The New York Times report on the Kondopoga pogroms raises several interesting points. What follows are key sentences (in black) together with La Russophobe's comments (in red):

Ethnic animosity runs so close to the surface of Russian society that almost anything can cause it to boil over. LR: That just about says it all, doesn't it? Well, not quite though.

Two ethnic Russians had died by the time the brawl ended, but the violence had only just begun. Their deaths — at the hands of men from Azerbaijan and Chechnya — provoked angry protests and on the night of Sept. 2, a rampage through the town, followed by sporadic acts of vandalism that have continued since. LR: Problem number one in dealing with racism in Russia is language. "Ethnic Russians" is a term that could easily confuse many. There are two words for "Russian" in the Russian language, unlike in America where there is only one word "American." Russians have the word "Русский" (ROO-skee) and they have the word "Российский" ("ra-SEE-skee"). If you put the word "Russian" into an online dictionary, the translation you will get is "русский" -- this is roughly like putting "American" into such a dictionary and getting back a Russian word which means "KKK member." To put it a bit more kindly, it's as if there was a single word in English that meant "native born American with white skin." "Русский" means Slavic; it means "real Russian." It means "Russian by blood." If you put in "Российский," however, you'll get an indication that the word doesn't exist. This is the word Russians use to refer to people from Chechnya, supposedly Russian citizens but "not really." It means non-Slavic. It means "Russian by law." It means you have a target on your back. The mere existence of these two words is proof positive that the first sentence above was correct. In fact, a considerable understatement. The difference is made clear at the end of the piece where the Times reports:

Oksana N. Boganova is a Russian who works at one of the stores badly damaged in the rampage, the Azeri-owned Flamingo. It reopened a week after the attack, now with a guard on duty. She lamented what happened and expressed fear of what lay ahead. “I do not know whom we are afraid of,” she said, “the non-Russians or the Russians.”

The Times got sucked into the vortex listening to Ms. Boganova and forgot to insert "ethnic" before "Russian" just like she did, because "everyone knows" that there is only one word that actually means "Russian" and that's "Русский." There's a "Русский" and there's a "non-Russian." Away from the vortex, it should at least be "ethnic Russians and "non-ethnic Russians" or more accurately "racist Russian citizens" and "their dark-skinned, Russian citizen victims." It should be noted that "Российский" is not like "African-American." The term "African-American" is a term invented and applied by dark-skinned minorities themselves, not a term applied to the group by the racist majority. When used by the majority, it's a term of respect. "Российский" when used by Slavs is a term of opprobrium, a subtext for polite company. Those who use the term couldn't care less what the dark-skinned poeple themselves what to be called.

Mobs of young men — fueled by anger and, officials said, alcohol — burned the Seagull club, owned by a businessman originally from Azerbaijan. Then they attacked a series of precisely chosen targets: the homes and businesses of migrants from the Caucasus, mostly from Chechnya. LR: Makes it seem that they were keeping a list of all such places for just such an occasion, doesn't it?

Dozens of the town’s residents, Chechens mostly, but also ethnic Azerbaijanis and Georgians, fled that night. A group of 49 are now staying in a tourist camp outside the regional capital, Petrozavodsk, having escaped what is being widely called a pogrom, one that many here welcomed. LR: When the USSR collapsed, many Russophile maniacs said that Russia "could never turn the clock back" to Soviet times. In fact, not only could Russians in fact do so, but they could turn the clock simultaneously back past Soviet times to the days of the pogrom. Neat trick, isn't it? Next time you hear a Russophile maniac spouting his garbage, remember that.

“They need to leave,” said Denis Doronin, 19, who said he took part in the protests that led to the violence. “They arrive from another country and they act like kings.” LR: This is some real truth. For the "Русский" a Chechen is "from another country" -- except, that is, when they want independence or when foreigners want to help them; then they are "part of Russia" and nobody can say differently.

Ethnic tensions across Russia have been fueled by the latent racism common among many Russians, who freely use the pejorative “blacks” when describing people from the Caucasus, even in casual conversation. LR: More linguistic trouble here. When you take the Russian word for "black" and make it into a noun (say "CHOR-nik"), you get the Russian equivalent of the English word "nigger." This is how most Russians naturally refer to people with dark skin. If they wanted to be more respectful, they'd use the word "Российский" -- that's what it 's there for.

It also reflects a growing political opposition to migrant workers not unlike those movements in Europe and the United States and the indifferent or at times hostile responses from elected officials when violence erupts. LR: God help the dark-skinned people of Russia if they ever take it into their heads to become a public political force. If the Kremlin was prepared to arrest the president of Yukos, put him through a neo-Soviet show trial and sentence him to years in Siberia because he tried to get political, can you imagine what it's prepared to do to the dark-skinned? Or more precisely, to allow to be done by others while it turns the other way?

“The behavior of certain young men who moved here from the Caucasus and other territories in recent years — not that many of them, but they were visible — has been beyond the pale," said Sergei L. Katanandov, governor of Karelia, the region near Finland that includes Kondopoga in an interview with Izvestia on Thursday. LR: That's right, the governor blamed the darkies. By the way, this man is a presidential appointee, not an elected leader. "President" Putin appoints all of Russia's governors. Now, a really crazed Russophile would have you believe that this man is just like George Wallace during the 1960s in America, and tell you that Russia simply "needs time" to learn racial tolerance just like America did. There are are couple of problems with this line of total B.S. First, if its true, it means Russia is an uncivilized country, inferior to the West. But Russia demands equal treatment in Western groups like the U.N. and G-8. Second, there have always been, even in the time of slavery, high-profile leaders of both races in the United States publicly opposing racism and race violence. America fought a war over it more than a century ago. Neither of these points are true in Russia. Try to name Russia's Martin Luther King or imagine how he could emerge. You can't. If he did appear, he'd be Khodorkovskized faster than you could say Jackie Robinson.

The economic success of migrants is at the source of many xenophobic statements, even ones by prominent officials. The country’s leading nationalist politician, Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, said migrants should be barred from owning markets or shops, hotels, restaurants and bars.“Restaurants and retail outlets should be in the hands of local residents, first and foremost,” he said in a radio interview after the violence in Kondopoga. “Otherwise clashes with local residents are inevitable.” LR: Russians polled said that Zhirinovsky is the sexiest man in Russia. He called for racist pogroms (and a new cold war with the United States) more than a decade ago. Now he's making policy.

“They completely control the prices at the market,”said [one white woman who would not give her name] of the Chechens. “They buy all the potatoes in Karelia. Potatoes are like our second bread. They buy them for 7 rubles and sell them for 15. They do not even work. They just speculate.” Meantime, she added, “Ours are unemployed.” LR: And, she forgot to add, the fact that we white Russians have elected a proud KGB spy as our president, a spy who has abolished the election of governors, destroyed TV news and hoarded the nation's oil revenues has nothing to do with anything.

UPDATE: Here's a classic bit of Russophile gibberish from an ignorant moron named Nikolay in the comment section. He correctly noted that we misspelled "Российский" as "Россиский" but he didn't even put the correct spelling into the online dictionary we mentioned to see if it would change the substance of our text. It doesn't. You can put "Российский" into the Babelfish translator and get "Russian" as a result, and there are of course plenty of dictionaries that will give you "Russian" if you type in "Российский" -- but they won't won't tell you a thing about the difference between this word and "Русский" and many (most?) won't give you "Российский" as a variant if you type in Russian. Note that we didn't say the word "Российский" doesn't exist, we simply said it's a second class racist word in the Russian language. If you study Russian, you meet "Русский" but will have a hard time coming across "Российский." Basically, what the fire-breathing Russophile Nikolay has done is to feverishly search through our text looking for mistakes so he can ridicule our Russian -- in other words, a classic show of Russian xenophobia and paranoia. Where Russians should be encouraging foreigners in using their dying language, instead they attack them. By the way, Nikolay is just mad because he claimed, outrageously, on his blog that people accuse him of being a Russophobe and when La Russophobe challenged him to post a link proving his claim he, of course, failed to do so. Nikolay likes to poke fun at those who dare to use online translators to speak Russian, but he doensn't make fun of Russians who speak English badly. That's because he's such a Russophobe, of course.

Recently, La Russophobe warned readers to be wary of news reports on Russia written by partipants in the Kremlin's all-expense-paid propaganda orgy called "The Valdai Club." To illustrate the kind of things that can go wrong, let's take a walk down memory lane.

On June 4, 1931, A. W. Kleifoth of the U.S. Embassy in Berlin wrote a memo to his superiors at the State Department in Washington DC regarding a meeting he had just had with Walter Duranty (pictured), the Pulitzer-prize-winning Russia correspondent for the New York Times. The two discussed the status of the upcoming Russian grain harvest and speculated about whether the famine conditions that were spreading through the USSR would worsen. Kleifoth states as follows regarding Duranty's intention to report negative developments coming out of the Soviet Union in his paper: "in agreement with the New York Times and the Soviet authorities, his official despatches always reflect the official position of the Soviet regime and not his own."

Duranty's reporting on the Soviet Union was subsequently exposed and discredited. Most particularly aggrieved are members of the Ukrainian community, because Russians caused Ukrainians to bear the lion's share of the burden for the Stalin famines, and millions perished. Duranty knew about this virtual genocide of the Ukrainian nation by Russia, but he did not publish a word about it. The Times itself has recognized this, but it hasn't dealt at all with the aspect of the Kleiforth memo which indicates that the paper's misreporting on the Soviet Union was a matter of editorial policy. Instead, the Times strategy has been to blame Duranty, and at the same time to rationalize his reporting by spewing the utterly false propaganda that the defects appeared only in hindsight. As noted in the link above, an e-mail sent to Insight magazine by Catherine Mathis, vice president of corporate communications at the New York Times Co., explained: "'The Times has not seen merit in trying to undo history'" by returning the Pulitzer. The e-mail insists: 'The Times has reported often and thoroughly on the defects in Duranty's journalism, as viewed through the lens of later events.'" In fact, Duranty's comment in the memo makes it seem that the pro-Soviet reporting was more his editor's notion than his own, something the editors would obviously love to sweep under the carpet; the publishers of the Times refused to be interviewed about the reporting when they were contacted by the prestigious Columbia Journalism Review. Moreover, of course, the Times has not undertaken any review of its pro-Soviet editorial line at that time, of which we can hear the echo even in today's Times editorials. In other words, Duranty's misreporting served not only the interests of the USSR but the political agenda of the Times editors themselves.

Here are some examples of the boldfaced lies the Times told its readers under Duranty's pen, lies which prevented the world from being aware of the problem in Ukraine and therefore cost lives:

"There is no famine or actual starvation nor is there likely to be."
--New York Times, Nov. 15, 1931, page 1

"Any report of a famine in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda."
--New York Times, August 23, 1933

"Enemies and foreign critics can say what they please. Weaklings and despondents at home may groan under the burden, but the youth and strength of the Russian people is essentially at one with the Kremlin's program, believes it worthwhile and supports it, however hard be the sledding."
--New York Times, December 9, 1932, page 6

"You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs."
--New York Times, May 14, 1933, page 18

"There is no actual starvation or deaths from starvation but there is widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition."
--New York Times, March 31, 1933, page 13

The Times editorial line throughout the Soviet era was that Russia was a nation full of brave and brilliant forward-thinkers leading the world to a socialist utopia. If there was dicatorship and human suffering along the way, this was due mostly to the harassment of the Soviet state by the ignorant outsiders who failed to understand it as well as the brilliant Times itself, and the rest of the blame was due to a "few bad apples" in the Soviet barrel as well as the need to "break a few eggs" (and skulls?) when forming a great social experiment. Given the chance, the Times harrangued, Russians would build a democratic socialist paradise the world would envy.

This line took the Times editors into very dangerous territory in 2000, when the Russian people freely elected a proud KGB spy as their president. This was something truly shocking for the Times, and placed it in a position to have its entire Cold War philosphy exposed as a fraud. Just as Putin was beginning his crackdown, including a barbaric assault on Chechnya, the Times experienced its massive scandal with reporter Jayson Blair being exposed for simply inventing front-page news stories out of whole cloth. To put it mildly, the editors weren't prepared to take two black eyes. So they scrambled for a way out.

Their solution was this: Cast Putin as a "necessary transition" between the USSR and democracy. Blame capitalism for throwing Russia into economic tumult, and claim that Putin's tough tactics were necessary to right the foundering ship of state. Report mostly good news about Russia, especially where the economy is concerned. Check out the NYT coverage during that time, you'll see that is what transpired.

And now the editors are biding their time. How long does it take for a "transitional" figure to morph into a glorious democratic socialist? How long can you gloss over things like the abolition of elected governors, the obliteration of independent TV and providing aid and comfort to rogue entities like Iran, Venezuela, Hamas and Hezbollah? Long enough so that your pro-Soviet stance gets obscure enough that nobody can quite remember it?

We shall see.

FYI: To read more about how the New York Times misleads readers for ideological reasons, check out Michelle Malkin's piece about their Wal-mart scandal.

Check out La Russophobe's latest on Publius Pundit, exposing the Valdai Discussion Club. This piece provides a nice practical example of the issues dealt with in the post above regarding the reliability of traditional media reporting on Russia and the importance of having alternative sources of information such as Publius and this blog. Your comments about the infuence of the Valdai club and the Kremlin's general offensive to control its image are welcome and important.

La Russophobe has already reported that Russians identified Vladimir Zhirinovksy as the sexiest man alive. Now comes news that their next new screen love god will be none other than Stalin himself. The Scotsman reports that Russia is about to release a new film about crazed dictator Joseph Stalin depicting the mass murderer as a red hot lover.

He has been worshipped, feared, and even denounced. But now the sexy side of Joseph Stalin is being exposed in a controversial Russian film.

The Soviet tyrant's relationship with a woman 22 years his junior is to be turned into a steamy TV and film drama this autumn.

The production team admits it will provoke a storm of anger in Russia and reignite the debate over the portrayal of one of history's most infamous dictators who sent millions to their deaths.

It comes a year after German filmmakers sparked a major row by depicting Hitler as warm and caring in the film Downfall.

Yevo Zhena, or 'His Wife', is being made as a £1.5m four-part blockbuster to be shown on the Rossiya TV Channel this autumn. There are also plans for a feature-film version to be sold internationally.

The drama focuses on Stalin's relationship with his second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, and depicts the feared ruler as a passionate lover who missed the climax of the Russian Revolution because he was in bed with Alliluyeva, then a teenager.

The two first met in 1908. He was 30 and she was eight when her father, Sergei Alliluyeva, offered Stalin shelter after he had escaped from prison. Stalin's first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, had died a year earlier after four years of marriage.

Stalin and Alliluyeva married in 1919 and had an often stormy relationship until she mysteriously died in 1932.

The film shows them striking up a romantic attachment in early 1917, after he returned from exile in Siberia. One scene sees Stalin helping the nervous teenager undress, and in another he pulls her into a bath with him.

Even more controversially, the film claims that he missed the storming of the Winter Palace during the October Revolution because he was in bed with Alliluyeva. As they listen to the shooting outside, Stalin casually remarks that the Bolsheviks may or may not have taken power. Yevo Zhena is based on a book published in 2001, called The Only Women, which was based on new material from archives but which dramatised the gaps between what could be proved from research.

The film takes the scholars' view of Alliluyeva's death, saying that she committed suicide after a public row, and dismisses popular conspiracy theories suggesting Stalin murdered her or had her killed.

After Stalin insults her at a banquet, she is shown walking through the Kremlin alone, and then a shot is heard.

Mira Todorovskaya, the co-director, said: "Stalin was a devil and monster, but in our film you can't see that. LR: You couldn't see it in his propaganda either, see above right; indeed, what woman in her right mind could resist this charming he-man? See, the girls can't keep their hands off!

"People will say that we have beautified Stalin and made him not as he was in real life. But I think my film will have opponents from both sides."

Todorovskaya said she believed that Alliluyeva helped keep Stalin's behaviour under control, calling her "his second conscience".

Historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, who wrote a best-selling book on the Soviet tyrant, Stalin: Court Of The Red Tsar, and who is now researching a volume on Stalin's early life to be published next April, said: "It's not correct to say that he missed out on the Revolution. He didn't help storm the buildings, but that's because he didn't have a military role. He was the editor of Pravda, which was a very important job because the paper was crucial in the days before radio and television.

"The producers are right to dismiss the conspiracy theories about Stalin killing her or having her killed. All the evidence points to her having committed suicide.

"Alliluyeva's death did affect Stalin, although I disagree with the suggestion that she kept him in check or acted as a 'conscience'. He was extremely brutal before she died. But losing her helped make him more paranoid and affected his views of families and spouses, such as imprisoning or torturing wives of suspects."

Dr Andrei Rogatchevski, a lecturer in Russian culture at Glasgow University, said: "It will be very interesting and will spark a lot of debate. There are still some who are nostalgic for the kind of strong leadership which Stalin gave. They don't want the gulags or terror back, but they believe that such a vast country can only be ruled by a strong man like Stalin. They won't like Stalin being portrayed as missing the Revolution to be with his lover.

"Many others in Russia will not like to see a man who caused the death of millions being seen as loving and tender. As well as the terror, many still blame Stalin for the blunders at the beginning of the Second World War which cost millions of lives and allowed the Germans to advance into Russia."

Three years after Stalin's death, the 'excesses' of his rule were denounced by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who announced a policy of "De-Stalinisation."

In the film, Stalin is played by award-winning Georgian actor Duta Skhirtladze, with Olga Budina starring as his young lover.

Budina recently played the part of Grand Duchess Anastasia, the youngest daughter of the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II.

Anastasia's fate has been the subject of even more debate than Alliluyeva, with many believing Anastasia survived the murder of the Imperial family in 1918 and managed to escape to the West.

The Moscow Times reports the shocking results of a Levada Center poll showing that a majority of Russian policeman feel it is appropriate police procedure to beat a confession out of a suspect. Maybe visas to Russia should be accompanied by a cyanide pill so that the hapless tourist who finds himself arrested can check out before the "interrogation" quite literally kicks in.

More than half of the nation's police officers say it is sometimes acceptable to use force against detained suspects, while nearly two in 10 believe it is sometimes acceptable to plant drugs or weapons on suspects, a report from the independent Levada Center showed.

"The erosion of legal awareness among police officers is at its highest level," said Lev Gudkov, a center researcher. "The notion of what's lawful and what isn't is warped."

The center polled 641 policemen in 41 cities in December 2005 as part of a two-year project with Public Verdict, a group that monitors police abuse.

On Tuesday, the two groups presented their findings in a newly released book, "Index of Abuse by Law Enforcement Agencies."

Police officers also tend to believe the media is responsible for sowing public discontent: Fifty-five percent say the media is the No. 1 reason for their poor image.

A spokesman at the Interior Ministry, which oversees the police force, declined to comment until he had seen the book.

The Levada Center report also showed that, over the two-year period, hostility toward the police was consistently high. Monthly updates showed that, at some points, as many as two-thirds of all Russians distrusted the police; at other points, that figure jumped to three-fourths.

While the level of trust in all authorities -- the army, the courts, the security services and the police -- rose briefly after President Vladimir Putin took power in early 2000, that trust ebbed as hopes for internal reforms sank.

About 1.2 percent of the population views a job in the police force as "prestigious," while 2.5 percent considers it "attractive," said Olga Gryaznova, a Levada Center researcher. Such public sentiment contributes to police officers' negative image of the police and hinders improvement of relations between the police and the public, Gryaznova added.

Topping most Russians' list of fears when it comes to the police is public humiliation, followed by violence, illegal detention, blackmail and illegal incrimination, among other concerns, the study showed.

A police colonel with more than 30 years of experience, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were fewer professionals working in the police force than there were in the 1980s.
The police colonel added that the Interior Ministry's reform of the police force had not included educating street cops who interact directly with the general public.

One of the lead stories in the Moscow Times yesterday was captioned:

The country has seen a spike in the number of people who have died or suffered illnesses in the past six weeks from drinking disinfectants following a government campaign to purge stores of fake liquor.

That's right. Russian launches an attempt to protect people from alcohol and more people are injured by it after the attempt than were harmed before it was made. That's Russia in a nutshell. The campaign sharply increased the price of alcohol, driving more and more people to use the dangerous stuff. When asked about these fatalities, a government official is quoted as saying: ""These people are mostly from dysfunctional families, homeless or unemployed. Two or three [of the victims] are young people who drank the alcohol accidentally, but the rest have unhealthy lifestyles." In other words, "good riddance." About 40,000 people are estimated to die annually in Russia from alcohol poisoning; the country experiences a net annual population loss of nearly 1 million.

And that's not the half of it. Because not only has that "campaign" increased the number of fatalities, it's also resulted in the disappearance of many safe forms of alcohol from Russia's shelves, including such things as French wine. And all this while Russians are screeching to high heaven about the evil influence of Georgian vino on Russian society.

Americans have been seeing a marked decrease in the price of gasoline at the pump recently, so without even being told so you know that the Russian stock market has plunged. Indeed, RIA Novosti reported yesterday that it lost more than 3% of its value in just one day. As the article makes clear, Mideast turmoil is now directly in Russia's financial interests; the more stability in the region, the more dire Russia's economic prospects become. The article also makes clear the total rejection of the world community of the Russian market beyond the oil industry, something that hardly needs saying except for the fact that the propagandists' mental block persists.

MOSCOW, September 11 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian stock market suffered a new setback Monday after world oil prices fell.

At 16:30 p.m. Moscow time (12:30 p.m. GMT), the index of the Moscow Inter-Bank Currency Exchange (MICEX) slipped 3.5% on Friday's close, to 1,356.67 points.

The biggest fall was registered in the stocks of the crude producer Tatneft (4.77%), the metals giant Norilsk Nickel (4.65%), the oil firm Surgutneftegaz (4.38%), the energy giant Gazprom (3.98%) and the independent crude producer LUKoil (3.94%).

"The continued fall in oil prices has dealt a new blow to the Russian stock market," said Denis Barabanov, an analyst with Bitza-Invest investment firm.

The index of the Russian Trading System (RTS) declined 2.65%, to 1,549.03 points. The biggest decline among blue chips on the RTS stock market involved shares of the state-run retail savings bank Sberbank (6.8%), the gold mining company Polyus Zoloto (4.7%) and Gazprom (4%).

"Oil prices fell to a five-month low, and are now close to $65 per barrel," Barabanov said. At the same time, he said, price fluctuations on international oil markets were not related to fundamental changes in supply and demand.

"Any hint of a worsening situation in the Middle East may reverse the prevailing trend," he said. LR: Is this sick or what? The guy sounds almost wistful: "Oh please God, just let them start killing Americans again someplace where it's sandy."

In addition to oil price dynamics, experts also said Russian stocks do not enjoy foreign investors' support. There was no large inflow of nonresidents into the domestic stock market in the fall, and Russian traders started to close long positions opened during the summer.

Some experts said global investors have not lost interest in the Russian market. But growth in stock markets will begin only after the U.S. Federal Reserve clarifies its interest rate position at its regular meeting September 20, said Vladimir Detinich, the head of the analysis department at Olma investment fund.

Experts said stock prices could register some upward correction, unless oil prices renew their record lows Tuesday. Moreover, many stocks will be attractive to buyers following their price slump Monday.

The French Press Agency reports:

Thirty-three people have been killed in Russia in racist attacks so far this year, the Sova xenophobia research center said Friday. "In Moscow, 27 people died in racist attacks and 147 have been injured this year alone. In Saint-Petersburg, four murders have been committed and 25 have been injured," Sova's deputy director Galina Kozhevnikova was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. Last year, 393 people were injured and 35 killed, Kozhevnikova said, adding that "we have recently seen growth in violence of 20-30 percent per year on average."

Skinheads, whose numbers are estimated at 50,000 in Russia, tend to target people from the Caucasus and Central Asia as well as youth subcultures and sexual minorities.

Notice that virtually all the killings Sova is aware of come from Moscow and St. Petersburg. Russia is a land that stretches across eleven time zones, so it is a virtual certainty that there is much violence going on out in the provinces which isn't reported to Sova.

The Jamestown Foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor reports on "Russia's Feeble Military" and the illusion that Tsar Vladimir would like to create to the contrary while he struggles to build one that is actually capable of serious threats:

There was nothing particularly disturbing about the failed launch of the experimental Bulava (SS-NX-30) strategic missile from the Dmitry Donskoi submarine on the evening of September 7. Failures happen, and they are quite useful for identifying problems that should be addressed before the missile is approved for deployment and mass production.

Two previous tests, in September 2005 and December 2005, were entirely successful, so from a technical point of view, Yuri Solomonov, head of the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering design bureau, should not be that worried. Technicalities regarding the guidance system, however, are of only secondary importance in this project, since the as-yet-non-existent Bulava is already a big political issue (Kommersant; Lenta.ru, September 8).

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly portrayed this missile as tangible proof of the modernization of the Russian armed forces. In all fairness, it should be pointed out that the decision to cancel the alternative Bark missile, developed by the Makeyev design bureau in Miass, was taken in 1998 after four unsuccessful tests. The main rationale was saving money, as Bulava was supposed to be a cheap modification of the Topol-M land-based strategic missile that could be produced at the same Votkinsk plant.

As often happens in military production, the promised economy has turned into major over-spending as the costs of the “adaptation” for underwater launch exceeded expectations, while the new submarine Yuri Dolgoruky, launched in 1996, had to undergo reconstruction before being completed (Moskovsky komsomolets, April 27). Money, however, is not the problem now that the Kremlin can pump any amount of “petro-rubles” into the military-industrial complex.The real problem is that Bulava (which means “mace”) constitutes a central element of a new policy that could be called “virtual deterrence” as it aims at enhancing Russia’s international status mostly by means of PR campaigns and strategic bluff.

This policy has a pronounced anti-U.S. character, emphasized by the stream of statements about the uniquely maneuverable warheads that could penetrate any missile-defense system. Simultaneously, Moscow seeks to convince the United States to start a new round of high-profile arms control negotiations. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov tried to sell this idea to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld a few weeks ago, and for lack of better arguments dropped a hint that Russia might withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty that had marked a breakthrough in Gorbachev’s New Political Thinking back in 1988 (Ezhednevny zhurnal, August 30).

This complicated strategic-diplomatic dance with Washington, perhaps suits Putin’s perceptions of how a “great power” should behave, but the performance has become increasingly awkward as his lead stumbles and slips with every step. The fire on the nuclear submarine Daniil Moskovsky revealed massive problems with maintenance of the strategic forces (Lenta.ru; see EDM, September 8). The launch of the old Sineva (SS-N-23) missile by the Ekaterinburg from under the Arctic ice on September 9 was successful, and Pavel Podvig, one of the top experts on Russian strategic forces, reminds on his blog that the Delta IV submarines could remain in service for another ten years until the unfortunate Yuri Dolgoruky and two other submarines of this series would enter into service (russianforces.org).

Nevertheless, the naval leg of the Russian nuclear triad remains so vulnerable to accidents that it makes very little sense to enter into any disarmament talks; mismanagement and disrepair all but guarantee self-cuts.Another, quite unexpected stumble happened recently when the joint U.S.-Russian military exercises, named Torgau-2006, were postponed indefinitely. They should have marked a high point in bilateral cooperation later this month (Kommersant; Washington Post, September 6). The setback was explained away by legal technicalities, but in fact the Kremlin had miscalculated the political fallout. The was plenty of “enemy-at-the-gates” commentary and undisguised gloating in the mainstream media when a few hundred protesters blocked the U.S.-Ukrainian exercises in the Crimea last June (Ezhednevny zhurnal, September 7). The Communist Party promised to stage far noisier protests in Nizhny Novgorod where some 250 U.S. troops were to conduct joint peacekeeping training with Russian forces.

The Communists are only a marginal political force, but their leader, Gennady Zyuganov, seeks to tap into the anti-U.S. sentiments fanned by official propaganda and actually caught Putin in a trap set by his own self-assertive rhetoric. It has turned out that the very useful political technique of appealing to “patriotic” feelings makes it quite difficult to maintain even symbolic security cooperation with an adversary that is accused of cherishing so many evil intentions, from blocking Russia’s entry into the WTO to encouraging Georgia’s desperate run toward joining NATO. In a somewhat similar way, the exploitation of nationalistic sentiments has brought such undesirable results as the ugly anti-Caucasian pogrom in Kodopoga, Karelia (Nezavisimaya gazeta, September 7).

The authorities find themselves hard pressed to explain whether they really mean what they say and to deliver on promises made as a figure of speech.As far as military matters are concerned, it is becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile grand plans such as the recently approved Armaments Program for 2007-2015, estimated at $185 billion, with the fact that the Russian Army is able to buy only 15-30 tanks a year, while India has purchased more than 300 Russian tanks without greatly straining its defense budget (Polit.ru, May 12). Putin is rushing his “pet programs” like Bulava as if strategic confrontation with the United States is already on track, while the last elements of military cooperation are being dismantled or discontinued. Just a year ago, the value of such cooperation was vividly demonstrated when a British rescue team saved the Russian mini-sub Priz trapped in old radar antennas near Kamchatka. Now the enlarged military pride of the “great energy power” demands confident swinging of the nuclear “mace,” even if only virtual.

The Independent reports on yet another skirmish in the widening Cold War II that Russia has provoked with the United States, this time an entirely European battle showing that Russia has alienating the entire world as, drunk on oil revenues, it seeks to reestablish the Soviet empire.

Russia has broken what it regarded as an unfriendly European Union blockade of Kaliningrad by opening a sea route to connect the heavily militarised Russian enclave with "the motherland" for the first time.

A sliver of Russian territory sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, Kaliningrad found itself marooned hundreds of miles from the Russian mainland when the two countries joined the EU in 2004.

Since then the enclave has been a source of tension between Moscow and Brussels, with Russia arguing that its access to the region is hampered by Lithuania's government, with which it enjoys frosty relations.

Russia's fears were compounded recently when Vilnius threatened to close the main rail route into Kaliningrad "for repairs" in a tit-for-tat row with Moscow over oil supplies. Moscow is therefore billing the new twice-weekly ferry service as an antidote to what has been sarcastically called a new iron or "blue" curtain (the colour of the European Union flag). From now on the Kremlin will be able to supply its most westerly region via a one-day sea route stretching across the Baltic Sea from the port of Baltiisk in the Kaliningrad region to the port of Ust-Luga in the Leningrad region, near St Petersburg.

The route, which will initially be only for cargo shipments but may be extended to passenger services, was inaugurated on Sunday under the watchful eye of President Vladimir Putin, who hailed it as "a matter of national security". Russia's state-owned Rossiya television channel was more blunt; it said the route would "deprive the Baltic states of an instrument of influence over Russia". Symbolically the first cargo load included artillery equipment being sent back to the Russian mainland for repair.

Russian television showed Sergey Ivanov, the Defence Minister, complaining that Lithuania had prevented Moscow from transiting such equipment in the past. The service does not yet have the capacity to replace the rail service completely since Russia does not have enough ferries and needs to build at least four more vessels. That Kaliningrad even exists is a quirk of history. It was originally called Konigsberg and was part of German East Prussia but in 1945 it had a dramatic "rebranding" when the Red Army seized it from the Nazis as a trophy of war and it was subsumed into the USSR.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 it found itself cut off from Russia and when the European Union borders washed over it in 2004 life became even more complicated. Shifting geopolitics left the region, which is the headquarters of Russia's Baltic Fleet and home to one million Russian citizens, in a situation that Russian nationalists compared to the Soviet blockade of West Berlin from 1948 to 1949.

Today, to Russians' annoyance, they must apply for Lithuanian travel documents to visit what is another part of their own country since they must transit Lithuania to get there. However, the new ferry service will allow Moscow to re-supply Kaliningrad without having to cross Lithuania, a country the Kremlin perceives as "unfriendly".

In other Cold War news, Russia proudly announced that it had test-fired an Intercontinental (as in "between Eurasia and North America") Ballistic Missile from a submarine in the North Pole.

The German Daily Der Speigel exposes the vile, Neo-Soviet character of Russia's Gazprom in the following brilliant and comprehensive opus (which includes a forum where you can express your thoughts on the topic). Those who say the term "neo-Soviet" is not quite right for modern Russia will have a hard time advancing their position after reading it; Russia is manipulating its economic assests for political gain rather than economic growth in exactly the same way the USSR did even though everybody knows that policy brought the USSR to rubble. The arrogance and insularity of the Kremlin knows no bounds.

Opposition politicians in Moscow have a name for the Russian oil and natural gas market: "Kremlin Incorporated." It's not the market that decides who the state-owned energy company Gazprom sells to -- it's Russian President Vladimir Putin. The gigantic concern is run by cronies from Putin's days as deputy mayor of St. Petersburg.

A seemingly endless desert of ice covers the Yamal Peninsula, which lies north of the Arctic Circle. Even the March sun fails to warm the air temperature above -20 degrees Celcius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit).

Yamal's indigenous population, members of the Nenets tribe, travel through the bare tundra -- dotted only with fir trees and shrubs -- on handmade wooden sleds pulled by reindeer. A dozen workers stand at the center of the peninsula, along the Obskaya-Bovanenkovo train route. Brigadier Alexander Balasovitch uses a crane to lay 25-meter (82 feet) train tracks on the ground.

A brawny colleague from Georgia uses a heavy wrench to fasten the new train tracks. His breath leaves a thin layer of hoarfrost on his chin. They are hardened workers from all over the former Soviet Union, and they've grown accustomed to the raw climate, with temperatures that can drop to as low as -61 degrees Celsius.

Yet as inhospitable a nook as Yamal may be, it is considered a "region of strategic interest" by Gazprom, the Russian energy giant. Below the peninsula's thick layers of snow and ice lie enormous reserves of natural gas. Measuring more than 10 billion cubic meters, they are Russia's largest reserves. One day, natural gas condensate and other resources will be transported southwest on this train route on its way to Europe.

Heat from the cold and barren land is already warming German living rooms. Last year, 40 billion cubic meters of natural gas from the region were consumed in Germany -- about two-fifths of the European country's total natural gas consumption.

Gazprom, the giant corporation controlled by the Kremlin, which also now has former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder on its payroll, wants to dramatically expand natural gas extraction on the Yamal Peninsula in the coming years. Eighty kilometers southeast of Yamal, in Yamburg in western Siberia and in nearby Novyy Urengoy, two Gazprom subsidiaries are already channeling 74 percent of their natural gas into the pipeline to Europe.

From CEO to prison inmate

The steel drilling derricks of a facility run by the Yuganskneftegas oil company, which employs 6,000 workers, are located about 500 kilometers south of Novyy Urengoy. The crown jewel of Russian oil production, the facility was part of the business empire of oil baron Mikhail Khodorkovsky until 2004.

The former CEO of what used to be the largest private oil company in Russia is now an inmate at the Krasnokamensk penitentiary in eastern Siberia following his conviction on charges of business-related crimes including tax fraud. The Nefteyugansk facilities, once the prime asset of his company, were purchased by the state-owned Rosneft corporation for $9.35 billion dollars at a 2004 auction organized by the Kremlin. Putin's deputy chief of staff, Igor Sechin, is also Rosneft's chairman.

Rosneft made its initial public offering on the London and Moscow Stock Exchanges in time for the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg in mid-July. The purpose was clear: to mobilize capital for new investments in Siberia and in the far eastern regions of Russia. The IPO was coordinated with the Kremlin. And the move was meant to signal that Rosneft was open to doing business with the rest of the world and was designed to help the corporation achieve its goal of becoming one of the most important global players in the oil business.

But the Kremlin has no intention of surrendering its influence over the oil and gas business. Under Putin, the Russian government has expanded its stake in Gazprom to over 50 percent. In September 2005, the corporation -- whose chairman of the board Dimitry Medvedev is the Russian deputy prime minister -- purchased a controlling interest in the oil corporation Sibneft for $13 billion. With its acquisition of Yuganskneftegas, Rosneft, which controls Russia's largest oil reserves, catapulted itself to become the third-largest Russian oil company.

But neither Gazprom, with its 175 subsidiaries, nor Rosneft are particularly transparent by international standards. The manner of Gazprom CEO Aleksei Miller -- who was a confidant of Putin during the latter's time as deputy mayor of St. Petersburg and who obtained his position thanks to the Kremlin -- is more reminiscent of a Kremlin official than the head of one of the world's largest energy corporations.

Who Miller closes business deals with, whom he sells gas to and at what price is decided less by the market than by the Russian president, who Miller regularly briefs. The team surrounding Miller is recruited mainly from the personal networks of St. Petersburg-based Putin associates, as well as from old comrades from the Committee for State Security, a.k.a. the KGB.

KGB connections

Gazprom Deputy Chairman Sergei Ushakov is one former KGB man. Like his predecessor Sergei Lukash, who came to Gazprom from the Federal Guards Service, Ushakov is responsible for security matters at the corporation. Gazprom's chief accountant, Elena Vasilyeva, worked in the Central Accounting Office of the Port of St. Petersburg Open Joint Stock Company during the 1990s -- where Miller was director for development and investment at the same time.

Many St. Petersburg professionals who have entered the oil business and made a career there have grown breath-takingly rich during the last few years, insiders say. "A lot of them have dollar bills in their eyes," jokes a former KGB leader. Gary Kasparov, a chess world champion active in Russia's political opposition, remarks cynically that Russia has "the richest bureaucracy in the world."

The shady business networks prosper in part thanks to the absence of public criticism. Putin's associates in the gas business have used Gazprom's holding company Gazprom Media -- which has purchased the country's largest private TV network, NTV -- to cure the country's journalists of whatever inclination for investigative journalism they may once have had. The two main state-owned TV channels tend to be soft on Gazprom anyway.

True, Gazprom board member and Russian Economics Minister German Gref wanted to split up Gazprom when he took office in 2000. But Miller had a word with Putin, and the president was quick to put his foot down. The official line since then has been that plans to split up Gazprom are "not on the agenda."

Putin considers it a personal achievement that Gazprom is now worth about $260 billion and ranks as the third-largest corporation worldwide in terms of market capitalization, after ExxonMobil and General Electric. The position Gazprom now holds in the international energy trade is "the result of concerted state activity," Putin said in his state of the nation address in May.

During the past few years, Putin has in fact been telling his associates in the gas business to make sure Gazprom's weaker subsidiaries shape up. One consequence of the corporation's newly centralized structure has been a loss of power at the subsidiaries: The company headquarters decide their budgets for them, on the basis of internal negotiations.

A political instrument

One result of this is that the corporation that controls the largest gas reserves in the world lacks funds for long-overdue investments. For example, Gazprom has failed to meet the aims formulated in a program for the "reconstruction and technical adaptation" of gas pipelines -- the program came complete with a timeline that ends in 2006. A report from the central auditing authority also laments that the state-owned corporation has not invested sufficiently in the exploration of new gas extraction sites.

If Gazprom continues to develop its facilities for extracting the natural gas under the Yamal Peninsula as slowly as it has been doing until now, "we could end up waiting another 300 years before extraction begins," Resource Minister Yury Trutnev said sarcastically at a conference of Russia's leading state officials in Moscow.

What is more, the state is using Gazprom as a political instrument. For example, the energy corporation has to provide millions of Russians in small villages with gas for heating. The costs associated with the related pipelines run to $1 billion.

Gazprom's headquarters are still subsidizing a number of subsidiaries that have little to do with the gas business. The beneficiaries include a boiler factory in the town of Armavir, in the North Caucasus, a producer of gas stoves based in Vladikavkas and a tire plant in Omsk, Siberia. The burden of the corporation's social commitments is even weightier: The Russian price for natural gas has been fixed so low by the state that Gazprom makes a loss with its domestic sales. That's not likely to change soon, since the Kremlin is resolved to prevent impoverished Russian citizens taking to the streets to protest gas price hikes -- especially one year before the Duma elections scheduled for late 2007.

The holiday homes and sanatoriums financed by the corporation in Sochi on the Black Sea coast and elsewhere also cost more than they make for Gazprom. But the special rates the corporation's employees receive when they want to spend their vacation in the shade of the palm trees on Sochi's shingle beach help make Gazprom a strike-free business, just like the option of free visits to health resorts owned by the corporation.

With its 350,000 employees, Gazprom presents itself as a paternalistically administered island of social partnership in the rough seas of Russia's post-Soviet capitalism -- as a model of the "socially responsible business" that Putin has called for.

The financial losses associated with the state-owned corporation's business engagements in two regions south of the Russian border show that the gas giant follows the logic of political power more than the laws of the market. For years Gazprom has been providing natural gas to Transnistria, a rebel republic located in Moldavia that has never been recognized as a state by the international community.

By July of last year, the would-be state had run up a natural gas debt of $495.6 million. But even though Transnistria's "president," Igor Smirnov, has made it perfectly clear that his republic can't pay, and even though Gazprom managers have occasionally threatened to cut off the gas supply to the rebels by the Dniester River, the threat has never been implemented. The reason? President Putin has decided that the pro-Russian rebels need to receive massive support in their struggle with the Moldavian state.

The investments effected by Gazprom in South Ossetia, another republic not recognized as a state by the international community, seem to be another such case of subsidies disguised as business. The heavily armed de facto rulers of the impoverished self-proclaimed republic in Georgia can now look forward to receiving natural gas from neighboring North Ossetia, which is part of Russia's territory.

Gazprom's leadership went as far as receiving South Ossetian "President" Eduard Kokoity for negotiations last October. The subject of the negotiations was an ambitious pipeline construction project. The pipeline would lead across the Caucasian Crest and into South Ossetia's capital city of Tskhinvali. Both the smirking rebel leader and the Gazprom managers knew only too well that the project, developed by the Kremlin, wasn't motivated by expectation of financial gain, but by the desire for political power.

A new Russian empire

And so Moscow-based ideologues of Russian power like Alexander Prochanov, the editor in chief of the patriotic Savtra newspaper, are already giving their imagination free rein. "With its steel pincers," Prochanov writes, "Gazprom could build a new kind of Russian geopolitical empire."

The oppositional Moscow weekly Novoye Vremya has found a name for the state-crafted power network of the Russian oil and gas industries: "Kremlin Incorporated." Vadim Kleiner criticizes the company management's tendency to cooperate with dubious intermediary firms. Kleiner's candidacy for Gazprom's supervisory board, where he wants to defend the interests of minority shareholders, has been unsuccessful for years.

The activities involving intermediate firms first came to light during the conflict over natural gas carried out between Russia and Ukraine in January 2006. Gazprom used the intermediary trade firm RosUkrEnergo as an exporter to Ukraine. RosUkrEnergo is an obscure company based in Switzerland. One half of its shares is owned by Gazprom's bank, the other is owned by dubious Ukrainian businessmen.

The state-orchestrated oil deals are hardly more transparent. Insiders know the obscure business transactions often follow a three-part scheme. First an oil trading company purchases petroleum from an oil production company, paying only between a tenth and one-fifth of the market price. Then the trading company sells the petroleum to subsidiaries in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands or the Bermuda Islands, below the world market price. Finally these subsidiary companies offer the petroleum to Western customers at the standard international price.

In 2005, Gazprom was Russia's most important tax payer: It paid €14 billion ($18 billion) in taxes. But estimates by Moscow's central auditing authority suggest that the Russian state loses out on three to four billion US dollars in tax payments every year, due to the devious business transactions involving sunny tax havens.

It's not just stinginess towards the tax authorities that is all the rage among Russia's oil and natural gas executives. They shy away from investing in outdated refineries too. The principle underlying this choice is the same that ruled the economics of real socialism: Live off what you have for as long as you can.

Making the rich richer

True, the Russians sell roughly $500 million worth of oil every day, and this has caused the value of the ruble to rise. But the rest of the Russian export economy -- which is not particularly competitive anyhow -- suffers from this state of affairs.

Instead of benefiting the Russian economy, the oil boom has made Moscow's billionaires even richer. Their villa neighborhoods surround the city like a ring of lard. Ten of the 33 billionaires featured on the 2006 Forbes list got rich thanks to the oil business.

The economic boom doesn't benefit the majority of the Russian population. According to official figures, about 70 percent of Russians had a monthly income of less than €200 ($257) in 2004. Twenty-seven percent brought home less than €100 ($129) a month.

Worse yet, many citizens, especially in rural areas, still don't have access to natural gas -- and this in the country that has the largest natural gas reserves in the world. Countless villagers heat their homes with wood-burning stoves, just as in the 19th century.

Despite rising oil prices, Russia's economic growth rate is declining, as the World Bank laments. During the first quarter of 2006, the growth rate of Russia's industrial production was three percent -- even less than the same period the previous year.

The "national projects" staged by the Kremlin were accompanied by grand propaganda campaigns. With some €3.2 billion in funding, the projects see the government improving education and health systems, the construction of apartments and improvments in the agricultural sector -- as if there were no end of funds available to distribute. But in reality the projects function as a surrogate for real structural reform. Nothing is improved by the projects except the meager salaries of employees. What is more, the projects also fuel inflation in a country where the inflation rate already stood at 5.4 percent between January and April of this year.

If the country doesn't begin investing its revenue from the resource trade into the modernization of its economy, "then Russia will become the Nigeria of natural gas," warns Yuri Solosobov of the Institute for National Strategy in Moscow. The Nigerian state is widely seen as a prime example of how not to handle oil profits.

The struggle over the revenue set free by the resource trade tends not to lead to reforms, but rather to strong-arming and violence. With increasing frequency, the struggle over oil and natural gas leads to bloodshed. On March 23 of this year, Igor Khorshunov, the deputy chairman of a company run by the Gazprom subsidiary Sibur was gunned down in the town of Togliatti.

Khorshunov, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan and a retired commander of the domestic intelligence service, had been charged with curbing the influence exercised on the company by organized crime. The manager of another Sibur company had been injured by shots from a machine gun in neighboring Samara two months earlier.

In the fall of 2004, bandits kidnapped and murdered a leading executive of the Gazprom subsidiary Yugtransgas in the town of Saratov near the Volga River. A short time earlier, his colleagues at the Zentrgas company in Tula, south of Moscow, buried their former vice chairman, Boris Shishikin. He was beaten to death by an unknown killer on his way home.

When such cases occur, Russian prosecutors usually conclude that the homicides are "related to the professional activities of the victim." But they seldom find out who the perpetrator is or who hired him. Police investigations are most likely to be successful when the perpetrator suddenly falls from grace politically, as was the case with Alexei Pichugin.

The former chief of Yukos's security service first had to appear in front of a Moscow court in March of this year. He faces the charge of having ordered the assassination of Vladimir Petuchov, the mayor of the oil town Nefteyugansk, in June of 1998. The local politician is said to have complained about the corporation's reluctance to pay its taxes.

Investigators in Moscow would like to know more about the special jobs Pichugin was charged with by Leonid Nevslin. Trained as a computer engineer and known for his interest in the bloody history of the Bolshevik purges, Nevslin was vice chairman of Yukos and responsible for the company's security service, making him Pichugin's boss.

But before a bill of arrest could be issued for Nevslin, charging him with tax fraud and accomplice to murder, the former chairman of the Russian-Jewish Congress obtained Israeli citizenship and moved from chilly Moscow to the milder climes of Tel Aviv. Israel categorically refuses to extradite its citizens to other states.

In a brief survey over the Russia-blogging landscape, La Russophobe notices that several previously significant blogs are no more: Siberian Light went belly-up last December, From Russia with Blog became comatose in July and the only Russia speciality blog listed on the New York Times' totally pathetic Russia index page, Laughter in the Dark, is now a dead link (laughably, pun intended, the Times still hasn't noticed this yet). Siberian Light founder Andrew Young currently has a new blog, Taking Aim, but it's a globalist blog without a Russia focus, so Siberian Light is a net loss. Meanwhile, the Accidental Russophile is down to posting once-per-month and may be on life support (maybe, with any luck, he's thought better of spewing out pro-Russia propaganda as the icy fingers of failed dictatorship close once again around Russia's throat). Rusecon, tragically, appears to be in a similar category.

Sadly, La Russophobe's research indicates only a handful of blogs with public counters devoted to discussing Russia in English and regularly posting new material that have made a significant impact on the web. These are La Russophobe, Moscow in My Eyes, Scraps of Moscow, Sean’s Russia Blog, Vilhelm Konnander, Moscow in Our Eyes and EnglishRussia (readers, please let LR know if you are aware of others). Of these only three attempt to regularly address Russia's political and social issues, namely Konnander (most blogs linked), Sean (most links from blogs) and Russophobe (most traffic, not surprising since it's the only one that offers multiple daily postings of new content). This is a mighty small universe indeed, and testament both to the extent that Russia generates titanic non-interest in the eyes of most of the world and to the importance of nurturing the few available resources; those committed to understanding Russia are few and, therefore, essential given the considerable problems Russia presents. The other four blogs are basically just entertainment vehicles offering cultural windows. The photoblog EnglishRussia appears to be by far the most significant English-language Russia blog in terms of both link activity and traffic, although it may be using web-manipulation tactics to generate its flow (oddly, it isn't tagged on Technorati as a Russia blog; if you search Technorati for Russia blogs, the top result is The Agonist, a globalist blog that only occasionally deals with Russia in detail).

Blogs that don't publish counter data include Russia Blog, Russian Blog, One Step at a Time, Renner World, Snowsquare, Russian Dilettante, Russian Marketing Blog and Ruminations on Russia. There's no way of telling how many people are visiting these blogs, but according to Technorati none of them has been linked to by as many as half the number that link to Moscow in My Eyes, the second-place Russia speciality blog in terms of the number of blogs linking to it (after EnglishRussia).

Five years ago today, a squad of crazed Islamic terrorists attacked the innocent people in the World Trade Towers, killing women and children as well as many Muslims. Heroic Americans responded by downing one of the terrorist jets and risking their lives rushing to the scenes of the attacks to peform valiant rescue work. We owe it to their memory that such a thing not be repeated, and for the past five years America has been 100% free of terror incidents on its home soil. We all must pause this day and honor the heroes of 9/11. As Lincoln said, no words we can utter are meaningful on such an occasion, only our deeds can matter.

On this somber day, as the fork-tongued serpent named Putin tries to propagandize by reminding the world that he was the first to call President Bush to offer 9/11 condolences, let's not forget that Russia is complicit in this outrageous act, and more importantly in future similar acts which may befall America despite her best efforts to defend herself. Here's why:

• Russia has long supported Islamic terror, especially that aimed at the U.S., through its secret police. It's quite possible that KGB know-how was passed to the 9/11 terrorists through Russia's contacts in the Islamic world and used by the terrorist to acquire the level of sophistication needed to carry out the attacks.

• Russia passed U.S. military secrets to Iraq during the U.S. attack on Sadaam Hussein; it also did everything it could to obstruct the invasion on the dipolmatic front.

• Russia is now supplying both assault weapons and attack jets to U.S.-hating Venezuela, from where they may be exported to Bolivia and other South American nations.

• Russia is now supplying sophisticated nuclear technology to Iran, another ardent U.S. foe, which is seeking atomic weapons.

• Russia is supplyling both dipomatic cover and financial support to both Hamas and Hezbollah (neither of which it will recognize as terrorist organizations) as they struggle to destroy U.S. interests in the Middle East.

• By doing all these things (and more) Russia has created a climate of ambivalence which indicates to the terrorists that American responses to their outrageous actions will be tempered by Russian resistance, making them bolder and bolder.

How many Russians publicly rejoiced with the Twin Towers were attacked, and how many more secretely? How many Russians came forward to publicly scold those who rejoiced? Even as we speak, drunk with oil revenues, Russia is willfully provoking the U.S. into a second cold war. Many believe the Russian secret police capable of having planted the bombs that exploded in Moscow apartment buildings just before Russia launched its second military campaign in Chechnya. The Kremlin's callous disregard of Russian lives during the Beslan and Dubrovka crises is well known. Would the Kremlin really hesitate, then, to take actions that would jeopardize American lives?

In short, signs of genuine Russian friendship towards America are difficult indeed to identify, while signs of enmnity abound.

Global Politician offers readers a series of excerpts from the book Spetsnaz written by KGB defector Victor Suvurov. They highlight Russian involvement in international terrorism and are particuarly apposite on the somber anniversary of 9/11.

"…Soviet secret police, the KGB, carries out different functions (than the Spetsnaz) and has other priorities. It has its own terrorist apparatus, which includes an organization very similar to spetsnaz, known as osnaz. The KGB uses osnaz for carrying out a range of tasks not dissimilar to those performed by the GRU's spetsnaz. But the Soviet leaders consider that it is best not to have any monopolies in the field of secret warfare. Competition, they feel, gives far better results than ration."

"…Osnaz apparently came into being practically at the same time as the Communist dictatorship. In the very first moments of the existence of the Soviet regime, we find references to detachments osobogo nazhacheniya-special purpose detachments. Osnaz means military-terrorist units, which came into being as shock troops of the Communist Party whose job was to defend the party. Osnaz was later handed over to the secret police, which changed its own name from time to time as easily as a snake changes its skins: Cheka-Vcheka-OGPU-NKVD-NKGB-MGB-MVD-KGB. Once a snake, however, always a snake."

"It is the fact that Spetsnaz belongs to the army, and Osnaz to the secret police, that accounts for all the differences between them. Spetsnaz operates mainly against external enemies; Osnaz does the same but mainly in its own territory and against its own citizens. Even if both Spetsnaz and Osnaz are faced with carrying out one and the same operation, the Soviet leadership is not inclined to rely so much on co-operation between the army and the secret police as on the strong competitive instincts between them."

"…Thus if it is relatively easy to recruit a man to act as a 'sleeper', what about recruiting a foreigner to act as a real terrorist, prepared to commit murder, use explosives and fire buildings? Surely that is much more difficult? The answer is that, surprisingly, it is not."

"A Spetsnaz officer out to recruit agents for direct terrorist action has a wonderful base for his work in the West. There are a tremendous number of people who are discontented and ready to protest against absolutely anything. And while millions protest peacefully, some individuals will resort to any means to make their protest. The spetsnaz officer has only to find the malcontent who is ready to go to extremes."

"On another occasion a group of animal rights activists in the UK injected bars of chocolate with poison. If spetsnaz were able to contact that group, and there is every chance it might, it would be extremely keen (without, of course, mentioning its name) to suggest to them a number of even more effective ways of protesting. Activists, radicals, peace campaigners, green party members: as far as the leaders of the GRU are concerned, these are like ripe water-melons, green on the outside, but red on the inside-and mouth-watering. So there is a good base for recruiting."

"The spetsnaz network of agents has much in common with international terrorism, a common center, for example-yet they are different things and must not be confused. It would be foolhardy to claim that international terrorism came into being on orders from Moscow. But to claim that, without Moscow's support, international terrorism would never have assumed the scale it has would not be rash. Terrorism has been born in a variety of situations, in various circumstances and in different kinds of soil. Local nationalism has always been a potent source, and the Soviet Union supports it in any form, just as it offers concrete support to extremist groups operating within nationalist movements. Exceptions are made, of course, of the nationalist groups within the Soviet Union and the countries under its influence."

"If groups of extremists emerge in areas where there is no sure Soviet influence, you may be sure that the Soviet Union will very shortly be their best friend. In the GRU alone there are two independent and very powerful bodies dealing with questions relating to extremists and terrorists."

"…The GRU's tactics toward terrorists are simple: never give them any orders, never tell them what to do. They are destroying Western civilization: they know how to do it, the argument goes, so let them get on with it unfettered by petty supervision. Among them there are idealists ready to die for their own ideas. So let them die for them. The most important thing is to preserve their illusion that they are completely free and independent."

"Although the vast majority of spetsnaz is made up of Slavonic personnel, there are some exceptions…And spetsnaz contains Turks, Kurds, Greeks, Koreans, Mongolians, Finns and people of other nationalities."

"The Soviet Union condemns the civil war in Lebanon. But there is no need for it to condemn the war. All it has to do is hold back the next transportation of ammunition and war will cease."

"Apart from military and financial support, the Soviet Union also provides the terrorists aid in the form of training. Training centers have been set up in the Soviet Union for training terrorists from a number of different countries."

"Every terrorist is studied carefully during his training, and among them will be noted the potential leaders and the born rebels who will not submit to any authority…Of equal importance are the students' weaknesses and ambitions, and their relationships with one another. Some time, many years ahead, one of them may become an important leader, but not one approved by Moscow, so it is vital to know in advance who his likely friends and enemies will be."

"The reward for the GRU is that a terrorist doing work for spetsnaz does not, in the great majority of cases, suspect he is being used. He is utterly convinced that he is acting independently, of his own will and by his own choice. The GRU does not leave its signature or his fingerprints around."

"Even in cases where it is not a question of individual terrorists but of experienced leaders of terrorist organizations, the GRU takes extraordinary steps to ensure that not only all outsiders but even the terrorist leader himself should not realize the extent of his subordination to spetsnaz and consequently to the GRU."

"The overture is a series of large and small operations the purpose of which is, before actual military operations begin, to weaken the enemy's morale, create an atmosphere of general suspicion, fear and uncertainty, and divert the attention of the enemy's armies and police forces to a huge number of different targets, each of which may be the object of the next attack."

"The overture is carried by agents of the secret services of the Soviet satellite countries and by mercenaries recruited by intermediaries. The principal method employed at this stage is "gray terror", that is, a kind of terror which is not conducted in the name of the Soviet Union. The Soviet secret services do not at this stage leave their visiting cards, or leave other people's cards. The terror is carried out in the name of already existing extremist groups not connected in any way with the Soviet Union, or in the name of the fictitious organizations. The GRU reckons that in this period its operations should be regarded as natural disasters, actions by forces beyond human control, mistakes by people, or as terrorist acts by organizations not connected with the Soviet Union."

"The terrorist acts carried out in the course of the 'overture' require very few people, very few weapons and little equipment. In some cases all that may be needed is one man who has a weapon nothing more than a screwdriver, a box of marches or a glass ampoule. Some of the operations can have catastrophic consequences. For example, an epidemic of an infectious disease at seven of the most important naval bases in the West could have the effect of halving the combined naval might of the Soviet Union's enemies."

"There is a marked increase in the strength of the peace movement. In many countries there are continual demand to make the country neutral and not to support American foreign policy, which has been discredited. At this point the 'gray terror' gathers scope and strength and in the last days of peace reaches its peak."

Last Friday, the Moscow Times carried an article by its former editor Lynn Berry. The article relates how she and a group other Western Russia-watchers (whom she misleading refers to as "experts") talked with "a senior Kremlin official" (whom she refuses to identify) during this year's round of meetings in Russia by the so-called "Valdai Discussion Club."

In reality, this "club" is a propaganda ruse. It's merely an opportunity for the Kremlin to wine and dine foreign Russia commentators (who the Kremlin flies to Russia at its expense and allows to hobnob with bigwigs in the Putin administration, stroking their massive egos) and hence win favorable publicity and commentary in the future as the Neo-Soviet Union consolidates its power. La Russophobe has already documented the sycophantic drivel spouted by the JRL's David Johnson after attending one of these soirees. Unfortunately, the participants who report on their activities make little effort to disclose the perks they received much less to ask whether this results in bias. The mere fact that the participants choose to refer to themselves as "member" of a "club" speaks volumes about their objectivity. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, is apparently the slogan of this "club."

Now, Berry allows the Kremlin to dupe her into reporting that unless Russia is given WTO entry "bad things" will surely happen. In other words, she allows herself to be the mouthpiece for blackmail. La Russophobe dares to wonder how many tins of caviar and glasses of expensive champagne Ms. Berry was plied with before this "interview" took place. Notice how there is not one critical word about Putin, the Kremlin or anyone associated with it in the piece, and at the same time a strident attack on the Kremlin's foreign "enemies." Berry, incidentally, is the MT editor who booted out MT columnist Pavel Felgenhaur, one of the Kremlin's staunchest Russian critics.

Here's what Berry wrote about the incident:

By failing to reach an agreement with Russia on its accession to the World Trade Organization, the United States is undermining President Vladimir Putin and strengthening the hand of the siloviki, a senior Kremlin official said Thursday evening.

The official denied that the siloviki in the Kremlin had won the struggle for power over the more liberal camp represented by Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin. The siloviki, he said, had no role in government strategy, only in its implementation.

But if the United States refused to sign off on Russia's WTO bid soon, it should not be surprised if the siloviki win, the official said, speaking to a group of foreign Russia experts on condition he not be further identified.

"For us young reformers, Putin is our hope," he said in response to a question from Andrew Kuchins of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"The WTO game is directly related to the siloviki," the official said. "These people who are playing the game don't understand what's going to happen if we don't get a deal at this time."

Expectations had been high that an agreement on the WTO would be signed in time for the Group of Eight summit in July, but talks broke down on the eve of the summit over the issue of U.S. meat imports. Both sides expressed hope at the time that a deal could be reached by late October, but tensions have only grown since, with Gref warning U.S. trade negotiators that Russia would scrap agreements on all meat imports if the October deadline was not met.

Russian officials have denied that decisions on the participation of U.S. oil companies in the development of Gazprom's Shtokman field and on Boeing's bid to sell planes to Aeroflot were linked to a WTO agreement. But the Kremlin official said all three issues were tied in the sense that it was wrong for the United States to expect favorable treatment from Russia on the issues it cares about while denying Russia entry into the WTO.

When asked by Angela Stent, professor of government at Georgetown University, how the WTO negotiations should play forward now, he said a political decision was needed from U.S. President George W. Bush.

"We have to get the message across to Bush: 'Boys, stop drinking Russian blood,'" the official said.

Ariel Cohen of The Heritage Foundation followed up on the issue, and he and the official traded barbs on the degree of pressure each president was under at home from the agricultural lobby. Cohen said Bush was in a relatively strong position because he was leaving office soon. The Kremlin official said Putin also was leaving office, but there was a difference: "Putin has to leave a person who will continue his policies."

The group of visiting Russia experts, part of what has come to be called the Valdai Discussion Club, was expected to meet with Putin on Saturday.

Indeed. WE have to get the message across, you and me, Lynn baby. We have to tell the world that the U.S. is "drinking Russian blood." So, forget about the fact that Russia has the world's 9th most corrupt economy. Forget that it is obliterating human rights and democracy. Ignore the fact that is providing nuclear technology to Iran, financial support to Hamas and weapons to Venezuela and Hezbollah, while seeking to block U.S. sanctions against those foes. Force the U.S., that "blood sucker," to admit Russia to the WTO even though it's not in America's interest, so that Russia can pretend to be a democracy while "President" Putin consolidates his hold on the nation's throat.

Pretty please, won't you be so kind?

The Washington Post's columnist Jim Hoagland reports from the Valdai Club on Putin's wining and dining of foreign Russia "experts" he wants to brainwash (note that Putin's chef isn't Russian and didn't serve Russian cuisine):

What he has done to the once-turbulent Russian political scene Vladimir Putin would like to do to the world's equally volatile energy markets: Make them as stable and peaceful as the graveyard.

This grand ambition comes through vividly if implicitly as I listen to the Russian president outline in detail the concept of "energy security" that he had presented to world leaders in July at the Group of Eight summit. Putin wants markets built on long-term contracts guaranteeing not only adequate supply (of oil and gas from Russia) but also sustained demand (from consumers willing to pay fixed prices that would hold for decades).

His fellow leaders listened politely but did not commit to an idea that might have seemed quixotic coming from anyone else. Given the year that Putin is having, however, no one was willing to bet that he would fail at grand designs.

He has crushed the vibrant domestic opposition that flourished under Boris Yeltsin. With a 70 percent approval rating, he holds the power to name his successor. He has gained control over the flood of oil dollars pouring into Russia. And perhaps most satisfyingly for him, the political revolution lapping at Russia's frontiers a year ago has receded as reformers who accomplished Ukraine's Orange Revolution splintered and as his non-democratic allies in Belarus easily won reelection.

So the wiry former KGB colonel was chipper as he underwent an annual political checkup of sorts by a group of about 40 American, European and Asian policy and academic experts at his sprawling dacha in suburban Moscow yesterday. He took questions between servings of octopus carpaccio, baked sea bass and figs with yogurt sorbet, all prepared by his Italian chef and washed down by an unassuming pinot grigio 2005.

The clearest sign that fortune has smiled broadly on Putin since he met with the same organization, the Valdai Discussion Group, a year ago in the Kremlin was his warm praise for Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, whom he now magnanimously terms "a serious, responsible" leader. Last September, he accused Yushchenko of allowing corruption to flourish in Ukraine while suggesting that the West was fomenting upheaval throughout the former Soviet Union.

President Bush also came in for praise and was offered a carefully hedged olive branch on Iran:"Iran is a special case" located "in a very dangerous area," Putin said. Other nuclear-capable countries such as Brazil or South Africa "do not establish in their constitutions the goal of destroying another state," as he said Iran did with Israel.

"Iran should abandon its plans for nuclear enrichment on its soil," he continued. When asked specifically if Russia would support U.S. calls for sanctions, he declined to rule them out. Economic reprisals should be avoided if possible and adopted only after more discussions between Iran and the six-nation negotiating group that includes Russia and the United States.

But Putin's remarks, delivered in simultaneous translation, lent weight to reports that Moscow has agreed to support symbolic sanctions if Iran remains adamant.

Putin, however, does not do mellow for long. He remains intense, focused and at times prickly even when munching the octopus carpaccio (quite tasty, by the way). His eyes flare when the subject turns to energy supplies and the vast infrastructure of new pipelines and producing fields that Russia intends to develop over a decade to become the world's dominant exporter of energy.

Putin and his aides insist that to justify the investment needed to build that infrastructure, consuming nations must begin to sign 20- to 30-year contracts with Russia now to avoid the boom-and-bust cycles of petroleum and natural gas prices of the past three decades.

"We have tremendous potential in energy. Not everybody appreciates that potential," Russia's president said in a waspish swipe aimed at the European Union, which is wrangling with Moscow over natural gas supplies. "But it is not their resource. It is Russia's resource," which must be developed "under clear rules of behavior ."

Asked by British political theorist Anthony Giddens to consider swift changes that technology could force on energy suppliers because of global warming in that time frame, Putin turned the question away: "Stability is what the world economy needs . . . to become more predictable."

In his view, the same is true for Russia's political future. Putin promised again not to change the constitution so he could serve a third term after 2008. "Public opinion wants a country that will be stable, and stability is not assured by one man alone," Putin said. It comes instead from following Moscow rules.

For more insights on how Putin manipulates the Western media, check out this insightful item on Vilhelm Konnander's blog.

Hoagland, at least, reminds readers about Putin's brutal crackdown on democracy; as noted above, many other participants at Valdai seem just as starstruck by Putin as Chamberlain was at Munich by Hitler. Yet, not even Hoagland pays enough attention to the potential for this event to constitute outright bribery, to lull the senses of the unwary, to be a trap set by a cunning KGB spy who has spent his life learning how to deceive.

Hoagland loses sight, however, like the rest, of Russia's current litany of desperate problems. The population is rapidly declining; AIDS will infect 10% within 15 years; personal incomes hover at $300 per month, with millions living in third-world poverty. Russia is on the fast track to total disaster, repeating all the errors that brought the USSR to its knees, a Potemkin village easily blown down by the first economic storm. In short, Hoagland ought to spend a bit less time at Valdai and a bit more at La Russophobe.

Kommersant reports that Russia is engaged in a full-scale cold war against Ukraine, with several outrageously imperlialistic goals: (a) seize control of existing gas and oil pipelines in Ukraine; (b) seize control of Ukraine's energy sector; (c) block the development of pipelines from central Asia to Europe through Ukraine. This naked Neo-Soviet aggression against Ukraine, when added to the recent Russian effort to foment a coup d'etat against Georgia, is terrifying and cries out for immediate and concerted action by the world if it wishes to avoid another protracted period of struggle with a totalitatarian Russia. Kommersant paints the ugly picture:

Kommersant has learned that Gazprom has promised Ukraine to keep gas prices at $95 per thousand cubic meters until the end of the year. In return, the gas giant is demanding a share in the country's assets and a return to the question of control over its main gas pipelines. Russia's position is so harsh that Ukraine has apparently joined the global ranks of Gazprom's foes. Yesterday Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko announced that the country's new energy strategy calls for the beginning of gas deliveries from a shelf in the Caspian Sea and participation in a project to deliver gas from the region to Europe via a pipeline that would bypass Russia.

Talks between Gazprom chief manager Aleksey Miller and Ukrainian prime minister Viktor Yanukovych concerning the regularization of the energy balance between Ukraine and Russia for late 2006 and early 2007 were concluded on Thursday. According to Kommersant's sources, Ukraine was assured that it would not be left without gas and that, despite the fact that Gazprom will begin to buy Turkmen gas for $100 per cubic meter in October, Ukraine will still be able to purchase its gas for $95 until the end of the year. However, this does not come without a cost. In return, Gazprom is demanding control over Ukraine's major gas arteries and the opportunity to purchase stakes in the country's fuel and energy sectors. Ukraine's leadership is opposed to both demands, and it is possible that the situation could lead to another escalation of the conflict over gas between the two countries. The workings of both countries' gas industries still happen behind closed doors, with few comments from either side. However, yesterday Yushchenko announced that he had reached an agreement with Azeri president Ilham Aliyev to create a gas transport network to deliver gas from the Caspian Sea to Western Europe. The planned network would cut Russia out of the loop entirely. Russia is, unsurprisingly, taking steps to head off such construction. In May, Russian president Vladimir Putin even promised to buy gas from Kazakhstan for $140 per thousand cubic meters (the current price is $65) in exchange for reassurances that the country will not build pipelines that would cut Russia out of its delivery network. A similar offer was made to the president of Turkmenistan. On September 6, Aleksey Miller signed an agreement with Turkmen president Saparmurat Niyazov to buy 162 billion cubic meters of Turkmen gas for $100 per cubic meter (the current price is $65) in 2006-2009. During the signing, President Niyazov assured the Gazprom chief that all of the gas will be delivered through Russia and that Turkmenistan is not interested in a trans-Caspian pipeline. However, the US, which has good relations with Ukraine and Poland, is lobbying hard for the pipeline. According to the Polish media, the country's prime minister will visit Washington next week to discuss financing (Poland needs to commit $5 billion to the project). Similar negotiations with Ukraine are possible, meaning that the chances of such a pipeline being built are increasing slowly but surely.