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
Analysts believed some time ago that Governor of Krasnoyarsk Territory Alexander Khloponin would succeed President Vladimir Putin. It may now seem ironic, but the proponents of this theory were almost right. On January 19, Khloponin was appointed Deputy Prime Minister for North Caucasian Affairs and Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the new North Caucasus Federal District.
Vladimir Putin has visited the Sozvezdiye concern in Voronezh. The name conceals a far from ordinary institution formerly called the Military Radio Communications Research Institute.
Yesterday saw a new spiral in the escalation of the conflict between Moscow and Minsk which flared up in early January over Russian oil supplies to Belarus. President Alexander Lukashenko ordered the border guards to check reports about alleged tightening of the border control by Russia. At the same time it transpired yesterday that Dmitry Peskov, Prime Minister Putin’s press secretary, had sent a letter to the Washington Post arguing that the paper was misrepresenting Russia-Belarus differences. He described the Washington Post comments as “ill-thought-out and politically subversive” and not conducive to the solution of the problem.
Medvedev wins out in the information space, but Putin wins out in the real world.
An expert on political psychology is sure that the question of who will be the fourth Russian president is still open.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was in Voronezh yesterday to discuss the new look of the Russian Armed Forces with government ministers. The meeting took place at the Sozvezdiye concern created under Putin's decree when he was still president of the country, on the basis of an enterprise that dates back to 1958. Much of the plant still dates back to the Soviet times, and the same is true of our army. And yet the plant also produces some military equipment that has no analogues in the world.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting in Voronezh yesterday on the development of the Armed Forces’ automated command and control system. He did not mince his words and said that most of the control, reconnaissance and communications systems in the Russian Army were outdated and called for their drastic modernisation.
Russia continues development of its own army control system.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has called on the Defence Ministry to develop and supply the army with new command, control and communications systems. The Caucasus war had revealed an inadmissible lag in that sphere.
Russia is entering the third stage of its development since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Each stage builds on the previous stage without negating it. That is why historical continuity makes modernization according to Medvedev an absolutely real proposition.
Economic reforms will have to be resumed with or without Putin as Prime Minister.
The Pension Fund of Russia (PFR) will start collecting insurance premiums that replace the abolished Unified Social Tax as of February 15, 2010. During a meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the head of the PFR, Anton Drozdov, reported that preparation for taking over some powers of the tax agencies have been completed.
Dmitry Medvedev becomes a highly paid photographer.
In 2010, Russia is sure to get new ministers and governors, new laws, and presidential decrees that improve people’s lives or make them more difficult. But what will remain unchanged, in the opinion of our observer Dmitry Kamyshev, is the tandemocracy regime established in the spring of 2008.
The Federal Drug Control Service will make sure that recently banned narcotics such as datura are not disguised for retail as innocuous goods, chief Viktor Ivanov assured Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Alcohol importers ask Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to postpone by six months the introduction of Customs Union regulations that would make it impossible to import wine into Russia. Otherwise, they warn, Russia may face a repeat of the 2006 wine crisis.
From now on, the chief of the Interior Ministry’s Investigative Committee will be appointed by the President, but the candidate will be proposed by the Prime Minister.
Two months ahead of the March regional elections, United Russia is way ahead of the three opposition parties.
After three months of operating at a profit, VTB moved into the red as it reported 3.8bn roubles in losses before consolidation eliminations in December, prompting the bank to boost its reserves.
Russian consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor (Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Protection and Welfare) has received top-level support in its efforts to combat high chlorine content in imported poultry.
