Putin, flanked by Surkov, left, and Sobyanin, meeting with leaders from United Russia in Novo-Ogaryovo on Friday. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday called on United Russia leaders to stay in touch with the people and warned the party against bamboozling voters by making promises it cannot keep, a week after a massive anti-government protest in Kaliningrad. "You must not promise everything to everybody all at once," Putin told top officials of the country's ruling party, which he chairs, at a meeting at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence. "You ...

Putin, along with Vanhanen, speaking to the press Wednesday in Helsinki. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin promised Baltic statesmen Wednesday that Russia would curtail its sewage dumping and reassured them that the Nord Stream pipeline would not harm the Baltic Sea, as Finland was nearing a decision on the final permit for the pipeline. Putin, who was in Finland for a Baltic Sea environmental summit, also said Russia could extend its low duties on timber exports to Finland, an apparent attempt to encourage a positive pipeline verdict. Finland will make a decision o...

Dmitry Lovetsky / AP A black-and-white photograph taken by President Dmitry Medvedev being sold by charity auction organizer Igor Gavryushkin in St. Petersburg on Saturday. 1 of 3 President Dmitry Medvedev’s photo fetched 51 million rubles ($1.7 million) at a charity auction in St. Petersburg on Saturday, surpassing Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s record for a painting sold at the same event last year. The signed, black-and-white aerial photograph in a silver frame, “Tobolsk Kremlin,” depicts the Siberian city’s 18th-century fortress. It was sold to Mikh...

Livestory.com.ua Rastorguyev Nikolai Rastorguyev, whom Prime Minister Vladimir Putin calls his favorite folk rock singer and who has no experience in politics, became a State Duma deputy with United Russia on Wednesday. The front man for the rock band Lyube fills a seat vacated by Sergei Smetanyuk, who was recently appointed deputy presidential envoy to the Urals Federal District. Rastorguyev said he was looking forward to starting his "interesting" new job. "I will try to jump into the swing of things as soon as possible," he said in a statement to The Moscow Times. A seni...

Alexei Druzhinin / RIA-Novosti / AP Putin shaking hands with Khloponin on his arrival Friday in Pyatigorsk. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin declared on Saturday that peace has returned to the North Caucasus and called for the region's economy to be rebuilt. Putin ordered Alexander Khloponin, a new deputy prime minister and presidential envoy to the North Caucasus Federal District, to improve the quality of life of its population by creating jobs, signaling a new approach to restoring stability — something that military force has so far failed to achieve. "The bandits have been fended ...

Norilsk Nickel, the world's biggest nickel and palladium producer, expects to report net profit of about $2 billion in 2009, which allowed it to pay down debt of $1.25 billion, chief executive Vladimir Strzhalkovsky said Friday. Strzhalkovsky told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in a one-on-one meeting that Norilsk would invest $2 billion into its plants, without specifying a time period, according to a transcript of the meeting on the government web site. The country's biggest miner increased salaries for its employees by 10 percent as of Jan. 1, Strzhalkovsky said. Separately, Norilsk foreca...

A year after former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested on fraud charges, Baikal Finance Group — a mysterious company with a share capital of only 10,000 rubles ($330) — acquired Yukos’ largest subsidiary, Yuganskneftegaz, for $9.3 billion in an “auction” consisting of only one bidder. After Yuganskneftegaz was sold four days later to state-controlled Rosneft, Andrei Illarionov, economic adviser to then-President Vladimir Putin, called the state expropriation of Yukos “the Biggest Scam of the Year” in his annual year-end list of Russia’s ...

Russia has discovered a new large oil deposit with estimated reserves of over 150 million metric tons (1.1 billion barrels) in East Siberia, Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev said on Wednesday. "We have made an important oil discovery. We can report today that we have opened the Sevastyanovo oil field, with reserves of over 150 million metric tons. This a strategic deposit," Trutnev said at a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The deposit is located in the Irkutsk Region and was discovered by state-run oil major Rosneft. It has category C1+C2 reserves...

Russia's most controversial factory, the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill, which has worried environmentalists for 25 years, could restart operations within a month, a business daily said on Tuesday. Last week, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a resolution excluding the production of pulp, paper and cardboard from the list of operations banned in the Baikal natural territory. Environmentalists decried the move and are planning to appeal to President Dmitry Medvedev to cancel Putin's resolution, Kommersant reported. A public campaign to close or conver...

Multimedia Photo: Russian rescuers in earthquake-struck Haiti Photo: Haiti earthquake aftermath Infographics: Powerful earthquake hits Haiti Video: Haiti gangs prevent aid in shanty town Video: Haitians struggle to get aid Video: Students from Haiti pray for their relatives All students from quake-hit Haiti at Russian universities will receive state funding to continue their studies, the Russian premier said on Monday. "We have decided that all those who are studying on a paid basis will study at the expense of the Russian federal budget,...

The Russian and Belarusian prime ministers agreed on Saturday to hold the next meeting of the Union government in March. According to a spokesman for the Russian head of government, Vladimir Putin and Sergei Sidorsky discussed energy and financial cooperation in a telephone conversation. "Putin and Sidorsky have agreed to hold the next meeting of the Union government of Russia and Belarus in March in the city of Brest," Dmitry Peskov said On Wednesday, Russia and Belarus signed an array of agreements on crude oil deliveries to the former Soviet state and tr...

Multimedia Photo: Russian PM Putin dives to bottom of Lake Baikal Infographics: Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill: Production rates and environmental problems Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told the country's natural resources ministry to monitor the situation at the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill that has reopened near Lake Baikal amid protests from nature activists. "We will keep a cautious eye on the situation at the mill, when it restarts operation," Putin said during a meeting on Wednesday with Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev....

Multimedia Photo: Russia's prototype fifth-generation fighter and its predecessors Video: T-50’s maiden flight, a success The first batch of Russian fifth-generation fighters will go into service in 2013, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Friday. A prototype of the future fighter made a succesful 47-minute maiden flight on Friday in Russia's Far East. " The first Russian fifth-generation fighters will be put into service with the Air Force in 2013, and regular deliveries will start in 2015," Putin said. He added that the develop...

A well-known Russian lead singer from one of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's favorite groups became a member of the Russian lower house of parliament on Wednesday, the press service of the Russian Central Election Committee said. Nikolai Rastorguyev, the uniform-wearing leader of the Lyube group, which sings patriotic songs, and a member of the ruling United Russia party received an MP mandate after another United Russia and parliament member, Sergei Smetanyuk, was appointed deputy presidential envoy to the Urals Federal District and vacated his seat in the parliament...

Libya will buy 1.3-billion-euro ($1.8 billion) worth of arms from Russia under a new contract, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Saturday. "It's not only for small arms and light weapons," he said. He added that the contract was signed on Friday. Russian media reports previously said $2 billion contracts for the delivery of Russian fighter jets and air-defense systems to Libya would be signed during the January 26-27 visit to Moscow by the country's defense minister, Maj. Gen. Younis Jaber. Russia's state arms exporter Rosoboronexport earlier said Russia had five ongoing...

Russia's powerful prime minister, Vladimir Putin, said on Friday totalitarianism and Ukrainian-style political chaos are equally unacceptable for Russia.
Putin spoke at a Kremlin session of the State Council, an advisory board of regional governors and top officials, where President Dmitry Medvedev urged earlier on Friday "a flexible multi-party system" to match the country's bold modernization plans.
Echoing the president, Putin said Russia's political system should be constantly updated, but cautioned against "the Ukrainianization of politi...

The Russian Orthodox Church looks set to become a major owner of property in Russia after a long-delayed law on returning religious property seized by the Bolsheviks got a push from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Kommersant newspaper reported on Thursday that the government had vowed to promptly turn the bill - being drafted by the economics ministry since 2007 - into law. A government commission on religious organizations held a session on Wednesday.
"We discussed practically all articles of the bill," secretary Andrei Sebentsov told the business daily. "We ...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned the United States on Thursday that Russia could find other poultry suppliers if U.S. companies fail to meet the country's sanitary requirements.
"Unfortunately, we don't see any readiness in observing Russian standards from some of our trade partners, first of all from the United States," Putin said at a conference on poultry market development in Russia.
"If some of our foreign suppliers don't want or can't meet our health requirements, we will use other sources for deliveries," he added.
St...

Russia has managed to reverse the trend of the past few years with explored natural reserves exceeding their output in 2009, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.
"Whereas in the mid-1990s we said we were eating away what we had prospected earlier, now the situation has changed radically," Putin said.
In particular, proven natural gas reserves prospected in 2009 exceeded gas output by 70 billion cubic meters and stood at 650 billion cubic meters, Putin said. "The same results were registered in the uranium, iron ore and other metals...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Wednesday he hoped there would be fewer disagreements between Russia and NATO in the future.
Relations between the military bloc and Moscow have improved in recent months after being frozen in the wake of the August 2008 Russian-Georgian war. Russia has been unhappy about NATO's eastward expansion.
"I think we have a lot to talk about. A unification of Russian and North Atlantic alliance's efforts in spheres of common interest may yield good results," Putin