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MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev fired powerful Moscow police chief Vladimir Pronin on Tuesday as heads rolled over a lone policeman’s shooting spree that horrified the city. Medvedev has signed an order relieving Pronin of his duties, the Kremlin said in a statement posted on its web site late Tuesday. It did not elaborate. Earlier in the day, Medvedev fired the head of Moscow’s southern police district, Viktor Ageyev, and three of Ageyev’s deputies were also dismissed. The shakeup came after a blood bath early Monday when police Major Denis Yevsyukov, head of a police precinct in southern Moscow, shot dead a cab driver and then walked into a supermarket where he shot eight more people, killing two. He was captured after a police shootout. Investigators said Yevsyukov, who was off duty, went on the rampage after quarreling with his wife on his 32nd birthday Sunday. |
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HOT WHEELS
Mikhail Ipatov / For The St. Petersburg Times
A skateboarder emerges from an underpass on Nevsky Prospekt into blazing sunshine on Tuesday. Forecasters are predicting fine weather for the weekend with clouds only appearing on Monday. |
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MOSCOW — A senior virologist warned on Tuesday that the swine flu outbreak could reach Russia in a week and said the risk of a global pandemic was “very high.” But passengers greeted by mask-wearing health officials at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport brushed off concerns about swine flu, which has been linked to 149 deaths in Mexico and has been confirmed in the United States, Canada, Scotland, Spain and New Zealand.
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MOSCOW — About one in every five military generals will be fired for failing to pass a proficiency test, Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov said Tuesday. Fifty of the military’s 249 generals failed the unannounced test, which is part of ongoing defense reforms, said Pankov, who holds the rank of general. |
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BRUSSELS — NATO resumed formal contacts with Moscow Wednesday, eight months after they were frozen over Russia’s war in Georgia, but said the two sides were not suddenly about to resolve their differences. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW — Russia’s delegation at the Council of Europe is in an uproar after it emerged that its favored candidate for the organization’s next secretary-general, Belgian Senator Luc Van den Brande, might not be shortlisted for the position. The council’s Parliamentary Assembly, which will elect the new secretary-general in June, decided to call an urgent debate on the election process for Wednesday. Its deputies, currently gathered at the spring session in Strasbourg, are upset that ambassadors from the 47 member states have halved the number of candidates from four to two. The ambassadors decided after a series of votes last week to propose former Norwegian Prime Minister Thorbjorn Jagland and former Polish Prime Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, deputies told The St. |
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 MOSCOW — The crew of a Russian oil tanker managed to repel a pirate attack in the waters off Somalia, the company said Tuesday, apparently by hosing them down with water. |
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A charity event held at the Peter and Paul Fortress on Saturday raised over 460,000 rubles for a St. Petersburg homeless shelter, according to event organizers. Saturday’s International Jazz Benefit in the Atrium of the Peter and Paul Fortress attracted almost 200 guests and earned 460,743 rubles ($13,925) for the Nochlezhka organization, which runs St. |
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Police On Alert ST PETERSBURG (SPT) — Police in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast has been put on a stepped-up regime for the May holidays, the Central Directorate of Internal Affairs announced Tuesday. |
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 Russia and Bulgaria bridged their differences over the planned South Stream pipeline after two days of intensive high-level diplomacy, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Bulgarian counterpart Sergei Stanishev said Tuesday. Putin also said Russia saw no point in continuing to be a signatory to the European Energy Charter after it failed to regulate Moscow’s dispute with Ukraine over transit to Europe in January. |
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MOSCOW — Internet regulators are cracking down on domain owners who publish illegal information on web sites by requiring them to provide their passports or another form of verifiable identification. |
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MOSCOW — Milk prices are poised to tumble after one of the country’s top producers announced price reductions starting next week. Unimilk, Russia’s second-biggest dairy producer, said it would lower prices for its upmarket Prostokvashino brand by 10 percent, and by 15 percent to 30 percent for the middle-market brands Letni Den and Selo Lugovoe. |
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Uralkali said Tuesday that 2008 profit rose 172 percent year on year to 21.9 billion rubles ($653 million), despite waning demand for its potash fertilizer in the fourth quarter. |
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 Aras Agalarov’s Crocus Group is going to build a university in Vladivostok for the 2012 APEC summit, and the state has pledged 284 billion rubles ($8.5 billion) in support for the undertaking, making it Russia’s second-largest construction site after the Sochi Olympics project. Crocus was selected as general contractor for the construction of the Far Eastern Federal University on Russky Island, two sources in the Cabinet told Vedomosti. |
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 Strabag’s biggest shareholders will agree this week to take over Oleg Deripaska’s 25 percent stake in Central Europe’s biggest construction company. Raiffeisen Holding and Strabag chief executive Hans-Peter Haselsteiner will gain the holding from Deripaska, who will keep one share in the company and hold a call option on his stake until December 20, 2009, Raiffeisen chief executive Erwin Hameseder said Monday at a briefing in Vienna. |
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A new double-taxation treaty between Russia and Cyprus includes a section that will make it more difficult for developers to use offshore firms to minimize their tax payments, according to a copy of the document. Earlier this month, finance ministers from both countries agreed on a protocol that will alter the current bilateral agreement on double taxation. |
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I arrived in Moscow from Washington highly optimistic, a day after the vigorous, historic handshake between Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama in London on April 1. I left — after visits with officials and colleagues — more than a bit concerned. |
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Last week, The Independent solved the mystery of the 2002 terrorist attack on the Dubrovka Theater. OK, maybe it wasn’t solved, but a few good hints were dropped. |
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 The city’s central Bukvoyed bookstore was surrounded by the police on Monday, with several police vehicles parked on Ligovsky Prospekt and Ploshchad Vosstaniya, camouflaged OMON special-task officers waiting around the corner and a group of senior police officers picketing the entrance. |
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La Marseillaise promises a great deal: Authentic Provencale cuisine courtesy of a homesick Frenchman and his Russian business partners, quaint Riviera decor, ample space for the children to frolic after a hard day at the fairground, and a wine list comprehensive enough to humble a Rothschild. |
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 BARCELONA — Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola reacted angrily at what he saw as the referee’s leniency towards English side Chelsea’s physical approach in their 0-0 Champions League semi-final first leg match. Chelsea went away with mission accomplished after they stood firm against a barrage from Barcelona at the Camp Nou and become the first side this season in the competition to stop Barca from scoring at home. |
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LOS ANGELES — Seven-times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong will return to competition at this week’s Tour of the Gila in New Mexico after recovering from collarbone surgery, race organizers said Tuesday. |
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