Listening to Vladimir Putin trying to salvage his career as his base of support seems to be crumbling around him, the Russian prime minister sounds more and more like all of those Arab dictators just before their own people turned on them in angry revolt. 'Stability is something that can only be achieved through hard work, by being open to change and ready for long-overdue, well-planned and well-calculated reforms,' Putin declared in an online campaign essay this month. So said Syrian President Bashar Assad almost exactly a year ago, just before his own country dissolved into protest, chaos and slaughter.
Russia witnessed mass anti-government rallies on two occasions in December last year. Frustrated by the victory of the pro-Vladimir Putin party in what was believed to be rigged parliamentary elections, Moscow residents did not hesitate to express their discontent by going to the streets and demand the elections to be re-run. Considering the Russian leadership has ruthlessly extinguished opposition voices in the last decade, recent events highlight that changes might have reached Russia's centralized political system.
The questions one could pose are: will these events spur the
advent of other political forces that might challenge the existing status quo and undermine Putin's presidential ambition? In particular, would the rise of alternative political figures lead to revised balanced foreign policy of Russia thereby slowing down its Eurasian project? And how might such powers as China and the United States react?
Russia won't back the U.S. and its Arab allies in a United Nations resolution to oust Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad as it seeks to defend its most important lever in the Middle East, said researchers from Moscow to London.
On Jan. 23, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin published an essay on the "national question" in Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is stepping up rhetoric against the U.S. as his campaign for the March 4 presidential election intensifies after the biggest protests against his rule.
In Russian and U.S. political circles, tongues are wagging over the harsh comments of Mikhail Leontyev expressed on Russia's Channel One, in which the government owns a controlling stake, regarding the meeting of U.S. deputy secretary of state William Burns and newly appointed ambassador Michael McFaul with members of the radical opposition.
Michael McFaul wrote in a blog entry on Russia's popular LiveJournal web site that his first day as U.S. ambassador to Moscow 'started with a bang.' In fact, the real bang came on the second day, when the new ambassador was harshly denounced on Russia's principal state-television channel after meeting with opposition politicians and civil-society activists. Though U.S.-Russian relations will surely survive the incident, it puts the fundamental challenges and dilemmas of the reset, and previous efforts to improve the relationship, into sharp focus. 
Recent tough talk from Russian officialdom on key foreign policy issues suggests that the Kremlin is growing increasingly wary of 'Arab Spring'-style revolts spreading to Moscow, especially amidst a growing protest trend at home during the lead-up to the March presidential elections. And as the West digs in its heels against countries such as Syria and Iran, Russia has found itself in a tight spot vis-à-vis these regimes - and, experts suggested, perhaps on the wrong side of the battle. 
A deal with Washington to assuage Moscow's concerns about U.S. missile defense plans in Europe is still possible, but time is running out, Russia's foreign minister said Wednesday. Sergey Lavrov reaffirmed that Moscow will take retaliatory action if moves by Washington to deploy missile shield components around Europe pose a threat to Russia. 
President Obama, Use Your Legal Authority to Remove Russia From Jackson-Vanik!
In December 2011, the Russian Federation was invited to join the World Trade Organization (WTO). President Barack Obama phoned his Russian counterpart, President Dmitry Medvedev, to congratulate him. The White House released a statement hailing the move: 'Russia's membership in the WTO will lower tariffs, improve access to Russia's services markets, hold the Russian government accountable to a system of rules governing trade behavior, and provide the means to enforce those rules. Russia's membership in the WTO will generate more export opportunities for American manufacturers and farmers, which in turn will support well-paying jobs in the U.S. President Obama told President Medvedev that the administration is committed to working with Congress to end the application of the Jackson-Vanik amendment to Russia in order to ensure that American firms and American exporters will enjoy the same benefits of Russian WTO membership as their international competitors.' [emphasis added] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 » |
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10:37 AM, February 3 UN diplomats fail to agree on Syria, leaving talks in limbo
10:32 AM, February 3 At Moscow Rally, Fighting the Cold and the Kremlin
10:19 AM, February 3 U.S. Ends Ban on Aid to Uzbekistan
02:49 PM, February 2 Putin Concedes He May Not Win in 1st Round
02:38 PM, February 2 Russia Joins OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, Bans Bribes Abroad
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