May 29:
Russia is taking a page from the American homeland security playbook. Newkerala.com reports that Russian officials have decided to introduce a terror alert level system modeled after the one used in the U.S. The news website reports that, although the system was first announced in 2008, its adoption was delayed due to technical problems. Now, however, the new system is operational - and will incorporate five threat levels ranging from green to red, depending on intelligence on imminent threats gathered by the federal security services.
May 30:
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has come under fire for his domestic governance from an unlikely direction. According to the Agence France Presse, veteran Russian rock singer Yury Shevchuk recently confronted Putin at a televised charity event in St. Petersburg, informing the Prime Minister that, “the protest electorate is growing in the country, you know that" and "many are unhappy with the situation.” Putin acknowledged Shevchuk's complaints, responding that Russian “authorities should not ‘create impossible conditions for the expression of freedom of speech.’” Putin added that, “If I see that people have come out, not to blabber or seek publicity, but to express pertinent, concrete things... where is the problem? We should express thanks to them.” Activists believed that Putin's statements implied the Prime Minister’s support for a banned opposition rally days later, though the Prime Minister's spokesman denied the claim.
President Dmitry Medvedev has announced plans for a radical revamp of the Russian military. According to neweurope.eu, current Kremlin plans involve a significant force “modernization” over the next half-decade. Among them are initiatives to acquire “digital and modern effective communication systems” by 2012, and a push to modernize the weaponry of a third of all standing military units by 2015. Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, meanwhile, has announced that Russia plans to purchase “advanced warships” from France, Spain, and the Netherlands, to be used in the country’s Northern and Pacific fleets.
As a step toward greater national unity and, ultimately, admission into the European Union, Moldova is working to alter the status quo in Transdniester. Neweurope.eu reports that since the 1992 conflict, Russian troops and munitions have maintained a presence in the contested region - long outstaying their legitimate aim. “To our mind, the current peacekeeping contingent has by now fulfilled the positive mission that was assigned to it,” Moldovan Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Iurie Leanca has stated. “We believe that now it is necessary to consider a transformation of the military peacekeeping contingent into something else, where a civil component will dominate.”
June 2:
A new Duma bill drafted by the pro-Kremlin United Russia party has proposed a series of new media restrictions intended to protect the "innocence of children." According to the Moscow Times, the draft bill targets “pornography, obscene language, drug use, alcohol, smoking, and violence,” with the goal of protecting children from “information harmful to their health and development.” It does so through a series of restrictive measures, including bans on certain newspapers, censorship of newscasts and a ban on airing action movies in primetime. The bill also extends to web sites, requiring that warnings and age restrictions must cover at least 5 percent of the top of each page. The bill has generated a firestorm of criticism. Some critics have claimed that its requirements are exceedingly onerous, while others have argued that the bill is intentionally vague in order to allow greater censorship by the government. United Russia has denied the claims, but the reading of the bill has been postponed for the moment.
June 3:
Russian officials are seeking the disbarment of Alexander Antipov, a lawyer for embattled financial firm Hermitage Capital, on accusations of fraud. Head investigator Oleg Silchenko has claimed that Antipov lied about leaving Russia between 2008 and April 2010, falsifying documents to support his story. Antipov and his company, reports the Dow Jones Newswire, contend that these efforts are part of an “ongoing campaign to prevent evidence of official fraud worth hundreds of millions of dollars from coming to light.” Hermitage has publicly accused Russian officials of stealing $234 million in taxes paid by the company.
Those charges received a surge of attention last year, following the death in prison of Sergei Megnitsky, another Hermitage Capital lawyer, after he was denied medical treatment. “It wasn’t enough that they tortured and killed Sergei Magnitsky in custody,” representatives of Hermitage have said to the press. “Now they are going after the eighth lawyer.”
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