Johnson's Russia List
2015-#65
2 April 2015
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"We don't see things as they are, but as we are"

"Don't believe everything you think"

In this issue
 
  #1
AFP
April 1, 2015
Deadly Ukraine rocket strike another shot in propaganda war
By B�atrice Le Bohec

A ceasefire has tamped down much of the violence for weeks now but both sides are desperate to blame each other for any isolated clashes that violate the truce.

And this time round the rebels were keen to show what they said was a government missile strike to a group of international monitors and selected journalists.

Hours before, pro-Russian rebel official Eduard Basurin made an early-morning phone call to journalists, instructing them: "We are going to the south, to show you something."

The ten-car convoy carrying reporters pulled up just before reaching Shyrokyne, a village divided between Ukrainian and rebel forces that is close to the strategic port of Mariupol, Kiev's largest remaining stronghold in the insurgency-hit east.

But only video journalists and photographers were allowed to make the final kilometre-long journey to see the wrecked vehicles.

Photographs and video footage are prized weapons in the propaganda war between the pro-Russian separatists and the Kiev government.

"It's too dangerous, we can't take everyone," explained Basurin, military representative for the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic.

The chosen few were joined by three observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), who had recently arrived from Mariupol.

All eyes were on the mangled remains of a civilian car and a small rebel pick-up truck, lying by the side of a road bordered on one side by the sea, and on the other by crater-scarred fields.

At 4:09pm precisely (1409 GMT) on Sunday, according to Basurin, the anti-tank missile was fired as two cars travelled along the road.

The car accelerated and crashed into a bend, avoiding the missile and leaving the passengers unharmed, he added.

The pick-up, carrying a rebel and a civilian who had asked to be escorted, bore the full brunt of the missile, killing the civilian and injuring the driver, according to the military spokesman.

"I hope that the OSCE will reveal the truth of what is happening on our land," Basurin said to the cameras.

"The shot could not have been fired from the sea or from the fields (where the rebels have dug trenches)," he added. "Ukrainian positions are located on the hill at the end of the road."

'Not 100% sure'

But the OSCE representatives wondered why the military pickup was pointing towards the rebel stronghold of Donetsk, when separatists claim it was headed to Shyrokyne, in the opposite direction.

It had been rotated in order to tow it, replied a rebel, prompting the OSCE monitor to query whether rebel fighters on the ground were communicating properly with their commanders.

"That's why I'm here," insisted Basurin. "I'm not 100 percent sure, but let's say 98 percent, that our orders reach our men on the ground".

Another observer told the press that they had "an idea of where the shot came from"  but that "who shot and why cannot be determined now.

"At the front of the truck, streaks of blood are still visible on the passenger seat," he said.

All the while, his colleagues forensically photographed the scene and inspected the vehicles.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko took to the airwaves for his daily briefing.

The situation in the east "was gradually stabilising," he told viewers, but "armed rebel provocations continue along the front-line".

Both sides accuse each other of violating the peace agreements signed in Minsk last month aimed at ending the year-long conflict that has claimed over 6,000 lives.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, the two sides agreed to pull back their heavy weapons to create a buffer zone of between 50 kilometres and 140 kilometres (31 miles and 87 miles), depending on the range of the weaponry.
 #2
Both Ukrainian conflict sides ready to observe ceasefire - OSCE

DONETSK, April 2. /TASS/. Kiev security forces and self-proclaimed republics' militias have displayed readiness to observe the ceasefire regime, deputy head of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine Alexander Hug told a briefing in Donetsk on Thursday.

Both sides have shown that they are ready to observe the ceasefire regime, and not only for the telecameras, he said, summarising the results of his trip to the country's east.
Hug said the OSCE would continue its work in the east of Ukraine.

The mission will continue to assist the peace process currently observed by the SMM. Hug expressed the hope that upon return to Kiev on Friday he would get a report from the OSCE monitors that the ceasefire is observed in the east of Ukraine.

Hug also said that OSCE observers have started to compile the lists of equipment, withdrawn by the Kiev army and self-proclaimed republics' militias from the contact line in Donbass.

The SMM expected both sides to present such lists, but this has not been done, so the OSCE started to draw up the lists itself in order to provide documentary evidence of the weapons' withdrawal, he said.

According to Hug, the OSCE monitors have been given access to the withdrawn weapons. He said the mission demanded full unimpeded access at any time to the places interesting for it. Both sides assured Hug on Thursday that the OSCE mission would be given access to these sites, the SMM deputy head said.

The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine was deployed on 21 March 2014, following a request to the OSCE by Ukraine's government and a consensus decision by all 57 OSCE participating States. The Mission's mandate was extended by six months from 21 September 2014. The SMM is an unarmed, civilian mission, present on the ground 24/7 in all regions of Ukraine. Its main tasks are to observe and report in an impartial and objective way on the situation in Ukraine and to facilitate dialogue among all parties to the crisis.
 
 #3
Ukrainian Defense Ministry reports demobilization of over 24,000 servicemen

KYIV. Apr 2 (Interfax) - Over 70% of Ukrainian servicemen recruited last spring have been demobilized, according to Taras Zabolotny, chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces human resources department for contract recruitment of sergeants.

"The demobilization process is ongoing from March 18 through May 1 on the president's orders. Servicemen recruited last spring are being demobilized. Some, 24,400 servicemen have been dismissed from military service by now," Zabolotny said at a press briefing in Kyiv on Thursday.

In all, demobilization will apply to 35,763 servicemen: over 6,000 officers and 29,700 soldiers and sergeants.

More than 60,000 servicemen are currently deployed in the army operation zone in southeastern Ukraine, he said.
 
 #4
Sputnik
April 1, 2015
In The Army, Now! Ukraine Officials Raid Dorms to Draft Students
[Video here http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150401/1020334394.html]

Seventy percent of young people in some regions of Ukraine are evading military service as they are afraid of being sent to the conflict zone in the southeastern regions of the country.

Only a quarter of Ukrainians of a call-up age are ready to do military service as many of them fear to be sent to the zone of the military operation in Donbass,  according to the Russian newspaper "Vesti".

"About 25% of recruits come by themselves, the others we have to follow," Ukrainian official in the Kirovograd region said.

Lviv region is witnessing a similar situation, where 70 percent of potential recruits are not ready to serve in the army. In Kiev, the numbers seem to be much better, but there are also those who are trying to evade the service.

Representatives of enlistment offices burst into student dormitories to 'catch' those, evading the military service. Last week, for instance, they raided a dormitory of the Kiev Polytechnic Institute (KPI).

"[They] burst into the room, forced us to sign that we received call-up papers. In case of disagreement, [they] threatened to bring us to a recruitment office in handcuffs," one of the KPI students said.

Earlier, KPI students posted a video on Youtube, depicting representatives of the Solomensky recruiting office and the Ukrainian police, raiding the university's dormitory.

According to Deputy Commissioner of the Solomensky recruiting office, Alexander Mayborda, such measures were necessary, as these were the students evading the service. At the same time, lawyers are convinced that putting handcuffs on young people was anyway not allowed, the newspaper wrote.

In April 2014, Ukrainian authorities started a military operation in Donbass against its residents, dissatisfied with the coup. Young people of a call-up age are trying to evade the draft as they are afraid of being sent to the zone of the special operation
 
 #5
Valdai Discussion Club
http://valdaiclub.com
March 23, 2015
Deescalating the Conflict in Ukraine
Interview with Rostislav Ishchenko, President of the Center for System Analysis and Forecasting.

Q: What could you say about the recent statement by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on the recent de-escalation of the conflict in Donbass? Is this really happening? Will Kiev fully comply with the Minsk agreements?  We hear continuous reports that Ukraine is building up its military strength with Western help. Will you, please, comment on the EU and US roles in this respect.

Poroshenko is saying what he is supposed to say, but even he doesn't seem to believe it. First, Ukraine does not conceal the fact that it will only accept one end to the Donbass problem - the surrender of the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics. However, to achieve this, Kiev must win militarily, which it obviously cannot do no matter how many people it drafts or how much equipment its army receives. It cannot win even with Western supplies, which aren't expected in the near future anyway. To sum up, Kiev is unable to win but must continue the war because the Kiev regime cannot exist without it. The war is delaying the inevitable socio-economic collapse of the country and justifies the terrorist methods used to run it. This is the only thing allowing the regime to pretend that there is national unity and that the situation in the country is under control.

There can be no doubt that the United States has an interest in the war in Ukraine lasting as long as possible and being as bloody and destructive as possible, but Washington does not want to use its resources on propping up the Kiev regime that has no choice other than to  prosecute  the war. So, Kiev will be pushed to step up its military activities but won't be helped (except with kind words).

As for the EU, it is irreparably divided. The United Kingdom, Poland, and the collective Baltic limitrophe take a pro-American, Russophobic position and are going all-out to escalate the confrontation with Russia. Italy, Greece, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and some other states are strong supporters of the EU conducting its own policy independent of Washington and pursuing European rather than US interests. France and Germany are hesitant, but recently they have been increasingly inclined to accept the need for normalizing relations with Russia. True, they are still trying to avoid a quarrel with America, but they will have to make a choice, and there is reason to believe they will choose Russia.

Q: Can elections be held in some territories of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions? How might the assertion of their special status affect the situation in Ukraine? What if some other regions follow the example of the DPR and the LPR?

Elections in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions are unrealistic. As I've said, Kiev is not going to comply with the Minsk agreements. In other words, war is becoming inevitable. It is the only way the sides can resolve their irreconcilable contradictions. This is why the Ukrainian authorities will do whatever they can to shift the blame for wrecking the peace process to the DPR, LPR and Russia.

As for other regions of Ukraine (the eight regions of Novorossiya), they have wanted to follow the example of Crimea rather than the DPR and the LPR since March 2014. When regional administration buildings were occupied last March, the Russian tricolor was hoisted above them. Only when it became obvious that Russia wouldn't intervene militarily did all kinds of "people's republics" with their own symbols start to emerge. I think they are temporary entities, but that does not mean there should be only two. Kiev has alienated everyone in the past year. I wouldn't be surprised to see a Lvov or a Ternopol people's republic. Of course, they would have the opposite ideology of the DPR and the LPR, but Kiev already enjoys no more prestige in Galicia than in Donbass.

Q: Can Kiev make concessions or compromise with southeastern Ukraine?

No, it's impossible. Admitting that compromise is possible at this point would mean admitting that everything was in vain - the war, the tens of thousands of deaths, the destruction of the national economy and even the 2014 armed coup and the formation of the terrorist Nazi regime. That would only lead to the question of responsibility, which rests with those who are currently in power. But they have made such a mess that life imprisonment and the confiscation of property (if they survive to stand trial) would be a mild punishment. So Kiev will fight to the end - its own rapidly approaching end.

Q: How should Russia react if the Minsk agreements are violated by Kiev or Donbass?

Russia is already reacting. It is citing violations of the agreements by Kiev and urging Paris and Berlin as their guarantors to respond. As for the future, we'll have to wait and see. When the war resumes, we should play it by ear based on the outcome of the fighting.

Q: What do you predict will happen in Ukraine? What is the most realistic scenario today?

There is nothing good in store for Ukraine. I think during this year it will sustain a military defeat and the disintegration of its army, another coup and the collapse of what is left of its government agencies, all-out chaos, the total destruction of the economy and the start of subsistence farming for survival. The country is in for a humanitarian catastrophe that practically no one is able to avert. The only thing left is to try and mitigate its consequences. But to do this, the territory of modern Ukraine must be occupied by an outside force capable of maintaining police order, or the DPR and the LPR self-defense forces must be powerful enough to occupy the entire territory, defeat Makhnovism and criminal rule and start developing the economy from scratch, of course with foreign support. In other words, without outside support no more than half of Ukraine's current population will survive after the imminent, final collapse of the state. Survivors will be set back a century in terms of living standards and civilization. This is why foreign intervention to restore law and order to Ukraine after the collapse of Project Ukraine will be inevitable.
 
 #6
New Eastern Europe
www.neweasterneurope.eu
April 2, 2015
Ukraine's Poroshenko Risking Stability?
by Matthew Turner
Matthew Turner is a Bratislava-based geopolitical consultant specialising in Russia and Eastern Europe's role on the international platform. He has previously published in EU Observer and has a blog on Digital Journal.
 
In what can be seen as a public relations tactic, on March 25th the Ukrainian police charged into a live televised cabinet meeting to arrest two senior officials; the head of the state emergency service, Serhiy Bochkovsky and his deputy, Vasyl Stoyetsky, on charges of corruption. As a warning to those watching, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, menacingly tweeted "this will happen to everyone who breaks the law and sneers at the Ukrainian state".  As dust in the east of Ukraine begins to settle with the Minsk II agreement largely intact, it seems President Petro Poroshenko has turned his attention away from the front and embarked on a path to deal with the country's systemic problems: corruption and oligarchy.
 
Just hours earlier, Poroshenko dismissed Ihor Kolomoyskyi, billionaire governor of the key industrial region of Dnipropetrovsk and one of Ukraine's most anti-Russian politicians. His ousting came about following a clash with the government over a new law that would limit Kolomoyskyi's power to control two of Ukraine's state-owned energy companies, in which he holds minority stakes. After the signing of the law on March 19th, armed security guards allegedly loyal to the oligarch occupied the building of one of the companies, Urktransnafta, in protest of a decision to forcefully remove the CEO. While Kolomoyskyi insisted he was assisting his friend from the seemingly illegal removal from his post, the situation was presented in the media as "a disgruntled oligarch with armed guards entering a building of a company he did not control to protect a crony". For his part, Kolomoyskyi claims that the government had tried to replace the longstanding manager through a "raider attack", claiming that the newly appointed CEO, a former security services official, has strong ties to the current parliament and Kolomoyskyi's business competitors.
 
Before this dramatic falling-out, Kolomoyskyi was a vital ally of the government in Kyiv and organised a powerful volunteer group that played an important role in fighting the Russian-backed separatists and ensuring the region's stability. At its peak, an estimated 20,000 men were at the oligarch's beck and call. Indeed, Dnipropetrovsk is "a bulwark against advances of pro-Russian separatists".
 
While Poroshenko can be seen to be appeasing his Western allies by tackling problems of corruption and oligarchy in the country, he has also been accused of appointing "business partners and friends" to governmental posts. What is more, Poroshenko is himself a former oligarch and so far has reneged on his pre-election promises of giving up his business interests. He is clearly faced with a painful conundrum: how to clean up the Ukrainian society without alienating the people on which the country's security and economy depends upon.
 
Although fighting in the east has ceased for the meantime, the crisis is far from over. Kyiv has been cooperative in fulfilling its military obligations under the Minsk II agreement, but progress to embark on its political commitments has ground to a halt. The government has yet to recognise the rebel region's autonomy, open dialogue concerning elections, and restore the much needed finances and assistance to the separatist republics. However, time for a permanent solution is running out as rebels have insisted that should there be "no reconciliation within a redesigned Ukraine"; they would continue to seize chunks of the Donbas, a devastating setback for a crisis that could finally be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
 
According to political strategist Aron Shaviv, "for there to be reconciliation [in Ukraine] there needs to be a process for the government to allow political opposition [...] to operate freely in domestic politics". Holding elections in rebel held areas and granting them autonomy could go a long way to achieving these means and kick start the reconciliation process and keep Ukraine united. Furthermore, Ukraine's former Tax and Revenue's Minister, Oleksandr Klymenko, had advocated for granting the Donbass a Special Economic Zone Status, claiming that such a framework would provide the region with strategic and economic significance for Ukraine and allow it to become a prime investment hub.
 
With the conflict frozen but not yet over, difficult times lie ahead for Kyiv. For his part, Poroshenko needs to engage with the rebels to find a long lasting solution and fulfil all the conditions of the Minsk II agreement, which would effectively guarantee the return of Ukraine's sovereignty. However, by alienating the very individuals who support the government in Kyiv and a Western orientated Ukraine and replacing them with his own partners, Poroshenko risks destabilising a process already fragile to its core and creating a newly loyal class of oligarch cronies.
 #7
Kyiv Post
April 1, 2015
Governor of Luhansk region accuses Aidar of terrorizing the region
by Allison Quinn

Hennadiy Moskal, the head of the Luhansk regional administration, has called on the Defense Ministry to rein in members of the Aidar Battalion who have been wreaking havoc in the region after stealing ambulances and taking over a local business.

He said members of the group stole two ambulances from a local hospital for their "own personal rides" this week, Moskal said in an online statement on April 1. The offense adds to a long list of misdeeds that Moskal said have begun to alienate the local population and undermine the public's trust in local authorities. The Aidar Battalion has not responded to the Kyiv Post requests for comment, but the Defense Ministry started a probe in response to these accusations.

"Aidar fighters conduct themselves not like representatives of the armed forces who are subordinate to the Defense Ministry, but like hell-raisers, outlaws and robbers armed with automatic weapons. They have essentially opened a second front in peaceful territory, where a war is under way," Moskal wrote.

Human rights activists and local officials have repeatedly warned that the lawlessness of the battalion threatens to destabilize the region, and Moskal said that is precisely what is happening after the group seized control of the region's main bread factory, UkrVeresk.

The factory was seized last fall and the Defense Ministry was made aware of it at the time, he said, "but no measures were taken."

"This enterprise, which is the main bread factory in the region, was seized by armed militants of the Aidar Battalion, who have installed their own rules and begun arbitrarily increasing the prices on bread, which has caused social tension and sadness at the actions of authorities among the local population," he wrote.

Aidar fighters have also pocketed Hr 280,000 in cash from the factory and begun tearing up equipment to sell as scrap metal, he said.

In addition, he said, "they are not paying for gas," racking up an overdue debt of Hr 700,000.

Since the factory's takeover, bread production has fallen by 50 percent, the governor said.

Moskal was unavailable for further comments on the matter on April 1, but his spokesman Yaroslav Galas said Aidar had seized the factory last October and "decided to try and build a business on it."

"They won't let anyone in, they won't let other bread manufacturers work and they're raising the prices to get more profit," he said.

Galas noted that many other abuses committed by the group had been done in a "drunken fashion," but not the bread factory takeover.

On March 16, three members of Aidar drunkenly broke into a resident's home and beat up the owner in front of his wife and child, Moskal told the Ukrainian media. They then looted the place before orchestrating a shoot-out in the street.

Moskal appealed to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and the Central Command of the Armed Forces to liberate the bread factory from its armed occupiers on March 31, prompting Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak to order an investigation.

Poltorak said in an online statement published the same day that a group of military police would be dispatched to the region to look into the activities of the Aidar Battalion.

Last September, Amnesty International called on Ukrainian authorities to keep members of the Aidar Battalion in check after it found evidence of abductions, unlawful detention, ill-treatment, theft, extortion, and possible executions by the group.

An Amnesty International researcher cited an Aidar member issuing a frightening warning while the report was being prepared: "If I choose to, I can have you arrested right now, put a bag over your head and lock you up in a cellar for 30 days on suspicion of aiding separatists."

The report concluded that "members of the Aidar battalion act with virtually no oversight or control, and local police are either unwilling or unable to address the abuses."
 #8
www.rt.com
April 2, 2015
Ukraine and Russia sign 3-month gas deal at $248

Russia's Gazprom has agreed to sell gas to Ukraine's Naftogaz at a price of $248 per 1,000 cubic meters. The deal is for the next three months, and represents a 25 percent discount on the price during the first quarter of the year.

Ukraine has signed a new agreement to buy Russian, the Ukrainian energy ministry said on Thursday. In the first quarter of 2015, Ukraine paid Russia $329 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas. That deal expired on Tuesday, along with the 'take-or-pay' clause that requires payment for gas no matter if Ukraine uses it or not.

Kiev, under the leadership of Yulia Tymoshenko, and Moscow signed a 10-year gas contract in 2009.

"Under the terms of the contract, the gas price will stand at $248 per 1,000 cubic meters. All the other terms totally repeat the terms of the so-called 'winter package'," the Ukrainian Energy Ministry said on its website Wednesday, as quoted by TASS.

Originally, Ukraine's temporary $100 discount was due to expire at the end of March, a provision agreed to in the so-called winter package. The deal was brokered by the EU in October just before the cold weather hit Ukraine, and the European Commission hoped the discount would last a full year, but Gazprom said only 3 months was possible.

On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller said that Russia would extend Ukraine's gas discount through the spring months. On Wednesday PM Medvedev signed a decree that would enable to Kiev to continue with its $100 discount, but only as long as Kiev continues to pay its debt obligations.

Neither party has confirmed if Russia's demand for Kiev to supply gas to the Donbass region has been fulfilled.

After Ukraine fell behind on its debt payments to Russia, Gazprom switched to a prepayment regime. Russia previously cut supplies to Ukraine in the winter of 2006 and 2009, and in June 2014. The first two shut offs seriously disrupted European markets.
#9
Vice.com
April 2, 2015
Food Crisis in Eastern Ukraine: Russian Roulette (Dispatch 103) (Video)

Though it's within Ukraine, the area separating government-held territory and the region controlled by pro-Russia separatists has started to resemble an international border. There, at checkpoints, Ukrainian soldiers stamp passports, and stop and inspect trucks carrying goods to the rebel-controlled east. According to drivers prevented from crossing into separatist territory, the soldiers are purposefully preventing food from getting through.

In the east, food is becoming increasingly scarce. But instead of inspiring unrest and anger at pro-Russia forces, the shortages seem to inspire locals to blame the Ukrainian government.

VICE News correspondent Simon Ostrovsky traveled to the front lines in the Donbas to cross the de facto border, then headed into separatist-controlled territory to gauge the seriousness of the growing food crisis.

13 minute video here: https://news.vice.com/video/food-crisis-in-eastern-ukraine-russian-roulette-dispatch-103
 
 #10
Vice.com
March 31, 2015
Russian Soldiers Have Given Up Pretending They Are Not Fighting in Ukraine
By Alec Luhn

For the past year, the Kremlin has strenuously denied that its troops are supporting pro-Russia rebels in eastern Ukraine - but fighters on the ground are apparently no longer bothering to keep up the farce.

St. Petersburg native Dmitry Sapozhnikov, who went to Ukraine in October to fight alongside the rebels, told the BBC Russian service in a candid interview from Donetsk that Russian military units have played a decisive role in rebel advances, including the operations in February that led to the capture of the transport hub of Debaltseve. Russian officers directly command large military operations in eastern Ukraine, he noted.

"Tanks and Russian units came through the LPR," Sapozhnikov said, referring to the self-declared Luhansk People's Republic on the border with Russia. "But I don't think that this is a secret anymore, everyone admits it, and the Russians admit it.... Thanks to the Russian forces, we're able to take positions quickly. We were located near Debaltseve and thinking, well, we're going to hold them in this encirclement for another month, it will drag on.... But in the end we took it in three days."

Sapozhnikov said that tank units from Siberia were aiding the rebels. His account corresponds with an interview given by an injured Russian soldier in a hospital in Donetsk to the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, in which he said that his tank unit had helped take Debaltseve.

Throughout the conflict, which the United Nations says has killed more than 6,000 people, evidence of Russian military support for the rebels has mounted. Ten Russian paratroopers were captured in Ukraine last August, and NATO published satellite photographs showing what it described as Russian tanks crossing the border that summer. Rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko even admitted around the same time that active-duty Russian troops were fighting with his men, though he claimed that they had chosen to fight while on vacation.

Russian officials including President Vladimir Putin have repeatedly denied that their soldiers are in Ukraine, arguing that the Russians who are fighting there are all volunteers.

Sapozhnikov himself is one such volunteer, a leader of a fringe monarchist party in St. Petersburg who said he left his business renovating homes to help defend Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine and oppose Kiev's shift toward the West. As the leader of a special forces unit of the Donetsk People's Republic, he also took part in the bloody battle for the Donetsk airport, which the rebels captured in January after months of fighting.

He admitted the Russian military has been instrumental to their success.

"Naturally, all operations, especially large-scale ones like encirclements, are directed by Russian soldiers, Russian generals," Sapozhnikov said. "They make plans together with our commanders. I often had to go to the headquarters to provide some information."

The Novaya Gazeta interview with tank crewmember Dorji Batomunkuev, who was recovering from severe burns that left his hands and face covered in bandages, offered further details about how Russian soldiers have been secretively deployed to Ukraine.

Drafted into the army in 2013, Batomunkuev was placed in a newly created battalion last fall. The battalion's 31 tanks and their crews were sent to the border region of Rostov, ostensibly for training, but Batomunkuev said that he knew they would be sent to Ukraine. They painted over the emblems and numbers on their tanks, removed the patches and chevrons from their uniforms, and turned in their passports, phones, and military IDs. After three months of exercises, they were sent forward one day and only realized that they had crossed into Ukraine when they started seeing road signs for Donetsk.

"We understood that the whole war depended on us," he said. "That's why they'd beaten the training into us those previous three months. We were well prepared, both our snipers and other troops."

The unit eventually was deployed near Debaltseve, where it shelled Ukrainian positions. Batomunkuev was injured when an enemy shell hit his tank. Although he sympathized with the conscripts on the Ukrainian government side, he also argued that Ukrainian forces had killed civilians and hired "mercenaries" from Poland and Chechnya.

Batomunkuev called Putin "crafty" for denying that he had sent troops to Ukraine, and stressed that Kiev's turn to the West was endangering Russia's interests.

"From what I've read and the history I've studied, Russia's opinions have started to be reckoned with in recent years," he said. "Nowadays, we're on the rise again, we are being treated with contempt again, but we haven't disintegrated yet."

Asked why the Kremlin has continued to deny the presence of its soldiers in Ukraine, Sapozhnikov said that he thought there might be a "secret agreement" between Russia, the European Union, and the United States to look the other way. He expressed that Putin was likely using the same strategy that he employed with the annexation of Crimea in March: initially denying the deployment of Russian troops, then admitting it once the territory had been won.

"If the EU and the USA wanted to prove that Russia's forces are located here, I think it would be easy to do," Sapozhnikov said. "They would just go and photograph the armor and everything. But they're not doing that, they're closing their eyes. And the Russians for their part close their eyes to the presence of American and European soldiers on the Ukrainian side."

He claimed that 300 foreign soldiers, including Americans and Europeans, had been captured in Debaltseve, and that "most of them were snipers" - although he admitted that he hadn't seen any of them himself.

Although the US and United Kingdom have sent military advisors to Ukraine this year, and a handful of European volunteers have been known to be fighting on Kiev's side, no Western combat troops have been reported. The West has also been sending non-lethal military supplies to Ukraine, including a shipment of US Humvees that arrived last week.

Sapozhnikov also said that his unit had been preparing earlier this month for a potential assault on Mariupol, a strategic port city that pro-Russia forces briefly held last year. Although the ceasefire declared in February has been mostly observed in recent weeks, Kiev worries that the city will be the next target of separatist forces.

"We're going to fight until we free the territory of Donbas," Sapozhnikov said, referring to the coal-mining area that comprises the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. "I hope that happens in the near future, but I'm ready to be here for another year or two."
 
 Ukraine Today
http://uatoday.tv
April 1, 2015
SBU's Nalyvaichenko: Russian security services deploying headquarters in Donbas

Russian special forces provide training to Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples' Republics militant organizations, Ukraine officials say

UNIAN: Russian special services have set up headquarters to lead the organization of sabotage and terrorist attacks, and for the training and recruiting of militants, the head of Ukraine's SBU Security Service Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said on April 1.

The most dangerous terrorist groups that receive funding and weapons from Russia are currently acting in Luhansk and Donetsk regions, Nalyvaichenko said in an interview with the Ukrainian newspaper Den: "All terrorist acts that take place on the territory of Ukraine (controlled and temporarily not controlled by us) are organized and carried out under the leadership of the Russian special forces," Nalyvaichenko said.

"Using modern mines and other explosives, they commit acts of terrorism in the south and east of the country. We have detained and will detain such people in these regions of Ukraine."

Nalyvaichenko said Russian special forces on the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions provide training and education for the so-called "security ministries" of the Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples' Republics militant organizations.

"Russian special forces also assist in ensuring communications between the terrorists, providing them with ammunition, Russian armored vehicles, and transport into our territory the weapons for committing crimes against humanity. We know all this and are gathering evidence for criminal cases against the DPR and LPR terrorist organizations."
 
 #12
Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
April 1, 2015
Nalivaychenko to purge, reorganize SBU along OUN-UPA lines
http://politnews.net/6079
By J.Hawk

SBU head Nalivaychenko gave an interview in which he said two things of interest:

1. He is aggressively purging the organization of its mid-level management. This is consistent with earlier statements by Poroshenko that a year ago 80% of SBU were FSB agents (!), which is why it was not able to prevent the Crimea and Donbass secession.

2. He believes that the best experience on which the SBU can rely is that of OUN-UPA counter-intelligence between 1930-1950. This implies a highly ideologized political secret police which is more concerned with maintaining a specific ideology or political course, rather than the integrity of the state.

How Ukraine intends to maintain its territorial integrity is a mystery that grows with every passing day. One day Poroshenko or Yatsenyuk claim ownership of victory over fascism, while the next they embrace OUN-UPA and other aspects of Ukrainian nationalism. These are entirely incompatible traditions--you can embrace one or the other (and then watch the other half of the country drift away), but not both. Then there's the question of neighboring countries, none of which view the OUN-UPA as a benign phenomenon.

As a side note, the emphasis on ideological purity and reliance on the most fanatical factions of Ukraine's political spectrum suggests Poroshenko increasingly views the domestic situation as the greatest threat to his power--which of course he should. I suppose the good news is that if most money, personnel, and attention is focused on the SBU, it makes life easier for the Donbass.
 
 #13
www.rt.com
April 2, 2015
Putin spokesman slams the Times 'demonizing' Russia over perceived nuclear threat

Russia never threatened to use nuclear weapons over Crimea and the Baltic States, according to Vladimir Putin's press secretary. The Kremlin official added the claims were simply 'hysteria' and a 'classic example' of the West's demonization of Russia.

"This is a classic example of the continuing hysteria and the demonization of our country. They themselves are fanning the flames concerning this. However, it is not guided by any particular facts and they themselves are afraid of what they wrote," Peskov told reporters.

The Times newspaper said that President Putin was using the threat of a "nuclear showdown" over the Baltic States, to force NATO to back away from Russia's border. They made the claims after obtaining notes of high-level security talks between former Russian and American security chiefs.

US officials stated that President Putin was ready to respond forcibly to any further NATO build-up of troops in the Baltic States and they would deliver "a spectrum of responses from nuclear to non-military," the Times added.

The American military figures also stated that the Russian generals allegedly raised three flashpoints that "could lead to a direct and possibly even nuclear confrontation between the two nations."

According to the Times, the potential flashpoints include any attempt by the West to return Crimea to Ukraine, NATO supplying Kiev with lethal weapons and the Baltic States, where according to the US officials, Russian security figures said they saw, "the same conditions that existed in Ukraine and caused Russia to take action there."

Celebrating the Crimean Spring anniversary in Sevastopol. (RIA Novosti/Evgeny Biyatov)Celebrating the Crimean Spring anniversary in Sevastopol. (RIA Novosti/Evgeny Biyatov)

Peskov added it is "impossible to seriously acknowledge such publications." Putin's press secretary said Russia had never threatened to use nuclear weapons in connection with events in Crimea. Those who wrote the articles hadn't bothered to read the original source, which were Vladimir Putin's words concerning the recently released documentary, aired on Russian television, 'Crimea - The Way Home.'

"The president talked about this if you remember in the documentary film, which they interpret in different ways. However, they did not even bother to watch it through or even read the transcript," Peskov concluded.

During the documentary, Putin said K-300P Bastion costal defense missiles were deployed in Crimea to demonstrate Russia's willingness to protect the peninsula from military attack.

"We deployed them in a way that made them clearly visibly from space," Putin said in the documentary broadcast on March 15.

The president gave an assurance that the Russian military were prepared for any developments and would have armed nuclear weapons if necessary. Putin said he wasn't sure whether Western nations would refrain from military force against Russia.

"We were ready to do this. I had spoken with colleagues and told them that Crimea is historically our territory and Russian people live there. They were in danger and we could not leave them. We did not create a coup d'�tat. This was done by nationalists and people with extremist beliefs. You supported them. But where are you? Thousands of kilometers away! But we are here and this is our land!" Putin said in the documentary.

Russia has long been critical of NATO carrying out military drills in the Baltic States near its borders.

Thousands of US troops and hundreds of tanks have poured into Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the past two months as part of an operation dubbed "Atlantic Resolve." In February, 140 NATO vehicles and 1,400 troops swept through Narva, a mere 300 meters from the Russian border.

"As you connect countries, there is almost a line of US troops," Defense News cited Colonel Michael Foster of the 173rd Airborne Brigade as saying on March 2. US forces have previously held joint war games with Baltic nations, with names such as "Saber Strike," "Spring Storm" and "Flaming Sword."

A 1997 Russia-NATO agreement forbids the alliance from having troops permanently stationed in the Baltic States, so the deployment remains a temporary mission. However, it's not clear when, if ever, NATO will consider the 'perceived' threat of Russian aggression is no longer valid and withdraw their troops. Drills incorporated into Operation Atlantic Resolve have been taking place since April 2014.
 
 #14
Russia Insider
http://russia-insider.com
April 2, 2015
It's Official - All Kiev's Investigations of Maidan Crimes Deadlocked
Council of Europe report finds that official Ukrainian investigations into crimes committed during the Maidan protests are a total shambles and are going nowhere
By Alexander Mercouris
 
The International Advisory Panel, set up by the Council of Europe to review the progress of the various investigations into the crimes that were committed during the Maidan protests, has now produced its report.

The Panel consists of three members: a British lawyer who was formerly the head of the European Court of Human Rights, and two Ukrainian lawyers.

Media commentary has tended to focus on the highly critical comments in the report concerning the conduct of the investigations by the Ukrainian authorities.

These do indeed constitute the key part of the report. However it is not what is important about the report. To understand what is, it is first necessary to say something about its origins and background and to discuss its contents.

The political institutions of the Council of Europe, which appointed the Panel, have taken a strongly pro-Maidan line throughout the Ukrainian conflict. Not surprisingly therefore, the report has a pro-Maidan position.

Thus it refers to Crimea's reunification with Russia as an "annexation" (paragraph 126). It calls the protesters in Ukraine's eastern regions "pro-Russian groups" (paragraph 132).

More importantly, the report seems interested only in crimes committed against Maidan protesters. It shows little interest in crimes committed by Maidan protesters, even when those crimes involved acts of violence.

Thus the report devotes far less time and space to discussing attacks by the protesters on the police as opposed to attacks by the police on the protesters. This despite the fact that there is a strong case that the attacks by the police on the protesters were mostly provoked by the attacks of the protesters upon the police.

The report has nothing at all to say about the fact that there is abundant film and witness testimony confirming that some of the protesters carried and used firearms during the protests.

The seizure and sacking of public buildings like the Kiev City Administration building by a gang of masked protesters led by Tetiana Chornovol on 1 December 2013, or the burning down of the Kiev office of the Party of the Regions on 18 February 2014, or the damage to the Museum of Kiev on the evening of the same day, are reported without criticism or comment (see paragraphs 26, 71 and 78).

The report devotes much time to the "titushky" (hired civilian supporters of the previous Ukrainian government) making (at paragraph 76) an unsubstantiated claim that they shot at protesters. It seems unaware of the doubts many have expressed about their presence in anything like the numbers the protesters have alleged.

Right Sector is mentioned only once in the whole report and then only in passing (at paragraph 9). Right Sector's leader, Dmitro Yarosh, is mentioned only once (at paragraph 114). His name, however, is not mentioned. He is instead referred to simply as "one of the protesters" who on the night before the coup called for Yanukovych to be removed from power.

Andrei Parubiy, the Maidan "Commandant" responsible for securing Maidan Square for the protesters and a key figure in the protests, is not mentioned at all. Nor is the Maidan Self-Defence Force, which he set up and headed. Nor is the fact that Parubiy subsequently became head of Ukraine's Security Council, which would have put him in a powerful position to influence the investigations. Nor does the report say that after the coup Parubiy used the Maidan Self-Defence Force to form the core of Ukraine's National Guard, which is today the most important paramilitary force maintaining the present Ukrainian government in power.

Lastly, the report speaks of Ukraine's government as having fallen (or "changed") because Yanukovych "fled". It repeats without comment the claim that this caused the Ukrainian parliament to "decide" that Yanukovych had "abandoned his duties as President", leading it to assume power (paragraphs 115 and 116). The report, though otherwise so concerned with legal process, does not concern itself with whether or not this step was constitutional, despite the fact that this has an obvious bearing on the nature of the investigations it is supposed to be examining.

The report also takes basically for granted the illegality of many of the actions of the previous Ukrainian government.

For example, it says the removal of protesters by the riot police from Maidan Square on 30 November 2013 was "unlawful", though it never really explains why. See, for example, the report's detailed discussion at paragraphs 9 to 23, where claims the police acted illegally are made by various individuals who, however, are plainly stating only their opinions. At paragraph 215 this is stated again as the opinion of the Procurator General's Office. The opinions of the previous government's opponents, who overthrew it in order to gain power so as to become the country's present authorities, should not be treated as authoritative on this question.

Despite its fairly clear pro-Maidan bias, the report does nonetheless resolve some uncertainties.

The total number of security forces deployed by the Ukrainian government in Kiev to contain the Maidan protests was no more than 11,000. The military was not involved.

The present Ukrainian authorities no longer say the decision to disperse the protesters on 30 November 2013 was made by Yanukovych himself. Instead the decision is attributed to the Secretary of Ukraine's Security Council, Andrei Klyuyev.

It is now also clear that claims of mass disappearances of Maidan protesters are untrue. The total number of persons missing is now put at eight or even nil (see paragraphs 108 to 111).

The present authorities in Ukraine as of December 2014 appear to have accepted that the assault on the Maidan activist Tetiana Chornovol in December 2013 was the work of the persons who were arrested at the time of the assault by the police.

Chornovol herself, the Maidan movement and the international media insisted at the time that the assault had a political motive. Chornovol even claimed that it was ordered by Yanukovych himself

As to that claim, the report provides no evidence. At paragraph 344 it does, however, say the following: "The PGO submissions to the Panel of December 2014 appear to indicate that the charges under this case file have been re-qualified to one of attempted murder by a group for material gain".

This could point to an attempted contract killing. However, it could equally well point to an attempted murder carried out for some other economic motive - for example theft.

Regardless, it is clear from the report that the investigation has progressed no further than the point it reached in December 2013 when it was being investigated by the police under the previous regime.

That there has been little or no progress in a case even of this sort a whole year after a government, of which Chornovol was for a time a part, came to power should serve as a warning against the repeated demands that are made for rapid solutions of high-profile cases of this sort whether they happen in Ukraine or Russia.

As for Yanukovych, he is in fact spectacularly absent from the whole report. Claims that he personally ordered the violent dispersal or shooting of protesters find no support in it.

Indeed, it is now clear that there is a lack of documentary evidence of illegal orders made whilst the Maidan protests were underway. The report tries to explain this, rather plaintively, by saying that such orders were given verbally or that record of them was destroyed by officials of the previous regime following the coup (paragraph 406).

If orders were made verbally, then that would suggest that members of the previous regime expected it to be overthrown when they gave orders they knew were illegal. Whilst that is possible, it does seem rather unlikely. As for the possibility of records of orders being destroyed, the speed of the takeover following the coup also makes that rather unlikely. A more plausible explanation is surely that there is a lack of documentary evidence of illegal orders because no such orders were given. That of course is what the now exiled members of the previous government say.

For many people the most interesting part of the report is the part that deals with the killing of protesters (including the so-called "Heavenly Hundred") on 20 February 2014.

The report shows that news media reports that most of the people killed on 20 February 2014 were shot by riot police after the police were themselves shot at (see Mark Nicholas "How the West Brought About Kiev Sniper Massacre", Russia Insider, 20 February 2014) have their origins within the Ukrainian investigations.

The Ukrainians claim to have identified the Berkut police unit responsible for most of the killings (paragraph 245). This is clearly the same Berkut police unit discussed in the media reports, which was supposedly driven from Maidan Square after having been itself shot at by armed protesters.

The Ukrainians do not, however, admit that the police were shot at. They even deny there is conclusive evidence that there were snipers present in and around Maidan on the day the massacre took place.

As to that, the report itself makes the point that "as recently as 19 and 20 February 2015 both President Poroshenko and the Chief of the SSU [the Ukrainian Security Service - more often referred to in Russian reports as the SBU] had spoken publicly about the evidence of sniper fire against protesters and law enforcement officers on Maidan and, notably, on 20 February 2014" (paragraph 253).

Instead the Ukrainian investigators claim that "while certain elements could point in that direction [i.e. to the presence of snipers], there was no clear and confirmed material evidence, of any killing or injury by sniper fire" (paragraph 254).

The Ukrainians have tried to muddle the issue by claiming that it is supposedly very difficult or even impossible to tell the difference between gunshot wounds caused by shots from a 7.62 mm Kalashnikov automatic rifle as used by the police and gunshot wounds caused by a 7.62 mm Dragunov sniper rifle as supposedly used by snipers.

This line of argument is absurd.

The ammunition of the two rifles, though the same caliber, is actually completely different.

Putting that aside, since the Ukrainians themselves admit that Kalashnikovs have the necessary range to have been used by the snipers shooting from Maidan Square or its vicinity (always assuming of course that there were any) this whole discussion about types of wounds caused by two different types of rifles is a complete red herring (see paragraph 257).

To add to the absurdity, the Ukrainians have tried to muddle the issue even more by claiming that if there were any snipers present (something they do not of course "confirm"), they might have belonged to a "third force", by which they quite obviously mean the Russian state security agency, the FSB.

As to that, the Panel points out "the PGO [Procurator General's Office] confirmed to the Panel that there was no confirmed evidence, as at November 2014, of third force involvement and no firm view as to the identity or intention of any such force" (paragraph 259).

In paragraph 261 the Panel makes its skepticism of all these Ukrainian denials and fantasies clear to anyone accustomed to reading documents of this sort. At this point, if not before, the Panel would have lost confidence in the objectivity and competence of the investigators. The report in fact shows that the Panel's confidence in the investigators was indeed at the very least badly shaken (see below).

Reports by the BBC and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, discussed by Mark Nicholas in Russia Insider on 20 February 2015, have overtaken this part of the Report.

These reports include an interview with a self-confessed sniper who was part of the Maidan Self-Defence force. He says he was stationed in the Kiev Conservatory building on Maidan Square. He claims to have shot at police with a Saiga hunting rifle, which is a civilian adaption of the Kalashnikov rifle the police were using. It can be rifled to use the same 7.62 mm ammunition as the Kalashnikov, and the BBC report in fact says the sniper told them that it was equipped with high-velocity rounds.

Whilst this interview does not put the question of the existence of the snipers beyond doubt, the evidence for their presence is now so strong that it is becoming increasingly difficult to deny it. The unconvincing way the Ukrainian investigators deny their presence - or try to claim they were Russian - shows how difficult and embarrassing this issue has become.

The purpose of the report - as its authors repeatedly say - is not, however, to investigate the events that took place in and around Maidan Square during the protests, or to make judgments about guilt or innocence, but to look at the way the Ukrainian investigations are being conducted.

Its conclusions are scathing (paragraphs 376 to 520 and the summary of conclusions and recommendations in paragraphs 521 to 540).

The report speaks of three rival investigations - by the Interior Ministry, the Procurator General's Office and the Ukrainian Secret Service. Far from working together to a common purpose, the three investigations barely communicate with each other.

Each investigation has totally different data recording techniques.

The Interior Ministry is actively obstructing the rival investigation carried out by the Procurator General's Office.

The investigation carried out by the Secret Service is all but invisible and has achieved no results.

The investigation carried out by the Procurator General's Office lacks strong leadership and is disastrously under-resourced and under-staffed.

All three investigations are chaotic and are being conducted behind a veil of secrecy.

Only the one conducted by the Procurator General's Office was willing to cooperate with the Panel to any great degree - which is why, incidentally, it is its opinions and conclusions that dominate the report. This is especially ironic since (as the Report itself grudgingly admits) the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights have repeatedly criticized the investigative functions of the Procurator General's Office in former Soviet states, including Ukraine.

None of the investigations is truly independent of the political authorities. There are obvious conflicts of interest with officials involved in investigating events in which they were themselves involved.

All three investigations face constant interference and obstruction, not just from each other but sometimes from their own officials as well as from outside.

The report makes harsh comments about how the investigations are being obstructed by the practice of granting amnesties - without, incidentally, mentioning that the practice was insisted on and initiated by the Maidan movement during the protests.

The report complains bitterly about obstruction by the courts. It makes exceptionally harsh (and possibly unfair) criticisms of Judge Volkova, the judge who granted bail to a police officer who the investigators say commanded the Berkut police unit that was responsible for the bulk of the killings on 20 February 2014.

This particular police officer subsequently escaped and his whereabouts are unknown. The Panel makes clear its belief his escape was arranged by the Interior Ministry.

The report complains about a "culture of impunity" on the part of Berkut police officers in relation to the investigations.

Overall, the report's conclusion is that all three investigations are going nowhere. The report lists the various incidents being investigated (paragraphs 353 to 366). There is deadlock and stalemate in every case.

In truth, to someone of a more skeptical view, the true lesson of the report is of the Maidan movement's infinite capacity to disappoint the more ill-informed (or naive) amongst its Western supporters.

There have been no more staunch supporters of the Maidan revolution and of the Maidan movement than the political institutions of the Council of Europe. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, for example, has taken an exceptionally strongly pro-Maidan line throughout the conflict. It has also been harshly critical of Russia, on occasion suspending its voting rights.

The report clearly reflects this bias. As we have seen, the three members of the Panel (two of whom are Ukrainians) obviously accept the Maidan movement's version of events. They clearly came to Ukraine assuming the good faith of the new authorities and of their investigators.

What they discovered instead was a total shambles. Moreover, it is a shambles spiced up with fantasies of Russian involvement and with denial and obfuscation of the most obvious facts.

The Panel seems to have found no sign of any serious will to find out the truth. Since the members of the Panel assume the truth to be what the Maidan movement has told them, their disappointment and frustration is obvious.

In the end, they simply could not give the investigations the clean bill of health, which was what their original expectation probably was.

The reality is that there is simply no way the truth about what happened during the Maidan protests will ever be established through enquiries set up by a government controlled by the Maidan movement.

It is simply naive to think so. The present Ukrainian government owes its very existence to the Maidan protests. It is never going to allow investigations into those protests which can only end up debunking the myths about the protests which are also the present Ukrainian government's own foundation myths.

The episode of the police officer who was able to escape after being granted bail is a case in point.

The Panel is probably right to think his escape was arranged by the authorities. Quite possibly it was the work of the Interior Ministry. However, the Panel is almost certainly wrong about the motive.

The police officer may indeed be guilty of serious crimes. He may indeed be in a position to implicate officials more senior than himself.

The more important concern, however, is surely that the police officer is also a key witness to what actually happened on the day of the massacre. The present Ukrainian authorities simply cannot risk putting him on trial if he is a witness to the fact that he gave an order to shoot only because his men were already being shot at. That would explode the myth of "peaceful protesters" being brutally shot down by the repressive agencies of a corrupt and tyrannical government, which is the whole justification for the coup.

Quite apart from the fact that debunking one of the Maidan movement's central myths would call into question the whole legitimacy of the February coup and of the present Ukrainian government, it would also seriously implicate senior members of the Maidan movement such as Andrei Parubiy and Dmitro Yarosh, who played a key role in the protests and the coup (even though they are not named in the report) and who remain powerful figures in Ukrainian politics to this day.

The true lesson of the report is that it again shows the extent to which the West's embrace of the Maidan movement is irreconcilable with its own stated principles.

Western politicians and journalists, up to a certain point, have the freedom to pretend otherwise.

Lawyers, such as the senior British lawyer who was previously President of the European Court of Human Rights and who chaired the Panel, do not have that freedom to the same degree. The law limits them. However partial they are, their duties as lawyers place limits on what they can say or do.

In the end, despite bending over backwards to accommodate Maidan, the Panel found it impossible to square the circle. The investigations into the events of Maidan are simply too politicized and too chaotic for even the most sympathetic Western lawyers to endorse them. This, incidentally, means that there is almost no chance that the European Court of Human Rights will uphold any convictions produced by them.

This alone should call into question Ukraine's prospects of joining the EU any time soon. A condition of EU membership is adherence to the European Convention on Human Rights. As the report shows, Ukraine for the moment simply cannot adhere to the European Convention on Human Rights even in relation to investigations into the most important events of its recent history.

Far from integrating itself with what are said to be European norms, Ukraine is actually drifting further away from them. Whether that is something either Western or Ukrainian politicians are willing to accept is another matter.
 
 #15
Kyiv Post
March 30, 2015
The roots of Russia's disdain for Ukraine
By Alexei Bayer

Abraham Lincoln opened his Gettysburg Address with these famous words: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation..."

What he had in mind was that the United States as a nation began with the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 - as well as a century and a half earlier, when a group of English Puritans landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620.

All nations have a story to tell how they came into being. Some are rooted in ancient history while others, including numerous new nations that arose on the ruins of European colonial expansion, tie their emergence to more recent events. But whether mythical or historical, those origins are always connected to the land those nations inhabit.

Not so Russia. It may be the only major nation to locate its origins in a foreign country. Every Russian school kid learns that his country's history began on the banks of the Dnipro, in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine.

It is as if Americans had decided to trace their history back in the time of William the Conqueror or the War of the Roses.

This may seem like a minor thing, but it explains a great deal in the average Russian's attitude toward Ukrainians. If Russia is a direct descendant of historic Kyivan Rus, how can another nation equally trace its origins to it - a nation, moreover, still occupying the same territory?

Thisis where it all comes from: the stubborn conviction in Russia that the Ukrainian language is, at best, a corrupted form of Russian or, at worst, an artificial construct made up by the Austrians in order to divide the single Russian people.

I had a Russian cousin in Kyiv who worked as an editor at a Ukrainian publishing house and a Jewish one, Sheli Krentsel, who worked on the academic Ukrainian-Russian dictionary published in the waning years of the Soviet Union. Their relatives in Moscow could never understand why they bothered with what was, in their opinion, a lowly dialect of Russian.

Vladimir Putin recently declared that Ukrainians and Russians are "one folk" - meaning, of course, that Ukrainians are Russian. An extraordinary number of his countrymen share this belief. Imagine a prime minister of the United Kingdom insisting that Americans are not a nation but merely Brits with funny accents. But it is even more ridiculous than that: it's as though the Italian president would lay claim on Spain - or one of Spain's former colonies in Latin America - asserting that the Spanish language is a bastardized form of Italian.

Russia's attitude to Ukraine and things Ukrainian reflects deeply ingrained imperial complexes, revealing that, while the Soviet Empire collapsed in 1991, the Russian Empire still lingers in the minds of the citizens of the Russian Federation. And, one of the strangest things this past year has been the number people with Ukrainian surnames, many of them also born in Ukraine but now living in Russia, who spew hatred for their native land.

Ukraine is pivotal for Russia's imperial ambitions. Muscovy became the Russian Empire only with the acquisition of Ukraine, and it can't remain an empire without Ukraine. On a psychological level, its loss is as painful to Russia as the loss of Ireland was for the British crown, and in geographical terms, it is Ukraine that makes the Empire a player in Central and Southern Europe as well as a dominant power on the Black Sea. Without Ukraine, Russia is still an enormous landmass, but it is stuck somewhere in northern wilderness, without a direct stake in European affairs.

Such imperial thinking is a relic of the past, of course. Today, you no longer need territorial presence to exert influence in the world. The United States has stopped its territorial expansion more than a century ago, but thanks to its economic, cultural and political preeminence it has been a truly global power.

Even more starkly, China went from the backwaters of the world to center stage in a few short years, holding economic and political sway over Central Asia, across sub-Saharan Africa, in Latin America and, increasingly, in Southern and Eastern Europe. It is also pushing into Eastern Siberia and de facto reclaiming the land it lost to Russia in the 19th century - without ever needing to redraw any physical borders.

Russia, meanwhile, is trying to gather its "sacred" and "historic" territories while missing out completely on what actually matters in the modern world and squandering its remaining international standing. Deep down, Russians understand that they are sliding back into the 19th, but instead of changing their own behavior they are spewing impotent hatred against the way the modern world is structured.

Some Ukrainians get drawn into a contest with the Russian propaganda machine, striving to prove that their language is a real thing and is even closer to other Slavic tongues than the Russian. Seizing on a recent genetics study, showing that most ethnic Russians are actually descendents of the Finno-Ugric tribes populating much of modern-day European Russia, they are claiming that Russians are not even part of the community of Slavic people.

The truth is that people are not dogs or horses and their blood lines make no difference whatsoever. Nationality has always been a matter of self-identifications. Today's French nation no longer consists of descendent of Gauls, Franks and Romans; many of today's "typical Frenchmen" are one generation out of Algeria, Cameroon, Poland or Vietnam. And Palestinians have clung to their distinct nationhood despite persistent efforts to make them into "generic" Arabs or Jordanians.

Rather than engaging Russia in a futile pre-modern discourse about race and ethnicity, Ukrainians should integrate into multicultural, multiracial, tolerant Europe.

As for Russia, it would have done a lot better if after the collapse of the Soviet Union it had declared itself a new nation, born on the day it rose up to defeat the hardline communist coup in August 1991. Had it started from a blank page, the way the United States did in 1776, it might have freed itself of its damaging 19th century imperial hangups.

Not all is lost, however. The Russian Empire is on its death throes. It has never been going through such a severe crisis. Even during the dark decades of Stalinist Great Terror, the Soviet Union retained a decent education system, it supported science and culture and invested into the economy. At least there was some hope for a better future.

Putin's Russia may not be as murderous, but it is grotesque corruption and cynicism are wholly unprecedented. Underneath the talk of a strong "vertical of power" Russia is suffering from a complete collapse of all state and social institutions.

It is an agony, but it also means that a few years down the road Russia may get another chanceat a new beginning. Once Putin is gone and Putinism is condemned and rejected by the Russian people, the Russian nation may be able to start again on a blank page.
 
 #16
The Kremlin Stooge
https://marknesop.wordpress.com
March 31, 2015
Alexei Bayer Dips a Toe Into the Gene Pool
By Mark Chapman

You all remember Alexei Bayer, right? The "native Muscovite" - which I suppose is technically true although he left the land of his birth while a teenager and moved to the Land Of Opportunity, where he is now an economist living in New York.  For an economist he seems to have an awful lot of free time to write about subjects other than economics, which he does prolifically, for authoritative sources such as The Moscow Times and The Kyiv Post.

Not content with dominating merely two fields, however, he has recently sundered the surly bonds of academia and branched out into genealogy. Making his DNA debut in The Kyiv Post, Alexei solves the mystery of why the rascally Moskali are so scornful of Ukrainians - the true nobility of Eastern Europe. Hold onto your hats, folks; this is big.

Most Russians are not Slavs at all, but descendants of the Finno-Ugric tribes. Lyosha does not advance that theory himself - relying instead on some "recent study" which he does not cite - but he is happy to pass it along as credible. That's his job.

He hastens to soothe that it doesn't really matter where you're from; bloodlines are not important in people the way they are in horses or dogs, and Russians don't have to hate on Ukrainians because Russians are not real Slavs and Ukrainians are. They should get with the times and acknowledge that nationality has always been a matter of self-identification. Remember that astonishing statement, because you'll be hearing it again.

First, though, let's put that startling discovery on hold for a moment, and go back to the beginning; where is Lyosha getting his core tenet - that Russians exhibit "disdain" for Ukrainians? Since, as best I can make out, the situation is completely reversed?

"Remember, you're Olenka; if you want to be called Alyona, you have to pack your bags and go to Moscow" exhorts west-Ukrainian mental patient Irina Farion, guardian of the purity of the Ukrainian language, speaking to a child in nursery school who looks to be about four years old. The former member of the Soviet Communist Party and one-time member of the Ukrainian Parliament (from Lviv Oblast, ground zero for Russian hatred and Bandera worship in Ukraine) found her groove as a disciple of Nazi enabler Stepan Bandera and a hater of everything Russian. Responding to a report of arrested protesters in Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, Farion said, "I would act much tougher; I would just shoot them. The enemy reigns in our land. These parasites deserve only one thing - death".  Hear that, Alexei - or should I call you "Oleksandr"? That means you, too. Now might be a good time for you to exercise that self-identification you spoke of, and declare yourself Ukrainian born. Lucky for you the wheels are coming off her wagon and she now sees little Kremlin agents snorkeling in her soup.

Meanwhile, social change was proceeding apace on its own before nutjobs decided to hijack the language issue and ride it into battle. In 1990-91, 48% of schoolchildren nationwide were receiving instruction in the Ukrainian language.  A decade later the percentage was 73.5%.

Fellow Ukrainian government psycopath Arsen Avakov said on television that Kiev should have bombed the  Regional Administration Building in Donetsk when protesters seized it. Nobody from the west said "Shut your mouth, Avakov, protesters have every right to be there", the way they did during the Glorious Maidan, when Angela Merkel moaned that protesters must be granted a warm room in which they could wind down from the chilly excitement of protesting (thus excusing their occupation of government buildings where they did thousands of dollars worth of damage), and to use as their "logistical base" from which to plan their next move. See how it works? When it's a group of hairbags who have the west's backing because what they want to do serves western interests, the crying towel comes out. When that's not the case, the state is perfectly within its right to suppress dissent.

Where was all that flannel about self-identification, Lyosha, when the people of the eastern Ukraine identified themselves as a distinct society that would not be subject to Kiev's orders, and would use its language of choice to the extent it chose, although it wished to remain an autonomous republic of Ukraine?

In the world of hate-twisted western bootlicker and useless popinjay Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the U.S. State Department's hand-picked Prime Minister of Ukraine, it was the USSR that invaded peaceful Nazi Germany. You can only imagine the  collective gasp from the world if Vladimir Putin had so blithely rewritten history on international television. After Yatsenyuk's reversal of history everyone knows to be correct...crickets.

And Russia's reaction? Mild official complaints, and an  offer to extend Ukraine's gas discount for an additional three months, to a country which publicly and regularly vilifies Russia, screams that it is being cheated and refuses to pay its debts. In fact, Lyosha, I challenge you publicly - come on this forum and provide examples of Russia's "disdain for Ukraine". Don't even bother to try on that "Putin said Ukraine is not even a real country", either, because he didn't ever say that and the only evidence you will find is westerners who claim to have heard him say it, just like that lying Polish sausage Radek Sikorski said Putin offered to split Ukraine with Poland. "Russia's attitude to Ukraine and things Ukrainian reflects deeply ingrained imperial complexes, revealing that, while the Soviet Empire collapsed in 1991, the Russian Empire still lingers in the minds of the citizens of the Russian Federation". That so, Alexei? Explain how, and give examples.

In fact, it is NATO that continued in decades past to aggressively expand its empire, and shouted its right to push right up against the face of Russia itself.

Back to Alexei's startling discovery that Russians are mostly not even Slavs, which makes ridiculous the notion that Russians and Ukrainians could be "brother Slavs".

Both "modern Russian" and Ukrainian, as well as Byelorussian, are descended from Common Slavonic or Proto-Slavonic, a language that is itself descended from Indo-European, and which was developed and spoken by the Slavic Tribes after their separation from the Indo-European Tribes. The three languages mentioned at the beginning of the paragraph originated as mutually intelligible dialectal forms, and remain so. Common Slavonic is also referred to as "Old Russian". From this language there was a further split, into modern Russian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian, spoken by the group identified as Eastern Slavs. Although written Ukrainian emerged in 988, it was not recognized as a language until 1906. Byelorussian was not recognized as a distinct language until after the Russian revolution of 1917.

Every modern study places the Russian and Ukrainian people among the East Slavs, along with the Byelorussians, as reflected in the common root of their present languages. The Finno-Ugric natives in Russia were already there, and were either pushed out or assimilated by the Russian expansion. Doubtless some common roots remain - examples are the present-day Yakut and Udmurt people, although of those only the Udmurt are of Finno-Ugric descent. The Udmurt number only about 1.5 million in a nation of 144 million. Alexei Bayer is full of shit. I would be remiss if I did not point out that the Udmurt in Russia have their own Republic, flag, anthem and coat of arms within Russia.

"Vladimir Putin recently declared that Ukrainians and Russians are "one folk" - meaning, of course, that Ukrainians are Russian. An extraordinary number of his countrymen share this belief. Imagine a prime minister of the United Kingdom insisting that Americans are not a nation but merely Brits with funny accents." Increasingly bizarre extrapolations from this serial prevaricator. The painstaking research of hundreds of academics suggests if not proves that Russians and Ukrainians are indeed "one folk" - the suggestion that this means Ukrainians are Russians was never offered by Putin, and you can thank Bayer and Bayer alone, the economist/writer/geneticist, for the spurious interpretation. Putin likewise did not ever say that Ukraine was not a nation, and this is merely more of Bayer's barefaced lying.

Everyone knows who the native Americans are, and there are damned few of them left. He could have picked a better example, considering Russia mostly assimilated the native populations of lands which currently form the Russian Federation, and many still retain their language and elements of their culture. Can one say the same of the Comanche, Apache, Pawnee and Blackfoot tribes?

Winding up this broadside of bullshit, following a brief discourse on "what actually matters in the modern world" according to Alexei the Globetrotting Philosopher, is his hallmark hypothesis that "The Russian Empire is in its death throes". Bla, bla, fucking bla, how many times have we heard this? Alexei Bayer has been forecasting the "death of the Russian Empire", whatever that is, for almost 10 years now. Just as well Jimi Hendrix didn't spend so long in his death throes - he might have lived to write disco.

This specious flattery of the Ukrainians at the expense of the Russians is all of a piece with the western effort to drive a wedge of hate between Russians and Ukrainians that can never be removed. If it continues, the west may well end up with nothing but a tiny piece of what was once Ukraine, populated by Nazi-worshipers with a sense of entitlement the size of the Dubai Shopping Mall, who will expect to be given everything for free in exchange for their steadfast clinging to a fanatic's ideology. It would be well to remember this sentiment is not shared at the state level by any Russians, nor by most Ukrainians. It is a narrow and western-driven viewpoint that, as usual, serves western foreign policy interests. On the one side, centuries of academic research demonstrating our very best conclusions as questing, curious knowledge seekers that Ukrainians and Russians descend from the same ethnic group, and that origin is neither Ukrainian or Russian. On the other, Alexei Bayer with his oleaginous tapestry of twaddle, the Ukrainian junta of fascists, oligarchs and strategically-injected foreigners, and the western political and business lobby.

You pays your money, and you takes your chances.
 
 #17
The Ukrainian Week
http://ukrainianweek.com
April 1, 2015
Adrift In Washington
The reasons for American inaction
By Stephen Blank    
Stephen Blank is Senior Fellow American Foreign Policy council

As of late March 2015 and despite multiple calls and pressures for aiding Ukraine the Obama Administration still refuses to send Ukraine lethal weapons for its defense against Russia's continuing aggression.  Indeed, only on March 20 did it finally agree to send trainers for Ukraine's National Guard, not its army.  Administration officials have openly stated the reasons for this policy but here we offer a deeper analysis of what lies beneath those statements.

Depending on which official is speaking we find the following arguments.  Since Ukraine is not a member of NATO neither America nor NATO is obligated to defend it or send it arms.  Neither does the 1994 Budapest Agreement represent a guarantee.  Instead it offers assurances that may or may not be fulfilled.  Others have argued against financial assistance because allegedly the money will be stolen due to pervasive corruption although that argument has recently faded away.  But its military corollary is that either Ukrainian troops and the military command are riddled with Russian spies or they will not know how to use the assistance. Although Russian penetration is certainly well-documented; the Afghan Mujahadeen, who were rather backward technologically compared to Ukrainians, learned how to use the Stinger anti-aircraft missile sufficiently well to eject the Soviets from Afghanistan.  Therefore that argument conceals deeper reasons for withholding aid.

There are fundamentally three reasons beyond those arguments for Washington's timorous response to this aggression.  First, US policy emphasizes allied unity above all.  It therefore moves at the speed of the slowest ship in the convoy.  Our European allies are visibly and predictably terrified of any escalation because mentally and materially no European government is ready to fully acknowledge the scale of the Russian threat and the sacrifices that must be made to resist it.  Indeed, many European countries reduced defense spending last year despite this war.  Moreover, virtually every European government and therefore Washington also believes that not only are they not obligated to defend Ukraine but also that sending it arms will only worsen the situation.  Allegedly Russia enjoys what specialists call escalation dominance.  Second, for Russia and Putin Ukraine is a vital issue and for them and Washington it is not such an issue.  Indeed, Washington is clearly more exercised about the threat of ISIL and of Iran.  There are also those in the White House and Washington who still hope to resume arms control negotiations for which Russia would be an indispensable partner.

Consequently because those threats are supposedly greater and Ukraine is less vital we now and in the future need Russian help.  And since these elites reason circularly that here is nothing we can do to make things better other than sanctions we should not send arms as that will only provoke Putin to escalate in ways we cannot match or worse this might provoke a major, even nuclear war in Europe.  Here they use the phrase an asymmetry of will, or in other words, supposedly Russia wants Ukraine more.  More accurately, the y fear Putin more than he fears us.  At the same time many officials dismiss Russia as a terminally declining power.  Therefore Ukrainians must learn to live with it and just let it gradually decline just as Germany lived with the wall for 28 years because the alternatives are all worse.

Actually these arguments reflect the strategic illiteracy and incompetence of both the Obama Administration and Europe. Even more distressingly they also reveal the fear and lack of will to confront strategic realities that grips these governments.  Undoubtedly Ukraine is a vital issue for Putin who has staked his and Russia's future on it.  But what these governments fail to realize is that Ukraine's fate is no less vital to their and European security if not the overall international order. Putin does not only want to destroy any possibility of an independent sovereign Ukrainian state, he wants to destroy the order created in 1989-91 and his spokesmen and apologists increasingly openly say so.  To the extent that we shirk from defending that order and Ukraine as we promised to do we actually facilitate a broader and greater European crisis.

Those political figures who argue thusly resemble Churchill's analogy of European leaders who cravenly appeased Hitler and Mussolini hoping,  in  his words,  that the crocodile would eat them last.  They refuse to see Russia's threat for what it is and cling to the already disproven hope that Putin can somehow be bought off or that we can find "an off-ramp" so that he can exit gracefully and we can return to something like business as usual.  Such thinking not only reflects fear of Rusisa and of sacrificing anything to defend their own liberty and security, it also fails to grasp that while Putin may seek rest stops where he can refuel his  car; he intends to go further.  Even now the Minsk II agreement is collapsing with multiple Russian violations occurring every day.

Similarly the argument about escalation dominance is misplaced.  Some officials actually invoke Robert McNamara's action reaction syndrome without realizing that it was disproven thirty years ago.  They also ignore signs that the Russian army may be reaching its culminating points.  Heavy casualties,  also reported by NATO,  are forcing it to create units from the Russian Far East and Central Asia and it is opening the jails to Chechens and others with promises of freedom and payment if they will fight. Russia is also expending enormous amounts of artillery shells as it economy sags ever more and the defense burden becomes increasingly onerous.  Meanwhile NATO, the strongest military alliance in the world, has done little or nothing.  There is also little thought  given to  acting strategically,  i.e.  not just sending arms but combining arms, military training, large-scale economic assistance to  force reforms,  energy exports to undermine Russia's economy and standing in Europe, and a large-scale information campaign to break Russia's dominance here.  These leaders refuse or cannot grasp that it is essential and within our capacity to respond strategically to Russia to take the initiative away from Moscow and make Putin worry about our escalation rather than worry about his.  Given NATO's resources, if it had the will it could, under American leadership, wrest the strategic initiative away from Putin.  But instead Washington and European capitals are immobilized by their own fear, complacency and unwillingness to take Russia and its threats seriously.

The Russian proverb notes that fear has big eyes but that is only true when the intended victim also suffers form  myopia and faint heartedness.  Already Moscow is preparing a new offensive to seize more Ukrainian lands and all we have is empty rhetoric and mounting signs of EU disunity and lack of leadership.  We may call the response to date a policy but it would be more accurate to call it a craven, even shameful abdication of policy and strategy that is only storing up greater costs for the inevitable larger crisis that will sooner rather than later strike not just Ukraine but Europe if not also America.
 

 #18
Christian Science Monitor
April 1, 2015
Kremlin says Russians are drinking less and exercising more. Are they?
Only to a degree, say analysts.
By Fred Weir, Correspondent  

MOSCOW - The Kremlin says Russians are drinking and smoking far less and exercising far more than just a few years ago. Has Russia finally gotten the upper hand on the chronic health problems that have caused its demographic decline?

Maybe not. Experts warn that while Russians do appear to be living healthier lives now, the improvement shown in figures gathered by Rosstat, the official statistics agency, are likely an effort to demonstrate that President Vladimir Putin is fulfilling three-year-old election pledges.

"The statistics are not clear," says Margarita Pozdnyakova, an expert with the official Institute of Sociology in Moscow. "Many researchers do say there's a slight tendency for people to drink less, but is another part of the population just using more exotic drugs? As for tobacco, the impression is that Russians smoke as much as in the past."

The report says that smoking among adult Russians fell dramatically, from more than 33 percent in 2008 to around 28 percent five years later, while per capita consumption of alcohol dropped from more than 16 liters (4.2 gallons) annually to less than 12 liters (3.1 gallons) in the same period. It also said that almost one in three Russians claimed to be "exercising regularly" in 2014, up from about one in five two years earlier.

Alcohol abuse has also abated sharply, it claims. Alcoholism has long plagued Russia, contributing to the premature death of 37 percent of Russian men in the 1990s. Though that figure has dropped in the Putin era, it remains high by world standards. According to the study, the death rate from alcohol poisoning plunged from 9.7 people per 100,000 in 2013 to 8.9 just one year later.

Ms. Pozdnyakova says Rosstat figures only reflect liquor sold through registered shops, while a great deal of alcohol here is traditionally "samagon," or moonshine. The amount of illegal liquor could be on the rise; prices for legal spirits are growing sharply due to inflation and government-imposed excise taxes.

Still, alcoholic drinks in Russia remain extremely cheap by world standards. A half-liter bottle of vodka can be bought for as little as 240 rubles, about $4, in Moscow.

"It's hard to nail this down exactly, but our studies show that alarming numbers of people are still drinking, including teenagers," she says.

It's a very controversial subject in Russia, where a severe demographic crisis dating from the awful decade following the collapse of the USSR is only now being felt in the form of a shrinking labor force, fewer potential military recruits, and a rapidly aging population.

The first decade of the Putin era saw a doubling of living standards, accompanied by vigorous government programs to boost motherhood that led to rising birthrates. The government also took hard aim at vodka and cigarettes, launching educational campaigns, restricting places and hours of sale, and banning some kinds of advertising.

But Putin has purposely avoided the forceful approach used by the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, who saw public health statistics improve drastically after he completely banned the sale of alcoholic drinks in the Soviet Union. But Mr. Gorbachev's methods led to a political backlash, an explosion in samogon production, and a return to heavy drinking with a vengeance by Russians following the USSR's collapse.

Most experts say the claim of improvements over the past few years sounds reasonable on principle, but the picture painted by the government report is far from conclusive.

"I think people do drink less; but it's mostly a subjective impression. The situation today can't be compared with past decades, when you could see men drunk on the streets every day," says Zhanna Zayonchkovskaya, an expert at the official Institute of National Economic Forecasting in Moscow. "We do seem to be living in a different reality."
 
#19
Russia Direct
April 2, 2015
The paradox of Kremlin propaganda: How it tries to win hearts and minds
With the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors and numerous Western journalists warning about the Kremlin's propaganda, does it really pose a threat to the West?
By Pavel Koshkin
Pavel Koshkin is Executive Editor of Russia Direct and a contributing writer to Russia Beyond The Headlines (RBTH). He also contributed to a number of Russian and foreign media outlets, including Russia Profile, Kommersant and the Moscow bureau of the BBC.

A recent report for the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), based on assessments from 30 foreign policy and public diplomacy professionals, indicates that Washington is becoming more and more preoccupied with the Kremlin's rejuvenated and aggressive propaganda campaign.

According to the report, the Kremlin is outpacing the White House in promoting its position abroad while leaving the BBG (a federal agency founded in 1994 that oversees Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America) behind.

"Competitors with anti-U.S. messaging are fomenting an information war - and winning - while U.S. international broadcasting is challenged to keep pace with competitors and changes in the media landscape," it says. "U.S. international communications strategy should be rebuilt from the ground up."

As the Ukrainian crisis started, numerous warnings about the threat posed by the Kremlin's propaganda came from different sources and media outlets. While some, like The Economist's Senior Editor Edward Lucas, called on their colleagues to boycott RT (formerly Russia Today, a TV network that has received significant financial backing from the Kremlin), others compared the menace posed by Russia's propaganda with that of ISIS, which has beheaded American journalists and destroyed historical and cultural landmarks.

After the murder of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, the warnings about the Kremlin's subtle propaganda techniques came from respected British and American media outlets.

The Guardian editorial board argues that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his PR team use the idea of pluralism to mislead people and confuse "those who would seek out the truth with multiple expressions of distracting PR chaff." "The tactic is to create as many competing narratives as possible," The Guardian clarifies. "And, amid all the resultant hermeneutic chaos, to quietly slip away undetected."

A contributor of the New York Times echoes this view while claiming that "the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth" is at the core of the Kremlin's information strategy, which allows Putin to replace facts with disinformation, distract people and "muddy the water to a point where the audience simply gave up on the search for truth."

All these accusations are not unfounded, given the increasing activity of Russian propaganda media outlets (RT and Sputnik) and their lavish funding (in mid-January, citing the Russian Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, Russian media reported that the government would allocate an additional $23 billion for RT and Rossiya Segodnya, a news agency).
In addition, those previously involved in the information war are very clear about their mission and put into context the so-called "troll factories" of the Kremlin. For example, a professional Russian troll revealed in an interview to Radio Free Europe (RFE) how "thousands of fake accounts" on Russian and foreign social media are created to aggressively promote the Kremlin's position both inside and outside of the country and to create the appearance of pluralism.

Such increasing activity in social media and growing flow of information lead to a dangerous mixing of opinion with news, which aggravates the problem. Some journalists agree. According to Gregory Feifer, a former correspondent of National Public Radio (NPR) and Radio Free Europe (RFE) in Moscow, "The rise of blogs, social media and the seemingly constant drift of editorializing into what used to be the province of on-the-ground reporting has blurred the lines between news and opinion."

Feifer believes that Kremlin propaganda "certainly exploits Western pluralism by casting doubt on facts and opinion that contradict its own line."

"The difference between that and media pluralism is that the Russian government secretly tries to pass off manufactured lies as real reporting," he told Russia Direct. That's a very clear line. It's successful because the Kremlin only has to cast doubt on opposing narratives - it doesn't have to prove anything. Real reporting requires an established standard of verifiability."

Likewise, Daniel Hallin, a professor in the Department of Communication of the University of California in San Diego, believes that "the concept of pluralism can definitely be used as a tool of propaganda, to undercut respect for the truth."
"Within the U.S., this was the tactic used by the tobacco industry for many years, to promote the idea that there were different points of view about whether tobacco had negative health effects, essentially to create doubt," he told Russia Direct. "And that tactic is now being used by the oil and gas industry to sustain doubt about the scientific consensus on climate change."

Does the Kremlin's propaganda really pose a threat to the U.S.?

Although some American journalists point to the effectiveness of the Kremlin's massive information campaigns, they don't see it as a threat. Feifer agrees that, "Kremlin propaganda has become so pervasive and pernicious that no Western media can compete with it inside Russia."

By casting doubt about facts on the ground during the Ukrainian crisis, Kremlin propaganda has been actually effectively splitting Western opinion. However, Feifer believes that "Kremlin propaganda doesn't pose an immediate threat to the United States."

"Rather, it has been effective at influencing the public policy debate about Russia and Ukraine by casting doubt on Western narratives," he added.

Andrew Roth, a Moscow reporter for The New York Times, echoes Feifer's view.

"I believe the goal of Russia's propaganda in the international context is to muddy the waters just enough in order to prevent an overwhelming response from the West. Barring any Western actions, Russia has much more flexibility to exert its will in Ukraine," he told Russia Direct.

Roth is skeptical about the BBG claims that the U.S. is losing an information war with Russia.

"Few Americans are going to be convinced to support Russian policy by agencies like RT," he explains. "U.S. news agencies cover politically explosive events like Ferguson, so it is not revelatory when RT covers it too. RT may be able to make inroads among liberals and libertarians but its not going to eclipse other TV news networks."

However, Roth admits that, for the U.S., the problem in winning hearts comes about in the countries that are closer to Russia "physically, economically, and perhaps spiritually."
His Russian counterpart Georgy Bovt, an experienced journalist and an expert at the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, agrees that Russia is outpacing the U.S. in conducting information wars on its territory and in its zones of influence, while the U.S. is obviously winning hearts and minds on their territory, as he noted in a telephone interview with Russia Direct.

Likewise, Feifer points out that U.S. state media, unlike the Kremlin, doesn't seek to boost its audience in the former Soviet Union countries and it lacks original, hard-hitting reporting. He blames BBG for being too bureaucratic and spending a great deal of time on "recycling news already being reported by much smaller, nimbler outlets."

"If the BBG believes America is losing the propaganda war, it should blame itself as much as anyone or anything else," he said. "Although U.S. government-funded media such as the surrogate-broadcaster Radio Free Europe has plenty of good talent, it is dreadfully mismanaged and produces a lot of waste."

Meanwhile, Professor Hallin doesn't agree that Russia is winning the information war. He assumes that "supporters of foreign broadcasting organizations in the U.S. are exaggerating" the impact of foreign propaganda to a large extent to increase their budget and "to push the organizations more in the direction of becoming propaganda outlets."

Alexander Gasyuk, a foreign affairs correspondent at the Russian official daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta, who served as the chief of the newspaper's bureau in Washington, DC from 2010 to 2013, agrees.

"The debate on the Capitol Hill regarding the information war with Russia has the sole reason of getting more money from the U.S. federal budget," he said, pointing to the fact that the "so-called 'Kremlin's foreign propaganda' issue was raised by the BBG, which is itself an United States government agency specifically designed and responsible for projecting American 'soft power' overseas."

"Also the very fact that the U.S. government is going to counter Russian media with state funds is suspicious and means that there is no difference in the ways Washington and Moscow are going to engage each other in informational warfare," he added.

The role of bias in the information war between Russia and the West

Some high-profile journalists believe that being biased is not necessarily bad. Promoting and defending your position during information wars, especially amidst the Ukrainian crisis, is a necessity, they would argue. In this context, they seem to implicitly regard neutrality as weakness, not as the criterion of good journalism.

"It's a war. It's the question of survival. I am at war. I am not here to play diplomatic games," said Yevgenia Albats, editor-in-chief of The New Times during the EPIIC Symposium at Tufts University in February, when asked about the role of media in igniting tensions during the Ukrainian crisis.

Nabi Abdullaev, editor-in-chief at The Moscow Times, doesn't agree. He argues that, "Neutrality is one of the tools helping journalists to meet the most important criterion of high-quality journalism: credibility of reported information."According to him, this tool allows to fulfill the professional task of a journalist by informing the audience about facts, not by creating an attitude about events."

In contrast, Hallin argues "good journalism doesn't have to be neutral," but "it does have to be independent and honest."

At the same time, Bovt doesn't believe that objective journalism exists. "Journalism is always subjective and biased to a certain extent," he said, pointing out that any attempt to be neutral and present two positions is very flawed, because "it is always possible to present two positions in such a way that one of these positions wins."

"Such narratives I see in the Western media," he said. "They seem to observe the principles of objectivity, but what is most important [in this context] is the final narrative created by media."

Feifer echoes Bovt, noting that, "every topic picked, interview question asked and quotation or information selected for reporting reflects the views of reporters and editors."
"Some American news media suffer from trying to appear 'neutral' by reporting the views of representatives of both sides of an issue without providing enough context or pointing out the faults of one or both sides' arguments," he said.

However he doesn't see it as bad journalism.

"There's no such thing as truly objective reporting," he explains. "The goal of every good journalist is or should be to enable the reader to make up his or her mind. I find some of the best reporting in publications whose editorial lines I don't like."
 
 
 
#20
Moscow Times
April 2, 2015
World Bank Predicts Sanctions Pain, Poverty Rise for Russia
By Howard Amos

The World Bank predicted Wednesday that Russia's economy will contract by 3.8 percent this year and continue to underperform in the years to come amid the continuing impact of Western sanctions.

Economic problems will also drive down real wages and push about 5 million more Russians into poverty this year, the World Bank said.

Russia faces an "era of small potential growth" because of low oil prices and meager investment, the World Bank's lead economist for Russia, Birgit Hansl, told reporters at the presentation of the biannual Russia Economic Report in Moscow.

The World Bank's baseline forecast, using an average oil price of $52 a barrel this year, said that Russia's economy will shrink 3.8 percent in 2015 and 0.3 percent in 2016. Oil is Russia's chief export earner.

The move is a significant downgrade from December when the international organization predicted just a 0.7 percent contraction for 2015.

"The continued impact of sanctions and lower oil prices will push the Russian economy into a protracted recession," the World Bank said in the report.

"Once a target country becomes isolated from major economic and financial markets, foreigners and even domestic investors become reluctant to invest in the country, clouding its medium- and long-term economic prospects."

Global benchmark Brent oil, which fell from highs of $115 in June, was trading at about $55 a barrel Wednesday. If oil prices average $45 a barrel this year then the Russian economy could shrink by up to 4.6 percent, the bank said.

The European Union and the United States imposed a broad range of sanctions on Russia for Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis. The measures include asset freezes and travel bans for individuals, a block on state companies raising foreign debt, and restrictions on the sale of technology and equipment in some key sectors.

While tensions in Ukraine appear to be easing with a cease-fire in the east of the country, the World Bank said Wednesday that it now believes economic sanctions will be in place throughout 2015 and 2016.

"The impact of sanctions is likely to linger for a long time. ... Sanctions could well alter the structure of the Russian economy and the ways in which Russia integrates with the rest of the world," the World Bank said, comparing Russia's position with that of South Africa in the 1980s.

The World Bank report highlighted that Russia's economic woes will also have a significant impact on the most vulnerable sections of the country's population.

The number of Russian living in poverty - defined as those living on $5 or less a day - is set to record its first major rise since the late 1990s, according to the bank. Poverty rates fell steadily during a period of rising oil prices and stability in the 2000s and were flat in the 2008-09 financial crisis.

But in 2015 the poverty rate will rise to 14.2 percent, meaning about 5 million people will have slipped into penury, according to the bank. In 2014, 11.2 percent of Russians were living below the poverty line, an increase of 600,000 people from 2013, according to the Federal Statistics Service.

Pressure on the state budget from low oil prices gives the government fewer options to combat rising poverty.

"Public wages will not be indexed this year, and pensions, social benefits and other transfers will decrease in real terms," the World Bank said. "Russia has limited fiscal space to protect the most vulnerable."
 
 #21
Bloomberg
April 2, 2015
Russia Frees Itself From Oil's Curse
By Leonid Bershidsky
[Charts here http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-01/russia-s-recovery-won-t-have-to-be-oil-driven]

Signs are multiplying that the Russian economy will not die a painful death, but is just taking some long-overdue strong medicine. The country posted unexpected growth in the fourth quarter of 2014, and it can now look beyond oil for drivers of recovery.

Today, the Federal Statistics Service said the Russian economy expanded 0.4 percent in the final three months of last year, while economists expected zero growth. This could be what traders call a dead cat bounce: At the end of last year, as the ruble took a plunge in line with the sinking oil price, Russians were hoarding imported electronics and buying expensive cars they didn't need, expecting a price hike.

Another reason growth continued in that dark, panicky quarter was that "the Russian government and Central Bank were able to respond swiftly with policy responses that successfully stabilized the economy," says Birgit Hansl, the World Bank's lead economist for Russia.

In her latest Russia Economic Report, presented in Moscow today, Hansl is bearish on further growth prospects. The baseline scenario is a 3.8 percent contraction this year and a further 0.3 percent drop in 2016. Hansl and her team believe that Russia hasn't yet fully absorbed the impact from lower oil prices, and they expect drops in incomes and consumption because of high inflation (16.5 percent on average this year) and decreased availability of consumer credit.

Investment demand will also fall off sharply, according to the World Bank, though Hansl and her colleagues concede that "the weaker ruble could create incentives for small-scale expansions in some tradable industries, financed by profits."

Skeptics, however, are likely to be wrong about the scale of the non-oil-based expansion. In a research note circulated today, Ivan Tchakarov, chief economist at the Moscow branch of Citigroup, said it might herald a recovery "similar in nature, but not in magnitude, to the one after 1998."

That year, Russia defaulted on its domestic debt, sharply devalued the ruble and introduced capital controls -- to disastrous effect. Imports became even less accessible than they are now. Gross domestic product dropped 5.3 percent. The following year, it rebounded by 6.4 percent -- mainly because local producers and foreign investors saw the opportunity of filling the lacunas left by ebbing imports in the domestic Russian market.

Tchakarov describes this in more technical terms. In 1999, he explains, the ruble's real effective exchange rate aligned itself with the difference in labor productivity between Russia and its trading partners, making Russian-produced goods more competitive. That growth was not hydrocarbon-driven, and it fueled the emergence of successful Russian companies, especially in the food industry and agriculture.

In the years that followed, rising oil prices made the ruble appreciate faster than the productivity differential improved:

That was Russia's "Dutch disease." It became more profitable to import than to produce locally again. "Russia should have been about 30 percent more productive relative to its trading partners to keep its external competitiveness at the same level as that in 1999," Tchakarov wrote.

Russia's current account surplus shrank from 20 percent of GDP in 2000 to 3 percent now. The country approached the new oil slump relatively unprepared. It does, however, still have the built-in spring that uncoiled in 1999. The chart above shows that the ruble's real effective rate is again in line with Russia's relative productivity. Tchakarov argues Russia will probably also have enough free capacity, in terms of both industrial equipment and labor, to start filling the consumption gap left by imports -- in part because of the beginning slump, which has been driving capacity utilization down:

The only reason Tchakarov doesn't think growth will be as fast as after the 1998 crisis is that he expects low oil prices, which will take the edge off the recovery and put the upper boundary of expansion at about 3.5 percent next year.

Both the relative pessimists, such as Hansl, and the relative optimists, such as Tchakarov, see the same data and expect the same phenomena. They differ only on how much weight to give to various factors. That's a matter of economic modeling, but I side with the optimists for empirical reasons. Russia is a country with a large domestic market that has just seen a sharp decline in imports. Last time that happened, in the late 1990s, corporate Russia, still young and inexperienced, rose to the challenge. Today, economic conditions inside Russia are just as oppressive as they were then, but entrepreneurs are more experienced and have more resources: The hundreds of billions of dollars that capital flight has taken out of Russia can be reinvested, and given current interest rates in Europe, Asia and the U.S., Russia may well be the best place for it (bond investors appear to be already aware of that).

The last time I wrote about Russia escaping its nightmare economic scenario, my post was selectively translated by Russian propaganda outlets. They left out all the parts critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin and made the rest sound more optimistic than I could have been. Just to give an idea, in this pick-up and in this one, the headline, "Putin's Economic Team Plays Houdini," was translated as "Putin's Economic Team Works Miracles." Different propaganda outlets must have received the same orders, down to the wording. So I'm compelled to make it clear this time that my optimism about Russia's economic resilience doesn't come with admiration for Putin, or even for his highly competent economic team, which has been forced to deal reactively with the consequences of the dictator's military adventures and increasingly hawkish statements.

These people did little for the Russian economy while the country enjoyed high oil prices. They accumulated enough foreign reserves to carry the country through a second economic crisis, but they didn't improve the investment climate, stifle corruption or deregulate the economy. These difficult tasks will be left to tackle after Putin is gone. I strongly believe that the current potential for a Russian rebound exists despite the president's actions and leanings. It's the normal resilience of a rather open economy in a highly sophisticated country. It's the power of capitalism, not the Putin regime.
 
 #22
Russian economy performs better than expected
By Lyudmila Alexandrova

MOSCOW, April 1. /TASS/. Despite a recession, the Russian economy demonstrated better results in the first quarter of this year than the authorities had expected in late 2014 and early 2015.

The Russian economy made a weak start to 2015 with falling industrial production, investment, real wages and inflation close to 17% but experts say it could have been worse. At the same time, some of them warn that the crisis peak still lies ahead.

"Our expectations at the end of 2014 on the first half of 2015 were tougher and we expected negative developments on a larger scale," First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said at the start of this week.

The third quarter may become the last quarter of the recession in the Russian economy in the Finance Ministry's estimates, Deputy Finance Minister Maxim Oreshkin said.
With an oil price of around $50 per barrel, Russia's GDP will demonstrate a growth of up to 2.5% a year in 2016-2017 while annual inflation in 2015 will stay at 16-17% until the middle of the year, after which it will start to slow down, the Finance Ministry official said.
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Meanwhile, Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseyev has said the Russian government has stopped the ruble's weakening and the national currency will only keep strengthening.
Economic developments in Russia are so far better than they could be, said Vladislav Ginko, a lecturer at the Russian Presidential Academy of the National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA).

"The pessimistic scenario has not materialized while even the worst-case scenario did not envisage such a contraction in GDP as was in 2009 when it shrank by 7.9%," the expert told TASS.

"The population's confidence in the authorities and the consolidation of society have helped stop panic sentiments over the ruble exchange rate quickly enough," he said.
The factor of confidence in the authorities is important to overcome the crisis, the expert said.

In particular, depositors could have withdrawn larger amounts of money from banks, which would have crippled the banking system, he added.

"On the one hand, there are signs of stabilization but largely on the foreign exchange market where the ruble exchange rate has stabilized," Director of the Development Center Institute at the Higher School of Economics Natalia Akindinova said.

"Inflationary processes have helped block a part of last year's negative developments and inflation has started to slow down," she said.

But it can't be said that the situation in the real sector of the Russian economy has stabilized, the expert said.

Specifically, real wages fell by 10% in February 2015 year on year. Demand indicators also declined. In particular, trade decreased by 10% High uncertainty remains in the investment sector, with capital outflow hitting $25 billion in January-February this year. Domestic investments are not demonstrating any recovery either, the expert said.
Head of the Macroeconomics and Finance Research Division at the Gaidar Economic Policy Institute Sergey Drobyshevsky does not share optimism either.

"So far, it is early to say that the situation is favorable," he told TASS. "The February indicators were worse than in January and in March we expect even worse performance. In general, there are no noticeable improvements," he said.

Experts at the Gaidar Economic Policy Institute forecast that the crisis in Russia will peak in the second-third quarters of this year or at the turn of 2015 and 2016, he said.
"A decline is not seen so far but this does not mean that the crisis is over. Additional factors may emerge as this crisis is unique for Russia," the expert said.

Meanwhile, experts' more optimistic estimates were confirmed on Wednesday by Economic Development Minister Alexey Ulyukayev at a meeting between government members and President Vladimir Putin in the presidential residence outside Moscow.

Ulyukayev said the situation in the Russian economy was now better than forecast at the end of last year.

The minister said the federal budget stipulated the allocation of 300 billion rubles ($5 billion) for support of the real sector of the Russian economy.

"In this work, we have focused on risk zones - transport machine-building, car-making, rail car manufacturing, the production of the railway rolling stock, the construction industry and air carriages," the economy minister said.

At the same time, Ulyukayev said "these and also other sectors of the national economy demonstrate dynamics better than we and investment analysts expected back at the end of last year."
 
 #23
www.project-syndicate.org
March 28, 2015
Why Sanctions on Russia Don't Work
By Andrei Kolesnikov
Andrei Kolesnikov is a senior associate and the chair of the Russian Domestic Politics and Political Institutions Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

MOSCOW - The Western approach to Russia is predicated on the supposition that continued pressure on the country will cause President Vladimir Putin's regime to make concessions or even crumble. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The assumption underlying the efficacy of Western sanctions is that the sharp economic deterioration that results from them will turn the Russian public, particularly the financial and political elite, against the Kremlin. Putin will not be able to withstand mounting dissent from affluent urban areas and the country's burgeoning middle class.

Meanwhile, the thinking goes, military pressure - in the form of potential lethal aid to Ukraine - will similarly mobilize ordinary Russians against Putin. Unwilling to see their boys die for the Donbas, they will form an anti-war movement that will force him to rein in his territorial ambitions. Pressed at once from above and from below, the Kremlin will be have to change its policies, and perhaps even begin to democratize.

What Western policymakers fail to understand is that such an approach is less likely to undermine the regime than to cause Russians to close ranks behind it. Opinion polls show that Russians perceive Western pressure and sanctions to be aimed not at Putin and his cronies, but at Russia and its citizens. In January, 69% of Russians supported the Kremlin's policy in Ukraine, according to a poll by the independent Levada Center.

To be sure, Putin's support is not rock-solid; indeed, there is widespread suspicion about corruption in his government. But Russians have a long tradition of defending their compatriots from outsiders. And in this case, the compatriots under attack are Putin and his government.

Russian propaganda taps a deep well of nationalism, artfully playing off sentiments and imagery from World War II. Known in the country as the Great Patriotic War, the effort to defend the country from German invasion remains sacred to many Russians. That is why the Kremlin has repackaged derogatory historical terms like "Nazis" to refer to Ukraine's current political elites.

Russian society has been militarized for decades, if not centuries. Military preparedness was one of the most important shared values in the Soviet Union - a sentiment captured in the slogan emblazoned on the badges issued to children who excelled in athletics: "Ready for Work and Defense."

It is in this context that Putin has been able to use Western pressure as a tool to regain the support of many Russians, who only a few years ago would have felt detached from, if not alienated by, his government. Presented with a real or imagined threat to the fatherland, the average Russian supports the country's leaders.

Nor is the Russian middle class, which makes up some 20-30% of the population, likely to pose much of a threat to Putin. With many of its members owing their recent wealth to high oil prices and the economic recovery of the 2000s, loyalty to the Putin regime is one of the Russian middle class's abiding characteristics.

Russian opinion polling and sociological research tends to show that the higher one's position in society, the more likely one is to vote for the incumbents. The motives behind such voting patterns may vary - some voters made a fortune during the economic recovery, while others are simply satisfied with the status quo. But the bottom line is that such voters demonstrate a fundamental loyalty to the state and the regime.

Indeed, only a small portion of the middle class attended the protests that gathered force in late 2011 and early 2012, most of them concentrated in Moscow. And, in any case, Putin's clampdown on dissent was predictably ruthless. He tightened legislation aimed at throttling civil society, pursued lawsuits against protesters, and blocked the activity of Alexei Navalny, a promising opposition politician. These efforts have had a lasting effect on the groups that were at the heart of the protest movement.

Russians of all walks of life have shown that they prefer passive adaptation over protest. In the face of growing economic pressures, Russia's middle class is steering clear of political involvement. The working class is no different. The more the West increases its pressure, the less likely it becomes that this will change.
 
 #24
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
April 2, 2015
Not all EU-Russia trade disputes are about politics
Iana Dreyer in Brussels

It looks like part of the trade war, but it isn't. The World Trade Organization is about to set up its fourth dispute settlement panel in two years between Brussels and Moscow. One could mistake this as a sign of the growing trade tensions amid the political crisis between Russia and Europe, but in this case recourse to the WTO is a sign that the many old trade gripes between the two sides are now finally being dealt with in a neutral, non-politicised forum.

On March 25, the WTO accepted the EU's second request to set up a dispute settlement panel regarding the import duties that Russia applies to various paper products, palm oil and refrigerators.

The EU brought the case to the WTO last November after consultations between Brussels and Moscow failed. A first panel ruling for this dispute is not expected before 2016.

The EU alleges that Russia applies 10-15% import duty levels on various paper products such as kraft paper (a coarse paper used for packaging), light coated paper, paper rolls and paperboard, even though it had committed to a level of 5%. Brussels also accuses Moscow of applying wrong tariff levels on palm oil, refrigerators and freezers. The methodology used to determine tariff rates by the Eurasian Economic Commission - the Russian-led trade bloc that includes Armenia, Belarus and Kazkhstan - is allegedly not in line with that agreed by Russia at its accession to the WTO. This results in Russia overcharging for imports.

The EU exports about $700mn worth of paper products to Russia a year and $190mn worth of freezers. Palm oil exports dropped from $118mn in 2012 to $63mn in 2013, according to UN data.

Russia is the only country to have been a defendant in so many trade cases over such a short period of time since becoming a member of the Geneva trade body. The paper, palm oil and refrigerator case follows three previous ones concern a recycling fee on imports of cars, a ban on pork imports and anti-dumping measures on commercial vehicles. Japan has filed a separate case against Russia on certain investment measures. Russia's import bans of EU food products as a counter-measure to Western financial sanctions last summer is undergoing a mediation procedure in the WTO.

Russia has also brought trade disputes against the EU, though not quite as many. One case concerns Brussels' anti-dumping duties on Russian fertilizer exports, for which a dispute settlement panel will soon be established. The other concerns EU energy market regulations, which few believe will go beyond the mandatory consultation phase before formal dispute settlement panels are established.

None of these disputes has been resolved yet.

Bog-standard dispute

The latest dispute brought by the EU has reinforced accusations that Russia, which joined the WTO only three years ago, is not abiding by the many commitments it took in its close-to 600-page accession documents.

But technically and politically, this dispute is the least problematic of all the Russian cases handled so far by the Geneva-based trade body. "As trade disputes go, this is a garden-variety one. This is a very straightforward commercial dispute on the application of tariffs, and the application and customs duties and rules on customs valuation," says Brendan McGivern, partner at the law firm White and Case in Geneva, explaining that this is not one of the big disputes that sometimes blow up like those involving environmental measures or national security issues.

Critics of Russian trade policy have argued that the country has become more protectionist over the last few years, but McGivern takes a nuanced view on this issue. "There's been pent-up demand about the way Russia has conducted its trading relationship, which before were subject to negotiation and now are subject to adjudication through the dispute settlement system," he says.

An example of such an evolution in EU-Russian disputes is the paper industry. There's a relatively long history of trade disputes in a sector in which the EU and Russia are highly inter-dependent. Russia is among the top three export destinations for Europe's paper producers, most of them based in Finland, Sweden, Germany, and Austria.

In 2008, Russia introduced export taxes on timber in a move to allocate resources to upgrading its wood industry as it tries to get away from exporting raw wood only to having a more sophisticated processing industry. A hike on these tariffs was averted after negotiations with the EU, which resulted in both sides agreeing to a quota. This has allowed the EU paper producers to continue to source Russian wood, a product vital to them.

Another dimension to Russia's industrial policy in the paper sector is protection from imports. "From the very first day of WTO membership, Russia has been infringing its tariff commitments, namely those on coated graphic paper and coated carton board," says Bernard Lombard, industrial policy director at the Brussels-based Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI). "The policy of Russia is to protect some of the investments they have made over the last years."

Those investments seem to have borne fruit to some extent: Russian paper production rose 5.9% between 2010 and 2014, but this progress is minor compared with production increases in China (+16%), India (+20%) or Indonesia (+8%) over the same period.

Politics intrude

Trade disputes involving the EU and Russia are generally very difficult to disentangle from the deteriorating political relationships between Moscow and the West over the last years.

The EU is trying to keep discussions on this trade case as technical and insulated from politics as possible, and EU industries behind this case want it to be so too.

"The healthy part of this is that before there were negotiations which went nowhere. Now you've got a legal framework. This tends to depoliticise disputes," White and Case's McGivern says. But "it does require a bit of time to allow these cases to work their way through the system."
 
 #25
Moscow Times
April 2, 2015
Experts: Putin's New Ethnic Affairs Agency Aims to Thwart Political Threats
By Ivan Nechepurenko

President Vladimir Putin's recent decision to launch a government agency charged with maintaining interethnic and interfaith harmony in Russia is a bid to prevent foreign powers and internal opposition factions from seeking to exploit a weak spot in Russia's power structure, analysts told The Moscow Times.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has had a series of state bodies ostensibly designed to deal with ethnic issues. But since 2001, when the Ministry of Federal Affairs, National and Migration Policy was disbanded, the country has lacked a government organ dedicated exclusively to maintaining harmony between Russia's many ethnic groups.

Putin signed an executive order on Tuesday establishing the Federal Agency for Ethnic Affairs (FAEA), 14 years after its predecessor was dissolved. As of late Wednesday, no one had been announced as the director of the agency.

The FAEA will be charged with "[carrying] out measures to strengthen the unity of Russia's multiethnic people, ensure interethnic and interfaith harmony," according to a set of instructions handed down by Putin and then published on the Kremlin's website.

During a meeting Tuesday with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Putin said he expects that the government will "give this matter significantly more attention. ... Russia is a multiethnic nation, home to over 100 ethnic groups, and certain matters are a cause for concern," Putin told Medvedev.

Putin did not go into specifics as to what these matters are, or what had sparked the idea to establish the FAEA at a time when other government structures are freezing their salaries and downsizing their staffs.   

Experts who were asked by The Moscow Times what may have triggered the decision to launch the new agency cited the ongoing Ukraine conflict, Russia's economic crisis and the concern that interethnic tensions could be stirred up by forces wishing to politically destabilize Russia.

The Ukraine Shadow

According to Vyacheslav Mikhailov, who served as minister for ethnic and federative affairs in Russia in the 1990s, the Ukraine crisis has provided a clear-cut illustration of what can result from lax ethnic policy.

"The situation in Ukraine shows that the government has to keep these issues under control," said Mikhailov, who also led the Central Committee of the Communist Party's interethnic policy department between 1987 and 1991.

The ouster of Ukraine's former pro-Kremlin President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 paved the way toward a violent conflict between Kiev-loyal forces and the largely Russian speaking pro-Moscow population in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Between 1998 and 1999, Mikhailov served as first deputy chief of Russia's Security Council, where, he said, ethnic issues "were discussed at almost every meeting."

"Russia's integrity depends on these issues, so this is one of the main questions of national security," he said. Over the past decade, Moscow has waged two bloody wars in Chechnya, successfully averting any threat of secession posed by militant separatists in the North Caucasus region, where the majority of residents are ethnic Chechens.

Foreign Threat

As Russia's relations with the West plunge to lows unparalleled in the post-Cold War era, foreign governments may be seeking out ways to exploit Russia's vulnerabilities. The country's profound ethnic diversity could serve as a means for foreign meddling, said Dmitry Zhuravlyov, director of the Institute for Regional Issues, a Moscow-based think tank.

"This is purely my theory, but as we know, ethnic issues have often been used by external forces to destabilize [Russia and the Soviet Union]," Zhuravlyov said in a phone interview.

Next year, Russia will hold federal parliamentary elections, followed in 2018 by the next round of presidential elections. The previous round of national election between 2011 and 2012 was accompanied by massive street protests against Putin and the ruling United Russia party. Putin and other Russian officials blamed the unrest on Western meddling.

According to Zhuravlyov, Putin's aim in launching the new agency may have been to thwart such efforts in the future.

Vladimir Zorin, Russia's last ethnic affairs minister, took this argument a step further by saying the problem of meddling is not limited to foreign powers. Radical opposition activists within the country could likewise attempt to use ethnic divisions in pursuit of power, he said.

"Many opposition members understand that migration and interethnic relations can serve as an instrument that could bring political gains," said Zorin, who served after the dissolution of Russia's Ethnic Affairs Ministry in 2001 as a minister without portfolio, meaning he held the title of minister, but did not manage a ministerial structure.  

One of Russia's leading opposition figures, Alexei Navalny, has used divisive terms in the past to speak about Russia's interethnic patchwork.

"You can't have taboo subjects," Navalny told Russian GQ in 2011. "The failure of the liberal-democratic movement [in Russia] was the result of the fact that they considered certain topics too dangerous to talk about, including the topic of national interethnic conflict. We need to admit that migrants, including those from the Caucasus, often come to Russia with their own, specific values."

He went on to talk about the limitations he says are placed on women by Muslims in Chechnya. "I don't like it when people ... establish their own rules [in Russia]."

He has consistently voiced support in the past for the annual "Russian March" demonstrations, mass marches in Moscow that trumpet nationalist values.

Meanwhile, Russian society remains broadly unconcerned with the prospect of interethnic tumult.

According to a poll on nationalism, xenophobia and migration conducted in July 2014 by the independent Levada Center, 66 percent of Russians opined that it was unlikely any large-scale violent ethnic conflicts would occur, up from 29 percent one year prior.

Moreover, 71 percent of Russians reported experiencing no ethnic tension in their cities or neighborhoods. That number had surged from 52 percent the previous year.

The poll was conducted among 1,600 respondents with the margin of error not exceeding 3.4 percent, according to the Levada Center.

An October 2014 report on ethnic conflicts compiled by Moscow-based think tank the Center for National Conflicts said the level of interethnic tensions in Russia has "decreased significantly" since April 2014, with the Ukraine crisis overshadowing all other issues.

The report listed the areas with the highest levels of tension as Moscow, a city teeming with migrant workers; Dagestan, the most multiethnic province in the North Caucasus; and the oil-rich Khanty-Mansiysk autonomous district, where ethnically diverse local elites vie for power.

"It's The Economy, Stupid"

The experts agreed that the government may be bracing for the prospect that as Russians get poorer, domestic ethnic tensions will surge.

Falling real incomes and skyrocketing unemployment have traditionally exacerbated ethnic divisions in Russia. For instance, ethnic issues reached a boiling point in the 1990s, when Russia's economy was on the brink of collapse, the analysts said.

"When the quality of people's lives decreases, they seek answers, and they often find them in ethnicity: they look to blame the Jews, people from the Caucasus, the Uzbeks and so on," Mikhailov said.

"Everybody can use ethnic divisions for their own advantage," he said.
 
 #26
Civil peace best response to western attempts to split Russian society - analysts
By Tamara Zamyatin

MOSCOW, April 2. /TASS/. Against the backdrop of US-led western attempts to split up Russian society the country's authorities have been working hard to maintain and foster civil peace, the director of the Institute of Political Studies, Sergey Markov, has told TASS.

"The government coup in Ukraine has shown one and all how the technique of inciting inter-ethnic discord between Ukrainians and Russians works," Markov, a member of Russia's Civic Chamber, said after President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a decree to set up a federal agency for nationalities affairs.

"The moment it sees the economic sanctions have failed to split Russian society, the West will begin to foment inter-ethnic discord inside Russia. The country's authorities are prepared to resist such attempts, though."

Before, Russia had a special nationalities affairs ministry. Later, the functions were handed over to the Ministry of Regional Affairs, which, in turn was abolished at the end of 2014. Now the authorities have decided to create a more compact government agency, which, according to the presidential decree, will be obliged to promote the unity of Russia's multi-ethnic population and protect the rights of ethnic minorities.

"Preserving and strengthening civil peace in Russia must be not just number one task of the nationalities affairs agency, but a subject matter of daily efforts by the authorities of all levels, from federal to local," the director of the public-private partnership centre at the presidential academy RANEPA, Tatyana Illarionova, told TASS.

"Given Russia's ethnic diversity, the newly created agency is an urgent need. According to the 2010 population census, Russia has 193 ethnic groups, including foreign nationals resident in the country on the permanent basis - British subjects, Cubans, French, Japanese, Bulgarians and Greeks. The indigenous ethnic groups alone number more than a hundred - there are far fewer of them than in India or Indonesia but much more than China, which is home to 56 ethnic groups," the director of the Ethnology and Anthropology Institute under the Russian Academy of Sciences, Valery Tishkiov, has told TASS.

"Whereas before the nationalities relations agency was focused on the ethnic republics within Russia, now there has emerged the awareness that Russia's largest ethnic group - Russians - badly needs support for the sake of preserving its cultural traditions," said Tishkov, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who in the early 1990s was the head of Russia's Nationalities' Ministry.

"On the list of priority tasks of Russia's inter-ethnic policies I would single out the need for asserting a common Russian identity in society, for ensuring harmony of ethnic groups unity and diversity. This policy alone is capable of maintaining inter-ethnic peace and accord. A number of Western countries have confronted with the problem of inter-ethnic discord, because instead of promoting the integration of different ethnic groups they were carried away by the idea of multiculturalism - in fact, sponsorship of special lifestyles and cultural and religious distinctions of certain ethnic groups. In the end, France and Germany saw waves of protest against an influx of Muslim migrants. Russia has this sensitive problem, too. Since 1991 the country has accommodated about 10 million immigrants. The type of unrest that rocked Germany and France just recently should be avoided by all means," Tishkov said.

"Multiculturalism, the way Europe would like to implement it, is no good here in Russia, with its one hundred ethnic groups or more. We need an integral Russian nation, both poly-cultural, internally diverse and a historically firm basis of the state," the president of the Religion and Politics Institute, member of the Presidential Council for Interaction with Religious Organizations, Aleksandr Ignatenko, told TASS

 
 #27
RIA Novosti
April 1, 2015
Russian state will not clamp down on dissenters, senate speaker says

Moscow 1 April: Russia does not intend to conduct a clampdown on the opposition as it is not threatened by a "colour revolution" no matter how hard the West tries to de-stabilize the interior situation in the country, Russian Federation Council speaker Valentina Matviyenko has said.

"The Russian state does not intend to pursue a clampdown or to suppress dissent. As the Russian president once again stressed recently, the authorities are ready for dialogue with the opposition and will develop a partnership with the civil society," Matviyenko said in an interview to the Soyuznoye Veche newspaper published on Tuesday [31 March].

According to Matviyenko, such a dialogue, and such partnership, are necessary. At the same time she believes that discussion with those "who work on orders from the outside, in the interests of another country, or other countries, rather than their own," is pointless.

All public opinion polls conducted in recent years indicate that the majority of Russian citizens approve of Vladimir Putin's performance. "In that regard, Russia is not threatened by a 'colour revolution'," she said.

At the same time, she said that is "not a reason to relax". "In our country we are obliged to do (...) all we can to raise the efficiency of our law enforcement, security structures' and special services' work aimed at securing order, law, social and political stability," she said.

Matviyenko added that extremism is often used today as an instrument of geopolitics, for the division of spheres of influence, to topple regimes that certain states find disagreeable by means of "colour revolutions". "The West is attempting to organize them in Russia. Its efforts are aimed at discrediting the authority and destabilizing the interior situation in Russia, using both extremist elements and the opposition to that end," she added.
 
 
#28
AP Poll: Russia anti-gay views on rise; teachers face brunt
By IRINA TITOVA
April 2, 2015

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) - Alevtina is one of several teachers who lost their jobs in St. Petersburg after being outed by an anti-gay activist. While most resigned quietly, the 27-year-old music teacher decided to fight her dismissal in court - an unusual step in Russia where gays have faced increasing pressure in recent years.

The rising anti-gay sentiment has coincided with the passage of a controversial Russian law that prohibits exposing children to gay "propaganda." The law has made it easy to target teachers, because they work directly with children.

The hardening of lines against gays is thrown into stark relief by an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll. The survey found that Russians' tolerance of gays has plummeted in recent years, with 51 percent of those surveyed late last year saying they would not want a gay neighbor. This was up from 38 percent in 2012.

A majority of 63 percent said gays should not be accepted in society, with only 20 percent saying they should be accepted. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.

The 2013 enactment of the gay propaganda law - which makes it illegal to provide information to children about homosexuality - was a turning point in the deterioration of Russian views of gays, said Nika Yuryeva, a spokeswoman for LGBT rights group Vykhod.

"I can see it even in my family, who are tolerant of my sexual choice, but now I also hear them speaking about the topic using the terms of Russian TV," Yuryeva said. "To my mind, this law legitimizes the persecution of LGBT people, including the cases of their dismissals or forced resignations from schools."

Alevtina, the music teacher, said she was stunned when the director of her school called her into his office last fall and urged her to quit.

"I left the director's office almost in hysterics. I didn't know what to do. I had so many creative plans with my students," said Alevtina, who only gave her surname because she did not want her mother to know she was gay. "I'd put my soul into this work, and I also knew that I wasn't guilty of anything."

She refused to resign and was fired for "immoral behavior incompatible with pedagogical activities" - effectively ending her teaching career. The school director could not be reached for comment, despite repeated calls to his office.

Alevtina said only a few close friends knew she was lesbian and she never attended gay pride rallies. Her sexual orientation was exposed by Timur Isayev, an anti-gay activist representing an organization called Parents of Russia.

In the past year, at least six teachers who were either gay or gay rights activists found their jobs threatened after being targeted by Isayev, said Kseniya Kirichenko, a legal support specialist at Vykhod. Three resigned, and Alevtina was the only one to take legal action, Kirichenko said.

Isayev's anti-gay campaigning was cut short in December when he was arrested on charges of stealing money from a firm where he worked in 2004. He was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison.

His arrest, however, has not made things easier for Alevtina, whose appeal is pending. Her lawyer, Dmitry Bartenev, said the teacher is asking to be reinstated at the school and to receive compensation. The court hearings were closed to the public at the teacher's request.

Homosexuality has increasingly been portrayed on Russian state television as part of a decadent, immoral Western culture that threatens traditional values. And the AP-NORC poll also showed a sharp rise in anti-Western sentiments.

Those reporting an unfavorable view of the United States rose to 65 percent from 25 percent in 2012, while those with an unfavorable view of the European Union rose to 49 percent from 11 percent.

The AP-NORC Center poll was conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago with fieldwork for the in-person survey by GfK Russia from Nov. 22 to Dec. 7., 2014. It was based on 2,008 in-person interviews with a nationally representative random sample of Russians age 18 and older.

Funding for the survey came from NORC at the University of Chicago.

Online: AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research: http://www.apnorc.org
 
 #29
Interfax
April 1, 2015
Russian church denies filing complaint against controversial opera

The Novosibirsk diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church has denied having filed a claim against Tannhaeuser opera production at the Novosibirsk State Theatre of Opera and Ballet, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 1 April.

In a statement to Interfax-Religion it said: "The Novosibirsk diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church points out that the diocese did not file any complaints to law enforcement bodies about opening administrative or criminal cases, let alone lawsuits to court."

According to the church representatives, the Russian Culture Ministry earlier urged the Novosibirsk diocese to "withdraw its petition to the prosecution and carry out further discussions in the form of a respectful dialogue".

However, according to an earlier statement by the Novosibirsk deputy prosecutor, Igor Stasyulis, the Novosibirsk metropolitan Tikhon had filed a complaint to the regional prosecutor's office about launching an administrative case against Boris Mezdrich and Timofey Kulyabin, as reported by Interfax-Siberia.

The diocese had previously stated that dozens of claims from local residents were filed to the prosecutor's office, the Investigations Committee and the Interior Ministry. In their claims, people called to bring those responsible for "insulting their religious feelings" to justice.

The church representatives commented that neither the former theatre director, Boris Mezdrich, nor the production director, Timofey Kulyabin, had apologised in public for insulting religious feelings, despite the recommendation made by the Russian Culture Ministry.

"We urge all involved not to use this situation to provoke a conflict around the Russian Orthodox Church, and also to cease physical threats toward our diocese clergy for the peaceful standing prayer they held," the diocese said. They added that they are ready for an open dialogue with the creative intelligentsia, Interfax reported.

Earlier, the director of the Novosibirsk theatre, Boris Mezdrich, was dismissed after the theatre's production of Wagner's opera Tannhaeuser was accused of insulting the religious feelings of believers.
 
 #30
New York Times
April 2, 2015
Russian Artists Face a Choice: Censor Themselves, or Else
By RACHEL DONADIO

MOSCOW - After a law went into effect last summer banning obscenities in public performances, the playwright and director Ivan Vyrypaev excised the curse words from one of his plays, "The Drunks," for its Russian debut at the prestigious Moscow Art Theater. Some actors played the new version straight, he said, while others winked to make clear what was cut.

A quiet man of 40, Mr. Vyrypaev was circumspect about the law. "Of course my plays lost something, but my artistic life hasn't been ruined," he said in an interview, adding that he also had to pull three plays by other playwrights from the Praktika Theater here, where he is artistic director.

Later, Mr. Vyrypaev said, Praktika presented other plays with curse words after President Vladimir V. Putin said in a meeting with writers that while Tolstoy and Chekhov didn't need cursing, "You, the writers, know best."

The advance and retreat was telling. Cultural figures in Russia today describe a climate of confusion and anxiety in which the law banning obscenities, as well as a 2013 law that criminalizes acts offending religious believers, are often ignored unless someone wants them applied. Critics say the new laws are stifling free expression and pulling the country backward.

During Soviet times, "At least we knew the rules," said Irina Prokhorova, a publisher and vocal critic of the government. "This is a little bit different, because there are no rules, no official censorship." Ms. Prokhorova likened the climate to the 1930s, when the Nazis labeled art degenerate. "This is aesthetic fundamentalism," she said. The law on religious believers is particularly slippery. "Who are those believers? What do they believe in? No one talks about this," she added.

This week, a debate has been raging after it emerged on Sunday that Russia's culture minister had ousted the director of a state-run theater in Siberia on the grounds that a production of Wagner's "Tannh�user," with a backdrop in which an image of Christ was placed in the crotch of a naked woman, had run afoul of the law against offending religious believers - even after a judge last month dropped the case as groundless.

Russia has a thriving theater scene and a constitution that bans top-down, Soviet-style censorship. But in a time of economic turmoil and growing nationalism, with society polarized in unpredictable and emotional ways over the new laws and the war in Ukraine, cultural figures say the message from the government is clear: Fall in line with the emphasis on family and religious values, or lose funding, or worse.

"It's about betrayal - those who betray are put in the Ninth Circle of Hell, like in Dante," Kirill Serebrennikov, a prominent theater and film director and the director of the Gogol Center, a cornerstone of Moscow's theater scene, said in a recent interview here. The result, he said, was to put writers and directors "between Scylla and Charybdis - between censorship or self-censorship."

That day, Mr. Serebrennikov was puzzling over a report in Izvestia, a newspaper seen as close to the Kremlin, that scholars from a research institute were evaluating whether recent theater productions had "distorted" classic Russian texts. They included his production of Gogol's "Dead Souls" at the Gogol Center and productions of "Boris Godunov" and "The Karamazovs," based on the Dostoyevsky novel, both mounted by the popular director Konstantin Bogomolov at other theaters.

"The goal is to show us that we can't interpret classical Russian literature at all, or to say that it's not Russian literature, it's Kirill Serebrennikov's fantasy," Mr. Serebrennikov said. He added that if theaters were to lose public funding, they would be unlikely to find it from private sources.

In an interview last month in his office here, Vladimir Medinsky, Russia's culture minister, said it was the prerogative of experts at the research institute to look into Russian culture, such as the plays in question. "Maybe, that's their right to do this," Mr. Medinsky said. But he said the academics' findings wouldn't have repercussions for the theaters.

Holding a mobile phone whose case had a picture of Mr. Putin in sunglasses and a camouflage parka above the pop song lyrics "they can't catch us," Mr. Medinsky dismissed criticism that the ministry was effectively stifling free expression by funding only projects that it believes meet family- and religious-values standards or that portray Putin's Russia in a positive light.

"The less they spend their life on Facebook, the less garbage they will have in their heads," he said of government critics. (Anti-government dissent has been concentrated on social media after the Duma passed a law in 2012 restricting public rallies.)

In the interview, which took place before he ousted the Siberian theater director, Mr. Medinsky was already highly critical of the "Tannh�user" production. It played four performances to sold-out houses of 1,700 at the Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater before representatives of the local Russian Orthodox Church complained in February.

This week, Mr. Medinsky replaced the theater's director with a loyalist, Vladimir Kekhman, who said he would remove "Tannh�user" from the repertory. (Before becoming the director of a theater he renovated in St. Petersburg, Mr. Kekhman was a business magnate who imported bananas to Russia.)

While that case has resonated, with supporters rallying around the theater and critics rallying in support of the Russian Orthodox Church, the law banning obscenities has had a more concrete effect on theater and film. Introduced by a group of lawmakers including Stanislav Govorukhin, a member of Parliament and a popular film and television director during the Soviet period, the law sets fines and 90-day suspensions for violations.

In the interview, Mr. Medinsky defended the law and said there were no plans to revise or revoke it.

Unlike the average English-language expletive thrown into everyday conversation, in Russian, cursing resonates as extremely crude; it has its own grammar and is never used in polite conversation. It is not uncommon for some older theatergoers to gasp when curses are uttered onstage.

Some directors see the anti-obscenity law as a distraction from far more worrisome issues. "Imagine Tony Soprano ruling the country, and Tony Soprano issues a law against obscenities," said Alexander Zeldovich, the director of the critically acclaimed 2011 dystopian film "Target."

But film professionals are divided. The director Valeria Gai Germanika, 31, known for her coming-of-age films, said she didn't mind cutting the cursing from her 2014 film "Yes and Yes."

"We dubbed it again, and I actually think it became even better," she said in a telephone interview. Asked if such choices should be made by artists themselves or the government, Ms. Gai Germanika said: "There's a law, and I'm not going to fight against it. Actually, all those great films made in the Soviet era had no swearing, and people learned about the country through them."

Some theaters say they're simply ignoring the law. "We don't abide by it, because we think it's anti-constitutional," said Yelena Gremina, a co-founder of Moscow's scrappy Teatr.doc, known for its politically charged productions inspired by real-life events.

But there is genuine concern, especially after members of the performance group Pussy Riot were jailed in 2012 on charges of hooliganism after singing an anti-Putin song in a Moscow church.

"After Pussy Riot, everything is serious; they put those girls in jail for two years," said Alexander Rodnyansky, a leading film producer, most recently of the Oscar-nominated "Leviathan," which Mr. Medinsky had criticized for its negative portrayal of Putin's Russia. (Before it was shown last fall, the film was redubbed to remove the curses.)

Creative artists say they are deeply worried about the direction of the country, but they find no shortage of material.

"Putin is a process," said Mr. Vyrypaev, the director. "I treat him like hydrogen sulfide. If you breathe too much, you'll die. But it's still part of nature."
 
 #31
Moscow Times
April 2, 2015
Deeply Human Touch Brought to Erdman's 'The Suicide'
By John Freedman

I have written about Nikolai Erdman's tragicomedy "The Suicide" for 35 years and I have rarely seen it done with the deep, devastating understanding that Sergei Zhenovach brings to it at the Studio of Theatrical Art.

That doesn't mean this show is an unqualified success from beginning to end. It starts slowly and occasionally fumbles the tempo. That is dangerous for comedy, which needs tight rhythm as much as the surprises of language and ideas.

But whatever it lacks at a few given turns, Zhenovach's interpretation of Erdman's tale about a despairing, unemployed man who nearly commits suicide against his will has something truly valuable. It has a deeply human touch. It is tender and intimate. It usually avoids throwing Erdman's finely wrought dialogues around like slogans, so that when it does present a loaded phrase or monologue as a major pronouncement, the audience hears it well.

Any crusty old theater rat will tell you that casting is half of a show's success. And Zhenovach struck gold with his leading couple - Vyacheslav Yevlantyev as the potential suicide Semyon, and Yevgenia Gromova as his suffering wife Masha.

I'm tempted to call Yevlantyev's Semyon cherubic. He is daisy fresh and sunbeam bright. He is sensitive, easily hurt, easily confused and easily influenced.

That proves nearly deadly for him, for he sees the logic when an unthinking neighbor tells him why he would rather commit suicide than struggle on living. He becomes even more enamored of the idea when another describes the spectacular hero's funeral he will have if he leaves a suicide note blaming all the right people.

Dazzled by thoughts of glory, Semyon steps onto the road to death.

Gromova's Masha is sweet and smart and always sympathetic to her hapless husband. These aren't stock comic characters; you see what made them fall in love sometime in the past and you see what holds them together even now, when life has gone hard. There is a real connection here and it helps us, as spectators, connect to the human - though some may say inhumane - story that unfolds.

Aside from Masha's mother Serafima, played with comic bravado by Anastasia Imamova, the young pair is surrounded by neighbors and strangers, all of whom want to play on Semyon's depression to their own gain.

The upstairs neighbor Kalabushkin (Alexei Vertkov) charges money from a gaggle of people wishing to reap benefit from Semyon's death. Among the takers are the intellectual Grand-Skubik (Grigory Sluzhitel), the writer Viktor Viktorovich (Alexander Proshin) and the Marxist mailman Yegor (Sergei Kachanov). All are slightly eccentric and slightly mannered, though never to the point of losing their humanity. They always remain people seeking to use another man to death.

Designer Alexander Borovsky walled up the stage with two stories of raggedy doors. It allows for slapstick chases and gives Zhenovach the opportunity to play entire scenes offstage. This allows him to keep the stage free of realistic details - no beds, tables or tea cups - and keep the focus on people and predicaments.

Once the production builds up a head of steam, the laughs come fast and furious.

It's another thing that Erdman has us howling at topics that are deadly serious. Some may feel awkward laughing at some of the jokes. And with the murder of Boris Nemtsov still fresh in our minds, to say nothing of the ongoing, frantic discussions about who that murder is most advantageous to, there are definitely moments when art, life and death come painfully, awkwardly close to one another.

But this production rises to the challenge, offering an ending that turns everything around.

In good faith I can't describe it, but I can say this: Watch Yevlantyev's Semyon when he and everyone else on stage hear utterly unexpected news. He has just delivered a heart-wrenching speech about his right to live a decent life in a whisper. He appeals to audience members personally and drives his message home with sincerity.

Then, wham! That news arrives. And it changes everything. Two or three words and, suddenly, the hapless hero turns anti-hero. What does he do now? What does this say about us?

See "The Suicide" to find out.

"The Suicide" (Samoubiitsa) plays Fri., Tues., April 9, 24, and 29 at 7 p.m. at the Studio of Theatrical Art, located at 21 Ulitsa Stanislavskovo, Bldg. 7. Metro Taganskaya. Tel. 495-646-7459. sti.ru. Running time: 3 hours, 35 minutes.
 
 #32
Interfax
April 1, 2015
Poll: Almost a quarter of Russians regard Stalin's death as loss of leader, teacher

Thirty-one percent of the respondents want Volgograd to be renamed to Stalingrad, and 69 percent are against.. Source: AFP / East News

The attitude of Russians to Joseph Stalin has transformed in the past 15 years: the number of respondents who dislike or are disgusted by him has dropped from 27 percent in 2001 to 14 percent in 2015, and the number of people fearing him is down from 16 percent to 6 percent over the same period, a source in the Levada Center told Interfax.

The share of indifferent respondents has grown, from 12 percent in 2001 to 30 percent. The Levada Center polled 1,600 people in 134 populated areas in 46 regions between March 20-23.

"The negative attitude to this person [Stalin] prevailed in the early 2000s, but now most people (38 percent) have positive sentiments, including 30 percent who respect him, 7 percent who like him and 2 percent who admire him," Levada Center expert Karina Pipia told Interfax on Tuesday.

The attitude to Stalin differs depending on the age, place of residence, education and consumer status of respondents, she said.

"Half of the younger generation is indifferent, and elderly respondents (43 percent) tend to respect Stalin. Negative feelings amongst Muscovites are five times more frequent than they are amongst villagers. The number of affluent respondents disliking Stalin is four times larger than that amongst the poor. Forty-three percent of Russians with primary education have respect for Stalin, and the number of such respondents in the higher education group is practically twice smaller," Pipia said.

The newspaper Kommersant wrote on March 19 that the Communists were planning to commemorate Stalin with monuments, memorial plaques and renaming of streets in Russian cities on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of victory in WWII. A poll conducted by Levada Center showed that 37 percent of Russians felt positive about a monument, 25 percent were negative, and 29 percent did not care. Ten percent were hesitant.

"Groups exhibiting the most positive attitude to Stalin [people aged 55 or older, with primary education, the poor, and villagers] mostly support the idea of a Stalin monument. The most negative attitude is demonstrated by Muscovites (50 percent against)," Pipia said.

Thirty-one percent of the respondents want Volgograd to be renamed to Stalingrad, and 69 percent are against.

Forty-six percent of Russians associate Stalin's death with the end of terror and mass repressions (55 percent in 2013). The opinion is most common in Moscow (68 percent) and cities with more than 500,000 residents (54 percent).

Twenty-four percent see his death as the loss of a great leader and teacher (18 percent two years ago). The opinion is mostly supported by villagers (29 percent) people in cities with a population up to 100,000 (30 percent), Russians older than 55 (34 percent), people with primary education (34 percent), and people with low income (29 percent).

Twenty-seven percent of the respondents were undecided.

On the whole, the share of Russians who think that sacrifices made by the Soviet people in the Stalin era were excused by great goals and achievements has grown from 25 percent in 2012 to 45 percent in 2015. Forty-one percent argued that the sacrifices had no excuse (60 percent in 2012).

"Muscovites (64 percent) and Russians with a higher income (66 percent) believe that no achievements, even those that have a great goal, can be an excuse for sacrifices," Pipia added.

The number of Russians who see Stalin as a state criminal has also reduced, from 35 percent in 2010 to 32 percent. "Yet the opinion of Muscovites, affluent Russians and people with higher education differs drastically: 51 percent, 62 percent and 33 percent of them, respectively, think that Stalin must be declared a state criminal," the sociologist said in conclusion.
 
 #33
Idea Lab (PBS)
http://www.pbs.org/idealab
March 27, 2015
Russia Insider's Plan to Target American Mainstream Media
By Ekaterina Basilaia
Ekaterina Basilaia is currently based in Antwerp. She has worked in various print and online media. She believes in the power of Internet and information that keep the people forward.

Russia Insider has a crying Statue of Liberty on its home page. She's weeping into her palms as black clouds or smoke billow in the background. There's also a poster of a Russian man dubbed "the hero of our time" for fighting alongside Ukrainian separatists.

Some of what you see or read on Russia Insider may appear to be propaganda, but it's actually media criticism, says founder Charles Bausman.

After about half a year in operation and amassing 15 million page views, the website has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $20,000. As of today, it is at about $23,000 with three weeks to go. More campaigns are being planned as the English language website looks to crowdfunding for a future.

Before raising any money on Kickstarter, Russia Insider started by banking tweets, Facebook shares and Tumblr posts. Using Thunderclap, posts and tweets were published simultaneously, giving their message reach to more than 115,000 in social media.

Speaking from Moscow, founder Charles Bausman said the Statue of Liberty photo is "suggesting that American foreign policy is mistaken in many ways."

And because he isn't well-known outside of Russia, the "Hero of our time" poster of Igor Strelkov is "trying to provide imagery that shows that's there's a lot going on in Russia that people in the West aren't aware of."

CROWDFUNDING PROPAGANDA?

When asked how Bausman would respond to someone who says Russia Insider seems to be a Russian propaganda response to Western media bias, he said:

"I think that you can interpret it as propaganda, or you can say, look, it reflects the opinion of a lot of articles on our site, which really argue that American foreign policy, in regards to Ukraine and Russia, is badly, badly mistaken."

The website's aim isn't propaganda but to point out where American and European media are wrong about Russia, Bausman said.

"Because they're [western mainstream media] very critical of Russia and bias against Russia, we often times take the other side. So you could look at that and say 'This seems to be like a pro-Russian site or something, a pro-Russian government site,' but that's not what we're doing."

"What we're saying is it's the information about Russia that is very biased and slanted, and we're trying to point this out."

The site that describes itself on Facebook as "a Western view of Russia, without the anti-Russian bias" has published little or no criticism of the Russian government, preliminary analysis by Through the Cracks found.

There is no criticism of Russian media either because "we're not a Russian site," Bausman said.

"We're mostly Americans, also from Canada and the UK, and what we're really talking about is our own media," he said.

About half of the site's readers are in the United States and Canada, Russia Insider said.

Bausman said he has noticed bias in western media for 20 years.

"The narrative in the western media became so far departed from reality in my opinion of what's going on that I felt it was just like a civic responsibility," Bausman told Russia Today (RT) after the site's launch. "I mean somebody has to finally stand up sometime and say, OK, enough is enough. I'm not going to listen to this anymore."

The crowdfunding campaign money will be used to hire a video producer and a full-time crowdfunding manager to run future campaigns. Bausman said he would never accept money from any government.

Crowdfunding, he said, is "an ideal solution."

"I like that crowdfunding is very democratic and that if you do well by people who funded you it can be an ongoing thing," he said.

Through The Cracks Editor Khari Johnson contributed to this story.
 
#34
Institute of Modern Russia
http://imrussia.org
April 1, 2015
Is There a Feud Over a New Tsar in the Kremlin?
By Donald N. Jensen

Vladimir Putin's ten-day absence from the public eye has become the most discussed event in Russia this past month, and also highlights the country's crisis of governance. According to Donald Jensen, resident fellow of the Center for Transatlantic Relations, keeping the increasingly polarized political forces under control is becoming a much harder challenge for Putin.

Ten days after going missing from the public eye, Russian president Vladimir Putin reappeared on March 16, alive and apparently healthy, when he met with Kyrgyzstan president Almazbek Atambayev in St. Petersburg's Konstantinovsky Palace. Ordinarily, this would be a mundane political event. But left unanswered was where he had been the previous ten days, during which he canceled several public meetings and delayed a planned summit in Kazakhstan. Putin's absence caused a firestorm of speculation: that he was ill, had died, had been removed in a coup, or was once again a father. His disappearance also seemed to drive the political system, which Putin rules, to the verge of a nervous breakdown. Looking relaxed before television cameras, however, the Russian president laughed off speculation about his health and told Atembayev that life "would be boring without gossip." That day Putin also made sure to show the world his fitness to lead: he put Russia's Northern Fleet in a full state of readiness in the Arctic. More than 45,000 troops, as well as Russian submarines and aircraft, began major military exercises. Two days later, he attended the "We're Together" concert in Moscow celebrating the one-year anniversary of the annexation of Crimea.

One of the most plausible explanations for Putin's absence is a need for time off after the shock of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov's murder on February 27 and learning who may have been responsible. Putin was furious when he learned of Nemtsov's killing, according to several sources. Investigators arrested five suspects: Chechens who had served in one of the security battalions of Ramzan Kadyrov, the thuggish warlord to whom Putin has given free rein to kill jihadists and create a brutal police state in Chechnya in exchange for money and personal loyalty. Few experts believe that Chechen fighters could have carried off the assassination of Nemtsov without Kadyrov's acquiescence.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) likely knew about the plot as well, since FSB personnel trailed Nemtsov constantly. The killers may also have received help from sympathizers in the security services who supported their goals and either encouraged the plot or let it happen, while at the same time using the shooting to undercut Kadyrov and force his removal. Indeed, after Nemtsov's death, the FSB showed signs it was using the investigation to settle scores with Kadyrov, its bitter rival. But while the FSB may be prepared to go after Kadyrov, who publicly praised the chief suspect in the murder, the Russian president is not. When Putin reappeared, he indicated he was willing to sacrifice the alleged killers but sent a message not to touch Kadyrov, their former commander, by awarding him a medal. The fact that there are competing "official" versions of Nemtsov's murder being leaked to the media, moreover, seems to indicate a struggle within the power structure over how to spin the event.

There is no love lost between the Russian military and the security services, on the one hand, and Kadyrov's fighters, on the other. The Russian siloviki reportedly resent the untrammeled political authority and conspicuous wealth of the Chechens, whom they helped defeat more than a decade ago. The evidence available in the Nemtsov case thus suggests a struggle between the two pillars of Putin's rule, forcing Putin to decide who the true defender of Russia is. But Kadyrov's possible role in Nemtsov's killing-and reports of a "hit list" targeting other opposition figures-raises the prospect that Kadyrov has adopted a strategy of freelancing against the regime's political opponents to keep himself indispensable to the Kremlin. If this is the case, he would, in effect, be taking the entire leadership hostage.

Indeed Kadyrov's high visibility, as well as the other circumstances surrounding Nemtsov's murder, suggests that conflicts are intensifying in the upper echelons of Russia's leadership more generally. The struggles, moreover, appear to go beyond the usual infighting over access to Putin or controlling cash flows to more critical issues, such as war and peace and how hard a line to take domestically. Defense minister Sergei Shoygu was reportedly reluctant to deploy Russia's army in Ukraine, thereby clashing with presidential chief of staff Sergei Ivanov and head of the Kremlin's Security Council Nikolai Patrushev. Patrushev and Vladislav Surkov (the Kremlin's most influential spin-doctor, personal advisor to Putin, and a close ally of Kadyrov) have been rivals in the messy job of controlling Ukrainian separatists. In a speech at the Mercury Club in January, former Russian prime minister Yevgeny Primakov took a relatively moderate line on Ukraine by Kremlin standards. Meanwhile, extremists in the "Kremlin periphery" with links to the top have been clamoring for Putin to be tougher both at home and toward the West.

Russia's economy, battered by Western sanctions and declining oil prices, has also caused leadership strains: Igor Sechin's oil giant Rosneft was denied the financial support it sought from the National Welfare Fund. The state monopoly Russian Railways, controlled by oligarch Vladimir Yakunin, has warned that it will need $8 billion in state subsidies through 2020 to offset its losses. Although a coup against Putin does not seem imminent, there exists noticeable dissatisfaction with the president in some quarters, with the strategy for removing him being the replacement of Dmitry Medvedev (his constitutional successor) as prime minister. Sergei Ivanov, who curiously also temporarily disappeared from view the day of Nemtsov's death, has been positioning himself to replace the prime minister for some time.

In this brittle and unstable political system, feuds are constantly bubbling up, requiring constant personal intervention from the man in the center. Putin's challenge is to maintain within a single political construction multiple groups with increasingly polarized interests: the Kadyrovtsy; the siloviki; conservatives and liberals; the non-systemic opposition; and extremist Anti-Maidan forces. But with his freedom to maneuver diminishing, it's unclear whether this is still possible.

What has kept these currents churning has been Russia's crisis of governance, which existed before Nemtsov's death and Putin's subsequent disappearance, but which has been starkly highlighted since. Under the current circumstances, as political scientist Pavel Baev has stated, Putin "can no more easily order the war machine to halt than he can command the economy to grow. Yet he personally both symbolizes the integrity of state institutions and concentrates all of Russia's decision-making processes on every serious matter." The Russian president "has boldly abandoned his trademark political pattern of stability and now presides over management of multiple crises conceptualized as an epic struggle for Russia's identity." Putin's absence has not reconfirmed his indispensability, but rather signaled that the Kremlin court may not be able to manage the appointment of a new tsar without an inter-clan feud, in which Kadyrov, with his "battalions and billions," could be a major force.

Before his death, Nemtsov called attention to the dangers inherent in such a system: "I cannot understand what Putin expects when arming 20,000 Kadyrovtsy gathered today in the stadium in Grozny," Nemtsov wrote in a Facebook post in December, after Mr. Kadyrov led his troops in chants of "God is great!" at a rally in the Chechen capital's new soccer arena. "What will happen next?" he wondered.
 
 #35
Christian Science Monitor
April 1, 2015
A glimpse of US-Russia goodwill, through citizen dialogue
As the United States and Russia teeter toward a new cold war, an old forum for informal diplomacy - the Dartmouth Conference - is back in business.
By Linda Feldmann, Staff writer

SUZDAL, RUSSIA - Are the United States and Russia locked in a new cold war?

Not exactly, but there's little doubt that relations between the two great powers have descended dramatically in recent years - see Edward Snowden, Crimea, and Ukraine - and that the level of animosity has alarmed actors on both sides.

Still, as the saying goes, out of crisis comes opportunity. Thus has been revived a cold-war-era institution known as the Dartmouth Conference, a dialogue of Russian and American citizens aimed at finding areas of common ground between the two countries and then taking action.

Recommended: Sochi, Soviets, and tsars: How much do you know about Russia?
That is how I found myself in Suzdal, Russia, in the last week of March - a member of the United States delegation to the first plenary session of the Dartmouth Conference since 1990. The Kettering Foundation in Dayton, Ohio, which funds the American side, was looking for a journalist to participate, and my name came up. I had taken part in a US-Soviet exchange of young journalists in 1987, and suddenly, all these years later, I was back in the business of US-Russian relations.

But the late-1980s Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev, when glasnost and perestroika were in full bloom, is not 2015 Russia under Vladimir Putin. Before I departed for Moscow, Russian friends in the US had warned me: Brace yourself for intense anti-American feeling, pumped up by President Putin. Russia is reeling from the dramatic drop in oil prices, but Western sanctions over Crimea and Ukraine have given the Russians an easy excuse to blame the US for their economic troubles.

At a Dartmouth preparatory session in Dayton last November, some Russians came loaded with the same talking points that blanket Russian television: The US backs "fascist" forces in Ukraine, and is using sanctions to incite the overthrow of Putin.

Indeed, in Suzdal, the Russians made clear that they blame the US for the deterioration in bilateral relations. But having laid down that marker, they could then move on to more constructive dialogue. Charges that the US is trying to foment "regime change" in Moscow were kept to a minimum.

Part of the largely friendly atmosphere at Suzdal owes to the leadership on both sides. The Americans were led by two retired diplomats, former Assistant Secretary of State Harold Saunders and former US Ambassador to Russia James Collins. The Russians were led by former Energy Minister Yuri Shafranik and Vitaly Naumkin, director of the Institute of Oriental Studies.

Discussions took place under the so-called Chatham House Rule: Comments may be referenced publicly, but not connected to any individuals. The delegates, about 20 on each side, hailed from the worlds of business, academia, defense, politics, medicine, and religion.

The key to dialogue was to focus on areas of potential agreement. Thus the inclusion of top medical professionals - including, on the American side, former Surgeon General Regina Benjamin - and members of the clergy. The American delegation included a Jesuit priest and an Evangelical Christian preacher, and on the Russian side, a Russian Orthodox priest.

One agreement, to hold joint medical conferences, fell into place easily. The clerical participants agreed to encourage a deepening of dialogue among religious leaders from both countries.

To be sure, disagreements flared up in many spheres - even the seemingly nonpolitical. When an American cited a health statistic unflattering to Russia, a Russian delegate took offense and lashed out.

"Where did you get that number?" he snapped.

"From the World Health Organization," the American responded.

"Well, it's still wrong," the Russian replied.

That's small beans compared with the profound differences over Ukraine, where Russia has stoked a separatist rebellion with major military and intelligence assistance, which the Russians deny.

But setting Ukraine aside (if that's possible), the Russians made two points clear, both in Suzdal and in meetings the American delegation had later in Moscow at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Council of Federations (upper chamber of parliament), and Ministry of Defense.

First, the Russians still see themselves as part of the broader Euro-Atlantic community - perhaps a glimmer of hope that Russia has an incentive to cooperate on Ukraine. And they yearn for a revival of the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission, set up in 2009 during the "reset" in relations to facilitate collaboration in some 20 areas. The US has suspended the commission's activities.

Despite the freeze in formal relations, the Americans in Suzdal still saw potential for heightened US-Russian collaboration in areas of mutual interest, such as counterterrorism, health, education, and culture.  

"The number of things this group agreed need to happen that aren't happening because governments don't want to do business-as-usual is impressive," Mr. Saunders told me later.

Perhaps the greatest value of Dartmouth is that it just gets Russians and American citizens talking, both at the conference table and informally, and building human connections. Meeting in the small, ancient town of Suzdal - a four-hour drive from Moscow - kept the pace relaxed and focused. Together we toured historic sites, shared many meals and a few stem-winding toasts, and listened to musical performances.

On more than one occasion, I found myself answering questions over lunch - in rusty Russian - about US politics. If Hillary Clinton wins the presidential election, one Russian predicted, relations between our two countries will get even worse. His prognosis for the large field of Republicans wasn't any better.

With another Russian, the lunch discussion turned to gay rights, a fraught topic in a country that sees growing acceptance of gay marriage in the West as a sign of encroaching "decadence."

"Why can't these people just stay quiet?" this person said.

The history of the Dartmouth Conference is long and storied. Founded in 1960 by Saturday Review editor and peace activist Norman Cousins, it is named for the site of its inaugural session, Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. Two years later, literally as the conferees met, the Cuban missile crisis burst into the headlines. Each delegation contacted its government and asked what to do. Each got the same answer: Keep talking.

That was "the crucible in which the value and role of the Dartmouth Conference was demonstrated," the group's history says.

Past participants include former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, banker David Rockefeller, and inventor Buckminster Fuller. At times, governments used Dartmouth as a back channel to test ideas. After 1990, when the Soviet Union dissolved and the cold war ended, the plenary meetings of Dartmouth stopped, but smaller working groups continued, focused on regional conflicts and arms control.

Now the big meetings are back. And even if no one is predicting an easing of US-Russian tensions anytime soon, Dartmouth at least "keeps the sinew healthy," as Saunders puts it.
 
#36
Earth Hour 2015 is over as spring thaw in Siberia begins...Natural Disaster Response in "Putin's Russia"    
By Sarah Lindemann-Komarova ([email protected])
Founder, Siberian Civic Initiatives Support Center 1995 - 2014. Helped to establish this as the hub for the first civil society development support network in the former Soviet Union.
(This is an edited version of "The Flood: A tree is best measured when it is down", full version is available with photos at: https://medium.com/@ECHOSiberia/the-flood-a-tree-is-best-measured-when-it-is-down-1-e8c98cbc6ac5)

At 8 PM on March 28th  Russia joined 172 other countries and territories celebrating Earth Hour.  Landmark buildings around the world went dark for an hour to draw attention to climate change and promote reduced energy use.  In 2015 this provided a rare moment of agreement between Russia and the West and a reminder that beyond the western stereotype that "everything in Russia is awful and it is Putin's fault" there is reality.  That reality, as it relates to all countries, is increasingly exposed by extreme weather events.  As the frequency and ferocity of natural disasters increases, so does the importance of government performance in relation to the efficacy of the response and support available to those impacted by the storm. While climate change has yet to become a key voter issue, we have seen recognition in America by elected officials that their future political careers may depend on their competence and capacity to deliver during these critical times of need.    Does the government of Vladimir Putin deliver when it comes to meeting the needs of people under the most extreme circumstances?  Do we see evidence that elections in Russia increase the incentive for elected officials to respond in a timely and competent manner to natural disasters?   Three Russian floods provide some insight, one of them this author experienced first hand and the government response proved as unexpected as the flood itself.  

Background: Two Floods

2012: Southern Russia

The Krasnodar Flood could be characterized as Russia's Katrina because of the tragic consequences of government failure before, during and after the waters struck.   Two days of rain preceded a deluge that began on July 6, 2012 in Krasnodar Krai, a Southern Russian region located on the Black Sea.  When it ended, in the early hours of the 7th , the equivalent of 5 months precipitation had fallen and neither man nor nature were prepared for absorbing this blow. Tragically, the tipping point came at night when a flash flood appeared at 10PM cresting at 2AM with a height of 23 ft (7 m) catching, primarily, the inhabitants of 3 towns while they slept.  Officials reported 172 people killed, many trapped in their single story homes when the water roared in up to the ceilings.  5,200 homes were destroyed or damaged and 34,000 overall were directly impacted by the disaster.  

General skepticism of local and regional government had long been simmering in the region.  Krasnodar was considered one of the most tightly controlled regions in Russia. This control and skepticism intensified when it was chosen to host the 2014 Sochi Olympics.    On the national level, opposition parties and activists, recently invigorated by marches in Moscow protesting the re-election of Putin, did not hesitate to politicize the situation. (1) As a result the tragedy and its aftermath became a key development moment for civil society demonstrating its willingness and ability to participate in disaster relief efforts and hold government accountable.

President Putin arrived July 7th, declared a day of mourning and a program for compensating victims ($3,000 for homes that were destroyed and $1,500 for those that were partially damaged).   Still, the government response to provide immediate needs for those who were permanently or temporarily homeless and liquidating the after-effects was not sufficient.  This provided an opportunity for NGOs, volunteers and donations to fill the gap, which they did with 2,000 tons of humanitarian aid and 2,500 volunteers coming from all over Russia.  

The most vehement anger remained focused on culpability for the deaths. Rumors circulated blaming the government for opening reservoir sluice gates but no evidence of that was ever found.  More salient were charges that in Krymsk, home to 160 victims, local government was aware of the rapidly rising water and yet their efforts to warn people with the use of sirens and loudspeakers were grossly inadequate since most people were sleeping.  Ultimately, three local government officials and head of the district department for emergency warning and civil defense were charged with criminal negligence "improper performance of their official duties due to negligent attitude to service that resulted in the death of more than two persons".  A little more than a year after the flood all four were found guilty, 3 were given prison sentences and the 4th a suspended sentence. Whether criminally negligent or scapegoats for the Governor, Alexander Tkachev who in March had begun his second appointed term after 2 elected terms, it was certainly a warning to regional and local government that more was expected.  Political analyst Andrey Piontkovsky was more succinct, "It seems that Putin is not a 'Teflon president', He got away with Kursk, he got away with Beslan, but it seems he's not getting away very smoothly with Krymsk." (2)

2013: Far East

The 2013 flooding that took place in the Russian Far East was a more global and sustained event. Heavy rains fell from mid- August through September causing the Amur River to reach levels unknown for 115 years. Meteorologists cited several contributing factors for the record -breaking precipitation and high waters: an abnormal change in air circulation, a snowy winter followed by a late spring, forest fires and logging eliminating trees that retain moisture.    Five Russian regions were hit covering a territory comparable to Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. (3)  Putin arrived on August 29th to announce a mobilization effort to help those already underwater, keep as many towns as possible dry and repair damage to personal property and public infrastructure. This included calling on the Army to supplement the work of 13,000 emergency services personnel and volunteers.  The critical role played by volunteers was codified in the protocol for a meeting of the Federal level Ministry for the Development of the Far East. (4) Before it was over 32,000 people had to be evacuated and 4,000 homes and 190,000 residents in 235 villages or small towns suffered some form of property damage.   The response did help 120 towns  avoid flood damage.   On the Chinese side of the Amur the flood killed 200 people, on the Russian side, no one died.

The Government promised the same level of compensation for damaged or lost homes as in Krasnodar and organized the distribution of vaccines because of heightened concerns about disease.  A 10 hour TV fundraising marathon was held on Channel 1 (the most influential state channel) to generate awareness and organize public support.  This was a first for disaster relief in Russia and collected almost $16 million for housing.  The national Red Cross continued its role as the primary NGO conduit for relief but a local foundation provided an alternative for those interested in more targeted funding and clarity on how their money was being used.  

Throughout 2014 government compensation to flood victims was distributed and amounted to 40 billion rubles ($1,133,000,000).  This provided money to cover harvest and material losses,   new homes for those who lost them and capital repairs to the houses still standing.   These enormous unexpected costs so soon after the Krasnodar flood inspired Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to take action. It is estimated that only 5% of Russian homeowners have private insurance and most of them are in the big cities. He asked the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank to prepare a proposal that would establish a system of compulsory insurance to cover "damage caused by fire, flood or other natural disasters".  The initial proposal was rejected on the grounds that the civil code and Constitution prohibited mandatory insurance.  Medvedev asked them to find ways that the government, together with insurance companies, can address the issue in accordance with the law. (5)  The problem was still in need of a solution when the next flood struck less than 6 months later.

Manzherok, Altai Republic

May 30, 2014.  It began with a phone call from Nadya, our "dacha" neighbor in Manzherok.  "The river is rising fast" was all it took for us to start the 450 km drive down from Novosibirsk.  Nadya continued to report in until the cell phone connection went dead with "vse plokho, vse plokho" (everything is bad, everything is bad).  We choose to build on the river knowing this involved risk as people still talked about the flood that happened 45 years ago. However, in 1969 the Katyn breached its banks during the annual mountain spring snow melt, "korennaya voda",  that was still weeks away, this was something different.    The official version was a month of rain in 4 days that caused the Katyn, along with other local rivers and their tributaries to explode.  The Head of the Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring Agency attributed this to abnormal changes in the circulation of air masses over Southern Siberia and the Russian Far East and warned this condition may become permanent and, although less dramatic, 2014 did bring more flooding in the Far East. (6)  There were numerous other explanations for the flood including an illegal lake allegedly owned by a member of the Moscow ruling elite,  " an overvoltage of nature" that according to an Altai Shaman "occurs in nature so it cleans itself. Too many hotels have been built too close to the Katyn River and there is a lot of garbage.  Nature decided to get rid of everything that was unnecessary" and the wrath of Princess Ukok the Siberian Ice Maiden, a 5th century BC mummy that is believed to have "guarded the gates of the underworld keeping out the monsters that feed on people's fears and destroy the existence of harmony" until she was unburied and placed in a museum . (7)

While the reason(s) for the flood were a controversial issue, lack of government warning was not.  Overall there were 2 confirmed flood related casualties in the Republic. These occurred on May 29, just as the Katyn River was starting to rise and a truck carrying three people attempting to evacuate turned over into the river and only one of them made it to safety. (8)     When we arrived our house was surrounded by the Katyn and inaccessible so we were forced to join the village natives with one story homes and leave the fate of our property to nature.  A couple of newcomers with second story homes decided to ride it out. During the 3 nights and two days before the water started to recede, emergency services personnel paddled by to check on them and were available should evacuation become necessary.   It didn't and when we were all able to return to our sludge-filled homes, it turned out we were the only ones with insurance.  We assumed that even if government help was available, the effort and time involved to get it would supersede any possible gain.    We were wrong.

On the first day of clean-up the Mayor appeared at our house with what turned out to be a damage assessment commission.   Later that day a doctor and nurse arrived with chemicals to treat the water and medicine.   They promised to check in every other day and left a number to call if we felt sick.  Houses with residents officially registered in Manzherok received rations of water and food along with the news there would be an immediate payout of $330 for each registered person AND, based on the Commission's recommendation, an additional $1,600 for partially damaged or $3,200 totally damaged for each person to cover household items and clothing lost. This level of compensation corresponded to what flood victims in Krasnodar and the Far East received and turned out to be faster and, for those who later also received funding for capital repairs, more generous than what we ultimately received from our private insurance company.  Our neighbor was informed by the government that if she wanted to receive a new house she would have to agree to declare her current house a total loss (one step down from totally damaged) and forfeit her property.  The new house would be located in a non-flood zone area.   This was good, responsible government policy, she declined and applied for the $167  per square meter capital repair compensation (9) while we ended up with less than $71 per square meter which meant we were basically getting back the money we had spent on insurance over the last 10 years.  Villagers were curious, assuming we were going to make a "killing", so our neighbor was asked to report back and let people know if insurance was something they should consider. 22 years after the birth of capitalism a real opportunity for the private sector to sell itself to the people of Russia was lost.  
 
The most surprising result of the flood was a pile of wood 3 meters high that now surrounded our house on three sides and can best be described as looking like what a Tsunami leaves behind.   We ignored it until a group of men from emergency services appeared to clean up the neighbors Tsunami of wood on day 5.  Apart from the electric saw the equipment they were using was homemade primitive but by the end of the day her property was clear. The Mayor was there and told us he requested help from emergency services but he did not know how daily work orders were decided, what the criteria was to be a priority.   Nothing about this process was open or transparent, there was no information about whether there was a clean-up list or how to get on it if there was one.   The brigade did arrive to help us the next morning. It was composed mostly of young men ages 18 to 23.  Teams from all over Russia were brought in to help with the flood so some of this gang were emergency services personnel from Novosibirsk, the rest were kids serving their obligatory one year Army service. The informational aspect of disaster clean-up was a disaster, but, a week after the flood waters were gone emergency services had cleaned up the entire riverfront and all properties on it.

It turned out that a large number of children living in Manzherok were not registered as residents of the Village.  Since government compensation for immediate needs was allocated per capita, a lot of people were angry.  In this instance not only was information about the procedure for applying to the court for recognition as a disaster victim readily available, the local administration made every effort to outreach to everyone they felt merited the support, including us.  It was soon obvious that encouraging people with honest claims to apply was good economic policy, it provided an enormous economic stimulus package to one of the poorest regions in the country.   This money made it possible for some villagers to achieve a quality of life that would not have been attainable otherwise.  The last two families on my street without indoor plumbing were able to put in wells eliminating the need to haul water and neighborhood improvement will generate increased revenue by attracting more tourists.  

There was one other very rational reason for such a comprehensive disaster program and efforts to conduct it with a degree of efficiency I have not seen living in Russia for 22 years.  It was an election year for Governor of the Republic and there was a serious challenger to the incumbent, Alexander Berdnikov  (a representative of United Russia, the party of power).  Berdnikov had never actually won an election before.  His previous two 4 year terms were under the auspices of a procedure introduced by President Putin in 2006 that eliminated direct gubernatorial elections in the regions. Candidates nominated by Moscow were confirmed by the regional Duma.   Things were not looking good for the United Russia candidate in what was to be a revival of the public Gubernatorial elections in Altai.  There was talk that he would not receive the 51% required to avoid a second round of voting.  This was of particular concern in Moscow because in April United Russia lost the Mayoral election in Novosibirsk City (the 3rd largest city in Russia) to a Communist despite the considerable administrative resources available to his United Russia opponent.  Seven of an eligible 69 parties in Altai put forward candidates that could easily split the vote in such a way to deny a first round victory.  Berdnikov did everything one would expect for a candidate in a tight race from attracting large amounts of federal disaster relief money, to conducting town meetings.

In July we joined our neighbors applying to the court for recognition as disaster victims but my hopes, based on election year pandering and encouragement by the local administration, were tempered by the broader and more complex geopolitical environment.  All of this was happening in the midst of the Ukraine crisis.  I was concerned about the subsequent economic impact of western attitudes and sanctions against Russia that went into overdrive with the tragic loss of Malaysian Airlines Flight #17.   This could either be the perfect excuse for cutting short the relief program, or, the biggest reason to fully fund it.   A missing checkmark on the commission documents made it necessary for the judge to require two court procedures. The decision making process was further delayed when we received a call that the judge was "sick". Still, at the end of August, with the Mayor vigorously testifying on our behalf, we were recognized as community member disaster victims.   The law specified payment 30 days after the court judgment, the end of September.  
Our high level of confidence in the government disaster relief program was reinforced when President Putin arrived several days after our court date to conduct a meeting for the regional leaders affected by our flood and the Far East. The speech was exactly what you wanted to hear from the President acknowledging that regional and federal money was not moving fast enough...

"...hope that the lessons learned in 2013...made it possible to avoid serious consequences"

"here in Siberia the weather also taught us another important lesson: 250 towns and villages were flooded. More than 80,000 people were affected by the floods....28.3 thousand garden plots, 6.5 thousand hectares of agricultural crops, 403 kilometers of power lines and over 140 social facilities damaged, 4.2 thousand head of cattle and 9.5 thousand birds were killed, 4,678 people were provided temporary accommodation.."

"We need to rule out any red tape, specifically when we are helping people."

Putin also talked about the future including developing insurance mechanisms and providing oversight so that no more "capital construction on flood prone territories without special flood prevention measures being taken first." (10)  It took three floods in three years, but they provided lessons learned for the parameters of a national disaster policy.

Throughout the next 4 months allot of things happened.  The sitting Governor was elected with .63% or 533 votes more than the 50%  required to avoid a run-off. This was not a convincing result for his key opponent who appealed and lost first to the Supreme Court of the Altai Republic and then Russian Federation. (11) The initial Minsk Protocol was signed to bring a ceasefire in Ukraine that never happened, Western sanctions were ratcheted up to include major Russian banks and oil companies.  The exchange rate went from 30 to 72 rubles per dollar before settling at 60, the inflation rate jumped from 7.6 to 9.1% and, most importantly for Russia, the price of oil plummeted from $100 a barrel to around $55.  One thing that did not happen was disaster relief payment so even if, best case scenario, we actually got the money, it was going to buy less.  During this period Hurricane Sandy celebrated it's 2nd anniversary and news reports were filled with stories about homeowners still homeless or yet to be fully compensated by government agencies or insurance companies backed by the government  while the government was busy clawing back millions of dollars in fraudulent claims. This provided both solace and warning.

On December 26, Prime Minister Medvedev signed a decree authorizing the relief money with orders for it to be in the hands of victims by the New Year.  It was a happy New Year for everyone but us.  After the 10 day official holiday we found out our money could not be transferred to a bank account outside the region.  Reasonable, good policy but again, a problem with information dissemination that was aggravated by a simple mistake.  Our money (cash) had been transported to the main regional post office where it would sit for several days. For a reason never made clear, we would have to wait three days for the next scheduled post office delivery to Manzherok to get our money rather than the 42 minutes it would take to drive and pick it up.  Our money missed the Monday delivery because a woman in the social services department had forgotten to send the list to the post office. There was an upside to this madness. During the three days it took the post office van to travel 32 kilometers we discovered there was no deadline for making capital repair claims and we were eligible.  So that's where we are now, documents have been submitted and approved, we are, once again, waiting for money as an unusually snowy winter threatens to produce a spring thaw  of epic proportions unless less angry Gods or forces of nature gift us with a gradual snow melt and no heavy rains.  

Conclusion: Disaster Relief in Putin's Russia

How responsive has the Russian government been to extreme weather events?. Emergency services demonstrated notable improvement before, during and after flood #3.  With regard to financial assistance to victims, in Altai the primary implementation weakness was informational but the existing program is not sustainable.  After over a year of judicial and legislative effort Medvedev produced what the government hopes will solve this problem. On February 27, 2015 the Russian Duma passed Law #694881-6 "On Changes to legislation to bring order to mechanisms providing citizens help in restoring (or replacing) property lost as a result of fires, floods and other natural disasters." (12)  It echoes American public-private solutions by phasing in a system that will provide support for those who have insurance that will be affordable on the basis of government subsidies.  There are no magic bullets so managing expectations for victims in the future is critical knowing that some people aren't going to be satisfied no matter how much the government does to help.  In Russia this goes beyond addressing technical problems associated with information dissemination and implementation.  There needs to be public discussion about the new law to facilitate a shift in attitude towards a shared responsibility.  There are hopeful signs of progress.   Less than a month after the new law neighbors were talking about the insurance program and their plans to join because it was affordable and they understood that if they do not, there will be limited government financial assistance.  Just as the Russian program was launched reports on serious corruption related to compensation for 2013 Hurricane Sandy victims in America surfaced.   This is  a reminder of greater challenges ahead as establishing this program in Russia will require rigorous and, so far, illusive methods to combat this scourge that has attached itself to many aspects of life.  

The practice of individual and private organizations donating to help has become an institutionalized element in disaster response.  Over 45 million rubles was donated to the flood victims in the Altai Republic.  (13)   There was less of an NGO, volunteer component to the recovery in Altai than was evidenced in the previous two floods.  One reason for that may be the absence of local NGOs with the capacity and desire to play this role. It may also be a reflection of the downside to government emergency services doing such a good job. People assumed there was no need.  Based on the accumulated experience government and NGOs should work together on a comprehensive guide to best practices and recommendations for how to mobilize and use volunteers after a disaster.  This project would also strengthen their partnership because in Russia, more work needs to be done to get government comfortable with citizen participation. There was a degree of blowback after the enormous role played by volunteers in Krasnodar. Some issues raised were valid, who is responsible if a volunteer is injured or killed, others were rooted in a desire to control everything.  Thus, promoting the concept of shared responsibility extends to government officials as well as the public.    

There is no evidence that his flood performance influenced positively or negatively the controversial election of the sitting Governor.  That said, it did not hurt that a popular President came, along with all affected governors, and conducted the flood review meeting in the Republic nine days before the election. That and the town hall meetings demonstrate politicians in power recognize the possible impact of disaster relief performance on public support.  It is too soon to judge if these concerns will lead to substantive action to mitigate the effect of future floods and enforce existing laws prohibiting new construction in flood zones.  There was a positive indicator in Manzherok, the speed a washed out road was rebuilt and the addition of a large drainage pipe underneath to keep a stream from flooding the road as it flows into the river.  

The most complicated question of all for Russia is how these disasters will influence actions related to climate change. In 2005 Roshydromet, Russia's meteorological service, issued a statement warning that the rate of climate change in Russia was twice as fast as the world's average. (14)  Since the Russian economy is so dependent on its fossil fuel industry, we are faced with the irony of a robust financial response to extreme weather events that is funded by proceeds generated by selling what is at least in part responsible for them happening.  It should not be surprising that so far there is no evidence these three floods have done anything to inspire a more serious debate focused on what Russia plans to do about its contribution to greenhouse gases.  The dichotomy is described by Drs. Maria Sharmina and Christopher Jones in a January 2015 article titled "Discounting the future of climate change in Russia: Like it or not, global warming will affect Russia, and ignoring it only stores up problems for later".   They write, "The government has taken a few steps towards a lower-carbon future: it has signed up to the global 2�C emissions pledge and adopted the Climate Doctrine and the Renewable Energy Decree. However, Russia's other policies contradict its climate change commitments, including generous subsidies for the production of fossil fuels. In this sense, the left hand does not want to know what the right hand is doing."  (15)  I think all hands know what the other is doing and despite record breaking weather around the country this winter, for the time being, the strategy is to sell as much oil and gas as possible while mitigating and responding more effectively to the consequences of climate change.
    
Today, as the fourth greatest producer of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions based on their share of global energy-related CO2 emissions with 4.87% ( behind China 23.43%, US 14.69% and India 5.7%) (16),  there is a real need and opportunity for Russia to demonstrate leadership.  There are tiny green shoots, even in Altai. As of April 1 the first solar energy plant in Russia was authorized to provide energy to the market. This is the first of five such plants planned for Altai by 2019.  (17) Russia is certainly not the only country trying to square this circle.  There is a civilizational choice to make. I do not mean the dangerous civilizational choice as in the propaganda tool used to get Ukraine to choose Russia or the European Union, a choice that the laws of geography, history and common sense rebel against.  This is the real thing, the ultimate civilizational choice facing all countries, will we do what must be done to insure the survival of the planet?   Is it possible to put all differences aside and channel our greed, ambition and desire towards one common, positive goal? Does the type of inspired leadership that focused our competitive urges on a race to the moon exist today?  While these questions go unanswered nature is the one establishing common ground. Boston, USA (108.62 in.) and Blagoveshinsk, Russia (still snowing) just broke their seasonal snowfall records while Capracotta , Italy broke the world record for one day snowfall in 18 hours (100.8 inches/256 centimeters).  In the meantime, the United States Congress continues to find ways to make the Keystone Pipeline a reality and President Putin and his counterpart, Xi Jinping, agreed in November to make the western or "Altai" pipeline through the Plateau Ukok a priority, so we continue to not only risk the wrath of mother nature, but Princess Ukok.  (18)  
    
References and Notes

1) http://russiaprofile.org/culture_living/60777.html
2) http//russiaprofile.org/politics/61057.html
3) Russia Behind the Headlines:  http://rbth.com/society/2013/08/21/flood_covers_thousands_of_miles_of_russian_far_east_29103.html
4) http://minvostokrazvitia.ru/activities/docs/20131206protocolmvrg2.pdf
5) http://www.odnako.org/blogs/odin-iz-itogov-navodneniya-na-dalnem-vostoke-obyazatelnoe-strahovanie-zhilya-otmenyaetsya/
6) http://rbth.com/society/2014/06/06/flooding_hits_southern_siberia_and_russian_far_east_37279.html    
7) http://sib.fm/articles/2014/06/09/sama-priplyla
8) http://www.regnum.ru/news/accidents/1808211.html#ixzz3RJUcn4L3
9) Calculated at the rate of 30 rubles per $1
10) http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/22901 and Johnson's Russia List 2014-#194
11) http://www.golosinfo.org/ru/articles/1486
12) http://asozd2.duma.gov.ru/main.nsf/%28SpravkaNew%29?OpenAgent&RN=694881-6&02
13)http://www.gorno-altaisk.info/news/30697
14) http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/08/will-climate-change-denialism-help-the-russian-economy/     
15) https://www.opendemocracy.net/author/maria-sharmina-christopher-jones
16) http://www.statista.com/statistics/271748/the-largest-emitters-of-co2-in-the-world/
17) http://sib.fm/news/2015/04/01/solnechnaja-ehlektrostancija-v-gornom-altae-nachala-postavki
18)http://www.regnum.ru/news/1899306.html