Johnson's Russia List
2015-#107
29 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
Washington Post
May 30, 2015
Editorial
A mysterious illness hits a Russian activist

IT HAS been three months since Boris Nem�tsov, one of Russia's leading opposition figures, was gunned down near the Kremlin in Moscow. Not surprisingly, those responsible for the brazen murder have not been identified, though a couple of alleged triggermen have been arrested. Mr. Nemtsov's case joins a long list of unsolved political murders during the regime of Vladi�mir Putin, both within and outside of Russia. Some, including Mr. Nemtsov and the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, were gunned down on the street, while others were felled by exotic poisons - the former KGB operative Alexander Litvinenko, who died after ingesting polonium, a rare radioactive substance, in London.

It was consequently understandable that friends of the opposition activist Vladi�mir Kara- Murza sounded alarms after he suddenly collapsed in his Moscow office on Tuesday and was rushed to a hospital. Mr. Kara-Murza, who is just 33 years old, was variously reported in the subsequent hours to be suffering from double pneumonia, pancreatitis and kidney failure. His wife, who lives in Washington with their three children, told us that "there has not yet been a conclusive diagnosis, but there is a definite possibility of poisoning." She said that his condition remained grave on Thursday and he had not regained consciousness.

Mr. Kara-Murza was a close associate of Mr. Nemtsov and other Russian opposition leaders and often accompanied them to meetings in Washington. While other dissidents fled the country under Mr. Putin's mounting repression, the young activist bravely returned to Moscow to work as a coordinator for Open Russia, an organization sponsored by the exiled opposition leader Mikhail Khodorkovsky. His sudden illness came one day after the group screened a film about Ramzan Kadyrov, the sinister ruler of the republic of Chechnya and a close ally of Mr. Putin who is suspected of involvement in several political assassinations.

We're in awe of the extraordinary resolve and fortitude of Russians such as Mr. Kara-Murza, who continue to document and call attention to the corruption and the criminality of the Putin regime even after so many others who did so have been murdered. But even more staggering is the complacency Western governments exhibit toward the crude attacks on peaceful opponents in a country that wishes to be, and often is, treated as a global power. Apart from North Korea, it's hard to think of a nation where political murder is as much of a hazard as it is now in Russia. Yet Western leaders have said little about the slayings and go on treating Mr. Putin as if he were a civilized statesman and potential partner in solving problems such as Syria's civil war.

We wish Mr. Kara-Murza a speedy recovery from whatever is ailing him; his family is seeking help from Israeli toxicologists and hopes to transfer him to a hospital outside the country. But it won't be surprising if the cause of his collapse remains obscure - or just ambiguous enough to be ignored by those who do not wish to accept the truth about Russia's murderous regime.

 
 #2
THE NEW HETMANATE: INFORMATION AND IMAGERY FROM UKRAINE
http://newhetmanate.net
May 25, 2015
Russian expert: To restore US-Russia relations, 'Putin regime must fall'
By Chad Nagle
Since my first article was published, a review of Robert Conquest's Harvest of Sorrow (an account of the Stalinist famine in Ukraine in the 1930s), I have written and published on issues in the former Soviet union in a wide range of publications, including op-eds and articles in The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Salisbury Review, Conservative Review, CounterPunch, The New York Press, The American Conservative, Turkish Policy Quarterly and H�rriyet Daily News. I hold a B.A. and an M.A. in Russian and East European Studies from the Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington University, and a J.D. from Emory University School of Law. I am fluent in Russian.

Recent events hint that Moscow may have 'blinked' in its stand-off with the West over Ukraine. Last week, leaders of the self-proclaimed separatist republics of the Donbas - the Donetsk and Lugansk 'People's Republics' - declared publicly that the 'Novorossiya' project was 'closed.' Russian President Vladimir Putin had used the term 'Novorossiya' in early 2014, shortly after the overthrow of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine. The term referred to a 'historically Russian' area of Ukraine extending from Kharkiv through the Donbas and across Ukraine's coastal areas to Odessa region. Putin's use of it implied that Russia would try to 'carve away' this vast territory by force. This fear seemed validated as separatist war escalated in eastern Ukraine.

It appears that Moscow is backing away from the 'Novorossiya' venture and also taking steps to de-escalate the war in the Donbas. On Saturday, May 23rd, an adviser to the Ukrainian minister of internal affairs reported that the commander of the 'Prizrak' (Ghost) Battalion of the Lugansk People's Republic (LNR) and six of his bodyguards had been killed by special forces of Russia's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU - the Russian military intelligence agency), reputedly for refusing to follow orders. On the same day, Ukrainian counter-intelligence reported that Russia's 3rd Spetsnaz (Special Operations) Brigade had hastily withdrawn from Luhansk region after the capture of two Russian GRU Spetsnaz troops on May 16th. The reported reason: fear of mutiny. At the end of April, Russian media were reporting that LNR 'President' Igor Plotnitsky had been detained in Moscow, and would not be returning because he had stolen humanitarian aid in Luhansk.

While none of these stories have been independently confirmed, a Russian climb-down looks credible in the context of conciliatory behavior by US Secretary of John Kerry in traveling to Sochi, Russia, to meet Putin on May 12th. Apart from exercising dubious diplomacy in meeting Putin on Russian soil, Kerry was limp-wristed on the issue of Russian supplies of S-300 missile defense systems to Iran, echoing Obama's 'surprise' that the Kremlin had not made the deliveries earlier. Kerry also issued an ominous public warning to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko not to attempt to recapture the Donbas by force. Conspicuously, Kerry made no mention of Crimea, illegally annexed by Russia in March 2014, making it appear that Moscow and Washington might be cutting a deal over the heads of the Ukrainians. A quid pro quo might be the lifting of Western sanctions in return for an end to Russian military support for the separatists in eastern Ukraine - but no return of Crimea. Perhaps Kerry was trying to secure Russia's cooperation with US aims in the Middle East. Perhaps he was simply trying to prevent the US from being dragged into a war in Ukraine.

For expert insight into what Putin and his regime may be thinking, the respected Russian political analyst Andrey Piontkovsky's recent interview with the Russian webzine Apostrophe [http://apostrophe.com.ua] is useful. It is reproduced in English below.

Political scientist Piontkovsky on the victory of China over Russia, and the failure of Putin and his plans for the Donbas

Why the 'Novorossiya' project has failed

Russian President Vladimir Putin has sharply changed his tactics in Ukraine and offered the West a deal. At the same time, Russia itself faces the threat of absorption by China. This and more in an interview with Russian political analyst, journalist, politician and leading researcher at the Institute for Systems Analysis of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrey Piontkovsky for Apostrophe's Artyom Dekhtyarenko.

- Andrey Andreyevich, representatives of the DNR [Donetsk People's Republic -Ed.] recently said that the 'Novorossiya' project had been terminated. What can the self-proclaimed 'republics' expect in this regard?

- The 'Novorossiya' project in its original form has been closed for a long time. This happened not because Moscow changed its intentions and became kinder to Ukraine, but simply because it failed. This project, which Putin thought about very seriously in March and April last year, was based on the inclusion of 8-10 Ukrainian regions in the new entity. And those provocations that occurred in Donetsk and Lugansk also took place in many other cities, among them Odessa and Kharkiv. However, they failed there, without having received any significant support. And, actually, 'Novorossiya' mutated into the so-called Lugandonia [a play on the 'Lugansk,' the Russian name for the eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk - Ed.].

And Moscow has drastically changed its tactics. It is in any case not going to annex these depressed areas. It needs them to be like a cancer inside Ukraine, sowing chaos and instability. According to the Kremlin's interpretation of the Minsk Agreement, Lugandonia should be a part of Ukraine (Lavrov emphasizes this ten times in a single day, in Brussels, in Paris, and elsewhere), and thus have the right of veto on the future foreign policy orientations of Ukraine.

These Zakharchenkos and Motorolas are dictating the new Constitution of Ukraine with their whole heads. [Alexander Zakharchenko is the de facto president of the DNR; 'Motorola' is the nickname of Arseny Pavlov, a Russian who commands one of the armed groups fighting against Ukraine on behalf of Russia - Ed.] This is a deliberate tactic of Moscow: to 'stick' these territories onto the makeup of Ukraine at the current stage of the conflict, so that it is possible to block Ukraine's European choice from the inside.

- Do you think they will seek autonomy or agree to the terms of broad decentralization proposed by Ukraine?

- They have already formulated their demands, by submitting a draft of the new Constitution of Ukraine. Their demands extend much further than questions of local self-government. I have already said that there is talk there about influencing the foreign policy strategy of Ukraine, about non-aligned status, about federalization. These are the things demanded by Moscow. What Russia has been unable to take from Kyiv, it is trying to get from the Constitution written by the Motorolas and the demons.

- And what in this case indicates the accumulation of Russian troops and equipment in the Donbas?

- The accumulation of Russian troops is ongoing. A sharp increase in the Russian military budget is being fixed. But the prevailing tactic for today is the pressure on Kyiv via the preservation of the idea of Ukraine's 'territorial integrity' as bait. A demonstration of military capabilities is parallel blackmail - not only of Ukraine, but of its Western partners: 'Here, help us put pressure on Kyiv so that it agrees with our interpretation of the Minsk Agreement, otherwise a military escalation is possible.' Your Western partners, of course, don't want that. In the event of escalation, they will have to give even greater assistance to Ukraine. And they strongly want to avoid that.

- So the probability of an escalation in the Donbas in the near future is low?

- In the near future - it won't happen. In any case, at least until the European Union's decision on the renewal or non-renewal of sanctions. Now Moscow has declared the so-called new policy of peaceful co-existence with the West. It was very frankly formulated into a kind of seminal article by Lukyanov (Fyodor Lukyanov, Russian journalist. - Apostrophe) on April 16th in the Moscow Times: 'Putin Wants Peaceful Coexistence With the West.' Curiously, key provisions of this article were omitted in its Russian translation. That is why the Russian public was not aware of them. This is a direct appeal to the West, where Lukyanov explicitly recognizes that further military escalation in Russia would, as he writes, be 'dangerous and extremely expensive.' It is offering this deal to the West: Crimea is ours, and we keep our influence over Lugandonia, but we won't go any further.

And this pleases the West very much. The reaction to this peaceful co-existence idea was the 'fantastic' visit by [John] Kerry, at which he asked for what had been written in the Russian press with great satisfaction. There, at the press conference, he happily chimed in with Lavrov, threatened Poroshenko with a wag of the finger, and never uttered the word 'Crimea.' In general, he behaved as Moscow would have liked within these parameters of new, peaceful co-existence. So on today's agenda is a peaceful offensive simultaneous to a show of force: 'If you do not respond to our peaceful aspirations, a further escalation of the conflict may follow.'

- What do you think about the suggestion that, during the last visit of John Kerry and Victoria Nuland to Sochi and Moscow, there may have been agreements concluded between Russia and the United States that did not serve the interests of Ukraine?

- It is a fact that this diplomatic activity suggests a new form of mutual relations. After all, one of the forms of the West's opposition to the Russian Federation was the isolation of the Putin regime. Think of two television images: the first - two months ago, Lavrov was at the Munich conference, where the audience simply laughed at him and actually drove him off the stage, and these were top experts, international security experts and politicians; and the second - at the press conference in Sochi with Kerry. There, with the help of Russian journalists, Lavrov simply mocked him and drove him into a corner. These are completely different formats. Moscow seduced the West with the opportunity to declare that a peaceful settlement had been achieved. 'Thus, we - the West - with our heroic support of Ukraine have ensured that Moscow will not go further. But what it has captured, it has captured.'

- What, in your opinion, gave Mr. Putin the confidence to seize the Crimea and start a war in the Donbas?

- He knows his Western partners well. He simply despises them. The favorite proverb of Kremlin political scientists when they describe how Putin will behave is to say that 'for us, Ukraine is much more important than for the West.' That is, roughly speaking, 'for us it is much more important to rape Ukraine than for the West to protect it.' Therefore, the game will go on by raising bets the whole time. Almost until the use of nuclear weapons. This basic method of discourse with the West - it's just intimidated by the fact that the military conflict is dangerous for it, that Russia is more desperate, and that Putin is successfully portraying himself as a madman, saying: 'I am willing to use nuclear weapons.' This is a tactic of intimidation and pressure. And now even this carrot is being tossed in: 'We're good, and we won't climb any further. You don't have to be afraid of going to war with a nuclear Russia. But, really, what they've captured, they've captured.' That kind of deal is, in fact, being proposed to the West.

- Now we see that Crimea is being transformed into a second Chechnya, to the detriment of other regions, as huge amounts of Russian money are being poured into the peninsula. Why is Vladimir Putin doing this?

- Putin is resolving his personal problems. He is resolving the question of his lifelong power. No dictator can base his power exclusively on violence. He needs some sort of inspirational idea, which at a certain time will blind a significant part of the population and draw it onto the side of the authorities... So it was in Nazi Germany, and in the Soviet Union. That Putin put forward the idea of the 'Russian World.' declaring it his sacred duty to protect not only citizens of Russia, but all ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking people throughout the world. At some point this idea was quite popular and was the ideological basis for Putin's dictatorship. Russia's economy is the same as the economy of Ukraine during the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych. It is a thieving regime of godfathers. The people at the top don't care about the economic outlook of the country, but of holding on to power. In the context of resolving this problem, such uniting aggression was at one point the best political-technological path for the nation.

- So the occupied parts of the Donbas will be part of Ukraine, and Crimea will remain within the Russian Federation?

- I wouldn't divide them. I think - and have spoken about this repeatedly - that the attempt to lure the Ukrainian leadership with the illusion of territorial integrity (I mean Lugandonia) must be opposed with tougher stance: both Crimea and the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions - these are captured regions of Ukraine, which does not recognize the capture. But it cannot take them back today by force. The Ukrainian army cannot fight with the full might of the Russian army. The occupying power bears full responsibility for everything that happens there. This position, it seems to me, is the most advantageous for Ukraine and will not allow it to be dragged into the kinds of scenarios wherein it would lose sovereignty over its entire territory, enticed by the phantom of alleged preservation of its territorial integrity. Anyway, this Lugandonia is fully controlled by the Russian security forces.

You see, all this time Ukraine has been frightened by Transnistria. But what Putin wants to do now is much worse. First of all, Moldova does not feed Transnistria and does not support it economically, and that's what they are trying to make Ukraine do. And second, and more importantly, the Transnistrian field commanders are not rewriting the Constitution of Moldova, and do not have any veto rights over the determination of the country's policy.

- During the last Victory Day parade in Moscow, we saw that of the most significant leaders in the international arena, only People's Republic of China leader Xi Jinping came to the event. What, in your opinion, is this closeness between China and Russia evidence of?

- This is not the strengthening of ties between Russia and China. This has long been coming, but after the Ukrainian crisis, the process of Russia's absorption by China dramatically intensified. After all, a symbolic thing happened at that parade, something that had not happened in the thousand-year history of Russia. In the parade in front of the Russian leaders - indeed, what Russian leaders - sitting there in the middle was Putin with Mr. Jinping and his wife. Medvedev and the other members of the Russian political beau monde weren't even there. A parade was held of three services of the Chinese Armed Forces: Army, Air Force and Navy.

For the Chinese, who attach great importance to symbols, it was a kind of victory parade. It was a foretaste of their total victory over Russia. By the way, I remind you that about a year ago, also in May, at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum in the presence of Putin and Medvedev, the second man in the Chinese hierarchy, Prime Minister Li said the following: 'You have - the Russians have - a large territory, and we have a lot of hard-working Chinese people. Let us join these resources to enhance our overall economic potential.' The Chinese have never allowed themselves to speak with such blatant arrogance. They are fully confident that Putin's Russia, by cutting itself off from Western civilization, has become very easy prey. Moreover, there are rather influential schools of political-scientific thought in Russia that welcome this process, that consider the Golden Horde to be the Golden Age of Russian history. They believe the process of Russia's absorption by China to be Russia's return to its deepest historical roots. There is truth to this. And in many ways, in my opinion, the Russo-Ukrainian conflict is to a significant extent the conflict between the heirs of Kievan Rus and the heirs of the Golden Horde.

- But at the same time we see that the West's attitude to Russia is changing: the parliament of the Czech Republic has not ratified the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union, Hungary is agreeing to cooperate with Russia in the energy sector, and so on. Could the break-up of Europe and the lifting of sanctions occur in this context?

- Germany plays the key role in the European Union. Here we must pay due tribute to the consistent policy of Merkel. Thanks to Europe's response, the dismemberment of Ukraine was tougher than either I or, very likely, your audience expected. Merkel has to face dual pressures: German business, which wants to further develop its relations with Russia, to make money and close its eyes to anything it doesn't want to see, and Putin's fifth column in the EU, at the forefront of which, paradoxically, are the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary - a country that, more than anyone else, should remember the years 1956 and 1968 (when Soviet troops suppressed popular demonstrations in these countries - Apostrophe), and more than anyone should feel sympathy for Ukraine. Merkel's experience of living in the GDR is a plus. She understands very well the Chekist psychology of Putin, his mentality. She knows who she is dealing with. Merkel is a person whose youth was spent in a state run by the Stasi.

Kerry represents quite the opposite example. I'm not very enthusiastic about Obama's policy, but Kerry is simply a clinical idiot. He doesn't understand who he is dealing with, how they are using him, how they are mocking him, and how they are rubbing his face in it. That's the nature of the West's misunderstanding of the Putin regime: the idea that this is the same kind of regime as in other G8 members, and that it's possible to reach agreement - this is what defines the weakness of the West. Still, the West did understand something small this year. It realizes that the unqualified success, the triumph of Putin in Ukraine makes his next move in implementing the 'Russian World' concept inevitable.

The polite little green men will appear in the Baltics. And there will be a completely different layout there. It will be impossible to say there, as Obama and Rasmussen (former Secretary General NATO - Apostrophe) said on the first day of the seizure of the Crimea: 'Ukraine is not a NATO member, and we have no military obligation to the country. Therefore, we exclude any military intervention.' There [in the Baltics -Ed.], the West will face an agonizing dilemma: either demonstrate a complete collapse of the NATO alliance by failing to fulfill its obligations for the protection of NATO member countries, or go to war with a nuclear power that is constantly threatening to use nuclear weapons.

Therefore, the West will in its own interests take steps, limiting the expansion of Russia in Ukraine, and - in my opinion - the boundaries of this compromise are already defined. The West will be forced to react to further military escalation by Putin, both with tougher economic sanctions against Russia and supplies of weapons to Ukraine. But now it will convince Ukraine to agree to Putin's set of conditions for peaceful coexistence: Crimea is ours, and Lugandonia will be retained within Ukraine, enjoying huge rights not only of local self-government, but blocking the country's foreign policy path as a whole...

- You mentioned an interesting detail, that at the Victory Parade Vladimir Putin distanced himself from some representatives of the Russian elite. This raises the question: how is the power vertical arranged in Russia? Does anyone have influence with Vladimir Putin?

- He probably has to reckon with someone. Well, for example, with [President of Chechnya] Ramzan Kadyrov. But in any case, not with Medvedev. Medvedev is a complete and utter non-entity - an 'iPhone-chik.' That's my brand. I named him that. He is seen that way. In Russia, of course, there are different points of view: there is the party of peace and the party of the war. The position of the party of peace is: 'Yes, Vladimir Vladimirovich. You won a great victory. Crimea is ours! Let's obsess over yet another thing. Do not let the damned Americans drag us into direct military conflict in Ukraine, which could become a second Afghanistan for us. Don't worry: we will strangle Ukraine by economic and political means. Without the direct use of regular troops.' That's how the party of peace differs from the war party, which demands full-scale aggression.

Putin listens to them. He maneuvers. Different views exist with regard to Chechnya. During the investigation into the murder of Nemtsov, it became clear that the FSB wanted to use this killing - in which it was itself apparently involved - to limit the power of Kadyrov or even remove him. Putin definitely does not like this. Some conflicts and discussions arise, as in any human collective, as in the Politburo of the Russian kleptocracy. But on the whole, Putin is maintaining control, acting as the mediator of different clans.

- And does a conflict between Putin and Kadyrov really exist, as the media is bleating about?

- There is another conflict. The siloviki [state officials of the 'power' ministries, such as defense, security, internal affairs and intelligence - Ed.] have long hated Kadyrov. Basically, they have disliked Putin's 'Project Kadyrov' all along. After all, Putin actually gave all the power to Kadyrov and his forces. He even pays tribute to him in the form of budgetary transfers. That is, Kadyrov has more independence than Dudayev and Maskhadov (both of whom led the movement for the independence of Chechnya at different times - Apostrophe) could dream. The only thing he does is he formally declares loyalty not even to Russia, but to Putin personally. The security officials believe that Putin has deprived them of what they call victory in Chechnya. Victory for them would be the genocide of the Chechen population, as was done by General Shamanov and Colonel Budanov. And here, in the investigation into the murder of Nemtsov, they found the chance to publicly express their dissatisfaction with Kadyrov.

But Putin cannot hand over Kadyrov. [Putin's] legitimacy largely depends on him. Do you remember how he (Vladimir Putin - Apostrophe) came to power? Explosions in buildings were organized, and we were told: 'Here's a heroic intelligence officer who will protect us from the terrorists.' After that, it was announced that Putin had won in Chechnya. And if now it turns out that Kadyrov is a criminal, then at a minimum he has to remove him... But how do you remove him if he has a battle-ready army numbering in the tens of thousands?

So begins a third Chechen war, and this is absolutely unacceptable for Putin. So he will never surrender Kadyrov. And, judging by recent events in the development of the conflict, Putin has proposed some sort of compromise, which Kadyrov and the militants have agreed to. That is that the killer [of Nemtsov] is some Dadayev [the name of a Chechen security official who killed himself in Chechnya soon after Nemtsov's killing - Ed.], and it all ends with him. He is the contractor and the organizer.

- In the previous answer you used the word 'kleptocracy.' In connection with this, your article of 2010 - 'How we can defeat the kleptocracy' - co-written with Alexei Kondaurov, immediately springs to memory. In it, among other things, you talked about a single candidate from the opposition forces. Is there such a candidate in Russia now, and was Nemtsov one?

- Boris Nemtsov was definitely not considered in that article. Then, on the eve of the presidential election, they talked about the kind of candidate who could unite both the left and the liberal opposition. Now this issue has lost all relevance. Any fight against the authoritarian regime, including by parliamentary means, using elections, requires two factors. The first is a kind of mass protest movement on the street (this doesn't mean that there has to be a majority of the population, as all revolutions are made by an active minority). There was such a movement in 2011-2012, when just such problems were being discussed in connection with our article. 100,000-150,000 demonstrators came out to the protests. But a second factor is also needed. It is what happened in all revolutions in both Eastern European and the Middle East, and in the Ukrainian revolution. A split of the elites is absolutely necessary. These are two processes inducing each other: the protest movement on the street and the split of elites.

Look at Egypt: up to a million came out there, but nothing moved as long as the generals decided not to oppose Mubarak. So here in Russia, December 2011 was very busy for the government. It was the perfect moment to split the elites. But they showed their solidarity: not the slightest hint of a split. I assure you that if there were such signals, such as the resignation of half of the members of the government or any movements of those same iPhone-chiks, the next day it would not have been 100, but 500 thousand people on the street. There was no kind of split. The Russian elite has shown that it is unhappy with Putin, even afraid of him. But more than that it is afraid to remain without Putin, one on one with society. All of the Russian elites are linked by common crimes, common theft, a common origin of their wealth. Then and now, during the Ukrainian crisis, they have once again shown their solidarity. Their personal, selfish interests are more precious to them than the fate of the country. See how this absolute conformity of our so-called elite prolongs the agony of the Putin regime. But it is making the finale more dramatic.

- What can still facilitate this split?

- The history of Russia says that the split of elites and radical changes in the country facilitate major foreign policy defeats. None of us want an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, but if Putin goes for this escalation - and that really would be a crazy move - it will end in a crushing defeat. This defeat will accelerate the split of elites and the fall of the Putin regime. But it would be cynical to wish to achieve this goal by such means.

- In that article five years ago, in 2010, you wrote about the kleptocracy, about the elite... How much has the situation in Russia changed since that time?

- The position has worsened. It has been an experiment. History created a social experiment in 2011-2012: are the so-called systemic liberals or some other group within the elite ready to support the protest movement? The experiment indicated that they were not. They were not ready. And without the support of the elite, the protest movement is doomed to failure. The result of this experiment inspired Putin. He showed that his rear was strong enough, on the one hand, and on the other hand, in order to provide mass ideological support, he went on an adventure, which for some time created the illusion of patriotic enthusiasm and popular support. But even that was not the main reason for the aggression against Ukraine. Putin was really frightened by the Association Agreement between Ukraine and Europe. In it, he saw the prospect of Ukraine moving on a European course - on the path of reform, providing political and economic competition. This movement was very dangerous for Putin, because it would have created an inspiring example for Russia.

- What do you think about another topical theme: the capture of the Russian soldiers in the Donbas? What kind of reaction has this caused in Russia?

Shortly before our interview I listened to the transmission of Echo Moskvy ['Echo of Moscow' - Ed.], in which the audience was simply asked: 'Who is to blame: the government, or these two people?' And the majority - about 80%? - responded that responsibility lay with the state. And this is indeed true. This is an important situation.

For example, the war criminal Motorola - whom, I hope, will be convicted at some point - he went there voluntarily, at the call of his Motorola heart. He went to kill, including unarmed prisoners. And the two men, the sergeant and the officer, followed orders. And the guilty party is, of course, the state, in giving such a criminal order. Generally, these are not the first people who have found themselves at the hands of Ukrainian security officials. It's just that until recently, the Ukrainian authorities and Poroshenko, who holds his talks with Putin. have avoided putting Moscow in an awkward position.

I was very impressed by the recent interview of Poroshenko, in which he says that he doesn't trust Putin but is forced to negotiate with him because he wants to prevent a war. However, the most recent steps of the Ukrainian leadership suggest that it is becoming increasingly difficult for him not to call a spade a spade for the sake of preserving some sort of trustworthy channels of communication with Moscow. I think the intention to put these military personnel on trial is evidence of this, to prove to Western and Russian public opinion the fact of the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine. And the decision to break military-technical cooperation with Moscow. The Ukrainian authorities are getting closer to full realism in relations with Russia.

- What, in your opinion, will result from the exchange of threats about weapons: the United States has long been considering the possibility of supplying lethal types of weapons to Ukraine, and Russia is allegedly ready to sell Iran the S-300 [Russian-made missile defense system - Ed.]?

- Russia does not threaten to supply the S-300 systems. It just delivers them. The supply agreement was frozen and has now resumed. At the same conference in Sochi, Kerry made a strange statement. He said everything was all right. With regard to the supply of weapons by the United States, public opinion there is very firmly on the side of Ukraine. It seems to be that Obama is also not a very big fan of Putin. He just saves this step in the event of military escalation. After all, he'll have to react somehow. That's why Moscow has also come to the conclusion that military escalation would be more dangerous and much more costly for it.

- How do you see future relations between Ukraine and Russia? What should be done to ensure that they once again become warm and friendly?

- For this the Putin regime must fall. While Putin is in power, until the last day, until the last breath of his political life, he will continue to try to strangle Ukraine by all means available to him.
 
 #3
Moscow Times
May 29, 2015
Putin's Approval Rating Remains at 86% Unfazed by Economic Crisis, Ukraine Conflict
By Jennifer Monaghan

President Vladimir Putin continues to enjoy the approval of a staggering 86 percent of the Russian public, a poll revealed Thursday, indicating levels of support that many Western leaders could only dream of.

Putin's approval rating, announced by independent Moscow-based pollster the Levada Center, sat at the same level last month, when a similarly worded poll was conducted.

By comparison, the most recent Gallup Poll data shows that U.S. President Barack Obama enjoys the approval of a mere 46 percent of Americans. German Chancellor Angela Merkel currently has the approval of 70 percent of her compatriots, Reuters reported in early May.

Meanwhile, 63 percent of the public voiced approval of the actions of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a decrease of three percentage points from a similar Levada poll conducted in April.

Putin's approval rating has soared in 2015 despite economic troubles brought on by Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, rising inflation and continued criticism of the Kremlin by the international community.

His current standing of 86 percent is also a far cry from May 2013, when a comparatively paltry 64 percent of the Russian public said they approved of his actions as president, according to a Levada Center poll.

In a further indication of the public backing for the president, when asked to name a handful of Russian politicians and public figures whom they trusted most, 62 percent named Putin - putting him at the top of the list, and representing an increase of two percentage points from last month's Levada poll.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, in second place, was presented as a trustworthy character by 29 percent of the Russian public, placing him above Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, whom 21 percent of people named, Levada found.

Sixty percent of those polled said they approved of the direction that the country is taking under Putin, again indicating no change from last month's Levada poll. Twenty-three percent of those polled said they disapproved of Russia's current path.

The Levada Center poll was conducted between May 22 and 25 among 1,600 people across 46 Russian regions, with a margin of error no greater than 3.4 percent.

 
 #4
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
May 29, 2015
Why it's crucial for the US to have a balanced debate about Russia
RD Interview: James Carden, author of a new Nation article describing the bias in the mainstream media against Russian experts who refuse to accept the default hardline response to Moscow, explains why a greater diversity of voices is needed on Russia.
By Dominic Basulto

At some point during the Ukraine crisis, the dialogue on the future of the U.S.-Russian relationship was replaced by a monologue in both countries.

The problem, as frequent RD contributor James Carden explains below, is that a plurality of voices on Russia can no longer be easily found within the U.S. mainstream media. In a worst-case scenario, warns Carden, we may see a revival of the McCarthyism trend of the 1950s, when any voices thought to be sympathetic to the Soviet Union were publicly exposed and denounced.

In this Q&A, Carden explains the factors that led to today's toxic environment and warns against the potential implications if this Cold War mentality within the U.S. continues to dominate public discussion about Russia.

Russia Direct: Your article in The Nation raises the important problem of the lack of plurality in U.S. mainstream media. What was your initial inspiration for the article in The Nation? And how hard was it to get it published once it was written?

James Carden: The poisonous atmosphere that has enveloped the U.S.-Russia policy debate has been something that has concerned me for some time. As I point out in my Nation article, beginning in late 2013, early 2014, with the commencement of the crisis in Ukraine, some American journalists and pundits from across the political spectrum began engaging in what can only be described as a concerted campaign of demonization, not only of Russia, but also of scholars, journalists and pundits who raise legitimate questions over America's role leading up to the crisis.

People who have had the temerity to ask questions - like Did NATO expansion play a role in Russia's calculations regarding Crimea? Were sanctions against Russia more or less likely to enflame the situation in the Donbas? Was Mr. Putin solely responsible for the ensuing catastrophe? - suddenly found themselves branded as "extremists" in the pages of The New Republic (which, since then, has undergone a much welcomed metamorphosis), as "anti-Semites" by the Daily Beast, and as Putin's "pathetic American dupes" in the pages of New York magazine. These three examples are only a small sample of the invective that has been directed at what, in reality, is a small group of distinguished Russian experts and foreign policy realists.

As for finding a home for the piece, that was relatively straightforward. The Nation, with its proud history of standing up to the first wave of McCarthyism in the 1950s at a time when thought leaders on the Right were penning defenses of Joe McCarthy (Brent Bozell and William F. Buckley's McCarthy and His Enemies is one prominent example), was a natural home for the piece.

RD: To what extent do you think that the mainstream media has marginalized U.S. foreign policy voices possessing a more nuanced view of Russia?

J.C.: To a large extent. On any given cable or network television news outlet or on any of the prominent op-ed page of the three or four major American newspapers, representatives of both the irresponsible Right (neoconservatives) and irresponsible Left (liberal interventionists) will be given time to air their views on U.S.-Russia policy, while the aforementioned group of Russian experts and realists (who are by no means uncritically "pro-Russian" or uncritical of Mr. Putin's foreign and domestic policies) are, for the most part, nowhere to be found.

The reason for this is not difficult to discern. From the time the crisis in Ukraine began, there has been, by the major media organs and their helpers in the elite press like the New York Review of Books, the (old) New Republic, and many others besides, a willful blurring of the distinction between "explaining" Mr. Putin's policies and actions and "excusing" them.

It is a sad commentary that even a purportedly "liberal" news outlet like MSNBC simply echoes the hardline views of Russia and Ukraine propagated by such far-right outlets as the Fox News Channel and William Kristol's Weekly Standard.

RD: In your article, you warn about the potential for a new bout of McCarthyism in the U.S. To what extent does this lead to the self-censorship of authors, writers and experts who may have different views on Russia?

J.C.: This is more difficult to gauge, butI find it hard to believe that so many extraordinarily capable think tank scholars in Washington  - who obviously know better - have chosen to remain silent. No doubt part of the reason for this is due to what I just explained: If you hold a position contrary to the most hardline American interventionists it is highly unlikely you'll be invited to appear on, to take perhaps the worst example of American political groupthink, MSNBC's Morning Joe.

Yet, that wouldn't prevent these scholars and former government officials from writing about or speaking about the crisis in U.S.-Russian relations in their own fora, and the fact that many have not leads me to believe that the current environment is so toxic that they probably believe that speaking out against this New Cold War mentality may jeopardize their chances of being appointed to a high-level position in the next U.S. administration.

RD: How vital is it that voices in the U.S. foreign policy minority get heard in the mainstream media?

J.C.: It is crucial. The coverage of U.S.-Russia policy is, by and large, one-dimensional. A bit of history is in order. I'll use the Washington Post as an example because I wrote about the Post's approach to U.S. foreign policy at length earlier this year in the pages of The National Interest.

The editorial page of the Post is run by a journalist who cut his teeth covering Russia from Moscow in the 1990s. He, along with scores of likeminded writers, economists, and various and sundry policy hands became heavily invested in the success of the Westernizing "reforms" of the Yeltsin years.

We know how well these "reforms" turned out: By any metric they were an unmitigated disaster for the average Russian. But the Post, like almost every other mainstream American news outlet, glosses over Yeltsin's real record because in facing up to it, they would implicate themselves.

And so, by ignoring Yeltsin's considerable sins, Mr. Putin has become the sole focus of their concern and it is at his feet, not Yeltsin's, where the American punditocracy lays the blame for everything that they believe is wrong with Russia today.  Resting upon faulty premises, theirs is a bad history that, necessarily, midwifes bad policy.

RD: Since your piece has been published in The Nation, what kind of feedback or response have you received?

J.C.: The feedback that I have received has been overwhelmingly positive - the professional Russia-watchers and policy hands who have been kind enough to contact me have, in effect, told me the same thing: "It's about time." Yet I fully expect that the article will unleash yet another round of invective from the usual suspects.

However, looking at it optimistically, that could be taken as a good sign since it will show that the neoconservative and liberal interventionists are losing the policy debate on the merits and have only ad hominem attacks to fall back upon. Plus ca change...
 
 #5
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
May 28, 2015
Lyudmila Alexeyeva: In the end rights activists are taken into consideration
Russia's oldest human rights activist and Director of the Moscow Helsinki Group Lyudmila Alexeyeva is returning this year to the Russian Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, which she left in 2012. RBTH spoke with Alexeyeva about her return, as well as about the murder of liberal politician Boris Nemtsov, the Crimean Tatars, the opposition and much more.
Yekaterina Sinelschikova, RBTH

Lyudmila Alexeyeva was born in 1927 in Yevpatoria, USSR. She became a rights activist by speaking out against the trials of political prisoners in 1966. For this she was fired from work and excluded from the Communist Party. However, she continued distributing underground publications on human rights.

In 1976 she co-founded the Moscow Helsinki Group, but in 1977 emigrated to the U.S. and returned to Russia only in 1993. She is the author of more than one hundred articles on human rights, the book The History of Dissent in the USSR and her memoirs, The Thaw Generation. She has received numerous awards, among which are the French Legion of Honor (2007), the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2009) and the Andrei Sakharov Prize (2009).

RBTH: What will you do in the council? I know that you are very concerned about the 2012 law on foreign agents...

Lyudmila Alexeyeva: Yes, that is precisely what I will be occupied with. This law is complete foolishness. But it is meaningless to try to obtain clarification on the definition of "political activity."

RBTH: Why is it meaningless? This is what many of your activist colleagues are insisting on.

L.A.: Because any organization that receives foreign money becomes a candidate for "agents." No matter how much we clarify this definition, in end, if you really want to you can apply it to just about anything.

RBTH: Then what are you proposing?

L.A.: If we want to solve this problem, we need to look at the internal source of financing. The government cannot finance all the non-governmental organizations. This is not right, since we are not governmental but social, and there are thousands of us. Something else must be done. Vladimir Putin needs to appeal to businesses on our behalf. We have many wealthy people who would be happy to finance us. But they are afraid to endanger their businesses.
 
On Boris Nemtsov and the Crimean Tatars

RBTH: The investigation into the murder of oppositionist Boris Nemtsov has been going on for three months. You doubted from the very beginning that the police would find the person who ordered the assassination. Has your opinion changed?

L.A.: Well, since they still haven't been able to question Ruslan Geremeyev, who, it seems, is the mediator between the people who carried out the assassination and those who ordered it... Geremeyev is in Chechnya and is not accessible for the investigation.

RBTH:According to several mass media sources, Geremeyev was questioned, but only as a witness. Then he left Russia.

L.A.: It's obvious that the whole affair is very obscure. And it looks like everything will be limited to those who carried out the murder, not to those who ordered it, especially since the chief investigator in the case has been substituted. The former investigator, Igor Krasnov, had shown with his previous experience that he knows how to work and is not influenced by political considerations. He was then replaced with Nikolai Tutevich, who is more obedient to his authorities. I think this is a very bad sign.

RBTH: Why do you think that he is more obedient to the authorities?

L.A.: Because the case that he investigated in 2008 resulted in nothing. While the first investigator is known to be very effective.

RBTH: There is another problematic issue that you have been following since the 1960s. This concerns the position of the Crimean Tatars. What is your view of it now?

L.A.: On one hand, I see that President Putin is carrying out the promises he made to Mustafa Dzhemilev (chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People until 2013) when the latter used to come to Moscow. Putin had promised that the Crimean Tatar language would be widely used, that there would be Tatar schools, etc. This is happening.

L.A.: On the other hand, Dzhemilev is not allowed to go to Crimea from Kiev. They are also not allowing Refat Chubarov, the current chairman, who left Crimea for several days, to return. On May 18, the day of the deportation of the Tatars from Crimea in 1944, the Tatars would come together on the main square of Simferopol for an annual gathering. This year they were not allowed to do so. They did it in some far-off Muslim cemetery. That means that the Crimean Tatars do not have the freedom to assemble.
 
On the opposition

RBTH: In 2016 elections will be held to the State Duma and the opposition has announced that it will be participating. In fact, the opposition has united into a coalition precisely for this purpose. You know many of these people. How would you evaluate their potential?

L.A.: The attempt to unite is a great breakthrough. This has never happened before. Moreover, everyone would say: "They can't do anything, it's just a battle of vanities." It's not exactly like that. It's not a matter of vanity, it's just that our society does not have a political culture. And it's obvious why. For a long time the country did not have a chance to engage in a political battle.

RBTH: What, according to you, is political culture?

L.A.: One of its most important elements is the ability to agree, find compromises with people who don't share your views. But here it is all or nothing.

RBTH: Is the lack of political culture the opposition's main problem?

L.A.: No, the main problem is that the opposition is given conditions within which it just can't operate. Its leaders are not shown on television. And in our modern life if a person is not on television, then it is as if he doesn't exist at all. Also, the government is thinking of moving up the date of the 2016 Duma elections, from December to September. It is clear why September: The election campaign will then be held in the summer when no one is around and thus the turnout will be low.

RBTH: The opposition is frequently blamed for not having a leader who the people would follow. Alexei Navalny has two conditional sentences, [political activist] Sergei Udaltsov has recently been moved to a penal colony (where he is serving a term for the organization of mass disorder during a 2012 demonstration). Boris Nemtsov has been killed. Which leader do you see?

L.A.: I am not a politician and do not belong to the opposition. It's difficult for me to judge. But there are people who could be leaders. [There is] Vladimir Ryzhkov, who spent a long period in the State Duma and would be an excellent speaker. But he is nowhere now. Or Mikhail Kasyanov (co-chairman of the RPR-PARNAS Party), who was one of Yeltsin's best ministers and also during Putin's first presidential term. [Former finance minister] Alexei Kudrin...

RBTH: And Mikhail Khodorkovsky?

L.A.: A very talented person! Of course, he would be very helpful.

RBTH: Then what is he doing abroad? Why is he involved in politics from there and not here? Some are charging him with having run away.

L.A.: No, this isn't running away. On the contrary, he really wants to return. He was basically forced to leave Russia. He was allowed to go abroad with the cunning idea of "good, now stay there." But if he was called upon to help the country, he'd return, I'm sure of it. I just know him as a person.
 
On rights activism and the United States

RBTH: There is the stereotypical opinion that rights organizations in Russia are just formal structures and are actually incapable of seriously influencing decisions made in the State Duma, for example. Do you agree with this?

L.A.: Unfortunately, the government does not really heed rights activists. Rights activism in Russia was born in the middle of the 60s and existed for 25 years during the Soviet era. We have experience, there are many professionals among us and I am one of them. If I have been doing this for 50 out of my 87 years, I would have to be an idiot not to have learned how to do it! Therefore I wouldn't say that we don't have any influence. In the end we are taken into consideration.

RBTH: You are listened to by politicians not only in Russia but also abroad. Recently you met U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.

Some people perceive such meetings in an ambiguous manner and describe your activity as betraying the government. Please define your position regarding this issue.

L.A.: To our journalists, to foreign correspondents, to the presidential administration, to Nuland, I say one and the same thing: whatever I think. Rights activism has no borders. They called me from the embassy and said that Nuland wanted to meet with me. Honestly, I don't know why she came. "This law about foreign agents is rather disappointing, isn't it," she says. "Of course, it is disappointing," I respond, "and how foolish." "What do you think, should I speak about it or will I only harm these organizations?" "It's better not to. You'll only harm them." I just answered her questions. And not so that she would protect us. We'll manage to deal with our authorities by ourselves."

RBTH: You lived in the United States for 16 years and are an American citizen. Why did you return to Russia?

L.A.: When in Russia my son and husband, who weren't rights activists, were threatened with arrest, I was forced to leave and I went to America. I returned in the mid-90s when many were allowed to return, while I wasn't - I was still on the KGB blacklist. I don't hide the fact that I have American citizenship. Some say that I should renounce it. I will never go to America, but the country was very good to me in my time. I lived a normal life there in a time when here I would have been in prison. I returned because Russia is my country. And I want to live in my country.
 
 #6
Christian Science Monitor
May 28, 2015
For fear of 'foreign agents,' Kremlin blacklists a Russian charity
Dynasty, which promotes scientific education, is funded almost entirely by Russian communications tycoon Dmitry Zimin. Because he's using offshore accounts to do so, he's run afoul of Kremlin bureaucrats. Critics say it's time for a rethink.
By Fred Weir, Correspondent

MOSCOW - Russia's "foreign agent" law has had no shortage of detractors and defenders over the nearly three years it's been in operation.

Framers claimed their intention was to warn the Russian public about supposed do-gooders who were actually interfering in domestic "political activity" at the behest of Western masters supplying "foreign funding."

Critics complained from the beginning that the vaguely-worded law - which offered neither a clear definition of "political activity" nor "foreign funding" - was bound to be abused by Russian bureaucrats who have little experience, and even less patience, with the complexities of a growing civil society.

Recommended: Sochi, Soviets, and tsars: How much do you know about Russia?
But no one seems able to explain the logic behind the latest addition to the blacklist: Dynasty, a scientific charity solely financed by Russian communications tycoon Dmitry Zimin, and dedicated to promoting scientific education and extending help to struggling Russian graduate students.

'Foreign' Russian funding

Mr. Zimin, who admitted he funds Dynasty from his offshore bank accounts, told journalists he is deeply offended by the decision, and will halt his donations immediately. "Certainly, I will not spend my own money acting under the trademark of some unknown foreign state. I will stop funding Dynasty," he said.

Dynasty was started in 2002 by Zimin, a founder of the Russian telecommunications giant VimpelCom, to help fill in the gaps of Russia's fraying scientific infrastructure. Since then he's spent about $10 million annually to support research, supply textbooks to far-flung Russian schools, and translate important new scientific works into Russian.

But Russian media reports suggest it may have run afoul of authorities due to some lectures it sponsored earlier this year that could have touched on "political" themes. That, plus the technical fact that Zimin's financing arrived from offshore bank accounts, appears to be the rationale for blacklisting it as a "foreign agent."

"It's possible that there were good intentions behind the foundation's work, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't apply the law," Russian Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov told journalists.

But critics say law is running amok and being used in totally non-transparent ways by bureaucrats as a bludgeon to settle scores and stifle criticism without much regard to who it hurts.

Indeed, the Ministry of Justice blacklist of organizations designated as "foreign agents" quickly expanded beyond obvious irritants to the Kremlin - such as anticorruption groups, human rights crusaders, and election monitors - to include environmentalists, a film festival, and even a children's medical charity.

The list now includes about 70 groups, all of whom are obliged to describe themselves as "foreign agents" - which connotes "spy" - in all of their public activities. This week President Vladimir Putin signed an even more draconian law that will make it illegal for Russians to have contact with any organization, anywhere in the world, that authorities deem "undesirable."

'Not a mistake'

"Unfortunately we can't call [Dynasty's situation] a mistake. A very wide variety of civil society groups have been trapped by the broad language of this law, and this case with Dynasty is not really that unusual," says Elena Topoleva-Soldunova, a member of the semi-official Public Chamber, a Kremlin-approved assembly of civil society groups.

"Apparently they found some signs of 'political activity,' but it seems to be very easy to find that. We can only hope that, because this case is so obviously harmful to the country, that it will cause lawmakers to take a fresh look at this legislation. People should raise their voices," she says.

Sergei Popov, an astronomy researcher who has received grants from Dynasty in the past, is more pessimistic.

"Dynasty was a very well-run, transparent organization, that presented one of the few good examples of how to do these things properly. This was a very fragile beginning, in our Russian culture where it's notoriously difficult to mobilize private resources to achieve positive public goals," he says. "Now, I fear, many people will take this as a signal that it's just not worthwhile to attempt such things, because it can be easily broken."
 #7
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
May 29, 2015
New protest monitoring system will track Facebook and Twitter
A system that monitors political protest groups was launched in Russia in May 2015. For now it is only monitoring the local social network VKontakte, but the program will begin analyzing Twitter and Facebook posts in September of this year.
Victoria Zavyalova, RBTH

A new protest monitoring system was launched in Russia on May 18, 2015. It is called Laplace's Demon, in honor of Pierre-Simon Laplace's 19th century mathematical experiment. The system's author is scientist Evgeny Venedictov, the director of the Center for Research on Legitimacy and Political Protest. Venedictov does not hide the fact that his creation was inspired by the mass protests and armed clashes that occurred in Kiev, Ukraine in 2013-2014 that resulted in the change of the country's government.
 
Many likes - people on the streets

According to its developers, the system's potential users are scientists and law enforcement agencies. But Laplace's Demon is already of interest to the protest groups themselves. "A guy wrote to me introducing himself as an investigator," says Venedictov. "But I checked in the social networks and discovered that he himself organizes protests."

Venedictov does not plan on commercializing the technology or give open access to his monitoring system, which was tested recently. The program can only monitor certain groups and user pages, with volunteers compiling the information into a single database. In upcoming months the system will track the VKontakte Russian social network and in September 2015 it will tackle Twitter and then LiveJournal and Facebook.

"Twitter is the leader of protest activity for Russian-language users," explains Venedictov. "Unlike VKontakte, it does not react to the requests of Roskomnadzor (the organ responsible for monitoring and controlling mass media - editor's note) to delete messages and does not delete posts that are of an 'extremist nature.'"

In Venedictov's words, the system tracks the users' "behavioral anomalies," such as the number of likes and comments under the posts. "There is research that shows that the growth of protests and demonstrations is accompanied by an increase of these indicators," remarks Venedictov.

The appearance of the new system has already puzzled representatives of Russian protest groups. "We don't need to be monitored, we are transparent and are ready for dialogue," says Anna Stepanova, president of the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Branch of the Republican Party of Russia - the People's Freedom Party. "Monitoring is some kind of one-sided connection. The government forces people to take to the streets and provokes an open clash instead of settling things that can be resolved peacefully."
 
Who will use the Demon?

There are other indicators that the new monitoring system takes into consideration. Venedictov says that when the algorithms were created in his research center, developers used studies produced by Russian mathematicians. Their results show that people are more likely go to a demonstration if they know someone there, much more than if they just communicate on a social network with someone.

"For example, 80 percent of the online groups associated with the Right Sector in Ukraine (a far-right nationalist political party in Ukraine - editor's note) know each other," Venedictov explains. "In the Russian social networks this indicator is much lower: 15-20 percent. The more people using the social networks know each other personally, the greater their interaction will be in reality."

The system will monitor three types of groups: politically oriented ones, social protest groups and local discussion platforms that unite users based on geography. Russian authorities have monitored such groups before. Experts say that until recently they had used programs such as Semantic Archive to assist in the monitoring process.

"The presidential and ministerial administrations have their own systems and Venedictov is only trying to enter this lucrative market," argues Andrei Soldatov, editor of the Agentura.ru site, which specializes in intelligence services. However, the existing programs were developed for monitoring structural information, such as mass media announcements. To track social media content the system has to be relatively small and configured for concrete objectives.

"Initially my goal was exclusively scientific: I was studying the political process," states Venedictov. "But now I understand that the project can be useful for society." For now Laplace's Demon is not at all linked to the government, but according to its creator, the Russian authorities have already shown interest in the system.
 #8
Interfax
Poll shows 80 per cent of Russian businessmen see economic crisis in the country

Moscow, 28 May: Data from a telephone poll conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) shows that an overwhelming majority of Russian businessmen (80 per cent) believe Russia to be in an economic crisis now, while 16 per cent are sure that there is no crisis.

Two-thirds of those polled believe that the crisis harms the sector in which they work. However, while among those involved in trade the share of this answer is 70 per cent, in agriculture, for instance, it is 44 per cent, and in finance, only 32 per cent.

A substantial proportion of entrepreneurs working in finance, 18 per cent, even said that the current difficulties benefited their sector, while in other sectors of the economy the share of this answer is not higher than 4-7 per cent.

On the question of how the sales of their own enterprise will change in 2015, businessmen's opinions were split. On average, 27 per cent of those polled believe that they will increase and 38 per cent, that they will fall. In agriculture, however, 36 per cent expect an increase, and in finance, 41 per cent (a fall is forecast here by 18 and 29 per cent of businessmen respectively).

FOM polled businessmen from 25 April to 8 May, the sample was 2,003 respondents.

Data from weekly nationwide FOMnibus polls (1,500 respondents each) shows that 78 per cent of people in the country can see an economic crisis. At the same time, the share of those who believe that the economic situation in the country is deteriorating has dropped in the first quarter [of 2015] from 58 to 43 per cent. For 45 per cent of those polled, the crisis shows itself above all in the rise of consumer prices; for 14 per cent, in falling living standards; for 12 per cent, in the rise in unemployment and redundancies; for 8 per cent, in the instability of the rouble exchange rate; and for 7 per cent, in an economic downturn. [Passage omitted: FOM is collecting anticrisis proposals from businessmen]
 #9
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
May 28, 2015
Sberbank CEO Confirms Russia Came Under Financial Attack in December - Was US Involved?
German Gref, leading economic liberal and CEO of Sberbank, discloses foreign based attempt to provoke bank run during December ruble crisis.
By Alexander Mercouris

The theory that the ruble's crash in December last year was at least partly planned has now received powerful confirmation from German Gref, chairman of Sberbank, Russia's biggest bank.

In an interview with the Russian newspaper Vedomosti, Gref said that the December depositors' panic that resulted in about $6 billion being withdrawn from Sberbank in a single day was deliberately provoked in order to destabilise Sberbank and the financial situation in the country. [http://www.vedomosti.ru/finance/characters/2015/05/28/594041-u-nas-takogo-za-vsyu-istoriyu-ne-sluchalos]

According to Gref, on 18th December 2014 Sberbank suffered a massive information attack, with people receiving text messages saying it was facing problems paying out deposits:

"Unfortunately, we could not avoid the panic. You saw what happened. But I can only say this: first, the attack was coordinated, thousands of sms-messages were sent in each region, including a large number of mailings done from foreign websites.

"The target was to destabilise the country's largest bank and financial situation in the country."
The total amount withdrawn from Sberbank on 18th December 2014 apparently came to some 300 billion rubles (about $6 billion), making it the biggest bank run in Russian history.

Gref in his interview did not say who orchestrated the bank run.  

However he clearly has a good idea, based on investigations carried out by Sberbank and no doubt by the Russian security services:

"I would not like to disclose the results. But we do have specific sites and IP-addresses these mailings were sent from, we even know who these addresses belong to. Not all of them are within our reach. But there is no doubt it was a well-planned provocation."

Given the political situation, many Russians will inevitably think it was the U.S.

Such a massive withdrawal of rubles from the banking system would have put pressure on the ruble, especially if (as was likely) many of these rubles were converted into dollars.

The attempt to destabilise Russia's biggest bank failed, partly because of prompt action taken by the government, but also because most of the population refused to panic.

The failed attempt to provoke a run on Sberbank - and the ruble's impressive recovery since December, proving that the sell-off was wildly excessive - must provoke questions about how spontaneous and market-driven the December ruble crash really was.
 
 #10
Moscow Times
May 29, 2015
$110 Billion Expected to Flee Russia This Year as Sanctions Bite

Capital flight from Russia is forecast to hit $110 billion this year, the Economic Development Ministry said Thursday, as Western sanctions limit foreign investment and force Russian companies to pay off billions of dollars in foreign debt.

The ministry's base forecast anticipates that U.S. and EU sanctions over Moscow's actions in Ukraine will remain in place through the end of 2018.

"This means that Russian companies' access to world capital markets will remain limited and there will be quite a high level of capital outflow from the private sector due to debt repayments," the report said.

U.S. and EU sanctions imposed last year on Moscow for its role in the Ukraine crisis have closed off Russian companies' access to international financial markets, leaving them with a total of $109 billion in debt payments coming due this year and little chance of refinancing the loans, the Reuters news agency reported, citing Central Bank data.

Capital flight from Russia soared to an all-time high of $151.5 billion last year, nearly triple the outflow seen in 2013, according to Central Bank data.

The torrential outflow of cash was driven by debt repayments and a severe fall in investor confidence amid Western sanctions and a steep drop in the price of oil, Russia's chief export.

However, panic over the state of Russia's economy seems to have cooled this year as oil prices rise and a shaky truce between Kiev and Moscow-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine continues to hold.

Net capital outflow stood at $32.6 billion in the first three months of the year, down from $72.9 billion in the previous quarter, according to Central Bank data. A recovery in investor confidence and rising oil prices have also bolstered the ruble, which has risen more than 30 percent to the U.S. dollar since the beginning of February after falling 40 percent against the dollar last year.

The Economic Development Ministry predicted that capital flight would slow to $70 billion next year and to $55-60 billion in 2017 and 2018 as political conditions stabilized and investors regained confidence in the Russian economy.

"As international investors' faith returns and the investment climate and business conditions in the Russian economy improve, we expect a significant reduction in capital outflow," the ministry's report said.
 
 #11
Ruble rebound a relief for Russians but hurts revival of local industry competing with imports
May 29, 2015
By JAMES ELLINGWORTH

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's ruble is on a roller-coaster. After being the world's second worst-performing currency against the dollar last year, it is among the best in 2015.

That will help keep a leash on inflation, to the relief of millions of Russians. But it is worrying one part of the economy - the local industry that had seen demand grow for its Russian-made goods when the falling ruble made imports hugely expensive.

Russian sectors, from building materials to craft beer, took advantage of the ruble's drop to undercut better-known imported rivals and gain a bigger domestic market share.

Nikita Filippov, co-owner of a St. Petersburg-based craft brewery, says it was a godsend.

"European beers finally hit the price roof, and bar owners realized that they can't raise their menu prices any more as the beer would become unaffordable," he says. "That was a crucial moment when the bar owners had to reconsider their profit margins for the first time in many years, and that was the time when they turned their faces to local craft breweries."

The government has championed such trends, hoping to get something out of the ruble's dramatic drop last year. One focus is the construction materials sector, as the country prepares to build World Cup venues. Oil companies were also helped, as they sell their product for dollars but have many expenses in rubles, helping to temper the financial pain from lower crude prices.

Now the currency is on the rise again and the government - which only months ago was desperately trying to support the currency - is intervening in markets to keep it from strengthening much further.

After plummeting to nearly 80 rubles against the dollar during panic selling in December, the ruble has recovered to trade at 52.6 per dollar on Friday. That's still means over a third below its level in January 2014, meaning local industry still enjoys some of their competitive advantage over imports.

Russian craft beers on tap, for example, sell for 150 to 200 rubles ($3-4) for a half-liter in Moscow bars compared with 300 rubles ($6) for the imported German and Belgian brands, which have up till now dominated the premium segment.

Demand for Russian craft beer is now twice as high as supply, Filippov estimates. He says costlier imported hops forced him to raise prices by 10-15 percent in December, but that rise is smaller than price hikes for imported rivals.

Stereotypically the preserve of American hipsters, craft beer entered Russia through St. Petersburg, the country's historic "window on Europe," but now some of the most popular brews come from unexpected places like the industrial Ural mountains city of Yekaterinburg or from Tula, better known for making the Russian army's rifles.

The ruble's recent rise has been helped mainly by a recovery in the price of oil, Russia's biggest money-making export, which has rebounded from lows of below $50 a barrel to around $60 a barrel. That's still only half the figure of a year ago.

A sharp increase in interest rates and deep budget cuts have also helped stabilize the currency. On the down side, the economy is still sliding into recession and the U.S. and European Union have shown no sign of letting up on the economic sanctions on Russia.

"If the oil price goes down or if, God forbid, there is further escalation in Ukraine or there is surprising news coming from the Russian economy, which is suffering, then the ruble can take a hit," says Sergei Guriev, a prominent economist and university rector who left Russia in 2013 after coming under pressure from the authorities.
 
 #12
Moscow Times
May 29, 2015
Q&A: The Hardest Job in Russia - Being NATO's Envoy
By Matthew Bodner

In 2010, Robert Pszczel arrived in Moscow to head up NATO's Information Office, a small outpost set up in the confines of the Belgian Embassy with the charge of promoting the 28-member transatlantic military alliance as a peaceful partner in global security.

At that time, NATO and Russia seemed to be getting along. The year before, the two sides had hashed out an agreement to let NATO equipment transit across Russian airspace to support the international combat mission in Afghanistan and joint exercises were held.

For Pszczel, a Polish national who has worked with NATO since 1999, the future seemed bright.

"We were striving, as the formulation goes, toward a strategic partnership [with Russia]," he told The Moscow Times in an interview in his Moscow office.

But in the last two years, as Moscow's attitude toward the West has taken a dramatically negative turn, Pszczel's job has become something of a nightmare. Russia's Defense Ministry does not return his phone calls and, on at least one television show debate, he was derided as a "Russophobe."

The Moscow Times sat down with Pszczel to talk about how his job has changed since arriving in 2010, the nature of Russia's anti-Western fervor, and prospects for the future.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What are your responsibilities as the head of NATO's Information Office in Moscow?

A: We try to engage with Russian society, journalists and think tanks to essentially answer any questions about NATO. Usually I would say maybe half of the questions are what NATO is about, and the other half are what NATO is not about, because there are just so many myths.

When I came here in December 2010, we were sort of at the peak of NATO-Russia relations. We had quite a successful [NATO] summit, and we were striving, as the formulation goes, toward a strategic partnership [with Russia].

Unfortunately, today we are pretty far away from that goal, and that is due, of course, to what happened in Crimea - its annexation by Russia, Russia's role [in the Ukraine crisis], its political and military support for the separatists. So we do have a problem.

Having said this, the tasks of the office which I have the pleasure of leading have not changed.

[But] the truth is that this job has become more difficult over the last year to year and a half, because it's difficult for civil society here [in Russia].

Q: How has your job become more difficult over the last year and a half, as NATO's relations with Russia crumble?

A: To put it bluntly, so many organizations and people are a bit reluctant to engage with us because they get into trouble. It's sad because we aren't trying to impose any views on anybody, but we certainly try to be part of a debate, and debate is necessary.

We try to do that job [encourage debate], but it has because no doubt very difficult for, let's say, political reasons related to NATO-Russia relations, but also because of the difficulties in civil society itself.

Q: What would you say your major challenges are to promoting the message that NATO is not Russia's enemy?

A: Well, to put it very mildly, there's no question that there's an outpouring of negative things [in the Russian media], myths about NATO in particular. NATO stands accused of everything under the sun. It's easy! It's a political football. You can kick it and it doesn't cost anything.

So, there are a lot of these old [Soviet-era] myths and new myths, and sometimes before getting to a real discussion you have to break those myths and say: "No, this is not how things are done."

For example, one of the most ingenious myths from the point of view of geography is that NATO has surrounded Russia with bases. I mean, Russia has about 20,000 kilometers of borders, and the border with NATO countries is only about 1,200 kilometers long, so how on earth are we supposed to do that?

So this is a big problem because there is a certain mind-set [to overcome]. People primarily get their information - particularly about foreign affairs - from television. Just switch on the [state-run] channels in Russia and you hardly ever get anything positive. You just get this caricature, a sort of demonization of NATO.

Usually, it is very difficult to start a discussion, because you can spend the entire time refuting myths.

Also, public opinion polls show things that should worry everybody: the U.S. and other NATO countries are considered to be a threat by the majority of Russians. ... How did this come about? There is no basis for it, so it's pretty serious stuff.

Q: Are you invited often onto the state-run channels to argue and debate?

A: I am, but it's not usually the most pleasant experience because the way debates are conducted are a bit different from what is considered a normal debate in our countries. Usually, if you have an anchor, he or she is supposed to be neutral, right? Well, that's not the case here.

Also, the balance of the debate is usually odd because sometimes you get like 10 people more or less at the same time shouting at you, so clearly they are not on your side nor are they really independent commentators. And very often there are some liberties taken with the topic.

Q: I've noticed that you have quite a large collection of anti-NATO propaganda here in your office. Why do you keep this collection, and how has this type of propaganda evolved in Russia since the Soviet-era?

A: Frankly speaking, I like humor. I started collecting these old NATO caricatures because when I arrived here I felt that one needs to preserve something, some history. These are really history - we were entering a new world, and this was bygone.

[But], interestingly, in the last year to year and a half, I've started seeing some new productions of the genre. The evolution, in my humble view, is that they seem to have been more professional [in the Soviet Union] than the guys today.

This maybe isn't surprising, because it was a whole industry back then. [There's] not yet a [new] industry of anti-Western and anti-NATO propaganda, but there are some major efforts being made.

Apart from the stuff you see in the newspapers, etc., I've noticed that it's become almost a normal thing to go to a tourist shop and see little anti-NATO and anti-Western things.

That's kind of a bit odd, but it tells you about the atmospherics of the country - which frankly does not fill me with great joy. Humor is one thing, humor is good, but these caricatures tell a story.

Q: And where do you see the story going?

A: Well, the story is that somehow, somebody seems to find it convenient to create this image of Russia as a country surrounded by enemies with [a] few exceptions. I think that, first of all, this is a very false picture. Second, it is dangerous to create this image because it is not based on truth, and it builds animosity.

I don't even want to develop the thought of how one special neighboring country, Ukraine, is being portrayed. On one extreme, we hear that they are [Russia's] brothers and sisters, and on the other hand we keep hearing every day that they are some kind of Nazis, hell-bent on the destruction of Russia.

This is very dangerous because this is how you essentially build hatred. Ideally, they should stop! Nothing good comes out of this. These negative images imprint themselves in your head, and they actually prevent you from seeing the other side, from developing normal relations.

So it's not an innocent issue to be taken lightly. It is quite serious.

Q: Have you been forced to step up your efforts to combat this?

A: We would love to step up the efforts if we had the resources, but the truth is that I don't have any illusions that the humble NATO Information Office can change this. This is up to the Russians, and we would very much love to see a different narrative, we would like a different [style of] engagement, and we would certainly like to see more real debate.

Russia is a great country which deserves a great debate. When you switch on the TV in particular there is hardly a debate. You just get five people telling you exactly the same story, usually a very negative one, and that doesn't help because the world is much more complicated than that.

And you know, the irony is that we stand accused of so many bad things, but in reality we - all the allies of NATO - would like to return to the path of cooperation with Russia. But Russia has to want to come back to that path, and that's a problem at the moment.

Q: Five years after taking this job, do you have any regrets?

A: I don't regret it. I don't regret it, even though I was hoping my time here, particularly the last year and a half would be much more pleasant.

What I particularly regret is that we spent a lot of time advertising NATO-[Russia] cooperation, [rather than] informing about NATO, advertising NATO if you like. [But] I really loved doing this [promoting NATO-Russia cooperation] because it opened a lot of eyes, not just here but in NATO countries as well, and unfortunately that is no longer possible.

Q: And you are leaving your position this year?

A: I think it is certainly the case that these are my last months here. I think I am probably the longest-serving head of this office. The office will of course continue its work.

Q: What advice will you give your successor?

A: Well ... keep cool! Don't expect too much, but work to achieve as much as possible. Keep a sense of humor, and try to see Russia from all angles, so to speak. It is a great country, and you meet wonderful people, but he [the successor] will also be faced with unpleasant situations. So try to sort of be able to distinguish between the good bits and the not-so-good bits.
 
 #13
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
May 28, 2015
Perestroika lessons for the U.S. and Russia
Three decades after perestroika, Russian studies experts re-examine the policies that have defined U.S.-Russia relations for 30 years.
Pavel Koshkin, RBTH

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began his famous restructuring, known as perestroika 30 years ago this spring. From 1985, when the reforms began, until the end of the Soviet Union, the interest of Americans in the Soviet Union and Russian language increased, and Soviet-American ties were strengthened through student and professional exchanges as well as through telecasts that connected Soviets and Americans, who were separated both geographically and ideologically.

According to the Modern Language Association, enrollment in Russian language classes in the U.S. nearly doubled during the years preceeding and throughout perestroika. Between 1980 and 1990, the number of people studying Russian in the U.S. increased from about 24,000 to more than 44,000.

Research from Victoria Bonnell and George Breslauer at the University of California, Berkeley indicates that Gorbachev's reforms and, particularly, his policy of glasnost - or openness - which attemped to establish freedom of speech and transparency in governmental institutions, raised excitement among American academics and experts. "From a trickle in 1986, glasnost opened a floodgate by 1989-90; censorship declined dramatically; increasingly sensitive archives were opened both to Soviet and non-Soviet scholars," Bonnell and Breslauer wrote.

Most importantly, perestroika allowed Soviet and American scholars to exchange opinions and publish articles together. People also had the opportunity to regularly participate in joint events such as telecasts and international forums, where, as Bonnell and Breslauer put it, "Soviet scholars became increasingly emboldened to speak their minds."

"The perestroika experience in the U.S.S.R. was a unique phenomenon determined by very specific conditions - most importantly the Soviet Union's reevaluation of its foundation myths and achievements," said Anton Fedyashin, director of the Carmel Institute of Russian Culture and History at American University in Washington D.C. "Doubt is always a healthy thing in human societies since it stimulates introspection and this experience led many people in the U.S.S.R. to express genuine interest in the U.S. and its culture."

Gregory Feifer, a former Moscow correspondent for National Public Radio (2005-2009) and for Radio Free Europe (2009-2012) in Prague, consider the thaw of perestroika as "a great example of two states with apparently opposing ideologies beginning to understand" that cooperation benefits both sides.

Feifer, 43, graduated from Harvard University with a master's in Russian studies in 1998, long after the Soviet collapse. However, since his mother is Russian and his father, American George Feifer, is a journalist who reported about Soviet life during the Cold War, he grew up very much aware of Soviet life.

"My early perception of the U.S.S.R. was little more than a stereotype: a place where life was grim and everything was gray - but that under the surface people were warm and valued love and friendship," he said. "When Gorbachev began perestroika, it was a period of great optimism that the Soviet Union was finally opening."

Kenneth Martinez, who graduated from Stanford University with a master's degree in international studies, focusing on Russia, was born during the very beginning of perestroika in 1985. He studied this period in detail, and sees perestroika as "the shift of power from an older generation to a newer one," a sense of movement in a stagnant society long in need of change.

"What is quite interesting...are the personal ties and trust that characterized the relationships of many diplomats of the older generation during this period," Martinez said. "This created a sense of stability that allowed relationships to be built on mutual respect and on trust - a wary trust, well-characterized by Reagan's slogan of 'trust but verify', but trust nonetheless."

Perestroika: The other side of the coin

In contrast, Nicolai N. Petro, professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island who specializes in Russia, warns against romanticizing perestroika.

"For the Soviet leadership at the time, it was not an effort to promote mutual understanding with the West," he argues. "Rather, it was an attempt to reform the U.S.S.R. and reconnect with the original Leninist ideals of the Bolshevik Revolution."

At best, it was seen as an opportunity to achieve the advancement of U.S. policy interests by taking advantage of the fact that Gorbachev had temporarily disoriented the Soviet leadership; at worst, it was seen as merely another effort by Soviet leaders to bamboozle the West.

Other experts, academics and journalists also do not see perestroika as a clear-cut phenomenon in Soviet-American relations. Many argue that it didn't meet the expectations for either country, which, finally, lead to mutual misunderstanding.

According to Fedyashin "once the floodgates opened, Western and American culture quickly overwhelmed the U.S.S.R., but the dismantlement of the country in 1991 led to two unfortunate consequences," he said.

"In Russia, the end of the Cold War inspired unrealistic expectations about becoming part of a greater West. In the U.S., triumphalist interpretations of victory in the Cold War resulted in unrealistic assumptions about Russia's cultural and political convergence with the West. The outcome was a reluctance to study Russian culture as an integral part of Russian national identity in the West."

Martinez argues that perestroika "opened a can of worms... that acted more like a kicked bag of snakes," and one of them bit its main architect: Gorbachev.

"What resulted was the chaotic Russia of the 1990s, out of which Russia's current institutions were born and that gave 'democracy' and 'capitalism' a bad connotation for many Russians," he said.

Anti-perestroika in U.S.-Russia relations today

Petro believes that the U.S. must look beyond Gorbachev's perestroika to "anticipate the emergence of a new national consensus based on traditional Russian values. Failure to do so would result in misreading Russia as simply an extension of the Soviet Union, and blind us to opportunities for forging a new relationship that come but once in a lifetime," he warns.
"The good news...is that government support will afford more opportunities to study Russia," Petro said. "The bad news is that we will have replicated the ideological, organizational and institutional perspectives of the Cold War, and once again lost sight of the complexity and diversity of Russian life and society."

At the same time, Kenneth Martinez argues that the current trend in U.S.-Russia relations is far different from the one that existed in perestroika. According to him, the potential for open conflict is even greater now than at almost any time during the Cold War.

"There are no established rules to the game, and the amicable relations of the previous generation have crumbled into mutual distrust," he said. "I think this lack of certainty and degeneration of personal relationships are probably one of the worse outcomes for those of the older generation."

When then, will the increasing interest in Russia after the Ukrainian crisis translate into more funding for Russian studies programs in the U.S.? Petro said that "initiatives of this magnitude take years to establish and our focus on Ukraine is barely two years old."

However, as of March, Fedyashin is the director of a new center for Russian studies at American University, christened the Carmel Institute of Russian Culture and History, after philanthropist Susan Carmel Lehrman, who endowed the program in perpetuity for the purpose of continuing the ongoing study of Russian culture and history.
 
 #14
The New Yorker
May 28, 2015
Putin's Russia: Don't Walk, Don't Eat, and Don't Drink
BY MASHA GESSEN

Last Saturday, on a beautiful, sunny afternoon, a friend and I were in Moscow discussing precautions. I confessed to a fear of apartment-building entryways because two people I knew, the parliament member Galina Starovoitova and the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, had been shot dead on their way up to their apartments. "Ever since Nemtsov was killed," my friend said, referring to the February shooting of a Putin opponent, "I don't know anything about precautions anymore. What are you supposed not to do now-walk the streets?"

It would also be prudent now to stop eating and drinking. On Wednesday, Vladimir Kara-Murza, a thirty-three-year-old opposition journalist, was hospitalized in critical condition after he collapsed at his office in Moscow. He was diagnosed with renal failure that had resulted from acute intoxication. Put more simply, the problem was poison.

It is not clear when and how Kara-Murza may have been poisoned, but Russian activists and journalists who get enough death threats and take them sufficiently seriously to hire bodyguards are also usually careful about what they ingest. Soon after the chess champion Garry Kasparov quit the sport to go into politics full time, in 2004, he hired a team of eight bodyguards, who not only accompanied him everywhere but also carried drinking water and food for Kasparov to eat at meals shared in public. Three years ago, Kasparov told me that what he liked most about foreign travel was being able to shed his bodyguards for a while. A year after that, threats drove him to leave Russia permanently.

Attacks by poisoning are possibly even more common in Russia than assassinations by gunfire. Most famously, Alexander Litvinenko, a secret-police whistle-blower, was killed by polonium in London, in 2006. Last week, British newspapers reported that a Russian businessman who dropped dead while jogging in a London suburb in 2012 had been killed by a rare plant poison. He had been a key witness in a money-laundering case that had originally been exposed by the Moscow accountant Sergei Magnitsky, who was tortured to death, in 2009, in a Russian jail.

Two years before Politkovskaya was shot, she suffered multiple-organ failure after ingesting a poison, still unidentified, with tea served to her on a Russian plane. Yuri Shchekochikhin, her colleague at the investigative weekly Novaya Gazeta, died in a Moscow hospital, in 2003, as the result of an apparent poisoning. In 2008, a lawyer who specializes in bringing Russian cases to the European Court of Human Rights, Karinna Moskalenko, fell ill in Strasbourg; her husband and two small children were also unwell. The cause of their illness was identified as mercury that had somehow found its way into their car.

Moskalenko was one of the lead lawyers in the defense of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an oil tycoon who had become Putin's most famous political prisoner. He spent ten years behind bars before Putin granted him clemency before the Sochi Olympics; he is now living in Zurich and running an anti-Putin N.G.O., Open Russia, with offices in London, Prague, and Moscow. Last month, the Moscow office was raided by law enforcement, which seized many of the computers. (Some have since been returned.) Kara-Murza runs Open Russia's multi-city public-lecture program-a difficult job, because most cities in Russia try to shut down his events. The organization itself has so far escaped being shut down because, on paper, it doesn't exist: using a loophole in the law, it has simply not registered-and hence cannot be liquidated the way many other Russian N.G.O.s have been in the past three years.

Like the Soviet regime before it, the Putin government spreads fear by destroying the illusion that one can protect oneself. So Open Russia's leaders think that they can use a loophole in the law to keep themselves safe? the message seems to be. Let's see how safe they feel after one of them is poisoned.

Indeed, the larger message of the Nemtsov assassination and the apparent attempted assassination of Kara-Murza is that no one is safe. Both men are sufficiently well-known to attract the attention of Russia's dwindling oppositional minority, but neither has the superstar status that would preclude identifying with him. If Litvinenko's murder made one think, "Well, but who'd be interested in me?," these attacks put many more people on notice. Don't walk the streets. Don't eat the food. Don't talk.

Speaking of talking, in the past few months, people who work at two Moscow restaurants have warned me, separately, about the precise locations of listening devices at the eateries. The warnings came unbidden. The food at both places was, incidentally, not only very good but also apparently safe. That, along with the springtime sun, helps maintain the bizarre sense of normalcy that has a way of going hand in hand with the mortal danger that has become a fact of everyday life.
 
 #15
The International New York Times
May 30, 2015
The Kremlin vs. The NGOs
Contributing Op-Ed Writer
By MASHA GESSEN
Masha Gessen is the author of seven books, including, most recently, "The Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy."

MOSCOW - A number of strange protests - small, mild and held in a sort of minor key - took place in Russia's main cities this week.

A bookstore in St. Petersburg wrote in its window on Tuesday, "We are proud to be selling books published by the Dynasty Foundation." The Dynasty Foundation, a charitable organization that funds research and educational projects, had just been designated by the authorities as a "foreign agent" - contemporary Russian-speak for an "enemy of the state." In Moscow, a school teacher stood in front of the Justice Ministry holding a cardboard placard. Later, a writer wearing a graduation gown stood in the same spot, holding a sheet of paper in a plastic sleeve. The teacher's sign said, "Dynasty is not an agent"; the writer's said, "Agents yourself."

Dynasty is one of the oldest and largest charities in Russia. Its founder and leader, Dmitry Zimin, seemed, atypically for a rich Russian, to have no enemies - at least until Monday. Mr. Zimin, 82, is widely liked and admired. The oldest of the oligarchs of the 1990s, he is a former radio engineer who made his fortune by starting a cellular-phone network. In 2001, he left the company he founded in order to start a charity to fund scientific research. He then branched out into popular-science publishing, science museums and educational projects. Old enough to remember the Great Terror and his relatives who perished in it, Mr. Zimin had been careful to stay out of political controversies.

The "foreign agent" designation, created by Russian law three years ago, is reserved for NGOs that receive foreign funding and engage in political activity. A sort of scarlet letter, it carries practical consequences. It means that state organizations cannot work with any such organization, and it imposes financial-reporting requirements on NGOs that can paralyze them.

For a charity like Dynasty, which works with schools, libraries and museums, the blow, both moral and practical, is huge. Mr. Zimin has said it hurt him "almost to the point of tears" and that he will no longer finance the foundation. He cannot unilaterally decide to shutter it, but the Dynasty board is likely to make that decision at its meeting early next month.

But how can an educational foundation started by a Russian businessman be considered a "foreign agent" at all? The Justice Ministry points out that Mr. Zimin keeps his money in foreign banks. This is a common practice, used by the Russian government itself, among others, but it does mean that when Mr. Zimin uses his own money to fund his charity, which is in Russia, the money technically travels into the country from abroad.

As for the designation's other requirement - political activity - the ministry argues that Dynasty funds a group called Liberal Mission. Run by a former Russian economics minister, 81-year-old Yevgeny Yasin, the group holds a series of seminars on topics like "Reason, Religion and Democracy" and "The Myths and Realities of Residential Construction in Russia," and awards an annual prize called Politprosvet (Political Education) for explanatory journalism on a political topic. The prize was awarded on Wednesday for the fifth, and likely, last time. When Mr. Zimin appeared on the stage of a Moscow theater, wearing belted jeans and a short-sleeved shirt with a smartphone in its pocket, the audience rose to give him an ovation.

Mr. Yasin's group, Liberal Mission, is also an NGO, and it, too, received the "foreign agent" designation on Monday - because it is funded by Dynasty, which itself has been designated a "foreign agent" because it funds Liberal Mission. This transparently circular logic suggests that however expansive the "foreign agents" law already seemed to be on the books, it is now being applied even more expansively to serve the Kremlin's needs.

Likewise, the Russian Parliament last week rushed through - and President Vladimir Putin immediately signed - a law on "undesirable organizations," which allows the government to summarily shut down such organizations if it finds that they threaten the Russian state. The Carnegie Foundation's Russian branch is in the first batch of five organizations to come under scrutiny under this law.

The Kremlin's attack on NGOs predates the "foreign agents" law. George Soros stopped financing the Russian chapter of his Open Society Foundation back in 2003, under pressure from the authorities. Late that year, the oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was jailed, and over the next few years police and prosecutors hounded his Open Russia Foundation until it stopped operations. Over the last three years, the "foreign agents" law has been used to hit very hard what remained of civil society.

With this week's attacks on two organizations run by octogenarians, the fight against NGOs seems to have entered its final stage. This is happening not so much because the regime is scared of two wise old men who have tried to enlighten the population; it is happening because the state's repressive machine has become unstoppable. It will not quit until it has vacuumed up every last bit of free thought and independent activity in Russia.
 

 #16
www.rt.com
May 28, 2015
'2 million Donbass citizens displaced - people desperate to join their relatives'

Countless families have been separated because of the Ukraine crisis, and authorities on both sides of the conflict should work jointly in order to improve access to benefits and the freedom of movement, William Spindler, UN refugee agency, told RT.

RT: People are fleeing Ukraine despite the truce - an estimated 23 thousand in just the last two weeks. Has the situation gotten any better since the ceasefire took hold?

William Spindler: No, the situation seems to be getting worse, in fact. Fighting is going on or has been happening recently around the towns of Lugansk, Donetsk and Mariupol. The number of people being displaced within Ukraine and also going to other countries has increased and now stands at over two million in total. 1.2 million people have been displaced inside Ukraine, and over 800,000 people have gone to neighboring countries, mainly to the Russian Federation, but also to Belarus, to Poland, to Germany, to France, Italy and other countries.

The situation is very serious, is very worrying - this is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world today. We would like to see greater efforts to bring this crisis to an end, the diplomatic efforts to bring conflict to an end needs to be stepped up, but also the humanitarian response on the ground needs to be stepped up.

We have offices in Lugansk and Donetsk, in many parts of Ukraine. We are distributing essential aid, but our efforts are not sufficient to deal with the needs, and we need also more funding in order to continue our activities. So far, we have less than 40 percent of our needs covered; we need more resources in order to continue our work inside Ukraine.

RT: The shaky truce continues to be violated... Who is to blame for that?

WS: Our organization is dealing with the humanitarian consequences of the conflict; we are not there to monitor the conflict itself. We're trying to deal with the suffering of the civilian population in areas both under the control of the government in Kiev, but also in areas not under the control of Kiev. We have offices in Lugansk, in Donetsk, we're active there, but we're also active in the rest of Ukraine trying to help the response to the needs of the most honorable of the displaced people

RT: Many civilians still remain in conflict zones. Can anything be done to provide them with shelter?

WS: Yes, this is something that is urgently needed. One of our main concerns in fact is the difficulty that people have in crossing the conflict line. We know that families have been separated; in some cases people need to cross the line in order to join relatives or to obtain the benefits that they are entitled to. It is not very easy at the moment. This is something that we would like to see both sides working on in order to improve the access and the freedom of movement among people. Conditions inside areas such as Lugansk and Donetsk continue to be very difficult. Many people are living in substandard accommodation and this also needs to be improved.
 
 #17
Zik (Kyiv)
http://zik.ua
May 28, 2014
Putin still hot on his plan to capture Ukraine, expert

Putin's earlier plan to subdue Ukraine is still on the table, Ambassador Borys Bazylevsky, an expert on security and geopolitics at the Center for Russian Research told journalists May 28, Glavnoe reports.

 "Russia has not stopped its aggression in eastern Ukraine, and the threat of a full-scale war is still looming. Judging by the number of the Russian troops near the border with Ukraine, we can see that Moscow is ready for the worst-case scenario - invasion in Ukraine," he said.

The Russians are concentrating weapons in Crimea, too.

 "Russia wants to legitimize the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk republics and make Ukraine accept their autonomous status. But Russia has not abandoned its original plan to capture Ukraine.

Putin will backtrack only after he sees that his military and economic losses will outweigh the benefits of his military victory," the expert said
 
#18
Zik (Kyiv)
http://zik.ua
May 28, 2014
Yatseniuk's message to EU: give us weapons and we will defend you from Putin

Ukraine needs lethal weapons not to attack, but to defend its territory and EU from the Russian aggressor, Premier Arseny Yatseniuk told the Kyiv forum on security May 28, Ukrinform reports.

 "We are not asking for offensive weapons. We are asking for the weapons to defend ourselves. If you help us to create a more powerful army we will also be able to defend the European Union," he said.

Kremlin is actively strengthening its army, spending billion to modernize it, he said.

Russia's aggression against Ukraine is not a local conflict. It is a geopolitical conflict, and by starting it Russia wiped its feet on the Budapest memorandum and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Russia is waging the war not only on Ukraine but on the entire democratic world and its values. "This is the war between the truth and lies, between the freedom and dictatorship, between the past and the future," Yatseniuk said.
 
 
 #19
New Left Review
http://newleftreview.org
May-June 2015
Maidan Mythologies
The Maidan and civil war from the perspective of an EU think-tank.
By Volodymyr Ishchenko
[Volodymyr Ishchenko is a sociologist studying social protests in Ukraine. He is Deputy Director of the Center for Social and Labor Research in Kiev, an editor of Commons: Journal for Social Criticism, and a lecturer in the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.]

Andrew Wilson, Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West
Yale University Press: New Haven, ct and London 2014, �12.99, paperback
236 pp, 978 0 300 21159 7

Andrew Wilson's earlier publications on Ukraine won him a reputation as a serious historian. His first books-notably Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s (1997), The Ukrainians (2002) and Ukraine's Orange Revolution (2005)-were distinguished by three signal features. Firstly, Wilson argued strongly that while Ukrainian nationalism was a force in the west of the country-where, bred under Austrian and Polish rule, it had mostly possessed a strong right-wing bent-it had only limited appeal in the country as a whole, due to the existence of deep regional, linguistic and ethnic historical divisions. Ukrainian 'national identity', Wilson insisted in The Ukrainians, was essentially a product of the Soviet era. Second, he made no bones about the fact that since 1990, the country had had a sorry economic and political record; the state was thoroughly colonized by oligarchy, thuggery and corruption; civil society remained very weak. It was a myth, Wilson argued, that Ukrainian political culture was more tolerant, democratic and pluralist than Russia's. Third, Wilson provided detailed analysis of the various oligarchic bosses and clans, and of their rivalries. Ukraine's Orange Revolution offered praise for the protests of 2004 and was cautiously optimistic about the Yushchenko-Timoshenko regime that emerged from them.

His latest book, the ill-titled Ukraine Crisis, constitutes a sharp break from this earlier work in direction, tone and genre. This may in part be the product of the author's transformation from historian to foreign-policy agitator: Wilson is now a Senior Fellow of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a lavishly funded think-tank modelled on its American homonym, which has grown since its birth in 2007 to become a large octopus in the eu aquarium. The position has allowed him a back-room role in eu diplomacy-there is a casual reference to his presence at the November 2013 Vilnius summit-and indeed Ukraine Crisis was part-funded by eu Commission money. The book bears the marks of this shift. Readers should not expect to find in its pages a balanced assessment of contending arguments or a systematic analysis of the available sources, followed by well-grounded conclusions. For the most part, this is a one-sided, tendentious account of Ukraine's Maidan protests of 2013-14, the Russian intervention and the civil war, heavily reliant on web-sourced information, anonymous interviews and hectic prose, pieced together to bolster a very specific political agenda. It is driven not by a desire to investigate what actually happened and why, but rather to rebut critics-from all sides-of a Western neoliberal line. The nature of Russian policy, the legitimacy of the Yanukovych government and the character of the Maidan protests are all grist to this mill.

In his introduction, Wilson insists that Ukraine Crisis is not 'an anti-Russian book', before proceeding to deliver exactly that. The anti-Putin message is expressed in the crudest of terms: 'The key to understanding modern Russia is to realize that it is run by some very weird people.' Wilson asserts that Russia's rulers believe their country has been 'constantly humiliated' since 1991; this externally imposed 'humiliation' must now be avenged by restoring its Great Power status. He denies that Russia is in any way 'encircled or threatened' by nato's expansion. His argument is that Russia was brought down by its own oligarchs, the social layer who benefited most from the fall of Communism through their capture of state power and property. Some of the oligarchic groups were wealthier and luckier than others; 'Putin's friends' and the siloviki were able to monopolize power by removing dangerous competitors, marginalizing opponents and manipulating the population with a complex dramaturgy scripted by 'political technologists'. The latest example of this is the 'conservative values' project of 2014, an attempt to shore up a Putin majority after the opposition protests of 2011-12. For Wilson, a similar monopolization of power by Yanukovych and his allies was blocked by the Maidan protests.

Wilson devotes a good few pages to countering the argument-widely propounded by Ukrainian opponents of the Maidan-that Yanukovych was a legitimately elected president, overthrown by a violent 'coup'. He argues that Yanukovych himself was the first to break the formal rules of the game after beating Yulia Tymoshenko in the 2010 presidential election. Reputedly by bribery or threat, he secured the majority vote in parliament needed to remove Tymoshenko from the prime minister's office. Within a year of Yanukovych taking office, Ukraine's Constitutional Court revised the elite compromise agreed after the Orange Revolution of 2004, restoring the old Ukrainian Constitution of 1996 and shifting the balance of power in favour of the President. The prosecution of Tymoshenko for 'abuse of office' began in May 2011. Wilson is right that this was a case of political persecution, when considered alongside other steps to monopolize power. But from a strictly legal perspective, it is questionable to brand Yanukovych an 'illegitimate' ruler. His actions were within the bounds of legal procedure, on the surface at any rate, and Tymoshenko was not innocent of the charges brought against her. The fact that her supporters called for the 'decriminalization' of the article under which Tymoshenko was sentenced was a tacit acknowledgment that she had indeed broken the law.

Yanukovych went on to monopolize political power for his own benefit and that of his 'Family'-in Wilson's telling, a Don Corleone-style clan of close relatives and confidants-while gradually pushing other oligarchs away from the trough. The author quotes a Ukrainian journalist explaining that the President 'wanted to be the richest man in Eastern Europe', and devotes many pages to corruption and extravagant lifestyles among the ruling clique. The sloppiness of his research is evident in his treatment of the alleged figures. In the space of three sentences, Wilson's estimate of the depredations of the Family soars from $8-10bn annually to $100bn overall, the latter figure attributed to post-Maidan Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Wilson doesn't bother to investigate the facts, but $100bn is surely a wild exaggeration. Total state revenues in 2014 were less than $40 billion; if this figure were accurate, the departure of Yanukovych alone should have given a huge boost to the Ukrainian economy. The fact that exactly the opposite happened should have given Wilson cause to doubt Yatsenyuk's claim-and the idea that Yanukovych's corruption, though obviously present, was the greatest problem facing Ukraine.
In line with this approach, Wilson suggests that there was nothing problematic for Ukraine in the eu Association Agreement; the troubles lay with Yanukovych and Russia. Ukraine Crisis argues that Ukraine's Mafioso elite was simply too greedy: instead of embracing 'European values' and the salvation of the eu's structural reform, Kiev switched into 'bribery mode', trumping up claims about lost Russian trade. Wilson offers no serious discussion of the economic consequences the Association Agreement was (and is) likely to have for Ukraine. The either-or choice between a free-trade zone with the eu or a customs union with Russia jeopardized the remnants of Ukraine's high value-added industries, which were mostly connected to ex-Soviet manufacturing chains and stood little chance of surviving in direct competition with West European firms. In 2013, more than half of Ukrainian exports to the eu consisted of low value-added agricultural and metallurgical products, with just 13 per cent coming from the machine- engineering sector-against 30 per cent of exports to Russia and the other cis states. When these costs were taken together with the austerity measures accompanying imf credit lines, the Ukrainian government had
grounds for seeking to extract more concessions in return for signing the eu Agreement.

Although Wilson's analysis of contemporary Ukraine has involved detailed attention to its rival clans, he never asks whether Yanukovych's monopolization of power and 'rule-breaking' on the division of assets could have given some of the outmanoeuvred and frightened oligarchs a strong incentive to support and even to radicalize the Maidan, in order to remove a serious threat to their own power, wealth and property. Of course, a serious answer to this question would require extensive research into the financial, infrastructural and media support for the protests, as well as thorough investigation of a number of suspicious episodes that involved seemingly irrational escalations of violence. This question is particularly vital in the light of the Maidan's political outcome-when, despite strong popular mobilization, anti-oligarchic rhetoric and a widespread distrust of the established opposition parties, there was no serious challenge to the top-down process of power reallocation after Yanukovych's flight.

In Wilson's characterization, the Maidan was an Uprising with a capital U: a protest from below, with progressive demands and broad popular support across the country, legitimately defending itself against police repression; the 'revolution of dignity', as it is now almost officially called in Ukraine. In the introduction to his book, Wilson strains to slot the Maidan into a larger 'cycle of global protest', associating it with the Occupy movement, the Spanish indignados and Egypt's Tahrir Square protests, though he is obliged to note its differentia specifica-reverting to a 'uniquely Ukrainian' and 'old-fashioned' world of projectile cobblestones, Molotov cocktails and violent confrontations with the police, in implicit contrast to the peaceful and carnivalesque 'Twitter revolutions'. Wilson does not ask why the Maidan supporters borrowed only tactics from the global Occupy wave, but were so radically different in their protest's framing and ideology. Why did Ukrainians wave eu flags when anti-austerity protesters inside the eu were more likely to be burning them-and without raising the banners of any exterior power? Why did the Maidan activists not attempt to forge ties of solidarity with protest movements elsewhere? These contrasts and omissions suggest that Maidan was really a mobilization of a very different kind, one that bore only a superficial resemblance to global progressive movements: it had borrowed certain elements of their protest repertoire because it faced similar tactical problems and options in clashes with the police, but did not share-or at least, was not able to articulate-similar goals and grievances. Wilson's attempt to force a fundamentally different form of mobilization into the same category as Occupy, the indignados and the Arab Spring is effectively a rhetorical move, aimed at bestowing a left-liberal legitimacy upon the Maidan.

Ukraine Crisis's two chapters on the Maidan are essentially a polemic against its Russian critics. They avoid any satisfactory discussion of the issues that might complicate Wilson's narrative: the significance of reactionary elements in the protest movement and the limits of its popular support. Thus if all of Yanukovych's irrational, inconsistent and ultimately self-defeating repressive moves are explained by his evil desire to retain unchecked power, then violent escalations and ugly incidents on the protesters' side can easily be ascribed to government agents provocateurs, with no more evidence than a dubious online source or an anonymous interview. Wilson's discussion of the Maidan's far-right current repeats the clichéd arguments that the Maidan was a diverse and multi-ideological movement, in which activists from the ultra-nationalist Svoboda party and the Right Sector constituted a tiny minority. We are assured that the right-wingers who did participate were not really 'fascists' in the strict sense of the term, so there is no need to be afraid of them; the fact that they were defeated in the 2014 elections proves that the 'fascist threat' was little more than a Russian propaganda myth. In any case, Wilson insists, the far right was covertly supported by Yanukovych himself, as a tame opposition, and had been used in 'provocations' against opposition protests before. There is very little corroborating evidence for this claim-Wilson's source is an article on a pro-Maidan website-though it is widely asserted by Ukrainian liberals; conveniently, it helps to downplay internal causes for the rise of the far right, including the responsibility of anti-communist liberals.

Wilson does not attempt to answer the obvious counter-arguments to his assertions about the far right. First, well-organized radical minorities can play a disproportionately significant role in protest movements, and the Maidan offers a striking confirmation of this rule. Our work at the Kiev Centre for Social and Labour Research has shown that the far right were the most visible collective agents in the protests, above all during episodes of violence. Second, the label attached to the Ukrainian far right-'fascists' or 'national conservatives'-is less important than the need to combat its anti-democratic and xenophobic ideas and practices. Third, whether or not Yanukovych succeeded in exploiting the actions of the far right, they had their own agenda and would only have acquired more space to pursue it. Finally, electoral support is just one dimension of political influence. If the far right are now legitimated as heroes of the 'revolution' and the war- if they have secured top positions within the security apparatus and have been allowed to establish armed military units under their control-these are developments that cannot be downplayed or even justified, in the name of patriotism, as many in Ukraine are willing to do at present.

Discussion of the regional dimensions of the protests is astonishingly weak in Ukraine Crisis, which concentrates disproportionately on Kiev and devotes less than half a page to the maidans in other regions. Systematic research conducted by the cslr's team has shown that only 13 per cent of Maidan protests took place in Kiev, with two-thirds occurring in the western and central regions. A more extended discussion of the regional aspect would have compelled Wilson to recognize that Maidan did not have majority support in the southern and eastern regions, which had predominantly voted for Yanukovych. The modest scale of many south-eastern maidans was presumably one of the main reasons they were so easily repressed. Moreover, if Wilson had looked in more detail at the western maidans, he would have been obliged to qualify his claim that Maidan was not an 'armed revolution'. By 20 February 2014, when Wilson describes 'barely armed' Maidan protesters in Kiev being shot by (still unidentified) snipers, Yanukovych had effectively lost control of the western regions, where his opponents had captured a large stock of weaponry from police and military sources-usually without facing serious resistance-and were bringing them to the capital. Wilson himself is told by Oleksandr Danylyuk, leader of the far-right Common Cause, that his men opened fire on the snipers, whose conversations they could intercept-Wilson doesn't ask how-using arms from 'various sources'.

In other words, the Maidan was indeed an armed uprising, responding to sporadic government violence with a violence of its own, heavily skewed in regional support, and with a significant far-right presence. It drew strength from mass popular mobilization but failed to articulate social grievances, allowing itself to be represented politically by oligarchic opposition forces. Ultimately it brought a neoliberal-nationalist government to power in Kiev. What sort of reaction was to be expected from the people of the south- eastern regions, who had voted for Yanukovych and did not support the eu Agreement or the protests? These people were frightened by the Maidan's violence and by the first moves of the Yatsenyuk government against the status of the Russian language. To be sure, such fears were exacerbated by Moscow's tv propaganda, but they had a real basis nonetheless. For Wilson, the answer is simple: they should simply have stayed at home and not protested at all. He effectively reduces the whole 'Eastern Imbroglio'-the heading of his chapter on events in eastern Ukraine-to Russian military intervention and oligarchic manipulation, presenting the Donbas region as a 'criminal Mordor' that has now spawned a revolt of 'lumpens against Ukraine'. Wilson's discussion of these crucial events relies on even shakier sources than his preceding chapters, often drawing on the accounts of Western and Ukrainian figures whose bias is patent. The whole section on Yanukovych's possible involvement in the Donbas uprising is based on information gleaned from an (unnamed) Ukrainian security officer, anonymous pro-Kiev 'Donbas activists' and the journalist Dmytro Tymchuk, whose unreliability is well known. Of 117 endnotes in the central chapter about the war in the east, just two cite pro-Russian separatist sources.

A less prejudiced view-and one less reliant on lazy stereotypes about the culture of the Donbas-would recognize that the anti-Maidan movement in the east was the mirror-image of the Maidans of the west. Both protests were driven by a mixture of just causes and irrational fears, and both were ultimately channelled into a confrontation between competing (and mutually reinforcing) imperialisms, Western and Russian, and nationalisms, Russian and Ukrainian. While Crimea undoubtedly saw a Russian special operation put into effect, it is wrong to suggest that all those who participated in decentralized anti-Maidans in Donetsk, Lugansk, Kharkiv, Odessa and many other cities were mindless puppets of a similar project. Media and scholarly discussion alike have tended to focus excessively on cultural issues, paying much less attention to the economic basis of Ukrainian regionalism and the politics to which it gives rise. Differing attitudes towards the eu Agreement or the customs union with Russia, regionally differentiated geopolitical orientations and participation in Maidans or anti-Maidans are not simply the product of history and cultural identity: they are also rooted in conflicting material interests. Just as someone living in western Ukraine with relatives working in Spain, Poland or Italy might hope for deeper Euro-integration and the freedom to work without visas, their counterpart in the east with a job in heavy industry would have a stake in stable and peaceful relations with Russia. These divergent interests are not antagonistic: we are not speaking of class conflict in the true sense; but imperialist and nationalist competition may make them appear mutually exclusive.

The hectic narrative of Ukraine Crisis is spattered with elementary mistakes. Wilson's errors in calculating the interval between Eastern Orthodox and Western Christmases (he has it as eleven days, not thirteen), or in deciphering the acronyms of nationalist guerrillas of the 1940s and 50s (the Ukrainian Insurgent Army or upa becomes the 'Ukrainian People's Army') are surprising for an author who has been studying the country for more than two decades. Another basic howler is more serious. Wilson attempts to calculate how long Crimea belonged to Russia and Ukraine respectively, concluding that it was part of Russia for just 13 years more and dismissing Russian claims for historical precedence on this basis. The argument is strange enough on its own terms-when have such calculations had any real political significance, other than to legitimate dubious and contested territorial claims?-but is also based on a false premise: that the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was not part of Russia before 1945. In fact, it was part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, with a status clearly lower than that of the Ukrainian, Belarusian and other Soviet Socialist Republics that were formally equally to Russia and could themselves incorporate other autonomous republics within their borders. This is an elementary fact for anyone familiar with the structure of the ussr. In some respects the most revealing sections of Ukraine Crisis are those on the international context. An insufficiently martial, 'postmodern' eu is in large part to blame for the disaster. Following Robert Cooper, Wilson argues that 'nineteenth-century shibboleths' like state sovereignty and hard power have been largely replaced by smart interaction, non-state actors and shared sovereignty-though he decides in the end that the eu is 'a mixture' of post-modern factors and old nation-state traditions, the latter reinforced by the 2008 financial crisis. Russia also mixes the traditional and the postmodern, but in a different way. While travelling in the opposite direction-from multi-national union to traditional nation-state-Russia has 'leapfrogged' into a postmodern political culture of ultra-cynical manipulation, where 'everything is permissible and there is no higher truth'. This makes the eu particularly vulnerable, Wilson claims, as the fiendish new Russia inverts Western 'soft power', deploying Western values against the West itself: cultivating its own fifth columns of pro-Russian ngos, political parties and other civil society structures in neighbouring countries, fighting an 'information war' via tv and the internet, imitating mass mobilizations, insisting on tolerance for diversity, and so on. Needless to say, Wilson does not attempt a systematic comparison between European or American soft power and the Russian alternative, although it would be safe to assume that covert Russian influence is largely confined to its neighbourhood, unlike Washington's global reach. Ukraine Crisis claims that Moscow's support for sympathetic parties, politicians and ngos in Eastern Europe comes to $8 billion a year, which would be striking if true: by comparison, Victoria Nuland gave a figure of just $5 billion for us 'democracy promotion' efforts in Ukraine during the whole post-Soviet era. However, the only source for Wilson's estimate is a conversation with a Lithuanian defence minister.

Ukraine Crisis concludes with an attack on eu passivity. Brussels, Wilson had explained in an opening chapter, 'cannot cope with the big stuff like Russia or old-fashioned war at the edge of Europe'. Few eu member states are spending enough on weaponry; they have to be literally dragged into combat. Fortunately nato had taken charge of bombing Yugoslavia in the 1990s, 'saving Europe from its embarrassing inaction'. Germany is a poor excuse for an eu foreign-policy leader, since its post-war history [sic] rules out the use of military force. As the fighting in the Donbas rumbled on, with Kiev's 'anti-terrorist operation' combating Moscow's 'deniable intervention', Berlin was guilty of 'selective pacifism' in pressing Ukraine to 'lay down its arms'. Culpably, its first priority was that the fighting should stop, 'regardless of guilt'; it allowed Russia to negotiate from positions gained by subversion, rather than pressing for the status quo ante. Worse still, Ukraine may not be hurried into nato as fast as Wilson would like. This is the context for Wilson's appeals to 'higher truths' and 'European values', to the defence of 'basic rights and freedoms we now take for granted in the West'. In tandem with passages demonizing the opposing power-Russia is predictably compared to Nazi Germany-and stigmatizing any opposition as 'useful idiots', Wilson's ideological boilerplate merely serves to legitimate imperialist interests and pro-war mobilization, in a time of sharpened inter-state rivalry.

What of Ukraine's future? Wilson's best outcome is for Kiev to recover complete authority over the east. He has called for the eu to work 'vigorously and proactively' towards monitoring the Russian-Ukrainian border, and to escalate sanctions if Russia does not remove all military hardware from the separatist regions. As a second best option, a frozen conflict might still allow Ukraine to 'move West', as he puts it; he can even contemplate Kiev cutting the Donbas loose, which might disconcert Moscow-though he quickly adds that the West would oppose it, as would many in Ukraine. Nevertheless, a smaller Ukraine might be 'more manageable', he writes in Ukraine Crisis. There could be grounds for hoping its famously 'overlapping or hybrid national identity' might be consolidated in a new 'political nation' which would know neither Jew nor Hellene. Totally dependent on the West for financial help, without ambitions for an independent foreign policy, this manageable Ukraine would then ideally implement radical neoliberal reforms in the style of Georgia's Saakashvili.

Regrettably, Wilson admits, the type of 'big bang' restructuring undergone by the Baltic states in the 1990s must be ruled out for the time being, but he dismisses the notion that 'economic reform would lead to social explosion'-this was 'the same old hack thinking that had held Ukraine back since 1991'. On the contrary, he suggests that the Poroshenko-Yatsenyuk government should see the eastern crisis as an opportunity to press ahead with sweeping changes in the rest of the country. The restraints on the new administration were largely political: after the Maidan, 'much of the old regime remained intact' and 'the old oligarchy was at least temporarily stronger'. Wilson sighs over Yatsenyuk's decision to include the far-right Svoboda Party in his government as 'a proxy for the moral authority of the radical forces on the Maidan'; but he is upbeat about the introduction of market prices for energy, and cheers the passage of the eu Agreement. Under the policies he recommends, utility bills have doubled, inflation was running at 60 per cent in April 2015 and billion-dollar loans from the imf are going straight to Kiev's creditors. Patriotic exhortations may not be enough to cushion the post-Maidan government from further discontent.
 
 #20
Vox.com
May 28, 2015
Is Russia about to invade Ukraine?
by Max Fisher

Russia is massing troops and hundreds of pieces of heavy military equipment, such as tanks and artillery, along Ukraine's border. That's according to Reuters reporter Maria Tsvetkova, who saw and took photos of the deployments on Wednesday. The same day, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told a think tank audience in Washington that Russia had deployed 250 aircraft and 700 pieces of heavy military equipment to the Ukrainian border as part of a military exercise.

Is this the start of another Russian invasion of Ukraine? Disturbingly, Tsvetkova reports that "many of the vehicles have number plates and identifying marks removed while many of the servicemen had taken insignia off their fatigues."

Russian tanks and troops that have previously been used to invade Ukraine - an invasion Moscow does not acknowledge - have similarly removed signifying marks. It's difficult to imagine another reason to do this. Tsvetkova also notes that the road from the military base to the nearby Ukrainian border had been recently repaired.

In August, Russian troops and tanks unofficially invaded eastern Ukraine to bolster pro-Russia separatists who had been losing ground against the Ukrainian army. While the conflict in eastern Ukraine is currently on ceasefire, there are fears that Russia may use the pause in fighting to build up separatist forces, or even to launch an offensive breaking the ceasefire.

However, it is also possible that the Russian military exercises are not preparation for an invasion, but rather an act meant to intimidate and bully Ukraine. As the Wall Street Journal's Julian Barnes wrote, "U.S. officials have said such surprise exercises are being used to destabilize the government of Ukraine." Moscow may be hoping to pressure Ukraine's government to concede better political terms over the ceasefire. Stoltenberg, it is worth noting, did not accuse Russia of using the exercise as a cover for an impending invasion.

Removing insignias and markings from the tanks and troops could, in this reading, be an act of psychological warfare meant to threaten Ukraine by creating confusion as to whether Russia could once more invade. This unknowability is precisely what makes Russian provocations so destabilizing and, in their own way, effective. Ukraine's leaders are in this way trapped within what the journalist Peter Pomerantsev termed the Kremlin Hall of Mirrors.
 
 #21
Moon of Alabama
www.moonofalabama.org
May 28, 2015
Reuters Exclusive: Russian Troops Near Ukraine's Border

European Union sanctions against Russia are up for renewal. To prevent them from being lifted some additional NATO propaganda hyping the Russia threat and warning of an imminent invasion if Ukraine is necessary.

Reuters is always willing to be helpful with this. Consider its record of uncritical Exclusive News on the topic:

March 13 2014 Russia Masses Troops Near Ukraine
April 10 2014 NATO Chief: 40,000 Russian Troops Amassed Near Ukraine's Border
April 13 2014 Well-equipped Russian troops amass near Ukraine border -Britain
May 28 2014 Russia May Have 40,000 Troops Near Ukraine's Border: US sources
July 14 2014 NATO estimates Russia has 10,000-12,000 troops near Ukraine border
July 25 2014 More than 15,000 Russian troops along Ukraine border -U.S. envoy
July 30 2014 Russia increasing troops, moving towards Ukraine border
August 6 2014 NATO says Russia could be poised to invade Ukraine
August 11 2014 Ukraine says Russia has massed 45,000 troops on joint border
November 4 2014 Russian troops moving closer to Ukraine border: NATO chief
November 7 2014 NATO sees increase in Russian troops along Ukraine border
March 28 2015 Russia May Have 40,000 Troops Near Ukraine's Border: US sources
May 27 2015 Exclusive: Russia masses heavy firepower on border with Ukraine - witness

In none of the above stories have I seen any real reporting with a critical assessment of the veracity of such news.

Russia, like any normal state, always has some troops near its borders as well as training areas for larger unit exercises. Troops moving within the wider border area is simply normal.

Some 90% of the Canadian army is stationed less than a hundred miles from the U.S. border. When will Reuters finally manage to report that threat of an immediate invasion?
 
 #22
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
May 29, 2015
Shocker: US Govt Can't Confirm Reports of Russian Mobile Crematoriums in Ukraine
But now that the story's out, who cares if it's "actually" true or not?
By RI Staff  

This is lovely. Now that Bloomberg has breathed life into the "Russia is roasting dead soldiers in Ukraine" Twitter rumor, the U.S. State Department has decided to weigh in:

"The US State Department cannot confirm media reports alleging that Russia has delivered mobile crematoriums to Ukraine, US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told CNN on Wednesday. However, she continued to claim that Russia was trying to hide its presence in Ukraine."

This is classic State Department logic. "We can't confirm this outrageous story, but it certainly supports our theory, which we also can't confirm."

It really is unfair. How can the U.S. prove that Russia is hiding an army in Ukraine, if Russia is hiding an army in Ukraine? It's a paradox! Or something.
 
 #23
Carnegie Moscow Center
May 29, 2015
Why the Kremlin Is Shutting Down the Novorossiya Project
By Andrei Kolesnikov
Kolesnikov is a senior associate and the chair of the Russian Domestic Politics and Political Institutions Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

On May 20, the leaders of the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics (LNR and DNR) announced the abandonment of the Novorossiya project, a hypothetical confederation of states in southeastern Ukraine stretching from Kharkiv to Odessa. DNR Foreign Minister Alexander Kofman said that the idea hadn't attracted enough support outside the separatist territories. Oleg Tsaryov, the speaker of Novorossiya's "Unitary Parliament" and a frequent guest on Russian television, offered a different explanation: "The work of Novorossiya  [official] structures has been frozen because it does not conform to the [Minsk II] peace agreement signed in the presence of the Normandy Four countries [Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France, on February 12]."

It is no coincidence that the closure comes just days after Secretary of State John Kerry met with President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Sochi, and Assistant  Secretary of State Victoria Nuland met with her counterparts in Moscow, marking the highest-level meetings between U.S. and Russian officials in Russia since the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine. Although representatives from the Russian Foreign Ministry insisted that they would not cut a deal with the Americans, the two sides seem to have come to some kind of agreement.

The Novorossiya project would not have been shuttered had Moscow not overtly pressured separatist leaders. A week before the closure, the ultra-right Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin suggested in his weekly column for the "Novorossiya Information Agency" that a "Crimea for Novorossiya" deal was about to be negotiated. According to this agreement, he suggested, the separatists would comply with the Minsk II agreements and attempt to strengthen the DNR's and LNR's autonomy within the borders of Ukraine. Dugin was not alone in his prediction: others have long suggested that such an exchange was possible.

The abrupt abandonment of the Novorossiya project was accompanied by more surprises from the Russian authorities. First, RBC.ru, a Russian newspaper, reported that the date of next year's parliamentary elections might be brought forward, perhaps  to September 2016 instead of December 2016.   The presumed goal of moving the election would be to lower voter turnout and attention by holding the vote right after the busy summer holidays, thereby creating a parliament that is more favorable to the Kremlin.

Second, the State Duma expeditiously passed and Putin signed a law banning "undesirable" foreign non-government organizations.  The new law, which evidently covers commercial entities, creates the legal basis to close any foreign entity, including businesses.  This move displays a willingness to curtail economic ties with the West, scare away Western investment, and continue the authorities' self-destructive counter-sanctions regime against Western businesses.

These draconian measures seem to be the Kremlin's way of compensating some bellicose members of the Russian elite for agreeing to shut down the Novorossiya project, a move that effectively closes the door on their dreams of restoring the Russian empire.

Thus, Moscow seems to have come to the realization that Ukraine has been lost. The West will not let Russia seize the Donbas; thousands of people have died in vain.

If the project is indeed shut down, the Kremlin effectively has admitted defeat, no matter how it tries to spin it. Russian radicals and the ultra-right will see the abandonment of Novorossiya as a victory for the "Atlantic forces" within the country's elite, which they have dubbed the "sixth column." These radicals will have only the Commander-in-Chief to blame.

Perhaps Putin has realized that the expansionist project overextended itself; it is now too dangerous to continue beating the war drum. Or perhaps the Russian president simply lost interest in Novorossiya. He has a different game to play now-that of Russia's "pivot to the East." He has already made this a priority, as evidenced by his lively discussion with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the May 9 Victory Day parade. This game is, like the Novorossiya one, rife with imitations and illusions, and its stakes-strategic and otherwise-are extremely high. Still, the "empire" seems poised to expand eastward or, at the very least, turn its attention to the East and away from eastern Ukraine.
 
 #24
Gazeta.ru
May 20, 2015
Ukrainian experts show change of rhetoric on country's integrity - Russian site
Lyubov Glebovskaya, Kyiv Has Doubts about Donets Basin. How Ukrainian Experts See Situation on Rebel Territories

The rhetoric of the Ukrainian expert community, which previously unanimously defended the need for the return of the Donetsk People's Republic [DNR] and Luhansk People's Republic [LNR] territories to Ukraine, has changed. There is an increasingly popular opinion that it is not all that advantageous to have an unstable territory within your state. The intensive international talks held last week on the situation in the Donets Basin [Donbas] allows the supposition that the sides are close to finding a compromise.

The future of the Donbas [Donbass] began to be actively discussed after the many recent talks between the Ukrainian, US, Russian, and German leaderships. The greatest interest was aroused by US Secretary of State John Kerry's meeting with Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin in Sochi 12 May. It lasted four hours instead of the planned 90 minutes and almost nothing is known about its course and results but many proposals were voiced. On the whole they amount to the fact that finally a chance of a settlement of the Donbas conflict has appeared.

Two important questions remain open: Do the sides have a clear scenario for the settlement of the conflict and what does it actually consist of. To judge from the absence of concrete statements there is no distinct strategy at the moment but there are possible options for the development of events.

The main one is the freezing of the conflict, which virtually all the experts are talking about. And the majority of them consider such an option to be not only the most realistic but also optimal both for Ukraine and for the West.

"We do not have sufficient military resources for victory. The main task is to curb the enemy's forces, organize fortifications around the territories, and transform political institutions in the country itself," Ihor Semivolos, director of the Ukrainian Centre of Middle Eastern Studies, believes.

The territories under the control of the DNR and the LNR will separate economically, politically, and even physically from the main part of the country and all the sides will cease fire or reduce it to a minimum. This format does not mean that the regions will receive formal independence or even autonomy from Ukraine - such an option is not even regarded as real by the country's leadership. Instead it is a question of delaying all the possible processes which will provide an opportunity to hold lengthy multilateral talks.

In addition, during this time Ukraine will have an opportunity to restore its own economy, thereby demonstrating the advantage of territorial integrity over partition.

Undoubtedly there is a fear that in this event the crisis will drag on indefinitely and will increasingly resemble Transnistria [Dniester Region].

Political analyst Oleksiy Haran has an objection to this:

"The West made a mistake then when it legitimized the participants in the talks on the Transnistria side but now the people heading the DNR and the LNR are not independent political players and are not recognized as such by the West," he explains.

Scenarios two and three for the future Donbas are its incorporation into Russia or Ukraine respectively. And whereas a couple of months ago it was believed that each of the countries needs the region, a viewpoint is now gaining in popularity that it is conversely better to be rid of it because it will be too heavy a yoke around the neck of any of the countries that incorporate it.

Different figures are being cited but in any event it is a question of billions of dollars a year. Indeed no one stands to gain from paying such a price for the wrecked territories with a depressed economy.

Ukrainian experts fear that if the LNR and DNR return to Ukraine's fold but in a new, special status, it will have to maintain them from its own state budget and politically it will be a major lever of influence for the Kremlin on Ukraine. It is interesting that the reverse scenario - Kyiv's influence on Moscow by means of the Donbas - is not being considered at all by political and other analysts.

Oleg Ustenko, executive director of the International Bleyzer Foundation, believes that restoration can come exclusively from the Western countries' donor money. "For the restoration of the eastern region's infrastructure it will be necessary to seek non-refundable resources - we simply cannot afford credit," he says.

Ukraine simply does not have sufficient forces of its own for the region's restoration.

According to Ustenko's figures Ukraine's budget deficit now stands at around 8 per cent of GDP. If it is even going to be a question of 1.5bn dollars - and this is the minimum sum that is needed for the restoration of the Donbas, Ukrainian politicians have said - in the expert's words the budget deficit will have to be increased to 10 per cent of GDP, which is extremely difficult to do.
"We already have such a large debt burden as it is: According to this year's results the debt burden will be 90-100 per cent of GDP," he explains.

Whether the Western donors will give so much money is an open question. They are promising all kinds of support and sometimes even go beyond words but of course not in the amounts that will be sufficient for the region's restoration. If the territories find themselves in a different status or within the Russian Federation there is no need at all to expect money from the West for their reconstruction.

After the visits to Kyiv and Moscow Victoria Nuland expressed support but in the most general terms, as is traditional. Only Petro Poroshenko's meeting with French President Francois Hollande where they discussed the sending of peacekeepers to the Donbas - without details, of course - may be considered a more or less concrete result.

From all this it is obvious that neither Kyiv nor the Western politicians taking part in the talks have a precise scenario for how to bring the Donbas back to Ukraine and to do this, furthermore, with minimal human, financial, and political losses.

"Even in the light of the Minsk accords I regard the possibility of the rapid and clearly planned return of the Donbas as illusory. It is virtually impossible to fulfil these terms, it is more a question of a mechanism for deterring the aggressor than a method of resolving the problem of the region," Ihor Semivolos believes.

In Oleksiy Haran's opinion, the important thing is not to move towards the legitimization of the militants and not to accept the opponents' political terms. "We must stabilize the situation on the line of demarcation and at the same time change the situation on the territory under Ukraine's control - a demonstrative effect is needed. Then sooner or later the restoration will take place. Just as East Germany once reunited with West Germany - simply because it had lost the contest," the expert is sure.
 

#25
www.rt.com
May 28, 2015
122mm artillery banned under Minsk peace deal fired in E.Ukraine - OSCE
[Video here http://rt.com/news/262929-weapons-banned-used-ukraine/]

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe has confirmed that shrapnel persistent with 122mm artillery banned under the Minsk packages was used in the latest shelling of a residential area in Gorlovka, eastern Ukraine.

"Our monitors were able to go there yesterday to report on the shelling that happened on Tuesday. The shells started to strike at about 18:00 in several locations in Gorlovka," Michael Bociurkiw, spokesperson for the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine told RT on Thursday.

"The shrapnel was consistent with what's called 122mm artillery. So this is clearly weaponry banned under the Minsk packages," he added.

On Tuesday, a shell hit a residential area in the town of Gorlovka, Donetsk region, in eastern Ukraine. Three civilians, including an 11-year-old girl, her father and another civilian, were killed in the incident.

The town has seen heavy shelling since the start of Kiev's military operation in the region. Senior rebel forces commander Eduard Basurin has blamed the latest shelling on the Ukrainian army.

"Our monitors were able to go to the mortuary to confirm that there were three people who died in the shelling," Bociurkiw said.

He said in this ceasefire which "we have labeled as quite fragile," it is civilians who have been hardest hit.

Besides the ceasefire, the Minsk agreement brokered in the Belorussian capital on February 12 and agreed upon by both Kiev and the local eastern militia, included the withdrawal of heavy weaponry from the frontline and establishment of a security zone separating them.

According to the document, the zone separating the warring parties must be at least 50 kilometers wide for artillery over 100-millimeter caliber, 70 kilometers for regular multiple rocket launchers and 100 kilometers for heavier long-range weapons.

"The OSCE monitoring mission is very busy right now in terms of monitoring what's supposed to be the withdrawal of heavy weaponry , that has not been a completed exercise by any means. Heavy weaponry continues to be moved around by both sides in the conflict zone. And in addition there are also serious challenges in verifying that the removed weaponry is actually staying put out of harm's way," Bociurkiw said.

"This past week on the average day we've launched almost 80 patrols in the east alone. We are the biggest operation with eyes and ears on the ground," he said noting that there has been "deterioration in the situation in the past few days."

In Shirokyno, which is near the front line, in Gorlovka, in and around Donetsk there have been "explosions numbering in the hundreds" and several in civilian areas, he added.

"These are very randomly fired shells," he said.

"The two sides are very close together and when one side fires it often invites return fire," he concluded.

In the latest report dated Wednesday, the OSCE special monitoring mission in Ukraine (SMM) indicated that the number of ceasefire violations had decreased in areas around Donetsk airport.

Regarding the shelling in Gorlovka it said that the monitors saw nine crater impacts within a radius of 200 meters at three locations in residential areas.

"The SMM estimated that the craters were caused by incoming artillery from the north-north-west," the report said. "According to the "DPR" [ Donetsk People's Republic] "emergency services" and local residents, a 38-year-old man and his 11-year-old daughter were killed instantly in this strike and his wife and two young children had been hospitalized with injuries."

Meanwhile, in April the OSCE stated in its daily report that fragile truce in eastern Ukraine has on several occasions been violated by an "unidentified third party."

"According to both Ukrainian Armed Forces and Russian Federation Armed Forces officers at the observation point, an unidentified 'third party' was provoking the two sides," the mission's report said.

The OSCE report did not mention where the fire was coming from, nor did it name the possible perpetrators of the alleged provocations.
 
 
 #26
Moscow Times
May 29, 2015
Putin Classifying Troop Losses Proves They're in Ukraine - Analysts
By Ivan Nechepurenko

Legal amendments introduced Thursday that classify as state secrets any losses sustained during peacetime special operations are further confirmation of Russia's direct involvement in the Ukraine conflict, legal and military experts told The Moscow Times.

The amendments, signed by President Vladimir Putin, make "information disclosing the loss of personnel ... during special operations in peacetime" a classified state secret.

Putin has repeatedly denied any involvement of Russian troops in the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. Asked to explain Putin's move Thursday, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov had no immediate comment, Reuters reported.

Military servicemen who are killed, injured or go missing can be considered military losses, meaning their relatives will be forced to keep information about their deaths a secret, lawyers said Thursday.

"Even a death notification sent to parents or other relatives [of a soldier] can be considered a secret under this decree," Ivan Pavlov, a leading lawyer in the field of government transparency who has successfully defended treason suspects, told The Moscow Times.

The federal list of what constitutes a state secret can be accessed publicly, but government agencies also compile their own lists that are themselves usually classified. Moreover, what the Defense Ministry classifies as a secret could be considered open information by the Interior Ministry, Pavlov said.

"If a citizen, for instance a journalist, obtains information that is considered a state secret, they face prison. The problem is that they might not even know it was a state secret," said Pavlov, who successfully defended Alexander Nikitin, a former nuclear inspector who was accused in the 1990s of espionage for raising the alarm about the dangers posed by decaying nuclear submarines.

Truth and Consequences

Since the conflict in eastern Ukraine broke out following a popular uprising that toppled the former pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych last year, many journalists have investigated reports of Russian troops fighting - and dying - there. The Kremlin denies there are Russian soldiers fighting on the side of pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine.

Last August the Pskovskaya Guberniya newspaper published a series of articles alleging that secret funerals had been held for paratroopers from a local regiment believed to have been killed fighting in Ukraine. One of the newspaper's main writers, Lev Shlosberg, was severely beaten by three unidentified men shortly afterwards.

Leading Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was also working on a report about alleged Russian troop losses in Ukraine at the time of his murder in central Moscow in February.

Other journalists and human rights groups have attempted to find proof that the Russian army is directly involved in helping pro-Russian insurgents in Ukraine.

The St. Petersburg branch of the Soldiers' Mothers Committee - an organization that campaigns to defend the rights of soldiers and their families - sent around 30 requests for information to military units that soldiers' families and media reports have identified as suffering losses in 2014.

Only one unit responded in full, according to the NGO's spokesman Alexander Peredruk.

"The main consequence of this law is that it will basically be impossible to obtain information," Peredruk said in a phone interview with The Moscow Times.

"We won't know what the statistics are, but the truth is, we didn't know before either," he said.

After Russia's five-day war with Georgia in South Ossetia, which was referred to as a special operation, the General Staff announced that it had lost 74 servicemen there.

According to Alexander Khramchikhin, deputy director of the Institute for Political and Military Analysis think tank, there is no internationally accepted norm for classifying special military operations.

"Each country handles these questions its own way; for many this is not an issue. In the United States, such operations are completely classified," he told The Moscow Times in a phone interview.

Ordinary Victims

The key point of the legal amendments is that ordinary people will suffer as a result of them, said Grigory Pasko, a military journalist and director of the Moscow-based Foundation for Investigative Journalism.

"The main victims of this decree are parents and relatives and also soldiers themselves who have gone missing or were killed in combat," he said.

A former officer of the Russian Navy, Pasko served a prison term for espionage in connection with research he did for a report on environmental issues in the Sea of Japan.

Pasko said the Russian state already has all the necessary means to protect its secrets. The high treason article of the Russian Criminal Code says that in addition to espionage and disclosure of state secrets, "any other assistance rendered to a foreign state, a foreign organization or their representatives in hostile activities to the detriment of the external security of the Russian Federation" shall be punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Svetlana Davydova, a mother of seven, was detained in January on suspicion of high treason over a phone call she made to the Ukrainian Embassy in which she warned that Russian troops might have been deployed to eastern Ukraine. She was released and the charges dropped in February.
 
 #27
Ukraine Today
http://uatoday.tv
May 28, 2015
Only public disapproval can make Putin withdraw from Ukraine: Ilya Yashin

Russian opposition figure says the war in east Ukraine will end in a month after Russian troops and mercenaries are withdrawn from the county

This week Ilya Yashin, Russian activist and a colleague of slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, visited Kyiv to present a report about the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine.

In an exclusive interview with Ukraine Today Yashin explained what he personally thinks about Ukraine conflict and when, in his opinion, the war will end.

You said that the withdrawal of Russian forces and mercenaries from eastern Ukraine can stop the war in only one month. What can force Putin to take such a step? The dissatisfaction of oligarchs, who suffer from sanctions? New sanctions?

- Only public opinion. Public opinion has to change before Putin will change Russian policy vis a vis Ukraine. Russians themselves must want it. Putin is very sensitive to the slightest changes in public opinion. ...The most important thing for him is to maintain his high approval ratings.

So, do you believe that Russian public opinion will force Putin to pull Russian troops out of Ukraine?

- Massive public demonstrations in Russia demanding a withdrawal of Russian troops would lead to the start of a national discussion. Putin would then consider it.

I think he could care less.

- That's what you think. But Putin, in fact, reacts to changes in public opinion. He fears a revolution, or a revolt. He understands perfectly well that the smartest thing that he can do is compromise, if necessary.
 
 #28
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
May 27, 2015
Yatsenyuk's Ukrainian Fire Sale
Desperate to raise cash, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk announces a rushed fire sale of Ukraine's prime assets
By Alexander Mercouris

The economic crisis in Ukraine is increasingly exposing the twisted priorities of its government.

It should be said clearly that the existential crisis the Ukrainian economy now faces is a direct consequence of the country's political crisis.

Ukraine's economy was in poor shape in 2013. Decades of corruption and mismanagement had whittled away the economy's potentially large resources, while Yanukovych's policy of maintaining the value of the hryvnia had damaged the economy's competitiveness and denuded its foreign currency reserves. The situation was made worse by constant crippling trade disputes with Russia, Ukraine's biggest trade partner, which was aggravated in 2013 by Yanukovych's decision to seek an Association Agreement with the EU.

However it would have been wrong to speak of an economy in terminal crisis. In December 2013 the short-term funding problems the economy was facing appeared to have been solved, at least temporarily, by Yanukovych's success in negotiating a generous financial package from Russia. This included a $13 billion loan and a large discount on the price of the gas Ukraine was importing from Russia.

What has transformed a bad situation into a catastrophic one is the effect of the Maidan coup and the ideologically driven policies pursued since the coup by the new government.

Not only has the new government quarrelled even further with Russia, forfeiting all the advantages offered by the aid package Yanukovych negotiated with Russia, but its severing of trade links with Russia in favour of far more problematic links with the EU has dealt a body blow to Ukrainian industry.

Beyond these decisions was the catastrophic decision, made in June 2014, to try to solve the challenge the new government faced in Ukraine's eastern regions (triggered by protests at the violent and unconstitutional means it used to come to power) not through dialogue but through war. Given the cost of the war and the vital importance of these regions to the Ukrainian economy, it was inevitable that the result of this decision for the economy would be disastrous, and so it has proved.

Ukraine's economic results for the first quarter have exceeded even the most pessimistic predictions. GDP contracted by an extraordinary 17.6% over the already depressed levels of the first quarter of 2014.  Inflation is supposedly running at an annual rate of 35%. Many analysts question this, with some saying the true inflation rate is closer to 240%.

Trade with both Russia and the EU has collapsed, in the case of the EU by around 40%. Though the hryvnia's value has more than halved, the implosion of Ukraine's industry and the loss of key export industries in the eastern regions means that the country continues to run a trade deficit.

Meanwhile the country's already limited foreign reserves have dwindled further, despite help from the West and the IMF. From around $20 billion on 1st January 2014, they have now fallen to $9.6 billion, a small improvement from the critically low level of $5.7 billion to which they fell during the winter. That improvement was apparently caused by emergency help from the IMF, which however is only likely to provide temporary relief.

Not surprisingly therefore, in light of these catastrophic figures, the Ukrainian government is now moving towards default.

Any objective observer viewing this catastrophic situation would be urging the Ukrainian government to do the obvious step to turn this situation around. This is to make peace with the eastern regions by fully implementing the February Minsk peace plan, and to seek an urgent rapprochement with Russia.

This of course is precisely what the Ukrainian government refuses to do. Instead, as the article attached below from Forbes shows, it continues to chase the phantom of economic rescue by the West - in this case from the US - even though more than a year from the Maidan coup it should be obvious it won't happen.

What Forbes says is now being proposed is an across-the-board fire sale at knock-down prices of the Ukrainian economy's prize assets to US and Western investors. Some of these are likely to be the same assets for which Ukraine has consistently in the past (including under Yanukovych) refused much better Russian offers. Needless to say, Russian offers on this occasion will not be welcome.

The potential for corrupt enrichment on the part of those nominally organising this fire-sale is enormous. It is anyway a strange step coming from people who claim to be Ukrainian patriots - to sell off their country's prized assets at bargain basement prices.

The idea is anyway misconceived. As Forbes correctly points out, no sane US investor is going to sink money into Ukraine in a situation of war, pending default and economic collapse unless, like George Soros, he has an overriding political motive for doing so. Given that few among the hardheaded US investment community do, the prospects of this fire-sale raising much money are slim.

These illusory and desperate plans are no substitute for the hard choices Ukraine's government needs to make. The fact that it is incapable of making them goes far to explain another point made in the article - the plunging support according to opinion polls of its leaders, Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk.
 
 #29
Bloomberg
May 28, 2015
Ukraine Creditors Said to Offer Coupon Cuts, Debt Extensions
by Natasha Doff

Ukraine's creditors including Franklin Templeton put forward a restructuring proposal that includes maturity extensions of up to 10 years and reductions in interest payments of about $500 million.

The offer, submitted on May 9 by a group owning about $8.9 billion of Ukraine's debt, involves amortizing the bonds over a seven-year period starting in 2019, according to a person with knowledge of the thinking of the committee. The group argues that the plan meets all three targets in the International Monetary Fund's $17.5 billion rescue package, the person said, asking not to be identified because the talks are private.

While Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko said May 21 it was a "necessity" for creditors to accept losses on about $20 billion of debt, the bondholder group regards the push for a so-called haircut as arbitrary and politically motivated, the person said. The rift underscores the challenge facing Ukraine in showing the IMF it's made enough progress in the debt talks by mid-June to qualify for its next aid tranche.

It also increased the risk that the two sides may struggle to reach a compromise before the eastern European nation's first note -- a 6.875 percent $500 million security -- comes due on Sept. 23. Other bonds being reprofiled include $2.6 billion of debt maturing in July 2017, which is trading at 46.66 cents on the dollar, up 0.4 cent to the highest in more than two weeks by 12:15 p.m. in Kiev.

'Concrete Proposal'

"It is a concrete proposal that will help Ukraine get through the coming years without the need for a de-facto default," Simon Quijano-Evans, the head of emerging-market research at Commerzbank AG in London, said by e-mail. "A no-haircut scenario would enable Ukraine to access bond markets again this year."

A key hurdle to a deal is Ukraine's insistence the creditors' proposal doesn't go far enough in meeting all three targets required by the IMF to improve debt sustainability over 10 years. The nation's economic situation has unraveled since Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014, sparking a separatist conflict in the easternmost regions. The economy shrank almost 18 percent in the first quarter.

The first IMF goal is to save $15 billion in the next four years. The second calls for reducing the ratio of debt to less than 71 percent of gross domestic product by 2020, while the last involves bringing the budget's gross financing needs to an average of 10 percent of GDP from 2019 to 2025.

Coupon Cuts

The creditor proposal achieves these objectives by lowering the interest and principal burden in the beginning, the person said. The maturity extensions differ from bond to bond and the plan will yield savings for Ukraine of $15.8 billion in the first four years, exceeding the IMF target, according to the person. In the latter years, Ukraine would need to pay higher coupons and gradually repay principal.

The creditor group declined to confirm details of the proposal.

"The committee has its best foot forward and crafted something that either meets the sovereign's requirements or exceeds them," Blackstone Group International Partners LLP said on behalf of the creditor committee in an e-mailed response to questions. "The bondholders in the committee are not opportunistic funds trying to block a deal with a minority stake or make short-term gains."

Writedown Needed

Ukraine, which is being advised by Lazard Ltd., has argued it won't be able to meet the objectives without a principal reduction, a position that is supported by analysts at banks including Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

"A reduction in coupon and nominal is necessary in achieving the IMF's three targets for Ukraine's medium-term debt sustainability," Ukraine's Finance Ministry said in an e-mailed response to questions, reiterating the government's stance.

Franklin Templeton is Ukraine's single biggest creditor, followed by Russia, which has said it won't negotiate terms on the $3 billion Eurobond due in December, purchased from the regime of former President Viktor Yanukovych before he was overthrown in February 2014.

The other committee members are BTG Pactual Europe LLP, TCW Investment Management Co. and T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. The group is in close contact with holders of at least another $1.1 billion of debt, it said in a May 18 statement.

Fair Value

The creditor group sees no fundamental economic rationale for why a haircut is the right approach, and Ukraine hasn't offered an explanation, the person said. A wider $40 billion bailout package for the country envisions Western governments extending about $7.2 billion in bilateral loans or guarantees.

"Ultimately we will have a friendly restructuring and it will involve a relatively small haircut of about 20 percent," Ivan Tchakarov, a Moscow-based economist at Citigroup, said by e-mail. "The fair value of bonds is around 50ish or so. The price moves we are seeing, in my view, now reflect such a scenario."

Tensions flared earlier in May as creditors and Ukraine blamed each other for stalling, signaling they were communicating through the media rather than in private meetings. Ukraine got parliamentary approval on May 19 to impose a moratorium on coupon payments if needed.

The person said the committee has received no substantive response from Ukraine to its proposal nor have there been regular meetings between advisers. Jaresko suggested in an interview last week that creditors were behind much of the delay.

The committee met with Lazard last week and Jaresko has asked for a call with the group, and they will have a call, according to the person.
 
 #30
Interfax-Ukraine
May 29, 2015
Ukraine withdrawing from crisis phase - Jaresko
 
The Ukrainian government is still waiting for the country's economic growth to resume by 2016, and believes the worst of crisis has passed, Finance Minister of Ukraine Natalie Jaresko said at the 8th Kyiv Security Forum on Friday.

"We are gradually, but confidently, withdrawing from the crisis phase," she said.

She said that the top priorities of the government are macro-stabilization, settling the debt issue thanks to restructuring, attracting investment, and the fundamental improvement of the business environment.

She said that the new Extended Fund Facility (EFF) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has doubled reserves and stabilizes the hryvnia exchange rate.

Jaresko said that the size of the debt remains too large and the government does not plan to shift the problem to future generations and has proposed that private creditors should reduce the debt and credit rates.

"Negotiations [with private creditors] are very hard," she said.

However, she said that Ukraine's plans are supported by the IMF, the United States, and by other partners.

Commenting on investment, Jaresko said the finance ministry has been set the task of starting attraction from H2 2015.

She added that by September a draft radical reform of taxes aimed at expanding the taxation base is due to be announced which will be aimed at withdrawing the economy from the shadows, increasing the tax burden on rich people, and liquidating tax loopholes and smuggling.

Jaresko said that from October 1, 2015 Ukrainian royalty policy will also be changed.
 
 #31
Kyiv Post
May 27, 2015
Chechen fighter transfers struggle against Kremlin to Ukraine
By Oleg Sukhov and Volodymyr Petrov

NOVOMOSKOVSK, Ukraine - Adam Osmayev, an anti-Kremlin Chechen who is helping Ukraine ward off Russian aggression, doesn't have a typical long beard associated with Islamist rebels. He is neither impulsive nor emotional nor, he says, a radical.

He is an opportunist and he sees his chance in Ukraine. The nation is providing him with the best opportunity to continue his lifelong struggle against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

Though Osmayev sympathizes with the Chechen insurgency against the Kremlin, he believes North Caucasian rebels have made a mistake by embracing radical Islam.

The base of Osmayev's Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion near the city of Novomoskovsk in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast is a humble one - just a few buildings.

Osmayev invited a Kyiv Post reporter to sit on a tree stump and sip tea as two furry red cats were strolling nearby. The base's barracks are adorned with Ukrainian, Chechen and Georgian flags and barricaded with sandbags.

The battalion is named after Chechen insurgent leader Dzhokhar Dudayev, who has had streets named after him in Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk. Dudayev was the first president of the short-lived independent Chechnya. He was assassinated in 1996 by the Russian government, which waged two wars to force the breakaway republic into submission.

Osmayev comes from a family of pro-Russian Chechens that used to cooperate with the pro-Kremlin Akhmat Kadyrov and his son and successor, Ramzan Kadyrov.

His father Aslambek used to own an oil firm in Chechnya, while his uncle, Amin, was the speaker of the pro-Kremlin Chechen legislature and a member of the Russian parliament's upper house in 1995-1998.

Osmayev says he has had frequent debates with his father and uncle, persuading them to oppose Russia.

In 1994-2001, Osmayev went to the U.K.'s Wycliffe College and then studied economics at Buckingham University without graduating.

He moved back to Russia in 2001, when a Chechen insurgency against Russian authorities was in full swing. However, Osmayev is secretive about this stage of his life and would not say whether he took part in the insurgency. He said, however, that he used to be an executive of a business consulting firm in Moscow.

Osmayev was accused of complicity in a terrorist attack in Moscow in 2007 - a charge that he denies - and fled Russia, moving to Odesa in 2008.

In 2012 he was arrested by the Security Service of Ukraine and Russia's Federal Security Service in Odesa and accused of plotting an assassination attempt on Putin.

Osmayev says the case is fabricated and politically motivated.

In November, Osmayev was found guilty of the illegal use of explosives and document forgery by an Odesa court but he was released since he had already served his term by that time.

Then he joined the Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion and succeeded Isa Munayev, who was killed in battle, as its head in February.

Osmayev's primary motivation in Russia's war against Ukraine is that Ukraine and Chechnya have a common enemy.

"In Chechnya we faced the same thing that Ukraine is facing," he said. "You can't even imagine what kind of monster you are up against."

Osmayev believes pro-Russian Chechen leader Kadyrov to be his arch-enemy and criticizes him for "spoiling the Chechen people" by establishing a dictatorial regime. "Chechen people have never accepted authoritarianism before," he said. "We have never had kings. (The Chechen spirit) contradicts the Asiatic mentality."

Kadyrov's fighters have fought against Ukrainian troops in Donbas.

However, many of them reportedly withdrew from eastern Ukraine in recent months amid a conflict with separatist leadership and increasing tensions between Kadyrov and the Kremlin.

Though Osmayev supports Chechen insurgents fighting against Kadyrov and Russia, he is against Islamic radicalism.

"Extremists caused a lot of damage. I see the same threat in Ukraine," he said, adding that radicals could start destabilizing the government. "You don't change horses in mid-stream."

The Islamization of Chechen and North Caucasian rebels began after secular Chechen leader Dudayev was killed by Russian troops in 1996. The radicalization peaked when some of them pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in late 2014.

Osmayev is emphatically against the Islamic State, a radical Islamist group in which Chechens led by Abu Omar al-Shishani reportedly play a decisive military role. He says that some former Kadyrov loyalists had gone to Syria to fight for the Islamic State.

"Extremes are similar," he says, arguing that supporters of Kadyrov's dictatorship resemble those of the Islamic State.

Osmayev's battalion specializes in subversion and countering the enemy's subversive groups. He said that Russian subversive groups had stepped up their raids in Luhansk Oblast in recent weeks and are trying to occupy buffer zones adjacent to the front line.

"The fact that they are sending GRU (Russian military intelligence) officers proves that their intentions are serious," he said, referring to the capture of two Russian GRU officers by Ukrainian troops on May 16.

The unit, which previously had no legal status, is currently undergoing legalization. Ukrainian citizens will join the Interior Ministry's Zoloti Borota battalion, while foreign citizens are expected to join army units under a bill enabling foreign fighters to get Ukrainian citizenship, Osmayev said.

The bill was passed by the Verkhovna Rada in the first reading in April. Osmayev said he was unhappy with the situation in which pro-Russian Ukrainians had Ukrainian citizenship, while some of those fighting for Ukraine didn't.

"Those who want to destroy this state have Ukrainian passports, while those who protect it don't," he said.

Another problem that the Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion had is that some fighters left it last October and set up another Chechen unit, the Sheikh Mansur Battalion - named after an 18th century Chechen insurgent.

Osmayev could not comment on the reasons for this, however.

The Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion comprises not only Ukrainians, who form the bulk of the unit, and Chechens but also Azeris, Ingush, Tatars and Georgians.

Iralki, a Georgian, has a personal motivation to fight for Ukraine. One of his ancestors fought against Soviet Russia during its invasion of Georgia in 1921, while his father fought against Georgia's Russian-backed breakaway republic of Abkhazia in 1992-1993.

He believes Russia betrayed Georgia by effectively breaking their 1783 protectorate treaty and annexing the country in 1800 - something that could be compared with the annexation of Crimea last March.

"Those who know they are to blame are capable of everything to justify their crimes," Irakli said, commenting on Russia and Kremlin-backed separatists.

Another fighter, Abrek, is mocked by his comrades because he is a native Ukrainian despite looking like a Chechen and having a typical Chechen beard and a Caucasian nom-de-guerre.

"Abrek is someone who renounced everything to protect his land," Abrek, an agronomist, told the Kyiv Post. "If Putin had not launched his aggression, I would grow strawberries."
 
 #32
The Vineyard of the Saker
http://thesaker.is
May 29, 2015
Saker interview with "Ramzes" - a Spetsnaz GRU officer

The Saker: Please introduce yourself in a few words, tell us which Brigade you served in, what rank you achieved there and what your military speciality was?

Ramzes: My GRU Spetsnaz call sign was Ramzes. I was born in Russia. I began service in 1994 and finished service in 1999. I was an airborne cadet for four years and served as an officer with the rank of lieutenant for one year after that. I served in the 16th Brigade of the GRU Spetsnaz based out of Chuchkovo. I was the commander of 25 GRU Spetsnaz soldiers. As the commander of this group it was mandatory that I was proficient and educated as a sniper, explosives & ordnace specialist, radio communication as well as use of the English language. To be a Spetsnaz commander you must be trained in all aspects of warfare employed by your entire unit.

In Spetsnaz GRU there is no platoon structure per se as in regular army units, we operate as a group and although command line is respected, all members of the group are active in intelligence and planning as well as mission execution. In Spetsnaz everybody is aware of the full situation and they all have the responsibility and opportunity to think about what the mission is and to weigh in at any time and if needed to think and operate on their own if required. Every member of the group must be able to act independently without needing immediate orders, yet knowing what the full scope of the mission is. They can all address the situation and assess and contribute their opinion on operations. As a commander I listen to everybody and make the final decision. This makes Spetsnaz more effective.

The Saker: There are many elite units in the Russian military, including the SOBR and ODON units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Alpha and Vympel Spetsnaz of the FSB, the 4 divisions and 8 brigades of the VDV, the Navy's Spetsnaz units, the "Zaslon" unit of the SVR, etc. How would you compare these forces to the 7 Spetsnaz GRU brigades? What makes the Spetsnaz GRU unique and different?

Ramzes: In the beginning Spetsnaz was only GRU. They are the original and some say true Special Forces. During the 1990's the reputation of the Spetznas was renowned throughout Russia and deeply respected. At this time all the forces created there own Spetsnaz units to piggyback on the reputation and elite status of the original GRU Spetsnaz. The very identity of Spetsnaz became a catch word for the elite unit within all of the various military and security organisations.

Now if you say that you are Spetsnaz there is more responsibility to live up to a certain reputation as the situation in Russia is exceptionally more advanced and capable compared to the 90's.

Originally the main operational concept of the Special Forces was to execute our missions on the territory of the enemy. Now there are domestic Spetsnaz and all sorts of various Spetsnaz delegations that were not trained for foreign incursions like the original GRU Spetsnaz.

When we were trained all GRU Spetsnaz were educated in one or more several key languages. Farsi, Mandarin, English, Arabic, French. Now they learn a greater variety of languages. For example during the Afghan War our Spetsnaz were fluent in various local dialects and after this experience this practice was expanded.

The Saker: It is often reported that there are Spetsnaz GRU units formed exclusively of officers and NCOs which are used in more complex and demanding operations. Is that so and, if yes, are these units part of the Spetsnaz Brigades or are they directly depending on the 5th (or 8th?) GRU Directorate in Moscow?

Ramzes: I can say only this. There are GRU Spetsnaz groups that consist of only officers. Every group will be working under the directorate of the GRU. Of course the most difficult and delicate missions are for groups composed of officers only officers and NCO's.

The Saker: As far as I know, the original primary mission of the Spetsnaz GRU forces was the detection of NATO missile launchers and associated command posts, combined with deep reconnaissance and diversionary attacks. During the Eltsin years Spetnaz GRU forces were used in all sorts of manners which have very little to do with their original mission: they were used as infantry, as assault units, as anti-terrorist units, as protection units for generals, etc. Is that still the case today and how to you see the future of the Spetsnaz GRU and what kind of missions would you want them assigned to?

Ramzes: Detecting missile launch sites was only one (of many) mission designations of GRU Spetsnaz units. I think active serving Spetsnaz of GRU were never used for any security detail for Generals. They had other missions, again always on foreign soil.

Security is provided by other teams not GRU. Even during Yeltsin years GRU Spetsnaz were only assigned to foreign territory. Protection of generals, assault troops, anti-terrorist Spetsnaz of MVD (police) not GRU. Not exclusively however, there are several incidents when GRU Spetsnaz did assist when large scale assaults on domestic territory were active, like various scenarios in chechnia, but again very rare.

Of course retired GRU officers can enter into active duty with MVD or other units if they choose after they finish their service w/ the GRU.

As for what I would like to see them assigned to - that depends on the situation, but of course the main idea is to protect Russia.

The Saker: The 16th Spetsnaz Brigade saw combat in Afghanistan, Tadjikistan, Chechnia, the North Caucasus and Abkhazia and soliders from this Brigade also served in Kosovo. I also have very strong suspicions that the Brigade was sent into Moscow in 1993 in the days right after the end of the combats around the White House and the Ostankino Tower. Did these conflicts trigger changes inside the organization or training of the Brigade? Which of those wars were the most difficult ones for the Brigade?

Ramzes: Perhaps this question is not the right one to ask or it is phrased in a way that can not clearly be answered. For example regarding the wars, it depends on the specific mission, there could be one mission in Afghanistan that was a complete success and one in Chechnia that was a terrible failure but we can not assess based on region or war, but based on each individual mission. Considering this we can say that Afghanistan provided the most rich experience simply due to the duration and variety of the missions. While Chechnia had some intense and complex missions GRU Spetsnaz were not deployed in this conflict as much as the general public assumes, as again this was on domestic territory.

None of these conflicts resulted in any diametric changes within the GRU Spetsnaz, yet the training and tactics are constantly evolving. If you are an officer or soldier for Spetsnaz your mission is to serve the people of Russia exclusively and at all times. I can personally say that the 16th were very clever soldiers who understood their situation and that the commanders could never nor would ever order their units to take any aggressive action against citizens of the RF, nor act as crowd control against the people of Russia, especially as per the situation inside Moscow during 1993, no GRU Spetsnaz were involved in these incidents.

Of course the Spetsnaz GRU always modernizes and updates tactics and strategy from experience. When I was a cadet we learned things that the cadets today probably do not learn due to the rapidly evolving nature of missions, experiences, technology, tactics and geopolitics.

During WW2 we had one specific tactic and now we have various tactics and the differences are understandably very significant. For example better equipment, improved battlefield awareness, logistics... Of course the basic ideas and principles are the same but also much improved.

Today of course their is much more money to fund and supply our soldiers than in the 90's and our technology is now highly advanced and is far greater today then when I served.

I am envious of what equipment they have to work with today. GRU Spetsnaz are in all likelihood far stronger and more capable today than they were when I was in service, however at the core we have the same ideals and work habits.

The Saker: How surprised were you when the Polite Men in green conducted an absolutely brilliant operation in Crimea which they managed to secure without a single person being shot even though the peninsula was full of elite Ukrainian units including many sent from the western Ukraine? Does this operation show that the modern Spetsnaz GRU forces are as good as the old Soviet ones or, possibly, that they have become even better than the used to be?

Ramzes: Was I surprised, well yes, but I understand that such success is possible, even 20 years ago it was possible. Taking the enemy whole without the loss of life is one of the greatest ways to achieve victory in any mission. This is a very significant example of mission success. This is a case when the art of martial tactics shines more brilliantly than the forces of war.

Of course GRU Spetsnaz is now better than 20 years ago. With better equipment, radio, satellite, weapons, GPS etc... It all provides huge advantages. The reduction in weight alone is a massive operational advantage as well as the reduced size of technology used and what it can achieve. We had a compass and map, today they have smart phones and gadgets that provide truly amazing intelligence and tactical capabilities to out groups.

The Saker: The Urkonazi junta is constantly claiming that Spetsnaz GRU units are operating in the Donbass. Purely in theory, would you say that that this is possible or do you completely exclude such a possiblity. Please explain the reasons for your reply. What do you make of this video:

Ramzes: As for there being Spetznas in Donbass - you can have it both ways. It is extremely unlikely, but however, well anything is possible.

Just as it is possible that GRU Spetsnaz can be in the USA, Canada, Germany, Israel, Saudi Arabia at this moment. They might even be in China, Venezuela or Iran etc...

But GRU will not be operating inside Russia.

Спецназ ГРУ 1American readers need not to worry, no GRU Spetsnaz will be popping up in front of the White House or on Wall Street anytime soon, wearing telnyashkas and sporting prison tattoos with big beards etc... These Hollywood stereotypes do not reflect a true active GRU Spetsnaz soldier, so don't believe the scripts. You will never know we are there.

Reconnaissance is one of our main missions. Our tactics are to never engage in direct battle, we will only engage once we are shot upon. If we are discovered, several people might stay behind to fight while the rest of the group will disappear.

Maybe there are retired ex-military Spetsnaz personnel who are acting independently trying to help the people of Donbass, if the Ukranians catch retired personnel and discover the previous identities than they may make such claims, but it is NO active GRU unit would be involved in such manners. That is not our function. Also if someone is tortured they will say anything. Intelligence obtained under duress and bodily harm is never accurate. It is only used for public consumption. So if a personal is captured they can be forced to say anything, it means very little.

If I left to Donbass by the command of my heart to help the people and was captured, they would claim they caught a Spetsnaz officer, but I would be acting on my own. As a Spetsnaz officer we would never wear any distinguishing badges or marks, nor reveal our identities.

If you think about it  - no GRU Spetsnaz unit of 12-25 men would stay and engage in a fire fight against 200 Azov or Right Sector soldiers. That would be stupid. Spetsnaz do not engage in stupidity. This whole video wreaks of disinformation and I do not think it holds much validity. It is for public consumption like Hollywood movies it does not reflect real warfare tactics.

The Saker: There are constant rumors about US and Polish special forces operating on the Urkonazi side. Again, in theory, do you think that this is possible? What would the foreign special forces offer which the Ukrainian special forces would not be capable of?

Ramzes: I think it is very possible. I think they are helping behind the line of contact, providing expert advisors who tell the private armies and the Ukrainian soldiers what to do, how to do it, when to do it and so on... They will be coaching and encouraging these people how to fight. Providing intelligence, equipment and strategy but most likely not engaged in the fighting. You may have individuals among the Right Sector or Azov Battalions across the line of contacts, but most likely no American or Polish units or groups operating as they would typically.

It is now very much like it was in Georgia during the 90's and now again today. Americans and other nationals provide most of the training, provide the equipment and intelligence but do not engage in battle themselves.

As far as Maidan, nobody knows whether it was Polish snipers or Right Sector snipers there on the roofs. This is very difficult to assess and most likely has many complexities that provide cover for the actual shooters who pulled the trigger. What is clear is that is was a provocation and that there was a significant amount of preparation and situational awareness involved. So is the Ukrainian president the one ordering a provocation to unseat himself? This is how shallow the logic and propaganda is, not very difficult to debunk.

Imagine that if the Ukrainian president was reluctant to use his Berkut Riot police to quell the situation on the ground at the line of contact then it makes zero sense that he had the will or stomach to give orders to unleash snipers on an open crowd. Plus the shells and exit wounds clearly show the same weapons were used to hit and kill both the Ukrainian Berkut Riot police and the rioters themselves.

Perhaps it was a mistake for the Ukrainian President to not order the Berkut to properly control the situation, they had the means to do so. The USA understood that at this moment there was weakness in the command structure (it is entirely possible that they manufactured this weakness as well, political and private leverage is also a weapon and tactic used as well) at this critical moment and exploited that event to maximize chaos on the ground and degeneration of social order. Once the Fog of War is as thick as the smoke from the burning tires it becomes difficult to explain and events begin to unfold too fast to keep the public attuned to what matters. By the time the smoke clears it is too late, chaos has sewn its seeds.

This was an extremely difficult position to be put into. Maybe the Ukrainian president is just a regular human not a military man. I myself may not know what order I would give in I was in his shoes if I had to order my Berkut soldiers to kill civilians my own civilians even if they are wild Maidan protestors encouraged by inserted terrorists, they are still people.

Americans might see him as being a weak leader with not the stomach to shed blood to maintain power, but as a Russian I understand that these people have families and loved ones too. Ask yourself if you could order your Berkut soldiers to kill and subdue a massive mob like that. It is not an easy question to resolve. In hindsight we can say that giving this order would have saved thousands of lives and likely helped their economy greatly, but in the moment things are not clear and nobody can predict the future. This is an area where civilian leadership may lead to more bloodshed than military leadership.

The Saker: What is your take on the murder of Alexei Mozgovoi. Do you believe that it is possible for a Ukrainian or NATO diversionary unit to have acted so deep behind the front lines and, if yes, could they have succeeded without an accomplice inside the LRN giving them the information about the schedule and route taken by Mozgovoi?

Ramzes: I think that it is possible. In no way is this good for DNR and LNR headquarters. Mozgovoi was a clever and very strong commander. Many people did not like him within the LNR and DNR but they all knew they needed him as he prooved his battle expertise. His value was well understood and this along with his passionate views made him unpopular to some, but nobody within the LNR or DNR would dare execute this murder, it would be treason.

Mozgovoi was more of a problem for the Ukrainian and American interests as his battlefield awareness and command was responsible for many successes.

Many Ukrainian Spetsnaz were trained by Russian GRU back in the day, they were trained well and are familiar with our methods. Many people from the Ukraine can penetrate deep into DNR and LNR structures without being detected. It is an extremely complicated scenario due to our long common history. Now we have external agents acting on these people and anything is possible.

I know people personally who are actual brothers who are currently fighting on opposite sides of this war. They understand that this war is not needed by the people. They have no choice in the matter though, as they must act to save their families.

If you are a Ukrainian man and wish to stay at home and avoid this war you will likely be killed by Right Sector or Azov Battalion agents. Also if they choose to escape to Russia their homes and possessions will be taken. But however, if you go to fight against DNR & LNR then OK go ahead and fight. Many people in the Ukrainian Army see the only way to save their family and possessions is to join the Ukrainian Army because there is no choice. For this reason you see many people who fight when clearly their heart is not into it, they do not want to kill their brothers and cousins but are being forced to do so by fascist thugs who are running across the country acting with crazy brutality and with full impunity. You see this wherever certain geopolitical actors are involved. Rule by terror and chaos.

May people from LNR & DNR speak directly with Ukrainian military who understand that this is a political situation and actively coordinate fire positions so as to not kill one another. For example brothers who previously served in Afghanistan together will do what they can to avoid killing one another now that they find themselves on opposite sides of the battle. But this only applies to the Ukrainian Army and the DNR & LNR. The Pravy Sektor and Azov Battalions as well as private mercenaries are the main units causing all the damage, chaos, terror and violence while the others are trying to avoid the politics and ride out the violence.

As for Mozgovoi's death. Of course their could be deep intelligence penetration inside the LNR, their could also be high tech reconnaissance from USA intercepting communications w/out a physical spy inside actively betraying Mozgovoi's route.

The Saker: Recently there have been speculations in the Russian media about MH17 being shot down by a BUK missile after all. In that hypothesis the Ukrainians managed to drive a BUK missile launcher into the the territory of the DNR undetected and then fired at MH17. Do you believe that it is possible for a Ukrainian crew drive a MH17 missile launcher undetected into the DNR-controlled territory and fire it in order to blame the Novorussians for the shot?

Ramzes:  I have a special attitude regarding this. I was in the sky on July 17th at the exact time MH17 was shot down. I saw a military military plane in the sky. There is only one military plane that can be in the sky at this time. Only a Ukrainian military jet could be in the airspace at that time. I was not the only person who saw this military plane. Many of us saw it. I saw it with my own eyes.

The state that media then reported that Ukrainians denied having a plane in the air at that time. So ask yourself why are they lying?

I checked an American run flight path tracking website and I saw my commercial flight, I saw MH17, I saw that at that exact time (20 minutes after MH17) my commercial plane's flight path was logged on this website. The next day discussing this with fellow officers and friends we looked at the website again and in less than 24 hours my commercial flight was not on this web site . Why would they delete the flight record of a commercial flight? This is a daily scheduled flight from Greece to Russia. This flight appears on the July 16 and on July 18, and it was there on July 17 as per its regular schedule yet it was removed from the record on July 17th.

If a BUK was also involved it makes sense, as military redundancy is always a practice employed when striking a target. It makes sense to have it hit by military jets, then by a BUK then by a bomb inside the aircraft and so on... This all points to a high level of preparation for this attack. However I do not think this was executed by high level professional operatives, it was most likely done by someone who could order ground units and planes to attack (read Oligarch) but not someone slick enough to have a bomb on board or make this look like an accident (read CIA or Special Ops). It could be CIA if they wanted to make it look like an Oligarch to trigger anger and a response. Again anything is possible but we know 100% it was not local fighters from the DNR or LNR. Especially not with Russia in any way supporting such craziness.

The event was made to be the most important news, which implies it was a diversionary tactic for public consumption while on the ground troops were amassing and preparing for and initiating battles. Again, it was a cover for engagement. Clearly the LNR and DNR are suing for peace as is Moscow.

So this tragedy was a clear and important pivot to make the world to pay attention and while the world paid attention to MH17 other orders were being executed on the ground to create the pretext for a full war.

Thank you for providing the blog service for your readers world wide. Dear Saker readers please do help by making a donation as we understand in Russia that the information warfare in Western countries is relentless, this campaign is being conducted against us and that we deeply appreciate the time, energy and effort it takes to stand tall and speak truthfully. Together we can act as an effective Spetsnaz group. To know the whole situation and to individually do what needs to be done.

Mozgovoi was a man driven by his consciousness he was a man of principals and actions. Let his soul observe us all continuing to support what he dies for - the truth and lasting peace.

Thank you and God Bless.
 
 #33
Wall Street Journal
May 29, 2015
Editorial
The Russians Are Coming, Again
Vladimir Putin violates another peace deal with Ukraine.

So much for February's Ukraine cease-fire. Russian proxies on Saturday shelled Avdiyivka, a town in eastern Ukraine held by the Kiev government, killing a Ukrainian service member and a civilian in an attack that also shut down a coke-manufacturing plant. On Sunday pro-Kremlin forces fired on Ukrainian positions near the port of Mariupol, killing a Ukrainian soldier and wounding two.

These are the latest in a growing series of Russian violations of the so-called Minsk II deal between Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko, brokered by Fran�ois Hollande and Angela Merkel. Main features of that deal included a Russian commitment to remove all "mercenaries" and heavy weapons from the east and creation of a buffer zone between territory controlled by Kiev and that held by pro-Kremlin forces.

Prospects for that deal were never good given that its predecessor, Minsk I, collapsed soon after it was signed in 2014. February's pact also deferred to the end of 2015 the all-important question of securing Ukraine's border. Sure enough, as a senior Western diplomat told us Thursday: "The familiar pattern is recurring. Russia makes high-level assurances that it wants peace, and meanwhile stokes the violence on the ground with fighters and arms."

That stoking is happening on a grand scale. Kiev now documents between 50 and 80 Russian cease-fire violations per day, according to Alexey Makukhin, an adviser to Ukraine's Defense Minister, ranging from minor provocations to heavy shelling. Mr. Putin's proxies are using heavy weapons ostensibly banned by Minsk II, including tanks and high-caliber artillery, in addition to mortars, grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and assault rifles. Fighting is now happening along a long front from Stanytsia-Luhanska and Shchastya in the Luhansk region, through the Donetsk region and the towns surrounding what remains of Donetsk Airport, down to Mariupol and its environs on the Sea of Azov.

Russian special-forces operatives also are infiltrating Ukrainian territory. Kiev forces detained two such operatives on May 16 near Shchastya, Mr. Makukhin told us, as they attempted to conduct reconnaissance on the local power station in preparation for its eventual capture. The plan was foiled.

A new report from the Atlantic Council sheds additional light on Moscow's post-Minsk provocations. Using open-source information and satellite imagery, the report makes clear that Russia continues to amass troops on its border with Ukraine and that "Russian training camps stationed along the Ukrainian border are the staging ground for Russian military equipment transported into Ukraine, soon to join the separatist arsenal, and for Russian soldiers mobilized across Russian to cross into Ukraine."

As happened with Minsk I, the Kremlin has used negotiations followed by a period of supposed cease-fire to change the facts on the ground while Western leaders congratulate themselves on their latest "solution" to the crisis. Those facts include what can only be described as an invasion of sovereign Ukrainian territory in Europe.

A serious Western response to Russian violations would include arms sales to Kiev so Ukraine could raise the cost of Russian incursions. Then again, serious Western leaders would have taken Mr. Putin's measure before the Minsk deals started becoming as numerous, and as bad, as "Fast & Furious" sequels.
 
 #34
Sputnik
May 26, 2015
Leave Your Wounded Comrades on the Battlefield - Report on Ukraine Army

Ukrainian troops are not trained to evacuate their wounded comrades-in-arms from the battlefield, as their command considers such trainings "unpractical", the Donetsk News Agency reported citing classified info intercepted by Donetsk intelligence.

Donetsk secret services intercepted a major report prepared by a Kiev commission that inspected the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Donbass.

The documents revealed that Ukrainian servicemen do not know how to evacuate wounded and killed soldiers, the news agency said.

"Servicemen are not trained to evacuate the wounded and the dead. The command considers this training unpractical as evacuation attempts results in mounting death toll among the personnel," the commission's report reads.

Moreover, evacuation drills demoralize young soldiers, the documents said.

Prospect of Massive Desertion

Apart from that, the Ukrainian Armed Forces command apprehends a massive desertion if active fighting erupts again.

The documents also point out that the majority of Ukrainian servicemen would not be able to furnish resistance, as they are not prepared enough, and officers are apt to leave dangerous areas despite orders to conduct warfare.

In February 2015, Donbass forces reported numerous cases of Ukrainian officers abandoning their troops in the "Debaltsevo cauldron", where the Kiev army suffered a crushing defeat.

In addition to that, "only three percent of units passed a battle training check. Only five percent of servicemen know their spheres of action", the classified report revealed.

 
 #35
Sputnik
May 29, 2015
Nearly 100% of Ukrainian Generals Want to Flee to Russia - Azov Fighter

There are only ten out of nearly 400 generals in the Armed Forces who are willing to wage the war. Other would prefer to move to Russia, a member of the Azov regiment said.

The Ukrainian Army should facilitate counterintelligence work to bring possible traitors to light, a fighter of Ukraine's voluntary Azov regiment said on Ukrainian television channel 5, Zvezda.ru reported.

"The whole generalship of the Ukrainian Army, which is about 400 generals, must be 'dragged' through a lie detector. Only ten of them will stay, as the others want to [go to] Russia," Serhiy Korotky said.

The command of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) must also undergo a lie detector test, since there is no alternative checking method, the fighter said.

He added that the military budget is embezzled at all levels, starting from the purchase of gasoline.
 
 #36
RFE/RL
May 28, 2015
What Putin Got Wrong
By Brian Whitmore

Since the Ukraine crisis erupted, Vladimir Putin has befuddled his foes with hybrid-war tactics, poisoned discourse with a sophisticated disinformation campaign, and alarmed the West with a series of provocative moves aimed at probing NATO's defenses.

The Russian president has kept his opponents off balance and on the defensive; and he's kept everybody guessing what he will do next.

But while it is seductive to think that the wily Kremlin leader is a chess master in a global arena full of checkers players, he's also gotten some important things spectacularly wrong.

And when all is said and done, Putin's costly errors may turn out to be more consequential than his little green men, armies of trolls, and slick propaganda machine.
So what did Putin get wrong?

Money Can't Buy You Love

Well, for one thing, he thought he could buy Ukraine.

The crisis began in November 2013 when Viktor Yanukovych, then Ukraine's pro-Moscow president, backed out of a landmark free-trade agreement with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Russia.

The EU deal was six years in the making and hugely popular; its abandonment enraged much of the public. Weeks later, Putin announced that Russia would invest $15 billion in Ukraine and give the country a one-third discount on gas imports.

The tactic was typical of Moscow's approach to spreading its influence: buy the elites and own the country.

In a 2012 report for Chatham House, James Greene wrote that a key part of Putin's method is to use corrupt business schemes to make elites in former Soviet states compliant. It is an extension of his strategy for controlling his own Kremlin elite.

"Putin used the carrot of corruption in conjunction with the stick of 'compromat' to establish patron-client political relationships" inside Russia, Greene wrote.

"By broadening this approach to the corrupt transnational schemes that flowed seamlessly from Russia to the rest of the former Soviet space -- and oozed beyond it -- Putin could extend his shadow influence beyond Russia's borders and develop a natural 'captured' constituency for maintaining a common Eurasian business space."

But the approach failed. While Putin succeeded in buying off Yanukovych, Ukrainian society was another matter entirely.

The aid package only served to inflame the anti-Yanukovych demonstrations that erupted in Kyiv. The protesters' message was plain and simple: We cannot be bought.

Ukraine Isn't Russia

And this led to Putin's second miscalculation. He encouraged Yanukovych to crack down on Euromaidan demonstrators, apparently assuming that the same repressive tactics Russia used at home would work in Ukraine.

But Ukraine is not Russia. Its civil society is far more developed and more assertive than Russia's. Its press is freer and its elite more pluralistic. Dissent and antigovernment protests had long been tolerated, and common. And Ukraine had scant history of using force against political demonstrations.

So when parliament passed a series of laws in January 2014 restricting freedom of speech and assembly, they had the opposite effect.

Protests in Kyiv swelled, demonstrators in western Ukrainian cities began occupying government buildings, and Yanukovych was forced to backtrack. Parliament annulled the laws and Mykola Azarov, the adamantly pro-Moscow prime minister, resigned.

Then on February 20-21 -- after Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned Yanukovych to stop allowing his opponents to walk all over him "like a doormat" -- Kyiv witnessed its worst violence in nearly seven decades when police again clashed with protesters.

On February 22, Yanukovych fled Ukraine for Russia shortly after signing an agreement with the opposition to end the crisis.

Putin's miscalculation, which cost him his man in Kyiv, is rooted in what appears to be a deep fear of -- and complete lack of understanding of -- civil society.

"The attempt to break up the Maidan was not just an attempt to break up something that would be a threat if it were copied and exported to Russia. It is that kind of threat. But it also poses a deeper kind of threat by representing something called civil society," Yale University professor Timothy Snyder said in a speech at the Chicago Humanities Festival last year.

Ethnic Russian Doesn't Equal Pro-Moscow

When Putin decided to intervene in Ukraine after Yanukovych fled, it appeared to be predicated on the assumption that Russian speakers and ethnic Russians would automatically back Moscow.

And while this was the case in Crimea and to some extent in Donbas, elsewhere in Ukraine the assumption was deeply flawed.

Language and ethnicity, it turned out, do not necessarily translate into political loyalty.

The Kremlin's much-hyped Novorossia project to unite Russian-speaking regions of eastern Ukraine into a single pro-Moscow separatist entity failed spectacularly.

In Russophone cities like Odesa, Mariupol, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Kharkiv, and elsewhere, the vast majority of Russian-speakers turned out to be loyal Ukrainian citizens.

Many have their complaints about Kyiv, of course. But they also prefer to be citizens of a free -- albeit imperfect -- Ukraine, rather than subjects of Vladimir Putin's autocratic kleptocracy. Democracy and human rights, it turns out, trump language and ethnicity.

Residents of Odesa have even been known to boast that theirs is the freest Russian-speaking city in the world.

Putin's flawed assumption that ethnicity is destiny cost Moscow dearly. Russia may have gained Crimea and two economically devastated exclaves in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts -- but it has lost Ukraine, perhaps forever.

Getting Germany Wrong

In addition to getting Ukraine wrong in a number of ways, Putin also misread Russia's most important ally in Europe -- Germany.

Prior to the Ukraine crisis, Berlin was Moscow's main advocate on the continent. Germany advocated accommodating Russia's interests and resisted U.S. efforts to expand NATO to include former Soviet republics like Georgia.

Germany is also Russia's most important trading partner in Europe.

That Putin, a German speaker who spent five years as a KGB agent in Dresden, would get this country so wrong is mind-boggling. But get it wrong he did.

Somehow, Putin failed to grasp that Germans would be deeply disturbed by the first forceful change in borders in Europe since World War II. As the crisis continued, German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly became increasingly frustrated -- and furious -- with Putin.

As a result, Berlin was transformed from Russia's biggest advocate in Europe into one of its harshest critics.

And as Stephen Szabo, author of the book Germany, Russia And The Rise Of Geo-Economics, wrote in commentary in U.S. News & World Report, this happened despite a Herculean lobbying effort from Moscow.

Putin, Szabo wrote, "has used his extensive business and criminal network, including a number of former members of the East German secret police who worked for him when he was a KGB agent in East Germany, to foster corruption and to buy favor among German decision-makers. This effort has largely failed."

The result of this was that Western unity on sanctions ended up being far stronger than anyone expected.

So, yes, Putin has indeed managed to baffle, bewilder, and distract everybody with his hybrid war in Ukraine. But the consequences of his failures and mistakes will likely be much more enduring than his shock-and-awe tactics.
 
 #37
The Economist
May 30, 2015
Russia and the West
Alternative reality
Vladimir Putin concocts a new story on Ukraine, leaving the West wondering what he is up to

IN THE original instalment of the "hybrid war" that it launched against Ukraine last year, Russia's propaganda machine depicted its neighbour as a neo-Nazi state whose soldiers burnt villages and crucified children in the Russian-speaking east. But after the vast military parade Russia staged on May 9th, marking its victory over German (and by implication Ukrainian) fascism, a new story-line started to take shape. Ukraine is now portrayed as a failed state. It has defaulted on its debts and violated every international norm, and its Western sponsors are panicking. A new Maidan revolution could happen at any time-the smell of burnt tyres is in the air.

Western leaders, the story goes, have realised their mistake and are flocking to make amends with Vladimir Putin, the magnanimous Russian leader who tried to warn them against supporting Ukraine. First it was Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, who sought an audience with Mr Putin. Then it was John Kerry, America's secretary of state, who flew all the way to Sochi to pay his respects. "America has realised that Ukraine is not worth spoiling its relationship with Russia," proclaimed Channel One, Russia's main television station. Russia's military might and its alliance with China, the channel implied, had forced America back to the table.   

The images of war which dominated Russian television for the past year have been supplanted by tales of diplomatic victories and Ukraine's failures. If war resumes, according to Channel One, it will be launched by the desperate Ukrainians. This new narrative is not meant only for a Russian audience. No sooner had Mr Kerry left Sochi than Russia sent its emissaries to Kiev to tell Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine's president, that America and Europe had dumped him. The other intended audience was the European Union, which on June 22nd will decide whether to prolong its sanctions on Russia. If America is willing to make amends, Moscow is asking, what is the point of spoiling good business with us?

In fact, American sources insist Mr Kerry's visit was meant not to make amends but to ascertain Mr Putin's thinking on several issues. Will Mr Putin work against America on Iran? Is he willing to co-operate in Syria? Will he stop meddling in Ukraine? The answer to all three questions seemed to be no. Mr Kerry also delivered a message in response to Mr Putin's nuclear sabre-rattling: do not go too far in testing NATO's military resolve, as it will backfire. Mr Putin spun Mr Kerry's visit as a diplomatic triumph, but he now faces the question of what to do next.

The situation in Ukraine has reached a stalemate. Although Mr Putin endorsed the Minsk peace agreement last September, his goals are the opposite of those of Ukraine and the West. He wants the separatist Donbas to remain inside Ukraine, but as an open sore which Russia can prod when needed to control the country. Only once he has this "political settlement" will he discuss closing the border with Ukraine. The West wants Russia to secure the border and withdraw its forces from Ukraine, so that local elections in Donbas can pave the way for its reintegration. That would defy the purpose of Mr Putin's exercise.

Yet the conflict cannot be frozen without a permanent Russian military presence and financial support for the rebels. After a year-long war, people in Donbas are not prepared to be governed by Kiev, but many are starting to resent the fighters who have seized power in their region, and who divide Russia's humanitarian aid among themselves. If Russia withdraws, the rebel governments could fall. This may explain the fresh buildup of Russian troops and weaponry reported by observers along Russia's border with Ukraine.

The infighting among the separatists has already started. On May 23rd Alexei Mozgovoi, a rebel commander who challenged the Moscow-backed government in Luhansk and insisted on "the struggle for independence", was blown up in his car. His killing coincided with Russia's abandonment, at least for now, of its project to create a large Russian enclave in Ukraine.

"The Kremlin wanted to conduct this war on the cheap," says Alexander Baunov of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, a think-tank. The cost of restarting the war would be high. Russia would probably be hit with a fresh round of sanctions, which could bring down its banks. It would also have to send large numbers of regular troops to Ukraine, which most Russians do not support. The Kremlin's hope is that Ukraine will simply implode under the weight of its economic problems.

But as Mr Kerry has learned, Mr Putin will not leave Ukraine alone. If all else fails, Russia will escalate, as its wargames in the region are meant to show. A full war would require greater mobilisation of the Russian public, control over all spheres of social life and broader repression. The Kremlin has already suppressed all independent political activity in the country. In the past week it has moved beyond politics.

On May 23rd Mr Putin signed a law on "unwanted foreign organisations" in Russia. Two days later, the justice ministry listed two of the country's most respected foundations for science and education as "foreign agents". One, the Liberal Mission, is led by Yevgeny Yasin, an 81-year-old former economics minister. The other, called Dynasty, supports natural science and education. It is financed by Dmitry Zimin, an 82-year-old scientist, philanthropist and founder of the country's most successful telecommunications company, Vimpelcom. Dynasty steered clear of politics, seeing its goal rather as fostering a class of enlightened, independent-thinking men and women. The message from the Kremlin could not have been clearer: no activity independent of the state is welcome in Russia any longer.
 
 #38
Interfax-Ukraine
May 29, 2015
U.S. Crimea sanctions to remain in place regardless of Russia's actions in eastern Ukraine - Pyatt
 
U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt has said that Crimea sanctions imposed by the United States will remain in place regardless of Russia's actions in eastern Ukraine.

"Crimea sanctions will remain in place regardless of Russia's actions in eastern Ukraine/ceasefire implementation under Minsk," the ambassador wrote on his Twitter page on Friday.

"U.S. sanctions designed to hold Russia responsible for illegal annexation of Crimea, but not disrupt free information flow to people there," he wrote.
 
 #39
The Brookings Institution
www.brookings.edu
May 27, 2015
BROOKINGS HOSTS VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN FOR REMARKS ON THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE CONFLICT
Washington, D.C. Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Introductory Remarks:
STROBE TALBOTT President
The Brookings Institution
Keynote Remarks:
THE HONORABLE JOE BIDEN
Vice President of the United States of America

MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the President of the Brookings Institution, Strobe Talbott, and the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden. (Applause)

MR. TALBOTT: Mr. Vice President, on behalf of all of us here, particularly the International Advisory Council, the Brookings Institution, we welcome you here to Brookings today. We know that you are going to be addressing us on one of the most consequential issues of our time, the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The Vice President has been a friend of this institution and a friend of many of us here for many years. Welcome back, Mr. Vice President.

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: Delighted to be here. Thank you, Strobe. Well, folks, let me begin by -- as I walked in the room here it reminded me of a story they tell about Calvin Coolidge. He was in a whistle stop tour coming west to east heading back home and every town they'd get in he'd step on back in the caboose, and make a speech to those assembled on the track. And this one stop they made somewhere in Ohio he walked out and stood in the back of the caboose with the flag draped on the stairs, and he walked back in and his staff said what's the matter, Mr. President? And he said well the audience is too big for a conversation and too small for an oration. (Laughter) And I think we're in that place. I'll try to do neither. I'll try to find something in between here.
Strobe, let me begin by thanking you not only for your friendship but for your advice over all these years, particularly on this subject. I have tried to keep close contact with Strobe because I find him to be one of the most knowledgeable people in the world on issues that I have a great interest in and are unfortunately very much center stage these days. And I want to thank you especially when you and Steve Pifer came over to my home to do a deep dive with me to be my reality check on the issue that I'm going to speak about today -- Ukraine. And, Martin, it's always good to you, man. I'm not sure you should have accepted the Vice Presidency (laughter) but you have been a great, great asset. I hope you have as much access as I do. (Laughter) Sometimes I wish I didn't have all that access.

You know, it's now been 14 months since Russian aggression in Ukraine last spring. And it has literally transformed the landscape of European security. Everybody wants this conflict to end as soon as possible. The question is on whose terms and how will it end. Because it's not a remote conflict between neighbors arguing over who gets what, what's happening in Ukraine is about much, much, much more than that. It's about the rights of nations on the frontier of Europe to choose their own futures; it's about the future of NATO, our collective self defense, and our unity, our strength, our ability to deter aggression together. I think it's that fundamental, it's that basic. It's about the future of Russia itself I would argue, because if the Kremlin is able to establish its own fiefdom in Eastern Ukraine it will only fan the flames of ambitions in the region. And believe me helping Ukraine in its defense and deterrence against Russian aggression is critical, is critical to checking further aggression down the road. As I keep saying and the president reminds me, it's either pay me now or pay me later, but there's a price tag here.

What happened in Ukraine and how the west and the world respond has I think consequential implications for the nature of international order in the years to come. In particular the bedrock principles of security, territorial integrity, and the inviolability of borders. China and many other nations are watching very closely how the world responds. They'll learn from this conflict regardless of how it plays out in my view.

Before I turn to today's crisis I want to take a moment to speak about our broader policy, the Obama-Biden administration broader policy with regard to Russia. I don't think anyone can legitimately accuse our administration of failing to explore in good faith, in good faith, the prospect of establishing a constructive relationship with Russia. Six years ago in the first speech of our administration, and I believe you were there, Mr. Secretary, at the Munich Security Conference, I annunciated our position. I called for a reset to "Revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia." And where Russia indicated they wanted to work with us as well. But even then I made clear, I made it crystal clear, that "We will not recognize any nation having a sphere of influence. It will remain our view that sovereign states have the right to make their own decisions and choose their own alliances." I meant it then and we mean it now.

In 2009 when we came into office President Medvedev was in power and he spoke about the need for Russia's economic modernization. And he talked about the need to combat Russia's what he called legal nihilism, to strengthen the rule of law. Without being naïve we decided to test the prospect that Russia would strengthen the rule of law and gradually embrace the path of economic modernization and greater integration of the world economy in concrete actions which could over time help integrate Russia into the world of responsible nations. And it was in that same spirit over several administrations the United States supported Russia's membership in countless international organizations, the NATO-Russia Council to the Council of Europe, to the World Trade Organization. We also welcomed Medvedev's political reforms like direct election of governors in Russia and decriminalization of libel. And from 2009 to 2012 we achieved a great deal together, a great deal of cooperation with Russia to advance our mutual interests, Russia and ours. A New START Treaty that reduced strategic nuclear arsenals by one-third, a vital supply route for coalition troops in Afghanistan, at the UN Security Council, resolutions that pressured both North Korea as well as Iran, and brought the world within reach of a historic deal with Tehran, yet to be determined but we're optimistic.

But when Prime Minister Putin returned to the Kremlin in 2012 as President Putin he set Russia on a very different course almost immediately, recriminalizing libel, calling off direct elections for governors, and making it harder for political parties to register, aggressive repression at home including silencing of the mothers of soldiers deployed in Ukraine, contempt, contempt for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia's neighbor, Ukraine, but also Georgia and Moldova, disregard for Russia's own commitments made at Helsinki, Paris, and Budapest. And so the world looks different today than it did before he became -- reassumed the Presidency. And President Putin must understand as he has changed so has our focus. That's why at this year's Security Conference in Munich I spoke the need to reassert the fundamental bedrock principles of a Europe whole and free, no inviolable borders, no spheres of influence, and sovereign right to choose our own allies, and particularly inviolable borders.

At the center of Russia's fundamental choice over what type of path it will ultimately pursue is the conflict in Ukraine in my view. I have now visited Ukraine three times since the current conflict began, and it's hard to fathom unless you go there, and many of you have, how much they've accomplished for themselves under enormous pressure since the Maidan. Correlating people power to rally against corruption, defending their country against brutal Russian aggression with the odds against them, staying unified, putting patriotism before personal ambition, and holding in the fairest and freest and most widely modern elections in Ukrainian history. Of course painstaking work lies ahead. Transitions are hard, as you all know in this international group. Transitions are hard under any circumstance. It's even harder when a powerful neighbor is actively undermining everything you do. President Poroshenko is right to speak about the necessity and urgency of Ukraine to act on what he calls the 4 Ds, deregulation, debureaucratization -- it's hard to even say the phrase -- deoligarchization and decentralization. But that's what he harps on. That's what they're working on. To succeed the Ukraine needs to use the new laws on the books to investigate and prosecute corruption on all levels. I speak with Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko probably on average once a week if you average it out over the last year. They passed laws; now they have to in fact implement the laws that they passed.

Ukraine needs to use all the tools at its disposal to limit the ability of the oligarchs to abuse their market positions or exert pressure on government officials. And by the way there is a long history of that. We all know since the revolution it's never been on the level in terms of the influence of oligarchs in corruption, but they're trying. But it needs to keep working toward constitutionally informed decentralization to ensure the local government is really represented and accountable. And above all it needs to keep listening to its people and to Ukraine's civil society. Every time I've met I've spent extensive time with civil society.

So long as Ukraine's leaders keep faith with the project of reform, the United State will continue to stand with them. In total we have provided over $470 million in economic assistance since the start of the crisis. In addition a $1 billion loan guaranty last year, another $1 billion loan guaranty signed this month, and potentially a further $1 billion at the end of this year if Ukraine continues with the path of reform. And that $470 million includes nearly $200 million the armed forces, National Guard, and border services. Much of the debate in Washington has been focused on whether we should provide additional defensive lethal weapons to Ukraine. That's a debate worth having and continues. And my views are somewhat known on that. But let's not lose sight of the fact Ukraine also needs basic military equipment and training which we're also providing on the ground. And our allies, our NATO allies, have contributed to a Ukraine trust fund established at the Wales Summit, the NATO Summit of Wales. But more is needed to be done. And the President and I spoke about this yesterday with NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg and it's on NATO's agenda in Warsaw. Finally, our assistance has been and will continue to be directly addressing the humanitarian tragedy created by Russian aggression. It is profoundly in our self interest, and I would argue the self interest of the world, that this new Ukraine emerges as a prosperous, democratic, independent, reform-oriented country that cannot be bribed, coerced, or intimidated. That's what the Ukrainian people are devoting their lives to, giving their lives for. And one day it will serve as an example for Russians across the border who will see what's possible when a country embarks on real reform. The conflict over Ukraine I think is a test for the West, a test for the EU, a test for NATO, a test for us. President Putin is wagering that he has greater staying power than all the parties I just mentioned have. In Ukraine he's betting that he can outlast the current reformist pro-European government and undermine it economically.

President Putin is also trying to scare our allies and partners with the threat of a new and aggressive Russia. Terms we haven't heard in a long time in terms of terms relating to nuclear power, nuclear arms. And as it tries to rattle the cage, the Kremlin is working hard to buy off and co-opt European political forces, funding both right wing and left wing anti systemic parties throughout Europe. President Putin sees such political force as forces as useful tools to be manipulated, to create cracks in the European body politic which he can then exploit. As a sideline, I remember we were working -- which I'll speak to in a moment about European energy security -- I found it fascinating that Russia is funding green parties. Their newfound environmental concern has really impressed me. But these actions are abetted by a hyper aggressive, state sponsored, Russian propaganda machine that actively spreads disinformation and does it very well I might add. But on the whole European unity has held. Europe has hung together. European leaders last met on March the 25th and they spoke clearly. And we have also made our position clear. The United States' sanctions on Russia must and will remain in place until the Minsk Agreement is fully implemented. It is my hope and expectation that when European leaders may meet again at the end of June, they will renew existing sanctions until Minsk is fully implemented. There's no way to know that until the end of the year. And we'll continue to expose the truth about Russia's actions to the world, and coordinate closely with our partners and allies to ensure that further agreement on Russia's part is met with further costs if Russia again moves beyond the line of contact. This is essential to our strategy. Taken together it's clear; Russia is taking actions to weaken and undermine its European neighbors and reassert its hegemonic ambitions. And we need to be able to respond. It's not just Ukraine. Critical to this effort is advancing affirmative vision to strengthen the Transatlantic Cooperation in Europe itself, to be able to resist Russian coercion and leave no daylight in the tactics of divide and conquer. Ukraine is integral to that, but the acts of Russian opportunism and aggression require us to also address more broadly and systematically European points of vulnerability, reinvigorating and retooling NATO to be able to respond to new hybrid warfare threats that we're seeing today, finally getting serious about Europe's energy security. So we take away Russia's ability to use energy as a political weapon and promoting Europe's economic growth and economic security.

It starts with NATO though. Reinforcing our alliance and honing the tools that are at our disposal to counter the various asymmetric threats that we now face. The steps we are taking to make clear to our allies that Article 5 of the NATO Treaty represents a sacred commitment on our part and every other NATO member. NATO's readiness action plan is an important start, allowing us to step up our military presence in the air and sea and on the land, from the Baltics and Poland to Romania and Bulgaria. And we're pleased that some of our NATO allies have made similar contributions. But at this time of crisis too many of our allies are still failing to meet their commitment they made at the Wales Summit, to spend two percent of their GDP on defense. This situation is not sustainable. Collected defense must be a shared responsibility, not just in rhetoric, but in resources as well.

When it comes to energy we need to work across the Atlantic to deny Russia the ability to use resources as a political weapon against their neighbors. As I said on several occasions before, it's time to make energy security the next chapter in the European project of integration and market expansion. It's time to replace country by country strategies with a coherent, collective effort focused on diversifying fuel types, supply sources, and routes, improving efficiency, making investments in market reforms, including greater flexibility of infrastructure to transport natural gas. We have provided all our experts available here to our European friends at their disposal to help them work through these various elements. We've already made some significant progress. In the face of Russian cut off of gas supplies to Ukraine last year we supported the EU's efforts to mediate a gas deal. We worked with Ukraine's neighbors to increase reverse flows of gas shipments to Ukraine. We support Lithuania as it inaugurated the first LNG terminal, ending the Baltic region's complete dependence on Russia imports of gas. And we worked closely with the European Union to help advance critical energy infrastructure projects that will help foster competition in Europe rather than perpetuate the dominance of one supplier. We applaud and encourage Europe's efforts to take a more regional approach because a more stable European supply of energy means a more secure world. And we're ready to do our part as our European friends know.

And finally we need to rebuild, and in some places build for the first time, the economic foundations of the European security. In that spirit we support European efforts to create jobs and boost domestic demand, to emerge as we have from the great recession that began at the end of the last decade. The good news is that we now know the types of policies that efficiently spur economic growth and boost employment. Investing in infrastructure and human capital, lowering barriers to trade and investment, making reforms to improve the business climate, and a regulatory process. We're pursuing the Transatlantic Investment Partnership to create growth and jobs and strengthen this global trading system. And we've especially focused on fighting corruption. Corruption is the new tool of foreign policy. It's never been as handy and as useful in the hands of nations who want to disrupt and oligarchs that respond to them.

It's like the kryptonite of a functioning democracy. It siphons away resources, it destroys trust in government, it hollows out militaries, and it affronts the people's dignity in the countries where it is rampant. And the stakes are strategic as well as economic because Russia and others are using corruption and oligarchs as tools of coercion. And we need to help some of the newer EU nations and those aspiring to join them, to shore up their institutions, to put in place the mechanism required to avoid becoming vulnerable to this new foreign policy weapon. When you take these developments together it's clear in my view that we've reached another moment in the history of the transatlantic relationship that calls out for leadership, the kind our parents' and grandparents' generation delivered. I think it's that basic, I think it's similar. I believe the terrain though is fundamentally in our favor, not because of the inevitability of any kind of trajectory toward unification or integration or democratic freedoms. Every generation has its demagogues and revisionists, and transitions are full of peril that provides them with many, many opportunities. What makes me optimistic is that President Putin's vision has very little to offer the people of Europe, or for that matter the people of Russia, other than myths and illusions, the false promise of returning to a past when examined was not too good a past to begin with. A sleight of hand that presents the bullying of civil societies, dissidents, and gays as substitutes for strong leadership and functioning institutions. The propaganda that conflates aggression with strength.

It's not easy for governors to provide for people in the 21st century, we all know that. You know that in your own countries, we know it in ours. But it's also no secret what works, what the basic elements are. It's like physics these days. You need political and economic openness, respect for law, strong functioning institutions and markets. Without all those in place economic growth does not occur and will not occur. And if together we the United States and Europe can reassert and stick to our principles, deliver on our commitments, and help make Ukraine and Europe keep doing what works, then I have every confidence that we will leave the transatlantic relationship stronger than we found it. And Europe even more secure and free.

I thank you for your indulgence in listening to me and it's been a great pleasure to be with you. Thank you. (Applause)

Thank you. I've been instructed by Strobe, who's been instructing me for a long time, to make myself available for some questions. You may have to write a note excusing me from a meeting with the President (laughter), but I'm sure he'll understand if I spend a little bit of time and take a few questions if you have any.

MR. TALBOTT: Just two or three very short ones. Javier, do you want to start?

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: Good to see you, Javier. He didn't want to start (laughter). Great to be with you, man.

MR. SOLANA: Thank you very much for your candid talk. You gave certain very well the debate and what I think is that we are in the same boat, the Europeans and Americans. And in particular what you have said and underlined very much, the Minsk Agreement has to be respected. And it's true that we will not know if they are respecting that until the end of the year because the border is what has to be really recuperated by Ukraine. And I think we keep on working together and we will win this battle.

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: I think so too. And the other thing I think by the way is that I've spent so much time with Ukrainian leadership, they are prepared to make genuine concessions on decentralization. They are prepared to make genuine commitments to local control in the obelisk in the east, but it's kind of difficult to do this. The one part about the Minsk Agreement is that it's awful hard to hold free elections on the other side of the line of control when you don't control the border. And that is something that I'm hoping that us and our European colleagues are going to be able to work out because there has to be -- part of the deal is free elections in the east and that's going to be difficult.

QUESTIONER: Mr. Vice President, thank you for coming to Brookings. Why isn't it obvious that the United States should be exporting energy, particularly liquefied natural gas to Europe, particularly Eastern Europe?

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, it is obvious and we are supportive of that. The problem is under our system the way it works is is that companies contract to get these opportunities to have access to the natural gas that is exportable. And under our law we cannot direct a particular company to send the gas to a particular place. Now there has been some discussion in many quarters, probably here at Brookings, about whether or not there should be some exception made as to being able to directly direct it, but under our system all the Europeans and the countries in question are able to contract with the folks that -- I think -- I forget how many contract now -- I think it was 13 or something -- anyway, all of the contracts that have been made for access to that natural gas. But what happens is, you know, it's at market prices and so -- but it is the thing I have the hardest time explaining in Europe because under their systems, most of them, it says well the President decides where we will -- a policy we're going export X trillion, you know, units of gas to such and such a country. It's not -- legally we can't do that.
the President.
(Laughter)

MR. TALBOTT: Mr. Vice President, I don't want you to get in trouble with

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: I'm happy to take another one if you want.

MR. TALBOTT: Okay. Well, I'm going to be in trouble with your staff.

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: All right.

MR. TALBOTT: Which is really serious.

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: Don't worry about my staff. (Laughter)

QUESTIONER: Mr. Vice President, how worried are you about the three Baltic republics with a large Russian minorities?

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: That's what I was referencing by the asymmetry I'm talking about. And that is something that is going to be a major topic in Warsaw at the next NATO meeting. But it's already entrained in some of the actions we've taken relative to the rotation of forces and so on. But it is a concern, it is a concern using the false assertion that, you know, there's a Russian minority or in some places close to a plurality that is being persecuted and I, Vladimir Putin have the obligation to present their interests. It is a difficult situation, but we're resolved to stand with the Baltic States as that occurs. But that planning is entrained and has been as we speak, but it is a concern. I'd be lying to you if I said it wasn't.

Martin, did you have a question? I can't leave without taking a Vice President's question. (Laughter)

MR. INDYK: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. And I just want you to know that you're my role model. (Laughter)

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: I can't think of any office you aspire to, but go ahead. (Laughter)

MR. INDYK: No, I do. The speech that you just gave is a very tough one, admirably tough. At the same time as you were standing up to Mr. Putin in the way that you've been described, we're also cooperating with him on what you call global issues, non proliferation, counter terrorism, even potentially in a place like Syria. How do you handle that kind of tension between cooperation and competition?

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: Just that way. Look, human nature is human nature. It doesn't change based upon whether or not you're reading the motives and actions of a head of state or you're brother or your partner in your enterprise. And that's life. The cooperation where -- the one thing I'm counting on with President Putin, who I've had occasion to spend some significant amount of time with, is that at his core he is practical. At his core he will push as far as he can in my view until he reaches a resistance that in fact says there's a big price to pay. And he may then make a mistake and continue, but it's a calculation I believe he will -- presumptuous of me to read another man's mind -- but I think if you look at his behavior over his career he's a practical guy. And it seems to me that it has been the history of successful American foreign policy going back 100 years that it makes sense to cooperate where there is a clear mutual interest as long as you're not being asked to back off matters of principle that matter to the security and well-being in your country and your allies and your friends. So quite frankly I see it being overwhelmingly in our interest to continue to cooperate in Iran. I would argue that if -- let me choose my words a little bit here -- there has been a lot written by some very bright people here and at other think tanks around the world, that Putin would like very much to respond in a negative way and raise the cost for the United States for being the leader of imposing sanctions on him. And there are a lot who speculated that one of the things he would do right off the bat was pull out of the negotiations with Iran. Well, it's overwhelmingly in his interest not to do that. It's overwhelmingly in his interests and it would be increasingly obvious to both he and Tehran that absent some kind of negotiated settlement relative to Bashar Assad, they are reaping a whirlwind as we are.

So I always count on self interest being a motivating factor for -- in my personal relationships -- you've heard me say, Martin, all politics is personal. And I mean that not you have to like one another, but you have to be able to understand what the other guy is looking for or the other woman is looking for, what they perceive to be their interest. And it's clearly in the interest of the United States as well as Russia, that to exaggerate the point that you don't end up with Daesh or ISIL controlling all of Syria. It's clearly within the interest of Russia, and I would argue China, that Iran not become a nuclear power. And there are other things that are of mutual interest. So it seems to me that if you're a rational and tough American leader or President you would look to those thing which were clearly in your benefit as long as you do not have to make a concession on something that is a matter of principle and value to you. And thus far we have not reached that point. There has been no discussion of we will not stay -- this is hypothetical press -- there has been no discussion of we will continue to be part of the P5+1 and going along with the consensus, but you have to -- only if you do the following. So these are two mature nations, two tough leaders who know what the interests -- one clearly knows what the interests of country is, President Obama, and the other is trying to find out. And I would argue, Martin, that there is no -- that President Putin didn't start off with a broad strategy as to how he was going to respond or deal with Russia or Eastern European states. I think he started off with the strategy that he was determined to build up Russian military from the place he found it, but I think it was more opportunism than any strategy. And we continue to look for what we say, the phrase used, "off ramps" for President Putin. We're not looking to embarrass him, we're not looking for regime change, we're not looking for any fundamental alteration of the circumstances inside of Russia. We're looking for him to in our view act more rationally. And if he does not we will continue to confront what I characterize as pure aggression.

Thank you all so much for listening.