Andrew E Kramer | Moscow | May 11

NYT - ON a frigid evening in February, the hottest place to be here was the Kremlin Palace theater. The draw inside the towering hall wasn’t Tina Turner or Deep Purple — rock icons well past their prime — but Gazprom, Russia’s most powerful corporate leviathan, which was celebrating its 15th anniversary.

Gazprom certainly had reason to party: its chairman, Dmitri A. Medvedev, was riding high on the Russian campaign trail as the hand-picked successor of President Vladimir V. Putin. Although Gazprom forked over a handsome sum to book Ms. Turner and Deep Purple, Mr. Medvedev’s favorite band, the opportunity for the company, the world’s biggest producer of natural gas, to have its own man installed as Russia’s next leader was priceless.

Gazprom and the government have long had a close relationship, but the revolving door between them is spinning especially fast this year: Mr. Medvedev, 42, replaces Mr. Putin as president; Mr. Putin becomes prime minister, replacing Viktor A. Zubkov; and Mr. Zubkov is expected to take Mr. Medvedev’s place as Gazprom’s chairman at a general shareholders meeting in June.

Mr. Medvedev and Mr. Putin “are as close to a dream team as Gazprom could ever hope for,” said Jonathan P. Stern, a British energy analyst and author of “The Future of Russian Gas and Gazprom.”

Moscow | May 9

BBC - Russian tanks and intercontinental missile launchers have been paraded through Moscow for the first time since the collapse of the USSR.

The Russian leadership has decided to revive the Communist-era custom of featuring military hardware in the annual Victory Day parade.

New President Dmitry Medvedev said the army and navy were getting stronger.

Observers say the point of the parade was to demonstrate that Russia is a serious military force.

The Kremlin insists the event, which marks the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, is not meant to threaten anyone.

President Medvedev, who was inaugurated on Wednesday, has been leading the parade on Red Square.

Moscow | May 9

ITV - Russia has celebrated its victory over Nazi Germany with a display of military might not seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The annual Victory Day parade, which commemorates almost 27 million Soviets who died in World War Two, also showed Russia's revival and a military that the Kremlin says is still a force to be reckoned with.

May 8

BBC - Russia has ordered the expulsion of two military attaches from the American embassy in Moscow, US officials say.

The US state department said it would comply with the order although it objected to it.

Two Russians have been expelled from Washington in recent months, one in November and the second on 22 April.

C.J. Chivers | Moscow | May 8

NYT - Russia’s Parliament overwhelmingly confirmed Vladimir V. Putin as prime minister on Thursday, completing a carefully managed departure from the presidency in a manner that left him the country’s dominant politician and with a clear grip on power.

Mr. Putin, out of office less than 26 hours, received 392 votes in the 450-seat Duma, Parliament’s lower house.

After a brief endorsement from his protégé and presidential successor, Dmitri A. Medvedev, Mr. Putin once again commanded the stage. He gave a 45-minute speech, proposing a series of domestic policy initiatives that seized many of Mr. Medvedev’s campaign themes and echoed his presidential addresses over the past eight years.

“Great and grandiose tasks lie before us,” Mr. Putin said, addressing a legislature firmly under his control as Mr. Medvedev sat silently.

Mark John | Brussels | May 7

Reuters - Russia's deployment of extra troops in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia has brought the prospect of war "very close", a minister of ex-Soviet Georgia said on Tuesday.

Separately, in comments certain to fan rising tension between Moscow and Tbilisi, the "foreign minister" of the breakaway Black Sea region was quoted as saying it was ready to hand over military control to Russia.

"We literally have to avert war," Temur Iakobashvili, a Georgian State Minister, told reporters in Brussels.

Asked how close to such a war the situation was, he replied: "Very close, because we know Russians very well."

"We know what the signals are when you see propaganda waged against Georgia. We see Russian troops entering our territories on the basis of false information," he said.

One of these days the guardian's of our elite establishment are going to wake up and realize they a.) either need Russia for something very serious or b.) realize that they have made a very serious mistake pushing them around for the last several years. John McCain's latest comments on Russia are just another exhibit in how awful (and hypocritical) our policy towards the Russians is:

McCain, 71, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, favors expelling Russia from the Group of Eight club of industrial powers. He calls for forging a ``League of Democracies'' to confront Putin and hand-picked successor Dmitry Medvedev, who takes over tomorrow, on Russian threats against former Soviet republics and rollbacks of domestic freedoms.

That's a brilliant idea. The only thing dumber than that would be adding the Ukraine and Georgia into NATO.

Oh, wait. All three candidates want to do that!

Here's a question for the guardian elites of America: are we willing to fight the Russians over this?

Fred Weir | Moscow | May 6

CSM - Mathematician Sergei Shpilkin has found a disproportionate number of polling stations reporting figures ending in five and zero.

Behind the pomp and ceremony of Dmitri Medvedev's Kremlin inauguration, some Russians say there remain nagging questions about the legitimacy of the process that made him president.

Russia's Central Election Commission (CEC) reported that 69.7 percent of Russian voters turned out for the March 2 presidential elections, and Mr. Medvedev won overwhelmingly over his three rivals with 70.3 percent of the votes.

But a recent study of the official results by mathematician Sergei Shpilkin, a popular blogger, found statistical anomalies that bolster critics' claims that the elections were unfair. His analysis suggests that up to a third of the votes may have been rigged as part of an attempt to inflate Medvedev's margin of victory.

"It's a combination of fraud and administrative resources [official intervention] and it is difficult to distinguish between them," Mr. Shpilkin told a press conference at the Carnegie Center in Moscow last month. "One vote in three cannot be explained" by normal statistical models, he added.

**From Russia with fraud

Brussels | May 6

Reuters - Russia's deployment of extra troops in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia has brought the prospect of war "very close", a minister of ex-Soviet Georgia said on Tuesday.

Separately, in comments certain to fan rising tension between Moscow and Tbilisi, the "foreign minister" of the breakaway Black Sea region was quoted as saying it was ready to hand over military control to Russia.

NATO deserves attention both in terms of its current activities in Afghanistan and because of the current debates revolving around NATO expansion to Ukraine and Georgia. NATO’s quest for a new identity since the end of the Cold War has rightly resulted in much debate about the utility of the Alliance in a world with contemporary threats that can no longer be defined by East and West. Several articles published recently at the Atlantic Community provide an excellent framework for anchoring discussions around NATO.

Andre Kelleners, a member of the Atlantic Community, argues that rather than sidelining Russia, NATO membership states should consult with Russia to determine a common understanding of NATO’s role. It makes sense, he contends, for Partnership-for-Peace countries to eventually join the alliance as full members, but only together with and at the same time as Russia. It is in all parties’ best interest for NATO and Russia to share the same vision.

Andreas Umland of the National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv, continued the debate about when and how to offer a Membership Action Plan (MAP) to Ukraine. He highlighted the February 2008 statistics which revealed that a staggering 53% of Ukraine’s population were against NATO membership and only 21% in favor. He blames NATO rather than Germany for this statistic, saying that NATO “has done too little too late in terms of explaining to Ukrainians what NATO is about. Instead, Ukraine's political and public discourse remains corrupted by Soviet legacies.”

Timo Noetzel and Benjamin Schreer of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin focus the discussion around NATO on the difficulties which NATO is currently facing in Afghanistan and argue that the chances are high that the Alliance will fail. NATO, they contend, is both politically and militarily ill-prepared to execute the required counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan. An Afghan disaster might not be a death sentence for the Alliance, but would certainly have major repercussions.

Mike Eckel | Moscow | April 26

AP - Russia said yesterday that it may use military force if conflict breaks out between Georgia and its breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, voicing concern about the presence of Georgian troops in the area.

Foreign Ministry official Valery Kenyaikin also was critical of the US role in helping to resolve the dispute, which threatens to destabilize the entire strategic South Caucasus.

Kester Kenn Klomegah | Moscow | April 26

IPS - New efforts have been launched to curb human trafficking across Russia and the ex-Soviet republics. The Moscow office of the International Organisation of Migration is implementing a programme 'Prevention of Human Trafficking' jointly financed by the European Commission, the U.S. State Department and the Swiss government, adapting features of counter-trafficking legislation in the European Union to bridge gaps in Russian law.

According to United Nations estimates, 20 million migrants pass through the region every year. "Russia serves as a main transit country from Asia to the European Union, and it (Russia) has a significant amount of internal trafficking from smaller towns and villages to regional city centres, both for labour and sexual exploitation," said Lauren McCarthy of the University of Wisconsin. Many people look to leave poorer countries like Moldova, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The wish to migrate is then exploited by traffickers.

Trafficking for forced labour (other than forced prostitution) is the main form of trafficking in the region, in particular central Asia. Law enforcement responses, however, tend to focus on sex trafficking which often involves young women trafficked to western Europe, the Middle East and Russia.

Yeah, yeah, I know it's gossip, but it is Friday:

Outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied rumours he has secretly divorced and plans to remarry.

He told reporters during a visit to Italy there was "not a single word of truth" in the tabloid news reports.

Maybe he and Condi can hook up?

Luke Harding | Dikhazurga | April 17

The Guardian - While Georgia hopes to join Nato, its rebel Abkhazia area is being wooed by Russia

The bridge over the Ingur does not feel like a place at war. There is no gunfire, merely the noisy croaking of frogs. Down on the river bank, anglers with homemade willow rods dip for trout in the swirling turquoise water.

But this tranquil spot, on what was once a coast of the Soviet Union, may be about to become a flashpoint - not just between Georgia and its breakaway province of Abkhazia, which fought a war here in 1992-93, but between Nato and the Russian Federation.

Fifteen years after driving out Georgian troops, Abkhazia is on the brink of winning recognition from Russia. Yesterday Vladimir Putin ordered his officials to strengthen economic ties and provide consular support to residents in the separatist republic.

Geoffrey Lean | April 13

Independent - Documents that government fought for three years to keep secret reveal warnings of devastation to wildlife

Britain agreed to bankroll controversial drilling for oil and gas, despite a warning from its own officials of the "potentially devastating effects" on a critically endangered species of whale. The decision to flout their own experts' advice is revealed in deeply embarrassing documents the Government fought for three years to keep secret.

The documents – finally released last week under the Freedom of Information Act after a High Court ruling – warn that the drilling, off Sakhalin Island in the far east of Russia, could cause the extinction of one of the world's most vulnerable populations of the marine mammals.

Nevertheless, the Government's powerful export credits and guarantees department (ECGD), which provides support to the exports industry, agreed to help back the $20bn (£10bn) project by Sakhalin Energy Investment Company, in which Shell has a major share.

Back in the days of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Red Army had an official choir composed of male soldiers and musicians. It still exists. The Red Army Choir performs throughout Russia to this day. Now consider the Finnish rock band called The Leningrad Cowboys. A little while ago, they held a concert in Russia, in which - to the screaming applause of Russkie teen-agers - they got the Red Army Choir to join them on stage for a performance of "Sweet Home Alabama." In English. You couldn't make this up.

Every now and then I run across something that really just defies rational explanation. I've seen the Red Army choir in concert...and it's a phenomenal experience, but if you'd told me that I would one day see them doing a rendition of "Sweet Home Alabama" with the Leningrad Cowboys...well, you could have knocked me over with feather. Somewhere, Josef Stalin is spinning in his grave.

Luke Harding | Sochi | April 7

The Guardian - George Bush's attempts to patch up the US's battered relationship with Russia failed yesterday when Vladimir Putin said he continued to oppose the US's European missile defence plans.

Bush and Putin held talks in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. It was their last encounter before Putin steps down as president on May 7. Bush also met Putin's successor, Dmitry Medvedev. Although the rapport between the presidents was warm, with Bush calling Putin a "strong leader" and slapping him affectionately on the back, there was no progress on the crucial issue: the US's contentious plans to build a anti-missile defence shield in central Europe.

"I want to be understood correctly. Strategically, no change happened in our ... attitude to US plans," Putin said.

Putin conceded, however, that there had been "some positive developments". "Our concerns were finally heard by the US side. I am cautiously optimistic that we will reach an agreement," he said.

** Bush and Putin, at last meeting, agree to disagree

By agreeing to place an American defence system in Eastern Europe, Nato has given the Kremlin the perfect excuse to further cement its autocratic rule

The Observer - Nato last week set back the hopes for Russia's progress towards democracy, justice and international partnership. It was a geopolitical blunder that will surely come to be regretted in the West, but the biggest losers are ordinary Russians. By caving into most of President Bush's demands, the United States' European allies have supplied the Kremlin with the perfect pretext for continuing to govern Russia in the authoritarian fashion that took hold in the late Nineties, after that brief dalliance with liberal democracy.

Vladimir Putin, who steps down as President in May, hardly bothers to pretend to be a democrat any more. When standing for election in 2000 and 2004 he ensured that any serious rival candidate was vilified. He did the same on Dmitri Medvedev's behalf this year. They showed an almost ridiculous zeal to assure their victories. This was no Mugabe-style situation. Russians vastly prefer them to what they remember of being ruled by Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. All the opinion polls suggested they could win by a landslide without their supporters resorting to the black arts of what is called 'political technology', the monopolising of TV airtime, the killing of troublesome journalists and the bullying of media magnates.

Douglas Birch | Moscow | April 6

LATimes - Kremlin incentives and better prospects for the future are helping to stem the nation's population decline.

When they decided to have their first child, Alexander Gorlov and Laila Simanova discovered something new was afoot in post-Soviet Russia: a baby boom.

Simanova, 31, now five months pregnant, said she was surprised by how many of her friends were becoming pregnant as well. When she signed up with the Pre-Natal Medical Center in Moscow, she found it swamped with expectant mothers.

"The doctors said when they opened two years ago, we could have played football in the halls," she said. "Now there are queues. When you call you can't get through. The line is always busy."

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia's population plummeted, and until recently was shrinking at the rate of about 750,000 people a year.

So the Kremlin made kids a priority. A 2007 law expanded maternity leave benefits and payments, and granted mothers educational and other vouchers worth $10,650 for a second child and any thereafter. More important, perhaps, Russia's surging economy has made it possible for young couples to plan for their futures.

The population decline hasn't halted, and demographers warn it could plummet again. But today births are on the rise, from 1.4 million in 2006 to 1.6 million in 2007 -- their highest level in 15 years.

Last month, Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia, and most of the NATO countries recognized it. Russia condemned this as an illegal and dangerous precedent and hinted that it might recognize other breakaway states like Abkhazia and South Ossetia. But early next month, Russian president Vladimir Putin will show up at the NATO summit in Bucharest in one of his last official acts before passing power to the president-elect, Dmitri Medvedev. He will not have recognized Abkhazia or South Ossetia. He was only bluffing.

It sounded serious at first. Early this month, Russia ended the trade restrictions it placed on Abkhazia and South Ossetia when they declared their independence from Georgia in the early 1990s. Moscow is very angry about the way that NATO and the European Union have dismantled Serbia without permission from the United Nations, and it wanted to make a point.

M K Bhadrakumar | March 29

Asia Times - When US President George W Bush named Karachi-born Pakistani American Sada Cumber as the first US envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), the White House announcement of February 27 almost passed off as pork-barrel politics on the part of a lame-duck administration. Cumber is a Texan entrepreneur - and so was Bush.

Cumber is founder of CACH Capital Management based in Austin, Texas, which is a high-performance wealth management firm with acumen and expertise in rendering advisory services to Muslim countries flushed with disposable petrodollar sovereign wealth funds. But then wouldn't Bush know the OIC is not an institution for investment selection and portfolio structure?

White House press secretary Dana Perino explained that Bush considered the OIC to be an important organization and that's why he appointed a special envoy. She said, "The [OIC] has a constructive role to play in the world, and the president is signaling our desire to have a greater dialogue with the organization as well as Muslims around the world." But the OIC has been existence for 39 years - and Muslims for over a millennium. Why now?

Kommersant - Tehran has applied for membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in a bid to assure itself of Russia's and China's support in case of a conflict with the United States. But neither Moscow nor Beijing are keen to exacerbate tensions with the West, so they have not rushed to grant Iran's request.

On the other hand, Moscow could change its mind to protect the interests of its natural gas giant Gazprom. The latter might lose the chance to take control over the Middle East-EU gas traffic because Russian and Iranian relations have become strained of late.

Russia | 21 March

RIA Novosti -

MOSCOW, 21 March (RIA Novosti) - Severstal, Russia's largest steel producer, is to purchase a steel mill in the U.S. for $810 million, the company announced on Friday.

"The purchase of the Sparrows Point [steel mill] adds to our portfolio of American assets. The plant already has significant value and possesses the potential for growth," the company said in a press-release by its CEO, Alexei Mordashev.

Sparrows Point is located in Baltimore County, Maryland, and is owned by ArcelorMittal, a joint venture between Indian Mittal and Luxemburg Arcelor.

The U.S. Department of Justice demanded in February 2007 that ArcelorMittal sell Sparrows Point in a bid to prevent a monopolization of the market after the merger of Mittal Steel and Luxemburg Arcelor.

Moscow | March 19

BBC - Russian police have raided the Moscow offices of the oil giant BP and its joint venture TNK-BP.

The searches have renewed fears that the Russian government wants greater control of foreign-owned energy assets.

There is market speculation that the Kremlin would like the state-owned gas firm Gazprom to buy the stakes of BP's Russian partners in TNK-BP.

Last year, TNK-BP was forced to sell its stake in the Kovykta gas field at a discount price to Gazprom.

In 2006, Shell was forced to cede control of its Sakhalin gas field to Gazprom.

"We will co-operate with the authorities but we do not know what they were looking for or why they were there," a BP spokesman said.

Dmitry Solovyov | Moscow | March 17

Reuters -

Igor Volodin believes vodka is no more harmful than chocolate. He is proud to be the first Russian to produce the spirit in a special women's version, designed to be sipped with salad after a workout in the gym.

Touted as a glamour product for upwardly mobile women in booming Russia, Damskaya or "Ladies" vodka worries doctors, who fear a fresh wave of female alcoholics in a country already suffering one of the world's worst drink problems.

The Moscow Serbsky Institute for Social and Forensic Psychiatry says Russia has 2.5 million registered alcoholics, but adds the real figure is seven times higher -- more than 10 percent of Russia's population of 142 million.

Yuri Sorokin, a psychologist running a Moscow rehabilitation centre for drug addicts and alcoholics, said 60 percent of those he treats for alcoholism are women, including the wives of Russian millionaires.