October 14:
The Moscow Times reports that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has called on the government to make sure companies receive financial aid that is being earmarked for them, telling Cabinet members that “despite making decisions and allocating appropriate resources, these funds don’t always reach the final consumers.” The government has pledged to allocate some $200 billion in loans and tax cuts to help companies and banks deal with the financial crisis. While avoiding the word “crisis,” which state television has largely avoided in reference to Russian financial institutions, Putin said the country’s enterprises have started feeling the liquidity squeeze and pledged aid for the country’s real economy.
Speaking separately at a meeting of the supervisory board of Vneshekonombank (VEB), which he heads, Putin said companies that work in the real economy will have access to aid to refinance their foreign debt to keep Russian assets from being sold abroad cheaply. He said that eligible companies will have to operate in Russia and be either part of a strategic industry or of importance to the region where they operate. Meanwhile, the Moscow Times reports that Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who is in Washington, has said that an International Monetary Fund projection that the Russian economy’s growth rate will slow to 5.5 percent in 2009 is overly optimistic.
October 15:
Three men accused of involvement in the October 2006 murder of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya have gone on trial in Moscow, the Guardian reports. Two Chechen brothers, Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, are charged with carrying out surveillance on Politkovskaya, while a former Moscow police officer, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, is charged with giving technical help.
Meanwhile, Karina Moskalenko, a prominent human rights lawyer representing Politkovskaya’s son and daughter, said she discovered mercury in her car, which made her sick and prevented her from traveling from her home in Strasbourg to Moscow in time for the trial. Moskalenko told Ekho Moskvy radio the mercury may have been an ominous warning. “People do not put mercury in your car to improve your health.”
A group of well-known lawyers, human rights advocates and cultural figures who are members of the Public Chamber, a Kremlin-created consultative body, have signed an appeal calling on President Dmitry Medvedev to pardon imprisoned former Yukos lawyer Svetlana Bakhmina. NEWSru.com reports that in their appeal, the signatories noted that Bakhmina, who has served more than half of a six-and-a-year sentence in a Mordovia prison for embezzlement and tax evasion, has two nine-year-old sons and is seven months pregnant.
October 16:
Russia’s currency reserves have dropped $32.2 billion in the last two weeks, Reuters reports. Reserves are now down $66.9 billion, or 11 percent, since early August, when the military conflict with Georgia accelerated capital flight and prompted Russia’s Central Bank to step into the market to protect the ruble. Reserves hit a near-six month low of $530.6 billion on October 10th. Meanwhile, the Standard & Poor’s ratings agency warned that further falls in reserves could negatively impact Russia’s credit standing. S&P cut the outlook on its BBB+ rating for Russia to stable from positive last month.
October 17:
Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov has said in a meeting with President Medvedev that military spending will total 1.3 trillion rubles (around $50 billion) in 2009, Fedpress.ru reports. Ivanov said that after the Russian-Georgian military conflict over South Ossetia, the 2009 defense budget was increased by 60 billion rubles ($2.3 billion) in addition to the 20 billion rubles “allocated for the establishment of two new military bases in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.”
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