December 18:
The Kremlin's Latin American charm offensive has taken another step forward. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has met with Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega in Moscow, the Agence France Presse reports. In their meeting, Ortega, the Latin American leftist leader who served as a staunch Soviet ally during the Cold War, pledged his opposition to a "unipolar" world, and embraced Russia's efforts to expand its influence in the Western Hemisphere. “Extreme conditions are being created in Latin America and all the governments are welcoming Russia’s presence," Ortega said in a not-so-subtle jab at the United States.
Russia has successfully prevented foreign espionage on a large scale, the country's top spy has said. “In the area of countering foreign intelligence, the activities of 48 career officers were blocked, as well as 101 agents of foreign special services” over the past year, the Agence France Presse reports FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov as telling reporters. Those apprehended, Bortnikov said, include “a network of agents from the special services of Georgia,” as well as a Syrian with Russian citizenship who has been accused of financing Islamic militants in the North Caucasus.
December 20:
Russian premier Vladimir Putin has told Russian companies to refrain from excessive job cuts in response to the global economic downturn. "Business should not... fire people without extreme need," Reuters quotes Putin as telling a meeting of cabinet ministers. "Our goal is to minimise losses (of business), maintain its ability to survive, but not to guarantee its profits." Putin's comments come amid reports of massive capital outflows and a constriction of industrial output, which have fanned fears that the nation's unemployment rate could soon surge beyond its current level of 6.6 percent, or 5 million people.
Nor, according to Putin, should the Russian government scale back its level of social services. Itar-TASS reports Putin as saying that the Kremlin plans to fulfill all of its social "priorities" - among them injecting stability into the national pension system and raising pension payments - in spite of the ongoing economic turmoil.
December 21:
Russia has commenced deliveries of units of its advanced S-300 air- and missile defense system to Iran, an Iranian parliamentarian has announced. “After few years of talks with Russia ... now the S-300 system is being delivered to Iran,” Pakistan's Daily Times reports Email Kosari, the deputy head of the Foreign Affairs and National Security Committee of the Iranian majles, as saying. Russian officials, however, are denying that any such deliveries are underway - or even in the works. Ha'aretz reports that Pyotr Stegny, Russia's ambassador to Israel, has told Israeli officials that his government is still "adhering to the agreements we reached during Prime Minister Olmert's visit to Moscow." During that state visit, back in October, the Israeli premier had received assurances from top Kremlin officials that Russia would not sell such weapons systems "to countries that are located, mildly speaking, in volatile regions."
December 23:
The Moscow Times reports that Vladimir Putin, once regarded as the country's "savior," has increasingly become the object of animosity amid declining economic fortunes. This reversal was on display at a recent Moscow rally protesting an increase in import duties for used cars, during which posters insulting Putin were prominently displayed. Putin's previously unassailable image is also being publicly questioned by political commentators, as well as by parliamentarians, who hauled the premier before the Duma in mid-December to explain the sharp drop in the country's industrial output.