According to bloomberg.com, Moscow is offering the Icelanders A loan of four billion euros to help it get through the current crisis.
If Russia can support its stock market and preserve growth, the current financial crisis represents a chance to demonstrate ``influence in the world economy and the diminishing influence of the U.S,'' said Sergei Markov, an adviser to the Kremlin who is a lawmaker in the ruling United Russia party.
Both Putin, 56, and Medvedev, 43, have criticized the U.S. for spreading financial contagion around the world.
U.S. ``irresponsibility'' led to the global credit squeeze, which may reduce Russian growth to as little as 5.7 percent this year, according to the finance ministry, Putin told a cabinet meeting Oct. 1.
One former bank official is quoted as using the line that Iceland is becoming the little Cuba of the North.
Bit of a stretch, but still a cute line.
If things get tough will the locals here start recalling the pre-Confederation ties between Newfoundland and Tsarist and revolutionary Russia?
Maybe.
But don't mention Trotsky and the Cochrane Hotel.
-srbp-
