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MOSCOW — Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that the country would not soften its stance in major international disputes, slamming the Western position on Kosovo, NATO activities and the behavior of the British Council as outside international law. Lavrov’s traditional annual news conference came a day after an address by First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, in which the overwhelming favorite to replace President Vladimir Putin after a March 2 election appeared to signal a greater willingness to cooperate on international issues. But when asked about the possible impact of Medvedev’s accession to the presidency, Lavrov said there was no need for any change in foreign policy since current stances had the strong backing of public opinion. |
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MIRROR IMAGE
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Clouds reflected in the Neva River, with Vasilievsky Island in the background, in a photograph taken from Angliiskaya Naberezhndaya at sunset on Tuesday afternoon. Forecasters are predicting snow over the weekend and temperatures of -3 deg. Celsius. |
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As 2,000 tons of radioactive cargo arrived at St. Petersburg’s port from Germany on Thursday, environmental groups took to the streets to inform city residents about the growing imports of nuclear materials and the dangers the trade imposes. The MV Schouwenbank cargo ship, carrying containers with a total of 2,000 tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride, came from the Gronau uranium enrichment facility that belongs to Urenco Deutschland.
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MOSCOW — Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov on Wednesday denied reports he was pulling out of the March 2 presidential election over the lack of media coverage his campaign is receiving, despite comments from party officials that the option was being considered. Zyuganov did complain that a media campaign was being waged against him ahead of the vote but said no decision on pulling out had been made. |
All photos from issue.
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Russia is more illiberal today than it was ninety years ago when the Bolsheviks, fresh from seizing power in the revolution of October 1917, dissolved the All-Russian Constituent Assembly (Vserossiiskoye Uchreditelnoe Sobraniye), a democratically elected body that survived until 1918, a group of historians and human rights advocates said at a conference on Saturday. This month saw the 90th anniversary of the abolition of the ill-fated parliament, but the matters that it had sought to resolve have become newly relevant and sensitive in Russia, conference-goers said. |
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SIGN OF THE TIMES
Alexander Demianchuk / Reuters
Workers remove the signboard of the British Council on Nevsky Prospekt on Tuesday. Russia forced the organization to shut down its operations outside Moscow last week. |
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A jury was selected Wednesday to consider charges of the attempted assassination of Governor Valentina Matviyenko in May last year. The charges are being brought against three St. Petersburg men who studied with the Islamic organization Al Fatkh. About 60 candidates for the jury came to the hearing, Nezavisimaya Gazeta said, an unusually large number of people to heed the call for jury duty.
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MOSCOW — Liberal Democratic Party leader and presidential candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky had his back to the British Embassy on Wednesday, but his voice boomed over a microphone toward the Moscow River with a message for British officials. In a 20-minute tirade that was part theater, part campaign circus, Zhirinovsky accused Britain of most of the world’s ills — including fomenting the 18th-century war between Russia and Sweden, the Russian-Japanese war, World War I, the October Revolution, World War II and the collapse of the Soviet Union. |
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MOSCOW — Tanks and missiles will rumble across Red Square during the May 9 Victory Day parade for the first time in 18 years, as Russia asserts its military might at the close of Vladimir Putin’s presidency. |
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The main shareholders of St. Petersburg-based retail chain Lenta this week issued statements that were rich with emotional comments and accusations as they continue to try to oust each other from the company’s management after disagreeing over strategy. |
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MOSCOW — Amid the financial blizzard that swept through global markets this week, Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain brought a sobering message to Moscow on Wednesday, warning that the Russian economy was not immune to the crisis. |
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MOSCOW — Russian energy ambitions in the Balkans received a shot in the arm Tuesday as Serbia backed Gazprom taking a major stake in its state oil and gas company and approved a branch of the South Stream gas pipeline through the country. The deal, which comes after President Vladimir Putin last week won agreement to build the pipeline through neighboring Bulgaria, will likely further entrench Gazprom’s control over European gas supplies — and weaken support for the competing Nabucco pipeline project, which is the European Union’s favored supply route. |
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 A television documentary highlighting the damage done to St. Petersburg’s historic center by new building projects has received a massive response from the public after it became available on the Internet earlier this month. The debate continued offline when “St. |
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A concert by Chuck Berry, announced last month, has been canceled, Ilya Bortnyuk of promoter Light Music said this week. “We just decided not to promote it,” he said, when asked why. |
 Director Anna Melikyan dreads hearing one question about her movie, “Mermaid,” which is being shown in the World Cinema Dramatic competition this week at the Sundance Film Festival. “My least favorite question is: ‘What is your movie about?’” the straight-talking Melikyan said in a recent interview, sitting in the basement of a film company in central Moscow. |
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William Bass Pub-Restaurant // 53 Ligovsky Prospekt. Tel: 717 9339 // www.rmcom.ru // Open: 11 a.m. through midnight // Menu in English and Russian // Dinner for two with beer 2770 rubles ($111) There are few more stately pleasures than perusing the shelves of a great library in an English country manor. |
 Valeria could arguably have chosen a better time to launch a cultural invasion of Britain, bringing weepy pop songs and perfectly straight blond hair. But she got off to a pretty good start this week, scoring an interview in The Independent on Sunday calling her “Russia’s answer to Madonna,” which was then followed by a blow-by-blow analysis in Valeria’s pet paper, Tvoi Den, whose weekly edition she used to advertise. |
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 When nominations for the 80th annual Academy Awards were announced Tuesday, they were greeted with the usual complaints about who got left out. But the fuss was already a week old over the nominations for best foreign language film. |
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HYDERABAD, Pakistan — Opener Nasir Jamshed smashed a fluent 74 to help Pakistan pull off an unconvincing five-wicket victory over Zimbabwe in the second one-day international on Thursday. Chasing 239 for victory, flamboyant all-rounder Shahid Afridi came to Pakistan’s rescue with a powerful 43 not out from 27 balls after Zimbabwe had reduced the hosts to 178 for five in the 38th over. |
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LONDON — Toyota have condemned as “malicious scaremongering” media reports that they could withdraw from Formula One if the team do not improve significantly in the next two years. |
Temp: -2°C moderate or heavy snow showers
Issues Archive