Writing on his blog "Accidental Russophile," crazed Kremlin apologist Wally Shedd launches an early attack on Anna Politkovskaya. Not even waiting for her corpse to grow cold, he claims that "while the BBC obituary applauds her for "honest journalism", there have been critics of her writing and reporting who cite her for wholesale invention ... or at the very least, distortion."

His "evidence" of this "distortion" and "wholesale invention"? It's a letter written to the Johnson's Russia list by crazed Slavic nationalist Kirill Pankratov, published nowhere else and relying on exactly ZERO published accusations of inaccuracy against Anna, just his own "analysis." Who is Pankratov? How is he in a position to know anything about the accuracy of Politkovskaya's writing? Well, (a) he's a physicist and (b) he writes (unpublished) hardcore eroticism. That just about says it all. In Wally's World, that makes him a Chechnya scholar, and, in the"mind" of Russophile nutjob like Wally, the word of another Russophile wacko is the equal not just of the BBC but of all the world's media. Not a word about her many international awards for the quality of her journalism. Not a single one. Not in Pankratov's "analysis" and not in Wacko Wally's post. The sum total of Pankratov's "analysis" is that since the Russian newspaper Izvestia gave a different account than Politkovskaya, the Russian paper must be right and she must be wrong. Never mind that Russian newspaper column inches are for sale and many are slaves of the Kremlin. Never mind that an army of highly respected Western had checked and touted Politkovskaya's stories (hence her awards). Only propaganda matters to these bloodthirsty crazies. The Neo-Soviet conclusion? Well, the Kremlin was just doing some much needed fact checking when it liquidated her. Pity she had to die, but truth must prevail. Is that totally sick, or what?

Wacko Wally also writes: "The Russian death toll for journalists was certainly troublesome over the past decade, with now 13 journalists murdered since Putin became President of the Russian Federation, two in 2005 and now four murdered in 2006 (thus far). Before Americans become too smug regarding these details, we should remember that despite a supposed "free press" we have our own history of violence against reporters and journalists as well (the Alan Berg murder and Dan Rather assault come to mind in recent years)."

"Troublesome"? Is that the best word for thirteen MURDERS? Well, in the eyes of a Russophile maniac, it's probably much too strong. Who is Alan Berg? Not a reporter, that's for sure. He was a talk show host, and there is not one single shred of evidence to indicate that the government was involved in his killing, which is universally acknowledged to be the case with Politkovskaya. Notice that the first thing your standard Russian propaganda always does when a Russian vice is discovered is attack some other country: How does one murder of a talk show host place America in the same company as Russia with thirteen killings of reporters? La Russophobe gave up trying to understand the crazed "minds" of Russophiles long ago (Wacko Wally begins his post by writing: "I apologize for the delay on this topic. Katja and I had a very unexpectedly busy Saturday" -- that's right, he really thinks all kinds of people have been waiting eagerly with bated breath for him to pronounce his wisdom about the killing, and he really thinks they're interested in the details of his personal life -- this is Russophile mania at its most classic).

We owe it to Anna's memory to root out this kind of outrageous, disgusting propaganda wherever it is to be found. It is "thinking" like this that led to her death in the first place.

Neeka's Backlog has more on the predictable attacks rolling in from the Russian nationalists who killed Anna and are trying to destroy all hope for Russia's future. She refers to it quite aptly as "an incredible stench."

In a Moscow Times column, Evgeny Kiselyov, formerly one of the leading voices on NTV television before it was crushed by the Kremlin, delivers an ode to his colleague Anna Politkovskaya:

Anna Politkovskaya, who was gunned down Saturday outside her home in central Moscow in what appears to have been a contract hit, was not just a famous journalist. She was a symbolic figure, the incarnation of all that makes people both love journalists and hate them.

For me, Politkovskaya's bravery, single-mindedness and readiness to get the story no matter what the risks involved, put her up there with Veronica Guerin of The Irish Times, who was killed by Dublin drug dealers in 1996 as revenge for her investigative articles.

Many will remember Joel Schumacher's film about her story, with Guerin played by Cate Blanchett. The film was slammed by many critics for portraying the deceased journalist as highly ambitious and interested only in glory and celebrity. In fact, Guerin was completely different -- modest and concerned only with telling her readers the truth. I once met Veronica and can vouch for this personally.

Politkovskaya was from the same mold. If anything, she was even less interested in money. She was more ascetic, more of a human rights activist. She had one main theme: human rights violations in Chechnya. She not only wrote about this, but tried to help people whose rights had been violated, to get them out of torture chambers and back on their feet. This was where the royalties from her articles and books went.

Contrary to the common perception that renowned journalists earn a lot of money, Politkovskaya lived very modestly, like the overwhelming majority of her colleagues. She drove an old beat-up Lada and rented an apartment in an old building.

People like Politkovskaya are crusaders. She was a study in fanaticism and obsession. Sometimes it even seemed as though she was cloaked in an aura of saintliness, like many people who believe they have a mission in life that must be pursued every hour of every day and in every way possible. Politkovskaya believed that fate had given her a mission: to tell people the truth about what was actually going on in Chechnya.

This was why she spent almost every day investigating human rights violations and other crimes committed by federal forces and their Chechen allies during a war that, according to opinion polls, most Russians had not supported for years. It is a war that swept the man who started its latest phase into the Kremlin. President Vladimir Putin regards criticism of the war as a personal affront.

The criticism that Politkovskaya expressed in her articles drove many to distraction, including the authorities in Moscow and their appointees in Chechnya, as well as many ordinary people who did not enjoy hearing unpleasant news. This frustration grew into hatred.

Politkovskaya was a silent rebuke to many of her fellow journalists, who accepted the rules of the game as laid down by the authorities, rules that have cowed journalists into looking for themselves, their careers and peace of mind above all else while subjecting themselves to relentless self-censorship.

Politkovskaya was not an easy person to get along with. It was impossible to convince her not to publish certain information or to get into her good graces by offering her an exclusive.

Those in power, both political and military, tried to avoid her. A colleague of mine once told me how, in the Caucasus, a general known for his fearlessness -- someone who had looked death in the face -- ran into Politkovskaya on a mountain road, then turned his jeep around and sped off home so that the chance encounter would not turn into an interview.

Politkovskaya was not only a difficult person for those whom she exposed or asked pointed questions, but occasionally for those who agreed with her.

At this point I should make a confession. A few years ago, when I was hosting the political talk show "Glas Naroda," or "Vox Populi," on NTV -- when the channel was not yet under de facto state control -- even when we had already discussed events in and around Chechnya, I still felt uneasy whenever Politkovskaya was in the studio audience.

I knew that if she had the microphone she could tear to pieces any opponent, accusing him or her -- without mincing her words -- of lying or withholding information. In other words, she could generate an outright scandal. She was extremely temperamental, but she never had a hidden agenda -- just the desire to tell the truth.

Politkovskaya long ago disappeared from our television screens. The media, and television in particular, is increasingly becoming a business, and business is often incompatible with critical opinions from journalists who cast doubt on statements made by government officials. This is happening everywhere, but unfortunately, as often happens, it becomes monstrous, grotesque and rampant in Russia. There is less and less space for journalism, particularly of the investigative kind.

Some journalists had apparently started a muttering campaign against Politkovskaya, asking why she kept hammering away about Chechnya and nothing else. Nothing can be done, they said. Everyone is fed up with Chechnya, people don't want to hear about it and readers are deserting her newspaper. But she stuck to her guns. In the end she paid with her life.
As the boss of a respected Moscow newspaper said cynically, "She kept on asking for it, and she fell."

Politkovskaya's murder was clearly ordered and was clearly political. It is unimportant whether she was murdered out of revenge, as a warning to others or to prevent the publication of potentially damaging material. The last option seems least likely, because in recent years numerous journalistic exposes have, alas, come directly from the hands of venal officials and lying politicians.

I feel embarrassed for many of my colleagues. Alexander Mamontov, the editor of Russia's oldest and still-respected newspaper, Izvestia, which recently has recently taken an increasingly pro-government line, said that Politkovskaya's professional activities "had not the slightest thing to do with what happened to her." This was just hours after the murder, when no one knew any details of the crime. I wonder what he knew that enabled him to make such a categorical statement.

Meanwhile, people have been found to say, obligingly, that Politkovskaya's murder was a provocation by enemies of the regime. But you could just as easily accuse enemies of the opposition and say that they organized this horrible crime in order to point the finger at the regime's critics.

It is unlikely that the killer and -- more importantly --whoever ordered the murder will ever be found, just as the killer of former Channel One boss and television journalist Vladislav Listyev -- shot to death in his home in 1995 -- has never been found. This is the rule rather than the exception in these cases.

Much will also be said now about how the murder of a journalist should be seen as no less serious a crime than the murder of a politician; that journalism is a public profession and, as such, journalists should be untouchable. I agree completely. But the professional immunity of journalists must be guaranteed before their physical safety.

This immunity does not exist in Russia today, because the state has no respect for journalists' rights to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Everything springs from this. And for this, the authorities are definitely to blame.

Vilhelm Konnader analyzes the outrageous silence of the Kremlin in the face of the Politkovskaya killing. Click here to read his devastating exposure of the Kremlin's vile nature.

Yesterday, Russian journalist and patriot Anna Politkovskaya of Novaya Gazeta was murdered. She gave her life for her country more fearlessly than any Russian soldier, for she fought without a gun. Who killed her?

There's only one answer to that question: The Russian people. They are far more dangerous to Russia's future than any foreign enemy.

They killed her when they voted for a proud KGB spy to become their "president," just as surely as if they'd placed a gun to her head and pulled the trigger.

They killed her before she died, by breaking her heart, as she watched dozens of her colleagues gunned down, sued, arrested and imprisoned for daring to tell the truth, while the cowardly Russian people stood idly by and did nothing.

They killed her when they allowed the Kremlin to take over national television, and bring back the Soviet national anthem, showing that they'd learned nothing from decades of totalitarian horror at the hans of the Soviet dictatorship.

They killed her just like they killed Pushkin and Lermontov, as they tried to kill Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn, by creating a climate in which their Kremlin overlords have no hesitation in liqudating those who dare to criticize, a climate in which the definitions of "patriot" and "traitor" are reversed.

The Russian people killed Anna Politkovskaya. Right now, they are in the early stages of conducting a pogrom against Georgians, including children, for no better reason than naked greed and imperialism. And, to all appearances, they will go on killing until there is nobody left in Russia. Only then will they be satisfied.

There is still a chance for them to turn back from the precipice of Doom. But time is running out. Soon it will be too late.

{NB: Of course, there can be no Sunday Funnies today. One wonders if it will ever be possible to have them again. Rest in peace, Anna. History will remember you as the hero you were.}

Many major Western media outlets have prominent memorial articles for slain Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya (she was just 48 years old and was killed on Vladimir Putin's birthday - was it a gift for the "president"?). But the question is, will they use their resources to begin pressuring the Neo-Soviet Union now, or will they let the issue drop, like cowards, in fear for their own reporters on the ground in Russia? Time will tell. Politkovskaya must not have died in vain! That must be our rallying cry until the Neo-Soviet Union topples and falls just like its predecessor! Here are some links to the articles:

Once upon a time Vladimir Vladimirovich™ Putin was sitting at the formidable desk in his formidable Kremlin office, ringing up various Russian elementary schools on his Presidential Telephone™. "Hey there," said Vladimir Vladimirovich™, after punching in the next number from a thick directory. "Excuse me, but have got any children in your school with Georgian surnames? You know, dze-something or shvili-whatsis? No? Not a single one? I hardly believe that! Where could they have got to?" Vladimir Vladimirovich™ became positively vexed and began to assume a fetal position. Then suddenly the mighty Presidential Doors™ of his office burst open and into the room ran the Director of the Federal Security Service, Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev. "Yo, bro, what do you know!" he announced with consternation. "A group of armed terrorist have just hijacked one of our planes! It's headed for the Kremlin like a kamikaze bat out of hell." Slowly, Vladimir Vladimirovich™ raised his head with interest and came to attention. "Did you say kamikaze?" asked Vladimir Vladimirovich™. "Yes? Oh, that's one of them for sure." He reached for a sheet of Presidential Proclamation Paper™, scribbled on it, stamped it furiously and shoved it at Nikolai Platonovich. "Take this, call the paddy wagon and have him deported right back to Georgia with the rest of those little bastards." Nikolai Platonovich was stupefied.

Under the headline "A Sickness of the Soul" the Economist reports on Russia's dire demographic crisis, the sign of a fundamentally failed society, failed at the level of biology.

OLGA wants her first baby, just delivered in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, to have two siblings. Whether he will get them depends on whether she and her husband can afford them. Yes, she says, President Vladimir Putin's new plan to boost child support, and pay a lump sum for second babies, might help.

Mr Putin's aim is to boost Russia's birth rate, which plummeted after the late Soviet period and has stabilised well below replacement level. His ultimate goal is to arrest and reverse Russia's headlong population decline. Despite a large influx of ethnic Russians from elsewhere, the population has fallen by 6m since the Soviet Union collapsed, to 143m. It is falling still, by around 700,000 a year. There may be fewer than 100m Russians left by 2050.

Olga's interest notwithstanding, Mr Putin's plan is unlikely to halt the slide. That is partly because the trend is an old and accelerating one. Money worries do not entirely explain it: some of the poorest groups in Russia (most of them Muslim) are the most fertile. In a way, wealth is even a contributor: Western lifestyles and expectations have spread into Russia and, by European standards, the birth rate is low but not outlandishly so. Anatoly Vishnevsky, of the Russian Academy of Sciences, points out that, elsewhere, maternity bribes have produced a short-term baby rush but little long-term effect.

But the bigger reason for scepticism is that Russia's truly startling demographic problem is its amazing death rate, which has leapt as fertility has crashed, and is now more than twice western Europe's. Most of the leap is accounted for by working-age men. At less than 59, male life expectancy has collapsed in a way otherwise found only in sub-Saharan Africa. It is around five years lower than it was 40 years ago, and 13 years lower than that of Russian women—one of the biggest gaps in the world. Male life expectancy in Irkutsk (not the country's lowest) is just 53.

Russia leads the world, in fact, in a staggering range of scourges and vices. Nicholas Eberstadt, of the American Enterprise Institute, speculates that the heart-disease rate may be the highest anywhere, ever. Russians' propensity to die violently is probably unprecedented in industrialised societies at peace. The suicide rate is more than five times Britain's. With fewer cars, Russians are four times more likely to die in traffic accidents than Britons. Murder is 20 times more common than in western Europe. And so on.

There is an obvious culprit: booze, especially the Russian taste for strong spirits, sometimes not fit for human consumption and often moonshine. Heart disease and violence, the two biggest factors in the mortality surge, are strongly alcohol-related. Alcohol poisoning itself killed 36,000 Russians last year; in America, it kills a few hundred. Mikhail Gorbachev's efforts in the late 1980s to rein in alcohol consumption briefly improved life expectancy. In Irkutsk Igor Bolugin runs a club for children of alcoholics, sometimes taking them to Lake Baikal (see article). Many are themselves drinkers from around 13; in the villages, says Mr Bolugin, the drinking starts much younger.

But the obvious culprit is only part of a complicated, self-destructive syndrome. Other factors include smoking (among the highest rates in the world), pollution, including radioactivity, and a grim and corrupt health system. Alcoholism itself is a symptom. Some see the stress and inequality brought on by the Soviet Union's fall as the cause. But a wanton disregard for their own lives set in among Russian men long before that, and has persisted even as the economy has turned round. Sergei Voronov, deputy governor of Irkutsk, blames the local gene pool, derived largely from Soviet-era prisoners.

Whatever its causes, and shocking though it already is, Russia's national sickness is now likely to worsen, because of AIDS. Since the disease arrived so late, the Russians ought to have been ready. Instead, out of prudishness, intolerance and Soviet-style pig-headedness, the response was criminally lackadaisical. This year the federal AIDS budget is around 3.3 billion roubles ($124m) with extra funding coming from abroad: it was a big increase, but it is piffling by international standards.

In Irkutsk, which has Russia's highest HIV-infection rate, it shows. Packs of stray dogs prowl the grounds of the hospital that houses the AIDS clinic. Yulia Rakhina, its boss, maintains that attitudes, not cash, are the main obstacle. Young people do not use condoms, she says; even HIV-positive people are blasé. “It's hard to explain to someone who feels well that they're going to die.” Like all Russians, says Ms Rakhina, they want to live better, but do nothing about it. Only 200 people in Irkutsk (a city of 600,000) are on anti-retroviral drugs.

Nationally, says Vadim Pokrovsky, head of the federal AIDS centre, some 20,000 will get drugs by the end of 2006—up from 4,000 at the start of it, but still low. The best guess for the total number of HIV-infected Russians is around 1m. (Rates of other sexually transmitted diseases are a guide, and syphilis is dozens of times more prevalent in Russia than in western Europe.) AIDS-related deaths are of hard to measure, partly because of Russia's astronomical level of tuberculosis. The number of future infections, says Mr Pokrovsky, will depend on whether the epidemic continues to shift from drug-takers to the general population. Irkutsk's infection rate reflects its big drug problem; but now, says Ms Rakhina, 70% of new female patients contract HIV from sex.

The immediate result of all this is a huge toll of tragic and needless early deaths. But its health and demographic malaise will also warp Russia's future. The army is struggling to find as many healthy recruits as Russian generals say they need. The population is ageing and sickening: behind the headline death rates is a secondary plague of incapacity. The workforce is shrinking. Yet, as a racist bombing at a Moscow market last month and a near-pogrom against Caucasians in a northern town this week both suggest, Russians are ill-disposed towards the new immigrants their economy increasingly needs.

Some, including Mr Putin, have gone so far as to prophesy the death of the nation itself. In Irkutsk the big fear is the “yellow peril”. As people quit cities that should never have existed, the population of Siberia and the Russian far east has shrunk faster than the rest of the country's. Those who remain fret about Chinese hordes swarming across the border, intent on annexation. “They work for kopeks and live ten to a room,” complains Alexander Turik, an Irkutsk extremist, also alleging that Chinese men are paid to marry Russian women. Even some Chinese worry: Changa, a long-term trader in the Irkutsk market known as Shanghai, grumbles that recent arrivals are damaging business.

It is an ancient Russian anxiety, though probably an irrational one. Many of the Chinese, like Changa, are shuttle traders rather than colonisers. Still, even if fears of Russia's dismemberment are fanciful, its demographic course will render it a different country, and probably a more ungovernable one. That, plus Russia's incubation of assorted epidemics, ought to be a worry for other countries too. Alas, persuading Russia and the Russians to change their ways has never been easy.

The Wall Street Journal reported on October 2nd:

New opposition is emerging in Congress to Russia’s bid to enter the World Trade Organization. In a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab, four senior U.S. senators, including Utah Republican Orrin Hatch, raised questions about Russia’s ongoing efforts to help Iran develop a nuclear-power station. Just last week, Russia and Iran signed an agreement setting a September 2007 startup date for the power plant. The senators warned they are prepared to oppose Moscow’s entry into the WTO, unless Russia’s nuclear cooperation with Iran is brought to a halt. They voiced concern that “Iran will be able to enrich the nuclear fuel” used at the power station “for eventual use” in a nuclear weapon. “We are alarmed at even the possibility that Iran could develop a nuclear weapon and we find Russia’s role in accelerating this process deeply disturbing,” the senators wrote, citing fears that Russia may help Iran build additional nuclear power reactors. “We hardly believe this is the behavior of a responsible member of the global trading community." Working through the United Nations, the U.S. and its European allies have been trying to limit Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons. At the same time, Schwab is leading negotiations for the Bush administration on a trade deal that would clear the way for Russia’s entry to the WTO. Any WTO deal would trigger action by Congress repealing Cold War-era economic restrictions on Moscow. Also signing the letter were Sens. Jim Bunning (R., Ky.), Gordon Smith (R., Ore.) and Ron Wyden (D., Ore.).

Meanwhile, Georgia announced that, not suprisingly, it will veto Russia's application. The Moscow News reports:

Georgia will block Russia’s bid to join the World Trade Organization as long as Moscow’s economic sanctions against the country remain in place, Georgia’s Central Bank chief told Reuters on Wednesday, Oct. 4. Georgian National Bank President Roman Gotsiridze said the national currency — the lari — and inflation would be unaffected by Russia’s decision to cut transport and postal links over a spying row. “Georgia will never support Russia’s accession to the WTO as long as sanctions remain,” he said in an interview in his central Tbilisi office. “These sanctions are the behavior of an uncivilized country and it is hardly imaginable that a country which blockades its neighbor is a member of the Group of Eight.” As MosNews has reported over the last few days, Russia threw up a blockade against Georgia on Monday, Oct. 2, after Tbilisi’s release of four arrested Russian soldiers failed to defuse the worst crisis in years between the ex-Soviet neighbors. Rail, air and postal links with Georgia were cut in the early hours of Tuesday.

POLITKOVSKAYA MURDERED!!!!!

The Moscow News reports:

Prominent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, known for her harsh criticism of the Kremlin’s policies and Vladimir Putin’s regime, was killed in the Russian capital on Saturday evening, local media reports said. Anna Politkovskaya was found dead at 17-10 on Saturday, in a lift of a house where she lived. The journalist had died of a gun wound, a police source has told the Interfax news agency. Politkovskaya worked as a reporter for the Novaya Gazeta daily. She rose to prominence and achieved international recognition for her coverage of developments in Russia’s restive southern province of Chechnya and other North Caucasian provinces. “She was shot dead in the entrance hall of the house where she lived,” Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, confirmed.

So suddenly, Neo-Soviet Russia explodes in flames. First the assault on Georgia's soveriegnty, then the assault on Georgians (including children) in Russia, and now one of Russia's greatest opposition journalists liquidated. La Russophobe has been sounding the warning cry for more than six months now, but the world has been slow to respond. These are the consequences. What will it take to get the world to pay attention?

The Associated Press reports: "In 2004, she fell seriously ill with symptoms of food poisoning after drinking tea on a flight from Moscow to southern Russia during the school hostage crisis in Beslan. At the time, her colleagues suspected it was an attempt on her life." She becomes only the latest in a long string contract hits against journalists, not one of which as been solved.

Ms. Politkovskaya was a Time magazine hero of 2003:

Anna Politkovskaya, a correspondent for the Moscow biweekly Novaya Gazeta, was in Los Angeles last October, picking out her dress for a media awards ceremony, when some staggering news came from Moscow: Chechen terrorists were holding 850 hostages in a theater. The Russian authorities tried to send in negotiators, but the Chechens refused to see most of them. They asked for Politkovskaya.

And so Politkovskaya rushed back to cover yet another episode of one of the world's nastiest and longest wars, which this time had shifted to Moscow. The terrorists, she says, "wanted someone who would accurately report things as they were. My work in Chechnya makes people there feel that I don't lie. But there wasn't much I could do for the hostages anyway." She carried water and fruit juice to them, and reported their dejection and feelings of doom to the world. Two days later, Russian special forces stormed and gassed the theater, killing 41 terrorists and 129 hostages.

Politkovskaya, 44, made her name by writing detailed, accurate and vivid reports on the plight of the civilian population in Chechnya, caught in the horrors of war since 1994. She tells stories of people who are taken from their homes at night and never come back; about extrajudicial executions; about the hungry refugees in cold and damp camps. "It was the refugee problem that started it," she now recalls. When the second Chechen war began in 1999, tens of thousands of refugees began flooding the makeshift relief camps. "It was horrible to stand among the refugees in the field in October 1999, and see cruise missiles flying over your head," she recalls.

When those missiles hit a market in Grozny, it was only prompt coverage by journalists like Politkovskaya that forced the Russian commanders to let ambulances in and refugees out. "Our work is a lever to help people as much as we can," she believes. But it also causes trouble. In February 2000, the FSB (the former KGB) arrested Politkovskaya in the Vedeno district of Chechnya. They kept her in a pit for three days without food or water. "It was important not to let them kill me on the first day," she says. A year later, a Russian officer whose war crimes Politkovskaya had exposed threatened to kill her. Novaya Gazeta had to hide her in Austria for a while. The officer is now awaiting trial on charges of war crimes committed in Chechnya that Politkovskaya was the first to report. "But I don't feel victorious," she says. "I only feel that we're all involved in a great tragedy."

Her editors have had to stand up to pressure from the Kremlin, which is often infuriated by her reporting. Novaya Gazeta balances on the brink of forcible closure. "Well, it goes with the job," she shrugs. Politkovskaya has long since learned to keep her anxieties in check. As she arranges yet another trip to Chechnya, she may now be too famous to be targeted by the FSB. But she really doesn't think about such things. "If you don't have the strength to control your emotions, you're of no help to the people who are in such shock and pain. You only add to their burden," she says.

Reader Jeremy Putley points out that the Associated Press has reported that barbaric, maniacal Russia is now trying to move against Georgian children in response to Georgia's desire to be free from Russian-sponsored coup attempts. What's next? Grandmothers? Puppies? How long before the gulags start appearing? How much more evidence does the world need of Russia's intentions before it will act to prevent this unfolding nightmare from reaching true Neo-Soviet proportions? Does Russia have any scruples at all? Only time will tell. Whoever remains silent in the face of this outrage is complicit.

Moscow Police Seek Georgian Kids' Names

The Wall Street Journal explains how the West is missing the forest for the trees where Russia is concerned:

Just two years ago, it looked like Russia was losing its grip over what had been part of its empire for centuries. U.S. troops were based across energy-rich Central Asia, where Moscow was struggling to rebuild its influence. Pro-Western governments had swept to power in Georgia and Ukraine, emboldening the White House to talk about a wave of democratic change sweeping the region. Russian officials blamed the U.S. for orchestrating the revolutions and worried openly that Washington had similar plans to install a friendlier government in Moscow. Since then, the most important of the uprisings, Ukraine's Orange revolution, has seen its leaders become mired in infighting, opening the way for the appointment of an openly pro-Russian prime minister in August. Last month, he said Ukraine was putting its NATO membership bid on hold. Central Asian governments that had sought to play the West off against Moscow have largely shifted into the Russian camp, ousting U.S. military bases and tightening security and other ties to Moscow. This year, Russia secured long-term contracts to purchase Central Asian gas, tightening its control over the supply to Europe. The turning point in Central Asia came in May 2005, when Uzbekistan's government killed hundreds of protesters in Andijan. Criticized by the U.S., the Uzbek government turned to Moscow, which concurred that it had faced a terrorist threat. Uzbekistan then kicked U.S. troops out of a military base established to support the war in Afghanistan. This summer, it joined the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization. Next door, Kyrgyzstan -- where the so-called Tulip Revolution toppled the government last year -- yesterday wound up joint military antiterrorist exercises with Russia. The U.S. still runs a military base in Kyrgyzstan, but the rent it pays increased sharply this year.

Within hours Moscow was tightening the screws. It announced it was cutting off all flights, trains, shipping, roads and postal links to Georgia, which has a population of about 4.7 million. Since then, it has closed down Georgian-owned businesses, including a popular Moscow casino, and imposed restrictions on visas for Georgians. Parliament this week will consider a bill preventing Georgians making bank transfers to relatives back home. That could prove a powerful blow, because hundreds of thousands of Georgians rely on the transfers. Russian officials have given no indication when they might ease the restrictions, insisting Georgia take a more deferential line. "Russia does not want to be provoked. Russia wants to be respected," deputy foreign minister Alexander Yakovenko said yesterday. "Russia wants the anti-Russian campaign to stop." But the pressure could escalate much further. At a meeting with Russian parliamentary leaders in the Kremlin Wednesday, Mr. Putin discussed the possibility of Russia recognizing the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two areas of Georgia controlled by Russian-backed separatists since the early 1990s.

The Moscow News reports that a major worldwide study by the European Union finds that Russia is the world's second leading source of counterfeit goods:

On Thursday, Oct. 5, the European Commission has published the results of a survey of EU businesses on their experience with intellectual property rights enforcement outside the EU in 2005. China was named the world’s largest producer of counterfeit goods, while Russia came a close second. Other countries identified for their problems with illegal product production were Ukraine, Chile and Turkey. The European Commission’s report claims that all of these countries have signed the necessary agreements for protection of intellectual rights with the European Union, but says that they have to make more efforts to counteract this kind of violations, which are identified as “high levels of production, transit and/or consumption of counterfeit goods”.It has been said numerous times that problems with protection of copyright serve as one of the main stumbling blocks on the road of Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization.

Once again, clear proof of how utterly bogus the claims of Professor Malawer about the "normalcy" or Russian corruption really were.

Reader Jeremy Putley has authored an excellent Wikipedia entry on Svetlana Bakhmina, the persecuted lawyer of dissident oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Check it out, and consider adding any additional material on Bakhmina you may have, as well as consider creating new entries about other figures victimized by the Kremlin; Wiki offers an excellent opportunity to record these Kremlin outrages for posterity.

EnglishRussia carries the above photograph, which it says depicts campaign billboards displayed on a building in the major city of Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. The top banner reads "Russia for Russians" while the lower one reads "For Democracy! For Russian Power!"

A commenter notes: "'russia for russians (russkiye)' is both xenophobic and ultranationalistic, because RF defines itself as a multinational state. if it were 'russia for russians (rossiya dlja rossiyan)', it would be okay."

La Russophobe has already discussed the issue raised by the commenter. In the "Russia for Russians" banner, the word Русский ("ROO-skee") is used instead of the word Российский ("RAH-see-skee") to express the idea of "Russian" and there is a big difference. The first means "Slavic Russian" and the second means "Russian by law." So what the poster is really declaring is "Russia for Slavs Only." Though the commenter is standing against racism to some extent, it's hard to see how making the change he requests would resolve the matter. Then, "Russia for Slavs Only" would become "Russia for Russian Citizens Only," formalizing Russian xenophobia and justifying attacks on all dark-skinned vistors to the country, including the killing of foreign students. Yet, the commenter is a clear liberal among Russians, quite a scary notion indeed.

And remember, this isn't some grafitti spray-painted on a wall by a skinhead. This is a campaign poster for high office in a city that is nowhere near the troubles with Chechnya and has never had a significant terrorist incident. It's the third largest city in Siberia, with a population of nearly 1 million. If the local political leaders are willing to be this blatantly racist in public, can you imagine how racist they're capable of being in private? Is it any wonder that dark-skinned foreigners, including many college students, have been brutally murdered across the country, if this is the official line on race relations?

Writing in the Moscow Times, Russian Boris Kagarlitsky gives a bravura performance demonstrating how bizarre and unhinged Russians can be when they really get going.

Kagarlitsky begins by noting: "On Sept. 26, the European Commission announced that Bulgaria and Romania would join the European Union even earlier than previously planned. The two former Soviet satellites will join the EU on Jan. 1, 2007, instead of 2008."

Now, right of the bat we can see that this is an issue that could be deeply affected by Russian nationalism, indeed Neo-Soviet paranoia of being "encircled" by the evil forces of NATO and the European Union. But we get no acknowledgment of this from Russian Kagarlitsky, who purports to analyze the question as a dispassionate scientest. What folows is classic Russian gibberish.

Kagarlitsky claims to oppose the admission of Bulgaria and Romania not because of Russian nationalism but because of his deep commitment to democracy. He objects: "Both Bulgaria and Romania were accepted into the union essentially as second-rate members."

Yet, in the entirety of his discussion he does not give one single specific limitation on the either one of the two countries that is being imposed by the EU. And he goes on to state: "The union of Western democracies with the corrupt regimes of the eastern part of the continent, where parliamentary institutions are no more than a facade for oligarchic rule, is evidence that a united Europe will cease being a community of free citizens." So is he attacking the EU for admitting the two countries with allegedly limited rights, or is he attacking it for failing to reject them on grounds of corruption? In classically insane Russian manner, he doesn't say.

Instead, he spouts even more confusing gibberish. He writes: "On paper, however, the expansion looked like a process that was almost democratic. Formally, at least, no one resolved to divide Europeans into first- and second-class citizens. Previously, all members of the European Union -- at least on paper -- enjoyed equal rights. In point of fact, of course, this was far from the case, and the accession of countries from Eastern Europe drastically changed the nature of the union." So what is his objection? Is it that the EU doesn't even have a pretext of equal treament any longer? Does he really think a pretext is important and meaningful?

Ultimately, his real concern becomes apparent, if you can bear the headache you have to sustain waiting for it amid all this gibberish. Here it is:

Formally Romania and Bulgaria have failed to meet a number of the conditions for membership, so they effectively are not full members. But other countries accepted earlier also did not meet all these conditions. Indeed, violations were flagrant and widely acknowledged, from the level of corruption in Poland to the absence of civil rights for the Russian-speaking populations of Estonia and Latvia. This did not stop them becoming full-fledged members. Even worse, ruling elites in the "new European states" have not shown the slightest interest in dealing with these problems. In some respects, the situation has gotten worse. Mass popular unrest in Poland and Hungary and the ongoing crisis with Russianschools in Latvia are stark examples.

Transparancy International has come out with a new study of corruption, surveying thirty major countries concernign the prevalence of bribery in commerical transactions. Russia is ranked 28th out of 30 countries; only India and China rely more heavily on bribes to facilitiate commerce. According to the data, Russia accounts for only 2.4% of global exports despite being one of the top two oil producers in the world. Tiny Netherlands, with no oil, accounts for 3.4% of global exports. Turkey, Mexico and Malaysia all have significantly higher scores for avoiding bribery corruption than Russia. Remember the inane drivel of Professor Malawer, claiming that corruption in Russia is no different than that of many other nations?

On Wednesday, it was announced that American Roger D. Kornberg won this year's Nobel Chemistry Prize for describing how information in the genes is copied and transferred to cells that produce proteins. Two other Americans, John C. Mather and George F. Smoot, won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work that shed further light on the beginning of the universe. Two more Americans, Andrew Z. Fire of the MIT and Craig C. Mello, took the Nobel Prize for Medicine, for their discovery of ‘RNA interference’, a catalytic process proposed to occur in plants, animals and humans.

So much for the idea that Russians are better than Americans in math and science. But maybe you think this is just an aberration? Far from it. Russia (including the USSR) has only won 21 Nobel Prizes in its whole history, while the U.S. has 175 (not counting the most recent awards), eight times more than Russia.

Russians can go on believing the absurdly ignorant, xenophobic propaganda spewed out by their government, which tells them they are cleverer than the whole wide world and that American success is only due to luck, but the day of reckoning for Russians is fast approaching. They can go on trying to convince themselves that Sweden is full of "russophobes" or that America bribed its judges right up until the time that the very last Russian on the face of the earth breathes his last. Or they can wake up and smell the reality.

RUSSIA/USSR NOBEL LAUREATES (21)

• Alexei A. Abrikosov, Physics, 2003
• Zhores I. Alferov, Physics, 2000
• Nicolay G. Basov, Physics, 1964
• Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky*, Literature, 1987
• Ivan Bunin*, Literature, 1933
• Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov, Physics, 1958
• Il´ja Mikhailovich Frank, Physics, 1958
• Vitaly Ginzburg, Physics, 2003
• Mikhail Gorbachev, Peace, 1990
• Leonid Kantorovich, Economics, 1975
• Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa, Physics, 1978
• Lev Davidovich Landau, Physics, 1962
• Ilya Mechnikov, Physiology or Medicine, 1908
• Boris Pasternak, Literature, 1958 (forced to decline)
• Ivan Pavlov, Physiology or Medicine, 1904
• Aleksandr M. Prokhorov, Physics, 1964
• Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov, Peace, 1975
• Nikolay Semenov, Chemistry, 1956
• Michail Sholokhov, Literature, 1965
• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Literature, 1970
• Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm, Physics, 1958

"I think that until all diplomatic possibilities have been exhausted, sanctions would be extreme. I think we need to do all we can to push Iran toward starting negotiations. We are continuing activities, we are continuing our diplomatic efforts. Some members of the six nations already want to impose sanctions. We however, think first we must continue multilateral actions."

An anti-Georgian campaign built up steam in Russia yesterday as the authorities followed up sweeping sanctions on neighboring Georgia with measures targeting the large diaspora in Moscow. Russian lawmakers also tabled a motion expected to fiercely condemn Georgia's pro-Western leadership with the dispute set to persist after Russia rejected Western calls to end its blockade of its small, impoverished Caucasus neighbor. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said a transport and postal blockade slapped on Tbilisi on Tuesday would still stand despite the release by Georgia, on Monday, of four Russian officers whose arrest last week angered the Kremlin. Lavrov said on Tuesday the measures were aimed at cutting off criminal flows of money he claimed was being used by the Georgian leadership to increase its military might in preparation for the "forceful seizure" of two pro-Russian breakaway regions

Check out La Russophobe's latest piece on Publius Pundit, where she explores the relative levels of democratic development in Russia and Georgia as documented by the leading authority in this area, Freedom House. Comments are welcome on this important topic; Russians regularly claim that they cannot be criticized for taking action to unseat the Georgian government because that regime is "not democratic," but in fact Georgia's scores for democracy as judged by an impartial body of scholars are far higher than those of Russia.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that Russia has moved from giving financial aid and diplomatic cover to terrorist organizations to providing them with military intelligence to be used in attacking Israel, just as it provided U.S. military secrets to Iraq during the U.S. invasion of that country.

During the fighting in Lebanon, Hezbollah received direct intelligence support from Syria, using data collected by listening posts jointly manned by Russian and Syrian crews. Hezbollah was also fed intelligence from new listening posts built on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, which are operated jointly with Iran. This information was confirmed in recent reports by the defense journal Jane's.

Syria's centrality to the collection and transfer of intelligence to Hezbollah is based on separate agreements Damascus signed with Moscow and Tehran on intelligence cooperation. The agreement with Russia is much older than the one with Iran, which was signed earlier this year. As happened with the significant numbers of advanced Russian anti-tank missiles procured by Syria and transferred to Hezbollah, Russia found itself operating indirectly in favor of the Lebanese Shi'ite organization in matters of intelligence.

In addition to the profits from arms sales to Syria, the Russo-Syrian intelligence cooperation benefits Moscow in terms of the actual first-hand data collected by the listening posts. Russia is also involved in assisting Syria to enlarge two of its ports on the Mediterranean, Latakia and Tartus. Reports of this development have emerged only recently. Israel complained to Russia regarding the transfer of advanced anti-tank missiles sold to Syria. Moscow denied the reports but also promised to investigate Israel's claims.

It is not clear whether Israel also protested over the transfer of intelligence collected by the Russian-Syrian listening posts to Hezbollah. The intelligence cooperation agreement between Syria and Iran is new. It is part of a broader strategic cooperation accord between the two states that was achieved in November 2005 and confirmed during the visit to Damascus in January 2006 of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The agreement on intelligence cooperation gives great emphasis to electronic surveillance and involves the construction of four listening stations. According to Jane's, the funding for the stations, estimated in the neighborhood of dozens of million dollars, came mostly from the budget of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Two of these stations were built prior to July 12, the date the fighting began in Lebanon. One was constructed at Baab al-Hawa, close to Syria's border with Turkey, and a second, which began operating in early June, was set up on the Golan Heights. Two other stations will be constructed no later than January 2007. Iran has focused on potential threats against its territory as a result of the friction that has emerged between Tehran and the international community over its failure to freeze its nuclear enrichment program.

The Revolutionary Guard is keen to broaden its involvement in the Middle East in general and enhance its intelligence-gathering capabilities on activities in the Mediterranean region. In addition to Israel, which is an obvious target of this intelligence-gathering effort, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and American forces in the region are also of great interest. According to the Jane's report, in its agreement of intelligence cooperation with Syria, Iran insisted that no Russian intelligence officers should be allowed access to the new listening posts, despite the long standing deal between Damascus and Moscow.

The Moscow Times reports that so-called "energy superpower" Russia can't provide itself with enough electricity during the winter without shutting down its industrial base whenever the weather gets chilly, and things are worse this year than last. As usual, the Kremlin refuses to make full information about the issue public:

Hoping to avert blackouts this winter, the city will cut off electricity to industrial users when the temperature sinks to minus 15 degrees Celsius, 15 degrees higher than last winter.

The announcement by Boris Vainzikher, technical director of Unified Energy Systems, or UES, came at Tuesday's City Hall meeting. With last winter's limit set at minus 30 C, Moscow saw a daily consumption record Jan. 20, when 16,200 megawatts of electricity were consumed. But with the city's electric grid stretched to capacity, authorities are trying to preempt days like that -- and widespread outages.

It is unclear how many companies saw their power cut last winter. At least 253 companies, accounting for 2 percent of total consumption, received official warnings that they would be cut off. Among those companies affected was Independent Media Sanoma Magazines, the pubisher of The Moscow Times. The risk of outages will decrease next year as new power plants go on line, Vainzikher said.

First Deputy Mayor Yury Roslyak, who presided over the meeting, told city officials to make sure the first companies to lose power were those that used their energy inefficiently according to industry standards. City officials were less receptive to UES plans to burn more oil at Moscow power plants to compensate for a natural gas shortage.

The combustion of large amounts of oil would lead to serious pollution, Roslyak said, asking Vainzikher to reconsider. A city official who was not introduced by authorities at the meeting said burning more oil could cause acid rain. In other business, government officials gave preliminary approval to a plan to clean up the Likhoborka River in northern Moscow. But Roslyak had many criticisms of the measure, ordering that amendments addressing those concerns be drafted.

The Moscow Times reports that yet another journalist is going on trial in Russia for daring to report facts the Kremlin doesn't approve of. Welcome to the Neo-Soviet Union:

A Moscow journalist went on trial Tuesday on charges of inciting ethnic hatred in reports about the war in Chechnya.

Boris Stomakhin was editor of the monthly newspaper Radikalnaya Politika and contributed articles to the rebel Kavkaz Center web site.

The Butyrsky District Court rejected appeals Tuesday from defense lawyers for Stomakhin to be released for the duration of the trial, a court spokeswoman said. The court then adjourned until Thursday.

Stomakhin's mother, Regina, joined about 20 other supporters outside the northern Moscow court to protest the treatment of her son, who walks with crutches after having fallen from the fourth story of a building during his arrest in March.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says the case is politically motivated. "He has been kept in a cell all this time, despite the fact that he is practically paralyzed," Stomakhin's lawyer Alexei Golubev said. Stomakhin suffered spinal injuries and a broken ankle in the fall, Golubev said.

Stomakhin wrote political commentary pieces published on Kavkazcenter.com and in Radikalnaya Politika. He frequently called Russia's presence in Chechnya an "occupation," and compared President Vladimir Putin to Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic.

Stomakhin had evaded capture for more than two years. If convicted, he faces up to eight years in prison.

USA Today reports that once again Russia is crazily cutting off its nose to spite its face. Not only is it conducting official pogroms against Georgians inside Russia, the very Georgians who would be most supportive of Russia's position in the spy scandal, but it is claiming to be "shocked, shocked" by Georgia's confrontational position even while Russia adopts exactly the same position in regard to the United States, sending all manner of military support to America's deadliest foes. This is Neo-Soviet foreign policy at its most ham-handed; Russia is literally forcing Georgia in to the waiting arms of NATO, terrifying all its East European allies, confirming the worst predictions about its intentions made here on La Russophobe and galvanizing the world against Russian imperialism, undoing years of Putin's KGB stealth propaganda campaign all while picking a fight it can't possibly win (if Russia couln't handle Chechnya, imagine what will happen if it tries to use military force against relatively gigantic and heavily allied Georgia). When Iran is the topic, Russia calls for diplomacy. When it's Georgia, only confrontation will do.

President Vladimir Putin warned Georgia on Wednesday that no country should get away with threatening Russia, setting the stage for passage of a parliamentary motion fiercely condemning Tbilisi's pro-Western leadership.

"I would not counsel anyone to talk to Russia in the language of provocations and blackmail," Putin told the heads of the parliamentary factions, adding that he was speaking specifically about Georgia.

Russia slapped a transport and postal blockade on Tbilisi on Tuesday as retaliation for Georgia's arrest of four Russian military officers accused of espionage. Police, meanwhile, were targeting the large Georgian Diaspora in Moscow with raids of businesses and restaurants.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday the blockade would stand despite Georgia's release of the officers Monday.

Lavrov said the measures were aimed at cutting off criminal flows of money he claimed was being used by the Georgian leadership to increase its military might in preparation for the "forceful seizure" of two pro-Russian breakaway regions.

But the real aim appears to be to punish Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili for his defiance of Russia through the detention of its officers on spying charges. The dispute more widely reflects Kremlin alarm at Tbilisi's goal of NATO membership and the growing U.S. influence in its former Soviet backyard.

Putin said Russia was intent on "guaranteeing the rights of our citizens in the near and far abroad," the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Earlier Wednesday, a Kremlin official was quoted as saying that the sanctions — a suspension of air, road, maritime, rail and postal links — would not be lifted until Georgia ended its "hostile rhetoric" toward Russia.

"The range of measures are a response to the situation and consequently their duration will depend on how long the hostile rhetoric (of the Georgian leadership) continues," the Gazeta.ru news website quoted Modest Kolerov, the Russian presidential administration's official in charge of regional relations, as saying.

Later this week, the Russian parliament is set to consider a bill that would allow the government to bar Georgians living in Russia from sending money home — which would deal a huge blow to Georgia's struggling economy.

According to some estimates, about 1 million of Georgia's 4.4 million population work in Russia, and their families rely on the hundreds of millions of dollars (euros) in annual remittances.
Piling on the pressure, authorities Tuesday closed a popular casino run by Georgians in the Russian capital, saying it did not have authorization for its casino tables and slot machines. They also raided a hotel and two restaurants run by Georgians, saying they could be closed for legal violations.

The Kommersant daily quoted police officials as saying that 40 Georgian restaurants and shops in downtown Moscow would be raided in the next few days.

Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, meanwhile, said Wednesday that the pullout of Russian troops in Georgia could be accelerated because of the tensions there.

He told reporters on a visit to the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, that Russia would "be withdrawing the Russian bases there according to the schedule, and maybe in an accelerated order. Because everybody understands the state of our soldiers and officers give the conditions that they are in there."

Russia has 3,000-4,000 troops at two military bases in Georgia, and pledged in a deal signed last year to withdraw its troops by the end of 2008.

Russia's chilly relations with Georgia have worsened steadily since Saakashvili came to power following the 2003 Rose Revolution, vowing to take the country out of Russia's orbit, reign in the breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and join NATO in 2008. Georgia accuses Russia of backing the separatists, which Russia denies.

At the United Nations in New York, Russia ratcheted up diplomatic pressure on Georgia by circulating a draft U.N. Security Council resolution Tuesday that would link the future of a U.N. observer mission with demands that the government stop "provocative actions" over Abkhazia.

The United States urged Moscow to end the punitive measures, echoing a similar call from the European Union.

La Russophobe is pleased to announce another milestone in the history of this blog. On Friday September 29th, as the events in Georgia were reaching fever pitch, the blog recorded its first day with more than 200 visits (there were 241 visits that day) and more than 400 page views (there were 468). LR is currently averaging 160 visits and 320 page views per day. With 13,500 visits as of today, LR is on track to clock 20,000 visits by mid-November, and will shortly become the most visited English language Russia politics blog in the world (it is already the most trafficked).

The Beeb reports that British conservatives are beginning to rally against Russian militarism. How long before we hear from today's Churchill about the Iron Curtain, Part II, that is descending across the continent, starting in Georgia?

The UK underestimates the threat to its future security posed by Russia, shadow defence secretary Liam Fox has warned.

Addressing a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference, Dr Fox claimed Russia was increasing its defence spending this year by 25%.

It was also testing more long range missiles and pouring money into two naval bases in Syria, he added.

That, together with Iran's military build-up, justified replacing Britain's Trident nuclear weapons system.

Dr Fox said the Tories were committed to replacing Trident nuclear weapons and, with so much uncertainty in the world, he warned against embarking on a "potentially lethal experiment in unilateral disarmament".

He said Iran and Russia pose the most serious "potential threats to our interests".

Missiles

He said Russian President Vladimir Putin had spoken recently "of having armed forces capable of fighting a global, regional and, if necessary, a few local conflicts".

The shadow minister said he had been "amazed" by how little coverage Russia's new military build-up has received in the Western media.

He said the country was spending 25% more on defence this year than last year and is testing new inter-continental ballistic missiles, and ordering new frigates for its navy, equipped with cruise missiles.

The Russians have also reportedly invested in two Syrian ports, he added.

If they switch their Black Sea fleet there it would be their first Mediterranean base since the 1950s, said Dr Fox, who repeated his warning in a speech in the main conference hall at the Bournemouth conference centre.

'Influence'

He also said that, along with North Korea and China, Russia had helped Iran to develop ballistic missiles with a range up to 4,000 kilometres which "could attack US and British forces in the region".

And he warned of the economic power being wielded by Russian gas giant Gazprom, which he said was controlled by "extremely questionable oligarchs and politicians".

If President Putin went on to be the head of Gazprom after stepping down as Russian president, he would be able to wield a "great deal of influence" over neighbouring states, Dr Fox told the meeting.

"It might turn out President Putin is a cuddly bunny. It might turn out that he is not. We should be in the risk business," he added.

Reader Jeremy Putley points out that the Jamestown Foundation's Andrei Smirnov reports in Volume 3, Issue 182 of the Eurasia Daily Monitor newsletter as follows:

ASSASSINATION OF POSSIBLE SOVMEN SUCCESSOR CLEARS THE WAY FOR KREMLIN CANDIDATE

During the evening of September 25, Murat Kudaev, head of the Krasnogvardeisk district of Adygeya, a republic in the North Caucasus, was returning home after a meeting of the Adygei government in Maykop, the local capital. When Kudaev approached Adamy, his native village in Krasnogvardeisk district, a police patrol pulled him over to check his identification papers. A uniformed man examined Kudaev’s driver’s license and suddenly pumped two gunshots into Kudaev’s chest and a third into his head. Kudaev died instantly, and the assailants fled in a fake squad car.

Witnesses who glimpsed the killers’ license plate gave the number to investigators from the Adygei Prosecutor’s Office, which reports directly to Moscow and is independent of the local government. However, investigators reacted strangely. The tag -- 4406 23 -- belongs to Krasnodar krai, the region surrounding Adygei territory. Aslan Shuzzo, a Regnum news agency correspondent in Adygeya, told Jamestown that instead of thanking the witnesses, the officials from the prosecutor’s office called them “insane.” Sergei Zhinzharov, head of the investigation sector of the Adygei procuracy, said that no car had been assigned that particular number. According to Shuzzo, the prosecutor’s office insisted that Kudaev’s killers had three cars, not one, and that a search for those cars was underway in Krasnodar krai. Also, the Adygei Interior Ministry refused to admit that the killers had been dressed in police uniforms, and its spokesman said that there were no real witnesses to the assassination (Nezavisimaya gazeta, September 27).

Security officials suggested economic motives were behind Kudaev’s murder. Vasily Guk, the Adygei prosecutor’s office press secretary, said that the investigation was focusing on only one scenario: “murder due to his activities as a government official.” Guk theorized that Kudaev had made enemies with his order to stop mining of the sandy gravel in the Laba and Kuban Rivers because of the resulting environmental damage (Kommersant, September 27).

However, some members of the Adygei government, including Minister of Agriculture Shrakhmet Skhalakho and Minister of Economic Development Vadim Zinukhin, as well as Kudaev’s friends adamantly denied that economic motives were behind his assassination. “There is no doubt that this murder has a political character," insisted Anatoly Osokin, a deputy of the Adygei parliament (Regnum, September 26; Kommersant, September 27).

Kudaev was the principal protégé of Adygei president Khasret Sovmen and the leading candidate to succeed Sovmen when his term expires in February 2007). Moreover, Kudaev was very popular within the republic; under his leadership Krasnogvardeisk district became one of the most developed and prosperous areas of the republic. Sovmen had always held up Kudaev as an example of a good manager. Last April, during the standoff between Sovmen and the Kremlin, Sovmen named Kudaev his successor (see EDM, April 6).

Kudaev was killed just ten days before Dmitry Kozak, Russian President Vladimir Putin's envoy to the Southern Federal District, was scheduled to come to Adygei to discuss possible candidates for the republican presidency with the local political elite and civic organizations. Both Sovmen and the local parliament could support Kudaev. The parties and organizations that advocate the unification of Adygeya with Krasnodar krai (see EDM, April 29), including the Union of the Slavs of Adygeya and the Party of Manufacturers and Entrepreneurs, could not object to Kudaev either, because of his established reputation as a successful manager. (Advocates of unification cite Adygeya’s economic problems as justification.)

Undoubtedly, both leaders of civic organizations and parliamentary deputies, especially members of the Adygei branch of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, whose members are still loyal to Sovmen, would have nominated Kudaev as the new Adygei president if he had not been killed. However, neither the Kremlin nor Kozak would dare trust a popular candidate nominated by the maverick Sovmen, because it would violate the vertical power principles of Putin and Kozak. A quick survey of the new North Caucasus leaders appointed by Putin this year reveals a string of weak, unpopular puppets totally controlled by Moscow, like Mukhu Aliev in Dagestan, Murat Zyazikov in Ingushetia, or Arsen Kanokov in Kabardino-Balkaria. The likely Kremlin candidate for Adygeya is Ruslan Khadzhibiekov, chairman of the local parliament. The Russian authorities are confident that Khadzhibiekov would accept any changes in Kremlin policy towards Adygeya, and he would never obstruct the republic’s absorption by Krasnodar krai if Moscow ever makes the final decision on this issue.

Despite the prevailing opinion in Adygeya, Kozak’s entourage is unlikely to discover any political motives in Kudaev’s case. A source in Kozak's apparatus told Kommersant, “According to preliminary data there is no political background to the District Chief’s assassination.” The same source also told Kommersant, “We will not accept any candidate nominated by Sovmen.”

Yesterday, October 2, Kozak visited Maykop to discuss the possible candidates. According to Jamestown sources in the republic, most civic leaders back another term for Sovmen, but these demands are likely to be ignored by Moscow. Russian media sources reported that among the seven candidates mentioned at the meeting, Aslan Tkhakushinov, president of the Adygei Institute of Technology, and Ruslan Khadzhibiekov, who was proposed by United Russia were the only genuine contenders. After the meeting Kozak said that the Russian president would consider all the candidates’ credentials, but Putin seems to have already made up his mind for Khadzhibiekov.