WW4 File: Russia warns Georgia against rebuilding its military, respond with "severe punishment"; USA to deploy Patriot missiles in Poland in 2009

- Kremlin's Top General: Russia Ready to Deploy Iskander Missiles in Kaliningrad to Counter US Patriot System in Neighboring Poland

- Russian Duma Speaker Gryzlov Visits Prague, Confers with Czech Counterpart Vlcek, Who Announces Government Will Postpone Consideration of US-Czech Missile Defense Treaty until Obama Assumes Presidency

- NATO Member Turkey and Russia Close Ranks as Defense Minister Serdyukov Arrives in Ankara to Discuss Bilateral Military-Technical Cooperation

- European Union State Cyprus Falls Under Moscow's Spell as Communist President Christofias Signs Raft of Agreements with Kremlin

- NATO Computer Networks Compromised by Soviet Mole Recruited in Late 1980s from "Post"-Communist Estonia

Yesterday, reports the AFP news agency, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov warned Georgia against rebuilding its military, which was decimated by Moscow's armed forces during the brief Caucasian War in August. "We believe this policy would bring about consequences more serious than those in August," he rumbled against Georgia's "pro"-Western regime, which now enjoys the protection of NATO's radar umbrella, although it has yet to secure fall membership in the Western Alliance. Soviet forces occupy Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkazia and South Ossetia, a situation that the cowardly leaders of the European Union refused to oppose when EU President Nicolas Sarkozy and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threw together a peace deal after the Russian re-invasion of Georgia.

The next hot war between Russia and the West may take place next year when the US military deploys 10 interceptor missiles in Poland, reports Novosti. "Patriot missiles will be in Poland in 2009, at first temporarily, and from 2012, permanently," Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich announced on Tuesday while on an official visit to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the same source reports that after meeting Boris Gryzlov, Komsomol graduate and speaker of the Russian Duma, in Prague, Miloslav Vlcek, speaker of the lower house of the Czech parliament, revealed yesterday that the Czech government will not resume consideration of the US-Czech missile defense treaty until Barack Hussein Obama assumes the presidency in January. "This [Iskander deployment] is a response measure. The deployment will not start before the construction of a launcher in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic starts. Our neighbors in Europe should realize that," Gryzlov soothed.

However, in case Gryzlov's friendly advice did not move the Czechs, the Chief of the Russian General Staff Nikolai Makarov reminded Moscow's not-so-former satellites today that his forces are ready at a moment's notice to deploy Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, next to Poland, to counter the US missile defense system. "As soon as the final decision is made by our supreme commander-in-chief [Dmitry Medvedev, but in reality the Communist Party leadership], these missile systems will be deployed, wherever it is ordered," Makarov informed the Kremlin media. Placing Iskander missiles in the Russian Baltic Sea exclave would allow Moscow to target almost any site in Poland and also parts of Germany and the Czech Republic.

In a related story Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko denied previous reports that his armed forces intended to deploy Russian missiles on Belarusian soil to counter the planned US military installations in Central Europe. Lukashenko's presidential website offered the "correct" version of events: "What was being discussed was exclusively to do with the general re-arming of the Belarusian army, and changing outdated missile systems for new, more modern ones, possibly including Iskander missile systems. Clearly, re-equipping one's own army is an entirely normal and natural process for any state." In a Wall Street Journal interview, Lukashenko nevertheless jumped to Moscow's defense in the latter's showdown with Washington: "We absolutely support Russia in taking appropriate action, if they adequately deal with this situation. So I think that the Americans - not even the Americans, I would say, but Bush - moved too hastily with this ... without understanding it sufficiently."

The first article linked above notes Russian DM Serdyukov's presence in Turkey this week. There he held two days of talks on military-technical cooperation with Ankara's Minister of National Defence Mehmet Vecdi Gonul. "The two Ministers are also to touch upon matters aimed at maintaining security and stability in the Black Sea area," reports Itar-Tass, "specifically interaction between Russia and Turkey in BLACKSEAFOR and Operation Black Sea Harmony formats." Serdyukov was also scheduled to tour the Combined Military Academy of the Turkish Armed Forces in Istanbul and inspect the Aselsan plant. Turkey's leading defense contractor Aselsan produces tracking systems and radars for land machinery, aircraft, and ships, and manufactures launchers for Stinger missiles. No doubt, neo-Soviet Russia's DM was more than pleased to tour this facility in NATO member state Turkey.

The Soviet strategists are laboring hard to eliminate US influence in the Euro-Mediterranean theater. The new Moscow-Nicosia Axis, for example, does not bode well for the USA and it so-called allies in NATO since Cyprus is strategically located in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, near flashpoints like Lebanon. This week the Kremlin rolled out the "red carpet" for Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias, a dedicated pro-Soviet communist who travelled to Moscow two days ago. During his huddle with Medvedev and the neo-Soviet leadership (pictured above), Christofias signed a raft of agreements, including a "political declaration to develop further ties and cooperation," and other agreements that will promote bilateral relations in the fields of health and medical science, financial coordination between the Cyprus Stock Exchange and the State Investment Bank of Russia, and information sharing between Itar-Tass and the Cyprus News Agency. "The Republic of Cyprus welcomes the proposal by the Russian President to adopt a new legally binding Convention on European Security,” the political declaration adds, referring to the Russian plan for pan-European security sans America, which we have previously treated.

Tonight Communist Party of the Russian Federation Chairman Gennady Zyuganov, who visited Cyprus earlier this year as Medvedev's personal envoy, will wine and dine Christofias and his wife. Tomorrow morning, the University of International Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation will present President Christofias with an honorary doctorate.

In recent weeks, too, the Western Alliance has suffered another breach of security through the presence of a Soviet spy in the organization. It's not enough that the head of NATO intelligence committee, General Sandor Laborc, is Hungary's KGB-trained spymaster. In September Herman Simm, an Estonian defence ministry official, was arrested and charged with passing classified NATO secrets to Russia. The Soviet Union reportedly recruited Simm in the late 1980s, before the fake collapse of Soviet communism. Simm led government delegations tasked with protecting Estonian and other NATO member state computer networks against cyber-warfare. "The longer they work on the case, the more obvious it becomes how big the impact of the suspected treachery really is,” opined Der Spiegel magazine. "A German official," reports The Times, "described the Russian penetration of Nato as a 'catastrophe.'"

Not so coincidentally, in April-May 2007 Russian hackers launched cyber-attacks against Estonian government websites and repeated the barrage in August 2008 against Georgian government websites.

The Soviet strategists have been wildly successful in compromising the war-preparedness of the Western Alliance by promoting military-technical cooperation with Greece and Turkey, wooing bankrupt Iceland with financial incentives, infiltrating their moles into the "post"-communist governments of Hungary and Estonia, and holding out the olive branch of pan-European security. At the same time, as we documented in our last post, they are openly consorting with Latin Amercia's Red Axis states, which have united against the USA under the banner of ALBA, the Union of South American Nations, and the incipient South American Defense Council. Since the Kremlin's top general Makarov does not expect the Russian armed forces to be fully modernized until 2020, it may be that the Moscow Leninists are playing for time.