(EDM) Dmitri Peskov, the Kremlin’s press secretary, had to recently (November 13) explain that there was nothing extraordinary about the fact that President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev were out of the country at the same time (RIA Novosti, November 13). Medvedev’s whereabouts are usually of scant interest even to his own government, but Putin’s travel schedule for most of November has been so full that he repeatedly had to dispatch his head of government to international fora of sub-prime importance. As the series of spy scandals and cyber-related controversies with the West continues, the Kremlin, indeed, sees an urgent need to demonstrate that Russia defies hostile attitudes and is able to overcome sanctions and isolation. One manifestation of this defiance has been the threat not to send any official delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next January, unless three sanctioned and duly un-invited oligarchs—Oleg Deripaska, Andrei Kostin, and Viktor Vekselberg—are added back to the guest list (Vedomosti, November 13). The Swiss hosts have not budged, however; and the steadily expanding international sanctions are in fact causing pessimistic expectations among the Russian business elite (RBC, November 20). […]
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