http://www.breitbart.com…
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin allegedly threatened to hang Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili “by the balls” during the August war in Georgia, a report not denied by Putin’s spokesman said on Friday.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s diplomatic aide Jean-David Levitte earlier told Le Nouvel Observateur magazine that Putin had told Sarkozy in a meeting: “Saakashvili, I’m [...]

http://www.washingtontimes.com…
Nicholas Kralev THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Bush administration is offering Belarus’ authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, better relations, hoping that a strategic opportunity created by Russia’s invasion of Georgia can help weaken his longtime alliance with Moscow.

http://news.bbc.co.uk…
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has expressed outrage at reports that Ukraine supplied arms and technicians to Georgia before the recent war.
After talks near Moscow with his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko, he said that if such reports were confirmed, they constituted a “crime”.
Ms Tymoshenko said she was confident the reports would prove unfounded.
The two premiers [...]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk…
h/t: sott.net
Richard Beeston
The Times
My kinda guy… but the people around him are rubbish, says Putin
In a thinly veiled dig at George Bush, Vladimir Putin today suggested that the US President was not in charge of American affairs, saying that it was “the court that makes the king”.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/…
Putin: US orchestrated conflict in Georgia
By STEVE GUTTERMAN, Associated Press WriterThu Aug 28, 6:38 PM ET
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Thursday of pushing Georgia toward war and said he suspects a connection to the U.S. presidential campaign — a contention the White House dismissed as “patently false.”

hat tip ~ SOTT
http://novakeo.com/…
Mike Whitney
Novakeo
Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00 EDT
The American-armed and trained Georgian army swarmed into South Ossetia last Thursday, killing an estimated 2,000 civilians, sending 40,000 South Ossetians fleeing over the Russian border, and destroying much of the capital, Tskhinvali. The attack was unprovoked and took place a full 24 hours before even [...]

http://www.atlargely.com/…
Sovietsky Soyuz attacks an ally… Bush?
Larisa Alexandrovna
The far-right often criticizes me for not playing “we are the greatest country in the world” game, because the talking-point is for them always more important than the reality we are facing. They see criticism of US policy as unpatriotic, despite the necessity for such criticism in light of [...]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

Russia’s Ex-President Is Confirmed Easily; ‘Massive’ Tasks Cited
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, May 9, 2008; A14
MOSCOW, May 8 — Russia’s lower house of parliament overwhelmingly approved Vladimir Putin as prime minister Thursday, completing a choreographed two-step in which his political partner and protege, Dmitry Medvedev, assumed the presidency a day earlier.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/…
Luke Harding in Moscow
The Guardian,
Wednesday April 16 2008
Vladimir Putin consolidated his longterm grip on power yesterday when he agreed to lead the United Russia party after he steps down as president next month and becomes Russia’s prime minister.
Putin accepted the offer to become chairman of the pro-Kremlin party at its congress in Moscow. “I am [...]