New Russian weapon can travel 27 times the speed of sound

MOSCOW (AP) — A new intercontinental weapon that can fly 27 times the speed of sound became operational Friday, Russia’s defense minister reported to President Vladimir Putin, bolstering the country’s nuclear strike capability.

Putin has described the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle as a technological breakthrough comparable to the 1957 Soviet launch of the first satellite. The new Russian weapon and a similar system being developed by China have troubled the United States, which has pondered defense strategies.

The Avangard is launched atop an intercontinental ballistic missile, but unlike a regular missile warhead that follows a predictable path after separation it can make sharp maneuvers in the atmosphere en route to target, making it much harder to intercept. Continue reading

Russian Media Cheers Trump’s Moves in Syria: ‘Putin Won the Lottery!’

For Russia, Trump’s presidency is a gift that keeps on giving. The Kremlin’s propagandists see no acceptable alternative among any viable presidential candidates in 2020.

President Trump has boasted he’s “getting a lot of praise” for his abrupt decision to withdraw U.S. troops out of northern Syria, abandoning the Kurds—America’s longstanding allies—to Turkey’s incursion. On the home front, the controversial move has been met with criticism on both sides of the political aisle, but the reaction in Moscow was far from mixed. As Trump uncorked chaos in the Middle East, champagne tops were likely popping at the Kremlin.

“Putin won the lottery! Russia’s unexpected triumph in the Middle East,” raved Mikhail Rostovsky in his article for the Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets. “Those who were convinced of Trump’s uselessness for Russia ought to think again…What Washington got out of this strange move is completely unclear. To the contrary, what Moscow gained from this is self-evident…Trump’s mistake in Syria is the unexpected ‘lottery win’ that further strengthened Moscow’s position in the Middle East and undermined America’s prestige as a rational political player and a reliable partner.”  Continue reading “Russian Media Cheers Trump’s Moves in Syria: ‘Putin Won the Lottery!’”

Kremlin Cash Behind Billionaire’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

The following article by Jesse Drucker was posted on the New York Times website November 5, 2017:

Leaked files show that a state-controlled bank in Moscow helped to fuel Yuri Milner’s ascent in Silicon Valley, where the Russia investigation has put tech companies under scrutiny.

Yuri Milner, right, speaks next to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at an announcement for the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences at Genentech Hall on UCSF’s Mission Bay campus in San Francisco, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

In the fall of 2010, the Russian billionaire investor Yuri Milner took the stage for a Q. and A. at a technology conference in San Francisco. Mr. Milner, whose holdings have included major stakes in Facebook and Twitter, is known for expounding on everything from the future of social media to the frontiers of space travel. But when someone asked a question that had swirled around his Silicon Valley ascent — Who were his investors? — he did not answer, turning repeatedly to the moderator with a look of incomprehension.

Now, leaked documents examined by The New York Times offer a partial answer: Behind Mr. Milner’s investments in Facebook and Twitter were hundreds of millions of dollars from the Kremlin.

Obscured by a maze of offshore shell companies, the Twitter investment was backed by VTB, a Russian state-controlled bank often used for politically strategic deals. Continue reading “Kremlin Cash Behind Billionaire’s Twitter and Facebook Investments”

CNN: Officials Have Evidence That Trump Associates ‘Coordinated With Russians’

The following article by Joe Conason was posted on the National Memo website March 23, 2017:

Donald Trump’s campaign chair and convention manager Paul Manafort appears at a press conference at the Republican Convention in Cleveland, July 19, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

On Wednesday, CNN reported what many of us who closely follow the Russian hacking scandal have expected for months: The FBI has evidence of contacts between unnamed “associates of Donald Trump” and “suspected Russian operatives” during last year’s presidential election — and possibly coordinated with Russians to attack the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party.

Coming two days after FBI director James Comey confirmed that his agency has been investigating the Trump campaign’s connections with Russian interference in the election since July 2016, the CNN report is stunning but not surprising. It also follows an Associated Press report on Tuesday that Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chair, had secretly devised a plan as early as 2005 to “greatly aid” the Putin regime by influencing the U .S. government and media. (Evidence that he pursued precisely such a campaign can be found in this 2008 Nationarticle by Mark Ames and Ari Berman, detailing efforts by Manafort and his partner Rick Davis to promote pro-Russian positions and policies with Arizona Senator and 2008 presidential candidate John McCain.) Continue reading “CNN: Officials Have Evidence That Trump Associates ‘Coordinated With Russians’”