September 12:
Is Vladimir Putin once again eyeing the Russian presidency? The Wall Street Journal reports that a recent question-and-answer session carried out by the current Russian premier "gave the clearest signal to date that he is considering a return to his old job." In the meeting, carried out in Moscow with an audience of 45 foreign experts on Russia, Putin said he and current president Dmitry Medvedev plan to decide jointly which one of them will stand for the Russian presidency in the country's upcoming 2012 elections. Given the constitutional changes that have taken place since Putin left the post in 2008, among them an extension of presidential terms from four to six years, a successful bid by the current premier would potentially lay the groundwork for him to remain as president until 2024, the Journal notes.
September 13:
As part of Russia's burgeoning strategic partnership with the regime of strongman Hugo Chavez in Caracas, Russian energy firms are making inroads into the Venezuelan energy market. According to the Agence France Presse, a consortium of five Russian firms (Rosneft, Lukoil, Gazprom, TNK-BP and Surgutneftegaz) has just plunked down $1 billion for "access" to Venezuela's massive Orinoco oil fields. The announcement comes a day after Venezuela's state oil company announced that production on a promising sector of the fields would start by 2012, and is estimated to produce nearly half-a-million barrels of crude daily once operational.
Energy is not the only item on the Russian-Venezuelan agenda. The Kremlin has also reportedly lent the Chavez regime over $2 billion to purchase Russian weapons. According to Reuters, Venezuela plans to buy some 92 Russian T-72 tanks and several units of Russia's advanced S-300 air defense system - arms that Caracas could employ against Colombia if its current political dispute with its neighbor over the latter's hosting of U.S. forces boils over into a shooting war.
September 15:
In a move that has spiked tensions anew with neighboring Georgia, Russia has warned that it will detain ships entering the territorial waters of Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia, whose independence Moscow recognizes. "We will do everything to ensure the security of the Russian state, the security of the Abkhazian state," the Associated Press reports Lt. Gen. Viktor Trufanov, the head of Russia's coast guard, as saying. The warning comes following a series of Georgian seizures of ships in Black Sea waters off Abkhazia, which Tbilisi still claims is part of Georgian territory.
A year after the onset of the global economic crisis, Russian officials are striking a hopeful note about their country's economic fortunes. "June was the first month of Russia's exit from the crisis," Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has said. "But the full start of our exit from the recession will be in the third quarter." The Agence France Presse reports Kudrin as saying that the Russian economy grew 0.4 percent from May to June, and 0.5 percent from June to July - making Russia one of the first countries to emerge from the worldwide crisis.
September 17:
Kremlin officials are claiming victory over the Obama administration's decision to scrap U.S. plans for the deployment of ground-based missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic. The decision, formally announced by President Obama at a White House press conference, was due in large part to "Russia's uncompromising position on the issue," Der Spiegel reports Mikhail Margelov, the chairman of the Federation Council's foreign affairs committee, as saying.
But, experts believe, the move is unlikely to yield much new Russian cooperation on the main target of the now-defunct missile shield: Iran. "The US will be disappointed," according to Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor of Russia in Global Affairs. "The American idea that Russia holds the key to a solution to the Iranian nuclear problem is a fantasy." The best Washington should hope for, Lukyanov believes, is an intensification of Russia's diplomatic efforts on that front.