Vladimir Putin has always seemed to dream of the good old days when Russia / Soviet Union was a powerful nation, held in fear for its military might and power. However, the days of perestroika and glasnost revealed that the Soviet Union was actually a nation held together by power and fear, and the collapse into individual countries soon followed. The reign of Boris Yeltsin that followed was a time when Russian power had weakened massively, and it was too poor economically to maintain its military or do any of the movement of large bombers, submarines, aircraft carriers, etc that were the show-piece of a major military power. Now Putin is more of a person who wants to wield the power that was there once, and hence, with his economy recovering, and the nation getting a lot more revenue from its oil and gas reserves, Putin is showing the power once again:

continue reading "Russia makes a further move to flex its military might"

The North Pole has always been ice bound, but with global warming heating up the world, scientists are not sure how long that will continue. There is increasing speculation that the North Pole will become ice-free in the next few decades, offering an alternative sea path for transport. However, it will also lead to territorial issues. Typically, when the North Pole has been deeply ice-bound and mostly inaccessible in a normal way, there has not been much debate about who owns the North Pole.
All that is set to change, with nations such as Russia, Canada and Denmark (via Greenland) claiming the North Pole. The concept is to secure rights to the Artic Ocean and the supposed mineral rights underneath.

continue reading "Russia plants a flag to lay claim to the North Pole"