Russia News

Russian troops are leaving Georgia and will arrive in the peacekeepers’ zone of responsibility by tomorrow evening. The statement came during a regular briefing from Defence Ministry in Moscow.

According to the Ministry, the situation in the Georgian conflict zone remains tense. The Defence Ministry claims that OSCE observers knew of the date of Georgia's attack, but did not report it to Russian peacekeepers.

Syria raised the prospect yesterday of having Russian missiles on its soil, sparking fears of a new Cold War in the Middle East. President Assad said as he arrived in Moscow to clinch a series of military agreements: “We are ready to co-operate with Russia in any project that can strengthen its security.”

The Syrian leader told Russian newspapers: “I think Russia really has to think of the response it will make when it finds itself closed in a circle.”

Russia has told Nato that it is halting military co-operation over the continuing crisis in Georgia, an alliance spokeswoman has said.

Nato spokeswoman Carmen Romero said Russia's defence ministry had taken a decision "to halt international military co-operation events between Russia and Nato countries until further instructions".

The principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre, Valery Gergiev, will lead a concert in Tskhinvali on Thursday. The performance will be staged next to the destroyed parliament building in the bombed-out capital of South Ossetia.

Gergiev is of Ossetian origin but was born in Moscow. He grew up in North Ossetia and studied in St Petersburg.

“I’ve got a lot of friends and relatives living in South Ossetia. Although I haven’t lost my loved ones, my friends lost five relatives,” Gergiev said.

He believes that Russia did everything possible to save Ossetians from complete extermination.

Syria says it is ready to host a Russian missile system as a counterweight to U.S. plans.

The Syrian President Bashar Assad is in Moscow for talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The talks will be held at the Russian President’s summer residence in the mountains near Sochi.

The withdrawal of units of the Russian 58th Army from the Georgian city of Gori started on Thursday morning, the Russian Defence Ministry has told Interfax news agency.

More than 40 items of military hardware, including armoured personnel carriers, multiple missile launchers, combat vehicles and military trucks, are heading towards the Russian border.

The Ministry says the withdrawal of troops is going ahead on schedule.

Forty years ago Russian tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia to kill the country's liberal reforms. The leaders of the small central European country were trying to create what they called 'socialism with a human face'. Military intervention by the USSR and other countries of the Warsaw Pact put a stop to the changes.

On August 21 1968 troops from five Warsaw Pact countries entered Czechoslovakia, an action that has stuck in people’s memories over the years. Miloslav Vlcek, speaker of the Czech Chamber of Deputies, says people do not remember it was not only about August 21.

“We forget it was the reforms of ‘the Prague Spring’ that led to this. Today we must not put all the blame on Russia - it did apologise for the Soviet Union’s deeds. But take other countries of the Warsaw pact who were also involved - we have good relations with them today,” says Vlcek.

Around 600 billion rubles ($25 bln) will be earmarked for a series of high-tech programs until 2010, Russia's prime minister said Wednesday at a conference on science and education.

"We have never provided this sort of money for such purposes before," Vladimir Putin said.

The Russian premier also announced that a five-year program for fundamental research worth 250 billion rubles ($10.2 billion) had been approved.

Anti-Russian fervor threatens to hit fever pitch in Washington this week. In the wake of Russia's military incursion into Georgia, Barack Obama is suddenly doing his best to parrot John McCain's Russophobia. Indeed, the cries to shove Moscow back into the cold are coming from both sides of the aisle: Kick Russia out of the G-8, lock it out of the European Union and the World Trade Organization and, by all means, boycott Vladimir Putin's pet project, Sochi 2014 -- the Winter Olympics slated for a Black Sea venue a short drive from the disputed territory of Abkhazia. On Tuesday, NATO said that continuing normal relations with Russia was impossible and moved to all but scrap the NATO-Russia Council.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's popularity among Russians has increased during the last month, mainly due to his actions in regard to the recent South Ossetian conflict, a survey said on Wednesday.

Valery Fyodorov, the head of the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion on Social and Economic Issues (VTsIOM), which conducted the survey, said "August's events, and in the first place the war, have increased the [popularity] rating of the president."

He said according to the survey, 76% of those polled in Russia now trust and approve of President Medvedev, while this figure stood at 65% in July.

Russia continues to withdraw its troops from Georgia despite the tense situation in the South Ossetian conflict zone, a senior Russian military official said Wednesday.

"The Russian armed forces act strictly in accordance with the international agreements and continue the withdrawal of troops to places of previous deployment," said Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the Russian General Staff.

Ukraine will not prevent Russian Black Sea Fleet ships that were involved in a peace enforcement operation in Georgia from returning to their base, Ukraine's defense minister said on Wednesday.

Ukraine threatened last week to refuse to allow the Russian vessels to return to the Sevastopol naval base in the Crimea, which Moscow leases from Kiev.

"We have received notification that they will return," Yuriy Yekhanurov said of the Russian ships. "We do not have any specific questions, and we will provide all the documents for them to enter" the bay of Sevastopol.

Nord Stream AG, the Russian-German venture building a natural-gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea, hired a former Finnish prime minister to advise on ecological issues.

Paavo Lipponen, who served as premier from 1995 to 2003, agreed to join the OAO Gazprom project as an independent consultant to offer advice on the Environmental Impact Assessment and permit application in Finland, Nord Stream said in a statement on its Web site today.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday applauded Russia's response to the crisis in South Ossetia following Georgia's assault to regain control of its breakaway republic.

"Russia acted calmly, wisely and beautifully," Lukashenko said at a meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Atomstroyexport, a Russian nuclear power construction company, said on Tuesday it had completed repairs on the concrete and steel shell encasing the Chernobyl reactor one month ahead of schedule.

The latest repairs were managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and carried out as part of the Chernobyl Shelter Fund, a project aimed at building a new sarcophagus over the reactor at an estimated cost of around $1.2 billion. The EBRD has pledged $507 million towards the massive construction project.

Russia's foreign ministry claims the U.S. and U.K. are resisting a Russian-French proposed resolution on South Ossetia at the UN's Security Council. Moscow and Paris are seeking to draw up a document including the six-point peace plan agreed by the conflicting sides.

According to Russia's Foreign Ministry, the U.S. is doing all in its power to mispresent the document.

Russia's Yelena Isinbayeva won gold in the women's pole vault at the 2008 Beijing Olympics on Monday, repeating her feat of four years ago in Athens and setting a new world record.

The 26-year-old Russian won the gold when she cleared the height of 4.85 meters, but she went on to clear 4.95 and then beat her own world record by just one centimeter, clearing 5.05 meters at the third attempt.

The president of Russia promised a tough response to any aggression against its nationals, saying his country was perfectly capable of doing so.

"If anyone thinks they can get away with killing our citizens and officers, we will not allow this," Dmitry Medvedev said. "Anyone who tries to do something of the kind will receive a crushing response, and we have all the capabilities for this - economic, political and military."

Russia began pulling back troops from Georgia on Monday in accordance with a plan to resolve the South Ossetia conflict drawn up by the Russian and French presidents, a senior military official said.

"Today, in line with the peace plan, we have begun the pullback of Russian peacekeepers and their reinforcements," said Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the Russian General Staff.

The political fate of Georgia's breakaway republic of South Ossetia must be decided by South Ossetians themselves, Europe's main security and human rights watchdog said on Sunday.

"The fate of South Ossetia must be decided by the people of South Ossetia. They live in very difficult conditions and the context of what has happened is quite complex," Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, secretary general of the Organization for Security and Cooperation Europe (OSCE), said at a news conference in the capital of North Ossetia.