La Russophobe

August 10, 2008 -- Contents

2008-08-10T14:28:00.003-04:00

SUNDAY AUGUST 10 CONTENTS

(1) The Sunday Photos

(2) The Sunday Sacrilege

(3) The Sunday Shock

(4) The Sunday Funnies

NOTE: Russia has bombed apartment buildings in Georgia proper well outside the contested region of South Ossetia, killing hundreds of civilians by its own admission. We have the details, including horrifying photographs, on Wordpress.

NOTE: See the NOTE in the Friday Contents page for an explanation of our recent technical issues which may have blocked your browser and how we are resolving them.

The Sunday Photos: Oborona Stands for Democracy

2008-08-10T11:37:00.000-04:00

Photos from yet another public protest action by the heroic patriots of Oborona, this one just a couple of weeks ago. The activists protested for democracy in Belarus outside the barbaric nation's embassy in Moscow. They were responding to the latest round of draconian crackdowns by the Belarussian dictator Lukashenko after an explosion in the capital city of Minsk on July 4th, which Lukashenko shamelessly used as a pretext. They carried copies of signs that protesters in Belarus were jailed for carrying.

The Sunday Sacrilege: Annals of Russia's Islamic Bomb

2008-08-10T10:51:00.001-04:00

Paul Goble reports:

The Russian government’s failure to enforce its own laws and to provide basic community services in the modernized sector is to blame for efforts by non-Russian groups there to revive pre-modern traditions like shariat, according to a leading Moscow commentator. Such groups in the current political environment have few chances of influencing the behavior of the Russian government, Sobkorr.ru observer Yuri Gladysh says, and consequently, they are taking the only steps available to them to protect themselves and their families from increasing official arbitrariness.And the Russian authorities will have only themselves to blame if they do not change course and then must confront communities far less adaptable to Russian-style modernization than they were only a few years ago and far more ready to listen to those, often radical in their politics, who speak within that alternative, pre-modern tradition.

The occasion for Gladysh’s observations was an interview in which former Ingush president Ruslan Aushev suggested that young people in his republic no longer trusted officials secular or religious and consequently were turning to pre-modern forms like the shariat as their last means of defense. Secular Russian laws, Gladysh continues, “today are powerless not only against corruption but also against rise of unbridled illegally as a whole” which is “taking over the country.” Citizens, he writes, “are defenseless both before the criminal world and also before greedy bureaucrats and inactive ‘law enforcement officers.’'"

“It is thus no surprise that many Russian citizens, having lost confidence in and thus turned aside from formal laws, are paying attention to their experience of their ancestors. This concerns, by the way, not only Muslims,” although their shift to the shariat has attracted the most and the most negative commentaries in the Russian media. Residents of traditionally Cossack regions are also making use of traditional rule-making arrangements, the Sobkorr.ru commentator suggests, particularly with regard to maintaining public order and providing moral instruction for the young, areas where many Cossacks believe the contemporary Russian state has failed to live up to its responsibilities. And even in the country’s central and predominantly ethnic Russian regions, Gladysh points out, there are regular conventions of meetings to apply the judicial decisions of Yaroslav the Wise “and even the norms of behavior of the times of pagan Rus’,” an archaic revival that is something more than an ethnographic curiosity.

Consequently, he writes, “there is nothing surprising at all in the turning of residents of Muslim regions the shariat,” but there are some very serious consequences of such actions: They divide the citizens of the Russian Federation far more deeply than do ethnic differences, and they make movements from one part of the country to another far more problematic. But there is another and more immediate consequence that all Russians must face up to: many of their fellow citizens are turning to alternative systems of social organization not because they find the latter so inherently attractive but because they have concluded that the Russian government as currently constituted is inherently and irretrievably worse.

Goble continues:

Moscow and its representatives are backing “traditional North Caucasus Islam” in the mistaken belief that this form of Islam is both tolerant and apolitical, when it fact it is not only “aggressive” but also itself “radical” in “practically all” republics of the North Caucasus, according to leading Russian academic specialist. In a two-part article posted on a Moscow State University site, Igor Dobayev, a professor at the Academy of Sciences Southern Academic Center in Rostov, argues that this Russian mistake carries with it “especially great” dangers in Daghestan where Sufi structures play an important role and in part control “’official Islam.’”

Indeed, he suggests, “in the post-Soviet period during the process of the struggle with radical Islam (‘Wahhabism’), traditional Islam [as embodied in the official structures} has become so politicized that this can lead to the total Islamization of the republic in the near term”. Dobayev begins his article by describing the complexity of religious life in Daghestan, a complexity that calls into question most if not all of the categories that Moscow academic specialists, religious leaders and government officials use when they attempt to describe what is going on and what the Russian state should do.

Religiosity varies by region, with the southern parts of Daghestan less religious than other segments of the republic, by residence, with rural people far more attached to the faith than urban ones, and by ethnicity, with Avars, Dargins, and Kumyks far more religious than Lezgins, Laks, Tabasarans and Rutuls. These differences in term affect the 2240 religious organizations (overwhelmingly Sunni mosques) that exist in Daghestan, even though almost all of them are subordinate to the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of Daghestan that supervises more than 2500 religious leaders and that has been subordinate to Mufti Akhmad Abdulayev since 1998.

The various trends have both their own domestically produced magazines and Internet sites and also rely on an enormous quantity of imported Islamic literature, much of which is difficult to categorize according to the traditional, fundamentalist, and Sufi categories that Russian officials insist on employing. But more important than anything else among Muslims in Daghestan, Dobayev argues, are the Sufi orders. At present there are 19 sheikhs from the Naqshbandiya, Shaziliya, and Qadiriya orders, whose adepts include as many as 55,000 people, many of whom are within the government and take orders from their sheikhs.

The sheikhs, the Rostov scholar says, “are ever more insistently penetrating the political and economic structures of north Caucasus society.” And in Daghestan at present, he continues, “certain ministers and serious entrepreneurs are themselves murids [adepts] of the sheikhs” who can secure virtually any decision they deem necessary. The sheikhs in Daghestan are so strong, he argues, that many Sufi leaders are shifting the center of their activities to Moscow, Siberia, Stavropol and Krasnodar, where their activities among Daghestani diasporas are both spreading the Daghestani arrangements and enhancing the influence of its followers among Muslims across the Russian Federation. The interpenetration of traditionalist and Sufi Islam is so great that it is difficult if not impossible to separate them, at least in Daghestan, but together, their “main opponent and antagonist” includes those normally called “fundamentalists” who seek a return to the time of the Prophet.

These groups were radicalized during the course of the second Chechen war, Dobayev suggests, and now operate in underground networks. Their youth organizations – the so-called “’young jamaats’” – are especially active with many of their members having received training abroad.
The Russian government has adopted “an extremely tough approach” toward these groups, but this has not worked in a double sense. On the one hand, because they are better trained than their Islamic establishment counterparts, they thus are spreading their message more generally.

And on the other, by its obsessive focus on the fundamentalists and its assumption that the traditionalist Muslims are in its corner, Moscow and its local backers are ignoring the way in which Sufism is changing the traditionalist Muslims in ways that are already making them a more formidable challenge than the fundamentalists could ever pose. But in his detailed essay, Dobayev may have ignored what is the most significant aspect of this situation: To be sure, the Russian government and its supporters may have made a bad bet but only because in the short term at least, the period for the modernization of Islam in the Caucasus, Moscow does not have any good one available.

The Sunday Shock: Chechens Take over the Russian Army!

2008-08-10T06:57:00.001-04:00

Paul Goble reports:

Because of an unusual combination of circumstances, Chechens could easily make up one-third of young Russian citizens to be drafted this fall, a figure that means non-Russians would easily form more than 50 percent of that draft class and one that is certain to disturb Russian commanders and politicians, according to a Moscow military analyst. In an extensive article in the current issue of “NG-Regiony,” Vladimir Mukhin calls into question official claims that the just-completed spring draft cycle was successfully fulfilled and points to even greater troubles ahead this fall in complecting the Russian Federation’s armed services. It is true, Mukhin says, that the military was able to draft the 133,200 young people in the plan and that 21.5 percent of them had higher educations, double the figure from a year earlier. It reduced the number of evaders to 6700, a quarter the rate one year earlier. But the military was able to do that only by drafting individuals whose health is at the very least questionable.

Human rights groups like the Soldiers’ Mothers committees believe that as many as half of those drafted should not have been because of poor health, and even the General Staff announced this time around that 30 percent of those it was calling to the colors should not have been. But the prospects Moscow faces this fall are even more problematic, Mukhin continued. On the one hand, the services will have to draft 200,000 young people all at once, 180 percent of the number drafted this spring, and on the other, it will have to fill simultaneously two classes who will be leaving service at the same time because of changes in the length of service required. Indeed, Mukhin argued, “such a large influx into the army as is scheduled to occur this fall has not happened before in post-Soviet Russia to their more senior commanders and the media, about whether they will be able to cope.

In this situation, Mukhin says, “it is not excluded that in order to fulfill draft quotas for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and other Russian forces, the military commissariats will begin to draft young people from Chechnya,” a step they have not taken in recent times because of the troubles there but which could generate about 70,000 draftees this fall. Because Chechens are “more healthy and accustomed to the military way of life than are young people from other regions,” few of them would be excluded under the new and more relaxed health grounds. And if Moscow does decided to take this step, Mukhin writes, then this fall “every third new draftee could be a Chechen.” Mukhin’s article is not the only one focusing on these problems. “Gazeta” reported that the military’s draft program on “The New Face of the Armed Forces” anticipates retaining the draft until at least 2030, thus eliminating one means commanders might have to maintain Russian dominance in the army.

And an essay carried by Sobkorr.ru discussing the situation argued that the desire of commanders to continue to rely on draftees not only reflects the continuing impact of what it called a Soviet-era mentality but also raised questions about what kind of conflicts Russia’s military in fact needs to be prepared for. Obviously, there are certain steps Moscow could take to address this situation – drafting a higher percentage of ethnic Russians than of others as it has done in the last two draft cycles or reducing the size of the military – but neither of those are attractive militarily or politically and consequently underscore just how many problems the Kremlin now has in filling the ranks.

The Sunday Funnies

2008-08-10T00:10:00.000-04:00

Source: Barbarossa.

Russian bloggers have noted that from Lenin on Russian rulers have alternated between bald and hairy rulers. The above cartoon shows the continuation of flip-flops between Putin and Medvedev as they become fodder for worms, co-rulers for life.

August 8, 2008 -- Contents

2008-08-08T17:23:00.004-04:00

FRIDAY AUGUST 8 CONTENTS

(1) EDITORIAL: Russia, Imploding Once Again

(2) Russian Society: As Sick as it Can Get?

(3) Latynina on Putin and Mechel

(4) Pasko on Solzhenitsyn

(5) Browder Speaks

(6) Vladimir Putin, Crybaby

NOTE: We apologize to readers who attempted to access this blog over the past two days or so and found it was impossible. The fault lies entirely with Google/Blogger, our host. A week ago, it shut down thousands of blogs which had been improperly identified as "spam" by its logarithms. We luckily avoided the first wave, but got caught in the second after the so-called "fix" was applied. Google/Blogger was notified with dozens of complaints in its forum early Thursday morning, but it took 12 hours to even acknowledge the issue, as you can see here. It then required 24 more hours to fix the problem. As a consequence, we have no alternative but to conclude that we cannot rely on Google/Blogger, and we are moving to Wordpress, where we have a backup blog ready and waiting for just such an occasion. We will continue to post content here for a short time and then we will divert your browsers to our new address automatically. We have two days of content pre-loaded onto this blog which we must publish first and then upload to Wordpress before we can finalize the switchover. Obviously, we are very disappointed by the shockingly unprofessional behavior of Google/Blogger, as are many of our colleagues. Again, we apologize for any inconvenience that has been caused.

NOTE: Our new blog on Wordpress contains content not available here, including our editorial on Russia's outrageous imperialistic invasion of Georgia, an essay by scholar Richard Pipes exposing the fundamental fraud that was Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, a brilliant piece of reporting from the Moscow Times illustrating Russia's worsening class warfare and a book review from the Economist on remembering the horrors of Soviet Russia. Wordpress offers us many benefits, including the ability to divide posts using jump pages, a cleaner, sleeker design and the ability to use both categories and tags for post organization. We expect to be quite safe and happy in our new home once we get all moved in and look forward to seeing you all over there.

EDITORIAL: Russia, Imploding Once Again

2008-08-08T11:53:00.000-04:00

EDITORIAL

Russia, Imploding Once Again

As shown in the chart above, as the price of oil has plummeted to a three-month low and Russian "prime minister" Vladimir Putin has issued yet another crazy, unhinged attack on a major Russian business entity (last time oil major YUKOS, this time steel major Mechel) , in the last three weeks the Russian stock market has lost 18% of its total value, matching a drop in the price of oil (from $145 to $120) jot for jot. In the last six weeks, it's down a shocking 25% from record highs around 2,400 on the RTS Index. The market was down 3.7% last Tuesday alone as it shuddered under the impact of falling oil prices.

The Russian stock market is being bled white. Indeed, one has to wonder if Putin isn't somehow intimidated by growth in the market and the creation of wealth beyond his control that it implies, and whether he isn't just as pleased as Stalin was to see a crippled nation groveling at his feet. After all, it's so much more difficult to govern healthy, vigorous, wealthy people.

And yet, crude oil is still selling at stratospheric prices in excess of $100 a barrel, and crude oil is Russia's bread and butter. If Russia had any kind of economic fundamentals, its stock market ought to be charging ahead. It's not, and that's because Russia has no economic fundamentals at all. It's a crude, third-world dictatorship governed by a proud KGB spy, a relic of a failed state with no training or experience in business, economics or social policy (much less democracy). The Russian market tracks the price of oil so precisely because the price of oil is the only thing standing between the price of oil and apocalypse.

In short, if the price of oil were not artificially inflating the Kremlin's economic performance, we could very well be witnessing a major depression in Russia, followed by the fourth major collapse of the Russian state in the past century. The recent spike price in oil is quite simply a disaster for Russia, because it has finally given the West the incentive it needs to aggressively seek out alternative fuels; the Kremlin's rabid hostility to the West combined with the huge price surges has made the world wake up from its stupor and begin to wean itself from oil dependence. As time goes on, Russia's oil stocks will both deplete and marginalize, and the Russian economy will degenerate into anarchy.

How could it be otherwise? By what twisted, neo-Soviet logic do Russians imagine that they can be successfully governed by the KGB? What possible credential or qualifications could Putin have to address complicated economic issues? Isn't it clear that the priorities of a KGB spy are irreconcilable with the prosperity of a modern nation? Isn't it obvious he will simply divert the nation's resources towards oppression and world domination instead of dealing with pressing social issues and creating a vibrant economy, in other words that he'll behave just as Stalin did, with the same results?

What is happening in Russia today is unprecedented in human history. Russians watched a KGB regime ruin their country, butchering millions of Russians, destroying the civilian economy and causing the collapse and dissolution of the USSR. Then, when the dust settled, they blithely turned the reins of power right back over to the KGB.

Below, we report that a Russian judge has recently ruled that not only is sexual harassment of female workers by male superiors legal in Russia, it's to be encouraged. Russia is already one of the most corrupt societies on the face of the earth, as rated by Transparency International and a host of other international experts, and things are getting even worse. We then report on Russia expelling one of its leading investors, on the world-famous anti-Soviet dissident who supported Putin's KGB regime and betrayed his whole life's work, and on the barbaric antics of those who claim to lead but in fact act more like savage children. And that's just one day's news!

Russia is disintegrating before our eyes and, just as has been the case in the past, the people of Russia will not lift a finger to stop it.

Russian Society: As Sick as it Can Get?

2008-08-08T10:13:00.000-04:00

As if the world needed any more reasons to stay as far away from Russia as humanly possible, the Teleraph reports that sexual harassment is now perfectly legal in Russia. In fact, the judges are encouraging it!

The unnamed executive, a 22-year-old from St Petersburg, had been hoping to become only the third woman in Russia's history to bring a successful sexual harassment action against a male employer.

She alleged she had been locked out of her office after she refused to have intimate relations with her 47-year-old boss.

"He always demanded that female workers signalled to him with their eyes that they desperately wanted to be laid on the boardroom table as soon as he gave the word," she earlier told the court. "I didn't realise at first that he wasn't speaking metaphorically."

The judge said he threw out the case not through lack of evidence but because the employer had acted gallantly rather than criminally.

"If we had no sexual harassment we would have no children," the judge ruled.

Since Soviet times, sexual harassment in Russia has become an accepted part of life in the office, work place and university lecture room.

According to a recent survey, 100 per cent of female professionals said they had been subjected to sexual harassment by their bosses, 32 per cent said they had had intercourse with them at least once and another seven per cent claimed to have been raped.

Eighty per cent of those who participated in the survey said they did not believe it possible to win promotion without engaging in sexual relations with their male superiors.

Women also report that it is common to be browbeaten into sex during job interviews, while female students regularly complain that university professors trade high marks for sexual favours.

Only two women have won sexual harassment cases since the collapse of the Soviet Union, one in 1993 and the other in 1997.

Human rights activists say that Russian women remain second-class citizens and are subjected to some of the highest levels of domestic abuse in the world.

Latynina on Putin and Mechel

2008-08-08T08:25:00.000-04:00

Other Russia translates Yulia Latynina from Yezhedevny Zhurnal:

Last week, at a meeting in Nizhny Novgorod, Prime Minister [Vladimir] Putin came down hard on a company which was damaging Russia’s economy with its work.

It turned out this company was by no means Baikalfinansgrup, which bought Yuganskneftegaz at a non-competitive auction on credit provided by the government. And it wasn’t the Gunvor group, which belongs to a friend of premier Putin and receives 70 billion dollars annual income from the export of Russian oil. And not RosUkrEnergo, whose right to deliver gas to the Ukraine using non-transparent arrangements is whole-heartedly defended by Russian bureaucrats at the highest level.

It turned out to be Mechel, condemned for selling coal abroad at prices two times lower than domestic ones. The company’s owner, Igor Zyuzin, did not appear at at the meeting, citing illness. “Of course, illness is illness,” premier [Putin] said, then recommending a speedy recovery for Mechel’s owner. “Otherwise we’ll have to send him a doctor to clear out all these problems.”

Putin’s promise to send Zyuzin a doctor cost Mr. Zyuzin 5 billion dollars — it was exactly this amount by which Mechel’s market capitalization collapsed that evening on the New York exchange.

The reason why Mechel in particular dissatisfied the premier was such: The largest Russian metallurgical giants, including the Novolipetsky [NLMK] and Magnitogorsky metallurgical complexes, buy up coal on the side, and as a consequence, are interested in long-term contracts for coal delivery during times of sharp price increases.

Mechel, which supplies them with coal, is a coal extracting company, and is accordingly interested in spot contracts for coal delivery, which allow it to maximize sales profit; And, should the opportunity arise, to use the deficit of coal as a lever to gain control over small factories (Gubakha, for instance).

It is clear that giants like NLMK and Magnitka are much closer to the Kremlin, and especially to Vice-Premier Sechin, who now oversees industry. It was precisely Sechin, who, with active participation of the metallurgical giants, prepared the report that has raised so much attention.

It sticks out like a sore thumb that this is already Premier Putin’s second attempt at direct interference in the economy. A week ago, high prices for jet fuel elicited his discontent. If earlier, during his presidency, President Putin underscored in every way that “the Yukos affair” was an exception, then now, it seems Premier Putin is making it clear to everyone that he is intent on directing the economy by hand.

Mechel, which was worth around 15 billion dollars just last week, recently laid out around 2.5 billion dollars for a controlling stake in two large coal companies –Yakutugol and Elgaugol –and in doing so, beat out the state-run ALROSA. Yakutugol has been online for a long while. Elgaugol is simply a section of taiga, and several billon dollars are needed to develop it.

It is obvious that in the near term, it will be hard for a company that paid money for non-operational assets in an open auction to raise the means to develop them. If Mechel goes bankrupt, and its assets are sold for peanuts, Mechel’s shareholders (I’ll remind you that the company had its IPO and lists its shares on the New York Stock Exchange), may well file against Premier Putin in the New York City court.

And if the Yukos shareholders, in filing their corresponding lawsuit, expect to prove that precisely Vladimir Putin or Igor Sechin are guilty for their misfortunes, then everything is available right here. It is hard to imagine George Bush, threatening to “send a doctor” to Bill Gates. One doesn’t speak to businessmen this way in the free world. Crime bosses speak this way to an out of line merchant. Usually, proof of these threats is obtained in a strategic way, wrapping oneself in microphones. Here the threats sounded right on the television.

One question –how much will this affair cost Mechel? Although in my opinion, something else is far more interesting –how much will it cost the Magnitka and Lipetsky [metallurgical plants]. What has happened comes out as the classic illustration of the proverb: don’t call a wolf to help you with the dogs. The metallurgical giants turned to Vice-Premier Sechin, to help him fight with inflation by forcing Mechel into long-term contracts. The general fall of the market has already cost Russia’s steel sector far more than the losses from spot contracts, by which Zyuzin sold coal. After all, zealous bureaucrats will now be checking everyone, not just Mechel. It is always this way with chekists and bandits: if you ask them for a favor, it’s uncertain if they will accommodate it or not. But you’re still certain to owe them.

But the most interesting part –how much will this affair cost Premier Putin? It isn’t a question of whether business will start to speak up in Mechel’s defense –no one has any illusions here. Business will be tearing chunks out of Mechel, and its mouth will be busy. But then Mechel will likely run for protection to President Medvedev, and there aren’t any reasons why President Medvedev wouldn’t provide it with protection. If nothing happens with Mechel, and prices for airline tickets don’t fall, this will mean that Premier Putin can’t regulate the prices of either jet fuel, or coking coal.

And this is very bad, when the premier sends a doctor every week, and the doctor just doesn’t arrive. This way one can quickly tumble down to the level of Premier [Mikhail] Fradkov, who every week would loudly censure [German] Gref, or [Alexei] Kudrin. But for some reason, he could never do anything to them.

Pasko on Silent Solzhenitsyn

2008-08-08T00:18:00.003-04:00

Writing on Robert Amsterdam's blog hero journalist Grigori Pasko takes the late Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to task for his shameful silence on so many issues of his day:

I recall how back when I was in the military-political college, I surreptitiously read «One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich», Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s forbidden tale about prisoners of the GULAG, hiding it from the company and battalion officers. At the college, they taught us how to be conduits of the ideals of the communist party in the armed forces. Solzhenitsyn’s story talked about how all around this party there was nothing but lies. And around the Soviet state – lies. I learned how to see these lies thanks, among others, to the works of Alexander Isaevich.
Then I experienced on myself all the «charms» of the Russian GULAG. One of those who allowed and allows the continuation of the existence of the GULAG – was and remains Vladimir Putin. All the stranger then was to me the almost friendly, problem-free and conflict-free, with only rare and insignificant criticism, relationship between the great writer and the not-great chekist and president.

Once I came to visit Alexander Isaevich. I wanted to speak with him about his attitude towards the spy-mania which had blossomed into full bloom in our country under Putin. The author’s wife, Natalia Dmitrievna, met me and said that Alexander Isaevich would not be able to meet with me. I asked her about his attitude towards the spy trials. She did not reply. And nowhere and not once did I hear the voice of the author speak out against these trials. I don’t know why he kept silent.

I express my deep sympathy to Natalia Dmitrievna. And for some reason I think that she will tell us about how Alexander Isaevich reacted to these or the other events in the country, while not making this reaction public.

In one of the last interviews for the television channel «Rossiya», Alexander Solzhenitsyn said that he considers that Russia has in many ways re-established its influence on the international arena, however its domestic spiritual-moral atmosphere is far from the ideal.

“In international relations, the influence of Russia is returned, the place of Russia in the world is returned. But internally, in our moral state, we are far from what one would like to be, as we organically need”, said Solzhenitsyn.

Probably, Alexander Isaevich was found under the impression of the Munich speech of Vladimir Putin – a speech aggressive in intonation, but nearly empty in content. By this speech the president, in essence, once again unleashed the cold war between Russia and the West. I will dare assert that the real authority of my country in the world, thanks to such figures as Putin, is very low. Western leaders hush up the problems in my country and exaggerate the role of Russia only because their countries need Russian oil and gas.

Surely Solzhenitsyn must have seen and known all this. But if he did see and know, then why did he keep silent?

Answering a question of the television channel as to whether he continues as before to consider “preservation of the people” to be the sole national idea acceptable today, Solzhenitsyn underscored that this is “not so much as the sole, as an accessible” idea.

In his opinion, society has not yet arrived at a long-term national idea. “When they started getting all worked up by a national idea, it was nauseating. Where are you going, why are you going there. You haven’t matured enough for it”, said Solzhenitsyn.

It is possible that the hysteria with respect to the search for a «national idea» stopped in the country thanks to Alexander Isaevich. Because some had already reached agreement to the point where the FSB – this is the intellectual heritage of the Russian people and its neo-nobility.

These «neo-nobles» could easily have reached agreement to the point where the «national idea» of the country would have become Khrushchev’s phrase «We’ll show ’em all!» Personally, I don’t think there’s anything much to show ’em. Besides oil and gas, naturally.

It is known that the writer continued working on the preparation for publication of 30 volumes of his works. Even «The GULAG Archipelago», which has not been republished in the last 16 years, recently came out in a new edition. The book is necessary and important even now, when the former GULAG once again is making its presence felt.

It is noteworthy that the writer also did not once express himself about the state of today’s penitentiary system of Russia, which is little better than the former GULAG, the presence in it of political prisoners and KGB methods. Why? Perhaps we may still find out about this later…

Or we may now never find out…

Browder Speaks

2008-08-08T00:18:00.001-04:00

The Times of London reports:

Bill Browder calls himself a value investor - it is fund manager-speak for someone who looks for latent value in stocks that are ignored, hidden gems - but value investment barely begins to describe what he does.

In common with other money managers, the chief executive of Hermitage Capital has a PowerPoint presentation that sets out his strategy, but if you know anything about Bill Browder, the rehearsed explanation is strangely unsatisfying; you wonder if you are getting the whole story.

All fund managers, barring those who follow indices and the weird ones who predict the future from lines on charts, call themselves value investors, but the Hermitage chief does something altogether different - he pursues value with a vengeance.

This is not about taking a stake in a dull family engineering company with a view to prodding the management out of slumber.

On the basis of past performance, Mr Browder's strategy is to target a leading company with close connections to government and to conduct a forensic examination of its investments.

Upon discovering fraud and embezzlement, a very public campaign of exposure and denunciation ensues, followed by partial recovery of funds and huge stock price appreciation. It finally ends with Mr Browder being chased out of Russia.

Hermitage Capital's campaign against fraud at Gazprom made enormous amounts of money for investors, including many who never put their money in Mr Browder's fund.

He started with $25 million in 1996, achieving almost tenfold gains in 18 months and then raised $1billion from new investors. At one stage the pot totalled $4 billion and Hermitage became Russia's biggest foreign portfolio investor.

However, Mr Browder offended someone with great power - he insists that he still does not know who - and in November 2005 was refused re-entry into Russia. He has not returned since.

Hermitage is shifting its focus to the Middle East, in particular the Gulf, where Mr Browder is investing the proceeds of a new fund. He raised $625 million in April last year and is targeting infrastructure companies in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

His portfolio includes 15 investments at present after a lengthy selection process from a thousand companies worldwide. He reckons that the Gulf investment climate is a holiday compared with Russia. “Corporate governance is so much better [in the Gulf]. In Russia it was all about fraud. We have never seen anything like that in the Middle East.”

The parallels between Mr Browder's Russian exit and the present rumpus at TNK-BP (the Russian affiliate of BP, where a power struggle has resulted in BP's nominated chief executive running the company from somewhere in Central Europe) are obvious.

“If my experience is anything to go by, BP's problems are only just beginning ... They [BP] should fight back, use everything they have. It's the only thing that these people understand.”

He ought to know. Although the visa denial put paid to his Russian strategy, it was trivial compared with what happened next.

In June 2007, while the Hermitage boss languished in London, a lieutenant-colonel in the tax unit of the Interior Ministry became aware of Mr Browder's predicament.

Under the guise of a tax inquiry, his team raided the Moscow offices of Hermitage and its law firm, seizing documents, computer discs and corporate seals, in the process beating up a Russian lawyer who dared to protest.

Over the next six months there followed an elaborate fraud in which the ownership of several Hermitage companies was changed and new directors appointed.

A lawsuit was fabricated against the Hermitage companies, the bogus directors accepted the claim and “judgment” was awarded for $376 million.

Mr Browder has PowerPoint presentations that explain the fraud in minute detail and you almost sense that he enjoys pursuing the gangsters through the shadowy corridors of the Kremlin.

“Isn't it amazing?” he says. It gets more amazing because the crooks failed to get the money - the Gaz-prom stock held by the companies had been transferred offshore.

Undeterred, the “police” then pursued another avenue. Having bankrupted the Hermitage companies with bogus lawsuits, they then demanded repayment from the Government of taxes legitimately paid by Hermitage, a total of $230 million, to the Russian Treasury. This was duly repaid to the crooks - a tax fraud perpetrated by tax inspectors.

Why does the Hermitage chief do it? “I went to Moscow hoping to find cheap stocks.” He was at the time a fan of Vladimir Putin, supporting the President's programme of reform.

His first confrontation was with Vladimir Potanin, a Russian oil and metals tycoon, over shares in Sidanco, an oil company later acquired by BP. Hermitage bought 2 per cent, but the tycoon wanted to assert control.

“He decided to issue shares to a group of insiders, including himself. I had to go into battle to prevent it being diluted.”

He cuts an unlikely figure as a caped crusader for corporate governance in this cloak-and-dagger world of post-Soviet corporate gangsterism but talks about “the good guys” and “the bad guys” in a way that brushes aside the amorality of Moscow business deals.

His grandfather was Earl Browder, one of the founders of the American Communist Party, who went to Russia in 1927 and became the party's general secretary.

During the Second World War he was expelled for arguing in favour of co-existence with capitalism and during the 1950s communist witch-hunts he was interrogated by Senator Joe McCarthy but refused to incriminate his former comrades.

The younger Browder says that he has taken on the role of family black sheep, embracing capitalism and rejecting academia, the profession of his father, who is a respected mathematician.

The black sheep initially worked for Boston Consulting Group and got a taste for investing when he was sent to Poland to sort out a failing bus factory.

The Polish Government was privatising state companies by public flotation. “I took all my savings, $4,000, and applied for all the privatisations and made ten times my money.” He joined Salomon Brothers and traded Eastern European equities. In 1995 he quit to set up Hermitage.

The rebel has a suitably apocalyptic view of the financial world. The credit crisis has a long way to go, he reckons. “There is going to be huge attrition in the world of investment. We have been in a 20-year bull market.”

The fashionable emerging markets will continue to be hit hard. “The Chinese stock market was trading at 50 times earnings. As the bubble bursts in China, there will be a knock-on effect, it will be the de-Bric-ing of the world,” he says, referring to the acronym of Brazil, Russia, India, China that has became a buzz-word for emerging market dynamism.

The Hermitage boss has his own slogan: “Get off the financial grid.” By this, he means the world of financial markets, places where capital is consumed, rather than generated. “You don't want to be in places where capital markets are active.

If you can't borrow money, who will do badly? Those who need to borrow money.” That logic drives Mr Browder to the Middle East, where capital is in huge surplus and there is cultural disapproval of lending for interest.

Local Middle Eastern companies have yet to excite the investment banks, he says, and money is flowing into Middle Eastern coffers. The income of the big oil exporters totals $1.3 trillion at an oil price of $100 per barrel - and it is staying in the Gulf.

“It's the biggest wealth transfer that has ever happened in the world,” he says.

Hermitage has 18 analysts, mainly Russian, because they are “some of the smartest people in the world trained in the one of the worst business environments”. He quotes Frank Sinatra's song about New York: if you can make it there, you'll make it anywhere.

But he has adopted Britain as his home. He acquired British nationality when he married and is a huge fan, recalling the support he received from the British Government when was trying to regain his Russian visa. “This is a good country. I like the rule of law.”

Vladimir Putin, Crybaby

2008-08-07T05:13:00.000-04:00

Writing in the Moscow Times Andrei Kortunov, president of the New Eurasia Foundation in Moscow, says that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is a classic crybaby. Just as in Soviet times, Russia is being governed by a barbaric hoard of little boys who cannot engage in civilized argument but can only lash out with crude violence whenever anyone dares question them. In other words, an army of little Stalins.

A person who constantly takes offense at others often shows his own immaturity. Similarly, children, teenagers and emotionally unstable people are most often the ones who are easily offended.

In politics, the habit of taking offense is out of place, as is the display of emotion generally. This simple truth has been known since the time of Machiavelli.

Nevertheless, many statements by Russian leaders -- starting with former President Vladimir Putin's famous Munich speech in February last year -- leave the impression that the Kremlin is deeply offended by the United States. This is not only displeasure with certain decisions and statements made by the White House, but it is a feeling of being offended on a highly emotional level.

The most recent example was a statement made last week at a news briefing by a senior Foreign Ministry official. "In the long run, we can afford not having any relations with some of our partners," the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. To some extent, statements such as "Don't try to tell us whom we can sleep with," which the official also said at the briefing, can be written off as a recent idiosyncracy of the nation's leaders, who think that the brashness and street jargon in official statements, made popular by Putin, is now fashionable. More important, however, is the larger, underlying message -- that Moscow is eagerly waiting for the time when it is free to go its own way without having to deal with the United States.

In Russia's case, susceptibility to offense seems to go hand in hand with the tendency to take pleasure in others' misfortunes. Russia makes no effort to hide its glee over the problems that the United States is currently facing, and it likes to make ominous predictions about how the "full-blown crisis" in the United States represents a threat to its continued existence. Curiously, these declarations coincided with the appointment of former Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak as the new ambassador to the United States. These two events could be interpreted as a kind of mandate to curtail cooperation in those fields where it still existed.

I do not intend to defend the foreign policy of U.S. President George W. Bush. His eight years of leadership were marked by many tragic mistakes that added new problems to the old ones and that greatly diminished worldwide trust in the United States, while creating a deep split within that country over basic questions of foreign policy strategy.

The current Bush administration bears a significant part of the responsibility for the deterioration of relations with Russia. The U.S. leadership can be compared to a patient who is temperamental, grumbles, doesn't want to take his bitter medicine, and at the same time insists that he is perfectly healthy.

Is it worth it to get offended by a sick person? Is it wise to incorporate that offense into official government policy? And should we express joy over the patient's worsening condition? Such childish emotions are especially out of place if Russia has any desire to become a responsible leader in global relations.

First, taking offense is not constructive. It is unclear at whom the Foreign Ministry's grievances were directed. At Bush? If so, then this is strange as Bush has truly become a lame duck.

Were the statements directed at Senators Barack Obama and John McCain? That would be premature at the very least and ineffective at most, since it is impossible to paint such different politicians with the same brush.

Did the Foreign Ministry target the U.S. public at large? Anybody who pays attention to the political life of the United States knows that Russia is not currently a major concern for the average citizen there.

Second, taking offense is not always logical. Russia's current position suffers from inconsistencies. On one hand, Moscow claims that the United States is in the midst of deep economic, financial, political and moral crises and that the government itself is practically on the verge of collapse. On the other hand, the United States is portrayed as some kind of demonic power, intent on imposing its own order on the rest of the world and undermining Russia's strategic interests. This is all very reminiscent of self-contradictory Soviet propaganda during the Cold War.

Third, the weakness for being offended can lead to rash behavior. The desire to strike back at the offending party, to settle accounts for the perceived humiliation or insult often overshadows one's long-term interests. For example, Russia's glee over U.S. economic and financial woes is absurd considering the Russia's direct interest in U.S. economic success. For example, a significant part of the country's stabilization fund is invested in the United States; and global oil prices rise or fall in large part as a result of the health of the U.S. economy.

In addition, Russia has a direct interest in seeing that certain U.S. foreign policy goals are successful. For example, Russia's position in Central Asia and the Middle East would be weakened if the United States withdrew its troops quickly from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Last, if Russia's dream ever came true -- the collapse of the U.S. political and economic system -- it would be difficult to underestimate the amount of damage that everyone on the planet would suffer.

The art of foreign policy should not be defined as slamming the door in the face of an irritating or inconvenient partner, but in the ability to further one's interests even under difficult conditions. Refusing to negotiate with the United States would be our collective defeat and a recognition of our powerlessness and irresponsible attitude in the face of urgent global problems.

A serious discussion is now gathering steam in the United States about that country's future foreign policy, Washington's role and weight in international affairs and the new world order after the global balance of power has shifted.

The coming months and years will determine a lot -- perhaps even the course for decades to come. Many U.S. neoconservatives who are still stuck in Cold War mentality have a habit of dividing the world into good and evil, of viewing it through the prism of the standoff between Moscow and Washington and of refusing to give way on any of their positions. By provoking the United States with inflammatory statements, do we really want to give these anti-Russia hawks a big career boost?

August 6, 2008 -- Contents

2008-08-06T17:04:00.000-04:00

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 6 CONTENTS

(1) EDITORIAL: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Good Riddance

(2) Another Original LR Translation: Listening to Russia -- Who Really Rules?

(3) The Russian Army is a Sad Joke

(4) Russia: A Change in Name Only

(5) Open Rebellion in Ingushetia

NOTE: Kim Zigfeld's latest installment on Pajamas Media reviews the latest data on the explosion of race violence in Russia and offers insights explaining how this is connected to Russia's economic situation. She also takes Barack Obama to task for shamefully ignoring this horrifying litany of atrocities. Your comments regarding the best way for the U.S. to respond in defense of Russia's oppressed minorities are welcome.

EDITORIAL: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Good Riddance

2008-08-06T11:42:00.005-04:00

EDITORIAL

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Good Riddance

It was fitting that on the same day the Moscow Times reported the demise of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whom it called a "literary giant," it also reported that "prime minister" Vladimir Putin had issued a public pledge to strengthen Russia's ties with America's hated foe Cuba, thus inviting a new escalation in the cold war. "We need to rebuild our positions in Cuba and other countries," Putin declared. In other news, arch American enemy Hugo Chavez was spewing forth plenty of Castro-like anti-American hatred as he took delivery on a couple of dozen Russian war planes. To round things out nicely, another round of the campaign to resurrect and rehabilitate the mass murderer Josef Stalin was announced, this time in the form of smears and slurs against Stalin's great nemesis, Nikita Khrushchev.

As we report below, Russians overwhelmingly believe that it is Putin, not their so-called "president" Dimitry Medvedev, who wields the real power in their country. And Putin is using that power not to advance the interests of the Russian people but to undermine them by provoking and alienating the world's most powerful country, just as his Soviet forbears did. Nothing else can be expected, of course, from man who spent his whole life in the KGB. Putin's actions give the U.S. justification for doing the same in Georgia, Ukraine, the Baltics, and anywhere else that Russia might see as threatening. It's neo-Soviet suicide, pure and simple.

If Solzhenitsyn had had his right mind, the one that produced The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, he would have been the world's leading critic of Putin's KGB regime. But he didn't, so he wasn't. Solzhenitsyn's brain went soft years ago, right about the time he returned to Russia and decided the thing to do would be to host a TV talk show. The show was, of course, a cataclysmic failure -- and Solzhenitsyn has not written a significant book in decades. Instead, he churned out dreck attempting to blame the Jews for the excesses of the USSR and, as we've reported several times on this blog, issued numerous statements rationalizing the KGB regime of Vladimir Putin in an apparent attempt to curry favor with power for the sake of his senile ego mania. Putin attempted to praise Solzhenitsyn as some kind of linguist, totally ignoring his work documenting the horrors of Soviet Russia. As Viktor Sonkin, a literature columnist for The Moscow Times Context section and a teacher of cultural studies at Moscow State University, wrote in his column: "Solzhenitsyn understood Western society only superficially, and many alarming things he said about it were simply not correct. Rejecting the 'bad totalitarianism' of the Soviet type, Solzhenitsyn was promoting a kind of 'good totalitarianism,' as if there were such a thing in the world."

We warned Mr. Solzhenitsyn that if he wasn't careful, he was going to pass from this earth in a state of mortal sin, having abrogated his entire life's work for the sake of his old man's ego. He ignored us. And now, it is too late. The eulogies can talk about Solzhenitsyn's courage in standing up to the USSR, but they can't say he did anything whatsoever in the past ten years to stop Russia from sliding down the path towards becoming a neo-Soviet state. To the contrary, by accepting awards from the Putin regime, history can only conclude that Solzhenitsyn played role, however minor and doddering, in helping Russia become what he loathed and risked his life to chronicle.

In the end, Solzhenitsyn was a traitor to Russia, a traitor to his own ideals. The only thing that can be said in his defense is that his actions were surely a sign of the toll taken on his psyche by being evicted from his own country, his fellow citizens having not lifted a finger to protect him, just as they did nothing to protect Pushkin or Dostoevsky, and the crippling affects of his advanced age and the deprivations he suffered in the GULAG. Solzhenitsyn lived two decades longer than the average Russian man (thanks to his comfy digs in a gated community and plenty of access to elite medical care sponsored by the Putin regime), but he spent more than enough time in Russia to suffer its ill effects.

Solzhenitsyn, like the majority of his craven countrymen, sat by and watched as a proud KGB spy wiped out political opposition, destroyed the mass media and crushed local government, centralizing power under his filthy jackboot. He applauded, like the majority of his malignant countrymen, when that proud KGB spy provoked a new cold war with the United States, the same cold war that reduced the USSR to rubble. His ability to generate literature of import vanished, and he groveled for attention like an aging puppy dog. Years from now, when anyone challenges the latest draconian moves against civil society by Dictator Putin, he'll undoubtedly whip out the above photograph and claim that he had Solzhenitsyn's blessing just before he packs off the critic to the neo-Soviet GULAG.

And that will be the story of Solzhenitsyn. Talking about the "good" Solzhenitsyn did long ago now is like talking about how Hitler made the trains run on time. It's beside the point.

Good riddance, Aleksandr Isakyevich. You used your final years to stab yourself and your country in the back, and you could not have disappeared from this earth soon enough to suit us.

Listening to Russia: Who Really Rules?

2008-08-06T11:18:00.000-04:00

The Levada public opinion firm has been running a survey (link in Russian, staff translation, corrections welcome)since december of last year asking Russians who has the "real" power in their country.

The options given: (a) Medvedev; (b) Putin; (c) They share it equally; (d) I have no idea.

In the July poll, only 9% of respondents answered that Medvedev had the real power, down from a high of 22% in April. 36% of respondents answered that Putin has the real power, up from a low of 21% in March. Medvedev's share of the vote has never exceeded Putin's at any time while the survey has been running. 47% of respondents said that the two are sharing power as co-presidents, matching the highest prior total, from March. 8% of respondents could not answer, half of the high of 16% from February.

So currently 83% of Russians believe that Vladimir Putin, Russia's "prime minister," is at least co-president.

A second question was asked as a follow-up: Is Medvedev merely carrying out Putin's policies, or is he developing his own?

The options given: (a) He's following Putin measure for measure; (b) He generally does what Putin would do; (c) He is partically charting a new course; (d) He is entirely his own man; (e) I have no idea.

In the July survey, 31% of Russians said Medvedev was copying Putin jot for jot, the highest share for that answer since December (when it was 40%). 51% said he was generally a mirror of Putin, 3% below the high for that answer which was recorded in April. Only 13% of respondents said that Medvedev was wholly or partially his own man.

Thus, 82% of Russians feel that Dimitry Medvedev, the "president" of Russia, is more or less the "prime minster's" cyborg.

The Russian Army is a Sad Joke

2008-08-06T08:26:00.000-04:00

The Associated Press reports:

At a once-secret airfield outside Moscow, test pilot Sergei Bogdan proudly introduces reporters to what was billed as the latest in Russian military aircraft technology, the Su-35 fighter-jet.

But the plane is only an upgrade of a 20-year-old model - and it can't match the speed and stealth of the U.S. F-22 Raptor, which entered service in 2005.

Former President Vladimir V. Putin, now Russia's powerful prime minister, has boasted of new weapons systems and of strengthening the armed forces, raising fears in the West of a Cold War-style military buildup. Flush with oil money, the Kremlin is in the market for new weapons.

But Russia's state-run defense industries, experts say, face a crumbling manufacturing base and pervasive corruption; they have produced little advanced armament in the Putin era.

The Victory Day parade in Red Square in May was intended to showcase the nation's military might. Instead, Russia's arsenal showed its age. Most of the planes, tanks and missiles that rolled past Lenin's Tomb dated to the 1980s or were slightly modernized versions of decades-old equipment.

Bogdan, affectionately patting his Su-35 in a hangar at the Zhukovsky Flight Test Center outside Moscow, hailed its agility, advanced electronics and new engines: "It's very light on controls and accelerates really well."

But Alexander Golts, an independent defense analyst, said the Su-35 is an example of how Russia's weapons industries are taking old designs out of mothballs and trying to sell them as new.

"The Soviet Union saw a tide of new weapons designs in the late 1980s which didn't reach a production stage," he said. "They can be described as new only in a sense that they weren't built in numbers."

Russian officials have spent two decades trying to build a so-called fifth-generation fighter equivalent to the Raptor, but the plane still has not made its maiden flight - and analysts are skeptical that the first test flights will take place next year as promised.

The director of the Sukhoi aircraft-maker, which is developing the new fighter, admitted that the company has a long way to go. But he said the pace of construction could accelerate soon.

"I don't think that we are lagging behind in a critical way," Mikhail Pogosyan said.

As work to build the new plane drags on, another major weapons program also faces hurdles. The new Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile, designed for use on nuclear submarines, has failed repeatedly in tests. Prospects for its deployment look dim.

"The loss of technologies and the brain drain have led to a steady degradation of military industries," said Alexander Khramchikhin, an analyst with the Institute for Political and Military Analysis.

Russia's economic meltdown after the collapse of the Soviet Union put many subcontractors out of business, rupturing long-established production links. Assembly plants were left to rely on limited stocks of Soviet-built components or forced to try to crank up their own production.

"Now, when we finally get state orders, plants often can't fulfill them due to the lack of components," Valery Voskoboinikov, a government official in charge of aviation industries at Russia's Ministry of Industry, testified recently at parliamentary hearings.

Despite Putin's pledges to modernize arsenals, during his eight years as president the military bought only a handful of new combat jets and tanks.

Russian arms sales have grown steadily in recent years, reaching a post-Soviet record of more than $7billion last year, according to official statistics. Russia accounted for a quarter of global arms sales in 2003-2007, a close second after the United States, according to the latest report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

But Russia has suffered several recent, highly publicized failures in arms exports, in which the broken subcontractor chain and swelling production costs were widely seen as key factors.

Russia recently failed to fulfill China's order for 38 Il-76 transport planes and Il-78 tankers, leading to the suspension of the deal. Earlier this year, Algeria returned MiG-29 fighter planes it bought from Russia, complaining of poor quality.

"The system has been broken all the way down," said Anatoly Sitnov, who oversees the aviation industries in the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Russia's aging work force presents another challenge. Many highly skilled workers left defense industries in the 1990s for higher-paying jobs in the private sector, and the arms industry's meager wages have hampered the recruitment of younger workers.

The average age of Russia's aircraft industry workers is now 45, and that figure keeps rising. "There is an acute shortage of key specialists: turners, welders, millers," Voskoboinikov said.

Obsolete equipment has hurt efficiency. The last major modernization of defense plants occurred in the early 1980s, and many machine tools used in these factories are even older.

The government has responded by creating huge state-controlled military conglomerates, saying they will streamline manufacturing. Critics say they will stifle competition, encourage corruption and further weaken Russia's arms industry.

"We built good planes in the past because we had a competition between aircraft makers," Svetlana Savitskaya, a Soviet cosmonaut who is now a lawmaker, said during parliamentary hearings.

"Pulling all of them together under one roof will end competition and destroy what we had," she said. "But it could make it more convenient for some to steal government funds."

Russia: A Change in Name Only

2008-08-06T08:23:00.000-04:00

Writing in the Seattle Post Intelligencer Lara Iglitzin, executive director of the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, which has supported NGOs working for human rights and democracy in Russia since 1989, says that Russia is singing the same old neo-Soviet song:

Is there hope for change in the post-Putin era in Russia?

Vladimir Putin's handpicked successor Dmitri Medvedev has been president of Russia for two brief months. On a recent visit to Moscow, there is palpable optimism for change – although tempered by political reality. "We have a whiff of a thaw in the air," said Arseny Roginsky of the leading human rights organization, Memorial, using a word closely tied to the Khrushchev era when repressive measures under Stalin were eased.

Yet no one can predict whether that thaw is a reality or just a dim hope. "No one knows where the balance of power lies at this moment," Roginsky continued, pointing to the current guessing game as to who will hold real power in Russia tomorrow – Putin (in his new job as prime minister) or the newly elected President Medvedev. No one disputes that Putin has the upper hand today. Having centralized political power during his eight years as president, Putin still pulls the political strings in Russia.

While it is too soon to tell if Putin and Medvedev are heading for conflict, in fighting and tension between the Putin and Medvedev circles could be good for Russia's political system. "If there are two centers of power today, it would be better for civil society, even if the two camps are similar in aims," says Roginsky, "because it would provide a space for political influence and activism." Currently, observers agree there is essentially no political life in the country that impacts the state other than what is masterminded from above. Politics has become institutionalized.

"There is 100 percent control of the political sphere. Nothing unexpected can happen without the Kremlin pulling the puppet strings," says Maria Lipman of the Carnegie Moscow Center. She is skeptical that Medvedev's election holds any promise for the development of civil society and true political opposition in Russia. While the new president is viewed as a possible reformer, both because of his non-KGB background and his rhetoric since taking power, Putin still has the capacity to limit Medvedev's scope of action. There is little room for autonomy in his actions given Putin's huge power base in the government. "Putin has been the only decision-maker, with the authority of a monarch. It will be years before Medvedev develops his own power base that could provide a check on that power," Lipman predicts.

The government has sidelined political opposition in Russia today despite its tolerance of free speech to a great degree. The Kremlin won't target everyone who dares defy the system in speech– as long as it feels unthreatened by the dissent. And while the traditional Russian "kitchen conversations" of the past – the private space where Russians were allowed to discuss their views openly – have now expanded to a much larger, more public place, none of it has much if any impact on politics.

An annual, highly critical and well-attended international conference on democracy and Russian politics is held in a big Moscow hotel – with no political results. A recent newspaper expose of money being siphoned off by corrupt officials in the banking community even named names – yet elicited no reaction by the government. On the plus side, the editor of the paper wasn't thrown in jail – yet no criminal investigation was launched. This results in a total marginalization of any opposition voices.

A booming Russian economy, propped up by oil money, has provided the cover for the Putin drive to centralize political control. Putin routinely compares the wealth-soaked country of today unfavorably with what he calls the "terrible 1990s" – the Yeltsin era of political and economic instability– contending that people suffered under Yeltsin's brand of democracy. Putin has trumpeted his successes, arguing that Russia can succeed without openness, without democracy – can become rich without freedom. "This was democracy in the 1990s, and it was bad for you, Putin has implied," says Yuri Dzhibladze of the Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights. "Putin has skillfully manipulated the court of public opinion." Indeed, Russians now live better and have asserted themselves on the global scene: two powerful arguments that have led to Putin's popularity.

These are persuasive claims for a populace that is living better today than ever, even if the economy rides on the strength of global oil prices. In Moscow it is clear that money is everywhere and corruption is not far behind. Economists agree Russia faces serious challenges and needs to modernize. Yet everyone is risk averse. "The temptation to muddle along is extremely strong," notes Roginsky. Not yet faced with the crisis confronted by Gorbachev in the waning years of the Soviet era, Russia's government erratically responds to today's problems one by one. "When a problem flares up, the government throws a few pennies at it. It's like emergency medical care," says Roginsky. Russia was never as rich as it is today.

Yet as the disparity between the very rich and the very poor grows ever wider, it could lead to a social cataclysm, particularly if oil prices drop. While everyone lives a bit better ("except the NGO community," Roginsky says wryly) much of society is unhappy. Lyudmilla Alexeyeva, the 81-year old veteran of the human rights movement, agreed. "Big business hates Putin for what he did to Mikhail Khodorkovsky," the oil tycoon who crossed a line into political opposition and was subsequently targeted and imprisoned. "The military hate him because he has ruined the army." They are not alone: Journalists remember life without censorship during the Yeltsin era. Pensioners resent that their stipends buy less today. Judges have seen their autonomy restricted. Dissatisfaction is widespread, if muted.

Why is this opposition not expressed at the ballot box? Aside from the overt political manipulation of the electoral system resulting in a lopsided result (people were pressured at factories, colleges, businesses and hospitals, for example, to fill out their ballots in front of bosses, just as in Soviet days), people have supported Putin, his protйgй Medvedev and their policies "only because they know nothing else," Alexeyeva asserts. "They have traded political freedoms for a bit more bread and a calmer life."

Within this context, it is difficult for the small but active human rights community to have their voices be heard – and for their work to make an impact. "The public doesn't support civil society, doesn't take human rights and the rule of law seriously," Dzhibladze says. The brightest hope today is Medvedev's talk that reforming the judicial system is a priority. Today, corruption up and down the judiciary threatens the stability of the country. Political bosses still run the show locally. While critics are skeptical of how far Medvedev can go, there is a demand from the business community and parts of the government to make the courts more accountable – and truly independent. Bureaucrats and businesses want to protect themselves from Khodorkovsky's fate by ensuring an autonomous judiciary. They also want to ensure that they don't lose their ill-gotten financial gains.

The Carnegie Center's Lipman concludes that without a strong civil sector in Russia, all talk of a thaw – or real change – will be moot. "Without public activism, all we can hope for is mercy from the bosses. They will throw us something, and we will be grateful." Until the society forms coalitions that are willing to take risks and to challenge the power structure step by step, change will be slow. Lyudmilla Alexeyeva, having experienced more ups and downs than many of her colleagues, remains optimistic: "In 10-15 years, Russia will be a normal country – in its own way."

Open Rebellion in Ingushetia

2008-08-06T02:46:00.000-04:00

Reuters reports:

More than 80,000 people have signed a petition in the Russian republic of Ingushetia calling on the authorities to sack the Kremlin-backed president and reappoint a previous leader, activists said on Monday.

Assassinations, bomb attacks and kidnaps have intensified in Ingushetia, a small Muslim republic with less than 500,000 people which borders Chechnya where Russian forces fought two wars against rebels since 1994.

The petition is the latest protest against Murat Zyazikov, who became president in 2002.

"Of course people were afraid to fill out the petition because they were worried about being picked up by the security services and beaten," an opposition activists who called himself Bekkhan said.

"But when we explained to them that this was necessary for the republic, in most cases they signed the petition."

Last week the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said groups of men attacked and kidnapped opposition activists with impunity in Ingushetia, which borders Chechnya, where Russian forces fought two wars against rebels since 1994.

Russian forces have been trying to quash the growing wave of violence in Ingushetia by tripling the number of soldiers in the republic but residents have grown increasingly frustrated and protested against the authorities.

Bekkhan, the opposition activist, said signatures had been collected over the last six months and the petition called for former president Ruslan Aushev to replace Zyazikov who retains public support of the Russian government.

Aushev was a high ranking army commander who received the Soviet Union's top award -- the Hero of the Soviet Union -- and who retains a high degree of respect from people in Ingushetia.

He resigned as Ingushetia's president in 2001 amid differences with the Kremlin. In 2004 the Kremlin abolished directly elected regional leaders.

"Aushev is a hero of the Soviet Union, not by his words but by his deeds," a resident of Nazran, Ingushetia's biggest town, called Islam who signed the petition, said.

A spokesman at Zyazikov's press office declined to comment on the petition.

August 4, 2008 -- Contents

2008-08-04T13:42:00.003-04:00

MONDAY AUGUST 4 CONTENTS

(1) Another Original LR Translation: Essel on Russia by the Numbers

(2) EDITORIAL: The Trouble with Vladimir

(3) Putin's "Divide and Conquer" Strategy for Europe

(4) The Dance of the Mad Swans

(5) A Neo-Soviet Ghetto Rises in Russia

(6) Annals of a Russian Sports Bloodbath

NOTE: Another stunning piece of work by Dave Essel (#1) opens another window into real life in Russia, and a second translation, by Robert Amsterdam's translator at our request, is republished here as well (# 5). We continue to open doors to understanding the real Russia as nobody else in the world. As we say in our sidebar: "You don't understand the real Russia unless you read La Russophobe."

Another Original LR Translation: Essel on Russia by the Numbers

2008-08-04T11:46:00.002-04:00

"So the total number of people who produce nothing and get their wages out of the [Russian] state budget or from wealthy fellow-citizens is 109,397,600."

Russia by the Numbers

by Dave Essel

The R&F Agency, “established 1989”, claims on its website that it is the oldest immigration consultancy service in post-Soviet Russia. It offers legal and other advice on a whole range of immigration/emigration subjects, from e.g. how to apply for Canadian residence permits to where best in the West to buy housing and businesses. R&F’s home page goes on to say that “the main thing that distinguishes us from other companies is the asymmetricality of our approach to problem-solving and our non-traditional ways with typical situations.” And they’re not lying: for the sake of customer-entertainment, the site contains a couple of pages of general interest information. And these stun with their asymmetricality and an approach that is far from the traditional Russian one.

Here, to follow my short translation regarding Russia's performance ratings compared to other nations in LR's 1 August issue, is a longer piece of ‘sad fun’ published on the site. Whilst every fact may not be absolutely correct, as whole it presents a totally true and terrifying picture of the reality of Russia today. It is an interesting example of the illustrative power of concatenating statistics. To mangle metaphors to the max, read this and you will no longer wonder why Pooty and his Teddy Bear are turning blind eyes left, right and center and are keeping their heads firmly buried in the sand like ostriches

Russia: Statistics, Facts, Comments & Predictions

Before selling your dacha, car, and apartment, then packing your bags and emigrating to somewhere, it is highly advisable to find out about the place to which you are proposing to go, to enquire about how life is lived there from sources others that guide books and so on. The best thing to do is to speak with someone you know who has already been there and who knows all the little things about life in your proposed new country of residence.

Now let’s think about Russia in the same way and see what we can find.

Our consultant (a person from a very serious and powerful organisation) [TN: it could well be the person behind this blog] provided us with what to our mind is a load of very interesting statistics. We therefore consider it to be a good and useful thing to share this information with those of you who might be thinking of taking up Russian citizenship and residence – forewarned is fore-armed.

Russia covers an area of 17,075,400 square kilometres, over 45% of which are North of the Arctic Circle, where permafrost and polar nights reign. Russia’s frontiers run to 58,222 kilometres in length. The country has 157,895 towns and villages; of these 30,000 do not have a telephone service and 39,000 actually have no inhabitants. Most of these ghost town and villages are located in the Central Federal Region, the North-West, the Far North, Siberia, and the Far East.

Russia’s population, according to the latest figures available, is 132,000,000 people. Of these 74% (97,680,000) live in towns and town/villages. This breaks down further as follows (counting temporary registrations but not illegal migrants):

Moscow – 10,969,000
Moscow Region – 7,900,000
St. Petersburg – 6,897,000
Leningrad Region – 3,350,000

The following towns have populations of a 1 million or so:

Novosibirsk – 1,391,900

Yekaterinburg – 1,315,100

Nizhny Novgorod – 1,278,300

Samara – 1,139,000

Omsk – 1,134,800

Kazan – 1,116,000

Chelyabinsk – 1,091,500

Rostov-on-Don – 1,051,600

Ufa – 1,022,600

Perm – 990,200

Volgograd – 986,400.

Out of the total population:

• 81,840,000 (62) are people of pensionable age or approaching it;
• 1,736,000 are servicemen of all kinds (career military and national servicemen) and employees of military-related enterprises and scientific institutes (this figure includes 1,686 generals and admirals);
• 2,140,000 are serving members of the FSB, FSO, FPS, FAPSI, SVR, FMS, etc etc [TN: Federal Security Service (=KGB), Federal Protection Service, Federal Frontier Service, Federal Agency for Government Communications, Foreign Intelligence Service, Federal Migration Service);
• 2,270,000 are serving members of the Ministry for Emergency Situations, Ministry of the Interior [TN: police], Internal Armed Forces, Ministry of Justice, Narcotics Control, and State Prosecutor’s Office;
• 1,957,000 are employed in the customs, tax, sanitary and other inspections services;
• 1,985,000 are civil servants employed by federal ministries and organisations;
• 1,870,000 are civil servants in various authorities and local representation;
• 1,741,000 are civil servants in various licensing, inspection and registration bodies;
• 2,439,000 are clerks in pension, social service, state insurance and other offices;
• 797,000 are employed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and government representations abroad (UN, UNESCO etc) • 692,000 are priests and others involved in the maintenace of religious buildings and so on;
• 2,357,000 work as public notaries, in legal services, as lawyers, or are in prison;
• 1,775,600 work as security guards, detectives etc in private security agencies;
• 5,780,000 are unemployed (Rosstat figure).

So the total number of people who produce nothing and get their wages out of the state budget or from wealthy fellow-citizens is 109,397,600.

That leaves 22,602,400 to do everything else. That’s the lot of us and includes all small and middle-sized business, farmers, one-man businesses, and market traders. By the way, this number also includes babies, schoolchildren, students, housewives, homeless tramps, refugees, etc etc.

This also partly explains why Russia’s GNP is not much greater than that of Los Angeles county in the USA.

Only 20% of people in Russia think that the situation is calm and wealthy. Over half the country’s citizens (51%) believe that Russia is going down the wrong road and only 38% of respondents say the believe the country is going in the right direction. 18% of respondents say that they are well-off, 54% think they are badly-off but bearably so, 24% consider their situation to be “no longer tolerable”. 14% hope that their material situation will improve in the future. 22% think that it will get worse. 24% are prepared to take part in mass protests. 19% are prepared to go on strike. 64% of respondents do not have a good opinion of what the government is doing.

The majority of Russians in their daily lives use proverbs, sayings, and popular expressions; 66% use quotes from books, films and song lyrics; 61% use obscene language.

32% of Russians believe that a person’s fate can be affected by magic; 58% do not believe in magic or sorcery; 10% don’t know. Belief and disbelief in magic is distributed more or less evenly in both towns and rural areas. Only in Moscow do 74% of those questioned not believe in any occult sciences.

Over 40% of goods sold in Moscow are adulterated. The most frequently adulterated goods are vegetable oils and butter, condensed milk, tea, coffee, mineral water, bully beef, honey, and cakes. Topping the list we find: cottage cheese and products thereof, 40-45% of which do not conform to regulations; smetana (33.3%); kebabs (40%); salads (20%); and cakes (18%). These days, nearly 70% of prepared foods are made only to conform to the TU (technical conditions [TN: basic sanitary etc regulations] and not to GOST (actual defined state standards).

In Russia the price of vegetable oil has risen five times more than than the average European rise. Vegetables prices have risen 10 times more than in Europe. Amongst EU countries, the biggest food prices rises in April to May were to be found in Hungary – 2.4%; Slovenia – 1.7%; Finland – 1.3%. In Bulgaria and Greece prices actually went down – by 0.6% and 0.4% respectively.

Moscow has 257 public lavatories, St. Petersburg has 275. That’s one public lavatory for each 22,000 inhabitants, not counting tourists. And they all close at 7 p.m. (Ancient Rome had 144 public lavatories.)
The number of lifts (elevators) that have served beyond their designed safe service time is 36% in Moscow and 49% in St. Petersburg.

Municipal open-air spaces for overnight parking cost 4600 roubles a month – for 2x5 metres of bare tarmac.
Rent on a 60.5 square metre (650 sq.ft) government housing project apartment with three inhabitants is 1800 roubles a month including utilities (heating, hot & cold water, waste, gas, entryphone, TV antenna, garbage collection, stairwell cleaning, and yard maintenance. The basic shopping basket on consumer goods in Russia consists of 407 goods and services. In England it is 650.

According to Agent 002 Realtor Agency, the cost of 1 square metre in an élite apartment in Moscow now exceeds $109,000. The most expensive residences are now to be found on Zachatyevsky, Korobeinikov, Chisty, and Butikovsky Lanes (by Kropotkinskaya Metro station). Apartments cost between $40,000 and $80000 near the Park Kultury, Polyanka, Arbatskaya, and Smolenskaya Metro stations. The most expensive apartment currently on offer is priced at over $22 million. The most expensive apartment on offer in the SW District is priced at $8.19 million and in the W District at $7.42 million.

Russia today has 87 billionaires with a combined capital of $471.4 billion.

The average pension in Russia is 3000 roubles per month. It costs 6800 roubles per month to keep one person in a strict régime labour camp.

According to RBK [RosbiznesKonsulting] Magazine (Issue 11, 2007, p42) the national and ethnic makeup of Moscow is as follows:

Russian 31%
Azerbaizhanian 14%
Tatars, Bashkirs, Chuvash 10%
Ukrainians 8%
Armenians 5%
Tadzhiks, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kirghyz 5%
Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese 5%
Chechens, Daghestani, Ingush 4%
Byelorussians 3%
Georgians 3%
Moldavians 3%
Gypsies 3%
Jews 2%
Others 4%

Over 11 million people live in Moscow and of these Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians together make up 4,260,000. In Russia’s capital the Slavs are an ethnic minority! [TN: here and elsewhere one cannot help but be struck by the unconscious Russian chauvinism of some thoughts.]

Just over 60 million roubles of state funding was allocated to dealing with problems of homeless and unsupervised juveniles.

Moscow’s budget include 87 million roubles a year for the sterilisation of feral animals. That worked out at 13,000 roubles per sterilisation. And 27 million more roubles than was spent on homeless children. Over 30,000 people get bitten by dogs in Moscow every year. In Kazan, in just one week 3 people were killed by wild dogs.

In Moscow, hundreds of people suffer from hypothermia every year and 25% of them die.

Moscow has recently closed down a chain of Chinese restaurants which was selling as lamb dishes that actually were made of feral dogs. The Chinese cooks slaughtered the dogs right in the restaurant kitchens and served the dishes as specialities to their fellow-citizens and as lamb to Russians. They didn’t waste much either; the dogs’ intestines were used to prepare soup base. The figures for 2004 show over 4 million Chinese living in Russia.

Russia has over 20,000,000 people professing Islam as their religion, who officially consider themselves Moslems. At the same time, the number of genuine Russian Orthodox is no more than 6,000,000 (4.5%). The number of Moslems in Russia has risen by over 40% in the last 15 years. There are more Azerbaizhanians in Moscow than there are in Baku (and more Tatars than there are in Kazan). By the middle of this century one in four Russian citizens will be a Moslem. Moslem leaders are demanding that Russian Orthodox symbols be removed from the state coat of arms. If the numbers of Moslems continues to grow at today’s rate, the Moslem community will soon be raising the question of having a Moslem vice-president. It was maybe with this situation in mind that Vladimir Putin asked the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to accept Russia in its ranks.

In 2007 Russia allocated 800 million roubles of state funding for the development of Islam in the country, we are told by Alexei Grishin, an advisor to the Presidential Administration’s department of internal policy-making. “Cooperation between the state and Moslem organisations is managed at many levels and in a number of directions”, he commented. The main trend would appear to be support for Islamic education, for which the government allocated 400 million roubles last year.

Only 8% of citizens attend Russian Orthodox services at least once a month. 18% attend once a year. 15% less frequently than that. 59% never go to church. 2% make confession once a month or more; 6% a few times a year; 10% once a year or less frequently. 21% did not understand the question.

According to spokespeople for the National Organisation of Russian Moslems, each Friday at least three Russians convert to Islam in St. Petersburg. Most of these converts are of student age. A second mosque will open in St. Petersburg in November, not far from the Pionerskaya Metro station. The old mosque by Gorkovsky Metro station has room for 7,000 worshippers but that is not enough to accommodate all those wishing to worship the Almighty.

Number of officially registered:

Disabled over 12,000,000
Alcoholics over 4,580,000
Drug addicts over 1,870,000
Psychologically ill 978000
Tubercular approx 570,000
Hypertensives over 22,400,000

Over 30 people per day join the ranks of the HIV+ in St. Petersburg. Analysts forecast that there will be over 8 million HIV+ in Russia by 2010.

Russia occupies the #2 place in the world for the distribution of counterfeit or adulterated medicines. 92% of medicines sold through drugstores are counterfeit or have passed their sell-by date. The usual thing is for insufficient quantities of the active ingredient to be added to the medication or for there to be none at all – placebos containing perhaps some honey and starch. Sales of counterfeit medication is valued at 300 million Euro.

Roszdravnadzor [the public health inspectorate] has begun drafting a law on medications permitting clinical trials of medicines using children. According to current law, research into the effects of medical preparations using minors is not permitted.

In 2007, Russia’s international rating from Transparency International for corruption went down sharply. Last year, Russia was placed 126th but this year it is 143rd, on a level with Gambia, Indonesia, and Togo. The World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group Doing Business’ 2008 rating places Russia 106th, just above Tadzhikistan. In that organisation’s section on “licensing as a way of promoting business”, Russia earns itself 177th place out of 178, just one step above Eritrea.

The real volume of corruption in Russia is greater than the country’s economic growth. And it won’t get any better since the law enforcement sector was increased in size by 2% in 2006, the law courts segment by 3.8%, and enforcement by 20.4%. The Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Service increased in size by 176% and now employs 20,469 people. The number of employees of the RF Prosecutor’s Office increased by 2,000. Rosstat’s [the Statistics’ Office] roster grew by 1.4% and now employs 23,796 people.

At 1 January 2008 Russia’s foreign debt was up by 38.7% over the previous year and stood at $430.9 billion. Also at 1 January 2008, the RF Stabilisation Fund stood at $156.81 billion [reserves being formed from the oil windfall]. Norway’s State Oil Fund held $220 billion in early 2006.

Between 1993 and 2006 capital outflow from Russia amounted to $190 billion. In 2005, $14.8 billion fled the country; in 2002 ‘only’ $9.2 billion did so. Capital outflow for the first six months of 2007 amounted, according to preliminary data, to $22.8 billion. In October 2007 the banks alone moved $2.6 billion of foreign currency out of Russia, a little over twice as much as the previous month. Cash transfers out of the country in October 2007 were $1 billion.

Retail vodka sales in 2006 were 2.12 billion litres – 80% more than the total legal production of all vodka distilleries in the country (1.35 billion litres). Excise tax on ethyl alcohol was paid on only 84.6% of the alcohol produced.

Moscow has just opened it first sobering-up station for underage alcoholics – the Children’s Narcological Dispensary with the 12th Narcological Clinic.

In early 2006, the public opinion researcher Globescan questioned 39,435 people in 33 countries. Their replies produced a list of the least popular countries in the world, with Iran, the USA, and Russia at its top. Around the world, Russia is least popular in Finland (65% negative feelings), France (62%), Poland (56%), Great Britain (50%), and South Korea (48%). Russia enjoyed the most popularity in Nigeria (55% positive).

In 2004, every 15th house sold for over £1 million in London went to a Russia. According to data from estate agents Knight, Frank, in 2003 Russians spent more than $93 million on homes in England. This went up to £396 million in 2004. In 2006, Russians spent £799 million. This means that Russians hgave so far spent £2,2 billion on property in the UK (the total value of the town of Merthyr Tydfil in Wales (pop. 55,000). Properties value at under £1 million were not included in this calculation.
Civil servants’ privileges include the use of 400,000 automobiles in a fleet worth about 1.5 billion pounds sterling.

By the end of 2006, local government employees (excluding law enforcement etc) numbered 1.58 million, up 7.9% over 2005. St. Petersburg civil servants earn more (average 34,722 roubles) than their Moscow counterparts (average 30,600 roubles).

An audit by the Counting Office [~the Treasury] found that as at 29 December 2003 the register of federal property abroad was only 3% complete. The value of that 3% was over $21 million. Not accounted for are an estimated $2.6 billion’s worth of property belonging to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Transport, Chambers of Commerce and other organisations.

Russia has over 160 control bodies with the right to enter your property to conduct checks. Some of these (the Prosecutor’s Office, the FSB, the MVD, Customs) have the. right to draw up charges against you, decide if a crime is suispected, and carry out arrests.

In 2003, the Qualifications College discharged 68 judges from their posts and brought disciplinary charges against another 220. In 2004, 4 federal judges were sentence to actual prison terms of considerable length.

In Russia, the yearly total of bribes paid to court officials amounts to $210 million. Russia is #43 in a list of corrupt legal systems, putting it on a level with Venezuela, Chile, Congo, Morocco, and Senegal. The average size of bribe paid to court officials in 9,750 roubles.

The country’s judges rate 5th in a rating of the most corrupt branches of government, coming after higher education, ‘free’ medical assistance, call-up, and housing allocation. Russia’s citizens spend in the order of $3 billion a year on bribes.

Russia has an official list of a little over 1000 big-time criminals [TN: tellingly called ‘authorities’ in Russian!]. Of these some 200 consider themselves to be vory v zakone [lit. ‘thieves-in-law’, the criminal crème de la crème – the lawmakers of Russia’s criminal underworld]. The majority of vory v zakone are to be found in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the Moscow, Leningrad and Tver Districts, and in the Krasnodar and Stavropol regions.

According to the Department of Personal Security of the State Department of Internal Affairs of St. Petersburg, the number of criminal charges brought against law enforcement officers has risen nine-fold since 2004. About 35% of the crimes committed by policemen are common-or-garden crimes such as robberies.

80% of officers in the Russian army frankly and openly admit to not feeling loyalty to the state. This should come as no surprise since 99% of the officers in the Russian Armed Forces come from children’s homes and never had a home of their own. This is the only logical explanation for the battle for officers’ housing being waged on all fronts by the Ministry of Defence since way back in Soviet times. It also explains the passion with which Russian generals (of whom the Ministry of Defence has over 1,500) carry on building personal villas (modestly denominated ‘dachas’). The actual number of soldiers doing their compulsory military service who are engaged in this building work is the army’s main military secret. Over 2,000 officers with criminal records continue to serve in the Russian armed forces. By 2015 Moslems will make up a majority of the soldiers and officers in the Russian army. The land holdings of the Russian military have an area greater than that of Austria and the Czech Republic combined, much of it prime land within city limits.

No new equipment was delivered to the Air Defence Force between 1994 and 2007. The Air Defence Force has for a long time been not much more than a shadow of its former self, providing protection to only a very few important potential targets. The cover it provides is full of holes, the largest being everything between Khabarovsk and Irkutsk (2,200 kms as the crow flies or 3,400 kms if the winding of the frontier is taken into account). Not even all the Strategic Missile Force’s divisions enjoy cover from the Air Defence Force, in particular the 7th, 14th, 28th, 35th, and 54th divisions. Such centres of Russian military-industrial production as Perm, Izhevsk, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Omsk, Chelyabinsk, Tula, and Ulyanovsk do not have full air defence cover.

The Russian Navy has been reduced in size by 60% over the last 10 years. Of 62 nuclear submarines, 12 remain. Of 32 warships, 5 remain. Of 17 escorts only 9 remain and of these only 3 are in active service. As at November 2007, the navy has:

Aircraft carrier 1
Heavy missile craft 2 (1 in dry-dock)
Missile carriers 4
Destroyers 9 (4 in dry-dock)
Large submarine hunters 9
Small submarine hunters 31
Small missile craft 14
Minesweepers 51
Large landing craft 20
Small landing craft 21
Diesel submarines 15
Deep diving craft 10

Look at it this way: that’s more than enough to protect our oil pipelines.

Minister of Transport Igor Levitin supported a proposal by St. Petersburg city councillors to convert the Baltiisky Zavod Naval Works, the leading naval shipyard in NW Russia, into a pleasure port for cruise boats and yachts. The works occupy 64 hectares (158 acres) which it is proposed to turn into a business district.

Russia was unable to fulfil a Chinese order for 38 IL-76 cargo planes and IL-78 airborne refuelling craft and the contract has been put into abeyance. Earlier this year, Algeria returned a delivery of MiG-29 fighters bought from Russia on the grounds of poor quality. Russia’s latest fighter, the Su-35, is nothing more than an upgrade of a 20-year-old design and to compare it in terms of speed and stealth with the US F-22 Raptor is less than sensible.

In 2005, embezzlement to the tune of 19 billion roubles was found in military spending alone. Starting 2006, such information has been classified secret, just in case.

Military production plants managers sometimes refuse production contracts for the military because the required kickbacks mean the contracts have to be filled at a loss.

2,464 servicemen died as a result of crimes and accidents in the Russian Army last year. Of these, 469 were suicides. Data on physical harm done to soldiers undergoing military service in hazing incidents are not made public by the military. It’s as easy as pie to “serve your way to heaven” in the Russian army.

The Ministry of Defence plans to increase the pensionable age for senior officers. The Vice-Minister, General Nikolai Pankov, stated that lieutenant-colonels will no longer be able to retire at 45 but at 50, full colonels at 55, and generals at 60.

Military call-up continues to cost parents plenty. A price list of sorts actually exists: a leave of absence – 1-2,000 roubles; visitor entry to the unit – 50 roubles; also 500-800 roubles per month protection money to stop seniors from hazing you. Everyone – seniors, sergeants and officers – accepts the payments. As a result, parents are faced with a difficult choice: pay a bribe of $5,000 to buy your son out of the army, or spend over $10,000 during his 2-year stint and still risk having him hurt or made sick.

According to the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers, between August 1999 and June 2007, in Chechnya alone, no fewer than 18,750 servicemen were killed. The number of wounded and crippled is easily calculated using the army’s standard rule of 1:5. Note additionally that the numbers of insurgents (by the way, also citizens of Russia) killed in the course of operation was another 16,900. And that’s killed alone.

Russia has written off Libya's debt of $4.5 billion. Prior to that, it had already written off Afghanistan’s debt of $11.6 billion and Iraq’s of $12 billion. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani welcomed the move.

Russia has handed over to China parts of its island territories on the Amur river. Sceptics notwithstanding, this is said to have been done voluntarily with no loss of territory for Russia. On the contrary, the reasons for this action were pragmatic and in Moscow’s long-term interest. (Wording from a Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs press release).

According to the Central Bank of Russia, in the first 2 months of 2008, credits issued amounted to 15.449 trillion roubles. Furthermore, this was on a rising wave since credit given in February were 8.3% higher than in January. Problem debt is also on the rise. In the first three months of the year, repayment defaults rose by 11 billion roubles for a total of 107.4 billion.

Capital flight was also notable, staring in January, when $9 billion left the country. Back then, it was put down to foreigners divesting themselves of investments because the stock market was fluctuating violently. However, by February, things really got going and the total for the two months reached $20 billion. As the Ministry of Finance admits, this amount is more than after the default of 1998 when only the very lazy did not get their money out of the country.

Despite the fact that banks deposits earn at best 12% p.a., 20% of the population keeps its money in banks. 16% keep their money under their mattresses and over 60% have no savings to keep at all. Average monthly income per person in February this year was 8,092 roubles ($344).

But let’s go back to the question of population. Russia has given up on demographic matters. Not that it’s possible to do a detailed analysis of the demographic situation and get at the reasons for the low birth rate: since 1997 to date, data has not been gathered in any meaningful way. The birth rate has gone down in 79 Russian regions and the death rate has gone up in 60. There are 8 million abortions a year in Russia, 1.5% of them late-stage ones. 90,000! – A whole townfull of children killed for money.

The average life span of a Russian male is 59 years. Women survive to 72. Back in 2001, Russia was placed 100th in the longevity tables, already hopelessly behind dozens of developed countries: Russian men then died 15-19 years earlier than their counterparts and women 7-12 earlier. Now we have got ourselves a prize position at #122, ranking along with Guyana and North Korea. Not a great surprise really when the average salary is 5,522 roubles a month. The official minimum subsistence level is 2,493 roubles (1,747 for pensioner, 2,259 for children). 42,200,000 Russians earn less than this.

According to Rosstat, the cost of the minimal food basket in the capital is 1,819.6 roubles (in St. Petersburg it’s 1,647.2). The cheapest place to live is Tatarstan and Chuvashya where the same basket costs 1,277.8 roubles and 1,295.7 roubles respectively. The most expensive is Chukotka – 4,990.1 roubles.

Minister of Regional Development Vldimir Yakovlev thinks that migration and demographic matters are now the number one issue for the country. “There will soon be no one left to work in the country. Up to 60% of Russians are old people, children, and invalids. Of the 20 million people of working age, about 1 million are in prison camps for various crimes, 4 million are serving in the MVD, MChS and FSB systems. Another 4 million are chronic alcoholics with a million drug addicts on top of that,” he stated. The Minister then went on to add that male mortality in Russia was 4 times higher than female. “Loss of healthy men is on a scale similar to the USSR’s losses during WWII,” says Yakovlev.

The number of poor in Russia was down by early 2006 to ‘just’ 27,456,000 or 20.8% of the population. However the gap between rich and poor remains as great as ever, standing at 17:1 then as against 15:1 in 2005. For every 1,000 Russians of working age, there are over 600 of non-working age.

About 2 million children aged up to 14 are beaten by their parents, many to death. 50,000 children run away from home every year to escape domestic violence. 7,000 become victims of sexual crimes. Furthermore, over 2 million children are officially registered as orphans. In St. Petersburg 3,000 more orphans join their fellows every year.

The number of sex crimes against minors has gone up 25-fold. 129 such crimes were registered in 2003, over 3,000 in 2007. In 2007, 2,500 minors were killed and acts of violence committed against a further 70,500. The Russian Prosecutor’s Office stated than 161,00 crimes were committed against children in 2007 and that 2,500 children died as a result.

According to the Rosgosstrakh insurance agency, 160,000 people in Russia have incomes of over $1 million and 440,000 families earn more than $100,000.

According to the Ministry of Social Development, “180,000 people die yearly in Russia from the effects of harmful and dangerous manufacturing conditions” and over 200,00 suffer work-related injuries. 10,000 cases of work-related illnesses are registered each year and 14,000 people become invalids. Russia’s economic losses as a result of unhealthy working conditions costs the country the equivalent of 4% of GNP.

5 people die every minute in Russia, 3 are born. The death rate is 1.8 times that of the birth rate and in some regions 2-3 times.

Every year Russia loses the equivalent of the population of the Pskov district (or of the Karelian Republic or a large town like Krasnodar). Over the last 10 years, the population of the Far East has gone down 40% and of the Far North by 60%. In Siberia, 11,000 villages and 290 towns have disappeared. Deaths from cardiovascular diseases carry off in excess of 1,400,000 a year. Smoking kills 270,000 a year. Nearly 70% of men and over 30% of women smoke. 26,000 children fail to reach the age of 10 every year in Russia. 50 babies die at birth every day, 70% of them in maternity hospitals.

The ambulance stations in Ulyanovsk verge on the catastrophic: they are fuelled on credit and 70% of the vehicles an in an unfit state. In Omsk, 50-60 people a month die because of the late arrival of ambulances. Call for an ambulance in Vladimir and you will be told: “We don’t go out for people under 70.”

Roszdrav [public health service] is planning to release 750,000 socially dangerous psychiatric patients for “treatment in the community”. The police are preparing for extra work.

The State Duma is proposing to abolish some sections of the criminal law relating to the legal responsibility of doctors for negligence. Medical negligence causes 50,000 deaths a year.

Russia is getting older: the average age of the population is 37.7 years. The number of children under 16 has dropped sharply. The average Russian family consists of 2-3 people. It’s no use hoping for any sort of population growth given 8 million abortions a year even if there is a birth rate of sorts – all of 0.3% (402,000). However, in the whole of Russia excepting Daghestan and Ingushetia, the birth rate is lower than the natural replacement rate.

The country loses 1 million potential mothers every five years as they cease to be of birth-bearing age. There are twice as many abortions as births. According to the World Health organisation, we have 8 times as many abortions as the USA, 10 times as many as France and England, 20 times as many as the Netherlands. Badly performed abortions leave 20% of patients no longer being able to give birth. The average Russian woman has 2.1 abortions. 170,000 first-time pregnancies are terminated every year. 64.2% of all pregnancies are terminated by abortions. In Europe any figure above 25% is considered a catastrophe. One in five abortions are performed on minors. The number of Russian women unable to bear a child grows by 200-250,000 per year.

In Russia 30% of children are born out of wedlock. Ten years ago it was 14.6%. An interesting detail: in Russia there are 65,000 more married women than there are married men.

If UN-recorded growth and reduction rates continue the present trend, Yemen’s population will be larger than Russia’s by the middle of the 21st century.

On the other hand, if Russia continues its current raw-materials-based road to development, it will simply not need a population of than 50-60 million.

However, Russia’s persistently falling population is not just the result of “natural wastage”, as officials so delicately put it.

According to the State Prosecutor’s Office, the real level of crime in Russia is 3 times higher than that given in the statistics. In 2004, 1,000,246 crimes, including 5,635 murders, were unsolved. Over 150,000 people a year lose their lives as the result of crime (official MVD statistic).

Road accidents, of which there were 189,000 last year in Russia, lead to 35,000 deaths a year and a further 215,000 injured. Financial losses due to road accidents amounted to 243 billion roubles. All the above are rising at a rate of 16% a year.

The new MVD [police] uniform costs 34,000 roubles (~$1,500), twice as much as the current one. Instead of being green, the cloth of the new one is blue. The Trud sewing factory in St. Petersburg (proprietor: Taimuraz Bolloyev, the Chechen ex-owner of the Baltika Brewing Co.) has the contract. One third of the MVD’s force is to get the new uniforms – 870,000 people. This contract is worth 29,580,000,000 roubles. It would cost the same to give 10 million pensioners an extra month’s average pension.

Imports account for 95% of the clothing market in Russia.

The cost of 1km of ring road in St. Petersburg is $8.7 million. The cost of 1km of the Scandinavia Highway leading from Helsinki to the Russian border was $3.4 million.

The seizure by terrorists of the Norf-Ost theatre complex on Dubrovka in Moscow lasted 57 hours. All TV channels carried live broadcasts. Of the 912 hostages, 48 died when the the complex was stormed, 73 died in the buses to which they were taken and in hospital as a result of lack of medical care and because they were not given antidotes. 97 medals, included five ‘Hero of Russia’ Stars, were awarded to members of the storming party. One each went to soliders of the special force Vympel and Alfa groups. FSB Generals V. Pronichev and A. Tikhonov also got one. The fifth star was awarded to the chemist who infiltrated the gas into the building. Iosif Kobzon, the popular singer, was awarded the Order of Courage. Fifty Nord-Ost commemorative medals inscribed with the word “In sympathy” were awarded to members of Moscow City Hall.

34% of 500 St. Petersburgers questioned were in favour of single-sex couples being allowed to register their relationship. 17% wanted homosexual relationships to be re-criminalised.

According to the MChS [Ministry for Emergency Situations], there are about 300,000 fires every year in Russia in which about 20,000 people die and over 12,000 are injured. Losses from fires cost on average 17.2 million roubles a day. No fewer than 40,000 people die every year as a resulting of consuming bad alcohol.

Every local government sub-division of the Russian Federation is legally obliged to have financial and material reserves to be used in case of emergencies: to pay for emergency rescue work, house and feed victims, make one-off assistance payments to the needy etc. 83 local governments do have such reserves; only the Tyva Republic and Moscow District do not. Total material reserves are value today at 5.377 billion roubles (85.5% of what they are supposed to be). That averages out at 37.95 roubles per citizen. The highest reserves are held in the Chukotsk AR – 11,722 roubles per person and the lowest in the Ulyanovsk Oblast – 2.62 roubles per person. Only 9 local government subdivisions hold emergency reserves of more than 130 roubles per person. Emergency rescue funds for the whole of Russia amount to 11.37 billion roubles or 79.95 roubles per person. Indexed by region, we see Chukotsk AR with the highest (1368.58 roubles), Moscow (519.51 roubles), and St. Petersburg (273.45 roubles). Saratov oblast keeps aside 0.39 roubles per person.

Russia is the world’s #1 for premeditated murders – 21.5 per 100,000 people. Nearly 75% of premeditated murders, about 80% of acts of hooliganism, and up to 75% of rapes take place between 6pm and midnight. In 2005, the police registered 30,800 murders and attempted murders; 18,000 people died in this way. 14,000 left this world thanks to criminal driving offences, 15,000 died in fires, 20,000 disappeared without trace, and more than 40,000 unidentified bodies were found. Total: 137,800. In 2006, the police recorded 140,000 criminal deaths. You can add 58,000 suicides to this.

St. Petersburg’s crime-solving rate is the lowest in the country – 60%. It gets worse as the crimes get worse: only 23% of serious and especially serious crimes are solved.

Russia comes 3rd in the world for numbers of people in prison – 605 per 100,000. The USA is in front of us with 710. Behind us come Kazakhstan (598) and Byelorussia (505).

There are 58,000 suicides and 40,000 murders in Russia every year. Peak time for such death are in Spring.
Highest risk groups include called-up soldiers (up to 70% of suicides in the army are first-year soldiers doing their military service), prisoners (60% of their suicides take place in the first 3 months of incarceration or just before being let out), retired officers, and pensioners. According to the Social Security Agency, the young also commit suicide a lot – 53 per 100,000.

Between 12 and 14 million foreigners, of whom 8.8 million have no legal status, live within Russia’s borders. Recently this inflow of foreigners has begun to be seen as positive and has become almost a government policy to compensate for depopulation. At the same time, the country has 6 million Russian unemployed and 4 million homeless.

A state programme has been set up to encourage Russians to come back home from both the far and near abroads. Plans were drawn up for 50,000 such arrivals this year, rising to 100,000 and 150,000 in 2008 and 2009. The state allocated 4.5 billion roubles to this programme which also gets extra funding from the regions involved in it. 252.3 million roubles have already been expended: 400 people have been resettled.

In 2004, 49,821 foreigners were expelled from Moscow, twice as many as in 2003. According to the MVD, since the beginning of 2004, foreigners have committed 41,000 crimes – 20.6% more than in 2003. Most of these crimes consist of using false documents (27.6%), burglaries (17%), illegal drug trade (10.5%), to which can be added robberies, extortion, and assaults.

The most criminally active foreigners in Russia are citizens of other CIS countries. They account for 92% of the crimes committed. Particularly outstanding in this respect are Ukrainians (2004 share – 18.9%), Tadzhiks (16.1%), Uzbeks (12.6%). From the far abroad, criminality is most frequent among the Chinese, the Indians, and the Vietnamese.

Over 70% of teenagers in our country suffer from chronic illnesses. According to the Ministry of Health, 16% of Russian schoolchildren have tried drugs at least once, another 8% constitute a high risk group, and 3.1% of schoolchildren are actually addicted. 178 schoolchildren died of drug overdoses last year. As for higher education, 30% of students have used narcotics, 20% constitute a high-risk group, and 4.8% are drug addicts.

Russia is world #1 for number children and teenagers who smoke tobacco. According to the World Health Organisation, 33% of children and teenagers in Russia are regular smokers and many already suffer from smoking-related chronic illnesses by the age of eighteen.

The Unified State Exam (on finishing school) was passed with full marks of 100 by 496 pupils (0.05% of the 830,415 schoolchildren who took it). 2,000,000 Russian teenagers do not know how to read.

Russian literature as a subject is to be dropped as a compulsory subject for the Unified State Exam. School-leavers may still take the test voluntarily. This decision of the government’s is in line with the de-Russification of the Russian Federation and is on a par with the abolition of the “nationality” entry in Russian passports. Of course, one cannot force anyone to take an exam, but making Pushkin and Tolstoy ‘non-compulsory’ is basically to make Russian culture as a whole non-compulsory.

According to UNESCO figures, in 2007 a total of $520 million was spent on bribes in the higher education sector.

In 2003, 13,000 schools were closed because they failed to meet fire safety standards. The Ministry of Emergency Situations demanded this after checking fire safety in 150,000 schools. At greatest risk from fires were village schools, most of which were built right after WWII.

35 million people have left Russia in the last 35 years (Ministry of Foreign Affairs data). In that time, 3 million have immigrated legally, mostly from the republics of the former USSR.

Every year, in accordance with programmes for the acceptance of migrants and refugees from Russia

56,000 people leave for the USA
13,000 people, despite everything, choose Israel
12,000 people go to meet the Australian quota
9,000 smartly choose Germany
7,800 prefer Canada
6,900 marry foreigners and for some reason also leave the country.

Total 103,300 people per year, And of course they are of the most educated, businesslike, and energetic. Bear in mind that these are the official figures of those who registered officially for permanent resident abroad status. Who’s counting those who leave on tourist, student, and work visas and never come back?

Russia holds 3rd place in the world for number of science workers per million population – 3,494. Above us stand only Norway with 4,377 per million and Sweden with 5,186. On the other hand, try counting internet users: Russia only has 42.3 per thousand population while the numbers for Norway and Sweden are 502.6 and 573.1 respectively. Jamaica records 228.4 per thousand.

Experts estimate that about 20,000 Russian scientists are working for EC countries whilst still officially remaining employees of Russian scientific institutions, most of these of the “closed” [TN – i.e secret, military] type.

According to a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit and IBM, Russia dropped last year from 48th to 55th place in a ranking of IT usage in 64 major economies. Only 5% of Russian families have internet access and the country spends only 1% of GNP on scientific research. Only 15% of families own a PC. 80% of the traffic on Runet [the Russian-language internet] consists of pornography downloads.

Russia heads the blacklist of countries where it is dangerous to fly. Civilian flights in Russia and the CIS end in disasters twice as frequently as in Africa and 13 times more frequently than the world average.

Passenger flights are now one-third as frequent as in the past and Russia now makes 10 times fewer aircraft. Between 2003 and 2005, Russia made 11-18 airfract a year. America’s Boeing and Europe’s Airbus each produce 350-400 aircraft every year.

Russia has 1,443 electric passenger and freight trains. They are between 70% and 100% worn out.

The human development potential index is one of several general indicators used to express a country’s level of development. Russia’s rating on this index is 0.795, giving it 57th place out of 177 and slotting it between Bulgaria and Libya.

America’s Heritage Foundation rates 155 countries for economic freedom. The most free economy in the world is Hong Kong’s, the least – North Korea’s. Estonia gets a surprisingly good rating – 4th place. Russia is #124, ahead of Romania and Cameroon but trailing Indonesia and Rwanda.

Reporters without Frontiers consider the worst place in the world for press freedom to be North Korea, which it lists in 168th place, Turkmenia – 167th, Eritrea – 166th. Byelorussia is in 151st place and Russia 147th.

Gazprom subsidiary GazPromMedia holds controlling shares in the NTV, TNT, NTV+, NTV-World and NTV-America television channels. It also controls the Ekho Moskvy, Radio Troika, Popular Radio 1, Do-Radio, Sport-FM radio channels, Sem Dnei Publishers (magazine publishing), the Tribuna newspaper, NTV-Kino film production company, film theatres, the NTV-Media advertising agency, Radio Next, the Izvestiya newspaper, Kommersant publishing. Additionally it is buying up Komsomolskaya Pravda, Express Gazeta, and is currently negotiating for the purchase of the RuTube website.

Russia’s central TV channels allocate 90% of news and informational airtime to positive news about the government. The independent Institute of Communications Science investigated the media and found that over 80% of Russia’s media are controlled by the state. The Council of the Federation is preparing an amendment to the media laws to make it a legal requirement for all websites which get more than 1000 hits a day to be registered as a mass medium as they will be considered to be such.

World oil production reached its maximum level in 2006, far earlier than many experts had expected. Oil production is set to fall from now on by about 7% a year. The world today produces 81 million barrels a day. Energy Watch Group’s experts believe that production may fall to 29 million bpd by 2030.

It will cease to be cost effective to produce a number of natural resources by 2013-2035, states a press release by the Counting Office of the Russian Federation, following a audit carried out between 2005 and 2007.

According to well-known politician Zbigniew Brzezinski Russia will cease to exist as a state by 2012.

Analysts at the Massachusetts Crisis Centre [TN: can’t find it in Google] reckon that a territory the size of Russia’s cannot be controlled by fewer than 50 million people (a population density of 2.9 persons per square kilometre). Compare this with some other population densities: Germany – 235 persons/sq.km; USA 26.97. Considering the data quoted above, Russia could be in this situation in 3-5 years’ time.

A decision has evidently already been taken about the country. Furthermore, it was taken quite some time ago.
And maybe that is why Russia’s politicians find it so easy to promise the electorate absolutely anything at all, so long as it is ten years hence. Consider: at today’s consumption/production rates, oil, uranium , copper, and gold reserves will be exhausted by 2015 and gas in 20-25 years’ time maximum. That will leave forestry. But who will be there to chop down the trees?...

By the way, only 11,700,000 of Russia’s citizens have passports for foreign travel.

Respondents were asked to select from a list what they considered to be the most important items. Alla Pugacheva’s [TN: vile Russian pop lady] wedding was the top choice, Litvinenko’s murder was 2nd, Russia’s sporting failures 3rd. Russians are just not interested in other things.

37% of Russian say their favourite stage artist is stand-up comic Yevgeni Petrosyan.

Afterword from R&F Agency:

So that’s how things stand, dear Russians....

NB: Any differences between figures given above and official statistics are NOT erroneous. It was by no means easy or simple to obtain the more accurate figures. R&F would be grateful for any assistance in establishing true numbers for the quantitative and qualitative composition of the Russian population within the RF and the diasporas.

Suggestion: Become part of your country’s history. Help in the popular re-write of the country’s official statistics!

Wish: We always welcome information that quotes sources.

Warning: Perception of the contents of this publication is a matter for the reader. Any textual analysis will be viewed as an act of personal creativity and will not be commented upon. Appeals to data published by the State Committee for Statistics will be considered as having the same level of probity as data from the Central Electoral Committee [TN: Nice one, R&F! Ram it home!] R&F will accept no complaints of any sort on such grounds.

A Word of Advice: If reading the above has generated negative emotions and feelings of dislike for the authors, these may easily be relieved by watching TV programmes such as Anshlag [a low amateur comedy show], Vremya [the news], Krivoye Zerkalo [Petrosyan’s comedy show], Selski Chas [programme about farm life] and so on for 10 minutes each three times a day.

EDITORIAL: The Trouble with Vladimir

2008-08-04T11:21:00.002-04:00

EDITORIAL

The Trouble with Vladimir

Russia has the fifth-highest murder rate of any country on the planet. But that is only a statistic. To begin to understand the true nature of this problem, take a look at the four gentlemen show above.

Writing on Robert Amsterdam's blog recently, hero journalist Grigori Pasko tells us that this in early January this year that very quartet of Russians took a 25-year-old man named Alexei Denisov (that's him pictured below) to the "eternal flame" monument in the village of Kolchugino, located in Vladmir region, less than 100 miles northeast of Moscow, beat him senseless and set him on fire using the eternal flame.

Alexander Andreyev, Mikhail Danilov, and Nikolai Kuragin were all graduates of Russian vocational school with certifications as painters, and two of them were gainfully employed at the time of the incident. The fourth member of the quartet was anonymous in the court papers because he was a junior high school student, studying in the eighth grade. His name was Alexei Goryachev and he was 15 years old. The drunken group came upon Denisov on the evening of January 1st while he was walking home, beat him unconscious and threw him into the eternal flame, where he burned alive. Some accounts have it that Denisov chastised the wolf pack for desecrating the monument by smoking and drinking on it.

As Pasko writes: "Supposedly, even though the event was horrible, it wasn’t typical for the country as a whole. But I think otherwise – I think it is typical. And that there are more than enough events like this throughout the entire country. They simply don’t all fall into the mass media’s field of vision."

The trial of the group was to have been carried out on Victory Day but was delayed to avoid spoiling the holiday. Russians convened in Kolchugino to celebrate the holiday with a ceremony at the site of the "eternal flame" monument (shown above) just as if nothing had happened. The sentencing took place about a month ago.

That very spot, by the way, was the same one Alexei's parent's had visited on their wedding day, as per the Russian tradition (and as shown in the above snapshot from the family's photo album). When Alexei's mother appeared in the court, the victims openly laughed at her, according to Pasko.

Pasko writes: "There are thousands just like them all over Russia. They live in their cities, towns, and villages, in general quite poorly. There is often no electricity in their homes. They travel on horrible roads. And they vote in elections the way they’re told to. They couldn’t care less who is in power in the country. The powers couldn’t care less how they live or whether they’re even alive." The valiant Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Anna Politkovskaya's employer, published an account of the killing in English a few weeks after it occurred (and included most of the photographs shown here). Its reporter echoes Pasko: " Yes, they often get detained by the police. Their animal instincts often dominate over their feelings. I mean if they are hungry they can just take a bun from the shelf in a bakery and they will not think about consequences. Then again, they are easily influenced. If you are elder – I mean if they take you for an adult – and if you just offer them an apple or a chocolate bar, they will do anything you ask for. A thief might ask them to take the things out of someone’s flat and they would do it. They cannot think."

All this hardly fits the narrative being spun by the other Vladimir, the dictator Mr. Putin. But it certainly does fit his modus operandi. Putin doesn't want his fellow citizens to be able to think, because if they could they might challenge his idea that Russia should be a neo-Soviet state. He wants them to be ignorant, too, with no means of acquiring real information about the world, both because sources of information have been liquidated and because they are too impoverished to afford those that remain. He doesn't want them to be healthy, because sick people are much easier to control. And above all, he wants them to be afraid, just as they were in Soviet times, when they were like a bunch of cattle and just that easily controlled by the Kremlin.

Vladimir Putin is killing Russia in exactly the same manner that Josef Stalin killed the Soviet Union. The country may stagger on a while after the fatal blow is struck, but it will stumble and fall just the same. That is, unless the Russian people rise to stop this horrible progression of history in its tracks.

The Kremlin's Plan to Divide and Conquer Europe

2008-08-04T08:58:00.000-04:00

Writing in the Washington Times Janusz Bugajski, director of the New European Democracies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, warns of the Kremlin's "divide and conquer" mentality towards Europe:

Despite speculations in European Union capitals about a bright new dawn in Europe-Russia relations following the installation of President Dmitri Medvedev, dark clouds have already gathered. Europe faces an intensified challenge to its integrity, effectiveness and alliances from a Moscow buoyed by its oil wealth and fortified by claims that U.S. leadership is on the decline.

During a recent visit to Berlin, Mr. Medvedev proposed creation of a pan-European security pact that would sideline NATO and undermine U.S. influence in Europe. Mr. Medvedev asserted that "Atlanticism as a sole historical principle has already had its day. NATO has failed to give new purpose to its existence."

In reality, it is not Atlanticism that is effectively over but the post-Cold War era as the West and Russia are embroiled in a new strategic confrontation. Russia is reasserting its global reach by opposing further expansion of the Euro-Atlantic zone and reversing the United States' global role. The Kremlin believes the U.S. has passed its zenith as a global power and Pax Americana is crumbling. This provides an invaluable opportunity for a resurgent Russia to extend its interests in nearby regions, particularly throughout the wider Europe.

Russia's European ambitions were formulated during Vladimir Putin's presidency and will be consolidated under Mr. Medvedev. They revolve around expanding the "Eurasian" zone in which Russia is the dominant political player. "Eurasianism" involves two interconnected strategies: transforming Europe into an appendage of the Russian sphere of influence and debilitating Atlanticism by undercutting Europe's connections with the United States.

Moscow deploys a range of tools to weaken and disarm the West, including divisive diplomacy, political subversion, informational warfare and institutional manipulation. A primary weapon is energy entrapment, whereby Russia pursues a monopolistic position as Europe's energy supplier and converts energy dependence into increasing intergovernmental influence.

The EU occupies a pivotal position in Russia's strategy as it can either strengthen or weaken the Kremlin's approach. A unified EU foreign policy synchronized with Washington that undercuts Russia's aspirations is viewed as a source of threat that needs to be neutralized.

For instance, the EU's democratization agenda is seen as a pernicious ploy to undercut Russia's policy of maintaining pliable governments in neighboring post-Soviet states. Additionally, EU standards for government accountability, business transparency, market competition and environmental protection endanger Russia's economic penetration, which is primarily based on opaque business practices and personal connections.

However, EU institutions or specific member states can also buttress Russia's long-range strategy. This is evident where EU capitals such as Berlin, Paris and Rome have convinced themselves that "common interests" will lead to interdependence but fail to question the policy objectives disguised behind Russia's offer of "strategic partnerships." The absence of a common and realistic EU strategy toward Russia will have several negative consequences.

c First, it will allow Moscow to fracture the EU by bilateralizing or nationalizing relations with member states by providing diplomatic and economic incentives to some capitals and exerting pressure on others. Moscow offers lucrative contracts to German and French business while imposing embargoes and energy blackmail on Poland, the Baltic States and other states that criticize its policies.

c Second, it will increase disputes within the EU concerning the approach of individual states toward Russia. This will undermine the development of common positions on a broader range of foreign and security policies such as NATO deployments and the role of the United States. The Lisbon treaty, badly damaged by the recent Irish vote, will be buried alongside the EU constitution.

c Third, it will restrict further EU and NATO enlargement eastward as a result of an accommodationist approach toward Moscow. This can unsettle the reformist prospects of aspirant states in Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region, including Ukraine and Georgia.

c And fourth, the EU's internal divisions and acquiescence toward Moscow will harm relations with the United States. They could disable the pursuit of a common Western strategy when a new American president will be reaching out to reinvigorate the Alliance.

The most effective and concerted long-range strategy toward Russia necessitates a combination of "practical engagement" with "strategic assertiveness." "Practical engagement" concentrates on the pursuit of cooperative relations where Western and Russian interests can coincide, as in countering international terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

"Strategic assertiveness," as an essential complementary approach, must focus on vital long-range Western security interests where Russia's negative policies need to be effectively countered by the EU and NATO working in tandem to strengthen trans-Atlanticism.

As a primary principle, the Allies must not compromise core interests by forging agreements with Russia that sacrifice one Western security priority to gain Moscow's support in another security area. For instance, NATO enlargement eastward must not be traded for Russia's promised assistance in dealing with Iran and North Korea. This not only undermines Europe's commitment to expand the zone of security and democracy but also allows Russia to implement its Eurasian agenda.

The Dance of the Mad Swans

2008-08-04T07:40:00.000-04:00

Alexander Golts, writing in the Moscow Times:

If you were to believe what is written in the Russian-language media, you would think that this country is on the verge of war -- not with tiny Georgia, but with the big United States.

Izvestia published an article titled, "Have White Swans Settled on the Island of Freedom?" It quotes an unidentified, highly placed source as saying Russia's Tu-160 strategic bombers (known as "White Swans") have started flights to Cuban military bases. The same day, an Interfax interview quoted another unidentified but supposedly well-informed source from "military and diplomatic circles" as saying, "Should the appropriate political decision be made, the Tu-160 nuclear bomber and the Tu-95 strategic bomber could refuel at one of Cuba's airfields." The Interfax report added that Russian specialists had already carried out the necessary reconnaissance for such a move.

For three days, comments by retired generals caused a sensation when they told journalists how great it would be if our strategic aircraft would land and take off at Cuban military bases right under the noses of the arrogant Yankees, and how that would be a great "asymmetrical" military response to the U.S. decision to deploy its missile-defense system in Eastern Europe. As a result, a Defense Ministry representative was forced to refute all of this nonsense about strategic bomber flights and to state that "Russia is not building any military bases in foreign countries."

On the very same day, however, the Russian media nonchalantly wrote and spoke about a new idea for a "military response" to the U.S. expansion. A former chief of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces in the General Staff, General Viktor Yesin, recalled how the Soviet Union developed its breakthrough "orbital missile" in the 1970s. The missile was designed to carry a nuclear warhead into space and fire its payload from any point along its flight path. This would enable the missile to strike any location on the planet, and it would make it impossible for the enemy to determine the intended target in advance.

The orbital missile was decommissioned as part of the SALT II Treaty in 1979. But Yesin suggested that if Russia were to produce this missile again and if Moscow fired it at the United States over the South Pole, the U.S. missile-defense system would not be able to intercept it. Moreover, Russia needs to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and deploy Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad region.

Unfortunately, every military response that was mentioned is either pointless or impossible to develop. For example, there is absolutely no military necessity to refuel strategic bombers on Cuban military bases. For 30 years, Russia has placed a prime value on the ability of its long-range aircraft to reach any point on the globe without having to land to refuel, and it built a fleet of aerial-refueling planes to make this possible.

Even from the standpoint of mutual deterrence, our military leaders long ago found a much shorter patrol route that would theoretically allow them to strike U.S. territory by launching cruise missiles from the border of the Faroe Islands. As for the orbital missiles, they were manufactured in Ukraine during the 1970s, not in Russia. Thus, it would require the construction of a gigantic new manufacturing facility in Russia to produce them again, and that would require many years, if not decades.

So why all of these information leaks? It would seem to be an illustration of the domino theory, in which one ridiculous remark inspires a second, and so on, ad infinitum. The first foolish move was to threaten a military response to the planned deployment of a U.S. missile-defense system in Europe -- if for no other reason than this system does not threaten Russia's nuclear potential in any way. The first serious attempt to carry out a military response would inevitably lead to reciprocal measures from the United States and NATO. For example, deploying Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad region would practically put us back to the beginning of the 1980s, when U.S. medium-range missiles stationed in Western Europe were targeted at Moscow.

The only way Russia's nuclear weapons can carry any weight in international disputes is if its adversaries detect Moscow's brinkmanship -- specifically, its willingness to start a nuclear war if its point of view is not accepted. Washington had a good share of that brinkmanship -- or, more accurately put, insanity -- when it dealt with certain Soviet leaders, and that is why the nuclear standoff during the Cold War was so serious and frightening.

The United States suspects Iran's current leaders of the same sort of madness, and that is why Tehran's hypothetical plan for building a nuclear bomb is also taken very seriously. But for some reason, the United States is finding it hard to believe that the leaders in the Kremlin today suffer from the same illness as their Soviet predecessors.

The only possible explanation for this whole concoction in the media about flights of Russian White Swans to Cuba is that Moscow is trying to convince Washington that its lunacy is serious and chronic.

A Glimpse of the Neo-Soviet Ghetto

2008-08-04T03:18:00.000-04:00

At our request, the wonderful translators who work for Robert Amsterdam have offered the following piece from the Russian press:

Ghetto for guest workers

The capitoline powers want to solve the housing problems of migrants with methods that are far from humanism

by Nikolai Kireyev

It is entirely possible that there will soon appear in Moscow temporary villages for labor migrants from the CIS countries and the far abroad. They will be designated in first order for housing-and-public-utilities workers. Such a proposal was advanced yesterday by the prefect of the South-Eastern Municipal District, Vladimir Zotov. They are planning to erect dormitories for arrival workers in the districts of Lefortovo, Maryino and Vykhino. If the prefect’s idea receives the support of the capitoline powers, construction will begin as early as next autumn. In the meantime, independent experts have met the bureaucrats’ initiative with bayonets. In their opinion, it could create the soil for inter-nationality conflicts.

It is no secret that many migrants arriving in the capital for earnings immediately run up against a housing problem. Inasmuch as the majority of enterprises can not provide their new workers with even temporary housing, the search for a roof over one’s head falls squarely on the shoulders of the latter. In the meantime, according to the data of the city administration, capitoline housing-and-public-utilities for the year 2009 is intending to attract more than 8 thsd. foreign workers. And this means that the new street sweepers and construction workers will need to be lodged someplace at least for a time. “Very many arrivals from the near and far abroad work in the housing-and-public-utilities structure”, told «NI» the press secretary of the SEMD prefecture, Svetlana Govorukhina. “Migrants from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Moldavia [sic] have to live someplace, while they’re toiling here. And the construction of a temporary village for them, as it seems to us, could solve this problem”.

Independent experts, by the way, consider the bureaucrats’ idea not excessively felicitous. “In the scales of a megacity, construction of separate villages for migrants, most likely, will turn out to be a step towards ethnic quarters, living their own life”, told «NI» the head specialist for migration of the Center of the Demography and Ecology of Man, Nikita Mkrtchyan. “Multi-nationality dormitories could turn into a closed ghetto, separate from the other part of the city, with its own culture, economy, social relations. And this will complicate even more the process of the assimilation of the arrivals in a society alien to them”.

Also subscribing to the opinion of the specialists on migration are representatives of the labor migrants themselves. “The problem is not just that the enclaves will turn into a kind of reservations, living by their own laws”, clarified to «NI» a representative of the All-Russian Movement of Labor Migrants of Tajikistan in Russia, Karomat Sharipov. “Such villages could turn out to be a real magnet for various extremist groupings. Those same skinheads will no longer need to ponder where to seek a victim. It will be sufficient simply to come to an officially published address. And the capitoline administration, to my view, will simply not be able in the current situation to ensure reliable protection to arrivals. Conflicts will be unavoidable”.

In the meantime, even less humane ideas for solving the housing question for arrivals are already sounding in the capital. “In the prefecture of the Central District, for example, they have proposed to lodge the migrants in evicted and semi-evicted houses prior to their demolition”, explained to «NI» Ms. Govorukhina. “And likewise in buildings undergoing reconstruction. If these proposals are liked by the capitoline administration, it is possible, already in the nearest years a roof will appear over the head for migrants”. A roof, of course, will appear, but from all appearances, full of holes…

Such proposals, smelling of nationalism, ought to be discarded, consider experts. Migrants need to be lodged together with migrants from the cities of Russia and certainly not in deserted five-stories [built in the 1960s; popularly known as «khrushchevkas» in honor of the Soviet leader who championed their construction—Trans.] “Why limit oneself to the construction of houses only for natives of Central Asia?”, continues Nikita Mkrtchyan. “In Moscow there are enough labor migrants, who have come to the capital from the regions. They likewise are in need of improvement of housing conditions. But the separation thought up by the Muscovite powers could become an additional stimulus for hatred on the basis of nationality. Let this be small apartments, in not the best districts of the city, but accessible to both Tajiks and, let us say, migrants from Bashkiria and Udrmurtia”.

It must be said that Moscow is not the first city that is trying to solve the problem of housing arrangements for labor migrants. “In Samara now they are preparing to open a Center for arrivals working in the sphere of construction and housing-and-public-utilities”, told «NI» a representative of the press-service of the FMS RF [Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation]. “It will represent a dormitory and at the same time play the role of a cheap income-generating house. For an insignificant payment, migrants will be able to lodge in it for the time of work in the city”. In the words of employees of the FMS, the project is being invested by local entrepreneurs, who in addition to a cheap labor force are hoping in such a manner to get a profit too.

Postcards from a Russian Sports Bloodbath

2008-08-04T00:35:00.003-04:00

It's difficult to describe in mere words the full humiliating extent of the massacre of Russian female athletes which occurred last week on opposite ends of the globe. It was a new low in the annals of Russian sport.

First there was the disqualification of not one, not two, not three, not four but five -- count them, five -- top female Russian athletes from the Bejing Olympiad due to doping charges. Two other Russian athletes, of lesser stature, we also suspended from their sports. And making things even worse was the response of the Russian sports authorities. Sergei Vasilyev, the coach of the offending players, stated: "This is pure politics. If these athletes, who are the main contenders for gold medals, are forced out of the games, the new favorites will automatically be the Chinese." Interesting. Is that what Mr. Vasilyev would have said if the disqualification of Americans left Russians in dominant position? Anyone who thinks so needs to have his head examined as closely as these cheating Russians have been. Welcome back to the USSR!

And then there was the tennis. Oh, the woeful, atrocious, jaw-dropping Russian female tennis at the Tier I Rogers Cup WTA tour event in Montreal Canada.

Russia started out the tournament in fine shape on paper, with half the sixteen seeds and six of the top eight. Then the trouble started. They stepped on the court, and that was a mistake. Two of the eight seeds lost their opening-round matches, and four more were eliminated after pathetic efforts in their second match of the tournament, in the third round (most of the seeded Russians had byes in the first round). Here's an overview of the carnage:

#3 seed Maria Sharapova barely survived her opening match against an unseeded Polish player, then quit the tournament claiming "injury." She then withdrew from Russia's Olympic team by publishing a note on her website, leaving her Russian coach slightly confused and saving her from the possiblity of having to play for her so-called country (of nationality only) against the one where she's actually lived most of her life.

#5 seed Elena Dementieva lost her opening round match in straight sets to an unseeded Slovakian, managing to win only six games in the entire contest.

#6 seed Anna Chakvetadze lost her second match of the tournament, in the third round following a bye. At least she, however, went down in three sets to a (lower) seeded payer.

#8 seed Vera Zvonareva lost her opening round match to an unseeded Frenchwoman. At least she did better than "the Demented One," pushing her opponent to three sets.

#12 seed Nadia Petrova was pulverized in her second match by the same Slovak who had crushed Dementieva out of the gate. She too, at least, outdid the higher-ranked serveless wonder, taking eight games in the straight-set loss.

And finally #13 seed Maria Kirilenko went down in her second match to an unseeded Canadian who was only in the tournament because of a wild card assignment.

Incidentally, just for good measure, the "world #1" Ana Ivanovic, who hails from Russia's beloved "little brother" Serbia, also lost in her second match (the third round) in humiliating fashion, to an unseeded Austrian player not ranked in the world's top 90 players (Ivanovic needed three sets to struggle past her unseeded first round opponent, just like Sharapova). "World #2" Serbian Jelena Jancovic had the chance to decisively pass Ivanovic and take the #1 ranking if only she could beat her unseeded quarter-finals opponent from Slovakia (a woman not ranked in the top 30 in the world). But she too suffered a humiliating straight-set blowout, winning just seven of nineteen games played. Showing what a ridiculous fraud the WTA ranking system really is, Jankovic is slated to become #1 anyway based on technical number cruching; she's ever even been in a grand slam final in her entire career, much less won one, and she didn't even make the semi-finals of the tournament that made her "#1" -- now that's justice Russian style!

So while Russia should have held six of the eight quarter-finals slots according to the seeding, in reality in attained only two of them -- and only one of Russia's eight tournament seeds managed to get that far without the helping hand of being able to face a fellow Russian along the way. #4 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova needed three tough sets to squeeze past her third-round opponent, an unseeded (and unheard of) Portuguese player who had, luckily for Kuznetsova, defeated the seeded opponent she would otherwise have had to face. #7 seed Dinara Safina was fortunate enough to draw a Russian opponent in her second-round match, thus giving her an easy road to a third-round contest with the #9 seed, where she became the only seeded Russian to beat a seed and advance to the quarter finals (beating the lower-seeded opponent in dominating fashion).

In other words, with six of the top eight seeds the only reason Russia even had a single berth in the semi-finals was the luck of the draw, that the only two surviving Russians happened to be in the same quarter of the draw and so they faced off in a quarter-finals match, guaranteeing a Russian spot in the semis regardless of the outcome.

The higher-ranked Russian, of course, Kuznetesova, then lost in disgraceful fashion, taking only five games total in the second two sets of a three-set contest.

So while Russians (and Serbians) held all of the top eight seeds in the tournament, only one of them managed to get as far as the semi-finals. The other three spots there were filled by the 10 and 11 seeds as well as one player who had no seed at all. Over and over and over and over again the Russians (and Serbians) collapsed in spectacular, humilating fashion at the hands of much lower ranked non-Russian (and non-Serbian) competition.

August 3, 2008 -- Contents

2008-08-03T17:11:00.001-04:00

SUNDAY AUGUST 3 CONTENTS

(1) The Sunday Photos, Part I

(2) The Sunday Photos, Part II

(3) The Sunday Sign of the Apocalypse

(4) The Sunday Book Review

(5) The Sunday Sacrilege

(6) The Sunday Funnies

NOTE: In addition to the two-part "Sunday Photos" YouTube material included below, Robert Amsterdam publishes a five-part YouTube series called "Murders in Putinland." Well worth viewing.

The Sunday Photos: YouTube Edition

2008-08-03T11:12:00.000-04:00

Source: Garry Kasparov's blog.

The Sunday Photos, Part II

2008-08-03T11:06:00.002-04:00

Is this the only thing the USSR was ever good for?

The Sunday Sign of the Russian Apocalypse

2008-08-03T10:35:00.001-04:00

In an informal poll among LR staff members, this story has been universally agreed to be the single most repugnant piece of news we've ever published about Russia. It's so repulsive that words fail us to describe the horror. So much for separation of church and state. We can only wonder what they did with the nation's Muslim atheletes -- ate them, maybe. The Moscow Times reports the blasphemy:

Russia's Olympic team received religious icons and a crash course in Orthodox church history in China during a Kremlin cathedral service on Tuesday.

The athletes and their coaches also met with President Dmitry Medvedev for a pep talk for the Summer Games, which start in Beijing on Aug. 8.

"You are going to China as representatives of Russian Orthodoxy in a critical period of Russian-Chinese relations," Bronnitsky Bishop Ambrosy said at the service in the 15th-century Assumption Cathedral.

The two countries have been mending once-strained ties, most recently ending a 300-year dispute with the signing of a pact demarcating their 4,300-kilometer border on July 21.

The bishop on Tuesday offered a brief history of Russian Orthodoxy in China, noting that the church had suffered because of a lack of religious freedom in the country. "Unfortunately, the life of our religion has struggled during the 20th century in China," he said.

However, he said, the athletes will be able to worship in Orthodox churches in Beijing.

He extended to the athletes a blessing from Patriarch Alexy II, who was home resting from a recent trip to Kiev.

Before the church service, the entire Olympic delegation attended a meeting with a cautiously optimistic Medvedev in the Grand Kremlin Palace. "Today, we won't make any forecasts, but all Olympians should know that we support you with all our hearts," Medvedev said in televised excerpts of his address.

Athletes said they appreciated the attention from the president and the church. "The meeting with Medvedev was official and spectacular and was meant to give us confidence," said Yevdokia Grechishnikova, who will compete in the modern pentathlon in Beijing. "The blessing, however, was for our souls. Without it, going to China would be hard."

"God always helps," said Lyudmila Bodniyeva, a member of Russia's first Olympic women's handball squad. "I'm glad that we've been promised Orthodox services in Beijing." In a brief discussion with reporters before the church service, a priest said attendance was optional and that only one-third of Russia's 467 athletes and coaches were expected to show up.

Francesco Cuzzolin, an Italian assistant coach for the men's basketball team and a Roman Catholic, said he attended the church service out of curiosity. "This is just like what happens at the Vatican for the Italian delegation, but 200 times smaller," he said.

The entire delegation was dressed in team outfits — blazers emblazoned with the double-headed eagle and sneakers and shirts patterned in a Russian folk style. Male athletes wore blue and cream, while women were in red. "I'm not sure how we look individually, but as a whole, we make a beautiful impression," Bodniyeva said of the uniform made by Bosco Sport, a general sponsor of the the country's Olympic team.

At the end of the church service, athletes were given diptych icons encased in red and blue velvet. The athletes hurried out of the Kremlin and onto Red Square, blocked off to visitors for the afternoon, for a buffet that included asparagus sushi and white chocolate-covered strawberries. An actor dressed as the Olympic team's mascot, the fuzzy, giant-eared Cheburashka, was present on Red Square to greet the athletes, who for the most part ignored the creature while they ate their lunch.

The Olympic delegation will leave for Beijing over the course of the next week, according to the Russian Olympic Committee's press office.

The Sunday Book Review

2008-08-03T08:03:00.001-04:00

Town Hall reports:

The International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. displays a list of what are called Moscow Rules – commonly accepted guidelines for the good guys during the Cold War. Basically, they are based on a through-the-looking-glass approach to reality, where nothing is as it appears to be.

Some directories note as many as forty of these espionage nuggets, including things like, “float like a butterfly; sting like a bee” (guess who inspired that?), or “Murphy is right,” or “technology will always let you down” (actually, I think that one’s true). But ten are in the commonly accepted list:

Assume nothing.
Never go against your gut.
Everyone is potentially under opposition control.
Don’t look back; you are never completely alone.
Go with the flow; blend in.
Vary your pattern and stay within your cover.
Lull them into a sense of complacency.
Don’t harass the opposition.
Pick the time and place for action.
Keep your options open.

Author Daniel Silva [pictured] has brought these deep-background precepts to life in his latest novel that bears the actual name, Moscow Rules. His eleventh book is a bit of a departure from recent ones because it shifts from using the Middle East as a backdrop in favor of the intriguing world of present-day Russia.

The spy novel has come back home.

With the feel of a Cold War story, and a pace unmatched by most war-on-terror thrillers, this book is likely Silva’s best to date. Spy-Mystery-Thriller writers all have their favorite characters. John Le Carré gave us George Smiley, William F. Buckley introduced us to Blackford Oakes, Jack Higgins writes about Sean Dillon, and, of course, there’s Vince Flynn’s creation, Mitch Rapp. But in art restorer-Israeli top spy Gabriel Allon, Silva has a hero for all seasons, shapes, and sizes - a man who is intensely human, fiercely intelligent, and quite good at what he does.

In Moscow Rules, Allon finds himself moving with ease between worlds of religion, politics, and history. From the Vatican, to a CIA house in Georgetown, to the dark and dank inner-sanctum of old Soviet-style brutality in the Lubyanka, he’s a hero for everyone who still believes that there are good guys and bad guys.

Mr. Silva’s style matches the prose gold standard of Mr. Le Carré. He then, however, leaves the Brit far behind to wallow in his well-worn and historically inaccurate arguments about Cold War moral equivalency between east and west. Moscow Rules reminds us that the U.S. and Israel, though far from perfect, provide the world a vital strategic partnership against enemies of freedom. And it’s especially important to have such a relationship up and running when nations like Russia and Iran draw close to each other for their own ends and agendas.

In a sense, Daniel Silva has written a new Cold War novel. By that I mean, a story that’s very much about how an old enemy has come back from the abyss to taunt and haunt us once again. History is repeating itself. This time, however, the weapon we ultimately used to defeat that old “evil empire” – our economic strength – is no longer completely available to us. And it’s very available to them.

Today’s Russia is vastly different from the empire we tried to contain fifty years ago. It’s a place no longer marked by colorless uniformity and severe deprivation. Quite the contrary, today we find a land of great contrasts and contradictions. And we also find a nation recently flooded with petro-dollars. If the Soviets of old had been able to tap into that kind of resource-driven wealth, the Cold War would have never ended. And the rules of engagement, even history itself, would have been very different.

The fact is that Russia today represents a greater threat to the security of the world than it ever did in the days of Cold War bipolarity. And our old adversaries are taking great pains to reconstruct an empire, one that would include their strong presence, as was once the case, in the Middle East.

Daniel Silva’s story is told against this backdrop, and it has a ripped-from-the-headlines feel. Readers encounter stories that are reminiscent of recent real-life dramas such as the intriguing murder of former FSB Colonel Aleksandr Litvinenko, who died while investigating the death of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. The new Russia is starting to strongly resemble the old Soviet Union - only with nicer cars.

Along the way, the novel takes the reader on a jet-set paced ride to places like Saint-Tropez, Courchevel, Paris, London – but back time and again to Moscow. All the while it tells a cautionary tale, one that should be widely heard these days. It’s not just the Islamists we should be watching – and watching out for – we need to keep our eye on that big old bear roaming once again in the global woods.

As Russia becomes stronger and stronger, and as its leaders tighten the reins more and more on all aspects of national and international life, the world becomes a more dangerous place with each passing day. Vladimir Putin and his puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, have an agenda. They have empires in their brains. And, if the past is any indicator of the future (of course it is!), they will also play by a sinister set of rules - the most important one being: the ends justify the means.

When it comes to characters out of Cold War literature and media, I can’t help but resonate with something said by Boris Badenov. No, he wasn’t a KGB leader. Nor was he ever on the wall overlooking Red Square as the missiles rode by on May Day.

Boris was a diminutive fellow with a distinct accent who, along with his wife and side-kick, Natasha, tried to foil the good guys, Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle the Moose. He had a memorable saying I thought about as I read Daniel Silva’s book, Moscow Rules. It came to mind every time one of the bad guys did something rotten. In fact, what Mr. Badenov had to say should be heeded by both candidates for the presidency this year.He said: “Never underestimate the power of a schnook.”

The Sunday Sacrilege

2008-08-03T06:16:00.000-04:00

So much for "godless" Communism. The Telegraph reports:

The Soviet dictator, who was responsible for the deaths of around 15 million people during his 31-year reign of terror, is in second place in online voting for the Name of Russia competition.

Stalin last week surrendered a narrow lead to Nicholas II in the contest, which is based on the BBC's Great Britons series.

But with a result not expected until the end of the year, the country's Communists are convinced that Stalin will still emerge the victor.

While the poll, conducted by the state run Rossiya channel, has been criticised for allowing multiple voting, there is little doubt that Stalin has undergone a remarkable renaissance in recent years.

Opinion polls regularly name him Russia's greatest post-revolution leader after Vladimir Putin, the prime minister.

The wartime leader's resurgence owes much to the Kremlin, which under Mr Putin's presidency appeared to support a campaign to rehabilitate Stalin, with television documentaries, films and books released in recent years eulogising him.

A newly published history text book, approved by the Kremlin for use in all schools, glossed over the more unappealing parts of Stalin's rule and ultimately concluded that he was the Soviet Union's most successful leader.

"Stalin is the most popular name in Russia," said Sergei Malinkovich, the Communist party leader who is driving the Stalin canonisation campaign.

"The people have forgiven him for the repressions, the collectivization, the elimination of cadres of the Red Army and other inevitable errors and tragedies of those cruel military and revolutionary times.

"Stalin has become the true national leader of Russia. He turned a backward country into an industrial giant."

Yet the idea of tuning Uncle Joe into Saint Joe has so far won little official backing from the Orthodox Church, which was one of Stalin's chief victims.

Seeking to establish atheism as the Soviet Union's official creed, Stalin destroyed thousands of churches and sent tens of thousands of priests to the gulags and their deaths.

Despite the church's reluctance, St Petersburg's Communists are convinced their vision will come to pass. They have already commissioned religious icons depicting Stalin with a halo round his head that have reportedly sold very well around the city.

"By the end of the 21st century, icons of St Josef Stalin will be in every Orthodox Church," Mr Malinkovich said.

The Sunday Funnies

2008-08-03T00:21:00.000-04:00

Translation -- On the roller-coaster car is written: "Oil prices."

Source: Ellustrator.

August 1, 2008 -- Contents

2008-08-01T17:23:00.001-04:00

FRIDAY AUGUST 1 CONTENTS

(1) EDITORIAL: The Kremlin Backs Down

(2) Another Original LR Translation: Essel on #1 Russia

(3) The Russian Internet Under Fire

(4) Russia, Faithful Guardian of War Criminals

(5) Medvedev and the New Nomenclatura

(6) McCain Puts one Across Putin's Bows

(7) Kasparov on Obama

NOTE: The final two installments in today's issue (nos. 6 and 7) make a nice contrast. John McCain confronts Russia over its latest salvo of anti-democratic hubris, while Garry Kasparov takes Barack Obama to task for his shameful failure to do the same. Obama has a made a career based on civil rights, yet his core beliefs are nowhere in evidence where Russia is concerned.

EDITORIAL: The Kremlin Backs Down

2008-08-01T11:26:00.008-04:00

EDITORIAL

The Kremlin Backs Down

The Russian stock market is in freefall, having lost nearly one-fifth of its total value over the past few weeks.

Things were already bad enough with the economy overheating under massive inflationary pressures, and then "Prime Minister" Vladimir Putin went after yet another major Russian company, this time steelmaker Mechel. Putin stated: "I already mentioned at the meeting [on Thursday] that one company was exporting its product at a fraction of the domestic market price. The domestic price was 4,100 rubles ($176), and they were selling it to themselves, across the border, for 1,100 rubles, and then sells the product for $323.

Stocks plummeted further, with Mechel losing half its value and the MICEX stock index dropping to its lowest level in more than two years. The Moscow Times quoted an anonymous trader:

"Our clients were going crazy today, shouting over the phone — they were absolutely outraged. A couple more such statements, and Russia can forget about its aim of becoming a world financial center. Officials have called the country a save haven from the world crisis, but [we've] got a different problem affecting the stock markets — Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin."

Yulia Latynina mocked Putin's "$60 billion house call" saying: "the subsequent overall decline in Russia's stock market, which fell by $60 billion the day after Putin's statement, has already cost the country's steel industry far more than the losses it would have ever incurred from Zyuzin selling coal through the spot market."

And the Kremlin's response? Press spokesman Dmitri Peskov spoke as if from another planet, with the absolutely unmistakable echo of the USSR. He claimed that investors were to blame, having "reacted too emotionally." Then he went utterly mad:

The real meaning of [Putin's] statement was actually positive, not negative. Putin mentioned Mechel just as a flagrant example of violating the law. [His] real message for business was: We will create the most favorable environment for all of you, which you will be able to use provided that you don't break the law. When investors understand the real meaning of Putin's words, stock markets will cheer up.

The same sort of gibberish, verbatim, that we heard in Soviet times from Russia. How neo-Soviet can you get?

Last week the Kremlin aggressively denied any intention to house nuclear bombers in Cuba after the U.S. military reacted with outrage to leaks that it had such a plan in mind, and scurried to assure Georgia that it would soon pull back the "railway repair" soldiers it inserted into Abhkhazia a few weeks ago after Georgia generated massive international news coverage and threatened military retaliation. Then it hurried to make sure it hadn't offended the mighty NATO alliance after "President" Medvedev's crazy rhetoric, echoing Khruschev with his shoe, which seemed to imply Russia would dismantle it. And finally even the most ardent Russophile sociopaths, like Vladimir Frolov, scampered like frightened mice to minimize the devasating international black eye that resulted when Russia vetoed UN sanctions against Zimbabwe.

These four events, to say nothing of the stock market's total implosion, clearly expose the Kremlin's fundamental weakness. Russia stands totally alone in the world, utterly without allies, and its creaking military systems are no match for the cutting-edge technology of the West. Russia's economy is puny, and when judged in terms of per-capita wealth it is at third-world levels. Quite simply, Russia is in no position to stand up against a concerted effort of the Western powers, and will not attempt to do so. Russia is only capable of pscyhotic rhetorical bluster, energy intimidation and assassination. No nation can be a significant player in world affairs relying on such crude devices.

Indeed, the only reason that Vladimir Putin remains in power now is that the Western governments have not made a point of confronting him -- just as they didn't timely confront Stalin or Hitler. In a childish and cowardly manner, they hope that the people of Russia will come to their senses and oust Putin themselves, perhaps after a massive downturn in the Russian business cycle forces their hand. But this is nonsense. Such hopes were vain in the time of the USSR and they are equally vain now. The USSR collapsed because of the concerted pressure brought to bear by the Reagan presidency, combined with Russia's profound level of corruption and incompetence. The Russian people themselves did nothing to bring down the USSR, they watched it collapse just as they had previously watched Stalin rise to power and send millions off to perish in his concentration camps.

It's impossible to identify anyone in Russia who could possibly be the leader of a mass movement designed to bring civilized government to the country. Who would that person be? Garry Kasparov? Mikhail Kasyanov? Grigory Yavlinsky? Mikhail Khodorkovsky? Nonsense. None of them has shown the slightest inclination, much less ability, to be the leader of a mass movement. The Kremlin has responded with barbaric, draconian cruelty to the largely insignificant murmors put forth by each, and liquidated any possiblity that they could do so. Others, from Galina Starovoitova to Anna Politkovskaya, have been killed outright.

So it's time for the Western democracies to act on Russia. The world is beginning to catch on. Last week we published a fantastic essay from Newsweek magazine which called for European unity in oppositon to neo-Soviet Russia. Hopefully, this will be followed by similar calls on this side of the Atlantic led by whichever president gets elected in November.

It's something all freedom-loving Amerians can agree on, regardless of their party affiliation.

Another Original LR Translation: Essel on #1 Russia

2008-08-01T11:00:00.004-04:00

Russia by the Numbers: Part I

by Dave Essel

The R&F Agency, “established 1989”, claims on its website that it is the oldest immigration consultancy service in post-Soviet Russia. It offers legal and other advice on a whole range of immigration/emigration subjects, from e.g. how to apply for Canadian residence permits to where best in the West to buy housing and businesses.

R&F’s home page goes on to say that “the main thing that distinguishes us from other companies is the asymmetricality of our approach to problem-solving and our non-traditional ways with typical situations.”

And they’re not lying: for the sake of customer-entertainment, the site contains a couple of pages of general interest information. And these stun with their asymmetricality and an approach that is far from the traditional Russian one.

Here, as a teaser for a longer translation from the site that I will be presenting in LR, is what one finds by following one of the less visible links on the site. The site’s authors’ write:

Try typing in any search engine of your choice the words “Russia World Rank [whatever] and you will get this sort of result. Here via Google:

World Rankings

#1 in world for number of billionaires pursued by law enforcement
#1 in world in absolute numbers for population reduction
#1 in world for deaths from cardiovascular diseases
#1 in world for number of air crashes
#1 in world for volume of human trafficking
#1 in world for number of abortions
#1 in world for volume of strong spirit sales
#1 in world for consumption of spirits and alcoholic beverages
#1 in world for growth rate of tobacco consumption
#1 in world for number of underage smokers
#1 in world for for HIV infection growth rate
#1 in world for actual volume of unpolished diamonds exports
#1 in world for imports of Chinese automobiles (1st half-year 2007)
#2 in world for level of bureaucracy
#2 in world for number of suicides
(after Lithuania)
#2 in world for sales and distribution of counterfeit medicines
#2 in world for number of migrants
#2 in world for numbers of incarcerations per 1000 population
#2 in world for production of pirated CDs and DVDs
#2 in world for number of children adopted in the USA
#2 in world for number of people seeking asylum in the West
(#1 is Serbia)
#2 in world for arms exports
#2 in world for firearms in circulation in the country
#2 in world for submarine fleet size
#2 in world for number of journalists killed in the last 10 years
(#1 is Iraq)
#3 in world for number of displaced persons
#3 in world for inflow of migrants
#3 in world for number of cellphone subscribers
#3 in world for automobile theft
#3 in world for child pornography distribution
#3 in world for number of totalitarian sects
#4 in world for zirconium reserves
#4 in world for consumption of light alcoholic beverages
#5 in world for genetic health
#6 in world for use of fashion and medical cosmetics
#8 in world for number of foreign students in the country
#14 in world for state gold reserves
#15 in world for number of internet users
#16 in world for GNP
#21 in world for number of patented inventions
#27 in world for quality of education
#32 in world for quality of environment
#43 in world for economic competitiveness
#51 in world for corruption
#57 in world for quality of life
#62 in world for technological development
(between Costa Rica and Pakistan)
#65 in world for standard of living
#67 in world for development of human potential
#70 in world for use of IT and communications technologies
#97 in world for per capita income
#120 in world for economic freedom
#127 in world for health of population
#134 in world for longevity
#147 (out of 168) in world for press freedom
#159 in world for political rights and freedoms
#175 in world for physical safety of its citizens
#182 (out of 207) in world for mortality rate

As we all know, Googled data and information from Wikipedia sometimes need to be taken with the occasional pinch of salt. The whole idea is that this is presented as a piece of ‘sad fun’ and is all perfectly true in the general sense. Sad and silly Russophiles should refrain from nit-picking as this does not pretend to be scientific.

The Russian Internet, Under Fire

2008-08-01T09:04:00.000-04:00

The Committe to Protect Journalists reports:

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Friday’s vicious attack on Zurab Tsechoyev, editor of Mashr, a human rights Web site based in the volatile North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia.

At least 50 armed, masked men in camouflage gear raided Tsechoyev’s home, shoved him into an armored personnel carrier, drove him to an unknown location, and interrogated and beat him for five hours, according to CPJ sources and news reports. Tsechoyev, 45, remained hospitalized today with a broken leg, kidney damage, and multiple bruises. The assailants left Tsechoyev on a road outside Ingushetia’s capital, Magas, after threatening to kill him and his family if he did not quit his job and leave the republic.

The attackers did not present identification, but they are believed to be officers of the Federal Security Service (FSB) based on their clothing, vehicles, and weapons, CPJ sources said. News reports today also began identifying the assailants as local FSB agents. CPJ sources said police told them that no criminal investigation into the attack has been opened.

Armed with AK-47 assault rifles, the assailants arrived at 6 a.m. at Tsechoyev’s home in the Sunzhensky district of Ingushetia, where the journalist lives with his wife and four children, sources told CPJ. The men seized Tsechoyev’s laptop and two mobile phones, CPJ sources said. The assailants questioned Tsechoyev about the news Web site Ingushetiya’s recent publication of a list of FSB agents accused in a wave of murders in Ingushetia. The attackers questioned Tsechoyev about whether he had leaked the list to the publication, CPJ sources said.

Published by a human rights group of the same name, Mashr carries detailed information on human rights abuses in the southern republic. The Web site contains databases of regional disappearances and killings; the dates the crimes were committed; and information on the suspected perpetrators. Tsechoyev’s brother Tamerlan is among the missing—he was abducted in March 2004 by unknown armed men, according to Mashr.

After Tsechoyev was discovered around mid-day on Friday, human rights activists took him to the Nazran office of the Moscow-based human rights group Memorial, where he was treated briefly before an ambulance took him to a regional hospital. As of today, Tsechoyev had not received documentation of his injuries, evidence that would further a police investigation, CPJ sources said.

“We are outraged by this brazen attack on Zurab Tsechoyev and call on Ingushetia’s authorities to conduct a thorough investigation and bring all perpetrators to justice without delay,” CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. “Ingushetia has gained notoriety as a lawless zone where enemies of the press can attack journalists with impunity.”

In recent years, the conflict between rebels and federal forces in Chechnya has spread to neighboring republics in the North Caucasus. Authorities in Ingushetia have worked hard to repress news about the tensions, CPJ research shows. The republic’s president, Murat Zyazikov, has stood by as journalists and human rights activists have been abducted, beaten, harassed, and threatened with further retaliation if they did not abandon their jobs.

In January, police in Nazran detained, beat, and deported nine journalists and two human rights activists who tried to cover an opposition rally calling for Zyazikov’s resignation. There have been no arrests in the attack. In November 2007, a group of 15 armed, masked assailants in camouflage gear abducted three reporters and a human rights advocate from their hotel rooms in Nazran, put them in a van, harassed and threatened them, and abandoned them in a deserted field close to the Chechen border. One of the officers cheered the others to “take them out one by one! Liquidate them with a silencer!” Memorial reported. The four had planned to cover an antigovernment rally.

Russia, Faithful Guardian of War Criminals

2008-08-01T06:19:00.000-04:00

Radio Free Europe reports:

After the arrest of Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic for war crimes, Russia called for the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to cease its activities. The head of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Center for Balkan, Caucasus, and Central Asian Studies, Artyem Ulunyan, spoke with RFE/RL's Andrei Shary about Moscow's motivation in seeking an end to the tribunal's work.

RFE/RL: What's the reasoning behind Russia calling for the ICTY to cease its activities?

Artyem Ulunyan: Russia doesn't want it to be possible for former high officials to be tried in foreign or international courts that are not under Russian control.

RFE/RL: But isn't the ICTY only concerned with crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia?

Ulunyan: What we seem to be talking about here is a precedent for the tribunal to be used by organizations not under its control. Russia most likely sees this as dangerous.

RFE/RL: What will Russia's position be regarding the trial of Radovan Karadzic?

Ulunyan: I think this will be multifaceted. On the official level, there won't be any actions or announcements. But at the semiofficial level, Russia's dissatisfaction will be made clear. Pro-Kremlin youth organizations will be mobilized. Sections of the public will be fed propaganda arguing that Karadzic himself was not right, but his ideas were.

RFE/RL: Anybody can see the accusations against Karadzic. All the documents are publicly available. More than 7,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed at Srebrenica, Sarajevo was blockaded for 44 months by Serbian forces, 14,000 people were killed, and so on. Many who participated in these events have been convicted, and Karadzic was in the political leadership. It is difficult to argue with this. But Russia continues to hold its position.

Ulunyan: This is a question of prestige for Russia. Russia cannot attract attention to its own advantage on the Balkans. It cannot play the role of a mediator. This needs to be said honestly. It cannot propose any serious solutions. We must not forget that for the Balkans, moving closer to Europe is becoming more and more important. Russian in this case is simply demonstrating its will and waving its flag.

RFE/RL: The Russian authorities are in a difficult situation. Russia has signed an agreement with President Boris Tadic on the privatization of Serbia's gas industry, and Tadic was one of the leading forces behind Karadzic's arrest. How can Moscow play this?

Ulunyan: Tadic's position is also complicated. There are no open disagreements between Russia and Tadic. But there is suspicion between Tadic and the Kremlin, mostly related to foreign affairs. Karadzic is an element of the past history of Russian-Serbian relations, of Balkan history itself and Russia's participation in it.

Medvedev and the New Nomenkatura

2008-08-01T05:14:00.000-04:00

An editorial in the Moscow Times:

President Dmitry Medvedev should be commended for publicly admitting what everyone knew was a large contributing factor to corruption in post-Communist Russia. Addressing a group of his key aides and selected ministers on Wednesday, the president acknowledged that government posts are filled on the basis of nepotism rather than meritocracy, and in some cases, they are put up for sale.

Medvedev also lamented the lack of qualified candidates for gubernatorial posts and other senior positions, describing the situation as a "personnel famine." The president said he would personally handpick candidates for governors' posts to form a "presidential reserve."

On the same day that Medvedev spoke, a Kremlin official told Vedomosti that the president wants to institute a policy in which appointments will be transparent and comply with clear and objective criteria. Candidates should preferably have experience in both the public and private sectors. The official said career law enforcement and military officers would not be welcomed.

The quality of public administration both at the regional and federal level leaves a lot to be desired, and Medvedev is absolutely right that improvements must be made. One sign of how ineffective some regional leaders are is the stark disparity in economic development and living conditions in the country's regions. Because Moscow has done a lot to force governors to toe its line and receives a large share of locally collected tax revenues, it is also partially to blame for this disparity.

Medvedev's proposal to create a presidential reserve offers little hope that the type of real competition between ideas and individuals that generates and rewards new and more effective approaches will be introduced.

Even with the talk of base requirements in experience and education required from prospective candidates, the proposed list smacks of the old nomenklatura system.

The presidents have been handpicking governors for three years already, and it doesn't seem to have helped to achieve a sustainable, nation-wide improvement in the quality of governance. If the president is serious about making the regional system of public administration efficient, he should be doing a lot more than simply issuing statements about nepotism and corruption in personnel policy. He should take concrete steps to improve the quality of training for officials and design a coherent, transparent system of performance evaluation, in which promotion and pay raises are based on merit. He should also push to make the legislative and judicial branches of power in the regions independent and efficient.

No matter how capable Medvedev's appointee may be, he or she won't be able to do a good job unless there is a robust parliament and judicial system and civil society to provide both help and oversight.

McCain Puts One Across Putin's Bows

2008-08-01T04:48:00.000-04:00

AFP reports:

Russia has become an autocracy under Vladimir Putin and the Russian president-turned-prime minister has taken the country down a "very harmful" path, Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Sunday.

"We need to improve their behavior," McCain told ABC television when asked about his threat to exclude Russia from the Group of Eight if he wins the White House in November.

"His government -- former president Putin, and now Prime Minister Putin -- has taken his country down a path that I think is very harmful," McCain said. "They've become an autocracy."

"In the last week or so, look at Russia's actions," he added. "They cut back on their oil supplies to the Czechs, because the Czechs made an agreement with us. They have now thrown out -- or forced out -- BP out of Russia.

"They continue to put enormous pressures on Georgia in many ways. They're putting pressure on Ukraine. They are blocking action in the United Nations Security Council on Iran," McCain said.

"We want better Russian behavior internationally, and we have every right to expect it," he said. "And I will do what I can to see that they reverse many of the behavior patterns which have really been very unhelpful to peace in the world."

ABC News adds:

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., defended his call to exclude Russia from the Group of Eight despite opposition from members, in an exclusive interview with George Stephanopoulos on "This Week."

"You have to take positions whether other nations agree or not, because you have to do what’s best for America," McCain explained. “I will do what I can to see that they reverse many of the behavior patterns, which have really been very unhelpful to peace in the world.”

The presumptive Republican nominee openly criticized Russia for straying from the G-8's founding principles. “We need to improve their behavior,” he said. “They’ve become an autocracy.”

McCain also said he believes former president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is still in charge and is responsible for Russia's destabilizing role in the international community.

“In the last week or so, look at Russia's actions. They cut back on their oil supplies to the Czechs, because the Czechs made an agreement with us. They have now thrown out the -- or forced out -- BP out of Russia ... They are blocking action in the United Nations Security Council on Iran.”

Kasparov on Obama

2008-08-01T04:45:00.000-04:00

Garry Kasparov, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

Berlin is an ideal place for an American president, even a would-be president, to speak to the world about freedom and shared values. Barack Obama's recent visit evoked the famous speeches of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan that defended the U.S. stance against the Soviet Union and tyranny in Eastern Europe. Both the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union are now gone, but dangerous, nuclear-armed dictatorships are not. Sadly, Mr. Obama declined to mention this in Berlin.

The stage for his disappointing performance was set several weeks ago, when the Illinois senator rejected John McCain's proposal to eject Russia and exclude China from the Group of Eight (G-8). Mr. Obama's response during a July 13 interview on CNN -- "We have to engage and get them involved" -- suggests that it is impossible to work with Russia and China on economic and nuclear nonproliferation issues while also standing up for democracy and human rights.

It has repeatedly been shown that the exact opposite is true.

The U.S. does not cede leverage with authoritarian governments when it confronts them about their crimes. Instead, the U.S. increases its credibility and influence with foes and friends alike. Placating regimes like those in Russia and China today only entrenches hostile, antidemocratic forces.

Commercial agreements, arms control and other mutually beneficial projects can be pursued without endorsing dictatorship. During the same interview, Sen. Obama spoke of enlisting China to help write the "international rules of the road." This is the same logic that led the United Nations to place China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia on its current Human Rights Council. Do we really want to live under rules created with the approval of such regimes?

While Mr. Obama talked about the importance of receiving Russia's help in containing Iran's nuclear ambitions, Reuters reported that Tehran is acquiring advanced S-300 surface-to-air missiles from the Kremlin. This is the cooperation the West has earned by including Russia in the G-8.

In Berlin, Mr. Obama repeatedly mentioned the 1948 Berlin airlift. On CNN, he said he would like to "bring back the kind of foreign policy that characterized the Truman administration with Marshall and Acheson and Kennan." A strange statement, since President Harry Truman fought against giving up an inch to the communists on any front around the world. Not only did Truman save West Berlin; South Korea, Taiwan and Western Europe also have much to thank him for. By contrast, in their July 9 op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, Obama advisers Madeleine Albright and William Perry, secretaries of state and defense under Bill Clinton, criticized Sen. McCain's proposal to respond to major powers' human-rights abuses with more than lip service.

Mr. Obama also asked if the West would stand up for "the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe." Commendable, but what about the political prisoner in China and the recently convicted blogger in Russia? Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and Russia's Dmitri Medvedev both came to power in blatantly fraudulent elections. The hypocrisy of condemning one while embracing the other destroys American and European credibility, and undermines any attempt at global leadership. Those of us living behind the Iron Curtain at the time were grateful Ronald Reagan did not go to Berlin in 1987 to denounce the lack of freedom in, say, Angola.

In short, the candidate of change sounds like he would perpetuate the destructive double standards of the current administration. Meanwhile, the supposedly hidebound Mr. McCain is imaginative enough to suggest that if something is broken you should try to fix it. Giving Russia and China a free pass on human rights to keep them "at the table" has helped lead to more arms and nuclear aid to Iran, a nuclear North Korea, and interference from both nations in solving the tragedies in Darfur and Zimbabwe.

Would all of this have occurred had the U.S. and Europe threatened meaningful reprisals? At least Mr. McCain wants to find out.

Reagan's Berlin speech is remembered for his command: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" But he also made a critical point about negotiating from strength, a point Mr. Obama seems to be missing. Reagan knew that if the U.S. backed down on the Strategic Defense Initiative, his speech would just be pretty words the Soviets would ignore.

Reagan avoided the mistake John F. Kennedy made when he met with Nikita Khrushchev in 1961. After the Bay of Pigs disaster, Kennedy was weak in Khrushchev's eyes and keen to make a deal, and the Soviet premier bullied him mercilessly in Vienna. The Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis were soon to follow.

Today, instead of communists there are deal-making capitalists and nationalists running the Kremlin and China's National People's Congress. They, and blowhards like Hugo Chávez, hardly represent the existential threats faced by Truman, Kennedy and Reagan. Yet Mr. Obama still is reticent to confront them, saying in Berlin that "we must reject the Cold War mindset of the past and resolve to work with Russia when we can, to stand up for our values when we must." But the Cold War ended and democracy became the global standard not because Western leaders merely defended their values, but because they projected them aggressively.

On Sept. 11, 150 years ago, another Illinois politician to run for president, Abraham Lincoln, said: "Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere." Not where it's convenient. Not in countries lacking large energy reserves. Everywhere, Mr. Obama, everywhere.

July 30, 2008 -- Contents

2008-07-30T20:55:00.000-04:00

WEDNESDAY JULY 30 CONTENTS

(1) EDITORIAL: Russia, the Eternal Morass

(2) Russia and Stalin, Explaining the Phenomenon

(3) Putin's "Divide and Conquer" Approach to Human Rights

(4) Some Hope for Russia

(5) Racism out of Control in Moscow

EDITORIAL: Russia, the Eternal Morass

2008-07-30T11:43:00.001-04:00

EDITORIAL

Russia, the Eternal Morass

Last week the New York Times blog The Lede reported on how Russians were being mauled by their national symbol, the brown bear. A wolf pack of 30 bears is running wild in Kamchatka and has already killed and eaten two people. The Lede reported that "people in the region have been forced to cower in their homes waiting for hunters to dispose of the animals, which can stand 10 feet tall and weigh up to 1,500 pounds." Three others have been killed on Sakhalin Island. The reason? "A sharp decline in salmon, their traditional food, due to poaching has forced them to seek out other food sources, as more and more unfortunate people have come to discover." In other words, the utter failure of public policy.

The first commenter on the story spoke in the loud, clear terms of the insane Russophile, a perfect encapsulation of what is wrong with Russia as a country:

The New York Times is always so negative about Russia! So what that the bears eat people? They are beautiful, majestic creatures who inspire Russia and Russians. Do bears not eat people in America!? You also couldn’t help but draw a parallel between killer bears and United Russia…again, negative muckraking! I implore you CIA sponsored “journalists” to stop implying that United Russia gobbles up other parties like a hungry beast. Write about something positive, like Putin’s pecs.

That's right: Russians (and especially Russophile sychopants of Vladimir Putin) want this story ignored. Far from being a cause to criticize the authorities and call for reform to save lives, Russians want the whole thing swept under the carpet. As long as bears eat Americans, it seems, Russians have no problem with being consumed themselves.

And yet, if you were to suggest to a Russian that his nation's lack of contested elections, opposition parties and major media criticism of the regime comes up far short on the democracy scale when compared to the United States, Russians would then say that Russia is "different country" that can't be compared to America.

Meanwhile, do you think this commenter, or any member of the psychopathic Russophile set, ever makes such comments about the things written about America by state-controlled Russian media? Do they ever speak unfairly and inaccurately about America? Does Vladimir Putin ever do so? When, dear reader, was the last time you heard Mr. Putin give America a compliment? Aren't his remarks about America "always so negative," to quote a Russophile?

This kind of childish, impulsive "reasoning" characterizes Russian society from top to bottom. Rather than admit any fault, they would prefer to have all problems ignored. When convenient, they compare themselves to America. When not, they contend only a Russophobe would do so.

Exactly this kind of "thinking" destroyed the USSR root and branch. The Politburo was incapable of accepting any responsibility for any fault, and instead simply blamed all problems on misfortune and foreign intrigue. No reform was undertaken until the nation was in its final throes, and even then the measures were half-hearted and totally unsuccessful. As a result, the USSR collapsed.

And how did Russians respond, seeing that collapse? They merrily and blithely returned the KGB to power, the very same KGB that had shipped off so many souls to the Gulag archipelago, wiping out Russia's best and brightest with relish, squashing all dissent and information at gunpoint. Then they merrily and blithely watched their proud KGB spy return the nation at breakneck speed to the same condition of blind willful ignorance that brought down the USSR.

America is full of people, including powerful elected politicians and major international media outlets, who upon hearing foreign criticism are only too ready to accept it and to call for responsive change. Right now, major party candidate Barack Obama is running on just such a platform, and could well be elected. And America stands astride the world like a colossus, the world's only superpower, with an economy more than ten times larger than Russia's and a growing population twice Russia's size.

Russia, by contrast, pokes its head into the sand like a witless ostrich, has a plummeting population and an economy where a person is lucky to earn $4 per hour as a wage and teachers earn less than half that amount.

Will Russians never learn? Will they go on repeating their barbaric behavior until they have utterly destroyed not just their country but their entire civilization, ceding it to the Chinese to be erased forever from human memory?

We are afraid they will.

Last week the White House website posted a message from President Bush in honor of "Captive Nations" week. Bush stated: "In the 20th century, the evils of Soviet communism and Nazi fascism were defeated and freedom spread around the world as new democracies emerged." (Similarly, Lithuania recently enacted a ban on the display of Soviet and Nazi symbols, treating the two the same.) The Putin regime rushed to defend Soviet communism, attacking Bush for attempting to "feed the efforts of those, who for political and selfish ends are striving to falsify the facts and rewrite history." In other words, the Russian state is repeating the Soviet propaganda lie that Sovietism wasn't just as bad for Russia as Nazism was -- even though it was Sovietism, not Nazism, that actually destroyed the USSR, and Sovietism that killed far more Russians.

Russia can't manage to understand how the people of Eastern Europe see the advance of Soviet troops to defeat Hitler, either. They, too, are hard pressed to see any difference between Nazis and Russians. After all, the Russian troops enslaved them for a far longer period of time than the Nazis did. It can't manage to understand, as Germans have done, the need to confront their dark past and take aggressive measures to make sure it is not repeated. Instead, Russians seek to bury, twist and pervert their past into a mythology of heroism. Russians leave memorials to Stalin's Gulag to foreigners, and elevate Stalin to cult hero status. They are, it should be remembered, still using the melody of the Soviet national anthem, a tune written to glorify Stalin. It will play when Russians are awarded medals at the Bejing Olympiad.

No country can survive this level of extreme barbarism.

Russia and Stalin: Explaining the Phenomenon

2008-07-30T08:54:00.000-04:00

Paul Goble reports:

Many were shocked when the Internet Project “The Name of Russia” showed that Russians saw Joseph Stalin playing that role, with some suggesting that this was equivalent to present-day Germans identifying Hitler in that way for their country or even Israelis deciding to name the German dictator as the symbol of their country.And others were disturbed when the organizers of this project suggested Stalin had come out on top because of a concerted campaign by a small number of web activists and when those carrying out this informal survey said that they had “taken measures” in response that had the effect of elevating Nicholas II, the last Russian tsar, into first place. But now a prominent Moscow analyst suggests that the results of this project show something even more disturbing at least to him than the initial “victory” of Stalin. They indicate, Aleksei Roshchin said in an article posted online recently that Russians are increasingly obsessed with themselves rather than with the role they have played in the world.Arguing that even “without Stalin” in the top spot – and he is still among the leaders – Roshchin, who is an expert at the Moscow Center for Political Technologies, says the results of the project to date should disturb all those concerned about the future of Russia and its integration into the broader world.

The “top ten” candidates in the Name of Russia project are Stalin, Vysotsky, Lenin, Nicholas II, Yesenin, Ivan the Terrible, Sergii of Radonezh, Chekhov, Pushkin, and Aleksandr Nevsky. Of these, half were supreme rulers, one was a writer, three were poets, and one was a religious leader.“Not one (!),” Roshchin notes, “is a scholar and only one (!) is a figure of culture known to every cultured individual in the world. That is Chekhov, and he is in eighth place.” But “what does this mean?” the Moscow writer asks rhetorically. “It means that we ourselves, citizens of Russia, are convinced in the depth of our souls that humanity to a great extent does not need our Russia.” And consequently, “we ourselves select out of our 1,000-year history people who clearly are interesting only to us and to no one else.”No one will have a problem with Aleksandr Nevsky who “saved Rus’ from the crusaders” or even with Ivan the Terrble “who took Kazan,” Roshchin says. They are both in the tradition of the type of state figures Russians and many others admir. But what about the others on the list?Yesenin and Vysotsky were accomplished lyric poets who “beautifully expressed ‘the Russian soul” but who as a result are unknown beyond the borders of Russia.

That then there is Lenin, whose activities “showed to the entire world HOW ONE SHOULD NOT PROCEED. But Roshchin inquires, is that something which Russians should be proud of?Given these others, it is thus perhaps not surprising that Stalin received so many votes as “the name of Russia.” Instead, this poll shows clearly “in what direction one should be working if we would like sometime to return to the civilized world:” Russians should focus less on those who have worked only for Russia and more on those who have made a broader contribution.Russia does not lack such people, Roshchin says, and he points to figures like Mendeleyev, Lomonosov, Cherkhov, Kandinskiy, Tolstoy, Landay, Kapitsa, Basov and Popov. If Russians would only display a little more confidence in themselves, he continues, they would see that they are “indeed a GREAT nation.” But until Russians understand that, he concludes with regret, they will continue to vote for Stalin, who symbolizes as it were the sad reality that Russians view themselves and their nation as “good for nothing” and boastfully by voting for people like the dictator Stalin their “lack of faith in themselves.”

Putin's "Divide and Conquer" Approach to Human Rights

2008-07-30T07:33:00.001-04:00

The always brilliant Robert Coalson, writing for Radio Free Europe:

The question of the purpose and role of international election monitors, one would think, should be a pretty easy one. They are sent as impartial observers to judge the conduct of elections in terms of democratic values such as transparency, fairness, access, and competitiveness.But at a conference at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna this week, the Russian mission offered a competing vision, one that seems part of a larger effort by Moscow to fracture the admittedly weak sense of shared values in international law and politics.

Election monitors, Moscow's representatives argued, should primarily "respect the laws of the states holding elections and show respect for the national organs of power, including the electoral organs." This "respect" for the host state, according to the proposal, should take the form of letting it determine the format of the mission, its leader, the number of monitors, the period of monitoring, and "all other questions touching on the sovereignty of the country."Such a view, it should be noted, has long been the norm at the Moscow-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). CIS election monitors have been hard-pressed to find a post-Soviet election anywhere -- from Belarus to Russia to Turkmenistan -- that wasn't to their liking. Their effusively congratulatory election postmortems are routinely ridiculed outside the CIS -- if they are noticed at all.

The Russian proposal comes in the wake of tense relations between that country and the OSCE's Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), which organizes OSCE election-monitoring missions. After ODIHR monitors declared the 2003 Duma elections in Russia "free, but unfair," Moscow imposed such onerous restrictions on future missions that the OSCE declined to send delegations to the 2007 Duma elections or the presidential election in March.It should be noted as well that the OSCE has sometimes shot itself in the foot. Its monitors praised Russia's elections during the era of Boris Yeltsin, despite massive evidence of their shortcomings. Such reports feed Moscow's assertions that the organization is politicized in its judgments and operating under double standards.But Moscow's dissatisfaction runs deeper still.

The Kremlin fumed at what it perceived as the OSCE's role in fuelling the so-called colored revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, countries where manipulated and falsified elections were exposed and massive protests ensued. In fact, Russia has long taken umbrage at the OSCE's emphasis on human rights and democratic development. A Moscow-inspired anti-OSCE tirade submitted by six CIS countries in 2004 stated baldly that the OSCE "does not respect such fundamental...principles as noninterference in internal affairs and respect for national sovereignty."The OSCE bills itself as a 56-member "community of values."

Its governing 1990 Charter of Paris commits members to "build, consolidate, and strengthen democracy as the only system of government of our nations." It further defines democracy as "based on the will of the people, expressed regularly through free and fair elections. Democracy has as its foundation respect for the human person and the rule of law. Democracy, with its representative and pluralist character, entails accountability to the electorate, the obligation of the public authorities to comply with the law and justice administered impartially. No one will be above the law." The document, which heralds "a new era in democracy, peace, and unity," continues in this vein for many pages, obligating members to help one another make democratic gains "irreversible."Russia in the era of President Vladimir Putin has increasingly presented a challenge to this "unity" and this "community of values" not only in terms of its actions, but on the plane of ideas as well.

Moscow has repeatedly defended its antidemocratic domestic policies by arguing Russia has its own "path to democracy," and that all nations must build democracies that are unique to their cultural heritages.While some observers expected this sort of divisiveness to be toned down after Dmitry Medvedev -- who rarely misses a chance to point out that he is a lawyer by training -- became president, it has in fact been ramped up in recent weeks. Moscow has renewed its calls for phasing out The Hague war crimes tribunal, saying it is fatally "biased."Perhaps most importantly, the quasi-official Russian Orthodox Church last month adopted its Basic Principles of the Russian Church on Human Dignity, Freedom, and Rights.

The document, which was partially drafted by Kremlin insider and Eurasianist ideologue Aleksandr Dugin, called for a "reexamination" of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It says Western notions of human rights do not apply to Russia and should be replaced by Orthodox principles. It also asserts that civilizations "should not impose their lifestyle patterns on other civilizations." The document clearly prioritizes the rights of society over the rights of individuals.As the Vienna conference on election monitoring shows, Moscow's assertiveness in the realm of ideas can have serious consequences. Organizations like the OSCE and the UN are already cumbersome institutions that often have difficulty acting decisively.

The Kremlin's challenges to the fundamental assumptions and values of international organizations will only magnify those difficulties.Conferences such as the one this week will be reduced to discussions of basic principles -- of whether they even exist -- and issues of implementation will be crowded off the agenda. And achieving that goal is enough to satisfy those whose domestic policies and institutions fail to stand up to scrutiny from the perspective of values that have been recognized internationally since the end of World War II.

Some Hope for Russia

2008-07-30T07:17:00.002-04:00

Russian ZheZhe blogger Introvertoff points to the following results of a recent public opinion poll in Russia (our staff translation, corrections welcome):

Only 20% of the population believes the political and econmic situation lic is "stable and prosperous" in Russia.

More than half of Russians (51%) believe that the country is on the wrong path, and only 38% of those surveyed said that believe in the correctness of the course.
The state of the economy was called "good" 18% of those surveyed while 54% found it difficult but tolerable; 24% stated that "any worsening would be intolerable."
14% hope to improve their material situation in the future, while 22% believe that it will only worsen.

24% of Russians are ready to participate in mass protest actions. 19% are willing to participate in strikes.
64% of respondents disapproved of the government's policy actions

Given the fact that the Russian economy is supposedly "booming" and given the fact that the Kremlin is in the midst of a massive campaign of terrorism against civil society, we must be heartened by these results. There remains in Russia as there always has been a nucleaus of clear-thinking people who, if they could only be induced out of their stupors, might save the country from its fate. Dictator Putin dare not imagine what these results might show if the price of oil was a bit lower and the level of social oppression was a bit less intense.

Seen in this light, Vladimir Putin's support takes on the aspect of a cult, with blinded sycophants marching like zombies rather than informed voters giving voluntary respect. Of course, Russia being a nation of zombies taking orders from those whose policies it knows are wrong, just as in the time of Stalin, hardly bodes much that is good for the nation's future.

Racism out of Control in Moscow

2008-07-30T05:09:00.000-04:00

The Moscow Times reports that racist violence is "exploding" in Russia's largest and supposedly most sophisticated city, supposedly booming with wealth and happiness, right in Vladimir Putin's backyard. Do you dare imagine what might be going on in a place like Chelyabinsk -- that is, if any dark-skinned people were foolish enough to go there?

The number of hate crimes committed in Moscow has exploded this year, rising sixfold compared to the same period last year, Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin said Friday. The authorities registered 73 hate crimes in Moscow in the first six months of this year, a trend Bastrykin said must be halted with "decisive and systematic efforts."

"We are worried that while the overall number of crimes registered in Russia has shrunk by 9 percent, crimes of an extremist nature are increasing year after year," Bastrykin said, Interfax reported.

The Moscow branch of the Investigative Committee announced Friday that it had opened two criminal cases involving hate crimes, one of which involves 12 racially motivated murders. The announcement came after the beginning of two high-profile trials in the Moscow City Court last week, in which several teenagers are accused of murdering multiple dark-skinned victims — as well as an Investigative Committee statement Thursday saying seven ultranationalists are suspected in at least 21 racially motivated murders. Mikhail Ionkin, spokesman for the committee's Moscow branch, said the spike in hate crimes was not just a reflection of the authorities' efforts to crack down on such crimes."It's no secret that hate crimes are on the rise," Ionkin said. "We are not registering more because of any change in methods or priorities on our part. We have always worked with equal focus against extremism."Ionkin declined to say what could be behind the dramatic rise. "It's complicated," he said.

The case of Artur Ryno, who went on trial last week in the Moscow City Court with eight other people suspected of committing 20 racist murders, received so much publicity that it could have sparked copycat crimes, said Galina Kozhevnikova, deputy head of the Sova center, which tracks hate crimes. But the authorities' apparent decision to prosecute neo-Nazi groups more actively could also be contributing to the spike, Kozhevnikova said."In big cities, we know there are lots of underground Nazi groups," she said. "When the government began to investigate their activities and arrest them, they reacted violently against ethnic minorities. "Kozhevnikova cited an incident earlier in the year when a racist murder was committed in the same location where a group of neo-Nazis had been arrested by police in Moscow the previous day. A city police spokesman denied Friday, however, that there has been any rise in hate crimes in the city this year. "Such crimes are becoming less frequent," said the spokesman, who declined to give his name. "In my opinion, certain organizations beef up the statistics on such crimes in order to attract funding. "The Sova center recorded 60 racist murders across the country so far this year, while it recorded a total of 85 such crimes in all of 2007. The actually number of hate crimes is likely three to four times higher than the number registered by authorities, Kozhevnikova said.

July 28, 2008 -- Contents

2008-07-28T20:45:00.002-04:00

MONDAY JULY 28 CONTENTS

(1) EDITORIAL: The Clueless, Craven Boston Globe

(2) The Russian Economy, Teetering at the Abyss

(3) The Russian Stock Market in Freefall

(4) Russia's Crony Statism Chokes the Economy

(5) Annals of Kremlin Corruption, Bleeding the Economy Dry

NOTE: Today we offer a devastating series of reports (2-5) showing how Russia's dramatic turn to a bear market in securities mirrors a wide array of serious ecnomic perils in the economy itself, from Soviet-style anemia of production to outright corruption. This provides still more support, including editorials from the Wall Street Journal and the Times of London, for the pair of editorials we ran last week (LR is always ahead of the curve!) on this subject. Can a nation enjoy market economic success while being governed by a proud KGB spy? Of course not. Only a Russian could imagine otherwise.

NOTE: Kim Zigfeld's latest installment on Pajamas Media details the latest facts indicating that the Kremlin is engaged in politically-motivated murder campaigns to advance its interests, and pointing out that these murdering thugs are licking their chops in anticipation of an Obama presidency.

EDITORIAL: The Clueless, Craven Boston Globe

2008-07-28T11:43:00.001-04:00

EDITORIAL

The Clueless, Craven Boston Globe

It's genuinely sad, and downright embarrassing, to see an American newspaper bungle an analysis of Russia as badly as the Boston Globe did with a recent editorial called "Russia's new (and old) plan."

The Globe started out by calling Russia a country "that bears little resemblance to either the vanished Soviet Union or the economic basket case of the immediate post-Soviet years." But in fact, that's idiotically false. Russia continues to be a country where the vast majority of the population suffers dire poverty, shockingly short lifespans and all manner of vice and pestilence. The average Russian man works for $4 an hour and doesn't live to see his 60th year. And Russia, by the Globe's own admission, is "run by a mafia of Kremlin-connected moguls and KGB veterans." If there's any dissimilarity from Soviet times, it's that the KGB has even more influence now.

The Globe then claimed that Russia wants a "strategic partnership" with the United States because it has "has an abiding interest in cooperating with the West." It sees confirmation of this in the fact that "Dmitry Medvedev released a document outlining Russia's new foreign policy strategy" that says so. But search the Globe's text from stem to stern: You will not find one single example of any "interest" that Russia shares with the United States.

Certainly, not a belief system. Russia has obliterated the last vestiges of democracy in a barbaric manner, replete with murders and intimidation. It has crushed the press, wiped out opposition parties, purged the Duma and conducted kangaroo elections that don't even pass the smell test for legitimacy.

Oil? True, Russia needs the West to buy its oil. But so did the USSR -- and it also needed to import lots of basic goods, especially food, that it couldn't produce itself. And none of that stopped the USSR from seeking to destroy us, just as it hasn't stopped Vladimir Putin from buzzing us with nuclear bombers and sending weapons to our enemies, like Iran and Venezuela.

Terrorism? Could the Globe possibly be suggesting that if we don't make nice with Russia, it will foment radical Islamic terrorism against us?

In essence, the Globe is calling upon the United States to abandon the people of Russia and its own core belief system in order to avoid confrontation and secure economic benefits. That's exactly the same approach Neville Chamberlain adopted towards Adolf Hitler. Chamberlain believed that if only we spoke respectfully to Hitler and treated him like an equal, acknowledging and responding to his "interests," then he would have no incentive to attack us and would not do so. Chamberlain was prepared to gamble with the lives of millions of people, both outside and inside Germany, betting that dropping our guard wouldn't leave us exposed and vulnerable.

Chamberlain was wrong, and so is the Boston Globe. The Globe is a failing institution, with a plummeting readership and a sea of red ink.

The Globe stated "Obama and McCain ought to be talking about their plans for the future of US-Russian relations" as if both were equally remiss in offering specifics about Russia. But in fact, that's simply false. McCain has a clear plan of action in regard to Russia which he has discussed on many occasions, Obama has none. Guess which candidate the Globe will endorse in the general election? Absolutely shameless partisanship.

The Globe contends: "President Bush needlessly provoked Russian paranoia by rushing to recognize Kosovo's independence without UN authorization or a negotiated deal between Serbia and the Kosovars." So let's see if we understand: Russia would have supported independence for Kosovo if only the UN had authorized it . . . which it never would have done because Russia has a veto there. This is what passes for "journalism" at an institution like the Globe? Meanwhile, what these bastards are actually saying is that we should sell out Kosovo just like we sold out Poland and Czechoslovakia in World War II, sacrifice them for our own convenience in the hope of appeasing Russia.

Is that sick or what? The word evil comes to mind.

The Globe asserts: "Bush and Bill Clinton both broke promises made to Russia at the end of the Cold War by expanding NATO toward Russia's borders. And Bush insists on deploying a missile defense system in Eastern Europe that is crucially flawed but nevertheless frightens the Kremlin." Is the Globe saying it has a better understanding of the merits of the system than Russia does? Or is it simply saying the Kremlin is insane and/or paranoid, and that we should accommodate that mentality? Whichever is the case, it's clear the Globe is not finished calling for appeasement! First we should submit to Russia on Kosovo, and now on missile defense! And in return what do we get?

The Globe offers only this: "Bush's successors should relieve these Russian grievances. In return, the next president should be able to count on firm Russian support in preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power, combating terrorism, and managing the transition to a global economy bereft of cheap oil and natural gas. That should be America's game plan." So it appears the Globe believes that if we allow Serbia to persecute Kosovo and leave Eastern Europe to Russia's tender mercies, then Russia will deny the nuclear bomb to Iran rather than help it get one. It will also help us "combat terrorism" in some unspecified manner (yet there has not been one single terror attack on American soil since Bush starting tormenting Russia) and help "manage the global economy" whatever that means. What exactly is Russia going to do to help the American economy? What will it do to halt terrorism? The Globe doesn't seem to have the slightest clue, making it all sound very much like Kremlin propaganda.

Suppose Russia, which incidentally is ruled by a KGB spy as "president for life," doesn't come through after we "count on" it and sell out our allies? What will we have to console us then, an mighty apology from the Globe's editors? "Oops, sorry, our bad."

The notion that Russia would be capable of giving nuclear arms to Iran, of sending financial support to Hamas and Hezbollah, of arming Venezuela and Syria, of dispatching nuclear bombers to menace us with overflights, that Russia could hate us enough to do all that and yet give up its malignant intentions if we agree to buy it off is so ridiculously naive that it must be an embarrassment to every American citizen to see it so cravenly displayed in a major American paper.

And what about the people of Russia? Not a word from the Globe about the Kremlin's obliteration of the the press, opposition parties and elections. Apparently, the Globe would permit Russia any manner of draconian persecution of its own people, just as long as it stops threatening U.S. national security. What about the people of Georgia and Ukraine -- or for that matter, the Baltics, Poland and Czech Republic. Are these all to be consigned to Russia's "sphere of influence" that we mustn't disturb, lest Russia start sending suitcase nukes to Osama bin Laden?

In other words, instead of standing up for the values of democracy, the editors of the Boston Globe are selling it down the river, and at the same time asking us to drop our guard and allow Russia to become an even bigger threat, just as was done in regard to Nazi Germany.

Thankfully, the Globe (and its New York Times parent) is an utterly failed institution on the verge of bankruptcy. Its circulation and stock price have tanked and it is floating in a sea of debt and cutbacks. Flailing helplessly, it's actually rather amusing to watch it drowning in its own craven incompetence.

The Russian Economy, Teetering at the Abyss

2008-07-28T10:49:00.000-04:00

Paul Goble reports:

Although Moscow and its boosters in the West continue to speak of a Russian economy “swimming in cash” from the sale of oil and gas abroad, Russian government officials this week released data showing that the broader economy in that country is now in serious trouble.According to an article in "Gazeta" today, “industrial production has already fallen and now investment is slowing as well,” trends that in the opinion of the Moscow paper are an indication that “the golden age of the Russian economy is approaching its end” however much people do not want to acknowledge that fact.

After falling over the last few years, inflation and especially producer inflation are rising again. The growth of investment in industry is much lower than a year ago. And there was an “absolute decline” in industrial production between May and June – something the writers concede may be a one-time result of Russian attention to international soccer matches! (For an explanation of the way in which Russian interest in soccer may have had that effect and also for a selection of the latest Rosstat economic statistics which provide even more support for the dire conclusions offered by “Gazeta,” see here).

Moreover, the paper reports, Russian industry has been losing its competitive advantage in many sectors. Over the 12 months, “Gazeta” says, the producer price index has risen 28.1 percent, compared to a 12.7 percent rise over a similar period in 2007. And this increase is “eating into the incomes of the population,” absolutely and relative to inflation.One of the reasons for these rises, Russian business leaders say, is the way in which high salaries in the oil and gas sector, salaries needed to attract and hold key personnel, are forcing others to raise salaries faster than productivity gains, a pattern that points to more problems ahead and one that suggests the country’s oil and gas wealth may have yet another downside.

But at least some observers say that there are other, more benign reasons for what is happening and thus urge that the Kremlin continue on course. On the one hand, Troika Dialog economist Yevgeniy Gavrilenkov points out that the Russian economy is now much larger and more mature making these changes less disturbing than they would have been earlier. And on the other, he argues, the changes in the economy have been so dramatic that the Russian statistical agencies have changed some of the methods they use to calculate such numbers. In other words, that the figures “Gazeta” and other business people are concerned about are a statistical fluke.As long as Russia’s earnings from the sale of oil and gas remain high, few in Moscow or in the West are likely to be too concerned with these latest statistics showing trouble ahead. But to the extent such figures are ignored now, the problems they point to will be even more difficult to correct in the future.

Russia's Stock Market in Freefall

2008-07-28T08:33:00.004-04:00

(click image to enlarge)

The Russian stock market lost nearly 6% of its value last Friday as a rabid, frothing Vladimir Putin launched another one of his crazy Stalin-like diatribes against Russia's "enemies" -- this time Russian steel maker Mechel (whose shares lost nearly half their value).

An editorial in the Times of London:

Russian stocks are in freefall, spooked by threats of anti-trust inquiries by Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister, falling oil prices and the chicanery over TNK-BP. Foreign investors have been patient optimists, preferring to turn a blind eye to the mounting chaos in Moscow while keeping a steady gaze on commodity price indices. Yesterday, they lost their bottle and began to sell - and the selling may continue. It is a reminder that reputations built over several years can be lost in a day.

The irony is that among those who will suffer badly from the sell-off are three individuals whose activities provoked a major cause of the loss of confidence: Mikhail Fridman, Len Blavatnik and Viktor Vekselberg. Their successful effort to evict Bob Dudley, the BP-nominated head of TNK-BP, has undermined a bull run fuelled by petrodollars and little else. It is important to understand that the three oligarchs are looking for a profitable exit - they want their money offshore. They have clamoured for bigger dividends from TNK-BP. A Eurobond prospectus issued by Renova, the holding company for Mr Vekselberg's assets, said that the group would seek to diversify away from Russia and from its oil and metal assets. Cash from TNK-BP, some $18 billion over five years, has flown out of Russia. Mr Blavatnik has built a chemical empire in Europe and America, buying Basell, the world's biggest olefins business, from Shell and BASF. Mr Vekselberg has taken over Swiss engineering firms.

Investors in Russia should not forget the cash cow was a political gift. Tyumen Oil, the TNK half of the joint venture, was sold by President Yeltsin to his friends for a song, some $800 million in 1997. It has since been spitting out dollars at a fantastic rate, funding not just investment outside Russia but providing respectability and adulation in high places. Mr Blavatnik is on the Board of Dean's Advisers at Harvard Business School. Mr Fridman is on the advisory board of the Council on Foreign Relations, a US think-tank.

For years, the notion of oligarchs as loveable rogues has held sway, akin to America's early robber baron capitalists. However, the latter built their businesses from scratch - Rockefeller created Standard Oil. Tyumen Oil was an outrageous gift and as the RTS stock index tumbles, one wonders when these not very loveable men will return the favour.

EllliotWave International adds the following (including the chart above):

If Russia’s RTX Index is in a bear market, as Bloomberg reported today, then what’s next for the nation itself? Worrisome headlines about Russia in the past few weeks are sending clear signals that Russia’s collective social mood is worsening. But without the proper perspective, you don’t know how much importance to give those signals. Our study of socionomics – the new science that explores how changes in social mood affect financial markets and society -- shows that large trend changes in social mood are signaled long before the turning point, first by stock markets, and only later by headlines.

[Last week], the Russian RTSI Index took its biggest hit since January 21. It is now down almost 22% from its May 19 high. The surly social mood is steadily worsening, much as we predicted in our November 2007 Global Market Perspective Special Report, Sizing up a Superpower: A Socionomic Study of Russia. The report begins like this: “Our long-term Elliott wave count for the Russian stock market indicates that a major top is imminent.”

[The chart above] shows the 22% decline from the May 19 peak. And we’ve also gathered some July headlines and quotes about Russia that reflect the deterioration in Russian social mood. Take a look at these stories and get a sense of the feelings they express -- fear, belligerence and xenophobia, for example – as negative social mood accelerates.

Russia needs bombers in Cuba due to NATO expansion July 21 (RIA Novosti) “The possible deployment of Russian strategic bombers in Cuba may be an effective response to the placement of NATO bases near Russia's borders, a former Air Force commander said on Monday.”

BP says 60 staff leaving Russia July 22 (AFP)“British energy giant BP said Tuesday it had recalled all 148 staff sent to Russia to work for its TNK-BP venture amid ongoing Russian attempts to end foreign control of major energy assets. The crisis is a major problem for BP ….executives have warned the row is tearing the multi-billion dollar company apart.”

Moscow must answer U.S. shield with Cuban 'spy' site July 23 (RIA Novosti)“‘Cuba is a unique place to gather intelligence on the United States….amid the threat that the Americans are creating for Russia,’ Alexander Pikayev, head of the disarmament and conflict resolution department at the Russian Academy of Sciences' World Economics and International Relations Institute, told a news conference….”

Russia and Venezuela in deal to counter 'US aggression' July 23 (UK Telegraph)“Hugo Chavez first signed off on a deal giving Russia's state-owned energy companies …. exclusive rights to develop new deposits in Venezuela's Orinoco Oil Belt.Then he [called] for the Russian rouble to replace the US dollar as the world's global currency.”

Russia 'could answer U.S. shield with orbital ballistic missiles' July 24 (RIA Novosti)“Russia strongly opposes the possible deployment of the U.S. missile shield [in the Czech republic], viewing it as a threat to its national security. 'A program could be implemented to create orbital ballistic missiles capable of reaching U.S. territory via the South Pole, skirting U.S. air defense bases,' said [a] former chief of staff of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces…”

Russia opens trial of skinhead gang for 20 murders July 24 (Reuters) “[Gang] members are charged with murdering 20 people in racist attacks… The accused video-taped their attacks… and posted them in the Internet. Attacks on foreigners and darker-skinned migrant workers from ex-Soviet republics have become commonplace in today's Russia, where Jewish cemeteries and synagogues are often desecrated by neo-Nazi vandals. Swastika graffiti can be seen across Russia.”

Russia Stocks Plunge After Putin Rebuke Destroys `Safe Haven' July 25 (Bloomberg) “Putin's censure of Mechel [one of Russia’s leading mining and metals companies] combined with falling oil prices, has 'finished' Russia's reputation among some investors as a 'safe haven' in the global equity market this year'…" [Ed note: the RTSI fell over 17% before the Putin rebuke.]

The June issue of Global Market Perspective showed important trend line support in a chart of the RTSI and said “The trend is up… unless trend line support breaks.” That trend line was broken [last week]. And one last headline, an apt metaphor for the upcoming crisis, appeared on July 23. Don’t let this happen to you: Starving bears eat 2 men in Russia July 23(AP)“A pack of enormous bears searching for food killed and ate two men at mines in Russia's Pacific Kamchatka region and have kept hundreds of geologists and miners from reaching the mine…”

Russia's Crony Statism

2008-07-28T08:22:00.001-04:00

An Editorial in the Wall Street Journal:

By now, the jilted investor in Russia is a bear-bites-man story. No one who puts serious cash in Vladimir Putin's realm, not least in its flush gas and oil fields, can be surprised to find himself fleeced, run out of town, jailed in a Siberian gulag or worse.

So let's not shed many tears for the latest oil major brought low in Russia, BP. The British company got into TNK-BP—a 50-50 $7.6 billion joint venture with four Russian oligarchs—presumably, with eyes wide open. The initial blessing of Mr. Putin—then president, today prime minister—made the obvious risks easier to swallow. For a while, business was gangbusters, with profit in 2006 alone at $6.6 billion. Then the same old thing happened: Someone in Russia wondered, Why share the spoils with foreigners? And BP found itself defenseless in the wild east.

To make a long story short, BP is losing TNK-BP to another Kremlin-backed forced expropriation. The usual tricks were used. The tax and labor authorities, the police and the courts launched no less than 14 probes of BP, forcing out its expatriate staff from the country. The last man left—TNK-BP's CEO Robert Dudley—had his work visa pulled and on Thursday fled Russia for an undisclosed location, citing "sustained harassment of the company and myself." He says he'll run the company from abroad. Sure. BP officials pretty much admit the game is over.

If the past is a guide, BP will be forced to cede control of TNK-BP to a Kremlin-owned energy giant such as Gazprom or Rosneft. Mr. Putin has pushed aside other big players once considered untouchable, in his quest to Kremlinize oil and gas wealth. Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Yukos—then Russia's biggest and best-run oil company—was broken and its founder sent to Siberia. BP's Russian misery has good company abroad, too; Total, Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil and Amoco, before BP's acquisition of it, all stumbled in Russia.

Mr. Putin coined the phrase, "dictatorship of the law," and in the early days many investors endorsed his authoritarian policies as a path to stability. It turns out that something other than mere "stability" is emerging in Russia.

Local tax authorities and health inspectors are a power unto themselves, extorting large businesses (as in BP's case, directed from above) or free-lancing on their own against the medium and small. Their victims are mostly Russians, who won't be able as easily to conclude their property isn't safe and pack up and take their businesses, and jobs, elsewhere. No matter how much money there is to be made in Russia these days, it ultimately doesn't count for much the day a boyar or simple chinovnik decides to take it away.

The steady erosion of the rule of law in Russia is a distressing sign of the times there. Mr. Putin complains of not getting proper respect from the West. Forcing the president of a major Western oil company to literally flee Russia earns respect in no one's land.

Annals of Kremlin Corruption

2008-07-28T05:33:00.000-04:00

The New York Times reports on high-level corruption within the Russian state. Once again they've translated the article and posted it on a Russian blog, comments from Russian readers are here. Two examples:

William F. Browder was one of the most prominent foreign investors here, a corporate provocateur who brought the tactics of Wall Street shareholder activists to the free-for-all of post-Soviet capitalism. Until, that is, the Kremlin expelled him in 2005.

Mr. Browder then focused on protecting his billions of dollars of stakes in major Kremlin-controlled companies like Gazprom, and on fighting to return to a land where he had deep and unusual family ties. So when he ran into Dmitri A. Medvedev, the country’s future president, at the World Economic Forum in Davos last year, he saw his chance. In a brief conversation at a dinner at the Swiss resort, he pressed Mr. Medvedev for assistance in regaining his Russian visa. Mr. Medvedev, then a top aide to President Vladimir V. Putin, agreed to pass along his request. A short time later, Mr. Browder’s office received an unexpected phone call from a senior Moscow police official, who said he had learned of Mr. Browder’s new visa application and might be able to help. “My answer will depend on how you behave, what you provide, and so on,” the official said, according to a recording of the call supplied by Mr. Browder. “The sooner we meet and you provide what is necessary, the sooner your problems will disappear.”

Mr. Browder’s problems, in fact, were just beginning.

The phone call was one move in a wide-ranging offensive by Russian law enforcement that exposed Mr. Browder to the kind of crippling investigations that Kremlin critics have regularly endured under Mr. Putin. It appeared that the ultimate goal was not only to seize Mr. Browder’s investment empire, but also to make him an example of what happens to those who do not toe the government’s line. His downfall offers a study in how the Kremlin wields power in the Putin era. The rule of law is subject to its wishes, and those out of favor are easy prey.

Mr. Browder’s case points to the official corruption that afflicts Russia, and the Kremlin’s unwillingness to adopt serious measures to combat it by bolstering the independence of the police and courts. The Kremlin may be reluctant to do so because it wants Russia’s wealth to accrue to those loyal to the leadership. Until his visa was canceled and he moved his operations to London, Mr. Browder cut a colorful figure in Russia, a foreign version of the Russian oligarchs who earned their fortunes in the mass privatization after the fall of the Soviet Union. He courted publicity, and his background made a good story: he is the grandson of Earl Browder, a leader of the American Communist Party in the 1930s. He often said that, not unlike Russia itself, he rebelled by becoming a capitalist. He arrived in Russia in 1996 after a stint in London as an investment banker, and quickly saw opportunities. Russia’s economy was undergoing colossal changes, and Mr. Browder positioned his company, Hermitage Capital, as a vehicle for Western investors to get a piece of the action.

After Mr. Putin became president in 2000, Mr. Browder became a vocal supporter of the Kremlin, saying that Russian needed an authoritarian leader to establish order and calling Mr. Putin his “biggest ally” in Hermitage’s effort to reform big business. Mr. Browder thrived, and the funds managed by Hermitage grew to more than $4 billion.

Mr. Browder does not know exactly why the Kremlin turned against him. But the Kremlin was consolidating control over prized companies like Gazprom and appeared to be chafing at criticism from outside shareholders. Once things went bad, Mr. Browder had no recourse. The police confiscated vital documents from his lawyer’s office in Moscow. He discovered that his holding companies had been stolen from him and re-registered in the name of a convicted murderer in a provincial city. Whoever was behind the scheme took over much of Mr. Browder’s corporate structure in Russia, but failed to get at his investors’ money. Even so, in recent weeks, Mr. Browder said he had learned that his former holding companies had been used to embezzle $230 million from the Russian treasury.

This article is based on interviews with Mr. Browder, his associates and lawyers, as well as on numerous documents they provided that they say prove corruption. Many of his assertions were confirmed independently. Requests for comment were made to several law-enforcement agencies in Russia that Mr. Browder accuses of carrying out or refusing to investigate the scheme. They did not respond or said they would not comment. The Kremlin has not spoken publicly about his case, despite frequent appeals by Mr. Browder and senior British and American officials. Twice in the last two years, Mr. Putin has been asked by reporters about Mr. Browder. Both times, he denied even knowing Mr. Browder’s name.

“I don’t know who this Mr. Browder is, as you say, why he cannot return to Russia,” Mr. Putin, who is now prime minister, said in May. “Russia is a big country,” Mr. Putin said. “There might have been some kind of complications. There might have been some kind of conflicts — conflicts with the authorities, conflicts in the business world, interpersonal conflicts. But that’s life, it’s complicated and varied. If a person thinks that his rights have been violated, let him go to court. We have a legal system that works, thank God.”

A spokesman for Mr. Medvedev, who succeeded Mr. Putin as president in May, confirmed that Mr. Medvedev had spoken with Mr. Browder at Davos last year, but would not comment further. Mr. Medvedev, a former law professor, has vowed to wage war on corruption, often saying that Russia is plagued by “legal nihilism.” Still, the Kremlin under Mr. Medvedev has also snubbed Mr. Browder. “If ever there was a definition of legal nihilism, this is it,” Mr. Browder said in an interview in his office in London, where he now lives. “I was actually fighting to make Russia a better place, and fighting against corruption, which is something that they should have given me a medal for,” Mr. Browder said. “Instead, they drive me out of the country and tarnish everything that I did there.”

A Personal Stake

For Mr. Browder, who is 44, Russia was more than a place to do business, His grandfather, Earl Browder, was a committed Communist from Kansas who moved to the Soviet Union in 1927, staying for several years and marrying a Russian. He returned with her to the United States to lead the Communist Party for a time, even running for president. William Browder also aspired to help build Russia. He hoped to get rich, but he argued that his fight against corporate malfeasance would benefit the country. After all, even as oligarchs got absurdly wealthy in the 1990s in highly questionable schemes, many Russians fell into poverty. “I had a lot of my family in me, and tried to find a way of connecting my past to my future,” he said.

Mr. Browder grew up in Chicago and attended the University of Chicago. After graduating from Stanford Business School in 1989, he set off for London. He later became a British citizen, not out of antipathy toward the United States, he said, but because he felt comfortable there. Mr. Browder’s company, Hermitage Capital, was first bankrolled by Edmond J. Safra, the billionaire founder of Republic National Bank in New York. Mr. Browder said the late Mr. Safra taught him not to shy from kicking up a scandal to protect his interests.

Following that advice, Mr. Browder made a lot of money and a lot of enemies after arriving in Russia in 1996, garnering a reputation as a sharp-eyed analyst of Russian industry who could also be abrasive and headstrong. Hermitage started with $25 million from Republic. The fund was so profitable in its first 18 months, reaping a gain of 850 percent, that it soon attracted more than $1 billion from institutional investors and others in the West. In the Russian financial collapse of 1998, it plunged to $125 million, but it recovered over the past decade, reaching a peak of more than $4 billion. Despite his success, Mr. Browder led a relatively austere lifestyle in Moscow, eschewing the trappings of many expatriates and working so hard, he says, that he learned to speak barely a word of Russian. He tried to keep a low profile, but did employ bodyguards when he engaged in shareholder battles.

Mr. Browder concentrated his investments on the largest Russian companies, most of them in the energy sector and under some Kremlin control. Hermitage became expert at conducting forensic audits into their finances, uncovering all manner of wrongdoing, from insider trading to outright theft. He often leaked the information to the Russian and international press. “It became a matter of desperation, not inspiration,” he said. “You had to become a shareholder activist if you didn’t want everything stolen from you.” Gazprom, one of the world’s largest companies, was a favorite target. Mr. Browder discovered that billions of dollars in gas had been sold at deeply discounted prices to shady intermediaries.

But by 2005, Mr. Putin had assumed complete control over Gazprom as part of his drive to re-nationalize central energy assets. When Hermitage released a dossier assailing mismanagement and corruption at the company, the Kremlin had had enough.
A few months later, Mr. Browder’s visa was canceled. Over the next two years, several of Mr. Browder’s associates and lawyers, as well as their relatives, were victims of crimes, including severe beatings and robberies during which documents were taken. None was solved.

Victim of Corporate Raiding

The real trouble, though, got underway in June 2007, with Mr. Browder stuck outside the country. Dozens of police officers swooped down on the Moscow offices of Hermitage and its law firm, confiscating documents and computers. When a member of the firm protested that the search was illegal, he was beaten by officers and hospitalized for two weeks, said the firm’s head, Jamison R. Firestone. Supervising the raids was the same police official who called Mr. Browder’s office about the visa three and a half months earlier, Lt. Col. Artem Kuznetsov of the Department of Tax Crime of the Interior Ministry. He said he was seeking evidence in an inquiry into whether one of Hermitage’s related entities, called Kameya, had underpaid its taxes by $44 million.

According to court documents obtained by Hermitage lawyers, the F. S. B., successor to the K. G. B., approved the inquiry. The Interior Ministry and the F. S. B. would not comment. Their role against Hermitage was not unusual. Law enforcement has been repeatedly deployed during Mr. Putin’s tenure against Kremlin critics or those whom the Kremlin did not favor in business disputes. Opposition parties faced numerous investigations during the parliamentary elections last fall.

In recent months, TNK-BP, Russia’s third largest oil company, has been subjected to 14 such inquiries, apparently in an effort to push out BP, the British oil giant, which owns half the venture, BP said. The Kremlin apparently wants a state company to take over TNK-BP, analysts said.

The issues surrounding the Hermitage tax payment were complex, but there was a larger question: why did the police need to carry out searches and seize so many documents, including many unrelated to Kameya, when such tax disputes are first supposed to be handled through routine bureaucratic channels? Even more curious, Hermitage asked the Russian tax authorities whether Kameya owed back taxes. The answer was no. But it did not matter. Hermitage was about to become victim of what is known in Russia as corporate raiding, which involves seizing companies and other assets with the aid of corrupt law-enforcement officials and judges. The phenomenon has flourished under Mr. Putin.

In the weeks after the police seized the corporate documents, someone used them to transfer the ownership of three of Hermitage’s holding companies to an entity based in Kazan, a provincial capital 450 miles east of Moscow. The entity’s registered owner was a man with a murder conviction, records show. Now that the corporate raiders had seized the three Hermitage holding companies, they resorted to a classic strategy to try to drain them of money A lawsuit was filed in a court in St. Petersburg in July 2007 against the holding companies, asserting that they had defrauded another company, Logos Plus, of hundreds of millions of dollars in a 2005 deal involving Gazprom stock.

In fact, everything about the lawsuit was bogus, Hermitage lawyers said. Hermitage had never done business with Logos Plus. The documents submitted to the court had obvious inconsistencies, suggesting that conspirators were not worried about being caught. A power of attorney for one of the Hermitage companies was dated four months before the company had been created. While it is unclear whether the judge knew about the fraud, she let the case go forward anyway. Lawyers whom Mr. Browder had never heard of showed up to defend the Hermitage companies and admitted wrongdoing. The judge ruled in favor of Logos Plus. In all, 15 such claims were put forth in similar cases. A total of $1.26 billion in judgments against Hermitage, which did not even learn of the cases until three months later.

Becoming a Personal Target
In the end, the raiders got nothing from Hermitage. After his visa was canceled, Mr. Browder, concerned about such an onslaught, had quietly moved his Russian assets off shore and sold most of them. The holding companies were shells. Still, the scheme was not done. In recent weeks, Hermitage discovered that the fake lawsuits had served another purpose. The raiders used the legal judgments to alter the holding companies’ balance sheets, wiping away their profits for 2006.

They then went to the tax authorities and applied for a refund on taxes that Hermitage had paid in 2006 on the profits. The authorities handed them $230 million from the Russian treasury, Hermitage lawyers said. While Mr. Browder did not suffer grievous financial losses, his work in Russia has been ruined. He has only small investments left here, and has evacuated his Russian staff to London, fearing for their safety. Mr. Browder has, over the last year or two, reinvented himself and Hermitage now has more than $3 billion invested in other parts of the world.

Beginning last December, Hermitage and its bankers filed dozens of lengthy complaints with Russian government agencies, presenting numerous pieces of evidence, including the phone call from Lieutenant Colonel Kuznetsov. To no avail. Mr. Medvedev appointed a committee in May to develop an anti-corruption program, and Hermitage sent letters to its members. None responded. At the same time, as Mr. Browder has stepped up his complaints, the Interior Ministry has set its sights on him personally. It has opened a criminal inquiry into whether he violated an obscure tax law in 2001.

Hermitage did convince one agency, the State Investigative Committee, which is part of the prosecutor general’s office, to examine the case. But Hermitage has come to realize that this inquiry will also most likely go nowhere. Last month, a Hermitage lawyer went to a meeting at the investigative committee about the case and saw a familiar face. It turns out that one of the officials who is helping to lead the inquiry into Hermitage’s allegations is Lieutenant Colonel Kuznetsov.

July 27, 2008 -- Contents

2008-07-27T19:46:00.000-04:00

SUNDAY JULY 27 CONTENTS

(1) The Sunday Photos

(2) The Sunday Sermon

(3) The Sunday Sacrilege

(4) The Sunday Sit-Down Strike

(5) The Sunday "Saint"

(6) The Sunday Funnies

NOTE: Kim Zigfeld's latest installment on Pajamas Media details the latest horrifying facts indicating that the Kremlin is engaged in politically-motivated murder campaigns to advance its interests, and pointing out that these murdering thugs are licking their chops in anticipation of an Obama presidency. Those who support democracy should be heartened, however, by the fact that the Kremlin understands it is so weak that it can't win arguments or votes; instead, the only way it can hope to prevail is crude violence, little different from that practiced by the Chechen "bandits" it purports to despise. Comments as to how the West should best respond to this barbaric outrage are welcome.

The Sunday Photos: Russia's Eternal Shame

2008-07-27T11:00:00.000-04:00

"One of the largest state-sponsored monuments to the Gulag, this monument sits atop a hill in Astana, the capital of independent Kazakhstan. It incorporates the names of all the major Gulag camps in Kazakhstan, images of barbed wire and the black raven (symbolic of the prisoner truck bearing its name). Many of the non-Russian republics of the former Soviet Union have more readily dealt with the legacy of the Gulag, as they have built it into a narrative of what they (the Russians) did to us (the non-Russian peoples of whatever state). Of course, this simplifies a very complex history in many cases, but at least allows for the beginning of a conversation."

Where is the Russian Astana?

Russia can never escape the eternal shame it has brought upon itself for attempting to sweep the horror of the gulag under the national carpet. And the new online exhibition "Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives" from which the above photo was taken only serves to memorialize this point. A project not of the Russian government but of the American George Mason University and the Center for History and New Media, it documents the horror of worshiping Stalin, eerily similar to what is now happening with Vladimir Putin. A live exhibit will open in Washington DC later this summer.

And it underscores the single most important fact about Russian history: By far the worst murderer of Russians is other Russians. Russian xenophobia is, quite simply, utterly insane.

The Sunday Sermon: Stay in Prison, Mr. Khodorkovsky

2008-07-27T10:38:00.000-04:00

EDITORIAL

Stay in Prison, Mr. Khodorkovsky

It's hard to imagine a charade more obscene and absurd than the one that developed last week as jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky applied for parole after five years in custody on an eight-year sentence for alleged tax fraud. Should parole be denied, he plans to make a show of appealing directly to "President" Medvedev for justice.

Remember Martin Luther King's famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail"? We've heard no such pronouncements from Khodorkovsky, who has been so uncommunicative that his own lawyers over at Robert Amsterdam's blog are often reduced to reporting on his activities by relying on mass media reports. We have no idea, in fact, what plans if any he has for reorganizing Russia's government in a civilized and democratic manner, or indeed what if anything he believes should be Russia's future course.

If Khodorkovsky were to be released, the only basis upon which it could occur would be his secret undertaking to support the Putin dictatorship in all perpetuity. His release on parole would imply that he recognizes the charges against him were valid, and is acquiescing not only in his conviction but also in the nationalization of his company, Yukos. It would confirm what the Kremlin has said about him all along, that he was never a pro-democracy opposition leader, only a corrupt businessman looking for all the loot he could grab.

And besides all that, nobody seems to have noticed that the Kremlin is in the process of filing new charges against Khodorkovsky, charges that could keep him in prison for many more years. They're hardly going to release him on parole if they are serious about those charges. So even if Khodorkovsky won parole on the old charges, he'd be kept in prison pending the new ones. As the International Herald Tribune reported: "He is now accused of laundering almost $30 billion and misappropriating 350 million tons of oil."

The best possible spin that could be put on all this is that Khodorkovsky, knowing he faces many more years behind bars, is tweaking "President" Medvedev's nose by making the application, calling his bluff on alleged legal reform in Russia and holding him up to the ridicule of the world. It's also possible that he wants to appeal the denial of parole to the European Court for Human Rights, proving to that tribunal that the alleged infractions he has been charged with while in prison were a fallacious pretext to keep him out of Putin's hair. He says he can produce the testimony of a former cellmate who was induced to lie about the infractions, and that would certainly be embarrassing to the Kremlin.

But is this really the best Khodorkovsky can manage by way of protest against the Kremlin's malignant misdeeds? By applying for parole, Khodorkovsky is making it seem to his supporters that he might possibly cut a back-room deal with the Kremlin, and in the wake of his political silence this possibility can only be unsettling. Indeed, if Khodorkovsky were to walk free, then his ongoing challenge to his conviction in the EHCR would lose all meaning, and his entire incarceration would take on the aspect of a cosmic charade.

If Mikhail Khodorkovsky isn't interested in trying to become Russia's Martin Luther King or Gandhi, then he's just one of innumerable Russians who have been victimized by a corrupt justice system and there is no reason to pay him any more attention than any of them. It's time for Mr. K to fish or cut bait.

The Sunday Sacrilege

2008-07-27T08:46:00.000-04:00

Masha Lipman of the Carnegie Center, writing in the Washington Post:

The Russian Orthodox Church called on government authorities this month to condemn the Soviet communist regime. It's odd that the church should think about this now: It's been two decades since Mikhail Gorbachev initiated an avalanche of public disclosures about the horrors of the gulag and the masterminds of the bloody communist dictatorship -- Lenin, Stalin, their accomplices and their followers.

That national journey into history was followed by the collapse of communism and then the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin, evolved as a passionate anti-communist and banished the rule of fear and repression that had plagued the nation for seven decades. In the following years, the government and public organizations sought to restore the historical record.

But Russia's next president, Vladimir Putin, distanced himself from his predecessor's outlook. During his presidency, anti-communism was strongly played down. Some communist symbols, including Stalin's national anthem, were brought back, and references to Stalin's crimes all but disappeared from official discourse. Government rhetoric promoting Russia as a strong state and warning of a hostile Western world seeking to harm the country boosted admiration for Stalin, which never quite died out during the post-communist years, and a general nostalgia for Soviet times.

The church's anti-communist initiative may serve the interests of the Russian leadership, which appears to look for ways to denounce communism while avoiding raising questions about today's regime and its association with the communist past.

The interest in a denunciation of communism may have to do with appeals by former Soviet states for an international condemnation of the massacres and other crimes committed on their territories by the Soviet regime. Ukraine, for instance, seeks to hold Russia responsible for the mass famine of its peasants during Stalin's collectivization. Russian officials may be enraged, but they're not in a position to say the death toll estimate is false, not least since Russian peasants fell victim to the same villainy. So the trick for Russia would be to admit crimes but not to take the blame for them, lest Ukraine or other nations seek compensation.

The church, the state's traditional ally, is an appropriate candidate for this mission. Because of its notorious collaboration with the Soviet regime, it has its own reason not to go too deep in denouncing communism. In several statements over the past couple of weeks, a church spokesman urged the government, in very general terms, to honor the memory of victims; to change the names of cities and streets associated with prominent communist figures of the past; to remove "statues of bloody leaders from central squares"; and more. This "de-communization lite" made no mention of Stalin or other perpetrators of the Great Terror, or of the monstrous state security forces that tortured and executed millions on the orders of the Communist Party.

The church's call for de-communization helps the state further marginalize the public effort led by Memorial, the Russian human rights group that, since the late 1980s, has researched and published information on communist crimes. Unlike the Russian Orthodox Church, Memorial wouldn't keep denunciations of communism within "reasonable limits." Little wonder that the church's anti-communist campaign conveys the impression that the church is the only organization concerned with confronting communist horrors.

Putin's Kremlin consistently sought to sideline organizations that wouldn't compromise their autonomy and that pursued agendas that did not conform with the official line. Lately, Memorial may have raised more concerns: As Memorial's board chairman, Arseny Roginsky, told me, public support for his organization has increased. Backing anti-Stalin initiatives, he explains, may be seen as a mild form of opposition by people who regard overt political activity as risky and pointless. For example, construction of a national memorial to gulag victims is again the subject of public discussion. Gorbachev and other prominent public figures are taking an active role. And Novaya Gazeta, a newspaper that Gorbachev co-owns, has published a series this year devoted to the victims of and participants in the Great Terror.

Interest in the dark side of Soviet history is modest now compared with the nationwide yearning in the late 1980s for the truth about the Soviet regime's crimes. But it may be enough to make the Kremlin want to preempt or control such interest. If its plan is indeed to enlist the church in a mild anti-communist campaign while marginalizing Memorial, the government has abundant power and resources to do so. Of course, even a limited condemnation of Soviet communism is better than nothing, but these political half-measures cannot supersede a national effort to come to terms with Russia's history.

The Sunday Sit-Down Strike

2008-07-27T04:22:00.000-04:00

Reuters reports (hat tip: TakeYourCross):

Carrying bags of stolen groceries, Oleg Vorotnikov takes out the batteries of his mobile phone before entering the secret headquarters of his underground art collective on the outskirts of Moscow.

"This is to prevent the cops from listening in," said Vorotnikov, a 29-year-old art graduate, who with other politically conscious artists co-founded the Voina, or War, collective in 2007. "Once a drunk artist introduced us to bystanders as 'Russia's main radical group' -- that's when I understood that we have to do something together," Vorotnikov said.

In a country where traditional opposition to the government has been dulled by public apathy and a diet of pro-Kremlin television news, these artists take a different approach: they poke fun at the establishment, and the more absurd the better. They hunch over laptops in their headquarters -- a garage -- editing video of their latest piece of guerrilla street theater: an impromptu tea party in a police station. For the lack of chairs they sit on chests of drawers and a TV set. Cameras, camcorders and books of poetry are scattered over the floor.

"We always do things that violate rules. We combine art and politics to achieve something new," said Kotyonok, a slightly built young woman who teaches physics at a Moscow university and who only gave her nickname, which means kitten. "People watch us and are simply shocked."

Voina became a household name in the Russian blogger scene with a stunt intended as a wry commentary on the handover of power -- decried by opponents as undemocratic -- from former President Vladimir Putin to his successor, Dmitry Medvedev. A day before the presidential election that Medvedev won by a landslide, five couples, including one heavily pregnant woman who gave birth four days later, secretly undressed in Moscow's Biological Museum. With video cameras rolling, they had sex in front of a banner calling for copulation in support of "the bear cub-successor" - a pun on Medvedev's family name, which is derived from the Russian word for bear.

EVICTED

Blogs carrying photos and videos of the event shot to number one in Russian Internet rankings within 24 hours. Some users called the participants "freaks," "sh--eaters" or "animals." One blogger suggested they should be shot. When the mother of the pregnant woman saw her having sex on television, she threw her out of home. Voina said they had to leave their old headquarters under pressure from the authorities but few members have yet to face the full weight of the law for their activities.

The group is most vulnerable to the catch-all "hooliganism" charge that could lead to a short prison term, but only one member is currently facing prosecution for throwing cats during one performance. Voina's actionist art draws on Moscow Conceptualism, a movement that started in the 1970 with performances subverting socialist ideology. Given the repressive nature of the Soviet state, these happenings had to take place secretly.

Only when state control over the arts receded during Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika reforms in the 1980s could artists take their events into the public sphere. In April 1991 members of a group around Anatoly Osmolovsky, a Russian artist, art theorist and curator, lay down on Red Square forming the word "khui," Russian for cock, with their naked bodies. Voina members describe the happening as inspiring but add that it would be impossible today in an "authoritarian Russia" where, nevertheless, they have earned the respect of some in the mainstream art scene.

"In the '90s art fell under the influence of a society that was becoming more and more bourgeois: artists happily turned into conformists," said Andrei Yerofeyev, who until last month was head of modern art procurement at the state-run Tretyakov Gallery. "Only in the last year a strain of protest art reappeared, one that takes a critical line, reflects, takes a step back and sometimes cynically, sometimes comically, describes what is going on in our society."

Back in the Voina headquarters the activists scramble around a laptop computer trying to improve the sound of their latest video to make it fit for Internet publication. Shaky images, filmed with a hidden camera the day before Medvedev's inauguration, show the artists dishing out cream cakes and tea in a police station. Watched by a stunned officer, they pin Medvedev's portrait to a wall. "We invite you to celebrate with us the inauguration of the new president," one activist can be heard saying. Attempting to remove the intruders, the officer resorts to verbal abuse. "We have to fix the sound, you can't hear anything," said Kotyonok, twitching the dials on the video- editing software.

UNDERGROUND WAKE

In another piece of performance art, the group rigged up a table in a metro carriage, brought out food and vodka and held a wake for absurdist poet Dmitry Prigov. They also marked international workers' day by going in to a McDonald's restaurant and throwing live cats at the counter staff. The idea, they said, was to help snap the workers out of the dull routine of menial labor. Behind the bizarre stunts, the artists who make up Voina have a serious political agenda. "If the authorities say 'we are building a strong state,' an artist should show that this is not the case. If they say 'we are improving the lives of the people,' an artist should show that this is a lie," said Vorotnikov over dinner, tearing off a hunk of the chicken he earlier stole from a supermarket. But they say their work is also a journey of self-discovery, to see how far they can push their own boundaries as artists and radicals. "We hate cops but if we just attacked them like that, they would jail us immediately. So we hide our hatred behind art so they can't get us and we achieve our aim quicker," said Kotyonok.

The authorities have dealt harshly with overtly political opposition but to date there has been no sign of a crackdown on Voina. Acting under the aegis of art protects them to a large extent, she said. "We've had sex in public and are no longer scared of it. We've invaded a police station and are no longer scared of it. What else is there to scare us?," asked Kotyonok. "Death we will deal with in the future. Soon we will be completely fearless."

The Sunday "Saint"

2008-07-27T04:15:00.000-04:00

On the red banner is written: "Glory to Stalin the Great!"

The Telegraph's Russia correspondent reports:

A couple of years ago I was in the Battle of Stalingrad Museum in the city now known as Volgograd.

On the wall of museum director Boris Usik’s office hung two paintings, one a delicate watercolour of the late Queen Mother, the other a heroic depiction of Josef Stalin in oils.

Seeing the old tyrant hung so prominently in a state official’s office was unnerving at the time. While the odd statue of Stalin had been restored in a couple of village squares, the man who subjected Russia to 31 years of terror had largely disappeared from public view.

Yet over the past couple of years it has once again become cool to revere Stalin, and so it was not much of a surprise to learn that the dictator responsible for perhaps 20 million deaths was leading early voting in a nationwide poll to decide the country’s greatest historical figure.

Even during his lifetime, Stalin enjoyed more public support in Russia than many in the West realise. After all, those who opposed him were dispatched to the gulags or their deaths. Others were terrified into silence.

But then, as now, a sizeable chunk of the population either swallowed the propaganda or genuinely believed that Stalin had reinvigorated a moribund nation, turning in to a great power while simultaneously saving Europe from Hitler.

For old Communists like Mr Usik, Stalin’s name is synonymous with stability in a country that has not had much of it of late. What has struck me, however, is Stalin’s cross-generational appeal. I’ve even heard bright young students praise his disastrous agricultural collectivization policies. Most Russians, even his supporters, acknowledge that Stalin had an awful lot of blood on his hands.

But they argue that it was a period in history when Russia needed a tough man at the top. And they argue that there is much more on the positive side of Stalin’s ledger, particularly in the Great Patriotic War.

While the Soviet Union’s role is often minimized in the West, many Russians are unaware of the role played by Britain and the United States in defeating Hitler. They believe the Second World War only began in 1941 and maintain that Russia fought alone for three years until Britain and the United States reluctantly joined the war during the D-Day landings of 1944.

Yet the fact that Stalin’s popularity has also grown in recent years – something attested to in opinion polls – is undoubtedly partly to do with an unofficial state campaign to rehabilitate his image.

A series of television documentaries, films and books released in recent years have proved little less than eulogies. Then the Kremlin began to attack the publishing industry for being beholden to Western grants.

Television news programmes, whose content is dictated by the State, regularly reported that the history text books used in schools had been distorted by the West to skew the representation of Russia’s Communist past.

So a new history guidebook for teachers was published last year which glossed over Stalin’s crimes and ultimately declared him Russia’s greatest leader of the 20th century.

Despite earlier denials that anything of the sort was planned, the work was republished as a children’s text book and while it has not become a mandatory set text most schools know they risk trouble if they try to teach from anything else.

Why is the Kremlin so intent on rehabilitating Stalin? Garry Kasparov, the former chess giant and opposition leader, reckons that by hamming up Stalin’s greatness, Russians will be more inclined to forgive the government’s march towards authoritarianism.

After all, as the old dictum states, he who controls the present controls the past and he who controls the past controls the future.

The Sunday Funnies

2008-07-27T00:29:00.000-04:00

July 25, 2008 -- Contents

2008-07-25T18:52:00.000-04:00

FRIDAY JULY 25 CONTENTS

(1) EDITORIAL: An Economy Built on Sand

(2) Inflation Continues to Brutalize Putin's Russia

(3) Economic Storm Clouds over Russia

(4) Latynina on the Arctic Gambit

(5) Nashi in the Wilderness

(6) Annals of Foreign Investors: Another One Bites the Dust

EDITORIAL: An Economy Built on Sand

2008-07-25T11:24:00.000-04:00

EDITORIAL

An Economy Built on Sand

As you can see from the chart above, over the past four weeks the Russian stock market has lost 12.5% of its value.

For anyone with a lick of sense, this news is truly jolting. Since Russia is benefiting from the stratospheric increases in the prices of oil, the stock market's performance betrays a fundamental weakness in the foundations of the economy itself.

Writing in the Moscow Times James Beadle, a portfolio manager for Pilgrim Asset Management, wrote in column entitled "Russia's economy is stalling" that the government's economic growth data for June fell far below the market's expectations and noted that "initial public offerings have slowed substantially and May industrial production data were also weaker, as they showed manufacturing growth of less than 1 percent over the year. Cooling growth dynamics point to a possible shift in confidence." He concluded: "June's economic data caught the market by surprise and serve to remind that the path ahead is less clear. With the benefit of hindsight, the sharp declines in these economic parameters, which constitute some of Russia's key economic drivers, are not surprising. It has long been recognized that President Dmitry Medvedev faces far greater development challenges than his predecessor ever did. Even if the global backdrop remains benign, the country faces economic constraints that cannot be resolved with easy money."

Beadle makes money by convincing folks to invest in Russia's markets. When somebody like that is ringing the warning bell, you know things are pretty dire indeed. And below we offer two more devastating nails in Russia's economic coffin. But the Russian people go blithely on, telling a naked Mr. Putin he's wearing a cloak of mink, fit for a king, just as in Soviet times.

MT Columnist Boris Kagarlitsky put it bluntly: "We are being told that Russian capitalism is self-sufficient, invincible and unique, not unlike Josef Stalin's view of his socialist society. It is not entirely clear why our government and business leaders so zealously tried to open Russia's markets and to pull us into the global economy if we now intend to lead some kind of solitary existence, isolated economically from whatever happens to the rest of the world. The main question is: What will we do when the global economic system collapses?"

Kagarlitsky is right on target, but he's wrong about the main question, and his own text betrays this. The question isn't what will Russia do, but why isn't Russia asking that question. Why isn't anyone challenging the Putin government given all this disturbing reality? Could it be that they are afraid to do so, just as many were afraid to confront Stalin, leaving the nation on an essentially rudderless course to destruction?

Inflation Continues to Brutalize Putin's Russia

2008-07-25T07:43:00.001-04:00

Interfax reports that inflation continues to brutalize Russia far more dramatically than Europe. And remember, this is just the Kremlin's data. The true picture is likely far more bleak than even these appalling numbers indicate.

Inflation on food prices in Russia was almost four times higher than in the EU countries in the first half of 2008, the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) said on Tuesday.

Food prices in Russia grew 1.1% in June (and 12.9% in the first half) compared to 0.3% (3.5%) on average in the EU countries.

The biggest jumps in food prices among EU countries in June were seen in the UK at 2.4%, Portugal - 1.6% and Latvia - 1.4%. Food prices dropped in a number of EU countries in June, mainly due to seasonal declines in fruit and vegetable prices. Food prices were down 3.1% in Bulgaria, 2.1% in Greece, 2.0% in Cyprus and 1.2% in Finland.

In the January-June period, the biggest EU food price increases were posted in Latvia (up 9.6%), Lithuania (8.4%), Finland, Hungary, Estonia, Slovakia, and the UK (up 6.3%-6.9%). The smallest increases were in Malta (up 0.7%), Austria (1.1%) and Greece (1.3%).

Oil and fat prices saw the biggest increase in the EU in June, rising 1%, while prices on meat and meat products rose 0.9% and the cost of fish and seafood grew by 0.8%. Baked goods and cereals grew 0.7% in price.

The cost of baked goods and cereals grew the most in Russia in June 2008 (2.4%). The cost of meat and meat products rose 2.1%, while butter and fat prices rose 1.6%. The cost of vegetables, sugar, jam, honey, chocolate and confectionaries rose 1.4% in June, while the cost of dairy products, cheese and eggs fell 2% and fruit prices dropped 0.8%.

In the EU, fruit prices saw the biggest increase in the half, growing 8.4%. The cost of baked goods and cereals rose by an average of 4.6% in the half, while butter and fat prices grew 4.2%.

Vegetables prices soared 53.5% in Russia in the first half of 2008, baked goods and cereals - 18%, butter and fats - 16.1% and fruit - 13.2%.

Economic Stormclouds over Russia

2008-07-25T07:27:00.000-04:00

The International Herald Tribune reports:

Fears are growing that Russia's oil and gas fueled economy is running too hot — and about to boil over in the kind of mess that has scalded smaller East European neighbors.

Some of the most vehement warnings have been coming from the normally bland Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who saysgross domestic product is growing too fast and any ill-conceived stimulus measures such proposed tax cuts will lead to intolerable inflation and a sudden stall in growth.

Kudrin startled audience at a recent tax conference when he compared the issue to nuclear war. Cut taxes, Kudrin warned, and Russia won't maintain its thousands of atomic warheads. "The 33 percent share of the budget spent on defense and security is our guarantee that there won't be a nuclear war," the minister said.

His opponents, including Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina, are clamoring for the sharp tax cut to wean Russia off its addiction to imports, which are growing at an annual rate of over 40 percent.

The government is walking a tightrope. With all the government and private sector spending, inflation is reeling out of control — food prices are soaring at an annual rate of 25 percent — and threatens to submerge hundreds of thousands of people below the poverty line.

Dollars are flooding in thanks to record-high oil prices, and the country's rising middle class is on an unprecedented spending binge thanks to accessible bank loans. The government, in the meantime, is hustling to modernize exhausted infrastructure, pumping up the economy even more.

Kudrin's sensationalist remark about Russia's nukes comes at a time when the nation's economy is bucking recessionary trends around the globe. GDP growth, fueled by the rising price of Russia's mainstays, natural gas and oil, was 8.1 percent last year and 8.7 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2008.

"Russia's economy is overheated at the moment," said Eric Berglof, chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. "The growth rate is too high — two to three percentage points above potential."

An economy overheats when its capacity to produce cannot keep up with rising demand. A World Bank report issued in June lists seven signs — ranging from infrastructure constraints to accelerating property prices.

"The government has failed to address bottlenecks in the economy, to implement necessary infrastructure projects that would improve the power system, railroads, agriculture, or alleviate the traffic jams in Moscow," Berglof said.

But if the government throws too much money at resolving these problems, the risk is that the cash injection will only further fuel inflation, economists say.

During the waning months of his presidency last year, Vladimir Putin approved a number of big projects as part of a pre-election spending spree. As a result, state spending jumped 37 percent last year, and 70 percent in the fourth quarter alone. Putin's favored candidate, Dmitry Medvedev, was elected president and Putin is now Prime Minister.

Russia's consumer price index has climbed 9.1 percent from the start of the year to July 14, according to the state statistics agency — three percentage points higher than in the same period last year and outpacing the Central Bank's forecast of 10.5 percent for 2008. On an annual basis, prices soared above 15 percent.

As prices rise, workers demand higher pay, creating an inflationary spiral. And as food prices rise, poorer people spend more on necessities. FBK International, a consultancy, has forecast that the number of Russians living in poverty could increase this year for the first time since 2000 — by 1.1 million people to a total 20 million.

"Inflation needs to be cooled down sooner rather than later. If it is not dealt with early, the consequence will be ... a greater fall in the growth rate, as we see in Estonia and Latvia right now," said Anders Aslund, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, referring to the two Baltic states whose economies overheated and are now seeing a sharp decline in growth.

Tax-cut supporters insist that reducing the value-added tax from 18 to 12 percent will provide manufacturers the necessary respite to rejuvenate output. Also, by jump-starting manufacturing and small and medium businesses, tax-cut advocates also hope to diversify the economy, which is highly dependent on oil and gas.

Not so, countered Kudrin. The VAT accounts for one-third of federal budget revenues. Cutting it will not help economic restructuring, as badly as Russia needs it.

Concerns over Russia's economy coincide with the approaching 10th anniversary of the 1998 financial crisis, when the country defaulted on domestic debt and devalued the currency, causing a shock wave on international markets. Millions of Russians lost their savings.

Economists stress there is no chance of a repeat crisis. Russia has wisely used the oil windfall to tuck away hundreds of billions of dollars in strategic reserves and sovereign wealth funds — "rainy day" funds that it can use as a buffer against any short-term shock such as a precipitous drop in oil prices.

Latynina on the Arctic Gambit

2008-07-25T07:17:00.000-04:00

Writing in the Moscow Times Yulia Latynina decries Russia's malignant Arctic corruption:

The vast oil deposits located in what the Kremlin believes to be an extension of Russia's continental shelf in the Arctic will be distributed solely at the government's discretion, without holding the usual auctions or tenders. In a meeting on Friday with Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who oversees the energy sector, President Dmitry Medvedev explained the decision, saying, "This was done consciously to ensure rational use of this national wealth."

Is he saying that only the imperialists allocate the rights to develop oil deposits through competitive auctions, whereas the Kremlin lets Sechin decide who gets what? Is Sechin the sole guarantor of Russia's "rational use of its national wealth"?

Prior to this announcement, Russia had been trying for a year to prove that the Lomonosov ridge, on the bottom of the Arctic, is a logical extension of the Siberian plain. General Vladimir Shamanov even said in a June 24 interview in Krasnaya Zvezda, the country's military newspaper, that the military is prepared to fight any country that disputes Russia's rights to the continental shelf.

So we won't hold a tender, but we are willing to go to war. Naval warships will repel the forces of any country that contests Sechin's right to exploit the oil deposits on the continental shelf.

In January, when Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov told the then-prosecutor general to find out what is going on with country's drilling activities in the Arctic, it was discovered that the country's only functioning Arctic drilling rigs, the Murmansk and the Valentin Shashin, had been rented out to a Norwegian drilling company at one-fourth of the market price. What a great example of the country's "rational use of its national wealth"!

Things are no better with the military. During Soviet times, the country's nuclear submarines patrolled the Arctic region. Strategically, it was the most favorable location from which Moscow could launch a possible nuclear strike against the United States; a missile launch from the Arctic would have the shortest possible flight time to U.S. territory.

Maintaining a military presence in the Arctic, however, requires a complex and very expensive infrastructure, including a sophisticated communications system that can function reliably despite severe magnetic interference, and the ability to accurately predict bad weather conditions.

But the Soviet Union had all that. My colleague and specialist on the Russian military, Alexander Golts, once pointed out to me that, "If anybody thinks we were on [the Arctic island of] Spitsbergen solely to mine coal, they should take a look at the weather station and landing strip there." But since it was impossible to rent out our Spitsbergen assets for one-fourth of their market value to maximize "the rational use of its national wealth," the whole installation fell into disrepair.

It is, therefore, unclear what military resources Shamanov will have at his disposal to defend Sechin's claims to the rich Arctic natural resources.

The most interesting part of this story is that, although there might really be large oil and gas reserves under the Arctic, Russia, unfortunately, is unable to mine those deposits without the help of foreign expertise and equipment. We can't even tap the huge Shtokman gas field in the Barents Sea by ourselves.

But it is hard to imagine Russia entering joint Arctic exploration and development projects with foreign companies when our leaders are constantly shaking our fists at them and sending the country's nuclear submarines to patrol the Arctic waters.

Or perhaps the Kremlin is planning to pour a couple billion dollars into the creation of an exotic new Russian hybrid -- half-nuclear sub and half-underwater drilling platform. Not a bad idea at all! And I have got a perfect name for this one-of-a-kind vessel -- "The Igor Sechin." On its side we could write: "For the optimal use of Russia's natural resources."

Nashi, in the Wilderness

2008-07-25T04:11:00.001-04:00

The Times of London reports:

It should have been a celebration of their success in defending Vladimir Putin's Russia from a democratic revolution. Instead, the annual summer camp of the youth movement Nashi (Ours) seems a listless affair. The ideologues behind it admit that Nashi has run out of steam now that Dmitri Medvedev is in the Kremlin as Mr Putin's handpicked successor. The face of Mr Putin, now Prime Minister, still hangs from banners spread across the campsite, on the shores of Lake Seliger, 300 miles (480km) north of Moscow. Mr Medvedev is virtually invisible.

Even the anti-Western propaganda seems half-hearted compared with previous outpourings of hate against opposition leaders such as Mikhail Kasyanov, a former Prime Minister, and Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion. Nashi's principal “enemy” this time is a pig named after Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the President of Estonia. An Estonian tricolour flies over his sty in protest at the removal of a Red Army monument in the capital, Tallinn.

Fewer than 5,000 activists are at the two-week camp, half the number last time, as organisers struggle to find a purpose now that the presidential election is over. Street protest has given way to support for Russian economic development under the “Putin plan” to 2020.

Patriotism remains a constant theme, particularly the need to produce children for the Motherland. Igor Shuvalov, the First Deputy Prime Minister, toured the camp in a T-shirt with the slogan “Home, wife, children. I love my family”. Yuliya and Vitali Shuvayev were among 15 Nashi couples who demonstrated their devotion to the cause in a mass wedding. They spent their honeymoon in a group of tents formed in a heart shape under a banner proclaiming: “This is the miracle of Seliger.”

“Nashi means patriotism for us. That's why we wanted to get married here,” Yuliya, 22, said. “We want three children because the first two are for the parents and the third is for growth of the country.”

Nashi has now splintered into different branches that support causes ranging from the Orthodox Church to business innovation. Some of its more muscular traditions remain. One section, Stal, organises street protests, while another trains young men to form street patrols with the police. The movement revives a Soviet-era tradition of volunteer druzhniki to maintain order. “A lot of young people have nothing to do and just watch TV, so we tell them that if they want to help the country then here's their chance,” Roman Verbitsky, the Stal leader, said. Mr Shuvalov laughed as he passed a derelict shed symbolising Mr Kasparov's movement, The Other Russia, which was hounded by riot police during anti-Putin demonstrations before the elections.

Nashi was founded in 2005 as a response to the pro-democracy Orange Revolution that had swept Ukraine and the Rose Revolution in Georgia. Sergei Markov, a United Russia MP and a key Nashi ideologist, admitted that the movement had “lost its mission”. He told The Times: “The mission was to prevent an Orange Revolution.” Asked whether Nashi had any place when the Kremlin under President Medvedev was attempting to present a more liberal face to the West, Dr Markov replied: “Nashi is part of pop culture now and they are fans of Putin. Medvedev for them is a bureaucrat, while Putin is a hero.”

The AFP has more:

Military training, satirical shows and US-style business seminars were among the strange mix of activities on offer at this year's summer camp for Nashi -- the Kremlin's youth movement. With political power in Russia now firmly in the hands of President Dmitry Medvedev and his mentor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, it seems that the massive group set up to counter any popular dissent has lost its focus. As the movement searches for a new purpose in Medvedev's Russia, its activists say one solution could be to concentrate on beating the West at its own game by making the most of the country's oil-fueled economic boom.

"Medvedev unfortunately doesn't have the same attitude towards Nashi as Putin," a senior member of the movement told AFP during a visit this month to the camp near Lake Seliger, 400 kilometres (250 miles) northeast of Moscow. "But it would be dangerous to let these young people go now. They could join the opposition," said the Nashi member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, noting that there were three times fewer activists this year than last year. "The authorities have lost their interest in Nashi," read a report on the Gazeta.ru news website. Nashi leader Nikita Borovikov was quoted in the report as saying: "The movement changes in line with the country's agenda."

Reflecting Kremlin thinking, events at the camp included a wedding of 20 couples who were then told to go and procreate to solve Russia's demographic crisis, and the founding of an Orthodox group against Kosovo's independence. Nashi, which translates as "Our People" [LR: No, it doesn't. It translates as "us Slavic Russians"], was set up by Kremlin officials under Putin in 2005 immediately after Ukraine's Orange Revolution, where youth activism proved decisive in toppling the country's pro-Moscow government. They have held large-scale demonstrations as a show of force against Russia's beleaguered opposition and have launched stinging campaigns against Kremlin critics, as well as trying to spread a Putin personality cult.

But this year, Nashi members said they wanted to focus on career prospects. "We have selected 340 students from 25 regions. Experts work with them to help them join the elites," said Yelena Berezhnikova, head of one of the movement's subgroups called "Personnel for Modernisation of the Country". The library at the camp contained economic manuals, a biography of former US president Bill Clinton and a book by US management guru Tom Peters. One of the lectures on offer was entitled: "How to overcome US hegemony."

But while some Nashi activists charted out stellar careers to serve Russia's national interests, others were busy mocking Russia critics or undergoing military training to fight against the anti-Kremlin opposition. Activists organised a show at the camp in which a character covered in dollars representing the United States walked around with a pig on a leash. The pig was named after Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves.

Relations between Estonia and Russia are testy as Kremlin officials say the Baltic country discriminates against its large ethnic-Russian minority. One of the Nashi slogans for the show read: "If you lose control, you get fucked!" For more direct action, the movement even showed off a military wing that trains reformed alcoholics and drug addicts and turns them into street fighters who patrol cities alongside Russian police to clamp down on "disorder." The peaceful transition of power from Putin to his ally Medvedev is paraded by the Nashi as a victory. But Matvei Matyushin, one of the group's leaders, said: "It seems that everything's okay but we have to remain vigilant."

Another one Bites the Dust

2008-07-25T02:21:00.000-04:00

So Russia has ejected yet another foreign company from its soil, appropriating its assets and stabbing it in the back. How many more such incidents must occur before greed-blinded Westerners realize that they have no future in Russia? Does Russia need to starting chucking a few CEOs into concentration camps before this happens? If so, hopefully that will soon begin to occur. The Telegraph reports:

BP's battle to stay in oil-rich Russia has been dealt a major blow after the UK company was forced to withdraw its last engineers and technical staff from the country.

After months of pressure the company bowed to the inevitable yesterday and withdrew the remaining 60 staff it had assigned to work at TNK-BP, the joint venture at the centre of a power struggle between BP and three Russian oligarchs.

The withdrawal marks a further slip in BP's grip on Russia's third largest oil producer, which accounts for 25pc of the UK company's annual production and last year made profits of $5bn on sales of $38bn.

Next week, Robert Dudley, chief executive of TNK-BP and a former employee of BP, may be forced to leave Russia in a row over his work permit, putting BP's partners in de facto control of the joint venture.

In all, 148 BP secondees to TNK-BP have been forced to leave following a dispute over the renewal of visas that started in March.

The Moscow immigration office eventually approved the visas, but the employees were barred from TNK-BP's Moscow offices by security guards.

Then, in May, a previously unknown investment company, Tetlis, got an injunction in Tuymen, Siberia, blocking the visas, claiming that the BP staff enjoyed inflated salaries.

The Daily Telegraph tried to contact Tetlis, but a Moscow address listed on court documents housed a chemist shop and a grocers. A second address, registered with the authorities in Moscow, was a children's nursery.

Yesterday, BP said that the Tuymen court case had made little progress and there was no point having valuable employees idle in Russia when they could be redeployed on other business in the Middle East and Gulf of Mexico.

"We are taking this action reluctantly," Lamar Mckay, BP's executive vice-president, said. "These technical experts have played a huge part in making TNK-BP one of Russia's most successful oil companies in the past few years."

Analysts said losing the BP specialists would probably start to impact on TNK-BP's operations by the end of the year. "These people work on projects with long lead times. The impact will start to be felt in a few months."

However, Stan Polovets, chief executive of Alfa-Access-Renova (AAR), the consortium representing the Russian investors, welcomed BP's decision.

He said: "We respect BP's decision and are confident it will not have an adverse impact on TNK-BP's operations. The BP secondees have not been working for TNK-BP for many months now, and the company's operations have not been hampered in any way. In fact, production has been up for the past three quarters, as our colleagues from BP have noted."

In addition to the secondees, about 85 former BP employees, including Mr Dudley, are now directly employed by TNK-BP. All are facing problems with work permits and visas.

AAR claims that BP runs TNK-BP for its own benefit, rather than for all the shareholders, and has been campaigning for the removal of Mr Dudley. BP denies the claim.

AAR argues that he no longer has an employment contract, and therefore must leave Russia when his visa expires next week. BP says the contract is renewed automatically.

July 23, 2008 -- Contents

2008-07-23T18:14:00.002-04:00

TUESDAY JULY 23 CONTENTS

(1) EDITORIAL: Russian Poverty Chickens, Roosting

(2) Standing up to the Russian Bully

(3) Rumbling Stomachs in the Russian Countryside

(4) Annals of Russian Cyber Terrorism

(5) The Missiles of October 2008

NOTE: Serbia has arrested accused mass murderer Radovan Karadzic. The New York Times reports: "The arrest was hailed by western diplomats as proof of Serbia’s determination to link itself to the west and put the virulent nationalism of the past behind it. It has particular resonance because the new coalition government is the result of an alliance between the Democrats of President Boris Tadic and the Socialist Party of former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, which fought a war against the west in the 1990s, but has now vowed to bring Serbia back into the western fold." Yet another devastating blow for Putin's Russia! Welcome Serbia, the community of civilized nations. You leave Russia behind in the wilds of barbarism. Let's not forget, by any means, that Russia has been aggressively providing aid and comfort to these maniacs for years now, flouting the civilized world at ever turn as usual.

EDITORIAL: Russian Poverty Chickens, Roosting

2008-07-23T11:20:00.000-04:00

EDITORIAL

Russian Poverty Chickens, Roosting

The Financial Times reports that the average Russian teacher earns a salary of about $300 per month. That works out to a truly startling $1.88 per hour for a full-time job.

And that's only the beginning of a teacher's troubles. Because, as we reported last week, consumer price inflation on the basic basket of goods and services that can be purchased by people earning such pathetically low incomes is currently running at 25%. This means that by year's end, if the teacher salary isn't raised, its actual value will have dropped to a measly $225 per month or $1.40 per hour.

The FT quotes Lyudmila Erasova, a university teacher in Voronezh, 500 km south of Moscow: "In Soviet times, we had money but nothing to buy. Now, we have everything, the shops are starting to look good, but no money."

As we report below in an article from the Eurasia Daily Monitor's excellent Russia analyst Jonas Bernstein, these basic facts are rippling throughout Russia and creating a groundswell of discontentment that is little different from what was experienced in Tsarist times and which led to the Bolshevik revolution. In other words, Russia's poverty chickens are coming home to roost.

Now, you tell La Russophobe. If you were a Russian, would you go into the teaching profession? If you wouldn't, just exactly what kind of people do you think would do so, and how well would they perform their task?

Now you tell La Russophobe: What has Vladimir Putin done during his eight-year dictatorship, where he wielded total power over every aspect of Russian life, to address this situation? What has he even said about it? Can you, dear reader, name one single major speech in which Putin had decried the living conditions of Russian teachers and called for a major raise in their salaries? All Russian teachers, except the tiny minority who work in private schools, are direct employees of the Kremlin, and Putin could raise their salaries with the stroke of his pen. He hasn't, the continued to languish in horrifying poverty, and yet the cattle known as Russian "voters" continue to favor Putin with 70% approval ratings, even as he obliterates their children's future.

In Putin's defense, of course, one must acknowledge that the lack of any serious effort at a solution doesn't necessarily indicate he is incompetent. He likely knows the problem exists, but doesn't want to fix it anymore than his Soviet ancestors did. To give Russia a real education system would (a) empower a class of academics who could become regime critics and (b) empower a population to vote using critical thinking and demand a free flow of information. It's so much easier to govern a nation of cattle, and if they are drunken cattle afflicted by drunkenness, smoking and AIDS, so much the better. All that produced a nation of sheep easily led around by a few tough dogs from the KGB.

Recently the investment blog Motley Fool wrote an extensive post extolling the profits being made by Russian steelmaker Mechel over the past year owing to the rising international price of steel. Mechel, of course, can rake in these profits because of the extraordinarily low costs of doing business in a country like Russia where such low wages are paid and individual workers have so few legal rights. But despite all the black ink, the post concluded: "I would advise Fools to think carefully before investing in Mechel, since Russia boldly restricted foreign ownership of certain key industries last week. "

That's Russia in a nutshell! It can't even take advantage of the few areas of its economy where it has a competitiveness advantage because of its frenzied, paranoid xenophobia. And yet, it still expects foreigners to treat Russia "fairly" and with "respect" even as it hates those same foreigners with seething passion. Why, it's almost as if Russians were barbarians educated by "teachers" being paid slave wages and hence without credentials, heedless of their profession, isn't it?

What a country.

Standing up to the Russian Bully

2008-07-23T10:39:00.000-04:00

Writing in Newsweek magazine, Andrew Wilson and Mark Leonard of the the European Council on Foreign Relations argue that "Europe needs to figure out a way to come together to fight back against Russian aggression." Hopefully, this is a sign of a new tsunami of coverage from the MSM, one which should have arisen years ago. But better late than never! Wonderful, heartening stuff.

In the past eight years, Russia has had serious rows with almost half of the EU'S 27 member states. Contrary to popular opinion that such disagreements are fueled by historic grievances in Eastern Europe, these disputes have affected both longtime members of the EU and new ones; both Russia's neighbors and states farther afield; both those who thought they had good relations with Moscow and those who were happy to admit they were bad. For instance, Russia banned Polish meat in 2005, claiming it was unhygienic; it attempted to charge the German airline Lufthansa special fees for flying over Siberia in 2007; and it allegedly engaged in cyberterrorism against Estonia in May 2007 and against Lithuania in June 2008.

For each of these countries, these were more than just foreign-policy problems. They have become an internal problem for the EU as well, creating divisions among member states. For instance, Poland, and then Lithuania, delayed the start of negotiations on an agreement that would help regulate EU-Russia relations, causing frustration among other member states that wanted to proceed. In another instance, the Russian-sponsored North Stream and South Stream gas pipelines have sparked disagreements about preferential energy access, the undermining of current transit states like Ukraine and Europe's own Nabucco project, which is supposed to bring in gas from the Caucasus and Central Asia via the Balkans.

Indeed, it seems that too often Russia has been able to punch above its weight by using underhanded divide-and-conquer tactics—while Europe has failed to recognize that collectively it is much stronger than its members are when they act alone. EU states have seemed confused about when to show solidarity in the face of Russia's games—when, for instance, Moscow offered certain member states, like Germany, preferential energy deals while picking fights with others, like Estonia.

Europe needs to figure out a way to come together to fight back. When it has done so, the results have been impressive. Two years ago, the nationalist Nashi youth group began shadowing the British ambassador, in flagrant breach of various conventions on diplomatic immunity. Especially worrying was the fact that these toughs seemed to be armed with insider information on his daily whereabouts. The United States would have responded harshly toward them. But London failed to comprehend that this was a classic Russian modus operandi: probe for soft spots and push hard. Britain's initial protests were muted, creating a perception of weakness that only invited further Russian aggression. But finally, when the European Union began to protest, it helped solve the problem. Nashi stood down.

The EU has shown a similar capacity to shape Russian behavior when it has agreed on common positions. For instance, in 2004 it persuaded Russia to sign the Kyoto Protocol in exchange for a clearer path to World Trade Organization membership. In 2006 it faced down Russian demands for free passage for its citizens through Lithuania to their stranded enclave of Kaliningrad. But now Russia and Britain are at odds again, in what is possibly the biggest and most significant bilateral confrontation yet. At the G8 conference in Japan two weeks ago, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown raised, in what has been described in diplo-speak as "extremely frank talks" with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the 2006 London murder of British citizen Alexander Litvinenko. For months now, Britain has been seeking the extradition from Russia of the chief suspect in that case, Andrei Lugovoi. But Russia has refused. At the G8 conference, Medvedev, in his first face-to-face with Brown, stood firm, yielding no ground on that matter or on an unrelated commercial dispute between the British oil company BP and investors in its joint venture in Russia.

To be sure, the Litvinenko mystery was never going to be an easy issue to resolve. It had echoes of a John le Carré novel, with a full plot list of spies, mysterious émigrés and bizarre poisoning methods. In many ways, the media circus surrounding the affair has made it difficult for Brown to manage it. But rather than cooperating, Russia has pushed back aggressively. In response to the request to extradite Lugovoi, the Russian Foreign Ministry asked for extradition of the exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky and Chechen rebel leader Akhmed Zakayev, both currently in London. When Britain explained it had no power to force its courts to comply, Moscow responded (albeit without formally linking the issues) by accusing the British Council, a cultural institution, of not paying taxes and acting as a cover for espionage, using crude intimidation of the staff to close down offices in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg. While the British government could have kept a small staff in the parts of the offices that were on consular premises, it pulled the council out, effectively proving to Russia it could get away with its behavior. Now it has lost cultural influence in Russia while getting no closer to extraditing Lugovoi, who enjoys full domestic immunity after being elected as a Russian M.P. in December 2007.

This one lingering issue is but a glaring illustration of the kinds of problems Russia poses to the rest of Europe. It is therefore time for the EU to agree, at least on principle, to a common response to these shows of Russian aggression. The EU's population is more than three times the size of Russia's; its economy is 15 times larger. But its biggest strength lies in interdependence, solidarity and consensus. When the next crisis comes, all European states will need to be prepared.

Rumbling Stomachs in the Russian Countryside

2008-07-23T09:50:00.000-04:00

Jonas Bernstein, writing for Eurasia Daily Monitor:

It is often said in Russia that dissatisfaction with the country’s existing political system is greater among those living in the cities than those living in the countryside. Yet according to one observer who recently traveled through central Russia, dissatisfaction with the status quo is also rising in the countryside but is not being picked up by the country’s pollsters.

Recent polling by the independent Levada Center among the “elite” of the Russian middle class--those aged 24 to 35 and living in large cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg--found a high degree of uncertainty about the future and a strong feeling that their well-being was precarious, with half of those polled indicating that they would like to leave Russia temporarily or for good. Only 13 percent of those polled by the Levada Center agreed with the statement that Russia had entered a period of protracted stability, while 59 percent said the situation could change for the worse at any moment (see EDM, June 30).

Pavel Voshchanov, the prominent political analyst who served as Boris Yeltsin’s press secretary in the early 1990s, recently traveled through a dozen or so small cities in central Russia, including Dzerzhinsk, Balakhna and Gordoets in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast; Murom in Vladimir Oblast; Kashina in Smolensk Oblast; and Kalyazin in Tver Oblast. He found that contrary to the conventional wisdom, dissatisfaction with the political and economic status quo is rising in Russia’s heartland. Voshchanov paints a grim picture of the economic situation in the cities he visited, one that contrasts sharply with the booming economies of Moscow, St. Petersburg and other large Russian cities (Novaya gazeta, July 17).

“The Russian province, if you are guided by what it had during the Soviet period, has lost a considerable number of work places. Many of the old ones are closed, and nothing new has been built,” Voshchanov wrote. “The only things new are market stalls and drinking establishments with a scanty assortment of cheap products. There are few fancier novelties because there is no demand for them; no one can afford them. The only people buying [such things] are young people ‘doing management away from home’ (an expression heard from a Kalyazin resident whose son is working as the manager of a large store in Ivanovo). Is it possible to assert that people in the provinces are satisfied with their current situation? No. Prices are moving upward, and on all types of products, but salaries at non-governmental enterprises remain as they were two or three years ago. Two-thirds (and maybe more) of the provincials live off of [their] vegetable gardens. And it is also necessary to get to those [vegetable gardens]--but how, if prices for gasoline in the remote areas are now higher than in Moscow?”

According to Voshchanov, economic dissatisfaction in the Russian heartland is becoming political, although the political dissatisfaction thus far remains inchoate. Still, according to Voshchanov, negative feelings about the country’s leaders, particularly Vladimir Putin, the former president and current prime minister, are growing.

“It is a bit too early to judge President Medvedev; they shrug their shoulders,” Voshchanov wrote. “As a young guy from Kashina put it: ‘We don’t know him.’ But for Putin, the situation is changing for the worse, albeit slowly. It looks as if he, without wanting to, has stepped onto the minefield of Russian hostility and could easily become the target which, after a time, could be taking all the shots. This has already happened in Russia, and more than once: universal adoration (all the more so if it is produced … by pretty television pictures) quickly turns into universal hostility. The countryside voted for Putin largely because it remembered the soul chilling lack of money of the Yeltsin years, and with his [Putin’s] arrival in the Kremlin at least something returned to life, at least pensioners began to receive their crumbs … on time. But the pocketbook always dictates to the head. And what is it dictating this summer? It is not difficult to figure out.”

According to Voshchanov, the utilities bill for average Russians, which now accounts for a significant chunk of their monthly expenses, could end up playing a much larger role in Russian politics than “the packets of shares with multi-million [dollar] face values that casually end up in the hands of those who are currently close to the authorities or the authorities themselves.”

Voshchanov concludes that it is hard to believe polling data suggesting that those in the heartland are more satisfied with their situation than those in the cities. “Probably, behind the statistical calculation, the precision of which I am not disputing, is hidden something impossible to describe quantitatively,” he wrote. “For example, an unwillingness to speak openly to strangers about such delicate subjects. People in the provinces are distrustful, because it’s a stone’s throw from them to the boss, who is below only Putin and God, and they know first-hand how his revenge might be expressed. Assurances that everything will be anonymous and that they don’t have to sign anything don’t help. Anyone who thinks that this is the result of being downtrodden is mistaken. It is an intuitive lack of faith in justice, expressed in the formulation: ‘You leave, but we live here’” (Novaya gazeta, July 17).