December 20:
President Vladimir Putin has told Russia’s security services that their actions “should be strictly based on the norms and letter of the law and correspond to the aims of the dynamic, progressive development of our society,” Expert.ru reports. The security services must ensure the “systematic and reliable protection of citizens’ rights and legitimate interests,” Putin told state security service officials on their state holiday, formerly known as “Chekists’ Day.” He added that people “should live and work calmly” in the knowledge that their plans can be implemented and their property and business protected.
President Putin has secured a deal to start building a natural-gas pipeline from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, undermining a U.S.-backed plan to give the region an alternative route bypassing Russia, Bloomberg News reports. “The creation of this new energy artery allows for long-term, large-scale gas deliveries to our partners and is a serious contribution by our countries to energy security in Europe,” Putin said after officials from the three former Soviet republics signed the accord in a Kremlin ceremony. The West has pushed a plan to build a sub-sea link to Turkmenistan that would bypass Russia by plugging into a “southern corridor'” of pipelines to Europe via Turkey.
December 21:
The Guardian reports that rival Kremlin clans are “embroiled in a struggle for the control of assets” as President Putin prepares to transfer power to Dmitry Medvedev next May, with “claims that the president presides over a secret multibillion-dollar fortune.” According to the British newspaper, one clan is led by Kremlin deputy chief of staff Igor Sechin and includes Federal Security Service Director Nikolai Patrushev, his deputy Alexander Bortnikov and Putin aide Viktor Ivanov. The rival “liberal camp,” which backs Medvedev, includes Yeltsin-era oligarch Roman Abramovich, Federal Drug Control Service chief Viktor Cherkesov and Alisher Usmanov, an Uzbek-born billionaire.
In an interview with The Guardian, Russian political expert Stanislav Belkovsky repeated the claim he made in November to Germany’s Die Welt – namely, that Putin has vast holdings in Surgutneftegaz, Russia’s third largest oil producer, Russia’s natural gas monopoly Gazprom and Gunvor, a Swiss-based oil trading firm founded by Putin’s friend Gennady Timchenko. Belkovsky told The Guardian that Putin is worth “at least $40 billion,” adding that he suspects “there are some businesses I know nothing about” and thus that Putin’s may be worth “much more.”
December 25:
Russia has successfully test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads, the Associated Press reports. Strategic Missile Forces spokesman Alexander Vovk said the RS-24 missile was launched from the Plesetsk launch facility in northern Russia and successfully hit targets on the Kura testing range on the Kamchatka Peninsula. Vovk said that the missile carried multiple test warheads, but refused to say how many. Interfax said the RS-24 is capable of carrying at least three warheads. The RS-24 is designed to replace missiles with multiple nuclear warheads like the RS-18 and RS-20 – known in West, respectively, as the SS-19 Stiletto and the SS-18 Satan.
December 26:
Boris Nemtsov, whom the Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS) picked as its presidential candidate earlier this month, has dropped out of the race, charging that it will be a “farce” because the candidates will not have equal opportunities for campaigning, NEWSru.com reports. Nemtsov said the two remaining “opposition” candidates, former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, should also drop out of the race if the Kremlin refuses, among other things, to guarantee all candidates equal access to the three national television channels or refrain from using “the special services and administrative resources” in the campaign.