Russia Reform Monitor: No. 1604

November 9:

In a further sign of unrest in Russia's troubled republic of Dagestan, a senior police officer has been gunned down in the region's capital of Makhachkala. RIA Novosti reports that the officer, Col. Ainutdin Gelikhanov, worked for the regional interior ministry's department for combating organized crime.


November 12:

Trading on the Russian stock exchange has been halted after shares plummeted by more than 12 percent in just three hours of trading, the Financial Times reports. Russian officials, meanwhile, are scrambling for a fiscal fix to the country's current economic woes. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has told the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament, that the Kremlin is planning in the near future to introduce additional economic stimuli to supplement the $200 billion bail-out already announced by the Medvedev government.


November 13:

Moscow is moving to solidify the gains from its August war with neighboring Georgia. The Agence France Presse reports that the Kremlin is planning to build a naval base in Abkhazia in a move that would further ensconce Moscow as the de facto guarantor of security for the breakaway Georgian region. Both Russian and Abkhaz officials have confirmed that "negotiations are already underway" on the facility for Russia's Black Sea Fleet, which would be located in the town of Ochamchira. Russia has already announced plans to create a permanent base in the region capable of housing thousands of ground troops.

If the United States scales back its plans for a "third site" to its missile defense program in Eastern Europe, Russia may drop plans to deploy short-range missiles in the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad. That is the message from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who has told the French paper Le Figaro that the Kremlin "could reconsider" its deployment decision - announced during Medvedev's state of the nation address on November 5th - if the incoming Obama administration "is ready to once again review and analyze all the consequences of its decisions to deploy the missiles and radar facilities." Medvedev, moreover, is striking a hopeful note for this quid pro quo. "The first reaction we have seen from the incoming U.S. administration gives us grounds for hope," the Xinhua news agency reports him as saying.


November 15:

Three of Russia's liberal parties are planning a merger in an effort to raise their political profile. The Deutche Press Agentur reports that the parties - the Union of Right Forces (SPS), the Democratic Party, and the Citizens' Force - plan to dissolve and merge into a larger political bloc to be known as "Just Cause." The move comes ahead of Russia's March 2009 parliamentary elections, where Russian liberals hope to field a stronger showing than in past years.