October 14:
Russia has the right to carry out preemptive nuclear strikes to protect its national security, a top military decision maker has said. In an interview with the newspaper Izvestia published during Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Moscow, Kremlin National Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev emphasized that his government - like that of the United States - is currently carrying out a nuclear posture review, designed to determine "a variety of possibilities for using nuclear force, depending on the situation and the intentions of the possible opponent." "In situations critical to national security, options including a preventative nuclear strike on the aggressor are not excluded," Patrushev said in the interview, the contents of which were carried by the Associated Press.
In the interview, Patrushev also provided a telling glimpse into official Kremlin attitudes toward the United States and NATO - which remain hostile despite of recent diplomatic overtures toward Moscow on the part of both the Obama administration and the Atlantic Alliance. "[E]arlier military dangers and threats for our country have not lost significance," he said. "Activity on receiving new members into NATO is not ceasing. The military activity of the bloc is being stepped up. U.S. strategic forces are conducting intensive training on using strategic nuclear weapons."
October 17:
Russia's short-lived effort to gain entry to the WTO in tandem with Belarus and Kazakhstan has ended. The Financial Times reports that the Kremlin has scrapped plan for a three country customs union following warnings from WTO members that the effort could tack years onto Russia's chances of entering the trade grouping. Citing "the earliest completion of accession" as their paramount "strategic goal," Russian officials are now saying that Moscow will revive its solo bid for WTO membership.
October 18:
Russia's efforts to erect a Eurasian counterweight to NATO have taken another step forward. The Moscow Times reports that Russia, along with Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have taken part in cooperative wargames on Kazakh soil. The drills, carried out under the auspices of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, or CSTO, were designed to simulate a joint regional response to activities by radical "insurgents." “This is our answer to those threats that our states are coming up against, threats that know no borders — drug crime, religious radicalism and several other threats which we all intend to battle,” Russian President Dmitri Medvedev told reporters. “This is a milestone in the development of the CSTO and our cooperation.”
October 20:
Russia's on-again, off-again territorial dispute with Japan is back on the front burner. Qatar's Peninsula newspaper reports that the Kremlin has categorically rejected a recent claim by Japan's land minister, Seiji Maehara, that the islands have long been under illegal occupation by Russia - a claim that Tokyo should contest. In an official statement, Russia's foreign ministry blasted Maehara's claims as "unacceptable, out of place and without a legal base." “It is obvious that such statements will have negative consequences for the good neighbourly climate in bilateral relations but also for the development of Russian-Japanese cooperation,” it said.
October 21:
Russian president Dmitri Medvedev has urged Russia's oligarchs to be more economically patriotic. The International Herald Tribune reports that Medvedev used his annual meeting with Russia's richest men to urge them to take a more nationalistic approach to their investments. Russia's oligarchs, Medvedev said in the Kremlin meeting, put their money “in the best foreign companies in industry, finance, trade, media and even sports." Those investments, however, occur mainly outside Russia. The Russian government and the Russian people "have a right to expect the same activity inside the country.”