Reposted: Russia Recently

4/22/06: Russian bombers flew undetected across Arctic

Russian military planes flew undetected through the U.S. zone of the Arctic Ocean to Canada during recent military exercises, a senior Air Force commander said Saturday.

The commander of the country's long-range strategic bombers, Lieutenant General Igor Khvorov, said the U.S. Air Force is now investigating why its military was unable to detect the Russian bombers.
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4/21/06: Dollar too unstable to be reliable

Russia cannot consider the dollar as a reliable reserve currency because of its instability, the finance minister said Friday.

"This currency has devalued by 40% against the euro in recent years," Alexei Kudrin told a news conference in Washington on the occasion of the opening spring session of the International Monetary Fund.
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4/22/06: Russia Warns on Aggravating Iran Standoff

A top Kremlin diplomat warned against threatening Iran with sanctions or the use of force, saying that would only aggravate the international standoff over Tehran's suspect nuclear program, Russian media reports said Saturday.

"We firmly stand today for resolving the problems in and around Tehran diplomatically rather than militarily. Increasing international pressure on Iran has no prospects," Ozerov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
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4/27/06: War on Iran will start this year - Zhirinovsky

Populist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a deputy speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, said Thursday that war would be declared on Iran in 2006.