Paul Goble
Vienna, September 21 – Angered by Patriarch Kirill’s increasing involvement in Russian political life in ways they do not like, the force structures -- “siloviki” – reportedly are behind media speculations about the death of his predecessor, Aleksii II, both to raise questions about the legitimacy of the current church leader and to remind him of his own mortality.
In an article in the current issue of “Argumenty nedeli,” Andrey Uglanov says that Kirill’s extraordinary activity has attracted ever more attention, including from some who the journalist points out do not like to have their positions questioned let alone challenged. And that has become Kirill’s “big problem” (www.argumenti.ru/publications/10795).
Uglanov writes that “it is said that the behavior of the patriarch” in Ukraine and in the Russian Federation as well “does not very much please a definite circle of the so-called siloviki” and that they are looking for ways either to ...
During the Cold War, the Black Sea was a dividing line between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. After the fall of Berlin Wall, the confrontation in the Black Sea disappeared. But the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia returned the Black Sea to the arena of naval contest. Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, based in Sevastopol, sent military ships into Georgian waters, and a number of Georgian naval ships were destroyed. Later, demonstrating clear support for Georgia, several U.S. warships rushed to the Georgian coast with humanitarian aid. Recent developments in the region show that a new escalation might follow very soon.
Last week, the de facto government of Abkhazia announced that it would destroy Georgian coast guard boats if they kept detaining commercial vessels destined for Sukhumi. It claims that Georgia has halted 23 ships in Black Sea ...
