Paul Goble, originally on Window on Eurasia
Staunton, May 14 – Vladimir Putin has created “a new model” of rule, one in which “propaganda ceases to be propaganda in the normal sense of the word” and becomes instead “a means of generating an alternative reality,” a revolutionary development in statecraft which exceeds anything Stalin or Hitler achieved, according to Igor Yakovenko.
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Paul Goble, originally on Window on Eurasia
Staunton, May 15 – Russian commentators have talked openly about dividing up Ukraine and Moldova in order to support ethnic Russian communities there and weaken these two countries, but now one Moscow writer has taken such ideas further and called for the dividing up of Romania in support of Russian national interests in the Balkans.
In a commentary on APN.ru, Dmitry Rodionov says that the annexation of Crimea and the crisis in Ukraine have refocused attention on the possibilities of joining Transdniestria, the breakaway region in Moldova, to the Russian Federation, something he says that must be “decide in parallel with ‘the Ukrainian question’”.
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Paul Goble, originally on Window on Eurasia
Staunton, May 15 – Having annexed Ukraine’s Crimea, Moscow is now finding it difficult to bring that region into the common Russian legal space. The situation there is now one of “legal chaos, the complete adaptation of the region legally will take another two or three years, and the echoes of this will last for decades, according to Russian legal experts.
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04.11.2014 Segodnya
Translated and edited by Voices of Ukraine
Tsyklon-4, Ukrainian carrier rocket. Scheduled for launch at the end of 2015.
Since its independence, Ukraine has launched 132 rocket vehicles that were designed and made domestically, and 28 space vehicles designed by our scientists have been placed into low-earth orbit. One of our recent major achievements is a unique upper-stage engine for the European Vega rocket vehicle, which was developed by the Yuzhnoe Space Design Bureau and Yuzhny Machine Building Plant. [Incidentally,] this rocket bears the name of the second brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere, Antares, and can be used to place smaller satellites into polar orbits and collect new data about space. Since 2012 there have been two successful launches of Vega from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.
“It was an obvious success for Ukraine to take part in the development of the Antares, the American expendable launch system,” says Alexander Degtyarev, the general director of the Yuzhnoe Design Bureau. “A group of Ukrainian enterprises created the first-stage engine for this new spacecraft that can be used to launch payloads to the International Space Station. Since April 2013 Antares has made three successful launches from Wallops Island, off the Eastern Shore of Virginia, USA.”
Sich-2
This Ukrainian satellite was placed into low-Earth orbit in August 2011 in order to photograph the Earth’s surface. In over one year it took around 1400 photographic images before communication with the satellite ceased in December 2012.
Tsyklon-4
An important achievement to strengthen Ukraine’s reputation as a space power was the development of a new expendable launch system at the Alcantara Launch Centre, Brazil, from where the new Ukrainian carrier rocket Tsyklon-4 will be launched. “Construction has been in progress since 2010,” says the Head of the Ukrainian Space Agency Yuriy Alexeev.
Alexander Degtyarev adds that “78 Ukrainian companies are taking part in the project, which has created more than 10,000 Ukrainian jobs. The launch of Tsyklon-4 is scheduled for late 2015, where it is planned that the rocket will be used to launch the space vehicle Microsat. Construction is nearing completion, with ground testing to begin soon. With Microsat, we will be able to predict natural distasters.”
Our future
Ukraine has successfully developed and built the Mayak family of launch vehicles, which are unique in that they are environmentally friendly. Another family of Ukrainian rockets–the Zenit–uses non-toxic liquid oxygen and kerosene fuels.
Aditionally, a rapidly growing Brazil has seen a strategic partnership in Ukraine. For a number of years, Brazil, a rapidly growing economic power, had attempted to build its own rockets, but after an unfortunate accident involving fatalities, Brazil abandoned the idea and turned to Ukraine. All project costs are shared equally and so far total investment in the project has reached $500M. This will provide Ukraine with a much needed launch site for its space systems.
Source: Segodnya.ua
Paul Goble, originally on Window on Eurasia
Staunton, May 15 – Just as Transdniestria has sometimes been described as the Soviet Union frozen in time, so too, the writers of the Rufabula.com portal say, “the so-called ‘Donetsk Republic’ concentrates in itself all the abominations which remain from the post-Soviet and post-imperial heritage” and which many had thought had passed from the scene forever.
Indeed, this region is so unattractive that its features may well have led Vladimir Putin to conclude that Russia would be better off without it while at the same time have convinced Ukrainians that Donetsk at least in its current form is a kind of “ballast” they would be better off without.
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Voices of Ukraine 