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
First, he showed us how to fish with a naked torso and neutralize a tiger. Now, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is giving us a lesson in Communism 101.
As economic crisis begins to take its toll in the shape of employment and rising inflation, Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, sought to reassure Russians by hosting a live three-hour call-in show on TV yesterday.
He is no longer the President but Vladimir Putin sought to assure Russians that he remained firmly in charge during his annual phone-in with the public yesterday.
Il aidera les retraités, les chômeurs, les petites et les grandes entreprises, il offrira une robe de Cendrillon à une fillette, fera payer à l'Ukraine tout ce qu'elle doit et veillera à ce que le Géorgien Mikhaïl Saakachvili soit bien pendu pour ses «crimes»...
Michael Stuermer's survey begins and ends with what was expected to be a defining moment in Russia's chequered post-Soviet history: the departure of Vladimir Putin from the presidency after two four-year terms, and the ascent to power this spring of his protégé, Dmitry Medvedev. In the event, the closing of one Russian chapter and the opening of another turned out to be so predictable, routine almost, that the overriding impression was of continuity rather than change - which is doubtless how Putin intended it, and the vast majority of Russians, desperate for stability after so much upheaval, hoped it would be.
La Géorgie? Une bonne leçon. Les missiles? Inutiles mais bien pour la Pologne. Poutine? Le bon et le mauvais. Lech Walesa reçoit la «Tribune» l'avant-veille de la cérémonie des 25 ans de son Nobel de la paix.
Rosja, ten kolos na glinianych nogach, który ma przerdzewiałą armię, zdychającą gospodarkę i już dawno przestał być mocarstwem, robi z Unią, co chce
You are millions. We are hordes And hordes and hordes. Try and take us on! Yes, we are Scythians! Aleksandr Blok wrote these lines in January 1918, a few weeks after the Bolsheviks disbanded Russia's first freely elected Parliament, plunging the country into a bloody civil war. Of course Russia has changed significantly since then. And yet the famous poem seems uncannily relevant 90 years later.
In the heat of the Georgia crisis in August, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany flew to Russia to warn about the consequences of renewed militarism. Two days later she was in Georgia, voicing support for the country's eventual entry into NATO. Autumn crept in and passions cooled. The beginning of October found Mrs. Merkel back in Russia, looking on as the German utility E.ON and the Russian state energy giant Gazprom signed a significant deal in St. Petersburg, giving the German firm a stake in the enormous Yuzhno-Russkoye natural gas field in Siberia. Mrs. Merkel's shifting focus served as a reminder of the pivotal role played by Germany in shaping the West's relationship with Russia.
Readers sometimes complain that newspapers don't publish more cheerful stories. Eager to oblige, I would point out that, in a week of mostly grim tidings, from economic meltdown to terrorist carnage, there's one bright spot. Ahead of the Nato summit, the US government has said that it will no longer demand "fast-track" membership for Georgia and Ukraine. "I am satisfied common sense prevailed," Dmitri Medvedev, the Russian President, said on Thursday, even if the effect of his words was spoiled slightly by the fact he was in Cuba. The irony passed him by that, if Moscow understandably sees the former Soviet republics as its "near abroad", then that is also how Washington sees Central America and the Caribbean.
