Russia Reform Monitor: No. 1649

September 19:

Is Russia becoming more receptive to foreign investment in its energy sector? The Gulf Times reports that the Kremlin is planning to revisit existing regulations limiting foreign participation in offshore energy projects in favor of a more permissive approach to its natural resource wealth. "“We will look into this issue (laws regarding foreign investment) first of all in relation to offshore exploration," Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev has said. "We believe that state regulation creates many obstacles for exploration."

The Russian government's plan appears to be to leverage the revenue generated by offshore energy projects to revitalize other sectors of the country's ailing economy. "We can use this God’s gift to develop machine building, pipe production and other industries, producing everything that we are importing today,” Trutnev has explained.

Moscow is responding in kind to the Obama administration's announcement of plans to scrap the deployment of ground-based defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic. According to the Bulgarian news agency Novinite, the Kremlin no longer sees the need to deploy advanced Iskander missiles in the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad - a measure previously considered by President Dmitry Medvedev as a counterweight to U.S. missile defense plans. "Naturally, we will scrap the measures that Russia planned to take in response to the deployment of missile defence in Eastern Europe," Vladimir Popovkin, Russia's Deputy Defense Minister, has told Ekho Moskvy radio. "One of these measures was the deployment of Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad region."


September 20:

As part of its deepening ties to Fidel Castro's Cuba, Russia is poised to resume its Cold War-era role as Havana's arms broker. RIA Novosti confirms that Cuba's aging Soviet-made military equipment will get a comprehensive modernization at the hands of the Russian military. So will the Cuban army, which will undergo training at the hands of Russian military experts. The commitment to expanded Russian-Cuban military cooperation came from General Nikolai Makarov, the Chief of the Russian General Staff, during his recent visit to Havana.


September 22:

A Moscow restaurant is finding out firsthand that pro-Soviet sentiment is back in vogue, Reuters reports. The dining hall, originally called "Anti-Sovyetskaya" ("Anti-Soviet"), opened this past July. This fall, however, under pressure from local authorities who claimed the name "insulted the feelings of veterans," the establishment was forced to change its name completely. The restaurant is now called "Sovyetskaya," or "Soviet."


September 23:

The Kremlin is maintaining its focus on the Arctic. Qatar's Peninsula newspaper reports that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is set to meet in the country's northern Yamal Peninsula with representatives from Russian and foreign energy firms. Their topic of discussion? How the country can most effectively exploit the Arctic's abundant natural gas reserves. The paper reports that a number of prominent energy companies - among them Norway's StatoilHydro, the British-Dutch company Shell, and France's Total - will be represented at the meeting, which is envisioned as a preliminary dialogue on an international consortium to explore the region's hard-to-access gas fields.