ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Admiral Nakhimov Written by  Alexandr Shishkin ; Originally appeared at  Vzglyad ; Translated by  AlexD  exclusively for  SouthFront A few years ago, the Navy actively pushed the concept of “new ship in the old body”, a radical reconstruction of Soviet-built ships with new armaments and electronics. A whole group of ships was sent for upgrades, but now we can say that all these plans failed completely. How did it happen and who should be held accountable? At the beginning of the 2010s advances in the Russian military steel construction caused a kind of euphoria.  Its typical manifestations were, for example, ideas of resuming the production of missile trains, ekranoplans, hovercrafts and an almost universal deep modernisation of the main ship composition, inherited from the USSR. A technical project was approved in 2012, providing for the tripling of ammunition of the nuclear submarines of Project 949A for the replacement of the complex “Granit” for “Onyx” and “Kalibr”. Acco

Four people have been arrested with 1.4 kg of a nuclear substance, californium, in their car in the Turkish city of Ankara, the country’s state-run media reproted on March 19. The security forces raid was conducted on a tip-off. Californium is a synthetic substeance used in nuclear reactors. It got its name from the University of California, where it had been originally synthesized. Accordign to Turkish broadcaster NTV, the suspects were reportedly aiming to sell the cache of 1.441 kg of the element for $72 million on the black market.

Sergey Shoigu Three attempts of usage of chemical weapons were prevented in Syria last week, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said during a video conference on March 20. “ There is a possibility that terrorists will use poisonous substances in order to accuse the Syrian troops of using chemical weapons in the future ,” the minister added. He also drew attention to an increased activity of the US-led coalition and attempts by militants to stage provocations. HINT:   An obvious place for possible militant provocations in the Damascus subrub of Eastern Ghouta where the Syrian Army’s military operation against militant groups is now ongoing. Shoigu said that over 65% of Eastern Ghouta has been liberated by government forces and 79,655 people have been evacuated from the combat area so far. “Currently, under the leadership of the Russian Reconciliation Center, an unprecedented humanitarian operation is being conducted in Eastern Ghouta. Over the last 5 days, 79,65

File image The Damascus government and US-backed Faylaq al-Rahman have reahed an agreement over the evacuation of Faylaq al-Rahman fighters from Eastern Ghouta to the northern governorate of Idlib, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on March 18. The districts of Jobar, Ayn Tarma, Irbin, Zamalka and Hazzah in the Eastern Ghouta region are currently under the control of Faylaq al-Rahman and elements of the former branch of al-Qaeda in Syria, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Earlier, Wael Alwan, Faylaq al-Rahman’s spokesman confirmed to Reuters that the US-backed group is negotiating with the Damascus government to “guarantee the safety and protection of civilians.” “The most important points under negotiation are a ceasefire, ensuring aid for civilians and the exit of medical cases and injured people needing treatment outside Ghouta,” Alwan said. However, Alwan claimed that a general evacuation of civilians and militants from the Eastern Ghouta region is

Illustrative image, source: the official Facebook page of the Iraqi Federal Police On March 18, Commander of the Iraqi Federal Police (IFP) Lieutenant General Raed Shaker Jawdat announced that the IFP had conducted a successful security operation against ISIS cells in the Hawija area southwest of the city of Kirkuk during the last few days. According to Lite. Gen. Jawdat, the IFP was able to secure the following fourteen villages in the Hawija area: Khdr al-Abbas, Shubat Hussien, Zidan al-Harabi, Khalaf al-Asuad, al-Farhaniyah, Abbas Juad, Khalil Hantush, al-Hamidiyah, al-Madmumah, al-Ajmi, Adi Saleh, Wadi Zaghitun, al-Nakar and al-Awaj. The IFP also destroyed three tunnels that had been used by ISIS cells, captured an IED workshop and a multiple rocket launcher. The Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) killed 80 fighters of ISIS during a similar security operation in the Kirkuk province on March 15. Iraqi forces launched these security operations in the Kirkuk provi

AFP PHOTO / BULENT KILIC Originally appeared at TASS The United States is hampering the arrival of any representatives of humanitarian organizations and the UN mission to Raqqa in Syria, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Saturday. “The US is continuing to hamper the arrival of any representatives of humanitarian organizations to Raqqa, let alone the agreement on the arrival of the UN mission to the city, which should register the scale of the humanitarian disaster in order to determine the amount of emergency humanitarian assistance to the remaining population,” the Defense Ministry said. According to the Defense Ministry, “the United States, Great Britain and the countries of the “coalition” that intensively worked for the faster adoption of UN Security Council resolution 2401, are now completely ignoring the fulfillment of their own obligations in Syria.” On February 24, 2018, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 2401 on establishing a ceasefire in Syria for a

The substance used in the poisoning of Sergei Skripal may have originated from the countries studying the “Novichok” nerve agent, including the UK, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Sweden, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “The most likely source of origin of the toxin are the countries which have been carrying out intense research on the substances from the ‘Novichok’ program, approximately since the end of the 1990s until the present time, and this project is not the creation of Russia or the Soviet Union,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday. She listed the UK, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Sweden among the countries involved. The US should also “be put under question,” Zakharova said in an interview with the state broadcaster VGTRK. “How did they come to the conclusion about a Russian ‘footprint’ if they didn’t give us those samples? Logically they shouldn’t have this substance. Which samples have they compared with to draw such a conclusion?” s

On March 17, a convoy of the Turkish Army, consisting of 100 armored vehicles, bulldozers and trucks, entered the town of Andan, only 7km north of Aleppo city, according to Syrian opposition sources. The Syrian pro-opposition news outlet Enab Baladi and the Turkish Anadolu Agency confirmed that Turkish Army convoy will establish a new observation post in Anadan to monitor the de-esclation zone in Aleppo governorate. The Turkish Army established three similar observation posts  in the town of al-Eis  in the southwestern Aleppo countryside and the villages of  Tell Tuqan  and  Sarman  in the southern Idlib countryside in February. Turkey will likely establish even more observation posts in Idlib and Aleppo governorates in upcoming months. According to Tukey’s Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin,  Russia and Turkey have agreed to establish twelve observation posts in northern Syria during the Astana talks . Anadolu Agency reported that the Russian forces will position themselv