#2
Health minister reports declining number of smokers and less alcohol consumption in Russia

MOSCOW, April 7. /TASS/. Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova has reported positive tendencies in Russia, where the population has become healthier because 17 % gave up harmful habits such as smoking and alcohol consumption, which went down to 11 liters per year against 16 liters in 2008, the minister said on the occasion of the World Health Day marked on Tuesday.

"Since 2008 alcohol consumption has dropped by 27% per capita - from approximately 16 liters reported in 2008 to 11 liters. The number of smokers has dropped by 17 %, which is an especially encouraging factor because smoking as well as high blood pressure are the worst factors which cause pathology of the heart and blood vessels," the minister said.

Another positive factor is that "the number of people going in for sport has grown from 15 million to 35 million since 2013," the minister said. "Children have been involved in regular sport activities 3.5 times more than in 2013," she said.

[return to Contents] 

 
#3
Carnegie Moscow Center
http://carnegie.ru
April 6, 2015
The Russian Middle Class in a Besieged Fortress
By Andrei Kolesnikov
Kolesnikov is a senior associate and the chair of the Russian Domestic Politics and Political Institutions Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center. Kolesnikov has worked for a number of leading Russian publications. He previously was the managing editor of Novaya Gazeta newspaper and served as deputy editor in chief of Izvestia and The New Times.[Footnotes here http://carnegie.ru/2015/04/06/russian-middle-class-in-besieged-fortress#]

SUMMARY

There is little reason to believe that the Russian middle class will react to the ongoing financial and economic crisis with protests or renewed calls for change. Instead, it seems almost certain that it will opt for strategies of survival and perseverance.

Introduction

How will the Russian middle class react to the effects of low oil prices, Western sanctions, and deep-set economic problems, a state of affairs that some economists have dubbed the "triple whammy"? Unfortunately, these problems are only part of the broader systemic crisis that plagues Russia today. Yet there is little reason to believe that the Russian middle class will react to the ongoing financial and economic crisis with protests or renewed calls for change. Instead, it seems almost certain that this dynamic segment of society will opt for strategies of survival and perseverance rather than articulating a political agenda that challenges the Russian government or its current policies.

The nature and consequences of Russia's current crisis cannot be reduced to economic issues. Sberbank President German Gref argued in his January 14, 2015, speech at the Gaidar Forum in Moscow that it is important not to overlook the impact of critical governance shortcomings. But instability or gaps in the quality of the state's administrative capabilities-however important-are not a root cause. Rather, they are one of the effects of a deeper institutional and values-based crisis. All other aspects of the crisis, including the current political situation, merely stem from it. And there should be no question that Russia is indeed in a political crisis, despite outward manifestations of calmness and the consolidation of society and elites around the head of state.

Unfortunately, the triple whammy is not unleashing the forces of "creative destruction" or disruption that some reformist voices had been pinning their hopes on. In many cases, crises enable states to reform political life and move forward. In this sense, the 2008-2009 financial crisis was a lost opportunity for Russia. The crisis did not change behavior among state capitalism's elites nor did it spur structural reform. Rather, the struggling economy was simply flooded with money from the state's reserve funds. The state's playbook conformed with former U.S. president Ronald Reagan's old axiom: "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

The Economy After Crimea

Russia's economic problems are certainly significant.

Economic analysts generally agree that Russia's gross domestic product (GDP) will decline by at least 3-7 percent in 2015 while annual inflation will soar. Inflation is forecast by the central bank to peak at 17.0-17.5 percent in the second quarter of 2015.

Headline inflation was 15 percent in January 2015 (from January 2014 to January 2015), and increasing at a rate of 3.9 percent a month-the highest rate since February 1999. The disaggregated components of the inflation numbers also tell a powerful story. Prices for medicine and medical equipment grew 6.6 percent in January (19.4 percent year-on-year). Food prices, excluding fruit and vegetables, were up 3.7 percent in January (18.4 percent year-on-year). Fruit and vegetable prices increased by 22.1 percent in January (40.7 percent year-on-year).

Assessments of the effect of sanctions on overall GDP vary. Experts from FBK Grant Thornton, a business consultancy, suggest that the sanctions will shave off 1.2 percent of Russian GDP by mid-2015.1 The effect of the sharp decline in oil prices on GDP is even greater. Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy experts Sergey Drobyshevsky and Andrey Polbin estimate that a decrease in oil prices to $40 per barrel would translate into a 3.7 percent decline in GDP in constant prices.

Structural problems, for example, state intervention on behalf of favored industries and companies and the blocking of pension reform, are in part linked to the Russian economy's dependence on oil and gas. They are also tied to the lack of reform in the sectors of the economy (such as healthcare and education) that are human-capital-intensive as well as the lack of resources allocated to these sectors due to inadequate government financing.

As the labor force has shrunk, economists have begun to notice a decline in the skill level of Russian workers. The rector of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Vladimir Mau, has pointed out that "the unemployment rate in Russia is rather low due to the effects of demographic factors. However, a conflict is brewing: on the one hand, the army of retirees is on the rise; on the other, there are young people who are unwilling to fill the jobs being vacated."2 Тhe low-skilled segment of the labor market is also changing. Inflation and a weak ruble have made Russia unattractive even to migrants-the most unpretentious part of the workforce; there was a 70 percent decrease in the number of migrants arriving in Russia in the beginning of 2015.

Another factor contributing to the current situation is the large percentage of workers who are employed in the shadow economy, which, according to official statistics, accounts for 12.5 percent of GDP. According to Rosstat data, in 2011, 22 million Russians-almost a third of the 71-million-person workforce-were employed in informal sectors of the economy. (This sector comprises, for example, many entrepreneurs and their employees, those providing paid services off the books, and agricultural workers.)3 The number is expected to increase as a result of the ongoing decline in real incomes, worsening labor market conditions, employee realignment and reductions at various large-scale enterprises, and other crisis-related factors. Workers in the informal economy pay no taxes and therefore will not be able to contribute to the Pension Fund. According to data from the Russian Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, 20 percent of the able-bodied population is missing from the Pension Fund databases.4

Politics and Policy

While oil price volatility is certainly not a by-product of current Russian economic policy, the other two components of the triple whammy-sanctions and structural problems-have a lot to do with decisions made by the government. Moreover, they are directly related to the nature and content of domestic and foreign policy decisionmaking. In a nutshell, such decisions are increasingly the province of an extremely close-knit and ever-shrinking circle of decisionmakers around Russian President Vladimir Putin, known as "Putin's friends," a description that has become increasingly literal.

It is telling that Russia's economic downturn worsened after the annexation of Crimea in the spring of 2014. Macroeconomic indicators looked dreadful by the end of the year. The ruble was the world's worst-performing currency against the dollar.5 Former finance minister Alexei Kudrin has suggested that the drop in oil prices only accounts for 25 percent of the ruble's recent depreciation. Kudrin claims that sanctions account for 25 to 40 percent of the currency's slide with the dollar's overall surge contributing an additional 5 to 10 percent. Kudrin also highlights the negative effects of "risks, expectations, and fears," including investors' lack of confidence in the government's efforts to improve the investment climate and support economic growth.6

Economic policymaking is increasingly held hostage by a new and unexpected set of actors. For example, any attempts by the government to mount superhuman policy changes in the economic sphere or complex diplomatic maneuvers could be blown to bits if Donetsk People's Republic leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko were to order his troops to move on the city of Mariupol. Russia's investment climate, financial stability, and economic development depend more on the actions of separatist leaders in Donetsk and Lugansk, the chief prosecutor, and the Investigative Committee than the central bank's official monetary and interest rate policies or deputy prime ministers' declarations at the Davos World Economic Forum. Amid growing isolationism, nationalism, and anti-Western sentiments, the "Zakharchenko Factor" may not be the sole determinant of current developments, but it plays a very important role.

Taxpayer's Democracy: An Unattained Ideal

Meanwhile, Russians remain quite passive about their economic situation, even as the consequences of the triple whammy gradually emerge.

Both Hegel and Marx wrote about alienation (Entfremdung), specifically, the mutual alienation of the people and their government. On a conceptual level, governments seek to exploit the benefits from GDP, economic rents, and tax revenues for the sake of self-preservation. This goal in turn leads to unproductive government expenditures on defense, law enforcement, and operations that significantly exceed productive government expenditures in other areas, say, education and healthcare.

In Russia, the clique of Putin-era oligarchs is not constrained by political institutions that would ordinarily help relay public opinion to the government. Of course, the Russian political system has never fully subscribed to the principle of "no taxation without representation." However, under Russia's particular brand of state capitalism and heavy dependence on oil and gas profits, closed channels of political representation have practically obliterated it.

The president's inner circle views economic rent as its personal revenue stream or private property, as evidenced by state-owned oil company Rosneft's request for substantial subsidies from the National Wealth Fund, which was created in order to accumulate oil-based revenues to compensate for a projected state-backed Pension Fund deficit. This is quite logical for a system in which having power is synonymous with owning property; this so-called power-property relationship is also sanctified by the authority of the Russian Orthodox Church. The church is increasingly playing a role geared toward maximizing the effect of pro-government propaganda and ensuring greater conformity inside Russian society with its socially conservative goals and values. (The persecution of the band Pussy Riot is only the most well-known example of these efforts.)

However, such an arrangement contradicts the Russian constitution, which states that "land and other natural resources shall be utilized and protected in the Russian Federation as the basis of the life and activity of the peoples living on the territories concerned." Those resources were not intended to be the basis of life and activity for a handful of beneficiaries of state capitalism and their families.

Еconomic rent is alienated from the people, and so is the government. People believe that they have no way to advocate meaningful change in their country and thus allow the establishment to make decisions on its own. The classic Putin-era social contract ("freedom in exchange for sausage") that emerged during the period of high oil prices gave way in 2014 to "freedom in exchange for Crimea and national pride."

The government is also alienated by virtue of the fact that elections now distort the principles of representation more than ever before. This fact triggered the street protests in 2011-2012, when some in the middle class demanded democracy and fair elections. These demands were perfectly in line with Seymour Lipset's theory that higher living standards, education, and income are the foundations for a realization by increasingly affluent members of society of the need for greater democracy.7

In 2011, Russia's urban middle class offered some support for Lipset's hypothesis by advancing their demands for democracy. Yet in 2014, after failing to achieve their original goal, they set aside such political interests in favor of the "Crimea is ours" (Krym nash) concept. In essence, they agreed that the concoction of hybrid and trade wars was better for the motherland than its presence, to put it pompously, in the family of European nations.

The year 2014 marked the degradation and militarization of state policies and mass consciousness. These policies were a striking contrast to the recent behavior of modern democratic societies, which consider military losses unacceptable and regard appeals to an entity's sacred status as a relic of bygone theocratic eras.8

Along with the post-Crimean consolidation of Russian society, sociologists have found that Russians stayed true to a core belief: "We cannot have an impact on anything so therefore we do not want to impact anything." According to a Levada Center poll, about 60 percent of the population agree with the statement that they are unable to affect the situation in the country. Close to 50 percent believe that they can do nothing to influence events in their own city or town.9

Such views give rise to paternalistic attitudes like "let the state decide everything for me." These attitudes correlate with the relatively insignificant contribution that taxpayers make to federal and local budgets compared with the budget revenues derived from sales of oil and gas.

Kudrin has described the public's alienation from the decisionmaking process in the following terms. "In the 2000s, the country's prosperity grew largely due to the revenue from natural resources," he wrote. "But the people were not the ones benefiting from it. In terms of GDP, out of 37 percent of all collected taxes and other payments, rents constituted more than a third, while individual income tax accounted for only about 3 percent. . . . Officials easily and freely redistributed easy money-as a result, no feedback mechanisms were created."10

While the Russian citizen is alienated from the rent revenues, he knows that his livelihood depends on them. He is willing to accept them from the state, but at the same time he develops an inferiority complex about his material wealth, knowing that he did not exactly earn the money. This belief allows pro-redistribution coalitions-which divide rent among those close to the authorities' clans as well as lobbyists and pressure groups-to claim their "right" to "their" share in the redistribution of public funds. This stance seems extremely provocative in the midst of the economic crisis but clearly indicates who holds the keys to the house of Russian politics. For example, Nikolai Podguzov, the deputy minister for economic development, recently announced that "Rosneft requests a total of 1.3 trillion rubles from the National Wealth Fund (NWF) for 28 projects. . . . Rosneft proposes that the NWF finance projects worth over 3 trillion rubles."11 Not surprisingly, such a state of affairs angers the members of other pro-redistribution coalitions.

Out of this emerges a level of passivity among the public and acceptance of the consequences of the triple whammy as they gradually materialize. It appears that there never was and never will be a taxpayer democracy in the current rentier system-after all, individual contributions to the national well-being are quite small when contrasted with what is received from hydrocarbon-based rents. The public's impact on government decisions, their own political participation, and their involvement in civic life are just as insignificant. The process of spending taxpayer money does not concern the taxpayers themselves.

But when the oil-oozing, ostensibly collective pie is complemented by the mantra "Crimea is ours," it destroys both consensus-based and participatory democracy, along with any sense of civic duty or collective effort. Crimea was not a collective effort by any stretch-the Russian public stormed the peninsula while sitting in front of their televisions. Rather, Crimea was a gift from the government.

In their heart of hearts, Russians do not consider themselves creators of national wealth. That further discourages most forms of political participation, which should ideally be directed at achieving a more rational, honest, and equitable distribution of the goods and services produced by the economy.

This reality explains the public's willingness to tolerate just about everything and its unwillingness to protest. It also explains the lack of incentive for private initiative, for private investment, for innovation, and for the protection of private property. For their part, state investments further discourage private economic activity and fail to spur economic growth. Generally speaking, state-generated investment produces a pool of money that either provokes inflation or encourages capital flight to countries with more attractive investment climates. The Russian economy needs state investment as much as Soviet-era enterprises needed foreign machinery, most of which was never unpacked and rusted away in leaky warehouses.

The Class Pyramid

The triple whammy is a blow to all income levels of Russian society, but it especially affects lower- and middle-income groups who are more sensitive to price increases. The general level of inflation that took off in early 2015 severely impacted the middle class, the major consumer of various services and durable goods. Real disposable incomes fell 7.3 percent in December 2014 compared to the same period in 2013. According to a January 2015 Public Opinion Foundation poll, 62 percent of the population describes the situation as an economic crisis and sees "dreadful inflation" as the main manifestation of the crisis.12

Research on the middle class by the director of the Independent Institute for Social Policy at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Tatyana Maleva, suggests that the social structure of Russian households has not undergone significant change in recent years. According to Maleva, about 70 percent of the population are below the middle class. Approximately 40 percent of households belonging to that group are at risk of poverty, while 30 percent could potentially join the middle and upper-middle class.

The size of the middle class can be measured in a number of ways based on different criteria. A rough estimate of the size of the middle class puts the number at around 20 percent of the population.13 While some other studies have come up with different numbers, an approach based on analysis of 2012 Eurobarometer data supports Tatyana Maleva's conclusions.14

In a political sense, the group at risk of poverty makes up the regime's social and electoral base. Not coincidentally, they are also the main recipients of public funds. Even amid the constraints imposed by the triple whammy, the government will therefore strive to ensure that this group does not end up below the poverty line. Humanitarian considerations play a fairly minor role in these efforts, which are based on cold political calculations and the regime's desire to discourage the creation of social tensions. Social mobility from the middle to the upper-middle class, which has been long stifled by the highly monopolistic economy controlled by a small number of political-business elites, may cease altogether as a result of the current crisis.

Thus, the regime's social goal is to preserve the class pyramid, which emerged during the oil boom and economic recovery of the 2000s and has enabled the system of power-property and crony capitalism to reproduce itself. Evaporating material gains are being replaced with spiritual appeals, which will involve using cruder and more archaic propaganda, including indoctrination by the top brass of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as the increasingly selective application of repressive laws.

The Estate Structure of the Resource State

This is only a slight correction of the regime's principal course of action, which Higher School of Economics Professor Simon Kordonsky describes as "the suzerain takes care of his people-the amalgamation of estates-by distributing resources in a way that ensures that the privileged estates don't get too brazen and the underprivileged ones don't die from hunger." Notably, this theory views modern Russian society as estate-based rather than class-based. And, as Kordonsky explains, "The distribution of resources is at the core of estate-based society, in contrast to class society, whose economy is mainly based on converting resources into capital and their broader reproduction."15 In essence, this is status commercialization.

Status can be acquired by assuming high office (hence all the talk of regime figures buying top positions, seats in parliament, and so on). It can also be bestowed by the suzerain (look at the members of the Kremlin's inner circle, who share similar security and intelligence backgrounds with Putin), and it can be inherited. Children of high-ranking officials and state capitalists from the redistributional coalitions take charge of high offices and even receive government decorations. Naturally, concludes Kordonsky, "Such a system does not need democracy as an institution for reconciling interests, nor does it focus on the needs of individuals who fall outside of the estate system."16

Privatization in the 1990s was a way to utilize (and increase) resources within the market framework. The "re-privatization" of the 2000s in favor of state capitalism and figures from the president's inner circle was a way to escape the market framework and return to a system based on estates.

Instead of encouraging middle-class growth, this type of estate structure actually slows it down. Quite often, one can only join the middle class-at least in terms of income levels-by working in a system dominated by the most privileged estates, for example, state-run corporations and companies that live off of government contracts or tenders.

The Conformist Class: Survival Instead of Change

How will the Russian middle class respond to the triple whammy? How will its political behavior and socioeconomic well-being be affected?

Some researchers point out that the middle class has been "the main actor of socioeconomic adaptation" in recent years.17 At the same time, it is still not large enough, strong enough, or confident enough in its future well-being to clearly formulate a political outlook or to insist on proper representation in government bodies and decisions. Other economists also talk about its "low bargaining power."18

This bargaining power decreased even more after the failure of the 2011-2012 protests. After Dmitry Medvedev left the president's office, both society and the loyal, liberal political elite lost incentives to construct political, lobbying, and civic coalitions in favor of modernization. Thus, modernization coalitions were replaced with redistributional, estate-based ones.

The big question is whether the middle class, which is quite adaptable, even wants such coalition-based bargaining power. In reality, its political behavior and positions are far removed from the romantic image that took shape in Moscow's streets and squares and in the independent media during the democratic illusions of late 2011 and the first half of 2012.

In a 2014 book, Francis Fukuyama argues that the middle class has been the engine behind practically every recent protest in various countries across the world.19 What's more, even a fairly elected but ineffective or corrupt government does not enjoy sufficient legitimacy in the eyes of the most advanced segments of the population. As Fukuyama writes, "Government actually had to deliver better results if it was to be regarded as legitimate, and needed to be more flexible and responsive to changing public demands."20

That was exactly the chief motivation behind the 2011-2012 protests. Russians were dissatisfied with the government, and its legitimacy was diminishing as a result of dishonesty and ineffectiveness.

But the political protests that grew out of the public's stance against the regime's corruption were mostly limited to Moscow and involved only a very small part of the educated, urban middle class (although some upper- and lower-income segments of the population joined at times). This social stratum was immediately named the "creative class," which, in turn, led to the shorter and more derisive word, "creatives." While this concept does have something in common with the term coined by Richard Florida, the Russian meaning of the term does not actually cover people who are engaged in creative work. It refers instead to a small segment of Russian citizens who are dissatisfied with the regime and its authoritarian rule, predominantly for political and ethical reasons. In their beliefs and goals, creatives today somewhat resemble the democratic intelligentsia of the late 1980s.

Nor is the creative class always synonymous with the middle class, especially in terms of income levels (although its behavior does correspond to that of the middle class). In addition, its opposition activities sharply contrast with the conformism exhibited by the majority of the middle class. Contrary to expectations, this conformism will only grow or remain unchanged as a result of the triple whammy. Despite some sporadic protests, the majority will more readily embrace the strategies and tactics of survival instead of protests and demands for change, at least in 2015.

Consider the 2012 Eurobarometer survey of the middle class.21 According to the data, against the backdrop of blatantly dishonest elections that provoked protests in 2011, the middle class actually voted for United Russia-the pro-regime party. And at higher strata of Russian society, the level of support for the regime actually increased. The motivations underlying voting behavior varied: some voters had benefited handsomely during the economic boom of the early 2000s while others became complacent with their lot. Either way, conformism became the overarching trend.

The middle class was only slightly more active in terms of participation in opposition rallies (2.3 percent versus 1.9 percent at lower-income levels). The upper-middle class seemed to be the most active (11.7 percent), but this stratum was also quite active when it came to attendance at pro-government rallies (6.7 percent versus 1.0 percent of the middle class).

The lack of participation by the middle class-either in opposition to or in support of the government-suggests that its conformism is inherently passive. It does not express passionate or unequivocal support for the government; rather, the middle class is simply not ready to struggle for change. (It seems that active support for the regime manifested itself only after the referendum in Crimea and did not diminish much, if at all, as the Ukraine crisis worsened.)

According to the Eurobarometer survey, the middle class was evenly split in its assessment of the political situation (43 and 44 percent were satisfied or dissatisfied with it, respectively). In fact, the majority of respondents wanted no change to the political situation, while 12 percent preferred radical change.

The middle class's relationship to the European Union (EU) is further proof of its conformism: 18.2 percent of the middle class and 27.8 percent of the upper-middle class wanted Russia to distance itself from the EU as much as possible. It is quite indicative of the mood in the country that the lower-middle class was the biggest supporter of EU integration, at 23.4 percent. These numbers have changed in the direction of greater "patriotism" for the time being. A January 2015 Levada Center poll, for example, demonstrated an increase in negative attitudes toward the United States and EU countries to 81 and 71 percent, respectively.

Conclusion

In his 1997 work "Anomalies of Economic Growth," Yegor Gaidar, the architect of Russian reform, noted that two main social groups are interested in liberal market reforms in Russia: "The middle class, which needs a level playing field, effective protection of private property, and a government that is not cumbersomely involved in economic affairs; and the intelligentsia-those who are connected to the science, education, healthcare, culture, and other such sectors-to whom the redistribution of resources objectively reflects the economic needs of the country." Russia's developmental perspectives depend on the combined resources of these two groups.

In the nearly two decades since Gaidar began his work, by and large, very little social change has come to Russia: those in the middle class are considered the agents of change. The creative class can be considered the new intelligentsia.

Nevertheless, the coalition for modernization that began to emerge under Dmitry Medvedev was never realized. The signal from above that permitted the very existence of such a coalition was unceremoniously cut off, while the politician who had the best chance to launch perestroika 2.0 surrendered power based on his own free will.

The Russian model of change can only work if the demand for modernization expressed from below is noticed and clearly approved from above. In such a case, the notorious middle-class conformism toward official government policy could yet play a constructive role. If the higher-ups allow democracy, this brand of conformism implies that citizens will recognize that it must be supported and taken advantage of. As for the creative potential of the Russian middle class, it may very well serve as the engine of economic liberalization and political democratization, if it receives a level of representation in the government.

However, the creative forces among the agents of change can lie dormant for extremely long periods of time. After all, modernization coalitions in Venezuela and Iran have never really gained momentum, and those countries have experienced their own analogues to the triple whammy. So far, these forces have not yet fully shaken the Russian middle class.

We are now anxiously waiting for the agents of modernization, who have turned into the agents of mobilization, to finally come to their senses. But we probably will need to wait quite a bit longer. Give it a year or two.

 [return to Contents] 

 #4
Few in the Russian Intelligentsia Oppose Putin Even if They Don't Support Him, Kirillova says
Paul Goble

Staunton, April 7 - Many members of the Russian intelligentsia do not support Vladimir Putin and his repression at home and aggression abroad, but a significant and surprising number of them do, the result of a complex combination of their experiences over the last generation and Putin's actions as well, according to Kseniya Kirillova.

In Novy region-2 today, the commentator says that her contacts in Russia suggest that "the overwhelming majority" of those usually classed as members of the intelligentsia "if they do not support Putin" cannot be classed as his opponents and are unlikely to lead resistance to him (nr2.com.ua/blogs/Ksenija_Kirillova/Proputinskaya-intelligenciya-nabroski-k-portretu-94045.html).

But because such people are normally the ones Russians and others expect to be agents of chance, Kirillova suggests, it is important to understand as precisely as possible "the nuances" of their position, even if these shadings are more anecdotal than based on the kind of survey research that could be checked by replication.

The support Putin has among the intelligentsia is hardly "unqualified," the commentator writes. The majority "try not to evaluate" his actions lest they have to take a position, and "many honestly acknowledge that they do not know whether he is acting correctly" even if they are "convinced that there is no other figure capable of running Russian in present circumstances."

The cause of that, she suggests, lies with their "inadequate understanding of the situation." Most members of the intelligentsia just like most other Russians "believe that Russia is 'encircled by enemies,' which will instantly destroy it in the case of the slightest weakening of the central authorities."

On the basis of this false assumption, they believe that "Putin may be mistaken but they do not see another leader suitable for work 'under conditions of war.'" That he and Russia were the initiators of this war is something they simply do not want to consider.

Like other Russians, the commentator continues, members of the intelligentsia share "the standard list of Russian fears: revolution, destruction, and disintegration of the country," and the standard believe that however bad things may be, anything and anyone else "'will be even worse.'"

"Even among educated people," Kirillova continues, most back "'the restoration by Russia of its influence' on the territory of the former USSR" because "many sincerely suppose" that Russia needs a buffer zone around it and because "the majority who in the past belonged to the 'perestroika' liberal intelligentsia dream about the restoration of the Soviet Union."

"In part," Kirillova says, "this also is explicable: the current authorities despite all their totalitarianism and aggressive attempts to regulate all spheres of life ... are not offering society a model of a desirable future. As a result," she suggests, Russians in many cases are looking to "an idealized past."

Many Russians "really believe" that a USSR could be restored but "do not have specific ideas on how to achieve that in reality," Kirillova says. Many in the intelligentsia too fall victim to that.  And "many in this milieu and not without basis are afraid of repression" and when they hear about bad things, are inclined to say "'Thank God, this doesn't affect me.'"   

Moreover, like other Russians, members of the Russian intelligentsia want to hope for something; but because many of the latter have concluded that liberalism has lived out its day and that "a 'firm hand' is better than liberal softness," they are prepared to back moves to restore what the regime insists is Russia's rightful place in the world.

"The single positive distinction of educated Russians from all the rest is a lower level of aggression towards others," Kirillova says. "The intelligentsia has no desire to 'beat the Yukes' or anyone else. They are also more tolerant to differences of opinion within their own milieu than are other strata," even if they accept the Kremlin's line on the Donbas.

he picture, she says, is not encouraging. "That force which could become the basic protest group of contemporary Russian for many reasons is incapable of fulfilling this function.  [Thus,] Russian society at present is still extremely far from awakening."

 [return to Contents]

 #5
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
April 7, 2015
New Cold War conditions imperil global nuclear security
As a result of the chill in relations between Moscow and Washington over Russia's involvement in the Ukrainian crisis, Russia has already left the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, and the future of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces and START treaties hangs in doubt. How serious a threat do these developments represent to global nuclear security and what further steps are the two sides likely to take?
Gevorg Mirzayan, special to RBTH

The crisis in Russian-American relations engendered by the conflict in Ukraine is threatening world nuclear stability, with Russia's exit from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) a direct consequence of the confrontation over events in Ukraine. Moreover, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) is also now in question, as well as future cooperation in the nuclear field.

Misunderstanding and mistrust are growing between Russia and the U.S., which have already put the issue of future nuclear disarmament in question. "The Russian government, aware of the extremely unpleasant external situation, does not think it is possible to further reduce the amount of nuclear weapons," says Pyotr Topychkanov, coordinator of the Problems of Non-Proliferation Program at the Moscow Carnegie Center.

Moreover, Moscow will most likely continue developing its nuclear potential. The Russian Ministry of Defense announced that the latest tests of the Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile were successful and that it is ready to include the missile in its arsenal. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin calls the new rocket "the missile defense killer."

Russian-American cooperation in non-proliferation of nuclear weapons has also become difficult. "Russia is still against the appearance of new nuclear countries," continues Topychkanov. "But it is not hurrying to support American initiatives in the field of proliferation, preferring international efforts under the aegis of the UN."
 
Tension is growing

According to the Kommersant newspaper, more than 40 percent of the participants in the International Conference on Nuclear Non-Proliferation, which took place at the end of March at the Carnegie Foundation, recognized that in the next two years either Russia or the U.S. will abandon key agreements in the field of armament control: the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) or the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).

In the opinion of Sergei Rogov, director of the Institute of U.S. and Canada Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, current relations between Russia and the U.S. have been aggravated to the limit and therefore it can be said that a new Cold War has begun.

"The armament control regime is being threatened. The INF and the START agreements are being threatened," Rogov told the Rossiya Segodnya news agency at a press conference, warning that the INF could become obsolete by the end of 2015. "The entire regime that was developed during the Cold War is falling apart," said Rogov. "If competition without regulation begins, we will return to the times of the Cuban crisis, to the verge of a war."

Pyotr Topychkanov is more optimistic, however: "General Purpose Forces are already being increased. But this will not necessarily push Russia out of the INF Treaty. There are other ways of reacting to this, first of all in the field of General Purpose Forces."
 
Approaches need to be reviewed

Andrei Sushentsov, Managing Partner at the Vneshnyaya Politika Analytical Agency, said that there are several scenarios to the development of Russian-American relations, the worst of which would be the continuation of the policy of isolating Russia and the tightening of sanctions. However, Sushentsov believes that Moscow and Washington would like to avoid such a course of events. This can be deduced by Barack Obama's refusal so far to supply Ukraine with lethal weapons.

A more moderate scenario says that relations between Washington and Moscow will develop in accordance with American-Chinese relations. "In its national security strategy the U.S. indicates that one of its main aims is not to misevaluate China's behavior," says Sushentsov.

Sushentsov believes that the current crisis was made possible by the fact that in the last 20 years the United States has not been very circumspect in its evaluation of Russia.

"The Americans think that Russia is in decline and has no alternative but to assume a minor role in the Euro-Atlantic community under the conditions dictated by NATO. When the U.S. realizes that this is not true, it will open a new phase in Russian-American relations."

#6
Russia Insider
http://russia-insider.com
April 6, 2015
The West Throws a Temper Tantrum
Putin trolls: another jejune NATO fantasy!
By Patrick Armstrong
Patrick Armstrong received a PhD from Kings College, University of London, England in 1976 and retired in 2008 after 30 years as an analyst for the Canadian government, specializing in first the USSR and then Russia. He was a Political Counselor in the Canadian Embassy in Moscow from 1993 to 1996. He has been a frequent speaker at the Wilton Park conferences in the UK.
[Chart here http://russia-insider.com/en/west-throws-temper-tantrum/5356]

Mark Ames has brilliantly tracked down the Kremlin troll story and shown that it is the same story over and over again, word for word, time after time. He has traced it as far back as 2013 and, in his search, he kept tripping over RFE/RL which proudly states that it "provide[s] what many people cannot get locally: uncensored news, responsible discussion, and open debate." Or, alternatively, given the fact that it is fully funded by the US government, all the news that Washington wants you to hear. So, not, perhaps, a source that can be fully trusted on this particular subject. [http://pando.com/2015/04/02/the-kremlins-social-media-trolls-are-real-as-is-the-medias-amnesia-about-them/]

But never mind that, let's pretend that it is telling us the truth. An entire building in St Petersburg is filled with well-paid Putin trolls labouring away on the Internet. But let us apply a little reasoning (hah hah - what's reason got to do with it?) to the matter. We here at RI attract a few trolls. We may divide them into two groups. One is the sort of person whose comments are all variations on "Putin sucks and you do too". These trolls, of course, have a mirror image: "You suck and Putin's great". For the sake of discussion we will call this the "monotroll": he has only one thing to say which is "You're an idiot" and he says it over and over again.

A slightly (but only very slightly) more interesting troll is what we will call the "clich� repeater". This one would say things like "Putin sucks because the Russian economy is in the toilet/the population is shrinking/the Ruble is collapsing/Russia is weak" or so forth. Much the same really, as the monotroll except that he understands that some pretence of an argument is necessary.

In Graham's useful hierarchy of disagreement the monotroll is operating at the lowest levels of Name-calling and Ad Hominem; the clich� repeater has at least got to Contradiction. But the essential point is that neither of these is going to change anybody's mind.

You can, in other words, have a million people typing into every Internet forum "You're an idiot" over and over again and they will make no difference at all. But think further: the clich� repeater will have no effect on a forum such as RI. The reason for his failure is very simple: many/most of the people reading RI know that the clich�s are false: Russia's economy is not collapsing, its demographic picture is comparatively healthy and so on. Those who do not yet know that the clich�s are false have come to RI because they are starting to doubt the Party Line on Russia. A million trolls regurgitating clich�s will have no effect on either.

And the reverse is true: the fabled Putin troll army typing "USA sucks", "Ukraine sucks", "Americans are couch potatoes and they'll lose against the mighty Russians" or "you're wrong because more people are in jail in the USA than anywhere else" will have zero effect on a neocon discussion group.

So who are these trolls persuading? No one.

So let's move up Graham's hierarchy, shall we? Here we find Counter Argument, Refutation, Refuting the Central Point. In short: you say this; I say that: here is my evidence, here is my argument. So, rather than "Putin sucks", here is what Putin said (with reference to the actual speech, please, not the NYT/BBC/WaPo's carefully-chosen selections), here is why he is wrong (argument, facts, discussion, examples). You may or may not agree, but there is something to get your teeth into: a logical fallacy, a misstatement. Or maybe not: maybe you will be convinced that you got it wrong. Or missed something. That, as Graham would agree, is how to argue.

No endless variations on "you suck", no "clich�, clich�. Nya nya nya". Instead, actual engagement, person to person, of what you said. Respectful, convincing, detailed, factual, logical.

Let us return to Troll Centre St Petersburg and try to envisage two variants.

One variant: rooms full of people re-typing "Putin's great, you suck" or "clich�, clich�".

Another variant: the people typing, from an index card pasted to their computer screens, Grahamian Counter Arguments, Refutations, Refuting the Central Points.

Well, the second variant isn't trolling is it? No matter how many times it's typed at you the Argument remains. The Argument is the thing that has to be answered. Not the frequency, the Argument itself.

In short, ladies and gentlemen, the Putin-Troll-Army story is nonsense. Real trollery is an irritation and no more. Actual argument has to be answered on its own merits. And the Western troll armies - sorry, fighting lies with truth - would, if they ever get off the ground, be equally pointless.

The Western fantasy of a mighty Putin Troll army ruining A Noble Effort to Spread Truth and Democratically Valid Explanations is yet more evidence that the Party Line knows it is losing its audience. Whingeing on about Putin's troll army and closing comments sections is the equivalent of a temper tantrum, hands over ears, screaming "I can't hear you!".

Lies work for a while - quite a long time - but, eventually, reality bites. On its own. It wasn't a building-full of people in St Petersburg typing "Putin ist ein Genie, Du bist ein Idiot" over and over again that made the German leadership see General Breedlove's statements as "dangerous propaganda" any more than "Putin's a genius and you are an idiot" made the editors at The Guardian feel their heads explode.

QED
 

 [return to Contents]

 #7
Thick Toast
www.thicktoast.com
April 2, 2015
Western Hypocrisy, Social Media Manipulation
By Jennifer Cohagen
[Links here http://www.thicktoast.com/western-hypocrisy/]

No doubt, I am labeled a "Kremlin troll" by those who disagree with me, and typically this is followed by accusations that I'm paid to make pro-Kremlin posts. I'm actually an American citizen. Apparently, if you don't think that the US has the right to go charging around the world like a bull in a china shop, risking nuclear war over the vice president's right to have his son Hunter Biden be on the largest gas company in Ukraine, ready to plunder Ukraine of over 9 trillion in natural resources, then that makes you a Kremlin troll?

Western Claims

The United States, as well as western media, accuses Russia of employing an army of trolls to engage with social media, in order to influence public opinion. In case you missed it, here are some examples:

The Kremlin's Troll Army
Documents Show How Russia's Troll Army Hit America
Ukraine conflict: Inside Russia's 'Kremlin troll army'
Inside the Kremlin Troll Army Machine: Templates, Guidelines, and Paid Posts
The Kremlin's troll army

It's almost comical how these papers describe it, as though groups of Russian citizens (who apparently speak flawless English) are crammed into "sweat shops" (if you can actually sweat in St. Petersburg), and paid a paltry sum of $900+ per month in order to slave away at crafting propaganda.

Now, I'm not going to claim that Russia doesn't do this. They'd be stupid not to. Russia cares about how it is perceived in the world. For crying out loud, they spent 42 billion dollars on the Sochi winter Olympics. They're going to spend even more on the upcoming World Cup in 2018. The United States has declared economic war on Russia, enforcing sanctions and bullying / browbeating / humiliating / threatening regime change, etc., to any country who doesn't go along with it. Through its control of western media, the US has engaged in a major propaganda war against Russia. Why wouldn't Russia come forward to make its own case?

Russia is majorly criticized for giving its own point of view.

Youtube bans RT News
Reddit bans RT News
Russia Today threatened with Ofcom sanctions due to bias
Russia Today Faces UK Investigation Over MH17 News Coverage

Tell me again, western media, how much you value free speech? Tell me how Russia, as a country, should not be allowed to face the countless barrage of allegations against it? Western media was loudly proclaiming Russia's guilt over MH17 within hours after it occurred, with strong condemnation from the White House, and apparently Russia isn't allowed to say anything on its own behalf to counter these allegations.

Drawing our attention back to this supposed army of online social media warriors hired by the Kremlin, I'd like to present to you major hypocrisy by the west.

UK Hires 1500 Soldiers to Spread Positive Propaganda on Social Websites

As you can see here:

"The British army is creating a special force of Facebook warriors, skilled in psychological operations and use of social media to engage in unconventional warfare in the information age."

Aren't you happy, citizens of the UK, that your tax dollars has paid for 1500 soldiers to sit there, on social media websites, pretending to be people who they are not, and engaging in propaganda so that you, the average UK citizen, will know the right thing to think when some evidence comes forward that is damning to western interests, and exonerates Russia? Certainly all the news that the west offers should be sufficient for you to make up your mind, without the army lying about its identity and telling you how you should think?

CIA Manipulates Social Media

Any truth or defense presented by Russia is such a threat, that the CIA has taken precautions so you don't accidentally believe any of it:

"The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda."

And, very interestingly, this 2011 article makes a prediction:

"The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities - known to users of social media as "sock puppets" - could also encourage other governments, private companies and non-government organisations to do the same."

Over four years ago, the Guardian predicted that other governments would have to come up with their own social armies, to fight against the one that the US has been preparing for many years. [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks]

"The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

"A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an "online persona management service" that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world."

I'm going to ask you all a question, and I want you to think about it. When you're reading some pro-western article online, and the comments are filled with "bravo, excellent post, Russia sucks" types of comments, how do you know that is not the CIA, US Military, or UK Military personnel, or fancy US generated software that isn't making those posts? Really, how do you know? Because the CIA, US Military and UK government's employment of these "fake" social media soldiers is a documented fact. Their budget is in the billions of dollars. You know for a fact, thanks to Snowden, that the US government reads, and stores for future posterity, every single thing you do online. Those articles listed above, claiming Russia is funding trolls, said their budget was $250k.

There are 1500 soldiers employed by UK alone. How many online newspapers are there, exactly? How many articles come out every day that are important to US foreign policy? A dozen? Two dozen? Let's call it 100 articles daily, shall we? That means there are 15 personnel employed by the UK, per article, per day. That also assumes each one only makes a comment on one article. If this is your job, how many posts could you make per day, 50? If that's true, the UK alone could be responsible for some 75,000+ comments per day! Now throw in the CIA and special military software to do the same type of commenting, perhaps even automated.

It's all propaganda folks. Russia has a 1% stake in your daily propaganda, if you so happen to log in to RT news, or see a Russian-made comment on your favorite newspaper. The west feeds you 99% of your propaganda. Seeing that Obama has bombed over 7 countries in the last 6 years, that war is the main export of the US, and that Ukraine has become a total war zone in order to plunder it of its natural resources, are you sure you're reading the right propaganda?

 [return to Contents]

 #8
Forbes.com
April 6, 2015
Russia's Oil Revenue: Shrinking Fast
By Mark Adomanis
[Chart here http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2015/04/06/russias-oil-revenue-shrinking-fast/]

Despite an awful lot of doom and gloom about its prospects, including Lukoil's CEO going on the record with a prediction of a whopping 8% decrease in total output and Rosneft  officials going public with doubts about the sustainability of one of their major new fields , the Russian oil industry is holding up OK.

In March, Russian production hit another new post-Soviet high, Through the first few months of 2015, production has increased fractionally (about 0.37%) from late 2014's level. Exports via the pipeline monopoly Transneft rose by an even larger amount: roughly 2%.

As an extremely capital-intensive industry, oil production doesn't tend to move up and down very suddenly. It's expensive to start projects and can be just as expensive to mothball or decomission them. Some, and likely most, of the recent increase in production was due to projects that were put in motion months or even years ago.

Yet Russia's recent economic travails, particularly the plunge in its currency, weren't entirely irrelevant. According to Bloomberg, due to lower service costs oil producers boosted their drilling by 23%. Since producers get their revenues in dollars but have costs which are denominated in rubles, their operations have gotten significantly cheaper at a stroke. There was also a modest stimulus from some changes to the tax code which marginally reduced export duties.

But if production is up and producers are confident enough in their own future prospects to significantly boost drilling (Bashneft, which was recently nationalized, increased drilling by an insane-sounding 160% over the past few months) what is the problem? Well, as you are no doubt aware, the price of oil went on a little bit of a slide towards the end of 2014. OK that's far too understated: the price of oil crashed.

It's not exactly PhD level economics, but Russia's total oil revenues are a function of its production (which has been going up) and its price (which has been tanking). When you combine Russia's output with the price that its oil fetches on the world market, this is what you get:

Now, to be clear, the 2015 figure is preliminary: it's the amount of money that Russia would earn over the course of the year if both prices and production stayed at their current level. Given the steepness and severity of the recent crash it is likely that prices over the second half of the year will be higher than they are now, but that is by no means a certainty. Prices could not only stay where they are now, they could conceivably go even lower.

But even if prices simply stay steady, as I hope the chart about makes clear, Russia is in for some pretty serious trouble. At the current pace, oil revenues in 2015 would be lower than at any point since 2005. And, of course, in that intervening decade the Russia's government's cost structure, as well as the popular expectations of its citizenry, have moved to a much higher and substantially more expensive level. Absent a rapid uptick in the price of oil, there is going to be a lot of pressure on the Russian government's finances.

No that doesn't mean Russia will collapse or that we're on the precipice of a 199-style unraveling, but unless oil prices rebound (and rebound quickly!) we're likely to see a serious economic challenge to Putin, likely the most serious economic challenge he's faced since he first came to office. Yes there's a silver lining in every cloud and it seems clear that Russian oil producers have weathered the storm in surprisingly rude health and that output has fared better than almost anyone expected. But the Rusian government's finances are about to face the sort of pressure that they haven't in a very long time.

[return to Contents] 

 #9
No artificial liquidity crunch - Nabiullina

MOSCOW. April 7 (Interfax) - There's no artificial deliberate liquidity crunch in Russia, Elvira Nabiullina, head of the Central Bank, said.

"There's no artificial liquidity crunch," she said.

She said the ruble was strengthening due to the stabilization of oil prices, and end to peak foreign debt repayments and a high key rate.

"Some people have described the ruble's strengthening in the last few months as a quantitative, engineered squeeze on ruble liquidity. They are comparing the amounts that we provided at weekly REPO auctions. I'd like to say this is not quite the case. In our view the ruble has strengthened due to a number of factors: the stabilization of oil prices, the end of peak foreign debt repayments, more even sales of foreign currency by exporters, our higher key lending rate and the development of foreign currency refinancing tools," Nabiullina said.

She said the Central Bank adopted a conservative approach to ruble liquidity in December, which manifested itself in money market rates departing from the Central Bank's interest rate corridor for a few days and exceeding it considerably. Money market rates have stayed within the corridor this year, Nabiullina said.

"This means our transmission mechanism is working and that there's no artificial crunch," she said.

 [return to Contents] 

 #10
Reuters
April 6, 2015
US Financier Rogers Says Now May Be Time to Invest in Russia

MOSCOW - Now may be the time to invest in Russian shares because oil prices have hit bottom and the Russian stock market is rising, veteran U.S. financier Jim Rogers said on Monday.

"I'm very optimistic about the future of Russia," he told a conference in Moscow arranged by investment firm BCS. "Certainly one of the most attractive stock markets in the world these days for me is Russia."

The dollar-denominated RTS index of Russian stocks fell by 45 percent last year as oil prices plunged and Western countries imposed sanctions over Russia's support of separatist rebels Ukraine. However, the RTS has gained 20 percent since the start of this year.

Rogers, who now lives in Singapore, has been a prominent financial commentator since the 1970s, when he founded the Quantum Fund in partnership with George Soros.

Russia could now be "the right place at the right time" for investors, he said. His own portfolio consists largely of Russian shares, he said, among them fertilizer company Phosagro, airline Aeroflot and the Moscow Exchange

The country's economic downturn may make it an unlikely investment prospect, he said, but he was optimistic the stock market was going to rise more.

"Something has happened over in the Kremlin. The old ways of doing things in Russia have changed in my view," he said.

Rogers said that his optimism towards the Russian market was connected with his view that international oil prices have reached their bottom.

He also recommended buying short-term Russian treasury bills for investors with a one-year horizon.

 [return to Contents] 

 #11
Forbes.com
April 7, 2015
The Last Man In Russia Will Probably Live In A City
By Mark Adomanis
[Chart here http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2015/04/07/the-last-man-in-russia-will-probably-live-in-a-city/]

Having grown up in a big city, I will confess that I've never really understood the pervasive sentimentality about rural or village life. There's nothing less authentic or "real" about urban landscapes, and proximity to agriculture or nature doesn't have any more inherent worth than proximity to industry or other people.

When it comes to Russia there is a cottage industry of writing about the country's many "dying villages." There are photo essays (sometimes called "ruins porn"), news dispatches, opinion columns, even a book. They all agree on a general thesis that goes something like the following: Russia's soul is tied up with its villages, and the fact that those villages are rapidly disappearing means that the country itself is in danger of dying an untimely death. The "dying villages" become a microcosm of a "dying nation."

I'm not so sure. People ought to live where they want to, and across any number of different cultures, times, and places when given the choice people have overwhelmingly chosen to live in cities. In most other countries, like China for example, the disappearance of villages isn't seen as a sign of regression and decay, but of progress, dynamism, and growth. I don't see any reason why Russia should be different.

In the Soviet Union there was extensive urbanization, and Russia has been a majority urban society for at lest a half century. However, largely in order to maintain a rural labor force, the Soviet authorities put in place draconian forms of internal control. If you wanted to live in Moscow, Petersburg, or any other major city  you need a propiska, official acknowledgement that you had permission to live there. People without prospiskas could be (and often were!) sent back to their region of origin. The overall result of all of this state coercion was to artificially inflate the rural population.

Russia's propiska system hasn't been totally abolished but it has been greatly weakened in comparison to its Soviet counterpart: the regulations themselves are less restrictive and, since the economy is so much more open, there are many more opportunities for "unregistered" work where official residence isn't necessary. It's not a perfect situation by any means, but it's a lot less bad than the status quo ante.

Knowing about the repressed demand to live in cities and the (marginal) loosening of official restrictions, you would expect that Russians would be moving to cities in substantial numbers. And according to the data that is exactly what is happening:

In 2002, Russia's population was about 145.6 million and its 20 largest cities had 33.2 million residents. By 2014 the figures were 143.7 million and 36.1 million respectively. Over the past decade while Russia's total population shrank by around two million, its largest urban centers gained 3 million residents. In both relative and absolute terms, that's a pretty significant shift.

It is true that Moscow, which by dint of its size is unique among Russian cities, is a large part of this story. But even if you totally exclude Moscow from the analysis (which is in itself a somewhat dubious proposition) Russia's next 19 largest cities gained 1.2 million residents while the country as a whole was shrinking. That suggests to me that there is a quite strong desire among Russians to live in big cities and to get out of the villages as quickly as possible.

From a long-term perspective the trends highlighted above seem positive: people who live in cities tend to have much higher living standards than rural residents. They also tend to be better educated, healthier, and, from a political standpoint, modestly more liberal. Putin now draws a disproportionate share of his political support from towns and small cities, and the ever-larger share of people inhabiting the biggest cities suggests that his support base will continue to shrink.

But the real takeaway is that Russians are increasingly able to make their own decisions about their place of residence. The state is no longer as adept at forcing them to live in places where they don't want to be. There aren't many bright spots in Russia right now, but that is surely one.

 [return to Contents] 

 #12
Russians show no wish to leave elsewhere for good
By Lyudmila Alexandrova

MOSCOW, April 6. /TASS/. Contrary to a widely spread western delusion an overwhelming majority of Russians show little or no wish to leave their home country for good to settle elsewhere. According to a March poll by the Levada Center, as many as 83% of Russians have no plans for resettling to other countries (57% of the respondents replied with a firm "NO" and another 26% said "rather NO than YES"). This is the highest-ever level during the whole history of observations since 1990. Only 12% of Russians would like to seek residence permits in other countries with no intention to return.

Levada Center attributes this to the crisis, as well as growing popular support for the authorities in this context. Opinion poll statistics are not enough to identify one main cause of anti-emigration sentiment, Kommersant Dengi (Kommersant Money) magazine quotes the pollster's director, Lev Gudkov, as saying. In his opinion politics and the upsurge of patriotism are very important: at a certain point 20% to 25% of the population were rather critical of the regime, but after Crimea's reunification with Russia their opinion changed drastically. In defiance of the economic problems their feeling of self-esteem has grown. These are rather well-off people who hope that the crisis will not last."

Whereas 12% percent said they would like to go, no more than 1% have been taking steps to translate this wish into reality, and still less actually go. Feeling like taking to the road and having an opportunity to do so are very different things, Bolshoi Gorod (Big City) magazine quotes the director of the Institute of Demography at the Higher School of Economics, Mikhail Denisenko, as saying. "Real emigration requires human and financial resources that will be in demand in another country."

Many have given up their resettlement plans for purely economic reasons, because their ruble assets have lost much of their original value of late. According to Sergey Kuznetsov, the organizer of the Facebook project "Suitcase, Train Station, Where to?", which provides advice to those eager to seek a better fortune away from home, some of the emigrants mention political reasons, and others, economic ones. Nevertheless, very few leave forever, contrary to what former Soviet citizens did in the 1970s. "Many say: 'We shall take a look at what life there is like. Possibly, we'll be back,'" he said.

Senior research fellow at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Psychology, Timofey Nestik, attributes this trend to several causes. "Even in the past the group of people who thought they would be in great demand outside Russia was extremely small. After the crisis and the rouble's slump it is still smaller," he told TASS. Also, there is the psychological reason - the so-called "besieged fortress syndrome."

"In the current political situation the very instance of declaring an intention to leave may be interpreted to the detriment of one's self-esteem and positive self-evaluation," he said.

The expert believes that a certain role has been played by a decline in Russians' foreign contacts. With the rouble's devaluation far fewer Russians go abroad on vacation and have lost the chance to compare.

"Russians' level of social mobility is very low. Many have never visited even the neighboring town, let alone Moscow," the chief of the Comprehensive Social Studies Centre at the RAS Institute of Sociology, Vladimir Petukhov, has told TASS. "The wish to leave and the actual departure are two different things."

"Many of those who are leaving are young and relatively wealthy people with good education. And such people often ask themselves: "What will I be doing there?' A friend of mine, a former chief of a cardiology department at a Moscow hospital had to work as a nurse for ten years after emigrating to the United States. And now there has developed one more fear: the attitude towards Russians in the West has worsened, so I will have one more trouble on the list of my problems."

 [return to Contents] 

 #13
www.rt.com
April 7, 2015
S&P sees Russian economy growing 1.9% in 2016

Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's expects the Russian economy to turn to growth in 2016, adding 1.9 percent. This comes as a sharp revision to the previous negative outlook.

S&P analysts expect economic recession of 2.7 percent for Russia in 2015, RBC reported on Monday. The agency's previous report assumed a GDP growth of 0.5 percent in 2015 and zero growth in 2016.

The main premise which has changed the S&P's outlook for Russian economy was the assumption on the oil price movement, S&P analyst Irina Veliyeva told RBC, adding that the rating agency forecasts an average price of $55 a barrel for 2015 and $70 per barrel over the next three years. The forecasts for GDP growth and other key indicators have been revised as Russia's economy is dependent on oil prices, Veliyeva said.

Meanwhile, there has been a general tendency of improving economic forecasts for the Russian economy. Last week, US bank JPMorgan forecast Russia's GDP for 2015 would improve from a 5 percent fall to 4 percent. Economists from Russia and the US agreed last month that the Russian economy had already recovered from the worst

Inflation in Russia remains high and hit 16.9 percent annualized in March and 7.4 percent since the beginning of the year, according to Rosstat data released Monday.

The head of the Central Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiullina said Tuesday she expected inflation to go down to nine percent by next March.

"We think the scenario of reaching a mid-term target to reach four percent inflation by 2017 is realistic," she said.

The Russian ruble, which is a key indicator for the country's economy, has been doing better than Brent crude. Oil has played a much less prominent role in the ruble's exchange rate in the first three months of 2015.

The US-based S&P's forecasts are close to those from Russian authorities. The Russian Ministry of Economic Development expects a 2.3 percent GDP growth in 2016 and 2.5 percent growth in 2017/2018.The Central Bank's forecasts are less optimistic - a 3.5-4 percent decline for 2015 and positive 1-1.6 percent in 2016. Nevertheless, the CBR expects growth of 5.5-6.3 percent in 2017.

Voiding the "Big Three"

Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) is going to move away from international ratings to Russian ones.

"We are thinking about gradually moving away from international ratings and developing our own ratings industry with Russian agencies," Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said at the Russian Bank Association conference on Tuesday. She also added that the situation in Russia's banking sector was stable. The CBR expects a rapid decline in inflation reaching 9 percent in March 2016, Nabiullina said.

Standard and Poor's cut Russia's sovereign rating to BB+ in January, leaving it below investment grade for the first time in a decade. In February, it downgradedthe long-term foreign currency ratings of Russian Railways, Gazprom, VTB and other big Russian companies and banks to a level right under the non-investment line.

 [return to Contents] 

 #14
Diplomatic Courier
www.diplomaticourier.com
April 7, 2015
THE FUTURE OF INNOVATION IN RUSSIA
By Joshua Noonan, Guest Contributor

On 20 March, I met Ilya V. Ponomarev at a Starbucks near Federal Triangle metro station for coffee. It was a gloomy day but thankfully neither of us was caught in the rain. Ponomarev, just coming from a slew of meetings, did not order anything. He came in alone and looked like his picture, tall, blue eyes, and bearded. This is true save for the weariness from days meeting with business people and entrepreneurs.

Ponomarev is an outspoken member of the Duma of the Russian Federation, an accomplished entrepreneur, and a proponent for reform in Russia. He has been active in politics for more than 20 years. He is a graduate of Moscow State University, holding a Masters of Public Administration from Russian State Social University. Ponomarev started working when he was just 14 years old at the Institute for Nuclear Safety at the Russian Academy of Sciences. He then launched several start-ups and later went on to work for the oil services company Schlumberger and the now-defunct Yukos Oil.

Ponomarev is a serial entrepreneur, having launched his first company, RussProfi when he was still in high school. In 2007, he was elected to represent Novosibirsk in the State Duma where to this day he chairs the Innovation and Venture capital subcommittee of Committee for Economic Development and Entrepreneurship. This dovetailed with his work from 2010 to 2012 heading the International Business Development, Commercialization and Technology Transfer for Skolkovo Foundation. Due to his sole vote against the annexation of Crimea, Ponomarev faces strong headwinds in Russia.

Q: What is the meaning of the September 15 Data Storage Law?

On the surface, the government of Russia wants to claim independence of the Russian internet. In their minds, this would prevent the possibility of politically blackmailing Kremlin. Localization of internet services would also allow data to be easily collected by the security services. As a member of the Duma, I was an advocate in 2009-2011 to create a national financial payment system on top of our e-government solution, allowing for a modernization of credit cards systems and the building of a platform for new and innovative Russian business to flourish. Unfortunately, this proposal was tabled at that time.

Now sanction concerns have dawned on President Putin, and he reacted to them without injecting the modernization or the e-government aspects. Now we cannot match even Chinese development of their local payment system Union Pay. The bad news is that major international players like Visa and MasterCard in the payment systems and Facebook in social media are at best silent or actually cooperating in closing down the Russian internet. I feel betrayed by them, frankly speaking.

Q: What is the ideal of the internet for the current government of the Russian Federation?

There are two points of view held within the government. One held by Minister Nikolai Nikiforov is that is a platform. This is a reasonable perspective, which might allow the economy to grow and innovate. The second group sees it as mass media, and thus it should be controlled as it commands the heights of the economy in Russia. Disappointingly, security concerns have squelched the development in all but the clearly non-media related companies in Russia. Whereas in 2013, the Russian Federation was the second largest destination for venture capital funding after London and Berlin, this year venture capital inflows have plummeted as uncertainty continues. Moreover, the Bolotnaya Protests were seen by President Putin as a reason to start a class war with the entrepreneurial "creative classes".

Q: With the spike and drop of the core rates of the Central Bank of Russia, is Central Bank Governor Nabiullina acting rationally?

Speculators had a real role in stoking volatility in the Russian markets. Thus, the rise in the rates was intended to tame the speculators, and it worked. With them tamed, it is rational to lower the rates again to make a slightly more accommodative environment for businesses in Russia. Currently the economy--especially smaller and medium businesses--is in serious trouble and many of them are shutting down. Last year, the country lost several hundred thousand of SMBs, which I also interpret as a part of this "class war".

Q: What does the future of innovation look like in Russia?

Russian firms have had been highly innovative in telecom and financial services, in mobile commerce platforms and social apps. We have great technology intensive companies in OCR and cybersecurity. Nonetheless, many Russian firms have gone abroad within the post-Soviet space or to the West. Those firms such as Yandex have been, one by one, shutting down various services to prevent clashing with the government. Despite that, there are many strong core fundamentals of the Russian economy that will prosper again in a post Putin world. The diaspora of Russian technology entrepreneurs is strong and many remain tied to the homeland. With a change in the atmosphere in Russia, world-class innovation can be revived in Russia.

 [return to Contents] 

 #15
AP
April 7, 2015
Supporters commemorate Russian politician's murder

MOSCOW (AP) - Several hundred people gathered Tuesday just outside the Kremlin walls to commemorate 40 days since the killing of a Russian opposition politician that shook the country.

Boris Nemtsov was shot dead late evening on Feb. 27 as he was walking just outside the Kremlin. It remains unclear who organized the attack.

The bridge where Nemtsov was gunned down was packed Tuesday morning with his supporters, who brought flowers and candles to the spot where he was killed. Passing cars were honking their horns at 11 a.m. local time (0800GMT), a designated moment of commemoration. Some drivers put up pictures of Nemtsov in the windshield as they drove by.

Tuesday marked the 40th day since the politician's killing and is regarded as the final commemorative date in Orthodox Christian tradition.

Nemtsov's killing triggered one of the largest opposition protests in years, with people blaming the Kremlin for fostering a climate of hatred in the country as President Vladimir Putin rallies his support base against what he describes the hostile West.

The politician's close friend and ally, Ilya Yashin, argued Tuesday that Nemtsov's killing was orchestrated in order to "instill fear into that dissenting segment of the society, that segment that does not support the president's policies."

"We want to show that they will not make us scared," Yashin told reporters on the bridge. "We want to show that we will manage to turn Russia into the country that Nemtsov was fighting for, that he died for in the end and that he would not feel ashamed of."

Five suspects, all from the predominantly Muslim republic of Chechnya, have been detained. Supporters of Nemtsov, however, believe that by casting blame on Islamic extremists, investigators are attempting to shift responsibility away from the government and onto a minority with a controversial reputation.

Chechnya suffered two intense wars over the past two decades between Russian forces and separatist rebels increasingly under the sway of fundamentalist Islam. That has reinforced the stereotype among many Russians of Chechens as violent extremists.

The key suspect, Zaur Dadaev, told a court last week that he had been beaten and pressured to confess. Dadaev had been an officer in the Chechen police troops, supervised ultimately by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

Yashin told The Associated Press that investigators may have found the man who pulled the trigger but the mastermind is still on the loose.

"Those people directly responsible for organizing the murder are now in Chechnya under protection of Kadyrov and his militia," Yashin said. "If the people who ordered the killing are not sent to prison, they will believe in their own impunity and their right to solve problems in any way they please."

 [return to Contents] 

 #16
Institute of Modern Russia
http://imrussia.org
April 6, 2015
Dmitry Oreshkin: "In the light of Nemtsov's murder, Putin looks like a weak and dependent politician"
By Leonid Martynyuk  

The Institute of Modern Russia continues its series of interviews with Russian and Western experts on the situation in Russia, its relationship with the West, and the future of its political system. Journalist Leonid Martynyuk speaks with prominent Russian political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin about the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, Putin's policy toward Ukraine, and its consequences.
 
Leonid Martynyuk: The most discussed event of the past weeks in Russia was the assassination of Boris Nemtsov. Who do you think was behind it? What were their goals?

Dmitry Oreshkin: I think Nemtsov was assassinated by those who wanted to put Putin at odds with the rest of the world. The logic was as follows: Putin was short-sighted enough to get into the Crimean trap. There are two ways for him to act now: first, he can return to a moderately responsible position, make peace with the West, declare his respect for the rule of law, give property rights guarantees, etc. But this is unlikely, since it would mean he would have to admit a failure. The second way is to decorate the mousetrap, pretend it's a palace, and proudly walk around. Those who organized this assassination would feel better if [he chose] the second way. [They need] isolation, an iron curtain, an inflated defense budget, and the protection of domestic industries that are incapable of competing with the West. [They need] Putin to turn toward the East once and for all.

The death of Boris Nemtsov was predetermined. A corrupt sultanate [like Russia today] cannot exist under the conditions of European liberties. It is incapable of following its own laws-on media freedom, fair elections, private property. [It can only] kill, frighten, incarcerate, defame, ban [dissidents] from the country-it doesn't have any other tools.

LM: Do you think a new political reality has been established in Russia after Nemtsov's assassination? Has the attitude toward Putin changed?

DO: I think Putin wasn't happy about this assassination. First, he doesn't like when his window of opportunity narrows. Second, it came as a signal that people from his [power] vertical are ready to act by themselves-in their own interests, not his. After Nemtsov was killed, not only did Putin become an international aggressor in the eyes of the whole world, but now he is also viewed as a man who cannot guarantee oppositionists their constitutional right to life-even if he doesn't kill them himself. He is not Stalin; he is some "hybrid" version of Stalin. At least Stalin was in control: he would sign the execution lists himself. Putin seems to be presented with [these executions] after the fact. When you remove all the veneer, in the light of Nemtsov's murder, Putin looks like a weak and dependent politician. He surely knows who made a decision [to kill Nemtsov], but there's nothing he can do about it because he's scared that a clan war over redistribution of power might break out [inside the Kremlin]. Once again legitimacy has been sacrificed to the idea of the elusive stability.

LM: What do you think about Putin's war strategy? There exists a view that Putin started the military conflict in Donbass so that the world would forget about the annexation of Crimea. Another opinion is that Putin needs the whole southwest of Ukraine, and maybe even more.

DO: One shouldn't overestimate Putin. The idea of calling him "the collector of Russian lands" is an undeserved compliment. Putin would be happy to be such a "collector," of course. Deep in his soul, he equates himself with historical figures such as Catherine the Great, Peter the Great, [and] Stalin. But in reality, he is on a lower level. [He doesn't have any] grand strategy [in Ukraine], but more of an opportunistic tactics aimed at retaining power: to bite [off a territory] where a neighbor is weaker and to inflate his own approval ratings. There have been three wars [during Putin's rule]: Chechnya, Georgia, and now Crimea and Donbass. And there have been three hikes in his ratings, respectively. All three times [the hikes] were short-lived, bearing only doubtful benefits for Russia. As a result of the Chechen war, [Russia] received a breakout of corruption and contract murders [in that region], and [the responsibility] of maintaining its $2 billion annual costs. The Georgian campaign added more holes to the budget-not very large ones, luckily. And what was the profit? Did strategic security increase, [Russia's] international position improve, the ruble become stronger, or the labor capacity rise? No, [it brought about] a boost in political ratings, [working like] patriotic yeast. For a year or two.

The Ukraine [conflict] was intended to draw [the whole of Ukraine] into the Eurasian Union. It seemed to be [Putin's first political move] on a truly strategic level. But it all ended up a failure for a typical reason: [Putin's] vertical can't propose an economic and social model that would be more attractive than the West's.

LM: The Kremlin's version is that all these campaigns were initiated to protect Russian interests from the foreign enemy-the United States.

DO: Yes, they do say that the U.S. spent $5 billion on the Maidan. It's a lie. [U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs] Victoria Nuland said that since 1991, $5 billion has been allocated for the development of democracy in Ukraine, but no money was spent just on the Maidan. But our "forward-looking" [political elites] immediately concluded that these monies were spent entirely on the Maidan! Sure, let's just assume that the cunning U.S. foresaw all of this 23 years ago and has been spending these $5 billion on preparation for the Maidan all this time.

Russian Chief of Staff Sergei Ivanov claimed that "we have been, in a way, sponsoring the Ukrainian economy for the last 20 years, spending hundreds of billions of dollars." [If he says "hundreds" as in plural], it means that there has been at least 200 [billion spent]. Hence, Russia has invested no less than $200 billion over the last 20 years-that is 40 times more than the U.S. In terms of international competition, how would you assess a manager who invests $40 [into a partnership] against his rival's $1 but in the end loses a partner with [whom he has] a 300-year-old relationship based on loyalty? [That is] even if we assume that half of the invested money has been stolen. But are our leaders 20 times more stupid than the American ones? That's hardly true. It's more likely that, just like their Soviet predecessors, they are pursuing the wrong strategy.

LM: What is their major mistake?

DO: Ukrainians want to live like Europeans-with normal laws, fair elections, a transparent budget, and contained corruption. That's normal. But Putin wants them to live like Eurasians-under his "kindhearted" corrupt government. This is unnatural. [The government] can buy Yanukovich's gang for $17 billion, but they can't buy a whole country with relatively free media. [Putin's power] vertical can't admit its obvious failure, so a situational decision has been made-to bite off Crimea as a farewell present to Ukraine and to "cash it out" in the form of the ratings growth. The vertical only makes sense under war conditions. During peacetime, neither the people nor the local elites understand why they should tighten their belts and spend enormous funds to maintain this vertical. Thus, it needs a constant hysterical propaganda that justifies the use of violence, the search for domestic and foreign enemies, and a real or virtual confrontation. A "collective" Putin can't develop either Ukraine or Crimea. He can develop only his own vertical.

A possible scenario: the propaganda campaign will refocus on confrontation with the U.S. Against this background, the Ukrainian failure won't be so obvious. There will be a shift toward a global bluff.
LM: Why are you so sure that Putin's vertical has already failed in Donbass?

DO: First, Ukraine will ultimately be lost. Its army has learned how to fight [and] purged from its ranks old officers who leaned toward the Kremlin and Lubyanka. The country has come together against the common enemy. Second, with every passing month, Putin's use of force becomes less and less effective. Of course, Ukraine can't fight against Russia, the largest army in Europe, on equal terms. But it can make the costs for the offense unexpectedly high. Putin wanted a "small victorious war" but faces a long, bloody conflict with an unclear outcome. Third, the pressure of sanctions, and of informational and diplomatic resistance, increases as the Russian economy deteriorates. Each new step [in Ukraine] costs [the Kremlin] even more: in the zinc coffins [of the Russian soldiers who fought and were killed in Ukraine], the falling ruble, the freezing of accounts, capital flight. Propaganda is yelling that "we don't care," but the economy can't help but feel [what's going on]. It has become clear that sooner or later Putin will have to stop.

LM: In your opinion, what will Putin do next? And what could be the consequences?

DO: If he moves on [to conquer Ukraine], both he and Russia will only encounter more grievances. When he took over Crimea, the world couldn't or didn't want to understand what was going on. Now everyone has realized who they are dealing with and are actively discussing [further steps]. Options have been calculated, response measures developed. Ukraine is building its defenses: digging trenches, constructing fortifications. The demarcation line has been effectively drawn. Ukraine hasn't admitted it out loud, but these things usually happen during secession. What was supposed to happen has happened: Donbass has de facto seceded, and in a very profitable form for Ukraine. The pompous Novorossia, which in theory included eight Russian-speaking regions [of Ukraine], is in reality a locked-in territory that only comprises 30 to 40 percent of the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk. This is not enough for 4 million local people to live as an independent economic entity. Will Putin move further? Such a possibility exists, but it would be suicide. Everyone is expecting this move. That is why I think it won't happen. Putin's instinct for self-preservation will prevail. But again, given Nemtsov's murder, he can't control everything anymore.

A possible scenario: the propaganda campaign will refocus on confrontation with the U.S. Against this background, the Ukrainian failure won't be so obvious. There will be a shift toward a global bluff. I don't see any alternatives. In order to camouflage its failures, the Kremlin needs to keep feeding the hysteria. In practical terms, any direct confrontation will lead to subversive action in the opponent's territory: explosions, sabotage, guerillas, and provocations.

LM: Should the West counter Putin's aggression with something more than economic sanctions?

DO: The West was distracted and shocked by the ease with which Putin crossed the line, but over the last year it has been able to find a counterstrategy. It acted rationally. The only sphere where Putin has something close to parity is war-primarily, nuclear war. On any other level he is inferior to the West. That is the reason why he likes to play the nuclear card so often. In contrast, the West is interested in taking the conflict to the field of the economy and high living standards-where it holds an advantage. Last year, the West won Ukraine in this field; 25 years ago it took down the USSR in the same field. It looks like within several years it will also win Belarus and the Kaliningrad region.

Finally, the West has its own interests [regarding Russia]-it doesn't have to do our job and build a more efficient and sane state. Its strategy is fully understandable: to let Putin fall into the trap of stagnation and international isolation as deeply as he can. Such self-restraint may seem selfish and annoy Ukrainian patriots, but it's their problem. The West is interested in freezing the conflict and containing it, not in conquering Russia and destroying the Orthodox Church or the Russian world, as we are being told on TV. In this game, Europe is playing second fiddle [to the U.S.] quite consciously, preferring not to rush its pressuring of [Russia] while having a contingency plan in case of escalation.

LM: So sanctions are sufficient?

DO: No one can tell that in advance. If sanctions are not toughened, that will signal to [Putin] that the "Anschluss of Crimea" has been successful. Pressure must constantly grow [for the sanctions to be effective]. It really has, and the sanctions are having a cumulative effect. [This approach] resembles Reagan's strategy of "rollback of Communism." [Putin and his cronies, or the so-called] "collective Putin" has done so many silly and mean things himself that one doesn't really need to take many additional steps. An irresponsible energy policy resulted in the state budget's critical dependence on commodities prices. Government attacks on Yukos led to a Hague court award [to shareholders] of $50 billion. There are ongoing investigations into Alexander Litvinenko's death and the shooting down of the MH17 flight. . . . Western bureaucrats could have [turned a blind eye to all of this], but after [the annexation of] Crimea, they have dealt with all this eagerly. Yet the West is still afraid to drive Putin to the edge, although it shouldn't be. Putin is rushing there himself, and the only possible strategy for him now is as follows: "Don't touch me, I'm mentally unstable! Here's my doctor's certificate!" But one shouldn't trust that certificate-it's fake, just like everything else Putin has.

LM: Why did Putin begin the Donbass adventure? Was it a way to retain power and increase his ratings?

DO: Putin is a chekist, which means he's poorly educated and quite ignorant. Though he is naturally smart, he is driven by Lubyanka-style instincts. The Soviet people truly believed that by annexing someone's territories, they were making their country stronger and richer. But the "geopolitics of territories" is the last century's way of [thinking]. Everything is different in the twenty-first century. A "geopolitics of flows" is more modern. In order to get access to oil, one doesn't have to conquer Venezuela, Nigeria, Libya, or Iran, and then take responsibility for the endless conflicts and infighting between the locals [that would result]. It's enough to build a pipeline, and the money will flow in. In the times of Stalin and Hitler, Anschlusses were admired. [The idea was that] territories and their populations could be exploited, intimidated, and terrorized: no one would ask any questions. But it isn't like that any more. New lands should be cultivated; they need to be invested in.

LM: What do you think Putin is going to do with [his new] territories?

DO: Putin has nothing to invest. In order to build a bridge over the Kerch Strait, he's got to cancel the project to build a bridge over the Lena River. Siberia will wait-as usual. But there is a risk that there will be no bridge at all-[even though] it's part of the worldview [of Putin's elite]. When Sergei Ivanov complains that we have "provided" Ukraine with hundreds of billions of dollars, [one may ask]: Why not [provide such funds to the] Ivanovo, Tver, or Pskov region? Or Yakutia? Then, perhaps, Ukraine could have something to be envious of in Russia. But the "vertical" was built just for extracting resources and spending them on the expansion of power. [Such a strategy] might have made sense a century ago, but not anymore. There are other global issues on the agenda, such as a dearth of investment flows and intensification of social-economic development, but Putin is still boasting that he annexed a foreign territory.

 [return to Contents] 

 
#17
Moscow Times
April 7, 2015
Russian Church Leader Says Stalin Fans Need to 'Sober Up' to Realities

A Russian Orthodox Church leader has urged supporters of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to "sober up" by visiting the mass graves of political dissidents executed under his regime, news reports said.

The comments by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk came in response to poll results that showed a growing number of Russians view Stalin positively, Lenta.ru reported Tuesday.

"I think that to sober up, some need to go to the Butovo firing range on the outskirts of Moscow," Ilarion said during a program aired by Channel One on Monday, according to media reports.

Butovo was the site of the largest number of political executions in the Moscow region under Stalin.

"The firing range has a museum, photographs of people, it tells you what was happening there: Every day they brought in and shot 200, 300, 400 people," Ilarion was quoted as saying. "There were 15-16-year-old children. Why were they shot?"

The museum's website describes Butovo as a "Russian Golgotha," in a Biblical reference to the site outside of Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified. About 20,750 people were executed in 1938-39 alone at the firing range, which operated for nearly three decades from 1934 to 1953.

A recent poll by independent Levada Center found that 45 percent of Russians believe that Stalin-era purges were fully or to some degree justified by the Soviet Union's rapid economic progress during his rule.That figure stood at 25 percent just two years ago.

Meanwhile about 39 percent of Russians now view Stalin positively, in a drastic change from the "prevailing attitude" of negative views at the start of the millennium, the Levada Center said.

 [return to Contents] 

 #18
Washington Post
April 3, 2015
Closing the doors on a museum of political repression in Russia
By Susanne Sternthal
Susanne Sternthal is a visiting fellow at King's College London's Russia Institute.

One more light has gone out in Russia's besieged civil society.

The only museum of political repression set in an old Stalinist labor camp has closed, the latest casualty of the Russian government's effort to silence independent voices. After a three-year struggle with the government of the Perm region, in the western foothills of the Ural Mountains, the nongovernmental organization that operated the museum, known officially as the Memorial Historical Center of Political Repression Perm-36, had its property confiscated. Instead of honoring the millions of political prisoners who suffered and died under Soviet repression, the site will henceforth be called "The Museum of the History of Camps and Workers of the Gulag."

"Of course this was a political decision," said Victor Shmyrov, the director of the Perm-36 NGO. "Now it will be a museum of the camp system, not of political prisoners. They won't talk about the repressions or about Stalin."

Perm-36, which had received grants both from the Perm regional government and foreign sources, was fighting a battle for the truth about the political repression of the Soviet past. It collected archival materials, conducted research and ran educational programs in which it explained why a Stalin-era labor camp that produced timber was retrofitted under Leonid Brezhnev to become one of the harshest prisons for Soviet dissidents, operating until 1988, well into the Gorbachev years. Perm-36 was grouped with two other camps, Perm-35 and Perm-37, to form the "Perm Triangle" where Natan Sharansky, Vladimir Bukovsky, Vasyl Stus, Yuri Orlov and other famed Soviet dissidents were sent.

The relationship between the directors of the Perm-36 museum and local officials grew cold after Vladimir Putin began his third presidential term in 2012. The Kremlin replaced a liberally minded governor of the Perm region, and the museum stopped receiving financial support from the regional government. Water and electricity were turned off, and the government's involvement in promoting Perm-36 for designation as an UNESCO World Heritage Site was halted. In the summer of 2013, the regional government withheld permission for "Pilorama" - a civic forum named after the power-saw log splitter used by prisoners - to take place at the camp. Held annually since 2005, this event had drawn thousands of visitors to discussions on Soviet history and human rights, theater performances, music and art exhibits.

Sergei Kovalev, a scientist and human rights activist who was imprisoned at Perm-36 for seven years, said the government destroyed "a territory of freedom" when it closed down the museum. Within the confines of the Perm-36 camp museum, delimited by a high wooden fence crowned with barbed wire, Kovalev said, no one was afraid to "speak the truth about what was happening in Russia."

Then the war in eastern Ukraine began, and the Russian propaganda machine started targeting Perm-36. The TV channel NTV aired a documentary featuring former camp guards. "Schoolchildren are told practically on every tour that the Nazi accomplices and terrorists were heroes in this camp," intoned the narrator. Over footage of the fighting in Ukraine, the narrator continued: While Ukrainian forces "are bombing hospitals and shooting peaceful residents, in the Perm Region they are extolling the origins of this movement."

Among the "Nazi sympathizers" identified by NTV was a Lithuanian nationalist, Balys Gajauskas, who was transferred to the "special regime zone" of Perm-36, a camp built especially for such dangerous so-called recidivists. Gajauskas would serve 37 years in various Soviet labor camps, plus more in exile. After his return to Lithuania in 1989, he took part in Lithuania's independence movement. Two years later he was his country's interior minister.

"I always believed that this criminal empire would collapse," Gajauskas told me in 2011. But could he have envisioned that it would be so easily reconstituted?

 [return to Contents] 

 #19
Vedomosti
April 2, 2015
Russian commentary bemoans tightening state grip on academia
Editorial by Boris Grozovskiy, State demands obedience from science and universities

Until the spring of 2013 the Russian political regime considered experts a privileged class, "respected" them, so to speak, and listened to them. Sometimes, it even paid them decent money. This at least partly compensated for its disdain for scientists, both academic and university ones, inherited from Soviet leaders. As a result, in 2000-2012 the restriction of political freedoms had relatively little effect on researchers and university teaching staff. In academic texts and publications, and while teaching at university it was possible to express political views almost freely. Secondary schools were a different matter: Regime ideologists started to focus on them, especially as far as the teaching of history and social science was concerned, around 12 years ago.

For academics and university teaching staff, the situation started to change drastically in the spring of 2013. At Putin's behest, salaries were raised (largely at the cost of larger workloads and rejection of freelancers) and officials decided that the piper had been paid, so they could call the tune. The departure of Sergey Guriyev [former head of Moscow's New Economic School] was meant to be an example. A permanent adviser to presidential and government structures, he was not forgiven for openly assisting [opposition leader Aleksey] Navalnyy and, a decade earlier, working with [former Yukos oil company head Mikhail] Khodorkovskiy's structures. This is how the signal translated into Russian: "If you want to be paid by the state, you will have to hide your disagreements with it really deep, especially if your soul craves fundamental regime change."

Almost 100 per cent of Russia's teaching staff and academics are paid by the state, while the ideas of academic and university freedom and the public good were lost in the fire of the 1917 revolution.

Since [the annexation of] Crimea, the boundaries of freedom of academic opinion have shrunk dramatically. Fans of Andrey Zubov [historian sacked from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) over his opposition of Russia's annexation of Crimea] have learned that MGIMO is not an independent think tank, but a state establishment for the training of competent and well-drilled diplomatic-front warriors. Many Moscow universities outside the top 10 cautiously invite professionals to address students and implore them not to say "anything untoward." The most aggressive examples of TV propaganda triumph at many secondary schools. Aleksandr Byvshev, a secondary school teacher from the village of Kromy in Orel Region, is on trial over verses critical of Russian policy in Ukraine. Universities are not immune either. As always, the Saint Petersburg State University and MGIMO are among the leaders. The former, which back in November 2013 barred its staff from speaking in public without the permission of the university authorities, has been dismissing "overcritical" lecturers. MGIMO has started foiling "cases of unauthorized visits" by staff abroad. The rules of life for teaching staff and academics are gradually becoming similar to those for government officials. The direction has been set and the objectives are clear, so those unable to fall into line only have themselves to blame.

 [return to Contents] 

 
#20
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
April 7, 2015
Russian soft power is just like Western soft power, but with a twist
Russia's concept of "soft power" is similar to the one first articulated by Harvard's Joseph Nye decades ago, but it is based much more on the use of information to present alternative viewpoints.
By Natalia Burlinova
Natalia Burlinova is a political scientist and president of the Center for Support and Development of Public Initiatives - Creative Diplomacy. Previously, she worked as a program director at the A.M. Gorchakov Foundation for Public Diplomacy Support. A graduate of MGIMO-University, she has been an expert at the Moscow-based Foundation for Historical Perspective and also at the RIA Novosti Joint Directorate of International Cooperation, where she was responsible for information coverage of Russia's foreign policy. She anchored the foreign policy analysis programs 'External Factor', 'Internal Factor' and 'Posolsky Prikaz' on the Govorit Moskva radio station (92 FM).

In late March, Russia's federal agency for soft power, Rossotrudnichestvo, changed its leader. Lyubov Glebova became the head of this agency, replacing Konstantin Kosachev. This raises important questions about the current state of Russian "soft power." How effective has it been? What are the distinct features of Russian soft power? Will the Kremlin revise its concept of soft power?

Events in Ukraine have changed the mindset of many people in Russia, who in recent years had believed that their nation was starting to exist in the same reality as the West. As it turned out, things were quite the opposite. Russia and the West are living in completely different, sometimes diametrically opposed spaces, where black is white and white is black, depending on one's viewing angle. Under these conditions, everyone wishes to convey to the world his or her own truth, his or her reality and his or her views on things.

As part of any information war - and especially as part of the one in which Russia and the West now find themselves, tools aimed at delivering information and establishing contacts with people play an important role. All this is usually denoted by the term "soft power."

Russian "soft power" is a relatively new concept. Wide acquaintance with this idea occurred just after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but its active implementation into life began only in the 2000s, after the creation of the federal agency on soft power, Rossotrudnichestvo.

For the first time in the Russian political space, the word "soft power" was used by President Vladimir Putin in his article on foreign policy, "Russia and the Changing World," published in February 2012 as part of his election program.

Of course, experts were familiar with this term, in one way or another, a long time before this; after all, Russia has significant and very successful experience in working with foreign societies during the period of the Soviet Union. However, those days have passed, and the concept of "soft power" borrowed from the Americans implies something that is somewhat different from just mere propaganda.

Putin gave his own interpretation of "soft power," which became a defining term for all who work in this field in Russia. As Putin noted, "Soft power is a set of tools and methods to achieve foreign policy goals without the use of weapons, through the use of information and other levers of influence."

Based on the definition made by President Putin, one can understand that for Russia, "soft power" is characterized not by an emphasis of creating an attractive image (as is the case with the way America works), but rather on informational work with the surrounding world.

Very likely, the Russian leadership based this concept on the historical experience of Russia. The Kremlin believes that history has demonstrated that the attractiveness of the country in the West increases only when Russia is seen as weakening, as it was in the 1990s. However, when Russia occupies a strong position in the world, its attractive image in the Western mind abruptly ceases having this positive character, and quickly turns into a frightening image, according to the Russian authorities.

For example, if we look at the cartoons about Russia in the European press during the Crimean War - the years 1853-1856, when in fact the first European information war was launched between Western Europe and Russia - one can find a lot of similarities between what they wrote back then about Russia, and what they are writing today.

Moreover, the experience of recent years on working on the image of the Russian state and Putin personally, for example, by using the Western PR agency Ketchum, has shown insignificant results.

Therefore, the main focus of the Russian "soft power" system is being placed on the country's own information content. And it is starting to pay off. In the West, particularly in English-speaking countries, there has been a growing demand for information that, as an alternative to the major Western media, is being offered by Russia through its own information broadcasting channels, especially by RT (formerly known as Russia Today).

Despite the fact that many Western experts view this channel as mere Kremlin propaganda, in all fairness, it should be said that in just a few years it has achieved enormous success. RT has expanded its broadcasts into several languages, and in some areas, it has overtaken, in terms of efficiency and interesting information content, such media giants as CNN and the BBC.

The bedrock of the success of RT is the use of alternative viewpoints. As it turned out, the Western information consumer, in general, is now ready to listen to another point of view that is not broadcast on local TV channels. Alternative content, and the ability to connect with the audience - are the basis for the success of RT. And it seems that its opponents have taken notice of this.

In a situation where there is an information war between Russian and Western realities, all the information that is broadcast from Russia is declared to be a form of propaganda that should be prohibited. Attacks on the TV channel have started in some of the most democratic countries of the West. Some Western political leaders have also started to criticize the TV channel, for example, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Against the backdrop of the Ukrainian crisis, in the European Union they started talking seriously about the need to create a Russian-language channel, which would work against the Russian media, conquering the minds of Russian-speaking inhabitants of Europe, which are many. Western leaders, without noticing it, are now adopting the worst features of the Soviet approach to information.

In these circumstances, Russia has decided to act differently - namely, nothing is to be prohibited. For example, just recently they renewed CNN's license to broadcast in Russia. And the results have been excellent. Very few people watch CNN in Russia, except those with special interests. Not being prohibited, it is no longer so alluring.

Russia's soft power and public diplomacy

But Russia's "soft power" - this is not just working with informational tools, although, of course, they are seen as very important for the presentation of Russia to the world. Along with their informational policy, during all these years,  the country's leaders continued to develop another component of Russia's "soft power" - public diplomacy in all its manifestations.

Interestingly, in Russia, as is usually the case, there is almost a mirror image of the language adopted in the West. That is why in Russia, democrats are considered to be the Right and the communists and socialists as the Left. Meanwhile, the conservatives are somewhere in the middle, and usually referred to as the statists.

This division also occurs in the diplomatic sphere, which in Russia has acquired several incarnations - including both "public diplomacy" and "people's diplomacy." All these in the English language are designated by one term, but in Russia, everything has its nuances.

A major player in the public diplomacy direction is the agency with a very long name - the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation. In Russia, the shortened name of this agency is Rossotrudnichestvo. This is sort of an analogue of the U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID). But not quite. The history of this agency is closely linked with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

At the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was necessary to consolidate the humanitarian and cultural ties that existed between the republics of the former Soviet Union. So there was a precursor formed - the Roszarubezhcentr and then the very Rossotrudnichestvo. For a long time, Rossotrudnichestvo played a secondary role in Russia's "soft power," remaining in the sphere of cultural and humanitarian contacts. However, as the agency gained the responsibility to work with so-called compatriots - ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers, which after the collapse of the U.S.S.R. were left outside the boundaries of modern Russia - the agency began to gain political weight.

The modern role of being the primary conductor in the field of "soft power" and public diplomacy, the agency acquired under the leadership of famous Russian diplomat and international relations expert Konstantin Kosachev. A former Duma deputy, now a senator, Kosachev was one of the few Russian "spokesmen" who actively communicated with foreign audiences.

It was Kosachev who brought to Rossotrudnichestvo the idea of that this structure should concentrate in its hands all the basic programs that constitute the various parts of public diplomacy, including programs for young foreigners, promoting educational opportunities in Russia and supporting the study of the Russian language around the world. It was under his leadership that Russia launched a program promoting international cooperation, analogous to USAID.

Kosachev left his post at the end of 2014 and Lyubov Glebova became the new head of this agency on March 23, 2015. Glebova, in terms of Russian "soft power," is a new and unknown figure. Therefore, the path of further development of Rossotrudnichestvo is open to much speculation.

One thing, though, is certain: the continuation and expansion of awareness-raising work about Russia will remain relevant for the agency under this new leader as well. And Russia's "soft power" will continue being generated based on informational content and the importance of bringing the Russian point of view, an alternative to Western views, to the widest possible audiences.

 [return to Contents] 

 #21
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
April 7, 2015
Sorry, but soft power is not a part of the Russian tradition
Russian soft power has experienced its share of ups and downs. Even showcase instruments of soft power  - such as RT - have met with their share of criticism, leading to concerns that "soft power" is simply not in Russia's political lexicon.
By Eugene Bai
Eugene Bai is an expert in Latin America and an experienced international journalist, contributor to The New Times, Novaya Gazeta and Expert magazine.

The term "soft power," which Natalia Burlinova, president of the Creative Diplomacy Center for Support and Development of Public Initiatives, has written about in detail, received a boost in the Russian vocabulary with a helping hand from President Vladimir Putin.

However, the term was later elaborated on by diplomat Konstantin Kosachev, now chairman of the International Affairs Committee under the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament. He used to head the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation (Rossotrudnichestvo), analogous to  the U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID), which was set up in 2008. Remarkably, this agency was founded during the supposed "reset" of Russian-U.S. ties and the presidential tenure of liberal Dmitry Medvedev, the current prime minister.

Plenty of money, not much to show for it

It was assumed that the agency would focus on promoting Russian interests primarily in the post-Soviet space, given that the "age of threats was over" and Russia had all the resources needed to expand its influence in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) by "peaceful means."

At the same time, Rossotrudnichestvo, began to actively develop its network abroad. Now the organization has branches in 82 countries, and commands an annual budget worth a solid $2 billion. But the agency fell short of its goals. According to Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of the magazine Russia in Global Affairs, "The agency failed to become a Russian version of USAID. It was talked about at first, and then forgotten." Lukyanov believes that "soft power and Russia are not natural bedfellows - it's not in our tradition."

First of all, the failure of Rossotrudnichestvo is linked to the botched attempts to put in place assistance programs for Russian compatriots abroad, which were actively discussed at the highest political level, but never materialized. Suffice to look at how Russian-speaking communities in CIS countries react to the agency's work.

"Federal agency or meddler agency?" is the rough translation of the headline of an extensive article by Andrei Demagin of Rus, the oldest organization of Russian compatriots in Belarus.

"The events taking place in Belarus inside the Russian movement demonstrate the gross incompetence of Rossotrudnichestvo, which is hardly an eye-opening statement," writes Demagin. "Scandals and splits inside the Russian movement in post-Soviet countries with the direct involvement of Rossotrudnichestvo representatives have become the norm."

"Rossotrudnichestvo is an anti-Russian, essentially bureaucratic organization," believes Dmitry Klensky, an Estonian political activist and journalist. The main charge he lays at the door of the agency is that Rossotrudnichestvo ignores the "lack of rights of Russian and Russian-speaking residents of Estonia."

As Klensky points out, "Konstantin Kosachev stated publicly that the Bronze Soldier [a monument to Soviet soldiers in Tallinn] could be relocated, which put Night Watch in an awkward position - the grassroots organization that took it upon itself to defend the monument."

Dozens of examples of similarly biting criticism of Rossotrudnichestvo can be heard elsewhere in the CIS. But whereas in respect of Belarus and the Baltic countries Rossotrudnichestvo supporters still have the right to argue their case, in a number of Central Asian republics, where Russian-speakers have long been turned into "pariahs" and artificially squeezed out of national communities, there can be no justification for the policy of appeasing  Central Asian authoritarian rule.

It should be added that at the beginning of this year the Audit Chamber of Russia (ACR) began to take an increased interest in Rossotrudnichestvo's accounts. Particular attention was paid to expenditure on property maintenance and the many amendments to capital repair plans in respect of properties leased by the agency abroad.

"The lack of proper control on the part of Rossotrudnichestvo HQ over the letting out of properties locally creates risks associated with corruption," notes the ACR's Alexander Zhdankov.

The fact that Kosachev, whose name carried high hopes for a revival of Rossotrudnichestvo, remained in his post as head of the agency for a little over 18 months also drew attention. Russian experts say that having lost his position as head of the Duma International Affairs Committee after the recent elections to the lower house, Kosachev simply took a break in his parliamentary activities.

And so it was. Since December last year, he has been a senator and the chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the upper house of the Federal Assembly. In the meantime, his place at Rossotrudnichestvo has been filled by Lyubov Glebova.

Who loves RT?

One other tool of Russian soft power cited by Burlinova is RT (formerly Russia Today), a TV station broadcasting to foreign audiences. In recent years its controllers have spoken time and again of the channel's tremendous achievements. RT claims to reach a global audience of 700 million people, and to have 1.4 million subscribers on social networks.
The channel is certainly professional, but with a twist. Armed with a huge budget, it has the clout to hire top Western presenters and pay them more than the likes of CNN.

"Its audience seems to believe in RT's marketing message - that the network covers the stories which the mainstream media ignores, such as Occupy Wall Street or the WikiLeaks scandals," writes John O'Sullivan, director of Danube Institute in the article "The Difference Between Real Journalism and Russia Today," published by The Spectator. "Western journalism is sometimes biased, usually unconsciously, but it is actuated by some concern for the truth which in major news organizations results, for example, in formal rules about sourcing."

RT operates according to different criteria. In the words of Peter Pomerantsev, author of the book "Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible," during a visit to RT's head office he was told: "It is a natural fact that there is no such thing as objective coverage of events."

Disagreements over editorial policy have caused a number of RT's well-known hosts to tear up their contracts with the station. They include Abby Martin, who denounced RT's coverage of Russia's operation in the Crimea live on air, as did Liz Wahl, and Staci Bivens, who was commissioned to do a report on Germany as a "failed state."

The author of this piece also ceased to cooperate with the Spanish-language version of RT after every single one of his comments directly or indirectly criticizing the regime of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela was expunged.

As David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for one of his books about Russia, put it: "RT is darkly, nastily brilliant, so much more sophisticated than Soviet propaganda."

"People are beginning to agree with Remnick that the 'Russian point of view' is generally Putin's point of view," agrees O'Sullivan.

Ostracized by leading Western journalists and some experts, can RT be a soft power tool able to promote a positive image of Russia abroad? It is very questionable. However, the main point at issue is not Russia's "tools of influence," but Russian reality. It is in fact ridiculous to talk about soft power in Russia at a time when politicians, military chiefs and journalists are increasingly sounding off about the use of nuclear weapons, issuing direct or veiled threats against the West.

Quite recently Dmitry Kiselev, head of the major state-owned news group Rossiya Segodnya ("Russia Today"), declaimed that Russia was "the only country able to turn America into radioactive dust," whereupon the Russian ambassador to Denmark, Mikhail Vanin, clearly hinted that Moscow could use nuclear weapons against his host country if it went along with NATO's anti-Russian military preparations.

An article also appeared in the publication Military-Industrial Courier in which author Konstantin Sivkov wrote that Russia needs a new "mega-weapon" able to rain down chaos and destruction on its enemies. In his piece entitled "Nuclear Special Forces," he argues that Russia should develop a nuclear arsenal serviced by minimum personnel, yet capable of causing a tsunami off the coast of California and a volcanic eruption in Yellowstone National Park. He asserts that the new weapon will serve primarily as an asymmetric threat to the U.S., which is "advancing towards Russia's borders."

Western media cannot help but pay attention to the rapid rise in anti-Americanism in Russia. Such sentiment is backed up by the results of surveys in which an increasing number of respondents say that "in certain circumstances" Russia would be justified in using nuclear weapons against the West. At the same time an increasing proportion of the Russian public is inclined to support the methods employed by notorious Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to "restore order" in the country.

All in all, it would seem that promoting Russian interests in the world through the medium of soft power is a laborious and thankless task. One can agree with Natalia Burlinova that soft power is indeed a mirror of relations between Russia and the West, but it does not necessarily follow that this mirror distorts the West's view of Russia, as Russian propagandists like to assert.

 [return to Contents] 

 #22
Russia In Global Affairs
http://eng.globalaffairs.ru
March 19, 2015
Vladimir Lukin: I Am a Bit Wary of a "Popular" Foreign Policy

Vladimir Lukin is a Russian diplomat, politician, and international relations expert.

Resume: A conviction formed over time that the United States was abusing the friendship offered by Russia. It was the position of the U.S. and its allies on Yugoslavia and NATO expansion that made both the general public in Russia and its elites take a critical view of Washington's policy.

- Looking back over the past 25-30 years, what illusions did the Soviet Union and Russia have about the West?

- "Illusions" is probably not the most accurate and adequate way to describe that phenomenon, but illusions did exist. It was a time when the communist system was falling apart, unfortunately along with the Soviet Union. Communism gave rise to a fierce interstate ideological war that was completely black and white. That war had a strong impact on our foreign policy and the foreign policy of other major powers with regard to us. The Soviet foreign policy was based on two convictions. The first one was that foreign policy was "the driver" of ideology, which was not surprising for the Soviet Union at that time, and the second postulate was that foreign policy was a direct and automatic result of domestic policy.

There is no doubt that foreign and domestic policies are connected, but this connection was portrayed too primitively at that time. The logic was that since the Soviet Union was the ideological antagonist of the United States and Europe within NATO, a bipolar world and bloc-to-bloc confrontation would be a "normal" course of events, although in real life this was not quite the case. By that time, the "autonomous" phenomena of China, Yugoslavia, and de Gaulle's France had been around for quite a while, but were somewhat marginalized in the black-and-white scheme of things. And since the communist regime in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe had collapsed, the opposite side had to be urgently employed to turn black into white. As a Chinese poet once said, "What once was upside-down has to be turned around."

However, any person who is more or less versed in international relations knows that there is more to foreign policy than just ideology. It is not confined solely to geopolitics, as some political neophytes say now, and it is not a direct continuation of domestic policy. Foreign policy has a dimension of its own, though relative. The fact that a large part of Russia is in Eurasia affects the country's policy, which differs substantially from that of Mexico, located on the opposite side of the world. This is obvious. And no change in ideology or internal circumstances can shake this fundamental fact. However, the late 1980s were marked by an emerging ideological zeal to turn around everything that some thought was "upside-down" until then.

- With just as much fervor and ideological thrust?

- Exactly. Any domestic and foreign policy actions during a revolution - and the 1990s were undoubtedly a revolutionary period - "shine" with the light of moral indignation or admiration. In the past NATO was "very bad," then it became "very good." If the Caribbean crisis was horrible, let's do the opposite, like giving up all our foreign bases unilaterally and for nothing. Not everyone in the Foreign Ministry and the leadership of the country shared this point of view, of course, but this was the general vector.

This provided the background for many events that occurred at that time, including the reunification of Germany, which was inevitable, but could have happened differently, or NATO enlargement essentially to the Russian border without any legally binding documents regulating a thousand related issues. As a result, the policy of the late Soviet Union and subsequently of young Russia (which inherited the key features of the Soviet Union's foreign policy at the time of its breakup) was not so much pro-Russian as pro-American to the same extent that it was aggressively anti-American before (for example, under Andropov).

As I have already said, not everyone shared this point of view, and I, too, called for caution and more conventionalism, if you like. But no one listened to us. On the contrary, we were irritating. On top of everything else, this shortsighted foreign policy led to some unforeseen consequences inside the country. For instance, it quickly turned into an impediment to serious reforms and movement forward away from the Soviet past. This allowed the so-called "red-brown opposition," a motley crew of people with different views, including strong opposition to the new foreign policy, to score points by criticizing the blind pro-American course.

- In other words, a blind pro-American policy encouraged opponents of liberal reform?

- Right. But it was also a natural reaction. After all, a revolution is a revolution, and it thinks in absolute terms, not in nuances. When the October Revolution triumphed in 1917, the Bolsheviks and their first foreign minister Leon Trotsky did a lot of things. Trotsky was somewhat contemptuous about foreign affairs, but he did two major things for Soviet foreign policy: he participated in the first round of the Brest-Litovsk talks with the Germans (under the "bold" "neither war nor peace" motto) and ordered his aide Markin, a sailor with the Baltic Fleet, to publish the secret treaties of tsarist Russia in the hope that this would lead to global peace simply because everyone would see the insidiousness of "the damned bourgeois and landowning diplomats" who had been conducting their shady business in secret. We know the end of this initiative from history. It surely wasn't a "lasting peace."

Something similar happened to us [after the breakup of the USSR - Ed.]. After the first shock, our "Atlantic partners" began to do as they saw fit, fully convinced that we would automatically approve of all their actions, even those that were obviously at odds with our own interests.

- How much did the West know and understand about what was happening in the Soviet Union and then in Russia at that time?

- They knew that revolutionary events were taking place; that is, ignorance   was trampling upon justice, as it happens in any revolution, and the West eventually decided to grab as much for itself in this turmoil as possible. It would be ridiculous to blame them for egoism. That's like blaming a person for egoism, which is a source of his motivation. Whether this egoism was reasonable or not is a different issue. This discussion has been going on in the West for about a quarter of a century and it is still far from being over.

- And when did surprise become a desire to fish in muddy waters?

- That happened gradually. At first President George H. W. Bush in his speech in Kiev in July 1991 told Ukrainians to act with more caution so that the Soviet Union would not disintegrate completely. In fact, many people in the West knew that the Soviet Union was a nuclear power and were afraid of undermining it too much. The U.S. president's cautious and balanced approach has not been fully appreciated so far in our country. But later, when everything collapsed, Washington assumed its usual stance: the United States is a natural leader, and all others must follow its orders, with no need to go through complex coordination procedures, but with everyone having to look up to the superior.

I remember the early 1990s when I was ambassador in Washington and we were discussing at the State Department the idea of convening a conference on the Partnership for Peace program for NATO's interaction with Eastern European countries. When the Americans began to spell it out, I asked them a simple question: "Will NATO form a ?partnership' with each country in the region separately or collectively?" I was told it would be done with each country separately. That said everything. It foreboded NATO's eastward expansion. It was the biggest mistake the West made and gradually led to the current situation in which both sides feel uneasy.

- You said NATO's eastward expansion was a mistake. Could Russia have corrected the trajectory of that expansion, influenced it somehow if not prevented it? Did it try?

- A conviction formed over time that the United States was abusing the friendship offered by Russia. It took time to realize the need to counter Washington and it became completely manifest at the turn of the century during the conflict in Yugoslavia. It was the position of the U.S. and its allies on Yugoslavia and NATO expansion that made both the general public in Russia and its elites take a critical view of Washington's policy.

Unlike in the Soviet era, when anti-American sentiment was an official policy yet one the people did not share, such a clear watershed no longer existed. Anti-American attitudes began to take root amid the current political circumstances coupled with old complexes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries stemming from na�ve ideas of Slavic unity, largely idealized, but virtually nonexistent at the political and diplomatic levels. The ideological pattern of struggle between the two systems, which ceased to exist together with the Soviet Union and the socialist camp, was replaced with whatever came handy in the pantry of old and long forgotten things.

True, there were some politicians who argued that ideological liberalism did not mean following U.S. policy, that Russia had its own interests to pursue. I was one of those. When working in Washington as ambassador I published an article in Foreign Affairs, where I described Kozyrev's policy as "infantile pro-Americanism," which apparently shortened my term of office. Americans asked me what Russian foreign policy should be like. And I told them "it should not be infantile in the first place." We have to discuss and advance our own interests, not make blind decisions, pandering to the wishes of others. I wrote that pro-Americanism was not necessarily tantamount to anti-Americanism; it simply meant a mature pro-Russian policy.

- You mentioned Andrei Kozyrev. But what did Yeltsin think about America at that time?

- He made his first visit to the United States in 1989, and it was a very bad trip, as far as I can remember. The trip did not improve his image, to put it mildly. When he became chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Russia but was not yet an elected president, he began to score points in the United States. I think he sincerely wanted to protect Russia's interests, even though at first he tried hard to avoid being branded a Soviet-style functionary since he had been a party boss recently.

But he was not very knowledgeable about foreign affairs. I believe he differed little in this respect from some of the American presidents who were hardly the best and brightest in terms of foreign relations. But he listened to advice. At a congress of the Russian Supreme Soviet, where he was elected its chairman and I was named to head its foreign affairs committee, I approached him and said that I was also a man of democratic views and was ready to work with him, but I had never been and never would be a "yes man." "That's the kind of people we need!" he exclaimed emotionally. With time he began to tire of that, but early in his career he listened carefully, sometimes becoming grouchy, but generally was quite attentive and responsive.

When U.S. Secretary of State James Baker visited Russia in early 1992, he said he wanted to organize and chair something like a Politburo meeting with the heads of new post-Soviet states. We discussed this with Yeltsin. I told him that Baker's proposal was sheer impudence and suggested cutting him down to size demonstratively. When asked how this could be done, I advised Yeltsin against attending the meeting and suggested going in his place. And I did. The desired effect was achieved.

- Kozyrev called himself "the most pro-Western foreign minister in the history of Russia." You were Ambassador to the United States during his term, but your views were very far apart. Did you have to fight?

- Naturally. It was a fight and it ended with my bureaucratic defeat. Kozyrev was in Moscow, I was in Washington. When Yeltsin visited America for the third time in the summer of 1992 on an official visit, he told me: "Vladimir Petrovich, I trust you one hundred and twenty percent. Just tell me who is bothering you here at the embassy or elsewhere and I will remove them." I understood that this was the beginning of the decline, my decline, as it was a matter of trust. The closer it got to the Vancouver summit, the more Moscow frowned at me and my statements, including in Foreign Affairs, and in my confidential reports. Eventually, considering my "great success in America," I was asked to run the embassy in Great Britain where things were critical. I said I would not go anywhere, but would return to Russia, as I did. I ran for a seat in the Duma and after the election became head of its foreign affairs committee, just like in the Russian Supreme Soviet. Yeltsin neither helped me nor stood in my way, even though there was a lot of talk against me. But I never regretted my decision.

- In his 1994 book "Diplomacy," Henry Kissinger writes that "integrating Russia into the international system is a key task" for the United States. But as he was saying this, the Americans were actually pushing Moscow away with their policy? Why?

- It is in the genes. America has a simple ideology - that there is only one truth in the world, that truth is held by God, and God created the United States to be an embodiment of that truth. So the Americans strive to bring this truth to the rest of the world and to make it happy. Only after that will everything be well. This ideology has a strong influence on their policy. A wise traditionalist and a geopolitical expert, Kissinger had good reason to call such politicians "Trotskyites" for advocating a world revolution, albeit in their own way, but always in the front and in shining armor. This is a tempting ideology and has been professed by different countries at different times, not only the United States.

- So Russia took off its ideological blinders in 1991, but America still seems to have them on. The Soviet Union is gone, but the policy against it is not.

- I would not say that the evil desire of Washington was behind everything that happened. There is the issue of states that are content with their position and of the so-called "revisionists." In the situation we have described they considered our country no more than just a huge crumbling state, and the United States could afford anything at that time. We can criticize our politicians, but in the 1990s they did not have sufficient resources to stand up to that policy. Revisionist states, as we know, try to change the world in accordance with their understanding of justice, but this understanding is often just a ribbon attached to the actual balance of power.

This is why India, China, Brazil, and several other major countries oppose the United States in one way or another. There is a gap between what a country thinks it can do in the changed balance of power and what other countries think it can do. This is the root cause of conflicts. China's possibilities have changed dramatically since the watershed plenum of the Communist Party's Central Committee in 1979, when Deng Xiaoping proclaimed his Four Modernizations policy. And yet Beijing is being very cautious; perhaps at times even more so than many would consider reasonable. India and Brazil are also trying to avoid drastic movements, preferring instead to "let eagles lead the way." Eagles mostly soar in the sky. The view from up there is beautiful, but unfortunately some details cannot be seen clearly. And as we know, the devil is in the detail.

They willingly give us the role of "heading the protest against the treacherous Americans." Washington claims, however, that it wants to preserve the status quo, but the status quo of the first postwar period when the United States was the indisputable hegemon that would never retreat. As to whether we should act in the Chinese way or follow Heinrich Heine's "Beat the drum and fear not" principle, I always was and remain an advocate of a pro-Russian foreign policy, a policy to make the most of the current situation and focus on how to modernize the country, save the nation, and enter the 21st century in full vigor. This should be done without much ado, like the Chinese did, even though we have been, are, and will be Europeans. In other words, we should find the right balance between adapting to the rapidly changing world and going too far beyond the red lines.

A Japanese general told me once that Japan suffered so much and sustained so many dramatic strategic losses during the war because it had mixed up two things: a dream and a strategy. We had a dream in 1990 to do everything quickly in line with our rigid ideological plans and to make a giant leap into an era of happiness. But the ship of a state as big as ours is very bulky and moves slowly, and it is dangerous for it to make a sharp turn. But it can steer its course carefully, paying attention to changes in the balance of power in the world. It is important, though, to keep its weak spots shielded from enemy attacks, and this is real art. I say "art" because this is something professionals should do.

- Has diplomacy changed much over the past twenty years?

- In terms of technologies employed, diplomacy today is very different from what it was in the past, both during the Cold War era and in the 1990s. Henry Kissinger has even suggested that ambassadors are no longer needed. What is an ambassador? In the past it was a person who was given a mandate, general instructions and several sable skins, wished good luck, and sent away on a voyage of his own. It's different now. Diplomacy is largely conducted online, with the heads of state keeping in touch with each other all the time. And as a former ambassador, I can add that when they talk on the phone, ambassadors do not always know what exactly they discuss. So technologies change, but the essence of diplomacy remains the same. We have to pursue our interests with a clear understanding of our possibilities and those of our opponents. Plus, diplomacy today comes in a soft and sparkling PR package designed to hype certain events or people just like in show business.

- You participated in the talks on the release of OSCE officials in Donetsk and in Yanukovich's talks with the opposition. What are your impressions from those events that have already become history?

- The OSCE officials were released in May. Before that, in February, there were negotiations between Yanukovich and the Ukrainian opposition, and then a revolution. Our president asked me to go to Kiev and take part in the meeting on Russia's behalf. Whether or not any documents were signed depended entirely on the circumstances. Naturally, since I am quite experienced in conducting negotiations, I was supposed to consult Moscow from time to time, which I did. And the decisions made were the decisions of political leaders, not of the diplomats, who simply implemented those decisions.

The agreement between Yanukovich and three opposition leaders was actually reached on February 21, but when it came to its implementation, the Maidan supporters rejected the compromise and continued their unilateral actions, causing Yanukovich to flee. The agreement was torpedoed. With its object and subject gone, there was no sense in signing any document.

And then a civil war broke out. It was during that war that the OSCE monitors had to be rescued in Donetsk and Slavyansk where rebels had detained them. They simply had to be extricated with the assistance of both sides. I received a great deal of help from Moscow. It took a lot of effort and hard work with Kiev, the West, and the local authorities, and I received a lot of assistance from the many people involved in the talks from all sides. I greatly appreciate that. Thank God we could do it, although not always easily and smoothly.

- You said that the public and the elites were united in the 1990s in their attitude towards the West, and that today's foreign policy is also popular, but for how long?

- I am a bit wary of "a popular foreign policy" because it is often short-lived and based on emotions that do not last. Russian history knows periods when foreign and domestic policies alternately enjoyed strong emotionally charged popularity, but rarely both at the same time. I would like to see a strong and lasting balance between domestic and foreign policy aimed at strengthening our security and facilitating Russia's internal development. It is a real challenge to make foreign policy serve internal development so that people live better and the country becomes stronger with more external capabilities. This is a complex art that requires consolidation, consistency, self-restraint, and the ability to listen to different voices and resist various populist temptations... What exactly needs to be done to achieve this goal is something politicians and career diplomats have to decide.

Interviewed by Yegor von Schubert, a journalist and publicist.

 [return to Contents] 

 
#23
http://america.aljazeera.com
April 7, 2015
Who's afraid of big, bad Putin?
The Baltic states needn't fear; Russia's jolting behavior is merely a diversion from its actions farther east
by Richard Lourie
Richard Lourie, the author of "The Autobiography of Joseph Stalin," is just finishing a book on Vladimir Putin and his Russia.

A strong cold wind is blowing from the east, and they're shivering in Poland and the Baltic States. It's their worst nightmare: to be the target of Russian aggression yet again. Their reaction has been close to panicky. Hundreds of self-defense units have been formed in Poland, Lithuania is considering reinstating the draft, and Latvia reports that Russian submarines approached its borders more than 50 times in the past year.

These countries have some reason to be worried. Carved up as they were by Stalin and Hitler, the vagaries of war made Soviet Russia by turns their invader, liberator and occupier. The events in Ukraine raise valid concern, but Poland and the Baltic states are not likely to suffer similar fates, for two reasons. First, Ukraine has enormous symbolic and historical meaning for Russia. Many Russians consider themselves and Ukrainians one people, although, tellingly, this is a sentiment rarely voiced by Ukrainians. The second reason is coolly practical and geopolitical. If Ukraine were to enter the Western camp, Russia would be flanked by NATO from the Baltic to the Black Sea - an unpardonable display of weakness that would cost any Russian leader his job.

This isn't to say that Russia's actions and reactions toward Poland and the Baltic states haven't been extreme. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been calling snap military exercises to remind his rivals to the west who has the whip hand. But does Russia have real designs on the territory of any NATO nations and, if so, which ones?

An obvious candidate is Narva, Estonia's third-largest and easternmost city, which juts into Russian territory like a peninsula. The statistics here are even starker and more alarming than in Ukraine. Narva's population is 94 percent Russian-speaking and 82 percent ethnic Russian. Fewer than half the city's residents are even citizens of Estonia, and only 4 percent are ethnic Estonians. It's a natural place for Russian mischief, which explains the parading of U.S. and other NATO troops in Narva on Feb. 24, Estonia's independence day. To mark the occasion, the country's Prime Minister Taavi Roivas said, "Narva is a part of NATO no less than New York or Istanbul, and NATO defends every square meter of its territory."

That's a ringing endorsement of the NATO charter's Article V, which states that members "agree that an armed attack against any one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all" and has never been truly tested. NATO troops would have to go out on a limb, even for a distant and obscure city that is already 80 percent Russian, or risk a crisis of confidence in the viability of the alliance.

It is not the U.S. and NATO that need to worry about a resurgent and aggressive Russia. It is Kazakhstan and China.
For that reason alone, Putin would never hazard war for Narva, which has no particular symbolic or strategic importance for Russia. He has no real designs on any NATO territory. His actions in the West have three purposes, none of which is the acquisition of territory: to make Russia's presence felt in the world, to be feared if it can't be respected; to test NATO's nerves and will, thereby weakening its resolve; and to act as a diversion from actions taken farther to the east.

Some observers might point to Russia's quiet quasi-annexation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two breakaway republics from Georgia. Ever since the 2008 Russian-Georgian war, these two tiny states have been essentially under Russian control. Recently Putin went a step further, merging the security and armed forces as well as customs control between Russia and these two areas while making it easier for their citizens to acquire Russian citizenship. This was not a big story in the West, which, just as Moscow wished, was more concerned with Tupolev bombers grazing NATO members' airspace.

But Abkhazia and South Ossetia are different from Ukraine. They began a bloody war for their independence as soon as the Soviet Union collapsed; they didn't wish to be part of Georgia's small multiethnic state any more than Georgia wanted to be part of Russia's large multiethnic state. As always in such cases, two time-honored principles clashed here: the right to self-determination and the right to territorial integrity. Since North Ossetia is already part of Russia, a case can be made for reuniting South Ossetia with it. But that's irrelevant. Russia's real interests are to keep pressure on Georgia so it won't dare join NATO and, as with Crimea, to create templates for later annexations. Those later annexations will take place in Central Asia.

Putin has broken with the West and turned his attention to the energy markets of Asia, but as Russia reorients itself, it risks becoming a junior partner - a mere supplier of natural resources to Beijing. The Central Asian equivalents of Crimea, Narva and South Ossetia will thus become strategically important to Moscow. This means the northern and eastern parts of Kazakhstan, which are heavily Russian and have been declared "part of Siberia" (that is, of Russia), by no less a moral authority than Nobel Prize laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn. If Putin manages to assert his influence there, he will have what he really wants: control of Kazakhstan's border with China, the border through which China imports energy and exports manufactured goods. Then Putin's true eastern ambition will be fulfilled. Russia will no longer be China's junior partner, but a full-fledged equal. In other words, it is not the U.S. and NATO that need to worry about a resurgent and aggressive Russia. It is Kazakhstan and China.

 [return to Contents] 

 
#24
Moscow Times
April 7, 2015
Will Putin Rescue Greece's Tsipras?
By Howard Amos

As Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras prepares for talks with President Vladimir Putin during a visit to Moscow beginning on Wednesday, experts, officials and European leaders have been left guessing whether the two men might hammer out an economic deal.

The meeting was announced less than a month ago as crisis-ridden Greece ran into trouble in its debt negotiations with the European Union.

Financial aid from the Kremlin would give Athens breathing space in its debt repayments and hand Russia leverage over EU policymaking, but experts and analysts said that the two sides were more interested in grandstanding than a dramatic diplomatic realignment.

"Moscow could give Greece money ... but it won't solve either Moscow's or Athens' problems," said Vasily Koltashov, head of the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements' economic research center.

More likely is a partial lifting of Moscow's food embargo on European imports that would allow this year's Greek fruit harvest, particularly of strawberries and peaches, to find buyers in Russia, and give Tsipras a token victory.

Tsipras and Russia

Aside from talks with Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on April 8, Tsipras told Russia's TASS news agency last week that he will meet Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, and give a speech at a central Moscow university during his time in Russia.

Tsipras also used the interview to restate his opposition to the sanctions the European Union has imposed on Russia over the Ukraine crisis, and call for greater ties between Moscow and Athens.

Labeling sanctions a "road to nowhere," Tsipras told TASS that Greco-Russian relations gave Athens a key role in ongoing negotiations.

"I really think that Greece, as a member of the EU, can be a connecting link, a bridge between the West and Russia," he said.

Tsipras is no stranger to Moscow. The leader, who heads the radical leftist Syriza party, came to the Russian capital last May and met with officials including Valentina Matviyenko, the chair of the Russian parliament's upper house who served as Russia's ambassador to Greece in the late 1990s.

Tsipras and Putin will discuss economic ties "in light of Brussels' policy of sanctions and Athens' quite cold attitude to this policy," Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last week, Reuters reported.

Cyprus Rerun?

Precedent does not favor a big Greco-Russian deal: The last time representatives from a Mediterranean country visited Moscow under pressure from European creditors they went home empty-handed.

Cyprus' Foreign Minister Michalis Sarris flew into Moscow in March 2013 in an effort to secure Russian financial aid as Nicosia watched its banking system teeter on the verge of collapse amid negotiations with the European Commission, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

But he left with nothing, and Moscow later acquiesced in a levy on depositors that was imposed on Cypriot banks as a part of restructuring.

Russia's economic problems make it unlikely that it will be prepared to commit large sums. Inflation is currently running at levels not seen since the early 2000s, experts predict a 2015 economic contraction of up to 5 percent and reserves fell to almost 8-year lows in March after a collapse in the value of the ruble.

Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told Russian news agency RIA Novosti on April 3 that no formal appeal for financial aid had been received from Athens.

Privileged Conditions

One option for Moscow during the negotiations would be to cancel the food embargo and grant Greece privileged import access, generating revenue for struggling Greek companies and allowing Tsipras to present a concrete result to Greek voters, according to Koltashov.

"This would be a colossal present for Greece," said Koltashov.

Greece's economy has suffered from the food embargo imposed by Moscow in August and Greek officials have reportedly spoken of rotting harvests.

The export relationship is particularly close in terms of fruit: Greece accounts for 40 percent of Russia's total strawberry imports and 25 percent of total peach imports, according to data from news website FruitNews.

Tsipras called for closer agricultural cooperation in his interview with TASS last week.

Moscow appears to be not averse to the idea. Unnamed officials told Bloomberg news agency last week that Russia was ready to discuss easing restrictions on Greek food products.

A spokesperson for Russia's food safety watchdog, Rosselkhoznadzor, said Monday that the agency was preparing inspections to begin in Greece on April 20 that would be necessary before agricultural exports could resume.

Greek Assets

Tsipras' visit is supposed to please a domestic audience and bolster his standing in the EU, according to Thanos Dokos, director of the Athens-based Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy.

"But there are also more material expectations in the sectors of trade, investment, energy and defense cooperation," he added.

Russian companies have expressed interest in several key Greek assets in recent years, and Tsipras has said that energy and tourism are areas with the greatest economic potential.

State-owned gas giant Gazprom was one of the leading bidders for Greek natural gas infrastructure assets in 2013 in a privatization deal that was eventually shelved. Last year, state monopoly Russian Railways announced it was looking to buy a majority stake in the Greek port of Thessaloniki.

Any major new Russian investment in Greece would raise hackles in Brussels. The EU and U.S. have previously expressed concern over Russian companies being given control of key Greek infrastructure.

Greco-Russian Ties

The relationship between Moscow and Athens has traditionally been close, partly because of their shared Orthodox faith. Greece has sided with Moscow in several international disputes: Athens has never, for example, recognized independent Kosovo, whose U.S.-backed status Russia condemns.

There are approximately 190,000 ethnic Greeks and Pontic Greeks in Russia and there are large Greek populations on the country's Black Sea coast and in the North Caucasus Stavropol region.

Russian investment in Greece has ticked up in recent years, rising from $33 million in 2007 to $98 million in 2013, according to the latest available Central Bank data.

Experts, however, point out that Greco-Russian relations often promised more than they deliver and that Athens is restricted by its affiliations to both the EU and NATO.

"The probability of Greece reorienting itself toward or repositioning itself closer to Russia is practically zero for as long as Greece remains a full member of European institutions," said the Hellenic Foundation's Dokos.

 [return to Contents] 

 #25
www.rt.com
April 7, 2015
Here is what you need to know about Putin's meeting with Tsipras

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. Greece could ask Moscow to bankroll a bailout, Gazprom could agree to a gas discount, or the two sides could talk about how to sidestep EU sanctions.

The new 40-year-old leader of one of the world's most indebted countries with meet with Putin on Wednesday, just one day before the country is due to repay €463.1 million to the International Monetary Fund. The Greek Prime Minister arrives in Moscow on Tuesday.

Is Russia going to bail out Greece?

Rumors have been abuzz that Athens and Moscow are plotting a secret bailout ever since the idea was first floated by Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov days after the Syriza party won the elections in January. Russian daily Kommersant reported that Moscow is ready to offer indirect financial help, citing an unnamed government source.

"We are ready to consider the issue of allowing Greece a gas discount: under the contract, the gas price is linked to the oil price that has gone significantly lower in recent months," as Kommersant cites a Russian government source.

"We are also ready to discuss the possibility of allowing Greece new loans. But in turn we are interested here in reciprocal moves, in particular in terms of Russia getting certain assets from Greece," the source added, without specifying the sort of assets he was talking about.

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has said that his country "will never ask for financial assistance from Moscow," in an interview with Zeit online in early February.

Wait, does Russia have the money for this?

Yes and No.

Government officials have hinted that Russia's help, if provided, would be indirect.

Most economists around the world are more positive about the Russian economy, but everybody agrees it will contract this year between 4 and 3 percent. Most recently S&P improved its economic outlook for Russia, saying it'll return to growth in 2016 and add 1.9 percent.

In the first quarter of 2015, the economy expanded 0.4 percent, and the Russian ruble, which lost nearly 50 percent in 2014, is now the best performing currency of the year.

Though Russia 's economy isn't as strong as it was two years ago, and growth is near zero, it still has a lot saved up for a rainy day - $356,365 billion in currency reserves as of April and over $150 billion split between the country's oil reserve funds, the National Reserve Fund and National Welfare Fund. If the Russian economy goes nose first into a recession, these funds are expected to keep the financial situation stable for 2-3 years.

Russia provides financial aid and loans to most former Soviet countries. In March, the Kremlin prolonged a $2 billion loan to Belarus, and in February agreed on a $270 million loan to Armenia. In 2013, just before Ukraine began its pivot towards Europe, Russia gave Kiev a $3 billion Eurobond loan.

The question isn't if Moscow has the money but if it wants to get a 'political dividend' by getting another ally and sink money into Greece, which has already sucked up €240 billion in EU debt and hasn't posted GDP growth in six years.

What about a gas discount for Greece?

Gas has become an important issue in economic relations between Russia and Greece, after President Putin announced the new Turkish Stream pipeline that will travel to the Turkish-Greek border. Both Russia and Greece are interested in the project but Athens' stance largely depends on the gas price Russia will offer.

On March 30, Greek Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis met with Russian counterpart Aleksandr Novak as well as Gazprom head Aleksey Miller in Moscow to discuss a gas discount for Greece as well as the 'take-or-pay' clause, which requires Athens to buy gas it doesn't use.

Under the current contract, Greece's state gas company DEPA buys gas at $300 per 1,000 cubic meters. In 2014, DEPA was able to secure a 15 percent discount from Gazprom. Greece may be able to secure a further discount or renegotiate the 'take-or-pay' part of the contract if Athens offers Russian companies oil assets or rights to explore oil and gas deposits in the Ionian Sea.

In 2013, Gazprom made a €900 million bid to buy a controlling stake in DEPA, but backed out of negotiations at the last minute, citing concerns over the company's financial stability. Gazprom currently controls almost 70 percent of the Greek gas market.

During the talks, Lafazanis also discussed the prospect of Greece joining the Turkish Stream pipeline project, which will have the potential to deliver 47 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe via Turkey. Gazprom said the onshore route will pass through the Black Sea and reach the Turkish port of Kiyikoy, and then travel to the Turkish-Greek border near the town of Ipsila.

Can Moscow lift sanctions on Greece?

Russia's agriculture counter-sanctions against the EU do not expire until August 2015, a year after they were enacted as a counter measure to protect Russia's economy.

Greece has been hit especially hard by Moscow's food ban, as more than 40 percent of Greek exports to Russia are agricultural products. In 2013, more than €178 million in fruits and conserves were exported to Russia, according to Greece' fruit exports association, Incofruit-Hellas.

Russian Minister of Agriculture Nikolai Fyodorov has said food sanctions against Greece would be lifted in the event that Athens leaves the EU. While Greece is a part of the EU, it cannot sign any trade agreements with Russia.

As an EU member, Greece has the power to veto further sanctions against Russia. Alexis Tsipras has openly said that sanctions against Russia are a "road to nowhere". Other Moscow-friendly states include countries with very close economic ties to Russia- such as Hungary, Slovakia, Italy, and the Czech Republic.

Russia is Greece's biggest trading partner, with net trade in 2013 nearly $12.5 billion (€9.3 billion), more than Greece and Germany in the same year. Russia is the biggest source of imports for Greece, accounting for 11 percent in 2013.

Once Russia's food market is again open, Greece, along with Turkey and Cyprus, will be the first to re-enter, according to Sergey Dankvert, head of Russia's food inspector, Rosselkhoznadzor,

After the trip, what's next for Greece?

While Tsipras is still in Moscow, Greece is expected to make a €463.1 million payment on IMF loans. By the end of May, another €768 million is due.

If Varoufakis goes back on his statement and Greece does default on its loans from EU creditors, leave the eurozone and shared currency, and then ask Moscow for a few billion to get by - the situation would shock almost everyone and spark chaos across financial markets since Greece has repeatedly said it intends to pay off its massive €324 billion debt.

The reason the EU came to Athens' rescue with two bailouts totaling €240 billion was to protect the euro currency, which is shared by 18 countries including Greece.

So far, Athens has signaled it wants to keep borrowing from the EU, but just under different terms. If for some reason Greece decides to default on its IMF debt, it would be the first developed country to ever do so.

The Greek economy hasn't expanded since 2008 and has rapidly come to a grinding halt under stringent EU conditions.

Greece was given a four month extension on its bailout plan from its lenders, and the next step will be decided after Athens can convince EU ministers they are serious about economic reform. However, ministers from Greece have said they do not intend to default on any financial obligations to their lenders.

 [return to Contents] 

 #26
RIA Novosti
April 6, 2015
Lavrov sees US trying but failing to curb "every nation" in ties with Russia

The US is trying to curb the relations of "all the countries without exception" with Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. He was speaking in an interview with Dmitriy Kiselev, director-general of the state-owned International News Agency Rossiya Segodnya, as reported by RIA Novosti (part of Rossiya Segodnya) on 6 April.

"The Americans are in principle trying to hold back all the countries without exception in their relations with Russia. And the fact that China in particular is among those to whom their insistent demarches calling on them not to be too active towards Russia have been directed, and they have repeatedly directed such a demarche to it, makes me seriously doubt the adequacy of the decisions that are taken I do not know at what level of state," Lavrov remarked.

"But every partner we meet, where I go, who comes to us, my counterparts, they all, ahead of their contacts, are necessarily subjected to attempts to influence them, either by the US ambassador or someone at a lower level making these demands, or some emissary from Washington going around the region and issuing warnings... [ellipsis as received] Like Ambassador [Andrew] Schapiro in Prague who's expressed regret that (Czech President) [Milos] Zeman's actions, going to Moscow, are short-sighted. I cannot even comment on it," he said, as quoted in the report.

Despite these attempts to convince "ordinary people" that Russia is in isolation in the world community, however, "life itself shows that the opposite is true", Lavrov also said, as reported by RIA Novosti separately.

"Asked about statements about Russia's isolation against the backdrop of the planned visits to Moscow of the ministers of foreign affairs of China, Wang Yi, and of Belgium, Didier Reynders, as well as the new prime minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras, Lavrov recalled the work of Soviet propaganda, which 'sometimes, of course, was over the top ["beyond the scope of what an intelligent man perceives"]'," the report ran.

"I have the same attitude to the ongoing attempts to 'hammer home' in the minds of ordinary people ["obyvatel", where the meaning can range from something like "layman" to slightly derogatory references], for the past half a year probably, the thought that Russia is in isolation. Experience ["life itself"] shows quite the opposite," Lavrov said.

He added: "We know what the leading TV companies which do not want to share their monopoly on the global media market are capable of."

 [return to Contents] 

 
#27
New York Times
April 7, 2015
Editorial
Greece Should Be Wary of Mr. Putin

The Greek government is facing a series of daunting challenges. It has to come up with money to pay off maturing debts, revive its devastated economy and renegotiate its loan agreements with other countries in the eurozone. Given those difficulties, it might be tempting - though misguided - for Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to seek financial or other support from President Vladimir Putin of Russia, whom he is scheduled to meet in Moscow on Wednesday.

Greece and Russia have close historical and cultural ties that are based in part on a common religion, Orthodox Christianity. It's not surprising that Mr. Tsipras, whose party formed a coalition government in January, would meet with Mr. Putin. But the timing of his visit, coming just a day before Greece must repay a loan of 458 million euros (about $503 million) to the International Monetary Fund, and his earlier statements criticizing the European Union's economic sanctions against Russia have raised questions about what he intends to achieve.

What seems clear is that Greece cannot count on Russia to ride to its financial rescue. The sharp drop in oil prices and, to a lesser extent, Western sanctions have damaged the Russian economy and limited Mr. Putin's ability to dole out aid to other countries. Russia's foreign exchange reserves totaled $360 billion at the end of February, down more than $100 billion since August, according to the Bank of Russia. And the I.M.F. estimates that the Russian economy will shrink 3 percent this year.

Greek officials have told journalists that Mr. Tsipras will not seek financial aid from Russia. But he has also said that European sanctions against Russia for its aggression in Ukraine are a "dead-end policy." That stance is seriously harmful because the sanctions are having a real impact on Russia and should be maintained. But they have to be renewed periodically and all members of the European Union - including Greece - have to agree to extend them.

Mr. Putin has shown a keen interest in exploiting divisions within the European Union for his own gain. For example, he has recently courted the government of Cyprus by providing it a loan and reaching an agreement that allows Russian warships to dock at a commercial port in that country. Mr. Putin has also cultivated Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary as an ally. And, last year, a Russian bank lent money to the far-right National Front party in France, which is gaining popularity in that country and says it would want France to leave the eurozone if it came to power. It would be a public relations triumph for Mr. Putin if Mr. Tsipras publicly criticized the sanctions while he was in Moscow.

Mr. Tsipras and Mr. Putin are expected to talk about business and trade. Russia would like to build a new gas pipeline to Europe through Greece, and the Greek government wants Russia to offer it a discount on gas purchases and to roll back a ban on Greek fruit exports that is part of Mr. Putin's retaliatory sanctions against the European Union.

If Mr. Tsipras appears to cut deals with or support Mr. Putin when the European Union is trying to maintain a united front on Ukraine, he will only further alienate Germany, France and other European countries. His government's relations with those nations are already frosty, and it needs the help of those countries to revive the economy and keep Greece in the 19-member eurozone.

Most Greeks want to keep the euro, and leaving it could severely damage the economy and financial system. Of course, Germany and other eurozone members also need to work more constructively with Mr. Tsipras. They can start by granting Greece more flexibility in how and when it repays its debts and how it reforms its economy.

Mr. Putin clearly wants to lock arms with any leader who appears at odds with the European Union. But Mr. Tsipras should be careful not to let himself be used to undermine European unity.

 [return to Contents] 

 #28
Moscow Times
April 7, 2015
Future Can Be Bright for Russia-EU Relations
By Jochen Wermuth
Jochen Wermuth is a founding partner and chief investment officer at Wermuth Asset Management GmbH.

The interest in working with Russia could not be lower in the West. There is a view that there is no hope now, or even in the longer term, for constructive cooperation. Being a Russia expert or even proposing dialogue makes one an outcast - both in Russia and in the West.

However, there are rays of hope: I found in informal one-on-one meetings with a dozen senior members of the Russian government, the Presidential Administration, the Central Bank, the State Duma, the Federation Council, and with EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, that support exists for the idea of returning to the road map of "four common spaces" between the European Union and Russia.

These spaces are the following: free movement of people; free movement of goods; common laws and security, including a common highest court; and common educational standards.

Such a cooperative approach was the core of German "Ostpolitik," which led to rapprochement between West Germany and the Soviet Union and ultimately between East and West in spite of a disagreement over German unification.

This provided an environment of trust in which the bloodless revolutions in Eastern Europe became possible. Working together toward shared goals is key to help resolve any deadlock.

Juncker has always had good relations with President Vladimir Putin. He was the president of the Council of Europe when the road map for the four common spaces between the EU and Russia was first negotiated in 2005.

Moreover, the German government has been very supportive of an amicable agreement between Russia and Ukraine.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier requested that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko undertake important constitutional reforms, including veto rights against laws that would eliminate Russian as an official language - and against NATO membership for the eastern provinces, addressing key Russian concerns.

Clearly, the West will not accept the annexation of Crimea without a negotiated agreement and a price to be paid by Russia. This may be seen as offensive to Russians who consider Crimea theirs, but it is clearly a much lower price to pay than the destruction of the Russian economy under the weight of sanctions and heightened distrust between Russia and the West.

There is no future for the Russian economy in isolation, and cooperation with other developing countries like China, South Africa, India and Brazil will not give Russia the know-how it needs to modernize. While the EU and the U.S. each registered about 150,000 patents each at the European patent office in Munich over the past decade, Russia registered about 500.

To move forward on Ukraine, UN Blue Helmets of Kazakh nationality should be invited to disarm the parties in the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine, enforcing both the internal demarcation line and Ukraine's external borders. Russia could also set a key signal by asking the same UN Blue Helmets to monitor demarcation lines and Crimea until a negotiated settlement is reached.

Second, Russia and the EU should work swiftly on a free-trade agreement between the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union, also inviting Ukraine in, ensuring that normal economic relations between Russia and Ukraine can be restored.

Following both world wars and the Holocaust, the world saw Germany for decades with great skepticism. It was not until Germany hosted the football World Cup in 2006 that many people around the world changed their view of the country.

Germans, it turned out, could be not just efficient, but also warm, friendly and fun. Russia, having freed Europe from fascism, is today seen as the incarnation of evil and as a completely unreliable partner. There are calls to hold the 2018 Word Cup in a different country.

Instead, let us use the World Cup in Russia as a clear target by which we must change the situation and therefore Russia's image once and for all. This year, the four common spaces with the EU must be agreed.

In 2016, a negotiated settlement on Crimea needs to be agreed and implemented. From 2017, EU and Russian citizens should travel freely between Russia and the EU, not least to see the various football games in 2018. Student exchanges, city partnerships and high-speed trains should be funded.

Newly made friends could come over to see each other for a weekend trip without visas or border controls or great cost. Criminals would be pursued across all of the common space.

Having started to implement the four common spaces from 2017, Russia could regain the trust needed to attract people to see for themselves at the World Cup 2018. It could present itself in its true light of highly intelligent, creative, cultural, welcoming, kind and loving people to the world.

Even though small in terms of gross domestic product and population in the world today, Russia can be a key part of Europe and could continue to make major contributions to the world.

An EU-Eurasian free trade zone would be a global player to reckon with, with some 7 percent of the world's population and a third of world GDP. Let us thus make sure we all work together toward this goal.

 [return to Contents] 

 #29
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
April 6, 2015
Lausanne agreement: Russia and Iran to maintain ties, but EU is real winner
Talks between Iran and the P5+1 in Switzerland on Tehran's nuclear program ended on April 2 with a joint accord aimed at paving the way for a comprehensive agreement and the eventual lifting of sanctions on Iran. While Moscow sees the compromise as a triumph for international diplomacy, experts believe that it is the EU, not Russia, which will receive the greatest benefit from the compromise.
Nikolay Surkov, RBTH
 
Russia's Foreign Ministry has described the talks between Iran and the P5+1 (the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) in Lausanne, Switzerland, which saw the sides reach a landmark breakthrough on April 2, as a victory for the political and diplomatic approach to resolving international problems.

"A political framework agreement for the final regulation of the situation regarding Iran's nuclear program (INP) has been successfully agreed upon," said the ministry in a statement after the negotiators declared that a joint statement was being drafted as the prelude to a comprehensive agreement on the future of Tehran's nuclear program.

Moscow expects that Iran will be able to play a more active role in solving regional problems and conflicts after the agreement on the INP is reached. Meanwhile, Russia experts are divided about the future of Russian-Iranian relations after Western sanctions are lifted from Tehran.
 
No immediate change in Iran-Russia relations

"The conclusion of an agreement on the INP does not affect Russia's international image," Alexander Kuznetsov, an expert at the Institute of Forecasting and Political Regulation, said in an interview with RBTH, "as the Iranians held talks primarily with the U.S. this past year and Russia, although it was part of 'the Six' [the term used for the P5+1 in Russian media - RBTH]  was occupied with other issues."

However, in his opinion, the fears now being sounded in Moscow over the possibility of a rapprochement between the United States and Iran are premature. "Though Obama is interested in d�tente with Iran, his administration is pursuing a policy of containing Iranian expansion," said Kuznetsov.

At the same time, Kuznetsov does not expect any rapid development of Russian-Iranian relations after the signing of the agreement with the P5+1, saying that it is "premature to speak of a strategic partnership."

Although there is currently political cooperation between Russia and Iran - senior Iranian officials regularly visit Moscow, Russia is providing military and technical assistance to Iraq, and the two nations are cooperating in helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad - the Iranians "have grounds for dissatisfaction," said Kuznetsov. "For example, Iran is trying to enter the SCO but Russia is not doing much to help them because Kazakhstan and China are against it."
 
Greatest dividends will go to the EU

According to Kuznetsov, there are also factors that will limit bilateral cooperation in the economic sphere. "Russia did not take advantage of the time when sanctions were in place to strengthen its position in Iran, and now there will be little opportunity because of the competition from the U.S. and China," said Kuznetsov. "We will only be needed in some areas - nuclear energy, railroads, electricity. The EU gains the most from the agreement."

If the sanctions are lifted from Iran, Russia will have to compete with Western countries, giving Tehran "more room to maneuver," the Chairman of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy Fyodor Lukyanov told Gazeta.ru.  

Alexei Arbatov, a leading expert at IMEMO RAS (the Institute for World Economy and International Relations at the Russian Academy of Sciences), agrees with this position: "Economic cooperation can be expanded, but whereas in arms sales we can win - ours are more reliable, when it comes to other issues then Iran, by broadening its links, can always turn to Japan and the U.S."

However, Vladimir Yevseyev, the head of the Caucasus Department at the Institute of CIS Countries, is more optimistic. He told RBTH that a window of opportunity is opening for Russia in its relations with Tehran because the sanctions will not be lifted speedily.

"In fall, construction may begin on another power plant in [the western Iranian city of] Bushehr," said Yevseyev. "There is a proposal from the Iranian side regarding the modernization of railways. We are on the verge of expanding military cooperation. Equipment may be supplied for the navy and air force, as well as for the modernization of air defense. Joint exercises and personnel training will be held," he said.

 [return to Contents] 

 #30
Moscow Times
April 7, 2015
Keep Calm and Keep an Eye on Iran
By Alexander Golts
Alexander Golts is deputy editor of the online newspaper Yezhednevny Zhurnal

The negotiations between Iran and the six major powers in Switzerland led to a remarkable diplomatic breakthrough. Official Tehran has accepted strict restrictive measures for its nuclear program.

Specifically, Iran has agreed to reduce the number of its centrifuges capable of enriching uranium by two-thirds, down to 6,104 units. It has agreed to use only first-generation centrifuges. All additional centrifuges and those that are more advanced - along with all other uranium enrichment infrastructure - will be placed in a storage facility controlled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and will only be used to replace operating centrifuges and equipment.

Iran has also promised not to enrich uranium beyond the level of 3.67 percent for at least 15 years, and has agreed to reduce its current stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) from 10,000 kilograms to 300 kilograms of uranium enriched no higher than 3.67 percent for the next 15 years.

Tehran also agreed not to build new uranium enrichment facilities for the next 15 years. Iran agreed to rebuild its structure in Fordow so that it can only be used for peaceful purposes, converting it into a nuclear, physics and technology research and development center, and to "not conduct research and development associated with uranium enrichment at Fordow for 15 years."

Iran will also consolidate all of its uranium enrichment in its factory in Natanz and conduct those operations for exclusively peaceful purposes. And finally, IAEA inspectors will watch day and night to ensure compliance with all these terms.

In exchange, as Tehran fulfills these conditions, the United Nations and individual states will lift the sanctions against Iran that they have imposed. Iran will be able to sell its oil and gas and it will be reconnected to the SWIFT banking system.

Diplomats very optimistically assert that, now that the sides have reached an agreement in principle, it will take only three months to put all of the rather complicated details on paper. However, they pointedly mention, "the devil is in the details."

I suspect that the devil is not in the details, but in the values. That is, will any particular state feel obligated to uphold its end of the agreement, or will it pursue its own "higher purpose" by deliberating deceiving the "infidels."

Washington's fact sheet concerning the agreement with Iran states: "Iran's breakout timeline - the time that it would take for Iran to acquire enough fissile material for one weapon - is currently assessed to be two to three months. That timeline will be extended to at least one year, for a duration of at least 10 years, under this framework."

The agreement also permits Iran to retain its entire infrastructure for the production of weapons-grade fissile material - with the exception of its reactor in Arak. The viability of the agreement ultimately depends on Iran's willingness to observe the conditions it contains. And that is a question of values.

We are asked to believe that the Iranian president - a liberal by that country's standards - has reflected on the situation and now wishes to reach an agreement with the international community.

However, nothing prevents the ayatollahs - the real rulers of the country - from replacing him, and to do so strictly in accordance with their own ideas of right and wrong. Imagine a worst-case scenario in which Iran initially fulfills its commitments but at a later, more dangerous stage in the process, reneges.

For example, once Iran begins complying, the international community will begin lifting sanctions. At that point, it will begin selling gigantic amounts of energy on a scale to rival Russia.

It will build up major financial and economic reserves and use them to purchase equally gigantic weapons systems. Note in this regard that, immediately after diplomats reached the current agreement with Iran, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov announced, "We believe the arms embargo should be lifted immediately after reaching an agreement. ... We will insist on an urgent and priority decision to revoke the arms embargo against Iran."

Ryabkov is referring primarily to Moscow's offer to sell Tehran its S-300 surface-to-air missiles that could help shield Iran from air strikes by nuclear missiles, among others.

At that point, Iran could follow the example that North Korea set in 2003 by announcing its withdrawal from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, expelling all IAEA inspectors, reinstalling all those centrifuges carefully preserved in warehouses and building an atomic bomb within one year. Importantly, the agreement does not prohibit Iran from conducting such research.

And that leads to the million-dollar question: What should the world do if Iran violates its obligations? In previous centuries, the aggrieved parties would wage war against those whom they claimed had violated their obligations.

But now it is impossible to attack a state that can kill millions of people with the push of a button. That is why the international community does not use military force against North Korea, but naggingly tries to persuade Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons.

And therein lies the main risk in the current agreement with Tehran: How can the international community guarantee that the Ayatollah will not use the agreement as a breather before quickly reversing course, building atomic weapons and making Iran immune to future attack or external pressures?

 [return to Contents] 

 #31
Stratfor.com
April 7, 2015
Russia Nervously Eyes the U.S.-Iran Deal
By Reva Bhalla

When a group of weary diplomats announced a framework for an Iranian nuclear accord last week in Lausanne, there was one diplomat in the mix whose feigned enthusiasm was hard to miss. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov left the talks at their most critical point March 30, much to the annoyance of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who apparently had to call him personally to persuade him to return. Even as Lavrov spoke positively to journalists about the negotiations throughout the week, he still seemed to have better things to do than pull all-nighters for a deal that effectively gives the United States one less problem to worry about in the Middle East and a greater capacity to focus on the Russian periphery.

Russia has no interest in seeing a nuclear-armed Iran in the neighborhood, but the mere threat of an unshackled Iranian nuclear program and a hostile relationship between Washington and Tehran provided just the level of distraction Moscow needed to keep the United States from committing serious attention to Russia's former Soviet sphere.

Russia tried its best to keep the Americans and Iranians apart. Offers to sell Iran advanced air defense systems were designed to poke holes in U.S. threats to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. Teams of Russian nuclear experts whetted Iran's appetite for civilian nuclear power with offers to build additional power reactors. Russian banks did their part to help Iran circumvent financial sanctions. The Russian plan all along was not to help Iran get the bomb, but to use its leverage with a thorny player in the Middle East to get the United States into a negotiation on issues vital to Russia's national security interests. So, if Washington wanted to resolve its Iran problem, it would have to pull back on issues like ballistic missile defense in Central Europe, which Moscow saw early on as the first of several U.S. steps to encircle Russia.

Things obviously did not work according to the Russian plan. As we anticipated, the United States and Iran ultimately came together in a bilateral negotiation to resolve their main differences. Now the United States and Iran are on a path toward normalization at a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying simultaneously to defend against a U.S.-led military alliance building along Russia's European frontier and to manage an economic crisis and power struggle at home. And the situation does not look any better for Russia on the energy front.

Russia Stands to Lose Energy Revenue

The likelihood of the United States and Iran reaching a deal this summer means that additional barrels of Iranian oil eventually will make their way to the market, further depressing the price of oil, as well as the Russian ruble. To be clear, Iranian oil is not going to flood the market instantaneously with the signing of a deal. Iran is believed to have as much as 35 million barrels of crude in storage that it could offload quickly once export sanctions are terminated by the Europeans and eased by the United States via presidential waiver. But Iran will face complications in trying to bring its mature fields back online. Enhanced recovery techniques to revive mothballed fields take money and infrastructure, which is difficult to apply when oil prices are hovering around $50 per barrel. Under current conditions, Iran can bring some 400,000-500,000 barrels per day back online over the course of a year, but this will be a gradual process as Iran vies for foreign investment in its dilapidated energy sector.

U.S. investors will likely remain shackled by the core Iran Sanctions Act until at least the end of 2016, when the legislation is set to expire. However, European and Asian investors will be among the first to begin repairing Iran's oil fields, as long as Iran does its part in improving contractual terms and the economics make sense for firms already cutting back their capital expenditures.

Europe's New Options

The rehabilitation of Iran's energy sector, however gradual a process that may be, will complicate Russia's uphill battle in trying to maintain its energy leverage over Europe. Russia is a critical supplier of energy to Europe, currently providing about 29 percent and 37 percent of Europe's natural gas and oil needs, respectively. An additional 50 billion cubic meters of natural gas available for export from the United States within the next five years will not be able to compete with Russia on price due to the low operational and transport costs of Russian natural gas. Even so, the United States will still be creating more supply in the natural gas market overall to give Europe the option of paying more for its energy security should the political considerations outweigh the economic cost. The Baltic states are already working toward this option, with Lithuania taking the lead in creating a mini-liquefied natural gas hub for the region to try to reduce, if not eliminate, Baltic dependence on Russia. This year, Poland is debuting its own LNG facility, and the Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana is scheduled to bring the first LNG exports from the Lower 48 to market, with shipments already contracted for Asia.

In Southern Europe, the picture for Russia is more complicated but still distressing. Aside from the significant issue of cost for energy companies already cutting their capital expenditures, Turkey's veto on the transit of LNG tankers through the Bosporus effectively neutralizes any LNG import facility project on the Black Sea. But Europe is proceeding apace with the much more economically palatable option of building pipeline interconnectors across southeastern Europe. This does little to dilute Russia's control over energy supply, but it does strip Moscow of its ability to politicize pricing in Europe. Pipeline politics in Europe have allowed Russia to reward - and punish - its Eastern European neighbors through pricing contracts. However, Brussels is more thoroughly examining contracts signed by EU member states for this very reason and in line with one of the main tenets of the EU's Third Energy Package, which seeks to break monopolies by splitting energy production and transmission and to implement fair pricing. Meanwhile, the construction of interconnectors allows member states to influence pricing downstream from Russia.

This gambit has been on display over the past year in Ukraine. Kiev depended heavily on its neighbors in Slovakia, Poland and Hungary for reverse flows of Russian natural gas at discounted rates to stand up to Russia's energy swaggering. Though Russian natural gas will still be flowing primarily through these pipelines, the expansion of interconnectors will open up options for non-Russian natural gas from the North Sea and from LNG terminals in Northern Europe to make their way southward to embattled frontline states such as Ukraine.

Russia thought it would be able to keep a hook in Southern Europe through the construction of South Stream, a mammoth pipeline project with a $30 billion price tag and 63-bcm capacity that sought to cut Ukraine out of the equation by moving natural gas across the Black Sea and through the Balkans and Central Europe. The combination of plunging energy prices and growing EU resistance to another pipeline that would allow Russia to draw political favors sent this project to the graveyard, but Russia had a backup plan. The Turkish Stream pipeline would make landfall in Turkey after crossing the Black Sea, before using the Trans Adriatic Pipeline and the Trans Anatolian Pipeline to feed Southern Europe through the web of interconnectors and pipelines already in development. On the surface, Moscow's plan appears quite brilliant: Use the very infrastructure that Europe was already counting on to diversify away from Russia and then, when the political skirmishing over Ukraine eventually settles down, reinsert itself into Europe's energy mix via a willing partner like Turkey.

Post-South Stream Options

But the plan remains full of holes. Someone needs to pay for the main pipeline expansion between Russia and Turkey, and both countries will struggle to find private investors in this geopolitical and pricing climate. Moreover, there is no indication that the Europeans will be willing to take additional Russian natural gas from a yet-to-be-built Turkish Stream when a perfectly good pipeline running from Russia to Eastern Europe already exists. Russia does not have the option of refusing natural gas shipments when it is already desperate for those energy revenues. In the end, this is a Russian bluff that the Europeans will not be afraid to call. When Putin agreed to a three-month natural gas deal with Ukraine last week (with a huge discount to boot, at $247.20 per thousand cubic meters), he likely did so realizing that Russia playing hardball with Ukraine on energy would only spur further investment and construction into pipelines and connectors in southeastern Europe that would accelerate the decline of Russia's energy influence in Europe. The best he can hope for is to slow that timeline down.

Not only will Russia's pricing leverage wane in Europe over the long term, but its influence on Europe's energy supply also will decrease over the longer run. Azerbaijan was the first southern corridor supplier to Europe circumventing Russia and is now expanding that role by bringing natural gas from its Shah Deniz II offshore fields online for export. Turkmenistan is still vulnerable to Russian meddling but has been increasingly willing to host Turkish and European investors looking to build a pipeline across the Caspian to feed Europe. Whether these talks translate into action will depend on the Turkmen government's political will to stand up to Moscow, not to mention legal battles over the Caspian Sea. But while the lengthy courting of Ashgabat by the West continues, a rehabilitated Iran is now the latest addition to the list to join the southern corridor.

Russia's Influence Wanes in the Middle East

Just a day after the Iranian nuclear framework deal was announced, Russia's state-owned RIA Novosti published a story quoting Igor Korotchenko, the head of the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of World Arms Trade, as saying it would be a "perfectly logical development" for Russia to follow through on a sale of S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Iran if the embargo is lifted. Korotchenko noted that specifications to the deal would have to be made as "the United States is watching very closely" to whom Russia sells these weapons. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also made a point to say the U.N. arms embargo against Iran should be lifted as part of the nuclear deal. These well-timed statements likely caught Washington's eye but probably did little to impress. The S-300 threat mattered a lot more when the United States needed to maintain a credible military deterrent against Iran. If the United States and Iran reach an understanding that neutralizes that threat through political means, Russian talk of S-300s is mostly hot air.

This was a small, yet revealing illustration of Russia's declining position in the Middle East. For many years, the Middle East was a rose garden for the Russians, filled with both sweet-smelling opportunities to lure Washington into negotiations and ample thorns to prick their American adversary when the need arose. Russia's support for the Syrian government is still relevant, and Moscow will continue to court countries in the region with arms deals out of both political and economic necessity. Even so, bringing down the Syrian government is not on Washington's to-do list, and countries like Egypt will still end up prioritizing their relationship with the United States in the end.

Russia's influence in the Middle East is fading rapidly at the same time Europe is starting to wriggle out of Russia's energy grip. And as Russia's options are narrowing, U.S. options are multiplying in both the Middle East and Europe. This is an uncomfortable situation for Putin, to be sure. But a narrow set of options for Russia in its near abroad does not make those options any less concerning for the United States as the standoff between Washington and Moscow continues.

 [return to Contents] 

 #32
Moscow Times
April 7, 2015
'Master and Margarita' Show Goes for Drama
By Evelyn Cavalla

In 2006, Andrew Lloyd Webber blogged about turning Mikhail Bulgakov's classic Soviet novel "The Master and Margarita" into a musical. "I am very aware that this will be almost certainly the most ambitious undertaking I have ever embarked upon. It will therefore almost certainly falter and will depend on who my collaborators are," he wrote.

Webber eventually abandoned his plans, but Russian production company Makers Lab has succeeded where he failed. Judging by the roller coaster show, the creator of "Cats" and "The Phantom of the Opera" would probably approve.

The show uses 3-D effects, animated scenery and, they claim, somewhat unconvincingly, a satanic 666 costumes including those in PVC, tulle, tweed and polyester. The novel's darkness is given a rubbed-up, glossy sheen. Bulgakov's book, a satire on the Soviet 1930s, tells of the devil's visit to Moscow, and separately of Pontius Pilate and his trial of a Jesus figure. The book was not published in the Soviet Union until the 1960s, decades after the author's death.

In the book, Bulgakov has Margarita, the mistress of the Master, an author in the book, descend into the devil's debauched world as an escape from the drab Soviet grays and browns. But the musical's 3-D animation and dancers mean that the volume and tempo are almost always on "high." Even Jesus' crucifixion gets some Hollywood sparkle: Multicolored clouds play dramatically across the backdrop, and the Messiah's groans of pain escape a bronzed, hairless chest and are punctuated by the flexing of muscles.

Producer Irina Afanasyeva said the show is a thoroughly modern take on Bulgakov's work. The show's website describes it as "A story of real, true, eternal love which will guide you through a maze of human passions and uncover the secrets of the great novel." And some faithful fans of the book will imagine on reading that they hear the sound of that writer whirring like a dynamo beneath the ground.

The musical debuted in St. Petersburg before moving to Moscow.

Despite some snootiness, the musical has a good reception and has had no trouble filling the huge Teatr Russkaya Pesnya on Olimpiisky Prospekt.

Much of that is down to a stellar cast, which includes Anastasia Makeyeva, who played the physically demanding role of Roxie Hart in last year's Moscow production of "Chicago," giving 160 performances in 5 months.

The show does, however, lack a live orchestra, which accompanied the show in St. Petersburg.

"If our Moscow audiences love us after the run, we will perform the show on the Moscow stage, organize a Moscow casting and work with an orchestra," said Afanasyeva at a press conference for the musical.

The recordings were subject to teething problems at one Moscow performance, when a duet between the Master and Margarita had to be performed without accompaniment, and was then resung once the technical hitch had been resolved.

Six librettists worked on the project, including Sergei Shilovsky-Bulgakov, whom the show's website lists as the grandson of Mikhail Bulgakov.

This claim has come under fire by some who point out that Bulgakov died without children. Instead, Shilovsky-Bulgakov is the grandson of Bulgakov's third wife, Yelena Shilovskaya.

Though not related by blood, Shilovsky-Bulgakov owns the rights to Bulgakov's work and has publicly criticized previous adaptations of the book. In 1999, he spoke out against an all-nude production which sought to make a "dirty porn show" from a "saintly, virginal work."

There is no actual nudity in the musical, but the costumes and dancing tread a thin line between sexy and family-friendly. Behemoth, the black cat and aide to the devil, is accompanied by a gaggle of salacious and PVC-clad kittens.

When Margarita appears as a hostess at Satan's ball, she is in a transparent cream-colored dress. Still, that is more demure than a Russian television version, which had Margarita flying around naked on a broomstick. The almost-naked Margarita in the musical does not use a broomstick and instead flies thanks to lifts by other dancers.

The simple love story between the Master and Margarita has expanded to include Woland pining after Margarita. A critic at the Metro newspaper commented that it was unusual that Shilovsky-Bulgakov authorized such a leap from the original plot. "I had some doubts in this respect, but since the central idea has not been harmed by it, we can think of this as an idea which our audience can make up their own minds about," Shilovsky-Bulgakov told Metro.

"Master and Margarita: The Musical" will play May 25 to 29. Teatr Russkaya Pesnya. 14 Olimpiisky Prospekt. Metro Dostoevskaya, Prospekt Mira. Tickets cost 2,000 to 5,000 rubles. mm-musical.ru, folkteatr.ru

 [return to Contents] 

 #33
Subject: new Orthodox journal The Wheel
Date:     Fri, 3 Apr 2015
From:     Andrei Zolotov (andrei.zolotovrp@rian.ru)

I would like to forward to you information about a pretty amazing new  project - an English-language journal of Orthodox Christian thought the  Wheel, that has been put together by my friends. It seems to me The  Wheel, and in particular its first issue on the topic of Orthodox  identity could be of interest to many of JRL subscribers, despite the  fact that the journal is not meant to deal with specifically Russian  issues. Moreover, I think some of the JRL subscribers can become  potential contributors of articles and subscribers to The Wheel.

The letter from the managing editor of The Wheel, Inga Leonova, is below:

We'd like to introduce a new journal, The Wheel.

The Wheel is a journal of Orthodox Christian thought. Its mission is to articulate the Gospel in and for the contemporary world. By embracing contributions on Orthodox theology, spirituality, and liturgical arts alongside serious engagements with the challenges of contemporary political ideologies, empirical science, and cultural modernism, The Wheel aims to move beyond the polarizations of much current debate in the Orthodox Church.

The journal is intended to be of general interest to a wide circle of readers. It will appear on a quarterly basis in both printed and electronic formats, along with an accompanying website.

Our first issue considers the question of Orthodox identity. What do works of art and the lives of the saints tell us about living as a modern Orthodox Christian? How do the realities of Christian participation in public dialogue square with the Church's contemporary understanding of its mission in the world?

http://www.wheeljournal.com

Feel free to share this link with anyone you think will be interested.

We hope you enjoy this preview and we invite your thoughts - on the articles, the overall mission of The Wheel, and ideas for future contributors or topics. We would be most grateful if you could also consider supporting The Wheel financially, as we are currently raising funds for the initial print edition. Please let us know if this is something you would be open to discussing further.

We look forward to hearing from you soon, and we thank you.

Inga Leonova
Managing Editor
editors@wheeljournal.com

 [return to Contents] 

 #34
Subject: The Russian Sociological Review
Date:     Mon, 06 Apr 2015 12:47:05 -0500
From:     Nail Farkhatdinov (farkhatdinov@gmail.com)

The Russian Sociological Review (sociologica.hse.ru/en), an international peer-reviewed academic journal published by the National Research University - Higher School of Economics (www.hse.ru), invites contributions from philosophy, social sciences and cognate fields for the special issue entitled State of War: Human Condition and Social Orders.

From the beginning, sociology has tried to explain the emergence of social order, and to describe the conditions of solidarity. It has often been criticized for neglecting social conflicts, revolutions, and warfare. However, some sociologists have always been concerned with conflicts and revolutions. Warfare, indeed, has been a rare focus of sociological inquiry. It has only been during recent decades that sociologists have tentatively approached the topic, while the sociology of warfare is still a minor discipline for others. This may explain why social scholars still do not pay attention to the fact that the opposition of war and peace can be questioned. In sociology, social order before modernity is mainly understood as being imposed upon society by the police state which fulfills its legitimate monopoly on violence through specific institutions. Despite globalization, it is often assumed that the self-organization of society takes place within the secure borders of national states. We have to abandon this assumption since there are many instances of hybrid situations in the contemporary world. Examples of various undeclared wars, terror, the strengthening of secret intelligence services, overthrows of governments (coups d'etat), and revolutions challenge the traditional oppositions of the external and internal, or war and peace.

See full CFP:
http://sociologica.hse.ru/data/2015/03/21/1093606207/RSR%20Call%20for%20Papers%202015.pdf

Schedule
April 20, 2015- 500 words abstracts deadline
May 1, 2015- Invitation to submit full papers
September 1, 2015- 6000 words full papers deadline
October 1, 2015- Notification of acceptance
October 20, 2015- Revised papers deadline
December, 2015- Publication

Kind regards,
Nail Farkhatdinov
Editorial Team
farkhatdinov@gmail.com

 [return to Contents]