The Russian Bear Is Back – And This Time It’s Gas-Powered

The Guardian – In the Kremlin on Thursday a little-known but powerful Russian official held court for the first time before foreign journalists with a very simple message: Russia is great and getting greater by the week.

Sergei Sobyanin, a former governor of the oil-rich region of Tyumen, chief of staff to President Vladimir Putin, and one of the mightiest men in Russia, was enlarging on his leader’s state-of-the-nation speech 24 hours earlier in which Mr Putin identified the key to Russia’s progress in both human and military regeneration.

The shrinking of Russia’s population had to be reversed. Russian mothers would be paid to have more babies. And for the first time in ages, Mr Putin talked of missiles and nuclear rearmament.
The Guardian