April 24:
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has fired his country's top military spy in an intelligence shake-up with far-reaching implications. According to the BBC, Medvedev has signed a decree replacing General Valentin Korabelnikov, the current head of the Russia's military intelligence service, the GRU. Korabelnikov's departure is not altogether unexpected; the spy chief had initially tendered his resignation earlier in the year in protest over proposed reforms to his powerful, and largely unaccountable, intelligence apparatus. Korabelnikov's replacement, Alexander Shlyakhturov, is expected to toe a more compliant line toward the Kremlin.
Could Russia's upcoming nationwide census become a casualty of the global economic crisis? "Moscow may put off the all-Russian census currently scheduled to take place in October 2010 because of budgetary problems brought on by the financial crisis," says analyst Paul Goble. A final decision, he notes, is still pending. However, the more modest price tag now being offered for the census by Russian officials "suggests that Rosstat either on its own in an effort to preserve the census or at the direction of some other government agency is already planning to cut back on the amount and detail of information to be gathered, something that could mean the 2010 census will be less complete and less useful than many had hoped."
April 28:
In the largest personnel purge in recent memory, fifty senior Russian military officers have been sacked. The officers were "declared unfit for their posts and will be discharged from the Russian army," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports. The mass firing is the result of a probe initiated by Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov into the professionalism and competence of serving flag officers in the Russian military. The fifty officers fired to date, moreover, could be just the tip of the iceberg. According to Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov, another 40,000 lower-rank officers are expected to be let go from government service by the end of the year.
April 30:
Russia is on the cusp of a dramatic worsening of its already unfavorable demographic trends, a new study by the United Nations Development Programme has warned. "[U]ntil very recently, consequences of population decrease have been mitigated by favorable changes in age structure, and the country has been enjoying a so-called 'demographic dividend,'" the UNDP's 2008 report on Russia, entitled Russia Facing Demographic Challenges, reports. "Today, that stage is also over, and the demographic dividend is fully exhausted." The results, the report warns, are likely to be nothing short of catastrophic: "The resulting demographic challenges, which have yet to be adequately met in coming decades are: growing natural population decrease, entailing rapid decline of total population of Russia; rapid natural decrease of working-age population; growing demographic burden on the working-age population; general ageing of the population; decline in the number of potential mothers; a large influx of immigrants; and possible growth of emigration rates."
May 2:
Russia is solidifying its presence in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. China's Xinhua news agency reports that Russian border guards have begun patrols of Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The deployment comes days after South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity and Abkhazian ruler Sergei Bagapsh signed border defense agreements with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow. Under the agreements, Russia will assume border guard duties for both regions for a period of five years.
Want these sent to your inbox?
Subscribe