December 9:
Two passengers have been killed and 13 wounded in an explosion on a bus in southern Russia, Rosbalt reports. The blast occurred at a bus station in the city of Nevinnomyssk, located in Stravropol Krai. According to the news agency, Stavropol law enforcement officials are characterizing the incident as a terrorist act.
December 10:
Israeli intelligence bodies are certain a Russian cultural center recently opened in Tel Aviv is a cover for the local branch of the Sons of the Homeland, a movement established by Russian President Vladimir Putin to bring back Russians who emigrated to Israel, Haaretz reports. The cultural center’s head is Dr. Alexander Kryukov, a leading Russian expert on Israeli culture with extensive connections in Israel. “When the Russian government last year announced his appointment as a diplomat in the Russian Embassy in Tel Aviv, the Shin Bet security service tried to prevent him from receiving a visa, citing his past as a KGB spy,” Haaretz writes of Kryukov. “However, Russia insisted, and Israel acquiesced in order to avoid a diplomatic incident.”
President Putin has said that he “fully” backs First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as a candidate in Russia’s presidential election in March 2008, NEWSru.com reports. The two main pro-Kremlin parties, United Russia and A Just Russia, along with two minor parties, the Agrarian Party and Civil Force, put forward Medvedev’s candidacy. Boris Nemtsov, a former first deputy prime minister who is now a leader of the Union of Right-Wing Forces, said Medvedev is the natural choice to succeed Putin, given that he is from St. Petersburg, “weak” and “loyal.” Independent State Duma deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov called Medvedev “the optimal successor” if Putin wants to return to the presidency later.
December 11:
Dmitry Medvedev has asked President Putin to serve as his prime minister if he wins next year’s presidential election, Rb.ru reports. It is “fundamentally important” to keep Putin in “an important post in the executive branch – the post of chairman of the Russian Federation government,” Medvedev said. When Putin announced in October that he would head United Russia’s ticket in the December 2nd State Duma election, he called becoming prime minister an “entirely realistic” proposal but added that it was “too early to think about it.”
President Putin has promised not to “create state capitalism” or allow state corporations to monopolize the economy, Interfax reports. “That’s not what we want, that’s not our way,” Putin told top officials of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “We’ll be careful to ensure that the state corporations that are in the making do not stifle other businesses.” As Prime-TASS notes, state-controlled conglomerates are being created in numerous sectors, including oil and gas, aircraft manufacturing, aircraft engine making, the airline industry, banking, shipping, shipbuilding, titanium production, bearing manufacturing, residential utilities, steel-making, nanotechnology and the nuclear industry, as well as for the construction of Olympic facilities.
December 12:
The apparent contract killing of Oleg Zhukovsky, deputy chairman of the state-run banking giant VTB, has raised fears of a factional war between Kremlin-connected elites, London’s Telegraph reports. Zhukovsky was responsible for lending to the logging industry, which is reportedly the scene of a turf war between “individuals connected to the Kremlin groups,” the British newspaper writes. It adds that Kremlin clans are taking advantage of the uncertainty surrounding the end of the Putin presidency to extend their influence at the expense of rivals. “In the past two months a feud between two powerful factions linked to the security services has led to the arrest of several once-powerful individuals,” the Telegraph notes. “Two officers have also died after ingesting radioactive poison
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