Putin Starts New Term With Same Premier as Foreign Tensions Grow

[DonViejo]

Source: Bloomberg News




By Evgenia Pismennaya , Ilya Arkhipov , and Henry Meyer

May 6, 2018, 11:00 PM EDT Updated on May 7, 2018, 7:59 AM EDT

Russian leader pledges ‘breakthrough’ in Kremlin ceremony

Former finance minister may get top job but influence limited

Vladimir Putin was sworn in for the fourth time as president, promising Russians an “economic and technological breakthrough” and reappointing his long-serving prime minister amid the deepest standoff with the West in decades.

Despite Putin’s rhetoric, there’s little appetite in the Kremlin for real changes, according to senior officials, as the growing tension with the U.S. and European Union has strengthened the hand of those arguing for self-reliance and an even greater role for state companies and financing. Those who argued for reducing the conflict in order to focus on economic development are on the defensive after four years of steadily increasing Western sanctions have isolated Russia’s biggest banks and companies from vital financing and technology.

Putin formally asked parliament to confirm Dmitry Medvedev to continue as prime minister, the job he’s held since giving up the presidency to Putin in a job swap executed in 2012. Medvedev is expected to win confirmation easily this week.

Despite the doubling of oil prices over the last two years, Russia has struggled to get its economy back into high gear. Slow growth threatens to reverse Russia’s rise in the ranks of global economies under Putin and undermines the Kremlin’s ability to pay for its military buildup.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-07/putin-s-economic-ambitions-for-new-term-held-hostage-by-tensions

[Hortensis]

1. :) RT's version is that (in spite of being governed by an

intensely corrupt kleptocracy that hasn't finished gutting Russia's wealth, formerly the property of its people, and laundering most of it out to safer, more prosperous nations for investment) Russia is going to create rapid economic growth and join world’s five biggest economies, halve poverty, decrease inequality, and increase life expectancy. Among other things.

Actually, above average economic growth should be achievable in spite of its huge economic problems, if Putin actually prioritized it, since Russia is such a shockingly underdeveloped nation. Its long-retarded development leaves it room for plenty of catch-up growth not possible for the advanced, "adult" nations feeding Russia's eternal inferiority complex.