September 6:
Britain’s Royal Air Force has scrambled four RAF F3 Tornado aircraft to intercept eight Russian Tupolev Tu-95 Bear bombers flying in airspace patrolled by NATO, the BBC reports. The Russian planes had earlier been followed by Norwegian F16 jets. A Norwegian officer, Lt. Col. John Inge Oegland, said the Russian bombers flew in international airspace from the Barents Sea to the Atlantic before turning back. Two Norwegian F-16s shadowed them and another two went up later, he said, adding that there have been several similar incidents in recent months. “Norway is following the increased Russian activity in the far north with interest,” Oegland told the BBC.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a $1 billion arms deal with Indonesia during a stopover in Jakarta en route to the APEC summit in Sydney, Australia, Reuters reports. Indonesian Defense Ministry spokesman Edy Butar Butar said Indonesia will buy 10 transport helicopters, five assault helicopters, 20 amphibious tanks and two submarines from Russia, which will provide state credit. Billion of dollars in mining and energy deals are also due to be signed during Putin’s visit, the first to Indonesia by a Russian or Soviet leader in some five decades. “We have agreed to expand cooperation in areas we consider most important such as energy and mining, aviation, communications and others,” Putin said after talks with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
September 7:
Following the Royal Air Force’s interception of a Russian bomber patrol - at least the second such incident since President Putin ordered the resumption of air reconnaissance missions last month - UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband has called on Russia to resolve policy differences through negotiations, Bloomberg News reports. “The best place to discuss relations with Russia is around the table, not at 35,000 feet,” Miliband told reporters at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Viana do Castelo, Portugal. Russia said the planes were on a routine exercise and broke no international rules.
September 9:
A serviceman has reportedly been killed and another wounded in a five-hour shootout with rebels who attacked an Interior Ministry unit in the city of Malgobek, Ingushetia, NEWSru.com reports. Two militants were reportedly killed in the battle. Meanwhile, a policeman was wounded in a rebel attack in the village of Surkhakhi. Violence is on the rise in Ingushetia, which neighbors Chechnya: on September 7th, an ethnic Russian doctor was shot near her home in Nazran and died on the way to the hospital. That same day, unidentified gunmen severely wounded a policeman in the city of Karabulak.
According to Britain’s Telegraph, Russian espionage in the UK is operating at the level of the Cold War. The newspaper reports that Russian espionage activities range from seeking military and commercial secrets to monitoring Russian dissidents based in London, most notably the self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky. In July, responding to Moscow’s failure to hand over the key suspect in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, Britain expelled four Russian diplomats believed to be from Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, the SVR. That left 62 diplomats accredited to Russia’s embassy, consulate and trade mission in London. Whitehall sources say about 30 of those diplomats may have intelligence links.
September 12:
President Putin has named Semyon Vainshtok to head a state corporation charged with preparing for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, with Vainshtok stepping down as the head of Transneft, Russia’s state pipeline monopoly. According to Vedomosti, Vainshtok will manage 313.9 billion rubles (more than $12.58 billion) earmarked to prepare Sochi for the winter games, 185.8 billion rubles (around $7.44 billion) of which will come from the federal budget.