The Media Mirror - a round-up of Russia's weeklies

Russia's weeklies closely follow the aftermath of Russia’s parliamentary election. International topics such as conventional forces in Europe and a possible compromise between Russia and the U.S. on Iran’s nuclear programme are also in the spotlight.

ITOGI weekly has an interview with the Chairman of the Central Election Commission, Vladimir Churov.  Conducted days before the election, it was published only after the event. Churov says in several electoral districts the vote may have to be repeated because of serious mistakes and breaches of electoral law.

The same weekly calls the media debates over Vladimir Putin’s successor “the problem of Mr Second”. The magazine notes that the President has said quite clearly that there will be no successor, only a candidate.

In MOSKOVSKIE NOVOSTI  Aleksey Zudin writes that the election has opened a new era in Russian politics.  A certain gap has appeared between the administrative and political elite.  Putin, who is not going for a third term, is becoming a political figure of great magnitude without an administrative position. He also moves a significant number of politicians into this new category of the purely political elite. That, writes the author, is a good vaccine against the return of a one-party system.

The weekly also comments on the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. The document has bridged an important gap in Russia-U.S. relations overnight. Now our positions on Iran are indeed quite close: let them have peaceful nuclear energy, but we’ll watch it closely, just in case, and monitor their missile capability. Now, says the article, it’s logical to expect a bilateral compromise on the missile defence programme in Eastern Europe. The EU and NATO, however, are likely to be left completely out of the process.

PROFILE magazine calls the Russian moratorium on the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe a Russian farewell. We leave in order to come back as soon as the new format of the treaty is accepted by NATO member states.

Well-known Russian movie director Karen Shakhnazarov writes about Russia-U.S. relations on the eve of the 200th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties.  Russia, she says, has again become a great power. We are engaged in a competition again. But on the other hand, in the modern world we need each other so much. We are so much alike in many ways. We are no more different than two grown-up twin brothers. It means antagonism is no longer an option.