On Tuesday the Russian Federation’s eighth International Aviation and Space Salon (widely known by its Russian acronym MAKS) opened to great fanfare in the city of Zhukovsky outside Moscow. Held bi-annually since 1993, the Salon has become one of the world’s most important aerospace gatherings. According to state organizers this year’s celebration, MAKS-2007, is the […]

As I alluded in a post several weeks back, one of the reasons that things have been a bit slow here at DotA as of late is that I’ve been busy at work developing a new web site/blog.
I am happy to announce that last night the site went “live.”
It’s called The Russian Front. […]

[Note: For previous posts in this series, click here: 1 2 3 4 5]
[ My apologies for the long delay in posting the last segment of my series on the VVS Museum. After uploading Part Five, I took a week off to visit family and friends. Since then I’ve been hard at work with some […]

One of the disadvantages to having your head buried in books all day long is that you sometimes miss out on those few occasions when there’s something (other than South Park) that’s really worth watching on the tube. Tonight was almost one of those occasions.
Fortunately, I recovered just in time this evening to tune […]

A little under two weeks ago I published an op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor about the continuing practice of dedovshchina within the ranks of Russian army. (For those unfamiliar with the term, dedovshchina refers to the longstanding practice in which senior non-commissioned soldiers “initiate” the first-year conscripts under their command through physical punishment and […]