Robert Amsterdam reports:

Today we are posting an exclusive 9-page PDF of the latest motion filed by Karinna Moskalenko in regards to the ongoing harassment, gag orders, acts of intimidation, false statements, and interference on behalf of the Russian authorities toward counsel in this case.

Given this fundamental disregard for an individual's right to properly defend himself, I believe the conduct of the procuracy of the Russian Federation in this case can be compared to that of an organized criminal group, one whose activities should be condemned by every prosecutorial organization that attempts to uphold the rule of law.

The Kremlin is clearly applying some lessons learned from the first round of attacks on Khodorkovsky and Yukos. Lesson No. 1 - when you want to want to carry out a highly unlawful show trial of a political prisoner, do so out of the public eye. For this reason the upcoming hearings will be taking place in the farthest reaches of Siberia, where the cancellation of a single flight can eliminate all observers (it is a violation of Russian law to hold the hearings in a different venue than the location of the alleged misconduct). Lesson No. 2 - when you want to invent perposterous new charges, make sure the media is barred from the proceedings. For this reason the next round of proceedings will be held inside the Chita Isolator prison facility, which will be able to deny the right of entry to anyone it chooses. Lesson No. 3 - when you want to make these ridiculous charges stick, begin an aggressive campaign of slander against the character of the defendent while at the same time prohibiting his lawyers from discussing the charges. For this reason, the procuracy has forced the Khodorkovsky defense team to sign a variety of strict non-disclosure agreements, which function as gag orders while the procuracy is free to speak to the media openly about the baseless allegations.

If there remains any question whatsoever about the immense importance of Mikhail Khodorkovsky to Russia and the rest of the world, consider carefully the enormous illegitimate lengths that Russian officials have gone to in order to bury the truth, hide evidence, and stifle public debate. If they had a real case to try, none of this would be necessary.

The arbitrary arrests of both Yuri Schmidt and Karinna Moskalenko coming into and leaving Chita, simply to do their job of defending their client, are largely symbolic of the fraud and deception that has come to characterize the Russian procuracy. As someone who has worked under this environment of intimidation and hostility toward lawyers, I strongly urge all those in the legal sector reading these words to contact every professional organization of which they are members to denounce this unacceptable conduct, and demand security and fair treatment toward all lawyers working on politically sensitive cases in Russia.

Check out La Russophobe's recent interview over at Siberian Light, where she responds to questions from senior Russian blogger Andy Young about the state of the bloggery, Russia and its prospects. Feel free to leave your comments and welcome Andy back to the blogosphere after a hiatus (and feel free not to abuse his generously open comment policy).

A reader has directed LR's attention to the fact, as reported by Radio Liberty, that

The world's top-ranked female tennis player, Maria Sharapova of Russia, has donated $100,000 to aid recovery from the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster. Sharapova made the announcement at a news conference at United Nations headquarters in New York, where she was also made a UN goodwill ambassador. Sharapova, whose family lived not far from Chornobyl at the time of the accident, said she hoped the money would help rebuild schools, hospitals, and sports facilities near the site of the accident. The explosion at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine in April 1986 was the world's worst civilian nuclear accident. Its long-term health effects are still unclear, but the UN has predicted it will cause up to 9,000 extra deaths from cancer in the most affected areas.

Apparently, some idiot Russophiles think this speaks well of Maria. Many thinking Russians, of course, may be annoyed that Sharapova chose to make her donation to the Ukraine instead of to Russia. At least, she's trying to remedy (two decades after the fact) a problem caused by Russia, so it may serve to reduce Russophobia in Ukraine to some extent. They may also be perturbed by the fact that the only way a Russian celebrity gets to be a high-profile Goodwill Ambassador is by . . . moving to the United States.

Her level of personal generosity is quite unimpressive, too -- at least for those capapable of basic math. Sharapova is the 62nd highest-paid celebrity in the world, and Russia's highest paid celebrity by a wide margin. She has an annual income of $18.2 million. By donating $100,000 Maria has surrendered 0.5% of her annual income. That's like a person who earns $100,000 per year donating $500 to charity (actually, any economist would tell you that 0.5% of income means far less to a millionaire than to an ordinary person because of what's still left over afterwards, so the actual burden on Maria is even less than this suggests). What's more, if we look at the beneficiary side of the transaction, it is estimated that there over 4 million people in the Ukraine, Byelorussia and western Russia still live on contaminated ground. So Maria has donated an impressive 2.5 cents to each one for cleanup work (or, about $100 to each person who will perish in an horrible way from the contamination according to the UN estimate -- is she covering their funeral expenses?).

And apparently, Sharapova wasn't willing to cough up a cent until she could receive the title of "Goodwill Ambassador" in return. In fact, there's nothing to say that her sponsors have not fronted her the donation in order to gain the publicity so as to increase her fortune from endorsement even more exponentially -- so it may not have cost Maria a single cent, and may in fact profit her to the tune of millions. A real humanitarian would at least have gone so far as to have made the delivery in Ukraine, drawing the camera's attention to the plight of oppressed people there, victims of the Soviet era of oppression. But apparently, Maria has little if any desire to actually set foot upon her homeland if she can avoid it.

Meanwhile, though she has risen to #1 in the world for a second time, Maria has yet to ever win a tournament while number ranked one and her 2007 has been full of humiliating losses to lower-ranked players. In other words, she's a classic Russian: all illusion, no substance. One must admit, though, that the illusion is flashy and eye-catching, just like all those military parades through Red Square in the days of Brezhnev. So ironic, that the country responsible for those mighty spectacles now no longer exists.

But above all, what's absolutely f-a-s-c-i-n-a-t-i-n-g about this is that LR had no intention whatsoever of bringing up the subject until several Russophile wackos (who've been banned for lying and spamming the blog) did so. These are the very same morons who criticize LR for talking about Sharapova, claiming (dishonestly) we are "obsessed" with her. Yet they bring up the subject.

One can only heave a heavy sigh and say: And so it goes in Russia.

As if the crazed, frenzied diatribe of Vladimir Putin in Munich was not enough, now a neo-Soviet general is talking unilateral repudiation of strategic arms treaties. Welcome to Cold War II, the one Russia provoked and can't possibly survive. The Associated Press reports:

A top Russian general said Thursday that Moscow may unilaterally opt out of a Soviet-era arms reduction treaty with the United States, Russian news agencies reported.

Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the chief of the Russian military's General Staff, was quoted by ITAR-Tass and Interfax as saying that Russia could pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, negotiated between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1987. He said the decision would depend on the United States' actions with its proposed missile defense system, parts of which Washington is seeking to deploy in Poland and the Czech Republic. The treaty eliminated an entire class of medium-range missiles that had been based in Europe. Baluyevsky's comments come after President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that the INF treaty no longer serves Russia's interests.

Source: Ellustrator.

NB: These cartoons routinely draw several dozen comments from Russian readers when Ellustrator posts them and they are often worth reading. On the Ellustrator page for this item (linked above), a commenter asks: "What about 'elections'? What about 'health care'?" Another commenter answers him: "Don't forget, a refrigerator also has a freezer compartment, it's just not shown in the drawing."

NB: Russia is currently running 9-10% overall inflation according to Kremlin data (which means the real rate is quite possibly higher). However, the inflation rate on the prices of goods in the basic consumer basket that Russian people with an average weekly wage of $100 can afford roughly double the overall rate. The Kremlin expresses aspirations of achieving 7% inflation, a rate that would be deemed a harbinger of economic apocalypse if it were occurring the U.S. In Russia, it's a distant dreamlike goal.

• reveals a claim by Yuri Felshtinsky that Andrei Lugovoi was in London on October 12, 2006 -- a time the British authorities reportedly did not know about

• confirms Litvinenko was employed by Titon (which has a sister company, Erinys) International to perform due diligence background checks on Russian officials, company officers and owners for investors -- information reported by Larisa Alexandrovna at At Largely and by Litvinenko's colleague Yuri Shvets to the BBC's Tom Mangold (and if Shvets's previous information of a $100,000 contract with Titon is true, then Litvinenko was hardly "penniless," as Julia Svetlichnaja-Svetlichnaya claimed, by the way)

• presents an 8-pp. dossier on Kremlin-connected, Aeroflot chair Victor Ivanov (this is completely new info) which was written by Litvinenko, then reveals that Litvinenko passed this dossier to Lugovoi in late September 2006

It's also interesting that the British HPA will hold a symposium in late March to discuss with first responders and other pertinant personnel the public health threat presented by the polonium exposure in London, and their response to it:

Also, more on our favorite "honey trap," Julia Svetlichnaja: According to James Heartfield's home page, on 30 Jan. at 2 pm, a "seminar" on Litvinenko case and the "New Cold War" for CSD turned surreal when Aftenposten reporter Hilde Harbo apparently turned up to continue her inquiry. LR: Notice that while Heartfield attempts to attack Harbo and her source, he says nothing about the status of Svetlichnaja's alleged lawsuit against Aftenposten, which has seemingly not progressed at all, nor does he answer any of the pressing questions about Svetlichnaja's conflict of interest. It's pure propaganda, and there's no attempt to give a full report on the proceedings, much less a transcript. Amazingly (or perhaps not so), no reference to Svetlichnaja is made on his home page itself except for the December 2006 press conference.

I found a Russian article which gave more info on her background. I put it through an online translation filter (meat grinder?) to discover this mentions her hometown is Cherepovets and that her father was a "known party functionary" who died (I believe perhaps somewhat mysteriously according to this, but it's hard to discern) in the early '90s.

The BBC reports that Russia is awash in bad debt, facing a massive three-fold increase in the past year as banks, flush with oil revenues, too aggressively seek lending outlets. This is more or less what happened in the US in the 1920s, and the stock market crash was the result.

The amount of bad consumer debt in Russia tripled during 2006 from the year before, according to figures from the Central Bank in Moscow. Some analysts suggest the situation is under control, but media reports imply Russia could be heading for a credit crisis. Lenders have announced that stricter checks on potential borrowers will be introduced from 1 March. Russians racked up more than $1bn (£511m) in bad debts in 2006. It is less than 10 years since the banking system in Russia all but collapsed - so warnings of a crisis ring alarm bells. There are plenty of loans on offer in Russia - advertising in the country emphasises the cars and holidays which consumers can pay for if they take out credit. But advertising fails to remind them about whether they can make the repayments. Not everyone agrees there's a looming disaster. Rusrating - an agency which gives credit ratings to Russian banks - says the bad loans "are not safe, but not a danger".

LR is just wondering: Isn't it improper for the "president" of a country to comment on the desirable outcome of a pending criminal case? If Russia is so flush with oil wealth, why do teaches need to steal software, and if they don't need to then shouldn't they be punished if they do? The BBC reports:

The court in Perm, some 1000km (620 miles) east of Moscow, dismissed the case of Alexander Ponosov as "trivial". The trial was seen as a response by the authorities to international pressure to crack down on piracy in Russia. Industry experts say Russia ranks second only to China in use of illegal computer software and bootlegged music. "We're off to drink champagne now," Mr Ponosov told the Associated Press news agency after the court ruling. "Of course, it was trivial," he said. Mr Ponosov earlier told the BBC that Russian prosecutors had brought the case against him and he was unaware of any Microsoft claim against him. He said the 12 new computers at his school had been delivered with the unlicensed software already installed. The school in the Urals village of Sepych has 380 pupils. Both Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had publicly voiced support for Mr Ponosov.

RIA Novosti reports that while "President" Putin is spending billions on weapons, Russians are dropping like flies from heart disease:

About 1.3 million people die of cardiovascular diseases annually in Russia, the country's chief cardiologist said Wednesday. "Cardiovascular diseases are the most frequent cause of death in Russia. The mortality rate is high compared to Western European countries, which have been experiencing a decrease in mortality rates for the past 20 years," Rafael Oganov said. "Lifestyle is the main factor that accounts for the mortality rate", he said, adding that there is no clear relation between mortality and economic status.

About 16 million Russians suffer from cardiovascular diseases, placing Russia second in the world, after Ukraine, in this respect.

Heart diseases account for 56.7% of total deaths, with about 30% involving people still of working age. Mortality among Russian men rose by 60% since 1991, four to five times higher than in Europe.

The average life expectancy for men in Russia is about 57.

Undoubtedly, the crazed apologists for dictatorship will say that this is proof Russians cannot govern themselves and must have their choices made for them by Grandpa Putin, as if they were puppies. The only problem is that this logic is what desroyed the USSR.

In the wake of "President" Putin's insane tirade in Munich, Aftenposten reports, Norway has wisely decided to reclassify Russia as a military threat to their nation:

Relations between Russia and Norway have been strained of late, over incidents ranging from illegal fishing in the Barents to collapsed investment prospects in Russian gas fields to Russian restrictions on salmon imports.

At the same time, Russia has been asserting itself all over Europe, often in unpopular ways. It has cut off gas supplies to countries that don't agree to its terms, it has refused entry to top officials traveling to Russia on business, and it has rekindled Russian nationalism to a degree that worries human rights activists. Suspicious murders of government critics also have sparked widespread international concern.

Newspaper Aftenposten has gone through a series of recent speeches and reports written by Norwegian defense officials, and documented use of descriptions of Russia that reflect the recent tensions. The most revealing was a fresh report from the defense institute FFI (Forsvarets forsvarsinstitutt) that analyzed threats against Norway. In the report, which sets the premises for the Defense Ministry from 2009 to 2012, Russia is identified as a "military threat." There's no fear of invasion, but rather a "limited, military action."

The report notes that the institute may be criticized for its classification of Russia, but even Defense Minister Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen has altered her word usage of late. She has stressed that Russia isn't likely to exert power, but notes that its military build-up can't be overlooked. "We must be aware that developments can take another direction than we want and expect," Strøm-Erichsen said in a recent speech before the defense group Oslo Militære Samfund.

'Demand for attention'

Espen Barth Eide, state secretary attached to the Defense Ministry, says Russia has consciously positioned itself as an "international player with a demand for attention and influence." Oil income and foreign currency reserves have helped give the country new economic clout that it lacked when the Soviet Union fell apart.

Barth Eide also rejects any talk of a new Cold War, but notes that Russia "is back on the international stage." Its president, Vladimir Putin, is working hard to keep it there, and boost Russian self-confidence. "It's more important than ever that we continue our policies based on dialogue and concrete cooperation, both multilaterally and bilaterally," Barth Eide told Aftenposten.

Meawhile, Jurnalo reports that Sweden is having similar thoughts:

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt on Wednesday expressed disappointment over certain developments in neighbouring Russia during a foreign policy debate in parliament. During the presentation of the government's foreign policy, Bildt praised increased "business activity and human contacts" with Russia but noted some "steps backwards. "

"The political climate and the media climate (in Russia) alike have become less free. Sometimes we have seen examples of the language of force being used against neighbouring states that have led us to react. We are still seeing breaches of human rights in Chechnya," Bildt said. He also mentioned the unsolved murders of Russian reporter Anna Politkovskaya and former agent Alexander Litvinenko.

The wide-ranging statement underlined Sweden's commitment to the European Union and that the bloc should remain "open to all European democracies that meet the requirements of membership. " Bildt noted that Sweden would also increase its bilateral ties with the Ukraine and criticized "the lack of democracy and civil liberties and rights in Belarus". The foreign minister said Sweden remained committed to free trade and believed it would also benefit developing countries.

Check out La Russophobe's latest installment on Publius Pundit, where she exposes the shocking hypocrisy and lack of good judgment shown by "President" Putin in his recent speech at the Munich conference. Feel free to add your thoughts as to how the West can best deal with this direct challenge by a fully revealed neo-Soviet despot clearly bent on continuing the Cold War.

Robert Amsterdam has posted an excerpt of an article from the Wall Street Journal which gives various examples of "naglost" (hypocrisy) on the part of Russian "President" Vladmir Putin:

The nearest equivalent the Russian language has for the word chutzpah is naglost. In you, Vladimir Putin, the Russian nation has found the embodiment of naglost.

Naglost: During the question-and-answer session following your speech on Saturday to the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy, you were asked about the Oct. 7 murder (your birthday, Mr. President) of muckraking journalist Anna Politkovskaya. You never quite got around to uttering her name. But you did helpfully point out that in the past 18 months "the largest number of journalists were killed in Iraq."

Truth: True. But Moscow is not a war zone.

Naglost: Your speech in Munich contained a curious broadside against the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which you denounced for "imposing a regime that determines how these states should live and develop."

Truth: That may not have been the most eye-catching of your comments, but it was the most revealing. Among its other benign functions, the OSCE bureaucracy monitors elections among its 56 members. That never raised an eyebrow until the OSCE raised a red flag over the Ukrainian election of November 2004, which had been rigged in favor of your preferred candidate, Viktor Yanukovych. The OSCE's verdict was crucial to having the results overturned and a new election called. You've never forgiven it. Since then, the OSCE's election-monitoring office has come under a relentless barrage of criticism from your foreign ministry and from other former Soviet republics with questionable democratic credentials, all with the view to putting the monitors under your political control.

Naglost: "In the energy sector Russia intends to create uniform market principles and transparent conditions for all," you said on Saturday. "It is obvious that energy prices must be determined by the market instead of being the subject of political speculation, economic pressure or blackmail."

Truth: Perhaps you define the words "market principles," "transparent" and "blackmail" differently in Russia than we do in the West. In December, the Russian government offered transparently phony environmental reasons -- "unauthorized tree felling" -- to force Royal Dutch Shell to relinquish control of its $20 billion Sakhalin-2 oil-and-gas project. In January, state-owned Gazprom used the threat of supply disruptions to gain control over Belarus's gas-pipeline network. This month, state prosecutors filed new charges against former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky that will keep him in a Siberian gulag past the 2008 elections. Could you tell us just what might be in store for March?

Writing in Human Events Aril Cohen, a senior research fellow in Russian and Eurasian studies and international energy security at the Allison Institute, a division of the Davis Institute for International Studies at the Heritage Foundation, explains the underlying neo-Soviet pathology of Putin's crazed declaration of cold war at Munich, and calls for America to form ties with opposition groups to avoid the creation of an anti-American, neo-Soviet bloc:

The cold shower that Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed on the United States at the international security conference in Munich last weekend should not have come as a surprise. After all, Putin himself and a host of other senior spokesmen, including Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov (one of the "official" heirs-apparent) and military Chief of Staff General Yuri Baluevsky, have said as much in the past.

The list of grievances that Putin lodged against the United States and the West is long. The main complaint is that the American "hyper power" is pursuing its own unilateral foreign, defense, cultural and economic policy, disregarding international law, and ignoring the U.N. (where Russia has a veto). French President Jacques Chirac would be proud. However, Russia takes its opposition much further.

Putin accused the U.S. of expanding NATO to Russia's borders and deploying "five thousand bayonets" each in forward bases in Romania and Bulgaria. He blasted the plans for U.S. missile defense bases in Central Europe, possibly in Poland or the Czech Republic, mocking the stated goal of such installations as defenses against missile launches from Iran or North Korea. Putin clearly stated that the missile defenses are aimed to neutralize Russian retaliatory nuclear strike capability -- a destabilizing factor in the Russian nuclear playbook.
He further accused Washington of not meeting its obligations on nuclear disarmament treaties and trying to hide hundreds of nuclear weapons in warehouses, "under the blanket and under the pillow."

Adding to the rhetorical overkill, Putin blamed U.S. policies for the failure of nuclear non-proliferation, implying justification for North Korean and Iranian efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Putin lambasted NATO members that refuse to ratify the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty; criticized the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for democracy promotion; warned against Kosovo's independence; and rejected Western criticisms of Russia's track record in human rights. Putin waxed nostalgic about the bi-polar world in which the U.S. and the USSR checked each other's ambition through a balance of nuclear terror known as Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). Many Russian and Western experts perceive Putin's speech as a declaration of a new Cold War.

Back to the Future?

Putin's speech has a number of domestic and international "drivers," which add up to a picture of Russia craving strategic parity with the United States and defining its national identity in opposition to the West.

While Russians enthusiastically embraced private business, designer brands, and Costa-del-Sol Spanish vacations, they were slow to internalize pluralistic values, support freedom of speech and press, and defend human rights. The rule of law in Russia is a far cry from Western standards.

Several years of increasingly loud anti-American and anti-Western propaganda in pro-government and nationalist media have nurtured a generation of Russians who are ethno-centric, and reject liberal values. Some 60 percent in a recent poll supported the slogan "Russia for Russians."

Sustained nationalist and anti-American brainwashing bridged the gap between the Soviet superpower chauvinism and the new Russian assertiveness, fueled by massive oil revenues and nationalism.

The "America-as-the-enemy" construct bolsters the legitimacy of the current regime, headed largely by former KGB officers, as the defender of Mother Russia. It rejects fully integrating Russia into the global economic and political community, as the other official "heir-apparent," Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, suggested in his January 2007 speech at the Davos World Economic Forum.

Russia is planning to spend $189 billion in the next five years for a rapid military modernization. Announced on February 8 by Defense Minister Ivanov, the program includes new nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, a fleet of TU-160 supersonic strategic bombers, and development of a fifth-generation fighter jet. Such a program is clearly aimed at balancing U.S. military power, not fighting terrorists in the Caucasus mountains. It needs the U.S. as "glavny protivnik" -- the principal adversary.

Russia is also trying to corner the market in weapons sales, especially to rogue- and semi-rogue states. Russia is the largest arms supplier to China and Iran; it signed a $3 billion arms deal with Hugo Chavez's Venezuela over U.S. objections, and is courting Middle Eastern buyers.

Russia is happy to play into the Arab and Muslim street's anti-Americanism and to signal that the U.S., which is facing severe difficulties in Iraq, does not exercise exclusive strategic dominance in the Persian Gulf and in the Middle East. Moscow is back -- with a vengeance -- in the most important energy depot of the world. It is no accident that the speech was delivered on the eve of Putin's historic visit to Saudi Arabia, the first for any Russian or Soviet leader, and to Qatar and Jordan, America's allies in the Middle East.

Where Are We Going From Here?

From Washington's perspective, the timing of Putin's speech couldn' t be worse. With Iraq in limbo, and Iran remaining truculent, the chances for Russian cooperation in taming Teheran' s nuclear ambitions are dwindling. Russia was recalcitrant in providing necessary pressure on Iran during the December 2006 negotiations on U.N. Security Council Resolution 1737, and may refuse to do so when the Security Council revisits the Iranian dossier in a few weeks.

Moreover, Putin is signaling that Russia is willing to be the vanguard of the anti-American camp in Europe and the Middle East, and from Caracas to Beijing. Russia is putting not just military might behind its rhetoric, but economic muscle as well: Putin publicly approved of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's idea of creating an OPEC-style cartel for natural gas. Whether such a coalition materializes, and whether it might translate itself into a military alliance, remains to be seen.

What Should Washington Do?

The image of a new Cold War may be too simplistic to describe the emerging global world architecture. Clearly, the post-communist honeymoon is over, dead, and buried. A realistic reassessment of the relationship is in order.

The United States should avoid a rhetorical confrontation with Moscow. Deeds, not words, are necessary to send a message to the Kremlin that the U.S. and its allies will not be bullied, but that Washington is not interested in renewed hostility.

The U.S. should continue cooperation with Russia on matters of mutual concern, such as energy, non-proliferation, and space.

It is also time to build bridges to potential Russian allies to prevent the emergence of anti-American blocs. The U.S. should also appeal to its traditional allies in Europe and elsewhere to recognize the changing geo-strategic balance in the Eastern hemisphere, to boost mutual defenses, to coordinate energy policy, and cooperate on energy security among the consumers.

This is hardly the end of history, but rather continuation of an old and taxing game.

The Moscow Times reports:

Male soldiers in St. Petersburg contend they were forced into prostitution by higher-ups, the soldiers' rights group Union of Soldiers' Mothers Committees said Monday.

A retired FSB general and a former colonel who is now a banker were among those who paid the soldiers for their services, Ella Polyakov of the union's St. Petersburg office said one of the soldiers told her. Military prosecutors said they were investigating the allegations, while Interior Ministry spokesman Vasily Panchenkov rebuked the union. The group's aim, Panchenko said, was not to "defend the rights of military personnel but to discredit the armed services."

The armed services have faced numerous cases of hazing in recent years. The case of 19-year-old Private Andrei Sychyov, whose genitals and legs were amputated after he was hazed, has drawn national attention to the plight of many conscripts. "Violent hazing results in the death of dozens of young soldiers every year, and serious injuries to thousands more," Human Rights Watch said in a report last year. Panchenko dismissed any talk of senior officials paying for sex supplied by young soldiers. A soldier serving in a brigade based on Millionaya Ulitsa told the Fontanka.ru news site that he and others were forced into service by longer-serving military personnel, who would provide the soldiers with client lists. Sometimes clients reportedly turned up at the base in the middle of the night to pick up soldiers. Polyakova, for her part, said two soldiers from the brigade, close to the Palace Square, were forced into prostitution. One filed an initial complaint in 2003, and the other did so this month, she added. "He said they were given a list of clients," Polyakova said, recalling what one of the soldiers had said. "If they didn't work, they were beaten."

Soldiers were reportedly paid as much as 1,000 rubles ($38) daily for selling themselves.

Polyakova cast doubt on some of the allegations. One of the young men who had reported that he had been forced into prostitution, "is just a country boy," she said. One soldier at the base was recently expelled for being HIV positive, and another was expelled for having hepatitis, Polyakova said. "They did not investigate how they caught these diseases," Polyakova said. Seventy soldiers who were discovered to be HIV positive were expelled from the Army in 2005, Pravda reported last year. Polyakova said she met with a high-placed official in the Leningrad military district Friday who had asked her to keep quiet about the matter. The brigade in question has featured in previous hazing allegations. A 2004 Human Rights Watch report quoted soldiers from the base complaining of being abused. In an investigation made public last summer, Sobesednik, a weekly news tabloid, reported that prostitution was widespread in the army. Certain bases, including one in charge of security for the General Staff based outside Moscow, had especially bad reputations for prostitution, the tabloid reported.

Ironically, as Gay.com reports, a bill is now pending in the Duma to re-criminalize homosexual activity itself, so these soliders when used up by their officers can then be conveniently imprisoned as free laborers:

Russia may pass legislation re-criminalising homosexuality, and possibly impose a five-year prison sentence for anyone found convicted of gay sex.

The new bill, introduced into Russia’s lower house on Monday, is nearly identical to the 1933 criminal code, until Stalin, which made homosexuality punishable by five years of hard labour. Deputy Nikolay Kuryanovich ‘s new legislation would revive Soviet law that would also essentiall ban gay pride parades or meetings. Gay sex was decriminalised in 1993 as a result of Communism’s fall, but up until the 1980s gays and lesbians were routinely committed to hospitals for reparative therapy, which involved taking psychotropic drugs. It is unclear how far Kuryanovich’s bill will get, as he doesn’t have any official party backing. The bill, however, has gained support from Communist supporters and the Russian Orthodox Church.

The bill marks another attempt from the government to suppress Russia's gay community. Last month Russian president blamed homosexuality for the country’s declining birth-rate while Moscow mayor Lushkov banned banned the city’s gay pride parade in May, branding it “satanic”. In January gay activists filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city of Moscow for banning last year’s pride parade at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. The lawsuit accuses Moscow of violating the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, the right to effective court protection and of violating prohibitions against discrimination under the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Russia is a participant. Despite Lushkov’s comment saying that pride parades “may be acceptable for some, in some sense, progressive countries in the West, but not for Russia”, he still maintains that he banned the pride parade because of security restrictions. Lushkov has also threatened to ban this year’s Mowscow pride, scheduled for May 2007. Gay rights groups said they will defy any ban, as they did last year.

Reuters reports on more abject humiliation for Russia in Chechnya:

Two Russian soldiers and four separatist rebels died in a gun fight in Chechnya on Tuesday just two days after Russia's defence minister said the conflict was over. A Russian military spokesman said the shootout happened near Gudermes, hometown of the Moscow-backed prime minister Ramzan Kadyrov. "We have identified two of the rebels and are working on the identities of the other two," the spokesman said. He said Russian soldiers attacked rebels who were hiding in a trench. Russian leaders characterise the southern republic of Chechnya, where Russia has fought two wars since 1994, as a stable province undergoing reconstruction. Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov told a meeting of global security chiefs in Munich on Sunday that Chechnya was an example of how nation-states could defeat terrorism. "I think we have scored a success in Chechnya," Interfax news agency quoted Ivanov as saying. "The problem has been solved and it has taken five years to do this. It is a small territory compared with Afghanistan or Iraq." But Chechen separatists, many of whom say they are fighting in the name of Islam, are able to launch attacks on Russian forces from their mountain hideouts. Security analysts say violence in Chechnya has spilled over into neighbouring Ingushetia and Dagestan, where bombings and shootouts are frequent. On Sunday a roadside bomb killed two Russian soldiers in Dagestan.

Writing in the Moscow Times, columnist Konstantin Sonin, a professor at the New Economic School/CEFIR, explains that Russians are far more dangerous to Russia than the country's so-called "foreign enemies." And who is the most dangerous Russian of all? LR won't say, but she'll give you hint: His initials are V.V.P. (no, it doesn't stand for "very, very pathological" -- but it might as well). Pity that Professor Sonin doesn't have the guts to take his analysis to its logical conclusion, that the first step towards success in Russia is to stop being ruled by a proud KGB spy, a relic of failure, the worst thing possible for Russia.

New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman gave a talk in Moscow two weeks ago in which he discussed his "flat world" theory about the leveling of the global economic playing field. Friedman's first article published after his return from Moscow was dedicated to Russia, recounting a story about the Kosygin reforms that was recounted to him by Vladimir Mau, rector of Russia's Academy of National Economy.

The reforms were a series of economic initiatives begun in 1965 by Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin, intended to correct ineffective state planning policies. The reforms were shelved for 20 years, however, when gas reserves in western Siberia were tapped in the late 1960s and world oil prices rose sharply in the mid-1970s. Once the leadership started receiving substantial oil and gas export revenues, it forgot about reforms, content to import greater and greater quantities of foodstuffs while domestic agricultural production declined. Moscow even concluded that it could afford to wage a war in Afghanistan. But when oil and gas prices fell in 1985, the country was unprepared for economic difficulties and too inflexible politically to adjust its economic system.

Speaking on Saturday at a security conference in Munich, President Vladimir Putin used language reminiscent of the Cold War days, that also illustrated Friedman's simple theory: High oil and gas prices have enabled Russia to pursue a more aggressive political agenda on the world stage. What was disturbing about the speech was not that it might involve Russia in unnecessary competition with obviously stronger rivals. It may not. The problem was that it directed public discussion inside Russia toward foreign policy.

Despite what combat veterans of the Cold War might say, the country's problems have little to do with events abroad and everything to do with those at home. This should be clear from 20th-century history. No external influence brought on the Stalinist terror of the 1920s and 1930s -- one of the century's biggest humanitarian catastrophes. Had structures of authority not been organized according to the law of the jungle, it might also have been possible to avert the famine that swept the country in 1932 and 1933. In the famine that hit from 1921 to 1923, international organizations were the ones that saved millions from starvation in central Russia. External factors were also not to blame for the country's poor state of preparedness for Nazi Germany's attack in June 1941.

If Communist leaders had not been so caught up in slaughtering their political opponents, the deaths of millions during the first year of the war with Germany might have been avoided. Schemes on the part of Russia's global rivals were also not the cause of the economic collapse and breakup of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. No matter how strongly Pentagon hawks might imagine it was a result of their handiwork, it was the Soviet leadership, isolated from the real economic conditions in the country by layers of bureaucratic and political barriers, that made decisions that damaged the economy just as badly as enemy bombs could have. The decision to re-route rivers and drain the Aral Sea during a period of national food shortages so acute that they were even felt even in Moscow should be considered here, as should Mikhail Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign timed to coincide with a severe budgetary crisis.

The danger for any country "cursed" with plentiful resources is not that oil or diamonds force leaders to act foolishly. Such riches simply allow them to do so. The safeguards against such policies should lie in a functioning parliament, the press and local and regional authorities. If they are unable to serve this purpose, like the the Central Party Committee, the State Planning Committee and the KGB were clearly not ready for the events in 1985, it is no one else's fault. If Russia is not ready to face today's challenges, it will be neither the United States' fault nor its problem.

Britain's The Business provides an in-depth summary of the Kremlin's efforts to weaponize energy and do with oil & gas what the USSR tried to do with tanks and ICBMs.

Putin's Superpowerplay

Russia has a new weapon with which to bully the West: its vast energy reserves. As the world’s biggest supplier of oil and gas, the Kremlin is determined that industrial muscle will succeed where Marxism failed

When a 32-year-old KGB agent called Vladimir Putin was invited to attend the Red Banner Institute in Moscow, one of the Soviet Union’s elite spy colleges, he couldn’t believe his luck. It was 1984 and the young but deeply ambitious Putin was soon being groomed as a specialist in economic and technological espionage. His teachers were still revelling in a now long-forgotten victory over America: gas was flowing from a brand new Russian pipeline to Western Germany, earning much needed hard cash, despite a lengthy campaign by President Ronald Reagan to block its construction with sanctions.

The pipeline came too late for the Soviets but Putin never forgot what he was taught in Moscow: Russia’s massive energy resources are a powerful weapon in the global power stakes. He reheated the idea in 1997 when he wrote an influential article for a Russian journal recommending that Russia regain control of its energy industry; now, at the height of his powers as President of Russia, he is busily putting his old plans into practice. In doing so this veteran Cold War warrior is waging a new Cold War, as was all too apparent from a disastrous meeting with European ministers last week, though this time Russian power – and the threat that goes with it – is dependent not on Marxism or missiles but on oil and gas.

Since the end of communism a decade and a half ago, Russia’s exports of oil and gas to the West have risen exponentially. New, Moscow-sponsored energy giants have risen while the world’s largest energy multinationals have all made huge investments in the country, turning Russia into the world’s biggest supplier of oil and gas. Combined exports are equivalent to nearly 19% of consumer countries’ demand, compared with just over 18% for Saudi Arabia.

In the early post-communist days, this seemed to be the answer to Europe’s energy problems (and some of America’s too). Now it is clear Putin’s plan all along was to ensure the West got hooked on Russian supplies – then use the dependency to exercise leverage and even control.

The plan has been some time in the making. Three years ago this week Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the founder of oil giant Yukos, was arrested on a bleak Siberian airstrip, marking the first step of the Kremlin’s plan to wrest control of energy production from private individuals and companies. Since then, oil and gas has been used as a tool of foreign policy, much like a weapon, rather than as a standard commodity bought and sold by profit-making corporations.

Oil and gas prices have more than doubled since Khodorkovsky’s arrest, delivering the Kremlin a financial windfall which it badly needed. Russia’s hard currency reserves have risen from a mere $9bn (£4.8bn, €7.2bn) before the 1998 financial crisis to more than $250bn today. Its economy has powered ahead, growing by 6.8% this year, on the back of rising energy prices. Average wages have surged from $50 a month when Putin came to power to $400; needless to say, this has made the Russian president a popular man.

But for politicians in Europe and America, the manner in which Putin and his comrades at state energy giants Gazprom and Rosneft have wielded their new power and wealth has taken tensions with the West to levels not seen in more than 20 years. Alexei Miller, Gazprom’s new chairman, bluntly laid out the new status quo at the World Gas Conference in June: "There are only three countries capable of being a long-term supplier of gas: Russia, Iran and Qatar. When it comes to gas for the development of the European economy, there is no realistic alternative to Russia."

Last week, President Putin sounded just as confident – and aggressive. He warned European leaders to give up any hope of gaining access to Gazprom’s jealously protected gas reserves and network. Western politicians, he said, should not stand in the way of Gazprom’s efforts to push its ownership of gas networks deeper and deeper into Western Europe. As for daring to criticise his human rights record or heavy-handed bullying of Georgia and Ukraine (never mind his actions in Chechnya), this, he declared, was out of the question. Russia’s re-emergence as a superpower, this time on the back of energy, has made the President supremely indifferent to Western criticism on most issues, including the murder of investigative journalist Anna Poliykovskaya.

The first time Western Europe was attacked directly by Russia using energy as a weapon was when Gazprom cut off gas supplies to Ukraine in the new year, as punishment for turning its back on Kiev’s pro-Moscow political parties. The action also hit supplies to France, Germany and Italy – and thrust the now obvious problem of Europe’s growing energy dependence on Russia to the top of the political agenda. Not that greater prominence for this issue resolved anything: Europe failed to secure any kind of energy deal with Putin at July’s G8 summit in St Petersburg.

The list of Russian snubs and heavy-handed action keeps growing. Earlier this month plans to ship liquefied Russian gas to America from the giant Shtokman field in the Arctic were abruptly cancelled after more than five years of negotiations, destroying the hopes of US oil firms ConocoPhillips and Chevron to get a share of the project.

Now the oil majors tread warily in Moscow. They have every reason to: the regulatory and legislative powers abused in the destruction of Yukos are being applied to Royal Dutch Shell and, to a lesser extent, BP, Total and Exxon Mobil. Appeasement is the order of the day: BP’s decision, for example, to take a $1bn stake in Rosneft when it floated on the London Stock Exchange in July was widely seen as a way of assuaging the Russian government.

Russia’s neighbours, especially those in the Baltic, Poland, Belarus and Moldova, know only too well how mercilessly their former master can use its resources. In 2003 Russian state pipeline company Transneft arbitrarily decided to cease oil supplies to the Latvia’s Ventspils Nafta oil terminal, ending the port’s existence, in apparent revenge for Latvia’s ind- ependence. This year it did the same to Lithuania. When Polish oil company PKN Orlen beat Russia’s Lukoil and TNK-BP to buy Yukos’s share in Lithuania’s Mazeikiu Nafta refinery, Transneft again shut down pipeline supplies to the refinery, blaming an accident (the refinery was later damaged by fire).

In 2004, Gazprom shut off gas supplies to Belarus in a transparent attempt to bully it into giving Gazprom back ownership of its gas transmission pipeline. Poland is desperately looking to diversify its supplies, seeking to pipe in gas from Norway and even considering a liquefied natural gas terminal at Gdansk. Even Austria’s OMV, one of the first European customers of Russia’s gas, is pushing its neighbours to agree on the Nabucco pipeline to bring gas from Iran, suggesting Vienna regards the anti-Semitic, nuclear-obsessed Mullhas of Tehran a safer bet than Russia.

Last year Royal Dutch Shell admitted the construction costs of the Sakhalin gas project had doubled to $20bn. A few days earlier, it had agreed to sell Gazprom a 25% stake in the project in exchange for 50% of one of its Siberian gas fields, apparently without warning it of the impending bad news. This was a mistake: since then, regulatory pressure on Shell has increased massively and it could be forced to accept punishing new terms to keep control. Total and Exxon also face an endless run of obstacles to their projects.

Europe as a whole is likely to experience the rough end of Russia’s bargaining when it begins thrashing out a new bilateral agreement next month to replace the 10-year "Partnership and Cooperation Agreement" signed in 1997. This time, with energy prices high and Europe anxious for security of supply, Russia has genuine bargaining power, especially with Gazprom this year scheduled to complete negotiations with China’s CNPC on gas supplies.

Europe wants to strike a deal that allows solid contractual guarantees in energy deals between the two blocks. But it is understandably wary of giving Gazprom what it wants in return: control of the "downstream" – in other words gas pipelines, storage, pumping stations and even customer accounts. Part of the reason it cut gas supplies to Belarus in 2004 and to Ukraine at the start of 2005 was to pressure these countries to return control of transit pipelines. Gazprom has this year been pressuring European utilities such as Eon, RWE, GdF, Eni and Centrica to sell or swap stakes in their pipelines for shares in its Siberian gas fields.

Much of Europe’s gas infrastructure is, in theory, open to be acquired. But European politicians, in Brussels and in member- state capitals, have made it clear that it would block any large acquisitions on the grounds that Gazprom’s control of a quarter of Europe’s gas supplies would threaten competition. The European Competition Commission is expected also to outlaw the long-term bilateral gas contracts with which Gazprom has historically supplied clients.

Gazprom, of course, should not have such a strong hand to play. Europe may import a quarter of its gas from Russia but until Russia builds a pipeline to China or LNG terminals on its coasts, Gazprom can only supply one major customer: Europe. Russia’s importance as an American energy supplier is growing but remains minor (in August 2005 America imported 72,000 barrels of Russian crude per day (bpd): by this August imports had reached 167,000 bpd).

If Western utilities and governments negotiated as one, they would be in a stronger position. But Gazprom will almost certainly succeed in its efforts to frustrate a united front. The company has already developed a closer relationship with Germany, its largest customer, than with any other European country. In the New Energy Cold War, Germany is on Russia’s side. German energy giant Eon holds a small but significant stake in Gazprom, and Burckhard Bergmann, the chairman of its gas subsidiary, Eon Ruhrgas, is the only Western European to sit on Gazprom’s board.

In July Eon offered to swap a 25% stake in the Yuzhno Russkoye gas field in Siberia for large stakes in two of Eon’s Hungarian subsidiaries, much to the Hungarian government’s frustration. BASF’s Wintershall in April swapped a 35% stake in the same field for a further 15% in trading joint venture Wingas, bringing Gazprom’s share to 50%.

In July Eon offered to swap a 25% stake in the Yuzhno Russkoye gas field in Siberia for large stakes in two of Eon’s Hungarian subsidiaries, much to the Hungarian government’s frustration. BASF’s Wintershall in April swapped a 35% stake in the same field for a further 15% in trading joint venture Wingas, bringing Gazprom’s share to 50%.

Scandalously, former German Chancellor Gerhard Shröder was even appointed to the board of Nord Stream, the Gazprom-led consortium building a $5bn pipeline under the Barents Sea to North Germany after he was replaced by Angela Merkel as German Chancellor; he had been instrumental in signing the deal in the first place. Politicians in Poland have pointed out that the pipeline allows the Russians to cut off its gas supplies without affecting the rest of Western Europe.

Sarah Mendelson, a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says: "If the Europeans have a unified response they have a lot more power to influence Russia than they seem to realise. When they do unify they have got the Russian government to back down on various things." She describes the pursuit of sweetheart deals by individual European countries as "exactly the kind of thing that will leave us all in much worse shape".

Europe seems determined not to learn: Dutch gas firm Gasunie earlier this month became the third European utility to offer Gazprom something it wants, gaining a stake in Nord Stream in exchange for giving the Russians a 9% stake in the new BBL pipeline which will this December start shipping European gas to Britain across the North Sea from the Netherlands.

Hawks in the Bush administration have been calling for America to get tough. Last May, Vice President Dick Cheney visited Lithuania, making a speech that was sharply critical of Russia’s drift towards authoritarian rule. But with America fighting on several fronts in the Middle East, Afghanistan and now North Korea – all regions where Moscow has considerable influence – Washington also has to take Russia seriously once more.

Indeed Putin is having his cake and eating it: while Moscow increasingly calls the energy shots, investment into Russia during the first half of 2006 jumped 42% to $23.4bn. Western banks are falling over themselves to fund Gazprom and Rosneft – and were not shy of lending a hand in the destruction of Yukos: this month Rosneft is in talks with a consortium of investment banks to lend it $15bn to $20bn to fund the acquisition of the remnants of Yukos.

The risk was put succinctly by America’s Council on Foreign Relations. "Unless it is associated with higher standards of corporate governance and commitment to commercial norms," it said, "increased access by state-controlled Russian companies to international capital will not serve Western interests. It will mean that international investors are financing the expansion of Russian state power and control." Unless the West understands this – and acts in unison to counteract Russia’s growing imperialistic ambitions – Putin will continue to win the new energy wars.

"We need the full range of military capabilities. We don't know what's going to develop in places like Russia and China, in North Korea, in Iran and elsewhere."

That's the next Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (pictured, left) testifying before the Armed Services Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives last week and laying to rest all doubt as to whether Russia has provoked a second cold war with the United States in the ultimate act of self-destruction yet seen in the annals of human history. And this came before he heard the outrageous remarks delivered by Russian "President" Vladimir Putin a few days later at the annual Munich security conference. That's right: He lumps Russia in with international pariahs and rogue states like Iran, North Korea and China. Can you imagine what he thought of Russia after hearing . . .

"The US has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is very dangerous, nobody feels secure any more because nobody can hide behind international law. People are always teaching us democracy but the people who teach us democracy don't want to learn it themselves."

That's Vladimir Putin, "president" of Russia, speaking at the Munich security conference last week. Did he really say that Russia, with no opposition parties, appointed governors and no independent TV news is as democratic as America? Yes, that's just what he did. Putin has apparently decided as well that he gets to decree where the "national borders" of the United States are. Democrat Joseph Lieberman called Putin's comments "provocative," adding that the claims the US "aspired to unipolar power or acted unilaterally is just not borne out by the facts."

Has Russia "overstepped its national borders" in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine and the Baltics? Oh no, heaven forbid, of course not, no need to ask the people who live there either, because their opinions mean nothing next to that of Vladmir Putin, Holy Russian Emperor. Has the US overstepped its borders even in Russia? Why yes, apparently it has invaded that country too, and China, and "every" other country in the world. Gracious. But if the U.S. is as powerful as all that and ill-intentioned, shouldn't the president of Russia be at least a bit less provocative in his remarks? After all, his country is already losing 1 million from the population every year and working for $2.50 an hour on average. It seems not. Just call him Vladimir Quixputin, sacrificing Russia to rid the world of the evil of America.

Is Vladimir Putin going to lead a "coalition of the willing" (North Korea, Iran, Libya, Syria) against the United States and NATO in Cold War II? Is it really that delusional, already, that high oil fumes, that self-destructive? It would appear so. Welcome to Cold War II, the one Russia can't possibly survive.

Putin has now even succeeded in alienating his best friend in the West, George Dubya Bush, who "looked into Pooty-Poot's eyes." The White House responded to Putin's crazed, egomaniacal tirade as follows: "His accusations are wrong. We are surprised and disappointed with President Putin's comments." Just look at Putin and Gates sitting next to each other in the photograph above right. Is that really the relationship Russia wants with the world's most powerful nation?

Don't forget, dear readers, that LR told you this was going to happen, starting back last April. And she's telling you now that it's going to get much worse before it gets any better. Don't forget the context: Putin's comments come in the wake of a massive military buildup in impoverished Russia, a buildup which all by itself, without any menacing rhetoric, would be more than enough cause to conclude that a new cold war had begun. Instead of trying to soothe concerns about that buildup, Putin throws gasoline on the fire. Welcome back to the USSR!

Speaking at the same conference after Putin made his outrageously provocative remarks, Gates handed the malignant little troll the ultimate disrespect, putting him in is place as neat as you please. Giving him nothing to take home to the people, Gates dismissed Putin with a joke about silly cold war rhetoric and then ignored him -- as if to say, we will let our actions speak for us, whilst you can only rely on empty words. Mr. Gates appears to be quite a good man for the job.

Google News now has over 1,500 international news articles reporting on Putin's declaration of Cold War II with the United States. Estonia's president condemned Putin's remarks, using them as an opportunity "to urge the EU to rethink relations with 'a country that considers democracy on its borders as a threat, or despotism inside its borders as a source of stability.'" Sweden's Foreign Minister stated: "We should take him at his word. This was the real Russia of now, and possibly in four or five years time it could go further in this direction. We have to have a dialogue with Russia but we must be hard-nosed and realistic. We must stand up for our values." Czech Republic's Foreign Minister sarcastically thanked Putin, saying he had vindicated NATO's decision to take in members from the former Soviet east over the past decade. LR would also like to thank President Putin very kindly! Ron Asmus, executive director of the Transatlantic Centre think tank in Brussels, stated "This Munich conference is normally about the Americans and Europeans bitching at each other. It will be interesting to see whether Putin actually managed to bring us together."

A reader offers the following observations about Putin's insane tirade and its consequences for Russia and the world:

I'm sure it has not escaped your notice that Putin has just made a speech at some kind of international conference, launching into the United States in almost an unprecedented way, and apparently blaming the US for the current drive by certain countries towards nuclear proliferation. I think he is clearly taking advantage of the current situation in which you have a lame duck president who is very unlikely to respond with an appropriate counter-attack. If I was speaking for the US I would say the following:

There is no doubt about the countries that Mr Putin is principally referring to. North Korea (the psychopath state created by the Soviet Union) recently tested its first atomic bomb, after all of the US brokered attempts to prevent it by diplomatic means and imposition of sanctions failed. Russia's part in the negotiations ranged from indifference to obstruction, and after NK first announced that it had the bomb the official Russian reaction was "North Korea does not have the required technical capability." Putin did play an active roll in relations with style North Korea however. Soon after his appointment as president, he invited Kim Jong Il to the Kremlin, and soon after that made an agreement to sell arms to him.

The other main country which we, and the rest of the world are referring to is of course Iran. Let us be quite clear about this, the fact that Iran will soon be capable of producing Nuclear weapons is a situation that would not exist without Russia's help. In the early 1990s Russia made an agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran to sell two nuclear power stations to it, and no other country was willing to do so. I don't know how many people are aware of the following two facts but: First, the most favoured non-renewable energy source for power stations in the developed world in recent years is natural gas. This is considered the least bad option environmentally, and makes very sound economic sense unless the price of the gas is too high. Secondly, Iran has the second largest proven reserves of natural gas in the world after Russia. These two facts together make the sale of nuclear power plants to Iran the nearest thing there could possibly be to selling freezers to Inuits. Hence right from the outset, the powers that be in Russia must have been aware that Iran's primary objective in obtaining nuclear power plants was to produce nuclear weapons. Subsequent events have born out this assumption amply. Again, Russia's relations with Iran: It is a valued economic partner and a valued client for its burgeoning arms market. Most recently it has sold them one billion dollars worth of high tech anti-aircraft missiles. Clearly the fact that Iran has taught a generation of its people to regularly chant "death to America" is considered desirable by the man who claims to be America's partner in the "war on terror".

Perhaps Mr Putin considers his recent and projected sales of arms to third world countries and pariah states is a force for stability. One example is the new MiG 35 fighter plane. Russia can congratulate itself on the fact that this is widely considered to be equivalent to the new American Super Hornet. Doubtless Putin thinks that the world can feel reassurance from the fact that, after selling large numbers of these to India, Russia intends to sell them to: Syria, Iran, Libya, and last but not least Sudan Incidentally, as I'm sure you know, the Sudanese government is responsible for Africa's worst humanitarian catastrophe, in Darfur and it may have been stopped if it had not been for Russia and China continually blocking sanctions on it. To watch a video regarding the airplane, click here.

It bears repeating: Don't forget, dear readers, that LR told you this was going to happen, starting back last April. And she's telling you now that it's going to get much worse before it gets any better.

David McDuff's A Day at a Time offers two reports on human rights outrages in Russia.

First, he reports on the beating and gassing of a female human rights activist in Mari Republic.

Then, he reports on a mass poisoning of children in Chechnya that Russian authorities tried to pass of as "psychosis."

David also links to Radio Liberty's interview with Boris Berezovsky about the Litvinenko killing.

Veronica Khokhlova at Global Voices provides a nice bookend with details from the Russian blogosphere about the racist attack on Newsweek correspondent and blogger Aidar Buribayev (pictured, left) on a Moscow subway over the weekend. She points out that a huge number of comments have been left on Buribayev's blog supporting the racists.

The Toronto Star reports that Anne Applebaum (pictured, left), the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag: A History, spoke at Thursday's Grano lecture series in Toronto:

"That's the great thing about computers," Anne Applebaum says with a laugh. She is explaining how it is that she can be a columnist for the Washington Post while living outside the Beltway. Far outside – as in Warsaw, Poland, where she is the wife of the minister of national defence. Or rather, her husband, Radek Sikorski, was the minister until last Monday, when "ongoing issues" with the Polish prime minister persuaded him to resign. Sikorski, a former Solidarity activist, remains a senator, however, and Applebaum, 42, recently committed to living there full time with their two young sons.

Though Washington-born and bred, Applebaum has spent most of her working life in Europe, starting as Warsaw correspondent for The Economist in 1989. The Byzantine workings of the former Soviet Union and its six Eastern Europe satellites have riveted her ever since. Which isn't to say she doesn't range further afield on occasion, there being "a limited appetite," as she puts it, "for Eastern European coverage in Washington." She recently attacked the Kyoto Treaty as "absurd" for exempting so-called developing countries China and India. Likewise the futile war against poppy growing in Afghanistan. Cultivation for medical use should be legalized, she argues, as was done with Turkey.

Last week, Applebaum was briefly back on this side of the Atlantic to speak at the Grano dinner, the high-profile speakers series that this year is focusing on Europe's future. Europe and its giant bear of a neighbour, Russia. On that subject, few can compete with Applebaum. Her 2003 book, Gulag: A History, six years in the making, is now considered the gold standard, winning a Pulitzer Prize and eliciting rave international reviews. "Magisterial," applauded the Times Literary Supplement. "A book whose importance is impossible to exaggerate." Meticulously researched in the Kremlin's newly opened Gulag archives, the book was a full-on condemnation of the Soviet Union's use of isolated labour camps and colonies to suppress political dissent. Between 1918 and 1991, 18 million "enemies of the state" passed though them. Another 7 million were exiled.

But in post-Communist Russia, it is often as if they never existed. As Applebaum wrote: "The past does not haunt Russia's secret police, Russia's judges, Russia's politicians, or Russia's business elite." It should, she says. It must, if there is ever to be a clean break with the Soviet past. "I don't say there has to be trials but perhaps a truth commission like in South Africa. A public investigation, a formal inquiry, a public debate. One in every six people went through the Gulag system – everybody knew someone, was related to someone who had."

Attention was briefly paid by Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s, Applebaum says, but after the Cold War ended in 1991, Russia changed radically. Capitalism at its crudest led to the emergence of oligarchs and gangsters and the glaring fact that the scoundrels of the Communist era had gone unpunished, were still safe in their state-supplied apartments and country dachas.
As the book noted, it seemed to most Russians "as if the more you collaborated in the past, the wiser you were. By analogy, the more you cheat and lie in the present, the wiser you are."

In the 1990s, "people suddenly had other things to do," she says. "They also had to get used to the idea that `we were a great superpower, and now we are not.'" She points out that the post-Communist political elite, including "very disturbing" President Vladimir Putin, are all former KGB officers who don't want their own, or the secret police's, past revealed. During Putin's seven years in power, Russia has become more repressive. It isn't a totalitarian system or a police state "yet," she says, but it is highly controlled and often paranoid. She describes it as a "managed democracy" that gives the appearance but not the reality of political freedom: "You can't cross certain lines."

As the veteran journalist Anna Politkovskaya knew full well. The searing critic of the Kremlin's policies in Chechnya was shot dead in her Moscow apartment last October, a murder that remains unsolved. "No one but the Kremlin had a motive to kill her," says Applebaum, shaking her head. "She was an extremely brave person, but she was aware of the risks."

Similarly Alexander Litvinenko, the ex-KGB defector and Kremlin critic who died a month later in London from polonium-210 radiation poisoning. Another unsolved killing. "It's like a Cold War novel, isn't it?" But she has no doubt Putin was responsible. Not that he gave an "actual order to an actual thug," but in the sense that he presides over a web of former intelligence operatives and approves of their methods.

Then too there is Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Once head of the YUKOS oil giant and Russia's wealthiest citizen, he's been in a Siberian prison cell since 2005, serving eight years for tax evasion. He was further charged last week with money-laundering and faces another 10 years. The Kremlin has fabricated the charges, he says.

Applebaum wouldn't be surprised. "I'm not saying he didn't launder money or evade tax, but he was imprisoned as an example to the others. He was a guy who had Western contacts, who gave money to pro-democracy groups. One of the lines you don't cross in Russia is getting involved in politics." That Khodorkovsky is imprisoned in a Gulag-style Siberian jail when the Gulag system of political repression is supposedly long gone "is creepy," she says. "It's scary." With his term of office limited to eight years, Putin must resign the presidency next year. Theoretically. "But will he leave or will he arrange it so he controls his successor? Nobody knows because the succession process in Russia is still a mystery. A lot of people are interested in keeping things the way they are."

Applebaum will be back in Moscow this year to research a new book on how the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were created "on the ground" after World War II. It will focus on individual stories of people struggling with radical changes and the dilemma they faced – to flee, fight, or join the new political order. She intends to return to the Gulag archives. There was no problem accessing them a decade ago. But that was before her book turned a glaring spotlight on the full horror and tragedy of the system. "I don't know if they'll let me in," she says with a sigh. "I'm not overly optimistic."

Readers may remember that a little while back La Russophobe introduced a new feature to the blog, in the form of an unfiltered chatbox which would let readers talk back to LR (and to each other) without registering for blogger.

This, quite predictably, turned into a classic Russian disaster.

The chatbox was surprisingly popular. In just the nine short days of its existence, with little fanfare from LR, it was viewed 4,024 times (447 times per day) and drew 71 comments. These comments actually led to two posts on the blog. All in all, quite phenomenal really.

But of course, the Russophile slobs had to ruin it, just exactly as they are ruining Russia itself. Not only did they spew forth personal attacks on La Russophobe, which was expected and in fact desired (it's the best proof possible of how right LR really is), but they couldn't leave it at that. Instead, they had to attack non-Russophile commenters as well, and not merely with personal insults but by impersonating them and posting false messages on the box. Naturally, when the victims of this outrageous, childish and quasi-criminal conduct complained, the box was taken out of service.

This is Russia in a nutshell. Not only do these abject losers deprive themselves of the ability to post their objections to this blog, but in the process they prove La Russophobe's point about what is going on in Russia more conclusively than she ever could. This kind of thing has been going on in Russia for centuries now, and it is the reason we see Russia at the brink of extinction as a nation, losing 1 million people from the population every year and laboring for an average wage of $2.50 per hour while the rest of the world passes it by.

And so it goes in Russia.

Due to a childish attempt by some Russophile maniacs to spam this blog by posting the same ridiculous comment over and over again, commenting is now moderated. This means your comment will not appear on the blog until it has been reviewed and approved by LR (this will occur the same day you post your comment). LR apologizes for any inconvenience. However, the silver lining is that this allows LR to beta-test open commenting. You may now post a comment to the blog without signing up with blogger. You may do so anonymously, but you should give a unique posting name to yourself, as opposed to "anonymous," if you want a good chance of having your comment appear on the blog.