Report Russia

As Russia gears up to elections next year an opinion poll is showing Russians happier than ever before, with the level of Russians’ happiness reaching 85% and strong across all demographic groups.

The single biggest impact of the Ukrainian crisis on Russia’s defence build-up came from Russia losing access to the Zorya-Mashproekt plant in Ukraine, which since the 1950s has built the marine gas turbines used in the engines of ships of the Soviet and Russian fleets.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has had a meeting in Moscow with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir, during which they have publicly clashed on the way forward in the Syrian crisis.
Al-Jubeir predictably demanded that President Assad leave power in Syria, and said that Iran and Hezbollah – Syria’s allies – had no role in that country.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has confirmed he is flying to Moscow to meet with Russian President Putin on 27th April 2017.

A report in the Russian newspaper Izvestia sourced from the Russian Foreign Ministry says that in response to US pleas Russia has quietly switched back on the hotline between the Russian and US militaries in Syria.

Ploughing through the testimony FBI Director James Comey gave to the House Intelligence Committee on 19th March 2017, I came across an exchange he had with Representative Adam Schiff, which has gone entirely unreported and the importance of which has been entirely looked.
This exchange shows that the US intelligence community admits that Russian intelligence did not have direct contact with Wikileaks, and did not pass on the stolen Podesta and DNC emails to Wikileaks.

Unlike the British election, which interests them not at all, the Russians are following the French election closely.
President Putin will never say publicly who he wants to win the French election.  If pressed he will say – rightly – that it is none of his business, and that he will work with whoever the French people elect for their President.  I suspect he even says this in private to his officials.

Britain has just experienced its first full day of electricity generation without coal since 1882.
What is interesting about this development is that the way in which Britain has moved away from coal for its electricity use is little discussed.  An article by the BBC published in 2013 however provides the explanation.

A few weeks ago I wrote that the real scandal of the US election was not the absurd Russiagate scandal but the growing evidence that the Obama administration used the scandal as cover to place under surveillance by the US security services during the election supporters of Donald Trump against whom there was no evidence that they had done anything illegal or wrong.

That the supporters of Russiagate have not given up, but that they are running out of material to keep the scandal going, is confirmed by yet another article based on anonymous leaks published by CNN.
The article begins with a portentous paragraph