion.

Under the terms of the deal, once the ten year deal expires, India has an option to then buy the two submarines outright.

In a ceremonial handover attended by the Indian ambassador, the Indian flag was raised over the submarine – now rechristened the INS Chakra – and control was handed entirely to its Indian crew who, for the first time, set sail without any Russian technical specialists on board.

The Nerpa’s troubled history

Construction of the Nerpa actually began in 1993, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but was suspended shortly afterwards for lack of funding. It wasn’t until 2004, when an agreement was reached to lease the submarine to India, that construction started again.

The submarine had been due to be transferred to India in 2009, but its transfer was delayed after 20 crewmen were killed in an accident during its sea trials when the Nerpa’s fire suppression system was accidentally set off. Freon gas released by the fire suppression system displaced oxygen from an isolated compartment, suffocating all the crew in the area.

The disaster was blamed on a member of the crew who activated the fire suppression system without authorisation. However, the quality of the construction work was criticised after the accident for being poor. Although many submarines were constructed at the Amur shipyard during the 1980s, the Nerpa was the only one built between 1993 and 2008. Because of the lack of work, many of workers with specialised skills had either left or retired, leaving the construction to a relatively inexperienced workforce. Concerns were also expressed that the metals used in the Nerpa were not good enough quality, having been bought from China at a low cost.

Close Russia-India ties

Picture reprinted with permission from crossed-flag-pins.com

The Nerpa deal is also indicative of increasingly strong ties between India and Russia. As well as this submarine deal, India and Russia have also agreed a number of other major arms sales, including the sale of the Russian Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier, which is due to enter service in the Indian Navy in 2013 as the INS Vikramaditya.

Ordinarily, you would expect a country like India to have the patience to wait a few years until its own technology enters service, but its local situation is very unstable – as well as the well-known tensions with Pakistan, there has been a rapid buildup of naval power by most countries in the Asia-Pacific and as one of the two major countries in the region, India has to take care not to be left behind.

As a consequence, many of these deals – such as the Nerpa deal – are designed as a stop-gap to boost the Indian military while it develops technology of its own. The Arihant, an Indian developed and built class of nuclear submarines, is due to enter service in the next few years.

Nerpa Nuclear Submarine delivered to India is a post from: Siberian Light

Jeffrey Delisle - A Russian Spy in Canada?

Or did they?

The Russian Government has hotly denied that its diplomats were linked to Delisle, and claimed that they left Canada as part of a long-planned rotation of embassy staff.

As evidence they pointed out that Konstantin Kopalkov must have known of his departure well in advance – otherwise, how else would he have been able to hold his leaving party in Ottawa on December 8th last year.

Kopalkov also sent an email round to colleagues to tell them of his departure and to wish them well for their future. “Please be advised that I am leaving the country for good in the end of December, 2011,” he wrote, adding that he “would like to highlight that it was a real pleasure to work in Canada. I wish you all the best, well-being and prosperity!”

Criticism

Delisle’s arrest and the subsequent expulsion of Russian diplomats has been headline news in Canada, prompting some great coverage of previous Russian spies in Canada – notably Gerda Munsinger, pictured below, who allegedly bedded a number of senior Conservative politicians in the 1950s.

Gerda Munsinger, an East German prostitute, was accused of sleeping with Canadian politicians while Russian spies evesdropped

However, in Russia, a country normally fascinated by its own spies, the story has hardly received any coverage at all.

Russia has dismissed the way that the affair has been handled, calling the news “sensational” and “unsubstantiated”, and the Canadian Government has also come in for criticism from its own media for its needless “Russophobia”.

Steven Harper, the Conservative Canadian Prime Minister, has come in for particular criticism for his Cold War mentality – according to Christopher Westdal, Canada’s former Ambassador to Russia, he “came with… baggage of deep suspicion of Russia” – and for placing more emphasis on impressing Canada’s large Eastern European immigrant population than on securing Canada’s wider national interests.

Interestingly, there has been little public criticism yet of Canada’s internal security arrangements, and of how Delisle managed to evade detection for so long.

Jeffrey Delisle, “Loner and Geek”

As is traditional in cases like this, the Canadian media has already begun to trot out the ‘Delisle was a loner’ stories. Ian Wilson, one of his former classmates, provided the obliging quote this time:

“He was probably one of the biggest geeks in the school. He definitely wasn’t an outgoing party animal type guy. He was one of those guys who was always under the radar.”

Delisle, who worked as an intelligence officer in the Canadian Navy and had access to secret data from other NATO countries, will go on trial shortly, accused of selling classified information to Russia between 2007 and 2001.

He was reportedly identified by Canadian intelligence some time ago, and for the past few years has been un-knowingly used to provide Russia with false information – turning him into what is described as a ‘sour-milk spy’. Some analysts have cast doubt on this story, however, noting that it may be an attempt to persuade Russia that the information it bought from Delisle was unreliable.

Mystery of Russian Spy in Canada is a post from: Siberian Light

Defense Ministry official Alexei Zolotukhin told reporters tersely that “Phobos-Grunt fragments have crashed down in the Pacific Ocean”. There’s not much official news from the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos yet though, other than information narrowing down the ultimate crash site to an empty area of the Pacific Ocean around 1,250 miles east of Southern Chile.

Others, however, are claiming that some fragments actually landed in Brazil, thousands of miles to the North East. At the time of writing, there has been no independent confirmation of the probe’s impact point.

Why it’s important to know where Phobos-Grunt fell

No-one had been able to predict where exactly the probe would fall, beyond confirming that it could hit anywhere between the latitudes 51.4° North and 51.4° South. That’s a pretty massive area, encompassing virtually all of the populated areas of the globe from Southern Canada and Northern Europe all the way down to Australia and the Southern tip of Chile. You can see a graphic illustration of where it might land from this space.com infographic.

Source:LiveScience

Interestingly, almost none of Russia was within the potential crash zone…

The location of the crash zone was so important because it was believed that, although Phobos-Grunt would break up in the atmosphere, some very large chunks of the probe would still survive relatively intact and could cause damage if they landed in a populated area.

There was also some concern that the spacecraft’s fuel, which is highly toxic, could scatter in the atmosphere. The fuel tank is made of a kind of Aluminum that contains unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH), designed to ensure that the fuel tanks explode high in the atmosphere, dispersing any fuel. However, Martin Ross, director of The Aerospace Corp.’s Center for Launch Emissions and Atmospheric Research, told space.com that:

“What is needed is a full accounting of the material that gets vaporized and re-condenses into small particles that may remain in the upper atmosphere for many years. Some of these particles may influence chemistry, since the vaporized materials are exotic in some cases, in that region of the atmosphere in subtle ways. It remains a question mark.”

There is some hope that some of the more substantial fragments of the probe might be recovered, although previous attempts to recover crashed spacecraft from the ocean have recently been largely unsuccessful.

A disastrous year for Roscosmos?

The crash brings to an end an thoroughly depressing year for Roscosmos. The Russian Government had trumpeted 2011 as the ‘Year of Space’ but Phobos-Grunt was the fourth high profile mission failure in just 12 months.

Set on the grand scale of things, this is actually a fairly small percentage of Russia’s overall space program (less than 10% of the 48 planned launches), but the high profile nature of the failures have been an embarrassment to Russia. Although none of the crashes has involved cosmonauts and there have been no human casualties, the string of failures has led to questions about the safety of Russia’s manned launches. However, with the termination of the space shuttle program, Russia is currently the only nation capable of launching humans into space and re-supplying the International Space Station, so it’s likely that launches will continue.

In an attempt to take control of the situation, the Russian Government today announced that it would be launching an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the crash. The investigation is to be led by Dmitry Rogozin, former Russian Ambassador to NATO and newly appointed Deputy Prime Minister. In keeping with his somewhat direct approach to politics, Rogozin announced the news on his Facebook page, telling the world “I am taking the investigation into the reasons for the Phobos-Grunt failure under personal control.”

Further Reading

If you’re interested in this story, there is plenty of coverage out there around the internet. In particular, I recommend Russian Space Web’s comprehensive coverage of the entire Phobos-Grunt mission. Space news site Universe Today also has a report on today’s Phobos-Grunt crash and, if you scroll down to the bottom of their report, you can see their historical coverage of the mission. The ever excellent space.com also has live, blow by blow, coverage of the event.

You could also try the official Roscosmos website, but it’s down at the moment because the high level of interest in the probe’s crash has brought down the site’s servers. Hopefully it’ll be back up and running again soon.

Phobos-Grunt Mars Probe falls to earth is a post from: Siberian Light

In practice, this is a setback for the United States, who will find it next to impossible to establish a new base in Central Asia once the lease on the Manas airbase in Kyrgyzstan expires in 2014, and a boost to Russia who, as a CSTO member state, has a veto on the construction of future bases.

The decision was taken at a meeting of all seven CSTO members – Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Announcing the news, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev told reporters that:

“An accord has been reached to coordinate the deployment, in the territory of the CSTO states, of military infrastructure facilities belonging to non-CSTO states.

In order to deploy military bases of a third country in the territory of the CSTO member-states, it is necessary to obtain the official consent of all its members.”

The move was swiftly followed, in an official statement, by criticism NATO-led interventions, particularly in Libya and Afghanistan, and condemnation of the United States proposals to site a missile shield in Europe.

“The unilateral deployment of strategic missile defense systems by one state or a group of states without due account for the lawful interests of other countries and without extending legally-binding guarantees to the latter may damage international security and strategic stability in Europe and the world as a whole.”

Agreement was also reached on an armanent programme for the CSTO’s rapid re-action force, which may finally become something slightly more than a paper tiger. You can read more about the meeting, including transcripts of all the opening speeches, at the Russian President’s website.

Most interesting, though, was the criticism of the United States and NATO. The sentiments of the strongly worded statement are identical to Russia’s foreign policy positions, and this will do little to dampen criticism that the CSTO is essentially an organisation controlled entirely by Russia.

And it is certainly interesting to see how comfortable the other six member states are in aligning themselves with Russia and agreeing such a strong statement. It seems clear that the US has been squeezed to the sidelines by Russia in the battle for influence in Central Asia.

CSTO slams door on US bases in Central Asia is a post from: Siberian Light

The first, and most headline-worthy, is a mission to Jupiter that will also include a stopover at one of Jupiter’s moons. The mission – known as JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer) – is likely to take place after 2020, and replace a planned joint ESA-NASA mission that looks like it won’t get off the ground in the near future.

Other joint missions planned include one to Earth’s moon that will attempt to collect samples of soil from the Moon and return them to Earth for analysis, and another to Venus to investigate its atmosphere. Most of the missions agreed are expected to take place sometime between 2016 and 2020.

Jupiter and its moons

The possibility of Russia joining additional ESA missions was also discussed . “The meeting participants summarized the work of the working groups on science and the elimination created in August 2011, and also exchanged views on prospects for Russia’s participation in the ExoMars [Exobiology on Mars] project,” Roscosmos said.

Although slightly overshadowed by the recent loss of Russia’s Phobos-Grunt mission to Mars, the news presents further evidence of the increasingly close relationship being built between Roscosmos and the ESA as both attempt to establish themselves as viable alternatives to NASA after the termination of its shuttle fleet.  Most notably, Russian rockets have recently begun launching from the ESA’s spaceport in French Guiana.

Russia Jupiter mission agreed with ESA is a post from: Siberian Light

In a statement, DCNS said: “The advance payment was received several weeks ago and work on the first ship is getting underway. The first ship will be delivered in 2014 and the second in 2015.”

As a part of the deal, Russia will then construct two additional Mistrals itself, after which it not only have four ships – it will presumably also have additional technical knowledge that it can either use to build more similar ships, or which will benefit its own domestic naval shipbuilding programme.

The Mistral is variously referred to as an amphibious assault ship or a helicopter carrier. As well as being able to carry up to 35 light (attack) helicopters or 16 heavy (carrier) helicopters, it is also capable of transporting up to 900 troops or 59 vehicles, including 13 tanks.

It’s purchase will go some way to filling a massive gap in the Russian Navy’s fleet which currently only has a single aircraft carrier – the Admiral Kuznetsov. An additional four Mistral ships will dramatically increase Russia’s ability to project force away from its own borders, particularly over the longer term if plans to introduce additional aircraft carriers by 2027 are realised.

For an excellent overview of Russia’s future plans for its navy, I recommend reading the Geopolitical and Conflict Report’s excellent Update on the Modernization of the Russian Navy.

You can find out more about the Mistral by checking out the RIA Novosti infographic below. Wikipedia also has a detailed overview of the Mistral.

France’s Mistral amphibious assault ship

17:12 06/11/2009 France’s Mistral amphibious assault ship will arrive on an official visit to St. Petersburg on November 23.
Russia is seeking to buy a Mistral-class helicopter carrier worth 400-500 million euros (around $600-$750 mln). >>

Other news of the day

Although Russia remains committed to its own domestic arms industry to both equip its own armed forces and to export arms abroad, it is increasingly active as a buyer on the international arms market. As well as the Mistral deal, it has also recently signed a $100 million deal with German company Rheinmetall to construct a military training facility and a further deal with Italian company Iveco to supply a number of Lynx light military vehicles, despite the fact that they are four times as expensive as Russian produced vehicles.

France begins work on Mistral warships for Russia is a post from: Siberian Light