Communist Bloc Military Updates: Russian bomber mission scheduled for March 31-April 4; Ukrainian communists protest NATO during Bush visit to Kiev

Russia's back-to-back war preparations continue with another heavy bomber exercise slated to begin to today and span the next four days, per a report from state-run Voice of Russia: "Russia’s strategic aviation begins its spring exercises. During the maneuvers the crews of the heavy bombers regiment will do exercises to improve their flight technique, including fuelling in the air, and will fire missiles on targets on the northern testing grounds. The exercises will take place in the period from March 31st to April 4th." Pictured above: Tu-160 Blackjack supersonic bomber. At least 35 have been built since 1984, but only 16 are in operation as of this year, with an additional 14 to be assembled by 2025.

Following a request from the Serbian government, no doubt contrived with Moscow's prodding, Russia is beginning its airlift of "humanitarian aid" to Kosovar Serbs. State-run Itar-fax reports: "The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry will dispatch the first planeload of humanitarian aid for Kosovo on Wednesday, April 2, the ministry's press service told Interfax. 'Several IL-76 cargo planes will be dispatched. The first one is due to take off on April 2. It will carry 40 tons of food, including baby food, to Belgrade,' the press service said." The Kremlin media continues to hypocritically portray Washington as an accomplice to terrorism by highlighting its sale of arms for the Islamo-Marxist-nacro-terrorist regime in Pristina and its promotion of a Kosovo Army.

Incidentally, Russia's long-serving Minister of Emergency Situations and Civil Defense, as we have noted on many occasions before, is Sergei Shoigu, who is related by marriage to Oleg Shenin, hard-core Stalinist, August 1991 coup ringleader, and chairman of the restored Communist Party of the Soviet Union. We hold to the position that Shenin and Gennady Zyuganov, chairman of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, are the "powers behind the throne" in Russia and therefore instrumental in guiding the Soviet Union's multi-generational deception strategy against the West.

Meanwhile, US President George W. Bush is visiting Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, Romania, where he will be attending a summit of NATO leaders, and Russia, where he will hold his final presidential meeting with KGB dictator Vladimir Putin. Thousands of Ukrainians have assembled in Kiev's main square today to protest against Bush's visit and the Ukrainian government push for NATO membership. State-run Itar-Tass reports that the Communist Party of Ukraine and the communist Progressive Socialist Party are the principal organizers behind today's anti-NATO protests in Kiev. Last week Ukrainian red leader Piotr Simenenko visited Cuba where he networked with officials of the island's communist dictatorship. Deutsche Welle exposes the Ukrainian communists' role in thwarting Yushchenko's stated support for NATO membership: "The pro-Russian Party of Regions together with the communists stalled parliamentary business for more than a month by insisting that any NATO membership be agreed to by a national referendum."

Pictured below: Ukrainian protesters burn effigy of Bush today.

Thousands of Ukrainians rally against Bush visit, NATO bid
16:2731/ 03/ 2008

KIEV, March 31 (RIA Novosti) - Thousands of people gathered on Kiev's main square on Monday to protest against the U.S. president's visit, and the Ukrainian leadership's drive for NATO membership.

George W. Bush will arrive in the city on Monday evening for talks with President Viktor Yushchenko expected to focus on Ukraine's plans to join the Western military alliance, before leaving for Bucharest on Tuesday afternoon for a NATO summit.

"We are now on our way to the United States Embassy with a resolution and message for the American people, asking them to pacify their hawks - Bush and [State Secretary] Condoleezza Rice," a protest organizer who asked to remain anonymous told RIA Novosti.

Activists on Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti) are displaying banners with the slogans "NATO is worse than the Gestapo" and "Put Bush's bloody dictatorship under an international tribunal."

The organizer said between eight and nine thousand people are expected to take part in today's protest, which will run until April 4, the final day of the NATO summit.

During the April 2-4 meeting, NATO members will consider whether to let Croatia, Albania and Macedonia into the alliance. Bush has made clear his support for Ukraine's membership plans, and is likely to raise the issue at the summit, which will be his last as U.S. leader.

However, European NATO members, in particular France and Germany, have voiced doubts over allowing Kiev into the alliance, saying it would create dangerous tensions with Ukraine's neighbor Russia. Moscow has warned it could target missiles at Ukraine if the country joins NATO.

Protesters in Kiev have set up about a dozen tents on Independence Square, which was the focus of "orange revolution" protests that helped pro-Western Yushchenko into power in 2004.

Ukraine's drive toward NATO membership has triggered domestic parliamentary opposition protests amid widespread antipathy toward the alliance. A survey published earlier this month said only 11% of Ukrainians supported the idea of NATO membership, while almost 36% were strongly opposed.

The ex-Soviet republic requested to join the Membership Action Plan, a precursor to full membership in the Western military alliance, in January.

The protest organizer said: "If Ukraine is not accepted into the Membership Action Plan, we will remove the tents. But if Ukraine joins the plan, we will toughen the measures."

The protesters will gather on Tuesday morning in front of the presidential administration, where Bush will be meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart for closed-door talks.

Source: Novosti

President Bush supports Ukraine's bid for NATO membership, but the governments of France and Germany do not since both countries do not wish to antagonize neo-Soviet Russia, with which they have strategic partnerships. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's advocacy of placing the Not-So-Former Soviet republic under the NATO umbrella is, in our assessment, disengenuous since both politicians are ultimately subservient to the Leninist masterminds in Moscow.

Anti-NATO/USA/Bush protests also took place yesterday in Slupsk, Poland, where the Pentagon intends to install a battery of anti-missile missiles. Polish leftists were joined by their comrades from the Czech Republic, where the potemkin "non"-communist government has offered to host a US radar installation. Miroslav Ransdorf, Member of European Parliament representing the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, the largest descendent of the old Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, attended the Polish protest. (Voice of Russia erroneously refers to Ransdorf as "Polish" in the previous link.)

On March 29 NATO released a statement that urged the Russian Federation to end last year's unilateral moratorium on complying with the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty. For their part, the Soviet strategists have inadvertantly revealed the true purpose for withdrawing their troops from Eastern Europe in the 1990s and permitting some of the so-called post-communist states to join NATO. Voice of Russia quotes Russian analyst Konstantin Syvkov as saying: "The more countries join the alliance, the less effective it will become. This endless expansion, if continued, will split NATO causing it to fall into interest groups. Following a split over the war in Iraq, NATO is no longer seen as a strongly centralized monolith structure as it used to be in the days of the Cold War." In other words, the Soviet strategy of weakening the "silly Atlantic solidarity," to quote Putin, has been wildly successful and hence the resumption last year of Russia's long-range bomber flights and its Red Square military parades, to re-commence on May 9.

The inclusion of portions of the old Soviet Bloc into the NATO/European Union sphere serves two strategic objectives for the Kremlin: 1) infiltrate and compromise the Western Alliance with communist operatives, and 2) generate the conditions for portraying the West as aggressor and thereby a pretext for legitimately attacking and humbling the non-communist members of NATO. In order to project its deception worldwide, the Kremlin not only commands all of the resources of its network of embassies, military intelligence, and the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), which was hived off the old KGB, but also the International Council of Russian Compatriots. This Kremlin-sponsored initiative unites Russian civilians living abroad, including in the USA. Voice of Russia reports:

The Coordination Council of a world conference of Russians making their home abroad is due to meet in Moscow later today to take up the preparation of the conference. Due to attend are Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, officials of the bodies of government and public organizations. The Coordination Council is also due to discuss progress in the efforts to consolidate the Russian communities abroad, and also a draft new programme of interaction with compatriots who make their home abroad. The world conference of Russian compatriots abroad has been scheduled for early November this year.