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
Izvestia published a photograph of Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin watching a football game at a café in Sochi. The Premier is having a beer but the President only tea. Why? Besides that, what is so special about the café that it attracts such customers? We would like to know more details.
Alexander Prishchepa, Troitsk.
According to the international media, “Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili claims that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is still set on killing him as part of his plan to restore the Soviet empire.” To bolster his claim Mikheil Saakashvili cites a remark made by Nicolas Sarkozy, after an angry Mr Putin told him he wanted to see his Georgian counterpart strung up by a certain part of his body. Psychoanalysts point out that “an acute fear of castration may lead to the narcissistic exaggeration of the phallus and be a hindrance to independence, autonomy and healthy sense of pride”. Mikheil Saakashvili’s lamentable mental state clearly bears out Freud’s thesis.
By now, everybody has seen the footage of the newly-built maternity home in Sukhumi where the head doctor told Prime Minister Putin that newborn twins had been named Vladimir and Dmitry in his and President Medvedev’s honour. Izvestia rang up the Sukhumi maternity home to find out how the lucky mother felt about these names.
Vladimir Putin asked the heads of government-owned banks not to go on leave without his consent in late June, when he discovered that they had failed to meet the target of increasing their credit portfolios by 2% a month set by the Prime Minister last winter.
Russia will spend over 25 billion roubles on Abkhazia, including 15 billion to build up Russian military bases and Abkhazia’s border facilities.
After a meeting, Mr Medvedev and Mr Putin took a walk down the Sochi embankment to a café, where they watched a live football match between the Russian national football team and the Argentinean national team.
Contrary to the President’s instructions, the all-Russia population census will be delayed for two years.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made his first visit to Abkhazia as a Russian leader after the Soviet Union’s disintegration. He laid flowers to the Glory Memorial in Sukhum, and visited a maternity home, which opened a few days ago. The first twins born there shortly before his appearance were called Vladimir and Dmitry in honour of the Russian prime minister and the president.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who had been to Abkhazia only a couple of times many years ago while still a student, paid an official visit to this independent republic yesterday. He came to commemorate August 12, a special date for Abkhazia. One year ago, Abkhazia reclaimed the Kodor Gorge, the last territory controlled by Georgia after the war of 1992-1993. Putin was welcomed in Sukhumi as a protector of the people, a title he obviously cherished.
In spite of the crisis some regions have substantially increased the salaries of civil servants and the spending on upkeep of government bodies, Vladimir Putin told a meeting on budget issues and regional development held in Kislovodsk yesterday. For the first time the prime minister was angry with the Moscow authorities, which had increased spending on themselves by almost a third.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin arrived in Kislovodsk yesterday to conduct a meeting of the Regional Development Commission and to assess the health and recreation industry in the area.
Vladimir Putin urges regional governors meeting in Kislovodsk to cut spending on personal needs.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has signed an executive order fixing the size of bonuses to Russian athletes who win prizes in Olympic disciplines at various championships and to their coaches.
August has not yet brought any major upheavals, so stern critics of Russia have to make do with anniversaries and their analysis, which is a poor substitute for actual catastrophes. However, if stamped paper is not available, one writes on ordinary paper. The 10th anniversary of Mr Putin’s first appointment as prime minister is as good an occasion as any to announce that during the past decade Russia has managed to quarrel with the whole world and put itself in total isolation.
Ever since Dmitry Medvedev moved into the Kremlin and Putin into the Government House, high-ranking officials have been reluctant to discuss who would be the next presidential candidate nominated by the party in power.
As the crisis in Russia spreads and deepens discussions on how to cope with it become more complicated. They put on the agenda not only the issue of oil prices, but the quality of government, the whole social and political setup in this country.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has taken questions from foreign journalists.
Vladimir Putin is on a working leave in Sochi. Although he will not stay long, Sochi, as usual, will temporarily become the “nerve centre of Russian politics”.
Even as Vladimir Putin was speaking in Irkutsk about the great role Siberia plays in Russia, the Kurzanka River which flows near Irkutsk burst its banks and flooded part of federal highway M-53 linking Siberia to Russia. The virtual separation of Russia from half of the country – Eastern Siberia and the Far East – in a place called Traktovo-Kurzan was as humdrum and trite as the hackneyed phrases about Russia’s might increasing due to Siberia.
Transcript of the August 7, 2009 programme.
There is no plan, no future, but there is something to lose.
Below is our talk with political scientist Andrei PIONTKOVSKY
