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Russia Tag

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 04, 2017 14 Comments
Following revelations that Susan Rice sought the unmasking of Americans purportedly caught up in incidental surveillance, Rice is on Congress' short list of persons to testify on Russian hacking.  She has, through her attorney, declined Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC)'s request to do so. CNN reports:
Obama's former national security adviser, on Wednesday declined Sen. Lindsey Graham's request to participate in a judiciary subcommittee hearing next week on Russian interference in the US election, CNN has learned.

Posted by Mike LaChance on April 28, 2017 19 Comments
Democrats have been running around for months crafting an anti-Trump narrative about the threat Russia presents to our democracy. Now, there is real reason to be concerned about Russia's actions. Russia has built an expansive new military base in the Arctic. The Business Insider reports:
Russia unveils its newest Arctic base Russia has unveiled a new military base as part of its buildup in the Arctic region, and has provided a tour — albeit a virtual one on your computer. According to a report from FoxNews.com, the base is located on Franz Josef Land — an archipelago north of Novaya Zemlya that the Soviet Union seized from Norway in 1926 — and is known as the “Arctic Trefoil” due to its tricorne shape.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 25, 2017 13 Comments
House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and top Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) have announced that the committee could not find evidence that President Donald Trump's former National Security adviser Michael Flymm reported payments for his foreign work. Chaffetz and Cummings reviewed classified military documents, which showed them that "Flynn did not ask permission or inform the government about payments he got for appearances before Russian organizations and for lobbying that helped Turkey's government.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 21, 2017 2 Comments
The Treasury Department has rejected a request from ExxonMobil to waive Russian sanctions in order for the oil company to drill with PAO Rosneft. The department received sanctions years ago after Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. ExxonMobil, which Secretary of State Rex Tillerson headed, had made plans with Rosneft to drill in the Black Sea and the Arctic Circle for oil and natural gas.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 21, 2017 13 Comments
The House Intelligence Committee has invited some former President Barack Obama's administration officials to testify in a closed hearing over the panel's investigation into possible Russian interference in our presidential election. The committee included former acting Attorney General Sally Yates who President Donald Trump fired when she instructed Department of Justice "lawyers not to make legal arguments defending" Trump's executive order on immigration back in January.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 17, 2017 6 Comments
As tension rise between America and North Korea, it appears that Russian state TV has decided to side with dictator Kim Jong Un. According to Bloomberg, the Kremlin's top TV guy Dmitry Kiselyov made this proclamation after calling President Donald Trump "just the kind of leader the world needed" a few weeks ago. Bloomberg reported:
In the latest sign of the Kremlin’s abrupt about-face on its erstwhile American hero, Kiselyov pronounced Trump “more dangerous” than his North Korean counterpart. “Trump is more impulsive and unpredictable than Kim Jong Un,” he told viewers of his prime-time Sunday “Vesti Nedelyi” program, which earlier this year carried paeans to Trump for his pledge to warm up relations with Russia.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 15, 2017 5 Comments
Earlier this month, Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported that at least 100 gay men disappeared in Chechnya due to "their non-traditional sexual orientation, or suspicion of such." Chechnya and Russia immediately denied these claims, but outlets have started to reach out to those who had been detained, thus giving support to the report. From The Guardian:
At least once a day, Adam’s captors attached metal clamps to his fingers and toes. One of the men then cranked a handle on a machine to which the clamps were linked with wires, and sent powerful electric shocks through his body. If he managed not to scream, others would join in, beating him with wooden sticks or metal rods.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 12, 2017 19 Comments
The best part of President Donald Trump's presidency? The way it makes the media go crazy. This time the media has gone insane because Secretary of State Rex Tillerson dropped his press pool for an unscheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on his trip to Moscow. Can you blame him, though? After all, the media treat members of this administration fairly and without any bias. *cough*Jeff Sessions*cough*

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 07, 2017 33 Comments
On Thursday night, President Donald Trump ordered an airstrike against Syria near an airfield where President Bashar al-Assad's regime allegedly launched a chemical attack that killed over 60 people. The U.S. military attacked the Shayrat air base near Homs with 59 Tomahawk missiles from the Mediterranean Sea, which caused immense damage "to airfields, planes and fueling facilities allegedly used by the Assad regime."

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 03, 2017 7 Comments
Sources now say that only one explosion occurred between two stations at a St. Petersburg, Russia, underground train station. Ten people have died:
"There was one blast in one site in between (stations) as the train arrived at the Technology Institute station from Sennaya (Ploshchad) station," the source told Reuters.
President Vladimir Putin was scheduled to meet with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in the city today.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 01, 2017 8 Comments
Russian Poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko has died at age 84. He was resident at the University of Tulsa, and died in a hospital in Oklahoma City. I think it's hard for Americans to understand the celebrated role that poets occupy in Russian history, including the dissident movement that began to develop in the 1950s and 1960s. I experienced some of that when studying Russian language and literature in the 1970s and early 1980s, and studying in Moscow in 1980. The vast sweep of Yevtushenko life work was somewhat overwhelmed by the power and stature of Yevtushenko’s 1961 poem about the Nazi massacre of over 33,000 Jews in just two days on September 29-30, 1941, at Babi Yar, a ravine near Kiev in the Ukraine. I provided extensive background and material about the Babi Yar massacre in my May 7, 2016, post, Israeli flag burned at Babi Yar on Holocaust Remembrance Day:
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