April 22, 2008 By Citizen M

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – April 22, 2008

220408.jpgTODAY: Russia-Georgia row escalates after spy plane is shot down, Russia-Kyrgyzstan relations worsen. Moscow play banned; wireless devices to be government-registered; US presidential candidates show anti-Russian sentiment; US pastor sentenced. The UN Security Council agreed to a Georgian request to hold a special meeting this week regarding the latest dispute with Russia, which intensified after Tbilisi released footage of what it claimed was a Russian fighter jet shooting down a spy plane over a breakaway region. Russia has denied the allegation, with one newspaper saying, “Georgia has again tried to shift the blame for its own internal headache onto the healthy.” The country is engaged in a new diplomatic row with Kyrgyzstan after a Russian soldier was shot by a Kyrgyz policeman. One journalist sees Vladimir Putin’s acceptance of the United Russia leadership as “an act of desperation”.