| Home | Our Leadership | Our Economies | Our Wars | Our Perspectives | Our Culture | Links | About |
By Anna Laletina
Russia's third president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, was elected on March 2, 2008. The results were never in doubt as this victory was assured long ago when Vladmir V. Putin officially endorsed him. The inauguration of Medvedev took place on May 7, and now it has been six months since he was sworn in as president.
With Putin, Medvedev's predecessor, set to become prime minister, it was unclear whether Medvedev's presidency was going to be something more than just a legal formality. Would this be Russia's new political trend - dual rulers? Or, would Medvedev actually become more than simply a figure head?
Medvedev's portrayal in newspapers - both in the Old and New World - shed insight on how foreign journalists are weighing in on this crucial question. Following is a snapshot of how Medvedev's presidency was highlighted in two major international newspapers - the British newspaper The Guardian and the American newspaper The New York Times.
Expectations and Intentions
Immediately following the announcement of the election results, The New York Times (NYT) described Medvedev as “something of a reformer, vowing to crack down on endemic corruption and promote the rule of law” (“Putin Protégé Secures Election Victory,” March 3, 2008). He also seems “to take a less strident stance toward the West than Mr. Putin,” noted the analyst in that article.
Meanwhile, Putin emphasized a new trend in Russian politics - his intention to broaden the responsibilities of the prime minister position, which since the fall of the Soviet Union has been mostly administrative. During a news conference following the election, Medvedev announced that such cooperation between the president and the prime minister will be “a rather positive factor in the development of our country.” Both Medvedev and Putin promised to get along, but the fact that there will be two centers of power in the Russian government has raised doubts among analysts.
Medvedev indicated that he would be taking measures to restore stability to the country following the upheavals of the 1990s. This position clearly marked a continuation of the position established by Putin during his presidential terms.
However, there is one major area where Medvedev is different from his predecessor's administration: “Unlike Mr. Putin and many top officials in the Kremlin, Mr. Medvedev appears to have no background in the K.G.B., or its successor, the F.S.B., or other security agencies,” noted the NYT on its website profile of Medvedev. While he and Putin have different backgrounds, they are similar in that they had never previously been involved in the electoral process until their run for the presidency.
An article in The Guardian on May 8, 2008, “Putin sword in as PM - and Russia's real ruler,” discussed how the new government's priorities were being set by Putin, with one of those priorities being Russia's determination to “overtake Britain as the world's sixth leading economy later this year.”
Trends Revealed
After Medvedev's first two months in office, another analyst from The Guardian summarized some of the obvious trends. In “Mixed messages from Moscow,” published on July 14, 2008, the analyst noted, “Medvedev announced that the priorities of his home policy would be an anti-corruption drive, the strengthening of the independence of the judiciary and the tackling of Russia's enormous environmental problems.” The analyst talked about Medvedev's foreign policy as a “direct and straightforward continuation of his predecessor's line,” meaning no changes in relations with Georgia, Britain and the United States and practically none with the Ukraine. In terms of the Ukraine, The Guardian ran an article in September suggesting that Moscow is connected to the crisis in Kiev.
On July 31, 2008, The Guardian declared, “Russian's bullish plans, unveiled this week, to build up to six aircraft carrier battle groups and upgrade its nuclear submarine fleet are part of a worrying trend. They provide further evidence that Moscow's military revival, initiated by Putin and continued by Medvedev, may in time pose some unwelcome challenges for Europeans determined to believe the days of East-West confrontation are over.”
A Time of War
It was not long after the publication of that article that war broke out between Georgia and South Ossetia. Actually, it was portrayed as a war between Georgia and Russia by most all of the Western media, and Russia was constantly called the aggressor.
Georgia's president and a close American ally, Mikhail Saakashvili, positioned himself as a spokesman for democracy movements and alignment with the West. He labeled Russian's support for South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Georgia's two breakaway provinces, as an act of annexation. While the jury is still out on this issue, the war was also considered by the media as an event that would clearly illustrate who has the real power in the Russian political system. Analysts from both the NYT and the Guardian have weighed in on this topic.
On August 8, 2008, the NYT's article, “Russia and Georgia clash over separatist region,” stated, “The conflict in Georgia also appeared to suggest the limits of the power of President Dmitri A. Medvedev, Mr. Putin's handpicked successor. During the day, it was Mr. Putin's stern statements from China, where he was visiting the opening of the Olympic Games, that appeared to define Russian's position. The general opinion was that Medvedev's public statement didn't clarify who was directing Russia's military operations. Officially, it was Medvedev's authority, not Putin's.
Months later, on October 8, 2008, The Guardian addressed this question of who was in control during the conflict: “During the war in South Ossetia, he [Putin] dashed from Beijing to the frontlines, while Dmitry Medvedev cast a detached, sometimes dithering figure in a suit in Moscow.” So, the British newspaper credited Putin for being in charge of the main issues during the so-called 5-day war.
Afterwards
On August 26, 2008, Russia recognized the independence of two enclaves, South Ossetia and Abkhazia that have long sought to secede from Georgia. While people in both provinces were happy (for they felt they finally got rewarded for everything they had to through), Russia's actions again stirred up much criticism from the West.
A September 19, 2008, article in The Guardian quoted U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as saying, “Our strategic goal now is to make it clear to Russia's leaders that their choices are putting Russia on a one-way path to self-imposed isolation and international irrelevance. The picture emerging from this pattern of behavior is that of a Russia increasingly authoritarian at home and aggressive abroad.”
Russia, in turn, has accused the West of “bias” and “double standards.” Recently, Russia has had its own chance to lecture the United States, not about armed conflict but about the financial crisis. According to the October 2, 2008, NYT's article, “Moscow says U.S. leadership era is ending,” Medvedev has “blamed what he called financial 'egoism' for the crisis and said it should be taken as a sign that America's global economic leadership was drawing to a close.”
Has the Kremlin returned to its cold-war mentality? Some analysts believe so, especially pointing to the coinciding of the Kremlin's criticism of the American financial situation with Russian's rise in the military sector. There is some evidence to support this concern. At the beginning of October, Russian generals announced plans for the largest air force exercise since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Additionally, the deputy commander of Russia's navy said the country would build eight new nuclear submarines by 2015.
So, according to The Guardian and the NYT, Putin remains political dominant in Russia and so does his political agenda. It is important to understand, however, that those opinions are just drops in the ocean. Medvedev has been in power for only six months, and he continues developing new ideas separate from Putin, including an outline to build a new security pace to ban the use of force in Europe. Consequently, analysts in Russia tend to think he will (or already has) develop his own style, and eventually he will be the real leader for an internationally respected Russia.
The Russian media response
While Western media outlets continue to offer commentary concerning Dimitry Medvedev's role as the main leader of Russia, Russian media analysts have their own opinions. The thoughts of two of those analysts appear here:
Kirill Bessonov, political analyst from the Moscow News, a weekly newspaper
To understand the trends of Mr. Medvedev's presidency, we should understand the slogan under which he has become what he is now. This slogan is stability. So, the major trend must be stability. And, when we're talking about stability, we must understand that what Mr. Medvedev is doing now must not be very different from what Mr. Putin did as president and what Mr. Putin continues to do as prime minister right now. We can say that Mr. Medvedev's trends would be the same trends as those pronounced by Vladmir Putin are actually the same trends that Russia is following right now. These are, first of all, reestablishing itself in the world energy markets as a major player, and making close cooperation with other countries, with other energy exporters and, most of all, with energy consumers such as Europe and China. And, as internal policy is concerned - probably the continuation of building a democratic country which would be akin of the Western democracies such as America with its basically two-party system. I think that the Kremlin is now attempting to build exactly this in Russia. So, these are the major trends.
Peter Lavelle, host of the program In Context aired on the channel Russia Today
The first six months of Medvedev's presidency have been very successful considering the environment that he inherited. First of all, he had a war in South Ossetia - a new president just in power and all of a sudden he is faced with a huge challenge like this. Then, with the current financial situation: every leader in the world has been challenged to deal with it because it's like the virus spreading around the world. I think if we look at his presidency compared to Mr. Putin, obviously there are trends that have continued all the way through. But, there are also some differences. Mr. Medvedev's style is different. He is very confident; he speaks with clarity, with authority. One of the things that is important is when we look at some of the things he is proposing: a new security arrangement for the world, which is very important, and also Russia is proposing some new ideas about how to deal with the global financial system, in which today, as opposed to ten years ago, Russia plays an important role, just as China and India do. I think that Russia, China, and India are going to be looking at some new initiatives to present to the world. In the past, it has been the other way around. Now, we have many more players on the world stage, and I think Mr. Medvedev is really a leader coming out with new ideas. The past ideas are very much in the past; the past is not working anymore. And, I think Russia is well prepared to deal with these new issues.