(RIA Novosti – March 19, 2013) The Russian president’s special envoy for cooperation with African countries, Mikhail Margelov, has said that the US, EU monopoly in the African states was coming to an end as “the new players, that is BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), have stepped in”, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported him as saying on […]
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(Institute of Modern Russia – imrussia.org – Donald Jensen – March 19, 2013) Despite rumors of his waning influence, Rosneft chief Igor Sechin remains one of the most powerful members of Russia’s ruling establishment. Donald N. Jensen, Resident Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, discusses Sechin’s latest “string of triumphs.” […]
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MOSCOW, March 20 (RIA Novosti) President Vladimir Putin has submitted to the State Duma the candidacy of his economic advisor, Elvira Nabiullina, for the head of Russia’s Central Bank, the Kremlin said on Wednesday. Putin first proposed Nabiullina’s candidacy on March 12 at a meeting with incumbent Central Bank chief Sergei Ignatyev, who has served three successive terms and […]
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MOSCOW, March 20 (RIA Novosti) Cypriot Finance Minister Michael Sarris is set to continue negotiations on a potential Russian loan with Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov on Wednesday, after initial talks between the two countries’ finance ministries ended without an agreement. The Cypriot minister is in Moscow to discuss the extension of a 2.5-billion-euro loan that Russia […]
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MOSCOW. March 20 (Interfax) – Capital outflow from Russia was approximately $6 billion in February, Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach told reporters. “Our estimate so far is about $6 billion,” Klepach said. In other words, outflow slowed in February but outflow for the first two months of the year was still above the official forecast for the whole year. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – March 20, 2013) Net capital outflow from the Russian economy has already exceeded the official forecast for the whole of 2013, despite slowing down moderately in February, Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach said Wednesday. According to the ministry’s estimate, capital outflow in February was about $6 billion, whereas in January the Russian economy leaked […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Alexander Panov, Combined report, RBTH – March 19, 2013) A month after the meteorite crash near the city of Chelyabinsk created a stir both literally and figuratively Russian scientists have calculated its weight and age and determined its main components and origin. The initial weight of the celestial object that crashed […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova and Ezekiel Pfeifer – March 20, 2013) Investigators said Tuesday that they had closed the case into the 2009 death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, whose name is attached to a U.S. law that has caused tension in U.S.-Russian relations by seeking to punish Russians implicated in human rights violations. An inquiry into Magnitsky’s […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jonathan Earle – March 20, 2013) Acting on instructions from the Prosecutor General’s Office, government inspectors in at least nine Russian regions have conducted hundreds of unannounced checks on non-governmental organizations, including well-known human rights, environment and religious groups. The checks are designed to catch organizations that receive foreign funding and are involved in “political […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Dmitri Travin – March 19, 2013) Dmitri Travin is Research Director at the European University in St. Petersburg’s Centre of Modernization Studies Russia’s ruling party, ‘United Russia’, is significantly weaker than previously. Does Putin still need ‘his’ party or is it now more of a millstone round his neck? The economy is stagnant and the electoral system is […]
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MOSCOW. March 20 (Interfax) – Over a quarter of Russians have nothing against the restoration of monarchy in the country but cannot name a person who could become the tsar now, a poll has indicated. In a choice between two forms of government – monarchy and republic – 11% of Russians opt for the former. Moscow and St. Petersburg have […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, March 19, 2013) Russian society should be ready for manifestations of extremism in the internet to be viewed and punished appropriately, as those made outside the net, the head of the State Duma committee for information policy, information technologies and communications, Aleksey Mitrofanov, has said. “I think that the fight against extremism in the internet will gradually […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Svetlana Smetanina, special to RBTH – March 19, 2013) Sociologists paint a mixed picture of the current generation of young Russians. Sociological studies have shown that the current generation of young Russians is critical of the authorities and skeptical of the opposition. In addition, young people are becoming increasingly interested in charity work […]
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MOSCOW, March 20 (RIA Novosti) Temperatures in the Arctic will warm up twice as fast as in the rest of the world this century, Russian Emergency Situations Ministry has warned. “In the 21st century, the temperature in the Arctic the average [speed] of global warming will rise 2-2.5 times faster,” the ministry’s center responsible for monitoring meteorological trends, […]
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MOSCOW, March 20 (RIA Novosti) The majority of Russian ministers are against a recently approved ban on US nationals adopting Russian children, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said Wednesday. “A lot of people in the Cabinet, the majority, were against the legislation, at least in the form it was passed,” Dvorkovich said at a meeting with students, the Prime […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anatoly Medetsky – March 20, 2013) The sudden prospect that billions of dollars of Russian money might never return to its owners, due to part of the Cyprus bailout plan, evoked a slate of proposals here Tuesday to prevent the damage. VTB, the country’s second-largest lender, which has a subsidiary in Cyprus, laid out a […]
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(Bloomberg News – bloomberg.com – March 20, 2013) China anticipates a breakthrough in energy talks during President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow this week, an achievement that may strengthen ties between neighbors wary of U.S. motives on issues from Iran to Asia policy. China wants to sign an agreement on a natural-gas pipeline during Xi’s three-day trip this week, Vice […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Rajeev Sharma – March 20, 2013) NEW DELHI At least four deals will be reached at a BRICS summit that President Vladimir Putin will attend in South Africa next week, including the establishment of a business council and a consortium of think tanks from BRICS countries, a senior Indian official said. Also high on […]
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MOSCOW, March 20 (RIA Novosti) – Russia needs to determine exactly who its enemies are and develop its Armed Forces accordingly, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Wednesday. “We really need to understand what our strategic threats are, clearly define who our adversary is, what kind of adversary, and configure our Armed Forces and military-technical systems to counter those […]
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(Interfax – March 20, 2013) The international conference on security issues in Europe, the Russian Defense Ministry plans to hold in Moscow on March 23-24, is to bring closer ties of European countries on the issue, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told reporters on Wednesday. “A lot has been done in the recent years to ensure security in Europe […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, March 19, 2013) The US decision not to go ahead with the fourth stage of development of the European missile defence system removes an important point of disagreement between the Russian Federation and the USA in their negotiations on this issue, former Chief of the Main Staff of the Strategic Missile Troops Col-Gen Viktor Yesin believes. “The […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Sergei Markedonov, special to RBTH – March 18, 2013) Sergey Markedonov is a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. The 60th anniversary of the death of Joseph Stalin (March 5, 1953) has galvanized the debate about his role in both Russian and world history. The desire […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Agnia Grigas – March 18, 2013) Agnia Grigas is a development and political risk consultant to corporations and governments. She works in business and academia. Dr Agnia Grigas is the author of The Politics of Energy and Memory between the Baltic State and Russia (Ashgate Publishing, January 2013) Moscow uses energy as a geopolitical weapon and is thus […]
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BRUSSELS. March 19 (Interfax) – Russian officials said on Monday at a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council that Russia intended to hold an international conference on military and political aspects of European security in Moscow on May 23-24, Sergei Koshelev, director of the Russian Defense Ministry’s department for international military cooperation, said. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has proposed holding […]
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MOSCOW, March 19 (RIA Novosti) Russia’s child rights ombudsman and Foreign Ministry criticized on Tuesday the decision by Texas prosecutors not to charge the adoptive parents of a Russian toddler who died suddenly in January. “The Texas prosecutors’ position in the case of Maxim Kuzmin is upsetting, because they refused to scrutinize the circumstances of his death,” ombudsman Pavel […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Howard Amos – March 19, 2013) Morgan Stanley joined the ranks of those predicting a sluggish period for the Russian economy Monday as it cut its 2013 growth forecast to below 3 percent. The New York-based investment bank lowered its expectations for this year’s growth to 2.9 percent, down from the 3.1 percent it predicted […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – March 19, 2013) The big dollop of egg on Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s face since it emerged a strip of water in the Barents Sea ceded by the then-president to Norway contains more than $30bn worth of oil and gas spells trouble for the already weakened premier. Russia and Norway had been negotiating […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – March 19, 2013) Only 1.45% of Russians or 13% of the economically active population, are ready to invest in the stock market, a situation that has remained unchanged in the past five years, Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) Director Lyudmila Presnyakova said, citing research done for the Moscow Exchange. “The financial literacy of the population […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – March 19, 2013) Foreign companies operating in Russia said the country’s business climate had improved in 2012, according to a study released by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and Fleishman-Hillard Vanguard, a subsidiary of U.S. public relations agency Fleishman-Hillard. Compared with 2011, 44 percent of the respondents noted an improvement, with 34 percent […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org Brian Whitmore – March 18, 2013) Vladimir Putin clearly likes to keep an eye on his enemies. Perhaps he should be taking a closer look at his friends. Consider, for example, Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Ivanov. The KGB veteran and was widely considered the odds-on favorite to be Putin’s successor back in 2007 until he was […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, March 19, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/03/window-on-eurasia-is-russia-too-big-to.html) Russia’s enormous size is the first thing that strikes observers, a leading Moscow geographer says, but he points out that the implications of its size have varied over time and argues that while size matters, there is no reason to believe that its size necessarily precludes freedom […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Nicholas von Twickel – March 19, 2013) Washington’s decision to scrap the last phase of the planned NATO missile shield for Europe elicited expectations that U.S.-Russian relations might improve by removing a major stumbling block that had irked Moscow. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Friday that the U.S. would not carry out Phase 4 of […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, March 18, 2013) Washington’s decision not to deploy the last elements of its missile shield in Europe should be welcomed in Russia, Chairman of Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Fyodor Lukyanov, said. “The Russian side should in general welcome this step, whatever stands behind it. At the same time, I think and judging by the reaction […]
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(Interfax – March 19, 2013) A statement by U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel who effectively announced the cancellation of the final phase of a Europe-based missile defense shield should be clarified in great detail, Sergei Koshelev, director of the Russian Defense Ministry’s department for international military cooperation, told journalists at the NATO headquarters in Brussels on Monday evening. “Negotiations […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Aleksandras Budrys – March 19, 2013) Russia’s Culture Ministry has presented to the government a bill on 10-day visa-free entry for “non-dangerous” foreigners to participate in cultural, sporting and business events, Minister Vladimir Medinsky said on Tuesday. “We have developed a number of draft laws in this regard,” Medinsky told Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev at […]
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(Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10 – jamestown.org/programs/edm/ – Georgiy Voloshin – March 18, 2013) Following his recent visit to Brussels, the secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Nikolai Bordyuzha, told the Russian press that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had been ignoring all attempts to establish a permanent dialogue on security issues […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – www.rbth.ru – Nora FitzGerald, RBTH – March 18, 2013) Nikolai Zlobin, a bestselling author in Russia with longtime ties to the U.S., launches an independent think tank on U.S.-Russia relations to foster the collaboration between two countries and overcome the Cold War thinking. Nikolai Zlobin, the Russian political analyst who wrote a compassionately amusing bestseller […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Irina Filatova – March 19, 2013) The proposal by the Cypriot authorities to introduce a levy on the country’s bank deposits as part of a plan to bail out its economy drew harsh criticism from Moscow on Monday, with the largest Russian lenders facing multibillion-dollar losses as a result of the measure. President Vladimir Putin […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Ilya Khrennikov – March 17, 2013) More than two decades after McDonald’s Corp. (MCD)’s outlet on Moscow’s Pushkin Square began offering a golden-arched alternative to grey communist eateries, the fast-food pioneer is on the defensive. McDonald’s, which virtually created the market for burgers and fries in the country and convinced Russians it’s okay to eat with […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – March 17, 2013) Around 250 languages are spoken in Russia, including Russian, which is spoken by some 150 million people. Russian, along with several Turkic-based languages, is doing fine. However, the linguistic situation for many lost tribes and Small Indigenous People in Russia is far more Dmitry Sukhodolsky, special to RBTH Russia’s many […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – March 18, 2013) Russia has begun to publish its own sovereign debt ratings in a move that is widely seen as a challenge to the grade given by U.S. rating agencies, which the Kremlin has said is not completely fair. Domestic rating agency Expert RA issued its first sovereign debt ratingsthis week, with Russia getting […]
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(Interfax – March 17, 2013) Russian schools could switch to a single history textbook in a year, Education and Science Minister Dmitry Livanov said on Pozner program on Chainmen One. “A good history textbook, just one, will always give room for analysis, for assessing various theories of what actually happened, and for different historical concepts,” Livanov said. The history manual […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Alexandra Guzeva, RBTH – March 16, 2013) The first children’s book about Stalin, “Breaking Stalin’s Nose,” has been released, almost sixty years to the day since the dictator’s death. Are Russians ready to discuss this period of their country’s past with their children? Russian émigré author Eugene Yelchin’s “Breaking Stalin’s Nose” has appeared […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, March 17, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/03/window-on-eurasia-few-russians-want-to.html) More than 90 percent of ethnic Russians taking part in an online survey do not want to identify as “Rossiyane,” the non-ethnic civic identity President Vladimir Putin has been promoting as the primary self-designator for citizens of the Russian Federation, preferring instead to identify as ethnic Russians […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Nikolaus von Twickel – March 18, 2013) Europe’s top intergovernmental corruption watchdog has found that Russia has made modest progress in fighting graft between 2010 and 2012. The country has implemented 15 recommendations out of 26 made by the Group of States Against Corruption, or GRECO, according to a report published Friday. The document, compiled […]
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(Interfax – March 17, 2013) Russians have been losing interest in the supernatural over the years, sociological studies indicate. Whie in 2000 57 percent of respondents admitted that they believe in omens and 52 percent in prophetic dreams, last February the figures dropped to 52 percent and 43 percent respectively, Interfax was told at Levada Center that conducted a special […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – www.rbth.ru – Viktor Kuzmin, special to RBTH – March 18, 2013) Russia led the G-8 and ranked second among BRICS countries in terms of economic growth rates in 2012. Experts make guesses whether Moscow will be able to replicate its performance in 2013. Russians have always had an appetite for risk something the year […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anastasia Matveyeva, Moskovskiye Novosti – March 18, 2013) Over the next few years, stagnation awaits the Russian economy, competitiveness of Russian producers will decline and the growth of incomes will slow down. This is the judgment of the consensus-prognosis for 2013-2014, published by the Center for Development at the Higher School of Economics. The economy […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Marina Maximova, special to RBTH – March 18, 2013) The appointment of new Central Bank chief Elvira Nabiulina sparked debates about the future of Russia’s monetary policy and banking system. While some experts are sceptical about Nabiullina’s competence others remain optimistic. After Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed Russia’s former economic minister Elvira Nabiullina […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Stephen Bierman – March 18, 2013) Fracking isn’t just for shale. In Russia, producers are importing techniques from the U.S. to squeeze billions of dollars of extra oil from Soviet-era fields. TNK-BP, Russia’s third-largest producer, will use hydraulic fracturing combined with horizontal drilling in almost half the wells it sinks this year, a sixfold increase in […]
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