Putin’s New Vision of Eurasia

The Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, Vladislav Surkov — also known by his nickname, the "gray cardinal" — has formally stepped down today, the Moscow Times reports. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has released documents that appear to show he had an income of almost 5.8 million rubles (about $187,000) in 2012.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A controversial economist and former presidential candidate who accuses the West of conspiring to turn Russia into an economic colony has emerged, sources said, as a leading contender to take charge at the country's central bank.

Thirty years ago, the USSR was better known as the "Evil Empire." Fast forward to today, when its successor Russia, is apparently the "Tax Free Empire", and less socialist than France, at least to infamous millionaire expatriate Gérard Depardieu, who as reported previously has paid €145 million in taxes over 45 years, and who demonstratively decided to give up his French passport in the wake of France's socialist 75% millionaire tax (subsequently ruled unconstitutional), and as of tod

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin revealed he met and even sang patriotic Soviet songs with the group of Russian spies deported from the United States in the biggest espionage swap since the Cold War.Putin, who himself served as a KGB agent in the ex-East Germany in the dying years of the Soviet Union, said the group included Anna Chapman, the Russian woman whose glamorous looks turned her into a tabloid star worldwide.

Many were wondering what Russia's response to Germany's deposit confiscation drill in Cyprus would be. The confusion was moderated somewhat after it was uncovered that the very Russians who were supposed to be punished, have been able to withdraw some or most of their Cyprus-based cash either before the Cyprus D(eposit Confiscation)-Day or during the capital controlled blackout using various disclosed loopholes.

While the collapse in China-Japan foreign relations (and subsequently, and much more importantly, trade) over a handful of islands in the East China Sea and strategically located near potentially vast maritime oil and gas reserves is by now well-known to everyone, what may come as a surprise is that while Japan is engaged in one mini cold war over disputed rocks with China, none other than Russia tested the waters overnight so to speak, with a fighter jet flyover above yet another set of disputed islands, the Kuriles located in the far north of Japan.