Hotest News from Russia

Putin to Hold Bilateral Meetings With Presidents of Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan

2014/09/28

MOSCOW, September 29 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold bilateral meetings with the heads of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Iran during the Caspian summit in Astrakhan on Monday, according to the president's aide.

"A meeting with Aliev [Ilham Aliev, president of Azerbaijan] is scheduled," Vladimir Putin's aide Yury Ushakov reported Friday.

"Meeting with Aliev is important. Our contacts have become significantly more active. Thus, just several days ago, there was a meeting of an intergovernmental commission in Baku," Ushakov added.

He also mentioned that bilateral meetings with Iran's President Hassan Rouhani and Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow are planned.

Strengthening of economic ties, in particular, cooperation in peaceful atom relies with Iran and delivery of Russian oil and gas equipment to Iran will be discussed. Moreover, political situations in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq will be reviewed, according to the aide.

Presidents of Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan will meet at the Caspian summit in Astrakhan, southern Russia, on September 29. The summit will be focused on cooperation between the countries and progress in implementation of the decisions, taken at the previous summit in Baku in 2010.

Kharkiv: Lenin Down

2014/09/28

About an hour ago a Lenin’s monument was downed in Kharkiv city, Ukraine. Kharkiv is pretty large city – metropolitan population of around 1,700,000 people and they say this Lenin’s monument was the largest in Europe. Not any more. Forty seconds of video how it went is inside.

I am not very sure why did they do to Lenin it this time as it’s already twenty years after Communism ended however some people associate things going around in Ukraine with Soviet legacy so this might be why.

Rosenergoatom: Ukraine Fully and Timely Delivers Equipment for Russian Nuclear Plants

2014/09/28

MOSCOW, September 29 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine is following all its obligations on the delivery of equipment for Russian nuclear power plants, Evgeny Romanov, Director General of Rosenergoatom, said on Sunday.

"I can say that for the time being, Ukrainian companies are following all their obligations. Deliveries are made on time. We are carrying out normal cooperation. The overall tensions are not transferred onto our dialogue with Ukrainian enterprises," Romanov said in an interview with the Russia 24 channel.

"We are widely using [Ukrainian] products in the construction of nuclear power plants . . . For us, products made by Ukrainian manufacturers are very important," he added.

Rosenergoatom has calculated possible risks, associated with the Ukrainian crisis and considered alternate solutions, Romanov said. "These are nothing more than hypothetical plans which we are considering like any normal business structure", he stressed.

An armed conflict began in Ukraine as Kiev launched a military operation against independence supporters in the Donbas region in April.

Kiev authorities have repeatedly accused Russia of aiding Donbas independence supporters. Moscow has denied any involvement in the internal Ukrainian crisis.

Lavrov: Ukraine in Need of Deep Constitutional Reform

2014/09/28

MOSCOW, September 28 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine needs a thorough constitutional reform, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Sunday in an interview with Rossiya-1 broadcaster and the RT news channel.

“In the end we reached a national dialogue, so far only between Kiev and two regions, but I am convinced that Ukraine needs a thorough constitutional reform,” Lavrov said.

“Nevertheless, we have reached steps which are in line with a political compromise and settlement. At the same time, we reached a point where the European Union and the Ukrainian president recognized the fairness of [Russia’s] belief; that it is necessary to wait with the enactment of provisions of the [EU-Ukraine] association agreement that affect the economic interests of Russia and other members of the CIS free trade zone. This part of the signed agreement is on pause until the end of 2015,” Lavrov added.

According to the minister, all this, however, could have been settled in last November.

“Yanukovych, by and large, asked for the exact same thing. He did not want to dismiss the signing of the agreement. Rather, he wanted to take some more time in order to analyze the economic consequences . . . we ended up at the same place, but at the cost of thousands of lives, massive destruction and a Europe-wide crisis.”

The Ukraine-EU Association Agreement is a treaty that presupposes political and economic association between its signatories. The political provisions of the agreement were signed in March, after the then president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted and an interim government came to power. The economic part of the agreement was signed by the current president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko in June.

Early in September, Russia, Ukraine and the European Union reached a compromise on Kiev's free trade pact with the EU, postponing its entry into force until the end of 2015. The deal was reached during trilateral talks in Brussels, which were convened after Moscow had expressed concerns about the economic risks the implementation of the association agreement could bring both to Russia and Ukraine.

Russia, India Discuss Construction of New Units at Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant

2014/09/28

MOSCOW, September 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russian and Indian nuclear scientists have discussed a project for the construction of new units at the Kudankulam power plant in southern India, NIAEP director Valery Limarenko said on Sunday.

"Indian colleagues have told us that they are preparing platforms for cooperation with the Russian Federation," Limarenko said in an interview with the Russia 24 channel.

India signed a contract with the Soviet Union in 1988 on the construction of two nuclear reactors. The agreement is now implemented by NIAEP (Atomstroyexport), a subsidiary of Russia's nuclear giant Rosatom.

The plant's first two units use VVER-1000 reactors and have an electric capacity of 1,000 megawatts. In May, the sides signed a general framework agreement for the construction of a third and fourth unit at the Kudankulam nuclear power plant.