RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Dec 18, 2009
TODAY: Rasmussen says NATO will never attack Russia; new high-speed train links Moscow and St Petersburg; Georgia demolishes Soviet memorial; Gordon Brown welcomes investigation into Magnitsky’s death; Medvedev and Obama to discuss treaty in Copenhagen; freezing in Moscow.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen clearly rebuffed Dmitry Medvedev’s Euorpean security pact during his trip to Moscow, saying that NATO already had a similar framework in place. Speaking in Moscow, Rasmussen pushed for a new phase of partnership between NATO and Russia which, he said, is ‘fighting the ghosts of the past [….] NATO will never attack Russia. Never. And we don’t think Russia will attack us. We have stopped worrying about this, and Russia should stop worrying about us as well.‘ Russia has unveiled its first high-speed train link between Moscow and St Petersburg, cutting the usual journey time by an hour and a half. The defense ministry is ‘concerned‘ after Georgia demolished a Soviet Second World War memorial to make room for a new parliament building. Three journalists were killed in Russia in 2009, says the Committee to Protect Journalists, noting a worldwide record on the back of a massacre in the Philippines. The Novosibirsk Region is awash with foreign spies, if its regional department is to be believed.