The Media Mirror - 27.07.07. What's in today's Russian newspapers?
Friday’s newspapers report on the discussion of Russia’s foreign policy in the U.S. Congress, write about the new Russian S 400 missile complex, and celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Soviet Chief Prosecutor at the Nurenberg Tribunal.
KOMMERSANT in an article with a somewhat questionable headline “The Enemy not Listening”, paraphrasing a favoured expression from Stalin’s times (“The Enemy is not Asleep”), reports on the Russia-related discussions in the U.S. Congress and the British Parliament that went on nearly simultaneously.
In the U.S. Congress the main emphasis was put on the criticism of President Putin’s policies that helped Russia “restore its influence and …hold Europe hostage by controlling the energy sphere.”
Strangely enough, writes the paper, pursuing happiness and the national interest of his nation became a shortcoming on the part of the Russian President in the opinion of U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos, who urged his own country and Europe to restore the Atlantic Alliance as a counterbalance to Moscow.
His colleagues in London gave Russia a fairer deal by noting the unacceptability of calls to topple the democratically elected government of Russia on the part of Russian political immigrants.
However, MP Mark Pritchard, who expressed this idea, was attacked from all sides. The rest of the debate, says the paper, was a lopsided mirror image of the discussion in the U.S. Congress, with Labour MP Tony Lloyd calling Russia a prospective “regional or even world gendarme.”
Maybe the headline was right after all: it seems Russia has a few personal enemies in Washington as well as in London.
IZVESTIA writes about the S 400 or Triumph missile complex which represents the new generation of hardware providing anti-missile protection of Moscow. The new system has just passed a series of tough tests and now several air-defence regiments armed with these missiles are being deployed around the Russian Capital. The S 400 is capable of hitting targets traveling at 2,800 kilometres per hour and at the altitude up to 56,000 metres. Unlike the previous model which could hit 6 targets simultaneously from one launch pad, the new system can hit 12.
ROSSIYSKAYA GAZETA celebrates the100th anniversary of the birth of the late Roman Rudenko, the Russian Chief Prosecutor at the Nurenberg Tribunal.
The choice of Rudenko, 38 at that time, was due to the fact that he had a clean record, he had not been deeply involved in the show-trials of 1930s, was known as an expert in international law and an intellectual capable of grasping the true meaning of the tragedy brought upon the world by fascism. His short opening speech at Nurnberg became known to millions and there were people all around the world who learned it by heart.
