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
Dmitry Medvedev continued his negotiations with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh which began yesterday evening.
The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 2009 was a day marked with exuberant celebrations across the globe by the "progressive public". This was in striking contrast to the tenth anniversary of the Russia-Belarus Union State, which falls on December 8 - and, incidentally, is something the world's "progressive public" and its Russian contingent are unlikely to notice.
The State Duma is expected to approve in the first reading a government-proposed bill aimed at strengthening the country’s budget system tomorrow. The document cancels or suspends many of the Budget Code provisions – in particular, the rule whereby a large chunk of oil and gas revenues goes straight into special funds instead of the budget. Now, for the next three years, oil and gas money will be placed at the disposal of the government. Experts have no doubt that these changes signal the start of financial preparations for the electoral cycle of 2011-2012. Notably, some of the experts interviewed by NG aren’t ruling out the possibility of an early election.
The West is wondering who makes the key decisions in Russia.
The authorities are set to review the results of the power industry’s reform in light of the problems exposed by the accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya power plant. Addressing a meeting of top specialists in high technology, Vladimir Putin demanded that measures be taken to ensure a new level of safety in the energy sector. Earlier, government officials explained that the main problems in the sector stemmed from the “separation of the participants in a single technological process”.
The cost of utility services will grow 2.5 times faster than inflation in 2010.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited the Vishnevsky Surgical Research Institute yesterday, where nine of the victims of the fire at the Lame Horse club in Perm are being treated. The Prime Minister, accompanied by Healthcare and Social Development Minister Tatyana Golikova, as well as several chief doctors of Moscow hospitals, held a video conference on the treatment of the victims.
According to statements made by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at a meeting of the government Council of general and chief designers, Russia should not only develop a new system of measures to ensure safety in the power industry, but all experts at energy facilities should be held personally responsible for compliance with technical regulations.
Vladimir Putin paid a visit to the Lenin All-Russia Electrical Engineering Institute yesterday. Founded back in 1921, it is the leading research centre in the field of electrical equipment. As part of the visit, Putin was supposed to take a look at sophisticated units and instruments and even watch some experiments with electricity that demonstrate how energy facilities can be made safer.
The Prime Minister promised to provide 84-year-old World War II veteran from Azov, Nina Demidenko, with a flat and within 40 minutes officials of the city administration were on the way to her home. Previously the same officials repeatedly turned down the old woman's petitions, but now the governor of Rostov Region took the case under his personal remit.
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.
