Johnson's Russia List
2015-#105
28 May 2015
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"We don't see things as they are, but as we are"

"Don't believe everything you think"

In this issue
 
  #1
Moscow Times
May 28, 2015
Yoga Journal Celebrates Its First 10 Years in Russia
By Lara McCoy

To celebrate its 10th anniversary this spring, the Russian edition of Yoga Journal didn't make plans for a huge party, or even a special yoga retreat. Instead, the magazine marked the milestone by launching an extensive analytical survey of yoga in Russia and its practitioners, which appears in the May/June issue of the magazine. The study, conducted by Yoga Journal with marketing company TNS Russia, showed that yoga in Russia today is both a widespread activity and a serious business.

More than 1.3 million Russians practice yoga - more than play basketball, tennis or hockey, according to the survey, and practitioners are a fairly elite group. Three-quarters of them are middle or upper class and 64 percent have a university degree. Half of them are between 16 and 34. And they spent 41 billion rubles on yoga last year.

The growth of yoga and Yoga Journal in Russia is not something the magazine's editor Ellen Verbeek could have foreseen when she went to San Francisco to get the Russian rights to Yoga Journal from the American publishers.

"In Russia at that time there were very few studios, maybe four or five. You had basically the Iyengar community and the Ashtanga community. The people who did yoga were extremely serious, but it was not popular," Verbeek said.

Yoga had been forbidden during most of the Soviet era because of its association with Hindu religious practices and even after the fall of the Soviet Union, the practice was slow to develop.

"I did my first yoga class at the Indian Embassy 25 years ago," Verbeek said. "They had it there."

By the time of Yoga Journal's fifth anniversary in 2010, however, the landscape had changed significantly.

The magazine's staff made the decision to host international conferences under the Yoga Journal brand from the very beginning of its publication. Russia was an exotic destination then, and foreign teachers were excited to come and see the state of yoga in the country, Verbeek said. In 2009, Yoga Journal Russia invited B.K.S. Iyengar, the founder of the Iyengar school of yoga, to lead a conference in Moscow.

"He was already 90 then and it was his last trip to the West - well, from India this is the West - and it was a huge event, and from all over Europe people came," Verbeek remembers.  

If the conference with Iyengar put Russia on the yoga map internationally, two important events the following year showed the expansion of the practice closer to home.

In its fifth-anniversary issue - May/June 2010 - Yoga Journal featured a story about the Yeltsin family's yoga practice.

"I had at that time an Iyengar studio in Zhukovka [an elite Moscow suburb]," said Verbeek, "and the Yeltsin family started to take teachers from my studio to do yoga. So for our five-year anniversary we had the whole Yeltsin family doing yoga. We had a photo of Naina Yeltsina doing a shoulder stand in the issue."

The association with the Yeltsins gave the magazine more than a fascinating photo essay.

Verbeek had been trying for some time to organize a yoga marathon on Red Square, but had not had much luck breaking through the bureaucracy.

"This was my dream - to do yoga on Red Square. After we had this issue, the next year we got the permission to do our marathon. We do our marathon every year on June 21 - International Yoga Day. Now we do it at a different location now but we did it twice on Red Square."

The yoga marathon is one of two annual events Yoga Journal hosts each year. The event, which consists of 108 sun salutations performed over approximately four hours, raises money for charity. Participants can register on a special website and ask people to sponsor them for the session.

The magazine also hosts a major international conference every fall, bringing the best international teachers to Moscow. This year's event, in October, will feature American yogi Briohny Smyth.  

"All the teachers we invite find the level of students in Russia really high because people are serious here," Verbeek said. "They are more serious than Americans. They don't go once a month; they go three times a week."

All that practice adds up. According to the Yoga Journal survey, the average practitioner spends 2,500 rubles a month on yoga classes and seminars, although the numbers change depending on the length of time someone has practiced yoga. A new student may spend as little as 9,000 rubles a year, while a yogi with more than a decade of experience averages 30,000 rubles annually.

Verbeek said that the costs of running a yoga studio remain high, however, particularly in Moscow, because of the property values.

"The yoga business in Moscow is very difficult because the rents are so high. You lose on that. I think all the studios struggle," she said.

Verbeek sees more potential for future growth in businesses that are associated with yoga, such as clothing, accessories and organic or vegetarian food.

"In America, yoga is a multibillion-dollar business, but mostly because of the clothes, the interest in healthy food. I think it will all grow, because in the end, Russians are no different."
 
#2
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
May 27, 2015
EXCLUSIVE: PUTIN POISONS OPPOSITION ACTIVIST WITH 'SPOILED YOGURT'!
Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza hospitalized, likely after eating 'spoiled yogurt'. Putin must be stopped!
By RI Staff
 
URGENT: IF YOU ARE EATING YOGURT WHILE YOU ARE READING THIS, STOP IMMEDIATELY AND THROW THAT DEADLY PUTIN DAIRY POISON OUT THE WINDOW. Okay, now for breaking news!

Let's keep this short and sweet.

Exhibit A: Julia "Putin might fall" Ioffe:

Julia Ioffe ✔@juliaioffe
Opposition activist and Khodorkovsky's right hand man Vladimir Kara-Murza is in critical condition. Poisoning. It's open season in Russia.
1:04 PM - 27 May 2015

Exhibit B: "A newspaper":

Doctors later diagnosed Kara-Murza with kidney failure, his father told RBC newspaper. "The deputy head doctor of the hospital came out and told us that everything was fine with his heart, his lungs, his stomach, etc. It all had to do with his kidneys," he said. "It could have been spoiled yogurt or something else."

Conclusion: NO ONE IS SAFE. DESTROY ALL YOGURT, EVERYWHERE. PUTIN IS TRYING TO KILL EVERYONE!

 
 #3
Interfax
May 28, 2015
Gorbachev Foundation: Russia, West reach dangerous line of confrontation

Russia can return to a sustainable development path provided that it revives democratic institutes and political competition and rids of excessive centralization of power and dangerous confrontation with the West, says a report on perestroika values in the contemporary Russian context.

The document drawn up by the Gorbachev Foundation and the Civil Initiatives Committee will be presented in Moscow on May 28, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the beginning of democratic reforms in the USSR.

The report starts with the refutation of a widespread opinion that transformations in the former Soviet Union were triggered by the West. Perestroika was not something implanted from the outside, it matured in Soviet society, the report said. In the opinion of its authors, a major prerequisite of the reforms was the rethinking of the function of power, which is bound to be a way rather than a sacred goal.

The Soviet leadership abandoned the struggle for world leadership in its foreign policy which looked like surrender of the ground won in a previous period, the report said. However, it was a brand new, truly modern, realistic and rational policy from the point of view of human values rather than a geopolitical and military victory won at any cost, it noted.

The report compared the transformations of the late 1980s - early 1990s to the February 1917 Revolution as they were a far-reaching attempt to put the country on a new development path and do away with 'the path dependence'.

A keynote achievement of perestroika was institutionalization of elections as a democratic value and an instrument of forming and replacing the administration through a free expression of will by citizens, the report said.

Yet the report admitted that perestroika was an unfinished revolution. It mentioned amongst causes of unsuccessful transformations, the civil conflict of 1993, the war in Chechnya which started a year later, and the outrage of criminals. Citizens became disappointed in the economic reforms after the August 1998 default. Those factors enhanced the public demand for going back to an authoritative state which brings order to the country with an iron hand, the report said.

In the opinion of its authors, the subsequent period witnessed the restoration of elements of the Soviet political system in Russia.

After chief law enforcers and bureaucrats took control of the oligarchs in the first half of the 2000s, the afterlife of old semi-dismantled Soviet political institutes began. A lid was put on the reforms, as stability, which implied control exercised by the authorities and assets concentrated in the hands of the new ruling class, became a primary objective, the report said.

The authors concluded that the reform laid a foundation for market economy and statehood in Russia but failed to bring lasting positive results and put the country on a track of modern and democratic development.

Democracy institutes were discredited in the eyes of a substantial part of the population and a one-sided and uncompetitive resource-focused model hindering economic development was formed, the report said.

In their opinion, the country built 'power vertical' with an utmost degree of centralization of state resources and managerial functions. Political competition in the country was practically liquidated and most significant media outlets were taken under control by the state, they said.

What is more, Russia and the West have reached a dangerous limit of confrontation, which is fraught with a new Cold War and escalation of international conflicts, the report said.
The authors warned that preservation of the ongoing trends would result in a chronic lag of Russia in the globalization epoch.

Any attempt to ignore norms, institutes and procedures based on democratic values will eventually lead to profound destabilization of the system, the report underscored.

The authors proposed to restore perestroika values and the democratic alternative the country had lost.

A new stage of profound democratic reforms is unavoidable, the authors said, adding that the reforms would be prompted by the same reasons as perestroika: the inefficient and obsolete political system, the economic and technological backwardness, the archaic methods of interaction between the state and the public, and the dangerous level of foreign political confrontation.

They dubbed free elections, federalism, a law-governed state, social democracy and self-organization of society as perestroika political ideas most topical at the moment.

The authors admitted that perestroika suffered a political defeat but stressed that its main victory was the fall of the Iron Curtain, the end of the Cold War, and the establishment of democratic values on a substantial part of the territory of the USSR and Central and Eastern Europe.
 
 #4
www.rt.com
May 28, 2015
Gorbachev Foundation urges 'new Perestroika' to save Russia

A leading NGO founded by ex-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has released a report saying that Russian authorities should decentralize power, stimulate political competition and abandon the policy of confrontation with Western nations.

The Gorbachev Foundation timed the report, entitled 'Perestroika Values in the Context of Modern Russia', to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the start of democratic reforms. In April 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev for the first time denounced the stagnating Soviet system at the plenary meeting of the Communist Party's Central Committee and used the word Perestroika - meaning 'restructuring' or 'rebuilding' - in its modern sense for the first time.

The authors of the report call Gorbachev's reforms "an unfinished revolution" and blame their failure on several realities of early 1990s. These are the social conflicts, the Chechen war and the authorities' inability to cope with crime. All these tendencies led to a growing demand for strong authoritarian regime that could bring back order and prosperity, the researchers claim.

They go on to criticize the current Russian authorities both for alleged "non-competitive and one sided resource-based economy" and "excessive centralization of state resources and power." They also call the current state of relations between Russia and the West "a dangerous threshold of a standoff" and warn about the dangers of a new cold war as well as escalation of the existing international conflicts.

The Gorbachev Foundation warns that if the maintaining of the current tendencies in times of globalization would lead to Russia chronically lagging behind. "All attempts to ignore the norms, institutes and procedures based on democratic values would lead to a deep destabilization of the whole political system," it adds.

The researchers called upon the Russian community to return to "Perestroika values" in order to revitalize the democratic alternative.

Gorbachev Foundation is a US-registered NGO founded by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991, after he was ousted from power amid the collapse of USSR. Gorbachev remains the president of the foundation to this day.

The latest opinion polls demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of the Russian public supports the current course of the authorities. Research conducted by independent pollster Levada this month reads that 86 percent of Russians approve of Vladimir Putin's activities as Russian president. Sixty-two percent of respondents named Putin as their most-trusted politician.

 
 #5
Moscow Times
May 28, 2015
Worst Not Over for Russia as Economy Shrinks 4.3% in April

Russia's economic recession deepened in April as the decline in gross domestic product accelerated to 4.3 percent year-on-year, quashing hopes that the worst of the crisis had passed, state development bank VEB said in a report released Wednesday.

"The accelerating fall in GDP in April indicates that the crisis still hasn't passed its lowest point," the report cited VEB's chief economist Andrei Klepach as saying.

The drop exceeded many economists' expectations, nipping hopes for a quick economic recovery in the bud.

Just earlier this month, German Gref, the head of Russia's biggest lender Sberbank, declared that the peak of Russia's economic crisis had passed, the TASS news agency reported.

Deputy Economic Development Minister Alexei Vedev last week forecast a milder contraction of 4 percent in April, the Interfax news agency reported.

Russia's GDP dropped by 0.6 percent in April, accelerating from a 0.4 percent decline in March. The economy shrank by a total of 2.5 percent in the first four months of the year, according to VEB.

Russia's economy has slowed sharply since the beginning of last year due to Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis and a plunge in the price of oil, Russia's main export.

Russian GDP growth fell into negative territory in November last year, dropping 0.5 percent year-on-year for the first time since 2009, according to a report by the Economic Development Ministry.

The steep slump in April was led by a 2 percent fall in manufacturing, a 1.5 percent drop in retail and a 0.5 percent decline in mining production, according to the VEB report.

The downturn was also aggravated by a fall in the volume of oil exports, the report said, adding that a surge in exports of oil and oil products had propped up the economy in the beginning of the year.

First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov on Wednesday called the latest economic growth figures "disappointing," the TASS news agency reported.
 
 
#6
Russia's Economy Ministry sees economy recovering from 2016
May 28, 2015

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's economy will contract by 2.8 percent this year but is seen expanding 2.3-2.4 percent each year in 2016-18, helped by recovering oil prices, updated forecasts by the Economy Ministry showed on Thursday.

The forecasts were in line with previous comments by officials, who had said that the ministry had revised down its official estimate of this year's contraction to 2.8 percent, from an earlier 3 percent.

The projections assume an average Urals oil price of $50 (33 pounds) per barrel this year, sticking to an existing oil price forecast which Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev has previously described as "conservative".

Urals is presently trading close to $60 per barrel, at a small discount to international benchmark Brent. (URL-NWE-E) (URL-E) (LCOc1)

Russian officials have recently painted a more upbeat picture of economic prospects, but poor data for April showed that Russia is still paying heavily for last year's oil price plunge and Western sanctions imposed as a result of the Ukraine conflict.

The ministry expects growth to return from next year, with a forecast of 2.3 percent growth in 2016-17 and 2.4 percent in 2018, with the oil price recovering to $70 per barrel by 2018 under its base scenario.

Inflation is seen ending this year between 11.6 and 11.9 percent, falling to 7.0 percent in 2016, 6.3 percent in 2017 and 5.1 percent in 2018.

The rouble is seen averaging 60 roubles per dollar in 2015, strengthening to 53.2 roubles per dollar in 2018.

In addition to its base scenario the ministry also published an "optimistic scenario" that assumed higher oil prices, with Urals averaging $60 per barrel this year and rising to $90 per barrel by 2018.

Under those assumptions, the economy was seen contracting 2.5 percent in 2015 and recovering more strongly.

 #7
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
May 27, 2015
Moody's Revises Outlook for Russian Economy
The international ratings agency has predicted Russia's GDP will decline by less than previous estimations.
By Mike Wheatley  

The international rating agency Moody's has provided an improved outlook for the Russian economy in 2015 and 2016, according to a research note from the agency's Investor's Service.

Previously, Moody's had said Russia's GDP would decline by 5.5 percent in 2015. Now, the agency is saying it expects a decline of just 3 percent in 2015, and that will remain unchanged through 2016, RG.ru reported.

Moody's noted that while Russia suffered a difficult fourth quarter in 2014, its financial markets have since stabilized. Therefore the country's recession is likely to be less significant and more brief than first anticipated. Moody's analysts said Russia's central bank's decision to reduce interest rates and the slight rise in global oil prices were the main factors behind its decision to adjust its outlook, as these have helped stabilize the ruble and restore growth in some areas of the economy.

Also in its report, Moody's said inflation in Russia will hit 12 percent this year, falling to 8.5 percent in 2016.

The Bank of Russia initially raised its key interest rate from 10.5 percent to 17 percent in December 2014. This was done to smooth inflation and counter the risk of devaluation after the rapid depreciation of the ruble in that month. With the situation now stablized, the bank has gradually begun lowering the interest rate, which is currently at 12.5 percent.


 #8
www.rt.com
May 28, 2015
Top banker Gref speaks against hasty political reforms

Ex-Russian economy minister and board chairman of the largest state-owned savings bank believes major economic reforms should be launched only after authorities create an effective nationwide system of executive power.

Sberbank President Herman Gref told Vedomosti daily that he considers the current economic trend in Russia negative and doesn't see any opportunities to overcome this trend before 2017. At the same time he doesn't agree with the statement that Russia is in stasis or that an economic collapse is imminent.

"It will not collapse. When I was 30 years old I also used the words 'collapse' and 'dead end'. The system will not collapse, but it can degrade slowly," the banker warned.

Gref noted that as the economy received less money the stimuli for reforms became more urgent. But before starting to reforms anything there must be an effective state management system, he said. "With the existing system it is dangerous to start any serious or large-scale reforms," the ex-minister said in the interview.

At the same time, he said that the state management reform should not include any changes to the constitutional basics of the Russian state.

"They say the reforms start when money reserves are depleted. Let us wait for this moment," Gref joked.
 #9
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
May 28, 2015
Russia on track for poor harvest
Ben Aris in Moscow
 
Russia is on course for a poor harvest after rains failed in key agricultural regions in the south. Following a record harvest in 2014, this year's grain production could fall to levels last seen during the disastrous drought of 2010 - bad news for an economy already struggling.

Russia's Rostov region faces flat or lower wheat yields this year due to a lack of rain last autumn, and as Russia heads into its brief summer the outlook for future rainfall is poor, say meteorologists. This is the crucial period when wheat and other grains need precipitation if the harvest is to be good.

Rostov is the second region to report lower than usual rainfall. Krasnodar, which is home to Russia's viniculture business in addition to being a major wheat producer, has also reported lower than usual rainfall.

A poor harvest would be terrible for Russia's economy; the bad harvest in 2008 led directly to skyrocketing inflation as food still makes up about a third of the average Russian's shopping basket. This would come on top of the situation where food prices are already being inflated by the Kremlin's self-imposed ban on agricultural produce from the US and EU. Basic foodstuffs like cabbage and buckwheat have already seen their prices soar this year; food prices between May 13 and May 18 were 29% higher than during the same period last year, Rosstat reported.

Tough times

Inflation dropped below 16% for the first time in months in May. The Russian state statistical agency Rosstat reported that week-on-week inflation fell to 0.1% in the week ending May 24, bringing the annualised rate to 15.8%.

Inflation is a major drag on Russia's economic growth. Because of the economic slowdown, real wages began to fall in December, and rising prices deplete further the population's ability to buy goods, which in turn is amplifying the fall in retail turnover. In the bounteous summer months inflation typically falls to zero, however a poor harvest will keep food prices high and so further eat into growth.

With the fall in real wages accelerating to 13.2% on year in April compared with a 10.6% fall in March, and real disposable incomes contracting 4.0% in April versus 1.8% in March, consumer demand is getting weaker.

The problem is made worse by the fact that with the current sky high interest rates and political uncertainty, the other two main economic drivers - construction and investment - are both turned off for the meantime, although capital investment numbers in April were slightly better than expected. "Capital investment dropped 4.8% year-on-year in April, which was much smaller than the Interfax consensus of a contraction of 6.7% year-on-year, while we expected a drop of more than 10% year-on-year," Alexei Devyatov, an economist with Uralsib, said in a note on May 25. "Rosstat revised the first quarter of 2015 investment figures upwards to about negative 3.3% year-on-year from the 6% year-on-year contraction reported earlier, as capital investments declined 3.7% year-on-year in the first four months of this year."

The upshot of the better-than-expected investment numbers is that Russia's economic slump has been milder than most feared. Moody's Investors Service on May 27 upgraded Russia's GDP forecasts to just a 3% contraction this year from its earlier estimate of 5%.

However, these beneficial effects are offset by the rapid recovery of the ruble after its collapse in December, which is hurting industry and contributed to a sharp fall in industrial production in April of 4.8% on year. Likewise, construction fell even harder, down by 5.2% in the same period. The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has started buying foreign currency again over the last month in an effort to keep the ruble weak, in what has been dubbed a "dirty float" of the currency; the central bank was supposed to stay out of the forex markets and let the ruble float freely so it could concentrate on inflation targeting, but recently has returned to its old habits of trying to manipulate exchange rates.

All in all, agriculture is currently the only sector growing and is driving the economy by itself, but even that is slowing. Agricultural growth decelerated to 3.3% on year in April from 4.2% in March.

Kremlin invests into record grain harvest

A bad harvest would compound Russia's other problems. Russia produces about 100mn tonnes of grain a year, well in excess of its own needs of about 60mn tonnes. The rest is exported and last year Russia was the fourth largest exporter of grain in the world.

Russia's grain harvest has been growing steadily in recent years thanks to heavy investment in the food industry, backed by the state. The Kremlin granted a record $189bn in subsidies to the sector in 2014, which contributed to a record 105.3mn-tonne grain harvest the same year, according to Agriculture Minister Nikolai Fyodorov. That was up from the previous record of 101mn tones in 2007 and the second best result in post-Soviet history. And last year's 15.45mn tonnes of vegetables was a record too.

This year the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Moscow bureau is predicting a heavy blow to the grain harvest, which is expected to come in at a mere 92mn tonnes - one of the worst results since 2010.

Grain underpins Russia's entire agricultural sector, as it is also used as feed for livestock. Russia has become self-sufficient in poultry, is close to self-sufficiency in pork and has been investing heavily in cattle production that will take at least another four years to mature as a business while herds are built up. Russia is now feeding 39.6mn tonnes of grain to cattle and poultry a year compared with the previous 37mn tonnes, which is a sign of herd expansion, according to the Russian agricultural ministry.

But the crisis has disrupted the sector, and the state's own efforts to ensure food security and bring down the costs have also caused problems on the grain export markets.

Russia's grain exports between February and May 20 were down by more than half to 1.6mn tonnes, according to the agriculture ministry, after a new 15% wheat export tax plus a levy of €7.50 per tonne was imposed on February 1. The export duty was levied in an attempt to lower fast-rising domestic food inflation, but it doesn't seem to be having any effect yet. The tax will cost farmers RUB20bn ($373mn) this season and RUB50bn next year if it's extended, data from Moscow-based research firm SovEcon show, reported TASS.

Russia's curtailing of wheat exports is squeezing domestic farmers who rely on hard currency revenues to run their businesses. Smaller farmers have already been forced to cut back on investment and things like fertilisers to stay solvent, which will hurt yields further. Caught between the increase in the cost of imputs like fertilisers of around 14% and a fall in the domestic price of wheat of about 13%, according to the USDA report, Russian farmers are having a hard time of it. "Due to the ruble depreciation and high inflation, the cost of spring work and the cost of inputs skyrocketed in the spring of 2015, compared with the same period last year," the USDA said in a report in May.

And if the rains fail this year, then it could get ugly for everyone. For now, reduced shipments of Russian grain haven't affected global wheat prices much because of bumper harvests almost everywhere else, though that could change if exports keep falling, say experts. In 2010, Russia banned wheat exports for 10 months after the worst drought in a half-century, which led to a doubling of prices in Chicago.
 
 #10
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
May 28, 2015
The Russian economy: overcoming difficulties fast
Russian Ambassador to the UK Alexander Yakovenko speaks out on the new economic reality in Russia.
 
For many prominent international observers, it is obvious that despite tough challenges, including low energy prices, a weak rouble and western sanctions, Russia's economy has overcome the worst, and started to stabilise, adapting to the new economic reality. As President Vladimir Putin highlighted in the recent Direct Line special TV broadcast: "It is clear there is no collapse, we have survived the peak of the problems, and the fundamentals of the Russian economy have strengthened".

Russia's macro-economic state exceeded the expectations of some government experts and independent analysts. The foreign exchange market has calmed and the economy is gradually adapting to a floating rouble exchange rate. Public debt is low. The federal budget deficit remains at an economically safe level and the unemployment rate is within reasonable limits, meaning it is much lower than in other countries in comparable figures. The inflation rate is also expected to slow down in 2015-16. Despite difficulties, the government is fully meeting all its social commitments. According to the Russian Federal Statistic Service, the country's GDP dropped in the first quarter of 2015 by no more than 1.9pc - well short of most predictions. Many international economists are revising their forecasts of the GDP annual contraction figures from 4-4.5pc to 3-3.5pc.

In order to tackle the challenges, the Government has adopted and been implementing a $35bn (�22.6bn) anti-crisis plan that includes 60 measures aimed at reversing Russia's worsening economic situation, which was exacerbated by the rouble's sharp depreciation in the second half of 2014.

The measures stipulated for 2015-16 are designed to accelerate the restructuring of the economy, stabilise strategic companies in the key sectors, balance the labour market, reduce inflation, moderate the consequences of consumer price increases for low-income families as well as secure sustainable growth and macroeconomic stability in the medium term. This plan is definitely working well.

After losing almost half of its value in 2014, the Russian rouble has recovered by about 30pc already. Its rally was spurred by the Central Bank lowering interest rates, which brought investors back on to the Russian market. For instance, China is going to double its investments in Russia. There was a lot of speculation that Russia was running out of its reserves very quickly. To shatter this myth it would be right to mention that the Central Bank of Russia recently announced it will begin regular operations to buy foreign currencies on the domestic market in order to replenish its international reserves.

The scope of such operations is going to remain at $100-200m per day. As President Putin said, the corporate sector paid its commitments of about $130bn last year. For this year the amount stands at $60bn, of which most has already been paid. It is widely acknowledged that the Russian financial authorities acted wisely and avoided measures such as the introduction of capital controls.

As the Financial Times Moscow correspondent Kathrin Hille correctly put it, costs in local currency have fallen so consumers are more inclined to buy Russian - a process known as import substitution. Agricultural production is a government priority now, with a growth prediction of 1.4pc in 2015. It is not surprising that some economists now talk of "a renaissance" of Russian industry and agriculture, spurred by anti-crisis measures, brought forward by changes in the external environment. It is said that "Russians are slow to saddle but fast to ride". But it should be noted that some of the relief came as a result of the reciprocal and indiscriminate effects of the external pressures that we have to deal with.
 
 
#11
Juvenile delinquency rates down three-fold in Russia since early 1990s

MOSCOW. May 28 (Interfax) - Juvenile delinquency rates went down three-fold in Russia in the past 15 years, Russian First Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Gorovoi said on Thursday, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the juvenile delinquency service.

"Juvenile delinquency rates peaked in the early 1990s. The rates are down three-fold in the past 15 years," he said.

"Allow me to congratulate you on the jubilee of your service. No matter how the structure of police units can change, our primary objectives are unaltered - prevention of juvenile delinquency, neglected children, and the gene pool of our country," he said.

The Russian Interior Ministry employs over 14,000 officers in the juvenile delinquency service and another 2,000 in centers for the detention of minors.

"They are annually interacting with more than 315,000 minors and 210,000 problem parents and expose about 830,000 administrative offenses," the Interior Ministry press service said.

At least 237 minors take the path of correction each day, the press service reported.
 
 #12
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
May 26, 2015
Experts puzzled by sudden rise in Russia's mortality rate
The first quarter of 2015 saw the mortality rate in Russia grow by a surprising 5.2 percent, with analysts particularly puzzled by a 22-percent rise in the death rate among those suffering from respiratory illnesses. Experts are so far reluctant to attribute these figures to a single specific cause.
Marina Obrazkova, RBTH

Russian experts are struggling to make sense of an unexpected jump in the number of deaths registered in the country in the first few months of 2015.

According to official figures released by the Russian State Statistics Service (Rosstat), in the first quarter of 2015, the mortality rate in Russia - the number of deaths in the country, scaled to the size of the population - grew by 5.2 percent compared to the same period last year. The rise in mortality was registered in February and continued in March.
The overall number of people who died in the first quarter of 2015 was 507,000, up 23,500 compared with the first quarter of 2014. The highest increase in mortality (22 percent) occurred among people suffering from respiratory diseases, followed by diseases of the digestive system (10 percent), infectious diseases (6.5 percent), and blood circulation disorders (5 percent). At the same time, infant mortality and mortality from external causes, including murder and suicide, are falling. This trend has been observed for the whole of the country.

Sudden trend baffles experts

Experts are reluctant to speculate on the strength of three months' worth of statistics, saying that the figures may even out throughout the rest of the year and there is not enough data available to arrive at any conclusions.

"It is currently difficult to conjecture what this growth could be attributed to because it is not known which categories of the population showed an increased mortality rate," says Alla Tyndik, a senior research associate at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. "The desire to link these negative statistics to the economic crisis or to the reform of the health care system is so far unjustified."

Judging by previous research, in order to link a rise in mortality rate to an economic crisis, statistics should show a dramatic growth in the death rate among the working-age male population in towns and cities.

"During the previous crisis in the 1990s, those deaths were in the majority. The current crisis is likely to have an impact too, but not so fast. If medicine prices continue to rise and health care continues to deteriorate, mortality will rise among the elderly," Tyndik explains, adding that there is also another explanation: "Life expectancy is rising and people who used to die at 70 have lived until 80 and are dying now."

The latter thesis is shared by Sergei Zakharov, deputy head of the Institute of Demographics at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. He explains that over the past several years, the highest death rate age group (70-75 years) was comprised of the least numerous section of the population, i.e. those born in the 1940s.

"They will soon be replaced by a far more numerous generation of those born in the 1950s, which will result in a rise in the number of deaths even despite growing life expectancy," says Zakharov.
 
Changes in causes of death

A senior researcher at the Center of Demographic Research, Yevgeny Andreyev, points out that life expectancy in Russia has been growing fast since 2004.

"It [life expectancy] has since then increased by six years, twice as much as in developed countries. At the same time, Russia is currently at the level that developed countries passed 50 years ago," he adds.

According to the most recent World Health Organization statistics (from 2013), Russia currently has a life expectancy of 69, placing it alongside fellow former Soviet republics Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and just ahead of Kazakhstan, Nepal and Mongolia.

Andreyev attributes the improvement in life expectancy to several reasons: Russians on the whole now drink less alcohol, they have started to monitor their blood pressure, and there has been an increase in the number of heart surgeries.

Having said that, the number of deaths caused by blood circulation disorders has dropped dramatically, which prompts one to conclude that these diagnoses are now given only in those cases when it is impossible to find another cause, Andreyev continues.

"It is likely that when an elderly person dies and there are numerous causes of death, doctors select one that is not related to the blood circulation system. The government has set a target for the health sector to bring down the number of deaths caused by these factors, but things cannot be changed so quickly by medical and preventive measures," he explains.

One of the categories which showed an increased mortality rate this and last year was respiratory diseases - common cold, flu and pneumonia. "There are grounds to suspect that the flu epidemic may have been at play here," says Andreyev.

"The idea that increased mortality may have been caused by flu is further supported by a rise in deaths caused by tumors because this figure is usually very stable and in Russia little depends on health care interventions, whereas flu and the common cold may cause death in a body already weakened by another disease."

One particular feature typical for Russia is an exceptionally high mortality from external causes (road and other accidents, homicide, suicide, etc.), says Tyndik. It is in this area that there is significant potential for reducing the mortality rate, she concludes.
 
 
#13
http://readrussia.com
May 26, 2015
The Graying Bear: Russia Isn't "Dying" but It Is Getting Old
by Mark Adomanis

Despite the real-world abatement of Russia's demographic crisis (the population has grown every year since 2009 and, at just shy of 144 million, is roughly the same size it was a decade ago*), the headlines continue to be bleak. Russia is a "dying bear," we are told.

Senior American officials regularly predict that, in the not too distant future, the entire country will be a desolate wasteland lorded over by the Chinese. You don't need to search long or very hard to read all kinds of alarmist predictions about the disaster that is unfolding, about a people that has collectively chosen death over life. .

As is usually the case, the reality is an awful lot less exciting than the alarmist predictions. Russia's total fertility rate, the number that more than any other influences the direction of a country's future population movements, is currently above average for Europe and is substantially higher than in places like Germany, Italy, or Poland. Among its peers (post-communist countries in Europe) Russia stands out not for having a bizarrely low birthrate but for having one that is quite a bit higher than the norm.

Unless there is a radical, unexpected change in the underlying trends (and this being Eastern Europe, anything is certainly possible in this regard) Russia's population will decline in the future but it will do so much more slowly than virtually every other country in Europe outside of the UK, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.    

So, no, Russia is not caught in a "death spiral" and its population is not slumping towards extinction. Many of the forecasts which predicted that Russia's population will be lower than 100 million by the middle of the century are already badly out of date since they were built on the assumption that the super-low birth rates and super-high death rates of the 1990's were the new normal, not a temporary aberration.

However the fact that the situation has (at least temporarily) stabilized does not mean that the Russian population hasn't changed. It has. While Russia's population is (at least right now!) slowly growing the composition of the population is actually changing quite rapidly.

When Russia was transitioning away from communism, it was a much more youthful society: in 1990, fully 23% of the entire population was between 0 and 14 years of age.

The sharp downturn in fertility during the 1990's, when the number of children birthed by the average Russian woman fell by more than 50%, began a process that rapidly eroded the youth share of the population. Between 1990 and 2000 the percentage of the Russian population between 0 and 14 fell by more than 5%.

The growth in the elderly population, however, was initially more muted: the share of Russian citizens older than 65 went from 10% in 1990 to 12.5% in 2000. The decline was as small as it was because life expectancy was so low (and the health system so shambolic) that not many Russians older than 65 survived for very long. The number of people entering that age group increased, but so many died so quickly that its relative share of the (shrinking) population couldn't increase very quickly.

When Russia's overall population started to decline during the 1990's the prime working age population, using relatively crude demographic distinctions those people between 15 and 65, increased both in relative and absolute terms. Russia got older, but this increase in age was concentrated among people in the workforce, not people of retirement age. Russia reaped a modest demographic dividend: the number of dependents decreased while the number of economically active people increased. In other words, the rapid aging of the population did not have any negative economic consequences.

That is about to change. The Russian workforce is already starting to decline and, due to past trends, will continue to naturally decline for another 15-20 years before the recent uptick in births has a chance to "filter through." This means that the pension system is inevitably going to come under increasingly serious pressure in future years. That's not any kind of outlandish forecast, it's just math: the ranks of the retired are growing (and will continue to grow) while the ranks of the employed are decreasing (and will continue to decrease).

What does this mean, in political terms? Well given older peoples' well-established reputation for political and economic conservatism, I think it suggests that Russia's political system is not in for any fundamental changes. Yes there will be tweaks around the edges (there are always such tweaks, not even Brezhnev's Soviet Union was entirely stagnant) but I just don't see how there will be any kind of revolutionary upheaval. Elderly Russians are going to account for more and more of the Russian population and their desires largely seem to resolve around the quotidian and the economic rather than anything extraordinary or moral.

In short, Russia's demography suggests that it is in for a period of small-c conservatism in which the increasingly powerful ranks of the elderly resist any overly aggressive changes.

This could change, extraordinary people can overcome structural pressures, but the deck is going to be fundamentally stacked against any youthful oppositionists whose goal is to overthrow the current system.

*this 144 million does not count Crimea which (for obvious reasons) I don't t think is appropriate to include in Russia's tally. All of the numbers and projections cited in this piece do not count Crimea as part of the Russian Federation

 
 #14
Moscow Times
May 28, 2015
Russian Rights Activist Alexeyeva Returns to Kremlin Council
By Anna Dolgov

One of Russia's best-known human rights advocates and the founder of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, has rejoined the Kremlin's human rights council, saying she intended to look into the persecution of nongovernmental organizations under the country's "foreign agents" law.

President Vladimir Putin signed a decree Tuesday appointing Alexeyeva to the panel, according to a document published on the government's website.

Alexeyeva - who left the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights in 2012 to protest the opaque selection process of new members - welcomed her reappointment as "pleasant news," the Russian News Service reported.

The rights activist had previously turned down a number of invitations to rejoin the council. But recently the panel had submitted a request to Putin to reappoint her, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last week, adding that the "president has given his consent to it," news agency TASS reported.

Alexeyeva said that her work on the panel would include "above all, research into the practice of the application of the law on foreign agents against various NGOs," RIA Novosti reported.

"All hell has broken loose in the regions: They [the authorities] are simply settling scores with organizations that are unfavorable to them, stripping them this way of their right to operate," she said. "This is the question I want to raise."

The law requiring nongovernmental organizations to register as "foreign agents" if they receive funding from abroad and engage in vaguely defined political activity has drawn much criticism in Russia and abroad, especially after the Justice Ministry applied the label to an array of respected human rights groups that have criticized the government.

The law also requires groups that carry that label to identify themselves in any publications as "foreign agents" - a phrase that was widely used during the Soviet era to mean a spy.

Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov denied that the law puts any pressure on NGOs and said that it does not create any restrictions, according to an interview with business daily Kommersant published Wednesday.

But the implementation of the law has reportedly drawn some skepticism from Putin after the Justice Ministry applied the label this week to the Dynasty Foundation, a group that supports science and education and provides scholarships to the nation's young researchers.

At a closed-door meeting with Russia's business leaders Tuesday, Putin conceded that registering Dynasty as a "foreign agent" might require some looking into, news site RBC reported, citing three unidentified participants in the meeting. Kremlin spokesman Peskov had earlier said that the letter of the law was observed in the Dynasty case.

Alexeyeva said she wanted to "draw the attention of the presidential [human rights] council to the practice of listing NGOs as foreign agents - there are such outrageous things happening there," the Russian News Service reported.

A renowned rights advocate in Russia and overseas, Alexeyeva, 87, was the only Russian civil activist to meet with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland during the American diplomat's visit to Moscow last week, RBC reported at that time. The topics of discussion included concerns about the "foreign agents" law, the report said.

On the presidential human rights council Alexeyeva also plans to look into the operations of Russia's court and prison systems, the activist said, RIA Novosti reported.

"Our courts have very much discredited themselves in the eyes of citizens with their incompetence," Alexeyeva was quoted as saying, adding that she would also join the council's "task force" for monitoring prisons "because there are very many violations of human rights against inmates."
 
 
#15
Christian Science Monitor
May 27, 2015
Russia moves to silence civil society and its 'undesirable' contacts
Under a new law, Russian NGOs could face prosecution for communication with 'undesirable' groups based abroad - groups like Transparency International, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International.
By Fred Weir, Correspondent

MOSCOW - Russia's largest grassroots election watchdog, Golos, has been almost driven out of existence by a law passed three years ago that saddled it with a "foreign agent" label - which connotes "spy" in Russian. Since then, the organization has been subject of an ongoing wave of tax and criminal investigations, including an official ban on carrying out its primary mission of monitoring elections.

Now a new law could finish Golos off.

The legislation, signed by President Vladimir Putin last weekend, criminalizes any contact with "undesirable" nongovernmental groups or individuals - as determined by a blacklist compiled by Russia's chief prosecutor - no matter where in the world they might be. Violation would lead to closure of local offices and up to six years in prison for any Russian cooperating with the group, and will not be subject to appeal.

This may not just shutter Golos, but could silence a whole range of Russian civil society for merely communicating with groups that the prosecutor feels pose a threat to Russia's constitutional order, defense, or national security. The draft blacklist prepared by the State Duma last week includes a who's who of major international nongovernmental institutions, including the Moscow Carnegie Center, the corruption watchdog Transparency International, the New York-based Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International.

"If any Russian is invited to a conference abroad, authorities can scan the list of sponsors and block that person if an 'undesirable' group is involved," says Nikolai Petrov, a professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. "Any foreigners trying to come to Russia for any reason can be refused if they have links to such groups."

"This law is much more dangerous, and has far wider applications, than the previous ones," he says. "It's not just aimed at shutting up people inside the country, but anyone, anywhere."

For Golos, the new law appears to threaten prison time for its leaders if they attempt to communicate any findings on Russian elections to an "undesirable" group, or seek advice or assistance from one.

Golos was one of the first targets of the "foreign agent" law because of its role in identifying and publicizing alleged electoral fraud in Russia's 2011 Duma elections. The elections triggered a wave of enormous street demonstrations by mostly middle-class people calling for greater electoral transparency and democratic reform.

Now, with 2016 Duma elections looming, some experts say the Kremlin is taking steps to prevent any repeat of that upheaval. The main pro-Kremlin party, United Russia, is sagging in opinion polls. This week it suffered a crushing defeat in local elections held in Russia's westernmost region of Kaliningrad.

"Putin's popularity may hold up well amid the current nationalist moods, but the party of officialdom that enforces his rule around the country is in deep trouble," says Dmitry Oreshkin, head of the Mercator Group, a Moscow media consultancy. "The only thing authorities know how to do in this situation is to eliminate competition and all sources of alternative information. They see everything as a threat."

'Foreign agents' and 'national security'

The Kremlin narrative is that Western intelligence agencies are actively working, mainly through friendly NGOs, to overthrow pro-Moscow governments throughout the former Soviet Union. It alleges that they have enjoyed considerable success in staging "colored revolutions" in countries such as Georgia, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, and particularly Ukraine over the past decade.

Every Russian who watches state-run TV is aware that in 2013, just before the Maidan revolution in Kiev overthrew pro-Moscow Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said that the US had spent $5 billion in the past two decades to help "secure a prosperous and democratic Ukraine."

Mr. Putin has repeatedly claimed that regime change is the hidden goal of Western-backed "democracy promotion." Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov defended the new law this week, suggesting that the "foreign agents" law did not go far enough in protecting Russia's national security.

"An organization is deemed undesirable if it poses a threat to Russia's national security and national interests, as formulated in the law," he said. "'[Foreign] agents' do not necessarily pose a threat. No one forbids these organizations from doing what they are doing."

But the "foreign agent" label certainly makes existence difficult for groups like Golos. It has since rejected all foreign funding - the main criteria for being declared a "foreign agent" - and has tried to subsist on volunteer support. But with the new law, even that might not be enough.

"We can prove that we now exist only on Russian money, but we are still on the list of 'foreign agents,' and all we still face all sorts of official interference," says Grigory Melkonyants, deputy director of Golos. "I guess we have to wait and see how this new law will be applied. But it looks like nobody is safe anymore."
 
 #16
Interfax
May 27, 2015
Russian Constitutional Court says election monitor not "foreign agent"

Russia's Constitutional Court has again stated that a non-governmental organization (NGO) does not have to declare itself as a "foreign agent" if it has not used funds sent to its accounts from foreign sources, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 27 May.

The court made the statement, published on its website, in response to a petition from the chairman of the Golos election monitoring organization, Lilia Shebanova.

Golos was given 7,700 euros in November 2012 by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, but sent the money back.

The court restated that in 2014 it recognized as unconstitutional several tenets of the law on NGOs, among which was the regulation that NGOs have to themselves declare that they have had money sent to their accounts from abroad, even if the NGO has not accepted the money. It was on the basis of this ruling that an administrative penalty for Shebanova was abrogated, the report said.

The court ruled that if an organization refused to accept cash from abroad and it was returned to the sender, then it was not required to register itself as a "foreign agent".

Russia passed a law in November 2012 requiring all NGOs involved in "political activity" and which have been in receipt of foreign funding to be listed on a register of "foreign agents". In June 2014 the Justice Ministry received the right to designate NGOs as "foreign agents" itself, Russian news agencies reported previously.
 
 #17
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
May 26, 2015
The end of the rule of law in modern Russia?
The new law on "undesirable" foreign organizations is set to turn Russia into a besieged fortress. Severing Russian citizens' and organizations' ties with the outside world is now easier than ever.
By Yury Korgunyuk
Yury Korgunyuk is the head of Political Science at the Moscow-based Information Science for Democracy (INDEM) Foundation.

The law on undesirable organizations, signed a few days ago by Russian President Vladimir Putin, can be seen as a landmark on the journey towards the end of the rule of law in modern-day Russia.

The first two terms of Putin's rule were a time of transition from electoral democracy to personal authoritarianism. This personal authoritarianism was touched up slightly during the years of former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (2008-2012), but Putin's return to the presidency not only unmasked the true nature of the regime, but aided its evolution towards dictatorship, under which the law is not viewed as a set of rules governing the life of society, but as a tool with which to achieve short-term political goals.

The 2012 law on foreign agent non-commercial organizations was highly revealing in this respect. A prerequisite for its adoption was Putin's belief that the protest movement in Russia was not homegrown, but inspired by the West. The Russian law copied a similar U.S. law in force since the 1930s. However, on being transported to a different legal environment, it clashed with the constitutional basis of the country's political structure.

The U.S. law applies primarily to lobbying organization; in Russia lobbying activity is not regulated at all, so the grounds for applying it look all the more dubious. In Russia the label "foreign agent organization" is assigned to any non-commercial organizations (NCO) engaged in political activity in receipt of overseas financing, including from international foundations.

The very use of the term "foreign agent" in this context is incorrect. An agent cannot be wholly "foreign," it must have a principal, i.e. a party whose interests it serves. By fingering non-domestic funding as a mark of foreign agent activity, the state has freed itself from the burden of proof.

Moreover, the law very broadly interprets the concept of political activity as including any role whatsoever in shaping public opinion. If desired, it can pertain to the holding of any public event.

Nevertheless, the law was barely enforced to begin with, since it proposed a rather arcane procedure of admission of "guilt." By law, an organization itself had to apply to the Russian Ministry of Justice to be included in the list of foreign agents. Failure to do so could result in the Prosecutor General's Office seeking a court order to charge the organization with non-compliance with the law, and only a court could compel NCOs to make appropriate changes to their names.

For a long period of time, therefore, neither the Ministry of Justice nor the Prosecutor General's Office knew how to proceed in respect of the law. Verification of "suspect" organizations began only after Putin issued a direct order in April 2013. Little progress was made, however, and in the subsequent year, the only organization fined for failure to comply with the law was the movement of election observers Voice, which opted to forgo state registration, but did not recognize itself as a foreign agent.

The process accelerated when, at the Kremlin's behest, the procedure for adding NCOs to the register of foreign agents was modified. As of 2014, the right to do so was assigned to the Ministry of Justice itself, whereupon a non-commercial organization could only challenge the decision of the latter in court.

As a result, starting June 2014, 64 organizations were included in the register of foreign agents (previously it contained only the non-commercial partnership Supporting Competition in the CIS Countries), none of which managed to remove itself from the list through court action. The only way an organization could do that was through self-annihilation.

The Kremlin took the law on foreign agent NGOs as the basis to remove "undesirables" from the legal framework. It learned through experience that instead of relying on the law and the courts, it was simpler to hand the initiative over to the Ministry of Justice and the Prosecutor General's Office (under the Russian Constitution the latter is de jure independent of executive power, but de facto subordinate to the president and his administration). This procedure further reduced the already atrophied rule of law in Russian society, putting legal regulation in the hands of officials appointed from above.

The same scheme was used to amend the law on combating extremist activity. Whereas in 2012-2013 Roskomnadzor [the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecoms, Information Technologies and Mass Communications] had to seek a court injunction on "extremist" websites, as of February 2014, it had only to apply to a public prosecutor's office, which blocked such resources without delay, whereupon the owners of the site had to seek a court order to bring it back online.

As soon as the relevant amendments came into force, Roskomnadzor immediately blocked the Kremlin's least favorite opposition resources - Kasparov.ru, Grani.ru and Ej.ru (Daily Journal). None was able to get unblocked or even receive an intelligible explanation as to why it had been blacklisted.

The law on undesirable non-governmental organizations brought the whole process to its logical (i.e. absurd) conclusion. Start with the fact that in Russian law there is no concept of "non-governmental organization" (non-commercial, yes, but not non-governmental), which means that the law can be applied to any non-governmental organizations, including commercial ones.

Nor is there any concept of "undesirable organization" in Russian law; in other words, it is not a legal, but a political category. Hence, there can be no legal procedure by which organizations are classified as "undesirable," as evidenced by the transfer of the relevant powers not to the courts, but to the Prosecutor General's Office.

In contrast to the law on foreign agent NCOs, the law on undesirable NGOs concerns only foreign organizations, but it covers any Russian NCO too, since the Prosecutor General's Office need only declare that its foreign partner organization is "undesirable."

The adoption of the law on undesirable organizations automatically removes Russia from the list of countries that claim to follow the rule of law and places it in the category of so-called police states, where guilt and innocence are established by law enforcement agencies - regardless of what the law actually states, guided by subjective and biased "political instinct."

At the same time, the new law is set to turn Russia into a besieged fortress. Severing Russian citizens' and organizations' ties with the outside world will require no extra effort - simply adding their foreign counterparts to the list of "undesirables" will suffice.

Perhaps the envelope has been pushed too far, and the law will prove unworkable. But judging by how the laws on foreign agent NCOs and on combating extremism operate, such a scenario is unlikely. According to Chekhov's law, if a rifle is seen hanging on the wall in the first scene, it must be fired in the second or third. All's well that ends well if the curtain falls shortly after. Regrettably, politics and theater abide by different rules.

 
 #18
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
May 26, 2015
What's behind the Kremlin's phobia of foreign NGOs?
The new law on "undesirable organizations" is just the latest attempt by the Kremlin to limit the activities of foreign NGOs on Russian soil. Some even warn that the law may be an attempt to prevent a color revolution in 2016.
By Dmitry Polikanov
Dmitry Polikanov is Vice President of The Russian Center for Policy Studies (PIR-Center) and Chairman of Trialogue International Club. Author of more than 100 publications on conflict management, peacekeeping, arms control, international relations and foreign policy. Member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the International Sociological Association, the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center Research Council.

The recently passed law on "undesirable organizations" has already resulted in harsh criticism on the part of the international community. The new law may already be on the path to taking down its first victims. Recently, a parliamentarian from Vladimir Zhirinovsky's controversial Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) urged the Office of the Prosecutor General to inspect the activities of a number of NGOs, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Transparency International, the Carnegie Moscow Center and Memorial.

So how did we end up here and how will such legislation affect Russia's global image?

The new law is aimed at filling the vacuum created by the law on "foreign agents." The latter was mostly directed against Russian NGOs that receive funding from abroad and are involved in "politics," whatever vague meaning is behind this term.

However, this law on foreign agents created a certain amount of legal wiggle room, as the branches of international NGOs did not fall under the definition of "foreign agents" and could easily continue their activities in Russia. Therefore, to fill this hidden gap, the Russian authorities concocted a bill that would prevent political activities, especially those that - according to the Kremlin - could undermine the country's constitutional regime.

Hence, the adoption of the law on "undesirable organizations" is a logical step forward in the attempts by the Kremlin to segregate civil society into political and non-political activities, giving evident preference to the latter. The so-called presidential grants for NGOs, the amount of which grows every year, as well as stable government support of socially-oriented NGOs (replacing or augmenting the state in fulfilling various social missions) is a sort of carrot, while the heavy stick is the law that kicks NGOs out of politics, advocacy and election activities.

Another trend that is reflected in the law is Russia's increasing disappointment with the work of international organizations. It is clear that their activities do not improve Moscow's image abroad. In addition, they raise critical voices against the Kremlin within the Russian public and media. In most cases, Russia perceives these NGOs as working to portray the country as underdeveloped, requiring international assistance, funding and mentoring.

Therefore, as the state was rising from its knees, it needed less and less foreign involvement, which was regarded by the Kremlin as interference in sovereign affairs. So, Russia has been recently curbing international aid programs existing on its territory and the activities of international organizations. Unfortunately, "undesirable organizations" fall into this process.

Generally speaking, Moscow hates to be criticized from abroad (as most of such criticism seems biased) and is fond of introducing its own national rankings and writing white papers about various violations in the "civilized world."

Finally, the authorities have become even more cautious about the international activities on Russian territory after the imposition of sanctions and the gradual transformation of the country into a bastion under siege. Amidst all this, the Russian security services probably believe that there will be a sharp increase in their intelligence work, unveiling more and more secret agents from different states. And there is a widespread (and deep-rooted) belief in Russia that the easiest way to penetrate the country is through the humanitarian sphere, and this brings about suspicion towards international advocacy NGOs.

The phobia becomes even greater as Russia approaches a new political cycle. Some representatives of Russia's political elites, probably, assume that the 2016 parliamentary elections in the State Duma may be a lucrative target for attempts at regime change.

Moscow looks back at its experience from 2011 and does not want to see this experience repeated. Thus, it is cleaning the field of any seeds for a "color revolution" one year ahead of time. The story of Ukraine with its quick collapse of the regime under direct backing from the West along with some recent examples (such as the current civil unrest in Macedonia, or the umbrella protests in Hong Kong) only solidify the Kremlin in its opinion.

Some may regard it as a sort of paranoia, but Moscow has its own comprehensive vision, building up the puzzle from the facts that it observes around the globe. Such steps and a persistent policy of intimidating any undesirable behavior will certainly add more negative traits to the current Russian image. However, the Kremlin cares less about its image internationally, as it is already bad enough.

Meanwhile, at home the witch-hunt gets the full approval of the general public, which shares the conspiracy theories of the elite. So, such efforts enable Moscow to gain extra political dividends, to accomplish the practical task of strengthening the existing regime and to maneuver with small-scale liberalization, if necessary, a step that can be depicted as a stride forward when and if needed.
 
 #19
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
May 28, 2015
The law on undesirable organizations Fighting those who make life in Russia better
RD Interview: Elena Panfilova, the head of anti-corruption NGO Transparency International - Russia, discusses the law on undesirable organizations and its implications for Russia and its citizens.
By Pavel Koshkin

Last week Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the Law on Undesirable Organizations, which has the aim of regulating the activity of foreign organizations in Russia. Both human rights activists and heads of some NGOs agree the law will hamper the activity of foreign organizations in Russia.  

After the law had been passed, a deputy of the Russian State Duma sent a request to the Office of the Prosecutor General to inspect the activities of a number of NGOs, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Transparency International, the Carnegie Moscow Center and Memorial.

Against this backdrop, Russia Direct discussed with Elena Panfilova, the head of anti-corruption non-governmental organization Transparency International - Russia, the implications of the law for Russia, foreign organizations working in Russia and Russia's civil society.

Russia Direct: How do you see the title of the new legislation: law on undesired organizations? Doesn't it sound a bit weird?

Elena Panfilova: Yes, the title is very vague and, generally, it brings us to a strange concept of being desirable or undesirable. In addition, amidst the recent events that have been developing during last 24 hours, it turns into an ultimate grotesque.

Russia Direct: Shortly after the Russian president signed the laws, a request from a Russian parliamentarian came to Office of Prosecutor General in order to inspect some NGOs if they are desirable or undesirable. Among these organizations was Transparency International-Russia, which you head. How can you account such velocity in looking for undesirable organizations?

E.P.: First, this deputy, who came with such idea, is putting the cart before the horse, because the law hasn't yet come into force. In fact, his request to Prosecutor General's Office is illegal, from my point of view and many legal professionals would agree with me, just because there is no such a norm in the Russian law: It is too early to do such inspection.   
       
Regarding Transparency International-Russia, there is a half-comic situation around it, because if the organization, which fights corruption, is deemed undesirable, well, what king of organization should be desirable?   

RD: What are you going to do when the law comes into force and how will you plan to respond to such request for inspection?

E.P.: Well, the law will take into force only on June 3. The further one looks, the more comic situation becomes, because Transparency International-Russia is a Russian organization and the law on undesirable organizations is not applicable to it at all. In fact, now all repressive legislation on NGOs consists of two parts: the law that deals with Russia's organizations (the law on "foreign agents") and the law on undesirable organizations that aims at international organizations.

We have already got the blow from the law on so called "foreign agents": We have been already included in the list. And sure we already appeal that in the court. So we cannot be included in the list of undesirable organizations.

On the other hand, the authorities might make an attempt to include the international organization Transparency International in the list, which, in reality, is not represented in Russia. It as an international movement doesn't conduct any activity on territory of the Russian Federation.

But, who knows, they could try. But for this, it is necessary to prove that the international movement of Transparency International conducts activity in Russia, they would need to study the activity of Transparency International's 101 departments in detail, because it is a network organization, with its branches located throughout the world, from Armenia to Zimbabwe. We'll see how the events will develop further.

RD: How will this law affect the relations between Russia and the West, which are not ideal, to put it mildly?

E.P.: This law is hardly likely to foster good relations between Russia and its neighbors. On the other hand, they are already severely spoiled from the point of view of credibility.    

RD: What is the major danger of the law for both ordinary people and organizations?

E.P.: Actually, for organization, it is an additional bureaucratic burden, the jitters, a lot of fuss and trouble as well as useless spending of time, which could be used more efficiently. For example, my colleagues could help people facing corruption, but instead of doing this, they we have to deal with bureaucratic fuss and litigations. It is first. Second, we wasted resources which come to litigations and the need to prove something in the courts. The law affects the organization as legal entities. Yet, in reality, it hits more not the organizations, but rather ordinary people, who will not get enough legal defenses, expertise and help if an organization is forced to step down.

RD: How can you comment the case of the Dynasty Foundation, a Russian fund that popularizes science, after it was announced as a foreign agent by Russia's authorities?

E.P.: Now I am sitting before the computer and read a piece of news: even the President is doubtful about this decision. I sincerely hope, that those people, who decided to check the box and put the Foundation in the list of foreign agents, will come to their senses and cancel this decision. Because it is complete and absolute shame to label such organisations like Dynasty as so called "foreign agent".

RD: How can you respond to the authors of the law who believe that it aims at fighting organizations that present the risks to Russia's security, political and economic stability?  

E.P.: It seems to me that the law doesn't fight organizations, which present real security risks to the country [like terrorist ones]. Instead, it fights those ones that make the life in the country better. So, I think there is something fundamentally wrong in this concept.
 
 #20
Moscow Times
May 28, 2015
U.S. and Russia Back to Cold War Diplomacy
By Fyodor Lukyanov
Fyodor Lukyanov is editor of Russia in Global Affairs.

Some observers have concluded that the recent Moscow visit by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland signals a warming in U.S.-Russian relations. However, not all communications between states have the goal of reaching agreement on something.

During the Cold War, the main goal of such meetings was to understand the logic and, if possible, the intentions of the other side, which led to the system of "risk management" whenever bilateral relations worsened.

The two sides began gradually losing those mechanisms and skills when it seemed in the 1990s that they were no longer needed. However, political changes in 2014-15 showed that those hopes for an irreversible end to all confrontation were illusory. As a result, Cold War behaviors are back, but now without the tools to keep them in check.

Once Crimea was integrated into Russia, Washington essentially sought to minimize its contacts with Moscow until the Kremlin decided to change its ways. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and John Kerry continued to meet, but they discussed applied topics, mainly the particular situations in Ukraine and the Middle East. U.S-Russian relations degenerated into a public and backroom dispute, thereby exacerbating the situation.

That approach did not produce the desired results. Washington's expectations that Russia would change its policy toward Ukraine did not pan out, and for its part, Moscow realized that Ukraine would not achieve an acceptable level of stability without the blessing and participation of the United States.

And finally, bilateral tensions mounted, resulting in uncomfortably close "near run-ins" between Russian and NATO military aircraft and sea vessels. With any chance mishap of this type raising the risk of a major escalation, it is time to put those Cold War communications back into operation.

At the same time, no full-blown Cold War could take shape now. While it would have been strange for the Kremlin and White House to talk about "common challenges" during the last century, now such challenges not only exist, but are unavoidable.

For example, Moscow and Washington hold differing views about the root causes behind events in the Middle East, but they both agree that the Islamic State poses a threat to Russians and Americans alike. As he enters the final stage of his second term in office, U.S. President Barack Obama is now thinking about his legacy. This period happens to coincide with the accelerating breakdown of the world order, making it next to impossible for him to achieve any major success on the international arena.

That makes it all the more important for him to focus on areas that have the potential to secure him a place in history. For Obama, that primarily means Iran, and possibly Cuba. It will require painstaking work on a number of fronts for Obama to bring the Iranian saga to completion, as well as maximum cooperation from all the parties involved - including Russia.

Of course, in broader terms, Barack Obama does not want to leave office with the Middle East in its current state of chaos, and any solution there will require Russia's participation, or at least neutrality. Ukraine, on the other hand, shows no signs of adding to Obama's legacy, and he knows that no resolution will occur there soon.

The new stage of U.S.-Russian relations will probably keep open the channel of communications between officials responsible for military and political security so as to minimize the risk of accidental clashes and continue an exchange of views on the situation in the Middle East.

The two sides are unlikely to reach a common position concerning that region, but they will also avoid outright opposition to each other. They will probably work together actively on Iran. As for Ukraine, they will continue to hold opposing positions, but both parties will try to avoid an escalation of tensions.

Reaching a "modus vivendi" does not mean a softening of rhetoric. To the contrary, leaders might conclude that they must compensate for an actual reduction in tensions with correspondingly greater levels of militaristic pronouncements.

On the whole, the situation will continue in its current form until Obama leaves office. How it unfolds after that will depend on many factors, not the least of which is the dynamics of the relations that both sides have with China. Much is happening in that area.

The documents that President Vladimir Putin signed with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to Moscow in early May show a qualitatively different attitude compared to what it was before. The memoranda were specific and comprehensive.

Most important is the following point: "The creation of a mechanism of exchanges and cooperation between the administration of the president of the Russian Federation and the Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China as well as the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China, also known as the Control Ministry of China."

That complicated bureaucratic wording essentially provides for "strategic partnership" - meaning that the two countries will cooperate in formulating their plans.

A separate document concerns the "pairing" of the Silk Road Economic Belt with the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. It is particularly significant that Beijing expressed an interest in establishing a dialogue with the EEU as a single identity, whereas it earlier preferred separate bilateral discussions with each of the member states.

The agreements focus on making new arrangements for Eurasia, with the momentum for development and new initiatives moving not from West to East, as was customary, but in the opposite direction. The rapid rise of Asia that had previously occurred in the Pacific and Pacific Rim areas has now begun moving onto the continent.

All of those inland states would like to implement major infrastructure projects so as to build up social and economic momentum. The interest shown by continental powers Russia and Kazakhstan in their own development happens to coincide with China's efforts to build a corridor to the West, toward European markets and beyond.

Significant obstacles exist. One is the condition of the Eurasian Economic Union. The number of its internal problems is more likely to increase rather than find resolution, and simply expanding the organization - as happened when Kyrgyzstan recently became a member - does not serve as a criterion for success.

The EEU needs a strong institutional and legal framework because outside partners such as China will take an interest in the organization only to the extent that it can guarantee clear rules of the game in the Eurasian region. Washington is not very enthusiastic about the changing architecture of Eurasia. Although the global era has dawned, nobody has changed the basic geopolitical understanding in which the United States cannot allow the emergence of a Eurasian power or alliance of powers capable of challenging the U.S. position.

However, that will be a headache for the next occupant of the White House.
 
 #21
Reuters
May 26, 2015
Breakdown in U.S.-Russia relations raises risk of nuclear-armed jihadists
By Josh Cohen
Josh Cohen is a former USAID project officer involved in managing economic reform projects in the former Soviet Union. He contributes to a number of foreign policy-focused media outlets and tweets at @jkc_in_dc

In the last several years, a number of troubling events have revealed weaknesses in Russian nuclear security. A Russian general in command of nuclear weapon storage sites was fired due to massive corruption. A colonel in the Russian Ministry of Interior in charge of nuclear security inspections was arrested for soliciting bribes to overlook security violations. One American researcher visiting a nuclear facility was told it would take merely $100 to bribe his way in.

Graft in Russia is rife, and corruption plus available uranium is a troubling combination. This vulnerability is heightened by the fact that at many nuclear sites the accounting systems to track uranium and plutonium could not sufficiently identify thefts of newly manufactured or older stored fissile materials. More broadly, Russia does not possess a master baseline inventory of all nuclear materials produced in the former Soviet Union - and where all of it is today.

At a 2010 summit of world leaders, President Barack Obama described nuclear terrorism as "the single biggest threat to U.S. security." He's right - but as the crisis in Ukraine festers, recent U.S. actions have unraveled decades of successful cooperation with Russia to reduce the risk.

While some argue that the United States needs to "punish" Russia due to Moscow's contribution to the crisis in Ukraine, this is akin to cutting off our nose to spite our face. Given the threat from "loose nukes" to our national security, the United States should take steps to jump-start U.S.-Russian nuclear security cooperation.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, American policymakers suddenly faced a frightening new threat: Poverty and chaos caused a complete breakdown in security throughout the former Soviet nuclear complex. Insiders at top-secret Russian nuclear weapons plants tried to steal and sell nuclear materials on the black market. Unpaid guards at nuclear sites left their posts to search for food. A senior White House science adviser even discovered more than 150 pounds of highly enriched uranium - enough for several nuclear bombs - sitting unguarded in lockers in the middle of Moscow.

In response to this threat, the United States spent billions of dollars under the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program to help Russia secure its nuclear materials and facilities. From the deactivation of almost 8,000 Russian nuclear warheads to the building of a massive storage facility for 27 tons of fissile materials, CTR was arguably the most successful American foreign aid program in history.

Following the conclusion of the CTR program in 2013, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Russia's state-owned nuclear company Rosatom signed a comprehensive nuclear cooperation agreement. This agreement, which was designed to build trust between the two countries, called for projects ranging from the development of advanced nuclear security and safety technologies, to visits by each side's scientists to the other's most sensitive nuclear labs and facilities.

Less than seven months after the agreement was signed, however, the DOE dealt a devastating blow to Russian-American nuclear security cooperation, banning Russian nuclear scientists from visiting the United States while also banning DOE nuclear scientists from visiting Russia.

The current defense budget, passed seven months after the DOE's action, also bars all funding for nuclear nonproliferation activities and assistance in Russia.

Its pride wounded, Russia retaliated, first announcing it would boycott the 2016 nuclear security summit in Chicago and then informing U.S. officials it would no longer accept American aid to help secure Russia's weapons-grade uranium and plutonium - a significant blow to U.S. national security.

Nuclear security in Russia is undoubtedly better than it was in the 1990s. Guards at nuclear sites are paid on time. Perimeter fences surrounding these sites no longer have holes. Fissile materials are no longer stored in lockers. That's the good news.

The bad news is that while physical security at nuclear sites is greatly improved, real problems still remain. Russia continues to have the world's largest nuclear stockpile and there are more than 200 buildings and bunkers where highly enriched uranium or separated plutonium is stored. Sophisticated criminals could still exploit the remaining weaknesses in Russian nuclear security.

We know that Osama bin Laden considered a nuclear attack targeting American civilians to be a legitimate action, and last year Islamic State stole 88 pounds of non-enriched uranium compounds from a university in Mosul. With nearly 2,000 Russian citizens fighting with Middle East extremist groups, if fissile material does end up in the hands of militants, it is quite possible it will have originated from Russia.

The DOE should work with Rosatom to restart the September 2013 agreement and implement the reciprocal nuclear site visits, scientist-to-scientist cooperation and joint-research the agreement envisions. The personal relationships developed over decades of cooperation between Russian and American scientists are too important to jeopardize - we are only shooting ourselves in the foot by cutting these off.

The United States should also understand that the narrative from the 1990s whereby the United States is a donor and Russia is an aid recipient is no longer acceptable in Moscow. Going forward, nuclear cooperation must be reframed as a partnership of equals, with both sides contributing to the conversation about how and why to strengthen security. Republicans and Democrats should put aside partisan differences and fully fund U.S.-Russian nuclear security cooperation - whatever that ultimately involves. The Obama administration is proposing to spend $348 billion upgrading the U.S. nuclear arsenal over the next ten years. It's worth spending a tiny fraction of that money to prevent loose nukes.

All of these steps require that the United States end the linkage between nuclear security cooperation with Russia and the crisis in Ukraine. While the current political environment makes this difficult, not doing so is foolhardy.
 
 #22
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
May 27, 2015
Switzerland probes Russian 2018 World Cup bid over bribery charges
bne IntelliNews

Russia's bid to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup is under criminal investigation on corruption suspicions, Switzerland's attorney general announced May 27, after investigators seized data and documents from the Zurich headquarters of soccer's global governing body FIFA. The move comes only weeks before the draw for the qualifying rounds draw of the 2018 World Cup in Russia's St Petersburg, a gala affair of the global sport's stars, past and present, which marks the start of the competition.

Switzerland "has opened criminal proceedings against persons unknown on suspicion of criminal mismanagement and of money laundering in connection with the allocation of the 2018 and 2022 Football World Cups," the attorney general said in a statement.

"Unjust enrichment" relating to the World Cup bids partly took place in Switzerland, and related funds may have been laundered through Swiss banks, the attorney general added.

Swiss prosecutors and criminal police will now question 10 individuals "who took part in voting on the allocation of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups as members of the Executive Committee in 2010," the statement went on.

The FIFA Executive Committee awarded the 2018 World Cup to Russia, and the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, with both decisions arousing huge controversy. The Qatar World Cup, for example, has since been moved to November and December because it's too hot to play the tournament during the normal sumer months. The controversy led to FIFA appointing an independent investigator, former US federal prosecutor Michael J. Garcia, to investigate the awards.

In a summary of the investigation on its completion in November 2014, FIFA's ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert acknowledged that the investigation showed some wrongdoing connected with the Qatari and Russian bid committees. But Eckert said the wrongdoing was not sufficient to question the bid process in its entirety.

But FIFA controversially refused to publish Garcia's report in full, prompting Garcia to resign in December 2014 in protest. Now it seems that the report prompted FIFA to report abuses it detailed not only to Swiss but also to US law enforcement, portraying itself in both cases as a "damaged party". In parallel to the announcement of a Swiss criminal investigation of the 2018 and 2022 FIFA bids, Swiss authorities detained six FIFA officials in the early morning of May 27 on the request of US prosecutors, Swiss prosecutors said.

The US case has no direct connection to Russia's 2018 World Cup bid, according to both Swiss and US prosecutors.

"[There is] a Swiss criminal investigation regarding the allocation of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups... In separate proceedings, and independently of the Swiss criminal investigation..., the US Attorney's Office... is conducting a criminal investigation into the allocation of media, marketing and sponsoring rights for football tournaments carried out in the United States and Latin America," Swiss prosecutors said.

US prosecutors have indicted nine FIFA officials and five businessmen, they announced on May 27.

The US charges focus on alleged wrongdoing related to CONCACAF, the soccer governing body for the North American continent headquartered in the US, as well as corruption in CONMEBOL, the South American soccer governing body. However the US charges relate in part to the bidding process for the 2010 World Cup that was awarded to South Africa, as  one of the schemes that "relate to the payment and receipt of bribes and kickbacks."

"Let me be clear: this indictment is not the final chapter in our investigation," US attorney general Loretta Lynch said in the statement.  

Calls for boycott

The 2010 World Cup held in South Africa was the first award of the tournament to a major emerging market outside of the established Latin American soccer giants. It paved the way for the award of the 2018 and 2022 tournaments to Russia and Qatar respectively.

The decision on Russia and Qatar in December 2010 was additionally controversial because it determined simultaneously the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals, which critics said increased the possibility of vote trading and other maneuvers.

The award of the 2018 World Cup to Russia was seen at the time as a personal triumph for current Russian President Vladimir Putin (at the time he was prime minister), despite Russia's controversial military intervention in the breakaway Georgian republic of South Ossetia in August 2008.

Investigations by the UK's Sunday Times in 2014 claimed that Putin had played a major role in his country's winning bid, including giving Michel Platini, president of Europe's football governing body UEFA, a Picasso painting in exchange for a FIFA World Cup vote. Platini and the Kremlin refuted the reports.

England was Russia's main competitor in its bid for the 2018 World Cup, arguing that it already had the world's best soccer infrastructure, whereas Russia would have to build from scratch many of the venues for the tournament.

English football officials have suggested ever since that Russia's bid won the 2018 tournament as a result of corrupt actions. Chairman of England's Football Association Greg Dyke called for the publication of the Garcia report on its completion in November 2014. "We cannot go on like this. Complete transparency is required if the actions of all those who bid, including England 2018, are to be judged fairly," Dyke told the BBC at the time.

Adding to the controversy over Russia's hosting of the 2018 finals has been Russia's aggression in Ukraine 2014-2015, including its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula, the backing of pro-Russian insurgents in East Ukraine, and the downing of a Malaysian airliner over East Ukraine in July 2014.

The breakdown in relations with the West combined with the corruption allegations have prompted increasing calls for a boycott of the 2018 World Cup if it's held in Russia.

In a first response to the breaking news, Russia's sports minister, Vitaly Mutko, commented on the US-requested arrests of FIFA officials in Zurich. "If you take these people, many of them had no relation to the 2018 World Cup bidding campaign. They were not Executive Committee members and didn't take part [in the bidding campaign]," Mutko told Interfax news agency.

Walter De Gregorio, a spokesman for FIFA, reaffirmed that the World Cup tournaments in 2018 and 2022 would be played in Russia and Qatar, as was decided earlier. Asked by a journalist whether there should be a re-vote over who should host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in light of the arrests of a number of high-ranking FIFA officials on corruption charges, Gregorio said: "Russia and Qatar will still be going ahead."
 
 #23
www.rt.com
May 28, 2015
Putin: FIFA-linked arrests are US attempt to thwart Blatter re-election

The FIFA-linked arrests on the eve of the re-election of the organization's chief are an obvious attempt to thwart Sepp Blatter's re-appointment, Vladimir Putin said, answering journalists' questions. He added it's another example of US meddling abroad.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the US could be selfishly motivated for its own gain, as was the case with Edward Snowden and Julian Assange.

"Unfortunately our American partners are using these methods in order to achieve their own selfish gains and it is illegal to persecute people. I would not rule out that in regards to FIFA, the same thing could be happening, though I do not know how it will end," he said.

"However, the fact that this is happening right on the eve of the FIFA presidential elections, gives one this exact impression."

Putin added this is an obvious attempt to expand Washington's jurisdiction in other countries.

"This is yet one more attempt to try and impose their law against other states. I am absolutely sure that this is an attempt to try and stop Blatter from being re-elected as FIFA president, which is a grave breach of the principles of a functioning international organization."

He also said pressure had been applied on Blatter "to force him to take the 2018 World Cup from Russia."

"We know his position - which has nothing to do with any kind of special relationship between Russia and FIFA - he thinks that sport and politics should be separate."

"In terms of these arrests, it looks rather strange at the very least. These arrests took place at the request of the Americans and they were accused of corruption," Putin told journalists, pointing out that that the accusations were being made against international officials.

"One could say that maybe someone might be guilty of something. I do not know this, but what I do know is that this has nothing to do with the USA," he added. "They, these officials, are not citizens of the USA, and if something happened, it did not take place on the territory of the United States and the US has no business in this."

Putin added that the "prosecutor of the United States, according to our mass media has already said that these FIFA committee members have committed a crime. This is almost as though the prosecutor doesn't know of the rule 'innocent until proven guilty'."

"Whether the people are guilty or not, this should be decided in a court."

The Russian president recalled the history surrounding the former National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden, who managed to leak documents surrounding the illegal actions of the USA across the world, which included creating secret surveillance programs to listen in on the conversations of world leaders.

"No one wants to give him the right to be accepted as an asylum seeker or to guarantee his safety. No one wants to get in a quarrel with their partners, with their more senior partners."

Putin added that Assange's case is also relevant.

"They are after him because he leaked information, which he received from US defense, which detailed the actions of the US army in the Middle East and in particular in Iraq."


 
 #24
Russian experts warn against politicizing FIFA corruption probe
By Tamara Zamyatin

MOSCOW, May 28. /TASS/. Struggle against corruption inside the international federation of football associations FIFA is a crucial task, but it would be impermissible to politicize that process and violate international law as the investigation proceeds, polled experts have told TASS.

"Sports and politics must be kept separately," Russian President Vladimir Putin said about the FIFA corruption scandal on Thursday.

Just two days before the elections of a FIFA president, due on May 29 the Swiss police arrested several senior officials of the association on charges of corruption. The arrests followed an investigation that had been held simultaneously in two countries - Switzerland and the United States.

The Swiss Prosecutor's Office has opened a criminal case against "unidentified persons" on the suspicion of corruption and money laundering in the process of selecting the host countries of the 2018 and 2022 world football cups - Russia and Qatar respectively. In a statement issued on Wednesday the US Department of Justice said that the FIFA leadership over the past 24 years indulged in illegal enrichment through various corruption schemes in international football. In all, sports officials have allegedly received more than $150 million in bribes and kickbacks.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has criticized the arrest of FIFA officials at the request of the United States as "another case of illegal ex-territorial application of US law."
A lawyer of the Moscow association of lawyers Klishin and Partners, Vladimir Entin, has pointed to a number of legal violations in the latest actions by the US Justice Ministry.

"Fighting with corruption in international sports organizations is necessary, but it is very alarming that the United States is spreading the operations of its law enforcement agencies beyond the bounds of the national territory without coordination with or prior warning to the countries whose citizens are arrested on warrants issued by US courts," Entin told TASS.

"FIFA as an international organization has a special status. The persons whom the United States and Switzerland hold responsible for corruption are international officials enjoying immunity. For lifting this immunity it is necessary to have a corresponding decision of the international organization concerned. Besides, these persons are not US citizens, and the criminal case against them may be opened only if they had committed any wrongdoing in the territory of the United States. In other words, the US Department of Justice has committed multiple violations of international law," Entin said.

"Under its Constitution the United States does not extradite its own citizens to foreign jurisdictions, but at the same time it is demanding the extradition of FIFA officials to the US. You will agree that this is a dubious legal affair."

By linking the corruption investigation with the circumstances in which decisions were made in favor of hold the 2018 World Cup in Russia and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar the US and Swiss authorities cast a shadow on the reputation the host countries, thereby causing moral damage to them in violation of the principle of the presumption of innocence," Entin believes.

The director of the Institute of Political Studies, Sergey Markov, has drawn attention to the United States' attempts to politicize the investigation of corruption in FIFA.

"It is not accidental that on May 22, less than a week before the corruption scandal and the arrests of FIFA officials two US senators - John McCain and Robert Menendez - dispatched yet another message to FIFA claiming that Blatter was a bad president and should be replaced by a different leader who would agree to meet their insistent request for stripping Russia of the right to host the 2018 World Cup. Just two days before the elections of FIFA's new president a group of senior officials were put under arrest. Such concerted action by US senators and the Department of Justice is amazing," Markov, a member of the Civic Chamber, told TASS.

"FIFA is a huge trans-national corporation with a mammoth budget and hundreds of millions of football fans behind. FIFA president Joseph Blatter has been trying to be independent from the world hegemon. For this reason the hegemon has decided to use an ordinary corruption scandal in an attempt to seize control of the organization by exerting pressures on the election of a FIFA president. Having gained control of FIFA, the world hegemon will lay hands on new, unique levers to influence the policies of many countries through their football - a game of millions," Markov said.

"I believe that by means of arrests of FIFA officials the United States wishes to put pressure on the organization's 79-year-old president to force him to resign and to replace him with pro-US Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, of Jordan. Then the United States would be able to gain control of one of the most influential organizations in the world. Incidentally, Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron, the United States' main ally, hurried to throw his weight behind Prince Al Hussein's candidature as soon as the scandal erupted," the director of the Globalization Problems Institute, Mikhail Delyagin, has told TASS.

Delyagin, a member of the international discussion club Valdai, recalls that any deal concluded on the basis of corruption is declared void. As it pushes ahead with its hybrid war against Russia, the United States will do its utmost to force the FIFA officials who are accused of corruption, once they are in a Brooklyn jail, to testify the decision to select Russia for hosting the 2018 World Football Cup had a corruption side to it," Delyagin said.

He believes that in a situation like that for Russia it would be reasonable to address the United States with an offer of conducting a joint investigation of FIFA officials.
"If the United States rejects the proposal, it will in fact recognize in writing the affair is politicized and targeted against Moscow as one of the key elements of anti-Russian sanctions. In this way the United States will turn millions of football fans around the world into its enemies," Delyagin said.

 
 #25
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
May 27, 2015
Russia's Chief Intelligence Analyst Comes Out of the Shadows
Lieutenant General Reshetnikov of the Russian Institute of Strategic Research gives a wide-ranging interview on threats Russia faces from the West, to militant Islamic groups, to the conflict in Ukraine
By Alexander Mercouris

The last year has been the year when Russia's spy chiefs came out of the shadows.

Last year we published extracts of an interview given by Nikolai Patrushev, who is the ultimate head of the entire intelligence apparatus. (See Top Spymaster Explains How Russian Intelligence Sees the U.S., Russia Insider, 6th November 2014)

A few weeks ago Colonel General Igor Sergun, the Head of the Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, gave a brief interview in which he publicly linked the U.S. to jihadi terrorism.

Now it is the turn of Lieutenant General Leonid Reshetnikov, Director of the Russian Institute of Strategic Research (RISR), the Russian government's chief centre for foreign policy analysis.

That Russia possesses a centre that undertakes foreign policy analysis for the Russian government and that this is connected to the country's chief foreign intelligence agency, the SVR, will come as a surprise to no one.  

Both the U.S. and Britain have such centres. In the U.S. it is the RAND Corporation. In Britain it is the Royal Institute of International Affairs ("Chatham House").

The RISR appears to have analogous functions. However its very existence has been kept secret until recently. The result is that we know very little about it, though it appears it was set up as recently as 1992 and employs a staff of 200 analysts.

Interestingly the person in the Russian power structure to whom Reshetnikov reports turns out to be Sergei Ivanov, Putin's Chief of Staff, who also has a background as an intelligence analyst, and whose background and role in Russian politics we have discussed recently (see Putin's Chief of Staff Is a Man to Watch, Russia Insider, 19th May 2015)

What the precise trigger was that persuaded Reshetnikov to come out into the open we do not know. However a good guess is that it was an article published in January 2015 by the neocon Jamestown Foundation. This alleged that the RISR had been pushing for a Russian invasion of Ukraine even before the Maidan coup, and was now calling for Russia to engineer the overthrow of Belarus President Lukashenko.

In his interview Reshetnikov does not specifically refer to the Jamestown Foundation article.  

However he indirectly refutes it by making it clear he opposes a Russian military intervention in southeastern Ukraine to help the militias there.

He says the RISR before the Maidan coup was calling for the setting up of pro-Russian NGOs to counter the spread of Russophobic sentiments in Ukraine.

This is a classic "soft power" approach, openly copied from U.S. practice, quite different from an invasion.

While Reshetnikov does not specifically refer to the allegation about the RISR seeking the overthrow Lukashenko, he pointedly says that unlike the CIA, Russia's intelligence agencies are classic intelligence agencies that do not engage in subversion or extra-judicial killings.

This again looks like an indirect way of refuting the Jamestown Foundation article by saying that Russia's intelligence agencies do not engage in the sort of activities that involve the overthrow of governments.

It is Reshetnikov's comments about Ukraine that are however the most interesting part of his interview.

Reshetnikov makes it quite clear that he considers the Maidan coup a geopolitical play by the U.S., which is targeted at Russia.  

He believes there is no possibility of the two People's Republics being reintegrated peacefully into Ukraine. The federalisation proposal, at least in the form in which it was envisaged in Spring 2014, is now unachievable. Even a confederal solution such as is currently proposed can only be temporary because the people of the two People's Republics "no longer want to be Ukrainians".

Reshetnikov makes the same point Russia Insider has repeatedly made: Kiev adamantly opposes a federal solution and is only interested in a unitary state, which is its only way of achieving its ideological objectives.

Reshetnikov says this is also the objective of the hardliners in Washington. He speaks luridly of U.S. military bases directed at Russia in places like Lugansk and Kharkov if the Washington hardliners achieve their goals.

Since Kiev and the Washington hardliners are still committed to a unitary solution, Reshetnikov (like us) expects the war to resume this summer.

Perhaps Reshetnikov's most interesting comment is his prediction about the future of Ukraine.  

He predicts a rise of resistance to the current government across the whole country - far beyond the Donbass - and of the country's eventual disintegration or semi-disintegration.

A former intelligence official once told me that it takes at least a year for resistance to organise against an occupier or an authoritarian government. The surprise was that resistance developed in eastern Ukraine so quickly.

Reports coming out of Ukraine may bear that out and may also confirm the truth of what Reshetnikov says.

There are reports of growing resistance activity in places like Odessa and Kharkov. Information is however sketchy and the level of resistance for the moment seems low.

Reshetnikov however has access to data from Russian intelligence, which is extremely well-informed about the situation in Ukraine. His prediction therefore should not be discounted.

Reshetnikov also has much else of interest to say concerning topics other than Ukraine.

He gives a very alarming description of the U.S.'s methods of maintaining its grip on Western Europe - including the assassination of dissident politicians, though he cites no examples. He makes it clear that he has no expectations of Western Europe breaking away from the U.S. any time soon.

He also shares the common Russian view of the U.S. as the prime sponsor of militant jihadist terrorism.

He is also obviously very concerned about the growth of militant jihadism in the northern Caucasus and Central Asia.

However he takes an optimistic view of Russia's future, expecting the country to have finally emerged from its post-Soviet transition within the next five to six years.  He predicts its new identity will borrow from the best of Russia's tsarist and Soviet past.  

He sees Russia as on the right side of history, forming part of the growing international resistance to the Western attempts to impose a unipolar system centred on the U.S.  

The impression he gives is of a country under serious assault but parrying the blows, becoming stronger and more self-confident, able to look after itself and trusting in its friends.

-----------------

This translation of Lieutenant General Reshetnikov's interview was first published by Colonel Cassad on his blog:

You had a serious "roof" - the SVR (Russia's chief intelligence agency - AM). Why would they suddenly declassify you?

Indeed, we were a closed institute of the foreign intelligence, which mostly specialized in analyzing the available information on the far and near abroad. That is, on the information that is not only needed by the intelligence service, but also by the structures that determine the country's foreign policy. Oddly enough, there were no similar analytical centers in the Russian president's administration. Even though there were plenty of "institutions" in which there is only the director, the secretary and the wife of the director who works as an analyst. The PA lacked serious specialists and so the intelligence service had to share.

Today our founder is the president of Russia, and all governmental requests for research are signed by the head of the administration Sergey Ivanov.

How much demand is out there for your analytics? For we are a paper country: everyone writes, writes a lot - but does that influence the final result?

Sometimes we see the actions that echo our analytical papers. Sometimes it is impressive when you put up certain ideas and they become a trend in the Russian public opinion. It is clear that many directions are ripe for being pursued.

Something similar is done in the USA by the analytical center Stratfor and the strategic research center RAND Corporation. Which of you is "cooler"?

When, after the transition to the PA in the April of 2009 we made the new statute of the institute, as a suggestion we were told to use their example. Back then I thought "if you'll finance us like Stratfor or the RAND Corporation are financed, then we'll beat all of these foreign analytical companies." Because the Russian analysts are the strongest in the world. Even more so the regional specialists, who have more "fresh", uncontaminated brains. I can speak about this confidently, in the end I have 33 years of experience of the analytical work. First in the First main directorate of the KGB USSR and then the Foreign Intelligence Service.

It is well-known that RAND Corporation developed the plan of the ATO in the south-east of the country for Ukraine. Did your institute give information about Ukraine, in particular - about Crimea?

Of course. In principle, just two institute were engaged on Ukraine: RISR and the Institute of CIS countries of Konstantin Zatulin. From the very beginning of our work we wrote analytical papers on the growth of anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine and on the strengthening of pro-Russian sentiment in Crimea. We analyzed the actions of the Ukrainian authorities. But we didn't give the alarmist data - everything is lost, rather, we increased the attention to the growing problem.

We proposed to significantly intensify the work of pro-Russian non-governmental organizations (NGO), intensify, as they now say, the pressure of "soft power" policy.

With an ambassador like Zurabov we don't even need any enemies!

The work of any embassy and of any ambassador is subject to a number of limitations. One step to the side - and there is a scandal. Plus, there is a huge problem with professional personnel in the country. And not just in the field of diplomacy. Somehow we exhausted the stocks - very few strong people with a strong pivot remain in the government service.

It is hard to overestimate the role of NGOs. Color-coded revolutions are a clear example, which are warmed up primarily by the American non-governmental organizations. This happened in Ukraine as well. Unfortunately, effectively no attention was devoted to creating and supporting such organizations that would act in our interests. And if they would work, then they could replace ten embassies and ten ambassadors, even very smart ones. Now the situation started to change, following a direct order from the president. Hopefully, the subordinates won't wash out this development.

How do you think the events in Novorossia will develop in the spring and summer? Will there be a new military campaign?

Unfortunately, the probability is very high. Just a year ago the idea of federalizing Ukraine was workable. But now Kiev needs only war. Only a unitary state. For several reasons. The main is that the country is now led by ideologically anti-Russian people, who are not simply subordinated to Washington, but actually are bought and paid for by those forces who are hiding behind the U.S. government.

And what does this notorious "world government" need?

It is easier to say what they don't need: they don't need a federal Ukraine, such a territory will be hard to control. It will be impossible to deploy their military bases, a new ABM echelon there. And there are such plans. From Lugansk and Kharkov tactical cruise missiles can reach behind the Urals, where our main nuclear deterrence forces are located. And they can hit silo-based and road-mobile ballistic missiles on the ascent trajectory with a 100% probability. Currently this area is not reachable by them neither from Poland nor from Turkey nor from the South-East Asia. This is the main goal. So the U.S. will fight for Donbass to the last Ukrainian.

So this is not about the shale gas depots that were found on this territory?

Their main strategic goal is a unitary Ukraine under their full control for fighting Russia. And the shale gas or arable lands - this is just a pleasant bonus. Collateral gain. Plus a serious strike on our MIC due to the cutting of the links between the MIC of Ukraine and Russia. This is already accomplished.

We were outplayed: "son of a bitch" Yanukovich had to be evacuated with the help of Spetsnaz and Washington placed its own "sons of bitches"?

From the strategic-military point of view, of course we were outplayed. Russia got "compensation" - Crimea. There is "compensation" - the resistance by the residents of the south-east of Ukraine. But the enemy already got huge territory, which was a part of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire.

What are we going to see in Ukraine this year?

The process of semi-disintegration or even utter disintegration. Many are still silent in the face of the genuine nazism. But people who understand the Ukraine and Russia are strongly connected didn't say their last word yet. Not in Odessa, not in Kharkov, not in Zaporozhye, and not in Chernigov. This silence is not eternal. And the lid of this cauldron will be inevitably blown away.

And how will the relations between Novorossia and the rest of Ukraine develop?

There is a low-probability scenario of Transnistria. But I don't believe in it - the territory of the DPR and the LPR is much bigger, millions of people were already sucked into this war. For now Russia still can convince the militia leaders to engage in a temporary respite and truce. But exactly that - temporary. There is no speaking about the return of Novorossia into Ukraine any longer. The people of the south-east don't want to be Ukrainians.

So if our country ended up isolated globally due to the reunification with Crimea, why don't we go all-in in the south-east? How much hypocrisy can there be?

I think that it is too early to go all-in just yet. We underestimate the degree of awareness of our president, who knows that there are certain processes in Europe that are not clearly visible to outside observers. These processes give hope that we will be able to protect our interests using different methods and means.

In the flow of information associated with Ukraine we forget about the explosive growth of the religious extremism in the Central Asia...

This is an extremely dangerous trend for our country. The situation in Tadzhikistan is very difficult. The situation in Kyrgyzstan is unstable. But Turkmenistan may become the direction of the first strike, just like "AN" wrote. Somehow, we forget about it a little, because Ashkhabad stands somewhat alone. But this "mansion" may fall first. Will they have enough strength to beat off? Or will we intervene into a country that keeps quite long distance away from us? So, this direction is hard.

And not only due to the "Islamic State" militants seeping into the region. According to the latest data, the USA and NATO are not going to leave Afghanistan and are going to maintain their bases there. From the military point of view, five or ten thousand soldiers who remain there may be deployed into a 50-100-strong group within a month.

This is a part of the overall plan of surrounding and pressuring Russia, which is implemented by the hands of the USA with the goal of deposing president Vladimir Putin and breaking the country. A typical layman may, of course, not believe this, but people with access to a large volume of information know this very well.

Which borders will the split go through?

First they plan to simply cut off that which is "easy". It doesn't matter what will fall off: Kaliningrad, the North Caucasus, or the Far East. This will serve as a detonator of the process that may intensify. This is not a propaganda phantom - it is a real idea. Such pressure from the west (Ukraine), and the south (Central Asia) will only grow. The are trying to seep through the western gates, but they'll also probe the southern ones.

What is the most dangerous strategic direction for us?

The southern direction is very dangerous. But for now the buffer states - the former central asian Soviet republics still function. And in the west the war is already at the border. Effectively, on our territory.

Currently, it is not the bloodbath of Ukrainians and Russians there, but rather a war of global systems. Some think that they "are Europe", others - that they are Russia. Because our country is not just a territory. It is a separate, huge civilization, which brought its own view of the global order to the whole world. Primarily, of course, this is the Russian Empire as an example of the East-Orthodox civilization. The Bolsheviks destroyed it, but they put up a new civilizational idea. A third is now very close. And we'll see it within 5-6 years.

What will it be?

I think that it will be a decent symbiosis of the previous ones. And our "sworn colleagues" perfectly understand this. That is why the attack from all sides started.

That is, the joint Russian-American fight against terror, in particular, against ISIS - is a fiction?

Of course. America creates terrorists, feeds them, trains them, and then gives an order to the whole pack: "catch". Perhaps, they can shoot one "rabid dog" in the whole pack, but the other dogs will be set even more actively.

Leonid Petrovich, you think that the USA and the American presidents are just an instrument. Who do you think determine their policy?

There are communities of people who are effectively unknown to the public, which not only determine the American presidents but also determine the rules of the whole "big game". In particular, these are the transnational financial corporations. But not only them.

Currently there is an ongoing process of reformatting the financial and the economical system of the world. Clearly, there is an attempt to rethink the whole structure of capitalism without rejecting it. The foreign policy is subject to rapid change. The U.S. suddenly effectively abandoned Israel - their main ally in the Middle East for the sake of improving the relations with Iran. Is it because now Tehran is more valuable and more important than Tel-Aviv? Because it is among the countries around Russia. These covert forces set the goal of liquidating our country as a serious player on the global stage. Because Russia is a civilizational alternative to the whole united west.

Moreover, there is an explosive growth of anti-American sentiment in the world. Hungary, where the conservative right-wing forces are in power, and Greece's left-wingers - diametrically opposed forces - effectively united and "bucked" against the U.S. dictate in Europe. There are also those who may "buck" in Italy, Austria, in France, and so on. If Russia will now stand its ground, then the processes that are not beneficial to the forces who seek to claim the global domination will start in Europe. And these forces perfectly understand this.

Some European leaders already lament that the USA effectively forced sanctions on them. Europe may break out of the "friendly" American embrace?

Never. America holds her on several chains: the Federal Reserve printing press, the threat of color-coded revolutions and of the physical elimination of unwanted politicians.

Are you exaggerating about the physical elimination part?

Not at all. The Central Intelligence Agency of the USA is not even an intelligence service based on the level of the tasks set before it. The PGU KGB or the SVR of the RF are classical intelligence services: information gathering and reporting to the leadership of the country. In the CIA these traditional features of an intelligence service are at the end of the list of its problems. The main goals are: elimination, which included physical elimination, of the politicians and the organization of coups.

And they do this in real time.

After the loss of the "Kursk" submarine, the CIA director George Tenet visited us. I was asked to meet him in the airport. Tenet was slow to exit the airplane, but the apparel was open so I could peek inside his "Hercules". This was a flying headquarters, the operational computer center, which was full of equipment and communications systems that can track and model the situation in the whole world. The accompanying delegation - twenty people.  As for us - we flew and fly regular flights, in 2-5 person teams. You can feel the difference, so to say.

By the way, about the intelligence. Once again there is talk of the idea of restoring the united Russian intelligence service by uniting the SVR and the FSB. What do you think about this?

I'm very negative. If we combine the two special services - the foreign intelligence and the counter-intelligence, then we'll create one source of information for the highest leadership of the country out of two. Then, the person who sits at this "origin of information" becomes a monopolist. And he can manipulate it for achieving some goal. In the USSR KGB such informational manipulations were obvious even to the captain Reshetnikov. For a president, a czar, a prime-minister - no matter how you call the highest official - it is advantageous to have several independent intelligence sources. Otherwise he becomes a hostage of a specific leader of the structure of the structure itself. This is very dangerous.

The authors of this idea think that we will become stronger after this union. Instead, we will create threats for ourselves.

And now lets go from the global conspiracy theories to our local affairs. How can you tell between an official who doesn't know what he's doing and an agent of influence who knows what he's doing?

There are not as many agents of influence of a serious level in the world as many think. Passing or not passing serious strategic decisions against the interests of one's own country is typically initiated by, so to speak, ideological agents. These are those among our officials who ended up occupying a high-rank domestic position, but whose soul is in the West. There's no need to enlist or order them. For these people everything that's done "there" is the highest achievement of the civilization. And what's here - the "unwashed" Russia. They don't associated the future of their children, whom they send abroad, with the country. And this is a more serious indicator than the accounts in foreign banks. Such "comrades" sincerely don't like Russia, the "development" of which they supervise.

You just drew a portrait of some of our ministers very precisely. How are we going to make it through 2015 with them?

This year, with them or without them, will be difficult. Most likely, the next year won't be easier either. But after that new Russia will be confidently on the march.
 
#26
Brookings Institution
May 27, 2015
Watch: Joe Biden tough but optimistic on Russia, Putin and Ukraine

Vice President Joe Biden spoke at Brookings Wednesday afternoon to address the Russia-Ukraine conflict. He underlined the seriousness of the conflict and pressed a hard line on Russia, describing how Putin has pursued "aggressive repression" at home, while showing "contempt" for his smaller neighbors, and "pure aggression" toward Ukraine.  

Biden was fundamentally optimistic, saying "Putin's vision has very little to offer Europe and Russia except for myths and illusions." He said of the conflict: "I believe the terrain is fundamentally in our favor."

In describing his experience with Putin, Biden described the Russian leader as a practical person. Putin will, Biden said, "push as far as he can...until he reaches a resistance that in fact says there's a big price to pay."

The path forward, he outlined, was to continue pressing Russia with sanctions, while working with the Europeans to increase military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and continue working with the Ukrainian government on meaningful reforms.

Biden said that "helping Ukraine in its defense and deterrence against Russian aggression is critical to checking further aggression down the road," and also that the United States' focus will be on "directly addressing the humanitarian tragedy in Ukraine that has been brought on by Russian aggression."

He described at length the necessity of reforms to decentralize and fight corruption in Ukraine and said the local leaders are working on these reforms. Biden said "so long as Ukraine leaders keep faith with the project of reform, the U.S. will continue to stand with them."

Biden concluded by saying that "We've reached another moment in the trans-Atlantic relationship that calls out for leadership," and that, "if the U.S. and Europe can reassert and stick to our principles...I have every confidence that we can leave the trans-Atlantic relationship even stronger than we found it."

Watch full video here:
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/brookings-now/posts/2015/05/27-watch-biden-at-brookings

 
 #27
www.rt.com
May 28, 2015
US won't accept idea of global 'spheres of influence' - Biden

The US rejects the idea of any nation claiming a sphere of influence, Vice President Joe Biden told a Washington think tank, arguing that the crisis in Ukraine was about the principles and values of the West and international order.

"We will not recognize any nation having a sphere of influence," the vice president said during a speech at the Brookings Institution on Wednesday. It remained unclear whether the remark applied to US influence around the globe, or referred only to Russia, China and other countries.

Asked by AP diplomatic correspondent Matt Lee to clarify the remark, State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke did not quite know how.

"What we see when we look around the world are places where we desire to improve our contacts with countries," Rathke said, acknowledging that other countries might do the same. "What is important is that those relations develop on the basis of mutual interest, mutual respect, without coercion, and to the benefit of the peoples of the countries involved."

"I don't really think the description of that as a 'sphere of influence' is particularly apt in those kinds of cases," Rathke added.

Biden described the conflict in Ukraine as crucial to the future of NATO, the EU and the West in general, something that called for leadership "the kind our parents and grandparents' generation delivered."

Allowing the Kremlin to establish a "fiefdom" in Ukraine, he said, would only fan the flames of Russian ambition.

Biden blamed any humanitarian issues in Ukraine on Russia, reiterating US support for the government in Kiev. He has traveled to Ukraine three times over the past year, he said, and talks to President Poroshenko and Prime Minister Yatsenyuk about once a week, on average.

According to the vice president, the US has provided $470 million to Kiev in economic assistance, not counting the billions in loan guarantees if Kiev "continues on the path of reforms" they promised to deliver.

The US needs a Ukraine that "cannot be bribed, coerced or intimidated," Biden said, one that would someday serve as an example to Russians of what Western values and institutions can accomplish.

In the Vice President's narrative, the US tried to be a friend to Russia and bring it into the "world of responsible nations" through institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the NATO-Russia Partnership. He said that process was going well between 2009 and 2012, during the Medvedev presidency, but blamed President Vladimir Putin for setting Russia on a different course since.

However, Biden also said that all politics was personal, and that the US would continue working with the Russian leadership wherever Moscow's help could benefit US interests, citing the example of nuclear talks with Iran.

"We're not looking for regime change, or any fundamental alteration of circumstances inside Russia," Biden said. "We're looking for [Putin] to, in our view, act rationally."

Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg addressed the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, where he accused Russia of "nuclear saber-rattling" he called "unjustified, destabilizing and dangerous."

"Russia is a global actor that is asserting its military power," Stoltenberg said. "We regret that Russia is taking this course. Because when might becomes right, the consequences are grave."

The remarks come just two weeks after Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Russian counterpart in Sochi and urged the leadership in Kiev to "think twice" before re-igniting hostilities, frozen by a ceasefire arranged in February at the Belorussian capital of Minsk.

Forces loyal to the government in Kiev have since resumed artillery attacks on civilians in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, in territories that have refused to recognize their authority since May 2014.

State Department's Rathke insisted that "overwhelming majority of the ceasefire violations" were committed by "Russian [sic] and separatist forces," but that he was "not familiar" with reports of civilians killed by Ukrainian shelling.
 
 #28
Yahoo Politics
May 27, 2015
Russia 'reset' architect to next president: Don't try that again    
Olivier Knox, Chief Washington Correspondent
May 27, 2015

Michael McFaul says the next president - whoever he or she is - should not try for another 'reset' in relations with Russia. (Photo: U.S. State Department)

Former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, a key architect of President Barack Obama's attempt to "reset" relations with Moscow, has some advice for the next president: Don't try that again.

"Don't say, 'We need another reset with Russia.' And I'm the guy that said that to the president the last time around in the Oval Office," McFaul told Yahoo News, describing his support for the effort to reboot relations with Russia in 2009.

"I think it was the right decision in terms of a policy pivot then. It would be the wrong policy pivot this time around," he said.

The former diplomat, now a political science professor at Stanford University and fellow at its Hoover Institution, was speaking in an interview with Yahoo News on POTUS SiriusXM.

Before becoming the ambassador to Moscow, McFaul served as the top Russia advisor on Obama's National Security Council. In that capacity, he was a key player in the decision to try to "reset" relations with Moscow, which had steadily deteriorated throughout George W. Bush's time in office.

The effort - championed by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who now hopes to succeed Obama - paid some early diplomatic dividends, notably Russian acceptance of a new START treaty to reduce nuclear arsenals, greater cooperation on sanctions against Iran, and the reopening of air routes to resupply American forces in Afghanistan.

But most experts agree that the policy now lies in tatters, with Russian President Vladimir Putin openly fueling anti-American sentiment at home and pursuing confrontational policies abroad, such as the invasion of Ukraine and the annexation of its Crimea region.

But McFaul agreed that the tense relationship with Russia does not amount to a new Cold War.
 
 #29
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
May 27, 2015
What to expect from the Russian lobby in the West
Russian companies hit by sanctions continue to pump large sums of money to lobby their interests in the U.S. and the EU. But is it really worth it?
By Ksenia Zubacheva
Ksenia Zubacheva is a Managing Editor at Russia Direct. Previously she worked as an editor at The Voice of Russia. Ksenia holds a BA (Honors) in Oriental and African Studies from the Institute of Practical Oriental Studies (Moscow) and an MSc in International Relations from the University of Bristol.

With Europe and the U.S. showing no signs of lifting sanctions against Russia any time soon, the Kremlin and different Russian businesses continue to spend large sums of money on lobbyists and consultants to influence the Western decision-making mechanism in order to roll back sanctions.

Just last year, according to Bloomberg, Russia's Gazprom spent around $300,000 on lobbying in Washington, DC while Novatek, one of the world's largest private oil producers, paid about $560,000 to the public relations firm Qorvis MSL LLC.

On the European lobbying scene, another Russian oil giant - Rosneft - is working with the London firm Zaiwalla & Co., which has previously represented the interests of a large Iranian bank hit by Western sanctions. Rosneft, according to Russian media, was planning to spend on the services of lawyers in London around $28.3 million.

To what extent might such efforts prove successful over the long term? Russia Direct examines this question in its latest brief, "Kremlin lobbyists in the West."

The author of the brief is Sergei Kostiaev, associate professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation. Kostiaev touches upon a wide array of issues, from the differences in promoting Russian interests in Brussels and Washington to the effects of the crisis in Ukraine on the Kremlin's foreign lobbying opportunities.

Starting with an overview of the history of Russian lobbying since the break-up of the Soviet Union, Kostiaev suggests that today the main objective of Russian entities is mostly about ending Western sanctions. While in Brussels interest representation is mostly done via different advisory boards and government relations offices, lobbying in the U.S. is more about working with Washington-based consultants possessing relevant connections inside the Obama Administration.

"Working with Western consultants, however, will not help resolving major issues, such as economic sanctions against Russian companies," writes Kostiaev. "In this case, lobbying is just an extra instrument - the resolution lies in the field of politics."

According to him, the most that Russian lobbyists can do is to monitor the general situation and request the removal of their client from the sanctions list when the right moment comes and the geopolitical situation changes.

Looking at different cases and comparing Russian lobbying efforts to those of other countries, Kostiaev comes to the conclusion that Russians, while spending large sums of money, have support neither from domestic groups nor from high-ranking government officials in the U.S. and the EU. This, coupled with the negative impact of the crisis in Ukraine on Kremlin's image, limits the range of opportunities available to Russia for promoting its agenda abroad.

In this situation, in order to establish a credible domestic support in the West, Russia should build strong ties in the academic field. "Russia has to support interest in Russian Studies at Western universities and think tanks. Future political leaders, journalists and scholars should have better understanding of Russian culture, history and politics," Kostiaev concludes.


 
 #30
Dances With Bears
http://johnhelmer.net
May 27, 2015
ANNE APPLEBAUM LOSES WAR AGAINST RUSSIA - HER INCOME PLUMMETS FASTER THAN UKRAINE'S GDP
By John Helmer, Moscow
[Photos, links, and footnotes here http://johnhelmer.net/?p=13489]

Anne Applebaum, wife of the ex-Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, has suffered a 42% drop in her earnings last year, since the war against Russia, which Sikorski and she (Siklebaum, for short) have promoted in London, Warsaw and Washington, lost the big money backing it drew in 2013. The Applebaum loss is even sharper than the collapsing Ukrainian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) caused by the war. It is falling at a rate of 17.6%, according to the latest release from the Ukrainian statistics agency.

Sikorski is required to file an annual income and asset declaration for himself, his wife and family on account of his current post as Speaker of the Sejm, the Polish parliament. He got that as a consolation prize after losing bids for posts at NATO and the European Union in Brussels; and after the new Polish Prime Minister, Ewa Kopacz, preferred a politician on her team with more electable credentials for the parliamentary election due by October. "I wanted a strong government with the backing from the whole of Civic Platform," Kopacz said of her party and of Grzegorz Schetyna, her preference over Sikorski.

As the weakling on Civic Platform's (PO) unpopular ticket, Sikorski's chances to retain an official position in Warsaw are dwindling toward the vanishing point after the PO's presidential candidate, incumbent Bronisław Komorowski, was narrowly beaten in the second round of balloting last Sunday by Andrzej Duda, the candidate of the Law and Justice Party (PiS). For the impact on Polish policy towards Russia and Ukraine, read more [1]. There is one consolation the Siklebaum couple will draw from another election hiding. They won't have to expose in public how much less they are getting paid this year than last.

Sikorski signed his declaration for 2014 on April 30, and the document has just become available. Read it here [2]. The 4-page, 11-part declaration reveals Applebaum's earnings on the bottom line of part IX. Until last month Sikorski reported his wife's income in the countries and currencies in which she earned it. In 2012 she took in �215,000 and $200,000; in 2013, �140,000 and $565,000. The big jump in the profitability of the Siklebaum campaign against Russia appears to have been paid by private and government sponsors of the Legatum Institute (below left, outside) in London, as well as Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his son Pavel (right, inside). Part of the Legatum story can be read here [3].

Mark Ames has investigated the twists and turns of Legatum's money trail through Orange County, California; Monaco and Dubai; and William Browder's office in London. Read his story here [4].

According to Sikorski, Applebaum's income should now be declared in Polish zlotys. For 2014 the total came to PLN 1,719,699.33. Converting at the current Financial Times interbank rate, that makes just over US$434,000. By comparison, Applebaum's takings in 2013 came to PLN 2,953,000. In 2012, the zloty equivalent was PLN 1.3 million. The evidence is dramatic: since the putsch in Kiev on February 21, 2014 - the day Sikorski presided, along with the German and French foreign ministers, over an agreement between President Victor Yanukovich and the Ukrainian opposition parties to keep Yanukovich in power until a national Ukrainian election within six months - Applebaum's financial downturn has been 42%. In percentage terms, if not in lifestyle, that's worse than the financial damage which the civil war has done to the Ukrainian economy.

Sikorski reports his income for 2014 was up slightly on the job change - from PLN 192,003 in 2013 to PLN 199,934. He is currently under investigation by the Polish authorities for converting a variety of his publicly funded foreign ministry perks into private benefits. The family Volkswagen Golf, Nissan Qashqai, and BMW motorcycle remain in the garage as before. Savings bank accounts, investments, and pension earnings appear to have shrunk a little; the family lebensraum has stayed the same size in square metres.

Applebaum is losing ground in Poland. During the presidential election campaign she and her husband were openly hostile to Duda. Applebaum attacked him the morning after the May 24 ballot claiming [5] "[he] wants more spending, bigger state for example."

A report [6] this week by Polish analyst Stanislas Balcerac reveals that the biggest of the big state spenders was er, the Sikorski PO. "In the years 2008 to 2013, when Sikorski was in the government, the number of civil servants in Poland has increased by 48,000 - that is, by 12%."

Applebaum has reported the regional split of Polish votes in Duda's favour is an invitation for a Russian invasion. "Clearly Poland is a divided nation that needs to be partitioned", she tweeted on May 25. Sikorski was more discreet, acknowledging theirs was a losing cause by tweeting: "I congratulated the President-elect."

 
 
#31
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
May 28, 2015
How to Become a 'Mouthpiece for a Mass Murderer'
Step 1: Disagree with the White House
By Danielle Ryan
Danielle is an Irish journalist and blogger. She has a degree in Business and German from Trinity College Dublin and studied political reporting at the Washington Center for Politics and Journalism in Washington, DC. Special interests: American politics and foreign policy, US-Russia relations and media bias. Her blog can be found at journalitico.com.

For some reason, this gem from US-government funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty seems to have escaped my attention until now. Who knows why. Maybe I was just lucky.
[http://www.rferl.org/content/stephen-cohen-us-scholar-controversial-putin-apologist/26997584.html]

Wait, what's that? Why yes, I do like to include the "US-government funded" bit when I mention RFERL. I feel it's only fair. We wouldn't want anyone getting the idea that they had no agenda, now would we? It's like with those pesky Putin propagandists at RT, you can't let them think you don't know what they're up to.

So, in the event that you'd like to save yourself the bother of reading it in its entirety, I'll summarize: Stephen Cohen, formerly respected Russia scholar, disagrees with the White House on Ukraine and is therefore a Putin stooge. That's really the long and short of it.

RFERL laid into Cohen for "defending the Kremlin's agenda" in the piece which presents an account of his recent debate with Washington Post columnist (and determined neo-con agenda pusher) Anne Applebaum and former world chess champion player Garry Kasparov.

The piece quotes Angela Stent, director of the Center for Russian Studies at Georgetown University, who explains why Cohen's Kremlin defense crosses the line; because, she says, it's not just that Cohen is saying he understands Putin's motivations, which would be semi-okay (maybe, kind of, sort of), but it's that he actually has taken the position that "Putin is right".

Shock! Horror! Does this mean? No, it couldn't possibly...? Could someone really be suggesting that the White House might be wrong? Stop the presses!

RFERL added that it wasn't surprising to anyone who had been following Cohen's work that his arguments continued to dovetail "a narrative pushed by the Kremlin" - a line which got me wondering why it is that I so rarely see the phrase "narrative pushed by the White House" - and then I remembered that the White House doesn't have "narratives" because of course, it has the truth. Silly me.

Cohen, at this debate with Applebaum and Kasparov, tried to convince his audience that he does not in fact have a "sentimental attachment" to Vladimir Putin whatsoever, but of course, that fell on deaf ears. Again, that got me wondering why exactly those defending Barack Obama's foreign policy aren't required to convince everyone that they don't have some sort of "sentimental attachment" to him personally. Can you imagine a guest on CNN trying to convince the host that although he was expressing support for Obama's policies that didn't feel any mushy sentimentality toward the president?

Cohen says his criticisms of White House policy make him a patriot of American national security, which RFERL subsequently twists into a sarcastic jab about how he thinks his shameless Putin loving is "a matter of patriotic duty".

Then rather predictably, the piece devolves into the usual spiel about conspiracy theorists and the not so thinly veiled presumption that those who beg to differ with US policy all fit neatly into that category. See Seymour Hersh for another timely example.

Shortly before the piece wraps up (praise Jesus) RFERL quote Lynn Lubamersky, an associate professor of history at Boise State University, who says that Cohen is a "mouthpiece for a mass murderer" which of course, just beggars belief - and not because Putin is in line for any pacifist of the century awards, but because if Putin is a mass murderer, what exactly is Barack Obama? An anti-war activist?

I'd really like to know, for example, what is it about operating drone programs that kill thousands of innocent people, including hundreds of children - and sometimes entire families - that gets you off the hook when it comes to deciding what constitutes mass murder?

And another question. Why does defending Kremlin policy make you a "mouthpiece" for a murderer, while any neo-con warmonger with five minutes to spare can go on FOX or CNN or the BBC, and not only make excuses for the various mass murders carried out by the White House, but actually advocate relentlessly for even more of them. Why do they retain the title of 'media commentator' while Cohen gets branded an apologist for mass murder?

If you have any answers, send them my way.


 
 #32
The Association for Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies (ASEEES)
www.aseees.org
May 27, 2015
ASEEES BOARD STATEMENT REGARDING THE MAY 11 2015 SPECIAL MEETING DECISIONS

As announced on March 18, 2015, in accordance with its by-laws, the Board of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) held a special meeting on May 11, 2015 at which it reviewed representations from the membership relating to the Stephen F. Cohen - Robert C. Tucker Fellowship matter. These included the February 5, 2015 letter signed by Professor David Ransel and 121 other members of ASEEES and other scholars, comments sent by members to the ASEEES officers, and comments posted using two online forms. Over 150 communications were received. A substantial majority of these favored acceptance of the Cohen-Tucker Fellowships program, if the Kat Foundation were to re-offer the gift. Among the arguments made were that graduate students urgently needed funding and that Professor Cohen's political views, while controversial with some, had nothing directly to do with the program proposal.  A minority, however, continued to express support for the initial decisions of the Board in November 2014 and argued against revisiting them at this time.

At the start of the meeting, the Board voted to remove from the Gift Acceptance Policy the clause requiring that all discussions of prospective donations be held in executive session. The original decision to include this in the Policy was made in good faith, so that those participating in a potentially sensitive discussion could feel comfortable about voicing their views.  The Board will continue to respect the confidentiality granted to its members who were present for that earlier discussion in November 2014. However, for the sake of transparency of Board actions and based on advice from legal counsel, the Board voted to amend the Gift Acceptance Policy. Accordingly, the special meeting was subject to ordinary minuting procedures and we draw here on the meeting minutes.

The Board began its discussion of the ASEEES members' representations by affirming the non-political status of the Association. We acknowledged the challenges of remaining non-political when the region that we study is beset by political, and even military, conflict, but we also recognized that it is essential ASEEES be a community of tolerance and pluralism, where views with which some or many do not agree may be discussed in a collegial atmosphere. Considering the totality of the circumstances, the Board voted, by a substantial majority, to express its regret for the resolution made at the November 20, 2014 meeting to request that the donors consider a name change to the fellowship. In a second vote, the Board resolved by nearly unanimous majority to express its commitment to accept the Cohen-Tucker Fellowship as named, should the gift be re-offered. In a third vote, the Board resolved to return to the donors and inform them that, if they would be willing to re-offer the fellowship gift, ASEEES will agree to accept the August 2014 agreement with the proviso that ASEEES would have sole control over the naming of the selection committee. This resolution was also passed by nearly unanimous majority.

We wish to emphasize our respect for the views expressed by a minority of the Board and of the membership who chose to disagree with the proposal to try again to implement the fellowship program. These views were fully expressed and carefully weighed in our discussion and in the process by which we came to a decision.  Some members of the Board expressed their reservations about Professor Cohen's views on contemporary Russia and Ukraine, while lauding his contributions to Soviet/Russian studies, and some were concerned that in the context of today's geopolitical situation, a decision to revisit the Cohen-Tucker Fellowship offer might make certain members of ASEEES feel unwelcome.  However, all Board members expressed commitment to the principles of academic freedom and pluralism.  The Board recognized the donors' generosity and commitment to support graduate students, whose need for research funding is indisputable. The Board was deeply impressed by the argument for that support in the members' representations.  Overall, we have valued the process of discussion within the Board and with the membership at large and are satisfied that the decisions of the Board have been taken in a manner fully consistent with the Association's mission and by-laws.