September 1:
President Dmitry Medvedev has said his government will adhere to five guiding principles of foreign policy, the New York Times reports. Speaking to Russian television, Medvedev said Russia would observe international law, reject what he called U.S. dominance of international affairs in a “unipolar” world, seek friendly relations with other nations, defend Russian citizens and business interests abroad and claim a sphere of influence in the world. “Russia, like other countries in the world, has regions where it has privileged interests,” Medvedev said. “These are regions where countries with which we have friendly relations are located.” Asked whether this sphere of influence would be the border states around Russia, Medvedev answered: “It is the border region, but not only.”
September 2:
President Dmitry Medvedev has said told Italian television that the Georgian government is “bankrupt” and that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is a “political corpse,” NEWSru.com reports. Medvedev said Russia is ready to discuss “post-conflict settlement” in the Caucasus but wants the international community to remember “who started the aggression” and “who bears responsibility for the death of people.”
The Russian company building the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran has renewed a commitment to complete the project, Agence France-Presse reports. A visiting delegation from Russia’s state-run Atomstroiexport pledged to “abide by the working agenda by providing the necessary experts... and sending the necessary equipment for the power plant in time,” according to a joint statement with Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization carried by the Islamic Republic’s official IRNA news agency.
September 3:
The Daily Telegraph reports that a new teaching guide for Russian school teachers states that in executing and imprisoning millions of people in the Gulag, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin “acted entirely rationally - as the guardian of a system, as a consistent supporter of reshaping the country into an industrialized state.” According to the British paper, the book “is designed for teachers to promote patriotism among the Russian young, and seems to follow an attempt backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to re-evaluate Stalin’s record in a more positive light.” The Telegraph quotes the book’s editor, Alexander Danilov, as saying: “We are not defending Stalin. We are just exploring his personality, explaining his motives and showing what he really achieved.”
Telman Alishaev, a TV reporter in Dagestan, has died after being shot by two men, while Miloslav Bitokov, a newspaper editor in Kabardino-Balkariya, which also borders Chechnya, has been hospitalized with a fractured skull after being attacked by three unknown assailants outside his home. According to the Financial Times, Alishaev was seen as loyal to local authorities while Bitokov was known widely for his independence. The attacks follow the killing in Ingushetia of opposition website founder Magomed Yevloyev, who died of a gunshot wound sustained while in police custody.
“There is one thing common to all these three cases: this is a destabilization of the Caucasus after the Russian-Georgian war,” political commentator Yulia Latynina, a Kremlin critic, told the Financial Times. “We started a fire under a melting pot of terrorists, security agents and gangsters.”
September 4:
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, who is in Tbilisi, has condemned Russia for what he called an “illegitimate, unilateral attempt” to redraw Georgia’s borders by force, the Associated Press reports. Cheney also assured Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili that the United States was “fully committed” to his country’s efforts to join NATO. “Georgia will be in our alliance,” Cheney said. Meanwhile, the Regnum news agency quotes State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Konstantin Kosachev as accusing Cheney of attempting to create “anti-Russian axes” in Russia’s “immediate surroundings.”
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