Russia Reform Monitor: No. 1593

September 17:

Russia has signed treaties on friendship, collaboration and mutual assistance with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, NEWSru.com reports. The documents, which were signed by President Dmitry Medvedev, South Ossetian leader Eduard Koikoty and Abkhazian leader Sergei Bagapsh during a Kremlin ceremony, envisage the signing of separate agreements concerning joint protection of state borders, dual citizenship status, measures to prevent “external aggression” and the construction of military bases in the South Caucasus.

The head of Russia’s Federal Space Agency, Anatoly Perminov, has said that Russia is ready to help Cuba develop its own space center, Gazeta.ru reports. “Preliminary discussions have been held about the possibility of creating a space center in Cuba with our help,” Itar-TASS quoted him as saying in Caracas. Perminov is part of a delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin that is visiting Latin America. According to Reuters, Sechin and representatives from several Russian ministries and large Russian companies visited Cuba this week to look at ways to help the island recover from hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

President Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia should unilaterally claim part of the Arctic, the Daily Telegraph reports. “We must finalize and adopt a federal law on the southern border of Russia’s Arctic zone,” Medvedev told a meeting of the Kremlin’s Security Council, in remarks carried by Interfax. “This is our responsibility, and simply our direct duty, to our descendents. We must surely, and for the long-term future, secure Russia's interests in the Arctic.”


September 18:

Russia has announced plans to sell military equipment to both Iran and Venezuela. According to the Times of London, Anatoly Isaikin, general director of state arms exporter Rosoboronexport, said while attending an arms fair in South Africa that Russia is negotiating to sell new anti-aircraft systems – presumably S-300 surface-to-air missile systems - to Iran despite American objections. “Contacts between our countries are continuing and we do not see any reason to suspend them,” Isaikin told RIA Novosti. Meanwhile, Sergei Chemezov, the head of state-owned Russian Technologies, disclosed that Venezuela’s leader Hugo Chavez wants to buy anti-aircraft systems, armored personnel carriers and new SU-35 fighter jets when they come into production in 2010.


September 19:

President Dmitry Medvedev has accused NATO of provoking the conflict between Russia and Georgia, NEWSru.com reports. During a meeting in the Kremlin with representatives of public organizations, Medvedev condemned the “propaganda” that he claimed had accompanied “the military campaign of the Georgian regime.” He added, however, that Russia believes in the “prudence of the Georgian people.” Medvedev also insisted that Russia will never be subordinate to the West. Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Yakovenko has said that there is no possibility of a war between the United States and Russia and that Russia hopes the European Union will guarantee security in Georgia, Agence France-Presse reports.


September 22:

Moscow Helsinki Group head Lyudmila Alexeyeva, who visited Ingushetia last week, has said the atmosphere in the small North Caucasus republic, which is experiencing growing violence by an Islamist insurgency and repression by security forces, is reminiscent of the Soviet Union during Stalin’s terror. “I would say that the situation in Ingushetia is like it was here in 1937, when every person went to bed and didn’t know whether they would wake up in the morning in their home or would be seized and taken away during the night, tortured and killed,” the veteran human rights campaigner told Novye Izvestia. “The one difference from 1937 is that back then they seized everyone en masse, while today [in Ingushetia] it is mainly men aged 15 to 30.”