* Bombardier’s top executives told investors that a plan to build Q400 turboprop aircraft in Russia was being delayed. A letter of intent signed in August last year envisioned the sale of as many as 100 planes for more than $3B.
* Reuters: Vladimir Putin looks to Asia as West threatens to isolate Russia. Vasily Kashin from Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) is quoted as saying: “The worse Russia’s relations are with the West, the closer Russia will want to be to China. If China supports you, no one can say you’re isolated.” Putin and Xi Jinping’s meeting in May will be well worth paying attention to.
* Daily Beast: U.S. Eyes Russian Spies Infiltrating Ukraine.
* KyivPost: In addition to military, Russia rolls out usual economic attacks.
* What’s left of Ukraine signed the cooperation deal with the European Union whose cancellation precipitated the EuroMaidan protests last year. The EU is looking at rushing (by its speed standards) similar cooperation agreements with what’s left of Georgia and Moldova.
* The Russian flag is now officially flying at the Nakhimov Naval School in Sevastopol, as shown in the video of the handover.
A Promising Export Market… For Now
* Sweden’s CybAero proudly announces an order from China Customs for an unstated number of its small APID 60 heli-UAVs for shipborne use. “This is an important customer with great future development plans, and we look at this as the start of a long-term cooperation”. Hmm… How do you say “gweilo suckers” in Chinese? Or is that just redundant?
* China commissioned Kunming, the lead ship in its type 052D class of destroyers, as communicated by state-owned Xinhua (with pictures). A table showing how the class stacks up with Western destroyers is available for DID paying subscribers. It is part of a batch of 6 ships to be launched by next year, for a total of 12 by 2018 (kudos to whomever in China keeps up the Wikipedia entry up-to-date in real time).
Cold Reponse is, Huh, Cold
* 16 countries just wound up their participation in this year’s Cold Response exercise in Norway. USMC video (whose soundtrack would belong in a Silicon Valley startup promotion) | Better video from the BBC | Nice series of pictures from the host country, including graphic simulation of injuries during a medical exercise.
* Realistic injury field simulation is also on the menu (please hold your last meal down) in the video below showing training from the UK’s Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC):