May 27:
President Dmitry Medvedev has praised the growing power of the energy giant Gazprom, Thomson Financial News reports. “Our company’s role is exceptional,” Medvedev told a meeting of Gazprom’s board of directors. “Gazprom has been in the vanguard of the Russian economy and has become a structure that is regarded on an international scale and that people have to reckon with.” Medvedev was Gazprom’s chairman for seven years before becoming Russian president.
Prosecutor General Yury Chaika has said that thousands of Russians are illegally charged with crimes each year, Polit.ru reports. Chaika told a meeting of the Prosecutor-General’s Office collegium that charges are often based exclusively on the testimony of witnesses, with the result that people are charged and arrested unlawfully. “A large share of responsibility lies with prosecutors, who should prevent violations of the rights of citizens,” he said.
May 28:
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said it is difficult to reach an agreement with the current Georgian leadership because Tbilisi is interested only in “provocations” against Russia, NEWSru.com reports. “I, honestly speaking, cannot understand what they want other than... constantly provoking Russia,” he said. Georgia called on the UN Security Council to hold an emergency meeting after the UN observer mission in Georgia issued a report concluding that a Russian jet shot down a Georgian unmanned aerial vehicle flying over the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia on April 20th. Russia denies shooting down the UAV.
Meanwhile, Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili has told Kommersant that Russia is arming Abkhazia’s breakaway government in order to provoke a war between Abkhazia and Georgia and thereby prevent Georgia from joining NATO.
Sen. John McCain has said he would pursue a new arms control agreement with Russia if elected president and that he supports a legally binding bilateral accord to replace verification requirements in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expires in 2009. “Russia and the United States are no longer mortal enemies,” the New York Times quotes McCain as saying in a speech at the University of Denver. “As our two countries possess the overwhelming majority of the world’s nuclear weapons, we have a special responsibility to reduce their number. I believe we should reduce our nuclear forces to the lowest level we judge necessary, and we should be prepared to enter into a new arms control agreement with Russia reflecting the nuclear reductions I will seek.”
May 29:
Ten percent of the respondents in a poll conducted by the state-owned VTsIOM polling agency indicated they thought Vladimir Putin is still Russia’s president while four percent did not know the identity of Russia’s current head of state, Novayagazeta.ru reports. Still, 83 percent of the poll’s respondents knew that Putin is now prime minister, while 14 percent were not sure who is currently prime minister.
[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.]
May 30:
In a rare rebuff to Vladimir Putin, the Russian Academy of Sciences has voted to reject Mikhail Kovalchuk as a full member. As the Daily Telegraph reports, Kovalchuk, a member of a family that has been nicknamed “Putin’s Purse,” was appointed in June to head Rosnanotech, a state corporation dedicated to nanotechnology that receives billions of dollars worth of state funding. However, without full Academy membership, Kovalchuk cannot be confirmed as Rosnanotech’s official head and will therefore have to remain its acting chairman – arguably making him more vulnerable to removal should Putin’s grip on power weaken.
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