0654GMT//Lift falls 12 floors as more repairs are delayed; Putin to skip BRICS summit
PUTIN AND BRICS: Putin will not fly to the BRICS summit in Brazil on July 6-7 and will instead take part via a video link, the Kremlin said on Wednesday. Brazil is a member of the ICC which has an arrest warrant out for the Russian leader. Instead, Russia will be represented by Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister. (COMMENT: The Kremlin will be disappointed with Brazil for not fronting up to the ICC and "guaranteeing" Putin's safety. BRICS is important to the Kremlin. It tried to turn it into a major anti-West bloc at Kazan last year, but enthusiasm has been lukewarm at best. The ICC arrest warrant on Putin has been a constant frustration to Putin as it severely limits his travel options.)
LIFT REPAIR FAILURES: A lift in a residential block of flats fell 12 floors in Makhachkala, Dagestan, on Wednesday, injuring four people. (COMMENT: High-rise residential blocks dot Russia's urban landscape. These are often the federal government's responsibility to maintain, but the Kremlin has delayed servicing an estimated 140,000 lifts to save money to fund its war in Ukraine. Tales of knackered civilian infrastructure are becoming more prevalent in Russia.)
FSU PROPAGANDA: Sergei Kravtsov, Russia's education minister, on Wednesday accused former Soviet states in Central Asia and the South Caucasus of "generally presenting Russia in a negative light" in their school textbooks. (COMMENT: Clearly, the Kremlin's push to rewrite school textbooks to boost its propaganda is being driven into its former hegemony too. This is a cornerstone policy for the Kremlin.)
NK-RUSSIA TRAIN: A direct train between Pyongyang and Moscow arrived in the Russian capital on Wednesday for the first time since 2020 when it was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The train pulled into Moscow's Yaroslavsky Station eight days after leaving Pyongyang for the 10,000km trip. (COMMENT: This is something of a propaganda project for Russia and North Korea to emphasise strong bilateral relations since North Korean dictator Kim Jung-un gave the Kremlin weapons and soldiers for its war against Ukraine. But, peel back the facade and it doesn't look so good. There were no passengers on the train -- only the train crew for this test run. Trains are supposed to run twice a month between the two capitals. An air link is also planned to start up.)
"OFF TO THE WAR ZONE!": Dmitry Rogozin, the former head of the Kremlin's Roscosmos space agency, threatened to send a pair of Russian TV comedians to Ukraine to fight for the Russian army in Ukraine on Wednesday after they made a joke about him that he didn't like. (COMMENT: Russia has once again turned into a country of informers, reporting transgressions against the state and the Kremlin's war in Ukraine, as well as personal grudges, to the police. Rogozin has turned himself into an ultra-pro-war nationalist and has spent a large amount of time in the war zone. Since 2023, he has also been a senator for the part-occupied Zaporizhzhia region in Ukraine.)
ALTAI PROTESTS: Human rights activists in Russia's Altai region criticised the regional parliament's swift passing of a law to scrap lower levels of government. Under pressure from the Kremlin, Altai's parliament passed the legislation, which scraps village authorities and hands more control to Kremlin-appointed officials, despite rare public anti-government protests. (COMMENT: The protests over the weekend and on Tuesday attracted up to 4,000 people per day. There is a chance that these protests will persist, presenting a challenge to the Kremlin.) (NOTE: Altai is a poor and thinly-populated region in Siberia bordering Kazakhstan.)
CHINA VISIT: Andrei Belousov, Russia's defence minister, was in Beijing on Wednesday meeting with his Chinese counterpart Admiral Dong Jun. He called bilateral relations "unprecedentedly high". (COMMENT: The meeting between Belousov and Dong was part of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) get-together for defence ministers. This is the quasi-military pact headed by Russia and China that is focused on Central Asia.)
ECON GLOOM: More glum economic news from Russia on Wednesday with a new survey showing 34% of CEOs in a poll by the Yakov & Partners group as "pessimistic" about the future. This is a 4-year high. (COMMENT: The pessimism is linked to inflation and a tight labour market.)
NEWS MATRIX:
Putin's cancellation of his plans to travel to Brazil for the BRICS meeting is hardly a surprise but I'd still judge it as important. The ICC arrest warrant worries the Kremlin. The Kremlin has never openly challenged the arrest warrant but there had been a feeling that Brazil may "guarantee" Putin's safety. Instead, Putin will now have to miss one of his more important multi-lateral events of the year. Pledges by rights activists in Altai to continue their protests against a law to scrap low tier authorities is a surprise. It feels important but limited, too.