#2
BBC
March 9, 2015
How many Russians are fighting in Ukraine?
By Mark Urban
Diplomatic and defence editor, BBC Newsnight

Western arguments about how to counter President Vladimir Putin's support for east Ukraine separatists are leading to clashes over the question of how deeply involved Russia's military is in the conflict.

The latest salvo between Nato allies came in a German government briefing to Spiegel magazine that accuses the alliance's supreme commander (American Gen Philip Breedlove) of disseminating "dangerous propaganda" on the extent of Russian military involvement, trying to undermine a diplomatic solution to the war.

The Kremlin has denied its forces are directly involved in combat, but the latest estimate by US Lt Gen Ben Hodges, commander of the US Army in Europe, says 12,000 Russian troops are operating inside the neighbouring country.

As the conflict there has worn, on this intervention has become increasingly hard to hide, growing bigger, with more advanced weapons, and capturing more territory for the nominal "separatist army".

The evidence of the Kremlin's direct military involvement can be gleaned from many different types of sources:

Russian mainstream and social media
reporters on the ground
Ukrainian media
analysis of freely available satellite imagery by citizen journalists
information released by the US and its Nato allies

For those distrustful of the Pentagon or Western intelligence agencies, you can set their information entirely aside.

Indeed, there may be some reasons (such as not wanting the diplomatic damage involved in directly labelling the Russian moves an invasion) why Western leaders may have held back when describing the Kremlin's action.

Sustaining the operation in Ukraine and on its borders has, however, required the mobilisation of units across the breadth of Russia, according to a new assessment by Dr Igor Sutyagin, of the Royal United Services Institute. [https://www.rusi.org/publications/other/ref:O54FDBCF478D8B/]

He believes 90,000 troops were required in late 2014 to provide deployments around Ukraine, inside its eastern (rebel held) districts and in Crimea.

This effort has been so great, he argues, that, "it is obvious that there insufficient resources... to sustain military operations at the current level for over a year".

This intervention evolved in several phases:

-initially deniable, in the summer of 2014, with perhaps a few hundred special forces organising locals and Russian volunteers
-large-scale escalation, during August 2014, when several Russian regular army battalion tactical groups (numbering up to 1,000 each) were sent in to save the separatists from defeat by the Ukrainian military
-a period of withdrawal and retrenchment, late in 2014, following September's Minsk ceasefire agreement, in which Russian troop numbers dropped
-the reintroduction of several formed battalions and numerous specialist troops during renewed fighting, this January and February, allowing the capture of Debaltseve and a good deal of other territory from the Ukrainians

A journalist from the Russian newspaper Kommersant met several young Russian soldiers in Debaltseve who told him they had come from the same mechanised infantry unit after commanders appealed for volunteers.

"Their commanders did not oppose their going," the journalist reported, "on the contrary, they welcomed their enthusiasm, explaining to the soldiers why it was necessary for them to go to those very areas to protect their homeland."

Another Russian paper, Novaya Gazeta, interviewed a badly burned tank crewman in Donetsk hospital who said he had been serving with the 5th Independent Tank Brigade in Siberia when ordered on "exercises", which all the soldiers involved had understood meant they were deploying to eastern Ukraine.

Since last August, when the scale of this increased considerably, the Russian Soldiers' Mothers Committee and other human rights groups have published details of dead soldiers being returned for burial in Russia.

Open Russia, a group funded by Kremlin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has compiled evidence of 276 Russian soldiers killed there up to late January.

Dr Sutyagin says this is a considerable underestimate and the total is nearer to 800.

During the August fighting, entire Russian units were sent across, a necessity perhaps in view of the crisis faced by separatist forces, but one that produced some tell-tale evidence.

Ten paratroopers from the 331st Guards Airborne Regiment, usually based at Kostroma in Russia, for example, were captured together by the Ukrainian military inside their country.

And in Pskov, home of another airborne unit, several corpses were returned together for burial.

When Russian forces drew down a couple of months later, I was told by a senior Nato official that as few as 1,000 remained in eastern Ukraine.

It was then, evidence suggests, that the Russian army determined a change in the way it would use force across the border, forming composite units of volunteers that would be exercised together so they attained the necessary military slickness, but would come from a variety of garrisons and units so their identity would be harder to prove.

There could be another reason for the use of smaller detachments from far flung units across Russia.

Dr Sutyagin says it "appears to indicate a shortage of badly needed manpower".

Recent Russian reporting makes clear the direct involvement of its combat troops in February's battle for Debaltsevo, something Nato did not even allege at the time.

Indeed much of the Nato or US analysis, however critical German backers of a diplomatic solution may have been of it, may have erred on the side of conservatism.

At a meeting with journalists in London last month, for example, the US ambassador to Nato, Doug Lute, said the Russian military had committed specialists to help crew advanced weapons such as anti-aircraft missiles or electronic warfare gear, and "an alternative chain of command".

That Russian officers are providing the brains as well as co-ordination behind the Donetsk and Luhansk separatist forces became clearer last November, when Lt Gen Alexander Lentsov, deputy commander of Moscow's ground forces, appeared in eastern Ukraine.

He has subsequently been appointed to the committee trying to uphold the latest ceasefire.

As for whether this command structure was actually relying on Russian combat units, Lt Gen Lute would not go that far, saying the Russian military in the east of Ukraine was "not a force in the sense of being an entity".

But reporting from the Russian side of the front suggests that during the fight for Debaltseve, Lt Gen Lentsov won the battle with three battalion groups made up almost entirely of troops originally from units across the border in Russia.

In the Novaya Gazeta interview with wounded tank man Dorzhi Batomunkuev, he said his group, from the 5th Tank Brigade, had been combined with detachments of men from other Russian army combat units during three months of training at a camp near Kuzminsky, close to the Ukrainian border.

The battalion, equipped with 31 T72 tanks, had crossed into Ukraine early in February before taking part in the Debaltseve battle.

The men who had actually joined locally, in the breakaway areas of eastern Ukraine, had made up less than 10% of the unit, he said.

Other reports suggest the local men, as well as some Cossack volunteers from Russia, make up the public face of the separatist forces, manning checkpoints and so on, while the composite Russian army units, equipped with the latest tanks and artillery, are employed for offensive action.

Complex picture

Of course trying to differentiate between these forces (genuine locals, Russians who have come individually to fight alongside them, and trained units of serving Russian army soldiers) is not easy for reporters on the ground - or even it seems for Nato countries with their considerable intelligence resources.

Lt Gen Lute, for example, noted late last month the presence of "hundreds" of Russian army troops in Ukraine. Now, Lt Gen Hodges has raised that figure to thousands.

"If you don't believe Russia is directly involved in Ukraine now, you'll never believe it," he said.

Did the US assessment change dramatically in less than a fortnight?

It's possible. But it's also the case that Nato military people I've spoken to have been notably more hawkish on their estimation of the Kremlin role than politicians or diplomats (Lt Gen Lute is something of a hybrid, having previously served as a US Army general and in the White House).

US political authorities have also sought to minimise the gap between their public statements and assessments by Germany and others determined to avoid confrontation with Russia.

President Barack Obama and his team have long sought to avoid painting themselves into a corner over Ukraine, for example by labelling the Russian action "an invasion", something that might suggest tougher action was needed against President Vladimir Putin.

But the odd thing is that the most compelling evidence that his army is bearing the brunt of the fighting against the Ukrainian government is now coming from Russian reporters or the mothers of dead soldiers rather than the West.

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 #3
www.thicktoast.com
March 10, 2015
BBC: Disregard the US if You Don't Trust Them
By Jennifer Cohagen

Before I start with our analysis of the Ministry of Truth today at the BBC, I'd like to give you, up front, a moment of zen. In an article put out by the BBC today, "How many Russians are fighting in Ukraine?", there's a blurb that caught my eye.

"For those distrustful of the Pentagon or Western intelligence agencies, you can set their information entirely aside."
 
Oh, we will, yes - thank you for your concern BBC. This was an ineffective way for the BBC to essentially say "The US says Russians are there, and also these other methods we can discern Russians are there, but hey - if you don't trust the US you can forget about them, because the other evidence is sufficient." No, BBC, it's not sufficient, we'll get to debunking those in a moment, but thank you for doing half the job for us already by admitting what most already know, that US sources are unreliable.

Russians in Ukraine?

There's a bit of a snafu happening of late, a hoo-ha, if you will - regarding whether the Russian army in Ukraine is either fictional, or invisible. In one corner, we have Breedlove, a general of an irrelevant NATO army, and in the other corner we have all of Germany's high command, from Merkel down to spiegel, saying that Breedlove has had too many mushrooms lately and maybe he should get professional help.

Here I'll be dueling newspapers for a bit, and of course BBC is pro-NATO and spiegel is pro-sanity. First, from the BBC:

"the latest estimate by US Lt Gen Ben Hodges, commander of the US Army in Europe, says 12,000 Russian troops are operating inside the neighbouring country.

"As the conflict there has worn, on this intervention has become increasingly hard to hide, growing bigger, with more advanced weapons, and capturing more territory for the nominal 'separatist army'".

Debunking line-for-line:

-this intervention has become increasingly hard to hide, growing bigger, with more advanced weapons
The German's are unconvinced. Whatever advanced weapons east Ukraine separatists are getting is actually coming from NATO! In the battle of Debaltseve, over 500 tons of ammo was captured, much of it from NATO, including fancy mortar detection radar equipment. One should be asking why is NATO supplying west Ukraine, not why Russia is supplying east Ukraine, as there is no evidence provided to support that accusation.

-and capturing more territory for the nominal "separatist army".
When you've kicked as much butt lately as the separatists have, it is not accurate to call them nominal. I know the gist, that Breedlove is saying there are only Russians and hardly any locals, but unless photos or clear evidence comes forward, why believe it? The Germans don't, and they have as accurate methods of telling available to them as the US (errm, I mean, NATO) does. The insinuation is that the people living there cannot form their own army, but the Donbas area supported millions of people from before the war broke out. To think that an area of millions cannot come up with 35k to 100k people willing to defend their homes is absurd.

Compare this to what the German government is saying in spiegel.de:

"German leaders in Berlin were stunned. They didn't understand what Breedlove was talking about. And it wasn't the first time. Once again, the German government, supported by intelligence gathered by the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's foreign intelligence agency, did not share the view of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).

"The pattern has become a familiar one. For months, Breedlove has been commenting on Russian activities in eastern Ukraine, speaking of troop advances on the border, the amassing of munitions and alleged columns of Russian tanks. Over and over again, Breedlove's numbers have been significantly higher than those in the possession of America's NATO allies in Europe. As such, he is playing directly into the hands of the hardliners in the US Congress and in NATO."

Here we have a General from NATO who has consistently overstated troop assessments compared to German intelligence. Of course, when I say NATO, it is implied that the US is the one who is doing the assessing - even Germany's higher command has said as such, when asking "The German government is alarmed. Are the Americans trying to thwart European efforts at mediation led by Chancellor Angela Merkel?" See how NATO and "Americans" are interchangeable?

This underlines the uselessness of NATO, who commands NATO? Is it by consensus? (I'm asking this after having researched the matter and come up with no clear definition). Obviously, if Germany as a part of NATO has grave concerns about it pulling all of Europe into war, it doesn't seem to be having any effect. Are members of NATO allowed to disagree positioning for engaging in war? All of NATO's members should be concerned that they'll be bullied into any war that the US wants to engage in.

Back to the Ministry of Truth:

"The evidence of the Kremlin's direct military involvement can be gleaned from many different types of sources:
Russian mainstream and social media
reporters on the ground
Ukrainian media
analysis of freely available satellite imagery by citizen journalists
information released by the US and its Nato allies

"For those distrustful of the Pentagon or Western intelligence agencies, you can set their information entirely aside."

I get a big chuckle from that last sentence. "Yeah, we know that source is shaky, especially when the Germans are saying they're full of it, BUT - believe it because of the previous listed reasons!" Lets take a look at those previously listed reasons.

-Russian mainstream and social media
Well, Russian mainstream media is a fail, really? The author is trying to convince us that Russian media is saying that Russians have invaded Ukraine? That is simply untrue. Back it up, point to the evidence, certainly if Russia themselves were saying in their own mainstream media that they are involved in Ukraine, contrary to what Putin says, there should be some evidence of this readily available? And what social media? Russian social media, or west Ukraine social media? If Russian, point to it, where is a link so that can be verified? If it's pro-Ukraine, their goal is to fabricate evidence. Seriously, how can you tell from a picture of a tank, with Slavic men sitting on top, whether they are ethnic Russians from Russia, or ethnic Russians from east Ukraine? You can't. Period, end of story. Furthermore, affiliation can be fabricated (just because they say they're Russian soldiers serving in east Ukraine doesn't explicitly mean they are who they say they are). Relying on social media for journalism attempting to justify a war is simply poor journalism.

-Reporters on the ground
Ukraine has barred Russian journalists (way to go for defending free speech there, western world!) Therefore, the only reporters you're going to find are those who are paid to tell a certain tale. Then again, you have a journalist like Graham Phillips, who clearly state that there are no Russians in Ukraine. Following this point seems to disprove what the author is attempting to prove.

-Ukrainian Media
Oh please. Ukraine has blocked any station that doesn't hold its party line. It has criminalized dissent (scroll down to laws against dissent in Ukraine). A journalist telling anything aside from what he's told to say in Ukraine will end up in jail, and this statement is backed up by the actual laws passed in Ukraine against dissent, it is not just my accusation.

-analysis of freely available satellite imagery by citizen journalists
Am I a journalist? I suppose I am! Here I am writing about the conflict about the Ukraine makes me a journalist! And, unlike the BBC author who wrote this drivel, I did a complete analysis of the evidence provided by the United States. Scroll down to where I start with ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt's twitter post containing the supposed Russian artillery (the same Geoffry Pyatt who said "exactly" when Victoria Nuland said "f*ck the EU"). My conclusion? The US is full of it. But please read the previous link for a much funnier and more insightful elaboration.

-information released by the US and its Nato allies
Fortunately, the BBC already conceded this is crap, so it can be safely ignored.

Here we have the United States dragging the EU, screaming and kicking into World War 3 with Russia, and the EU frantically trying to deescalate the situation. Lets hope the EU prevails.

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 #4
Atlantic Council
www.atlanticcouncil.org
March 6, 2015
US and Allies Risk War with Russia by a 'Hesitancy on Ukraine'
Wilson: Only the US Can Lead in Defending Europe Against Putin's Rising Ambition
[Damon Wilson is Executive Vice President of the Atlantic Council. From 2007 to 2009, Wilson served as special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs at the National Security Council.]
   
The United States and its allies must confront the aggressive actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin because failing to do so will escalate his ambitions-perhaps to the point of forcing a war with NATO, the Atlantic Council's Damon Wilson told the US Senate this week.

And the United States must lead, because no European country is strong enough to do so against a Kremlin that increasingly targets not just Russia's ex-Soviet neighbors but the democracy and unity of Europe, Wilson said. The US government should galvanize a strategy including tightened economic sanctions on Russia, arms supplies for Ukraine's defense, and a financial commitment similar to those for other major crises such as the Ebola outbreak and the ISIS war in the Middle East, he said.

"The choice we face ... is not between fighting Russia or doing nothing," Wilson said in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "Rather, I believe doing nothing may lead to our fighting Russia." After months of "Western hesitancy on Ukraine, Putin has become more brazen, increasing the risk of an inadvertent collision," he said.

Putin's Elastic Ambition

The year-long expansion of war in Ukraine illustrates that President Putin is by nature an opportunist who expands his objectives when he sees space to do so. One year ago, "Putin first probed with little green men [small units of Russian troops operating without insignia] to determine his freedom of maneuver in Crimea," Wilson said.

"In the absence of resistance," Putin has expanded both the territory he has seized in Ukraine and the military forces he is using, Wilson said. The US military estimates that 12,000 Russian troops are now operating in Ukraine, its top Army general in Europe said this week.

Alongside those Kremlin army regulars fights a Russian-directed "proxy forces"-units of paramilitaries, army veterans and other mercenaries-that "command greater quantities of the most advanced heavy weaponry than most European NATO nations," Wilson said in a hearing by the foreign relations subcommittee on European affairs.

Putin May Challenge NATO's Article 5

Putin's minimal goal now is to re-assert Russia's generations of domination over its former Soviet neighbors-notably Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, which have tried to associate with the European Union-and thereby to also strengthen his authoritarian regime at home. But the more he succeeds in that campaign, the more he focuses on what he knows is "the best check on his power"-the transatlantic community of the United States and its allies, Wilson said.

A serious risk is growing that Putin may be emboldened to try his semi-covert, hybrid warfare against NATO's Baltic member states, said Wilson, who served in 2007 to 2009 as a special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs at the National Security Council.

"The most tempting objective for Putin is to call into question the credibility of NATO's Article 5 mutual defense commitment, as doing so would effectively end both NATO and America's role as a great European power," Wilson told the Senate subcommittee.

Why Europe Cannot Lead Against Moscow

"Only US leadership in this crisis" can "ensure the sustained resolve of our allies, most of who are bearing a far greater economic cost to their own economies," Wilson said.

"Russia is too big, too strong, and too scary for Europe to resolve this without us." While Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel "has done a remarkable job in holding Europe together in this crisis, no European state can afford to get into a confrontation with Russia in the absence of US leadership and resolve."

A US-led strategy should envision "a Europe whole, free, and at peace that embraces democratic nations in Europe's east and in which Russia can find its peaceful place in Europe," Wilson said. Elements of that strategy should aim to "raise the costs" to Putin of further military offensives and other aggression, he said, and should include these:

"expanding economic sanctions to include Putin and his inner circle, ... targeting [Russia's state gas company] Gazprom directly, and letting Moscow know that we are considering cutting off Russia from SWIFT financial transactions."

boosting US and European aid to Ukraine to the levels appropriate to a major crisis. So far, the West response is not "commensurate with how Congress reacted to support campaigns against Ebola and ISIS. ... We are far more generous helping Jordan weather the Syria crisis," offering $1 billion in assistance, or far more than is being made available to Ukraine, a nation almost eight times as populous.

supplying "substantial intelligence support" and "weapons that will enable Ukraine to impose higher costs on attacking forces. This package should include systems, such as anti-armor missiles, that will enable Ukrainian forces to target and destroy invading tanks, artillery units, and aircraft" and thus force Putin to risk "exposing his lie to his own people" that Russian troops are not fighting in Ukraine.

"a more substantial US and NATO military presence along NATO's eastern flank," and "a focused training effort" for allies in that region.

stepped-up NATO engagement with countries in southern Europe's Balkan region, where Russia has sought to build resistance to European institutions.

support for "European efforts to create a European energy union that includes Ukraine and Moldova" and an assurance that the US side in talks for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership would envision the inclusion in opened trade of those "European nations who have deep and comprehensive free trade agreements with the EU, notably Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia."

A US strategy to confront Putin "should neither abandon the Russian people nor the vision that a democratic Russia one day can find its peaceful place" in Europe, Wilson said. "Indeed, if we rise to the occasion, the United States can ensure that the vision of a Europe whole and free including democratic states in Europe's East becomes a reality."

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 #5
AP
March 10, 2015
Embattled Ukrainian town struggles to come back to life
By NATALIYA VASILYEVA

DEBALTSEVE, Ukraine (AP) - When the wind picks up, the rattle of the corrugated iron roof of a destroyed gas station can sound like artillery. Four charred tanks sit stranded nearby, machine oil splattered on the ground, while a pick-up truck lies on its side surrounded by shrapnel.

Debaltseve, the center of one of the fiercest battles of Ukraine's war, lies in ruins three weeks after it was captured by Russia-backed separatists.

The struggle for the strategic rail hub - a sleepy town with a pre-war population of 25,000 people - became one of the darkest pages in the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine, which has already killed more than 6,000 people. The town is crucial because it provides a direct link between the two main rebel cities of Donetsk and Luhansk. So vital was the prize that the cease-fire deal brokered by Russia, Ukraine and Western powers did nothing to slow the rebel onslaught.

At least 179 Ukrainian troops were killed in the battle, along with uncounted hundreds of civilians.

Heavy artillery rained down on Debaltseve for a month beginning in mid-January. Those four weeks wreaked such devastation that the whole town has become one heap of rubble. Today it is as unrecognizable as the streets next to the Donetsk airport where fighting raged for nine months. Entire blocks of flats in Debaltseve are deserted, the sun shining through the upper floors as if the roof had been blown away by a tornado.

The only crowded place at Debaltseve on a recent morning was a grocery store where rebels distributed free bread: one loaf per person. Of about 100 people in line, most were old and frail and appeared not to have washed for days. At the railroad station, a few yards away, a Grad rocket was stuck in a refrigerator car. Some power lines were snapped, hanging from the poles like branches of a willow tree.

Across the road, a burly man in a black Cossack hat gave orders to his subordinates as he sat outside an orange tent pitched on the main town square. Rebel emergency workers have been working in these tents since their forces captured the city on Feb. 18, helping local residents with blankets and water and charging mobile phones. Alexander Afendikov, the city's self-appointed mayor, said they are trying to return Debaltseve to normal life as quickly as possible.

"Every house has been if not destroyed, then damaged," Afendikov said. "Ninety-nine percent of the glazing has been shattered."

Afendikov was among the rebels who besieged Debaltseve in February, pounding the town with artillery. Now the rebels are collecting construction materials to rebuild the town from Russian humanitarian convoys and "various private organizations" from Russia and other countries, Afendikov said.

The priority is given to hospitals, schools and big apartment blocks. Private houses - where the majority of Debaltseve residents once lived - are not likely to get much aid any time soon. "I can't send a group of glass workers to a small private house when there's a big apartment block nearby," Afendikov said. "And you can turn on the heating there and move 100-300 people there."

On the edge of town, one of the city's two main hospitals was spared a direct artillery hit but several shells landed nearby, shattering all windows. On a recent afternoon, some of them were boarded up while others were covered by white plastic sheets with the emblem of the U.N.s refugee agency. Workers were putting up new glazing on the second floor.

The corridors on the ground floor were freezing and deserted. Behind a blanket covering a door frame, a woman dressed in a white uniform and several layers of clothing sat at a desk next to a small coal stove. Marina Trifonova, a senior nurse, is one of the few hospital staffers who did not flee the war and stayed here when the hospital was evacuated in the siege.

"Many have left. Some are returning, some aren't," she said. "I belong here."

The hospital still has no running water or central heating but it reopened a week ago. It now accommodates six patients, most of them elderly people with bronchitis caught while seeking shelter in damp basements from artillery attacks.

Nataliya Maslova, a 62-year-old woman in a bright orange headscarf, had been in the hospital for six days since catching bronchitis in a basement. Her apartment block was hit by a shell, shattering her apartment windows in the middle of winter.

"We've seen a lot of fear," she said. "Everyone was gone. I was the only person left in our stairwell."

Local residents speak about the battle of Debaltseve as if the Ukrainian troops had been invading forces from an alien land. They blame Ukraine for the devastation, even though it was the rebels who carried out the shelling as they encircled the city.

"Why did they come to our land?" Maslova asked lying on a hospital bed. "They destroyed everything."

Maslova recollected the horrors she endured alone in the cold, lonely shelter.

"I don't want to remember," she said, beginning to sob. "I thank God I stayed alive - but what horrors we have seen! So many corpses, dogs were gnawing those corpses. There was so little of it left you couldn't even bury them."

Associated Press reporters who visited Debaltseve after it was captured by the rebels saw uncovered bodies of Ukrainian soldiers lying on the side of the road and in the yards of homes.

"People were buried anywhere possible," Maslova recalled, "in craters, on the streets, in the yards."

A cemetery on the northern fringes of the town does not have many fresh graves. One of those tombs had been turned into a crater by recent shelling. A plain wooden cross lay broken in two, surrounded by the petals of wreaths.

Nadezhda Ignatenko, a 65-year-old who lives on the street leading to the cemetery, explained that the shelling was so intense that locals found it impossible to give their loved ones a proper burial.

"There are no coffins here, nothing," she said. "People would be wrapped in a piece of cloth and buried in the yard - like dogs."

Ignatenko and her neighbors all have stories about deaths and burials during the rebel siege. One woman was killed by shrapnel. Her body lay in the house for days before her sister gave up hope of finding someone to bury her, and deposited her body in a hole dug in the vegetable patch.

Ignatenko put plastic sheets and a piece of discarded corrugated iron in the window frames. But that can hardly retain heat, since there's a gaping hole in the ceiling of what was once her kitchen.

So Ignatenko moved in with her neighbor, Alexei Kravchenko, who is about her age and also single.

They now live in his house, which is less damaged, clearing out the debris day after day and looking forward to summer weather.

#6
The UN Refugee Agency
www.unhcr.org
March 10, 2015
UNHCR delivers aid amid worsening conditions in eastern Ukraine

GENEVA, March 10 (UNHCR) - The UN refugee agency said Tuesday it is "extremely concerned" about the worsening humanitarian situation in eastern Ukraine, particularly in the areas controlled by anti-government forces.

UNHCR spokesman William Spindler said the lack of access to benefits and services previously provided by the central authorities had drastically worsened the plight of the civilian population in these areas. "This has been further aggravated by restrictions to the movement of people and goods," he told journalists in Geneva.

Conditions in northern Donetsk and in Luhansk are particularly dire, with the supply of water and electricity often disrupted by shelling and rocket attacks. Heavy shelling resulting in civilian deaths continues to be reported, especially around the town of Debaltseve, which was the scene of heavy fighting in January and February.

"The fighting makes the delivery of humanitarian aid to the many civilians trapped in the conflict areas extremely difficult. The scarcity of basic supplies, including food, fuel and medicines, has driven up prices of available supplies," Spindler said.

"Living conditions, particularly for those with damaged homes or sheltering in bunkers and basements under the rubble of their houses or apartment buildings, have been exacerbated by cold weather and low temperatures," he added.

Freedom of movement is an issue and civilians are often trapped in the conflict zone. Lack of available and affordable transport, insecurity along exit routes and administrative barriers are preventing civilians from reaching safety and UNHCR staff report that many people in these areas feel abandoned.

The Ukrainian authorities have evacuated more than 11,000 people (including over 2,240 children and almost 350 people living with disabilities) from Donetsk and Luhansk, "but assistance to evacuees continues to fall far short of demand, particularly in the provision of accommodation, transport, information and maintaining family unity," Spindler stressed.

Despite security risks, UNHCR and partners have delivered emergency non-food aid to some of the neediest civilians, including in areas that had been under frequent bombardment. For the first time, UNHCR has delivered aid to two areas in Luhansk-Novopskov and Markivka. According to local authorities, around 30 per cent of the displaced population in Novopskov and Markivka received assistance.

Distributions also took place in Debaltseve and in the nearby village of Nikishyne, where many houses have been damaged or destroyed by recent fighting. In addition, some 11,500 people in the Donetsk region received non-food humanitarian assistance from UNHCR in February.

"UNHCR is continuing to scale-up its presence in Donetsk city and is currently looking at the feasibility of an increased presence in Luhansk," Spindler said.

As part of the overall UN response to the situation in Ukraine, UNHCR co-leads the protection cluster and leads the shelter and non-food Items cluster. The number of people internally displaced by the conflict in Ukraine has now reached the 1.1 million mark, while the total number of Ukrainians who have sought asylum, residence permits or other forms of legal stay in neighbouring countries now stands at 674,300, including 542,800 in Russia and 80,700 in Belarus.

 

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 #7
Newsweek.com
March 9, 2015
Putin's Russia Is in the Grip of Fascism
BY MIKHAIL IAMPOLSKI

The rapid rise in Russian intolerance toward foreigners and democracy, along with a renewed emphasis on national exceptionalism, should not come as a surprise. We are dealing with a delayed reaction to the collapse of empire.

This collapse shocked Russia in the early 1990s, but the ensuing period of continuous improvement in living standards delayed and softened the reaction to the the imperial downfall. As is so often the case, increased consumer confidence acted as a kind of anesthetic. In the current economic downturn, the appeal of quasi-fascist discourse was predictable.

Of course, Nazism was also a reaction to a military defeat, the collapse of empire and the sudden loss of Germany's significance in the world. Fascism and national humiliation are thoroughly intertwined. Psychoanalysts studying the rise of fascism have argued that weakness, poverty and humiliation lead to a what they call "projective identification," which Melanie Klein connects to a paranoid-schizoid subject position.

With the help of this projective identification, one can replace undesirable qualities with the stuff of phantasy. Projective identification entails the denial of one's own ego and the identification with a strong leader and an all-powerful ethnic, social, or political group. This is usually experienced as a second birth, "standing tall" and achieving a new, aggressive masculinity that expresses itself in violence and war.

Anything that could be seen as a sign of weakness or femininity is rejected; this includes liberalism and homosexuality. Typically, it is these same negative qualities that end up projected onto the "enemy." This, too, is a feature of projective identification. Thus Ukrainians are systematically accused of fascism, while Russian fascism is displaced by a false idealization of one's own image.

Crowdsourcing Aggression

But this only begins to describe the situation in Russia today. It is complicated by the paradoxes of post-imperial victimization. Just a glance at the map of Europe shows why Austria was the cradle of Nazism. Austria is a small, provincial country, where nothing remained of the majesty and power of the Hapsburg Empire.

Russia is another matter, as it occupies a significant piece of the globe and is filled to the brim with nuclear warheads. From the outside, it hardly suits the role of victim. And yet Russia constantly portrays itself as a downtrodden nation: no one takes its priorities into account; the Americans don't want to recognize its global significance; it's been reduced to regional-power status and yet its "legitimate" rights to its former colonies and satellites are still not recognized.

Russia constantly asserts that it is the victim of aggression. Meanwhile, the former republics that gained their independence seem to feel much better about their situation. The Ukrainian victims of Russian aggression, for example, are experiencing a renewed sense of dignity, while the aggressor (Russia) bemoans its humiliation. In today's political context, this victim discourse takes on particular significance.

Not long before his suicide, Walter Benjamin lamented that history is always written by the victors, and expressed the faint hope that the lives of the victims will nonetheless prove not to have been in vain, and that they will someday be remembered. Benjamin's wishes have proved prophetic.

World War II was followed by a radical reorientation of historiography; less is being written from the point of view of the victors and more from that of the victims. The turning point was in the 1970s, when the Holocaust and its symbol, Auschwitz, became central to the narratives of World War II. The French historian Annette Wieviorka called it the "Era of the Witness."

When Himmler was planning the final solution to the Jewish problem, he justified the slaughter of children as a means of avoiding vengeance. And he expressed the certainty that the memory of the Jews would be erased along with the people themselves. Himmler thought that the Jews had no chance of leaving behind any testimony.

But as early as the 1950s the Central Historical Commission of the Central Committee of the Liberated Jews had gathered an archive consisting of 18,000 texts. Today there are hundreds of thousands of testimonies to the Holocaust. There has been a shift from praising the heroism of the warriors to describing the fates of their victims.

This shift has also affected the historiography on Russia's role in the war. For example, more and more books discuss the Soviet soldiers' rape and pillage in occupied Germany. And these "undesirable" studies have perhaps become no less significant than analyses of the strategy of Marshal Zhukov. Enzo Traverso recently argued that only the victim's experience is now considered significant, while that of the soldiers on any side looks like the pure expression of mindless violence.

I suspect that this shift from the military to the civilian is connected to a change in the understanding of sovereignty (which is given so much significance by the Kremlin). Carl Schmitt argued that sovereignty first and foremost expresses itself in the right to suspend the law and start wars. And he believed this right belonged to states.

Today the situation has changed drastically. Even a superpower like the United States (so maligned now in Russia) tries to avoid deploying its armies abroad; if military force must be used, America prefers to confine itself to airstrikes. Meanwhile, the sovereign right to suspend the law and wage war has devolved onto bandit formations like Al-Qaeda, ISIL and the Somali, Nigerian and Yemenite Islamists.

The Russian attempt to overcome post-imperial trauma is playing itself out in the Era of the Witness. I think that the overwhelming significance of Crimea for Putin is in many ways conditioned by the lack of casualties during a campaign by "polite people" who managed to seize the territory without shedding innocent blood. But the Donbas campaign immediately went awry, starting with the downing of the Malaysian airliner.

If one looks at the general image of the war conducted by these so-called independent republics, then we can see the significance acquired by the shooting of the bus near Volnokhova or the trolley in Donetsk. Meanwhile, the Donbas war couldn't produce a single heroic figure. The attempts to make heroes out of Girkin/Strelkov quickly petered out, to be followed by the grotesque figures like Zakharchenko, Tsarev, Plotnitsky or the infamous Arseny Pavlov, nicknamed "Motorola."

Motorola's Witnesses

This is a crucial moment, because, as many have noted before, the formation of the fascist consciousness requires an aesthetic phase-torchlight festivals, parades, uniforms, heroes of film, art, and literature, the demonstration of strength and unity.

Our era, however, is utterly insensitive to the heroization of aggression and violence. "Motorola" and body bags are the range of images to which's today's fascist consciousness can appeal. And quasi-fascist discourse now unfolds in a contradictory space between the declaration of one's own omnipotence and inborn strength on the one hand and the unceasing complaints about one's own victimization on the other (the crucified boy here is an instructive Christian symbol). Today's Russian fascist is simultaneously omnipotent and persecuted.

We are all social beings and we always find our identity in groups. But our identity and behavior depend on the groups that we ourselves have chosen. I'm not a fanatical follower of psychoanalysis, but it seems to me that it makes sense to try to understand the situation with the help of Melanie Klein's disciple, Wilfred Bion.

Bion proposed that groups come together in a variety of types. He called the first type the "work group," and gave the name "basic assumption group" to the second. The work group is a collective that develops democratic individuality. Its purpose is to carry out a task, and therefore it assumes both its members' cooperation and role differentiation. By and large, these are the groups that make up a democratic society.

One of the important features of the work group is the capacity for solidarity, without which the group could not carry out its task. In my opinion, it is the primacy of the work groups in democratic societies that explains their capacity for mass displays of solidarity, such as the recent rallies in support of Charlie Hebdo.

Russian society cultivates basic assumption groups (Bion distinguishes various subtypes, such as "dependency groups," "fight-flight groups," etc.). These are the groups in which Klein's paranoid-schizoid position reigns. These are the groups that are based on illusion, and on the denial of individual differentiation. Their primary task is the rejection of the ego in order to merge with some narcissistic primordial unity and become part of a homogenous and undifferentiated mass.

Such groups are homogenous on principle; their members are utterly intolerant of any deviation from their single style of thought and behavior. If the work groups have an ideal that is not antagonistic to the ego ideal, the basic assumption groups have an ideal that utterly destroys the ego ideal and takes its place.

The ego is crushed by an idealized, narcissistic leader, any attempt on whose authority is understood as an attack on the entire group and all its members. The leader deprives the group of reflexive thought, responsibility, a sense of guilty, and so on. A member of the work group is ready to accept his or her own limits and the difference of the Other, while a member of the basic assumption group aggressively denies both.

Such groups are infantile and regressive, and their ideal is total homogeneity, the removal of all difference, and, as the French psychoanalyst Didier Anzieu wrote, the lost paradise of El Dorado. They are often highly destructive and completely subordinate to their leader, and easily move from panic to aggressive messianism.

Such a quasi-fascist consciousness, which has taken hold of the masses in Russia, is difficult to reconcile with the growing historical significance of victims, each of whom slowly takes on more and more individual features. The victims are individuated, as Gilbert Simondon would say, while the narcissistic "hero" of the paranoid/schizoid type becomes more and more savage in the eyes of the world, losing his individual characteristics.

Where once this loss of individuality was not always significant, where homogeneity could be considered a virtue, now, in the Era of the Witness, the "victors" find themselves erased from history due to their very facelessness. The crowd's homogeneity ceases to be aesthetically appealing.

Heroic self-assertion turns into infantilization and the victimization of the very project of self-assertion. The more effort put into the projected overcoming of inferiority, the more the "hero" of the Russian world starts to look like a scruffy and troubled young man who lets himself be called "Motorola."

This article first appeared on the Russian site colta.ru and was republished by the New York University Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia, where it was translated by Eliot Borenstein.

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 #8
USAToday.com
March 10, 2015
Volunteer Ukrainian unit includes Nazis
By Oren Dorell

MARIUPOL, Ukraine - A volunteer brigade with self-proclaimed Nazis fighting alongside government troops against Russian-backed separatists is proving to be a mixed blessing to its cause.

Though the 900-member Azov Brigade adds needed manpower to repulse the rebels, members who say they are Nazis are sparking controversy, and complaints of abuses against civilians have turned some residents against them.

A drill sergeant who would identify himself only as Alex wore a patch depicting Thor's Hammer, an ancient Norse symbol appropriated by neo-Nazis, according to the Anti-Defamation League.


In an interview with USA TODAY, he admitted he is a Nazi and said with a laugh that no more than half his comrades are fellow Nazis. He said he supports strong leadership for Ukraine, like Germany during World War II, but opposes the Nazis' genocide against Jews. Minorities should be tolerated as long as they are peaceful and don't demand special privileges, he said, and the property of wealthy oligarchs should be taken away and nationalized.

He vowed that when the war ends, his comrades will march on the capital, Kiev, to oust a government they consider corrupt.

Russian media exploit such statements to describe the brigade in this port city in eastern Ukraine as a bunch of thugs who menace the population yet are embraced by Ukraine's national government.

Andriy Diachenko, a spokesman for the Azov Brigade, said only 10% to 20% of the group's members are Nazis. "I know Alex is a Nazi, but it's his personal ideology. It has nothing to do with the official ideology of the Azov," Diachenko said. "He's a good drill sergeant and a good instructor for tactics and weapons skills."

The brigade's deputy commander, Oleg Odnorozhenko, complained that Alex does not speak for the group. "If he has his own sympathies, it's his own matter," Odnorozhenko said in a former high school serving as a base. "But he has no right to make statements in a way they can be construed as the position of the regiment. He will be dealt with severely for his lack of discipline."

Col. Oleksiy Nozdrachov, a member of the Ukrainian Armed Services' General Staff in Kiev, defended the brigade's members as patriots. "They are volunteers who decided to sacrifice their lives to the country," Nozdrachov said. "They are tough and fierce in battle who stand and fight and won't give up soil."

He conceded that abuses by the brigade could hurt the nationalist cause among residents. "If any cases of misbehavior by Azov Brigade are brought by the local population, it will be investigated," he said.

In one case of alleged abuse, shop owner Svetlana Gudina, 51, said Azov troops detained her two sons, ages 28 and 32, and seized their cars, cash, flash drives and documents while searching for separatists last September. The men were released, and she managed to recover the cars and money, but the experience destroyed her trust in Ukrainian authorities.

"If they have come to defend us, let them defend," Gudina said. "But when they come to molest and humiliate civilians, it's wrong."

Spokesman Diachenko said he was unfamiliar with the incident, but "such episodes happen because this is war."

Nozdrachov offered to send an investigator to look into Gudina's claims, an offer she accepted.

Similar incidents have been attributed to armed units on both sides of the war. A report March 5 by the United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights described "credible allegations of arbitrary detention, torture and enforced disappearances, committed mostly by the armed groups but in some instances also by the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies."

The brigade's recruits, ranging from teens to middle-aged men, come from the separatist-held eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, the central city of Kirovograd and the former Soviet republic of Belarus. Several said they want to protect their homeland and Europe from the ambitions of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom they blame for the war.

Deputy commander Odnorozhenko said the brigade preaches Ukrainian patriotism and independence, strong leadership and accountability. "Ideas like going to Kiev to change the government in an illegal way should be nipped in the bud," he said.

Alex Borisov, 44, a trainer for Ukraine's military, said he spent two weeks teaching shooting and tactics to a group of brigade members who speak mostly Russian.

"I didn't see any fascists or anti-Semites," Borisov said. "And I tell you this as a Jewish guy."

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 #9
Suspects in Nemtsov killing probably tortured: Russian rights activist
By Gabriela Baczynska
March 11, 2015

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Three suspects in the killing of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov have probably been tortured while in detention, a member of the Kremlin's advisory council on human rights said on Wednesday.

After visiting three of the five ethnic Chechen suspects at Moscow's Lefortovo prison, rights activist Andrey Babushkin said the men detained over the Feb. 27 murder had suffered multiple injuries.

Nemtsov was the most prominent of a string of Kremlin critics to be killed during President Vladimir Putin's 15-year rule. The brazen murder in the heart of Moscow has shocked his colleagues and supporters, who say the investigation is a test of the rule of law in Russia.

Aides to the late liberal politician suspect Russia's state security apparatus is complicit in the crime. Putin has condemned the killing and vowed to bring its perpetrators to justice.

Officials say former Chechen policeman Zaur Dadayev, who is being held along with his cousins, Anzor and Shagid Gubashev, has admitted involvement in the murder. Dadayev and Anzor Gubashev have been formally charged.

"There are reasonable grounds to believe that Dadayev and the Gubashevs were tortured," Babushkin wrote on his website.

He said Dadayev had "multiple injuries" visible on his body, while Anzor Gubashev had abrasions around his nose, wrists and legs that were incurred after he was detained.

Dadayev served as deputy commander of Chechnya's "North" Battalion, which falls under the regional interior ministry. He has been awarded Russia's state order for courage for his service in Chechnya, a volatile North Caucasus region where Russian troops have fought two wars against separatists.

According to Babushkin's account, Dadayev said he was "kidnapped" on March 5 while arriving to the North Caucasus region of Ingushetia from nearby Dagestan.

Dadayev's friend and former colleague Rustam Yusupov was present when he was detained, Babushkin wrote, adding that the man had since disappeared.

Dadayev had been promised that if he admitted to murdering Nemtsov, Yusupov would be released, Babushkin said.

Babushkin called on the human rights council to inform Putin of his findings and said law enforcement agencies should investigate the torture allegations.

Allies of the late Nemtsov are scornful of the state investigation and say blaming the killing on Chechen Islamists is only aimed at deflecting suspicion from Putin, his inner circle or the security services.

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#10
Moscow Times
March 11, 2015
FSB-Kadyrov Power Struggle Eclipsing Nemtsov Murder Probe, Media Says
By Anna Dolgov

Russian media has reported that the investigation into the murder of Boris Nemtsov is suffering under a power struggle between President Vladimir Putin's protege Ramzan Kadyrov and the FSB.

The claim that Nemtsov was shot dead by a devout Muslim who reportedly felt insulted by the politician's support for French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, has been denounced in some Russian media as an attempt to disguise the roots - and reverberations - of the Feb. 27 gunning.

Prosecutors have charged two men, Zaur Dadayev and Anzor Gubashev, with involvement in Nemtsov's killing, and are holding three others as suspects. Officials say Dadayev, who used to be a commander in the Chechen police's "Sever" battalion, has admitted involvement.

Pro-Kremlin tabloid MK reported on Tuesday that footage from surveillance cameras showed the suspects had been tailing Nemtsov since last autumn, before the January attack against Charlie Hebdo even took place.

The report did not cite any sources, but some pundits have suggested the Kremlin-loyal tabloid is reflecting the stance of specific forces within law enforcement or the Federal Security Service, the FSB.

"Conspiracies, of course. But looks like some FSB guys don't want the investigation to fizzle out," opposition leader Alexei Navalny, currently under house arrest, said on Twitter, linking to the MK report.

Navalny echoed suggestions that some forces within the FSB have discarded the theory that Islamic extremists acted on their own accord and are trying to point to higher-level involvement in the murder.

The Islamist motive has been approached with skepticism from the very beginning - while Nemtsov had been a vocal critic of the Kremlin, he was hardly known for criticizing Islam.

Power Struggle

Some Russian media and social network commenters see an alternative explanation for the Charlie Hebdo murder theory, suggesting the FSB is seeking to link the Nemtsov killing to Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov - a man who has been bestowed with broad powers to rule the Northern Caucasus republic in exchange for staunch loyalty to Putin.

Russian journalist Orkhan Dzhemal, the founder of a Muslim journalist association, said in an interview with Ekho Moskvy liberal radio station this week that FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov had supposedly sought to erode Kadyrov's close ties with Putin when he identified the former Chechen policeman, Dadayev, as one of the main murder suspects.

"Bortnikov dealt a blow against Kadyrov," Dzhemal said. "We understand only one thing, that now the FSB is pointing at [Kadyrov]. This what is happening is all pointing towards him."

Dzhemal said the emergence of Kadyrov in the investigation signals a power struggle between two Kremlin beacons.

"There's a battle going on. The Spasskaya [Tower] is fighting against Borovitskaya," he added, metaphorically referring to two of Red Square's landmarks, not far from where Nemtsov was gunned down.

More Speculation

On a different side of the political and journalistic spectrum from the MK tabloid, independent Novaya Gazeta weekly reported Wednesday that the organizers of Nemtsov's murder allegedly included high-ranking Chechen security officials.

The report, which did not cite any sources, identified one of the alleged organizers as Ruslan, adding that the man was a major and that his last name was known to "dozens, if not hundreds" of Russian security officials.

The FSB may have a reason to see Kadyrov's powers diminished - the security agency's clout in the North Caucasus has reportedly shrunk, even as the Chechen leader's control has increased.

"Law enforcement and the secret services have been repeatedly humiliated for the sake of 'political stability' in the Caucasus," Novaya Gazeta said in its article.

The Blame Game

Chechnya's leader, Kadyrov, meanwhile, seemed to moderate his version of events as new information about the brutal killing emerged.

Before the FSB had identified any suspects, Kadyrov said the killing was clearly the work of "Western secret services."

When Dadayev, the Chechen suspect, was detained, Kadyrov responded with another online post, praising the man as a "true Russian patriot" and as a devout Muslim, who had felt insulted by the Charlie Hebdo publications.

State Honor

Even amid the supposed attempts to undermine Kadyrov's position, Putin this week awarded the Chechen leader one of the nation's highest awards, the Order of Honor, citing his "professional accomplishments, social activities and many years of diligent work."

Many in Russia saw the award as an indication of Putin's intention to stand by his Chechen protege.

While the awards list would have been finalized far in advance, before the murder, "if the question of [Kadyrov's position] remained open, and not closed, the announcement of that award would have been held back," Dzhemal, the journalist, told Ekho Moskvy.

The appeal to "patriotism" could prove to be a decisive factor in the outcome of the supposed FSB-Kadyrov power struggle, Novaya Gazeta said.

"Two buttresses of the Kremlin have clashed head on, forcing the Russian leadership to decide who is a true patriot and who is not, and who to rely on in the context of the ongoing complicated political situation," Novaya Gazeta wrote.

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 #11
http://gordonhahn.com
March 9, 2015
Nemtsov's Murder: Islamist Footprint?
By Gordon M. Hahn

The origins of the murder of Yaroslavl Oblast assembly deputy and Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov are still unclear and may be forever. We are, after all, talking about Russia. However, news reports and the chief suspect's own statements indicate that an Islamic/Islamist motive may have prompted the killing.

As reported by Putin opposition 'Rain' (Dozhd') cable/Internet television on March 9th, when arraigned in court on March 8th Zaur Dadaev, Nemtsov's purported confessed killer and his criminal group's apparent ringleader, briefly addressed journalists. Speaking through the cameras to his mother he assured her he is well. He then added: "If someone there has decided, then they have decided. If they have not, then they have not. All the same, it will be the way they decide it will be. The mercy of the Almighty is enormous. We will not permit anyone to insult our Prophet Mohammed."(http://tvrain.ru/articles/k_komu_vedet_islamskij_sled_v_dele_nemtsova_gde_budet_otbyvat_nakazanie_oleg_navalnyj_i_pravoslavnyj_krymnash_itogi_9_marta_-383610/). [[On March 8th Dozhd's Pavel lobkov reported that Dadaev had one phrase for journalists in the courtroom: "I love the Prophet Mohammad" (Part 2, http://tvrain.ru/articles/podozrevaemym_v_ubijstve_nemtsova_predjavili_obvinenie_pervye_kadry_iz_zala_suda-383552/).]]

When the perpetrator declares his motive before television cameras, we need to take him at his word. This has to be at least one of the motives driving the plot, and cannot be negated by other motives suggested or evidenced by other facts.

RosBalt reported on the same day that Dadaev has already fully confessed to investigators and explained his crime as a response to Nemtsov's perceived or real anti-Islamic statements: "Dadaev stated that in January 2015 he found out that Boris Nemtsov repeatedly issued negstive statements aimed at Muslims living on Russian territory, the prophet Mohammed, as well as the the religion of Islam itself. Being a strongly religious person, Zaur could not tolerate this." (http://www.rosbalt.ru/moscow/2015/03/08/1375743.html).

Indeed, in his January 9th Ekho Moskvy article "Islamist Inquisition", Nemtsov wrote something that in Europe might bring him a trial date and in the U.S. removal from his job, in particular as the leader of a democratic opposition group. He noted, among other things about Islam as he saw it, that we are experiencing "a medieval Islamic inquisition" that will require "a long struggle to defeat." He added: "(I)f Christians live in the 21st century, then Muslims live in the 14th-15th. I note: in the 14th-15th centuries was the flowering of the inquisition, trials of heretics, and fires burning people to death" (http://echo.msk.ru/blog/nemtsov_boris/1470712-echo/). Thus, claims by democratic activists such as Ilya Yashin and Aleksandr Milov that Nemtsov never said anything derogatory about Islam are clearly false. They can be seen making these claims in the above-mentioned March 9th Dozhd' TV news broadcast (see the link above) and elsewhere in the Russian opposition and Western media.

However, the murder could have come from additional motives and influences as well, in particular those defined by the fractious nature of Russian and Chechen politics. It could be that in the wake of the furor over the jihadists' Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in Paris and Nemtsov's pro-Charlie Hebdo statements Dadaev was manipulated by people in the security fores and/or Kadyrov and his allies or opponents in Chechnya to kill Nemtsov on the basis of his offended religious feelings regarding Nemtsov's pro-Charlie Hebdo statements. For Kadyrov or some around him the purpose could be a general destabilization of Russia on the backs of which he might gain his father's (and many other Chechens') dream of an independent Chechen state.

Recall the massive show of force Kadyrov organized a few weeks ago with several thousand well-armed fighters in Groznyi stadium. Dadaev is reported to be the former deputy chief of one of the battalions in that stadium at the time - the 'Sever' (North) Battalion run by the Chechen MVD that Kadyrov's men control. The Sever Battalion is led by Kadyrov's cousin Alimbek Delimkhanov, whose brother, Adam, is a deputy in Russia's State Duma belonging to Putin's United Russia party. Alimbek runs the siloviki departments in Chechnya. In addition to being a Duma deputy, Adam is on Interpol's wanted list and a US Treasury Department black list, accused of "acting on behalf of Gafur Rakhimov," a leading figure in the multi-ethnic, Eurasia-based crime syndicate 'The Brothers' (www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl2552.aspx). A third Delimkhanov brother runs Chechnya's 'Neft' or Oil Battalion.

Nemtsov had criticized Kadyrov's show of force and speech at Groznyi stadium in which he pledged that he and his battalions would serve Russia and Putin. Kadyrov also criticized Nemtsov's support for Charlie Hebdo. It cannot be excluded that a Delimkhanov was acting on his own or in accordance with Kadyrov's perceived wish.

For others, such as siloviki in Chechnya or Moscow, another motive could be to drive the wedge between Putin and the West still deeper in order to force Putin to take a harder line against the democratic, secular opposition and the West. They might also be seeking to put the squeeze on the increasingly dangerous and unpredictable Kadyrov; hence the aggressive investigation.

The scenarios involving people above Dadaev's pay grade might have been reflected in Dadaev's words about someone above having taken or in the future taking some unidentified decisions.

Equally possible is that no one ordered the murder, and Dadaev and his gang operated entirely on their own from outrage over Nemtsov's 'anti-Islamic' statements.

If the involvement of larger figures, such as Kadyrov and/or the Delimkhanovs proves true, then the ticking time bomb that is the Kadyrov regime about which I warned many years ago could now be detonating. At a minimum, it cannot be excluded that we have an 'atmosphere' issue here. Specifically, Kadyrov's increasingly reliance on strident quasi-Islamism and militarism, expressed by the battalions he controls, in order to state-build in Chechnya has created an atmosphere of intolerance that helped turn Dadaev on Nemtsov. Kadyrov, Dadaev, and many other Islamist-oriented Muslims would be offended by the following from Nemtsov in his January "Islamic Inquisition": "(F)or the cessation of religious terror it is necessary to fight for a secular state, that is for the separation of mosque and power (vlasti)" (http://echo.msk.ru/blog/nemtsov_boris/1470712-echo/).

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 #12
The National Interest
March 11, 2015
Putin: Russia's Last Remaining Pragmatist?
Dimitri K. Simes explains why Washington must pursue tough yet enlightened policies towards Moscow.
By Akhilesh Pillalamarri
Akhilesh Pillalamarri is an assistant editor at The National Interest.

Russian-American relations are at their frostiest levels since the cold war. Can the two sides reach an accommodation? Or are relations doomed to continue their downward spiral?

These are some of the questions that Dimitri K. Simes, the President of the Center for the National Interest, who visited Russia for a series of high-level meetings with officials and other experts last week, addressed at a luncheon this Tuesday.

Simes was the speaker at an event at the Center for the National Interest titled The Crisis in U.S.-Russia Relations. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, ambassador to the UN, Iraq and Afghanistan during the George W. Bush administration, moderated.

Simes carefully distinguished between two groupings in the Russian government, the first convinced that relations with the West can conceivably be repaired; the second, that Russia must prepare for a protracted conflict. Putin himself, Simes emphasized, is still inclined toward the first camp and is not ideologically driven. He is "not crazy" and "not a Communist," Simes said. Putin, along with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in particular, are relatively moderate on Ukraine and relations with the United States, particularly when contrasted with what Simes called a "second school of thought" in Russia, which believes that the Kremlin should "absolutely challenge the existing world order" and treat the United States as Moscow's main enemy.

Putin is well-aware of Russia's limitations and the fact that it can't "play the sanctions game." Russia does not want to incorporate eastern Ukraine and is content with a united Ukraine that grants autonomy to its Russian-speaking east. Moreover, Russia would insist on a guarantee that NATO would not include Ukraine in the foreseeable future. It is important, Simes said, for the United States to understand that Putin is not prepared to permit the Ukrainian rebels to be defeated, as he does not want to "look like a loser." However, Putin might be receptive to a grand bargain that will protect Russian interests. According to Simes, this is desirable because it is not in the West's interests for Russia to become a rogue nuclear power, to move closer to China or for the confrontation between Russia and the West to "dominate global politics."

An unyielding stance would play into the hands of the more truculent camp in Russian foreign policy. As Simes put it, there are a "lot of people who are on the ground and want to do crazy things." The adherents of this view believe in a geopolitical struggle that is turning into a civilizational conflict, one that pits Moscow against a destructive Anglo-Saxon civilization-a commercial, materialistic civilization that cannot fathom the deeper values of the Russian spirit. In this view, the conflict between Russia and the West is not just a matter of policy. Individuals who hold these views describe the United States and British as enemies and are not in favor of "preemptive concessions."

While such nationalists do not challenge Putin directly, they are already openly critical of Lavrov, thus indirectly attacking Putin's measured approach. They argue that while Russia cannot economically compete with the West, it is "good at fighting." The Baltic countries make appealing targets for those who want to test NATO's commitment to Article 5 of its charter. If these nationalists gained more influence or came to power in Russia, it would be a disaster, as it might well precipitate a geopolitical and indeed military confrontation in Europe with most unpredictable consequences.

Therefore, a continuation of Western sanctions on Russia over Ukraine would feed both the hardliners and push Putin himself towards a more rigid stance as Russians' increasing sacrifices require him to accomplish something demonstrable. In order to promote Russian restraint, the United States needs to understand Russia's limited goals and push for a comprehensive deal, using sanctions as leverage. The deal would ensure that Russia does not look like an outright loser, while still assuring the territorial integrity of Ukraine-except Crimea-and allowing it to pursue integration with the EU. The situation, Simes concluded does not resemble Europe in 1914. But it does bear similarities to 1908-the prewar era, when the jockeying of the great powers set the stage for a great conflagration. There is still time, Simes concluded, to avoid a repetition of such a dire outcome if Washington pursues tough yet enlightened policies.

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 #13
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
March 10, 2015
Press Digest: Merkel influences Obama's view on supplying weapons to Kiev
RBTH presents a selection of views from leading Russian media on international events. Today, reports that the U.S. will not supply defensive weapons to Ukraine at Germany's request and splits emerge in the EU over Russia policy.
Darya Lyubinskaya, special to RBTH
 
Obama questions supplying weapons to Ukraine after meeting Merkel

The Moskovksy Komsomolets daily reports that U.S. President Barack Obama has changed his mind about supplying weapons to Ukraine after meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Although the meeting took place a month ago, details of the conversation are only being made public now. According to the German Ambassador in Washington, Peter Wittig, Obama agreed at a meeting with Merkel "to give some space for those diplomatic, political efforts that were underway."

"The two leaders exchanged views on that issue and there was unity by them not to impose, or not to go forward with, the delivery of lethal defensive weapons at this time," Wittig said, according to the newspaper.

However, Moskovksy Komsomolets stresses that senior U.S. military officials and congressional leaders are still discussing supplying defensive weapons to Kiev. A bill is making its way through the U.S. Congress to provide a billion-dollar military aid for Kiev until 2017, including the supplies of defensive lethal weapons.
 
The EU considers creating its own army

Head of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker has suggested that the European Union should create its own army, according to reporting by news website Gazeta.ru. The initiative has already found support from a number of German politicians in particular.

Russian experts interviewed by Gazeta.ru suspect that the proposal will face strong opposition from the United States and NATO.

Sergei Utkin, head of the Strategic Assessments Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Center for Situational Analysis, said that Juncker's proposal isn't surprising, as Juncker is a strong supporter of deepening the integration process within the EU. However, Utkin stressed that the "creation of a full-fledged European army could theoretically allow to significantly optimize the EU's defense spending."

Additionally, the different perspectives with in the EU of the threat posed by Russia could also play a role in the debate, according to Utkin. European countries with the most critical attitude toward Russia could reduce the level of support for defense cooperation within the EU, focusing resources on initiatives of NATO, Utkin said.

Fyodor Lukyakov, chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, stressed that the idea of the creation of a separate European army and plans for European strategic independence have been talked about since the 1950s. Lukyanov stressed, however, that these ideas directly conflict with the purpose of NATO, and therefore are likely to come to fruition.
 
EU divide over Russia sanctions grow

Pro-government Russian daily Izvestia writes that more and more European countries are opposed to the extension of sanctions against Russia. According to the paper, some EU countries are set to ease the sanctions policy towards Russia and revive bilateral relations. However, there is concern that pressure from the U.S. will not allow the European Union to move toward the normalization of relations.

Oleg Nemensky, a senior researcher at the Institute for Strategic Studies, told Izvestia, "The sanctions are costly for Europe, but the conflict with the United States on several issues will cost much more."

According to Nemensky, for the EU to side with Russia would mean a geopolitical revolution and the creation of a "big Europe" including Russia. "Such a prospect is impossible to even consider in the foreseeable future," Nemensky said.

Konstantin Zulin, director of the Institute of CIS Countries, agrees with Nemensky. According to him, Washington's closest associates in the EU will not be allowed to ease restrictive measures. However, Zulin also said that new sanctions will not be imposed.

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 #14
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
March 10, 2015
Ukraine is divided in two, with or without Russia
One year after Crimea was incorporated by Russia, signs of political, ethnic and territorial fragmentation are everywhere in Ukraine. If this continues, Ukraine could become a "frozen" state.
By Alexey Fenenko
Alexey Fenenko is an associate professor at the Faculty of World Politics of the Moscow State University. Previously, he was a leading researcher at the Institute of International Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2004-2013), a project coordinator at the Academic Educational Forum on International Relations and a co-editor for ˝International Trends˝ magazine (2004-2011). He has a Doctorate in History (2003).

March 18 marks the anniversary of the signing of the agreement incorporating Crimea to Russia. This controversial event meant changing the Ukrainian borders from what they had been as the former Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. A year later we can say that Ukraine's fragmentation continues.

Alienation continues to grow among various ethnic and cultural regions in the country. To maintain control of a range of these regions (Odessa, Kharkov and even Vinnitsa), Kiev has had to use force or place them under limited military administration.

The causes of the Ukrainian conflict are largely internal in nature. Moscow and Washington can make use of the contradictions among different regions in Ukraine for its own purposes. But, even if the Kremlin decided to withdraw entirely from Ukrainian affairs tomorrow, it would not mean a cessation of hostilities. The ethnic-territorial division of Ukraine would continue for objective reasons. There is a developing model of disintegration among modern states.

The historical basis of modern Ukraine

The historical ideological basis of Ukrainian identity - "ukrainstvo" as Georgy Fedotov,  a Russian religious philosopher and historian, called it - was the "Galician-Poltavan Plan." At the end of the 19th century, Malaya ("Little") Russian identity was based around the Poltavan community. In the 1880s, as a result of Alexander III's repressive policies, the center for the "Ukrainian" movement relocated from Poltava to Galicia. During the Civil War several unsuccessful attempts were made to create a Ukrainian state based on the Galicia and Poltava regions.

The Soviet authorities attempted to recreate Ukraine as a multi-national state. Non-Ukrainian territories were added to the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic. An alternative was a project by the national Ukrainian state.

Before the start of World War II in the western regions of Ukraine (Galichina), a Ukrainian national movement took shape and fought against Poland. In 1941 the German government turned the potential of this Ukrainian movement against the USSR. After World War II, this ideology was the foundation for the Ukrainian dissident movement.

"Two Ukraines" after the fall of the Soviet Union

After the fall of the USSR in 1991, two competing forces split independent Ukraine - one supporting a multi-national Ukraine, the other a nationalist Ukraine. The first was associated with presidents Leonid Kravchuk (1991-1994) and Leonid Kuchma (1994 - 2004), assuming a continuation of the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic (a "Soviet Union in miniature"). Soviet governmental structures were retained in Ukraine and a plan was implemented to confer citizenship to those living within the territory.

The policy of "Ukrainization" was continued by extending the use of the Ukrainian language and culture, following the example of Soviet policies in the 1920s, when Soviet authorities attempted to reform Ukraine as a multi-national territory. But Ukrainian identity in official discourse was one of civil identity, not of an ethnic character.

The movement for a nationalist Ukraine was connected with the legitimacy of the new Ukrainian authorities. "Ukrainian history" was used to legitimize the government. However, it included the experience of Ukrainian nationalism during World War II (a nationalist Ukrainian State, independent and pro-German).

Such an approach by itself created a type of identity crisis for the Ukrainian authorities. If Ukraine is a successor to the "true Ukraine," then why maintain the political system of the former Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic with its approaches aimed at a multi-national country? Such an approach by itself reduced the legitimacy of the Ukrainian political system.

The situation became worse after President Viktor Yushchenko came to power in 2005, when he was reported to have steered a course towards returning to the nationalism of the 1940s.

Superimposed on all of this is the factor of the elites. This is the dual role of the western Ukrainian elite. The dominant role in the political life of the country was played by elites from central and eastern Ukraine. The elites from the west of the country were essentially excluded from the privatization process and simultaneously from taking political decisions. By 2000 they had succeeded in taking positions in education and culture. However, as a whole the alienation of the western Ukrainian elite from the Ukrainian political system became a factor for serious destabilization.

The paradox of opposition

The dual nature of the Ukrainian state created a new form of opposition. Its ideology was based on two ideas. First is the recreation of the "true" Ukrainian state, essentially rejecting the legacy of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in favor of the so-called Galician-Poltavan Plan. Second is increasing the speed of integration into the European Union, which envisages a rejection of the governmental system of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. This concept received serious support from western Ukrainian elites.
However, an important question still remains: Is it possible in principle to achieve the Galician-Poltavan Plan beyond central and western Ukraine?

For a start, entry or even association with the EU assumes the de-industrialization of the south and east of the country. Such an approach by itself creates problems for the population in eastern Ukraine.

Secondly, the redistribution of property in favor of western elites might infringe the rights of elites from the southeast. This has become, for example, an important factor for the negative views that the southeastern elites have for the nationalistic program.

Thirdly, implementing a nationalist program requires the rejection of the legacy of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. This would inevitably raise the issue of the borders of the "true Ukraine" and whether they coincide with the boundaries of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic of 1991.

Fault lines

Rivalry between Russia, the U.S. and the EU in 2013 has accelerated the activation of fault lines. The victory of "Euromaidan" meant primarily the rejection of the heritage from the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. On Feb. 22, 2014, Ukraine ceased to be its legal successor. Against this background, the abolition by the new government of the law on the status of Russian language inevitably caused a wave of protest in the southeast. The question was raised about the possibility (or impossibility) of rebuilding Ukraine in a new form.

The most important result for Ukraine was the preservation of its statehood. After Crimea's accession to Russia, not only Russian but also American experts expressed doubts about Ukraine's ability to survive in its current capacity. However, by mid-May, Kiev had managed to avoid the rise of the protest movement in Zaporozhye, Kharkov and Odessa, limiting the rebellion to Donbas. The ensuing summer military operation against "Novorossiya" ("New Russia") has not led to protests in Ukraine. The loss of two-thirds of the Crimea and the Donbas was not critical for Ukrainian statehood.

But the loss of most of Crimea and the Donbas blocks Ukraine's ability to integrate into the European-Atlantic community. It is not legally possible for a country to join NATO when it has two unresolved territorial problems. It is hard to imagine an "Association Agreement" between Ukraine and the EU, if the calculation of its financial section excludes Crimea and the Donbas - it would be tantamount to the EU separating these regions from Ukraine.

In this situation, Ukraine is becoming, like Georgia, a "frozen" country. While making declarations of its desire to join NATO and the EU, in the foreseeable future Ukraine will not be objectively capable of such integration.

This "frozen" state may cause serious problems for Ukraine (within the boundaries of Feb. 12, 2015). We are talking about the prospects of losing a country of 40 million. This may lead to a new fault line between the western and central regions of Ukraine.

For the first region (conditionally "Galicia") EU integration remains a priority. For the second region (conditionally the Kiev-Poltava community) the priority is to preserve the territorial integrity of the country, and ideally recover its borders as of January 1, 2014.

In western Ukraine, to a greater extent than in the center, notably is the desire to throw off the "non-Ukrainian" regions for integration with the EU. This scenario is so far hypothetical. However, the December riots in Vinnitsa proved that a protest against Kiev's policies is possible not only in the east, but also in the west of the country.

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 #15
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
March 11, 2015
Why the 'Crimean scenario' never happened in eastern Ukraine
A year after Russia incorporated Crimea, it now appears that the Kremlin may have underestimated the power of Ukrainian self-awareness and the desire of Ukraine's citizens to make their own choices.
By Maxim Polishchuk
Maxim Polishchuk is a student of Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO-University), the department of International Relations and International Institute of Energy Policy and Diplomacy, one of the managers of MGIMO's Student Association, an organization that arranged numerous round tables and meetings with prominent Russian political scientists and public figures.

A year ago Russia annexed Crimea, which has since led to negative consequences for Russia, Europe and Ukraine, including a protracted conflict in the Donbas. In the numerous negotiations held since spring, Russia has pushed, if not for independence, then at least maximum federalization for the eastern regions, with full control over the territory by local administrators. Western and Ukrainian experts and politicians eye such demands with skepticism.

Indeed, the Kremlin's policy in Ukraine since the start can hardly be described as a success. Its expectations regarding the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk have not come to fruition. Why did the "Crimean scenario" fail to strike root in Novorossiya (New Russia), as the Kremlin might have expected?

The main reasons do not lie on the surface. Once deemed insignificant, they have proved to be among the most decisive in this whole dismal saga. They are embedded in the fabric of Ukraine itself, and Russian politicians and diplomats hitherto did not consider them worthy of attention.

How the Crimean euphoria faded

After the annexation came the euphoria, the reasons for which are quite clear: The referendum to rejoin Russia was backed by 90 percent of the peninsula's population, there was no military resistance, Ukrainian troops withdrew peacefully, and mass parades and rallies were held in support of Russia and its policies. Heartened by this outcome, some members of the ruling elite suggested that such an approach would bear fruit elsewhere. And so it was applied in the southeast of Ukraine, where, after the annexation of Crimea in March, the situation was escalating.

But here the "Crimea card" was not a trump card. There were several reasons for this. For starters, the sentiment of the population of the eastern parts of Ukraine was misjudged. Despite the fact that the Russian-speaking population was in the majority and supported Russia (as in Crimea), the people had just two simple demands: guaranteed official status for the Russian language (at least where they lived), and the right to dispose of tax revenues themselves, mainly to ensure funding in the social sphere.

Not only did most of the population never want to separate from Ukraine, they did not even pay a thought to the Kremlin's pursuit of federalization. A survey of the population of eastern Ukraine in the spring of 2014 revealed that 70 percent of residents there opposed joining Russia. What's more, the changes were planned not by means of a grassroots movement, but through tinkering at the top, i.e. the revolution was to be top-down, not bottom-up. In short, the desires and aspirations of the battered and exhausted people were thoroughly ignored, undermining trust in Russia.

A more detailed study of the real sentiments of the people exposes Russia's supposed numerical support in the east as a myth, which Moscow made the mistake of believing. As such, without the support of the population, the whole idea of Novorossiya was doomed from the start, and never justified the risks that its realization would entail.

Another important problem that Russia suddenly faces is Ukraine's exceptional commitment to keeping hold of its eastern regions. In the euphoria of Crimea's annexation, the Kremlin decided to support the rebels in the east of Ukraine, hoping for a quick victory. Politicians and their aides assumed that Kiev, already worn down by Maidan, confrontation and crisis, would not put up any serious resistance to eastern declarations of independence and convergence with Russia. The reckoning was that separation would, as before, happen more or less peacefully. But the "Crimean scenario" failed to materialize.

How neglecting soft power is causing problems for the Kremlin

The Kremlin underestimated a huge number of factors, chief among them Ukrainian self-awareness. Since it became independent, Ukraine has raised several generations who feel part of a full-fledged country with its own history and heroes. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, its citizens strove to find their own place in the world - and find it they did, creating a remarkably strong sense of identity as a distinct people, ready to defend their freedom to the end.

Thanks to Ukrainians' acute sense of national consciousness, Kiev set about delivering a rebuff, and one that was certainly not expected. "Anti-terrorist" troops went on the offensive to win back positions taken by the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, inflicting significant losses. As a result, the "rebel-controlled" territory shrank noticeably. An entire army and national guard of volunteers from all over Ukraine appeared from nowhere and headed east.

Of course, it would be amiss not to mention the West. Its assistance, however, is limited to non-lethal aid: money (albeit large sums), plus some equipment and small-scale arms. But has it helped the Kiev government to win back lost ground and lift the whole country? History shows that the overriding factor in any conflict is always the will of the people, and in Ukraine no amount of help from the West, even the most advanced, would be of use without an innate desire for self-determination.

It is this sense of national consciousness of Ukranians, of responsibility for one's own independence and of nationhood that thwarted the Kremlin's initial plans. And that was a serious miscalculation on Russia's part. Diplomacy lost to begin with, and has now lost for decades to come.

Here, too, Russia's deleterious lack of policy is plain to see. The matter relates to soft power, and the promotion of Russian values and interests among Ukrainians. For the past 24 years, Russia has viewed Ukraine as a defective state that broke away but was destined soon to return to Russia, where it belongs. It was an error of judgment in foreign policy. This neglect of soft power has damaged Russia at every stage of the Ukrainian conflict so far.

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 #16
The National Interest
March 11, 2015
Russia's Misstep: How Putin's Ukraine Adventure Backfired
Has Moscow overplayed its hand?
By Sean Mirski
Sean Mirski is a third-year student at Harvard Law School, where he is Supreme Court Chair of the Harvard Law Review.

"Russia is winning" the Ukraine crisis, or so goes the conventional account. This claim has elements of truth to it-narrowly conceived, Russia has gained much in the last year. President Putin has boldly returned control of the Crimean peninsula to Russia. He has crippled Ukraine through a new "hybrid warfare" that the West seems unable to counter. Moscow has demonstrated its resolve and resilience in the face of Western sanctions, even as President Putin has watched his domestic approval ratings skyrocket. And the Kremlin has reminded the world that Russia is determined to control its neighborhood, and that it remains a great power worthy of respect.

But Putin's short-term victories should not blind Western policymakers to the significant costs that Russia has racked up. In particular, through its annexation of Crimea and subsequent policies, Moscow has ensured that Ukraine will no longer act as a buffer state and will instead gravitate to the West for the foreseeable future. What's more, Russia's security situation has continued to deteriorate amidst a series of missteps and predictable backlashes from the international community. And worst of all, the Kremlin cannot reverse its error and must instead rely on additional, costly policies in order to mitigate the fallout from its initial mistake.

From the end of the Cold War until early 2014, Ukraine acted as the quintessential buffer state. Both Russia and the West wanted to integrate the country into their respective spheres of influence, but Kiev remained independent and largely neutral.

Ukraine's demographic make-up offers at least a partial explanation. Samuel Huntington dubbed Ukraine a "cleft country" based on its relatively even divide between pro-Western voters in the west and pro-Russian voters in the east. Indeed, this east-west divide had characterized every presidential election since the country's independence, and it explained why control of Kiev oscillated back and forth between pro-Russian and pro-Western leaders. Thus, in 1999 and 2004, the western oblasts took Kiev, while the eastern oblasts won in 1991, 1994, and 2010.

Most importantly, the swing of the electoral pendulum was bounded. So long as Ukraine remained a democracy, there was never any serious risk that the country would become permanently ensconced in either the Western orbit or the Russian constellation. To do so would risk alienating half the country. Thus, by default, Ukraine adopted a self-correcting policy of nonalignment. Kiev would sometimes lean toward the West, and other times toward Russia, but there was always an electoral check on permanent alignment with either geopolitical pole.

To be sure, this situation was not ideal from Moscow's perspective. Russia had to contend with occasional turbulence in its relationship with Ukraine, as well as Kiev's sporadic moves toward the West. The Kremlin would have much preferred the strategically superior alternative of a firmly eastern-oriented Ukraine, a throwback to the days of the Warsaw Pact. But the situation was tolerable, not least because Russia obtained some measure of strategic depth against significant encroachment by NATO and the West.

Then came the Maidan revolution. Moscow saw a repeat of the 2004 Orange Revolution, where pro-Russian Yanukovych had "won" a rigged presidential election, only to have the results annulled by the Ukrainian Supreme Court acting under popular pressure. In the second round of balloting, Yanukovych had gone on to lose to pro-Western candidate Viktor Yushchenko by a substantial margin, sealing Russia's "defeat." (Never mind that the pendulum swung back in 2010, when President Yushchenko and other pro-Western candidates lost the presidential election to a revitalized Yanukovych.) Wanting to avoid Part II of the Orange Revolution, the Kremlin saw an opportunity to reclaim the Crimean peninsula in late February 2014.

This was a mistake. By annexing Crimea, President Putin thrust what remained of Ukraine into the arms of the West for the foreseeable future. First, the annexation disrupted the country's delicate electoral balance. Before, control of Kiev vacillated back and forth between roughly even blocs of pro-Western and pro-Russian voters. But by taking Crimea, Russia annexed not only the peninsula, but also more than a million largely pro-Russian eligible voters.

In the past, these voters had helped maintain the electoral equilibrium underlying the country's policy of nonalignment. In 2010, for example, Yanukovych edged out the pro-Western Yulia Tymoshenko by 887,909 votes. Crimea overwhelmingly supported Yanukovych, casting 639,529 more votes for him than his rival. Without those votes, Yanukovych's margin of victory would have been vanishingly narrow-only 92,119 votes in a country of almost 45 million. And if one had subtracted out the votes from the now separatist-controlled Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts as well, then Tymoshenko would have won with 3,299,982 more votes than her rival-almost four times her opponent's actual margin of victory in 2010.

Ukrainian nationalism has waxed and waned over the years, but nothing unites a group of individuals as much as a perceived external threat. Moscow's moves guaranteed that Ukraine would unite around its independent national identity and identify less and less with its imperious eastern neighbor. Polls bear witness to this increasingly virulent anti-Russian nationalism. In 2011, about 80 percent of Ukrainians had a favorable opinion of Russia, but by last summer, that statistic had plunged to a mere 35 percent. As the impasse continues, Ukrainians continue to downgrade their views of Russia, not only in the western part of the country-never that friendly to Moscow to begin with-but also in the east-the normally dependable, pro-Russian stronghold.

Ukrainian electoral politics will be driven for a long time to come by the combination of the loss of a significant pro-Russian voter bloc and this new nationalism. Kiev has moved with unprecedented speed to solidify an enduring relationship with the European Union and NATO. Prior to 2014, the Kremlin would have seen this burgeoning relationship as a strategic nightmare because of its calamitous consequences for Russia's security dilemma. On December 23, 2014, the Ukrainian Parliament officially repealed the country's nonaligned status, citing a litany of complaints against its overbearing eastern neighbor.

A Bear Trap of Its Own Making

Since the Crimean annexation, Russia has compounded its strategy quandary. First, it has accentuated the electoral problem by underwriting the Luhansk and Donetsk separatists. Like Moscow's seizure of Crimea, the separatist movement saps the pro-Russian electorate of critical votes and helps guarantee a pro-Western leader in Kiev.

Second, Moscow has also kneecapped itself through a series of policies that play well on the domestic news, but seem shortsighted from a tactical perspective. For example, in response to Western sanctions, the Kremlin effectively decided to sanction itself by banning food imports from the West. This policy has aggravated Russia's economic predicament by stoking inflation, an outcome that should have surprised no one but the descendent of a Soviet central planner.

Likewise, Russia's economic warfare may be misfiring as well. By threatening to cut off natural gas and continuing to fuel Ukraine's separatist conflict, Russia has sent Ukraine's economy into free fall. Predictably, though, this state of affairs has only strengthened Ukraine's dependence on the West. Now, President Petro Poroshenko is on the cusp of receiving a $17.5-billion loan from the IMF, which would replace a $17-billion loan announced last April. Once again, Russia's moves are driving Ukraine into the arms of Washington and its allies.

These tactical errors have been worsened by the entirely foreseeable economic, security and diplomatic consequences of Russia's actions.

Much has already been said about Putin's string of economic miscalculations, but it is worth stressing the extent of the damage exacted by Western sanctions acting in conjunction with a drop in oil prices and Russia's deeper structural problems. As Dmitri Trenin notes:

"Russia's GDP is likely to contract by 5 to 7 percent, inflation may rise to 15 to 20 percent, unemployment climb to 7 percent, and the capital flight reach $130 billion on top of $150 billion in 2014. Since last summer, the ruble has already lost nearly half its value against the major currencies."

And of course, the Russian fisc is being further strained by the enormous cost of financing the absorption and reconstruction of the Crimean "money pit." As a result, Trenin predicts, "[t]his year promises to be the most difficult for Russia since the beginning of the new century."

President Putin has also aggravated Russia's security dilemma through his rash policies. For Russia's unnerved neighbors, Moscow's behavior has sparked an almost existential crisis. Lithuania has stated that it will reintroduce military conscription to bolster its army. Poland has announced a military modernization plan valued at 33.6 billion euros, and the Baltic states have increased military spending by an additional 1.2 billion euros as well. Meanwhile, NATO plans to establish a 5,000 strong "spearhead" force in addition to six new bases along Russia's strategic perimeter. These steps augur the "biggest reinforcement of [NATO's] collective defence since the end of the Cold War"-a move that, to put it lightly, does not favor Russian interests.

Nor is this all. In late November, the G20 ostracized President Putin over his refusal to own up to the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17; in response, he decided to leave the summit early. Later that month, France announced the indefinite suspension of a $1.6-billion arms deal that would have transferred two Mistral-class amphibious assault ships to the Russian navy. And in early December, Gazprom announced that European objections had torpedoed a planned natural-gas pipeline through Bulgaria; Russia has been forced to divert the pipeline to Turkey instead.

No matter what strategy it pursues, Russia will not be able to revert back to the status quo ante bellum. In the best-case scenario for Russia, Moscow can bring Kiev to its knees through sustained economic warfare and support for the separatist movement. But this scenario is improbable. Every move by President Putin can be countered by the West, at least to some degree. So Russia's economic warfare will probably be matched by IMF commitments, and in the event that the IMF fails to act, the United States and the European Union will likely step up to the plate.

But even if President Putin could convince President Poroshenko and Ukraine's elite that Kiev has no rational choice but to fold in the face of Russian power, he would have difficulty making that decision stick. After all, capitulation might be the rational choice, but there has never been much rationality in the sort of nationalism surging through Ukraine. So long as Kiev remains at least semi-responsive to public sentiment, Ukrainian leaders will have little incentive to bow before Russian pressure. And even if President Poroshenko caves, there will always be some demagogue ready to denounce appeasement and ride a nationalist wave into power in the next election.

Nor does Russia really have the capacity to bring Ukraine back easily into its orbit by force. To secure the borders and occupy Donbass alone, though, Russia would need another 91,000 soldiers according to one analysis. To take and hold the rest of the country would be a daunting task, especially in the face of a disgruntled population and probable insurgency. Even a small invasion and occupation-perhaps of the more pro-Russian eastern oblasts in historic Novorossiya-would likely be beyond Russia's capabilities.

Besides operational problems, President Putin also has political constraints at home: he has maintained an astronomically high approval rating up until now, but polls suggest that Russians are adamantly opposed to an outright invasion of Ukraine (in fact, only five percent favor deploying Russian troops). So it is unsurprising that President Putin has disavowed any interest in marching on Kiev.

Russia's strategy over the last year can be best understood as a desperate attempt to stall its deteriorating security situation. In particular, after having lost Ukraine, Russia now seems prepared to make sure that no one else can win it, either. There is some method to this madness: a strong and united Ukraine would oppose Russian interests, but a weak and destabilized Ukraine will be too busy coping with the chaos in its innards to be able to coherently or consistently impede broader Russian objectives.

At the end of the day, though, this destabilization strategy has the feel of the second-best. This rearguard action may help Russia gain leverage in the war's settlement negotiations, keep Ukraine out of NATO and send a warning to Russia's other neighbors. But as noted earlier, this strategy can only blunt the damage of losing Ukraine; it cannot achieve a lasting strategic victory for Moscow.

No Winners; Only Losers

None of this is to say, however, that the West has "won" the Ukraine crisis in any meaningful sense. Russia's blunders may have conduced to America's advantage under the chessboard mentality of the Cold War, but today, they have instead proven an unwelcome distraction from more pressing problems, including a rising China and a burning Middle East.

Indeed, Russia and the West have instead entered a negative-sum conflict where both sides stand to lose simultaneously. By destabilizing a key neighbor and tilting it toward the West, Russia has injected a source of instability into European politics for the foreseeable future. Ukraine will continue to needle the Russian geopolitical consciousness, grafting friction onto the relationship between Russia and the West.

The United States and its allies should strive for a diplomatic solution with terms acceptable to Russia and its embattled leaders. In particular, the West must be exceedingly cautious when it calibrates external pressure on Russia to end the conflict: actions that could bring it to the negotiating table-like arming Ukraine or threatening to expand NATO-may also aggravate Russia's strategic situation in a way that forces it to escalate.

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 #17
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
March 11, 2015
Ukraine expects IMF to agree up to $11bn cash disbursal
bne IntelliNews

The International Monetary Fund is ready to disburse to Ukraine the first tranche of an agreed extended funding facility (EFF), confirming on its website that the sole subject of discussion at an IMF board meeting on March 11 will be the loan.

At the same time, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced he had signed into law a packet of amendments to Ukraine's 2015 budget that "constitute one of the pre-conditions for granting Ukraine an extended IMF loan."

Poroshenko reminded the nation what was at stake with the IMF loan in a TV interview earlier on March 10. "Ukraine is living in war-time conditions, in the conditions of territory being occupied," he said. "Around 25% of the country's industrial potential has stopped, around 10% has been physically destroyed."

The National Bank of Ukraine was also making sure the March 11 meeting turns out well, using administrative means to strengthen Ukraine's hryvnia to UAH21.7 to the dollar, the exchange rate on which Ukraine's 2015 budget is based.

The strengthening of the hryvnia marks a 57% surge since the troubled currency hit a historical low of UAH33.75 against the dollar on February 26. On the cash market, the dollar was bought for around UAH23.43 and sold for UAH27.56, according to data compiled at finance.ua.

Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine Valeriya Gontareva said March 10 that she was "confident in the further stabilisation of the situation on Ukraine's forex market after Ukraine's receipt of an IMF tranche under the EFF programme to be confirmed tomorrow March 11."

The central bank has achieved the exchange rate surge by hiking interest rates to 30% and introducing sweeping capital controls on February 24: it closed down the forex market by administrative means, leaving the NBU the main buyer of hard currency from exporters required to sell 75% of their revenues. The government has also imposed a 5% import tax to help balance the current account, and on March 5 banned any payments of dividends to international investors.

Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko tweeted on March 9 that the controls were justified "to curb currency speculation and fraud in import and export contracts," while also gaining "breathing room for Ukraine pending IMF package".

With the approval of the IMF board seen as certain, the key parameter is how much Ukraine will get in the first tranche.

Expectations are high. Previously, Jaresko said that disbursals in the first year of the EFF could be as much as 60% of the total volume, or $11bn - with half to go to the NBU to replenish reserves, and half to go to the goverment for foreign debt payment. First Deputy Prime Minister Ihor Umansky previously put the figure at $10bn in the first-year disbursal.

Jaresko tweeted on March 9 that the IMF said the EFF disbursement would "be heavily front-loaded to achieve rapid macroeconomic stabilization," and on March 10 again tweeted again about the "pending $17.5bn front-loaded IMF loan".

Ukraine has to make an estimated $5.4bn of foreign debt repayments in 2015, according to Fitch Ratings, with central bank reserves down to only $5.6bn on March 1.

Disbursal of the IMF funds will also unlock additional funds of around $9.2bn committed by the World Bank, European Investment Bank, the US and EU, which were made conditional on IMF approval of Ukraine's parameters. IMF head Christine Lagarde said on February 12 that total Western support for Ukraine could total around $40bn over the four-year term of the EFF, although it is unclear how she reached that figure.

What happens next?

One of the first consequences of Ukraine receiving the IMF cash will be for the government to effectively default as part of a debt restructuring deal with bondholders. Jaresko said in February that the IMF wants Ukraine to reach a restructuring deal before the IMF starts its first scheduled loan review in June.

Ukraine has $16bn-18bn of international bonds outstanding, according to Bloomberg data. The benchmark 2017 bonds are trading at under 50 cents on the dollar, after a rally on March 9-10 saw the price of the $2.6bn worth of 2017 bonds increase 1.91 cents to 46.98, up from a low of 41.35 in late February.

Bondholders of Ukraine debt could avoid a haircut, but even reprofiling of the debt - changing the period of repayment - would count as restricted default on completion of the deal. "We don't expect haircuts at this stage," Fitch director Paul Rawkins told Bloomberg on March 10.

Ukraine has already contracted the investment banking group Rothschild to start talks with bondholders. Rothschild's Giovannie Salvetti told Bloomberg earlier that a bondholders' committee would likely be formed, but that creditors were divided into those wanting to wait for a Ukraine proposal, and those wanting to take the initiative in warning Ukraine what conditions they would consider unacceptable.

The restructuring talks may be made more complicated by the composition of the bondholders. US mutual fund firm Franklin Templeton is the largest holder of Ukraine's sovereign debt, with up to 30% of the total, making them a key player in the restructuring talks.

In addition, Russia owns all of a two-year $3bn Eurobond issued as part of a controversial bailout in December 2013 by now ousted president Viktor Yanukovych.

Russian officials have stated they would not agree to any restructuring. But the Kremlin has indicated that it would not seek early repayment of the Eurobonds, the covenant of which stipulates that total Ukrainian debt should not exceed 60% of GDP. Central bank head Gontareva has acknowledged that Ukraine has already passed this threshhold.

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 #18
Russia Insider
http://russia-insider.com
March 10, 2015
Revealed: The Harsh, Agonizing Terms of IMF Ukraine Loans
Maidan promised convergence with standards of living in the EU but IMF is bringing agony and pain
By Ivan Katchanovski
Ivan Katchanovski is a lecturer at University of Ottawa. Author of The "Sniper's Massacre" on the Maidan in Ukraine
[Easier to read here http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/03/10/4279]

Leaked documents, which were previously kept secret by the leaders of Ukraine, show that as a condition of getting a new IMF loan, the Ukrainian government agreed inter alia to the following:

-raising prices for natural gas and heating to households to the level of prices for imported natural gas by April 2017, starting with the first increase in April 2015
-cutting 20% of state employees in 2015 reducing the number of higher education institutions from 802 to 317
-and raising the retirement age by 5 years.

Such economic policy would increase the household prices for natural gas by more than ten times and bring the combined utility payments for energy to the levels approaching or exceeding wages and pensions of a significant percentage of Ukrainians. Such price shocks would be coupled with expected continuation of the economic crisis, which has already resulted in three fold devaluation of the Ukrainian currency, significant declines in GDP, industrial output, real wages, and export and significant increases of inflation and unemployment.

The Ukrainian central bank has asked the IMF to maintain its current practice of parallel exchange rates and currency controls, which include an official lower rate set by the central bank and much higher black market exchange rate.

The IMF agreement does not include political conditions, such as ending the civil war in Ukraine and democratization of its increasingly undemocratic political system.

The agreement and the economic policy based on the Washington Consensus fail to address key institutional issues that would prevent such shock therapy from working in Ukraine, such as corruption, property rights, social capital, and oligarchic capture of the state. The current agreement with the IMF is likely to be only partially implement as was the case with previous such agreements. In either case, ordinary Ukrainians who were misled by the Maidan opposition leaders/current government leaders and the Ukrainian media with promises of EU standards of living, are likely to suffer the economic shocks without any prospects of reaching EU standards of living in the next years and decades.

This report is based on the March 3, 2015 news report in Glavcom.ua: 'What Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko promised the IMF. The full package of documents'. Below is a Google Translate of that article. [http://glavcom.ua/articles/27110.html]

What Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko promised the IMF. The full package of documents

03/04/2015 Fedor Orischuk, Katerina Peshko, Paul Wujec, "Commander in Chief"

At the disposal of "Commander" was the text of the Memorandum of the Ukrainian government with the International Monetary Fund, which should provide funding for large-scale Ukraine bailout

On March 11, the IMF Board of Directors will consider increasing funding for Ukraine, without which the state is facing bankruptcy. The decision to start a new four-year program of lending - Extended Fund Facility - international financiers will take, starting from the package of economic reforms of the government Yatsenyuk stated in the three documents: Letter of Intent, Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies, and Technical Memorandum of Understanding. They have developed Cabinet and the National Bank, and at the end of last week approved the President Poroshenko, Prime Yatsenyuk, National Bank head Valery Gontareva, Finance Minister Natalia Yaresko.

Full content not yet made public - the right of publication of the Memorandum Ukrainian authorities have provided the International Monetary Fund. Yatsenyuk did not disclose its content to their party members, who asked about it at a meeting of last Friday. "Commander in Chief" managed to get a copy of the package of documents .

The new four-year program with the expansion of credit (Extended Fund Facility, EFF) should replace the existing «stand by» (was adopted for the period 2014 - 2016.). As noted by IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, the new project of cooperation should "support measures for the immediate macroeconomic stabilization, as well as broad and deep economic reforms for several years to ensure economic and financial stability and restoring sustainable growth."

EFF is bigger and more durable than its predecessor. Instead of two years, the credit period grows to four, return of credit increased almost twice (up to 10 years).

Lagarde also previously stated that Ukraine can expect to attract $ 40 billion. From different sources. The share of the International Monetary Fund in this assistance will be 12.35 billion. SDR .

Preliminary agreements Ukrainian authorities last week moved to the paper. Here's how it formulated the Ukrainian government in the documents sent to the IMF:

1. Letter of intent to the International Monetary Fund.

"For the implementation of reform and adjustment of the economy Ukraine filed a request for a new four-year agreement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) amounting to the equivalent of 12,348,060,000. SDR (900 percent of quota and about 17.5 billion US dollars) and have the intention to abolish our agreement on "stand-by" 2014 - 2016 years. immediately prior to the conclusion of a new enhanced agreement. Our international partners have pledged additional funds to provide full funding. "

Government guarantees with these tools:

- To ensure low and stable inflation under a flexible exchange rate, while promoting stable accumulation of reserves,

- Recovery of the banking system,

- Strengthening of fiscal stability, while providing the capacity to finance spending on social protection and investment in infrastructure,

- The adoption of measures to eliminate the deficit "Naftogaz of Ukraine" until 2017.

A decisive role in this case will play large-scale structural reforms, first of all, strengthening the investment potential and economic growth through:

- The introduction of the reform of public administration, including anti-corruption and judiciary reform,

- Deregulation and tax administration reforms aimed at improving the business climate,

- Reform of state-owned enterprises, restructuring "Naftogaz of Ukraine" and the improvement of corporate governance.

2. Memorandum about economical and financial policy - the main instrument aimed at the IMF, including a more detailed description of the economic program, which the government is going to introduce with financial support from the IMF and other donors.

Here is the most important information from this document:

* Development of the situation and prognosis. Economic activity in the country decreased by 6.9%. In December 2014 continued to decline in industrial production, retail trade, construction volumes. It may reach the bottom in the mid-2015. The government hopes that in the 2016 - 2018 biennium. is expected to recover and build economic growth, which in the medium term will reach 4%.

* Inflationary pressure drops. By the end of 2014, inflation reached 25% due to the fact that the hryvnia has lost half its value against the dollar. Predictions for 2015: inflation will remain at the same level. In the future, it should be slowed down dramatically: up to 10% in 2016 to 5% in 2018.

* The pressure on the balance of payments will be reduced. Export volumes in 2015 will be reduced. However, in the government believe that the program of economic reforms will make Ukraine attractive for investment, to get access to the capital market. According to the plans of the Cabinet, the current account deficit in 2016 - 2018 years. stabilized at the level of 1% - 1.5% of GDP and reserves "gradually restored to a comfortable level."

Monetary and exchange rate policies:

The government says it will stick to a flexible exchange rate regime as a buffer to the Exogenous Shocks Facility.

Government asks IMF to preserve the right to exchange restrictions and practice of parallel exchange rates, which are used now because of the difficulties in the balance of payments.

Sale of foreign currency by the National Bank will be limited in order to facilitate external payments of the government, as well as the financing of energy imports "Naftogaz of Ukraine" and the corporation "Energoatom".

In this case, the text contains a reservation: at the request of the donor, the Ukrainian authorities are ready to abandon the practice of foreign exchange restrictions and multiple exchange rates.

If the WTO does not support a temporary surcharge on imports, introduced February 25, 2015, the government is also ready to remove it as soon as possible.

In addition, the IMF experts reported that the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine is working on a prolongation of the government domestic liabilities in foreign currency. And with the People's Bank of China is now discussing the extension of the "swap" line.

Changes in the National Bank

Expected change in legislation that will do the job NBU more independent and transparent. Strengthen the role of the Board of the NBU. Provide increased autonomy Bank procedures for the appointment and dismissal of members of the Board and Vice Chairman of the Board.

Financial Sector Policy

Strengthen the regulation and supervision - to identify and reduce lending to related parties.

Introduced the unlimited liability of owners of banks for losses on loans granted directly or indirectly for the benefit of shareholders, who own 10 percent or more (including shareholders acting together) at the end of 2014. In addition, the NBU will have the right to admit the existence of cost-related relationship between banks and borrowers on the basis of objective criteria.

To eliminate the above-limit lending to related parties, before the end of the spring should be adopted legislative changes to eliminate loopholes that could leave the possibility of bypassing the credit limits for insiders.

Before the beginning of June 2015 the 10 largest private banks provide statements on the volume of lending to related parties. Next dozen financial institutions - by the end of July. The rest - until the end of September.

By the end of 2015, the NBU with the technical support of the four largest accounting firms will review the reports of the first twenty banks on the volume of lending to related parties. And by April 2016 will be ready to report on all banks.

The state and the NBU will not interfere with bilateral negotiations between borrowers and banks on the restructuring of foreign currency mortgages. In this case, if the law is passed, forces convert foreign currency mortgage loans in the hryvnia, the president will veto.
 
Fiscal policy

All major taxpayers will be transferred to the Inspection Service of large tax payers.

By 2017, will be phased out gossubsidirovanie "Naftogaz".

Reduction in the combined deficit of the national management and "Naftogaz Ukraine" from 10.3% of GDP in 2014 to 7.4% of GDP in 2015. In 2018 - 2.6%.

As stated in the Memorandum, these figures are significant fiscal efforts, since the primary balance changed from a deficit of 1.2% of GDP in 2014, reaching a surplus of 1.6% in 2018.

Primary expenses decreased from 43% of GDP in 2014 to 39.2% in 2018. Deficit "Naftogaz" from the current 5.7% of GDP will fall to zero by 2017.

The budget for 2015

On July 1, 2015 introduced the mandatory use of cash registers FOPami.

Payroll and pensions

The number of wage earners from the budget will be reduced by 3% for 2015. In particular, 20% of civil servants. Last would be possible by reducing the regulatory authorities. This process begins on 1 March and will be completed before September 1.

In an effort to combat corruption will be lifted restrictions on wages in government and the NBU at 7 - 10 times the minimum wage.

Umesh payments will be working pensioners and limited the possibility of early retirement. Raising the retirement age for them for 5 years will be gradual (6 months each year). It will save 1.6 billion. Hryvnia in 2015.

It is assumed the payment of pensions to those who are outside the control of the authorities in the territories.

Since 2016 will be provided for the indexation of pensions (including pensions and civil servants spetspensy) to the level of prices.

Health Care

Reform should open the sector to private funding and ensure a gradual transition to health insurance. By the end of March 2015 to the Parliament to act accordingly bills.

Education

There will be a reduction in higher education institutions with 802 to 317-ti.

Reducing the number of secondary schools will reach 5% due to aggregation.

Investment

The level of capital investment will be increased from 1% of GDP in 2014 to 3% of GDP in 2018.

Tax policy

AIC - the most profitable industry. Therefore, in January 2016 the action mode VAT will expand to the entire agricultural sector.

Energy

There will be a "sharp increase in prices for end consumers." The rise in price of gas and heat in late 2014 has already happened in the 56% and 40%, respectively. However, the subsequent depreciation of the hryvnia washed away profits, according to the text of the Memorandum. Therefore, the authorities substantially increase prices for consumers and will work on payment discipline.

On April 1, 2015 for households increase in gas prices will be 285%. This would correspond to the value of 3,600 USD. per thousand. cu. m (consumption less than 200 cu. m per month) and 7187 UAH (the consumption of more than 200 cu. m per month)

On April 1, 2015 will increase the price of thermal energy: 625 UAH / Gcal. In the future, the price will be attached to the gas: in April 2016 it will meet 75% of the price of imported fuel. In 2017 - 100%.

With the involvement of the EBRD will corporatization key state-owned companies, "Naftogaz of Ukraine" and its subsidiaries, "Energoatom" Ukrenergo.

"Naftogaz Ukrainy"

Until June 30, 2015 will be held independent audit of accounts receivable company to identify debtors. Will lift the moratorium that protect such enterprises from the application of enforcement and disconnected from the gas supply system.

National Anti-Corruption Bureau

The creation of the anti-corruption bureau to be completed by the end of April 2015. By this time the director will NABA and budget.

Disclosure of assets

Until the end of March 2015 will be revised legal framework in relation to the disclosure of the assets of senior officials, which fall under the jurisdiction of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau. The law should appear requirement to disclose beneficiary owners and controllers of any funds or assets.

3. Technical Memorandum of Understanding provides a coordinated position of the Ukrainian leadership and IMF experts to identify modifiable parameters, which are set on the basis of quantitative indicators for the economic program. Here is a summary of methods for assessing the effectiveness of the program execution, requirements for the provision of information necessary for the monitoring of compliance with the targets.

Determined that for the purposes of the program, all exchange rates are used to assess the levels of reserves and monetary aggregates - is the official hryvnia exchange rate to the US dollar at 15.7686, established by the National Bank as of December 31, 2014.

Gross domestic product is calculated according to the System of National Accounts 2008 and does not account for the Crimea and Sevastopol.

In this appendix are also served quantitative performance criteria, indicative "ceilings" and operating performance criteria.

And also - put forward demands in the supply of the National Bank statements. NBU total incurs about 50 points, obligations to the IMF.

Deposit Guarantee Fund of individuals and the Ministry of Finance also undertake a number of obligations to international creditors. Office should be:

- Provide the IMF with information on monthly consolidated balances of other non-governmental legal entities, including SOEs that are not owned sector of national management accounts are opened in the State Treasury - not later than 25 days after the end of the month;

- Provide the IMF with daily reports on operational performance indicators of budget execution, the daily income of borrowed funds in the state budget and the embezzlement of debt service;

- Provide the Fund with monthly data on fund payment for the work of the public sector;

- Report to the IMF on a monthly basis, not later than 15 days after the end of the month, on the cash deficit of the national government;

- Apply on a monthly basis no later than the 1st day of the second month of the reporting data on all budgetary balances receivable;

- Provide monthly information no later than 25 days after the end of each month, the amounts and timing of all external to contract or guaranteed debt of the central government;

- Provide monthly amortization schedules debt (internal and external), which will be updated every week;

- Provide data on the external and internal credits main managers of budgetary funds and non-governmental entities (including "Naftogaz"), which are guaranteed by the government - on a monthly basis no later than 25 days after the end of the month, etc.

The document also spelled reporting obligations to the IMF, which lie, in particular, on the state fiscal service of Ukraine, as well as the Ministry of Economic Development, Ministry of Energy and Mines, the Ministry of Regional Development, Construction and Housing and Communal Services, NERC, National Commission for Regulation utilities and Public Administration of Statistics of Ukraine. Buy This game has all the combat aircraft, armored vehicles and navy! In this game there is everything .

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 #19
INTERVIEW-Russia may ease Ukraine's gas terms, but Kiev must settle its bills
By Katya Golubkova and Vladimir Soldatkin

MOSCOW, March 11 (Reuters) - Russia may ease the terms of its gas supplies to Ukraine but Kiev will have to pay for the gas Moscow is supplying to rebel-held areas of east Ukraine, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said.

A supply deal for the winter expires on March 31, along with a discount of $100 per 1,000 cubic metres of gas and a suspension of a take-or-pay requirement.

In an interview with Reuters, Novak said Russia was open to prolonging those concessions even without a new deal, which has been referred to as a "summer package", for the period after March 31.

"A discount is possible under the contract as well. No separate (summer) packages are needed if Ukraine and Russia reach an agreement. Take-or-pay (suspension)... is also possible, it depends on the talks between companies," Novak said.

Russia and Ukraine have clashed over pricing and unpaid gas bills, with the Russians halting supply three times over the past decade, including a stoppage for much of the second half of 2014.

If Moscow and Kiev fail to settle their most recent dispute, supplies to the European Union could potentially be disrupted as gas for EU countries is piped across Ukraine, although there was no such impact during last year's stoppage.

A crisis was averted on Friday, when Gazprom received $15 million from Ukrainian state energy firm Naftogaz for gas supplies to last until March 15.

Gazprom's gas shipments to Ukraine are governed by a 2009 contract that runs until 2019, but within that some terms can be adjusted.

Novak said that if the gas price is $330 or more per 1,000 cubic metres in the second quarter, then the maximum discount for Kiev could be $100. If the price is lower, the discount would be not more than 30 percent of the price. The price for the second quarter could be in the range of $350-$360 with no discount, he said.

That compares to $329 for the current quarter.

Novak said that gas for rebel-held east Ukraine is supplied at the same price that Naftogaz pays for supplies to the rest of Ukraine.

The minister said Kiev would have to settle its bills for supplies to the east.

"We are supplying (east Ukraine) under the (2009) contract. Gazprom doesn't ship for free. Bills, invoices are being prepared," Novak said.

"There is no clarity yet on how debts for supplies to east Ukraine will be settled. ...Maybe via an arbitration court, maybe via negotiations."

On gas exports further afield, Novak said Russia would ship as much gas to Europe in 2015 as it did last year. In 2014, Gazprom exported 147 billion cubic metres to Europe and Turkey, where it generates more than half of its revenues.

Novak said volumes last year were unusually low because of mild weather, and should be higher in 2015.

PIPELINES

Russia has a long-term goal of bypassing Ukraine as a transit country. It ships around 40 percent of its gas to Europe via Ukraine, while the rest goes via Belarus, Moldova, the Nord Stream subsea pipeline to Germany and the Blue Stream subsea pipeline to Turkey.

In December last year it cancelled plans to build the South Stream gas pipeline under the Black Sea to Bulgaria and onwards into southeast Europe.

It is now planning an alternative export route, unofficially called Turkish Stream, with a capacity of 63 bcm per year.

Instead of extending the pipeline further to Europe, Gazprom now plans to sell its gas at a hub on the Turkish-Greek border, requiring those European countries who want access to the gas to build links to the hub.

"Now counties should be building (onshore links) on their own. The routes could be different - they may come to Italy if they want. This is not our business anymore," he said.

Novak added that the costs of the offshore parts of Turkish Stream would be "comparable" to those of the South Stream project. The budget to build the offshore section of South Stream was previously estimated at up to 17 billion euros ($18.3 billion).

Russia is also planning to ramp up gas exports to Asia to reduce its reliance on sales to Europe.

Russia plans to ship gas to China via two yet-to-be-built pipelines: Power of Siberia, supplied exclusively by two Siberian gas fields, and Altai, which is to connect the Russian gas pipeline system from West to East.

Russia and China reached agreement on the Power of Siberia pipeline last May. Novak said he hoped for a firm contract for Altai in the first half of this year.

"These (two) projects are not linked to each other... (The contract signed last May) will be implemented irrespective of whether Altai happens or not," Novak said.

He added that Russia was sticking to plans to deliver its first gas to China via Power of Siberia at the end of 2018 or start of 2019. Russia and China are not discussing a pre-payment or loan for the Power of Siberia project anymore, he said.

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 #20
Ukraine raises defense spending four times

KIEV, March 10. /TASS/. Ukraine will spend four times more on weapons and military equipment this year, raising its the spending from last year's 1.25% of GDP to 5.2% in 2015, said Finance Minister Natalya Yaresko.

Budget allocation will top $3.8 billion, President Petro Poroshenko told state TV Channel One in a parallel announcement.

"Higher spending is caused by the current military and political situation around Ukraine and poor conditions of certain weapons and equipment developed and built more than 30 years ago," defense sector spokesperson Viktoria Kushnir told reporters on Tuesday.

Ukraine's forces will buy more than 500 items of weapons and hardware, more than 300,000 "means of destruction" and 3,500 "other samples of weapons and equipment", she said.

As for deals struck last year, the military will be supplied with 450,000 "means of destruction", 70 types of key weapons and more than 6,000 units of other armaments, she added.

Thermal imaging devices would be delivered from US supplier American Technologies Network Corporation before April 30. Archer will supply binoculars.

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 #21
UT1 (Kyiv)
March 9, 2015
Ukrainian president interviewed on arms withdrawal, Crimea strategy, reforms

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said that both sides in the Donbass conflict have withdrawn most of their military hardware from the line of contact in compliance with the Minsk peace agreement.

Poroshenko was speaking in an interview with the chief of the state-run UT1 channel, Zurab Alasaniya, broadcast on UT1 on 9 March.

In the conversation, the president also outlined his strategy to bring Crimea back to Ukraine and his phone contacts with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Poroshenko attributed the decline in living standards in Ukraine to economic problems caused by the Donbass conflict. However, he disagreed with Alasaniya's suggestion that the government failed to implement reforms, highlighting Kiev's success in securing a lower gas price.

Poroshenko announced that this was the first interview in a series of his weekly conversations with various TV channels. "I think it is very important to move towa! rds a radically different model of communication with society," he explained.

Future of cease-fire in Donbass

Asked about the current situation in conflict-torn Donbass, Poroshenko said that both sides have pulled back much of their heavy weaponry from the line of contact in line with the cease-fire agreement reached in Minsk.

"What is happening right now on the front line? Is there a cease-fire or not? It depends what you mean by this. Certainly we can say today that we have managed to stop the attacking advance of the aggressor. The Ukrainian side has pulled back the lion's share of multiple-launch rocket systems and heavy artillery and we see that the Russian-backed militants have pulled back a significant part," he noted.

He said that Ukraine remained a strong supporter of the cease-fire, adding that separatists were losing support among the people living in rebel-held areas. "People do not understand why, being under occupation, they should pay an enormous price through receiving no single penny. Only those pensi! oners who re-registered [in Ukraine-controlled territories] get their pensions from the Ukrainian state. The others do not understand why they should feed the armed gang which does not defend them, but robs and loots," Poroshenko said.

He added that he had three phone conversations with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin since 15 February - all in the so-called Normandy format involving French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "These are two-hour conversations. The issues that we discuss range from [Ukrainian pilot jailed in Russia] Nadiya Savchenko to the control and activities of the OSCE special monitoring mission; from the release of the illegally held hostages to the activities of the joint control centre which should put pressure on those who violate the cease-fire; from the implementation of peace agreements to energy security," Poroshenko said.

Asked about what he thought of Putin's actions and policies, Por! oshenko replied: "This person acts on his own understanding of Russia's interests. I do not share this understanding."

No victory until Crimea "freed"

Asked about Kiev's strategy to bring Crimea back, Poroshenko outlined several priorities. First, he said, it was important to ensure that the rights of pro-Ukrainian people living on the peninsula are observed. "We must protect each Ukrainian affected by torture of the Russian special services, each Crimean Tatar, each Ukrainian activist and each clergyman of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate. This is the first priority that I've outlined for the Foreign Ministry, the government and special services," Poroshenko said.

In addition, the Justice Ministry and foreign lawyers have already been tasked with "judicial protection" of Ukrainian property remaining in Crimea - both state and corporate owned.

Also, Poroshenko promised that Ukraine would bring back all of its arms remaining on the peninsula and step up security on the Crimean border to prevent "sabotage groups and terrorists" from crossing in! to mainland.

However, he noted that the most important task was to show people in Crimea that life in Ukraine is "better". "The so-called increase in pensions and salaries for public sector employees [in Crimea] has been nullified by the devaluation in Russia. Prices are much higher than those in Ukraine. Living standards are falling, no-one is coming to vacation there. Sanctions [imposed by the West] are efficient. Our firm stance is that Crimea is and will be Ukrainian. We cannot achieve victory until we free Crimea," Poroshenko said.

Living standards falling

Responding to Alasaniya's remarks that living standards in Ukraine are falling and no reforms are being carried out, Poroshenko attributed the situation to the "conditions of war".

"We should look the truth in the eye. A large chunk of Ukraine's territory is under occupation. About 25 per cent of Ukraine's production capacity has been lost. As much as 10 per cent of production capacity has been physically ruined," the president explained. "Defence expenditures have increased and are now at over 90bn [presumably hryvnyas, about 3.75bn dollars]. In the conditions of war, the country finds power to achieve it."

While admitting that living standards are deteriorating, he said that he disagreed with a "very popular notion that reforms are not happening".

"Do we not understand that during war we get pension arrears, wage arrears for public sector employees, because the reserves which used to finance it are spent on war? For nine months, the country has been in a difficult, exhausting war for nine months. [Despite this] combination of factors - war expenditures and the growth in the payment balance deficit - we achieved a situati! on where we have no wage or pension arrears," Poroshenko said.

He also warned against viewing reforms as an improvement in living standards. "This is not the correct understanding of reforms, this is populism. But I promise you that we will build a new and different economy in the country. We will defeat corruption. And defeating corruption will not only mean voting for the establishment of the anticorruption bureau or anticorruption laws. Corruption has specific surnames and names and means specific individuals who should be in prison," the president noted.

Gas supplies diversified

Poroshenko played up Ukraine's achievements in energy security, saying it has managed to "fully" diversify gas supplies and achieve a significant reduction of the gas price.

"We have survived the winter, we only bought 2bn cu.m. of gas and paid less than 300 dollars [per 1,000 cu.m.] for it in our last purchase. Finally, this resulted in the Russian Federation being forced to apply for a 68-per-cent increase in the volume of pumping, which crashed the gas market. And today we will buy gas for 245 dollars in reverse supplies [from Europe]," Poroshenko said.

He continued: "And finally, we have managed to overcome the mechanisms of political and energy pressure on Ukraine and fully diversified energy supplies. We dreamt about it for 23 years. We, my team and our team, have done this."

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 #22
www.opendemocracy.net
March 11, 2015
The empire that is Shakhtar Donetsk FC
Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine's richest man, has financed the success of Shakhtar Donetsk FC. But war in the Donbas means that the club is now playing in Lviv, 1200 kilometres away from its home in Donetsk. Can it survive?
By Manuel Veth
Manuel Veth is a history PhD candidate at King's College London, researching the economics and politics of football in Soviet and post-Soviet space. You can find some of his research on www.futbolgrad.com. Follow him on Twitter: @homosovieticus

Where people once lined up to watch some of Europe's best football, queues now form for food, medicine, and clothing. The fan shop at the Donbas Arena, the home of Shakhtar Donetsk, has become the home of 'Pomozhem Detiam' (Let's help the kids), a charity run by Rinat Akhmetov, the owner of Shakhtar Donetsk. Along with the infrastructure in the Donbas, both Akhmetov and the club have taken a major hit due to fighting in the region.

For the club, the conflict has meant the forced exile to the Carpathian Mountains of Lviv, located in the far west of Ukraine, an area long considered the heartland of Ukrainian nationalism.

Shakhtar, however, is much more than just a club, it is part of a large investment holding called System Capital Management (SCM). Like Shakhtar, SCM is deeply rooted in the region. This has meant that both organisations have been severely affected by the conflict in the Donbas.

Rinat Akhmetov is Shakhtar Donetsk

To understand the connection between Shakhtar and Akhmetov, one must go back to the early 1990s. In 1995, the then Shakhtar owner Akhat Bragin was assassinated during a football match. Akhmetov, who at the time was Bragin's right-hand man, took over control of Bragin's business activities in the Donbas region; and in 1997, formal ownership also of the club. Following its takeover by Akhmetov, Shakhtar became a rare success story in the post-Soviet space, winning 9 Ukrainian championships, 8 Ukrainian cups, and the UEFA Cup (now Europa League) in 2009. According to the World Soccer website, the club was thereafter able to increase its revenue from £22.35 million in 2009 to £44.45 million in 2010. Much of this was due to new commercial deals arising out of the club's increased popularity following the UEFA Cup win.

But success came at a price: in the period between 1995 and 2011, Akhmetov spent £900 million on the club. This included the cost (£260 million) of building the new stadium, the Donbas Arena. Shakhtar's annual budget of £64.5 million, has allowed the club to maintain a squad of elite players from Ukraine as well as top players from abroad. The fact that Shakhtar has been completely dependent on Akhmetov's money is illustrated by the figures for 2012: the club's annual revenue stood at £44.45m, £20m short of their costs; and that budget shortfall has been covered by Akhmetov's company SCM, which also happens to be the sponsor of the club.

While Akhmetov's success story with the club has become synonymous with the purchase of highly talented players from South America, the explanation for its success is actually far more complex. As early as 1999, the club had opened a new youth facility in which 3,000 children could train. Furthermore, Akhmetov provided funds for a brand new training base - the Kirsha Training Complex - which, before the Donbas conflict, was considered one of the most modern training facilities in Europe.

Football talent

The club also began to change its philosophy. An internationally experienced coach, the Romanian Mircea Lucescu was hired, and has now coached Shakhtar for eleven years, with enormous success. Marketing, and youth development specialists from abroad were also brought in. One of these men included the Englishman Joe Palmer, who had previously worked for Honda, Royal Mail, and most importantly, the international brand that is Manchester United, working specifically on the club's TV station - MUTV. As a result, Shakhtar became the first club from the post-Soviet space to introduce club TV. At Shakhtar, Palmer was central to the creation of an intensive marketing campaign that has made Shakhtar one of the most recognisable football brands in Europe. One of the major changes was the introduction of a new logo that combined elements of Ukrainian culture, such as the trident. and merged them with local symbols from the Donbas such as hammers.

Akhmetov relied on specialists who clearly understood the business of football more than he did, in order to build the Shakhtar product, which is more than can be said of some other oligarch football owners. In Jakob Preuss' excellent documentary 'The Other Chelsea - A Story from Donetsk', he compares Shakhtar to Chelsea FC; clubs that are similar only in that they are both owned by oligarchs.

Another important role fell to Patrick van Leeuven, a Dutchman who, between 2006 and 2013, was instrumental in setting up the Shakhtar Academy. He had previously worked for Feyenoord Rotterdam's youth academy. Another key figure is the Ukrainian Sergey Palkin, who was brought in, in June 2003, as the club's director of finance, but has since become acting CEO. He previously worked as a senior auditor for Coopers & Lybrand LLP. All of these men had one thing in common: they were highly educated and had collected valuable business knowledge outside of Ukraine.

With Akhmetov's vast funds these men were able to grow the club into a real brand with modern facilities, a brand new stadium, and an excellent youth academy. All staple requirements for a successful football club. In this regard Shakhtar reflects SCM.

SCM

SCM originated from the empire that Akhmetov inherited from Bragin in 1995. Since then his assets have grown to include over 100 companies in mining and metals, energy, finance, telecommunication, real estate, media, clay production, oil products, retail, grocery, heavy engineering, transportation, and agriculture, to name but a few. SCM also operates on a global basis in Ukraine, Russia, USA, Italy, Great Britain, Switzerland, and Bulgaria, and, before the conflict, employed over 300,000 people.

As with Shakhtar, Rinat Akhmetov is simply listed as the owner of the holding company, and has handed over the daily operations to specialists such as Oleg Popov who is the acting CEO of the company, and in this capacity also controls the finances of the football club.

SCM has been the formal owner of the club since April 2006 when Shakhtar Donetsk was transferred from Rinat Akhmetov and various other shareholders to SCM, which was able to take control of 99.998 per cent of the club (Akhmetov retained the remaining 0.002 per cent).  With this transfer of ownership, the club became an official holding of SCM, with Oleg Popov as the official chairman of the club, and with Palkin as the acting CEO. Sources in Ukraine have said that the main motivation behind this move was the fact that this would make Shakhtar and SCM appear to be a more modern and transparent company.

As one journalist described to me: 'This move was not about hiding anything, quite the contrary, Shakhtar is actually one of the few clubs in Ukrainian football that pays their taxes.' Instead, the move was most likely about appearances, as Akhmetov's absolute control over SCM meant that the club remained under his control, and he remained in the position as the club's president. In fact, the restructuring of SCM and Shakhtar appears to be part of a plan that is designed to portray the company as a modern transparent corporation, and in turn Akhmetov as a clean and legitimate businessman.

Conflict in Ukraine 1 - Shakhtar Donetsk - 0

This transparency sets the team further apart from other clubs playing in Ukraine. According to the Shakhtar Code, the club also developed a club philosophy, which included the following statement: "To be an ambassador of Ukrainian football in the world and of international football in Ukraine, ultimately driving the development of football culture in our country."

The club itself had begun a marketing campaign that makes them look like a team that is representing not only Donetsk and the Donbas, but which instead represents all of Ukraine.  When the conflict began in the Donbas, however, and the club was forced into exile in Lviv, its ambitions to become an all-Ukrainian club caused some fans to half jokingly refer to Shakhtar Donetsk, Shakhtar Lviv, or Shakhtar Kiev, on social media platforms. Indeed, with the club playing in Lviv, and training in Kiev, the label 'all-Ukrainian club' is perhaps a fitting one for Shakhtar at the moment.

The truth is, playing in exile has hurt the club financially. While playing 1200 kilometres away from home, Shakhtar has actually been able to attract more fans to their games than their current city rival Karpaty Lviv (average attendance is 8417 vs. 6300). At the same time, however, the director of the club Sergei Palkin has made it clear that playing in the Lviv Arena, even in front of a capacity crowd, in the Champions League, has actually cost the club money, because the Lviv Arena only seats 34,000 compared to the 58,000 at the Donbas Arena.

The players

Recently, there have been problems surrounding 13 Brazilian players that Shakhtar employs. They threatened to not return to Ukraine, and expressed a desire to leave the club citing security fears. Fortunately for the club they were able to fight off the mutiny during the summer. Rumours of a fire sale of players appeared again during the winter transfer window, but Shakhtar was able to resist several offers from abroad, including a concrete offer from Chelsea for the Brazilian attacking midfielder Douglas Costa, for whom the fee was rumoured to be in the region of £30m. It certainly helped that the club launched an extensive training camp in Brazil, in what was openly percieved as an appeasement mission for the club's Brazilian stars; and that the club is still in contention in the Champions League.

In truth, however, the 'Shakhtar Code' has always been to purchase the best young talented players from South America and the former USSR; and to sell them at a profit when the time is right. Shakhtar has been an especially appealing destination for such players as the club is a regular in the Champions League, in which the Brazilians, for example, can showcase their skills to clubs in Western Europe. With that aim in mind, Shakhtar have worked together with various player agents, and have a well-established scouting network.

There is, however, also a dark side to the story. The club has been accused of having several players on their books that are part of Third-Party-Ownership deals, a practice that has been banned by FIFA this winter but is currently under review.

In light of the current crisis and the fact that the club has been running a deficit by playing in Lviv, it is no surprise that Shakhtar is looking to sell one or two of its highly talented South American players this upcoming summer. This, however, has always been a major part of the club's methods. Still, the continued insecurity in the Donbas could mean that player agents may take advantage of the situation, in order to force cheaper transfers to clubs in Western Europe.

Feeling the pressure

The major game changer for the club may yet be the political and economic pressure that Akhmetov has faced in recent months. For one, he has lost influence in Ukrainian politics. The most recent example is the presidency of the Football Federation of Ukraine (FFU). Here, Akhmetov's biggest economic and political rival Ihor Kolomoyskyi has announced his intention to run for the position.

As Ukrainian journalist Denis Trubetskoy has pointed out on Twitter, former FFU president Anatoliy Konkov was long regarded as Akhmetov's man, but the ongoing conflict in the Donbas has put a major dent into Akhmetov's influence over Ukraine's politics, economics, and sport.

It is not only in football that Akhmetov is feeling the pressure; he is facing investigations by Ukraine's secret service into his alleged financing of Russian separatist forces in the Donbas. That these allegations are likely politically motivated, and instigated by his economic and political opposition, points to a major shift in power within the clan structure of the country.

Since the beginning of the conflict in the Donbas, Kolomoyskyi has been able to gain back much of the control he lost during the time when the Party of Regions was in power; and he has since taken over many areas that were traditionally controlled by Akhmetov. Before Maidan and the conflict, it was Kolomoyskyi and his Dnipropetrovsk connection that were on the economic retreat, as Akhmetov's business appeared to control the country.

While a lull in the fighting in the Donbas suggests that peace might be achievable in eastern Ukraine, it remains to be seen whether Akhmetov can regain his political and economic might; and if Shakhtar can maintain its position as Ukraine's biggest football club.

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 #23
http://truth-out.org
March 9, 2015
Mr. Poroshenko's Parallel Reality
By Halyna Mokrushyna
Halyna Mokrushyna is currently enrolled in the PhD program in Sociology at the University of Ottawa and a part-time professor. Her doctoral project deals with the memory of Stalinist purges in Ukraine.

KIEV, UKRAINE - NOV 24, 2014: President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko during an official meeting with the Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, in Kiev. (Photo via Shutterstock)
President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko during an official meeting with Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, in Kiev, Ukraine on November 24, 2014. (Photo: Drop of Light / Shutterstock.com)

I thought President Poroshenko could no longer surprise me. I was wrong. Following his desperate performance in Davos, Switzerland, in January, where he presented a chunk of metal from the Volnovakha bus* and his Munich security conference speech on February 7, in which the handful of Russian passports he held up in the air were supposed to prove that Russian troops were in Ukraine, he delivered the following masterpiece at the commemoration of the first anniversary of Euromaidan in Kiev: "Ukrainians, who were not born for war, peaceful Ukrainians, took up arms and stopped a well-trained army, one of the most powerful in the world and on the continent . . . "

I am not a military expert; I know close to nothing about armies, weapons, and war. But I have been reading articles by NATO experts confirming at least one aspect of Poroshenko's statement. Global Firepower places Russia second after the United States as the most powerful military force, in terms of "conventional war-making capabilities across land, sea and air." One does not need West Point Academy training to understand that if Putin really wanted to have Ukraine, the Ukrainian army would be finished in a matter of days. I honestly cannot believe that Poroshenko is that stupid. However, in the same speech, he stated that "a newly created Ukrainian army with nationwide support from volunteers stopped the enemy at the far-Eastern frontiers." What far-East frontiers? Is Poroshenko day-dreaming about the Russian Far-East? Ukraine has never had a "Far-East frontier."

I also learned from Poroshenko's speech that Putin had been planning to attack Ukraine for years. He has been preparing the Russian military for just that. At the same time, the Evil Genius was creating a "fifth" column in Ukraine. I guess Poroshenko learned all of this while he was busy opening his chocolate and confectionary business in Russia. This is entirely logical for a president of a country where almost every channel of communication talks about Russian aggression and where Russian television channels are banned as propaganda outlets. Well, how about the propaganda that flows without end from the Ukrainian media? They tell ridiculous lies about "a planned retreat" of Ukrainian troops from Debaltsevo, while, in fact, Ukrainian soldiers were escaping encirclement by the insurgent Donetsk and Luhansk armies after their officers "heroically" left the battlefield.

I cannot believe that people who listen to Poroshenko absorb such lies without thinking. Facts remain facts. The problem is how the Ukrainian media relates them. There is a big discrepancy between what you hear on TV and what you see in real life. According to recent sociological research conducted by Research Branding Group, 41 percent of Ukrainians think that the Ukrainian mass media do not provide full and straight information about the military operation in the East. But how could they, when even the Ukrainian president does not tell the truth, to put it euphemistically?

To Europe, he promises he will hold a referendum on decentralization of Ukraine; in Ukraine, he says Ukraine will remain united and monolingual and no referendum will ever be organized. He proclaims himself to be a president of peace, while the militarization of the Ukrainian economy continues apace against a background of the population's increasing impoverishment and the rising cost of essentials. Ukrainian minds have been constantly bombarded by patriotic messages from the Ukrainian media, while no alternative view is allowed. The Russian media are outlawed, and Russian movies are banned. How long before Poroshenko declares the Russian language illegal as the language of a "foreign occupier?"

The same sociological research found that 52 percent of Ukrainians think that the situation will deteriorate in the immediate future. There is growing anxiety and fear within society. Yet the majority of Ukrainians (59 percent) still wants to continue fighting in Donetsk, although 72 percent believe there is no winner in a civil war, and 61 percent prefer negotiations to military action to resolve the Donbas conflict. Even Kopatko, the director of the agency that conducted the research, believes these contradictions indicate a serious social schizophrenia developing in Ukrainian society.

The president of Ukraine is a telling example of this cognitive dissonance. Or, he is playing a less-than-cunning political game. He is desperate for Western military aid to fight "pro-Russian terrorists." But this aid is long in coming - the West, and especially Europe, does not want a full-blown war with Russia. So in spite of all of Ukraine's new rulers' efforts to prove that Ukraine is European, Europe is in no hurry to welcome impoverished, socially unstable Ukraine into the family of European nations.

Yet Ukrainian politicians are so very European - in his Davos speech, Poroshenko boasted that all but one member of the Ukrainian Parliament now speak English, while a year before the Euromaidan revolution, only one member spoke English. Mr. Poroshenko, I presume? Leaving aside the fact that this is plainly not true, a simple question emerges: What happened to the Ukrainian economy since the victory of the Revolution of Dignity in February 2014? It is in a disastrous state, and no foreseeable language will get it back to where it was in 2013.

Keep practicing your English, Mr. Poroshenko. You need it to beg for money from your Western masters while you destroy Ukrainian industry in the East with Ukrainian weapons. And do not forget to blame the war in Donbas, which you yourself provoked, for all of Ukraine's economic and political problems.

Unfortunately, I see no end to Ukraine's troubles until the bulk of the Ukrainian population sobers up and sees the reality for what it is: The Euromaidan revolution did not destroy the old regime; rather, it propelled a different set of oligarchs to power, one with none of the independent thinking and leadership qualities that Ukraine needs right now.

Since Poroshenko has promised constitutional reforms and decentralization of power in Ukraine, why not deliver on these promises? Why not let Donetsk and Luhansk judge the sincerity and seriousness of these declarations? Even if you prefer calling them terrorists, which they are not, they have the support of the local population. No number of bombs and no degree of cutting natural gas supplies and social payments will ever persuade them that Ukraine is their "mother." You should talk to these people directly, Mr. Poroshenko.

Neither the West nor Russia will ever help Ukraine find a long-term solution to this war. If you consider Donbas to be part of Ukraine, then listen to the people of Donbas, Mr. President. Listen to them because they are your people too, like Ukrainians from Halychyna and Kiev. They are no better and no worse than the others. And they want to be heard. Stop wriggling, Mr. President, and decide once and for all whether you are a president of peace or a president of war.

*On January 13, 2015, a bus near the town Volnovakha in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine was hit by shrapnel from rocket shelling. Eleven people were killed and 13 were injured. The attack served as a pretext for the military offensive the Ukraine army and militias launched several days later, beginning with a renewed drive to take the shattered airport at Donetsk. That offensive ended ignominiously with a shattering defeat of the Ukrainian army at Debaltseve and a new ceasefire agreement reached during the night of Feb. 11/12. Volnovakha is located in Ukraine army-controlled territory. At the time of the bus tragedy, Donetsk self-defense forces say it was well beyond the range of their artillery.

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 #24
Moscow Times
March 11, 2015
Botched Law Could Close Hundreds of Foreign Firms' Rep Offices in Russia
By Peter Hobson

Representative and branch offices of foreign companies working in Russia are in a race against time to re-register with the authorities or lose their license to operate in the country.

The re-registration was intended to streamline bureaucracy for foreign firms, but organizational failures and lack of proper warning have left companies scrambling to react in time for the April 1 deadline. Of the thousands of representative offices working in Russia, "some will slip through the cracks," said Daniel Klein, parter at Moscow law firm Podolsky & Klein.

Those that do could see their business become illegal overnight and face the cancellation of foreign staff visas, which are sponsored by employers. To restart work they would have to start from scratch a registration process that takes months.

The fiasco is a blow to Russia's business climate that comes as the economy hurtles toward a deep recession this year due to cheap oil, currency crisis and Western sanctions on Moscow over its actions in Ukraine.

Impossible Task

The re-registration law was passed last May and transfers responsibility for accreditation of foreign representative and branch offices to the Federal Tax Service. Coming into force on Jan. 1, the law gave a three-month window to foreign firms to re-register before April 1. Offices of foreign financial and civil aviation firms do not need to re-register.

But the implementation was botched, lawyers said. The tax service did not respond to a request for comment before this article went to print.

Prioritet, a Moscow law firm, began calling foreign companies in November, said Yulia Vasilyeva, head of a department at Prioritet that specializes in accrediting foreign representative offices. Between 20 and 30 percent did not know they would have to re-register, Vasilyeva said.

Even companies registering offices in December last year received no warning. "No one told them anything," Vasilyeva said.

Those who knew about the changes were also powerless, she said - the tax authorities did not release forms or guidelines on how to re-register until February.

This narrowed the window from three months to two, immediately excluding larger companies with head offices in bureaucratic cultures. This cut Chinese and Middle Eastern companies out straightaway, Vasilyeva said.

Faster-moving European and U.S. companies still stand a chance, though a slim one. It takes on average two to three weeks to prepare the re-registration forms, said Klein. But "if it's a big company, it won't be done in a week. It could take six months," he added.

Vasilyeva said, "the task was impossible from the outset."

Stand in Line

For those companies that managed to finish their paperwork in time, the situation isn't much better. Only two people have been posted at the tax service's office in central Moscow to accept the re-registration forms, and they only work for two hours a day - between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.

"People arrive at 8 a.m. and say it's pointless - you need to get there at 6," Vasilyeva said, citing a case when a colleague arrived at 8 a.m. to take 67th place in a line that continued growing after his arrival.

Last week, the tax service posted a third clerk to accept the documents, but it is still nowhere near enough to service everyone in time, she said, adding, "Rumors are swirling in the queues that they'll extend [the deadline], but so far it's only rumors."

Consequences

If the rumors turn out to be false, companies that miss the deadline could lose their accreditation and foreign staff visas.

"It's a very dramatic situation. If you fail to make the deadline, your contracts are potentially invalid, labor contracts could come under question [as well as] work permits and foreign people's right to stay in Russia," Klein said.

Then they can either forsake their Russian operations or register again, but getting new accreditation involves paperwork that cannot be gathered overnight. Those that miss the deadline face "no man's land for two and a half to three months." Klein said.

They would also have to pay a 120,000 ruble ($2,000) processing fee, Vasilyeva said.

Motivation?

Though the re-registration law was passed after the first Western sanctions were imposed on Moscow last spring, lawyers said the legislation has been in discussion for at least two years and predates the current period of East-West tensions - which has seen trade and cross-border capital flows restricted by sanctions enforced by both sides.

Instead of emerging from the top down, foreign businesses themselves pushed for the law, Vasilyeva said. Many had complained about the inconveniences of the old registration system.

But Vasilyeva still questioned the motives of the tax service, pointing to the 120,000 ruble fee for new registrations and suggesting that the bureaucracy may simply be trying to enrich itself.

"Such incompetence is being perpetrated. Why? It's as if they've given themselves the task of making as much money as possible," she said.

Paraphrasing Viktor Chernomyrdin, a Russian prime minister in the 1990s, she said, "they wanted the best but it turned out as always.

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 #25
Wall Street Journal
March 10, 2015
Federal Judge Orders Browder to Comply with Subpoena in Money-Laundering Case  
By NICOLE HONG

A Manhattan federal judge has ordered London-based hedge fund manager William Browder to comply with a subpoena that could force him to reveal the sources of information he gave to federal prosecutors in a high-profile money-laundering case.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa ruled on Monday that Mr. Browder, who co-founded the investment fund Hermitage Capital Management, must come to New York for a deposition on April 15.

The subpoena was served to Mr. Browder last month after he appeared on "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart to promote his new book. He tried to resist the subpoena.

"My client does not have to consent to a deposition," said Randy Mastro, the Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP partner who is representing Mr. Browder, citing the fact that Mr. Browder lives and works in England. Mr. Browder is a former U.S. citizen who carries a British passport.

Monday's decision stems from a civil case brought by Manhattan federal prosecutors, who have accused Russian businessman Denis Katsyv of using some of the proceeds of an alleged tax fraud in Russia to buy real estate in New York. Prosecutors are seeking $857,354 in real estate holdings controlled by Mr. Katsyv's company, Prevezon Holdings Ltd. Mr. Katsyv and his company deny the allegations.

The alleged tax fraud at issue in this case was exposed by Mr. Browder's Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, who was arrested in 2008 by the Russian officials he accused. He died in prison in 2009. Since then, Mr. Browder has campaigned to find those responsible for Mr. Magnitsky's death to justice and has lobbied prosecutors to pursue cases related to the alleged tax fraud, including the current case against Mr. Katsyv.

Mr. Katsyv's defense lawyers have repeatedly tried to serve Mr. Browder with subpoenas, calling him the government's main source of information for the complaint against Mr. Katsyv.

Instead of complying, Mr. Browder "chose to run away," said Mark Cymrot, a partner at BakerHostetler who is representing Mr. Katsyv and Prevezon. "He is being irresponsible."

Prosecutors initially identified Mr. Browder as a primary witness in their case against Prevezon, but later said they did not plan to call him.

Judge Griesa said Mr. Browder was not required to comply with another subpoena served in Aspen, Colo., because Mr. Browder does not live or conduct business transactions regularly in Aspen.

However, the judge said Mr. Browder did have to comply with the New York subpoena because he was conducting business in New York on a "reasonably regular basis."

Mr. Browder's lawyer tried to argue that Mr. Browder could not participate in a deposition because of "credible threats" to his personal safety from Russian officials. Judge Griesa responded that those threats "did not prevent him" from going on MSNBC and other cable news shows to promote his book.

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#26
Moscow Times
March 11, 2015
Religious Offense Charges Against Russian Opera Director Dropped
By Peter Spinella

A Russian opera director who found himself mired in legal controversy after he provoked the ire of a local church leader was cleared of a charge of offending the sentiments of religious believers, the theater announced Tuesday via Twitter.

Director Timofei Kulyabin had faced administrative charges for offending religious believers with his rendition of Richard Wagner's opera "Tannhauser," which has been performed at the Novosibirsk State Theater of Opera and Ballet since December.

The presiding judge found Tuesday that it had not been proven that Kulyabin violated the law.

Prior to the acquittal, the judge considered the opinion of a panel of experts who concluded that the opera had not desecrated religious sentiments, state news agency TASS reported Tuesday.

"The production contains emblems and symbols that represent religious beliefs, but they were not degraded or destroyed," Vladimir Vinokurov, an expert from Moscow State University, wrote in the statement, which was read out before the court.

Kulyabin "did not want to offend anyone in any way. Quite the opposite, he is extending his hand to the Orthodox Church, and in response he has received insults," Boris Falikov of the Russian State University for the Humanities said in the statement.

Kulyabin's rendition of the opera features a scene where the Roman goddess Venus promises eternal love to Jesus Christ, so long as he agrees to stay with her in a grotto. But he rejects the offer and destroys the grotto with the help of the Virgin Mary, according to a summary on the theater's website.

The investigation was launched because of a complaint by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in the region, Metropolitan Tikhon.

He referred to the opera as "an affront to the feelings of religious believers, an offense to the Orthodox Church and an incitement to religious hatred," culture news site Colta.ru reported.

Russia criminalized insulting the sentiments of religious believers in 2013 after protest group Pussy Riot sang a "punk prayer" in Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral calling on the Virgin Mary to banish President Vladimir Putin.

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 #27
Interfax
March 10, 2015
Former NATO Sec Gen opposed to supplying arms to Kiev, favors diplomatic solution

Former NATO Secretary General and EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana is sticking to his desire for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis.

The Ukraine conflict is being resolved in a diplomatic manner, Solana told Interfax, adding he did not want to give an impression that he preferred other methods. He said they should see what happens next but so far the diplomatic and political efforts were focused on the strict fulfillment of the Minsk agreements which would take at least a year.

Meanwhile, a military solution is ruled out, he said.

Solana does not think it is realistic to deploy peacekeepers in eastern Ukraine under the current circumstances.

He said the very idea of the deployment of peacekeeping troops to Ukraine should not be discussed with the UN secretary general as it was extremely hard to implement. One should be aware of the UN realities and understand that Russia will never agree to that at the UN Security Council, Solana stated.

He also said he did not approve of Western deliveries of lethal armaments to Kiev. Solana said he could not speak on behalf of the EU but, in his opinion, the efforts should be focused on diplomacy powered by sanctions and that would be a measured position for now. There is no military solution to the Ukraine conflict, and it would not be right to arm a conflicting side. Europe cannot send troops, so its actions are limited to sanctions, Solana observed.

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 #28
New York Times
March 11, 2015
Obama Said to Resist Growing Pressure From All Sides to Arm Ukraine
By PETER BAKER

WASHINGTON - As American intelligence agencies have detected new Russian tanks and artillery crossing the border into Ukraine in recent days, President Obama is coming under increasing pressure from both parties and more officials inside his own government to send arms to the country. But he remains unconvinced that they would help.

Democrats joined Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday in unanimously pressing the administration to send weapons to Kiev. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, publicly urged Mr. Obama to consider such a move last week, joining Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence.

But the president has signaled privately that despite all the pressure, he remains reluctant to send arms. In part, he has told aides and visitors that arming the Ukrainians would encourage the notion that they could actually defeat the far more powerful Russians, and so it would potentially draw a more forceful response from Moscow. He also wants to give a shaky cease-fire a chance to take hold, despite a reported 1,000 violations so far, and seems determined to stay aligned with European allies that oppose arms for Ukraine.

"If you're playing on the military terrain in Ukraine, you're playing to Russia's strength, because Russia is right next door," Antony J. Blinken, the deputy secretary of state, told an audience in Berlin last week. "It has a huge amount of military equipment and military force right on the border. Anything we did as countries in terms of military support for Ukraine is likely to be matched and then doubled and tripled and quadrupled by Russia."

That argument seems to most closely channel the president's, according to people familiar with the internal debate. Mr. Obama continues to pose questions indicating his doubts. "O.K., what happens if we send in equipment - do we have to send in trainers?" said one person paraphrasing the discussion on the condition of anonymity. "What if it ends up in the hands of thugs? What if Putin escalates?"

But while Mr. Obama's national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, shares his skepticism, the president finds himself increasingly flanked inside and outside his government by others urging him to do more to help the Ukrainians defend themselves.

Last week General Dempsey told lawmakers that "I think we should absolutely consider providing lethal aid." Madeleine K. Albright, a secretary of state under President Bill Clinton; Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter; and Michael A. McFaul, who was Mr. Obama's ambassador to Moscow, have all said the same.

Representative Eliot L. Engel of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said last week that he was so "disappointed" in the administration for not using tools in past legislation authorizing more sanctions against Russia and arms for Ukraine that he was introducing a new bill to "dial up the pressure on Vladimir Putin."

A hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday made clear that the disappointment was becoming widespread and bipartisan. "There's no question there's strong consensus on this committee, and in the United States Senate, that the United States needs to do more to help the Ukrainians defend themselves," said Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, a Maryland Democrat.

The Obama administration has committed to sending Ukraine $118 million in nonlethal aid, like night-vision goggles and counter-mortar radar, but so far only about half has been delivered, officials told the panel. Brian P. McKeon, the principal deputy under secretary of defense, agreed that in some cases the aid has been "unacceptably slow" and said the administration was working to speed it up.

An announcement of more deliveries of that equipment may be made as early as Wednesday, and the administration also plans another $120 million of similar aid.

In resisting the pressure from advisers and fellow Democrats, Mr. Obama is adhering closely to European allies like Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who has strongly opposed sending arms to Ukraine. A senior administration official confirmed Tuesday an Associated Press report that Mr. Obama told Ms. Merkel when she visited Washington last month that he would hold off sending weaponry during negotiations for a cease-fire. After that meeting, European, Russian and Ukrainian leaders meeting in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, crafted a cease-fire.

"We are all committed to making sure that we uphold the basic principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity that have been threatened by Russian aggression," Mr. Obama said before a meeting on Monday with Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council. "We've been able to maintain strong unity with respect to sanctions."

The senior administration official, who did not want to be identified describing Mr. Obama's discussions with a foreign leader, said the president's commitment to Ms. Merkel was temporary. "Going forward, we'll have to make judgments based in part of our assessment of compliance with Minsk," the official said. Other officials said no decision was likely anytime soon.

Even as the Minsk accord went into effect, pro-Russian separatists captured the city of Debaltseve. But in recent days, violence has fallen sharply, some heavy weapons have been withdrawn and a cautious optimism has emerged in Kiev and European capitals.

Still, American officials said the results of the cease-fire remain mixed. While Russia has denied arming and directing the separatists in eastern Ukraine, a top State Department official told the Senate panel on Tuesday that more military equipment has been sent across the border.

"Just in the last few days, we can confirm new transfers of Russian tanks, armored vehicles, heavy artillery and rocket equipment over the border to the separatists in eastern Ukraine," Victoria Nuland, an assistant secretary of state, told the panel.

"So in the coming days, not weeks," she added, "here's what we need to see: a complete cease-fire in all parts of eastern Ukraine; full, unfettered access to the whole conflict zone; a pullback of all heavy weapons; and an end to uninspected convoys of cargo over the Ukrainian borders."

Ms. Nuland said there was a "spirited debate" going on inside the administration over whether to send arms to Ukraine and that no decision has been made yet. But senators said delaying a decision was the same thing as deciding against sending arms.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, said that it was "taking a very long time" to decide. Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said that by the time Mr. Obama decides "then it will be too late." Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, was more sympathetic to the administration, admitting that it might not work but said "that's a chance worth taking."

Mr. McKeon said the administration was wrestling with the consequences of sending weapons to Ukraine.

"Does this raise the ante?" he asked. "And then what would Ukraine feel that the United States owes them in terms of additional assistance? So it's trying to see down the field to the second, third and fourth move on this chessboard. That's part of the conversation."

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 #29
Defense One
www.defenseone.com
March 10, 2015
One Year Later, Obama Administration Still 'Reviewing' Lethal Aid to Ukraine
By Molly O'Toole

For roughly a year, Obama officials have been weighing lethal aid to Ukraine. Some 6,000 Ukrainians have been killed since, but they're no closer to a decision.

More than a year after Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and the Pentagon began receiving requests from Ukraine for military assistance, the Obama administration is "still working on reviewing" the option of lethal aid, officials told senators on Tuesday.

"We're still working in the interagency group on reviewing a number of options including lethal defensive weapons, but I can't give you a timetable on when we might have a decision on additional assistance," Brian McKeon, the principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy, told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a Tuesday hearing.

The senators repeatedly grilled McKeon, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland and other officials on the delayed decision, but the witnesses gave no new information on the reasons for the delay or when a decision may be made.

At least 6,000 Ukrainians and some 400 to 500 Russians have been killed in the conflict since violence broke out in the wake of protests in Ukraine in November of 2013, according to Obama administration officials. While the U.S. has provided some millions in assistance - with $513.5 million for Ukraine in the White House's fiscal 2016 budget request - it has thus far been limited to non-lethal aid, some as simple as radios, body armor, sleeping mats and night vision goggles. Since nearly the beginning of the conflict, Ukrainian leaders have been directly lobbying President Barack Obama - and the U.S. Congress - for lethal defensive assistance.

At the end of 2014, Obama signed the Ukraine Freedom Support Act into law, and last week, leaders in the House on both sides of the aisle urged the administration to use the authorities it afforded him to move on lethal aid, and quickly. Top Obama administration officials, from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey to Defense Secretary Ash Carter have said in recent weeks, "We should absolutely consider providing lethal aid."

On Monday, the German ambassador to the U.S. told the Associated Press that the White House had already made the quiet decision last month to hold off on lethal aid to Ukraine. But in the Tuesday hearing, the administration officials continued to reiterate that the option remained under consideration.

The National Security Council declined to respond to the status of the decision, or what considerations remain to be made before it can be reached.

"As we have repeatedly said, we continually assess our policies to ensure they are responsive, appropriate and calibrated to achieve our objectives, and our focus from the outset of the crisis has been on supporting Ukraine and on pursuing a diplomatic solution that respects Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," National Security Council spokesman Mark Stroh told Defense One.

Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen Lainez told Defense One, "We have been working closely with the interagency and Ukraine on requests for military assistance since the crisis began; military assistance began flowing in March (MREs) and it continues. As you know, the focus now is on nonlethal military assistance, and that policy has not changed."

Nuland noted Tuesday that the U.S. has provided critical, if non-lethal resources. But, she added, "We haven't answered the entire shopping list from the Ukrainians."

Lainez declined to itemize that list, but in February, former Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby defined defensive lethal aid as "those items, those weapons that allow them - that are defensive in nature, that they are not designed for, would not be overly effective in conducting offensive operations against an armed foe." McKeon pointed to critical counter-mortar radars as a successful example. The Pentagon approved the request in late October, and they were "delivered, trained, and fielded in two months," he said, arguing they have saved lives.

But many other items that have been approved for delivery have been hobbled by logistical delays. "In some instances, it has been unacceptably slow," McKeon acknowledged.

So slow that the sluggish delivery to Ukraine was the topic of one of his first conversations with the new defense secretary, Ash Carter. "The new secretary is pressing us on this," McKeon said, quoting Carter as saying, "'Let's start a new policy - let's not promise assistance unless we can deliver it quickly."

Many senators on the committee from both parties expressed frustration with what they characterized as feet dragging from the White House in responding to both Russian aggression and Ukraine's requests.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., tied the delays to a broader "fecklessness" in Obama's national security strategy - as many other Republican lawmakers have done, but with uncharacteristic heat.

"Russia has invaded Ukraine, we agreed to protect their territorial sovereignty," Corker said. "Why would we be so feckless, feckless, in agreeing to something back in 1994 and yet be unwilling to give them the defensive weaponry that they can utilize, not more than they could utilize?"

"Surely on the heels of us never doing the things we said we would do with the free Syrian rebels and now the world being very aware of this Budapest Memorandum, and knowing the administration - I assume that this is another decision memo that sits on the president's desk, undecided," he continued, "This has to have affected our credibility with allies around the world.

"How damaging is our lack of ability to make a simple decision? They certainly have complex outcomes, but the decisions themselves are relatively simple."

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 #30
AFP
March 10, 2015
US envoy denounces 'reign of terror' in Crimea, east Ukraine

Washington (AFP) - The top US diplomat for Europe said Tuesday that Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine are living under a "reign of terror," blaming Russia for a conflict that has claimed thousands of lives.

"Even as Ukraine is building a peaceful, democratic, independent nation across 93 percent of its territory, Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine are suffering a reign of terror," Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"Today Crimea remains under illegal occupation and human rights abuses are the norm, not the exception, for many at risk groups there," said Nuland, who has long been a tough critic of Moscow.

She said several groups -- Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians who refuse to surrender their passports, gays and lesbians, journalists and others -- are at risk of persecution.

"In eastern Ukraine, Russia and its separatist puppets unleashed unspeakable violence and pillage," she said.

"This manufactured conflict -- controlled by the Kremlin; fueled by Russian tanks and heavy weapons; financed at Russian taxpayers' expense -- has cost the lives of more than 6,000 Ukrainians, but also of hundreds of young Russians sent to fight and die there by the Kremlin, in a war their government denies."

When asked about the number of Russian soldiers she believed had been killed in the conflict, Nuland replied: "Hundreds and hundreds."

"I can't speak to more than 400 or 500 at the moment," she added.

Last week, Nuland had told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that Russia has deployed "thousands and thousands" of troops to Ukraine, with their own command structure.

She also said it has transferred hundreds of pieces of military equipment since December.

Moscow has always denied any military involvement in the neighboring state.

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko on Monday confirmed that both sides in the conflict had pulled back most of their heavy weapons from the frontlines in eastern Ukraine, while London on Tuesday accused Russia of "subverting" the security of eastern Europe.

The United States had in recent days welcomed the drop-off in fighting in eastern Ukraine, while maintaining its calls for the full implementation of a ceasefire between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists that went into effect last month.

Washington nevertheless accuses Moscow of sending arms and other equipment over the Ukrainian border.

"In the last few days, we can confirm that Russia has transferred additional tanks, armored vehicles, heavy artillery, rocket systems and other military equipment," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

"Russian battalion tactical groups remain deployed near the Ukrainian border," she added.

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 #31
US Department of State
TESTIMONY ON UKRAINE BEFORE THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE
Testimony
Victoria Nuland
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs
Statement Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Washington, DC
March 10, 2015

As prepared

Chairman Corker, Ranking Member Menendez and members of this committee-thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today on the situation in Ukraine and for your personal investment in that country's future. As many of you know from your travels, your meetings and the establishment of the bipartisan Senate Ukraine Caucus last month, Ukrainians deeply appreciate this committee's support for their country's security, democracy, sovereignty and future prosperity.

Today Ukraine is central to our 25 year Transatlantic quest for a "Europe whole, free and at peace." My interagency colleagues and I are pleased to update you today on U.S. efforts to support Ukraine as it works to liberate the country from its corrupt, oligarchic past, chart a more democratic, European future, and bring an end to Russian-fueled violence. In my remarks, I'll focus on two areas: first, the work Ukraine is doing-with U.S. and international support-to reform the country, tackle corruption and strengthen democratic institutions; second, I will give an update on our efforts to support implementation of the February and September Minsk Agreements, including our readiness to impose further costs on Russia if the commitments Moscow made are further violated. My colleagues from DoD-Principal Deputy Under Secretary McKeon and Vice Admiral Pandolfe-will address our security relationship in greater detail. A/S Toloui will speak more to our macroeconomic assistance in coordination with our international partners.

First-a quick reminder of why we're here. Sixteen months ago, the Kyiv Maidan and towns across Ukraine erupted in peaceful protest by ordinary Ukrainians fed up with a sleazy, corrupt regime bent on cheating the people of their sovereign choice to associate with Europe. They braved frigid temperatures, brutal beatings and sniper bullets. The leader of that rotten regime fled the country, and he was voted out by the parliament-including most members of his own party. Then, Ukraine began to forge a new nation on its own terms-signing an Association Agreement with the European Union; holding free and fair elections-twice-even as fighting raged in the east; and undertaking deep and comprehensive economic and political reforms.

Against the backdrop of Russia's aggression, the situation in the country remains precarious. Ukraine's leaders, in the executive branch and the parliament, know they are in a race against time to clean up the country and enact the difficult and socially painful reforms required to kick start the economy, and meet their commitments to their people, the IMF and the international community. The package of reforms already put forward by the government, and enacted by the Rada, is impressive in its scope and political courage.

Just last week:

They passed budget reform expected to slash the deficit this year, and strengthen decentralization by giving more fiscal control to local communities;

They made tough choices to reduce and cap pension benefits, increase work requirements and phase in a higher retirement age;

They created a new banking provision to stiffen penalties for financiers for stripping assets from banks at the public's expense, a common practice among oligarchs;

And, they passed laws cutting wasteful gas subsidies and closing the space for corrupt middlemen that buy low, sell high and rip off the Ukrainian people. These laws will also enhance corporate efficiency, incentivize domestic production, and use $400 million in increased revenue from state-owned gas companies to help care for the poor including some of the 1.7 million people driven from their homes by the conflict.

With U.S. support-including a $1 billion loan guarantee last year and $355 million in foreign assistance and technical advisors-the Ukrainian government is:

helping insulate vulnerable Ukrainians from the impact of necessary economic reforms;

improving energy efficiency in homes and factories with metering, consumer incentives and infrastructure improvement;

building e-governance platforms to make procurement transparent and basic government services cleaner and publicly accessible;

putting a newly trained force of beat cops on the streets of Kyiv who will protect, not shake down, the citizens;

reforming the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO)-supported by U.S. law enforcement and criminal justice advisors-and helping energize law enforcement and just prosecutions;
moving to bring economic activity out of the shadows;

supporting new agriculture laws-with the help of USAID experts-to deregulate the sector and allow family farms to sell their produce in local, regional and wholesale markets; and
helping those forced to flee Donetsk and Luhansk with USAID jobs and skills training programs in places like Kharkiv.

And there's more support on the way. The President's budget includes an FY16 request of $513.5 million-almost six times more than our FY14 request-to build on these efforts.

To turn the page, Ukraine's hard work must continue. Between now and the summer, we must see budget discipline maintained and tax collection enforced across the country-notably including on some of Ukraine's richest citizens who have enjoyed impunity for too long. We need to see continued reforms at Naftogaz and across the energy sector; final passage of agriculture legislation; full and impartial implementation of anti-corruption measures, including a commitment to break the oligarchic, kleptocratic culture have has decimated the country.

As I said in my last appearance before this committee, the most lasting antidote to Russian aggression and malign influence in the medium term is for Ukraine to succeed as a democratic, free market state and to beat back the corruption, dependence and external pressure that have thwarted Ukrainians' aspirations for decades. For this to happen, we must ensure that the government lives up to its promises to the Ukrainian people, and keeps the trust of the international financial community. And, at the same time, the United States, Europe and the international community must keep faith with Ukraine, and help insure that Russia's aggression and meddling can't crash Ukraine's spirit, its will or its economy before reforms take hold.

Which brings me to my second point-even as Ukraine is building a peaceful, democratic, independent nation across 93% of its territory, Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine are suffering a reign of terror. Today Crimea remains under illegal occupation and human rights abuses are the norm, not the exception, for many at-risk groups there-Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians who won't surrender their passports, journalists, LGBT citizens and others.

In eastern Ukraine, Russia and its separatist puppets unleashed unspeakable violence and pillage. This manufactured conflict-controlled by the Kremlin; fueled by Russian tanks and heavy weapons; financed at Russian taxpayers' expense-has cost the lives of more than 6000 Ukrainians, but also of hundreds of young Russians sent to fight and die there by the Kremlin, in a war their government denies. When they come home in zinc coffins-"Cargo 200," the Russian euphemism for war dead-their mothers, wives and children are told not to ask too many questions or raise a fuss if they want to see any death benefits.

Throughout this conflict, the United States and the EU have worked in lock-step to impose successive rounds of tough sanctions-including sectoral sanctions-on Russia and its separatist cronies as the costs for their actions. In Crimea, we have shown through our investment sanctions that if you bite off a piece of another country, it will dry up in your mouth. Our unity with Europe remains the cornerstone of our policy toward this crisis.

And it is in that spirit that we salute the efforts of German Chancellor Merkel and French President Hollande in Minsk on February 12th to try again to end the fighting in Ukraine's East. The Minsk Package of Agreements-September 5th, September 19th and the February 12th implementing agreement-offer a real opportunity for peace, disarmament, political normalization and decentralization in eastern Ukraine, and the return of Ukrainian state sovereignty and control of its territory and borders. Russia agreed to it; Ukraine agreed to it; the separatists agreed to it. And the international community stands behind it.

For some eastern Ukrainians, conditions have begun to improve. Along long areas of the line of contact, particularly in Luhansk Oblast, the cease-fire has taken hold; the guns have quieted in some towns and villages; some weapons have been withdrawn; some hostages have been released.

But the picture is very mixed. Since the February 15th cease-fire, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission has recorded hundreds of violations. Debaltseve, a key rail hub beyond the cease-fire lines, fell to the separatists and Russian forces six days after Minsk was signed and three days after the cease-fire was to come into effect. In Shchastya, in villages near the Donetsk Airport, in Shyrokyne and other towns around Mariupol the shelling continues, as verified by OSCE Special Monitor Authority.

In the coming days, not weeks or months-here is what we need to see:

A complete cease-fire in all parts of eastern Ukraine;

Full, unfettered access to the whole conflict zone including all separatist-held territory, for OSCE monitors; and

A full pull-back of all heavy weapons-Ukrainian, Russian and separatist-as stipulated in the agreements, under OSCE monitoring and verification.

If fully implemented, this will bring greater peace and security in eastern Ukraine for the first time in almost a year. And with it, Ukraine will once again have unfettered access to its own people in the East, and the opportunity for dialogue and political normalization with them. That's what Minsk promises. Peace, then political normalization, then a return of the border. But first, there must be peace.

Russia's commitments under the Minsk agreements are crystal clear and again the choice is Russia's. As the President has said, we'll judge Russia by its actions, not its words. The United States will start rolling back sanctions on Russia only when the Minsk agreements are fully implemented.

But the reverse is also true. We have already begun consultations with our European partners on further sanctions pressure should Russia continue fueling the fire in the east or other parts of Ukraine, fail to implement Minsk or grab more land as we saw in Debaltseve.

Mr. Chairman, members of this committee, America's investment in Ukraine is about far more than protecting the choice of a single European country. It's about protecting the rules-based system across Europe and globally. It's about saying "no" to borders changed by force, and to big countries intimidating their neighbors or demanding spheres of influence. It's about protecting our 25 year American investment in the prospect of a Europe whole, free and at peace and the example that sets for nations and people around the world who want more democratic, prosperous futures.

I thank this committee for its bipartisan support and commitment.

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 #32
www.businessinsider.com
March 10, 2015
Startfor predicts loose nukes in Russia will be 'the greatest crisis of the next decade'
By Armin Rosen

The most alarming prediction in the Decade Forecast from private intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, involves a Russian collapse leading to a nuclear crisis.

The firm believes the Russian Federation will not survive the decade in its present form, after a combination of international sanctions, plunging oil prices, and a suffering ruble trigger a political and social crisis. Russia will then devolve into an archipelago of often-impoverished and confrontational local governments under the Kremlin's very loose control.

"We expect Moscow's authority to weaken substantially, leading to the formal and informal fragmentation of Russia" the report states, adding, "It is unlikely that the Russian Federation will survive in its current form."

If that upheaval happened, it could lead to what Stratfor calls "the greatest crisis of the next decade": Moscow's loss of control over the world's biggest nuclear weapons stockpile.

Russia is the world's largest country and its 8,000 weapons are fairly spread out over its 6.6 million square miles. According to a Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists study, Russia has 40 nuclear sites, which is twice as many as the US uses to house a comparable number of warheads. This policy of dispersal makes it difficult for an enemy to disable the Russian nuclear arsenal in a single attack, but it also makes the Russian stockpile difficult to control.

The Bulletin report also found that the Russia was uncertain exactly how many short-range "tactical" or city-busting "strategic" nukes it has, nor what the weapons' state of assembly or alert status may be.

Stratfor fears that the dissolution of the Russian Federation could cause an unprecedented nuclear security crisis. Not only could the command-and-control mechanisms for Russia's massive and highly opaque nuclear arsenal completely break down. Moscow might lose its physical control over weapons and launch platforms as well.

"Russia is the site of a massive nuclear strike force distributed throughout the hinterlands," the Decade Forecast explains. "The decline of Moscow's power will open the question of who controls those missiles and how their non-use can be guaranteed."

In Stratfor's view the US is the only global actor that can formulate a response to this problem, and ever that might not be enough to prevent launch platforms and weapons from falling into the wrong hands.

"Washington ... will not be able to seize control of the vast numbers of sites militarily and guarantee that no missile is fired in the process," the Forecast predicts. "The United States will either have to invent a military solution that is difficult to conceive of now, accept the threat of rogue launches, or try to create a stable and economically viable government in the regions involved to neutralize the missiles over time."

The forecast doesn't go into detail about what kind of "military solution" might be appropriate. US Special Forces could conceivably transport fissile material out of the country or temporarily secure the most vulnerable sites, but those materials would have to be evacuated to another country, something that would undoubtedly raise tensions with whatever authority still rules in Moscow. In fact, the surviving Russian government would probably consider any US or allied military action to be an act of aggression.

Regardless of the extent of the collapse, Stratfor predicts a major security vacuum in Russia in the next decade.

The firm also predicts declining US assertiveness in world affairs, the fracturing of the European Union, and the decline of Germany's powerful export economy, and more.

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 #33
Reviewing obligations under START treaty not on agenda now - Russian Foreign Ministry

MOSCOW, March 11. /TASS/. Russia is not considering reviewing its obligations under START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), Deputy Director of Russian Foreign Ministry's Department on Security Affairs and Disarmament Vladimir Leontyev said on Wednesday.

"At a certain stage [in the future], Russia will probably have to analyze observance of START treaty in connection with [NATO's] plans to deploy a missile defense system in Europe," Leontyev said. "However, the issue is not on the agenda at the moment," he added.

"There is a condition in the START treaty that there is certain connection between strategic offensive and strategic defensive arms," the diplomat said. "It is clearly stated in the preamble to the agreement. It is also stated there that at the moment of signing the treaty, developing strategic defensive weapons - missile defense systems - does not threaten viability and observance of the treaty. But the situation does not stay unchanged. US and NATO's missile defense plans are progressing," he added.

"We are attentively following and analyzing the situation, and will continue doing so," Leontyev stressed.

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 #34
Interfax
March 11, 2015
Wikileaks prompted Russia to suspend Joint Consultative Group on CFE participation - Russian Foreign Ministry

Russia decided to suspend its work in the Joint Consultative Group on the CFE Treaty because it could not use this format to discuss issues relating to conventional weapons control in Europe, Mikhail Ulyanov, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's department on non-proliferation and arms control issues, said.

"When Wikileaks published secret documents, Department of State materials, what we had seen was confirmed: the U.S. had prohibited their allies from discussing any substantive issues in the Joint Consultative Group. In that situation, there was not much point in our further participation in the work of the Joint Consultative Group, it was becoming increasingly evident, and we have now decided to suspend our participation in the work of this group," he said in an interview with Interfax.

Ulyanov said Russia decided to make an exception for the Joint Consultative Group as a dialogue site when it made a decision to suspend its participation in the CFE Treaty in 2007.

"Indeed, we hoped then that work to resume an appropriate new conventional arms control on the continent would begin," he said.

"Unfortunately, it could not be done. The consultations on this issue were taken out of the Joint Consultative Group format. They were conducted in a Russia-U.S. format, although the Treaty was always called the 'cornerstone' of European security. The western Europeans in NATO essentially disassociated themselves and left it to Russia and the U.S. to decide," the diplomat said.

Ulyanov also said that, despite the suspension of Russia's participation in the CFE Treaty, the Treaty stays in force for the other member countries.

"The treaty remains in force and it applies to the other 29 member countries, which are fulfilling relevant procedures, functions and tasks. However, the treaty is incomplete without Russia because our country is de facto a key player and is perceived by everyone as a key player," he said.

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 #35
Interfax
March 11, 2015
Russia ready for new agreement on conventional weapons in Europe

Russia is ready for negotiations concerning a new treaty regarding the control of conventional weapons in Europe, Mikhail Ulyanov, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's department on non-proliferation and arms control issues, said.

"We are ready to consider the possibility and hold appropriate negotiations regarding a new agreement that is in line with the new reality, is not very costly, is well-thought out and balanced and, of course, is in line with the interests of the Russian Federation," he said in an interview with Interfax.

Responding to a question as to why Russia has only suspended its participation in the CFE Treaty and has not withdrawn from it, Ulyanov said Russia did not want to "burn all bridges."

"By the way, our decision to stay in the Joint Consultative Group at that time emphasized that we are ready for dialogue and restoration of arms control in Europe on a new foundation. We could, of course, pull out, but we generally recognize that arms control in Europe could be useful and we are not ready to be the ones who 'bury' this regime," the Russian diplomat said.

"On the contrary, we are ready for dialogue, and we will see what it brings if it ever begins. Unfortunately, there are very many contradictions here, and not only those connected to Russia. There are contradictions between other countries, including members of the alliance," Ulyanov said.

Ulyanov also said "our NATO colleagues matured to the understanding of the need for dialogue to overcome the crisis in the sphere of conventional arms control" back in 2010-2011.
"They initiated the 36 counties' format then. It's thirty initial CFE Treaty participants and six NATO countries that entered the alliance after the Treaty was signed," he said.

"The U.S. was represented by Victoria Nuland in those negotiations. We conducted a total of ten rounds with her and other participants. After that, the negotiations deadlocked. I don't think it happened through our fault," Ulyanov said.

The diplomat said he is confident that, if consultations or negotiations on arms control in Europe resume now, "they should involve all countries that intend to join the future new treaty on conventional weapons control, regardless of whether they are members of the alliance or not."

"A whole number of countries, in particular, Serbia and Switzerland, expressed interest in participation in the negotiations in 2010. If they stay interested in the foreseeable future, I think they, like any other country, should have a right to participate in the negotiations. However, it is not clear at all when they will begin and whether they will begin," Ulyanov said.

"Our NATO partners have said more than once in private contacts and in public that they are working on appropriate proposals. We have not received these proposals yet. There are no consultations now and they are not currently planned," he said.

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 #36
Analysts praise Russia's walkout from Treaty of Conventional Armed Forces in Europe
By Lyudmila Alexandrova

MOSCOW, March 11. /TASS/. Russia took a step in the right direction when it walked out of the treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe (CFE), because the Western partners had invariably turned a deaf ear to Russia's viewpoint anyway, polled Russian experts have told TASS. In their opinion the decision was quite legitimate and would by no means spoil relations with the West further.

Starting from March 11, 2015 Russia suspended its participation in meetings of the Joint Consultative Group, the chief Russian negotiator at military security and arms control talks in Vienna, Anton Mazur, said on Tuesday.

Russia's decision declared eight years ago to freeze its compliance with the CFE treaty has now reached a logical outcome. "The Russian side has for many years been doing its utmost for the sake of maintaining the viability of the regime of control of conventional armaments. It initiated talks on the CFE treaty's adaptation, and it ratified the adaptation agreement," Mazur said. In the meantime, NATO countries "in fact preferred to sidestep the CFE provisions by expanding the alliance."

The CFE treaty was concluded by NATO and the member-countries of the Warsaw Treaty Organization in 1990. Both blocs were allowed to have the same amount of conventional armaments and combat vehicles. However, after the breakup of the Warsaw Treaty Organization, and later, of the USSR, there developed an imbalance of forces with NATO's expansion to the territories of the Soviet Union's former allies. The treaty no longer met the interests of Russia's national security. Moscow joined the adapted version of the treaty, but most of the European countries have not ratified it to this day. In 2007 Russia suspended compliance with the CFE terms.

An overwhelming majority of Russian experts have pointed out that the CFE treaty is long dead and the declaration of Russia's walkout from the Joint Consultative Group is sheer formality.

"We will save a lot of money on the travel expenses of our specialists," the daily Moskovsky Komsomolets quotes the president of the International Centre of Geopolitical Analysis, Leonid Ivashov, as saying. "The treaty is dead. We have kept that group hoping for the future, for joint efforts by the NATO countries and Russia to draft a new version of the treaty. We had hoped to spread the operation of that treaty to sea-based weapons. But there was no progress and in the context of the current situation in relations between NATO and Russia the chances of success are equal to nought. It is very right we have walked out."

The editor-in-chief of the Arsenal of Motherland magazine, Colonel Viktor Murakhovsky, has told TASS the decision to leave the Joint Consultative Group "is a purely symbolic gesture, indicating the senselessness of further participation in these contacts, because they can lead to nothing."

"All attempts at coming to terms with the JCG partners were unsuccessful. The Western partners are absolutely deaf to us," he said. "They refused to adapt the CFE treaty to the modern realities, so Russia is not obliged to spend resources and efforts to participate in JCG sessions." Murakhovsky is certain that no significant response to this step by Russia will follow either from Europe or the United States.

Besides, some NATO countries, including the Baltic states, are not signatories to the CFE treaty at all. "They are the CFE treaty's black hole and NATO countries pretend it does not exist. In the meantime, NATO's military activity near Russia's borders keeps growing."

Analysts see no reasons for interpreting the decision to leave the JCG as a response to soaring tensions over the Ukrainian crisis. "The CFE is a legacy of the past, and the withdrawal from the JCG is by no means connected with the current state of affairs," special projects editor for Arsenal magazine, Gennady Zadneprovsky, told TASS. "We are out and that's fine."

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 #37
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
March 10, 2015
Negotiations with Iran 'most useful' in many years
Tehran and the members of the P5+1 group may have reached an agreement on several key points.
Gevorg Mirzayan, special to RBTH

Another round of talks on Iran's nuclear program between Iran and the P5+ 1 group (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) was held in Montreux, Switzerland last week. During the talks, a compromise was reached on key issues, opening up the possibility that a framework agreement might be signed by the end of March.

"We had very useful talks with the six powers, and we have made some progress, more than ever before," said Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi after the meetings.

Igor Morozov, a member of the foreign affairs committee of the Federation Council, the upper house of Russia's parliament, who participated in the talks said: "Today, Iran has been rescued from the dead end in which it found itself due to its own national nuclear program."

Foreign policy experts agree that the talks were significant. "We have not seen such progress since November 2013, even in the last 12 years - since the emergence of the Iranian nuclear problem," said Vladimir Sazhin, a senior researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies and a specialist in Iran.

The reason for optimism is due to the fact that the talks have progressed from general conversations to achieving some agreements in principle.

"Details and aspects of a future comprehensive agreement were being coordinated," Stanislav Pritchin, a researcher of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told RBTH."Even according to modest estimates expressed by the negotiators, the process was fairly constructive."

Vladimir Sazhin believes that the modest statements made by the negotiators underlie the strength of the agreements.

"The agreement is opposed by powerful forces both in Iran, and the United States. Not wanting to annoy this opposition, the parties have decided not to publish the results of the current negotiations," Sazhin said.

In his opinion, the parties likely reached an understanding on several key points, one of which is the time frame during which the IAEA will have oversight. "Here, we are talking about the period during which the IAEA will exercise greater control over the Iranian nuclear program - while Iran will be not allowed to develop its nuclear infrastructure. There were a lot of options - from three to 25 years. One of the latest proposals is 10 years, and, according to unconfirmed reports, the Iranians are willing to accept it," Sazhin said.

It is likely that a compromise on the heavy water reactor under construction at Arak will also be reached. According to preliminary data, the parties agreed that the design of the reactor will be amended so that it could produce no more than 1.5 kg of plutonium per year.

Several issues remain up for discussion, but experts do not consider them so significant. Discussions over the number of centrifuges used to enrich uranium is one such question. "In Iran, mostly first-generation centrifuges are used, which make the performance and efficiency of cascades not very high, and, in fact, it makes no difference how many of them Iran has - 6,500 or 9,500. So here we can agree," Sazhin said.

Another contentious issue is the mechanism for lifting the sanctions currently in place against Iran. While the U.S. Congress is controlled by Republicans, President Barack Obama is unable to guarantee the Iranians the complete removal of U.S. sanctions. The issue of any deal with Iran has become even more contentious in recent days after 47 U.S. senators sent a letter to Tehran warning that any agreement signed by Obama could be revisited after he is out of office in January 2017.

Sevak Sarukhanyan, an expert on Iran at the Noravank Foundation, said that lifting of sanctions by the U.S. is actually a minor point since economic relations between Iran and the United States have been minimal for so long. Rather, it is important that Washington agree to lift restrictions preventing Iran from trading with third countries, primarily with the EU.

"Rouhani came to power with promises to solve the most important socio-economic problems of the country, which is impossible to do without the lifting of the sanctions," Sarukhanyan said.

The next round of talks begins on March 15. The parties hope to have a framework agreement by the end of the month and final deal in place by June.

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 #38
The National Interest
March 9, 2015
Reckless: Don't 'Go for Broke' in Iran Nuclear Talks
A gradualist approach is the most realistic option for solving the nuclear issue.
By Alexei Arbatov
Alexei Arbatov is a scholar in residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

As a mutually acceptable deal with Iran remains elusive despite the hopes and efforts of the P5+1 group of world powers, the risk of the talks failing is growing.

Opponents of the deal are mobilizing, and increasingly the outcome of the negotiations is cast as a binary choice: either Iran will get nuclear weapons or it will not. Failure to reach a deal is cast in similarly stark terms. The talks collapsing, we are told, would result in an increased risk of an Israeli military strike, the expansion of hostilities and violence throughout the Middle East, and the unraveling of the entire nuclear nonproliferation regime.

There is a lot at stake for all the parties involved, which is enough for each side to want to reach a deal, regardless of their differences on other issues.

At present, negotiations with Iran have stalled on a number of important technical questions.  Key among these is how much enrichment capability Iran would be permitted. Relatedly, the two sides are still negotiating permissible volumes of low-enriched uranium stockpiles, the construction of the Arak reactor, the closing of the Fordow underground enrichment facility, Iran's past nuclear activities, its missile program, and a host of other issues.

The parties are also at odds over how the sanctions would be lifted if a deal is struck: on the procedure for lifting sanctions as well: Tehran insists on a one-step process while the P5+1 want to gradually lift sanctions over time as Iran's complies with its commitments This latter approach would take years.

However, the main obstacle to a deal will most likely be political. There are the domestic factors at work, particularly in Iran and the United States. In Iran, there is an apparent power struggle between Ayatollah Khamenei and President Rouhani. On the other hand, in the United States, there is the growing rift between President Obama and the Republican-controlled Congress over the reported terms of a comprehensive agreement.

Further complicating matters, there have been a number of dramatics change in the international climate surrounding the talks since the interim agreement was signed in November 2013.

One such change is that Ukraine crisis, which has deeply divided the P5+1 group that previously spoke with a singular voice on the Iran nuclear issue. Within the P5+1, two camps have formed- Russia and the United States and its allies- which have imposed sanctions and threatened military action against each other. This has closed virtually all channels of cooperation between Russia and the West, who now consider each other adversaries. This undoubtedly makes it difficult for Russia and the West to cooperate on the Iranian nuclear issue.

The emergence of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS) has also altered the international environment surrounding the talks. Unlike the Ukraine crisis, which divides the P5+1 internally, Iran and the world powers are on the same side in the battle against ISIS. Iran could also be an important partner for the United States in Afghanistan by supporting the Afghan government in the likely event that the Taliban attempts to reconquer the country after all coalition troops leave. The Afghan military is already suffering an unprecedented number of casualties in its fight against the Taliban and could use some neighborly assistance. The Iranian leadership probably believes that these changes substantially strengthen its negotiating position, and thus expects significant concessions from the P5+1.

If the current negotiations fail, the P5+1 powers are unlikely to agree on new sanctions at the United Nations given their own divisions. Furthermore, Iran will have the option to pursue separate negotiations with Russia, China, and some European states, all of whom will want to keep on talking.

Thus, failure to get a deal in the coming months will probably result in the P5+1 coalition falling apart. On the one hand, the United States will likely impose its own, new unilateral sanctions on Iran. Europe will be torn between following America's lead and its own desire to keep the negotiations going. Meanwhile, Russia- and possibly China-will probably offer economic assistance to Iran, thus undermining U.S. sanctions.

However, failure to reach a comprehensive deal does not have to lead to such dire consequences. There is another option: namely, the parties could put aside the ambitious goal of reaching a comprehensive agreement at once and adopt a more modest, gradual approach, similar to what Russia and the United States did for decades during arms reduction talks.

In the first stage of such an approach, the P5+1 and Iran could agree on issues of transparency. For Iran, this would mean allowing IAEA intrusive controls, including implementing the Additional Protocol and the revised Code 3.1 of the 2003 Subsidiary Arrangements, which would require Iran to provide the IAEA with all information on nuclear energy-related projects from the moment they are conceived.

This partial agreement could remain in effect for a period of ten to fifteen years, while the time periods for complying with other conditions in the November 2013 Joint Plan of Action could be extended. This would be better than no agreement at all.

In the next stage of a gradualist approach, the parties could turn to limiting Iran's plutonium cycle. This would include the construction of the heavy-water reactor at Arak, strict limits on plutonium separation, and other related issues.

After that, discussions on the most contentious issues ought to begin. This would include restrictions on the present and future number and features of uranium-enrichment facilities intended for peaceful energy production, the number and efficiency of centrifuges, and the size and physical form of Iran's low-enriched uranium stockpiles.

Finally, the last stage of this approach should focus on suspicions of past violations as well as Iran's missile program.

In exchange, the UN, the European Union, and the United States would gradually rollback their sanctions over the course of the negotiations, ultimately lifting them entirely. Cooperation with Iran on the peaceful use of atomic energy could also resume at this point.

Of course, this scenario would not be easy given the current political climate, but it is more realistic than reaching a go-for-broke comprehensive deal. Thus, it is the only plausible option at this time.

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#39
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
March 11, 2015
Kazakh president ends speculation by announcing will stand for re-election
Naubet Bisenov in Almaty

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled the Central Asian nation with an iron fist for more than a quarter of a century, has agreed to his Nur Otan party's nomination to stand for another term. The 2007 amendment to the Kazakh constitution abolished term limits for Nazarbayev, as first president, technically allowing him to stay in power for life.

Nur Otan convened an unscheduled party conference in Astana on March 11 to nominate Nazarbayev as presidential candidate. This followed a request in February for the president to call a snap presidential poll to re-elect him in the face of a "new wave of the financial and economic crisis" and "serious geopolitical tension" in the region caused by Russia's annexation of Crimea and support for rebels in eastern Ukraine. Kazakhstan will go to polls on April 26.

"I've come here to speak to you and perhaps agree with your nomination of my candidacy with only one aim of proposing [to solve] new tasks, complicated tasks that we are facing," Nazarbayev, 74, told the party conference. "As to the question of how to be president and who should be president I've said that a person should go for election if you have a set of programmes and goals through which you want to improve the life of your people. If there is no such goal or objective, there is no need to go there."

Nazarbayev's consent to stand for re-election will end talk about his possible campaigning for his eldest daughter Dariga, 51, the deputy speaker of parliament's lower chamber, that his silence about the election had given rise to. Observers believe that the proposal to hold the election first floated by the Assembly of Kazakhstan's People, a forum for the country's minorities appointed by the president, could not have been possible without authorisation from Nazarbayev himself.

Challenges ahead

The presidential poll was brought forward from 2016 because analysts believe the authorities are afraid that Nazarbayev's re-election would have been hampered by the deepening economic crisis in the country and potential social discontent over falling living standards. Kazakhstan is currently facing serious economic challenges caused by the low price of oil and rising pressure to devalue the currency, the tenge, from the weakening Russian ruble since Moscow annexed Crimea a year ago. Russia is Kazakhstan's main trading partner, accounting for a third of its imports.

Since the near 50% drop in the value of the ruble and the price of oil since 2014, the central bank has come under increasing pressure to devalue the tenge, but the government has put off the move. The National Bank of Kazakhstan devalued the tenge twice - by 25% and 19% - in 2009 and 2014, both times in February. The currency is now trading at slightly over KZT185 to the dollar, but in January Morgan Stanley predicted the rate will fall to KZT260 by the end of the first half of 2015.

The announcement of the snap poll has postponed a decision on devaluation until at least after the election and possibly until even after the inauguration, as it would be hard for Nazarbayev to sell his re-election as a guarantee of prosperity and stability to the population if people's savings had been wiped out.

The re-election will give the president a vote of confidence at a time when the ruling elite is afraid that the growing deterioration of society's mood could undermine support for the president. Nazarbayev, who was re-elected in 2011 with 95.5% of the vote on a 90% turnout, is expected to be re-elected with a similar share of the vote: anything lower than his performance in the previous election will be seen as a drop in popular support for the ageing president. Kazakhstan has never held any election judged free and fair by the Organisation for Cooperation and Security in Europe.

The other key reason for the early election is the complicated international situation caused by the Russia-West standoff. Nazarbayev's re-election should help dispel concerns over the medium-term foreign policy course of the country.

The silence that enveloped Nazarbayev's election plans since the announcement of the election on February 25 had given rise to rampant speculation in the commercial capital, Almaty, that Nazarbayev might campaign for Dariga. The suicide of her former husband, Rakhat Aliyev, one of the most hated figures in the Kazakh establishment, has reduced objections to keeping the presidency within the family. However, Dariga's lack of executive experience - she has never been appointed regional governor or held a government post - would have still made her a controversial choice.

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