Kommersant
Russia Will Attend NATO Summit in Chicago
Seeking to cushion the negative effect of President Putin’s refusal to attend the G8 summit at Camp David, Russia will send a high-ranking diplomat to the NATO meeting on Afghanistan in Chicago on May 20-21. Putin will reportedly make his first foreign visit as President to Belarus.
Sources say Russia’s representative in Chicago is likely to be Zamir Kabulov, head of the Foreign Ministry’s Second Asian Department and the Russian President’s special representative on Afghanistan.
The planned NATO-Russia meeting on the sidelines of the Chicago summit has been called off, officially due to Putin’s packed schedule, but most politicians and experts blame the decision on U.S.-Russian contradictions over ballistic missile defense.
When it became clear that Putin was not going to the NATO summit, Russia was invited to a special meeting on Afghanistan, initially to be attended only by NATO countries and other members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). However, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen handed the invitation to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the NATO-Russia meeting in April.
Lavrov publicly questioned the expediency of attending this meeting, saying that Moscow had been asking to attend the regular meetings of ISAF troop-contributing countries in Brussels for five or six years. “We do not supply any troops to this force but we offer transit opportunities,” Lavrov said. “We believe that our contribution is not any smaller than the contribution of those countries that have gained the right to attend the meetings of troop-contributing countries by sending two staff officers to Afghanistan. That’s not fair.”
Lavrov had asked Rasmussen if Russia would now be able to attend the meetings in Brussels. “It turned out to be a one-time invitation,” the Russian minister said, adding that he would still consider it. Many interpreted his open skepticism as a hint that Russia would not attend.
Moscow’s decision to send a representative to the meeting on Afghanistan is likely to be seen as a desire to ease tensions with the United States, which was shocked by Putin’s refusal to go to Chicago.
A source at the Russian Foreign Ministry said a breakthrough at the meeting is unlikely. “There will be representatives of over 50 countries, the meeting will last two or three hours at most. Each speaker will have only two or three minutes and there will be no time for debates,” the source said. Another diplomatic source added that the meeting on Afghanistan “is designed to show the U.S. electorate and the rest of the world that Barack Obama (…) can resolve the Afghan problem.”
President Obama is to meet with President Putin at the G20 summit in Mexico in June. A source in the Kremlin said Putin’s first official foreign visit in his new capacity will be to one of the post-Soviet countries. This was initially assumed to mean Kazakhstan, where Putin will stop on his way to the SCO summit in China in early June, but the latest rumors suggest it will be Belarus.
Moskovsky Komsomolets
Writers Lead Thousands Across Moscow Without Police Action
Moscow saw its largest ever march on Sunday. It was spontaneous and unsanctioned, yet peaceful and sensible, possibly due to the lack of police interference.
A “high-wire act” was announced by a group of writers, artists and other intellectuals headed by writer Boris Akunin. “Our city is the only place where walks along boulevards and gardens are prohibited,” he wrote in his blog. “A group of audacious individuals, mainly writers, plan to march from Pushkin’s monument to Griboyedov’s monument pretending to calmly discuss literature while actually trembling with fear. Our wills have been signed…”
The plan was to walk about a mile; the walkers never thought the entire distance would be filled with people.
At 11:30, about 50 people gathered at the Pushkin monument to ask for their favorite writers’ autographs. “We will simply walk, without any slogans or posters,” explained poet Dmitry Bykov to his fans. “We have just established that we are allowed to gather at the Pushkin monument. Let’s see if we can walk along Strastnoi,” said journalist Sergei Parkhomenko.
“Rumor has it that people are detained by the police simply for walking,” Akunin said. “We have only one demand today: the right to walk around in Moscow.”
First, fans began to line up for autographs and then in no time the square was filled with people. Still, the crowd remained fluid thanks to the journalists who organized them and initiated the march.
The crowd continued growing as rock musician Andrei Makarevich and someone playing a clarinet joined the leaders. With music and applause the walkers poured into the street. The police reacted by stopping traffic. “It has never been like this before. Look, there are no police and no politicians,” one of the walkers said.
Halfway through the walk, as the road rose steeply, people stopped to look back. The rise offered the best view of a street entirely filled with walkers. Others had gathered to watch the festive crowd march by.
An NTV crew was met with boos and whistles and chants of “disgrace.” But no violence followed.
Neither did anything untoward happen when the crowd finally reached Chistiye Prudy, which has become a center for protests lately. Writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya stopped to chat with her readers at Griboyedov monument; others walked on. “Now we know we can walk around in Moscow,” Parkhomenko said.
Protesters headed by Dmitry Gudkov and Ilya Yashin persuaded Akunin and Parkhomenko to climb the pedestal of the Kunanbayev monument, where the writers looked somewhat lost and said little. They had clearly been more comfortable in the less politicized crowd.
Actor Sergei Yursky was sitting on a bench nearby. “I didn’t join the march,” he said. “I’m not the kind of person who attends rallies. I don’t really know why so many people spend so much time on this. But I came to look at these people who seem to be filled with a single purpose. They are interesting people.”
Moskovskiye Novosti
Prime Minister Bracing up to Announce New Cabinet
A meeting of the outgoing government on May 12 provided some tips as to the composition of the new cabinet which Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is due to present to President Vladimir Putin on May 15.
Ostensibly dedicated to a consideration of how the presidential instructions, both Dmitry Medvedev’s and those signed by President Vladimir Putin after his inauguration, were being put into effect, the meeting identified one of the key figures in the new government, acting First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, who was put in charge of overseeing the implementation of the presidential orders.
Medvedev’s instructions are mostly related to issues which were discussed in the Open Government format, such as promotion of competition, civil service reform and anti-corruption measures. Vladimir Putin focused on demographic policy, foreign policy, improving military service, interethnic harmony, social policy, healthcare, and long-term economic policy.
Earlier, Vladimir Putin had signaled his desire to have Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, now in charge of the Sochi-2014 project, join the new cabinet in his existing capacity. Two other deputy prime ministers present at the meeting along with Shuvalov and Kozak were Dmitry Rogozin and Vladislav Surkov.
They are believed to be on the list of candidates as well. Other participants included Tatyana Golikova (Healthcare and Social Development Ministry), Elvira Nabiullina (Economic Development Ministry), Denis Manturov (Industry and Trade Ministry), and Anton Siluanov (Finance Ministry).
Acting presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich was also present. The candidacies that Medvedev is preparing for President Vladimir Putin may include someone to be responsible for the development of Siberia and the Russian Far East. It is believed that a decision has been taken to establish a specialized institution for overseeing this process.
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