Russia Reform Monitor: No. 1596

October 2:

President Dmitry Medvedev has said that the era of U.S. financial dominance is over, and has won the backing of visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel in calling for a “more just” system, Agence France-Presse reports. Both Medvedev and Merkel called for new measures to respond to the international credit crisis. “The time of domination by one economy and one currency has been consigned to the past once and for all,” Medvedev said alongside Merkel at a forum in St. Petersburg. “We must work together towards building a new and more just financial-economic system in the world based on the principles of multi-polarity, supremacy of the law and taking account of mutual interests.”

According to the Kremlin’s website, Medvedev also said that “the latest developments in the Caucasus” – a reference to the Georgian-Russian conflict – showed that the existing system of global security is incapable of preventing “military adventures” and that everything possible must be done to create a “modern, reliable architecture” for international security.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has charged that Ukraine may have supplied weapons to Georgia during the recent Georgian-Russian war, NEWSru.com reports. “It is very regrettable that Ukraine thought it possible to deliver arms into the conflict zone,” Putin said during a press conference with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. “It is a special case, and in such cases, states normally behave with great restraint.” The pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia alleged on October 1st that Tymoshenko’s political rival, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, sold Georgia weapons systems that it used in the attack on South Ossetia.


October 3:

A car bomb outside Russia’s military headquarters in South Ossetia has killed seven Russian soldiers and wounded eight, the Associated Press reports. Georgia’s Interior Ministry blamed Russia, accusing it of arranging the blast to provide a pretext for delaying next week’s scheduled withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgian territory around South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia’s Defense Ministry called the blast a “carefully planned terrorist act designed to undermine” the cease-fire that ended the war with Georgia.

One of Russia’s main democratic parties, the Union of Right Forces (SPS), has voted to disband and establish a new party under the Kremlin’s control, the Washington Post reports. The party’s acting chairman, Leonid Gozman, said he and most other SPS leaders decided to work with the Kremlin, having concluded that “if you want to make change in your country, you can’t ignore the reality, and the reality is the Kremlin of Putin.” Gozman added that Putin and his handpicked successor, President Dmitry Medvedev, enjoy genuine popular support and that Putin would win a fair election. “I can dislike him,” he said. “I can hate him. But if I’m a citizen, I can still respect the reality.”


October 5:

A central avenue of Chechnya’s capital Grozny has been named after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Reuters reports. Previously called “Prospekt Pobedy,” or Victory Avenue, it is now called “Prospekt Putina,” or Putin Avenue. “This act is in recognition of Putin’s outstanding contribution to the fight against terrorism, and to the economic and social restoration in the Chechen Republic,” Interfax quoted Grozny Mayor Muslim Khuchiyev as saying. Large parts of Grozny were destroyed and thousands of civilians killed during Russia’s second military campaign in Chechnya, which Putin presided over as president.


October 6:

One of the Russian stock market’s main indices, the RTS, has fallen 19.1 percent, the sharpest drop in the RTS since October 28, 1997, when it fell 19.03 percent, NEWSru.com reports. Trading on the RTS was halted twice today because of steep declines in share prices.