Russia & CIS

Azerbaijan today marks the centenary of the March 1918 Genocide of Azerbaijanis.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov spoke over the phone on Friday, said the Russian FM.

A conference entitled “Protection of the national and moral values in internet media and social networks: journalistic solidarity against negative trends” has kicked off at the International Press Centre in Baku organized by Azerbaijan Press Council.

The opening ceremony of the Creative Center named after Magsud Ibrahimbayov has been held in Icheri Sheher, Baku.

Azerbaijan’s defense minister, Colonel-General Zakir Hasanov has left for Turkey’s Giresun to attend the trilateral meeting of defense ministers of Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Georgia, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry told.

Azerbaijan`s Deputy Prime Minister, chairman of the State Committee for Refugee and IDP Affairs Ali Hasanov has met UNHCR Representative in the country Furio De Angelis.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has signed an order on additional measures on improvement of water supply in Tovuz district.

PKK terrorists vandalized a quarry in southern Hatay province on Friday, setting ablaze an excavator and stealing a vehicle, according to a survivor.

The Central Bank of Azerbaijan has announced USD/AZN rate for April 2.

Main attention was focused on the issues of continuous, covertly and operational command and control of troops.

The coverage of the Russian presidential election in the Western press predictably reflects the poor knowledge of the Russian reality and the Russian mentality. Of course, Western journalists make their materials for their internal consumers, but their conclusions clearly indicate that the West has not come even a little bit closer to its ultimate goal to either destroy or remake Russia and its people. The first thing that catches the eye in all analytical articles is the assumption about Vladimir Putin overtaking Stalin in terms of political longevity. "Putin's victory will take his political dominance of Russia to nearly a quarter of a century, until 2024, by which time he will be 71. Only Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ruled for longer," Business Standard wrote. This assertion implicitly draws parallels with the Stalin era, which in the West is commonly referred to as "fascist." In addition, Putin is criticised for his "irrepressible" desire for power. Such an assumption may produce an impression on Western readers (although the growth of popularity of Mussolini, Salazar and Franco in corresponding countries breaks all records), but Russia has long learned to separate flies from meat chops and look at Stalin's figure dialectically. On the one hand, yes, he was a dictator, who killed too many, but on the other hand, he was a politician who turned the Soviet Union into an industrial power, who was intolerant of corruption, who attached first priority to Soviet family, culture and education.As for political longevity, it is the people of Russia who elect Putin, in contrast, for example, Germany, where Angela Merkel has been elected by a handful of elites for 20 years already. Which option is more democratic? The second thing that attracts one's attention about the coverage of the Russian presidential election in the West refers to opposition activist Aleksei Navalny. "Putin's main foe, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was barred from the race because of a criminal conviction widely seen as politically motivated. Navalny has called for a boycott of the vote," FoxNews said. Putin responded very well to the above: "This, apparently, speaks about the preferences of the US administration in leaderships of other countries. It says whom they would like to see in the country's leadership ... In this sense, they've lost. It would be better if they kept silent," Putin said in January at a meeting with media executives. Indeed, the persona Navalny is clearly too far from being somewhere near Solzhenitsyn or Sakharov.Thirdly, Western journalists say that the Russian authorities used the administrative resource to ensure a high turnout. FoxNews quoted a 20-year-old woman named Daria Suslina and Yekaterinburg Mayor Yevgeny Roizman, who were terrified of the "pressure.""They are using everything: schools, kindergartens, hospitals - the battle for the turnout is unprecedented," said Roizman, one of the rare opposition politicians to hold a significant elected office," FoxNews reports. It is important to note here that the administrative resource did not call to vote for Putin - people were encourage to go and VOTE, and these are two totally different things. Fourthly, Western journalists buy into the idea that the reason for Putin's victory is his ability to play on the desire of the Russians to rebuff the West in Syria, in Ukraine and everywhere else. Moreover, they assert that this "tsarist chauvinism" is brought up on the ill interpretation of friendly intentions of the West to sow democracy in "bad countries." Western media rightly conclude, though, that British Prime Minister Theresa May, when trying to consolidate the British on the eve of Brexit and being unable to see a log in her own eye, played into Putin's hands with the case of Sergei Skripal.Responding to all the bullying is not the prime goal for the Russian authorities. The ultimate goal is to make people happy with their lives in Russia, editor of Atlantico.fr website Jean-Marc Sylvester wrote.Fifthly, a lot has been said about violations. Anton Troianovski wrote on pages of The Washington Post that the Russian authorities had arranged a massive spectacle from the Arctic to the ISS to show the scale of popular support without saying a word about numerous fakes that came from Navalny's supporters. The author gives an original interpretation to the voter turnout in the Crimea claiming that the Crimeans had been persuaded that without Putin the Crimea would fall into the abyss of war and gay marriage. Finally, the presidential election in Russia has convinced the West that the latter must not back down in front of such a "chauvinistic", "racist", "intolerant", etc. country as Russia. Australian television channel ABC in the person of Jennifer Mathers believes that Russia uses a wide range of hidden tools of intelligence and special services and neglects the rules of civilised behaviour. "If the West really is coming to the end of its patience with Russia, it could make Mr Putin's next six years as president a lot less comfortable," she wrote. Robert Kuttner at the Huffington Post expands on the idea and suggests cutting Russia off the banking system, prohibiting Russians from buying real estate in the West, restricting their entry to Western countries.Italian journalist and politician Giulietto Chiesa told Pravda.Ru that all attempts to put pressure on Russia and the Russians were doomed to failure, because the elections showed the unity of the Russians around their president. The Russophobic hysteria in the West is not going to abate in the coming days, months and years, the journalist believes."The West believes that it should break Russia, because Russia violates its rights. These are plans for many years to come. I'll tell you frankly: they need to be afraid of the strong Russia, and there is no other way to win," Chiesa said.What is troubling is that Western analysts do not understand why Trump came to power, and why Putin can still retains it. Today's middle-class Americans live worse than their parents lived, but in today's Russia, the younger generation lives better than their parents used to live. Above all, however, the Russians have always put the national idea above material well-being.Lyuba Lulko (Stepushova)Pravda.Ru Read article on the Russian version of Pravda.Ru

Russia and the United States are entering the arms race of a new type - the technological arms race. The new race will focus on a warfare in outer space, and the 1967 treaty is not an obstacle for it, military expert Sergei Sudakov believes. It took the US two weeks to give an answer to Putin's demonstration of Russia's state-of-the-art weapons, such as, for example, the Avangard platform, which strikes targets on the ground from outer space bypassing air defence systems. On March 13, Donald Trump, speaking before soldiers in California, announced the beginning of the creation of space forces within US Armed Forces.Professor of the Academy of Military Sciences, political scientist, Americanist and candidate of political sciences Sergei Sudakov told Pravda.Ru that these days, the one who takes the lead in space, takes the lead on the ground. Space weapons that make all means of conventional air defences pointless, is a breakthrough, which, as the political scientist believes, forms the trend of the development of modern weapons for 10-15 years to come. This time, however, Russia is the leader, and the US only has to catch up. "It will be a new arms race, not a quantitative one, but a technology-oriented race, and the main question is, how much every country will have to pay for innovations. Russia's innovations in the aerospace sector cost a lot less than those of the United States," said Sergey Sudakov in an interview with Pravda.Ru.The expert believes that the treaty from 1967, signed by the USSR, the USA and Great Britain prohibiting the deployment of any weapons of mass destruction in outer space refers to nuclear weapons that will be staying there in a standby mode until a strike is required." "One will have to develop special mechanisms to protect satellites and data transfer channels, because it is impossible to control troops when there is no connection with satellites, and the army is simply blind and deaf," Sergei Sudakov told Pravda.Ru. The above-mentioned treaty from 1967, which unites more than 100 countries, binds its members not to deploy weapons of mass destruction in space. Yet, the treaty does not regulate the deployment of conventional weapons in space. The parties to the treaty also agreed not to test weapons, conduct military exercises, build military bases on celestial bodies, such as planets, planetoids, asteroids.Pravda.Ru Read article on the Russian version of Pravda.Ru

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he learned about the hijacking of an aircraft only a minute before the start of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Sochi. The hijackers, Putin said, wanted the plane be redirected to Sochi. Later it turned out, however, that it was just a stupid joke of a drunk passenger. Putin shared the story in a documentary by Andrei Kondrashov, which was published in social networks.According to Putin, "somewhere in the middle of the way, an aide-de-camp gave me the phone with  one of the heads of the operational headquarters for ensuring the safety of the Olympic Games on the line. He reported that a plane had been hijacked. The plane was bound to Istanbul from Ukraine, but the hijackers wanted it to land it in Sochi.""The same chief of the security staff called again some time later and said that it was a drunken joke, that the aircraft was flying to Turkey and would be landing there soon," Putin added. Also in the documentary, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about the tragedy with the Kursk nuclear submarine. According to him, the sinking of the Russian submarine occurred because of the unsatisfactory state of affairs in the Russian army at that time."After the collapse of the Soviet Union, we had enormous difficulties in the economy, in the social sphere, and in the army too. Of course, all that could not pass the army by," the president said in an interview for the documentary simply titled "Putin." The tragedy of the Kursk submarine came as a manifestation of the general state of affairs in the Armed Forces.Putin said that he had hardly sworn in as president after elections by the time when the Kursk sank and did not even know that there were large-scale military exercises taking place in the Barents Sea."The Minister of Defence called me and said that we lost the submarine, but the sub was found, and they were going to work on that question. It was not clear that something tragic was happening there, but then, of course, all that unfolded in full," Putin recalls. Given the state of the Russian army back in those years, "there was nothing surprising about the tragedy." At the same time, he said that it was a colossal tragedy.The cause of the tragedy had been established: an explosion occurred in the torpedo compartment, a fire broke out, ammunition detonated, and the hull of the submarine practically popped. "And, of course, this can not be forgotten," the Russian leader said.He also said that after the tragedy, he decided to talk to submariners' relatives in order to support them and assure them that the submarine would be retrieved from the bottom of the sea. Putin also said that he had been warned against attempts to raise the boat from the seafloor, but he insisted, because he had given a promise.The Russian nuclear-powered submarine missile cruiser Kursk sank in the Barents Sea on August 12, 2000, during naval exercises. All 118 crew members were killed.In a part of the documentary about Syria, Putin spoke about the heroic feat of corporal Denis Portnyagin, who, in an unequal battle with terrorists in Syria, was ready to explode himself not to be captured."Not only did he repulse an attack of terrorists. There were only four or five of them (Russian military men - ed.) - a group of special operations forces that were engaged in finding targets for our aircraft. There was an unexpected attack of militants, the regular army pulled back, some units of the Syrian army did too, but the Russian group stayed and they took the battle," Putin said. According to Putin, in that battle with terrorists on August 16, 2017, the commander and the second officer were wounded, and corporal Portnyagin took all the combat work on himself and repelled several attacks. He requested help and prepared himself for self-destruction not to be taken captive."Moreover, he drew the fire upon himself and gave precise instructions. Our artillerymen managed to cut off the terrorists with the help of mortar fire, then our aircraft struck, and after that another group of special operations forces approached them, and all were taken out to safety," the president said.He noted that there are many of such people in the Russian army - the ones who are ready to fight in an unequal battle. "They are heroes, of course. If they are not heroes, then who? I know that there are many such people in our armed forces," Putin said.Corporal Denis Portnyagin was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation in late 2017.Pravda.Ru

Russia has every opportunity to make a breakthrough in increasing labor productivity. To achieve this goal, Russia needs  to pull out from the Washington Consensus, in particular from the American patent law, economist Vasily Koltashov believes.By 2060, Russia will lag behind the United States of America even more - experts at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said. Without reforms, per capita GDP in Russia will grow by only 0.7 percent in the next 12 years, economists predict. Labor productivity in Russia has not grown in recent years, and in 2018-2030 it will accelerate only to 0.5 percent. Experts advise Russia should increase labor productivity through the public administration reform, as well as by increasing the duration of school education and reducing trade tariffs.Vasily Koltashov, the head of the Centre for Economic Studies at the Institute of Globalisation and Social Movements, told Pravda.Ru that OECD economists say the following: the USA will be just fine, and Russia will be just bad. "This is a strange affirmation, because the Russian economy has been developing in recent years in conjunction with processes in the global economy.""In China, the economy is growing, an economic growth is possible in India, but in most countries there is stagnation. In the European Union, there is depressive stagnation. If we look at the United States, their GDP growth is actually equal to the growth of the USA's public debt and costs for its servicing. Strangely enough, no one says that the Americans have their salaries too high and their labor productivity too low in proportion to their wages, which makes their products completely uncompetitive," Vasily Koltashov told Pravda.Ru.According to the economist, Russia can ensure the economic growth if the country ensures the development of its own production capacities. This is what the import substitution policy is aimed at - to expand the export range. "Russia needs to import only what Russia needs. We should not import poultry from the USA as we did during Yeltsin's times. We should import, for example, equipment that we cannot make ourselves," the expert said. OECD experts give harmful recommendations, Vasily Koltashov said in an interview with Pravda.Ru. The era of free trade is over, and one needs to fight on the world market. Therefore, "trade duties must be kept high and it is necessary to fight smugglers mercilessly.""It is highly important Russia should no longer obey the rules of the Washington Consensus. Instead, Russia should start dismantling those rules. We should refuse to obey the American patent law. Having started the war of sanctions, the Americans violated all rules of free unlimited trade, because politics has no right to interfere with commerce. We must have complete freedom to use technology, and then we will quickly overcome the backlog in productivity," the expert told  Pravda.Ru.Western experts always speak about the reduction of the role of state in economy. "Yet, they talk about our state, but not theirs. Their state can interfere in our economy as much as it wishes. Yet, even if we try to follow their pieces of advice, the Russian economy will collapse, just like the economy of any other country, because the time for such recipes has passed," Vasily Koltashov told Pravda.Ru. It is worthy of note that PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) published a report in 2017 titled "The World in 2050". PwC experts predicted that the Russian economy would become the strongest in Europe by this time. Reference: The Washington consensus is a type of macroeconomic policy that the IMF and the WB  recommended at the end of the 20th century for application in the countries that experience financial and economic crises. Recommendations to such countries reflected the common position of the US administration, and major international financial organisations, such as the IMF and the World Bank, as well as leading American think tanks.Pravda.Ru Read article on the Russian version of Pravda.Ru

Putin's Address to the Federal Assembly on March 1 came as a bombshell for the world. The speech that the Russian president delivered at Manezh Exhibition Hall just outside the Kremlin made everyone believe that Putin was presenting Russia's new fantastic weapons to the United States. However, some assumed that Putin was not talking about the United States of America as Russia's prime opponent. Retired general of the Italian army, co-author of the book "Geoeconomics: Tools, Strategy and Tactics," Carlo Jean, said that "Putin announced to the world that he reached nuclear parity with the United States again." According to the general, Russia has been compelled to run the colossal modernization of its nuclear arsenal since the time of Obama's presidency. The Russians started doing it in response to Obama's initiative to modernize the enormous American arsenal contrary to the Nobel Peace Prize that was given to him for his promise to dismantle it, the Italian general told Ilsussidiario.net website. According to him, the US plan is worth about 1.2 trillion dollars and spans 30 years. Forty billion of the amount was invested in the project this year. The significance of Putin's speech is that he has reaffirmed the strength of his country, which he had raised from ruins."We saw the Russian military power reviving in the Middle East, in Ukraine, in the Crimea," the expert said. Putin's call for an international dialogue concerns the Middle East, where Putin remains in a situation which he can not resolve."

In response to the proposal from Vladimir Putin to help the Defense Ministry come up with a name for latest arms systems, which the Russian President presented during the announcement of his Address to the Federal Assembly, the Russians started to make their offers. Two new types of Russian strategic weapons remain nameless for the time being: a global range cruise missile with a nuclear power plant and a nuclear-capable unmanned underwater vehicle. In addition, one needs to coin the name for he new laser weapons as well. "For those who are interested in military equipment, I would like to propose, I would ask them to propose the names for this new hardware," the Russian president said, introducing the new weapons of the Russian Federation, noting that one can submit their options on the websites of the Defense Ministry.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, during his annual Address to the Federal Assembly presented new fantastic weapons as a response to the deployment of the US missile defense system and the USA's pullout from the Treaty on the Limitation of Strategic Nuclear Offensive Arms.The video parade of Russia's latest developments in armory has showed the whole world that Russia was a global leader in the development of defensive weapons. All these weapons are defensive, rather than offensive, Putin stressed. To explain the need to show the latest developments to the world, Putin referred to the history of relations between Russia and the United States. According to him, the USA had rejected all of Russia's proposals for cooperation on missile defense. "It would have created an atmosphere of confidence and it would have also guaranteed protection from mindless and globally dangerous single-handed use of nuclear weapons," Putin said. "Restrictions for missile defense systems would have made the potential aggressor vulnerable to a retaliatory strike," he said. According to Putin, Russia had long persuaded the United States not to ruin the ABM Treaty, "not to violate the strategic balance." "All was in vain. In 2002, the US unilaterally pulled out from the treaty," the president said. "But even after that, we had been trying for a long time to establish a constructive dialogue with them. We suggested we work together in the area to resolve concerns and preserve the atmosphere of confidence. At some point, it seemed that a compromise could be found. But no, all our suggestions, all of them, were rejected," Putin said. Therefore, several years ago Russia started working on state-of-the-art and second-to-none arms systems.First off, this is a new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile that can overcome any missile defense system and has no limitations on its range. With a weight of 200 tons, the flight range of the Sarmat missile is larger than that of Bulava ICBM. The Voevoda (heavy intercontinental ballistic missile) has a flight range of 11,000 km, but the new system has practically no range limitations, Putin said after demonstrating a computer flight simulation of the Sarmat missile. He said that Sarmat can attack targets both via the North and the South Pole. "This is a very formidable weapon," the Russian president said.Russia also started developing weapons that did not use the ballistic trajectory at all. "We started developing new types of strategic weapons that do not use ballistic flight trajectories when moving to the target," the Russian president said. "Therefore, missile defense systems are useless and simply pointless against them," Putin said.It goes about the new missile with a small-sized nuclear superpowerful power plant, capable of maneuvering as long as possible bypassing ABM systems. The missile does not haму a name yet. It can be housed into a cruise missile, which will provide the latter with an unlimited range and invulnerability for missile and air defenses."A low-flying and low-visible cruise missile carrying a nuclear warhead of an unlimited range, unpredictable flight trajectory and a possibility to circumvent interception lines is invulnerable to all existing and prospective systems of both missile and air defense," Putin said. Afterwards, Putin proceeded to the hypersonic air-missile complex "Kinzhal" ("Dagger"). High-precision hypersonic airborne missile complex "Kinzhal" has been put on combat duty in the Southern Military District of Russia from December 2017. "The trials of the new missile complex have been completed successfully. On December 1 2017, the complex was put on pilot-combat duty at airfields of the Southern Military District," the president added.

On March 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin started his traditional message to the Federal Assembly. As it could be seen in the beginning of the speech, Putin has not recovered from cold that he caught in the middle of February: he would often wipe his nose with a handkerchief, clear his throat and his voice is husky. This year's Address to the Federal Assembly has become the 14th for Putin and the 24th in the modern history of Russia. In 2018, the format of the event underwent a number of important changes in connection with the presidential election in Russia, which will be held two weeks after today's speech.This year's speech is addressed to all citizens of the country, rather than to the political elite.Secondly, most of the speech is devoted to how, according to the Kremlin, the next six-year rule of the current president will or should look like. Thus, Putin's Address to the Federal Assembly becomes his pre-election message. Thirdly, screens with infographics, diagrams and other visual presentations will be used for the first time to better visualise Putin's words for the population of Russia. Finally, this years's address has been relocated from the Kremlin's St. George Hall to the Central Exhibition Hall "Manege" outside the Kremlin walls that many associate with the inaccessibility and remoteness of power from the people. "It was at such turning points when Russia has repeatedly proved its ability to develop, upgrade, develop lands, build cities, conquer outer space, make grandiose discoveries," Putin said. "This constant aspiration for the future, the fusion of traditions and values, has ensured the continuity of our thousand-year history. We have also been through large-scale complex transformations, we have been able to cope with completely new and very complex economic, social challenges, and we have  preserved the unity of the country and established ourselves as a democratic society on a free, independent path. ""Stability is the basis, but not a guarantee for further development. We have no right to let the achieved stability lead to complacency, given that we still have to work a lot to solve many problems," he said. Russia is one of the leading powers with a defence and economic potential, but from the point of view of people's well-being, there is still a lot to be done. The welfare of citizens is the main and the key factor of Russia's development. "Our priority is the well-being of the people, we must give decent work to people," the president said, adding that as many as 20 million Russian citizens face poverty.The President set the task to reduce poverty twice in Russia within the upcoming six years. "We must solve one of the key tasks for the coming decade - to ensure a confident, long-term growth of real incomes of citizens, and halve the level of poverty in six years," Putin said. "Today we are obliged to set ourselves a goal of a fundamentally new level: by the end of the next decade, Russia must confidently enter the 80+ club of countries where life expectancy exceeds 80 years. They are such counties as Japan, France and Germany," said Putin. In today's Russia, life expectancy has increased and currently makes up 73 years. "This is not enough, of course," Putin said. For the dynamic development Russia should expand space of freedom in all spheres and strengthen institutions of democracy."To move forward, to develop dynamically, we must expand space of freedom in all areas. We must also strengthen institutions of democracy, local government, the structure of civil society and courts," he said adding that Russia should be open to the world, to new ideas and initiatives.Russia needs to ensure the dynamic development, in which no obstacles can stop the nation from moving forward confidently. The coming years will be decisive for the future of the country, Putin said. It goes about the development of technology. Lagging behind in the field of technology is unacceptable, the head of state said, because technological backlog entails risks of the loss of sovereignty. "They are waiting for a strong response from us, and we are ready to give such a response," Putin said.Those who can not take advantage and use the technological wave will drown, the Russian president said. The Russian president ordered regional authorities to improve the condition of roads."We need to double the spending on building roads," Putin said adding that eleven trip ion rubles are to be assigned to finance road construction in Russia. Pensions should be regularly indexed to exceed the level of inflation, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his annual Address to the Federal Assembly.He also pointed to the need to improve the quality of medical and social services for older people, to help those who was left alone and found themselves in a difficult situation.Putin set the goal to increase healthcare expenditure to five percent of GDP using sources of financing that would not restrain economic growth."In 2019-2024, the development of the healthcare system from all sources will require an annual average of more than 4% of GDP, but we must certainly strive for 5% of GDP," Putin said.The Russian authorities will support initiatives that will allow cities to reveal themselves in a new way. Special attention will be paid to social and infrastructure projects, Putin said.The Russian Federation should become one of the world centers for processing and storing informationRussia should become one of the world leaders for processing and storing large amounts of information, said Russian President Vladimir Putin."With the help of advanced communications, we will open all possibilities of the digital world to our citizens, and this is not only about modern services of on-line education or telemedicine, which in itself is extremely important," the Russian leader said.Russia needs to improve the quality of drinking water. There are settlements in Russia, where water is available only according to a schedule, Putin noted. The implementation of various projects connected with the ecology of Lake Baikal will improve the quality of life for a half of the population, he said. Pravda.Ru

The United States will be able to strike blows from space already in a few years, the Chief of Staff of the US Air Force David Goldfein said. According to him, the US needs to achieve predominance in space just as much as it needs to achieve leadership in airspace.The agreement on principles of activities of states for the exploration and the use of outer space was signed in 1967. The document does not allow the deployment of nuclear weapons in space, but it does not ban the deployment of other types of weapons there either.In 2008, at the Conference on Disarmament, China and Russia introduced a draft treaty that would prohibit the deployment of any kind of weapons in space of and exclude the use of force against space objects. However, the document has not been adopted yet. Pravda.Ru asked an expert opinion from military expert of Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine, Alexei Leonkov, to find out what threat the new initiative of the United States poses to the world. "The Americans have been seriously dealing with issues of the militarisation of space. They have a number of programs on their completion stage. As soon as they launch weapons into space, another arms race will kick off. Russia proposed signing the treaty on the demilitarisation of outer space in 2011, but the Americans rejected the initiative, because many of its regulations did not leave them any loopholes to deploy any weapons into space save for reconnaissance vehicles."The militarisation of space is a component of the concept, which the US has been following to rebuild their armed forces. They plan to strike instant blows within an hour and develop several programs to create hypersonic aerial vehicles," the expert said.In addition, the United States has a project known as HTV Falcon. As part of this project, the Americans will put into orbit a spacecraft carrying assault elements made of solid alloys.If such a block descends from orbit at a speed of five to seven kilometres per second, one will not be able to shoot it down. In addition, upon touchdown, the object will strike the so-called kinetic impact that will cause destruction, but exclude contamination of the territory and other consequences. Moreover, it will be possible to retrieve the block and use it again. In addition, the disc can then be removed and used again. Nowadays, one can track and monitor any launch of any missile. In case of threat, the missile can be destroyed. The aerospace system allows to launch such vehicles from an airplane that ascends to an altitude of 15-20 kilometres and launches a second or a third stage. Tracking such a launch is practically impossible. "Russia has been working a lot lately to upgrade its air defences. We are all waiting for S-500 systems to arrive. Russian space engineers develop a new engine that will enable spacecraft to manoeuvre in space. They will be able to approach a satellite, and they identify it as dangerous, they will be able to destroy it. Unfortunately, however, Russia responds when it is too late, as it was the case with the import substitution. We could not support our producers until they imposed sanctions on Russia. Pravda.Ru Read article on the Russian version of Pravda.Ru

US Ambassador to Russia John Huntsman and representatives of the Russian authorities continue the discussion about the interference of the United States in the upcoming elections in Russia. According to Huntsman, an exchange of harsh statements on the subject may escalate the relations between the two countries. His concerns are understandable, although Moscow has a lot to catch up with Washington at this point. Not that long ago, official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, stated that the United States was trying to interfere in the Russian elections because of the internal political situation in the USA. "They are interested in our elections for two reasons. First off, they need it to continue the domestic political rhetoric, which as you can see, does not reduce tensions," she said on NTV. The US is to hold intermediate elections to the Congress in November 2018. The question is whether the Democrats can intercept majority from the Republicans. Therefore, the widely advertised subject of the "Russian intervention" will, beyond any doubt, remain in high demand.Secondly, the USA needs to be traditionally involved in all internal processes in all regions of the world. "There is no region where Washington does not want to play.  The rule of no interference in domestic politics and lives of other states works and should work from their point of view for all, except for one exceptional country - the United States of America," added Zakharova.The American Ambassador to Russia stated when visiting Kazan that he was concerned about accusations of USA's interference in the Russian elections and said that it was impossible. "We are often accused that we interfere in elections, but it seems to me meaningless, as we very much value our relations. Sometimes I worry that such an exchange of statements would lead to unnecessary escalation," the diplomat said. Perhaps, the US ambassador to Russia remains the only American official who tries to observe proprieties. It is hard to imagine someone else in Washington could say things like "we value our relations" and "unnecessary escalation."As for facts, one can only recall the statement from the US State Department in connection with the refusal of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation to register blogger Alexei Navalny as a presidential candidate in late December of 2017. US officials said back then that such actions indicated the inability of the Russian authorities to ensure the implementation of basic freedoms and human rights in the country. They urged the Russian government to hold fair, transparent and free elections to guarantee "the free expression of the will of the people."President Putin reacted to the statement from the US State Department. "The persona that you mentioned (Navalny) - he is not the only one who was not admitted to the elections. For some reason, they do not name others," Russian President Vladimir Putin said during the meeting with the leaders of Russian media in January. "This, as it seems, indicates certain preferences of the US administration," he added. "This is the person, whom they would like to promote into the political sphere of Russia and see as the country's leader," Putin said noting that the Americans should have kept silence on the subject because they fouled up. Obviously, Moscow intends to serve the subject of elections with the same sauce for Washington. John Huntsman's remarks about "unnecessary escalation" if it was not for two aspects. Mr. Huntsman should send this message to the US administration. Last but not least, the escalation in the US-Russian relationship has gone too far primarily because of Washington's actions. To make matters worse, Washington is not going to stop. Oleg Artyukov Pravda.Ru Read article on the Russian version of Pravda.Ru