Raising hell over death of Russian children in the U.S. / Nobel Peace Prize winner reserves the right to nuclear first strike / Putin to sign $4 billion arms-sale contracts in New Delhi / Russia braces for war with arms pirates /

Vedomosti, Nezavisimaya Gazeta

Raising hell over death of Russian children in the U.S.

One more Russian child has died in the United States. A seven-year-old boy Vanya Skorobogatov, adopted by a Pennsylvania couple in 2003 with his twin sister, died last August from emaciation and head injuries. There were over 80 injuries all over his body.

After a six-month investigation, the Craver couple has been arrested. They stand accused of first-degree murder.

Vanya's death has outraged every normal person. The Russian Foreign Ministry, Children's Rights Commissioner Pavel Astakhov, the State Duma and the Public Council will monitor the criminal charges initiated against his foster parents, Michael Craver, 45, and Nanette Craver, 54.

In the almost 20 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, foreigners have adopted over 60,000 Russian children. The death of 15 of them (17, according to Astakhov) in the United States provoked high-profile political statements and public debates in Russia.

It is good that the Foreign Ministry is paying so much attention to Russian children adopted by foreigners, but there are many other departments responsible for the wellbeing of children in Russia.

But besides the news from the USA, there is more. Last week, three children in the care of the state died in Lesnoi, a city in the Sverdlovsk Region, from an acute gastrointestinal infection. In all, 33 children fell ill in the home. Children also die in fires and from cold in Russian homes and hospitals, and often become criminals when they leave or run away from them.

According to official data, there are 800,000 orphans in Russia, more than in the Soviet Union after World War II.

Even children who have parents often have a terrible life, because some parents beat, rape or kill their children.

Alexei Golovan, the previous children rights commissioner, said that over 1,900 small children died from violence in Russia in 2008, mostly family violence, and another 26,000 were seriously injured. More than 27,500 children are registered as missing.

This is only the tip of the iceberg of family violence, which forces thousands of boys and girls to run away. Most of them are eventually placed in orphanages or homes.

Alexander Bastrykin, chairman of the Investigation Committee at the Prosecutor General's Office, said 40,000 crimes against children were registered in 2002, 80,000 in 2006 and 105,000 in 2009. And it does not matter if the number of such crimes has grown, or if the police have started registering them more honestly.

However, reports of child abuse in Russia do not provoke such a vehement reaction as reports about the death of Russian children in the United States. Is it because there are too many such crimes in Russia (105,000 in 2009), or because one can build a reputation of patriotism by raising hell over the death of Russian children in the U.S.?

Kommersant

Nobel Peace Prize winner reserves the right to nuclear first strike

The approval of a new United States nuclear doctrine has been postponed for another month. The military had taken almost a year to prepare it. The initial wording, in which America renounces any pre-emptive strike, avowing instead to use nuclear weapons only in response to attack, was rejected by President Barack Obama.

The draft makes it clear that the emphasis is on non-nuclear weapons, including missile defense in the Persian Gulf in direct proximity to Iran. The Quadrennial Defense Review, unveiled last month, provides for the development of a new class of non-nuclear missiles capable of reaching a target anywhere in the world in less than an hour.

According to Kommersant's sources, this type of defense system, called "Prompt Global Strike", would be deployed on U.S. territory. Launch sites would be open to international inspectors, including those from Russia, who would be able to see that the missiles carry no nuclear warheads. As conceived by the U.S. military, such weapons would be able to deliver a massive strike on Al-Qaeda positions in Afghanistan or prevent the launch of a North Korean missile.

Pentagon supporters of this new defense system are confident that these missiles will achieve the same effect as nuclear weapons without escalating conventional warfare into a full-scale nuclear war. As a result, the U.S. administration is going to suggest a new concept of deterrence which allows states developing various kinds of weapons of mass destruction, ranging from chemical to bacteriological, to be held in check, without resorting to nuclear weapons.

But the fundamental point that President Obama must answer as he presents the final version of the doctrine is: why America needs nuclear weapons? Experts think this is far from being an idle question. Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association, says any suggestion that deterring a nuclear attack is the main objective of the U.S. nuclear arsenal signals there are also other objectives. And this, he adds, does not tally well with the speech made by President Obama in Prague a year ago where he proposed a plan for the global destruction of nuclear weapons.

Vedomosti

Putin to sign $4 billion arms-sale contracts in New Delhi

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is to visit India on March 11-12. Three arms-sale contracts worth $4 billion, including an agreement specifying the new price of the Vikramaditya aircraft carrier, have been prepared for his visit.

A Russian Defense Ministry official and a source close to top managers of Russia's state arms exporter Rosoboronexport said this implied an additional $2.35 billion contract for completing the Vikramaditya (formerly the Admiral Gorshkov) aircraft carrier, between Rosoboronexport and the Indian Ministry of Defence, a $1.2 billion contract for the delivery of 29 Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29-K/KUB Fulcrum-D carrier- based fighters, including those for the above-said carrier, and a contract between Russia's United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) and India's Hundustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) on jointly developing the Multirole Transport Aircraft (MTA), designated the Ilyushin Il-214.

The most expensive contract, for the delivery of the Vikramaditya aircraft carrier now being refitted at Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk, northern Russia, has a long history. In 2004, the price of the carrier modernization contract was estimated at $970 million.

However, India stopped financing the project in 2007, after Sevmash had spent $550 million. After it became clear that the allocations were not enough, both sides began to negotiate a new contract price. Last year, Sevmash received an additional $100 million tranche from India, as well as a 6 billion ruble loan from Vnesheconombank in 2008. The latter made it possible to avoid mothballing the project.

Consequently, India will allocate an additional $1.5 billion, while Russia initially requested $2 billion, a source close to Sevmash top managers told the paper.

Moscow and New Delhi have been discussing the MTA project since the early 2000s and have examined plans to finance it at the expense of India's debts. In the long run, both sides agreed to contribute $300 million each to the project, a source at UAC said. The relevant contract is also ready for signing.

The financial problems have been solved at a time when the MTA project seems unfeasible for the lack of human resources, said Konstantin Makiyenko, deputy director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.

Nevertheless, these contracts and the final carrier refit agreement are a major success that compares with the 2009-2010 arms-sale contracts worth almost $5 billion between Russia and Vietnam and the 2006 Russian-Algerian arms-sale contracts worth over $7.5 billion, Mikhail Barabanov, editor-in-chief of the Moscow Defense Brief magazine, told the paper.

Moscow and New Delhi are negotiating contracts for the development of a new fighter based on the fifth-generation Sukhoi PAK FA Advanced Tactical Frontline Fighter and the delivery of about 40 Sukhoi Su-30-MKI Flanker-H multi-role military aircraft. However, both documents are unlikely to be signed during Putin's visit, a source close to top Rosoboronexport managers told the paper.

Gazeta

Russia braces for war with arms pirates

The Ministry of Justice has submitted amendments to the law on military-technical cooperation with other countries, aimed at protecting intellectual property rights regarding the weapons Russia sells.

Officials at the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation welcomed the initiative, although they said the draft had not been discussed with them. "The protection of Russia's intellectual property rights for military equipment and weapons manufactured here is the Achilles' heel of the Russian system. Currently, we cannot solve this issue because there is no legal framework," a spokesman said.

Maxim Pyadushkin, an independent arms expert, says that counterfeit arms are currently being made in countries that had previously received licenses from the Soviet Union: Warsaw Pact member-states and friendly regimes. Poland, for example, is still producing the T-72 tank, if thoroughly upgraded, but based on the same design. Bulgaria is making artillery systems. Licenses for Kalashnikov assault rifle production were sold to 16 countries, with some of them re-selling these to other countries following the breakup of the Soviet Union.

But even in the 1990s, Russia was not much concerned about the legal niceties of international contracts. China, for example, collected many examples of Russian arms, which it endlessly tries to copy. Currently, China is completing work on its own S-300 ship-based anti-aircraft system.

Overall damage is hard to calculate, because sales volumes and contact sums are typically kept secret. But, according to Izhmash estimates, the Kalashnikov rifle world market is worth $500 million a year, of which 90% goes to counterfeit non-licensed makers.

Some analysts, however, believe arms-makers overestimate their losses from dumping by foreign pirate makers. "Small arms make up a few percentage points of the global weapons market," says Konstantin Makiyenko, an analyst at the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies. "The biggest profits come from heavy weapons, aircraft, and warships. In Russian exports Kalashnikov assault rifles, grenade launchers and other small arms are at the bottom of the list, and it is difficult to calculate the losses from the production of replacement parts or complete units in other countries who profit without our consent."

The Chinese J-11 fighter jet is a different matter, according to the analyst. "Russia sold China a license for the manufacture of the Su-27. The fact that they have learned to produce its components themselves is to their technological credit," Makiyenko says. "As far as I know, the Chinese are not yet selling these planes, not even to their own military. So any commercial damage for Russia is not relevant in this case."

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MOSCOW, March 4 (RIA Novosti)