Putin Growing Stronger?

As I had posted some time ago, Prime Minister Putin is just waiting for the chance to run his
country as President once again.

He continues to flex his muscles, and show the Russian people he really is still in charge even
after more than a year and half out of office.

Putin recently toured the areas of the big forest fires. He was seen recently in a town destroyed
by the fires. He promised that all the houses will be rebuilt and that each family will receive more
than $6,000 in compensation.

Experts on Russia claim that Putin is using the problems and hardships to position himself to
become the next leader. One of them, Lila Shevtsova says "He needs to unequivocally indicate to the country that he is in control, and not Medvedev, whom Putin never counted for much anyway."

Putin has for some time been overshadowing President Medvedev, who more or less has always
been seen as just a puppet following Putin's orders.

The world had better take notice of just what is going on behind the scenes, and be very wary.
Putin has also been the driving force to increase and upgrade Russian military.

Can we believe that when he becomes president again that all will be warm and fuzzy and cozy?
I am quite view it quite sceptically.

What about the Russian ties to North Korea? How will he think about China?

This bears very close watching and monitoring.

Jerald Terwilliger
National Chairman
American Cold War Veterans
"We Remember"

----------------"And so the greatest of American triumphs... became a peculiarly joyless victory. We had won the Cold War, but there would be no parades."-- Robert M. Gates, 1996