All Blog Posts from World Watch

Tired of working amid corruption, a 32 year old Russian police officer has made an unthinkable video appeal directly to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. He says he now fears for his life, but thinks this whistle had to be blown.

"Vladimir Vladimirovich, I am appealing directly to you," says Major Alexei Dymovsky in his video, referring to Putin's by his traditional name. "You have been talking about corruption – you have been saying that not only should corruption constitute a crime, you said it should also be unseemly to engage in corrupt practices. But this is not the case in this country."

The words were more likely to come from a human rights activist or an opposition politician. But this rare outpouring of emotion came from within the Russian power structure, from Dymovsky, a cop in the city of Novorossiysk.

"I want you to know how we live – ordinary officers, ordinary policemen – those who solve and untangle (crimes) and detain (criminals), those who do the real work," Dymovsky said in his recorded speech, during which he looked visibly nervous and stumbled at times.

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“It is not like Leningrad under siege of course, but people have already started eating grass,” Svetlana Antropova, a trade union leader in the town of Pikalyovo woefully complained to a Russian newspaper. "They make nettle soup and dandelion salads. What other choice is there?”

The solution was promptly offered by Russia’s Prime Minister. Vladimir Putin arrived on an emergency visit in this company town and blamed the town’s woes on local officials and delinquent private owners of the Pikalyovo industrial enterprises.

“Why did you start running around like cockroaches only on the eve of my arrival here? Why wasn’t there anyone capable of making the right decisions well before that?" Premier Putin asked, sternly eyeing a group of businessmen and officials.

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As President Obama heads into his first face to face meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, CBS News has learned the London session is a probable scene-setter for a formal U.S.-Russian summit as early as this summer.

A White House official says it is "quite likely" that the two leaders will set a date for a meeting in Moscow. The official says Wednesday's meeting is all about gauging "dynamics" between the two men.

Their meeting Wednesday was also expected to herald a re-opening of U.S.-Russian talks on nuclear disarmament.

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The Times of London reports today that President Barack Obama is working toward a new nuclear non-proliferation agreement with Russia that could see both countries cut their stock of missiles down to about a fifth – to 1,000 warheads per country.

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Unable to move unaided, 23 people died in a devastating fire that completely destroyed a government nursing home in the northern Russian town of Podyelsk. In 2008, more than 15,000 Russians died in fires.

A senior opposition politician tells CBS News the cost of the Kremlin's geopolitical posturing is being paid in the lives of some of the most vulnerable Russians.

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"America is a beautiful country – very picturesque – but it has been unlucky with its leaders lately," said a man dressed as Ded Moroz (a Russian Santa Claus) interviewed by CBS News in downtown Moscow. "It has been run by the wrong people." Now, many Russians are hoping new American leadership will bring a thaw in relations.

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A very important test launch of the naval-based Bulava intercontinental missile failed Monday night. The test was to become the final exam before the missile would have been commissioned by the Russian Navy. Regrettably for the military, the third stage of the missile misfired and the missile self-destructed. The failure calls into question the future of one of the newest and advanced Russian ICBMs – Bulava has had quite a long record of faulty launches which has made it impossible to put it into service even despite the support of such Russian political heavyweights as vice premier and former defense minister Sergei Ivanov. More tests will be held in 2009.

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Russia has had quite enough of the U.S. and its allies beating a steady path toward its borders, and now, they've come calling in our direction. One of the Russian Navy's flagship is now docked in our neighborhood.

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Russia has had quite enough of the U.S. and its allies beating a steady path toward its borders, and now, they've come calling in our direction. A flagship Russian battleship is now docked in our neighborhood.

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