In the regions What is Putin ashamed January 29, 2005 Alexander Golts Something unprecedented happened this week. President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin admitted that he was ashamed. Kremlin chroniclers claim that this happened for the first time. Putin can be understood.

One can imagine with what pomp the meeting of Boris Abramovich will take place at the Boryspil airport if he actually flies to Kyiv. Surely there will be many officials from the new Ukrainian administration, and someone will come from the Russian capital. Rumor has it that Berezovsky began sending out invitations. In Moscow they are already joking that Sergei Mironov will represent Russia. In fact, the Kremlin is just beginning to pay for its inept policies in Ukraine.

“We are not a party of beggars,” said Boris Nadezhdin, a member of the SPS Political Council. This statement served as an argument in favor of supporting the monetization initiatives of the Russian authorities. In general, at the council, criticism of the current regime was preferred to talking about the horrors of the future.

On January 30, protests against the abolition of benefits took place in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Saransk and Novgorod. There were three of them in the capital. In total, about ten thousand people took part in them. And everywhere they talked about the personal responsibility of the country's president for the “plunder of the poorest segments of the population.” There were demands for the immediate resignation of Vladimir Putin.

Fifty people were recognized as victims as a result of the “preventive” measures that the Blagoveshchensk police carried out in this small Bashkir city. Meanwhile, according to human rights activists and journalists, hundreds of people suffered at the hands of law enforcement officers. So far, only five police officers are under suspicion.

In fact, it is not a new tradition to come to Davos and tell the world elite how magical things are in our country. Russian officials sincerely believe that these important people have no other sources of information. Ten years ago, maybe that was the case. But today, after the looting of YUKOS, the phrase - “Administrative reform is aimed at the maximum withdrawal of the state from the economy, from those areas where the functions of the state are unnecessary” - can no longer mislead anyone.

A striking picture - a black Hammer stops on a dirty wasteland. At first, one militant with weapons crawls out of it, then the Hero of Russia Ramzan Kadyrov with weapons, then another action movie with weapons, then suddenly Ksenia Sobchak in something airy. Kadyrov smiles broadly, the girl also tries to smile, but she doesn’t work out great. She looks around nervously around.

A hearing in the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the topic “The Retreat of Democracy in Russia” is scheduled for February 17th. We will mainly talk about the YUKOS case. This is evidenced by the fact that one of the main speakers at the hearing will be the company's chairman of the board, Stephen Theede. It seems that the Americans have taken this problem seriously and may no longer limit themselves to discussions alone.