Russia Could Lose Last Arab Ally as Assad Regime Teeters

A member of the Free Syrian Army holds a burning portrait of President Bashar al-Assad, in Al-Qsair, southwest of Homs, Syria. (Alessio Romenzi/AFP/Getty Images)

Vladimir Putin, Russia's president. Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

By Henry Meyer - Jul 19, 2012
Bloomberg

Vladimir Putin is being caught on the wrong side of the Arab Spring as the threat to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime raises the prospect that Russia may be left with Iran as its only friend in the region.

The day after a bomb decapitated Assad’s security command as fighting engulfs Damascus, Russia teamed up once more with China yesterday to block United Nations sanctions against Syria.

“The Kremlin has pushed itself into a corner that it can’t get out of, and it should have been smarter about the new order in the Middle East,” Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis in Dubai, said in a phone interview yesterday. “Losing its last Arab ally and alienating all other former Arab partners, particularly Qatar and Saudi Arabia, is a huge strategic loss for Russia.”

Politiktoons No. 188: The Putin

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://politiktoons.blogspot.com and also at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

Internet: Russia's new anti-Putin weapon [-It already is the new anti-Hun Xen weapon]

Irina Pravnichenko (C), volunteer coordinator for Citizen Observer, a non-profit and non-partisan group, speaks while training future observers to monitor March 4 presidential polls in Moscow

Members of the Solidarnost (Solidarity) opposition movement pretend to clash with fellow members during a street performance against police despotism in Moscow in 2011

Tuesday, February 28, 2012
By Anna Malpas and Laetitia Peron
AFP News

Russia's new Internet-savvy opposition is going online to protest and monitor the presidential elections on March 4, bringing its iPhones and Twitter into the fray against Vladimir Putin.

As jokes and spoof videos about Putin, expected to win back the presidency in Sunday's polls, spread like wildfire on social networking sites and YouTube, opposition activists are using the Internet to promote their cause.

After a slow start, Internet use has sky-rocketed in Russia in recent years and last year the country overtook Germany as having Europe's largest number of Internet users, a development the opposition have not hesitated to exploit.

Anti-Putin protests draw tens of thousands

Protesters hold a portrait of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as they gather to protest against alleged vote rigging in Russia's parliamentary elections on Sakharov avenue in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, Dec. 24, 2011. Tens of thousands of demonstrators on Saturday cheered opposition leaders and jeered the Kremlin in the largest protest in the Russian capital so far against election fraud, signaling growing outrage over Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's 12-year rule. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze)

Protesters gather together to protest against alleged vote rigging in Russia's parliamentary elections on Sakharov avenue in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, Dec. 24, 2011, with a white balloon with words "why did you join WTO?". Tens of thousands of demonstrators on Saturday cheered opposition leaders and jeered the Kremlin in the largest protest in the Russian capital so far against election fraud, signaling growing outrage over Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's 12-year rule. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Sunday, December 25, 2011
By JIM HEINTZ and NATALIYA VASILYEVA

MOSCOW (AP) — Tens of thousands of demonstrators on Saturday cheered opposition leaders and jeered the Kremlin in the biggest show of outrage yet against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's 12-year rule.

The Moscow demonstration was even bigger than a similar rally two weeks ago, signaling that the protest movement ignited by the fraud-tainted Dec. 4 parliamentary election may be growing. Protests were also held in dozens of other cities and towns across Russia.

Rally participants densely packed a broad avenue, which has room for nearly 100,000 people, about 2.5 kilometers (some 1.5 miles) from the Kremlin, as the temperature dipped well below freezing. They chanted "Russia without Putin!"

A stage at the end of the 700-meter (0.43 mile) avenue featured placards reading "Russia will be free" and "This election Is a farce." Heavy police cordons encircled the participants, who stood within metal barriers, and a police helicopter hovered overhead.

Another Soviet-trained former communist cadre nominated as ambassador to Russia

Putin surprised by the nomination of Khieu Thavika, a former student to the USSR, as Cambodian ambassador to Russia

Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Khieu Thavika, the former deputy secretary of state at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, who was nominated as the Cambodian ambassador to Russia, indicated that Russian President Vladimir Putin was very surprised that he (Khieu Thavika) spoke to him in Russian when he was presenting his accreditation. Khieu Thavika told the Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper, in an interview, that when he was presenting his accreditation to Putin, the latter was quite surprised when he (Khieu Thavika) spoke to him in Russian, and the Russian President was praising him that he (Khieu Thavika) came to study in Russia and is now nominated as an ambassador to Russia. Khieu Thavika was a former student at the Republic of Kazakhstan and the former communist USSR.