RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Aug 20, 2010
TODAY: United Russia changes tack on election strategy; Medvedev visits Armenia, wants bombers ‘destroyed’; evidence on plane crash passed to Poland; only one wildfire state of emergency remains; City Hall prohibits Khimki concert; VTsIOM on police name change; when funds disappear, space dogs, Bout.
United Russia is to try a new tactic ahead of the local parliament elections in October, ‘sidelining prominent members in favor of lesser-known officials with deep roots in the regions‘ over fears that public dissatisfaction with the government over its handling of the wildfires will cause the party to lose votes. President Dmitry Medvedev wants this week’s Caucasus bombers ‘destroyed‘. The Prosecutor General has passed on ‘everything the Polish side is requesting‘ in the way of evidence on the plane crash that killed President Lech Kaczynski. Only the Ryazan region remains a state of emergency after Medvedev removed emergency status for the Mordovia, Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod regions as a cold front hit Russia’s west. 64,000 hectares of peat bogs in the Moscow region are to be flooded by the end of the year to prevent the fires from returning as Emergency Ministry estimates on the scale of fire damage hit $394 million.