Moskovsky Komsomolets
Activists vow to defend Khimki Forest to the end
Conservationists camping in the endangered Khimki Forest would have looked like holiday hikers had it not been for broken jaws and emotional tales of the past few days’ attacks.
The Khimki Forest north of Moscow, which is to be felled to make way for a new expressway to St. Petersburg, looks like a battlefield. Last Sunday, riot police roughly dispersed a protest over the forest’s destruction, detaining a dozen activists, including environmental champions Yevgenia Chirikova and Yaroslav Nikitenko, Left Front Leader Sergei Udaltsov and Yabloko political party leader Sergei Mitrokhin.
An MK correspondent who visited the camp found environmental activist Yevgenia Chirikova tidying the tent that has been her home for the past six days.
“It was a very strange attack by the local police,” she said referring to Sunday’s events. “We went for a peaceful walk in the forest, looking for a place to set up camp, when suddenly the police barred our way telling us we were holding an unsanctioned rally and that they had come to arrest us. They got really rough – I saw them throwing people to the ground and kicking them.”
Although Chirikova and other activists complained about the rough handling by the police, none of them had any visible bruises so they decided against visiting a first aid center. Instead they went straight back to the forest because they were worried that the workers would resume the felling. Even Nikitenko, who told reporters he had been beaten in the car on the way to court, could not provide any evidence other than a verbal statement that he felt “very sick.”
In an unexpected move, all the activists were released. Apparently, their cases will be considered by the local legal authorities at their places of residence. As it is, their release left them bewildered as to why they had been arrested and beaten up in the first place.
Mitrokhin was charged with participating in an unsanctioned rally, and his case went to his local court, but in the evening he received a phone call from a Moscow Interior Department official who apologized and asked if the Khimki police had overstepped their remit. The Yabloko leader told reporters he planned to file a complaint about the physical abuse he suffered but doubted it would have any effect.
Izvestia
New details of ‘dancing plane’ landing
Izvestia has uncovered new details about the exemplary military pilot Yury Rodionov, whose actions narrowly averted a catastrophe over the Monino village in the Moscow Region on April 29. Crew members are banned from commenting on the pilot’s actions until the investigation has been completed. However, those who have served with him in the past have nothing but praise for the man.
Lieutenant Colonel Rodionov, commander of the 2nd squadron at the 800th air base, is 40 years old and married, with a son and daughter. Like his four colleagues, he was given a health-check and is currently on 10 days’ leave.
Alexander Rabotin, air navigator with the air base’s 1st squadron, described him as an outgoing man with great self-control. “He never loses control however extreme the situation is. After landing the “dancing plane” he walked down the ramp smiling while the other four crew members all looked very pale. He wasn’t even shaking, just imagine what going through something like that must have felt like,” Rabotin said.
Rodionov first made headlines 11 years ago when the 334th Berlin Transport Air Regiment he was then serving with received a new plane. “This Ilyushin Il-76, called Pskov and bearing the city’s coat-of-arms, will be piloted by our best crew: Captain Yury Rodionov’s crew,” Commander of the 61st Air Force Army Viktor Denisov said back then.
According to Rabotin, despite the ongoing investigation, everyone at the air base understands what could have gone wrong during the flight. “In short, it was the automatic flight control system that failed,” the air navigator said. “Many people wonder why the crew didn’t switch to manual control. Actually they did. But the plane had been grounded for 11 years and its manual control systems were useless.
“It is like trying to use your PC with a mouse that doesn’t work,” Rabotin added. “You see, the plane was completely out of control. It takes a flying ace to level the plane and land it using only the thrust. Rodionov selected just the right moment when the wings were parallel to the ground and landed the plane.”
So couldn’t the automatic flight control system have been tested without the plane taking off? The answer there is “no.” “You need to take off to test it,” Rabotin explained.
It is still unclear whether Rodionov and the crew will be given awards for averting a catastrophe. The regimental head said this issue would only be raised once the investigation has concluded. Meanwhile, head of the Russian Investigative Committee’s local department said that the investigation had been extended by 10 days due to the extraordinary nature of the accident and is now not expected to end before May 12, 2011.
Vedomosti
Putin calls for loyalists to unite around him
Vladimir Putin has suggested founding a Russian Popular Front. Experts say the prime minister no longer deems the current political system satisfactory.
At Friday’s United Russia conference in Volgograd, Putin proposed creating a Russian Popular Front as a way of establishing a broad coalition of political forces that will be able to run for parliament on the United Russia ticket. The next day he brought together the first to express their interest in being involved for a meeting at the government residence in Novo-Ogarevo. The meeting drew leaders of business and nongovernment organizations, including the OPORA Rossii business association, Delovaya Rossiya (Business Russia), the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the Russian Engineering Union, the Union of Transport Workers, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Farmers’Association, United Russia’s Young Guard, Moscow State University’s Students’ Union, the Union of Afghan War Veterans, the Pensioners’ Union, and the Teachers’ Assembly.
For many in attendance, the meeting came as a surprise. Delovaya Rossiya leader Boris Titov had to rush back to Moscow from the Crimea to attend, but is confident his organization will give the prime minister’s initiative its full backing.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the response to the prime minister’s proposal has been very positive, with many groups expressing an interest in getting involved. Peskov suggested that more such meetings will be held, and that the Front would take on a more concrete structure in the near future: perhaps issuing a document setting out its key principles.
United Russia member Valery Ryazansky believes the front should have a charter, and that the party will need to revise its primaries procedure to include Popular Front members. United Russia’s campaign HQ staff will discuss the party’s voting list with Vladimir Putin during a meeting in Sochi on May 12. Independent members of the Popular Front may be invited to attend the meeting, said Peskov.
Aside from the elections, its other goal is to unite people of different political views around a shared idea of cultural identity and fundamental values, which is why other parties and groups are being invited to join, explained Yury Shuvalov, deputy secretary of the United Russia General Council Presidium. To date, Patriots of Russia are the only party willing to discuss joining the Popular Front. The party’s deputy chairman Nadezhda Korneyeva confirmed this, adding that the details of the possible coalition would need to be clarified.
A source in the presidential executive office stressed the importance of emphasizing the “popular” nature of this “popular front,” rather than the more militant-sounding “front,” stressing that United Russia was created as a people’s party, and the newly formed Popular Front will provide for even broader consolidation of people around the party and its leader.
This is an attempt to break the existing political system, forsake partisanship in favor of unification around a leader, strengthening Putin’s image as a national leader, argues political scientist Gleb Pavlovsky.
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