Russia, China back “convincing response” to N.Korea

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia and China want a “convincing response” to North Korea’s nuclear test from the United Nations Security Council, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

“Sergei Lavrov and Yang Jiechi expressed their common opinion on the necessity of a convincing response from the Security Council on the inadmissibility of ignoring the U.N. Security Council’s resolution and the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” the ministry said in a statement.

A phone conversation took place between the two ministers on Monday at the request of the Chinese foreign minister, it said.

“At the same time, it was stressed that the solution of the problem is possible only via political and diplomatic means, including by resuming six-party talks as the most important tool to solve the Korean peninsula’s nuclear problem and assuage North Korea’s justified security concerns,” the ministry said.

Russia plans to counter U.S. antimissile system in eastern Europe

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday that Moscow would place short-range missiles near the Polish border “to neutralize, if necessary” a planned U.S. antimissile system.

In his first state of the nation speech, Medvedev also said plans to take three nuclear missile regiments off combat duty in Kozelsk would be suspended and that Moscow would attempt to use radio jamming against the U.S. system

In August, Poland signed a deal that would base 10 U.S. interceptor missiles on its territory. The accompanying radar system would be placed in the adjacent Czech Republic. Both former Soviet satellites are now part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Washington has always maintained that the system is insurance against a possible missile launch by countries such as Iran, but Moscow believes it could be used to weaken Russia.

“Given what we have had to face in recent years — the construction of the global ABM [antiballistic missile] system, the encirclement of Russia with military bases, the unbridled expansion of NATO and other gifts to Russia — a solid impression is forming, that they are simply testing our patience,” Medvedev said.

In a phone interview, Alexander Konovalov, president of the Institute for Strategic Assessment think tank, played down Medvedev’s comments. He said that the nuclear missiles in Kozelsk were old and were being kept in place only because a new type of missile to replace them was not being manufactured quickly enough. He also thought radio jamming of the antimissile system was not very feasible.

He also took issue with the threat to place missiles near Poland.

“The deployment of an Iskander missile complex in the Kaliningrad region also sounds pretty pointless,” he said, “because first of all these are tactical missiles and they have not been produced in sufficient numbers yet. Secondly, their working radius is 280 km [174 miles], which is very small. And thirdly, they can carry only 500 kilos [1,102 pounds] of ordinary explosives, which most likely will not be enough to destroy an interceptor missile shaft.”

Russia to contribute $17 mln to Chernobyl cleanup

Russia will provide $17 million to help improve safety at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the world’s worst civilian nuclear disaster, and fully decommission it, a top Russian nuclear official said on Monday.

Three reactors of the Chernobyl plant continued to operate for several years after reactor number four exploded in 1986, the last reactor shutting down in 2000. The reactors still contain nuclear fuel rods, and require constant monitoring. The fourth reactor is housed in a Soviet-era sarcophagus set to be replaced by a $1.4 bln metal structure.

Speaking at an IAEA conference, Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the state-run corporation Rosatom, said: “The Russian Federation intends to help Ukraine improve security at the site of the Chernobyl power plant, and speed up the start of work to decommission it. For these purposes we will contribute $17 million to the Nuclear Safety Account and the Chernobyl Shelter Fund.”

Russia to upgrade nuclear systems

He said he wanted military chiefs to submit plans by December.

He called for a programme to build new nuclear submarines as well as “a system of aerospace defence”.

The announcement comes just weeks after Russia accused America of starting a new arms race by siting part of its missile defence shield in Poland.

“We must guarantee nuclear deterrence under various political and military conditions by 2020,” Mr Medvedev told military commanders.

Russia and Belarus will have nuclear power plants close to Lithuania

Lubys said that he is certain that before Lithuania builds its planned new nuclear power plant, Russia and Belarus will construct two new atomic power stations in the region.

“I am absolutely sure about this,” Lubys said in a recent interview for the magazine Veidas.

Rymantas Juozaitis, CEO of Lithuania’s national electricity company LEO LT, said that he does not see negative impact of the emergence of two new plants close to the Lithuanian border on Lithuania’s energy industry.

“Nuclear power stations currently account for almost 40% of the EU’s electrical energy generation. If we have three nuclear power plants in the region, power electricity generation by atomic power plants in the region will account only for 30%. We have to replace old, non-efficient power plants. We do not see any problems here,” Juozaitis said.

Whether or not Lithuania will have a new nuclear power facility will depend on whether the country’s politicians have the will to build it, Lubys said.

“This political will [depends] on the next Seimas and the next government, or even on their successors. The current government has stated its position: it is in favor of a new nuclear power plant,” he said.

Bloomberg reported that Lithuania is in talks with four nuclear-reactor producers for the construction of a new atomic plant to replace the Soviet-era Ignalina plant.

Saulius Specius, a board member at LEO LT, which plans to build the atomic plant, said Lithuania would choose a reactor made by Westinghouse, Areva SA, General Electric or Atomic Energy of Canada Limited for its new Visaginas nuclear power plant.

The nuclear power plant in eastern Lithuania will have a maximum capacity of 3,400 megawatts and is scheduled to start operations between 2016 and 2018. Lithuania, which is building the plant along with neighbors Latvia, Estonia and Poland, is seeking output of 1,300 megawatts from the plant.

Russia warns Australia against scrapping uranium deal: report

Any decision by Australia to scrap a deal to sell uranium to Russia to protest its action in Georgia would be “politically biased” and economically harmful, Moscow’s envoy to Canberra has reportedly warned.

Fairfax newspapers on Tuesday quoted Ambassador Alexander Blokhin, as issuing the caution a day after Australia’s foreign minister said Canberra was reconsidering whether to ratify a 2007 pact to sell yellowcake to Moscow following its military foray into Georgia.

“We do not see any connection between the events in the Caucasus region and the uranium deal,” Blokhin told Fairfax through an interpreter.

Western nations warn Russia to `change course’

Western leaders warned Russia on Wednesday to “change course,” hoping to keep a conflict that already threatens a key nuclear pact and could even raise U.S. chicken prices from blossoming into a new Cold War.

Moscow said it was NATO expansion and Western support for Georgia that was causing the new East-West divisions, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin lashed out at the United States for using military ships to deliver humanitarian aid to Georgia.

Meanwhile, Georgia slashed its embassy staff in Moscow to protest Russia’s recognition of the two separatist enclaves that were the flashpoint for the five-day war between the two nations earlier this month.

The tensions have spread to the Black Sea, which Russia shares unhappily with three nations that belong to NATO and two others that desperately want to, Ukraine and Georgia. Some Ukrainians fear Moscow might set its sights on their nation next.

In moves evocative of Cold War cat-and-mouse games, a U.S. military ship carrying humanitarian aid docked at a southern Georgian port, and Russia sent a missile cruiser and two other ships to a port farther north in a show of force.

The maneuvering came a day after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had said his nation was “not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a Cold War.” For the two superpowers of the first Cold War, the United States and Russia, repercussions from this new conflict could be widespread.

Russia’s agriculture minister said Moscow could cut poultry and pork import quotas by hundreds of thousands of tons, hitting American producers hard and thereby raising prices for American shoppers.

Russians sometimes refer to American poultry imports as “Bush’s legs,” a reference to the frozen chicken shipped to Russia amid economic troubles following the 1991 Soviet collapse, during George H.W. Bush’s presidency.

And a key civil nuclear agreement between Moscow and Washington appears likely to be shelved until next year at the earliest.

On the diplomatic front, the West’s denunciations of Russia grew louder.

Britain’s top diplomat equated Moscow’s offensive in Georgia with the Soviet tanks that invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring democratic reforms in 1968, and demanded Russia “change course.”

“The sight of Russian tanks in a neighboring country on the 40th anniversary of the crushing of the Prague Spring has shown that the temptations of power politics remain,” Foreign Secretary David Miliband said.

Western leaders have accused Russia of using inappropriate force when it sent tanks and troops into Georgia earlier this month. The Russian move followed a Georgian crackdown on the pro-Russian South Ossetia.

Many of the Russian forces that drove deep into Georgia after fighting broke out Aug. 7 have pulled back, but hundreds are estimated to still be manning checkpoints that Russia calls “security zones” inside Georgia proper.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in a phone call to immediately fulfill the EU-brokered cease-fire by pulling all troops out of Georgia.

The Kremlin rejected Western criticism, and Tuesday even suggested the conflict could spread. It starkly warned another former Soviet republic, tiny Moldova, that aggression against a breakaway region there could provoke a military response.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy accused Russia of trying to redraw the borders of Georgia. His foreign minister went further, suggesting Russia had engaged in “ethnic cleansing” in South Ossetia, one of the two Georgian rebel territories.

And the seven nations that along with Russia make up the G-8 issued a statement that underlined Russia’s growing estrangement from the West.

The seven — United States, Britain, France, Canada, Germany, Japan and Italy — said Russia’s decision to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent countries violated the Georgia’s territorial integrity.

Two weeks ago, officials had told The Associated Press that the G-7 were weighing whether to effectively disband what is known as the G-8 by throwing Moscow out.

Georgia’s prime minister put damage from the Russian war at about $1 billion but said it did not fundamentally undermine the Georgian economy. Georgia, which has a national budget of about $3 billion, hopes for substantial Western aid to recover.

The United Nations has estimated nearly 160,000 people had to flee their homes, but hundreds have returned to Georgian cities like Gori in the past week.

In the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, boxes of aid were sorted, stacked and loaded onto trucks Wednesday for some of the tens of thousands of people still displaced by the fighting. Some boxes were stamped “USAID — from the American People.”

In the Black Sea, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dallas, carrying 34 tons of humanitarian aid, docked in Batumi. The missile destroyer USS McFaul was there earlier this week delivering aid, and the U.S. planned to leave it in the Black Sea for now.

A spokesman for Putin, quoted by Interfax news agency, observed: “Military ships are hardly a common way to deliver such aid.”

The U.S. has used military ships to deliver humanitarian aid before, including in the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami.

The U.S. Embassy in Georgia had earlier said the Dallas was headed to the port city of Poti but then retracted the statement. A Georgian official said the port in Poti could have been mined by Russian forces.

Miliband warns Russia over new Cold War

Foreign Secretary David Miliband warned Russia Wednesday not to start a new Cold War but said Western attempts to isolate Moscow would be counterproductive.

On a visit to Ukraine, Miliband put the onus on Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to prevent an escalation of tensions between the West and Moscow after the Kremlin recognised two Georgian breakaway regions.

“The Russian president says he is not afraid of a new Cold War. We don’t want one,” Miliband said in an address to university students in the capital Kiev.

“He has a big responsibility not to start one,” he added.

Miliband said isolating Russia would be counterproductive, arguing that the West relied on cooperation with Moscow to tackle global problems like climate change and nuclear non-proliferation.

“Isolation is not feasible — Russia is too enmeshed in the world economy. It would be counterproductive,” he said.

But he said the West must use “hard-headed engagement” with Moscow and Europe should consider ways to reduce its dependence on Russian oil and gas.

Russia considers nuclear missiles for Syria, Mediterranean, Baltic

DEBKAfile’s military sources report Moscow’s planned retaliation for America’s missile interceptors in Poland and US-Israeli military aid to Georgia may come in the form of installing Iskandar surface missiles in Syria and its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad.

Russian Baltic and Middle East warships, submarines and long-range bombers may be armed with nuclear warheads, according to Sunday newspapers in Europe.

In Georgia, Russian troops and tanks advanced to within 30 km of Tbilisi Saturday, Aug. 15. A Russian general said Sunday they had started pulling out after president Dimitry Medvedev signed the ceasefire agreement with Georgia and president George W. Bush called again for an immediate withdrawal.

After routing Georgia over the breakaway enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Moscow appears to be eying Poland, the Middle East, and possibly Ukraine, as the main arenas for its reprisals.

One plan on the table in Moscow, DEBKAfile’s sources report, is the establishment of big Russian military, naval and air bases in Syria and the release of advanced weapons systems withheld until now to Iran (the S-300 air-missile defense system) and Syria (the nuclear-capable 200 km-range Iskandar surface missile).

Russia: Poland risks attack because of US missiles

A top Russian general said Friday that Poland’s agreement to accept a U.S. missile defense battery exposes ex-communist nation to attack, possibly by nuclear weapons, the Interfax news agency reported.

The statement by Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn is the strongest threat that Russia has issued against the plans to put missile defense elements in former Soviet satellite nations.

Poland and the United States on Thursday signed a deal for Poland to accept a missile interceptor base as part of a system the United States says is aimed at blocking attacks by rogue nations. Moscow, however, feels it is aimed at Russia’s missile force.

“Poland, by deploying (the system) is exposing itself to a strike — 100 percent,” Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of staff, was quoted as saying.

He added, in clear reference to the agreement, that Russia’s military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons “against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them.” Nogovitsyn that would include elements of strategic deterrence systems, he said, according to Interfax.

U.S. officials have said the timing of the deal was not meant to antagonize Russian leaders at a time when relations already are strained over the recent fighting between Russia and Georgia over the South Ossetia region.