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
The scandals surrounding the founding fathers of United Russia, Vladislav Reznik and Valery Draganov, which erupted shortly before the party's jubilee congress marked the start of an anti-corruption drive. They also sent an important signal: there would no longer be untouchables in the party after Vladimir Putin became its head. As a result, even top political figures are in a risk group. This paper's experts see this as a message to the representatives of the old federal and regional elites that their time is over.
The case of Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak will undoubtedly go down in history as a vivid example of the feud between different clans. Nobody seems to doubt that the case has political-economic and not legal roots.
Vladimir Putin continued his working visit in Siberia yesterday where he inaugurated another bridge, urged people to get rid of "hole-in-the-wall places" and approved the transport strategy through 2030. As chairman of the party in power he helped a local businessman obtain a bank loan.
The second day of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's trip to Siberia (after Krasnoyarsk, he visited Novosibirsk yesterday) turned out to be very fruitful. He held a meeting on the Russian transport system development strategy through 2030, met with depositors and the President of Alfa-Bank, and visited an exhibition of innovative developments by transport higher education institutions in Russia put on at the Siberian State Railway University and a United Russia public reception office, one of the many known across the country as Mr Putin's reception offices. Wherever he went, he went to painstaking lengths to convince people that there is no crisis in Russia.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has warned bankers not to raise interest rates on loans issued on the inter-bank market from state support funds. Alpha Bank president Pyotr Aven agreed.
The Russian Government plans to initiate a new state-controlled corporation for developing space programmes. The new corporation, to be created in 2009, will comprise federal unitary state enterprises (FGUPs), now part of the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos). Although the decision was initiated by top Roscosmos managers, sources inside the agency said they did not understand the need for the change, and that the state already controlled the cost-effective FGUPs. However, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin believes this is not enough, that all Russian citizens must benefit from the use of satellites.
Judging by everything, Suleiman Kerimov, a major Russian investor, is having problems meeting his financial obligations. According to Handelsblatt, Mr Kerimov was unable to pay a margin call the other day, while the impression until recently was that his GNK company was lucky and that he would not go the way of some other Russian billionaires hit by the crisis. Tidal waves coming from Wall Street can shake up the Russian oligarchs well and truly, but the ultimate winner is likely to be only the state.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin paid his fourth visit to Krasnoyarsk, a city on the banks of the Yenisei River. The visit's atmosphere was quite positive. Clad in a brown parka and brown trousers, the Russian Prime Minister was in a good mood as he walked out of the plane and down the ladder at Yemelyanovo airport. It appears that the creators of the programme of Mr Putin's Krasnoyarsk visit realised that he has been tackling difficult problems lately, including ways of coping with the current financial crisis. Mr Putin's latest Krasnoyarsk visit was, in fact, a guided tour of local economic achievements.
On October 22, 2008, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will chair a meeting in Krasnoyarsk (East Siberia) devoted to Russia's transport strategy for the period through 2030. The problem, discussed by the Government many times throughout the year, has not become less pressing, but in fact, appears to be more acute than ever. The thing is that under the present-day conditions, the announced projects (we will discuss motorways here) cannot be subsidised as lavishly as before, which is, perhaps, only for the better.
Senior Russian officials, who have been avoiding speaking about the crisis, have suddenly started making non-trivial statements. Speaking at the State Duma on Friday, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin said that the Russian stock indices would continue to fall. The indices did fall, and a prompt investor even managed to buy all shares of Sberbank offered at the stock exchange for a very cheap price. Curiously enough, according to official Sberbank information, four of the bank's top managers have bought additional Sberbank stocks, taking advantage of the falling prices.
Last week one of the main Washington "hawks", Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Richard G. Lugar, summarised the main points of the energy confrontation between Russia and the West. His conclusions appear exceptionally flattering to Moscow, namely to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Speaking at Washington's National Defence University, Sen. Lugar stated that NATO, the U.S. and the EU failed to take on Russia's energy strategy in Europe. The Senator noted "Russia's unchecked movement toward becoming an energy supply monopoly" over Europe, calling this factor "one of the most damaging foreign policy developments of the post-Cold War era."
Share prices of the company you invested your money in, fell by 50% within a day. The following day they rallied 50%. Is everything all right? The answer to this question, which most russian economists have been asking since July 2008, is simple but nightmarish.
Prime Minster Vladimir Putin's black Labrador, Connie, is hooked up to satellites, specifically the Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS). The GLONASS signal will completely cover all of Russia by the end of the year, while receiver-navigators will be readily available to anyone. Meanwhile Prime Minster Putin's Labrador, Connie, received a tracking collar containing a satellite-guided positioning receiver from Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov this week.
The work schedules of top leaders can be indicative and... instructive. For someone who carefully follows the sequence of their working visits and meetings it is easy to see what problems the country faces and how it may go about solving them.
NTV first appeared on the air at St Petersburg's Channel Five on October 10, 1993. On January 17, 1994, President Boris Yeltsin decreed that NTV overtake evening time on educational Channel Four. It received the entire channel on November 11, 1996. Many Russians think that the old NTV finished on April 14, 2001, and its heir has only one thing in common with it-the green globe emblem.
The Medvedev-Putin duo is losing the popularity acquired in September, Levada Centre pollsters found during their latest survey. They suggest that the euphoria following the "short victorious war" with Georgia has died down.
The financial crisis, which has struck the world and affected Russia, has been covered by Russia's state-owned media and the privately-owned media favoured by the Government in an extremely biased manner. On the one hand, the crisis is in the air, but on the other hand, there seems to be no crisis at all. TV news broadcasts permanently assert that the crisis has delivered another blow to the U.S., EU, and other countries' financial systems, and what measures those countries' governments have undertaken to rectify the situation.
Russia's Health and Social Development Minister Tatyana Golikova reported to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on social benefits for disabled persons. Last May, President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree on social benefits for disabled persons giving them a choice of receiving a car or a 100,000 rouble compensation in cash.
The Government's financial aid to Russian mothers bore tangible fruit this year. By the end of the year 1.7 million babies will be born in Russia, the birth rate is up 10%, the Social Insurance Fund announced yesterday. One contributing factor was last year's introduction of a programme of maternity certificates and the allocation of "mother's capital" at the birth of a second child. Financial market problems should not affect the birth rate dynamics in the country. This was the objective Prime Minister Vladimir Putin set for the Minister of Health and Social Development, Tatyana Golikova, yesterday. The Minister had some good news for the Premier.
Before the week is out, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin may sign a resolution on the criteria for state investments in Russian shares and bonds. The first money could reach the market within a week's time.
