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 once again proved that he is amazingly well informed about the YUKOS case, even better informed than the Prosecutor General’s Office.
A week ago President Medvedev was at the centre of an international sensation when he proposed a draft European Security Treaty. Russian foreign policy has never seen a more ambitious undertaking.
Last Friday, United Russia was discussing the best way to help the President to choose three more heads of regions: in Tatarstan, the Saratov Region and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area.
When times were good President Putin was more severe, more like the head of a great power, today he is more down-to-earth and folksy. Fewer declarations about national pride and attacks against the West, and a more conciliatory tone.
Pikalyovo trade union leader Svetlana Antropova was locked up by security services during Putin’s phone-in programme.
Vladimir Putin’s four-hour television appearance last Thursday revealed little connection with President Dmitry Medvedev’s calls for modernisation. Nothing the Prime Minister said reminded the audience of the cardinal changes the President called for in his Address to the Federal Assembly. Indeed, Prime Minister Putin’s answers to people’s questions ruled out the possibility of change even on matters that seriously worry the citizens. The audience was left in no doubt that the country is not going to see any change except when it is planned by Putin.
Iran needs to build 20 uranium enrichment plants to provide enough nuclear fuel for its nuclear power stations, the vice president and nuclear chief of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, said last weekend. Western observers say these plans will increase tensions in relations between Teheran and the international community. Our experts have suggested that Salehi’s statement indicates the growing influence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) which presses for more public spending.
The residents of the Imeretinskaya Valley in the Adler District of Sochi staged a rally yesterday to protest their eviction from their plots of land. The protestors say that the situation at present is critical: the construction of Olympic projects has moved right up to their homes and they have nowhere to be relocated. After the rally, ten people in the Imeretinskaya Valley started a hunger strike which they will not end until Prime Minister Vladimir Putin meets with them. MK has been given an account of the problem by the local residents.
Vladimir Putin has scotched all the hopes of businessmen for a postponement of pension reform and for being able to save on social benefits. The transition from the Unified Social Tax (UST) to insurance payments, increased burden on wage funds and reevaluation of pension rights in 2010 will go ahead, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told the second All-Russia Pension Forum. As of January 1, previously acquired pension rights will be reassessed in the process of valorisation. As a result the old-age work pension will exceed 8000 roubles a month.
Receiving reports from the Emergencies, Internal Affairs, and Health and Social Development Ministers during a video conference on Saturday, Dmitry Medvedev described the tragedy in Perm as a serious crime and called for severe punishment of the culprits under the law. He was particularly outraged by the fact that the club owners had brazenly ignored fire safety rules and had tried to save their own skins by fleeing the country after what happened.
