July 31:
Libyan Prime Minister al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi is in Moscow to meet with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for a second round of talks in three months, the Associated Press reports. Al-Mahmoudi said after arriving in Moscow that he would like to see “bigger volumes in investment cooperation between Russia and Libya in the oil and gas sectors,” while Putin promised to “do all we can” to secure a favorable climate for Libyan investment in Russia. Both men also confirmed that Libya is interested in buying arms from Russia. Meanwhile, Agence France-Presse reports that Alexander Tsygankov, an official with Russia’s second-largest oil producer, Lukoil, has been released by Libya eight months after he was detained there under unclear circumstances.
Senior managers at BP’s Russian joint venture, TNK-BP, are facing further fines and possible suspension after the State Labor Inspectorate launched a second court case alleging violations of hiring laws, the Independent reports. The inspectorate has investigated TNK-BP four times since April and the company has already been to court once, and been fined. The British newspaper quotes sources close to TNK-BP as claiming that the repeated inspections are part of an orchestrated campaign of harassment targeting the company, and particularly its CEO, Robert Dudley, who may face suspension for a period lasting between three months and three years.
August 4:
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said that Russia should restore its influence in Cuba, Interfax reports. “We need to reestablish positions in Cuba and in other countries,” the news agency quotes him as saying during a meeting of his cabinet’s presidium. Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin briefed Putin about his visit to Cuba in his capacity as co-chairman of a Russian-Cuban intergovernmental commission. Sechin was joined on his trip to the island by Nikolai Patrushev, the former Federal Security Service (FSB) chief who is now secretary of the Kremlin’s Security Council. Sechin and Patrushev met with President Raul Castro.
A Defense Ministry draft “Concept for the Development of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation through 2030,” fragments of which were published by Interfax, calls actions by the West the main threat to Russia and acknowledges “the growing technological and military technology supremacy of the leading foreign countries.” According to Kommersant, the concept’s authors believe Russia is entering an era of crises and growing military threats, and that the greatest impending danger is that in order “to provide legitimacy for its unilateral actions, the West will try to obtain international legal recognition of the North Atlantic alliance as a united organization with the right to use force on the basis of the decisions of its own governing organs.”
The Defense Ministry document also says “it can be assumed that military supremacy will be seen by the United States as an important condition for the successful realization of its foreign policy plans… and an American military presence will be preserved practically in all key regions of the world.”
August 5:
International Olympic Committee (IOC) medical commissioner Arne Ljungqvist has accused Russia of “systematic doping” after seven Russian athletes were hit with suspensions which could lead to four-year bans, Agence France-Presse reports. Ljungqvist is also a vice-president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Last week, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) provisionally suspended seven leading Russian female athletes - five of whom were on the Russian Olympic squad - for the suspected switching of urine samples in drug tests last year. Among those suspended is Yelena Soboleva, who has clocked the fastest times in the world this year on both 800 meters and 1500 meters.