#2
Moscow Times
May 8, 2015
More Than 80% of Russians Favor State Censorship of Literature, Film, Art
By Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber

Fourteen percent of Russians do not support state intervention when it comes to the content and dissemination of artistic creations, the survey also showed.
A vast majority of Russians think the state should censor artistic creations believed to be vulgar, immoral or harmful to society, according to a survey published conducted by a state-run pollster revealed.

The Moscow-based Public Opinion Foundation found that 82 percent of Russians agree with the state's control of films, books, theater productions and art exhibits. Respondents in favor of state censorship frequently said it was needed to prevent the injurious effects of works of art containing violent, vulgar or immoral episodes on society.

Fourteen percent of Russians do not support state intervention when it comes to the content and dissemination of artistic creations, the survey also showed.

Yet the poll - conducted last month among 1,000 adults from 480 municipalities with a margin of error not exceeding 3.8 percent - found that 56 percent of the Russian population think bans on theater productions, films and other artistic creations are unacceptable.

State intervention in the cultural field has run rampant in recent months. Earlier this year, Russian Orthodox activists complained about a production of Richard Wagner's "Tannhauser" opera, staged at the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater, saying that it offended their feelings as religious believers. Prosecutors launched an investigation into theater director Boris Mezdrich and stage director Timofei Kulyabin. Mezdrich was dismissed over the scandal.

A major Russian film distribution company cancelled last month its showings in Russia of the British film "Child 44," whose protagonist is a disgraced Soviet secret agent who grows disenchanted with the regime during his investigation of a series of child murders. The Culture Ministry had castigated the film for its negative portrayal of Russia and its historical inaccuracies.

A number of regions also banned showings of the Oscar-nominated Leviathan, a film about a provincial man's fight against a corrupt mayor and Church officials, claiming that it disparaged life in Russia. The film struggled to obtain a screening permit in the country, despite having received glowing international praise. The Culture Ministry finally gave the film an +18 rating, and ordered that its expletives be bleeped out.

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#3
Moscow Times
May 8, 2015
Russian Government Boasts Timely Completion of More than 80 Percent of Putin's May 2012 Orders
By Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber

More than eighty percent of the orders President Vladimir Putin signed the day of his inauguration three years ago have been implemented on time, according to a statement published Thursday on the Russian government's official website.

The government claimed that it had fulfilled 81.5 percent of the 168 presidential orders it had been mandated to complete by Thursday, the third anniversary of Putin's most recent inauguration. That day, Putin signed the so-called "May Orders," a series of campaign promises he had made ahead of his 2012 election.

Putin's 2012 decrees contain 218 orders, mostly linked to the country's long-term economic and social policies, with deadlines by which they should be implemented.  

Among the objectives included in the May Orders were the creation of 25 million jobs in the high-tech sector by 2020, a 200-percent increase in doctors' average salaries by 2018 and the addition of 250,000 contract servicemen to the Russian army by 2017.

The government is currently working to implement 81 of Putin's orders, according to the statement. Government officials are expected to report to the president on 19 of these decrees by the end of the year.

The government bodies most active in implementing the orders are the economic development, education and labor ministries, the statement said.

Russia's recent economic woes have put Putin's May Orders at the forefront of domestic politics.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in March that changing circumstances could lead to the orders being adjusted, but that their implementation would remain a priority, TASS news agency reported at the time.

A 2013 video leaked by sensationalist channel LifeNews showed Putin threatening to fire regional governors and other government officials for their lackluster implementation of his May Orders.

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#4
Kremlin.ru
May 7, 2015
Commission for Monitoring Targeted Socioeconomic Development Indicators

Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting of the Commission for Monitoring Targeted Socioeconomic Development Indicators of the Russian Federation.

Labour and Social Protection Minister Maxim Topilin, Healthcare Minister Veronika Skvortsova and Education and Science Minister Dmitry Livanov presented their reports.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues.

As you know, the so-called May Executive Orders were signed exactly three years ago, setting targets for the following years.

We have already come halfway. It is important now to review our progress once again, analyse what has been done and what has not, find out the reasons and think of ways to make our work more efficient to ensure that we meet the targets.

I would like to stress that the most important thing is not to assess the quality of our work in terms of the number of resolutions, documents, plans and even laws passed but to look at the changes in people's lives, improvements in the business environment, changes in the social sphere and so forth.

I will begin with one key area - demographics. Last year we again registered a natural growth in our population. The birth rate has gone up. There are more Russian families with two or three children. The so-called aggregate birth rate has nearly reached the level planned for 2018.

The creation of up-to-date perinatal centres has made it possible to reduce child mortality to a historic minimum for this country. This is a truly great achievement, considering that since 2012 our doctors have been nursing to health infants with an extremely low body weight.

I would like to stress that the most important thing is not to assess the quality of our work in terms of the number of resolutions, documents, plans and even laws passed but to look at the changes in people's lives, improvements in the business environment, changes in the social sphere and so forth.
The death rate has been falling consistently over the past almost 10 years. For the first time Russia has been given a positive rating in the global healthcare ranking. The average lifespan has reached almost 71 years (70.93).

What would I like to highlight here? First, that as we all know, due to the demographic drop in the 1990s the number of women of the reproductive age is decreasing. There is nothing we can do about this. I will get back to this later, but I would like to ask appropriate agencies (the Healthcare Ministry and the relevant statistical services) to bear this in mind and provide net figures that would not simply show the number of children born, but would tie that figure in with the population structure and age groups. This is the only way to assess the quality of our work. There is nothing we can do about the demographic drop of the 1990s, but we must improve the quality of our efforts. There are problems here that I will mention further.

What else? The death rate has stabilised in the past months, and has even grown slightly, unfortunately. What are the reasons? A greater lifespan has changed the population structure, as I already said. The share of elderly people has grown. According to experts, this had a direct effect on mortality dynamics. It is natural that older people pass more frequently than young ones, than able-bodied people do; the difference is significant. I would like to ask the Healthcare Ministry to keep track of this.

The creation of up-to-date perinatal centres has made it possible to reduce child mortality to a historic minimum for this country. This is a truly great achievement.

I want to stress that in order to meet the challenges posed by the changing demographics we must make additional efforts to reduce the death rate and carry on with the birth rate support programmes. The preservation of our nation has been and remains a key task that all levels of authority should focus on.

The social sphere should play a special role in maintaining the positive demographic tendencies. A lot has been done here to improve workforce capacity and the quality of services in healthcare, education and social services. The overall status and living standards of experts in these important areas have grown. The jobs of a doctor and a teacher are becoming prestigious and attractive.

I would like to single out the significant role of the regions in the practical implementation of our resolutions. A vast majority of the regions have ensured salaries for doctors, teachers and professors that match the average in the economy, while the number of inefficient organisations that fail to provide adequate services to the public has gone down. A great deal has been done; some of it was painful, but it was all necessary.

At the same time I would like to stress that we should not merely state that we are doing important things, but do them wisely. This is something I would like to draw the attention of ministries, agencies and regions to. It is inadmissible to reduce access to socially significant services, when under the guise of optimisation we reduce the number of beds in hospitals, the number of rural health posts, ambulance stations, cultural centres and facilities providing extracurricular education for children.

We need to establish strict control over the optimisation of public organisations, especially in remote and rural areas. This is a serious topic, colleagues, that I am drawing your attention to. I would like to ask the Accounts Chamber to prepare a special report on the accessibility of social services for the public. We will consider it at our meeting with the Government.

I want to stress that in order to meet the challenges posed by the changing demographics we must make additional efforts to reduce the death rate and carry on with the birth rate support programmes. The preservation of our nation has been and remains a key task that all levels of authority should focus on.
The next area is development of preschool education. I have to say that we have made significant progress here. Additional preschools have been made available for over 1 million children. Next year practically all the regions will be able to provide preschool education for children aged 3 to 7. However, it is not enough to simply build a facility. We must provide comfortable conditions for the children and ensure a proper level of education to get them ready for school. Therefore, special attention must be given to the professional training of teachers and all the experts involved in preschool education.

At the same time, every family should have the opportunity to enrol their child at such a facility online - this is another thing we often speak about. The mechanism of online enrolment should be transparent, ensuring the child is accepted. I would like to ask the Education and Science Minister to inform us today of work to develop preschool education and of online enrolment.

I would like to note the overall positive changes in education. The National Final School Exam is becoming more objective. The public discussion around this issue continues, we should not dot the i's yet, but there is some progress here. We are developing a system of support for talented children, the international prestige of our leading universities is growing, and our system of higher learning is consistently getting rid of the so-called pseudo-universities.

We have made advances in other areas as well. There are currently 1,823 multifunctional centres where 64 percent of the population can receive popular services on a one-stop basis. I expect work to create such multifunctional centres to be completed by the end of this year.

We are gradually enhancing employment for the disabled by creating special jobs for them, though we all know that there is still plenty to do here. These issues are being resolved very slowly and in a complicated way, though some measures to support children and adults with disabilities are being implemented.

I would like to single out the significant role of the regions in the practical implementation of our resolutions. A vast majority of the regions have ensured salaries for doctors, teachers and professors that match the average in the economy, while the number of inefficient organisations that fail to provide adequate services to the public has gone down.

The programme to resettle people from unfit housing is now working; rather, it has been revived. A majority of regions are coping. I would like to note that we see tangible results in those areas where the targets set in the Executive Orders became a real priority for the local authorities of all levels, where the federal centre and the regions are acting in a concerted fashion, making their way towards the targets together and with the support of the public. It is necessary to carry on with all the modifications that were launched, to make them systematic so that the citizens could see the positive changes in all spheres of life.

A key factor of our progress is, of course, the civic stance and initiative of the people. Business associations and Russian Popular Front activists should play a key role in implementing our plans. Unfortunately, they often have to force the bureaucrats to work for tangible results, to promptly pass resolutions that the country and society need, monitoring the implementation of the tasks set in the Executive Orders. I expect the participation of the public in our efforts to grow, especially given that this year we are introducing an independent assessment of the quality of social services. This applies to hospitals, outpatient clinics, schools and preschool facilities. This should significantly stimulate the development of the entire social sphere in Russia.

Colleagues,

The May [2012] Executive Orders set the strategic goals for Russia's development. Achieving them would ensure the dynamic development and self-sufficiency of the nation and prosperity of Russian citizens. This is the best response to the challenges we are facing. The current difficulties should stimulate us to find reserves and out-of-the-box solutions for a more economical and focussed use of resources. At the same time, the Executive Orders were put together in a different economic and foreign policy environment. We all know this; we should understand it and take it into account. Now we are working in conditions of a series of restrictions. The solution of certain problems may require more time for objective reasons, but the most important thing is to find the resources. We have them.

We need to establish strict control over the optimisation of public organisations, especially in remote and rural areas. This is a serious topic, colleagues, that I am drawing your attention to. I would like to ask the Accounts Chamber to prepare a special report on the accessibility of social services for the public. We will consider it at our meeting with the Government.

I would like to stress right away that we must maintain the levels we have already achieved, for instance in salary levels, and not allow any fall-back. Obviously, in the current conditions, certain local and federal authorities may be tempted to minimise their targets or generally use the changing situation as an excuse for their inefficiency, thus shifting the responsibility.

I would like to say the following here. We truly have done a lot, but in a number of areas the results are still insufficient, and this is not due to some external conditions, though they do exist, this is a fact, but mainly to internal issues. Sometimes work is reduced to writing plans and instructions. There is no understanding of the real situation behind this, no desire to complete the job and achieve tangible results.

A key factor of our progress is, of course, the civic stance and initiative of the people. Business associations and Russian Popular Front activists should play a key role in implementing our plans. Unfortunately, they often have to force the bureaucrats to work for tangible results, to promptly pass resolutions that the country and society need, monitoring the implementation of the tasks set in the Executive Orders. I expect the participation of the public in our efforts to grow.

I would like to reiterate that the Executive Orders were signed three years ago. Rather than report on the plans we made, we should be speaking of real change in people's lives, in the life of society.

We are still failing to utilise the key reserve of economic development, which is labour productivity growth. The year-end growth in 2014 was only 0.5 percent, while in the first quarter of this year it even went down. We all understand that this is the key, everything depends on it: economic development, achieving its required growth rates and eventually meeting social targets.

I would like to remind you that our objective is to raise labour productivity 1.5 times by 2018 compared to 2011. This means it should grow by more than 6 percent every year.

It is clear that, as I already said, there is a desire to blame it on the crisis, on the investment downturn. Let's take manufacturing industries as an example. Though they experience pressure from external factors, they are nevertheless achieving concrete, positive, fairly significant results. Labour efficiency at large and medium-sized enterprises grew by 5.3%. In other words, we almost reached our target level.

In the areas where people don't blame the difficulties, but instead try to resolve these problems, they were able to achieve double-digit growth figures in labour efficiency. Growth at the ten largest defence enterprises was over 20%. Of course, we have a programme to support and re-equip the defence industry with significant resources allocate towards it, nearly 3 trillion rubles. But this does not mean we have no reserves in the civilian sectors and there are no opportunities to provide the corresponding momentum we need.

Why can't we achieve stable growth in labour efficiency throughout the entire economy? In part because we still do not have effective business incentives. We need to renew them and eliminate outdated mechanisms that impede development. We need to create new high-tech jobs, as we have talked about many times, and get rid of outdated equipment.

I will also note that the executive orders set the task of supporting medium-sized businesses, creating conditions for investment in new productions. But unfortunately, many decisions still exist only on paper. That includes providing state guarantees on loans. Given objective financial resources limitation, important steps have not been taken that were aimed at ensuring the efficient spending of budgetary funds. Thus, the mechanism of technological audit and cost analysis of investment projects implemented using public funds is still being used only occasionally and formally. And we still do not have any real savings.

Today's situation requires precise and quick response measures by the government. In this respect, I would like to touch on the problem of providing medicines. Here, we have serious problems as was demonstrated during the Direct Line with citizens. The Healthcare minister reported to me that the Government allocated the necessary resources in due time - an extra 16 billion rubles. But the Ministry does not even want to take that money from the Finance Ministry, because it feels all the necessary pharmaceuticals including from that category are already available. So the question is, why aren't they reaching citizens then?

People entitled to get vitally important medicines for free are forced to spend weeks waiting to those medicines to reach the pharmacy. I will give a few figures. According to data from the Russian Popular Front, more than 50% of citizens entitled to benefits note that vital medicines are not always available in pharmacies and they have to wait for them, seek them out, or even order them additionally. I am asking the Healthcare Ministry to tell us in detail today about what has been done most recently - I know that you planned certain steps in this area - or what needs to be done in the immediate future.

And another important topic that I would like discuss separately. The executive orders set an objective to reduce road accident mortality. Thanks to active, targeted efforts by the Government and the regions in 2007-2009, including within the framework of national projects, we were able to change those statistics significantly for the better.

But recently, we have not seen any serious shifts, and road deaths are not decreasing. Of course, the lack of positive momentum could be explained by a 20% increase in the number of cars on the roads over the last three years. But first and foremost, it means we need additional efforts to reduce the number of road accident deaths.

I ask the Government to seriously work on this problem. I also think this problem should be discussed at the State Council level. Together with regional governors and political party leaders, we need to develop extra measures to reduce the number of road fatalities.

Before we move on, I would like to repeat again that we must fulfil everything we promised our citizens, every commitment we undertook. We must strive to do everything we agreed upon. I already said this and will stress it again: it is clear that the situation has changed, and it is clear that the executive orders were drafted, prepared and adopted in a different economic and foreign trade situation. And of course, we must make adjustments.

But I have already said, and want to say it again, that we still need to do it. If we need to shift or postpone anything tactically, then we need to say so clearly and directly, to explain what is happening and why, and to say what will be done in the immediate future, how it will be done, and when certain indicators will be achieved. Let's talk about this in more detail.

And, of course, we cannot approach it formally. I already talked about optimisation of, for example, the healthcare system. But in some of our regions, the number of rural paramedic centres has not increased, but decreased. This is simply unacceptable. Colleagues simply cut corners. They need to show that they have optimised the system, so they fix the easiest parts, and that's it. But how are people supposed to live there? How can they receive basic medical assistance? Nobody is thinking about that.

Let's discuss this in more detail.
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 #5
Moscow Times
May 8, 2015
Russia's Biggest Social Network VK Beats Television in Battle for Viewers
By Delphine d'Amora

Russia's leading social network VK has beaten the country's biggest television channel in the battle for viewers' attention, data from media research firm TNS Russia showed.

VK, previously known as VKontakte, had 13.2 million daily users in March this year, while state-owned giant Channel One had an audience of only 10.9 million, according to TNS Russia.

Their weekly audiences were roughly on par, with VK leading by about 10,000 weekly users.

VK remains by far the most popular social network in Russia, with more than eight times the daily users of leading international social network Facebook, the data showed.

The comparison between television channels and social networks is approximate, as statistics for the two platforms cannot be calculated in the same way, a TNS Russia spokeswoman told The Moscow Times. The daily audience of social networks was estimated according to the number of people who viewed any part of the website at least once a day. The daily reach of television channels, on the other hand, is the number of people who watched at least 1 minute of a channel's broadcasts daily.

Internet companies have gained quickly on traditional media in Russia in recent years, receiving an extra boost from an acceleration in advertising revenues that has continued this year despite the economic crisis.

The only segment of the advertising market that grew in the first quarter of this year was contextual advertising, or targeted online ads, which grew 16 percent to a total of about 15 billion rubles ($300 million), according to the Association of Communication Agencies of Russia (AKAR).

This growth indicates that companies are reorienting toward the Internet as advertising budgets shrink. Television advertising fell 22 percent to about 30 billion rubles ($600 million) in the same period, while the market as a whole shrank 17 percent to about 64 billion rubles ($1.3 billion), AKAR found.

TNS Russia's Web Index and TV Index were calculated in March this year based on viewers between the ages of 12 and 44 living in cities of 100,000 or more residents.

#6
Wall Street Journal
May 8, 2015
Russians Dig Through Past in Search of Fallen World War II Soldiers
Hundreds of volunteers scour country's western regions for bones of the missing
By JAMES MARSON

ZUI, Russia-Every spring, Sergei Osipov and a few dozen companions set out into the fields and forests here to dig for a macabre harvest: They turn the soggy clay earth for bones that lie just beneath the surface-remains of Soviet soldiers killed in battles with Nazi German forces.

"Our grandfathers are lying all around here in this earth. We can't forget them," says 53-year-old Mr. Osipov, a builder who is also the commander of a volunteer search brigade called "Eagle."

Seventy years after the end of World War II, the memory of the Great Patriotic War, as it is known here, is palpable. The Soviet Union lost more than 20 million soldiers and citizens in the conflict, historians say. Around two million remain missing in action, compared with around 74,000 U.S. military personnel still unaccounted for from the war.

Hundreds of volunteers scour Russia's western regions every year for bones of missing soldiers. Some are buried in mass graves; others lie where they fell in foxholes, forests and bogs, sometimes encaged in the carcasses of their crashed fighter planes. Search brigades' pages on social media are covered with pleas to "help find grandpa."

"The war isn't over until the last soldier is buried," says Mr. Osipov, quoting an 18th-century Russian general.

Those memories have now been projected onto Moscow's standoff with the West over Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin has portrayed his policies as patriotic defiance against a malevolent aggressor; Russian officials and state television decry Ukrainian government forces as "fascists"; and pro-Russian separatists have adopted as their symbol the black-and-orange St. George's ribbon, promoted in recent years as a sign of the Soviet victory.

The Kremlin is planning a triumphant parade of military hardware Saturday to commemorate Victory Day and demonstrate a Russia unbowed in the face of Western sanctions. Western leaders aren't attending the event, irking Russians who feel their country's contribution to the victory is undervalued.

"It's offensive," Mr. Osipov says of the snub. "We freed the whole territory from fascists, and now we are occupiers? They are rewriting everything."

The war has particular resonance around Rzhev, a town of some 60,000 people located 100 miles west of Moscow. After repelling the German attack on the capital in late 1941, Soviet commanders threw wave after wave of troops against an enemy salient around this railway hub. Historians say the Soviet army suffered two million casualties in just over a year of battles known as "the Rzhev meat grinder," as many as half of them dead, missing or taken prisoner. Allied armies led by the U.S. and the U.K. suffered 225,000 casualties in the Battle for Normandy in France in 1944.

"There's no family here that didn't lose someone," says Valery Smirnov, a 50-year-old regional-government official in Rzhev.

The town is filled with reminders of the battles. Monuments and cemeteries containing thousands of remains are dotted around the town and surrounding villages. Wedding couples traditionally visit the eternal flame near the obelisk to the town's liberators that overlooks the Volga River. The school year starts with a "lesson of remembrance."

Search brigades mushroomed at the end of the 1980s during glasnost, when people began talking openly about the scale of Soviet losses, which had long been concealed. Losses were especially high around Rzhev, as the Germans were well dug in and mowed down waves of poorly trained and supported Soviet infantry, historians say.

For many, the search is fueled by personal loss. Sergei Petukhov, who heads a search brigade in Rzhev and has been looking for remains for over 20 years, lost both grandfathers in the war, one of them near the town.

"I suppose I hoped to find him," he says. "I still hope now."

Villagers often buried fallen soldiers in mass graves in fields, sometimes moving them to larger sites after the war "as people wouldn't plant seeds among graves," said Galina Ivanova, a 59-year-old who runs a museum in a village near Rzhev.

Mr. Osipov's Eagle brigade is working in the fields and forests to the southwest of Rzhev. Tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers broke through German lines in the area in early 1942 but were then cut off and suffered enormous losses.

Locals started more actively searching for remains around 15 years ago, when they stumbled across the bones of a so-called "surface soldier," who had lain, mostly visible, where he fell for more than 50 years, says Vladimir Korolyov, a 56-year-old farmer and member of the group.

This year, they are have set up camp several miles from the nearest habitation in search of the remains of 150 soldiers buried in two mass graves. They are guided by a decades-old letter to village authorities from locals who described the graves as just south of the main road of the village of Zui, which was abandoned in the 1970s. The searchers rely on locals such as Mr. Korolyov to direct their work, and this year have support from a group that drove 1,500 miles in a bus from Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic that lost thousands around Rzhev.

On a sunny afternoon late last month, the searchers pushed metal probes into the soft, wet ground to feel for remains. They say they can feel the difference between stone, metal and bone, which breaks on the second prod.

At the hint of a find, they started to dig, uncovering a rusted Soviet helmet, the barrel of a rifle and a couple of grenades in what was probably a trench. Two days earlier, they uncovered a skeleton hunched in a foxhole with a bullet between its shoulder blades and scorch marks on the bones.

Volunteers try to put names to the bones. Some soldiers carried plastic capsules containing paper with their details, although often they didn't write anything out of superstition. Sometimes the engine number of an airplane or an engraving on a spoon or watch provides a name. But most of the remains can't be identified.

"It's hellish work, but who else will do it?" Mr. Korolyov says. "It's in our blood. It's our memory."
 

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 #7
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
May 7, 2015
Moscow to hold largest military parade since end of Soviet Union
The upcoming Victory Day parade on Red Square on May 9 is set not only to be the biggest in modern times in terms of troops and military hardware involved, but will also feature the largest number of brand new war machines on show to the public for the first time.
Tatyana Rusakova, RBTH

In accordance with recently established tradition, military parades will once again be at the heart of the Victory Day celebrations in Russia in 2015. Apart from Moscow, which holds its famous parade on Red Square, more than 150 Russian cities and towns will put together their own parades. According to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, about 85,000 troops are to take part in the events.

This year's Moscow parade will be the largest since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. "Over 15,000 troops - including representatives of foreign countries who will form 10 separate detachments - will take part in the parade," general Shoigu revealed in an interview. "Moreover, we are planning to include 1.5 times more hardware than last year, which is about 200 vehicles in total."
 
Moscow parade

The parade in the Russian capital will include both historical and modern parts. The first to march through Red Square will be servicemen dressed in World War II-era uniforms, followed by a procession of historical military hardware, including the symbolic Soviet T-34 tank as well as the SU-100 tank destroyer.
Among the troops taking part in the parade will be cadets and students of higher military educational institutions, pupils from the Suvorov and Nakhimov military schools and other cadet corps, and military men of the Western military district, along with EMERCOM emergency services, Interior Ministry and FSB personnel.

The parade will also include a flypast, which promises to be just as grand. The spectators will see 143 aircraft in total - twice as many as last year - including Sukhoi Su-27 and Su-34 fighters, Mikoyan MiG-31 interceptors, the Yakovlev Yak-130 lead-in fighter trainer, Antonov An-124-100 and Ilyushin Il-76 strategic airlifters, A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft, Tupolev Tu-22M3, Tu-95 and Tu-160 strategic bombers, and also Mil Mi-8, Mi-26, Mi-28 and Kamov Ka-52 helicopters, as well as the Ansat-U trainer helicopter.

But this year's parade is special not only in terms of the sheer number of people and hardware involved. It will also set a record for the amount of new equipment presented to the public for the first time, with a whopping total of 70 brand-new vehicles to be revealed.

People gathered on Red Square will be able to catch a glimpse of Msta-S self-propelled howitzers, Iskander short-range ballistic missile systems, Tigr and Typhoon multipurpose infantry mobility vehicles, BTR-82A APCs, T-90 tanks, Buk-M2 and Tor-M2U surface-to-air missile systems, Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft artillery and missile systems and S-400 anti-aircraft system launch vehicles.
 
Breaking away from Soviet heritage

The upcoming Red Square parade will have another unique feature: Unlike previous events which only showcased hardware already in mass production and in service, this year's parade will see participation by a number of prototypes.

The new vehicles in question are Armata tanks, Kurganets-25 IFV modular platforms and Bumerang wheeled APCs. The Armata was only unveiled by the Ministry of Defense on May 4.

"This is a completely new weapon, a breakthrough in tank design," military historian Alexander Sukhanov told RBTH. "Russian tank designers have said goodbye to Soviet heritage and what we now see is an entirely different concept. The small size has taken a backseat, giving way to another approach, namely that of strong armor designed to save lives. It is already evident that these new vehicles represent a tremendous change in the approach to Russian tank design," he added.
 
Military parades in Russian regions

The biggest parades involving hardware outside Moscow will take place in Kaliningrad, Sevastopol and St. Petersburg. The St. Petersburg parade will also showcase the Bal and Bastion coastal defense systems, Project 877 Paltus submarines, Bora and Samum hoverborne guided missile corvettes and several destroyers.

The parade in Yekaterinburg, the central city of the Urals, will involve 2,000 servicemen and 80 vehicles, comprising T-72B tanks, Iskander missile systems, as well as Buk and S-300 anti-aircraft systems. The TOS-1 multiple rocket launcher will also make an appearance - a first for the city.

In Siberia, people attending the parade in Novosibirsk will have the first opportunity to see the Yars missile systems. Also on show will be Gusar light armored vehicles, Tigr IMVs, Uragan multiple rocket launchers and Iskander-M missile systems.

As for the Russian Far East, the biggest parade there will be held in Khabarovsk (over 1,900 troops and 100 vehicles). Here, people will also witness the performance of a selection of World War II-era hardware, including MS-1, IS-3 and T-34 tanks. And right after the historical part of the parade, modern vehicles, including Pantsir-S and Iskander systems, will be showcased.

In Vladivostok, the parade will be somewhat more modest (1,300 servicemen, 30 vehicles and five ships), but it will be the only place to see Redut coastal defense systems. S-300 missile systems will also take part in the local event....

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 #8
Washington Post
May 8, 2015
Don't forget how the Soviet Union saved the world from Hitler
By Ishaan Tharoor
Ishaan Tharoor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. He previously was a senior editor at TIME, based first in Hong Kong and later in New York.
 
In the Western popular imagination -- particularly the American one -- World War II is a conflict we won. It was fought on the beaches of Normandy and Iwo Jima, through the rubble of recaptured French towns and capped by sepia-toned scenes of joy and young love in New York. It was a victory shaped by the steeliness of Gen. Dwight E. Eisenhower, the moral fiber of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and the awesome power of an atomic bomb.

But that narrative shifts dramatically when you go to Russia, where World War II is called the Great Patriotic War and is remembered in a vastly different light.

On May 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin will play host to one of Moscow's largest ever military parades to mark the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany. More than 16,000 troops will participate, as well 140 aircraft and 190 armored vehicles, including the debut of Russia's brand new next generation tank.

It's a grand moment, but few of the world's major leaders will be in attendance. The heads of state of India and China will look on, but not many among their Western counterparts. That is a reflection of the tense geopolitical present, with Putin's relations with the West having turned frosty after a year of perceived Russian meddling in Ukraine. When Russia's T-14 Armata tank broke down at a parade rehearsal on Thursday, the snickering could be heard across Western media.

Unfairly or not, the current tensions obscure the scale of what's being commemorated: starting in 1941, the Soviet Union bore the brunt of the Nazi war machine and played perhaps the most important role in the Allies' defeat of Hitler. By one calculation, for every single American soldier killed fighting the Germans, 80 Soviet soldiers died doing the same.

The Red Army was "the main engine of Nazism's destruction," writes British historian and journalist Max Hastings in "Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945." The Soviet Union paid the harshest price: though the numbers are not exact, an estimated 26 million Soviet citizens died during World War II, including as many as 11 million soldiers. At the same time, the Germans suffered three-quarters of their wartime losses fighting the Red Army.

"It was the Western Allies' extreme good fortune that the Russians, and not themselves, paid almost the entire 'butcher's bill' for [defeating Nazi Germany], accepting 95 per cent of the military casualties of the three major powers of the Grand Alliance," writes Hastings.

The epic battles that eventually rolled back the Nazi advance -- the brutal winter siege of Stalingrad, the clash of thousands of armored vehicles at Kursk (the biggest tank battle in history) -- had no parallel on the western front, where the Nazis committed fewer military assets. The savagery on display was also of a different degree than that experienced further west.

Hitler viewed much of what's now Eastern Europe as a site for "lebensraum" -- living space for an expanding German empire and race. What that entailed was the horrifying, systematic attempt to depopulate whole swathes of the continent. This included the wholesale massacre of millions of European Jews, the majority of whom lived outside Germany's pre-war borders to the east. But it also saw millions of others killed, abused, dispossessed of their lands and left to starve.

"The Holocaust overshadows German plans that envisioned even more killing. Hitler wanted not only to eradicate the Jews; he wanted also to destroy Poland and the Soviet Union as states, exterminate their ruling classes, and kill tens of millions of Slavs," writes historian Timothy Snyder in "Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin."

By 1943, the Soviet Union had already lost some 5 million soldiers and two-thirds of its industrial capacity to the Nazi advance. That it was yet able to turn back the German invasion is testament to the courage of the Soviet war effort. But it came at a shocking price.

In his memoirs, Eisenhower was appalled by the extent of the carnage:

"When we flew into Russia, in 1945, I did not see a house standing between the western borders of the country and the area around Moscow. Through this overrun region, Marshal Zhukov told me, so many numbers of women, children and old men had been killed that the Russian Government would never be able to estimate the total."

To be sure, as Snyder documents, the Soviet Union under Stalin also had the blood of millions on its hands. In the years preceding World War II, Stalinist purges led to the death and starvation of millions. The horrors were compounded by the Nazi invasion.

"In Soviet Ukraine, Soviet Belarus, and the Leningrad district, lands where the Stalinist regime had starved and shot some four million people in the previous eight years, German forces managed to starve and shoot even more in half the time," Snyder writes. He says that between 1933 and 1945 in the "bloodlands" -- the broad sweep of territory on the periphery of the Soviet and Nazi realms -- some 14 million civilians were killed.

By some accounts, 60 percent of Soviet households lost a member of their nuclear family.

One can lament the way the sacrifices of the past now inform the muscular Russian nationalism now peddled by Putin and his Kremlin allies. But we shouldn't forget how Soviet blood and bravery won World War II in Europe.

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 #9
Valdai Discussion Club
http://valdaiclub.com
May 8, 2015
A Bitter Anniversary
By Richard Sakwa
Richard Sakwa is Professor of Russian and European Politics, University of Kent at Canterbury, Associate Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Programme, Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House).

There are few more vivid manifestations of the deadlock in relations between Russia and the West than the effective boycott of attending the seventieth-anniversary victory celebrations in Moscow on 9 May. What should have brought the former allies together to celebrate a common victory now acts as yet another instrument of discord. Worse than that, even European leaders who were planning to attend have been forced to change their plans. For example, the Czech president Milos Zeman had announced that he would be going, but somehow or other he was pressured not to go.

All this is witness to a breakdown in relations that is unprecedented in its depth, but also frightening in its lack of global vision. After all, the commemorations are not designed to enhance the status of Russia's current president, Vladimir Putin, but are part of an enduring memorialisation of the greatest and most destructive war waged by humanity, against a regime that was unparalleled in the systematic application of bureaucracy to achieve cruelty on an unprecedented scale and for uniquely evil purposes. It would be appropriate for all world leaders to meet and remember the divisions and misunderstandings that led to that war.

Instead, Western leaders, and above all the United States, are perpetuating these divisions and souring relations to the degree that a new conflict can no longer be ruled out. In a recent article in The National Interest Graham Allison and Dimitri K. Simes warned that Russia and America could be stumbling to war. And this would be a war once again fought in the European continent. Where is the leadership and courage in Europe to stand against the tide and to fulfil the promise so often mouthed but so seldom meant since 1945: 'never again'?

All this attests to the dangers of the emerging new Atlanticism. Having blundered into confrontation over Ukraine, the Atlantic alliance is now trying to impose a bloc discipline on its members that is reminiscent of the worst periods of the Cold War. In some ways it is even worse, because even at the height of the Cold War Britain under Harold Wilson refused to participate in the Vietnam War, France under De Gaulle pursued its own vision of European continentalism, and West Germany established a fruitful energy relationship with Russia that endures to this day. Who can imagine these countries really standing up for an alternative vision of world order based on dialogue and recognition of difference against the US today?

Instead, the commemorations in Moscow will only confirm that alternative ideas are coming from outside the Atlantic system. Hence, the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping plans to attend, together with the Indian president Pranab Mukherjee. They understand that the event on 9 May is something that transcends the immediate and is about remembering the dead who sacrificed themselves to save Europe from a cruel domination. To her credit, the German Chancellor does plan to fly to Moscow at that time to lay a wreath, although she will not attend the 9 May parade.

The boycott is part of the ill-advised sanctions policy. And that in turn is reminiscent of another anniversary this year, the fortieth anniversary of the US defeat in Vietnam in April 1975. Nick Davies in The Guardian on 22 April reminds us what the veteran British poet and correspondent James Cameron wrote in 1965 about how America escalated the pointless and vindictive conflict. Reflecting on the path to war, he noted 'It was clumsy and cruel and thoughtless and without consideration. Step by step, the west blundered and floundered into a dilemma they never completely comprehended and never in fact sought: from the very beginning, they argued in clichés'.

Let this stand as a terrible warning of how we are once again floundering to war, accompanied by a spiteful pettiness that only accentuates the enormity of what is at stake. Let us honour those who died and the last few who will march across Red Square on 9 May by avoiding the mistakes of that generation.

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 #10
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
May 8, 2015
MOSCOW BLOG: Victory Day network session
By Ben Aris in Moscow

The crowds in Moscow will be out in force on May 9 to watch what is expected to be the largest ever Victory Day celebration, with the traditional parade of military hardware through Moscow's Red Square. But in terms of geopolitics the real event will happen the day before.

The executive body of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Council of Heads of State, meets for a session of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council on May 8 to talk about further economic integration. In fact, all the leaders that are attending that meeting and the parade itself have rising investment and trade with Russia, while those that are staying away have mostly seen business with Russia slump in the last year.

Most of the West's top leaders have decided to boycott what is one of the most important events in the Russian public holiday calendar. The only international dignitaries of any note that have said they will turn up are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Unesco Director-General Irina Bokova.

On the other side, the 26 that are going to make the trip almost all have close business ties with Moscow or have been flirting with the Kremlin in the last year as everyone takes sides in Russia's showdown with the West over Ukraine. (The number was supposed to be 27 but North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong-un got camera shy and cancelled at the last minute.)

The most prominent guest will be Chinese President Xi Jinping, at the head of a big delegation. Russia and China are expected to sign a raft of deals on the sidelines of the celebrations and could even agree to double the volume of gas Russia is due to send to China from 2019.

"The corresponding documents will be signed during the visit. They will relate to interaction in energy, aviation, finances, taxation and investment. The visit by Xi Jinping will give an impetus to further development of practical co-operation between Russia and China," a Chinese diplomat told Reuters ahead of the trip, describing the deals that will be on the table.

China's economic importance to Russia has been rapidly advancing. China became Russia's biggest trade partner in 2014, with some $95.3bn in trade, and the intention is to raise this to $100bn, while foreign direct investment (FDI) by China into Russia soared to $7bn in 2014. Cut off from western capital markets, China has emerged as Russia's main source of external capital.

The regular clutch of leaders from the former Soviet republics will also be on the podium, as whatever the warmth of their current relations with Moscow are - and the relations are very mixed - Russia remains too important to the regional economy for most of these smaller countries to want to risk openly offending the Kremlin. The list includes: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, as well as two more recent additions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the latter of which Russia hived off Georgia during an eight-day war in 2008.

The leaders of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are also all due in Moscow too. While Washington and Brussels have sought to isolate Moscow, Russia's fellow emerging markets have conspicuously rallied round and replaced many of the EU products that have disappeared from Russian shop shelves as a result of Moscow's retaliatory sanctions on Western agricultural goods.

"In recognition of the considerable strengthening of our multi-faceted relations since then, we now describe our relationship aptly as a special and privileged strategic partnership," Indian President Pranab Mukherjee told TASS in an interview ahead of the trip. India is especially interested in deals with Russia to supply nuclear energy and investments into the oil and gas sector.

Party poopers

Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj will also be at the parade and has also brought a shopping basket with him. He was due to meet Putin on May 9 for last minute talks on a strategic partnership deal Mongolia intends to sign off on during a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in Ufa in the Urals in July.

"We have prepared a document - a medium-term programme of the development of strategic partnership. On our part, everything has been approved and now the support of the Russian side is needed. Probably, during the Ufa meeting, we'll sign it," the Mongolian leader said. "And during a meeting with Vladimir Putin, we'll specify some issues related to economic and infrastructural development."

Russia's best friends in South America and Asia, Venezuela and Vietnam, will also be at the parade and likewise enjoy close business ties with Russia. It seems everyone has brought a deal with them they would like to discuss with Putin.

The one CIS country conspicuously absent from this list is Belarus, as President Alexander Lukashenko bailed out of attending the parade at the last minute, as he said he wanted to celebrate the holiday in his own country.

But Lukashenko is making it to the May 8 meeting, indicating that his absence from the parade is a sign that Belarus is unhappy with the way that the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) is developing. The Russia-led trade union was set up at the start of last year, but has been dogged by complaints by its two other members Belarus and Kazakhstan, which say the "free" trade area is a lot freer for Russian goods entering their countries than it is for their goods entering the Russian market. Clearly the EEU council is unlikely to be a pro forma meeting as the three partners have some serious negotiations to complete.

Germany is playing a similar game. As one of Russia's best friends in Europe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was in a bind. The international cold shoulder Russia is getting has made it impossible for her to attend the parade, but aware of the offense a no-show carries, she decided to visit Moscow on May 10 as a half-way measure. "To date, there is huge controversy between Russia and us [Germany], including the issue of what is happening in Ukraine. However, it is important to me to jointly lay wreaths on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on May 10 with the Russian President," Merkel said in a video blog.

Merkel's skittishness is directly connected to Germany's economic ties. Last year Germany and Russia had trade in goods of close to €77bn. Russia primarily supplies oil and natural gas to Germany. Germany, on the other hand, exports cars and machines to Russia, and has more than 6,000 German companies registered in Russia, which have collectively invested about €20bn in recent years. None of the other EU countries comes even remotely close to any of these numbers.

And finally, and maybe most importantly, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also pulled out at the last minute. Moscow has been working hard to bring Turkey out of the EU's orbit, tempting it with the new Turkstream gas pipeline and investment deals. Erdogan has been willing to play ball, if only to play Russia off against Europe and the US, but after Putin went to the Armenian capital of Yerevan to attend events marking the centenary of "Armenian genocide", Turkey took offense and Erdogan cancelled.

Moscow was in an impossible position on this one, as it had bullied Armenia into joining the EEU and so could not miss what is Armenia's most important ceremony to honour its dead. But as it was the Young Turks that carried out this massacre, Putin's presence could not help but cause offence in Ankara.

The Victory Day military parade therefore underscores not only the divide between Moscow and the West, but also the lines being drawn up in the emerging markets, as well as the fragile relations between the leaders of these countries.

Europe at least would like to walk the confrontation back, but relations remain frosty. "A destabilised and isolated Russia is not in the interest of the European Union, is not for sure in the interest of the Russian people, and I believe it's not in the interest of the Russian leadership, but it is for them to decide," said the EU's top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, during a visit to Beijing.

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 #11
Moscow Times
May 8, 2015
An American Longs for Past Victory Days
By Peter B. Zwack
Peter B. Zwack was the senior defense official and defense attache to the Russian Federation between 2012 and 2014

With the 70th anniversary of Victory Day rapidly approaching, I thought I would offer a short personal retrospective of that memorable day in Moscow. Now a retired citizen, I was the U.S. senior military attache to the Russian Federation from 2012 to 2014. During that time I witnessed two Victory Day celebrations and the troubling downturn of our overall relations over that tumultuous two-year period.

I fully participated in the 68th Victory Day celebration in 2013. With many other international attaches I sat among well-decorated Soviet-era veterans in Red Square's reviewing stands giving us a birds-eye view of the impressive military parade.

We wore the patriotic gold and black striped St. George's ribbon that reminded of great victories over Napoleon and Hitler's Germany, and partook in friendly conversation with those around us. Often that day with Russian veterans, we toasted with vodka to a better future.

The parade itself was something imposing to behold. Thousands of well-synchronized troops marched by President Vladimir Putin and his entourage in perfect goosestep, with colorful banners flying in the wind, followed by a seemingly endless and impressive array of the most modern Russian military vehicles. Overhead flew sorties of helicopters, fighters, bombers and transports in carefully orchestrated aerial formations that enthralled the appreciative audience.

After the parade I walked with my family through the festive Moscow streets. As Americans, even with the diplomatic challenges of my position, we thoroughly enjoyed our time, travels and the people we met within Russia. We then took the remarkably efficient metro to Gorky Park that was thronged with citizens enjoying the balmy spring weather.

If I were Russian that day I would have been incredibly proud of my country and its greatest achievement, namely bearing the main brunt of the war, ultimately destroying Nazi Germany.

In my many travels across Russia and the former Soviet Union, seeing the poignant flower-bedecked remembrances of this terrible existential struggle in every single village, town and city I visited was eye-opening. I think our mainstream population in the West never fully realized the extent of the Soviet Union's sacrifice during World War II.

Whatever the politics dividing us, how does one comprehend such a loss of life to a nation over a four-year period? What does the recollection of this do to the psyche of a nation, that had already been scarred by several gruesome decades including a prior World War that toppled a long-seated monarchy, followed by a bitter, divisive revolution and civil war, and later famines and repressions self-inflicted by Stalin's regime in which every Russian and Soviet family lost loved ones?

Is this one visceral reason, among several, including the sour memory of the Cold War and the Soviet Union's break-up that even today, 70 years later, Russia still views the West with such suspicion and distrust?

This, in my opinion, does not excuse, but may help explain the egregious, opportunistically reactive behaviors that Russia instigated after the fall of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine. How do we get past this deep-rooted psychological baggage stoked by an incendiary Russian media that paints the West with its modern military and liberal ideals as a mortal existential threat?

In markedly different circumstances I saw last year's 69th anniversary parade from the Garden Ring Road in front of the U.S. Embassy. We had stopped wearing the St. George's ribbon as it had become part of the nationalist Russian separatist imagery in Ukraine. Some of the armored vehicles that passed us en route to Red Square flew small pennants of Crimea and the Donbass.

I know that many Russians feel snubbed that numerous world leaders and diplomatic missions declined Victory Day participation last year, with even more boycotting this upcoming 70th. I can say that we don't derive any pleasure in doing so. No one wants to diminish the well-earned recognition of Russia's incredibly worthy veterans.

Most Russians, insulated by a well-spun press, simply don't understand that we don't want to be associated with such a robust martial pageantry that has seemingly strayed far from its World War II roots.

How could we sit in Red Square watching a modern military parade applauding units and personnel that flagrantly violated international laws and treaties leading to Crimea's illegal annexation and ongoing proxy aggression within eastern Ukraine?

Perhaps most importantly, what is the most important educational value of Victory Day for Russia's youth today; the lessons of that terrible war, or of the modern glory, power and perceived successes of the current Russian military? One grizzled World War II combat veteran mused about the youthful enthusiasm; "I worry about our [Russian] youth, as they do not understand the horrors of war."

I want to strongly and passionately emphasize that the West, including NATO, is not an offensive threat to Russia. I served as a US and NATO officer for many years and can say this with conviction. No one, no country in the West including the United States, wants confrontation and conflict with the Russian Federation.

NATO is a defensive alliance and has also been for decades a major source of stability within a large European region that used to be rent asunder by chaos and wars. As such, it is no surprise, that many nations, especially in Eastern Europe, wanted to be part of NATO.

NATO will unambiguously protect those countries already in the alliance and strongly advocate for its partners. Russians should fully understand and respect this fact, and realize that NATO's reassured allies, if left alone, can bring calm, stability, and via the EU, economic prosperity to Russian borders. NATO must not be seen as a zero-sum threat by Russian leaders.

I would like to return to Russia one day, and again wearing the St. George's ribbon, observe the Victory Day parade for the reasons it was originally created. Until then, a lot can happen including more conflict, or preferably, a peaceful resolution with Ukraine. The world will be watching.

Whatever happens, I can only hope, implore, that our leaders recommit as they did late in the Cold War to dialogue, to bridge their critical trust and perception gap. The fate of our nations and children depends on them.

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 #12
The Nation
May 7, 2015
Why Is the US Failing to Honor Russia's Victory Day Anniversary?
Instead of honoring shared sacrifice in the fight against the Nazis, the president has taken another cheap shot at Russia over Ukraine.
By Martin Sieff
Martin Sieff, a senior fellow of the American University in Moscow, has received three Pulitzer Prize nominations for international reporting. He is the former chief foreign correspondent of The Washington Times and the former managing editor, international affairs, for United Press International. He is the author, most recently, of Gathering Storm: The Seventh Era of American History & the Coming Crises That Will Lead to It. Follow Martin at www.martinsieff.com and on Twitter at @MartinSieff.

The 70th anniversary of Victory Day offered a wonderful opportunity for world leaders to come together and celebrate the triumph of international cooperation. Unfortunately, this opportunity has been squandered by President Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and other Western leaders who have refused to participate in the May 9 celebrations in Moscow. Rather than acknowledge and honor the Soviet role in the great victory of 1945, these leaders are deliberately distorting the historical record and treating the anniversary as yet another occasion to spurn Russia over the Ukraine crisis. By doing so, they are not only dishonoring the memories of the millions of Red Army soldiers who died in the fight against the Nazis. They are also rejecting an opportunity to ease East/West tensions in favor of raising them even further.

This behavior is consistent with a troubling pattern. The period from June 6, 2014, to May 9, 2015, contained the 70th anniversaries of the "year of victories" that led to the defeat of the Third Reich. Americans remember D-Day as the moment the tide of the war turned, when Allies landed at Normandy and began the long struggle to liberate Europe. Judging by the chilly reception Obama and Cameron gave to Vladimir Putin at the D-Day commemoration last June, one might have inferred that the Russian president had no business attending the ceremony-or, worse, that he was somehow representative of the defeated Axis powers.

In fact, the Soviet Union did far more than the United States and Britain combined to destroy Nazi Germany and the Wehrmacht. The Red Army stood virtually alone in the European fight against the Nazis from 1941 until the Normandy invasion, and the Soviet role in D-Day was enormous. The success of D-Day was made possible by the extraordinary drive of the Red Army from Stalingrad to the Elbe River in the two years following victory at Stalingrad on February 2, 1943. Nine of every ten German soldiers killed in World War II were killed by the Red Army.

Only 11 Wehrmacht divisions fought the Allied armies in Normandy, yet at the same time 228 Nazi divisions were fighting the Red Army in the east. Simultaneous with the Battle of Normandy came the far greater victory of the Red Army in Operation Bagration, when Hitler's last great concentration of armies was annihilated in what is now Belarus.

This past year has also marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi extermination camps, including Auschwitz, Majdanek, Treblinka, and Sobibor-all of which were liberated by the Red Army. But many Western leaders and NATO allies have remained silent about this crucial fact. The Polish government shamefully excluded Putin from the anniversary ceremony in Auschwitz in January. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has even claimed that both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany invaded Ukraine (in fact, the Red Army liberated Kiev) and that Ukrainian forces liberated the death camps on their own. This is a Big Lie worthy of Orwell's Ministry of Truth.

There is no benefit for any Americans, whatever their political persuasion, in following such obviously false and destructive arguments. Obama and Putin do not have to share a political outlook, or even like each other, to recognize the significance of their nations' shared history or acknowledge that cooperation between the two superpowers remains essential for global security.

The wisdom of FDR and Churchill in joining forces with Stalin against Hitler despite personal misgivings and political disagreements underscores the shortsightedness of Obama and Cameron's decision to boycott the May 9 events in Moscow. (Obama refused an invitation to attend the 2010 Victory Parade too, and the Russians then refused to accept Vice President Joe Biden as his representative.)

Obama could easily have visited Moscow without attending the military parade, as Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has chosen to do. At a minimum, he could have gone to Moscow and stood with Putin to collectively lay a wreath on the grave of the Unknown Soldier, whose symbolism for Russians is transcendent. Instead he has encouraged a deliberate campaign to spoil, discredit, and belittle the Russian victory celebrations in response to Russia's continuing support of the secessionist forces in eastern Ukraine.

These spiteful and petty acts, enthusiastically embraced by American neoliberals and neoconservatives alike, can only further embitter Russians against the West. And the campaign is doomed to fail anyway. It will certainly not "isolate" Russia, which is playing host this weekend to powerful leaders from around the globe, including China, India, Brazil, and South Africa. More than one-third of the total population of the world will be represented at the events.

A generous acknowledgement of the leading Soviet role in the victory of 1945 should have served as a reminder of how much the United States and the Soviet Union were able to accomplish together in their joint triumph over fascism. And it would have reminded us how vital it is for the two nations to continue to work together as partners in the fight against terrorism, transnational crime, drug trafficking, sexual slavery, climate change and nuclear proliferation.

To honor this great and solemn anniversary is simply the right thing to do-historically, morally and politically. The total number of Soviet military and civilian deaths, 27.5 million, was more than twice the death toll of all Americans, Britons, Commonwealth, French, and even Germans killed in the war combined. That is why Victory Day remains the most sacred public holiday of the year in Russia, and why it is equally revered in many of the former Soviet republics.

The Russian people and their allies paid the colossal price in lives and blood that victory in World War II required. To dishonor their memory is disgraceful.

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 #13
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
May 8, 2015
Victory Day and the shared history of the US and Russia
As Russia gears up to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Victory Day, it's time to remember the long-standing historical ties that have existed between Russia and the United States.
By Ivan Krilla
Ivan Kurilla, a former Kennan Institute fellow and professor at Volgograd State University. His current academic projects include history of Russian-American relations in the years of American civil war, American Studies in Russia and Russian Studies in the U.S. as academic and pedagogical projects, a collective monograph on history of Russian-U.S. relations.

Seventy years ago in May 1945, Nazism was defeated and the bloodiest war in European history ended. For most European nations, and especially for the Russian people, that war had a profound impact on national memory and its trauma is still very much alive.

Similarly, 150 years ago in May 1865, the Civil War in the U.S. ended. For a century and a half, that event remains the deepest trauma in American memory and the most important point of reference for U.S. history.

These two May anniversaries and the tragic events that surrounded them remind us also that, in those two calamities, Russia and the United States were friendly powers and allies. Indeed, during the Civil War of 1861-1865, Russia remained the only European power that openly supported the federal cause by diplomatic means, and even sent its fleet to New York harbor in 1863, while Russian public opinion was decidedly on the Northern side.

Certainly, the causes of the fleet visit were complex and included Russia's strategic plan to keep its navy outside of the Baltics in case of a new war with England, but the inspiration that the Russian Navy caused in the United States was remarkable. Mutual sympathies were promoted by the abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861 and the emancipation of slaves in the U.S. in 1863 - two events that reinforced the spirit of freedom prevalent during the epoch in both countries.

Eighty years later, the meeting of Soviet and American soldiers on the Elbe River and the defeat of a common foe, Nazi Germany, became the symbol of another war collaboration that included many more instances of mutual support and military collaboration in 1941-1945.

That was not a rare coincident. During the Crimean War of 1853-1856, U.S. public opinion supported Russia against joint European intervention and many American surgeons even hastened to Sevastopol hospitals. In fact, it was an American journalist, Januarius MacGahan, whose description of the Turkish atrocities helped Russia to gain the Europeans' support in the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878. Russia and the United States were also allies in World War I and even during the War on Terror in the early 2000s.

In times of peace, the relations between the two nations were not as good. Brothers-in-arms during war, they became rivals in peace. Still, Russia (even when it was the Soviet Union) and the United States of America have never declared war on each other (the only dubious exception was the participation by U.S. troops under British command in the Entente's intervention in the Russian civil war).

Why is that, during peacetime, the two countries gradually migrated into opposite corners of world politics?

Ideological competition, geopolitical rivalry, or the Hegelian logic of history may be offered as explanation. However, the causes are less relevant for us today than the lessons of the two centuries of relations between the two countries. History is not a curse, but it is also not a guarantee of future friendship. Moreover, the same history may be interpreted differently in order to support one or another political position during the current period of tensions.

There is a struggle for the past going on in and around Russia with its focus on World War II. The base line of the struggle is the problem of martyrdom: For what reason did 27 million Soviet people die?

The answer is not obvious in the contemporary world. More traditional is to say that the Soviet people, together with the liberal democracies of Great Britain and the United States, fought to eliminate Nazism, the worst evil in human history. According to this logic, the great alliance helped humankind to reach for a better future, despite the differences of the political organizations of the major allies.

Another interpretation is gradually gathering more supporters in the new generation of politicians: It states that World War II was essentially a fight between two evils: Nazism and Communism (in its Stalinist form). According to this second view, there was not a big difference between those two regimes, and the Red Army did not liberate Eastern and Central Europe but rather, conquered it for Communism: "Western victory was a liberating victory; Russian (Soviet) Victory was a subjugating victory."

Surely, history is an ongoing process, and one can always question the chronology and periods. However, World War II was a joint effort to fight the most absolute evil that humankind ever knew, a regime that killed millions of innocent people and started aggressive wars. The Soviet, American, and British Armies fought together to eliminate the enemy, freeing people from the evils of Nazism.

Yes, the history of post-war Europe went in a different direction, and Soviet leaders helped to impose pro-Soviet regimes in Eastern Europe. However, in no way did such a political development denigrate the fight against Nazism, the martyrdom of the Soviet people and freedom from Nazi rule.

In addition, when we look at the implications of the second view, we see that it gives the World War a purely geopolitical interpretation at the expense of the moral one: There was no more unique evil in European history, and there were at least two (or more) regimes of comparable cruelty. The war (at least on the Eastern front) was waged for dominance, not for liberation.

Strangely, this interpretation promoted by the anti-Stalinists in Europe, help the Russian Stalinists: Refusing to view the U.S.S.R. as being on the right side of an epic moral battle, it turns all the millions of Soviet dead from heroes who fought against evil into fallen martyrs spreading the influence of Soviet might.

Indeed, it is hard to imagine society ready to abandon such a huge martyrdom - it does and it will determine the value system of Russians for generations to come. However, the meaning of this martyrdom may be interpreted differently, and there is not a good option for cutting out the Soviet side from the liberation of Europe.

This year of anniversaries is full of troubles. However, let us see the longer-term perspective. The history of the U.S.-Russian relationship extends more than two centuries into the past and continues into the future. Let us work to make the future better and our mutual understanding deeper.

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 #14
www.rt.com
May 8, 2015
'WWII victory doesn't bring Russia, Ukraine together as Kiev turned war criminals into heroes'

Ukraine as a new nation has to create a useable past, Arch Getty, Professor of Russian and Soviet history at UCLA told RT's In the Now show. War criminals like Bandera, who killed a lot of civilians, are being praised by Kiev government now, he added.

RT: Mikhail Gorbachev said that snubbing the Victory parade is disrespect for the people who suffered enormous losses fighting Nazism. It's clearly not completely perceived this way in the United States. Why is that?

Arch Getty: ... For Americans it was something that they read about in the newspapers or something they heard about on the radio. For the Soviet people it was in their neighborhood, it was in their face- their houses were burnt, their houses were bombed, their neighbors were slaughtered, their family was killed. It had immediacy in their lives. But I don't think Americans can really understand very well, because for us, in the US, it was something that happened somewhere else, but not for the Soviet people.

RT: If Obama came to Moscow, would this be perceived as weakness amid the current global geopolitical climate in the world?

AG: I don't think it would be by anybody who fought in the war, or anyone who remembered the war, because it was a joint allied effort. I don't think it would be perceived as a weakness by anybody who knew anything about the war. In fact, you could even see it the opposite. Having had his sanctions fail to resort to this kind of blockade it seems a pity; it seems juvenile, especially given the depth of the loss that the Soviet people felt. You can almost argue that he looks even weaker by not going.

RT: What's the attitude towards this victory in the West now? Is it some kind of inconvenient fact when a lot of what we're seeing now is to paint Russia as an aggressor, to sort of commemorate what should be a joint victory?

AG: I think it is an inconvenient fact. But for a lot of Americans it is even not a fact at all because they were taught in their schools frequently, that we, Americans, won the war. The Soviet effort has always been minimized here, and that's happened even more lately. By the time we came ashore on D-Day in June, 1944, the tide had turned on the Eastern Front against the Germans for a year and a half. The Soviets faced 10 times as many German divisions, as we did in the West. That is not a fact for a lot of Americans because they are still living in ignorance of who did what, who turned the tide and what the scale of the thing was. And the more governments on all sides try to rewrite history for their own current purposes the worse that gets.

RT: Shouldn't this victory be bringing Ukraine and Russia together?

AG: It certainly should, but it is not, and it won't because Ukraine as a new nation, a new state more than anybody else has to create a useable past, a useable history. And they have done so in the most glaring kinds of ways that the Ukrainian Prime Minister, [Arseny] Yatsenyuk has said that WWII was about the Soviet Union invading Germany. War criminals in Ukraine, Bandera, people who killed Jews and many others are being touted as national heroes there for current political needs of the Ukrainian leadership. I'm afraid these celebrations are not going to do that simply because of the attitudes that are being taken.

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 #15
www.project-syndicate.org
May 6, 2015
The Rain on Russia's Parade
By Angela Stent
Angela Stent is Professor of Government and Foreign Relations at Georgetown University and the author of The Limits of Partnership: US-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century.

WASHINGTON, DC - When Russian President Vladimir Putin presides over the military parade commemorating Victory in Europe Day on May 9, he will not attract the crowd he could have expected a couple of years ago. Neither US President Barack Obama nor any leader from the European Union will be present to watch as tanks roll and military bands march through Red Square. Aside from the president of Serbia, the only leaders expected to be in attendance are from countries, such as China and Vietnam, that were not part of the European theater in World War II.

Following Russia's annexation of Crimea, and given Putin's continued support for secessionists in eastern Ukraine, relations between Russia and the West are as bad as they have been since the Soviet Union disintegrated almost a quarter-century ago. Obama recently listed Russian aggression in Europe alongside Ebola and the Islamic State as one of the three main threats to US national security. Putin responded with claims that the US created the Islamic State and supports "neo-Nazis" in Ukraine and around the world.

The diplomatic tension is ironic, because the parade in Moscow is meant to commemorate a victory made possible seven decades ago by the alliance of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany. Today, the former allies are unable to work together, even when facing a common enemy like the Islamic State.

Previous commemorations - which were attended by US Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush - emphasized the common endeavor. This year, Russian media have ceaselessly downplayed American and British contributions to the defeat of the Axis powers. The Nazi-Soviet pact, which carved up Poland and Romania between the Soviet Union and Germany, has been swept under the rug.

Obama's first term in office began with an attempt to "reset" relations with Russia. The surviving fruit of those efforts - the New Start arms-control treaty and cooperation on Iran and Afghanistan - are vestiges of the warmer ties that existed when Dimitri Medvedev was president of Russia. Bilateral relations began to deteriorate when Putin blamed the US - and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in particular - for supporting the thousands of Russians who protested his return to the presidency in December 2011.

The Obama administration made several unsuccessful attempts in 2012 and 2013 to restart a dialogue with the Kremlin, but changed course in the summer of 2013, when Russia granted political asylum to former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. The war in Ukraine then took relations to their current depths.

One year after the "little green men" - Russian soldiers without military insignias - began to appear, first in Crimea and then in the Donbas region, the situation in eastern Ukraine remains both stalemated and volatile. A fragile ceasefire remains in place in most parts of the contested region, but fighting continues to break out in some areas, and many worry that a new Russian-backed offensive could soon be launched around the strategic port of Mariupol.

Worse, the war in Ukraine appears to be on its way to becoming a "frozen conflict," with the Donbas maintained as a pseudo-state run by Russian-backed insurgents and mafias. Ukraine has lost control over both the region and its border with Russia, and it faces the constant possibility that the conflict could heat up once again, as Georgia's did in 2008, when Russia sent in troops to support the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Meanwhile, Ukraine's neighbors are left feeling vulnerable, worried that Russia's efforts to destabilize the region may cross yet another border.

The Kremlin shows no signs that it is interested in a solution to the crisis that would enable the government in Kyiv to regain full sovereignty over its territory. Even if the fighting does not spread, the US and its allies must re-evaluate their relations with Russia.

The turning point was the annexation of Crimea, which effectively ended US and European hopes for integrating a modern post-Soviet Russia into the West. Putin has explicitly rejected a global order that he believes was imposed by the US in the 1990s, when Russia was weak - an order that, in his view, has run roughshod over his country's interests.

The ability of the next US president to work with Russia on issues of global order and Euro-Atlantic security will depend largely on the choices that Putin makes in Ukraine and elsewhere. His Victory Day celebration - with its display of advanced weaponry, underpinned by increased military spending - will serve as a demonstration of Russian nationalism and intransigence.

As long as the US and Russia view each other as antagonists, creating a viable working relationship, let alone an alliance, will be impossible. Their inability to unite even in celebrating their shared triumph in World War II is a clear sign of the geopolitical challenges that lie ahead.

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 #16
The International New York Times
May 9, 2015
How Russians Lost the War
By MIKHAIL SHISHKIN
Mikhail Shishkin is a Russian novelist and the author, most recently, of the story collection "Calligraphy Lesson." This article was translated by Marian Schwartz from the Russian.

ZURICH - My father went to war as a volunteer at age 18. He was a submariner in the Baltic Sea.

When I was small, we lived in a basement on the Arbat, in central Moscow. Hanging on the wall above my bed was a photograph of his Shchuka-class submarine. I was terribly proud that my papa had a submarine, and I was always copying that photograph into my school notebook.

Every year on May 9, Victory Day in Russia - marking the anniversary of the day that news of the German surrender in 1945 reached Moscow - my father would go to the closet and take out his sailor's uniform, which required regular alteration to accommodate his growing belly, and pin on his medals. It was so important to me to be proud of my father: There had been a war and my papa had won it!

When I grew up, I realized that in 1944 and 1945, my father was sinking ships that were evacuating German civilians and troops from Riga, in Latvia, and Tallinn, in Estonia. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people met their deaths in the waters of the Baltic - for which my father received his medals. It's been a long time since I was proud of him, but I don't judge him. It was war.

My father fought the evil of fascism, but he was taken advantage of by another evil. He and millions of Soviet soldiers, sailors and airmen, virtual slaves, brought the world not liberation but another slavery. The people sacrificed everything for victory, but the fruits of this victory were less freedom and more poverty.

My father was 6 when his father was arrested. A son wants to be proud of his father, but his father was called an enemy of the people. My grandfather perished in the gulag.

When the war began, the persecuted population heard from the loudspeakers, "Brothers and sisters!" The baseness of Russia's rulers lies in the way they have always taken advantage of this remarkable human emotion: the love of homeland and the willingness to sacrifice everything for it.

So my father went off to defend his homeland. He was still a boy when he went to sea, in constant terror of drowning in that steel coffin. He ended up protecting the regime that killed his father.

The victory gave the slaves nothing but a sense of the grandeur of their master's empire. The great victory only reinforced their great slavery.

After the war, my father drank. All his submariner friends did. What else could they do?

During the Gorbachev era, we had lean times, and my father, as a veteran, received a ration that included items from Germany. For him, this was a personal insult. He got drunk and hollered: "But we won!" Then he quieted down and began to weep.

"Tell me," he kept asking no one I could see, "did we win the war or lose it?"

In his last years, he destroyed himself with vodka. He was the last man standing: All his submariner friends had drunk themselves into the grave long before. My father was cremated in his sailor's uniform. He was probably eager to see his wartime buddies.

The chief Russian question is: If the fatherland is a monster, should it be loved or hated? Here everything has run together, inseparably. Long ago, a Russian poet put it this way: "A heart weary of hate cannot learn to love."

Of course, I wish my homeland victory. But what would constitute a victory for my country? Each one of Hitler's victories was a defeat for the German people. And the final rout of Nazi Germany was a victory for the Germans themselves, who demonstrated how a nation can rise up and live like human beings without the delirium of war in their heads.

Today, though, Victory Day has nothing to do with the people's victory or my father's victory. It is not a day of peace and remembrance for the victims. It is a day for rattling swords, a day of zinc coffins, a day of aggression, a day of great hypocrisy and great baseness.

For Russians have been called, once again, to fight a war against fascism. The patriotic hysteria on the television is the regime's miracle weapon. Thanks to the "zombie box," the population now has a make-believe idea of the world: The West wants to destroy us, so we are compelled, like our fathers and grandfathers, to wage holy war against fascism and we must be prepared to sacrifice everything for victory.

Once again, the rulers are rewriting history and leaving in it only military victories and martial glory. They have added a chapter to school textbooks about Crimea's glorious return. A stream of hysteria flows from TV screens: "Great Russia," "Defend the Russian language," "Gather in the Russian world" and "We will save the world from fascism." Anyone who objects is a "national traitor."

In the 16th year of his rule, President Vladimir V. Putin has achieved everything a dictator could strive for. His people love him; his enemies fear him. He has created a regime that rests not on the shaky paragraphs of a constitution but on the unshakable laws of the vassal's personal loyalty to his sovereign, from the bottom to the top of the pyramid of power.

My father was a Russian; my mother, a Ukrainian. But the Putin regime has set our peoples against each other. Sometimes, I think it's good my parents did not live to see how Russians and Ukrainians are killing one another.

It is impossible to breathe in a country where the air is permeated with hatred. Much hatred has always been followed in history by much blood. What awaits my country? Transformation into a gigantic version of Ukraine's eastern Donbass region?

Once again, the dictatorship is calling on its subjects to defend the homeland, mercilessly exploiting the propaganda of victory in the Great Patriotic War. Russia's rulers have stolen my people's oil, stolen their elections, stolen their country. And stolen their victory.

Father, we lost the war.

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 #17
Wall Street Journal
May 8, 2015
Russia Hedges Over Stalin's Legacy
Seventy years after victory over Nazism, Putin and others aren't sure whether to praise the Soviet tyrant for his wartime leadership or condemn him for his repression.
By PAUL SONNE

In western Moscow, an anonymous driveway cuts through dense woods, past a green fence, into a clandestine facility. The fortifications seem fit to protect a state nuclear lab or the estate of a Russian tycoon, but these walls are guarding an unresolved past. Behind them is the dacha of Joseph Stalin, sealed off from the public, run by Russia's equivalent to the secret service and all but untouched since the day the Soviet leader died in 1953 on the dining-room floor. Even the furniture has been left almost exactly as Stalin arranged it.

The secretive limbo that has enveloped the country home reflects a broader equivocation about Stalin's legacy, which remains unresolved as Russia prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of Soviet victory over the Nazis on May 9.

Despite President Vladimir Putin's embrace of the Soviet past and its symbols, the Kremlin has adopted a notably ambivalent approach to Stalin that highlights his crimes but leaves room for his lionization, particularly regarding victory in World War II.

"The issue is that Stalin is one of the few themes that, in contrast to many others, divides Putin's base," says Gleb Pavlovsky, a political consultant and former Kremlin adviser. "It's a delicate question that Putin prefers not to clarify so as not to force too difficult a choice, because with either variant, he narrows his support."

The absence of a resolute condemnation has seemingly helped Stalin's image. Only 20% of Russians said they viewed Stalin with dislike, fear or disgust in a March poll by the Levada Center, an independent polling organization, down from 43% in 2001. Some 45% said that Stalin's achievements justified the era's casualties to at least some degree-up from 27% in 2008.

"The ethical argument regarding the historical role of Stalin-that there cannot be a positive leader who killed millions of his own compatriots, regardless of whether he won the war-that a priori position is being negated, it's moving into the shadows," says Nikolai Svanidze, a Russian television host and historian.

The Kremlin's equivocal stance came through at an appearance by Mr. Putin at a youth camp last summer. He conceded that Stalin was a tyrant who built a cult of personality and sent people to labor camps, but he also offered implicit praise for rapid economic growth under the dictator and his wartime leadership.

"Whatever people might say about the number of victims in World War II and the Great Patriotic War, we did win in the end," Mr. Putin said. "We can criticize the commanders and Stalin all we like, but can anyone say with certainty that a different approach would have enabled us to win?"

This divided impulse is nothing new. In 2007, Mr. Putin visited Butovo, the prison where Stalin executed thousands of innocents during the purges of the late 1930s, and vowed that the tragedy would never be forgotten. In 2010, then-President Dmitry Medvedev admitted that Stalin was responsible for the 1940 Katyn massacre of 22,000 Poles by Soviet agents and broadly condemned the dictator's crimes.

But Russian officials have offered endorsements of Stalin's leadership too. Last autumn, at a meeting with Russian educators, Mr. Putin put a positive spin on Stalin's decision to sign a nonaggression pact with the Nazis in 1939, suggesting that the treaty gave the Soviet Union time to modernize its army and prepare for war-an explanation disputed by historians. "What's so wrong if the Soviet Union didn't want to fight?" Mr. Putin said.

In February, in newly Russian-annexed Crimea, the head of Russia's lower chamber of parliament provoked controversy by unveiling a bronze statue of Stalin alongside Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt in Yalta-despite Stalin's ruthless deportation of the peninsula's Crimean Tatars to Central Asia around that time.

The Kremlin's ambivalent position has opened up space for avowed Stalin supporters, including many members of the Communist Party (the second-largest faction in Russia's parliament), to promote the dictator's legacy. Appearances of Stalin's visage on billboards, signs or statues cause regular flare-ups, particularly ahead of Victory Day.

The rising acceptance of conciliatory feelings toward Stalin unnerves people like Jan Rachinsky, a board member of Memorial, the Russian human rights group. Over his three-decade rule, Stalin executed roughly 1.1 million people for political reasons, sent 4 million more to the Gulag and deported some 6.5 million, according to Mr. Rachinsky, who questioned whether Stalin's personal role was decisive in winning the war.

"The installation of any memorial with the image of Stalin is blasphemous," Memorial said in a statement this week. "Stalin's crimes have no equivalent in national history." The group said that his crimes were so vast that positive presentations of his image in public spaces should be prohibited by law.

Russian Communist Party leaders and other officials balked at the idea of a ban. "The initiative is a pathetic, nasty and desperate provocation by defeatists ahead of Victory Day," Ivan Melnikov, the first vice speaker of the Russian Parliament and a Communist Party member, told the Interfax news agency. He called Memorial's proposal "unconstitutional, anti-historical and antinational."

What to do with Stalin's residence in Moscow remains similarly unresolved. Known as Blizhnyaya Dacha ("nearby summer house"), the stately green mansion, about 6 miles from the Kremlin, functions as a secret preserve of Stalin's everyday life. It houses his records, tea cups, telephones, chess table, desk and bed.

Stalin built and moved into the residence after his second wife committed suicide in 1932 and made the home his main living quarters from 1933 until his death, often hosting other world leaders there. The presents that Mao brought for Stalin, including a portrait of two gazing cats, still adorn the walls.

Stalin retreated to the dacha in a kind of panic not long after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. Politburo members came to fetch Stalin days later; according to the Soviet official Anastas Mikoyan, Stalin thought they had come to arrest him.

After Stalin's death, Soviet authorities prepared to turn the residence into a museum, but Nikita Khrushchev's campaign to dismantle Stalin's personality cult quashed the idea. For the rest of the Soviet era, the home was a facility for the Central Committee of the Communist Party. It became Russian government property after the USSR's collapse.

Moscow State University history professor Sergei Devyatov, Russia's top expert on the residence and co-author of a book on its history, said that historians and select groups of Russian journalists have received tours over the years. The Wall Street Journal did not enter the home.

The Stalin era is still too raw to allow public access to the dacha, Mr. Devyatov said: "The only thing that can be done at the moment is to preserve it as it was." The future of the home, he added, is "a question that shouldn't be decided by our generation but by the next generation."

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 #18
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
May 8, 2015
Russians tightening purse strings as GDP decline gathers pace
New data shows that Russia's economic slump is continuing to snowball, with GDP falling by 3.4 percent in March 2015, up from 1.2 percent in February. As real salaries shrink, the population is cutting spending and looking to safeguard savings. Economists predict that Russia will not be able to arrest the slump in the economy until the end of 2015.
Alexei Lossan, RBTH
 
Newly-published information indicates that in March 2015 the volume of Russia's GDP decreased year-on-year by 3.4 percent, the Russian business newspaper RBK Daily has reported. The data from the Ministry of Economic Development, released in early May, shows that in comparison with February 2015 the pace of the economy's year-on-year shrinkage was almost three times less, at 1.2 percent.

"The acceleration of Russia's GDP fall in March is related to the high level of inflation pressure and expensive credit, which is having a negative effect on the dynamics of the country's economy," says Alexei Kozlov, chief analyst at UFS IC.

The forecast for inflation in 2015 is 11.9 percent, while the Central Bank's key rate, which private banks use as a reference point, was 12.5 percent at the beginning of May.
 
End of a cycle

According to the information from the Ministry of Economic Development, the fall of real salaries is also continuing to accelerate. After a 7.4-percent reduction in February they dropped by another 9.3 percent in March. Meanwhile, the volume of work in the construction sector fell by 6.7 percent in March, which is the worst result since July 2014, says the ministry's monitoring report.

The ministry had earlier made slight improvements to its economic outlook for 2015, forecasting the economy to shrink by 2.8 percent instead of the previously predicted 3-percent fall in GDP.

Meanwhile, data from the Russian Statistics Service indicates that the population has responded to the reduction of real salaries by beginning to actively save money. According to the data, in the first quarter of 2015 Russians spent 78.1 percent of their earnings on buying goods and services, while during the same period in 2014 the percentage was 82.3. Meanwhile, the purchasing of securities has doubled in respect to the first quarter of 2014 - a clear indicator that Russians have begun taking saving more seriously.

Economists believe that the fall in GDP is also due to cyclical problems. "The recession in Russia as a whole resembles more the acceleration of the decline in the final phase of an economic cycle," says Anton Soroko, analyst at Finam Investment Holding.

In his view, the economy is suffering from a number of factors, including the stagnation of the real sector as a result of the fall of oil prices and a decline in investment activity related to the growth of credit costs. Additionally, the growth of geopolitical risks and instability on financial markets is also influencing companies' investment activity.

According to Soroko, it is still too early to say that the Russian economy has bottomed out: This may not occur until the second half of 2015.
 
Outlooks for the future

Russian analysts believe that the country's economy will continue to contract in the near future. "The fall of GDP will continue, but not substantially," says Boris Pivovar, senior professor in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. "During the spring and summer retail usually falls, especially sales of home appliances and automobiles."

Pivovar points out that exports of oil and gas are also usually lower in the summer than in the winter months, and in the current political conditions a surge in sales and contracts is unlikely. "The negative trend will change in the fall-winter, when gas exports will pick up, especially to Ukraine, and the construction projects will have finished after the summer season," he says.

Consequently, Pivovar predicts a short-term inertial fall in the first, second and third quarters and a substantial growth in GDP by 0.5-1.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015, as the traditional winter boost in the retail sector revives commerce.

UFS IC analyst Alexei Kozlov, meanwhile, forecasts a slowdown in the pace of the growth of consumer prices as the ruble continues to stabilize, which will lower the cost of credit, letting steam out of the economy and stabilizing GDP dynamics.

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 #19
www.rt.com
May 7, 2015
27 Russian firms among world's most powerful companies - Forbes

Forbes has named 27 Russian companies, including those hit by Western sanctions, among the world's largest and most powerful in its Global 2000 annual list.

Energy giant Gazprom tops the list of Russia's largest businesses, according to Forbes. The company is ranked 28th in the global rating with a market value of $62.5 billion. Also at the top of the list are two more energy companies, Rosneft (59) and Lukoil (109), and Russia's biggest lender Sberbank (124).

Russia's energy firms - Gazprom, Rosneft, Lukoil, Transneft and Surgutneftegaz - have largely preserved their high ranking despite being sanctioned by the EU in September. These restrictions included a prohibition on providing services needed for deep sea, Arctic, and shale oil projects. Major Russian state-owned banks have been banned from receiving any long-term (over 30-day) loans from EU companies.

Gazprom fell 6 spots on the list compared to its position last year.

Despite these hardships, two Russian companies managed to make their debut in the Forbes rating this year - United Aircraft Corporation and Moscow Exchange (MOEX).

The 2000 companies on the 2015 Forbes list hail from 61 countries and account for combined revenues of $39 trillion, profits of $3 trillion, with assets worth $162 trillion, and a market value of $48 trillion. Their total market volume rose 9 percent year-on-year.

The US and China dominate the list, taking the top 10 spots for a second year in a row. Beyond the top 10, the US is the winner, occupying more than a quarter of all positions with 579 companies. China appears to be home to 232 of the world's largest companies; its four biggest banks own the top four positions in the rating.

China surpassed Japan, which is in third place with 218 companies, for the first time. The UK comes in fourth with 95 companies. France fell out of the top 5 countries, making way for South Korea.

As for the continents, Asia with 691 companies is the leader, then comes North America (645) followed by Europe (486).

In terms of industries, banks and diversified financial companies continued to top the list, occupying 434 spots, though that is 27 spots less than in 2014. They are followed by the oil and gas sector (136 spots) and the construction sector (121 spots).

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 #20
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
May 7, 2015
Russia's road to deoffshorisation and capital amnesty still 'under construction'
Artem Toropov, senior associate in the tax practice at law firm Goltsblat BLP

More than a year has passed since the Russian "deoffshorisation" reform was switched into "active" mode by the Russian president. 2014 was dominated with work on the new legislation - but the result, to many, was quite unsatisfying.

To meet the deadline and make legislation effective as of 2015, the authorities had to take a near final version of the legislation (according to some public statements and press reports) and rapidly push it through the parliament.

There are a few notable things about this process.  First of all, the Russian regulator had only one year to put together a piece of legislation on controlled foreign company (CFC) rules and other international tax matters - a process that took years and decades in some other jurisdictions. Secondly, although there was an attempt to arrange a "public discussion" of the new proposed rules, the drafting process was still not quite transparent. Furthermore, the "public discussion" was mainly used by the authorities to get some feedback from the market, identify key loopholes in the initial drafts and close them in subsequent drafts in order to combat the simplest circumvention techniques. Finally, the law, despite being passed in November, is still "under construction", having been revised and amended at least once with new amendments on "active holdings" and irrevocable trusts on the way.

Against the backdrop of a continuing negative macroeconomic situation, sanctions and exchange rate volatility, 2015 is the year when businesses are still learning how to carefully navigate the new anti-avoidance rules and prepare for the new challenging times.

Not keeping up with the schedule

A number of important deadlines have not been met during the reform, and it has caused obvious tension in the market.

First of all, the law itself should have been passed in mid-2014, but it took a second half of the year to finalise it. The version that was passed still requires "polishing" and additional amendments, which is why many businesses are taking a "wait and see" approach and are reluctant to start their restructurings.

Secondly, the passing of the law itself probably made some officials forget that the legislative task is far from being completed and that the law still requires multiple forms and subordinate procedures to be developed to make the new mechanisms truly effective. In particular, only on April 24 the authorities approved the form for mandatory disclosure of foreign companies and trusts that is due to be filed by June 15.

Other mandatory forms and procedures are still yet to be finalised (eg. a form for foreign special purpose vehicles (SPVs) to claim themselves as Russian tax resident companies, a form on "fiscal transparency" for withholding tax and "beneficial ownership" purposes, etc.), which slows down the restructurings of groups who want to bring their corporate structures "onshore" to Russia for tax purposes.

Also, because the latest amendments have introduced an exemption from reporting obligation for participations terminated and structures liquidated before June 15, businesses will be busy getting rid of excessive offshore elements in their structures.

Voluntary disclosure programme needs work

While the deoffshorisation regulations are clearly the "stick", a much-expected president-announced "carrot" has also been prepared - the authorities have published a draft of the "capital amnesty" or voluntary disclosure law.

The "amnesty" concept is advertised as follows: it is a voluntary, rather than mandatory, disclosure programme that offers individuals the opportunity to disclose until the end of 2015 their foreign CFCs, bank accounts, real estate and other holdings with no extra charge in return for "guarantees" that a participant will not be subject to criminal, administrative or tax liability in connection with assets that he or she has disclosed. The guarantees, however, apply only to pre-2014 (ie, pre-deoffshorisation) actions and do not cover the restructurings made in 2014 and 2015.

The law also offers the ability to transfer overseas assets from nominees to personal ownership without extra tax charges. It is intended to give a "clean bill of health" and peace of mind to taxpayers who are afraid of general anti-avoidance charges in relation to past years.

However, at the moment, the draft law as such looks more like a vague manifesto rather than a solid legal document that reaches the goals set by the president. To make the "amnesty" truly effective, additional detailed amendments are required, which haven't been developed yet. Russia needs to relax its excessively harsh exchange control rules in order for Russian residents to use personal foreign accounts instead of accounts opened in the names of companies and structures.

There are several key criticisms of the "amnesty" concept that have been voiced.

First of all, many hold a view that participation in the programme and additional voluntary disclosures might trigger new charges and make participating persons more exposed to potential claims - despite the secrecy regime that is offered for voluntarily disclosed information. Proper use of this information is also in doubt. For example, an "amnesty" for tax crimes would not per se make a taxpayer immune from accusations of vague crimes such as "money laundering" or "fraud" in relation to disclosed assets, while including such crimes in the amnesty may make Russia run into trouble with FATF (Financial Action Task Force).     

Secondly, compliant and transparent taxpayers are now left wondering whether they should participate if they haven't done anything wrong in the past - some may be inclined to jump on the bandwagon just to obtain an additional immunity against aggressive claims of tax authorities and, by doing so, admit a certain degree of guilt. This leads to a question of potential inequality - those who have committed violations and who use the programme may be exempt from liability, whereas compliant taxpayers who do not participate in the voluntary disclosure but do a mandatory one can face frivolous and aggressive charges from tax and internal affairs authorities.  

Whatever the outcome, individuals should seek legal advice on whether or not they should participate, whereas participating individuals should approach their disclosure carefully in order to benefit from guarantees and not to expose themselves to new potential charges.

Changing environment

Russia's tax environment for business has changed significantly during the last few years.

Russian regulators, tax authorities and courts have developed a better understanding of international tax concepts and are trying to use the global BEPS trend to implement their own domestic anti-avoidance regulations and practice.

The problem is that the change is happening at times of macroeconomic difficulties, as well as falling public and corporate revenues, while anti-avoidance international tax rules are being used to raise large arbitrary claims against leading compliant western multinationals working in Russia.   

Deoffshorisation has already resulted in a significant number of businessmen and companies, particularly in the innovative and IT sectors, to relocate outside of Russia, which may eventually result in the reduction of taxpayer population and tax revenues instead of their planned increase.

The proposed "capital amnesty" needs substantial additional work, not only in the legislative sphere but by way of making additional reforms and strengthening the rule of law, to restore the trust of the business community and its faith in positive changes in the future.

Without such changes it is highly unlikely that the current negative trend and increase of capital outflow would be reversed and that the "amnesty" would be successful.

Last call or a just a warning sign?

With all these changes, Russian and foreign businesses are facing a tough choice with the new reform, with most questions basically going down to whether information exchange in the future is successful.  

Russia has taken significant steps forward with ratification of the OECD Mutual Assistance Convention and announcement of its intent to participate in automatic information exchange by 2018 based on common reporting standard (CRS).

Russia has also introduced domestic FATCA-style regulations that indicate the country's desire for foreign financial institutions to exchange information on accounts opened abroad by Russian citizens and their controlled SPVs.

At the moment most people doubt that Russia's participation in automatic exchange system will be effective, and that Russia will be as successful as the some other countries in pressuring foreign governments to collect and exchange information on Russian taxpayers. However, the situation with information exchange is changing so rapidly that any current predictions look more like a guessing game rather than a solid business strategy.

Once and if Russia is successful in its information exchange and collection efforts, for many taxpayers there would be limited or no possibility for successful legal defense unless a proper prior restructuring was made. Then would probably come a massive need for "capital amnesty-2", but there is no assurance that there will be one or that the one presented will be on favorable terms.

Whatever the choice, now is the right time to recognise that the times have definitely changed. From now on, for businesses working in Russia, long-term compliance and sustainable structuring as opposed to risky short-term gains should be the key priorities. "Business as usual" simply doesn't work anymore.

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 #21
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
May 7, 2015
'The President' and the cult of personality 2.0
A recently aired documentary film about Vladimir Putin - "The President" - raises concerns that a new "cult of personality" is already starting to emerge within the Kremlin.
By Ivan Tsvetkov
Associate Professor of American Studies, International Relations Department, St. Petersburg State University. He is an expert in the field of historical science and contemporary U.S. policy and U.S.-Russian relations. Since 2003, he has been the author and administrator of the educational website "History of the United States: Materials for the course" (http://ushistory.ru)

Even three years after the start of his third presidential term on May 7, Russian President Vladimir Putin never ceases to amaze those around him. In the eyes of some people, his image has begun to acquire the features of a demigod who has come down to earth to help mankind and make the world a more just place to live. Look no further than the new documentary film "The President," which recently aired on Russian television.

This film is completely unrestrained, endlessly (a full two and a half hours without any commercial breaks!) glorifying the achievements of Russia's national leader during his fifteen years in power. The four years during which Dmitry Medvedev was the president seems to have gone unnoticed by the filmmakers.

On screen, Putin succeeds in everything he undertakes, solving all problems, from the smallest details in a house (in one scene, he checks whether the radiator is properly heating a new building constructed for victims of a natural disaster), to international crises, in which the intervention of the Russian President is required to correct the errors of his inept and arrogant foreign counterparts (a role often filled by the President of the United States).

In the film, there is no criticism, and not even a hint of doubt that the course being pursued by the President was not only the right one, but also the only true path. The desire of the producers, it appears, was to present a gift to their dear leader in honor of the 15th anniversary of his "ascension to the throne."

However, Putin's personal involvement in the actual creation of this living television monument points to a deeper sense of what is really happening. In recent months, Putin has been very enthusiastic about participating in the genre of the "memoirs interview." Recently discussed were his frank revelations to producers of another laudatory documentary film - "Crimea: Path to the Motherland."

It is noticeable that he feels the most comfortable in this genre, answering questions with great interest and a twinkle in his eyes - as opposed to the once popular (but now looking rather uninspired) "Direct Line with the President," which this year came off as quite boring and impersonal.

It seems that the "father of the nation" should, above all else, love to talk to his people about the actual current problems, while Putin, for some reason, prefers to talk with the producer of the movie "The President," the hyper-loyal television presenter Vladimir Solovyov, about his memories of affairs of bygone days.

Putin seems to display the most positive emotions when he speaks about events in the tumultuous year 2014, which demonstrates one very important political fact - it seems that the Russian president really has no regrets about the decisions that he had made about Crimea or on other sensitive issues. He does not consider that sanctions and the quarrel with the West are a form of payback for certain misguided actions taken by the Russian leadership.

In the film "The President," Putin again voiced the idea, which he has repeatedly expressed, and apparently, is gradually acquiring the status of an unquestionable truth (the very status, which classic Marxist-Leninists had during the days of the Soviet Union): "The sanctions are not a response to Crimea, but the traditional attempts by the West to contain Russia."

Putin has convinced himself, and seeks to persuade the audience, that Russia has always experienced and will always be under pressure from the West. As a result, to set limits on Russia for the sake of earning the goodwill of the United States and Europe is pointless and counter-productive. It makes more sense to do what feels right and profitable, without worrying about the reaction of London or Washington.

The consistent implementation of this idea into practice destroys any hope of normalization of relations with the West. This normalization cannot happen in principle, says Putin, because it is contrary to the laws of history. At best, Russia and the West can count on forming temporary alliances to fight an external enemy, as was the case during the Second World War or after September 11, 2001.

Then again, it is very telling that the producers of the film "The President" have no plans to surprise the audience with some fresh ideas from Putin.
During 2014, Putin appeared on TV as an ideologue of the new Russian foreign policy. In his speeches, he talked much about the crisis of the West, the inevitable cooling of relations with the U.S., a Europe tired of the dictates of the U.S., the need for further rapprochement between Russia and China, the value of conservative ideas, and above all, the political leadership of Russia as the only world power that dares to challenge American hegemony.

Many of the ideas that were expressed during 2014 were fresh and attractive. Thanks to them, the Russian President won the sympathy of Russian and international audiences.

However, in 2015, judging from the clearly noticeable desire to reflect back on "memoirs" during his appearances on television, Putin has either lost his ideological ardor or something has happened that has made him take time off from coming up with new political rationales. During more than 10 hours of answering questions in various formats during March and April 2015, the Russian President did not offer any new interpretations of contemporary international relations, or even adjust any positions expressed by him during 2014.

Of course, 2015 has not yet seen an event equal in scale to the events of the "Crimean Spring," which has slowed down the process of formulating new ideas in Russian foreign policy. One should only rejoice from the reduced tensions, but the glorification that filled the "intellectual vacuum" amidst the 15th anniversary of Putin's presidency (not so round a date, by the way) is very ominous.

Apparently, the predictions that were made by some historians and political scientists in the spring of 2014, in the wake of Crimean events, have been confirmed. Back then there was much talk that - having embarked on the path of strengthening Russia's political position by means of territorial gains, and betting on the revival of the country's imperial power from days of the past, the Russian president "burnt his bridges" and will now be forced to see it through to the end. Never in history has this path led anyone to anything good.

We see today that President Putin is laying his bets on the freezing of the Ukrainian conflict, and, perhaps quite sincerely, is hoping that no more major military operations will occur in Ukraine.

However if Putin's approval ratings (now swollen to unimaginable heights) cannot be supported by the continuation of successful military operations, it will be necessary to maintain it in some other way, because Putin now simply will not be able to retain his power having an approval rating of 40-50 percent. That might be quite a decent level by Western standards, but he needs his 86 percent, and it does not matter at what cost.

The method to achieve this goal seems to have been chosen by Putin's spin-doctors - the formation of a cult of personality for the national leader, an inclination that clearly exists in Russian political culture. Some chiefs of Russian media may even think that modern information technologies have paved the way for the formation of the "cult of personality 2.0," which is easy to initiate and, if necessary, to nullify. In the interim, they hope, it could be enough to maintain the people's enthusiasm at the right level.

However, most likely, these hopes are not well founded. The economic downturn and the ongoing external sanctions pressure suggest that any attempts to solve the age-old political problem (preventing imperial authoritarianism from turning into totalitarianism) via new media technologies are unlikely to be successful. This is especially true if the offering is not something new, but simply the return of the old cult of personality. This is a country, remember, that recently was proud of the fact that it was able to overcome the previous versions of this collective insanity.

If the "cult of personality 2.0" turns out to be a farce, we can soon expect a return to the old, tried and even dangerous ways of keeping a leader's approval rating at 86 (and preferably 99) percent, which could overshadow the excessive zeal of broadcasters in their attempts to express universal love for the president.

If Putin will be able to prevent a new escalation of international tensions and maintain power despite the inevitable reduction of popular support to a reasonable level of 40-50 percent, he will go down in history as one of the greatest presidents. He would have been able to do something that no one was able to do before.

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 #22
Consortiumnews.com
May 5, 2015
Gifting Russia 'Free-Market' Extremism
By Robert Parry
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.

Exclusive: Official Washington's Putin-bashing knows no bounds as the Russian president's understandable complaints about U.S. triumphalism and NATO expansion, after the Soviet collapse in the 1990s, are dismissed as signs of his "paranoia" and "revisionism," writes Robert Parry.

If the Washington Post's clueless editorial page editor Fred Hiatt had been around during the genocidal wars against Native Americans in the 1870s, he probably would have accused Sitting Bull and other Indian leaders of "paranoia" and historical "revisionism" for not recognizing the beneficent intentions of the Europeans when they landed in the New World.

The Europeans, after all, were bringing the "savages" Christianity's promise of eternal life and introducing them to the wonders of the Old World, like guns and cannons, not to mention the value that "civilized" people place on owning land and possessing gold. Why did these Indian leaders insist on seeing the Europeans as their enemies?

But Hiatt wasn't around in the 1870s so at least the Native Americans were spared his condescension about the kindness and exceptionalism of the United States as it sent armies to herd the "redskins" onto reservations and slaughter those who wouldn't go along with this solution to the "Indian problem."

However, those of us living in the Twenty-first Century can't say we're as lucky. In 2002-03, we got to read Hiatt's self-assured Washington Post editorials informing us about Iraq's dangerous stockpiles of WMD that were threatening our very existence and giving us no choice but to liberate the Iraqi people and bring peace and stability to the Middle East.

Though Hiatt reported these WMD caches as "flat-fact" when that turned out to be fact-free, there was, of course, no accountability for him and his fellow pundits. After all, who would suggest that such well-meaning people should be punished for America's generous endeavor to deliver joy and happiness to the Iraqi people who instead chose to die by the hundreds of thousands?

Because Hiatt and his fellow deep-thinkers didn't get canned, we still have them around opening our eyes to Vladimir Putin's historical "revisionism" and his rampaging "paranoia" as he fails to see the philanthropic motives of the U.S. free-market economists who descended on Russia after the end of the Soviet Union in the 1990s to share their wisdom about the unbounded bounty that comes from unrestrained capitalism.

That many of these "Harvard boys" succumbed to the temptation of Russian girls desperate for some hard currency shouldn't be held against these selfless business "experts." Nor should the reality that they sometimes shared in the plundering of Russia's assets by helping a few friendly "oligarchs" become billionaires. Nor should the "experts" be blamed for the many Russians who starved, froze or suffered early death after their pensions were slashed, medical care was defunded, and their factories were shuttered. Just the necessary "growing pains" toward a "modern economy."

And, while these U.S. economic advisers helped put Russia onto its back, there was also the expansion of NATO despite some verbal promises from George H.W. Bush's administration that the anti-Russian alliance would not be pushed east of Germany. Instead, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush shoved NATO right up to Russia's border and touched a raw Russian nerve by taking aim at Ukraine, too.

But Russian President Putin simply doesn't appreciate the generosity of the United States in making these sacrifices. The "paranoid" Putin with his historical "revisionism" insists on seeing these acts of charity as uncharitable acts.

'Mr. Putin's Revisionism'

In Tuesday's Post, Hiatt and his team laid out this new line of attack on the black-hatted Putin in an editorial that was headlined, in print editions, "Mr. Putin's revisionism: His paranoia shouldn't blot out the good the West tried to offer," and online as "After the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. tried to help Russians." The editorial began:

"President Vladimir Putin recently was interviewed for a fawning Russian television documentary on his decade and a half in power. Putin expressed the view that the West would like Russia to be down at the heels. He said, 'I sometimes I get the impression that they love us when they need to send us humanitarian aid....[T]he so-called ruling circles, elites - political and economic - of those countries, they love us when we are impoverished, poor and when we come hat in hand. As soon as we start declaring some interests of our own, they feel that there is some element of geopolitical rivalry.'

"Earlier, in March, speaking to leaders of the Federal Security Service, which he once led, Mr. Putin warned that 'Western special services continue their attempts at using public, nongovernmental and politicized organizations to pursue their own objectives, primarily to discredit the authorities and destabilize the internal situation in Russia.'"

That was an apparent reference to the aggressive use of U.S.-funded NGOs to achieve "regime change" in Ukraine in 2014 and similar plans for "regime change" in Moscow, a goal openly discussed by prominent neocons, including National Endowment for Democracy president Carl Gershman who gets $100 million a year from Congress to finance these NGOs.

But none of that reality is cited in the Post's editorial, which simply continues: "Mr. Putin's remarks reflect a deep-seated paranoia. ... Mr. Putin's assertion that the West has been acting out of a desire to sunder Russia's power and influence is a willful untruth. The fact is that thousands of Americans went to Russia hoping to help its people attain a better life. ... It was not about conquering Russia but rather about saving it, offering the proven tools of market capitalism and democracy, which were not imposed but welcomed. ... The Americans came for the best of reasons."

Hiatt and his cohorts do acknowledge that not everything worked out as peachy as predicted. There were, for instance, a few bumps in the road like the unprecedented collapse in life expectancy for a developed country not at war. Plus, there were the glaring disparities between the shiny and lascivious nightlife of Moscow's upscale enclaves, frequented by American businessmen and journalists, and the savage and depressing poverty that gripped and crushed much of the country.

Or, as the Post's editorial antiseptically describes these shortcomings: "Certainly, the Western effort was flawed. Markets were distorted by crony and oligarchic capitalism; democratic practice often faltered; many Russians genuinely felt a sense of defeat, humiliation and exhaustion. There's much to regret but not the central fact that a generous hand was extended to post-Soviet Russia, offering the best of Western values and know-how.

"The Russian people benefit from this benevolence even now, and, above Mr. Putin's self-serving hysterics, they ought to hear the truth: The United States did not come to bury you."

Or, as a Fred Hiatt of the 1870s might have commented about Native Americans who resisted the well-intentioned Bureau of Indian Affairs and didn't appreciate the gentleness of the U.S. Army or the benevolence of life on the reservations: "Above Sitting Bull's self-serving hysterics, Indians ought to hear the truth: The white man did not come to exterminate you."

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 #23
Russia and China deepen ties with new economic deals
By Vladimir Soldatkin and Timothy Heritage

MOSCOW, May 8 (Reuters) - Russia and China signed a $25 billion deal to boost Chinese lending to Russian firms and a host of other accords deepening economic cooperation on Friday as Moscow's ties with the West fray over the Ukraine crisis.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping hailed their countries' improving relationship after Kremlin talks and a signing ceremony on the eve of a military parade marking the end of World War Two in Europe.

Xi is among about 30 foreign dignitaries attending the anniversary events in Moscow but the Red Square parade is being shunned by Western leaders in a show of displeasure over Moscow's role in the conflict in Ukraine.

In a further sign of Moscow's eastward shift, China and Russia are due to hold joint naval exercises next week in the eastern Mediterranean and Chinese soldiers will take part in Saturday's military parade.

"Today China is our strategic and key partner," Putin said after he and Xi presided over a signing ceremony in front of rows of Chinese and Russian officials in the Kremlin.

Xi, who like Putin looked relaxed, invited the Russian leader to attend war commemorations in China on Sept. 3. Putin accepted, saying their countries had suffered most in the war.

The Chinese president said the talks had shown Beijing and Moscow shared the same views on many global problems.

Both leaders said it was necessary to guard against a resurgence of fascism and attempts to rewrite history, echoing previous comments by Putin criticising the West and Ukraine for, in his view, underestimating the Soviet role in ending the war.

BETTER TIES

Despite both being Communist-run in Soviet times, Beijing and Moscow almost went to war in the 1960s over a border dispute but relations have improved steadily since the end of the Cold War, especially since the West imposed economic sanctions on Russia last year over its seizure of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula.

Last May they agreed a $400-billion deal for Russia to supply China with 38 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas annually from 2018 for 30 years.

Building on that deal, natural gas producer Gazprom signed a deal on Friday with China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) on the main terms of providing supplies via what is know as the Western route.

An agreement was also signed to boost Chinese lending to Russian firms, some of which have been hit badly by an economic crisis aggravated by the sanctions and weaker global oil prices.

Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive officer of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, told Reuters that Russian companies could receive up to $25 billion over the next three years.

The sides agreed to launch a $2 billion investment fund targeting agricultural projects and signed a deal for Russia's Sberbank to open a 6 billion yuan ($966 million) credit line with China Development Bank.

Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said the countries would invest 1 trillion roubles ($19.7 billion) in a rail link between Moscow and the Russian city of Kazan to be completed by 2020. Putin said the level of Chinese investment would be around 300 billion roubles.

Although relations are improving, it has not proved as easy as some Russian officials had hoped to secure funds from China, with some suspicion lingering in the relationship.

Russia is wary of becoming the junior partner and little more than a provider of natural resources for China's booming economy, the world's second biggest after the United States.

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 #24
The Wilson Center
www.wilsoncenter.org
Wilson Briefs   
May 2015
Engage China and Russia with Issues, Not Scolding
By Robert Daly and Matthew Rojansky
Robert Daly is Director, Kissinger Institute on China and the United States
Matthew Rojansky is Director, Kennan Institute

Summary

China and Russia demonstrate a growing affinity in their national interests and diplomatic styles. Americans have often dismissed Chinese and Russian international ventures with broad attacks understood by Chinese and Russians as cultural condescension and used by their presidents to consolidate domestic support. The United States would engage China and Russia more effectively by focusing debate on specific policy issues and omitting more general criticism

An emerging Russian-Chinese entente

The emerging entente between Beijing and Moscow is more significant and durable than is typically recognized in the West. Russia and China regularly join forces in the UN Security Council to veto actions against human rights abusers, and Vladimir Putin's and Xi Jinping's growing friendship, evinced by their upcoming attendance at each other's World War II commemorations, increases the popularity of both men in both countries. They benefit not only from their images as strongmen, but from championing such principles as opposition to U.S. hegemony, and building such institutions as the BRICS Bank that offer alternatives to Western institutions.

Historical affnities: Greatness and suffering

The signs of a Eurasian entente are often dismissed by Western scholars and policymakers who emphasize the historical enmity and disparate interests between China and Russia and conclude that Sino-Russian partnership must be illusory. Such dismissals overlook cultural commonalities that draw proud Russians and Chinese closer together, particularly in the face of dismissive attitudes from Washington. Both nations are continental powers with ancient, deeply mythologized histories. Both pride themselves on "unique" national virtues, which the Chinese call their te-se ("special characteristics") and Russians identify with the Orthodox Church and Russkiy Mir ("Russian world"). Beijing and Moscow both seek legitimacy in the claim that they defend these virtues from foreign powers that have humiliated them in the past and seek to undermine them now. Both pride themselves on resilient suffering (the ability to chi ku, or "eat bitterness" in Chinese; to endure lisheniye, "privation," in Russian).

The American experience carries echoes of Chinese and Russian apprehensions that should lead Americans to grasp the emotional power of Chinese and Russian history. To appreciate Russia's sense of vulnerability, Americans need only reflect on their own perennial fear of decline and consider that Russians lived through a real and catastrophic collapse in power and prosperity only two decades ago. To fathom China's present anger over defeats and insults suffered during and since the Opium Wars of the mid-1800s, Americans need only think of the passions still elicited in the southern United States by discussion of the Civil War. To understand the mindset of people in a state of continual crisis, real or imagined, Americans should recall their own surge of patriotism and fear and the rush to war following 9/11.

U.S. attitudes

Nonetheless, U.S. officials have often discredited Russia's actions as widely out of step. Even at the height of the "Reset" in 2009, President Obama referred to Putin as having "one foot in the old ways." In March 2013, Obama declared that Russia, in annexing Crimea, was "on the wrong
side of history." Speaking of Russian aggression in Ukraine, Secretary of State John Kerry said, "You just don't in the 21st century behave in 19th-century
fashion by invading another country on completely trumped-up pretext." The White House, further, has stretched its depiction of  Putin to cover Russia as
a whole, as when Obama said in an August 2014 interview with the Economist, "President Putin represents a deep strain in Russia that is probably harmful."

The United States has criticized China similarly. Regarding the Chinese role in the international system, President Obama said in 2014 that they "have been free riders for the last 30 years." When China tries to build institutions or provide public goods, it is told that its standards fall short of America's, as in Obama's defense of the Trans-Pacific Partnership: "China wants to write the rules for commerce in Asia. If it succeeds, our competitors would be free to ignore basic environmental and labor standards, giving them an unfair advantage over American workers. We can't let that happen. We should write the rules." In Washington's comparable misgivings about the China-proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which would offer an alternative to the World Bank and other established international financial institutions, China sees the same denigrating tendency.

Offense taken

Because the Chinese and Russian people are long-sensitized to America's sense of superiority, these countries regard the slightest tincture of American contempt as an assault on national dignity. This helps Xi and Putin mobilize domestic opposition to American values and policies. Chinese on the Internet and in public conferences responded to Obama's "free rider" comment as if they had been attacked as a people. Many Chinese think that the remark proves Beijing's assertion that America seeks to contain China's rise. Putin evoked similar Russian sentiments in a 2014 address to the Federal Assembly, when he touched on the long history of the Western policy of containment: "Whenever someone thinks that Russia has become too strong or independent, these tools are quickly put into use."

To manage relations with this China-Russia entente, the United States must understand their motives and present U.S. policies and values with specificity and without cultural veneer:

*  U.S. analysis should integrate cultural and historical factors into policymaking and should strive to understand China and Russia on their own terms, even if those terms seem offensive or wrong. To build analytic capacity, the United States should encourage more American university students to take up Russia and China studies and should invest in exchanges at all levels.

*  When Washington needs to deliver tough messages to Beijing and Moscow, it should employ quiet, sustained diplomacy and focus on technical rather than civilizational issues. When international norms are violated, the United States should identify and counter specific threats and forego principled exhortations.

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#25
The Economist
May 9, 2015
Russia and China
An uneasy friendship
The crisis in Ukraine is drawing Russia closer to China. But the relationship is far from equal

THE celebrations in Moscow on May 9th to commemorate the capitulation of Nazi Germany 70 years ago will speak volumes about today's geopolitics. While Western leaders are staying away in protest against Russia's aggression in Ukraine (and the first annexation of sovereign territory in Europe since the second world war), China's president, Xi Jinping, will be the guest of honour of his friend, Vladimir Putin. Western sanctions over Ukraine, and what looks set to be a long-term chilling of relations with America and Europe, has given Russia no option other than to embrace China as tightly as it can.

Next week, in a further symbol of the growing strategic partnership between the two countries, three or four Chinese and six Russian naval vessels will meet up to conduct live-fire drills in the eastern Mediterranean. The exercise, which follows several similar ones in the Pacific since 2013, aims to send a clear message to America and its allies. For Russia the manoeuvres signal that it has a powerful friend and a military relationship with a growing geographic reach. For China even a small-scale exercise of this kind (its ships are coming from anti-piracy duty in the Gulf of Aden) speaks of increasing global ambition in line with Mr Xi's slogan about a "Chinese dream", which he says includes a "dream of a strong armed-forces".  

At a more practical level, the exercise provides a shop-window for China's Type 054A guided-missile frigate, which it would like to sell to the Russians. It also offers operational experience in an unstable region in which it has an expanding economic presence. In 2011 China organised the evacuation of more than 38,000 Chinese from Libya during that country's upheaval. Last month its navy pulled several hundred of its citizens out of Yemen, which is being torn apart by civil war. There are thought to be at least 40,000 Chinese working in Algeria and more than 1m across Africa.

Relations between China and Russia have been growing closer since the end of the cold war. Both, for different reasons, resent America's "hegemony" and share a desire for a more multipolar world order. Russia, a declining great power, is looking for ways to recover at least some of its lost status; whereas China, a rising power, bridles at what it sees as American attempts to constrain it. As fellow permanent members of the UN Security Council, both with autocratic governments, Russia and China find common cause in sniping at Western liberal interventionism. The two countries settled all of their long-standing border disputes in 2008, just a month before the Russian-choreographed war in Georgia. Russia saw the deal as a way for it to concentrate more of its military forces in the west as a deterrent against the further expansion of NATO.

But there have been occasional tensions. Russia played a key role during the 1990s in helping China to modernise its military forces. Russia was able to preserve a defence-industrial base that would otherwise have withered from lack of domestic orders. But since the middle of the last decade, irked by China's theft of its military technology and its consequent emergence as a rival in the arms market, Russia's weapons sales to its neighbour have slowed.

Russia is also wary of becoming little more than a supplier of natural resources to China's industrial machine-a humiliating position for a country that until recently saw China as backward. As long as Russia could sell to Europe all the gas required to keep the Russian economy growing, it could put deals with China on hold. These included plans for two gas pipelines from Siberia into China that were announced in 2006 and then quietly dropped as the two sides bickered over prices.

All that has changed. The Ukrainian crisis is, as Russian media put it, forcing Russia to "pivot" its economy towards Asia in an effort to lessen the impact of Western sanctions by finding alternative markets and sources of capital. For China it is a golden opportunity to gain greater access to Russia's natural resources, at favourable prices, as well as to secure access to big infrastructure contracts that might have gone to Western competitors and to provide financing for projects that will benefit Chinese firms.

In theory, Russia's incursions into Ukraine and its seizure of Crimea violate two of China's most consistently held foreign-policy tenets: non-interference in other states and separatism of any kind. But China abstained from voting on the UN Security Council resolutions condemning Russia, while Chinese media have given Russia strong support. China has quietly welcomed a new cold war in Europe that might distract America from its declared "rebalancing" towards Asia.

Striking evidence of the new closeness between China and Russia was a $400 billion gas deal signed in May last year under which Russia will supply China with 38 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas annually from 2018 for 30 years. At China's insistence, the gas will come from new fields in eastern Siberia and will pass through an as yet unbuilt pipeline-the better for ensuring that it will not be diverted elsewhere. Other deals have followed. The biggest was a preliminary agreement signed in November for Russia to sell an additional 30 bcm a year through a proposed pipeline from western Siberia. In every instance it is probable that China was able to drive a hard bargain on price.

Russia's weakness was also clear in its recent decision to resume high-tech arms exports to China. In April it agreed to sell China an air-defence system, the S-400, for about $3 billion. This will help give China dominance of the air over Taiwan and the Senkaku islands (Diaoyu to the Chinese, who dispute Japan's claim to them). In November Russia said it was prepared to sell China its latest Sukhoi-35S combat aircraft. Initially it had refused to sell any fewer than 48, in order to make up for losses it calculated it would suffer as a result of China's inevitable pilfering of the designs. Now it has meekly agreed to sell only 24.

But problems ahead are discernible. One is that both countries are competing for influence in Central Asia, once Russia's backyard (Mr Xi was due to head there before proceeding to Moscow). Mr Putin wants to establish his Eurasian Economic Union partly to counter growing Chinese economic power in Central Asia, through which China wants to develop what it calls a Silk Road Economic Belt. China is using the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO), of which Russia and Central Asian nations are also members, to boost its security ties in the region as well: it often holds counter-terrorism exercises with its SCO partners. Another difficulty is Russia's military and energy links with countries such as India and Vietnam, both of which are rivals of China. But the biggest problem of all may be Russia's irritation with being forced into an increasingly subservient role in its relations with China. For Russia the partnership with China has become painfully necessary. For China it is nice to have, but far from essential.

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#26
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
May 7, 2015
TROIKA REPORT: West's boycott of Victory Day unhelpful; another piece in the puzzle for BRICS global finance system; Russia and China as the new G2?
RUSSIA BEYOND THE HEADLINES presents its weekly analytical program TROIKA REPORT, featuring a look at three of the most high-profile recent developments in international affairs.
By Sergey Strokan and Vladimir Mikheev

1. Engaging the West
West's boycott of Victory Day in Moscow is unhelpful

This year's solemn celebrations of Victory Day in Moscow to mark the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 has turned out to be a divisive event in Russia's relations with the major Western powers. It happened despite the legacy of the anti-Hitler coalition and the indisputable fact that most of Eastern and Central Europe was liberated by Soviet soldiers who sacrificed their lives in what was a truly existential war.

The conspicuous absence of Western leaders at the Victory Day military parade in Moscow comes as a bitter disappointment not just for President Putin, ageing veterans and ordinary folk, but also for liberal-minded Russian intellectuals who had pinned their hopes on long-standing ties with the West as a seemingly natural offshoot of their former comradeship-in-arms.

Yet, in Russia it is still widely acclaimed that victory in World War II was achieved largely by means of an alliance between the Soviet Union, the United States and Britain. The Lend-Lease supplies marked "Made in the USA" arrived in a steady stream and filled the deficit of the war-torn Soviet economy. The U.S. government would send the Soviet Union fighters and bombers, heavy-duty Studebaker trucks, canned meat (ironically nicknamed "the second front" by Russians), and other essential products. In total, American deliveries had a price tag of $50 billion, and it was worth every cent loaned to the USSR at that time.

This was no small contribution to the common cause, although Moscow, Washington and London did not see eye to eye on many issues, and were uncompromising ideological adversaries.

Today, Russia would like to capitalize on the feelings of gratitude toward the allies, and is willing to appeal to this experience as a model of meaningful cooperation in a contemporary world ravaged by often incompatible interests, regional conflicts, and sectarian violence.

This viewpoint is essentially shared by Alexander Domrin, professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, who also lectures at U.S. universities. He made the following comment for Troika Report:

"The 70th anniversary reminds us that it was not only a mutual engagement between the Soviet Union, the UK and the U.S. - it was the greatest alliance of the 20th century. It was an alliance against what we in Russia call the "brown plague." It was not only an alliance against Nazi Germany. By 1941 most of Europe had been conquered by the Nazis. It is notable that in 1945 the Reichstag in Berlin was defended not only by Germans but also by their collaborators from several European countries, including nationals of France and Holland. Seventy years later, the memory of this great alliance should prevent America and the UK from further aggravating their relations with Russia today."

Today, are there common threats which could make the West and Russia once again stand together, shoulder to shoulder, and work together to make the world safe, secure and prosperous?

"Number one is international terrorism. It is a real global danger. Nazism was an ideology but terrorism is not. It can be used by different people in different parts of the world and it is a major threat for the whole of civilization. This is something which should definitely unite us with the West."

Unlike the official abstention, several Western NGOs and cultural figures have found it appropriate to commemorate Victory Day in their own manner. Here are just two striking examples to prove the point. Firstly, Edward Lozansky, president of the American University in Moscow and professor of the National Research Nuclear University, initiated a tree planting ceremony in Moscow to commemorate the Elbe River linkup between American and Soviet troops.

Secondly, Dutch journalist and researcher Remco Reiding presented his book in Moscow on the scrupulous work he has been doing since the 1990s on identifying Soviet soldiers whose unnamed graves are found in the cities of Amersfoort and Leusden. In spite of rather cool relations between the Netherlands and Russia after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was brought down over eastern Ukraine in 2014, the presentation was organized by the Dutch Embassy.

Troika Report strongly believes that history should not be hijacked by temporary disagreements on a governmental level and should not be made hostage to old animosities, especially in view of the new global threats rooted in the rise of sectarian and religious extremism.
 
2. Globally speaking
Another piece in the puzzle for BRICS global finance system

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ratified a deal to establish a $100 billion foreign currency reserve pool for the BRICS group. The move is largely viewed as another part of the BRICS strategy to gain additional leverage by presenting an alternative to the World Bank and IMF.

By doing so, BRICS is challenging the monopoly of the two established Western financial institutions in their capacity of global lenders.

In July last year, Russia, Brazil, India, China and South Africa formally signed and sealed the document outlining the parameters of a reserve currency pool worth over $100 billion, as well as the $100 billion BRICS Development Bank.
The ratification of the deal took place two months prior to the BRICS summit scheduled for July in the central Russian city of Ufa.

Troika Report approached Georgy Toloraya, executive director of the Russian National Committee of the BRICS research center, for comment on the recent developments.

How valuable is this move for Russia in terms of its economic growth?

"I think this measure has both symbolic and practical value. The currency reserve pool was agreed in Fortaleza in July last year. So the BRICS countries are moving on quite steadily, increasing their consolidation, especially in economic and financial affairs. The planned reserve pool will help countries to stabilize their currencies in case of crisis, which is quite relevant, without addressing the International Monetary Fund.

"For example, South Africa can get two times the amount of money it has reserved for the pool. Russia, Brazil and India can receive the same amount they have allocated, while China has access to half the amount it invested. This is logical since the Chinese share is the biggest one: It is $41 billion. This gives China, naturally, the leading role in the institution but the principle of equality is unchallenged.

The pool also operates in accordance with international rules: If a country receives more than 30 percent of its quota, it has to present some kind of stabilization plan agreed with the IMF and made up in accordance with IMF rules. It means that it is not a substitute for the IMF, as some critics claim, but a good addition to it. Yet, it has a competitive edge to provide aid to countries not dependent on the IMF and U.S. dollar-pegged systems."

The claim that there is a "competitive edge" has been put to doubt by some experts, however, who have pointed out that smaller developing countries with a track record of poor governance and inability to make repayments would be unlikely to profit from the BRICS Development Bank despite being in desperate need of investment in infrastructure.
The optimists, on the contrary, believe that if BRICS proves to be a reliable lender it could become in the long run an alternative to the World Bank and IMF, which usually demand privatization and liberalization in return for loans.

Troika Report also asked Georgy Toloraya whether the upcoming Ufa summit might become a game-changer for Russia in this respect.

"The summit will be important for Russia now that it has difficult relations with the West amid an economic crisis. Russia would welcome cooperation with BRICS and would like to see the consolidation of the union. The grouping is becoming a more important player in global economic affairs and in geopolitics too. The Ufa summit will adopt a strategy of economic cooperation along with a roadmap for investments. The summit will be another step in the institualization of BRICS. I don't think it will be a game-changer, but certainly another step forward in the development of BRICS.

True enough, BRICS has the prerequisites for evolving into a powerful union. Altogether, BRICS nations combine 42 percent of the world's population, some 20 percent of the global economy based on GDP, with total trade between the countries of more than $6 trillion, or nearly 17 percent of the world's total.
For these reasons alone, the Ufa summit should be followed with due vigilance. It is expected to sustain the gradual advancement of the five nations towards a full-fledged "alliance of the willing." Willing, most probably, to assert themselves as a formidable union spreading across three continents, although for now their ambitions remain confined to economy, trade and finance.
 
3. Going Eastward
Russia and China as the new G2: a challenge to the U.S.?

China's President Xi Jinping will be the most influential world leader to attend the World War II anniversary commemorations in Moscow on May 9. On the eve of the visit, Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping emphasized that "China and Russia were the main theaters in Asia and Europe during the Second World War and are the main victorious nations of the Second World War."

The Chinese leader will also hold talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and negotiations on the ministerial level are expected to culminate in the signing of a raft of cooperation agreements covering areas such as space and aviation, the energy sector, tax regulation, and finances. The icing on the cake would be an official statement on enhancing what has become known as the "strategic partnership" between Moscow and Beijing.

Presidents Xi Jinping and Putin will be meeting three times in the coming two months, next time within the BRICS format and the Shanghai Cooperation Council summit in the Russian city of Ufa.

Russia and China seem to be cutting corners in laying the groundwork for the formation of what some pundits have labeled the "Big Two," although previously the Big Two meant China and the U.S. How viable is the emerging alliance and does it pose a challenge to other nations?

Alexander Lomanov, Head Research Fellow at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, has this to say:

"The earlier version of the G2 formed by China and the United States, proposed more than 5 years ago, did not look viable due to increased competition between the two nations. It's like the old leader and the new would-be leader of the world; they cannot join each other in such an enterprise. On the contrary, there is nothing that Russia and China can quarrel about. Of course, it might be unsettling for some people since China still looks unfamiliar in the role of a new leader. Many still regard China as a "developing country."

"For Russia and China it could be a "soft alliance" with a very weak or diluted military component but with a lot of trade, investment flows, joint production, and mutual support in international affairs. It will be different from relations between China and the United States since the latter will never abandon its idea of transforming the political system of China. Russia will never try to do this since it is not the would-be hegemon and leader of the 21st or 22nd century. While it is natural to see Russia wanting to cooperate with the old and declining leader, the United States, it is also natural and foreseeable for Moscow to seek cooperation and develop ties with the would-be world leader, which is China."

- One of the reasons why the "reset" between the U.S. and Russia failed was that Russia did not put up with the concept of a "junior partner." Could it be that way down the road Russia will become a junior partner to China?

"The American and Chinese notions of a 'junior partner' are totally different. First of all, I cannot imagine that China would spend billions of dollars in order to initiate a 'regime change' in Russia or topple governments anywhere else in the post-Soviet space. It's not what the Chinese want to do: They want to make profits, they want enhanced national security, but not through organizing 'color revolutions.' There is no political interference in internal affairs from China.

"Another aspect: There is no military pressure on Russia. China has a much bigger defense budget than Russia but it is not at the head of a military alliance that encroaches on the Russian sphere of national security. So it is much more confortable to be a 'junior partner' of China than of the United States because you feel neither political nor military pressure. But, of course, Russian GDP is only 20 percent of Chinese GDP and the gap will keep growing."

- Some believe the Russo-Chinese duo can challenge American dominance - what do you think?

"The only challenge would be resistance to American attempts to influence Russia's and China's domestic policies, and collective defense measures against military pressure, in particular the American anti-ballistic missile systems, which could devalue Russian, but to a greater extent the much smaller Chinese strategic deterrence. Symmetrical challenges create a symmetrical response."

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 #27
The Economist
May 7, 2015
The Economist Explains
How Russians see the West

ON MAY 9th Russia will mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the second world war, known to Russians as the Great Patriotic War. It ought to be a moment for joint commemoration between Russia and the West. Instead, "Victory day" as it is called in Russia, has come to serve as a reminder to Russians that their overwhelming contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany was never properly recognised by Britain and America. This year, to add further insult, most Western leaders have refrained from attending the celebration, a decision that many Russians will see as confirmation of their continued struggle against the West.

How do Russians see the West?

The mainstream view is that America is anti-Russian. In fact, some 81% of Russians see the country as a threat to Russia. Anti-Americanism has become the main component of Vladimir Putin's ideology. It plays to the feeling of resentment that many Russians feel towards America and the West.

Having craved and even mythologised America in the 80s and 90s, Russians feel they have been snubbed: Despite their wealth and embrace of Western lifestyles, Russia's elite feel they have not been accepted by the West as equals.

Behind this anti-Americanism is a feeling of jealousy and resentment. The Kremlin has capitalised on this, peddling a narrative in which America is seeking to contain Russia and sponsor everything that is anti-Russian. In a recent documentary Vladimir Putin, the bellicose president, observed that America regarded Russia as its main geopolitical rival.

But not all Russians would agree. The country's liberals and intelligentsia, who make up about 15 percent of the population and live mainly in cities, still believe that converging with Europe and the west is Russia's ultimate destiny.

Boris Nemstov, a liberal politician and one of the people who protested against Putin's anti-Americanism and war-mongering, was shot dead in Moscow on February 27th of this year.

Flipping the mirror, how do we see Russia? The Western view is that paranoid defensiveness has done a fine job distracting many Russians from their country's shaky economy, fettered media and limited personal freedoms. It has also helped bolster Mr Putin's approval ratings to 90%.

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 #28
The Atlantic Council
www.atlanticcouncil.org
May 6, 2015
When the Kremlin Makes An Offer You Can't Refuse
BY STEPHEN BLANK
Dr. Stephen Blank is a Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council.   

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has multiple dimensions, and the energy dimension is one that has been underestimated. Russia has sought to make Ukraine dependent on its abundant energy since 2006. The reason is simple: Russia wants economic and political control over Ukraine and it wants to enmesh Ukraine's government and elites in a web of energy-based state-sponsored corruption that will only perpetuate its dependence. Russian oil and gas-perhaps the most critical day-to-day weapon in Russia's foreign policy arsenal-passes through Ukraine to Southern, Eastern, and Central Europe, which ties both sides into an unhappy yet hitherto inescapable marriage.

Moscow uses energy as a weapon to influence and coerce its customers. As soon as Russia's "little green men" occupied Crimea, they seized every Ukrainian energy platform in the Black Sea. But Moscow's game of pipeline politics is not new. Its South Stream project aimed to isolate Ukraine from Europe while cementing Balkan dependence on Russia. It would have given Russia leverage over key customers like Italy, too. When the European Commission torpedoed South Stream for violating European Union (EU) rules, Moscow unilaterally canceled South Stream, leaving the Balkans in the lurch, and announced a new proposal for a pipeline through Turkey called Turk Stream. Turk Stream, like South Stream, was designed to isolate Ukraine from European markets and perpetuate its energy dependence on Russia while also evading EU regulations since it will conveniently end at the Turkish-Greek border. Turkey is not an EU member, so the EU's cumbersome rules won't apply to Turk Stream.

Even though Turkish Stream is only a proposal at this stage, Moscow is already using it to impose ultimatums on its customers, threatening them with cutoffs if they do not conform to Russia's demands. In January, it cut off gas to the Balkans and has issued ultimatums to Moldova in the past.

Russia's bullying isn't limited to hydrocarbons. The Kremlin told Hungary its economy would suffer if it turned down the agreement on a Paks nuclear reactor with Rosatom, Russia's national nuclear corporation. Similarly in Serbia, Moscow bought Srbijgas, Serbia's national company, in 2007 for $400 million, which was approximately 15 percent of its net worth. But Serbia doesn't get any special treatment now and pays market price of $400 per TCM. These thuggish tactics justify diplomats' description of Russia as a mafia state and show how little Slavic and Orthodox fraternity count for in Russia's world.

Russia is playing hardball in other areas as well. Russia dropped its gas price for private Turkish companies to $216 per TCM, while refusing to ratify the agreements it made with Turkey's national energy company. It had agreed to sell gas at $415 per TCM-a price that is burdensome to Botas and the Turkish government. Russia's actions are meant to compel Turkey to make concessions on Turk Stream.

Meanwhile, in the Baltic Sea, the Russian Navy entered Lithuania's territorial waters to chase away Swedish ships and construction crews laying the NordBalt cable linking Sweden and Lithuania to minimize Russian power exports to Lithuania. This is obvious retaliation for Lithuania's defiance of Russia. Vilnius built an LNG terminal that will minimize its exposure to Gazprom, the Russian energy giant. It's also a warning to stop construction of the forthcoming Lithuania-Poland cable. Moscow is also supporting anti-shale protesters throughout Eastern Europe and has sought to control not only upstream gas and other energy exports to European customers but downstream distributors to control domestic distribution in European countries, actions for which the European Commission has taken Gazprom to court.

Russia's actions against Ukraine in the energy sphere are not some sort of aberration. They reflect a pattern of predatory and coercive behavior that it has reproduced all over Eastern Europe to compel other countries to comply. Moscow's energy policy conforms to the classic mafia protection racket: buy my product or else bad things will happen to you. Moscow believes it has unlimited license to encroach upon or even curtail other governments' sovereignty, territory, and economic rights to suit its interests.

But sometimes Russia overplays its hand. South Stream lies in ruins and Ukraine is successfully turning to other customers who are, thanks to energy market trends, increasingly able to defy Moscow. But it is necessary to accelerate the process by which other exporters, including the United States, deliver oil and gas to Europe.

Russia's aggressive, coercive, and predatory behaviors, the purpose of which goes beyond economics, must be curtailed through economic and political means. The issue is not that Moscow sells gas to Europe. Russia's geographical proximity makes that inevitable. Russia uses its gas supplies not as a pure business proposition that are bought and sold at market prices globally but as a weapon to achieve strategic political objectives that are often at the customer's expense. But to ensure European security and peace, the United States and the EU must work to make the energy market one where the consumer is in command.

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 #29
www.rt.com
May 8, 2015
US NATO envoy: 'I get most info on Ukraine conflict from social networks'

The US Permanent Representative to NATO, Douglas Lute, has admitted that his knowledge about the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine comes mostly from social networks rather than intelligence reports.

"We should all ask ourselves: why is it that we know so little really about what is going on in Donbass," the US ambassador to NATO told "Friends of Europe" forum in Brussels.

"I mean, frankly, I read more on social media about what is going on in the Donbass than I get from formal intelligence networks. This is because the networks don't exist today," Lute said.

The US envoy to NATO then backtracked, reacting to a comment made by Elena Donova, a member of the Russian delegation to NATO.

"I didn't say that we ignored our intelligence sources. I just said that compared to the Cold War the systems that we once had twenty years ago have atrophied," he said, adding that the "things have fundamentally changed."

The reliability of social media as a source of information has been questioned throughout the conflict in Ukraine.

The latest example is an April tweet by US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt claiming that Russia's military were continuing to expand their presence in eastern Ukraine. As for proof, Pyatt posted a two-year-old picture of an air defense system from an air show near Moscow.

Last July, Russia's Defense Ministry questioned the authenticity of the satellite images of alleged shelling of Ukraine from Russian territory. It said the images were "created by US counselors" and posted by Pyatt on his Twitter microblog in an "informational merry-go-round" of fake pictures.

In August, Russia's Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov ridiculed another so-called NATO proof, saying: "If earlier, someone would at least put their names on those images, be it Breedlove, Rasmussen, or even Lungescu, now, they are hesitant. It makes no sense to seriously comment on this," he said.

Yet, this February, Ukrainian MPs followed the line, presenting a US senator with photos of what they said were Russian military hardware columns on Ukrainian territory. However, it turned out that the photos had been taken during Russia's conflict with Georgia in South Ossetia back in 2008.

The Ukrainian conflict erupted in April 2014 after Kiev sent troops to the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions after civilians there refused to recognize the new coup-imposed authorities in the capital. The Minsk accords, brokered by Russia, Germany and France in February of this year, brought several weeks of calm to the region, but ceasefire violations by both sides have been growing, hampering the peace process.

According to the UN human rights office, at least 6,116 people have been killed and 15,474 have been wounded during a year of fighting. Many fear that the true numbers could be much higher, however.

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 #30
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks and answers to media questions at a joint press conference following talks with Federal Minister for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs of Austria Sebastian Kurz, Moscow, May 5, 2015 (Excerpt re Ukraine)

Sergey Lavrov: We discussed this topic primarily in the context of the EU-imposed correlation between the implementation of the Minsk Agreements and the lifting of sanctions, as Mr Kurz has just said. We are interested in this, not because we'd like to persuade our European partners not to extend the sanctions but because we'd like to know what position the EU is taking with regard to Ukrainian crisis settlement and the Minsk Agreements themselves. It follows from the position, which has just been confirmed by my counterpart Sebastian Kurz,that Brussels and, accordingly, other EU capitals proceed from the assumption that the Minsk Agreements should be implemented by Russia alone. The European Union keeps silent on what is in store for Ukraine if the Minsk Agreements continue to be sabotaged. It also kept silent on February 21, 2014, when the Ukrainian opposition carried out a coup d'etat, breaching their commitments witnessed by three foreign ministers of major European countries. The Ukrainian opposition was allowed to do that, because it wanted to join Europe. The Kiev authorities, who came to power as a result of a coup d'etat, were allowed to disregard yet another obligation, one assumed in Genevaon April 17, 2014, whereby the new Ukrainian authorities committed themselves to immediately launch a constitutional reform with the participation of all regions and political forces in the country. Today - and I don't want to believe this -there are certain signs indicating that someone inside the EU would like the European Union to allow the Ukrainian authorities to disregard the Minsk Agreements as well.

Shelling has resumed in recent days. Austrian Federal Minister for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs Sebastian Kurz and I talked about the reports submitted by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, which we trust and support and would welcome its expansion. We regard the Mission as an objective source of information on what is going on "on the ground." We see as unacceptable the Ukrainian authorities' attempts to interfere with its operations, accusing it of bias or insisting that Russian nationals on its staff should be discriminated against as to their access to some or other facilities in territories covered by the OSCE mandate.

We are seeking objectivity and never hide our views on violations of the Minsk Agreements committed by either side. Yes, the shelling has resumed, but now that its intensity has become threatening, does anyone have any doubts left as to the source of this violence? Russian journalists are working there - unlike journalists from other European countries whose media representatives turn up from time to time. There are OSCE observers' reports, but there is also the following objective fact, which I asked my counterpart to take into account today. Imagine the line of contact in southeastern Ukraine: the self-proclaimed republics lie to the east, while to the west are the territories controlled by the Ukrainian authorities, or at least controlled in theory, because there are so-called volunteer battalions that reportedly obey - or maybe don't obey - the Interior Ministry or the Ministry of Defence. There is no clarity on this point.

Make a mental picture of this line and compare it with what you saw over the past year. Where is the civilian infrastructure destroyed? To the west or to the east of this line? Where do we hear the sad daily news of civilian casualties? Almost 100 percent of that - the destruction of the civilian infrastructure and civilian deaths - is observed to the east of the disengagement line. On the western side, that is, the territory controlled by the Ukrainian forces, there are regular army and volunteer casualty reports after the resumption of violence. And this is the answer to the question as to who is bombing or is aiming at whom. I was referring to the implementation of the Minsk Agreements.

MrKurz will be in Kiev tomorrow; we have discussed in detail the entire list of the Minsk commitments and have presented our arguments which unequivocally prove that Kiev is unwilling to implement the Agreements, primarily because of its reluctance to launch a direct dialogue with Donetsk and Lugansk, although this dialogue is directly stipulated by the Minsk Agreements. I hope that our Austrian colleagues will draw the attention of their interlocutors from the Ukrainian leadership to these obligations during their upcoming talks in Kiev. I also hope that the European Union, given primarily the role of Germany and France as guarantors, along with Russia, of the Minsk Agreements, will after all raise its voice and will stop pretending that the Minsk Agreements have been written solely so that all their articles without exception should be implemented by Russia alone. I don't think this is absolutely right.

We also talked about the investigation into various crimes that had been committed in Ukraine. I've mentioned the journalists working in the conflict zone at the risk to their life. One of the news stories the other day was dedicated to the tragedy in Odessa on May 2, 2014. European media gave little coverage tothe event. The Euronews channel, which I often quote because Russia is one of its shareholders, broadcast an amazing and very brief report devoted to the anniversary of the Odessa tragedy. The report said that Odessa was marking the anniversary of clashes between supporters and opponents of Euromaidan, which resulted in civilian casualties. Then in a 15-second flash a woman dropped a politically correct phrase: "We are all for Europe; don't interfere!" Next a man was given another 15 seconds to say: "We're against the 'Maidan' because we don't want our nation to be split apart." That was all! They simply said that there were casualties as a result of clashes between supporters and opponents of Euromaidan. Not a word about the fact that these people were burned alive and that they were shot at point blank when they were attempting to jump from the burning building's windows! As if it were an accidental episode in the whole story.

I hope that this will be brought to the notice of our Ukrainian colleagues as well. I am referring to the need for a full-scale, open, and unbiased investigation of all crimes committed since the so-called Maidan snipers' case, as well as the events in Odessa, Mariupol, and the crash of the Malaysian Boeing. I didn't have the time to tell MrKurz that we still lack confirmation that the transcripts of radio exchanges between Ukrainian air controllers and aircraft performing flights over Ukraine were made public and handed over to the international commission of investigation. This is a very serious issue. I hope that our European colleagues will urge the Ukrainian partners to ensure full cooperation in all these areas, as they have long and repeatedly promised.

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 #31
Kyiv Post
May 8, 2015
Poroshenko address nation, chastises Putin on 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day
by Olena Goncharova

President Petro Poroshenko rebuffed his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin by commemorating the allied victory over Nazi Germany on May 8 for the first time while chastising him for trying to "monopolize" that feat on behalf of Russia.

Speaking in parliament on May 8, Poroshenko recalled how the Russian president said the Soviet Union would've defeated Germany without Ukraine.

Emphasizing that no one should underestimate Ukraine's contribution in World War II, he said: "Nobody has the right to monopolize the victory and use it in their imperial ambitions."

Ukraine paid a heavy price for the peace, Poroshenko said, because it was in the epicenter of the battlefield together with Belarus and part of Russia. "Ukraine has lost from 8 to 10 million people in war, by various estimates," he says.

Putin didn't send Victory Day congratulatory notes to Ukraine and Georgia, UNIAN news agency reporting, citing the Kremlin's press service.

Poroshenko said he decided to mark May 8 as the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation using the poppy flower symbol because "this victory is not forgotten for the country."

"Ukrainians were the first ones to feel the effects of two totalitarian regimes - Nazi and the Communist," Poroshenko said. He also applauded the adoption of a package of "de-communization" laws that condemn "totalitarian practices" and which he said were passed on time.

He hasn't signed the laws, however.

In attendance during the special session were United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, former presidents Viktor Yushchenko, Leonid Kuchma and Leonid Kravchuk, as well as lawmakers.

Red Army, Ukrainian Insurgent Army, and current war veterans fighting against combined Russian-separatists forces in Donbas were also present.

Ivan Zaluzhniy, a 97-year-old World War II veteran from Zaporizhya, whose grandson died fighting Russian-separatist forces in Donbas last year, was also among of them.

His story told plainly on video became popular because it was recorded and produced by Ukrainian director Oles Sanin, the winner of the 2004 Oleksander Dovzhenko Ukrainian State Award for the movie "Mamai" (2003).

In the video, Zaluzhniy says that he would like to celebrate Victory Day with his grandson, Ivan Gutnyk-Zaluzhniy, a National Guard battalion commander. However, his, 23-year-old grandson was killed while trying to save the lives of fellow soldiers in the city of Amvrosiivka in Donetsk Oblast in August 2014.

"You couldn't imagine in your nightmares that after 70 years of peace war would start in Ukraine again," Poroshenko said. "Our country has been treasuring peace that lasted over 70 years. Now Ukraine is under fire again. But we'll finally be released from the Russian-Soviet propaganda intoxication."

WWII was the result of "fatal miscalculations of European leaders" who underestimated the risks of Adolf Hitler's policy, he added.

"It could have been prevented... if (the European leaders) were not burying their heads in the sand and didn't cherish illusions," Poroshenko said.

The president also noted that almost 7,000 people have died since Russia's war against Ukraine began in mid-April 2014. At least 1,000 people went missing as a result, according to Poroshenko.

Meanwhile, two Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 26 were wounded in Donbas in the past 24 hours, according to Andriy Lysenko, military spokesman.

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 #32
Russia Direct/Handelsblatt
www.russia-direct.com
May 7, 2015
Ukrainian Men Avoiding the Army at All Costs
Whether hiding at home, fleeing abroad, or paying a bribe, Ukrainians desperate to escape from the army

The article originally appeared at Handelsblatt. Translated for RI by Kristina Aleshnikova
http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/international/militaerdienstverweigerer-in-der-ukraine-alles-nur-nicht-in-die-armee/11695580.html

Bad news - Call up orders: In Kiev alone 95% of able-bodied men are evading conscription. Companies are making false statements in order to protect their employees. Some men go even further.

Dimitri can breathe easy. The young man from the eastern Ukrainian industrial city of Dnipropetrovsk absconded to Turin in Italy via Kiev  - "escaped" as he called it. "I hope I can study at a university in Italy sometime this year" he said in a Skype conversation. What he is doing right now is not clear. A relative had invited him to Italy.

Dmitri is 22 years old and had been hiding in Kiev for several months since he received a conscription notice in Autumn 2014. "I don't want to go into the army" he said back then. Originally he wanted to enroll in one of the many universities in Kiev to escape the army, "but then I had the opportunity to go to the real Europe" he said. In Ukraine 60,000 soldiers are supposed to be trained over the next five months. But in Kiev alone, 95% of men fit for military service are evading the draft.

It is an open secret that those who can are buying themselves free of military service. Just a few weeks ago in the western Ukrainian town of Czernowitz media attention focused on a doctor who was arrested for issuing Certificates of Unsuitability for Military Service for which he was pocketing up to 3,500 Euros per signature.

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 #33
Moscow Times
May 7, 2015
Donetsk and Lugansk Theaters to Tour Russia

Russia's Ministry of Culture will pay theater, opera and ballet troupes from the separatist-controlled Lugansk and Donetsk regions of eastern Ukraine to tour Russia this summer and fall.

The ministry will support tours by the Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theater, the Luhansk Music and Drama Theater, the Youth Theater of Donetsk, the Pavel Luspekaev Theater of Lugansk, the Donetsk Puppet Theater, the Donetsk Music and Drama Theater and the Luhansk Philharmonic, pro-government daily Izvestia reported Wednesday.

In a statement to Izvestia, the Ministry of Culture called the tours "the least we can do for the people who today came to the defense of our common historical and cultural values."

The idea for tours by the theaters in the separatist regions was first suggested in March in a presentation to Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky.

At the time, Medinsky was skeptical of the proposal, saying that people attending performances by these theaters should go with realistic expectations. "People should understand that they are not going to the Bolshoi Theater or the Moscow Art Theater ... they go to the theater of a country that miraculously survived 25 years of neglect, and then a year of civil war," Medinsky said, according to a press release on the Culture Ministry's website.

In Moscow, the Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theater will present a series of performances beginning June 1 at the Russian Academic Youth Theater (RAMT) on Teatralnaya Ploshchad.

Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theater deputy head choreography Valery Popov told Izvestia that the troupe is planning to perform "La Sylphide," the adagio from "Romeo and Juliet," and scenes from "Le Corsaire."

"Unfortunately we are unable to present a full production because the company has been split by the situation in the region," Popov said, according to the paper . "But we very much want to show quality work and not embarrass ourselves. Our theater has always had a good reputation in Russia."

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#34
Counterpunch.org
May 7, 2015
'Sinn Fein' Solution for Donbas
In Horlovka, Eastern Ukraine, a Donetsk Republic Rises
by YEGOR VORONOV
Yegor Voronov is a left-wing activist, blogger and journalist from the coal mining and industrial city of of Horlivka, Donetsk region. He frequently contributes to the Ukrainian left web-journal Liva (English language page here http://www.liva.com.ua/translate.html) and reports on the events for Horlivka media.

The culmination of the Anti-Maidan movement in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine was the founding of the Donetsk People's Republic in April 2014. A declaration was issued on April 7.

At that time, even the most marginal political figures involved could not have imagined that one year later, the new entity would be on the way to real self-affirmation as a state. Neither "Kremlin agents", nor "separatists", of the future Donetsk People's Republic, occupying the regional administration building in Donetsk at several key moments in March and April of 2014, nor anyone else for that matter, could have given such a powerful momentum for the pro-federalization (autonomy) movement of Donbas as the governing officials in Kyiv.

All along, Kyiv ignored the concerns and basic democratic demands of countless rallies in eastern Ukraine of people who were defending Lenin monuments against destruction and who simply wanted the right to live and work in their language. Their rallies were also forms of popular referendums, demanding an end the reign of the oligarchs (against whom the Maidan movement allegedly fought). Officials of the new government that came to power in Kyiv in February 2014 on the back of the Maidan movement has demonstrated time and again to Donbas residents that it quite literally does not consider them as human beings.

Kyiv's 'Anti-Terrorist Operation' launched in April 2014 by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and extreme-right militias convinced thousands of indignant residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions to join self-defense militias. These were ordinary citizens who would not have imagined they could take such action, but Kyiv's violence drove them to create not only self-defense militias but, eventually, something resembling a standing army. Similarly, the cutting by Kyiv of pensions and social payments to Donbas residents beginning last summer [1] has now led to the creation of a pension and social welfare system of the Donetsk People's Republic.

The fact is, and this may seem a paradox, when Kyiv authorities decided to starve elderly people already suffering from shelling and cold by cutting off their pensions, they expected this would bring the Donetsk People's Republic to its knees. However, Kyiv officials, who hate the coal dust-tainted proletarians of the Donetsk region, have achieved quite the opposite effect. Their inhumane initiatives have served to further legitimize the new Republic in the eyes of the local residents. They realize, 'Kyiv does not pay us pensions which we earned and deserved through a life of working hard. It has placed us in a ghetto, surrounded by guns, tanks and soldiers. Isn't it quite natural for us to assume that this is not our government anymore, that it cares nothing about our fate?'

The actions of the Kyiv government have prompted the development of a new pension system in Donbas. No doubt, it is not yet fully efficient, flawed in many ways. But it is our own system. A parallel development is the emergence of the Central Bank of the Republic, a new taxation agency service and the re-registration of enterprises operating in the DPR. The shortage of Ukrainian currency in the region (created by Kyiv's economic blockade, which has gone so far as to physically destroy hard currency rather than have it circulate) has led to introduction of a bi-currency system in which the hryvnia and the Russian ruble are legal tender. Dollars and euros are even recognized, for now.

Indeed, just like one year ago when Kyiv launched its war, the actions to blockade and isolate Donbas economically have created conditions in which Kyiv is the real creator of Donbas independence. Kyiv has literally pushed us out of Ukraine.

What's more, everyone here understands only too well that were Donbas to rejoin Ukraine, we would receive only "pennies" from lost pensions and, meanwhile, be faced with the new, monstrous tariffs for utilities and other government services which have been imposed by Yatsenyuk's government as the price of its economic association with the European Union. Our people would not be able to pay for those services with Ukraine's miserly pensions. We have reached the bottom and are now slowly starting to creep up. Ukraine, on the other hand, is still spiraling downward.

A temporary hut, our Donetsk People's Republic, is being built among the ruins. Hopefully, it will not be a permanent home, we can move into a larger dwelling with our fellow Donbas people. We actually have nothing to lose - we suffered more than residents of any other region of Ukraine from this war by Kyiv. So all hardships and discomfort are met with stoicism by Donbas residents.

During the past year, the Donbas city of Horlivka [west of Donetsk city] where I live has suffered greatly. Factories have shut down and residents have endured the physical destruction of their homes and communities. We face armed units sometimes not under the control of DPR authorities. There have been grave food shortages, deaths caused by hunger and steady artillery fire into the city by Kyiv armed forces. Yet, despite everything, the city survived and became even stronger.

Is Horlivka a scarier place now? On the contrary. The residents of Horlivka love their town anew. We have experienced great hardship and we look at life a lot differently now. We have learned how to rejoice with the things that were not noticed and not appreciated before. WE are living the painful rebirth of Horlivka, like a sprout growing through a crack in the wall of a house destroyed by shelling.

Do we in Horlivka consider ourselves citizens of the DPR? First of all, we are people who live in the war zone, so we don't expect to see much justice from authorities or kindness from kings. We appreciate those who help us, and ignore those who hate us. We use the abbreviation 'DPR' more and more often as the name of the community to which we belong. You can dissemble it and call it "unrecognized" or "self-declared". You can even call it a"terrorist organization". But the fact remains, there are hundreds of thousands of us who are getting used to the fact that we do not live in Ukraine anymore. We breathe, go to work, do chores and accompany kids to school. It's just like in 1991 when people in Ukraine got used to the fact that they don't live in the USSR anymore and the capital is no longer in Moscow. It's a strange and uncomfortable feeling, but it is already quite familiar and people get used to it.

As for the DPR, only one year later it has actually begun the process of becoming a functioning state. The centralization of departmental structures, unification of the armed forces, development of unique laws, resumption duties by law enforcement agencies (courts, prosecution, police), launching of a tax system, reconstruction of the industrial enterprises and hiring for work - all these processes are underway.

Regretfully, too few people thought about these issues last year when, out of protest, they declared the Donetsk People's Republic. Nobody paid much attention at that time about keeping industry running, ensuring social payments, paying wages, keeping food and other products on the shelves of stores, and so on. A year ago, there was no Donetsk Republic as such - it was slowly born throughout last year. And not in the offices of officials but in the hearts of the people. It was born during air raids and evacuations and on the front lines of battle. As Honoré de Balzac once said: "Suffering is like the iron support placed by the sculptor inside the clay mass to support it and give it strength."

I would like to write more about the positive things that have happened during this past "republican" year in my city. But I am hearing at this very minute volleys of cannon fire outside my window. So for now, I can't write more. Being in a state of war, we can hardly speak about peaceful and positive achievements. To demand "improvements in life" when the front line is three km away from your house is like being indignant over the fact that your friend who was knocked down by a car has failed to show up at your party. Now the main task for Donbas is to survive and preserve what remains here. And preserve, as well, the hope that with the end of the war, we will be able restore our region.

One hundred and ten years ago, the left-wing Irish Republicans (people with varying political views, including some quite controversial) created a political movement for independence. It has a poetic name, 'Sinn Fein', meaning, 'ourselves, together'. These words reflect very well the feelings of our residents as the Ukrainian army and right-wing militias refuse to let us pass to a nearby town without paying a bribe or asking special permission, and as Kiev cuts off the pensions earned by our fathers and mothers.

"Alright," we say, "ourselves, together."

Notes:

[1] Pensions stopped being paid in the rebel Donbas region in the summer of 2014. In theory, a resident could have traveled outside of the region to collect his or her payment, but at considerable risk. A total cutoff of payments was instituted on December 1, 2014.

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 #35
Wall Street Journal
May 8, 2015
Ukraine's U.S. Backers Use Cold-War Playbook
Pair who helped arm Afghans against Soviets find new cause
By ADAM ENTOUS

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko appeared before the U.S. Congress last September and pleaded for weapons to counter Russian advances. Afterward, members of his delegation sat down with two American supporters at a home in Georgetown. Why, the Ukrainians asked, was the Obama administration promising so much but doing so little?

Michael Pillsbury, a Pentagon consultant, and Gordon Humphrey, a former Republican U.S. senator, leaned across a white couch and whispered to each other. It was just like 1984, they agreed.

Few Americans have more expertise pushing a balky administration to battle an invading Russian army than Messrs. Pillsbury and Humphrey. In the mid-1980s, having concluded President Ronald Reagan wasn't serious about arming the Afghan mujahedeen, they worked with Rep. Charlie Wilson to build the largest covert-action program in Central Intelligence Agency history. The Soviet army, stung by the advanced U.S. weaponry provided to local forces, withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989. The Soviet Union collapsed soon after.

Today, as the two Cold War adversaries face off anew, it is the Ukrainians who are desperate for U.S. weaponry and struggling to make sense of U.S. policy. Members of the coalition that prodded Mr. Reagan into fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan have reopened their 30-year-old playbook, this time seeking to pressure President Barack Obama to punch back against Vladimir Putin's Russia.

This account of their effort is based on interviews with Messrs. Pillsbury and Humphrey and many others involved, including administration and defense officials and the visiting Ukrainians.

The two Americans explained to the Ukrainians the intricacies of American politics and weapons procurement. They ushered Ukrainian officers around the Pentagon, much as they did with Afghan commanders in the 1980s. And they helped Ukrainian-American groups lobby to create a Senate caucus modeled after the one Mr. Humphrey co-chaired in the 1980s, to press Mr. Obama to send arms. (Mr. Wilson, a Democrat who used his congressional role to appropriate money to arm the Afghans-an effort recounted in a book and a 2007 movie, "Charlie Wilson's War"-died in 2010.)

New era, new battle

There are important differences between the two eras that cast a cloud over Ukraine's prospects. Among them is a divided Congress's diminished ability to wield the power of the purse to guide foreign policy.

"I'm not sure that Congress has reached the point at which it's willing to really use the levers at its disposal," says Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat and member of the Senate's Ukraine Caucus.

Ukraine, with its modern army and pro-Western government, has little in common with the mujahedeen of the 1980s, except that both have had territory seized by a regime in Moscow and both have been outgunned. Much of the U.S. aid in the 1980s was covert, while efforts to support Ukraine are overt.

Administration officials say they are supporting the Ukrainians by imposing sanctions against Moscow and by providing nonlethal gear. They cite concerns that providing advanced weaponry could lead to a dangerous cycle of escalation, making matters worse for Kiev.

The legacy of the CIA's role in Afghanistan remains contested. U.S. officials and outside experts often cite that covert action as a cautionary tale about the risks of intervention. In the chaos after the Soviet withdrawal, the Taliban rose and played host to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Messrs. Humphrey and Pillsbury say the cost of the war in Afghanistan helped bring down the Soviet Union. The mistake, they argue, was wandering U.S. attention after the Soviets left.

Messrs. Pillsbury and Humphrey first met in 1979. Mr. Pillsbury was a foreign-policy adviser to Senate Republicans. Mr. Humphrey was a freshman senator.

Many in Congress wanted to help the Afghans, but there was disagreement over how. Until 1985, the Reagan administration provided enough support to keep the mujahedeen in the fight but not enough to allow them to prevail. Messrs. Pillsbury and Humphrey say they found that position amoral.

As a Pentagon assistant undersecretary for policy planning at the time, Mr. Pillsbury became a behind-the-scenes champion for the Afghan cause. He teamed up with Mr. Humphrey, then the co-chairman of the congressional task force on Afghanistan.

The Afghans had initially asked for small arms and ammunition, Mr. Pillsbury recalls. He urged them to request advanced U.S. weapons systems. Mr. Humphrey used his position on the task force to press the Reagan administration to drop its resistance to sending surface-to-air Stinger missiles.

In March 1985, Mr. Reagan signed a new covert strategy. Afghan commandos carried out cross-border raids that shocked the Soviets. Stinger missiles started bringing down Soviet helicopters in 1986. Two years later, the Soviet army began withdrawing.

Renewed interest

Mr. Humphrey returned to private life in New Hampshire in 1990, about the time the Soviet Union started to collapse. Fascinated by Russia and its language, he started visiting about once a year. He thought U.S.-Russian relations were moving in the right direction until Mr. Putin began consolidating power and cracking down on press freedoms. Then Russia annexed Crimea and began incursions into eastern Ukraine.

When the Ukrainian government started lobbying last spring for U.S. military support, the reception was cool, defense officials say. Pentagon officials weren't sure they could give even nonlethal gear and intelligence to Ukrainian forces they believed were infiltrated by the Russians.

An early advocate for Ukraine was former Pentagon official Phillip Karber, who in 1985 co-wrote an influential Armed Forces Journal report that called for sending Stingers to the mujahedeen. In briefings to members of Congress and written reports on Ukraine, he repeated arguments he made in 1985: Draw a line to prevent Moscow from advancing further, and introduce modern weaponry to make the invasion more costly.

Thirty years ago, Michael Vickers, who stepped down last month as Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, was part of the CIA team that helped develop the agency's strategy in Afghanistan. Last year, he visited Ukraine twice and emerged as an important voice within the Pentagon in favor of providing military aid, officials say.

The conflict in Ukraine stirred Cold War memories for Mr. Humphrey. He had lost touch with Mr. Pillsbury after leaving the Senate but found his contact information online last summer and sent him a brief email-their first contact in 24 years.

After some hesitation, Mr. Pillsbury agreed to check into Ukraine's arms requests at the Pentagon, where he remained a consultant. He reported back to Mr. Humphrey: It was going nowhere.

The Obama administration was concerned that sending weapons would provoke rather than deter Mr. Putin, U.S. officials say. Intelligence analysts were cautious, having misjudged Mr. Putin's intentions earlier in the conflict. The issue had no momentum in Congress.

Mr. Humphrey knew times had changed. "The Cold War is over," he says. "And yet I believe that if there were a few determined members in each house, those weapons could be flowing to Ukraine today."

Last Sept. 16, he emailed Michael Sawkiw, whose Ukrainian National Information Service is the longtime public-relations arm for Ukrainian-Americans. Mr. Humphrey told him it was important to mobilize the Senate and "volunteered his assistance," Mr. Sawkiw recalls.

Mr. Humphrey flew down to Washington and watched the Ukrainian president's Sept. 18 speech from a seat in the House gallery. He was moved by the appeal for arms.

That same day, he attended a vote of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on legislation that would authorize Mr. Obama to provide military equipment to Ukraine. In keeping with protocol, Sen. Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who at the time was chairman of the panel, recognized Mr. Humphrey's presence in the room.

Mr. Humphrey stood up and said he had three words for the senators: "Please help Ukraine." The committee passed the bill unanimously.

At Mr. Humphrey's suggestion, Mr. Pillsbury agreed to meet with Lt. Gen. Volodymyr Zamana and other members of the Ukrainian president's delegation in a Senate office. Afterward, Mr. Pillsbury invited the Ukrainians to his Georgetown home to continue the discussions over tea.

The Ukrainians had emerged from the Senate committee vote confident U.S. weapons would start flowing. "No. This is the beginning of a very long process," Mr. Pillsbury recalls telling them.

Anatoliy Pinchuk, a member of the Ukrainian delegation, showed Messrs. Pillsbury and Humphrey copies of letters that President Poroshenko and his defense minister had sent to administration and military officials, including then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. In them, the Ukrainian defense minister asked for armored vehicles, antitank, antiaircraft and "other weapons of lethal action."

Top U.S. officials never said "no" but never said "yes, " the Ukrainian delegation told their American hosts.

The Ukrainians wanted to send aircraft to pick up U.S. weapons directly from surplus stockpiles in Afghanistan. Mr. Pillsbury told them the idea was a nonstarter.

After tea, Messrs. Pillsbury and Humphrey took the Ukrainian delegation to a nearby Turkish restaurant. Their waiter, who happened to be Ukrainian, recognized Lt. Gen. Zamana and called him a hero for refusing to deploy forces against pro-Western protesters in Kiev.

Mr. Pillsbury suggested Lt. Gen. Zamana consider requesting counter-battery radar systems and said Ukrainian officials should visit weapons facilities in Europe to educate themselves. Ukrainian officials later did both.

Near the end of their three-hour dinner, Lt. Gen. Zamana told Messrs. Humphrey and Pillsbury: "We have a high mountain to climb."

Messrs. Pillsbury and Humphrey thought Ukraine had a better case to make than the Afghan rebels once had. "It's a pro-Western government that wants weapons," says Mr. Pillsbury. "It's more legitimate than a bunch of guerrillas."

In the weeks that followed, Mr. Humphrey met with about a dozen senators. He spoke to others by phone.

Messrs. Humphrey and Pillsbury urged nearly two dozen Ukrainian-American groups to band together to increase their influence. When they formed a committee to lobby for arms and for creating a Senate caucus, Messrs. Humphrey and Pillsbury became unpaid advisers.

Mr. Pillsbury took three separate delegations from Ukraine to the Pentagon to explain how the U.S. bureaucracy works.

In one December meeting outside the Starbucks in the Pentagon's main food court, two Ukrainian colonels, both in uniform, reviewed printouts of the forms they would need to buy arms. They told Mr. Pillsbury they were baffled by the red tape. Thirty years earlier, the Afghan commanders he took to the Pentagon, dressed in sandals, were even more confused.

Mr. Obama signed legislation into law later that month authorizing military aid for Ukraine. U.S. defense officials then had to explain to their Ukrainian counterparts that Congress hadn't yet provided money.

"We had to tell the Ukrainians, 'OK, guys. I know this sounds a little wonky, but it doesn't mean you have $350 million to play around with,' " a senior defense official recalls. An authorization, the official says, was "a symbolic gesture."

In January, Ukrainian officials thought the White House was poised to provide advanced antitank weapons known as Javelins. At the time, U.S. officials said a majority of Mr. Obama's top cabinet-level advisers endorsed the request.

In the first week of February, Mr. Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry had lunch with national security adviser Susan Rice. Ms. Rice told them the president wasn't ready to provide the Ukrainians with Javelins and that she doubted he would ever reach that point, according to two officials. A senior administration official declined to comment on internal policy deliberations.

The Senate Ukraine Caucus was launched on Feb. 9. Co-chairman Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican whom Mr. Humphrey had lobbied to step up his role, followed up with a visit to Kiev in April to survey the country's military needs. Other caucus members met with Ukrainian delegations in Washington.

Publicly, the senators voiced strong support for Kiev and called on Mr. Obama to send arms. Privately, several have told Ukrainian officials to keep expectations in check.

The latest legislation authorizing arms for Ukraine cleared a key House committee last month. But its unclear whether Congress will appropriate the money for the weapons or try to force Mr. Obama's hand.

In Rep. Charlie Wilson's day, lawmakers on the right committees had more power to earmark funds for pet programs. "Today, that is far more difficult," says Mr. Portman. "The president is authorized to do it. He has the funds to do it. He ought to move ahead."

Sen. John McCain, Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, disappointed a visiting Ukrainian delegation when he said of the Senate: "We have brakes but no accelerator pedal."

After that meeting, Mr. Pillsbury tried to reassure the Ukrainians. "You are moving faster than we did in the 80s," he told them.

-Nick Shchetko contributed to this article.

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 #36
The Unz Review
www.unz.com
May 7, 2015
Vita Zaverukha, Heroine of the ATO
BY ANATOLY KARLIN
[Graphics here http://www.unz.com/akarlin/ukrainian-heroine/]

She was a member of Aidar, which is known for its brutality and ill-discipline even relative to the other Ukrainian Neo-Nazi volunteer batallions.

Though she wasn't seen much at the front, as there were more important matters to be seen to in the rest of Ukraine, such as corporate raids on "separatist" companies in her native Vinnitsya.

She might have participated in the incineration of the Odessa Trade Unions House, and certainly celebrated its anniversary in style.

In general, her VK profile (Russia's Facebook) is... interesting. Chockablock with Nazi slogans and hatemongering of all sorts. You might want to check it out soon, since it's like to be closed any hour now in light of recent events.

In her postings, she evidences a latent obsession with virile Russian men (see left), and the political and financial power of the Jews (see right):

"The evil Jews rule us! But we're even worse than them... we sold our grandfathers' glory, and Jews tied us to their yoke! - Taras Shevchenko."

None of this was much of a hindrance to her getting featured on the front cover of Elle magazine (right EDIT: they even managed to mix this up, left).

And today, we come to the last of her adventures for what will hopefully be a long time.

On May 4th, two masked gunmen robbed a gas station, making away with 800 grivnas (40 US dollars). They shot the gas station attendant in the arm, threatened to kill him if he called the police, and made a getaway with a couple of other accomplices. He called the police anyway and they set off in pursuit. Their task was presumably made easier by the ПТН-ПНХ ("Putin go fuck yourself") sticker attached to their vehicle, but this turned out badly for them, as the band took out automatic weapons and made cheddar cheese of the pursuing police jeep, killing one of them and putting the other three into a critical condition (one of whom later died). Both of the killed police officers happened to be former Berkut members, and one figured in a list of people who had allegedly persecuted Maidan activists. Life for people on such lists is dangerous in modern day Ukraine.

But back to the chase. Reinforcements were called up, cameras fixed their escape, and soon they were surrounded in their apartment hideout. One was killed in a standoff back by the vehicle, while the other three surrendered. After their arrests it soon became clear that they were also implicated in an earlier armed attack on a traffic police outpost on May 2nd that had not resulted in any casualties.

It soon emerged that the conspiracy stretched deeper, involving several other people including Vita Zaverukha, who has since been taken into custody as well.

The far right band had initially planned a terrorist attack on the May 1st parade in Kiev, but for whatever reason failed to carry through with it. The attack on the traffic police station was an attempt to acquire more weaponry. Vita Zaverukha was "tightly linked" with the three men suspected in the killings of the police officers, and participated directly in the May 2nd attack on the traffic police station. After that they upgraded their plans to a terrorist attack on Communists and World War 2 veterans in Kiev on Victory Day on May 9th. In a confession by one of the men posted to YouTube by the Ukrainian police, one "Vita" was supposed to have "covered" the gang while "Morgan" would fire at the veterans.

Only their puzzling but ultimate fortuitous turn towards pure banditry on May 4th saved potentially dozens of World War 2 veterans from cold-blooded murder at the hands of fascists 70 years after they had crushed their ideological forebears in open combat.

The modern Ukrainian state gives its pet Nazis a lot of leeway. For instance, in this video from late March - well after the Minsk II ceasefire - our heroine was filmed firing a grenade launcher on a civilian village. The video was soon scrubbed off YouTube, it being a war crime and all, but not before it was downloaded and reposted by Novorossiya supporters.

Nothing was done about this. But not even the Poroshenko regime can allow these Nazis to openly kill state officials and so blatantly undermine their putative monopoly on violence. She will now likely be going away to prison. As she herself pointed out, "the less time an action takes, the longer lasts its effect."

"Victory can only be achieved through radical action - agitation and murder. Meetings, pickets, and other shows will achieve nothing. Action should always be decisive. The less time an action takes, the longer lasts its effect."

Hopefully the effect lasts for a long time.

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 #37
Sputnik
May 6, 2015
Origins of Hate: Pre-Maidan Textbook Teaches Youth to Hate 'Subhumans'
[Graphics here http://sputniknews.com/politics/20150506/1021795428.html]

Anyone looking to get a better understanding of the origins of the radical ethnic nationalism and openly neo-Nazi views of elements of Ukraine's youth need look no further than a Ukrainian language textbook for grade school students from 2011.

The state-approved textbook, entitled 'Ukrainian Language', and oriented toward grade 11 students studying the Ukrainian language, has recently been rediscovered by Russian and Ukrainian social media users over its radical, hateful language. It is worth quoting here in full:

"We are all the children of Ukraine. Ukraine is our mother. One cannot choose one's mother, honest people at least. But the Little Russians, having been born Ukrainians, have rejected their own mother; they pledge allegiance to their stepmother [meaning Russia] and serve her like a mother. There are people among us born this way, people among us living this way, and demanding respect unto themselves. Such 'children of Ukraine' do not skip a beat when they betray their mother -Ukraine. They have no sense of shame for such heinous behavior; they do not have the moral quality of responsibility to their ancestors or their descendants; they do not feel remorse for their disgraceful behavior before the whole Ukrainian nation.

"Only in form do these creatures belong to the human community, but in their essence they are degenerates and sub-humans (even if they have a higher education, academic degrees and titles). Ukrainian prisons long for many of them, long and cannot wait to welcome them. But do not worry jails; wait, and your time will come. You will yet open your doors and see the Ukrainophobes, and while hold them, not as guests, but to shut them in forever. And then Ukrainian society will be cleansed from this garbage, this unbearable filth and shame."

Attributed to an Ivan Belebeha, this example of poisonous hate speech is hidden away in an a seemingly innocuous subsection of the text entitled 'The Development of Coherent Speech: Transforming Text In Accordance With the Circumstances'.

With a spattering of Ukrainian and Russian commentators slamming the text back when it first came out in 2011, its recent rediscovery has the potential for even more resonance than before, given the events of the past year and the open, unchecked rise of radical nationalism, intolerance and neo-Nazi rhetoric in post-Maidan Ukraine.

Bringing attention to the text for English-language social media users community is Valentina Lisitsa, a popular Ukrainian-born American classical pianist who has faced criticism and censure over her opposition to the post-Maidan Ukrainian government.

Presenting a variant of the text in English for her Twitter followers, Lisitsa asks them to simply read the text and to ask themselves "if this could happen in YOUR country?"

Lisitsa's followers have begun their response:

Hate Speech Once Extraordinary Now the Norm

Anyone who has been following the conflict in Ukraine at even the most rudimentary level understands that the kind of language used in this 'educational material', once considered radical, has turned into something not at all out of the mainstream amid Ukraine's radicalized and divided social and political environment, going up all the way to the country's top politicians. Last summer, in a commemoration to soldiers killed in the Ukrainian military's operations against anti-Maidan militia in the southeast of the country, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk stated that the soldiers died at the hands of "invaders and sponsored by sub-humans. First, we will commemorate the heroes by wiping out those who killed them and then by cleaning our land from the evil." A few months later, President Petro Poroshenko continued this divisive and dehumanizing line of thought, stating that while "our children go to schools [and] kindergartens," Donbass's children will "sit in cellars."

Top politicians' inflamatory commentary and word choice aside, the lower levels of power, from oligarchs allied to Kiev to radical MPs and volunteer battalion commanders, have been even more brazen in their statements and actions through the entire course of the Ukraine crisis. For instance, Maidan coup leaders relied heavily on the assistance of volunteer nationalist parties and militia groups such as the Right Sector, which have since mushroomed into territorial battalions stretching the entire country, threatening violence upon anyone perceived to be an enemy of the new Ukraine. From crushing protest movements in central and eastern Ukraine, to fighting and committing war crimes in the southeast, groups like Right Sector have been integrated into the country's National Guard, its leaders given cushy jobs in the defense ministry and in security services. Such groups' ranks consist mostly of youth 'educated' by the type of poisonous nationalism passing for patriotism  displayed above.

Ukraine's flirtation with the radical nationalism, its ideological origins stemming from the Nazi collaborationist Ukrainian Insurgent Army, began its growth in the early 1990s, over the course of the transition to independence from the Soviet Union. Radical ethnic nationalism, long-repressed by Soviet authorities, reemerged amid an enfeebled and frail civil society, only to be strengthened by textbooks, grants and think tanks sponsored by the Ukrainian émigrés who had fought in the collaborationist armies during the Second World War before fleeing to North America after the war. Storing up their radical poison for several generations before receiving the opportunity to unleash it upon an unsuspecting public, over the past generation these émigrés and their benefactors have managed to turn a significant, active minority of young Ukrainians into their ideological and spiritual successors.

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 #38
Vedomosti
May 5, 2015
Gazprom has "no alternative" to Ukrainian market, experts tell Russian daily
Kirill Rodionov, In 2015 Ukraine is counting on buying no more than 50 per cent of its imported gas from Russia; Gazprom has no alternative to Ukrainian market, experts believe

In 2015 Naftohaz [Ukrayiny] should import no more than 50 per cent of its gas from any one source, a Ukrainian cabinet directive published on Thursday [30 April] says. The document also obliges Naftohaz to expand its technical facilities for importing gas from the EU.

This year Ukraine plans to import 26bn cu m of gas (25 per cent more than in 2014), it emerges from the balance approved by the cabinet of ministers, while it intends to extract 19.5bn cu m, to consume 40.3 bn, and to pump 5.2bn cu m into underground storage facilities. Gazprom's share in supplies is declining: In 2014 it fell to 74 per cent from 2013's 92 per cent and in the first quarter of 2015 it was already down to 39 per cent and to 20 per cent in April (Naftohaz figures). This was achieved by increasing the capacity of the Vojany-Uzhhorod gas pipeline between Slovakia and Ukraine to 15bn cu m a year and through reverse-flow gas imports from Hungary and Poland, a Naftohaz representative announced.

In January through April 2015 Ukraine imported 4.8 bn cu m of gas from Europe (7.2bn cu m in all), the Ukrtranshaz press service reported, but mainly from Slovakia (4.4bn) with supplies from Hungary and Poland being insignificant (0.35 bn and 0.06 bn cu m respectively). In April Ukraine imported 1.2bn cu m of gas from the EU and 0.3bn from Russia. From 1 May Ukraine's requirement for Russian gas doubled, Gazprom board Chairman Aleksey Miller said (as quoted by TASS) on Friday [1 May].

There is no legal base for reverse-flow imports from Europe to Ukraine, [Russian][ Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak said in the fall. Gazprom has promised to impede reverse-flow deliveries. But gas reverse flows are permitted by the directive on the liberalization of the European gas market, Igor Yushkov from the National Energy Security Foundation observes: The gas becomes the property of the consumers and they have the right to export it to other countries.

The reduction in deliveries to Ukraine will hit Gazprom finances, Energy Policy Institute President Vladimir Milov notes. In 2014 Gazprom supplied Ukraine with 14.5 cu m of gas - 44.2 per cent less than in 2013 - and the net profit from the sale of gas to the countries of the former USSR fell by 2 per cent compared to 2013, while sales of gas by volume fell 19 per cent, it emerges from reports based on International Financial Reporting Standards [IFRS].

Gas deliveries to Europe fell 9 per cent in 2014. Sales to Europe would have dropped even more had the European countries not built up the supply of gas to underground storage facilities and resold Russian gas to Naftohaz, Yushkov observes: In 2014 Ukraine received 5.1bn cu m of gas in reverse-flow imports.

In the middle of the 2000s Ukraine was Gazprom's biggest customer (59bn cu m in 2006), RusEnergy partner Mikhail Krutikhin notes, and Gazprom has no alternative to the Ukrainian market, with plans for exports to China not yet realized and European consumers seeking to reduce their dependence on the Russian supplier. The EU plans to achieve this through imports of gas from Algiers, the Mediterranean, and Norway, the launch of the Southern gas corridor from Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and also the import of liquefied natural gas from the United States and Canada, it emerges from the EU Energy Union strategy.

Gazprom's share in Naftohaz's imports could drop below 50 per cent if Ukraine takes steps to modernize its gas transportation infrastructure, Yushkov conjectures. Much will depend on contract terms, Milov continues: In Europe the price of gas is dropping because oil is getting cheaper. If the price is reduced for Ukraine, Naftohaz could decide to increase gas purchases from Gazprom, he concludes.

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 #39
Oilprice.com
May 6, 2015
Punitive Tax Regime Is Crushing Ukraine's Oil And Gas Sector
By Robert Bensh

Each country blessed with oil and gas discoveries initially tries to create a tax regime that maintains the balance between generating tax revenues from the extraction of these hydrocarbons while also encouraging investment. If the country gets too greedy and imposes an excessive tax burden, the inverse effect occurs - investors abandon their projects and corresponding budget revenues decline. Problems arise when the Government forgets about and fails to take care of investors and even worse, when investors are abused and taken advantage of, thus eliminating investor trust and any possible further investment. The current situation in Ukraine is a stark example of this.

We're all well aware of the current financial state of Ukraine. Years of corruption and incompetence has led to the need to restore the country's budget through short-sighted reforms and appeals to "save Ukraine" as, "Everybody in the free world should be doing more to help Ukraine. " Ukraine has thus imposed exorbitant taxes on local oil and gas producers - 55% on natural gas produced out of wells above 5,000 meters depth, and 28% on wells deeper than 5,000 meters. These punitive taxes have already forced a number of investors to pull back and leave the country.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) called for recovery of the damaged Ukrainian gas production industry and the restoration of investor confidence in the Ukrainian Government. In its short-sightedness and inexperience in running a country, the new government has not only deterred investment in the sector but has critically damaged the strategic energy security and independence of Ukraine. As investment continues to decline in the sector, gas and coal supplies from Russia increase. IMF experts believe that in order to maximise budget revenues in the long term, the Government should first of all balance its tax policy and build a strong motivation for investors.

Competing For Investors

Investors, as the government is painfully beginning to realise, don't invest to save countries. Patriotic appeals fail. They invest to make money. The only thing that motivates investors is reasonable, transparent and stable investment regimes with rules that are more attractive and reliable than those offered in other countries. This is not only about taxation; Ukraine's investment rating is still weak and non-competitive in terms of all key components for investors (i.e. transparency, regulatory policy, protection of property etc.).

For example, currently Ukraine is in 96th place in the World Bank's Doing Business ranking (out of 189 economies), while its neighbours Bulgaria and Romania are included in the top-50 countries in the world (38th and 48th positions respectively). The taxation regimes in these countries are also liberal and favourable: in Romania investors pay reasonable royalties calculated on the basis of the production volumes, in Bulgaria - they pay depending on the payback of investments. The tax rates do not exceed 28%.

It is clear that with current draconian rates of up to 55% of the gas price, Ukraine is not able to compete for investments with its neighbours. At the same time, a lower tax rate is not the only factor of importance for a new taxation model in Ukraine, as it should take into account a number of other important factors.

Varying Costs of Production

As a "mature" gas producing country, Ukraine has different reserves and deposits according to type: large and small, old and newly discovered, conventional and unconventional, deep and shallow. It is absolutely impossible to come up with one or two general rates of gas production tax that would equally treat investors in the fields of given variety and complexity of the geology. In this context, the Government's traditional approach to link the tax rates to only depths of production wells cannot withstand any criticism.

When arguing about the private producers' cost of gas production and rate of return on their projects, state fiscal officials in Ukraine are, for some reason, still reluctant to recognise simple facts that the geological risks, exploration, seismic and service costs vary from one project to another, but all have a direct impact on the amount of investment required to take gas out of the ground. A good tax regime should recognise these differences and allow for a corresponding and reasonable rate of return.

Next Steps to Take

In 2014 the Parliament adopted a number of important amendments to the Tax Code of Ukraine. The new rules provide for change in the main accounting principle for corporate income tax accounting - the taxable profit will now be determined under Ukrainian statutory or International Financial Reporting Standards. The Government's next step in the right direction could be the adoption of official accounting standards for oil and gas industry. Absence of clear and transparent rules led to a variety of different policies developed by companies, only to have them challenged by the tax authorities. A common financial reporting language based on IFRS would enable the subsoil users to achieve greater consistency and transparency and should help the Government to have a standardized approach to administering and applying the tax.

Finally, the new regime should also account for the capacity of the Ukrainian tax authorities to administer the suggested taxation model. The International Monetary Fund repeatedly called for introduction of the so-called "R-factor" (which is calculated as a ratio between the investor's revenues and their investment in the project) - the higher the payback is, the higher the tax rate should apply to a company. Although this approach corresponds to the best international practices, administration of such taxes requires special expertise and additional capacity of the country's tax authorities.

At the same time, lack of understanding coupled with inadequate preparation could result in an administrative "bottleneck". Given this background, we see implementation of the R-factor model of taxation (being a complete novelty in the Ukrainian tax system) as a very questionable measure, given the current reality in Ukraine, unless donor funding is provided to ensure sufficient institutional capacity, which, given the tight timeframe also does not seem feasible.

The Government's Position

The Ukrainian Government has repeatedly claimed that one of their final and irrefutable requirements is what they call a 'neutrality' of the new taxation model. Neutrality in the language of the Ukrainian Government means that any new model of oil and gas taxation by any means must not affect the level of revenues or result in any losses for the state budget in the coming years. That basically means that, from the Government's perspective, the level of fiscal pressure on the industry should not change at all!

Needless to say that this is a short-sighted approach, which would not motivate any investors to invest. The current punitive tax regime imposes an excessively high tax burden without offering meaningful incentives for investment. While in the short term tax revenues may increase, in the long run gas production will drop and the Government's revenue stream out of royalty tax on gas production would dry up and the energy security gap will widen.

Moreover, the current royalty tax is levied on the gas sales price (not even on the company's profit), which is ultimately fixed at the discretion of the Energy Regulator, often with time lags and disconnected from the latest market price.

The Government explains that the expected budgeted revenue from the royalty tax was fixed in the State Budget for 2015 on the basis of the currency rate of 21.7 UAH per US$1 and with a forecasted average price of imported natural gas of a maximum of US$270 per 1000 cubic meters. These assumptions look rather weak and uncertain, as the actual figures have already gone out of line. Starting from February 2015, the official currency rate has already exceeded 22.5 UAH. The average price of gas imported in Q1 amounted to US$332 and it is not expected to be lower than US$285 per 1000 cubic meters in 2015 on average. This means that the State Budget would receive more revenue from the royalty tax than it was supposed to, but even knowing so, the Government just does not want to loosen its grip on the industry.

As a result, the private gas producers are suffering significant losses and have no choice, but to reduce their capital expenditures and suspend any investment and work programs to offset the impact of higher production taxes. The new taxation model should remove these distorted, false or vague assumptions. To make it fair, the taxes must be linked solely to the market price of natural gas (for example - the price of imported gas) and ideally paid only after the gas is sold by the producer.

Conclusions

The new taxation model for the oil and gas sector in Ukraine should find a balance between stable and gradually growing budget revenues and encouraging more foreign investment in the country's industry. In this respect, a key to the success of the tax reform is the government's willingness to accept compromises and to take a long-term approach. The dialogue between the State and the private sector, which has been sporadic at best, will facilitate the exchange of opinions and understanding of expectations and international standards among the different groups. The Ukrainian government, if it truly wants to be reformist and address investment and energy security, should really take decisive and immediate steps to restore the investors' confidence and trust, ensure stable and encouraging investment conditions, and ultimately restore growth of domestic gas production.

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#40
Bloomberg
May 7, 2015
Billionaire No More: Ukraine President's Fortune Fades With War
by Kateryna Choursina, Volodymyr Verbyany and Alex Sazonov

At the November 2013 World Economic Forum in Kiev's Intercontinental Hotel, billionaire Petro Poroshenko predicted a European Union trade pact would kick-start Ukraine's economy and enrich his Roshen Confectionery Corp. by dramatically increasing EU-bound chocolate exports.

Eighteen months later, Poroshenko -- now Ukraine's president -- has seen his wealth head in the other direction.

Since the proposed trade deal collapsed, dragging Ukraine's economy down with it, his fortune has declined by some 30 percent to about $720 million, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Roshen's output, which topped 400,000 tons in 2012, lost 25 percent over the next two years after its products were banned in its most important export market, Russia, and its factory there was seized by the government.

Poroshenko's business "has been complicated by his official status and decisions that he has had to make as president," said Yuriy Yakymenko, an analyst at the Razumkov Center for Economic and Political Studies, a research institute in Kiev.

While campaigning for president last year, Poroshenko promised to sell Roshen, but he hasn't been able to find a buyer. There's been scant interest in the company, which the president values at about $3 billion, according to Roshen Chief Executive Officer Vyacheslav Moskalevsky.

"There's absolutely no way the company will sell for that much at this time," Moskalevsky, who is a minority shareholder, said at Roshen's headquarters near Kiev's riverfront docks. "Nobody can sell anything here now."

War Economy

That's largely because of the woeful state of Ukraine's economy. The war against pro-Russian separatists has killed more than 6,100 people, the country is mired in a deep recession, and corruption, mismanagement and red tape keep potential investors at bay. An investment banker familiar with the matter said the only party interested in Roshen has been Nestle SA, which isn't prepared to pay more than $1 billion. Nestle declined to comment.

"Talks are ongoing, but demand here is not just bad. It's very bad," said Poroshenko's chief of staff, Boris Lozhkin. "Investors don't want to come here."
Poroshenko, of course, is far from the only Ukrainian who has seen his fortune fade. Everyone from laborers to the middle class to oligarchs has been hit by the crisis. Ukraine's wealthiest man, Rinat Akhmetov, runs a coal and steel conglomerate with most of its operations in or near rebel-controlled areas. He's worth $7.6 billion versus $22.4 billion two years ago, according to Bloomberg Billionaires.

But only Poroshenko is president, and he's had to make decisions that hurt his business. The government in March introduced a 10 percent import duty on food, which has hit Roshen because many of its ingredients -- especially cocoa -- come from abroad. And the central bank has sought to stabilize the hryvnia by ordering exporters to immediately convert 75 percent of their foreign earnings back to the Ukrainian currency. That's made it more expensive to do business outside the country because of losses on exchange transactions.

Poroshenko has deep business ties across Ukraine. Born in 1965 in Bolgrad, a small town on the Danube River delta, Poroshenko studied international relations during the Soviet era. After Ukraine won independence in 1991, Poroshenko went into business, and today he owns a bank, a TV channel, an insurance company, shipyards, and several agriculture and food enterprises.

Confectioners Mix

By far his most valuable asset, though, is Roshen. He formed the company in 1996 by blending together a half-dozen chocolate, cookie and cake producers he controlled, taking the name from the middle letters of his family name. The company has become Ukraine's biggest confectioner and a major player in the region, with factories in Russia, Lithuania and Hungary.

CEO Moskalevsky insists he's more interested in continuing to build Roshen than in selling it. He said the company's total revenue, including sales from abroad, hit $730 million last year. In 2015, it's unlikely to top $500 million -- not including Russia, where the "situation is too unpredictable," Moskalevsky said.

Despite the drop, he's planning to invest $50 million this year, most of it in two projects: an expansion of a line that produces hard candies, and a new facility to make sponge cake near Kiev.

"I'm working here for the sake of company profit, not for a sale," Moskalevsky said. "If I'm building a house to sell, I do it differently from the house I'd build to live in."

Roshen faces the biggest trouble at its factory in Lipetsk, Russia, an industrial city about five hours south of Moscow by car. Last month, Russian authorities seized the factory, which makes candy and cookies, saying the company illegally claimed 180 million rubles ($3.5 million) in value-added-tax refunds. Moskalevsky said the company will challenge the ruling.

Poroshenko has sought to sell the Russian factory, but his efforts have been blocked by authorities there, said Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia, who lives in Kiev and serves as an adviser to Poroshenko. Saakashvili, a longtime adversary of Putin's government, said he believes any deal will be held up in order to create "a distraction for public opinion" in Ukraine.

"I know for sure that the president really wants to sell his business in Russia," Saakashvili said. "But it's impossible to do that without the Kremlin's permission."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov disputed that. "The presidential administration doesn't supervise issues related to any business, either domestic or international," he said.

Kiev Evening

The lack of progress on any sale appears to have taken its toll on the president's standing at home. In Roshen's flagship shop a few hundred meters from where Poroshenko addressed hundreds of thousands of pro-EU protesters in late 2013, computer programmer Yevhen Kebikov was browsing through boxes of "Kiev Evening" chocolates to the piped-in strains of The Beatles' Yesterday.

"The president was a businessman before he took office and promised to sell," said Kebikov. "He should be asked why he hasn't delivered on his promises. What is more important to him, his voters or his business assets?"

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 #41
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
May 8, 2015
Novaya Gazeta Report on MH17 Shootdown: The Actual Proof
Ballistics tell no lies, and give a fairly clear account as to what happened
By The Saker
[Extensive and necessary graphics here http://russia-insider.com/en/military/novaya-gazeta-report-mh17-shootdown-actual-proof/ri6645]

By now, even Reuters broke the story about yet another MH17 shootdown theory. Why bother with the details?

In a word, because the Novaya Gazeta report is the ONLY completely consistent version from an unbiased source that we got so far. [http://www.novayagazeta.ru/inquests/68332.html]

Now, that shouldn't be taken to mean that this thing is the indisputable truth.

Novaya Gazeta is generally Pro-Western, yes, and publishes multiple stories about Russian troops in Ukraine (most famous one translated here by myself), so this goes against NG's usual bias - reporting can be considered honest.

However, it's till a crappy newspaper (approximately at the level of UK's "The Telegraph"), and a lot of NG's reporting is simply bad and error-prone.

Moreover, the report itself, purportedly written by "Russian military experts", appears to be compiled from publicly available sources and has no insider knowledge; in other words, it could be compiled by anyone with a good brain and a lot of time.

However, all of that is vindicated by ballistics evidence. Ballistics don't lie, and here they paint a relatively clear picture.

Moreover, since all the sources used are publicly available, anyone can do the same work and come to the same conclusions. So let me explain their reasoning:

- Buk warheads throw fragments sideways.

This is because the chances of directly hitting a jet moving faster than a pistol bullet are slim; moreover, if that happens, it's getting hit by a missile the size of a telegraph pole, anyway.

So the warheads are set up to explode when a target is in close proximity and to the side. Previously, the main "Buk impact" scenario was a launch from a rebel-held Snezhnoe, and damage was explained like so, seemingly corroborated by a large hole in the left side of the pilot's cabin:

- However, there were serious problems with that version.

First off, no one in Snezhnoe seen or heard the launch. Many locals readily admit seeing a rebel Buk, which is visible from maybe a hundred yards in tight city streets, but not a single person has heard or seen the launch, which should be visible and audible for many miles around:

Something is not right - if the locals are lying, why would they admit seeing the launcher in the first place?

- From a ballistics standpoint, there is a lot of damage to left wing & engine, which should have been out of the way of the fragment stream. That can not be explained by colliding with pieces of the missile itself, as the damage clearly indicates multiple small fragments, i.e. main fragment stream.

Moreover, the close-up images of damage to the cab indicate that the fragments were traveling front to back, not left to right:

And the right side pilot's window was found undamaged, whereas fragments coming from left side should have shattered it to tiny pieces (that is what the question mark in first picture signifies):

- Therefore, the fragments were flying along the axis of plane like so:

This means the missile didn't come from the front, but from the side: as mentioned before, the direction of fragments is perpendicular to the direction of missile flight.

Based on the damage fields on the plane (refer to full report for pics) calculated angle of the missile was 72-75 degrees horizontal and 20-22 degrees vertical. Based on known course and location of the plane at the moment of hit, as well as BukM1 missile parameters, direction and distance to the launcher can be determined.

The purported location of the launcher is somewhere in the area of Zaroschenskoe.

What's in Zaroschenskoe? Well, according to satellite images released by the Russian Ministry of Defense last summer, two Kiev government Buk M1 launchers.

Moreover, unlike Snezhnoe with its 50,000 population, Zaroschenskoe was a village of 350 people, mostly deserted during the fighting, so lack of witnesses of the launch is not surprising.

This is the main point of the report published in Novaya Gazeta.

The rest basically describes why they think it's BukM1, which sensible people didn't doubt much (yes, it is technically possible a government fighter like Mig-29 shot down MH17 with a long-range air-to-air missile, but it's a rather far-fetched scenario).

The only thing left to discuss is the reason for the shootdown. There are basically three hypotheses:

- Training/targeting accident, like 2001 shootdown of Israeli airliner by Ukrainian army under similar circumstances (missile was aimed at target drone, but some other radar was practicing and "painting" the airliner - missile picked the bigger target).

UAF was reportedly conducting anti-aircraft exercises at the time of MH17 shootdown. Basically, training consists of targeting something nearby (normally a civilian airliner as military jets don't take kindly to being painted with target radar) and going through the launch sequence. The men have been doing this a lot with dummy missiles loaded - this is the first time in at least a decade they had live missiles.

Moreover, the usual failsafe measure would be to switch off the target radar so missile loses guidance - but that would only work if no other Buk is "painting" the target with radar. Considering that UAF had something like a regiment of Buks and multiple targeting stations in the area, plus the rebels may have been practicing as well, that safety measure likely would not work.

- False flag attack. This is going into conspiracy theory territory, but Zaroschenskoe at the time was "no man's land", and AA launchers from either side really had no business being there. Of course, they could be there for any number of reasons - ambushing Russian planes at close range, lost their way, etc. - but one reason could be to hit a civilian plane over the rebel hub of Snezhnoe.

- Rebel mistake.

Previously this seemed the most logical, as the shootdown area was heavily bombed at the time and rebels were doing their best to shoot down the attack planes, but ballistics in the NG report look convincing.

Still, it's possible the rebels had another launcher we don't know about, somewhere to the side of MH17.

In that case, we can remember that many locals claim they saw a government ground attack plane at the time of MH17 shootdown; while it's unlikely a SU25 plane could shoot down MH17, someone trying to target it could target MH17 instead. Even if the targeting was correct, if government Buks were training and painting MH17, the missile would very likely pick the larger target.

- So, who's to blame for the deaths? In all scenarios except False Flag, it's the war itself, really. It's not so crucial who was targeting what and who ended up pressing the button; more important is why was a civilian airliner sent though an area of heavy air-to-ground combat in the first place, one that clearly had multiple heavy anti-aircraft systems in the hands of inexperienced UAF conscripts and rebels (both sides announced they're deploying Buk air defense systems to the area shortly before the tragedy).

And, once we start digging deeper and deeper into the issue, we'll inevitably come back to the root causes of the war:

- Certain parties misguided belief that an elected government can be overthrown without consequence, and a hostile takeover of the sort that resulted in civil war in Georgia, Moldova, Kosovo, Cyprus, Texas, etc. would somehow be met without protest by the "pro-Russian" half of Ukraine.

- Their opponents misguided belief that the West would not support a government waging an depopulation campaign (yes, forcing a million people to flee the cities to Russia by deliberately shelling power and water stations is depopulation), that Russia will officially intervene on their behalf, or that fighting spirit and some smuggled weapons can beat a real army funded by IMF loans (well, that last one worked - for now - but the rebels have a far harder time replacing their losses).

But I digress, "who's to blame for the war" is a topic for a separate discussion. Thank you for your time.

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 #42
Ukrainian army shells DPR territory - militia

DONETSK. May 8 (Interfax) - The Defense Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic has registered 44 instances of shelling by Ukrainian government forces in the region in the past 24 hours, the Donetsk news agency reported.

"Over the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian side has shelled the territory of the DPR 44 times. The adversary continues to use heavy weapons," the news agency said, citing the DPR Defense Ministry said.

The Ukrainian army's attacks targeted the towns of Horlivka and Yasynuvata, as well as the localities of Shyrokyne, Spartak, Zhabycheve, Hryhorivka, Vesele, Nova Mayrivka, Lozove, Mychuryne, Sanzharivka, Pervomaiskoye, and Holmovsky, it said.

"Casualties among the civilian population and militia forces are being verified," the DPR Defense Ministry said.

Ukrainian military officials, for their part, also accused militia forces of breaching the ceasefire in Donbas.

The 'adversary' has been shelling the Ukrainian army's positions since 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, the press center of the army operation in Ukraine's eastern regions said on its Facebook account on Friday morning.

Militia forces have also used banned heavy weapons against positions held by the Ukrainian army near the localities of Peski, Hranytne, Opytne, and Avdiyivka, it said. Automatic grenade launchers and small arms were fired near Opytne and the Dutovka mine.

Militia forces used 122mm and 82mm mortars near the village of Shyrokyne near Mariupol, the press center said.

"The adversary also used the same types of weapons as it shelled our positions near the localities of Bohuslavske, Novhorodske, Krasny Pakhar and Shyroka Balka. The 'militants' fired tanks in the village of Leninske," it said.

"The adversary's snipers were operating near Stanytsia Luhanska and Shchastya," the press center said.

Twenty-two drones belonging to the militia have been seen flying over Zhelobok, Krymske, Mariupol, Shyrokyne, Mykhailyuki, Teple, Nova Bakhmutovka and Verkhnetoretske, the press center said.

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 #43
Brookings Institution
May 7, 2015
What's next in eastern Ukraine? More of the same.
By Steven Pifer
Steven Pifer is director of the Brookings Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative and a senior fellow with the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence and the Center on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. A former ambassador to Ukraine, Pifer's career as a foreign service officer centered on Europe, the former Soviet Union and arms control. Pifer also had postings in London, Moscow, Geneva and Warsaw, as well as on the National Security Council

Concern is rising over the situation in eastern Ukraine, with reports of increased shelling across the line of contact and rising casualties, as well as of Russia arming and organizing separatist forces while assembling regular army units along the Ukraine-Russia border. Tension is up, but the most likely prospect is continuation of a no war/no peace situation ... a frozen conflict.

The Minsk II ceasefire-brokered between Ukraine and Russia by German Chancellor Angela Merkel on February 12-remains fragile at best. Shelling between Ukrainian and separatist/Russian forces never ceased entirely. Periodically, including now, it spikes up. All heavy weapons have not been withdrawn, something that should have taken place by the end of February.

Undoubtedly, both sides commit ceasefire violations. But reports by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitoring mission more often attribute shelling to the separatist/Russian side. They also indicate problems gaining access to areas of separatist-controlled Donetsk and Luhansk, suggesting there may be things the separatists do not wish OSCE observers to see.

If the Minsk II ceasefire is tottering, what comes next? One can see three broad scenarios.

First, Minsk II succeeds, and peace takes hold, followed by implementation of the political and economic elements of the agreement. Ukraine restores sovereignty over the east, albeit with some devolution of authority to regional officials.

This is what the government in Kyiv says it wants-and what the European Union and White House fervently hope for. But there are few reasons for optimism. The political and economic elements of the agreement have fared little better than the ceasefire. Moreover, Alexander Zakharchenko, leader of the "Donetsk People's Republic," has ruled out Kyiv restoring sovereignty over eastern Ukraine and has said the separatists should occupy all of Donetsk Oblast.

Second, Minsk II breaks down completely, and large-scale hostilities resume. The Russian military has maintained a presence in eastern Ukraine, training up separatist fighters and providing overall command-and-control-to the point where the State Department now refers to "combined Russian-separatist forces." Those forces give the Kremlin options. And Russian President Vladimir Putin likes to have options.

But does Moscow want to launch a new offensive? That would mean more costs, including dead soldiers, for the Russian army. If the Russian-separatist forces occupy new territory, they could well find a hostile populace and need to deal with a partisan campaign.

Beyond that, a new offensive would trigger further Western sanctions. The Kremlin clearly does not want that and appears to hope that the European Union (EU) will not renew sanctions in July. Merkel has done her best to preconfigure a decision to extend EU sanctions, but the possibility, however thin, of ending them this summer gives Moscow an incentive not to rock the boat.

A collapse of the ceasefire cannot be ruled out. Putin could make a different choice; he has surprised everyone before. And even if neither side wishes a resumption of large-scale fighting, the continued shelling creates the potential for escalation due to miscalculation. A breakdown of Minsk II thus has to be ranked as more probable than the agreement's success.

The third and most likely scenario is a continuation of the current situation of no war/no peace ... a frozen conflict. The ceasefire holds in some places, but not all. Shelling and fighting continue in certain locales, but no major offensive. Discussions in the Contact Group between representatives of Kyiv, the separatists, Russia and the OSCE take place every so often, but no breakthroughs to stabilize a settlement.

In contrast to Crimea, which Moscow quickly annexed, the Kremlin appears to regard eastern Ukraine and the conflict there as a means to destabilize the Ukrainian government and make it harder for Kyiv to address a difficult reform agenda or draw closer to the European Union. Kyiv finds itself in difficult straits right now. Moscow may see no need to sow further havoc. Should the Ukrainian government make progress, the Russians can ratchet up military pressure.

For its part, a frozen conflict in eastern Ukraine may not be unwelcome in Kyiv. It would allow the government time to get its financial house in order and tackle a long list of reforms. And the Ukrainian government may not want to take on economic responsibility for the separatist-controlled parts of Donetsk and Luhansk-which Minsk II mandates it do before regaining sovereignty. Kyiv may instead prefer to push that costly economic burden on Moscow.

So, for the foreseeable future, don't bet on peace (unfortunately). Don't be totally surprised if large-scale hostilities break out. But expect more of what we have seen the past two months.

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