May 18:
Gen.-Col. Viktor Komogorov, head of the international contacts department of the Federal Security Service (FSB), has called on British authorities to apologize for what he claims were accusations of FSB involvement in the November 2006 radiation poisoning murder of dissident ex-FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko. NEWSru.com quotes Komogorov as telling RIA Novosti that the FSB is ready for “cooperation and coordination” with Britain’s special services but that the British must first apologize for “baseless accusations” connected to “the far-fetched ‘Litvinenko case’, which they invented and which has a political hue.” On May 16th, Russia’s ambassador to London, Yury Fedotov, said “limited damage” done to ties by the Litvinenko case can be repaired.
[Editor’s Note: In May 2007, British prosecutors announced they would seek the extradition of former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi on charges of murdering Litvinenko. Lugovoi is currently serving in the State Duma.]
May 19:
President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a decree launching a new anti-corruption program, Lenta.ru reports. According to the Kremlin press service, the decree lays out the powers and tasks of a new Anti-Corruption Council that is being set up with the aim of “creating a system of counteracting corruption in the Russian Federation and eliminating the factors giving rise to it.” Medvedev will head the council, while a presidium set up inside it will be headed by the Kremlin administration chief, Sergei Naryshkin, who has been given a month to draft a national anti-corruption plan.
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s former president and current prime minister, has been accused of using donated art to decorate the St. Petersburg palace he used as a private residence, the Daily Telegraph reports. Oligarch Alisher Usmanov recently gave the Russian state 400 works of art that he bought for $50 million last September, but instead of being displayed in galleries, the paintings have been hung in Konstantin Palace, built by Peter the Great and rebuilt in 2000 on Putin’s orders at a cost of $117 million. According to the Telegraph, while Putin has little right to use the palace since stepping down as president, Kremlin officials indicated that President Dmitry Medvedev would not stand in Putin’s way if he wanted to turn the palace into an unofficial residence.
May 20:
Russian security services again searched the Moscow headquarters of BP -- the second time in two months, reports the BBC. In March, police raided the Moscow offices of the British oil company and its TNK-BP joint venture, which employs 100,000 staff in Russia working on Siberian oil projects. BP confirmed the latest investigation and said it is co-operating with the authorities. According to the BBC, the raid is reported to be linked to the firm’s involvement with Gazprom, the state-controlled energy giant. TNK-BP was told last year that it was in danger of losing its production license for the Kovykta gas field in Siberia for not meeting production targets. The company eventually agreed to sell its stake in the Kovykta field to Gazprom, but the sale has still not been competed.
President Medvedev has held a meeting devoted to judicial reform. “It is necessary to examine a complex of issues connected to the preparation of a series of measures aimed at the eradication of unjust verdicts... which often happen as a result of various kinds of pressure, telephone calls, and, it must be confessed, for money,” NEWSru.com quoted Medvedev as telling the meeting.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has pledged $550 billion to modernize Russia’s transportation system by 2015. “We are talking about the biggest investment project ever launched by the Russian government,” Reuters quotes him as telling a meeting of top transportation officials in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
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