Timeline Russia 2007-2009
Return to home
2007 Jan 6,
Belarus stepped up its dispute with Russia over energy sales by
announcing Saturday it has started a customs case against Transneft,
Russia's pipeline operator.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 7, Russia stopped pumping
oil into a pipeline network that crossed Belarus. The line
delivered 12.5% of the EU’s oil needs.
(Econ, 1/13/07, p.44)
2007 Jan 8, A senior Russian
official said that Russia has been forced to stop delivering oil to
Europe via Belarus after disruptions to the flow of exports it blamed
on Minsk.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 9, Mikhail Prokhorov
(41), chief executive of Russian mining giant OAO Norilsk Nickel, was
detained in France for questioning as part of a crackdown on a
suspected prostitution ring at an upscale ski resort.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 10, In Russia Liana
Askerova said she was detained as part of the investigation into the
killing of Andrei Kozlov, the Central Bank first deputy chairman who
was shot point-blank on Sept. 13 as he left a soccer game in Moscow.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 10, Belarus lifted a duty
it had imposed on Russian fuel transiting the country.
(SFC, 1/11/07, p.A7)
2007 Jan 11, Oil flowed again
through the main pipeline from Russia to Europe after Moscow and
Belarus agreed to settle a dispute that has hurt Russia's reputation as
an energy supplier.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 12, Russia reportedly
agreed to slash the duty on oil exports to Belarus by 70% and Belarus
will share with Moscow a substantial amount of profits from the refined
oil products it sells to Europe.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, Roman Abramovich,
Russian oil magnate, was reported to have ordered a new yacht called
the Eclipse. It was under construction in Germany and was
expected to measure over 525 feet, making it the largest privately
owned yacht in the world.
(WSJ, 1/12/07, p.W1)
2007 Jan 12, China and Russia
blocked the Security Council from demanding an end to political
repression and human rights violations in military-ruled Myanmar,
rejecting a resolution proposed by the United States. South Africa
sided with China and Russia.
(AP, 1/13/07)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.47)
2007 Jan 12, French authorities
freed Mikhail Prokhorov, a Russian billionaire, following four days of
questioning in connection with an investigation into a suspected
prostitution ring at the swank Alpine ski resort of Courchevel.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 15, Russian authorities
began cracking down on millions of illegal migrants throughout Russia
as new rules tightening government control of migration came into
effect, prompting concerns that the country could face serious
shortages of low-wage laborers.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, More than 500 armed
militants in Chechnya and other parts of Russia's troubled North
Caucasus surrendered to authorities as part of an amnesty that expired
at day’s end.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 16, Russia said it had
delivered new anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran and would consider
further requests by Tehran for defensive weapons.
(Reuters, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 17, Russian prosecutors
charged Alexei Frenkel, a bank officer, with organizing the murder of a
senior Central Bank official who sought to clean up Russia's banking
industry. Charges were formally entered against Frenkel in connection
with the killing of Andrei Kozlov, who was shot at point-blank range on
Sept. 13 as he left a soccer game in Moscow.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 17, Russian lawmakers
sharply criticized Estonia for possible plans to remove a 1947 statue
that honors Red Army soldiers who helped drive Nazi forces from the
Baltic nation. Last week the Estonian president signed into law a bill
allowing for the removal of the statue. The monument upset many in the
country that suffered five decades of Soviet occupation.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, President Vladimir
Putin ordered Russia's ambassador to Georgia to return to the Georgian
capital after recalling him four months ago, saying that the two
countries must "normalize" badly strained ties.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 20, Konstantin Borovko
(25), a Russian television journalist, was beaten to death in
Vladivostok. Colleagues said they did not think the killing was related
to his work.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 20, The Russian
population was reported to be shrinking by some 750,000 people per
year. New rules put severe restrictions on foreign workers in retail
operations. Russia planned to make available 6 million work permits for
migrants from poor ex-Soviet republics.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.61)
2007 Jan 20, Czech PM Mirek
Topolanek said the US wants to build a radar base in the Czech Republic
as part of its global missile defense system. Poland was also mentioned
as a potential site. Russia in response warned of an arms race.
(AP, 1/20/07)(WSJ, 1/22/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 21, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel met with Pres. Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of
Sochi for talks set to focus on securing guarantees for energy supplies
to the EU. Putin promised to smooth energy flow to Europe.
(AP, 1/21/07)(WSJ, 1/22/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 21, Russian border police
seized a Japanese fishing boat and its six crew members in disputed
waters between the two countries, prompting the Japanese government to
protest. The No. 38 Zuisho Maru was captured off Kunashiri Island, one
of four disputed islands in a group the Japanese call the Northern
Territories and the Russians call the Kurils.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 22, Rosoboronexport chief
Sergei Chemezov said Russia had fulfilled a contract to sell air
defense missiles to Iran. This included 29 sophisticated missile
systems under a $700 million contract signed in December 2005.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 24, India and Russia
agreed two arms deals meant to bring bilateral military ties into a new
era, a day before Russian President Vladimir Putin's arrival for a
two-day summit.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 25, Russian President
Vladimir Putin arrived in India, hoping to use the two nations'
decades-long friendship to push for deals in civilian nuclear
cooperation, military hardware and trade expansion. Putin sealed a deal
to construct more nuclear power plants in India.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 27, Andrei Lugovoi, the
man reported by British media to be a suspect in the murder of a former
Russian agent in London hit out at "lies, provocation and government
propaganda," denying any role in the radiation poisoning death of
Alexander Litvinenko.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan, Russia's Supreme Court
upheld a lower court's ruling that the Russian-Chechen Friendship
Society must close its doors. Rights advocates denounced the ruling,
charging it was a Kremlin attempt to silence criticism of its conduct
in the violence-wracked Chechnya region. The group has campaigned
against the Russian government's war on separatists in Chechnya, and
published reports alleging torture, abductions and killings of
civilians by Russian forces and their pro-Moscow Chechen allies.
(AP, 9/14/07)
2007 Feb 1, Russia's Emergency
Ministry planned to fly a chemical laboratory to the Omsk region in
southern Siberia to analyze oily yellow and orange snow which has
covered an area home to 27,000 people. Omsk is a heavily industrial
city with a number of oil and gas refineries.
(Reuters, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 5, Britain pressed ahead
with a cull of 160,000 turkeys after the nation's first outbreak of a
deadly strain of bird flu in farmed poultry as Russia and Japan banned
British poultry imports.
(Reuters, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 5, A Cold War-era Soviet
submarine that was being towed to Thailand sank off northwestern
Denmark. The Soviet Union built more than 200 Whiskey-class submarines
during the Cold War, many of which are now being offered for sale by
private companies.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 7, Russia's defense
minister laid out an ambitious plan for building new intercontinental
ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines and possibly aircraft carriers.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Japan's PM Shinzo Abe
pledged to regain four disputed northern islands from Russia, saying it
was time to end the bickering between Tokyo and Moscow over the prime
fishing grounds.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 8, India’s air force
chief S.P. Tyagi told reporters at the Bangalore air show that the
government expects to sign a contract to buy 40 Russian Sukhoi-30
aircraft by the end of the fiscal year March 31.
(AFP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 9, The Kremlin said oil
tycoon and Chelsea soccer club owner Abramovich will stay on as
governor of the Chukotka region in northeastern Russia. Abramovich had
submitted his resignation in December.
(www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/business/4542629.html)
2007 Feb 10, Russian President
Vladimir Putin, while visiting Munich for a security conference, warned
that the increased use of military force by the US is creating a new
arms race, with smaller nations turning toward developing nuclear
weapons.
(AP, 2/10/07)(WSJ, 2/12/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 11, President Vladimir
Putin, making the first visit by a Russian leader to Saudi Arabia, met
King Abdullah and other senior officials for talks that touched on
regional tensions including Iraq and the Palestinian territories.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 12, Russian military
prosecutors pledged to investigate allegations that young conscripts
were forced into prostitution by fellow soldiers, the latest claim of
rampant abuse in the nation's armed forces.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, In Qatar Russia’s
Putin and Qatari Emir Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani announced they
would explore the creation of a natural gas cartel to represent the
interests of producer countries. Qatar sits atop the world's single
largest gas field.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 13, Jordan's King
Abdullah II and Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a stronger
international push for lasting Mideast peace and urged for a diplomatic
solution to Iran's nuclear standoff.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, In Geneva the US
clashed with China and Russia during a disarmament debate over how to
prevent an arms race in outer space, and Washington criticized Beijing
for its recent test of an anti-satellite missile. Russia and China, in
turn, condemned the "one state" that refuses to consider a treaty
banning space weapons, a reference to the US.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 15, Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin dismissed Alu Alkhanov, the president of the republic of
Chechnya, and named its widely feared PM Ramzan Kadyrov as acting
president.
(AP, 2/16/07)(Econ, 2/24/07, p.62)
2007 Feb 16, Russian prosecutors
released more details on new theft and money laundering charges against
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a jailed former oil tycoon, and increased by $2
billion the amount of money they say he and his partner stole from
subsidiaries of OAS Yukos.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 18, In St. Petersburg,
Russia, an explosion hit a McDonald's restaurant in the city center,
injuring at least six people.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 19, Gen. Nikolai
Solovtsov, a top Russian general, warned that Poland and the Czech
Republic risk being targeted by Russian missiles if they agree to host
a proposed US missile defense system.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 21, Finance Minster
Alexei Kudrin said that a new domestic offering for shares in Russia's
largest state-controlled bank had brought in $8.8 billion.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 22, Russia’s government
approved a five-year financing plan aimed to decrease mortality from
diseases including diabetes, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and cancer. The
news came as the state statistics agency said Russia's population
dropped by more than 560,000 last year to 142.2 million, a new
post-Soviet low.
(AP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 28, Japan and Russia
looked to expand trade despite rocky relations as they agreed to
cooperate on nuclear energy and in preventing disasters in disputed
islands.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Vladimir Nikolayev,
the mayor of Vladivostok, was stripped of his authority amid a criminal
investigation into suspect land deals and embezzlement in the latest
bout of corruption to hit the long-troubled Pacific port.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Mar 1, President Vladimir
Putin nominated Ramzan Kadyrov, a widely feared security chief, as the
new president of Chechnya. Europe's human rights chief denounced
torture and other rampant abuses in the war-battered region. Kadyrov,
who previously had served as Chechnya's prime minister, has run a
security force that is accused of abducting and abusing suspected
rebels and civilians believed to be connected to them.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 2, Ivan Safronov, a
Russian military affairs writer for the daily Kommersant, fell to his
death from a fifth-story window in Moscow. On Mar 6 his newspaper said
he had received threats while gathering material for a report claiming
Russia planned to provide sophisticated weapons to Syria and Iran.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 3, Russian police
violently broke up an unauthorized opposition rally in St. Petersburg,
clubbing dozens of activists before dragging them into waiting buses.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 6, Interfax news agency
said 2 American women were hospitalized in Moscow for treatment of
thallium poisoning. The women became ill Feb. 24 and were being treated
at Moscow's Sklifosovsky clinic.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 7, Russian nuclear energy
officials hosted an Iranian delegation for talks on the construction of
a Russian-built plant that has fallen behind schedule because of what
Moscow said were delays in payments by Tehran.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 7, In Russia Vladimir
Nikolayev, the mayor of Vladivostok, was ordered arrested amid a
criminal investigation into suspect land deals and embezzlement in the
latest bout of corruption to hit the long-troubled port.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 11, Russians voted in
scattered regional ballots marred by complaints that opposition forces
are being frozen out of the country's politics.
(AP, 3/11/07)
2007 Mar 11, In Georgia’s Kodori
Valley Russian helicopters coordinated a ground and air attack on 3
settlements and fired a guided missile at a Georgian government
building.
(WSJ, 1/5/07, p.A8)
2007 Mar 12, A new party, Just
Russia, that promotes itself as an opposition group but supports
Vladimir Putin took a prominent place on Russia's political stage after
regional elections that further consolidated the president's hold on
power.
(AP, 3/12/07)
2007 Mar 13, Russian President
Vladimir Putin and Pope Benedict XVI met for the highest-level
Kremlin-Vatican talks in more than three years, focusing on easing
tension between Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians and finding
common ground in denouncing intolerance and extremism.
(AP, 3/13/07)
2007 Mar 14, The Russian state-run
company building a nuclear plant in Iran warned that Iranian payment
delays may cause "irreversible" damage to the project, another strong
signal of Moscow's annoyance with Tehran.
(AP, 3/14/07)
2007 Mar 14, Italy and Russia said
they wanted talks between Moscow and the European Union on a new
strategic partnership agreement to start as soon as possible.
(AP, 3/14/07)
2007 Mar 15, Bulgaria, Russia and
Greece signed a deal in Athens to build a 175-mile pipeline to
transport Russian oil to a port in northern Greece.
(AP, 3/15/07)
2007 Mar 15, In St. Petersburg
Nikolai Zavadsky, the husband of a late curator at Russia's most famous
museum, was convicted in the theft of dozens of art objects and
sentenced to five years in prison. He was also ordered to pay $283,000
in damages to the Hermitage.
(AP, 3/15/07)
2007 Mar 16, Government officials
said that Russia will build two nuclear reactors annually through 2015,
and increase to four a year by 2020 in an effort to sharply increase
atomic power generation, according to Russian news agencies.
(AP, 3/16/07)
2007 Mar 17, A Russian Tu-134
airliner crash landed in heavy fog in the central Russian city of
Samara, killing 6 people and injuring 26.
(AP, 3/17/07)
2007 Mar 19, A methane gas
explosion ripped through a Siberian coal mine, killing 110 miners in
the country's worst mining disaster in more than a decade.
(WSJ, 3/21/07, p.A1)(AP, 3/19/08)
2007 Mar 20, Russia confirmed that
it has begun pulling out experts from the Iranian nuclear power plant
they were helping build and that it is withholding nuclear fuel for
Iran’s reactors.
(SFC, 3/21/07, p.A3)
2007 Mar 20, Fire swept through a
nursing home in southern Russia after the night watchman ignored two
alarms, killing 62 people in the Azov Sea coast village of
Kamyshevatskaya, where the closest fire station was nearly an hour's
drive away.
(AP, 3/20/07)
2007 Mar 24, Russian authorities
broke up a demonstration against the government in Nizhny Novgorod,
detaining hundreds of activists.
(AP, 3/24/07)
2007 Mar 25, Fire broke out in a
Moscow striptease club in the early hours, killing 10 people.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 26, Chinese President Hu
Jintao arrived in Russia on his third visit as national leader, seeking
energy deals but also offering Moscow business opportunities and
international cooperation as they expand ties.
(Reuters, 3/26/07)
2007 Mar 27, In Kiev, Ukraine, a
Russian businessman allied with Ukraine's president was killed by a
sniper as he was escorted from a courthouse during a break in his
extortion trial.
(AP, 3/28/07)
2007 Mar 28, Russia's scientific
elite, in a rare show of disobedience to the Kremlin, voted against a
government-proposed charter that would have transferred control of the
historically independent Academy of Sciences to the state.
(AP, 3/28/07)
2007 Apr 2, Russia's foreign spy
service released previously classified files on a double agent who,
under the codename "Britt", passed secrets to Moscow from inside
British intelligence in the 1940s.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 5, Ramzan Kadyrov was
inaugurated as the new president of Chechnya on a blessing from the
Kremlin, which has relied on him to stabilize the region after more
than a decade of separatist fighting.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 7, A Russian rocket
carrying the American billionaire who helped develop Microsoft Word
roared into the night skies over Kazakhstan, sending Charles Simonyi
and two cosmonauts soaring into orbit on a two-day journey to the
international space station.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 9, Two Russian cosmonauts
and US billionaire Charles Simony bringing a gourmet meal arrived at
the international space station, to a warm welcome from current crewmen.
(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 9, Iran announced that it
has begun enriching uranium with 3,000 centrifuges, dramatically
expanding a program that the UN has demanded it halt. An Iranian
Revolutionary Guard general visited Russia despite a UN travel ban over
Tehran nuclear defiance. Russia denied any violation.
(AP, 4/9/07)(WSJ, 4/10/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 11, Royal Dutch Shell PLC
and its partners ceded a controlling stake in the Sakhalin-2 gas
project to Russia’s state owned OAO Gazprom. The deal also entitled
Gazprom a percentage of profits from oil and gas and increased
managerial control.
(WSJ, 4/26/07, p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/39c2yh)
2007 Apr 12, Russian authorities
said they have halted the work of all foreign adoption agencies for
several months, virtually shutting down the placement of children from
one of the most important countries for US families seeking to adopt.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 13, Boris Berezovsky, the
exiled Russian tycoon who has emerged as one of the Kremlin's most
vocal opponents, called for the use of force to oust President Vladimir
Putin and claimed he has support from some in the country's political
elite. In response, Russia's chief prosecutor opened a criminal case
against Berezovsky on charges of plotting a coup. Britain, granted
Berezovsky refugee status in 2003.
(AP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 14, Russian police
detained Garry Kasparov, former world chess champion and leader of one
of Russia's strongest opposition movements, and at least 100 other
activists as they gathered for a forbidden anti-Kremlin demonstration
in central Moscow.
(AP, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 15, Russia launched its
first new generation nuclear submarine since the fall of the Soviet
Union, as the Kremlin seeks to upgrade its undersea nuclear strike
force. Russia began construction of its first floating nuclear power
plant, and planned to build at least six more despite long-standing
environmental concerns that they are vulnerable to accidents at sea. In
St. Petersburg, Russia, club-swinging riot police clashed with
opposition supporters as an anti-Kremlin protest dispersed. Police
chased small groups of demonstrators, beating some on the ground and
hauling them into police buses.
(AP, 4/15/07)(Reuters, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 15, In Russia a
keel-laying ceremony was held in Severodvinsk, on the White Sea, for
the new 460-foot Mikhail Lomonosov, a $360 million demonstration ship
capable of providing 76-megawatts of nuclear power to an onshore
location. Completion was expected in 2010 with construction of new
ships to start annually.
(WSJ, 8/21/07, p.A13)
2007 Apr 18, Russian police raided
Educated Media Foundation, an independent Russian organization. Police
said the search was linked to a criminal case launched against the
director after she failed to declare some $12,500 in cash she brought
into the country on January 21. Foundation President Manana Aslamazyan
said this was likely linked to growing government pressure on
Western-funded NGOs. Aslamazyan fled to Paris and authorities shuttered
the foundation.
(AP, 4/20/07)(AP, 4/24/07)(SFC, 6/30/07, p.A7)
2007 Apr 21, Charles Simonyi, an
American billionaire who paid $25 million for a 13-day trip to outer
space, returned to Earth in a space capsule that also carried a
cosmonaut and an American astronaut, making a soft landing on the
Kazakh steppe.
(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 23, Boris Yeltsin
(b.1931), former Russian leader (1991-1999), died. He engineered the
final collapse of the Soviet Union (1991) and pushed Russia to embrace
democracy and a market economy. His 1994 memoir was titled "The
Struggle for Russia."
(AP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 23, The WWF said hunters
in Russia's Far East have shot and killed one of the last seven
surviving female Amur leopards living in the wild.
(Reuters, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 24, At a conference in
Moscow titled “Megaprojects of Russia’s East,” supporters proposed a
68-mile tunnel under the Bering Strait. The tunnel linking Alaska and
Siberia would cost $65 billion and take some 20 years to build.
(SFC, 4/25/07, p.A6)
2007 Apr 26, Russian President
Vladimir Putin, in his last annual address to lawmakers, attacked US
foreign policy and embraced traditional values in a hawkish speech that
laid out a route for his successor to follow when he steps down next
year.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, In Estonia protesters
gathered at a Soviet war grave in downtown Tallinn, as authorities
prepared to remove the bodies despite Russia's angry objections.
Estonia's government intends to relocate the Soviet grave, believed to
contain the remains of 14 soldiers, and the Bronze Soldier statue next
to it.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 27, A Russian military
helicopter crashed in Chechnya, killing all 18 people aboard, emergency
officials said. There were conflicting reports about whether the craft
was shot down.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, Mstislav Rostropovich
(b.1927), master cellist, died. He had fought for the rights of
Soviet-era dissidents and later triumphantly played Bach suites below
the crumbling Berlin Wall.
(AP, 4/27/07)(Econ, 5/12/07, p.92)
2007 Apr 27, Estonia removed a
Soviet war memorial from downtown Tallinn under cover of darkness,
carrying out a plan that has rankled Russia and provoked protests that
left one person dead and dozens injured.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 28, In Estonia minority
Russian youths angry over the government's decision to remove a Soviet
war memorial from Tallinn rioted for a second night, with unrest
spreading to at least two other towns. 66 people were injured in the
capital, including six policemen. More than 500 people, many of them
adolescents, were detained overnight as vandals prowled the streets,
breaking shop windows and looting stores.
(AP, 4/28/07)
2007 Apr, Stanislovas Jucys, a
Lithuanian businessman, disappeared. He was the CEO of a
Kaliningrad-based construction company with a majority stake in
Lithuanian hands. Jucys' replacement was killed a few months later, and
the company was taken over by a Russian firm.
(Reuters, 3/20/08)
2007 May 2, Russian oil firms
rushed to re-route a quarter of their refined products exports away
from ports in Estonia after Russia's railways halted the route amid a
political dispute with Tallinn. Young Russians staged raucous protests
in Moscow to denounce neighboring Estonia for removing a Soviet war
memorial from its capital, and the Estonian ambassador said pro-Kremlin
activists tried to attack her as she arrived at a news conference.
(Reuters, 5/2/07)
2007 May 3, Russia lashed out at
the EU and NATO for supporting Estonia in its row with Moscow over the
relocation of a Soviet war monument.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 7, Russia’s state
security service said fugitive Rustam Dzhumaliyev had evaded arrest and
become a minor celebrity by masquerading as a US citizen hitch-hiking
across the country for a record attempt.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 8, Amnesty Int’l. said in
a report that China and Russia are supplying arms to Sudan that are
being used to fuel the violence in the Darfur region in violation of a
UN arms embargo. China and Russia quickly rejected the report and
Sudan's government said it was "not justified." China confirmed it
would send military engineers for a planned UN peacekeeping force to
Sudan's Darfur region.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 9, In the early hours
Internet traffic in Estonia spiked to thousands of times the normal
flow. May 10 was heavier still, forcing Estonia’s biggest bank to shut
down its online service for more than an hour. Hansabank continued
under assault and worked to block access to 300 suspect Internet
addresses. On March 12, 2009, Konstantin Goloskokov, an activist with
Russia's Nashi youth group and aide to a pro-Kremlin member of
parliament, said he had organized a network of sympathizers who
bombarded Estonian Internet sites with electronic requests, causing
them to crash.
(www.lunchoverip.com/2007/05/estonia_under_c.html)(Reuters, 3/12/09)
2007 May 10, Talks in Brussels
between NATO's top generals and their Russian counterpart failed to
narrow the gap between Moscow and the West over missile defense and
arms control in Europe.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 11, Austrian authorities
said they have arrested 40 suspects and seized thousands of videos, CDs
and DVDs as part of a yearlong crackdown on child pornography. Police
in Italy made two arrests in connection with the investigation, which
was code-named Operation Max. The server was located in St. Petersburg,
Russia, and since has been shut down.
(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 12, The leaders of
Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan reached a landmark pipeline deal
that will strengthen Moscow's control over Central Asia's energy export
routes. The deal will dramatically increase the amount of natural gas
Russia moves from Central Asia to Europe.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 12, Russia said that it
could not accept elements of a draft UN resolution on Kosovo worked out
by the US and EU nations, maintaining its strong opposition to a
Western-backed plan for the Serbian province's independence.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 12, An unmanned Russian
cargo ship carrying 2.5 tons of supplies, equipment and gifts blasted
off en route to the international space station.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 14, In Russia 10 people
were found dead after a fire swept through a cafe in Orsk near the
border with Kazakhstan. Prosecutors indicated they suspect arson.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 15, Russia's top AIDS
specialist said Russia's AIDS epidemic is worsening with as many as 1.3
million people infected with HIV as the virus spreads further into the
heterosexual population.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 17, Russian Orthodox
leaders signed a pact to heal an 80-year schism between the church in
Russia and an offshoot, the Church Abroad, set up following the
Bolshevik Revolution. At least 10 of 145 Church Abroad parishes in the
US opposed the canonical union. Most of the New York-based Russian
Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) agreed to unite with the
Patriarchate of Moscow.
(AP, 5/17/07)(WSJ, 1/18/07, p.A12)(Econ, 10/18/08,
p.69)
2007 May 17, Estonia's defense
minister said that the massive cyber attacks that have crippled the
high-tech country's Web sites are a threat to national security, and
that it's possible the Russian government was behind them.
(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 17, US lawmakers branded
China and Russia the world's two biggest copyright thieves.
(Reuters, 5/17/07)
2007 May 18, In Russia EU leaders
criticized Russia's human rights record, and were faulted in return, at
the end of a summit that produced no formal agreements but helped
illustrate the widening political chasm between Moscow and the West.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 17, Russia filed a suit
against the Bank of New York for $22.5 billion for its role in a money
laundering scheme that was broken up by US authorities in 1999.
(WSJ, 5/18/07, p.A3)
2007 May 18, In Russia EU leaders
criticized Russia's human rights record, and were faulted in return, at
the end of a summit that produced no formal agreements but helped
illustrate the widening political chasm between Moscow and the West.
Russia barred activists, including chess grandmaster Kasparov, from
protests near the Volga summit.
(AP, 5/18/07)(WSJ, 5/19/07, p.A1)
2007 May 19, German Gref, Russia’s
Economy Minister, told reporters that Russia will not allow indebted
state companies to default. It was reported that more than a half-dozen
journalists with the Russian News Service, have resigned to protest the
new pro-Kremlin management's policy that at least 50 percent of
coverage must be positive.
(Reuters, 5/19/07)(AP, 5/19/07)
2007 May 20, Hundreds of
demonstrators gathered outside the Moscow’s main broadcast facility to
protest what they called lies and censorship on TV stations that are
either controlled by the state or under its influence.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 22, Prosecutors in London
accused Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB agent, of murder in the
radioactive poisoning of fellow ex-operative Alexander Litvinenko and
sought his extradition from Russia. The Russian prosecutor-general's
office said it will not turn over Lugovoi to British authorities.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 24, A methane explosion
tore through a coal mine in southern Siberia, killing 38 miners and
injuring seven others. One worker died days later raising the toll to
39.
(AP, 5/24/07)(AP, 5/27/07)
2007 May 25, Russia's lower house
of parliament gave preliminary backing to a new wide-ranging
restrictions on smoking in public. In southern Russia a brawl between
hundreds of Caucasus migrants and local Russians, all armed with metal
rods, baseball bats and knives, killed an ethnic Chechen in Stravropol.
(AP, 5/26/07)(AP, 5/25/07)
2007 May 27, Russian police
detained gay protesters calling for the right to hold a Gay Pride
parade in central Moscow while nationalists shouting "death to
homosexuals" punched and kicked the demonstrators.
(AP, 5/27/07)
2007 May 29, Russia pledged to
write off an additional $500 million of African debt. Russia
test-launched a new intercontinental ballistic missile that is capable
of carrying multiple independent warheads. President Vladimir Putin
warned that US plans for an anti-missile shield in Europe would turn
the region into a "powder keg."
(Reuters, 5/29/07)(AP, 5/29/07)(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 31, President Vladimir
Putin said that tests of new Russian missiles were a response to the
planned deployment of US missile defense installations and other forces
in Europe, suggesting Washington has triggered a new arms race.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 31, The chief suspect in
the murder of Russian ex-agent Alexander Litvinenko accused the British
secret service of being behind the killing and said Litvinenko himself
had been spying for MI6.
(AFP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 31, The US and Russia
agreed to put nuclear radiation monitors at all of Russia’s int’l.
border crossings by 2011.
(WSJ, 6/1/07, p.A1)
2007 Jun 1, The Norwegian
environmental group Bellona warned that a nuclear waste dump in the
Russia Arctic may be in danger of exploding because of corrosion caused
by salt water in enormous storage tanks.
(AP, 6/1/07)
2007 Jun 2, In Russia former PM
Mikhail Kasayanov was nominated by his opposition movement to run in
next year's presidential election and promised to stop the Kremlin
orchestrating the vote in its favor.
(AP, 6/2/07)
2007 Jun 3, President Vladimir
Putin warned that Moscow could take "retaliatory steps" if Washington
proceeds with plans to build a missile defense system for Europe,
including possibly aiming nuclear weapons at targets on the continent.
(WSJ, 6/4/07, p.A1)
2007 Jun 3, A severe landslide has
nearly obliterated one of Russia's most noted natural wonders, the
Valley of Geysers. A snow-covered mound collapsed "within seconds" and
caused a massive landslide, about a mile long and 600 feet wide,
burying two-thirds of the valley.
(AP, 6/5/07)
2007 Jun 3, Nigerian gunmen
kidnapped six foreign staff of United Company RUSAL after blowing up
their apartment with explosives in the southeastern town of Ikot Abasi.
(Reuters, 6/3/07)
2007 Jun 5, US President George W.
Bush sought to soothe Moscow's fury at Washington's plans to extend its
anti-missile shield in Europe, saying in Prague on the eve of the G8
summit that Russia was "not our enemy."
(AFP, 6/5/07)
2007 Jun 6, PM Andrus Ansip said
Estonia is seeking help from Russia to find the culprits behind a
massive wave of attacks on the country's Internet infrastructure.
(AP, 6/6/07)
2007 Jun 7, In Germany Chancellor
Angela Merkel said that the G8 has agreed on a plan calling for
"substantial cuts" to greenhouse gas emissions. Riot police used water
cannons to turn protesters away from the fence surrounding the Group of
Eight summit. G8 leaders reached an agreement on climate change,
adopting a statement that says they should "seriously consider"
proposals to cut the emissions of greenhouse gases by 50 percent by
2050. Russian President Vladimir Putin, bitterly opposed to a US
missile shield in Europe, told President Bush that Moscow would drop
its objections if the radar-based system were installed in Azerbaijan.
(AP, 6/7/07)(AP, 6/7/08)
2007 Jun 7, An international
conservation group said Russia has established the Zov Tigra National
Park to protect Siberian tigers. According to the WWF the 200,000-acre
park will protect the big cat's habitat while simultaneously allowing
for nature tourism.
(AP, 6/8/07)
2007 Jun 9, Russia's most vocal
opposition movement, headed by former chess champion Garry Kasparov,
demonstrated in St. Petersburg without police violence or interference
for the first time in months of protests.
(AP, 6/10/07)
2007 Jun 9, Boeing and Aeroflot
signed a deal for the Russian carrier to acquire 22 Dreamliner jets
from the American plane maker.
(AP, 6/9/07)
2007 Jun 10, Russian President
Vladimir Putin called for creating an alternative to the World Trade
Organization that would favor developing economies and suggested giving
a greater role to regional currencies.
(AP, 6/10/07)
2007 Jun 12, Pres. Putin led
ceremonies to honor Russia Day. The holiday is one of several that have
been shifted or renamed as Putin's Kremlin seeks to shape Russia's
image. It was introduced by his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, to
commemorate Russia's 1990 declaration of sovereignty and was long known
to many as Independence Day.
(AP, 6/12/07)
2007 Jun 15, Russia's security
agency announced an espionage investigation based on statements by the
suspect in Andrei Litvinenko's radiation poisoning, a move apparently
targeting a Kremlin foe in Britain.
(AP, 6/15/07)
2007 Jun 16, North Korea sent a
letter to the UN nuclear watchdog, inviting inspectors to the country
to discuss procedures for shutting down its main nuclear reactor. Top
US nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said technical problems in
Russia are holding up the transfer of North Korean funds linked to a
nuclear disarmament deal.
(AP, 6/16/07)
2007 Jun 17, Iran said it had
received indications from Russia's president that he would not follow
through with an offer to allow the US to use a radar station in
neighboring Azerbaijan for missile defense against Tehran.
(AP, 6/17/07)
2007 Jun 19, A new survey reported
that Moscow is the world's most expensive city for the second year in a
row, thanks to an appreciating ruble and rising housing costs.
(AP, 6/19/07)
2007 Jun 19, A Russian court
sentenced four men to prison terms of between seven and 14 years for
the racially motivated killing of a Congolese student. The slaying of
Roland Epassak in St. Petersburg two years ago prompted outrage and
protests among Russian and foreign exchange students and other young
people.
(AP, 6/19/07)
2007 Jun 21, In Russia a fire
swept through a nursing home in Western Siberia's Omsk region and
killed at least 10 people.
(AP, 6/21/07)
2007 Jun 21, The European Court of
Human Rights found the Russian authorities responsible for the killings
of four members of a Chechen family in 2003 and ordered Moscow to pay a
relative $114,000.
(AP, 6/21/07)
2007 Jun 22, British energy group
BP, facing pressure from the Kremlin, said that it had agreed to sell
its stakes in a Siberian gas field and company to Russian gas giant
Gazprom for up to 900 million dollars (669 million euros).
(AP, 6/22/07)(WSJ, 6/22/07, p.A3)
2007 Jun 23, Italian energy
company Eni SpA and Russia's state-controlled OAO Gazprom said they
signed a memorandum of understanding on the possibility of supplying
Russian gas to European Union countries through a pipeline under the
Black Sea.
(AP, 6/23/07)
2007 Jun 26, A CD of the Russian
National Orchestra performing Dead Symphony No. 6: An Orchestral
Tribute to the Grateful Dead, was released in the US. The work was
directed by composer Lee Johnson.
(SFC, 6/27/07, p.E3)
2007 Jun 27, Moscow legislators
approved a fifth term for Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, whom critics accuse of
running the city like a personal fiefdom.
(AP, 6/27/07)
2007 Jun 28, President Vladimir
Putin welcomed Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez for talks at the Russian
presidential retreat outside Moscow, saying economic affairs and
military-technical cooperation were on the agenda.
(AP, 6/29/07)
2007 Jun 28, Hundreds of ethnic
Georgians confronted Russian peacekeeping forces in the breakaway
region of South Ossetia, throwing paint and gasoline on the troops and
forcing them to stop blocking a road project.
(AP, 6/28/07)
2007 Jun 28, The European
Commission said all Indonesian airlines and several from Russia,
Ukraine and Angola will be banned from flying to the EU due to safety
concerns.
(AP, 6/28/07)
2007 Jun, Wenda, a
question-and-answer “knowledge community” product,
developed by Google in China, was launched in Russia.
(Econ, 10/13/07, SR p.7)
2007 Jul 1, Russia’s Pres. Putin
arrived in Maine for talks with Pres. Bush.
(AP, 7/2/07)
2007 Jul 2, Russia’s Pres. Putin,
while visiting Pres. Bush in Maine, proposed an alternative missile
shield system to be jointly developed by the NATO-Russia Council.
(SFC, 7/3/07, p.A3)
2007 Jul 4, Russia’s parliament
authorized an exemption to Gazprom and OAO Transneft from limits on
wielding arms. They would now be able to employ their own armed
operatives.
(WSJ, 1/5/07, p.A4)
2007 Jul 4, The Black Sea resort
of Sochi was elected the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics, taking
the Winter Games to Russia for the first time.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2007 Jul 5, Larisa Arap, a member
of a Russian opposition group, was hospitalized in a psychiatric
facility for criticizing a clinic's use of violence against mentally
ill patients.
(Reuters, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 6, Russian lawmakers
passed a bill that cracks down on dissent and expands police
surveillance authority ahead of 2008 elections.
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.A1)
2007 Jul 8, Russia’s top security
agency said it has declassified documents on millions of victims of
Soviet-era repression (1920-1950), allowing relatives to request
information about those who were executed or died of disease and
starvation in prison.
(AP, 7/8/07)
2007 Jul 10, Russian newspapers
reported that thieves had stolen a collection of rare paintings worth
millions of dollars from retired judge Kamo Manukyan. They were stored
unguarded in his empty apartment. The 13 paintings stolen included
works by Frenchman Georges-Pierre Seurat, the founder of
neo-impressionism, Russian seascape painter Ivan Aivazovsky, and
Russian expressionist Alexej Jawlenski.
(Reuters, 7/10/07)
2007 Jul 14, Russia suspended its
participation in a key European arms control treaty that governs
deployment of troops on the continent. Under the moratorium, Russia
will halt inspections and verifications of its military sites by NATO
countries and will no longer limit the number of its conventional
weapons. The treaty, between Russian and NATO members, was signed in
1990 and amended in 1999 to reflect changes since the breakup of the
Soviet Union, adding the requirement that Moscow withdraw troops from
the former Soviet republics of Moldova and Georgia. Russia has ratified
the amended version, but the United States and other NATO members have
refused to do so until Russia completely withdraws.
(AP, 7/14/07)
2007 Jul 15, Marina Pisareva (47),
the deputy head of a small Russian division of German media company
Bertelsmann AG, was found dead at her summer house near Moscow,
possibly stabbed with her own dagger.
(AP, 7/16/07)
2007 Jul 16, Britain ordered the
expulsion of four Russian diplomats because of Moscow's refusal to
extradite the lead suspect in the fatal poisoning of a former KGB
officer in London.
(AP, 7/17/07)
2007 Jul 17, Russia vowed a
"targeted and appropriate" response to Britain's expulsion of four
diplomats in a mounting confrontation over the probe into the radiation
poisoning death of a former KGB officer.
(AP, 7/17/07)
2007 Jul 18, An explosion tore
through a crowd of mourners at a cemetery in southern Russia, wounding
at least 10 people, including four police officers. The funeral was for
an ethnic Russian woman who had been fatally shot along with her two
grown children July 16 in Ingushetia.
(AP, 7/19/07)
2007 Jul 19, Russia announced the
tit-for-tat expulsion of four British diplomats, a visa ban on British
officials and the suspension of bilateral counter-terrorism cooperation
amid a mounting diplomatic row. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
called on Russia to honor Britain's request to extradite the chief
suspect over the murder of former agent Alexander Litvinenko.
(AFP, 7/19/07)
2007 Jul 21, Attackers dressed in
dark clothes and wielding metal pipes raided a camp of environmental
protesters near Angarsk, Siberia, leaving one dead and several injured.
Over 20 demonstrators belonging to Autonomous Action had been camped
out by a reservoir, about 2,600 miles east of Moscow, to protest
nuclear waste processing at the state-owned Angarsk Electrolysis
Chemical Plant. Ilya Borodayenko (26) died from a cracked skull. One of
the attackers was later identified as Pavel Rikhvanov, the son of
Marina Rikhvanov, founder of the Baikal Ecological Wave environmental
group.
(AP, 7/21/07)(WSJ, 10/29/07, p.A1)
2007 Jul 26, The European Court of
Human Rights ordered the Russian government to pay damages of $196,000
to the family members of 11 Chechen civilians killed by Russian
soldiers in 2000, when security forces rampaged through Novye Aldi,
setting fire to houses and killing at least 50 civilians.
(AP, 7/27/07)
2007 Jul 27, Russia said it
planned to send a small submarine to the ocean floor under the North
Pole to stake a claim to the region.
(WSJ, 1/28/07, p.A1)
2007 Jul 29, A 43-year-old Russian
cargo plane crashed minutes after taking off from a Moscow airport,
killing all seven crew on board.
(AP, 7/29/07)
2007 Aug 1, Russian explorers
readied for a historic descent to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean under
the North Pole as part of an expedition to claim the area for Russia.
(AP, 8/1/07)
2007 Aug 1, Russia's
state-controlled gas monopoly said that it will reduce natural gas
supplies to Belarus by 45 percent as of Aug 3 after Minsk failed to pay
in full for previous gas shipments.
(AP, 8/1/07)
2007 Aug 2, Two deep-diving
Russian mini-submarines descended more than 2 1/2 miles under North
Pole ice to stake a flag on the ocean floor, part of a quest to bolster
Russian claims to much of the Arctic's oil-and-mineral wealth.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 2, A 6.4-magnitude quake
struck on the southern tip of Sakhalin island, just north of Japan. At
least 2 people were killed and some 2,000 in Nevelsk moved to tent
camps after the powerful earthquake left apartment buildings in ruins.
(AP, 8/3/07)
2007 Aug 2, An unmanned Russian
cargo ship carrying over 2.5 tons of supplies, equipment and gifts
blasted off for the international space station.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 2, Canada dismissed
Russia's claim to a large chunk of the resource-rich Arctic, saying the
tactic was more suited to the 15th century than the real world.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 3, About 50 women
occupied a central square in Makhachkala, Dagestan, declaring a hunger
strike and vowing not to leave until authorities tell them what
happened to their missing children. The president of Dagestan, Mukhu
Aliev, admitted last month that 76 people have been kidnapped so far
this year in Dagestan. In six of those cases, the abductors wore
camouflage uniforms similar to those worn by law enforcement officers.
(AP, 8/4/07)
2007 Aug 6, A Moscow court
convicted Alexei Pichugin, former top security officer with the
dismantled Yukos oil company in the deaths of 3 people, sentencing him
to life in prison in a retrial. Russia deployed new air defense systems
capable of shooting down ballistic missiles, and the air force chief
said the weapon could be used to protect 2014 Winter Olympics in the
Black Sea resort of Sochi.
(AP, 8/6/07)(AP, 8/6/07)
2007 Aug 7, A European diplomat
said that Russian officials told the Iranians about two weeks ago that
Russian fuel roads to the Bushehr reactor would be held back as long as
unresolved questions about Tehran's past nuclear activities remained.
(AP, 8/7/07)
2007 Aug 7, Georgia accused Russia
of "undisguised aggression," saying two Russian fighter jets intruded
on its airspace and fired a missile that landed near a house. Russia
denied the allegation.
(AP, 8/7/07)
2007 Aug 7, In Nigeria 6 Russian
hostages, kidnapped on June 3, were freed in the oil producing Niger
Delta after two months in captivity. Rusal, the world's largest
aluminium producer, acquired 77 percent of the Nigerian company Alscon
in February.
(AFP, 8/7/07)
2007 Aug 12, A video was posted on
Russian ultranationalist sites of the Internet showing the brutal
execution of two men from Central Asia and the Caucasus. The man who
posted the video turned himself on Aug 14 in Maikop, capital of the
southern Russian republic of Adygei.
(AP, 8/15/07)
2007 Aug 13, A bomb explosion
threw the Neva Express train, which was en route from Moscow to St.
Petersburg, off the tracks and injuring 60 people. Suspicion fell on
representatives of extremist nationalist organizations.
(AP, 8/14/07)(AP, 8/15/07)
2007 Aug 14, Tikhon Khrennikov
(94), Stalin’s music master, died. His 1939 opera “Into the Storm,”
based on a novel by Nikolai Virta, was the first in which Lenin
appeared as a character on the stage.
(Econ, 9/1/07, p.77)
2007 Aug 15, Sergei Sinkonen and
another conscript came upon the officers celebrating a wedding not far
from their unit at the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northwestern
Russia. The officers thought the conscripts had fled and beat them with
army belts, and put Sinkonen in a kennel with guard dogs, where he was
found the next morning in serious condition. Sinkonen died Aug 27.
(AP, 8/29/07)
2007 Aug 16, US authorities
indicted Igor Klopow (24), a Russian national, for his role in an ID
theft gang that targeted wealthy individuals. Klopow was lured to the
US and arrested under the Brooklyn Bridge.
(WSJ, 8/17/07, p.B2)
2007 Aug 17, Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin said that he had ordered the military to resume regular
long-range flights of strategic bombers.
(AP, 8/17/07)
2007 Aug 17, The six members of
the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) held their first joint
maneuvers on Russian land in a demonstration of their growing military
ties and a shared desire to counter US global clout. The presidents of
Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan
attended the unprecedented joint military exercises in Chelyabinsk near
the Kazakh border.
(AFP, 8/17/07)
2007 Aug 21, Russian news agencies
reported that authorities have detained a high-level narcotics officer
they say was behind large-scale drug sales over the Internet.
(AP, 8/21/07)
2007 Aug 22, Russia nominated
Josef Tosovsky, a former Czech prime minister and head of that
country's central bank, to head the International Monetary Fund, a move
that put the Kremlin and the European Union at odds. The Czech Republic
repudiated the move and endorsed the EU’s choice.
(AP, 8/22/07)(WSJ, 8/23/07, p.A1)
2007 Aug 22, In Ingushetia,
Russia, one serviceman was killed and five were wounded when gunmen
attacked their armored personnel carrier with grenades and automatic
weapons fire.
(AP, 8/24/07)
2007 Aug 23, A Russian scientist
said that fresh test results back his country's legal bid to take
control of the Arctic. Russian geologists have previously estimated the
Arctic seabed has at least 9 to 10 billion tons of fuel equivalent,
about the same as Russia's total oil reserves.
(AP, 8/23/07)
2007 Aug 23, A shootout in
Chechnya's capital left two policemen and a rebel dead. A group of
about 30 camouflage-clad gunmen set on fire the houses of two police
officers and the local administration building in the Chechen village
of Yandi.
(AP, 8/24/07)
2007 Aug 23, In Dagestan, Russia,
gunmen ambushed security forces, killing three people and wounding 17.
(AP, 8/24/07)
2007 Aug 24, Russia issued an
international warrant for the arrest of Mikhail Gutseriyev, two days
after the death in Moscow of his 21-year-old son. Chingiskhan
Gutseriyev died in his sleep after a minor car accident, raising
suspicions that he was killed to send a message to his father. On Sep 5
a court upheld a warrant for his arrest and refused to lift a freeze on
the shares of his company, Russneft. The freeze has blocked a sale that
would have handed him an estimated $3 billion.
(AP, 9/6/07)
2007 Aug 24, Georgia said it fired
on a Russian plane flying over its territory. The Tbilisi City Court,
behind closed doors, convicted 13 people from minor opposition parties
for plotting a violent overthrow of the government. Maia Topuria, the
lead defendant and head of the pro-Moscow Justice party, was sentenced
to 8 ½ years in prison.
(WSJ, 8/25/07,
p.A1)(www.geotimes.ge/index.php?m=home&newsid=6353)
2007 Aug 25, A senior official of
the separatist region said a plane of uncertain origin went down over
Abkhazia, a day after Georgia reported that its forces fired on a plane
believed to be Russian that had violated the country's airspace.
(AP, 8/25/07)
2007 Aug 27, Russia announced the
arrest of 10 people in the killing of journalist and Kremlin critic
Anna Politkovskaya. Russia's top prosecutor said a Chechen crime boss,
Russian police and security officers were involved in the death of the
journalist Anna Politkovskaya. But he suggested that someone outside
Russia masterminded the killing of the frequent Kremlin critic.
(AP, 8/27/07)(AP, 8/27/08)
2007 Aug 31, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia will accept a partition of
Serbia's Kosovo province if that is the solution agreed by Belgrade and
Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority. Both Serbia and the Kosovo Albanians
have said they oppose partition but they have shown no sign of reaching
agreement on the central issue of independence for Kosovo.
(Reuters, 8/31/07)
2007 Aug 31, A car bomb exploded
near a police vehicle in Russia's troubled North Caucasus region,
killing four police officers in Nazran, Ingushetia.
(AP, 8/31/07)
2007 Sep 4, In Russia’s Voronezh
region an explosion killed three people at a sugar refinery owned by
Prodimex Group, one of the country's largest producers.
(Reuters, 9/4/07)
2007 Sep 4, Alain Robert climbed
to the top of Moscow’s 795-feet-high West Federation Tower, in less
than a half-hour using a ladder.
(AP, 9/5/07)
2007 Sep 6, Indonesia and Russia
signed a $1 billion defense deal that will allow Indonesia to buy
dozens of helicopters, tanks and submarines, part of visiting Russian
President Vladimir Putin's efforts to boost his country's military
clout in Asia.
(AP, 9/6/07)
2007 Sep 6, An unmanned Russian
rocket carrying a Japanese communications satellite malfunctioned after
liftoff, sending parts crashing in an uninhabited part of Kazakhstan
and triggering concerns about environmental damage.
(AP, 9/6/07)
2007 Sep 6, Australian PM John
Howard said he would tell Russian President Vladimir Putin that he
would not approve the sale of uranium to Moscow if there was any
possibility it could be resold to Iran or Syria.
(Reuters, 9/6/07)
2007 Sep 7, Leaders of Australia
and Russia signed a deal to export Australian uranium to fuel Russian
nuclear reactors, but promised it would not be transferred to Iran's
disputed atomic program.
(AP, 9/7/07)
2007 Sep 10, Lithuanian PM
Gediminas Kirkilas said at a Seimas session that Lithuania will
increase its tariffs for transiting natural gas to the Kaliningrad
region proportionally to any gas hikes in the price Russia charges its
Lithuanian customers.
(www.interfax.com/3/311558/news.aspx)
2007 Sep 11, State television
reported that the Russian military has successfully tested what it
described as the world's most powerful non-nuclear air-delivered bomb.
The Russian bomb is a "thermobaric" weapon that explodes in an intense
fireball combined with a devastating blast. It explodes in a terrifying
nuclear bomb-like mushroom cloud and wreaks destruction through a
massive shock wave created by the air burst and high temperature.
(AP, 9/12/07)
2007 Sep 11, American, Russian and
Chinese nuclear experts began a rare visit to North Korea to examine
ways of disabling the country's main nuclear facilities so they can no
longer produce bombs.
(AP, 9/11/07)
2007 Sep 12, Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin dismissed his long-serving PM Mikhail Fradkov and
nominated little-known Cabinet official Victor Zubkov (b.1941) to
replace him in a surprise move that could put Zubkov in the running to
replace Putin next year.
(AP, 9/12/07)(WSJ, 9/13/07, p.A3)(Econ, 9/15/07,
p.64)
2007 Sep 12, Serbia warned the EU
it would not accept any decision on Kosovo taken outside the UN, and
its ally Russia told the US to stop backing Kosovo independence while
talks continue.
(AP, 9/12/07)
2007 Sep 13, In Moscow Shamil
Burayev, the former head of a district in Chechnya, was arrested on
suspicion of organizing the execution-style murder of investigative
journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
(AP, 9/15/07)
2007 Sep 16, In Russia former KGB
officer Andrei Lugovoi, the sole suspect in the radiation poisoning
death of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, announced plans to run
for parliament on the ticket of a pro-Kremlin ultranationalist party.
(AP, 9/16/07)
2007 Sep 17, Sotheby's canceled a
London auction Set for Sep 18 after Alisher Usmanov, a Russian tycoon
paid about 25 percent more than the estimated price for the art
collection of the late cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. A government
agency "presented some guarantees to Sotheby's that this transaction
would be in the interest of the Russian Federation."
(AP, 9/18/07)
2007 Sep 19, In Moscow Iraq's
foreign minister said Iraqi authorities have arrested a man suspected
of organizing the murder of four Russian diplomats in Baghdad last
year. Hoyshan Zebari identified the suspect as a man named Abu Nur and
said he was a member of the terrorist group al-Qaida in Iraq.
(AP, 9/19/07)
2007 Sep 20, Estonia decided it
will not allow a German-Russian consortium to conduct a survey of its
exclusive economic zone in the Baltic Sea for a planned underwater gas
pipeline.
(AP, 9/20/07)
2007 Sep 24, Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin named a new government, tapping new economics and health
ministers and retaining his foreign and defense ministers in an
expected but largely cosmetic shuffle before parliamentary and
presidential elections.
(AP, 9/25/07)
2007 Sep 26, Russia unveiled its
regional 95-seat Superjet-100, a government-backed effort to
re-energize the country's ailing aviation industry and get into a
market now dominated by Bombardier and Embraer.
(AP, 9/26/07)
2007 Sep 30, Garry Kasparov,
former world chess champion, entered Russia's presidential race,
elected overwhelmingly as the candidate for the country's beleaguered
opposition coalition.
(AP, 9/30/07)
2007 Sep, In Russia construction
began in Moscow on Russia Tower, slated to be Europe’s tallest
building, at over 1900 feet, on completion in 2012.
(WSJ, 6/25/08, p.C14)
2007 Sep, Lotte, South Korea’s
biggest department store chain, opened its first foreign store in
Moscow, Russia.
(Econ, 6/28/08, p.72)
2007 Oct 1, President Vladimir
Putin said he would lead the dominant party's ticket in December
parliamentary elections and suggested he could become prime minister,
the strongest sign yet that he will try to keep power after he leaves
office.
(AP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 3, In Russia workers
rebuilding a 19th century Moscow house dug up the remains of nearly
three dozen people. An estimated 34 people were found. Some of the
remains, which were found under a basement of a house on the estate,
had gunshot wounds to the skull and appeared to date back to the 1930s.
Sergei Buluchevsky, a government investigator, later said preliminary
forensic findings indicated the remains were at least a century old and
that there were no signs of violent death.
(AP, 10/4/07)(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 3, Russian and US space
chiefs signed agreements in Moscow to cooperate on unmanned missions
that would search for potential water deposits beneath the surface of
the moon and Mars.
(AP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 6, Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin said former Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov will be
appointed head of the country's foreign intelligence service.
(AP, 10/6/07)
2007 Oct 9, Alexander Pichushkin
(33), a Russian man accused of murdering 49 people, asked a Moscow
court to add another eleven victims to his tally, and told a jury when
he first strangled a man it was like falling in love for the first
time. He has been branded the 'chessboard murderer' by Russian
newspapers because he hoped to put a coin on every square of a 64-place
chessboard for each murder.
(Reuters, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 10, A spokeswoman for
Other Russia said Russian electoral officials have barred the vocal
opposition alliance from participating in December parliamentary
elections. Election commission chief Vladimir Churov said Other Russia
was barred because it was not registered as a political party.
(AP, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 10, A Russian rocket
blasted off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur launch pad, carrying 3
astronauts to the international space station. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor,
an orthopedic surgeon and university lecturer from Kuala Lumpur, left
Earth alongside Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and American
astronaut Peggy Whitson. Shukor was selected from among 11,000
Malaysian candidates to fly aboard the ISS in a deal his government
arranged with Russia as part of a $1 billion purchase of Russian
fighter jets. Whitson will be the first woman to command the outpost.
(Reuters, 9/20/07)(AP, 10/10/07)(SFC, 10/11/07, p.A8)
2007 Oct 13, US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, after meeting with human-rights activists in Moscow,
told reporters the Russian government under Vladimir Putin had amassed
so much central authority that the power-grab could undermine its
commitment to democracy.
(AP, 10/13/08)
2007 Oct 15,
In Germany Pres. Putin held talks with German Chancellor Angela
Merkel on the sidelines of a German-Russian political conference called
the Petersburg Dialogue.
(AFP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 15, Russia’s Agriculture
Minister Alexei Gordeyev said that major food producers and retailers
had agreed to fix their prices at the current level following talks
with the government. The prices for basic foods will be fixed until
January 31, 2008, a period which covers parliamentary elections.
(www.prime-tass.com/news/show.asp?topicid=54&id=428507)(Econ,
10/27/07, p.63)
2007 Oct 16, In
Iran Russian leader Vladimir Putin met his Iranian
counterpart and implicitly warned the US not to use a former Soviet
republic to stage an attack on Iran. He also said nations should not
pursue oil pipeline projects that are not backed by regional powers.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 16, A revolt at a Russian
prison for minors, in the Sverdlovsk region in the Ural Mountains,
swelled into a mass uprising that left two people dead and buildings
gutted before guards and riot police restored order.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17, Interfax reported
that Russia has charged a lieutenant colonel in the security service
and 8 others for the Oct 7, 2006, slaying of anti-Kremlin journalist
Ann Politkovskaya.
(WSJ, 10/18/07, p.A1)(Reuters,
10/17/07)
2007 Oct 18,
Israeli PM Ehud Olmert flew to Moscow in a surprise visit to
discuss Iran's nuclear program with President Vladimir Putin, who just
returned from talks with Iranian leaders in Tehran. Olmert pressed
Russian President Vladimir Putin to support new sanctions against Iran
over its nuclear activities and urged Russia not to sell arms to Iran
or Syria.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 20, In Moscow a group of
teens killed Sergei Nikolayev (46), a professional chess player from
Yakutia. The group attacked more than 10 people over several months
late this year. In 2008 a Moscow court convicted 12 teenage boys and a
man of committing the series of vicious ethnic attacks, which were
videotaped, set to heavy music and widely disseminated on Web sites.
(http://english.pravda.ru/russia/history/23-09-2008/106430-skinheads-0)(AP,
9/23/08)
2007 Oct 21, A technical glitch
sent a Soyuz spacecraft on a wild ride home, forcing Malaysia's first
space traveler and two Russian cosmonauts to endure eight times the
force of gravity before their capsule landed safely.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 23,
A bomb courier accidentally blew up a taxi in Russia's Dagestan
region, killing herself and wounding eight other people.
(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 24, Alexander Pichushkin
(33), a Russian former grocery clerk, was found guilty of murdering 48
people in Moscow. On Oct 29 he was sentenced to life in a hard labor
colony.
(AP, 10/24/07)(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 25, Amnesty International
said human rights violations in the Russian region of Ingushetia have
increased with a surge in abductions and beatings.
(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 28, A Moscow court
sentenced Alexander Pichushkin, convicted of 48 murders, to life
imprisonment, ending one of Russia's worst serial killer cases.
(AP, 10/29/08)
2007 Oct 31, A bomb ripped through
a passenger bus in the central Russian city of Togliatti, killing eight
people and injuring 48. Togliatti is a city on the Volga River known as
the headquarters of Russia's largest carmaker, AvtoVAZ, which returned
to state control in 2005. The city has a reputation for gang violence
as varying groups have competed for control over the lucrative factory.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct, Russian oil production
peaked at 9.9 million barrels a day. The state creamed off as much as
92% of profits hindering incentives for production and development.
(Econ, 5/10/08, p.71)
2007 Nov 2, Igor Moiseyev (101),
called the king of folk dance, died in Moscow. In 1937 he founded the
Moiseyev Dance Company which went on to inspire folk dance companies in
many other countries.
(SFC, 11/3/07, p.B5)
2007 Nov 3, In Russia some 1,500
people, half of them pensioners, marched through St. Petersburg
chanting anti-Kremlin slogans and banging saucepans in protest against
rising food prices.
(Reuters, 11/3/07)
2007 Nov 4, Some 5,000
nationalists turned out for the Russian March, held for the third year
on National Unity Day, a holiday the Kremlin created in 2005 to replace
the traditional Nov. 7 celebration of the 1917 Bolshevik rise to power.
Preston Wiginton (43), a white supremacist from Texas, addressed
thousands of Russian nationalists at the rally. A fire tore through a
nursing home in Russia, killing at least 31 people, the latest in a
series of deadly blazes that have underscored negligence and other
problems plaguing state-run institutions.
(AP, 11/4/07)(AP, 11/5/07)
2007 Nov 11, A severe storm broke
the Volganeft-139, a small Russian oil tanker, in two in the Strait of
Kerch, spilling at least 560,000 gallons of fuel into the strait
between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. A Russian official said it
was an "environmental disaster." 8 seamen were left missing. Two
freighters nearby also sank under 18-foot waves in storm. As many as 10
ships sank or ran aground in the area.
(AP, 11/11/07)(Reuters, 11/12/07)(SFC, 11/12/07,
p.A15)
2007 Nov 12, Alexander Tkachyov,
governor of Russia’s Krasnodar region, said more than 30,000 birds and
countless fish have been killed in an "ecological catastrophe" wrought
by thousands of tons of oil from a tanker that broke apart in a heavy
storm near the Black Sea. 3 bodies washed ashore and 20 sailors
remained missing after the sinking of at least 11 ships.
(AP, 11/12/07)(SFC, 11/13/07, p.A10)
2007 Nov 13, The British Virgin
Islands told the US there is overwhelming evidence that Leonid Reiman,
Russia’s Telecommunications Minister owns much of Russia’s telecom
industry through an offshore fund.
(WSJ, 11/14/07, p.A1)
2007 Nov 15, Sergei Storchak, one
of Russia’s top authorities on international financial relations, was
detained. Investigators on Nov 19 revealed details in the arrest of the
deputy finance minister who allegedly tried to embezzle $43 million in
budget funds.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 15, A top Russian general
said that Russia has completed its withdrawal of troops that had been
based in Georgia since the Soviet collapse. He said peacekeepers
remained in Abkhazia along with forces in South Ossetia with the
participation of Georgia.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 16, The Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said its election observers
would be unable to monitor next month's Russian parliamentary balloting
because Moscow had refused to issue them visas. All 56 OSCE member
countries, including Russia, agreed in 1990 to invite international
observers to monitor their elections.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 19, The US and Russia
announced an agreement on how to safely dispose 34 metric tons of
Russian weapons-grade plutonium.
(SFC, 11/20/07, p.A11)
2007 Nov 20, President Vladimir
Putin said that Russia's decision to suspend its participation in a key
arms control treaty was a necessary response to NATO "muscle-flexing"
near its frontiers. The 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE)
treaty, which originally set limits on weapons of NATO and Warsaw Pact
countries, was revised in 1999. Russia ratified the updated treaty in
2004, but the US and other NATO members have refused to follow suit,
saying Moscow first must fulfill obligations to withdraw forces from
Georgia and from Moldova's separatist Trans-Dniester region.
(AP, 11/20/07)
2007 Nov 22, A passenger bus
caught fire and exploded in southern Russia, killing at least five
people and wounding 12. Investigators in North Ossetia said terrorism
was the likely cause.
(AP, 11/23/07)
2007 Nov 23, Vladimir Kryuchkov
(83), the Soviet Union's former KGB chief and one of Russia's most
influential hardline spy masters, died. Kryuchkov's biggest failure was
the defection to Britain in 1985 of Oleg Gordievsky, the highest
ranking KGB defector in its history.
(Reuters, 11/25/07)
2007 Nov 24, Russian police in
Moscow detained opposition leader and former world chess champion Garry
Kasparov and several other anti-Kremlin protesters when thousands of
people marched against President Vladimir Putin.
(Reuters, 11/24/07)
2007 Nov 25, Dozens of members of
a Russian opposition party and other activists were detained by police
as they tried to gather for a protest rally in central St. Petersburg.
(AP, 11/25/07)
2007 Nov 27, PM Donald Tusk
announced that Poland will drop its opposition to Moscow's bid to join
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in a
drive to improve ties with Russia.
(AP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 29, In Russia tycoon and
Kremlin critic Boris Berezovsky was convicted in absentia of embezzling
millions of dollars from the national airline, Aeroflot, and reportedly
sentenced to six years in prison.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov 30, President Vladimir
Putin signed a law suspending Russia's participation in the
Conventional Forces in Europe treaty.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Nov 30, In Russia fund
manager Oleg Shvartsman said in an interview in Kommersant, a
mainstream business newspaper, that his $3.2 billion fund was closely
connected to the Kremlin’s administration and security services.
Shvartsman said he reported indirectly to Igor Sechin, chair of the
Rosneft oil company.
(Econ, 12/8/07, p.60)
2007 Dec 2, Russians voted in a
parliamentary election. Putin's United Russia party swept 70 percent of
seats in parliament.
(AP, 12/2/07)(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 3, Foreign observers and
Russian opposition groups accused authorities of manipulating a
sweeping parliamentary election victory for the party of President
Vladimir Putin, who hailed the results as a validation of his
leadership. With ballots from nearly 98 percent of precincts counted,
Putin's United Russia party was leading with 64.1 percent of the vote.
Europe joined the US in demanding Russia investigate alleged abuses in
the election, and Germany denounced the poll as undemocratic.
(AP, 12/3/07)(Reuters, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 3, A Moscow court
convicted Igor Reshetin, the head of the company TsNIIMASH-Export, a
rocket and space technology company, on charges of leaking sensitive
technology to China. This was the latest case involving a Russian
scientist who was prosecuted despite claims the sensitive materials
were in the public domain. Reshetin was sentenced to 11 1/2 years in
prison after prosecutors said the information Reshetin had handed over
to the Chinese could be used for building missiles capable of carrying
nuclear warheads.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 9, A blast on a bus in
Russia’s Stavropol region killed two people. An exploding gas canister
was suspected.
(Reuters, 12/9/07)
2007 Dec 10, President Vladimir
Putin threw his support behind first Deputy PM Dmitry Medvedev (b.1965)
as his successor, saying that electing him president would keep Russia
on the same course of the past eight years. Medvedev also served as
chairman of AOA Gazprom, the state-controlled energy giant.
(AP, 12/10/07)(WSJ, 12/11/07, p.A22)
2007 Dec 11, A judge from the top
court in southern Russia's violence-plagued Dagestan region was fatally
shot by an unidentified attacker. Dagestan Supreme Court Justice Kurban
Pashayev was shot more than 10 times with a pistol in the entranceway
of his apartment building in the provincial capital, Makhachkala. In
Ingushetia an 18-year-old rookie in an elite police unit was fatally
shot by attackers who fired at him at close range from a passing car as
he was walking home after work.
(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 12, Russia ordered a
British cultural organization to suspend all of its operations outside
Moscow at the beginning of 2008, the latest move in a long-running
dispute. Russian officials accused the British Council, a
non-governmental organization that acts as the cultural department of
the British Embassy, of operating illegally in St. Petersburg and
Yekaterinburg.
(AP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 12, Veteran diplomat Yuli
Vorontsov (78), who served the Soviet Union and Russia as ambassador to
Afghanistan (1988-99) and the United States (1994-2000) in a career
spanning the Cold War and the Gulf War, died in Moscow.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 13, Opposition leader
Garry Kasparov said the Kremlin has stopped him from running for
president by preventing his supporters from meeting to nominate him.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 13, Russia and Iran
reached agreement on a schedule for finishing construction of a nuclear
power plant that plays a central role in the international tensions
over Iran's atomic program, Russian news agencies reported.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 13, Japan said that
Russia seized four Japanese fishing boats in disputed waters between
the two countries, calling the detention unacceptable and demanding an
explanation from Moscow.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 14, The leaders Belarus
and Russia pledged closer cooperation on military, economic and foreign
policy but gave no indication that the ex-Soviet neighbors were moving
closer to a long-discussed full merger.
(AP, 12/14/07)
2007 Dec 15, Russia's
state-controlled gas monopoly said Belarus will pay nearly 20 percent
more for Russian gas beginning next year.
(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 16, Russian authorities
expelled a Moldovan journalist critical of the Kremlin in a move
condemned by media watchdogs.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 17, Russian President
Vladimir Putin said he was ready to become prime minister if his close
ally Dmitry Medvedev succeeds him, giving Putin a way to keep a grip on
power after he leaves the Kremlin.
(Reuters, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 17, Iranian Vice
President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh said the first nuclear fuel shipment
for the Bushehr atomic power plant has arrived in Iran from Russia.
Aghazadeh said the Bushehr plant was 95 percent complete and would
begin operations next year.
(AP, 12/17/07)
2007 Dec 19, Time magazine named
Russian President Vladimir Putin its 2007 "Person of the Year."
(AP, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 25, Russia's military
successfully test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile
capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads, a weapon intended to
replace aging Soviet-era missiles.
(AP, 12/25/07)
2007 Dec 25, Oleg Ugnivenko, a
spokesman for the regional branch of Russia's Emergency Situations
Ministry, said more than 600,000 chickens on the Gulyai-Borisovskaya
farm in the Rostov-on-Don region have been destroyed to prevent the
virus from spreading.
(AP, 12/25/07)
2007 Dec 26, An unmanned Russian
cargo ship carrying 2 tons of supplies including holiday gifts, docked
at the international space station.
(AP, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 26, Iran's defense
minister said that Iran had agreed to buy an S-300 surface-to-air
missile system from Russia.
(Reuters, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 28, Iran received the
second shipment of nuclear fuel from Russia for a power plant being
constructed in the southern Iranian town of Bushehr.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Arkady Babchenko, Russian
soldier, authored “A Soldier’s War in Chechnya,” an account of his
service in Chechnya. In 2008 it was translated to English by Nick Allen
and publiched as “One Soldier’s War.”
(Econ, 11/17/07, p.100)(WSJ, 1/22/08, p.D8)
2007 Garry Kasparov, world chess
champion (1985-2000) and current candidate for the presidency of
Russia, authored “How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves from
the Board to the Boardroom.”
(WSJ, 10/25/07, p.D8)
2007 Pres. Putin promoted a new
Russian history manual for teachers entitled “A Modern History of
Russia: 1945-2006.” Professor Oksana Gaman-Golutvina said the material
published in the book did not correspond to what she wrote and said: "I
really do not want my name to be associated with this disgrace."
(Econ, 11/10/07, p.67)(http://tinyurl.com/355n8p)
2007 The US with a population of
301,139,947 counted 1,498,157 soldiers on active duty (~4.9%); China
with a population of 1,321,851,888 counted 2,105,000 soldiers on active
duty (~.159%). Russia with a population of 141,377,752 counted
1,027,000 soldiers on active duty (~7.2%); These numbers excluded
paramilitary troops in China and Russia.
(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.W5)
2008 Jan 1, Britain defied a
Russian order to close the regional offices of its cultural arm from
New Year's day, but there was no evidence of Russian attempts to
forcibly close British Council centers.
(Reuters, 1/1/08)
2008 Jan 4, Russian rescuers saved
11 people stranded for nearly three months in a remote area of the
Pacific coast after a fishing trip went wrong. Their two boats were
damaged in a storm on October 10 during a fishing expedition off the
Kamchatka Peninsula.
(Reuters, 1/4/08)
2008 Jan 9, A natural gas blast
ripped through an apartment building in Russia's Tatarstan region,
killing at least seven people.
(AP, 1/9/08)
2008 Jan 10, Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin named a prominent nationalist politician as ambassador
to NATO at a time of severely strained ties between the two.
(AP, 1/10/08)
2008 Jan 14, Russia’s Foreign
Ministry said no more visas will be issued for new British Council
expatriate employees in Saint Petersburg and Yekaterinburg,
accreditation renewals for existing employees will be blocked and a tax
inquiry will be launched against the Saint Petersburg office after a
British cultural organization reopened offices in defiance of an order
to close. Russia last month ordered the closure of the two regional
offices of the British Council, a nonprofit organization that acts as
the cultural arm of the British Embassy, saying they were operating
illegally.
(AFP, 1/14/08)(AP, 1/14/08)
2008 Jan 15, Britain and Russia
traded threats and recrimination as a diplomatic feud over the role of
the British government's cultural arm worsened.
(Reuters, 1/15/08)
2008 Jan 16, Russia warned
Kosovo's leaders that if they declare independence the territory will
never become a member of the UN or other international political
institutions.
(AP, 1/16/08)
2008 Jan 16, A British cultural
organization accused Russian authorities of harassing its staff and
said it had temporarily closed its offices in St. Petersburg.
(AP, 1/17/08)
2008 Jan 17, Britain accused
Russia of "conduct not worthy of a great country" after what it called
a campaign of intimidation by security services forced its cultural
centers in two Russian cities to halt operations.
(AP, 1/17/08)
2008 Jan 18, Russian President
Vladimir Putin clinched a key pipeline deal with Bulgaria that
strengthens Moscow's grip on European gas markets before issuing a
stern warning about the future status of Kosovo.
(AP, 1/18/08)
2008 Jan 21, Latvia's Foreign
Ministry declared a Russian diplomat persona non grata, citing a report
that he was a threat to national security. On Jan 25 Russia said it
will expel a Latvian diplomat in apparent retaliation. Some 400,000
non-citizens lived in Latvia. Ethnic Russians accounted for a third of
the country's population of 2.3 million.
(AP, 1/25/08)
2008 Jan 22, Serbia agreed to a
multi-billion-dollar gas pipeline project as part of an energy deal
with Russia. This would boost Moscow’s control over gas supplies to
Europe.
(WSJ, 1/23/08, p.A4)
2008 Jan 23, Russia said a new
draft UN resolution on Iran's disputed nuclear program does not call
for any harsh sanctions, and the Iranian president said new measures
would not deter the country in its pursuit of nuclear technology.
(AP, 1/23/08)
2008 Jan 23, Police in Moscow
arrested Semyon Mogilevich, a suspected crime boss with alleged links
to Russia's multibillion dollar gas business. Mogilevich, a
Ukrainian-born Russian citizen, has long been sought by the FBI and
Interpol.
(AP, 1/25/08)
2008 Jan 24, Russian election
officials said Mikhail Kasyanov, the only liberal Kremlin critic in the
presidential race, stands to be kept off the ballot because tens of
thousands of signatures on his nominating petitions were forgeries. In
Moscow Semyon Mogilevich, a businessman wanted by Interpol, was
arrested on tax evasion charges.
(AP, 1/24/08)(Econ, 3/15/08, p.73)
2008 Jan 24, Iran received a sixth
shipment of nuclear fuel from Russia, destined for a power plant being
constructed in the southern port of Bushehr.
(AP, 1/24/08)
2008 Jan 24, In Switzerland the
country's supreme court said prosecutors acted within the law when they
froze funds belonging to the Russian central bank at the behest of a
Swiss firm. The funds were frozen over a legal dispute with
Geneva-based trading firm Noga dating back to the end of the Soviet era.
(AP, 1/24/08)
2008 Jan 25, Russia's lower house
of parliament annulled an agreement with Ukraine on using Soviet-built
military radars, citing Kiev's bid to join NATO.
(AP, 1/25/08)
2008 Jan 26, Russian riot police
fired warning shots into the air and beat demonstrators who tried to
rally against alleged vote-rigging in the Muslim region of Ingushetia.
(AP, 1/26/08)
2008 Jan 27, Mikhail Kasyanov,
former prime minister and the most vocal Kremlin critic in Russia's
presidential contest, was barred from the ballot by election
authorities who said tens of thousands of signatures on his nominating
petitions were faked. Kasyanov denounced the Central Election
Commission's ruling as politically motivated and described the election
as "farce." "I have no doubt that Putin personally made the decision
not to register my candidacy," he said in a statement.
(AP, 1/27/08)
2008 Jan 28, Iran received the
final shipment of uranium fuel from Russia for its first nuclear plant,
state media reported, a key step toward the launch of the reactor's
operations expected later this year.
(AP, 1/28/08)
2008 Jan 30, President Vladimir
Putin and his likely successor called for sweeping environmental
improvements, saying cleaning up Soviet-era pollution and reducing
industrial waste are crucial for Russia's economy and public health.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 30, Imprisoned Russian
oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky launched a hunger strike to protest
authorities' refusal to give his jailed ex-lawyer AIDS medication.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Feb 6, A Russian court
suspended the trial of Vasily Aleksanian, an ailing former executive of
the dismantled oil giant Yukos, but refused to release him from jail to
be treated for AIDS-related cancer and tuberculosis.
(AP, 2/6/08)
2008 Feb 7, The OSCE’s election
monitoring organization said that it will not observe Russia's
presidential election next month because of the "severe restrictions"
imposed by the Kremlin.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 8, Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani welcomed an expected Russian decision to write off 91 percent
of Iraq's estimated $13 billion debt, calling it a "historic turning
point" in relations between the two countries. 5 American soldiers were
killed in two roadside bombings, 4 in Baghdad and one in Tamim province.
(AP, 2/8/08)(AP, 2/9/08)
2008 Feb 12, Russia agreed to
eliminate a murky middleman company from its gas trade with Ukraine in
exchange for 50% share of Ukraine’s domestic gas market.
(WSJ, 2/13/08, p.A5)
2008 Feb 12, China and Russia
challenged the United States at a disarmament debate by formally
presenting a plan to ban weapons in space, a proposal that Washington
has called a diplomatic ploy by the two nations to gain a military
advantage.
(AP, 2/12/08)
2008 Feb 15, Sova, a Russian human
rights group, said hate crimes in Russia have killed 17 people and
injured more than 50 others since the beginning of the year.
(AP, 2/15/08)
2008 Feb 17, Kosovo declared
itself a nation, mounting a historic bid to become an "independent and
democratic state" backed by the US and key European allies but bitterly
contested by Serbia and Russia. Kosovo’s parliament approved a new
flag, a blue background with a yellow map of the Connecticut-sized
province. Russia denounced Kosovo's independence declaration and called
for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, underlining its
opposition.
(AP, 2/17/08)(SFC, 2/18/08, p.A13)
2008 Feb 20, Yevgeny Adamov, the
former atomic energy minister whom Washington accused of stealing
millions in U.S. government funds earmarked for bolstering security at
Russian nuclear plants, was sentenced Wednesday to 5 ½ years in
prison.
(AP, 2/20/08)
2008 Feb, Renault SA invested $1
billion for a 25% stake in Russian car maker OAO Avtovaz.
(WSJ, 3/21/08, p.A1)(Econ, 6/7/08, p.74)
2008 Mar 2, Russians voted for a
new president in an election likely to hand victory to First Deputy
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, President Vladimir Putin's chosen
successor, but criticized by the opposition for a lack of real
competition. With 99.45 percent of the votes counted, Medvedev had
70.23 percent.
(Reuters, 3/2/08)(AP, 3/3/08)
2008 Mar 3, Russia quelled
protests in Moscow following the elections and reduced natural gas
supplies to Ukraine over $600 million in alleged nonpayments for past
deliveries.
(WSJ, 3/4/08, p.A1)
2008 Mar 4, China and Russia
scuttled a Western attempt to introduce a resolution on Iran's nuclear
defiance at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
(AP, 3/4/08)
2008 Mar 5, Russia's state gas
monopoly announced that it was ending a reduction in natural gas
supplies to Ukraine after the two countries' presidents and gas company
chiefs reached an agreement aimed at ending a debt and contract dispute.
(AP, 3/5/08)
2008 Mar 6, Viktor Bout, a
suspected Russian arms dealer, was arrested at a five-star hotel in
downtown Bangkok on allegations that he supplied Colombian rebels with
arms and explosives. He had been accused of flouting UN embargoes and
was wanted by Interpol.
(AP, 3/6/08)
2008 Mar 8, India awarded Russia a
965-million-dollar contract to upgrade its multi-role MiG-29 warplanes.
The two post-Cold War allies signed the deal to extend the life of
India's fleet of 70 MiG-29 jets another 15 years from their current 25
years.
(AFP, 3/10/08)
2008 Mar 11, Serbia and Russia
demanded that the UN administration in Kosovo halt the transfer of
authority to the European Union, calling a handover illegal and
declaring they will never recognize the independence of the Serb
province.
(AP, 3/12/08)
2008 Mar 12, Russia agreed to
extradite Yair Gal Klein, an Israeli mercenary, to Colombia. He was
arrested last year and is accused of training FARC guerrillas.
(Econ, 3/15/08, p.73)
2008 Mar 14, Russian forces raided
a forest camp in the volatile North Caucasus province of Dagestan,
leading to a shootout in which six suspected militants, a police
officer and an Interior Ministry servicemen died.
(AP, 3/14/08)
2008 Mar 19, In the Russian region
of Chechnya 9 people were been killed in an hour-long clash between
police and unidentified gunmen.
(AP, 3/20/08)
2008 Mar 20, A Russian air force
Su-25 fighter jet blew up in flight near the Far East city of
Vladivostok and the pilot was killed.
(AP, 3/20/08)
2008 Mar 21, In Moscow
firefighters found the body of Channel One correspondent Ilyas
Shurpayev (32) in his apartment with stab wounds and a belt around his
neck. He was a native of the mostly Muslim Dagestan province and had
worked in Russia's violence-ridden North Caucasus, which includes
Dagestan and war-scarred Chechnya. Dagestan. On March 31 officials said
that two men from Tajikistan have admitted robbing and killing
Shurpayev.
(AP, 3/21/08)(AP, 3/31/08)
2008 Mar 24, A car bomb exploded
outside a bank in southern Russia's violence-plagued Ingushetia region,
wounding at least five people.
(AP, 3/24/08)
2008 Mar 25, Air travel between
Georgia and Russia resumed, more than 17 months after Moscow suspended
flights because of tension between the ex-Soviet neighbors.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2008 March 29, Azerbaijan customs
halted a shipment of Russian equipment for Iran’s first nuclear power
plant. The equipment was released May 1.
(WSJ, 5/2/08, p.A8)
2008 Apr 2, Russia's foreign
minister said that Moscow will not allow newly independent Kosovo to
become a member of the UN.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 2, Pyotr Kuznetsov,
leader of a Russian doomsday cult, apparently tried to kill himself
after most of his followers abandoned a bunker where they had been
awaiting the end of the world for five months. The last 9 of 35 cult
members emerged on May 16.
(Reuters, 4/4/08)(SFC, 5/17/08, p.A3)
2008 Apr 4, Russian President
Vladimir Putin strongly criticized NATO's eastward expansion plans but
ruled out chances of a new Cold War, insisting that Moscow wants to be
friends with the Western military alliance.
(AP, 4/4/08)
2008 Apr 4, In Russia an
explosion, apparently caused by an accident with gas-powered welding
equipment in an apartment, ripped through a Moscow apartment tower,
blowing out exterior walls, sparking a fire and killing at least three
people.
(AP, 4/4/08)
2008 Apr 6, In Russia President
George W. Bush and Russia's Vladimir Putin ended their last
face-to-face meeting as heads of state with warm words for each other
but no solution to their row over missile defense.
(Reuters, 4/6/08)
2008 Apr 8, A Russian capsule
carrying South Korea's first astronaut and two cosmonauts blasted off
from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, en route to the
international space station.
(AP, 4/8/08)
2008 Apr 13, Khasan Yandiyev (51),
a top judge in Russia's southern troubled province of Ingushetia, was
shot dead. He had led trials of Islamic rebels.
(Reuters, 4/13/08)
2008 Apr 13, The winners of this
year’s Goldman Awards were reported to be: Feliciano dos Santos (43) of
Mozambique, the director of Estamos, an environmental group promoting
sanitation, sustainable development and reforestation; Marina
Rikhvanova (46), founder of Baikal Environmental Wave, which forced the
rerouting of an oil pipeline in the Baikal basin; Pablo Fajardo (35)
and Luis Yanza (48) of Ecuador, co-founders of the Amazon Defense
Front, which accused Texaco (now Chevron) of dumping oil and wastewater
into local streams; Rosa Hilda Ramos (63) of Puerto Rico, head of a
movement to protect the Las Cicharillas Marsh; Ignace Schops (43) of
Belgium, head of a movement to establish Belgium’s 1st and only
national park; Jesus Leon (42) of Mexico, co-founder of the Center for
Integral Small Farmer Development of the Mixtec (CEDICAM).
(SSFC, 4/13/08, p.A4)
2008 Apr 15, President Vladimir
Putin accepted the leadership of the dominant United Russia party,
securing his grip on power after he leaves the Kremlin and becomes PM
next month.
(AP, 4/15/08)
2008 Apr 15, Brazil and Russia
signed an agreement to jointly develop top-line jet fighters and
satellite launch vehicles.
(AP, 4/16/08)
2008 Apr 16, Libyan leader Moamer
Kadhafi hailed Russian President Vladimir Putin's official visit as
"historic and strategic" during a state dinner at the Bab Azizia palace.
(AFP, 4/17/08)
2008 Apr 17, Russian President
Vladimir Putin wrapped up his two-day visit with Libyan leader Moammar
Gadhafi by writing off $4.5 billion in Libyan debts in exchange for
multibillion-dollar deals for Russian companies.
(AP, 4/17/08)
2008 Apr 17, In
Italy Silvio Berlusconi returned to the world
diplomatic stage by hosting Russian President Vladimir Putin at his
villa in Sardinia. The event lost some of its luster when Putin was
forced, before the glare of television cameras, to deny reports he had
secretly divorced his wife and planned to marry an Olympic gymnast.
(Reuters, 4/18/08)
2008 Apr 19, In northern
Kazakhstan a Soyuz capsule, carrying South Korean bioengineer Yi
So-yeon, American astronaut Peggy Whitson and Russian flight engineer
Yuri Malenchenko, landed 260 miles off its mark.
(AP, 4/19/08)
2008 Apr 20, Russia closed down a
plutonium producing reactor in Seversk, marking a milestone in US
nuclear nonproliferation efforts.
(AP, 4/20/08)
2008 Apr 20, A Georgian unmanned
reconnaissance flight was shot down over the Georgian rebel region of
Abkhazia. The next day Georgia's air force commander said a Russian
fighter jet shot down the spy plane as it flew over Abkhazia, but
Russia said it had been shot down by separatist forces and that the
flight violated UN ceasefire agreements. A UN report on May 26 said a
Russian jet shot down the spy drone.
(Reuters, 4/22/08)(AP, 4/22/08)(SFC, 5/27/08, p.A12)
2008 Apr 28, Iran and Russia
discussed the outlines of "serious proposals" aimed at assuring the
international community that Tehran's nuclear program is peaceful,
state media reported.
(AP, 4/28/08)
2008 Apr 28, Russia ordered two
American military attaches at the US Embassy in Moscow to leave the
country following the expulsion of a pair of Russian diplomats from
Washington. One Russian military officer was ordered to leave
Washington in November last year. The second was ordered to leave on
April 22.
(AP, 5/8/08)
2008 Apr 29, Russia announced it
was beefing up its peacekeeping force in Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia
and South Ossetia regions, saying it had evidence Tbilisi was readying
its forces for an attack.
(Reuters, 4/29/08)
2008 Apr 29, European nations
failed to convince Lithuania to allow the EU to launch talks on a new
partnership pact with Russia.
(AFP, 4/29/08)
2008 May 1, Russia said an extra
contingent of its troops had begun arriving in Georgia's breakaway
region of Abkhazia, a move Tbilisi said was an illegal act of military
aggression.
(AP, 5/1/08)
2008 May 6, Russia and the US
signed a long awaited civilian nuclear cooperation pact that will allow
firms from the world's two biggest atomic powers to expand bilateral
nuclear trade.
(AP, 5/6/08)
2008 May 7, Dmitry Medvedev was
inaugurated as Russia's president, pledging to bolster the country's
economic development and civil rights, in what may signal a departure
from his predecessor's heavy-handed tactics.
(AP, 5/7/08)
2008 May 8, Vladimir Putin was
named prime minister of Russia after a fervent speech full of ambitious
plans that overshadowed his low-key successor and suggested that he
will keep a strong hand in ruling the country.
(AP, 5/8/08)
2008 May 15, An unmanned Russian
cargo ship blasted off with supplies, equipment and gifts for the
international space station.
(AP, 5/15/08)
2008 May 20, In Russia Pres.
Medvedev convened top officials and lawyers to set up a task force
aimed at cleaning up the weak and often corrupt court system.
(WSJ, 5/21/08, p.A13)
2008 May 21, In Moscow, Russia,
Manchester United prevailed over Chelsea in the soccer final of the
Champions League.
(Econ, 5/24/08, p.77)
2008 May 23, China and Russia
jointly condemned a US plan for a global missile defense system at the
start of a highly symbolic visit by new Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 24, Russia won the
Eurovision song contest in Belgrade with "Believe", sung by Dima Bilan,
giving an eastern European nation victory for the third time in five
years.
(AFP, 5/25/08)
2008 May 25, EU foreign ministers
approved much delayed plans to begin talks with Russia aimed at forging
a new "strategic partnership."
(AP, 5/26/08)
2008 May 26, A Russian an An-12
cargo plane crashed near Chelyabinsk, Siberia, killing all 9 people
onboard.
(SFC, 5/27/08, p.A3)
2008 Jun 1, Gay rights activists
held small, scattered protests in Moscow, flouting repeated refusals
from city authorities for permission to hold parades or demonstrations.
(AP, 6/1/08)
2008 Jun 3, In Sweden world chess
star turned political activist Garry Kasparov told world news industry
leaders that PM Vladimir Putin had assaulted press freedoms in Russia,
and urged them to challenge Kremlin leaders over the issue.
(AP, 6/4/08)
2008 Jun 5, The European
Parliament called for the peacekeeping mandate for Russian troops in
the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia to be revised. The chamber
also demanded the EU sends its own border mission into the conflict
zone in Abkhazia.
(AP, 6/5/08)
2008 Jun 6, Russia's new Pres.
Medvedev met with leaders of a fractious alliance of ex-Soviet
republics, warning Ukraine and Georgia not to lead their countries into
NATO.
(AP, 6/6/08)
2008 Jun 8, An unidentified gunman
shot and killed a police officer in the city of Nazran in the province
of Ingushetia.
(AP, 6/9/08)
2008 Jun 9, Russia and Norway met
for 2-days talks in the hope of making progress in a decades-old
dispute over their maritime border in the Barents Sea, a part of the
Arctic that could hold large oil and gas reserves. After visiting the
Norwegian town of Kirkenes, the ministers will go to Murmansk in
northwest Russia.
(AP, 6/9/08)
2008 Jun 9, A soldier and a police
officer were killed when unidentified gunmen fired at a train carrying
troops from Chechnya that had pulled in to the town of Khasavyurt in
the republic of Dagestan.
(AP, 6/9/08)
2008 Jun 12, UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon told Kosovo's leaders he intends to reshape the UN mission
there to allow the EU to take on key tasks, according to a letter in
the letter to Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu. Russia demanded
disciplinary action against the head of the UN mission in Kosovo for
preparing to hand over powers to a EU mission that Moscow says is
illegal.
(Reuters, 6/12/08)
2008 Jun 13, Russian officials
said four people were killed in Nazran, the biggest city in the
Ingushetia region, in an explosion that destroyed a building.
(Reuters, 6/13/08)
2008 Jun 22, A Russian film about
a teenager surprised by the sudden appearance of the father she thought
to be dead won the top prize at the 11th Shanghai International Film
Festival. Vladimir Kott's directorial debut "Mukha" was named best
feature film in the Jin Jue Awards announced at the conclusion of the
nine-day festival.
(AP, 6/23/08)
2008 Jun 27, EU and Russian
leaders, meeting in Siberia, agreed to launch formal negotiations on a
new strategic agreement governing relations. A first round of
negotiations will be held in Brussels on July 4.
(Reuters, 6/27/08)
2008 Jun 28, Police in Russia’s
Dagestan province killed three suspected militants, including a woman.
(AP, 6/29/08)
2008 Jun, Andrey Melnichenko (36),
founder of MDM Bank, took delivery of his new yacht designed by
Philippe Starck. The Russian billionaire’s fortune was estimated at
over $4 billion.
(WSJ, 7/17/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 8, In Russia’s Caucasus
region the Interior Ministry of Kabardino-Balkaria province said
unidentified gunmen had riddled the police car with bullets in the
village of Baksan. 3 police officers were killed.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 10, The Interfax news
agency, citing a source in Russia's secret services, reported that the
head of the embassy's trade and investment section, Christopher Bowers,
was believed to be a senior British intelligence officer.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, The Czech Republic’s
Industry and Trade Ministry announced that Russia has reduced its oil
shipments to the country without providing an explanation. The cutback
was announced three days after the nation signed a military agreement
with Washington that the Kremlin strongly opposes.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, Zimbabwe’s opposition
Movement for Democratic Change said a total of 113 MDC supporters have
now been killed in politically-related violence. Zimbabwe's ruling
party and opposition held a second day of talks in South Africa. A UN
Security Council bid to pass sanctions against Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe
was vetoed by Russia and China.
(AP, 7/11/08)(AFP, 7/11/08)(AFP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 14, Russia agreed to
write off $242 million in Tajikistan debt and take control of the Okno
mountaintop station, operational since 2004. It was designed to track
satellites and even fragments of space debris.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 17, A survey team member
said a Russian government audit has revealed that up to 50,000 pieces
are missing from the country’s museums, everything from
Pre-Revolutionary medals and weapons to precious works of art.
(AP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 21, China and Russia
signed an agreement that demarcated their 2,700 mile border ending a
long running border dispute.
(WSJ, 7/22/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 29, Russian news said 2
small, manned submarines reached the bottom of Lake Baikal, the world's
deepest freshwater lake. The "Mir-1" and "Mir-2" submersibles descended
1.05 miles (1,680 meters) to the bottom of the vast Siberian lake.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 30, Alexander Tsygankov,
a Russian oil executive detained in Libya since last November, was
freed, hours before Russian PM Vladimir Putin was due to host the
country's prime minister.
(Reuters, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, Russia’s Pres.
Medvedev said that he had signed an anticorruption plan and that he was
serious about clamping down on graft.
(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A6)
2008 Aug 1, Leonid Nevzlin, a top
manager of the now defunct YUKOS business empire, was sentenced by a
Russian court to life in prison for ordering a series of high profile
murders, a verdict he dismissed as the result of a show trial organized
by the Kremlin.
(Reuters, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 3, The breakaway republic
of South Ossetia began sending hundreds of children across the border
to its Russian ally amid increasing violence between the republic and
Georgian government forces.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 3, Alexander Solzhenitsyn
(b.1918), Russian Nobel literature laureate (1970), died of heart
failure in his Moscow home. His books, which included “One Day in the
Life of Ivan Denisovich” (1962) and "Gulag Archipelago" (1973),
chronicled the horrors of dictator Josef Stalin's slave labor camps. In
1974, he was stripped of his citizenship and put on a plane to West
Germany for refusing to keep silent about his country's past.
(Reuters, 8/4/08)(WSJ, 8/9/08, p.W12)
2008 Aug 3, Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez says 24 Sukhoi fighter jets have been delivered to
Venezuela, and are ready to defend his country from "imperialist"
aggressions.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 7, A device exploded on a
beach in Sochi, a Black Sea Russian resort that will host the 2014
Winter Olympics, killing two people and wounding three.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 7, Heavy shelling
overnight in the Georgian breakaway province of South Ossetia wounded
at least 21 people. Cyber attacks from Russia began to target Georgian
government Web sites. An organization known as the Russian Business
Network was the leading suspect in the attacks. Georgia’s Pres.
Saakashvili ordered the shelling of Tskhinvali, the capital of South
Ossetia.
(AP, 8/7/08)(WSJ, 8/12/08, p.A9)(Econ, 8/30/08, p.49)
2008 Aug 8, Georgian troops
launched a major military offensive to regain control of South Ossetia,
prompting a furious response from Russia, which sent tanks into the
region. The convoy was expected to reach the provincial capital by
evening. Georgia said it shot down two Russian combat planes.
Separatist officials in South Ossetia said 15 civilians had been killed
in fighting overnight. Georgia later acknowledged that it used M85
cluster munition near the Roki tunnel that connects South Ossetia with
Russia, while Russia denied use of cluster bombs.
(AP, 8/8/08)(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Aug 9, Russia sent hundreds
of tanks and troops into the separatist province of South Ossetia and
bombed Georgian towns in a major escalation of the conflict that has
left scores of civilians dead and wounded. Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Moscow that some 1,500 people have been
killed, with the death toll rising. The death toll in South Ossetia was
later put at fewer than 200. Russian military aircraft bombed the
Georgian town of Gori. Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili proposed
a cease-fire. As part of his proposal, Georgian troops were pulled out
of Tskhinvali and had been ordered to stop responding to Russian
shelling.
(AP, 8/9/08)(Econ, 8/30/08, p.49)
2008 Aug 10, Georgian troops
retreated from the breakaway province of South Ossetia and their
government pressed for a truce, overwhelmed by Russian firepower as the
conflict threatened to set off a wider war. Georgia said it has shot
down 10 Russian planes, including four brought down Aug 9. It also
claimed to have captured two Russian pilots, who were shown on Georgian
television. Ukraine warned Russia it could bar Russian navy ships from
returning to their base in the Crimea because of their deployment to
Georgia's coast.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 11, Swarms of Russian
jets launched new raids on Georgian territory and Georgia faced the
threat of a second front of fighting as Russia demanded that Georgia
disarm troops near the breakaway province of Abkhazia.
(AP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 12, Georgia's Pres.
Mikhail Saakashvili said his government will declare that its breakaway
regions are occupied territories and will designate Russian
peacekeepers as occupying forces. Russia ordered a halt to military
action in Georgia, after five days of air and land attacks sent
Georgia's army into headlong retreat and left towns and military bases
destroyed. More than 2,000 people were reported killed. A Dutch
television journalist was killed overnight when Russian warplanes
bombed the central Georgian city of Gori. Russia later counted 133
civilian deaths in South Ossetia. Rights activists later said fewer
than 100 civilians were killed in South Ossetia.
(AP, 8/12/08)(Econ, 8/23/08, p.43)(WSJ, 9/12/08,
p.A1)
2008 Aug 13, Russian tanks rolled
into the crossroads city of Gori then thrust deep into Georgian
territory, violating the truce designed to end the six-day war. Georgia
said that 175 Georgians had died in five days of air and ground attacks
that left homes in smoldering ruins. EU foreign ministers agreed in
principle to send monitors to supervise a French-brokered ceasefire
between Russia and Georgia in the breakaway Georgian region of South
Ossetia. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Russia will spend at least
$400 million in 2008 on restoring South Ossetia's battered capital
Tskhinvali.
(AP, 8/13/08)(Reuters, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 14, Georgian and Russian
troops faced off at a checkpoint outside the key city of Gori, calling
an already shaky cease-fire into question. An American official said
Russia appears to be sabotaging airfields and other military
infrastructure as its forces pull back. The Russian General
Prosecutor's office said it has formally opened a genocide probe into
Georgian treatment of South Ossetians. For its part, Georgia this week
filed a suit against Russia in the International Court of Justice,
alleging murder, rape and mass expulsions in both provinces.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 15, Russian troops
allowed some humanitarian supplies into Georgia’s city of Gori but kept
up their blockade of the strategically located city, raising doubts
about Russia's intentions. Relief planes swooped into Tbilisi with tons
of supplies for the estimated 100,000 people uprooted by the fighting.
An international rights group said it has evidence that Russian
warplanes dropped cluster bombs in civilian areas in Georgia.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 16, Russian forces pulled
back from the center of a town not far from Georgia's capital after
Russia's president signed a cease-fire deal. Russia’s Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov later suggested there would be no immediate broader
withdrawal. Georgia's Foreign Ministry said Saturday that
Russian-backed separatists from the province of Abkhazia had taken over
13 villages in Georgia and a power plant. Russian troops blew up a key
railroad bridge linking the Caucasus to the Black Sea coast.
(AP, 8/16/08)(SSFC, 8/17/08, p.A4)
2008 Aug 17, The Kremlin promised
to start withdrawing combat troops from Georgia on August 18, as
Western pressure mounted on Russia to quit the ex-Soviet republic.
(AFP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 18, Russia said its
military began to withdraw from the conflict zone in Georgia, but left
unclear exactly where troops and tanks will operate under the
cease-fire that ended days of fighting in the former Soviet republic.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 19, Russian soldiers took
20 Georgian troops prisoner at a key port in western Georgia and
commandeered American Humvees awaiting shipment back to the United
States after taking part in earlier US-Georgian military exercises.
Georgia and Russia exchanged prisoners captured during their brief war.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 20, A top Russian general
said 64 of the country's soldiers were killed and 323 wounded in this
month's fighting with Georgia. Russia informed Norway that it plans to
suspend all military ties with NATO, a day after the military alliance
urged Moscow to withdraw its forces from Georgia. Georgia later
reported that 170 of its soldiers were killed in the war.
(AP, 8/20/08)(AP, 8/21/08)(SSFC, 8/24/08, p.A10)
2008 Aug 21, Russian forces
blocked the only land entrance to Georgia's main port city, a day
before Russia promised to complete a troop pullout from its ex-Soviet
neighbor.
(AP, 8/21/08)
2008 Aug 22, A Russian armored
column moved away from a base in western Georgia and Russian forces
also were leaving the key central city of Gori, the day that Russia's
president had said a pullback would be complete.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 23, A top Russian general
said his country's forces will keep patrolling the key Georgian Black
Sea port of Poti even though it lies outside the areas where Russia
claims it has the right to station soldiers in Georgia.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 24, The USS McFaul, a US
Navy warship carrying humanitarian aid, anchored at the Georgian port
of Batumi, sending a strong signal of support to an embattled ally as
Russian forces built up around two separatist regions. In central
Georgia, an oil train exploded and caught fire, sending plumes of black
smoke into the air. A Georgian official said the train hit a land mine
and blamed the explosion on departing Russian forces.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, The Beijing Olympics,
played out against a background of political intrigue and featuring 16
days of compelling and controversial action, drew to a spectacular
close. China's haul of 51 gold medals was the largest since the Soviet
Union won 55 in Seoul in 1988. The US won 36 gold medals and Russia
came in 3rd with 23. Jamaica ended up with 11 medals including 6 gold.
Cuba took home 24 medals, but only 2 gold.
(AP, 8/24/08)(Econ, 8/30/08, p.38)
2008 Aug 25, Russia's parliament
voted unanimously to urge the president to recognize the independence
of Georgia's two breakaway regions, a move likely to stoke further
tensions between Moscow and the small Caucasus nation's Western allies.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned ex-Soviet Moldova against
repeating Georgia's mistake of trying to use force to seize back
control of Transdniestria, a pro-Moscow breakaway region.
(AP, 8/25/08)(Reuters, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 26, Russia formally
recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the breakaway Georgian
territories at the heart of its war with Georgia, heightening tensions
with the West as the US dispatched a military ship bearing aid to a
port city still patrolled by Russian troops. In a direct challenge to
Russia, the US announced it intends to deliver humanitarian aid to the
beleaguered Georgian port city of Poti, which Russian troops still
control through checkpoints on the city's outskirts.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 27, A US military ship
docked at the southern Georgian port of Batumi. Meanwhile, Russia's
missile cruiser, the Aurora, and two missile boats, anchored at the
port of Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia. The moves by both sides
underscored an escalating standoff between Moscow and the West over
this small Caucasus nation devastated by war with Russia.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 27, The Group of Seven
(G7) industrialized democracies condemned Russia for its actions in
Georgia, underlining the country's growing estrangement from the West.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, A Russian military
spokesman said Russia successfully tested a long-range Topol missile,
designed to avoid detection by anti-missile defense systems, from its
Plesetsk launch site. The RS-12M Topol, called the SS-25 Sickle by
NATO, has a maximum range of 10,000 km (6,125 miles) and can carry one
550-kiloton warhead.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, Russian forces turned
over 12 Georgian soldiers on the border of Abkhazia. Georgia's foreign
minister said ethnic Georgians were being cleared from their homes in
South Ossetia. A joint declaration from the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization denounced the use of force and called for respect for
every country's territorial integrity. Mikhail Mindzayev, the interior
minister of South Ossetia, said an unmanned Georgian spy plane was shot
down over South Ossetia by local forces.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, Russia’s PM Vladimir
Putin said 19 US poultry producers will be barred from exporting their
products to Russia. He said the unnamed American producers had ignored
warnings from Russian inspectors who examined poultry companies last
year and that another 29 producers would receive warnings.
(AP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 29, A Georgian Foreign
Ministry official says Georgia is to recall all diplomatic staff from
its embassy in Moscow because of the Russian military presence in
Georgia.
(AP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 30, The UN says Russian
soldiers are telling thousands of refugees in Georgia who want to
return to their homes that their security can't be guaranteed. All
hoped to return to villages that are in the "security zones" that
Russia has claimed for itself. Russian PM Vladimir Putin urged the EU
to ignore calls to punish Moscow over the Georgia conflict as Tbilisi
appealed for targeted punishment of the Russian leadership.
(AP, 8/30/08)(AFP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 31, President Dmitry
Medvedev says Russia will follow the recognition of Georgia's breakaway
provinces with agreements on economic and military aid.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 31, Police arrested
Magomed Yevloyev, the owner of the Ingushetiya.ru web site, taking him
off a plane that had just landed in Ingushetia province. Police whisked
Yevloyev away in a car and later dumped him on the road with a gunshot
wound in the head. Yevloyev died in a hospital shortly afterward.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Sep 2, Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin said that Russia will respond calmly to an increase in
NATO ships in the Black Sea in the aftermath of the short war with
Georgia, but promised that "there will be an answer."
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 2, In Russia's troubled
North Caucasus journalist Telman Alishaev was shot in Dagestan. Islamic
TV reporter Telman Alishaev died at a hospital in Makhachkala the next
day. Journalist Miloslav Bitokov was left with a fractured skull after
a beating in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkariya. Police and co-workers said
the two men were likely targeted for their work.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 4, In Moscow officials
said BP PLC and its billionaire Russian partners in the joint venture
TNK-BP have agreed on a deal that forces out its embattled CEO and
signals an end to a bitter struggle for control of the Russian-British
company.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, Russian troops killed
5 suspected Muslim rebels in Dagestan.
(WSJ, 9/5/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 4, In Georgia US Vice
President Dick Cheney condemned Russia for what he called an
"illegitimate, unilateral attempt" to redraw this US ally's borders by
force.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 5, EU nations called for
an international probe to find out which country should shoulder
responsibility for starting the conflict between Georgia and Russia.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 8, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy pressed Moscow to honor its pledge to withdraw troops
from Georgia, while Russian soldiers prevented international aid
convoys from visiting Georgian villages in a tense zone around the
breakaway province of South Ossetia. Pres. Medvedev and Sarkozy revised
the EU-brokered deal to end the fighting between Russia and Georgia.
Medvedev said 200 EU monitors would deploy to regions surrounding South
Ossetia and Abkhazia by next month. After that, Russian troops would
pull out of those regions by Oct. 11 to a line that preceded last
month's fighting.
(AP, 9/8/08)(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, Russia said it will
station 7,600 troops in South Ossetia and in Abkhazia, announcing an
imposing long-term presence less than a day after agreeing to pull
forces back from areas surrounding the provinces.
(AP, 9/9/08)(WSJ, 9/10/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 9, Serbian lawmakers
ratified a pre-membership agreement with the EU and an oil and gas deal
with Russia after months of heated debate over the direction of the
country's policies.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 10, An unmanned Russian
cargo ship blasted off successfully carrying supplies, equipment and
gifts for the international space station.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, Israeli defense
officials say the government has told all businessmen involved in
military sales to Georgia to immediately cease visits to the former
Soviet republic. The officials said the directive was decided upon this
week because Israel is concerned about damage to its relations with
Russia.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 12, Russia’s Itar-Tass
news reported that Syria’s Tartous port is being renovated to provide a
permanent facility for the Russian navy.
(SFC, 10/3/08, p.A14)
2008 Sep 13, Hundreds of Russian
forces packed up and withdrew from positions in western Georgia. A
Georgian official said Russia had met a deadline for a partial pullout
a month after the war between the two former Soviet republics. A
Georgian policeman at a post near Abkhazia was killed by gunfire that
came from the direction of a position where Abkhazian and Russian
forces have been based. Some 1,200 Russian servicemen still remained at
19 checkpoints and other positions, 12 outside South Ossetia and seven
outside Abkhazia.
(AP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 14, Aeroflot Flight 821,
traveling from Moscow to the Ural Mountains city of Perm, crashed near
residential buildings as it was preparing to land, killing all 88
people aboard, including 21 foreign nationals. A Russian investigator
said the crash of the Boeing-737-500 was most likely caused by engine
failure.
(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 16, Georgia’s government
said intercepted mobile phone calls show that Russian tanks and troops
invaded before Georgia unleashed its offensive against South Ossetia,
pressing its claim that Russia was the aggressor in the war last month.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 17, Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev signed friendship treaties with Georgia's breakaway
regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and promised them the backing of
Russia's armed forces.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 18, Russia ordered its
main stock exchanges closed for a second day as President Dmitry
Medvedev unveiled an expanded $120 billion rescue package and called
for pouring 500 billion rubles ($20 billion) into blue-chip shares in
an effort to stabilize them.
(AP, 9/18/08)(WSJ, 9/19/08, p.A8)
2008 Sep 18, Australia’s PM Kevin
Rudd said the west's relations with Russia are at a turning point after
its intervention in Georgia and a pact to sell Australian uranium to
Moscow is in the balance.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 19, Russian stock
exchanges halted trading after stocks shot higher, rebounding off a
two-day closure amid a financial crisis as the government rushed
through emergency measures that included more money for banks and
purchases of shares to stem plunging prices. Trading resumed later in
the day.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 22, Georgian forces shot
down a Russian drone near the breakaway province of South Ossetia.
(AP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 24, Ruslan Yamadayev
(46), a former Russian lawmaker and brother of a Chechen warlord, was
assassinated as he was stopped at a traffic light just outside the
British Embassy in Moscow.
(AP,
9/25/08)(www.newstin.com/rel/us/en-010-005544799)
2008 Sep 24, In Nicaragua Russia's
ambassador to Managua said that his country will replace the Nicaraguan
army's aging weaponry.
(AP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 25, The Czech
counterintelligence service said Russian spies operating in the Czech
Republic have tried to increase public opposition to a planned US
missile defense facility. Most Czechs oppose the base, according to
recent polls. The Czech Republic's government has approved the missile
defense treaty, but it still requires the approval of the Czech
parliament, where it faces strong opposition.
(AP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 25, Pirates seized the
530-foot, Ukrainian cargo vessel, MV Faina, with 21 people aboard off
eastern Somalia. Russia's navy soon sent a warship to Somalia's coast a
day after pirates seized the Ukrainian vessel loaded with 33 tanks,
ammunition and 3 Russian crew members. The ITAR-Tass news agency said
the military equipment had been sold to Kenya. It was later reported
that the arms were destined for southern Sudan and that Kenya’s
cooperation would be rewarded in the future with cheap oil. The shipped
was released on Feb 5, 2009, following a ransom of $3.2 million.
(AP, 9/26/08)(SFC, 9/27/08, p.A5)(Econ, 10/4/08,
p.49)(AP, 2/5/09)
2008 Sep 26, Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev announced plans to create an upgraded nuclear
deterrence system for Russia by 2020, including a space defense system
and new nuclear submarines.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 28, President Hugo Chavez
said that Russia will help Venezuela develop nuclear energy, a move
likely to raise US concerns over increasingly close cooperation between
Caracas and Moscow.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, US warships and
helicopters surrounded a hijacked cargo ship loaded with Sudan-bound
tanks and other arms to keep the weapons from falling "into the wrong
hands." The shipment of 33 Russian-designed tanks, rifles and
ammunition on the Ukrainian-operated Faina was headed for Sudan, not
Kenya as previously claimed by Kenyan officials. Somali pirates
demanded a $20 million ransom.
(AP, 9/29/08)(SFC, 9/29/08, p.A12)
2008 Sep 29, South Korea said its
state run Korea Gas Corp. signed a memorandum of understanding with
Russia’s Gazprom to import gas from Russia for 30 years starting in
2015 as part of a $102 billion bilateral gas and chemical deal.
(WSJ, 9/30/08, p.A9)
2008 Sep 30, Alexander Lebedev, a
Russian billionaire said he is teaming up with former Soviet President
Mikhail Gorbachev to form a new political party that will challenge the
country's recent steps away from democracy.
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Oct 1, The Russian Supreme
Court declared the last czar and his murdered family to be victims of
political repression, a decision that helps Russia move toward closing
a chapter in its tortured history.
(AP, 10/1/08)
2008 Oct 3, Russian share prices
dropped sharply despite a nearly $200 billion Kremlin rescue plan. Oleg
Deripaska, billionaire tycoon, was reported to have given up his 20%
stake in Magna Int’l., a Canadian auto parts maker, to creditors.
(WSJ, 10/4/08, p.A4)
2008 Oct 3, A car exploded outside
the Russian military's headquarters in South Ossetia, killing 7 people
and wounding 3. The South Ossetian government said a car, that had been
confiscated in an ethnic Georgian village after weapons were found in
it, exploded near a building where leaders of the Russian peacekeeping
force were located.
(AP,
10/3/08)(www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,432172,00.html)
2008 Oct 5, A Georgian Interior
Ministry official said Russian troops have begun dismantling positions
in the so-called security zones inside Georgia that they have occupied
since August's brief but intense war.
(AP, 10/5/08)
2008 Oct 6, Israeli PM Ehud Olmert
visited Moscow, aiming to focus on Russian arms sales to Israel's
enemies. By contrast, Russia hoped the meeting will bolster its image
as a Middle East peacemaker.
(AP, 10/6/08)
2008 Oct 7, Iceland nationalized
its second-largest bank under day-old legislation and negotiated a
euro4 billion ($5.4 billion) loan from Russia to shore up the nation's
finances amid a full-blown financial crisis.
(AP, 10/7/08)
2008 Oct 8, Russian forces pulled
back from positions outside South Ossetia, bulldozing a camp at a key
checkpoint and withdrawing into the separatist region as EU monitors
and relieved Georgian residents looked on.
(AP, 10/8/08)
2008 Oct 11, Russia launched a
ballistic missile from a submarine in a record flight of over 7,100
miles, hitting a target in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for the
first time. Russian TV showed what it said was the Sineva missile
launching from the submarine Tula.
(AP, 10/11/08)
2008 Oct 12, A Soyuz spacecraft
with two Americans and a Russian on board lifted off from Kazakhstan
for the international space station. The Soyuz TMA-13 capsule carried
American computer game millionaire Richard Garriott, US astronaut
Michael Fincke and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov.
(AP, 10/12/08)
2008 Oct 18, At least two Russian
soldiers were killed and 10 others were wounded when rebels ambushed a
military convoy in the Sunzha region of Ingushetia.
(AP, 10/18/08)
2008 Oct 21, Top US and Russian
military officers held an unannounced meeting in Helsinki in an effort
to maintain dialogue after Moscow's crushing defeat of American ally
Georgia.
(Reuters, 10/21/08)
2008 Oct 21, Iran, Russia and
Qatar discussed the formation of an OPEC-style cartel among some of the
largest natural gas producing nations, a prospect that has unnerved
energy-importing nations in Europe and the United States.
(AP, 10/21/08)
2008 Oct 22, Russia's foreign
minister said Moscow wants to negotiate an extension of its lease at
Ukraine's Black Sea port of Sevastopol. The move would keep Russia's
Black Sea Fleet in the port where it has been stationed for centuries.
(AP, 10/22/08)
2008 Oct 23, Russia, which sent a
warship to Somalia's coast to combat pirates, asked the African nation
for carte blanche to use force in its territorial waters.
(Reuters, 10/23/08)
2008 Oct 23, Rebel attacks using
land mines in Chechnya killed one Russian soldier and wounded 10 other
servicemen and police.
(AP, 10/24/08)
2008 Oct 23, The Ukrainian
currency plunged against the dollar as people raced to exchange booths
to convert their savings into US currency. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry
said in a statement that the Russia’s desire to extend its port lease
at Sevastopol "cannot be a subject of discussion." It said that Russian
ships will have to leave Ukrainian waters in 2017.
(AP, 10/23/08)
2008 Oct 24, A Soyuz capsule
carrying an American and two Russians touched down on target in
Kazakhstan after a descent from the international space station, safely
delivering the first two men to follow their fathers into space.
(AP, 10/24/08)
2008 Oct 25, Muslim Magomayev
(66), an Azeri-born Soviet-era opera and pop singer, died in Moscow.
His fame was at its peak in the 1960s and 70s.
(AP, 10/25/08)
2008 Oct 28, A Moscow jury said
Alexei Frenkel (36), former chairman of VIP Bank, ordered the
September, 2006, murder of Andrei Kozlov (41), a Central Bank official.
3 Ukrainians were found guilty of the killing. A 4th Ukrainian and 2
people from Moscow were found guilty as accessories to the murder.
(WSJ, 10/29/08, p.A14)
2008 Oct 29, Russia's parliament
quickly ratified treaties cementing close economic and military ties
with Georgia's two breakaway provinces.
(AP, 10/29/08)
2008 Oct 29, In Germany
Viswanathan Anand of India retained his world chess title by drawing
with the white pieces against Russian challenger Vladimir Kramnik.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 30, Murat Zyazikov (51),
the unpopular leader of Russia's violence-plagued republic of
Ingushetia, said he has resigned. Pres. Medvedev named an apparent
unknown, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, to take over as the republic's acting
president.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 31, Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi, starting his first visit to post-Soviet Russia, planned to
discuss opening a Russian naval base in Libya to counterbalance US
interests in the region.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Nov 4, In Moscow
ultranationalists and anti-immigrant activists tossed smoke grenades
and scuffled with riot police on a national holiday celebrating Russian
unity. Youths assaulted a Turkmen diplomat outside his Moscow consulate
and killed an Uzbek in separate attacks.
(AP, 11/5/08)
2008 Nov 4, Human Rights Watch
reported that both Georgia and Russia used cluster bombs during their
brief summer war. Georgia’s bombs, purchased from Israel, killed at
least 3 Georgian civilians, including 2 who touched unexploded bombs
and died after the fighting ended. Many of the bombs were said to have
malfunctioned.
(WSJ, 11/4/08, p.A12)
2008 Nov 5, Russia will deploy
missiles near NATO member Poland in response to US missile defense
plans, President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday in his first state of
the nation speech.
(AP, 11/5/08)
2008 Nov 6, An suspected suicide
explosion hit a minibus unloading passengers in Vladikavkaz, the
capital of Russia's North Ossetia province, killing 12 people.
(AP, 11/6/08)(Reuters, 11/7/08)
2008 Nov 7, General Motors Corp.
dedicated its first Russian assembly plant, a $300 million,
70,000-car-a-year factory just outside of St. Petersburg.
(AP, 11/7/08)
2008 Nov 8, The fire safety system
on a brand-new Russian nuclear submarine accidentally turned on as the
sub was being tested in the Sea of Japan, spewing chemicals that
suffocated 20 people and sent 21 others to the hospital. The dead
included 17 civilians and 3 seamen. Construction of the Nerpa, an Akula
II class attack submarine, started in 1991 but was suspended for years
because of a shortage of funding. Testing on the submarine began last
month and it submerged for the first time last week.
(AP, 11/9/08)
2008 Nov 11, Russia’s central bank
widened its target band for the currency’s rate against the dollar by
about 1% in each direction. Weeks of rigid defense had fueled a $112
billion decline in reserves. The central bank also raised interest rate
by 1% in an effort to keep money from flowing out of the country.
(WSJ, 11/12/08, p.A8)
2008 Nov 12, Pirates commandeered
the Karagol, a Turkish chemical tanker, off the coast of Yemen. 14
Turkish personnel were aboard the tanker. The Russian frigate
Neustrashimy and the British frigate Cumberland foiled pirates who
fired automatic weapons toward a Danish ship and twice tried to seize
it in the Gulf of Aden. The Karagol was released on Jan 12, 2009.
(AP, 11/12/08)(AP, 1/13/09)
2008 Nov 14, Russian lawmakers
gave preliminary approval for extending presidential terms from four
years to six, a move observers say could pave the way for Vladimir
Putin to return to the presidency.
(AP, 11/14/08)
2008 Nov 16, Russian liberals
launched a pro-Kremlin political party promising to defend middle class
values but rivals said it was just a tool for the authorities to suck
support away from genuine opposition groups.
(Reuters, 11/16/08)
2008 Nov 19, Vladimir Kuznetsov, a
former UN diplomat convicted in the US of money laundering and fraud,
arrived in Moscow and will serve the last 16 months of his sentence in
a Russian prison. Kuznetsov once chaired the UN's powerful budget
oversight committee.
(AP, 11/19/08)
2008 Nov 19, Georgia and Russia
held their first major, mediated talks since their August war.
(WSJ, 11/20/08, p.A1)
2008 Nov 20, Boris Fyodorov (50),
Russian economic reformer, died.
(Econ, 11/29/08, p.88)
2008 Nov 21, Vadim Pokrovsky,
Russia's anti-AIDS coordinator, said the number of registered HIV cases
is growing 10 percent a year despite increased government funding. He
said that the actual number of people with HIV was likely higher than 1
million.
(AP, 11/21/08)
2008 Nov 23, In Georgia gunfire
that broke out as Pres. Saakashvili and Polish Pres. Lech Kaczynski
were traveling near a roadblock at the edge of Georgia-controlled
territory. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said there was no
gunfire from Russian or South Ossetian positions and suggested Georgia
engineered the incident to discredit Russia and South Ossetia. In
Tbilisi Nino Burjanadze, a former ally of Pres. Saakashvili, founded a
new party: the Democratic Movement-United Georgia.
(AP, 11/24/08)(WSJ, 11/24/08, p.A8)
2008 Nov 25, Russian warships
arrived in Venezuela in a show of strength aimed at the United States
as Moscow seeks to expand its influence in Latin America.
(AP, 11/25/08)
2008 Nov 26, In Venezuela Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to help start a local nuclear energy
program and said Moscow is willing to participate in a socialist trade
bloc in Latin America led by President Hugo Chavez.
(AP, 11/27/08)
2008 Nov 28, In Cuba Russia's
president Medvedev met with Fidel Castro, discussing Guantanamo Bay and
hopes for a multipolar world with Cuba's former leader during a tour of
Latin America aimed at raising Moscow's presence in the region.
(AP, 11/28/08)
2008 Dec 5, Russian Orthodox
Patriarch Alexy II (79) died. He had presided over a vast post-Soviet
revival of faith but struggled against the influence of other churches.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 5, India and Russia
signed a civilian nuclear deal that would see Russia build four nuclear
reactors for power-starved India.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 6, In Moscow, Russia,
ultranationalist attacked 2 migrant workers, one of whom escaped. On
Dec 10 the severed head of Salekh Azizov (20), the other Tajik migrant
worker, was found in a trash bin. A group calling itself the Militant
Organization of Russian Nationalists claimed responsibility. For the
year some 85 people were reported killed by violent
nationalists.
(SSFC, 12/14/08, p.A25)
2008 Dec 11, In northern Russia an
explosion and fire ripped through a mine, killing 12 workers.
(AP, 12/12/08)
2008 Dec 13, In Russia former
chess champion Garry Kasparov and other prominent liberals launched a
new anti-Kremlin movement.
(AP, 12/13/08)
2008 Dec 13, Russian troops retook
Perevi village near the breakaway region of South Ossetia just hours
after withdrawing. The move drew criticism from Georgia, the EU and US
Senator John Kerry, who was on a half-day visit to Tbilisi.
(AP, 12/13/08)
2008 Dec 14, In Russia police
thwarted an anti-Kremlin protest organized by Garry Kasparov's
opposition group, seizing demonstrators and shoving them into trucks.
They detained at least 25 people including the group's co-leader.
(AP, 12/14/08)
2008 Dec 15, A Moscow court
sentenced seven young Russian men to prison for murdering 19 people in
a string of hate attacks. 2 leaders of a skinhead group, also convicted
of 12 attempted murders, received 10-year prison sentences.
(AP, 12/15/08)
2008 Dec 16, In Israel a bus
filled with Russian tourists plunged into a desert ravine near the Red
Sea resort town of Eilat, killing at least 26 people.
(AP, 12/16/08)(SFC, 12/17/08, p.A8)
2008 Dec 17, The Russian ruble
suffered its largest drop in three months after the Central Bank
signaled it would accelerate the devaluation of the national currency.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 19, Russia’s PM Vladimir
Putin said that new tariffs were designed to prop up demand for
Russian-made cars and secure jobs in the ailing Russian auto industry.
The tariff hike would send prices for used foreign-made cars up 50
percent, while prices for new foreign-made cars could jump up to 15
percent.
(AP, 12/20/08)
2008 Dec 19, In Nigeria's Niger
Delta gunmen in speedboats attacked three oil services ships and
kidnapped at least two Russians in separate incidents. The pair escaped
on foot from a militant camp on Feb 15 and were found by naval
personnel on patrol on Feb 19.
(AP, 12/20/08)(AP, 2/19/09)
2008 Dec 20, Some 500 motorists
rallied in Russia's far east to protest the government's decision to
raise car import tariffs. Thousands of others were expected to stage
similar demonstrations across Russia on Dec 21.
(AP, 12/20/08)
2008 Dec 20, In Russia Olga
Lepeshinskaya (b.1916), a Soviet-era prima ballerina who danced with
the Bolshoi Ballet for decades, died.
(AP, 12/20/08)
2008 Dec 21, In far east Russia
riot police in Vladivostok clubbed, kicked and detained dozens of
people as hundreds across the country protested an increase in car
import tariffs.
(AP, 12/21/08)(WSJ, 12/22/08, p.A1)
2008 Dec 21, Iran reported that
Russia has begun delivering S-300 air defense systems, which could help
repel any Israeli and US air strikes on its nuclear sites.
(AP, 12/21/08)
2008 Dec 22, The ruble dropped
further as the Central Bank again eased its support of the Russian
currency, under constant pressure from plunging oil prices and economic
woes.
(AP, 12/22/08)
2008 Dec 22, OSCE talks on the
Georgia collapsed, when Russia demanded the group join Moscow in
recognizing the statehood of the provinces of South Ossetia and
Abkhazia. The mission will expire on Dec 31.
(AP, 12/23/08)
2008 Dec 22, In Egypt 7 Russian
tourists died when their bus flipped over along the winding mountain
roads north of the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik.
(AFP, 12/23/08)
2008 Dec 23, Russia's PM Vladimir
Putin said that the world financial crisis and rising costs mean the
price of natural gas is going to rise.
(AP, 12/23/08)
2008 Dec 24, Russian energy giant
Gazprom threatened to cut gas deliveries to Ukraine on January 1 if a
new contract is not signed by then for 2009 but pledged to honor its
supply obligations to Europe.
(AFP, 12/24/08)
2008 Dec 26, Russia's ruble fell
to a three-year low against the dollar after the Central Bank allowed a
third sharp drop in the currency in five days as the government
continues to feel the heat of the global meltdown.
(AP, 12/26/08)
2008 Dec 29, Top brass from the
Chinese and Russian armies hailed closer ties in their first-ever
conversation over a newly installed military hot line.
(AP, 12/29/08)
2008 Dec 30, The Kremlin said
President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a law extending presidential terms
from four years to six, a move seen as paving the way for Vladimir
Putin's return to the presidency.
(AP, 12/30/08)
2008 Dec 30, Russia's natural gas
company Gazprom said it will stop energy shipments to Ukraine and
sharply raise the price for future deliveries if it doesn't pay a $2
billion debt by New Year's Eve. The Ukrainian government issued a
decree saying two state banks would lend state energy company Naftogaz
Ukrainy up to $2 billion to pay its arrears to Russia’s Gazprom.
Disagreements remained on future gas costs.
(AP, 12/30/08)(WSJ, 12/31/08, p.A5)
2008 Dec, Moscow agreed to provide
Lebanon with 10 MiG-29 fighter jets. A few days later Washington
promised to deliver tanks to Beirut.
(AP, 1/21/09)
2008 Dec, Serbia sold its state
oil monopoly NIS to Russia’s Gazprom at a discount. Officials expected
the payoff would be a steady fuel supply. In January gas supplies to
Serbia stopped as Russia halted deliveries via Ukraine.
(SFC, 1/12/09, p.A6)
2008 Jonathan Brent authored
“Inside the Stalin Archives: Discovering the New Russia.”
(WSJ, 12/2/08, p.A17)
2008 Marshall Goldman authored
“Petrostate: Putin, Power and the New Russia.”
(WSJ, 6/19/08, p.A13)
2008 Steve LeVine authored
“Putin’s Labyrinth: Spies, Murder, and the Dark Heart of the New
Russia.”
(Econ, 7/19/08, p.92)
2008 Edward Lucas authored “The
New Cold War: Putin’s Russia and the Threat to the West.”
(WSJ, 2/26/08, p.D6)
2008 Lewis H. Siegelbaum authored
“Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile.”
(Econ, 7/12/08, p.94)
2009 Jan 1, Russia’s Pres.
Medvedev signed a bell ending jury trials in cases involving treason,
terror, armed revolt and sabotage. Instead, defendants will have to
face three judges.
(WSJ, 1/2/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 1, Russia cut off the gas
to Ukraine after a contract dispute but increased supplies to other
European states to try to reassure customers worried about possible
disruption.
(Reuters, 1/1/09)
2009 Jan 2, Ukraine sought support
in European capitals a day after Russia cut off gas supplies and
hardened its stance on prices. The cutoff came after Ukraine made a
$1.5 billion overdue payment, but Russia demanded another $600 million,
including $450 million penalties for the late payment for gas shipped
in November and December. The two sides also have not agreed on prices
for 2009. Russia accused Ukraine of stealing gas destined for the rest
of Europe.
(AP, 1/2/09)(Reuters, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 3, Russian gas flows to
four European Union countries fell normal levels after Moscow cut off
supplies to Ukraine in a pricing row with no talks in sight to resolve
the dispute. Bulgaria's Bulgargaz joined energy firms in Poland,
Romania and Hungary in saying they had noted falls in supply.
(Reuters, 1/3/09)
2009 Jan 4, Russia's military
leaders approved a plan by the navy to station warships permanently in
friendly ports across the globe.
(AP, 1/4/09)
2009 Jan 4, Russia asked the EU to
provide monitoring of Ukraine's gas transit system and charged Ukraine
was stealing gas bound for Europe, as Kiev leveled its own charges.
Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said that the state-controlled company wanted
$450 per 1,000 cubic meters, up from its last offer of $418. The
reductions in gas supplies spread to the Czech Republic and Turkey.
(AP, 1/4/09)(Reuters, 1/4/09)
2009 Jan 6, A natural gas crisis
loomed over Europe, as a contract dispute between Russia and Ukraine
shut off Russian gas supplies to six countries and reduced gas
deliveries to several others. Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania,
Croatia and Turkey all reported a halt in gas shipments.
(AP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 7, The EU said Russia and
Ukraine will accept using international monitors to verify the transit
of natural gas from Russia through Ukraine's pipelines. Russia's gas
giant Gazprom completely stopped sending gas to European consumers at
7:44 a.m. (0544 GMT). 80% of Russian gas shipped via Ukraine.
(AP, 1/7/09)
2009 Jan 8, Russia's
state-controlled gas monopoly said it would restore supplies to Europe
through Ukraine, cut off after a dispute between Moscow and Kiev, as
soon as international monitors are in place.
(Reuters, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 9, A Russian helicopter
owned by the state gas giant Gazprom crashed while on a hunting trip in
the mountains of Western Siberia, killing eight aboard. 3 people
survived.
(AP, 1/11/09)
2009 Jan 10, Russia and the EU
took a step toward securing the resumption of gas flows to Europe when
the two signed a deal on monitoring the supplies through Ukraine. PM
Vladimir Putin said Russia will restart gas supplies to Europe once an
EU-led monitoring mission begins to track gas transit via Ukraine.
(AP, 1/10/09)(Reuters, 1/10/09)
2009 Jan 11, Russia, Ukraine, and
the EU struck an agreement to try to resume Russian supplies through
Ukraine to Europe. President Dmitry Medvedev said energy giant Gazprom
would only resume gas supplies once Russia had a copy of the document
signed by Ukraine and once the various teams of international observers
were in place. The text of the accord calls for the EU, Russia and
Ukraine to each provide 25 experts to "carry out checks on the basis of
equal parity both on Ukrainian and Russian territory.
(Reuters, 1/11/09)(AFP, 1/11/09)
2009 Jan 12, Russia's state-run
monopoly Gazprom announced it will resume shipping natural gas to
Europe, where tens of thousands of homes and buildings have been left
without heat in freezing weather.
(AP, 1/12/09)
2009 Jan 13, Russia and Ukraine
hotly blamed each other as Russia restarted natural gas supplies but
little or no gas flowed toward Europe. EU officials watched in dismay
and criticized both nations for their intransigence.
(AP, 1/13/09)
2009 Jan 13, A Russian warship
helped foil an attack on a Dutch container ship by suspected Somali
pirates in the dangerous Gulf of Aden.
(AP, 1/14/09)
2009 Jan 14, Russia and Ukraine
wrangled over gas supplies again. Bulgaria and Slovakia, cut off by the
row for a freezing week, launched missions to plead for Russian gas
flow to be restored.
(Reuters, 1/14/09)
2009 Jan 15, Ukraine rejected
Russia's latest request to pipe natural gas westward to increasingly
frustrated EU consumers, deepening the bitter economic and political
dispute that has paralyzed energy shipments to Europe.
(AP, 1/15/09)
2009 Jan 15, The US dollar
strengthened against the ruble to a record 32.40 rubles, well above the
high set in 2003. The depreciation was expected to continue.
(WSJ, 1/16/09, p.C8)
2009 Jan 17, Russia and Ukraine
held gas crisis talks in Moscow that the European Union said were the
"last and best chance" to resolve the row that has left Europe
struggling without key gas supplies.
(AFP, 1/17/09)
2009 Jan 18, Russia and Ukraine
announced a deal to end the bitter dispute that has blocked Russian
natural gas from Europe following talks between Russian PM Vladimir
Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko. Under the terms,
Ukraine will pay 20 percent less than the European "market price" price
for gas this year, which Russia says is $450 per 1,000 cubic meters.
That's more than twice as much as the $179.50 Ukraine paid in 2008.
(AP, 1/18/09)
2009 Jan 18, Kyrgyzstan began to
come under a massive cyber attack attributed to Russian
“cyber-militia.” Less than 20% of the country’s 5.3 million population
had online access. Proposed reasons for the attacks included the US use
of an air base for operations in Afghanistan or a hit on the fledgling
Kyrgyz opposition, which has used the Internet to express its
discontent.
(WSJ, 1/28/09, p.A10)
2009 Jan 19, Russia released a
text by President Dmitry Medvedev ordering the government to introduce
economic sanctions against countries supplying weapons to Georgia.
(AP, 1/19/09)
2009 Jan 19, Russia and Ukraine
signed a deal that restores natural gas shipments to Ukraine and paves
the way for an end to the nearly two-week cutoff of most Russian gas to
a freezing Europe.
(AP, 1/19/09)
2009 Jan 19, In Russia a girl
disappeared after leaving her home in St. Petersburg for school. Vity
prosecutor's spokesman later Sergei Kapitonov she was killed that
night, and that body parts believed to be hers were found in plastic
bags scattered around the city. Yuri Mozhnov (19), a florist, and Maxim
Golovatskikh (19), a street-market butcher, were arrested on Jan 31 on
suspicion of killing her and eating parts of her body.
(AP, 2/4/09)
2009 Jan 19, In Russia Stanislav
Markelov (34), a human-rights lawyer who unsuccessfully fought the
early release of a Russian colonel convicted of murdering a Chechen
woman, was shot dead on a Moscow street along with reporter Anastasia
Baburova (b.1983). Markelov had told reporters he was considering file
an international court appeal against the early release of Col. Yuri
Budanov, who was convicted in 2003 and sentenced to 10 years, including
time served, for strangling 18-year-old Heda Kungayeva in 2000. He
admitted to killing her, saying he believed she was a Chechen insurgent
sniper. Budanov was freed last week with more than a year left on his
murder sentence.
(AP, 1/19/09)(Econ, 2/7/09, p.79)
2009 Jan 19, Afghan President
Hamid Karzai's office said that Russia is ready to cooperate on defense
matters with Afghanistan. The announcement coincided with an
increasingly public tussle between Afghan and Western officials.
(AP, 1/19/09)
2009 Jan 20, Russian gas reached
Europe via Ukraine for the first time in two weeks after Moscow and
Kiev ended a contract row that cut supplies to about 20 European
countries.
(Reuters, 1/20/09)
2009 Jan 20, The head of US
Central Command said the US has struck deals with Russia and
neighboring countries allowing it to transport supplies to American
troops in Afghanistan through their territory. US officials have said
that one likely route is overland from Russia through Kazakhstan and on
through Uzbekistan using trucks and trains. Another possible route is
via Azerbaijan across the Caspian Sea to the Kazakh port of Aktau and
then through Uzbekistan.
(AP, 1/20/09)
2009 Jan 21, Russia's military
said that an old Soviet-built nuclear-powered satellite has spewed
fragments in orbit, but insisted they do not threaten the international
space station or people on Earth.
(AP, 1/21/09)
2009 Jan 22, Russia's Central Bank
said it will widen the ruble's trading range to allow an effective 10
percent devaluation of the national currency.
(AP, 1/22/09)
2009 Jan 27, Russian Orthodox
bishops, monks and laymen voted for a new head for the world's second
largest Christian church in a contest between a powerful modernizer and
an influential conservative. Metropolitan Kirill (62) defeated a
conservative rival, Metropolitan Kliment, with 508 of 700 votes.
(AP, 1/27/09)(SFC, 2/2/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 27, Japan’s No. 38 Yoshi
Maru fishing boat was seized by Russian authorities in waters between
the two countries and was taken to the Russian port of Nakhodka. On Feb
7 Russian authorities released all 10 Japanese crew members seized
after allegedly straying into Russian waters.
(AFP, 1/28/09)(AP, 2/7/09)
2009 Jan 28, Russia’s military
said it has halted plans to deploy missiles near the Polish border, in
what could be a sign Moscow is seeking better ties with the new US
president.
(Reuters, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, Cuba’s President Raul
Castro began the first visit to Russia by a Cuban leader since the end
of the Cold War, the latest sign of reviving ties between the two
countries.
(Reuters, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, Japan’s territorial
row with Russia was re-ignited as Japan announced that it had cancelled
humanitarian aid to the four disputed Russian-held islands, north of
Japan's main northern island of Hokkaido, following new Russian demand
that a disembarkation card be submitted in addition to the usual
procedures.
(AP, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, In Switzerland some
2,500 business and political leaders met at Davos for the World
Economic Forum, as the worst financial crisis since the Great
Depression served to mute the enthusiasm of previous years. China’s
Premier Wen Jiabao and Russia’s PM Vladimir Putin blamed the US-led
financial system for the global economic slump.
(AP, 1/28/09)(WSJ, 1/29/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 30, Russia moved to
rebuild ties with Cold War ally Cuba, granting it loans and signing
deals on energy and industrial cooperation.
(AP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 31, Thousands of
protesters rallied across Russia to criticize the government's economic
course and its response to the global financial crisis. In Moscow
minutes after protesters unfurled anti-Kremlin banners and chanted
"Down with KGB power" and "Russia without Putin," a dozen young men
jumped out of cars and started to beat them with fists and metal rods.
Police ignored the attacks by alleged members of "Young Russia," a
pro-Kremlin youth group.
(AP, 1/31/09)(AP, 2/13/09)
2009 Feb 3, A Russian military
Mi-24 helicopter gunship crashed about 700 kilometers (450 miles)
southeast of Moscow, killing all three people aboard.
(AP, 2/3/09)
2009 Feb 3, The Kremlin said
Russia and Belarus will create a new military system to monitor and
defend their air space.
(WSJ, 2/4/09, p.A10)
2009 Feb 3, Kyrgyzstan said it
would end the US lease of an air base that supports military operations
in Afghanistan. Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiyev announced his
intention to shut the base, at least for the moment, after Russia
agreed to provide Kyrgyzstan with $2 billion in loans plus another $150
million in financial aid. The lease deal obliges Kyrgyzstan to give the
US 180 days notice to clear the base.
(AP, 2/4/09)
2009 Feb 4, Russia sought to
bolster its security alliance with six other ex-Soviet nations
(Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan)
by forming a joint rapid reaction force in a continuing effort to curb
US influence in energy-rich Central Asia.
(AP, 2/4/09)
2009 Feb 6, Russia granted transit
rights to nonlethal US military supplies headed to Afghanistan, but
only after pressuring Kyrgyzstan to close an air base leased to the US.
(SFC, 2/7/09, p.A3)
2009 Feb 7, Russian authorities
released all 10 Japanese crew members seized aboard a fishing boat in
late January after allegedly straying into Russian waters.
(AP, 2/7/09)
2009 Feb 10, An unmanned Russian
cargo ship lifted off from Kazakhstan carrying supplies and a space
suit to the international space station and its three-member crew.
American astronauts Michael Fincke and Sandra Magnus are aboard the
station along with Russian Yuri Lonchakov. The crew size will be
doubled to six members later this year.
(AP, 2/10/09)
2009 Feb 10, The first-ever
collision between two satellites occurred over Siberia when a derelict
Russian military communications satellite crossed paths with a US
Iridium satellite.
(AP, 2/12/09)
2009 Feb 12, In Russia's restive
southern republic of Ingushetia insurgents and police clashed, leaving
four officers and three attackers dead.
(AP, 2/13/09)
2009 Feb 12, Off Somalia an
American helicopter from the USS Vella Gulf fired warning shots at
gunmen in two skiffs that had opened fire and tried to board the
Indian-flagged vessel Premdivya. US forces searched the skiff and found
weapons including rocket-propelled grenades, then took nine suspected
pirates aboard the American ship. A Russian nuclear-powered heavy
missile cruiser, Peter The Great, detained 10 Somali pirates closing in
on an Iranian-flagged fishing trawler. The men, were caught with
rifles, grenade-launchers, illegal narcotics and a large sum of money.
(AP, 2/13/09)
2009 Feb 14, Irish authorities
learned about an oil spill through surveillance carried out by the
European Maritime Safety Agency in Lisbon, Portugal. Irish military
aircraft flew over the area and saw the Russian aircraft carrier
Admiral Kuznetsov, a Russian oil tanker, and a Russian oceangoing tug
near the slick. this was the biggest oil spill in the waters around
Ireland in the last ten years.
(AP, 2/17/09)
2009 Feb 15, In southern Russia a
fire ripped through a wooden apartment building, killing 16 people in
Molodyozhny, a village in the Astrakhan region.
(AP, 2/15/09)
2009 Feb 15, Shots from a Russian
naval vessel sank the Chinese-owned cargo ship the New Star off
Russia's east coast. 8 the 16 crew members on board were killed. The
Sierra Leone-flagged, Chinese-owned vessel New Star had earlier fled
the Russian port of Nakhodka where it had been impounded for alleged
smuggling.
(AFP, 2/20/09)
2009 Feb 16, Russia’s Pres.
Medvedev replaced four provincial governors for their poor performance
amid financial crisis and named new governors for the western Oryol,
Pskov and Voronezh regions and the northern Nenets region.
(AP, 2/16/09)
2009 Feb 16, Russia Pres. Medvedev
said Bolivia will receive helicopters from Russia to help fight drugs
as well as assistance to develop energy resources.
(AP, 2/16/09)
2009 Feb 17, China and Russia
signed a $25 billion energy deal in Beijing that will see the Asian
country secure oil supplies from Moscow for the next 20 years in return
for loans.
(AP, 2/17/09)
2009 Feb 18, Japanese PM Taro Aso
met Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on an island near disputed
resource-rich maritime territory, hoping to make progress toward
resolving a dispute lingering since World war II.
(AP, 2/18/09)
2009 Feb 18, Georgia and Russia
agreed to let monitors visit anywhere they want in Georgia and its 2
breakaway provinces.
(WSJ, 2/19/09, p.A1)
2009 Feb 19, A Moscow court
acquitted three men accused of helping murder Kremlin critic and
journalist Anna Politkovskaya, leaving Russia's most politically
charged killing in years still unsolved.
(Reuters, 2/19/09)
2009 Feb 21, A few hundred Russian
opposition sympathizers held an anti-Kremlin rally in central Moscow
demanding the resignation of the government. Former chess champion
Garry Kasparov and former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov addressed the
crowd from a truck.
(AP, 2/21/09)
2009 Feb 21, In Russia assailants
with automatic rifles blocked a car of 2 bank employees on a highway in
Tula province south of Moscow and stole about 43 million rubles ($1.2
million; euro 940,000) in cash at gunpoint. The bank employees, a
cashier and a driver, were traveling in a Toyota with no armed escort
despite the large amount of cash.
(AP, 2/23/09)
2009 Feb 25, Russian news agencies
quoted Chief Military Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky as saying that his
office has exposed an attempt by military officers to smuggle $18
million worth of stolen Russian weapons to China via Tajikistan.
(AP, 2/25/09)
2009 Feb 25, Russia issued a DVD
and a thick book of historical documents to dispute claims that the
Ukrainian famine of the 1930s amounted to genocide. It was argued that
the Stalin-era famine was a commontragedy across Soviet farmlands.
(SFC, 2/26/09, p.A2)
2009 Feb 25, Iranian and Russian
technicians conducted a test run of Iran's first nuclear power plant, a
major step toward launching full operations at the facility.
(AP, 2/25/09)
2009 Mar 1, Russia's ruling party
cemented its grip on elected posts with big victories in local
elections despite an economic crisis, but the opposition complained of
widespread cheating.
(Reuters, 3/2/09)
2009 Mar 3, Igor Panarin, dean at
the Russian Foreign Ministry's school for future diplomats and a
regular on Russia's state-guided TV channels, told dozens of students,
professors and diplomats that: "There is a high probability that the
collapse of the US will occur by 2010." He also said the US will break
up into six autonomous regions and Alaska will revert to Russian
control.
(AP, 3/4/09)
2009 Mar 5, NATO foreign ministers
agreed to resume high-level formal ties with Russia, suspended last
year after Moscow's military thrust into Georgia.
(AP, 3/5/09)
2009 Mar 5, Ukraine’s Naftogaz
paid its February bill for Russian gas just hours after Pres. Putin
said Russia would halt supplies if Ukraine failed to meet a March 7
deadline.
(WSJ, 3/6/09, p.A10)
2009 Mar 13, Russia’s Kontinental
Management said it has closed for good its Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill,
located on the southern edge of Lake Baikal. It halted production in
October. The plant has polluted the world's largest freshwater lake
with chemical effluent for decades.
(AP, 3/13/09)
2009 Mar 14, A Russian Air Force
chief said that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has offered an island
as a temporary base for strategic Russian bombers. Maj. Gen. Anatoly
Zhikharev also said Cuba could be used to base the aircraft.
(AP, 3/14/09)
2010 Thane Gustafson and Daniel
Yergin in 1994 authored "Russia 2010," their idea of where Russia would
be in 2010. Gustafson updated his ideas in 1999 with his book
"Capitalism Russian-Style."
(WSJ, 1/5/00, p.A20)
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