This article titled “Russia refuses more Syria sanctions” was written by Ian Black, for The Guardian on Monday 12th September 2011 19.44 UTC

Russia has rebuffed western attempts to increase the pressure on the Syrian regime, led by Bashar al-Assad, as new United Nations figures show at least 2,600 people have been killed since anti-government protests erupted in March.

President Dmitry Medvedev said after talks with David Cameron that additional pressure was “absolutely not needed” because existing UN and European Union sanctions were squeezing the regime.

Britain, the US and France have been pushing for tougher action by the UN but have met opposition from Russia and China, veto-wielding permanent members of the security council, and others.

The latest UN casualty figures – 400 more than previously given – were announced on Monday by the UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, who called the situation “dire” and again complained that Syria had refused access for a UN humanitarian assessment team.

Syria has banned almost all journalists from entering the country but new images have emerged of killings, injuries and funerals of victims.

One clip, [WARNING: Contains explicit images] posted by the Local Co-ordination Committees, appeared to show the final moments of a 14-year-old boy, Izzat al-Babidi, reportedly shot in the head during a demonstration in the Damascus suburb of Douma on Monday morning.

Other pictures showed hundreds of people attending the funeral of another boy, Subhi Salam, who was fatally wounded by a sniper during protests last Friday.

Pillay’s figure of 2,600 dead was immediately contradicted by a senior aide to Assad, Bouthaina Shaaban. “There are 700 casualties among the army and the police, and 700 among the rebels,” she said in Moscow. “We have a list [of the victims' names], and we can provide it.”

Shaaban’s visit was part of an attempt by Syria to stave off any danger that its Russian ally would abandon it. Medvedev appeared to show that he would stand firm, calling for a “well-balanced position between both parties to the conflict, the Syrian government and the rebels”. This was a far cry from the now firm western position that Assad has lost all legitimacy. Russia’s support brought a call from Syrian opposition activists for a “day of anger”.

Al-Arabiya TV quoted opposition sources as claiming that Syrian military aircraft had been flying low over the central city of Homs, where many have died in recent weeks. Syrian activists describe fighting in the nearby Rastan area between army defectors and loyalists, and an incipient “low-intensity civil war”, with Islamists smuggling in weapons from abroad.

The Saudi-owned channel also reported three clergymen from the Assad family’s Alawite sect in Homs as distancing themselves from the “atrocities” carried out by the regime. This week, opposition figures plan to unveil the final makeup of the Syrian National Council, a broad coalition of different anti-Assad groups.

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This article titled “Mikhail Gorbachev lambasts Vladimir Putin’s ‘sham’ democracy” was written by Miriam Elder in Moscow, for The Guardian on Monday 21st February 2011 18.56 UTC

Russia under prime minister Vladimir Putin is a sham democracy, Mikhail Gorbachev has said in his harshest criticism yet of the ruling regime.

“We have everything – a parliament, courts, a president, a prime minister and so on. But it’s more of an imitation,” the last president of the Soviet Union said.

Gorbachev, who oversaw the softening of the communist system and subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union, has become increasingly critical of the modern Russian state, accusing its leaders of rolling back the democratic reforms of the 1990s.

Speaking at a press conference ahead of his 80th birthday, Gorbachev criticised Putin for manipulating elections.

In response to the prime minister and former president’s comments that he and his protégé, President Dmitry Medvedev, would decide between them who would run for office in March 2012, Gorbachev said: “It’s not Putin’s business. It must be decided by the nation in elections.”

He called Putin’s statements a sign of “incredible conceit”.

Asked how he thought the regime approached human rights, Gorbachev said: “There’s a problem there. It’s a sign of the state of our democracy.” He was echoing statements made by Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, during a visit to Russia last week.

Gorbachev said United Russia, the ruling party founded with the sole goal of supporting Putin’s leadership, was a throwback.

“United Russia reminds me of the worst copy of the Communist party,” he said. “We have institutions but they don’t work. We have laws but they must be enforced.”

Its stranglehold over political life would eventually backfire. “The monopoly ends in rotting and hampers the development of democratic processes.”

Gobachev said he did not like how Putin and Medvedev were behaving. “It’s a shame that our modern leaders aren’t very modern,” he said.

Gorbachev now runs a charity foundation that will hold a gala at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 30 March to mark his birthday. He co-owns the country’s leading opposition newspaper, Novaya Gazeta.

Held up in the west as a hero for his softening of the Soviet system and eventual acceptance of its fall, Gorbachev remains widely despised inside Russia, where he is seen as a traitor who allowed the empire to crumble and ushered in a period of great uncertainty. Over the years he has aligned himself with the cause of Russia’s sidelined liberals.

On Monday, Gorbachev called the regime’s campaign against jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky politically motivated. “Politics shouldn’t have been involved in [the case], but they were,” he said.

He noted the case of Natalya Vasilieva, a court clerk who worked on the Khodorkovsky trial and broke ranks to publicly announce that the judge had been pressured throughout and had a verdict and sentence pushed on him.

“I fully believe her,” Gorbachev said. “People can’t stand it anymore – she saw what was happening with her own eyes.”

• This article was amended on 22 February 2011 to restore missing text in the third paragraph.

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This article titled “Mikhail Khodorkovsky verdict ordered from above, claims judge’s assistant” was written by Miriam Elder in Moscow, for The Guardian on Monday 14th February 2011 20.02 UTC

The guilty verdict against the oil tycoon and Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky was ordered from above and written by a judge who did not try the case, a Russian court official who worked on the recent trial has said.

Natalya Vasilyeva, in an interview she claimed was certain to spell the end of her career, said: “I can say that all of legal society understands perfectly well that this is a made-to-order case, a made-to-order trial.”

Vasilyeva was assistant to Viktor Danilkin, the judge who in December found Khodorkovsky guilty of theft and money laundering in the second case against the billionaire, who has been in jail on fraud charges since 2003.

The tycoon’s lawyers and supporters have repeatedly denounced the trial as a farce, alleging that Danilkin – who extended the prison sentence until 2017 – had been put under pressure by the Kremlin.

Vasilyeva’s interview – published in Gazeta.ru, a respected liberal online news portal, and shown on TV Rain, a cable channel said to be close to the liberal circle around President Dmitry Medvedev – marks the first time someone from the court that tried the case has spoken out against the trial.

Vasilyeva said Danilkin was required to seek approval for every step he made during the 20-month trial with the Moscow city court. That included the writing of the verdict, which was initially set to be handed down on 15 December.

“Danilkin began to write the verdict,” Vasilyeva said. “I suspect that what was in the verdict didn’t suit the higher authorities. And that’s why he got a different sentence, which he then had to read out.”

“That the sentence was brought from the Moscow city court, I know for absolute certain,” she added.

The reading of the verdict was delayed until 27 December so higher court authorities could write the new verdict, she said.

Danilkin was summoned to the Moscow city court on 25 December and when he returned to his courthouse looked “very stressed,” Vasilieva said, citing people who saw him that day. “He might have been physically ill and was clearly very depressed,” she said, noting he had earlier shown signs of developing heart trouble.

She said Danilkin had become a changed man after the reading of the verdict. “He’s become withdrawn, he’s depressed and just sad.”

Shortly after the interview was released, Danilkin described its contents as slander.

“I firmly believe that Natalya Vasilyeva’s statement was no more than libel which can be refuted in an order established by the law,” the judge told the state news agency, ITAR-Tass.

Anna Usachyova, a spokeswoman for the Moscow city court, said Vasilyeva had resigned before giving the interview and questioned her motives. “Natalya Vasilieva’s statement is a provocation. It’s clear straight away that the girl is unfamiliar with the procedural foundations of the law,” Usachyova told RIA-Novosti, another state-run news agency. “Judge Danilkin heard the case for two years and could only write the verdict himself.”

Vasilyeva said she was certain she would be fired after coming forward, and also said she feared for the fate of the judge. Explaining why she chose to speak out, she said it was because she was disillusioned. “I wanted to become a judge,” she said. “But when I saw its internal workings, how everything happens, then the fairytale that the judge is answerable only to the law and nothing else melted away.

“I wanted people to understand that a lot of what is told to them is cleaned up and fixed up and doesn’t always correspond to reality.”

Critics of the Kremlin have held up the case against Khodorkovsky as a prime example of Russia’s corrupt legal system. Medvedev, a former lawyer, has vowed to reform it but has taken few concrete steps to do so.

Khodorkovsky’s supporters insist the case against him was orchestrated by Vladimir Putin, now prime minister. They have appealed the latest verdict. State prosecutors have hinted that they might seek a third set of charges against Khodorkovsky, which would extend his sentence even further.

Yet in recent weeks, Medvedev has ordered his human rights council, an advisory body, to look into several high-profile cases, including the one against the jailed oil tycoon.

Some analysts have posited a split between the circles surrounding Medvedev and Putin as Russia gears up for a presidential election early next year.

Yury Schmidt, one of Khodorkovsky’s lawyers, welcomed the interview. “This is a woman speaking the truth,” he said. “I don’t see any other reasons for it.”

Khodorkovsky has been in jail on fraud charges since 2003.

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This article titled “Russia’s president splashes out on new super-yacht” was written by Tom Parfitt in Moscow, for The Guardian on Thursday 27th January 2011 20.05 UTC

It has two whirlpool baths, a cinema and a range of 5,000 nautical miles. At £26m the 54-metre Sirius may look a little ostentatious for a world leader whose people have an average salary of £400 a month. But it seems Dmitry Medvedev, the president of Russia, has thrown caution to the wind with his administration’s purchase of a “trawler super-yacht”.

Reports in Moscow say the Kremlin bought the boat last year from the Proteksan-Turquoise company in Istanbul, changing its name from Leo Fun. The craft’s “sophisticated and luxury interior features” include a large salon, a master suite and five guest cabins, quarters for 12 crew and an artificial waterfall encased in glass. Twin staircases lead to a bathing platform with “a wide array of water toys and diving equipment”.

Medvedev’s administration confirmed it had acquired a new yacht but refused to verify the price, or whether it was the Sirius. Viktor Khrenikov, a spokesman, told the Vedomosti newspaper it had bought a second-hand craft late last year.

Khrenikov said it was still being fitted out. “Everything necessary for a president for work and relaxation has been thought of,” he said. “The president could use her during the 2014 Olympics [in the Black Sea port of Sochi],” he added.

It is thought the Sirius will replace the presidential yacht, Kavkaz, which is already overdue for decommissioning. Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea FC, owns the world’s largest private yacht: a £288m, 164-metre “floating mansion” with a helipad and a disco, called Eclipse.

Analysts believe it was no coincidence that Medvedev’s purchase emerged this week as he visited the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Behind a public mask of unity, business and political clans in the Kremlin and government are engaged in a struggle for power as the 2012 presidential election approaches.

Some want the supposedly more progressive Medvedev to continue, while others are behind Putin, the hawkish prime minister who is expected to return to the presidency.

Earlier this month, Russian websites published photographs of a secluded £600m palace on the Black Sea coast which a businessman alleged was constructed secretly on Putin’s orders using money donated by oligarchs to develop Russia’s economy. The prime minister’s spokesman has dismissed the claims.”When we hear about a yacht or a palace it’s clear that someone hasn’t just walked past and noticed it by chance,” said Nikolai Petrov, an expert on internal politics at the Carnegie Centre, Moscow. “We practically don’t have investigative journalism in Russia, we have different forms of leaks,” he added.

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This article titled “Dmitry Medvedev welcomes US nuclear arms treaty” was written by Tom Parfitt in Moscow, for The Guardian on Thursday 23rd December 2010 18.53 UTC

MPs in Russia could approve a new strategic arms reduction treaty with the US as early as tomorrow after President Dmitry Medvedev welcomed the pact.

The country’s overwhelmingly pro-Kremlin parliament is likely to push the agreement through swiftly, despite doubts over Washington’s desire to station a missile defence shield in Europe.

Medvedev’s office said today he was “pleased to learn that the United States Senate has ratified the Start Treaty and expressed hope that the State Duma and the Federation Council [lower and upper houses of parliament] will be ready to consider this issue shortly and to ratify the document”.

The US Senate voted 71 to 26 in favour of the treaty yesterday, despite expectations that Republican members might try to block its passage.

The speaker of the State Duma, Boris Gryzlov, said the Kremlin-controlled United Russia party, which dominates the chamber, was ready to approve the treaty at a parliamentary session scheduled tomorrow.

The speaker of the Federation Council, Sergei Mironov, said he could push it through the same day.

Under New Start, as the agreement is called, strategic nuclear warheads deployed by each country will be reduced to 1,550 within seven years. Deployed missile launchers would be cut to 700.

Mikhail Margelov, head of the Federation Council’s foreign relations committee, said the treaty “represents a shift away from cold war mentality and demonstrates that Russia and the US are focused on achieving 21st-century global security”.

Its ratification in both countries will be seen as step forward after a difficult period in bilateral relations since Medvedev and Barack Obama signed the treaty in Prague in April.

Two months after that meeting, the US exposed 10 Russian sleeper agents living in New York and Washington, although the fallout was partly defused when they were exchanged for four men jailed in Russia who had allegedly worked for western intelligence agencies.

Relations appeared to be warming last month when the Nato military alliance invited Russia to participate in a US-led missile defence system about which Moscow is deeply suspicious. But the thaw came under threat when WikiLeaks revealed US diplomatic cables suggesting Russia is a “mafia state”.

Analysts say the treaty overrides such irritants, showing progress in the attempts to improve ties with Russia, which began after Obama came to power.

Sergei Rogov, head of the influential US and Canada Institute in Moscow, told the RIA Novosti news agency: “It is, of course, a positive step and it shows that the ‘re-set’ in Russian-American relations is bringing real results, but the question now is, what next?”

Top of the agenda for the Kremlin will be hammering out details of its role in the missile defence project. Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, warned this month that Russia would be obliged to deploy “new strike forces” on its borders if talks with Nato over the system failed to show progress.

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I came across this tonight. It’s from back in May, but I thought it was interesting. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev discusses WWII and the role the Soviet Union played. He also gives his views on the legacy of Joseph Stalin. He even touts “Saving Private Ryan” calling it a “very good movie” and “professionally done” but questions its accuracy.

Putin likes to flirt with the idea that Stalin wasn’t so bad and the collapse of the USSR was a tragedy. Medvedev doesn’t appear to share that view. Of course that’s probably because he wasn’t a KGB thug like Putin.

President Obama told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev how memorable it was for his kids to dine at the Kremlin last time he was in Russia…

Then he took Medvedev to “Ray’s Hell Burger” in Virginia for a “traditional American lunch.” I’m sure the Russian president was quite impressed.

(hat tip Freedom’s Lighthouse via Conurls)

Dmitry Medvedev was inaugurated as Russia’s President today, taking the reigns from two-term President Vladmir Putin. Two hours after becoming President, Medvedev nominated Putin for the post of Prime Minister, which is the second most powerful position in Russia.

The Russian parliament will have to rubber stamp vote on and approve the nomination before Putin can assume the post, which is already a foregone conclusion.

In a speech today as the new President, Medvedev vowed to do keep the economy strong as it had been under Putin. In a surprising twist, the new President spoke of the need for Russia to strengthen “civil rights” and “economic freedoms.” He went on to reference the need for strong “civil rights” in Russia throughout the speech.

This is significant because his icy-cold former KGB predecessor, Vladimir Putin, took Russia’s fledgling economy and turned it into an economic powerhouse, while systematically crushing descent, murdering journalists, and rolling back democracy.

While it’s unlikely that Medvedev will stray from Putin’s policies too much, (since Putin will be in the office next door) there’s a chance he may act more like a President than a dictator.

-Chris Jones