#2
Eurasianet.es
April 26, 2015
"Ukraine's European discourse does not correspond to reality": Interview with Volodymyr Ishchenko

Volodymyr Ishchenko is a sociologist studying social protests in Ukraine. He is the deputy director of the Center for Social and Labor Research, a member of the editorial board of Commons: Journal for Social Criticism and LeftEast web-magazine, and a lecturer at the Department of Sociology in the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

Interview by Javier Morales.

Javier Morales (JM): How do you think that the Ukrainian society is assessing the consequences of the Euromaidan revolution? Has there been any change in their attitudes in the past year?

Volodymyr Ishchenko (VI): Before the Maidan, polls showed that European integration and the Russian customs union had almost an equal support, but there was of course a geographical divide between different parts of Ukraine in their answers. After the Maidan, what happened is probably a typical effect of the victory of political mobilization: the number of supporters for European integration grew a lot. At this moment, supporters for the Russian customs union are evidently a minority, much less than in late 2013.

However, attitudes towards the Maidan are determined by a variety of factors. You can have one attitude towards the protests, another one towards Yanukovych's removal from power, another one towards the current government and its policies... so it is quite complex. My own personal perception is that people are very much dissatisfied with the economic crisis and with government policies. So I am not so sure about the extent to which they support official propaganda, for example, about the "revolution of dignity".

One of the most significant figures is the level of support for Arseniy Yatsenyuk's party, the People's Front.  It was the winner of the parliamentary elections, getting more votes than the Petro Poroshenko Bloc. But now, polls show that the People's Front has a support of about 5-7%, not really more than the Right Sector, which has increased its support. In October the Right Sector got 2%, but now they have 5% - if elections were held today, they quite probably would get into the parliament. Of course, that might be connected to dissatisfaction about the economic situation.

JM: Can we speak of a democratization of politics and political culture as a result of the Euromaidan? Has Ukraine adopted a more "Europeanized" or "Westernized" national identity?

VI: There are different processes at the level of institutions, civil society or political culture that have influenced the attitudes of ordinary Ukrainians. What can be said for sure is that Ukraine has hardly become more democratic, and there are many developments which can make Ukraine more repressive than it was before the Maidan started. Of course, repressive measures [approved during those protests] such the January 16, 2014 laws systematically limited political freedoms.

However, before the Maidan Ukraine was a more democratic country. We can speak about various criteria: for example the strength of the opposition and the extent to which it was not affected by repression. Now, one of the main opposition parties, the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU), is under threat of being banned. It is going to be a long process, but under the new "decommunization laws" they will not be able to keep their name and symbols.

With regard to the problems with freedom of speech, the latest journalist that has been murdered, Oles Buzina, was quite a controversial figure, with views that some considered "anti-Ukrainian" - but that just does not justify that someone could kill him.

Another example is the case of Ruslan Kotsaba, another journalist that was arrested in February for making a video in which he called citizens to resist the army draft. He argued that this is a fratricidal and unjust war, therefore you should not go to the army and take part in it. He was accused of state treason, which is punished with 12 to 15 years of imprisonment; now, he is still under trial and in preliminary detention. Basically, he was repressed for expressing a critical opinion. Whatever you think about the war and the mobilization of Ukrainian men to the army, it does not justify arresting and charging a journalist with a crime that carries such an enormous punishment.

This is just anecdotal evidence from these two cases and would require more systematic research on the evolution of political culture. However, it does not feel like Ukraine has become more tolerant. For example, what do you call "Europeanization"? Maidan supporters tend to promote a progressive understanding of Europe. But Europe is about progressive values, tolerance, equal rights for everyone, and so on. It seems that they indeed believed in these ideas, but it does not mean that this was the reality of the Maidan. The far right did have strong positions there, despite the fact that they were a minority - numerically a minority, but also the most active in the movement.

At the same time, that European discourse does not correspond to the reality of the country, where there is a huge "patriotic" mobilization as a result of the war; it is not about tolerance. It seems ridiculous now to be so much focused on the typical liberal agenda of minority rights while totally forgetting about a number of Ukrainians actually excluded from the political discourse, and also from political participation, because they do not support what has happened in the past year. Hate speech is quite overwhelming. Words that are obviously derogative and pejorative for opponents of the Maidan are everywhere, repeated by top officials and the media.

I know about the idea that a "civic nation" is now finally emerging in Ukraine. The media and some intellectuals claim that, finally, it is not really important who is Ukrainian, who is Russian, who is a Pole, a Jew, a Crimean Tatar... or which language people speak, Ukrainian or Russian. We are allegedly one nation. But this idea of a new nation is based on support for the Maidan: your language or ethnic group does not matter as long as you agree with what happened in the past year and you blame Russia first of all.

Of course, this excludes those who have another opinion. I would not say that repression is really systematic unless you are involved in the separatist movement, which is openly criminalized - actually, you cannot publicly claim that you want your region to separate from Ukraine, even if you are not involved in violent activities. So the focus of this repression is on the separatists, especially those who might use or be willing to use violence. However, even people that are not for separation from Ukraine but are critical of the Maidan are under informal pressure.

JM: What are the prospects for left-wing social and political actors in Ukraine? Do you think there is a future for them, or are they going to remain marginal in the political landscape?

VI: At the moment they are much weaker than before the Maidan. Even before then, they were very weak.

The CPU -to the extent that you can call it a "leftist" party at all, which I have some doubts about- is a bourgeois and even conservative party with regard to cultural values such as feminism, gender equality or minority rights. They have published many conservative statements. But for the first time they did not get into parliament in the last election; before that, in any Verkhovna Rada we had Communist MPs. Now, in this parliament there is no leftist party at all, in any possible understanding of the word.

Some of the most important CPU cells were in the Donbass, where they had the strongest support. Their offices were attacked by the far right; a number of party officials were also arrested. More recently, the decommunization laws have been another blow to them.

The "New Left", which is not connected to the CPU or other parties evolved from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, is divided. Some of them took quite a strong position in support of the Maidan and others did the same in the anti-Maidan movement. They became the left wings of the two competing nationalist camps: nationalist/liberal pro-Maidan people and the anti-Maidan Russian nationalists. In this process, they were compromising class politics with other issues. Their support is quite marginal, and they are not able to get any closer to a hegemonic position in any movement.

JM: What influence do left-wing forces have in Eastern Ukraine, as a result of participating in the "anti-Maidan"?

VI: In fact, their situation is not any better than in the rest of the country. In some ways, it is even worse.

The CPU was not allowed to participate in the November elections in the areas controlled by the separatists, who define themselves as an "antifascist movement"; but the so-called "Kiev junta" did allow them to compete in the rest of the country. This says something about the perverted rhetoric in use; although it does not diminish the problem of repression against Communists in Ukraine as a whole. Those areas are actually under an effective military regime, so it is more difficult for CPU members to organize and mobilize themselves.

JM: Do you think that the new "anti-totalitarian" legislation will contribute to improve the political and social situation in the country?

VI: It is first and foremost having an impact on the CPU. Anti-Communist rhetoric is becoming totally legitimized. Now, even for groups that are not "pro-Soviet", it is more dangerous to carry on their activities. They are marginal and do not represent any challenge to the state; but they are an objective of far-right groups. Obviously, the far right is going to use these new laws to create legal problems for the left.

There is also the question of whether an objective historical research on the Soviet Union is going to be possible in the future. These laws seem to be much more extreme than the decommunization laws in other Eastern European countries: in all of them there is a clause protecting freedom of historical research. In Ukraine, even in the context of historical research, you are not allowed to reject the "criminal totalitarian nature of the Communist regime". The meaning of this is so broad that it could include everything. It may become an opportunity for the nationalists to prosecute historians who show a principled position towards the Ukrainian nationalist movement in the Second World War. Would recognizing any achievements within the Soviet Union mean that you reject the "criminal totalitarian nature" of that system, or not?

This is an extreme position in which the state makes a decision about what should be treated as historical debates. Rather than being closer to European laws, it is more similar to the USSR, where "anti-Soviet activities" were banned and you could get into serious trouble with the state for having an independent historical perspective. In some ways, these "anti-totalitarian" laws are taking Ukraine closer to a totalitarian regime than to a democratic society.

JM: How do you see the future of the Donbass after the Minsk-II agreement? Is peace still an option, or is some degree of violence going to continue there?

VI: Peace is always an option. Another question is the fact that the Minsk agreement did not solve any problem. It was written in such an ambiguous language that it has proved very easy for the Ukrainian government, the separatists and Russia to interpret it in different ways.

What is going on now is actually the intensification of fighting - not at the same scale as in February, and of course not as last summer, but they are still fighting in some areas. Some experts say that we can expect a full military campaign and quite a "hot" summer in the Donbass. But the fact is that this conflict does not have any military solution. At some point, some concessions from the Kiev government will be necessary.

The strategy of all actors at the moment seems to be about waiting for an internal collapse or government change on the other side, either in Ukraine or in Russia, and for a decisive military victory. I am not sure if anyone is seriously expecting this to happen. But it is quite possible that, for example, the West -the EU and the US- are waiting for a change of the Russian government, which does not necessarily mean a people's revolution, but maybe some internal coup d'état by those sectors of the elite that are most endangered by the economic sanctions.  At some point, they might think that it is better for them to get rid of Putin and improve relations with the West.

But, at the same time, Russia also seems to be waiting for a government change in Ukraine. They might support political forces that could potentially challenge the current government. The best scenario for Moscow would be having someone like [former Georgian prime minister] Ivanishvili, who tried to normalize relations with Russia.

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 #3
Carnegie Moscow Center
April 28, 2015
Stars and Runes: Why the Struggle Against Totalitarian Symbols Doesn't Mean Victory for Freedom
By Alexander Baunov
Baunov is a senior associate at the Carnegie Moscow Center and editor in chief of Carnegie.ru.

Russia is fighting fascism to the last swastika; Ukraine is combating communism to the last red star. And they've racked up success after success. Investigators in Moscow have opened a case against vendors selling toy soldiers in Nazi uniform. Authorities in Smolensk have fined a journalist for posting a World War II-era photo on her page in VKontakte, a popular social network: It showed her house with a German flag. I suppose when the Nazis occupied Smolensk they hoisted UN flags, yes? The Ukrainian government, for its part, has found good use for the first tranche of its IMF loan: It will rename towns and villages that have the word "red" in them. In Kharkov, someone tore down a metro station sign bearing the name of Marshal Zhukov, whose crime was to capture Hitler's Berlin. Other Ukrainians, meanwhile, are busy writing a brief history of national suffering and celebrating the death of writer Oles Buzina, who claimed that the 360 years between the Pereyaslav treaty-when Ukraine accepted Russian rule-and the Euromaidan protests wasn't all bad.

There's no point talking at length about the latest murders in Kiev. What's genuinely frightening is to hear people who seem to be part of the intelligentsia-not KGB agents, government officials, or even just simple folk-say that, although killing enemies of the state in the streets, courtyards and building lobbies is an unpleasant business, it's basically the right thing to do. They then go on to give a detailed, itemized list of reasons explaining why it happens to be the right thing in this absolutely unique case. But neither I nor anyone else outside a state of delirium can possibly care what comes after the word "right."

The law of war is still law, and even its broad framework doesn't accommodate outright lynching-all the more so since one always hopes the law will be applied to one's enemies.
Oles Buzina's murder is a mirror image of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov's, although the victims held diametrically opposing views, and their supporters would likely take offense at the comparison. Ukrainians poke fun at the Russian patriotic majority's wish to see an enemy conspiracy behind any misfortune or blemish on their homeland's otherwise pristine image. Yet plenty of them eagerly engage in the same pastime when it comes to their own homeland. It's nonsense, for instance, to say that Western intelligence services and their Ukrainian collaborators shot their own agent, Boris Nemtsov, just a few steps from the Kremlin to tarnish Putin. But some in Ukraine claim in all seriousness that Russian intelligence services and their collaborators from the Party of Regions killed their own agent, Oles Buzina, right before Putin's annual call-in show to tarnish Ukraine. What other explanation could there be?

Many, if not most, of the articles I've read on the topic in the Ukrainian media can be summed up like this: Putin killed Buzina; he's a murderous villain, after all; but he did the right thing because the victim was a real scumbag; he said and wrote things we didn't like, appeared on Russian TV, published a disrespectful book about the national poet Taras Shevchenko and, obviously, a person deserves worse than death for that, even though, initially, Buzina just got a beating from some patriots for his book, as is the custom in civilized countries. Over in those places, as everyone knows, disrespecting Lord Byron would certainly land a man in the Tower of London; and if the police prove too slow in convicting the scoundrel, the neighbors will pummel him themselves and throw the body in the Thames: Let the corpse of the enemy of national literature float past for all to see; people are waiting. So the authorities had better not drag their feet: Had Byron's foe been sitting in jail, he could've stayed alive and maybe even gotten a breath of freedom closer to retirement age when the neighbors had calmed down a bit. Honestly, if everyone we dislike were in jail, their lives would be so much safer. As some in Ukraine used to say: "Put a member of the Party of Regions in jail, save his life" (just substitute "put a liberal" in the Russian version). And the only reason Russians haven't convicted, or condemned, journalist-turned-documentarian Leonid Parfyonov for his film "Living Pushkin" or given writer Vladimir Sorokin a thrashing for his ceaseless desecration of Russia's literary saints is because Russians have a slave mentality and are insufficiently European. Back in Soviet times, a court put writer Andrei Sinyavsky behind bars for his treasonous "Strolls with Pushkin." Meanwhile, Portugal's only Nobel laureate in literature, Jose Saramago, called for the unification of his native Portugal with Spain back in 2007 and peacefully lived out his life after that in the Canary Islands, dying at 88. He must've just left his country in time.

HE GOT WHAT HE DESERVED

Both Nemtsov and Buzina expressed views unpleasant to those among their countries' respective majorities who feel like minorities trapped in a besieged fortress. A year ago, I got to wondering why it is so important for any majority to feel like a minority. The only explanation I found was this: It allows them to feel entitled to hatred and revenge. A majority attacks, while a minority defends itself. Those who are defending themselves get more leeway. When you consider yourself a minority, you snag yourself the right to call for or condone violence that you would have been ashamed to support otherwise. That's precisely why people from the pro-Putin 86 percent constantly emphasize that they're a sorry handful of brave souls about to be engulfed by a stormy liberal ocean.

A representative of any majority is almost guaranteed to win, and a winner is supposed to be generous, but doesn't want to share. The Maidan that toppled the Yanukovych regime turned out to be short on this winner's generosity, just as the Soviet Union had decades before, when it grabbed up Eastern Europe right after liberating it.

At issue here are not the actual killers of opposition figures (what's to be expected of them?), but the reaction of broad swathes of the vocal public-and today pretty much all members of the public are vocal and literate, not like the days of slash-and-burn agriculture. A society's political maturity isn't measured just by the ability to take to the streets; take Haiti, where street protests are routine, but over the course of a century none of the country's rulers completed a full term in office, and few even managed to survive. What determines a society's political maturity is how safe the defeated feel next to the victors, the minority next to the majority, the believers next to the dissenters.

Now members of the majority in both Russia and Ukraine are happy that the opposition feels threatened: That's right, they got what they deserved; let them tremble in fear and constantly look over their shoulders; they can leave the country if they don't like it here. Both Ukraine and Russia are going through a period of patriotic mobilization and have the same ready answer to the question of what to do when you don't want to hear opinions different from your own. This only serves to confirm the idea Ukrainians hate: that the two peoples are actually one.

DOING BATTLE WITH SYMBOLS

"There is no fascism in Russia, and there can't be," Russians say. "Look how we're fighting against its symbols. Not a single swastika will slip through." Pretty soon they'll be getting blurred over in documentaries and feature films, like foul language gets blipped out. Because you know how these Russians are, not a drop of will power: Just let them see a swastika and they'll turn right into National Socialists. Not seeing those symbols-that's the only thing keeping them from falling to the ground and-poof!-morphing into big bad fascist wolves. Because, obviously, fascism is just a swastika and a couple of runes and nothing else.

"How can you accuse us of fascism?" say the Ukrainians. "Look at our officials and lawmakers: We have Jews, Afghans, Georgians, you name it. And we've made huge strides against communism: We've banned their hammer and sickle." Again, what else could they do? Because as soon as a Ukrainian sees that red flag, he'll run to enlist in the Red Army.
In both cases, the authorities and the activists are displaying that astonishing lack of faith in the individual that is so characteristic of totalitarian systems. You can't show people symbols, can't let them read books and watch movies, because they'll give in to temptation. So Ukraine prohibits Russian movies, and Russia forbids showings of a Hollywood film about the 1950s under Stalin in which Russians are, as usual, uncivilized.

But phenomena outlive symbols, that's how the world works: Symbols change, phenomena remain; it's possible to sink into a new version of Nazism with Jews in government, thundering World War II victory songs, and a crusade against swastikas, and to slide down into communism without a single red star.

Communism is not a metro station with a Soviet name; but new billboards urging neighbors to report those with "separatist" sympathies, like the ones recently seen in Ukrainian cities-that's communism.  And fascism isn't the Iron Cross and runes; it is any condition in which a symbol is more important than a human being, the majority than the minority, the state than a private person, and the masses are held in higher regard than any single individual other than the leader. It is hatred toward any other ethnic group or country, not necessarily toward blacks or Jews. A national identity built on contempt for a people or culture other than your own is always some form of Nazism. It is strange to think that calling Jews or natives of the Caucasus untermenschen is Nazism, but writing the same thing about Russians or Ukrainians is not. Modern Europe was born when France, Germany Britain and other states recognized that their respective cultures have equal value. Fascism also means a ban on freely reflecting on your country's history, no possibility of creating modern art, and persecution for self-deprecating humor.

All this can happen under any kind of symbols; old totalitarian practices can reemerge with new symbols, from a new direction. What is now being called a restoration of the Soviet past didn't happen in Russia under the red banner and communist leadership everyone was so scared of in the 1990s; it happened as TV series glorified the tsarist general Alexander Kolchak, and when quoting the counterrevolutionary philosopher Ivan Ilyin became vogue, and with the works of Alexander Solzhenitsyn in the school curriculum. Here, one strange criticism leveled at Parfyonov's film "Russia in Bloom" comes to mind: Again, people said, he's idealizing the past, and that's the source of all our troubles. In fact, the whole film says just the opposite: It's about the impossibility of restoring the past. If we know perfectly well what it means to be a Communist Party secretary of ideology or a KGB colonel, but know virtually nothing of imperial ranks like "actual state councilor" and "court chamberlain," then all our attempts to reinstate the councilors and chamberlains will wind up bringing back the ideology secretary and the KGB colonel. That's just what we're seeing now with the Russian Orthodox Church: All the attempts to restore its czarist-era role end up reviving a Communist Party committee.

And a party committee can make a comeback while people talk of democracy and freedom. In the Arab world and Africa this sort of talk abounded when colonial regimes-which were, of course, a form of unfreedom-got traded in for homegrown leftwing and nationalist dictatorships. Most Latin American constitutions have long limited presidents to one term in office to prevent a usurpation of power; but it turns out power can be seized by a junta or a political party that goes on to rotate national leaders for show. Post-Soviet Central Asia escaped communist rule only to end up under the control of local sultans and their families. Iran rid itself of the authoritarian and corrupt shah, doing everything it could to erase any trace of personalized monarchic power, but found itself helpless in the face of theocratic rule. The Arab world is now edging along the same precipice: After freeing or trying to free themselves from dictatorship, Arab states immediately start leaning toward becoming religious states, or just toward ISIS, now wreaking havoc in the squares cleared of Saddam Hussein statues.

We are accustomed to thinking that the struggle against anything Soviet means a struggle for freedom, but one can be anti-Soviet and still not be free. As Sergei Dovlatov once wrote in a comparable situation, "Soviet or anti-Soviet, what's the difference...?" It's possible to be a Nazi who opposes fascism. Battling the symbols of past unfreedom doesn't protect against its latest incarnation.

This publication originally appeared in Russian.

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 #4
Politico.eu
April 27, 2015
Ukrainian PM leads charge to erase Soviet history
Championing anti-communist legislation has allowed Arseniy Yatsenyuk to evade accusations of corruption.
By MAXIM ERISTAVI
Maxim Eristavi is an independent foreign correspondent covering Eastern and Central Europe. He is a co-founder of Hromadske International news-network, based in Kiev.

KIEV - Two weeks after a high-profile double-assassination in Kiev on April 16, conspiracy theories about the cause of the killings are still swirling around the city.

"[The] parade of political murders obviously is not coincidental," Victoria Sumar, a top official in Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's party, the People's Front, wrote in a public Facebook post: "It is a special operation which will be used for political and informational battle, for destabilization."

Even well-known young reformists like Svitlana Zalischuk, a new MP in President Petro Poroshenko's bloc, are sure of Kremlin involvement. "In my opinion, this destabilization has foreign roots and is very useful for our enemy," she told me, adding that after the recent ceasefire, fomenting political chaos inside Ukraine is Russia's logical next step.

Ukrainian media has capitalized on the uncertainty and paranoia surrounding the murders. "Kremlin Provocation" flashed across TV screens just hours after the murders.

The search for Ukraine's "internal enemies" and "provocateurs" runs wild not only through social networks and media, but inside legislative chambers, too. "Soviet" has become a dirty word in Ukrainian politics, a new synonym for "traitor" or "spy."

On April 9, the Ukrainian parliament passed a set of three bills, which would ban Communist and Nazi symbols as well as anything that can credibly be deemed "propaganda of true nature." Similar laws were drafted in 2002, 2005, 2009, 2011 and 2013, but they all failed to materialize under governments with close ties to Moscow. Designed as a means of legislative closure with the past, the most recent attempts were inspired by similar measures passed in other post-Soviet countries during the so-called "de-communization" period of the 1990s. But unlike in Poland, Georgia, or the Baltics, the Ukrainian copycat laws are much more radical. Thrown together haphazardly, it passed quickly, without any public debate.

At first, the draft law was envisioned as a powerful manifesto in times of devastating war. Both at home and abroad, the conflict in Ukraine is perceived as a battle between two runaway forces:  those fighting for a democratic and prosperous future with Europe versus the Soviet past, symbolized by rising geopolitical nostalgia for neighboring Russia.

A bipartisan group of thirteen members of parliament co-authored the legislation, including promising young politicians like one of the bill's co-authors, Hanna Hopko. "If we had managed to pass [these laws] when we got our independence in 1991, I think that Russian aggression wouldn't be possible," Hopko said. "I'd be happy if my 4-year old daughter could stop seeing Lenin monuments on our streets... We need new heroes of Ukrainian history."

The shadow of the Soviet Union is ubiquitous in Ukraine. Today's twenty-somethings grew up on streets named after Soviet heroes and lived in homes bearing hammer and sickle moldings. In many families, men hand down Red Army medals from generation to generation.

If the new legislation passes, simply displaying Soviet symbols could land you in prison for up to five years. All streets, districts, villages, and cities with Soviet names would have to be renamed, a so-called "topographical revolution" costing an estimated $1.5 billion (€1.38 billion). Communities with Soviet names, already struggling in Ukraine's emaciated economy, would have to foot the bill for the rebranding; neither state nor local budgets have the necessary funding. Some also fear the laws would lead to a spike in vandalism - unsanctioned demolitions of Soviet monuments and symbols are already a part of daily routine in Ukraine.

The strictest provisions of the bill expose its haphazard nature. The vague language contains provisions banning the "denial of true nature of the communist regime" that could get one's media license suspended or political party banned, and the laws' authors deliberately excluded the Red Army's legacy from the legislation - the issue is simply too politically toxic. The General Scientific-Expert Board, the parliament's law review body found that the laws violate the Ukrainian constitution on at least four counts.

Human rights activists are also concerned. "We are still waiting for the final text of the laws to be published, but analyzing the draft I can see a restriction on freedom of expression, freedom of association and freedom of assembly in there," Tanya Mazur explains, the head of Amnesty International Ukraine. "We are really disappointed with such populist steps by the Ukrainian parliament," she adds, concerned that the laws might target disproportionally the radical left, because of vague language.

Hopko called such concerns the products of "manipulation" and "exaggeration."

But the main reason why the anti-communist laws are so poorly composed is because their primary purpose is not to eliminate propaganda, but to provide a powerful boost for its sponsors in upcoming local elections scheduled for October 2015, explained Dmitry Lytvyn, a political analyst based in Kiev. "Ukrainian laws like this one always seem to be falling from the sky out of nowhere," Lytvyn said. "It is a perfect distraction from real problems with the sinking economy and corruption. Now, for the next six months of the campaign for local elections we don't have to debate the government's record, but will fight about new names for our streets and cities."

Facing corruption allegations and a tanking approval rating six months before elections, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's party, the People's Front, is leading the charge to erase the remnants of Ukraine's Soviet legacy. The initial anti-communist law was drafted by the party's top brass, who proposed to ban far-left ideology altogether, outlawing exhibitions of communism, Leninism, and Marxism. When that version was deemed too radical, a new draft was issued employing softer rhetoric to garner a wider spectrum of bipartisan support. It was in this secondary phase that the proposal to ban "Nazi propaganda" was also included, as well as an initiative to open Soviet archives, one of the more effective parts of the legislation.

In recent months, Yatsenyuk's party has lurched to the right as corruption allegations have threatened its legitimacy. A number of far-right figures have been elevated to government posts under its watch: Dmytro Yarosh, the controversial leader of the far-right "Right Sector" was appointed an adviser to the army's chief of staff, and a suspected far-right leader was recently made Kiev police chief.  The news has led to speculation that the People's Front is using political appointments to pacify potential allies and stymie its plunging approval ratings.

Sensing blood in the water, a handful of MPs from Batkivshchyna, the party of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, along with the far-right Svoboda party and one legislator from President Petro Poroshenko's Bloc demanded the creation of a committee to investigate corruption allegations against Yatsenyuk and his team back in March. Talk of corruption rumors came up in diplomatic talks between Ukraine and the EU, according to several diplomatic sources.

Championing the anti-communist laws emerged as a convenient way for Yatsenyuk to divert the news cycle, diverting the nation's attention away from his party's corruption scandal.

But the legislation has already fomented further violence. Nina Potarskaya, one of the leaders of the Ukrainian far-left, says there has been a spike in brutal attacks on her colleagues, and her car tires were recently slashed.

She represents the generation of new Ukrainian left who often consider the Soviet Union as a misguided and unfortunate accident to the left ideology. They are still battling with toxic legacy of the Communist Party of Ukraine, which in post-Soviet years damaged the left brand in the country by close ties with oligarchs, religious extremists and by siding with rebels and Russia in the territorial conflict last year.

"The main danger of the anti-communist law lays in its implementation. It can quickly develop into political stigma and open the way for political persecution," Potarskaya warns.

Already, some signs of further political animosity are evident. In some of the biggest bookstores in Kiev, the bestselling books of pro-Russian journalist Oles Buzyna are nowhere to be found. Just two weeks after his assassination, local bookstore owners reportedly no longer feel comfortable selling his works.

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 #5
Kyiv Post
April 28, 2015
Poroshenko says full-blown 'war' possible as situation in Ukraine's east further deteriorates
by Alyona Zhuk

Full-scale war can flare up instantly, Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko warned at the International Support for Ukraine converence in Kyiv on April 28.

"The threat of war is still hanging over us. It is our reality. War may erupt at any moment," Poroshenko said. "But we are prepared to do everything we can to erase any possibility to doubt or retreat."

He also promised to find a way of resolving the conflict in easternmost Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts where combined Russian-separatist forces have waged an unprovoked war against Kyiv since mid-April 2014.

Poroshenko's pledge came as Ukraine's military said that Kremlin-backed forces are again firing heavy weapons on civilian and army positions.

They shelled Ukrainian positions 22 times overnight on April 27-28, according to the latest military press office report, posted online on April 28.

"The criminals again used heavy artillery and rocket systems of volley fire, including attacks against civilians," stated the report.

Grad rocket launchers were fired on Novolaspa in Donetsk Oblast. Ukrainian forces also faced attacks from 82-millimeter and 120-millimeter mortars.

Pro-Kyiv forces also reported that seven Russian-separatists' drones were seen on April 27, mostly near Mariupol, the strategic Azov Sea coastal city, which had a pre-war population of 500,000.

One Ukrainian soldier was killed and seven were wounded in the last 24 hours, Kyiv authorities said on April 27.

In total, during Russia's war against Ukraine 6,225 people have been killed and 15,511 wounded in the conflict zone, according to the latest U.N. report published on April 20. This includes 175 children who were killed and 66 wounded.

In its latest report, published late on April 26, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said that its monitoring mission observed "ceasefire violations in and around the wider area of Donetsk airport as well as Avdiivka, including the use of 120-milimeter mortars and artillery".

It also noted the "most intense shelling in Shyrokyne (20 kilometers east of Mariupol) since fighting began in the area in mid-February."

According to the mission's Facebook page, Moscow-backed separatists in the region didn't allow OSCE observers to enter the part of Shyrokyne that the government doesn't control "for the third time in four days".

Deputy head of the mission Alexander Hug said that free access had been guaranteed to the OSCE by 57 countries, including Russia.

 #6
Increasingly difficult for Kyiv to explain its problems by 'Russian threat' - Senator Kosachyov

MOSCOW. April 28 (Interfax) - The chairman of the Russian Federation Council's Foreign Affairs Committee, Konstantin Kosachyov, believes that the latest Ukraine-EU summit had a 'sobering-up' effect on Kyiv.

"At the Ukraine-EU summit, Brussels focused on things that sobered Kyiv up - the pace and scope of constitutional and other reforms in Ukraine, the fight against corruption, the restructuring of the energy sector and the implementation of the Minsk agreements by Kyiv," Kosachyov wrote on his online blog.

Ukraine, for its part, wanted this summit to address the prospects for visa-free travel, a schedule for its possible accession to the European Union, macro-financial aid, the possibility of deploying European peacekeepers in Donbas and "other matters that are dear for the Ukrainian spirit," the Russian senator said.

"It is becoming increasingly difficult for Kyiv to explain its failures by the 'Russian aggression'. The effectiveness of the West's economic assistance for Ukraine is getting more dubious. There is no progress in securing visa-free travel between the EU [and Ukraine]. The contrast between reality and expectations will keep growing if Ukraine fails to demonstrate progress in the main issue - steps to secure peace in the eastern regions," Kosachyov said.

It is time to admit that last year's Maidan protests did not resolve problems facing Ukraine, he said.

"The Maidan only helped replace people in power, and Kyiv is now at a logical impasse. Propaganda and domestic policy demand citizens' mobilization in order to fight against the 'external enemy', while the international situation and the goal of integration with Europe require peace inside the country and the implementation of the Minsk accords," the senator said.

 [return to Contents]

#7
Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.ru
April 24, 2015
Sorry, the European Union is closed
Oleg Tsarev [http://oleg-tsarev.livejournal.com/112606.html]
Translated from Russian by Krisitna Rus

Remember the people in Kiev,  who supported the revolution in the name of Ukraine's accession to the European Union?

For them there is bad news.

The European Commissioner for Expansion and Neighbourhood Policy, Johannes Hahn has put an end to a year and a half of Euromaidan propaganda.

"In the next 10 years there will be no EU expansion," - he said at the Third East forum in Berlin.

"We must act purposefully, for everyone to understand that a new member of the EU is very valuable, and not the object of additional financial support," - he said.

This is it.

Come after 2025 - and maybe never.

After all, European politicians - for all their cynicism and hypocrisy and indifference to cruelty - are very practical people, when they have to be.

They don't want to spend any extra Euros. Support of Greece already robbed them of a lot of money, and will take much more - so for Ukraine there is no more money, and never will be.

It's one thing to sign "Economic Association", that is, in fact, to open the Ukrainian market for their goods, to secure favorable trading conditions, and it is quite another to take responsibility for the sinking ship of the Kiev regime, from which there is even shooting in all directions.

No, Europe is not ready for this.

The "patriots," warmed by the revolution, waving flags in the hope of quick and free happiness, have been warned.

They were told that the trade benefits for the EU and military benefits for America have no relation to the interests of Ukraine, and are directly harmful.

That their slogans are a trap, deliberate and unavoidable deception.

But no one listened.

The people who were in a state of hysterical aggression, can even barely hear themselves, let alone common sense.

And now - in the name of "Ukraine in the European Union" the legitimacy of the government has been destroyed, regions lost, killed, jailed and expelled tens of thousands of people, economy destroyed and barbaric violence legitimized.

But it will not bring Ukraine into the European Union.

Now the so-called "patriots" have only one consolation.

When EU Commissioner Hahn said that the adoption of new countries into the EU is "impossible", he added:
"However, this does not mean that the EU is not negotiating".

Yes, the door to Europe is closed.

But negotiations behind the door can go on forever...

 [return to Contents]

 #8
Deutsche Welle
April 28, 2015
Ukraine: ask too much or ask too little ?
Ukrainian expectations of a speedy convergence with the European Union are high, perhaps too high. However, Brussels must be careful not to alienate Ukraine. Christoph Hasselbach believes it's about finding a balance.

The European Union faces a dilemma on Ukraine: it wants the country to commit to the EU but, at least in the long run, Kyiv is also supposed to find a balance with Russia. A tough anti-Russian course would be the wrong signal. At the same time, Brussels expects demands that Kyiv implement political and economic reforms as a precondition for progress in inching closer to the EU and, from a practical point of view, as a requirement for further financial aid. Corruption, for instance, is still a widespread problem, as is the judiciary's lack of independence. The government in Kyiv is expected to push privatization and deregulation, and consolidate the banking sector - all in all, by no means a piece of cake.

Ukraine is in debt up to its ears. According to the IMF, Ukraine's state debt percentage of the GDP rose from 40 to almost 100 percent between 2013 - shortly before the confrontation with Russia broke out - and today.

The most recent level of debt is little more than the average amount of debt in the EU member states, but even they face major problems reducing their mountains of debt, and that without a civil war. Without peace and stability, however, Ukraine is a bottomless pit - they are the prerequisite for investments and economic development.
No unified state

Of course, Brussels knows that Russia has a large part in the fact that the truce in eastern Ukraine continues to be broken. But it just doesn't help matters when Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko speaks of a possible "liberation" of the areas controlled by the separatists, when he wants to preserve Ukrainian as the only official language in the East and wants to establish Ukraine as a unified state. For domestic reasons, such remarks may be understandable, but they are not helpful for the future. Greater decentralization and an official role for the Russian language are essential.

The fact that the EU shelved the free trade agreement with Ukraine until 2016 was meant to give Kyiv and Moscow the opportunity to discuss concerns that Russia might be the loser in such an accord.

Dashed hopes

EU-Ukraine relations are marked by disappointment, not just concerning Ukraine's EU membership aspirations that most EU officials are reluctant to address. Disappointment also marks practical steps on the way. Ukrainians, for instance, would like to be granted visa-free travel in Western Europe. Ukraine's President raises the issue at practically every meeting with his EU colleagues. The EU is still hesitant.

It's not just about Brussel's fears that such a ruling might be abused. It's also about incentives as such: victory only beckons once certain goals have been reached. Once bitten, twice shy - that's the EU. It may not be a perfect example, but the premature Romanian and Bulgarian EU accession, lacking sufficient state reforms and Greece's EU accession - wangled, but with the EU's understanding - showed that undue generosity comes back to bite you later on.

Incentive for change

A blunt refusal would be just as wrong. The EU faces a tightrope walk in Ukraine, which the bloc must also perform in other countries interested in joining the union: it presents the advantages of approaching the EU, while demanding reforms as a pre-condition.

The vague goal of an EU accession is somewhere on the horizon, but it is also meant to be an incentive for change that often demands a great deal of sacrifice from the societies in question. If the EU doesn't make sufficient demands, it's asking for trouble later on. If it demands too much change, it triggers disappointment and in the end perhaps rejection.

The balance is difficult - even more so in the case of Ukraine, a country beset by civil war, a country that will be key for relations with Russia.

[return to Contents] 

 
#9
Salon.com
April 23, 2015
"Architects of American policy towards Russia and Ukraine are destroying American national security": Stephen F. Cohen on the truths U.S. media and politicians hide
Myths of American nationalism busted as our interview with noted scholar concludes
By Patrick L. Smith
Patrick Smith is the author of "Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century." He was the International Herald Tribune's bureau chief in Hong Kong and then Tokyo from 1985 to 1992. During this time he also wrote "Letter from Tokyo" for the New Yorker. He is the author of four previous books and has contributed frequently to the New York Times, the Nation, the Washington Quarterly, and other publications. Follow him on Twitter, @thefloutist.

If there is a lesson in Stephen F. Cohen's professional fortunes over the past year, it is the peril of advancing a dispassionate reading of our great country's doings abroad. Cohen's many pieces in The Nation on the Ukraine crisis and the consequent collapse of U.S.-Russia relations now leave him in something close to a state of siege. "My problem with this begins with the fact that... I don't have a vested interest in one of the 'isms,' or ideologies," Cohen says in this, the second part of a long interview conducted last month.

The problem lies with the ideologues infesting the waters wherein Cohen swims. Terminally poisoned by Cold War consciousness, they cannot abide disinterested thought. Cohen has been mostly scholar, partly journalist, since the 1970s. His "Sovieticus" column, launched in The Nation in the 1980s, put a magazine traditionally tilted toward domestic issues among the few American publications providing consistent analysis of Russian affairs. At this point, Cohen's Nation essays are the bedrock scholarly work to which those (few) writing against the orthodoxy turn.

The first half of our exchange, last week on Salon [http://www.salon.com/2015/04/16/the_new_york_times_basically_rewrites_whatever_the_kiev_authorities_say_stephen_f_cohen_on_the_u_s_russiaukraine_history_the_media_wont_tell_you/], began with events during the past year and advanced toward the post-Soviet origins of the current crisis. In part two, Cohen completes his analysis of Vladimir Putin's inheritance and explains how he came to focus his thinking on "lost alternatives"-outcomes that could have been but were not. Most surprising to me was the real but foregone prospect of reforming the Soviet system such that the suffering that ensued since its demise could have been averted.

Salon: Putin inherited a shambles, then-as he would say, "a catastrophe."

Stephen F. Cohen: As Russia's leader, Putin has changed over the years, especially in foreign policy but also at home. His first impulse was toward more free-market reforms, anti-progressive taxes. He enacted a 13 percent flat tax-Steve Forbes would've been ecstatic, right? He offers [George W.] Bush what Clinton never really offered Yeltsin: a full partnership. And what does he do? On September 11, 2001, he called George and said, Whatever you want, we're with you. Bush says, Well, I think we're going to have to go to war in Afghanistan. And Putin said, I can help you. We've got major resources and assets in Afghanistan. I even have an army over there called the Northern Alliance. I'll give it to you! You want overflight? It's all yours!

How many American lives did Putin save during our land war in Afghanistan? And do you know what a political price he paid in Russia for that? Because his security people were completely against it.

Q: They were? Please explain.

Oh, yeah. You think they minded seeing America being brought to its knees? They'd been invaded so often; let America get a taste of it! But Putin assumes he's achieved what Yeltsin couldn't and that this benefits the Russian state. He has a real strategic partnership with America. Now, remember, he's already worried about his radical Islamic problem because Russia has nearly 20 million Muslim citizens of its own. Russia sits in the East and in the West; it's on the front lines.

What does Bush give him in return? He expands NATO again and he unilaterally withdraws the United States from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the bedrock of Russia's nuclear security- it's a complete betrayal. Is that how you repay somebody who's helped you save the lives of your citizens? This is where the word "betrayal" begins to enter into the discourse.

Q: It's an important word for Putin.

It's not only Putin; [Dmitry] Medvedev uses it, too, when he becomes president [in 2008]. America has broken its word, it's betrayed us, it's deceived us, and we no longer take America at its word- well, they never should've in the first fucking place, just as Gorbachev should have got the promise not to expand NATO in writing. We'd have done it anyway, but at least they would have had a talking point.

This trust, this naive trust on the part of Russians, that there's something about American presidents that makes them honorable-it suggests they need a crash course in something. This was betrayal for Putin, and for the entire Russian political class, and Putin paid a price.

I've heard him called, among right-wing Russian intellectuals, an appeaser of the West. Soft. You can hear this today: Mariupol? Odessa? Should've taken them a year ago; they belong to us. What's he thinking? Why is he discussing it? [Mariupol and Odessa are two contested cities in the southeastern region of Ukraine.]

So Putin sets his course, and then comes this famous speech he gives in 2007 in Munich, with McCain sitting in the front row. Putin says just what I told you. He says, Look, we want to be your partner; this is what we've wanted to be since Gorbachev. We believe in the common European home. But every time we turn to you or we negotiate with you or we think we have an agreement with you, you act like a hegemon and everybody has to do exactly what you say if they want to to be on your side.  

Putin has come to tell them that America is risking a new Cold War with more than a decade of bad behavior towards post-Soviet Russia. John McCain interprets this as the declaration of a new Cold War.

But the demonization of Putin came earlier, before the Munich speech, when he began to drive a few favorite American oligarchs [oil companies] out of the country. I looked it up: No major oil-producing country permits majority foreign ownership of its oil. So there's a long a long history of how Putin goes from a democrat for sure in the U.S. media and an aspiring partner of America to becoming the Hitler of today, as Hillary Clinton put it. You can see what a disease it's become, this Putin-phobia....

Q: RT just aired a documentary in which Putin explains exactly when and why he decided to move as he did in Crimea. It's striking: The deliberations began the night President Yanukovych was ousted in the American-supported coup last year. Can you talk about Putin's thinking on the Crimea question, leading to the annexation?  

Putin, in my judgment, did some wrong-headed things. We now know much more about Crimea, but even given what he has said, there was an argument. It wasn't quite as clear-cut as he says it was. There was a debate with two sides.

One side said, "Take Crimea now or fight NATO there later." The other said, "Let the referendum [on association with Russia, held in March 2014] go forward and they're going to vote 80-plus percent to join Russia. We don't have to act on it; they've just made a request and we'll say what we think about it. Meanwhile, we see what happens in Kiev." The Kremlin had done polling in Crimea. And it's the best bargaining chip Putin will have. He'll have Crimea wanting to join Russia and he can say to Washington, Well, you would like the Crimea to remain in Ukraine? Here's what I'd like in return: an eternal ban on NATO membership and federalization of the Ukrainian constitution, because I have to give my Crimean brethren something.

But those arguing that Crimea was the biggest bargaining chip Putin was ever going to have lost. The other side prevailed.

Now, Putin took all the credit, but that's not what really happened. They were all dependent on intelligence coming out of Kiev and Crimea and Donbass. You see now, if you watch that film, what a turning point the overthrow of Yanukovych was. Remember, the European foreign ministers-Polish, German, and French-had brokered an agreement saying that Yanukovych would form a coalition government and stay in power until December, and that was burned in the street. I'll never forget the massive Klitschko [Vitali Klitschko, a prizefighter-turned-political oppositionist, currently Kiev's mayor] standing on a platform at Maidan, all 6' 8" of him, announcing this great triumph of negotiation, and some smaller guy whipping away the microphone and saying, Go fuck yourself. This thing is going to burn in the streets. The next day it did. That night you saw what an undefeated heavyweight champion looks like when he's terror-stricken.

This is the turning point, and "It's all due to Putin," but it's all due to Putin because demonization has become the pivot of the analysis.

Q: What do we do from here to resolve the Ukraine question? You used the word "hope" when talking about the February cease-fire, Minsk II-"the last, best hope." It tripped me up. Hope's a virtue, but it can also be very cruel.

Anyone of any sense and good will knows that it [the solution] lies in the kind of home rule they negotiated in the U.K.-and don't call it a federated Ukraine if that upsets Kiev. As the constitution stands, the governors of all the Ukrainian provinces are appointed by Kiev. You can't have that in eastern Ukraine. Probably can't even have that in Western and Central Ukraine anymore. Ukraine is fragmenting.

Q: I want to turn this around: what is your view of America's strategic goal? I ask in the context of your analysis, in "Failed Crusade," of "transitionology," as you term the paradigm wherein Russia was supposed to transition into a free-market paradise. As the book makes clear, it amounted to the elevation and protection of crooks who asset-stripped most of an entire nation. Now we don't hear much about Russia's "transition." What is Washington's ambition now?

I think the Ukranian crisis is the greatest blow to American national security- even greater than the Iraq war in its long-term implications- for a simple reason: The road to American national security still runs through Moscow. There is not a single major regional or issue-related national security problem we can solve without the full cooperation of whoever sits in the Kremlin, period, end of story.

Name your poison: We're talking the Middle East, we're talking Afghanistan, we're talking energy, we're talking climate, we're talking nuclear proliferation, terrorism, shooting airplanes out of the sky, we're talking about the two terrorist brothers in Boston.

Look: I mean American national security of the kind I care about-that makes my kids and grandkids and myself safe-in an era that's much more dangerous than the Cold War because there's less structure, more nonstate players, and more loose nuclear know-how and materials.... Security can only be partial, but that partial security depends on a full-scale American-Russian cooperation, period. We are losing Russia for American national security in Ukraine as we talk, and even if it were to end tomorrow Russia will never, for at least a generation, be as willing to cooperate with Washington on security matters as it was before this crisis began.

Therefore, the architects of the American policy towards Russia and Ukraine are destroying American national security-and therefore I am the patriot and they are the saboteurs of American security. That's the whole story, and any sensible person who doesn't suffer from Putin-phobia can see it plainly.

Q: Is it too strong to say that the point is to destabilize Moscow?

What would that mean? What would it mean to destabilize the country that may have more weapons of mass destruction than does the U.S.?

Q: Is that indeed the ambition?

I don't think there's any one ambition. I come back to the view that you've got various perspectives in discussion behind closed doors. I guess Mearsheimer [John Mearsheimer, the noted University of Chicago scholar] is right in the sense of saying that there's a faction in Washington that is behaving exactly as a great power would behave and trying to maximize its security, but it doesn't understand that that's what other great powers do, too. That's its failure. Gorbachev and Reagan, though it wasn't originally their idea, probably agreed on the single most important thing: Security had to be mutual. That was their agreement and they built everything on that. We have a military build-up you're going to perceive as a threat and build up, and I will perceive your build-up as a threat... and that's the dynamic of permanent and conventional build-up, a permanent arms race. And that's why Gorbachev and Reagan reasoned, We're on the edge of the abyss. That's why we are going to declare the Cold War over, which they did.

That concept of mutual security doesn't mean only signing contracts: It means don't undertake something you think is in your security but is going to be perceived as threatening, because it won't prove to be in your interest. Missile defense is the classic example: We never should have undertaken any missile defense program that wasn't in cooperation with Russia, but, instead, we undertook it as an anti-Russian operation. They knew it and we knew it and scientists at MIT knew it, but nobody cared because some group believed that you've got to keep Russia down.

The truth is, not everything depends on the president of the United States. Not everything, but an awful lot does, and when it comes to international affairs we haven't really had a president who acted as an actual statesman in regard to Russia since Reagan in 1985-88. Clinton certainly didn't; his Russia policy was clownish and ultimately detrimental to U.S. national security interests. Bush's was reckless and lost one opportunity after another, and Obama's is either uninformed or completely out to lunch. We have not had a statesman in the White House when it comes to Russia since Reagan, and I am utterly, totally, 1000 percent convinced that before November 2013, when we tried to impose an ultimatum on Yanukovych-and even right now, today-that a statesman in the White House could end this in 48 hours with Putin. What Putin wants in the Ukraine crisis is what we ought to want; that's the reality.

Q: Interesting.

What does Putin want? He's said the same thing and he's never varied: He wants a stable, territorial Ukraine-Crimea excepted-and he knows that's possible only if Ukraine is free to trade with the West and with Russia but is never a member of NATO. However, somebody's got to rebuild Ukraine, and he's not going to take that burden on himself, but he will help finance it through discounted energy prices. It could all be done tomorrow if we had a statesman in the White House. Tomorrow! Nobody else has to die.

Q: I think Chancellor Merkel understands this, too.

I think she's come to, but how strong she is and whether Washington will cut her legs out from under her as they're trying to do now... [Shortly before this interview Senator McCain delivered a blunt attack on Merkel at a security conference in Munich for opposing the supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine. The Arizona Republican was similarly critical when Merkel began to explore a diplomatic solution in Ukraine in spring 2013.]

Q: They have very little respect for her, which is wrong.

What Lindsay Graham and McCain did in Germany, in her own country, on German national television, to her face-and the fact that she's a woman didn't help, either. The way they spoke to her, I can't think of a precedent for that.

Q: Parts of your work are very moving, and that's not a word a lot of scholarship prompts. The enormous value the Soviet Union accreted-most Americans know nothing of this; with the media's encouragement, we're completely ignorant of this. There's nothing encouraging us to understand that the hundreds of billions of misappropriated assets during the 1990s was essentially the misappropriation of Soviet wealth.

A lot of it came here, to the United States.

Q: Can you talk about this?

I can tell you about a guy who was formerly very high up in the CIA. I called him about a something I was writing on Russian wealth smuggled through the banks into the United States, and he said, We have informed the FBI exactly where all this wealth is in the United States but we are under strict political orders to do nothing about it. Now, the interesting thing is, why now? Well, it would have badly damaged the Yeltsin regime, which the Clinton administration had unconditionally embraced, but also because that money became part of the flourishing stock and real estate markets here at that time.

Even today in Russia, when you ask people if they wish the Soviet Union hadn't ended, you're still getting over 60 percent, among young people, too, because they hear the stories from their parents and grandparents. It requires a separate study, but it's not rocket science. If young kids see their grandparents dying prematurely because they're not being paid their pensions, they're going to resent it. When the bottom fell out of the Soviet welfare state and out of the professions, what happened in the 1990s was that the Soviet middle class- which was one of the most professional and educated, and had some savings and which therefore should have been the building block of a Russian free market sector- that middle class was wiped out, and it's never been recreated. Instead, you got a country of impoverished people and of very, very rich people-with a small middle class serving the rich. That changed under Putin; Putin has rebuilt the middle class, gradually.

The Russian middle class isn't the same as ours. A lot of Russia's middle class are people who are on the federal budget: Army officers, doctors, scientists, teachers-these are all federal budget people. They're middle class, but they don't become middle class as autonomous property owners. A lot of my friends are members of this class, and a lot of them are very pro-Putin, but a lot of my friends are very anti-Putin, too. The thing about the Soviet Union can be summarized very simply: The Soviet Union lasted 70-plus years, so that would be less than the average life of an American male today. A person cannot jump out of his or her autobiography any more than they can jump out of their skin; it's your life. You were born in the Soviet Union, you had your first sexual experience in the Soviet Union, you were educated, you got a career, you got married, you raised your kids: That was your life. Of course you miss it, certainly parts of it.

There were ethnic nationalities in the Soviet Union who hated it and wanted to break away, and this became a factor in 1991, but for a great many people- certainly the majority of Russians and a great many Ukrainians and Belorussians and the central Asians- it's not surprising that 25 years later, those adults still remember the Soviet Union with affection. This is normal, and I don't find anything bad in it. You know, Putin wasn't actually the first to say this but he did say it and it's brilliant and tells you who Putin is and who most Russians are. He said this: Anyone who doesn't regret the end of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who thinks you can recreate the Soviet Union has no head. That's it, that's exactly right!

Q: Didn't Putin say that the end of the Soviet Union was the 20th century's greatest catastrophe?

It all has to do with the word "the." There's no "the" in Russian. Did Putin say, in translation, that the end of the Soviet Union was "the" greatest catastrophe of the 20th century? If so, there's something wrong with that, because for Jews it was the Holocaust. Or did he say, "one of" the greatest catastrophes?

Q: I would have guessed the latter.

All four professional translators I sent Putin's phrase to said you have to translate it as "one of the greatest catastrophes of the 20th century." Now, we can have a discussion. He's taken a moderate position, but what are the others? Fair enough, but catastrophe for whom? Americans don't think it was a catastrophe. Putin would say, "Look, 20 million Russians found themselves outside the country when the Soviet Union broke up, that was a tragedy for them, a catastrophe. Seventy or 80 percent plunged into poverty in the 1990s, lost everything. Can I put that on the list of "one of the greatest?" I would say sure, because for everybody there's a greater catastrophe. For the Jews there's no catastrophe greater than the Holocaust. For the Armenians, their genocide. Again, people can't jump out of their history. A tolerant, democratic person acknowledges that. Each people and nation has its own history. I'd like to write an article about this, but I'm not going to live long enough to write all the articles or books I want to write. We say, for example, the Russians have not come to grips with and fully acknowledged the horrors of Stalinism and its victims. I would argue in this article that they have done more to acknowledge the horrors of Stalinism than we have of slavery.

Q: Interesting.

For example, do we have a national museum of the history of slavery in the United States? They're building a large one in Moscow to commemorate Stalin's victims. He recently signed a decree mandating a monument in central Moscow to those victims.

Q: In the way of being moved by some of the things you write, I've wanted to ask you about this for years. It has to do with the sentiments of Russians and what they wanted, their ambitions for themselves, some form of... as I read along in these passages I kept saying, "I wonder if he's going to use the phrase 'social democracy.'" And, sure enough, you did. These passages got me to take Rudolph Bahro [author of "The Alternative in Eastern Europe"] off the shelf. The obvious next step after East-West tension subsided was some form of social democracy. I don't know where you want to put it. I put it between Norway and Germany somewhere. To me what happened instead is a horrific tragedy, not only for Russia but for Eastern Europe.

My problem with this begins with the fact that I'm not a communist, I'm not a socialist, a social democrat. I'd like to have enough money to be a real capitalist, but it's a struggle. [Laughs.] I don't have a vested interest in one of the "isms" or the ideologies, but I agree with you. I don't know about Eastern Europe, let's leave it aside, but look at Russia. You'd have thought that the logical outcome of the dismantling of the Stalinist Communist system, because the system was built primarily by Stalin from the 1930s on, would have been Russian social democracy and that, of course, was what Gorbachev's mission was. Lots of books have been written, most persuasively by Archie Brown, the great British scholar, who knows Gorbachev personally, probably as well as I do, that Gorbachev came to think of himself as a European social democrat while he was still in power. That's what his goal was. He had this close relationship with the Social Democratic prime minister of Spain, I forget his name.

Q: Zapatero?

I don't remember, but I remember that they did a lot of social democratic socializing and talking.

Q: Felipe Gonzalez, I think it was.

Gonzalez, that's right. Gorbachev was a very well-informed man and his advisors during his years in power were mostly social democrats and had been for years. Their mission had been to transform the Soviet Union. Now, remember, Lenin began as a social democrat, and the original model for Lenin had been not only Marx but the German Social Democratic Party. The Bolshevik or Communist Party was originally the Russian Social Democratic Party, which split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. So in a way, and I once said this to Gorbachev, historically you want to go back to Lenin before he became a Bolshevik. He said, "Well that's kind of complicated." Then Gorbachev said, "Everybody agrees Russia is a left-of-center country."

The Russian people are left of center. They're a welfare-state country. Gorbachev had this interesting conversation with Putin, when he went to tell Putin that he, Gorbachev, was going to start a social democratic party. There had been several start-ups and they never went anywhere. And Putin said that's the right thing to do, because Russia really is a left-of-center country. So Putin said the same thing. And so Russia is, if you look at the history of Russia...

Q: Are you talking about Russia very early, thinking about Russian givenness to community and all that?

However you put it all together, the peasant tradition, the urban tradition, the socialist tradition. Almost all the revolutionary parties were socialist. You didn't have a Tea Party among them. This is a Russian tradition. Now, it's obviously changed, but I would say that today, looking at the polls, most Russians overwhelmingly believe that the state has obligations that include medical care, free education, and guaranteeing everybody a job. In fact, it's in the Russian constitution, the guarantee of a job. Most Russians feel there should not be a "free market" but a social or regulated market, that some things should be subsidized, that the government should regulate certain things, and that nobody should be too rich or too poor. For that you get 80 percent of the vote every time. So that's a social democratic program, right? Why don't they have it?

I ask everybody in Russia who wants a social democratic party. They exist, but not a party that can win elections? What's the problem here? I think know, but I want to hear Russians tell me what's right. People cite what you and I would guess. First of all, there's the hangover from communism, which was social democratic and somewhat socialist, in some form.

Second, and this is probably the key thing, social democratic movements tended to grow out of labor movements-labor unions, historically, in England and Scandinavia and Germany. They became the political movement of the labor movement, the working class movement. So you normally get a labor movement that favors political action instead of strikes, creates a political party, you have a parliamentary system, they begin to build support in the working class, elements of the middle class join them, and you end up eventually with European social democracy.

Q: Old Labour in Britain is a perfect example.

Well, the labor unions in Russia are a complete mess. I shouldn't say that, but they're complicated. The major one remains the old Soviet official one, which is in bed deeply with state employers. The independent one, or ones, haven't been able to get enough traction. In almost every European country there were circumstances, you might say the political culture was favorable. Those objective circumstances don't exist [in Russia]. First, you have an insecure savaged middle class that's seen its savings confiscated or devalued repeatedly in the last 25 years. You've got a working class trapped between oligarchs, state interests and old industries, and private entrepreneurs who are very vulnerable. In other words, the working class itself is in transition. Its own insecurities don't lead it to think in terms of political organizations but in terms of issues-of whether Ford Motor Company is going to fire them all tomorrow. They're localized issues.

Then you don't have a leadership. Leadership really matters. No one has emerged, either in the Russian parliament or in Russian political life. By the 1990s Gorbachev was past his prime and too hated for what had happened to the country. He hoped to be, when he ran for president that time [in 1996] and got 1 percent, he hoped to be the social democratic leader. There are a couple guys in Parliament who aspire to be the leader of Russian social democracy.... When I'm asked, and I've told this to young social democrats and to Gennady Zyuganov, whom I've known for 20 years, the leader of the Russian Communist Party, the only real electoral party, that Russia needs social democracy with a Russian face....

What this means is that the most important force in Russia, and people were wrong to say Putin created it, is nationalism. This began, in fact, under Stalin. It was embedded during the Brezhnev years, and it was overshadowed during perestroika in the late-1980s. Then there was an inevitable upsurge as a result of the 1990s. You cannot be a viable political candidate in Russia today unless you come to grips with nationalism.

Therefore, the best way, in my judgment, if you also want democracy, is social democracy with a Russian nationalist face. What's interesting is the guy who was until recently the most popular opposition leader, Navalny [Alexei Navalny, the noted anti-corruption activist], who got nearly 30 per cent of the vote in the Moscow mayoral elections and then blew it by becoming again a foe of the entire system instead of building on his electoral success-he's too nationalistic for the taste of a lot of democrats.

Q: Truly? You wouldn't know it from what you read.

He's got a bad history in regards to the Caucasus people, among others. But what's interesting in this regard is, we don't ever speak of American nationalism. We call it patriotism. It's weird, isn't it? We don't have a state, we have a government....

Every American politician who seeks the presidency in effect tries to make American nationalism the program of his or her candidacy, but they call it patriotism. They're fully aware of the need to do this, right? So why they think Putin doesn't have to do it, too, is completely beyond me. There's no self-awareness.

In Russia, people had lost hope tremendously after 1991 but their hope later attached to Putin-imagine what he faced. For example, can you imagine becoming the leader of such a country and for the sake of consensus having a textbook putting together Tsarist, Soviet and post-Soviet history? Our presidents had a hard time dealing with slave and post-slave, Civil War and post-Civil War history. How do they do it? Each president did it differently, but Putin inherited this conflicting history, and the way he's tried to patch all three together into a consensual way for Russians to view their history and to teach kids in school is very interesting. Now, of course, it's being ruptured again with this war and with Crimea and with this new nationalism.

Q: I'd like to change the subject. Often in the books you mention an interest in alternatives: What could've happened if this or that hadn't. We just covered one, the missed opportunity for a historically logical social democratic outcome in Russia. How do you account for this tendency in your thinking?

We have formative experiences-what shaped you, at least so you think when you look back. You don't know it at the time, you don't know a formative experience is formative until later. You'd agree with that.

Q: It's only in hindsight. "Reality takes form only in memory." Proust.

For me it was growing up in the segregated South. But the reality was valid in retrospect, because I later realized that what I was doing had been so shaped by growing up in the segregated South, the way I reacted to that and the way I learned from it later, actually, in a strange way, led me to Russia.

Q: You suggested this in the book on gulag returnees, "The Victims Return." I wonder if you could explain the connection. How did growing up in Kentucky [Cohen was raised in Owensboro] lead you to Russian studies, and what does it do for your analysis of the Russian situation? How does a Kentucky childhood keep you alert to alternatives?

Well, you have to remember what segregation was. I didn't understand this as a little boy, but it was American apartheid. Owensboro, probably had fewer than  20,000 people then, including the farmers. For a kid growing up in a completely segregated county, first of all, the world you're born into is the normal world. I had no questions about it.... I didn't perceive the injustice of it.

And then you get older and you begin to see the injustice and you wonder, how did this happen?... At Indiana University I run into this professor who becomes my mentor, Robert C. Tucker, [Tucker, who died in 2010, was a distinguished Russianist and author of a celebrated biography of Stalin]. I'd been to Russia-accidentally, I went on a tour-and he asked, "What in Russia interests you?" And I said, "Well, I'm from Kentucky, and I've always wondered if there was an alternative in Kentucky's history between being deep South and not being deep South." And Tucker said, "You know, one of the biggest questions in Russian history is lost alternatives. Nobody ever studies them." And I said, "Aha!"

Q: So the title of your 2009 book, "Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives," is in his honor?

I began to live in Russia in 1976, for two or three months a year until they took my visa away in 1982. This is when I got deeply involved in the dissident movement, smuggling manuscripts out and books back in and all these things. I begin to think, how does Russia change today? And my mind reverted to segregation and the end of segregation and the friends and foes of change.... I wrote an article called "The Friends and Foes of Change" about reformism and conservatism in the Soviet system, because I thought that it was institutions, it was culture, it was history and leaders and that you needed a conjunction of these events before you could get major change in Russia and the Soviet Union.... I published that as an article in 1976 or 1977 and I expanded it for a book I wrote, "Rethinking the Soviet Experience," which was published in 1985, a month before Gorbachev came to power. And everybody would later say, "He foresaw Gorbachev."

Actually I didn't quite. What I foresaw was perestroika. For me it wasn't about the name of the leader, but the policy such leader would enact. I got one thing wrong. Because it was so hard to make this argument in Cold War America, that the Soviet Union had a capacity for reform awaiting it, if factors came together. I didn't think to carry the argument beyond liberalization to actual democratization. So I didn't foresee a Gorbachev who would enact actual democratization, free voting, and dismantle the Communist Party.... But I always thought that thinking about the history of Kentucky, living through segregation, watching the change, seeing the civil rights movement, seeing the resistance to it and why helped me think more clearly about the Soviet Union under Brezhnev and about my dissident friends. And I also knew reformers in the party bureaucracy pretty well, and when we would talk at night, I never mentioned this but my mind would always kind of drift back.

Q: The connection is not at all obvious but you explain it very well and it's clear once you do.  

Well, sometimes people read a book that opens their eyes. I think the whole secret, particularly as you get older... Trotsky I think wrote that after some age, I think he said 39 or 45, all we do is document our prejudices. And there's some truth to that, obviously. But one of the ways that you avoid becoming dogmatic about your own published views is to keep looking for things that challenge what you think. You try to filter them through whatever intellectual apparatus you've been using for, in my case, 40 years.

Q: I thought it would be interesting to get through those sections of Kennan's journals ["The Kennan Diaries," 2014] that would be germane to our exchange. What struck me coming away from them was the enormous sadness and pessimism that hung over him in the later years. I wonder if you share that.

My position has always been, America doesn't need a friend in the Kremlin. We need a national security partner. Friendships often don't last. Partnerships based on common interests, compatible self-interests, do.

I have always known such a partnership would be difficult to achieve because there are so many differences, conflicts, and Cold War landmines. There were numerous chances to enhance the relationship-during the Nixon-Brezhnev détente period, Gorbachev and Reagan, Gorbachev and Bush, even with Putin after 9/11, when he helped [George W.] Bush in Afghanistan. But they all became lost opportunities, those after 1991 lost mainly in Washington, n ot Moscow.

When I speak of lost alternatives I do not mean the counter-factuals employed by novelists and some historians-the invention of "what-ifs." I mean actual alternatives that existed politically at turning points in history, and why one road was taken and not the other. Much of my work has focused on this large question in Soviet and post-Soviet Russian history and in U.S.-Russian relations.

So you ask if I'm disappointed by the lost opportunities for an American-Russian partnership, especially in light of the terrible confrontation over Ukraine? Having struggled for such a partnership for about 40 years, yes, of course, I'm personally disappointed-and even more so by the Ukraine crisis because I think it may be fateful in the worst sense.

On the other hand, as an historian who has specialized in lost alternatives, well, now I have another to study, to put in historical context and analyze. And it's my historical analysis-that an alternative in Ukraine was squandered primarily in Washington, not primarily in Moscow-that those who slur me don't like.

To which I reply, Let them study history, because few of them, if any, seem ever to have done so.

 [return to Contents] 

 #10
The Automatic Earth
www.theautomaticearth.com
April 22, 2015
When Did We All Become Murderers?
By Raúl Ilargi Meijer

Appalled doesn't cover it. Disgusted won't do either. Angry doesn't come close. Maybe I have yet to learn of a word that would express my feelings on the following topic. There's a disease, an epidemic, that spreads through out the western world. We are all turning into accomplices to murder. And I still believe we are better than that. Just perhaps not all of us.

The US, and the rest of the west, have made plenty enemies already without needing to create their own out of thin air - as if there were ever a need to create enemies. But that's still what we've been doing in many places in the world, including Ukraine. And there's an entire multi-billion machine working just to make us think what someone else wants us to think about these 'enemies'.

These days, when you call someone 'pro-Russian', that's about on on the same level as 'murderer', rapist, things like that. And that must be why the western press once again resorts to 'pro-Russian' as a swear word, or even curse, in reporting on the murders of at least 10 people in Ukraine over the past 3 months. As far as we can see, all were considered 'allies' of former President Yanukovych (whatever 'allies' may mean in this context) and 2 were journalists (of whom at least 1 was also a historian).

Yanukovych was (or is, actually) not a saint. He was the utterly corrupt president of a country that has been utterly corrupt for a very long time. It still is today, and it's getting worse, fast. Whereas Russia didn't feel it had the right or need to interfere in the country, the west did. Its interference culminated in the ouster of Yanukovych in late February 2014, and the introduction of a 'government' that is extremely pro-western and extremely anti-anything-'that has anything to do'-with Russia (including the language).

First, we saw the US install its puppet Yatsenyuk as PM (we know about this through leaked tapes of US Dep. Secretary Victoria Nuland). 'Yats' to this day has never been elected to office by 'his' people (or any other people, for that matter) . A few months later came oligarch Poroshenko as president, who was.

Both men have been instrumental in waging a very bloody and deadly war against a significant segment (a third) of their own population, in east Ukraine. This warfare has coincided with an ever more blatant propaganda war against anything-'that has anything to do'-with Russia, both in Ukraine and across the west. Need I repeat not one of the accusations against Russia has, still to date, ever been substantiated, despite the best spy satellites etc. equipment in human history?

Whereas someone who cannot be accused of anything worse than being pro-Russian is merely equal to a murderer or rapist, being - labeled as - pro-Putin is several levels worse than that. Meanwhile, Russian President Putin himself has been compared to the biggest mass-murderers in human history, amongst others by US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

And lest we forget, Yatsenyuk has labeled all east Ukrainians 'subhuman'. Let's see any other prime minster in any other country in the world do that and remain in office.

So far, nothing new. Why then get back to this? Because of all those people who are being killed. The Kiev regime for quite a while attempted to label them all 'suicides' (something that was eagerly quoted in western media), hindered in this 'policy' only by facts getting in the way.

And when these facts get in the way, they blame Russia for the murders. The 'rationale' being that Moscow sought to prevent all these now deceased Ukrainians from divulging details about 'anti-Maidan' protests they may have been involved in (can't have that in a democracy).

One western 'news source' even quoted an 'expert' just the other day as claiming Putin had ordered two of the murders to coincide with his latest yearly phone-in TV show last week: "political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said the fact that the killings coincided with Vladimir Putin's annual phone-in "aroused great suspicion".

What remains most galling - well, other than us supporting cold blooded murder - is the extent to which western media blindly keep reporting whatever Kiev says, despite the fact that it should be clear to every single reporter that neither Poroshenko nor Yatsenyuk has ever been caught saying anything of substance that proved to be true.

Putin did mention the murder of journalist and historian Oles Buzina last week briefly on that show, and added there has been a series of murders recently in Ukraine, which are not being (or don't seem to be) properly investigated by Kiev. ""This is not the first political assassination. Ukraine is dealing with a whole string of such murders.."

'The difference with Russia, Vladimir Putin said, was that killings such as that of opposition figure Boris Nemtsov got properly investigated, leading to arrests. "In Ukraine, which pretends to be a democratic state and wants to be part of a democratic Europe, nothing like that is happening. Where are the murderers of these people? They are simply not there, neither those who carried them out nor those who ordered them, But Europe and North America prefer not to notice."'

While the killing spree is ongoing, US troops arrived last week to 'train' the Ukraine government (and oligarchs) army. The British have had 'instructors' there for a long time. We know Blackwater aka XE aka Academi has boots on the ground. We also know that Right Sector leader Dmitro Yarosh (known for various photographs with his 'troops' which feature swastikas), was appointed to a high post in that same Ukraine army. Yarosh is also an MP. Nice assembly.

And 'we' support this? By we, I mean not only the US, Europe is just as hungry for a fight, and just as blind when it comes to facts vs fiction. But what on earth are we doing paying for all this? Have we all completely lost our heads, hearts and minds? We're supposed to support democracies, not death squads!

Here's a list of the victims, largely taken from a piece by Justin Raimondo last week, with a few additions on my part. As you can see, most of them would be considered intellectuals. The 'cream' of what was left in Ukraine and did not support Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk and their supporters abroad, in the west, is systemically being eradicated and may now be gone.

* January 26 - Nikolai Sergienko, former deputy chief of Ukrainian Railways and a supporter of Viktor Yanukoych's Party of Regions, reportedly shot himself with a hunting rifle. The windows were all locked from inside, and no note was found.

* January 29 - Aleksey Kolesnik, the former chairman of the Kharkov regional government and a prominent supporter of the now-banned Party of Regions, supposedly hung himself. There was no suicide note.

* February 24 - Stanislav Melnik, another former Party of Regions member of parliament, was found dead in his bathroom: he is said to have shot himself with a hunting rifle. We are told he left a suicide note of "apologies," but what he was apologizing for has never been revealed, since the note has not been released.

* February 25 - Sergey Valter, former Party of Regions activist and Mayor of Melitopol, was found hanged hours before his trial on charges of "abuse of office" was set to begin. Whoever was responsible neglected to leave a "suicide" note.

* February 26 - Aleksandr Bordyuga, Valter's lawyer and former deputy chief of Melitopol police, was found in his garage, dead, another "suicide."

* February 26 - Oleksandr Peklushenko, a former Party of Regions member of parliament and chairman of Zaporozhye Regional State Administration, was found dead in the street with a gun wound to his neck. Officially declared a "suicide."

* February 28 - Mikhail Chechetov, a professor of economics and engineering, former member of parliament from the Party of Regions, and former head of the privatization board, supposedly jumped from the seventeenth floor window of his Kiev apartment. Another "suicide"!

* March 14 - Sergey Melnichuk, a prosecutor and Party of Regions loyalist, "fell" from the ninth floor window of an apartment building in Odessa. Or was he pushed?

* April 15 - Oleg Kalashnikov, yet another prominent Party of Regions leader, died of a gunshot wound - the eighth since the beginning of the year.

* April 16 - Oles Buzina, historian and journalist, shot dead.

* April 16 - Serhiy Sukhobok, journalist, shot dead.

* April 17? - Olga Moroz, editor-in-chief of the Neteshinskiy Vestnik, found dead in her home. Her body showed 'signs of violent death'.

Moreover, in a perhaps separate incident, on March 22, Yanukovych's 33-year-old son Viktor Jr., a former Ukraine MP, died after his car 'apparently fell through ice on Russia's Lake Baikal'.

There are also an unknown number of people who simply disappeared. This happened for instance on April 15 with Dr. Skorokhodov Vitali and 'militiaman' Alexey Astanin. There may be many more. Which reminds me of an interview that Patrick Smith posted a few days ago in Salon, with Stephen F. Cohen, arguably America's top expert on Russia. One of the things Cohen said - more of him later - puts a major question mark behind official - UN - numbers of Ukraine civil war casualties:

The horror of this has been Kiev's use of its artillery, mortars and even its airplanes, until recently, to bombard large residential cities, not only Donetsk and Luhansk, but other cities. These are cities of 500,000, I imagine, or 2 million to 3 million. This is against the law. These are war crimes, unless we assume the rebels were bombing their mothers and grandmothers and fathers and sisters.

This was Kiev, backed by the United States. So the United States has been deeply complicit in the destruction of these eastern cities and peoples. When Nuland tells Congress there are 5,000 to 6,000 dead, that's the U.N. number. That's just a count of bodies they found in the morgues. Lots of bodies are never found. German intelligence says 50,000.

We haven't seen the German data Cohen cites, but we see no reason to doubt him either. It would place the entire matter in a whole different light, however.

There are some details behind the murder spree coming to the surface. There's a site called 'Peacemaker' (psb4ukr.org), supported by Ukraine MP and government advisor Anton Gerashchenko, who has said: "Information from the website of the "Peacemaker" center has long enjoyed the Ministry of Internal Affairs, security service, intelligence, border service to collect information to open criminal cases and obtaining a court decision on the detention and arrest of separatists and terrorists.". Gerashenko is also involved in financing the operation.

"Peacemaker"
RESEARCH CENTRE FEATURES OF CRIMES AGAINST UKRAINE'S NATIONAL SECURITY, PEACE, SECURITY AND HUMANITY international law
Information for law enforcement authorities and special services about pro-Russian terrorists, separatists, mercenaries, war criminals, and murderers.

The site apparently has a list to download with some 7,700 names of "saboteurs" and "terrorists". People are invited to post personal information, including addresses and phone numbers, of people deemed hostile to the Kiev regime. Such information for Buzina and Kalashnikov was posted on the site less than 48 hours before they were murdered.

A few people in the west have done some further digging into the site's origins (with 'traceroutes', 'nslookup', 'reverse nslookup' etc.), and they claim to have found links to Dallas, Texas and Calgary, Alberta, as well as one to a NATO server - located in Dallas. You can find further details at Moon of Alabama and Niqnaq.

Meanwhile, the murders were claimed by a group that calls itself Ukrainian Insurgent Army, quoted by the BBC as having written: "We are unleashing a ruthless insurgency against the anti-Ukrainian regime of traitors and Moscow's lackeys. From now on, we will only speak to them using the language of weapons, all the way to their elimination."

As far as I can tell, nobody has been arrested for any of the murders to date....

 [return to Contents] 

 #11
Kremlin.ru
April 27, 2015
Meeting with members of the Council of Legislators
St. Petersburg

Marking Day of Russian Parliamentarianism, Vladimir Putin met with members of the Federal Assembly's Council of Legislators.

Particular focus at the meeting was on issues concerning the state authorities' efforts to overcome the economic crisis, drafting of a report on the state of Russia's legislation in 2015, and the draft law On the Regional Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation.

Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko, State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin, heads of regional legislative assemblies and representatives of the executive authorities and public organisations also took part at the meeting

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Colleagues, good afternoon.

It gives me great pleasure to greet the Speakers of the Federal Assembly and the members of the Council of Legislators here in St Petersburg and congratulate you all on this occasion - the Day of Russian Parliamentarianism.

We all understand this commemorative date's historical dimension and know that it embodies the road that our country's parliamentary development followed, the road of people's representation and its evolution over time from the people's veche to today's legislative branch of government.

It is symbolic that today's meeting is taking place at the Tauride Palace. It was here within these walls, on April 27, 1906, that the Russian Empire's first legislative body began work. All of Russian society had been eagerly awaiting this event and saw it as a national achievement and a very important step in developing Russia's statehood.

I am sure that like your predecessors, you will use your powers entirely for our country's benefit. I believe that continuing these historical and state traditions are the guarantee of our country's stable and democratic development. I want to wish you success in your important work.

Colleagues, you represent the legislative branch of power and our country's leading public and political forces. Your work reflects the people's will and interests and gives them form in law. The effectiveness of your work is crucial for strengthening our country, achieving rising prosperity and resolving acute social problems.

The regional legislative assemblies have seen their political influence increase considerably over recent years. Today, you are responsible not only for regional laws, but also play a big part in forming the executive branch's bodies in the regions, play an active role in appointing representatives to supervisory bodies and regional human rights commissioners, and forming other state and public institutions. Finally, your decisions determined the local government model and procedures for electing the region's head. This large-scale and comprehensive work reflects the development of federalism in Russia.

The Council of Legislators receives a constant stream of the latest information on life in the regions and people's concerns, including information on how laws are being implemented in practice. You see the country's entire legislative landscape. This should certainly help you to respond to the needs of people in general and members of various professional and social groups and the business community. The Council of Legislators is a unique body. I do not think there is an exact equivalent anywhere else in the world, including in the 'old democracies'.

As we continue developing our parliamentary system, we should draw more on our own experience and be more active in spreading the best practice from our colleagues in the country's regions, all the more so as facilitating this kind of exchange of parliamentary experience is one of the Council of Legislators' direct responsibilities.

Representatives of the legislative assemblies of Crimea and Sevastopol, who were elected just over six months ago, are taking part in the Council's meeting for the first time. Colleagues, you have a unique opportunity to make use of the very latest legislative solutions and I am sure that the Federal Assembly and the regions will give you all possible help.

Just over a year has passed since Crimea and Sevastopol were reunified with Russia. Thanks to the legislators' efforts, many much-needed laws have been passed over this brief time. The residents of these two new regions have received Russian social guarantees and regional and local government bodies were established rapidly. I want to thank once again the members of the Federal Assembly for acting quickly to resolve these large-scale and complex tasks, and I want to thank our colleagues from Crimea and Sevastopol too.

Now, we need to ensure the full integration of Crimea and Sevastopol into Russia's legal space. This includes continued work to create the legislative base for a good business environment, creating new opportunities for attracting investment and ensuring its protection, modernising transport infrastructure, and developing tourism, agriculture and the resort sector. In general, we must establish the conditions for Crimea's sustainable socioeconomic growth and for raising people's living standards.

Colleagues, we will soon celebrate the Victory Day anniversary. This is truly a holiday that our entire country holds sacred. It unites and brings together our whole society and reminds us of the role our country played in the 20th century's pivotal events and in saving the world from Nazism.

Sadly, even the most sacred things have become the focus of speculation today. This is not something new of course, and it is not the first time that we see and hear such things. This is not the first time that we have encountered a selective approach to history for the sake of political opportunism. But today, these processes have become a genuinely aggressive campaign. It is particularly worrying to see the attempts to distort the meaning of the victory in this war, turn black into white, liberators into occupiers, and Nazi collaborators into freedom fighters.

It is our task to resist actively any falsification of history. We have a common responsibility for ensuring that people know the truth about the war, honour the real heroes, and never forget what catastrophes result from ideas of national exclusivity and aspirations for world domination. Resolving this task depends in large part on politicians, parliamentarians, public figures, and on you, colleagues. We must always remember and be guided by this.

In conclusion, let me congratulate you and your colleagues once more on this day - the Day of Russian Parliamentarianism.

Thank you for your attention.
<...>
Vladimir Putin: Colleagues,

The theme you have chosen for today's meeting is highly relevant: overcoming the crisis. The second theme, which our colleagues spoke about just now, is the upcoming anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War.

Both of these subjects are exceptionally important for us. I will not speak about the historic event that is the 70th anniversary of victory. We all know how important it is and I spoke about this in my opening remarks.

As for overcoming the crisis in our economy, in order to decide what we need to do, we must first understand the causes, as the specialists say, understand the origins of the developments taking place. So, what are the causes? There are external causes of course, but the causes are above all internal in origin.

As I said during Direct Line, what was the situation we had ended up in of late? We were right from a social point of view to press ahead rapidly with raising wages and giving people higher incomes, in part because wages had for many years been quite low.

But ultimately, this led to some economic imbalances because labour productivity lagged behind wage growth, and this always creates distortions in the end.

What does this mean in practice? This is not the Direct Line now, thank goodness, but a professional meeting. What this means is that if our total GDP comes to such and such an amount and wages grow, consumption grows too, and to cover this increasing demand, we turn to imports.

 Imports increase and to cover the cost we draw on the reserves that we built up from revenues earned from sales of hydrocarbons and other raw materials. This is one cause of our problems. Now I will say a few words about the others too.

As soon as prices for hydrocarbons, oil prices, halved in value, this created problems. These problems came through above all in budget spending. With lower revenue, we have no choice but to cut budget spending. This is the crux of the matter.

Is this an inextricable situation? No, this is not the case of course, but recovery can be painful. This is the only problem. This crisis has not destroyed anything; on the contrary, it is getting us into better shape in a sense because we all need to understand that the oil and gas deficit, which over these last years reached slightly more than 10 percent, was not a good thing for our economy and we were always pumping money from that sector. This was the most serious, systemic cause.

What do we need to do to resolve this problem? We need to do what we have been talking about all this time, but which is not easy when prices for our traditional export goods are high. It is very difficult to encourage economic actors to move into a business that is less profitable than oil and gas and their derivatives, things like mineral fertilisers, which are produced using gas. It is as simple as that.

This is something we need to do on an ongoing basis, with the help of various budget allocations or through tax policy. The Government has been doing this, but it is not an easy task because if we go too far in subsidising one sector we think important, we can end up harming other sectors.

As I said, we are already pursuing such policies, but all of this takes time. The changing circumstances now force all economic actors in general to start investing in other sectors too. Ultimately, this will make our economy healthier. This is the first component of the crisis situation we are looking at.

The second component is linked to the first. When prices for our traditional exports such as oil and gas fall, this has an impact in one way or another on our currency. In this situation, the Central Bank either has to dip into our reserves to maintain the exchange rate, and play into profiteers' hands, or it is forced to do what it did and go over to a floating exchange rate.

Yes, this weakened our national currency. But let me stress that this was the only economically justified way of balancing the situation in our economy in general. Of course, this did lead to a number of unwelcome consequences.

Above all, it made all imports more expensive, across all sectors. This inevitably has an impact on companies' activities and ability to survive. Perhaps it does not affect their actual ability to survive, but it certainly does have an impact on their activities.

We just need to get through this period. The economy and the manufacturing sectors need to adapt to this situation, understand their possibilities, and assess their investment prospects. This takes time.

Overall, we are getting through this period and our economy is adapting to the new conditions. We see this reflected in the ruble's exchange rate and this is not just the result of a slight rise in oil prices.

The next component is man-made, as we created it ourselves. In response to the sanctions imposed on the Russian economy, we imposed certain limitations on access for agricultural products to our markets.

It was clear from the start that this was bound to lead to a certain price rise. However, this was also a chance to clear our domestic market for national producers as we retain our membership in the WTO.

Here we need to keep a close watch over violations on the market. I urge you and your colleagues from the administrations to monitor this very closely. Unfortunately, I must state that many participants in economic activities in this area are taking advantage of the situation and inflating prices without reason.

However, this will also pass as our own production grows. We should not forget that 40 million people live in rural areas or are involved in agricultural production in one way or another - this is a third of the entire population of the Russian Federation. Therefore, in any case we are moving in the right direction.

Finally, regarding the notorious sanctions and limitations. Let's consider what happened and what those who imposed the sanctions were counting on, deliberately or not. Look at it this way: the overall volume of foreign currency coming into our economy used to be $500 billion - actually 497, but let's say 500. After the drop in oil prices from $100 a barrel to $50 we failed to receive $160 billion of the 500 - this is a lot.

Meanwhile, our quasi-partners limited access to refinancing on the European market for our banks. We failed to receive $160 billion and last year our companies and banks had to service their loans to their foreign partners by paying a total $130 billion, with another $60 billion due this year. Some were probably expecting to see some sort of collapse: we were $160 billion short and needed to pay up $130 billion plus $60 billion.

However, there was no collapse. The Russian economy managed to overcome these artificial berries with relative ease. True, we were $160 billion short, however our companies rather easily paid all their debts, which came to $130 billion last year, and they have already paid a significant part of the $60 billion due this year.

We have passed the payment peak. If anyone intended to orchestrate some sort of collapse, it did not work. True, such artificial limitations deal a sensitive blow both to those who did it, our partners, and have a negative impact on us, and generally there is nothing good about this - these are illegal limitations in terms of international law and from the viewpoint of the WTO.

This, naturally, limits our opportunities for active development; however, it will clearly not lead to any sort of collapse. It cannot because it is already a thing of the past. Actually what they are trying to preserve is now counterproductive for them, not for us. It does still have a negative impact on us, as I have said. However, overall we have passed the peak.

What is our task? It has not changed from what we stated in the 2020 Programme - diversifying the economy and putting an end to its unbalanced development. Once oil prices are in the $60-70 range, this will create conditions for those involved in economic activity to see profit in investing not only in oil, gas or mineral fertiliser made with the use of natural gas, but also in other branches of the economy, including the high technology sector. At the same time, there will be state support in the form of tax incentives, among other things - so we can make a new major stride in the development of our agriculture while liberating our market of the preponderance of imported produce that is often of low quality.

If we actively move in this direction, we are certain to make significant progress in enhancing our economic sovereignty and this would be a true, visible step towards the diversification of our economy and ensuring its innovative development.

The same is true of finance. It is ridiculous and mind-boggling: we do not have our own national payment system. Visa and MasterCard occupy the entire market. This does not make sense. We always proceeded from the notion that the economy is separated from politics and our partners always told us that we should not link economic and political matters.

However, whenever anything happens they try to use economic levers. In this case too. It is of course convenient for those who travel abroad to use Visa and MasterCard payment systems. But should they take up more than 90 percent of the home market? It is regrettable that we did not envisage this earlier.

There are quite a few examples of such foolish and pointless dependence. However, the problem is not that we are dependent - mutual dependence is appropriate and right in the modern world. However, it is in those sectors of the economy where we can actively develop that we need to restore our own competency. We should not and will not go for overall replacement of imports. That is not our goal.

I have said this on numerous occasions: can we grow, say, bananas? Yes, we can. However, these bananas will be worth their weight in gold. Why do it? We can buy them in Africa. However, there are things we should definitely do ourselves. Moreover, we can do it. Civil aircraft construction and shipbuilding, for example. We must continue our work in microelectronics, which is the basis of the nation's current defence capability. And so on and so forth.

There is a very large number of areas in which we have always been highly competent. Unfortunately, we lost this competence for economic and other reasons. We can and should restore it. This is the chance we have now. If it used to be easier even for large production facilities, even in the defence industry, to buy some microchips or electronics abroad and install them even on their systems, now it is not. However, it has now become clear that we can do it ourselves.

Therefore, in all areas that have to do with national defence, we will strive to replace imported goods. We can and should restore our competence in high technology industries wherever we need to. This spells the development of the country, the development of our economy.

I would like all of us, as we understand these things, to work actively and efficiently and to make responsible decisions without fear. Leadership means not simply taking care of the day-to-day matters - which is also very important, of course, but mainly it is about setting goals and working your way towards them.

Thank you very much. I wish you success.

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 #12
Open economy should be created in Russia - Putin

ST. PETERSBURG. April 28 (Interfax) - Raising private investment for different economic sectors, including the defense industry, is one of the key paths for the development of the Russian economy in general, President Vladimir Putin has said.

"Raising private investment is one of the general paths of economic development as a whole. It is one of the main points that should be included in the agenda of Russian economic development. I am speaking about the need to secure private investment - both domestic and foreign," Putin told the Russian Popular Front's 2nd forum of independent regional and local media companies on Tuesday.

"We ought to create an open economy," the president said.

"Unlike our partners, we invite all possible investors - both domestic and foreign - to participate in investment in the Russian economy," Putin said.

Private investment should also be secured for defense industry enterprises, the president said.

"Defense industry enterprises depend on the state defense order. They are filled with work and create state-funded jobs. Today our state defense order is large and stands at 20 trillion rubles plus a refurbishment program for these enterprises costing approximately three trillion rubles. But this state defense order will be fulfilled, and the army and the fleet will be reequipped using a 70%/30% formula [70% of new military hardware, and 30% of hardware delivered to the Armed Forces earlier]. This task will be accomplished. And what next?" Putin said.

The government's stance concerning the defense industry, which is quite sensitive for the state, is that even today such enterprises should think about manufacturing certain civilian products, he said.

"In this sense, we see nothing wrong about raising private investment for this industry," Putin said.

When asked by one of the participants in the forum about the possibility of privatizing a state-run butter factory in the Vologda region, the president said: "There should be no ban on privatization in our country. Rather, what we should not have is misappropriation of state owned assets or situations where they are given away for next to nothing."

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 #13
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
April 28, 2015
Fifteen Years of Putin
As the Russian President looks forward to the fifteenth anniversary of his first election to office, we consider some of the factors that explain his extraordinary political success.
By Alexander Mercouris
Alexander is a writer on international affairs with a special interest in Russia and law.  He has written extensively on the legal aspects of NSA spying and events in Ukraine in terms of human rights, constitutionality and international law.  He worked for 12 years in the Royal Courts of Justice in London as a lawyer, specializing in human rights and constitutional law. His family has been prominent in Greek politics for several generations.  He is a frequent commentator on television and speaker at conferences.  He resides in London.

The latest documentary on Putin shown by Russian television appears to be timed to coincide with Putin's 15 years in office.

I should say that I do not entirely understand the timing. Putin became acting Prime Minister on 9th August 1999. He became formally Prime Minister on 16th August 1999. It was fairly obvious (at least to me) that he was running things and that Yeltsin had been pushed aside thereafter.

Putin then became Acting President on 31st December 1999. He was elected President (with 53% of the vote) on 26th March 2000. He was formerly sworn in as President on 7th May 2000.

None of these dates seem to me to correspond with any anniversary over the last few days and as I have said Putin was actually exercising effective power for some months before he formally became President.

Putting that aside, I don't think anyone would seriously disagree that he has been far and away the dominant figure in international politics over the last 15 years. Even his many detractors have to agree. The vast literature they produce abusing him shows what an extraordinary hold over the world's imagination he has.

So what qualities does Putin have that have made him so politically dominant?

The first point to make is that Putin is powerful because he is a Russian who is the leader of Russia, which is one of the world's most powerful countries.

This banal point is rarely made but the fact is that if Putin had been born in Guatemala or Katmandu or indeed in Britain or France or Japan he would not have made anything like the impact that he has. Much of what people attribute to "Putin" (whether for good or ill) they should correctly attribute to Russia.

I have previously spoken of the danger of the unhealthy conflation of Putin with Russia that is so common in the West. Russia is more than Putin and Russia matters. Indeed it is one of the great powers of this world and the last 15 years have been a lesson proving that. Westerners who treated Russia as down and out and who now rage against Putin are basically angry because he and Russia have proved them wrong.

Putin does nonetheless possess certain essential qualities that explain his success. I would emphasise three:

1. Putin is an exceptional politician who understands the Russian mind. It is no exaggeration to say that his heart beats with Russia's. That does not mean that all Russians always agree with him or that everything he does is popular. Nonetheless he has an extraordinary instinct (which no amount of opinion polling can ever replicate) for what most Russians want or think.

2. He listens to advice and takes it from the right people. I have never felt with Putin that he makes his decisions on the hoof or on whim.

He has put together a very capable and professional team to which he is intensely loyal and which in turn is loyal to him.

He is careful to take his advice from those who have genuine knowledge of a subject. Thus he takes advice on financial or economic policy issues from people like Ulyukaev and Siluanov (and formerly from Kudrin and Gref) and on security issues from people like Patrushev and Shoigu and not from the enthusiastic amateurs that most other leaders (including previously Gorbachev) like to take advice from. The result is that his decisions are invariably well-informed even if they are not always right.

3. He has the power of decision. We saw this in action last year when he acted decisively over the Crimea. We have seen it again over the last few days when he went to Yerevan to commemorate the Armenian genocide. Contrast this with the contorted obfuscations and over-complicated and pusillanimous evasions of western leaders who have arguably less to lose where relations with Turkey are concerned.

Needless to say, precisely because he makes decisions, leaders of countries like those of Saudi Arabia, Israel or Turkey, respect him even when they oppose him. By contrast Western leaders, who appear to have all lost the power of decision, respond with bafflement and jealousy.

I don't pick out these three factors as the only ones that explain Putin's success. Others will point to his high intelligence and his capacity for hard work.

Some of his strengths also reflect weaknesses. His grasp of the hearts and minds of Russians does not extend to the intelligentsia to the same degree, which is why he has been less successful with them (though that is probably to underestimate what difficult people some of them are). This is a pity because his public comments show that he is actually a well read and even erudite man. I suspect that a lot of the trouble is that deep down they feel that he doesn't pay them enough attention, which given the extraordinary demands on his time must be difficult to do.

Regardless, those are my views about some of the reasons why Putin dominates both Russian and international politics to such an amazing degree with no challenge in sight.

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 #14
Euromaidan Press
http://euromaidanpress.com
April 28, 2015
Putin gives the world his geography lesson: 'All the former USSR is Russia'
By Paul Goble

The 150-minute film "The President" about Vladimir Putin is mostly boring and predictable in that it insists that "without Vladimir Vladimirovich nothing in the country will work," Kseniya Kirillova notes. But she points out that there are three "lessons" contained in the film that must not be ignored.

First, she argues, despite all the anti-Americanism he has promoted, Putin clearly indicates in the film that the model of the world order he would like to see is one in which Russia and the US would jointly decide all of the world's "most important" geopolitical issues and divide up the world into "spheres of influence."

While the Kremlin leader does not say so, this would be a return to what he now sees as the way the world worked between the Yalta and Potsdam conferences at the end of World War II and the time of Mikhail Gorbachev's Perestroika and one in which other countries, especially small ones, would have little or no voice about their fates.

Second, in the film, Putin offered the clearest indication yet that not only does he consider the disintegration of the USSR the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the last century but views it in a way that is absolutely at variance with the facts, one that points to more trouble ahead for all of the former Soviet republics and occupied Baltic states.

According to Putin, "all of us had illusions: it seemed then that after the destruction of the Soviet Union and after Russia voluntarily - I stress this - voluntarily and consciously" gave up its "own territory, productive capacity and so on, with the departure of the ideological component which separated the former Soviet Union and the entire rest of the civilized world, than now the fetters would fall and 'freedom would great us joyously at the entrance."

Such ideas have been circulating in the Moscow elite for some time, Kirillova says, pointing to a recent essay by Pavel Kazarin who noted that "in the consciousness of many representatives of the Russia elite, Moscow did not lose 'the cold war.' More than that, in their opinion, the division of the Union took place not so much as a result of the collapse of the Soviet model... but rather as a result of the Kremlin voluntarily agreeing to join the club of western players."

As a result, Kazarin says, "Moscow conducts itself as if the Soviet Union had not fallen apart, as if it had only been reformatted but with relations between the vassals and sovereign retained in their former state." (For a discussion of Kazarin's argument and its implications, see this.)

In "The President," Putin goes even further and declares that "Russia voluntarily gave up its own territories," Kirillova says, an assertion so sweepingly at odds with reality that it is important to remember what actually happened 25 years ago.

"When Putin speaks about the territorial losses of Russia, he is directly declaring that all the former union republics are Russian territories! Note bene: he designates them already not as 'zone of influence' ... but as [his country's] 'own territory,' from which Russia 'voluntarily withdrew."

"In fact," Kirillova observes, "the present-day Russian Federation exists in the very same border that the RSFSR had; that is there were no territorial changes in Russia itself in connection with the collapse of the USSR. The republics which acquired independence after 1991 were never part of the RSFSR."

From this it follows, she continues, "when Putin speaks about the territorial losses of Russia, he is directly declaring that all the former union republics are Russian territories! Note bene: he designates them already not as 'zone of influence' ... but as [his country's] 'own territory,' from which Russia 'voluntarily withdrew."

That is simply an Orwellian retelling of what happened: In reality, "all the union republics, including even Ukraine and Belarus the closest to Russia, proclaimed their sovereignty in 1989-1990, that is, before 1991, and this phenomenon even received a name, 'the parade of sovereignties.'"

There was nothing voluntary in Moscow's response: It tried to crush Lithuania first by an economic blockade and then by the direct application of military force. But it failed to stop "the movement for exit from the USSR" that was "born in all the union republics." As a result, after the failure of the August 1991 putsch, "the disintegration of the Union was inevitable."

The Belavezha Accords of December 8, 1991, usually seen as the death certificate of the USSR simply put on paper what had already taken place, a reminder that "even when these republics were in the USSR, none of them called themselves 'Russia's own territory.'" That is a Putinism that goes back to tsarist times.

And finally third, Putin's film underscored how isolated Russia is in the former Soviet space, not how much the peoples and countries of that territory continue to look to Moscow as Vladimir Putin suggests they should. The only foreign leader who gets a positive reference in the film is Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev.

One might have expected there to be some reference to Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the leader of a country that is part of Putin's union state of Russia and Belarus. But "obviously, the prospects of considering his country Russia's territory do not generate any pleasure" with the Belarusian leader who has been distancing himself from Moscow over and as a result of Ukraine.

Putin's "myth about the voluntary, carried out 'from above' demise of the USSR, which completely ignores the will of the peoples populating it, shows," Kirillova concludes, "that the Kremlin has not drawn any conclusions from its collapse, and lessons which are not learned as is well known, have a tendency to be repeated."

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 #15
Moscow Times
April 28, 2015
U.S. Adviser Warns That Russia Is Sapping World Order
By Maria Snegovaya

U.S. diplomat Charles Hill was a senior adviser to former U.S. secretaries of state George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, and to Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations. He has also penned two books: "Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft and World Order" and "Trial of a Thousand Years: World Order and Islamism."

The Moscow Times talked to Hill about the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis on today's world system and the role other global and regional powers play in preserving - or undermining - the global order.

Q: What is your understanding of the origins of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the West in general?

A: You have to see this in a global context. I don't think it's really beneficial to analyze each local conflict around the world separately. This is something that has to be considered in terms of the international state system. That is the system by which the world's countries, the major powers, agreed - and generally obeyed - to work with each other over several hundred years.

What Russia has done in taking Crimea and destabilizing the eastern part of Ukraine - whoever can be blamed for the origin of it - is detrimental, and damaging to the international order.

What China is doing in the contested waters of Asia, the Middle Eastern turmoil and the actions of the Islamic State are also damaging to that international order.

So each individual local regional crisis is different, but at the same time they all have some interlocked connection, and are harming world stability and the possibility of world cooperation.

Q: A typical Russian response might be: We didn't start this. Look at Kosovo, look at Iraq. It was the Americans who started this destructive process. Why blame us?

A: The U.S., NATO and Europe damaged the world order when they made the decision to attack Serbia over Kosovo. And then Russia damaged the world order when it made the decision to intervene in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

So we are talking here about the countries and leaders who should be responsible for doing the right thing to maintain stability, but they are all behaving badly, and Russia is one of them. The Crimean seizure is illegitimate. It cannot be accepted in terms of the international order. And it can only be handled responsibly if the U.S., Europe and Russia begin to work cooperatively, as mature leaders. I am sure that part of it certainly would be to lift sanctions on Russia, albeit not right now.

Q: So you support softening the current stance on Russia?

A: I see sanctions as not constructive; I don't see them as being effective. It's not a matter of leverage. It is not about threatening Russia, it's about whether the countries can understand that they have something in common here. And this commonality is to return to the international order that is in the interest of all of the parties.

Q: What makes you think that Russia is interested in preserving the previous world order?

A: I don't think Russia is interested in it. That's the problem.

When you cross a line that you shouldn't cross without at least exhausting all other remedies, and roll tanks over the border, then you are damaging the international security system. And what is really troubling is that Russian regular troops were involved in these matters with no insignia.

It may seem trivial, but it's a fundamental point in the international system going back to [central Europe's] Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), and [jurist Hugo] Grotius, the father of the international order: that you have to agree [to use] a professional military that is identifiable as legitimately sent by a legitimate government.

When you have troops with no insignia, you have deliberately violated a principle that is at the heart of the whole order, of the way nations have agreed to work with each other. So that's symbolically a very bad sign.

I don't think Russia understands this. I think that it is either deliberately deciding that this established current order is collapsing and they are going to just go ahead and grab what they need in their own interest, or they are ignorant of it.

And I can say this of the United States as well, and about China too. I also think that the Europeans have done things that indicate that they are ignorant or oblivious of their own history: They have taken their own European structure and dismantled it, and now they don't know what to do with what is left.

You can make a long list of these transgressions, but there is no point in saying that my violation is less significant than your violation, and my violation is justified because you violated first.

Q: In your opinion, is there an understanding in Washington of the threat that this conflict poses to world order?

A: No, and it comes down to education.

In earlier decades, American students learned about how the modern world order came about, how it arose primarily through the Westphalia treaty that followed the Thirty Years' War. People learned that, they knew what it was, and then 30 years or so ago that was taken out of the educational system.

And it was certainly not part of education in Communist China and under the Soviet Union, because both regimes were knowingly dedicated ideologically to oppose, bring down and replace the international state system.

So now we've come out of that period of time, and there is a search for order, but that search does not involve knowing the structure of the global house. And this is accompanied by a global crisis of national identity.

I think that the Russians are searching around for who they are in the post-Communist, post-Cold war, in the new 21st-century era. And what I see in the massive media blitz being put out from Moscow is an attempt by the Russian government to try to tell the Russian people who they are.

You can see the Chinese trying to do something similar with one major media domestic propaganda campaign after another.

And in the United States, President Barack Obama is trying to convince the American people that they really have an identity that is starkly different from what the Americans thought their identity was for the last 75 years or more.

Europe is probably the worst of all. It's like an adolescent phase when you are trying to find out who you are when you are 15 years old, and we are seeing this play out all around the world.

Q: So does this mean the Westphalian order will evolve into something else? Or is it just a challenge that has to be overcome?

A: Right now it is a challenge to be overcome, but the challenge is getting greater.

What is worrying is seeing what Russia is doing toward Ukraine and seeing what China is doing in the international waters of Asia: It indicates that their leaders think that this order is finished. And therefore what they need to do is begin to move rapidly, but carefully, to begin to create spheres of influence.

They will essentially be in charge of an entire region of the world, so a big part of the world would be under the hegemony of Beijing, and a big part of the world would be under the hegemony of Moscow. And the other parts of the world would each become someone's sphere of influence.

This will be a dramatic and a very damaging step backward from the universality, the globalization and the general commonality of understanding of the world that has been the goal of the world's great nations for a couple of hundred years.

This is a situation where we will go backwards to something like the 19th or 18th century and that would be a time much more likely to produce big conventional wars. And if that begins to happen, we are going to see rapid nuclear proliferation.

We are already seeing that in the Middle East. From Pakistan to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Iran, the region is moving toward nuclear weapons. If that takes place in a world of spheres of influence rather than internationalism, then we would be headed toward real worldwide disaster.

Q: But from the Russian perspective, isn't that exactly what the U.S.S.R. tried to do throughout most of the 20th century? To extend its sphere of influence, challenge the world order, get the nukes and use them as leverage?

I think it's pretty close to that, yes, although I'd say that the Soviets' aim was to challenge, undermine, eventually bring down and replace the international state system with a Soviet Marxism-based would-be international system. And what I am talking about now is not that.

I don't see Russia as trying to eventually create a system that would be dominated by Russia worldwide. I am talking about regional spheres of influence, which is different from both the Westphalia idea of the international system and Communist ideology.

Q: Earlier this month, Russia announced it is lifting its ban on supplying S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran now that the sanctions against Tehran are to be lifted. What does this mean for the world?

A: Israel will now be planning to attack the air defense system as it arrives in Iran, to destroy the core elements of the system or render them unworkable before the Iranians can deploy them.

I'm only speculating, but I imagine that this decision by Russia to supply the system to Iran was made by President Vladimir Putin when he saw that there was an opening made possible by President Obama's rhetoric about the American approach to Iran, which essentially made it clear that the U.S. would not itself act militarily against Iran under any circumstances and would strongly oppose any attempt by Israel to act militarily.

So such a Russian system sent to Iran would put President Obama in a very difficult position: He would not be able to oppose it clearly without seeming to reverse his own position on the U.S. - not attacking, and not wanting Israel to attack Iran.

So this was a very clever move by President Putin in what is a kind of a chess game. It scored points for President Putin against President Obama.

Q: In terms of the world order, will this move by Putin change the balance of power?

Between what Russia is doing in supporting Iran and what the U.S. is doing in supporting Iran by agreeing to a nuclear arrangement that will guarantee Iran's ability to become a nuclear weapons power, Israel is being forced into a position where it will almost certainly have to act militarily. And then there will be the usual international outcry against Israel at the UN Security Council.

It may be that the Obama administration would welcome this as an opportunity to further distance America from Israel, which seems to be President Obama's objective.

I think what the U.S. is doing - albeit unintentionally - is destabilizing the Middle East. What Russia is doing is destabilizing the Middle East too. And in each case the U.S. and Russia are doing it separately for reasons of their own perceived interests. I don't think that either one of them is aware that this is playing with fire. It's moving toward something that could erupt into a general war in the Middle East.

And the important thing here for the outside powers is not to get fully involved, but to the extent that they have to get involved - that would be on the side of world order. That is, to do what is not being done right now. Today what the big powers - the U.S., Russians, Chinese - are doing is to help local groups here and there in a way that would serve some of their own particular international interests. And that is what could increase the danger.

Instead, the major outside powers should be looking at the Middle East with the intent to help those factions, regimes and parties who are in the established international world order system, and to oppose those that want to bring that international system down.

So it's clear, for example, that Saudi Arabia is within the international system, and wants to be inside of that system, and wants to be a good citizen within that system.

It's clear that the Islamic State organization is not - it's an enemy of the system.

Such a distinguishable principle makes it much clearer who are the good factions and who are the bad factions.

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 #16
Russia will never stop supporting its compatriots in Ukraine - Russian FM

MOSCOW, April 27. /TASS/. Russia will never stop supporting its compatriots in Ukraine and will spare no effort to keep Ukraine a united state, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel.

"I don't have a feeling that after this Ukrainian drama we will give up our positions and stop supporting our compatriots," he said. "Everything we are doing now, everything our president is doing (and it was him to initiate the Minsk agreements - first in September that later grew into a comprehensive plan of February 12), everything we are doing is geared towards preserving Ukraine as a united state, given the Ukrainians themselves reach an agreement on how this country's parts, so different in terms of culture, civilization and language, can co-exist peacefully and in security."

"Donbas will never celebrate the new holidays established by the Ukrainian authorities that glority Shukhevich, Bandera, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), and as far as I understand, Lviv will never wear St. George ribbons. So, these two different cultures, systems of values, styles of life can be reconciled only through dialogue," Lavrov underscored.

"And this is the core point in our position - to have Kiev, Luhansk and Donetsk establish dialogue," he noted. "This is what our president has been repeatedly saying, including during his contacts with President[of Ukraine Petro] Poroshenko. We hope the Ukrainians will finally see the fatality of a different approach."

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 #17
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
April 28, 2015
After Ukraine, the West should open its doors to Russia
With last month marking the first anniversary of the Russian annexation of Crimea, it seems a fitting time to assess the situation, says former UK ambassador to Russia Sir Tony Brenton
Sir Tony Brenton is a writer and former diplomat. He was UK ambassador to Russia 2004-08

Despite odd renewed outbursts of fighting, the acute phase of the Ukraine crisis may be ending. Violence is significantly down and there have been prisoner exchanges and some withdrawal of heavy weapons. On two of the major points of contention, Ukraine will clearly not be admitted to NATO for the foreseeable future, and Kiev has begun working on autonomy arrangements for the rebel regions. Moscow and Kiev, knowing their economic fragility, also know the costs of resumed hostilities could far exceed any likely benefits.

We are not out of the woods yet. Neither side has its zealots completely under control. Each regularly accuses the other of infractions. There are outside forces, notably in Washington, who are looking for a pretext to "put the Russians in their place" (Berlin and Paris have questioned U.S. estimates of the "threatening" build-up of Russian forces in Ukraine). And the Minsk agreement is unlikely to be implemented in full. It stipulates that the Russian border, through which support to the rebels flows, will be closed only when the rebels reach agreement with Kiev on autonomy. This will not happen quickly. The rebels are not part of the autonomy discussions. So for the immediate future, the Donbass is likely to remain an unresolved conflict, like those in Georgia, with every possibility (as in Georgia) of a renewed explosion later.

But with peace perhaps in prospect, what do we do about Russia? The first action point is western sanctions. These were always a misbegotten policy, pursued more in the absence of a feasible alternative than to achieve results. Their central effect has been to unite Russian behind their president and his policies - the reverse of what was intended. President Obama still argues that they will "change Putin's calculus". But no Russian I know (including leading members of the opposition) believes this will happen. For Putin the crisis is about national security, not money. Nor does any Russian believe there is the slightest prospect of bringing Putin down.

Recent hints of squabbles within the Russian ruling apparatus have been a sharp reminder of how irreplaceable Putin is as the equilibrator of the system. Unless hostilities resume, sanctions are not sustainable. The European consensus on which they depend is visibly eroding. The West needs to find an elegant way to back out of the sanctions cul-de-sac, in parallel with Russian delivery on the peace process.

Second, while the much-touted narrative of a "revanchist Russia" with designs on Ukraine, Estonia, Poland, etc, has virtually no evidence to support it, the Ukraine crisis does raise serious questions about European security. The annexation of Crimea was exceptional and is plainly irreversible; the vast majority of Crimeans now see Crimea as an inalienable part of Russia. But Crimea is also a sharp reminder that the world is still ultimately governed by power, not law. Nato needs to arm itself for such a world. The decisions of last summer to create a "Spearhead Force" for Nato's most exposed members was right, but was undermined by the unwillingness of NATO's major European members to spend more on defence.

Finally there is the question of how we relate to Russia. The predominant western view is that we are now in a "new Cold War" requiring an extended period of isolation and containment. This would be a blunder, for three reasons. First, pragmatism. Trust between Russia and the West is at an absolute low. Meanwhile, the Russians are engaged in demonstrative military activity to discourage what they see as a western threat. It is extraordinarily dangerous that at this tense time we have fewer military and other links with the Russians than we had at the height of the Cold War. There is every possibility of chance confrontation or catastrophic accident. Links need urgently to be rebuilt to diminish that possibility.

Second, there is the geopolitics. China has managed its relationship with Russia much better than the West. Xi Jinping is a regular visitor to Moscow and, unlike western leaders, will be in Moscow for this year's anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe. Despite long-standing historical tensions between them, China and Russia both now have strong reasons to strengthen their links, and are doing so. Last summer's $400bn gas contract and the forthcoming joint military exercise in the Mediterranean are the most eye-catching examples. Meanwhile, U.S.-China geopolitical competition intensifies - as underlined by the recent argument over the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank. Russia is by culture and inclination a European country. Does it really make sense for the West to push it into China's arms?

And third, there is the trajectory of Russia. Until a year ago the Russian middle class was the fastest growing in Europe. That class is hungry for European standards of prosperity, governance and rights - as became clear in the demonstrations of 2011/12. The regime is determined to maintain political control but has been keen to foster the economic openness on which Russian development depends. In a wide range of other countries, from South Korea to Indonesia, the same politico/economic confrontation has produced the triumph of democracy and open markets. Russia was on the same route. The Ukraine crisis stopped that. We need to get back to the business of helping Russia become a normal European state. The way to reform Russia is to open doors, not close them.

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 #18
Moscow Times
April 28, 2015
Why Foreign Investment in Russia's Regions is Falling
By Anastasia Bazenkova

Ninety-five percent of Russian regions are unattractive to foreign investors, a study released last week in Moscow found, in a sign that investment is likely to remain sluggish after Russia emerges from a deep recession.

Only a few regions are managing to create favorable investment conditions for foreigners, according to an investment attractiveness index presented by Russian ratings agency Expert RA last week.

The key reason for the poor investment climate was a lack of support from local authorities, the agency said.

"Investment has already fallen in 70 percent of regions," Dmitry Kabalinsky, head of the corporate ratings department at Expert RA, said at the "Regions of Russia: perspectives of development and new opportunities" conference, where the index was revealed.

According to state statistics agency Rosstat, investment fell 6.3 percent in the first three months of 2015.

The weak figures come as Russia's economy is expected to shrink by up to 5 percent this year. The price of oil - the mainstay of Russia's government finances - has fallen by over 40 percent since a peak last summer, while sanctions imposed by the United States and European Union last year over Moscow's actions in Ukraine have curbed the flow of Western cash to Russia.

Cash transfers from Moscow to the regions - a key source of local income - have fallen over the past five years by 25 percent, said Kabalinsky.

The World Bank warned earlier this month that Russia faces an "era of small potential growth" due in part to weak investment.

But the crisis also has its advantages for foreign investors, according to Kabalinsky. Before last year, production costs in Russia were higher than in the United States and Europe, but a sharp devaluation of the ruble has reversed this, swelling the buying power of foreign currency investors.

The ruble has fallen by 35 percent to the U.S. dollar since the start of 2014.

According to a regional investment climate rating conducted last year by the Agency for Strategic Initiatives, a government-sponsored organization meant to provide support for Russian and foreign investors, the most successful regions at luring investors and implementing investment projects over the past five years are the Kaluga and Lipetsk regions in central Russia, the republic of Tatarstan, the Sverdlovsk region in the Urals and the Kostroma region to the north of Moscow.

Of these regions, only Tatarstan has a well-developed oil industry.

"The regions that have showed great success in attracting investment do not have the resources that the oil regions do," Svetlana Chupsheva, the agency's corporate director, said at the conference.

The best-performing regions achieved their results through well-developed organizational and informational investor support mechanisms, development of transportation systems and efficient processing of documents, the Agency for Strategic Initiatives said.

Any region could implement these measures, but they don't, Chupsheva said.

Many regions still see the arrival of foreign companies as something dangerous.

"When we go to towns with populations under one million, we often still have to explain to the heads of the regions that we will not ruin local business, but will contribute to its development," said Galina Panina, communications manager at French construction goods retailer Leroy Merlin.

Regional administrations have only begun to understand that foreign investment can boost the local business in recent years, Panina said.

Expert RA surveyed investors in seven Russian regions and named the biggest challenges facing investors in Russia as inefficient support from the local administration, poor protection against corruption, difficulties in connecting to electricity and running water and obtaining licenses and permits.

National legislation provides equal regulations for working with entrepreneurs, but there is a dramatic gap between the regions at the top of the index and those at the bottom.

In Tatarstan, obtaining a construction permit requires 40 days, while the worst rate among the regions is 530 days, according to Chupsheva, who did not name the region in question.

Expert RA's index singled out the Tuva republic and the republic of Ingushetia as regions with extremely high investment risks and low potential.

The index put Moscow came first for investment potential, followed by the Moscow region, St. Petersburg and the Krasnodar region.

Yet, despite the constraints, some investors still see opportunities.

Thomas Kerhuel, commercial director at Franco-Russian Chamber of Commerce, said that "Russian regions have a huge potential due to the increasing purchasing power caused by the rising standard of living."

Household wealth in Russia raced upward in the 2000s, but began to fall last year as the economic crisis deepened.  

The Kaluga region has been creative about luring foreigners, building 10 huge industrial parks and allowing investors direct contact with the governor, according to Alexei Laptev, the first deputy governor.

Laptev said that since 2006 the Kaluga region has attracted about 2.5 billion dollars of investment each year, or a total of more than 14 billion dollars, half of which is foreign direct investment.

Direct access to the governor has also been introduced by the governor of the Ulyanovsk region, and has gone down a treat with investors.

Development in the Russian regions always starts with meeting local authorities, because companies are dependent at every stage on regional governments, said Kryshtof Tkachik, director of regional expansion of Leroy Merlin Russia.

"It's much easy to go to a region where the authorities are open for a dialogue," said Leroy Merlin's Panina.

"If direct contact with every mayor or governor was possible, a lot more could be done to improve the investment climate in the regions," she said.

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#19
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
April 27, 2015
Can Russian markets sustain the strong rally?
Chris Weafer of Macro Advisory

Russia's equity indices (especially those denominated in US dollars), debt prices and the ruble have all surged strongly since the start of the year as investors became much more optimistic that the sell-off in 2014 was excessive and the risk premium depended too much on fears which are unlikely to be realized.

    The dollar-based equity indices - RDX and RTS - have performed best, with each rising by more than 40% on the back of investor optimism and the ruble recovery.
    Sovereign debt instruments, along with those of the best-positioned corporates, have also moved strongly ahead and ignored the ratings downgrade by both S&P and Moody's. The yield on the Eurobond '30, which is the benchmark instrument for Russia, has fallen from 6.4% at the start of the year, to 3.6%. The yield on the ruble denominated OFZ - 9yr, has fallen from 13.6% to 11.1 % since early January.
    The ruble has recovered by almost 16% against the US dollar and by 25% against the euro

After such a strong performance over such a short period of time the obvious questions for those with profits is whether to lock that in and walk away, while those whose performance against the MSCI EM and EMEA benchmarks will have suffered because they remained light in Russia exposure, are asking if the rally can drive even higher?  At the back of everybody's minds is a possibly similar situation in the first half of 2009 when it was deemed reckless to buy Russia in January when the RTS traded just below 500. The index reached 1,000 in early June as the oil price, which also defied predictions of sustained weakness in early 2009, rallied and brought the ruble with it.

So what should investors now be focused on as they make that decision? The following will likely be the key determining factors for the market over the next quarter or two;

Ukraine. The situation in eastern Ukraine remains very fragile, according to reports from all sides. There is a fear that, unless an acceptable longer-term deal can be secured, then fighting may flare up again in the spring or summer. However, for now the political rhetoric from Moscow and Ukraine's presidential office remains in support of looking for a deal rather than a return to a broader war. If that were to happen, and the separatists were to again use heavy weapons, then the finger of blame would point to Moscow and any hope of sanctions relief would greatly diminish.

Gas talks. The talks between Moscow and Kyiv, notionally between Gazprom and Ukrnafta, are always a good indicator of whether political relations between the two governments remain pragmatic or strained. President Vladimir Putin recently ordered an extension of the winter gas deal for a further three months to the end of June, which provides at least a less contentious backdrop to the political discussions.

Geopolitics and sanctions. Following on from, but very much part of the events in eastern Ukraine, investors will be very sensitive to any fresh news about sanctions. The current hope, and part of the reason for the year-to-date rally, is that, if the Minsk-II ceasefire agreement holds and can be built upon, then the EU may not renew the financial sector sanctions when the block of sanctions comes up for renewal on August 1. If that is the case, and a final deal between the UN and Iran over its nuclear programme is also agreed, then the hope is that the White House may follow the EU and drop, or ease, financial sector sanctions in the autumn. There is no great advantage to only the EU dropping sanctions, as EU banks will not go against a US sanction.

Oil price. The link between investor sentiment and the oil price is clear. The price of Urals has been much stronger than had been expected early in January. The reason is because traders expect either US shale production to start falling, ie. as some producing wells are now loss-making on a full cost basis, or Opec's resolve may weaken and it might start to reduce supply. So far, even if the price of Urals stays above $60 per barrel, there is no evidence that either is happening. The key date for the oil price will be the June 5 meeting of Opec oil ministers. What comes out of that meeting may set the oil price on its course for the summer and early autumn.

Ruble. The Russian currency is expected to weaken this quarter as the Central Bank of Russia ends the forex repo support operations, or makes it much more expensive, and cuts its Key Rate by up to 200 basis points. The Finance Ministry has also said it believes that the ruble rally is too much and is in danger of eroding the competitive advantage for domestic producers, which has led to a big drop in imports and a boost to both manufacturing sector growth and the current account. A drift out to RUB55 per dollar would not greatly upset investors, but anything worse might.

Macro. The first-quarter numbers point to a very moderate recession, which is probably now largely built into earnings forecasts. In that case, equities are still very cheap relative to emerging market peers. The question that still needs to be answered is whether the trend will get a lot worse? The World Bank certainly believes that to be the case and recently cut its growth outlook for Russia to a 3.9% contraction in GDP for this year and a more modest, but still negative 0.3% contraction for 2016. If the second-quarter data does start to deteriorate, then concerns about earnings, and therefore the valuation gap, will re-emerge.

Dividends. Companies paying a dividend yield of 6% or higher should see good support from income-focused investors. There is a question mark over how much dividends will be cut this year. A small cut will provide another boost for the market.

New issuance. Already this year, retailers Lenta and Magnit have successfully raised new money via secondary share offerings. The former raised $225mn and the latter attracted $143mn. While these are small amounts, they represent a disproportionately positive event in the market, as the consensus was that nobody would be able to raise money this year. Railcar manufacturer, United Wagon Company, has since announced its plans to float at least 10% of its shares on the Moscow exchange. That would be the first IPO of Russian shares since Lenta listed stock in February last year. A successful listing would also greatly boost sentiment amongst investors.

Buy-Backs. Uralkali has recently announced plans to buy-back up to $1.5bn of its shares, as it considers the market price to be too low relative to its business growth prospects. That is a very positive action and shows confidence amongst owners. If any others follow suit, this will provide a lot of justification for investor confidence.

Government actions. For now, the government is very focused on a damage limitation strategy and is devoting all of its efforts, and resources, to ensure stability in the economy, reduce inflation and cut interest rates, and to support the ruble. That has been a good enough backdrop for the markets to stage the strong rally, but it will not be good enough to sustain that rally beyond the trading bounce. For that to happen, investors and business leaders need to be convinced that the government is more serious about creating the right conditions to attract a sustainably higher level of investment and for businesses to grow. That may start to become clearer at the St Petersburg Forum in June, or perhaps if/when sanctions start to ease.

US interest rates and the dollar. If the US Federal Reserve proceeds to raise its benchmark rate, as it has indicated it plans to do, then the boost to the dollar will both hurt the price of oil and also investor appetite for risk assets. A strengthening US dollar is usually bad for emerging market equities. However, Russian assets are not so exposed, because risk-adverse investors have long since departed and there is no vulnerable overhang.

Eurozone. If the European Central Bank's QE program continues as the Fed raises rates, then the euro may easily reach parity against the dollar. Half of Russia's imports are priced in euros, so weakness in that currency could undermine the government's efforts to boost the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector and to advance its import-substitution strategy.

 Russian asset valuations are still very cheap relative to emerging market peers and to their own history. But while cheap valuations provide the justification for investors to buy, the market catalysts are still rooted in sentiment. If investors believe that risk continues to ease, then the valuations easily justify a doubling of equity indices from here and another cut in the yield gap between Russian debt issues and emerging market peers.

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 #20
Sputnik
April 27, 2015
'Someone Was Expecting Collapse of Russian Economy' - Putin

ST. PETERSBURG (Sputnik) - Russia's economy has not collapsed over Western sanctions as some wished and the peak of difficulties is in the past, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday.

"We were lacking $160 billion and last year our businesses and banks were to extinguish their current loans of a total of $130 billion before their foreign partners this year, plus another $60 billion. It looks like someone was expecting some sort of a collapse," Putin told upper house lawmakers in St. Petersburg.

"There wasn't a collapse. The Russian economy was able to easily pass over these artificial barriers."

Putin said that Russian businesses paid their loans pretty easily.

"A large part of the $60 billion was paid in the first quarter of this year. The peak has been crossed. If someone was counting on causing some sort of a collapse, it didn't happen," Putin said.

The Russian leader also noted that the West always says that politics is separate from economy, but there are efforts to use economic mechanisms.

"We have actually always believed that the economy is separate from politics. Our partners have always said that the economy and politics shouldn't be mixed, but somehow there are attempts to use economic levers."

Over the past year, the West has introduced several rounds of economic sanctions against Russia over its alleged involvement in the Ukrainian crisis. Moscow has repeatedly denied the accusations.

Western economic sanctions, as well as falling oil prices have led to a slowdown in Russia's economy, which is heavily reliant on energy exports. The ruble was seriously weakened at the end of 2014, losing about a half of its value against the dollar since summer 2014.

In early 2015, the Russian national currency stabilized and in March, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov confirmed that the Russian economy had passed its lowest point.

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 #21
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
April 27, 2015
Radio Liberty to battle Russian propaganda with new digital media campaign
Radio Liberty, which is financed by the U.S. federal budget, is opening a digital media department to battle "revanchist Russia" via social networks. Part of the aim of the initiative will be to target the Russian-language sphere in an effort to provide a counterbalance to state-controlled Russian media. However, one expert says that Radio Liberty will have problems reaching audiences inside Russia itself.
Yekaterina Sinelschikova, RBTH

Alarmed by the success of Russian state-owned propaganda outlets conducting a so-called "war of misinformation" to support the Kremlin's position on foreign policy issues such as Ukraine, the U.S. is making plans to launch a digital media campaign to counter Moscow's efforts to shape the international narrative.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is financed by the U.S. federal budget, is planning to open a digital media department for "countering the disinformation in the Russian mediasphere" through social networks, with a request for funding having already been submitted by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the state organization that controls RFE/RL).

"The Kremlin uses freedom of information" to "sow turmoil with the help of conspiracy theories and the diffusion of lies" and not with the aim of "convincing people (as in classical social diplomacy) or meriting trust," reads the budget request. A "worldwide disinformation mechanism" has been launched, one that "threatens Russia's neighbors and consequently, the United States and its western allies."

 'A direct challenge'

Providing opposition to Russia's well-funded propaganda machine is one of the BBG's two current priorities, the second of which is the necessity of building an effective strategy to counter the ideology of the Islamic State (ISIS) radical militant group. The budget request asks for $15.4 million to fight "revanchist Russia" and $6.1 million for the struggle against Islamic extremism.

The search for staff for the new digital media department (DIGIM) has already begun, with the RFE/RL website currently advertising 14 vacancies for its Prague headquarters. The job offers specify that "DIGIM's main objective is to use social and digital instruments that would help to increase RFE/RL's presence in the Russian-language sphere."

The abovementioned request makes it clear that in order to achieve its goals DIGIM plans on launching daily videos that would be "a direct challenge to Russian television propaganda, a YouTube channel and a site for Russian journalists and filmmakers whose "works are blocked by the Kremlin-controlled media." RFE/RL declined to respond to a request from RBTH for comment on the new project.

 Additional funds

RFE/RL's plans to expand its presence in the Russian-language internet segment fit clearly into the general trend of the "information war," said Ivan Zasursky, president of the Association of Internet Publishers and Director of the Faculty of New Media and Communication Theories at Moscow State University.

At the end of March the American Federal Agency on International Broadcasting announced that the U.S. was losing the information war to Russian media, which hence the need to strengthen counterpropaganda measures. "But $15 million is a small amount," said Zasursky. "This says that the operation will be rather limited in scope."

In Zasursky's opinion, RFE/RL, which in the last decade has suffered constant cuts to funding and has seen the importance of its broadcasting gradually diminishing, simply has an opportunity to turn the situation to its advantage and receive additional funds.

Talk of Russia's sturdy positions in international broadcasting is indeed well-founded. For example, the state-financed TV channel RT (formerly known as Russia Today) has surpassed CNN, Euronews and Fox News in terms of viewing statistics on YouTube.

"Russian international broadcasting has traditionally been of good quality," said Andrei Bystritsky, head of the Communications, Media and Design Faculty at Moscow's Higher School of Economics and former head of the Voice of Russia radio station. "The situation has not changed - it still does."

 Impact will be limited in Russia itself

Ivan Zasursky believes that RFE/RL's decision to work with social networks is a logical move, at least as far as reaching citizens of the Russian Federation itself is concerned. Not having the opportunity to reach Russians through "the usual" means (since November 2012 RFE/RL has been broadcasting in Russia only via the internet due to the changes in Russian law, which limits foreign charter capital for mass media), foreign media are now going to places where people who are tired of television congregate - to the internet and social networks, where "the number of these people is growing."

Bystritsky, however, considers it a myth that social media is gaining more information space at the expense of traditional mass media. On social networks people organize themselves into small communities, the audience then fragments and receives "a relatively small quantity of general knowledge," he said.

But there is also a more significant reason why it will be difficult for RFE/RL to fight the Kremlin's "alternative reality" in Russia itself. "Putting it simply, the level of trust in Russian media in our society is high, whereas in western media it is low," said Bystrinsky, citing a Gallup survey according to which 76 percent of Russians consider Russian state media to be a reliable source of information, 30 percent rely on non-state sources and just 5 percent on western sources.

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 #22
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
April 28, 2015
Hate Russia or Move to Siberia!
The childish "debate" about Russia
By Danielle Ryan
Danielle is an Irish journalist and blogger. She has a degree in Business and German from Trinity College Dublin and studied political reporting at the Washington Center for Politics and Journalism in Washington, DC. Special interests: American politics and foreign policy, US-Russia relations and media bias. Her blog can be found at journalitico.com.

Two options: 1. Hate Russia 2. Move to Russia. Pick one!

Well, if Russia is so great, why don't you go and live there?

This is a question that will be thrown your way sooner or later (probably sooner) if you say or write anything about Russia which doesn't make all 17 million square kilometers of the place sound like Mordor.

In fact, after the ubiquitous "How much is Putin paying you to write that?" it's probably the second-most common go-to question from the mindlessly obedient anti-Russia crowd.

I see it popping up rather frequently in comment sections under articles relating to Russia or Ukraine. Somebody makes a point in Russia's defense and an intellectually lacking commenter will come along and throw it out:

Well if Russia's so great, why don't you go and live there?

They usually - not always - but usually, follow it up with something like this:

Yeah, see, I didn't think so!

It doesn't even necessarily have to be a wholehearted endorsement of Putin and his policies for this response to be elicited. It could just be something even mildly skeptical of Washington's policies that unleashes upon you a tirade of advice about where you should be making your home.

This kind of simplistic argument fails on a few different levels.

Firstly, it's just flawed reasoning. This commenter's logic is telling them that if the person who is defending Russia's position either doesn't live there or doesn't particularly want to live there, then that automatically voids everything that person has to say. Their logic is telling them well, if this person won't go to live there, then clearly he is tacitly admitting that the place is an uninhabitable hellhole.

The logic is flawed because in the real world, beyond the cesspit of humanity that is the comments sections on so many websites, it's entirely possible and reasonable to support one country's policies over another country's without actually wanting to pack up your things to go and live there. For example, one could abhor Washington's policy on Cuba, but still understandably prefer to live in the United States.

Responding to that political position with well if Cuba is so great, why don't you go and live in Havana then...would rightly be recognized by most people as a weak and empty argument that brings nothing of substance to the debate and appeals only to the lowest common denominator.

There is also an implied assumption in the question, that the person defending Russia's stance doesn't already or never would live there, when in reality, that could be far from the case.

Further to that, there are myriad reasons why a person would choose to live in say, the United States over Russia, or vice versa. And mostly, those reasons have very little to do with politics.

The best response I've seen to this useless question is on this comment thread. The why don't you go live there bomb was thrown and another commenter returned fire with this:

Stupid argument, I would rather live in Tel Aviv than Gaza, doesn't mean I support Israel over Palestine.

The purpose of including the above comment for comparison is clearly not to draw a parallel between living in Russia and living in Gaza. It's simply to point out the absolute absurdity of using this where would you rather live question in geopolitical debates.

And yet it's always possible to detect a certain smugness from those who attempt to do it. It's almost as if they gleefully believe they've found the trump card first: Ha, see, didn't think so! *debate over*

In reality though, it's an argument that is only ever used by those with nothing more substantial to add to the conversation.

Russia's case in particular is interesting, because unlike, say, Gaza, the house of horrors image has to quite a large extent actually been manufactured and encouraged by mainstream media.

If it was just a silly argument confined to use by the intellectually lacking, it wouldn't be such a problem. Unfortunately though, overall coverage of Russia in the West has allowed this Mordor image to develop, to the point where your average Westerner is beginning to look on the border between Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe as something akin to going 'beyond The Wall' in Game of Thrones.

But that's a whole other conversation.

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 #23
Interfax
April 27, 2015
New website offers 3 centuries' worth of historical statistics on Russia

A new electronic archive has been launched, making it possible to trace the social and economic development of Russia's regions over the past three centuries.

The Electronic Repository for Russian Historical Statistics [https://ristat.org/] was proposed and created by Gijs Kessler from the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam and Andrei Markevich from the New Economic School in Moscow.

"Unfortunately, until now Russia's historical experience has largely remained outside the sphere of interest of global historians, primarily due to a shortage of data. As a rule, data about Russia is either missing from historical inter-country databases or is very incomplete," the authors of the project say.

Data is gathered on a standard program, which includes seven principal lines of inquiry (population, labor, industrial output, agricultural output, services, capital, land) and for five cross-sections of Russian history (1795, 1858, 1897, 1959, 2002).

Statistical data for the 18th-21st centuries derives from various published and unpublished sources, and is standardized and arranged into a database.

The data for the Electronic Repository for Russian Historical Statistics was collected and processed by two groups of researchers in Moscow and St. Petersburg in 2010-2014.

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 #24
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
April 27, 2015
Bilateral exchanges are the key to the future of Russian Studies in the US
On April 27, Russia Direct conducted a panel discussion that brought together academics, experts and students to discuss the future of Russian Studies in the U.S. during a time of deep crisis in U.S.-Russia relations.
By Pavel Koshkin and Ksenia Zubacheva

Even though the current crisis in U.S.-Russia relations has stimulated interest in Russia within the U.S., it has also revealed the significant gap in understanding between the two countries. In many ways, this gap in understanding can be traced back to the fundamental challenges facing Russian Studies programs in U.S. universities.

This was the starting point of the Russia Direct panel discussion "The Future of Russian Studies in the U.S.," which took place on April 27 in Washington, DC. The discussion brought together officials from the Russian Embassy in the U.S., academics, and experts on U.S.-Russia relations as well as those teaching Russian Studies in U.S. universities.

One of the speakers, Nicolai N. Petro, co-author of the new Russia Direct report on Russian Studies and professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island, argues that the current mutual misunderstanding partly stems from historic "confrontational assumptions" as well as "divergent paths of development."

"There is a relative isolation of the U.S. from Russia historically," he said, pointing to the lack of contacts between the two countries.

"Our confrontational assumptions do have a deeper root and probably lie in the perception of Russia as a nemesis, a 'useful other' to the United States," he highlighted, adding that Moscow and Washington have historically used the so-called "values gap" in creating this confrontation.

Meanwhile, other speakers focused on the number of people studying Russian in the U.S. According to recent data provided by Minister-Counselor of the Russian Embassy to the U.S., Oleg Burmistrov, currently about 43,000 Americans study Russian in the U.S. Among the most prestigious universities that teach Russian and need high-level expertise on Russia are military naval academies, including the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (USMA), he said.  

"More Americans are willing to study Russian in Russian institutes," he said, adding that there are about 500 Americans studying Russian in over 100 Russian summer programs.    

"The demand of Russian language is stable," he said, but underlined the problem of funding exchange programs, a need which remains "crucial." In addition, there is "a serious constraint" of bilateral agreements on the recognition of educational programs. Another problem is the restrictive visa regime in the two countries. The failure to strengthen economic ties between Russia and the U.S. limits the interest in Russian business as well, which affects Russia Studies indirectly, Burmistrov said.

Jeffrey Mankoff, deputy director and fellow with the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) Russia and Eurasia Program, sees the debate about the current crisis in Russia Studies as "a little bit depressing," because of enduring stereotypes and the shifts in U.S. national priorities after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In the period of the Cold War, the Soviet Union was a "high national priority," but now it is not the case because Washington has been focused more on the Middle East and China. This trend has had a certain effect on joint programs between Russian and American universities. If one looks at the role of institutional partnership, American universities like Georgetown have campuses in Doha, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong and elsewhere, Mankoff said, but "we don't see that happening with Russia."

"And it goes back to the question of prioritization," he explains. "It goes back to the bureaucratic nature of signing agreements [with Russian institutions]. It is just very difficult for this kind of partnership to work in the Russian institutional environment."
The importance of bilateral exchange programs

Anton Fedyashin, director of the Carmel Institute of Russian Culture and History at American University, says that the confrontation between Russia and the U.S. has spurred interest in Russia and has given the field a sort of second wind. Most notably, enrollment of students in Russian is up.

Fedyashin sees the current crisis as "a wake-up call" to study Russia, its culture, history and modern politics more thoroughly, echoing Petro, who believes that "we need interdisciplinary safe havens."

Olga Miller, head of the representative office for the Renova Group of companies in the U.S., shares their view. She believes that the field of Russian Studies in the U.S. is "extremely shallow," with its breadth leaving much to be desired.

However, both Miller and Fedyashin highlight the importance of exchange programs in overcoming the decline in U.S.-Russia relations and cite the example of inter-university exchanges between Russian top universities like Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO-University) and their American counterparts.   

The participants of the panel discussion came to the conclusion that "professor-to-professor, student-to-student" communication is a more important tactic in the current crisis environment. While some pointed out that university programs are also affected by the ideological polarization in both Russia and the U.S., others said that students in Russian Studies are interested today not in the democratization of Russia, but rather, "the clash of civilizations." And this is the central problem: theory is dictating reality, but everyday experience tells a different story.

Meanwhile, one of the participants of the panel discussion, Toby Gati, a senior international advisor at the law firm of Akin Gump, Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP who focuses on political, economic and trade developments in Russia, argues that the problem lies not only with Russian studies in the U.S., but also with American Studies in Russia.

"Fixing the U.S. side is not enough," she said. "Unless there is a parallel effort to examine Russian programs on U.S. studies, this effort is incomplete," Gati said.

At the same time, she expresses her disappointment in the closure of the Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) educational program during a period when Russia and the U.S. need more dialogue. According to her, it may severely hamper bilateral relations and Russian Studies as well, because there will be no Russian high-school students who will be able to kindle interest in Russia among their American peers.

"This is a tragedy with a capital T. Why? Not just because the students come here, but how do you think Americans become interested in Russia? They need Russians," she said.

Likewise, Miller argues that it is impossible to study Russia and post-Soviet space without involving Russians themselves.

Nevertheless, Russian officials like Burmistrov believe that, "You cannot stop the academic or scientific exchanges between our countries just like you cannot stop the river."

"You can poison the waters of the river, but the fresh water is being reproduced every day," he said, quoting a Russian academic.

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