April 27:
Russia’s richest man, Oleg Deripaska, has predicted Vladimir Putin will remain fully in charge of Russia until 2020 despite stepping down as president, Reuters reports. Dmitry Medvedev, who will be sworn in as president on May 7th, has promised to appoint Putin as prime minister and implement “the Putin plan,” a set of goals to make Russia a developed country by 2020. “His (Medvedev’s) role is important,” Deripaska told journalists in Moscow. “But you need to understand – it’s a big challenge to take responsibility. As I understand Putin accepted this responsibility to develop 2020 goals.”
Deripaska - who, as Reuters notes, was considered one of the oligarchs closest to Boris Yeltsin and is today, worth $28.6 billion - criticized the U.S. government, which according to Forbes magazine revoked his visa in 2006 over concerns about possible ties to organized crime. “My competitors may have spread negative information about me and may have found attentive ears in the United States,” he said. “They have their own policy towards Russia. The United States is the last country I would invest now. If the government is unreasonably pushing us out, why should we stay there and solve their problems?”
Japan and Russia’s governments have agreed to cooperate on oil exploration in eastern Siberia, Bloomberg News reports. A Japanese Foreign Ministry official announced that the state-run Japan Oil, Gas & Metal National Corp. and Irkutsk Oil will form a joint venture and that exploration will take place about 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) north of Irkutsk city, take five years, and cost about 10 billion yen ($96 million). The announcement came during Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda’s visit to Moscow, where he met with outgoing President Vladimir Putin and President-elect Dmitry Medvedev. Fukuda reportedly told Putin that the main purpose of his trip was to build personal ties.
April 28:
Echoing Russia’s Foreign Ministry, Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov has said the use of military force is justified if the lives of Russian citizens living in the breakaway republic of Abkhazia or South Ossetia are threatened, NEWSru.com reports. The website notes that up to 80 percent of the people living in the two regions are Russian citizens.
Russian officials are warily watching rising food prices as their country begins to succumb to a global trend that has sparked street protests in some countries, the New York Times reports. As inflation rates approached 12 percent last year, the government imposed export tariffs and introduced a price freeze on some staple goods. Still, food prices have increased 6 percent so far this year and some economists warn that year-end inflation could reach 13 percent. Meanwhile, the Russian cabinet is split, with Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin calling for sharp cuts in federal spending to prevent economic overheating as Economic Development and Trade Minister Elvira Nabiullina pushes increased spending on transportation, energy and other infrastructure projects.
April 30:
CIA Director Michael Hayden has warned that Russia is facing “demographic stress” with a population that will decline by 32 million in the next 40 years, almost one-fourth its current population of 141 million, the Washington Times reports. “To sustain its economy, Russia increasingly will have to look elsewhere for workers,” Hayden said in prepared remarks for a lecture at Kansas State University in Manhattan. “Some immigrants will be Russians from the former Soviet states. But others will be Chinese and non-Russians from the Caucasus, Central Asia and elsewhere, potentially aggravating Russia’s already uneasy racial and religious tensions.” A new U.N. report has warned that Russia’s population could fall from 142 million to 100 million in 40 to 50 years.