Russia agrees to lifts its ban on EU vegetables on certain condition; Russia reduces electricity supply to Belarus due to its failure to pay its dues; NATO and Russia clashes over missile defence; Azerbaijan wants Russia to pay more for use of a radar st
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    • Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, after a tense EU-Russia summit in Nizhny Novgorod, stated that Moscow would lift its ban on EU vegetables once Brussels handed over certificates vouching for their safety. It is worth noting that Russia imposed the ban last week after the outbreak of a rare strain of E.coli bacteria that so far has killed some 30 people in Europe and infected another 2,600, mainly in Germany. However, Medvedev refrained from putting a time frame on lifting the ban.
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    Russia's Inter RAO has reduced about half of its electricity supplies to Belarus due to the latter’s failure to pay its dues, which is reportedly around $54 million. Although imports of Russian electricity account for less than 10 percent of Belarus' needs, and Belarus’s consumers wouldn't be hurt by Inter RAO’s move, Belarus would try to quickly settle its debt.2

    While NATO and Russia have clashed again over the former’s to build a missile defense system, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen was still of the view that the military alliance and Russia "are coming closer to reaching agreement" on principles for cooperating by creating two separate missile defense systems — one NATO and one Russian — that could exchange information. However, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov denied such a prospect as the idea of linked Russian and NATO missile shields did not suit Moscow and could spark a new arms race.3

    Azerbaijan wants Moscow to pay more for the use of a radar station that is part of Russia's warning system against attacks from beyond its southern frontiers, according to Azeri Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov. Moscow currently pays $10 million per year for its operation from the Qabala radar station situated on the Caspian Sea between Russia and Iran. Russia’s agreement with Azerbaijan on the Qabala station is for 10 years and it is to expire in August next year.4

    Russia's Rosvertol attack helicopter producer is in talks with Algeria over exports of its Mi-28NE for delivery from 2012-2017, according to General Director Boris Slyusar of Rosvertol, the state-owned Russian Helicopters holding company. If successful, the deal will be the second export sale of the night-capable Mi-28NE, which is currently being introduced to the Russian armed forces. Earlier in 2010, Venezuela ordered for ten Mi-28s, although they are yet to be delivered.5

    Russia has protested against any U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria. Moscow has already stepped up its threat to veto a Western-backed draft condemning the country's crackdown on protesters. Russia does not believe that the situation is Syria poses any threat to international peace and security and insists that the violent confrontation should be resolved by the Syrians themselves “without outside influence”.6

    Russian President Dmitry Medvedev emphasizes on the necessity of new environmental laws and greater investment for Moscow in order to bring an end to industrial pollution and clean up more than 30 billion tons of toxic waste countrywide. Meanwhile, Russia’s Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev said Russia would spend 3.2 billion rubles ($116 million) over the next three years to overcome consequences of pollution in its Arctic Franz Josef Land and Wrangel Island, and around Lake Baikal.7

    Russia has urged Estonia to take all the necessary measures to protect the rights of ethnic minorities and abolish the status of "non-citizen". It is worth noting that the category of ‘non citizens’, created in 1991 by the Latvian Parliament, is largely applicable to Russians who moved to Latvia from erstwhile Soviet Union. Because of the Estonian-language element of the citizenship test, many of those Russians have been categorized as ‘non-citizen’ and they are barred from acquiring a national passport and casting their votes in elections.8

    According to Georgia’s Prime Minister Nika Gilauri, the three-month long talks between Georgia and Russia have not made much progress on the issue of Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization (WTO). Apart from the five-day long war between the two countries in 2008 over the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia, the differences between them seem to have appeared due to Abkhazia’s continued insistence on transparency on border crossings, on customs checkpoints from Moscow.9

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