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
Des milliers de manifestants ont protesté dans plusieurs villes de Russie, samedi 31 janvier, mécontentés par la crise et la politique du gouvernement. A Moscou, le rassemblement, de faible envergure, a été contré par 8 000 policiers anti-émeutes. Déployés dans les moindres recoins du centre, ils donnaient à la capitale l'aspect d'une ville en état de siège.
Sir, Your editorial "Approach Russia with great caution" (January 30) accuses Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, of ‘anti-US bile' and of ‘crowing over the US's role in causing the crisis' in his speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The Kremlin's rule is beginning to look much shakier than at any time since Vladimir Putin came to power, after a series of protests in cities across its vast landmass this weekend by Russians disgruntled about the economy. And as the country starts to feel the effects of the global credit crunch, there are also signs of a growing rift between Prime Minister Putin, and his hand-picked successor as President, Dmitry Medvedev.
"Le communisme, c'est les soviets et l'électricité", disait Lénine, "le poutinisme, c'est le gaz et la télévision", estime l'ancien vice-premier ministre Boris Nemtsov, passé à l'opposition. A cette liste, il convient depuis peu d'ajouter le cinéma. Depuis décembre, l'avenir du 7e art est entre les mains du premier ministre Vladimir Poutine, qui a pris la tête d'une nouvelle agence gouvernementale chargée de favoriser son essor.
"How could we have been so stupid?" That was the refrain of several experts at a session of the World Economic Forum last week about "What Went Wrong" to produce the global financial crisis. Not that they had been wrong, mind you. It being Davos, the chosen commentators had mostly been right in warning several years ago of disaster ahead. But there was at least a note of collective chagrin.
Over the last eight years, as Vladimir V. Putin has amassed ever more power, Russians have often responded with a collective shrug, as if to say: Go ahead, control everything - as long as we can have our new cars and amply stocked supermarkets, our sturdy ruble and cheap vacations in the Turkish sun.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, does not make it easy to grasp the barbed olive branch that he may be trying to offer. Speaking at the Davos gathering of world leaders, he called for global co-operation in response to the global economic crisis. And he made the not unhelpful, though hardly original, suggestion that "excessive dependence" on the US dollar as the single reserve currency was "dangerous for the global economy".
The leaders of China and Russia on Wednesday turned the tables on their western counterparts who have dictated the world's economic agenda, lecturing them for policy failures they said had led to the global financial crisis.
The titans of Russia's energy industry gathered around an enormous map showing the route of a proposed new pipeline in Siberia. It would cost billions and had been years in the planning. After listening to their presentation, President Vladimir Putin frowned, got up from his chair, whipped out a felt pen and redrew the map right in front of the embarrassed executives, who quickly agreed that he was right.
Le World Economic Forum s’est ouvert avec les discours successifs des premiers ministres chinois et russe. Ils désignent les responsables de la crise, Etats-Unis en tête, et proposent leurs remèdes.
