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
This month marks five years since Mikhail Khodorkovsky - once one of Russia's richest men - was seized in his private plane at the Novosibirsk airport. He was subsequently convicted of fraud and tax evasion and sentenced to eight years in a labor camp. His huge oil company, Yukos, was dismantled and sold off piecemeal to Kremlin loyalists.
La guerre de Géorgie a changé la donne entre les Occidentaux et la Russie. Jusque-là, dans les années Poutine, la Russie était perçue comme un partenaire difficile mais gérable. La rhétorique parfois fracassante du Kremlin était censée relever d'une recherche maladroite de prestige international. Derrière, ne se nichait qu'un souci de reconstituer l'Etat. Mais à l'été, un autre visage a surgi : une Russie militairement interventionniste, tentée de renverser par les armes le pouvoir dans un Etat voisin, prompte à redessiner la carte des frontières. De partenaire irascible, la Russie est devenue un problème de sécurité. Les Occidentaux cherchent depuis à reformuler leur politique. Mais "ni les Etats-Unis ni l'Europe n'ont encore trouvé la réponse", observe Stephen Sestanovich, ancien conseiller pour l'ex-URSS de la secrétaire d'Etat Madeleine Albright dans les années 1990.
IT'S BEEN more than two months since a cease-fire ended fighting between Russia and Georgia and 11 days since Russian troops withdrew into two breakaway provinces that have declared themselves independent states. But the battle over whether Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev will ultimately gain or lose from their aggression goes on. By now it appears fairly clear that one of the Kremlin's principal objectives -- the overthrow of Georgia's democratically elected president, Mikheil Saakashvili -- will not be realized. Nor has Georgia's previously flourishing economy been irretrievably damaged; arguably, Russia has suffered even more from the flight of foreign investors spooked by the war.
The war in Georgia has provoked unprecedented levels of patriosm in Russia. The majority of the population supported their army's actions in the Caucasus. And even the fiercest critics of the Kremlin have now become proud Russians.
La crise géorgienne a confirmé clairement que la Russie ne souhaite pas être intégrée dans un bloc européen élargi, «normalisé», et a réveillé les vieilles tensions sur l'élargissement de l'OTAN, le Kosovo ou le bouclier antimissile.
Nous sommes d'abord un pays européen et pas un quelconque satellite américain.
Russia President Dmitri Medvedev's recent speech in France has been portrayed as a broadside against the United States. Indeed, much of the speech amounted to a gratuitous rant reminiscent of his predecessor, Vladimir Putin.
„Nemojte samo vi (Zapad) da nam držite lekcije, nemate na to nikakvo pravo", izjavio je u nedeljnom intervjuu italijanskom listu „Republika" Mihail Gorbačov, poslednji predsednik SSSR-a. „Rusija gazi sopstvenim stazama ka demokratiji, i tek je na polovini tog puta. Lekcije Zapada nam u tome ni na koji način neće pomoći. Naprotiv, one mogu samo da budu kontraproduktivne", smatra čovek koji je svojom politikom s kraja osamdesetih godina prošlog veka, praktično preko noći, izmenio naš svet. Interesantno je da je Gorbačov navedenu izjavu dao uoči međunarodnog seminara koji se u Veneciji održava sa temom: „Da li će jednopolarni svet opstati do 2020".
On Sunday, en route to Astana, Kazakhstan, after a "very nice trip to India", US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters accompanying her, "I just wish I could have stayed longer in India". New Delhi must be one of a handful of capitals where officials from the George W Bush administration receive an expectant welcome, and the doomsday warnings emitted from New York and Washington do not seem to matter.
Over at Commentary, Abe Greenwald is incensed by a Newsweek article by Christopher Dickey, John Barry and Owen Matthews, "The Realist Resurgence", that claims "Russia is weaker than it looks, which is why NATO's soft power strategy can still work."
