Around ten thousand Russian citizens have applied for entry visas into Iraq to defend this country against the planned aggression by the warmongering USA and UK, according to the Iraqi Embassy in Moscow....

The requests come from young males, some with combat experience, who describe themselves as “volunteers” who are willing to defend Iraq against the illegal armed aggression of the USA and the United Kingdom, two countries which continue to follow a belligerent stance on crisis management, wholly outside the generally accepted concepts of a New World Order based upon multilateralist approaches to problem solving, based upon the United Nations Organisation, a position championed by president Putin’s Russian Federation....

--Pravda

I'm less concerned with the content of the story than with the rhetoric. Is Pravda still essentially in sync with the Russian government? And haven't we been assuming for a decade or so that these guys are now our friends? This sounds exactly like the Soviet rhetoric of my Cold War youth. Is this kind of talk just an ingrained habit at Pravda -- or is George Bush truly alienating a somewhat more powerful global ally than France?

(Thanks to Susan M. for the link.)