Putin will still be calling the shots in Russia
James Forsyth 2:44pm
Dmitri Medvedev, who Vladimir Putin anointed as his successor yesterday, today pledged to make Putin Prime Minister of Russia when he takes office. Medvedev even admitted that Putin would be more powerful than him: “In order to stay on this path, it is not enough to elect a new president who shares this ideology,” Mr. Medvedev said. “It is not less important to maintain the efficiency of the team formed by the incumbent president. That is why I find it extremely important for our country to keep Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin at the most important position in the executive power, at the post of the chairman of the government.”
So while the letter of the Russian constitution is being observed with Putin stepping down, the spirit of it is being trampled on. Any hope that Medvedev would adopt a more conciliatory approach to the West has also been dashed.
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David Lindsay
December 11th, 2007 4:15pm Report this commentJolly good. Plenty of nuclear power stations will not only restore high-wage, high-skill, high-status jobs to our working class, but also make us independent of Russian gas (and Arab oil). We can then get on with cultivating Russia on the basis of our shared values deriving from Classics and the Bible, the synthesis of which Russia is the historic protector both against Islamic and against Far Eastern domination, a role shared (especially in relation to Islam) with all the Sebs, and not least with Russia's, and historically our, allies, the Serbs.
Herbert Thornton
December 11th, 2007 7:13pm Report this commentThe spirit of the Russian Constitution being trampled on? That, it seems to me, is rather a breath-taking exaggeration.
If we want so see an example of Constitutions being trampled on, Canada, where the Judiciary does exactly that, is a glaring example. Britain, where Prime Ministers lead a protesting country by the nose deeper and deeper into arrangements with Europe that make the British constitution largely irrelevant is an equally glaring example.
As for the need to be conciliatory, surely Russia is reasonably conciliatory - but there is precious little sign of the west being conciliatory towards Russia. The west needs to wake up to the fact that the asymmetrical war being waged on the rest of the world by Islam is in reality World War III and that the west needs Russia as a vital ally.
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