October 3:
Opposition leader Garry Kasparov has warned that President Vladimir Putin’s plan to run for parliament could destabilize Russia, Reuters reports. “Putin must be the boss, he wants to be the boss, he wants to remain the boss - do you doubt it?” the former chess champion told reporters. “It is very dangerous. The consequences could be a collapse of power, February 1917. Power must be legitimate.” Kasparov also said Putin fears leaving office. “He has created a system where there is no guarantee but having power himself, so he will try to preserve it,” the one-time chess champion said. “But he will do it subtly - he doesn’t want to be Mugabe.”
Kasparov added that he doubted Putin – who, he said, has sent many deliberately misleading signals - will become prime minister. “You should forget about that - all his life he has been leading people along,” he said, citing previous speculation that Putin could endorse Sergei Ivanov or Dmitry Medvedev, both first deputy prime ministers, as successors. “Half a year ago everyone was talking about Ivanov and Medvedev and now where are they?” Reuters quoted Kasparov as saying. “They are nowhere.”
Agents of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Investigative Committee - a body recently set up under the Prosecutor General’s Office - have arrested Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN) deputy head Lt.-Gen. Alexander Bulbov and several other senior FSKN officers at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport. Lenta.ru reports that Bulbov may be charged with illegally monitoring telephone calls.
Some observers believe Bulbov’s arrest is evidence of a power struggle inside Russia’s security and law-enforcement establishment. State Duma Security Committee Deputy Chairman Viktor Ilyukhin told Ren-TV that the arrests might be a case of revenge by “one special service” against another and an attempt to “compromise” FSKN chief Viktor Cherkesov, who is a KGB veteran and long-time associate of President Vladimir Putin. State Duma Deputy Alexander Khinshtein told the Regnum news agency that Bulbov and most of the other detained FSKN officials were involved in investigating the “Tri Kita” furniture store case and other cases of alleged contraband smuggling by senior officials of the FSB and Prosecutor General’s Office.
October 4:
The European Court of Human Rights has ordered Russian authorities to pay more than 150,000 euros ($212,475) in damages in three cases involving killings or attacks by Russian soldiers in Chechnya in 2000, the Associated Press reports. The cases centered on allegations of life-threatening attacks on two people and the killing of two others in the Chechen capital of Grozny, with the court ruling that their right to life had been violated. The court also said authorities had failed to carry out a proper investigation.
October 5:
Agence France-Presse reports that the United States has proposed a common network of missile defense systems with Russia and NATO to allay Moscow’s concerns over a planned U.S. missile defense system in central Europe. “The answer is we and the Russians and NATO or the NATO-Russia Council work together to produce a common system or common network of systems which would benefit everyone’s security and also address Russian security concerns,” said Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried. “If they are part of the system, they can be much more confident that it is not directed against them.”
October 6:
President Putin has named former Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov to head the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Bloomberg News reports. Putin announced Fradkov’s appointment in televised remarks following a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. On October 5th, Putin named former SVR head Sergei Lebedev as CIS executive secretary, Rosbalt reported.