VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
Vladimir Putin takes the side of Baikal Pulp and Paper Plant.
The first meeting this year of the Council of Ministers of the Union State of Russia and Belarus was held in Brest yesterday. As usual, the prime ministers of the two nations were at pains to demonstrate how close they had become. However, Russia did not budge from its contentious terms on oil duties. It agreed to rescind the duties only on 6.3 million tons for internal consumption, a clause openly opposed by Alexander Lukashenko, while Minsk again kept silent on the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia – an issue of high priority for Russia.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Belarusian counterpart Sergey Sidorsky conducted a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Union State of Russia and Belarus in Brest yesterday. The Russian prime minister criticized Minsk for being slow to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia, then called for the introduction of a common currency and promised that customs duties between the two countries will be abolished starting in 2012.
As Vladimir Putin set foot on the soil of Brest, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was negotiating the supply of Venezuelan oil with Hugo Chavez in Caracas. The Russian prime minister’s press service denied rumours that Lukashenko had simply “fled” in order not to discuss the sensitive issue of Russian energy supplies. Putin arrived in Brest rather than Minsk for scheduled meetings with the Belarusian number two, Sergey Sidorsky.
Vladimir Putin inspects the last outpost between the Atlantic and Kamchatka.
Vladimir Putin continues revising the system of state supervision, this time in the construction industry.
Vladimir Putin, who had already established his credentials as a defender of tigers and leopards, yesterday turned his attention to polar bears. "They must survive not only in the zoo, but also in the wild," the prime minister said, setting a new goal for the protection of the species. The Board of Trustees of the Russian Geographical Society earmarked 4 million roubles for saving the population of polar bears. Another 46 million was divided up among other fields of research, including the programme to preserve the Lake Baikal ecosystem.
The RGO meeting yesterday was opened by its President Sergei Shoigu, who gave the floor to the head of the RGO Board of Trustees Vladimir Putin. The prime minister began his speech by congratulating Komsomolskaya Pravda columnist Vasily Peskov.
An enlarged meeting of the board of the Russian Geographical Society (RGO) was held in Moscow yesterday. Our special correspondent ANDREI KOLESNIKOV saw it as the birth of a heady new national idea whose realization Vladimir Putin will oversee personally.
In India, Putin may not have had any new insight on Mohandas Gandhi, but he brought back a fat stack of contracts for Russia.
