RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – May 21, 2009
TODAY: Georgia, energy and human rights on the agenda for a tense EU-Russia summit; US-Russia arms talks conclude positively; Kremlin insistent on US missile defense issue; will US soldiers in Poland provoke friction?; revered actor Oleg Yankovsky dies
A handful of issues await delegates at the EU-Russia summit; RFE/RL focuses upon the potential sources of disagreement and the despondency of Brussels diplomats regarding all matters Russian. A Moscow Times commentator looks at the advantages for Russia becoming closer to the EU, and the main divisive points between them, with ‘energy and human rights at the top of the list’. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana has said that despite the tensions, the EU would like to have a policy of ‘dialogue and engagement’ with the Kremlin, even though last year’s incursion into Georgia put relations ‘under heavy stress’. Kremlin aide, Sergei Prikhodko, has also focused upon the Georgia issue, promising that Russia will ask EU delegates: ‘What will their protracted, promiscuous support of comrade Saakashvili materialize into?‘ RFE/RL looks at the vagueness of the ‘progress’ made at the Geneva security talks on Georgia in a Caucasus report.