Johnson's Russia List
2015-#86
30 April 2015
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"We don't see things as they are, but as we are"

"Don't believe everything you think"

"The hunchback sees the hump of others, never his own"

In this issue
 
  #1
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
April 29, 2015
Moving to the rhythm: Russia's growing love affair with dance
Whether it's more traditional forms of dance such as ballet and folk dancing or Latin dances such as salsa and tango, Russians are flocking to dance floors around the country in ever increasing numbers. To mark International Dance Day on April 29, RBTH investigates the nation's growing love affair with dance and finds out which dances are most popular in today's Russia.
Alexandra Guryanova, special to RBTH
[Videos here http://rbth.com/arts/2015/04/29/moving_to_the_rhythm_russias_growing_love_affair_with_dance_45653.html]

Ballet and 'body-ballet'

Classical ballet is one of Russia's most famous international brands. Ballet has always been popular in the country and that remains true to this day, despite enrolling in a school being quite difficult, not to mention expensive.
It is important to specify that classical ballet is a lot like professional sports - to achieve excellence, one has to start at a very early age. For this reason, most of the schools only accept preschoolers (or, in rarer cases, children under the age of nine).

That said, Russian dance schools have recently started offering ballet classes for adults. Called "body-ballet," the new discipline combines choreography with aerobic exercise and involves no age limits. "This practice provides a lot of benefits for the muscles and flexibility. It's suitable for anyone who's looking for an alternative for yoga, which is also hugely popular among our clients," says Alexander Grigorevsky, director of Moscow-based dance school Agnis.

Folk dancing

Russian folk dancing is also quite popular throughout the country. During the Soviet era, government-funded folk dance ensembles were everywhere, and almost every community center throughout the USSR offered folk dancing classes to people of all ages. After perestroika, the schools began to die out, but the Ministry of Culture has lately started to actively support the surviving ensembles.

"The performers from the world-famous Alexandrov Ensemble are currently engaged in something I'd call charity - they give free or cheap lessons in the neighborhood dance clubs in Moscow, attracting more people to folk dancing," says Marina Yegorova, the choreographer of the Loktev folk dancing ensemble.

The Loktev Ensemble itself is keeping alive the traditions of Soviet dance schools: The atmosphere here is as strict as in some ballet schools. Apart from folk dancing, students in the ensemble, which accepts preschoolers aged from three to six, study classical dance and rhythm.

According to Yegorova, there are not many places where one can master actual Russian folk dancing in its original form. "Just like most ensembles, we base our performances on the elements found in Russian and, more broadly, Slavic dance techniques - these are the beryozka [a type of circle dance], the gopak, the squatting dance... Modern dancers find this more interesting than mastering unsophisticated folk dances, which are quite simple."

Ballroom dancing

Another part of the country's Soviet heritage is ballroom dancing, which remains quite popular, with new schools still being opened throughout Russia. One reason for the popularity of this form of dance is its inclusiveness - the schools accept people of all ages, starting from five years old. Dance contests even have a special senior division for adult dancers who have started practicing recently.

The appeal of ballroom dancing is only reinforced by the recent achievements of Russian in international competition. The year 2015 in particular started very well for Russian dancers, with several pairs winning major European events.

"There are currently more than 45,000 dancers registered with the Dancesport Union of Russia. There are also a huge number of amateur dancers who treat it as a hobby," says Yelena Uspenskaya, head of the press service of the Russian Dancesport Federation.

"Ballroom dancing appeals to people of all ages and diverse social backgrounds. This type of dancing is similar to aerobic exercise," says Uspenskaya, who points out that with its elegantly-dressed women, suited men, and carnival atmosphere, ballroom dancing is "one of the most elegant forms of dance."
 
Social dance

Social dance has been steadily growing in popularity over the last decade in Russia, with a nationwide explosion in schools teaching the basic steps of dances such as salsa, tango, hustle or boogie-woogie, and dance halls where dancers go to practice and meet new people. One of the most popular dance floors in Moscow can be found in Gorky Park. Opened 10 years ago, it holds dance sessions in the warmer months. The local favorites are salsa, samba, the hustle and swing.

Both a form of socialization and a recreational activity, social dancing is especially enjoyed by adults and seniors. "My students are people aged 30 and older. And - among other reasons, of course - they learn tango to meet new people," says Alexander Grigorevsky.

"And this makes sense: You cannot just walk and hug a stranger, and here you can freely embrace a girl and dance with her for half an hour. And she will be only too happy about it."

 
 #2
Euromaidan Press
http://euromaidanpress.com
Putin's Personality Cult Exceeds Stalin's 'by Every Measure,' Kantor Says
Paul Goble

Staunton, April 29 - Although few want to recognize that this is the case, the personality cult surrounding Vladimir Putin far exceeds the one that surrounded Stalin "by all measures" and has become what can best be described as "the religion of a pagan empire," according to Moscow commentator Maksim Kantor.

In a post on Kasparov.ru, Kantor points out that "Stalin stressed his status as a student of Lenin and demonstratively pointed to the primacy of the leader in everything," insisting that he was "faithful to the principles of Lenin and the course of the founding fathers - to the victory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and only then himself" (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=553FD1FF1829D).

Moreover, one cannot imagine Stalin having golden jets or palaces or to think of him as someone "with a bared chest." It thus appears, the Moscow commentator continues, that for a full-blown cult of personality one needs a certain "vulgarization of the idol" - and Stalin wasn't prepared to have that happen.

In essence, Kantor continues, "Stalin really considered himself to be a communist; he really believed that he was building an unheard of society of equality." Consequently, he was viewed and insisted on being viewed as "a builder of communism and not as a man or as the most attractive individual of the tribe."

It would not have entered the head of any woman in the Soviet Union to think that she should bear Stalin's child, he says. "Women loved their men, but they believed Stalin. And this was not completely a cult of personality. The phrase 'Stalin is married to Russia' was in principle impossible." Its use would have led to criminal charges.

Putin's cult has expanded far beyond Stalins, "in part because of the tastelessness and vanity."  But "that is secondary," Kantor says. The main cause is that what we are observing is "the development of a pagan cult in a nation which has lost all other convictions. There is no longer faith in freedom or equality or democracy or communism."

"What remains is a tribal faith - and the cult of a leader (precisely a tribal and pagan cult) has replaced all ideology."
 
 #3
Delfi
The Lithuanian Tribune
http://en.delfi.lt
April 29, 2015
The Russians are coming to occupy the Baltic states
By Marius Laurinavičius
Marius Laurinavičius is senior analyst with the Vilnius-based Eastern Europe Studies Centre.

I purposefully chose a title for my piece to evoke the notorious phrase from 1949 by the then US Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal: "The Russians are coming. The Russians are coming. They're right around. I've seen Russian soldiers."

In 1966, "The Russians are coming" was even used as a title for Norman Jewison's comedy film while in politics the phrase has become a by-word for any unfounded threat-mongering. One should note, however, that it was in 1949 that NATO was founded - and for no other reason than to counter the Soviet threat. This alone indicates that whatever one thinks of Forrestal's words, the threat they expressed was taken seriously. And this serious assessment might have been what helped prevent the potential threat from becoming very real.

This point has become relevant again, especially for the Baltic states. The shocking but far from unrealistic title is my attempt to make the point that Russia's threat has transitioned from a theoretical issue to a very practical one, which calls for an adequate response, not unlike in 1949.

Back in 1949, NATO leaders did not stop at political commitments of Article Five - very soon impressive American forces were deployed in West Germany which at the time was the borderline between NATO and Warsaw Pact camps.

As RAND Corporation analyst F. Stephen Larrabee has aptly noted recently, Vladimir Putin's regime is, in many respects, even more dangerous than the Soviet Union. In many respects, the West has already been caught unprepared.

Plans discussed in the open

What supports my point about the Russian threat becoming practical rather than merely theoretical is an article by Russian political analyst Rostislav Ishchenko entitled "Redemptive Ransom" (Искупительный выкуп). In it, he argues for the inevitability of "preventive occupation of the Baltic states" in the vital interest of the Kremlin and Russia.

The problem is that, both in the Baltic states and the West, this analytical piece by Ishchenko received less attention than it warrants, even if we were to dismiss it as pseudo-analysis.

I am convinced that this public analysis of the necessity for preemptive occupation of the Baltic states deserves as much, if not more, scrutiny than Russian Ambassador Miklail Vanin's nuclear threats to Denmark (over its intention to join NATO's anti-missile defence shield) or an even more serious nuclear blackmail by retired Russian generals at the Elbe Group meeting.

I will argue that Ishchenko's analysis, which was made public, is not some absurd blather by a small-time analyst (as many in the West and the Baltic states probably think), but rather a consequential first step in Russia's political preparation for aggression against Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

I'd like to emphasise that were this just one more public threat by the likes of Vladimir Zhirinovsky to sweep the Baltic states off the face of the earth, I would not lose any sleep over it nor waste time to try to explain my take on the present danger.

A recurrent pattern

I have already written, back in November, about why I think that the Baltic states are under a threat of a conventional military attack rather than some hybrid warfare. I argued that this scenario was very realistic and I could only reiterate my arguments now.

However, the threat has grown more serious since then and has transcended the merely theoretical guise precisely because Ishchenko's article represents the first instance of Russia discussing occupation of the Baltic states in public and presenting arguments why it is an inevitable outcome of Putin's regime pursuing its interests.

Even if we chose to ignore the name of the author of this analysis or agreed that he is unknown and inconsequential (which he is not), we'd still have to agree that this new public debate is a signal that Russia is entering the new stage, making a step from formulating a policy idea to carrying it out.

A more sustained analysis of contemporary Russia suggests one inevitable conclusion: despite the perceived closed character of this country (it is not true - one can find out many things about Russia from public sources, given consistent analysis), the first stage in any project it embarks on always begins with "information preparation".

One can easily ascertain that this was the case before the annexation of Crimea or Russia's aggression against Ukraine in general. This was also the pattern of the campaign against oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky which ended in his imprisonment. There are more examples, but these should be enough to make the point.

Whose ideas are these?

But even if we agree that the onset of a public discussion about the necessity of Baltic occupation alone is a sufficient sign of threat, we should still look closer at the author of this analysis. Ishchenko is neither someone unknown nor inconsequential, although he used to be presented as a Ukrainian political analyst rather than Russian.

To better understand whose ideas he is voicing, we only have to look at the platforms that publish his analyses and other experts he shares his bylines with. In Russia, it is hardly a secret that Ishchenko is a close associate of the "Izborsk Club" and an expert on its ideas.

He is therefore far from a lone voice. He is a spokesman for well-known figures like Alexander Dugin, Alexander Prokhanov, retired General Leonid Ivashov and Russian politicians who stand behind them: Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, President Putin's administration chief Sergey Ivanov and the like.

From analysis to action

To return to Ishchenko's piece itself, it is important to note that his analysis is a herald of a campaign very similar to the one that preceded the attack on Ukraine. Deducing from this pattern, we should expect to see more analyses like that appearing on public platforms, after which Putin will receive a classified policy paper on his desk, drafted by some Russian strategic research institute or a thinktank, with an authoritative analysis urging to take tangible action - much like in the case of Crimean annexation or aggression in eastern Ukraine.

At this point, Putin's decision will probably depend solely on the balance of power within Russia's political elite or perceived costs of such an adventure.
Granted, the Russian political elite is still far from united even on the issue of the government's massive military spending amidst general economic strain. The budget for defence, rearming and modernizing the army could be an important indication of Russia's aggressive plans.

One must admit that the so-called Russian liberals, represented in this case by Finance Minister Anton Siluanov or even Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, keep insisting that Russia can hardly afford the planned military spending. Even Russia's Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies said in its report that Russia's rearmament programme was in crisis.

Bearing this in mind - as well as the divergence of views on the future of Moscow's involvement in Ukraine even within the Russian elite - there is not enough evidence to suggest that these intentions regarding the Baltic states (attributable to Rogozin, Ivanov, the entire Russian military-industrial complex behind their backs and their mouthpiece, the Izborsk Club) will necessarily be implemented. However, we must acknowledge the threat and react accordingly.

Moreover, both the precedent of the Ukraine war and Putin's refusal to cut military spending even in the face of deteriorating economic situation and against the advice of government liberals in charge of economy, are a good indication of who has been winning similar battles in Russia and who has the balance of power tipped in their favour.

Political commitment is not enough

It is important to note that even when Ishchenko discusses the possible consequences of "preventive occupation of the Baltic states" for Russia, not once does he say that what might impede the plan is the Baltic membership in NATO.

Such conspicuous disregard for NATO's security guarantees under Article Five, something that has been much talked about in the West (and I personally do not doubt them), serves only to confirm my oft-expounded argument that as long as NATO's guarantees are not backed by adequate deployment of troops and weaponry, they will not be taken seriously in Moscow.

Quite the opposite - Ishchenko's analysis suggests that at least those groups of the Russian elite that nurture bellicose plans regard the Western powers as not strong or decisive enough to ever dare to defend the Baltic states. Especially in the face of a threat of nuclear stand-off with Russia.

Therefore bearing in mind that political preparations for aggression against the Baltics - or at least political struggle within Russia's power groups over it - have already started, the only way to truly guarantee security of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and prevent a serious challenge to the very existence of NATO is to urgently deploy allied forces sufficient not just to deter Russia, but to actually defend the Baltic states.

Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves's recent public statements should be viewed in precisely this light: he said that symbolic NATO presence in the Baltics and political guarantees of Article Five were no longer enough.

Meanwhile the Baltic states themselves must insist in a united and loud voice on the necessity to deploy abundant and well-armed allied forces on their soil - at the same time as they mobilize their own resources in proportion to the seriousness of the present situation.
 
 #4
www.rt.com
April 30, 2015
'My breathing mom was among corpses': Putin recalls his parents' WWII ordeal

Vladimir Putin has written a column (something he very rarely does), recalling the stories of his parents who survived the hardships of the Leningrad blockade, his dead brother and World War II with very personal details.

'My dad was breathing via a reed in a swamp while the Nazis passed by, just a few steps away'

Putin's father, Vladimir, joined a small sabotage group under the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), whose mission was to blow up bridges and rail lines near St Petersburg (then Leningrad), the Russian president recalled in his column in the "Russian Pioneer" journal. Of the 28 members in the group, 24 died in battles with the Nazis near St Petersburg.

One day, German soldiers were chasing them in the woods. Putin's father survived because he hid in a swamp for several hours.

"And he [Putin's father] said that, when submerged in the swamp and breathing through a reed, he heard German soldiers passing by, just a few steps away from him and he heard dogs barking."

His father recalled how he sustained an injury, which invalided him for the rest of his life because he had to live with parts of a grenade in his leg.

Putin-Sr was making a sortie behind Nazi lines together with his fellow fighters. However, they suddenly encountered a German soldier.

"The man looked at us carefully. He took a grenade, then another, and threw them at us," Putin recalls his father's words.

"Life is such a simple thing and cruel," the Russian president concluded.

When Putin's father woke up, he couldn't walk and there was another problem - he had to reach his group stationed on the other bank of the vast Neva River which was frozen.

"The Neva was constantly monitored and exposed to fire by artillery and machine guns. There was almost no way of reaching the opposite bank."

However, by chance Putin-Sr met his neighbor, who despite enemy fire managed to get him to a local hospital. The fragments of the grenade were lodged in his leg and the doctors preferred not to touch them in order to save the limb.

The neighbor waited for him [Putin-Sr] in the hospital, and after seeing that his surgery had been successful he told him: "All right, now you're going to live, and I am heading off to die."

However, they both survived the war, though Putin's father thought his savior had been dead for a decade. In the 60s, they met by chance in a shop and there was a tearful reunion.

'My brother died from diphtheria during the Leningrad blockade'

Putin's elder brother was born during World War II. To support his little son, Putin's father secretly passed his own hospital rations to his wife. But when he started to faint in the hospital "doctors and nurses understood what was happening," said Putin, recalling his parents' stories.

The child was taken from the family by the authorities and put in a foster home from where he was set to be evacuated.

"He fell ill there [the foster home] - my mother said it was diphtheria - and didn't survive. And they were not even told where he was buried. They were never told."

It was only last year that Putin managed to find information about his brother and where he was buried.

"And this was my brother," wrote Putin. "Not only the address where he was taken but the name, surname, and date of birth all matched. He was buried in Piskarevsky cemetery [in St. Petersburg]. And even a specific area was mentioned."

'Among the bodies my dad saw my mom'

When Putin's mother was on her own - her son was taken and her husband was still in hospital - she got sick. The medics considered her almost dead and were transporting her with other bodies for burial. As luck would have it, Putin's father made a timely return from the hospital.

"When he [Putin-Sr] came to the house, he saw the medics were carrying corpses. And he saw my mother. He came closer and it seemed to him that she was breathing. 'She's still alive!'," he told the medics.

They insisted she would soon die, but he refused to listen to them, and instead attacked them with his crutches.

"And he took care of her. She lived," the Russian president wrote. His parents died at the end of the 90s.

Vladimir Putin with his mother (Image from wikipedia.org)Vladimir Putin with his mother (Image from wikipedia.org)

'My parents didn't harbor any hatred for the enemy'

Every single family lost loved ones in this war, Putin said.

"But they [Putin's family] had no hatred for the enemy, that's amazing. To be honest, I still cannot fully understand this."

He remembered the words of his mother, who said she didn't hate the German soldiers as they "were common people and were also killed in the war."
 
 #5
Kremlin.ru
April 29, 2015
Meeting with Government members

Vladimir Putin held a regular meeting with Government members.

The participants examined ways to clean up the damage caused by wildfires in Khakassia and Trans-Baikal Region as rapidly as possible. Particular emphasis was on rebuilding housing and infrastructure, and compensation for farmers.

The most relevant issues raised during the recent Direct Line with Vladimir Putin live call-in programme were also discussed, in particular the use of maternity capital, the effectiveness of using money from the reserve funds, and quality control of fuel for cars.

Excerpts from transcript of meeting with Government members

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues,

Mr Medvedev and I already started discussing a few issues. Above all, we discussed how the clean-up effort is going after the wildfires, and in Trans-Baikal Territory the fire-fighting efforts continue.

I therefore want to start with this matter now and ask Mr Kozak to report on the clean-up effort in Khakassia and on the fire-fighting efforts and the work to rebuild infrastructure and housing in Trans-Baikal Territory. Please, go ahead.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak: Mr President, colleague,

Mr President, acting on the instructions you gave following your trip to Khakassia, the Government has organised work, above all as concerns identifying the individual buildings and people affected by the fires in Trans-Baikal Territory and Khakassia.

A complete list has been made now of all homes damaged by the fires. A total of 1,373 homes were completely destroyed or cannot be repaired and must be built anew, and there are 64 homes that need complete renovation. A list has also been drawn up of all social facilities and engineering infrastructure that needs to be repaired. We have given the necessary instructions and they are now being carried out. Everything will be repaired by September.

Draft resolutions on allocating funds for this work have already been prepared and submitted to the Government. The Government will examine them at its meeting tomorrow. The money comes to 2.8 billion rubles. This is the first tranche only. It will be spent on social infrastructure facilities and homes that we know for sure were destroyed and for which we have already established what exactly needs to be built now.

This work will be complete by May 15. If necessary, we will make additional funds available. But today, we will settle the issues in sections, so as to be clear about the funding sources and make the decisions needed to get contracts signed and start on the construction work.

Even though this work calls for tight deadlines and rapid decisions, we still need to make sure the results are up to standard. At the moment, we are completely confident that this work will be carried out as planned, but we will monitor the situation on a daily basis. This monitoring will take place at Government level.

(Mr Kozak also spoke about preparations for the construction work, the choice of model house designs, sub-contractors, companies to deliver the construction materials, and preparation of detailed construction schedules for each site).

A decision has also been taken to provide assistance to the regions in order to compensate for losses suffered by agricultural goods producers. The Government will examine this matter too at its meeting tomorrow. To date, the claims on which we need to make decisions - cases backed up by all the necessary documentation - come to a total of only 43 million rubles. These decisions will be taken tomorrow.

By May 15, the Agriculture Minister and the regions concerned will draw up a complete list of affected agricultural producers in order to make full decisions on total compensation, including to owners of small private farms, as you instructed.

The Economic Development Ministry and the regions concerned will make an assessment of the damage to small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in these regions within the limits of the money allocated for the programme to support SMEs. Additional money will be made available for rebuilding the corresponding infrastructure.

Overall, the work is already underway at an intensive pace. The executive authorities in the regions, local government officials and representatives of the federal executive bodies in the regions are working practically around the clock. We will report on the results as need be. If any problems arise, we will speak openly about them.

Vladimir Putin: The evaluation work needs to be completed as quickly as possible. We need to know the extent of the damage, then we can allocate funds. An objective assessment of the damage must be carried out as quickly as possible.

Dmitry Kozak: The regional executive authorities are asking for around 7 billion rubles for the damaged housing and social and engineering infrastructure, but this assessment needs the documentation to support it.

Vladimir Putin: I ask you not to wait until all of this is sitting on your desk. You need to work directly with them and achieve quality and rapid results.

Dmitry Kozak: This work is underway, Mr President.

Vladimir Putin: Good.

There are also a number of matters connected to the Direct Line programme. You saw that there were many questions and it was impossible to answer all of them. Of course, we knew this would be the case, but nonetheless, the sheer amount of questions reflects our people's main concerns, and I would like to address a few of these questions today.

The first question concerns the possibility of putting the maternity capital towards the needs of families with seriously ill children or children with disabilities in the difficult circumstances in which some of our people have found themselves. I know that the Government has looked into this and has drafted the relevant proposals and even made decisions.

Ms Golodets please, go ahead.

Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets: Mr President,

Let me briefly give the situation with maternity capital as things stand today. I remind you that the programme has been underway since January 1, 2007. Its primary goal is to encourage childbirth and improve young families' material situation. In 2007, 1,610,000 children were born in Russia, but last year, we reached the highest level yet since 2000, with 1,947,000 childbirths.

What is important is that more and more people are having a second child now. In 2007, only 493,000 second children were born, but last year, the figure was up to 658,000. The overall birth rate has increased from 1.4 to 1.75. Essentially, we have already reached the target we set for 2018.

To date, 5.8 million families have received maternity capital certificates and 3.3 million families have already used them. The vast majority of families use the maternity capital to improve their housing conditions. Over this period, 3.1 million families have improved their housing situation by moving into new apartments or renovating their current homes; 194,000 families decided to put the maternity capital towards their child's education.

(Ms Golodets went on to speak about other possible uses for the maternity capital, in particular, for obtaining mortgage loans or ensuring the conditions for children with disabilities' education and development).

Vladimir Putin: There were many questions concerning the efficient use of resources from the reserve funds.

I asked Ms Golikova to look into it.

Chairperson of the Accounts Chamber Tatyana Golikova: Mr President, colleagues,

In accordance with your instructions and the State Duma resolution, we monitored the use of resources from the Reserve Fund and the National Welfare Fund. We have summed up the results for the first quarter of 2015, and I want to present this information to you.

As ofApril 1, 2015, the total volume of the Reserve Fund and the National Welfare Fund stood at 8.8 trillion rubles. Over 2014, we added a total of 86.5 billion rubles to this figure by using the revenue we earned on our deposits with the Central Bank and through the replenishment measures.

But if we are to talk separately about the use of resources from the Reserve Fund and the National Welfare Fund, the Reserve Fund was created as a measure to balance the budget, while the National Welfare Fund is designed to fund self-liquidating projects and support the relevant banks, also within the framework of the anti-crisis plan.

As for the Reserve Fund, in February 2015, the Finance Ministry used its right to allocate 500 billion rubles from the Reserve Fund to cover the national budget deficit, and the reduction of its volume is partially due to this decision.

As for the National Welfare Fund, as of April 1, 2015, the amount of resources from this fund used to implement the decisions I just mentioned was 592.6 billion rubles. Where did this money go?

First, as everyone knows, a decision was made in 2013 to allocate part of the National Welfare Fund resources toward eleven self-liquidating infrastructure projects. Basically, we spent the entire 2014 on approving project design passports and negotiating terms and conditions for funding.

The volume of funding that needs to be allocated toward these goals is nearly 815 billion rubles, and as of April 1, 2015, 187.6 billion rubles has been allocated toward five projects. These include the construction of intelligent networks, and the funds were allocated in the amount of 1.1 billion rubles; closing digital access gaps in sparsely populated areas - 4 billion rubles; construction of gas extraction and purification facilities on the Yamal Peninsula - 75 billion rubles; modernisation of railway infrastructure on the Trans-Siberian and Baikal-Amur mainlines - another 50 billion rubles, and 57.5 billion rubles will be spent on construction of a nuclear power plant in Finland.

As for other resources used for these purposes, we are talking about another 126 billion rubles that were allocated toward deposits and subordinated loans to the VTB Bank, and placement of the National Welfare Fund resources in preferred shares in VTB, Rosselkhozbank, and Gazprombank invested to ensure their stability.

At the same time, I want to say that in accordance with your instructions and the State Duma resolution, we are required to monitor the use of resources on a quarterly basis. At the moment, this monitoring was limited because the decisions were made primarily on allocating resources in the first quarter, but starting in the second quarter, it will include control activities to monitor the use of resources locally.

I would like to say that the Finance Ministry has completed the initial phase of its work, essentially launching this mechanism. Now, the main responsibility largely lies with the Economic Development Ministry and Transport Ministry, since they are the coordinators for a significant part of the projects and are responsible for the monitoring and targeted use of these funds.

The cooperation that will be established between these ministries as project initiators and us is fundamentally important, because according to last year's experience, we have the opportunity to support projects in order to avoid any undesirable use of federal budget funding.

And finally, as I already said, 126 billion was allocated to VTB. Part of the funds, 100 billion rubles, was placed in subordinated deposit, including 30 billion used to buy Russian Railways bonds and traction rolling stock.

At the same time, I want to point out that the placement of funds in subordinated loan with VTB provided the opportunity to increase the bank's capital adequacy ratio, and this naturally enhanced its stability.

In conclusion I want to once again say that we will continue the work and will certainly report to you on the situation unfolding with regard to the use of National Welfare Fund resources.

Vladimir Putin: I ask you to continue this work so that the Cabinet responds in a timely manner and has additional information from you on how this funding is used. And, naturally, for the State Duma deputies to also have complete information, so they can use it when making any decisions in the future.

Incidentally, as far as the traction rolling stock is concerned, we need to look into it; after all, such orders, orders for locomotives, will put an extra load on our production capacity. And private companies would be ready to do this provided they can use the locomotives in their work. We need to discuss this with the Transport Ministry, the companies, and Russian Railways.
<...>

Vladimir Putin: And there are a lot of complaints from car enthusiasts about the quality of motor fuel - not just petrol but diesel as well. I asked Rosstandart to conduct corresponding inspections. They are underway. And these audits have confirmed that the quality of automotive fuel quite often does not meet the necessary standards, first and foremost in terms of its physico-chemical properties, and several other parameters.

Can we finally put an end to this practice?

Please, Mr Manturov, go ahead.

Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov: Mr President, Rosstandart, which reports to our ministry, is indeed carrying out regular scheduled inspections, not just at gas stations, but also at oil refineries and storage facilities. Last year, a total of 1,000 facilities were inspected, with 300 improvement notices involving administrative fines issued.

We had the fewest complaints with regard to oil refineries. Because they are currently conducting fairly large-scale modernisation within the framework of four-party agreements signed between oil refineries, the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service, Rostekhnadzor and Rosstandart, the work is fairly routine. This is true of both 2014 and the first quarter of this year.

The only thing I can confirm is that even taking into account tougher requirements and ban on the production and sale of Euro 3 fuel, the number of violations has decreased. In other words, if we take the results for the first quarter, out of 120 gas stations inspected, violations were discovered at 20.

Together with the Energy Ministry, we have compiled a list of measures, including amendments to the Administrative Offences Code, that would introduce so called "turnover" fine, which will be levied on the turnover depending on the revenue of the enterprise, and going as far asterminating that enterprise's activities. But given the positive dynamic we are seeing on the backdrop of more stringent requirements to gas stations, we will continue with inspections and monitoring. If the situation worsens, we will rapidly issue an initiative to make corresponding amendments to the Administrative Offences Code. And we will continue our work.

Vladimir Putin: What sanctions exist today?

Denis Manturov: Today, if we take the violations revealed last yea, administrative fines issued directly to gas stations total about 10 million rubles.

Vladimir Putin: Listen, Mr Manturov, this is truly theft. This not only leads to problems when car engines break down more often and need to be repaired more often, etc. This is actually cheating consumers. Are you saying that nobody is held liable for this?

Denis Manturov: We are preparing an assignmentfor our inspection authorities, including the Prosecutor General's Office and the Interior Ministry, in order for them to get involved when there is not only a mismatch between fuel quality and the standard, but when we are talking, first and foremost, about under-filling.

But this is not related to Rosstandart inspections; we are responsible specifically for the fuel itself, for its chemical properties. So in this respect, we propose introducing administrative fines, what I said with regard to amendments to the Administrative Offences Code. I think that this will be a good incentive, including for decreasing those administrative violations.

Vladimir Putin: Let's agree to that. I will ask the Prosecutor General's Office to work with you and other relevant departments and agencies to analyse the situation in this area and for all of you to make corresponding proposals.

Denis Manturov: Ok.

Vladimir Putin: Then it's agreed.
<...>
 
 #6
Russia Insider
http://russia-insider.com
April 29, 2015
A Home for Every Russian: How Putin Delivers on the Russian Dream
Russia is in the throws of a housing boom that is transforming the country and hugely increasing its sense of well-being but which has gone completely unreported in the West.
By Alexander Mercouris

An aspect of Russian economic performance that is never discussed in the West is the rapid increase in the pace of housing construction.

Russia built 81 million square meters of housing in 2014.  This was around a fifth more than in 2013 and exceeds the previous all-time high of 72.8 million square meters built in 1987.  

Moreover the overall pace of housing construction is being sustained despite the high interest rates at the start of this year.  

House building was actually up slightly in the key Moscow region in the first quarter of 2015 as compared with the first quarter of 2014.  Across the country as a whole it is expected to drop to 76 million square meters in 2015, less than in 2014 but still more than in the previous record year of 1987.  In "new Moscow" (the huge area added to Moscow in 2012) construction in the first quarter was up by about a quarter over the previous year.

International comparisons are difficult.  Russian construction statistics measure volume rather than individual homes built as is done in other countries such as Britain and the U.S.  However the number of new homes being built in Russia in any one year is probably now around 800,000 to 900,000.  This compares with roughly 1.1 million new homes usually built in the U.S. in any one year.  The U.S. however has more than double Russia's population. By comparison Britain, with 44% of Russia's population, built just 141,000 new homes in 2014, roughly 18% of the Russian total.  

A much higher proportion of Russian homes are apartments than in Britain or the U.S.  However construction of individual homes as opposed to apartments is also increasing rapidly in Russia, with 167,200 individual homes as opposed to apartments being built in Russia in the first nine months of 2014 - more than the total number of new homes of any kind built in Britain in the whole of 2014.

Of course mere numbers don't tell the whole story.  There is much more quality housing in the US and Britain, with Russia heavily focused on building high volumes of cheap housing to provide affordable homes to its general population.  

This is not surprising given that the average Russian occupies 22 square meters of housing, which is still half that in Britain, where however in contrast to Russia the size of homes and of housing space per person is actually shrinking (see for example this article in the Daily Mail).  

There are however the first tentative signs that as the overall housing situation improves and living standards rise, demand is increasing in Russia for quality homes and, especially in the big cities, house builders are starting to respond (see for example this article in Moscow Times).  Certainly by all accounts the quality of homes now being built in Russia is significantly better than it was during the heyday of housing construction in the Soviet period from the 1950s to the 1980s.

The fact that the emphasis on house building in Russia remains on cheap affordable homes incidentally confirms something else. This is that the Western image of "Putin's Russia" as ruled by a "corrupt kleptocracy" selfishly focused on its own interests has to be wrong.  The emphasis on cheap affordable housing for the wider population on the contrary shows that Russia, as its constitution says, is very much a "social state".

In other words Russia is in the middle of a housing boom.  Given the very high importance owning a home has to a person's sense of well-being, this goes far to explain why surveys show Russians are becoming more happy (see Paul Robinson, Increasingly Happy Russians Catching up to Americans, Russia Insider, 28th April 2015).  As interest rates fall the pace of house building in Russia is likely to grow even more, making them happier still.
 #7
Fortune
April 29, 2015
Russia's economy: In better shape than you might think
By Chris Matthews  

Russia experts and investors at this year's Milken Conference argue that Western sanctions against the nation have not dealt as heavy of a blow as it may seem.

During President Obama's State of the Union address earlier this year, he boasted about the effectiveness of Western sanctions against Russia, claiming that the Eastern European nation's economy was "in tatters."

The president certainly had incentive to pump up the sanctions he helped enact. But at a panel discussion on the future of the Russian economy on Wednesday at the Milken Institute Global Conference, Russia experts and investors in the Russian economy vehemently disagreed with his analysis.

Panelists argued that the Russian recession is largely a result of a collapse in oil prices rather than Western sanctions. Meanwhile, the ruble has stabilized after falling sharply last year and the Russian stock market has recovered more than 20% in 2015.

Billionaire investor David Bonderman argued that Western sanctions, though much lighter than those imposed on countries like Iran, are actually creating opportunities for investment in Russia. "The market has fallen a long way, and there's a shortage of capital," he said. "Returns tend to be higher where either the troops are in the street or prices are low."

Retailers like Russian supermarket Lenta, which Bonderman has a stake in, are seeing higher margins absent Western competition, and demand for staples like groceries remain strong. Russian-born investment banker Ruben Vardanyan pointed out that the collapse of the ruble left much of the economy untouched, with roughly 90% of the population not inclined to buy imported goods. And that population, Vardanyan points out, has only increased its support for Vladimir Putin in the months following the imposition of sanctions.

The panel uniformly condemned U.S. policy towards Russia as ineffective and short-sighted. Susan Eisenhower, chairman and CEO of The Eisenhower Group, a consulting firm, argued that isolating Russia, even as a punishment for breaking international law, "isn't in the United States' interest." She pointed to the increased risk of nuclear weapons proliferation in a world where the United States and Russia aren't communicating.

Eisenhower argued for a reset of U.S.-Russia relations, first by appointing a special envoy to Russia to restart a dialogue that can help resolve the dispute over Crimea.

Bonderman said that U.S. policy towards Russia is simply pushing the country into the arms of China, a relationship he argued is counter to the desires of the Russian people and the interests of the United States. "The Russian people want to be Western; to force them to the east is unnatural," he said.

To be sure, investors in Russia, like those who sat on the panel at the Milken Conference, would benefit from a lifting of sanctions. But the surge in Russian markets and Putin's popularity suggests that the Russian economy isn't as bad as we thought.
 #8
Wall Street Journal
April 30, 2015
Russia's Beloved Borscht Reveals Reality of Inflation
Retired Siberian journalist tracks ingredients to document the country's soaring food prices
By PAUL SONNE

MOSCOW-Every other month, retired teacher Natalya Atuchina cooks up a special pot of borscht in her home city of Omsk. A year ago, she bought the ingredients at local markets for 165 rubles ($3.20). In April, they cost nearly 247 rubles.

Ms. Atuchina's soup is the benchmark for the "Borscht Index," a metric her husband Sergei Komarovskikh devised a little over a year ago to track food costs in their Siberian city. Since then, the borscht's price has risen 49.5%, evidence of the real-life sting of inflation in Russia.

"Borscht is a very objective indicator," says Mr. Komarovskikh, a 66-year-old retired journalist. In a recent report for local news agency OmskInform, he wrote: "The borscht can't lie."

Russia had its most severe year-over-year monthly inflation in 13 years in March, the result of a plunge in crude oil prices, a devalued ruble and the Kremlin's ban on an array of Western food imports imposed in retaliation for sanctions over Ukraine. Overall, inflation climbed to 16.9% compared with a year earlier, according to the Russian state statistics service, pinching the wallets of Russians as incomes failed to keep pace.

Most dramatic have been price hikes on fresh produce, including ingredients in Russia's beloved borscht, a savory magenta-red mix of beets, potatoes, and a host of other ingredients, whose prices have swerved widely over the past year. Food inflation rose 23% in March from the previous year, with 38% inflation on fruits and vegetables.

So far, however, there is little indication Russians are holding the Kremlin responsible for their checkout-counter woes. Authorities have presented the import ban as a patriotic measure to defend Russia and boost domestic agriculture. Price hikes on embargoed foods have been masked by a broad wave of inflation on nearly all products-banned or not.

"The cost of everything has grown sharply as a result of the ruble's devaluation," says Yulia Baskakova, a sociopolitical researcher at Russian state pollster VTsIOM. For everyday Russians, "the exact role the sanctions (or embargo) are playing is difficult to distinguish even for an educated person."

The Kremlin ban added 2.5 percentage points to Russia's overall inflation in February, according to the Ministry of Economic Development. It has had a varied effect, sending prices soaring for certain products, while causing more muted increases for other goods, such as milk.

The price of Russian-made chocolate bars, for instance, has shot up 38% in the past year, affected by far higher costs for imported ingredients including popular additives such as dried fruits and nuts that came under the embargo, according to Russia's Center for Confectionary Market Research.

Even basic foods made or grown in Russia have witnessed price jumps. The cost of imported seeds, chemicals, fertilizer and equipment rose for farmers as the ruble sank. Producers began raising their prices upon seeing inflation on other products, and in some cases adjusted prices closer to what their goods would fetch abroad.

In Moscow, economists predict the surge has neared a peak and will soon decelerate, barring radical fluctuations in the ruble or price of oil. Weekly inflation slowed to its lowest rate in half a year earlier in April. Food prices, however, are likely to remain high.

During his annual call-in show on April 16, President Vladimir Putin acknowledged the Kremlin embargo had driven up food prices but said inflation had begun slowing and the ruble strengthening. "It has a negative impact from the point of view of food inflation, that's true," Mr. Putin said. "Here one has to be patient, because the growth of domestic agriculture is inevitable."

Food-price inflation has hit Russia before. In 1962, a price hike on food staples played a part in sparking a riot in Novocherkassk, leading to a crackdown by Soviet troops that left 26 people dead.

At other times, Russians have endured shortages and even hyperinflation with little turmoil. In the early 1990s, when Russia lifted Soviet-era price controls, few mass protests resulted. In 1998, when a dramatic devaluation in the ruble led to soaring food prices, public disorder proved minimal.

Since Mr. Putin came to power in 1999, frenzied growth and rising commodity prices have sometimes spurred inflation-but that came in tandem with real income growth. Russians cited climbing prices as their biggest worry in a February Levada Center poll.

"The question is whether people are willing to continue to ignore it or whether there will be a buildup of discontent, a gradual accumulation, which could come out by autumn," says Russian political analyst Mikhail Vinogradov.

Meanwhile, authorities are moving to tamp down inflation. Russia's Prosecutor General said in mid-March in response to a question from a member of parliament that it had opened about 1,500 criminal cases tied to improper increases of food prices in 2015.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service backed an initiative by Russia's biggest food retailers to cap prices on "socially significant" products for two months. The limits started in March and included some borscht ingredients such as potatoes. Starting in early February, Russian authorities also capped exports of grain.

In Omsk, Ms. Atuchina, 60, says she makes her borscht from a recipe handed down by her grandmother. The price increases have affected her more than before because she and her husband now rely on state pensions, she says.

Still, the couple vows to continue cooking the soup. It isn't only to track inflation, Mr. Komarovskikh notes: "Borscht is delicious."
 #9
Moscow Times
April 30, 2015
Like It or Not, Russian Economy Needs the West
By Chris Weafer
Chris Weafer is a senior partner with Macro Advisory, a consultancy advising macro hedge funds and foreign companies looking at investment opportunities in Russia.

The May 9 parade through Red Square traditionally celebrates the end of the Great Patriotic War and this year, being the 70th anniversary of the event, is particularly special.

This year's ceremony will also be special for another reason; it will very likely formally mark the end of Russia's two-decade-long active political engagement with the West and signal a new directional shift to the East and toward other developing nations. The group of world leaders reviewing the parade on Red Square this year will reflect that change.

The political reasons for the reset with the West are now well understood. While Western leaders continue to express frustration with Russia's actions, the Kremlin is equally frustrated with what it sees as a total disregard, if not actual disrespect, for Russia's national interests and concerns.

It is far too early to say that this will end in a bitterly contested divorce and long-lasting belligerency but, to cite the celebrity description, it is most certainly a "conscious de-coupling" by both sides.

For its part Russia is now dating again in Asia and among the world's other developing nations. Political ties with China have been deepening for all to see. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's recent trip to Southeast Asia shows that Moscow wants to broaden relationships in the south rather than with Japan. Relations with Tokyo look set to remain as problematic as with the U.S. and the European Union given that country's ever closer ties with Washington.

Moscow is also obviously trying to build ties with developing nations in other parts of the world and this year's BRICS summit, which will take place in the Russian city of Ufa in July, will showcase the organization as becoming more solid, with growing ambitions. What started life as an investment banker's acronym is becoming a political force, certainly within the United Nations format, and an important economic bloc. Perhaps soon we may see a "T" added if Turkey is persuaded to participate formally.

The estrangement with the West also gave a fresh impetus to Moscow's efforts to make the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) into a real economic block. Armenia joined the original three founders in January and Kyrgyzstan will join on May 1. Very likely Tajikistan and, eventually, Uzbekistan, will be added.

The EEU is still a fringe player and has many of the early stage problems to resolve as the European Economic Commission, which evolved into the current EU format, faced in its early years. But the EEU, standing alongside the BRICS and the expanding Sino-Russia relationship, forms part of a much more politically relevant and economically viable combination. Most, if not all, of the Central Asian leaders will be on the podium on May 9 for that reason.

But while the political angles are clear enough, what about the economics? On the face of it the numbers do make a compelling story. The World Bank's calculation of world gross domestic product based on purchasing power parity (PPP), shows that the volume of GDP in the BRICS nations was $32.6 trillion in 2013. That compares with GDP volume of $31.1 trillion for the top five developed nations.

But is it a good idea for Russia to shift investment and business partnerships away from the West to China or to the other BRICS nations? The headline GDP number is compelling but that's not what Russia needs. Most developing nations are competing for the sort of inward investment that Russia now needs, and, where external investment is available, it is primarily focused on enhancing the source rather than the target economy.

China has made clear that it is primarily interested in investing in two areas of the Russian economy: extractive industries and infrastructure. Specifically, Chinese companies are looking to acquire equity in projects that can help secure the China's materials supply sources.

China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) already owns a 20 percent stake in Russia's largest LNG project, in Yamal, the output from which will be shipped to Asia. China has also bought forward substantial oil deliveries and last year finally signed a major gas supply contract with Gazprom.

Officials in Beijing make no secret of the fact that they welcome the opportunity to improve the country's energy security, which has been afforded by the sanctions against Russia. China's appetite is far from satisfied and will be ready to write more checks if Russia's oil and gas companies need to sell additional equity to raise capital.

Beijing's other area of interest, which is also very evident across Central Asia, is in investing in infrastructure projects that can allow it faster and broader access to markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Upgrading trans-Russia and trans-Kazakhstan's road and rail links is high on China's agenda.

But beyond extractive industries and transport links and, probably, trying to acquire ever more sophisticated military equipment, there doesn't seem to be much of an appetite to invest. A delegation of senior Russian bankers to China late last year came home empty handed.

Equally, from within the other BRICS nations, and among developing nations generally, there is little that can help Russia realize its ambition to return to a higher level of sustainable growth and to create a more diversified economy. Certainly the country can diversify the sourcing of some products, such as in the food categories, but relatively little else.

The problem is that, from an economic and investment point of view, Russia is engaging with other developing nations, i.e. countries that have almost the same need to grow. But that growth can only happen by creating a more conducive investment climate and by working with experienced companies that have skill sets and technology. Those companies are located in the Western developed nations.

Most people are aware that Russia's economic growth started to slow from mid-2012 as the previous drivers of headline growth, i.e. mostly the consumer industries, slowed due to a combination of factors that were unsustainable. Partly it was the base-effect, i.e. growth in an economy valued at $2 trillion (2012) is harder than when GDP totaled only $200 million (1999), and partly it was because the economy could not continue to afford double-digit nominal pay increases year after year.

As we know, headline growth slowed to only 1.3 percent in 2013 even though the price of oil averaged close to $110 per barrel and sanctions had not yet appeared. The old model had become exhausted and a new investment model was needed. The events of the past 15 months show that need to be even greater today and this realization is what is behind the government's import-substitution, or localization, drive. For that to work the country needs the involvement of experienced companies, either directly or in partnership.

Thankfully, and so far, that message appears to be well understood at the top of government. Many events of last year would surely have turned out differently if nobody cared about retaining Western expertise in the Russian economy.
 
 #10
Moscow Times
April 30, 2015
Russian Businessman Buys Moscow Times and Vedomosti Newspapers

Finnish media group Sanoma said Thursday it would sell The Moscow Times newspaper to a Russian businessman.

Sanoma has agreed to sell United Press, which publishes newspapers and magazines in Russia including The Moscow Times, and signed a deal to sell its minority stake in business daily Vedomosti, the company said in an online statement.

Demyan Kudryavtsev, a former chief executive of Russian publishing house Kommersant, confirmed to Vedomosti that he was the buyer and wrote in an e-mail to Sanoma employees in Russia that it was "a huge honor an responsibility" to own the assets.

He also said he would develop that company and had no immediate plans to change its management.

A source in Sanoma told Vedomosti that while the deal to sell the Vedomosti stake had been closed, the agreement on United Press, which publishes National Geographic and Men's Health, among other titles, had not yet been finalized.

United Press and The Moscow Times were fully owned by Sanoma, while Vedomosti is co-owned with Pearson, the publisher of the Financial Times, and Dow Jones, which publishes The Wall Street Journal. Vedomosti has a small circulation of about 75,000 but is respected for the quality of its information and is read by Russia's elite. The paper frequently publishes editorials critical of Russian authorities and President Vladimir Putin.

Both Vedomosti and The Moscow Times are affected by legislation passed last year, in the midst of Moscow's confrontation with the West over Ukraine, that bans foreign companies from owning more than 20 percent in Russian media companies after February 2017.

Sanoma has been seeking buyers for its Russian assets since 2013 as part of a restructuring of its business.

The company said it would make a capital gain on the sales of about 8 million euros ($8.9 million) before currency translation adjustments.

Kudryavtsev is a former journalist who was appointed CEO of the Kommersant publishing house in 2006 by the company's then-owner, oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who died in Britain in 2013. Kudryavtsev left Kommersant in 2012.

 
 #11
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
April 29, 2015
The Kadyrov scandal: Fear and loathing in Chechnya
The Kremlin appears to be ignoring the latest provocative and threatening statements coming from Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov - at least for now.
By Sergey Markedonov
Sergey Markedonov is Associate Professor of Foreign Policy and Region Studies at Russian State University for the Humanities. Markedonov was also a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Russia and Eurasia Program, Washington, D.C.

No sooner had the debate about the "Chechen trace" in the assassination of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov begun to wane than the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, was back in the spotlight. The reason this time was the deterioration of relations between him and Russia's federal law enforcement agencies starting in mid-April.

On April 19, 2015, an operation was carried out in the Chechen capital of Grozny, killing Dzhambulat Dadaev, who was on the national "most wanted" list. He was suspected of having organized the attack on Dagestani businessman Magomed Tazirov over a contentious tender. Such a "routine" police operation would hardly be a subject of controversy and debate were it not for some interesting details.

First of all, it was carried out in the Chechen Republic by police officers from Stavropol Krai and Interior Ministry units stationed in the village of Khankala, near Grozny. Second, the target of the operation was an ethnic Chechen, which elicited a strong reaction from Ramzan Kadyrov.

The Chechen leader not only criticized the actions of the police task force, but also stated that, if police from other regions were deployed again in areas under his jurisdiction without prior notification and approval of the Chechen leadership, his security forces would be ready to open fire with intent to kill.

Moreover, after April 24, when Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia Alexander Bastrykin quashed the resolution of the investigative bodies of the Chechen Republic to institute criminal proceedings against the "alien" operatives, Kadyrov condemned the decision on Instagram. (Social networks such as Instagram are now important information tools for Kadyrov to make his eye-catching statements.)

This latest scandal involving Kadyrov again raised the question as to the extent of Moscow's control over Chechnya and its firebrand president. How far indeed is the Kremlin ready to retreat if Kadyrov's statement about using weapons not only against terrorists, but also against the legitimate forces of the Russian government (albeit operating in a neighboring region) failed to elicit a clear response from the central authorities?

True, in a statement on its website on April 23, the Russian Interior Ministry described Kadyrov's words as "unacceptable." However, all that the Russian public has heard on the matter is a statement issued by President Vladimir Putin's official spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.

"We saw it, heard it, read it. No further comment," summed up a senior civil servant. As a consequence, the Internet and blogosphere are again awash with fears, phobias and alarmist predictions about the start of a "third Chechen campaign."

But do Kadyrov's most recent statements and actions represent something new? Have they shed light on some hitherto concealed trends? The answer to both these questions seems to be no.

In his dealings with federal officials, Kadyrov has never behaved in the manner of a typical regional leader. He has always had his own unique views on the timetable of counter-terrorist operations in Chechnya, as well as on the issues of amnesty for past militants, military conscription for natives of Chechnya, and the right of fellow Chechens to serve prison sentences on home soil.

A separate topic of discussion is the presence of units of the Russian army on the territory of the Chechen Republic. On this point, he is at loggerheads with everyone in Moscow, except perhaps for Putin, for whom Kadyrov has always shown almost pious respect. In April 2015 he even made a point of mentioning that certain elements were trying to bring him into conflict with the Russian president. It is worth noting that Russia's head of state, despite his vast resources of support and popularity, has not publicly tightened the leash on Kadyrov.

Kadyrov's view of Chechnya and his role as leader

The Chechen leader has long promoted himself as more than just a regional head. He tries to play the role of protector of all ethnic Chechens, regardless of where they reside in Russia. Recall the inter-ethnic clashes in Kondopoga, Karelia (in northern Russia) in September 2006 and other lesser-known incidents involving ethnic Chechens.

And even when the "Chechen trace" appeared in the murder of Boris Nemtsov (which Russia's leaders described as a dangerous provocation for both state and society), Kadyrov still continued to refer to the "heroic" actions of the suspects.

Hence, on this occasion, as before, the Chechen head has merely demonstrated that he considers Chechnya to be his de facto domain in which he is entitled to set the rules of the game. At the same time he views relations with Russia not as an institutional link between his regional government and the national legal and political bodies, but as a union with the Kremlin. For instance, during the April incident he again identified himself as "Putin's foot soldier."

"If I'm given an order, I'll fulfill it 100 percent. If asked to go, I'll go. I'm ready to die too," stated Kadyrov.

This situation has suited Moscow for many years - not least because Kadyrov removed responsibility from the center for many heavy-handed actions to "pacify" the republic (the suppression of the Islamist underground, the affirmation of undivided authority).

And despite the considerable costs involved in establishing the special regime, he helped reduce the number of terrorist attacks and stabilize the situation in Chechnya (although one need look no further than the terror attacks in the second half of 2014 to see that this truth is not absolute).

But lately Kadyrov has increasingly and persistently demonstrated that he feels cramped inside a single republic. He sees himself as a politician of national and even international standing, and has been vocal on Ukraine, the Middle East and, indeed, Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical media outlet, attacked by terrorists in early January, 2015.

Why the Kremlin seeks to pacify Kadyrov

Kadyrov's statements are starting to raise more and more questions (which are rarely made public, but, nonetheless, are a permanent feature in sideline conversations) among the federal power elite. There is an inevitable choice between outlays and acquisitions.

And there arises an acute and semantic dilemma as to which punctuation of "execute no pardon" is correct in regard to Kadyrov: "Execute! No pardon" or "Execute? No, pardon."
It is a delicate balancing act between Kadyrov's loyalty and willingness to fight for Russia's interests and stability, and his growing ambitions and claims that stretch beyond Chechnya and even the entire region.

In this respect, the opinion of renowned Russian expert on the Caucasus Konstantin Kazenin is well founded:

"No matter what our attitude to today's Chechnya is and whatever causes of its problems we see, any political project linked to a power shift in Chechnya should answer one question: 'What will come afterwards?'" remarks Kazenin.

Not "who" as in a specific successor, but "what" as in the system of control. It is no secret that the current model is built around Kadyrov, and replacing it (including the "transition period" to a new format) could be the next in a long line of challenges for the Russian state.

Russia already faces the threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Greater Syria (ISIS) appearing in the North Caucasus, and is in conflict with the West over Ukraine and Crimea. Therefore, if one avoids abrupt emotional impulses, the most important task is to channel Kadyrov's seething energy and "stabilize" Kadyrov himself.

Only in this case can the state and society be protected from the type of excess extravagance that has the potential to undermine the political and legal unity of the country. But the main point is not to allow a precedent to be created whereby force and aggressiveness are used to achieve special favor in the eyes of Moscow.
 
 #12
www.rt.com
April 29, 2015
CNN broadcasting in Russia again following 4-month break

US broadcaster CNN has gone back on air in Russia after changes to the country's legislation caused a four-month freeze in its operation. It is broadcasting again to paying TV subscribers.

"We are happy to say that CNN International has already resumed its broadcasting in Russia," a Turner Broadcasting Company representative said, as cited in the press release by Trikolor TV, the operator that was the first to launch CNN in its network. Turner Broadcasting is the media conglomerate which owns CNN.

CNN received a renewed broadcast license in Russia on March 23. It allows the network to remain operational on the country's territory for the next 10 years.

It originally stopped broadcasting in Russia in December 2014, after the country's legislation regarding paid TV changed. One of those changes was the ban on advertisements on paid channels.

Russia's media watchdog Roskomnadzor rebuffed suggestions it had something to do with CNN going off air.

"CNN shareholders should be asked about the reasons behind stopping broadcasting," its representative Vadim Ampelonsky said. Sources close to the network were cited in the media as saying the reasons were purely commercial.

Cable News Network (CNN) was created in the United States in 1980 by Ted Turner and was the first channel to begin broadcasting 24/7. CNN International was launched in 1985. Its overall viewership includes over 200 million households in 212 countries. It began broadcasting in Russia in the early 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
 
 #13
Moscow Times
April 30, 2015
Russia's Media Offensive Seen by the West as Real Threat
By Ivan Nechepurenko
 
Western governments and institutions are scrambling to devise a commensurate response to Russia's state-run media offensive, analysts told The Moscow Times on Wednesday amid a wave of reports of Western governments seeking to beef up their own media capabilities.

When the Russian authorities moved to establish in 2005 the international television news channel that would come to be known as RT, the goal was to offer an alternative to "the Anglo-Saxon monopoly on the global information streams," President Vladimir Putin said during a 2013 visit to the RT studios.

"It seems to me that you are succeeding in this job," Putin said at the time.

Putin emphasized, however, that the Kremlin had no expectation that the channel would toe the party line.

"We wanted to bring an absolutely independent channel to the news arena," he told the journalists at RT.

Nearly a decade later, the channel has emerged as a force to be reckoned with in the eyes of Western governments and institutions, among the Russian state's most powerful weapons that could pose an international threat if not adequately contained.

And indeed, RT has emerged as a global media powerhouse, with a 2015 budget of $275 million. The channel - which already broadcasts in English, Russian, Spanish and Arabic - is soon set to expand to the French- and German-language spheres.

Over the years, RT has provoked the ire of Western pundits and journalists who decry what they perceive as its pro-Kremlin bias and disproportionate disregard for U.S. domestic and foreign policy.

"Western governments and institutions believe that if the twisted view of reality RT projects to the world goes on unchallenged, eventually it will become effective," Vasily Gatov, visiting fellow at the University of Southern California Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy told The Moscow Times in an interview.

"The problem with RT is that it offers a completely skewed world view that is completely at odds with the rules and conventions accepted by the Western world," he said.

Responding to criticism of RT's content and style in a March op-ed, Margarita Simonyan wrote, "If you look at different polls with Russian people as a whole - you will see that one of the important things that we do not like in the existing world order is the desire of Western countries to make unilateral judgments about what is good, what is bad in the countries far removed from them, about which they know very little, and take military actions based on those unilateral judgments."

Looming Threat

Western policymakers have exposed their insecurities about Russia's media machine on several occasions since the start of the year.

WikiLeaks published an e-mail last week revealing that a senior U.S. State Department official had turned to the CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, one of Hollywood's leading film studios, to help respond to the challenges associated with countering Russia's narratives in central and eastern Europe, as well as the Islamic State's narratives in the Middle East.

Acting State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf confirmed the report, but emphasized that the department does not influence the content of Hollywood films.

Across the Atlantic, the European Union foreign service has begun recruiting experts tasked with helping to counter Russia's anti-Western propaganda, the EUobserver news website reported last week.

The experts will work on the "correction and fact-checking of misinformation/myths" and the development of an "EU 'narrative' via key messages/lines to take, articles, op-eds, fact sheets and infographics, with an emphasis on communicating the benefits" of the Eastern Partnership, which aims to foster ties between the EU and post-Soviet states.

According to EUobserver, each of the two to five experts set to be hired will be paid at least 4,350 euros ($4,850) per month.

Overall, the EU is set to launch an operation to counter what it says is Moscow's deliberate misinformation over its policies in Ukraine and Europe, Reuters reported in March.

"The effectiveness of Russian propaganda is perceived to pose a greater threat to the EU and its member states than the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine," said media analyst Alexander Morozov.

"Kremlin propaganda aims to weaken Europe's political unity, and in this sphere it can be quite successful. The EU will have to somehow respond to this challenge," he told The Moscow Times in an interview.

Despite its geographical distance, the U.S. government has also made clear its concerns with RT. The Broadcasting Board of Governors, a U.S. government agency that oversees the country's international media outlets, such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said in a March statement that it was seeking "$751.5 million to increase global engagement, move more aggressively into television and digital media, and support high priority audiences."

Reaching Russian-speaking audiences was listed among its priorities, with $15.4 million hoped to be dedicated to Russian-language television programming, according to the statement.

RT a Real Threat?

Internationally, RT has become the most successful news channel online, with more than 1.4 billion views on YouTube and 1.5 million subscribers on the site. Still, its viewership in key countries has been limited.

For instance, 73,000 people watch RT in Britain daily, according to data provided by the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board in April. For comparison, Al Jazeera English - another hit global news channel - is watched by 259,000 people daily, while BBC news has nearly 3 million viewers.

In July last year, RT reported that its weekly audience in seven of the largest U.S. cities has doubled in the past year, with nearly 3 million people tuning in each week from these cities combined, citing Nielsen report. At the same time, more than 8 million Americans on average watched the country's top television channel CBS each evening during prime time alone, the latest Nielsen survey showed.

According to Jonathan Auerbach, editor of the Oxford Handbook of Propaganda Studies and professor at the University of Maryland, propaganda is an elusive term that is difficult to define.

"To brand something 'propaganda' today is simply a way to quickly discredit information, and in that sense calling something 'propaganda' is a form of information management itself. Western officials might deem the Russian agenda or version of things effective precisely to justify their own alternative narratives," Auerbach said in an e-mailed interview.

"Propaganda can often work at cross purposes, effective in one context, but not in another. People tend to accept what they already believe, and therefore propaganda in many instances is not really about persuasion, either rational or otherwise, but simply a means to confirm or attest beliefs already held," he said.
 
 #14
Dances With Bears
http://johnhelmer.net
April 29, 2015
AUDITIONS FOR KREMLIN PRE-SELECTION - NEW POLITICAL TECHNOLOGY, NO VOTERS, NO JOKE
By John Helmer, Moscow
[Links, footnotes, and photos here http://johnhelmer.net/?p=13266]

Heeeeeeeeere's Sasha, Boris, Andrei, Olga, Zahar, Ella, Sergei, Seriosha, Pavel, Natalia! That's the top-10 of the top-100 Russian politicians auditioning for election and power, picked this week by 26 experts; paid for by the Kremlin budget; and reporting to Vyacheslav Volodin. He's the deputy head of the President's administration in charge of electioneering.

You're a voter but you've never heard of the Top-10? How about the ten names of the top-100 whom the experts classifiy as moving up: Sergei Aksyonov, Pavel Krasheninnikov, Natalia Poklonskaya, Anatoly Aksakov, Valery Rashkin, Sergei Kalashnikov, Vladimir Gutenev, Mikhail Starshikov, Oleg Shein, and Alexei Zhuravlev?

Still in the dark? Try the five new names whom the experts didn't acknowledge as comers a year ago: Nikolai Nikolaev, Konstantin Dobrynin, Nikolai Starikov, Konstantin Babkin, and Mikhail Terentiev. Can't recognize who they are - never mind, these candidates are being selected for the Kremlin vote. Your vote comes later, if at all.

Released to the Moscow press by the Institute of Social-Economic and Political Research (ISSI in Russian, ISEPR in English) here [1] are the top-100, with cameo pictures and thumbnail biographies. Arrows up signify rising stars; arrows down mark losers since last year's rating was issued. Blue balls indicate newcomers over the year. There are only five of them; that's 5% of the list, signifying that not much has happened to Russia's political elite over the past year to upset the runners for political power.

That includes war with the US, Europe and the Ukraine; the cut-off of investment capital from abroad and European food imports; economy-wide recession, and the accession of Crimea. Two of the top-10 represent the zone of conflict - Sergei Aksyonov (below, left), head of the Crimea administration, and the photogenic Natalia Poklonskaya (right), the chief prosecutor of Crimea. Both are on the global sanctions lists [2], so that for fortune and freedom of movement they are obliged to stay at home. Of the remaining eight in the top-10, only Sergei Neverov, vice-chairman of the State Duma, has attracted the notice of governments hostile to Russia and been sanctioned.

The top place-getter, Alexander Brechalov (below, left), has been the head of Opora, a lobby organization for small and medium business; currently he is Secretary of the Public Chamber and co-chairman of the All-Russia People's Front (ONF). Other runners in the top-10 - Andrei Makarov, Olga Batalina, and Pavel Krasheninnikov - are all Duma deputies belonging to the United Russia faction, the ruling party. Eight members of the opposition Communist Party and seven members of the Liberal Democratic Party appear in the Top-100, well down.

Ella Pamfilova, 61, currently the state-appointed Human Rights Commissioner, (right) is the only veteran politician in the Top-10 - she is a former Duma deputy and ran in the presidential race of 2000; she continues to prove unelectable.

Brechalov and Boris Titov are the two businessmen in the Top-10. Brechalov, who runs a tax and audit consultancy, and serves on the Cyprus-owned Uniastrum Bank board, was shot, wounded and robbed of $3,000 in cash in Moscow in 2012 [3]. When the state news agency RIA-Novosti reported on the People's Front in January of 2014, it claimed [4]: "the front's exact function and status have remained unclear. The group, which claims 2,500 organizations as members, has had little impact on Russia's political life thus far."

Sixteen months are a long time in Russian politics. According to Vedomosti [5] this week, Brechalov is number-1 of the Top-10 of the Top-100 because of "his efforts to support socially oriented NGOs". Titov, owner of Abrau-Durso, the wine house [6], is runner-up, the newspaper added, for his efforts "to protect business in times of crisis." Krasheninnikov made his spot for promoting regular amnesties for prison inmates.

Moscow analysts reported [7] this week that the selection of names in the new rating is the first step in the Kremlin's plan for the next parliamentary election. This is due on December 4, 2016 [8]. Brechalov and the People's Front, according to Lenta.ru, are to become the state-backed party against corruption, as the electoral alternative to Alexei Navalny, who isn't included on the Top-100. Two of his allies are rated - Sergei Mitrokhin (below, left) of the Yabloko Party at no. 91, and Maria Gaidar (right), head of the Social Inquiry Foundation, at no. 96.

Asked what he has done to warrant his place, Brechalov replied: "I am grateful to the experts for the appreciation of our work. I have a calm attitude to all ratings. Whatever position I personally took, for me it's not a reason to relax, or rest on our laurels. I am glad that many colleagues appear in the rating from the ONF and the Public Chamber; it is nice to see that the experts can see and appreciate the role of community members. The high position of many members of the Public Chamber in the rating - that's an indication that the topics of public accountability and NGOs are part of the trend of the federal political agenda."

The nine other place-getters in the Top-10 were asked the same question - what did you do to make your rating? None has responded.

StarikovThe five newcomers were also asked. Only one, Nikolai Starikov (right), a leading figure in the Anti-Maidan movement [9], replied. He is sceptical of rating exercises and calls ISEPR's experts "spin doctors". Notwithstanding, Starikov adds: "At No. 72 I found my name. In general, all attempts 'to compare and rank in order of magnitude' can be divided into two types. The first - a fair study made to reflect the situation in any area. The second - manipulative ratings, which are compiled to create the desired public opinion. They aren't even a 'distorting mirror' of reality, but are simply parallel to the reality of the universe."

Starikov says he is grateful "to the authors of the guidelines prepared by the rating and evaluation, but for us the main assessment is yet to come. This is when the Party of the Great Fatherland will give voters [their choice]. Therefore, measuring the accuracy of the selected areas of work, we need more focus on the tasks set before [the party]. The main tasks- the campaign for the Duma elections in 2016; the creation of factions and systematic work in alliance with other patriots of the embodiment in life of what we consider useful and important for our Russia!" For more, click [10].

Who are the authors, ISEPR and its experts - on what evidence did they compile the Top-100 rating, and who paid for the exercise?

There are 26 experts listed as in the compilation of the new rating. Click to open their names here [11]. According to the analysis accompanying their ratings [12], the experts say the Top-100 is a measurement of "the personal factor in a future [election] campaign. The rating is based on the results of measurements of objective indicators in the public media and in active policy expert surveys. For each nominee two characteristics [were measured]: the activity of a politician that can affect his reputation and popularity among voters in the elections to the State Duma (quality and intensity of his legislative work, his public activities involving citizens, his ability to achieve the realization of his initiatives and commitments, targeted work with his local constituency, and party political management... 20% of the rating is derived from a quantitative analysis of policymaking (media activity statistics, statistics of legislative activity, statistics of work in constituency). 40% of the overall rating is contributed by expert estimates of the effectiveness of their specific policy actions."

MukhinSeven of the experts were asked to clarify the measurement data, and the evidence for the experts' opinions. Just one expert replied. According to Alexei Mukhin (right), head of Moscow's Centre for Political Information, "we used objective data, expert interviews. By objective data, I mean analysis, including internet content, media content, etc." To measure effectiveness, he said, the experts counted "the number and content of the bills introduced, the level of consideration of a bill in the State Duma, the duration of the review, the number of amendments that have been made and evaluation of the process of making the final decision ."

Mukhin adds a qualifier: "I've seen the list [of experts]; they are rather diverse experts. Keep in mind that these experts have not all been involved in the preparation of certain documents. The mention of their names does not mean that they have participated in this project. But that does not diminish their value. The majority of experts still had a hand in this project." He said he didn't know what the rating project cost, or how it was paid for.

BadovskiyISEPR reports its history since 2012 here [13]. A presidential decree [14], signed by President Vladimir Putin on March 29, 2013, sets out a state budget grant for ISEPR at page 6. It was one of the winners of a budget grant provided, the decree says, for "state support of non-profit non-governmental organizations implementing social projects and participating in the development of civil society. " For ISEPR in 2013 this amounted to Rb110 million ($3.5 million). That was 4.7% of the total state grants issued for the year. The chief expert for the Top-100 rating and head of ISEPR, Dmitry Badovsky (right), declines to say what the budget was for 2014 or is planned for 2015.

The Top-100 rating experts include four from ISEPR and one, Valery Fedorov, head of the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VTsIOM) [15]; Fedorov is also a member of the board of trustees at ISEPR. If Mukhin is right, it was this group of five who picked the Top-100. But the five refuse to clarify who decided the ratings and whether they counted past election results or surveys of voter opinion. Alexei Grazhdankin, deputy director of the Levada Centre, a rival polling agency in Moscow for VTsIOM, estimates that "according to the methodology of this ranking, 80% of the evaluation for each is determined by the experts' opinion. Accordingly, the scores which each politician receives depends on the composition of experts."
 
 
#15
RFE/RL
April 30, 2015
The Worst Job In The World? Meet NATO's Envoy To Russia
by Tom Balmforth

MOSCOW -- Robert Pszczel said he felt like he was in a Monty Python skit when he made a routine call to Russia's Defense Ministry back in June 2013.

"We cannot talk to you!" came the agitated reply in a hissed whisper, says Pszczel, acting out the scene for comic effect.

This was how Pszczel, NATO's envoy in Russia, found out his line of contact with the ministry had been terminated.

"It was informally communicated to me that I have no right to even call them," he says.

Pszczel says incidents like this have been business as usual at the NATO outpost he runs in Moscow. Its mission of public diplomacy has been left behind as relations with Russia have plunged to a rock-bottom, post-Cold War low.

In one stoical December 5 appearance on a Russian state TV chat show, Pszczel was constantly heckled midsentence, harangued as a "Russophobe" for his ethnicity (he's Polish), and called upon to explain the (entirely invented) claim that hundreds of Polish soldiers had been killed in eastern Ukraine.

But despite having what could be described as one of the toughest diplomatic jobs in the world, Pszczel has stuck it out.

"Maybe I have a masochistic streak -- I actually still enjoy it," he says of the four-plus years he has run the NATO information office in Moscow. "But it is stressful and it is frustrating because I know and I'm fully convinced of the potential for cooperation."

From the optimistic hopes for cooperation that accompanied U.S. President Barack Obama's ill-fated reset with Russia, to the nadir in relations that has accompanied the fighting in Ukraine and Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea, Pszczel has had a front-row seat.

The native Pole arrived in Moscow at the height of the reset in December 2010, on the heels of NATO's Lisbon summit, when Moscow and the Atlantic alliance declare a new era of "strategic partnership." It included practical cooperation measures that lasted right up to the Ukraine crisis.

On the eve of the Winter Olympics in Sochi in early 2014, for example, NATO and Russia activated a new joint antiterrorism protocol following reports that a plane had been hijacked and was bearing down on the Olympic city in southern Russia.

The incident later turned out to be nothing more than an inebriated passenger. But the cooperation was real.

By April 2014, NATO would suspend all practical cooperation with Moscow after the Kremlin annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

The ensuing Ukraine conflict marked a new low in Russia's relations with NATO. But Pszczel says the downward spiral predates the crisis.

He notes that the incident in which the Defense Ministry cut off ties took place almost a full year before war broke out in Ukraine.

By 2012, as Vladimir Putin made a comeback to the Kremlin with a markedly more conservative swagger, relations were already unraveling as Russia protested NATO air strikes in Libya and its plans for a missile-defense system in Europe.

But Pszczel says these tangible issues were eclipsed by a boom of anti-Western rhetoric that accompanied Putin's third term that cast NATO as a profound security threat.

"How do you prove you're not a camel?" Pszczel asks rhetorically, using an expression from his native Polish. "You can say, 'Look at me, I'm not a camel!' But how do you prove it?"

He notes that the anti-NATO campaign is largely for domestic political purposes.

"NATO has always been a bit of a popular football," he says. "It's cheap and easy to kick NATO. With nations, it's sometimes a bit awkward, but NATO -- what does it cost? Nothing. But then it just accelerated. That's where it starts. It starts with super aggressive, very provocative, and not-based-on-facts rhetoric."

Unusually outspoken for a diplomat and with a passing semblance to the late U.S. comedian Robin Williams, Pszczel peppers his assertions with anecdotes and colorful expressions.
Pszczel says when he arrived in Moscow he began collecting old Soviet anti-NATO agitprop for posterity But now he collects modern ones -- a genre undergoing what he describes as a "renaissance" that is nourishing the sky-high hostility toward NATO in the public at large.

"It becomes a different ball game when you have officials, saying the things they say. 'NATO is behind the Maidan in Ukraine'? Where did you get this from? 'NATO was planning to open a military base in Sevastopol'? What?! My message is: Guys, come back to planet Earth," he says.

In this atmosphere, his public diplomacy job description -- to spread the creed of cooperation -- has been a tall order.

The NATO information office once organized trust-building events such as the 2006 Russia-NATO Rally, a tour of major cities from Vladivostok to Kaliningrad where it held seminars and conferences for youth, officials both Russian and Western, experts, and public figures.

But Pszczel says his office has been marginalized because its partner institutions, including think tanks and prestigious universities -- the names of which he wouldn't disclose to protect their identities -- have been "pressured" or branded as "foreign agents" as retribution.

He also expressed concern that Russian officials do not understand how Western institutions function.

He cites an incident in which Russia's former ambassador to NATO, the nationalist Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, was denied permission to plant poplar trees on the grounds of NATO's headquarters in Brussels. The Russian word for poplar is "topol," which also happens to be the name of Russia's Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile.

And when Rogozin was denied permission, he claimed the decision was political.

"That decision was taken by the NATO HQ gardener!" he says. "There was an element of a joke in this, but it showed a lack of understanding of how we work."

Pszczel was born in Warsaw. He began his career at the Polish Foreign Ministry in 1990 and was eventually dispatched to Brussels to prepare for Poland's 1999 accession to NATO. He has since served in various capacities in the alliance.

Asked how he thinks relations will develop further, Pszczel quotes George Robertson, former NATO secretary-general from 1999-2003, impersonating Robertson's Scottish accent: "My dear friend, if I knew what was going to happen in five years, I'd be playing on the stock exchange."

Nonetheless, Pszczel is quite sure that he will be vacating his current post during the course of this year.

"Of course, there comes a time, and I think I've reached it. I think someone else should give it a go," he says. "The next kamikaze please!"
 
 #16
Antiwar.com
April 27 2015
Who Hacked the White House?
The Russia-haters are sure they know
by Justin Raimondo

When the hacking of Sony's computer system produced a brouhaha of ridiculous proportions, the government's pet "experts" were quick to blame North Korea. The rationale: Since Sony was releasing a pretty awful anti-North Korean propaganda film, it was only obvious that King Jong-un was personally responsible. Besides that, the attack supposedly originated in a region of cyberspace inhabited by North Korea's pathetic Internet superstructure.

There was just one problem with that oh-so-convenient scenario: it wasn't based on anything but suppositions. Indeed, several computer experts - not connected to the government - hotly disputed this explanation, and instead pointed to the ease with which the hackers penetrated the system to show that it was most likely an inside job, the work of an employee with intimate knowledge of the system and a grudge against Sony. Indeed, such a person was quickly identified: a former employee who had been fired and had vowed to get even. Yet Washington, for its own reasons, ignored this rather compelling evidence and stuck to its story: so did their pet "experts," who have a vested economic interest in hyping the alleged "threat" posed by hackers in the service of foreign enemies - all the better to ensure that plenty of taxpayer dollars will continue to fill their coffers.

Now we have another hack attack, supposedly coming from the Russians. The New York Times reports:

"Some of President Obama's email correspondence was swept up by Russian hackers last year in a breach of the White House's unclassified computer system that was far more intrusive and worrisome than has been publicly acknowledged, according to senior American officials briefed on the investigation."

Not a shred of evidence is given as to the identity or nationality of the hackers except the assertions of anonymous government officials. We have to wait until the seventh paragraph to read that they "are presumed to be linked to the Russian government, if not working for it."

A few paragraphs later, at the very end, we get this:

"'This has been one of the most sophisticated actors we've seen,' said one senior American official briefed on the investigation.

"Others confirmed that the White House intrusion was viewed as so serious that officials met on a nearly daily basis for several weeks after it was discovered. 'It's the Russian angle to this that's particularly worrisome,' another senior official said.

"While Chinese hacking groups are known for sweeping up vast amounts of commercial and design information, the best Russian hackers tend to hide their tracks better and focus on specific, often political targets. And the hacking happened at a moment of renewed tension with Russia - over its annexation of Crimea, the presence of its forces in Ukraine and its renewed military patrols in Europe, reminiscent of the Cold War."

Okay, so let's summarize the evidence we're given in this piece pointing to the Russians:

1) The culprits are "sophisticated actors."

2) It can't be the Chinese because they only care about money - so it must be the Russians, because the targets were political. Besides, the Russians "hide their tracks better."

3) The timing: "it happened at a moment of renewed tension with Russia."

Is it really necessary to debunk this pallid ghost of an argument? To begin with, there are plenty of "sophisticated actors" in the hacking world, not all of whom are acting on behalf of a state. Secondly, if the culprits in this instance hid their tracks well, how is it that we traced them - and how certain can we be it was the Russians? As for the timing question: we've been having moments of "tension" with a large number of international adversaries over the past year, any one of which could have been responsible.

Another article over at Motherboard is even more laughable.

"Security researchers say they have found actual evidence linking the attack to the Russian government, or at least, Russian hackers.

"The campaign that targeted the White House, nicknamed CozyDuke, appears to have similar code, infrastructure, and political interests as past attacks that were linked to Russian hackers who were possibly working for the government, the researchers say."

"Past attacks linked to Russian hackers" - with what evidence? If ever there was an example of confirmation bias, then this is it. "Similar code" and "infrastructure"? Don't make me laugh: malware code is free-floating and widely available. Anyone could've developed the particular phishing malware used to compromise White House and State Department computer systems. As for those "political interests," this is absolute nonsense: is the Kremlin the only government on earth with a motive for breaking into US government computer systems? And it gets worse:

"CozyDuke was carried out by the same group behind sophisticated cyberespionage campaigns known as MiniDuke and CosmicDuke, according to the security firm Kaspersky Lab, which have been linked to the Russian government in the past.

"MiniDuke and CosmicDuke were launched by 'a Russian government agency,' researchers at F-Secure, another security firm concluded in January. That conclusion was based largely on the targets of the operations: Russian drug dealers and governments with interests opposed to those of Russia." [Emphasis added]

In other words, it was a totally non-technical analysis, bereft of any real evidence but for the political assumptions and amateur "analysis" of computer "experts" eager to tell the US government what it wants to hear. Here is how those geniuses over at F-Secure came to their brilliant conclusion:

"Considering the victims of the law enforcement use case [sic] seem to be from Russia, and none of the high-profile victims are exactly pro-Russian, we believe that a Russian government agency is behind these operations."

In spite of the air of certainty projected at the beginning of this piece, toward the end Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure's chief researcher, says it "could be" Russia. Oh, but maybe not ...

Washington isn't having any of this ambiguity, however. According to news accounts, during a speech at Stanford University the other day Defense Secretary Ashton Carter claimed that "sensors guarding the Pentagon's unclassified networks detected the intrusion by Russian hackers, who discovered an old vulnerability that had not been patched. After learning valuable information about their tactics," Carter said, "we analyzed their network activity, associated it with Russia, and then quickly kicked them off the network, in a way that minimized their chances of returning."

Yeah, sure. It's just a coincidence that the Pentagon issued a new "cyber-strategy" paper that pinpoints Russia, along with China, as the Big Culprits To Watch Out For - looming threats to our cyber-infrastructure that require huge amounts of money and "expertise" to combat.

Another "coincidence": there are no less than three major "cybersecurity" bills in the congressional hopper designed to hand yet more of our private information over to the waiting arms of the National Security Agency and law enforcement agencies, all in the name of "protecting" us from Russian-Chinese bogeymen-hackers. A recent open letter from more than 65 respected cyber-security professionals and academics denounces these bills as unnecessary intrusions on privacy as well as providing a false sense of security - and, they conclude, the bills could also make us more vulnerable to hacking.

As Trevor Timm puts it:

"Members of Congress - most of whom can't secure their own websites, and some of whom don't even use email - are trying to force a dangerous "cybersecurity" bill down the public's throat. Everyone's privacy is in the hands of people who, by all indications, have no idea what they're talking about.

The new cold war with Russia is upon us, and the rule is: when in doubt, blame Putin. Our technologically ignorant - and government-subservient - media is all too prone to fall for this nonsense. While I wouldn't rule out anyone - including some of our vaunted "allies" - as being responsible, in this case I'd look at the knee-jerk accusations aimed at the Kremlin with a very jaundiced eye.

 
 #17
http://gordonhahn.com
April 29, 2015
Dirty-Deal Democratizers, the 'War of Values with Russia,' and Problems of Democracy-Promotion
By Gordon M. Hahn
Gordon M. Hahn is an Analyst and Advisory Board Member of the Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation, Chicago, Illinois; Senior Researcher, Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group, San Jose, California Analyst/Consultant, Russia Other Points of View - Russia Media Watch; and Senior Researcher and Adjunct Professor, MonTREP, Monterey, California.

The recent disclosures regarding the Clintons' sleazy trading of political favors and business deals with Russia (as well as Kazakhstan and Canadian interests) are a revelation for those less familiar with Washington, D.C. nowadays. It is widely known that Russia is rampant with corruption. our media and government highlight this point far more frequently than they do with regard to far worse conditions in many other countries, including some of our close allies. But the Uranium One highlights our own country's mounting corruption which is tightening its grip on all of our most cherished institutions: democratic government, the media, academia, and business. Equally as important, the Uranium One scandal - the worst involving high-placed American politicians in many decades - deprives the U.S. of much of the moral high-ground that might justify our insistence on democratization and democracy in other countries, our often destabilizing democracy-promotion policies, and our support for revolutionary regime transformations.

Dirty-Democratizers

The Clintons and other adherents to the Washington consensus reserve for our country the right to preach to other countries the values and the imperative of democracy. In the name of protecting political, civil and human rights, combating corruption, and establishing the rule of law, the U.S. government lectures, condemns, sanctions, and wittingly or unwittingly destabilizes and facilitates the overthrow of regimes we deem unworthy of survival.

Such practices have characterized U.S. policy not only in harsh authoritarian and totalitarian regimes but also in and around Russia; countries that for the most part have relatively soft authoritarian regimes. Through several 'color revolutions' in region and the ongoing Ukraine crisis, we have moved to a 'war of values with Russia.' Certainly, our own corruption and weakening democracy - and simply prudent policy - dictate more modest democracy-promotion practices.

Domestically, eternal incumbency in Congress, executive fiat in the presidency, political correctness in media and academia, and the massive feeding trough that the U.S. government has become for all manner of special interests and a fat, sanctimonious elite is corrupting American democracy to the core. Democracy-deterioration in U.S. governance under the Barack Obama administration has led to many of the very same excesses used by authoritarian regimes we seek to transform: broad spying on citizens (NSA), bugging, threatening and violating the rights of journalists (e.g., Barry Rosen, Sharyl Attkison, among others); using tax collection agencies to punish political opponents (IRS scandal); deploying the police to punish political opponents (Wisconsin); selectively applying the law to punish or benefit certain groups (immigration and Black Panthers' voter intimidation); coverups of official wrongdoing and negligence in the Benghazi, Clinton server and numerous other cases; executive branch usurpation of legislative powers (President Obama's use of the 'pen' on illegal immigration amnesty); and now taking what were essentially bribes in return for business deals with impunity (Uranium One). Perhaps that 'war' needs to be turned on the deteriorating state of American democracy.

Massive corruption (monetary, moral, and intellectual), careerism, crass hubris have rendered Washington and the American and Western elites incapable of carrying out a purposeful, reasonable or effective policy that weakens and limits the number of our enemies and serves American, Western, and international security interests while it avoids creating new, accidental enemies and stepping needlessly on the toes of other more neutral or friendly states.

Promoting democracy, corruption and the rule of law have been the hallmark of the US State department, USAID, the EU Eastern Partnership program and all sundry of other democracy-promotion and human rights IGOs, national and private institutions and think tanks. The Washington think tank community, dependent on government grants for survival and garnering private contributions, has become all too subservient to government policy, squelching even moderately alternative views on foreign policy matters. Democracy-promotion, in short, has become an industry and one like all the others that lobbies the government and spins reality to support its lobbying efforts. Like government in general, as this government industry grows so does corruption.

This would be tolerable if the goal of serving US foreign policy and national security interests were still being served. Unfortunately, personal and institutional financial gain, career promotion, and political campaigning now trump the national interest on K Street.

The 'War of Values with Russia'

I have long questioned the wisdom and motives of the both indiscriminate nature and broad scale of the U.S. and Western 'democracy-promotion' practices. Now the open decadence of our own governance signals to foreign powers that democracy is at best a lie and at worst a mechanism for prolonging American hegemony and subordinating the sovereignty of other states in the international system. The blanket democratization agenda that targets Russia and its allies is particularly dangerous for Western and international security, not to mention Russian and Eurasian security. Washington and Brussels to one degree or another have helped produce or otherwise supported 'color revolutions' in at least five countries that were neighbors and/or allies of Russia since the end of the Cold War: once in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Syria and twice in tow of Moscow's fellow Slavic states, Serbia and Ukraine. Nevertheless, one can argue reasonably, even if ultimately incorrectly that democracy-promotion and the overthrow of authoritarian regimes efforts are well-intended. After all, democracies are more stable, prospeperous, humane, and peaceful abroad.

As relations with Russia have deteriorated in the new century, Russians are more inclined to view America's 'revolutionism' with cynicism and fear, either as an exercise in wresting arms, energy and other markets from others and/or as a smokescreen behind which to expand NATO, 'encircle Russia', and ultimately weaken it and destroy it. Recent developments - Ukraine, Uranium One - will only reinforce the Russians' most cynical and paranoid views, but they must raise suspicions among sober and patriotic Americans that something has gone seriously wrong in Washington.

Especially disconcerting is the self-interest that often lies behind often careless American revolutionism - unreserved support for revolutionaries, the instigation of dangerous revolutionary situations, and support for violent revolutionary seizures of power, despite the great risks and costs such revolutions pose to the lives and prosperity of the citizens residing in the states 'fortunate' enough to become an object of such 'support.' If democracy is the issue where is the criticism of the Saudi authoritarianism, which far exceeds Russia's relatively soft authoritarian regime?

Signs were exceptionally clear that something is gravely amiss in DC when after the already disturbing rebellion in Kiev in which Washington and Brussels accepted the illegal seizure of power by a coalition featuring a strong neo-fascist element, despite an agreement between the leaders mostly from Kiev's more moderate parties and Viktor Yanukovich brokered by the German, French, and Polish foreign minsters and a representative of Russia. The violation of the agreement was ignored and the illegal seizure of power was hailed in Western capitols as a democratic revolution. All the democracy-promotion groups lined up for more goodies ready to help Kiev build democracy and and win the "war of values with Putin's Russia." Soon came the appointment of Vice President Joseph Biden's son and Secretary of State John Kerry's nephew to the board of an Ukrainian energy company with connections to the new regime. This was followed by the appointment of a Ukrainian-American former State Department official as Ukraine's Finance Minister. Natalya Jaresko was the beneficiary of State Department grants immediately after leaving State for developing her own firm that helped build a coterie of free market converts and business people - material for the creation of a critical mass of pro-American middle class revolutionaries. Lost in the picture as USAID and Jaresko did their work was the post-Orange Revolution rise of ultra-nationalism and neo-fascism under U.S.-backed, anti-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko from 2005-2010.

Now we have the latest of so many Clinton scandals touching on the core foreign policy issue of relations with Russia. Aside from the arrogant hubris in taking the security risk of selling one-fifth of our uranium reserves to any foreign country, what sense did it make to this with Russia, a country with which we had shaky relations that could easily become antagonistic and with which we were stealthily competing with over Ukraine and risking a major geopolitical conflict?

One gets the impression of policy-making and policy implementation made chaotic by private interest trumping the national interest. On the one hand, U.S. policy at the time that the deals were struck was to 'reset' relations with Russia in a positive direction. On the other, State, USAID and the organizations they funded were providing financial and other assistance not just to democrats but to revolutionaries, committed to a second Orange Revolution. On yet a third hand, there is the donations-for-uranium deals.

Moreover, former Secretary of State Hillary's State Department and for President Bill's 'foundation' were instrumental in the deal that gave Russia control over Kazakhstani uranium reserves. This while the U.S. has been endeavoring since the end of the Cold War to reduce Russia's leverage over its post-Soviet neighbors, with constant charges of neo-imperialism thrown at Moscow. Now, it turns out, we were helping Moscow increase its leverage over the second most crucial post-Soviet state after Ukraine in the post-Soviet space, where Moscow quite logically seeks a sphere of influence.

The hypocrisy of all this boggles the mind by American and Western standards. So does the damage done to our ability to sell democratization. The Russian government and far worse authoritarians will only become more cynical about our democracy-promotion efforts. They will be confidently deemed as cover for not just protecting but expanding American interests and maximizing American power.

Problems of Democracy-Promotion: What Is To Be Done?

Democracy-promotion and revolutionism need revision. Precision in the former and caution in the latter should be the watch words. Even when possessing sufficient moral superiority, democratic systems  and 'communities of democracies' do not have the right to risk destabilizing other states and entire regions. The imprecise use of democracy-promotion funding and other assistance is too blunt at present to avoid that risk and needs reform. America's positive experience with revolution and the messianic vision of its founding fathers has transmuted into a cult of revolutionism in which almost any revolutionary against an authoritarian regime that conducts an independent foreign policy or one that is at all detrimental to maintaining and expanding American hegemony is immediately greeted as pro-democratic and something deserving of US backing.

A more discriminating approach is needed. Only revolutions against the most aggressive and totalitarian regimes should be considered. In addition, government bodies need to conduct detailed analyses of potential and kinetic revolutionary movements. Focus should be on the complex internal politics of revolutionary coalitions, the strength of democratic forces within such coalitions, and other factors that determine the likelihood of democratic outcomes for each of the different modes of regime transformation (violent and non-violent, revolution from above and from below, imposed and negotiated transitions).

Financial and perhaps other forms of direct assistance to opposition groups significantly involved in revolutionary politics, especially violent revolution, should be avoided. It can lead to assistance going to anti-democratic forces and end in the rise of even more authoritarian regime than the ancient regime that is replaced.

The Internet makes direct financial and other assistance for the purposes of democracy-promotion unnecessary and superfluous. Opposition movements in almost every authoritarian state can acquire any information they require for improving their understanding of democracy, election campaigning, political mobilization and organizing, legal defense mechanisms, and journalistic practice. Direct involvement of foreigners in such activity raises the suspicions of authoritarian leaders and discredits the opposition in the eyes of some who would otherwise support their calls for democratization.

The primacy of culture in regime transformations and the consolidation of democracies has been neglected. Without at least some of the prerequisites for democratic development, any particular revolution is unlikely to produce a democratic outcome regardless of how much democracy assistance it receives from the West. Many of the societies where current regime transformation movements have appeared and future ones are most likely to appear are not civil societies but rather communalist ones - dominated by ethno-national and religious values and conflicts that tend to undermine democratization efforts.

The record of American administrations' forecasts about the consequences of major foreign-policy choices in regime transformational situations is dismal and should serve as a bright warning light. President Woodrow Wilson welcomed the 1917 Russian revolution only to see it hijacked by the Bolsheviks. When the USSR collapsed, a teleological 'transitology' emerged that telegraphed a certain transition to democracy and focused on processes such as elections rather than on the post-Soviet states' less than democratic political cultures and less than capitalist economic cultures and on what assistance, institutional design, and foreign policy steps could ensure democratic outcomes.

When George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq and replace Saddam Hussein's regime with a democratically elected one, he believed that this would, as he said, "serve as a powerful example of liberty and freedom in a part of the world that is desperate for liberty and freedom." He and his team held firmly to this conviction, despite numerous warnings that war would fragment the country along tribal, ethnic and religious lines, that any elected government in Baghdad would be Shia-dominated and oppress Sunnis, and that Iran would be the principal beneficiary from a weakened Iraq. Democracy-building is proceeding just as miserably in Afghanistan.

The Obama administration supported the Muslim Brotherhood-led revolution in Egypt, which was promptly countered, bringing the rule of the Egyptian military back, with thousands of casualties going for naught. The U.S. joined Britain and France in a major air campaign in Libya to remove Muammar el-Qaddafi. The consequent chaos contributed to the killings of a U.S. ambassador and other American diplomats and to the creation of a haven for Islamic extremists more threatening than Qaddafi's Libya to its neighbors and to America. In Syria, at the outset of the civil war, the Obama administration demanded the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad, even though he never posed a direct threat to America. Neither the Obama administration nor members of Congress took seriously predictions that Islamic extremists would dominate the Syrian opposition rather than more moderate forces-and that Assad would not be easy to displace.

The disastrous record of destabilization that has been the result of democracy-promotion and regime change orthodoxy has been especially problematic in the former Soviet Union. In both the Ukrainian and Georgian cases, these respective revolutions' promises of democracy, rule of law, battling corruption, and the like have not been fulfilled entirely. The 2005 Orange Revolution required yet another correcting revolution less than a decade later. The recent Maidan revolution is going in an ultra-nationalist rather than a democratic direction. The failure of the West and the U.S. to call Georgian Rose Revolution leader Mikheil Saakashvili to account for less than democratic presidential elections at times, crackdowns on demonstrators, and more recently released evidence of widespread torture in his prisons led to disenchantment with America and growing suspicions within the Georgian opposition of American 'double standards' when it comes to supporting democracy. Kyrgyzstan's 'Tulip Revolution' in 2007 produced few results, forcing a second.

The demonstration effect of these destabilizing and at least partially failed 'colored revolutions' has resonated perhaps most loudly in Moscow, where the Kremlin has used the threat of a foreign-sponsored 'birch revolution' to justify laws and policies restricting political rights, in particular foreign and domestic NGO activity. The West's, or at least Washington's, regime change revolutionism, when combined with the policy of NATO expansion, has played no small role in Russia's turn away from democracy and the West. In future, U.S. and Western policymakers must resolve that the stakes should be very high before approving the inherently risky policy of supporting colored revolutions. Several factors should condition such a decision.

First, Western support for 'colored revolutions' should only be forthcoming when the cessation of large-scale, brutal regime violence or at least the gross violation of civil and human rights is at stake. The West should be careful in supporting opposition movements whose only substantive grievance is the violation of political rights under a soft authoritarian regime. In many such cases, it is but a small coterie of opposition activists whose rights are violated. Unless there is deep, countrywide support for the overthrow of a regime and that regime is particularly brutal in its authoritarianism should policymakers support peaceful (and perhaps violent) revolution from below.

Second, in considering whether and to what degree such support should be rendered, the value of any existing regime to American and Western interests and the effect on regional or international security should be taken into account. In cases involving a regime that is brutally authoritarian/totalitarian and a threat to U.S. Western, and/or international security interests, making the call in support for a colored revolution is an easy one. In cases where neither of these conditions is met, decision-making is much more difficult. When only the first condition is present, the moral imperative is there, but the imperative of realpolitik is not, making support for a colored revolution a bad bet. When only the second condition is present, the realpolitik urges action against the regime, but the soft nature of the authoritarian order poses grave risks for America's reputation. Charges of foreign and Western meddling get a better reception among the local populace, and failure of the colored revolution will therefore guarantee an even harder line against the meddling foreign states. That is to say that in cases where rights' violations are not grievous and American interests and global stability are vested in continuing survival of a particular regime, the support of 'orangism' and even the aggressive assertion of democratization support should be reconsidered. If adopted as policy, aid should be coordinated with the authorities as much as possible and otherwise rendered sparingly and fashioned carefully such that it cannot be tainted by charges of undue foreign meddling in the internal affairs of a foreign state.

Finally, criteria codified in an international convention or treaty regarding foreign involvement in the domestic politics of states might be useful. By regulating democracy-promotion and/or other activities of a distinctly political nature that can be carried out by one state in relation to another, it might be possible to limit the foreign promotion of destructive revolutionary activity such that it does not devolve into interference by one state in the domestic politics and internal affairs of another. Standards of minimal levels of democracy or soft authoritarianism could be established as a criteria, so that harsh authoritarian and totalitarian regimes would be ineligible to be participants in the convention, which could perhaps be first applied to OSCE states in line with the Helsinki Final Act's prohibition against member-states' interference in other member-states' internal politics.

Conclusion

There is always a danger that a righteous idea will be corrupted by unchallenged power. As the saying goes: "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely." The U.S. victory in the Cold War and its assumption of 'sole superpower status' together with troubling domestic decay has fundamentally corrupted Washington. Domestically, focusing on domestic reforms such as term limits and replacing the revolving between government service and lobbyist work with an iron wall are the order of the day.Other wise, the implications of American democracy's decay for global stability and democracy will be even more profound than they are today. Abroad, revolutionism needs to be overthrown and replaced with judicious and well-targeted democracy-promotion. The US could take the lead in establishing principles under which democracy-promotion activities can be regulated so as to prevent the interference by states in the politics of others.
 


#18
Deutsche Welle
April 29, 2015
World Bank forecasts massive Ukraine economy contraction

Ukraine is in a worse state economically than previously thought, the World Bank assumes. It drastically lowered its forecast for the country for 2015, saying the military conflict with separatists was a huge burden.

While Ukraine's economy could return to growth next year, the situation for 2015 looks rather dismal, World Bank officials said Wednesday.

They sharply cut their outlook for the conflict-torn country, forecasting a contraction of GDP that could be as big as 7.5-percent this year. That represents a major revision of the bank's earlier prediction of the Ukrainian economy shrinking by just 2.3 percent in 2015.

The World Bank's outlook was also much grimmer than recent estimates by the government in Kyiv, or of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which said gross domestic product (GDP) would decrease by 5.5 percent this year on the back of a 6.8-percent decline in 2014.

"The conflict in the east has become the main driving force behind the fall," the report said. "Ukraine has considerable potential, but its implementation is possible only if the situation in the east is stabilized and the banking system recovers."

Consumer prices a headache

The IMF had agreed to a bailout deal worth $17.5 billion (15.9 billion euros) over four years, but it has estimated that Ukraine needed to raise a total of $40 billion to stay afloat.

The World Bank said it expected Ukraine's rate of inflation to reach as much as 40 percent this year, adding it could fall after 2015 - but it expected Ukraine would not return to single-digit inflation before the end of 2017.

The country's national currency, the hryvnia, has been in freefall for months. It has fallen by two thirds against the US dollar since early 2014.
 
 #19
World Bank
April 29,, 2015
PRESS RELEASE
Reforms are the Best Antidote to Exogenous Shocks Confronting Ukraine, Says World Bank

Kyiv, April 29, 2015 - Despite decisive measures in 2014 to stabilize the economy and jumpstart growth, Ukraine's economic woes worsened mainly due to the conflict in the east. In its new Ukraine Macroeconomic Update, the World Bank projects real GDP to fall by 7.5 percent in 2015, down from 6.8 percent in 2014. This lower forecast is mainly driven by the ongoing conflict that has complicated efforts to stabilize the economy, disrupted economic activities, and hurt confidence of both investors and consumers. A gradual recovery starting in 2016 is possible if the conflict abates and the authorities continue implementing much-needed macroeconomic and structural reforms.

This forecast is subject to high risks. Further escalation of the conflict may deepen economic decline in 2015 and delay recovery over the next few years via several channels: damage of production facilities and infrastructure, lower exports, higher security-related spending, and indirectly through further deterioration of consumer and investor confidence. Structural reforms - crucial for sustaining international financial support and for recovery - may be complicated by a fragile political environment and resistance from vested interests.

"Exogenous shocks undermined the efforts of authorities to stabilize the economy and jumpstart growth in 2014," said Qimiao Fan, World Bank Country Director for Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. "Faster and deeper reforms are the best antidote to these exogenous shocks confronting Ukraine."

In a Special Focus note, the World Bank outlined the importance of improving Ukraine's public finances that remain under pressure due to large accumulated imbalances that are compounded by the economic contraction. A credible deficit reduction strategy is needed to complete the ongoing macroeconomic adjustment, to stabilize and then gradually reduce public debt, rebuild investor confidence and restore Ukraine's access to international capital markets. The need for budget discipline has to be balanced with reforms to create fiscal space for targeted investments in critical infrastructure and public services to support the weak real sector, generate employment, protect the vulnerable and lay the foundation for future growth.

"Addressing fiscal challenges will require comprehensive and deep reforms. The aim should be to reduce gradually, but durably, the footprint of the government while ensuring better quality and affordable services to all Ukrainians," added Mr. Fan.

As Ukraine's long-term development partner, the World Bank Group (WBG) has responded quickly to help reduce the impact of the crisis and restore growth in the country through substantial financial support, policy advice and technical assistance. The Bank is supporting the authorities with formulating and implementing critical reforms to: fight corruption, protect the poor, stabilize the banking sector; restructure the gas sector; and improve the business environment to reinvigorate private sector-led growth.

In 2014, the WBG delivered approximately US$3 billion to Ukraine through 7 projects, including US$1.25 billion in budget support. Most of these investments go into improving basic public services that directly benefit ordinary people, such as water, sanitation, heating, power, roads, health and social services.

In February this year the World Bank pledged another US$2 billion of new lending for Ukraine in 2015, including significant budget support and investment projects, to support further reforms and improve public services.

The World Bank's current lending portfolio in Ukraine amounts to about US$4.6 billion through 15 operations. Since Ukraine joined the World Bank in 1992, the Bank's commitments to the country have totaled over US$9 billion for 45 projects and programs.
 
 #20
http://newcoldwar.org
April 29, 2015
Survey shows most Ukrainians want a negotiated settlement to the war in eastern Ukraine
Summary of a survey conducted by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology

The following is a summary of the results of a survey recently published by The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) The summary is translated and prepared by New Cold War.org. The survey was published in Ukrainian earlier this month and is 31 pages long. [http://kiis.com.ua/materials/pr/20152603_ratings/Ukraine2000_Results3.pdf]

The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology conducted a survey of attitudes of the Ukrainian people in February-March 2015. For comparison purposes, Ukraine was divided into five macro-regions:

West (Volyn, Ivano -Frankivsk, Lviv, Rivne, Ternopil, Khmelnytsky and Chernivtsi)
Center (Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr , Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Poltava, Sumy, Chernihiv, and the city of Kyiv)
South (Mykolaiv, Odessa, Kherson)
East(Dnipropetrovsk , Zaporizhia, Kharkiv)
Donbass (Donetsk and Lugansk regions - territory controlled by Kyiv government)

The following are some of the key findings of the survey.

Immediate prospects for economic situation

This survey attempted to reflect the socio-political moods in Ukraine along with showing the differences in people's opinions across various regions. A general question about the possible changes of Ukraine's economic situation in the next year reflected a negative approach with 65.6% of respondents stating that the change will be 'significant and for the worse'. Only 9.9% of Ukrainians said that the change will be a positive one.

Economic prospects in five years

When asked the same question, but with a longer time frame of five years, the opinions proved to be more optimistic with 42.2% stating that the economic situation will change significantly for the better and 23.4% convinced it would change for the worse. Nevertheless, when asked whether generally satisfied with their life, the majority of respondents - 65.6% - were fully or to some extent unsatisfied, and only 10.4% said they were satisfied.

The results differed significantly between the Donbass macro-region and the other four macro-regions. Donbass respondents showed a high rate of 84.6% who were dissatisfied with their life, whereas the other four macro- regions varied from approximately 54% to 69% of those dissatisfied with life.

Attitudes to EU and EEU

Opinions in regards to which integration path Ukraine should take reflected a fairly common trend in favor of the European Union. 51.4% of Ukrainians were for the EU integration, and only 10.5% were for the Eurasian Customs Union (ECU). 24.7% were for neither and 13.3% hesitated to respond. A wide spread appeared between the West and the Donbass macro-regions, with 73.7% in the West supporting European Union integration and only 2.7% for the Eurasian Economic Union. IN Donbass, 28.5% were equally for the EU and the EEU. Nevertheless, keeping in mind that the Donbass region included respondents from only those areas that are controlled by the Ukrainian authorities, the results can be seriously skewed.

NATO membership for Ukraine?

As for integration into the NATO military alliance, 48.3% of respondents supported the idea while 33.4% were opposed. The trend of the highest percentage of supporters in the West region and the highest percentage of those against the accession in the Donbass region is similar to the one seen in regards to different integration paths.

The war in eastern Ukraine

The main disagreement within Ukrainian society is in regards to the military ["counterterrorist"] operations in Eastern Ukraine. 45.1% of respondents support the operation and 44.0% do not. Again, the West regions showed a high of 64.4% in favor, 27% not in favor, while in Donbass, only 4.9% were in favor and 82.9% were against. When respondents were asked whether they considered the Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic to be terrorist organisations, 62.4% were more inclined to claim them as such, whereas 17.3% said they were not. But in government-controlled Donetsk and Lugansk, residents reject the "terrorist" label.

It seems that even though a good number of respondents see the DPR and LPR more or less as terrorist organisations, they are not as eager to support the antiterrorist operations, which leads to conclude that they hope for alternative ways of resolving the conflict. In fact, 70.3% responded in favor of negotiations and peaceful means of conflict resolution in Donbass, with only 20.6% supporting military action. Even in the West macro-region, which seems to have the most negative sentiments towards the LPR and DPR and is most pro-Kyiv government, only 27% responded in favor of military actions with a majority of 60.8% for peaceful negotiations.

Negotiate a settlement of the war?

When asked to specify in regards to what concessions could be accepted in order to settle the conflict, 81.1% spoke out for making Russian the official language of the DPR and LPR, 71.5% for decentralization and expanding rights for these territories, 52.5% for holding local elections, 50.3% for rejecting accession to NATO, and 42.1% for the ability of creating local people's militias.

The percentage of those against the above mentioned concessions was lower than of those who were in favor. On some more radical concessions, such as granting autonomy to DPR and LPR, Ukraine's accession to the EEU, recognition of DPR's and LPR's independence, recognition of Crimea's accession to Russia as well as federalization of Ukraine, the higher percentage of respondents, to a larger or smaller degree, was against such.

Overall, then, a solid majority of those surveyed by KIIS want peace at any price. So why has the KIIS survey gone unreported in the West, and why are the U.S., UK and Canadian governments sending in soldiers to Western Ukraine?
 
 #21
Kyiv Post
April 29, 2015
Wish Lists: West tells Ukraine to speed up its reforms

What was initially billed as a donor conference for Ukraine ended up being rebranded as an International Support for Ukraine Conference on April 28. The conference came a day after a Ukraine-European Union Summit.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, summed up the EU attitude towards Ukraine succinctly: Do more and we will give more.

"Reform must continue. It must be credible. It must be swift. It must be sustained," Juncker said. "You keep reforming, and we will keep supporting. That is the contract we are making with you."

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden also hammered home the Western point of view in a video message played at the conference. If Ukraine continues on the path to reform, the U.S. is prepared to give another $2 billion in loan guarantees this year.

"You're fighting to build a democracy that respects the will of the people, instead of catering to the whims of the powerful; an economy where what you know matters more than who you know; a society under the rule of law, where the cancer of corruption is removed from the body politic and a measure of dignity is restored to the people's lives of Ukraine," Biden said.

Ukraine's political leaders sounded upbeat despite the continuing multibillion-dollar gap between what Ukraine needs to fight the war and fix the economy versus what Western donors are pledging.

At least $2 billion alone, by the latest estimate, is needed to repair the war-torn eastern Donbas - assuming Russia stops its war today, which is highly unlikely.

Nonetheless, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk encouraged hundreds of conference participants in Kyiv's Olympic Stadium. "This is the right time to invest in Ukraine," Yatsenyuk said, while also managing to take a jab at the West for not helping Ukraine more financially and militarily.

"Not meaning to make comparisons, Greece has received $300 billion but they have neither war nor Russian tanks (on their territory) and they are not fighting against a nuclear power. In turn, Ukraine has received $30 billion in total support from the IMF and G-7 (most industrialized countries)," Yatsenyuk said.

European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Commissioner Johannes Hahn, however, said that the EU "is doing more than it has ever done for a country that is not a member."

President Petro Poroshenko, who opened the conference at 9 a.m. on April 28 with a brief speech, also called for more Western assistance to Ukraine. "Today Ukraine is one of the most promising places in the world to invest and we need your investment," he said.

He went on to quote Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd American president, who said during his 1933 inauguration speech amid the Great Depression: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Remarked Poroshenko: "I strongly feel these words are very relevant to my country. The Ukrainian people have proven they have no fear - on our front in the east and on our front in providing reforms."

Poroshenko, himself an oligarch, listed his three pillars of reform as "de-oligarchization, deregulation and decentralization." He said that "like no one else, we are interested in seeing the results of this reform as soon as possible. Combatting corruption remains our absolute top priority."

Western officials praised recent reform efforts by Kyiv's government, describing them as the most impressive since national independence in 1991, but urged officials to pick up the pace.

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt said that "the Ukrainian people would like the process to move faster than this. We would also like to see the process move faster, because the faster it moves the more quickly we will be able to help, the more likely that we are going to be successful in our effort to encourage American companies to look at all the opportunities, to take another look at Ukraine."

But some at the conference said there is a good reason why Western aid is coming in modest amounts and then only with stringent conditions.

After talking to several delegates, Ukrainian blogger Vasyl Arbuzov summarized the atmosphere by citing ex-Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko's post on his Facebook page that the West was disappointed with the slow pace.

"In fact they aren't tired, they're stunned and bewildered," Arbuzov said. "For the first time the donors frankly told the government representatives up in their faces that the whole world is perfectly aware that not only haven't the president and the prime minister done anything to battle corruption, but that they even are presiding over a corrupt system. The perception is that the new leadership, who were lifted into their positions by blood, have become the leading thieves in the country."

Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko rejected Arbuzov's argument. "I think we've made substantial progress and I think we have a very ambitious program going forward. We have to act now," Jaresko said.

The conference featured one speech after another by mainly EU officials and ministers from several nations. By mid-day, the talks grew repetitious and monotonous. The afternoon schedule featured four simultaneous sessions on investment, agriculture, energy and the reconstruction of Donbas in overcrowded rooms.

The lack of heads of state from Western states was noticeable and explains why the original plan for a donor conference had to be scrapped. The only foreign prime minister on the agenda was Lativan Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma.

While Poroshenko said that Ukraine would be ready to meet the requirements for EU membership in five years, Tim Ash, the analyst for Standard Bank in London, observed that Ukraine must have been disappointed by no agreement on visa-free travel and "no offer of any real and clear EU membership perspective."
 
 #22
Ukraine's hope for financial downpour from EU fails to come true
By Lyudmila Alexandrova

MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/. The European Union is obviously in no mood to give Ukraine as much money as it would like to have. Also, it will demand reform in exchange for the lending it might be prepared to provide. It is just naive to think that the European Union will agree to do something for gratis. Political reasons are found behind everything, Russian experts say.

The zone of free trade between Ukraine and the European Union will be effective as of January 1, 2016, Ukrainian leaders and the EU leadership said following the just-held EU-Ukraine summit and the international conference in support of Ukraine. Having agreed to open its trade borders in eight months from now, Kiev has said it is looking forward to help from the European partners. However, originally conceived as a meeting of donors, the conference looked mostly as a propaganda event "in support of Ukraine."

The introduction of a free trade zone between Ukraine and the European Union was to take effect on November 2014, but at Moscow's request was postponed till January 1, 2016. For its part, the EU leadership prolonged the operation of trade preferences for Ukraine. No miracles have happened, though. The Ukrainian GDP's slump in the first quarter of 2015, in contrast to the previous period of 2014, was at about 15%. The EU was unable to compensate for Ukraine's loss of the Russian market.

"It is nakedly clear that the EU had never planned to give Ukraine everything it had hoped for," the deputy director of the Economics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Svetlana Glinkina, has told TASS. As an example she mentioned the history of some European countries. Hungary at as certain point held second or third place in the world by the production of meat and milk per capita. In the very first year the so-called asymmetric agreement of association was in operation Hungary's export to the European Union was up 1.7%, and its import from the EU, by 17%.

Ukraine these days pins hopes on greater export to the EU countries. But those who know how well the European market is protected will say this expectation is futile, Glinkina said.

"Indeed, what did they hope for at all?" she asks. "Apparently, on political support: the European Union does agree to provide financial support, but not a very big one, against certain conditions and requirements, including drastic cuts in government and public spending. If the requirements fail to be met, nobody will agree to give anything for free. No presents from the European Union can be hoped for."

Ukraine used to maintain quite decent cooperation in the high tech sphere, aircraft-building in particular, Glinkina said. "But who in Europe will ever need that? Europe wants cheap labor and Ukrainian lands, but Ukrainian coal will be of no interest to anyone, because there is Polish coal."

It is a great delusion the very change of the institutional environment, such as legislation, protection of property rights, and the lowering of administrative hurdles, will bring about fast changes for the better. The history of countries that have been EU members for many years is a confirmation of that.

"The West could have provided far greater assistance to Ukraine," says lecturer at the trade policy chair of the Higher School of Economics, Aleksey Portansky. "It is not accidental that Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk complains the Greeks have already received $300 billion from the European Union. But the managerial competence of the Ukrainian bureaucracy is so low that the implementation of reforms looks highly problematic. Naturally, the Western countries are in no hurry to invest."

"It's like poker. Each player is eager to pass the buck," lecturer at the Higher School of Economics, Anton Tabakh, has told TASS. "Europe points to the IMF, the IMF, to the United States, and everybody points to Ukraine. It is clear that Europe does not have very much money and in the first place it will be saving Greece in a bid to preserve the Eurozone. The IMF demands structural reform. Ukraine keeps talking about wars and revolutions hoping to get a lot and at once. Europe does not want to spend anything at all. It seems to have forgotten already what the fuss was all about when the question of association was brought up."

He believes that politics has always taken center stage.

"Political likes and dislikes prevailed over economic interests. Of course, Ukraine would derive far greater benefits from being a member of the Customs Union. It lacked the resourcefulness and farsightedness to reconcile political and economic interests. Take Kazakhstan, for instance. It manages to be on good terms with everybody."

Tabakh tends to draw Ukraine's future in very pessimistic terms.

"There will be no disaster, but just ever less economics and trade. There has already occurred one explosion. From this moment on the process of rotting and decay will go on and on..."
 
 #23
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
April 30, 2015
Ukraine faces challenges of coalition infighting, devolution
Sergei Kuznetsov in Kyiv
 
While Western nations refuse to provide Ukraine with arms, preferring instead to financially drip-feed the country and maintain pressure on Russia with sanctions, Kyiv is facing several new challenges - in particular keeping the ruling coalition together at the same time as managing the thorny process of giving more power to the regions.

It appears that Kyiv faces the risk of finding itself sooner or later in the same situation as that during the presidency of the pro-EU Viktor Yushchenko, whose rule during 2005-2010 was overshadowed by the infighting with former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. This situation finally led to a loss of trust in the ruling elites by voters and foreign investors.

Recent statements by politicians in Kyiv haven't helped matters. "We cannot afford any political instability. The parliamentary coalition should be united, coherent and effective," Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk stated on April 22, conceding that the Rada (parliament) "demonstrates a certain turbulence".

It is not surprising, therefore, that the issue of the unity of the five-party coalition - Yatsenyuk's People's Front, Petro Poroshenko Bloc, Self Reliance, Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko and Batkivshchyna - was one of the first questions addressed to the prime minister at the donor conference held in Kyiv on April 28, which was supposed to showcase the success of reforms in Ukraine to the country's backers. "As President [Petro] Poroshenko already indicated, the key precondition for reforms is to stay united. Unity between the president, the government and all factions inside the coalition is a key precondition," Yatsenyuk answered, adding that the participants of the coalition "definitely need [to show] political maturity".

Alexei Ryabchyn, an MP who represents Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party, believes that the coalition will continue to stay united despite "some tensions" that have appeared between its members. "Sometimes there are different positions on some issues related to the country's development agenda, but these differences are resolved through negotiation," Ryabchyn tells bne IntelliNews.

On the other hand, Ryabchyn admits that, "there are certain elements of distrust" between the two major forces of the coalition - the political parties run by the president and prime minister. Speculation over possible discord between the country's two most important politicians intensified after parliament made a decision recently to create a parliamentary task force to investigate possible corruption among the cabinet. A member of parliament representing Poroshenko's party was among the initiators of this move.

Decentralisation

Among a long list of reforms that the authorities in Kyiv are committed to implementing is the fraught process of decentralisation at a time when a separatist war is going on in the east. According to the central government in Kyiv, Ukraine's regions should, in particular, receive additional financial facilities for financing local needs. Plans to change the country's political landscape are also on the table, according to the PM.

"We believe that the best pattern for Ukraine in implementing a real decentralisation is just to use Poland's model. We are similar [countries], and if we adopt Poland's model in Ukraine, this definitely will work. So, we expect that the parliament will pass the constitutional amendments in the nearest future, and we will devolve additional rights and responsibilities to the local authorities," Yatsenyuk said during the donor conference.

But the decentralisation process is a minefield for Ukraine's authorities for geopolitical reasons, given that Russia is trying to use Ukrainian constitutional reform to achieve some kind of autonomy for the breakaway Donbas region. Said Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, in December: "Ukrainians from all regions... should meet and discuss how these regions would elect their leaders; to agree on a system of distribution of taxes between the central and local authorities; on which language is preferred for a particular region; on which holidays they celebrate."

However, such a plan would be unacceptable for Kyiv. Western backers are also opposed to Russian attempts to hijack the process for its own ends. "We have a very strong view that it is not Russia's place to have any voice in this process. The decentralisation process is only to be owned by Ukrainians," Jeffrey Payette, US ambassador to Ukraine, tells bne IntelliNews.

The diplomat underlines that Ukraine's regions often already have strong self-governance and are ready "to get away from a Kyiv-centric political system". In March, Ukraine's parliament passed a bill that provides for special self-rule status to the parts of Donbas that are not under Kyiv's central control.

Asked about the Donbas region, Payette says that, "the Minsk [agreements] provide for the kind of decentralisation law that the Rada has passed: an offer of a greater level of local autonomy than has ever been seen anywhere in the post-Soviet space. If the separatists want to be part of that, they should show the courage to test themselves at the ballot boxes, to be a part of the elections."

Ghosts of war

This tough stance towards the status of Donbas could lead to a possible recommencement of hostilities in the east of the country between pro-Russian separatists and government forces. "Getting investors to a country at war with a nuclear power, Russia, is a very complicated task. And [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has a purpose in creating a situation whereby foreign investors do not want to come to Ukraine," Yatsenyuk said on April 28.

And as long as private investors stay away from Ukraine, Kyiv is forced to rely on multinational institutions. According to the prime minister, up to $3bn will be channelled to the economy in 2015 by different multinational structures, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB). "In total, we've provided about $450mn in assistance since the start of this crisis. In addition to a $1bn loan guarantee last year, another $1bn loan guarantee will be finalised in the coming days, and a further $1bn [will be provided] at the end of the year if Ukraine continues the path of reform," Joe Biden, the US vice president, said in a video address to the participants of the donor conference on April 28.
 
 #24
Ukraine's Right Sector nationalists look set to shrug off Kiev's control

KIEV, April 30. /TASS/. The rifts that developed between Ukraine's ultra-right Right Sector paramilitaries and the General Staff of the regular armed forces of late may flare up with renewed force again, their leader, Dmytro Yarosh warned on his page in Facebook. He went as far as comparing his men to the armed gangs of Ukrainian Cossacks of the 16th century, who had escaped from oppressive aristocracy to a fortified area in the lower reaches of the Dnieper River, historically known as the Zaporozhian Sech. In this way Yarosh echoed threats from the Right Sector's press-secretary, Artyom Skoropadsky, who on Wednesday warned his men would set fire to the presidential office building in Kiev.

The root cause of the conflict is found in the Ukrainian military command's attempts to take over all so-called "volunteer battalions" - paramilitary armed groups of nationalists defiant of any authority but their own field commanders. On April 28, paratroopers from two Ukrainian brigades surrounded the Right Sector's base in the Dnipropetrovsk Region to demand all those inside should lay down arms. In response, the Right Sector urged the Ukrainian troops to disobey commanders, called a rally of protest in Kiev and warned they might stage a government coup.

"We do not rule out that despite promises by top officials further provocative actions against the New Zaporozhian Sech, so we keep our powder dry," Yarosh said. He dismissed the conflict as "Kremlin's provocation", and the army commanders who issued orders to integrate all armed groups into regular army units, as "agents of the Moscow Empire." He urged "all patriotic forces to step up pressures on President Pyotr Poroshenko and parliament and to achieve the adoption of a special law on the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps."

Right Sector militants are notorious for their active participation in the violent crackdown on the southeast of the country. Human rights activists hold them responsible for kidnappings, robberies and killings of civilians.
 
 #25
Ukraine Today
http://uatoday.tv
April 30, 2015
Relics of the Soviet Union: Ukraine's plan to create a museum of totalitarianism

Ukraine's Soviet-era relics, an expression of Kremlin's former power or symbols of a bygone era?

I'm at Ukraine's history museum in Kyiv and I will be talking to a member of a group which has plans to build a museum which Ukraine's culture minister said will be called the museum of totalitarianism.

So we came here to find out how the soviet era is depicted in the history museum and why the government is planning to build another one.

The staff at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine showed me some of the most typical Soviet-era relics which it is considering donating to the new museum, which is to be called "the museum of totalitarianism."

Ivanova Olha, curator at National Historical Museum of Ukraine: "These flags are from the Soviet era. We have a large collection here at our museum. They were given out in the 60s, 70s, and 80s as awards to brigades of workers in various factories, for doing a good job. Also they were given as trophies in various socialist competitions. This was very widespread during that time."

These flags were made out of silk.

The museum also has a vast collection of medals which were given out following World War Two. They are just some of the many artifacts which museum curators believe are crucial to a thorough and accurate documenting of the lives of Soviet citizens.

Zrazyuk Zenayida, curator at National Historical Museum of Ukraine: "We've been making our Soviet-era collection for many years. We need to have these collections. We have an exposition dedicated to the Soviet-era. We have to show that life and the events that were unfolding during that time. It wasn't just a totalitarian regime. There were people here who worked and fought. And we have to tell about their life."

The museum's curator has taken us to the storage.

Ivanova Olha, curator at National Historical Museum of Ukraine: " These china sets were custom made, artists decorated them. The specific attributes of the Soviet era can be seen here. Gold paint was used to decorate the hammer and sickle symbols on them."

One of the museum's researchers talked about the importance of preserving Ukraine's Soviet-era history in order for the next generation to learn from the country's past.

Iryna Suprunova, researcher: " We have more than 800 items. And it's an important part of our history even if somebody don't like it. We can't just cut away our history and forget it. For modern Ukraine it's a huge experience. We have to know our history. And maybe this will help us in the future."

Others see these items as expressions power; power which came from the Kremlin and which kept Ukraine firmly within Russia's grasp.

Litovchenko Antonina, curator at National Historical Museum of Ukraine: " They were needed because they were one of the many tools of propaganda being used by the government."

After my grand tour I finally talked to the museum's director who told me why the Ukrainian government has now decided to build another institution dedicated to totalitarianism.

Tetyana Sosnovska, general director of the national Museum of history of Ukraine: "This is needed more for the older generation, so they can analyze and draw conclusions. This will help them transition into modern Ukraine. This is also important for the younger generation because any person which is able to analyze and think will be able to understand that any concentration of power can lead to something similar and delete one hundred years or more of a country's history."

The museum's collection of Soviet artifacts was certainly impressive, and undoubtedly large enough to support another museum.

But with Ukraine currently fighting an armed insurgency backed by Russia in its eastern regions, critics say the project to build a museum of totalitarianism is itself just another propaganda stunt and has little to do with coming to terms with history.

Nonetheless, Ukraine seems now to be firmly on a European path and so in the spirit of looking to the future, the new museum is sure to enjoy popular support.
 
 #26
Bloomberg
April 29, 2015
Putin Needs Neither War Nor Peace in Ukraine
By Leonid Bershidsky

Russia's toxicity for investors is suddenly so 2014. Western money is returning to Moscow's equity and bond markets, and private Russian companies are again able to borrow, albeit at a premium to Western peers.

The main cause for this reversal of fortunes is the cease-fire in Ukraine, even though it isn't really holding militarily or moving forward politically. That's a paradox that may shed light on how events in eastern Ukraine will develop.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that "investors have taken Russia out of the penalty box." According to the global fund tracker EPFR, the influx of cash into mutual and exchange-traded funds targeting Russian securities so far this year has almost wiped out last year's outflow. Indeed, the rebound in the Russian stock and bond markets since December's panic over a free-falling ruble has been spectacular:

This can be explained in economic terms. The ruble is the best-performing major currency so far this year, having gained 14 percent against the U.S. dollar. That's mainly because the oil price, all-important for Russia's fiscal health, has stabilized at a higher level than doomsday prophets predicted -- above $60 a barrel of Brent crude. And Russian economic data, while hardly encouraging, don't indicate an impending collapse. So why not give Russia a chance, especially since it promises higher yields than most other big markets?

International lenders led by Societe Generale, ING and Natixis have just provided $530 million to Uralkali, Russia's world leader in potash production, at 3.3 percentage points above the Libor benchmark rate. European companies with similar credit ratings pay less than half that premium now.

This reasoning, however, works only because the fighting in Ukraine slowed after the signing of the Minsk cease-fire in February. A continuing all-out war would have made the risk of further international sanctions on Russia unbearable for most investors.

The Western sanctions against Russia didn't inflict much economic damage, because when they rendered big Russian state companies unable to borrow in Western markets, the government stepped in to help them. Yet, for some time last year, the sanctions did succeed in scaring investors away. That was a mainly psychological effect, which is now wearing off thanks to the truce.

The cease-fire in eastern Ukraine probably won't be implemented fully. Although the large-scale warfare has stopped and some heavy weaponry has been pulled back from the lines of separation, there's still localized fighting. Moreover, observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, empowered to monitor truce observance, still have limited access to areas held by pro-Russian separatists. A more stable peace could have been expected this long after the deal was signed, if the pro-Russian side were truly interested in ending hostilities.

Ukraine, at the same time, has been unwilling to grant more autonomy to rebel-held regions, as prescribed by the Minsk deal, until local elections are held there in accordance with Ukrainian law. That's a dead end: There won't be any elections until the rebel commanders -- and their masters in Moscow -- are satisfied with their new powers.

In this situation, even the U.S. is only talking about maintaining, rather than expanding sanctions, because Americans know that without another major Russian offensive to react against they'd have a hard time convincing Europe to go along.

It makes sense for Russian President Vladimir Putin to find this kind of equilibrium, allowing his country's investment rebound to gain momentum, while keeping Ukraine on the hook. That implies a frozen conflict scenario, in which there is no war and no deal, a situation that could be maintained more or less indefinitely -- as Transnistria, the unrecognized state in limbo between Ukraine and Moldova since the early 1990s, shows. For Putin, the advantage is clear: Keeping the conflict unresolved may hinder Ukraine's integration with Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

This kind of stasis is less acceptable for Ukraine, for the same reasons, but the government is Kiev is stuck. It can't make a military move to reclaim its territory, because it can't risk another defeat. President Petro Poroshenko will probably end up tacitly agreeing to freeze the conflict for now, because Ukraine also stands to benefit from the psychological effect that a relative peace would have on investment. And right now, Ukraine needs market confidence much more than it needs rebel-held Donetsk.
 
 #27
www.rt.com
April 30, 2015
Deputy DM completely rules out war between Russia & Ukraine

A top Russian defense official has said in an interview that Ukraine was not an enemy of Russia and ruled out even a theoretical possibility of war between the countries.

"We will not start a war with Ukraine under any circumstances. Ukraine is not our enemy. I cannot allow for even a theoretical possibility of such a development," Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. "I think that Kiev will have enough sense and won't provoke us," he added.

Antonov also said that Russian authorities expected Germany and France to use their influence on the Kiev regime to prevent a new escalation of conflict in southeastern Ukraine.

When reporters asked him why Ukraine didn't take part in the international conference of security in Moscow in mid-April, the Russian deputy DM answered that it was because Russian commanders thought their Ukrainian colleagues were concentrating all efforts on a peaceful settlement of the conflict. "We did not want to make either ourselves or our Ukrainian colleagues dependent on the event," Antonov said.

"I hope that the conflict in Ukraine will be settled by peaceful means and Ukrainian experts will be able to take part in future Moscow conferences and share their experience," he noted.

Antonov also told reporters that the only Russian military officers in Ukraine were about 70 people working in the joint center for ceasefire control. He emphasized their presence was agreed with the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and was very important for Ukrainians who preferred not to have direct contacts with the representatives of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics. "Our servicemen are, in essence, both intermediaries and peacemakers," he said.

Russia has repeatedly denied its troops are involved in the Ukrainian conflict and emphasized the fact that none of the accusations have so far been backed by any reliable evidence. President Vladimir Putin reiterated this during his annual Q&A show on television in mid-April. "Let me be clear," Putin said: "I will say this clearly: There are no Russian troops in Ukraine."

Antonov recalled Putin's words in his interview and said that nothing could be added to it.
 
 #28
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
April 30, 2015
The inconvenient truth about Russia's Ukrainian refugees
As the flow of refugees from Eastern Ukraine increases to the southern regions of Russia, the indignation of locals - who are becoming more and more reluctant to host Ukrainians - is also growing. Can it lead to social tensions and give another impetus to end the Ukrainian crisis?
By Dmitry Polikanov
Dmitry Polikanov is Vice President of The Russian Center for Policy Studies (PIR-Center) and Chairman of Trialogue International Club. Author of more than 100 publications on conflict management, peacekeeping, arms control, international relations and foreign policy. Member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the International Sociological Association, the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center Research Council.

Ten years after the Chechen war, which produced many internally displaced persons and required significant efforts to organize the regular flow of humanitarian aid and raise living standards in tent camps, Russia has to face this challenge again, with tens of thousands of refugees coming from southeastern Ukraine as a result of the Ukraine conflict.

According to a recent report by the United Nations, over 660,000 people fled the Donbas to seek shelter in Russia and officially registered as refugees. Many of them stay in the southern and central regions of Russia, benefiting from government support and traditional Russian hospitality. They get accommodation in hotels and sanatoria and receive substantial financial help. The problem is that they have nothing to do as they wait out the Ukrainian crisis.

This lack of activity results in permanent claims for even better standards, internal conflicts over distribution of humanitarian aid and tensions with the local population and the local authorities. These authorities are responsible for providing care under strict supervision of Moscow but their irritation grows, as they have to fulfill higher and higher demands.

Members of the local population, having been put in a tight corner by the difficult economic situation, are envious about the financial assistance and "laziness" of the refugees, many of who are strong and apt men suitable for full-time employment.

Last autumn, 24 percent of Russians, according to VTsIOM, believed that the government did too much for the refugees. This figure was even higher in the municipalities where the refugees were staying. Forty-five percent assumed that these people should be sent back to Ukraine as soon as possible when favorable conditions emerge.

Another source of discomfort is the fact that, in some places, refugees seize local jobs and offer to work at lower rates. A curious example mentioned in the media is a petition by Siberian prostitutes who feel rising competition from their Ukrainian colleagues, ruining the market by lowering the prices they can charge.

It is clear that refugees - after passing proper formalities - could be readily used as part of the development projects in the Far East. However, many of them have the image as a sort of "parasite." According to this view, their only dream is to stay relaxed in Moscow or in the warm and rich southern regions.

Another argument presented by many in Russia is that strong male refugees could well return to their home country to help with its defense and reconstruction. It certainly sounds cruel to push these desperate people back onto the battlefield, but it also looks strange to Russian patriotic thinking that males can skip the war in Donbas.

At the same time, the comments by the refugees themselves hint at a different view of the war. It is a Russian war, so leave us alone and fight with the Ukrainian government by yourselves, they would say. Such remarks make it even more insulting for the Russians who feel betrayed in their hospitality and their genuine feeling of sympathy.

It seems that the hidden discontent with the problem of refugees is increasing. This is analogous to steam in a hot kettle that has not yet reached the boiling point. Nonetheless, one can hear more frequently Russians grudgingly debating in their kitchens, especially in the wake of the economic crisis, when resources have become limited.

The kettle needs an urgent steam valve otherwise the refugees may turn into enemies, like it was a few years ago with the migrants from the Caucasus. Everyone remembers the tide of nationalism and extreme cases of xenophobia in some Russian cities.

More and more, these refugees are becoming a burden that Russians must shoulder. If a new wave of military escalation in Ukraine results in an increase in the number of refugees, the locals are highly likely to be more concerned with their own needs and the country's weakening economy.

If Ukraine reaches the status of a frozen conflict, there will be more and more people campaigning for the return of refugees back home or to have them working rather than enjoying the social privileges unavailable to common Russians, who sometimes find themselves in much worse conditions.

If Donbas succeeds in achieving secession from Ukraine and the war ends, there will voices to send back the refugees for the sake of post-war rehabilitation of their native region.

It seems that the Russian authorities are not yet tackling the problem, while it requires their immediate attention and the creation of a proper communication strategy. Russia should study the experience of armed conflicts abroad and rely on best international practices available from various African, Asian and European countries.

This code of conduct should not limit itself to an education in how to be more tolerant, but rather, become the basis for some more sustainable solutions. One of them could be the shift of this burden to the shoulders of international organizations instead of giving in to a false sense of "national prestige."

Russia will have to think about its future participation in the post-war reconstruction process in Ukraine, even though Moscow has tried to avoid dragging itself into this process. The problem of Ukrainian refugees raises inconvenient questions and requires from the authorities that they come up with coherent and long-term measures that will pacify the angry population. Such an approach is in Russia's national interests and it is essential in resolving different demographic and labor market challenges.
 
 #29
Moscow Times
April 30, 2015
'Russia is the Motherland of Crimea' - What Crimean Schoolchildren Think
By Peter Hobson

YALTA, Crimea - "Who do you think is responsible for the war in eastern Ukraine?" asked Masha, a 17-year old student at School No. 12 in Yalta, Crimea.

I paused. "Russia."

A gasp went around the classroom. Masha looked at me as if I was mad. "No way," she said. Twenty students shifted in their seats with astonishment. The teacher shot me a "didn't-I-tell-you" look. It took a moment for calm to return.

Masha is from Donetsk, the war-torn capital of one of the separatist republics in eastern Ukraine that is reported to have received weapons from Russia to fight the Ukrainian army. She is just one of hundreds of children who have moved to the seaside town of Yalta from the conflict zone in the past year, many of whom consider themselves the victim of Ukrainian - not Russian - aggression.

I started explaining the view, common across the West, that Russia's interference in eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea last year were illegal under international law. But Masha and her classmates didn't see it that way. They were afraid of the Ukrainian nationalists that they said brought war to the country's Russian-speaking east, and they saw Russia as a defender against that nationalism.

When I argued that Russia has no place in Ukraine or Crimea the group's teacher clenched her fists and ground her teeth in frustration. She looked at the ceiling for strength and said: "Russia is the motherland of Crimea."

The room burst out in applause.

'Will They Give Us Chalk?'

The conversation is one of many I had during several days at School No. 12, which is housed in a 19th-century colonnaded building just off a pedestrian street near Yalta's tourist seafront.

Just over a year ago School No. 12 was Ukrainian. Aside from a classroom filled with computers and some very trendily dressed schoolchildren it looked much as it must have done before the fall of communism, with long corridors, cork boards on the walls and a teaching staff of mostly middle-aged Soviet-born women.

Head teacher Olga Cherkashchenko sat in a high-ceilinged room filled with heavy 1970s wooden furniture. She looked out from a low-cut black fringe with big eyes and described the underfunded Ukrainian educational system.

"We used not to know how much [money] we'd get. Will they give us chalk? Will they give us cleaning liquid? As a rule we received nothing. The parents bought it all."

A clunky-looking laptop sat on the table. Parents bought that too, Cherkashchenko said. Her office did not have a desktop computer.

Ukraine has a dismal economic record during its quarter-century of independence. Plagued by corruption, criminality and poor governance, its economy lagged behind those of neighboring states like Russia and Poland. Outside small pockets of wealth, Crimea's poverty shows in ramshackle farmsteads and pitted roads. When it joined Russia it instantly became one of the country's poorest regions.

Yalta, a famous tourist destination sandwiched between the Black Sea and a semi-circle of mountains, is better-off than most. But even here salaries average a little over $200 a month.

I asked the class of 17-year-olds what has changed since the annexation. They shouted out: free medicine, better teacher salaries, more school equipment, more police, more holidays, no aggression from Ukraine.

I asked what has got worse and got a long pause. Then: prices have gone up, Russian state exams, no travel.

Life has become harder for many people since Moscow annexed the peninsula. A Ukrainian economic blockade and Western sanctions have caused prices of many products to double and halved the number of tourists that are the key driver of Yalta's economy.

Foreigners in Crimea must carry a huge wad of cash because Visa and MasterCard don't service payments on the peninsula. I tried to download an app but couldn't - the network is blocked. Crimeans applying for visas to travel to Western countries are routinely refused.

But almost everyone I met in the city supported the annexation, even if they are unhappy about some of the economic consequences.

People are grateful for peace. They point to eastern Ukraine, where Russia did not annex territory and over 5,000 people have been killed.

Don't Make Trouble

On my first day at the school, teacher Yelena Dvoryaninova warned: "You should be careful about what you ask them." There is peer pressure, she said - children with nuanced or pro-Ukrainian opinions are uncomfortable about speaking out.

That goes beyond the classroom. Why would you bother making trouble? Dvoryaninova asked.

Many ethnic Ukrainians or those who support Ukraine have left Yalta since the annexation. Many people have lost friends. It is harder to travel to Ukraine and more expensive to call. Amid aggressive propaganda on both sides, some have been divided by politics, with former friends branding one another traitors.

While the majority welcomed Russian protection, some people in minority groups like Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians feel vulnerable to Russian authorities that are often heavy-handed and intolerant of different opinions.

Near School No. 12 is a university. On the metal plaque next to the university's door, the yellow and gold national symbol of Ukraine had been blacked out with paint.

In a university class, students said most of their Ukrainian classmates had quit their studies halfway to return to the mainland. One of the lecturers said the head of the university had left behind his position and his family for a bedsit in Kiev out of refusal to live in occupied territory.

"But I am happy because I live in freedom," he had told her.
The First People on Earth

Most of the schoolchildren I spoke to said they had more opportunities now that they are in Russia. Many wanted to go to university in Moscow or St. Petersburg, and they can now apply for free tuition. Some saw business opportunities in Moscow, though others wanted to live in Europe or the United States.

But the teachers said the real revolution was in a broader curriculum - Crimea's children have been liberated from a deadening focus on Ukrainian literature, Ukrainian history and Ukrainian geography.

"Sorry, but what literature?" asked Dvoryaninova. "Who do they have?" She looks at me with raised eyebrows. Beyond 19th-century poet Taras Shevchenko, I know no one.

"Children knew more about the works of [Ukrainian writer] Panas Myrny than they knew about those of Stendhal or Hugo. They wouldn't even have recognized those names," said Cherkashchenko. The same applies for history, where Peter the Great may get less attention than a Ukrainian peasant movement.

The new curriculum will expand the horizons of schoolchildren, said Cherkashchenko. Russian history and literature are world-spanning and world-shaping, while "[Ukrainians think] the first people on earth were Ukrainians," according to Dvoryaninova.

And then there is language. Language has become a political flashpoint in Ukraine. Kiev's efforts to elevate Ukrainian above Russian as the country's dominant language were used by separatists to justify taking up arms. Russian President Vladimir Putin has pledged to defend Russian-speakers beyond Russia's borders.

Ukrainian is rarely heard in Yalta, yet under Ukraine's education system "much more time was dedicated to [studying] Ukrainian than Russian," Cherkashchenko said. In Ukrainian regions that lack the autonomous status given to Crimea almost all schooling is in Ukrainian, and parents of ethnically Russian children sometimes complain that their Russian-speaking children make grammar mistakes when they write.

If Crimea stays in Russia, knowledge of Ukrainian will fade fast.

In School No. 12, the Ukrainian language is now optional. About 40 percent of students have stuck with it, Cherkashchenko said. But most of these are in the older classes, where students have already studied the language for years. In the youngest grades, less than ten percent want to learn it, she said - their parents don't see the point, when Russian and English are global languages.

'Crazy Ukrainians'

A class of 15 year-olds told me a story that I heard everywhere in Yalta.

It goes like this: In the days after former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych fled Kiev's street protests in February last year the chaos that had gripped the capital began rippling out across the country. Fascist militants from nationalist western Ukraine that had played a decisive role during the protests headed east and south. One of the children, Sasha, called them "crazy Ukrainians." A trainload of the thugs arrived in Crimea's capital, Simferopol. There, they were met by self-defense forces, groups of locals, many of them ex-servicemen, that had appeared from nowhere. Television news showed hundreds of them carrying sticks and shields painted in the colors of the Russian flag waiting at the station. The militants - though this bit wasn't shown on the news - were prevented from disembarking and forced to turn back.

The self-defense forces quickly took control of the road and rail crossings into Crimea from the Ukrainian mainland, the story continues, but they would have struggled to defend the peninsula from attack. The threat to Crimean lives ended only when Russian troops left their bases and seized control of the peninsula.

Crimeans voted overwhelmingly to leave Ukraine and join Russia only weeks later.

I asked the class about Ukraine's current president Petro Poroshenko, who oversaw Kiev's military efforts to pacify the country's eastern regions after winning an election in May last year in which candidates from extremist Ukrainian nationalist parties received around 2 percent of the vote.

Sasha says: "Poroshenko is the craziest Ukrainian I have ever seen. He doesn't even try to stop the war."
 
 #30
AFP
April 29, 2015
`Fascists` or heroes? How WWII history divides Ukraine

Lviv: He fought alongside the Nazis, then against them. He tried to drive the Soviets out of his native Ukraine, and spent 11 years in a prison camp in Russia.

What does that make Oles Gumenyuk -- a fascist? Or a hero? It depends on who you ask.

Mustachioed and vigorous despite his 90 years, he calls himself a freedom fighter, proud of having served in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in World War II.

"We were warriors, fighters, patriots. We were proud people and never asked for compassion from our enemies," he said in an interview in his apartment in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.

Seventy-five years on, it`s a controversial boast.

In Ukraine`s latest conflict, "fascist" is the insult hurled by pro-Russian separatists -- and Russian media -- at the Kiev government side.

The epithet harks back to the Ukrainian nationalist fighters who sided, for a time, with the Nazis, hoping they would drive out the Soviets during the war.

Among these was Gumenyuk, who at 18 joined a Ukrainian division of the Nazi SS force.

He says it was a strategic decision.

"We joined them so we could get trained. But we knew even then that Germany was going to lose the war," he said.

After tactical training from the Germans, he joined the nationalist UPA, which first supported but then turned on the Nazis, fighting the Germans and the Red Army at the same time.On the wall of his apartment, Gumenyuk has a portrait of one of the most divisive figures in Ukraine`s history: World War II nationalist leader Stepan Bandera.

Ukrainians in the west hail Bandera as a hero; others in the pro-Russian east and in Russia itself hate him, branding him a Nazi collaborator.

Some historians say Ukrainian nationalists committed atrocities during World War II, notably against Poles in Ukraine.

But Ukraine`s pro-European Union parliament this month gave them unprecedented recognition, adopting a new law granting UPA members the status of "Ukrainian independence fighters".

Parliament has also approved a controversial ban on Nazi and Communist symbols and propaganda.

The reforms have angered Russia at a time of tensions between the neighbours over the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which has killed more than 6,000 people in the past year.

The Russian foreign ministry accused Ukraine of "rewriting history". It said the law would "create divisions" and promote a "nationalist ideology".Formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Gumenyuk`s native region of Ivano-Frankivsk was under Polish rule when he was born but would change hands several times over the course of the 20th century.

In 1939, "when the Soviets arrived, we really thought that our brothers had come to liberate us from Poland," he recalled.

At that time, Ukrainians hung two flags in their villages: their yellow-and-blue national one and the red one for the Soviet troops.

"But after a couple of weeks, they started looking for those who had hung the yellow-and-blue flags and arresting them," Gumenyuk said.

Hundreds of thousands of western Ukrainians are said to have been killed or sent to Soviet prison camps in the ensuing repression.

"When the Germans arrived we also saw them as liberators," Gumenyuk said.

In September 1945, he was wounded in fighting against the Red Army and ended up a prisoner of the Soviets.

He spent the next 11 years in a Siberian prison camp in the far northern city of Norilsk, thousands of kilometres from his home in western Ukraine.

Parliament`s recognition of UPA members as freedom fighters comes too late for most of his former brothers in arms, many of whom have died.

"But it is still very important for our descendants, so that our children`s and grandchildren`s generations can never say we were bandits," he said.

Lviv-based historian Igor Derevyaniy said the legislation could help Ukraine make peace with its painful history.

"It is a matter of justice for those who fought for a democratic Ukrainian state and those who died for it," he said.

"Ukraine for the first time is abandoning its totalitarian past."
 
 #31
Russia Insider
http://russia-insider.com
April 29, 2015
Ukraine Pays a Terrible Price for Banderaism
As the Ukrainian government that seized power in the coup rewrites Ukraine's history, it commits an ever-widening circle of atrocities in conformity with the ideology of Stepan Bandera that it has adopted.
By Alevtina Rea
Alevtina Rea is  a freelance analyst and writer; for seven years (2005 - 2012), she worked as an assistant editor with CounterPunch. Ms. Rea is a contributing author to CounterPunch, Cyrano's Journal Today, Uncommon Thought Journal, and the International Journal of Baudrillard Studies. She can be reached at [email protected].

"Two Ukraines but what seem like two different worlds. ...And if you want, you can call me a Pro-Russian Communist, but, personally, I much prefer the red star of the partisans of Odessa than the reversed swastika of the Banderites. Although, I repeat, I am a Jew and a Zionist from Israel." - Arkady Molev (after visiting Lvov and Odessa, Fort Russ)

Life in Ukraine these days is full of fads and fancies, some of them criminal and deleterious, some - just outright stupid. For example, the latest craze is to get rid of all the names of cities, streets and squares associated with Russia.

The effort to erase their own history - after all Ukraine in its present borders was created by the Soviets - leads to some funny or maladroit results.

Vladimir Kornilov, head of the Ukrainian Center for Eurasian Studies, in an interview with the newspaper Vzglyad, suggested that the names that are assigned to the cities and streets by the Ukrainian authorities will not hold for too long.

This is a passing fad, he thinks. After all, "The history of, say, the lion's share of Ukraine is Russian history, and partly Polish, Romanian, and Austro-Hungarian history. In this sense, the Ukrainians have got used to distort the historical names and rename them back and forth. For example, with rare exceptions, there are no historical names in Lvov [western Ukraine, former Poland]."

The absurdity of this situation is that the Ukrainian nationalists, declaring their fight with the Soviet past, demonstrate the very methods of the Bolsheviks after October Revolution of 1917 - they bring down the monuments and rename all and sundry.

Beside the Bolshevik methods, "they have adopted tactics and ideology of the Nazis and try to completely clean all the historical memory in Ukraine," says Kornilov. "Everything is done systematically and gradually: on the Maidan in 2004, it was impossible to imagine that someone would glorify Bandera. But after a few years, Bandera is the hero."

Kornilov said that he won't be surprised if, in a couple of years, they make Hitler's birthday a national holiday. "Right now, it seems absurd and preposterous, but 10 years ago it seemed absurd and ridiculous that Ukraine will glorify Bandera and UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army).

As far as Bandera's political cult in Ukraine is concerned, there is a fascinating book by Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist. Fascism, Genocide, and Cult (published in 2014). It sheds light on the history of this violent nationalist movement, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its Ukrainian Insurgent Army. In it, the author says:

"Bandera was the ultranationalist or fascist alternative to Stalin and Khrushchev. Though the OUN-B frequently claimed after the Second World War that the UPA was fighting against the totalitarian Soviet Union for a nationalist democratic Ukraine, the reference to democracy was nothing more than a pretence, intended to persuade the United Kingdom and the United States to provide support for the insurgent movement."

The refrain of fighting for democracy is way too familiar these days - in fact, it is used frequently by the current puppet regime in Kiev. As it was with Bandera's UPA in the past, this reference brings the same result, that is, a lot of violence toward anyone with dissenting views, as well as the unconditional support of the U.S.A. However, the cruel irony is that it is exactly most blood-thirsty politicians who typically sing this refrain, thus rendering the word "democracy" utterly meaningless. As sad as it sounds, this refrain leaves a bitter taste.

Rossoliński-Liebe doesn't embellish the darkest moments of the Soviet regime in Ukraine.  He skilfully demonstrates the complexity of the entanglement between Ukrainian and Soviet histories.

"The only enemies of the OUN and UPA remaining after the Second World War II in western Ukraine were the Soviet authorities, who, ironically enough, implemented some of the main goals of the Ukrainian nationalists. By the incorporation of western Ukraine into the Ukrainian SSR, the Soviet rulers had achieved the sobornist, or unification of Ukrainian territories in one state, and, by resettling the Poles and other nationalities, they had made Ukraine more homogenous than it had ever been before."

In the end, the historical amnesia of the current Ukrainian government and of some of the brainwashed population leads to the outright ingratitude toward their own past. A past that is intrinsically connected with Russia, whether they want it or not.

In the last year alone, these proverbial "Ivans without roots" have vandalized many memorials and statues that remind them of Soviet times. Just recently, overzealous nationalists demolished a monument to the legendary Soviet intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov in the village of Povcha in Rivne region of Ukraine.

Nikolai Kuznetsov, subsequently recognized as "scout number one" during the Great Patriotic War, personally eliminated 11 generals and high-ranking officials of the occupation administration of Nazi Germany. It was precisely Kuznetsov who managed to obtain information about the preparation of the German offensive at Kursk. According to TASS, he died on March 9, 1944, during a shootout with soldiers of UPA - yes, that same notorious Nazi-collaborating organization whose members have been proclaimed as national heroes of Ukraine on April 9 this year.

In Velikiy Lyuben (Lviv region), the followers of UPA demolished a monument to the 5-year-old Roma Taravsky, a Polish boy who was killed by the Bandera gang. Their perverted pangs of conscience may be the reason why these contemporary ultra-nationalists cannot cope with the truth.

Nonetheless, the decision of the Verkhovna Rada to recognize the Ukrainian Insurgent Army fighters as freedom fighters will have numerous repercussions, especially among those who suffered from UPA atrocities the most.

Just a few days ago, former Deputy Defense Minister of Poland, Ret. General Waldemar Skrzypczak, publicly expressed his outrage about this egregious law. He said that he is opposing the policies of the current Ukrainian government, as well as withdrawing his support of Ukraine, expressed earlier when he advocated the supply of offensive weapons for the war in the Donbass.

"UPA murdered my uncle. They nailed him with a pitchfork to a barn door. From what I know, he died three days later. Their savagery was beyond imagination. Even the Nazis did not invent the things the Ukrainians did. They hacked people with axes. And they began to kill the Poles in 1939, not in 1943," he said (as reported by Vzglyad).

"Many people do not know, and those who know are mostly silent, about the fact, that when our soldiers retreated to Hungary and Romania, they were attacked by armed Ukrainian gangs. I would like to know on what foundation is President Poroshenko building the future of Ukraine? Blood-thirsty nationalism? It's terrible! I have long been telling that Ukrainians must get rid of nationalism, because otherwise cooperation with Poland would be very difficult, if possible at all," the retired general said.

The ominous shadows cast by "Eurocentric" Ukrainian maniacs are many and various. Among the most prominent are cruelty, Russophobia, servility before their western masters, and a lack of compassion toward their own citizens. Also, a callous indifference.

Ukrainian politicians don't want to set Donbass free.  However the pompous government that presides in Kiev refuses to provide Donbass with elementary social and medical needs though the people who live there are Ukraine's citizens.

In the middle of November of 2014, Kiev officially stripped itself of responsibility for civilians caught up in the zone of the "Anti-Terrorist Operation" (ATO). In December, the Kiev authorities stopped budget payments for pensions and wages, canceled banking services and stopped passenger transportation by rail to those regions of Donbass that are outside their control. Moreover, they even block whatever humanitarian aid may go that way.

At the end of February, the authorities of Lugansk People's Republic (LPR) confirmed the tightening of the economic blockade by Kiev. "Not a single truck with food is allowed [to enter our territory] ... This is against a range of measures signed in Minsk," said Deputy Chairman of the People's Council of LPR Vladislav Danego.

According to a recent report of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), food is the most essential commodity for the self-proclaimed republics in the Donbass. "It is urgent to provide food assistance to more than 670,000 people, 90 percent of whom are located in the areas not under control of the [Kiev] government," the document says.

The same report also says that on April 2 another convoy of humanitarian aid from Russia, consisting of 42 trucks, arrived in Donbass. On April 16 another, the 24th in a row, was sent to the Donbass.

Facts like these are seldom mentioned in the western mass media. Anti-Russian paranoia results mostly in far-fetched reports of Russian tanks "invading" Ukraine - none of which are confirmed. One may wonder if humanitarian trucks are wilfully confused with tanks.

In the meantime, the authorities of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics declared that they count only on the support of Russia. According to the newspaper Vzglyad, a parliament speaker of the DPR, Andrei Purgin, has also confirmed that the Ukrainian side has actually imposed a blockade of the republic, which greatly complicates the humanitarian situation there. Purgin noted that Donbass is not able to provide its citizens with food and is critically dependent on supplies from outside, because the surrounding steppes are not suitable for agriculture. "Food security on our territory cannot be achieved - here is an industrial region, a land of the cities, industry, and mechanical engineering. We make active attempts to start the food import from the Russian Federation and to find other sources as well. For the most indigent people, we have a network of soup kitchens and a distribution of humanitarian aid. There is progress in a positive way, but the situation is complicated," Purgin said.

Meanwhile, the OSCE noted on April 7 that the Donbass lacks medical supplies as well.

According to a press-secretary for the special mission of the OSCE, Michael Bochurkiv, the mission recently published a report on the state of infrastructure in the observed area. "The report is based on 55 studied institutions, including hospitals, clinics and orphanages. The facts are shocking: we describe the situation as very unstable from a humanitarian point of view". According to him, his colleagues found many people on the verge of death due to the fact that they don't have enough medication. "The situation is similar in some child care centers, where children are on the verge of death because of the lack of medical supplies".

According to a representative of the mission, the situation is compounded by the fact that "people do not have access to money, pensions, banks, they cannot afford to buy their own medicines that are sometimes offered in hospitals."

Despite the dire conditions in Donbass, the authorities of Novorossia are full of optimism.  According to Prime Minister of the DPR, Alexander Zakharchenko, the war unleashed by the Kiev Nazis in Donbass will end with the collapse of their regime and the Bandera ideology. "The Kiev clique which seized power in Ukraine has not yet realized that the outcome of the war that was unleashed by them will be a full liberation of the country from the Bandera ideology, and that the Ukrainian people themselves will liberate the country from the fascist plague - those same people who became hostages of the mad politicians." Zakharchenko stressed that Kiev politicians and their Western "friends" miscalculated when they started a bloodbath in the Donbass. By unleashing war, they have jeopardized the existence of Ukraine as a state, and thus have driven themselves into a trap.

"The instigators of the so-called 'ATO' and their foreign backers have played the wrong card and didn't take into consideration that the Donbass is an impregnable fortress that nobody has been able to win."

Amen to that!

 
 #32
The Blog Mire
www.theblogmire.com
April 24, 2015
Are you a Ukrainophobe?
By Rob Slane

The Ukrainian Security Services Chief Investigator, Vasily Vovk, has just added another phobia to the growing list of fears or hatreds that you or I might apparently suffer from. Speaking on the charmingly named programme, Svoboda Slova (Freedom of Speech), Vovk was asked to comment on the recent spate of "suicides" and murders of opposition politicians and government-critical journalists that have taken place in his country. This was his response:

"I think that in our time, when there is practically a war going on, Ukrainophobes, if they don't shut their mouths, should at least stop their rhetoric. I think that in the present situation, there shouldn't be anyone stepping out directly against Ukraine and Ukrainianness."

So much for Svoboda Slova! Mr Vovk was then asked if he had a specific scientific or legal definition of a "Ukrainophobe," to which he replied,

"No. But everyone knows what we are talking about."

Well yes they probably do, if they've been paying attention to the creeping totalitarianism that is becoming the norm in his country, that is.

So what is Ukrainophobia? Well, the funny thing is that you don't even have to actually hate Ukraine or Ukrainians to qualify as a Ukrainophobe. In fact, bizarre as it might seem, you can even succumb to this condition if you love the country.

Take the recently murdered writer and historian, Oles Buzina, as a case in point. Mr Buzina was one of the "Ukrainophobes" Mr Vovk was talking about when he gave his impassioned defence of Svoboda Slova. But far from having a fear or hatred of Ukraine, Mr Buzina in fact seems rather to have loved it. And yet he still qualified as a Ukrainophobe. How is this possible?

Simply because his understanding of events and vision for the country was diametrically opposed to the understanding of events and vision of the country that is permitted by the post-revolution regime. Here's Mr Buzina in the last interview he gave to Radio Vesti, just days before he was killed:

"Why do I participate in Russian talk shows? Because for me this is the only opportunity to express my views. On Russian talk shows I always say that I support a united Ukraine. For instance, once there was a situation where one of the talk show guests said that the Ukraine as a state does not exist, at which point I took out my Ukrainian passport and said-'look, the Ukraine does exist as a state.'"

You might think that this would mark him out as a Ukrainophile, rather than a Ukrainophobe, but alas no. His vision for a united Ukraine was the wrong one, you see, as seen in statements like this:

"The 'real' Ukraine is in large measure dependent on economic ties with Russia."

"Not all Ukrainians are under the influence of Ukrainian propaganda, which is not Ukrainian, but anti-Ukrainian, and it is developed in the US..."
So you see how he could be a patriotic Ukrainian supporting a united Ukraine, yet still be marked out as a Ukrainophobe because his understanding of what this means is unacceptable to the ones defining Ukrainophobia?

This being the case, how does one know if one is a Ukrainophobe? Since, as Mr Vovk says, there is not yet an objective test for Ukrianophobia, could it be that you might be a Ukrainophobe without even knowing it? It is eminently possible, and so in the absence of a scientific measurement, here is a little test by which you can tell if you might have succumbed to this latest of phobias:

1. Col. Andriy Lysenko, announces the 40th invasion of Ukraine by Russia. This is followed a week later by an announcement from NATO General Philip Breedlove of the 41st invasion. Do you:

a) Trust them - they're just honest guys trying to disseminate the facts about the Kremlin's plans to take over the whole of Ukraine, followed by Europe and then the World

b) Roll your eyes in your head and find yourself muttering, "I can't wait to see the satellite photos of this one."

2. What is your opinion of Arseniy Yatsenyuk's plans to build the 1,300 mile Great Wall of Ukraine on the border with Russia?

a) I think it needs to be higher

b) Speaking of borders, Mr Yatsenyuk clearly crossed one some time ago - the borderline between reality and insanity that is

3. Dmytro Yarosh, leader of the Pravy Sektor, has just been brought in as an adviser to the Ukrainian Army's Chief of Staff. Your reaction is:

a) I'm pleased for him. At last he's got some well earned recognition for his efforts

b) I can hardly believe that a European country is legitimising neo-Nazis like Yarosh and that the "enlightened" West appears not to have noticed

4. The Verkovhna Rada just unanimously passed a law which calls those in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army who massacred tens of thousands of Poles, Jews and Russians in the 1940s "freedom fighters". What is your response:

a) "Glory to the Heroes"

b) Yet another indication of the sickness at the heart of the post-Maidan regime

5. Another mass brawl takes place in the Verkhovna Rada. Your immediate reaction is:

a) Of course democracy in Ukraine is not yet perfect, but it just goes to show that the West needs to be giving more money in order to help them reach their "democratic aspirations"

b) Please!!! These guys don't need the West to lend them money to help them realise their "democratic aspirations." They need the West to lend them the money to buy a cage

6. Ukrainian miners are in Kiev protesting to the government about the non-payment of their wages. They should:

a) Be protesting against Putin instead, since the Kremlin midget has clearly personally tampered with the payment system to make sure their wages won't be paid

b) Pray that the monumentally incompetent and corrupt government in Kiev will soon be kicked out peacefully, and something resembling a real and sensible government installed in its place

7. The 10th "suicide" of an opposition politician in the space of two months takes place. Do you:

a) Shrug your shoulders. Probably another Ukrainophobe who should have shut their mouth

b) Shake your head in disbelief that the creepy and totalitarian authorities in Ukraine are being sold in the West as apostles of "democracy"

8. US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt puts out another Tweet showing another alleged invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The picture he uses is a grainy aerial photo of what look like some little dots and smudges, but closer inspection reveals it to be a satellite photo of US APC's taken during Operation Desert Storm. Do you:

a) Say, "Hey, people do make mistakes," before going off to tell your friends that the Russians are coming

b) Say, "How is it actually possible that this clown ever got let into Ukraine, let alone given the keys to the US Embassy?"

9. You see the front cover of Elle magazine in your local newsagents, with a picture of a model wearing an orange and black dress. Do you:

a) Throw the magazine on the floor, stamping on it and raging about how Putin has now managed to takeover even the fashion world, before storming out of the shop shouting at the owner that he is a Kremlin stooge

b) Think nothing of it and carry on with your shopping

10. You pick up a copy of the New York Times and read an article about Russian plans to invade Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland, followed by New York. Although there is no evidence presented at any point in the article to substantiate the claims, you:

a) Believe every word and start building an underground bunker to protect yourselves from the imminent invasion by the Ruskies

b) Use the article to make a paper boat for your children

Now total them up. If you scored "A" for every question, congratulations, there is not an ounce of Ukrainophobia about you. You are a Ukrainophile through and through, trusting the Ukrainian government and the Western media implicitly to report truthfully on events in that country. However, a word of warning: Don't rest on your laurels; Doubts about the official narrative can creep in at any time and if you are not careful, before you know it you could wake up and find that you have become a fully-fledged Ukrainophobe.

If you scored anything other than "A" for every question, shame on you. You have fallen hook line and sinker for the propaganda being poured out by the Kremlin and you are officially a Ukrainophobe. In the words of Vasily Vovk, you really ought to shut your mouth.
 
 #33
Voxukraine.com
April 28, 2015
A Must-Read. John Herbst Speech at JCE Conference: It's Not Russia Against the West, It's Reaction Against the Future

John Herbst Speech at JCE Conference (April 25th, 2015)

John Herbst  served for thirty-one years as a Foreign Service Officer in the US Department of State, retiring at the rank of Career-Minister. For the most of his career he was involved in CIS and Middle East issues. He was a US Ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006. Currently John Herbst is the Director of Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center of the Atlantic Council, an influential think tank. =

I'm going to be speaking at a relatively high level of abstraction. The title for this event is "Is Ukraine going to Europe?" And I think that's a mistitle. I think the question is "Is Ukraine going towards the future?"

The notion of Ukraine going to Europe as opposed to Ukraine going to Russia is one more example of a rather na�ve West accepting the Kremlin terms of the current crisis. Because the values driving Ukraine right now, the values that drove the Euromaidan, are values that are necessary for societies to succeed in the next 20, 30, 100 years. This is not an issue of Russian versus European values. This is an issue of values that will nurture a society that will develop a modern economy and provide a good life for its citizens.

We live in one of those critical turning points in history in terms of socio-economic development. We are (or maybe not so much, but will be in 20-50-100 years from now) in an advanced stage of the information age. We had the Neolithic revolution, the agricultural revolution, after that we had the industrial revolution, and now we have the information age revolution. In the late 19th century and in the early 20th century, the concentration of industries gave an advantage to either totalitarians or authoritarians who wanted to mobilize their society. And you saw these dreadful states emerge - Nazi Germany, various communist states.

The events of the past more than 30 years, the evolution of the computer, the invention of the Internet, now social media - have all produced a very different phenomenon: the individual citizens as opposed to the centers of power are being empowered. And this age more than any other brings home effect that has always been true - the key to progress is unlocking human mind, and unlocking human mind requires letting people alone so that they can develop their talents. And the way you succeed today and for the foreseeable future is by doing precisely that - and at the same time, because they are related - integrating globally.

It is absolutely amazing - the way the Arab spring morphed from this fishmonger in Tunisia setting himself for flame because of corruption - how that moved across the Arab world very quickly. That happened because of the social media.

We may not like the results of it today, but the phenomenon was the result of the way the global society works - the fact that in very poor Africa most people have cellphones, that they now know what's going on in New York City or in Shanghai. And we've faced - or rather we have enjoyed -  unprecedented prosperity since the end of the cold war for two big reasons. One I've just talked about - the information age, the way the economy has developed, much enhanced global integration. The other was the peace that was established in Europe and Eurasia. The greatest success story economically of the last 20-30 years, and the one that is having the global impact, is the rise of China. And China did not get where it is today by establishing an autarkic economic system. Exactly the opposite.

How does that relate to the topic of today - to the Ukraine-Russia crisis - or more precisely, the crisis of a reactionary Kremlin? It works like this. Civil society in Ukraine which has been a factor since the first days of independence, or the pre-days of independence, has driven this country towards Europe (in a current phrase). But it is really driving this country towards openness, towards empowerment of its citizens. That is precisely the opposite direction that Mr. Putin has been leading Russia for the last ten years. Since he's not an idiot, he poses this as a question of Russian values versus Western values. But it is really reaction versus the future.

Who was Steve Jobs 30 years ago? No one. He was a kid working in his garage, right? Obviously, a man with mathematical talent. He became Steve Jobs because he lived in a society which let him develop his idea and did not have some police captain take it away from him once he turned it into profit.

The Russian people have produced in the past 50 years a very high percentage (comparatively) of the world's great mathematicians and scientists. How many Soviet Nobel laureates were there? Why is there no world-class software firm in Russia? Because there are too many police captains and FSB (or KGB) colonels who will take it away from them once it turns into profit. All of that talent has produced world-class hackers - no world-class firms.

And where does this Ukraine-Russia crisis begin? Over the question of whether Ukraine was going to integrate in some fashion with the EU. And what was the Kremlin's objection? "Well, we really want to have Ukraine in the Eurasian Economic Union". Which is a dead end for Russia, as it is for every country that would be part of it. China is China because it was able to compete across the global economy. There are no world-class innovators in the Eurasian Economic Union. Russia only has the GDP per capita that it has because of hydrocarbons. Without hydrocarbons  its GDP per capita would be less than Ukraine's. Because talent there is not allowed to develop.

What does this all mean (again, I'm speaking here at a pretty high level of abstraction)? I can't tell you how this current crisis is going to turn out. I have some ideas but I'm not going to give them to you today. I can tell you this. If Mr. Putin succeeds in Ukraine and he builds his Eurasian Union - he is consigning Russia to oblivion for the next 20 to 40 years. Because that's the Russia that will not develop and that will ultimately come crashing down. And when it comes crashing down - not because the CIA is devising some plot but because it's not sustainable, just as the Soviet Union came crashing down - Russians will be freed and Ukrainians will be freed. So ultimately you, Ukrainians, will find yourselves on the path to the future. I suspect you can get there sooner than that, I suspect that the current Kremlin project in Ukraine will fail. But the point is - this is not a civilizational crisis - this is a crisis between reaction that is bound to fail - and the future, where there will be progress.

Last point. Klyuchevskiy said famously: "when Russia marches, the Russian people suffer". And that's precisely what is happening  today: repression at home, aggression abroad. Mr. Putin's objectives are (as he said countless times): to change post-cold-war order, to have a Russian sphere of influence - but the Europeans  would be against if we try to establish ours in the Latin America (once we had it). You poor Obama for reconciling with Cuba, while at the same time some Europeans say that Putin deserves his own sphere of interests. What type of logic is that?

And Mr. Putin's objectives go beyond Ukraine. He will ultimately fail because he is piloting an economy which will not be able to sustain his concept of empire. But we could make his life much harder and our own lives much  better, starting with Ukrainians, if we hold him now.

Thank you!
 
 #34
Hacktivists post info pointing to security service's hand in Ukraine journalist murder

MOSCOW, April 30. /TASS/. Ukrainian hacktivists from Cyber Berkut, a group taking name from Ukraine's special police force, put on the Web on Thursday materials, which they say prove involvement of the Ukrainian Security Service in the recent murder of opposition journalist Oles Buzina.

"We, Cyber Berkut, make available to the public materials confirming that physical liquidation of public and political activists in opposition to the Kiev junta, was sanctioned by the Ukrainian Security Service, supervised by Kharkiv political elites, while the very group of 'assassins of free Ukraine' territorially belongs to Kharkiv nationalist groups," runs a report on Cyber Berkut's website.

Hacktivists say about a week ago they hacked a mail box of the acting deputy head of the Kharkiv region's state administration, Vyacheslav Abbakumv, getting access to his service documents as well as his correspondence with an unidentified leader of a neo-Nazi group from the Kharkiv region.

"This correspondence confirms, though indirectly, the fact that the liquidation of opposition forces in Ukraine was supervised by representatives of the government authorities," Cyber Berkut said.

They posted extracts from correspondence and documents obtained from the mail box.

Opposition journalist Oles Buzina was killed near his home in Kiev on April 16. Once chief editor of the Segodnya newspaper, Buzina quit his post in March due to censorship. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry sees his professional activity as the main motive behind the murder.
 
 #35
www.todayszaman.com
April 29, 2015
Ukraine's Other Chernobyls
By Iryna Holovko
Iryna Holovko is a Ukraine campaigner at CEE Bankwatch Network and the National Ecological Centre of Ukraine.

In 1983, the Soviet Union inaugurated two nuclear reactors in what is now Ukraine. One of them, unit four at Chernobyl, experienced an explosion and fire three years later that released large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere - a catastrophic accident whose effects are still being felt far beyond Ukraine's borders. The other reactor, unit one at the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Station, remains in operation, though all indications suggest that it should be retired.

The prolonged operation of unit one and the country's aging nuclear power plants probably would not have been possible without financial support from European taxpayers, delivered through the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) as part of a €600 million ($650 million) "safety upgrade" program. In defiance of both the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (the Espoo convention) and the EBRD loan agreement, the program was undertaken in the absence of any consultation with Ukraine's European neighbors.

Thanks to these efforts, the South Ukraine plant was granted a ten-year lifetime extension permit in 2013 by the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate (SNRIU). But, according to a comprehensive study released last month by the National Ecological Centre of Ukraine (NECU), the assessment on which this decision was based was deeply flawed. In fact, the unit one reactor suffers dangerous vulnerabilities, with observed wear in some areas already exceeding tolerable levels by a factor of ten. Such vulnerabilities, the study warns, could result in a nuclear emergency, including a release of radioactive particles inside the unit - or even into the environment.

This is hardly an isolated case. Three of Ukraine's nuclear power units are currently operating beyond their design lifetime, with nine others set to reach the end of their intended lifetime within the next five years. Most immediately, unit two in South Ukraine will reach that point in less than three weeks, meaning that the SNRIU must now decide whether to grant that unit a 20-year lifetime extension.

The SNRIU will make this critical decision without key information about the health and environmental risks that the reactor poses to Ukraine and its neighbors. Though this contravenes Ukraine's responsibility, as a signatory to the Espoo convention, to carry out a cross-border environmental-impact assessment (not to mention missing the opportunity to consider potential alternatives to continuing the reactor's operation), no such analysis is expected to take place.

Last month, campaign groups in neighboring countries wrote to their representatives at the EBRD, requesting that the bank suspend its support for revitalizing Ukraine's nuclear power plants until a cross-border assessment is carried out. A similar letter, signed by CEE Bankwatch Network and 45 other environmental NGOs from across the region, had already been sent to the European Commission's Directorate-General for the Environment and the European Union's director at the EBRD.

But, even with such an analysis, Ukraine's nuclear regulator would be in no position to guarantee the safe operation of aging nuclear units. Not only is its professional capacity dubious, as the NECU study highlighted; its independence has been dramatically curtailed by the government's recent decision to reduce significantly regulatory obligations for businesses and state-owned companies (except with regard to taxation). As the EBRD acknowledged in February, the SNRIU is now prohibited from taking the lead in conducting safety inspections, which is in breach of the EBRD loan agreement conditionality.

This is to say nothing of the immediate threat posed by the ongoing military conflict with Russia-backed rebels in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. Beyond the obvious risks associated with instability, there is the fact that Ukraine depends on Russia not only for most of the fuel to run its aging reactors, but also for the treatment and storage of most of its spent fuel. In other words, Ukraine's dependence on nuclear energy, which accounts for about half of its electricity generation, has increased its strategic vulnerability to Russia.

That alone should be enough to convince Ukraine's government not to perpetuate their country's reliance on this insecure and dangerous energy source. If it is not, the 29th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, commemorated this month, should serve as a stark reminder of how much damage a nuclear accident can cause.

Ukraine should take its reactors' expiration dates as an opportunity to pursue a safer, more sustainable energy future. Given that this would also be in Europe's interest, EU governments and citizens must do whatever it takes to support this effort. It is a long-term commitment, but one for which there may not be a lifetime extension.
 
 #36
Interfax
April 30, 2015
U.S. to deploy bases in Ukraine after peacekeeping mission - Russian Deputy Defense Minister

Over 400 U.S. military sites have been deployed in countries surrounding Russia, and the Pentagon will open its bases in Ukraine if American peacekeepers are sent there, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov has said.

"I agree. No matter where the Americans go, bases are built there," Antonov said in an interview published by the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda on Thursday.

He recalled the opening of bases in Qatar after Operation Desert Storm.

"Six bases opened when Iraq was occupied. After the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had visited Afghanistan, a dozen bases were deployed there. They are claimed to be temporary facilities but, in fact, this is not so," Antonov said.

Officially, the United States has opened 860 bases abroad, and over 400 bases and military sites are operating around Russia, the deputy minister stated.

Speaking of Kiev's request for a peacekeeping operation in Donbass, he said, "What can happen then? There are the Minsk agreements and they need to be honored. They are telling us now that we should scrap what we have and start doing something new. This is not the way things are done in diplomacy. We have a fundamental document and it must be fulfilled."

"Clearly, it is impossible to fulfill every provision of this document immediately because it stipulates a certain sequence of events. Nothing can be ruled out in the future but everything planned in Minsk must be implemented in the first turn," the deputy minister said.
 
 #37
US now sees Russia directing Ukraine's rebels
By BRADLEY KLAPPER and KEN DILANIAN
April 29, 2015

WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States now sees the Ukrainian rebels as a Russian force.

American officials briefed on intelligence from the region say Russia has significantly deepened its command and control of the militants in eastern Ukraine in recent months, leading the U.S. to quietly introduce a new term: "combined Russian-separatist forces." The State Department used the expression three times in a single statement last week, lambasting Moscow and the insurgents for a series of cease-fire violations in Ukraine.

The shift in U.S. perceptions could have wide-ranging ramifications, even if the Obama administration has cited close linkages between the pro-Russian separatists and President Vladimir Putin's government in Moscow since violence flared up in Ukraine a year ago.

By describing them as an integrated force in the east of the country, the U.S. is putting greater responsibility on Russia for the continued fighting. That will make it harder for Russia to persuade the U.S. and Europe to scale back sanctions that are hurting its economy, and for Washington and Moscow to partner on unrelated matters from nuclear nonproliferation to counterterrorism.

U.S. intelligence agencies signed off on the new language last week, after what officials outlined as increasing evidence of the Russians and separatists working together, training together and operating under a joint command structure that ultimately answers to Russia. The officials weren't authorized to be quoted by name and demanded anonymity.

Some of that evidence was presented in a statement released by State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf on April 22 after Secretary of State John Kerry raised his concerns by telephone with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Harf spoke of Russia's deployment of air defense systems closer to the front lines, increased troop levels near Kharkov, Ukraine's second largest city, and intensified training sessions involving the use of Russian drones. She called the unmanned aerial vehicles "an unmistakable sign of Russia's presence."

The uprising began after protesters chased Ukraine's pro-Russia president out of power and Moscow responded by annexing the Ukrainian region of Crimea. The insurgency started with miners, farmers and others without military training rebelling against the new government, and quickly expanded. More than 6,000 people have died and a million have been displaced by the conflict.

Russia's air defense concentration in eastern Ukraine is now at its highest level since August, the U.S. says. Russia has more ground forces at the border than at any point since October. These developments and others have American officials fearful Moscow and the separatists may be planning an offensive in the coming weeks.

"War could start at any moment," Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said this week.

Recent fighting has concentrated near the Black Sea port of Mariupol. Ukraine's government still controls the territory, but a separatist takeover would establish a land bridge between mainland Russia and Crimea.

Associated Press reporting in eastern Ukraine this spring showed Russia expanding its training of separatist fighters to improve their capabilities to operate sophisticated Russian weaponry and defend territory. At the same time, Russia has reduced the number of its troops deployed in Ukraine.

The shift appears designed to minimize Russia's visible military presence while it seeks to persuade the West to lift economic sanctions.

Yet Russian troops have been a "permanent feature of the conflict," said Igor Sutyagin, a London-based Russia scholar.

Russian forces in Ukraine, he said, peaked at about 9,000 in late February. He calculated the estimation on sightings of weaponry and postings by soldiers on social media. Several hundred Russian military trainers are likely in eastern Ukraine right now, he said.

Associated Press writer Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed to this report.
 
 #38
www.rt.com
April 29, 2015
Russia blasts fresh US allegations on anti-aircraft systems in Ukraine as 'viral stupidity'

Russia's Defense Ministry has dismissed a new statement on alleged deployment of Russian anti-aircraft weapons in eastern Ukraine and called such suggestions 'foolishness' that has gone viral.

"Another statement by the State Department representative Jeff Rathke has been passed to him mouth-to-mouth from Marie Harf and this is vivid proof of the fact that not only thought is material but so is stupidity and that stupidity multiplies through viral mechanisms," reads the statement posted on the Defense Ministry's official Facebook page.

Минобороны России комментирует очередное заявление представителя Госдепартамента США Джеффа Ратке о якобы �размещении р...Posted by Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on Tuesday, 28 April 2015

"We are left to guess about the real reasons that caused Russian anti-aircraft weapons to become an obsessive phobia of US foreign policy officials, as now they see them everywhere."

The ministry's press service also reiterated the Russian position that no Russian anti-aircraft complexes are now in southeastern Ukraine, and no such weapons have ever been deployed to this region.

It went on to note the State Department would do better to be concerned about US military instructors who have flooded the Ukrainian territories controlled by pro-Kiev troops. "This fact is confirmed not by some mythical data from obscure sources, but by direct video evidence broadcast by some Russian and foreign TV channels."

The comment was a reply to a statement made on Monday by US Department of State spokesman, Jeff Rathke, who yet again alleged "Russian military has deployed additional air defense systems into eastern Ukraine and moved several of these nearer the front lines."

Russia has repeatedly denied its military's involvement in the Ukrainian conflict and emphasized the fact that none the accusations have so far been backed by any reliable evidence. President Vladimir Putin reiterated this during his annual Q&A show on television. "Let me be clear," Putin said: "I will say this clearly: There are no Russian troops in Ukraine."

In January, even the Chief of Staff of the Ukrainian military forces, General Viktor Muzhenko told foreign military attaches that Russian troops were not involved in the fighting in southeastern Ukraine.
 
 #39
www.nakedcapitalism.com
April 29, 2015
John Helmer: Ukraine Readies Itself for War When No One Wants to Pay for It
[Graphics here http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/04/john-helmer-ukraine-readies-war-no-one-wants-pay.html]

John Helmer, the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with Bears

What if the Ukrainian government resumes the war no one wants to pay for - not the US, the European Union, Poland, Canada, least of all Kiev?

Public statements by Ukrainian and international officials identify two payment deadlines for war, and for peace. The first falls on May 31, Natalie Jaresko, the US minister of Ukrainian Finance, has told the London Times, when $15.3 billion in sovereign bond debt must be written off "through lower interest rates, longer payment terms, and in some cases, a cut in the sum owed." The second deadline falls a month later, at the end of June, when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) must decide whether the government in Kiev has met the conditions required for payment of $1.5 billion, the second instalment of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) which commenced just six weeks ago. A default on May 31 will make inevitable a delay in IMF loan disbursement in June. The combination will halt the European Union promise to start a new €1.8 billion in Macro Financial Assistance (MFA).

Russian sources believe that unless Kiev starts a new military offensive in the Donbass within days, when cross-border Russian action can be blamed, creditor governments pressured into paying and bondholders into conceding losses, there won't be enough cash later on to pay for troops, machines and ammunition.

"We have done everything possible to get to peace", Jaresko told the Times on March 29. "Russia seems to have a much grander plan here. They are trying to ensure we are a failed state."

A month later, her threat has proved unconvincing to bond-holders, a majority of them American. At Monday's (April 27) summit meeting between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (lead image, left), Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, and Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, the EU was also unmoved. In a lengthy communique, the EU insisted on "decentralisation" of government in the east; "inclusive constitutional reform"; and "de-escalation and a political solution based on respect for Ukraine's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, in particular in the framework of the Normandy format [and] the Minsk Agreements." These are all provisos against the resumption of large-scale fighting in the Donbass.

In response to Ukrainian requests for up-front and accelerated funding from Brussels, Tusk and Juncker said no; that's to say, not yet. In a paper distributed before the summit began, the EU announced "€1.8 billion in medium-term loans between now and early 2016. Disbursement will be conditional on implementation of specific economic policy and financial conditions outlined on the Memoranda of Understanding."

By the time the communique was released yesterday, the desperation of the Ukrainians and the reluctance of the Europeans were revealed in the word "swiftly", inserted twice into the final communique, to make the unlikelihood of new money seem more adverbial, less subjunctive. Here they are in Point 8.

"The leaders agreed to swiftly conclude the Memorandum of Understanding and Loan Agreement of the third macro-financial assistance programme to allow for a swift disbursement of the first tranche possibly by mid-2015."

When the European Council met on March 19, it said the speed at which the new MFA money would be paid to Kiev was dependent on, and "in line with IMF conditionality." The IMF, however, is in no hurry. That's why the European Council, Tusk and Juncker are willing to withdraw their "early 2016" target for disbursement, but add "possibly" to mention of a mid-2015 target.

David Lipton, an apparatchik from the Clinton Administration, then the Obama White House, is the deputy managing director of the IMF under the French appointee, Christine Lagarde. He is what the Wall Street Journal calls the "critical conduit between the IMF and the U.S. government". For his policy advice he is also the holder of the Polish Order of the Knight's Cross.

piieOn April 7, speaking to the Victor Pinchuk branch of the Washington think-tank PIIE, Lipton said: "With the financing that is already pledged, reserve cover for imports is likely to reach three months by June compared with less than one month's cover before the IMF agreement [of March 11]. This will result from front loaded Fund disbursements, and bilateral loans and swaps now being arranged." What Lipton also meant was that if the bilateral loans and swaps fail to be arranged in time, the deadline for a bond repayment cut will strike at the same time as the Ukraine will run out of operating and trading cash: "The talks that the government is conducting with its creditors to restructure external debt are aimed at that objective. Public and publicly guaranteed debt is projected to peak at 94 percent of GDP in 2015. The aim of the restructuring would be to secure $15 billion in additional financing over 2015-18."

Lipton hinted at how difficult it is for the IMF to agree that the Ukrainian government can meet the IMF conditions to qualify for the second EFF payout. "There are key structural impediments in the banking system. These include an ownership structure that too often funnels excessive lending to insiders-often with sweetheart deals. The government is starting to address this issue with a strengthened regulatory and supervisory framework intended to bring the banking system into line with international best practices." The irony of Lipton saying this on the tab of Pinchuk, whose Credit Dnepr bank is one of the beneficiaries of "insider deals", may have been missed by the PIIE audience. It hasn't been lost on the IMF Executive Board.

Since Lipton's remarks on April 7, the IMF convened its Spring round of meetings with board directors and finance ministers representing the Fund stakeholders. Fresh money for Ukraine was a subject passed over in near-total silence. Poul Thomsen, the director of the Fund's European Department, conceded on April 17 that "we project recession [in the CIS area] this year, reflecting fallout from the conflict in Ukraine, ongoing macroeconomic adjustment, and, of course, in Russia's case, lower oil prices and weakened confidence." No more.

At the conclusion of the finance ministers' session of the Fund's Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), there was no mention at all of Ukraine.

In Lagarde's (lead image, right; right) summing up for the press, there was calculated avoidance. "I would not want you to go away with the idea that everything is a risk and there are no bright spots, because there are bright spots in the global economy as we see it." Lagarde went further: "Russia is clearly an important partner of the IMF and one with which we are working steadily and which we very much count upon to ensure certainty, stability in the region." She ignored Ukraine.

The IMF has made its reticence official in this loan schedule, published last month with the other EFF loan papers:

The footnote reveals that the IMF already acknowledges that the Ukrainian government may fail to meet the "performance criteria" which are the Board's conditions for making further payments. Last year's abortive IMF loan stopped in mid-year for the same reason, compounded by the opening of the Ukrainian Army's offensive against Lugansk and Donetsk. For more on whether the IMF Board will countenance fresh loan disbursements during civil war, read this.

In reserve, in case the board can be persuaded to ignore the war and the failure of Ukrainian EFF compliance, Lagarde and Lipton have agreed, according to the footnote, that the second tranche may become payable "on the completion of a review" by IMF staff - even if that concludes there is non-compliance and non-performance.

The European Department's analysts, Pritha Mitra (below, left) and Tigran Poghosyan (centre), have published an econometric analysis explaining why the performance conditions have what they call "a multiplier effect of less than one". That's IMF talk for bound-to-fail. Here's the research paper, dated March 2015. Authorizing publication was Nikolay Gueorguiev (right), head of the Fund's Ukraine review team. Gueorguiev supervised last year's Ukraine loan failure without ever acknowledging there was non-compliance with the performance criteria. For Gueorguiev's record, read this.

The analysts conclude with the warning that the public position of their own house is untenable. "Given the severe challenges facing the Ukrainian economy, it is important that policymakers apply these results in conjunction with broader considerations such as public debt sustainability, investor confidence, credibility of government policies, and public spending efficiency." Gueorguiev has attached the disclaimer: "This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy."

Poroshenko tried last week to improve the cosmetics on the IMF's public face. On April 23, the president's website announced the president and managing director had spoken by telephone. Poroshenko asked for acceleration of the second tranche, translated as: "Petro Poroshenko has informed on the progress of reforms in Ukraine and emphasized that they were aimed at ensuring transparency and economic stabilization of Ukraine." No, Lagarde replied. "The Managing Director has reaffirmed full support to the restructuring of Ukraine's debt liabilities."

On Monday Poroshenko also tried to get EU underwriting of commercial bank loans, state guarantees and insurance for project investments with Ukrainian companies. On this threshold too, Tusk and Juncker stubbed their toes. "In this context," reads Point 7 of the communique, "the leaders welcomed the organisation by Ukraine of the International Conference on Support for Ukraine the day after the Summit, which would allow Ukraine to communicate its reform efforts to the wider world and reflect with the international community on the next steps in the reform process and the necessary support measures."

Today's Kiev conference programme can be read in full here. The speaker list includes senior officials of junior states; junior officials of senior states; and a great many US officials of the middle echelon.

Not a single Ukrainian businessman of oligarch size appears, and only one foreign business figure of sizeable capital. He's Jan Kulczyk (below, left), Poland's leading oligarch. He is billed for a talk on "the Opportunities for International Investors in Ukraine". Through a Luxembourg entity called Kulczyk Investments, Kulczyk's principal advisors on the Ukraine are the ex-Polish president, Alexander Kwasniewski, who is also on the payrolls of Pinchuk and Igor Kolomoisky; and retired US Marine General and former NATO Commander, James Jones (right).

Through an elaborate offshore structure, Kulczyk controls two Toronto-listed oil and gas companies, Loon Energy Corporation and Serinus Energy Inc, and a Warsaw-listed entity called Kulczyk Oil Ventures (KOV). The first two have been slipping towards worthlessness since they were first listed on the Canadian exchange. In Warsaw KOV was floated in 2010 to raise money to buy five oil and gas fields west of Lugansk city and in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian assets were included in the takeover Kulczyk arranged in 2013 with Winstar, a cash-short developer of oil and gas properties in Tunisia, Syria, and Brunei. The new combination was renamed Serinus Energy. The company website shows the location of the Ukrainian fields as follows:

Company officials won't say where the current line of contact runs between the Ukrainian army and the Novorussian forces.

Kulczyk's minority-stake partners in Ukraine include Mikhail Afendikov, a Donetsk native and owner of CUB Energy, another Toronto-listed junior of negligible value; and the Pala Investments group of Vladimir Iorikh, the onetime co-owner of Mechel. Iorikh lives in Switzerland; his son Yevgeny occupies a seat on the Serinus board.

The company financial reports show sales revenues of US$146.7 million in 2013; $164.3 million in 2014. The bottom line was a loss of $59 million in 2013; $58.1 million last year. Current market capitalization of the company is C$80 million (US$66 million), about half of what Kulczyk paid for Winstar two years ago. The value is falling because the market expects the financial position of the company to grow worse this year. The first-quarter results confirm it.

Serinus has been reporting serious problems in the Ukraine, less with the fighting in Lugansk and Donetsk regions, more with the royalty, foreign exchange, and gas sale policies which the Kiev government has introduced, in line with the IMF recommendations. According to the company, "the steadily deteriorating security situation on the ground in Ukraine eventually led to the suspension of drilling and workover operations in the third quarter as the lines of the conflict moved close to the Olgovskoye and Makeevskoye Fields. Drilling resumed in October, but overall, the Company was unable to accomplish all of its planned capital program for the year. Even now, many of the service companies that formerly operated in Ukraine have not returned, limiting some of the operations that might be done such as stimulations."

But worse, Kiev has doubled the royalty tax on Serinus's revenues, and curtailed its foreign exchange movements, as well as its ability to pipe and sell its gas within the Ukraine market. In a report to shareholders last week, the chief executive Timothy Elliott said: "Effective August 1, 2014, the royalty rates on natural gas and oil/liquids were increased to 55% and 45% (from 28% and 43%) respectively. The royalty is however calculated on the maximum official gas price set by the Government, and the private producers sell at a discount to that price. The result is that the effective royalty has been over 60%."

"In November 2014, the government passed three bills which effectively reserved a large portion of the natural gas market in Ukraine for the state oil company. This left private producers such as KUB-Gas, scrambling to find alternative creditworthy customers, and many were forced to shut in production and take lower prices for what they could sell. On March 31, 2015, the High Administrative Court of Ukraine upheld the rulings of two lower courts that these restrictions were illegal, and while sales volumes increased in April, a full market recovery has yet to occur."

What is Kulczyk doing in Kiev promoting investment opportunity in these circumstances? According to a Warsaw analyst, Kulczyk "wants to make a show in Kiev, get the certificate of 'good oligarch', and then lobby for reform of the royalty, tax and other laws to save his investments in the east. You might call that pragmatic cynicism at its best."

Serinus's vice president for investor relations, Jacub Korczak in Warsaw, was asked what proposals Kulczyk and his company are making in Kiev to address the financial problems identified in last week's report to shareholders. He was also asked what relationship the company has with the Lugansk and Donetsk administrations since the start of the fighting; and what impact, if any, Serinus has experienced from the Dniepropetrovsk regional administration during the governorship of Igor Kolomoisky. The Canadian executives at the company office in Alberta were asked the same questions. They refuse to reply.