RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Nov 30, 2010
TODAY: Kashin attackers post video, journalist writes first column since attack; Parfenov’s ‘magic touch’; Kremlin unperturbed by Wikileaks; has Russia broken long-standing pledges to NATO? Nashi founder, officials accused of crimes including murder and fraud; Shavenkova back in court, poet Akhmadulina dies.
A bizarre twist in the case of Oleg Kashin; those who claim to be his attackers have made a YouTube video claiming that the ‘influential people‘ who ordered the attack have turned on them, and that they may be willing to cooperate with the authorities. Kashin meanwhile has written his first column since the attack, comparing himself in the surreal experience of media attention surrounding him to Yury Gagarin, and vowing not to let the incident silence him. He has also given a radio interview on Russia’s dwindling media freedom. The Economist writes on the ‘magic touch‘ of Leonid Parfenov, the Newsweek editor, as demonstrated by his lambasting of Russia’s television stations during an award speech over the weekend. The Kremlin does not seem bothered by yesterday’s Wikileaks revealing US diplomats’ comments on the country’s ruling tandem, oligarchy, and lack of democracy: ‘We found nothing interesting or deserving comment in the material‘; Sergei Lavrov called the documents ‘entertaining trash‘, and insisted that Russia’s diplomacy would be ‘guided by the concrete actions of our partners‘. Although Russia may come to welcome some of the leaks, such as documents in which a US official blames Georgia for provoking Russia ahead of the war in 2008.