Nikolas Gvosdev of the US Naval War College says: “The intention was to be able to throw force around in the region and create ‘facts on the ground.’”
.. The nuclear forces, particularly the huge number of sub-strategic systems that Russia keeps, are also a necessary hedge against a rising China. Russia does not see China as an antagonist. But its fast-growing military clout and hunger for natural resources worry the Kremlin.
.. A big question is whether Russia can afford to devote a rising share of its GDP to the armed forces. The defence budget accounts for over 20% of all public spending.
The Americans’ Refreshingly Real Take on Russians
“I think the basic premise is that the enemy is someone you should think about and understand,” said Weisberg, who is a former CIA agent. “The KGB was a huge organization and it had some real sons of bitches in it, but it also had plenty of decent people as well. Here in the Rezidentura in D.C. were some perfectly good people who were easy to relate to even if you didn’t believe in the cause they were serving.”
Workers Seize City in Eastern Ukraine From Separatists
Faced with waves of steelworkers joined by the police, the pro-Russian protesters melted away, along with signs of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic and its representatives. Backhoes and dump trucks from the steelworkers’ factory dismantled the barricades that separatists had erected.
.. “Nobody in the world will recognize it,” he said in a videotaped statement. “The structure of our economy is coal, industry, metallurgy, energy, machine works, chemicals and agriculture, and all the enterprises tied to these sectors. We will come under huge sanctions, we will not sell our products, cannot produce. This means the stopping of factories, this means unemployment, this means poverty.”
Sanctions Revive Search for Secret Putin Fortune
Numbers are thrown around suggesting that Mr. Putin may control $40 billion or even $70 billion, in theory making him the richest head of state in world history.
.. Mr. Belkovsky told European newspapers in December 2007 that Mr. Putin had amassed a fortune of “at least” $40 billion through sizable shares of some of Russia’s largest energy companies. Mr. Putin secretly controlled “at least 75 percent” of Gunvor, 4.5 percent of Gazprom and 37 percent of Surgutneftegaz, Mr. Belkovsky said, citing only unnamed Kremlin insiders.
“The reality is that Putin has others and entities to move money that he controls or that he might control ultimately,” said Mr. Zarate, the former Bush adviser. “The challenge with him is you don’t have an easy way of drawing the line to the assets he actually owns and controls currently. There’s a dimension of layering and relationships with people with whom he’s close and entities that serve as conduits that make it tricky to determine what is Putin’s and what is not.”
.. Garry Kasparov, the Russian chess master turned opposition leader, said Mr. Putin’s wealth must be so buried that it would be difficult to prove within the standards typically required by American lawyers.