The Media Mirror – Weekend's Russian press review

Russian newspapers discuss the recent press conference by Andrey Lugovoy and the investigation of Anna Politkovskaya's murder, review the Russian aviation industry and abook about Hitler.

Speaking of last week’s press conference by Andrey Lugovoy, Vremya Novostei says the businessman has taken on London in earnest. He insisted that Lord Bell is orchestrating an anti-Russia campaign bankrolled by Boris Berezovsky. The paper reports that Mr Lugovoy insists on his innocence. He says Aleksandr Litvinenko must have had something to do with polonium if he died of it and that it is not established yet whether it was a murder or an accident. All the rest is pure fabrication, believes Andrey Lugovoy.
 
The same paper runs an article entitled “A nearly solved murder case” about last week’s developments in the investigation of the killing of Anna Politkovskaya.
 
Vremya Novostei says the case has been getting so much attention from the start because it is political in its nature. No doubt exists anywhere that the journalist was killed because of her professional work. Anna Politkovskaya often investigated the links between known criminal groups and corrupt state officials. She had powerful enemies. The paper says there are still many unanswered questions in the case.

Itogi has a piece on the Russian aviation industry. As an afterthought to the Moscow air show, the paper raises the question: “Is Russian civil aviation destined to become the third power after Boeing and Airbus?”
 
Sergey Kravchenko, President of Boeing Russia/CIS, comments that consolidating all the assets of the Russian aviation industry in one body is the right way to go. The United Aircraft Building Corporation formed recently in Russia has a good chance of joining Boeing and Airbus at the top. He says it will make the competition fairer and co-operation wider.
 
Ogonyok, one of the oldest Russian weeklies, offers an article that starts with the words “Meet the Fuhrer.”
 
Adolf Hitler failed to seize Moscow in WW2. Instead, Berlin was taken by the allied forces. But in 2007 he is back, conquering Moscow’s book shops.
 
This biography of Hitler was issued in 1940 by the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda. It was intended as a textbook for German schoolchildren. Now, in Russian, it hit the bookstores just a few weeks before the start of the school year. The magazine says the 3,000 copies printed have already sold out.
 
Hitler’s writings and books about him are strictly banned in Germany says the magazine. How come, then, they can be printed in Moscow? Are we sure, asks the article, that we really want to meet the Fuhrer?