During a working visit to Geneva (June 12-15) on the occasion of the 100th Conference of the International Labor Organization (ILO), Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he expects the Russian economy to fully recover by 2012.

As the first Russian leader to address an ILO conference, Putin said “we have put forth an ambitious goal in the next decade to make Russia one of the five largest economies in the world.”  He said while it would be necessary to eliminate inefficient jobs, new high-tech jobs would be created in order to achieve this goal.

Putin also promised to double the salaries of every Russian citizen while maintaining the current 40-hour work week, environmental and safety standards. He also promised that fundamental rights and freedoms would not be violated in the search for economic growth.

His many promises made his address to the ILO sound more like a campaign speech. Indeed Putin is supposed running again for the Russian presidency although he has not yet made an official announcement. 

During his visit, Putin also met officials at many international organizations based in Geneva, including the recently appointed Director General of the UN’s Geneva Office, Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan. He also discussed bilateral relations between Russia and Switzerland with Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey.

On the eve of his departure, a potentially embarrassing documentary was broadcast on the Swiss-French channel TSR2.  French filmmaker Mylene Sauloy's story portrayed Natalya Estemirova, a militant human rights journalist killed in 2009 in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. Like fellow journalist Anna Politkovskaya, she was also killed in mysterious circumstances while investigating torture and extrajudicial killings by Russian government troops or paramilitaries in Chechnya.