Steve Rosenberg’s video report

Lawmakers were elected earlier this month in a vote marred by allegations of fraud.

Medvedev’s announcement amounts to a rejection of demands that the vote be annulled.

That’s part of what tens of thousands of Russian protesters demanded in massive street demonstrations this past weekend.

Russia’s educated, middle class rarely heads to the streets in protests. So, what’s brought them out this time?

Marco Werman talks with Julia Ioffe, Foreign Policy magazine’s Moscow Correspondent.

Moscow Protest (BBC Video)

Protesters chanted slogans against the ruling party as the Putin loyalists beat drums and chanted “Putin, Russia”.

Police arrested at least 100 protesters, including veteran liberal politician Boris Nemtsov.

A rally on Monday against alleged fraud in Sunday’s parliamentary elections was Moscow’s biggest protest in years.

Miriam Elder, a correspondent for The Guardian talks with host Marco Werman from the scene of the demonstrations.

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World. Protestors in Russia are not standing down. Police and demonstrators clashed for a second day in Moscow. Protestors came out to denounce Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his ruling United Russia party after reports of fraud in Sunday’s parliamentary elections. Police also detained some 200 people at a rally in St. Petersburg. Miriam Elder is a correspondent for The Guardian newspaper. She was at the rally in Moscow’s Triamfalnaya Square earlier today. Elder says it wasn’t just protestors in the streets. There were also many counter protestors.

Miriam Elder: Today, the square has been filled with thousands of activists from Nashi, the pro-Kremlin youth group and the opposition has been sort of sidelined and it’s actually impossible to tell how many of them has turned out, but it’s far less than turned out yesterday.

Werman: So would you describe this as a standoff or is there real tension between the two sides?

Elder: I wouldn’t say it’s a standoff just because the opposition is still outnumbered. You know, Nashi was created several years ago after pro democratic revolutions in the Ukraine and Georgetown precisely to counter any potential unrest in Russia as a whole. And so they’ve been here for over an hour shouting and beating on drums, and shouting “Medvedev Victory” and “Putin Russia,” waving flags. So they’ve won today.

Werman: So who exactly is out on the streets protesting Putin and how would you describe the demographic as being? Employed, middle class?

Elder: Definitely middle class. I talked to a lawyer, a financial analyst, a man who owns his own business. And what I found most interesting is these are people who didn’t come to the protests yesterday, they just heard about it via social networks, Facebook and the Russian version of Facebook, [speaking Russian]. And that’s why they came out today.

Werman: Miriam, we hear that blogger and activist, Alexei Navalny, was arrested and got 15 days in jail today. Tell us who he is and what the reaction to his arrest has been.

Elder: He’s a lawyer by training. We started this campaign about a year ago against corruption in Russia and he would point out specific cases of corruption, and it built into this real grassroots movement where people write in with cases for him to explore. And he runs a very popular blog where he talks about all that. And then about half a year ago he went on this radio program and he came out completely spontaneously he says with this term calling United Russia the party of crooks and thieves. And all the sudden it’s become the rallying cry for anybody who’s against this government.

Werman: Right, I’m just wondering does this descent extend outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg?

Elder: No, this isn’t like a countrywide protest movement that’s sweeping the nation as people at the protests, speakers at the protests said yesterday, this is a small step toward something that can potentially become bigger. But I think there is a recongition that this is not huge for Russia.

Werman: Miriam, I’m just still confused. What’s bringing these people out onto the streets now? I mean it’s not like a bread riot. What is the motivation right now?

Elder: People are really angry and the thing that kicks off these protests that we’ve seen the last couple of days are parliamentary elections that were held on Sunday. And the reports of falsification and violations particularly spreading through social networks like crazy because people have been videotaping and taking pictures of clear violations with their own cellphones. It’s hard to deny the scale of falsification that happens. And so people have something concrete to be upset about.

Werman: But you’re not sure where this descent may be headed. If it does fizzle out why do you think it may fizzle out?

Elder: I think because what we’re seeing today is you know, the Kremlin has created these youth groups precisely to counter protests like this first of all. So you know, today this protest was a failure for the opposition. And number two, it’s just really cold. You’re never gonna have a Tahrir Square in December in Moscow.

Werman: Miriam Elder, a correspondent for The Guardian newspaper in London, speaking with us from the streets of Moscow. Thanks so much, Miriam.

Elder: Thank you.

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Russia Today Video: “Gathering on Chisty Prudy on December 5, 2011″

Dressed in a tight sports top and clutching a racquet, Medvedev called on schoolchildren to take up the sport.

Badminton players, he says, “can make quick decisions, which means they have the will to achieve success.”

The clip then shows Medvedev battling it out on the court with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

The Financial Times’ Moscow correspondent Courtney Weaver tells Lisa Mullins that in the context of Russia, it’s not all that weird, just another episode in the ‘bromance’ between the Russian president and prime minister.

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Lisa Mullins: In Russia, a video posted on President Dmitry Medvedev’s video blog has elicited a collective “huh?”. In the video Medvedev extolls the virtues of badminton.

Dmitry Medvedev: We too play badminton. I believe that it is great. It offers great benefits since, like any sport, helps on to develop physically, hand-eye coordination, precision, reaction and also to deal with all kinds of life’s challenges. He who knows how to play badminton well can make decisions fast which indicates willpower, willpower to achieve results.

Mullins: Courtney Weaver is a reporter based in Moscow for the Financial Times. He’s saying that with a straight face, Courtney. What’s this video and the message all about?

Courtney Weaver: Great question. Medvedev hasn’t had the best month here in Moscow. He announced last month that he would be stepping down from the Presidency to make way for Vladimir Putin, his predecessor and now his successor it looks like and he was, he got into a fight with the Finance Minister and his whole image as a modernizer and a real, a different person from Mr. Putin has completely been eradicated over the last couple of weeks and just to come out and say, with this video and say that he’s a big fan of badminton and he wants to spread badminton all over Russia when Putin is obviously a well known judo black belt, just has this image of him having such a degraded reputation.

Mullins: Yeah, Putin is a judo black belt. He’s also been, you know, like wrestling wild animals and showing off his pecs, always of course, with a camera present. So Medvedev is clearly trying to take a softer tone, but we should say that in the video we do see Medvedev and Putin going at it across the net. Weird to see these two world leaders in Russia swatting at a birdie, but what’s the bigger message if there is one?

Weaver: Well, I mean I think it’s just, they’ve often, there’s a whole series of what we call here as a “bromance” photos and, you know, Medvedev and Putin at the sea, chucking into the snow. So there seems to be a new sequence in that and they’ve actually been photographed playing badminton before.

Mullins: So it’s a bromance? Because it looks more like a bit of a match.

Weaver: Yeah, I mean I don’t think it’s, I mean anyone who’s watching this, even if they’re not a badminton expert, can see that neither is a real athlete in this sport and so even though they’re concentrating on the birdie, it doesn’t seems too ferocious. These bromance photos, I think they really are a way to show that, you know, despite their differences on certain issues, that Putin Medvedev, they’re friends, they’re the same person and there’s no divergence of policy in the Kremlin, that even though they may be across nets from each other sometimes, they’re still playing on the same team.

Mullins: But is there a larger message going on here that people are taking away from this?

Weaver: Well, I mean I think there are two ways to look at it. I mean there was quite a bit of criticism on the internet because there are quite a number of problems in Russia right now especially in the education system in terms of having not enough teachers, not having enough resources and physical education altogether. So to focus on just such a small issue as badminton seems a bit odd. I mean there have been a couple of videos like this recently where you wonder, people who are seeding these videos and putting in that weird elevator music what they’re thinking, but maybe they just have a sense of humor and hope that we do as well.

Mullins: Courtney Weaver, reporter based in Moscow for the Financial Times. We’re going to make a link to that video on our website, theworld.org. Thanks a lot Courtney.

Weaver: Thank you.

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Three Cartoons By Russian Illustrator Sergey Elkin

President Carter and Soviet leader Brezhnev signed SALT II in 1979 (Photo: Bill Fitz-Patrick)

The new nuclear treaty, known as the new START, looks set to be ratified by the US senate. The arms control agreement between the United States and Russia includes a modest reduction in nuclear forces.

It also reintroduces a program of on-site verification. But the successful ratification of New START doesn’t mean things are going to get easier for President Obama’s hope to bring about a nuclear-free world.

Some observers think that, given the numbers of nuclear weapons out there, arms control treaties are kind of meaningless.

Franklin Miller isn’t one of them. “This treaty puts us inspectors back on the ground in Russia,” he said, “and that is it’s most important aspect.”

Indeed, New START provides for verification that the Russians — and the Americans — are doing what they say they’re doing when it comes to reducing stockpiles. But a nuclear-free world?

That’s not what this treaty is about, said Miller, a former senior national security official, most recently with the last Bush administration.

“This treaty provides for some modest reductions, and indeed, when one looks at the overall numbers, it actually provides for more weapons than the Bush-Putin treaty of 2002,” he said. “As for the press broader agenda — going to a world without nuclear weapons — that has not been embraced by governments all over the world. The only government which has embraced it to any degree is the United Kingdom.”

But the Obama administration sees New START as a foundational treaty. Both President Obama and President Medvedev agreed that after New START, the two countries would begin a broader series of nuclear discussions, moving on to deeper reductions in arsenals.

But it took two years to get New START to a final vote in the US Senate, and the prospects for future nuclear treaties aren’t bright, said Matthew Bunn, a specialist on nuclear issues at Harvard.

“Although arms control treaties in the past have always had bipartisan support, we have never seen in the past an arms control treaty that substantially limited the United States in some way that was signed by a Democratic president that got ratified,” Bunn said. “The ones that got ratified were signed by Republican presidents.”

One of those president was Richard Nixon, and the treaty in question was the SALT I treaty in the early 1970s.

In contrast, it was President Carter, a Democrat, who agreed SALT II with the Russians. The difference is that although SALT II was generally honored for a few years, it was never formally ratified.

It looks like this treaty, New START, will be the first arms control agreement signed by a Democratic president, and ratified by the U.S. Senate. It’s also the first one ratified in a lame duck session, and the first one ratified without the support of the Senate minority leader.

It’s a first in several respects, said Matthew Bunn, “but respects that make it seem likely that it’s going to be harder to get the next treaty in the future.”

Bunn said he believes we do need more treaties. There are elements of nuclear arms control that aren’t tackled by New START or any of its predecessors.

Take the actual counting of nuclear weapons. The way it’s done is by figuring out the number of missiles and bombers, and then attributing warheads to those delivery systems, Bunn said.

“So once you take the warhead off the missile or bomber — believe it or not, under the treaties we’ve negotiated so far you can do whatever you like with it,” he said. “It’s an amazing fact that neither the US nor Russia has ever verified the dismantlement of a single nuclear weapon in the other country. We’ve verified the dismantlement of hundreds of missiles and bombers and submarines and things of that kind, but not of the warheads themselves.”

Bunn added that the United States has dismantled many warheads over the years, and that it looks like Russia has done the same.

But no one knows for sure. And New START, like all the treaties before it, doesn’t change that.

• FAQ New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
• ‘No First Use: The Next Step for US Nuclear Policy’
• Obama scores, but nuclear game not over

• The BBC’s Steve Rosenberg looks at Luzhkov’s demise
• Profile: Yuri Luzhkov

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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. Yuri Luzhkov has been the mayor of Moscow for the past 18 years, but today he’s out of a job. He was fired by President Dmitry Medvedev. Medvedev said this while he was on a visit to China today.

SPEAKING RUSSIAN

DMITRY MEDVEDEV: There is not much to comment. The reason for this dismissal follows from the wording of the decree, which means that I as the president of the Russian Federation have lost confidence in Mr. Luzhkov as the mayor of Moscow. The law directly stipulates loss of confidence as grounds for dismissal. This is the first time it has happened, but I do not exclude more cases. It depends on the specific situation. I can hardly imagine a governor carrying out his duties if the leader of the state has no confidence in him.

MULLINS: Sounded like a warning to other local officials as well. Julia Ioffe is Foreign Policy Magazine correspondent in Moscow. We want to ask you about that lack of confidence and why it seemed to be so suddenly expressed, if indeed it was sudden, but first who is this mayor who has been fired, Yuri Luzhkov?

JULIA IOFFE:  He has been the only mayor really that Russian’s have known in the post-Soviet period. He was appointed in June of 1992 by then president Boris Yeltsin just six months after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And after the reformist kind of academic egghead mayor stepped down because he just was not up to the job. Luzhkov got in because he had been on the Moscow city council. He was the Master of the House. This is the term he used to describe himself and [INDISCERNIBLE] others came to describe him.

MULLINS:  So if he was the Master of the House and he wielded so much power, one of the most influential people probably in Russia, why did he get the boot?

IOFFE: He’s been in power for a very long time. He also has a very powerful constituency and by that I don’t just mean that he is in charge of a city that concentrates most of the country’s wealth and about 10% of its population, but a massive business interest that he controls and that are [INDISCERNIBLE] to him for giving them access to building projects and the like. So he has his own kind of independent center of power which is anathema to the current Kremlim. The Kremlin started to feel that he might be a liability in the coming parliamentary elections next fall because his approval rating among Muscovites has been plummeting due to insane levels of corruption in Moscow. It’s really hard to overstate how corrupt the city has become under his watch.

MULLINS: But he also had some choice words for President Medvedev.

IOFFE: Yes, in an article that came out earlier this month, he basically called for Putin to come back to the presidency because he felt the country was not being run well under Medvedev. Tonight there’s been a letter leaked to the Russian press from ex-mayor Luzhkov to the president in which he basically calls the president a hypocrite for calling for democracy and then ousting Luzhkov and he says he’s a popular mayor and the public will not support it, which is not true. The public is very happy that he’s out. And comparing himself, ironically, to Soviet dissidents who were persecuted by the state.

MULLINS: It sounds like Mayor Luzhkov, or at least former-Mayor Luzhkov, is not going down without a fight. Is this the kind of thing that eventually would get him into deeper hot water than he’s in now?

IOFFE: I think so. I think the fact that he’d been fired and fired so harshly is already a sign that he has really crossed [INDISCERNIBLE] line. If he keeps going down this route and antagonizing the Kremlin further, he could face criminal charges on corruption and racketeering and all those kinds of things that he’s been accused of.

MULLINS: And it sounds like the matter is not necessarily going to be in the hands of the people of Moscow? I mean do they have any say in the matter?

IOFFE: Absolutely not.

MULLINS:  Will there be an election?

IOFFE: No. Since 2004, regional heads, including the mayor of Moscow, has been appointed by the president. So there will not be an election to replace him. Three candidates will be nominated by the ruling United Russia Party. That list will be submitted to the president and the president will pick who will replace Luzhkov.

MULLINS: Julia Ioffe is Foreign Policy Magazine’s Moscow correspondent talking to us about the ousting of the mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov. Thanks a lot, Julia.

IOFFE: Thank you.

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Medvedev and Putin in 2008 (Photo: www.kremlin.ru)

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is seen as a sportsman, a hunter, an athlete, a ‘manly man.’ But what about Russian President Dmitry Medvedev? Voters see him as a help-mate and political lackey for Putin – observers say that’s no accident. Jessica Golloher reports from Moscow on the very different public images of Russia’s leaders. Download MP3

• BBC profile of Medvedev
• BBC profile of Putin
• Resurgent Russia

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LISA MULLINS: And speaking of Russia, a fight has broken out in the country’s capital between the federal government and the mayor of Moscow. The speaker of the Parliament’s Upper House says there are quote, more than enough grounds to fire Yuri Luzhkov. Luzhkov says that he’s not going without a fight. The mayor is a powerful figure in Russia, and relations between him and the Kremlin have long been frosty. This current fight is seen as a test of President Dmitry Medvedev’s power to keep local officials in line. There’s little doubt that Medvedev is on the wrong end of another power struggle, the one with his supposed number two, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Reporter Jessica Golloher now looks at how Mr. Medvedev is viewed by his constituents.

FEMALE SPEAKER:  Russian’s Far East is host to a number of natural wonders. Among them are several species of whales, many of which are facing extinction.

JESSICA GOLLOHER:  On the Kamchatka peninsula this summer, just another manly accomplishment for Russia’s busy Prime Minister.

FEMALE SPEAKER: High waves and wet weather didn’t stop Russia’s Prime Minister from joining biologists in their pursuit to find the rare mammals.

GOLLOHER: In addition to shooting darts at endangered grey whales, Putin also drove 1,200 miles across Siberia in a yellow Lada. He narrowly escaped tangling with a wild bear. And he was filmed dousing fires from a bomber during the country’s worst heatwave on record. Meanwhile this summer, Medvedev shook hands with rock star Bono. Every girl’s dream, perhaps, but not especially manly. So let’s just put it out there. Putin, tough guy. Medvedev, not so tough.

ROSA SAKALOVA: I think he acts as a housewife.

GOLLOHER: 30-something hotel manager Rosa Sakalova.

SAKALOVE: Someone who can greet guests, but not the one who will push or be tough. I don’t know. I think he is a kind of, not the one who makes decisions.

GOLLOHER: So Medvedev is kind of like the woman behind the man. She does all the dirty work, he gets all the glory. Sound familiar?

FEMALE SPEAKER: Don, do something. No responsibility for anything [INDISCERNIBLE]. I’m here all day, alone with them, outnumbered and then you come home and get to be the hero.

MASCHA LIPMAN:  How can you not be jealous?

GOLLOHER: Mascha Lipman is a political analyst with the Carnegie Center, a think tank based here in Moscow. She says the comparison to 1960s American a la Madmen is apt.

LIPMAN: Putin has full command of the audience, full command of the camera, and he’s good at it. And people perceive him the way the message is conveyed. I’m a strong man and I’m the master.

GOLLOHER: Little question that’s how Russian view things. One recent headline read, Can Medvedev Fire Putin? That came after the firefighting stunt. Others called Putin Medvedev’s puppetmaster. One even laid down the ultimate insult, calling Medvedev a soft spoken smart-kid lawyer. So even if Mr. Medvedev is living in Putin’s shadow stuck at the Kremlin, running the mundane day-to-day operations of the country, so what? That isn’t really so bad says Andrei Kortunov with the New Eurasia Foundation.

ANDREI KORTUNOV: It really depends on your definition of fun. For example, Medvedev likes gadgets, an iPhone. So maybe he enjoys life in a different way. It’s difficult for me to imagine that Medvedev hunting a tiger.

GOLLOHER: And anyway, hunting animals doesn’t appear to be in Medvedev’s repertoire. He likes yoga. The president recently announced that he could even stand on his own head. In contrast, Putin has a black belt in judo. He’s even made an instructional video with the former judo world champion from Japan. All Putin’s recent posturing has led many to believe Putin is gearing up for another term as president. As for Medvedev, no official word yet on whether he’s up for the challenge. For The World, I’m Jessica Golloher in Moscow.

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• BBC coverage
• Q&A: New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start)

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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman.  This is The World.  President Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Medvedev made history today.  At a ceremony in Prague, the two leaders signed a treaty to significantly reduce the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States.  The treaty calls for a 30% cut in the number of nuclear warheads deployed by the two nations.  President Medvedev said the deal will lead to a higher level of cooperation between Moscow and Washington.  And President Obama said that could mean more cuts in the future.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  While the new START treaty is an important first step forward, it is just one step on a longer journey.  As I said last year in Prague, this treaty will set the stage for further cuts.  And going forward we hope to pursue discussions with Russia on reducing both our strategic and tactical weapons, including non-deployed weapons.

WERMAN: President Obama speaking in Prague today.  The BBC’s James Robbins witnessed the treaty’s signing.  He says the ceremony felt like a watershed.

JAMES ROBBINS:  The signing ceremony took place in a richly plastered baroque hall of Prague Castle.  And the American and Russian Presidents signed and exchanged these weighty volumes which contain the detailed outcome of months of negotiation between the two capitals.  Amount, of course, to the dismantling of nuclear warheads and missiles on both sides.

WERMAN: So with literally thousands of weapons that are in U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles that don’t fall under this agreement.  What then is the real significance of this diplomatic breakthrough really?

ROBBINS: You’re right, of course that plenty of weapons and warheads and missile systems, particularly those that are not actually deployed but may be in stockpiles and could be reactivated for use and not covered.  It’s also true that what’s allowed under the treaty amounts to arsenals easily capable of annihilating most of the populations of the United States or of Russia or indeed of many countries on the globe.  Nevertheless, if you believe in incrementalism they think they are showing leadership by example to other nations that are meeting their nuclear non-proliferation treaty obligations and moving towards zero even if their critics will say they’re hardly moving very fast.

WERMAN: And how did the relationship between Presidents Obama and Dmitri Medvedev appear?  Some analysts feel they’re actually warming up.

ROBBINS: Certainly, I have to say the body chemistry in the room was pretty remarkable.  They’re both, I think, made clear the really rough patch in relations during the end of the Bush era and indeed running into this presidency of President Obama seems to be put behind them.  That’s not to say there aren’t disagreements and we know that the Russians say they could withdraw from this treaty if they felt that the United States reverted to any policy which seemed to put a missile system into central Europe which Russian felt was a threat.  There’s still some wariness, I think, on the Russian, so we’re not out of the woods yet, but a much better working relationship.

WERMAN: The BBC’s James Robbins in Prague.  Fascinating moment James, thank you for talking with us.

ROBBINS: It was a pleasure.

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LISA MULLINS: President Obama’s trip to Moscow will probably find its way into the conversation at that G8 summit. The World’s Gerry Hadden reports that the Europeans have more than a passing interest in what Mister Obama said to whom.

GARRY HADDEN: Europeans have listened to Mr. Obama’s words closely, eager for his pronouncements on the thorny issues that have weakened the continent’s relationship with Russia.  Among those issues is the possible expansion of NATO to include Ukraine and Georgia, where Russia intervened militarily last summer.

BARACK OBAMA: Just as all States should have the right to choose their leaders, States must have the right to borders that are secure, and to their own foreign policies. That is true for Russia, just as it is true for the United States. Any system that cedes those rights will lead to anarchy. That’s why we must apply this principle to all nations, and that includes nations like Georgia and Ukraine.

GARRY HADDEN: Oleg Rebehchuk liked that part of Mr. Obama’s speech. Rubehchuk is a former advisor to Ukraine’s President Victor Yushenko, a Westward leaning leader eager to join the western military alliance.

OLEG REBECHUK: Russia is very bullying.  Not only relations with Georgia but also in relations to the country where I come from.

GARRY HADDEN: Russia has warned against further NATO expansion, saying it would destabilize the region and relations with Europe, and some Europeans want to avoid that at all costs. Countries like Germany and France have tried to halt NATO growth, in part because they depend on Russia for much of their natural gas.  Jonathan Steele is a columnist for the London based newspaper, The Guardian.  He says NATO expansion eastward has been a bad idea that has backfired, undermining security.

JONATHAN STEELE: Because it makes the Russians very suspicious.  It encourages the more anti Russian forces in these countries.  I mean, take Ukraine for example, I mean, public opinion polls show that the majority of Ukrainians do not want to enter NATO.  And yet continually the government of Ukraine goes on about NATO, the continual efforts by NATO, the NATO secretary general visits Ukraine and so on. Why don’t they say, look, let’s wait until Ukrainian public opinion is in favor of NATO before we keep on closing this issue?  It looks anti democratic.

GARRY HADDEN: Steele says the West should take seriously Russia’s call for a brand new security structure, one that includes Russia, Europe and the US.  Alain Deletroz agrees.  Deletroz is a Russia expert at the International Crisis Group, a think tank in Brussels.

ALAIN DELETROZ: That would be a show of mutual trust. But the question that I raise every time I can with our Russian counterparts, is they have to understand that if they keep saying that they don’t trust the west, as they say, we have a problem of trust too.

GARRY HADDEN: In a speech to students at a Moscow business school today, President Obama emphasized another way to rebuild relations

BARACK OBAMA: There is extraordinary potential for increased cooperation between Americans and Russians.  We can pursue trade that is free and fair and integrated with the wider world.  We can boost investment that creates jobs in both our countries.

GARRY HADDEN: Business as trust builder.   Investor Bill Browder says that sounds good, but he suggests Mr. Obama think twice before announcing any new era of trade.  He says endemic corruption in Russia will only erode East West relations unless it’s cleaned up, and fast.

BILL BROWDER: I think the system is just rotten down to the core.  I think that it’s corrupt at every different level.  And even if you have a few patriots and few honest people at the top, it’s impossible to break the back on this corruption.  Essentially, Russia needs some type of Elliot Ness type character to go in and clean it all out.

GARRY HADDEN: Browder should know. Just four years ago his London based investment house, Hermitage Capital, was the largest foreign investor in Russia, to the tune of about four billion dollars.  But Browder says, that after he accused some major Russian firms of corrupt practices, he was barred from returning to the country. His offices were ransacked and some of his assets seized.   President Obama has avoided this sort of direct criticism of Russia on his visit, but he did dedicate part of one of his speeches to lauding the US’s freedoms of speech and assembly. Freedoms, he said, that ensure justice and impede abuses of power. For The World, I’m Gerry Hadden.

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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins, and this is The World. President Barack Obama went to Moscow to help reset the relationship between the United States and Russia. Well today, he met with Russian President, Dimitry Medvedev, and then the two leaders announced a major component of that reset process. It’s an agreement to reduce the number of the two countries’ nuclear warheads. The new accord is due to replace the 1991 start treaty between Washington and Moscow. President Obama says, this agreement announced today is an important step toward stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.

BARACK OBAMA: This starts with the reduction of our own nuclear arsenals. As the world’s two leading nuclear powers, the United States and Russia must lead by example, and that’s what we’re doing here today.

LISA MULLINS: President Obama said the accord will reduce US and Russian nuclear warheads and delivery systems by up to a third from current treaty obligations. The presidents of the United States and Russia also agreed on a variety of other issues. Russia, for instance, will allow the US military to fly troops and weapons across its territory to Afghanistan. And Washington and Moscow agreed to work together on the challenges posed by North Korea and Iran. President Obama said that is in everyone’s interest.

BARACK OBAMA: That’s why I’m pleased that we’ve agreed on a joint statement on cooperation on missile defense and a joint threat assessment of the ballistic missile challenges of the 21st century including those posed by Iran and North Korea.

LISA MULLINS: Despite the agreements announced today, Mr. Obama faces challenges in dealing with Russia, notably the two-headed nature of its power structure. President Medvedev is nominally the head of state, but former President, Vladimir Putin still exerts significant power as the country’s prime minister. The World’s Jeb Sharp reports.

JEB SHARP: In the days leading up to this week’s summit, statements from all sides have been scrutinized, and there was even a little ripple of apprehension and excitement when President Obama seemed to attempt to define the difference between Medvedev and Putin in this Associated Press interview.

BARACK OBAMA: Prime Minister Putin still has a lot of sway in Russia, and I think that it’s important that even as we move forward with President Medvedev, that Putin understands that the old Cold War approaches to US-Russian relations is outdated, that it’s time to move forward in a different direction. I think Medvedev understands that, I think Putin has one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new.

JEB SHARP: Putin brushed off the criticism.

PUTIN: [SPEAKS IN RUSSIAN]

JEB SHARP: [TRANSLATES WHAT PUTIN SAID] “We have a popular saying, which is not very literary.” Putin said. “We can’t stand legs akimbo. We are firmly standing on our feet and always look to the future.” Prime Minister Putin went on to say that he was looking forward to President Obama’s visit with warm feelings. President Obama will meet Putin for breakfast tomorrow, but today it was all about President Medvedev. The US and Russian presidents were business-like but also generous towards each other in their news conference today, as they rattled off areas of agreement and disagreement. President Obama was asked directly whether he trusted Mr. Medvedev. He said he did. He was also asked whether he had figured out who was in charge in Russia, Medvedev or Putin.  He didn’t exactly answer.

BARACK OBAMA: My understanding is that President Medvedev is the president, Prime Minister Putin is the prime minister, and they allocate power in accordance with Russia’s form of government, in the same way that we allocate power in the United States. And, so, my interest is in dealing directly with my counterpart, the president, but also to reach out to Prime Minister Putin, and all other influential sectors in Russian society.

JEB SHARP: But in meeting with Prime Minister Putin, President Obama is actually doing a little more than just reaching out. Kathryn Stoner-Weiss of Stanford University says Mr. Obama actually has no choice but to meet with Mr. Putin, because he still holds so much power.

KATHRYN STONER-WEISS: I think it would be wrong to think that, first of all, there’s any departure in thinking between Putin and Medvedev, and that it’s important to go to the source of the thinking in Russian foreign and domestic policy, and I think it’s safe to say that the source is Mr. Putin.

JEB SHARP: But Stoner-Weiss says that knowledge hasn’t stopped the Americans from poking and prodding a little bit to see if there is any space at all between Medvedev and Putin.

KATHRYN STONER-WEISS: Testing to see whether or not there could be any way of creating some kind of schism in dealing with Mr. Medvedev, who’s viewed as a friendlier, easier partner, or bolstering him somehow domestically. Honestly, I don’t think there is much hope in [LAUGHS] pursuing that strategy.  Mr. Putin chose, handpicked Mr. Medvedev as his successor, as President on purpose, and it’s because Medvedev is very, very dependent on Mr. Putin to stay in office.

JEB SHARP: Having said that, Stoner-Weiss thinks the meeting has gone relatively well, with modest goals on arms control and Afghanistan cooperation that have been largely met. Jeff Mankoff of the Council on Foreign Relations says the United States and Russia still have serious differences.

JEFF MANKOFF: They’re still very far apart on Iran. I think they’re going to be agreeing to disagree on the question of missile defense. And probably the most explosive issue, which is the status of the former Soviet Union and Russia’s influence over its one-time colonies or satellites, I think, is to a large degree insoluble.

JEB SHARP: To be sure, neither President Obama nor President Medvedev shied away from their differences today, but they did both vow to work hard to find more common ground. For The World, I’m Jeb Sharp.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.