February 25, 2010 By Citizen M

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Feb 25, 2010

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TODAY: Visa-free travel with Europe on the agenda; Medvedev and Putin have ‘same blood’; Akhipov to seek medical care abroad; uproar over United Russia consultant who has thus far escaped charges for killing a pedestrian with her car; more police firings; prison conditions; Yanukovych sworn in as Ukraine’s president.  Sochi preparations.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says that Moscow is committed to maximum cooperation with the EU on figuring out how to put visa-free travel between Russia and Europe into practice.  ‘We are ready to introduce visa-free travel with Europe tomorrow,‘ he said.  President Dmitry Medvedev said he and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin actually do have the same blood – ‘in the medical sense of the word‘, confirming Putin’s allegorical remarks last year that the two were ‘people of the same blood‘.  Medvedev also stated that he and Putin would make a joint decision on the future of their dual ruling.  A new paper from Andrew Wood, a former UK ambassador to Russia, investigates the contradiction between the power vertical and the need to modernize Russia’s economy.  The Other Russia has picked up on the story of Evgeny Arkhipov, the lawyer who alleges he was denied medical care despite evidence of poisoning, which the Association of Russian Lawyers for Human Rights believe is connected to Arkhipov’s work on an anti-corruption report.