“A New Cold War” is the latest International Affairs Forum debate. “With talk of a new Cold War, and Russian President Vladimir Putin floating the possibility of aiming nuclear weapons at targets in...
Archive - July 2007
Putin orders increase in spying and military budgets
Russia is to increase its military and intelligence spending again: “The situation in the world and internal political interests require the Foreign Intelligence Service to permanently increase its capabilities...
Great Russia denied registration as political party
The Federal Registration Service has refused to register Great Russia as a political party. Some analysts had been predicting that Great Russia, founded earlier this year by Dmitry Rogozin, the former leader of...
Henry Kissinger in talks with Putin
Last week Henry Kissinger led a delegation of US political big-hitters on an extremely low-profile mission to Russia. Kissinger and his team met with Vladimir Putin and an equally matched Russian delegation – led...
High heeled sprint in St Petersburg
According to Xinhua, more than 100 women took part in a high heeled sprint in St Petersburg at the weekend. The minimum (minimum!) height of the heels was cool 9 centimetres. The winner got to take home a cool...
Russian Foreign Minister pulls Foreign Affairs article
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has decided to pull an article from the next issue of the US-published Foreign Affairs journal. As a result of the excruciating and sluggish exchanges with the editors, the likes...
Baltika beer in Britain
It looks like Baltika Beer are expanding into the British market in a big way, and it looks like conquering London is just the first phase of Baltika’s ambitious plans. Not only did I see big, bold Baltika...
Some advice for the Russian government
Has anyone noticed that Russia has spent several days pondering its response to the British government decision to deport four of it’s embassy staff? I’m beginning to suspect that, for once, Russia is...
Britain expels four Russian diplomats
The British government has expelled four Russian diplomats, in revenge for Russia’s refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoi for the murder of Alexander Litvinenko (as predicted last week). British Foreign Minister...
Britain to expel Russian diplomats?
The British press is full of rumours that a number of Russian diplomats are soon to be expelled from Britain, following Russia’s formal refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoi to face charges of murdering Alexander...