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Russia to Ban US Adoptions in Retaliation to Magnitsky Act

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The State Duma’s legislative committee has approved an amendment banning any US involvement in the adoption of Russian children. On Wednesday the Lower House will consider the second reading of the bill.

­The amendment bans both individual adoptions by US citizens and US companies and organizations acting as intermediaries for those who seek to adopt Russian kids. They were submitted jointly by United Russia and Liberal Democratic MPs.

United Russia, the majority party in Parliament, is ready to support the ban on US adoptions according to Deputy Duma Speaker Sergey Neverov. He added that if the ban is approved it must remain in force for as long as US courts pass ‘biased’ rulings in cases involving adopted Russian children. The minority factions also said they would vote in support.

Other suggested amendments deal directly with the potential for US citizens to influence Russian politics. These include a ban for US citizens to head or even to work in Russian NGOs that are engaged in political activities. It is also proposed that all NGOs receiving funding from the United States be closed.

Read more from this story HERE.

Vladimir Putin Calls On Russian Families to Have Three Children

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. . . Mr Putin lauded recent measures to give cash payments and other benefits to mothers having a second child. Current birth rates show an average of 1.7 children are born to each Russian woman, but the president urged a huge leap in family-building.

New payments for those having a third child would begin next year, he said. “Demographers affirm that choosing to have a second child is already a potential choice in favour of a third,” he added. “It’s important that families make that step… I am convinced that the norm in Russia should become a family with three children.”

To achieve that goal, he said, women needed to be provided with the opportunity to continue work, so that they “did not fear that having a second and third child would close the path to a career”.

Mr Putin has long equated Russia’s demographic decline over recent decades with a potential threat to security. On Wednesday, he added: “In order for Russia to be a strong and sovereign country, there must be more of us and we must be better in morality, in our competences, our work and our creativity.”

To applause, the president said there were already signs that Russia’s long term demographic decline was reversing, and the population had grown by 200,000 in the first nine months of this year. “The birth rate is at last above the mortality rate,” he said.

Read full story HERE.

Russia Arms Syria With Powerful Ballistic Missiles

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Hours after NATO agreed on Tuesday to send Patriot missiles to Turkey because of the crisis in Syria, Russia delivered its first shipment of Iskander missiles to Syria.

The superior Iskander can travel at hypersonic speed of over 1.3 miles per second (Mach 6-7) and has a range of over 280 miles with pinpoint accuracy of destroying targets with its 1,500-pound warhead, a nightmare for any missile defense system.

According to Mashregh, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard media outlet, Russia had warned Turkey not to escalate the situation, but with Turkey’s request for Patriot missiles, it delivered its first shipment of Iskanders to Syria.

Reporting today, Mashregh said the handover occurred when Russian naval logistic vessels docked at Tartus in Syria.

The Iskandar is a surface-to-surface missile that no missile defense system can trace or destroy, Mashregh said. Russia had earlier threatened that should America put its missile defense system in Poland, it would retaliate by placing its Iskander missiles at Kaliningrad, its Baltic Sea port.

Read more from this story HERE.

Kremlin Leveraging Energy Exports to Europe

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WASHINGTON – Russian agreement to a reduced natural gas price in a deal with Poland helps ensure Moscow’s near-monopoly over Europe’s natural gas supply and the enormous political leverage that the Kremlin can exert as a consequence, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Gazprom, which has a near-monopoly on oil production and a full monopoly on natural gas exports, is viewed by experts as an effective tool of the Kremlin to not only be a weapon for political leverage but actually to greatly influence events in Europe.

Moscow’s strategy has been to undertake long-term contracts with lower natural gas prices. This has been aimed at countries which the Russians regard as strategic, particularly Germany.

However, a reaction is setting in among these countries. They don’t like the control that it gives to Gazprom and have decided to take the Russian monopoly to court.

Read more from this story HERE.

Kremlin Cheers Obama Election

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photo credit: OneManDifferenceMOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent a congratulatory note to President Obama after his re-election Tuesday, his spokesman said. The Kremlin says it will make the text public after the Americans have received it.

Putin is also expected to call Obama personally “in the near future.”

“In general, the Kremlin took the news about Barack Obama’s victory in the elections very positively,” spokesman Dmitri Peskov said, according to the Interfax news agency.

“We have the hope that positive initiatives in bilateral relations and in Russian-U.S. interaction on the international arena in the interests of international security and stability will be developed and improved,” he added.

It is perhaps not surprising that the Kremlin is pleased with the outcome of the election, especially since President Obama told then-President Dmitri Medvedev earlier this year that he would have more flexibility after the election to negotiate NATO plans to place components of a missile-defense shield in Eastern Europe.

Read more from this story HERE.

Russia’s Putin Happy With Obama Reelection

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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday welcomed U.S. President Barack Obama’s re-election and said he hoped it would have a positive impact on relations with the United States.

Despite Obama’s call for a “reset” in ties with Russia, relations have been strained by differences over issues ranging from missile defense to human rights and the conflict in Syria. But Moscow had been wary of Republican Mitt Romney’s campaign remark that Russia was the United States’ top geopolitical foe.

“Overall the Kremlin welcomes the news of Barack Obama’s victory in the elections,” Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told Interfax news agency.

“We express hope that the positive beginnings in bilateral relations and in international cooperation between Russian and the United States, in the interest of international security, will develop

and improve.”

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who was Russia’s president for much of Obama’s current term, made clear he was glad that he had defeated Romney.

Read more from this story HERE.

Russia Skewers US Election as Undemocratic, ‘The Worst in the World’

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photo credit: Mitya AleshkovskyThe Russian government is lambasting the U.S. presidential race as an undemocratic spectacle amid growing concerns about the country’s own commitment to free and fair elections.

The Foreign Ministry this week accused America of hypocrisy following reports that some U.S. states would turn away international election monitors at the polls.

The Kremlin-funded Russia Today television station, meanwhile, is serving up a steady stream of outraged U.S. election coverage, reporting on topics such as the lack of polling places in Indian country and the short-shift given to third-party candidates by the American media.

The U.S. electoral system, Russian elections chief Vladimir Churov declared this week, “is the worst in the world.”

Observers say the attacks against America’s election system are largely fueled by domestic politics in Russia.

Read more from this story HERE.

RT News: Russians Overwhelmingly Believe Obama Would Best Serve Their National Interests

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An overwhelming percentage of Russians said the reelection of US President Barack Obama would better serve Russia’s national interests as opposed to the presidential challenger, Mitt Romney.

With the presidential race in the United States going down to the wire among American voters, Mitt Romney must be thankful that Russian citizens are not eligible to vote in US elections.

In a nationwide poll that tracked Russians’ political attitudes, a whopping 41 per cent of respondents said they want to see President Obama voted back into the White House, while just 8 per cent expressed preference for Republican challenger Mitt Romney…

The Russian public’s extremely negative attitude towards Mitt Romney comes as little surprise since most Russians are familiar with the Republican contender only from his “anti-Russian” comments.

Earlier this year, Romney called Russia “America’s number one geopolitical foe.” For those who thought that may have been a misinformed slip of the tongue, he said at a later appearance that he would show more “backbone” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian leader, however, said he was “thankful” for Romney’s candor.

Read more from this story HERE. Please note that the source story is from RT News. RT News originates from Russia and has alleged connections to the Russian government.

Russia: Just Another Example of Obama Bowing East Rather Than Leading West

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As too few of us know, President Barack Obama and Russian President (and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin puppet) Dmitri Medvedev had in March this on-camera exchange:

President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.

President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…

President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.

President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.

Nothing like our president asking for “space” from one of the two nations (Communist China being the other) that has for years been blocking at the United Nations any rational policy on any number of issues.

Our policy as a people should not be to buy time for our president after he’s (ostensibly) re-elected to deliver Russia greater “flexibility” on issues on which he alone has decided we have thus far been too rigid.

Though I’m not sure our traditional allies — like Poland and the Czech Republic — would say that this president has been all that inflexible when it comes to dealing with Putin’s playground.

Just another example of our president bowing east rather than leading west.

Read more from this story HERE.

Russia Dramatically Expands Definition of “Treason,” Move Will Further Strengthen Putin’s Hand

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By Charles Clover. Russia has broadened its definition of treason, in a move prompting fears that state authorities will have a new weapon to clamp down on the press and non-governmental organisations.

The law was passed on Tuesday by the lower house of parliament, one of several pieces of legislation overseen by President Vladimir Putin and seemingly designed to clamp down on political opposition.

The changes and additions to an existing law on state secrets will make it illegal not only to pass on state secrets but also to receive, transmit or publicize them.

“It is a very worrying situation, you could become a traitor or a spy without even knowing it,” said Igor Kolyapin, head of the Nizhny Novgorod-based Committee Against Torture.

“Anyone who does not have access to state secrets does not, by definition, know what is secret and what isn’t. How thus can they thus be understood to carry responsibility for this?” Read more from this story HERE.

Comparison of New Treason Law and Law it is Replacing

By BBC. Under the proposed new law, high treason and espionage will include supporting “those seeking to damage Russia’s security”.

Those illegally obtaining secret state information could face an extended prison sentence.

The bill is expected to be swiftly passed by parliament’s upper house.

The legislation, which was voted through the Duma 375 votes to two, will then need to be signed into law by President Vladimir Putin.

Current law describes high treason as espionage or other assistance to a foreign state damaging Russia’s external security. Read more from this story HERE.