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
With Russia, Qatar, and Iran having agreed upon the establishment of a big gas alliance in October 2008, the big trio has every chance to now grow into a quartet. At a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on November 11, his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Nazif said that Cairo was interested in a constructive dialogue within the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF). According to Mr Putin, the Egyptian delegation expressed willingness to participate in a gas producers' meeting in Moscow on November 18.
A well-known TV anchor admitted in a recent interview that the word "crisis" in reference to the Russian situation is banned from television. The behaviour of the TV bosses and the possible consequences of that behaviour and the way the Russian TV channels present the crisis were discussed with Novaya Gazeta by Olga Makhovskaya, a social psychologist, PhD (Psychology), senior researcher with the RAS Institute of Psychology who has been a consultant to many TV projects.
In his first Address to the Federal Assembly, President Dmitry Medvedev unveiled a range of important political initiatives. Many experts and commentators, without bothering to analyze them, hastened to proclaim a "revision of the Putin legacy". Some hail (for an umpteenth time) the start of a "thaw" or "liberalisation". Others warn of an approaching "freeze". In reality, these initiatives reveal a total continuity of policy.
The Russian economy, or rather, some of its branches, are ill and in need of prompt state assistance, the Government House announced. Nonetheless, it is unwise and wasteful to distribute money to all who ask. On Friday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin approved a plan of action, listing 55 steps to cure the economy of the effects of the global financial crisis.
The plan specifies measures to bail out enterprises in crisis conditions and is expected to increase the state's role in economic management. "The sooner we activate new development and growth factors, the more confidently we will pass through the period of global instability," said Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as he signed the plan.
It is no accident that the first foreign leader who came to Moscow after Mr Medvedev delivered his address to the Federal Assembly was Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Tentative results of measurements conducted by TNS-Russia on how Muscovites over the age of 18 watched a live broadcast of President Medvedev's Address to the Federal Assembly on Channel 1 and Russia Channel were unveiled yesterday. Mr Medvedev's first major public speech was watched by more people than normally watch these channels.
Medwedjew, dem aus unerfindlichen Gründen zeitweilig der Ruf eines Liberalen anhing, hat sich mit seiner gestrigen Rede endgültig als der Hardliner präsentiert, wie er in der russischen Führungsriege gebraucht wird. Er kündigte unter anderem an, Russland werde in der Region Kaliningrad an der Grenze zur Nato neue Raketen vom Typ „Iskander" aufstellen.
Er sprach auch über tief greifende innenpolitische Veränderungen, z.B. über die Verlängerung der Amtszeit des Präsidenten. Sollte bei der Wahl 2012, wie allgemein erwartet, erneut Wladimir Putin antreten und gewinnen, stünden Russland und der Welt weiter zwölf Putin-Jahre bevor.
Last week, Russians enjoyed discussing the odd habits of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, who was on an official visit in Moscow. When he travels abroad, Mr Qaddafi prefers to live in a Bedouin tent, the type of accommodation he feels most comfortable in. The issue took a bit of negotiating with bewildered security services, but eventually, a huge tent was pitched at Taininsky Park, inside the Kremlin. Meanwhile, the Libyan leader was wasting no time: he met with Medvedev and invited Vladimir Putin and Mireille Mathieu to his "tent" for a "modest tea party". This newspaper wondered whether the exotic tent was some kind of trap. Historical precedents exist, and they are not very comforting.
Environmentalists regard the felling of trees on the Grushevoi Ridge as the start of the destruction of a unique natural preserve, the Environmental Watch for the North Caucasus has declared. Ecologists regard the commercial interests of big companies as a threat. According to the group, trees are being cut on the territory which is simultaneously part of two protected areas, Sochi National Park and the Sochi State Reserve. By now, about 40 trees have been cut without authorisation.
The United Russia Party has suggested creating a powerful PR service to promote the "Russia" brand in the West. The party believes that a new social communications agency should be set up for said purpose within the government structure. The main components of the brand, in their opinion, should be "Putin", "Medvedev" and "the Chelsea football team."
Being the true lawyer that he is, President Dmitry Medvedev likes to itemize everything, even in his oral speech. He divided political reform in his Address into ten "items", ranging from amendments to the Constitution to the rotation of party leaders.
Dmitry Medvedev's first Address to the Federal Assembly was more verbose than that of his predecessor. The duration of his speech, the number of characters, words and sentences exceeded Vladimir Putin's statistics, although Dmitry Medvedev spoke more slowly (see table). The new President's speech was punctuated by applause 56 times, compared with Mr Putin's record of 47 (2006).
A rivalry between Russia and the U.S. in the financial market, leading to the establishment of the rouble as the regional currency, has become official doctrine, underlying the development of the Russian financial market. President Dmitry Medvedev, who devoted part of his Address to this idea, announced the early steps in that direction: a speedy shift of oil and gas exports to rouble settlements.
President Dmitry Medvedev has announced an extension of the terms of the President and the State Duma. It is said at the Kremlin that the reform was conceived during now-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's presidency and that he will be its main beneficiary.
On Saturday, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, after one-on-one and enlarged-format talks, attended a concert given by Mireille Mathieu, whom they later invited to Qaddafi's Bedouin tent for tea. All this time, they were followed by Kommersant's Andrei Kolesnikov.
A Government Resolution has cut oil export duties by 22.8% since November 1, 2008. The Government approved the Finance Ministry's proposal to calculate the duty on the basis of oil prices slightly below $80 per barrel. The Government's decision, which will take effect retroactively (contrary to legislation), will allow Russian oil companies to save $1.9 billion by the year's end. The companies, which insist that the duty should be based on a price of $60 per barrel, claim that oil export has become a debt-making business for them.
Thanks to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the Anti-Monopoly Service has become a real power that only a few people dare to ignore. Gaining the service's attention is enough to make major oil companies toe the line and hurry to reduce fuel prices. Those who do not do it quickly enough face lawsuits. The service has been acting much more harshly than before. Since the beginning of 2008, it has filed over 150 lawsuits against oil companies, many of which were closed without issuing fines. Since July 11, when Mr Putin instructed the service to work more effectively, 24 suits have been filed. The service has won eight of them, and the total sum of fines accounts for about a half a billion roubles.
One of the leaders of the Republican Party, David Berdzenishvili, has been telling Olga Allenova why the Georgian opposition plans to take to the streets on November 7.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has no intention of giving up the traditional annual "live video links" with the people that started when he was President. Preparation for the next video link is already under way, mainly through the "public reception offices" of the Chairman of the United Russia Party in the regions. Representatives at these offices select questions for Prime Minister Putin, but complaints are also fed into a single electronic base so that Mr Putin can at any moment know what topics are foremost in people's minds.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was shown around his new website, www.premier.gov.ru, Friday. The project was presented to him by an unidentified team of developers. No comments have been made about his reaction, but he does not look particularly pleased in the photo. On the other hand, perhaps he was simply annoyed by the need to use a one-button mouse, which feels foreign to most Russian PC users.
Vladimir Putin made his first visit to the official Prime Minister's website, www.premier.gov.ru, as KP reported on October 30. A presidential website, www.kremlin.ru, was created during Mr Putin's presidential tenure, and then went over to Dmitry Medvedev. The Prime Minister has, until recently, shared his personal web-portal with the government's site, www.government.ru. Now, he has a web resource of his own. After browsing it for a while, we came to several curious conclusions.
On November 6, a programme for the development of competition, prepared by the Economic Development Ministry, and a package of amendments to anti-monopoly legislation will be presented to the government's Council for Competition and Entrepreneurship at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The objective is to limit the powers of the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) to only control monopolies. The list of steps to be agreed on with the FAS should, on the Ministry's suggestion, be trimmed down. The programme's ultimate aim is to dispense with much of the formality associated with relations regulation.
Just as he promised the other day, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting on economic issues at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence. The meeting was supposed to approve a comprehensive plan for supporting domestic industries. Russian banks now receiving massive federal allocations must not transfer them abroad and must not use them to buy dollars, either. On the contrary, the funding must be used to finance the Russian economy. An amended version of a plan, drafted on orders from President Dmitry Medvedev, is to be published in the next few days.
The personal website of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin went public on the Russian Government's Internet portal www.government.ru on Friday. The website address is: www.premier.gov.ru . The new Internet resource carries information on Vladimir Putin's work as the Head of Government. It features an archive of all the Premier's speeches and statements as well as articles about Putin published in Russian and foreign media. The site offers a considerable amount of audio and video information and more recently, a full photo gallery.
The financial crisis that broke out in the West has revealed flaws in the world financial architecture. In this context, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is not going to sit on its hands, but will work to create a multi-polar world. This was the main outcome of yesterday's meeting of the SCO heads of government in Astana.
The Russian Prime Minister attended a meeting of the heads of government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation yesterday. Our special correspondent ANDREI KOLESNIKOV could see for himself that, throughout the day, Vladimir Putin was more concerned with what was happening in Russia in connection with the world financial crisis. A package of extra measures to assist the national industry was due to be published today, and our special correspondent tried to find out why it did not happen.
Addressing a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation's heads of government in Astana on Wednesday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, "A qualitatively new geopolitical situation is emerging, with accelerated strengthening of new centres of economic growth and political influence."
The world financial crisis has not spared the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). The keynote of yesterday's meeting of the SCO heads of state in Astana was "No to the crisis".
No sooner had the ink dried on the October 28 agreements between Russian and Chinese Prime Ministers Vladimir Putin and Wen Jiabao, than Russian industrialists and analysts started sharply criticising them. The Union of Oil and Gas Equipment Manufacturers opposed an agreement on a tied Chinese loan for buying drilling equipment from China. Analysts said the agreements tied Moscow to Beijing, and would enable the Chinese side to dictate its terms to Russia.
The kremlin.ru site was active during Putin's presidency. Last spring, it was "inherited" by the new head of state, Dmitry Medvedev, while Putin moved to the www.government.ru site. By clicking "government chairman", visitors to the site can read the Prime Minister's biography and his speeches.
The Prime Minister is known to be allergic to the word "crisis." In fact, he admitted that much the other day: "We must get our terminology straight. I would like to say that many use the word ‘crisis' very loosely. It has affected the world financial system, while Russia is experiencing its consequences. The source of the problem should be traced to the US, where the collapsed system was born. The waves of that collapse are reaching us."
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin presided over a meeting on economic matters at Novo-Ogaryovo yesterday. He reiterated that the Government was not going to use the current crisis to expand its presence in the economy. Paradoxically, businessmen are asking for the opposite. A letter from the Russian Engineering Union to Mr Putin was unveiled yesterday, in which machine-builders suggest 14 measures of assistance to the sector, including the purchase of the securities of problem enterprises as well as preferential treatment in awarding state orders and a raise of import duties.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will launch his own site to provide web users with information on his activities. The web resource, developed by the Government's press service, will be launched soon as part of the official government website www.government.ru and will receive its own web address in 2008, likely to be premier.gov.ru.
The classified strategic document was approved by the Government behind closed doors. Not surprisingly, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin confined himself to conceptual remarks, though these remarks nonetheless gave an idea of what is in store for Russia in the coming decades. Under the strategy, the share of raw materials production in the economy should diminish, while the manufacture of machines should increase from 6% (today) to 14%.
Although Russia and China are both committed to expanding bilateral cooperation, they are having trouble negotiating key economic issues. This was confirmed by the October 28 Russian-Chinese inter-governmental talks in Moscow. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Wen Jiabao, Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, spent virtually the entire day together.
The fourth meeting of the Gazprom board of directors, chaired by First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov, faced a tough task. Leaders of oil and gas companies and senior officials of specialised departments that do not have representatives on Gazprom's board (the Energy Ministry and Federal Anti-Monopoly Service), were invited to discuss providing independent gas producers with non-discriminatory access to Russia's unified gas supply system.
Representatives from many sectors of the economy are asking for government money to help them through the financial crisis. Who are the recipients of this money? Will it happen that government support will go not to those who need it most but rather to those who are pushy and active in seeking out assistance from the government?
It is said that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will keep up the tradition of annual televised question-and-answer sessions. AIF's commentary: Actually, Prime Minister Putin plans to reserve the right to hold presidential online sessions. Our source in the Kremlin said that, on the one hand, President Dmitry Medvedev has his own style of public speaking, a new topic of discussion.
First of all, a great amount of foreign exchange reserves and a small state debt. Due to the well-conceived ideas that were timely proposed by former Presidential Advisor Andrei Illarionov, Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin's untiring efforts, and ex-President Vladimir Putin's political support, the state debt has been repaid and foreign exchange reserves accumulated despite lobbying within the elite groups and pressure from public opinion.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin topped the monthly list after analysis of publications in federal print media and leading TV channels. The Prime Minister's information frame was largely shaped by the financial crisis. He scored more points with each material in central print media on bailout measures taken by the Government. In late September, Putin said that any bank or company could apply to Vnesheconombank for a loan to refinance prior foreign loans. His next statement that the country's long-term development programmes won't be cut or suspended brought him additional points.
Having occupied key power posts, Vladimir Putin has stayed active in Russian politics. His strategy appeared to be sound, well thought-out and guaranteed to ward off any dissatisfaction or deviations from the "Putin course". It was assumed that the only threat to the said "course" could come from people who wanted to do things differently or in a new way.
According to Kommersant's information, the most frequent complaints people file with Vladimir Putin's public reception offices are connected with housing and utilities, social problems and poor performance of judiciary and law enforcement bodies. No significant numbers of complaints about the crisis and its consequences have yet been registered.
Oliver Stone's new film interests the public on both sides of the Atlantic. Without going into its merits, MK wonders why Russians don't make movies about presidents.
Whatever bad things I know about the United States, I know from Americans-reporters, writers and cinematographers. I don't know anything from American politicians-they are as full of deceit as their Russian counterparts.
It is crazy to have a tiger at home. I can imagine the Prime Minister walking it on a leash, playing with it, and petting its whiskered cheeks-felines do like it. At any rate, cats do. If you pet them the right way, they purr.
"We have no crisis," Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has continually repeated as his mantra lately. Yet emergency measures in the budget policy for some reason are needed... Yesterday, the Duma debated a bill that would deprive Parliament of its only significant constitutional right - control over budget spending.
The daily Kommersant has learned that Delovaya Rossiya has asked Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to support the processing sector. Delovaya Rossiya's requests are clear: a two-year tax credit instalment payment for the value added tax and the income tax, one-year state guarantee for half the credits requested from the banks, and to make the Central Bank begin a staged reduction of the refinancing rate.
The word "agent", which has many positive and negative connotations, usually implies some notable plot twists.
Not Your Usual Art Show. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin featured in 69 informal portraits. Visitors are flocking to this unusual merry exhibition. All smile at the sight of Mr Putin kissing a horse on the nose in one photograph, walking through a wheat field with an angry face in another, dancing in a circle with old ladies in ethnic costumes in a third, and playing a ball game in a formal suit in a fourth.
