President Medvedev follows Putin's lead
MOSCOW — Just hours after Russia elected a new president, the Kremlin sent two strong signals that it doesn't plan to back down from its pull-no-punches foreign policy — a coalition of pro-government youth groups marched on the U.S. Embassy and the state-controlled gas monopoly reduced gas supplies to Western-looking Ukraine.
The decision to squeeze Ukraine and to use street protests to attack American foreign policy may be an early indication that Dmitry Medvedev, the president-elect, intends to continue the course set by his mentor, President Vladimir Putin — who has reasserted his country's power abroad while keeping a tight grip on society at home.
Nearly final results showed that the 42-year-old Medvedev had received 70.2 percent of the vote, the head of the elections commission said Monday. Shortly after almost all the votes were counted, hundreds of young people marched through Moscow toward the U.S. embassy to criticize American policies in Kosovo, Iraq and the Muslim world.
While they toed the Kremlin line, Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, made good on a promise to reduce gas supplies to Ukraine. In addition to serving as first deputy prime minister, Medvedev is chairman of Gazprom.
Russia says the dispute over natural gas with Ukraine is strictly a financial one, a result of the alleged nonpayment by Ukraine for past gas deliveries. But the timing of the cutoff suggests a possible deeper motive: telling the world that despite his purported liberal leanings, Medvedev plans to rule with a firm hand — one perhaps guided by Putin himself.
The last time Russia cut gas supplies to Ukraine was in January 2006 in a move widely seen as punishment for the Orange Revolution that blocked a Kremlin-backed candidate from gaining Ukraine's presidency. Since then, Russia has expressed continuing anger over Ukraine's attempts to join NATO and forge stronger links with the European Union.
Chris Weafer, chief strategist for UralSib investment bank, said Medvedev may have been motivated by the need to appear tough in the face of Russia's dispute with Ukraine over gas payments.
"He found himself in that situation," Weafer said. "He didn't want to be seen as backing down."
Meanwhile, election observers from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, said today that unequal access to the media called into question the fairness of the vote.
