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Moscow Times
December 4, 2009
Putin Offers Cash but No Clues on 2012
By Nabi Abdullaev

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin speaking during his annual question-and-answer session broadcast live by Russia's state television in Moscow, Thursday, Dec. 3, 2009.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin promised Thursday to throw more money at the economy and social services, shifted blame for problems on regional authorities and remained tight-lipped over whether he would run for re-election in 2012.

"Don't hold your breath!" the former president said when asked during a televised call-in show whether he had any plans to quit politics and start living a quiet life out of the public spotlight.

Answering a question on whether he would run for president in 2012, Putin said he would make a decision based on how the country's economy developed. He also said he did not want to commit himself to run now because that would limit his ability to make unpopular decisions.

Medvedev, on a state visit to Italy on Thursday, said he also might run for president in 2012.

Medvedev and Putin, who describe their working relationship as a ruling tandem, made similar statements about their 2012 plans just a day apart in September.

Workers from about a dozen industrial enterprises who called Putin's marathon four-hour show via video link demanded direct financial help and more state orders. The workers represented AvtoVAZ, major defense industry firms, mining and metals plants, the Pikalyovo cement plant that caught national attention in the spring when Putin flew there to stop a protest and the Sayano-Shushenskaya power plant, where 75 workers died in an August accident.

Putin did not disappoint a single caller.

He praised the government's efforts to curb the crisis, comparing its effect on the economy with the 1998 default when the banking system nearly collapsed and inflation soared. "We may say that the peak of the crisis has passed, but the Russian and global economies remain turbulent," he said.

The first question in the call-in show was about last week's bombing of the Nevsky Express train, which killed 26 people, and Putin replied that tough and pre-emptive actions and public awareness would minimize the terrorist threat. But he only briefly mentioned security again during the show. Asked about the situation in the North Caucasus, which has seen a drastic increase in terrorist attacks in 2009, Putin said only that the turmoil did not amount to war and complained about the clannish nature of society there that feeds corruption.

There was no video link with the North Caucasus on Thursday, unlike in Putin's previous seven call-in shows, six of which he held as president.

An avid commentator on Russia's foreign policy during his own presidency, Putin only touched on the issue ­ which constitutionally is in the president's domain ­ three times Thursday.

Speaking about recent angry remarks aimed at him by Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, Putin described how Russia supports Belarus' economy by importing its goods, selling oil to Minsk at low prices and lending billions of dollars to Lukashenko.

"But the Belarussian leadership wants more," Putin said.

Asked why he supported Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in the presidential election there next month, Putin abruptly replied that he did not support her and added that Moscow has a "special relationship" with Party of Regions, the largest party in Ukraine's parliament whose leader, Viktor Yanukovych, lost the 2004 presidential election despite support from Putin.

Putin has met several times with Tymoshenko in recent months and accepted her offers during price negotiations for Russian gas.

Putin also accused the United States of blocking Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization, and lashed out at U.S. Senate lobbyist groups for not lifting the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a Cold War-era restriction on trade with Russia.

Speaking later, Putin indicated that Russia faced long negotiations with the WTO because the country was striving to protect the interests of the domestic agriculture, mining and metals industries.

When several callers complained to Putin about low salaries in the state sector, bureaucratic barriers to obtaining social benefits and the bleak prospects of keeping their jobs, the prime minister shifted the blame to regional and local authorities, saying those issues were their responsibility.

He said if any official tried to redirect the blame to him, "tell me these facts, and we will consider who carries responsibility for what."

After the crisis hit the economy late last year, Medvedev and Putin have demanded that regional authorities assume more responsibility for the situation in their provinces ­ a strong departure from the previous decade's "power vertical" reform in which the Kremlin stripped regions of resources, authority and responsibility.

Putin also defended the crackdown on Eastern Europe's biggest retail market, Cherkizovsky, which employed tens of thousands of migrants in Moscow and supplied cheap textile goods from Southeast Asia and China to millions of people in Central Russia. Putin said the retail market had traded in smuggled and counterfeited goods, and its closure in June had boosted the domestic light industry.

"We had a growth of almost 3 percent in the textile sector in the domestic light industry," Putin said. "These are the real consequences of the smuggled and counterfeited goods that were illegally traded there."

Delving into another hot topic of this year, police brutality and corruption, Putin said he did not back calls from several senior members of his United Russia party to disband and retrain the country's police force and then hire back the best officers.

Mentioning Ukraine, which tried such an experiment with the traffic police in 2005, Putin said the reform only contributed to a rise in disorder and corruption. He did not mention that Georgia also conducted the reform and quickly saw its ratings improve on international corruption indexes.

Still, Putin called for the Interior Ministry to clean house by acting quickly and decisively against unruly police officers.

Explaining his position on another contentious issue, state corporations, which Medvedev has called to phase out, Putin said their creation had been approved by the country's leadership during his presidency "to collect the remaining shards" of strategic sectors such as aviation and defense, not to expand the state's presence in the economy.

Putin reiterated that pensions would be raised to the level of minimum living wage next year.

And he singled out Viktor Rashnikov, majority owner of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works, for praise. "Not only is he developing the business itself and introducing new technology, he's also doing a lot in terms of taking care of people, a lot in the environmental sphere."

Asked about the role of Josef Stalin in Russian history, Putin criticized him for mass repressions but noted that industrialization of the country and victory in World War II were achieved under his leadership.

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