Infinite Unknown

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister, yesterday ordered Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, to reduce gas supplies to Ukraine bound for Europe in a move that escalates the dispute between the two countries, writes Isabel Gorst in Moscow .

Gazprom claims Kiev has been stealing gas from transit pipelines since it cut off supplies to Ukraine on January 1 after talks about a new gas deal collapsed.

Mr Putin ordered Alexei Miller, chief executive of Gazprom, to cut supplies to the Ukrainian transit system by the same volume as Ukraine had taken.

Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state gas company, said it had been notified by Gazprom that it would cut transit supplies to Europe by 65.3m cubic metres a day to 221.8m cubic metres per day. “Gazprom has in fact cut volumes of transit gas to European customers,” Naftogaz said.

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Tags: Economy, Gas, Gazprom, Politics, Russia, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin

Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) — The ruble fell to a record low against the euro as Russia devalued the currency for the 12th time in seven weeks after the government forecast its first budget deficit in a decade.

The managed currency weakened 2.6 percent to 41.7245 per euro, the lowest since the European currency started trading in 1999. It fell 0.7 percent to 29.1797 versus the dollar, a four- year low. Bank Rossii allowed the ruble to fall 1.7 percent against its basket of 55 percent dollars and 45 percent euros, the most since the measure was introduced in February 2005, according to a central bank official who declined to be identified, citing bank policy.

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Tags: Central Bank, Economy, Oil, Oil Prices, Ruble, Russia, Standard & Poor's, Vladimir Putin

RIA NOVOSTI/REUTERS Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, speaks with President Dmitry Medvedev in the Gorki residence outside of Moscow. (Dec. 17, 2008)

MOSCOW-The upper house of parliament unanimously approved extending Russian presidential terms on Monday, a constitutional amendment which has fuelled speculation Vladimir Putin will return as head of state.

The Federation Council endorsed a decision by regional assemblies to support a six-year term for future presidents versus four years now. President Dmitry Medvedev, who proposed the changes, now will sign the bill into law.

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Tags: Dmitry Medvedev, Politics, Russia, Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin talks to Roman Abramovich, whose business interests are reported to have already received a £1.2bn bailout

They bought country houses, super-yachts and football clubs, but the era of the Russian oligarch may be drawing to a close.

Details of the financial bailout being offered by the Kremlin to Russia’s richest men have revealed that many could be stripped of power by next Christmas. The loans will last for one year only and will be collateralised against shares owned by the oligarchs.

Most are expected to struggle to repay the loans within a year, raising the possibility that the Kremlin is trying to engineer the renationalisation of the Russian economy.

The bailout could be a double-edged sword: it may save the oligarchs’ companies in the short-term but could reduce their power and wealth in the long run. According to Zina Psiola, a Russian fund manager at Clariden Leu in Zurich: “Some oligarchs will no longer be oligarchs. It’s extremely unlikely they’ll all be able to repay in a year.”

Figures such as Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club, have seen the value of their companies collapse, forcing them to seek government aid or risk defaulting on loans to foreign banks. Evraz, a steel company part-owned by Mr Abramovich, has reportedly already received $1.8 billion (£1.2 billion) from the Kremlin.

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Tags: Bailout, Economy, Government, Politics, Russia, Vladimir Putin

Saakashvili obviously never left kindergarten:

“Mr Saakashvili admitted yesterday that Georgia began military operations in South Ossestia but insisted that it was in response to Russian provocation.” (So the Russians ’started’ and it was all ‘their fault’. Grow up you idiot. How many people have suffered and died for this nonsense?)

This explains why Vladimir Putin ‘wanted to hang Georgian President Saakashvili by the balls’.
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Source: The Times

Iron Lady Nino Burjanadze finds the steel to threaten her struggling ally

She styles her hair like Margaret Thatcher and counts the Iron Lady among her political idols. Now the female face of Georgia’s pro-Western Rose Revolution is challenging her former ally Mikhail Saakashvili.

Nino Burjanadze is emerging as the key threat to President Saakashvili over the disastrous handling of the war for South Ossetia. Protest was muted while the Russian Army occupied Georgia but its withdrawal is stirring opposition demands for him to go.

Mrs Burjanadze, 44, poses a particularly potent threat because she was the revolution’s second-most powerful figure. She marked the fifth anniversary of the Rose Revolution this week by founding her own opposition party and demanding early elections, saying her former allies had no moral right to remain in power.

Mrs Burjanadze was acting president while Mr Saakashvili campaigned in a snap election in January that was called after he ordered riot police to break up opposition protests last November.

She was chairman of parliament for seven years until she resigned from his ruling National Movement a month before elections in May.

She began her campaign against Mr Saakashvili by publishing a list of 43 questions in Georgian newspapers demanding explanations for the political and military conduct of the war in August. “These are quite objective and reasonable questions and, of course, I and a lot of people in Georgia want direct and adequate answers . . . It’s absolutely necessary to understand what happened,” she told The Times. “Unfortunately, the country is in very serious trouble after these events.”

She lists the costs: the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, now recognised as independent by Russia, are farther from rejoining Georgia than before the war; Nato scepticism about membership for Georgia has been reinforced, and foreign investment has been scared away.

Mr Saakashvili admitted yesterday that Georgia began military operations in South Ossestia but insisted that it was in response to Russian provocation.

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Tags: Abkhazia, Georgia, Government, Mikhail Saakashvili, Military, NATO, Politics, Russia, South Ossetia, Vladimir Putin, War

(Dmitry Astahov/AFP/Getty Images)

Vladimir Putin reportedly wanted to hang President Saakashvili “like the Americans hanged Saddam”

Nicolas Sarkozy saved the President of Georgia from being hanged “by the balls” - a threat made last summer by Vladimir Putin, according to an account that emerged yesterday from the Élysée Palace.

The Russian Prime Minister had revealed his plans for disposing of Mr Saakashvili when Mr Sarkozy was in Moscow in August to broker a ceasefire in Georgia.

Jean-David Levitte, Mr Sarkozy’s chief diplomatic adviser, reported the exchange in a news magazine before an EU-Russia summit today. The meeting will be chaired by the French leader and President Medvedev.

With Russian tanks only 30 miles from Tbilisi on August 12, Mr Sarkozy told Mr Putin that the world would not accept the overthrow of Georgia’s Government. According to Mr Levitte, the Russian seemed unconcerned by international reaction. “I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls,” Mr Putin declared.

Mr Sarkozy thought he had misheard. “Hang him?” - he asked. “Why not?” Mr Putin replied. “The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein.”

Mr Sarkozy, using the familiar tu, tried to reason with him: “Yes but do you want to end up like [President] Bush?” Mr Putin was briefly lost for words, then said: “Ah - you have scored a point there.”

Mr Saakashvili, who was in Paris to meet Mr Sarkozy yesterday, laughed nervously when a French radio station read him the exchange. “I knew about this scene, but not all the details. It’s funny, all the same,” he said.

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Tags: France, Georgia, Government, Mikhail Saakashvili, Nicolas Sarkozy, Politics, Russia, Vladimir Putin

MOSCOW, October 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin proposed on Tuesday that Russia and China gradually switch over to national currency payments in bilateral trade, expected to total $50 billion in 2008.

“We should consider improving the payment system for bilateral trade, including by gradually adopting a broader use of national currencies,” Putin told a bilateral economic forum.

He admitted the task would be tough, but said it was necessary amid the current problems with the dollar-based global economy.

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Tags: China, Dollar, Economy, Government, Oil, Politics, Russia, Vladimir Putin, Wen Jiabao, WTO

Russian shoppers have been served an uncomfortable reminder of the Soviet era after finding shelves in some Moscow supermarkets empty, a further sign that the woes of the financial markets have begun to affect the mainstream economy.

For a generation of Russians who queued daily in the snow for the most basic of staples, the symbolism of a bare supermarket shelf is so powerful that it could potentially destroy the reputation of Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, as saviour of the world’s largest country.

The shortages are not yet widespread. Even so, goods have begun to vanish from dozens of Moscow supermarkets over the past fortnight.

At a branch of the supermarket chain Samokhval in southwestern Moscow, a handful of shoppers pushed their trolleys through empty rows of shelves that once groaned under the weight of imported wares.

The deep freezes hummed, although there was nothing to freeze. Only a row of baked beans, a few jars of olives and sealed cupboards filled with vodka and cheap wine interrupted the void. Continue reading »

Tags: Credit Crisis, Credit Crunch, Economy, Financial Crisis, Food, Government, Meltdown, Moscow, Politics, Russia, shortages, Stock Market, Vladimir Putin

Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, yesterday vowed to defy Western attempts to isolate Moscow as he gave his backing to an ambitious re-armament programme.

Both Mr Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, resorted to the language of the Cold War as they pledged to increase defence spending by 50 per cent over the next three years.

But they also sought to portray Russia as the victim of Nato aggression.

As his parliament gave its support to the higher defence budget, Mr Medvedev accused the United States and its allies of seeking to isolate Russia behind “thick walls and an iron curtain.”

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Tags: Dmitry Medvedev, Georgia, Government, Military, NATO, Politics, Russia, U.S., Vladimir Putin

President Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia should unilaterally claim part of the Arctic, stepping up the race for the disputed energy-rich region.

The expedition to plant a Russian flag on the seabed beneath the ice of the North Pole last August Photo: REUTERS

“We must finalise and adopt a federal law on the southern border of Russia’s Arctic zone,” Mr Medvedev told a meeting of the Security Council, in remarks carried by Interfax news agency.

“This is our responsibility, and simply our direct duty, to our descendents,” he said. “We must surely, and for the long-term future, secure Russia’s interests in the Arctic.”

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Tags: Dmitry Medvedev, Government, Politics, Russia, Vladimir Putin