The Media Mirror - What's in today's Russian press?
Today Russian newspapers analyse the possible outcome of the Shanghai Organization Cooperation summit in Kyrgyzstan and write about the investigation of the recent derailment of a train between Moscow and St. Petersburg.
NEZAVISIMAYA GAZETA has an analytical piece saying that the summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will bring about a peaceful but nevertheless serious clash of two ideologies of its further development. Russia, on one hand, wants to make the SCO a predominantly political body; some even call it “Anti-NATO”. China, on the other hand, is trying to steer the organisation into the sphere of economics where Russia may find itself in a disadvantage as China is a strong competitor capable of driving Russia out of certain segments of Central Asian markets.
Returning to KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA of a few days back and the forecast by Sergey Karaganov, a Russian academic well known in the world, who was quoted as saying on the issue of Russia-China relations:
“We should not fear China. Even in the Far East the threat is coming not so much from China but from our own prolonged neglect of the territory.”
Meanwhile, the joint military exercise of SCO member countries outside Bishkek is about to reach its highest point, the war game that will be played in the presence of the Heads of State on August 17.
Of Russia's military exercises VREMYA NOVOSTEI writes in the article titled “From Elbrus to Guam” that the Russian military has widened the geographical range of its training, as well as the range of training partners.
It's SCO member countries in Kyrgyzstan engaged in a major scale ground-and-air exercise. Belarus and Uzbekistan in the air defence exercise in Astrakhan, Russia. Russian strategic bombers discharging cruise missiles over the North Pole for the second time in a month and Russian Mountain Brigades training in the Caucasus mountains, whole companies climbing the Mount Elbrus and playing live ammunition exercises at the altitude of 4500 metres above sea level. The article says it's a long way from computer simulated warfare that the Russian military was confined to less than a decade ago.
'Won't be home for dinner, we've got blown up' - these are the words the driver of the unlucky train said to his wife on the telephone right after the derailment. IZVESTIA reports that in spite of the announcement on Radio Freedom by a Chechen militant group Riyad-us Saliheen of their involvement, the investigators still have doubts about it and continue pursuing other leads as well.
Tropical heat continues torturing of Muscovites, writes VREMYA NOVOSTEI. Meanwhile, everyone invents his or her own way of fighting it. This is how the Kremlin Guards do it: an officer has to be a father to his troops, that's the principle here.
