| 2011-12-15 17:08 Don't provoke protesters, ex-minister Kudrin tells Putin |
Russia’s ex-finance minister Alexei Kudrin criticized on Thursday Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s remarks regarding the white ribbons worn by protesters at recent nationwide rallies against alleged electoral fraud.
American director Woody Allen began shooting his latest movie in Paris on Monday.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday said a European Parliament resolution calling for new State Duma elections “means nothing.” 
After Wimbledon Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova came to Belarus. 
Russia to deploy military bases in Abkhazia · 2009-01-30 17:35
Russia and Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia will sign a deal on the establishment of Russian air and naval bases in the separatist region.
"The Russian Federation and Abkhazia are in talks on setting up two Russian bases on Abkhaz soil, proceeding from our treaty on friendship and mutual assistance," Kristian Bzhania, spokesman for the Abkhaz separatist leadership, told Reuters.
"The talk is about a naval base in Ochamchira, where a group of Russian Black Sea Fleet warships will be based, and a former airborne troops base in the town of Gudauta," he added.
The agreement is expected to be signed within the next few months.
Interfax quoted an unnamed Russian military official as saying that the deployment of the airbase and a Black Sea Fleet naval base at Ochamchira, a seaside town in the breakaway republic, is under discussion.
Russia's Black Sea Fleet is currently based at the Crimean city of Sevastopol as part of a 1997 agreement, under which Ukraine agreed to lease the base to Russia until 2017.
Kiev has said that it would not extend the lease of the base and urged Moscow to start preparations for a withdrawal, Xinhua reports.
The airfield near Gudauta, also known as the Bombara aerodrome, could accommodate around 20 jet fighters, ground attack aircraft and military transport planes.
Givi Targamadze, the head of Georgia's parliamentary committee on defense and national security, said Tbilisi would protest Russia's move "at every international level."
Abkhazia, along with South Ossetia, the other Georgian rebel region, broke from central Georgian rule in the early 1990s following the collapse of the former Soviet Union.
Russia recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states on Aug. 26, 2008, two weeks after a brief war with Georgia, which had launched a sudden attack to reclaim South Ossetia.
The chief of the Russian General Staff, Gen. Nikolai Makarov, said earlier that the Russian military bases in Abkhazia and South Ossetia would be fully staffed with 3,700 personnel each by the end of 2009.
• Russian soldier is offered Georgian citizenship
• Russia enthrones new leader of its Orthodox Church
|
|
|