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Russia
Russian Federation National
name: Rossiyskaya Federatsiya President: Dmitry Medvedev (2008) Prime Minister: Vladimir Putin
(2008)
Current government officials
Land area: 6,592,812 sq mi (17,075,400 sq
km); total area: 6,592,735 sq mi (17,075,200 sq km) Population (2007 est.): 141,377,752 (growth
rate: –0.5%); birth rate: 10.9/1000; infant mortality rate:
11.1/1000; life expectancy: 65.9; density per sq mi: 21
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Moscow, 10,672,000 (metro. area), 10,101,500
(city proper) Other large cities:
St. Petersburg, 4,582,300; Novosibirsk, 1,395,500; Nizhny Novgorod,
1,340,900; Yekaterinburg, 1,256,600; Samara, 1,146,800; Kazan,
1,113,600; Ufa, 1,096,600; Chelyabinsk, 1,080,000; Perm, 998,800;
Volgograd, 984,200 Monetary unit:
Russian ruble (RUR)
Languages:
Russian, many minority languages
Ethnicity/race:
Russian 79.8%, Tatar 3.8%, Ukrainian 2%, Bashkir
1.2%, Chuvash 1.1%, other or unspecified 12.1% (2002)
Religions:
Russian Orthodox 15%–20%, other Christian
2%, Islam 10%–15% (2006 est.; includes practicing worshippers
only) Literacy rate: 100% (2003
est.) Economic summary: GDP/PPP
(2007 est.): $2.088 trillion; per capita $14,700. Real growth
rate: 8.1%. Inflation: 11.9%. Unemployment: 6.2%.
Arable land: 7%. Agriculture: grain, sugar beets,
sunflower seed, vegetables, fruits; beef, milk. Labor force:
75.1 million; agriculture 4.6%, industry 39.1%, services 56.3% (2007
est.). Industries: complete range of mining and extractive
industries producing coal, oil, gas, chemicals, and metals; all forms
of machine building from rolling mills to high-performance aircraft
and space vehicles; defense industries including radar, missile
production, and advanced electronic components, shipbuilding; road and
rail transportation equipment; communications equipment; agricultural
machinery, tractors, and construction equipment; electric power
generating and transmitting equipment; medical and scientific
instruments; consumer durables, textiles, foodstuffs, handicrafts.
Natural resources: wide natural resource base including major
deposits of oil, natural gas, coal, and many strategic minerals,
timber; note: formidable obstacles of climate, terrain, and distance
hinder exploitation of natural resources. Exports: $365 billion
(2007 est.): petroleum and petroleum products, natural gas, wood and
wood products, metals, chemicals, and a wide variety of civilian and
military manufactures. Imports: $260.4 billion (2007 est.):
machinery and equipment, consumer goods, medicines, meat, sugar,
semifinished metal products. Major trading partners:
Netherlands, Germany, Ukraine, Italy, China, U.S., Switzerland,
Turkey, Japan, Kazakhstan, France (2004). Communications: Telephones: main lines in
use: 40.1 million (2005); mobile cellular: 150 million (2006).
Radio broadcast stations: AM 323, FM 1,500 est., shortwave 62
(2004). Radios: 61.5 million (1997). Television broadcast
stations: 7,306 (1998). Televisions: 60.5 million (1997).
Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 2.844 million (2007).
Internet users: 25.689 million (2006). Transportation: Railways: total: 87,157 km
(2002). Highways: total: 871,000 km paved: 738,000 km (includes
29,000 km of expressways) unpaved: 133,000 km note: includes public
and departmental roads (2004). Waterways: Waterways 102,000 km
(including 33,000 km with guaranteed depth) note: 72,000 km system in
European Russia links Baltic Sea, White Sea, Caspian Sea, Sea of Azov,
and Black Sea (2006). Ports and harbors:
Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky, Arkhangel'sk, Astrakhan', De-Kastri,
Indigirskiy, Kaliningrad, Kandalaksha, Kazan', Khabarovsk, Kholmsk,
Krasnoyarsk, Lazarev, Mago, Mezen', Moscow, Murmansk, Nakhodka,
Nevel'sk, Novorossiysk, Onega, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Rostov,
Shakhtersk, Saint Petersburg, Sochi, Taganrog, Tuapse, Uglegorsk,
Vanino, Vladivostok, Volgograd, Vostochnyy, Vyborg. Airports:
1,260 (2007). International disputes:
China continues to seek a mutually acceptable solution to the disputed
alluvial islands at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri rivers and a
small island on the Argun River as part of the 2001 Treaty of Good
Neighborliness, Friendship, and Cooperation; the islands of Etorofu,
Kunashiri, Shikotan, and the Habomai group identified by the Russians
as the “Southern Kurils” and by Japan as the
“Northern Territories” occupied by the Soviet Union in
1945, now administered by Russia, claimed by Japan; boundary with
Georgia has been largely delimited but not demarcated with several
small, strategic segments remaining in dispute and OSCE observers
monitoring volatile areas such as the Pankisi Gorge in the Akhmeti
region and the Argun Gorge in Abkhazia; equidistant seabed treaties
have been signed with Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in the Caspian Sea but
no resolution on dividing the water column among any of the littoral
states; Russia and Norway dispute their maritime limits in the Barents
Sea and Russia's fishing rights beyond Svalbard's territorial limits
within the Svalbard Treaty zone; Russia continues to reject signing
and ratifying the joint 1996 technical border agreement with Estonia;
the Russian Parliament refuses to consider ratification of the
boundary treaties with Estonia and Latvia, but in May 2003, ratified
land and maritime boundary treaty with Lithuania, which ratified the
1997 treaty in 1999, legalizing limits of former Soviet republic
borders; discussions are still ongoing among Russia, Lithuania and the
EU concerning a simplified transit document for residents of the
Kaliningrad coastal exclave to transit through Lithuania to Russia;
land delimitation with Ukraine is ratified, but maritime regime of the
Sea of Azov and Kerch Strait is unresolved; delimitation with
Kazakhstan is scheduled for completion in 2003; Russian Duma has not
yet ratified 1990 Maritime Boundary Agreement with the US in the
Bering Sea.
Major sources and definitions
Rulers of Russia Since 1533
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Geography
The Russian Federation is the largest of the 21 republics that make up
the Commonwealth of Independent States. It occupies most of eastern Europe
and north Asia, stretching from the Baltic Sea in the west to the Pacific
Ocean in the east, and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea
and the Caucasus in the south. It is bordered by Norway and Finland in the
northwest; Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania in the
west; Georgia and Azerbaijan in the southwest; and Kazakhstan, Mongolia,
China, and North Korea along the southern border.
Government
Constitutional federation.
History
Tradition says the Viking Rurik came to Russia in 862 and founded the
first Russian dynasty in Novgorod. The various tribes were united by the
spread of Christianity in the 10th and 11th centuries; Vladimir “the
Saint” was converted in 988. During the 11th century, the grand
dukes of Kiev held such centralizing power as existed. In 1240, Kiev was
destroyed by the Mongols, and the Russian territory was split into
numerous smaller dukedoms. Early dukes of Moscow extended their dominion
over other Russian cities through their office of tribute collector for
the Mongols and because of Moscow's role as an administrative and trade
center.
In the late 15th century, Duke Ivan III acquired Novgorod and Tver and
threw off the Mongol yoke. Ivan IV—the Terrible (1533–1584),
first Muscovite czar—is considered to have founded the Russian
state. He crushed the power of rival princes and boyars (great
landowners), but Russia remained largely medieval until the reign of Peter
the Great (1689–1725), grandson of the first Romanov czar, Michael
(1613–1645). Peter made extensive reforms aimed at westernization
and, through his defeat of Charles XII of Sweden at the Battle of Poltava
in 1709, he extended Russia's boundaries to the west. Catherine the Great
(1762–1796) continued Peter's westernization program and also
expanded Russian territory, acquiring the Crimea, Ukraine, and part of
Poland. During the reign of Alexander I (1801–1825),
Napoléon's attempt to subdue Russia was defeated (1812–1813),
and new territory was gained, including Finland (1809) and Bessarabia
(1812). Alexander originated the Holy Alliance, which for a time crushed
Europe's rising liberal movement.
Alexander II (1855–1881) pushed Russia's borders to the Pacific
and into central Asia. Serfdom was abolished in 1861, but heavy
restrictions were imposed on the emancipated class. Revolutionary strikes,
following Russia's defeat in the war with Japan, forced Nicholas II
(1894–1917) to grant a representative national body (Duma), elected
by narrowly limited suffrage. It met for the first time in 1906 but had
little influence on Nicholas.
World War I demonstrated czarist corruption and inefficiency, and only
patriotism held the poorly equipped army together for a time. Disorders
broke out in Petrograd (renamed Leningrad and now St. Petersburg) in March
1917, and defection of the Petrograd garrison launched the revolution.
Nicholas II was forced to abdicate on March 15, 1917, and he and his
family were killed by revolutionaries on July 16, 1918. A provisional
government under the successive prime ministerships of Prince Lvov and a
moderate, Alexander Kerensky, lost ground to the radical, or Bolshevik,
wing of the Socialist Democratic Labor Party. On Nov. 7, 1917, the
Bolshevik Revolution, engineered by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky,
overthrew the Kerensky government, and authority was vested in a Council
of People's Commissars, with Lenin as prime minister.
The humiliating Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 3, 1918) concluded the
war with Germany, but civil war and foreign intervention delayed Communist
control of all Russia until 1920. A brief war with Poland in 1920 resulted
in Russian defeat.
Emergence of the USSR
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was established as a federation
on Dec. 30, 1922. The death of Lenin on Jan. 21, 1924, precipitated an
intraparty struggle between Joseph Stalin, general secretary of the party,
and Trotsky, who favored swifter socialization at home and fomentation of
revolution abroad. Trotsky was dismissed as commissar of war in 1925 and
banished from the Soviet Union in 1929. He was murdered in Mexico City on
Aug. 21, 1940, by a political agent. Stalin further consolidated his power
by a series of purges in the late 1930s, liquidating prominent party
leaders and military officers. Stalin assumed the prime ministership on
May 6, 1941.
The term Stalinism has become defined as an inhumane, draconian
socialism. Stalin sent millions of Soviets who did not conform to the
Stalinist ideal to forced-labor camps, and he persecuted his country's
vast number of ethnic groups—reserving particular vitriol for Jews
and Ukrainians. Soviet historian Roy Medvedev estimated that about 20
million died from starvation, executions, forced collectivization, and
life in the labor camps under Stalin's rule.
Soviet foreign policy, at first friendly toward Germany and
antagonistic toward Britain and France and then, after Hitler's rise to
power in 1933, becoming anti-Fascist and pro–League of Nations, took
an abrupt turn on Aug. 24, 1939, with the signing of a nonaggression pact
with Nazi Germany. The next month, Moscow joined in the German attack on
Poland, seizing territory later incorporated into the Ukrainian and
Belorussian SSRs. The Russo-Finnish War (1939–1940) added territory
to the Karelian SSR set up on March 31, 1940; the annexation of Bessarabia
and Bukovina from Romania became part of the new Moldavian SSR on Aug. 2,
1940; and the annexation of the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and
Lithuania in June 1940 created the 14th, 15th, and 16th Soviet republics.
The Soviet-German collaboration ended abruptly with a lightning attack by
Hitler on June 22, 1941, which seized 500,000 sq mi of Russian territory
before Soviet defenses, aided by U.S. and British arms, could halt it. The
Soviet resurgence at Stalingrad from Nov. 1942 to Feb. 1943 marked the
turning point in a long battle, ending in the final offensive of Jan.
1945. Then, after denouncing a 1941 nonaggression pact with Japan in April
1945, when Allied forces were nearing victory in the Pacific, the Soviet
Union declared war on Japan on Aug. 8, 1945, and quickly occupied
Manchuria, Karafuto, and the Kuril Islands.
After the war, the Soviet Union, United States, Great Britain, and
France divided Berlin and Germany into four zones of occupation, which led
to immediate antagonism between the Soviet and Western powers, culminating
in the Berlin blockade in 1948. The USSR's tightening control over a
cordon of Communist states, running from Poland in the north to Albania in
the south, was dubbed the “iron curtain” by Churchill and
would later lead to the Warsaw Pact. It marked the beginning of the cold
war, the simmering hostility that pitted the world's two superpowers, the
U.S. and the USSR—and their competing political
ideologies—against each other for the next 45 years. Stalin died on
March 6, 1953.
The new power emerging in the Kremlin was Nikita S. Khrushchev
(1958–1964), first secretary of the party. Khrushchev formalized the
eastern European system into a Council for Mutual Economic Assistance
(Comecon) and a Warsaw Pact Treaty Organization as a counterweight to
NATO. The Soviet Union exploded a hydrogen bomb in 1953, developed an
intercontinental ballistic missile by 1957, sent the first satellite into
space (Sputnik I) in 1957, and put Yuri Gagarin in the first orbital
flight around Earth in 1961. Khrushchev's downfall stemmed from his
decision to place Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba and then, when
challenged by the U.S., backing down and removing the weapons. He was also
blamed for the ideological break with China after 1963. Khrushchev was
forced into retirement on Oct. 15, 1964, and was replaced by Leonid I.
Brezhnev as first secretary of the party and Aleksei N. Kosygin as
premier.
U.S. president Jimmy Carter and Brezhnev signed the SALT II treaty in
Vienna on June 18, 1979, setting ceilings on each nation's arsenal of
intercontinental ballistic missiles. The U.S. Senate refused to ratify the
treaty because of the invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops on Dec. 27,
1979. On Nov. 10, 1982, Leonid Brezhnev died. Yuri V. Andropov, who had
formerly headed the KGB, became his successor but died less than two years
later, in Feb. 1984. Konstantin U. Chernenko, a 72-year-old party stalwart
who had been close to Brezhnev, succeeded him. After 13 months in office,
Chernenko died on March 10, 1985. Chosen to succeed him as Soviet leader
was Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who led the Soviet Union in its long-awaited
shift to a new generation of leadership. Unlike his immediate
predecessors, Gorbachev did not also assume the title of president but
wielded power from the post of party general secretary.
Gorbachev introduced sweeping political and economic reforms, bringing
glasnost and perestroika, “openness” and
“restructuring,” to the Soviet system. He established much
warmer relations with the West, ended the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan, and announced that the Warsaw Pact countries were free to
pursue their own political agendas. Gorbachev's revolutionary steps
ushered in the end of the cold war, and in 1990 he was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize for his contributions to ending the 45-year conflict between
East and West.
The Soviet Union took much criticism in early 1986 over the April 24
meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear plant and its reluctance to give out any
information on the accident.
Dissolution of the USSR Gorbachev's promised reforms
began to falter, and he soon had a formidable political opponent agitating
for even more radical restructuring. Boris Yeltsin, president of the
Russian SSR, began challenging the authority of the federal government and
resigned from the Communist Party along with other dissenters in 1990. On
Aug. 29, 1991, an attempted coup d'état against Gorbachev was
orchestrated by a group of hard-liners. Yeltsin's defiant actions during
the coup—he barricaded himself in the Russian parliament and called
for national strikes—resulted in Gorbachev's reinstatement. But from
then on, power had effectively shifted from Gorbachev to Yeltsin and away
from centralized power to greater power for the individual Soviet
republics. In his last months as the head of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev
dissolved the Communist Party and proposed the formation of the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which, when implemented, gave
most of the Soviet Socialist Republics their independence, binding them
together in a loose, primarily economic federation. Russia and ten other
former Soviet republics joined the CIS on Dec. 21, 1991. Gorbachev
resigned on Dec. 25, and Yeltsin, who had been the driving force behind
the Soviet dissolution, became president of the newly established Russian
Republic.
At the start of 1992, Russia embarked on a series of dramatic economic
reforms, including the freeing of prices on most goods, which led to an
immediate downturn. A national referendum on confidence in Yeltsin and his
economic program took place in April 1993. To the surprise of many, the
president and his shock-therapy program won by a resounding margin. In
September, Yeltsin dissolved the legislative bodies left over from the
Soviet era.
The president of the southern republic of Chechnya accelerated his
region's drive for independence in 1994. In December, Russian troops
closed the borders and sought to squelch the independence drive. The
Russian military forces met firm and costly resistance. In May 1997, the
two-year war formally ended with the signing of a peace treaty that
adroitly avoided the issue of Chechen independence.
In March 1998 Yeltsin dismissed his entire government and replaced
Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin with fuel and energy minister Sergei
Kiriyenko. On Aug. 28, 1998, amid the Russian stock market's free fall,
the Russian government halted trading of the ruble on international
currency markets. This financial crisis led to a long-term economic
downturn and political upheaval. Yeltsin then sacked Kiriyenko and
reappointed Chernomyrdin. The Duma rejected Chernomyrdin and on Sept. 11
elected foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov as prime minister. The
repercussions of Russia's financial emergency were felt throughout the
Commonwealth of Independent States.
Impatient with Yeltsin's increasingly erratic behavior, the Duma
attempted to impeach him in May 1999. But the impeachment motion was
quickly quashed and soon Yeltsin was on the ascendancy again. In keeping
with his capricious style, Yeltsin dismissed Primakov and substituted
Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin. Just three months later, however,
Yeltsin ousted Stepashin and replaced him with Vladimir Putin on Aug. 9,
1999, announcing that in addition to serving as prime minister, the former
KGB agent was his choice as a successor in the 2000 presidential
election.
In 1999, the former Russian satellites of Poland, Hungary, and the
Czech Republic joined NATO, raising Russia's hackles. The desire of
Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, all of which were once part of the Soviet
Union, to join the organization in the future further antagonized
Russia.
Just three years after the bloody 1994–1996 Chechen-Russian war
ended in devastation and stalemate, the fighting started again in 1999,
with Russia launching air strikes and following up with ground troops. By
the end of November, Russian troops had surrounded Chechnya's capital,
Grozny, and about 215,000 Chechen refugees had fled to neighboring
Ingushetia. Russia maintained that a political solution was impossible
until Islamic militants in Chechnya had been vanquished.
In a decision that took Russia and the world by surprise, Boris Yeltsin
resigned on Dec. 31, 1999, and Vladimir Putin became the acting
president.
In Feb. 2000, after almost five months of fighting, Russian troops
captured Grozny. It was a political as well as a military victory for
Putin, whose hard-line stance against Chechnya greatly contributed to his
political popularity.
On March 26, 2000, Putin won the presidential election with about 53%
of the vote. Putin moved to centralize power in Moscow and attempted to
limit the power and influence of both the regional governors and wealthy
business leaders. Although Russia remained economically stagnant, Putin
brought his nation a measure of political stability it never had under the
mercurial and erratic Yeltsin.
In Aug. 2000 the Russian government was severely criticized for its
handling of the Kursk disaster, a nuclear submarine accident that
left 118 sailors dead.
Russia was initially alarmed in 2001 when the U.S. announced its
rejection of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, which for 30 years
had been viewed as a crucial force in keeping the nuclear arms race under
control. But Putin was eventually placated by President George W. Bush's
reassurances, and in May 2002, the U.S. and Russian leaders announced a
landmark pact to cut both countries' nuclear arsenals by up to two-thirds
over the next ten years.
On Oct. 23, 2002, Chechen rebels seized a crowded Moscow theater and
detained 763 people, including 3 Americans. Armed and wired with
explosives, the rebels demanded that the Russian government end the war in
Chechnya. Government forces stormed the theater the next day, after
releasing a gas into the theater that killed not only all the rebels but
more than 100 hostages.
In March 2003, Chechens voted in a referendum that approved a new
regional constitution making Chechnya a separatist republic within Russia.
Agreeing to the constitution meant abandoning claims for complete
independence, and the new powers accorded the republic were little more
than cosmetic. During 2003, there were 11 bomb attacks against Russia that
were believed to have been orchestrated by Chechen rebels.
In April 2003 reformist politician Sergei Yushenkov became the third
outspoken critic of the Kremlin to be assassinated in five years. Just
hours before he was gunned down, Yushenkov had officially registered his
new political party, Liberal Russia. In Nov. 2003, billionaire Mikhail
Khodorkovsky, president of the Yukos oil company, was arrested on charges
of fraud and tax evasion. Khodorkovsky supported liberal opposition
parties, which led many to suspect that President Putin may have
engineered his arrest. On May 31, 2005, Khodorkovsky was sentenced to nine
years in prison.
Putin was reelected president in March 2004, with 70% of the vote.
International election observers considered the process less than
democratic.
On Sept. 1–3, dozens of heavily armed guerrillas seized a school
in Beslan, near Chechnya, and held about 1,100 young schoolchildren,
teachers, and parents hostage. Hundreds of hostages were killed, including
about 156 children. Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility.
In the aftermath of the horrific attack, Putin announced that he would
radically restructure the government to fight terrorism more effectively.
The world community expressed deep concern that Putin's plans would
consolidate his power and roll back democracy in Russia.
In Sept. 2004, Russia endorsed the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. It
was the final endorsement needed to put the protocol into effect
worldwide.
Former Chechen president and rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov was killed by
Russian special forces on March 8, 2005. Putin hailed it as a victory in
his fight against terrorism. An even greater victory occurred in July
2006, when Russia announced the killing of Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev,
responsible for the horrific Beslan terrorist attack. In Feb. 2007, Putin
dismissed the president of Chechnya, Alu Alkhanov, and appointed Ramzan
Kadyrov, a security official and the son of former Chechen president
Akhmad, who was killed by rebels in 2004. Ramzan Kadyrov and forces loyal
to him have been linked to human-rights abuses in the troubled region.
Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent who has been critical of the
Kremlin, died from poisoning by a radioactive substance in November 2006.
On his deathbed in a London hospital, he accused Putin of masterminding
his murder. In July 2007, Moscow refused the British government's request
to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, another former KGB agent who British
authorities have accused in Litvinenko's murder.
Former Russian president Boris Yeltsin died in April 2007.
The International Olympic Committee announced in July 2007 that Sochi,
Russia, a Black Sea resort, will host the Winter Games in 2014. It will be
the first time Russia or the former Soviet Union hosts the Winter
Games.
In July 2007, President Putin announced that Russia will suspend the
1990 Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, which limits conventional
weapons in Europe. Several U.S. officials speculated that Putin was acting
in response to U.S. plans to build a missile shield in Europe―a move
stongly opposed by Russia. The move provided further evidence of
deteriorating relations between the United States and Russia.
In September, Putin nominated Viktor Zubkov, a close ally, as prime
minister. The Duma, the lower house of Parliament, confirmed the
nomination.
Putin announced in October that he would head the list of candidates on
the United Russia ticket, the country's leading political party. Such a
move would pave the way for Putin to become prime minister, and thus allow
him to retain power. In December parliamentary elections, United Russia
won in a landslide, taking 64.1% of the vote, far ahead of the Communist
Party of Russia, which took 11.6%. Opposition parties complained that the
election was rigged, and European monitors said the vote wasn't fair.
Putin used his sway over the media to stifle the opposition and campaign
for United Russia, making the election a referendum on his popularity.
Opposition leader and former chess champion Garry Kasparov said the
election was "the most unfair and dirtiest in the whole history of modern
Russia."
In December, Putin endorsed Dmitri Medvedev in March 2008's
presidential election. A Putin loyalist who is said to be moderate and
pro-Western, Medvedev is a first deputy prime minister and the chairman of
Gazprom, the country's oil monopoly. He has never worked in intelligence
or security agencies, unlike Putin and many members of his administration.
Medvedev said that if elected, he would appoint Putin as prime
minister.
In January 2008, Russia's Central Election Commission rejected the
presidential candidacy of former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, saying
about 13% of the signatures on his nomination papers were invalid. The
move outraged Kasynov's supporters and sparked wide criticism of Putin's
continued moves to suppress democracy.
Medvedev won the March presidential election with 67% of the vote.
Putin said he would serve as Medvedev's prime minister, indicating he will
increase the responsibilities of the position. Although Medvedev vowed to
restore stability to Russia after the 1990s turmoil, significant change in
the government is not expected.
On April 15, 2008, Russian president Vladimir Putin was chosen as
chairman of the United Russia party and agreed to become prime minister
when Dmitri Medvedev assumes the presidency in May.
On May 6, 2008, Dmitry Medvedev was sworn in as president, and Putin
became prime minister days later. Although Medvedev assumed the
presidency, Putin clearly remained in control of the government and
signaled that the premiership would gain broad authority. In assembling a
cabinet, Putin called on several members of his former administration.
In August 2008, fighting between Georgia and its two breakaway regions,
South Ossetia and Abkhazia, broke out. Russia sent hundreds of troops to
support the enclaves, and also launched airstrikes and occupied the
Georgian cities of Tbilisi and Gori. Observers speculated that
Russia’s aggressive tactics marked an attempt to gain control of
Georgia’s oil and gas export routes.
At the end of August, after a cease-fire agreement between Russia and
Georgia was signed, Russian president Dmitri Medvedev severed diplomatic
ties with Georgia, officially recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as
independent regions, and pledged military assistance from Russia,
heightening tensions between Russia and the West.
Both Russia and Georgia have painted each other as the aggressor
responsible for the war—Georgia said it launched an attack in South
Ossetia because a Russian invasion was under way, and Russia claimed it
sent troops to the breakaway region to protect civilians from Georgia's
offensive attack. In November 2008, Erosi Kitsmarishvili, a former
Georgian diplomat to Moscow, testified that the Georgian government was
responsible for starting the conflict with Russia. Kitsmarishvili stated
that Georgian officials told him in April that they planned to start a war
in the breakaway regions and were supported by the U.S. government.
On September 26, 2008, Russia agreed to loan Venezuela $1 billion to
help finance their military development, increasing tensions between
Russia and the West. Between 2005 and 2007, Venezuela signed 12 contracts
for weapons purchases worth $4.4 billion.
A dispute over debts and pricing of gas supplies between Russia and
Ukraine led Gazprom, the major Russian gas supplier, to halt its gas
exports to Europe via Ukraine, affecting at least ten EU countries in
January 2009. About 80% of Russian gas exports to Europe are pumped
through Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for the disruption
to Europe's energy supply.
See also Encyclopedia: Russia. U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
Russia State Committee of the Russian Federation on Statistics:
www.gks.ru/eng/ . See also Russian History Timeline. See
also Chechnya Timeline.
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