April 8:
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that Moscow’s main demand for the deployment of a proposed U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe is the “constant presence” of Russian officers and “a reliable means of technical monitoring” at the ABM facilities, NEWSru.com reports. The U.S. plans to deploy 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic. “It is important that we continually see where this radar is looking [and] what is going on at the interceptor base in Poland,” Lavrov told Ekho Moskvy radio. Deputy Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski has said that Russian military personnel will not be given permanent access to the interceptor base in Poland.
April 9:
Suspected Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout has asked the Russian government to help secure his release from a prison in Thailand, where he faces possible extradition to the United States. “I, Viktor Bout, appeal to the government of the Russian Federation as a citizen,” he wrote in an open letter quoted by RIA Novosti. “I request to take measures for my release because I was detained and continue to be held in custody on fabricated charges. I ask the Russian government to take steps and inquire of the government of Thailand... why I continue to be illegally held in this country on U.S.-fabricated charges.” Bout was arrested in Thailand on March 6th as part of a U.S. sting operation and charged with seeking to buy weapons for Colombian rebels.
April 10:
Vedomosti reports that after Dmitry Medvedev is inaugurated as president on May 7th, control over the presidential envoys to Russia’s seven federal districts may be shifted over to the cabinet, which will headed by Medvedev’s prime minister, Vladimir Putin. The newspaper quotes Sergei Pekpeyev, a member of the State Duma’s Committee on Federation Affairs and Regional Policy, as saying that the cabinet may also gain control over the country’s governors. However, according to NEWSru.com, Itar-TASS quoted an anonymous Kremlin source as saying there are no plans to transfer control over the presidential envoys to the prime minister. The website also quotes Regional Development Minister Dmitry Kozak as saying that he knows of no such plans.
April 11:
The head of Russia’s space agency Roskosmos, Anatoly Perminov, has said that Russia will end manned space launches from Kazakhstan’s Soviet-era Baikonur cosmodrome by 2020, by which time all cosmonauts will take off from the new Vostochny base, planned in Russia’s southeast near the Chinese border. According to Agence France-Presse, Perminov made his comments after President Vladimir Putin urged increased investment in the Russian space program at a meeting of the Russian Security Council. “We must ensure guaranteed Russian access to space,” Putin said in comments broadcast on national television. He added that Russia should be able to hold launches of all kinds from its own territory “from satellites, to manned spacecraft and interplanetary missions.”
Kommersant reports that in order to fight racist and nationalist crimes, the Prosecutor General’s Office has prepared draft amendments to toughen laws on the media, create norms of responsibility for Internet sites and increase government control over religious educational programs. According to a proposed amendment to the law on extremism, if a court rules that material on a website is extremist in nature, then access to that material must be blocked, and if any website repeatedly posts extremist material, it can be closed down. A list of extremist Internet postings and website will be regularly published in the media, and ISPs will be required to stop serving those sites within a month after they appear on the list.
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