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Russia: Resignation Signals Trouble Within Defense Ministry

By Chloe Arnold

Russia — Yury Baluyevsky, chief of the General Staff, 10May2007
Is General Yury Baluyevsky ready to hang up his hat?
(ITAR-TASS)
MOSCOW –Reports that the chief of Russia’s General Staff tendered his resignation have rekindled speculation over the extent to which General Yury Baluyevsky opposes reform efforts led by Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov.

Baluyevsky was conspicuously absent from a recent summit between top U.S. and Russian officials to discuss defense issues.

Although Russia’s military has since denied that Baluyevsky offered to step down, observers say the move, if true, could signal a growing conflict between rival forces within the country’s defense structures.

When Defense Minister Serdyukov offered to resign in September after his father-in-law, Viktor Zubkov, was named prime minister in a cabinet reshuffle, Baluyevsky was at pains to disguise his satisfaction. The chief of the General Staff allegedly told reporters that in the wake of Serdyukov, even a woman could lead the Defense Ministry — a comment seen as a grave insult to the minister.

But President Vladimir Putin said he saw no conflict of interest and told Serdyukov to keep up his work at the ministry. Putin had installed Serdyukov, who previously led the Tax Ministry, in order to clamp down on rampant corruption and misspending in the armed forces.

Serdyukov, a former furniture salesman, and Baluyevsky, a career soldier, rarely if ever saw eye to eye.

Their troubles appear to have arisen because there is no clear delineation between the functions of the General Staff and the Defense Ministry, according to Aleksandr Golts, a defense expert and editor of the online newspaper “Yezhednevny zhurnal.”

“The point is that Russia has rather an exotic defense structure in comparison to other modern states,” Golts says. “The General Staff works out strategic planning at the same time as dealing with deployment issues, which is something that Western countries, and particularly the United States, stopped doing a long time ago. It’s dangerous if you are both planning and carrying out your [military] plans — it makes for the militarization of politics in a country.”

Reform Agenda

As defense minister, Serdyukov’s task has been to bring urgently needed reforms to the country’s sprawling armed forces — a hangover from the Soviet era. His suggestions have been drastic — selling off military land, privatizing naval and aviation repair yards, and outsourcing medical services. That has riled many of the country’s top generals, says Golts.

“In practical terms, it means the following: as soon as the Defense Ministry sets in motion changes that encroach on the interests of one or other military clan, because of this institutionalized contradiction, the slighted parties will complain to the chief of the General Staff,” Golts says. “Serdyukov has put forward some suggestions that have shaken the higher echelons of the General Staff.”

For Pavel Felgenhauer, the defense correspondent for the newspaper “Novaya gazeta,” Baluyevsky’s alleged resignation plans are a sign of the clash between army traditionalists, such as Baluyevsky, and reformers, such as Serdyukov. But, Felgenhauer says, when spending on the armed forces has risen from $5 billion in 2000 to $40 billion this year with little sign of improvement, a radical overhaul like the one Serdyukov has proposed is essential.

“The results [of the rise in funding] are meager, if not zero: no new weapons procured, salaries low, widespread discontent,” Felgenhauer says. “This corruption is real. I don’t know whether the reforms that Serdyukov is trying to introduce will really make things better, but things as they are now are intolerable, and that’s why Putin actually appointed Serdyukov, with the task of cleaning up.”

Baluyevsky has been a close ally of outgoing President Putin, supporting his opposition to a proposed U.S. missile-defense shield to be built in Central Europe. And, like Putin, he likes to indulge in Cold War rhetoric. Earlier this year, he warned that Russia was ready to use force — including preemptively and with nuclear weapons — to defend itself against potential threats from what he called “international terrorism or countries seeking global or regional hegemony.”

Earlier this month, Baluyevsky was missing from a key summit on defense issues between Russian and U.S. top brass. His absence — officially because he was on holiday — was seen as a sign he was soon to be replaced.

The Defense Ministry took the unusual step on March 26 of denying as “false” media reports on Baluyevsky’s intention to resign.

But observers are unconvinced, saying either Putin — or Dmitry Medvedev, after his inauguration on May 7 — will ultimately accept the general’s offer. Then, Golts says, the real question will be whether his successor can reach a compromise with the Defense Ministry.

“For me the important question — and it’s one to which I don’t have the answer — is whether there can be any sort of advances made in an army that hasn’t undergone reforms, which is what Serdyukov is trying to do,” Golts says. “It’s like trying to put an engine into a cattle cart — you just can’t transform it into a car.”

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2008/03/5939761a-adea-493d-ba24-d9d5b4ef6fe7.html

From: Eagle-wng

First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who is widely expected to win the March 2 presidential election, has arrived in Belgrade, where he pledged Moscow’s continued backing for Serbia’s opposition to Kosovo’s independence.

Speaking after meeting Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, Medvedev said: “The main purpose of our brief visit, of course, is to express support for Serbia at the time of illegitimate actions and a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo. Our position is that Serbia is a single state whose jurisdiction covers all of its territory.”

Medvedev added that Kosovo’s February 17 declaration of independence “destroys the international security system, the international legal system, that mankind formed more than 100 years ago.”

Formally, Medvedev is traveling to Belgrade to discuss economic and energy issues. But the February 25 visit, Medvedev’s first major foreign-policy trip, comes amid a sharpening disagreement between Russia and the West over Kosovo’s independence from Serbia.

Yevgeny Volk, head of the Heritage Foundation’s Moscow office, says Medvedev’s visit is intended to show Moscow’s solidarity with its Slavic ally. “I think there is a deep political context here. This is an effort to show support for Serbia in its confrontation with the West over Kosovo. It is a show of solidarity with Serbia in its nonrecognition of Kosovo. Russia is showing that it sees Pristina’s actions as unacceptable and that it plans to cooperate with Serbia,” Volk says.

The United States, Great Britain, France, and Germany have all recognized Kosovo’s independence. Russia, which is emerging as Serbia’s closest ally, has called the Albanian-majority province’s February 17 independence declaration illegal.

Violent Protests

Medvedev’s visit follows violent anti-Western demonstrations in Belgrade last week, in which protesters angry over Kosovo’s independence hurled rocks, set fires, and attacked the U.S. Embassy.

Analysts say Medvedev’s trip is also an effort to make him appear presidential as Russians prepare to go to the polls on March 2. Volk adds that it is also a signal that outgoing President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy will not change under Medvedev.

“This is an effort to demonstrate that there is continuity in Russia’s foreign policy, that Medvedev is not going to move away from Putin’s line. It shows that Medvedev naturally agrees with the Kremlin and that Russia’s foreign policy will not change,” Volk says.

Volk adds that this trip, combined with Medvedev’s comments last week accusing the British Council of spying on Russia, are an indication that he will continue Putin’s hard-line foreign policy.

Moscow’s saber-rattling over Kosovo reached a new level last week when Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, appeared to suggest that Russia was prepared to use armed force against NATO. Rogozin later backed off his comments.Energy issues also figured high on Medvedev’s agenda. In addition to his government post, Medvedev is also chairman of Russia’s state-controlled natural-gas monopoly, Gazprom.

In January, the Kremlin signed a series of energy agreements with Serbia. One deal routes a leg of Russia’s South Stream pipeline through Serbia and another aims to build underground gas-storage facilities in the country. Additionally, a Gazprom subsidiary purchased a majority stake in the Serbian oil company NIS.

As part of today’s visit, Medvedev signed a deal with Belgrade to establish a joint company to build the South Stream pipeline extension and the underground storage facilities. Kostunica said the deal shows that “cooperation between Serbia and Russia is ongoing at all levels.

Serbian President Boris Tadic has sought to steer his country in a pro-Western direction and into the European Union. Nationalists close to Kostunica, however, view moving into Russia’s sphere of influence as a viable alternative.

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2008/02/5F0F6407-5A44-46B6-B383-6D981248CD2F.html

From: Eagle-wng

Seven pits of parade

ITAR – TASS

It has been decided, with the order by Vladimir Putin, to hold military parades on 9 of May on the Red Square starting from this year. It is planned to be done like it was in soviet time – the parade with participation of the heavy materiel. There will be tanks, self-propelled howitzers and so forth; it is also promised to bring the mobile intercontinental missile Topol-M. Fighters Mig-29 and Su-27 have been shown in recent years by the pilot groups Strizhi and Russian Vityazi (Knights). Now the strategic supersonic bomber Tu-160 and transport aircraft An-124 Ruslan will be added. Six thousand soldiers in the new uniform designed with participation of Yudashkin will take part in the parade.      

In the same period, in May, it is planned to make an inauguration ceremony and passing power from President Putin to his successor Dmitry Medvedev whom the obedient people will “elect” on 2nd of March. Obvious is the political goal of the sudden renaissance of the soviet parade tradition: there are two leaders-mates on the tribune – newly elected Medvedev and the national leader Putin, who will become Prime Minister. The powerful stream of tanks and missiles, also parade squares of battalions, stepping along by the tribune, and the fighting aircraft roaring with their turbines – this is the Russia that has stood up from her callous knees. People are triumphant; the composite military orchestra is shining with brass and the oversea partners-adversaries have much to think about.      

Similar window dressing seems to have become the main goal of the public activity by our higher-ups. However, annoying difficult obstacles always appear on the way to renaissance of the former power. The last soviet parade on the Red Square was held 7 November 1990. Today, there are no specialists who are able to prepare the machinery and the staff for passing on the Red Square. The traditional old way for approaching by heavy materiel from Manege has been built over. Now the place is featured with restored Iversky Gate with chapel, the huge shopping center, fountain cascade and so on.     

Defense ministry says it doesn’t know exactly how to make the ordered by Putin parade: either it is better to park beforehand several items of the heavy machinery near the Historical museum so that it pass by the tribune later, or to move the materiel from the Vasilyevsky Slope so that it can make a round on the Square. But the self-propelled launching unit Topol-M driven by eight-axed haulage truck with general length of 22.7 m, and the gross weight of the rocket of 100 tons with a standard warhead of 1 megaton is a hard staff to make a turn with without touching the Central Department Store or Boscodi Ciliegi or the Mausoleum! And there are also the concrete stands put there to prevent possible terrorists with bombs from penetrating the Square. Should those stands be dug out for the parade and then re-installed? Anyway, due to those problems the revived parade is going to be smaller and meager than soviet ones.

In August Putin ordered resuming the combat duty by strategic aviation – that’s the regular flights of bombers to the Atlantic, the Arctic and other distant seas. Production of the new engines being discontinued, they say that the soviet stock has been exhausted. As Tu-160’s fly much at the moment demonstrating Russia’s revival, the resource of the existing engines will be over after a few months and no one knows exactly what is to be done further.      

The other day Medvedev, when visiting Murmansk, explained that our naval forces, differently from soviet times, are always absent in the northern seas, where our fishers often have conflicts with Norwegians, “because we don’t have the vessels”. According to the documents we have over 300 units in the Navy, and in reality it’s only several units that are capable of going out to the sea in each fleet. Of course, Medvedev announced that “we must revive our Navy”, but Putin promised the same in 2000 after the Kursk submarine death.   
The exhausted resource, growing shortage of the components, unceasing repairs when the machinery gets rusted more than it gets repaired – all that is the usual thing in all our combat arms. We have a small number of really fit fighting planes and helicopters, tanks and other staff. And we have even fewer ready crews. But of course, the obvious signs of revival just have to be shown!

On Saturday, the chief of the Staff General Yuri Baluevsky added to the propagandist heat stating at the academic conference “We are not going to attack anyone, but we consider it to be necessary that all our partners clearly understand and no one have doubts that all Russia’s military Force can be applied, including preventive use and including the nuclear weapon, for securing the territorial integrity of Russia and her allies”. Generally, the statement by Baluevsky does not go beyond official military doctrine, and our military staffs as well as the foreign experts understand perfectly that the Kremlin wouldn’t start a nuclear war, especially preventively and for some “allies” sake, like Tajikistan or Armenia.

So the militant anti-western rhetoric and demonstration of remnants of the soviet power not so much make our “partners” be afraid as it makes them to consolidate, strengthening NATO and world leadership by the USA.

Pavel Felgengauer
observer of the Novaya Gazeta

28.01.2008

http://en.novayagazeta.ru/data/2008/05/07.html

From: Eagle_wng

Pro-Putin Youth Group Looks To Preempt Postelection Rallies

Russia – Scanned copy of a leaflet of pro-Kremlin youth group ‘Nashi’ planned to be distributed on December 3rd, Dec2007
One of the Nashi fliers calling for supporters to take to the streets after the vote
(Courtesy Photo)
November 30, 2007 (RFE/RL) — The pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi is trying to prevent opposition groups from staging demonstrations after the December 2 parliamentary elections by making sure they control the streets first.

The group is printing leaflets urging supporters to turn out in force to celebrate after the vote. The leaflets, which will reportedly be distributed on election day, appear to be an effort to preempt any possibility of an Orange Revolution-style protest by Russia’s opposition.

“The president and his party have prevailed with a shattering result,” one leaflet reads. “They won, just as in the last five years they have destroyed the terrorists in Chechnya, paid off Russia’s debt, and restored our country’s respect.”

Another features a caricature of Uncle Sam sitting on bags of money marked with the names of Russian opposition leaders. “The USA had another plan,” the leaflet reads. “They wanted traitors and thieves to win — the American citizen [Garry] Kasparov, the fascist [Eduard] Limonov, and the traitor [Boris] Nemtsov.”

It then warns that the opposition plans to “block squares and buildings, create chaos, and take away our victory.”

The pro-Kremlin party Unified Russia, with Putin on top of its election list, is expected to win a large majority of the vote in Sunday’s election. Critics say they expect widespread falsification of election results.

Monitors Missing

The OSCE’s election-monitoring agency has been a constant presence at past elections in Russia and the former Soviet Union.

But the organization this month announced it would not send ODIHR monitors to Russia this time, saying the Russian government — which imposed strict limitations on the number of monitors welcome, and dragged its heels on visa processing — had made it next to impossible to carry out its mission.

Robert Amsterdam — a member of jailed former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s defense team and the author of a popular blog on Russian affairs — was among the first to post images of the leaflets, which circulated on Russian websites throughout the day.

“These items of propaganda urge Putin supporters to take to the streets in premature celebration, to defend the outcome before it is officially announced,” Amsterdam wrote on his blog today. “It is, in many ways, an open gesture of confession that even Nashi don’t believe that a real election is taking place.”

Initially, a debate emerged on Russian websites about whether the leaflets were real, or a provocation against Putin and Nashi. But the Russian news website newsru.com quoted Nashi press secretary Kristina Potupchik as confirming that the group was printing the leaflets.

Stoking fears that a replay of Georgia’s 2003 Rose Revolution or Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution could take place in Russia has been a mainstay of the Kremlin’s election campaign.

A prime-time documentary aired on state-controlled Rossia television on September 30 — titled “Barkhat.ru” — or “Velvet.ru” — alleged that the CIA was planning to overthrow the Kremlin elite with an Orange Revolution-style uprising in Russia.

The slickly produced report places the CIA at the epicenter of a massive conspiracy to overthrow the Kremlin leadership involving opposition groups such as Other Russia, of which Kasparov is a prominent leader; pro-democracy youth organizations, such as Smena; foreign NGOs, like Freedom House; and the Western mass media.

In keeping with the theme, Putin, in a speech to Unified Russia activists on November 21, characterized the opposition as “jackals” scavenging for money at foreign embassies in order to destabilize Russia.

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/11/6DA2C406-09AB-4778-AA77-956F03C9ACEE.html

From: Eagle-wng

Monday, October 22, 2007

In Turf War, Putin Scolds Ally and Gives Him a Job
By Francesca Mereu and Kevin O’Flynn
Staff Writers

President Vladimir Putin waded into a turf war among the security agencies over the weekend, creating a new state committee to fight illegal drugs and naming Viktor Cherkesov as its chief.

The move, announced on the Kremlin’s web site Saturday, came a day after Putin publicly scolded Cherkesov on the pages of Kommersant, leading commentators to speculate that the president was trying to play a balancing act amid the infighting.

The battle between the Federal Drug Control Service, which Cherkesov heads, and the Federal Security Service and Prosecutor General’s Office broke into the open earlier this month when Cherkesov wrote a scalding letter to Kommersant that accused the other two agencies of picking the fight, which he said could threaten national security. Cherkesov, a long-time ally of Putin, spoke up after FSB agents detained several of his officers.

Putin criticized Cherkesov for airing dirty laundry.

“It is wrong to bring these kinds of problems to the media,” Putin told Kommersant. “When someone behaves that way and … claims that a war among security agencies [is going on], he should, first of all, be spotless.”

Putin denied that there was any infighting going on among the secret services, and he said he had not read Cherkesov’s letter.

Details about the new state drug control committee, created by a Putin decree, were scarce Sunday. The decree said it would coordinate the work of regional committees, which would be led by governors and meet at least once every two months.

Cherkesov’s appointment as its chief is a cunning move that shows Putin is not taking sides in the dispute, criticizing Cherkesov one day and naming him to a state post the next, said Vladimir Pribylovsky, head of the Panorama think tank.

“Nobody knows who is winning,” Pribylovsky said.

The committee’s power is unclear, and the Kremlin did not say whether it would report directly to Putin, as does the Federal Drug Control Service, or the prime minister.

“I have no information on that,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Sunday.

“Nobody understands where the committee will be,” said Andrei Soldatov, an analyst with the Agentura.ru investigative Internet portal.

Cherkesov’s appointment means both he and FSB director Nikolai Patrushev now head a state committee. Patrushev heads the National Anti-Terrorism Committee.

Cherkesov’s letter pushed into the open what analysts described as a long-running struggle between Cherkesov and Igor Sechin, Putin’s powerful deputy chief of staff, and other members of Putin’s inner circle. The letter, published Oct. 9, followed the arrests of Alexander Bulbov and two other drug enforcement officers Oct. 1 at Domodedovo Airport. Bulbov was accused of ordering illegal wiretaps and accepting bribes from private firms in exchange for official protection.

Putin said in the Kommersant interview that law enforcement bodies should understand that their activities are being supervised.

“It would have been worse if law enforcement bodies had the illusion that nobody supervised their work. I understand that law enforcement agencies dislike it when measures to keep order affect them,” he said.

“The court should be the only judge in this situation,” he added.

Bulbov was involved in a corruption investigation into Tri Kita, a Moscow furniture store accused of evading millions of dollars in import duties.

Media reports have linked senior FSB officials to the business and speculated that the FSB struck back at Cherkesov’s agency by arresting Bulbov and the other officials. Commentators have described the infighting as a battle for control over money flows and markets.

In his remarks, Putin appeared to be aware of accusations of wrongdoing against FSB officials in the furniture case. “We are talking about violations in customs, suspicions that a part of the law enforcement system protects the activities of [customs] inspectors,” he said.

“In place of those people who defend the honor of the uniform, I would not accuse everyone in response. Especially through the media.”

Putin paid a visit to the FSB headquarters Oct. 8, a week after Bulbov’s detention, in what some interpreted as a show of support for the agency. But analysts said Putin had not taken sides.

“Putin is famous for saying something and meaning exactly the opposite,” Soldatov said.

“He was really annoyed that an agent went public in this way. [There is] a rule in the security services that says that dirty laundry should be washed at home,” said Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a sociologist who tracks Kremlin politics and the security services.

The FSB and the Federal Drug Control Service refused to comment Friday.

“I’m not allowed to comment on what the president says,” a Federal Drug Control Service spokesman said.

A spokesman for the Investigative Committee, which is investigating Bulbov, said he could not comment.

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2007/10/22/003.html

From: Eagle_wng

Russia: Does Surprise PM Show Putin’s Strength, Or Weakness?

By Brian Whitmore

Russia — Viktor Zubkov, Prime Minister nominee, at a press conference at the State Duma, Moscow, 13Sep2007
Is new Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov Putin’s annoited successor, or yet another transitional figure?
(TASS)
September 13, 2007 (RFE/RL) — President Vladimir Putin’s appointment of the obscure Viktor Zubkov confounded the Moscow political elite. Some analysts say Putin is losing his touch and making irrational decisions as the end of his term approaches. Others say he is still the master of Russia’s political universe. Is Zubkov’s appointment a sign of Putin’s strength, or weakness?

Everything appeared to be proceeding according to plan. Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov obediently resigned on schedule. Kremlin-connected “political analysts” assured the media that First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov was about to be appointed prime minister — and would finally win his long-coveted blessing as Putin’s chosen heir.

So when Putin instead nominated an obscure bureaucrat named Viktor Zubkov as prime minister, Kremlin watchers in Moscow and elsewhere were understandably confounded. Viktor who? What is Putin doing? Has the plan changed?

Sign Of Putin’s Insecurity?

Since he burst onto the political scene Putin has fostered an image of a hyper-competent, sober, and even-keeled man who is in control — of himself, his government, and the country he governs.

But some analysts, like longtime Russia observer Paul Quinn-Judge, said Putin’s move on September 12 was a sign that the leader might be losing his touch.

“The message that’s coming out from all this is that there is a guy who is saying: ‘Whoops, maybe not,'” Quinn Judge says. “This is not the image that Putin has very carefully fostered, and had fostered for him, of the man who speaks in mechanically accurate Russian sentences, who can reel off whole paragraphs of statistics. Suddenly it looks like we’ve got a guy who is saying, ‘Oh, no, OK, let’s try plan C, point four, or something like this.'”
“The message that’s coming out from all this is that there is a guy who is saying: ‘Whoops, maybe not.'” — Quinn-Judge

Quinn-Judge adds that as the reality of Putin actually turning the keys of the Kremlin over to somebody else draws nearer, Russia’s man of steel is losing his nerve and making irrational decisions. “Everything probably seemed rather elegant a couple years ago,” he says. “We’re getting closer and closer to it, and I think he’s wondering whether he can trust anybody else in this world except himself.”

…Or His Continued Mastery?

Some Russia watchers say Zubkov’s appointment was a sign that Putin’s inner circle, which makes important decisions by consensus, was deadlocked on who should be the next president. Quinn-Judge adds that as this deadlock continues, and Putin is unable to resolve it, then he could easily lose control of the situation.

Putin “is a very convenient leader for the country for several key factions in the country at this moment,” Quinn-Judge says. “And people have benefited immensely by this rule. But it may well be that these people feel that their positions can be better protected in the future by someone else.”

But speaking to journalists in the Belgorod Oblast today, Putin seemed as confident as ever. Putin presented the decision as the first step in restructuring Russia’s government prior to the upcoming election season.

“In my opinion, it is better to make certain cadre decisions already now and to take steps to modernize the very system of governance — not just to prevent interruptions that may be caused by big permutations and system transformations, but rather to set a vector for the development of the executive branch in the period following the December 2007 and March 2008 elections,” Putin said.
“The reasons for this are some intrigue and scenarios that nobody on the outside of the system knows. …everything is proceeding according to schedule and according to the plan that was thought up long ago. — Krishtanovskaya

Olga Krishtanovskaya, head of the Institute for the Study of Elites at the Russian Academy of Sciences, says rather than showing weaknesses in the surprise decision, Putin again demonstrated his complete mastery of the Russian political system.

“This was a well thought-out decision,” Krishtanovskaya says. “The reasons for this are some intrigue and scenarios that nobody on the outside of the system knows. Only a very small circle of people knows. But everything is proceeding according to schedule and according to the plan that was thought up long ago. Therefore, we need to pay a lot of attention to Zubkov, because he could be Putin’s successor.”

Yet Another Transition Figure

Krishtanovskaya says Zubkov’s nomination as prime minister was a consensus decision made collectively by what she refers to as the “Putin Politburo.”

“There is a small circle of people, his close associates or politburo, which make such strategic decisions by consensus,” she says. “This decision about Zubkov is most likely consensual. We can’t say there was betrayal or that one clan won over another. For this small group who are in the Putin Politburo, the best decision for a successor is that such a person not be a part of that politburo. If it was one of them, then there would have been tension and competition. This is a compromise.”

Khrishtanovskaya adds that the move signifies that the Kremlin elite is seriously considering the so-called “technical president” scenario whereby a weak president would serve one term, allowing Putin to return to power in four years’ time.

“The question is who would agree to be president for only four years? Who would agree to leave the presidency willingly? And who will the population be willing to vote for? Clearly such a person cannot be very young and energetic,” Krishtanovskaya says. “It must be an older politician.”

Zubkov, who turns 66 on September 15, fits the bill. He is relatively old, has no discernable political ambitions, and has known Putin well since their days in the St. Petersburg city government in the 1990s.

Khrishtanovskaya says a second possibility is that Zubkov is being tasked with overhauling the government and then turning it over to the person who will be Putin’s successor.
 
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/09/60529a7f-2134-4175-9bd4-cdf79f806d09.html

From: Eagle_wng

CAUCASIAN KNOT / NEWS

24/8/2007
Meeting on Anna Politkovskaya’s birthday sanctioned in Moscow

The Moscow’s Mayoralty has sanctioned a meeting on August 30 in Russian capital dedicated to the 49th birthday of Anna Politkovskaya, which falls on this day. The “Caucasian Knot” correspondent has learnt about it from Andrei Nalyotov, an activist of the Committee of Antiwar Actions and member of the Movement “For Human Rights,” who is responsible for the action.

The meeting will take place on August 30, 2007, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the Novopushkinskiy Mini-Park.

The organizers of the action are inviting organizations and individuals willing to take part in preparation of the meeting to join the organizing committee for cooperation and to broadly disseminate the information about the time and place of the action in memory of Anna Politkovskaya.

The nearest session of the organizing committee is planned for Monday, August 27. To contact the committee, one should call the Movement “For Human Rights” by telephones 202-22-24 and 291-62-33, or by E-mail to the Antiwar Club: аntiwar-club@yandex.ru.

See earlier reports: “Izmailov: two residents of Chechnya are Politkovskaya’s killers.”

http://eng.kavkaz.memo.ru/newstext/engnews/id/1195500.html