Russia Defense Watch: Border row resolved

MOSCOW, July 22 (UPI) -- The Russian government is about to make a significant concession to resolve a decades-old frontier dispute with China.

RIA Novosti reported Friday that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would arrive in China Monday for a two-day visit during which he would conclude an agreement with Beijing resolving a longstanding border disagreement that almost led to open war between the two nations in the late 1960s.

"During the visit, the sides will sign an additional agreement delineating the Russian-Chinese border in its eastern sector," the Russian Foreign Ministry announced in a statement released Friday and quoted by RIA Novosti.

RIA Novosti also noted that earlier in July a senior Russian security official stated the Kremlin was about to make key territorial concessions to China by finally dropping its claims to Tarabarov Island and 50 percent of Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island at the key strategic point where the Amur and Ussuri rivers meet. The move will take place as part of the implementation of a deal negotiated by former Russian President and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and current Chinese President Hu Jintao in 2004. In return, China abandoned its own demands for islands near the city of Khabarovsk in Russia's Far East region.

The latest Russian move is part of a slow but steady process of defusing the many and complex conflicts, some of them going back generations, that bedeviled relations between Moscow and Beijing during the closing decades of the Soviet Union. Following the collapse of communism, Russia and China successfully negotiated initial settlements that resolved conflicting issues on the eastern side of their common borders in 1991 and on the western side in 1994. But several other disputes, including the status of the islands Tarabarov and Bolshoi Ussuriysky, remained to complicate bilateral relations.

RIA Novosti noted that Soviet leader Josef Stalin seized the two islands from then weak and disunited China in 1929.

In his overnight stopover in Beijing, Lavrov was also scheduled to cram in meetings with Hu, Premier Wen Jiabao and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi "to discuss urgent issues of international and regional politics," the Russian Foreign Ministry statement said.

Severomorsk heads for the arctic

The Russian anti-submarine warship Severomorsk reached Norway's biggest naval center at Haakonsvern Thursday en route to take part in joint U.S.-Russian naval maneuvers in the Barents Sea, a Russian navy official said last week, RIA Novosti reported.

RIA Novosti said the naval maneuvers, called Northern Eagle 2008, have taken place every year between ASW vessels of the U.S. and Russian navies. "The ships practice maritime interdiction operations and search-and-rescue maneuvers," the report said.

The 2008 maneuvers have been expanded to include two coast guard vessels from the small navy of Norway, which is a NATO member nation, the report said.

"The Severomorsk ASW ship has accomplished its patrol mission in the arctic and will participate in the Northern Eagle joint annual exercise with the U.S. Navy," Russian navy Capt. 1st Rank Igor Dygalo said, according to the RIA Novosti report.

RIA Novosti said the U.S. warship participating in the exercise was the guided-missile frigate USS Elrod. The maneuvers would also involve a U.S. Lockheed Martin P-3 Orion ASW aircraft, the report said.

The five days of maneuvers were scheduled to start Monday, July 21, in the Barents Sea and to conclude Friday, the report said.

Starting Thursday, another Russian warship, the Marshal Ustinov Slava-class missile cruiser, is scheduled to start a series of patrols in the region of the Arctic Ocean archipelago of Spitsbergen, which belongs to Norway.

As reported last week in Russia Defense Watch, the Kremlin does not recognize Norway's exclusive control of a 200-mile radius of waters, seabeds and undersea resources around the Spitsbergen islands, although it is in accord with the 1981 U.N. Law of the Sea.

Yak-130 is a winner for Irkut

It's been a banner year for Russia's Irkut Corp., which makes the highly successful range of Sukhoi combat fighters: The firm announced last week at this year's prestigious Farnborough air show in Britain that it had closed deals to export 80 Yak-130 combat trainers, RIA Novosti reported Friday.

Irkut was folded into Russia's gargantuan new United Aircraft Building Corp. two years ago as part of an enormous restructuring of the Russian aviation industry ordered by then-President and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The deal marks a highly successful launch for the new Yak-130, which was unveiled only last year. It was created as a trainer for combat pilots who have to operate Russian Sukhoi Su-30 Flanker and MiG-29 Fulcrum aircraft and U.S.-built F-16 Fighting Falcons, RIA Novosti said.

"The Russian and Algerian defense ministries have ordered about 80 (Yak-130) trainers," Irkut President Oleg Demchenko said, according to the report.

"A total of 24 aircraft of this type will be delivered to Algeria in 2009. We are now holding talks on contracts with Greece, Malaysia and other countries," Demchenko said.

RIA Novosti described the Yak-130 single-seat aircraft as "a trainer for fourth- and fifth-generation fighters that can be also used as a light strike aircraft."

The report described the Yak-130 as "a highly maneuverable plane, with an extended range of about 2,000 kilometers -- 1,250 miles -- and a maximum speed of 1,060 kilometers per hour -- 600 miles per hour -- in level flight. It can carry a payload of up to 3,000 kilograms -- 6,600 pounds."

The report said the Russian air force was ordering 200 Yak-130s and intended to operate them in four air regiments.