TODAY: Medvedev says Russia can emerge stronger from crisis; Duma approves bank bailout; the S&P casts a wary eye; Interior Ministry disputes journalist’s death in Georgia; Georgia decries Russian troop build up in Ossetia; and Kangaroos cower from Russian schoolchildren.

Russian markets may be down 70 percent since May, but on a video posted on his website, President Medvedev assures the world Russia can “avoid banking, forex or debt crisis and go through today’s difficulties without losing the potential we have created.” Whatever you want to call the current economic situation, it’s clear the VEB has been thrust into the role of savior. The Duma, meanwhile, approved a plan to allow the Russian government to spend more than $18 billion bailing out Russian banks. But despite the overtures to project confidence, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Russia’s sovereign credit rating to negative, and cautioned that “the ongoing concentration of the financial system in state hands” had become a political risk. Perhaps it’s not a financial crisis or “Kremlinomics” that’s to blame, but rather, corruption in the West.

Last 5 posts by Robert Amsterdam

• Energy Blast - Nov 23, 2009 - November 23rd, 2009
• Today in Russian Business - Nov 23, 2009 - November 23rd, 2009
• RA's Daily Russian News Blast - Nov 23, 2009 - November 23rd, 2009
• Grigory Pasko: Journalists Are Fleeing Russia - November 20th, 2009
• Evgeny Lebedev and the Londongrad Blues - November 20th, 2009