Analysis: Putin can't blame global ills for Russia's economic crunch

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When Alexei Kudrin took Putin to task live on television during the president's annual question-and-answer session and said the economy was tanking because of a poor business climate in Russia, Putin brushed off the criticism - jokingly calling Kudrin a "slacker" for declining a new government job.

The weight of evidence favors Kudrin

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9470EQ20130508


Russia's Putin forces out former grey cardinal in blow to Medvedev

The Kremlin said in a statement that President Vladimir Putin had accepted Surkov's resignation, one day after the former KGB spy reprimanded the government for failing to carry out many of his orders and decrees.

"It's of his own volition," presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "It's to do with the fact that decrees were not carried out."

But Russian media and political analysts have long suggested a rift has opened up between Putin and Medvedev, his long-time ally and a former president, as Russia slides towards recession

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9470CF20130508

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Re: Analysis: Putin can't blame global ills for Russia's economic crunch

Russia's Putin looks isolated in new Kremlin term

Putin has in the past two years been abandoned by, forced out or become distant from the more liberal thinkers who once influenced him, leaving him politically isolated as his popularity wanes and the economy slides towards recession.

"I won't say that power is slipping from his hands but he is not as strong as he was," said a source once close to the Kremlin and the government. "At the start of the 2000s, he was a unifying figure. He is no longer that."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...Name=worldNews