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
Dabiski, viss nebūs tieši tāpat, kā tas kaimiņvalstī notika pēc 1998.gada 17.augusta, kad tika pasludināta valsts maksātnespēja jeb defolts. Dolāra vērtība pret rubli uzlēca turpat seškārt. Zīmīgi, ka toreiz, tāpat kā tagad, valdība apgalvoja, ka viss ir kārtībā un nav jāļaujas paniskiem noskaņojumiem. Krievijas ekonomikai bija vajadzīgi pāris gadi, lai atkoptos. Skan mazliet paradoksāli, taču to veicināja arī fakts, ka par premjeru pēc defolta kļuva Jevgeņijs Primakovs, uz ārpolitisko darbību orientēts cilvēks, kas par ekonomiku īpaši nelikās zinis.
American democracy is malfunctioning to the detriment of our foreign-policy decision making. The hysterical and one-sided U.S. media coverage of the August war between Russia and Georgia is just the most recent example. Watching the way the American political class sometimes discusses international affairs, it is hard not to wonder to what extent we are capable of responsible judgments, or for that matter, even rational dialogue. In this particular case it could lead to the further disintegration of U.S.-Russia ties; in the longer term, our foreign-policy malfunctions could have far more catastrophic consequences.
Russia no longer disguises the fact that it wants to recover its sphere of influence. The paradox is that Russia can only achieve this through the use of force, as the model of development it proposes is unattractive to east European societies. And the more Russia resorts to force, the less the chances that it will achieve its sphere of influence.
On a chill Friday night in October with seconds left to play in the most anticipated hockey game of a young season, tied three goals apiece, Avangard Omsk, the pride of southwestern Siberia, and Atlant Mytishchi, an upstart from the Moscow suburbs, have players from seven countries on the ice - young men whose hometowns stretch from Canada to Kazakhstan. This is professional hockey in Russia now, at its best.
The nations with the world's three biggest reserves of natural gas - Russia, Iran, and Qatar - are quietly moving ahead to form a "gas OPEC," an organization modeled after the oil cartel.
The global economic crisis has brought Britain and Russia closer, Lord Mandelson said yesterday as he talked of a new era of partnership only weeks after Gordon Brown ruled out "business as usual" with the Kremlin.
This past summer's war in Georgia -- and its aftermath -- delivered a higher-voltage shock to U.S.-Russian relations than any event since the end of the Cold War. It made Russia an unexpected flashpoint in the U.S. presidential campaign and probably won Russia a place at the top of the next administration's agenda. Yet this is hardly the first time in the last two decades that Washington has buzzed with discussion of ominous events in Russia. Before long, the buzzing has usually subsided. Will this crisis prove different? Has Washington's thinking about Russia really changed, and how much?
Die ganze Welt grämt sich wegen der Finanzkrise. Fast. Denn auf einem Achtel der Weltoberfläche leisten die Menschen hartnäckig Widerstand und nehmen die Schockwellen aus der Welt des Gelds und der Wirtschaft statt mit Stirnrunzeln und Schlafstörungen mit Humor: die Russen. Als nach den ersten Bankenpleiten auch an den Moskauer Börsen die Kurse fielen, stieg antiproportional die Zahl der Krisen-Witze. „Es gibt eben nur wenige Aktienbesitzer in Russland", redeten westliche Spaßverderber den russischen Sinn fürs Lachen schlecht. Doch die Russen straften die Nörgler lügen: Je stärker ihnen die Krise im Alltag zu schaffen macht, um so mehr machen sie sich über sie lustig.
Call it the coalition of the unwilling. Battered by the financial crisis, countries from Iceland to Hungary to Pakistan are turning to the International Monetary Fund for a loan. Rich countries have banks in need of support; in poor (and even not-so-poor) countries it is the governments that risk going under. Yet even in these desperate straits, few have approached the fund willingly. Its Washington headquarters are often the last port of call; Iceland went to Moscow first, while Pakistan's leaders tried their luck with Beijing, declaring the IMF to be "Plan C". Whoever said that beggars cannot be choosers should have stuck around for the financial crisis of 2008.
The aftermath of the Russia-Georgia war presents the next U.S. president with an early test of American resolve to continue NATO's eastward expansion, a bipartisan policy that dates back to the Clinton administration.
Amilyen páratlan gyorsasággal létrejött, olyan hamar léphet le a porondról az alig egy évtized alatt kialakult orosz középosztály. Oroszország ugyanis az egyik legnagyobb vesztese a pénzügyi válságnak.
Vous avez dit «stabilité russe» ? Depuis leur arrivée aux affaires, Vladimir Poutine et ses ministres n'ont cessé d'invoquer cet acquis supposé de l'ère poutinienne pour justifier l'écrasement des libertés et la reprise en main de l'économie par l'État. Ils ont pu avoir quelque temps le bénéfice du doute, grâce à la propagande de médias largement verrouillés, qui taisent presque tous les mauvaises nouvelles intérieures. La hausse du prix du pétrole, en dotant le pouvoir d'une manne financière inespérée, avait conforté l'idée d'une économie stabilisée, masquant le problème central de la bureaucratisation galopante, de la fragilité des biens de propriété, de l'absence d'investissements productifs et de l'envolée de la corruption.
A few weeks ago, the leaders of Russia, Iran and Venezuela were gloating gleefully that the financial crisis would depose the United States as the world's leading power. Yet as the price of oil dropped below $65 last week -- or less than half its peak price last summer -- it was looking more likely that global economic turmoil would produce a quite different result: the substantial weakening of those countries' challenge to U.S. interests in Europe, the Middle East and Latin America.
Russia's currency fell to a new two-year low despite billions being spent by Moscow to prop it up, and the country's fast-shrinking mountains of reserves and oil revenues threatened to reduce its credit rating, a key marker of its recent resurgence.
C'est une enquête aussi implacable qu'un de ces « hommes à épaulettes » qui dirigent l'Etat russe « arbitraire, paranoïaque, corrompu et spoliateur ». Un livre passionnant et glaçant à la fois, utile pour tous ceux, nombreux depuis l'intervention militaire en Géorgie cet été, qui cherchent à comprendre le fonctionnement du Kremlin. Laure Mandeville, correspondante du « Figaro » à Moscou pendant vingt ans, livre ici une somme documentée, nourrie d'interviews du haut en bas de l'échelle sociale, sur la « criminalisation de l'Etat russe ».
PARIS - The world shook this August, overturning the equilibrium not just of forces on the ground, but of people's ideas and prejudices. The gigantic Olympic Games in Beijing displayed China's will to power, a major challenge for the 21st century. The invasion of Georgia brusquely alerted the world to the return of an imperial Russia without frontiers. But neither event should have surprised the West.
Few countries have been as hard-hit by the global financial crisis as Russia. The Russian stock exchange has lost 70 per cent of its value since May. But the effect on Russia's main companies has been dramatically magnified by the huge borrowings of the oligarchs, the men who bought controlling shares in Russia's industries during the flawed post-communist privatisations of the 1990s. Many of these moguls borrowed heavily against the rising value of their shares, and have lost billions in paper fortunes. As a result they are facing huge margin calls, and have to repay or refinance $120 billion before the end of next year. There is only one source rich enough to save them - the State. Could Russia's lurch into the wilder shores of capitalism end as suddenly as it began, with the reintegration of key industries under state control?
No disrespect to the people of Iceland (pop 302,000), but if Ukraine and its population of 46 million on the borders of Europe goes belly up as a result of financial and political turmoil it would be a most serious matter for all of us. Any instability in Ukraine would have implications for our energy supplies, because Russian gas transits through the former Soviet state on its way to western Europe.
On September 1, the leaders of the European Union, having already warned Moscow several times of its obligation to meet the terms of the cease-fire agreement with Georgia, held an emergency meeting in Brussels and decided to-issue another warning. If Russia continues its non-compliance, the leaders threatened, another warning may yet follow.
Miközben "vigyázó szemünket" Nyugat-Európára és Amerikára vetjük, biztonságpolitikai szempontból rendkívül fontos észak-keleti szomszédunk, a 47 millió lakosú Ukrajna súlyos politikai válság csapdájában vergődik. A nyugatos orientációjú, többek között éppen ezért egyre magányosabb Viktor Juscsenko államfő a napokban feloszlatta a törvényhozást, és így három év alatt már harmadszor készül választásokra az ország.
