August 17:
President Vladimir Putin has announced that Russia will immediately resume the Soviet-era practice of sending strategic bombers on long-range flights well beyond its borders, Agence France-Presse reports. “We have decided to renew flights of Russian strategic aviation on a permanent basis,” Putin said as he and Chinese President Hu Jintao wrapped up joint military exercises at a training ground near the Urals city of Chelyabinsk. “In 1992 Russia unilaterally stopped flights by its strategic aviation in distant military patrol regions. Unfortunately not everyone followed our example and strategic flights by other states continue. This creates certain problems for ensuring Russia’s security.”
Responding to Putin’s announcement, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack has said: “If Russia feels as though they want to take some of these old aircraft out of mothballs and get them flying again that’s their decision.”
In a poll by the state-controlled VTsIOM polling agency, 52 percent of respondents said Russia’s next president should be a supporter of social justice, a strong state and a “leftist,” Vedomosti reports. Only 20 percent said the next president should be a free-marketer who supports “competitive business.” Still, few respondents said they would like the next president to be a communist (9 percent), a socialist (6 percent), a Russian nationalist (6 percent), a “human rights advocate and democrat” (5 percent) or a follower of pre-revolutionary traditions and the Russian Orthodox Church (3 percent). Only 2 percent said they want the next president to limit state intervention in the economy.
[Editor’s Note: Given the effect of Russia’s increasingly authoritarian political climate on pollsters and respondents alike, the results of public opinion surveys in Russia should be viewed with some caution.]
August 20:
At least seven Bentley luxury cars have been stolen in Moscow this year, including two in the past week, the Associated Press reports. City police said the most recent theft was reported on August 17th by a woman in her mid-20s, who said her sky-blue Bentley Continental, worth $340,000, was taken overnight from a parking space near her central Moscow apartment building. Police said a Bentley Continental was stolen this past week from Olympic gold medalist Vladimir Zhmudsky, who played on the 1972 Summer Games’ winning water polo team. Bentley opened its first showroom in Moscow in 2002 and sold 40 cars that year. There are now more than 1,300 Bentleys in the capital.
August 21:
Yury Baluyevsky, the chief of the Russian armed forces’ General Staff, has warned that Russia will be forced to take counter-measures of a “military character” if U.S. missile defenses are deployed in the Czech Republic, Interfax reports. “I called the Czech leadership’s possible decision to deploy elements of the American ABM on its territory ‘a big mistake’ because Russia under the circumstances will simply be required to take measures for its security,” the general told journalists in Moscow after meeting with Czech Deputy Defense Minister Martin Bartak. According to NEWSru.com, Baluyevsky urged Prague to delay a decision on hosting a U.S. missile defense shield until after next year’s U.S. presidential elections.
August 22:
Two RAF jets have intercepted a Russian bomber over the north Atlantic, Sky News reports. The incident took place on August 17th, when two Eurofighter Typhoon interceptors shadowed a Russian Tupolev-95 “Bear” reconnaissance aircraft.
According to Ekho Moskvy radio, Georgia’s Foreign Ministry has charged that a Russian fighter jet violated its airspace on August 21st, flying over the Kodori Gorge in the breakaway Abkhazia region, reports. Russia’s air force has denied the Georgian claim. Earlier this month, Georgia claimed a Russian jet dropped a missile on Georgian territory. Russia also denied that allegation.
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