Kyrgyzstan: Did Moscow Subvert a U.S. Central Asian Ally?

Um... yes?

Russia sends ship to Somali coast to fight piracy

Led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, pictured above modeling his "моряк" fashion line, the Russian Navy is going to take on the Somali pirates that seized a "Ukrainian vessel carrying 33 battle tanks and a hoard of ammunition" off of the Horn of Africa.

Somali Pirates

Russia offers Chavez nuclear help amid US tensions

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was to meet Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on Friday after Russia risked Washington's wrath by offering the fierce US foe help developing nuclear energy.

The two were to meet in the city of Orenburg after hawkish Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told Chavez in Moscow on Thursday that Russia was "ready to consider the possibility of cooperation in nuclear energy..."

"Today like never before all that you said on the multi-polar world becomes reality. Let us not lose time," Chavez told Putin. "The world is fast developing geopolitically..."

"Latin America has become an important chain-link in creating a multipolar world, and we will pay more attention to this vector," [Putin] said.

See also:
Chavez, Medvedev oversee signing of oil, gas deals, increasing Russian-Venezuelan ties

Putin the Terrible

Of particular note from this article is the argument that Russia wants to exert control over Georgia because of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline that connects the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea... if this is indeed true, which it probably is, it poses problems because Turkey will be affected and is a NATO ally.

Once the Kremlin's control was established, there was little anyone could do about Russian expansionism. Europe imports vast amounts of natural gas and oil from Russia. The threat to reduce or cut off supplies, for instance by ceasing shipments through Ukraine, a major transit route, served to blackmail the European Union.

Russia would like to get its hands on everything that lies between the Baltic and the Caucasus (beyond that, its big southern neighbor, Kazakhstan, ruled by a tyrant sitting on oil, is already a friend of Moscow's). But there are some hurdles, including the fact that the Baltic and most of the Balkans are part of the European Union and NATO. Which leaves Georgia and Ukraine, whose revolutions in 2003 and 2004 were seen as a powerful assertion of Western values in a region that Russia considers its backyard, as the easiest targets.

Russian nationalists, who are impetuous but not crazy, know well that Central Europe is beyond their reach, but they could seriously undermine those nations if they controlled their next-door neighbor, Ukraine. And Georgia would give them control of the transit route between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, which is to say the Mediterranean.