FRIDAY MARCH 5 CONTENTS
(1) EDITORIAL: Annals of a Russian Purge
(2) EDITORIAL: The File on Victor Yanukovich
(3) EDITORIAL: Russia Drifts towards the Shoals
(4) Dima Drops another Clanger
(5) Putin’s Crackdown on Sochi Press
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Russians say many tanks sat derelict for months
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5grJOb3nvzvyqcpNSchB2P_f-uYfQD9E6H8MO0
MOSCOW — Residents of a Russian village say scores of modern battle tanks sat abandoned for months on the edge of a snowy forest, but the Russian military insists they were just in transit to a new base and had been guarded the whole time.
Amateur video footage posted on Russian Web sites over the weekend showed curious civilians clambering unhindered over the tanks and caught national attention.
The Kremlin has announced major military cutbacks and some officials say the army doesn’t need half of its 20,000 tanks. Observers wondered if this meant the tanks had simply been left to rust next to a railroad station in the obscure Urals village of Kamishlovsk.
Reports Of Torture Trigger Protests In Daghestan
http://www.rferl.org/content/Reports_Of_Torture_Trigger_Protests_In_Daghestan/1972762.html
MAKHACHKALA, Daghestan — Police today began detaining the leaders of people protesting the reported torture of five murder suspects in Makhachkala, the capital of Daghestan, RFE/RL’s North Caucasus Service reports.
Between 500-1,000 people participated in a 17-hour demonstration in Makhachkala on March 1 to protest reports that five suspects in the June 2009 murder of Daghestan’s interior minister, Lieutenant General Adilgirey Magomedtagirov, were subjected to torture so that they would confess to the murder.
They should cut the number of tanks drastically. If they had radically cut the number of equipment and personel in the early 90s, today the transition towards a small, modern and agile force would have been much easier (because they would have to spend less on mantaining the old stuff). Hoarding old weapons is never a good solution.
Well-Known Russian Rights Activist Turns 80
http://www.rferl.org/content/WellKnown_Russian_Rights_Activist_Turns_80/1972755.html
MOSCOW — Prominent Russian human rights defender and Soviet dissident Sergei Kovalyov is marking his 80th birthday today, RFE/RL’s Russian Service reports.
Kovalyov told RFE/RL today that one of the happiest moments of his life was when his team of negotiators managed to persuade Chechen militant leader Shamil Basayev to release the civilians his men were holding hostage in 1995 in a hospital in the southern town of Budyonnovsk.
He added that one of the most disappointing moments in his life was when he realized how naive he and his fellow rights activists were to assume that universal human rights were a large enough force to impel Russia to evolve into a Western-style democracy.