Russia’s Blame Game on the Financial Crisis

This is from Dmitry Medvedev’s joint press conference with Angela Merkel following the Petersburger Dialog:

One of the complicated issues we discussed was the financial crisis. We have realised once again that the current global financial security system, like the international security system in general, unfortunately no longer meets today’s demands. The flaws in the economic policy and development model pursued by the United States of America over these last years lie behind the problems that have arisen, and we are paying for this today. (…) As far as the current financial situation and the current financial architecture is concerned (this is something the Federal Chancellor and I discussed today), it is absolutely clear that the existing system is no longer able to maintain the international financial system in a balanced state and gives us no protection against this or that country making decisions that will subsequently set off a chain reaction throughout the links in the international financial system. (…) There is no sense in hiding behind old ways of doing things and saying that we can sort out everything ourselves. We will not solve anything this way, and even the timid steps taken by the G8 at the summit in Japan have not achieved their goals. Today we can say with certainty that we should have moved a lot faster and if we had done this we might have been able to avoid some of the consequences of the crisis that are now spreading from the United States onwards through other countries. We should see this as a lesson for the future.

As Andrew Kramer writes in the New York Times, “While it is hardly a new sentiment, in Russia there is a gloating quality, as the American crisis deepens.”