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Moscow to reveal threats of U.S. anti-missile system
Moscow deems “useless and insignificant” secret information about the components of the
European anti-missile defense system, which the U.S. has shared with Russia as a gesture of
good will.
Having failed to agree with Washington, Moscow is preparing to launch an offensive on the
media front. According to business daily Kommersant, the Defense Ministry intends to produce
evidence of potential danger of the European missile defense shield for Russian nuclear forces
on May 3-4 at an international conference to be attended by the military and experts from across
the globe.
Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told the daily that “the Defense Ministry has never
before discussed any security problem so openly. We are going to voice our estimation of the
missile defense system’s impact on global and regional security, and we are prepared to discuss
all points of view. Let them produce the facts showing where we are wrong.”
According to information obtained by Kommersant, it appears from the Defense Ministry’s
presentation that the SM-3 missile interceptors, which will be stationed in Poland and the Baltic
Sea area, and which will be the backbone of the U.S. missile shield, if they develop a speed of 4
kilometers per second will be capable of challenging Russian strategic nuclear forces. The U.S.
plans to station such missile interceptors by 2018 as part of the third stage of the anti-missile
defense system deployment. During the fourth stage, the missile interceptors will be upgraded,
which would increase the likelihood of their ability to intercept Russian missiles.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is currently able to obtain information about missile launches from Russian
territory via military satellites, stationary and mobile radars facilities.
Deem-считать размышлять
an offensive-наступление
impact-воздействие
obtained-получать
interceptors-перехватчик
the likelihood-вероятность
the backbone-основа(остов)
Voters angry, revolution failed, pundits argue
Rbc.ru
Although the March 4 presidential election seems to have been fairer than the December 4, 2011
parliamentary elections, Russia is expected to be engulfed in large-scale protests in the near
future, according to political pundits surveyed by RBC.
The non-system opposition had announced ahead of the vote that it considered the victory of
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to be inacceptable, Alexey Zudin from the Centre of Political
Conjuncture pointed out, adding that radical opposition forces focused on organizing violent
riots usually take center stage in such situations. “Hopefully, it won’t happen,” Zudin
conjectured.
The pundit went on to say that Russia was not ready to face a coup d'etat. “One way or the other,
Putin was elected by a majority of Russian citizens, and protest rallies instigated not only Putin’s
opponents to take to the streets, but also his supporters,” Zudin noted, adding that electoral
violations reported by international observers were few and far between and still had to be
proven.
Alexey Mukhin from the Center for Political Information agreed that the presidential election
looked more like a fair election than the previous parliamentary elections. “As Viktor
Gerashchenko (Chairman of the Soviet and then Russian Central Bank) said once, zero inflation
can be reported only from a cemetery, so clean political elections are technically impossible.
You can’t take the human factor out,” the pundit noted.
According to Mukhin, the most important feature of the presidential election and campaign was
that it succeeded in mobilizing the electorate. “People who didn’t participate in the elections,
thinking that everything was decided for them in advance, came to the polling stations to support
their candidate. I think that some of the disgruntled electorate came back to Putin,” Mukhin said.
Speaking about the future strategy of the opposition, Mukhin assumed that some would seek to
step up their onslaught against the authorities, while others would opt for a rapprochement with
the political establishment. “I don’t expect any serious actions against the authorities, because
such attempts would be construed as an attempted coup d’etat. Revolution is not in the cards, and
everybody understands that they could face criminal liability,” he pointed out.
However, Dean of the Faculty of Applied Political Science Mark Urnov said that he did not see
any major differences between the presidential election and the December 4 parliamentary
elections. “Carousel voting was rampant all over Moscow, with drunken men being bused to
polling stations. At one of the poling stations, only 150 local citizens showed up, while over a
thousand people were driven in. So at the end of the day, everything turned out as usual: they
promised a fair election, but the attempt failed miserably again,” Urnov pointed out.
He went on to say that Russia could be ravaged by a new wave of protests. “Seeing all of this dirt
and impudence has made people really angry. But the result of this agitation will depend on
whether we manage to join together,” Urnov concluded.
Onslaught['ɔnslɔːt] -нападение
riots -/rʌɪət/-бунт
The pundit-ученый муж
Opt-выбор
Disgruntled-рассерженный
a coup d'etat -/ku deta/-государственный
переворот