"Putin Asks Europe to Join Him"

[Xtoisè]

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/mahmoud_sabit/2007/02/heirs_of_the_third_rome.html


Before the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, Russia considered itself the heir of Rome or at least of Byzantium, the second Rome. When the Byzantine Empire fell, Russia dubbed itself the Third Rome. Byzantium had been the pre-eminent power of an unipolar world. But once on the defensive, unable to lead its empire, it fell back on a policy of balance and stability. They relied on small tilts in that balance, which went in their favor.

The speech made by Putin on February 10th in Munich was not the declaration of a new Cold War. Instead, it was a message that the world is shifting again from a unipolar one to a multipolar one. Russia is putting Europe on notice that Moscow’s geo-political interests are in a multipolar world. Put asks Europe: Where will you stand in that multipolar world?

Russia foresees fluid strategic partnerships with different players in separate hemispheres replacing the global economic and political dominance of a single power bloc. Russia also says it has vital interests in this new world order. It does not appreciate NATO expansion, or the Eastern European missile shield. Russia considers these events unwanted encroachments on its emerging interests. So in many ways Mr. Putin’s speech is historic.

In the late 1990s Russia attempted to make inroads with Europe but was rebuffed; it felt excluded from the golden circle of the industrialized West. Since then, Russia has been quietly building alliances where it can. Historically enthusiastic chess players, Russians look several moves ahead. And they apply realpolitik in their political dealings.

They see that the ‘War on Terror’ has reached its climax, and is becoming overshadowed by global realities. U.S. policies have not been successful, despite the flexing of military might in the Middle East. Russia is in a region that has been driven to strategic imbalance by U.S. policies. Its southern borders with Muslim majority populations could become unstable.

Russia may consider that in the current international situation, Europe would be more amenable to a closer collaboration with Russia, a collaboration that with time could equal the collaboration that the USA has hitherto enjoyed with the continent. Russia is perhaps suggesting multilateral solutions in which Europe would play a decisive role rather than being lukewarm supporters of U.S. unilateral action.

Russia must consider the implications of an unsolved Iraq debacle and a U.S. withdrawal from an untenable quagmire. What vacuum of influence would emerge in that eventuality? Could Russia be a strategic contender at such an event? Would they attempt to fill such a vacuum alone, or would they have strategic partners?

Russia is courting Europe rather than threatening it. As such, worries about a new Cold War are unfounded. It is the U.S. which may be facing a political and diplomatic checkmate. America should be concerned. In the chess analogy they may be facing a ‘zugzwang’ -- a position in which any move will not improve their position.

The double-headed eagle was once the symbol of the Byzantine Empire, it was later adopted by the Russian Empire. And following the demise of the Soviet Union, it was reintegrated into the coat of arms of the modern Russian Federation. The emblem is double-headed because while one face looks West, the other East.

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Posted by Mahmoud Sabit on February 23, 2007 5:08 PM

[Smersh]

This is what Putin meant in his speech, not the "new cold-war" ideas some western publicists intrepreted it as.

[sferrin]

Thing is once the US pulls out of Iraq whoever thinks they're going to fill the vacuum is going to have to deal with all the same $hit and if you've got human rights qualms you're screwed.

[Xtoisè]

Thing is once the US pulls out of Iraq whoever thinks they're going to fill the vacuum is going to have to deal with all the same $hit and if you've got human rights qualms you're screwed.

Putin is not aiming ot fill in the vaccum. He aims to make peace between Islamist rivals: Sunnis/Saudis and Shiites/Iranians, hence Putin's trip around the middle east. Stable middle east is security for Europe.

[AlterMega]

Putin is not aiming ot fill in the vaccum. He aims to make peace between Islamist rivals: Sunnis/Saudis and Shiites/Iranians, hence Putin's trip around the middle east. Stable middle east is security for Europe.

Not too much the Israelis and Palestinians,though.

[Switek]

This is what Putin meant in his speech, not the "new cold-war" ideas some western publicists intrepreted it as.

No, this is what Putin's top officials tried to wipe away bad impression made by their leader in Munich...


Putin is not aiming ot fill in the vaccum. He aims to make peace between Islamist rivals: Sunnis/Saudis and Shiites/Iranians, hence Putin's trip around the middle east. Stable middle east is security for Europe.

Interesting what Russia can offer taking into consideration its own internal problems... more weaponry to sell?


"Putin Asks Europe to Join Him" - sounds like typical Putin's joke

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/6440/eussrkp9.gif
;)

[apm]

Putin is not aiming ot fill in the vaccum. He aims to make peace between Islamist rivals: Sunnis/Saudis and Shiites/Iranians, hence Putin's trip around the middle east. Stable middle east is security for Europe.

hardly believable that they would negotiate with him if he has enough trouble with the muslims in his own country. or better said muslim-dominated renegade parts of his country.

[Lazarou]

http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/8449/joinbz6.jpg

[Doublethinker]

Lazarou,

lol, good one =)

[Thor]

Before the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, Russia considered itself the heir of Rome or at least of Byzantium, the second Rome. When the Byzantine Empire fell, Russia dubbed itself the Third Rome.
Rome?? Pure insanity.. rofl

What Putin needs to realize is that Russia is a huge third world country constituted of marshlands and flats, and 20 000 nuclear warheads. The average wage is on pair with African nations. A hundred years ago a large part of the population didn't even have last names (!).

What made Soviet Union into a superpower was the fact that everyone thought it's leaders were willing to bring down a nuclear holocaust on the world, or alternately without hesitation sacrifice the masses on the battlefield. Putin doesn't have this threat up his sleeve, all he has is a few arms sales to outlaw states and a gas company. His actions doesn't make his country into a superpower, it makes it an irritating superbully.

EU is the world's largest economy so I can see why the russians are interested in building political relations. But really, Russia isn't a world player (it doesn't even qualify for the G7) and EU leaders have very little interest in Russia's ideas of selling nuclear technology to Iran and other similar projects.

[Doublethinker]

Rome?? Pure insanity.. rofl



That was official Russian ideology: The First Rome succumbed to heresy, and so did the second one (Constantinopolis) and got overrun by muslims, so the only real carrier of the Doctrine would be the Russian Orthodox, with Moscow being the Third Rome.

[Mamont]

Wow, another anti-russian rally.

Popcorn please!

[Switek]

http://www.kidsdomain.com/craft/cegif/hall-popcorn.jpg
;)

[Thor]

Wow, another anti-russian rally.

Popcorn please!
Another xenophobic comment.

NATO eat babies, everyone hates russians etc.

[Mamont]

:) Thank you Switek. Now i can enjoy this show at full.

Thor already made a nice introduction, based on newspapers and toilet stickers. Wtg Thor. Next please.

[Thor]

More funny pics please.

[Banko]

Rome?? Pure insanity.. rofl

What Putin needs to realize is that Russia is a huge third world country constituted of marshlands and flats, and 20 000 nuclear warheads. The average wage is on pair with African nations. A hundred years ago a large part of the population didn't even have last names (!).

What made Soviet Union into a superpower was the fact that everyone thought it's leaders were willing to bring down a nuclear holocaust on the world, or alternately without hesitation sacrifice the masses on the battlefield. Putin doesn't have this threat up his sleeve, all he has is a few arms sales to outlaw states and a gas company. His actions doesn't make his country into a superpower, it makes it an irritating superbully.

EU is the world's largest economy so I can see why the russians are interested in building political relations. But really, Russia isn't a world player (it doesn't even qualify for the G7) and EU leaders have very little interest in Russia's ideas of selling nuclear technology to Iran and other similar projects.
Would you like to accept the #1 Idiot Of the World award?

[eucalyptus]

I thought an interesting rebuttal was going to come.

[Laworkerbee]

Lazarou,

lol, good one =)

my thoughts exactly

[Freibier]

That was official Russian ideology: The First Rome succumbed to heresy, and so did the second one (Constantinopolis) and got overrun by muslims, so the only real carrier of the Doctrine would be the Russian Orthodox, with Moscow being the Third Rome.
They probably never heard of the Holy Roman Empire p-)

[perdurabo]

Thor with one i will disagree with you, Tsarist Russia realy belived that hey where Rome, but they wherent third one rather fourth one, as Polish-Lithuanian Commonwelth also belived they go with Roman traditions (you can easily see it in art like fountine in Wilanów, where victory soldiers of viena are imaged as roman legionaries...)

[Cpl Steiner]

I'd join Russia.

Cannot be any worse than living in my lunatic asylum,run by do gooder marxists in open toed sandles.

Turn that gas off Putin.woot

[Klatuu]

Would you like to accept the #1 Idiot Of the World award?


Why, are you going to be stripped of the title when those "naughty" pics of you at the hog farm hit the net? Just beg Donald Trump to let you keep it, it worked for that other girl.

[Xtoisè]

They probably never heard of the Holy Roman Empire p-)
Why do you think Hitler's reich was third? I might be wrong, but Hitler saw it same way.

[Xtoisè]

Not too much the Israelis and Palestinians,though.

He tried it, a while back. But i dont think that even Darth Putin can close this Pandora's Box.

[IvanIII]

Did someone say Darth Putin? p-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWUfKRErJa0

[kosse]

Did someone say Darth Putin? p-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWUfKRErJa0

rofl

gold..I love the part when the doors open and the music changes p-)

[Brute]

Identifying Russia as friend, not foe


Rarely has Russia's leadership been so widely reviled in the West, yet rarely has the West needed Russia's friendship more.
The most obvious reason the West needs Russia is the latter's abundance of natural resources, which Western governments have for decades assumed would always be at the disposal of their industries.
Indeed, Europe has almost learned to take its dependence for granted, relying on its good fortune that, for the past three centuries, the Russian elite has identified itself wholeheartedly with European culture and values. The occasional voices that arose to call for a reorientation eastward to Siberia, or southward to Central Asia, have never been more than marginal political or cultural influences.
Until today, that is. Now that two-thirds of gross domestic product (GDP) in the world is generated in the Asia-Pacific arena, and European and US elites trumpet their increasing hostility toward Russia's economic and political resurgence, it becomes hard for even such an ardent Europhile as President Vladimir Putin to argue that his country's destiny perforce lies with Europe.
Translated into simple geopolitical terms, if the West cannot convince Russia that it deserves a "special relationship", then over the next two decades China and India, rather than Europe, will become the primary beneficiaries of Russia's resource abundance, and the axis of global political and economic development will shift accordingly.
The consequences of such shift for the West are not hard to imagine. It would lead to the decline, first of Europe, and then inevitably of Europe's closest ally, the United States. Ultimately, Russia's decision (and it is clearly its to make) to align itself or not with the West will prove decisive in tipping the scales in favor of the long-term prospects of modern Western civilization. Given these stakes, the United States and Europe should strive harder for Russia's friendship.
More than a decade and a half after the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, it is high time to set aside hostilities and to confront the main obstacle to achieving true friendship - an inordinate and often irrational fear of Russia.
Fears have both objective and subjective sources, intertwined in such a way that it is often difficult to tell them apart. As a result, the subjective components of our fear linger well beyond their objective reality; think, for example, of how often as adults people still react viscerally to the things they feared as children.
So it is with Russia today. Compared with the USSR of 30 years ago, Russia's decimated army, which even with recent increases spends no more than 5% of the US military budget, is no military threat to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Moreover, Russia's overarching economic and political ambition since 1991 has not been global conquest, but integration into the global market economy (incidentally, making Moscow the world's fifth-largest stock market). And yet despite having undergone changes that would have been inconceivable a generation ago, many Western pundits seem to fear Russia even more than they feared the USSR, and routinely compare Putin to Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, even Adolf Hitler!
Such an intense level of fear must be linked to self-image - to a cultural identity so deeply ingrained that many in the West simply cannot imagine parting with it. That cultural identity, based on separating Russia from the West, served the West quite well during the Cold War by bolstering its psychological defenses against an implacable ideological foe. Now, however, it is hampering our ability to see the profound changes that have occurred in Russian society, and we must let it go.
Among the many factors that shape perception of the world around us, the mass media play a singularly important role. Sociologists tell us that we see people as "informed" when their opinions match the categories established by the media. When one challenges these categories, therefore, one literally runs the risk of being seen as taking positions that are "against all common sense".
In reporting about Russia, we see all too often that as reality diverges from our preconceptions, media reports serve to reinforce our stereotypes. The sad truth is that the more negative a story is about Russia, the more we know it to be true - a toxic axiom that has resulted in a surreal picture of contemporary Russia. Here are just a few of the choicest examples.
Western reporting about Chechnya has focused on the devastation of war and terrorism. This remains the primary focus today, even though more than 7,500 rebels have laid down their arms, terrorist attacks have fallen to almost nil, Russian military casualties went from 1,400 in 2000 to 28 in 2005 and, last August, Russia disbanded the operational headquarters of its military counter-terrorism operations in the North Caucasus and transferred security functions to the local Chechen militia.
Since welcoming back most of what were once nearly a million refugees, more than 30,000 new businesses have sprung up. Today there are regions of Grozny where real-estate prices are higher than in Moscow. New political and financial institutions are functioning routinely throughout the republic.
This is not to suggest that all is now fine in the North Caucasus - unemployment is still widespread; many kidnappings remain unresolved. Still, it is clearly a distortion to pretend that there has not been dramatic progress in this region in the past five years. Russia has won its war against the Chechen rebels and it is safe to say that most people in the West don't even know it.
Reporting about the Russian legal system is full of tales of corruption, murder and political pressure, and while these do exist, they have become the exception rather than the norm under Putin.
Reading the Western press one would never know that since Putin became president, citizens' use of courts to redress grievances has risen sevenfold, and that 71% of plaintiffs win their cases against the government.

Largely unbeknownst to us in the West, dramatic changes are transforming the Russian legal landscape. In 2006 alone, laws were passed that virtually eliminate closed judicial proceedings, expand the rights of defendants to call witnesses on their behalf, specify that government officials must respond to a citizen's requests within 30 days, create a nationwide juvenile court system, and add significant new privacy protections for individuals.

Over the next five years, nearly US$2 billion will be injected into the judicial system to enhance its openness and public accessibility. The Russian Association of Lawyers has received government funding to establish a nationwide network of support centers where citizens can turn for free legal advice.
Admittedly, these changes do not guarantee that justice will always triumph in Russian courts, but they are a clear sign that things are moving in the right direction, which is not the impression one gets from the Western media.
Discussions of the Russian media typically imply that state control is total, when in fact there are more private media in Russia today than at any time in its history.

In 1997 there were just over 21,000 registered periodicals, virtually no electronic media, and just under 100 television companies. More than half of all media were owned by the state. A decade later, there are more than 58,000 periodicals, 14,000 electronic media, and 5,500 broadcasting companies. The state's share in the newspaper and journal market in 2006 was estimated to be less than 10%, while its share in electronic media, which today reach 25 million people, is even smaller.
Today it is not the Russian state but foreign companies that own shares in more than half of all Russian broadcasting companies.
Critics, however, have zeroed in on the one area of the media where the state's presence still predominates - national television. Through its control of seats on the board of the joint stock companies that control the media corporations that own particular stations, it is argued, the government exerts undue influence on national television channels. What does the evidence actually show?
Last month, Medialogia (www.medialogia.ru) (http://www.medialogia.ru%29), Russia's leading private media research firm, released its fourth annual survey. It shows that in 2006 pro-government parties received 54.9% of all the air time devoted to major political parties, up from 45.4% in 2005. The survey also breaks down how often parties were discussed positively and negatively on seven national television channels.
Last year the pro-Putin United Russia Party was mentioned positively more than twice as often as all other parties combined. This large preponderance, however, is a bit misleading.
United Russia may indeed mentioned far more often than any other party, but not always favorably. A direct comparison shows that positive reports about United Russia outnumbered negative ones 58% to 42%, a modest 16-point margin.
Medialogia's detailed statistics also demolish the myth that Putin dominates national television and allows no critical reporting. In 2006, for example, Putin garnered more than a third of total mentions among the top 10 most popular figures on national television, while his ratio of positive to negative reporting was just over 3:1.

Is this too high or too low? Russian television viewers seem to feel it is just about right. In 2005, two-thirds said they had seen no change in television coverage of Putin and that he was covered about the right amount. Moreover, by nearly 4-1, they said opposition parties can freely express their views on national television and in national newspapers. Interestingly, even 56% of Communist Party voters agreed.
These results will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the variety of media options available to most Russians. These include local television and radio stations, half of which are in private hands, the private Ren-TV network that reaches roughly 113 million people in the Commonwealth of Independent States through its 406 commercial stations, as well as cable and satellites channels that are available to about 20% of the population nationwide.
To sum up, under Putin, for the first time in modern Russian history, independent media have become profitable. The typical Russian media conglomerate today is a mixture of foreign investors, Russian banks and local governments. If a local project goes national, as in the case last year of St Petersburg's Fifth Channel, the shares owned by local governments are often bought out by private investors. Russia already has more private media outlets than any other European country, and as long as advertising revenues continue to rise 15% and more each year (87% annually on the Internet), privatization will continue its unstoppable advance.

Surely one of the most disingenuous claims about Putin is that he has undermined democracy by abolishing gubernatorial elections. Here is how the process actually works. Parties that have won seats in a regional legislature may submit names for governor to a presidential commission, which reviews them and makes its recommendations to the president. The president then forwards his nomination to the local parliament for ratification. Unless there is a serious objection, the candidate proposed by the head of the party that was victorious in the previous elections is typically nominated, a practice that is expected to become legally binding on the president this year.

Critics say this violates the separation of powers enshrined in the Russian constitution. The Constitutional Court, however, reviewed this argument at the end of 2005 and disagreed because "the final decision on appointment ... is taken specifically by the legislative body". The Venice Commission, the Council of Europe's advisory body on legal matters, and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe subsequently conducted their own reviews and found that the new system conforms with European norms.
But while the media's attention has focused on the appointment of governors, there has been almost no mention of the dramatic expansion of local self-government that Putin introduce simultaneously. Last year, tens of thousands of new civic communities began functioning independently of state authorities, leading to an increase in civic initiative and philanthropy.
As a spokesman from the Siberian Civic Initiative put it: "Many Russia watchers are operating under the impression that the environment in Russia for NGOs [non-governmental organizations] that receive support from international donors has deteriorated during the last year.
It has, in fact, improved for those that have expertise in building democracy from the ground up because they are in demand by government departments. Government is saying to NGOs, 'Help us, we do not know how to do this,' and NGOs are generating income by providing their services."
And speaking of NGOs, while the view that they are under threat has been widely popularized, no major media outlet has bothered to explain how their number has swelled from 100,000 when Putin took office to more than 600,000 today. Western financial assistance is certainly not the key, since foreign donations constitute only 8.4% of all donations to civic organizations.
Could it be that the severely criticized NGOs legislation of December 2005 has actually proved beneficial?
One could go on and on, but these examples should suffice to provide a sense of the hurdles that even the most thoughtful and well-informed media consumers face when trying to understand the changes that have taken place in Russia since Putin took office.
I will not even mention Russia's economic miracle - eight straight years of economic growth that have led to a fivefold increase in GDP, except to highlight one telling point. It astonishes people to learn that return on foreign investment in Russia is an order or magnitude higher than in China, and that foreign companies that invested in Russia have outperformed those that invested in China every year since 2001.
The fact that China is widely regarded as a more attractive investment opportunity than Russia despite yielding much lower profits, having more corruption and far less political freedom, and facing enormous future political uncertainties testifies amply to the role that media-fed cultural preconceptions play in relations with Russia.
If the main obstacles in this relationship derive from a profound discomfort with the notion that Russia is rapidly becoming just like us in the West, then the fundamental task before us is learning how to envisage Russia as part of the West.
It sounds simplistic and naive to say that hostility toward Russia is rooted in a mental image. How hard can it be to change an image? Many scholars have shown, however, that the "invention of tradition", to use British historian and author Eric Hobsbawm's felicitous phrase, has always set the terms for what is accepted political discourse.
People have no problem embracing a completely invented tradition or history, so long as it is reinforced by a consistent media message. That is why, realistically, we cannot expect Western perceptions about Russia to change any time soon.
But that does not mean such efforts are bootless. Regardless of what some may wish to believe, Russia has already evolved so far from the Soviet Union that the conceptual struggle to preserve a link between the two is destined to fail.
The only question is whether we in the West will be able to change our cultural narrative about Russia sooner, at a lesser cost to our relations, or later, at a far greater cost.
We can take some comfort in the fact that this has all happened before. Reflecting on how dramatically the world had changed since his youth, British historian Sir Herbert Butterfield (1900-79) recalled:
In the days of my own childhood, it was still the English against the French, these latter being the traditional enemy.
I can remember even now the schoolbook which said that the English owed all their freedom to their kinship with the Germans, for liberty went back to the Teutons in their primeval forests. The Reformation, the emancipation of religion, came from Martin Luther, and Germany in any case had long enjoyed federal government, state rights and even free, independent, self-governing cities, like Hamburg.
The antithesis to all this was to be found in the Latin countries. I still remember how it was all spelled out: Italy stood for the Papacy, Spain had had the Inquisition, while France, twice over, if you please, had chosen to live under Napoleonic dictatorships, an evil which, in my young days, had as yet had no parallel in other countries.
Then, as now, success lies in recognizing that our former enemy's cultural heritage is not just similar to our own, it in fact is our own. Only when we recognize this fundamental truth will we be able to rewrite the script of "Western democracy" to include Russia, just as we once rewrote it to include Germany and Japan.




(Nicolai N Petro served as the US State Department's special assistant for policy on the Soviet Union under president George H W Bush, and now teaches international politics at the University of Rhode Island)

Excellent article

http://www.npetro.net/8.html

[Laworkerbee]

Did someone say Darth Putin? p-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWUfKRErJa0

rofl awesome thanks for posting

[Thor]

Thor with one i will disagree with you, Tsarist Russia realy belived that hey where Rome
I don't doubt they really believed it.


Why do you think Hitler's reich was third? I might be wrong, but Hitler saw it same way.
With the difference that the Holy Roman Empire was a real entity that existed between 800-1806. This was considered the "first reich", not the Roman Empire.

[Doublethinker]

They probably never heard of the Holy Roman Empire p-)

Catholicism was considered to be the greatest herecy, so there was nothing holy about the HRE for the Russian orthodox after the Great Schism in 1054.

[Doublethinker]

Thor with one i will disagree with you, Tsarist Russia realy belived that hey where Rome, but they wherent third one rather fourth one, as Polish-Lithuanian Commonwelth also belived they go with Roman traditions (you can easily see it in art like fountine in Wilanów, where victory soldiers of viena are imaged as roman legionaries...)

Russia never viewed Poland as another Rome. It was considered to be just another affiliate of the first Rome. Even by the Poles themselves, I think.

[Doublethinker]

Why do you think Hitler's reich was third? I might be wrong, but Hitler saw it same way.

No, you are wrong. Hitler saw Holy Roman Empire as the first Reich, United Germany under Kaiser as the second Reich and his own state as the third Reich.

[TheArmenian]

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/2742/putinyz1.jpg

Cool Putin

[Doublethinker]

http://www.polezen.ru/humor/prikpic/hitler-putin.jpg

Putin as Mr. You-know-who ;)

[Smersh]

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/8874/putinmissilebv9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Doublethinker]

Smersh,

lol, that should have a nice "Game Over" appearing in the background ;)

[perdurabo]

Russia never viewed Poland as another Rome. It was considered to be just another affiliate of the first Rome. Even by the Poles themselves, I think.
of course Russia didn't also rest of the world didn't viewed Russia as Rome, but Republic of two nations, percived themselves as, same like Russia, and Germany before us two and USA now.
There was realy big move of "Sarmatyzm", all nobleman thought they come from Sarmatians tribe that counquered orginal Slavs in times of ancient Rome (Sarmatians realy existed, they come afther Scyths, and fought in Markomanian wars), just look here
http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafika:Battle_Of_Vienna_1683.JPG
Poles fighting in Viena pictured as Romans, name of the country "Republic of two nations", democratic elections, latin was almoust second language, there is much more in literature sadly almoust all in Polish, but it is quite colorfull epizode,
first Germans in midleages, then Poles in XVI and XVII century then Russias XVIII and XIX century

[Brute]

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/2742/putinyz1.jpg

Cool Putin

http://www.sitevip.net/the_matrix/images/Hugo_Weaving.jpg

:D

[Thor]

of course Russia didn't also rest of the world didn't viewed Russia as Rome, but Republic of two nations, percived themselves as, same like Russia, and Germany before us two and USA now.
There was realy big move of "Sarmatyzm", all nobleman thought they come from Sarmatians tribe that counquered orginal Slavs in times of ancient Rome (Sarmatians realy existed, they come afther Scyths, and fought in Markomanian wars), just look here
http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafika:Battle_Of_Vienna_1683.JPG
Poles fighting in Viena pictured as Romans, name of the country "Republic of two nations", democratic elections, latin was almoust second language, there is much more in literature sadly almoust all in Polish, but it is quite colorfull epizode,
first Germans in midleages, then Poles in XVI and XVII century then Russias XVIII and XIX century
I'm not really interested in this argument regarding competing slavic fairtytales

I just want to point out that the difference with the Holy Roman Empire was that it was a real entity that existed for a 1000 years and had it's Emperors crowned by the Pope in Rome.

[Switek]

http://www.mosnews.com/files/18110/ces.jpg

classic... ;)

[Xtoisè]

Not too much the Israelis and Palestinians,though.

Looks like he's back on this field too.


Russia urges dialogue with Israel at talks with Hamas
21:47 | 26/ 02/ 2007



MOSCOW, February 26 (RIA Novosti) - Russia urged the resumption of a dialogue with Israel at talks with a delegation of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas Monday.

The organization is visiting Moscow against the backdrop of a deadlock in peace talks with Israel and bloody inter-factional clashes in Palestinian lands, and in the wake of a series of international meetings on the Middle East conflict.

"The Russian side reaffirmed its position in favor of an inter-Palestinian accord that would heed the declared criteria set by the Quartet of international mediators and in favor of the resumption of the peace process between the Palestinians and Israel on the basis of international law," Russia's Foreign Ministry said following talks between Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Saltanov and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.

In Moscow, Hamas members discussed relations with President Mahmoud Abbas-led Fatah movement and ways to restart settlement talks in the region.

Hamas and Fatah agreed to form a power-sharing Cabinet in Mecca two weeks ago, ending weeks of bloody street clashes between their supporters.

Russia, a member of the Quartet that also comprises the United States, the UN and the EU, has tried to forge international support for the initiative and encouraged international donors to resume financial aid, suspended after Hamas radicals came to power in January 2006.

A Quartet meeting in Berlin February 21 and an earlier meeting in Washington failed to bring a coordinated approach to the problem and a decision to resume aid over the U.S. and other countries' doubts surrounding Hamas's refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence.

Russia's foreign minister said Monday the Quartet would gather again in late March, without specifying a date. Sergei Lavrov added that Russia, the U.S., the UN and the EU would discuss preparations for the meeting in Brussels March 12-13, when the parties would also consider a permanent mechanism to provide aid to the Palestinian government.

Mashaal, who hailed Russia's support for the Palestinian people, said he hoped Moscow would try to prevent further pressure on the Palestinians, which Hamas regarded as an attempt to spark off internal fighting.

He said President Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh were on a tour of Arab and European countries at the moment in a bid to secure international backing for the emerging government.

[perdurabo]

I'm not really interested in this argument regarding competing slavic fairtytales

I just want to point out that the difference with the Holy Roman Empire was that it was a real entity that existed for a 1000 years and had it's Emperors crowned by the Pope in Rome.
so what it existed? did it had any real power after midleages? there where much biger players in later times.

[Amerikosskiy_xyu]

so what it existed? did it had any real power after midleages? there where much biger players in later times.

surely no power in livonian common wealth states, compared to Russian Empire, later including the dutches of Poland.

[Nagan]

I'm not really interested in this argument regarding competing slavic fairtytales

I just want to point out that the difference with the Holy Roman Empire was that it was a real entity that existed for a 1000 years and had it's Emperors crowned by the Pope in Rome.

Oh yes, first the German wannabe marches into Italy with his hordes, then puts a pocket-pope on the throne, then the pocket-pope crowns him. That's how your Un-holy German Empire worked.

I'm not really interested in your cryptonazistic fairytales either.