Russia has again started flying it’s bomber planes on long range flights. 15 years ago the practice was suspended, partially due to the thawing of the cold war, but many experts believed that the state could no longer afford to spend money on the jet fuel required for such flights was a more major motivator.
Mr Putin announced the flights would begin again, in response to security threats posed by ‘other military powers’. This is thought to be a reference to the fact that America, amongst others, have continued their long range flights, when Russia stopped. Some have said that this display of power has been timed to coincide with the upcoming elections, as a way of telling Russians that any other choice in political parties would be a display of weakness.

The Russian language version of BBC Radio will no longer be accessible via FM radio. Many commentators have noticed this occurring prior to Russian Parliamentary elections, and a Presidential election next year, when Mr Putin will want a little more control over what is stated about him and his policies. Although the Russian station that broadcast the BBC’s output is denying any political involvement in the decision making process, two other stations recently stopped broadcasting the BBC programs, and complained that everyone knows the BBC’s output is simply the UK’s propaganda machine. This raises an interesting question for me - if the bosses truly believed that, then why did they originally make the deal in the first place? One piece of information the BBC article neglects to mention is that the Russian language service is still also available on satellite, at the very least by people pointed at the Hotbird satellite.
PS I know this has been put in the Satellite TV category, but I do not have a separate section for Satellite Radio…