Other Russia reports:

Foreign relations between Russia and Georgia have plummeted to all time lows in recent weeks, with Georgian authorities claiming that Russia is inciting a military confrontation over two breakaway republics.

One major point of contention in the conflict is the destruction of a Georgian unmanned spy drone in late April. While Russia claims to have no connection to the event, a report by the UN found that a Russian fighter plane was responsible, backing Georgian assertions that a ceasefire accord had been broken. Aleksandr Golts examines this incident in an editorial in the Yezhednevny Zhurnal online newspaper (below).

Since the article was published on May 28th, Russia has announced that it will move more troops into Abkhazia, for “humanitarian aid” purposes. Georgia’s deputy foreign minister, meanwhile, called the move “an aggressive act, which is aimed against Georgia’s territorial integrity.”

On the art of choosing ones enemies
Aleksandr Golts
Yezhednevny Zhurnal
May 28, 2008.

When a mission of UN observers in Georgia presented their report, asserting that it was exactly a Russian fighter jet that shot down an unmanned Georgian drone, I immediately felt pity for the most intelligent and kind Vitaly Churkin, who currently serves as Russia’s representative to the UN. I immediately imagined him in the place of Soviet representative Valerian Zorin, who fiercely denied the presence of rockets in Cuba at a [UN] Security Council session forty-five years ago. At a certain moment, State Department employees brought in boards with glued-on photographs of Soviet rockets. And this allowed the American representative, Adlai Stevenson to run Zorin in to a corner: “Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the U.S.S.R. has placed and is placing medium- and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no—don’t wait for the translation—yes or no?” To which the the ambassador of a superpower found nothing better to say than: “I am not in an American courtroom, Mr. Stevenson.”

I’m not even referring to the fact that Moscow was caught telling blatant lies. In 1962, at least the opponent was worthy. But today, the representative of tiny Georgia will drag us face-down along the table. It must be said that both now and forty-five years ago, Moscow was let down by a colossal underestimation of the opponent’s political will and technical capabilities. In 1962, after the Americans didn’t use force to topple the Berlin Wall, Khrushchev counted them incapable of adequately responding to the deployment of rockets. And even the military promised to safely hide the rockets from reconnaissance aircraft. Today, [Moscow] clearly misjudged Georgia’s readiness for political conflict, and most importantly—its technical capacity to substantiate its charges in detail.

The UN mission’s report gives the impression of an extremely tested and painstaking work. Before anything else, the UN writers underscore the qualifications of the specialists, [who they] draw upon for expertise (specialists on radar and unmanned aircraft and aerial photography, as well as fighter pilots). The authors of the report meticulously explain why they regard the Georgian video as authentic. Here you have a both a clear matching of on-the-ground features and terrain, completely corresponding to the radar data and witness testimonies (including those presented by the headquarters of the [Russian] peacekeeping forces). Furthermore, it is underscored that the video recording does not have any changes of color rendition or skipping in the image, which could point to a falsification.

The same can be said regarding the Poti [, Georgia] radar data. [The authors] meticulously explain to us why falsification is impossible in this case. It turns out that the recording of the flight paths of both the drone and the fighter jet are replete with slight changes of course. And an attempt to make a forgery would necessarily show up as an unswerving straight line. We are even told why the fighter flew so close to the drone, as to allow itself to be caught on film. It turns out that this air battle was started practically inside an air corridor constantly flown by civil aircraft. Thus, the fighter pilot had to see his target, so as to, God forbid, avoid hitting a passenger liner.

In order to refute all this, firm statements from representatives of the [Russian] air force that on April 20th, our war planes didn’t fly near the Russian-Georgian border won’t quite suffice. Disputing the Georgian data can only be done by presenting our own data – and I hope that our air defense radar watches this region. After all, information can be obtained from the civil dispatchers, who were guiding planes through the above-mentioned corridor.

Instead of this, [the authorities] have decided, it seems, to once again stigmatize Georgia, as America was stigmatized in 1962. Then, after the embarrassment in the Security Council, the Soviet newspapers wrote that “V. A. Zorin exposed the assertions of US State Department employees, pulled from a heap of all sorts of of rubbish, about the so called “establishment of Soviet rocket bases” in Cuba.” Now, the Foreign Ministry has put on a semblance that the naïve UN investigators have been fooled by the cunning Georgians: “The point at issue is not to cast doubt on the competency of the UN Mission’s specialists. Rather, the question is in the biased and unobjective materials, on which this investigation was built –the video recording and the readings of certain radars. This video tape, which has long been discussed, and which the Georgian side has broadcast on television, but had not risked showing the UN or giving to the Russian side, raises serious doubts, as we have already noted. And the radar data, used by the UN Observer Mission in Georgia, does not correspond with [the data] we have.” It follows, that they have decided to play dumb in Moscow. To pretend that there is in fact a report, but at the same time to consider that the arguments it raises do not exist at all. “Let them slander, the bastards.”

As if the UN authors didn’t dedicate nearly their whole report to explaining how they came to such distasteful conclusions for Russia.

All that happened in distant 1962 was of course humiliating for the Soviet representatives – it’s not very pleasant, when the government whose interests you represent is caught red handed. But then one could write everything off to the stand-off of two systems, to the uncompromising confrontation, by way of which the fate of the country was decided.

Now, when Georgia has managed to incriminate us in lies, Russia stands not only in a humiliating, but in a downright laughable position. And the inability to give any credible explanations at all makes it doubly so.

Paul Goble reports:

Corruption in the Russian Federation is so extensive that it rather than a rational calculation of national interests is determining the outcome of many decisions, a situation that promises large if short-term benefits for some but even larger and longer term costs for the country as a whole, according to a Moscow commentator. In a speech to an Interior Ministry conference on combating corruption that was posted online recently, Mikhail Delyagin, the director of the Moscow Institute of the Problems of Globalization, argued that now “even the most important and strategic decisions” in Moscow are taken on the basis of “corrupt interests."

A harsh critic of the Putin administration, Delyagin argues that three major government projects provide clear support for his argument. The Pacific Oil Pipeline (VSTO) would never have been slated to go through such seismically active areas had certain regional interests and companies not had to be paid off. The Sochi Olympics is a second case of corruption trumping national interests, he suggests. Indeed, it appears that this project is little more than an opportunity to funnel government money into private pockets. And the third case involves the reform of the country’s housing stock. In the last case, Delyagin points out, “the basic discussion” about government funding of these reforms “has developed not around how to better and more quickly fulfill its goals – the capital reconstruction or old and dangerous housing – but around which financial instruments and over what period should be best invested ‘temporarily free’ means.”
Indeed, it has gotten to the point, the Moscow analyst says, that “Russian bureaucrats, who have a bank account, property or other shares abroad simply cannot defend the interests of Russia where their interests do not correspond to the interests of the development of the country since they are simply afraid for their property” much of which has been acquired “corruptly.”
Russian society “is paying a colossal price for corruption in practically all spheres of life,” Delyagin continues, arguing that the current upsurge in inflation could be curbed if the state had the ability to limit the “arbitrariness” of monopolies, something it does not have because of the corruption that ties officials to these businesses.

Some people are beginning to recognize this problem, he argues, but unfortunately, many people currently accept notions about how to fight corruption that do little but make the problem worse. Some believe, for example, that raising the salaries of bureaucrats will help, but in general, such moves only increase the appetites of those receiving more money. Indeed, Delyagin suggests, the only effective ways to deal with corruption involve acting in the same way that the authorities promise to do in fighting organized crime, something corruption is intimately interconnected with. Other means include improving transparency and new means to protect whistle blowers, steps the bureaucracy appears certain to continue to resist.

In the short term, there may be no way out, but as Russian officials sacrifice the national interests of the country in order to protect their corrupt personal ones, the community of those who will be prepared to oppose such actions is certain to grow, a trend that will either force those in power to change or lead those whose interests are now being sacrificed to revolt. While the former is far preferable given than it would lead to fewer dislocations across the political and social system, it is clear that Delyagin himself thinks that the latter outcome is more likely, something that points to the kind of radical, ratchet-like change that has so often marred Russian history in the past.

(1) EDITORIAL: More of the Same

(2) Russia Convicted of Act of War Against Georgia

(3) Annals of Russian Hypocrisy

(4) Annals of Russian Racism

(5) The Saga of Arnold Meri

(6) Germany Presses Russia on Human Rights

NOTE: David MacFadyen, Professor and Chair of the Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures at UCLA, writes to announce the opening of a new website devoted to Russian pop music and called "Far From Moscow." It includes video, audio and background information on Russian pop "stars" (such as they are).

We're the first ones to admit that we're not perfect, so maybe we missed it.

In our own defense it would have been pretty easy to miss, perhaps, since many people couldn't even name Vladimir Putin's predecessor as prime minister of Russia.

Did that man -- Victor Zubkov -- who assumed office on September 14, 2007, ever pay a state visit to France?

How about his predecessor, Mikhail Fradkov, who ruled between March 2004 and the time Zubkov took the reins?

Were either of them ever photographed arriving in Paris and shaking the hand of the French president, as "Prime Minister" Putin is shown in the photograph above taken last week? The Moscow Times reports that "Putin then headed for a working dinner with President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace late Thursday evening, a rare honor from the French head of state for visiting head of government." Has any other Russian prime minister ever been treated in a remotely similar manner?

Because, as far as we can recall, no such thing ever happened. As far as we know, when Vladimir Putin was "president" of Russia it was he who made such trips and shook such hands. And now that he's "prime minister" -- he's still doing it. And in particular, French presidents do not normally receive visiting prime ministers from other countries. It's particularly odd in this instance, since Medvedev is scheduled to negotiate a major agreement with the EU in the coming weeks with Sarkozy as a key player, and yet it is Putin and not Medvedev who carries out this meeting.

One could not ask for a more emphatic statement that Putin has not relinquished the reins of power than this photograph. In no way is Putin a "prime minister" remotely like those who have come before. He cannot be dismissed by Medvedev, and he is not acting like a "prime minister" but rather like the head of state, and he is being treated as such by other countries. As the International Herald Tribune reported: "In general, Putin spoke for Russia as if he still ran it - which most analysts believe he still does."

Meanwhile, state propaganda organ Russia Today is bragging that Putin has just acquired "final say on foreign bids to buy Russian companies in 42 ‘strategic’ sectors including oil, gas, media and telecoms" by means of a new law passed specifically to formally expand his ministerial powers. And that's just a few weeks after he took office! What will be left of the presidency by the time Medvedev completes "his" first term? Nothing at all.

The malignant little troll is urinating on the institution of democracy and laughing as he does so, secure in the knowledge that the world will allow him to act with impunity just as it did Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, waiting to respond only once the crisis stage has been reached.

The Telegraph reports:

The Kremlin is guilty of committing an act of war against Georgia, according to a United Nations report.

The inquiry, released [last] Monday, concluded that Russia shot down a Georgian reconnaissance aircraft as it flew over Georgia last month. The report gives the first independent backing to claims made by Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia's president, that Russia was responsible for a series of aggressive acts that have brought the two former Soviet neighbours close to war.

Georgia has accused Russia of firing missiles into its territory in the past, but UN observers have never found enough evidence to blame Moscow categorically. But this time the UN team's conclusions were unequivocal.

Radar records, witness testimony and video from the unmanned drone showed that it had been shot down by a Russian missile fired from a Russian fighter jet. In the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary, "this leads to the conclusion that the aircraft belongs to the Russian airforce," the report said.

While Russia continued to deny the incident – at least the third of its kind in the last two months – Georgia said it was evidence that Moscow was giving military backing to rebels in Abkhazia, a territory that broke with Georgia in the early 1990s. "Georgia today is in a very difficult situation because foreign-armed forces have entered its territory," Mr Saakashvili said. "The UN has released a report in which Russia is directly accused of aggression against Georgia. For the first time, the UN has directly pointed the finger at Russia."

The UN said Russia's act was a breach of a 1993 ceasefire that ended a civil war in Abkhazia, but it also criticised Georgia for sending drones into Abkhaz airspace – while reiterating that the rebel province remained part of Georgian territory.

Watch the video here.

Writing in the Moscow Times Ron Asmus, executive director of the Transatlantic center of the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Brussels and Mark Leonard, executive director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, call upon the West to stand up to Russian aggression in Georgia in order to prevent war, pointing out that Russian "peacekeepers" are in fact responsible for provoking that war.

The West could be sleepwalking into a war on the European continent. Georgia, which burst into view with a moving display of democratic ambition during the Rose Revolution of 2003, is teetering on the brink of war with Russia over the separatist Georgian enclave of Abkhazia. The outcome of this crisis -- involving a fledgling democracy with aspirations to join NATO and the European Union -- will help determine the rules of the post-Cold War security system. But Western diplomats are not sending strong enough signals to either side.

Moscow seems determined to provoke Tbilisi to take military action that would discredit Georgia in Western eyes and kill the country's aspirations to join NATO. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin used the West's recognition of Kosovo as a pretext to strengthen his own country's links with the breakaway republic. One of his last acts as president was to establish "direct official relations" with Abkhaz quasi-state bodies, a move just short of outright diplomatic recognition. In early May, Moscow sent an extra 1,000 "peacekeeping" troops to the region, using the cover of a United Nations mandate to change the balance of power in the enclave.

Yet Georgia also is far from perfect. Its president, Mikheil Saakashvili, is charismatic, brash and a touch authoritarian. He arouses as much anxiety in European capitals as he does admiration. Saakashvili sees himself as a "father of the nation" and is determined to unify his country. If he is forced to choose between Georgian unity and the West, there is a danger he will be tempted to try a land grab of Abkhazia by force.

But despite of its president's mercurial character, Georgia represents the best hope for democracy in the region. The recent presidential and parliamentary elections -- which Saakashvili's party won handsomely -- have gone some way toward undoing the damage that his 2007 crackdown did to his democratic credentials.

What should the West do? Thus far, U.S. and EU actions have been largely limited to issuing statements calling for restraint -- statements that seem to have had little impact on either side. Unconditional Western support for Georgia could encourage Tbilisi to take actions that it may regret later. Yet preaching at Tbilisi without providing it with any credible support is not a viable strategy. In fact, the EU's attempts to avoid entanglement could simply end up strengthening the hawks on both sides.

The West needs to understand that the best way to keep the peace is to get involved, rather than standing on the sidelines. The United States and the EU need to send a clear signal to both sides. President Dmitry Medvedev must be told that future relations with the West -- from visits to cooperation agreements -- will be influenced by Russian behavior toward its neighbors.

On the other hand, Washington and Brussels must also send a message of tough love to Tbilisi, making it clear that Western support is conditional on Georgian restraint. If Georgia attempted to pursue a land grab, it would end any hope of integration into the West.

Above all, Western countries need to get directly involved in building confidence between the two sides. The current peacekeeping and negotiating formats are not working. For years they froze the tensions in Abkhazia, but now they have become pawns of Russian policy. Moscow is using the UN and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe peacekeeping mandates as a fig leaf to legitimize a military buildup. It claims to be a mediator but is de facto a party in the conflict.

In the early 1990s, Western countries urged Russia to assume a leading peacekeeping role because they were not willing to put their own forces in. But today these peacekeepers are leading the region closer to conflict. Western countries must be prepared to withdraw those mandates and insist on new missions that are truly neutral and include greater Western participation, both civilian and military. Finally, Western governments need to help create a real peace process about Abkhazia's future. The Georgian strategy of publishing peace plans for Western consumption is not enough. Georgia must show that it is willing to engage in a real dialogue, without any preconditions, with the Abkhaz leadership.

The key to a long-term solution will be breaking down the isolation on both sides of the conflict by creating new human and economic ties and the kind of security that will allow people to start returning to their homes.

Ultimately the stakes in this crisis go well beyond the Caucasus. The escalation threatens to make a mockery of the principles on which the West has worked to build a post-Cold War peace -- principles that transcended spheres of influence and that gave all countries, big and small and irrespective of their geography, the right peacefully to determine their own future. Moscow agreed to those principles in the 1990s, but now, flush with nationalism and petrodollars, it flouts them. The West should not. That is why the situation in Georgia is a litmus test for us.

Remember how Russians said it was unthinkable and outrageous to move a memorial in Estonia that deals with Russia? It seems that when the shoe is on the other foot, it doesn't fit. Reuters reports:

Authorities in the Chechen capital have dismantled a memorial to the victims of Soviet repression, triggering public outrage in the southern Russian region.

Workmen appeared without warning last week and dismantled the monument, erected by Chechen separatist leader Dzhokbar Dudayev who fought Russia's armies in the 1990s.

"I'm outraged. To move such a monument you should ask the people," Zaur Timerbayev, who lives in the city, said.

"There should be a referendum. This is a catastrophe."

Thousands of Chechens died when Soviet leader Josef Stalin deported almost the entire 500,000 population in 1944 for suspected collaboration with Nazi Germany during World War Two. In 1956 the Soviet leadership encouraged Chechens to return.

Just a 20 minute walk from the centre of Grozny, the monument -- a stone fist clutching a sword and surrounded by Chechen tombstones -- dominated a busy road junction.

After two wars since 1994 between Russian soldiers and Chechen forces, Kremlin-backed Ramzan Kadyrov rules with little opposition and public dissent is now rare.

He wants to build a new monument commemorating the Soviet deportation of the Chechens on the outskirts of the city.

"The original place for the memorial was not very convenient," Kadyrov said in comments distributed by his press service.

"The new location will include a place for ceremonies, a mosque and a composite history of the subject. An obelisk will be built with all the names of the people who died in the relocation of the Chechens."

But many Chechens were angry the memorial has been dismantled.

"I consider the removal of this monument as abuse," 59-year-old Idris Gaitukayev said.

"I was born during the time of the expulsions, many of my compatriots died and I am seriously affected by what happened during this terrible period of my people's history."

Dudayev, a former Soviet air force general, emerged as head of the Chechen separatist movement after the 1991 break up of the Soviet Union.

He ordered the monument to be built and it has long been associated with him and Chechen nationalism. A laser-guided missile killed Dudayev in 1996 at the end of the first war in Chechnya when Chechen fighters forced Russian soldiers to leave.

Susanne Scholl, Moscow‑bureau‑chief of‑Austrian Public Television, writing in the Moscow Times:

In Russia, if you have dark hair and a slightly swarthy complexion, you are likely to be in danger. Sadly, the country’s leaders have tolerated, if not encouraged, fear of foreigners and assaults on those whose appearance differs from the average Russian.

In a residential area of Moscow, a group of adolescents, many with shaven heads and wearing combat boots, marches and shouts Russian nationalist slogans. When they come across three Azeri boys, they don’t hesitate. Soon, one of the boys — only 13 years old — lies severely injured; he will have to be hospitalized. The other two are injured as well. The perpetrators are never caught. Bashir Osiyev, 24, an Ingush-born clerk in a Moscow bank, is assaulted by a group of skinheads while walking home with a friend. The friend is badly wounded but manages to escape. Osiyev dies after being stabbed in the back. Two of the assailants are injured in the course of the fight and arrested after seeking medical assistance at a hospital. The others are never caught.

Two men from the Caucasus are on their way to the metro and are attacked by a group of adolescents with knives. Both are treated in the hospital, the perpetrators escape unrecognized.
In a small town in central Russia, two Uzbeks are viciously beaten up by a group of teenagers.
All of these incidents occurred within just one week. They are picked at random from an endless series of similar assaults, many of which end fatally.

The authorities tend to play down these attacks as the acts of rowdies — even when the perpetrators are caught and can be prosecuted. This is because charging someone with racism and xenophobia is more complicated and the process more drawn out than winning a conviction for simple thuggery. Indeed, racists can be assured of considerable sympathy from the security forces and the public. After all, these attacks generally don’t occur in some dark alleyway. In most instances, they take place in crowded markets, metro stations, or simply in busy streets.‑Pedestrians nearby look the other way, even if the victims are women and children.

A Chechen friend of mine and her 14-year-old son were attacked on the street by three drunken skinheads. The skinheads began to push them around and harass them, as people on the street looked away and kept moving. My friend managed to talk insistently to the three until eventually they left her and her son alone, only to pounce on a married couple that happened to be passing by. The man looked like he was Jewish, they insisted loudly, and started to push him around. But he’s Russian, his frightened wife insisted, whereupon the three apologized and let him go.

Neither husband nor wife were alarmed that the three drunks were chasing Caucasus natives and Jews but pressed charges because they, as Russian citizens, had been harassed. My friend didn’t. It would not do any good, she said resignedly, and then spoke of how her 12-year-old daughter is repeatedly told at school that all Chechens are criminals and that nobody likes them.
Since the day that then-President Vladimir Putin spoke on television of wasting Chechen terrorists in the outhouse, hatred of Caucasus natives has become all but socially acceptable.

Once again, a subgroup of the population has been declared outlaws and potential terrorists, satisfying people’s urge to find a clearly identifiable enemy who can be blamed for all that is wrong in the country. While there has been no lack of speeches calling for tolerance and condemning racist and anti-Semitic attacks, the situation barely changes. The Soviet Union was anything but tolerant. But since its collapse, a gnawing feeling of inferiority has crept into Russian society. Both the state and openly racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic groups — of which there are dozens, as well as more than 100 clearly xenophobic publications — increasingly ignore the country’s multi-ethnic character. In an everyday context, this is reflected in slogans like “Russia for Russians,” which really means white European Russians.

The attacks therefore are directed in equal measure against people from the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, as well as Russian citizens from the Caucasus or who belong to one of the country’s 90 national minorities. The state hypocritically expresses its concern while doing nothing to oppose it, because too many officials are only too willing to exploit such sentiments.

Marko Mihkelson, the chairman of the European Union Affairs Committee in Estonia's parliament, writing in the Moscow Times:

In recent days, the court proceedings in the small Estonian town of Kardla, where Arnold Meri stands trial for crimes against humanity, have gained much attention in the Russian press.

Unfortunately, this case reveals dramatically how biased and truth-fearing the media landscape of Russia is today. Naturally, no word is spoken or written about the fact that Meri is accused of carrying out deportations under Estonian legislation and international law.

The Russian media only proclaim that Meri was given the Hero of the Soviet Union award and that, in their view, the court case of the 88-year-old veteran is only a political trial orchestrated by the Estonian authorities. It is all supposed to serve the purpose of "rewriting" the outcomes of the World War II, we are told.

Following this logic, it might be assumed that all heroes of the Soviet Union enjoy a life-long immunity and can kill, rape or deport with impunity. It is sad if this is the contemporary Russian view of the rule of law.

There is no statute of limitations on crimes against humanity. It is not important who committed them and when. Eleven persons accused of crimes against humanity have been convicted in Estonia from 1995, eight of whom participated the deportation of civilians in the 1940s. Even the European Court of Human Rights in its decision of Jan. 17, 2006, supported the Estonian court practice of trying and prosecuting crimes against humanity.

Meri is accused of carrying out deportations of 251 people -- mostly women and children -- from the Estonian island of Hiiumaa on March 25, 1949. On that day, the Soviet occupation forces deported altogether 20,000 people from Estonia.

Unfortunately, that was not the only tragedy in the sufferings of the Estonian people in the 1940s. A similar episode occurred on June 14, 1941, when the People's Commissariat for Interior Affairs of the Soviet Union organized the deportation of more than 10,000 residents of Estonia, among whom nearly 5,000 women and 2,500 children. More than 3,000 of them were sent directly to prison camps, where the majority were killed or died.

For most Russians, the Soviet Union's victory in World War II, which is officially called the Great Patriotic War in Russia, has been elevated to the single most important historical event. No one today questions the importance of the Allies' defeat of Nazism. What raises concerns, however, is that the victory over Nazi Germany is told in rigorous black-and-white terms. We know that history is a growing collection of narratives with countless nuances. No historical event occurs in a vacuum. This is true for the Great Patriotic War, and it is important to analyze all of events that preceded and followed the war.

I am convinced that many Russians are more knowledgeable and balanced than the ruling elite in analyzing and interpreting World War II and its aftermath.

Deep wounds in the memory of nations heal very slowly. The feelings of distrust and even hatred can be easily fomented and manipulated. It is very difficult to earn respect by trampling on the truth, and leaders who try to stifle the historical sense of entire nations with this peculiar weapon of history are doing a terrible disservice to their citizens, the consequences of which may be irreversible.

Ilya Ponomarev, a State Duma deputy from A Just Russia and is one of the founders of the Left Front movement, offered a counterpoint in the same issue:

For the past week, Russian television has been stoking the public's passions over Estonia's charges of war crimes against Arnold Meri. Judging from the coverage, you would think that serious domestic problems, such as increasing neo-Nazism or the lack of housing for veterans, have been resolved.

Of course, it is always easier for the Kremlin and its media outlets to criticize other countries than itself. It is more expedient to fight against imaginary foes than taking on the real threats to society.

Russia's leaders never tire of displaying hypocritical self-righteousness, crying out passionately about justice -- particularly when these public stances bring in so many political dividends.

The more Russia bickers with the Baltic states, the more it resembles a fixed contest in which the results are settled beforehand. The ruling elites of both sides compete with one other at tossing out nasty accusations before their electorates in an attempt to divert attention away from the real problems of everyday life. This happened not long ago with the dispute over moving the Bronze Soldier monument from central Tallinn, and it is happening again now. It seems that those in power are happy, even if a decorated war hero must now stand trial -- and this is a man who, in 1941, didn't quit the field of battle against the Nazis, even after sustaining four battle wounds, and who is now unafraid to stand up for his fellow war veterans, despite suffering from a serious illness.

I do not want to address Meri's specific actions in 1949 for which he now stands accused -- the deportation of the Estonia civilians to Siberia. Let's leave it to the lawyers to determine whether Meri organized the deportations or was just carrying out orders. There is a more important issue that has gotten lost in the Meri affair: Instead of focusing on one person for crimes against humanity, the authorities should initiate an international tribunal against the entire Communist regime for crimes against humanity. Although the wealthy and ruling elite in the former Soviet republics might find this initiative attractive, the overwhelming majority of the people, who live worse now than they did 20 years ago, would never support this idea. In the absence of a Nuremberg-like trial, however, any attempt to single out one person smacks of a politically motivated campaign to find a scapegoat.

In reality, of course, politicians and the media don't care that much about Meri or his alleged crime of "genocide," despite the passionate debates on television talk shows. They relish the opportunity to generate good public relations with voters, especially since the government has nothing to say regarding the real problems facing society. How many rating points has United Russia racked up by renaming streets in Pskov and Altai in honor of Arnold Meri? As is often the case, one man's meat is another man's poison.

And for its part, Estonian leaders are manipulating the issue to marginalize opposition groups. They also are trying to provoke Russia to take retaliatory actions, which would then prompt the European Union to come to Estonia's defense.

Both the Russian and Estonian sides should be ashamed of themselves for how they have cynically exploited the Meri affair for political gain.

The spindoctors on both sides who stand behind their respective PR campaigns should think more about the millions of Russian and Estonian lives that were lost during World War II and its aftermath. They should also think about their children, who will grow up one day and look back on what the Meri trial and cry, "Shame on you!"

The International Herald Tribune reports:

The case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the imprisoned former boss of the Russian energy company Yukos, and other human rights issues will be high on the agenda when Chancellor Angela Merkel meets President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia in Berlin this week, officials confirmed Monday.

This is Medvedev's first foreign visit in Europe since taking office last month, and by making Germany his first stop the Kremlin is confirming the enduring importance of the two countries' bond, German officials said.

"Germany and Russia are forming a close, friendly and strategic relationship," Merkel said in her weekly podcast, in which she set out what kind of ties the government hoped to develop with Medvedev.

These include Germany supporting Russian efforts to modernize its economy while also tackling corruption, strengthening the rule of law and establishing a more effective judiciary - issues that Medvedev pledged to deal with once he took office.

"If Medvedev is serious about a state based on the rule of law, then the case of Khodorkovsky provides an opportunity to test that commitment," said Eckart von Klaeden, the foreign policy spokesman for Merkel's conservative bloc in Parliament.

Khodorkovsky, once regarded a rival to former President Vladimir Putin, was arrested in October 2003 on charges of tax fraud and received a 10-year sentence in May 2005. Putin is now the Russian prime minister, a role he assumed after Medvedev took over the presidency in May.

The German business community, which in the past has criticized Merkel's direct language with Putin over human rights, is hoping for a new start to the Berlin-Moscow relationship under Medvedev.

Merkel, who was raised in communist East Germany, speaks Russian and understands the country. She had broken ranks with previous chancellors by adopting a much more public and critical stance toward the Kremlin's positions on press freedom and the rule of law.

German managers had warned her that this kind of approach could damage economic ties. But over the past year, trade has been flourishing, with German exports to Russia reaching record levels, according to the East Committee for the German economy, which promotes German companies throughout the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Merkel's focus on the rule of law has won some support by Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who until recently was reluctant to deal with the issue.

During his visit last month to Russia - where he met Medvedev, as well as representatives of the business community and student and nongovernmental organizations - Steinmeier called on the Kremlin to introduce a legal system that is transparent. And in a surprise development, Steinmeier had a long meeting with Khodorkovsky's lawyer, Yuri Schmidt, in a hotel in St. Petersburg.

"Our meeting lasted for about 90 minutes," Schmidt told the Russian news agency Interfax on Monday. "During that time we discussed the entire range of issues. In particular, we discussed the possibility of a lawful release of Khodorkovsky."

German officials said it was unclear whether Medvedev had the power to intervene in the case or whether Putin would give him leeway to do so.

Indeed, Putin, who as president was the catalyst for initiating the court proceedings against Khodorkovsky, said that he would advise his successor against granting Khodorkovsky any "privileges."

According to Khodorkovsky's lawyers, prosecutors are preparing a new case against him based on charges of money laundering and embezzlement.

(1) EDITORIAL: Its Own Worst Enemy

(2) The Specter of Inflation Looms over Putin's Russia

(3) Putin, Now and Forever

(4) Russia in the Jaws of a Visegrad

(5) Annals of Shamapova

NOTE: Oborona held a protest march calling for the freedom of political prisoners such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky on May 31st. A vigorous Oleg Kozlovsky led the march and spoke to the press, his blog has the details. So much for the attempt to intimidate him with imprisonment. Take that, Mr. Putin. You can't keep a good man down! Perhaps, we see Russia's Gandhi taking his first steps towards history.

It was widely reported last week that the U.S. Army thinks it has a crisis on its hands.

115 American soldiers committed suicide last year, up nearly 13% from the year before. With just over 500,000 soldiers in the U.S. all-volunteer army, that works out to a rate of 19 suicides per 100,000 soldiers. Though the rate of suicide in the U.S. armed forces is lower than that in the general population, the military still thinks it is much too high, and they’re planning to take dramatic steps to reduce the rate.

They might relax a bit if they took a look at Russia.

Although Russia’s population is less than half the size of America’s, Russia uses conscription to draft hundreds of thousands of young men into the army each year, and fields ground forces of roughly the same size as the United States. And the Moscow Times reports that the Russian army experienced nearly three times more suicides last year than did its American counterpart — a shockingly high 341 Russian soldiers took their own lives last year.

These lives were lost due to terror and depression flowing from the barbaric, ritualistic hazing process that befalls all new recruits and is known in Russia as dedovschina. In one case, a recruit was so brutally tortured that the entire lower half of his body had to be amputated, including his genitals. As a result, a massive corrupt industry has been spawned in Russia whereby bribes are paid by young men’s parents in order to avoid the horror of military service.

Nobody can victimize a Russian better than another Russian, something that's been true right the way through Russian history and makes gibberish out of Russian fears of and hatred for foreigners.

And let’s be clear: The Russian Kremlin is ruled by a proud KGB spy who has liquidated all political opposition and wiped out the independent media. In other words, he’s a natural born liar and there is no check on his statements. So that figure of 341 suicides is almost surely a gross understatement. Russia is claiming that this year's number is a reduction of 15% over last year, although not a single concrete policy step to reduce dedovschina, or any other suicide-motivating factor, can be identified. We believe that the Kremlin is simply lying, articulating the largest possible reduction is thinks it can get away with.

Clearly, the Russian army’s most dangerous foe is . . . itself.

As is so often the case with Vladimir Putin's Russia, American problems don't look nearly so serious when they are compared to that neo-Soviet nightmare. One Russian person kills him/herself every ten minutes in Russia (that adds up t0 60,000 per year or 41 suicides per 100,000 people -- only Lithunania has more). That just about says it all, doesn't it? This figure is four times higher than for the United States.

Russia’s problem, in other words, is compared to America's an urgent crisis, while America’s just isn’t. Russia has a net loss from its population of up to 1 million people per year owing to a wide variety of problems including suicide at a frenetic pace, while America is growing by leaps and bounds. Thus, if Russia doesn’t solve its problem, it will simply cease to exist. People wait in line for years to enter the United States' "golden doors," while nobody at all -- other than Russians being booted out of former Soviet republics, is waiting to enter Russia.

Yet, even though America's problem isn't nearly as serious, Americans are prominently and publicly debating the issue and actively looking to reform and improve. What is Russia doing? It's covering up the information and proceeding as if there were no problem. It's jailing opposition critics like Oleg Kozlovsky and squelching reporting on TV and in print, so in fact there's no information to debate even if critics were free to do so. This is exactly what happened in the USSR, an unreformed behemoth gradually declining into torpor and disaster, and now Russians are doing it all over again, handing power to proud member of the clan of KGB thugs who destroyed the nation the first time.

When will they ever learn?

The Moscow Times reports on the specter of inflation looming above Vladimir Putin's Russia:

It's early evening at the upscale Scandinavia restaurant, and its courtyard a few meters off Tverskaya Ulitsa is starting to fill up with customers.

Bustling servers bring out plates piled high with beef burgers, while diners indoors tuck into the pricier steaks and fish.

But behind the scenes, the Swedish restaurant is starting to feel the pinch.

"We haven't marked up the prices on some of the favorite dishes for six years," said Marina Averchenkova, the restaurant's public relations director. "But as long as we work a lot with imported products such as meat and wine, prices in Europe have put us in the situation where we have had to raise our prices."

With the state expecting inflation to top 15 percent in May, rising costs are forcing thousands of enterprises to hike prices even as they struggle to keep costs down.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says Russians can live with double-digit inflation for years, but it is a claim that may be put to the test if the government does not act urgently to contain soaring costs.

After eight years as president, Putin has passed on to Dmitry Medvedev stewardship of a booming economy. But it could prove to be a poisoned chalice. The country is facing sky-high inflation — driven by food prices — that threatens to undermine many of the Putin-era successes.

It is not a Russian phenomenon, of course. Across the globe, food costs have escalated on the back of years of underinvestment in agriculture, poor harvests and higher demand for grain from emerging economies, such as China. Tens of thousands of people across the world marched on May 1 against the rising cost of food and falling wages and pensions. In Russia, too, there are signs of growing unrest as inflation starts to bite.

Real inflation is believed to be higher than the official figures, and a recent poll indicated that about 67 percent of Russians identify inflation as the most urgent issue facing the country today.

Inflation rose for the first time in years in 2007, hitting 11.9 percent. The Economic Development Ministry remains hopeful that inflation will be contained at 10.5 percent this year, while economists say it could reach 11.5 percent to 14 percent. Even the figure of 14 percent is arguably optimistic, given that consumer prices have risen by 7.5 percent so far this year.

While prices have risen rapidly for some time now, particularly in higher-end segments of the economy, such as property, it was only last fall that the specter of inflation truly reared its head. With State Duma and presidential elections fast appearing, the authorities got down to work fast on growing food prices.

But their efforts — which included price caps on food and hikes on several import and export tariffs — have been widely derided by economists as populist and cosmetic. With a new government installed this month, hopes have been kindled that the bureaucrats will now start to take substantive steps to tackle inflation.

For sure, the government is taking inflation seriously. But officials have shown a deep-rooted disinclination to do anything that would alienate the population and threaten economic expansion.

Over the past 18 months, the country has seen a significant increase in money supply; the ruble has depreciated against the euro and the yen, and the government has pursued an aggressive spending program as it seeks to uphold economic growth, which has averaged at more than 7 percent in the last eight years.

It is no coincidence that inflation has struck in the middle of a debilitating international financial crisis that has rocked confidence in the global financial sector and brought the United States to the brink of recession.

Faced by the prospect of tougher lending conditions for banks and, in turn, their consumers, the Central Bank responded by printing more rubles — a decision that released liquidity into the system to shore up the financial sector but further fueled inflation.

But there is good news, too. Central Bank chief Sergei Ignatyev said Wednesday that the money supply has risen by a mere 0.7 percent in the year to April, compared with 11.2 percent over the same period last year, giving the Central Bank the confidence to predict slowing inflation over the rest of the year.

Nevertheless, there is no easy solution, and policymakers remain divided on how to tackle the problem, which has a real potential to undo the government's popularity.

Problem No. 1: Overheating Economy

Liberal members of government have warned repeatedly that the state's aggressive appetite for spending — on wages, infrastructure and other national projects — is fueling inflation.

"Real budgetary expenditure rose by 26 percent last year. It's too much and is greater than the total growth of our economy," Deputy Finance Minister Dmitry Pankin said at a forum this week. "This is influencing inflation."

It is a point made by his boss, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, time and time again. The keeper of the country's purse strings, Kudrin has navigated the country through eight years of prosperity and has fiercely opposed the government's tendency to support big-spending programs, which would ensure continued high growth. The government has also poured money into pensions and state sector salaries, further measures that fuel inflation.

With global growth under threat because of the financial crisis, Russia is selling itself to foreign investors as a place where the rewards are still rich. It is a silver lining that many believe the country can ill afford to ignore.

Indeed, economists are already predicting that Russia's growth will slow this year, although the effect will be much less than in the West, as banks see overseas funding dry up, resulting in fewer loans.

A split in the government on the pace of growth spilled into the public in April when Kudrin and Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina squared off over whether the economy was overheating, the state at which growth becomes unsustainable. Kudrin's conclusion, that the economy is overheating, is shared by many economists.

"Inflation has really been able to run away … because the economy is simply growing too fast," said Rory MacFarquhar, chief economist and a managing director at Goldman Sachs.

He said the economic growth could be slowed to a more sustainable rate by reining in government spending and curbing credit growth.

But it appears that Kudrin is fighting a losing battle. Putin has outlined massive investment for transportation infrastructure this month, and more is to come. Oil, meanwhile, has soared to more than $135 per barrel, delivering windfall profits for the state.

"As long as the price of oil is so high, this is an argument that Kudrin cannot win," said Martin Gilman, former representative of the International Monetary Fund in Russia.

If inflation cannot be contained, however, the economy faces a very real risk of slowdown.

Problems will arise if inflation reaches 15 percent to 20 percent, the level at which it could start to dent investor confidence, said Oleg Vyugin, chairman of MDM Bank and the former head of the Federal Service for Financial Markets.

"If inflation is kept under current limits and it is manageable, then it is possible to avoid [damaging the economy]," Vyugin said. "But if businesses see that the government is not in a position to control inflation, then there will be serious damage."

Problem No. 2: Monopolies

The many monopolies have also been a major contributor to inflation by introducing aggressive price hikes for services.

The government regulates prices in a range of sectors, from electricity and gas to telecommunication services. The prices are usually set at the beginning of the year and in some sectors are subject to reforms and liberalization, which implies double-digit growth in prices in many cases.

"I think the government has to come up with a reasonable plan on how to regulate these tariffs taking into account the [current level of] inflation," Vyugin said.

In addition, anti-monopoly rules should be enforced against companies that try to regulate prices, he said.

Earlier this year, Putin sought to blame monopolies for high food prices, claiming that they effectively created a cartel to keep costs high. It is a theme he took up again in his candidacy speech for prime minister, calling for tougher implementation of the anti-monopoly policy.

But he also ruled out curbing the power of the country's natural monopolies, which include companies such as Gazprom and Transneft, arguing that the money for reform and upgrading of the country's infrastructure had to come from somewhere.

Solution No. 1: Appreciation

One way to bring down costs would be to allow the ruble to strengthen against other currencies, namely the euro and the dollar. For example, a liter of German orange juice that sells for 2 euros at home costs 74 rubles to import at the current exchange rate of about 37 rubles to the euro. But the same liter would cost only 72 rubles if the ruble appreciated to 36 to the euro.

This difference is potentially significant because food is a main driver of inflation in Russia and, Putin said recently, big Russian cities import up to 70 percent of their food.

The Central Bank tightly controls the ruble's exchange rate by buying and selling rubles to keep the ruble steady against major foreign currencies.

Until the government relinquishes control of the ruble, it will not be able to target inflation in the long-term, some economists said.

"They really do need to let go of the exchange rate," MacFarquhar said. "But there is a very deep-seated reluctance to get into the position of overvaluation after 1998," the year of the Russian financial crisis.

Vyugin said the Central Bank should have let go of the ruble months ago, given the money pouring into the economy in the shape of investment flows, on the one hand, and services and trading boosted by high oil prices on the other.

"When the economy experiences this kind of double inflow, the currency has to be appreciated," Vyugin said.

Many major investment houses are banking on exactly that. Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch recently advised clients to buy rubles in anticipation of a policy change on the currency. They predicted that the currency could appreciate by as much as 4 percent in the next six months.

But to rein in inflation for good, the ruble would need to be appreciated by about 20 percent, some economists said. Politically, such a measure would face stiff opposition. Domestic exporters, which make up a powerful lobby in the government, benefit from a weaker ruble, which adds to their competitiveness abroad. On the flipside, domestic exporters, particularly in the oil industry, are also seeing inflation eat into their competitive advantage by increasing their costs.

The Central Bank is reluctant to appreciate the ruble. Fearing ruble speculation that would result in greater inflows of money, the bank said last year that it no longer considered the exchange rate policy to be an effective way to battle inflation.

In a speech to the Duma before his confirmation as prime minister early this month, Putin dismayed many economists by saying the government's anti-inflationary efforts would focus on boosting investment in agriculture, enterprise and curbing the power of monopolies. He made no mention of ruble appreciation and suggested that the state's goal was to return to single-digit inflation "within the next few years" — an indication that the prospect of ruble appreciation had been shelved.
A few weeks later, the Central Bank muddied the picture further, saying it would conduct daily interventions in the local forex market to head off speculators and make the exchange rate more flexible. In doing so, the bank introduces greater volatility into the market, making it harder for dealers to predict the bank's next move. It is also a first step toward an inflation-targeting regime.

But perhaps the biggest turnabout came this week, when the Central Bank indicated that it would start to broaden the ruble's traded range on a very gradual basis and might let the currency appreciate within months. Nevertheless, the bank has made clear its determination to pursue every other available avenue first.

Gilman, who teaches at Moscow's Higher School of Economics, argued that a drastic ruble appreciation was not the answer. "Firstly, it would be a signal to investors that the ruble is a safe one-way bet," he said. "But the longer-term problem is that Russia is not going to be running a current account surplus for very much longer. Do you want the ruble appreciating by 20 percent if Russia is going to be running [a] deficit? Is that really an intelligent policy?"

Solution No. 2: Monetary Tightening

The Central Bank's primary tool to fight inflation so far has been to tighten monetary policy by raising interest rates.

Interest rates have been hiked twice this year, and more increases are expected. But economists call this measure ineffective in a climate where the exchange rate is tightly managed. Higher interest rates combined with a weaker ruble would encourage investors to pour more money into Russia, negating the effect of such a move in the first place.

"Whenever you have interest rates hikes in a fixed exchange system, it generates capital inflows and monetary expansion rather than monetary contraction," said Vladimir Osokovsky, chief economist at UniCredit Aton. "For example, in the U.S., you cut interest rates and the dollar depreciates, [which leads to] monetary expansion. … Here, the monetary expansion and contraction is driven by capital inflows and outflows rather than the efforts of the Central Bank."

Raising interest rates will work only when the ruble is allowed to float freely, he said.

Of secondary importance is that consumer credit is a relatively nascent phenomenon in Russia, where only a minority of the population hold credit cards and mortgages account for a mere 2 percent of gross domestic product, compared with 40 to 50 percent in the West. While higher interest rates in the West would discourage spending, in Russia the effect of such a move is minimal.

"The Russian authorities are between a rock and a hard place," Gilman said. "There is very little that monetary policy can do to change this situation."

In the meantime, the Central Bank has announced that it will raise bank reserve requirements aggressively from July 1, forcing banks to set more money aside and thereby slow lending growth. Corporate lending has grown at a phenomenal rate, up by 70 percent in the first quarter alone, and banks have historically been able to capitalize on cheap interest rates abroad to lend at a higher cost at home.

Solution No. 3: A Coordinated Policy

The Central Bank is inching toward an inflation-targeting regime, but it has indicated that this will only start to happen toward the end of this year. Inflation targeting would effectively imply a relaxation of control over the exchange-rate mechanism and a tightening of control over capital inflows. "That's what the Central Bank is doing, and that is what they have to be doing from a macroeconomic viewpoint," said Osokovsky, of UniCredit.

But it is a long-term solution, and there would be a significant time lag before it would begin to have an impact on inflation.

The U.S. economy, meanwhile, is playing a significant role in fueling Russian inflation. With the ruble tied closely to the dollar, the key international reserve currency, Russia is effectively importing loose U.S. monetary policy. Since the beginning of the year, the U.S. Federal Exchange has desperately tried to inject dynamism into its flagging economy by dropping interest rates to just 2 percent. This has led to an avalanche of dollars into the economy, which feeds into countries such as Russia that tie their currencies to the dollar. It is unlikely that the Fed will tighten its monetary policy before the U.S. economy starts to pick up.

"U.S. monetary policy is very soft today, and a lot of funds in the Middle East and Asian countries have accumulated dollars and are now trying to spend them," Vyugin said. "It's a source of inflation."

There is little Russia can do to influence U.S. monetary policy, but Gilman suggested that Russia could build an informal coalition of countries to put pressure on the United States.

How that pressure would be applied is another matter entirely. Both Russia and Saudi Arabia have enormous dollar reserves and would be in the strongest position to threaten gently to sell off dollars and even diversify into other currencies.

The United States, however, would most likely think Russia was bluffing, Gilman said. If Russia then went ahead and sold a few billion dollars, the value of the dollar might plunge or U.S. bond prices might drop like a lead balloon, which would hurt the housing market as interest rates rise, he said.

"It is kind of like an atomic bomb. It is a very dangerous weapon," he said.

Irina Filatova, aprofessor of the State University,High School of Economics in Moscow, and professor emeritus and senior research fellow of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, writing in the Guardian's "Comment is Free" blog:

"Back to the USSR" is the way liberal political analysts in Russia and abroad often refer to the legacy of Putin's presidency. This is not quite right. If the legacy of the last president is "back to" anything, it is to the centuries-long tradition of Russian statehood - in other words, more or less full control by the centre over the regions and over all spheres of the economy and society. The Soviet model was, of course, the ultimate expression of Russian statehood, but this is not what Russia's second president - or the part of the elite that he represents - has recreated.

One of the most important aspects of Putin's legacy is the submission of the regions and provinces to Moscow. Putting an end to their disobedience and dissent was a lengthy process, in which the substitution of appointed governors for the elected ones was merely the coup de grace. It was preceded by the appointment of presidential representatives to the provinces and by the introduction of a new structure and composition for the Federation Council - the upper chamber of the Russian parliament and previously a centre of power for the regions.

The taming of business is another and perhaps even more important aspect of Putin's legacy. There's nothing Soviet about it, for there was, of course, no room for private business in the nationalised economy. But a tame business sector, dependent on the monarch for its existence and well-being, is very much the tradition of Muscovy. The Stroganovs, Russia's famous traders and manufacturers, were rich enough to fund the government's war efforts in the 17th century, but were still dependent on the crown for their business licenses and for permits to trade abroad. Why nationalise, if private businesses, having been beaten into submission (the Khodorkovsky affair was only the best known of a long line of similar sagas), provide the centre with whatever it wants? To be fair, there is simply no other way for business to survive.

A state monopoly over the most lucrative spheres of trade is also a centuries-long tradition. Furs and salt, wax and honey, and then vodka and gold, were long among the main sources of income for tsarist and Soviet treasuries.

The military have always played an important role in the militarised tsarist and Soviet state and economy - so there is no real surprise about the rise of the "siloviki". And the attempts to subjugate the opposition by whipping up nationalism and xenophobia, provoking an increase in terrorism in response - all run true to form.

Putin's main legacy, however, is Putin himself. Power in Russia has always been personalised, not institutionalised, and Putin has done everything to strengthen his personal power and to organise institutions to serve it, not the other way round. But here parallels stop and the mystery begins. Having achieved all this, Putin suddenly decides to step down. In the name of what? The constitution? Bowing to the proclaimed rules in order to give the Russians a good example? But even if it were so (which it isn't, because he has already broken these rules by becoming head of a party), isn't it clear that it is too late? Power will follow Putin wherever he goes. It is not by chance, that, according to some Russian sources, up-and-coming officials at the upper-middle level are now orientating their careers towards the Russian "White House" - the seat of the government - and not towards the presidency. They know where the power is.

Evgenia Albats, one of Russia's top political commentators, quotes the story of how in 2000 Madeleine Albright was asked whether she thought that Putin was there for a long time. Her reply was "forever". It is hard to disagree.

The Economist reports that Lithuania,, Sweden and Poland are taking the lead on confronting neo-Soviet Russia, even if the bigger nations of Europe stand on the sidelines as usual:

WHETHER it was brave or clumsy depends on your point of view. But Lithuania (population 3.5m) has nudged the European Union (population 500m) into a slightly tougher stance towards Russia. Talks on a (long overdue) partnership agreement were first postponed because of Russia's embargo on Polish meat. When that was lifted, the obstacle became Lithuanian demands for firmer terms concerning energy, judicial co-operation and Russia's treatment of countries such as Georgia.

EU diplomats fumed about Lithuania's tactics, complaining of belated timing, poor preparation and unrealistic expectations. A few said this was just the sort of thing to strengthen the view in “old Europe” that letting neurotic and primitive ex-communist easterners into their club had been a mistake. Certainly some foreign ministers' meetings discussing the issue have been remarkably stormy by EU standards.

But a meeting on May 27th agreed upon a new negotiating mandate, with small but significant changes on some points sought by Lithuania. “They have attracted attention to Russia's behaviour in Georgia, which is timely and good,” says an official from a neighbouring country. The talks on the partnership agreement will start at an EU-Russia summit in Siberia next month.

The question is how fast they will go. Germany wants things sewn up, at least in principle, within a year. That seems too soon to countries that are hawkish on Russia, as well as to the European Commission. This camp wants a more detailed deal, in which Russia would have to make big changes on such contentious issues as its energy monopolies, investor protection and illegal migration. In return the EU would offer a laxer visa regime and let Russian energy companies expand westwards more easily.

Other countries are moving to counter what they see as Germany's overly Russia-friendly policies. Poland and Sweden this week launched their own plan, called the “eastern partnership”, to offer generous trade and other co-operation to Ukraine and Georgia, as well as to other interested countries. The aim is to recreate the model of the “Visegrad” group of four central European countries in the early 1990s, which helped ex-communist states to prepare for what at the time seemed the highly uncertain prospect of EU membership.

For the first time in any EU initiative, the plan explicitly includes Belarus (albeit only on a “technical” level for now). Russian regions such as Kaliningrad are also welcome to apply for some of the goodies that a partnership agreement can offer, such as better border crossings and environmental projects. Ex-communist Poland and rich, neutral Sweden may prove an effective combination. Their forceful foreign ministers, Radek Sikorski and Carl Bildt, get on well. Bravery is good. But brains are even better.

It's turned out to be another one of "those" tournaments for Maria Shamapova at Roland Garros in Paris this week. Set up so she couldn't possibly lose, she did so anyway.

After achieving the "#1 ranking" upon the resignation of Justine Henin, Shamapova has been given a draw in France that allows her to avoid, in all likelihood, the need to face a top-20 non-Russian opponent until the finals. Both of the dangerous Serbians and both of the dangerous Americans were placed on the opposite side of the draw from Sharapova, whose pathway to the finals was impeded only by the lowly likes of Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva and Elena Dementieva, the serveless wonder.

In other words, the luckiest player in the world seemed right back on form. Why, it was almost as if the tournament organizers had stacked the draw specifically to put Shamapova's pretty, marketable face in the finals.

Should she have won the tournament, this America-trained, America-resident athlete would remind many of how Russia recently won a soccer title with a Dutch coach and a Ukrainian star over woefully lame competition through the luck of the draw. Not exactly a case study in self sufficiency or success.

But in fact, Shamapova didn't even manage to reach the quarter-finals, winning only two games in the decisive third set of her fourth-round match with a non-top-ten seed and putting Ana Ivanovic in perfect position to strip away Shamapova's happenstance #1 by winning the tournament, allowing Shamapova to hold the top spot for even less time than the puny period she had it on her first go-round (she has never won a tournament while holding the #1 ranking).

And let's be clear: the presence of Russians in the second week of a grand-slam tournament is cause for nothing but gloom among knowledgeable tennis fans. They are, quite simply, nearly unwatchable, a toxin in the blood stream of the game. Sharapova's play at in Paris was abysmal, she was simply been lucky to get through the first week, struggling to eke out three-set wins against unknown competition, and on Saturday the American commentators bemoaned at length that all the interest was gone after the disappearance of the game's three great current stars, Henin and the Williams sisters. Just watch the expression on any true fan's face when you propose he watch a quarter-finals match between Dinara Safin and Svetlana Kuznetsova, or a semi between, and you'll see a visage that tells you they'd rather watch bowling -- or grass growing.

Russians are killing women's tennis, it's a simple as that.

The French crowd saw it all clearly enough. The Associated Press reports:

For Sharapova, things really began to fall apart when she served while trailing 3-2 in the third set.

At 15-love, Safina’s forehand landed near a line, and Sharapova missed a backhand. Sharapova asked the chair umpire to check the mark from Safina’s shot, drawing scattered noise from the crowd, and the call stood. On the next point, Sharapova botched a sitter and put a forehand into the net—drawing cheers, generally considered a breach of etiquette among tennis spectators. Another short ball came at 15-30, and perhaps wary of another miscue, Sharapova sent it back cautiously, allowing Safina to pound a forehand. That prompted a scream from Sharapova. As play proceeded, her yells became louder and louder as she berated herself, at least once with colorful language. Her departure from the French Open was filled with sound and fury: her stroke-accompanying shrieks, her self-loathing shouts between points and the spectators’ hearty boos and high-pitched whistles that ushered the No. 1-seeded woman to the exit.

That's right -- the French booed her off the court, the #1 player in the world.

And so it goes in Vladimir Putin's Russia.

(1) The Sunday Photos

(2) The Sunday Savior

(3) The Sunday Apocalypse

(4) The Sunday Cinema

(5) The Sunday Funnies

NOTE: We are pleased to point out that, as shown below, our Russian audience continues to grow and is now approaching one-half the size of our American audience. It's proof positive that there are still people in Russia who are worth fighting for.

The following is our staff translation of Oleg Kozlovsky's first major interview with the Western press following his release, with German Deutsche-Welle radio:

Oleg Kozlovsky, the coordinator of the youth movement "Defense," arrested for intent to participate in a "March of Dissenters," believes that Russian law enforcement was in fact not executing the criminal code but rather instructions from on high. Having just gained his freedom after serving a 13-day sentence, he tells Deutsche Welle his story.

Deutsche Welle: Oleg, using the phraseology Russia's new president, is freedom is better than the lack of freedom?

Oleg Kozlovsky: Of course, based on recent my personal experience I can't dispute this thesis.

DW: What is it about your work the authorities do not like? Why did you spent 13 days behind bars?

OK: I think that those in power have accumulated irritation against me for my protest activities, and they tried, one after another, different methods of combating their opponents. The first arrests were ineffectual because the charges were minor and resulted only brief periods of a few hours behind bars. But as time has passed the authorities have apparently begun to fear that a mass movement is developing, and they've begun to impose more draconian measures. So they've invented new charges to put against us.

DW: What was your attitude towards the police officers in the detention facilities?

OK: Ordinary policemen were usually reasonable. It's a sad commentary that they've apparently become used to us, and openly refer to us as "political prisoners." Of course, this is not the formal charge leveled at us, which might be disorderly person for instance. These officers do not question the basis of the charges, but simply see themselves as carrying out the instructions of the state. Many of them recognize us as possessing advanced degrees, and and such they tend to address and treat us rather respectfully.

DW: Were they able to explain why you had been arrested?

OK: I was not arrested by ordinary policemen but by plain-clothes officers from the terrorist enforcement section known as UBOB, an arm of the FSB (formerly the KGB). They've been on point in the FSB's efforts to impede my organization at every possible turn. They told me nothing about the charges being made against me and refused to answer my questions. They simply tossed me on a bus and then gave instructions to the policemen later as to how to write up the arrest report.

DW: So the regular cops had no actual idea of the circumstances of the arrest?

OK: That's right. But of course they are aware that the charges have been essentially fabricated and are based on political motivations. Unfortunately it's quite normal for them to be expected to participate in fundamentally corrupt enterprises.

DW: What happened in court?

OK: More of the same. They judges, too, are fully aware that the charges have been rigged, and they overlook the predictably confused testimony of the police when they testify about the arrest (UBOP offices don't appear in court). For instance, in my case a policeman testified that I had been arrested in a completely different place and at a completely different time of day that had actually occurred. The judge simply ignored the anomaly. Nobody wants to be the one to take the risks and try to break out of this vicious cycle, so it continues. I presented a great deal of direct evidence that the charges were without basis, but all of it was simply ignored.

DW: So the officers are not really aware of wrongdoing?

OK: Unfortunately, all police officers I have encountered in such situations feel that an order from their superiors is above the law. While they are perfectly aware that the order is illegal, they believe they can't be blamed and the matter should be taken up with those in authority.

DW: If the guardians of the law behave in this manner, what are the prospects for reform? What does this say about the president's remark?

OK: The fact is that our police are not safeguards the law, it is obvious. They are simply bureaucrats, carrying out instructions given to them by their superiors, who in turn are acting on instructions from their own superiors.

DW: So in Russia there is no law, only instructions?

OK: Yes, rather, orders and instructions. Often, in fact, only oral instructions, nothing in writing to document it. To tell a lie in a report, to carry out a firing squad, it's not clear that there are any borders.

DW: Aren't there any dissenters?

OK: My impression is that those who would have scruples would not enter police service in the first place, and the same thing for judges, whose attitude is no different from that of the police by and large.

DW: How can this cycle be broken? How can Russia be made into what Medvedev calls a "nation of laws"?

OK: It is said that "a fish rots from the head." So the political will do to so must come from the top. What happened, for instance, to Khodorkovsky was authorized from the very top. Until there is true respect for the law at the very top, nothing will change down below.

The always brilliant, ferociously courageous Yulia Latynina, writing in the Moscow Times:

There were a number of noteworthy foreign policy events last week. Mayor Yury Luzhkov announced that Sevastopol is not Ukrainian but Russian territory, and the State Duma came to the defense of Arnold Meri, a former high-ranking official in Estonia's Communist Party who has been charged in Tallinn with genocide for his role in deporting civilians to Siberia following World War II.

We are truly living in a society that suffers from the Russian post-imperial syndrome. But what is most important is what is left after the empire falls.

Consider the Roman and British empires. The subjugated people hated their colonialists and revolted. But when those empires collapsed, it turned out that the vast Roman and British cultural heritage continued to dominate even after the local populations gained independence. The Latin language survived longer, and over a broader territory, than did the Roman Empire itself.

The empires of Genghis Khan and the Ottoman Turks also collapsed, but none of the people they conquered has a kind word for them today. You won't find a Bulgarian or a Serb eager to show you the ruins of Ottoman defensive fortifications on their territories.

True, the Mongols greatly influenced the the civilizations they defeated. For example, before falling to the Mongols, Afghanistan was a prosperous country with major cities and an extensive agricultural system. It was a highly prized territory, one that dozens of would-be conquerors had tried to seize, including Alexander the Great. But after the Mongols razed all the Afghan cities, decimated the population, and destroyed the country's complex irrigation system, Afghanistan was reduced to a country of mountains and barren deserts.

What can the Mongols take pride in today? Where are the gems of science and art that adorn the peoples that fell under their rule? Did the Mongols give them laws? A written language? New rights?

During tsarist times, the Russian Empire followed the example of the Roman and British empires. With all of its cruelty, it conquered the eastern territories and the Caucasus with valor and bravery. Like the Roman Empire, they gave more to their subjects than they managed to seize from them.

The Soviet Union, however, was built more along the lines of the Mongol empire. It ruthlessly destroyed everyone and everything, and the first to fall victim were the Russian nobility, peasantry, merchants and intelligentsia. The Soviet Union left the same legacy in Russia as the Mongols did in Afghanistan -- destruction. None of the former Soviet republics will ever put up monuments to Pavlik Morozov, the mythical 13-year-old Pioneer who was praised for turning in his own father to the authorities. The former Soviet colonies also do not sing the praises to the NKVD, nor have they adopted the Soviet legal code.

Yet the peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union represented Russia's last historic opportunity. It could have become an attractive metropolis for surrounding countries, a reliable trade partner or a place where other countries' elite came to study -- just as people from Britain's former empire still come to Oxford and Cambridge. The Soviet Union of Josef Stalin and Lavrenty Beria suffered a crushing defeat, but the Russia of Pushkin and Dostoevsky still had a chance to fill the void. Gogol, though Ukrainian by birth, wrote his masterpieces in Russian. Chechen insurgents who die beneath Russian tanks write poems about the freedom of their people in the Russian language, much like Lermontov before them.

The former KGB thugs who now control the country are stomping Russia's last historical chance into the dirt. They are doing everything to show the world that Russia is led not by civilized, respected leaders, but by a street gang from Lubyanskaya Ploshchad.

Reuters reports on still more humiliation for Russia, this time at the hands of Steven Spielberg:

Russian Communist Party members condemned the new "Indiana Jones" film on Friday as crude, anti-Soviet propaganda that distorts history and called for it to be banned from Russian screens.

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" stars Harrison Ford as an archeologist in 1957 competing with an evil KGB agent, played by Cate Blanchett, to find a skull endowed with mystic powers.

"What galls is how together with America we defeated Hitler, and how we sympathized when Bin Laden hit them. But they go ahead and scare kids with Communists. These people have no shame," said Viktor Perov, a Communist Party member in Russia's second city of St. Petersburg.

The comments were made at a local Communist party meeting and posted on its Internet site www.kplo.ru.

The film, the fourth in the hugely successful Indiana Jones series, went on release in Russian cinemas on Thursday. Russian media said it was being shown on 808 screens, the widest ever release for a Hollywood movie.

In past episodes Indiana Jones has escaped from Nazi soldiers, an Egyptian snake pit, a Bedouin swordsman and a child-enslaving Indian demigod.

RUNNING DOGS

"Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett (are) second-rate actors, serving as the running dogs of the CIA. We need to deprive these people of the right of entering the country," said another party member, Andrei Gindos.

Though the ranks of the once all-powerful Communist Party have dwindled since Soviet times, its members see themselves as the defenders of the achievements of the old Soviet Union.

Other communists said the generation born after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union were being fed revisionist, Hollywood history. They advocated banning the Indiana Jones outright to prevent "ideological sabotage."

"Our movie-goers are teenagers who are completely unaware of what happened in 1957," St Peterburg Communist Party chief Sergei Malinkovich told Reuters.

"They will go to the cinema and will be sure that in 1957 we made trouble for the United States and almost started a nuclear war."

"It's rubbish ... In 1957 the communists did not run with crystal skulls throughout the U.S. Why should we agree to that sort of lie and let the West trick our youth?"

Vladimir Mukhin, another member of the local Communist Party, said in comments posted on the Internet site that he would ask Russia's Culture Ministry to ban the film for its "anti-Soviet propaganda."

The "Indiana Jones" film is not the first Hollywood production to offend Russian sensibilities.

In 1998 the Russian parliament demanded the government explain why the Hollywood film "Armageddon" - which depicted a dilapidated Russian space station that blows apart because of a leaky pipe -- was allowed onto Russian cinema screens.

A government official at the time said the film, starring Bruce Willis as the leader of a team of astronauts sent to deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, "mocked the achievements of Soviet and Russian technology."


Reuters

Paramount Pictures appears to have another hit on its hands, as the new "Indiana Jones" movie grossed $25 million from its first full day in North American theaters, independent box office analysts reported on Friday.

That tally ranks as the fourth highest-grossing Thursday debut on record and puts "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" on track to possibly match or overtake last year's "Pirates of the Caribbean" film as the biggest opening on a U.S. Memorial Day holiday weekend.

The last big release from Viacom Inc's Paramount, "Iron Man," opened three weeks ago with $98.6 million in U.S.-Canadian receipts its first Friday-through-Sunday frame -- a sum that the latest "Indiana Jones" film is expected to surpass.

Unlike the new "Indiana Jones" film, "Iron Man" was fully financed by Marvel Studios, which paid Paramount a flat fee to market and distribute its film. Thus, Paramount has much more at stake riding on the success of its latest release.

"Crystal Skull," directed by Steven Spielberg, is the fourth movie in the beloved and lucrative movie franchise that began in 1981 with "Raiders of the Lost Ark," and is the first to hit the big screen in 19 years.

Harrison Ford reprises his title role as the bullwhip-cracking archeologist who hates snakes, and reunites with actress Karen Allen, his co-star from the first adventure. In the new film, set during the 1950s Cold War era, he competes with an evil KGB agent played by Cate Blanchett to find a skull endowed with mystic powers.

Box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers, said the film's opening Thursday performance was strong enough to bode well for its commercial potential but not so strong as to diminish its weekend audience.

If its Friday-through-Monday box office tally crosses the $140 million mark, the film would exceed last year's Walt Disney Co's "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" as the biggest North American opening yet for the four-day Memorial Day holiday weekend.

"They have a strong shot at meeting or exceeding that Pirates of the Caribbean number last year," Dergarabedian told Reuters.

By comparison, the highest-grossing Thursday debut at the domestic box office was the $50 million raked in three years ago by "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith," according to Box Office Mojo.

Source: Ellustrator.

A commenter writes: "Seeing RUSSIA in capital letters reminds one of the USSR."