The past seven months have seen a 60-percent increase in  car production in Russia – a sign that the sector shows stable signs of growing , Industry and Trade Minister Viktor Khristenko has said.

By Patrick Armstrong

Fires. This summer’s exceptional heat sparked hundreds of wildfires in Russia (map here). The response showed many deficiencies in organisation and law. The worst appears to be over now but satellites still show nearly 500 fires. There will be political casualties – possibly even including Moscow’s Mayor who was out of town until Monday. A number of news outlets are trying to spin this into yet another story of the imminent collapse of the “Putin system” – see, for example, the amusing exchange in which a French reporter tries to get Alexandre Latsa to spin it that way. (Google “Latsa dissonance” and go down ‘till you find it).

As Vladivostok prepares to host the 2012 APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit, complex infrastructure is being built with an army of Caterpillar construction equipment.

Over the past year local Cat dealer Amur Machinery has sold 29 Cat machines and rented another ten to the contractor, ZAO Crocus. In February an order of seventeen machines were delivered to the customer consisting of four 428 E backhoe, seven bulldozers, including two D9R machines, three rollers and three tracked excavators CS56 in the 35-ton class.

Cat Financial provided the funding for this mix of construction equipment.

A Taiwan company has won a contract to design the world's largest aquarium in Russia's Vladivostok city, the company has announced. The Huangs Green Country Industrial Co Ltd won the bid on the project that is part of Vladivostok's preparation for hosting the 2012 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, it said.

Russia has had S-300 anti-aircraft missiles deployed in Abkhazia since its forces briefly invaded Georgia two years ago to protect two breakaway Georgian regions, a Kremlin source confirmed Friday.

"All of our partners were informed," the Kremlin official told the Interfax news agency.

Russian oil company, Lukoil, has shrugged off sanctions against Iran and has resumed gasoline sales to the Islamic Republic through its trade partners. The company discharged a cargo of 250,000 barrels of gasoline in the southern Iranian port of Bandar Abbas last week, Reuters reported.

The first US air force planes have arrived in Russia loaded with equipment to help tackle wildfires that have been raging across vast areas of the country for weeks.Two C-130 aircraft loaded with aid landed at Moscow's Vnukovo airport on Saturday as Russian officials said the ferocious blazes which have killed at least 50 people were beginning to be brought under control.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev conceded Thursday that a quarter of Russian crops have been lost in the recent drought, leaving many farms on the brink of bankruptcy. The government will prevent increases in the price of grain and fodder, which will eventually affect the prices of food products like flour, bread, meat, and milk, Medvedev said at a government agriculture meeting in Rostov.

Republic of Ireland winger Aiden McGeady has joined group-stage contenders FC Spartak Moskva from Celtic FC for a fee reported to be the highest ever involving a Scottish club according to a news release posted today on the UEFA Championships League web site. 

By Gordon Hahn

Despite minor setbacks and some footdragging, the thaw in Russia continues apace.  Recently, it has been most evident in the President Dmitry Medvedev’s and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s efforts to implement a ‘smart’ counter-jihadism policy in the North Caucasus.  Increasingly, the Kremlin is turning to aggressive socio-economic methods to combat the Caucasus Emirate (CE) jihadi network in accordance with Medvedev’s call for greater focus of soft power aspects of fighting terrorism, especially a socio-economic development strategy for the relatively impoverished region.  In addition, Medvedev’s personnel policy has turned away from appointing strongmen like Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.  Also, relative to Russia’s foreign policy, the new North Caucasus policy has manifested itself by a more cooperative relationship on the issue with Europe and the U.S.