The Media Mirror - 27.07.07. What's new in today's Russian newspapers?
Monday’s Russian newspapers comment on the deterioration of relations between Russia and the West, report about the Navy Day celebrations and congratulate California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger with his sixtieth birthday.
The West is building a new Entente against Russia, writes Alexander Gamov in KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA.
Entente, the alliance formed by France, the UK and Russia (here is a poster of that time), to which a dozen nations were added during World War I is known in Russia not only for its role in the war but mostly for counter-revolutionary intervention after the October Bolshevik coup of 1917.
“It seems, someone smuggled a time-machine onto the premises of the U.S. Congress and everyone suddenly started,” Mr Gamov writes.
“Using the rhetoric of 1918 when the member-states of the Entente were discussing their intervention in Russia,” he continues.
He quotes Congressman Tom Lantos and others with similar ideas and concludes that apart from steps taken by Russia in the sphere of conventional armaments and others, several of President Putin’s speeches addressed to servicemen of the Russian armed forces and foreign intelligence might have produced such a reaction in the Congress.
Mikhail Leontiev, Editor of PROFILE magazine, comments on the article saying the leaders of NATO member-states are very unlikely to listen to this quantity of anti-Russian hysteria at the moment. But no one knows about the future.
TRUD writes about the most severe order of Stalin’s career that was signed 65 years ago, the famous order 227, “Not a step back”. The situation at the front in July – August 1942 was disastrous, and the text describes it in detail, including the beginning disappointment of the population with the retreating Red Army.
“The order was simple: stand up and fight, do not retreat even a step.”
To enforce it, special units were stationed at the rear echelon of every division, their task – shooting every deserter without trial. The order was quietly stepped down after the Battle of Stalingrad. It was never published, just announced orally.
Last Sunday was The Navy Day in Russia. VREMYA NOVOSTEI reports that the holiday was observed in every unit of the Russian Navy. Ship parades, marine landings, artillery salutes and sports events were held at every fleet headquarters and in Moscow – here with the exception of the ships, due to the lack of sea.
IZVESTIA says Happy Birthday to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, who turns 60. The paper writes, the Last Action Hero in Hollywood made it big in politics in the XXI Century precisely because his most famous movies were set in the XXI-Century and in them he repeatedly saved the world. Many happy returns of the day!
