Source: Voice of America
Speaking on Voice of America's On the Line, Carnegie’s Matthew Rojansky discussed the implications of Russian President Medvedev’s recent announcement that he will not run for re-election in 2012. His decision paves the way for Prime Minister Putin to return to the presidency, an office he held for eight years until 2008. “It has been clear that when Putin has been serving as Prime Minister under the President Medvedev, in actual fact, Putin has been calling a lot of the important shots,” Rojansky stated. “What that means in practice is that what we saw at least in part was a Putin presidency for the last 4 years.”
Rojansky suggested that although “there will not be a contradiction in terms of strategy in the U.S.–Russia relations, Obama has to start over and build a personal rapport with Putin.” Rojansky also warned that Russia needs to learn from the current situation in Western Europe and fix its state budget, especially its dependence on oil revenues.