Medvedev renews his attacks on NATO

WASHINGTON, March 20 (UPI) -- There are still big icebergs drifting in the thawing waters of U.S.-Russian relations. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Tuesday told senior Defense Ministry officials that the U.S.-led NATO alliance was still trying to expand its influence into former Soviet republics and toward the frontiers of Russia itself.

"There are attempts to continue broadening the military infrastructure of the North Atlantic alliance near our borders," Medvedev stated, according to RIA Novosti. "An analysis of the military and political situation in the world shows that in a number of regions serious potential for conflict remains."

Medvedev and other Russian leaders in general have dropped their confrontational language during the last years of the Bush administration since President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party administration took office on Jan. 20. Senior Russian diplomats have signaled repeatedly that Russia is willing to seek to negotiate a new strategic arms-reduction treaty to replace the 1991 START treaty that runs out at the end of this year. Russia also has approved the reactivation of the Russia-NATO council at alliance headquarters in Brussels.

However, Medvedev's comments serve notice the Kremlin remains angry over U.S. support for the former Soviet republic of Georgia in the Caucasus, which was invaded by the Russian army in August. The continuing presence in the Black Sea, historically a Russian lake, of North Atlantic Treaty Organization warships and Western supply ships in bringing aid to Georgia also has infuriated Moscow.

Medvedev also reiterated his established position that a threatening international situation requires a continued commitment to upgrading Russian armed forces on a massive scale, despite the financial pressures hitting his country from the global economic crisis.

"All of this requires the modernization of our armed forces, giving them a new perspective, and, regardless of the current financial difficulties, we possess all the conditions required for this today," he said, according to the RIA Novosti report.

Russia, CSTO plan rapid-reaction force exercise in Kazakhstan

Russia is continuing to step up its military ties to the huge oil- and gas-rich nation of Kazakhstan, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov announced Tuesday.

The Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization will carry out maneuvers of its new rapid reaction force in Kazakhstan, one of the largest of the former Soviet republics, in September, Serdyukov said, according to RIA Novosti.

The CSTO comprises Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The seven nations closed a deal last month to create the new joint rapid-reaction force.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stated, after Serdyukov's announcement, that the new force needs to be well armed and led. In recent years Russian special forces have amassed a very poor record in reacting fast to terrorist attacks and hostage situations, most especially in the case of the Beslan school massacre in September 2004.

"These are units that we should be able to rely on in dealing with the most difficult problems, including terrorist and military threats," Medvedev stated.

The Russian president also said the CSTO was open for cooperation with the United States in the fight against terrorism in Central Asia.

He pledged that the new force would be "just as good as comparable NATO forces" and that it would be used to defend all the CSTO member states against external threats. It also would be used against terror groups, and it would be deployed in the struggle against international crime and drug trafficking.

Huge, immensely wealthy criminal enterprises have flourished in Russia and the Central Asian republics since the collapse of communism. They have specialized in white slavery, or prostitution, and in drug trafficking on a gigantic scale.

Medvedev also said the CSTO wanted to work with U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies to defeat terrorism in Central Asia.