December 21:
A recent visit to India by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has yielded a series of agreements dealing with defense, energy, trade, and cultural exchanges. Reuters reports that the deals include an agreement for the Russian delivery of 250 to 300 supersonic fighter aircraft between 2017 and 2027, the Russian construction of additional nuclear reactors in southern India, and a commitment to increase cooperation in both hydrocarbons and pharmaceuticals. Both countries additionally signed a memorandum of understanding to simplify visa procedures and check “irregular” migration.
A string of high-profile deaths on the part of suspects in the custody of Russian officials has led to the Duma's approval of a bill allowing for the release of terminally-ill suspects from state custody. According to RIA Novosti, the new bill will permit judges to decrease the sentences of suspects deemed to be “severely ill.” Official approval for the measure comes just days after the latest international outcry for the punishment of those responsible for the death of former Russian anticorruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
December 23:
The U.S. Senate has ratified the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, after 13 Republican senators joined the Democratic majority. Though President Obama views the treaty as a vital component of his “reset” of relations with Russia, according to the Wall Street Journal, critics of the agreement have contended that it gives Russia and even China a strategic advantage over the United States. This opposition has led the White House to reiterate its commitment to the deployment of missile defenses, as well as the provision of some $85 billion over the next decade for the modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The treaty now requires only the ratification of the Russian Duma to come into force.
Russia's extreme nationalists - once simply a fringe political force tolerated by the Russian government - is metamorphosing into something more, a new analysis has warned. "[I]n the wake of the biggest ethnic riots Russia has seen since the Soviet Union’s fall, this formerly marginal if violent movement has arisen as a fearsome new political power," writes Charles Clover in the Financial Times. "The riots over the past two weeks have seen Moscow’s racist gangs swiftly mobilise thousands of supporters with little warning."
The Kremlin's response, meanwhile, has been schizophrenic. "Law enforcement agencies have launched a crackdown, with the Russian interior ministry rounding up almost 2,000 gang members in the past week." And yet, according to Clover, "[t]he Kremlin’s political strategy... has been to appease rather than confront the ultra-nationalists." In doing so, it is attempting to harness and channel the "ultra-nationalism" now increasingly visible among ordinary Russians - something Clover suggests is an exceedingly risky strategy.
December 25:
Following extensive negotiations, France and Russian officials have inked a deal involving the purchase of at least two French Mistral-class amphibious warships. The deal, reports the Washington Post, is the first of its kind between Russia and the West, and reflects the larger thaw in relations between Russia and NATO. For France, the sale will prop up its faltering defense industry and provide much-needed labor opportunities for its work force.
December 27:
Controversial former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been found guilty of embezzlement and money laundering in his second corruption trail. Khodorkovsky's lawyers, reports the Agence France Presse, insist that the verdict is “unjust” and have pledged to appeal, while the United States and other Western powers have voiced their concerns over allegaions of “serious due process violations, and what appears to be an abusive use of the legal system for improper ends.” Khodorkovsky and his former business partner, Platon Lebedev, are already serving eight-year sentences for fraud charges associated with their former energy firm, Yukos. With the new sentence, Khodorkovsky - who at one time was Russia's richest man - will remain in prison until at least 2017.