#2
Putin's rating up more than 50% over 15 years - FOM pollster

MOSCOW, March 31. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin's popularity rating since the moment he first took office in 2000 has been up more than 50%, with the strongest surge in popular support registered after the reunification of Crimea with Russia, the public opinion studies center FOM has found. The statistics were made public at a round table discussion at TASS timed to the 15th anniversary of Putin at the helm of power.

As the FOM's chief, Alexander Oslon, has told TASS, the results were obtained on the basis of weekly polls held for the past fifteen years. The respondents were asked to say whom they would vote for if the presidential election were to be held the forthcoming Sunday.

Whereas during the presidential election campaign in 2000 Putin's rating stood at 47%, on March 22, 2015 Putin would have collected the votes of 75% of Russians.

According to the FOM, popular support developed a steep uptrend following Crimea's admission to Russia in 2014. At the moment the decision was made Putin's rating stood at 50%. In the twelve months that followed Crimea's admission to Russia the rating has been steady on the rise to have achieved 75% on March 22, 2015.

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 #3
Studying Putin's 15 years at the helm crucial to seeing future with confidence - Peskov

Understanding of where Putin succeeded and where he didn't and what has happened to Russia and to the world in 15 years is extremely important, the Kremlin spokesman said at a round table discussion

MOSCOW, March 31. /TASS/. Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov believes it is important to comprehensively study and discuss Vladimir Putin's fifteen years at the helm of power.

"The theme is simple, but it looks extremely important - fifteen years since Putin was elected Russia's president. The date is too important to remain without a discussion, because without the understanding of where Putin succeeded and where he did not and what has happened to Russia and to the world during that period of time is extremely important for looking into the future with confidence," Peskov said as he opened a round table discussion at TASS on Tuesday.

Peskov thanked the organizers: the TASS agency's research center and its chief Semyon Sorkin.

Peskov said that the public opinion studies fund FOM has drafted a special report - a sort of a curve that shows changes in the dynamics of various processes - (Putin's) popularity and confidence (Russian people have) towards Putin.

"There has emerged the idea of projecting these curves to other parameters - various international events, the growth of the conflict potential in the world and the Russians' attitude to various processes and to make an evaluation of these trends," Peskov said.

Among the participants of the round table discussion are head of the public opinion fund FOM Alexander Oslon, former finance minister, leader of the Civic Initiatives Committee Alexey Kudrin, president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Alexander Shokhin, president of the All-Russia Union of Insurers Igor Yurgens and others.

"By and large they are people who throughout the fifteen years been involved in all processes and are in the position to pass judgement and offer evaluations and forecasts," Peskov believes. He also welcomed the media who "since the early 2000s have been in the presidential pool and were able to get a deep insight into how Putin worked, what he did, what decisions he made and why."

Putin was for the first time elected Russia's president on March 26 by collecting nearly 53% of the votes. In the 2004 election he received 71.31% of the votes, and in 2012, 63.6%.

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 #4
Moskovskiy Komsomolets
March 19, 2015
Little response to Putin "disappearance" shows lack of link to people - pundit
Matvey Ganapolskiy, Just One Passion - for Plasma. The Authorities and the People in Russian Are Linked Only by Television

So Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin unexpectedly disappeared for a week.

And then, equally unexpectedly, reappeared.

Of course one might start speculating about why he disappeared, why specifically for a week... But we are not going to do that, although in itself this way of behaving cannot be described as positive: Usually it is the done thing to explain such things to the citizens. But never mind - he disappeared, so he disappeared. Here, it seems to me, it is important to pay attention to those who, during that week, were not behind the Kremlin Wall but in front of it.

It is important to understand how Russian society behaved.

And society swallowed it all.

After the first few days of his absence, when questions began to be put to the Kremlin, two things came out of there in reply. First: We are relaxed about the questions. And second: Those who are making all kinds of "assumptions" are suffering from "spring fever." Of course, this rather crude barb was aimed at the thin stratum of people dissatisfied with the authorities that comprises the "fifth column," but the words were spoken non-specifically, to everyone. And they were heard by representatives of that other working intelligentsia, they were heard by the working class, they were heard by the working peasantry. All of them were instructed, in response to legitimate human interest as to whether something might happen to the president, that they should not ask questions. I do not think this is the norm in a modern country - but even that is not the main point. The main thing is that with the exception of that repugnant, curious "fifth column," this instruction provoked no reaction in society.

Don't ask? Fine. We won't.

However, this obedience stance disturbed certain particularly suspicious and nervous analysts. They started asking the question: This "silence of the lambs" - is it an example of loving obedience, or criminal indifference?

The latter suggestion was strange, since the president's ratings rise higher every day and look like they could reach 90 per cent any day now. Fine, let us convert ratings into numbers of citizens and imagine that 60 per cent are indecisive and fearful. But that leaves 30 per cent who would do anything for the president, even give their lives - and they get up one morning and find that their idol has disappeared from the public space, nobody is telling them where he is, the television is passing off some old photos as new, and all those various "national traitors" on the Internet have scattered to the point where they want to watch the ballet Swan Lake [famously shown repeatedly on TV during the 1991 anti-Gorbachev coup].

Here our vigilant citizens should have remembered Gorbachev in Foros - you will agree that here in Russia, goodness knows, anything can happen. And then they should have turned out in Red Square and started shouting loudly: Give us back our beloved president! A logical demand, because the recent march of the "Anti-Maydan," which awaits the coming of the Maydan literally at any moment, appeared large and formidable: They carried portraits of the president like icons, the bearded leaders promised that any probable enemy would be torn to shreds...

But nobody turned out. Not in a single city in this vast country. Not even in Chechnya.

Nobody. Throughout great Russia not a single person made up his mind to show sincere concern for the national leader for whom they voted; for the one "who is Russia."

Unbelievable, isn't it?

And so it goes on. Foreign television companies walk around the country asking passersby what they think about the "disappearance" of the president. The answers are striking. The passersby hum and ha, they avert their eyes - obviously they were caught unawares: In the past few days they have not been thinking about the president at all, and they thought he was right there.... he was always right there, especially on television, every day that God sends on any news programme. Any news bulletin is Putin and "a word about the weather." Admittedly it is slightly different at the moment: Ukraine, Putin, and "a word about the weather." So the passersby replied: "Well, if Putin is not there, if he has cancelled some official meetings without explanation, it must have been necessary. Up there at the top they know where he is and what he is doing. Presidents do not just turn up here among us, thank heavens! Maybe he has gone somewhere, maybe he is sick. If he has gone somewhere he will come back, if he is sick he will get better."

But many people replied: "Why do you want to know what I think? Our president knows where he is. Where he should be - so it will turn out!" "He himself knows," "when he needs to" - those are the things they said, boldly, straight to the foreigners' faces.

But the different answers had something in common: annoyance and irritation - the passersby were furious as to why they were bothering them with a question about one who is eternal, who is always close at hand, and who... is not connected with them in any way.

Yes, that is it exactly. The citizens apparently did not understand that they were being asked about a living person who might be in trouble; a person for whom they voted, to whom they entrusted not only the future of their country but also the nuclear briefcase. There was a distinct sense that the passersby regard Putin as an unreal being, as some kind of fairytale knight, who does not burn in fire and does not drown in water [children's riddle to which the answer is "ice"].

But one can only talk in that way about someone with whom you are not linked in any way in real life.

And that is true, it is a fact: The citizens of Russia are not linked with their president, or with the authorities in general.

The people and the president have no life in common: The people count up their declining wages in declining roubles, while the president says he does not even know how much he gets - he simply throws the money into a drawer.

The citizens and the president have no life in common: They live in housing projects and villages, he lives now in the Kremlin, now in Novo-Ogarevo, now in the Constantine Palace. Of course none of this is his, but it is so nice to pass the time in this way until it is time to take your pension, which you can do whenever you like.

The citizens and the president have no heroes in common, either: Immediately after the murder of Nemtsov the president, for some reason, presents an award to Kadyrov. The devil himself could not make out the logic here.

The people and the president have no plans in common: The people work, and then dream of taking a vacation. While the authorities...

But by the way, who knows the authorities' plans?

Do they have any?

The president's current plans are known: opposing American expansion, then there is Ukraine, and then there is the soccer World Cup. But war, whether cold or hot, has never been part of the people's plans, while the World Cup... well, how is this a plan in common with our own soccer?

But does anyone know of a plan that would unite the whole people - but a constructive plan, above ethnicity and above religions? Well, build some kind of road - everyone knows what our roads are like. Or pump money not into a bridge to Crimea but, for instance, into science - build our own collider under the import substitution programme.

And again: Does anyone know of any plan that would unite the country not in hatred of enemies but in creativity?

There are no such plans.

You remember when you were little and you fell down in the playground, you would run to your mom and cry "Mom!" You did not cry "Vasiliy Nikolayevich!" or "Comrade Petrov!" Because Vasiliy Nikolayevich and Petrov were people impossibly far away from you. Yet apparently they did exist: Comrade Petrov had a new suit and a car, and Vasiliy Nikolayevich was always promising to give you candies...

But you cried "Mom!", because she was the one who was always with you.

So, the so-called "disappearance of the president" - not dangerous, only temporary, as it turned out - accidentally revealed the true system of relations between the authorities and the people, and that system has not changed in any way since Brezhnev's day.

We are still looking at the same old "social contract": The authorities do not touch us, and we allow them to do whatever they deem fit. Just like under Brezhnev, Russia is waging a little bit of war somewhere. Just like under Brezhnev, everyone lies a little bit - only back then the lies were called "international duty," now it is "the threat of fascism and the Maydan"...

They say that you are not "given" power - you "take" power. And in this sense I cannot bring myself to condemn the authorities: They "enjoy themselves" precisely as much as the citizens allow them to.

And they allow the authorities to do absolutely anything.

And even, as a joke, to pretend that they do not exist.

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 #5
Russia needs to hop off the 'oil needle' and develop small business - TASS research center

MOSCOW, March 31 / TASS / Russia soon needs to focus on getting rid of its oil dependency and develop small business and improve living standards, said Semyon Sorkin, Chief of the TASS Research Center during the round table discussion at TASS dedicated to the 15th anniversary of the election of Vladimir Putin as president of Russia on Tuesday.

"Over the past 15 years the share of oil and gas revenue has not diminished, but increased and it's no longer a third, but a half of the revenue," Sorkin said.

Another area that needs to be further developed, said Sorkin, is the support for small business. He admitted that the input of small business into the country's GDP has increased over the last few years, but that Russia still lags behind other countries in that matter.

Sorkin went on to say that Russia also needs to increase production independence. According to experts, the share of Russian medicine on the domestic market fell by 10% from 2000-2012. In addition, there is a need to focus on improving the living standards of living for Russian citizens, he said.

Sorkin's report shows the growth of the Russian economy during the 15 years of Putin's presidency. During these 15 years, the GDP grew by 76% from 2000 until 2014, while the national debt was reduced by 69%.

The average salary has increased due to inflation, by 3.8-fold, pensions by 2.7-fold. Aside from that, Sorkin said that funds from the federal budget are not only being spent on military and defense, but on culture and sport as well.

 #6
Russia needs serious reform, economic growth program - ex-finance minister

MOSCOW, March 31. /TASS/. Russia needs a serious program on new reforms and economic growth rates, former Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin said on Tuesday.

The ex-finance minister spoke at a roundtable discussion devoted to 15 years since Vladimir Putin was elected as Russia's president.

"Unfortunately, during the current period of Putin's presidency, economic growth will be just 1.5-2% from 2012 to 2018," Kudrin said.

"We have moved to a new growth level with low growth rates, which do not correspond to Russia's possibilities to be a real competitor in the world economy and ensure substantial rates of technological progress and, as a result, its military and economic might," the ex-finance minister said.

"Today we're facing serious challenges. If the leadership of the country realizes them we will need a serious program on reforms and a recovery in growth rates," he said.

"If the rating is not used for carrying out reforms it's just a rating for the sake of rating," he added.

According to the poll conducted by the Public Opinion Fund (POF) in March, the electoral rating of President Putin reached its new high of 75%.

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#7
Bloomberg
March 27, 2015
Putin's Economic Team Plays Houdini
By Leonid Bershidsky
[Charts here http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-27/putin-s-economic-team-plays-houdini?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=5519a1a604d3014db6000001&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook]

Last week, the Russian central bank's currency reserves increased for the first time since last July, showing that the economy may have moved past the panic caused by last year's oil price slump. Perhaps Russia's improving indicators will convince Western governments that economic sanctions are having no discernible effect and that President Vladimir Putin's regime and the country it runs aren't facing imminent collapse.

Russia has lost a little more than a quarter of its foreign reserves since mid-July 2014:

The decline was particularly sharp last December, as the central bank frantically sought a way to stop the ruble from losing value against the dollar. The much gentler slope on the chart -- beginning in January -- says more about the structure of Russia's foreign reserves than about chronic depletion.

In January 2014, Russia held $131.8 billion of U.S. debt. As its relationship with the U.S. deteriorated after the revolution in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea, Russia began shrinking its dollar reserves and increasing the share of euros and gold. While the reserves as a whole dropped 23.9 percent in 2014, the holdings of U.S. debt fell 37.6 percent, to $82.2 billion. Russia now holds less U.S. Treasury securities than Ireland, Turkey or Singapore.

The total value of foreign reserves is expressed in dollars, so Russia's euro-heavy stockpile took a hit from the dollar's rapid appreciation against the euro this year. The central bank no longer had to prop up the ruble with big foreign exchange sales: The currency has been doing OK so far this year, partly because oil has bounced back from January lows, and partly because Russia, with an interest rate of 17 percent at the beginning of the year and 14 percent now, became an attractive, though risky, carry trade destination. A glance at the relationship between the ruble and the price of Brent crude shows that the currency is now doing better than the oil benchmark -- that's a sign that the carry trade, in which speculators borrow in dollars and lend in rubles, is pushing it upward:

In the week ended March 20, the euro gained a little more than 3 percent against the U.S. dollar; that was the reason for the $1.2 billion uptick in Russian foreign reserves.

Many of the unfavorable forecasts for the Russian economy -- such as the one published a month ago by Anders Aslund of the Peterson Institute for International Economics -- were predicated on the melting away of currency reserves. "Russia's reserve situation is approaching a critical limit," Aslund wrote. "At present, Russia loses more than $10 billion a month, which means that a real reserve crisis will erupt in the third quarter." That, however, is not going to happen unless the price of oil starts going down steeply again.

Analysts are divided about the future of oil prices, with predictions ranging from $50 to $90 per barrel of Brent in the fourth quarter of this year. But the consensus forecast compiled by Bloomberg put it at $68.65 today -- higher than the actual price of $57.5. The Russian Economy Ministry has also suggested raising the official oil price forecast from $50 per barrel -- in line with the most pessimistic of analysts -- but the government has so far resisted these calls, preferring to remain cautious.

The current government forecast says the Russian economy will shrink 3 percent. If oil is higher than budgeted, however, the decline -- which is inevitable for structural reasons, and because of the abnormally high interest rates left over from last year's defense of the ruble and that remain useful because they attract the carry trade -- will be even less pronounced. Economists polled by Bloomberg still expect, on average, a 4 percent drop, but Goldman Sachs, for example, now predicts a decline of only 2.7 percent -- in line with some forecasts from Russian liberal economists.

To be sure, that's hardly a stellar economic performance. It's painful for a country as big as Russia to have its crucial economic indicators depend so heavily on civil strife in Yemen and the debt problems of U.S. frackers -- both important determinants of the oil price. The country's oil dependency won't end anytime soon, however, and so far Russia's key market has stabilized at an acceptable level.

So where do the Western sanctions come in? They don't. It's easy to see how Russian economic indicators react to developments in oil and foreign exchange markets, but not to the trade and funding restrictions. They are a nuisance to a number of Russian companies, but Sberbank, the mammoth state institution now unable to obtain Western funding, still reported a healthy profit of $7.7 billion for 2014. That's less than for the year before, but still far from tragic.

Russia's economic managers, especially at the Central Bank and the Finance Ministry, should be given their due: In a difficult environment, they have avoided major mistakes and managed to keep open Russia's economy. Putin has plenty of advisers who would prefer a different approach, arguing for "fortress Russia," but despite the instincts that feed the president's own siege mentality, he has chosen wisely whom to empower. Despite the Soviet revival theatrics Putin has employed -- at a recent meeting, he pointedly addressed top operatives of Russia's FSB domestic intelligence as "comrades" -- Russia remains a major market economy that cannot be derailed by a few timid restrictions.

That makes it both a bigger threat to weak neighbors such as Ukraine, as well as an underrated land of opportunity. It's not for nothing that in its 2015 investor sentiment survey, the CFA Institute -- a global association of investment professionals -- named Russia one of the top markets for equity performance this year, along with the U.S., China and India.

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#8
Moscow Times
March 31, 2015
Worker Strikes Will Only Boost Kremlin's Popularity, Say Analysts
By Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber

Withheld salaries, unforeseen firings and pay cuts have amplified discontent in an array of Russia's economic sectors, leading to a handful of strikes political analysts said Monday were more likely to bolster workers' support for the Kremlin than weaken it.  

A scattering of Russian teachers, builders and factory workers have declared strikes in protest of their working conditions, an unusual occurrence in a country with weak professional unions and a tradition of low protest activity. Dozens of construction workers building the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia's Far East continued their strike Monday after rejecting a proposal from management to compensate employees whose salaries had been withheld.

In the southern city of Ufa, another ambulance worker joined a hunger strike to protest management practices, bringing the total number of strikers up to 10, the Interfax news agency reported Monday.

Some 60 teachers in Siberia's Zabaikalsky region declared a strike earlier this month after not being paid for more than three months, the first large-scale teachers' strike in Russia in more than a decade, according to the Kommersant newspaper.

Earlier this month, some workers at the Ford Sollers factory in the Leningrad region outside St. Petersburg went on strike. Trolleybus drivers in Simferopol - the capital of Crimea, the peninsula Russia annexed from Ukraine last year - refused to work after not receiving their salaries, paralyzing the city, state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Russian political analysts doubt that the pockets of discontent in the country's struggling economic sectors could spread to other workers or the general population. The current political rhetoric that glorifies the Kremlin and portrays it as surrounded by hostile external forces has allowed President Vladimir Putin to evade responsibility for Russia's economic woes and play down a severe economic crisis.

Deflecting Blame

Strikers' economic demands are fully detached from their political stances, said Natalya Zubarevich, director of the Moscow-based Independent Institute for Social Policy think tank's regional program. Workers' dissatisfaction with labor conditions, she said, has no effect on their attitudes toward Putin, whose approval rating stands at a vertiginous 85 percent, according to the independent Russian pollster Levada Center.

"The population has been encouraged to believe the country is surrounded by enemies," Zubarevich told The Moscow Times on Monday. "The propaganda is working. Putin is not being blamed for any of the trouble. Others - the regional governor, the mayor, the [workplace] manager - are the ones to blame, according to this frame of mind. But not Putin."

The lower echelons of power, whose political survival depends on the Kremlin, are more likely to feel the pressure of strikes than Moscow, according to political analysts. Regional governors - whom recent strikes have put in an "uncomfortable" position, according to political analyst Mikhail Vinogradov - must rely on heavily indebted budgets to meet the demands of Moscow and the population.

When the Murmansk region discontinued its distribution of some social benefits earlier this month, including child benefit allowances and housing subsidies, regional authorities cited lack of funding from the federal government as the reason for the cuts. But the finger-pointing between Moscow and the regions - whose debt to the federal budget rose to 2.1 trillion rubles ($36 billion) in December - has done little to solve issues on the ground.

"Regional governors - many of whom view their positions as sinecures and have no intention of working to change anything -  understand that their job security depends on the Kremlin," said Vasily Koltashov, head of economic research at the Institute for Globalization and Social Movements. "A situation like this [the strikes] make them look bad and puts them at greater risk of being dismissed."

A 2013 video leaked by sensationalist channel LifeNews, widely believed to have ties with Russia's security services, showed Putin threatening to dismiss governors and other government officials who failed to implement his "May Orders," a series of promises from his 2012 presidential campaign. The May Orders included a 200-percent increase in doctors' average salaries by 2018 and securing 25 million jobs in the high-tech sector by 2020.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last week that adjustments could be made to Putin's electoral promises but that they would remain a priority, the TASS news agency reported.

Watch and Wait

A poll published earlier this month by the Levada Center found that the salaries of 9 percent of Russians were currently not being paid on time. The survey, conducted among a representative sample of 1,600 people in 46 regions with a margin of error not exceeding 3.4 percent, found that 15 percent of the population expects delays in getting paid in the coming months if the economic situation does not improve.

Yet the Kremlin has remained silent in the face of multiplying labor disputes. Analysts have interpreted Putin's silence as the Kremlin's desire to downplay the country's dire economic circumstances.

"There is no need for the government to send a strong signal by intervening in the labor conflicts that are currently happening across the country," said Vinogradov, who monitors regional politics for the Peterburgskaya Politika think tank. "It is in the authorities' interest to show that the economic crisis is not as severe as experts are saying."

It would seem that the Kremlin is not ready to orchestrate a theatrical situation, preferring to minimize the crisis and focus on the rhetoric that the whole country is facing an externally created crisis. In front of a jubilant crowd gathered steps from the Kremlin to celebrate the first anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea earlier this month, Putin vowed that Russia would overcome "the problems and obstacles that others try to create for us from outside."

Free of Politics

Political analysts interviewed by The Moscow Times on Monday said that the current smattering of economic dissatisfaction would not transform itself into political discontent for at least one or two years, if the economy continues on its current course. Russians' appetite for public demonstrations, including strikes, remains low: A Levada Center poll conducted in February found that 86 percent of the population would not take part in a demonstration if one were to take place in their community.  

The Kremlin's politics, according to Alexei Makarkin, deputy director of the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies think tank, have little to do with a potential transformation of economic dissatisfaction into political discontent.

"Economic protests will remain isolated until the state runs out of money completely," he said. "This is what we saw in the late 1980s. People who were not being paid demanded political changes. Today, everything will depend on the economy, something the state can only influence in part."

Divine Intervention

Putin has been known to intervene on labor issues when they have reached boiling point. After workers of a key factory in Pikalyovo, an industrial town in the Leningrad region, blocked a federal highway in 2009 to protest against their salaries being withheld for three months, Putin flew in by helicopter to resolve the dispute.

Putin was shown on state television berating the three businessmen who owned the factory, including oligarch Oleg Deripaska, formerly Russia's richest man. Putin gave the businessmen a dressing down, claiming they had put their greed over the well-being of the population. The then-Prime Minister tossed a pen in Derispaska's direction, ordering him to sign an agreement on employees' payment.

Putin's dramatic interventions and public castigation of officials - including last month's outburst against his government for having canceled hundreds of suburban trains throughout the country - only reinforce his image as a benevolent leader and further deflect the blame away from the Kremlin, according to analysts.

"Strikers who present economic demands want to demonstrate their loyalty to the state, they want the state to come and fix their issues," Makarkin said. "The state will intervene, while it still has the resources to do so, and the strikers will be thankful."

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 #9
Moscow Times
March 31, 2015
Russians With Houses on State Land Get Right to Buy Plots at Discount

Russians with homes and cottages located on state-owned land now have the exclusive right to buy that land - and at a reduced rate, according to an order signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and published on the government's website Monday.

"For a citizen possessing a residence, dacha or garage on the plot that is being purchased, the price of the plot in the event of its sale is set at 60 percent of its cadastral value," the order states.

A property's cadastral value is an approximation of its market price that is assessed annually by the Russian government and has been used to calculate property taxes since the beginning of this year.

During the Soviet era, citizens were often given small plots of land and allowed to develop them as they chose, with many building "dachas," or country homes, and other small residences.

Following the breakup of the Soviet Union the land remained in federal hands, however, leading to conflicts between homeowners and local government over development plans.

In 2010, 22 homes in the Rechnik settlement, once a garden community for Moscow Canal workers, were demolished by court order in a controversial case that saw the homeowners' right to the land fiercely debated.

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 #10
http://jimrogers1.blogspot.com
March 29, 2015
Jim Roger: Russia Much More Prosperous than Ukraine

Jim Rogers started trading the stock market with $600 in 1968.In 1973 he formed the Quantum Fund with the legendary investor George Soros before retiring, a multi millionaire at the age of 37. Rogers and Soros helped steer the fund to a miraculous 4,200% return over the 10 year span of the fund while the S&P 500 returned just 47%.

HB: And you say that even given Russian President Vladimir Putin and his aggressiveness?

Jim Rogers : It sounds like you have been reading American propaganda too much. This all started with America, with that diplomat in Washington [Victoria Nuland, the Asst. Secretary of State]; they have her on tape. We were the ones who were very aggressive. We're the ones who said, 'We're going to overthrow this government, we don't like this government, even though it was elected. They are fools and we don't like them, so we're going to get rid of them.' We were the aggressive ones. Crimea has been part of Russia for centuries. If it weren't for [Nikita] Khrushchev getting drunk one night, it would still have been part of Russia. That election was in process, anyway. Everybody would rather be part of Russia than Ukraine. Ukraine is one of the worst-managed countries I've ever seen. Of course people want to get out of Ukraine. You would, too. It's a disaster. And Russia has been much more prosperous.

Maybe Putin has been overly aggressive, but he has been subject to horrible stress in the West. The State Department says he's a bad guy, so the American press says he's a bad guy. They stop looking at the facts. It happened in previous wars, including Vietnam.

The other effect it's having is driving the Russians and the Asians together. That will hurt us - the US - in the end because the Asians have more money than the West. America's the largest debtor nation in the history of the world. China has huge assets, as do other Asian countries. So unfortunately, it's causing Russia to turn more toward Asia. That too will be good for Russia in the long term. There are 3 billion people in Asia. You see the Russians have made this huge gas deal with the Chinese. The Chinese and the Asians have recently started an Asian bank to compete with The World Bank. This whole thing, which we started, is only accelerating bad movements.

These sanctions are not hurting everybody, but they're certainly hurting Europe, which is driving more and more people to look for competitors to the US dollar and the US banking system. In the end it's good for Russia. I don't like saying it. I'm an American like you are. But I have to deal with facts, not with propaganda and not with hope.

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 #11
Interfax
March 30, 2015
Party led by Navalny can't run in elections

The Moscow City Court has upheld the Justice Ministry's refusal to include the Progress Party in the register of parties that have the right to run in elections, an Interfax correspondent has reported, citing a decision made by the judicial collegium on civilian cases read on Monday.

The court declined the complaint filed by representatives of the party Progress, upholding the district court law ruling.

Representatives of the party said they intend to file an appeal. "We intend to file an appeal against today's decision with the Supreme Court. We will also file complaints with the European Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court. We clearly see that the law is ambiguous and need clear interpretation," Dmitry Krainev, a representative of the party in court, told Interfax on Monday.

According to earlier reports, the Moscow Zamoskvoretsky Court on January 28 declined the Progress Party's lawsuit against the Russian Justice Ministry, upholding the ministry's actions.

In their lawsuit, the claimants alleged that the Justice Ministry's decision not to include the Progress Party in the federal list of political parties that have the right to participate in elections was illegal and asked the court to order the ministry to correct what the party saw as irregularities.

In late November 2014, the Justice Ministry press service told Interfax the decision to include the party in the list of parties that have the right to participate in elections or to invalidate its registration certificate would not be made until the agency received court rulings on complaints against the actions by its territorial departments.

The Progress Party was officially registered with the Justice Ministry on February 25, 2014. The leader of the party is Alexei Navalny, an opposition activist, who ran for the post of Moscow mayor in the fall 2013 elections. Navalny received a suspended sentence of 3.5 years ion prison on December 30.

Navalny also has a suspended prison sentence for the 'Kirovles case'. On July 18, 2014, the Kirov Leninsky Court sentenced him to five years in prison for stealing from the enterprise. However, the next day he was released until the day the sentence entered legal force after he gave his written promise not to leave the city. On October 16, the Kirov region's court changed the sentence, replacing a real prison sentence with a suspended prison sentence.

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 #12
Moscow Times
March 31, 2015
Cultural Figures Demand Minister's Sacking Over Opera Scandal
By Ivan Nechepurenko

Leading cultural figures launched a petition Monday calling for the dismissal of Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky, saying his position on a controversial opera production was an attack on freedom of creativity, while the Kremlin said it had the right to influence the content produced by cultural organizations financed by state money.

The exchange was part of the continuing fallout from the public scandal over a production of Richard Wagner's opera "Tannhäuser" at the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater that was labelled as sacrilegious by some conservative Orthodox Church activists but highly praised by eminent art critics.

The Russian government took the side of the Orthodox activists by firing the theater's head - who had defended the production and refused to apologize for it - and issued a series of statements calling for tighter control over what appears on theater playbills.

"Of course the state, which through various subsidies and grants allocates state funds for the making of films, theater productions and so on, has the right to expect appropriate productions that at the very least do not provoke such a strong reaction from the public," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was cited by Interfax as saying Monday.

Peskov added that his comment "should not be perceived as some kind of attempt to introduce censorship."

Earlier Monday, a deputy head of the presidential administration called for tighter control of what Russia's major theaters show on their stages.

"We should make sure that on such important, national stages as the Novosibirsk theater - a leading theater - there are productions that work to unite our people and country. [People] should stage works like this, not ones that divide society," Magomedsalam Magomedov told journalists in Novosibirsk, Interfax reported.

Some of Magomedov's instructions appear to have been heeded already. The Novosibirsk Globus Theater revised part of its "Songs About the Motherland" production due to be performed on April 1 under pressure from Orthodox activists and the local culture department, the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily newspaper reported.

According to the paper, the part that was axed told the story of a squirrel who drowns while being baptized by a hedgehog. The theater issued a statement saying that the production had been changed "following recommendations from the Novosibirsk region's Culture Ministry."

Kinosoyuz, a public organization that unites Russia's leading filmmakers, issued a statement Monday calling for the sacking of state Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky over his decision to fire the director of the Novosibirsk theater.

"Standing up to defend freedom of artistic creativity from obscurantism, Kinosoyuz thinks the firing of Boris Mezdrich, director of the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater, is an example of egregious lawlessness," read a statement published on the organization's website.

"We demand Mezdrich's immediate restoration and the removal of Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky, who has repeatedly violated Russia's Constitution by introducing censorship and oppressing those who disagree with his anti-cultural policies," said the statement, which was signed by 32 members of the organization, including its chairman.

Some of Russia's most prominent theater directors, including Lev Dodin, Valery Fokin, Oleg Tabakov and Mark Zakharov have spoken out in support of "Tannhäuser."

The Culture Ministry said in a statement that its decision to sack Mezdrich was due to his "unwillingness to take into account society's values and for his failure to respect citizens' opinion."

The statement also said that offending religious sentiment produces a confrontation within society that often leads to "human victims." It cited the opinions of prominent religious and cultural figures in support of the decision to sack the theater's head.

A case launched by prosecutors into whether or not the production was offensive to religious believers - a crime in Russia since 2013 - was thrown out by a local court in March. The local prosecutor general has appealed the decision.

Some commentators have argued that it was not so much the performance itself that split society, but rather the scandal ignited by a regional leader of the Russian Orthodox Church's condemnation of it.

Metropolitan Tikhon said that the avant-garde production offended believers' feelings in February, almost two months after the production - directed by 30-year-old Timofei Kulyabin - premiered in two performances.

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#13
RFE/RL
March 31, 2015
Western Scholars Alarmed By Russian Deportations, Fines
by Carl Schreck

WASHINGTON -- The plainclothes officers found the scholar in a state archive poring over texts on 19th-century provincial life in Russia. They requested a meeting in the hallway.
At issue was the Western researcher's tourist visa. By studying historical documents in the archive, located in one of Russia's regions, the scholar had violated the terms of the visa, the officers from the Russian Federal Migration Service (FMS) said.

Within hours, a judge had slapped a fine and deportation order on the researcher, saying the infraction constituted a danger to Russian society, according to court documents seen by RFE/RL.

The scholar left the country two days later, befuddled at the circumstances of the expulsion. "They never answered my questions about what paperwork I needed," the researcher told RFE/RL on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The case is one of several over the past year that have unsettled Western academics concerned that Russia may be ratcheting up bureaucratic pressure on foreign scholars.

During the past 12 months, at least four Westerners have been fined, deported, or threatened with these penalties while conducting academic research in Russia due to alleged visa violations, according to court documents, interviews with scholars, and publicly available information.

In two of these cases -- including that of the deported scholar who spoke to RFE/RL -- the individuals said they were plucked out of state archives by Russian migration officials.

"There does, indeed, appear to be much greater scrutiny of foreign scholars and students concerning visa status of late," says a second Western scholar, who told RFE/RL that officials in Siberia threatened to deport him last year for purportedly failing to properly register his visa -- a charge he denies.

Academics Nervous

Whether these incidents are anomalous or part of a larger, coordinated clampdown remains unclear. Several scholars posited that local officials may simply be trying to burnish their credentials by tightening control of Westerners in the country amid battered ties between Russia and the West over the Ukraine conflict.

Will Stevens, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, told RFE/RL that "we have seen some reports of Western academics facing increased scrutiny and obstacles inside Russia."
"So far, these incidents appear to be isolated and seem to represent a very small minority of the large number of Western academics who travel and study in Russia," he added.

The anxiety is nonetheless palpable among Western academics specializing in Russia and the former Soviet Union.

Access to Russian archives is crucial for scholars in the field, says Russia historian Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus at New York University. "A PhD student pretty much has to go to Russia to work in those archives to satisfy his or her dissertation committee," Cohen says. "That's the nature of the historical profession. If there are archives on your subject, you've got to go work in them."

Several scholars in the field declined to be interviewed or be identified on the record when contacted by RFE/RL, citing concerns that speaking publicly about the issue could hinder access to Russian archives

The Russian Embassy in Washington did not respond to repeated e-mails requesting comment, and several calls to its press office went unanswered.

Lynda Park, executive director of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), said in a recent e-mail to the organization's members that stories about these visa problems "seem few and far between and happening outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg."

The U.S.-based scholarly society asked its some 3,000 members in the e-mail to report any visa difficulties they have had in the past two years.

Park says that as of March 30, the organization had received reports of three incidents, the details of which she could not disclose because they were provided in confidence. It was unclear if those incidents were among the four documented by RFE/RL. "Even three are unfortunate to see, having a detrimental impact on the individual researchers' work," she says.

'Laws Can Change'

Foreigners often conduct academic research in Russia using business and tourist visas, which can be obtained quickly and directly from a travel agency. Humanitarian visas, which are more applicable for scholarly work, require greater time and planning, as travelers must find a willing host organization or institute inside Russia.

Russian authorities have largely turned a blind eye toward scholarly activities conducted on business and tourist visas. The deportations and fines levied against Western scholars over the past year suggest officials in at least some Russian regions may be moving to end this practice.

"It does feel like they're tightening the rules, but they haven't seemed to impose any new rules. It's that they're enforcing old rules that they never used to enforce before," says Sam Greene, director of the Russia Institute at King's College London.

He adds that foreign scholars had run afoul of Russian authorities due to their visa status prior to the incidents over the past year as well.

In any case, Russian law does not forbid foreigners from entering publicly accessible archives, regardless of the travelers' visa status, says Arch Getty, a historian at UCLA who has consulted scholars on Russian visa issues for two decades.

Getty says that until recently he had "never heard of a case where a specific visa requirement was being enforced in an archive or a library," adding, "It is very new."

Siobhan Hearne, a PhD student at Britain's University of Nottingham, wrote in a March 13 Facebook post that a day earlier she was "pulled out of the reading rooms" in a state archive in Russia's northern Arkhangelsk region by police and immigration officials.

Hearne, who did not respond to several interview requests, wrote that the officials said her "business cultural" visa was "not suitable for archival work" and that she needed a "scientific and technical" visa for such research.

She wrote that she was issued a fine, adding in a subsequent Facebook comment that she was later allowed back in the archive. "I'm going to work very quickly just in case!" she wrote.

In a fourth case, a court in Nizhny Novgorod deported a U.S. woman in June 2014 after finding her guilty of conducting "scientific-research activities" while traveling on a transit visa, according to a statement by the court. Specifics of that case, including the individual's name, were not immediately available.

The Western scholar who says authorities in Siberia threatened to deport him last year told RFE/RL that migration and Federal Security Service officials "questioned me about every trip I've made to Russia over the last 20 years and asked specifics about my research for each trip as well as my educational background."

"I had to write out a lengthy statement acknowledging my background and the charge and then they let me off without a fine," the scholar said on condition of anonymity.

He said he asked the officers if he would be able to return the following year and reside in the same accommodation, where the officers accused him of living illegally. "They said: 'Who is to know? Laws can change,'" he said.

'Completely Unnecessary'

The allegations in these incidents resemble those levied against several Americans expelled from Russia since April 2014, a month after the United States and the EU put sanctions on Russia in response to its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea territory.

During this period, Russian courts have ordered at least 11 U.S. citizens out of the country for alleged visa violations for purported "political" activities, "propagandizing American values," or their work with nongovernmental organizations, which Russian officials and state media often paint as nefarious agents of Western influence.

Neither Hearne nor the deported scholar interviewed by RFE/RL, however, appear to have been researching politically sensitive subjects when they were removed from state archives.

Hearne is studying female prostitution in Russia between 1900 and 1930, while the deported scholar claims to have been examining documents related to the economics of 19th-century Russia.

Hearne wrote on Facebook that she suspects the archive staff may have alerted authorities about her presence and visa status because immigration officials "had printed copies of all of the emails I'd sent to the archive" when they first approached her.

The deported scholar said it remained unclear "who reported me or how they detected my presence in the archive."

"That was completely unnecessary," said the researcher, who said he had been hit with a five-year ban on entering Russia. "What would have been for them to tell me to leave or to change my visa?"

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#14
New York Times
March 31, 2015
Russian History Receives a Makeover That Starts With Ivan the Terrible
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR and SOPHIA KISHKOVSKY

MOSCOW - Ivan the Terrible, the Russian czar, should really be considered Ivan the Not So Bad, according to a wildly popular historical exhibition held recently near the Kremlin.

The exhibition accused the Western news media of miscasting Czar Ivan IV as "the Terrible." A display of contemporaneous German etchings that showed the 16th-century czar's troops committing atrocities was offered as proof that labeling him a murderous tyrant was simply defamation by foreigners.

He was also the first Russian leader hit by Western sanctions, the display asserted, with a supposed ban on metal sales to Russia prompting the initial domestic production of cannons.

Sound familiar? The show was one of several recent blockbuster exhibitions that historians and others say distort Russia's past to create false parallels that justify current Kremlin policy.

"History is being used as an ideological tool," said Nikita P. Sokolov, a historian and editor. The message of some of the biggest shows, he said, was that "Russia is a besieged fortress that needs a strong commander, and anyone trying to democratize Russia and shake the power of the commander is trying to undermine this country."

Museum officials who created some of the shows denied that they were following Kremlin orders. Rather, they said, the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union unleashed a torrent of excessively negative historical research that needed rebalancing.

"Not once has any government representative told me how history should be written," said Yuri A. Nikiforov, a World War II historian. "It's just not true that Russian historians dance to the president's tune."

Mr. Nikiforov works as a volunteer curator for the Russian Military-Historical Society, which government critics blame for leading the charge of ideological exhibitions. Founded in 2012 by Vladimir R. Medinsky, the minister of culture, in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense, the society is a quasi-public organization with an unpublished budget.

Emphasizing the glory of Russia became a cherished goal of President Vladimir V. Putin when he started his third term in 2012. At the founding of the Military-Historical Society - modeled on the imperial version disbanded after the 1917 revolution - Mr. Putin pledged government support and exhorted the organization to defend the values of "patriotism and the sacred duty of defending our homeland, national dignity and loyalty to our roots."

In contrast to Mr. Nikiforov, Mr. Medinsky eagerly acknowledged the Kremlin's advice. "We very much need these kinds of orders from the Kremlin," he said. "They are very correct."

Mr. Medinsky's father, Rostislav, an adviser on veterans' affairs, summed up the historical society's goals this month at an exhibition of paintings celebrating Russia's annexation of Crimea last spring.

The Military-Historical Society "is solving one of the main ideological tasks of educating citizens in the spirit of the highest patriotism," he said. "Because there where the land is not sown, grow weeds. There where there is no ideological motive, a vacuum forms and fascism raises its head."

The society's blockbuster show with Ivan the Terrible and others was held last fall at the Manège, a 19th-century exhibition hall just outside the Kremlin, and drew 250,000 people.

Called "My History. The Ruriks," it celebrated the dynasty that ruled for about 700 years, starting around A.D. 900, over the areas that became the heartland of Russia. Critics say that Mr. Medinsky used the show to promote his own interpretation of a period of Russian history that is notoriously difficult to document.

The central themes were that Russia has long been under attack, that only in unity had it been able to expel invaders and that numerous legends had grown up about its past.

Criticism was rife about its treatment of many subjects, including Ivan the Terrible and sanctions. (Not to mention the thumping techno soundtrack.)

Ivan founded the original version of the secret police in 1564, said Mr. Sokolov, the historian, and his executions were cruel, not some Western fiction. The assertion that Western sanctions prompted the first local production of cannons was also misguided, he said, because that started before Ivan's time.

The neighboring state then called Livonia - in what is now the Baltics - did block technically skilled people from Russia, Mr. Sokolov said, but there was no metal embargo because Russia had plenty.

"It was a purely political exhibition, not an historical one," he said.

Mr. Medinsky, the culture minister, is ready to dispute history at length. Ivan the Terrible is actually a mistranslation of Ivan Grozny, he said, a "positive" term in Russian that would better be rendered as "Ivan the Strict." As for the czar's human rights record on executions, he said, that of Queen Elizabeth I of England was far worse.

"This is P.R.; this is the difference between a rat and a hamster," he said. "It is simply image-making."

Historians have voiced concerns that Russia is switching to a sanitized version of history, discontinuing the relatively open inquiries of the 1990s to return to narrower, Soviet-style interpretations that emphasize ideology. Mr. Putin rejected that criticism last year.

Yet museums that have highlighted darker aspects of Russian history have come under pressure or even been shut down. For example, Perm-36, a museum focused on political repression that was established on the grounds of a restored Soviet labor camp announced its closing in early March after government support was cut.

There are, of course, plenty of museum exhibitions without an ideological bent. Yet in numerous shows, the parallels drawn between past and present are not subtle. The practice is expected to swell with scores of new exhibits to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany.

Mr. Nikiforov of the Military-Historical Society curated an exhibition called "Remember," held in a former power plant near Parliament.

Using mostly old photographs, the exhibition concentrated on the rise of Nazism, especially in places like Ukraine and the Baltics; Hitler's atrocities; and the more than one million Soviet soldiers killed in the drive across Eastern Europe to capture Berlin.

The show also gave a distinct nod toward present policy: One soaring lobby wall depicted current right-wing groups in Ukraine.

Russia maintains that the reason it absorbed Crimea a year ago and then endorsed the separatists battling in eastern Ukraine was that the overthrow of the government in Kiev in February 2014 amounted to a Nazi revival.

"That screen forces people to think, but nowhere, not in the tours, do we draw such a primitive parallel," Mr. Nikiforov said.

"Remember" gives short shrift to the unsavory aspects of the Soviet Union's World War II history, like the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact that allied Moscow with Nazi Germany until Hitler invaded in 1941. "Such simplification is unavoidable when there is not much room," the curator said.

The Museum of Contemporary History, one of the largest in Russia, is featuring a show called "On the Path to Victory," about the 1943 fight for Ukraine.

A tour guide made the link to current events. "As we see today in the territory of Ukraine, these events did not disappear into history," he said. "The ember continued to smolder and unfortunately this fascist fire began to burn again a year ago."

Irina Y. Velikanova, a former Moscow City Council member appointed to run the museum last year, said the mission of any historical museum should be rooted in patriotism.

"We don't hide the fact that we are interested in forming the patriotic and civic position of Russian youth," she said. "Our goal is that when leaving our museum, all Russians would feel proud of their country."

Valentin Diaconov, who covers the art world for the daily newspaper Kommersant, said he tried to ignore the historical exhibits, hoping they would go away.

"They are basically showbiz," he said "We are not talking about history; it is too complicated. We are talking about superheroes."

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 #15
Wall Street Journal
March 31,2015
In Russia, Exhibition Seeks to Show Ivan Wasn't So Terrible
Medieval-history show raises question if Russia's often-bloody history is being whitewashed to fuel nationalist campaign
By JAMES MARSON

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia-Alexander Myasnikov says foreign enemies have unfairly tarred this Moscow leader as a murderous despot who bumped off his enemies and invaded his neighbor.

Ivan the Terrible needs better PR, Mr. Myasnikov says.

"It was an anti-Russian campaign. It's a story of European PR about how there is a scary tyrant in Moscow," says the amateur historian.

Other historians say Mr. Myasnikov's take on the past is fanciful and politically slanted, but he has received plenty of attention and support from the Kremlin. An exhibition that Mr. Myasnikov, 60 years old, helped curate received funding from the government and a visit from the president. He was invited to give a lecture at the annual Kremlin seminar for regional officials where they hear the party line on all manner of subjects.

Long before seizing Crimea, President Vladimir Putin fueled patriotism, digging deep into Russia's history to highlight heroic deeds and play down darker moments. Official guidelines for new history textbooks that Mr. Putin ordered drafted present Stalin's repressions mostly as a side-effect of speedy economic modernization and list only positive aspects of Mr. Putin's rule.

"We need to win minds," Mr. Putin told historians in November, a day after visiting Mr. Myasnikov's exhibition. "When we convince the vast majority of our people that our position is correct, objective and fair, and show that this position benefits our society, country and people, we will gain millions of supporters."

But some historians in Russia and the West are alarmed because they fear that Russia's often-bloody history is being whitewashed to fuel the Kremlin's nationalist campaign. A museum at a former Soviet gulag in Perm has been taken over by the state and sanitized. Commemorations of World War II have shifted focus from the Soviet Union's huge sacrifice to a cult of victory.

The fresh attempts to liven up Russia's past have catapulted Mr. Myasnikov, a journalist and lively raconteur, to unlikely prominence.

He helped organize a medieval-history exhibition-filled with interactive screens, flashing maps and rousing music-that was sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and tinged by Russia's standoff with the West over Ukraine.

Some displays sounded like they were straight from current newsreels: Negative portrayals of Ivan the Terrible were "the first information war of Europe's press" that coincided with sanctions after he invaded a western neighbor, one said.

In an interview here one Saturday last month, Mr. Myasnikov said the exhibition was an antidote to Russian museums that "make you yawn." Organizers said the free exhibition-which was shown in Moscow and St. Petersburg-attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors.

Video screens showed digital reconstructions of famous battles. Images were projected onto the inside of a huge cupola. Displays showed what people wore and ate, and listed currency exchange rates in 1014.

Giving an impromptu tour, Mr. Myasnikov leapt from historical pronouncements to fantastic tales, one moment expounding how Ukraine is an artificial state, the next describing how Mongols cooked pancakes using the heat from camels' bodies.

The exhibition center was packed with hundreds of visitors of all ages. Trainee priests led tour groups including two men in fatigues and the blue berets of Russia's elite airborne troops.

Retiree Valentina Vocharova said the exhibition was timely, recalling a medieval prince's advice, displayed in large letters, to strengthen the border in the west and seek friends in the east.

"Everything is the same now," she said.

The section devoted to 16th-century czar Ivan the Terrible attracted the most attention. Even in Russia he is largely seen as a brutal tyrant, a view reinforced by a popular Russian biopic released in 2009.

Mr. Myasnikov said the display caught Mr. Putin's eye. "Is that right?" he recalled the president asking.

"Look, it's all there," Mr. Myasnikov said he responded.

He said Ivan did a lot of bad things but describes some of the more outrageous acts he is blamed for, such as killing his son and murdering thousands in an attack on the city of Novgorod, as "fairy tales."

Death tolls from massacres have been exaggerated, he said. Ivan didn't murder his son. Nor did he boil enemies in caldrons of wine. "Too expensive," Mr. Myasnikov said.

He blames European publishers for spreading sensationalist rumors as Ivan tried to expand his czardom westward.

Historians acknowledge some accounts may exaggerate Ivan's reign of terror. But the use of modern terms such as "information war" looks like the present coloring the past, said Andrei Pavlov, a history professor at St. Petersburg State University who co-wrote a book about Ivan.

"On the one hand, it's good to enlighten people about a period they don't know much about. On the other hand, there is an accent of patriotic education," he said.

Mr. Myasnikov also ran into criticism for his anecdotal style when he was one of the few outsiders to join top government officials in lecturing bureaucrats in January at a Kremlin seminar that included lectures on the economy and tackling corruption.

Mr. Myasnikov rattled off tales of British spies, deaths of czars in suspicious circumstances and how a 19th-century magazine published in London was an anti-Russian project sponsored by the Rothschilds.

Nikita Belykh, governor of the Kirov Region east of Moscow, called the speech a collection of "historical yarns and anecdotes," and asked whether this should be considered the official version.

"I'm not an official historian," Mr. Myasnikov said later. "I'm a popularizer of history."

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 #16
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
March 30, 2015
US sanctions against Russia: A tale of two cities
At Russia Forum New York 2015, investors and business leaders weighed in on the ineffectiveness of Western sanctions against Russia, suggesting that they threatened to hurt the small businesses and entrepreneurial startups that are at the core of any future US-Russian relationship.
By Dominic Basulto

In many ways, New York and Washington couldn't be more different in how they view sanctions. While the Washington foreign policy elites are pushing to ramp up sanctions against Russia, arm Kiev and ostracize Russia on the world stage, it's a completely different scene in New York, where multinational managers, venture capitalists and institutional investors are looking for ways to roll back sanctions, find new avenues for business cooperation and integrate Russia into the global economy.

At Russia Forum New York 2015, hosted at the Princeton Club in midtown Manhattan by Russian Center New York and sponsored by the Gorchakov Fund, Ethnomir and the Congress of Russian Americans, these differences between how the elites of Washington and New York view Russia came into stark contrast.

The event, which focused on the current Russian investment climate, consisted of a keynote by Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak and a set of three panels, each focusing on a different aspect of the U.S.-Russian business relationship: "Economic Cooperation," "Commerce and Innovation" and "Media and Business."

The Russia Forum New York followed the two-day World Russia Forum in Washington, which was organized by Edward Lozansky, president and founder of the American University in Moscow. This year's World Russia Forum marks the 35th annual meeting of the US-Russia Forum, dedicated to constructive dialogue in the U.S.-Russia relationship.

As Ambassador Kislyak noted in his opening remarks, Russia is still "open for business" and there's no need to fear a return of the Cold War even if the U.S. is attempting to isolate Russia both diplomatically and economically. The good news, Kislyak says, is that Russia is redoubling efforts at diversifying and modernizing its economy, including more emphasis on diversifying by geographic region.

As a result, the ruble has stabilized, the Russian economy is showing signs of positive growth in 2015 (even if it's "miserably low") and the feared credit crunch of February 2015 (when Russian companies were scheduled to pay back significant amounts of dollar-denominated debt) never materialized. In fact, Kislyak says, trade between the U.S. and Russia is still very much active, and actually increased by almost 5 percent in 2014, despite the U.S. economic sanctions against Russia.

And it's not just that economic sanctions against Russia are not having their desired effect. The U.S. policy of isolating Russia on the world stage may end up boomeranging and hitting the very people it was not supposed to impact - multinational companies that have invested in Russia for the long-haul, smaller companies, entrepreneurs, and young Russians who have embraced both globalization and innovation.

This was a complaint voiced continually at the forum, as speakers such as James Min of Deutsche Post DHL, Cyril Geacintov of DRG International and Dmitry Akhanov of Rusnano USA explained how sanctions have impacted their own businesses directly and why sanctions are hurting U.S. small business owners and young Russian entrepreneurs far more than they are hurting Russia's largest state-backed corporations.

Even some Russian foreign policy insiders in Washington are starting to make this point. The most eloquent case for re-thinking sanctions was recently made by Samuel Charap, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and Bernard Sucher in an op-ed for the New York Times: "Why Sanctions on Russia Will Backfire". Similar to the viewpoints expressed at the Russia Forum New York, Charap and Sucher argue that sanctions are impacting the wrong people and that they unfairly punish Russia for integrating into the global economy and embracing the American-led global financial system:

"While there is no question that sanctions have inflicted real costs on the leading state-owned and state-affiliated companies and harmed Mr. Putin's cronies, the collateral damage to independent, private enterprise in Russia is incomparably worse. Businesses without political protection will see atrophied sales, no access to finance and an indefinite postponement of investment. Those enterprises that put the greatest store on Russia's integration with the European Union and the United States are being hit hardest..."

So if sanctions against Russia don't make any sense, why pursue them?

The short answer is that sanctions are a form of low-hanging fruit for American politicians and diplomats, eager to show that that they are doing something - anything - to punish Russia for its annexation of Crimea and involvement in Eastern Ukraine.

In many ways, though, the logic for this strategy can be traced back to a fundamental problem - there's simply not enough trade between Russia and the U.S. to make business incentives outweigh political incentives. Yes, trade between the U.S. and Russia may be growing, but total annual U.S.-Russian trade is estimated at only $40 billion by Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. (By way of comparison, the Sochi Winter Olympics cost Russia $50 billion.) In terms of total annual U.S. trade, $40 billion is a drop in the bucket and a very easy way to punish Russia in a highly public manner.

The more complex answer as to why it's so hard to roll back sanctions now might be the systemic media bias within the American media industry. As John Varoli, a former journalist with the New York Times and Bloomberg pointed out in the panel on "Media and Business," this bias can be found across the media's ideological spectrum. The left-leaning media (New York Times, Washington Post) is pushing back against Russia's perceived conservatism and Eurasian values while the right-leaning media (Wall Street Journal and The Economist) is taking Russia to task for not having a full-fledged Western economic system.

Even on financial news networks such as CNBC or Bloomberg - media outlets that you might think would be sympathetic to the whole "Invest-in-an-emerging-market-like-Russia" thesis - you are going to find this bias. Look no further than hedge fund impresario Bill Browder, who has become the loudest and most passionate voice arguing for wrecking Russia's economy to punish Putin.

In the end, though, trying to wreck Russia and bring about regime change by using the economy as a foreign policy lever may backfire. As Marcos Troyjo, director of BRICLab, pointed out during his presentation at Russia Forum New York, we may be on the cusp of a fundamental change in the global economy driven by factors outside of the control of either Russia or the United States. Ukraine, now viewed as a geostrategic crisis, might one day be viewed more properly as a geo-economic crisis brought on by changes in how the world thinks about "deep globalization."

In 2015, the world is likely to see a robust period of "re-globalization" featuring entirely new trade blocs (including, perhaps, the Eurasian Economic Union and the BRICS), the growth of an even more powerful China, and a shift from "comparative advantage" to "competitive advantage." As Troyjo noted, these factors could combine to create "new trade and investment geometries."

The hope in New York investment circles, of course, is that these changing geometries of capital flows will lead to changing geometries of political thinking. In other words, in a global financial system no longer created, run and controlled by America, there might be need to reassess where Russia stands in the global economy. And, as Derek Norberg, executive director of the Russian-American Pacific Partnership (RAPP) suggested in his presentation, that might be reason enough to stop giving Russia "the silent treatment" when it comes to possible economic cooperation.

But it will take time for any of this political thinking to take hold. The Washington foreign policy elites are still all dialed into the triumphalism of the Cold War. None of the speakers at the Russia Forum New York seemed overly optimistic that a fundamental mindset change could happen during the current Obama administration - and maybe not even if Republicans win the presidency in 2016. What it might take is a new, non-interventionist candidate such as Rand Paul and an American electorate tired of endless wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria (and now Yemen) for any attempt to rollback policies that punish Russia's business leaders rather than Russia's government elite.

At the end of the day, it's up to America's business leaders to change the narrative about Russia. Natalie Sabelnik, chair of the Coordinating Council of Russian Compatriots in the U.S., suggested at the Russia Forum New York that "this is the window of opportunity" for Russian and American business leaders. In short, we've had one year to see that sanctions have not been successful.

This potential mindset change, whether hopeful or real, is highly evocative of Charles Dickens and his famous opening lines of "The Tale of Two Cities." How will leaders in New York and Washington choose to view Russia? When it comes to the U.S.-Russian relationship, are we currently experiencing "the worst of times" (as the Washington elite would suggest) or is it the "best of times" (as Russia's investors, entrepreneurs and small business owners would suggest)? Is it the "age of foolishness" or the "age of wisdom"? And, most importantly, will the "winter of despair" be followed by a "spring of hope"?

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#17
Russia Insider
March 31, 2014
The Coming US-Saudi Invasion of Yemen: Imagine It Was Russia
US has been drone bombing Yemen for years, and its ally Saudi Arabia is massing for a land invasion. Imagine the reaction if it was Russia instead of Riyadh and DC
By The Saker
"The Saker" is a pseudonym for a top level American military analyst who lives in Florida, the author of the leading blog covering the Ukraine crisis, The Vineyard of the Saker, which gets an astounding 50,000 page views per day.  (August - September 2014).
 
The recent events in Yemen are taking on an increasingly dangerous turn. Rather than to paraphrase what others have written, I will refer you to the following articles:

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya: "The Geopolitics behind the War in Yemen"
Ron Paul: "Yemen Exploding: Is The Stage Set for the Big War?"
Waqar Rizvi: "In Yemen, old strategy for a new reality"

What I propose to do is much more basic: I want to describe the very basic sequence of events which has taken place.

We have a country which is internally divided geographically, culturally and religiously. The President of that country was overthrown in a coup and had to flee abroad. This greatly worried some of the neighbors of this country which decided to keep recognizing the President that fled and organized a multi-state air-strikes campaign to punish the new regime. To justify their actions, these states accused another neighbor of supporting the revolutionary regime. There are now very strong and persistent rumors that the main country supporting the President in exile has massed over 100,000 troops at the border and is preparing for an invasion.

Does that not ring a bell? Is that not exactly what has taken place in the Ukraine?

Can you imagine what would have happened if Russia had decided that Yanukovich was still the only legitimate President and, assisted by Belarus would have embarked on a campaign of air-strikes which would have included the bombing of Kiev? And what if the Kremlin decided to hold consultations with it's allies in preparation for a possible invasion with the explicit purpose to return Yanukovich to Kiev in a Russian tank?

And yet nobody is proposing to cut Saudi Arabia off the SWIFT system or deny them credits. Nobody is imposing any sanctions. The Arab and Muslim states are all turning collectively blind, even when reports surface of Israel participating in the bombing campaign. In fact, except for Russia - no country seems to mind what is taking place, even though the disasters which all the recent interventions of the Empire are clear for all to see.

The one good thing from that unrepentant, "in your face" kind of hypocrisy and double-standards is that the charade about human rights, democracy, justice, self-determination, international law, etc is dead and buried and all that is left is the ugly face of raw violence and the law of the jungle. I applaud that as I prefer an evil which shows its face to one which pretends to be kind. Finally the ugly true face of the Empire is emerging and that shows that its end is also coming closer with every passing day.

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 #18
Bloomberg
March 30, 2015
Why the Jihadi Threat to Russia Is Getting Worse
More jihadi fighters come from Russia than any country outside the Middle East and North Africa. What happens when they come home?
by Carol Matlack

The deadly terror attacks in Paris in January underscored the risk facing Western Europe as jihadis return home from fighting in Syria and Iraq. But the place that most foreign jihadis call home isn't Western Europe. It's Russia.

The number of Russian nationals fighting alongside Islamic State forces in Syria and Iraq has roughly doubled over the past year, to a range of 1,500 to 1,700, according to recent estimates by the head of Russia's FSB security agency and by the Kremlin's envoy to Chechnya. Russian and Western analysts have said that about 1,000 Russian-speaking jihadis took part in an Islamic State assault last year on Iraq's Anbar province that was led by a fighter known as Omar the Chechen.

That means Russia is now supplying far more jihadis than any country outside the Middle East and North Africa. (France, the biggest European source of fighters, has said that about 900 of its citizens received training in Syria, with about 300 remaining there in 2014.)

Jihadi groups have stepped up recruiting in the historically Muslim North Caucasus region of Russia that includes Chechnya and Dagestan. The region is home to a longstanding bloody insurgency movement whose current leadership has sworn allegiance to the Islamic State and is urging local supporters to go to Syria. "A new team is coming," the movement's leader, Ali Abu Muhammad al Dagestani, promised in a message on its website addressed last week to "Mujahid brothers" from the region who have already left.

The North Caucasus group also has published an online guide that advises local militants on how to slip out of Russia and cross from Turkey into Syria. There's even a website telling Russian-speaking Muslim women that they have a duty to leave their "infidel" country and come to Syria to marry jihadists.

Why would insurgent leaders urge their backers to leave? One reason is that Russian security forces, along with a Kremlin-backed regime in Chechnya, have made it difficult for separatists to operate in the region. Russian security forces reported this week that they killed more than 160 rebels in Dagestan last year. Chechnya's leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has been accused by human rights groups of operating a private army that brutally stamps out any opposition. Separatist leaders "don't want people joining up untrained because they'd be quickly caught," says Richard Barrett, senior vice president of the Soufan Group, a New York-based consultancy on security and terrorism. Another, more practical reason is that the economic situation in Russia is so poor that fighters "are able to live a more comfortable life" in Syria, Barrett says.

What happens, though, when they come home? Tarkhan Batirashvili, the Islamic State leader known as Omar the Chechen, has already promised to return and take revenge on Russia. He grew up in Georgia, just across the border from Russia, and is part of a Chechen diaspora that vehemently opposes Russian rule in Chechnya.

The situation "is a time bomb for [President Vladimir] Putin," says Gordon Hahn, a California-based analyst at Geostrategic Forecasting who has written extensively about Islamic extremism in Russia.  As the ranks of Russian jihadis grow, "a much larger number of fighters are receiving access to training and financing," he says.

Joanna Paraszczuk, a London-based journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty who has a blog called Chechens in Syria, says the Kremlin might be deliberately inflating the risk of "blowback" from returning jihadists as a pretext for a fresh crackdown in the North Caucasus. She says, this could make things worse. "Every time you have a crackdown, it alienates people more, and there's a push toward joining extremist groups."

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 #19
Stratfor.com
March 30, 2015
The West Hems in Russia Little by Little

Russian President Vladimir Putin must be feeling very claustrophobic these days. A survey of developments in Russia's near abroad over the past week explains why.

All along Russia's frontier with Europe, the U.S. military is bustling with activity. Bit by bit, the United States is expanding various military exercises under the banner of Operation Atlantic Resolve. The exercises began in the Baltics and Poland and, as of last week, expanded into Romania with plans to move into Bulgaria. So far, most of these missions are on the smaller side, consisting of only a few hundred troops at any given time, and are meant to test the U.S. ability to rapidly deploy units to countries that can then practice receiving and working with these forces. Additionally, various headquarter units from U.S. Army infantry brigades have been rotating in and assuming control of Operation Atlantic Resolve in order to practice joint command and control.

Although this is primarily a test of military capabilities, the exercises also serve the political aim of reassuring Eastern European allies of U.S. support. Take, for example, the Dragoon Ride convoy that began March 21. This 11-day spectacle is taking a U.S. military convoy, including Stryker armored vehicles, 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) across Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany. In essence, the U.S. military is parading a giant American flag all along the European front.

The United States is ready to go beyond the bounds of NATO in sending this message to Moscow. Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov took the opportunity Monday to broadcast U.S. support for his embattled country when he posted to his Facebook page the details of a U.S. training mission to begin April 20 in western Ukraine. According to Avakov, the 173rd U.S. Airborne Brigade and National Guard units will begin "long-term coaching and exercises" in three sets of training courses, each lasting eight weeks. The open question of whether the U.S. administration will approve lethal aid for the very Ukrainian troops receiving this training is already unnerving Russia. The placement of U.S. troops in Ukraine for these exercises is just another reason Russia will need to continue to hold its military ground in the east as the United States makes its presence felt in Ukraine.

Romania and Beyond

Romania is another locus of U.S. and NATO activity that Russia is eyeing nervously. Located on the Black Sea and sharing a border with Ukraine, Romania plays a critical role in NATO's strategy for the region. NATO Supreme Allied Commander-Europe Gen. Philip M. Breedlove is scheduled to travel to Bucharest on March 31. Before him, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Frank A. Rose visited Romania on March 30. Breedlove and Rose join the long list of Western officials who have met with their Romanian counterparts since the beginning of the year, including U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. In addition to boosting defense cooperation with Romania as part of NATO's broader strategy, U.S. officials are also working to give U.S. firms a greater presence in the country, especially in the energy sector, to dilute Russia's influence.

There is one visitor to Bucharest who stands out, however. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is scheduled to visit Bucharest on April 1, his first visit there since 2007. His trip comes as Turkey is working to boost its energy ties with Russia through the planned construction of the Turkish Stream pipeline and a discount on Russian natural gas exports to Turkey. Nevertheless, the crisis in Ukraine has led Turkey, like some of its neighbors, to become more concerned about security in the Black Sea region. Turkey, like Romania, is a critical node in the U.S. strategy to round out an arc of allies along the Black Sea. Though Turkey has been participating in Black Sea NATO exercises alongside Bulgaria and Romania, it has also kept close to Moscow, trying to preserve its neutral posture. But Erdogan's recent trip to Kiev along with this week's trip to Romania will undoubtedly raise questions in Moscow's mind on whether Ankara is swaying to the West.

The West Reaches Into Central Asia

And if Russia has to worry about Turkey, it also needs to worry about Turkmenistan. Looking across the Caspian Sea, Ashgabat sees that an alliance is strengthening among Turkey, Azerbaijan and the Europeans to build energy connections that bypass Russia and run through the Caucasus and Turkey to serve Europe. Turkmenistan and its ample energy reserves are key to any major projects within that plan. The Turkmen government has been exceedingly cautious in avoiding upsetting Russia, fearful that Moscow will then take the opportunity to meddle in Ashgabat at a time when Central Asia is expecting greater instability. But the Europeans, Turkey and Azerbaijan have been lobbying Ashgabat to entertain their energy proposals. EU energy union chief Maros Sefcovic is planning a visit to Turkmenistan in the coming months to discuss plans for the Trans-Caspian pipeline.

The Turkmen government will need convincing that it will have the Western support it needs to manage any Russian backlash targeting Ashgabat if it proceeds with these plans. Notably, when the head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Lloyd Austin, testified before Congress on March 26 to deliver CENTCOM's annual report, he mentioned that Turkmenistan has asked the United States for military equipment and technology to help insulate its border from any spillover instability from Afghanistan. Though Austin noted that Turkmenistan's policy of neutrality poses some difficulty in boosting military cooperation between Washington and Ashgabat, the fact that the usually prudent Turkmen government is even engaging with the United States will surely get Moscow's attention.

From the Baltics to the Black Sea and now the Caspian, the United States is on the search for recruits to encircle Russia. Romania threw its lot in with the United States last year, but this year, Turkey and Turkmenistan are the ones to watch.

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 #20
Reuters
March 30, 2015
Americans see Putin as only slightly more imminent threat than Obama, poll says
By Peter Van Buren

People in the United States feel under threat, both from beyond our borders and within them. In fact, when asked about both U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin, it was a pretty darn close call - 20 percent saw Putin as an imminent threat compared to 18 percent who said the same about Obama.

A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll asked more than 3,000 Americans what they see as some of the biggest threats to themselves and the country. You can slice and dice the information in literally hundreds of different ways here. People were shown a range of potential threats and then asked to rate how dangerous they were with one being no threat and five meaning the threat is imminent.

I think it's safe to say that a national security expert might not agree with the public's choices.

More people fear Boko Haram, a scary but ragged Islamic radical group in Nigeria that might have trouble paying for plane tickets to the United States, than Russia, which recently invaded a major European country. And a whopping 34 percent consider Kim Jong-un, the leader of impoverished North Korea, an imminent threat. Kim may have a couple of nukes, but otherwise his nation is a basket case, so poor that it relies on international aid to feed itself. Though considering how fast Sony Pictures pulled "The Interview" from theaters, I guess the public's not alone in being afraid of the young man with the unique hairstyle.

Perhaps the most disturbing part, however, is how Americans view each other, simply because of the political party they favor. Thirteen percent of us see the Republican and Democratic parties as an imminent threat. That's the same number who think the Chinese might be. Quick reality check: neither political party is the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, nor could they cripple us economically in an afternoon. Nor has either party independently building an army that may soon be able to rival that of the United States - that we know of, anyway.

It's also interesting to see that both sides of the political aisle are worried about themselves: 38 percent of Democrats and 42 percent of Republicans think their own party is something of a threat. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, but when you're scared of the party you've gotten into bed with, something seems amiss.

Meanwhile, the world is certainly worried about the United States. In a Gallup survey of people in 65 countries, about one quarter named the United States as the greatest threat to world peace. Maybe that should not be so surprising, as only about half of Americans know which country was the only one to ever drop a nuclear bomb.

But the Reuters/Ipsos survey didn't limit itself to "things that are imminent threats." It also asked about "people who are imminent threats."

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri - the late Osama bin Laden's replacement - came in as number one, which makes sense since al Qaeda is the only Islamic militant group to successfully strike inside the United States.

What made less sense is that Jihadi John, Islamic State's on-camera executioner, who is largely a media creation, right down to his name, is seen as an imminent threat by 38 percent of respondents. The man himself is somewhere in Syria or Iraq and isn't even willing to show his face to the public, though he's proud to show his bloody work.

The final survey category asked Americans which beliefs, movements, trends or phenomena pose a threat. While millions of people are trapped in minimum-wage, part-time jobs that offer little hope of every leading to a better life, terrorism is still considered threat number one, pulling in an impressive 55 percent. (Nine percent of people say they're not sure what the top threat is, and that's fair enough since Reuters threw a buffet of scary choices at them).

The number two perceived threat is cyber attacks and cyber spying. It's not clear from the questions whether people are more afraid of cyber snooping from overseas or by the National Security Agency here at home.

Should we be surprised that 25 percent of respondents see Islam as an imminent threat? Only 24 percent see global warming - a scientific certainty that will change the way everyone on the planet lives, and not for better - the same way.

But threats come and go in the public's mind as events change, and perhaps the list reflects what people are hearing as much as what they're thinking.

Syria's Bashar al-Assad used to rank high in people's imaginations. Only 17 percent see him as a threat now, but a year and half ago, Secretary of State John Kerry put him on a list he apparently keeps that also includes Adolph Hitler and Saddam Hussein. Today, despite being more alive than Hitler or Saddam, Assad is just "meh" to most of us.

Lower on the list of beliefs and movements we feel are imminent threats sit Judaism and Christianity (7 and 6 percent, respectively), thus pulling in all three major Western religions. Still, many Americans feel atheism is an even bigger threat - 12 percent.

Depressingly, people see gay rights (12 percent) and women's rights (5 percent) as imminent threats. We haven't come such a long way, baby.

We're scared here in the home of the brave. We see danger everywhere, even viewing the religious beliefs of our neighbors and the expansion of basic rights to all Americans as imminent threats. There are real bad guys out there, monsters who would do us harm. But far too many of these survey results suggest we are also very scared of each other. Now that is a real threat.

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 #21
Gazeta.ru
March 26, 2015
Editorial
Our answer to Psaki. What the 'new Russia' can offer the world

Having entered a new confrontation with America, Russia is using Hollywood methods against the "sworn friend." Instead of a struggle of ideologies, as happened during the times of the USSR, today we are seeing a struggle between heroes and antiheroes: Our young Russian guys against their (insert your choice of expletive here) [President Barack] Obama, [US Senator John] McCain, and [former US State Department official spokesperson Jennifer] Psaki. There is no more substantive subject to be seen in Russian foreign policy at the moment, unfortunately.

Jennifer Psaki, the US State Department official spokesperson "dearly beloved" of millions of Russians, has left her post. The State Duma, bidding the official farewell on maternity leave, requested on parting that a criminal case be launched against her - on the grounds that she called the incorporation of Crimea "annexation" and thus broke the law by calling for the disintegration of the country. This fairly senseless request is unlikely to be satisfied but if it is this would be an entirely logical "diplomatic" step in the spirit of the times where "trolling" increasingly often replaces real work.

Over the year of the Ukrainian crisis the US State Department spokesperson has managed to become a cult media figure in Russia and an ideal target for Russian propaganda. However, it cannot be said that it was entirely undeserved: Periodically she ventured to make statements that were not the most proper and many questions from journalists stymied her. But the emergence of the "Psaki cultural phenomenon" thanks to the country's media and its surprising popularity among the people speak not so much to the character of US diplomacy, although it does that too, so much as to the character of the Russia-West dialogue.

If, of course, this can still be called a dialogue.

During the "cold war"  the confrontation between the Soviet Union and America amounted not just to an exchange of caustic remarks, caricatures and the corresponding diplomatic rhetoric - this was a conceptual rivalry of values and ideologies. For the world the USSR was a full-fledged alternative to the United States with its own project of modernization and the building of a new society and a radiant future. Anyone who disagreed with the capitalist-imperialists was welcome to come to our eastern geopolitical pole.

After the disintegration of the "indestructible" USSR this eternal disposition also disintegrated. Until it was decided several years ago to formulate an image of the "new Russia" and deliver it to the world. The television channel Russia Today ceased to position itself as a branch of the media talking about the country alone and began to transmit an alternative viewpoint of significant international events for the Western viewer.

But a full-fledged image of this "new Russia" is for some reason stubbornly not taking shape, probably because it is not entirely clear what lies behind it.

Russia's positive agenda?

What we have is a persistent contradiction with the West on virtually all points but where is our positive agenda that Russia itself can offer the world?

Today Russian politicians are trying to put forward traditional values as such an idea. They say that everyone who opposes progress in its Western sense - together with gays, tolerance, and GMO - can stand beneath our flags. But even these "traditional values" are just a set of irritant tags which in fact have nothing in common with a reality that can be measured in figures. Russia today, unfortunately, is far from being a country where the institution of the family is indeed strong, which is imbued with a really solicitous attitude towards its history, is sincerely devout, and pays more than just lip service to its calls for peace.

Our war against the West does not presuppose an alternative that can be embodied or at least visualized.

Putin's epoch-making speech at Valday, in which he characterized our policy by the formula "a bear is not going to ask anyone for permission" confirms: Russia intends to take active part in the formation of the new world order. But how and, more importantly, what kind? We do not even know what kind of world order we are creating at home, within the country. What can we offer the world when we ourselves do not know anything about our own values and ideals?

And so far no one has given clear answers to these key questions and instead of arguments we are switching to personalities.

In the quarter of a century since the disintegration of the USSR Russian society has become far more heavily Americanized than citizens themselves perhaps realize. At least there is far more PR than ideology in our politics. Evidently the One Russia congresses organized by the American PR people were not wasted. The appeal is addressed not so much to the rational as to the emotional level - pure Hollywood-style images.

Our main hero is the strong conservative president. Furthermore, the president is the one-man personification of Russia not just for Russians - that is what he became a long time ago for the world community too. Western magazines confirm with an enviable regularity: Yes, Russia is Putin and Putin is Russia.

And in this sense the "Psaki phenomenon" is extremely indicative and the main hero is opposed not even by politicians but by their caricature images: Psaki is a fool, McCain is mad, [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel is Hitler's granddaughter, and Obama, as emerged at the Antimaydan rally, is a complete "schmuck." This is what they are saying at the popular level - at the state level the same content is merely replaced by more flowery euphemisms.

This personification and total simplification is happening to a certain extent within the country today too: There are fewer and fewer people ready for a well-argued debate and instead there are more and more people willing to pin labels. It is easier to call dissidents enemies and post up the faces of these enemies on the city streets so as to remember them better. Navalnyy works for the [US] State Department, [opposition activist and singer Andrey] Makarevich sold out the Motherland, and [late opposition leader Boris] Nemtsov betrayed Russia's interests. Such arguments do not generate questions in the debate and after using them the very need to ask and, thus, answer questions disappears.

Thus we will probably soon lose the ability to discuss entirely. Instead of this we will fondly remember the "Rostov mountains" and Psaki wearing just one boot.

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 #22
www.rt.com
March 31, 2015
Lavrov: Chances to reach Iran nuclear deal 'pretty good'

The ongoing negotiations between Iran and six major world powers over Tehran's controversial nuclear program have a high chance of producing a deal, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. But the parties must not try to up the ante.

Lavrov interrupted his participation in the talks in in Switzerland's Lausanne on Monday for a meeting with a delegation from Vanuatu, a small Pacific nation recently devastated by a cyclone.

Later on Tuesday he returned to the negotiations, which are in a make-or-break last day phase.

The chances of a breakthrough in the talks are high, but success is not guaranteed, Lavrov stressed during a joint media conference with his Vanuatu counterpart Sato Kilman.

"We have an opportunity to realize our chances if no party to the negotiations tries to raise the stakes at the last moment to get something extra instead of keeping a balance of interests," he said.

The Russian minister added that once a compromise is reached, the UN Security Council should dismantle the sanctions it imposed against Iran over its nuclear program. As for the unilateral sanctions imposed by the US and its allies, "we do not recognize them in any situation, whether it is Iran or any other country," Lavrov noted.

Some diplomats say an agreement may be signed during a later meeting in Geneva.

"We are working meticulously to produce a document. If all goes well, the signing ceremony may take place in Geneva rather than Lausanne," a diplomatic source in the Iranian delegation told TASS, describing the round of negotiations as a "daunting marathon."

Iran and the P5+1 group, which includes five permanent members of the UNSC plus Germany, have gathered in Lausanne to hammer out a framework deal, which would settle a decade-old controversy over Iran's nuclear development. Tehran was accused of pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons program by some countries, but insists that it only wants to use nuclear energy for civilian use.

The deal would put restrictions on Iranian nuclear activities, which would prevent it from rushing towards nuclear capability while allowing it to develop a civilian nuclear industry.

The negotiations are opposed by some of Iran's regional rivals, most notably US allies - Israel and Saudi Arabia. Israel vigorously obstructed the negotiations, claiming that they would result in a "bad deal."

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#23
Talks over Iran's nuclear program to end with comma, not full-stop
By Tamara Zamyatin

MOSCOW, March 31. /TASS/. The closing phase of negotiations by the foreign ministers of the sextet of international mediators (five permanent UN Security Council member-states and Germany) and Iran in Lausanne, Switzerland, will most likely bring about a political agreement on Tehran's nuclear program, while a final wording of the treaty will be adopted later, once the technicalities have been coordinated, polled analysts have told TASS.

The Iran-sextet talks are in the final phase. The negotiators have just one day left. The closer the deadline, the tighter the veil of secrecy and speculations over Iran's nuclear program. As follows from what Western diplomats have been saying, three issues remain unsettled - the date when the agreement may be concluded, the lifting of UN sanctions from Tehran, and their resumption in case the terms of the deal are violated.

"There are two stumbling blocks in the way of the Iranian nuclear program negotiating stampede. The sextet has been urging Tehran to reduce its uranium enrichment program and to retain about 6,000 centrifuges in contrast to the current 10,000. The Iranian authorities seem to have nothing against, but at the same time they are asking a very legitimate question: "What will we get in return?" Billions of dollars have been invested into the Iranian uranium enrichment program already. Naturally, in exchange to its consent to reduce that program Tehran would like to have firm guarantees the US and UN sanctions be lifted. But a question mark still remains over the sanctions and the dates when they may be eased," deputy director of the RAS Institute of US and Canada Studies, Viktor Kremenyuk, told TASS.

"The condition of Russian-US relations is the other stumbling block. Tehran would have been a far easier negotiating partner, had it been aware that its resistance to conclude an agreement over its nuclear program would run against a common front of Washington and Moscow as safeguards of the non-proliferation treaty of 1968. But US-Russia relations are at a record-low now, and Iran uses these contradictions to its advantage, which makes the talks in Lausanne tough-going. There is one more controversy: Where, in what country should Iran keep its enriched uranium? Who will be responsible for monitoring its transportation and who will guarantee that process? No answer yet," Kremenyuk said.

"Given the just-mentioned circumstances, one should not expect a final agreement on the Iranian nuclear program will be signed soon. The current phase of negotiations in Lausanne will most probably produce a political declaration to the effect the process is moving in the right direction, that there should be no haste and that the technical details will be agreed in the summer. In other words, they will end with a comma, not with a full-stop," Kremenyuk believes.

"Tel-Aviv is not a party to the negotiations, but it has been causing considerable effects on them via the pro-Israeli lobbies in the Western countries. It has been calling Iran as the main threat to Israel's security and accusing Tehran of the intention to make nuclear weapons. The Arab countries' Storm of Resolve operation against the rebels in Yemen, too, complicates Iran's positions at the talks, because Saudi Arabia holds it responsible for supporting radical Islamists."

And the president of the Middle East Institute, Yevgeny Satanovsky, is very skeptical about the chances of coming to terms with Iran soon.

"Holding talks with Iran (formerly Persia), a keen bargainer that was trading its carpets around the world back two and a half thousand years ago, when the Western countries had been non-existent yet, is a rather intricate business. Some sort of a deal on Iran's nuclear program is possible, but I will not dare forecast whether it may materialize today or in a year from now."

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 #24
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
March 31, 2015
Russian money infects London
Ben Aris in Moscow

Walk down Oxford Street into Knightsbridge and the signs "we speak Russian" are pasted inside the windows of many high-end shops. Bishops Avenue in north London has become one of the world's most expensive addresses and is home to several oligarchs in exile. The lingua franca in the Novikov restaurant in Mayfair, belonging to Russia's most famous restaurateur, is Russian. And most of all, the City of London is replete with clever young Russian bankers bringing in billions' worth of business for their firms. London is awash with Russian money.

It seems that every Russian oligarch who has made his fortune aspires to a house in London and a place in one of the UK's exclusive public schools for their children. London has become to modern Russia what Paris was to the princesses and grand dukes of the Tsarist times.

But there is a dark side to the Russians' love of London: since the 1970s, London has attracted an estimated £133bn of "dark" money and a big chunk of that is Russian cash looking for a new home. "There is strong evidence that a considerable chunk of the UK's £133bn of hidden capital inflows is related to Russian capital flight," say Oliver Harvey and Robin Winkler, authors of a Deutsche Bank report, "Dark matter: the hidden capital flows that drive G10 exchange rates", published in March, who add that London has become the preferred destination for money launderers due to its extremely light reporting touch on many transactions. "Inflows have accelerated in recent years, tracking at around £1bn per month since 2010... While not significant for the overall balance of payments, hidden inflows may have been marginally supportive of the pound in recent years, and are another factor behind the UK's extremely large current account deficit."

Hidden flows that are sufficient to skew the value of the pound or distort the current account should be more than enough reason for the authorities to tighten up the regulations and force more of the inbound capital through proper channels. But the sheer volume of inbound money raises the broader question: Are British banks and lawyers ignoring the apparently criminal way that some Russians have earned their millions for the sake of the fat fees on offer?

London has become an attractive destination for flight capital for everyone and not just Russians, so not all the "dark money" flowing in is Russian. "[The Deutsche Bank report] shows that it is not just Russian dark money that is coming into the UK, but also from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and China," says Ben Judah, author of 'Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell in and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin'. "This money is definitely undermining British corporate governance and the legal system, but even more important is that it is an untaxed flow of money at a time when the government is imposing tax and austerity."

Deutsche Bank analysts focused their study on the net errors and omissions (NEO) line in the national accounts that is there to account for rounding errors or incomplete and imperfectly measured factors like real estate deals. However, if the NEOs were really just mistakes, then over time the numbers should sum to zero, as sometimes economists overestimate a number and other times underestimate it. The problem is that this line is not zero, but actually represents a positive inflow of money of such a magnitude that it is affecting the national accounts, so has to be taken into account by currency traders trying to forecast exchange rates.

The chart from Deutsche Bank shows quite clearly that the UK's NEOs track Russian capital flight pretty closely since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. But also Russian money cannot explain all of the UK's hidden cash flows, as Russia's annualised NEOs are less than half those in the UK.

Dark money

No one doubts a lot of Russian money in London got there by questionable means. But how much of this is actually criminal money remains an open question. As the Bank of New York scandal in the late 1990s showed, where the bank was used by Russians to launder billions of dollars, a large part was simply cash escaping Russian taxes. However, some of this money was linked to Semion Mogilevich, a famous gangster also known as the "Brainy Don", who ran prostitution rings in Germany amongst other things, and is now wanted on murder charges by Interpol, but lives free in Moscow.

In light of the heightened political tension between Russia and the West, and the sanctioning of dozens of allegedly corrupt Russian individuals, the calls to "do something" about the dark Russian money flowing into the UK have risen in volume.

The problem has become so bad that a "Nemtsov law" is needed to keep Russian "funny money" out of the City, wrote Jim Armitage, city editor of The Independent in an editorial in March. This law would parallel the US' Magnitsky law that imposes sanctions on Kremlin officials linked to the death of anti-graft lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. The US Congress also proposed in March to add names associated with the investigation of the assassination of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in February to those listed under the Magnitsky law. "Nemtsov was a huge admirer of Margaret Thatcher, and the Anglo-Saxon capitalism she represented. So it must have been all the more galling for him to have seen Britain, and particularly London, becoming a willing enabler of the corruption he deplored," said Armitage.

The most obvious signs of Russian money in London are the gorgeous houses. It is de rigueur for any self-respecting Russian oligarch to own the most spectacular property in London and Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich is as good an example as any. In 2011 he bought a house on Kensington Palace Gardens for a reported $90m, adding to his growing collection of luxury homes. After taking possession, Abramovich planned to add a new underground floor, a tennis court, a spa and a car museum - all of which were given planning approval by the Kensington and Chelsea Council.

One of the biggest items in the net errors and omissions line of national accounts is real estate deals, as there is no centralised registrar for deals and so data is extremely hard to gather. And because London property prices are so high, real estate is a gift for would-be money launderers. "Billions of pounds of corruptly gained money has been laundered by criminals and foreign officials buying upmarket London properties through anonymous offshore front companies - making the city arguably the world capital of money laundering," corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI) concluded in what it says is the biggest survey into the origin of funds invested in the London property market, released in March.

The flow of corrupt cash has driven up prices, but also led to a "widespread ripple effect down the property price chain and beyond London," the report says.

That is not to say that all deals are dodgy: when the Azerbaijani sovereign wealth fund was given permission to invest in more than foreign treasury bills, the first thing it did was to acquire property in London. But, TI claims, a big chunk of real estate deals is likely to be money-laundering schemes.

The Metropolitan Police Proceeds of Corruption Unit found that 75% of UK properties owned by people under criminal investigation for corruption are held through secret offshore companies, TI said. Companies House records show that about a third of corporate-owned properties, some 36,000 London houses, are owned anonymously by legal entitles in the BVI, Jersey, Isle of Man and Guernsey, according to TI. However, again this is not just Russian money - everyone who wants to clean cash is doing it. "We estimate that Russian buyers accounted for an average of 7% of total sales of properties over £1mn in prime London. Given that overall sales in Prime Central London in 2012 was around circa £8bn, the proportion of sales to Russian buyers would be some £560mn," says Tom Mundy, head of research at Jones Lang LeSalle.

While this is large in absolute terms, house buying is still relatively small compared to the total volumes of cash moving through London. However, Deutsche Bank's study also backs up the link with dark capital showing there is a correlation between London house prices and the British NEO, and even though Russian money accounts for a 16th of London's high-end real estate market, given there are just under 200 countries in the world, then that is an extremely big share of the market.

Sin of omission

Property in London is only the most obvious and simple entry point for black money looking for a home in the UK, but Deutsche Bank shows the problem is much wider and includes other asset classes across the G10 countries, but especially in the UK, Sweden and New Zealand. "Systematic trends in NEOs occur in half of all G10 economies. At some point, Switzerland, Norway, the UK, New Zealand and Sweden have all displayed cumulative NEOs above 5% of GDP," Deutsche Bank reports. "In the case of Sweden, measurement errors are vast, with NEOs having reached nearly 40% of GDP when cumulated from the early 1990s. In the US, Eurozone, Japan, Canada and Australia, by contrast, cumulative NEOs have not reached above 5% of GDP."

Sweden is prone to large NEOs partly because it has such a high proportion of rich people; Deutsche Bank shows there is a correlation between millionaires and large NEOs. In other words rich people are prone to cheat on their taxes. Unfortunately, the report didn't produce a similar analysis for Russia's rich and Moscow, which has more billionaires per square kilometre than any other city in the world.

The rich have been moving their money out of Russia. In the 1990s hundreds of billions of dollars left Russia, but in 2014 alone a record $150bn fled Russia. Again, not all of this is illegal or even unreasonable: as Russia's banks and companies are cut off from the international capital markets they cannot refinance their debt and paying down debt accounts for around $50bn of this money. The outlook for this year is about $90bn is expected to leave.

Another source of dark money is the common practice of underestimating the value of export goods and overestimating the import value. Such "transfer pricing" is a (technically legal) scam that is well known to the Russian authorities. In the 1990s Russian oligarchs routinely exported oil priced at $1 per barrel only to sell it on the international markets at over $25, booking the profits in some offshore tax haven. Deutsche Bank speculates that the UK is increasingly being infected by the same practice and other related schemes. "One possible source of such a discrepancy is a systematic reporting error of inflows by financial institutions. Another is that increasingly sophisticated tax avoidance and accounting methods make it difficult for reporting bodies like banks to trace the true beneficial owner of portfolio securities. UK equity securities are increasingly held in multi-ownership pooled accounts, making it impossible to precisely determine the nationality of the owner," Deutsche bank said.

Crackdown

Incongruously, the Kremlin would agree with the substance of its Western critics that dark money fleeing Russia for London is a bad thing. With economic growth in a tailspin, the Russian government is suddenly hungry for revenue and looking for ways to increase its tax take without raising the rates. Cracking down on all the tax scams is the obvious place to start.

While Russia has a poor reputation for reforms - it is amongst the hardest place in the world for getting a company connected to the power grid or obtaining a construction permit - the same is not true for financial reforms. It is a reputation the Kremlin is keen to preserve because both state-owned companies and oligarchs need to access the international financial markets to move their massive wealth about without restriction.

In 2000, Russia was placed on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) black list as a money launderer, an international club established to crack down on illicit cross-border money-laundering operations. Then-finance minister Alexei Kudrin was rapidly dispatched to a G8 summit in Genoa in 2001 to get Russia off the list. By 2002 a new "Law on Combating Money Laundering" that copied the FATF recommendations almost verbatim was in place, and later that year Russia was removed from the list.

The new law did not just pay lip service to a watchdog, as Moscow followed up with the ratification in 2001 of the Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Tracing, Seizure and Confiscation of Proceeds from Crime. That led to a new money-laundering law and a raft of amendments, including the Criminal Code, which defines money laundering as a crime, the Banking Law and the Securities Law, which all went into effect in 2002 and 2003.

In October 2004, Russia kicked off the Eurasian Group on Combating Legalisation of Proceeds from Crime and Terrorist Financing (EAG), which has as its members Belarus, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in addition to Russia.

The point of all these reforms is that Russia, like the West, is battling a nasty terrorist problem and is as keen to cut them off from their funding as Washington is to throttle Al Qaeda financially.

All these changes were steps in the right direction, but as has so often been the case in the past, the problem in Russia is not the ideas or the laws, but the implementation. Russia remains on the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) list of "high risk" countries, which is any country that scores less than 60 on Transparency International's ranking, (Russia scored 27 last year, one point better than in 2013 and is ranked by TI in 136 place out of 175 countries).

Russia simply has too many banks for the regulator to police them efficiently. While the central bank has been actively closing banks in the last two years as part of its financial sector reforms, there are still just under 800 in a country that needs only about 200-300. Stiff competition and a lax inspection regime mean smaller banks are tempted to make big profits from doing shady transactions.

Coming home

Since Putin returned as president, he has taken the fight against money laundering and dark money flows to a new level, targeting companies.

Despite the conventional pessimism and characterisation as a "Mafia State", Russia is trying to deal with its problems, of which corruption is the worst. The previous central bank governor, Sergei Ignatiev, caused an uproar in 2013 shortly before the end of his tenure when he told Duma deputies that $49bn a year is routinely laundered from Russia via banks and sham companies, half of it by a "single group of money launderers".

No one misunderstood the reference: he was talking about government officials. In his last speech to the Duma, he described one scam that used 1,173 shell companies to channel $24bn to foreign banks. Before the end of the same year Putin introduced a ban on any government official holding offshore banks accounts or foreign assets. Since then, the law has been expanded and extended to cover state officials, managers of state-owned companies and most recent to the top tier of the regional administrations.

Last year this campaign took another direction when the de-offshorisation campaign was applied to companies - both public and private. In Russia it has been standard practice to own assets using a "non-dom" holding company domiciled abroad (typically Cyprus). Putin, like every leader in Europe, is keen for companies that make their profits based on physical assets and production in Russia to actually pay their profit taxes there too.

Since January 1 this year, companies now have to declare to the Russian authorities all their Controlled Foreign Companies (CFC) and have until the end of March to complete the process (although there is likely to be an extension as so many companies are not going to meet the deadline, say lawyers).

Without getting into the technicalities, the goal is to make all Russian companies confess to owning CFCs and find out who the ultimate beneficial owners are, so both the company and the owner can be taxed and prevented from hiding profits overseas. "The new law places an obligation to Russian tax residents to disclose by notifying the Tax Authorities, of any direct or indirect holding in foreign entities that exceeds 25% or 10% if such foreign entity is by more than 50% controlled collectively by Russian Tax residents. For 2015 there is a relaxation in the law and the percentage of control is set at 50% during this one year transition period," the Klnanis law firm said in an explainer to clients.

In this sense, the de-offshorisation law is not an anti-money laundering measure, but its effect will be to greatly reduce the amount of dark money on the move so the effect will be the same. The main question is: will it work? Will oligarchs declare all their myriad offshore companies? "It will work - eventually. But not now, because if you cheat, how are they going to find out?" points out Stephen Konigsberg, a legal advisor and former council to investment bank Renaissance Capital. "Everyone is making this risk assessment now. It's a mess, as the old law overlaps with the new one and there is not a lot of guidance."

Clearly a lot of oligarchs and super-rich businessmen are going to ignore the law and as the Russian authorities have little experience of investigating financial flows overseas, it will be extremely difficult for them to check if anyone is lying. On top of that, the showdown with the West over Ukraine means it is even easier for Russian businessmen to hide money abroad. "Before all this started [in Ukraine], the US was pushing Russia to improving its anti-money laundering effort, but now the tables are turned: Russia wants to track oligarch flight capital, but no one, least of all the US, wants to share information with the Kremlin."

And even before that, the UK was not known for being particularly helpful. The French investigating magistrate Eva Joly has complained in the past that the City "has never transmitted even the smallest piece of usable evidence to a foreign magistrate."

Author Ben Judah damns the government saying the British political elite are also beneficiaries of this system of dark money inflows and have little motivation to do anything about it. "The British political elite are richer than they appear, and the British elite are both the creator and beneficiary of this system."

The geopolitical standoff has created the perfect fog for oligarchs to move their money and avoid the scrutiny of the Russian taxman. And it is happening when the political chaos has stoked capital flight to a record $150bn in 2014. Where will all this money go? Well, you can be sure that London is on the top of most people's list.

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 #25
Vox.com
March 30, 2015
How Putin could lose power
By Amanda Taub

After more than a decade in power, Russian President Vladimir Putin is struggling through what may be his most turbulent and difficult year in office. His economy is crumbling under the global collapse in oil prices; US and European economic sanctions are punishing his inner circle and most powerful state institutions. His military is still occupying Crimea, and there is little prospect that the shaky cease-fire in eastern Ukraine will produce a long-term solution to the conflict. The murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, just steps from the Kremlin, was a global scandal that embarrassed the regime and prompted massive marches of protest and mourning around the country.

Putin's rule has been secure since he took office in 2000. At some point, though, his problems will become severe enough that the stability of his hold on power will become a live question.

In January, I spoke about Putin's hold on office with Mark Galeotti, a professor at NYU's Center For Global Affairs who has been studying Russian politics for decades. The real question for Putin, he explained, is the loyalty of a few key groups keeping him in power - and what might cause those groups to abandon him. He also explained why he thinks 2016 might be the year Putin's regime finally starts to crumble.

I got in touch with Galeotti again recently to see if his views had changed after Putin's mysterious "disappearance" earlier this month. He told me they hadn't, and gave me his thoughts on what Putin's vanishing act says about the state of politics in Russia. His new comments have been added below. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Amanda Taub: You've previously described Putin's power in Russia as "stable but brittle," meaning it's currently strong but would have little resiliency in the face of major economic shocks or other crises. What type of shock would be likely to pose a threat to Putin?

Mark Galeotti: It's always going to be the unexpected shock, so to that extent it's going to be unpredictable.

But let's say there's a bank collapse that can't be bailed out, or something like a health scare. Life tends to throw these kinds of events at all political systems, so it's really about the resilience they've managed to build up. My particular concern would be that they are burning away the political and social and economic capital that gives them that resilience.

AT: How might that kind of crisis cause Putin to lose power? What does the process look like?

MG: It would be a sense among the elites that he was no longer an asset but a danger.

The best parallel would be the ouster of [Soviet Premier Nikita] Khrushchev in the Soviet era [in 1964]. He came to power on the basis of an elite consensus that he could run the country in their interests, but then he became increasingly erratic. He got the Soviet Union involved in the Cuban missile crisis, and made a whole bunch of bad decisions that impacted the Soviet economy.

So the elite decided this guy was not what they were looking for - and he had to go. They basically said to Khrushchev, "You're stepping down for reasons of your health," and there was nothing he could do about it.

2016 IS GOING TO BE THE CRUNCH YEAR

That, I think, is the most likely circumstance for Putin's departure. It's not that he'll lose an election - it's that a bunch of men in gray suits are going to file into his office and say, "Vladimir Vladimirovich, it's time for you to do your last service to the state, and that's to retire."

Or he may be off at his dacha and see on the television that he's just stepped down for reasons of ill health. And he'll pick up his red phone, and find that the people answering it will no longer take orders from him.

AT: Do you think that will be triggered by a specific event?

MG: It's often been the random chances that shape this.

One of the key things that led to Khrushchev's ousting was riots that took place in a town called Novocherkassk. It was a backwater, not at all a significant place. But by bad luck, on the same day they announced an increase in food prices, they also announced a cut in wages at the massive local factory where most people worked. That led to street protests. The police refused to disperse them. And eventually the army was called out, and some of the army officers refused to fire on the protesters. In due course they had to send in security troops, who had no qualms, and there was a massacre.

Nobody heard about Novocherkassk, but the elites knew. And they were thinking, "Novocherkassk was nowhere special. If it could happen there, bad luck could mean it could happen anywhere." When elites feel that pressures are beginning to build up, they will feel they need to act to forestall the random events that could lead to a real crisis.

AT: Is that why Putin's mysterious "disappearance" a few weeks ago prompted such wild speculation?

MG: The circumstances of Putin's recent 10-day disappearance really brought home the extent to which this is a personal regime, whose health and that of the president are inextricably linked.

When Putin vanished we immediately had all kinds of tales to account for it, from coups to births. We still don't know what was going on, although I suspect health issues. We've seen in the past that Putin is very reluctant to let the Russian people know if he is ever anything less than his usual macho self, for reasons of both politics and vanity.

However, the very fact that the West and those Russians in the know were alarmed, and that even the Kremlin apparatus seemed clumsy and unsure of what to do, stress the degree to which if anything happens to Putin the regime will be in trouble - and we do not know what would follow.

AT: Are there any events on the horizon that you think would prompt this kind of crisis?

MG: For me, 2016 is going to be the crunch year.

We're going to see at least a couple of bad economic years. Inflation has just been announced at 11 percent at the end of this year, and it's going to get worse. But it's going to take some time for that to work through the system, for people to notice how much they can't afford anymore. So reason number one is just time.

Reason number two is that in 2016 there are elections for the Russian parliament, the Duma. Clearly the Kremlin is going to massage the results, so the pro-Kremlin parties are all going to do well, there's no question about that. But nonetheless there's the real polling data that the elites will see. And if Putin's numbers are down, that will be a good objective piece of information to say things are going badly.

THEY'VE MOVED FROM "I BELIEVE IN PUTIN IMPLICITLY" TO "AT THE MOMENT, PUTIN'S IN MY INTERESTS"

And in 2018 there are presidential elections. If they're going to stand some new candidate, they need at least two years in order to identify a candidate and build a myth around him in order to win the election.

Obviously, who knows what's going to happen? But for all those reasons, if I had to predict a time when I could see all those things aligning, late 2016 is going to be a particularly interesting time in Russian politics.

AT: Are there key constituencies that Putin has already lost?

MG: The cultural elite, mainly. But let's face it, poets do not actually create revolutions.

But I also have noticed a change when I speak to people who I would definitely think of as being in the Putinist wing, such as those who are in the security apparatus or from the military.

A few years back, they were really convinced Putinists. It was an emotional thing. They believed this was a guy who had saved Russia. Now, I think they tend to be pragmatic Putinists. They know that their interests are being served.

But that's the point: they've moved from "I believe in Putin implicitly" to "At the moment, Putin's in my interests."

That's the key constituency Putin has lost: the heart, so to speak.

AT: What is the significance of the pro-democracy movement that has arisen in recent years?

MG: It is important, but not in the sense that it's going to bring Putin down. It's important in the sense that it demonstrates there are people willing to protest, and it provides some sense of an alternative.

It's also important because of the people who are protesting. They are, on the whole, the Muscovite urban middle class, which is a very small fraction of society. But on the other hand, it's disproportionately important in some ways, because these people disproportionately are the kids of bureaucrats and officials, or those kids' fellow students at university.

That's one of the reasons we haven't seen the police be more brutal in their crackdown: who wants to release the riot cops to crack skulls if it might be your next-door neighbor's kid whose skull gets cracked? This is a very small social world we're talking about.

IF NAVALNY REACHES OUT AND BUILDS SOMETHING WIDER, THEN THAT COULD BECOME DANGEROUS

AT: What about Alexei Navalny? Is he a threat to Putin? (Read here about Navalny and why the opposition leader seems to worry Putin so much.)

MG: So far, Navalny has failed to move out of his comfort zone. When he was riding high in the earlier protest movement, he really did stick to talking to his middle-class Muscovites and his big city constituency. He's much more comfortable pointing things out than building a boring old political machine.

But that's not to say he won't change. If Navalny reaches out and builds something wider, then that could become dangerous.

Beyond anti-corruption, Navalny has one more card he can play, though I wouldn't want to see him play it: street nationalism.

Putin is a nationalist, but it's ultimately a state nationalism, it's about the Russian federation. And Putin deals with non-ethnic Russians all the time, even in his own government. [Russia has substantial numbers of ethnic minorities.] So he can't play the Russian chauvinist nationalist card that much.

But Navalny certainly seems to have demonstrated racist attitudes in the past. And he could play the "we Russians are being bled and exploited by the people from North Caucasus, by the people from Central Asia" card.

That plays to a depressingly powerful strand of common Russian public opinion, and it's something against which Putin has surprisingly little defense. That could conceivably build a wider public constituency quite quickly if Navalny is willing to play that card.

AT: Would that cost Navalny his relationship with the young urban elite?

MG: I think probably not. I don't get the sense that they are necessarily incredibly enlightened in their opinions.

Let's face it: he's the only game in town. So even if there are people within the intellectual classes who were unhappy with a populist shift, it's an open question whether they'd be unhappy enough to say, "That's it." Do you hope that some change, even if it's not ideal, is better than no change at all? I think for many the answer is yes.

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 #26
Russians' Hatreds Easy to Unleash But Difficult to Limit, Reverse or Overcome
Paul Goble

Staunton, March 30 - Many are taking comfort in the notion that just as Russians appear to have reduced their hatred of immigrants when encouraged by the Kremlin to hate Ukrainians instead so too their hatred against the latter could be ended relatively easily if Moscow changed course -- and in any case won't expand to include others.

But in fact, as a panel discussion organized by Radio Liberty points out, there are two problems with the optimistic vision. On the one hand, it ignores that there was a reservoir of hatred among many Russians ready to be whipped up by the government for its own purposes. Moscow did not create it; it exploited it (svoboda.org/content/transcript/26926308.html).

nd on the other, such a view also downplays the danger that while Moscow may be able to exploit such hatreds, it could quickly lose control over them and not be able either to restrain them once they are unleashed or to prevent them from being extended to other groups that the regime either wants to protect or does not want to offend.

Indeed, to deal with this situation, the panel suggested, the regime will either have to offer new objects of hatred in the hopes of diverting Russians from one enemy to another or employ massive amounts of repression in order to limit the expression of that hatred. In either case, the problems involved with such feelings and their use are not limited or short term.

Thus, for example, any lessening of official anti-Ukrainian hysteria in the  absence of any new target group almost immediately threatens to provoke new outburst of hostility toward migrants or toward other groups, including Chinese workers and industrialists in the Russian Far East whom Moscow has every reason to protect lest it offend Beijing.

(Indeed, that issue is so sensitive that the authorities have taken down an entire website after it featured an article showing that xenophobic attitudes and actions against the Chinese are in the rise there. The article was it sibpower.com/novosti-regionov/kitaiskaja-migracija-na-rosiiskom-dalnem-vostoke.html, but now even the site has been shut off. A cached version is available at ebcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://sibpower.com/novosti-regionov/kitaiskaja-migracija-na-rosiiskom-dalnem-vostoke.html).

Consequently, thanks to Putin's actions in unleashing and exacerbating Russian hatreds in the current crisis, Russia and the world are entering a Martin Niemöller moment, one in which just because they hate someone else now, there are no guarantees that they will not hate others, including ourselves, later.

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 #27
Greenwich Times (Connecticut)
www.greenwichtime.com
March 30, 2014
Greenwich native launches alternative news site Russia-Insider.com
By Anne W. Semmes

Greenwich native Charles Bausman has been living in Moscow for the better part of 29 years, raising a family while working as an investor in agribusiness in Russia. In the past dozen years or so, he's developed a perspective on Russia he said he does not see reflected in western news reporting.

So six months ago, he created an alternative news website called Russia-Insider.com that is getting millions of international viewers -- and Russian attention as well.

"This is citizen journalism," said Bausman. "It's like an online movement, user generated, democratic. People are very devoted to the site. It's gone beyond what I could imagine."

Bausman is visiting in Greenwich at the moment and will be speaking about his experiences at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Greenwich Library. He recently spent time with several Russian TV reporters who interviewed him for Moscow's leading evening TV news show.

It was a surprise for Bausman, who'd suspected the Russian public knew little about his Russia-Insider.com website enterprise. But now, he's told by the Russian reporters, they're enthused enough about what he's doing with Russia-Insider.com to continue their coverage. The show aired in Russia several days ago.

Russia-Insider.com news is written strictly in English and aimed at the western reader.

The site runs 50 headlines a day, Bausman said, and viewers of Russian-Insider.com has grown from 15 million in February to 25 million in March.

"That's what the Boston Globe gets," he said, comparing the growth spike to the Huffington Post website lift off.

"There is this huge demand for a different point of view," he said.

Viewer response is "a western phenomenon -- America and Canada evenly split with Western Europe."

Starting with only a handful of contributors, Bausman's enterprise now has 50 -- mostly volunteers -- writing for the site.

"There are five of us in Moscow, the rest in London, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Ottawa, and all over the world -- it's a global thing," he said.

Bausman said last summer's Russia-Ukraine crisis set him on his entrepreneuring course.

"There was a brutal civil war being fought in the Ukraine. Western reporting there was really bad, really dishonest: Kiev were the good guys -- Russia the bad guys," said Bausman. "It was all on the Ukraine side." An incident in the Ukraine he knew of where "100 Russian sympathizers were burned alive by Neo Nazi Ukrainians" had not been reported by Western media.

"They refused to believe it happened," he said. "They were lying about murdered children, lying about the burning of defenseless civilians. As an American, I knew what was going on. I had to say something about this. I had a responsibility to other Americans that what they were reading was simply not true."

Bausman cites other news stories where he said western media has gotten the facts wrong.

"In 2003, when they sent that Russian oligarch Khodorkosky to prison, the U.S. identified him as a democratic hero. Russia said he was a scoundrel who got what he deserved," Bausman said.

"In 2008, when the Russians and Georgians were having a war, the New York Times said Russia had attacked Georgia when Russia said Georgia was the aggressor. The New York Times was wrong -- Russia was right."

With the reported recent murder in Moscow of Boris Nemtsov, Bausman cites the U.S. media as stating a 99.9 percent probability the murder was done on Putin's orders.

"Anybody who knows anything about Russia," he said, "knows that Putin is the last person to make this happen. He does not want to look like a dictator killing his opponents.

"Our western media's hunch is based on Putin as the bad guy," said Bausman. "He's regularly portrayed as a nasty dictator."

Promotional material displayed on Bausman's site includes news clips of well-known pundits from mainstream U.S. news programs vilifying President Putin.

"They espouse a very aggressive foreign policy," he said of the U.S. pundits. "All of the major media supported the Iraq War, the bombing of Yugoslavia.... It's a real ideology they have -- to have an aggressive militaristic foreign policy (that includes) a negative narrative of Russia."

Bausman's alternative-view website took him to Washington, D.C., last week, where he was invited to address a World Russia Forum before an audience of noted Russian experts.

"It is an incredible honor for me to be among them," he said.

Bausman is hoping to find funding to keep his website going. At the moment, he's paying a skeletal staff and beginning to sell advertising.

"We've taken on a Kickstart crowdfunding campaign (http://goo.gl/jz0u1T)," he said. He has a goal of $60,000 and said he has nearly 500 backers so far.

"This has become a global media project attracting interest from venture capitalists," he said, "Its turned into a really big proposition."

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 #28
The National Interest
March 31, 2015
Ukraine's Bloody Civil War: No End in Sight
Ukraine is falling apart at the seams...
By James Carden
James Carden is a contributing editor for The National Interest.

MOSCOW-After spending several days in and around Donetsk last week, I found it hard to escape the conclusion that the second Minsk ceasefire is rapidly unraveling. Nearly continuous artillery shelling and machine-gun fire could be heard for the better part of Thursday morning in the city's Oktyabrskaya neighborhood, not far from the airport, where fighting is said to have continued without surcease.

The OSCE reported that the main railway station in the city was shelled on March 25, and a visit to it the day after showed that to be so. Rebel tanks could be seen participating in exercises on the rural outskirts of Donetsk on the 26th. The sound of sporadic artillery fire could be heard in the city's centrally located Leninsky District well into the early hours of the 27th.

The mood among many in Donetsk-noncombatants as well as rebel fighters who comprise what is known as the Army of Novorossiya-indicates little interest in a rapprochement with Kiev. This is, given the conditions of the city after nearly a full year of war, rather understandable. Many bitterly complain of Kiev's chosen moniker for the military campaign it   is waging against the separatist fighters, the "Anti-Terrorist Operation." Ordinary citizens and combatants alone view it as an attempt to dehumanize them as a whole by grouping the entire population of the region in with likes of ISIS.

Interactions with several rebel rank-and-files and a briefing from two rebel officers reveal even less of an appetite for a way back into the Ukrainian fold. As one senior officer put it: "Ukraine is dead. It was killed on May 2 in Odessa." Questions regarding Russian involvement were met with scoffs-though one did admit that "[their] Russian brothers" did provide food supplies to the area.

This is not to say Russia's support to the rebels is limited to nonlethal aid, just that it was quite obvious that all involved would be loath to admit it. In any event, despite repeated accusations of Russian malfeasance by Washington and Brussels, even the Chief of Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces, General Viktor Muzhenko, admitted in late January that the "Ukrainian army is not fighting with the regular units of the Russian army."

Interestingly, the rebels seem to have a similar mindset to those U.S. Congressmen who overwhelmingly voted to supply Kiev with lethal military aid last week: that the remilitarization of the conflict is simply inevitable. One rebel commander said that he expects Kiev to launch a new major offensive "within a week" and added, matter-of-factly: "We are ready." And ready, he claims, for the long haul.

The separatist forces, according to this commander, are prepared to fight for the next five to seven years for "Russky Mir" (which he defined as "Russian culture") to rid all Ukraine of what he called "Nazis" and "fascists." Pressed for details, the commander said he did not wish to impose a "Russian world" on Ukraine, but rather that each province ought to hold a referendum to decide its fate, apparently in a fashion similar to the referendum that was held in Crimea. The commander claimed to have (but did not provide) intelligence showing that over $3 billion of the $5 billion tranche of IMF assistance that recently went to Kiev is being used to shore up its military. In short, it quickly became blindingly clear that these people are in no mood to settle; and the idea that Kiev will emerge victorious anytime soon after the twin military defeats it suffered at Debaltseve and at the Donetsk airport-with or without American lethal aid-borders on the preposterous.

Yet it seems that the Washington establishment's (though, interestingly, it seems not the president's) preferred policy choice is to send lethal aid to Kiev because it is believed, no doubt sincerely, that a supply of javelin anti-tank missiles will somehow increase the number of Russian fatalities to such an extent that public opinion would turn against Putin-thereby forcing him to back down.

This is nothing more than a fantasy dressed up as a strategy because it attributes little to no agency on the part of the rebel fighters or, for that matter, the area's noncombatants. The simple, undeniable fact is that even if Russia was to be persuaded-via sanctions or via a significant uptick in military casualties-to wash its hands of the region, there is almost no chance that the indigenous military forces in the region would simply melt away. What is continuing to unfold in the Donbass-despite repeated protestations from Kiev's representatives in Washington-is a civil war between two groups with diametrically opposed visions for the future of their country. It is a civil war that also-given that each side has enormously powerful supporters-poses a genuinely grave risk to global security.

If the ceasefire, against all odds, congeals and holds, the likely scenario that will play out for the Donbass region is that which unfolded in South Ossetia in the years following the Russo-Georgian War in 2008. And indeed that is an eventuality the People's Republic of Donetsk is preparing for, with meetings scheduled with representatives of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh for late spring.

Nevertheless, what has occurred in the Donbass since the Ukraine crisis began in earnest early last year is the slow-motion disintegration of a European country; and the prospect of putting Ukraine back together again is remote from the standpoint of March 2015. Policy makers in the United States and Europe and Russia ought to be taking further steps to negotiate a permanent and durable ceasefire that will truly stop the fighting and allow some measure of relief to come to the long-suffering civilian population of Donetsk. That they seem to be stoking the fires of this war, rather than trying to end it, is an ominous sign for the immediate future of the region.

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 #29
Moscow Times
March 31, 2015
Nemtsov Allies Plan to Publish 'Putin.War' Report on Russian Soldiers in Ukraine
By Anna Dolgov

A report being prepared by supporters of slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov claims that Moscow has started discharging its soldiers from the army before sending them to Ukraine and then denying compensation to the families of men who were killed in order to cover up Russia's involvement in the conflict.

The report, which Nemtsov was working on before he was shot and killed in Moscow on Feb. 27, will be completed and published next month by his allies, the politician's friend and associate Ilya Yashin wrote on his Facebook page Monday.

"We have managed to communicate with people who were Nemtsov's sources," Yashin said. "They were very much afraid to speak while he was alive. The murder of Boris, as you understand, did not give them new courage, so they were reluctant to get in contact."

The sources for the report are representatives of the families of Russian soldiers who have been trying to receive compensation from the government for the deaths of their loved ones in Ukraine, Yashin said. The representatives had initially contacted Nemtsov in late January for help in pressuring the Defense Ministry into paying, according to the Facebook post.

According to these sources, Russia's involvement in Ukraine was marked by two "waves" of increased military casualties, Yashin said. The first surge in casualties came last summer, when scores of Russian troops moved across the border and helped secure an advance by separatist forces. The second wave came in January and February of this year, during the large-scale fighting that preceded the signing of the so-called Minsk II agreement on Feb. 11.

Throughout the conflict, Moscow has claimed that Russian fighters in Ukraine were "volunteers." Initial deployments were made up of troops listed as being on leave from their units, Yashin said.

Reports of Russian soldiers on leave fighting alongside Ukrainian separatists have also come from the rebels themselves. Igor Strelkov, a former commander of the separatists in eastern Ukraine, said in an interview with the nationalist Zavtra newspaper in November that heavily armed "vacationers" from Russia began arriving en masse in eastern Ukraine last August.

But, Yashin said, tactics changed this year when the military began discharging soldiers from the army before their deployment, with verbal promises that their families would still receive compensation if they were killed.

"The plan was to conceal this way the involvement of our army in military action, presenting soldiers as volunteers," Yashin said.

"Military unit commanders gave their word to guarantee that in case of an injury or death, their relatives would receive monetary compensation, comparable to the sums that had been paid out last summer," he said. "In practice, relatives received no compensation this time."

At least 70 Russian soldiers were killed in Ukraine during the second "wave" early this year, according to estimates cited by Yashin.

The preparation of the report is "approaching the finish line," and the findings will be published "already in April," Yashin said.

Nemtsov - the most prominent politician killed since Russia's President Vladimir Putin came to power 15 years ago - had titled the report: "Putin. War," according to Yashin.

The preparation of the document was clouded by fears of possible government interference even before the politician's death.

Worried that his offices were bugged by security services, Nemtsov summarized his findings to aides by scribbling notes.

"Paratroopers from Ivanovo got in touch with me: 17 killed, no money paid, but they are afraid to speak so far," a handwritten note said, according to a photocopy posted by Yashin.

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#30
TASS
Kremlin would not comment on late Nemtsov's proposed report on Ukraine war

Moscow, 30 March: Kremlin has no comment on the information about the so-called "Nemtsov report" being drafted by the opposition activist Ilya Yashin, press secretary of the Russian president Dmitriy Peskov said in reply to a question from journalists.

Yashin earlier announced the upcoming presentation of the "Nemtsov report" on the Russian Federation's alleged involvement in military operations in Ukrainian territory.

"I can't and am not going to give any comments based on some sort of announcements about a future report," he said.

Peskov also recalled that a so-called Boris Nemtsov report about preparations for the Olympics in Sochi had been released a couple of years ago. "I'll be honest - it wasn't impressive, it didn't require much by way of comments," the president's press secretary said.

"I don't know what report is meant (now), and in any case I'm not in a position to say anything until I've seen it," the Kremlin spokesman said in conclusion.

[A later report by privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax quoted Peskov telling journalists that the possibility of setting up a memorial on the site of Nemtsov's murder in central Moscow was "a matter for the city, not the Kremlin". He also expressed approval for the periodic removal of flowers from the current improvised memorial at the site, saying: "The city's absolutely doing the right thing to ensure hygienic order there, because those flowers - they may be fresh but they may also be far from fresh. So the city's right to tidy up there."]

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 #31
Polish Institute of International Affairs
http://www.pism.pl
March 30, 2015
Where Are All the Foreign Fighters in Ukraine?
        
Foreigners are involved in actual combat in the eastern part of Ukraine. They do not, however, constitute "NATO's foreign legion" nor the "Donbass international brigades," as their numbers likely do not exceed 300 on either side of the conflict. Interestingly enough, many of the European foreign fighters from both sides share common ideological roots. They, as a group or as lone individuals, might constitute a threat to European security and must be closely monitored - writes Kacper Rękawek in his latest analysis

Link to publication:
http://www.pism.pl/files/?id_plik=19434

Neither "NATO's Foreign Legion" Nor the "Donbass International Brigades:" (Where Are All the) Foreign Fighters in Ukraine?
By Kacper Rękawek

The conflict in Ukraine continues to attract global attention. Moreover, foreigners are also involved in actual combat in the eastern part of the country. Russians, be they soldiers or volunteers, are the dominant foreign group in the war zone. Others, mostly Europeans, constitute neither "NATO's foreign legion" nor the "Donbass international brigades," as their numbers likely do not exceed 300 on either side of the conflict. Interestingly enough, many of these European foreign fighters share common
ideological roots, i.e., anti-Americanism, anti-liberalism, extreme nationalism, fascination with authoritarianism, rejection of European integration, but these do not, however, stop them from taking 0pposing sides in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. They, as a group or as lone individuals, might constitute a threat to European security and must be closely monitored....

Foreign Fighters-a Threat to Be Monitored

There is not a "NATO's foreign legion" nor "Donbass International Brigades" in the fight in Ukraine. This is, of course, a heavily internationalised affair, but in no way does it resemble the situation in Syria. In fact, it is one nationality, the Russians, who, due to the fact that most of them are soldiers, cannot be counted as genuine foreign fighters, that is overly present in the fighting. The numbers for all the other participants do not even come close to that of the Russian military involved on the ground in eastern Ukraine.

Nonetheless, the EU Member States should be concerned with the fate of Ukraine-based or bound foreign fighters, especially after their return to their host countries. Some completely reject the reality they will encounter back at home and might involve themselves in violent activities aimed at their host countries-  while others already profess a desire to stay in Ukraine after the war.133 They are representatives of wider extreme and anti-systemic political milieus that are vehemently anti-Atlanticist, anti-European, anti-liberal, nationalist and quite often pro-Russian. Through violent acts they might attempt to emulate the creation of their preferred Ukraine or a "Donbass" in their host countries-entities dictatorial and repressive in nature, heavily ideological and involved in some titanic struggles with external enemies, which would be fuelled by past, real or imaginary grievances. Unfortunately, they are more than likely to find many followers amongst the radicals of Europe who decided not to join the conflict in Ukraine. These radicals will, however, lionise their foreign fighter colleagues and perhaps attempt to copy their deeds somewhere in Europe. According to the motivations of many of the foreign volunteers in the conflict in Ukraine, they will find many tempting targets to strike. This could be the drastic fallout from this war.

Of course, such risk must be put into context, as the numbers of foreign fighters returning from Ukraine are more than likely to be low. Moreover, some of those who went there could become so consumed in fighting their individual and local battles in a real combat situation and fantasising about the completion of their seemingly non-realisable political goals that they will never constitute any meaningful threat to anyone outside Ukraine. Most of them will not even be penalised if they ever decide to return to their host countries. The failure to constitute "NATO's foreign legion" or the "Donbass International brigades" does not mean, however, that some of their alleged members should not be a cause for concern to those who look after European security.

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 #32
Interfax
Russian extremists are stopped from joining Ukraine fighting - Interior Ministry

Moscow, 30 March: The situation in Ukraine has divided the ranks of Russian extremists and nationalists and the police are trying to prevent their participation in the armed conflict on the Ukrainian territory, Vladimir Makarov, deputy head of the Main Anti-Extremism Directorate of the Russian Interior Ministry, has said during a meeting of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights.

"There is a divide in the Russian nationalist movement, triggered by the events in Ukraine: some among the nationalists not only approve of Kiev's actions but take part in the armed conflict joining punitive [i.e. counterinsurgency] units," Makarov said.

The others, he noted, support the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR [Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics]. These developments have forced the police to take measures to prevent Russian radical forces from participation in the armed conflict in Ukraine.

Makarov also reported that in the course of a special operation as part of a criminal case opened by the Investigation Committee under Article 356 of the Russian Criminal Code (Use of Banned Means and Methods of Warfare) counter-extremism agencies have foiled attempts by several thousand Ukrainian citizens at temporary accommodation facilities to engage in criminal activities.

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 #33
Ukrainian conflict confirmed death toll reaches 6,083 - UN report

UNITED NATIONS, March 31. /TASS/. The United Nations published on Monday a report on casualties in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, saying the number of the killed and injured has increased.

Full accounts on casualties during the most recent escalation of hostilities (mid - January - mid - February) are still pending. Overall, since the beginning of the conflict in mid-April 2014 and until 27 March 2015, at least 6,083 people were documented as killed and 15,397 as wounded in the conflict area, says a regular report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The document says mines and unexploded ordnance are also posing a threat.

As of 23 March, there were 1,177,748 registered internally displaced persons (IDPs) across the country. According to UNHCR, as of 26 March, the total number of Ukrainians who have sought asylum, residence permits or other forms of legal stay in neighbouring countries now stands at 763,632 including 625,470 in Russia and 80,909 in Belarus.

Since being enacted in January, the Temporary Order has not only limited the freedom of movement for civilians, but also significantly impeded access of much needed humanitarian aid, namely food and medicine and construction materials. Given all of the complexities around humanitarian access, OCHA called a meeting with key humanitarian partners to explore operational solutions for dealing with bureaucratic impediments, the report says.

According to the OCHA report, as of 27 March, donors funded or pledged around USD 51 million to the Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP), or 16% of the USD 316 million required for 2015. Lack of funding for HRP is expected to result in significant impact in overall operation of some critical clusters. Due to inconsistent or no funding, the Food Security Cluster expects around 80,000 individuals with no access to Cash and Voucher activities, whereas food parcel support will have to be ceased in Non - Government Controlled Areas.

At the same time, Health Cluster members are continuing to run their operations using limited internal funding mechanisms with no hard or soft pipelines in near sight, thus leading to potential decrease in both operations and flow of life - saving assistance.

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 #34
USAToday.com
March 30, 2015
Voices: Ukraine a country aching with anguish
By Oren Dorell
Dorell covers foreign affairs for USA TODAY.

Everywhere I went during my recent visit to Ukraine, I ran into people heartbroken about what war with Russian-backed separatists has done to their country.

I encountered tears in Odessa, Mariupol, Donetsk, Amvrosiivka, Vasylkiivka and Kiev, government- and separatist-held towns where the brutality of the conflict and the likelihood it will last seemed to be setting in. Everywhere, the sadness was accompanied by financial fear. Yet the war has caused feelings on both sides to harden against what many here see as Russian - or Ukrainian - aggression.

Elena Bilan, 55, prayed at makeshift shrines to dozens of people killed by mysterious snipers in Kiev during last year's Maidan uprising that led to the war. "We used to have a lot of tourists from Belarus and Russia. Last year we had a lot of people from Donetsk, but they weren't tourists, they were displaced people," she said. "What will happen next year I don't know. I have a son at the front, and I help him with everything I have."

Prices on foreign goods have risen while wages stagnate. Some jobs have disappeared, and everywhere young men are waiting to find out whether they'll be mobilized for the country's defense.

In separatist-held Amvrosiivka, near the Russian border, I spoke to a group of mothers waiting in the cold for handouts from an aid group. Those who had jobs weren't getting paid. Government assistance no longer arrives. And the war is killing their men. They were afraid rebel officials would retaliate against them if they spoke candidly on the record to a reporter. Eventually, Natalia Larkina, 30, Olga Lapteva, 35, Alona Peleshok, 33, Marina Azmanova, 39, and Tatiana Belsmer, 38, agreed to talk as a group.

Belsmer, a clerk at a new car showroom before the war, has two small children and a son who could be drafted into the rebel military. She'd like to leave her town and go somewhere else, anywhere else. But she doesn't have the money. She started crying as she contemplated her fate.

She admits that she supported separation from Ukraine a year ago. But she never expected war.

"Many people were killed," she said. "It's almost impossible to forgive."

In Kiev, Oksana Semenets, 25, stood in line with a friend outside the Pinchuk Art Centre, a free art gallery that is one of the few entertainment venues people here can still enjoy.

"We can't buy a house and can't afford a child now," Semenets said. "Now, everyone is nervous. We're waiting for the mobilization."

Semenets' husband, who plays the trumpet with the National Philharmonic Society of Ukraine, may soon have to trade in his tuxedo for fatigues. Semenets, a pianist and teacher, opposed pro-European demonstrations when they began in the fall of 2013. Ukraine has a long cultural connection to Russia, especially in the musical sphere, and Ukraine is a country with resources that can develop without attaching itself to Europe, she said. But the war and the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin changed her mind.

"I'm not against (Russian) people, I'm against Russian authorities and what they do," she said. "Let them deal with their own huge country and leave us alone."

Mykola Polishchuk, 62, a retired store manager who has traveled across the region, said countering Russia and its cronies in eastern Ukraine means going up against a deep Russian nationalism that's hard to reason with.

"Their Russian identity is the glue that holds their Russian society together," Polishchuk said. "It's a kind of fascism that believes we don't need good cars, bread or economy as long as we have that (identity) to hold us together."

He saw the influence of such thinking on his sister. who moved to Donetsk and then took three years "to change back to normal" after she moved back to Kiev. But he's optimistic that Ukraine, with its natural riches, educated workforce, and industrial capacity, can prevail. All it needs is Western aid, and Polishchuk is sure it's coming.

Ukraine needs Western capital as well as agricultural and technical know-how to improve its economy, Polishchuk said. And, he added, "If Putin is to be stopped, we need modern American weapons."

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#35
Ukraine's Radical Party proposes criminalizing denial of 'Russia's military aggression'

KIEV, March 27. /TASS/. Ukraine's Radical Party has suggested criminalizing the denial of "Russia's military aggression." The corresponding bill has been registered on Friday on the website of the Ukrainian Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. The document was initiated by leader of the Radical Party parliamentary faction Oleg Lyashko and faction member Yury Chizhmar.

The document amends the Ukrainian Criminal Code article on responsibility for the public denial of military aggression by a country designated by the Ukrainian parliament as "an aggressor country."

The text of the bill is unavailable on the Rada's website at present.

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 #36
Poroshenko's fortune estimated at $750 million - Forbes-Ukraine

KIEV, March 27. /TASS/. The fortune of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is estimated at $750 million, says the ranking of Ukraine's 100 wealthiest people conducted by Forbes-Ukraine.

Poroshenko ranks eighth in this ranking. Among his main assets is the Roshen Confectionery Corporation. "So far Mr. Poroshenko's main asset shows good results. In 2014, 19 factory stores were opened. The Kiev-based factory increased its profits nine-fold - up to 35 million hryvnias, while the factory in Vinnitsa has secured 47 million hryvnias in profit, although this is twice as little as compared to the profit in 2013," the ranking says.

The Roshen corporation comprises a factory in Kremenchug, two production sites in Vinnitsa and one in Kiev, the Likonf Confectionery Factory in Lipetsk (Russia), the Klaipeda Confectionery Factory (Lithuania) and the Bonbonetti Choco factory (Hungary). Poroshenko also owns the 5th Ukrainian TV channel.

The ranking is topped by Rinat Akhmetov whose fortune is estimated at $6.9 billion, followed by Viktor Pinchuk with $1.5 billion and former governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region and founder of the Privat group Igor Kolomoysky with $1.4 billion.

According to Forbes, Petro Poroshenko's assets amounted to $1.3 billion last year. Last August, the Ukrainian President chose the investment company Rothschild as a consultant in selling his business.

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 #37
Ukraine constitutional commission to include 59 Ukrainians, 13 foreign experts - Poroshenko

KYIV. March 31 (Interfax) - A constitutional commission being formed in Ukraine will comprise of 72 members, among them 13 experts from international organizations, says President Petro Poroshenko's decree posted on his website on Tuesday.

Constitutional amendments are expected to strengthen the role of territorial communities and lift parliamentary and judicial immunity, the decree says.

"I am convinced that following local elections and decentralization, the territorial communities' effectiveness and responsibility will increase," Poroshenko said.

The commission will be headed by parliamentary speaker Volodymyr Hroysman and include Ukraine's three former presidents Leonid Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko.

Among other members are leaders of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc Yuriy Lutsenko and of the Batkivshchina parliamentary faction Yulia Tymoshenko, Chairman of the Supreme Arbitration Court Bohdan Lvov, Chairman of the Supreme Court Yaroslav Romanyuk, Chairman of the Council of Judges Valentyna Symonenko, Supreme Court Judge Oleksandr Volkov and Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko, alongside lawmakers and university rectors and lecturers.

The decree supports international organizations' proposal to involve 13 of their experts and monitors in the constitutional commission's work.

The constitutional commission may include, if their consent is secured, chairman of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine Armen Arutyunyan, chief of the judiciary administering advisory unit of the EU advisory mission for civil security reform Robert Boer and representative of the European Union's project to support Ukrainian judiciary reform Virgilius Valancius, as well as Iryna Ulasiuk, a legal advisor to the director of the OSCE's Office for National Minorities; Oleksandr Vodyankov, national legal advisor and head of the rule of law department of the OSCE project coordinator in Ukraine, Alain Delcamp, an expert of the Congress of Regional and Local Authorities of the Council of Europe; the Council of Europe's special advisor for Ukraine Christos Giakoumopoulos, member of the Venice Commission Anna Sukholutsk

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 #38
RussEurope
http://russeurope.hypotheses.org
March 30, 2015
Ukraine: war of the oligarchs
By Jacques Sapir
Jacques Sapir is a noted French economist and Russia expert, who teaches at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris and at Moscow School of Economics. He heads the CEMI Institute (Centre d'Etude des Modes d'Industrialisation).
Note kindly translated by Anne-Marie de Grazia

The events of the past days in Kiev show tendencies at disintegration at work in the political system. These tendencies are becoming now more and more explicit. Nevertheless they were a kin of hidden undercurrent to Ukrainian politics since the beginning. But these very tendencies may bring hope concerning the conflict which has engulfed the country since February 2014.

The war of the oligarchs

The power in Kiev remains largely under the influence of the oligarchs. Moreover, the institutional disorder resulting from the events of February 2014 has tended to reinforce their influence. United in their opposition to the former President, M. Yanukovich, they have pieced out the country between them and have been tearing each other heartily apart for one year now. We must cite Rinat Ahkhmetov, whose fortune is concentrated in the steel industry, the present President, Poroshenko, whose fortune comes from agro-business, Dmitro Firtash (presently under arrest in Vienna in a corruption affair) and M. Igor Kolomoisky[1]. It was Dmitro Firtash who, out of his domicile in Vienna, where under house arrest he convened these oligarchs and convinced them to act against M. Yanukovich, himself an oligarch, but the legally elected President of the country.

This « plot of the oligarchs » played an important role, both because it made it possible to deviate the Maïdan movement which, at the beginning, was anti-oligarchs and anti-corruption, but also because it played an important role in the sequence of events which drove President Yanukovich out of Kiev. However, this alliance has by no means put an end to the ferocious oppositions dividing the oligarchic milieu. In some way, the latter have been made more acute due to the brutal contraction the economy has been going through. In a country in which GDP shrank by -7% in 2014, which has been overtaken by a brutal inflation and where payments are uncertain are best, only the control over unearned incomes or over the revenues of foreign income (economic aid), can satisfy their appetites. This is reinforcing old enmities, which were overridden for a while by their common opposition to Yanukovich.

This opposition took a particularly spectacular turn with the eviction of M. Igor Kolomoisky in the evening of Tuesday, March 24 from his post as governor of the region of Dnepropetrovsk. But the stakes in this conflict go well beyond a mere revocation. What played itself out between March 22 and 24, with a rise in tension already observable several weeks prior between M. Poroshenko and M. Kolomoisky, is not only a new episode in the classic "war of the oligarchs" [2]. Indeed, the personality of M. Kolomoisky reaches beyond the sole domain of the economy. The political positions which he has taken over the past year have made out of him the key man in the Kiev power.

Who is Igor Kolomoisky ?

Kolomoisky was until that date the governor of the region of Dnepropetrovsk and, from any viewpoint, one the great barons of this semi-feudal Ukraine which has emerged since the events on Maïdan Square. Igor Kolomoisky is a very rich man. He has a Cypriot passport (as well as an Israeli one) and is a resident of Switzerland, all without having given up his Ukrainian nationality. He notably owns PrivatBank, the first bank in Ukraine, and the TV station 1+1. He owns also 43% of the shares in the national oil and gas company UkrNafta and in its daughter company UkrTransNafta, which manages several oil pipe-lines. He controls in fact a large amount of the circulation of fuels in Ukraine. His strategic position has confirmed itself since the beginning of the crisis. He has dedicated part of his fortune, evaluated at between two and three billion dollars, to creating battalions of voluntary fighters. A present, there are 10 battalions of the National Guard which are directly financed by Igor Kolomoisky. These battalions are largely present in the South of Ukraine, around Mariupol. His initiative has revealed itself crucial at a point when the government army was unable to face alone the separatists in the East of the country. So that their sponsor endorsed a political role in becoming the governor of Dnepropetrovsk, a strategic province, as it is located next to the one of Donetsk. Within a few months, he set himself up as a "rampart" against the rebellion of the provinces of the East of Ukraine and in order to do so, he entered strange alliances with the fascistoid group "Right Sector."

Yet, these battalions of the National Guard constitute a « private army, » the logistics of which, as well as its armament, escape the real control of the regular army. It is understandable that the newly elected President, M. Poroshenko, took umbrage of this and has sought to reduce the power of M. Kolomoiski. This is the framework in which the events of the past days must be understood. They are akin to the scenario of a king seeking to reduce the power of a great feudal lord. French history is resounding with the echoes of similar conflicts. But these have come to an end three centuries ago. The fact that they are occurring in Ukraine today is an undisputable indicator of the fact that this country is not yet a country in the modern sense of the term.

The Kolomoisky affair

So that President Poroshenko decided to limit the economic power of his rival. He decided to replace the board of Ukrnafta. Kolomoisky's reaction was swift and brutal. The building of UkrNafta was occupied by men in arms, evidently members of the Dnipro-1 battalion, financed and armed by Kolomoisky. Poroshenko's reaction was swift as well, and he dismissed Kolomoisky from his functions as governor of Dnepropetrovsk. He also had Sergey Bochkovsky and Vasily Stoyetsky arrested after a meeting of the council of ministers, they being respectively the director and deputy-director of emergency situations. These two men were accused of various financial misappropriations. But Igor Kolomoisky responded by calling for the recognition of the leaders of the insurgent entities of Donetsk and Lugansk, NRD and the NRL. The deputies and leaders of Dnepropetrovsk then started evoking the promises of decentralizing which have not been honored by Kiev. It is well known that the power in Kiev is presently dismissing any idea of decentralizing and federalizing. In fact, said deputies and leaders, whose proximity with Igor Kolomoisky cannot be ignored, have made statements echoing those of the leaders of Lugansk and Donetsk. In turn, the leader of the NRD Alexandre Zakhartchenko suggested to the Kiev government to create a Republic of Dnepropetrovsk.

Meanwhile, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, responsible for Ukrainian security services, faithful to President Poroshenko, has accused the two deputy-governors of Dnepropetrovsk, MM. Gennady Korban and Svyatoslav Oliynyk, « to belong to an organisation with criminal aims ». These two persons are of course protesting the accusations, and are threatening to sue M. Valentyn Nalyvaichenko for libel.

At bottom, the reduction of the economic power of M. Kolomoisky seems to be as important as the integration of the battalions of the National Guard into the regular Ukrainian army. Yet, the commanders of these battalions, if they declare themselves not to be opposed to such an integration, maintain that it is for them a matter of integration as is, and not of individual integration. Their demand is of course turned down by the Kiev government. At the present time, it is clear that both sides are trying to avoid the irreparable but that no understanding on this basis has been found. The risk of seeing Kolomoisky's barony seceding and allying itself with those whom it fought so fiercely only yesterday cannot be excluded.

One indication is the appeal which Kolomoisky has been broadcasting in Ukraine, in which he positions himself as the direct adversary of the President and the defender of the « spirit of Maïdan » (which will have been put to a great many uses...) and a defender of the « spirit of dignity » in the face of a government of the incapable and of the corrupt. He is also showing concern for the wave of suspicious deaths involving former leaders of the party of Yanukovich, the "Party of Regions," and which the present Kiev government is describing as suicides. [3].

Translation of Igor Kolomoisky's proclamation

We know, indeed, what value to give to such descriptions since the suicide of Stavisky in 1934 in France...[4] Behind the formulas and postures, there is one reality: a ferocious fight for power. Kolomoisky has been calling for demonstrations in the whole country on Saturday 28.

Possible evolutions

It looks therefore like the crisis will endure. It is coming at a time when the Minsk agreements are being respected in part (the cease-fire, the exchange of prisoners), but are held in abeyance as to the essential, as the Kiev government is still refusing to negotiate with the insurgents and doesn't seem to be ready to promote a true law of federalisation. It also bears witness to the fact that Ukraine finds itself in a situation of political and institutional crisis of utter gravity. The existence of autonomous baronies, apt to become independent, is not limited to the South-East of the country.

In reality, the potential dynamics at work today in Ukraine could either lead to a resuming of combats, for instance if both sides decide to give in to nationalistic one-upmanship, or in the contrary open the road to peace if this crisis leads to the question of the federalisation of the country being taken seriously. This can only happen if this crisis effectively leads to a serious and open treatment of the question of federalisation.

The best way to put an end to the « war of the oligarchs » would be indeed to approach in full transparency and without humming and hawing the institutional and constitutional question in Ukraine. This approach should have been taken as soon as M. Yanukovich took flight. His flight signified that the old "national pact" which founded the Ukrainian State was no longer valid, or else one would have had to recognize M. Yanukovich as being still the elected President. One cannot say that there was a "revolution," which implies the suspension of the constitutional order, and pretend all at once that this same constitutional order goes on existing.

This in no way implies that there cannot be a "national pact" and that Ukraine cannot survive, but it is mandatory that it be reformulated. It is clear that some degree of federalisation, or of confederation, will impose itself for cultural, religious and linguistic reasons. The refusal to recognize this situation has driven the decision of the inhabitants of Crimea to rejoin Russia, as well as the insurrection in the East of Ukraine. It must be stressed here that Russia has consistently refused to recognize the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The issue needs to be reconsidered. There is great urgency. For lack of doing so, and doing so fast and honestly, only war and, in time, the dismantling of Ukraine, would remain the options.

[1] http://www.rts.ch/info/monde/6651675-un-milliardaire-ukrainien-fait-trembler-kiev-et-berne.html
[2] B. Jarabik, « Ukraine, the kingdom of the oligarchs », Carnegie Foundation, http://carnegie.ru/eurasiaoutlook/?fa=59487
[3] Among the « suicided » persons :
On 26 January 2015 suicide of Nikolai Sergienko, 57, former deputy chief of the « Ukrainian Railroads, » shooting himself with a hunting rifle.
On 29 January the body of Alex Kolesnik, former president of the regional administration of Kharkov is found at his domicile.
On 25 February the mayor of Melitopol, Sergei Walter, 57, is found hanged.
On 26 February the body of Alexander Bordyuga, 47, deputy-chief of police of Melitopol, is found in his garage.
On 28 February, the former vice-president of the Party of Regions Mikhaïl Chechetov «jumps » from the window of his apartment.
On 10 March, suicide of the former deputy of the Party of Regions Stanislav Miller.
On March 12, suicide of the former president of the regional administration of Zaporozhye, Oleksandr Peklushenko.
[4] Stavisky, who had corrupted (and was protected by) part of the political class of his time was supposed to have committed suicide by shooting himself in the head from a distance of two meters, so that Le Canard Enchainé had a headline: «how it helps to have a far-reaching arm... Ce que c'est que d'avoir le bras long...».

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 #39
Opposition govt led by Kolesnikov presented in Ukraine

KYIV. March 31 (Interfax) - Boris Kolesnikov, a former MP (Party of Regions faction), has headed up Ukraine's opposition government, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has reported, citing a statement made by Yuriy Boiko, the head of the parliamentary faction Opposition Bloc, at a presentation of the opposition government in Kyiv on Tuesday.

He said he is confident that this government will play an important role in Ukraine's opposition movement.

The opposition government will present its agenda in late April.

Among the members of the opposition government are Vadim Rabinovich (deputy prime minister on supervision over law enforcement bodies' activities), Natalia Korolevskaya (deputy prime minister on social policy and pension reform), Oleksandr Vilkul (deputy prime minister on industrialization of Donbas rebuilding), and Mikhail Dobkin (deputy prime minister on local self-government reform).

The healthcare minister in the opposition government is Ihor Shurma, the agroindustrial sector minister is Mykola Shishman, the infrastructure and transport minister is Volodymyr Shemayev, and the interior affairs and emergency situations minister is Konstantyn Stogniy.

Viktor Skarshevskiy has been appointed finance minister, Mykhailo Papiyev has been appointed social security minister, Yevhen Murayev has been appointed economic development and trade minister, Volodymyr Makukha has been appointed fuel and energy sector minister, Yuriy Kotlyarov has been appointed justice minister, Yelena Kolesnikova has been appointed education, culture, science, family and youth minister, Pavel Zhyla has been appointed environment and natural resources minister, and Konstantyn Hryshchenko has been appointed foreign minister.

Kolesnikov said the defense minister of the opposition government will be appointed shortly.

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 #40
Ukraine's Donetsk republic accuses Kiev forces of 19 truce breaches over past 24 hours

MOSCOW, March 31. /TASS/. The Ukrainian military shelled populated areas on the territory controlled by the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) 19 times over the past twenty-four hours, the DPR Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.

"Overall, 19 instances of shelling by the Ukrainian military involving tanks, air defense weapons, mortars and small arms were registered in the past twenty-four hours," the Donetsk News Agency quoted the DPR Defense Ministry as saying.

The Ukrainian military's fire was directed at the populated areas of Shirokino, Spartak and Sakhanka. The Ukrainian army again shelled the Donetsk airport and the nearby Volvo center, the DPR Defense Ministry said.

No casualties were reported among self-defense militia or civilians, the DPR Defense Ministry said.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Sunday the OSCE's latest report on developments in east Ukraine was a cause for concern.

The OSCE observers said in their latest report that the neighborhood of Shirokino east of Mariupol had been massively shelled by the Ukrainian military on March 27. The monitors said the shelling began as soon as they left Shirokino. Self-defense fighters of the Donetsk Republic opened retaliatory fire, the observers said.

The German foreign minister said everything should be done to prevent a disruption of the ceasefire accords reached by the Ukrainian warring sides in February in Minsk.

The German foreign minister urged both the Ukrainian army and self-defense militia in east Ukraine to "follow the spirit and the letter of the Minsk accords and stop the shelling."

"It is not the first time that we were confronted with this during the crisis in Ukraine. If the process is halted, it will hardly be possible to avoid a new military escalation. We should consistently pursue the goal of continuing the political process," the German foreign minister said.

The ceasefire between the Ukrainian conflicting sides started from midnight on February 15. The ceasefire regime is stipulated in a package of measures for the implementation of the accords signed in Minsk on February 12.

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 #41
Ukrainian army positions in Donbas attacked 11 times - Kyiv

KYIV. March 31 (Interfax) - Militia forces attacked the Ukrainian army's positions in the south-east of Ukraine 11 times from 6:00 p.m. to midnight on March 30, the army operation press center reported on Tuesday morning.

"The situation in the east of Ukraine did not change drastically overnight. The number of shelling instances on the part of illegal armed units continues to gradually decline," it said.

However, certain groups, "which effectively do not report to anyone", continue to stage occasional armed provocations along the frontline, the press center said.

At 6:00 p.m. on Monday, militia forces fired 82-millimeter mortars against the Ukrainian army's checkpoint, located near the village of Sokolnyky in the Luhansk region. A checkpoint of Ukrainian government forces near the town of Krymske was attacked at 6:20 p.m.

At 7:20 p.m. and 7:50 p.m., militia forces fired 120-millimeter mortars against the south-western outskirts of Shyrokine village near Mariupol, the press center said.

On all these occasions, Ukrainian troops only returned fire, it said.

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 #42
Bloomberg
March 31, 2015
Ukraine Clashes Ease as Envoys Ready Rebel Talks on Deescalation
by Kateryna Choursina and Daryna Krasnolutska

(Bloomberg) -- Clashes in Ukraine's easternmost regions abated further as the government saw fewer rebel attacks and a three-party envoy group prepared talks with pro-Russian insurgents on deescalating the yearlong conflict.

Rebel "provocations" with small arms and mortars continued, though no artillery fire was recorded for several days, National Security Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko said on Tuesday. A contact group made up of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov and Heidi Tagliavini of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe plans to speak with the separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions on Wednesday.

"They will discuss a deescalation of the situation in eastern Ukraine and also the issue of exchanging hostages and illegally detained individuals," Kuchma's spokeswoman Darka Olifer said on Facebook.

As casualties have waned following a cease-fire signed last month in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, Ukraine is now focusing on securing a deal with bondholders to curb its debt. The government in Kiev is also facing the task of fixing the economy devastated by the fighting, stabilizing the world's worst-performing currency and cracking down on corruption.
While there have been signs of "decreasing tension" on the Ukrainian currency market in recent weeks, "risks of destabilization are there, as well as high inflation and devaluation expectations," the central bank's monetary policy committee said in a website statement on Tuesday.

'Expensive Hryvnia'

The central bank should continue an "expensive hryvnia" policy by keeping interest rates high, it said.

The currency, which has lost 33 percent to the dollar this year, was 0.7 percent stronger at 23.45 against the greenback as of 3:05 p.m. in Kiev. The government bond maturing July 2017 gained 0.2 cents to 39.62 cents on the dollar, extending its advance over four days to 1.9 cents.

Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko urged Ukraine's creditors on March 24 to back a debt overhaul or risk bigger losses. The probability the negotiations will fail and lead to a disorderly default is about 30 percent, according to the median estimate of 21 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg on March 20-26.

Ukrainian forces and rebel groups have accused each other of violating the cease-fire since it took effect on Feb. 15. The separatist-run DAN news service on Monday cited the Defense Ministry of the self-declared Donetsk republic as reporting 13 truce breaches by government troops.

On the same day, German Chancellor Angel Merkel said the annexation of Crimea by Russian President Vladimir Putin was undermining the basis of peace in Europe. Putin has rejected accusations by the U.S. and the European Union of backing the Ukrainian insurgents with supplies of cash, fighters and weapons.

"We're not deluding ourselves, we'll need a long time" to resolve the conflict, Merkel said at Helsinki University on Monday. Ukraine has the right to determine its own fate, and unity among EU members in maintaining sanctions against Russia showed the bloc's strength, she said.

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 #43
Kyiv Post
March 30, 2015
Bishop of Moscow-backed church supports Ukrainian troops
By Oleg Sukhov

A high-ranking bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church's Ukrainian branch has paid a visit to Ukrainian troops in the war zone - a move that is at odds with the church's officially neutral position on Russia's war against Ukraine.

The branch, called the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, has not officially supported any of the sides. It has been accused of being a tool of the Kremlin - a charge that it denies. In contrast to the Moscow Patriarchate, the rival Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate has unambiguously supported Ukraine's war effort.

Oleksandr Drabinko, metropolitan of Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky and the late Kyiv Metropolitan Volodymyr Sabodan's former right-hand man, confirmed to the Kyiv Post on March 30 that he had taken a trip to help Ukrainian troops in the war zone last week - the first such visit by a Moscow Patriarchate bishop. He added, however, that he could not elaborate in detail.

A church delegation headed by Drabinko visited troops of the State Special Transport Service in Slovyansk and Artemivsk in Donetsk Oblast and performed a church service there, Oleksandr Andrushchenko, chief editor of the Faith and Honor religious magazine, wrote on March 29 on the kapelan.org.ua news portal.Drabinko "thanked them for maintaining security in the city and adjacent villages by risking their lives and wished them to return home alive and well," said Andrushchenko, who organized the trip.

Drabinko also gave them humanitarian aid, including food, personal hygiene products and medicine.

"This was the first time when an Orthodox bishop (of the Moscow Patriarchate) performed a liturgy and gave communion (to Ukrainian troops)," Andrushchenko said by phone.

Bishop Kliment, the spokesman of the Moscow Patriarchate's Kyiv Metropolitan Onufry, said by phone that he could not comment on the trip because he did not know if it had been authorized by the bishop of Donetsk Oblast.

"The church doesn't support any of the sides," Kliment said. "It is always beyond politics and urges everyone to stop the use of force."

However, clerics of the church are allowed to help the Ukrainian army as chaplains and volunteers.

"Since soldiers are part of our flock and they were church goers during peacetime, our church provides spiritual support to those who comply with the nation's laws and go to the front," Kliment said.

Meanwhile, some clerics of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine have supported Kremlin-backed separatists.

In November, Bishop Ioanniky, the senior cleric of Luhansk's Transfiguration and St. Nicholas Cathedral, blessed Ihor Plotnitsky, head of the Luhansk People's Republic, during his inauguration.

Kliment argued that the priests who supported Kremlin-backed separatists were either banned from service or retired and could not be controlled by the church hierarchy. Ionikiy retired as bishop of Luhansk Oblast about four years ago, he said. "It's impossible for our bishops to track all of them down. An old and sick man was used by some people, and then it was cynical to publicize and hype it," he said, referring to Ionikiy.

But Serhiy Dmitryev, head of the Kyiv Patriarchate's social work and charity department, dismissed this argument, saying that no penalties had been imposed on the retired priests and bishops who backed Russian-backed insurgents.

"The Moscow Patriarchate is effectively fueling a civil war because some bishops help Ukrainian troops and others help separatists," he said by phone.

Dmitryev believes that Drabinko was reluctant to comment on his help for Ukrainian troops because he had been intimidated, and that other Moscow Patriarchate priests are afraid to support Ukraine for fear of being fired. The Moscow Patriarchate adheres to its neutral position because "they don't know who will win - Russia or Ukraine," he said.

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#44
Counterpunch.org
March 27-29, 2015
Why the West is Losing the Information War
Ukraine: A Creationist Museum?
by IVAYLO GROUEV
Ivaylo Grouev teaches Political Science at the University of Ottawa.

"A half-truth is the most cowardly of lies."
- Mark Twain

When I follow the coverage of the Ukrainian crisis in some of the most respectable mainstream Western media, I have the strange feeling that I am a part of a tour in a natural history museum. Not any kind of natural museum, but a rather unusual one - a creationist museum. For those who may not know a little factoid: there are over 30 in the USA alone and two in the province of Alberta, Canada - the birthplace of the Reform Party, now the Progressive Conservative Party which has been in power since 2006 (although both names are largely misleading).

One of the newest creationist museums in the US is in Petersburg, Kentucky, a 70,000 square-foot (6,500 square meters) "state of the art" facility. A true marvel of robotics, comparable to the best Hollywood could offer: real-size animatronic pterodactyls, realistic sounds of the crying "king of the lizards" - Tyrannosaurus rex - surrounded by the jubilant and carefree robotic children of Adam and Eve. One may be astonished to learn that this $27 million facility is not losing money, on the contrary - it attracted over 715,000 visitors from all over the world willing to pay $30 per ticket for entry. (1)

So where is the parallel with regards to the coverage of Ukraine? First parallel: the facts, the evidence, the exhibit. In general, the impressive display in Petersburg is consistent with the latest findings of modern paleontology, size and shape of the bone fragments and skeletons, as well as rather believable depictions of full size majestic dinosaurs; certainly all of them could be proudly exhibited in any natural science museum. Furthermore, the offspring of Adam and Eve also looks quite realistic and could be a part of any ambitious curator strategy depicting the dawn of early human settlement.

The only problem is that all of that is pure falsification! It is a well known fact that the world is not 5,000 years old, but 13.2 billion years old and humans, amoeba, killer whales and bacteria responsible for dysentery were not created in 6 days before God's well deserved weekend. So where is Ukraine here?

As some readers may have noticed, a real life exhibition en plein air just opened in downtown Kiev, with tanks, armored vehicles, machine guns and burned/melted vehicles as evidence of the Russian invasion of Eastern Ukraine. The authenticity of these exhibits is unquestionable - indeed these are real tanks, real armored vehicles, real machine guns and real burned cars. However, just like in a creationist museum, the only missing element is the context.

Yes - we read, saw, heard, and became deeply traumatized by countless facts and evidence in the mainstream Western media coverage of the Ukrainian crisis. We saw pictures of armed men, soldiers, blown-up houses, car wreckage, and tanks as well as a wreckage of a passenger airliner, rows of refugees, starvation, elderly living in basements without food and electricity - many gruesome pictures of dead bodies and separated body parts. All of this is true, and it represents the heartbreaking human tragedy happening right now in Ukraine. However, there is a problem with the presentation of this reality. The general narrative, just like the creationists placing harmless dinosaur's (presumably vegetarian as babysitters because violence did not exist in the Garden of Eden) the "evidence" found in the Western mainstream media, presents a distorted picture of the real context. Following the logic of the Ukrainian version of "Genesis", the pro-western liberal democratic regime in Kiev will resolve all economic, political and social issues in the country plagued by corruption. Therefore, according to this narrative, all facts and exhibits should be carefully arranged just as any devoted curator in a creationist museum would do. And just like in the creationist museum, this exhibit presents an insurmountable challenge to basic logic, where most, if not all questions, remain unanswered.

Let's name a few of them. On February 20th, 2014, why did the Ukrainian Police Forces, known as Berkut, kill its own members? The facts are there - 18 officers were shot dead and over a dozen sustained gunshot wounds.(2) This is a question of little relevance in the meta narrative, along with questions surrounding the "accidental fire" in Odessa on May 2, 2014, where 48 people (other sources claimed much larger numbers) were burnt alive, while those who managed to jump from the inflamed building were clubbed to death by the Maidan activists in front of the police who did nothing. Why has Western media never asked these questions to the Ukrainian Prosecutor's Office, even a year later? Why did the Ukrainian Government refuse the International Criminal Court to investigate the matter? Why have these questions never been asked by the bastions of Western journalism?

Not only that, the Western media also preferred not to bother covering facts contradicting the logic of the Ukrainian "Genesis". Those who authorized and are responsible for the indiscriminate shelling of large urban centers such as Donesk, Luhansk, Mariopol, Kramatorsk, Slovyansk are left unknown. So are those who authorized the use of weapons forbidden by the Geneva Convention, such as white phosphorus and cluster shells. Questions about the nature of the famous ATO (anti-terrorist operation) which use heavy artillery, aviation, and tanks against a sizable (6.8 million) civilian population in Donetsk and Luhansk that surpasses the total population of the three Baltic states (Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania) and seems of little interest to the Western media.(3)

Instead of answers, we were offered dramatic pictures; however, the same technique was applied: the context was missing. The fact that photos of Russian tanks crossing the Ukrainian border were not only published, but discussed on the floor of the US Congress (they were in fact genuine, but depicting Russian tanks crossing the Russian-Georgian border in 2008) as well as the crash of the Netherlands' passenger airplane, where the face of Putin was placed beside pictures of the victims. Needless to mention, his picture was just as genuine as the pictures of the victims of this tragedy. However, there was complete media apathy about the records of the MH17 black box which was delivered five days after the disaster. To find a solution to all unanswered questions this narrative offered only one option - it is always Putin's fault.

Indeed Putin became the "darling" of the Western media: 5,771 publications in the US, 8,929 in Germany and 5,209 in the UK in 2,014 alone.(4) This is a lot of coverage. In this biblical script, the newly elected president Poroshenko wears the white hat, the Russian president Putin - the black one. Suddenly Putin developed the worst ever multi-personality syndrome, reincarnating Stalin, Hitler and the notorious ISIS "John Jihad" altogether. (Thanks CNN, the mystery was cleared up. It was indeed Putin) .(5) However, to keep the record straight the unprecedented demonization of the president of the Russian Federation was not an isolated event, it was consistent with the recent effort of the villainization of Saddam Hussein (the Butcher of Baghdad), Muammar Gaddafi (Mad Man, Mad Dog), Slobodan Milosevic (Butcher of the Balkans), which, please note, were all promoted prior to the launch of US military campaigns in Iraq, Libya, and Yugoslavia. Just like the creationists, for the Western media, apologists of the Ukrainian "Genesis", space, time and logic is of a little consideration - similarly to the Mesozoic era which started 252 million years ago and ended 66 million years later was easily compressed in less than few thousand years. The same technique was applied to a much shorter time period. In 2007, Time Magazine's "Person of the Year" - was Putin. Seven years later in 2014 he became "Hitler".(6)

What is remarkable in the current "Information War" is how context free Western media is becoming unrelenting in self-disillusioned fable creativity. To cement the myth Putin, the ultimate villain front page titles screaming loudly "Putin killed my son!" may soon not be sufficiently dramatic. Something more spectacular such as "Putin killed God's Son!" may be totally conceivable evidence in the "creationist media environment", where time zones are easily compressed, with no questions asked. Indeed Putin may very well travel in time to Palestine in Year 0, ride a friendly pterodactyl to Golgotha, subsequently fatally pierce the dehydrated body of Christ, and on his way back stop in Munich in 1938 to have breakfast with Hitler. Is this farfetched? Of course, but so is the story of pterodactyls being the first babysitters, as well as the curators' logic of the en plein air museum in Kiev exhibiting "Russian" tanks with current Ukrainian VIN numbers.

The Western media has been reporting half-truths and barefaced lies, depicting the new regime in Kiev as "democratic" and the "rebels" as terrorists. The nature of this "propaganda" resembles more of a televised evangelist preaching from San Antonio, Texas, than a reportage from respectable media outlets, some of which have a renowned tradition in this business. This is one of the reasons why it is rapidly losing credibility and ultimately market share. In contrast, the social media blogosphere "exploded" on the subject of the Ukrainian crisis by offering alternative reporting, videos, frontline testimonials, and most importantly, alternative content analysis and context.

Clearly, there is an appetite for different reporting and "naked" first-hand facts as well as critical analysis contradicting the established meta narrative. Some media outlets such as Russia Today (RT), are specifically targeting this type of rapidly growing audience in the West, Europe and North America. It is not surprising that now RT is the second most-watched foreign news channel in the United States (after BBC World News) and the number one foreign network in the largest metropolis' such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C. Its global spread reaches an impressive audience of 700 million viewers.(7)

So why the sudden success of this quite "young" competitor? The explanation lies in the Western propaganda make-up often reaching levels suitable primarily to infantile youngsters or elderly, self-disillusioned evangelicals. Clearly this is not a winning proposition, and things are not looking optimistic for the traditional bastions of journalism in the West. Ratings are plummeting, especially for the generation under 35. Naturally, if one day some of them may become extinguished just like the dinosaurs, the blame should not be attributed to a catastrophic asteroid.

The reason for their demise is obvious. It is a prolonged blatant complacency to a Big Lie and a refusal to apply personal and professional integrity. Let's not forget the simple fact that Fox News Propaganda Style "Facts could be proven wrong, opinions - not!" could work for many, but definitely not for all. Why? To use one of Bertoldt Brecht famous citations: "Man has one defect: He can think."

References
1. Creation Musuem. org
2. Katchanovski, Ivan. 'The "Snipers' Massacre" on the Maidan in Ukraine.' February 20, 2015.
3. Rothoct, Andred. Ukraine Used Cluster Bombs, Evidence Indicates, New York Times, October 20, 2014.
4. Khlebnikov, Alexey. Russia is now monitoring the world's mass media for bias. Russia Direct. February 25, 2015.
5. Jalil, Justin and J.A. Gross. Vlad the beheader: CNN apologizes for Putin gaffe, The Times of Israel, March 1, 2015.
6. Stengel, Richard. Person of the Year 2007: Choosing Order Before Freedom, Time, December 19, 2007.
7. RT reaches 700MN viewers worldwide. Rapid TV News. 11 September 2014.

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 #45
The Huffington Post
March 30, 2015
Russia-Ukraine Conflict 101
By Fran Moreland Johns
Writer/blogger and Author of 'Perilous Times: An inside look at abortion before - and after - Roe v Wade'

If it's possible to condense the incomprehensibly complex Russia/Ukraine conflict into one coherent hour, Matthew Rojansky can do it. Rojansky, Director of the Kennan Institute, and an expert on the region, proved that in a recent presentation at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club. A listener who blinked could miss a paragraph, but Rojansky's fast-paced illustrated lecture had most of his audience too engaged to blink. What follows is an abbreviated summary of the presentation.

For openers, Rojansky explained that Ukraine, under now-deposed leader Viktor Yanukovych, was "a society absolutely primed for revolt. A few years ago," Rojansky said. "I moved to Kiev with my family, (finding) Yanukovych one of the most corrupt politicians in history -- and that's saying something."

Illustrating his point, Rojansky showed slides taken during his time in Kiev including views of some of Yanukovych's perks: a heli-pad, a palace with gold, jewel-encrusted design, three-lane bowling alley, billiard room, private floating pirate-themed restaurant reported to have cost a few billion dollars -- a rather definitive picture of excess. Rojansky also mentioned the stuffed lion guarding a corridor leading to the nail salon and spa, and a collection of exotic cars and animals. It was not just personal excess, he said, "There was government corruption on a grand scale."

By the fall of 2013, Ukranian citizens were tiring of this. A peaceful protest known as the Euromaidan began in the square Rojansky, and his family could see from their apartment window. "It was surreal." Public sentiment favored closer connections to Europe, Rojansky said, but Yanukovych, instead, signed an agreement with Russia's Vladimir Putin. Thus began the increasing protests fueled largely by social media, with help for the needs of Euromaidan solicited via constant Facebook postings.

Initially, Rojansky explained, the movement was not political. But also thanks to social media -- Twitter users began receiving messages letting them know they were registered as protesters -- things quickly changed. And on January 16, 2014, the anti-protest laws were passed: No protests, no groups, no gatherings. The movement against abstract corruption became "Yanukovych Must Go." Things came to a crisis when someone gave the order to fire and all-out shooting began. Despite the European Union intervening to broker a deal in late February, Yanukovych escaped -- presumably with boxcars of treasure -- though leaving behind the exotic animals still being cared for on his former palatial estate outside Kiev.

Soon came the time of "the little green men" in Crimea, a significant chunk of Ukraine on the Black Sea. Rojanksy explained that there have always been Russians in Crimea; the little green men wore Russian military garb minus the insignia, carried Russian weaponry, but Putin at the time denied they were sent by Russia.

By May of 2014, Rojansky said, regions of Ukraine that are heavily Russian-speaking began to hold referenda to break away -- not to become independent, but to become part of Russia. Things accelerated significantly with the downing of a Malaysian Airlines plane in July, 2014, and the ground war began. "This was not World War II," Rojanksy explained, but guerilla warfare with terror tactics, firing on civilian buildings, the destruction of the once-beautiful Donetsk airport. "This is insane stuff."

As to what Mr. Putin wants out of all this? Rojansky listed three main points;

1. Domestic politics are life-or-death. If the idea that when regular people take to the streets life gets better catches on, Russians might say "What about us?"

2. Putin has a major image issue. He's the tsar. He is never wrong. There's God, and then there's the Tsar.

3. Geopolitics are important. If Russia and Crimea get together, Putin's bargaining power is greater.

Rojanksky characterizes Ukraine as being between a rock and a Russian hard place. The hard place is boosted by the fact that half the people in Ukraine speak Russian, and many more watch Russian TV with its decidedly nationalist fervor.

For now, Rojansky says the wise course is: "Don't show up giving out cookies. Get observers on the ground as fast as possible, and eyes on the ground on the borders. Watch to see if sanctions are working."

And in the very long term: "Ukraine matters. We have to help Ukraine defeat corruption. Things we can do include letting Ukrainians come here, and knowing about the region." In the end:

"There are no easy answers."

Disclaimer: This writer knows as little about Russia and Ukraine as a few long-ago college courses and one unforgettable trip from Moscow to St. Petersberg might suggest. But listening to Matthew Rojansky's take on the current situation is enough to convince one to pay attention.

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 #46
Ukraine Today
http://uatoday.tv
March 30, 2015
Ukraine Today launches new online project 'From Russia with Love'

Ukraine's first international English-language TV news channel, Ukraine Today, has launched a new site highlighting the presence of Russian troops and weapons in Ukraine. 'From Russia with Love' features details and evidence of Russian military aggression in Ukraine, beginning with events in Crimea in early 2014, and continuing into 2015 and the second round of Minsk ceasefire talks.  

'From Russia with Love' aims to provide international audiences with further confirmation of the continuing Russian military role in Ukraine. The project was created with the cooperation of military experts from 'Information Resistance'. [http://russianweapons.uatoday.tv/]

The people behind this project are convinced that truth remains Ukraine's most powerful weapon in the ongoing informational war. 'Russian aggression against Ukraine began with the opening of an 'information front'. It will end when this front ceases to be active,' says 'Information Resistance' coordinator and Ukrainian MP Dmytro Tymchuk. 'Ukraine doesn't need to use manipulation and disinformation to generate support and sympathy. Only Moscow, as the aggressor, needs to employ such tactics. A nation defending its own territory doesn't need to rely on lies. We merely require the international community to recognize the truth about what's going on in the Donbas. This is how Ukraine will win the informational war.'

Ukraine Today Executive Producer Tetyana Pushnova: "From Russia with Love' will be an ongoing internet resource. It will be developed and updated in response to events in Ukraine until the last Russian soldier leaves the country. I am very grateful to the experts from 'Information resistance' who helped create this project and look forward to further cooperation."

'From Russia with Love' is Ukraine Today's latest special internet project. Previous projects have included an overview of the Battle for Donetsk International Airport entitled 'Cyborgs vs Kremlin'.

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#47
http://thetruthspeaker.co
March 29, 2015
Busting Ukraine Fakes (#2) - 'Russian Elite Troops' in the Ukrainian Army and Rob Pulse
By Graham Phillips
[Photos and videos here http://thetruthspeaker.co/2015/03/29/busting-ukraine-fakes-2-russian-elite-troops-in-the-ukrainian-army-and-rob-pulse/]

There will be more to come on Rob Pulse, actually there's enough for an entire series on Ukraine's hapless, yet relentless propagandist - on Twitter since December 2010, with near 32,000 Tweets putting him as a 20+ a day Tweeter, yet since troubles in Ukraine, and Donbass began, much more active and even often double that a day now.

The first question about Rob would be, naturally, who is he? 'Rob Pulse', an invented named, used for his tag, his name 'Silver Surfer' taken from the Fantastic Four series of films. Rob thinks he's an 'investigate journalist', yet the only record of his 'investigate journalism' - credit in a couple of hit-job pieces by notorious pro-Ukraine propaganda outlet The Interpreter.

He's actually called Rob Schultz, where he's from is unknown - he lists his locations on Twitter as Miami and London, yet it's unclear if he's in either. His user photo is an opaque one of himself in shades, yet there do exist photos online of Rob Schultz. However, Pulse/Schultz is so touchy about these, if you post them on Twitter (which I did in response to his maliciously posting the unblurred face of a young girl holding a Russia flag in the Ukraine city of Nikolaev, putting her life in danger), Rob will immediately complain to Twitter, have the photos removed -

Producing pro-Ukraine propaganda is exactly what Rob does, and while he stays pretty faithful to the pro-Ukraine script in general, he often blunders off into territory even they won't touch. So, the standard, oft-peddled Ukraine line of everyone filmed in Donbass being 'Russian actors' and often the 'same person', well, suffice to say Rob follows it zealously - here on January 16th -

Sadly for Rob, he got it completely wrong here, and for a man who loves nothing more than self-congratulation on Twitter ('I picked the right tweet to translate' just one of many self-endorsements), had to issue a rather less than humble admission that, once more, he'd cocked up -

Not learning from this lesson, just a week later, on January 23rd, Rob was now saying that people filmed at the scene of the Donetsk trolleybus shelling tragedy were 'Russian actors', the 'same people' (as the above even). But even his normally loyal followers, now near 8000, spluttered at this, even more ridiculous than his earlier claims.

This goof such a doozy Pulse deleted all his Tweets on the theme. But it didn's stop him - in between then and now, there have been numerous other cock-ups from the blundering propagandist, who finds 'Russian soldiers' in every fighter in Donbass 'Russian tanks' in every military vehicle. But his one of a couple of days ago reached a new level, even with Pulse's lengthy background of balls-ups. From looking through my photos, Rob found 'Russian Elite Troops' in Ukraine on the day of Crimea's 'illegal referendum'.

The fairly major flaw in this latest assertion of 'Russian troops', is that this is actually the Ukrainian army. I know, I stopped to film them here, by a base of multiple Ukrainian military vehicles and troops, just off, and on, Chongar peninsular, this particular point by the first 'X', some 20km from the Crimean border, and the first pro-Russia blockpost -

Here's video, from the 16th - where I ended up spending some time with them after my cat locked me out of my car at that time, and I enlisted their help -

The soldiers were from Nikolaev, regular Ukrainian army. I passed them coming out of Crimea 2 days later. And here, on one of their APCs, the Ukrainian flag flying -

These screenshots from this video here -

And there we have it - it takes a standard pro-Ukraine propagandist to find 'Russian troops' in the Novorossiya Forces. It takes Rob Pulse to find them in the Ukrainian army!

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#48
Newsweek.com
March 30, 2015
Russian Tanks and Fighters Enter Eastern Ukraine, Says Kiev
BY DAMIEN SHARKOV

22 Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine's separatist-held eastern territories over the weekend, as pro-Moscow forces continue to seep into Ukraine's war-stricken Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Donetsk's local pro-government officials reported yesterday.

In a statement published on Donetsk's regional government website, the deputy head of Ukraine's anti-separatist military operations in Donetsk and Luhansk Valentin Fechev, condemned the "cynical lies" of pro-Russian fighters who have accused Ukraine of violating the ceasefire between the two sides, and instead gave a recent recap of Russian violations.

Fechev told the regional government website that 22 tanks had crossed from Russia via the border town of Gukovo, into Ukraine's Luhansk region, heading toward the city of Sverdlovsk for maintenance.

On Sunday night 15 separatist Grad missiles were fired at the Ukrainian city of Horlivka. The Donetsk administration explains that pro-Russian fighters had received 122mm Grad missiles as part of one of Russia's so called "humanitarian convoys", which continue to arrive in the rebel-held regions.

According to the local administration the pro-Russian rebels underwent military exercises several days prior in the town of Yenakiieve, using heavy artillery and guns with the aim of eventually stationing them in the town of Horlivka.

Fechev said that fighters as well as equipment crossed the border from Russia to Ukraine last weekend, claiming that more than 800 Russian mercenary fighters had entered Ukraine to fight over the last few days. He went on to say that these fighters are there for "the gain of personal wealth", rather than being motivated by the idea of resurrecting a 'New Russia' (Novorossiya) in Ukraine.

He estimates that of those 800 Russian fighters, 200 were Russian Cossacks who had entered Ukraine with small arms "to die for Russian money" last week, and 600 were "mercenaries" who appeared to be from Russia's Siberian Buryat region.

A group of Russian Chechen fighters has also been tracked in the region by Ukrainian authorities, who claim the group looted nearby scrap storage facilities last week.

Fechev pointed out that they do not represent the "liberty-loving Chechen people" but were rather Kadyrovtsi - a word used to describe the fighters of Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov, who is a close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Fechev also added that these new arrivals from Russia were necessary as locals to Donetsk and Luhansk had largely not opted to join the separatist cause, estimating that rebel mobilisation efforts were only 10-15% successful.

A survey published by Ukrainian agency Interfax today which surveyed over 2,000 citizens of Donetsk and Luhansk found that 45% of residents admitted they did not have enough to eat, while 63% said life was "difficult but [they] would make do".

Russia is frequently forced to deny that it is sending military equipment or personnel to Ukraine, despite evidence that they are. Rebel leader Alexander Zaharchenko estimated in August that there are as many as 4,000 Russian soldiers fighting under him in Donetsk, however added that they were there on a voluntary basis, out of personal solidarity for the pro-Russian cause.

"We also have Russian soldiers here who would rather spend their holidays not on the beach but fighting for the freedom of their brothers," he added.
 

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