#2
www.rt.com
April 28, 2015
Putin pledges state support for independent mass media

The Russian president has told the participants of a major media forum that society was interested in the development of independent mass media, and the state would lend support to both government-owned and private companies in this sphere.

Vladimir Putin made this statement on Tuesday as he spoke before the media-forum of the United Popular Front, a political support organization made up of those who support the president's policies, but choose not to join any political party.

One of the journalists participating in the event complained that the private company he worked for had difficulties in competing with state-owned mass media, as the latter received help from the authorities in the form of low office rent, subsidized transport and computers, and even subsidies for staff wages. "We are surviving on our own during the crisis and we have found ourselves in completely non-market conditions," the reporter complained.

"If we take a formal position it is all right for the state to pay for its own organizations, but society as a whole is also unconditionally interested in the development of the independent sector in mass media," Putin answered. "We must develop the system of support that would help everyone," he added.

"Your job is to ensure that the problems that exist everywhere in our country be resolved in a civilized fashion," Putin told reporters, noting that otherwise the potential for public protest could grow and suddenly erupt in an unpredictable fashion. "I would like to thank you for doing your job right. As I was listening to you I thought: who would dare say we don't have free media?" he added.

However, the Russian leader noted that it was important to prevent abuse of mass media by various forces. "We must surely push for the situation when no one would even attempt to use the mass media to achieve some business ends or any other interests not connected with the objectives of society or the regions," Putin said.

He also criticized the media outlets that allowed an excessive amount of advertising. "Print media must not be simply a spot for ads, they must carry useful information," he said.

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 #3
Kremlin.ru
April 28, 2015
Independent Local and Regional Media Forum

Vladimir Putin took part in the Truth and Justice Second Media Forum of Independent Local and Regional Media, organised by the Russian Popular Front.

The forum has brought together journalists, bloggers, State Duma deputies, heads of corresponding ministries and agencies and representatives of federal media outlets to discuss pressing issues in national and international media development.

Excerpts from transcript of Truth and Justice Media Forum of Independent Local and Regional Media

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, friends.

I would like to welcome you all. It is truly a pleasure that such events are becoming traditional. Apart from welcoming you, I also want to thank you for what you are doing in your regions.

Last time we said it was only natural that people who work in their regions and write about them know best what is going on there and see all the drawbacks and problems. The quality of our life, of the lives of millions of our citizens depends on your timely, talented, open and truthful reaction to what is going on. Those who are involved in administration, education, healthcare and utilities have to react to things, whether they like it or not. This is a real instrument for improving life in this country and the right way of building a truly democratic state in Russia.

I will not go into detail, will not make lengthy speeches. I believe that in the course of a live, absolutely open discussion we will cover all the issues that interest and concern us. Nevertheless, I would like to extend my congratulations: the hosts said there was a contest and the winners are here today.

Congratulations to you. I wish you success.
<...>
Natalya Nesterenko: Mr President, I am Natalya Nesterenko of the Novaya Gazeta Regiona paper in Krasnodar Territory.

Here is what I would like to ask: the other day we watched the TV film The President. The film's creators reminded us of the work you and your team have done in 15 years. Of course, our lives have changed radically. The thing is that the film looked as if you were summing up. This is what people do at the end of something. You are not leaving us, are you? I would like to ask what achievements you would like to report in the film The President, Part II? When do you think it would be shown on TV, when will they start working on it, in how many years?

Vladimir Putin: I do not think such films should come out too often, one can get overpraised. I knew this film was being made, of course. I was not involved in it. I gave the interview that is featured in it at the very last stage.

However, I didn't agree to have the film made and released to brag about what has been done. I wanted to show how far the country has come in the past years. Where we started 15 years ago and where we stand now. It is very important for all of us - both ordinary heople and those among the authorities - to understand these trends and use them to make plans for the future.

It is not for me to say what is good or bad about the film. I believe some things could have been presented differently. The film should have focussed on the ordinary man.

We say we have retained our unity and territorial integrity. I also tried to say several times that we should be grateful to those guys, our servicemen, who conducted those combat operations in North Caucasus. There should have been more about them. Do you see my point? They shielded the nation with their bodies. It wasn't just some local conflict.

The thing is that that conflict could have led to a Yugoslav scenario in Russia. This was highly probable. Given the conditions in which they fought international terrorism and took on that heavy burden, it was very difficult to achieve a positive outcome, but they did it.

The same goes for the economy, because this shock therapy that the people had to endure had an impact on this country and its people. I believe we lost almost a million people every year, the demographics were absolutely catastrophic. Our local healthcare workers managed so much - we did make certain efforts and started helping: we launched a demographic programme and a programme to support healthcare at the primary level. However, it was all done from scratch by regular people, and the film should have told more about them.

Overall, I believe it reflects all the main stages in this nation's life. As I have said, we managed to not only retain our territorial integrity, but also to restore and strengthen the state's constitutional basis, restore and strengthen our armed forces and the law enforcement system. The most important thing is that our economy has changed, it has become stronger, regardless of how much we criticise it now - which is absolutely right and we will continue doing it. I mean that it is only through a real comprehension of what we have today that we can map our further steps along the way of economic development.

This country's nominal GDP has grown 15-fold; this is only nominal, but it is nevertheless 15 times higher, nominal pensions and salaries have gone up 24- and 20-fold, respectively. However, even in real terms the people's incomes have grown manifold. This is what really matters.

Based on our economic welfare, our economic development we can make all our other plans - to strengthen our defence capability and improve demographics. Our primary task today is to enhance our economic sovereignty and make our economy highly productive and focussed on high technology. If we manage to do this, and I am certain that we will, we will ensure the country's development in all other areas.
<...>
Vladimir Putin: (Responding to a question from a journalist concerned about the fate of a unique dairy plant that produces the Vologda Butter brand. The plant, with a research and study base, has been put up for privatisation) It is a strange question, because 'privatisation' does not mean 'destruction', while you are asking me to save the facility.

Remark: Butter makers want it to remain in public ownership.

Vladimir Putin: All right, I promise that I will talk about it with my colleagues. Actually, this is not a matter of private versus public property. It is about the way production is organised and what terms the potential future shareholders are offered, if we are speaking of turning it into a joint stock company.

Remark: No, it is a joint stock company now.

Vladimir Putin: With 100 percent public ownership?

Remark: Yes, with public capital.

Vladimir Putin: And now they want to sell part of it?

Remark: All of it.

Vladimir Putin: All of it? This should not be simply about selling it, but selling on specific terms. The second part of the matter is to meet the terms put forth in the sale of the controlling stock or all of it. This is what matters, this comes first. Second is that public companies are not always efficient.

Remark: This one is.

Vladimir Putin: Right. We often come across situations when our public companies or joint stock ones, but in public ownership (unfortunately, this happens) are run in the interests of the administration rather than the consumer.

I am not saying that this is what we are dealing with here. Frankly speaking, I do not know enough about this company's operation. I promise to look into it and will instruct my colleagues in the Government and corresponding regional bodies to look into it and then we will decide. However, the very fact of a sale of part or 100 percent of the state's stock should not lead to the destruction of a company or harm it in any way.

Our approach is the opposite. We proceed from the notion that for companies that are not defence facilities (though this also applies to the defence industry, I will get to that) private investment should be an advantage rather than a problem. However, if you have any concerns, as I said, I promise we will look into this.

Private investment is one of the general directions of developing the entire economy. You see, this should be one of the items that should be on the agenda for the development of the Russian economy - both domestic and foreign investment. We need to create an open economy, and as opposed to our partners, we welcome all possible investors - both local and foreign ones - to invest in the Russian economy.

As for the defence industry, as you may know defence facilities operate on the basis of a state order, they are fully loaded and create jobs to meet the state funding. We have a significant state defence order, 20 trillion, plus the refurbishment of these facilities worth another 3 trillion rubles. However, at some point the state defence order will be implemented, we will complete the refurbishment of the army and navy to a certain extent - 30 percent of the latest equipment has already been provided to the troops, and up to 70 percent will be made available by 2020. Then what? What will happen to the facilities? Will they have to cut production and fire employees or not? Therefore, even in this sensitive for the state sector of defence we proceed from the idea that already today we must make sure the facilities turn out a certain share of civilian goods. So we see no harm in attracting private investment even in this type of production, not to mention butter.

Therefore, there should be no ban on privatisation and no embezzlement of public property, which should not be sold cheap. On the other hand, there was this Nobel Prize winner of Russian descent, Wassily Leontief, who used to say that given the situation Russia was in, even if you give it all away for a ruble a piece, everything will eventually end up in the right hands. True, he was a Nobel Prize winner and had certain authority, but I believe Russia's experience - and experience is the main criterion for establishing the truth, as another outstanding scholar said - shows that this is not always true.

In any case, we do not intend to give things away for peanuts so that later someone can make a profit. There should be a fair valuation, a deal on terms that suit the state and conditions that should be met by the future owner. We will look into this, all right?
<...>
VLADIMIR PUTIN: (Answering a question on whether adjustments will be made to executive orders signed by the President on his inauguration day, May 7, 2012.)

As for the executive orders, we certainly cannot pretend that nothing is happening and that the situation we are living in remains the same as it was in May 2012. We fully understand that we have certain problems, there are certain complications, and this requires certain adjustments. But everything laid out in the executive orders are long-term, strategic matters. These goals must still be achieved - some a little earlier and some a little later, but it must all be done. And that is why I suggest that my colleagues refrain from relaxing and alluding to any difficulties, but instead, implement the tasks set forth in the May executive orders.

I repeat, we cannot act like we absolutely don't see, hear or understand what is going on; we must proceed from the reality, but nevertheless strive to implement everything set forth in the executive orders.

As for what is happening in Russia overall, I met yesterday with the heads of regional legislative assemblies - I don't know if it was in the news.

We had a simple discussion concerning these so-called crisis developments. I wouldn't even call it a crisis - we have certain developments and complications. I will repeat the key points to members of the regional press.

First of all, and this is also related to the May executive orders, we were moving ahead with salary increases in some social sectors - and this was the right thing to do. This inevitably resulted in increases in the real production sectors as well. We had this situation in the past, too, when we relied on oil and gas revenues - the salaries outpaced productivity. And one way or another, I have already said this several times recently, the national currency rate would still need to be adjusted, there's no way around it, because this is a systemic matter, a systemic disruption. I had hoped that our productivity would grow, but unfortunately, we were not able to achieve this. But it needs to be done.

The second issue is that energy prices - the prices for our main export products - fell. And indeed, as you know, oil prices dropped down from $100 to $50. As a result, out of $500 billion ($497 billion, to be exact) in foreign currency coming into our nation - not to the Russian budget, but into the economy - before the oil prices fell, we came up $160 billion short. We got $160 billion less, and our companies and banks had to repay $130 billion worth of loans, with $60 billion more this year. And somebody was probably counting on the fact that the nation was missing $160 billion, and also had to repay $130 plus $60 billion. Overall, there was a certain level of alarm. We paid off all we owed, $130 billion. Not us, not the government - the companies. And the bulk of the $60 billion for this year has also been repaid already. The peak of the payments is over.

So, the price dropped from $100 to $50, but it cannot drop from $50 to zero. You understand what I am saying? There are certain things that we need to live with, and we need the economy to adapt. And there are certain advantages to this. But it is absolutely clear to experts that we have gotten through the worst of this burden. This does not mean that now, everything will go back up. We may still feel what was happening at the end of last year and the beginning of this one. Sometime over the course of this year, we will feel it and it will influence certain indicators. But overall, it is already clear that there is no collapse, nor will there be one. And that is what's most important.

Incidentally, this is also reflected in the national currency exchange rate - not even the fact that oil prices fluctuate somewhat, going up and down a little. What's most important is that it is clear to everyone - the basic foundations of the Russian economy have become stronger and stability cannot be totally destroyed. This is a fundamentally important thing. And going back to the first question, this is what we have achieved in recent years. These are extremely important things.

I hope that we will be able to not only stabilise the situation but further develop it and strive to implement the May executive orders I was asked about.
<...>
VLADIMIR PUTIN: (Answering a question concerning pressure on independent media from regional authorities.) This is a serious question, one of the key ones. For this, we need for the media themselves to be truly independent and for nobody to have any doubts about it.

We must ensure that nobody even tries to use the media to achieve their business goals or any other interests that have nothing to do with the interests of the society or the region where a particular media outlet is present. The fact that an independent person, a decent, honest man who openly speaks about a problem, confronts resistance and pressure - you know, this happened and happens everywhere, in Russia and abroad. This concerns not only journalists, but also decent and honest officers in the law enforcement and investigative agencies, the judiciary system and so on. This is a societal problem.

People in our society are very sensitive to everything that we call justice. When - let's take your case as an example - journalists help people deal with a particular problem, bringing to light certain "artistry" by bureaucrats and managers from absolutely all areas of our lives, this is certainly an important function. But you know what, while the Russian Popular Front will thank you, the people you pinch are unlikely to do so. They will always resist. This is a personal choice of every person - whether or not he or she is ready to engage in this kind of fight.

But what do we have to do to make it easier for decent people working in your sector? First of all, we need to enroot the corresponding moral and ethical principles in our society. We need to strengthen the legislative framework for independent media to operate. We certainly need to create informal instruments like the Russian Popular Front. It is no accident that I asked colleagues to create the centre for legal aid (which they did), so that it provides guidance and assistance, so that forums like this and meetings are organised on a regular basis.

After all, the Russian Popular Front is a nationwide organisation that currently works in nearly all of Russia's regions and has direct access to the Cabinet and the President. And this is an instrument for directly supporting the independent press. I hope we will continue to use it more actively. But we certainly need legislative measures. Let's think over how to do this together.

And I will conclude with the same idea I started with. We ultimately need for the media themselves not to give any reason to doubt the accuracy or objectivity of the materials they present. I don't know if you notice this or not, and I don't know how the things are locally, but unfortunately, our federal media are already putting into practice a kind of communication with various major business organisations and various departments, when the media are paid not for presenting objective information about a particular department, but rather, for not writing anything at all. They buy them off. Given a difficult economic situation, this may be one of the ways to support the press, but it is absolutely unworthy and is harmful for the media themselves, as well as society overall.

We must constantly work with you in dealing with the many facets of this problem; we must constantly analyse everything that is happening in this area and organise our work accordingly. For my part, I assure you that I will do everything I can to support you.
<...>
Vladimir Putin: (Responding to a question on protecting forests) First of all, let me say that you are engaged in much-needed and very important work, and I fully agree with your concerns. I agree that there are problems, serious problems that will have even more serious consequences for our country and its future generations if we do not make a proper effort to regulate this area as we should.

When the Forest Code was drafted, the basic premise was that the forestry sector is an economic sector and should bring in revenue for those involved in the sector and for the budgets at the different levels, and that we should ensure all conditions needed for forests' regeneration.

I travel a lot around the country by air, in planes and helicopters, and when the weather is good I can see what is going on. I am not convinced that forest regeneration is taking place as we had planned from the start. There are huge swathes of land where the forests have obviously been chopped down and it is absolutely clear that no one there is doing anything to regenerate the forests in these places.

I do not just think but am certain that we should join forces with you and the other environmental groups and people concerned about this problem and working on the issue so as to make adjustments where needed to the Forest Code, perhaps, or to bylaws, in order to make sure that this sector takes a more humane approach towards nature and future generations.

Everything looks fine on paper, but we see that things are different in real life, and so there is certainly a need to regulate and adjust here. I fully agree with you that if we do not do this, the results in the future could be quite disastrous. It is also not a good thing that we have immense forest reserves overall, but forests are being destroyed in regions where it is easiest to access them, above all in European Russia and the Far East, close to the Chinese border. This also needs to be the object of further study.

The State Duma is currently examining some amendments to the Forest Code. You are right that this requires our very close and thorough attention. I agree with you that the Russian Popular Front gives us a platform that should be used for getting this work underway at the expert level and raising broader awareness around the country.
<...>
Vladimir Putin: Listening to you just now, I thought, who would have the audacity to say that we do not have a free press? So long as we have people like yourselves I think that we can rest assured that no matter what the problems and obstacles in the way, there are people who serve their fellow citizens honestly, carry out their duties and make a big contribution to making our country stronger. If we did not have such people, it would be easy to build up a protest mood that could end up bursting forth in more extreme and uncontrollable forms.

You are working to make sure that the problems that we encounter everywhere throughout our country are addressed and resolved in civilised fashion. I can say only that we will work together. Thank you very much. I hope that we will continue this kind of work together.

Let me say thank you very much too to the heads of the Russian Popular Front and to our moderators today.

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 #4
Forbes.com
April 28, 2015
New Data Shows Russia's Demography Is Rapidly Deteriorating
By Mark Adomanis
[Chart here http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2015/04/28/new-data-shows-russias-demography-is-rapidly-deteriorating/]

Sometimes labeled "the dying bear" or "the dying nation," Russia has caught a lot of flack for its demographic problems. No demography isn't the most popular topic in the world, it's unfortunately quite a niche topic, but to the extent that anyone hears anything about Russia demography in the popular press they hear a tale of unmitigated calamity and woe.

The reality has been a lot more complicated. Over the past decade, "dying" Russia saw a noteworthy improvement in life expectancy, a substantial increase in the total fertility rate, and a relatively smaller (but still significant) decrease in the crude death rate. These improvements were cumulatively of a sufficient magnitude that they pushed the country back into natural population growth in 2013 and 2014. That is to say that "dying" Russia's population was actually growing for the past few years without accounting for the (huge!) numbers of migrants moving into the country from Central Asia. Compared to the late 1990's and early 2000's, when the total population shrank by around 700,000 people a year, this was an enormous difference.

Demography, however, is never set in stone. The experience of the 1990's (when Russia suffered one of the most rapid decreases in fertility ever recorded) demonstrated quite clearly that, when they feel economically insecure, Russians are entirely willing to forego or postpone having children. Knowing that, and also knowing the scale of the economic challenges that Russia has been facing over the course of the past year, you would expect to see a decrease in the number of births.

And Rosstat's latest data show precisely that. Over the first three months of 2015, the birth rate was down by almost 5%. Meanwhile the death rate was about 2% higher. Overall, then, Russia is on track to record the worst year-over-year change in its demography since the 1998-99, when it suffered through a ruinous government debt default and financial crisis.

Russia's economy has weathered the recent storm in better health than almost anyone anticipated. Based on the latest forecasts from ratings agencies and investment banks, it's entirely possible that it could emerge from the current crisis with a less than 3% loss in total output. But the demographic costs have been bigger than even the most pessimistic predictions. Russia's demography hasn't deteriorated this sharply since Putin first came to power.

It was a foregone conclusion that Russia's recent population growth would slow down and then eventually evaporate: the generation born during the 1990's is simply too small to keep the birth rate at its recent level, and the death rate will inevitably increase as the (large) generation born during the late 1940's and early 1950's continues to age. But the pace of this change wasn't set in stone, and the transition is happening a lot faster than seemed to be the case a year or two ago.

We'll see what happens over the second half of the year, but at the moment Russia's previously positive demographic trajectory is dramatically deteriorating.

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 #5
Kremlin.ru
April 14, 2015
Russian health minister reports to president, upbeat on 2014 results
Working meeting with Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova on 14 April 2015 in Novo-Ogarevo, Moscow Region

The health minister briefed the president on the ministry's performance in 2014 and its current activities.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Ms Skvortsova, have you got any good news for us?

Decrease in death rate among children, mothers, infants

Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova: Mr President, I would like to tell you about the results of 2014, but I want to begin by mentioning a decrease in the death rate among mothers, children and infants in this country.

The year 2014 was marked by the fact that along with a small number of other countries we managed to meet the fourth and fifth United Nations Millennium Development Targets by reducing the child mortality rate threefold and the mortality rate among mothers by 4.5 times.

Vladimir Putin: Was this after we adopted international standards?

Veronika Skvortsova: Yes, since the adoption of international standards in 2013, we have reduced the death rate to 8.2 per 1,000, and in 2014 to slightly over seven per 1,000, and in the first two months of this year, the figure is 6.3. This is a more than 20 per cent reduction compared with 2012. We have actually reached our national minimum in both the maternal and infant death rate.

This is primarily due to the development of a well-operating three-tier system. On your instructions, we have already started building additional perinatal centres. This year we are to commission two perinatal centres ahead of schedule - in Nizhny Novgorod Region and in Belgorod Region. The other 30 will be commissioned next year.

Preventive healthcare

The second area I would like to speak about is the development of preventive healthcare. As before, we are working in two main directions here: a mass preventive care strategy aimed at promoting healthy living, health screening and regular medical check-ups.

We have already made significant progress in promoting healthy living: the adoption of the anti-tobacco law made it possible to introduce in 2014 the second package of limitations, which has resulted in a 17 per cent reduction in the number of smokers since 2008.

Vladimir Putin: 17 per cent? That is a significant number.

Veronika Skvortsova: Yes, and at the same time we have seen a decrease in the number of alcohol abuse cases, while per capita alcohol consumption has gone down by almost one third in the same period.

Vladimir Putin: And the number of people doing sports has grown.

Veronika Skvortsova: Yes, by almost 2.5 times.

We have paid special attention to increasing regular medical check-ups, and over 40 million people have already been covered in 2014. The most important thing is that these check-ups are becoming more detailed.

We have increased cancer detection rate from 50 to 70 per cent compared to 2013, that is in one year. This is a very good achievement especially for the types of cancer that are not visible to the eye. Up to 70 per cent for gastric, intestinal and prostate tumours.

Most importantly, with this proactive approach, we have increased the rate of early detection - at stages I or II. The detection rate was 72 per cent in 2014. We have managed to save 15,000 young women with stage I and II breast and reproductive system cancer alone.

We continue our efforts in this area and 2015 will be primarily dedicated to adjusting risk factors of cardiovascular diseases within the framework of the National Year for Combating Cardiovascular Diseases.

Healthcare in rural areas

The third area where we can report positive results is healthcare in rural areas and the development of primary medical assistance. For many years, we observed a reduction in the number of rural first aid stations, paramedic centres and various rural outpatient clinics.

In one year, we built 328 paramedic centres and first aid stations, and about 700 rural outpatient clinics and general practitioners' offices. As a result, the number of rural outpatient facilities has grown by more than 3,000 since 2011, with the number of various rural hospitals going up simultaneously - from local and regional to inter-municipal medical centres. In 2013-2014, their numbers exceeded 3,000 for the first time.

At the same time, I would like to note that in the same period of time the life expectancy of rural residents went up by 1.5 years, while the death rate has dropped by almost 3 per cent.

Vladimir Putin: The current average national life expectancy is 71, isn't it?

Veronika Skvortsova: The national life expectancy is 71. For women it has grown in the past year to reach 76.5; however, for men it is still rather low at 65.3. This is an 11-year difference.

Vladimir Putin: ...and 71 is the average.

Use of hi-tech medical technology

Veronika Skvortsova: Another important achievement is a sharp, almost 40 per cent increase in the scope of high technology medical assistance achieved in only one year, in 2014. This was made possible by the decision made a year ago to transfer 459 high technology treatments to the basic Comprehensive Medical Insurance programme.

Mr President, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that regional facilities have already completed 80 per cent of this work. Their number has grown since 2011 more than three-fold - 3.4 times to be exact. The overall number of facilities providing high technology assistance is now 657.

Vladimir Putin: Is that in the regions or total?

Veronika Skvortsova: This is the total number. There are 461 in the regions, compared to 135 in the past. Such an increase in the infrastructure capable of providing high technology medical assistance made it possible to sharply reduce the waiting time for high technology treatments: from 93 days for both adults and children in 2009, to 41 days for adults and 35 days for children in 2011, and 21 and 14 days, or 3 and 2 weeks respectively in 2014. A very significant reduction. There is practically no waiting time for high technology treatment now.

I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that we were happy last year that rural residents accounted for 25 per cent of all patients receiving high technology medical assistance, while this year the number is 26 per cent. This actually corresponds to the share of rural residents within the total population.

Sufficient healthcare funding

Vladimir Putin: I would like to hear how you asses the overall funding of healthcare after the government substantiated and amended the budget for this year and the planning period.

Veronika Skvortsova: This year our funding has gone up by more than R200bn. This is not only sufficient to reproduce the scope of medical assistance provided last year, but also gives us an opportunity to expand, provided we manage to keep down the prices of medications and medical implants.

Vladimir Putin: The government has resolved to increase funding in this area, I mean medications. Are you receiving the money?

Veronika Skvortsova: Currently we do not need this money, so we have set it aside for now. We have stabilized the situation. Retail prices for vital medicines have gone up by 6.6 per cent since the year began, while for hospitals the growth is 3 per cent. I would like to note here that the main hike occurred in January, while in February we already observed a drop, and in March there was no sharp increase. The most important thing is that we have observed a negative tendency in the prices for non-vital medicines, meaning that in March they were lower than in February.

We are trying to maintain direct contacts with both producers, key wholesalers and the association of pharmacies and pharmaceutical organizations. The pharmaceutical organizations, for example, have decided to freeze prices.

We have our resources and so far, the prices for vital medicines are within the limits set by the Government. Together with the Prosecutor General's Office, we are actively conducting inspections in the regions. In March, we exposed 15 violations of the law, when prices had been raised by 15-16 per cent above the limit set by the state. In such cases, we simply launched legal proceedings.

#6
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
April 28, 2015
New Russian media ownership law: How will changes affect foreign players?
Last year, the Russian president signed a law restricting the share of foreign ownership in any Russian media to 20 percent. Under the new law, media owners have until Feb. 1, 2017 to comply with the new requirements by making the necessary structural changes. RBTH looks at how the law will affect players on the media scene and what options are open.
Yekaterina Sinelschikova, RBTH

Back in October 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a controversial law restricting the foreign ownership share in any Russian media to 20 percent. Under the new law, media owners have until Feb. 1, 2017 to either "adapt" their ownership structure to the new requirements or leave the Russian market.

"Its purpose is clear: to defend national sovereignty," said State Duma speaker Sergei Naryshkin, commenting on the bill, which passed through the lower house of the Russian parliament in a matter of just a week. "He who owns information owns the world," said the authors of the draft law.

One of them, first deputy chairman of the State Duma's information policy, information technologies and telecommunications committee Vadim Dengin, was more than once quoted in media reports as saying that since "a huge information war was under way," this bill was a matter of information security. In addition, it is aimed at the "deoffshorization" of the media market as too many media outlets are run from offshore zones and it is often not clear who is behind them, said Dengin.

Media outlets with foreign ownership have been given until Feb. 1, 2017 to bring their ownership structure in line with the new regulations, although the law itself comes into force starting from 2016.
 
International practice?

Ideas to introduce these restrictions had been around for a number of years. The threshold of 50 percent for foreign capital, which was adopted in 2012, had been discussed since 2001. In the end, those restrictions did not apply to printed media, only to TV channels and radio stations.

The new amendments introduce a cap of 20 percent for all types of media that have a license. Justifying their decision, deputies cite international practice and say that they do not expect that the new amendments will result in a redistribution of the market or the closure of individual projects.

According to Dengin, deputies insist that media outlets have numerous ways of "legalizing" themselves. "For example, through establishing a Russian legal entity or operating by franchise," he told the RIA Novosti news agency in October 2014.

Yet in an interview with RBTH, Vasily Gatov, a member of the board of the Russian Guild of Press Publishers and a member of the board of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, WAN-IFRA, dismissed the idea that there was anything such as "international practice," pointing out that "all the restrictions on media ownership that exist internationally are quite specific and nowhere (with the exception of China) do they apply to all media outlets."

Therefore, citing international practice in this case betrays a false understanding of how world media systems operate and how the principle of information sovereignty works, Gatov said. The year 2014 became a watershed, primarily because of the situation in Ukraine, and "an almost schizophrenic fear of an 'orange revolution'," he continued, so "it was decided to squeeze out of the market those whom it is impossible to reach a deal with."
 
Knock-on effect on share prices

Between the moment these amendments were submitted to the Duma and their signing by the president, the value of shares in Sweden's ModernTimesGroup (which owns the TV 1000 and Viasat History channels, as well as several other TV channels that broadcast in Russia) fell by 20 percent on the NASDAQ OMX. By the end of 2014, the shares of its majority shareholder, the STS Media holding company (registered in Delaware, U.S.), hit a five-year low and cost just $4.78 on NASDAQ (a drop of 64 percent compared with early 2014).

Having said that, other Russian companies in the telecom, media, and IT sector have also suffered a similar dramatic decline, though in their case the slump has been caused by the economic crisis, a source at a media holding company with foreign ownership, who asked to remain anonymous, told RBTH.

"Many players are now looking for a solution that would be best for their shareholders. We are under close scrutiny from everybody: from the U.S. regulators, from the Russian regulators, from investors, so any premature disclosure of information is fraught with consequences," he said.

The STS Media press service told RBTH that the adopted amendments "create a considerable uncertainty" for the holding company and its shareholders. The list of potential options includes: corporate restructuring, franchising and licensing of structural units, capital reorganization and a sale of assets, from partial to complete. However, no choice has yet been made.

"If the board of directors decide to sell the business, there is no guarantee that the transaction will be carried out on acceptable terms," STS Media representatives said. "The value of the shares may reduce further still and you may lose all or a considerable part of your investment."
 
There is a way out

Technically, shareholders do have numerous ways out, since the law "is extremely muddled in its wording," a partner with the Board of Media Lawyers, Fyodor Kravchenko, told RBTH.
The 20-percent cap is imposed on foreign ownership only in those companies that are an editorial office or a founder of a media outlet but the restriction does not apply to, for example, another legal entity such as a publisher. This means that a foreign owner can distribute the print run either through retail sales or through subscription, can sell all advertising in the media outlet in question, i.e. in effect, can have full control over all cashflows and all of the media outlet's revenues, Kravchenko said.

However, in his view, the desire of foreign owners to look for loopholes is much more affected by the vague wording in the law that bans "indirect control" over Russian media from foreign individuals. According to Kravchenko, this gives unchecked powers to the law enforcer.

"For example, if Forbes hands over its trademark for use by a Russian publisher, will it give them an opportunity to 'indirectly' control the editorial team? Of course it will.

The trademark owner who has spent their resources on developing the brand would want to retain the right to control how the Russian editorial team adhere to the established standards," explained Kravchenko. Even this indirect control can be interpreted by the authorities, should they choose to do so, as a violation of the law, he added.

"We are already seeing a redistribution of ownership in the print media," said Kravchenko. According to him, at least a third of major foreign owners will decide not to get involved in these games. The others will choose to adapt to the new conditions.

"From what I've heard in conversations with colleagues, no-one in the publishing business intends to leave Russia, in the press the intention is also to stay," president of the Hearst Shkulev Media holding company Viktor Shkulev told RBTH.

However, he added, the mood is not that optimistic on TV projects. For its part, Hearst Shkulev Media, its president said, "is on the path to bring its structure in line with the law" and 'is ready to operate under the new rules."
 

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#7
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
April 28, 2015
Analyzing Russia's new media business landscape: What has changed?
Companies operating in Russia's mass media sector are facing fresh challenges in order to comply with changes in the law, with restrictions placed on foreign-owned firms in particular. In a special guest article, two lawyers from the Moscow Office of global law firm Morgan Lewis explain the steps the government is taking to tighten regulation of the media sector and explore how this will affect businesses operating in mass media and advertising.
Brian Zimbler, Eoin Ansbro, special to RBTH
Brian Zimbler and Eoin Ansbro are a partner and trainee solicitor at the Moscow Office of global law firm Morgan Lewis (www.morganlewis.com).

Recent changes in Russian laws governing the mass media sector have created new challenges for companies involved in television, radio and publishing, and prompted careful re-evaluation of existing business structures and arrangements. The main focus of attention has been on new limitations regarding foreign ownership and certain categories of advertising.

Limit on foreign ownership of mass media

In 2014, the Russian law on mass media was amended to prohibit all direct foreign ownership of "mass media organizations," as well as indirect foreign ownership of more than 20 percent, and other means of foreign control of such organizations.

In Russian legal parlance, the term "mass media" includes television and radio channels, magazine publishers, and certain other businesses involved in media distribution to the public. "Foreign" refers to foreign legal entities, foreign citizens, and Russian citizens with dual citizenship.

The legal provisions implementing the 20 percent cap are broadly drafted, and the law also prohibits foreign interests from exercising "other forms" of control over mass media companies or broadcasters. Transactions breaching the rules are invalid, and companies that do not comply may be fined or prohibited from continued operations. Currently, the amended law is expected to take effect in January 2016 for foreign-owned companies, and a year later for businesses that are over 80 percent beneficially owned by Russian citizens, but through foreign legal structures.

Some supporters of the amendment have argued that Russia is engaged in an "information war" with Western media, and accordingly needs to tighten up its control of foreign activity in the media sector. These issues have been highlighted by recent geopolitical disputes involving Crimea and southeast Ukraine, as well as the adoption of economic sanctions against Russia by the United States, the EU and a number of other countries. Other observers have suggested that numerous countries, including the United States, regulate foreign ownership of media companies, and thus it is reasonable for Russia to do likewise.

The new rules have prompted Russian media companies with foreign shareholders to re-assess their current ownership structures, as well as corporate governance, contractual and other business arrangements. Many foreign-affiliated companies are hoping to minimize the impact on their businesses, but some are unsure what steps are necessary in order to comply. Certain companies are reaching out to new Russian partners, or considering whether to sell their business and exit the market. Some senior media managers have approached the media regulator, Roskomnadzor, for guidance.  

Ban on advertising on pay TV channels

From January 2015, Russia has banned advertising on "pay television" channels, reportedly with the goal of enhancing competition in the television broadcasting market. At least 1,400 channels have apparently been affected by this measure, which has significantly affected the economics of operating pay TV channels. However, the Russian authorities have also established certain exceptions to the ban: Firstly, it does not affect certain "must-carry" channels whose inclusion in all television packages is mandatory, such as Channel One and Rossiya 24. Secondly, there is an exemption for certain terrestrial channels using "limited frequency resources" that generally broadcast in large cities. Thirdly, as of February 2015, channels with over 75 percent "national mass media content" may carry advertising. Basically, such channels must carry programming produced by Russians and with no less than 50 percent Russian investment.
 
Alcohol-related advertising

For the past two years, Russian law has generally banned advertising for alcoholic drinks. However, recent amendments have loosened the ban, reportedly in preparation for the FIFA World Cup to be held in Russia during 2018, and to facilitate sponsorship opportunities. Accordingly, until January 2019, limited advertising for beer is permitted in printed media, during sports events and on certain sports-related channels, and in or near sports venues, subject to certain exceptions. A related exemption was adopted in December 2014 for certain advertising of Russian-made wines.  However, these rules remain controversial and further amendments are being discussed.

Looking ahead

Despite the current economic problems in Russia, the domestic media market continues to provide opportunities for both Russian and foreign media companies, and foreign-produced content remains popular. Therefore, while the recent legal changes have added some additional burdens and challenges, many media companies remain interested in the Russian market. In particular, foreign media companies that have already built strong brands - including a number of well-known magazines and television channels - would like to protect their investments and retain their Russian businesses as far as possible.
 

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 #8
Wall Street Journal
April 29, 2015
Russian Assets Regain Appeal for Investors
The country's ruble, sovereign bonds, and stocks attract those seeking higher yields
By MIN ZENG

Investors have taken Russia out of the penalty box.

The ruble has gained 17.5% in 2015 against the U.S. dollar, after losing nearly half of its value in 2014, according to financial-data provider CQG. It has soared 46% from an intraday record low set in December.

Russia's stock index denominated in the ruble has soared 20% this year through Monday, after losing 7.15% for the whole of 2014, according to FactSet.

The nation's sovereign bonds denominated in the local currency have returned 16.86% this year through Monday, after losing 16.61% during 2014, according to data from Barclays PLC.

While the Russian economy remains mired in recession, other fear factors have subsided this year. Prices of crude oil, one of the country's key exports, have bounced off a six-year low. A cease-fire has eased geopolitical tensions in Ukraine.

For investors seeking higher-yielding investments, Russia has become a prime destination. The central bank's key interest rate is 14%, compared with rates at or near zero in the U.S., eurozone and Japan.

"Russia is the high-yield story,'' said Geoffrey Pazzanese, senior portfolio manager at Federated Investors, which has $362.9 billion in assets under management. "The ruble was oversold, and there has been a big change in terms of conditions from last year."

Global investors have put $617 million of new cash into mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that target Russia's stock markets and $216 million in those targeting Russia's sovereign bonds this year through last Thursday, according to global fund tracker EPFR.

For all of 2014, there were net outflows of $675 million and $516 million, respectively, from Russia's stock and sovereign-debt markets.

The yields on Russian assets beckon at a time when investors are struggling to eke out returns from U.S. stock and bond markets. For this year through Monday, the Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, a broad measure for U.S. fixed-income markets, has returned 1.83%, according to Barclays. Total return includes price changes and interest or dividend payments.

The S&P 500 stock index is up 2.7%. Both the stock and bond index are in U.S. dollar terms.

Global investors fled the ruble last year as fears mounted that Russia's economy was on the brink of a collapse because of plunging oil prices. Adding to the gloom were sanctions imposed by the European Union and the U.S. in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea.

Mr. Pazzanese said he has bought the ruble in recent weeks through currency forward contracts, betting the currency has room to gain against the dollar.

The ruble traded at 51.514 per U.S. dollar in late New York trading, compared with 60.543 per dollar at the end of 2014, according to CQG. The ruble remains lower than the 32.900 level where it traded at the end of 2013.

Yacov Arnopolin, a senior portfolio manager who helps oversee more than $38 billion of emerging-market fixed-income assets at Goldman Sachs Asset Management in New York, said individuals and companies in Russia have converted deposits back into rubles "after seeking the safety of hard currencies" such as the U.S. dollar and the euro during the last quarter of 2014. "Dedollarization creates demand" for the ruble, Mr. Arnopolin said.

Some investors are concerned that the ruble's rally is running out of gas. One major risk: Russian policy makers have signaled over the past few weeks that they don't want excess strength in the ruble, which is a shift from December, when the central bank raised interest rates sharply to stabilize the currency from the turmoil.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on April 21 that the country needs a predictable ruble, with no excessive depreciation or strengthening.

Banu Elizondo, senior emerging-market portfolio manager at Invesco Ltd., which has $798.3 billion in assets under management, said she bought ruble-denominated bonds earlier this year to benefit from a rising ruble. But this month, she reduced her holdings, shifting the stance to slightly underweight from overweight earlier this year.

"The [Russian] central bank doesn't want the ruble to fall apart, but they don't want the currency to get too strong either,'' said Ms. Elizondo. She expects the ruble to weaken to 56-57 per U.S. dollar at year-end.

The ruble's comeback comes amid a broad slowdown in what was once a rip-roaring U.S. dollar rally. As expectations for when the Federal Reserve will raise short-term rates have been pushed back, the Taiwanese dollar, the South Korean won, the Chinese yuan and the Philippine peso all have perked up this year against the U.S. currency.

-Andrey Ostroukh contributed to this article.

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 #9
TASS
April 28, 2015
CEO of Russia's biggest bank predicts economic gloom without major reforms

Yekaterinburg, 28 April: Russia is currently facing a major challenge - reform of an utterly inefficient system of governance, believes Sberbank head German Gref.

"At present, Russia is not ready for any reforms... [agency ellipsis] We are currently facing the biggest challenge of implementing one main reform, of reforming our utterly inefficient system of governance in the country. As soon as we implement that reform, it will be possible to implement the rest," Gref said in a speech to students in Yekaterinburg.

He said that he had to agree with former Finance Minister Aleksey Kudrin that the country was not set for high economic growth rates.

"Of course, there is always a set of causes. The easiest thing is to lay all the blame for all the troubles occurring in life on someone, to say that sanctions are to blame or something else. Unfortunately, I have to say that these are our internal problems. We have clearly put the brakes on our reforms. We need to significantly speed up change in the country," Gref said.

The Sberbank head believes that Russia cannot continue developing at the current pace, which is "a major risk for us".

"Especially as we have taken a very important course for standing up for ourselves in this world, but in order to stand up for ourselves, we need to be very strong. So far, unfortunately, I cannot say that our economy is strong. Unless we embark on extremely large-scale structural reforms in the very near future, I cannot see sources for economic growth and therefore for the prosperity and competitiveness of our country," Gref said, adding that it was time to move from words to action.

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 #10
Kremlin says Putin can't oblige state companies' bosses to disclose incomes

MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot oblige top managers of state-controlled companies to publish data on their incomes, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.

"The president expressed his opinion [during a recent question-and-answer conference] and this was not outlined as an instruction. Moreover, in this case, he cannot give an instruction on this score," Peskov said.

The Kremlin spokesman said this issue should not be "addressed to us."

The Russian government issued a resolution in late March canceling the recently-adopted requirement for top managers of companies with state stakes to publish information on their incomes and expenditures.

The presidential spokesman earlier said the Kremlin had not exerted any pressure on the government to pass the decision on cancelling the obligatory publication of income and expenses by state companies' bosses.

"No, this was not the case [the Kremlin's pressure on the government]," Peskov said. "This is the issue, which is wholly and fully the prerogative of the Cabinet of Ministers," Peskov said.

The requirement for the heads of state companies to submit information on their incomes to the government but not publicly was introduced in the summer of 2013. The list comprised 62 companies, including rail monopoly Russian Railways (RZD), oil major Rosneft, gas giant Gazprom, hi-tech nanotechnology corporation Rosnano and retail savings bank Sberbank.

Putin said during his Q&A conference on April 16 he would recommend the heads of large state companies to disclose data on their incomes voluntarily because "there is nothing terrible about that."

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 #11
Russia Insider
http://russia-insider.com
April 28, 2015
How the Credit Rating Agencies Got Russia Completely Wrong
It took just a few weeks to discredit the entire rationale for the credit downgrades Russia suffered this winter
By Alexander Mercouris

Back in January I wrote for Russia Insider a critique of Fitch's decision to downgrade the rating of Russia's economy to just above junk status ("Russia Credit Rating Downgrade Is Blatantly Political. Here's Why", Russia Insider, 12th January 2015).  

As I predicted in that critique this decision was subsequently followed by the two other U.S. credit rating agencies. Later in January S&P actually downgraded Russia to junk status, and Moody's followed suit a few weeks later.

I enclose below a report from the Guardian dated 26th January 2015 that sets out the reasons for S&P's decision.

It would be difficult to imagine a situation where my critique of the Fitch decision could have been more rapidly and completely vindicated, or which could have left the rationale for the downgrades by the U.S. credit rating agencies more completely discredited, than the one we have seen develop over the last few weeks.

As I pointed out in my critique, the credit downgrades were totally unjustified since there was absolutely no chance either that the Russian government would default on its sovereign debt or that Russian corporates would default on their corporate debt .

So it has proved. At a conference in St. Petersburg, Putin has said that Russian corporates repaid $130 billion of foreign debt last year and have now paid off the bulk of the $60 billion of foreign debt that is due for repayment this year.  

Though the dollar value of the Russian Central Bank's reserves has fallen from $388 billion, when I wrote my critique, to around $355 billion now, it seems most of this fall has been caused by the depreciation of the euro. A significant part of the reserves is held in euros and, as these have devalued against the dollar because of the European Central Bank's quantitative easing programme, this has made the overall dollar value of the reserves fall. In other words most of the reported fall in the reserves is due to the fall in the euro's value rather than spending of reserves by the Russian Central Bank.

Recently the Russian Central Bank's reserves have started to edge upwards and latest reports suggest the Central Bank has resumed its programme of gold purchases.  

Given the speed with which because of sanctions Russian corporates are being forced to pay off their foreign debt, and the strong likelihood that from now on the Russian Central Bank's reserves will start growing, it is not impossible that at some point in the near future the size of the Russian Central Bank's reserves will overtake the amount Russian companies owe in foreign debt.

That of course does not even take into account the very large reserves of foreign currency and of foreign assets Russian corporates already hold - a point completely ignored by Western commentary and in the downgrade reports but which I was at pains to point out in my critique.

In other words there was no default last year, there will be no default this year, there will be no default next year, and there is no serious chance of a default in any future year.

What of the flesh-creeping talk of economic collapse that was doing the rounds at the end of last year and which featured so prominently in the rationalisations for the downgrades?

The Guardian says, "Ratings agency Standard & Poor's said the downgrade was caused by the country's reduced flexibility to cut interest rates and a weakening of the financial system."  

We read on that "Attempts to shore up the value of the rouble have had only a temporary effect, Standard & Poor's said, noting that the 750 basis point rise in interest rates last month to take interest rates up to 17% had only a limited impact on the rouble-dollar exchange rate.

"'The rouble briefly appreciated against the dollar but has since continued to depreciate, reaching about 66 roubles to the dollar, compared to about 35 a year ago,' S&P said."

Russia was therefore supposedly caught in a trap because "the Central Bank of Russia 'faces increasingly difficult monetary policy decisions while also trying to support sustainable GDP growth.'" It added, 'These challenges result from the inflationary effects of exchange rate depreciation and sanctions from the west as well as counter-sanctions imposed by Russia.'"

It is quite extraordinary with what speed events have exposed the falsity of these claims and warnings.

Since the S&P report the rouble instead of weakening has strengthened. It is now trading in a range of 50-55 roubles to the dollar. Indeed the government and the Central Bank are becoming concerned that the rouble is strengthening too quickly.

Inflation appears to have peaked at just under 17% and is now falling.  Some commentators now expect its overall level in 2015 to be in single figures. Though that may be optimistic, S&P's expectations that it could rise above 15% this year is almost certain to be proved wrong.

Though parts of the banking system experienced difficulties at the end of last year, the banking system overall looks stable. According to Putin for the first time in its history the value of its assets actually exceed the size of the economy.

As for what the British used to call the 'real economy', industrial production shrank by only 0.6% in the first quarter and overall GDP contraction was just 2% - far below even the most optimistic expectations.

In light of these rapidly improving conditions, there are now strong expectations that the Russian Central Bank will cut interest rates substantially soon. They have already been brought down from 17% (which they were at the time of the Fitch and S&P downgrades) to 14%. They will shortly (probably within days) fall significantly further.  

The trap S&P was talking about between the need to defend the rouble and hold down inflation and the need to support the economy, which supposedly limited the Russian Central Bank's exchange rate flexibility, as it turns out does not exist.

None of this is to say that the Russian economy is free of problems.  A 2% GDP contraction is still a contraction. Inflation in the first quarter of 17% has hurt living standards, particularly of those on fixed incomes and the low-paid.  Against this unemployed has increased only fractionally to 5.8%.  

These figures can be compared with the 2009 crisis when inflation was 11%, GDP contracted by 7.9%, and unemployment reached 8.3%.

In my critique of the Fitch decision I said that the decision made so little sense it could only be explained politically.

That of course is true as subsequent events show.

That fact however should not obscure how completely wrong that decision - and that of the other two big credit rating agencies - was. In any sane world this grotesque misgrading of Russian risk ought to be as great a blow to the credibility of the credit rating agencies as was any one of the many other eccentric rating decisions they have made in recent years.

That of course will not be the case.

As the RT's Peter Lavelle often says, no one in the West ever loses their job or sees their reputation damaged by talking down Russia, however wrong they turn out to be.

The point to take from this story is that any assessment of Russia made by any Western agency, even one like a credit rating agency that claims to be impartial and objective, especially during a period of crisis, cannot be taken at face value. When it comes to 'objective assessment' of Russia, in the West no such thing exists.

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 12
Moskovskiy Komsomolets
April 20, 2015
Russian pundit sees "last chance" for country's broad reform
Yevgeniy Gontmakher, Killing perestroyka. A crime against Russia

Throughout the many centuries of Russia's history, a change of power has practically always occurred only as a result of the death, and sometimes the violent death, of the leader. February 1917, it would seem, started to break this barbaric tradition: The inhabitants of Petrograd came out onto the streets, and Nikolay II abdicated on a voluntary-compulsory basis. Things started moving towards a constituent assembly, which, if it had been held, would no doubt have declared a Russian republic with a democratic form of rule. I do not think that the president would have been give any special powers, and the reins of power would have been handed over to the State Duma and the zemstvo (local government).

But - it was not held. The Bolsheviks immediately set up a lifetime form of rule for [1917 revolution Vladimir] Lenin (until his mental death in 1922) and then [Soviet leader Iosif] Stalin. In 1953 [Soviet leader Nikita] Khrushchev's star was in the ascendant, and, after the crushing defeat of the "antiparty group" in 1957, he became the absolute master of an enormous country. It would seem that the tradition was not broken, and it was just a question of waiting for the mourning music to come on on the black and white televisions. But in 1964 there was a palace coup, which ended not with a fatal blow to the head with a small box [reference to the death of Russian tsar Paul I], but merely with a resignation "on health grounds" and a pension for Nikita Sergeyevich [Khrushchev]. After his removal from power, Khrushchev lived with his family for another seven years.

However, [Leonid] Brezhnev, who replaced him, gradually arranged things so that the end of his rule only occurred with his death. This Russian tradition was later continued, in a quite farcical way, by [former head of KGB and Soviet leader Yuriy] Andropov and [Soviet leader Konstantin] Chernenko. That is why, when in 1985 the 54-year-old Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the CPSU [Communist Party of the Soviet Union] Central Committee, society prepared for decades of life surrounded by his portraits and busts.

But then a strange story began. Instead of quickly putting his own people into all the key nomenklatura posts and then resting on his laurels, without wasting a moment this man suddenly started talking about perestroyka. And not only did he start talking about it, but he also launched glasnost, personally called up the disgraced [famous Soviet dissident] Andrey Dmitriyevich Sakharov in Gorkiy [now Nizhniy Novgorod], in order to bring him back home, forced through the law on cooperatives, and declared "new thinking" which effectively put an end to the Cold War even in the time of the USSR.

Yes, of course Gorbachev wanted to revamp the hopelessly outdated idea of socialism, which during the years of stagnation stopped being of interest to a lot of people, and even made some laugh. Now, looking down from the heights of 2015, this seems like quixotism at best, and stupidity at worst. However, I would like to recall that Sakharov himself was a vehement supporter of the convergence theory, that is, the unification of the best features of socialism and capitalism. And a considerable (if not greater) proportion of today's Russian nomenklatura [governing establishment], which speaks contemptuously about perestroyka and Gorbachev, were members of the CPSU at the time and some of them occupied very high positions in it.

This does not in any way mean that I condemn these people for such a radical ideological shift. Almost all of them have done this quite sincerely, under the influence of genuine tectonic process which were in fact launched by perestroyka. The only question is why do they refuse Gorbachev, who could have simply perpetuated the situation and carried on the stagnation of the Soviet Union (maybe for more than one decade) the right to change the view of the world order? He could perfectly well have made a deal with the West and given up geopolitical ambitions, and have frozen internal political life even more. Particularly since Andropov thought up a great many ways of relieving pressure in the cauldron: Some people (very selectively, it was not 1937, after all) were sent to prison or psychiatric hospital, some people were forced to emigrate, others were warned in a timely fashion about going beyond the red banners. There was no need to worry about television, radio, and the newspapers. Only very tried and true people travelled abroad.

From the point of view of the current nomenklatura, which has been brought up on the same ancient Russian basic instinct of power known as "irremovability from office," Gorbachev displayed spinelessness by giving up all these opportunities, which could have ensured even life-long rule for him. And this, it seems to me, is the main reason for the hatred for him among the top leaders.

Of course, nowadays you can say as much as you like that Mikhail Sergeyevich and his team lost control of the developments in the country. But did [first Soviet President] Boris Yeltsin and [first Soviet Prime Minister] Yegor Gaydar really suppose, at the beginning of the 1990s, that within 20 years in the new (!) Russia, the agenda would be filled with aggressive isolationism and great-power chauvinism, brainwashing unseen even in Brezhnev's times, the degeneration of democracy, and the decline of the economy? Were these years not the time when, under the guise of organizing the hierarchy of power and establishing order, Russia completely lost its bearings?

Yes, under Mikhail Gorbachev the CPSU at its Central Committee plenums and congresses adopted all kinds of strategic documents like five-year plans or the Food Programme, which bore absolutely no relation to the real development of events. But at the present time do we really have a concept of the development of the country which would set out a picture of the desired future, and provide the opportunity to elaborate specific road maps for approaching it? Read the basic spheres of the government's activity for the next five years, adopted in January 2013. This is pure fantasy.

The federal budget for 2015-2017 was adopted in December of last year. It was built on two parameters which are the bedrock of our archaic economic model: a barrel of oil in 2015 should cost on average 91 dollars (!), and the rouble rate against the US currency would not exceed R40. The document had not yet left the Duma building when it became clear that it bears no relation to life. Nevertheless, it was pig-headedly dragged through all the levels of authority. As a result, we spent the entire first quarter of this year de facto without a budget, just like in the worst years of the "turbulent" 1990s. The new version of this document, radically revised, was, like its December counterpart, adopted by the same Duma at lightning speed. You feel like asking the deputies: What were you thinking of then?

As we can see, we are living not only without a vision of Russia's future for several years ahead, but without any understanding of what to do literally tomorrow. Naturally, all that remains in this situation is to repeat mantras about spiritual bonds, specialness, and searches for external and internal enemies. Behind this verbal gum for the people is concealed a complete loss of meanings and values. The authorities' main motivation is to stay in power no matter what happens, and the overwhelming majority of society's motivation is to grab from the state as big a slice of handouts as possible, and, in so doing, feel as though it is getting up off its knees. Perestroyka, with its incipient (even if independently of the will of Gorbachev, who let go of the reins) movement towards freedom, justice, and progress, does not just seem like ancient history placed on the archive shelves to the newly emerged aggressively obedient majority - it has become a propaganda bugaboo of our days, almost on a par with "coloured revolution."

But, if you look at the agenda for Russia as a set of actions of the captain of a motor ship in distress with over 140m passengers on board, then the values released into society by perestroyka turn out to be more than relevant.

"Glasnost 2.0" would be a return to real diversity of the mass media, primarily federal television channels. Journalism should replace propaganda.

"New thinking 2.0" would be establishing stable relations with the world around us, finding a combination for Russia joining the European area (from Vancouver in Canada via London, Warsaw, and Moscow to Tokyo and New Zealand) and maintaining our sovereignty, which would enable us to restructure the economy and the whole of society, so that we (and not just a narrow stratum of nomenklatura, striving for irremovability) could live comfortably, achieve successes in science and art - and see this as a reason to go around with our heads held high.

"Democracy 2.0" would of course be not the timid shoots that pushed their way through the asphalt at the end of the 1980s and were not trampled then, and not the ersatz institutes which we can see today, but a properly functioning distribution of authorities, political competition, decentralization in favour of local self-government, and a growth in forms of people's self-organization.

All this together does not constitute the phenomenon of "perestroyka 2.0." The idea is far broader: Unlike the repeated attempts in our history to systematically reform the country, which ended in failure and going backwards into stagnation and collapse, today it is vitally important to achieve success.

I fear that fate is giving us one last chance, and to let it slip would be a crime against Russia.

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 #13
www.rt.com
April 29, 2015
Opposition threatens legal action as authorities strip Navalny's party of registration

The Russian Ministry of Justice has stripped the Party of Progress of its registration due to procedural violations, but its leaders vow to continue their activities and take the case to Russian court, as well as to the European Court of Human Rights.

The Justice Ministry announced the cancelation of the Party of Progress' registration through its web-site on Tuesday afternoon. The post said that the party had one month to open its branches in at least 43 of 85 Russian regions, but had failed to do so.

The party head, well known anti-corruption activist Aleksey Navalny, replied in a post on his personal blog, saying that the party had registered in all of the regions on time, but many of those registrations had subsequently been canceled by regional authorities. Navalny suggested that this had been done on purpose to hamper the political activities of the opposition. The activist, a lawyer, also added that by law a political party's registration cannot simply be canceled by ministerial decree, but requires a court proceeding.

However, the explanation posted on the Justice Ministry's web-site states that the registration was canceled after courts in 25 regions ruled that the Party of Progress' offices had not been registered within the required time.

Navalny also promised that the party would continue its work as an unregistered movement and appeal the Justice Ministry's decision in court.

Navalny's key ally, Mikhail Kasyanov, said that cooperation between the Party of Progress and his project RPR-PARNAS would go on despite these latest events. Navalny also promised that "the coalition will persevere, will take part in the elections and win political representation." Navalny's allies explained that members of the Party of Progress will be able to participate in polls on other parties' election lists.

On Wednesday reporters asked Vladimir Putin's press secretary to comment on the situation concerning the Party of Progress and also asked if the president considered Aleksey Navalny a possible political threat.

"You know, in general a president with such a level of public trust and popularity, with such an electoral rating can hardly perceive other politicians as a threat," Dmitry Peskov answered. He declined to comment on the Party of Progress' canceled registration.

Major research conducted in early February of this year revealed that 85 percent of Russian citizens trust President Vladimir Putin and 74 percent say they would vote for him if presidential elections were held the following weekend

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 #14
Sputnik
April 29, 2015
Navalny Poses No Political Threat to Putin - Kremlin Spokesman

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Political opposition activist Alexei Navalny poses no political threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin because of the leader's level of trust and ratings, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday.

"You know, as a whole, the president most likely with such a level of trust and popularity, with his electorate rating would not consider other politicians as a threat," Peskov told journalists when asked if Putin believes Navalny to be a possible political threat.

Alexei Navalny, a Russian blogger and prominent political activist, heads the Party of Progress. In 2013 he finished second in the mayoral election in Moscow, with 27 percent of the vote.

On Tuesday, the Russian Justice Ministry stripped the Party of Progress of its state registration for failing to fulfill a requirement to register operations in a timely fashion in at least half of Russia's regions.

According to the Russian Public Opinion Research Center VCIOM, Putin's approval rating increased by 2.1 percent since March and currently stands at 88.2 percent.

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#15
http://readrussia.com
April 23, 2015
Can Russia's Democratic Opposition Get Serious?
by Will Wright

Last week, two of Moscow's leading opposition parties announced new plans to form a "democratic alliance." The Progress Party, led by the charismatic Alexei Navalny, and RPR-Parnas, co-chaired by former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov and, until recently, Boris Nemtsov, will run a joint list of candidates for the 2016 national Duma elections, party leaders said.

An important factor in motivating this attempt by Russia's beleaguered opposition to consolidate its strength and become a more serious political force was the shocking assassination of Boris Nemtsov this February. In a radio interview with Ekho Moskvy, Navalny cited Nemtsov's killing as a decisive factor in spurring the creation of the new alliance.

The parties will not formally merge, but rather form a broad democratic union, «in which social democrats, liberals, and conservatives of the European type can comfortably exist,» wrote Navalny on his website. «It's astounding that a huge number of people in this country believe that Russia should develop in a European way and that we need changeable leadership, an independent judiciary, and free media, yet there is not one representative currently in the legislature who supports these four these simple things without five hundred limitations,» Navalny further explained.

Since the unveiling of the new alliance on April 17, most like-minded opposition forces in Russia have rallied to the coalition. Democratic Choice, a registered party led by former deputy energy minister Vladimir Milov, and Citizen Initiative, chaired by former economics minister Andrei Nechayev, have joined the coalition. Two unregistered opposition parties, the December 5th party and the Libertarian Party, have also joined. The opposition movement Solidarnost and Open Russia, an organization created by billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky after his release from prison to promote European political values in Russia, have both pledged support for the new coalition as well.

In a joint press conference on Wednesday, Milov, Navalny, and other leaders talked more about specific plans for the new alliance. The coalition plans to run candidates on the RPR-Parnas ticket in Russia's next Duma elections in December 2016. This move takes advantage of the fact that RPR-Parnas does not have to collect thousands of signatures to support each candidate, as is required of less established parties. In 2015, the alliance will run candidates in six regional and district elections in the Russian regions of Kaluga, Kostroma, and Novosibirsk as well.

The leaders also explained that all members of the coalition have agreed to form «people's lists» for each election, and candidates will compete to win a spot on these lists through «open, honest primaries.» A common feature of political life in the United States, primary elections are not held in modern Russia, where the incumbent president even refrains from personally participating in presidential debates. Successful implementation of open primaries would certainly shake up Russian politics, but for now it is uncertain whether the new alliance will be able to muster the resources and organization necessary to pull this off.

It also remains to be seen whether or not this new alliance can overcome the infighting, complacency, and general lack of focus, organization and strategy that have long plagued Russia's non-systemic political opposition and bedeviled attempts to form effective coalitions in the past.
In 2006, a disparate group of liberals, nationalists, and leftists attempted to join forces under the umbrella coalition Another Russia. However, Another Russia fell apart in 2010 amid mutual recriminations from the leaders of the various factions, having accomplished little.

More recent efforts to achieve opposition unity, such as the «For Fair Elections» movement in response to allegations of electoral fraud in 2011, and the Opposition Coordination Council, an ill-defined attempt at parallel government, also failed to become lasting, coherent political structures.

It remains to be seen if, this time, Russia's new opposition coalition can finally mount a serious challenge to the Putin system. The degree to which Alexei Navalny can provide the compelling leadership needed to hold the alliance together and maintain its focus could be a key to success. It will also be important for the coalition to develop and clearly communicate a well-defined policy platform that satisfies its various members while generating broad support beyond Moscow.

While the grand ambitions of this new alliance are still a long way from being realized, and Russia's current political climate leaves limited room for maneuver, the opposition does appear to have taken a serious first step toward consolidating its strength. This alone is a notable development in Russia today. Many more steps must follow, however, if Russia's democratic opposition intends to honor Nemtsov's memory by building a truly united political front able to win seats in the next round of national elections.

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 #16
Moscow Times
April 29, 2015
Persecuted Russian Lawyer Finds New Ways Around Foreign Agents Label
By Sergey Chernov

The life of St. Petersburg human rights lawyer Ivan Pavlov has changed dramatically in the last 12 months. After his American wife was deported as a "threat to national security" in August, the family moved to Prague, but Pavlov returns regularly to lead high-profile cases and manage a group of associates that continues to work despite his organization - the Freedom of Information Foundation - being put on the notorious "foreign agents" list of NGOs by the Justice Ministry later that month.

"We left, settled down in Prague and since then I have lived in two homes: one home where my work is, and the other where my family is. We have lived like that since August," Pavlov said in a recent interview with The Moscow Times.

After he took on the high-profile case earlier this year of Svetlana Davydova, who was accused of treason, the case against her was closed and the lawyer has since taken on several more cases of Russians accused of treason and espionage.

Pavlov knows first-hand of the difficulties currently faced by Russian NGOs, having lost his battle to prevent the Freedom of Information Foundation from being labeled a "foreign agent" under a controversial 2012 law that labels any NGOs receiving foreign funding and engaged in ill-defined "political activity" as "foreign agents," a term critics say is reminiscent of Stalin-era spy mania. He has, however, vowed not to give up and is actively searching for ways for his organization and others to continue their civic activities.

New Battle Tactics

"We think the government is now doing everything possible to paralyze civil activism," Pavlov said, adding that most of the activities of Russian NGOs - those that have not closed, rejected foreign funding or stopped any activities that might be considered political - have now been reduced to defending themselves against prosecution.

"Basically, this 'foreign agents' law is achieving its goal. If we engage with it and do everything they are forcing us to: start defending ourselves, collecting certificates and documents, explaining ourselves - that's it, we stop doing the work that used to be effective.

"It is important that other colleagues, even those who are not on the list, realize that it is impossible to work under the conditions created by the current legislation on 'foreign agents' and non-profit organizations. Under these conditions, it's impossible to work as independent non-profit organizations."

Currently, Pavlov has his mind set on showing that there is a way out.

"We are lawyers, we understand that non-profit organizations are a merely one way of implementing civic activities," Pavlov said.

"The most important thing now is to make people who have got used to working in the format of a non-profit organization realize that it is not the main thing. Preserving a non-profit organization should not be the goal, or an end in itself. The goal should be to preserve civic activities - and that is possible.

"We have reformatted our activities. We do not deny for a minute that we are getting out from under the jurisdiction of the legislation on non-profit organizations and foreign agents. We now have a commercial organization. We recently created a non-profit organization abroad, which is not subject to the law on 'foreign agents.' And we will continue what we were doing."

The people who were involved in the Freedom of Information Foundation's human rights program now act as Team 29 - an unofficial group of rights advocates named after the article of the Constitution that guarantees freedom of information and bans censorship, Pavlov said.

Personal Experience

The Freedom of Information Foundation was put on the "foreign agents" list on Aug. 28, 2014 after months of fighting the authorities' attempts to pin the label on the NGO.

After the first inspection by the Prosecutor's Office during a wave of checks in which hundreds of NGOs were visited by prosecutors across Russia in 2013, the NGO - whose primary aim is the transparency of state bodies - was issued a warning, but the inspections were resumed with a vengeance in early 2014. As a result, the Freedom of Information Foundation was said to be "performing the function of foreign agents" by combining foreign funding and political activities "aimed at changing state policies or forming public opinion with the same goals."

According to Pavlov, the Prosecutor's Office found five instances of what it saw as political activities: Pavlov's participation in a meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian human rights activists, a report that the NGO's program director made at an Open Government Partnership conference in London, an article analyzing legislation on personal data on the organization's website, the Right to Know awards event held by the foundation in 2013, and finally, the act of auditing the authorities' official websites and reporting on what information they publish and what they do not.

Meet the President

Pavlov met with Obama at the Crowne Plaza St. Petersburg Airport hotel when the U.S. president was visiting St. Petersburg for the G-20 summit in September 2013.

"Obama met with us, there were probably eight human rights activists from across Russia," Pavlov said. "Everybody spoke on their own topic, I spoke about freedom of information."

According to Pavlov, the meeting elicited an "unhealthy interest" from the authorities, though he said he had not spoken about Russian issues.

"[Obama] asked, 'How can I help you?' I said, 'Well, you can hardly do anything about freedom of information here, but America is a country that many take their example from, for better or worse," Pavlov said.

"I said that a good example could be set in America. First, I said, change the legislation on state secrets, make it more transparent, so that the procedures are clearer and more distinct. Secondly, I proposed that he come up with an initiative to the United Nations to create a certain standard of openness for governments, an international convention that countries could join. Thirdly, I said, 'free [Chelsea, formerly known as Bradley] Manning' - who leaked data about abuse by the military in Iraq. There was no Russian context at all."

A court then dismissed the Obama meeting and London conference as private initiatives by the individuals concerned, but the other three grounds for declaring the Freedom of Information Foundation a "foreign agent" were upheld.

A Second Front

In August 2014, in the middle of his legal battle to keep his NGO off the government's "foreign agents" list, Pavlov found out that his wife Jennifer Gaspar's residency permit had been revoked.

"On Aug. 5, we received a letter from the FMS (Federal Migration Service) notifying us that her residency permit had been revoked - she is a U.S. citizen - and saying she had to leave Russia within 15 days of the decision," Pavlov said.

"We looked below to see when the decision had been taken, and realized that we had received the letter (as it came to us by mail) on exactly the 15th day."

After Gaspar appealed the decision, a court hearing revealed that the FMS had acted on the instructions of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, a successor agency to the Soviet KGB, which declared Gaspar - who worked as an adviser to NGOs - a "threat to national security." No grounds were given for the allegation.

"Our petitions requesting that the FSB attend the court hearing, or that they at least share the details of the decision with us, were ignored by the court, which dealt with these requests very quickly, dismissing all of our demands," Pavlov said.

Further attempts to appeal the FSB's decision or even find out the grounds behind it were greeted with the response that the document was classified. Two lawsuits initiated by Pavlov against the FSB are currently being heard: one disputing the decision itself, and the other contesting the legality of classifying it.

Pavlov does not doubt that the cases against his organization and his wife are connected, but has refused to give up his crusade to uphold human rights in Russia.

Taking on the Untouchables

One of the highest-profile cases Pavlov has been involved in recently was the case of Svetlana Davydova, a woman put in prison on suspicion of treason despite having small children, one of whom she was still breastfeeding. The mother of seven was transported from her town in the Smolensk region to Moscow's high-security Lefortovo prison and faced up to 20 years in prison for allegedly calling the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow in April 2014 to share her suspicions that Russian troops were being deployed to eastern Ukraine. An online petition for her immediate release quickly collected 60,000 signatures.

"Her arrest caused [a strong] reaction in society: 'How could it be; a breastfeeding woman with many children in Lefortovo?'" Pavlov said.

"The authorities, of course, realized that they had shown their true colors and tried to remedy the situation by releasing her, but did not drop the case straight away."

Pavlov described the accusations against Davydova as "absurd."

"The authorities were unwise to open this case, because to accuse Svetlana Davydova is to admit that her allegations were well-founded and that Russian troops are being sent to fight in Ukraine," he said.

"That would lead to more criminal cases, perhaps at an international level. The court in The Hague would perhaps become interested in some people. But because the Russian authorities deny that they are fighting in Ukraine, to say that the charges were well founded simply contradicts their claims."

Last week, Davydova received a letter of apology for "harm resulting from criminal prosecution" from an aide to the Prosecutor General, Alexei Nikitin. Dated April 6, it said that the criminal case against her was closed on March 13 by the FSB's investigative body due to lack of evidence.

Currently, Pavlov and Team 29 are involved in the cases of three men accused of espionage: those of Gennady Kravtsov, Yevgeny Petrin and Yury Soloshenko.

"We decided to try to take on such cases as far as possible," Pavlov said.

"Because usually in these cases a state lawyer is appointed who behaves oddly, doesn't tell anyone anything, and if they do, sometimes comment on the case from the perspective of the prosecution, as in Svetlana Davydova's case. [Davydova's former lawyer Andrei] Stebenyov was disbarred [by the Moscow Bar Chamber on April 15]."

Shaming the Courts

Pavlov believes the job of the lawyer in politically motivated cases is to present undeniable evidence of the person's innocence to make the court "feel ashamed," because the declared presumption of innocence is ignored when courts are fully dependent on the authorities.

"In such cases, unfortunately, our court does not retain its independence; it's simply not possible to do so in the current circumstances," he said.

"I recently met with Ukrainian colleagues who said something interesting that made me dwell on it. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that the longer one person stays in power, the less independence the court has. The more often the authorities change, the more independent the court feels, the more it orientates itself not to the opinion of an unchanging official, but to the opinion of the law. It realizes that if an official is not permanent, it is better to be guided by the law, to make decisions in accordance with the law.

"And when the official is one and the same person, the court - which unfortunately has not become an authority [in Russia], but remains a 'court system' - orientates on something stable. And there is only one thing that is stable: 'Our Everything' [President Putin]."

Tightening the Noose

Apart from the "foreign agents" legislation, a number of laws restricting freedom of assembly and freedom of information have been passed in Russia in the past few years.

"The noose around the rights and freedoms of citizens is being tightened; the laws that have recently been adopted are of a fairly repressive character, restrictive in terms of human rights and freedoms. This also applies to the Internet, where access is being restricted and sites are being blocked.

"First, they moved to protect children from harmful content, and I immediately said: 'This is not about children, this is about adults." Then they admitted it: 'Yes, and adults, too. We will be deleting extremist information as well, and blocking sites.' And now we see that the desire of [Russian media watchdog] Roskomnadzor is sufficient to block a site; no courts are needed anymore.

"Of course, all these constraints are not for those who already have their own point of view, they are for those who don't have it. Because you and I will find a way to get around the blocks, but most people will not, they will simply think: 'Well, we couldn't find it, so we'll look somewhere else.' And then it's all around them: propaganda everywhere and Kremlin bots."

Pavlov is not giving up, however, and believes that the situation is not irreversible.

"I hope it's not for long," he said.

"In general, all these restrictions have terrible costs - economic, first and foremost. Economic and political. I just want to believe that at some point the powers that be will begin to understand that the costs are too high. And it all depends on how long those people are willing to continue such a policy when the economy is in trouble, and business is in isolation.

"This in turn depends on how long people are willing to endure it all. It all depends on how many resources and how many lives the authorities are ready to throw into the furnace. Because it's all the same; progress is inevitable. You can hold up the regime for a while, but not forever."

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 #17
http://readrussia.com
April 2y, 2015
48 Hours as a Kremlin Whore
by Mark Galeotti
Mark Galeotti is professor of global affairs at New York University

Publicly suggesting that Western leaders' snubbing of Moscow's Victory Day celebrations might be a counter-productive move proved an instructive experience in the pitch and polarization of opinions inside and outside Russia. [http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/snubbing-russias-victory-day-achieves-nothing/519461.html]

This week I used my column in the Moscow Times to express my concerns about whether the decision by Western leaders to boycott the May 9 Victory Day parades in Moscow - 70 years since the victory over the Axis powers and probably the last big anniversary at which surviving veterans could be present - might have been an understandable but but counter-productive move. So long as Russians troops remain in Ukraine, I can fully see why they might be reluctant to gaze out as tanks rumble across Red Square. But at the same time, drawing on my conversations over a couple of weeks in Moscow, I feared that Russians, even those with no love for the current regime, might instead see it as a slight to their sacrifices in the Great Patriotic War and a vindication of the Kremlin's pernicious narrative of a Russia assailed by spiteful Westerners eager to denigrate and diminish it. I tried to bring nuance to what too often seems a crudely binary debate as each side talks past and over rather than to each other. That was, I suppose, my big mistake.

The following 48 hours have proven a fascinating case study into the current state of global discourse. There have been emails, tweets, comments sent through my blog; undoubtedly this has struck a more resonant chord than anything else I have written of late. Some have been gratifyingly supportive. Others measured in their agreement or disagreement, reluctantly seeing the risks in the policy or respectfully affirming that they are outweighed by the need to make a strong statement or at least not give comfort and apparent approval to a regime engaged in odious foreign intervention. All fair enough. Ah, but then, then there are the others. Assertions that I would connive at Russian imperialism, cloaked in the thinnest veneer of manners. Demands that I justify my views in meticulous detail or publicly recant. Abusive critiques of my intellect, credentials, morals, and parentage.

(Hence the title: I was tickled finally to be called a «Kremlin whore», not least when other equally intemperate souls regard me as some kind of «pathological Russophobe»; I suppose if nothing else I should note the splendid gender-neutrality in play. Frankly, «Kremlin gigolo» anyway seems to me to have a very different vibe.)

Many of the more critical comments drew on deep and possibly willful misreading of what I said. For the record, I am in no way supportive of Russian policy in Ukraine, nor do I have a problem with sanctions in principle. I just want them to be smart sanctions that actually help push policy and opinion the way we want rather than reinforce a worrying tendency towards a kind of defensive cultural xenophobia. I do not think Russians alone beat Hitler (though the Soviets were the anvil on which his bayonet broke), or that the peoples of Central Europe who found one occupier replaced by another should view Stalin's regime with any grateful affection.

Instead, this is an issue of symbolism and optics, of how the Western decision to boycott the iconic parade played in Russia, especially when viewed through the distorting panes of state-controlled media. My sense - and this is no more than a personal observation, I make no bones about that - is that it is playing badly.

Of course, much of this was lost on many of the responders, including a fair proportion of the positive ones. Responses such as «I agree, the West has no moral high ground from which to criticize Russia after Libya and Kosovo» depressed me in their evident misunderstanding of the point I had been trying to make. But ultimately, I suppose, people will often read into what they read what they want or expect to find.

Noteworthy was the fact that of the responders who noted their location or whose provenance I could gauge from other cues, the overwhelming majority of those from inside Russia agreed with me. Many of these were people I knew, often expats, and frequently no great fans of the Kremlin. But I suspect they were most in tune with the mood in Russia itself.

Conversely, almost all of the critical responses came from outside the country. Now I absolutely get that someone of, say, Ukrainian stock is going to have a very visceral response to current events. Nuance be damned, the desire may well be to see the Kremlin punished, humiliated. But when, for example, someone feels comfortable using expressions such as «the fascist regime in Moscow» or who asks why I «want to see Obama jerking off Putin while jets fly over on their way to bomb Mariupol?» (full marks for vivid imagery, by the way) then this points to a starkly confrontational perspective.

More to the point, it means the perspective is driven by what they think, whereas my point is that we should also consider how something will be taken by Russians. The day we decide that this doesn't matter is the day we have actually bought into Putin's own manichean worldview of a cultural struggle to the knife.

Of course there would be discomforts in attending a triumphalist military parade. However, not only would it have been possible to decline the invitation without making a Thing of it, being there and using it as an opportunity to show respect for the Russian people and their past suffering but also to speak out against currently policy might have been a far more effective move.

I was minded of Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper's admirably balanced gesture on meeting Putin at the G20 summit in Australia in November. «I guess I'll shake your hand,» he said, «but I have only one thing to say to you: You need to get out of Ukraine.» It is possible to show civilized manners to Putin as a head of state, yet use the opportunity to make a point.

And this is crucial. We need to find ways of communicating condemnation of Russian aggression in Ukraine, and giving that condemnation teeth, without either closing channels for communication or playing to Putin's narrative of embittered entitlement. And that means being willing to explore nuance, and to find some way of doing so without being dismissed as either a «Kremlin whore» or a «pathological Russophobe.»

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 #18
http://readrussia.com
April 28, 2015
Who's afraid of big, bad Kadyrov?
by Mark Galeotti
Mark Galeotti is professor of global affairs at New York University

For Chechnya's president Ramzan Kadyrov, governance has always been something of a performance art. However, the role he chooses to play has changed over time, and is increasingly one of an independent and willful monarch, unwilling to swallow any challenges to his personal authority over Chechnya. How does he get away with it? Who is deterred and discomfited by his macho theatricals? The answer seems to be Vladimir Putin.

Kadyrov's claims of slavish loyalty to the president, after all, are looking more and more threadbare. Whether or not be was behind the Nemtsov killing or simply retrospectively opted to shield the prime suspect, he certainly is not willing to cooperate with Moscow's investigation. More recently, he even told his Kadyrovtsy, the Chechen security forces - they may carry Ministry of Internal Affairs IDs, but no one doubts where their loyalties lie - that if federal agents try to operate in Chechnya without his say-so, they "shoot to kill." Remind me, who won the war for Chechen independence?

So why does Moscow continue to laminate his breast in medals and, perhaps more to the point, continue to bankroll his corrupt and authoritarian semi-Islamist regime? Wave a Ukrainian flag in Moscow, and the police will be on top of you in no time. Shelter suspected murderers, and get a fat check and a decoration.

Contrary to some suggestions, Kadyrov has no real constituency in Moscow. The security agencies all resent the way he has essentially taken over or marginalized their local branches. The bean counters resent the subsidies flowing south at a time of stringency. And the elite as a whole regard him with at best wary contempt: he may have been useful, and he is certainly dangerous, but this thuggish warlord is not one of them. Even if erstwhile political dramaturge-in-chief Vyacheslav Surkov is now in Kadyrov's entourage, as some suggest, that just reflects that he is still out of favor with the Kremlin. Given the opportunity to return to the director's chair in Moscow, I hardly see Surkov turning it down for the chance to hang with Ramzan.

There are also the concerns that taking him down might unleash chaos in Chechnya again, not least at the hands of the 20,000 or so Kadyrovtsy. To be sure, Kadyrov has packed the Chechen administration and security apparatus with his cronies, but we should not assume that their red-blooded affirmations of loyalty are more meaningful than the lachrymose end-of-the-evening, alcohol-fueled pledges of eternal friendship at a Russian banquet. Taking Kadyrov down is certainly possible. Were he arrested in Moscow and a quick interim regime put in place in Grozny, with guarantees that the rest of the Chechen elite would be secure on the one hand, troop mobilizations on the border on the other, it might well be much less tumultuous than feared. After all, these are corrupt and cynical opportunists, and as for the Kadyrovtsy, many are ex-guerrillas. In other words they have already changed sides once and done well enough out of it.

All that said, there would be some risk of instability in Chechnya, at present arguably the most peaceful of the North Caucasus republics, even if it is the peace of terror and exhaustion. Still, one thing the Kremlin does fear is not looking in charge, and so long as Kadyrov gets away with, quite literally, murder, then this represents a lasting challenge to the power vertical. Is dealing with this growing challenge not worth a risk?

The fact that nothing has been done speaks to an essential timidity within Putin. This might sound perverse given his willingness to wage war in Ukraine and his own brand of bare-chested macho antics. However, the annexation of Crimea and then intervention in Ukraine, like the 2008 Georgian war, were anticipated to be quick and easy operations, bullying a smaller, divided neighbor with shock and awe and barefaced cheek, and delivering a prompt reaffirmation of Russian regional hegemony.

As for the Putin shows, these are always prepared and choreographed with the greatest care, to deliver the requisite PR footage while keeping the principal safe and sound. Putin did not serve in the military. In the KGB, he was not some James Bond in a fur hat sneaking across borders and taking on the Motherland's enemies hand-to-hand but an agent handler safely in East Germany. Yes, he is a martial artist, but judo is hardly bare-knuckle boxing or UFC.

This helps explain part of the apparent fascination Ramzan has for Vova. Behind his bluster, and his own carefully cultivated Instagram persona, Kadyrov is a genuine bruiser. He fought in and commanded field units in battle. He boxes and according to unconfirmed but hardly implausible accounts also sometimes takes a hand in the "physical interrogation" - beating and torture - of suspects and rivals. I cannot help but wonder if even when Kadyrov's bravado actually directly disrespects him, such as turning up to the Kremlin in a tracksuit, Putin responds to and seeks to approval of this hands-on thug.

But man-crush issues aside, Putin is also strikingly cautious in his dealings with the elite. The relative handful of cases where he has targeted senior figures within it have been precisely that, rare. Furthermore, they tend to be when he has no option and often mean no more than temporary disgrace. We focus on the Khodorkovsky case, of course, but the truth is that this was the outlier. Far more normal would be Anatoly Serdyukov, the defense minister forced to resign amidst claims of corruption (but probably more because his head was demoted by father-in-law Viktor Zubkov after a too-public affair) then quietly pardoned and given a sinecure at technology corporation Rostec. Or businessman Vladimir Yevtushenkov, arrested and accused of money laundering, but then released and rehabilitated once the Bashneft oil firm had been wrested from his grasp.

So at the moment, Kadyrov seems to have absolute impunity. His track record suggests that he will only get more confident, more brash, more challenging. Eventually, the Kremlin may be forced to act, but the longer it waits, the harder it may be nearly to engineer regime change in Chechnya, and the weaker the Kremlin looks in its dealings with local elites.

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 #19
Russia Insider
http://russia-insider.com
April 28, 2015
Did Kadyrov Really Threaten to Shoot Moscow "Federals"?
Of course he did, albeit in the context of a turf war between rival regional and federal police bureaucracies.
By The Saker

When I first got emails telling me that Kadyrov ordered any "Federals" who would cross the Chechen border shot on sight I dismissed this as utter nonsense.

Then, to my amazement, I found out that this was true. But the context was very specific. To make a long and confusing story short:

A group of special police forces from the neighboring region of Stavropol crossed the Chechen border and shot a suspect they were trying to arrest.

Kadyrov claims that neither he not the Minister of Interior of Russia were informed about this. The Ministry of the Interior categorically states that the local, Chechen, police forces were warned.

Kadyrov is mad at the Stavropol SWAT forces and he may well be right.

The manner in which he expressed his anger is typical of the Caucasus style and is clearly unacceptable. This is not the first time around. Kadyrov once threated to expel all the relatives of terrorists and burn down their houses  Moscow told him to "cool it" and he did.

Bottom line: this is a typical turf battle between cops and not a secession of Chechnya from Russia.

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 #20
The National Interest
April 29, 2015
ISIS on the Move: Russia's Deadly Islamist Problem
The Islamic State could spread its influence deep into the volatile North Caucasus
By Simon Saradzhyan
Simon Saradzhyan is assistant director of the U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism and a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center.

Killings of leaders of the ongoing insurgency in Russia's North Caucasus no longer make front page news in either Moscow or foreign capitals, and the recent violent death of Emirate Caucasus' emir Aliskhab Kebekov is no exception. But regardless of whether such deadly news is buried in the inside pages or not, the North Caucasus insurgency, whose representatives not only regularly target "mainland Russia," but also travel to fight in countries of the Greater Middle East and raise funds in Europe, won't go away.

Few recall it today, but when the North Caucasus' then most notorious warlord Shamil Basayev was blown to pieces in 2006, his violent death was thoroughly covered by media both in Russia and the West, with even business dailies like the Wall Street Journal running front-page stories. But nine years later, when Russian commandos killed the latest chief of the North Caucasian insurgency in Dagestan on April 20, Wall Street Journal didn't even bother to report it. The New York Times ran a news agency report on the killing of Kebekov-whom the U.S. State Department has designated as terrorist, along with his organization, which serves as the umbrella organization for most of the North Caucasus' jihadist networks. Neither were Russian editors particularly agitated by the news with Russia's leading daily Kommersant running a short report on inside pages.

Such a lack of coverage may reflect the public's fatigue with the low-intensity conflict that has been dragging on in the North Caucasus for more than a decade. It also shows how the gravity of the threat that North Caucasus' jihadist networks pose has diminished in the eyes of the public, especially in the wake of the emergence of new challenges, such as the Islamic State, which both Russians and Americans now view as the main threat to their countries. This perception has been fueled by the North Caucasus-based terrorist networks' failure to deliver on their threats to attack the Olympic Games in Sochi and the government's claims that the overall number of terrorist acts registered in Russia declined by 30 percent in 2013 and then by another 50 percent in 2014.

But there's a reason why Russia still ranks 11 in the list of countries with highest incidence of terrorism in the University of Maryland's Global Terrorism Index-2014. The number of terrorist attacks may have diminished recently in Russia as federal authorities claim, but not a week goes by without a report of someone blown up or shot in the North Caucasus. Moreover, the 2014 index predicts that Russia may experience an increase in the incidence of terrorism. If continued, Russia's ongoing economic woes may eventually impact the federal government's ability to address some of the North Caucasus' chronic socioeconomic ills that contribute to persistence of the North Caucasus insurgency. The dynamics of the latter will also be influenced by the outcome of the international efforts to dismantle the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Should these efforts succeed, some of the 1,000 Russian-speaking jihadists that are currently fighting in the ranks of IS alone may head back home to continue their jihad in Russia and its neighbors. Should these efforts to prevent the rise of IS fail, it might just be a matter of time before leaders of this organization turn their gaze to the North Caucasus as they seek to revive the caliphate. It is worth recalling that one of IS' leaders, an ethnic Chechen by the name of Tarkhan Batirashvili has already threatened to take jihad to Russia.

Paradoxically, Kebekov's death may have increased opportunities for Batirashvili and his IS colleagues to expand its influence to the North Caucasus. Kebekov didn't want the Emirate Caucasus to come under the sway of IS. He even fired then head of the Emirate Caucasus' Dagestan branch Rustam Asilderov after he and several other Dagestani warlords pledged allegiance to the Islamic State last year. While disapproving of allegiance to IS, Kebekov had referred to Al Qaeda's Ayman al Zawahiri as "our leader." One of Kebekov's key allies and chief Sharia judge of Emirate Caucasus' Dagestan Vilayat Magomed Suleimanov has also opposed alliance with IS and denounced those pledging loyalty to this organization. Long War Journal predicts it will be Suleimanov, who goes by his nom de guerre Muhammad Abu Usman, who will be the next emir of the Emirate Caucasus. However, it can not be ruled out that IS sympathizers may either gain the upper hand in the struggle for succession at the Emirate Caucasus or break away to set up an IS faction in the North Caucasus. Either would be a rather disquieting development, given the human and material resources that this organization commands and can, therefore, direct to the North Caucasus. It should also be noted that in addition to pursuing ties with Al Qaeda and IS, supporters of the Emirate Caucasus have also allegedly engaged in fundraising in Europe, according to longtime scholar of political violence in the North Caucasus Gordon Hahn.

The killing of Kebekov will, of course, cause some disruption of coordination within the Emirate Caucasus, but it is likely to be only temporary, as killings of his predecessors have demonstrated. Whoever succeeds Kebekov will carry on with the campaign of political violence regardless of whether he leans towards IS or Al Qaeda. As killings of Kebekov's predecessors going as far back as Basayev demonstrate, networks in the North Caucasus have learned to adapt to such beheading by becoming more loosely organized and "leaderless" in the way they act. For this insurgency to diminish significantly, the Russian government needs to not only keep the implacables on the run and disrupting their ties with international terrorist organizations, but also to address factors that scholars of political violence in Russia believe to be driving insurgency in the North Caucasus. These factors include spread of militant Salafiya in the North Caucasus, abuses of the local population at hands of law-enforcers and disparity in living standards between residents of the North Caucasus and "mainland Russia."

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 #21
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's interview for Evelina Zakamskaya's show Opinion on the Rossiya-24 network, Moscow, April 27, 2015

Question: Humanity is facing challenges and threats, which no single country or nation can deal with single-handedly. One of the numerous examples is the recent earthquake in Nepal, which has claimed thousands of lives. Seventy years ago, the civilised world created the United Nations Organisation at a conference in San Francisco, an institution that was designed to prevent and help deal with humanitarian, natural and military disasters. The inviolability of the underlying UN principles has been placed in question today, and we need to protect it. How would you assess the margin of safety of the UN and its role in the modern world?

Sergey Lavrov: I think the UN margin of safety is very large. Its founding fathers, who formulated the fundamental principles of the UN Charter, were very far-sighted. These principles include the independence and sovereign equality of states, non-interference in their internal affairs, the right of states to choose their future, and a peaceful settlement of conflicts. Not a single state is questioning the viability of these fundamental principles.

Overall, the UN was created to prevent a third world war, and it has achieved its goal - there is no feeling that such a war is possible, even in principle. But you are right that the threats and challenges facing the international community could not be foreseen at the time when the UN was created. And we need to join forces to fight them. You mentioned natural disasters. Unfortunately, there are quite a few industrial accidents that no country can deal with alone. There is the global threat of international terrorism, which is drawing strength from organised crime and primarily drug trafficking. There are epidemics, terrorism and drug trafficking which defy national borders. There are food security issues, when some parts of the world have excessive food supplies, while other parts suffer from their dire shortages. These issues cannot be addressed effectively without the UN.

The UN is a unique organisation not only for its legitimacy and the Charter, which has proved its viability, but also for the structure of its specialised bodies in all spheres of human endeavour. The UN foundations and programmes are working to resolve issues of maternity and childhood, healthcare, food supply and industrial development. The UN is coordinating all these efforts and has a unique ability to draft strategies for dealing with political, economic, social and human rights issues in their entirety. And these are not just well-worded documents, but strategies that can be implemented with the backing of an existing, broad network of coordinated institutions.

The celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the United Nations this year will include, apart from political discussions, also a world summit on issues of concern for humanity, a special summit on post-2015 sustainable development, which is expected to create the foundation for cooperative action in all these spheres.

Question: Do you believe people still think about the unifying role of the UN and other institutions that can serve the good of humankind, now that rescue crews from different countries are removing the dead and injured from the rubble in Nepal?

Sergey Lavrov: I am confident of that because the UN is actively involved in the international relief effort. Unfortunately, at some point the Nepalese authorities were forced to stop accepting the planes carrying humanitarian aid and rescue teams from a number of countries to allow the take-off of regular flights, so that people could quickly get to their homes. The operation was well-coordinated. It is impossible to do many things immediately, given the natural conditions and the devastating effect of the earthquake, including the communications problems, as many transmitting towers have been destroyed. There are many problems, but I am confident that we can handle this tragedy in the long run and help our Nepalese friends, as Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed in his message of condolences to the leadership of Nepal.

Question: What UN reforms are needed today and how can they be carried out without Russia losing its role in this institution?

Sergey Lavrov: Without the loss of Russia's role and without undermining the fundamental principles that we discussed and that are enshrined in the UN Charter, as well as the UN's interstate character. Attempts are periodically made to "dilute" this character by bringing in ambiguously oriented NGOs, organisations we should cooperate with (civil society is a great source of ideas and initiatives), but the decisions in the UN should be made by states. There is always a need for reform. This can be called improvement or learning lessons, but no one organisation can exist in an ossified form. The UN was reformed: The Security Council was enlarged and new mechanisms were created in synch with the times. For example, peacekeeping, which is not provided for in the Charter, but the Charter provides for the need for the peaceful resolution of disputes and the provision of assistance in this process. This principle (provision of the Charter) was converted into the establishment of peacekeeping as an institution. Before long, the UN understood that when countries emerge from a conflict and reach agreements that need "watching" as part of a peacekeeping operation, the goals of rebuilding ruined economies and infrastructure come up. A new structure was created, specifically "peacebuilding." There is the UN Special Peacebuilding Commission, which deals with issues involving conflict resolution, peacekeeping and efforts to return to a normal life. Everyone's heard about UN Security Council reform. When they speak about reforming the Organisation they primarily refer to this aspect of transformation. The issue has been under discussion for a long time. If my memory serves me right, Security Council reform has been on the General Assembly's agenda for about 20 years now.

Our position is straightforward. Of course, the UN Security Council is the central body. Its decisions are binding, so extreme caution should be exercised with regard to any changes in the methods of its operation and its composition. Enlargement is long overdue. Developing countries are not duly represented in the Security Council. Since the UN was established, new powerful centres of economic growth and political influence have emerged. I will mention India and Brazil. The African continent should be duly represented in the UN Security Council. However, this enlargement can only go so far. It is necessary to ensure a reasonable balance between the equitable representation of all regions, on the one hand, and its ability to work promptly and effectively on security issues, on the other. Naturally, there is a limit beyond which enlargement will impede promptness and the making of quick and well considered decisions. In the final analysis, any reform should be based on a broad consensus among all member states. The attempts to promote crucial decisions by vote, when two-thirds vote in favour and one-third is against, will only lead to a situation where, in the eyes of this one-third, which hypothetically lost the vote on the draft enlargement resolution, which it does not approve of, the legitimacy of the Security Council will diminish, not increase. Those who are reluctant to force such one-sided decisions are respectable, typically medium sized countries, whichon the part make a significant contribution to the implementation of UN programmes financially, by providing material resources and peacekeepers.

The main problem today is that there is a group of states that are demanding the provision of new permanent seats and laying claim to them, and another group, which categorically does not want to see any new permanent members in the UN Security Council. A solution can only be based on compromise. There are different schools of thought here, designed to "wed" the two polar positions. We are doing all we can to bring about a consensus, because, as I said, such decision-making, by "confrontational vote," can become disastrous for the UN. To reiterate, any reform should reaffirm the fundamental principles of the UN Charter and, as far as possible, erect barriers in the way of attempts to violate them through the unilateral use of force or a distorted interpretation of UN Security Council resolutions. We do not want a new Yugoslavia, which was bombed contrary to all UN Charter standards, or a new Iraq, which was occupied without the UN Security Council's approval, or a new Libya, where a war was unleashed with the aim of overthrowing the regime, citing a UN Security Council resolution that absolutely did not make any such provisions.

Question: When do you think an active stage of reforms could begin, and how far can it go? Will it affect the UN Security Council?

Sergey Lavrov: I can't say when any reforms will be completed. After all, this is an ongoing process, and during the years that the discussion about reform continued, the UN Security Council has undergone significant changes. Its activity has become more transparent. For example, a new form of cooperation with non-members of the UN Security Council was introduced, specifically meetings between its members and states providing contingents for peacekeeping operations. They participate in discussing the mandates of such operations and the changes that need to be made. A very interesting practice has evolved for cooperation between the UN Security Council and the African Union on the preparation of a peacekeeping operation in Africa. Some are joint operations: African countries offer their contingents; other countries provide their own forces, while the UN ensures overall guidance.

There are a lot of changes. The practice of open meetings for the UN Security Council has expanded. In addition to the 15 member countries, any other UN members can attend them.

As for my idea of how large the UN Security Council should be to remain effective, I believe, about 20.

Question: Over the past year, Russia has been maintaining a tough defence on the information and diplomatic fronts and has had to defend its stance on various international venues. Summing up what has happened, what would you add to the achievements of Russian diplomacy?

Sergey Lavrov: Diplomacy fights no one. This art is about negotiating and coming to an agreement that contains a balance of interests. This is fair and honest. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said - including on the Direct Line - that we are open for cooperation with all countries on the basis of equality and mutual respect to find a balance of interests.

As to what has happened over the past year or two, I'll start with the fact that we have managed to highlight the need to respect the principles of international law in their entirety, including peoples' right to self-determination, as is stipulated in the UN Charter. We have become the object of an unprecedented confrontational campaign, not only economic and financial pressure on Russia, but also advocacy and propaganda in the worst sense of the word. The goal was clearly promulgated - to isolate Russia. But that failed. I would say that our patience, self-confidence, stoicism in the face of attempts to punish us for the truth, for wanting justice and not wanting to let our fellow citizens down, our firm stance and persistence has been a great achievement. Those who unraveled the campaign are now beginning to understand that it is hopeless.

Among the various issues we are dealing with now I would cite the successful completion of Syria's chemical disarmament, and the framework agreement on Iran's nuclear programme, which is now going to be translated into a legally binding document. Another important achievement, I think, was that Syria is showing renewed interest in a political dialogue between the government and the opposition. Russia and China, and several other countries have been nearly the only ones advocating a political settlement for more than four years. We were dubbed as "accomplices of the regime," while our opponents claimed that only a change of regime would pacify the Syrian people. But, in my opinion, this is a dead-end and now everyone sees that. The process is underway - it's regular diplomatic work, something we do to achieve stability rather than to defeat someone. What we need is stability and tranquility around the world, especially in the regions with which we have longstanding relationships, and favourable conditions for the development of mutually beneficial economic relations, trade, cultural exchanges and, of course, political dialogue.

Question: We need peace, but are you sure that some of our partners need it too? What should we do in this situation? Is a compromise possible?

Sergey Lavrov: Sometimes there is doubt or a feeling that some of our colleagues are guided by a principle where worse is better. Having ruined Libya, they have no compunction about asking us for help in clearing up the aftermath of the NATO operation in that country. One of the consequences is the tidal wave of illegal immigrants from the ruined country that Europe is finding increasingly difficult to deal with. This issue has been proposed as a topic of discussion for the UN Security Council agenda, so that it would allow the EU countries to take measures to curb illegal immigration from North Arica. The majority of these illegal immigrants are from Libya. Of course, we'll discuss this issue, because we must find a solution. But we must avoid decisions that could be misinterpreted and hence would lead to more bloodshed. We want Libya to pull through. There are two governments and two parliaments in Libya. Bernardino León, the UN Secertary-General's Special Representative in Libya, has been trying to organise negotiations, which have not been easy. A military operation is still underway in Yemen, which is located nearby, despite the announcement of the end of the air strikes on the positions of a movement that represents one-third of the Yemeni people.

There are many such issues, and our partners are increasingly coming to accept the need for cooperative action.

Question: It sometimes seems that when partners look different ways, they create more problems for each other. You mentioned Yemen. Do you know about the US Department of State statement regarding the evacuation of US citizens from Yemen?

Sergey Lavrov: I will leave it on their conscience. We offered everyone a chance to leave Yemen on our warships and aircraft. Of the aggregate number of evacuees - there were over 1,500 of them - about one-third were Russian citizens and the rest were people from other countries. We didn't divide them into friends and foes. Russia evacuated US citizens, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Kazakhs, and people from Middle Eastern countries. I don't know why the statements made by the US Department of State and some other countries are so taciturn. We did it for humanitarian purpose - to save lives.

Question: Are there any changes in the positions of the United States and the European Union on the Ukrainian crisis, which marked the start of Russia's trials on the international stage in recent years?

Sergey Lavrov: There is a growing understanding that the Ukrainian government has been dragging its feet where it comes to fulfilling their obligations. The Minsk Agreements of February 12 are difficult to misinterpret, as they are very specific and list the steps to be taken by the parties and their sequence. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Kiev authorities are not following this sequence, no doubt trying to turn things upside down again, interpreting each of these steps in their own way. I will not list the issues that have caused problems because of Kiev's position. But essentially, the Ukrainian leadership is refusing to negotiate with Lugansk and Donetsk directly, something required by the Minsk Agreements.

We continue to appeal to our partners, especially Germany and France, who were at the Minsk meeting with us and helped draft the agreements later signed by the Contact Group, to persuade the Ukrainian leadership to stop sabotaging their political commitments. I talked about it with my US counterpart, Secretary of State John Kerry. I think they are aware of what is happening, but taking strange decisions nevertheless, obviously trying to whitewash the Ukrainian leadership and make it look as if the fulfilment of the Minsk Agreements depends entirely on Russia.

The European Council decided at a meeting last month that the Minsk Agreements must be fulfilled; once this happens, the European Union will lift its anti-Russian sanctions. They do not say directly that Kiev is allowed to ignore the Minsk Agreements, but they are tied exclusively to Moscow's actions, although Russia is not a party to the conflict. We are making efforts - probably more efforts than anyone else - to have Ukraine stabilised through political dialogue, economic recovery, and humanitarian aid. The situation in Donbass is terrible.

Our partners in Kiev often ask us to "persuade Lugansk and Donetsk to accept humanitarian aid from the Ukrainian authorities." Lugansk and Donetsk reply with: "They have imposed an economic embargo on us, they don't pay pensions or social benefits, thus affecting civilians - senior citizens, women and children." Now they want to maintain the embargo with one hand and offer some humanitarian goods with the other. Seriously? There are many such examples, including the most important one, the constitutional reform. The political, economic, financial and cultural decentralisation are the steps stipulated in the Minsk document, which specifies the steps that need to be taken to achieve it. The "interpretations" come from Germany and France. The constitutional process should involve coordinating the changes with Lugansk and Donetsk in what concerns their territories. The Ukrainian President has set up a constitutional commission with no one on it representing Lugansk or Donetsk. We have put these questions to the OSCE, the Council of Europe, which volunteered to help write the new constitution and amendments to the current one, as well as to our European and American partners. It is becoming increasingly difficult for them to evade answering.

Question: What will happen after the conflict in Ukraine? Some are of the opinion that in the past, Russophobia and pro-Western sentiments divided the country in two parts. Now this dividing line is approaching Russia. The number of our supporters is declining. Is it your impression that after this conflict we will end up with an even more aggressive neighbour than during Viktor Yushchenko's presidency, when Russophobic sentiments were being actively promoted?

Sergey Lavrov: The Russian president has repeatedly said that no one will be able to set us against the Ukrainian people. This holds true despite the anti-constitutional coup in Ukraine and the fact that ultra-radical forces have come to power, which are still largely "calling the shots" and have already been dubbed "the party of war."

I have a lot of Ukrainian friends. We communicate regularly and I know how they feel. To be sure, they are deeply upset by what is going on. However, I also feel that they do not share this ultra-radicalism and are not being drawn in by the attempts to drive in wedges. The Verkhovna Rada keeps rubberstamping laws (especially the law on decommunisation, which requires the elimination of [communist] symbols and prohibits wearing St George ribbons in public, decorations that veterans won with their blood during the Great Patriotic War). At the same time a law is passed proclaiming those recognised by the Nuremberg Trials as accomplices to the Nazis to instead have been independence fighters. It was passed when Polish President Bronisіaw Komorowski was in Kiev. All those who have some knowledge of World War II know about the Volyn massacre, when militants from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) killed tens of thousands of Poles. Later, when he returned to Warsaw, President Komorowski issued a statement about the unacceptability of such decisions. However, to reiterate, whether by chance or by design, the adoption of the law was timed to coincide with his visit to Ukraine.

I don't have a feeling that we will surrender our positions and abandon support for our compatriots as a result of this Ukrainian drama. Everything that we are doing now and everything that the president is doing (he was the one who initiated the Minsk agreements, which led to the comprehensive plan of February 12) is designed to preserve Ukraine as a single state, provided that the Ukrainians agree amongst themselves as to how the culturally, civilisationally and linguistically different parts of the country can coexist peacefully and securely. As I said earlier, people in Donbass will never celebrate the new holidays that were introduced by the Ukrainian leaders to glorify Shukhevich and the Ukrainian Insurgents Army, while people in Lvov will never wear St George ribbons (this goes for the majority, at least, in the latter case). Such different cultures, value systems, and lifestyles can only co-exist through dialogue. Our principal goal is to establish direct dialogue between Kiev, Lugansk, and Donetsk. This is what President Vladimir Putin consistently talks about during his contacts with President Pyotr Poroshenko. We hope the Ukrainians understand that a different approach would be disastrous.

Question: Do you think the agreement or refusal to attend the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of Victory Day in Moscow is evidence of fairness and Russia's place in modern history?

Sergey Lavrov: No one can deprive Russia of its place in the world. There was such a risk after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but this threat is past, and the attempts to make Russia a dependent country, or to deprive it of the ability to deal with its problems as it sees fit, or to split Russia into several small parts have failed. We know that such attempts have been made, as President Putin said in many of his interviews. The public mood, including in view of the upcoming celebrations of Victory Day, is the best evidence of this.

Contrary to what some people say, our foreign policy is not aimed at stealing the victory from the other nations. It is they who have been trying to steal it from us, while we continued to highlight the multinational nature of that war and the role of the Soviet Union, which made a decisive contribution to the victory, and of the coalition that united the Americans, the British, the French and people from many other allied countries and resistance movements. It is our shared celebration.

As for the response to the invitations for these celebrations, which we have sent to the heads of state and government, I wouldn't make a problem of this. Some refused to attend out of ideological considerations, trying to use this sacred day for the deterrence and isolation of Russia, others moved in their wake, and still others are afraid. But this has nothing to do with what this day means to all of us.

Question: Thank you, and congratulations on the upcoming holiday!

Sergey Lavrov: Thank you. Congratulations on Victory Day!

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 #22
GlobalVoices
http://globalvoicesonline.org
April 28, 2015
Ukraine's Security Service Takes Down 30,000 Websites to Fight 'Pro-Russian Propaganda'
[Graphics here http://globalvoicesonline.org/2015/04/28/ukraine-censorship-russia-propaganda-hosting/]

Ukraine's State Security Service (SBU) was initially aiming to shut down five websites that had been allegedly spreading pro-Russian views about the conflict in Ukraine. Instead, they ended up crushing thousands of other websites, halting business and other activities of the Ukrainian segment of the Internet.

How It All Went Down

In an attempt to block five allegedly anti-Ukrainian websites, the State Security Service cracked down on a local web-hosting company, NIC.ua, also the largest domain registrar in Ukraine. SBU officers seized hosting servers at four NIC.ua data centers in Kyiv on April 7, 2015. Surprisingly, the targeted 'pro-Russian' websites resumed work in a few hours, but almost 30,000 Ukrainian websites that had nothing to do with the information war between Ukraine and Russia went down for weeks. Among them were e-commerce, charity, news, and even local government websites.

The problem was hidden in the details. As it turned out, the Ukrainian service provider was not hosting the websites targeted by the SBU. According to Andrew Khvetkevich, NIC.ua CEO, his company previously hosted only one of the five websites, and had blocked it back in January. In a Facebook post, Khvetkevich said that hree other websites used the Ukrainian company only as a registrar, but kept all their files on servers in Russia. Finally, the last targeted website turned out to be a WordPress.com blog, hosted by WordPress.

This is a list of sites that have been in the court's decision (which allowed to seize servers): nahnews.com.ua; slv.org.ua; rubezhnoe.org.ua; odnarodyna.com.ua; slavgromada.wordpress.com.

nahnews.com.ua - Works, since we are only a registrar for them and this domain is not on our servers;
slv.org.ua - Does not work, wasn't using our servers. It was redirected to another site and the domain will work again when you refresh the cache;
rubezhnoe.org.ua - Works, hosting in Russia, we didn't host their domain on our equipment (we are only a registrar for them);
odnarodyna.com.ua - This domain we have identified and froze on 17:37:48 +02 January 21, 2015;
slavgromada.wordpress.com - We have nothing to do with this domain. It is supported by WordPress.

Markian Lubkivskyi, senior advisor at the Security Service of Ukraine, said that before seizing the servers, the SBU officially requested NIC.ua to block the targeted websites, but the company did not comply.

NIC.ua denied the fact that they received any official requests from SSU. CEO Khvetkevich said they received only a few poorly scanned information requests. Khvetkevich also noted that it is illegal in Ukraine to simply block a website based on a scanned request or warrant, and the proper procedure would require original documents.

While the SBU and NIC.ua have been trying to decide who is to blame for hosting the 'pro-Russian' websites, a few hundred websites that are hosted by NIC.ua servers still remain inaccessible. Thousands of websites that were initially incapacitated have been coming back online over the last few weeks, after SBU's Lubkivskyi promised that SBU would be returning copies of data from the seized servers to those who approach the Security Service with a written request. SBU said it would keep the physical servers for the next two months 'for investigative purposes.'

Internet Users Not Impressed

Needless to say, the online community was not very excited about SBU's actions. Maksym Savanevsky, chief editor of Watcher, a website about Internet business and social media marketing in Ukraine, whose website also went down as a result of the server seizure, wrote in a blog post that SBU's server data return mechanism looked strange and wasn't very helpful.

This is very weird, because it is impossible to get data without a concrete connection to the servers. Without the NIC.ua experts, the SBU will be able to return only files at best, not the databases, but the website doesn't function without them.
Facebook users also left quite a few angry comments under Lubkivsky's announcement about providing copies of the data to websites who had suffered from the blanket server seizure. User Ekaterina Glebova wondered who would compensate for the hosting fees she'd paid and where SBU suggested she put the copies of files if her server was in their hands.

Dear Markian Lubkivskyi, where are we supposed to put those obtained copies? We've paid for the hosting. Maybe the hosting for all the NIC.ua customers will be on you? Also, why do I have to go now somewhere to obtain my lawfully created website, that I worked on and invested in?

Let's come to the SSU all together and stand there until we get back our websites and hosting from those who caused us these loses.

Mykola Radchenko echoed Glebova's sentiment and said even schoolchildren could figure out that you don't need to extract the whole server farm to take down a few websites.

What do I need the copy of the website for? What am I going to do with it? I want to use the hosting that I paid for. The provider can't help me, because you seized the servers. It is all very simple. Will you be reimbursing people or what?
[...]
In order to turn off the light in one apartment, you don't need to destroy the power station! I hope you got the comparison.

Facebook users, especially representatives of Internet businesses, expressed another concern: incidents like this could very well kill the Ukrainian hosting market. If servers can be seized so easily and without due process, hosting providers fear that Ukrainian companies and individuals are likely to shift to services by international hosting companies, forcing the local ones to go out of business.

That fear is not entirely unreasonable: over three weeks, thousands of Ukrainian websites were offline, losing views, clicks and potential business. At the time of publishing, NIC.ua said 91% of hosted accounts that were down as a result of the server seizure are now back online.

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 #23
Counterpunch.org
April 27, 2015
My Journey to Eastern Ukraine
The War Zone of Donetsk
by HALYNA MOKRUSHYNA
Halyna Mokrushyna has written frequently during the past year about the war in eastern Ukraine. Watch for her forthcoming articles on her journey to Donetsk, eastern Ukraine in April 2015. You can find all of her articles on the website of NewColdWar.org. She can be reached at halouwins@gmail.com.

From April 13 to April 17, 2015, I participated in a press tour to Donbas, the region in eastern Ukraine torn by armed conflict between Ukrainian military forces and local insurgency. The people of Donbas (the region includes the oblasts of Donetsk and Lugansk), rebelled last year against Kyiv's imposed integration with the European Union and its new, official history and ideology based on extreme and exclusive Ukrainian nationalism.

Donbas has always been a predominantly Russian-speaking region, oriented culturally and integrated economically to Russia. When in February of 2014 the Euromaidan "Revolution" overthrew the elected President Victor Yanukovych, Donbas rejected this overthrow as well as the violence with which it was carried out. Donbas did not recognize itself in this West supported coup-d'état, which was celebrated in the Western and Ukrainian media as a popular revolt against a "corrupted dictator". Donbas responded with its own protests and demands to hold a referendum on the future of the region. Kyiv answered these legitimate demands by launching an "anti-terrorist" operation against its own people in April 2014.

I saw first-hand these "terrorists" in Donetsk - people who before this fratricidal war were owners of small businesses, miners, university professors, engineers, security service officers, and so on. After Kyiv launched a war against them, they decided that they want to build something different from the oligarchic regime in Kyiv - a new state, free from corruption and nationalism. In Donetsk and in Lugansk, they have created new political entities with emerging governing structures-the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Lugansk Peoples Republic.

It is an enormous and difficult task. Ukraine has cut all the supplies to the rebellious region. Russia has not recognized the people's republics politically, but it does provide them with humanitarian aid. I talked to these courageous people in Donetsk who, in spite of all difficulties, work every day to fulfill their dream. They have created their own banking system, the first old age pensions have been paid as of April 1, students are attending local universities, kids are in public schools, and destroyed infrastructure is being slowly repaired and rebuilt. Resources are scarce, but people of the DPR are doing the best they can under the circumstances.

I talked to elderly women and men living in apartments and houses near the demarcation line of the ceasefire agreement signed in Minsk, Belarus on February 12, 2015. Their homes have been damaged by bombs and shells launched by the Ukrainian army. These are people without the economic means or family connections to move somewhere safer. Those with the means have moved out of Donetsk, either to other regions of Ukraine or to Russia. The city's population of app. one million is approximately half of what is was before the war. Some are returning, hopeful that the war may be over.

Donbas is trying to return to normal life. However, there are reminders all over the city that the war could return any time. Military guards are stationed at all important administrative buildings. A curfew is maintained from 11 pm to 6 am. Our press tour was accompanied everywhere by three deputies of the parliament of Novorossyia and two members of the local self-defense forces.

They took us to several of the western outskirts of Donetsk near the demarcation line that are damaged by bombings of the Ukrainian army. I was looking at the empty windows of a school, blasted out by shelling, probably last summer when the fighting was at its height. In the school yard, my travel colleagues were picking up splinters of shells. I felt a deep sorrow. I thought to myself: here I am standing at the graveyard of Ukraine as I have known it.

There is no going back. Donbas does not want to be a part of a Ukraine which celebrates the Ukrainian nationalists who collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War Two and against whom the Soviet Army fought. Donbas opposes the neo-liberal capitalism which is destroying Ukrainian industry and agriculture. Donbas would return to a federalized Ukraine, but only if the Kyiv government would undergo what Donbas people call "de-nazification". Sadly, this is very unlikely to happen. A civilized divorce is the best solution for this armed conflict.

Canada is providing military support to Kyiv. Canada should instead remember its expertise as a peacekeeper and negotiator and put pressure on Kyiv to fulfill the obligations which it undertook when it signed the ceasefire agreement in Minsk, on February 12, 2015, along with the representatives of Lugansk and Donetsk.

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 #24
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
April 28, 2015
Press Digest: No breakthroughs for Ukraine on key issues at meeting with EU
RBTH presents a selection of views from leading Russian media on international events, featuring a review of the Ukraine-EU summit in Kiev, plus a report on Russia's appointment of a new special representative to the contact group on Ukraine and news that NATO plans to double the size of its Response Force.
Darya Lyubinskaya, special to RBTH

EU representatives stonewall Ukraine on key demands at Kiev meeting

Online newspaper Gazeta.ru reviews the Ukraine-EU summit in Kiev on April 27. The website notes that high hopes were held for the meeting, but it did not end in any major breakthroughs. Ukraine convinced the EU to send a diplomatic mission to monitor the situation in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, but failed to obtain the consent of European countries for the supply of defensive weapons and deployment of peacekeepers.

The monitoring of the implementation of the Minsk peace agreements was assigned to the OSCE mission, Gazeta.ru adds. This is consistent with the interests of Russia, which opposes the presence of European peacekeepers and stands for the strengthening of the OSCE's role in the implementation of the Minsk agreements, the website notes.

According to experts, the refusal to make concessions to Kiev on the issue of arms supplies is related to the EU's growing irritation over the actions of the Ukrainian authorities. The head of Russia's Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Fyodor Lukyanov, describes the EU's reaction not as irritation, but as despair: "It is impossible to abandon Ukraine, it should be supported. But the scale of support will only be such as to maintain its capacity to function, as long as it remains unclear what the Ukrainian state will be like."

In his comments to Gazeta.ru, Russian political analyst Oleg Bondarenko said that Ukraine failed to receive from the EU the most important thing - the introduction of visa-free travel. According to the summit's outcome agreement, the parties only confirmed their intention to "achieve a common goal" on the issue. "But Europe does not need migrants from Ukraine - it has enough migrants from other countries," said Bondarenko.
 
Russia appoints new special representative to contact group on Ukraine

Business daily Vedomosti reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree appointing former Russian ambassador to Syria, Azamat Kulmukhametov, as Russia's special representative in the trilateral contact group formed to resolve the situation in Ukraine. He will take over from Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov.

The work in the contact group is becoming more intense, a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry has told Vedomosti, and it now requires a specially-assigned person. Unlike Zurabov, Kulmukhametov is a career diplomat, who served as Russia's ambassador to Syria at the height of the crisis.

The technology of conflict resolution is more or less known, and if a person has tried his hand at it, he is likely to be able to apply it in respect to Ukraine, even if he has a "different background," former Soviet and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoly Adamishin told Vedomosti. In addition, the Syrian experience was one of the last cases in which Russian interaction with the West proved a success, said Adamishin.
 
NATO to double the size of NATO Response Force, with an eye on Russia

The Moskovsky Komsomolets tabloid daily writes that the NATO leadership intends to double the size of its Response Force to "adapt to new risks." The head of the alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, cited Russia as one of them, writes the newspaper.

"We are facing a dramatically changed security environment in Europe," the NATO head. According to him, the Russian side has broken international law through its "aggressive actions against Ukraine." According to the newspaper, the size of the NATO Response Force is expected to be increased more than twofold - from 13,000 to 30,000. Stoltenberg also made a mention of a 5,000-strong quick reaction force, which is currently being created.

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 #25
Protest action of Right Sector in front of the Ukrainian presidential office finished

KIEV, April 29. /TASS/. Supporters of the ultra-right Ukrainian organization Right Sector have left the square in front of the presidential office but promised to be back on the weekend to set fire to the building.

Wednesday's protest action gathered about 200 radicals, whose leaders earlier urged the armed forces to disobey the authorities. Right Sector spokesman Artyom Skoropadsky said the demonstration was a warning.

"Next time we will set the presidential office building on fire," he said about further action to be taken if the rightist activists' demands were ignored.
Right Sector militants were demanding meetings with senior officials, but nobody emerged from the building and the demonstrators left. Next time they are going to demonstrate on the weekend.

Earlier, Right Sector militants said that their base in the Dnepropetrovsk Region had been surrounded by two paratroop brigades. The radicals said "the authorities are planning a large-scale provocation against the volunteers and urged their "brothers" to protest.

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 #26
Christian Science Monitor
April 28, 2015
Oligarchs out, regional governments in? Ukraine eyes power reshuffle
Ukraine's reformers are figuring out how to move the levers of power from Kiev and the oligarchs to the individual regions - but without fracturing the country.
By Fred Weir, Correspondent

KIEV, UKRAINE - Just about everyone agrees that Ukraine is in a race against time. Its new government, which came to power amid revolutionary disorder just over a year ago, needs to deliver fundamental reform before the harsh realities of economic crisis, war, and plunging public approval ratings catch up with it.

And the to-do list of the government's barely begun legislative revolution is daunting: sweeping judicial reform, a ruthless battle against the country's ubiquitous corruption, a purge of corrupt officials, and renewal of the civil service.

Perhaps the most crucial tasks hinge on Kiev's ability to redistribute Ukraine's political power, long monopolized Soviet-style by the central government in Kiev, and later in parallel with the post-Soviet "oligarchs" who snatched up state industries after the USSR's collapse.

Over the next few months, Ukraine has to find a way to banish the oligarchs in order to encourage small business revival, and to redistribute power to the country's regions in order to keep it united without - the government hopes - compromising central control.

"In 25 years of Ukrainian independence, nothing was done. So it's all up to us, right now," says Volodymyr Groysman, the speaker of the fractious Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's unicameral parliament. Mr. Groysman is tasked with changing almost everything about the way Ukrainians interface with their government. "The problem is that we have to destroy the old system while simultaneously building a new one."

"It would be a lie if someone said nothing has changed in Ukraine" since the Maidan revolution overthrew the elected, pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, a year ago, he says. "But we're not going nearly as fast as we would like to."

'De-oligarchizing' Ukraine

Ukraine has surprised many by making it through a very tough winter, but its economy is badly battered. About a quarter of Ukraine's heavy industry has been destroyed by war or is now in the hands of eastern Ukrainian rebels. An estimated 1.5 million people have been displaced by fighting. The sharp fall-off of trade with Russia, along with the economic crisis, has disproportionately hit the industrialized, mainly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, potentially ramping up tensions between Kiev and those regions.

Overall, polls show public trust waning dangerously, with nearly 60 percent of the country disapproving of President Petro Poroshenko's job performance and nearly 70 saying Ukraine is headed in the wrong direction.

"We're living on the brink of disaster," says Olexandra Mazina, a former economics professor who now lives on her pension of about $120 per month. "It's obvious that unemployment is bad, much worse than official statistics indicate, and many people are just living hand-to-mouth. Maybe the Rada deputies sincerely want to change things, but no improvement is visible yet."

Fortunately for those who are trying to shake up Ukraine's power centers, the economic crisis has hammered almost all of Ukraine's superwealthy oligarchs, who remain the single greatest obstacle to opening up the Ukrainian market to wider competition.

"We need to change the model of our economy, to 'de-oligarchize' it," says Groysman. "The space for small and medium business is too narrow, because big business controls the major part of our economy. The [monopoly dominance] of big capital is a threat to our national security."

Ukraine's richest man, Rinat Akhmetov, has seen his fortune shrink by more than half, to barely $7 billion, over the past year, because of war damage and expropriation of his factories by rebels in eastern Ukraine. Another top oligarch, Dmytro Firtash, has seen his assets take a similar beating and is also in legal trouble in Austria, where he makes his home.

Even Igor Kolomoisky, one oligarch who seemed to be winning through his support of the Kiev government, got taken down a peg last month. Mr. Poroshenko fired him from his position as governor of his native Dnipropetrovsk region after Mr. Kolomoisky used his private security forces to defy a new law limiting oligarchic control over state companies.

"This is a natural process. We need to return control over state companies to the government," says Groysman. "And it will continue."

Ironically, the main oligarch still standing is President Poroshenko himself, the so-called "Chocolate King" who made his fortune in candy and media, and has yet to fulfill his election pledge to sell off his business empire and get rid of his considerable assets in Russia.

"The influence of oligarchs is falling, but Poroshenko remains an unacceptable exception," says Andrei Shevchenko, a former Rada deputy and civil society adviser to the government. "Poroshenko really should keep his promises to divest his property. The public is watching."

'Everything in its proper place'

Just as critical a reform, if not moreso, is the implementation of a plan, authored by Groysman, to address Ukraine's regional differences by decentralizing power.

The Minsk peace accords mandate completion of a "constitutional reform" process to reconcile warring parts of the country by year's end. Moscow and some politicians in eastern Ukraine have demanded "federalization," which would give sweeping political autonomy to regional governments and probably block efforts by Kiev to join NATO or the European Union.

Groysman's idea is to sidestep those demands and instead redistribute the levers of power such that each tier of government deals only with its own local concerns.

"It means the central government will stop dealing with matters best handled in local districts, like kindergartens and hospitals," he says. "Decentralization puts everything in its proper place, everyone will have the appropriate powers to deal with their local issues. It doesn't affect things like foreign policy, or the army, which will be in the hands of the central state."

Poroshenko has likened the idea of federalization to a "biological weapon" designed in Moscow to destroy Ukraine. Kiev might agree to hold a referendum on the issue, he recently suggested, though he added that opinion polls already show the vast majority of Ukrainians want to keep the "unitary" model.

"Poroshenko is worried that under our present conditions of political and economic instability, the whole discussion about decentralization could turn into a threat to our national integrity," says Alexander Chernenko, a former civil society activist and Rada deputy with Poroshenko's party.

"He has a point. In the south and east of Ukraine, the [anti-Kiev] Opposition Bloc is very strong, and they have quite different definitions of decentralization than Groysman does. They look upon this debate as a way to seize more power for themselves. So, the very real fear is that the country could fly apart while we're trying to accomplish this," he says.

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 #27
Foreign Affairs
www.foreignaffairs.com
April 28, 2015
Kiev's Purge
Behind the New Legislation to Decommunize Ukraine
By Alexander J. Motyl
ALEXANDER J. MOTYL is Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University-Newark.

Earlier this month, the Ukrainian parliament approved four bills intended to decommunize Ukraine. Critics slammed the legislation, claiming that it would limit free speech and cause unnecessary friction between Kiev and some parts of the country's eastern regions. Supporters, however, insist that the terms of the bills align with international norms and are necessary to Ukraine's adoption of pro-Western reforms.

The debate over whether these four bills are valid need not be so fraught. One simple way to evaluate their merit is to focus on whether they promote two key values: freedom and justice. If they do, then they make good laws. If they do not, then the laws should be amended or thrown out. And if they make tradeoffs between freedom and justice, which is often the case, then that's just life.

Americans and western Europeans generally consider Nazism as one of the greatest evils, much more so than communism. But for Ukrainians and many eastern Europeans, the two were equally destructive forces. According to a study by the Moscow-based Institute of Demography, Ukraine suffered close to 15 million "excess deaths" between 1914 and 1948. Of that total, about 7.5 million were attributable to Soviet policies and 6.5 million to the Nazis. According to the French historian Nicolas Werth, the Stalinist regime killed some 12 million of its own people. The Ukrainian share of Soviet deaths was more than twice its share of the total Soviet population. As the Russian writer Viktor Shenderovich recently put it, "The number of crimes committed in Ukraine under Communist flags is much larger than that committed under German Nazi flags."

The assumption underlying the bills, therefore, is that since communism and Nazism were equally evil ideologies, condemnation of one necessarily entails, both logically and morally, condemnation of the other. If de-Nazification is crucial, so too is decommunization.

Against that premise, the first bill acknowledges, in a long list, those movements, governments, and organizations that fought for an independent Ukraine throughout twentieth-century Soviet rule. This list of "fighters" represents a fundamental break with the still powerful hegemony of Soviet, Russian, and neo-Soviet historiography and propaganda, which demonized these groups, portrayed them as traitors, and excluded them from Ukrainian history. Scholars, ideologues, and propagandists working within this colonial and often racist mindset depicted (and still do depict) Ukrainians as either voiceless savages or mindless imbeciles.

By officially acknowledging a historical fact-that these groups contributed to Ukrainian independence-the bill gives Ukrainians a voice to write their own history, free of the colonial prejudices of Soviet, Russian, and neo-Soviet ideologies. In this light, the claim made by some critics, that two controversial nationalist groups, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, should not be included (they have been accused of committing atrocities during World War II), is completely misplaced. Whatever one's view of these two groups, they did in fact contribute enormously to Ukraine's independence (it would be similar to claiming that Malcolm X should not be considered a key figure in the American civil rights movement because of his violent rhetoric). Not to include them on a list of pro-independence groups would be to revert to the distorted version of Ukrainian history.

The bill therefore supports free speech by finally allowing scholars to discuss Ukrainian history in its entirety. That said, critics of the bill are correct to point out that its sixth article, which makes the "contemptuous attitude" toward the listed groups potentially punishable by law, defeats its inherent goal of encouraging historical objectivity. Supporters and detractors of the fighters must be allowed to express themselves freely. Kiev should immediately amend this section of the bill to ensure that it actually accomplishes what it set out to do-allow Ukrainians to write their own history.

The second bill, which opens secret police archives, will enable citizens to access KGB files. That is a coup for freedom and justice. The reasons are obvious: a mature nation needs to know its past, criminals must be brought to trial, and the inner workings of the Soviet secret police must finally be exposed to public and private scrutiny. At the same time, innocents may be harmed by baseless rumors documented in the secret police reports. If Ukraine follows the example of Germany and other post-Communist states that also opened their secret police archives, however, a variety of regulatory controls can be enacted to protect the innocent. Moreover, the vast majority of existing KGB documents are from the pre- or immediate post-World War II era; more recent documents that could affect any Ukrainians were destroyed by the KGB or transferred to Moscow.

The third bill ends the lie of "the Great Patriotic War," which was the Soviet Union's distorted take on World War II. In the Soviet version, the war began with Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941, when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. This bill represents an official recognition that the war actually began with the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939. It is also a recognition of the two-year period of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939-1941), when the Soviet Union actively collaborated with and promoted Nazi interests in eastern Europe, thereby laying the groundwork for the Holocaust. By demythologizing the Great Patriotic War, Ukraine will eventually have to confront the atrocities Soviet soldiers committed at that time-such as mass rape campaigns in Germany and Hungary in 1945. The perpetrators have mostly all died, but knowledge of their misdeeds will finally dispel the illusions promoted by the Soviet regime. By correcting history, Ukraine will be able to make progress with respect to both freedom and justice.

The fourth bill prohibits the "propaganda of the Communist and/or National Socialist totalitarian regimes" in Ukraine. In addition to advocating the removal of Communist monuments and public symbols and the renaming of streets and cities, the bill attempts to distinguish between materials that promote Communist and Nazi regimes, which is prohibited, and those that express pro-regime views, which would not be deemed illegal. The Ukrainian parliament on April 23 made some important corrections to the bill, specifying which categories of symbols fall under the law's purview, but critics have a point when they say that the line between professing Communist views and propaganda is inherently blurry. Still, the principle of outlawing the two regimes that brought so much death and destruction to Ukraine is sound, even if the implementation of this bill may lead to some protest as it is put into practice.

Critics argue that this last bill may turn out to be divisive, particularly in parts of Ukrainian society still wedded to the country's Soviet past. But it is uncertain that public outrage at toppled Lenin statues will trump public concern over the war with Russia, Putin's possible escalation, and the economic belt-tightening as a result of the conflict. In any case, a genuine public discourse about the painful aspects of Ukraine's past is long overdue. Moreover, confronting and overcoming Ukraine's brush with totalitarianism is indispensable to the country's pro-Western trajectory.

In sum, Ukraine may be on the verge of making a decisive break with the Communist experience that caused so much death and, until recently, continued to exert its nefarious influence. The divorce from its past will be a contentious and messy one. But controversy is the soul of democracy, and a vigorous public debate can only enhance freedom and justice in Ukraine, as well as its ongoing transition to a free, tolerant, just, and open society.

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 #28
www.foreignpolicy.com
April 27, 2015
Dear Ukraine: Please Don't Shoot Yourself in the Foot
A controversial new law sends the wrong signals about the past and threatens free speech.
BY JOSH COHEN
Josh Cohen is a former U.S. State Department project officer.

Despite the unceasing flare-ups of separatist violence in the Donbass, Ukraine's new government has managed to take some steps to move the country forward: it has passed legislation to combat corruption, secured funding to stabilize the economy, and reined in its oligarchs.

But the country's national parliament, the Supreme Rada, has just taken a much more dangerous step. Lawmakers recently passed a controversial law that honors dozens of nationalist organizations - including far-left socialists, monarchists, and neo-fascists - as "fighters for Ukrainian statehood." The law states that those who "publicly exhibit a disrespectful attitude" toward these groups, or "deny the legitimacy" of Ukraine's twentieth century struggle for independence, will be prosecuted (currently no punishment is specified). While most of the groups on the list are harmless enough, among them are two - the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) - that were involved in the Holocaust and the ethnic cleansing of Poles in western Ukraine during and after World War II. The inclusion of these organizations among those that are exempt from criticism is deeply disturbing.

The OUN was founded in 1929 as a revolutionary, nationalist organization, designed to throw off Soviet rule and create an independent Ukraine. Much of its leadership had spent time in Nazi Germany, and the group embraced the notion of an ethnically pure Ukrainian nation. OUN literature argued that "Ukrainians are those who are blood of our blood and bone of our bone. Only Ukrainians have the right to Ukrainian lands, Ukrainian names, and Ukrainian ideas."

While the OUN engaged in partisan warfare against both the Soviet Union and the Germans, it also engaged in the mass ethnic cleansing of Ukrainian Jews, starting with a pogrom in Lviv that killed 5,000 Jews in the summer of 1941. The OUN also infiltrated the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police in German service, collaborating with the Nazi Einsatzgruppen carrying out the Holocaust in Western Ukraine in 1941-1942. After the OUN violently seized control of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) - a guerilla group established to support the fight for Ukrainian independence - in 1943, the two groups engaged in another round of ethnic cleansing in western Ukraine, this time directed primarily against Poles.

While the Rada has taken an ill-timed step, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has not signed the bill yet, and Ukraine's friends in the West should urge him to veto it.President Petro Poroshenko has not signed the bill yet, and Ukraine's friends in the West should urge him to veto it. First and foremost, it is difficult to see how a law making it illegal to criticize groups involved in the Holocaust can be reconciled with Ukraine's supposedly Western ambitions. Russia's President Vladimir Putin is widely accused of using his version of history to prop up his rule, and indeed, Moscow has passed a very similar law that criminalizes questioning of the Russian view of World War II. Is this really the model democratic Ukraine wants to follow? It is understandable that Ukraine seeks to break from its Soviet legacy - but the attempt by nationalists to honor the OUN and UPA by encompassing them within the history of Ukraine's fight for independence is both foolish and wrong.

The Rada's action also risks damaging Ukraine's international reputation - something the beleaguered country can ill afford. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has already condemned the new law, stating that "to honor local Nazi collaborators and grant them special benefits turns Hitler's henchmen into heroes." Ukraine's allies - particularly Poland - will also have a difficult time accepting this law. Ukraine has been down this road once before. Shortly before leaving office in 2010, former President Yushchenko granted Stepan Bandera, a controversial World War II-era nationalist leader, the status of "Hero of Ukraine," an action condemned by the European Union and the President of Poland. The Rada should have learned from Yushchenko's mistake. (In the photo, nationalists hold a torchlight parade in honor of Stepan Bandera in Kiev.)

The law not only offends and discourages Ukraine's friends - it also helps the country's enemies. The Rada has, at one stroke, given the Kremlin and its proxies in the Donbass all the ammunition they need to support their longstanding and inaccurate claim that post-revolutionary Ukraine is overrun by fascists and neo-Nazis. Not surprisingly, Kremlin mouthpieces such as RT and Sputnik News have already condemned the law, and Russia's social media troll factories now have an authentic cudgel with which to smear Ukraine's reputation.Russia's social media troll factories now have an authentic cudgel with which to smear Ukraine's reputation.

Finally, a law that bans criticism of any organizations - particularly ones associated with the Holocaust and ethnic cleansing - raises important free speech issues. It is a clear violation of Ukraine's constitution, which guarantees everyone "the right to freedom of thought and speech, and to the free expression of his or her views and beliefs." In addition, as numerous scholars from around the world noted in an open letter to Poroshenko, the law's adoption would raise serious questions about Ukraine's commitment to the democratic principles demanded by its membership in the Council of Europe and the OSCE.

To understand why this law was passed despite its obvious negative consequences, it is important to realize that it reflects a broader split in Ukraine along both regional and ideological lines. According to Per-Anders Rudling, a historian specializing in Ukrainian history, what he described as the "OUN-UPA cult" is primarily of western Ukrainian origin, the region where the organizations were most active. "In the east and south, by contrast, the situation is the opposite," said Rudling. "In Luhansk and Crimea they erected monuments to the victims of the OUN and UPA."

The law's defenders are those for whom Bandera and the OUN are heroes of Ukrainian independence who fought heroically against the Red Army well into the 1950s. Its primary drafter, Volodymyr Viatrovych, is a historian at the Institute of National Memory in Kiev who has argued that without Bandera and the OUN-UPA, there would be no independent Ukraine. Viatrovych has been accused by a number of scholars of denying OUN's involvement in the 1941 pogroms as well as dismissing the collaboration of the Ukrainian Waffen-SS Galizien unit with Nazi Germany as "Soviet propaganda." The Rada deputy who sponsored the bill is the son of Roman Shukhevych, a politician and military leader who was trained by the Germans and served in a Nazi-supervised auxiliary police unit before becoming head of the OUN-UPA in 1943-1944.

But while the glorification of the OUN-UPA may be most strongly supported by the nationalists, it is troubling that even the Minister of Culture from the pro-European party of Prime Minister Arsenyi Yatseniuk has described the new law as "actually European, really free and unbiased." Such views by senior government officials represent a historical blind spot about Ukrainian history that, unfortunately, has currency among some Euromaidan activists.

If Kiev hopes to win the battle for hearts and minds among the Russian speakers of eastern Ukraine, embracing the narrative of western Ukrainian nationalists is the wrong way to go about it. "[The two factions'] respective symbols of national identity are mutually exclusive," argues Nicolai Petro, professor of international politics at the University of Rhode Island, so "imposing one group's symbols requires eradicating the other's identity." How can these two different versions of Ukrainian history be reconciled? "The only way out of this conundrum," Petro argues, "is by separating national identity from citizenship, and focusing on the promotion of a Ukrainian civic culture."

Thanks to the Rada's decision to pass a law honoring organizations associated with the Holocaust, Ukraine is close to scoring an "own goal" - and Ukraine's friends should encourage President Poroshenko to kick the ball away before it's too late.

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#29
The Daily Telegraph (UK)
April 29, 2015
Ukraine's conflict with Russia leaves economy in ruins
World Bank slashes its 2015 Ukrainian growth forecast to -7.5pc as economy deteriorates
By By Szu Ping Chan        
[Charts here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11570683/Ukraines-conflict-with-Russia-leaves-economy-in-ruins.html]

Ukraine's ongoing conflict with Russia has left the country facing years of recession as the country struggles to break ties with Moscow and implement structural reforms, the World Bank has warned.

Ukraine's ongoing conflict with Russia has left the country facing years of recession as the country struggles to break ties with Moscow and implement structural reforms, the World Bank has warned.

The Washington-based organisation cut its 2015 growth forecast to -7.5pc, following a contraction of 6.8pc in 2014. Last October, it forecast that the Ukrainian economy would shrink by 1pc this year, while the International Monetary Fund has forecast a contraction of 5.5pc this year.

"Given the situation in the east, we expect gross domestic product (GDP) to continue contracting sharply especially during the first half of the year," the World Bank said in its latest healthcheck of the economy.

While the organisation expects Ukraine to emerge from recession in 2016, it said this forecast was subject to "substantial risks", adding that the economy faced a "prolonged" period of contraction if trade relations between the two countries continued to deteriorate and the country failed to implement vital reforms to its energy and banking sectors.

"Growth is expected to be led by a modest recovery of investment from a low base following large declines for three consecutive years," it said.

However, it added: "Further deterioration in trade relations with Russia could result in prolonged recession as reorientation of Ukrainian exports towards other markets will require more time and investments."

Ukraine's $17.5bn (£11.4bn) lifeline from the IMF was approved last month, providing swift assistance for the country's struggling finances as part of a larger four-year bailout.

The World Bank urged policymakers to act quickly to reduce inefficient subsidies on energy, agriculture, and coal, as well as implement reforms to the pension system.

Ukraine's conflict with Russia, which escalated after Russia's annexation of Crimea, has also hurt Moscow.

Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's prime minister, admitted last week that the double shock of the collapse in oil prices and Western sanctions following the annexation last year presented an unprecedented challenge for the economy.

He said the economy had contracted by 2pc in the first quarter alone compared with the same quarter in 2014, and added that the sanctions could cost Russia €75bn this year - or around 4.8pc of gross domestic product (GDP).

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 #30
www.rt.com
April 28, 2015
'Ukraine's EU membership still distant, EU has enough on its plate'

The EU would be very hesitant before having more obligations towards Kiev because of the ongoing war in Donbass, and because of the Euro crisis and other problems within the bloc, Matthew Dal Santo, of the Danish Research Council told RT.

During the EU-Ukraine summit in Kiev on Monday, President Poroshenko said he hoped his country would be able to apply for EU membership within five years. However, the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker said the EU has enough of their own problems to solve at the moment.

RT: Building a closer relationship with Europe was one of the main aims of the Maidan revolution. Judging by today's summit, has that been achieved?

Matthew Dal Santo: First of all there is no doubt that Ukraine does have a closer relationship with Europe than it did have in November, 2013. The Association Agreement has now been signed, so formally, yes, on paper there is a closer relationship between Ukraine and Brussels now than has [ever] historically been.

RT: President Poroshenko is optimistic about these closer ties you've just mentioned. He wants Ukraine to apply for EU membership in five years' time. But EU leaders don't seem to share this optimism. Is it still a distant prospect?

MDS: I think that is a distant prospect. I think that President Tusk was correct when he said that the EU has enough on its plate at the moment and I think that is certainly true. The EU would be very hesitant before constructing any more obligations with Kiev, not just in a light of the ongoing war in Eastern Ukraine, that is obviously primary preoccupation, but also in view of the other problems that the EU has - the Euro crisis, etc. that occupy a lot of European time.

European Council President Donald Tusk (L), European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker (R) and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko react during a news conference after their meeting in Kiev April 27, 2015. (Reuters / Gleb Garanich)European Council President Donald Tusk (L), European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker (R) and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko react during a news conference after their meeting in Kiev April 27, 2015. (Reuters / Gleb Garanich)

RT: Ukraine is clearly a political hot potato for the EU leaders. Can you see a time when it will be possible for Ukraine to enter the EU?

MDS: I think to some extent that is the heart of the conflict. I'm not sure that it was ever necessarily the EU's intention to offer Ukraine membership. That was always a possibility but it has never been formally extended. Certainly Russia seems to remain as opposed now to Ukrainian membership in the EU as it has been for the past 18 months. I don't think that is going to be an easy equation to stop.

RT: Ukraine also wants a visa-free regime with the EU, but no progress was reached on that front either at the summit. So are there any positives at all that Ukraine can take from the talks?

MDS: The fact that [the summit] occurred at all, simply having the President of the European Council, the head of European Commission in Kiev, it's a strong symbolic statement of support for the government in Kiev. In terms of anything more concrete, I don't think that it is, there is a lot to point to.

RT: Brussels has been resisting Kiev's request for an international peacekeeping mission in East Ukraine. Why do you think that is?

MDS: It is difficult to imagine a situation whereby you could safely send in European soldiers - and that is what the peacekeepers are, they are soldiers - into what is still in all intents and purposes a warzone. It would be very easy for any kind of mistake or miscalculation to escalate into something much nastier between any European peacekeepers involved and potentially Russian forces...First of all they need to have peace to [send] in peacekeepers, and there is no peace yet.

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 #31`
Forbes.com
April 28, 2015
The Beginning Of The End For Putin? Real Reform Begins To Take Hold In Ukraine
By Greg Satell
I am the former Co-CEO of KP Media, a leading Publisher in Ukraine. In addition to being the leading news organization in Ukraine (Korrespondent, Kyiv Post), we also owned the largest online business, Bigmir.net. I'm now back in the US, consulting and speaking in the areas of Digital Marketing and Digital innovation. You can find my website at www.DigitalTonto.com and follow me on Twitter @DigitalTonto.  

In just over a year, Ukraine has seen a political revolution, two elections (one presidential, one parliamentary), an economic collapse and a Russian invasion resulting in a "hybrid war" that has ravaged the country.  Its new western-leaning government has struggled to maintain sovereignty as well as stability.

This past February, a new ceasefire was signed, which seems to be holding up for the most part.  But even now, Russia, is beefing up its forces at the border, threatening a new offensive.  By all accounts, the situation in Ukraine remains precarious.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made no secret of his intention to destroy the country, even going so far as to deny that it is, in fact, a country.  For those who are familiar with Putin's regime, this is hardly surprising.  A successful, vibrant and democratic neighbor on Russia's border would only serve to remind his constituents how repressive and ineffectual his rule has become.

As I argued a year ago, the sanctions imposed by the Obama administration could bring down the Russian leader.   Now, faced with a crumbling economy, rampant corruption and international isolation many believe that Putin is fighting for his political survival.  Clearly, he cannot afford Ukraine to become a model for his disgruntled countrymen.

Yet for all his efforts, real reform appears to be starting to take hold in Ukraine. The Financial Times recently reported that the country is on "the right road." Prime Minister Yatsenyuk has brought in an impressive array of technocrats, including foreigners and experienced business executives, such as the former General Manager of Microsoft Ukraine, to help make some much needed changes.

The new government took office at the end of last year and seems to be making progress.  It successfully negotiated a $17.5 billion stabilization package from the IMF that, with additional contributions from the US and the EU, could reach $40 billion.  It also recently introduced important reforms to its gas sector and plans to privatize thousands of state owned businesses, both key sources of corruption.

However, as the Ukrainian weekly Novoye Vremya noted in its cover story last week, the most important reform may be the transformation of its notorious traffic police.  Its headline reads, "The First Real Reform."

Ukrainian weekly Novoye Vremya shows First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Eka Zguladze, who held the same position during similar reforms in Georgia. The headline reads "The First Real Reform." (image credit: Novoye Vremya)

As Vitaly Sych, Editor-in-Chief of Novoye Vremya told me, "This is the first reform that will immediately affect the average Ukrainian citizen.  Unlike obscure economic reforms, which will mostly impact the country in 3-5 years, this one will be immediately felt."

Anybody who's spent time in Ukraine knows what he means.  Most corruption is either a minor nuisance or goes on behind the scenes.  People might not like the fact that they need to pay a bribe to get a business registered or that somebody is looting the coffers at some state owned company, but it doesn't affect their daily life.

The notriously corrupt traffic police, on the other hand, is a constant reminder that the system is rotten to the core.  Just about everyone is stopped and shaken down on a regular basis, based on nothing more than the whims of an officer in need of some extra cash. Effective reform in this area would send a strong signal that things really are changing.

The program is being headed up by First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Eka Zguladze, who held the same position in her native Georgia, which implemented similar police reforms.  It is being funded by the US government and training and selection of officers will be supervised by a team of police from Reno, Nevada.

So far, indications are positive.  According to Bloomberg, 27,000 people applied for only 2000 positions in Kyiv, despite high standards.  All applicants must have a secondary degree or higher, a drivers license and knowledge of at least one foreign language.  Salaries are being raised from roughly $80 per month to almost $500-a very good salary in Ukraine.

If successful, the reforms would make a significant difference, as they did in Georgia a decade ago.  Sych of Novoye Vremya points out that most reforms, like the rationalization of gas prices to reflect market rates, are painful.  Solving the problem of everyday corruption would go a long way to convincing Ukrainians that the hardships they are enduring will be worth it.

"There are still problems, no doubt," he says.  "There has been no prosecution of officials of former officials.  Tax reform has stalled.  There has been no move to cut the ridiculous amount of regulations and red tape.  The Georgians did that within the first three months.  Things should be moving faster.  There's no excuse for the slow pace."

Nevertheless, he sees things moving forward.  "For twenty years, we did nothing.  Now things are starting to happen.  This process will take ten years, at least. And we will see positive changes within three to five years.  We are moving away from Russia and moving toward the civilized democratic world."

And that, no doubt, is what Putin fears the most.  If Ukraine follows the path of Poland, the Baltics and Georgia, ordinary Russians will begin to wonder why they are being left behind.  That will leave the Russian President with only two options-reform the corrupt Russian system or make his regime even more oppressive, both of which will cause him further problems that, given his regime's weakened state, he can ill afford.

As for Ukraine, it seems to have left Russia's "sphere of influence" for good.  One recent poll showed that 37% thought it was important to have good relations with the US, while only 16% said the same about Russia.  Another poll showed that 44% want to join NATO up from only 13% a few years ago.

"We now know who are true friends now: Poland, the Baltics and the US," Sych told me. "Our enemies are Russia and anybody who supports it."

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 #32
Stratfor.com
April 27, 2015
Russia's Scare Tactics in Ukraine

Summary

Minor clashes continue along the conflict line in Ukraine, but behind the front lines U.S. and Russian officials are waging a war of words. Russia and the United States have each accused the other of threatening to undo the ceasefire, while in reality both the Russian and Ukrainian sides are largely respecting the cease-fire terms of the Minsk agreement. Russian military movements along the border and inside the separatist regions are part of a broader effort by the Kremlin to increase Russia's leverage in negotiations with Ukraine and the West.

Analysis

Since the recent deployment of U.S. troops to train Ukrainian forces, the Russian government has become even more vocal in its criticism of U.S. involvement in the region. On April 23, a spokesman for Russia's Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashenkov, said that U.S. troops are training Ukrainian forces not only in western Ukraine, but also in Donbas near the conflict zone. The statement came a day after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that the deployment of U.S. trainers to western Ukraine and the alleged involvement of forces from Academi, a private security firm, in eastern Ukraine violate the terms of the Minsk agreement.

At the same time, the U.S. government is accusing Russia of continuing to ship heavy weapons into eastern Ukraine and building up its military presence on the border, particularly around the Russian city of Belgorod, to a size larger than any force deployed to the area since October. The U.S. Department of State published a statement on April 22 saying that the Russian military has continued moving heavy weapons to the region, is sending additional troops to the Ukrainian border, and has deployed additional air defense systems into eastern Ukraine, creating the highest concentration of air defenses in the area since the height of the conflict in August. According to the statement, combined Russian and Russia-backed separatist forces have been conducting increasingly complex training in eastern Ukraine.
Major Offensive Unlikely

Russia is unlikely to opt for a significant military offensive in Ukraine because of logistical, military and financial constraints. Despite the reported buildup on the border and increase in air defenses, Russian-backed separatists have largely respected the cease-fire in eastern Ukraine. Fighting still takes place on a daily basis, often with lethal casualties, but it remains more or less limited to the established contact line. Separatist forces have not conducted any actual offensives, and both sides have withdrawn most major artillery systems in accordance with the cease-fire agreement. The continued use of 120 mm and 122 mm mortars has technically been in conflict with the deal, as the two sides were supposed to withdraw all artillery and mortar system with calibers larger than 100 mm, but the use of these systems has become more or less acceptable within the established parameters. The cease-fire has not been implemented completely, but both sides have informally accepted the current level of violence, which does not form the basis for either side to completely reject the Minsk framework.  

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has emphasized progress in the implementation of parts of the Minsk agreement, especially the withdrawal of heavy arms. On the other hand, United States and NATO officials have chosen to publicly highlight continued Russian supply and weapons flows to eastern Ukraine, as well as personnel rotations.The two positions are not contradictory. Rather, Berlin and Washington are emphasizing different aspects of the realities on the ground to further two different political goals. While Germany is pushing for a de-escalation of tensions, U.S. policymakers are using Russia's continued involvement in eastern Ukraine to push regional allies, including Poland and Turkey, to take a greater role in an emerging regional alliance.

Benefits of a Buildup

U.S. accusations about Russia's military buildup, however, are not unfounded. In late February, an entire battalion-sized mechanized infantry unit arrived in Belgorod, while armor and artillery units moved toward the city by rail. Convoys carrying armored personnel carriers, supply trucks and command vehicles later followed. By mid-March, there were at least two mechanized battalions, one artillery battalion, one air defense battalion and at least two armored companies in Belgorod. The Russian city is located about 40 kilometers (24 miles) away from the border with Ukraine, close to the strategic Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Deploying so close to Kharkiv is a threat to the Ukrainian government.

The deployment to Belgorod also makes sense as part of a Russian effort to maintain a long-term presence on the Ukrainian border. By concentrating large forces in particular locations, rather than having smaller tactical units spread out along vast sections of the border, the Russian military significantly lowers the logistical cost of maintaining that presence.

The Kremlin's decision to deploy additional air defense systems, send heavy weapons, and provide separatist forces with more complex, advanced training is part of Russia's broader strategy in the region. Despite the cease-fire, Russia has never stopped moving weapons and equipment to separatists across the border, most notably transferring tanks on a regular basis. While separatist forces could use these resources for offensive purposes, the Kremlin's training and weapons program for separatists is likely designed both to entrench Russian influence in the separatist territories and boost its leverage against Ukraine and the West.

Russia has been working with the leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk "people's republics" to crack down on rogue pro-Russia armed groups that are not under Kremlin control and can violate the cease-fire without Russian consent, thus undermining Moscow's leverage in negotiations with the West and Kiev. For Russia, creating a professional, tightly-run military structure in the separatist regions improves its ability to control the tactical and strategic decision-making of the separatists, as these structures would be completely dependent on Russia for logistical support and supplies. Boosting air defenses and providing more advanced training to the separatists increases the republics' defensive capabilities, further deterring Ukraine from resuming efforts to regain lost territories. Controlling professional, well-equipped military structures in the separatist regions puts Moscow in a stronger position for negotiating over the future status of Donbas.

Russia is still facing domestic economic problems and a potential power struggle among various security and political factions in Moscow. And any significant military moves in Ukraine would run into logistical difficulties. Thus, Russia's buildup is likely not part of a planned offensive. Rather, it represents Russia's efforts to consolidate control over separatist regions in the long term, because maintaining a credible military threat along Ukraine's borders will strengthen Russia's hand when negotiating with the West.

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 #33
www.rt.com
April 24, 2014
Back to old tactics: US envoy tweets 'Russian BUKs in Ukraine' with pic of Moscow show
[Graphics here http://rt.com/news/252545-ukraine-fake-russian-missiles-pyatt/]

US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt has claimed that Russia's military is continuing to expand its presence in eastern Ukraine. As for proof, Pyatt posted a two-year-old picture of an air defense system from an air show near Moscow.

"This is the highest concentration of Russia air defense systems in eastern Ukraine since August," the ambassador tweeted, attaching a picture of BUK-M2 missile defense system apparently taken at the International Aviation and Space Show MAKS-2013, which actually took place just outside Moscow.

Twitter users lashed out at Pyatt's post - which he wrote in Ukrainian - implying that the diplomat deliberately used a fake image.

This is not the first time Pyatt was caught posting seemingly deceptive images on his Twitter account. Last September, he was showing off the ongoing US-Kiev military exercises in Ukraine. The pictures he provided turned out to be outdated.

In a more recent incident, Pyatt posted on Twitter what he said were satellite photos proving there are Russian artillery systems stationed near the town of Lomuvatka, Ukraine, about 20 kilometers northeast of Debaltsevo.

In response, the Russian Ministry of Defense said the claims by the ambassador were "crystal ball gazing."

"We have failed to understand how those grainy dark patches in the photos published by US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt on his Twitter feed could prove anything," Major General Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry stated.

In the beginning of 2014, a leaked conversation implicated Pyatt and US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe Victoria Nuland discussing Ukrainian opposition leaders' roles in the country's future government.

"F**k the EU," Nuland allegedly said in the phone call with Pyatt, which was taped and posted on YouTube in February of last year.

The four-minute video - titled 'Maidan puppets,' referring to the Independence Square in Ukraine's capital - was uploaded by an anonymous user and the origin of the recording remains unclear.

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 #34
New York Times
April 29, 2015
Dutch Foreign Minister Reports Progress in Inquiry Into Downing of Malaysian Jetliner
By RICK GLADSTONE

Forensics experts have identified remains of 296 of the 298 people killed in the attack that downed a Malaysia Airlines jetliner last July in eastern Ukraine, the foreign minister of the Netherlands said Tuesday.

The minister, Bert Koenders, whose country lost the most people among the nationalities on the Amsterdam-to-Kuala Lumpur flight, also said investigators were making good progress on other aspects of the inquiry into the downing of the jetliner, which was designated Flight MH-17 and was apparently was felled by a missile launched from eastern Ukraine.

NATO officials have said Russian-backed Ukrainian insurgents firing a Russian-made missile were responsible for downing the jetliner on July 17. Russia has blamed Ukrainian forces and denied responsibility in the disaster, which caused shock around the world and played a role in the worsening of relations between Russia and the West over the past year.

Mr. Koenders said the investigators expect to complete their report by October. Even without knowing who was responsible for the disaster, he said, officials from the Netherlands had begun conferring with counterparts in other countries about how any possible suspects could be prosecuted.

"For us obviously, and for our colleagues in Malaysia, Ukraine, and in other countries - the grieving nations as they are sometimes called - it's important that those people who are responsible for this are coming in front of a judge," Mr. Koenders said in an interview at The New York Times building while attending a Non-Proliferation Treaty conference at the United Nations.

"This is of course a challenge, it depends on the outcome of the investigation and the legal process," Mr. Koenders said. "But we are now in the process of talking with other countries to ensure that there is a legal process."

A Dutch-led team of investigators was repeatedly blocked in attempts to conduct a methodical inquiry at the crash site, in a bucolic stretch of eastern Ukraine not far from the Russian border, partly because the area was a combat zone.

But in recent weeks, the team's ability to to travel around the area has increased significantly, Mr. Koenders said, and the issue "has more or less been solved."

Mr. Koenders attributed the improved access partly to a shifting in the front in the conflict between the Ukrainian rebels and the government in Kiev. This shift, he said, "added to more possibilities to do the rest of the work."

The discovery and identification of human remains scattered over the crash zone, which investigators initially feared would present big difficulties as time dragged on, has nearly been completed.

Mr. Koenders said "we still have two - from all the people who were in the plane - two who are not yet identified in terms of their DNA," and that both were believed to be Dutch.

In a statement posted on the Dutch government website last Thursday, Mr. Koenders said a 20-member repatriation team at the crash site had been able to "work without disruption" and expected to remain on the scene for several weeks.

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 #35
A Vicious Circle: The More Aggressive Putin Is, the More Russians Love Him
Paul Goble

Staunton, April 29 - Russian polls, admittedly not the most reliable source, suggest that the more aggressive Vladimir Putin is, the more Russians love and support him regardless of the immediate impact of his policies on their lives, a vicious circle that history suggests could lead to a disaster especially given Moscow's possession of a large army and nuclear weapons.

In a commentary in Kyiv's "Den'," Sergey Grabovsky points out that Russian polls show that Putin's rating among Russians has dramatically increased since the annexation of Crimea and Moscow's intervention in the Donbas and that Russians feeling about their own situation have also become more positive (day.kiev.ua/ru/blog/politika/strana-rabov-strana-gospod).

And he cites the words of Valery Fedorov, the head of the VTsIOM polling agency, for an explanation: "The economic crisis is not as deep as many feared it would be; expectations were much worse. In addition, in the last year, the self-evaluation and self-respect of Russians grew."

That trend, the Kremlin-linked pollster says, "is directly connected with Crimea, with the conflict in Ukraine, with the fact that we now are not simply competing with the US but in conflict with that country, and this, in the opinion of the majority of Russians means that we are comparable in greatness."

Such feelings, Fedorov suggests, are "a very important element of the self-assessment" of Russians." Given their improved feelings about themselves on this basis, he adds, Russians have been "anesthetized" against the impact of any economic problems they may face in their day-to-day lives.

Grabovsky argues that this shows that for "the absolute majority of Russians," the three factors that explain their positive feelings about themselves and about Putin are "foreign aggression, conflicts with world leaders, and wars on Ukrainian territory. Everything else for 'the devoted people' is not so important," and their expectations for themselves remain low.

All of this might not matter much, he continues, "if Russia were not an enormous state with nuclear weapons and a large land army."

But it is, and that means that "the despotic, neo-totalitarian power (one of the main characteristics of totalitarianism is the impossibility of the rotation of ruling groups) has at its command tens of millions of 'slaves' who do not recognize the real danger for themselves and are ready to support the acts of 'the national leader' and his people right up to 'the red line.'

That is, Putin has "tens of millions" of supporters "who are intoxicated not only from alcohol but from global conflicts and local wars [and] who are prepared to suffer serious problems in the name not of freedom, humanism, or national flourishing but in order that someone else as a result of Russian actions will live badly."

That in turn has led within Russia to the flourishing of an autocratic state, xenophobia, and a personality cult, Grabovsky says.  And as various cases from the history of the last century show, that can lead to disaster. Russia's possession of nuclear weapons compound that problem and mean the disaster ahead could be far worse.

According to the Ukrainian commentator, there is only one way out of this vicious circle: "Russia with the help of the efforts of the international communist must be stripped of its weapons of mass destruction. Once and for all so that the planet will be protected against the rise to the head of this state of the latest 'titan.'

Otherwise, Putin or some future leader will be driven in that direction "not for the defense of freedom or the increase of the well-being of the population" but gain support for "aggressive attacks on its neighbors" and the use of "a threat of nuclear attacks on all who do not agree" with him.

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#36
Senate Committee on Armed Service
April 28, 2015
Russia, Ukraine, and U.S. Policy
Prepared statement by
Stephen Sestanovich
George F. Kennan Senior Fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies Council on Foreign Relations
Kathryn and Shelby Collum Davis Professor of International Diplomacy School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University

Chairman McCain, Senator Reed, members of the Armed Services Committee: Thank you for today's opportunity to discuss Russia's confrontation with the West over Ukraine. This is a subject of fundamental importance for the future of European-and indeed global-security.

The past year has been a frustrating one for both policymakers and policy analysts-in fact, for anyone trying to anticipate Russian moves. Time and again, many of us failed to gauge Vladimir Putin's motives. Often we thought he would be ready to unwind the crisis when he was actually about to double down. He made promises that he did not keep and created a powerful case for Western sanctions. Putin has personally antagonized European and American leaders in a manner that has few precedents in the history of Russia's relations with the West.

After a year like this, where do we stand and what should we think? I'd like to focus on four issues that have produced considerable debate. They bear directly on choices that your committee must make.

First is the question of Putin's aims and calculations. I often hear it said that he cares more than we do about Ukraine. Because he feels that the stakes for Russia are high, he may be hard to deter.

Second is the effectiveness of sanctions. Many say these have not worked well. Putin, we hear, will not be swayed by economic pressure; he has convinced the public that Russia must not be pushed
around.

A third much-debated issue has to do with helping Ukraine militarily. Giving arms, it is said, will only escalate the fighting-and bolster Putin's claim that the West is seeking to bring Russia down.

Finally, a fourth fear, about where this confrontation is heading. Many people worry that Putin will turn against other neighbors, especially our Baltic allies.

There is a kernel of truth in each of these claims. But they do not tell the whole story. To develop the right strategy, we need a fuller picture.
First, on the nature of Putin's commitment: we should neither minimize nor exaggerate it. When separatist forces were about to be defeated by the Ukrainian army last summer, we saw that Putin was not willing to let that happen. But he was also unwilling to deploy large Russian units in Ukraine to defend the separatists.

Why do he and his associates lie about having troops there, and about the casualties they have taken? Because neither foreign nor domestic audiences would be happy with the truth.

Putin's actions to date do not tell us what his future aims will be. Saving the separatists-and himself-from defeat does not mean he is prepared to back them as they try to take more territory. We know they want to do so; they are open about it. But we should not assume Putin will pay any price to support them.

Second, about sanctions. Putin and sophisticated Russian economists are not of one mind about the impact that sanctions have had. Some call it marginal; others consider it significant. But no one denies that sanctions have had some impact, or that over the past year Russia's economic outlook has deteriorated. The only question is whether sanctions affect Russian actions on the ground.

I believe sanctions do affect policy. Putin may well hope that, if fighting in eastern Ukraine stays below the peaks it reached last year, the West will start to roll back sanctions. But he must also know that, if fighting increases, new sanctions are likely and a rollback will be impossible. It is hard for me to believe that this awareness does not constrain Russian support for separatist leaders.

Third is the much-disputed issue of whether and how to support the Ukrainian military. A sudden infusion of Western arms will not turn the tide when fighting is in full swing; it might even lead Russia to escalate its own involvement. But the problem that the United States and its allies face now is slightly different. Their primary goal should be to deter a new wave of violence and, in particular, an effort by separatists to expand their holdings.

This is a goal that Western military aid can help to achieve. Without it, separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine will grow, the country's political and economic disintegration will continue, and Russia's involvement will increase. We have to be smart about strengthening Ukraine's army, and we have to be careful. But a Ukraine that can defend itself is essential to a strategy of re-stabilization. Expecting the conflict in the east to freeze itself is wishful thinking.

Finally, about where Putin will strike next: his Ukraine policy is a threat to the security of NATO members. The alliance has been right to reinforce and reassure front-line states, and it must do more. We cannot afford the luxury of unpreparedness.

All the same, as long as the Ukrainian crisis continues, my judgment is that Russian military pressure against other neighbors is remote. Being bogged down in Ukraine makes it harder for Putin to pick other fights. Yet the unfolding conflict in Ukraine will surely affect his calculus further down the road. If Putin emerges the victor, if a pro-Western government is kept from succeeding, if Russia's nationalist mood deepens, if the rich and powerful democracies of Europe and the United States fail to stay the course-if this is where we end up, Putin will draw his own conclusions. The Putin we face in the future could be even more dangerous than the one we face today-both for his neighbors and for us.

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#37
The Vineyard of the Saker
http://thesaker.is
April 28, 2015
If this isn't fascism and a junta then what is it?
by Nikolai Starikov
http://nstarikov.ru/blog/50889
translated by "KA"

The coup in Ukraine, which the West shamefully calls "the transfer of power" and the victorious "opposition" calls "the revolution of dignity" took place over a year ago. Not so much time has passed since then but that time has been filled to the brim with torrents of horrific information. The territory of Ukraine has not known so much blood, violence, suffering and death since the moment of her liberation from the fascists in the course of the Great Patriotic War.

Against the background of all of this the Russian liberals and Ukrainian journalist continue to affirm one and the same mantra: there is no fascism in Ukraine and the new power is completely legitimate and in no way resembles a junta.

Denial of the obvious is one of the identifying marks of liberalism. All liberal reforms, whether in Ukraine, Russia or some other country are clear proof of this. They are carried out for "prosperity" and "development" but end with a fall in the standard of living and the closure of businesses. Meanwhile the liberals continue to proclaim that everything is fine and this is how it is supposed to be. Likewise today the fascist character of the state next to our border, which was created with the active help of the US after the coup in Kiev, is denied.

What is fascism? What are its main features? It is a dictatorship aimed at the establishment of power of one political force, which always relies on coercion, always stops any discussion and completely controls the information space. At the same time fascists are speedily isolating their opponents. Firstly they isolate them from public policy and then they are literally isolating them in concentration camps and prison. This is the exact same road taken by Hitler's Nazis, Mussolini's Blackshirts and even Franco's Falangists. In Germany first the Communist Party was banned, then all parties other than the Nazi party, then, soon after that, the racist Nuremberg laws were introduced. In Italy almost 10 years previously the Ministry of Press and Propaganda, with Dino Alfieri as its head, was created and started actively closing down opposition media. Only a member of the fascist trade union, a union of journalists with party cards, could become chief editor of a newspaper, and other restrictions were introduced on the profession for undesirable citizens. In Spain masses of people were sent to prison and around 200.000 Spaniards were executed.

Identical methods were used to combat dissent in the Latin American juntas - beginning with Pinochet and finishing with his "counterparts" in Argentina, Paraguay and El Salvador. Arrests, torture and disappearances. Death squads eliminating undesirables. Closure of newspapers, overcrowded prisons - the style of the putschists of the Latin American juntas is surprisingly reminiscent of the style of the fascist regimes of Europe. This happened because after their defeat in the war the Nazi criminals made a timely escape to Latin America. And - to North America, that is to the US and Canada, where after the Second World War the Anglo-Saxons took a lot of former Banderists. While Vlasovists and Cossacks were handed over to the USSR, all non-Russian SS men were carefully rescued. Some were sent overseas and some, like the Latvians - to London.

Today in Ukraine we see the exact same picture. A multi-party system exists in Ukraine, but this multi-party system is only a fig leaf. There is in fact no opposition. There is no media reflecting an alternate point of view. At the slightest excuse - gunmen attack newspaper and television channel offices, which dare to show the wrong report or programme. Attacks on people who for whatever reason fall foul of the fascists have been carried out recently under the guise of "lustration", that is bullying and beatings, which have now taken the form of murder. The arrest of dissenters takes place under the guise of the detention of "supporters of terrorists", but this doesn't change the meaning of what has happened. It is worth recalling that in Nazi Germany it also all took place "strictly according to the law" and to this end such a law was adopted on 28th Februar 1933: it was called "for the Protection of People and State". Then on the basis of this further laws were adopted and certain articles of the constitution were suspended. This was followed by so-called" preventative arrests" - people were arrested without specific charges and sent to concentration camps. Why? They represented danger to people and state. A potential one! A communist, a Jew,a social-democrat, someone simply unhappy with the new order, a journalist with a differing point of view. Once again I emphasise - ALL repression in the Third Reich took place STRICTLY according to the law. First they passed a law, then used it to engender total lawlessness. For this reason, when they tell you that the Rada adopted a law on the basis of which they arrest, ban, tear down and close, just understand whose methods they are copying in Ukraine today.

The chief purpose of any fascist junta is to prevent people's access to alternative information, to the truth. The truth is ruinous to fascism. In any of its incarnations. This is why they first broke the arms of Chilean poet and singer Victor Jara and then they killed him.

Here it is worth pointing out that there is no analogue in the history of Europe to the violence which is taking place in Ukraine right now, but there are analogues in the history of Latin American dictatorships. The fascists in Europe did not kill journalists and political opponents in courtyards of houses and stairwells. They relied on first isolating them and then following up with elimination. In Franco's Spain after victory they arrested, judged and executed those, who had fought on the side of the Republic. In Latin America, open public executions of dissidents were carried out very frequently.

The goal is intimidation. To close off access to the truth, to block it.

Unfortunately, fascist juntas and dictatorships do not know ways other than violence. Built on a cult of force, on the creation of an enemy image and the fight with him, fascist regimes are always aggressive, they are always fixed on the export of violence beyond their borders.

A different scenario does not exist. In 1937 Hitler had already built an Aryan state in Germany, in various ways displacing those who were called enemies (Jews and communists) from public life. Nevertheless in 1938 the Führer started expansion abroad - Austria, Tschechoslovakia, Poland (1939).

Mussolini was just the same - Italy first invaded Abyssinia (1935) and then Albania (1939).

Today's fascists are no different. They need war and their expansion is always directed outwards.

But first the fascists MUST fully subjugate their own country. They must completely control her territorially and information-wise. Then they proceed further - beyond her borders.

It is no coincidence that the Ukrainian website "Peacemaker", notorious following a string of assassinations, contains a list not only of Ukrainian citizens who are undesirable from the point of view of the fascists, but of foreign citizens as well.

Similarly, writer and journalist Oles Buzina, who was murdered in Kiev, was on this list, as was the Rada deputy Oleg Kalashnikov, who was also killed.

We have a situation, where there is a resource which is connected to a man with the name of Gerashenko, who is an assistant to Arsen Avakov, Minister of Internal Affairs. And this resource is a register of people, whom they have started to kill. Incidentally there are also Russian citizens on this list. Even my name can be found on it. https://psb4ukr.org/criminal/starikov-nikolaj-viktorovich/

What is curious and even characteristic: this website is found on the main page of NATO: http://politrussia.com/world/ubiystvo-buziny-975/

It seems to me that the Russian Foreign Ministry and other bodies could pose a whole series of questions on this subject - the creation in other countries of lists of Russian citizens, with such a potential threat, it shouldn't remain unnoticed.

For those who don't see fascists in Ukraine.

In Nazi Germany those whose rights were first restricted and who were then destroyed were called Jews. The current powers in Ukraine restrict Russians, calling them "Colorados and Separatists". The method is the same - only the terms have changed. The meaning doesn't change. Any genocide in history has always started with terms that separated "them" from "us". First it is verbal. Then they start to kill...

SERGEI ANATOLEVICH SUKHOBOK murdered on the night of 12th to 13th April in Kiev.

On the night of 12th to 13th April 2015 the journalist Sergei Sukhobok was murdered in Ukraine. This was reported by the internet publication "Obkom", of which he was co-founder. In addition to his work in "Obkom" Sergei Sukhobok also wrote articles for the online publication "ProUA", which he founded as well. Sergei started his career as a journalist in 1998 in the media outlet "Business Donbass". The murder took place in Kiev. As yet there is no information as to the details of Sergei Sukhobok's murder. The main version: the murder was related to his professional activity.

OLEG IVANOVICH KALASHNIKOV shot in the entrance to his home in Kiev.

On the evening of 15th April 2015 Oleg Kalashnikov, deputy of the fifth convocation of the Verkhovnaya Rada from the "Party of Regions", was killed. The politician went up to the 8th floor of his house in the Podolsk region of Kiev and was shot, notes Lenta.ru. His wife came running out at the sound of the shots and called the police. The Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs brought a criminal case of "premeditated murder".

Oleg Kalashnikov was an active opponent of the Maidan and was one of the organisers of the Antimaidan in Marinisky Park in Kiev in the Winter of 2013-2014.

The victim reported publicly that right wing radicals had threatened him with murder. Here is the text of Kalashnikov's statements, published on his Facebook page a month ago:

"The unprecedented terror unleashed by the JUNTA nowadays against dissent of any kind in Ukraine has become everyday reality.

By chance I stumbled upon my performance in a live broadcast of the TV channel "Kiev" from already long ago December 2013... It was the day when the first barricades in the government quarters of the capital went up and my colleagues and I almost needed to attack the rear of our opponents, in order to get into the studio on Kreschchatyk Street. Managing to get on the air after the demonstration "Preserving Ukraine" in Marinisky Park, I decided against the customary campaigning as a candidate for people's deputy of Ukraine and simply shared with Kievans my thoughts and warnings which already back then flooded my heart with pain.

I don't want to be the prophet in his own land, but all my warnings from December 2013 have already become the reality of existence in 2015... Thus, in past times, I discovered in myself some prescient qualities, which unfortunately were unable to prevent a FRATRICIDAL WAR in my long-suffering country...

For over a year now I have been in Kiev, which is OCCUPIED BY HATRED...the JUNTA has not only unleashed a bloody fratricidal war, but has moved on to the destruction of all those with different points of view. A series of unexplained "suicides" of strong and courageous people, my friends and co-workers in the party, is seen by the regime as the unavoidability of punishment. NAZISM has essentially become the STATE RELIGION and its supporters believe in their impunity, erasing their country's towns and villages from the face of the earth and destroying the peaceful population, in the process subtly flaunting the categories of ÜBERMENSCH... Crushing an eight-year old girl under the caterpillar tread of a military vehicle in a peaceful town - is this not a war crime? Brazen looting of the peaceful citizens, plunder, violence and open threats of the use of weapons against protesters - is this not all a consequence of the ANTI-CONSTITUTIONAL COUP and ARMED SEIZURE OF POWER in my beloved native Ukraine?

I am not looking for excuses and I admit my guilt as well as the guilt of millions of those who waited in silence and hoped that this would not affect them, that this would all pass them by and that nothing would change the status of their citizenship...

The time has now come for every sane Ukrainian citizen to think about what kind of country we want to pass on to our children and grandchildren...

Today it becomes obvious and absolutely clear that only a preservation of self-identity based on the ACHIEVEMENT of our people in the years of the GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR will allow us to cleanse our hallowed land of filth...

PS The constant psychological pressure and brutal bullying this year during the occupation has not broken me and has not changed my outlook on life... The LATTER-DAY NAZIS cannot intimidate me - A SON OF VETERANS - with their open threats of my physical destruction...

I believe in our Victory over the brown plague! I believe we will save Ukraine!

LET US SERVE OUR HOMELAND TOGETHER!"

15th March 2015 MURDER OF THE JOURNALIST OLGA MOROZ

15th March 2015 - Olga Moroz, chief editor of the newspaper "Netishensky Vestnik" was found dead in her own home. Olga Moroz was found dead - with a fracture of the occipital bone and brain oedema. There had been no contact with Moroz since 14th March. As her sister Anna reported to the publication, she found the woman naked on a sofa in the bedroom. Her mobile phone, notebook and keys had disappeared from the flat.

An "epidemic" of suicides of deputies of the regions. Nobody believes that THEY ALL KILLED THEMSELVES! In the period from 25th February to 12th March alone, 4 deputies of the Party of Regions ended their lives by their own hand. Sergei Walter hanged himself, Mikhail Chechetov jumped out of a window, Stanislav Melnik and Aleksandr Peklushenko shot themselves. Criminal cases had been opened against all of the Regions deputies, with the exception of Melnik.

The "SUICIDE" OF SERGEI WALTER

The first was the 57 year old Sergei Walter, who had been temporarily suspended from his work as mayor of Melitopol (Zaprizhia oblast) for two years already. On 25th February Walter hanged himself in his home in the stairway leading to the garage. His wife discovered the body. The medics who were called to scene were unable to help. The mayor was dead, the doctors just confirmed his death. Sergei Walter was survived by two children - a son and a daughter.

On that day, Walter's trial was supposed to begin. The town's residents are convinced that Walter took his life because of the court proceedings which had been going on for two years. The mayor was being held on 13 charges - from extortion to the creation of a criminal gang. His lawyer insists that Walter said that he would fight to the end and was in good spirits, despite the fact that he was not sleeping at night and took sedatives and heart pills.

COINCIDENCE?

The "SUICIDE" OF ALEKSANDR BORDUG
On the day after Walter's "death", Alexander Bordug, Deputy Head of the Melitopol City Police, was found dead. The Ukrainian media reported that the deaths may be related. Sergei Walter's lawyer, Sergei Kolomyets informed the newspaper "Segodnya", that Walter was Alexander Bordug's former boss. "I know him well. His name is not connected with the scandals in the town, but Bordug was involved with maintaining order during demonstrations and was always the focus of attention. Were there enemies? I think so, yes. Pro-Russian citizens and "Svoboda" supporters got together round a table in his office and he tried to mediate. This is what he was doing in recent times" said Kolomyets.

The "SUICIDE" OF MIKHAIL CHECHETOV

Literally only a couple of days later - on 28th February - the regions deputy Mikhail Chechetov committed suicide. He threw himself out of the window of his own flat on the 17th floor of the house at Nr 2, Mishugi Street. This took place at around 1 am. His wife who woke around half an hour later, went to look for her husband and found only the open window and Chechetov's slippers.

People's deputy Anton Gerashenko claimed that judging by the questioning of his wife and others who had seen him the day before, he was in a state of deep depression, following the start of criminal proceedings against him on suspicion of abuse of office at the time of the "snap" election on 16th January 2014.

STANISLAV MELNIK "SHOT HIMSELF"

On 9th March in the village of Ukrainska in the Obukhov region of Kiev oblast Chechetov's colleague Stanislav Melnik - a 53 year old people's deputy from the Party of Regions - ended his life. He had worked in the V, VI and VII convocations of the Rada (2006-2007, 2007-2012, 2012-2014). Melnik shot himself in the forehead with a hunting rifle, registered in his name. Melnik was the directory of the brewery "Sarmat" from 1999 to 2005. He committed suicide in his flat in a multi-storey house. At the time of the suicide the deputy was alone in the flat. His wife discovered the body when she returned home.

ALEKSANDR PEKLUSHENKO ALSO "SHOT HIMSELF"

One more representative of the Party of Regions was found dead on 12th March. In Zaporozhia the former head of the regional state administration and regions deputy Aleksandr Peklushenko took his own life. He shot himself in his own home in the village of Solnechny in Zaporozhia. Experts have not yet discovered any farewell notes in the house. However the working version remains suicide. Two days before the tragedy the case of the former Governor came up before the Kirovograd court. Two days before these events on 10th March materials from the proceedings against Aleksandr Peklushenko were reviewed in the Kirovsky district court of the city of Kirovograd. Already in September he was charged with the organisation of mass riots. This was the next court session where the interrogation of witnesses was carried out. Peklushenko was present and even asked them questions in the course of the session, a source in the law enforcement agencies informed "KP".

Earlier...

26th January 2015, Nikolai Sergienko "shot himself"

TSN reported on the suicide of the former official, citing their own sources. As noted in the report, the fact of Sergienko's death was also confirmed by the law enforcement agencies. Sergienko was appointed in 2010 and his appointment was endorsed by the then Prime Minister of Ukraine Nikolai Azarov. Sergienko was 57. After graduating from the Institute of Railway Transport Engineers he started work as a master of the locomotive depot, working his way up to become head of the main department of locomotive facilities "Ukrzaliznytsya" in 2001. Later he headed the Dnieper Railway. From 2006 to 2008 he was Deputy Director of Ukrzaliznytsya, then the head of the Donetzk Railway, then from April 2010 onwards - first Deputy Director of Ukrzaliznytsya. He was fired after the coup -by a corresponding order from the Cabinet of Ministers in April 2014. He was known as a supporter of Yanukovich.

29th January 2015 Aleksei Kolesnik, former Chairman of the Kharkhov Regional Council and people's deputy of the first convocation, "hanged himself"
He was also a supporter of Yanukovich.

29th November 2014 Aleksandr Vladimirovich Kuchinsky was stabbed

On 29th November 2014 Aleksandr Kuchinsky, journalist, Chief Editor of the Donetzk newspaper "Kriminal-Express", author of the books "Chronicle of Donetzk racketeering" and "Anthology of Contract Killing", was stabbed together with his wife. He was known for his publications on the links between the criminal world and business. The bodies of Kuchinsky and his spouse were discovered with multiple knife wounds in the country home of the journalist in the village of Bogoroditchnoya near Slavyansk.

27th August 2014 Valentina Semenyuk-Samsonenko "shot herself"

The former head of the Ukraine state property fund Valentina Semenyuk-Samsonenko was found dead in her own home in the village of Chaika near Kiev on 27th August 2014. She was shot with a gun to the head. Prior to this Valentina Semenyuk had been attacked in the center of Kiev by unidentified people in camouflage and masks. According to Semenyuk's own words, after an action close to the presidential administration she first fell and then was attacked in her car. The militia consider that she committed suicide. According to the investigation, on the evening of 27th August Valentina Semenyuk took a shot-gun belonging to her son-in-law from the safe, went down on one knee and, resting the butt of the gun on the floor, placed the barrel against her forehead and released the trigger with her hand. However those who knew Valentina Petrovna find it hard to believe that she could have resorted to suicide. In addition, Semenyuk was a devout believer, who as a matter of principle wouldn't even consider this way of "escaping" a problem, say the relatives of the deceased. Further, several sceptics also point out that this is absolutely not a typical woman's way of ending one's life.

The thirteenth victim was Oles Buzina...

Thirteen murders and "suicides" in the last eight months...

Eleven of which were in the last three months...

If this isn't fascism and a junta, then what is it?

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