After Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, which political figure would you guess state-controlled television and Kremlin-friendly newspapers have been covering the most over the past month? Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin is the hands-down winner.

People have been asking me all week why the Kremlin is so stubbornly supportive of Syrian President Bashar Assad. "Is Russia's support based solely on weapons contracts with Syria," they wonder, "or the Kremlin's desire to maintain its naval base at the Tartus port?"

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin got very angry last Wednesday when he met with the editors-in-chief of Russia's top media outlets.

U.S. President Barack Obama caused considerable damage to the Kremlin during a visit to the Pentagon last week when he announced a decisive reduction in the military ambitions of the United States. This was a serious blow to Russia's propagandistic stereotype that Washington is still determined to dominate the world, with Russia being at the top of the U.S. list of targets.

During Putin's annual call-in television show, employees of Russia's top tank manufacturer in Nizhny Tagil offered to help break up the Moscow demonstrations. According to news reports, the factory's chairman worked in the 1980s alongside Putin at the KGB station in Dresden.

Many observers have commented on how well-behaved, friendly and polite the police were during Saturday's opposition rally. The police did not blink when protestors chanted anti-Kremlin slogans or committed minor violations.

For the last several weeks, President Dmitry Medvedev and senior Russian officials have tensely been promising to reveal which measures Moscow will take if Europe deploys a missile defense system.

There is one contradiction that will always be a part of the Russian military: Although it funds some programs that meet the country's security needs, many others have little value at all. For example, President Dmitry Medvedev last week signed an order almost tripling salaries for military personnel. This is an extremely appropriate and important step for strengthening the military.

As NATO officially wraps up its military mission against Libya, there are still many unanswered questions about NATO's future security role. According to knowledgeable sources, Libya was one of the main issues Russian officials discussed with NATO's James Appathurai during his recent visit to Moscow.

The severe problems in the Russian army go much deeper than the military reforms implemented by Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov. General Vasily Smirnov, deputy head of the General Staff, announced two weeks ago that the fall draft would deliver a little more than 135,000 conscripts.

Every so often, a figure appears on the Russian political scene who acts as a pilot fish. By observing his actions, it is possible to deduce what the big sharks of domestic policy are up to.

United Russia's "Triumph of the Will" convention on Saturday caused quite a sensation. The bigger sensation was Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin's announcement on Saturday that he does not want to work in a government headed by Medvedev and his resignation on Monday night.

In recent days, the world press has been full of articles devoted to the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. The jury is still out on whether the 10-year fight against global terrorism has been successful. The only real victory has been the elimination of Osama bin Laden and dozens of al-Qaida leaders. But one thing is clear: For years to come, the Greater Middle East will serve as a base for terrorists.

As usual, the good news comes with the bad. First the good news: The Kremlin has finally acknowledged that when U.S. and coalition forces withdraw from Afghanistan in three years, the former Soviet republics in Central Asia and Russia itself will be faced with a serious security threat from the south. The bad news is that Moscow is using the threat largely as an excuse to badger the West.

There is an old saying about the Soviet army: After every victory, the slackers are rewarded and the heroes are punished. This expression came to mind in connection with the 20th anniversary of the 1991 coup attempt.

As is well known, tragic events often repeat as a farce. As the 20th anniversary of the attempted military coup of August 1991 approaches, journalists in Yekaterinburg reported that the Federal Security Service was able to avert a military rebellion.

Long ago, I formulated what I humbly call the "Golts Principle" — the more absurd the idea, the more likely it is that the Russian bureaucracy will embrace it. The motive is clear: By adopting impossible goals, bureaucrats can milk the state budget indefinitely.

In light of a recent quarrel between President Dmitry Medvedev, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and Yury Solomonov, chief designer at the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology, it seems that Russia urgently needs another Lavrenty Beria.

The more I cover global affairs, the more it takes me back to the 1980s when I wrote for the main Soviet military newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda.

It seems that Russia has invented a new way of getting rid of old, dangerous ammunition: blowing it all up, together with the depots where it is stored.

Anyone following the statements made by U.S. President Barack Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev during the recent Group of Eight summit in France would have to conclude that the two leaders completely misunderstood each other. Obama spoke about the success of the reset in U.S.-Russian relations while Medvedev, unable to hide his irritation, promised an arms race by 2020.

Revolutions happen silently in bureaucratic circles, without a single shot from enemy forces. One fine day, the head of the government simply signs a document that changes the entire structure of authority.

Victory Day is a deeply emotional holiday for Russians, but it has been co-opted by the country's leaders. They take a purely utilitarian approach, seeking ways to promote themselves, not the country or veterans. And this is an election year, meaning the Kremlin needs every patriotic PR opportunity it can get its hands on.

Having reluctantly agreed with France and Britain to begin the Libyan operation on March 19, Washington within days started to scale back its involvement, and the command structure was shifted to NATO, a direct signal that the United States did not want to take direct responsibility for the operation's outcome.

General Staff chief Nikolai Makarov was the center of attention after delivering a speech in which he finally renounced archaic military principles that date back to the 1940s by saying Russia's army should not be based on a principal of fighting enemies by sending line after line of soldiers and tanks to penetrate enemy lines, the chief strategy used by the Soviet Army during World War II.

Russia's modern defense industry is little more than a parody of the Soviet-era military-industrial complex. Medvedev apparently realizes that investing in such an industry is tantamount to tossing money to the wind.

If the government follows through on its promise to allocate enormous sums for modernizing the army, the money will simply disappear. Surely, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is aware of that danger. A careful reading of the defense budget for the next three years reveals that the funds for re-equipping the army will be handed out only in 2013, one year after the presidential election.

For more than two years, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov has been carrying out the most radical military reforms of the last half century without requiring any additional funding.

It is often said that young lovers argue for one main reason: to experience the sweet pleasure of making up shortly thereafter. The exact opposite is true in Russian-NATO relations: The only reason they make up is to argue once again shortly thereafter.

In an effort to comply with quotas set by the General Staff, military authorities in Moscow rounded up everybody they could get their hands on — even migrant workers from Central Asia who aren’t Russian citizens.