DEAD RUSSIAN SPY

A mysterious accident in which one of Russia's most powerful spies was found dead on a Turkish beach has provoked speculation that the deputy head of the country's foreign military intelligence service had been murdered.

The badly decomposed body of Yuri Ivanov washed up last month on the shore of the Mediterranean, and was discovered by Turkish villagers in the province of Hatay, Turkish newspapers reported today. Reports suggest that he was quietly buried in Moscow over the weekend.

Ivanov was the second in command at Russia's foreign military intelligence unit, the GRU. The general had last been deployed to review military installations in Syria, amid Kremlin attempts to reassert its influence in the Middle East, reports suggested.

The general was last seen visiting the building site for a new Russian military base in the Syrian coastal city of Tartus, which is being expanded as a base for Russia's Black Sea fleet.

After his visit, he left for a meeting with Syrian intelligence agents. He then went missing, the Turkish newspaper Vatan reported today.

Read the entire story here.


The GRU is Russia's largest foreign intelligence agency [1]. In 1997 it deployed six times as many agents in foreign countries as the SVR, which is the KGB intelligence successor. It also commanded 25,000 Spetsnaz troops in 1997.

HUGE RUSSIAN FLYING FORTRESS

In the 1930s the leaders and the scientists of the Soviet armed forces were fascinated with the concept of creating huge planes. They were proposing to have as many propellers as possible to help carry these huge flying fortresses into the air; as at that time jet propulsion had not yet been implemented.




Not many photos were saved since that time, due to the high secrecy levels of such projects and because of the purges of Stalin and the subsequent difficulties of the war years. Still, in theses photos you can see one of these planes planes - a heavy bomber K-7.





Nowadays modern history lovers in Russia try to reconstruct the look of this incredible beast in full color, according the plans recovered from top-secret Russian army archives. This is one example based on ideas of Russian aviation engineers of that era.









































These last series of illustrations depict the gigantic monster in conceptual combat against the experimental Nazi UFO - rumored to have been recovered by Allied scientists at the war's end and whisked away to Area 51 for future exploitation.

CUTTING EDGE FRENCH TECHNOLOGY

France Shows Off Cutting-Edge Navy Ship in Russia




By IRINA TITOVA, AP - Nov 23, 2009

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia – A cutting-edge French warship sailed into St. Petersburg Monday to show off its capabilities to potential buyers in the Russian navy, whose pursuit of an amphibious assault capacity is frightening some neighboring countries.


Oh really? What a yawnfest . . . so they've got an amphibious carrier and they want to sell it to the Russkies, huh? NO BIG DEAL . . . just so happens we've got a "Gator Navy" of our own -



* Wasp class
o USS Wasp (LHD-1), Norfolk, Virginia
o USS Essex (LHD-2), Sasebo, Japan
o USS Kearsarge (LHD-3), Norfolk, Virginia
o USS Boxer (LHD-4), San Diego, California
o USS Bataan (LHD-5), Norfolk, Virginia
o USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6), San Diego, California
o USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7), Norfolk, Virginia
o USS Makin Island (LHD-8), San Diego, California

* Tarawa class
o USS Nassau (LHA-4), Norfolk, Virginia
o USS Peleliu (LHA-5), San Diego, California



Then on top of all that, we've got THIS:



Three carrier strike groups in formation for a great photo op: USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63), USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) and their associated carrier strike Groups steam in formation formation while 17 aircraft from the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps fly over them while preparing for Exercise Valiant Shield 2006.


Here's a close-up:






'Bye now . . .


And that's only a QUARTER of what we've got:

Enterprise class:

* USS Enterprise (CVN-65) — Norfolk, Virginia

Nimitz class:

* USS Nimitz (CVN-68) — San Diego, California
* USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) — Norfolk, Virginia
* USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) — Norfolk,Virginia +
* USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) — Norfolk, Virginia
* USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) — Everett, Washington
* USS George Washington (CVN-73) —Yokosuka, Japan
* USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) — Bremerton, Washington
* USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) — Norfolk, Virginia
* USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) — San Diego, California
* USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77) — Norfolk, Virginia

Ford Class:
* USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) — Under Construction, will replace the USS Enterprise +


Then on top of all that, we've got THIS thing:







The plane in these pictures is still officially the 'Air Vehicle Number 1', a prototype, on board the USS George Washington CVN-73 for catapult fit checks. Not exactly still Top Secret but certainly not yet made public.





It will be known as the F/A-37. Although specs are classified, it is believed to be Mach 3.5 (top speed in the Mach 4 range), super-cruise stealth fighter/bomber/ interceptor with approximately a 4,000nm range.

Check out the Navy test pilot in the cockpit of the F/A-37 . . . LT Kara Wade:




BUT WAIT ! ! ! THERE'S MORE ! ! !



Boeing is preparing a 1000 passenger jet that could reshape the Air travel industry for the next 100 years. The radical Blended Wing design has been developed by Boeing in cooperation with the NASA Langley Research Center. The mammoth plane will have a wing span of 265 feet compared to the 747's 211 feet, and is designed to fit within the newly created terminals used for the 555 seat Airbus A380, which is 262 feet wide.

The new 797 is in direct response to the Airbus A380 which has racked up 159 orders, but has not yet flown any passengers. Boeing decide to kill its 747X stretched super jumbo in 2003 after little interest was shown by airline companies, but has continued to develop the ultimate Airbus crusher 797 for years at its Phantom Works research facility in Long Beach, Calif.

The Airbus A380 has been in the works since 1999 and has accumulated $13 billion in development costs, which gives Boeing a huge advantage now that Airbus has committed to the older style tubular aircraft for decades to come.

There are several big advantages to the blended wing design, the most important being the lift to drag ratio which is expected to increase by an amazing 50%, with overall weight reduced by 25%, making it an estimated 33% more efficient than the A380.



I can just imagine a fleet of these babies unloading the entire 82D Airborne Division over Drop Zone Managua - Look out Chavez, HERE WE COME ! ! !


High body rigidity is another key factor in blended wing aircraft, It reduces turbulence and creates less stress on the air frame which adds to efficiency, giving the 797 a tremendous 8800 nautical mile range with its 1000 passengers flying comfortably at mach 0.88 or 654 mph (+-1046km/h) cruising speed another advantage over the Airbus tube-and-wing designed A380's 570 mph (912 km/h).

The exact date for introduction is unclear, yet the battle lines are clearly drawn in the high-stakes war for civilian air supremacy.


Now where were we? Oh yeah - the French have a new toy? And the Russkies want to buy it? Y-A-W-W-W-N-!-!-!


- S.L.

NOTHING GOOD WILL COME OF THIS

Nice clenched-fist salute there, Seňor Presidente-for-Life - you remind me of someone: MUSSOLINI







Hugo Chavez will visit Iran in the first week of September.

According to Venezuelan ambassador to Iran David Velasquez, Chavez's September tour is in line with unity and commitment to world peace. Chavez will also tour Syria, Libya, Iran and Russia to discuss Iran-Venezuela projects and the adverse military situation in Latin America "created by the US".

"Chavez does not want nefarious forces to rule a society, whereas today West with its imperialist forces and Washington is a threat to the world."

In the meantime Hugo Chavez has gone on the record stating he'd welcome Russian troops in Venezuela "because the North American empire has plans to invade Venezuela, to disarm Venezuela."

You can judge a man's character by the people he hangs out with; birds of a feather flock together:

The strategic alliance between Chavez and Fidel Castro, initiated in December 1994 when Chavez visited Havana for the first time and formally constituted in 2000, Chavez’s second year as president of Venezuela, facilitated the entry of the People’s Republic of China, Iran, and more recently Russia into Latin America.

North Korea, aka the hermit kingdom, also has expanded its presence in Latin America quietly through a strategic alliance with the Chavez regime which has been deepening since Pyongyang established an embassy in Caracas in 2006.

During the decade Chavez has been in power, non-state actors like the FARC and ELN of Colombia, European militant groups like the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and ETA (the Basque seperatist movement), and Islamic militant groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, among others, also have established a presence in Venezuela.

IRA and ETA, which also have longtime links with the Cuban regime in Havana, travel in/out of Venezuela via Cuba. Islamic militants – like Hezbollah, Hamas, etc. – use commercial air routes between Caracas, Tehran and Damascus.

Some local independent intelligence analysts also believe that radical Islamic activists loosely associated with militant groups possibly tied to al Qaeda have established a presence in Venezuelan territory over the past six or seven years.

International ethnic organized crime groups also known to be operating in Venezuelan include several Chinese triads, Russian mafiya, Neapolitan ‘camorristas,’ and Spanish, Brazilian, Mexican and several West African crime groups. Their core “business” in Venezuela is narcotics smuggling, the illegal arms trade, and money laundering.

Presidente Chavez routinely reaffirms that the United States is the greatest enemy of Venezuela, and the greatest evil in the world. He is on record, literally hundreds of times in the past decade, as saying that he wants to destroy the US Empire, destroy US capitalism, bring the US to its knees, etc.

Sounds like a nice enough guy, the kind of guy I'd like to kick back and have a beer with sometime. NOT.

THE AMERICAN ARMY

"The reason why it is so difficult to fight the American Army is because they never follow their own doctrine."
- A Russian General





"War is Chaos, and the reason why the American Army excels at War is because they practice Chaos on a daily basis."
- a German General

RUSSIA HOLDS US HUMVEEs AS WAR TROPHIES

Russia Holds US Humvees as Trophies - Associated Press - 05 August 2009

MOSCOW -- A top Russian general says Russia has no intention of returning U.S. HumVees that Russian soldiers seized during the brief war with Georgia a year ago.
Deputy chief of the General Staff Anatoly Nogovitsyn says Russia considers the four Humvees to be war trophies and thus has no obligation to give them back.
Nogovitsyn told reporters Wednesday that Russia considered the subject closed.
The U.S. vehicles were seized in western Georgia. They had been used in joint military exercises in which U.S. trainers were preparing Georgian troops for deployment in Iraq.

This is par for the course; during the Cold War Russia stole military technology - and everything else - from us like it was going out of style, then they'd make such low-end Socialist copies it was pathetic. The Lada is Fiat rip-off and the Ural motorcycle is a WWII-era BMW.

Nowadays the Russian mafia steals whatever they want in the US and other countries - cars, trucks and even motorcycles - then they load it all in shipping containers and ship them to Russia via St. Petersburg and Finland where the Politburo gives them new titles: viola, legal property. I've seen cars from the US that still have American dealership stickers tooling down the road in Eastern Europe.

As so often happens with Russian technology, we will soon see this latest advancement of their military weaponry - a Russian Tactical Vehicle identical to the HumVee - appear in the next big May Day parade and other any photo ops they can conjure up.