|
Moscow : Next week a lawyer with little foreign policy experience will become Russian president and lead a country with a nuclear arsenal, a UN veto and volatile relations with its neighbours and an energy-dependent West.
The consensus among diplomats and analysts is that Dmitry Medvedev, who will be sworn in on May 7, will stick broadly to the assertive policies of his predecessor Vladimir Putin that have proved popular at home and alarmed the West.
Despite his years working closely with Putin, little is known about the real Medvedev when it comes to international relations. He projects a pro-Western style but analysts note he has yet to justify that image in practice. Behind closed doors, Medvedev, 42, showed a grasp of what lies ahead, said Luxembourg's Prime Minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, one of the few foreign leaders to have met Medvedev at length since he became president-elect.
Deployment
Troops increased
Extra Russian troops deployed yesterday in the Georgian separatist zone of Abkhazia, despite Georgia's objections and concern in Nato, news agencies quoted the Russian Defence Ministry as saying.
The soldiers "are completing their deployment at their positions in the Tkvarcheli district of Abkhazia", Russia's three main news agencies quoted the ministry press office as saying.
The troops were setting up camp, defences and communications, news agencies said.
There was no immediate information about how many extra troops had been sent to bolster the force of more than 2,000 peacekeepers already deployed under accords ending the separatist war between Georgia and the Abkhaz minority in the early 1990s.
|
