Dmitry Medvedev

Dissent beginning to spread across Russia as crisis bites

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Thousands protest at Putin’s handling of economy while rift with Medvedev grows


Supporters of the banned National Bolshevik party protest against Moscow’s rulers

The Kremlin’s rule is beginning to look much shakier than at any time since Vladimir Putin came to power, after a series of protests in cities across its vast landmass this weekend by Russians disgruntled about the economy. And as the country starts to feel the effects of the global credit crunch, there are also signs of a growing rift between Prime Minister Putin, and his hand-picked successor as President, Dmitry Medvedev.

In Vladivostok, 2,000 protesters took to the streets, with some carrying banners reading “Kremlin, we are against you”, and other people chanting directly for the removal of Mr Putin. The Pacific port city, seven time zones away from Moscow, has become a focal point for dissent after riot police broke up a march last year over car imports and detained 100 people. Saturday’s demonstration, under the watchful eye of the police, passed off peacefully.

Nearly every major city had a street rally, and though most were low key, the unusual scale of dissatisfaction is likely to worry the authorities. The Russian economy has been hit hard by falling oil prices, many oligarchs have seen billions of pounds wiped off the value of their shares, and ordinary Russians are feeling the pinch as factories struggle to stay afloat and companies lay off employees.

In Moscow, a motley band of communists, anarchists and liberals gathered at several points across the city to protest against Kremlin rule. At one spot, a dozen protesters taped over their mouths with white tape, held up white placards with no slogans, and handed blank white flyers to passers-by. Bemused by such a conceptual approach to protest, the police rounded them up and arrested them anyway, and the organiser got five days in prison.

Read moreDissent beginning to spread across Russia as crisis bites

Russia approves longer presidency

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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.

Read moreRussia approves longer presidency

Medvedev Confronts U.S. on Missile Shield After Obama Victory

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Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) — Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev said he would deploy new missiles in Europe, confronting the U.S. on the day Barack Obama was declared the winner in America’s presidential election.

Medvedev said he would place a short-range missile system designed to carry conventional warheads in Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad, wedged between Poland and Lithuania.

“An Iskander rocket system will be deployed in the Kaliningrad region to neutralize the missile-defense system if necessary,” Medvedev said, referring to U.S. plans to place elements of a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Medvedev blamed the U.S. for failure to coordinate its economic policy with other countries so that a “local” crisis turned into a global one, leading to “a fall on the markets of the whole planet.” He also renewed his assertion that the U.S. provoked the war between Russia and Georgia in August.

Read moreMedvedev Confronts U.S. on Missile Shield After Obama Victory

Russian default risk tops Iceland as crisis deepens

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Russia’s financial crisis is escalating with lightning speed as foreigners pull funds from the country and the debt markets start to price a serious risk of sovereign default.


S&P has cut its outlook for Russia, which has been propping up the rouble: a man on a phone passes a board displaying currency exchange rates in Moscow Photo: Reuters

Russia’s financial crisis is escalating with lightning speed as foreigners pull funds from the country and the debt markets start to price a serious risk of sovereign default.

The cost of insuring Russian bonds against bankruptcy rocketed to extreme levels yesterday. Spreads on credit default swaps (CDS) reached 1,123, higher than Iceland’s debt before it sought a rescue from the International Monetary Fund.

Moves by Hungary, Ukraine and Belarus to seek emergency loans from the IMF have now set off a dangerous chain reaction across Eastern Europe.

Romania had to raise overnight interest rates to 900pc on Wednesday to stem capital flight, recalling the wild episodes of Europe’s ERM crisis in 1992. The CDS spreads on Ukraine’s debt have topped 2,800, signalling total revulsion by investors.

Rating agency Standard & Poor’s issued a downgrade alert on Russian bonds yesterday, warning that a series of state rescue packages worth $200bn (£124bn) could start to erode the credit-worthiness of the state.

Read moreRussian default risk tops Iceland as crisis deepens

Russia, Indonesia, Ukraine Shut Exchanges as Stock Rout Worsens

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Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) — Russia, Indonesia, Ukraine and Romania shut their stock exchanges after shares plummeted in the worst week for emerging-markets in at least two decades.

Russia’s Micex Index dropped 14 percent, having already slumped 20 percent this week, before trading stopped at 11:05 a.m. in Moscow. The exchange won’t reopen until Oct. 10 unless the Federal Financial Markets Service says otherwise, Micex spokesman Alexei Gerasyuk said by phone. The Jakarta Composite index fell 21 percent in its biggest weekly slump in at least 25 years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Investors are fleeing on concern the worsening global credit crisis will cause more banks to collapse and push the global economy into recession, lowering the price of the commodities that drive developing nation economies. The benchmark MSCI Emerging Markets index is headed for its worst weekly decline since it was established in 1987 after falling 21 percent.

Read moreRussia, Indonesia, Ukraine Shut Exchanges as Stock Rout Worsens

Russia to stage largest air force war games since Soviet times

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Russia will stage its largest air force war games since Soviet times next week in the latest stage of the Kremlin’s strategy to show off the country as a military superpower reborn.

Their progress watched closely by increasingly jittery western militaries, dozens of nuclear bombers will take part in the exercise. Tu-95 Bear bombers will fire cruise missiles at targets in sub-Arctic Russia for the first time since 1984.

While Russia insists that the war games are not meant as a gesture of aggression, the West is growing increasingly uneasy about the scale of the manoeuvres.

The aerial exercises, which will take place close to American airspace in Alaska, are part of a month-long war game known as Stability 2008 that Russia claims is the biggest for 20 years.

As the bombers take to the air next week, Russian ships will also be conducting exercises in the North Sea and the Baltic as well as in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. A flotilla of war ships is also sailing to the Caribbean for joint exercises with Venezuela, Washington’s greatest foe in South America, which will come within a few hundred miles of the US coastline.

Read moreRussia to stage largest air force war games since Soviet times

Russia defies West with new arms spending

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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.”

Read moreRussia defies West with new arms spending

Russia threatens to seize swathe of Arctic

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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.”

Read moreRussia threatens to seize swathe of Arctic

Medvedev: Georgia attack is ‘Russia’s 9/11’

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Mr Medvedev said he hoped lessons would be learned from August’s events

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has described Georgia’s assault on South Ossetia as Russia’s 9/11.

He said the world had learnt lessons from the attacks in the US on 11 September 2001 and hoped the same would happen after events in the Caucasus.

Reports say Russian troops are showing signs of preparing to pull back from inside Georgia.

Read moreMedvedev: Georgia attack is ‘Russia’s 9/11’

Russia to send naval squadron, planes to Venezuela

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MOSCOW – Russia said Monday it will send a naval squadron and long-range patrol planes to Venezuela this year for a joint military exercise in the Caribbean, an announcement made at a time of increasingly tense relations with the United States.

The apparently retaliatory move follows the U.S. deployment of warships to deliver aid to the former Soviet nation of Georgia, barely a month after Russian armor and aircraft crushed the Georgian military in a five-day war.

Read moreRussia to send naval squadron, planes to Venezuela

Russia accuses West of provocation in Georgia

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MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accused the United States on Saturday of provoking Moscow by using warships to deliver relief aid to its ally Georgia, with which Russia fought a brief war last month.

“I wonder how they would feel if we now dispatched humanitarian assistance to the Caribbean, suffering from a hurricane, using our navy,” Medvedev said, adding that a whole U.S. fleet had been dispatched to deliver the aid.

Russia has also accused U.S. warships of rearming Tbilisi’s defeated army, a charge dismissed as “ridiculous” by Washington.

NATO in turn has rejected talk of a buildup of its warships in the Black Sea, saying their recent presence in the region was part of routine exercises.

Read moreRussia accuses West of provocation in Georgia

Medvedev: Saakashvili is a political corpse

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(BBC NEWS) Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has described his Georgian counterpart as a “political corpse”, saying Moscow does not recognise him as president.

“President Saakashvili no longer exists in our eyes. He is a political corpse,” he told Italy’s Rai television.

He said US support for Mr Saakashvili had helped provoke the crisis, which has seen Russian troops invade Georgia.

He said Russia did not fear isolation by Western countries that have condemned the Russian intervention.

Fighting between Russia and Georgia began on 7 August after the Georgian military tried to retake the breakaway region of South Ossetia by force.

Russian forces launched a counter-attack and the conflict ended with the ejection of Georgian troops from both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Russia has since recognised the independence of both regions, though no other country has.

Read moreMedvedev: Saakashvili is a political corpse

South Ossetia will join ‘one united Russian state’

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Russian soldiers adjust a Russian flag in the South Ossetian city of Tskhinvali (AFP)

The Kremlin moved swiftly to tighten its grip on Georgia’s breakaway regions yesterday as South Ossetia announced that it would soon become part of Russia, which will open military bases in the province under an agreement to be signed on Tuesday.

Tarzan Kokoity, the province’s Deputy Speaker of parliament, announced that South Ossetia would be absorbed into Russia soon so that its people could live in “one united Russian state” with their ethnic kin in North Ossetia.

Read moreSouth Ossetia will join ‘one united Russian state’

Belarus says to recognize Abkhazia, S. Ossetia by weekend

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MOSCOW, August 28 (RIA Novosti) – The Belarusian ambassador to Moscow said Thursday that Belarus would in the next day or two recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

“We are allies and this says it all,” Vasily Dolgolev said of Minsk’s relations with Moscow. He added that the relevant announcement would be made by President Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday or Friday.

Russia recognized the two separatist Georgian republics’ sovereignty Tuesday, but despite President Dmitry Medvedev’s call for other countries to follow suit, none has.

Read moreBelarus says to recognize Abkhazia, S. Ossetia by weekend

EU threatens sanctions against Russia

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The French foreign affairs minister, Bernard Kouchner, said sanctions were ‘being considered’. Photograph: Gerard Cerles/AFP/Getty Images

European Union leaders will discuss sanctions against Russia ahead of an emergency summit meeting, the French foreign minister said today, as western leaders increased diplomatic pressure on Moscow.

When asked what measures the west could take against Russia in the crisis over Georgia, Bernard Kouchner told a press conference in Paris: “Sanctions are being considered.”

Read moreEU threatens sanctions against Russia

Cold War tension rises as Putin talks of Black Sea confrontation

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Russia has criticised the US for using naval ships to deliver aid to Georgia

A new Cold War between Russia and the West grew steadily closer yesterday after the Kremlin gave a warning about “direct confrontation” between American and Russian warships in the Black Sea.

Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister, declared that Russia was taking “measures of precaution” against American and Nato naval ships. “Let’s hope we do not see any direct confrontation in that,” he said.

Any attempt by countries in the West to isolate Russia would “definitely harm the economic interests of those states”, he said.

Read moreCold War tension rises as Putin talks of Black Sea confrontation

Military help for Georgia is a ‘declaration of war’, says Moscow in extraordinary warning to the West

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Moscow has issued an extraordinary warning to the West that military assistance to Georgia for use against South Ossetia or Abkhazia would be viewed as a “declaration of war” by Russia.

The extreme rhetoric from the Kremlin’s envoy to NATO came as President Dmitry Medvedev stressed he will make a military response to US missile defence installations in eastern Europe, sending new shudders across countries whose people were once blighted by the Iron Curtain.

And Moscow also emphasised it was closely monitoring what it claims is a build-up of NATO firepower in the Black Sea.


Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (right) meets with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin – the ‘real architect’ of the Georgia conflict – and the Security Council (unseen) in Sochi yesterday

The incendiary warning on Western military involvement in Georgia – where NATO nations have long played a role in training and equipping the small state – came in an interview with Dmitry Rogozin, a former nationalist politician who is now ambassador to the North Atlantic Alliance.

“If NATO suddenly takes military actions against Abkhazia and South Ossetia, acting solely in support of Tbilisi, this will mean a declaration of war on Russia,” he stated.

Read moreMilitary help for Georgia is a ‘declaration of war’, says Moscow in extraordinary warning to the West

Russia to respond militarily to U.S. missile shield

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MOSCOW, August 27 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said Russia will have to respond militarily to the deployment of elements of a U.S. missile shield in Central Europe.

The deal to place 10 interceptor missiles in Poland was reached in mid-August, and followed the signing of an agreement on July 8 by the U.S. and Czech foreign ministries to place a U.S. radar in the Czech Republic.

“These missiles are close to our borders and constitute a threat to us,” Medvedev said in an interview with Al-Jazeera television on Tuesday. “This will create additional tension and we will have to respond to it in some way, naturally using military means.”

Read moreRussia to respond militarily to U.S. missile shield

Russia recognizes Georgia’s breakaway republics

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MOSCOW, August 26 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s president signed decrees on Tuesday recognizing Georgia’s breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states and called on other countries to follow suit.

“This is not an easy decision, but it is the only way to protect people’s lives,”Dmitry Medvedev said in a televised address.

Read moreRussia recognizes Georgia’s breakaway republics

Medvedev: Russia ready to break off relations with NATO

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Dmitry Medvedev meeting Russia’s envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin (AFP Photo / Vladimir Rodionov)

President Medvedev has said that Russia is ready to break off its relations with NATO if necessary. His comments came after a meeting with Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, at the port of Sochi.

Dmitry Rogozin briefed Medvedev on NATO’s attitude towards the current situation in South Ossetia. In his view they’re applying a double standard as they’re blaming Russia, although Georgia began the conflict.

Read moreMedvedev: Russia ready to break off relations with NATO

Russia says ready to supply Syria with defensive weapons

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MOSCOW, August 21 (RIA Novosti) – Russia is ready to supply Syria with defensive weapons, the Russian foreign minister said on Thursday following a meeting between the two countries leaders in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Read moreRussia says ready to supply Syria with defensive weapons

Russia may arm Baltic fleet with nuclear warheads, says report

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New Russian threat comes in response to war in Caucasus, US-Poland deal for missile defense shield in Europe. According to Sunday Times, nuclear warheads could be supplied to submarines, cruisers and fighter bombers of Russia’s Baltic fleet based between Poland and Lithuania

Cold War warming up? Russia is considering arming its Baltic fleet with nuclear warheads for the first time since the cold war, the London-based Sunday Times has reported, quoting senior military sources.

Read moreRussia may arm Baltic fleet with nuclear warheads, says report

Russian president calls halt to Georgian war

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Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has called a halt to the advance of Russian troops in Georgia.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has called a halt to the advance of Russian troops in Georgia.

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced Tuesday that he has ordered an end to military operations against Georgia.

The announcement came minutes before French President Nicolas Sarkozy was to land in Moscow to meet with Medvedev to negotiate terms for a possible cease-fire.

“I have reached a decision to halt the operation to force the Georgian authorities to peace,” Medvedev said. “The aggressor has been punished and has incurred very significant losses. Its armed forces are disorganized.”

Read moreRussian president calls halt to Georgian war

Georgia ‘overrun’ by Russian troops as full-scale ground invasion begins

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  • Gordon Brown urges Moscow to order a ceasefire
  • Putin lashes out at the U.S. for ‘helping Georgia’
  • Georgia ‘restarts shelling’ after ceasefire call ignore
  • Refugee crisis as 40,000 flee

Georgian officials tonight claimed the country had been ‘overrun’ by Russian troops after a full-scale ground invasion.

Amid reports that Moscow forces had taken the town of Gori – and were marching on the capital Tsblisi – Georgian soldiers appeared to be in full retreat.

Troops were apparently in complete chaos as a full-scale rout pushed them back through the countryside.

Meanwhile, the civilian crisis intensified with thousands of refugees fleeing the seemingly unstoppable advance of the Russian army.

Georgia Georgia
An unidentified Georgian woman cries after finding out that her child was killed in a neighbouring village, in the town of Gori

Around 9,000 soldiers and 350 tanks had been massing at a base in the border region of Abkhazia throughout the day.

Read moreGeorgia ‘overrun’ by Russian troops as full-scale ground invasion begins

Russia: Georgian troops in South Ossetia surrendering

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MOSCOW, August 11 (RIA Novosti) – Georgian troops have been surrounded in South Ossetia and are giving themselves up, a senior Russian military official said on Monday.

“Russian troops are currently disarming the surrounded Georgian forces in South Ossetia,” Col. Gen. Anatoly Nagovitsyn, deputy head of the General Staff, told a news conference.

Read moreRussia: Georgian troops in South Ossetia surrendering