Russia round-up

Most have probably already read about the satellites that crashed over Siberia, but aside from that there has been a flurry of important news coming out of Russia.

• The world-wide economic shit-fest has forced the Kremlin into making sane decisions, the result of which is the ruble jumping 2.5% against the dollar and the euro. It's still lost one-fifth of its value since November, though.



• Secretary Clinton and Sergei Lavrov will be meeting in Geneva in what will hopefully be the first step towards "resetting" the relationship between the U.S. and Russia. Although, I think this will ultimate be a long process - it's hard to change outlooks regarding a country that was your main enemy for seventy odd years - this is certainly a good sign.



• Furthermore, we're easing off the whole missile shield nonsense. This is no doubt influenced by Kyrgyzstan's cutting off U.S. use of its Manas airbase. We're going to need Russia's help getting troops into Afghanistan and besides, the missile shield is a stupid idea anyway, likely to further alienate Russia more than deter Iran.



• A Reese Witherspoon lookalike and pro-Kremlin blogger, Maria Sergeyeva is making waves in Russian political circles after a recent speech in which she expressed undue faith in Putin and Medvedev to ensure hers and other's financial stability. The Moscow Times article also gives a general overview of the political climate among Russia's youth - which is the polar opposite of what you find on American campuses, oddly enough.



• LUKOIL is salivating over two Iraqi oil fields, hoping that Russia's forgiving the almost thirteen billion Iraqi debt to the country will allow them to competitively bid. LUKOIL will be allying with the American company Conoco to hopefully get some of that foreign investment back into Russian energy markets, which took a severe hit last year.



• The New York Times reported this week that Russia had a banner year for arms sales in 2008, increasing exports by ten percent. They are second to, you guessed it, the United States. Medvedev bemoaned the fact that most countries will likely be strapped for cash this year and thus won't be able to buy Kalishnikovs.



• Finally, the AP reports that 7 people (4 police officers, 3 insurgents) have been killed in the Ingushetian city of Nazran. In October the governor of Ingushetia, a wonderfully psychotic asshole by the name of Murat Zyazikov, resigned and residents cheered in the streets. Medvedev appointed Yunus-Bek Yevkurov in the hopes that he would bring order to the troubled region, but this has yet to happen.

And thus ends my playing around with bullet points for the day.