October 5:
Russian and Tajik officials signed an agreement to extend Moscow’s lease of a Tajikistan military base for thirty years. Tajikistan, the poorest of the former Soviet states, originally wanted Russia to pay full price for the extension, Reuters reports, but Russian officials countered that the region will need the Kremlin’s assistance to maintain peace after NATO pulls out. In exchange for the deal, Russia agreed to admit more Tajik laborers, who currently total around 1.1 million people (a seventh of Tajikistan’s population). The funds the migrant workers send home is estimated to account for half of the country’s GDP.
October 7:
As Russian President Vladimir Putin quietly celebrated his 60th birthday, the rest of the country reacted with the disparity characteristic of the president’s controversial third term. In a country where the average male’s life expectancy is only 65, the 60th birthday is typically greeted with fanfare and celebration. Supporters in North Ossetia climbed a 13,500-foot mountain summit to place a portrait of Putin along with three Russian flags in honor of his birthday, reports the New York Times, while others held poetry readings and similar displays of support. His critics, however, greeted the occasion with renewed calls for him to step down. Several protestors were arrested in Moscow for staging an unsanctioned rally urging others to “help grandpa into retirement.” Putin himself played down the significance of the day, and made it clear he has no intention to retire. “The main thing,” he said, “is that the overwhelming majority of people still support me.”
October 8:
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the European Union of dragging out its decision on the abolition of visa requirements for EU-Russian travel. RIA-Novosti reports that the foreign minister believes the delay is due to a “distorted interpretation of solidarity” prompting the EU to pursue visa-free travel with the member states of the Eastern Partnership before it does so with Russia. If true, Lavrov said, such actions are guided exclusively by “considerations of political expediency,” and “fail to take into account what Russia has done to ensure the safe introduction” of visa-free travel with Europe. Lavrov expressed hope that he would be given assurances otherwise at an upcoming meeting with his European counterparts. The EU launched the Eastern Partnership in 2009, along with the former Soviet republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.
October 9:
Russian and Iraqi officials signed a $4.3 billion military agreement ahead of the Iraqi Prime Minister’s visit to Moscow. The deal, according to RIA-Novosti, is worth more than all agreements between the two countries for the last three years combined ($246 million), and will include Russia fighter jets, helicopters, surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery weapon systems. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki insisted that the deal is necessary to outfit his country with modern weapons to combat terrorists in the mountains and desert, adding that Iraq “does not need Washington’s endorsement of the contracts.”
October 10:
The Kremlin announced plans not to renew a U.S.-funded arms disposal program. Over the last 20 years, the Nunn-Lugar program, with $5 million of funding from the United States, was responsible for supporting reliable transport, storage, and destruction of nuclear weapons. According to the Wall Street Journal, Russia seeks a “different, more modern legal framework” for the upkeep of its weapons stockpiles, but praised the arms-disposal program. Officials involved in the Nunn-Lugar program say it was responsible for scrapping over 7,500 strategic nuclear warheads, 900 intercontinental ballistic missiles, and hundreds of “bombers, missile silos, nuclear air-to-surface missiles, nuclear test tunnels and chemical weapons agents,” since 1991.
October 11:
Once more, a Russian attempt to send defense equipment to Syria was interrupted. In the latest instance, Turkish jets intercepted a Syrian airbus bound for Syria, and searched the plane after forcing it to land in Ankara, the BBC reports. Turkish officials claim they found “equipment, arms, and munitions,” on board, though the materials are still under investigation by Turkish authorities. Both Russia and Syria reacted to the search with outrage, as the Syria Transport Minister accused Turkey of “air piracy,” and that the Turkish Prime Minister was lying “to justify his government’s hostile attitude towards Syria.” Officials from Russia’s state arms exporter, Rosoboronexport, maintained that it knew nothing about the flight, and denied that it had anything on board.