to move up and down
Is that a look of delighted surprise on president Putin’s face? A topless demonstrator with a message on her back walks towards Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (R) during their visit of the Hanover industrial Fair in Hanover, central Germany, on April 8, 213. Four bare-breated demonstrators shouted “f**k dictator”at Russian President Vladimir Putin as he was visiting the Volkswagen stand. (JOCHEN LUEBKE/AFP/Getty Images)
A year before the 2014 Winter Olympics are to begin, President Vladimir Putin has demanded that a senior member of the Russian Olympic Committee be fired, apparently due to cost overruns in host city Sochi.
The current price tag for the Sochi Games is US$51-billion, which would make them the most expensive games in the history of the Olympics – more costly even than the much-larger Summer Olympics held in London and Beijing.
During his tour of Olympic venues, Putin fumed when he heard that the cost of the ski jump had soared from US$40-million to US$265-million and the project was behind schedule.
“So a vice president of the Olympic Committee is dragging down the entire construction? Well done! You are doing a good job,” Putin said Wednesday, seething with sarcasm. (Photo: SERGEI KARPUKHIN/AFP/Getty Images)
One Pussy Riot member freed, but court upholds prison sentences for other two anti-Putin protesters
MOSCOW — A member of punk band Pussy Riot was freed on appeal on Wednesday but a Moscow court upheld prison sentences for two others imposed over a raucous cathedral protest against Vladimir Putin, who said they had got the jail terms they deserved.
Moscow City Court confirmed the two-year prison sentences handed down to Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina but suspended the sentence on Yekaterina Samutsevich. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)
Vladimir Putin pilots hang glider to lead flock of endangered cranes, adds mastery of flight to resumé
President Vladimir Putin has piloted a motorized hang glider to lead a flock of young Siberian white cranes in flight.
Dressed in a white costume meant to imitate an adult crane, Putin took part in a project to teach the endangered birds who were raised in captivity to follow the aircraft on their migration to Central Asia.
RIA-Novosti news agency reported that only one crane followed Putin on his first flight, which he attributed to high winds that caused the hang glider to travel faster than usual. On the second flight, five birds followed Putin, but after a few circles only two had stuck with him for the full 15-minute flight.
Vladimir Putin’s presidential job perks include four yachts, 58 aircraft and 20 homes: report
Vladimir Putin once compared ruling Russia to being a “galley slave”, but four yachts that come with the job, as well as a string of palaces and a wealth of luxury perks help explain his refusal to quit the presidency, leading critics said on Tuesday.
Listing 58 planes and helicopters and 20 homes with opulent fittings worthy of the tsars, not to mention 11 watches which alone are worth several times Putin’s annual salary, a report published under the ironic title “The Life of a Galley Slave” by opposition leader Boris Nemtsov denounced the lavish spending as an affront to millions of Russians living in dire poverty.
“One of the most serious reasons prompting V. Putin to hold on to power is the atmosphere of wealth and luxury to which he has become accustomed,” wrote the authors. “In a country where more than 20 million people barely make ends meet, the luxurious life of the president is a blatant and cynical challenge to society. We absolutely cannot put up with this.”
Pussy Riot found guilty of anti-religious ‘hooliganism’ for church protest
A Russian judge found three women from the punk band Pussy Riot guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred on Friday for staging an anti-Kremlin protest on the altar of Moscow’s main Russian Orthodox church.
Judge Marina Syrova did not immediately issue a sentence but state prosecutors want there-year jail terms for the three women who stormed the altar of the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February and performed a “punk prayer” asking the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of President Vladimir Putin.
The defendants “committed an act of hooliganism … based on motives of religious hatred and enmity,” the judge told the Moscow court as the defendants sat in a courtroom cage. (Photo: Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters)
Related: Canadian twist in Pussy Riot case sparks call for Ottawa to intervene
Vladimir Putin shows off military hardware in Victory Day parade
Speaking to thousands of soldiers at the annual Red Square military parade, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared Wednesday that the country is a force for world security and that Russia will stand up for its positions.
Putin’s speech, two days after his inauguration for a third term in the Kremlin, came less than a week after the nation’s military chief of staff warned that Russia would consider pre-emptive strikes, if a dispute with the United States over a Europe-based missile defence system worsens. (Photos: AFP/Getty Images; AP)
Gary Clement’s week in review for March 4-10, 2012
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Here is Russia Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in a bobsled. You’re welcome.
Russia faces violent revolution if it doesn’t embrace democracy, billionaire Putin challenger declares
Mikhail Prokhorov, a super-rich tycoon challenging Vladimir Putin for Russia’s presidency in March, said his country faced the danger of violent revolution if it did not break conservative resistance and move quickly to democracy.
Prokhorov, a billionaire bachelor long seen more as playboy than politician, told The Freeland File on reuters.com Russians had shaken off a post-Soviet apathy and were now “just crazy about politics.” He denied accusations he was a Kremlin tool, let into the race to split the opposition and lend democratic legitimacy to a vote Putin seems almost certain to win.
Putin is seeking to return to the Kremlin and rule until at least 2018, but protests against alleged fraud in a December 4 parliamentary vote have exposed growing discontent with the system he has dominated for 12 years.
“What worked before does not work now. Look in the streets. People are not happy,” Prokhorov, 46, said in the interview beneath the windowed dome that soars above his spacious office on a central Moscow boulevard close to the Kremlin. (Photo: REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin)
Kim Jong-un turns into Vladimir Putin in latest North Korean propaganda video
On Sunday, North Korea released a video of Kim Jong-un to celebrate their new leader’s birthday.
If you look closely, though — and we’ve looked closely — you’ll notice some remarkable similarities between still photos of Kim Jong-un taken from the video, and photos of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
More side-by-side comparisons
Putin accuses U.S. of inciting Russian protests: Clinton gave ‘a signal’
Pime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Thursday of stirring up protests against his 12-year rule and said foreign countries were spending hundreds of millions of dollars to influence Russian elections.
Putin accuses U.S. of inciting Russian protests: Clinton gave ‘a signal’
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Thursday of stirring up protests against his 12-year rule and said foreign countries were spending hundreds of millions of dollars to influence Russian elections.
In his first public remarks about daily demonstrations over allegations that Sunday’s election was slanted to favour his ruling party, Putin said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had encouraged Kremlin opponents by criticizing the vote.
“She set the tone for some opposition activists, gave them a signal, they heard this signal and started active work,” Putin told supporters as he laid out plans for his campaign to return to the presidency in a March election. (Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters)
Russian finance minister ousted in bitter, public conflict
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin was ousted on Monday in an unusually bitter and public conflict with President Dmitry Medvedev that has exposed deep cracks in unity over Vladimir Putin’s plan to return to the Kremlin.
Western investors regard Kudrin as a guarantor of financial stability and have said his departure would be a deep blow to Russia’s economy, setting back prospects for reforms.
“I have resigned. My resignation was accepted,” Kudrin told Reuters.
Kudrin was left with little option. Medvedev surprised and humiliated him by demanding he quit at a meeting with local officials after the long-serving minister, long a Putin ally, said he would not work under Medvedev if he swaps places with Putin to become prime minister next year.
Photo: Russia’s Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin attends the Reuters Russia Investment Summit, with a photo of President Dmitry Medvedev seen in the background. (Denis Sinyakov/Reuters)
