September 12:
Russia’s military says it has successfully tested what it described as the world’s most powerful non-nuclear air-delivered bomb, the Associated Press reports. Channel One state television said the new vacuum bomb, nicknamed the “dad of all bombs,” is four times more powerful than the U.S. “mother of all bombs.” “The tests have shown that the new air-delivered ordinance is comparable to a nuclear weapon in its efficiency and capability,” said Col.-Gen. Alexander Rukshin, a deputy chief of the Russian military’s General Staff, told the channel. Channel One showed a Tupolev 160 strategic bomber dropping the bomb over a testing ground, followed by a large explosion.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has said the dioxin that disfigured him in September 2004 was very likely made in Russia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports. While not directly accusing Russia’s government of involvement, Yushchenko said he has “practically all the pieces put together” and that the poisoning was “not a private action.” He added that analyses of dioxin have been made from “all laboratories in the world, except those in Russia,” and suggested Russia is harboring three suspects in the case. “All our requests to the prosecutor-general to have these people appear in Ukrainian courts have gone unanswered, including one in December that I personally handed over, requesting the help of Russian President Vladimir Putin,” he said.
Vladimir Yevtushenkov, the majority owner of Sistema, Russia’s largest services company, has said that $50 million is not enough to get a start in business in Russia today, Reuters reports. “If we are talking about up to $50 million, it’s better to spend it on yourself,” he said at the Reuters Russia Investment Summit in Moscow. “A hundred million is too little.” Yevtushenkov was last estimated to be worth $9.1 billion by Forbes magazine, making him Russia’s 11th richest man.
Vladimir Putin has nominated Viktor Zubkov, head of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service, as prime minister, replacing Mikhail Fradkov, who resigned. Zubkov worked with Putin in the St. Petersburg city administration in the 1990s. PRIMA-News quotes “Yabloko” leader Grigory Yavlinsky as saying of Putin’s surprise choice: “The appointment of a person without a political face as the prime minister of a great country in a difficult period means that only one source of power exists in the country – the president. Such an appointment is a step toward the de facto continuation of Vladimir Putin’s rule following the conclusion of his formal power.”
September 14:
The BBC reports that President Putin has described Viktor Zubkov as “a real professional” and “a brilliant administrator” after the State Duma approved Zubkov’s appointment as prime minister in a 381-47 vote. Putin called Zubkov “one of five” people who could replace him as president next year. Zubkov did not rule out running for president, saying: “If I get something done here, in this post of prime minister, then I do not exclude that.”
September 15:
Reuters reports that President Putin has made clear to a group of visiting foreign academics that he will remain a political force after 2008. “Mr. Putin is not planning to disappear into the fog,” said Ariel Cohen, a senior researcher at the Heritage Foundation and one of the Russia scholars whom Putin met yesterday at his residence in the southern resort city of Sochi. Cohen said the academics asked Putin whether he planned to run for president after 2012, the end of his successor’s first term. “He said it depends,” Cohen said. “He said he cares about the stability of Russia… He did not rule out he would try to return to the presidency.”
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