#2
The Unz Review
www.unz.com
March 15, 2015
Schrodinger's Putin
BY ANATOLY KARLIN

After a week-long absence, the Internet is growing rife with rumors about Putin's health and whereabouts.

Has he produced a heir with Alina Kabaeva? Is he plotting nuclear war with the West from his bunker at Mount Yamantau? Has he been abducted by aliens? Or is the Mausoleum about to get a new occupant??

Let's consider the possibilities one by one:

Putin is ill

This is according to an anonymous Kazakh official, following the cancelation of a planned visit to Astana. This is being denied by Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who said Putin was "breaking hands" in response to a question about his handshake. Naturally. But it has to be admitted that a week and counting is a long time in politics. Still, everyone gets the flu now and then, and in a highly personalistic power system like Russia's it might not do well to display the fact. When alpha male chimps become ill, rather than weather challenges from young upstarts while they are relatively incapacitated, they prefer to wander into the forest, come back when they get better, and act as if nothing out of the norm had happened (or they die). It would not do for people to see the Tsar and arbiter of the Kremlin clans coughing, sneezing, and bedridden like some old geezer.

Putin is incapacitated or dead

Perhaps he had a stroke or heart attack. Maybe he's dead, and Maidanist Ukrainians can jump in glee, like the Prussians did in the correct belief that Elizaveta had died and the war against them would soon end, or the top Nazis in 1945 on the incorrect belief that the death of FDR would presage the unraveling of the Alliance.

Unfortunately for them, this is almost certainly out of the question, and not only because keeping such a development in Russia, which after all is still a largely open information space, is practically unfeasible.

The first reason to treat rumors of Putin's death from health complications is that he is an extremely healthy physical specimen, a genuine judoka who starts his day with a few laps in the swimming pool and rarely drinks. This alone would make the average Russian male life expectancy of 65 years completely inapplicable to him. Second, he enjoys basically billionaire-level healthcare. Yeltsin, an obese alcoholic who suffered from heart attacks every other year, still managed to eke out 76 years with the help of elite healthcare. Finally, the Putins appear to be an unusually long-lived family in general. His mother, Maria Ivanovna, died at the age of 87, and his father, Vladimir Spiridonovich, at 88. His paternal grandfather, Spiridon Putin, who incidentally happened to be a cook to Lenin and Stalin, died at the age of 86. His other children also tended to die at advanced ages - Anna at 80, and as far as I can establish, Alexander (born in 1920) and Ludmila (born in 1926) were alive at least until 2000, though I'm uncertain about Mikhail (born in 1913). Only one of Spiridon Putin's children died early, but that was from a German shell or bullet in 1941. Longevity is moderately heritable, and such consistently high lifespans are highly unusual for 20th century Russia. Of course a healthy lifestyle, genetics, and elite healthcare are no absolute guarantee against a premature death, but when virtually all the variables are stacked in your favor, it makes it very unlikely. I may have to eat a bullet on this, but I fully expect Putin's lifespan to be comparable to Castro's.

One final reason to treat claims of Putin's premature demise with skepticism is that this is hardly the first time it's happened. There is a small minority of Russians who desperately and fervently wish him dead, and are more than happy to provide grist for the rumor mill, and there is a much larger group of Westerners who would be very happy at treat the resulting product as wheat when all the evidence points to it being chaff. There was an analogous case in 2012, when Putin also disappeared for a few days following what was likely a minor back injury during judo practice. That didn't stop Russian emigre journalist Leonid Bershidsky from upgrading it to spinal cancer, a claim which seems to have been originally posted by a minor Russian oppositionist and soon afterwards actively propagated by the Chechen Islamist terrorist website Kavkaz Center:

Today I learned from a source in the presidential administration, that our alpha dog is not simply sick but he is sick with spine sarcoma (spinal cancer,) and 3 months are left for the life of this guy. The cancer cannot be treated, and there is already a struggle inside the KGB for powerful positions.

A probable successor will actually be the shaman Shoigu (Russia's new defense minister), and soon there will be a lot of interesting events, in particular, before the next special operation to transfer the throne from one thief to another; half of the of weapons are planned to be confiscated from the population. So, in 2013 there will be fun. We must prevent a new thief from the Putin's gang to move to the Kremlin.

This has all the usual Kremlinological dreck, which we'll come to in a sec, but first, a litte aside: The reference to "shaman" is on account of Shoigu's Buddhism. I did say this is an extremist Islamist website, which openly and proudly celebrates terrorist attacks on Russian soil. But funnily enough, it happens to be hosted without any problems on a Finnish server. One can only imagine the problems, say, Al Qaeda or ISIS would have if they were to try to get hosting in a Western country. It pays for an Islamist terrorist group to have the right sugardaddy.

Coup

Anyhow, moving on. Images of tanks and APCs on Red Square... that happened to be several years old. Rumors that the Kremlin was to make an important announcement this weekend, and orders to journalists to remain in Moscow... soon proved a fake. Black helicopters over the Kremlin. Medvedev is now calling the shots. Or Primakov in a liberal palace coup. Or Sergey Ivanov in a hardliner uprising. Or maybe Putin himself is preparing a massive political reorganization, such as firing Medvedev's Cabinet in favor of Ivanov, the Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration.

Problem: Mounting a coup against Putin is hard. No major interest group has beef with him: The non-systemic opposition is impotent, truculent oligarchs have long since been purged or coopted, and the political elites - especially the siloviki, or security personnel - are largely agreed with his domestic and foreign policy course. The civiliki, or liberal technocrats, might not be quite as happy, but they are also divided and frankly don't have the requisite balls to attempt a coup anyway. Even if they did, they would still have to figure out how to manage a population that at this point in history virtually adulates Putin; at last count, his approval rating was at an astronomical 88%.

And the last, concrete argument against the coup theory is that the events of the past week don't hew to the standard patterns of historical coup. The hard men at the FSB or the MVD would not be taking so long about it. The Army would be getting involved. Considering that they overwhelmingly sided with Gorbachev in August 1991, when his popularity was already at rock bottom, it is inconceivable that Russia's apolitical generals would side against Putin. There would almost certainly be blood in the streets. No, the chances of a coup are infinitesimal. Putin is more likely dead from a stroke than under house arrest or something that approximates to it.

Out of all these options, the only more or less remotely feasible one is that Putin is preparing some kind of major new denouement, such as the formation of a new government, or a major change of policy - there are mixed signals, so it could be in either direction - on Ukraine.

The Grozny Gambit

In 1564, getting tired of the aristocracy's incompetence and venality, Ivan Grozny (mistranslated as "The Terrible") left his throne for a monastery in disgust. Unable to govern and threatened by the Moscow mob, the boyars begged him to come back. Ivan agreed, but only on condition that they vest him with absolute power. The boyars acceded to his ultimatum. Ivan returned in 1565, and created the infamous oprichnina, with their Nazgul-like black attire and black horses, and pommel-mounted dog heads and brooms to "sniff out and sweep away" treason. The Russian state became centralized as never before, but at the cost of eventual ruin and economic collapse.

Is Putin doing the Grozny Gambit, betting that Russia will become ungovernable in his absence and that the boyars and the people will demand his return on any condition?

Much as this image of Tsar Putin would satiate the hearts and minds of romantics and neoreactionaries... no. Just no. Putin isn't one for the melodramatic, or the taking of unnecessary risks for gains that he doesn't even aspire to it in the first place.

Kabaeva love child

Putin's amorous relationship with rhythmic gymnast and Olympic champion Alina Kabaeva has been the stuff of Kremlin rumors and febrile imaginations for the past seven years. The general story is that Putin and Kabaeva became engaged in 2008, married in 2013, and had a child in Switzerland this February. Though strongly denied by Putin's spokespeople, the timing of his divorce from his first wife Ludmila, in 2013, is certainly interesting. And a Twitter account, most convincingly named @kabaeva_russia, claimed that she "just had a son" two days ago.

Which doesn't square with the "Es ist ein Madchen!" soundbyte adopted by the media. Or with why a privacy-conscious Putin would go to Switzerland; it's not like Russia doesn't have any elite obstetrics facilities. Or with Kabaeva's figure a couple of months ago, which doesn't exaclty look seven months pregnant.

Frankly, the likeliest possibility is that Putin's team tolerates and even gently promotes these rumors, since virility is generally considered to be a good thing in leaders - better than being sick, at any rate.

Still, Leonid Bershidsky is ON IT, so that must at least count for something.

Schrodinger's Putin

My bet is still on a particularly nasty flu or maybe a mild-to-moderate health issue, which if so would probably be highly visual, like Botox gone wrong. 88% approval rating or not, he'd still be a laughing stock.

But surely I am not alone in hoping for Putin's glorious emergence on Red Square soon before the assembled people, a cyborg robot suit in place of torso, Monomakh's Cap on his head, and a swaddled infant-heir in his arms, proclaiming the foundation of the Imperial Russian Horde.

Either way, we'll find soon enough. Appointments have been scheduled, prior postponements have to be made good; we are unlikely to be waiting for answers for very much longer.

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 #3
www.rt.com
March 15, 2015
Putin: US masterminds behind Ukraine coup, helped train radicals

The Ukrainian armed coup was organized from Washington, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated in an interview for a new documentary aired Sunday. The Americans tried to hide behind the Europeans, but Moscow saw through the trick, he added.

"The trick of the situation was that outwardly the [Ukrainian] opposition was supported mostly by the Europeans. But we knew for sure that the real masterminds were our American friends," Putin said in a documentary, 'Crimea - The Way Home,' aired by Rossiya 1 news channel.

"They helped training the nationalists, their armed groups, in Western Ukraine, in Poland and to some extent in Lithuania," he added. "They facilitated the armed coup."

Putin said this approach was far from being the best dealing with any country, and a post-Soviet country like Ukraine specifically. Such countries have a short record of living under a new political system and remain fragile. Violating constitutional order in such a country inevitably deal a lot of damage to its statehood, the president said.

"The law was thrown away and crashed. And the consequences were grave indeed. Part of the country agreed to it, while another part wouldn't accept it. The country was shattered," Putin explained.

He also accused the beneficiaries of the coup of planning an assassination of then-President Viktor Yanukovich. Russia was prepared to act to ensure his escape, Putin said.

"I invited the heads of our special services, the Defense Ministry and ordered them to protect the life of the Ukrainian president. Otherwise he would have been killed," he said, adding that at one point Russian signal intelligence, which was tracking the president's motorcade route, realized that he was about to be ambushed.

Yanukovich himself didn't want to leave and rejected the offer to be evacuated from Donetsk, Putin said. Only after spending several days in Crimea and realizing that "there was no one he could negotiate with in Kiev" he asked to be taken to Russia.

Viktor Yanukovich after a news conference in Rostov-on-Don (RIA Novosti)Viktor Yanukovich after a news conference in Rostov-on-Don (RIA Novosti)

The Russian president personally ordered preparation of the Crimean special operation the morning after Yanukovich fled, saying that "we cannot let the [Crimean] people be pushed under the steamroller of the nationalists."

"I [gave them] their tasks, told them what to do and how we must do it, and stressed that we would only do it if we were absolutely sure that this is what the people living in Crimea want us to do," Putin said. He added that an emergency public opinion poll indicated that at least 75 percent of the people wanted to join Russia.

"Our goal was not to take Crimea by annexing it. Our final goal was to allow the people express their wishes on how they want to live," he said.

"I decided for myself: what the people want will happen. If they want greater autonomy with some extra rights within Ukraine, so be it. If they decide otherwise, we cannot fail them. You know the results of the referendum. We did what we had to do," Putin said.

He added that his personal involvement helped expedite things, because the people carrying out his decision had no reason to hesitate.

According to Putin, part of the operation was to deploy K-300P Bastion coastal defense missiles to demonstrate Russia's willingness to protect the peninsula from military attack.

"We deployed them in a way that made them seen clearly from space," Putin said.

The president assured that the Russian military were prepared for any developments and would have armed nuclear weapons if necessary. He personally was not sure that Western nations would not use military force against Russia, he added.

The Russian president said the move to send Russian troops to secure Crimea and allow a referendum to be freely held there prevented major bloodshed on the peninsula.

"Considering the ethnic composition of the Crimean population, the violence there would have been worse [than in Kiev]. We had to act to prevent negative development, not to allow tragedies like the one that happened in Odessa, where dozens of people were burned alive," Putin said.

He acknowledged that there were some Crimean people, particularly members of the Crimean Tatar minority, who opposed the Russian operation.

"Some of the Crimean Tatars were under the influence of their leaders, some of whom are so to speak 'professional' fighters for the rights of the Tatars," he explained.

But at the same time the "Crimean militia worked together with the Tatars. And there were Tatars among the militia members," he stressed.

The Crimean people voted in a referendum to join Russia after rejecting a coup-imposed government that took power in Kiev in February 2014. The move sparked a major international controversy, as the new government's foreign backers accused Russia of annexing the peninsula through military force.

Moscow insists that the move was a legitimate act of self-determination and that the Russian troops acted only to provide security and not as an occupying force. Russian officials cite the example of Kiev's military crackdown on the dissenting eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which claimed more than 6,000 lives since April 2014, as an example of bloodshed that Russia acted to prevent in Crimea.

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 #4
Euromaidan Press
March 13, 2015
Russians make up 85% of "separatist" fighters - ATO

Russian mercenaries make up 85% of the illegal armed groups in eastern Ukraine, ATO spokesman Colonel Andriy Lysenko reported at a briefing on Friday, March 13.

"According to intelligence reports as of March 12, Ukrainian citizens represent 15-20% of the illegal armed groups, the rest are Russian mercenaries," he said, adding that the enemy is continuing to build up its forces and to move equipment.

"Intensive combat training of the Russian-terrorist forces continues. The instructor teams are staffed mostly by Russian citizens," he said.

Lysenko confirmed the information reported earlier by military expert Dmytro Tymchuk, coordinator of the Information Resistance group (IR).

According to Tymchuk, two militant army corps have been deployed in the Donbas, consisting of about 30,000-33,000 fighters, 80-85% of them Russian mercenaries.

"As of today, two armed corps of Russian-terrorist armies (30,000-33,000) have actually been deployed under one centralized DNR and LNR command. Only 15 - 20% (of the fighters) are Ukrainian citizens; the rest are Russian mercenaries," he wrote in Facebook, March 12.

Furthermore, the terrorist command is pursuing intensive "mobilization measures," he added. "At the mines and enterprises in the occupied territories massive so-called mobilizations lists of workers are being drawn up on the pretext of preparing for the 'offensive by Ukrainian troops.'"

Meanwhile, in several areas of Donetsk artillery systems are being secretly moved closer to their previous locations before the so-called weapon "withdrawals." These rotations are carried out by small groups or individual units.  "Artillery and mortars are carefully disguised and access to the areas is forbidden to the local population," Tymchuk reported.

IR has determined that enhanced combat training of the "Russian-terrorist forces" is taking place primarily at 4 equipped "training centers" on the territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts controlled by the terrorists.

"Teams of instructors are staffed mainly by Russian citizens - both personnel officers and mercenaries with extensive combat experience and experience serving in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation," Tymchuk wrote.

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 #5
Interfax
March 13, 2015
Foreigners account for less than a third of east Ukraine militia - top commander

The defence ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) says that it is local residents who account for the majority of the members of the Donbass militia, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 13 March.

"I shall tell you the following: 70 per cent of the volunteers are residents of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic," Interfax quoted DPR defence minister Volodymyr Kononov (Vladimir Kononov) as saying in an interview with Kommersant FM radio.

Kononov did not deny presence of foreign volunteers in the militia, but he said that their number did not exceed a third of the overall number.

"They could be volunteers from Russia, Belarus, as well as other countries. We have had Swedes, French; we have had all kinds," Interfax quoted Kononov as saying.

Kononov also said that, before they join the ranks of the militia, volunteers undergo checks for absence of criminal conviction and medical checks.

"We are trying to check this (absence of criminal conviction) without fail, as far as our possibilities allow. And all volunteers undergo obligatory military medical examination," Kononov said, as reported by Interfax.

 #6
www.rt.com
March 14, 2015
Poroshenko: 11 EU states struck deal with Ukraine to deliver weapons, including lethal

Ukraine has concluded deals with eleven countries of the EU on delivery of weapons, including lethal, President Petro Poroshenko told the country's TV. He, however, didn't mention which countries will provide 'defensive aid' to Kiev.

"The Head of State has informed that Ukraine had contracts with a series of the EU countries on the supply of armament, inter alia, lethal one. He has reminded that official embargo of the EU on the supply of weapons to Ukraine had been abolished," said a statement on Poroshenko's official website, citing his interview to the TV channel "1+1".

According to Poroshenko's statement, he is confident that EU and USA will support Ukraine with weapons if needed.

"If there is a new round of aggression against Ukraine, I can surely say that we will immediately receive both lethal weaponry and new wave of sanctions against the aggressor. We will act firmly and in a coordinated manner."

Ukraine won't reduce its defense capacity, said Poroshenko, adding that now "intensive combat training is being held" in the country.

"We are mining the most dangerous tank directions and building engineering structures under the new plan and projects."

The statement said that the decision of the US President Barack Obama "who decided to supply Kiev with defensive weaponry" is crucial.

"This armament will increase preciseness and efficiency of the Ukrainian weapons. In addition, thermal imagers and radars that detect motion help counteract reconnaissance and subversive groups of the opponent."

The Ukrainian leader said the situation in Donetsk and Lugansk Regions is being gradually deescalated, adding that the Ukrainian army hasn't suffered casualties for several days.

In the meantime, the head of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic, Igor Plotnitsky, said he doesn't understand why Kiev is planning to buy weapons while the country is seeing a peaceful process. He was referring to a peace deal which was struck between the Ukrainian government and the rebels in the south-east of the country in Belarusian capital Minsk on February 12, after almost a year of fighting.

"We have a question: why do they [Kiev authorities] want weapons if they were the first to demand peace?" Plotnitsky asked.

On Wednesday US Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed that Washington was to send Kiev more non-lethal military aid, including drones and armored Humvees.

"We are today providing immediately some $75 million of additional non-lethal assistance, immediately, to Ukraine in order to help them in non-lethal assistance," Kerry told the Senate.

The US also announced earlier in March that they were planning to send about 300 military advisors to train the Ukrainian army from March through October.

Washington is not the only state which openly announced military aid to Ukraine. The UK said that it will send 75 British military personnel in March who will offer medical, intelligence and infantry training to the Ukrainian army. Poland has also said it is sending military advisors to Ukraine.

However, not all countries share the enthusiasm. America's NATO allies, namely France and Germany, have spoken against arming Ukraine, a move that could shatter the fragile peace that have just settled in the country torn by a civil war.

Germany has been one of the most vocal critics of sending arms to Ukraine and now the country's officials question NATO's assessment of the situation in the country.

The armed conflict in Ukraine's south-east began in April 2014, after Kiev sent its military to the area, as locals refused to recognize the new coup-imposed authorities in the capital. The fighting has seen over 6,000 killed and nearly 15,000 injured, according to the UN Human Rights Office.

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#7
Moscow Times
March 14, 2015
Mission Impossible: Ukraine's 3-Step Plan to Join NATO and Upset Russia

Russian officials have said repeatedly following the overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych last year that the ouster was a prelude to a NATO takeover of Ukraine.

These fears likely helped propel Moscow's annexation of Crimea and support of separatist rebels in Ukraine's eastern regions - moves which by turning Ukraine into a disputed territory destroyed any hopes in Kiev of swift NATO membership. The alliance will not even begin to consider a nation involved in an active internal or external conflict, or with outstanding border disputes.

But these concerns overlook the arduous process by which NATO inducts new members to its ranks. Ukraine is nowhere near being compatible with the alliance. Its security services are riven with Russian spies and a quarter of its defense budget is stolen.

Even without the confrontation with Russia, Ukraine would fail to get past the first hurdle of the accession process "because there are not only military standards but also social standards that the countries are notionally supposed to meet when applying for NATO membership," said Keir Giles, a Russia expert at Chatham House.

The Moscow Times looked at Ukraine's 3-step plan to overcome the obstacles and get into the alliance.

Step One - Interviews and Consultations

The first step in any serious Ukrainian bid to join NATO would be to declare its intent to join the alliance. This involves renouncing its 'nonaligned' status, which Kiev did last year in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea and subsequent support for pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.

NATO, for its part, would have to extend an invitation to begin working out a path to accession - which it has not done. This can only be done by unanimous consent of the allies, according to the alliance's official guidelines for aspiring members.

This process would involve several rounds of consultations at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where representatives of both sides would examine in depth the state of Ukraine's military, intelligence services, economy and political system.

The two sides would then via the NATO-Ukraine commission, which has existed since the early 1990s, launch a guided reform program known as a Membership Action Plan (MAP) - "a program of advice, assistance and practical support tailored to the individual needs of countries wishing to join NATO," according to NATO.

Step Two - Reform, Reform, Reform

Once a Membership Action Plan to accession had been hashed out and agreed upon by all parties, Ukraine would have to reform its corrupt and inefficient military and intelligence services, as well as bring its economy and political system closer in line with the standards of a European liberal democracy.

"There is an argument that [NATO's] standards have been waived in the past to fast-track countries into NATO," Chatham House's Giles said, but "it would be so blatantly obvious that [Ukraine] didn't conform with parts of the MAP ... that it's really a non-starter."

The Ukrainian army's Soviet-era equipment, level of training, and capabilities have degraded its ability to defend itself, let alone contribute to anything to NATO's mission of combined territorial defense - the fundamental requirement of any aspirant nation.

Even under Kiev's new pro-Western and ostensibly reform minded government, the military has huge problems to overcome. It has not seen any modernization efforts for 20 years, and appears mainly to have existed to guard arsenals of Soviet hardware to be sold on the global arms market.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Yury Biryukov in January said "it is estimated that about 20 to 25 percent of all money [allocated to the military] is now stolen," Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform reported, citing an interview given to the Channel 5 television station.

Ukraine's 2015 budget devotes 86 billion hryvna ($3.9 billion) to defense, which according to Biryukov's estimates will translate into losses to corruption of anywhere from $780 million to $975 million.

To put this in perspective, Ukraine's military loses more money to graft than NATO members Hungary, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia have each budgeted for defense in 2015.

Biryukov said the only hope to remedy the situation would be for the military prosecutor's office to step into the Defense Ministry to restore law and order, but said that office too is consumed by a state of "total corruption," Ukrinform reported.

Ukraine's security services, the SBU, is also rife with corruption, creating another barrier to NATO entry.

Allied intelligence services need to be trusted to handle NATO intelligence information, but the SBU is reportedly littered with Russian intelligence officers and double agents that are undermining the Ukrainian government.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the U.S. is already careful about what it shares with the SBU because of fears that information will pass straight to Russian security services.

Assuming that Ukraine was able to reform its military and intelligence services to fall roughly in line with NATO standards, there are still the political and economic reforms demanded of the Washington Treaty - the alliance's founding document, also known as the North Atlantic Treaty.

"Requirements include a democratic political system based on a market economy, the fair treatment of minority populations, and a commitment to resolve conflicts peacefully," according to NATO.

Step Three - Induction

If Ukraine was close enough in line with the military, social and political principals NATO proclaims, the final step in the process would be the formal bureaucratic procedure of joining the alliance.

First, all 28 members of the North Atlantic Council, NATO's governing body, would have to agree to extend an invitation to Ukraine. Then the process gets even more tedious.

To make Ukraine a full ally, an amendment would have to be be made to the 1949 Washington Treaty. Once amended, the treaty must then be re-ratified by all 28 member governments and Ukraine according to their own internal political processes.

Once that is all done, the updated treaty would return to the U.S. State Department, which keeps the treaty document. Only then could the the NATO secretary general declare Ukrainian membership official.

Ukraine and NATO Today

Ukraine tried to go down this road at the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, but France and Germany refused to extend Kiev an offer to launch a Membership Action Plan.

By 2010, when President Viktor Yanukovych came to power, Ukraine dropped its aspirations to join NATO. The country's parliament voted to declare nonaligned status later that year.

But after Russia's annexation of Crimea and support for pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine last year, Kiev has begun to take tiny steps toward joining the alliance. Ukraine first renounced its "nonaligned" status. Then, at a NATO summit in Wales last September, the two sides agreed to pursue a series of Annual National Plans, which the NATO official described as "geared toward reform more generally, with no membership implications."

Russia can relax - the Annual National Plans are a way for NATO to offer advice that might help Ukraine pursue a Membership Action Plan later on, but do not commit the alliance to giving any real support.

And even with such support, Ukraine is a long time and a lot of reforms away from joining.

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#8
www.opendemocracy.net
March 13, 2015
Vying for influence in Ukraine
Oligarchs and Western experts are lining up to shape the future of Ukraine. But they're not all on the same side.
By Fabian Burkhardt
Fabian Burkhardt holds an MA in Russian Studies from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, and is currently a PhD researcher at the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies at LMU Munich. He tweets on Russian and post-Soviet politics @sanwaldinjo

Berlin, Geneva, Paris, and Minsk. These are the places we usually associate with efforts to resolve the current confrontation between Ukraine and Russia, as well as Western countries and Russia in the wake of 2014.

As of October last year, Vienna has also joined the list, after an illustrious group of senior politicians and academics gathered in the Austrian capital's lavish Hofburg Palace by invitation of Future Business Ukraine and the German-Ukrainian Forum. Given the location and attitude of the invitees, allusions to the Congress of Vienna which took place 200 years ago, defining the European order for decades to come, were made only half in jest.

'New European Order'

Several months later in March 2015, it was reported that the Agency for the Modernisation of Ukraine (AMU), a body devoted to speedy reform in Ukraine, had been registered in Vienna. While founding members include French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, British Conservative Lord Risby, and the German member of the Bundestag (CDU) Karl-Georg Wellman, the AMU also draws an advisory board of eight senior figures (Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz, Laurence Parisot, Bernard Kouchner, Lord Mandelson, Lord Macdonald, Peer Steinbrück, Günter Verheugen, and Rupert Scholz). The names are impressive, to say the least.

However, Evhen Vorobyov of Polish think-tank PISM was quick to denounce it as a 'sham'. The agency, the Vienna conferences (four in total) and the advisory board, devoted to developing a reform agenda for Ukraine within 200 days, are funded by Ukrainian billionaire Dmytro Firtash. Currently residing in Vienna, Firtash is awaiting a verdict on possible extradition to the United States (to be announced by a Vienna district court on 30 April 2015). In March 2014, Firtash paid €125 million in bail after he had been arrested by Austrian authorities following charges of bribery by US law enforcement (related to India, not Ukraine).

Firtash was a key backer of Viktor Yanukovych's presidential bid in 2010, and subsequently expanded his influence in Ukraine's chemical and fertiliser industry. An investigation by Reuters convincingly demonstrated that Firtash profited in the 2000s from Gazprom gas sales well below market price; and portrayed him as an intermediary figure 'representing Russia's interests in Ukraine'. Consequently, Maidan activists turned Rada deputies such as Svitlana Zalishchuk and Sergei Leshchenko declared Firtash's call for a European Marshall Plan worth 300 billion euros a PR stunt designed to whitewash his reputation in the West.

In fact, Firtash is not the only one to suggest a Marshall Plan for Ukraine. George Soros, the Hungarian-born financier and philanthropist, called for a $50 billion rescue package for Ukraine, which should be kicked off in the first quarter of 2015 by the EU. These two proposals are different in principal, and not only because Firtash pledges six times more funds. Soros has been arguing for a two-pronged approach, with sanctions against Russia as a necessary evil balanced by large-scale financial assistance for Ukraine. Firtash, on the contrary, described sanctions and the supply of non-lethal military equipment to Ukraine as 'stupid'. Instead, he said, Russian investors should contribute equally to the financial package.

Missing the point

To focus solely on Firtash for assessing what impact AMU will have on reforms in Ukraine misses the point. The organisation and agenda of the four subsequent Vienna conferences paving the way for AMU were largely outsourced to the German-Ukrainian Forum (DUF).

A glance at DUF's board will tell you that the forum is aligned with major non-governmental players in German-Russian relations. DUF's chairman Rainer Lindner is also director of the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations (Ostausschuss), a powerful business lobby and consistent critic of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's sanctions policy. Another board member is Alexander Rahr, senior lobbyist for Wintershall and research director of the German-Russian Forum (DRF). Matthias Platzeck, DRF's chairman stated it was 'honourable' to help rebuild Ukraine, and 'oligarchs must also contribute a fair share'. Firtash announced that 25 per cent of the Marshall Plan for Ukraine should be contributed by Russian investors; and thus the institutional link to the Eastern Committee and DRF appears warranted from this angle.

On the face of it, this looks like a conciliatory gesture, or part of a face-saving exit option for Russia. But actually, it is unclear how a country that has failed to modernise its own economy should facilitate Ukraine's 'modernisation'. Moreover, researchers like Margarita Balmaceda point out that Russia has previously used Ukraine's energy dependency as a form of patronage to corrupt the country's economic and political elite.

Moreover, in 2013-2014, Russia introduced economic sanctions against Ukraine. Given the intertwining of political and economic actors in Russia, it remains unclear how the 'carrot and stick' policy could suddenly be turned around into a modernisation agenda. It could be argued that, instead of investment and credit, Russia should pay reparations for war damages inflicted on eastern Ukraine.

At the same time, DRF's increasing engagement with Russian railway tycoon Vladimir Yakunin's Dialogue of Civilizations annual public forum in Rhodes (the organisation is registered in Vienna, and has former Austrian chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer as co-chairman) does not seem to bode well for Ukraine. At a DRF conference in Berlin, Yakunin - already on the US sanctions list - accused the West of 'vulgar ethno-fascism', and the annual conference in Rhodes is mostly about geopolitics in a multipolar world. Günther Verheugen, deputy chairman of the DUF and one of AMU's senior advisors, not only served as an EU Commissioner for Enlargement and for Enterprise and Industry, but is also a major proponent of Social Democratic Ostpolitik usually associated with appeasement towards Russia.

Setting the agenda

The AMU advisory board is just beginning its work, but the two memoranda published on the DUF website after the October and November Vienna conferences clearly signal its general direction.

The first memorandum contains the framework within which the eight senior advisers will develop their policy recommendations for integration, economy, trade, constitutional reform, police and justice, health, anti-corruption, public finances and taxes. Among the overarching theses are: a political solution to the Ukraine crisis via the Minsk agreements; credit lines for Ukraine from the EU and Russia (with both creditors having equal rights); a common economic space from Lisbon to Vladivostok negotiated by the EU and the Eurasian Union; a non-aligned military status for Ukraine; modernisation of Ukraine's gas transportation system led by a trilateral consortium (EU, Russia, Ukraine); and the federalisation of Ukraine.

Federalisation, in particular, is a paramount issue, and was vehemently propagated by Rupert Scholz, a German expert on constitutional law. In 2012, Scholz criticised the EU for its 'surprising and unfounded carping' with regard to Hungary's constitutional reform, insisting on national sovereignty.

The list, of course, goes on. But its final items are also worth noting: a gradual revocation of sanctions against Russia, and a Russian-Ukrainian commission to decide difficult political and historical questions. Many of these recommendations resonate with what Firtash has publicly declared, and which happen to chime with the position of the German Eastern Committee, and to a large degree, the position of the Russian government.

At the same time, while these stated goals might be noble in intent, there are at least three broader issues to be taken into account.

Best intentions

First of all, both the Austrian government and the German chancellery were far from pleased with the emergence of AMU. A German government source declared that it would have preferred an advisory board initiated by the Ukrainian government rather than an oligarch.

Moreover, due to its broader policy of fiscal austerity, the German government is sceptical about pumping money into Ukraine. Erich Vad, a former security advisrr to Chancellor Merkel, explained to a Munich audience recently that, in his view, the 'Greek experience' demonstrated that the benefit of financial aid is marginal if the institutional framework is not capable of absorbing it appropriately.

On a more abstract level, AMU also calls into question the realist assumption that international relations are mainly about states and governments. In other words, as a transnational non-governmental coalition, AMU and its independent agenda of economic diplomacy essentially challenges the prerogative of the French, German or Ukrainian governments.

Secondly, AMU is different from other initiatives committed to reform programmes for Ukraine, such as the formidable Reanimation Package for Reform. This body is a broad Ukrainian reform coalition which came into being on Maidan, and has a comprehensive reform agenda to turn into legislation. Likewise, one might also consider the 'political decentralisation initiative', a debate launched in February 2014 by Roger B. Myerson, the 2007 Nobel Prize winner in Economics, together with economist Tymofiy Mylovanov. The platform Vox Ukraine, a loose network of Western-trained economists of Ukrainian descent, also springs to mind, as well as the Nestor group consisting of Ukrainian academics, civil society activists, and policy advisers. Finally, the first Yatsenyuk government engaged four high-level voluntary advisers (Daron Acemoglu, Anders Aslund, Oleh Havrylyshyn, and Basil Kalymon) to assist with cutting government spending.

AMU is different in several respects. It is less academic, less grounded in the domestic Ukrainian debate, and less internally coherent in terms of the world views of the members. A striking example of AMU's disparate views was Bernard-Henri Lévy's statement during the first conference in Vienna that 'the discussion about linguistic nationalism is a crazy discussion in which the intellectuals of Europe should not have entered', while the first memorandum states that the 'Russian-language population' needs to be protected by the Ukrainian government from 'radical groups'.

Among the senior advisers, Lord Mandelson is conversant with Russian oligarchs such as Oleg Deripaska whereas the former president of the French employers association Laurence Parisot called for 'Europe to unite behind Ukraine against Russian aspirations'. Meanwhile, AMU is highly profitable for its staff (the eight senior advisers receive a four-digit daily euro salary), and is closer to the vested interests of Western big business, and the Ukrainian and Russian oligarchy.

Thirdly, for the reform programme of the AMU to be successful within Ukraine, a broad coalition of Ukrainian actors including oligarchs (Wellmann and Bernard-Henri Lévy tend to refer to Firtash as head of Ukraine's employer association) is essential. Initially, AMU was presented as a joint effort of the oligarchs Dmytro Firtash, Rinat Akhmetov, and Viktor Pinchuk. Akhmetov and Pinchuk, however, were quick to publicly withdraw their support. The press release published by Akhmetov's holding System Capital Management stated that he would be merely interested in the 'reconstruction of the Donbas'. This attitude would make sense as Akhmetov made his fortune there; and Viktor Yanukovych's and the Party of Regions built their power base in Donetsk.

Though initially Akhmetov used separatism in Donetsk as a bargaining chip with the new interim government in Kyiv, the oligarch was central in preserving governmental control of Mariupol on the Azov coast. With the so-called Donetsk People's Republic exerting de-facto control over its territory, Akhmetov lost control over certain assets. But Akhmetov continues to play a central role in delivering humanitarian aid there.

Oligarch Viktor Pinchuk, son-in-law of Ukraine's second president Leonid Kuchma (and a philanthropist known for the Art Center in Kyiv), called the new government reformist and pro-European in an op-ed. (By contrast, Firtash thinks the government is bad). But Pinchuk asked the international community to demonstrate 'tough love' by applying conditions to IMF loans, binding them to actual deeds instead of relying on faith in the goodwill of the government. Judging by Pinchuk's op-ed it is hard to see what role Russia could play in this conditional approach.

Igor Kolomoisky, governor of Dnipropetrovsk, showed from the very beginning he was hostile to AMU by spreading fake PR releases discrediting the endeavour. Kolomoisky sponsors private battalions fighting in the Donbas, and is, allegedly, a financial beneficiary of Ukraine's war budget.

Partnership and alienation

Firtash's position as the main backer of AMU alienated potential key stakeholders which, even if the advisory board with its impressive set of experts produced valuable recommendations, does not bode well for the future 'modernisation' of Ukraine. In fact, the whole endeavour could turn into a 'partnership for neo-patrimonialisation'.

It is likely that the newly-founded Agency for the Modernisation of Ukraine will have to be renamed into the Agency for the Federalisation of Ukraine and the Abolition of Sanctions against Russia. To paraphrase Thomas Carothers, the mission is critical, but sometimes the missionaries are flawed.

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 #9
Russia Direct
March 13, 2015
Making sense of Putin's Crimea confession
Russian President Vladimir Putin's controversial confession that he planned the incorporation of Crimea in advance of the referendum has political experts reassessing how to deal with the Russian state.
By Ivan Tsvetkov
Dr. Ivan Tsvetkov is an associate professor at the School of International Relations of St. Petersburg State University. He is an expert in U.S. policy in the Asia Pacific Region, US history and contemporary US society.

In a television interview related to the one-year anniversary of the events in Crimea, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a voluntary and unexpected confession. It would appear that the decision to incorporate Crimea into Russia was taken by him at a secret meeting at the Kremlin held during the night of Feb. 22, 2014, well before the referendum held by the citizens of the peninsula on March 16.

Of course, it was not difficult to guess that such a decision had been made based on an analysis of events - at the end of February units of so-called "polite men" (also known as "little green men" in the Western media) started to appear in Crimea. Nevertheless, Putin's confession surprised many and was taken as yet more evidence of the insincerity and duplicity within the Kremlin.

In previous announcements and interviews, Putin frequently stated the exact opposite. For example, talking with journalists on March 4, 2014, Putin informed them that the incorporation of Crimea into Russia "is not being examined."

Putin's tendency to deny what is clearly evident and well known appeared during his first years as president. Here, one might recall the controversial decision to transfer television broadcasters from private ownership to state ownership (which Putin called "disputes among economic enterprises"), the "non-political" Khodorkovsky case and many others.

However, before Crimea, this approach had nevertheless been used secretly: Everybody knew that Putin was telling lies, but he himself never confessed to it. Over the last year, we have already witnessed Putin make two large-scale "revelations." Initially Putin confessed that the Crimean "polite men" were in fact Russian soldiers, and now we learn that the decision to send them to the peninsula was taken at the Kremlin on the morning of Feb. 23.

Typically, such secrets are revealed (if they are revealed at all) in memoirs written in retirement. But Putin has demonstrated that he has no desire to wait. Why wait if it is clear that talking about a secret operation will not harm his ratings and reputation, but on the contrary, will possibly increase them further?

As to the previous announcements, Putin remembers them perfectly but doesn't consider them false (as indeed do millions of his compatriots). According to his logic, there was no lie, but a "ruse de guerre" without which it is impossible to fight evil in the modern world.

It appears that, from Putin's point of view, Russia, which lags behind its Western adversaries according to many objective criteria (economic growth, technology, infrastructure development etc.), must in some way compensate for its backwardness. It is necessary to use "unconventional" methods, confusing the opponent and misleading him.

By pursuing such verbal gymnastics, Putin is not only increasing his ratings within Russia but is addressing to an international audience, including those that are opposed to him. In this address he is giving a signal that he has entered into an uncompromising struggle with the West and that Russia no long feels tied to conventions or propriety. There is only one morality - Russia's interests, and furthermore, these interests will be determined personally by Putin and no one else.

Putin's revelation can be seen as a symptom of the growing personalization of power in Russia. To lie and then confess a lie is something that only a leader can do who feels no limits to his power, a leader who does not listen to public opinion but, rather, forms it himself. Only a few months ago, when Deputy Director of the Presidential Administration, Vyacheslav Volodin at the Valdai Club announced that, "Putin is Russia," it seemed that the official was thinking wishfully.

But today, following the latest phase of the war in Ukraine, following the murder of Russia's opposition leader Boris Nemtsov and other tragic events, this seems to be more a statement of fact. For a larger and larger number of observers, it is becoming clear that the duration of the Russian state in its current form is the same as the period during which Putin is able to maintain political control over the country.

Many Western politicians, it seems, have also come to understand this stark reality. Hopes for regime change and subsequent liberalization that grew as the situation in the Russian economy deteriorates under the effect of sanctions, have today been replaced by an increasing fear that excessive pressure on Putin may not at all be beneficial to liberals but those who believe that the president is not sufficiently consistent or decisive for a confrontation with the outside world. The situation is more frequently reminiscent of the early 1990s, when the chief fear for the West was a possible civil war on the crumbling ruins of a nuclear power.

The Soviet Union collapsed, but the worst, bloody scenario was avoided, thanks to the remaining faith in the potential for international cooperation and a huge positive goodwill that had been built up between the United States and the Soviet Union during the years of perestroika. Today, even if Russia does not collapse, the level of threat posed by the new international enfant terrible, will only increase - because the belief in cooperation and mutual sympathy between Russia and the West remain only memories.

The events of the past year following Russia's annexation of Crimea show that there is no reliable protection against a great power that rebels against the contemporary system of international relations. Sanctions, military and diplomatic pressure, ostracism from international organizations - all of these can only be effective instruments for subduing small failed states (and even then they do not always work).

The leaders of a huge country afflicted with post-empire syndrome and armed with strategic nuclear missiles, can do practically anything they want. Any external countermeasure, short of military attack, will only strengthen the authorities and hand them convenient instruments for suppressing the liberal opposition.

The only limit to the power can be the "monsters" they themselves have nursed - radical groups that do not halt before anyone or anything. A conflict with these groups may be, paradoxically, a way of reconciling the interests of the current political elite and the international political establishment.
The next few months should provide an answer to the question of what is more important for Western leaders: To punish Putin for disobedience, breaching international norms and violating moral principles, or to try to stop the spiral of Russia's self-destruction, which could lead to extremely dire consequences for the West?

The year following the Crimean incident was marked as one for punishment, but these attempts at punishment have barely reached the person who was the target of this punishment. It makes sense to try a new tactic over the course of the next year - at the very least, to avoid finding oneself face to face with a new Russian leader, who, instead of being cunning like Putin, will give the public clear and ruthless orders.

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 #10
Russia Insider
March 15, 2015
The Liberal Attack on the Nemtsov Investigation
There are no grounds to suspect a cover-up and evidence of an Islamist motive for the murder is compelling.  The attempts to cast doubt on the conduct of the investigation have an obvious political motive and do not further the cause of justice.
By Alexander Mercouris

The arrest of several men in connection with the Nemtsov murder and the disclosure that one of them has admitted to his role in the murder has been greeted with skepticism by all those who have their own theory about the murder - which is to say by just about everybody.

This negative reaction spreads across the whole spectrum, from those who believe the Kremlin was responsible for the murder to those who think the murder was a western or Ukrainian arranged "false flag".

The liberal camp in Russia has been especially critical.  As evidence has emerged linking the arrested men to a possible Islamist motive, the liberal politician Ilya Yashin has branded the Islamist theory "nonsensical" and this has been repeated ad nauseam by those with liberal anti-government views both in Russia and the West.  

Meanwhile we have had the first attempt to interfere with - or more properly to sabotage - the official investigation with a representative of the liberal dominated Presidential Human Rights Council claiming that Zaur Dadayev, the chief suspect, has retracted his confession, claiming he was induced to make it and had previously been tortured.  

In my two previous pieces about the murder (here and here), I resisted the temptation to theorise about who might be responsible. Sufficient evidence to do so in my opinion did not exist.  All theories that have appeared to date derive from speculations based on theories of motive.  That makes them no more than guesswork.  

There is no greater misconception about criminal investigation than the widespread belief that the solution to a murder can be found through an attempt to guess the murderer's motive.  Usually that involves looking for someone who supposedly benefits from the murder ("cui bono").

Sometimes that can work, for example in a murder for a legacy or within a family.   However where the murderer has no connection to the victim, this approach amounts to an attempt to enter the murderer's mind, which given how difficult that is, all but guarantees failure.

In the Nemtsov case this fallacy has led to theories that simply reflect the political prejudices of those who invent them.

Thus supporters of the government are sure the motive for Nemtsov's murder "must have been" to destabilise Russia, whilst opponents of the governments are sure the motive of the murder "must have been" to eliminate one of the government's opponents, either because he had become dangerous or, more nebulously, in order to create a "climate of fear".

In all cases those who hold these theories look for suspects who correspond with the sort of murderers required by these theories rather than to the murderers suggested by the actual facts of the case.

Let me first make an obvious point, though one which so far as I know no one else has made until now.  

This is that if a well-known liberal politician who had made comments supporting Charlie Hebdo and who had given a radio interview making critical comments about Islam had been murdered in the identical way in any other European capital a few weeks after the Charlie Hebdo attack, the universal assumption would have been that he had fallen victim to Islamist violence.  The only reason this did not happen in Nemtsov's case is because his murder happened in Russia.

This point in itself provides sufficient cause to challenge Yashin's claim that an Islamist motive for this murder is "nonsensical".  

As it happens, what we actually know of Dadayev's actions before the murder are consistent with an Islamist motive connected to the Charlie Hebdo attack.  

Dadayev is known to be a devout Muslim.  His friend Ramzan Kadyrov says he was profoundly shocked by the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

Dadayev resigned from the Interior Ministry, apparently unexpectedly, on 23rd December 2014, suggesting a sudden decision, a fact that appears to point to a personal crisis that caused him to doubt the life he had been leading up to then.  That is of course common with individuals who get drawn into the world of militant jihadist Islam.  

Two weeks later, on 7th January 2015, the attack on Charlie Hebdo took place.  On the same day Nemtsov made the first of three public comments about the attack.  Moscow Times has helpfully put them all together:

"The tragedy with the killing of 12 journalists of Charlie Hebdo magazine has shocked all normal people. My condolences to the families and loved ones of the innocently slain journalists. When Russia's Council of Muftis calls the actions of the publication's journalists a provocation and a sin, it is justifying the terrorists." (Facebook, Jan. 7)

"Tolerance ends there where violence begins. Many in Europe do not understand this. As a result, [French right-wing politician Marine] Le Pen will win." (Facebook, Jan. 8)

"Since the dawn of time, people have been killed for their beliefs. Romans crucified Jesus and persecuted Christians, and during the Middle Ages hundreds of thousands of people were burned alive on the bonfires of the Inquisition. ... Now we are witnessing a medieval Islamic inquisition. Centuries will pass and Islam will mature, and terrorism will become a thing of the past." (Ekho Moskvy, Jan. 9)

It seems that in the same Ekho Moskvy radio interview of 9th January 2015 Nemtsov also criticised Dadayev's friend and former chief the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov for comments Kadyrov had made the same day denouncing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

This sequence of events is consistent with a religious man undergoing an emotional crisis, who first resigns from a post that no longer seems to him consistent with his religious conscience, and who then turns to violence under the pressure of external events.  The 6 weeks between these events and the murder would be about the length of time someone like Dadayev would need to assemble his team and plan the murder.

The fact that Nemtsov's comments about Charlie Hebdo appear mild to some in no way disproves this.  I have already mentioned the inherent difficulty involved in trying to enter into the mind of a murderer.  This becomes much greater when the murderer is a religious fanatic in the throws of a personal emotional crisis.  What might appear mild to most people might not appear mild to such a person, particularly if he has a predisposition to violence and especially if he is already prejudiced against his victim.

Dadayev's behaviour following his arrest is also consistent with an Islamist motive.  As one might expect of a person who had committed murder for such a motive, he quickly confessed and on the occasion of his one court appearance made what appears to have been an Islamist hand-signal and a brief declaration of his love for the Prophet.  

One of Dadayev's alleged accomplices is said to have blown himself up, which is also consistent with the known behaviour of militant jihadists, many of whom prefer death or "martyrdom" to surrender.

As for Kadyrov's now notorious Instagram message, heaping praise on Dadayev and declaring that Dadayev would never act against Russia, far from this having any of the complex political motives attributed to it, it looks like the standard expression of bafflement one frequently comes across after acts of jihadist violence, with friends and relatives of the perpetrator struggling to relate what happened to the person they think they know.

To set the facts out in this way does not prove the Islamist motive.  It is simply one possible reading of the known facts. Until the evidence against Dadayev and the other people who have been arrested is made public, it is impossible to say confidently whether or not they are guilty or what their motive for the murder might be.

The danger in concocting theories about crimes before the facts are known is that those who do so become committed to their theory, whatever it is, and then shape the facts as they come to light around the theory.  This all too often leads them either to distort the facts or to reject those facts that contradict their theory.

Since the arrests this is precisely what has happened.  Since everyone has a theory about the murder, everyone doubts the official investigation because its results do not support their theory.
 
Unfortunately, though given the state of politics in Russia entirely predictably, this has already given rise to a first attempt to undermine the investigation.  

Equally predictably, the source of this attempt is the Presidential Human Rights Council, a liberal dominated body that has in the past campaigned for Khodorkovsky's innocence and which (in a report cited by the US Congress) has claimed Sergei Magnitsky was tortured.  

In Khodorkovsky's case, the European Court of Human Rights disagrees.  In Magnitsky's case, the medical evidence casts strong doubts on claims of torture.  

That the Presidential Human Rights Council has in the past taken such a dubious line in relation to two such high profile cases is reason enough to be wary of what it says in the Nemtsov case.  As will become clear, such caution is fully justified in light of what in fact happened.

A representative of the Human Rights Council visited Dadayev in prison in the role of a prison visitor and claims Dadayev told him that he was retracting his confession saying he had been induced to make it and that he had previously been tortured.

The representative of the Human Rights Council is not Dadayev's  lawyer.  His role was to check Dadayev's conditions of detention, not to discuss the case with him as his lawyer would do or to make public comments about things Dadayev had told him about his evidence or about the case in general.  

If this representative questioned Dadayev about his confession and about whether or not he had been tortured, then he was interfering in the course of a criminal investigation and placing himself in the role of Dadayev's lawyer, which is wrong and unethical.  

If Dadayev volunteered to this representative that his confession was false and that he had been tortured, the correct response was to report the fact to Dadayev's lawyer and to the relevant authorities and to demand an explanation and steps to protect Dadayev in the meantime. If the explanation provided was unsatisfactory or if no steps to protect Dadayev were taken, a report to that effect should have been prepared and sent to whatever higher authority is competent to handle such issues.  That might be the country's political leadership or it could be the Procurator General's Office or the court.  At that point, after consulting with Dadayev's lawyer, a decision might be taken to make the report public.

Certainly the wrong thing to do would be to do what was done in this case, which is to make the whole matter public in a way that is calculated to undermine confidence in the investigation before any of these things are done.

What Dadayev is alleged to have said to the representative of the Human Rights Council therefore has no value and should be ignored since the circumstances in which it is alleged to have been said give no confidence that it can be relied upon or that it is true.

The sequel is that the investigators have denied that Dadayev has retracted his confession whilst his lawyer has said he was not pressured either psychologically or physically in any way.  

That ought to be the end of this matter. Since this happened in Russia of course it won't be.  What this episode shows is not that there is something fundamentally wrong in the investigation or that Dadayev's confession is unreliable.  What it shows is the lengths to which some people in Russia are prepared to go in order to undermine the investigation so as to promote their particular view of the Nemtsov case.  That all but guarantees that what the representative of the Human Rights Council says Dadayev told him will continue to be brought up and repeated even though are no grounds to believe it true.

This episode should serve as a warning against accepting too readily any story about the murder, especially when it originates from a politically partial source, until evidence is produced to show it is true.  Claims that are currently circulating about a hit list said to have been provided to Putin by the FSB, or about a Major in the Chechen security forces having ordered the murder, should therefore be treated with the greatest skepticism until they are supported by facts, which enable them to be proved either false or true.

I do not know whether there was an Islamist motive to Nemtsov's murder.  However on the face of it the possibility is plausible and is consistent with what is publicly known about the facts of the case.  Certainly the Islamist theory is not a "nonsensical" theory as Ilya Yashin says.  Whether or not it is true will become clearer as the case progresses.  

The danger to justice in this case does not come from the investigation, even though this is what is often claimed.  There is nothing so far to suggest that any sort of cover-up is going on or that the investigation is not being professionally conducted or that it is going in the wrong direction.  On the contrary everything that is actually known about the investigation suggests that it is being conducted properly and well.

As the episode of Dadayev's supposed retraction of his confession shows, the danger to justice in this case comes not from the investigation but from those who because they have a particular agenda or because they are committed to a particular theory, are intent on bending the investigation to their will, and who will stop at nothing to achieve that end, even if it leads to the investigation being pulled in the wrong direction and away from the truth.  Those who actually care about the truth and want to find out what really happened and who really killed Nemtsov and why, need to keep this fact in mind and not let themselves be diverted by false leads and fanciful tales whose effect and purpose is to lead them in a certain direction that takes them away from the truth.

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 #11
Subject: Re: #27 JRL 2015-#51, Russia's Demography Just Took A Significant Turn For The Worse
Date:     Fri, 13 Mar 2015
From:     Sergey Slobodyan <Sergey.Slobodyan@cerge-ei.cz>

As Mark Adomanis correctly notes, one month doesn't a trend make.  Births in Nov-14 and Jan-15 did drop year-on-year, by 5.3 and 3.6%, respectively. But births in Dec-14, in contrast, have been the best in December for the last 20 years or so - plus 3.8% on Dec-13.

Taking a 3-months average could help in discerning the trend. From Nov-14 to Jan-15, 454.8 thousand babies were born, compared to 462.8 from Nov-13 to Jan-14, a decrease of 1.7%.

Not a 'significant', but a turn for the worse? Maybe.  But let's compare Nov-13 to Jan-14 period to Nov-12 to Jan-13. This comparison gives us a drop of 1.2%. Did this signify a change in the trend? Not really: for the whole 2014, births were 0.9% higher than in 2013.

Forecasting births in Russia has been an ungrateful occupation lately. Starting from Demographic Yearbook 2007, Rosstat provides demographic prognosis for the next 15-20 years.

The Yearbook is published towards the end of the year. Even so, predicting births for the next year has been difficult. Let's look at the examples.

2007. Forecast for 2008 births - 1547.3 thousand, actual number - 1713.9.
2008. Forecast for 2009 births - 1656.3 thousand, actual number - 1764.2.

Starting from Yearbook 2009, Low, Medium, and High variants of the forecast are provided (only Medium one was available in 2007 and 2008). Did this allow Rosstat to capture the quickly improving reality? Not much.

2009. Forecast for 2010 births - 1651.4/1736.9/1763.1 thousand in Low/Medium/High variant, actual number - 1789.6.
2010. Forecast for 2011:  1574.5/1746.6/1877.0, actual number - 1793.8.

There was no Yearbook 2011, probably due to work on 2010 Census. Meanwhile, 1895.9 babies were born in 2012, quite unpredicted.

What happened next?

2012. Forecast for 2013:  1623.2/1753.7/1824.3, actual number - 1901.2.
2013. Forecast for 2014:  1751.7/1864.6/1904.3, actual number - 1918.1.

As we see, only the forecast for 2011 was moderately successful, as the actual births went between Medium and High forecasts. In all other years, even the High variant was too pessimistic. For 2015, the prognosis is 1874.8/1914.0/1951.6.

As forecasting goes, this record is pretty dismal. Why is it so bad? As is easy to see, Rosstat was always predicting a drop in number of births for the next year in its Medium variant forecasts, relative to the actual number for the current year. Very large late USSR-born generation getting out of the most fertile years and early Russian-born women entering this age is the most popular explanation for the number of births coming down inevitably - soon. Most probably, the Medium variant reflected this changing demographic pyramid, assuming that age-specific coefficients of fertility will remain the same. The fact that this assumption was always and so materially wrong reflects a rapid increase in intensity of births, commonly measured by the Total Fertility Rate, or TFR. Why did TFR improve so rapidly? Maternal capital or shift of the most fertile age from 20-24 to 25-29 are the two most popular explanations.

It is inevitable that the annual number of births will start decreasing at some point in the future. Still, watching every drop in monthly numbers and declaring a turn in a trend is a fool's errand. After all, both MP Nikolai Gerasimenko and Sergey Zakharov, deputy director of the Institute of Demography of NRU HSE, declared beginning of a fall in birth numbers in early 2010, after watching a year-on-year drop in Jan-10, see http://www.ng.ru/economics/2010-04-01/1_demography.html. That declaration proved premature by at least five years.

NOTE: I am using only preliminary Rosstat data, which could differ from the final numbers by up to plus or minus 10 thousand annually, to ensure comparability with monthly data starting in 2002. For 2014-15, I consider the data excluding Crimean Federal District.

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 #12
CNBC.com
March 14, 2015
Russian economy is ready to grow
By Dan Steinbock
Dan Steinbock, a research director of International Business at India China and America Institute (USA), visiting fellow at Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and in the EU-Center (Singapore).

After a year of sanctions and a contraction, the Russian economy is ready for the upside. What it needs are economic reforms and international integration - not further sanctions and geopolitical isolation.

While the political impact of the opposition leader Boris Nemtsov's killing has been limited in Russia, it has fueled demands for new sanctions against Moscow in the West. Meanwhile, Russian equity valuations suggest potential for a strong performance over the coming months.

Nevertheless, as long as sanctions prevail, the potential destabilization in the Russian economy and severe collateral damage in Europe will steadily increase.

The ailing post-sanctions economy

In pre-sanctions Russia, growth was expected to remain weak in 2014-2015 due to stagnant oil demand, while institutional weaknesses reflected a poor investment climate. In early 2014, markets projected growth of 1.7 percent for 2014 and 2.3 percent in 2015, with a deceleration of inflation to about 5 percent and a policy rate of 5 percent.

With sanctions in place, the Russian economy wound up contracting 3.5 percent in 2014. Even in a benign scenario, Moscow can only expect flat growth in 2015. With subdued oil prices and weak ruble, only exports are driving growth.

Despite the stalemate in Ukraine, the cease-fire may not last long. Brussels is not eager to extend further sanctions in the near term, nor will it readily remove them. Washington is a different story.

Preparing for the 2016 election, members of Congress have proposed far tougher actions, which range from declaring Russia in breach of its obligations under the nuclear treaty (INF) to ousting Moscow from the World Trade Organization.

What about medium-term expectations? In a benign scenario, Russian growth could climb to 1.5 percent by the late 2010s and stay there until the early 2020s. That is a far cry from Russia's BRIC-style peak growth of almost 7 percent in the pre-crisis world.

In an attempt to control the currency and inflation, Russia's central bank (CBR) raised the key rate from 5.50 percent at the start of the year to 17 percent after a huge 6.5-percent hike in December. The CBR also replaced its monetary head Ksenia Yudaeva with Dmitry Tulin. While the former can now focus on increasing flexibility in forecasting and strategy, the latter will ensure tougher enforcement in monetary policy.

After CBR cut rates to 15 percent, the ruble decreased to the low 60s against the dollar. As the central bank sees a weak ruble as a better option than high interest rates, it cut rates again Friday to 14 percent and said more rate cuts will follow.

Politically, sanctions unified Russia

For months, Washington and Brussels have hoped that sanctions and the Ukraine crisis would quash President Putin's popularity. In reality, the two have dramatically boosted his ratings.

Before the Ukraine crisis last October, diminished economic prospects caused Putin's approval rating to plunge to 61 percent; the lowest since 2000. In March 2014, the sanctions and the annexation of Crimea galvanized public opinion behind Moscow. And when Washington introduced another round of sanctions in mid-2014, Putin's support soared to a record of 87 percent.

Even after economic turmoil, financial crisis and international isolation, some 86 percent of Russians approve of Putin's performance today. Yet, the West's strategy relies on the idea that "Putin is the problem, Russia is with us." In reality, Putin's actions reflect the wishes of the majority of the Russian people - whether or not this is preferred in the West.

Recently, the Washington Post reported that, with more than 80 percent of Russians holding negative views of the United States, "Russia's anti-U.S. sentiment now is even worse than it was in Soviet Union." If that's the case, is it is surprising, really?

Assume that America would have a president whose approval rating would be close to 90 percent (rather than less than 50 percent). Then assume that a rival power would offer military partnership to Washington's regional neighbors. Most likely, Americans would adopt negative views of their perceived adversary and align behind the incumbent president. Russians are not that different.

Currently, President Obama is considering the idea to send lethal weaponry to the Ukrainian military. It is probably safe to assume that if the White House opts for such arms transfers, the consequent anti-Western sentiment in Russia would broaden and deepen.

The right solution

Setting aside the odd "regime change" dreams in the West, Russia has no longer time for delays either. President Putin needs a Ukraine deal to intensify structural economic reforms in Russia - not because of the West's pressure but because of its own future.

In 2009, then-President Dmitry Medvedev launched a modernization program to decrease Russia's reliance on oil and gas revenues and to create a more diversified economy driven by high technology and innovation. And yet, energy continues to account for most exports.

In the absence of adequate diversification, Russia will continue to suffer from commodity cycles, which are about to get worse, thanks to the U.S. shale gas revolution and the plunge of oil prices.

With a Ukraine deal and a credible medium-term plan for modernization, President Putin can restore economic foundations for sustained growth. As the price of oil is likely to climb higher from the mid-50s today, the immediate reaction would be jubilation in the markets which are already hunting for discounted Russian equity relative to other emerging markets.

Over time, the sanctions approach will only further deepen the stagnation in Europe, nullify the effectiveness of the European Central Bank's quantitative easing, impair the lingering recovery in the U.S. and harden the sentiments in Russia - another major nuclear nation.

And that's the benign scenario.

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 #13
Moscow Times
March 14, 2015
Ukraine Must Make Compromises and Radically Reform for IMF Funding to Continue

With the first billions of dollars foreign aid in its pocket, Ukraine's government can now stay afloat long enough to embark on its radical reform drive, but the hard part is only just beginning.

Ukraine received the first $5 billion on Friday of $17.5 billion in aid promised by the International Monetary Fund. But to receive the rest, it must implement reforms that mean taking on vested interests including pensioners, public sector workers and some of the country's most powerful oligarchs.

Even if it manages to placate those groups and can start turning around the economy, all its work could be undone by another nosedive in the hryvnia currency, or by a renewal of fighting with pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine.

"Without reforms today we will not have a tomorrow. Our government is fighting for tomorrow. The government isn't fighting for an approval or popularity rating," Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said Wednesday.

Restructuring the energy sector is probably the most urgent task, but also potentially the trickiest in an economy still built on cheap fuel from its days as part of the energy-rich Soviet Union. Energy intensive industries are owned by powerful businessmen who influence political parties and the media.

"It will be very difficult to carry out reforms as there will be conflicts of interests," said Mykhailo Gonchar, the director for energy programs at the Nomos Center thinktank.

State natural gas firm Naftogaz collects far less from its customers than it pays to import gas, much from Russia, the country Kiev now sees as its mortal enemy. Naftogaz ran a 110 billion hryvnia deficit last year, now worth around $4 billion and equivalent to nearly 6 percent of the country's gross domestic product, according to the government.

To reduce the deficit, gas prices, long-kept far below the market rate, are set to triple. But even that won't fully sort out the problem, made worse by a complicated multi-level pricing structure, under which Naftogaz sells gas through around 25 regional companies that supply final customers, creating opportunities for middlemen to siphon off profits.

Regulations require Naftogaz to charge a lower wholesale price for gas for household use than for industrial customers.

"It's impossible to check if all that gas goes where it is meant to," Naftogaz chief executive Andriy Kobolev said at a briefing on Wednesday.

Conflicts Of Interests

Under proposed reforms, Naftogaz will bring retail and industrial prices closer to market rates, audit the regional gas firms and meter the flow of gas throughout the supply chain, according to a government document sent to the IMF.

In an example of the powerful interests that could be affected, stakes in several of the regional gas firms are held by billionaire industrialist Dmytro Firtash, who also controls a large chunk of Ukraine's chemical industry, among the biggest industrial consumers of gas.

Like other powerful businessmen, Firtash thrived under Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian Ukrainian president ousted last year, but still retains political influence even though Yanukovych has been replaced by pro-Western leaders.

Firtash himself is currently living in Austria, where he is free on bail after being arrested a year ago at the request of U.S. authorities who accuse him of bribery over a business deal in India, a case he says is politically motivated. His representatives there were not available to comment.

A spokesman for his company, Group DF, confirmed it held stakes in regional gas firms but declined to comment on prices they charge customers. A spokesman for Regional Gas Company (RGC), a management firm for around 20 Ukrainian gas distributors which includes some owned or part-owned by Firtash, said no instances had been recorded of its firms selling gas for household prices to industry.

Firtash holds a controlling stake in Inter TV, Ukraine's leading broadcaster, along with a business partner, Serhiy Lyovochkin, who is also deputy head of a parliamentary faction called Opposition Bloc. The bloc, with 40 seats, is the third largest in parliament, where it is committed to trying to halt the government's energy sector reform plans.

In a statement, Lyovochkin's party denounced the government's proposed energy plans as "blind adherence to demands from the IMF".

"The government has no clear plan of reform for the country's energy sector and the decisions that have been taken will lead to the collapse of Ukraine's energy system."

Nervous Times

So far public opposition to the government's austerity drive has been muted. Many ordinary Ukrainians say they are ready to put up with pain if it means a stronger country in the long run.

Citizens' resolve will be tested.

The government has told the IMF it will cut the number of employees paid out of the budget by 3 percent in the course of this year, including a 20 percent reduction in the workforce in the civil service.

Kiev has also told the IMF it will cut benefits to pensioners who still work, and will gradually raise the retirement age for women by 5 years.

Former Economy Minister Pavlo Sheremeta, who quit the role last year over frustration at the slow pace of reform, said the new IMF-led programme is enough to stave off bankruptcy, but growth is unlikely if the war in the east does not end.

"A bailout is not enough for recovery, austerity is not enough for recovery. Ukraine needs investment, a lot of investment. Even local investors are very wary of investing in these uncertain, nervous times," he said.

Violence has lessened significantly in recent weeks as a new ceasefire deal shows signs of holding. But many Ukrainians still fear that Moscow-backed rebels could launch a fresh offensive in the spring to seize more territory.

The hryvnia currency plummeted 50 percent to record lows of over 30 to the dollar in February when rebels initially disavowed the peace agreement. It has since partly recovered after the central bank implemented stricter currency controls.

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#14
www.rt.com
March 13, 2015
Russia to provide $13.75mn as part of first IMF loan for Ukraine - finance minister

Russia will participate in financing the first tranche of IMF aid to Ukraine in the amount of $13.75 million; the Bank of Russia will deliver the payment on March 13, said Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov.

"The program [IMF $17.5bn package -Ed.] will be financed via the IMF quota resources, and the funding from shareholder countries in the framework of their participation in the so-called New Borrowing arrangements," Siluanov said.

"As such, the Russian Federation will participate in the funding in accordance with its obligations as a participant, and deliver the first tranche of the IMF program for Ukraine in the amount of $13.75 million dollars. The Bank of Russia will carry out the payment on 13 March 2015," he added.

The first tranche is 3.546 billion in special drawing rights (around $5 billion) and will be made available to the account of the National Bank of Ukraine, he said.

On March 11 the IMF approved a $17.5 billion rescue package for Ukraine that has created a lot of criticism. The bailout comes with strict terms which have already made Kiev make huge cuts to its 2015 budget. Ukraine's austerity measures include cuts in social spending and the price of utility services almost tripling.

Given the country's economy is expected to shrink 5 percent in 2015, and inflation has already reached 34.5 percent in February, the situation in Ukraine where the majority of population already lives on the breadline, may become even worse.

The ex-head of Ukraine's National Bank Sergei Arbuzov described the IMF loan is "involuntary servitude," that'll pull the country into a debt pit.
 

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#15
Kyiv Post
March 13, 2015
Editorial
Putin's aims

The war front is relatively quiet at the moment. Ukraine is getting a $5 billion tranche soon from the International Monetary Fund to stave off financial collapse. And spring is working its magic on moods with longer and warmer days.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin's aims against Ukraine haven't changed at all. He remains committed to trying to destroy Ukraine's statehood with 1,000 cuts - to bleed it slowly to death or into submission. Putin will play out his tools - military, economic and political pressure - until he wins or is defeated.

This is why nobody should be fooled, yet so many are.

The West likes to tout its unified response to Russia's war, which is a myth in all of its components, starting with the its delusional insistence at not calling this a war. They are aided in this fiction by President Petro Poroshenko's rose-colored characterization of the war as an anti-terrorist operation and failure to mobilize the nation sufficiently for victory.

The West is also not unified. Many nations in the European Union are pushing the other way - to forgive Putin's war against Ukraine and seizure of Crimea. The weak links are growing in number, with the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Greece and Hungary standing out in the appeasement pool. Hooking the West's response to absolute unity among 28 EU nations, as U.S. President Barack Obama insists, guarantees that no meaningful response will come.

A better policy would be unified military aid and tougher economic sanctions among the nations most willing and able to confront Putin - the United States, Great Britain, the Baltics, Poland, and hopefully Germany and most of the rest of the EU nations.

Much is at stake on the collective ability of the West to dislodge Putin from Crimea and get him to call off the war against Ukraine, including the future of nuclear disarmament. It is the world's misfortune that America is led by a president who, while a decent man with many achievements, nonetheless has little interest in foreign affairs - especially in this part of the world. It has become clear in the last week, through U.S. Senate hearings and other events, that many of Obama's advisers and possibly a bipartisan majority in Congress, favor a more robust policy to stop Putin.

The cause for arming Ukraine, which Obama has opposed, got stronger with the release of a British Royal United Services Institute report showing that Russia's military resources are stretched and strained by a year of war. "It is obvious that there are insufficient resources - military and financial - under the Kremlin's command to sustain military operations at the current level for over a year," wrote the report's author, Igor Sutyagin.

While we are far from military experts, it seems that this conclusion proves that defending one's own nation is easier than invading another nation. Russia may be only the latest country to learn this lesson. The West should recognize that weapons and training given to Ukraine are deserved and would be purely defensive, in the sense that Ukraine has no imperial ambitions to attack any other nation, only a desire to repel its attackers.
 

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 #16
Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
March 12, 2015
Kiev junta cleaning the field? Seven high profile suicides in Ukraine in one month.
March 12, 2015
Regnum [http://www.regnum.ru/news/polit/1904525.html]
Translated by Kristina Rus

The seventh "suicide" for the month: Ukraine lost another former member of the "Party of Regions"

The ex-governor of Zaporozhzhye region and former member of the Party of Regions, Alexander Peklushenko committed suicide. This was reported at the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Zaporozhye region.

"Alexander Peklushenko committed suicide at his home in the village of Solnechnoye. At the moment the investigative team is working on the scene", - said the report.

The death of the former "regional" was confirmed by the advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Anton Geraschenko, on channel "112-Ukraine". Gerashchenko also said that Peklushenko was supposed to be charged in connection with cracking down on Euromaidan protests in Zaporozhye.

This is already the seventh suicide among the former officials and members of the Party of Regions in Ukraine in a month. Earlier, ex-member of the Party of Regions and a former head of the State Property Fund, Mikhail Chechetov, died after falling from the window of his apartment [on the same day as Nemtsov's murder - KR]. The official version of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - suicide. At the end of August 2014 another former head of the State Property Fund, Valentyna Semenyuk, was found dead. In addition, in the recent month, a number of former and current officials committed suicide in Ukraine - the former deputy head of "Ukrzaliznytsia", Nicholai Sergienko, former head of Kharkov regional council, Nikolai Kolesnik, ex-mayor of Melitopol, Sergey Valter, deputy chief of Melitopol police, Sergey Bordyuga, and former MP, Stanislav Melnik.

Watch Alexander Peklushenko being humiliated and kicked out from a municipal building:
http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/03/kiev-junta-cleaning-field-seven-high.html
 
Kristina Rus:

While it is plausible that some former officials could not live with the burden of humiliation from lustration and prosecution by the Kiev junta and chose to take their own life, bloggers and analysts point out that the Kiev junta is cleaning the field from any potential leaders who could head local resistance or support potential future anti-junta authorities.

While the European Parliament demands an independent investigation of Nemtsov's murder, watch it completely ignore much more numerous murders and suicides in Ukraine.

According to one analyst who spoke on Russian TV, the number of political prisoners in Ukraine is now at 3,000 people.

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 #17
The Jewish Daily Forward
http://forward.com
March 13, 2015
Russian Jewish Leader Slams Ukraine Moguls in Flap Over World War II Nazi Ally
Why Won't Kiev Leaders Denounce Stepan Bandera?

A former leader of Russian Jews said he would like to hang prominent Ukrainian Jews "until they stop breathing" as a feud deepens over their refusal to denounce a onetime Nazi ally during World War II.

Yevgeny Satanovsky, who served as a president of the Russian Jewish Congress in the years 2004 and 2005, made the assertion on March 9 about Joseph Zissels, leader of the Vaad Association of Jewish Communities and Organizations of Ukraine, and Igor Kolomoisky, a Jewish billionaire who is the governor of the district of Dnepropetrovsk in eastern Ukraine.

During a radio interview for the Govorit Moskva station, Satanovsky, who currently heads the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies in Moscow, said he would like to kill both men because he said they maintain that Stephan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist who during World War II collaborated with the Nazis and later fought against them, is not responsible for the death of Jews murdered by men under his command.

"A significant number of Ukrainian officials, he said, "out of cowardice, stupidity, or from general meanness says that 'Bandera didn't kill any Jews.' On this, allow me to reiterate: When and if there's way to do this, then I will hang Kolomoisky and Joseph Zissels at least in Dnepropetrovsk in front of the Golden Rose Synagogue until they stop breathing."

Both Zissels and Kolomoisky are pro-Ukrainian nationalists and harsh critics of Russia's actions in Ukraine, where separatists backed by Moscow recently signed a ceasefire with Ukrainian troops at the end of a yearlong war that has claimed 6,000 lives.

That war and Russia's annexation of Crimea last year has generated intense animosity between Russians and Ukrainians, and has also pitted Ukrainian and pro-Ukrainian Jewish leaders against some of their Russian counterparts.

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 #18
The Irish Times
February 28, 2015
From elite English school to Ukraine's frontline
Adam Osmayev, once arrested for alleged Putin murder plot, now leads pro-Kiev sabotage unit
By Daniel McLaughlin

Wycliffe College, a €12,000-a-term boarding school in England's bucolic Cotswolds, runs something called the "combined cadet force".

Through "military-orientated activity and adventurous training" the programme offers pupils a chance to "exercise responsibility and leadership", develop "self-reliance, resourcefulness, endurance, perseverance" and acquire "team-building and instructional skills".

In his own Wycliffe days, Adam Osmayev was like the lads pictured on the school website, enjoying mucking around in camouflage, going for long hikes and camping in the woods and hills, and learning to navigate and fire a rifle.

The Chechen boy could not know how those skills would serve him as a man, or foresee his strange journey to the place where he now puts them to full use.

"I'm shocked at everything that's happened," Osmayev says in softly accented English, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Prison, the crazy accusations about plotting to kill (Russian president Vladimir) Putin, and now war, and I'm here."

He is speaking in a former hotel in Lysychansk, an industrial city in eastern Ukraine that was decrepit even before tank and artillery fire ravaged it last summer, when government forces drove out separatist militants.

With weapons, volunteers and apparent direct military support from Russia, the insurgents have fought back and are now just 15km from Lysychansk.

The hotel is the base for Osmayev's sabotage unit, which goes deep behind enemy lines in Donetsk and Luhansk regions to attack rebel positions and guide army artillery fire.
A fractious ceasefire has brought a lull to fighting, allowing Osmayev's battalion to rest, train and hone plans for the defence of Lysychansk, but few on either side of the conflict expect the truce to last long.

"We can gather a few hundred guys if we need to, but our regular missions involve groups of just 9-13 people," Osmayev says as his men move around the impromptu mess hall, making coffee and taking food provided by volunteers.

"The Ukrainian army doesn't have many people who do what we do, and our success rate is very good. We have had only one fatality."
The man killed was Isa Munayev, a former senior Chechen rebel commander, who fled his homeland a decade ago as Russian forces and their local proxies brutally crushed the Caucasus republic's drive for independence.

Munayev found refuge in Denmark, but when Russia annexed Crimea and fomented an insurgency in Ukraine last year, he travelled to the embattled country to create what he called an international peacekeeping battalion of volunteers.

Munayev named the unit after Dzhokhar Dudayev, Chechnya's leader during de-facto independence in the early 1990s, and commanded it until he was killed on February 1st while fighting in Chernukhino, near the strategic town of Debaltseve.

"He told me to stay in Debaltseve and find a good location for a base, and to collect him after the mission," Osmayev recalls.

"It was the only time he left me behind."

Osmayev was chosen to assume command by a battalion he says is mostly Ukrainian, but comprises volunteers from Georgia, Azerbaijan and Russia, including "dozens" of Chechens who fought Moscow's troops in their homeland.

He admits it is a heavy responsibility for a 33-year-old whose first mission came only on November 21st, the day after he joined the battalion and just two days after he walked free from an Odessa jail where he had spent nearly three years.

Osmayev was arrested in the Black Sea port in early 2012, on suspicion of plotting with two other men to blow up Putin on the orders of Chechen rebels.

He claims he helped the men find a place to rent in Odessa and, when he was visiting their flat one day, something they said they were "experimenting with, maybe fireworks" burst into flames. One man died in the fire, the other was injured and quickly arrested, and Osmayev laid low while receiving treatment for burns.

Osmayev says he feared arrest because he had been wrongly accused in 2007 of plotting to kill Kremlin-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who had clashed with Osmayev's father and sacked him from a top job in the region's oil business.

Several of Kadyrov's opponents have died in mysterious circumstances far from Chechnya. Kadyrov denies involvement, but Osmayev and his father moved from Russia to Ukraine in the hope of avoiding a similar fate.

Osmayev insists the case was a Russian set-up, but only intervention from the European Court for Human Rights stalled his extradition to Russia, and he remained in pre-trial detention as a pro-western revolution roiled Ukraine last winter.

When its Moscow-backed authorities were ousted, Kiev's new prosecutor general quashed Osmayev's attempted murder charge and he was freed, with a conviction for handling explosives that he says the court upheld just to save face.

Though he spent seven formative years in England - getting four good A-levels and going on to study business economics at Buckingham university - Osmayev says he always felt strongly Chechen, and knew his nation's long history of persecution by Russia.

Osmayev believes hundreds of Chechens, many with combat experience in the region's two recent wars with Russia, are ready to fight for Kiev if they are offered Ukrainian citizenship and assured they will not be prosecuted.

"They want to fight for the Chechen cause, which is also the Ukrainian cause and the European cause," he says.

"If Ukraine is strong and free it can change Russia, and bring freedom to Chechnya in some years."

Osmayev was far from abstemious while in England, but he is now a practising moderate Muslim, who argues that young Chechens angered by "injustice" should be able to fight legally under Ukrainian military control, to reduce the lure of extremist groups like Islamic State that seek to "brainwash" them.

"All Russia's talk about there being fascists and persecution of Russian speakers here is absolute rubbish," says Osmayev, over the clack of a rifle being cleaned and checked in an adjoining room.

"This is a fight for freedom against totalitarianism. Putin wants to take Russia towards North Korea, and Ukraine wants to move to the western, free world."

Osmayev believes Nato weapons - particularly anti-tank missiles like the US Javelin - could quickly and relatively cheaply tip the conflict in Ukraine's favour; but he fears that western leaders lack the stomach for such confrontation with Putin.

"Neville Chamberlain did a lot for Britain, but he's remembered only for showing weakness when he needed to show resolve against Hitler," Osmayev says.

"Current leaders shouldn't follow his path, but it seems they are."

Osmayev dreams of running a big agricultural company in Ukraine once the conflict is over, and speaks of its prospects like the well-educated former businessman that he is.
But first he and Ukraine have to fight, and win.

"It could take years, but not if the West helps. Even if Putin takes Kiev he will never take the whole of the country," Osmayev says, buttoning up a camouflage jacket that is, of course, British army surplus.

"I'm willing to defend Ukraine, and to free this Donbas region and Crimea. If Putin sends his whole army and we have to fight in the west, in the Carpathian mountains, then we will use guerrilla warfare - Putin cannot beat us."

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 #19
Counterpunch.org
March 13-15, 2015
Better Deal With It
Fascist Formations in Ukraine
by PETER LEE
Peter Lee edits China Matters and covers Asia for CounterPunch.
[Visuals here http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/13/fascist-formations-in-ukraine/]

The Guardian published an adulatory feature on "The Women Fighting on the Frontline in Ukraine".

One of the women profiled was "Anaconda", fighting in the Aidar Battalion bankrolled by Igor Kolomoisky:

"Anaconda was given her nickname by a unit commander, in a joking reference to her stature and power. The baby-faced 19-year-old says that her mother is very worried about her and phones several times a day, sometimes even during combat. She says it is better to always answer, as her mother will not stop calling until she picks up.

"'In the very beginning my mother kept saying that the war is not for girls,' Anaconda says. 'But now she has to put up with my choice. My dad would have come to the front himself, but his health does not allow him to move. He is proud of me now.'"

Anaconda was photographed in combat dress resolutely holding an assault rifle in front of a rather decrepit van.

The caption read:

"Anaconda says she is being treated well by the men in her battalion, but is hoping that the war will end soon."

As reported by the gadfly site OffGuardian, several readers posted critical observations on the van's insignia in the comments section of the piece.  One, "bananasandsocks", wrote: "We learn from Wikipedia that the image on the door is the "semi-official" insignia of the 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS..." and also pointed out the neo-Nazi significance of the number "1488".

"bananasandsocks" seemingly temperate comment was removed by the Guardian for violating its community standards, as were several others, apparently as examples of "persistent misrepresentation of the Guardian and our journalists".

But then the Guardian thought better of it.  While not reinstating the critical comments, it quietly deleted the original caption to the photo of Anaconda and replaced it with:

"Anaconda alongside a van displaying the neo-Nazi symbol 1488. The volunteer brigade is known for its far-right links."

Problem solved?  Maybe not.  Maybe it's more like "Problem dodged".  Specifically, the problem of the pervasive participation of "ultra-right" paramilitary elements in Kyiv military operations, which even intrudes upon the Guardian's efforts to put a liberal-friendly feminist sheen on the debacle of the recent ATO in eastern Ukraine.

As to "1488", I'll reproduce the Wikipedia entry:

"The Fourteen Words is a phrase used predominantly by white nationalists. It most commonly refers to a 14-word slogan: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White Children."  It can also refer to another 14-word slogan: "Because the beauty of the White Aryan woman must not perish from the earth."

"Both slogans were coined by David Lane, convicted terrorist and member of the white separatist organization The Order. The first slogan was inspired by a statement, 88 words in length, from Volume 1, Chapter 8 of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf:
...

"Neo-Nazis often combine the number 14 with 88, as in "14/88" or "1488". The 8s stand for the eighth letter of the alphabet (H), with "HH" standing for "Heil Hitler".

Lane died in prison in 2007 while serving a 190 year sentence for, among other things, the murder of Denver radio talk show host Alan Berg.  David Lane has considerable stature within global white nationalist/neo-Nazi/fascist circles as one of the American Aryan movement's premier badasses (in addition involvement in to the Berg murder-in which he denied involvement-and a string of bank robberies to finance the movement-also denied, Lane achieved a certain martyr's stature for enduring almost two decades in Federal detention, frequently in the notorious Communications Management Units).

And David Lane was a big deal for the "ultra-right" & fascists in Ukraine, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center:

"Lane's death touched off paeans from racists around the country and abroad. June 30 was designated a "Global Day of Remembrance," with demonstrations held in at least five U.S. cities as well as England, Germany, Russia and the Ukraine."

Judging by this video, the march/memorial on the first anniversary of his death, in 2008, organized by the Ukrainian National Socialist Party in Kyiv, was well enough attended to merit a police presence of several dozen officers.  The sountrack to the clip, by the way, is an elegy to David Lane performed by Ukraine's premier white nationalist metal band at the time, Sokyra Peruna.

There is a photograph of a shield inscribed "1488" at Maidan.

More significantly, perhaps, the name of the armed wing of the Svoboda Party, C14, apparently invokes Lane's "14 words" .

It should be said that Lane's views, including those that inspired the 1488 tag, are esoteric even within the fascist/Neo-Nazi/white supremacist world he inhabited.

In a letter from prison, Lane wrote:

"You know that the three greatest movements of the last 2,000 years have been Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Judaism allowed Jews to conquer and rule the world. I believe only a religious fervor can save our kind now. The 14 Words must be a divine command of Nature's God whom we call Wotan Allfather.
...

"As the 666 man, and the Joseph Smith of Wotanism my rewards will be zero. Death in prison, scorn from those with no vision, and hate from the stupid goyim and their kosher masters. But sometimes a man is condemned to a higher cause. And cheerfulness in adversity is still a virtue. Take care. 14 - 88"

Lane composed his "88 Precepts" to instruct believers in the ways of white nationalism.  While apparently riffing off the 88 word Mein Kampf passage and "88=HH=Heil Hitler", it also refers to Lane's numerological/messianic preoccupations.

Ukrainian fascists' admiration for Lane is a reflection of the pervasiveness of indigenous Ukrainian fascism, which looks for models and partners internationally while drawing plenty of strength and inspiration from its own profoundly deep historical and ideological local roots.

As I wrote in a piece for CounterPunch, Ukrainian fascism seems almost inevitable:

"Ukrainian fascism is more durable and vital than most.  It was forged in the most adverse conditions imaginable, in the furnace of Stalinism, under the reign of Hitler, and amid Poland's effort to destroy Ukrainian nationality.

"Ukrainian nationalism was under ferocious attack between the two world wars.  The USSR occupied the eastern half of Ukraine, subjected it to collectivization under Stalin, and committed repression and enabled a famine that killed millions.  At first, the Soviets sought to co-opt Ukrainian nationalism by supporting Ukrainian cultural expression while repressing Ukrainian political aspirations; USSR nationalities policies were "nationalist in expression and socialist in essence".  Then, in 1937 Stalin obliterated the native Ukrainian cultural and communist apparatus in a thoroughgoing purge and implemented Russified central control through his bespoke instrument, Nikita Khrushchev.

"Meanwhile, the western part of the Ukraine was under the thumb of the Polish Republic, which was trying to entrench its rule before either the Germans or the Russians got around to destroying it again.  This translated into a concerted Polish political, security, cultural, and demographic push into Ukrainian Galicia.  The Polish government displaced Ukrainian intellectuals and farmers, attacked their culture and religion (including seizure of Orthodox churches and conversion into Roman Catholic edifices), marginalized the Ukrainians in their own homeland, and suppressed Ukrainian independence activists (like Bandera, who spent the years 1933 to 1939 in Poland's Wronki Prison after trying to assassinate Poland's Minister of the Interior).

"Ukrainian nationalists, therefore, were unable to ride communism or bourgeois democracy into power.  Communism was a tool of Soviet expansionism, not class empowerment, and Polish democracy offered no protection for Ukrainian minority rights or political expression, let alone a Ukrainian state.

"Ukrainian nationalists turned largely toward fascism, specifically toward a concept of "integral nationalism" that, in the absence of an acceptable national government, manifested itself in a national will residing in the spirit of its adherents, not expressed by the state or restrained by its laws, but embodied by a charismatic leader and exercised through his organization, whose legitimacy supersedes that of the state and whose commitment to violence makes it a law unto itself."

It's not just a matter of historical sentiment or inclination.  Ukraine's contemporary fascists share a direct bloodline with the fascists of the Soviet era, especially in the matter of Roman Shukhevych, the commander of Ukrainian nationalist forces fighting with the Nazis during World War II and also responsible for horrific atrocities while attempting to cleanse Galicia of Poles in the service of Ukrainian independence.   From my CounterPunch article:

"In February 2014, the New York Times' Andrew Higgins penned a rather embarrassing passage that valorized the occupation of Lviv-the Galician city at the heart of Ukrainian fascism, the old stomping grounds of Roman Shukhevych and the Nachtigall battlaion, and also Simon Wiesnthal's home town-by anti-Yanyukovich forces in January 2014:

"Some of the president's longtime opponents here have taken an increasingly radical line.

"Offering inspiration and advice has been Yuriy Shukhevych, a blind veteran nationalist who spent 31 years in Soviet prisons and labor camps and whose father, Roman, led the Ukrainian Insurgent Army against Polish and then Soviet rule.

"Mr. Shukhevych, 80, who lost his sight during his time in the Soviet gulag, helped guide the formation of Right Sector, an unruly organization whose fighters now man barricades around Independence Square, the epicenter of the protest movement in Kiev.

"Yuriy Shukhevych's role in modern Ukrainian fascism is not simply that of an inspirational figurehead and reminder of his father's anti-Soviet heroics for proud Ukrainian nationalists.  He is a core figure in the emergence of the key Ukrainian fascist formation, Pravy Sektor and its paramilitary.

"And Pravy Sektor's paramilitary, the UNA-UNSO, is not an "unruly" collection of weekend-warrior-wannabes, as Mr. Higgins might believe.

"UNA-UNSO was formed during the turmoil of the early 1990s, largely by ethnic Ukrainian veterans of the Soviet Union's bitter war in Afghanistan.  From the first, the UNA-UNSO has shown a taste for foreign adventures, sending detachments to Moscow in 1990 to oppose the Communist coup against Yeltsin, and to Lithuania in 1991.  With apparently very good reason, the Russians have also accused UNA-UNSO fighters of participating on the anti-Russian side in Georgia and Chechnya.

"After formal Ukrainian independence, the militia elected Yuriy Shukhevych-the son of OUN-B commander Roman Shukhevych- as its leader and set up a political arm, which later became Pravy Sektor."

There's plenty of indigenous fascism to go around. Interviews with Ukrainian ultra-rights reveal a welter of views befitting the country's fraught and contested status in central Europe, ranging from "autonomous nationalists" (whose demeanour and tactics mirror on the right mirror those of European anarchists on the left); ultras who emerged from the football club wars; and determinedly theoretical scientific fascists.  The common thread of the diverse and syncretic Ukrainian fascist movement is the conviction that the survival of the Ukrainian people is under threat from a multitude of forces and mechanisms (Russians, Jews, the EU, democracy, capitalism, communism etc.), and can only be assured by autonomous armed force under charismatic leadership; and yes, apparently a shared belief that Adolf Hitler showed how it could and should be done.

Rooting fascism out of Ukraine's cultural, social, and political matrix is going to take a lot of work.  Unfortunately, the opposite is going on right now.

The leading Ukrainian observer of Ukrainian ultrarights, Anton Shekhovstov, did not deny the presence of ultraright formations at Maidan, but tried to square the circle philosophically by characterizing the Ukrainian conflict as an anti-imperialist/anti-colonial struggle that might elicit and safely incorporate fascist activism.  Then, when the Russian threat had been dealt with, Ukrainian civil society could neutralize the fascist factor.  In January 2014, when Maidan was white-hot, Shekhovstov wrote:

"Thus, a fight against fascism in Ukraine should always be synonymous with the fight against the attempts to colonise the country. Those who separate these two issues or crack down on the Ukrainian far right without recognising the urgent need for national independence will never be successful in their attempts to neutralise the far right. Moreover, they can make the situation worse."

However, Ukrainian fascists have not been disempowered and marginalized by the circus of defeat and dysfunction that is the current Kyiv government.  In fact, "ultra-right" is trending upward in Ukraine governance, as Shekhovtsov glumly observed in a recent post discussing the emergence of yet another powerful ultra-right formation:

"[T]he electoral failure of Svoboda and the Right Sector [in the recent parliamentary as well as presidential elections] did not mark "the end of history" of the Ukrainian far right...

"... The recent developments in Ukraine marked by the rise of the previously obscure neo-Nazi organisation "The Patriot of Ukraine" (PU) led by Andriy Bilets'ky...

"... the PU formed a core of the Azov battalion, a volunteer detachment governed by the Ministry of Interior headed by Arsen Avakov. From the very beginning, the Azov battalion employed imagery such as Wolfsangel and Schwarze Sonne that in post-war Europe is associated with neo-Nazi movements...

"The political perspective raises troubling questions: Why did Ukrainians elect a neo-Nazi into the parliament? Why did the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior promote the leaders of the neo-Nazi organisation?..."

Shekhovtstov finds an explanation for Avakov's footsie with the PU in the cronyism (and demand for extra-legal street muscle) that permeates Ukraine business and politics.  His conclusion is not a particularly happy one:

"Conclusion

"Avakov may consider the PU-led Azov battalion as his "private army", but not everybody in the PU and Azov see the current cooperation with the Ministry of Interior as a goal in and of itself. The PU may benefit from this cooperation, but it still has its own political agenda that goes beyond this cooperation. The PU has also started advertising employment in the Security Service of Ukraine on their webpages. [emphasis added]

"Further infiltration of the far right into the Ukrainian law enforcement and other institutions of the state will most likely lead to the following developments. First, the coalescence of the police and the far right who were engaged, inter alia, in the illegal activities will necessarily increase the corruption risks. Second, the growth of the far right within the law enforcement will lead to the gradual liberation of the PU from the personal patronage of Avakov that will likely result in the PU's independent action.

"While Svoboda and the Right Sector have failed in the 2014 parliamentary elections, the infiltration of some other far right organisations in the law enforcement is possibly a more advanced long-term strategy in their fight against not particularly well established liberal democracy in Ukraine."

One of the awkward facts of Ukrainian politics is that Ukraine's fascists have the ambition if not yet the demonstrated capability of opportunistically using the current regime's need-and factions' desires-for effective armed formations to catapult the extreme-right into power.

And it seems that the West has zero strategy for dealing with this problem.  In fact, if disorder and discontent escalate in western Ukraine as a result of the US insistence on confronting Russia and the ethnic Russian opposition in the West, I expect the fascist problem will get worse before it gets better.

And it isn't going to be solved by ignoring, downplaying, wishing away, or dismissing Ukrianian fascism as an irrelevant historical and political anachronism...or by discretely recaptioning some of its embarrassingly blatant manifestations.

It's not just amusing or disturbing that the Guardian appears determined to graft a misleading liberal, Europe-loving image onto the fascist friendly Ukraine adventure; it's downright dangerous.

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 #20
The Washington Post
March 15, 2015
What the Bolsheviks and Nazis can teach us about Russia today
By Alexander Motyl

The following is a guest post from Rutgers University-Newark political scientist Alexander Motyl. In a post at The Monkey Cage last week, Motyl argued that realist scholars were doing a poor job explaining Russian behavior.  Here, he suggests an alternative theoretical lens, that of empire.
--
Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the concept of empire entered Soviet and post-Soviet studies, as scholars attempted to place the end of the Soviet multinational state in an appropriate comparative framework. A variety of excellent books was the result, including edited volumes by Bruce Parrott and Karen Dawisha, Barnett Rubin and Jack Snyder, Richard Rudolph and David Good, and Karen Barkey and Mark von Hagen. No less important, the concept of empire entered the post-Sovietological discourse and, as such, lost its former association with Cold War political platforms. Empire, in a word, became respectable, so much so that the term is now used far more loosely with reference to the USSR and Russia than most rigorous scholars of empire would prefer.

Oddly enough, while many of Vladimir Putin's policies toward the Russian "near abroad" have often been termed imperial or neo-imperial, very little effort has been made to connect Putin's current imperial aspirations to the obvious fact that the Soviet empire collapsed and that imperial collapse presumably had some impact on Russia's subsequent trajectory. Although Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika weakened the sinews of the empire, the USSR remained intact until 1991, when, within the space of several months, the entire imperial system disappeared and was replaced by independent - or nominally independent - states.

Movements, parties and individuals committed to imperial revival have existed in all post-imperial metropoles. And  of course, they have also existed in post-Soviet Russia, with the most obvious example being Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his bizarrely named Liberal Democratic Party, who have been explicitly promoting imperial revival since the early 1990s. But the urge for reimperialization is especially strong in metropoles that survive imperial collapse - or the sudden, rapid and comprehensive dismantling of the core-periphery ties that defined the empire. Metropoles that emerge from decaying empires, those that lose territory over centuries or decades, generally reconcile themselves to the loss of empire and rarely embark on full-scale attempts at imperial revival. In contrast, post-collapse metropoles still retain imperial ideologies, discourses and cultures, while the economic, institutional and social ties that once bound peripheries to cores generally continue to exist, even after the formal core-periphery relationship has been dismantled. Under conditions such as these, there are strong grounds for imperial revival to acquire policy prominence among post-collapse core elites.

There are three good examples of post-collapse cores pursuing imperial revival after their empires collapsed. The Russian Bolsheviks drew on imperial ideologies and took advantage of continuing structural ties and succeeded in reestablishing most of the former Russian empire in 1918-1922. The German Nazis drew on similar ideologies and structural connections, but they failed to reestablish the German Reich in the 1940s. And post-Soviet Russian elites, both in the 1990s, when the imperial discourse first enjoyed a revival among Russian policymakers and intellectuals, and in the period since Putin came to and consolidated power, have progressively encroached on the sovereignty of their non-Russian neighbors. Russian elites have pursued reimperialization in the form of economic schemes intended to bind non-Russian economies to Russia's, the use of "soft power" propaganda of the indivisibility of the so-called "Russian world" and the cultivation of Russians and Russian speakers in the "near abroad," and by means of hard power, as in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014-2015.

It is with imperial collapse and revival in the analytical background that comparisons of Weimar Germany and "Weimar Russia" become apposite. Both experienced collapse. Both experienced terrible economic hardships in their aftermath. Both blamed the collapse and the economic hardships on democrats. Both sought succor in the imperial traditions and cultures of their nations. Both experienced the coming to power of right-wing nationalists and strong men who promised to reestablish the glory of the nation and its imperial grandeur. And both embarked on soft- and hard-power attacks on their neighbors.

Two observations flow from this analysis. First, it attributes the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War almost exclusively to Russia's internal post-imperial dynamics - culture, ideology, discourse, economic and institutional structures-and not to external factors, such as real or perceived threats from the post-collapse core state's neighbors. Seen in this light, although the Treaty of Versailles may have been punitive, it was not responsible for the Nazis or Hitler's aggression. Similarly, NATO and the West may have annoyed the Russians, but Putin's turn to the right and his wars against Georgia and Ukraine are the products of Russian imperial collapse, the nature of his strongman regime and systemically generated attempts at imperial revival.

Second, the outcome of Putin's attempts at imperial revival is still unclear. Will he succeed like the Bolsheviks, or will he fail, even if at great cost to everybody, like the Nazis? The factor that may decide the outcome today, just as it did in Russia in 1918-1922 and Europe in 1939-1945, is the degree to which other powers get involved in the conflict between post-collapse metropoles and peripheries. In the Russian case, they stayed out, and the Bolsheviks were able to regain much of the empire. In the Nazi case, the great powers got involved and the result was the collapse of the Nazi imperial project. What is striking about today's Russo-Ukrainian War is the extent to which the great powers - the United States, Germany, France and the United Kingdom - have sided with Ukraine. That suggests that Putin's imperial project will fail, though just when that will happen and how many lives will be lost in the process remains unclear.

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 #21
The Daily Signal  (The Heritage Foundation)
http://dailysignal.com
March 14, 2015
Why Ukraine Is a Mess and How It Got There
By Ben Smith
Ben Smith is currently a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation.

In Ukraine, the crisis is messy, the solutions elusive and the outlook bleak.

That is the view of Eugene Rumer, a senior associate and director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Rumer spoke at The Heritage Foundation recently about his new book, "Conflict in Ukraine: The Unwinding of the Post-Cold War Order," which chronicles the unfolding crisis in Ukraine "up until the first Minsk talk" of last September, which he called a "good place to stop" because the violence and movements had hit a stalemate.

"The purpose was not to offer a blow by blow," he said, but to take a look at factors that led to the crisis.

First was the story of Ukraine itself.

"The history [of Ukraine] ... [is one] that lacks a traditional statehood," Rumer said. The country "does not have a living memory [of statehood]."

This hurt in two ways, he said. First, because of the historical conflicts, almost all of Ukraine's neighbors have a claim against what is now Ukrainian territory, including Russia.

Second, Ukraine's foray into self-government stumbled along lines predictable for a country with little history of self-governance. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, he said, an oligarchy rose in Ukraine, similar to the one in Russia. Once in charge, the oligarchs "fixed the political system" to ensure their own success.

According to Rumer, the sentiment against Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and the old guard of politicians reached its peak when Yanukovych walked away from the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area agreement with the European Union. Yanukovych abandoned the agreement, which would have brought Ukraine closer to Europe, after being bribed by Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He then fled to Russia as the uprising worsened.

But others share in the blame, he said. Ukraine's leaders were trying to game both Brussels and Moscow. The EU leaders in charge of the trade agreement were critical of Putin, leading to distrust in the Kremlin. The Russians' "knee-jerk reaction" to invade Ukraine after the deal fell through was a "bridge too far."

And the United States, he said, was "nowhere to be seen" at the crisis' critical moments because of its focus on the Middle East.

"The costs that everyone is paying for this is terrible," said Rumer, who concluded saying damages and reconstruction of Ukraine will cost billions.

The failures of U.S. foreign policy continue in the region, James Carafano, vice president of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, told The Daily Signal

"What remains shockingly apparent is that almost no one believes the White House has any serious strategy on how to deal with Putin," Carafano said. "That's a very worrying assessment since it is clear that none of the parties to the conflict have a clue how this plays out. We have a situation where each side is playing with fire in the heart of Europe, and the U.S. continues to look on like a bemused bystander.

"It is also clear that Putin has complete disdain for President Obama. That's an equally shocking development given that the administration placed so much face in the Russian reset to address U.S.-Russian relations. Yet, we are in the moment where something like the reset could really prove its worth-and its pretty clear the reset was worthless. Obama invested so much and got more than a negative return."

Rumer said the whole world was taken by surprise by what happened in Ukraine. He said he visited the country in 2013 and saw no signs of what was to come.

"There was no indication...that this country and certainly the city of Kyiv would erupt in mass uprising," Rumer said.

Then why? Because, Rumer said, people in Kyiv were "fed up" with all politicians, even the reformers.

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 #22
World Socialist Web Site
www.wsws.org
March 13, 2015
Danger of war with Russia grows as US sends military equipment to Ukraine
By Johannes Stern and Alex Lantier

Washington has begun delivering military hardware to Ukraine as part of NATO's ongoing anti-Russian military build-up in eastern Europe, escalating the risk of all-out war between the NATO alliance and Russia, a nuclear-armed power.

The Obama administration announced on Wednesday that it would transfer 30 armored Humvees and 200 unarmored Humvees, as well as $75 million in equipment, including reconnaissance drones, radios and military ambulances. The US Congress has also prepared legislation to arm the Kiev regime with $3 billion in lethal weaponry.

Washington is at the same time deploying 3,000 heavily armed troops to the Baltic republics, near the Russian metropolis of St. Petersburg. Their 750 Abrams main battle tanks, Bradley armored personnel carriers, and other vehicles are slated to remain behind after the US troops leave. This handover is aimed at "showing our determination to stand together" against Russian President Vladimir Putin, US Major General John O'Connor said in the Latvian capital, Riga.

Washington is pressing ahead despite stark warnings from Moscow that it views massive weapons deliveries by NATO to hostile states on its borders as an intolerable threat to Russian national security.

"Without a doubt, if such a decision is reached, it will cause colossal damage to US-Russian relations, especially if residents of the Donbass [east Ukraine] start to be killed by American weapons," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said last month. He called NATO's plans "very worrying," adding: "This is about creating additional operational capabilities that would allow the alliance to react near Russia's borders... Such decisions will naturally be taken into account in our military planning."

The decision is also sharpening tensions between Washington and Berlin, which backs the current policy of sanctions and financial strangulation of Russia, but opposes moves that threaten all-out war with Russia.

Visiting Washington yesterday, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged a continuation of the strategy of "economic and political pressure" on Russia. Arming Ukraine, could "catapult (the conflict) into a new phase," he warned at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank.

The mood in broad sections of the American ruling elite has turned increasingly hysterical, however, after the Kiev regime's defeat prior to last month's ceasefire in Ukraine negotiated by German, French, Russian, and Ukrainian officials in Minsk.

In a comment denounced by the Russian Foreign Ministry, retired Major General and TV pundit Robert Scales declared, "It's game, set, and match in Ukraine. The only way the United States can have any effect in the region and turn the tide is to start killing Russians."

This week, Pentagon and Congressional officials called for Washington to arm Kiev, pressing for faster action from the White House. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey are pressing for large-scale weapons deliveries to Kiev, as are leading members of Congress from both big-business parties.

"I applaud President Obama for sending a strong signal both to the people of Ukraine as well as to the Kremlin," said Democratic Senator Dick Durbin. "But more can and must be done for Ukraine, including defensive weapons as soon as possible."

"The fact that it appears that the president may have made a commitment to [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel while she was here, or the German ambassador, not to do that certainly has created a lot of concern on both sides of the aisle," said Republican Senator Bob Corker.

"I don't buy this argument that, you know, us supplying the Ukrainian army with defensive weapons is going to provoke Putin," said Democratic Senator Chris Murphy.

With a toxic combination of maniacal aggression and thoughtlessness, the NATO alliance is lurching towards a war with Russia that could destroy the entire planet. Warnings about US policy from Berlin, which itself has led the European imperialist powers in supporting the February 2014 putsch in Kiev and backing the Kiev regime's bloody war in east Ukraine, have at most a tactical character. The only force that opposes war is the working class, in America and Europe and internationally.

Despite Berlin's misgivings as to US policy, the NATO alliance is pursuing its escalation against Russia. At a press conference Wednesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and NATO Supreme Commander of European forces General Philip Breedlove laid out the ongoing military build-up across eastern Europe. They spoke at the Supreme command Headquarters of Allied Personnel in Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium, which oversees NATO operations in Europe.

Stoltenberg declared that due to the Ukraine crisis, NATO has to "expand its collective defense, as it has never done since the end of the Cold War... We will double the rapid response force from 13,000 soldiers to 30,000. We will equip the rapid response force with a spearhead of 5,000 men, which will be ready to deploy within 48 hours. And we will establish six command centers in the Baltic states and three other eastern European countries."

Referring to NATO member states' pledge to massively increase defense spending at the recent Wales summit, Stoltenberg pledged to "keep up the momentum."

Besides the escalation in the Baltics, naval exercises are taking place in the Black Sea, and NATO is preparing for the largest exercises for many years, with 25,000 men, in southeastern Europe.

Breedlove said he had never seen greater "unity, readiness and determination within NATO to tackle the challenges of the future together." He was sure that this would continue.

In reality, tensions between Washington and its European allies, above all Germany, have increased in recent weeks. In its latest edition, Der Spiegel reports that Berlin is angry that "Washington's hardliners are inciting the conflict with Moscow, first and foremost the supreme commander of NATO in Europe."

The German Chancellor's office criticized Breedlove for "dangerous propaganda" and making "imprecise, contradictory and even untruthful" statements.

"I wish that in political matters, Breedlove would express himself more cleverly and reluctantly," commented a foreign-policy specialist of the Social-Democratic Party, Niels Annen. Instead, NATO has "repeatedly spoken out against a Russian offensive in the Ukraine conflict precisely at the point when in our view, the time was right for careful optimism."

According to Der Spiegel, the US-German dispute is "fundamentally because the transatlantic partners [have] different objectives... While the German-French initiative [a reference to the Minsk peace agreement] aimed to stabilize the situation in Ukraine, for the hawks in the American administration it is about Russia. They want to push back Russia's influence in the region and destabilize Putin's rule. Their dream goal is regime change in Russia."

German imperialism backed the coup in Ukraine, using the crisis to create political conditions for it to rearm within the framework of NATO and pursue its economic and geostrategic interests in eastern Europe militarily. It fears an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, however, as it could expand into all-out war between NATO and Russia, for which the German army is not yet ready.

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 #23
A Post-Putin Russia Might Be Bad News for Everyone, Including Ukraine, in the Short Term
Paul Goble

Staunton, March 14 - If Vladimir Putin is ousted or when he dies, the Russian government likely to emerge at least in the near term would not be the liberal, democratic and peaceful one in which so many are placing their hopes. And in the short term, such a regime almost certainly would behave even worse toward Ukraine than Putin has.

There are three reasons for such conclusions, all of which should be carefully attended to by those who in Russia, Ukraine and the West who despise what Putin has done and what he represents, will welcome his departure as a necessary step, but who have come to believe that his departure alone will mark a turn to the better in all respects.

That is likely to be so in the longer term, given the history of successions in the Kremlin, a history that suggests each new leader will ultimately choose to legitimate himself by denigrating or worse his predecessor. But that same history suggests that the successors are unlikely to make such changes as quickly as many would like.

First, the coalition that appears to be forming behind the scenes consists of the so-called "siloviki," senior officials of the security services and the military.  Many of them are more cautious than Putin has done because they know better than he the costs of invading and annexing part of a neighboring country.

But not all of the are: many of the "siloviki" believe that Putin has failed to act in ways that would have brought Moscow a victory in Ukraine, and they will push for more aggressive moves in order to prove their point as well as to justify an increased role for themselves in the constellation of a post-Putin regime.

And whether they are in the cautious or the aggressive camp, they are not liberals and they are not democrats. They are part and parcel of the authoritarian regime which was never completely dismantled in 1991 and which has been restored with extreme vigor by Putin over the last 15 years.

Hoping that they will suddenly see the light is a dangerous delusion.

Second, those who may be angling to push Putin out have an even more compelling reason for taking aggressive action in Ukraine and perhaps elsewhere as well. If they were to back down immediately, many in Russia would be unwilling to accept them as legitimate. Instead, most Russians would view them as people the West had somehow installed.

The West, of course, would have nothing to do with such a change should it occur. But Russians, fed with Putinist propaganda about the supposedly "all-powerful" Western security services and their ability to create "fifth columns" and overthrow governments via "color revolutions" as in Ukraine, would likely find it hard to believe that.

Consequently, even those who would like to get out of the Ukrainian morass would see a further move there, perhaps involving the seizure of Mariupol, as being necessary to their immediate survival in office and thus support it even if in the longer term they would be willing to yield on this point.

And third, any such post-Putin regime would not cease to be a Russian one. It would be interested in promoting its understanding of Russian national interests, and its members would undoubtedly conclude that given what looks to the to be the West's feckless response to his challenges, they would benefit by continuing part of his strategy even if they rejected some of it.

Moreover, any such regime would almost certainly further tighten the screws on its own people lest they try to exploit the uncertainty that any leadership change in that country always produces.  For the Russian people, the first weeks and months could be worse as well, even if in the longer term, things would likely get better.

Indeed, given that many in Western governments would be so pleased by any indication of a change of heart in Moscow - even a minimalist and superficial one - as has been the case up to now, those in a post-Putin government would at least at first likely continue to test the limits rather than pull back more than they might be willing to do later.

Consequently, as pleased as many would be with the departure of Putin from the political scene, all of them should keep in mind that despite what is likely to be a media circus on that event, his exit alone will not usher in a new heaven and a new Jerusalem.  It is far too early to celebrate. It is absolutely necessary to remain vigilant.

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