A woman with her face painted in the colours of the Russian national flag waits for the announcement of preliminary results of today’s referendum on Lenin Square in the Crimean capital of Simferopol March 16, 2014
The referendum in Crimea was fully consistent with international law and UN Charter, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Barack Obama, after the overwhelming majority of Crimeans expressed their willingness to join Russia.
The citizens of the peninsula have been given an opportunity to freely express their will and exercise their right to self-determination, the Russian president said in a phone conversation with his US counterpart, according to Kremlin’s press service.
With a record-breaking turnout of over 80 percent, according to preliminary results, over 95 percent of the Crimean population said ‘yes’ to the reunion of the republic with Russia. International observers have not reported any violations or anything resembling any kind of pressure during the vote.
However, Obama said the Unites States and the “international community” will “never recognize” the results of the referendum “administered under threats of violence and intimidation,” according to White House spokesman.
Obama “emphasized that Russia’s actions were in violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” and that the US in coordination with its European partners is “prepared to impose additional costs on Russia,” the White House added.
Despite the existing differences in the assessment of the situation in Ukraine, the leaders of Russia and US have agreed that they must jointly seek to help stabilize the situation in the country, the Kremlin said.
“Putin drew attention to the inability and unwillingness of the current Kiev authorities to curb rampant ultra-nationalist and radical groups, destabilizing and terrorizing civilians, including Russian-speaking population, and our fellow citizens,” Kremlin statement reads.
In this context, the possibility of sending an OSCE monitoring mission to Ukraine was discussed, the press office reported. The Russian President believes such a mission should be extended to all Ukrainian regions. – RT.COM
Missing Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych is in Sevastopol, at a Russian miltary base in Cossack Bay, UNIAN reported citing local media.
According to sources, the channel ATR, the ex-president fled to a ship of the Russian Federation’s Black Sea Fleet.
Sources say that Yanukovych could thus leave for Russia.
The Ukrainian president went into hiding over the weekend.
Yanukovych’s removal from power has been recognized the US and EU.
Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev said however that interim authorities in Kiev had conducted an “armed mutiny”.
On Sunday, Ukraine’s parliament reduced the official status of the Russian language by cancelling a law brought in by Mr Yanukovych.
Ukraine is facing bankruptcy and a promised loan from Russia is looking increasingly unlikely.
“Strictly speaking there is no one to talk to there. There are big doubts about the legitimacy of a whole series of organs of power that are now functioning there,” Mr Medvedev told Russian news agencies.
“If you consider Kalashnikov-toting people in black masks who are roaming Kiev to be the government, then it will be hard for us to work with that government,” Medvedev said.
Izvestia Kiev reported that out of Kubinka, four ships carrying special forces, are being relocated to Anapa. From there, in four hours, they will depart for Sevastopol at a speed of 10-15 knots, citing “Izvestia in Ukraine” as a source. According to the source, the redeployment is “qualitative, not quantitative” and that the Ukraine is following these developments.
The large landing ship Nikolai Filchenkov is believed to be en route to the Crimean port of Sevastopol carrying 200 armed soldiers, sent from the nearby Black Sea town of Temryuk.
There will be an urgent NATO Defense Ministers meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, centered on Ukraine.
Jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko called on EU leaders to drop all demands and sign a historic pact with Ukraine without any preconditions at a summit that opens Thursday.
The EU demanded that Ukraine boost the rule of law and free the jailed former prime minister before the two could sign a landmark political and free trade deal.
But last week President Viktor Yanukovych’s government stunned the West by halting all negotiations on the deal that would have set it on a path to EU membership, saying it wanted better terms.
Yanukovych said he would still travel to the two-day summit in Vilnius to continue negotiations but his government’s shock decision sparked the biggest rallies since the pro-democracy Orange Revolution in 2004.
“If Yanukovych takes a positive decision, I passionately ask you to sign the agreement on Friday without any hesitation and conditions including those that are related to my release,” Tymoshenko, 53, said in a message read out by her daughter Yevgenia late Wednesday.
“I thank you for steadfastly defending democracy in Ukraine. But today it’s necessary to release not just separate political prisoners,” said Tymoshenko who on Monday launched a hunger strike in solidarity with pro-European protesters.
“It’s necessary to free Ukraine. That means it’s necessary to sign the agreement if Yanukovych agrees to it.”
“By signing the agreement with him, you would help an entire nation to overcome a civilisational abyss created by erroneous ideologies and agressive empires, you would make another important step towards re-uniting the entire Europe.”
The Ukrainian government’s decision to scrap the EU pact has brought tens of thousands onto the streets since Sunday.
Setting up camp in central Kiev and led by opposition leaders including world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, protesters has staged mass rallies since Sunday.
Yanukovych has called for calm after the protests turned violent, with riot police firing tear gas and protesters hurling traffic cones and rocks at the security forces.
Yanukovych stressed he would wait for better EU terms including financial aid before considering signing the deal. He said the bloc offered insufficient compensation for the damages Ukraine would suffer by rupturing ties with historic master Russia.
The EU said it was still ready to talk about the deal but the ball was in Ukraine’s court.
“Our offer stays on the table,” said the EU’s Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele.
The debate over Ukraine’s future has turned into a heated diplomatic tussle between the EU and the Kremlin.
Russia wants its smaller neighbour to join a Moscow-led Customs Union which already includes the ex-Soviet states of Belarus and Kazakhstan. Moscow has repeatedly threatened Ukraine, which heavily depends on Russian natural gas, with economic retaliation if it signed the EU pact.
Top EU officials have said they “strongly disapprove” of Russian pressure on Kiev.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded by advising “our friends in Brussels, my personal good friends in the European Commission, to hold back on the sharp words”.
Kiev’s move to scrap the deal with the EU came after parliament failed to adopt legislation that would have freed Tymoshenko.
Shortly after she lost to Yanukovych in a 2010 presidential election, she was sentenced to seven years on abuse of power charges that the West sees as politically motivated.
Ukrainian opposition leaders Klitschko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Oleg Tyagnybok are also expected at the Vilnius summit. – AFP
To listen to U.S. government officials there is only an upside to the punitive sanctions imposed on Iran by the United States and a reluctant European Union. Consequently, the emphasis is forever on how to toughen the punishment; never on whether to lift economic sanctions on the long-suffering people of Iran.
But what about the effects of trade boycotts on American businesses?
Chris Harmer of The Institute for the Study of War estimates that the Boeing Company alone forfeits a minimum of $25 billion in business every year because of U.S.-imposed sanctions on Iran, a niche market that is filled by the Russians. Overall, Harmer puts the value to U.S. business of trade lost due to the economic embargo on Iran at approximately $50 billion per annum.
For example, Iran imports $1.5 billion worth of cars a year, the beneficiaries of which are companies like Nissan, Toyota and Peugeot (when they might have been General Motors and Chrysler). Peugeot does an added half a billion dollars’ worth of commerce with Iran just in car parts.
The Iranian economy, moreover, has diversified and is adapting to life without the U.S. The rest of the world—pockets in Europe and most of Asia—has not isolated Iran, with the result that the country has many trading partners other than the U.S. And while Iran has lost petroleum revenue due to sanctions, the trend will not endure. China, Japan and South Korea are hungry for the country’s crude.
Not to be overlooked are the costs to Americans of sanction enforcement, avers Harmer. In addition to the opportunity costs—the missed business aforementioned—there are “direct costs.” The Office of Foreign Asset Control in the U.S. Treasury Department squanders around $1 billion a year in developing lists of “financial institutions that are subject to sanctions,” and then infringing on the rights of individuals and companies to freely exchange privately owned property.
“Indirect costs” are incurred in the course of cultivating a massive U.S. intelligent infrastructure—a veritable alphabet soup of agencies—upon which the Treasury draws in enforcing a regimen of sanctions.
So, too, are the “deterrent costs” borne by the American taxpayer who pays for patrolling the Persian Gulf, the Northern Arabian Sea and the Strait of Hormuz.
Ultimately, trade, not democracy, is the best antidote to war with Iran. The more economically intertwined countries become, the less likely they are to go to war. More than boycotts, barter with Iran is bound to promote goodwill and reduce belligerence on both sides.
As a general rule, state-enforced boycotts harm honest, hard-working Americans who use the economic means to earn their keep. They benefit servants of Uncle Sam—the political class and its media and think-tank hangers-on. For they deploy the political means to advance their ends and grow their sphere of influence. As libertarian economist Murray Rothbard once observed, these “are two mutually exclusive ways of acquiring wealth”—the economic means is honest and productive, the political means is dishonest and predatory.
As always, it’s us against them: the state versus the people who labor outside it and in spite of it.
For now, Obama’s eager response to Iranian overtures has sidelined Syria. Before Syria recedes in memory—to be replaced by demands for action against Iran—it’s worth considering one constant quantity: the media guttersnipes and their motivation.
The bobbingheads of TV have been complaining in the most unctuous terms that Russia and Syria have pulled one over us. The U.S., they lament, has been weakened, evidently, because someone halted the momentum of war.
You see, the chattering and political classes cannot conceive of greatness outside the state because they are part of the state apparatus and depend on it for status and income.
Conversely, individual Americans—who have nothing to gain and only losses to sustain from war—should never conflate their interests with those of the government and its emissaries, who have everything to gain from the great theatre that is war.
More than anyone, who benefits when America goes to war? Those who “function within the nimbus of great power” in D.C. and around it—the media-military-congressional-industrial complex.
Thus did Charles Krauthammer ridiculously equate the failure to go to war against Syria with “Russia supplanting America as regional hegemon.”
Krauthammer was joined by others, not least of them Bill O’Reilly and his sidekick Dennis the Menace. How diminished will the bluster of both media mouths be if the U.S. is no longer dictating the terms of war (lots of it) and peace (too little of it) in the world? Their immense egos will suffer. Maybe even their incomes, eventually.
But not you, the everyday American.
Putin stopped a war in Syria. This is not the same as “supplanting” American power. Rather, the Russians replaced bully power with a balance of power, and this is good for ordinary Americans.
He who saves you from war is better than he who sends you to war. The proof is in the Putin.
A recently released YouGov poll shows that Americans overwhelming believe Russian President Vladimir Putin has been far more effective during the Syrian chemical weapons crisis than President Obama.
In fact, it was not even close.
When asked, “Which world leader was most effective during the Syrian chemical weapons crisis?”, 49 percent of Americans gave the nod to Putin while only 25 percent pointed to Obama.
Among Republicans, the ratio was 63 percent for Putin to only 7 percent for Obama. Democrats gave Obama just under 50 percent approval while giving Putin 37 percent.
In response to, “Which world leader was the least effective during the Syrian chemical weapons crisis?”, Obama got 44 percent while Putin only received 10 percent among those polled. – breitbart.com
Russia has every reason to believe that the use of chemical weapons in a Damascus suburb in August was an adroit and smart provocation, President Vladimir Putin has said.
“We have every grounds to believe that it was a provocation. Of course, it was adroit and smart, but, at the same time, primitive in terms of technical performance. They took an old Soviet-made missile, which was taken out of service in the Syrian army long ago. It was most important to have ‘made in the USSR’ written [on the missile],” Putin said at the Valday discussion forum on Thursday.
The Russian president pointed out that the August 21st attack in Damascus was not the first time chemical weapons had been used in Syria.
“But why haven’t other cases been investigated?” he asked.
The chemical weapon attack must be thoroughly investigated and those behind it must be identified, Putin told the Valday Club meeting in Russia’s Novgorod Region.
“No matter how difficult it might be, but if in the end we manage to answer the question… as to who committed that crime – and that was certainly a crime – the next step will follow. Then, together with our colleagues from the United Nations Security Council we will have to define the level of responsibility of those who committed the crime,” Putin said.
He stressed that measures like military strikes cannot solve every international issue, while they should also be brought to the UNSC rather than discussed in the US Congress.
“This would be a strike on the world order, not Syria,” the Russian leader said.
Earlier this month, Russia and the United States reached a deal on a framework that will see the destruction or removal of Syria’s chemical weapons by mid- 2014. That came after Moscow suggested that Damascus should put its chemical weapons arsenal under international control and the Syrian government accepted the proposal. The republic also agreed to join the Chemical Weapons Convention which bans the production and the use of such arms.
Speaking at the Valday gathering, Putin noted that Syria not only agreed to sign the international convention, but announced it already considers itself a party to the treaty.
“These are practical steps that the Syrian government has already made,” Putin said.
The United Nations confirmed last Saturday that it had received all the necessary documents from Syria for joining the chemical weapons convention and that Syria would become a member from October 14.
Russia’s proposal for Syria was voiced as the Congress was readying itself to vote on President Barack Obama’s plan to launch a limited military strike against Syria in response to the chemical weapons attack in August. The US blamed the country’s government for the incident. The decision was put on hold after a suggestion from Moscow, which was discussed in detail by Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva.
Putin said that any attempt to interfere in the conflict by supporting one of the sides would bring imbalance. When the crisis began over two years ago, it immediately started getting support from abroad, he said.
“How did terrorist groups like Al-Nusra appear there? Even the State Department admits that Al-Qaeda’s branches are fighting [in Syria],” Putin observed.
The Russian leader is frustrated that Western states have no idea what they would do if, after their interference in the ongoing war, extremists came to power in Syria.
“Would they drive them away with a newspaper?” Putin said. – RT
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin says Edward Snowden, who has been stuck in a Moscow airport for weeks, will leave Russia as soon as he is able to.
Putin on Monday also accused Washington of preventing the fugitive, US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, from leaving Russia after he arrived from Hong Kong on June 23. “He arrived on our territory uninvited, he did not fly to us,” Russian news agencies quoted Putin as saying.
“They themselves [Washington] scared off all the other countries, no one wants to take him, and therefore they essentially themselves trapped him on our territory,” added the president, according to the agencies.
Meanwhile, Putin said on Monday that he saw signs that Snowden was shifting towards stopping “political activity” directed against the United States.
Putin, who previously refused to hand Snowden over to the US authorities, said the fugitive’s situation remained unresolved after Washington had blocked his further movements.
Asked on an island in the Gulf of Finland about Snowden’s future, Putin said: “How do I know? It’s his life, his fate.”
Putin has stated Snowden should stop activity harmful to the United States if he wanted refuge in Russia, and said he saw signs that the former contractor with the National Security Agency was moving in this direction.
“As soon as there is an opportunity for him to move elsewhere, I hope he will do that. The conditions for granting political asylum are known to him. And judging by his latest actions, he is shifting his position. But the situation has not been clarified yet,” Putin said.
Breaking weeks of silence, Snowden on Friday said at a Moscow airport where he has been camped since late June that he was seeking temporary asylum in Russia before he can safely travel to Latin America. Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have offered him asylum. – AFP, Reuters
Former US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden broke his silence on Monday for the first time since fleeing to Moscow over a week ago, blasting the Obama administration and saying he remains free to make new disclosures about US spying activity.
Snowden, who faces espionage charges in the United States and is believed to be staying in a transit area at Moscow’s airport, surfaced with a letter to the Ecuadorean government and in a statement released through the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, which has taken up his cause.
In the WikiLeaks statement he accused the Obama administration of deception in a campaign to prevent him from finding political asylum and of “leaving me a stateless person” by revoking his US passport.
Snowden, 30, had not been heard from in the eight days since he flew to Moscow from Hong Kong, where he had first taken refuge after fleeing Hawaii.
Snowden has sought asylum in Ecuador and in an undated letter sent to Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa seen by Reuters, said the United States was illegally persecuting him for revealing its electronic surveillance programme, Prism, but made it clear he did not intend to be muzzled.
“I remain free and able to publish information that serves the public interest,” Snowden, who had been a contract employee for the US National Security Agency, said in the letter.
“No matter how many more days my life contains, I remain dedicated to the fight for justice in this unequal world. If any of those days ahead realise a contribution to the common good, the world will have the principles of Ecuador to thank.”
Snowden said the US government was persecuting him.
“While the public has cried out support of my shining a light on this secret system of injustice, the government of the United States of America responded with an extrajudicial man-hunt costing me my family, my freedom to travel, and my right to live peacefully without fear of illegal aggression,” Snowden wrote.
In his WikiLeaks statement, Snowden lashed out at US President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden for pressing Ecuador to turn him away.
“This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile,” he said.
“Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right,” Snowden said. “A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum… Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.”
US Justice Department spokeswoman Nanda Chitre rejected Snowden’s claim that he was marooned “since he is still a United States citizen and his country is willing to take him back”.
“As the State Department has already said, the US government is prepared to issue individuals wanted on felony charges a one-entry travel document to return home,” she said.
Snowden has given Russian diplomats a list of 15 countries, including Russia, where he wanted to apply for asylum, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing an unidentified Russian Foreign Ministry official. A Russian immigration source told Reuters that Snowden had applied for asylum in Russia.
Foreign Ministry and Kremlin officials declined immediate comment.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Snowden could stay in Russia on one condition.
“He must stop his work aimed at harming our American partners, as strange as that sounds coming from my lips,” he told reporters after a gas exporters’ conference in Moscow.
Putin said he suspected that Snowden would continue leaking information because “he feels himself to be a human rights activist”.
“So he must choose a country of destination and go there,” he said, speaking before the asylum request to Russia was reported. “Unfortunately, I don’t know when this will happen.”
Putin said Russia was not working with Snowden and had no intention of handing Snowden over to the United States.
“Russia has never given up anyone to anybody and does not plan to. And nobody ever gave anyone up to us,” Putin said.
Correa said on Sunday that Snowden’s fate was in Russia’s hands because Ecuador could not consider the plea until he reached Ecuador or one of its embassies.
Shortly after Snowden fled the United States to Hong Kong in May, and long before he arrived in Russia, Putin suggested the surveillance methods he revealed were justified in fighting terrorism, if carried out lawfully.
Although Russia has sometimes exchanged captured spies with the United States, Putin suggested on Monday that this was not on the cards for Snowden. “As for Mr Snowden, he is not our agent and he is not working with us,” Putin said.
Obama, at a news conference in Tanzania, repeated that the United States was working through law enforcement channels to prod Russia to extradite Snowden.
Obama said there had been “high-level discussions with the Russians about trying to find a solution to the problem”. – Reuters
Putin in 2009 outlined his strategy for economic success. Alas, poor Obama did the opposite but nevertheless was re-elected. Bye, bye Miss American Pie. The Communists have won in America with Obama but failed miserably in Russia with Zyuganov who only received 17% of the vote. Vladimir Putin was re-elected as President keeping the NWO order out of Russia while America continues to repeat the Soviet mistake.
After Obama was elected in his first term as president the then Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin gave a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January of 2009. Ignored by the West as usual, Putin gave insightful and helpful advice to help the world economy and saying the world should avoid the Soviet mistake.
Recently, Obama has been re-elected for a 2nd term by an illiterate society and he is ready to continue his lies of less taxes while he raises them. He gives speeches of peace and love in the world while he promotes wars as he did in Egypt, Libya and Syria. He plans his next war is with Iran as he fires or demotes his generals who get in the way.
Putin said regarding the military,
“…instead of solving the problem, militarization pushes it to a deeper level. It draws away from the economy immense financial and material resources, which could have been used much more efficiently elsewhere.”
Well, any normal individual understands that as true but liberalism is a psychosis . O’bomber even keeps the war going along the Mexican border with projects like “fast and furious” and there is still no sign of ending it. He is a Communist without question promoting the Communist Manifesto without calling it so. How shrewd he is in America. His cult of personality mesmerizes those who cannot go beyond their ignorance. They will continue to follow him like those fools who still praise Lenin and Stalin in Russia. Obama’s fools and Stalin’s fools share the same drink of illusion.
Reading Putin’s speech without knowing the author, one would think it was written by Reagan or another conservative in America. The speech promotes smaller government and less taxes. It comes as no surprise to those who know Putin as a conservative. Vladimir Putin went on to say:
“…we are reducing taxes on production, investing money in the economy. We are optimizing state expenses.
The second possible mistake would be excessive interference into the economic life of the country and the absolute faith into the all-mightiness of the state.
There are no grounds to suggest that by putting the responsibility over to the state, one can achieve better results.
Unreasonable expansion of the budget deficit, accumulation of the national debt – are as destructive as an adventurous stock market game.
During the time of the Soviet Union the role of the state in economy was made absolute, which eventually lead to the total non-competitiveness of the economy. That lesson cost us very dearly. I am sure no one would want history to repeat itself.”
President Vladimir Putin could never have imagined anyone so ignorant or so willing to destroy their people like Obama much less seeing millions vote for someone like Obama. They read history in America don’t they? Alas, the schools in the U.S. were conquered by the Communists long ago and history was revised thus paving the way for their Communist presidents. Obama has bailed out those businesses that voted for him and increased the debt to over 16 trillion with an ever increasing unemployment rate especially among blacks and other minorities. All the while promoting his agenda.
“We must seek support in the moral values that have ensured the progress of our civilization. Honesty and hard work, responsibility and faith in our strength are bound to bring us success.”- Vladimir Putin
The red, white and blue still flies happily but only in Russia. Russia still has St George defeating the Dragon with the symbol of the cross on its’ flag. The ACLU and other atheist groups in America would never allow the US flag with such religious symbols. Lawsuits a plenty against religious freedom and expression in the land of the free. Christianity in the U.S. is under attack as it was during the early period of the Soviet Union when religious symbols were against the law.
Let’s give American voters the benefit of the doubt and say it was all voter fraud and not ignorance or stupidity in electing a man who does not even know what to do and refuses help from Russia when there was an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Instead we’ll say it’s true that the Communists usage of electronic voting was just a plan to manipulate the vote. Soros and his ownership of the company that counts the US votes in Spain helped put their puppet in power in the White House. According to the Huffington Post, residents in all 50 states have filed petitions to secede from the Unites States. We’ll say that these Americans are hostages to the Communists in power. How long will their government reign tyranny upon them?
Russia lost its’ civil war with the Reds and millions suffered torture and death for almost 75 years under the tyranny of the United Soviet Socialist Republic. Russians survived with a new and stronger faith in God and ever growing Christian Church. The question is how long will the once “Land of the Free” remain the United Socialist States of America? Their suffering has only begun. Bye bye Miss American Pie! You know the song you hippies. Sing it! Don’t you remember? The 1971 hit song by American song writer Don McLean:
“And, as I watched him on the stage my hands were clenched in fists of rage.
No angel born in Hell could break that Satan’s spell
And, as the flames climbed high into the night to light the sacrificial rite, I saw…
Satan laughing with delight the day the music died
He was singing, bye bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
Them good ol’ boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singing…
Furniture firm IKEA has removed a photograph from its Russian website of people in colourful ski masks like those worn by punk band Pussy Riot, three of whose members were jailed after staging a protest against Vladimir Putin in a church.
The picture, which showed four people in the masks sitting on IKEA furniture, had been posted on a section of the site which displays photographs of customers posing at stores.
A notice on the website confirmed the image had been removed and said: “IKEA is a commercial organisation that conducts its activity outside of politics and religion.”
“We cannot allow our advertising project to be used as a platform for campaigning of any kind,” it added.
Pussy Riot’s band members were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after belting out a song criticising Putin, then prime minister and now president, in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February. They were handed two-year jail terms.
The brightly coloured balaclava masks they wore during the protest have become the band’s trademark.
The Russian Orthodox Church head has called the cathedral protest part of a campaign aimed at curbing the resurgence of Russia’s main faith.
Russia has dismissed the criticism from abroad, which the Foreign Ministry said pointed to a “clash of civilisations”. Putin has said the state is obliged to protect the feelings of the faithful.
A representative of IKEA in Russia confirmed on Sunday the notice had replaced a photograph of people wearing ski masks and declined to comment further immediately, asking for a written request which would be answered on Monday.
IKEA has invested about 2.5 billion euros ($3.25 billion) in Russia since 2000, building stores that anchor malls on the outskirts of big cities. When it posted record profits for the fiscal 2010/11 year in December, the company said some of its biggest sales gains were in Russia.
In 2009 IKEA had threatened to halt further expansion in the country, citing corruption and red tape, but last November it said it was looking to at least double its three-store footprint in Moscow and refurbish its 14 MEGA malls.
A Moscow court is to begin hearing an appeal against the convictions and sentences in the Pussy Riot trial on Oct. 1.
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