RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Sept 3, 2008
TODAY: Medvedev says EU summit “double-edged”, calls Saakashvili a “political corpse”, and threatens to terminate WTO agreements; Putin warns of Russian response to Nato warships; Turkey plays down disagreements. Meet the minigarchs. President Dmitry Medvedev called the European Union’s emergency summit “double-edged”, criticizing it for threatening to postpone talks on a new cooperation agreement, but praising the decision not to impose economic sanctions. Medvedev says Russia will terminate some agreements “soon” if no headway is made towards its accession to the World Trade Organization. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has promised that Russia will respond – “calmly” – to the presence of Nato warships in the Black Sea. “Anybody who thinks Russia’s confrontation with the West is another Cold War has been misled,” says Yulia Latynina. Francis Fukuyama writes in the Financial Times on the diminishing of US influence and the rise of Russia, saying that the US is suffering due to a lack of “moral credibility”. The US has urged Russian authorities to investigate the killing of opposition journalist Magomed Yevloyev.