#2
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
www.mid.ru
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's interview to Mezhdunarodnoye Obozreniye programme on Rossiya 24 TV channel, Moscow, 29 May 2015

Question: Thank you for taking the time for the interview, Mr. Lavrov. I would like to begin with the most important topic -relations between Russia and the United States. We are going through a period of new confrontation. Drawing a parallel with the "Cold War" period, what could you compare the extent of today's confrontation with? Are we beginning to see an easing of tensions?

Sergey Lavrov: I would not compare it with the Cold War, as the situation today is rather different. We are not involved in any objective ideological confrontation, which could cause a return to something like the Cold War. There are serious problems related to the fact that the world is changing, while the approaches of our Western colleagues still remain the same as they have been in the era of their indisputable dominance, which lasted for many centuries.

The objective process of forming a multi-polar system, which includes the emergence of new centres of economic growth and financial power, and consequently political influence, conflicts with attempts to keep everything under control, which are pursued by, as they say now, the "historical West," led by the United States.

Due to these specifics, I would not say that today the most important issue for us is the Russian-US relations. The primary point for us is to ensure that everybody agrees that today the world's problems cannot be resolved by any one or two countries. It is true that, due to many factors, if Russia and the United States agree to act together, they still manage to make progress immediately, among other reasons thanks to mobilising a large group of supporters.

This was the case with Syria's chemical disarmament and it is also happening in regard to the negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme, the fight against piracy and other regional situations. However, for this to happen, we should take the principle of collective action as a basis for all other cases.

You cannot assume that in some matters the United States will graciously cooperate with us, while in others it will have the right to "punish"us, as they say. We are not taking the posture of an offended party and are not refusing to cooperate on Iran, Syria, the Israeli-Palestinian settlement, Yemen, and other important issues just because the Americans are behaving the way they do.

However, we will engage in cooperation not because they are willing to cooperate with us in this particular sphere, but because these spheres of cooperation meet our interests and relate to issues, which create risks for the Russian Federation. This is our basic approach.

In regards to questions about whether we are seeing signs of easing tensions and whether there will be a "reset," which are asked frequently, I always say that we did not break the mechanisms of cooperation with the United States. It was not us who closed down the Presidential Commission, which included 21 working groups in all possible areas of interstate communication. It worked very effectively and prepared annual reports for the presidents.

It wasn't us who terminated contacts in other spheres.

When Americans tell us today as, for example, US Secretary of State John Kerry did at a recent meeting in Sochi, that it would be good to resume contacts between the militaries to share information to avoid unintentional hazardous situations, we say: "No problem, if you are ready for it, let us know and we will respond positively." In addition to the working group on military issues, the Presidential Commission included groups on security, non-proliferation, counter-terrorism and many others. Our US partners have closed the counter-terrorism group, discontinued contacts on anti-narcotics issues and put Federal Drug Control Service head Viktor Ivanov on the sanctions list.

By the way, we did not include his US counterpart in our black lists because it is silly. In such areas as fighting narcotics, there should be no politics and ideology involved. We believe that any means and channels that existed before and that can be further agreed upon should work, but it is ultimately up to our US colleagues.

Frankly speaking, Kerry's visit to Sochi likely de-facto meant that there is an understanding in Washington that we need to build bridges and end this unfortunate period in our relations, which is not bringing anything good to us, or to the United States, or the rest of the world. There remains a mutual interest in fighting terrorism. During our meeting and during Kerry's meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, there was a substantive discussion of the fact that this task should be approached based on single criteria and without double standards.

If someone is a terrorist then he is a terrorist everywhere, and if some extremist organisation is in one case being suppressed, and in the other case, when the same organization is fighting the government, which has been declared illegitimate, then it is possible to turn a blind eye on...

Question: Do you mean Syria?

Sergey Lavrov: Yes, Syria too. The so-called Islamic State (ISIS) has announced the establishment of a caliphate on very large territories in Syria and Iraq. Its advance groups are settling in some regions of Libya, there are problems in Lebanon, and there is even evidence of an ISIS presence in Afghanistan. The only side that has improved its positions following the bombing of Yemen is al-Qaeda, which has become an ISIS rival. But all of this is a relative assessment, because terrorists are moving from one group to another, depending on who pays more and other factors. Therefore, we must not fight terrorism with blinkers on, focusing only on one country or another and disregarding what is happening in a nearby territory, but on the basis of a comprehensive analysis of the situation.

We have proposed analysing these risks and challenges and formulating a streamlined international stance under the auspices of the UN Security Council, so as to prevent a repetition of the Libyan scenario, when the country was bombed in order to initiate a change of government, in violation of a UN Security Council resolution and contrary to its embargo on arming the opposition. That opposition subsequently created major problems in Mali and several other countries and used the weapons that had been supplied to them, contrary to the UN embargo, by those who wanted to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, against legitimate governments. This must not be allowed to happen. We must identify a common enemy and common threats, rather than changing one's attitude to governments depending on the situation, so that some regimes are allowed what is denied to those governments whose hands the West will not shake, or to a dictatorship that would have been tolerable if not for its desire to have good relations with us [Russia].

Question: These dual standards were not always part of US diplomacy. Efforts are being made to find a political basis for cooperation. Did you discuss concrete programmes during your talks with Secretary of State John Kerry? For example, a joint action plan against ISIS?

Sergey Lavrov: We believe that the coalition that has been created by Americans and is conducting air raids on ISIS positions, is doing this in Iraq with the approval of the Iraqi authorities but does not even inform the Syrian government of its plans or ask its approval for them, which is in gross violation of international law. I asked Mr Kerry why a legal method has not been used in Syria, whose government is an objective ally in the fight against ISIS, why the coalition has not required a mandate to support the Iraqi and Syrian government forces in their fight against ISIS.

His answer surprised me. He said they don't regard the Syrian regime as a legitimate partner. But it was only a year ago that the Syrian government was viewed as an absolutely legitimate partner in the efforts to remove and liquidate chemical weapons. Several resolutions have been adopted, including by the UN Security Council and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which express appreciation and welcome the Syrian government's decision to join the Chemical Weapons Convention. The conditions for the work of international inspectors and experts in Syria aimed at finding, packing and transporting chemical weapons were coordinated with that government. All of this was legitimate. Moreover, that operation was coordinated on a daily basis from The Hague, where the OPCW is headquartered. The daily consultations were attended by delegates from Russia, the United States, Syria and the OPCW.

This is a vivid example of dual standards. In one case, the international community cooperated with the Syrian government in a completely constructive manner to preclude the use of chemical weapons or prevent extremists from getting hold of them, and the Syrian government responded in kind. But terrorism is a no less serious threat than chemical weapons. Avoiding cooperation with the Syrian government in this respect is a short-sighted policy.

The coalition exists and is delivering air strikes, but everyone has admitted, including publicly, that air strikes alone won't defeat ISIS and that land operations will ultimately be conducted. But I don't see how this can be done without the approval of the Syrian government. The Iraqi army, including Iraqi Shia militias and the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, are actively coordinating their operations and are trying to win back ISIS-controlled cities and regions. I'm sure that the Syrian government would act in this spirit too.

Hence, the top issue we discussed with Mr Kerry, which must be settled to ensure a more effective fight against terrorism, is the elaboration of a common concept that will not only address Syria or Iraq, but the entire region that is facing the threat of ISIS expansion and entrenchment. Of course, it should be remembered that many other terrorist organisations have pledged loyalty to ISIS and have announced the territories they control as part of the caliphate. This area includes not only North Africa. These organisations are expanding the sphere of their interests to Sub-Saharan Africa.

So, the first priority is to formulate a strategy based on an honest cooperative analysis of the problem under the auspices of the UN Security Council. The second priority is to adopt resolutions that will legitimise operations necessary for dealing with this threat, notably ISIS and other organisations such as Jabhat al-Nusra.

Now that the UN Security Council is approving resolutions and issuing statements to this effect, everyone sees that it's not enough to say that ISIS is bad but we'll set the other such organisations aside for later. So, we need, first, a comprehensive strategy, and second, a normal mandate that will be legitimate from the viewpoint of the UN Charter and that will be issued by the UN Security Council. After that, all sides will contribute as much as they can, depending on their understanding of the situation.

First, the countries where this is happening must receive broad support from the international community in their fight against terrorism. Second, those who are willing to help these countries, with their approval, can only do so in accordance with a UN Security Council mandate and in coordination with the given country's legitimate government. And third, assistance must also be provided in other forms. We are doing this and will continue to do this. I'm referring to our assistance to strengthening the combat capabilities of the Iraqi, Syrian and Egyptian armies and the armed forces of other countries in the region in their resistance to terrorists. In my opinion, coordinated efforts in all of these directions will produce the desired effect.

Question: You have mentioned the UN Security Council. Over the past few years and probably over the last decade, the UNSC has been criticised for its ineffectiveness. It has been proposed that the right to veto decisions be abolished and that new UNSC members be appointed. For example, our US partners are discussing this because they are unable to reach a consensus with Russia at the UNSC. For example, our countries are voicing diametrically opposite stances on the Ukrainian and Syrian crises. To what extent should the UN as an entity and its Security Council be overhauled? What do you think about this? Has the organisation become obsolete?

Sergey Lavrov: The United Nations and the UN Security Council are a combination of their member-states, rather than some abstraction. Speaking about the past 70 years (this year marks the 70th anniversary of the UN's establishment), the world has, of course, become considerably safer. The organisation's main task, as formulated by its founding fathers, was to prevent world war in the future. This task has been accomplished.

Yes, it is impossible to prevent small wars; these wars continued during the confrontation between military blocs, during the Soviet and Cold War eras in outlying regions of both rival systems' spheres of responsibility. Of course, regional conflicts are now spreading much further than in those times. As I see it, this can be explained by the fact that after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the abolition of the Warsaw Pact, the international system began to be influenced by our Western partners, who saw themselves as victors.

As you remember, Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama wrote about the end of history, implying that, from then on, Western civilisation was the only option available to humankind and that everyone would abide by the rules that this civilisation had invented and would continue to invent. Owing to the dominating and self-serving nature of this philosophy, numerous regions of the world disagreed with it. In some cases, this probably came as a response to arrogance and to ignoring the traditions of various communities. An attempt to disregard the existence of several civilisations on our planet brought about extremely negative results.

In any event, we have nothing better than the UN. This is a unique organisation with unique legitimacy, and nearly all states in the world are members of it. Virtually no one doubts the UN Charter, and all of its principles - the sovereign equality of states, the peaceful resolution of disputes, respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of states, respect for the right of nations to self-determination - all of them remain topical today.

One should not interpret these principles at random each time, as they are effective only as a single whole. In 1970, for example, the UN General Assembly passed the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. This document provided the broadest possible interpretation of the correlation between principles of territorial integrity and the self-determination of nations to date. The Declaration noted that all states must respect the territorial integrity of any state which ensures the principle of self-determination in line with its territorial integrity, without using force and while reflecting the interests and stances of all strata of its population.

To my mind, this sounds sufficiently convincing in the context of the Ukrainian developments, when, instead of respecting the entire Ukrainian population and honouring the provisions of a document signed with Viktor Yanukovych (on establishing a government of national unity), a coup d'état was staged the morning after the document was signed and the establishment of a "government of victors" was proclaimed. A confrontationist stance was taken towards those who did not approve of this putsch.

I want to say once again that it is possible to reach agreement on all issues at the UN. Most importantly, these agreements should be honoured in the future. One should not act as he or she sees fit. As you remember, when Yugoslavia was disintegrating, it took the EU a long time to decide what should be done. And Germany unilaterally recognised the independence of Croatia and Slovenia without giving it a second thought. Several weeks later, everyone else started taking this as a given and as a fait accompli. At that time, while announcing their decision, our Western partners said efforts to ensure respect for the principle of former Yugoslav nations' self-determination were most important and that the West therefore recognised everything that had happened.

Soon afterwards, the Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia started talking about their own self-determination. But they were told that the West now considered respect for territorial integrity to be above all else after the recognition of all the republics of former Yugoslavia. You know what happened to these Serb aspirations: Virtually no Serbs remained in Croatia after a military operation was conducted there. Ukrainian radicals "contemplating the return of Crimea" are now praising that operation.

Speaking of the destinies of the Serbs, the Dayton Agreement made it possible to establish a state which continues to exist more or less effectively. We advocate its preservation on the basis of respecting the rights of all peoples, including the Serbs, the Croatians and, of course, Bosnian Muslims. The Serbs were denied the right to self-determination because, at that time, the West considered territorial integrity to be more important. Quite soon, Kosovo Albanians started demanding independence in Serbia itself, and the West successfully implemented this concept. The West led them towards independence and recognised their unilateral declaration of independence, citing respect for nations' right to self-determination, rather than respect for territorial integrity. This cannot go on forever.

Question: They didn't even have a referendum there that the US President Obama mentioned.

Sergey Lavrov: They had no referendum, although US President Barack Obama spoke about it. I have noticed on more than one occasion that his speechwriters write incorrect speeches for him.

Returning to the UN: the organisation has never recognised Kosovo's independence because it has a balance of powers that stand for respect of international law. The last UN decision on Kosovo is UNSC Resolution 1244, which asserts the territorial integrity of Serbia.

The UN is not a petrified structure. It changes with time. Throughout its existence, a number of new bodies have been set up whereas some bodies were terminated. The most heated discussion surrounds UNSC reform. The veto is criticised, as well as is the fact that the Security Council has a limited composition. They refer to it as "the club of the chosen", which holds its meetings and takes decisions in a non-transparent way. All of these aspects can be discussed, and that is what we are doing. There is a special intergovernmental negotiating process where UNSC reforming issues are discussed, including its expansion.

Our stance is simple: of course, a lot of time has elapsed since the Security Council of 15 people started considering issues of war and peace. Undoubtedly, the process of strengthening the foundations of multipolarity, the emergence of new power centres should be reflected in the composition of that body. The main defect of the UNSC is the under-representation of leading regions and nations. We support and we shall keep supporting India's and Brazil's claims to be represented in the Security Council on a permanent or special basis. It is crucial at that to similarly improve the representation of Africa in the UNSC.

There are also Germany's and Japan's claims. I believe that Germany is quite a respectable candidate, a leading European nation. The criticism comes from emerging regions that complain that the EU already has too many seats in the UNSC to add the Federal Republic of Germany. Let me reiterate, Germany is fit to be a Security Council member according to all parameters, but it is important to take into account the overall context because in any event a UNSC reform decision cannot be imposed by a majority on a minority.

They say that, according to the UN Charter, a decision can be taken by a two-thirds vote. But a third are not rogue countries, they are respected smaller nations. The core of the issue lies in the fact that a group of countries are convinced in the absolute necessity to have more permanent UNSC members whereas another group (let's call them the One-Third) are absolutely convinced that no new permanent seats should ever be created. If we have a vote and someone happens to be in the minority, then one-third of the nations will perceive the new Security Council created by such a confrontational voting as a body that has reduced rather than enhanced its legitimacy. This will be a deadly blow to the UN. This is the reason to look for a compromise and for approaches that will bring together those two totally opposing stances.

Our Japanese friends, as you might have heard, every now and again state that Russia misunderstands their aspiration to the UNSC membership. We understand them correctly and are prepared to talk to them. Japan is an economic and financial powerhouse. It is crucial to understand what sort of added value will be created in terms of politics, taking into account recent developments and Tokyo's approaches toward certain situations, including the problems in the relations between the West and Russia.

We have strong hope that everyone who joins the UNSC following its reform, which is sure to occur, will act independently and take decisions based on their national interests rather than on the basis of deteriorating or improving relations with someone else. When conducting any reform, be it the Security Council or other UN structures, one cannot ignore such a factor as the necessity to strictly observe the clause in the Charter regarding the irrevocability of the outcome of World War II.

Question: You had a discussion via correspondence with your Japanese colleague on the issue.

Sergey Lavrov: I merely reaffirmed our position. When we contact our Japanese colleagues and ask them whether they recognise the outcome of WWII, they give an ambiguous answer, "On the whole, yes, but not quite so regarding the southern Kuril Islands." When asked what should be done with the Charter, which states the inviolability of the outcome, we are told that it should be altered. This stance is unacceptable for us. In response to our reassertion of our approach, the Japanese state that our comments are irrelevant on the issue. Perhaps, one can put it this way from their point of view. But we express an approach that is shared practically by all other nations of the world.

Question: The past year has been a serious test of strength for the UN and security structures in Europe due to the crisis in Ukraine and the confrontational context that emerged in the relations between Russia and the so-called West, to which Japan added its own sanctions against Russia. How sensible do you think our partners' position is? Here is how things look on the outside - Ukraine declared war on Russia, yet continues to import Russian coal, gas and electricity, the embassy continues to operate, planes keep flying, and although Russia is not at war with Ukraine, it's mostly us that the West reproaches for failures in the implementation of the Minsk agreements. Have you ever heard any serious reproaches of Ukraine for violating these agreements?

Sergey Lavrov: I think that by now all leading Western countries that have been following the situation and know the facts are perfectly aware that the Ukrainian government is the key obstacle hampering the implementation of the Minsk agreements. The reasons vary. Some fear that if the war comes to an end, if provocations and the shelling of the self-proclaimed DPR [Donetsk People's Republic] and LPR [Lugansk People's Republic] cease, military tensions will abate and they will be called to account for mishandling the economy and social sphere. Others fear that disobedient battalions, no more war for them in southeast Ukraine, will return to other regions and start practicing the skills they acquired during the war. Still others say that the more the military hysteria is whipped up, the easier it will be for the Ukrainian authorities to persuade the West to step up pressure on Russia.

The West's position is as follows: if the Minsk agreements are implemented, sanctions against Russia will be lifted. As if Russia was the only country to sign the Minsk agreements and should, therefore, be the only one to implement them.

That's not so. When asked how they will react to more and more instances of Kiev failing to honour its commitments, substantiated by evidence, our Western partners say nothing. I am convinced that deep in their minds, they give it a thought, and we know that they send signals to Kiev - so far, behind the curtain. Although, I feel that many Europeans are on the verge of doing so openly, as behind-the-curtain reprimands have produced no effect or result.

We can see that if we look at the text of the Minsk agreements, which is an open document approved by the UN Security Council. It says that consultations must begin with Donetsk and Lugansk on matters concerning local elections on the basis of Ukrainian law. But those consultations haven't even begun, and instead they say: "No, let them (Donetsk and Lugansk) allow the OSCE in, and it will then determine how these elections should be held." But that's not what was agreed upon in Minsk. What is said in the agreements is that after - in the course of Kiev's consultations with Donetsk and Lugansk - the parameters of local elections on their territory have been coordinated, the OSCE will monitor the elections. And now they are attempting to reverse this. That's first.

Second, the Minsk agreements stipulate that the economic blockade must be stopped, social payments resumed and the banking system restored. None of that is being done.

Third, it's amnesty for everyone involved in the events in southeast Ukraine. Without that, how can one expect participants in the elections to represent all social strata? It's impossible.

Question: Meanwhile, they are planning to amnesty their own people, those who committed war crimes?

Sergey Lavrov: Certainly. But no general amnesty is in sight.

Fourth, the law on a special status for Donbass must be enacted. This law is ready and just needs to take effect. They adopted it, but later suspended it again, saying that it will not be applied until the territories of the DPR and LPR are fully "liberated" and Kiev's control over them is completely restored, and up until then they will have the status of "occupied territories". That, too, is a gross violation of Kiev's obligations under the Minsk agreements.

And then, to be sure, there is the constitutional reform, which, as was agreed upon in Minsk, has to be coordinated with Donetsk and Lugansk. However, they have not even been included in a special constitutional commission that comprises 15 Western experts, but no one from Donetsk or Lugansk.

Question: All this was agreed upon with Ukrainian President Petr Poroshenko. Do we still consider him a partner? Is there someone to talk to? Is there any consolidated decision? Who are our negotiating partners?

Sergey Lavrov: Ukrainian President Petr Poroshenko is our negotiating partner. He continues contacts with us and we feel that he is striving to comply with what was agreed upon.

Probably he has to consider the existence of the "party of war" in Kiev, at least for the record and in practical actions. It exists no matter what the attitude toward it might be. Bellicose statements as regards Russia, Donetsk and Lugansk are being made on end. They are called "terrorists" or "separatists". Given this approach, I am very pessimistic about the ability of the current Ukrainian authorities to implement what President Poroshenko signed with the support of Russia, Germany, France, the OSCE and the United States. At the Sochi meeting, US Secretary of State John Kerry unequivocally expressed the need for strict compliance with all aspects of the Minsk agreements.

We agreed on the following approach - considering its influence on Kiev, the United States will use it to encourage moves toward the implementation of the Minsk agreements. We will do the same as regards the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR - we have never stopped doing this. They agreed and signed the Minsk agreements, having promised to remain part of Ukraine if all of them are fulfilled. This is the result of Moscow's very serious efforts. Otherwise, they would have proclaimed independence. They did not even want to hear about any talks except those regarding the division of territory, the partition of property and something else.

However, now the chief thing that should be done by all means is work on the areas that I've mentioned. An opportunity for this opened with the formation in early May of the contact group of four working subgroups on political processes, security, the economy and humanitarian issues. There was a huge battle over this, as contrary to the Minsk agreements of which Donetsk and Lugansk were an inalienable part, Kiev tried to reduce the working subgroups to the Russia-Ukraine-OSCE trilateral format and invite the DPR and LPR when it sees fit just to inform them of the agreements reached. Obviously, this provocative approach does not work. Its only purpose is to create the impression that Russia is a side in the conflict as if it is not Kiev that is fighting with its regions and its people. Eventually, and we must give credit for this to our partners in OSCE and the Normandy format, the negotiators agreed on a formula that will ensure the fully legitimate and meaningful participation of Donetsk and Lugansk in all aspects of this work.

As a result of our efforts, a synchronous meeting of all four working subgroups has been scheduled for June 2. I hope that it will take place on that date. It is important to look at the course of the debates on the practical provisions of the Minsk agreements. Naturally, it is vital to curb attempts to violate the ceasefire, or play around with heavy weapons that must be withdrawn to permanent storage locations. We hope the subgroup on military issues and security will finally endorse the document on demilitarising the village of Shirokino. We made this initiative almost a month ago with the support of Donetsk and Lugansk. The Ukrainian side seems to show understanding, at least as represented by the joint Russian-Ukrainian Centre for Control and Coordination that was set up upon Mr Poroshenko's request. Now the sides are dovetailing the details of this document. If supported by the self-defence fighters, it may become a very important result of the work by the subgroup on military issues. We are also suggesting that the sides should pull out heavy weapons not only with a calibre over 100 mm, but also with a calibre under 100 mm, including tanks and mortars.

Question: How sincere were the talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry on the difficulties in implementing the Minsk agreements and the unreliability of our Ukrainian partners? What is his reaction in this regard? There were reports that the Americans would also like to take part in the negotiating process on the Minsk agreements. Have they said this?

Sergey Lavrov: The Sochi talks were very frank. Apart from Ukraine, we discussed approaches toward the arrangement in Syria, the events in Yemen, and the status of Palestinian-Israeli settlement - we had many issues on our agenda. We worked for many hours, primarily at President Vladimir Putin's residence with him.

Naturally, Ukraine occupied a special place. The discussion was open. There was no ambiguity or attempts to conceal what should be done and what each side thinks. Let me repeat that we felt the sincere striving of Secretary of State John Kerry to facilitate the implementation of the Minsk agreements. Yes, they think Russia can do more. There were some accusations that they repeated in public later on about the alleged presence of Russian troops and arms in southeastern Ukraine. We were handed very poor Xerox copies of what they described as satellite pictures. We are studying them. It is unclear what has been photographed there. No specific facts were quoted. As for the evidence of the presence of Russian troops, the Americans gave us a reference to Russian media, notably the newspaper Novaya Gazeta and the Dozhd television channel. There was a half-a-page report about some army serviceman who wrote some letters from there and about something that was found in his diary.

Let me repeat, we hear about 9,000-10,000 Russian army servicemen. I think it is indicative enough that despite all of their technical and technological equipment the Americans have not presented us a single convincing and specific fact all this time. But our conversation was frank. We discussed current formats of international efforts to settle the Ukrainian crisis. Considering the positions of not only Russia but also other participants in the process, the sides deemed it useful to establish a bilateral US-Russian mechanism of consultations and exchanging information with a view to understanding how the Americans influence Kiev and what results they achieve, and how we work with Donetsk and Lugansk. As a follow-up to this agreement, US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland visited Moscow and met with Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin. The conversation will be continued. I think this is the best form right now.

I'd like to use this interview to emphasise again what I consider a very simple thing if we are talking about facts, trying to establish the truth and what is really happening in Ukraine because there are too many lies and mere assertions. Russia-supported self-defence fighters are blamed for everything.

Reporters of many Russian television channels work on the ground. Every day, we see live reports on what is regrettably happening to the east of the contact line, in the territory controlled by self-defence fighters. In the last few days, Gorlovka was again subjected to shelling by heavy weapons. We see destroyed buildings, hospitals, schools, social facilities and civilians who are killed or heavily injured. A girl was killed the other day. Russian journalists who risk their lives there document all of his. In response to the indignation of Lugansk, Donetsk and normal people throughout the world Kiev says: "It is the self-defence fighters who start all of this. We merely respond."

Question: Are they suicidal?

Sergey Lavrov: Or how people in Odessa burned themselves? I offer all Western colleagues who have some other considerations to send their media to the Kiev-controlled territory just as we sent our own journalists for daily work in the territory controlled by the self-defence fighters. Maybe they are not allowed there? I have no doubts about the picture received by the world public - we are not shown the destruction of civilian facilities or dead civilians on the Ukrainian-government-controlled territory to the west of the contact line. Probably this is tell-tale evidence. Ukrainian reports only say that so-called "terrorists-separatists" killed three Ukrainian army servicemen and a fighter of some volunteer battalion. I haven't heard any reports by the Ukrainian authorities about civilian deaths in the territory close to the area controlled by the self-defence fighters. This evidence also speaks for itself. I'd like to ask journalists who have access to Ukraine to show us the truth.

Question: International foreign policy must have changed a lot if the foreign minister talks about events on television. Where is diplomacy heading?

Sergey Lavrov: Toward even closer friendship with civil society.

Question: Statements have become rough. There are accusations of lies, leaks of private conversations. How much has diplomacy changed?

Sergey Lavrov: You know I thought about this as well. The very notion of diplomacy usually means politeness, some intricate play. But now events develop so fast that you have to react immediately and be understood at once on very many issues. Diplomats should also have gentle hints in their arsenals that have been used since Byzantine times - otherwise, they wouldn't be professionals. But in many cases, the truth works much better than the hope that your partner is responsible enough to understand your understatement. Albeit fast developments increasingly often require direct and clear-cut, unequivocal statements of one's position, it is also necessary, of course, to play long games that require more serious analysis. The main thing is to remember to do this because reacting to current problems without having your state's foreign policy strategy in your mind also harbours high risks.

[return to Contents] 

 #3
Government.ru
May 23, 2015
Dmitry Medvedev's interview with Rossiya 1 TV network

Prime Minister gave an interview to Sergei Brilev's programme Vesti v Subbotu.

Sergei Brilev: Mr Medvedev, where are we? What's the point of holding offsite Government meetings like this?

Dmitry Medvedev: Sberbank is hosting this meeting. This is a special training and education centre, a place where people can exchange experience. I think it's a good place.

Sergei Brilev: As far as I understand, its key feature is that rank-and-file employees can also come here.

Dmitry Medvedev: Yes, of course. This is a training centre for Sberbank employees, where they attend workshops. The Government has been invited here to have a look. By the way, there was a good reason for us to meet here. Yesterday, on 21 May, the current Government celebrated its third anniversary since its formation. But celebrating this occasion was not the only reason for holding this meeting. In fact, we met to sum up results, talk, outline plans for the future and listen to some interesting people who have been invited here.

Sergei Brilev: I had an opportunity to look through the meeting's agenda and found Americans and Singaporeans among its participants. Or am I disclosing a corporate secret of sorts?

Dmitry Medvedev: There were also quite a few Russians there: economists, political scientists and sociologists. There were also experts from other countries, primarily people with experience in state governance. Today, a colleague from Singapore whom you've mentioned delivered a presentation. As a former head of the Public Service Division, he shared with us some insights on reforms that were implemented in Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew, the legendary leader of Singapore. He also talked about changes they've made, and naturally, how it applies to Russia's experience. In fact, I asked him a question on whether approaches of this kind can be effective in other countries, big nations with a different history, like Russia. All in all, the exchange of views that took place was quite interesting. I was pleased to see that ministers, who for the most part are very self-reliant and regard themselves as experts at least in their respective areas and are in charge of specific sectors, nevertheless, they were eager to ask questions, they were interested. This proves that this was not in vain.

Sergei Brilev: You know, I was able to slip past security. But please don't give them a hard time.

Dmitry Medvedev: How did you manage it?

Sergei Brilev: Well, that's not the point. The point is that I had a peek through a window into the meeting room. I was surprised that they were actually taking notes.

Dmitry Medvedev: That's not a bad thing.

Sergei Brilev: Despite the fact that they are ministers...

Dmitry Medvedev: Of course, this is very important. This means that no one, be it a college student or a minister, should scorn new knowledge or talk to people who have things to share in a dismissive manner, as if saying: I already know everything you are trying to tell me and I'm in charge of these processes on the scale of an immense country like Russia, so don't try to impress me. On the contrary, it is important to be able to find something valuable and rational in another person's experience, something that can be applied to our environment.

Sergei Brilev: Did you take notes?

Dmitry Medvedev: Of course, I did. I remembered some things, and put others on paper. There were some really interesting points there.

Sergei Brilev: Mr Medvedev, you have already mentioned the third anniversary of the current Government's term in office. It feels like May 2012 was just yesterday. At the same time, it feels like a decade has gone by. Do you feel like it's been just three years or a whole three years?

Dmitry Medvedev: You know, my feelings are exactly the same. On the one hand, it was just yesterday and the time has gone by so quickly. On the other hand, so much has happened over these past three years, especially if we think about last year.

It is a significant time for a Government. According to the Constitution, it is only half of the mandate, half of the term that is given to the executive branch. Therefore, I generally believe that it has been a pretty difficult but very interesting and challenging period for the Government, the entire Government team and myself.

Sergei Brilev: Speaking about last year, you already talked about it in your report to the State Duma. We will definitely get back to this later. Looking back on these three years as a whole, which of your plans have succeeded and which have not?

Dmitry Medvedev: I don't think we have the time to repeat what I said in the report to the State Duma this year and the year before. I believe we are moving forward with the goals and targets that we set. In May 2012, the President published his May Executive Orders, outlining the country's long-term development objectives and, let's be honest, they are very ambitious. The Government has approved the main directives and a number of state programmes in order to implement the Presidential Executive Orders and its own documents. These are our guidelines. Regardless of whether we succeed, we have come a very long way over these three years. I will not give you too many examples but let me say the following. You know there have been some positive changes over these three years, changes for the better. First of all, in the demographic issue. You will agree it is a very telling indicator of the nation's wellbeing and the Government's performance.

Sergei Brilev: An emotional indicator.

Dmitry Medvedev: Both an emotional and a fact-based indicator. In the past three years, we crossed the point of natural population growth. Our population is growing every year. It did not happen for almost 20 years in our recent history. Now there are more and more of us with every year. Russia is no longer a nation that is in danger of extinction. Bear in mind that just a few years ago Russia was statistically a country with a downward demographic trend.

Sergei Brilev: Even your friend Obama once mentioned this fact.

Dmitry Medvedev: True. By the way, he mentioned it after we entered the growth phase. Last year, Russia's population increased by 33,000 people. I think it is a very good result because it is a mirror of the Government's work. We have a whole lot of other very important achievements. Let me touch on another issue that concerns a huge number of people. All right, children are born but then they need to study somewhere, go to kindergartens and pre-schools. For almost 15 years, the whole pre-school sector was going downhill. Kindergartens were either sold off or left to crumble. Only recently, we have made a very important step forward, specifically, in the past three years. I believe we will eventually solve this task. Frankly, wherever I go and talk to the public in the regions, the first question is never about incomes or prices or inflation. The first question is always about kindergartens. People say, here, we have a new kindergarten. But we need more and soon. Everybody thinks that this programme could be one of the most successful. Why am I saying this? Because I hope that by the end of this year, we will completely resolve the pre-school issue. Then our demographic programme will have a solid foundation.

Sergei Brilev: Despite the budget cuts? Are you saying it is an untouchable target?

Dmitry Medvedev: Yes, despite the budget cuts. We have already invested over 100 billion roubles in this programme. The regions also contributed almost 60 billion. This year, despite financial constraints, we have increased the programme's budget by 20 billion. That means we added 20 billion to the 10 billion we had initially planned to spend. Therefore I'm confident that we have made a major stride forward. We are moving fast and in the right direction.

Sergei Brilev: Mr Medvedev, strictly speaking you have answered only one of the two questions. You've talked about the Government's achievements. But there is also a question of what you have failed to achieve, so let's not miss out on the opportunity to talk about it. But first, I have a confession to make.

Dmitry Medvedev: I'm ready to talk about it.

Sergei Brilev: I would like to tell you first where I have failed. Maybe I shouldn't be saying this, but last autumn, when the first effects of economic sanctions started to kick in, particularly the fluctuations in the rouble exchange rate, I panicked and converted my savings into dollars at the end of the year. Well, here comes the spring, and now I understand what a grave mistake I made. In fact, I lost a lot of money. I probably should not have raised this issue, but I'm not the only one who acted like this.

Dmitry Medvedev: You're certainly not the only one.

Sergei Brilev: What has been done to reverse this trend for the rouble?

Dmitry Medvedev: Let me start with a comment on you panicking. On the one hand, it's something everyone can understand. Many people felt this way. On the other hand, this is yet another proof that in such situations, if you trust your country, its economy, Government and Central Bank, it's always better to wait and see instead of panicking, because there's always a rebound. By the way, we, I mean the Government and the Central Bank, told you that the rouble rate will go up again, we told everyone not to worry, despite the sanctions and the dramatic fall in the price of oil, everything will come back to normal. This is what has actually happened. But of course, everyone has their reasons. Let's hope that the losses were not too big.

Now to the measures that were undertaken. As you know, the Central Bank decided some time ago to allow the Russian rouble to trade freely by introducing the so-called free-float. This approach is absolutely market-oriented and the right thing to do when it comes to the value of the rouble and how it compares to the world's main reserve currencies. In this system, the role of the Government and the Central Bank is reduced to a minimum, while the balance is reached through a complex set of various economic factors. At the end of the day, this is the right approach. Although it may create challenges in the short-term, which actually happened in December for a number of reasons. This had to do with the price of oil. It is true that Russia is very dependent on oil and gas prices. This is no secret. Although the trend has reversed, the prices we used to have are still beyond reach. They are still way below the average we set as a reference point two or three years ago.

There are other problems as well. At the end of the year major Russian companies had to make payments on their loans, while foreign capital markets were closed to them. We are unable to tap loans and are living of internal reserves. This affected the rate of the rouble and forced Russian companies to purchase dollars in order to repay foreign debts. However, the Russian economy does not boil down to export-related liabilities of its companies, payments under foreign trade contracts or for equipment deliveries. There were also a number of other factors, which are no longer relevant.

Moreover, consistent efforts by the Russian Central Bank and Government enabled us to strengthen the banking system. The one trillion rouble figure is frequently mentioned - we took this decision intentionally, to dispel any doubts regarding the solidity and strength of Russia's banking system. Russian banks have increased their capital by purchasing special securities. By doing so they are able to comply with all the existing regulations, as they say in the banking industry, provide for capital adequacy and thereby meet all their commitments. This is what underpins the stability of the banking system. Of course, this is a major prerequisite for the economy as a whole to be up and running, including the industrial sector, agriculture, trade and small and medium-size businesses. The Government has adopted a number of decisions aimed at supporting the banking system, the industrial and agricultural sectors.

All these efforts resulted in a more stable national currency, the rouble appreciated, as the saying goes. What does this mean? First, it means that acting on any kinds of impulses or speculative trends is not the right thing to do, and, on the other hand, that our national currency has strong potential. That said, we will keep following developments on the currency market. This is primarily the task of the Central Bank. It goes without saying that the Government will also work on this issue and will assist the Central Bank within the scope of its authority. The message I want to get through, and I've recently raised this issue, is that we are interested in making the rate of the rouble predictable. It shouldn't be too low or overvalued. It should be stable so that Russian people and companies can make plans, at least for the short and medium term. This is what we are going to do.

Sergei Brilev: Could you cite some figures?

Dmitry Medvedev: You want me to give you the currency band?

Sergei Brilev: With 50 roubles per dollar it's easy to count.

Dmitry Medvedev: We have renounced the currency band. The rouble rate now reflects a whole range of factors on the currency market and in the economy as a whole. What we now have is close to the real value of the rouble. There are economists who believe that the rouble is overvalued. This is generally a good thing in terms of making payments in roubles and receiving salaries. But if we consider the opportunities for Russian exporters, the stronger the rouble, the weaker their positions. The goal is to strike a balance. This balance is now on a par with the buy and sell rates of foreign currency.

Sergei Brilev: Is it an optimal balance?

Dmitry Medvedev: You know, a balance is a balance. A balance is always optimal once it is reached.

Sergei Brilev: Mr Medvedev, Ukraine. The U-word that's on everyone's lips. We've heard it said a number of times that this is it, we won't put up with this any longer, we must stop writing off Ukraine's debts. Well, maybe now, after this week's decision by the Verkhovna Rada, the time has finally come to stop being so forgiving and say: come on, guys, pay up.

Dmitry Medvedev: Strictly speaking, we are not putting up with anything intolerable. It is true that we have been telling our Ukrainian partners and neighbours that we do understand how tough their situation is. Keep in mind that just the inflation is at 35 percent. Imagine how much value has been lost. The GDP dropped by 17 or 18 percent. The situation is very difficult. And in this regard we acted very honourably, if you like, trying not to put a spoke in the wheels of the Ukrainian economy, which is on the brink of bankruptcy anyway.

At the same time we must get our money back. And we never said that we don't want them to repay their debts. It was the same with gas as well. As you know, at some point we told them: enough, guys, you will only get the amount of gas that you paid for. And now they pay in dribs and drabs, transferring $20-30 million at a time. This is enough to pay for three, five or seven days of supplies. Well, it seems there is no money left. Or they are afraid to let it out of their hands. There are plenty of those who'd like to pocket the money. This is why, in this regard, the interests of our economy, our gas supplier, are ensured. The same goes for the money they borrowed from us. And what debts do they have? They took out a lot of commercial loans, and the loans were issued by Russian banks, many of them banks where the state is a stakeholder, including Sberbank, by the way.

Sergei Brilev: I believe VTB and Gazprombank were among the major players as well, weren't they?

Dmitry Medevev: Yes. But there are other banks, major banks, private banks. But in fact, loans were provided to either Ukrainian state companies or the Ukrainian state. Then there is also the sovereign debt, the money Russia loaned to the Ukrainian government, Ukrainian state at some point.

Sergei Brilev: Do you mean the $3 billion lent at the end of Yanukovych's presidency?

Dmitry Medvedev: Yes, just a short time before the coup that took place in Ukraine. As for the sovereign debt, it's absolutely clear-cut. We have discussed this with the President recently. They have an obligation to repay this debt, and the deadline is at the end of this year. We have good reasons to ask for an early repayment right now, because they have already breached the terms of the contract, the so-called covenants dealing with the correlation of the sovereign debt to the GDP. But we did not do this. Finally, they must comply with all the payment obligations under the loan agreement and pay the interest in accordance with the existing schedule. The last statement made by the Verkhovna Rada and the Ukrainian government is very contradictory. They talk about private borrowings, but at the same time they've hinted that they are not going to pay the debts incurred by the Yanukovych government. This is reminiscent of the Bolsheviks's refusal to repay the tsarist government's debts. So if this is what they choose to do, it will mean Ukraine's default, and this will affect their agreement with the International Monetary Fund. We will take the toughest stance in this case in defending our national interests.

Now, regarding the so-called private debts. They are not exactly private because, as we have found out, these loans were issued by Russian banks, including state-owned banks. Therefore, we cannot be indifferent regarding these debts. We will be seeking to recover them. Banks will be using all the tools at their disposal, including legal proceedings. The statement we have heard applies to the loans that were issued by various institutions, various companies, including from the Russian Federation. Although it sounds like the statements they heard in response from different countries, including the Russian Federation, have hit home and now they are saying that they have not done anything yet, that the government just has the right to do this. But you and I understand that sometimes intentions are more important than actions. Strictly speaking, from the legal point of view, we could say that the decision made by the Verkhovna Rada is sufficient reason to demand an early repayment of these debts.

Sergei Brilev: Mr Medvedev, one detail. You said that the IMF will act in a certain way. Does it mean that Russia, which is represented on the IMF Board, will block the decision to issue further loans to Ukraine if this matter is discussed at the next session of the International Monetary Fund?

Dmitry Medvedev: First,we have already said that we are not going to restructure anything. This is why these decisions emerged, some convulsive actions, incomprehensible decisions, which the Verkhovna Rada made and which the Ukrainian government is to make in the future. We cannot block anything ourselves, because to block something, you need to have a blocking share. But we will mention this as part of our vote. I am sure that such decisions will eventually affect the position of other creditors and other participants of the International Monetary Fund.

Sergei Brilev: Probably even those who feel for Kiev politically.

Dmitry Medvede: Even those who feel for Kiev, maybe. But you know what it's like when the government says: first you have to stand in the line and then maybe we will repay you half of what we owe. No one likes that.

Sergei Brilev: Let's get back to Russia. Where did Russia's agriculture come from? I remember what it was like before the anti-sanctions. Everybody believed that the industry is dead and heavy with imports. And suddenly here it is. Where was it hiding, Mr Medvedev?

Dmitry Medvedev: Let me disagree with you. That's what it was like in the 1990s. There was a belief that the agricultural industry is our black hole and we shouldn't even try to deal with it. We can buy everything abroad. In the past years that was not exactly true. At any rate, in the past ten or nine years, since the start of the national agricultural project, we have invested a lot of money in agriculture.

Sergei Brilev: You know, I'm not being completely on the level here. Let me explain. Of course, I'm a Muscovite who goes to Moscow supermarkets, where domestic produce is comparably scarce.

Dmitry Medvedev: Right.

Sergei Brilev: On the other hand, I travel across Russia a lot. For the past five or seven years, it has been really surprising. You go to a grocery store in Krasnoyarsk, for example, and there is a lot of produce, say, from the Urals. The horizontal links are working quite well there. However, the two capitals and many large cities seem to be outsiders.

Dmitry Medvedev: Sergei, it is pure convenience. Honestly, it was convenient for our supermarket chains. They had well established connections abroad. Naturally, they made profits and shared them with certain people. To tell the truth, their goal was to keep domestic producers away from large food store chains. But after what happened, everything fell into place. They just had to seek each other out. I remember my meeting with them. I gathered both our producers, large and small, on one side of the table and our largest retail chains on the other. You know, they said, "We apologise, we really didn't even see each other working together, especially in retail."

Sergei Brilev: You mean after the anti-sanctions were introduced?

Dmitry Medvedev: Yes, after the so-call anti-sanctions. It is a totally different story now. The situation is different in large cities, to say nothing of the regions. When I enter a store, and I try to do that whenever I travel around the country, to see what's on the shelves and check prices... Despite a commonly held belief, it is not a store that had been "prepared" for an official visit. I often just get in a car, go for a drive and say, okay, let's stop here. The Governor is not always happy. But we go there. I talk to the staff and customers. The majority of products are Russian. I ask them about specific, essential products such as sausages, meat, bread, butter, dairy. They are local. And since they're local, the prices hardly ever change, or only slightly. The prices changed a little after the restrictive measures were introduced - more or less here and there. It is obvious why. But they have been stable lately. And the domestic products are not getting more expensive. It may be different for foreign produce, especially for fruit and some vegetables.

Therefore, our policy is import substitution in agriculture. We will be planting new orchards and develop the greenhouse industry. We will be improving livestock breeding where it is necessary. Let me remind you... Well, you said it yourself: where did it all come from? For example, there is no problem with poultry. We are hundred percent supplied with domestic chicken. We don't need any more "Bush legs" or what was it called? I mean chicken and other meat from the United States. For other types of livestock we still require serious investment. Mainly beef and partially pork. And we will be making investments. We must by all means improve our own cattle breeding. Speaking of which, we have made huge progress recently, including in livestock. We now have what never existed in the Soviet times, that is beef stock farming. I mean cattle breeding specifically for meat production.

Sergei Brilev: So we don't have to fly in bulls from North Dakota any more.

Dmitry Medvedev: We don't have to import anything.

Sergei Brilev: There was a time when we had to.

Dmitry Medvedev: Yes, there was. But I hope that now we are gradually abandoning this practice. I believe our farming industry is taking off. The last thing I want to say is we have learnt to get excellent harvests. Last year, we harvested 105 million tonnes. That is a huge harvest. It is a harvest that can give us 25 million tonnes to export. In other words, our crop growing has made great progress. What does it mean? It means we can use part of the grain and legume harvest in cattle feeding, which is the best thing to do. It is better not to export crops but use them to improve cattle breeding. Because cattle is a higher-level product compared to crops, or a product with added value. Therefore, I believe that our farming industry is developing pretty well.

Finally, despite last year being pretty difficult and despite the sanctions and the decline in industrial production and many other negative factors, agriculture is growing steadily. I'd even say it is the fastest growing sector in the Russian economy.

SergeiBrilev: Nevertheless, several questions about agriculture. Let me start with a minor issue. Palm oil is actively used right now in import substitution. It is an imported product as well.

Dmitry Medvedev: Does that bother you?

Sergei Brilev: You know,I've been hearing a lot that this is not very good. Take domestically produced cheeses... With palm oil, flavour is one thing and its impact on health is another. Have you heard about it? A minor issue, but still rather interesting.

Dmitry Medvedev: I have read about it, of course. I believe that these are, to a greater extent, some fears and phantoms that are very often spread. First, there is a wide variety of products. Some are absolutely natural products, products based on animal fats or on vegetable fats. Basically, there are options to choose. If you have concerns about palm oil, you should just read the labels and stay away from foods that contain it. Although it is not a health hazard. We have very strict control over all sanitary epidemiological issues and legislation in the sphere of consumer protection. In fact, let me tell you that legislation in this sphere (it may sound like a paradox for someone) has been very strict ever since the Soviet times. Second, I believe that there always must be options to choose from and every consumer should be able to purchase what he or she wants. This is what we aspire to, in fact.  

Sergei Brilev: Another point about food products. A minor issue again, but a rather interesting one. Arkady Dvorkovich, your deputy, hinted at one point that some of the anti-sanctions on foods may be lifted. Which ones?

Dmitry Medvedev: We will be making these decisions (pardon me for such a pompous phrase) based on our national interests. Why? First, we were forced to impose these retaliatory restrictive measures because of the steps taken by our neighbours and trade partners. We did not start it. This is why we need to see which decisions they will make in the future, and only then, in August (because these restrictive counter-measures were imposed for a term of one year) we will decide whether to extend them, to partially change them or to lift them altogether.

But I would like to stress once again: we did not initiate this. These are retaliatory actions. This is the first point. And second, which is no less important: eventually, despite some problems we mentioned and a certain price hike, especially on imported goods, we managed to substantially increase our domestic potential during this time, these months. And this import substitution, which everybody talks about so much, has worked, in fact. Many agrarians are taking out loans, including high-interest loans, to be honest, expecting to sell their high quality Russian-made products in Russia and hoping that they will not be forced out by cheap, low-quality imported goods. In this regard, even with these restrictive measures removed - and this will happen sooner or later - we cannot and must not go back to the situation we had in the past.

Sergei Brilev: So the market structure has changed already within this year?

Dmitry Medvedev: Yes, the structure has changed already. If these measures remain in force, the market structure will continue changing in favour of Russian producers. We promised this and we will be working on this.

Finally, the last thing about restrictive measures. We made some adjustments but this did not concern specific food groups (although this decision was made regarding baby food), but those agricultural products that we have to bring in to be able to engage in production, in particular in fish farming. For instance, newly-hatched fish. We have made such decisions before and will probably have to make them again.

Sergei Brilev: Mr Medvedev, some European countries that are friendly towards Russia have requested, or hinted, that it would be good if anti-sanctions were removed against them specifically, rather than the entire European Union. The temptation for Russia to follow the "divide and rule" principle regarding the European Union is strong. Will Russia use this opportunity?

Dmitry Medvedev: You know that the European Union is our major partner. We are not on the best terms with EU states or the European Commission, let's face it. But at the same time our trade amounts to almost $400 billion.  This is our number one trade partner, even amidst the current sanctions, counter-measures and so forth. Second, there are WTO rules, and we follow them, including when we introduce restrictive counter-measures. Third, of course we look at our relations with specific states. But this does not mean that currently we will be making any decisions on allowing deliveries of, for example, products from one state and prohibiting deliveries from another state.

Sergei Brilev: The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Cyprus, Greece attended the [Victory] parade. But these are all EEC countries.

Dmitry Medvedev: Do you believe that decisions should be made based on this?

You know, I think it would be much easier and, at the same time, more useful to sit down with our partners - the states with which we have closer contacts, friendlier relations - and consider setting up joint production in Russia, where our partners could supply their products for processing in Russia. This would be the right way to go about it.

Sergei Brilev: To finish up with food security. We can see that you come back to the topics of food and medications from one meeting agenda into another. Although it is definitely not a winning topic. There are calls to switch to price regulation. The Government has been following the market road. And we should give it credit, the market does change the situation at times. How did you evade the temptation to switch to price regulation, which is part of genetic memory of the majority of Russians? Or will you still occasionally resort to this method?

Dmitry Medvedev: You have in fact answered the question you have asked. At any rate, like most people of my generation, I remember food store shelves and pharmacies during the Soviet era, when prices were regulated and there was nothing to buy. Just absolutely nothing! You and I know: as soon as stiff regulation is introduced, chances are that all the goods will vanish. It will simply become unprofitable to buy, and consequently, to sell them. That is why we don't use this tool, although legally it is possible. If there is an unmanageable price hike over a period of three months, regulation can be introduced. But this is a very poor method, and I will reiterate that it leads to a blind alley.

Sergei Brilev: And those three months of abrupt hikes have passed anyway.

Dmitry Medvedev: Yes, sure. The hikes are behind us and the rouble has rallied. Second, we do have means and funds for support. For instance, if we speak about medications, which you mentioned just now, we have a group of drugs called vital and indispensable for life. I think there are around 600 such drugs, and we do in fact regulate their prices. This is the reason they went up by as little as about six to seven percent in the past period. And the prices of the unregulated segment rose much higher, by up to 15-20 percent, and some drugs have become even more expensive. Thus regarding medication... the situation is more complicated there. It turned out to be easy for us to fill the shelves with Russian-made foods. We don't have empty shelves. Things are generally fine in the shops and everything looks all right.

Sergei Brilev: Yet Ukrainian newspapers write that people are starving here...

Dmitry Medvedev:  Ukrainian newspapers write a lot of stuff. As to medications, things are more complicated since we are unable to launch manufacturing of the whole range of certain types of drugs or to start buying generics instead, that is, drugs that do not have patent protection. Well, we still have to apply regulation here but within certain limits and only with regard to life-saving drugs. And we will keep doing it. We have 16 billion roubles allocated for it in our anti-crisis plan.  In addition, the regions are also handling this issue. So in this area we are not going to let the situation become unmanageable, whatever happens.

Sergei Brilev:  Mr Medvedev, where would you like to see an explosion of import substitution, just like in agriculture, an explosion in a positive sense? Where is the situation lagging far behind the momentum you would like to see?

Dmitry Medvedev: You see, I would like import substitution in all the key industries. And we actually have such plans, we have import substitution blueprints for 20 industries. In some cases the plans are fairly short-term, in others - long-term, but we do have such plans. They cover engineering, they cover our key industries such as ship-building, aircraft manufacturing and a number of others - things are much more complicated there and it will require a lot of time. But we have created an industry support fund, we have the anti-crisis plan working, and we shall keep funding all those steps. Let me stress it, these are not decisions made for a six month period but for a longer term.

Sergei Brilev: Mr Medvedev, do you intend to keep working beyond the age of 60?

Dmitry Medvedev: I'm ready to work as long as I can. Why do you ask? I believe that a person remains active, full of life, in high spirits and good health as long as he works. At least this is my opinion. Other people may have different perspectives. Someone may just want to stop and get some rest. There is nothing reprehensible about it. But my take on this issue is that as long as a person is able to work, he should do it for the benefit of his family, community and country. I'm ready to work as long as I can.

Sergei Brilev: Let's consider this matter from the perspective of those who do not want to work after the age of 60. This is a yes or no question. Are you for or against raising the retirement age?

Dmitry Medvedev: You know, we have asked ourselves this question a number of times and discussed it with experts. It goes without saying that we also talked to ordinary people about it. Decisions of this kind should take into account many factors. First, and probably most importantly, it depends on the way we live and the number of year we live. Today, average life expectancy in Russia is 71 years: 76 years for women and 65 years for men. There has been substantial progress in this area. Let me remind you that not too long ago men lived 59 years on average, and women 66-67 years. Even these figures differ greatly from the 1930s. I checked with statistics experts, and it turns out that average life expectancy in 1932 was 31 years. Can you imagine that? 31 years. Of course, there was the civil war and famine, but still the country came a long way in the 20th century.

This goes to say that the decision on the retirement age should be pegged to the key indicator: life expectancy and quality. This is the first point. Second, and equally importantly, is what people want. If people want to work, they should have this opportunity. Only recently I addressed the State Duma. The colleagues in parliament told me: we are ready to lead by example - we like our jobs and are ready to work until a certain age, until 65 or some other age. Maybe civil servants are also willing to do so. If people are asking for it, the Government is ready to review this issue. Our colleagues in parliament will do their part. So the decision you have asked about is indeed very complicated. It should be taken only after discussing it thoroughly with the people and experts. It should be based on the factors I've mentioned: life expectancy and what the people want. However, it does not mean that we can't take certain steps in this direction for separate categories, such as civil servants or MPs.

Sergei Brilev: Mr Medvedev, let's discuss pensions. A decision has been adopted regarding the cumulative part of state pensions. Could you provide us with an insight into the debates on this issue, if it's not a secret? How was the final decision reached?

Dmitry Medvedev: Discussions on issues like that are always very animated. I think that's absolutely normal. The Government has come here as a team. Make no mistake, there is place for debates within a team, discussions should take place, but once a decision is adopted, it should be rigorously implemented. There is no doubt that discussions are beneficial in themselves. It is true that this issue was subject to intense debate. We weighed all the pros and cons. As you know, at a certain point, more than a decade ago, the so-called cumulative element was introduced. There are cabinet members and experts who think that it may not be needed. There was a proposal to transform this cumulative part into voluntary contributions: those who want to make such savings should be free to do so on a voluntary basis. But at the end of the day, when we took the decision to keep the cumulative part of pensions in place, where did it stem from? From an understanding that the pension system should be stable and should not be constantly torn apart. It's not an option to say: We have adopted a decision, it turned out that it was no good, so let's take another decision. Meanwhile, people have already invested in this system, they have taken their own decisions. This is what matters first and foremost. Second, it is very important for the economy to have long-term investment funds that would finance economic development and investment projects. It is the pension system that serves as a source of such funding across the world. Taking all these factors into account, we decided that the cumulative part should remain in place in its existing form, i.e. as a mandatory cumulative part of pensions.

Sergei Brilev: Does this mean that you will view any further discussions on this issue as a breach of discipline?

Dmitry Medvedev: What is there to discuss? The decision has been taken. Everything stays as it used to be.

Sergei Brilev: You have mentioned that the Government has passed the equator in terms of the constitutional term of the current executive. Three years separate us from the presidential election, when the Government is due to resign. Do you intend to work in your current capacity for these three years? Everything goes as planned?

Dmitry Medvedev: In Russia, the Government is not formed by itself, but by the President. All the Prime Minister does is submit to the President the list of prospective Government members. Just like anywhere in the world, the Government remains in place as long as the President has confidence in it. I believe that this is the way it should be. The current cabinet is ready to work. Moreover, I can say that over these years the Government has become a team, a group of people who are striving to achieve objectives that are very important for our country. This crucial objective is actually quite simple: providing the people with an opportunity to live normal lives as in modern developed countries. This is what our efforts are all about.

Sergei Brilev: Thank you, Mr Medvedev. Hope your seminar goes on as well as it began.

Dmitry Medvedev: Thank you very much.

 [return to Contents] 

 #4
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
June 2, 2015
How a Top US Foreign Policy Advisor Peddles Russophobia
Financial Times article purportedly calls for a resumption of dialogue with Russia but in fact exposes the deep seated anti-Russian prejudice of the US foreign policy establishment.
By Alexander Mercouris

The article from the Financial Times we attach below is attracting a great deal of attention. [In JRL #108, June 2]

The writer of the article, Thomas Graham, is a former senior director for Russia on the staff of the U.S. National Security Council.  

He presumably carries weight in the inner counsels of the U.S. government and has had a key role formulating U.S. policy towards Russia.  

Judging from the recommendations he makes in his article, he is probably a good representative of what might be called the "realists" in the U.S. foreign policy establishment.

The article does indeed make recommendations that can be called "realist".

It calls for a resumption of the political dialogue between the U.S. and Russia.  It recognises that the breakdown of that dialogue which has happened since the start of the Ukrainian conflict is in no one's interest.

It also, rather grudgingly, recognises that Russia's cooperation is essential both for the stabilisation of the situation of Ukraine (supposedly needed "as a barrier to Russia's assault on European norms and unity") and for the maintenance of peace in Europe and the world generally.

The article also tries to get beyond the tired cliche that everything is the fault of Vladimir Putin and that if he is removed from power or replaced (something the writer clearly doesn't think will happen soon) all will be well.

In every other respect however the article is massively disappointing and is a good illustration of why relations between Russia and the U.S. have become as bad as they have.

The article makes no admission of any fault or error on the part of the U.S..  

Instead it blames everything on a supposed "Russia problem", caused by the emergence of a "values gap" in the 19th century between a "democratising West" seeking peace through "balance" and a perennially insecure and aggressive Russia, stuck in autocracy.

The article speaks of this "Russia problem" having afflicted Europe for the last 200 years - to be precise since the end of the Napoleonic wars.

Europe supposedly has had to be protected - or has had to protect itself - from this "alien" and aggressive Russia, which seeks security not as other European powers do through "balance", but through "depth", i.e., through constant expansion of its borders until it comes into collision with other powers equally or more powerful than itself.

It needs to be said clearly that this is all total nonsense.  

Whether a "values gap" ever emerged or existed between Western Europe and Russia in the 19th century is open to doubt. However of one thing there is no doubt, and that is that Russia never posed any sort of threat to Europe at any time in the 19th century, whether before or after the Napoleonic wars, and was never during this period the sort of expansionist and disruptive power the writer alleges.

There is no case of Russia attacking, or of planning to attack, any European power at any time in the 19th century.  

Russia did occupy during this period Georgia, Armenia, parts of Poland and what are now the Baltic States, and was in a dynastic union with Finland, but these territories were acquired by Russia either before the Napoleonic wars ended or immediately after, as a direct result of them.  

Russia's expansion in the 19th century in the Caucasus and Central Europe was utterly eclipsed by the immeasurably vaster and far more bloody expansion of the European colonial empires and of the U.S. in North America during this same period .

Russia did send its army to suppress a revolt in Hungary that broke out in 1848, but this was done to support Hungary's Habsburg government, and not to acquire territory there.

Russia did also fight a series of wars against the Ottoman empire, but this is presumably not part of the West the writer is talking about. Certainly if one is talking about a "values gap", the "values gap" between the Ottoman empire and Western Europe in the 19th century was far greater than any "values gap" between Western Europe and Russia.

As it happens, though Russia was consistently successful in the wars it fought against the Ottomans, it never expanded its territory into former Ottoman territory in Europe after the conquest of Bessarabia in 1812. It never conquered territory in the Balkans, and there is no evidence - outside the fantasies of conquering Constantinople indulged in by a few Orthodox Christian publicists, which after the death of Catherine II and the start of the First World War were never adopted by the tsarist government - that it ever seriously sought to do so.

As a matter of fact the only war Russia fought with any European power or powers between the end of the Napoleonic wars and the start of the First World War was the Crimean War, which Russia fought on its own territory because it was invaded by Britain and France.

In fact all the great wars fought between Russia and the great European powers since the Peace of Tilsit of 1807 have involved invasions of Russia by those powers, not invasions of those powers by Russia.

This has included the Napoleonic invasion of 1812, the Anglo-French invasion of 1854 and the German attacks on Russia of 1914 and 1941.

To speak therefore of a perennial threat to Europe from Russia that has supposedly lasted 200 years, and of Europe having a "Russia problem" that has lasted throughout that period, is to talk nonsense.

It is also pernicious nonsense that connects the writer to a stream of Western Russophobic writing that extends all the way back to the forgery in the 18th century of the fraudulent Last Testament of Peter the Great.

That such Russophobia finds a place in a newspaper like the Financial Times is alarming enough. That it is actually being peddled - and is presumably believed - by someone who has enjoyed a high position in the U.S. government, and who doubtless once advised the U.S. president, is deeply concerning, especially when that person puts himself forward as a "realist".

Suffice to say that so long as such grotesquely bigoted views about Russia continue to enjoy common currency in the West - and continue to be held by senior policy makers there - a genuine rapprochement between Russia and the West is impossible.

 [return to Contents]

 #5
RFE/RL
June 2, 2015
Kremlin Critic Emerges From Coma

Friends and allies of prominent Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, Jr., who mysteriously fell ill with poisoning symptoms in Moscow, say he has regained consciousness after a weeklong coma.

"Vladimir has come out of a coma," former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky said in a June 2 tweet.

Kara-Murza, 33, is a coordinator for Open Russia, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) run by Khodorkovsky, a prominent opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin who spent over a decade in prison in Russia and now lives in Switzerland.

Open Russia recently released a documentary critical of the Kremlin-backed leader of Russia's Chechnya region, Ramzan Kadyrov.

The NGO quoted Kara-Murza's wife, Yevgenia, as saying on June 2 that her husband "is opening his eyes and recognizes his relatives."

Kara-Murza's sudden and rapid illness on May 26 prompted some of his supporters to suggest he may have been deliberately poisoned.

His family, however, has publicly maintained that while he shows "symptoms of poisoning," no evidence of foul play has emerged.

In addition to his work with Open Russia, Kara-Murza was a political ally of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead in central Moscow in February.

He serves as a senior of member of the opposition RPR-Parnas party, which Nemtsov co-founded.

Kara-Murza's fellow activist in the party, Natalya Pelevina, said in a June 2 tweet that he emerged from a coma and is "getting better."

Kara-Murza is a dual Russian-British citizen who, together with his wife and children, is based in Washington. He travels frequently to Russia, however, to conduct seminars and other events for opposition activists.

In Washington, Kara-Murza serves as a key liaison between Russian opposition groups and top American policymakers.

In April, he joined former Russian Prime Minster and current Kremlin opponent Mikhail Kasyanov to lobby U.S. lawmakers to impose sanctions on Russian television "propagandists" they accuse of spearheading a media vilification campaign that they say helped lead to Nemtsov's slaying.

Kara-Murza's father is a correspondent for RFE/RL.

#6
Interfax
June 3, 2015
Probable Nemtsov murder weapon found

The police have found a handgun which probably killed opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, a source familiar with the situation has told Interfax.

"The murder weapon has been found and enclosed in materials in the proceeding, examinations are in progress," he said.

The source added that the detectives had found several handguns, each of which was examined. "Two handguns were found in the river, and there were also weapons found in homes of the suspects, among them Zaur Dadayev, but none of those was the murder weapon," the source said.

"The handgun will be shown to the defendants, and they will have to answer questions of the detectives," he said.

Interfax has yet to obtain a formal confirmation to this report.

Nemtsov was killed in downtown Moscow late on February 27.

Moscow's Basmanny District Court sanctioned the arrest of five people as suspects in the Nemtsov murder case. These are Zaur Dadayev, who is suspected of firing the fatal shots, Anzor Gubashev, and their presumed accomplices Khamzat Bakhayev, Shadid Gubashev, and Temerlan Eskerkhanov.

Four suspects denied their involvement in the Nemtsov murder, and Dadayev made a confession, according to the warrant of his arrest.

A detective said that testimony by Dadayev who had been cooperating with the police implied the involvement of five suspects in the murder. Dadayev denied cooperating with the investigators and said that he was abducted on March 5 and taken to the Russian Investigative Committee only on March 7 and that he was forced to make a confession.

 [return to Contents]

 #7
Moskovskiy Komsomolets
May 27, 2015
Daily lambastes Russian regime's hunt for "foreign agents" as "circus"
Mikhail Rostovskiy, Have the Russian authorities gotten overheated in the sun? Why such a concentration of political mistakes has occurred at the end of spring 2015

Sticky Mediterranean heat has been plaguing Moscow for only a few days. But some people seem to have already managed to get well and truly overheated in the sun. And not just anybody, but His Majesty the Russian state mechanism itself.

An authoritative German Bundestag deputy comes to our hospitable capital in order to talk with Russian state figures in the rank of adviser to the Russian Federation president and chairman of a Senate committee - and immediately heads home again under escort. They say, sorry, Mr German, there has been a mistake! You are no kind of cherished guest but a veritable undesirable individual. So take your Ausweis [identity card] and get out of here!

Following the widely advertised reform of the system for administering science the solicitous Russian state "forgets" to pay what by budget standards are peanuts to extend subscriptions to world scientific publications. On the other hand, the Ministry of Justice, which is headed by Aleksandr Konovalov, the well-known "repository of liberal views," does not forget to find fault with a charitable foundation that provides real aid to our science and pin an ignominious label on it.

"Shit happens" - as the Americans say. In any country, under any leader, and at any time the wheels of the state machinery are capable of operating without a hitch only in a fantasy movie. In real life mistakes verging on insanity - and sometimes even beyond - always happen and always will.

The mistakes made by the Russian authorities at the end of spring 2015 - and I have mentioned only a small proportion of them - should not be absolutized. Is it in fact an abnormal situation, for example, for a high-ranking German politician to be prohibited from entering Russia?

In theory it certainly is. I advocate the kind of relations between Russia and the West whereby such entry bans would be impossible. But the basis of international relations is the principle of reciprocity. If Russian parliamentary leaders are officially denied the possibility of entering the European Union, why are European parliamentarians so surprised when they encounter symmetrical sanctions by the Russian Federation?

Is there in principle a need to monitor the activity of nonprofit organizations - and particularly those that receive funding from abroad? As I see it there definitely is. In 2002, following the appearance of an American military base at the Kyrgyzstan capital's airport, I paid a special visit to the republic.

And the principal shock to me turned out to be not the actual sight of American military personnel at a painfully familiar airport, from which as a child I used to fly to the Kyrgyz resort town of Cholpon-Ata or to my birthplace Almaty, the then capital of Kazakhstan. What shocked me was the disproportionate, grotesque, and indecently enormous role that Western NGOs were playing in Kyrgyzstan's political life.

There were many reasons for the coup d'etat that followed in Bishkek in 2005. But in terms of its degree of importance the freewheeling existence of Western-funded NGOs can compete only with the Kyrgyz regime's loss of control over the activity of local crime gangs.

So what then is it in Russian political life of late-spring 2015 that causes me such discontent and irritation? The loss by individual elements of the Russian state machine of a sense of proportion and reality.

Tons of clever books have been written about the art of state administration. But the main components of this art can be fitted into just one sentence: a properly identified objective, competence and consistency in achieving this objective, overt good sense, and a total lack of complacency.

If even one of these components is missing, you can kiss it all goodbye. The state machine stops working for real state interests and starts working either unproductively or in fact damagingly. This phenomenon has definitely occurred with the Russian regime's policy with regard to NGOs.

You can read an insanely indicative exchange of rejoinders with Justice Minister Aleksandr Konovalov on the Kommersant newspaper's website. Question: "Is the Justice Ministry prepared to support or propose reforms that would lessen the pressure on 'foreign agents' and NGOs as a whole?"

Answer: "First and foremost, the Justice Ministry is not prepared to share your contention that such pressure is being exerted. In recent years Russian legislation and administrative practice... have moved constantly in the direction of a softer approach and liberalization.... As far as NGOs performing a foreign agent's functions are concerned, the law does not impose any additional burdens or restrictions on their legal personality or ban any activity by the said organizations and does not discriminate against them but only introduces the necessary transparency in line with international practice when foreign funding is being provided."

We will forgive the minister his vocabulary, which an ordinary person has to fight his way through like through a pile of fallen trees. Lawyers are like that. But one thing for which I personally am not prepared to forgive Minister Konovalov is the bureaucratic "pride in his successes" in which his interview is steeped. Either this person from the now semi-disgraced Medvedev's team is playing a role that has been assigned to him with emphatically excessive zeal. Or he sincerely does not realize what a not very good turn his department is doing to both Russian society and even the Russian leadership.

Many years ago Masha Gessen, the first lady of "liberal journalism," publicly expressed regret that it was shameful that Yasen Zasurskiy, the long-standing dean of the Moscow State University Faculty of Journalism, had not been "lustrated" - added to the list of officials "banned from working in their profession." Grieving for a person who I regard as my teacher, I very quickly realized that that in my eyes it was not a punishment but a great honour to end up on the same "lustration list" as Yasen Zasurskiy.

I am experiencing similar feelings now too. Is the "godfather" of Russian cellular communications - the philanthropist Dmitriy Zimin - a "foreign agent?" Is Yevgeniy Yasin, head of the Liberal Mission foundation and a supremely wise former minister of the economy, also a "foreign agent?" Is Lena Nemirovskaya, the remarkable founder of the Moscow School of Political Studies, yet another "foreign agent?" If that is the case, in my eyes the term "foreign agent" is synonymous with the concepts of "Insignia of Honour" and a "badge of quality."

The circus that the hunt for "foreign agents" has become in present-day Russia is directly hurting state interests. Only people in a state of permanent sunstroke can fail to understand that.

 [return to Contents]

 #8
Analysts: Russian government continues business-friendly policy amid crisis
By Lyudmila Alexandrova

MOSCOW, June 2. /TASS/. The Russian government continues its business-friendly policy amid complex economic conditions in the country.

After introducing tax and supervisory "holidays" for business, the government has moved to declare a moratorium on non-tax payments, which bear heavily on entrepreneurs.

Of course, business is operating in uneasy conditions today and the government's measures implemented in this sphere are not enough but the authorities are trying to help even amid a shortage of funds, experts said.

At a government meeting on Monday, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev supported the introduction of a moratorium on some non-tax payments until January 1, 2019. Business is expected to save 1.5 trillion rubles ($28 billion) from this measure, Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said.

While non-tax payments are formally excluded from the tax system, they actually mean compulsory payments for business. Russian entrepreneur associations earlier requested the government to adjust or cancel several dozen payments of this kind and postpone the introduction of new such payments during the crisis period.

Many of these payments were previously supported by the Economic Development Ministry. A decision on the most acute issues, in particular, the sales fee, has been postponed.

Overall, the government's decision taken on Monday will apply to eight-nine payments. Specifically, the moratorium extends to four fees that are stipulated in legislation but have not been levied to date. It covers the environmental fee, the payment for damage to centralized water disposal systems, the fee for the discharge of contaminants and expenses on cash reserves for the elimination of emergency situations.

Besides, the government will continue developing the regulatory framework for several environmental payments but has decided to postpone their introduction.

The issue of non-tax payments should not be underestimated, experts said.

"It is frequently wrongly believed in Russia that a considerable problem for business is posed by taxes," renowned Russian business coach Gleb Arkhangelsky wrote in the Live Journal.

"This is not the case because the tax rates in Russia are quite reasonable judging by world standards and considering even the general taxation system, to say nothing about simplified tax regimes and taxes for individual entrepreneurs. Moreover, taxes are transparent and simple. The real problem is posed by various non-tax burdens and informal fees. They are far less transparent and contain more possibilities for corruption. So, in the first place, it is necessary to struggle against them," he said.

OPORA Small and Medium Business Association first vice-president Vladislav Korochkin said in an interview with TASS news agency the government had largely made a political decision so far because the documents introducing the moratorium still had to be elaborated. The expert said he was confident the government's decision would be implemented without any delays.

The tax and supervisory "holidays" are among the most important steps made by the authorities lately to ease the burden on business, Korochkin said.

No doubt, tax administration in some ministries and departments has improved considerably, the expert said. 'There are serious positive shifts."

However, the latest government's measures are clearly not enough. Specifically, the government has not yet made a decision on cancelling non-tax payments, which are scheduled to be introduced in 2015 and 2016 under decisions passed in 2013 and 2014, the expert said.

"Additional costs for business from non-tax payments run into trillions of rubles: the results of the first quarter showed that 38% of all Russian enterprises were generating losses," he said.

Also, some levies related to the environment are quite disputable from the viewpoint of their practical implementation. It is doubtful that they will work but they are already generating costs," he said.

Associate Professor of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) Dmitry Tikhonov noted the government's desire to meet business halfway.

"There is a clear positive moment at least in the fact that the government has not adopted tax amendments discussed last summer when there was a desire to toughen many things," the expert said.

The Russian budget has scarce funds but the government should all the same lend support to business, the expert said.

"The situation has deteriorated: several persons from among my acquaintances have already declared about their bankruptcy or are thinking about it - in December last year they did not think about this."

"The state is making sacrifices to help business," Deputy Head of the Chair of State Finances at the Higher School of Economics Dmitry Kamnev said.

"When the business community turns to the government with some request, the government tries to help, although such expenses weigh on the budget during the crisis period," he said.

"Now the government is once again giving a signal to the real sector: We're with you in the same boat," the expert said.

[return to Contents] 

#9
Moscow Times
June 3, 2015
Russia No Longer a Good Option for Foreign Banks

The economic fallout of the Ukraine crisis has transformed perceptions of Russia among foreign banks and will likely see lenders curtail the operations of their Russian subsidiaries, ratings agency Standard & Poor's said Tuesday.

Foreign banks piled into Russia in the early 2000s in the hope that near 10 percent annual economic growth would create a booming middle class and a huge growth market in the country of 140 million people. European lenders such as Austria's Raiffeisen and Italy's UniCredit were among the leaders, and accumulated billions of dollars in assets in the country.

But with growth now stalled and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis compounding fears of a long period of economic stagnation, foreign banks now see Russia as a risky bet and a drag on margins, S&P said.

The agency said it expected the Russian economy to grow by an average of 0.5 percent in 2015-18. The World Bank predicted Monday that Russia's economy would shrink by 2.7 percent this year.

"This will significantly impinge on the banking sector in Russia through weak new business generation, increased exchange rate volatility, worsening asset quality, and deterioration in the profitability and capital positions of Russian banks," S&P analysts wrote in the report.

Amid fears of a full-blown banking crisis in December the Russian government allocated 1 trillion rubles ($19 billion) to support troubled banks, and billions of dollars in aid have already been dispersed.

Banking profits have meanwhile evaporated, with the country's banking sector reporting combined net losses of 20 billion rubles ($380 million) in April, according to the Central Bank. First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov warned last month that banks would see barely any profits "in the foreseeable future," the TASS news agency reported.

Raiffeisen Bank, whose Russian subsidiary accounts for 10 percent of the Austrian banking group's total assets, has already said it would trim its exposure and reduce its branch network in Russia.
 

 [return to Contents] 

#10
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
June 1, 2015
Proposed bill would abolish free abortions for Russian women
Russia's parliament, or State Duma, is considering a bill that would remove abortions from free state health insurance and ban private clinics from administering them. While a majority of Russians are not in favor of abortion, critics have spoken out against the proposed law.
Maria Fedorishina, special to RBTH

Russian women seeking to have an abortion may soon be unable to do so after deputies in the country's parliament, the State Duma, proposed an initiative that will allow only state-run healthcare institutions to perform abortions and cancel mandatory health insurance coverage for abortions.

If the bill, which was introduced in the lower house of parliament on May 19, is accepted, using the services of a private clinic will be banned, with performing abortions outside of state-run healthcare institutions being punishable with a fine of 50,000 rubles to 200,000 rubles ($940-3,780) for citizens.

While abortions are currently covered by the compulsory insurance system in Russia, the new legislation would theoretically restrict the possibility of having a pregnancy terminated only to the very rich, though the wording of the bill is unclear on whether citizens would be able to pay for the service in state clinics.

"The artificial termination of pregnancy funded by mandatory health insurance will be possible only in the presence of certain medical or social reasons," says the bill's author and head of the State Duma Committee on Family, Women and Children, Yelena Mizulina.

However, Valentina Matviyenko, Speaker of the Federation Council (Russia's upper house of parliament) has said that the council won't support the bill and Deputy Health Minister Olga Golodets has also spoken out against the initiative.
 
Shadows of the past

The initiative is not new. There was a law against abortions in the Soviet Union until 1955. But this resulted not in the growth of the country's birth rate, but in the women's death rate, since women instead resorted to carrying out abortions illegally, often at home.

In 1993, in accordance with the "Foundations of the Russian Legislature on the Citizens' Health Protection," each woman received the right to make autonomous decisions on her maternity. However, according to a 2013 survey held by the Public Opinion Foundation, 62 percent of Russians still think that having an abortion is unacceptable.

"A woman is psychophysically drawn into maternity from the first days of conception, but some doctors or relatives try to convince her that this is still not a baby," says Director of the Family and Childhood Charity Foundation Svetlana Rudneva. "But I have no doubt that the baby exists from the moment of conception and it's absolutely natural that you cannot kill a baby."

According to a Levada Center survey, 28 percent of Russians agree with Rudneva, while 51 percent does not consider abortion judicial murder.
 
Maternity - a question of free will?

Natalya from Moscow was 16 years old when she found out she was pregnant. It had been her first sexual experience. The father was a 17-year-old neighbor at her dacha. It was clear from the very beginning that there would be no family and that the girl would remain a single mother.

"My mother gave birth to my brother when she was 18 and the following year I was born," says Natalya. "She wasn't able to go to university and a couple of years later my dad left us. So I immediately decided to have an abortion. I knew about the possible consequences, but risked it. Now I'm 26, I have a wonderful husband, a little son and a job. I don't regret anything."
 
Finances and living conditions key to decision

Women have abortions for various reasons. The survey carried out by the Public Opinion Foundation says that Russians believe the main reason is due to poor living and financial conditions. Doctors admit that this is usually the case.

"Mainly it is the women who are socially unsettled, those who think they will not be able to raise and nurture a child, but there are also those who are not married or those who are not sure about their men," explains Yulia Gorelova, director of the Urogynecological Department at Medswiss, a Swiss company operating in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Another Levada survey says that more men are against abortion than women, 68 to 57 percent, respectively. Yet Gorelova adds that in practice, "very often it is the man who imposes the abortion, even though for men it is much easier to prevent the situation by using contraception. The abortion is not a risk to their health and they don't understand what a moral blow it is for the woman."

But if the woman decides to have the baby and the man refuses to participate in the raising of the child, the woman does not have much choice. In the case that there is no availability in the kindergarten and no one can help take care of the child, the woman is forced to stay home. In Moscow, for example, the state gives the mother 20,000 rubles ($375) monthly to look after her child until the age of one and a half.
 
Lack of sexual education a problem

"I don't think that abortions should be banned," says Gorelova. "Everyone has her own reason. But I as a doctor always try to dissuade the person from having it and I am proud that often I manage to do so. In order to decrease the number of abortions it is important to develop the knowledge of contraception. Children must come into this world only when their parents want them."

Most Russians (64 percent) are convinced that sexual education must be provided in school, though the subject has never been taught in Russian schools.

Discussions on whether sex education should be taught in schools and, if so, what form it should take, have been taking place for more than 10 years, but the state authorities are still no closer to a decision. Doctors say that almost all abortions that are carried out on minors are related to a lack of education.

"Often mothers bring their daughters to have abortions, those mothers who in their time did not teach their daughters about contraception. This could have saved the children from abortion. But in Russia parents are often embarrassed to speak about these things at home," says Gorelova.
 

 [return to Contents] 

 #11
Moscow Times
June 3, 2015
Nearly 90% of Russians Oppose Polygamy, Poll Shows
By Jennifer Monaghan

Weeks after a Chechen police chief took a 17-year-old local girl as his second bride, a state-run pollster has revealed that 87 percent of Russians stand opposed to the practice of polygamy among the population as a whole.

The figure, based on a poll conducted by VTsIOM, represents a four-percentage-point increase in the portion of the Russian population that approves of polygamy since 1999, when a similar poll was conducted.

A mere 10 percent of those polled by VTsIOM in late May said they supported the idea of polygamy, a significant drop from the 18 percent who backed the practice in 1999.

Respondents were more lenient with regard to the practice of polygamy within the country's Muslim population, though those figures have plunged by more than half in the past 16 years. Thirty-three percent now support the notion of Muslims taking a second partner, compared to 70 percent in the earlier survey.

The poll results came two weeks after Chechen police chief Nazhud Guchigov took 17-year-old Kheda (Luiza) Goylabiyeva as his second wife, prompting an uproar in the Russian media.

Guchigov, reportedly in his mid-40s, married his bride at a ceremony in Grozny that was also attended by the republic's strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Under Russian federal law, second marriages - which are permissible in traditional practice for Chechen men - cannot be registered as official partnerships.

Despite the story being picked up by international media outlets, the majority of those polled by VTsIOM had not heard about the marriage in Chechnya.

After being told that Goylabiyeva was Guchikov's second wife, 54 percent of respondents said their reactions to the marriage were negative or extremely negative.

The VTsIOM survey was conducted on May 22-23 among 1,600 people in 46 Russian regions. The margin of error was no greater than 3.5 percent.

 [return to Contents] 

 #12
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
June 3, 2015
Should Russia and US stop worrying about the phantom Chechen wedge?
Too much focus on Russia's moral-ethical debate over Chechnya obscures a much more important fact: Russia and the U.S. should be united in the fight against radical Islam.
By Nikolay Pakhomov
Nikolay Pakhomov is an expert at the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC). He is a commentator in a number of Russian and international media outlets, including Politcom.ru.

Eugene Bai's recent article "How Chechnya is driving a wedge between Russia and the West" is worthy, if not of a place in the textbooks on diplomacy and international relations, then at least in the appendix to them. The article clearly demonstrates the muddle that can ensue when issues of diplomacy (Russia-West relations in this case) are viewed through the prism of morality, ethics, and national and religious values. [http://www.russia-direct.org/opinion/how-chechnya-driving-wedge-between-russia-and-west]

The history of diplomacy and the theory of international relations are not short of specialists who consider any discussion of value differences between countries to be of no practical use, capable only of spoiling relations in a bad way. Adepts of this school are known as realists.

These realists are represented among practicing diplomats, including in the United States, such as Charles "Chas" Freeman, a retired ambassador who not only faithfully served his country for decades in the diplomatic arena, but also considerably enriched the theoretical training of U.S. diplomats, editing, among other things, the article on diplomacy in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Understanding the key issues in the debate over Chechnya

But let's put this sinuous polemic and the place it holds in Mr. Bai's article aside. First and most importantly, we need to understand its domestic, Russian projection.

The article assures readers that, over the past year, Chechnya has become Russia's main newsmaker. That is debatable. The reincorporation of Crimea, the civil war in Ukraine, the economic crisis, the worsening clash with the West, the development of relations with China, and the 70th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War all have the right to compete with this Caucasian republic on the news front.

But let's not quibble, since Mr. Bai's accent on Chechnya comes from the standpoint of the Russian opposition. For the latter, Chechnya is a long-standing idée fixe. This is mainly due to the fact that the head of the republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, has assumed a seat on Russia's political Olympus. A sharp-witted, energetic personality, he is constantly swearing allegiance to Russian President Vladimir Putin and seemingly tone-deaf to internal and external criticism alike.

For the Russian opposition, therefore, the "wedding of the century" in Chechnya [ the marriage between 57-year-old local police chief Nazhud Guchigov and 17-year-old Luiza Goylabieva dubbed by Russian media and social networks as "the most scandalous marriage of the century" - Editor's note] is a new cause to discuss Mr. Kadyrov and his republic, especially since criticism of Kadyrov can be used to take a potshot at Putin. The opposition should not be criticized for that, since that is the very nature of opposition: drubbing the existing political order is a sacred right.

Moreover,judging by the reaction to the "wedding of the century," such discussion is needed within the Russian public space. True, the debate has revealed that the Russian opposition needs to elaborate its position.

It is not clear, for instance, what its charges against the Chechen law enforcement officer are exactly. Russian law allows marriage at the age of seventeen, while polygamy, although not permitted under the Family Code, has not been a crime since Soviet times.

Be that as it may, it bears repeating that this discussion is a legitimate part of the Russian public space, while Mr. Bai's global conclusions about Russian-U.S. relations on the basis thereof are something else entirely. In order to better evaluate these conclusions, we will analyze the steps taken by the author in arriving at them.

Chechnya is a phantom wedge

At this point it becomes interesting: Almost every reproach that Bai draws against Russia in the comparison with the West is double-edged, and equally applicable to the latter.

Britain is actively debating how to reconcile Sharia and British law. Hugh Hefner (Hugh Marston Hefner is an American adult magazine publisher - Editor's note.) shows that not only is the age gap not a problem, but that it can be far wider than the one in the "wedding of the century." The practice of polygamy, legal in some parts of the United States, could come before the Supreme Court, and if the latter decides in favor of the plaintiffs' right to create a family consisting of one man and several women, polygamy could become legal across the whole country.

In general, critics of the "wedding of the century" are recommended to look at the United States for new targets. In New Hampshire, girls as young as 13 can marry with parental consent, while in other states, the limit is 15. And the popularity of the reality TV show "16 and Pregnant" is food for thought. In this case, television is merely reflecting the realities of American life: According to the latest stats, in 2013 more than 273,000 children were born to mothers aged between 15 and 19, 89 percent of whom were unmarried at the time of birth.

There is no observable lack in the United States of religious rigor, which at times borders on plain obscurantism. In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the Jewish "morality police" perform the role of clothing cops and enforces modesty, while elsewhere, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is under attack. Moreover, some religious schools that teach divine creation instead of evolution get taxpayers' money.

To wrap up this brief review of aspects of American life that do not quite fit into the fabric of Mr. Bai's article, one could challenge his closing thesis that Americans know how to overcome social conflicts and eliminate stereotypes. They do, but not always. Suffice it to recall the numerous debates about race relations in the United States in recent years. The problems are not limited to race.

Bai credits America for seeking solutions in court. But just recall the case Roe v. Wade, which culminated in a 1973 Supreme Court ruling to legalize abortion. Forty years on, the problem of abortion in the United States today provokes more discord than on the eve of the Supreme Court's verdict. The public passions were not slaked...

Bai can also be challenged on his assertion that no one in the United States today wants to legally restrict abortion. Not only is there no shortage of people who do, but also there are numerous legislative restrictions, with  many ones are expected to passed. A total ban is a long way off, but the fight is not dying down. It should be noted that proponents of same-sex marriage in the United States also object to its legalization being used to legitimate polygamy. It turns out that the Unites States is home to advocates of same-sex marriage who oppose polygamy.

Russia and America: Is there really a values gap?

With careful consideration, then, Bai's examples supposedly illustrating Russia's backwardness and value differences vis-à-vis the United States can just as well point to the similarities in the moral and ethical debates in the two countries. Or, to put it another way, drawing these debates - essential as they are to the national life of both countries - into an analysis of Russian-U.S. relations can result in a muddle. One would do well to recall the thesis of the realists: Values pertain to a country's inner life, while relations between countries are founded upon interests.

Through this approach it becomes crystal clear that for both Russia and the West, in particular the United States, and essentially the entire global community, that Islamic State is the enemy. Note that the leaders of Islamic State and allied terror groups are apparently unaware of the rising influence of Ramzan Kadyrov and the alleged Islamization of Russia, as Bai argues, and continue to threaten both the Chechen leadership and Russia with war.

Hence, the main lesson to be drawn from Mr. Bai's article is that internal ethical debates should not be conflated with matters of international security. If foreign policy were ever to be guided by notions of values, there really would be a mix-up.

Incidentally, the United States has provided many examples of such confusion in recent years. For instance, during the uprising in Egypt, the Obama administration could not decide what was more important: its declared values of democracy or a friendly Egypt led by a strong president. It ultimately settled on the latter, and today Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected president, sits on death row.

 [return to Contents] 

 #13
Reuters
June 2, 2015
Russia keeps oil output at post-Soviet high before OPEC meet

Russian oil output remained unchanged in May at a post-Soviet high of 10.71 million barrels per day (bpd), Energy Ministry data showed on Tuesday, three days before OPEC meets to decide on output levels.

In tonnes, oil output rose to 45.288 million from 43.830 million in April while gas production fell to 48.28 billion cubic meters (bcm) last month, or 1.56 bcm a day, from 52.64 bcm in April.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which controls more than 40 percent of the world's crude oil production, meets this Friday in Vienna. Analysts expect the bloc to maintain current output levels.

OPEC sources have said an output cut would only be possible if other oil-producing nations such as Russia join in. Oil revenues are the cornerstone for many countries' budgets, including Russia.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak is due to meet OPEC officials this week ahead of the main group's meeting. Last week, he said Russia did not plan to seek an agreement with OPEC on any specific production levels.

Russia has raised its output by 200,000 bpd over the past year, hitting the post-Soviet high of 10.71 million bpd in April.

Brent crude futures were trading at $65.4 per barrel on Tuesday, down from $109 a year ago but above a January low of $45.19.

 [return to Contents] 

#14
Wall Street Journal
June 3, 2015
Russia Seeks Common Ground with OPEC at Meeting
Move is the latest attempt by the two big oil producers to develop closer ties
By Benoît Faucon and Andrey Ostroukh

VIENNA-Oil producers Russia and OPEC are trying again to find common ground as they both pump flat out amid a global glut that has helped keep energy prices low.

But Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, who has sought closer ties to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, has signaled that Russia won't do what some OPEC hard-liners want: cut its own production.

In fact, Russian oil output kept climbing higher in May, rising 1.2% and staying close to post-Soviet highs of about 10.77 million barrels a day, data from Russia's energy ministry showed Tuesday.

Mr. Novak was planning to meet on Wednesday with OPEC Secretary-General Abdalla Salem el-Badri, Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi and Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh, along with top private oil-industry officials.

"At the meetings, it is not planned to agree on production volumes," he told the Interfax news agency last week. "This is simply an exchange of information."

Even if Russia did pledge to cut production, it isn't clear if OPEC's leadership would listen.

OPEC officials from the cartel's power center-Persian Gulf countries such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates-say privately that they don't trust Russia after what they say are past broken promises.

Furthermore, OPEC is pumping near record levels itself and is expected to maintain its own production levels at its meeting on Friday. The cartel last year abandoned its traditional role of propping up prices and now focuses on holding on to its market share, a historic decision that is still being felt in the oil industry.

There is much at stake for both OPEC nations and Russia. In the past 11 months, oil prices have fallen more than 40%, to about $65 a barrel from a high of $115 last July, a collapse driven by a flood of American shale oil. That has taken a bite out of government revenue in both Russia and OPEC members.

Russia is a tantalizing ally for OPEC. It outpaces even Saudi Arabia in output and would boost the cartel's muscle by nearly a third if they joined forces.

 [return to Contents] 

 #15
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
June 3, 2015
Russia to continue dealing with low oil price as no Opec cuts on agenda
bne IntelliNews
[Charts here http://www.bne.eu/content/story/russia-continue-dealing-low-oil-price-no-opec-cuts-agenda]

Opec members gathering in Vienna for the cartel's biannual meeting on June 5 are indicating there will be no cuts in production, implying a calmer meeting to the last one in November that featured calls from some members for Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies to tighten supply to raise prices.

Opec is sticking to its November decision to maintain its collective production ceiling of 30mn barrels a day (b/d) in spite of a perceived glut of oil on the global markets. Opec output accounts for just under a third of total global production, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). In a draft long-term strategy paper obtained by Reuters, Opec said shale oil is proving a much tougher enemy to beat and the traditional oil producers of the cartel need to keep oil prices relatively low for another two years and perhaps even longer if they are to regain market share from the largely US producers of unconventional oil.

That's bad news for Russia, which relies heavily on oil revenues to balance its budget. Oil prices fell to below $50 a barrel in December from an average of over $100 in 2014, dragging the value of the ruble down with it. Oil prices have recovered somewhat in the first quarter of this year, trading in a band of $65-70, alleviating some of the pain. But analysts say there is now a global oversupply of oil which is putting a cap on prices, and few expect them to rise much any time soon. Indeed, according to some recent analysis, oil prices could fall again later this year.

Russia is not helping the situation. Not only has it not cut its own production to support prices, but it actually increased output to close to post-Soviet record levels. Russian production of oil and gas condensate climbed 1.6% from a year earlier in May to 10.708mn b/d, close to January's post-Soviet record of 10.713mn b/d, according Russia's Energy Ministry's CDU-TEK unit. That makes Russia the single biggest oil producer in the world today and it is actively contributing to the global oil glut in exchange for the badly needed hard currency it earns.

Why, if the Saudis and other Opec members say any output reduction from them would have to be done in concert with non-Opec producers, particularly Russia, is Moscow proving so adverse to agreeing any such cut now or even later in the year?

The Kremlin has admitted it is involved in "unprecedentedly active" consultations with Opec - most famously the Venezuela-orchestrated gathering ahead of the Opec meeting in November that included Igor Sechin, head of Russia's biggest producer Rosneft, and Alexander Novak, Russian energy minister, as well as the oil ministers of Mexico and Saudi Arabia. However, Russia won't agree production cuts alongside Opec for several reasons.

First, the Russian economy appears to be stabilising and the recession is widely predicted to be not as deep as some had feared at the beginning of the year.

Second, to get its economy growing in the face of continuing Western sanctions, the Russian government believes the best way is to sell as much oil as it can, relying on market forces to squeeze high-cost projects both at home and abroad, such as US shale oil, rather than artificially raise the price by selling less.

Third, Russia's oil-dependent economy is also cushioned from the falling oil price because its currency depreciates in line with it. A rule of thumb is that each $10/b movement of the oil price down shaves RUB2 off the dollar exchange rate. In this way, the hard currency the government receives from selling oil on the international markets is worth that much more to the ruble-denominated budget.

Four, technically, Moscow insists it couldn't cut production even if it wanted to. "Russia consistently argues that because of the technical nature of its wells it cannot simply turn up or down production as can be done in all of the Opec countries because of their geology," says Chris Weafer of Macro Advisory. Russia also argues that, unlike in Opec countries where all have 100% ownership over national oil companies, it does not have exclusive ownership of the oil producers. Rather, they are all stock market-listed and have minority shareholders, so to force a cut on any company would be deemed an abusive action against minority shareholders.

Finally, there is the difficulty of the Saudis and Russians working together. There is little trust or love lost between the two sides. This is a legacy, in part, of events in 2008 when Russia reneged on a promise to hold back output in coordination with Opec, and increased it instead, grabbing market share off the back of the group's actions. "The only way an agreement like that could work would be if there were really potent enforcement mechanisms to monitor and force compliance, but I can't see a realistic way that the Saudis and the Russians could develop those. In the past Russia has signalled its public approval of Opec production cuts while actually increasing its own level of production," says Mark Adomanis, a US-based Russian commentator.

Sure of shale

Opec is widely believed to have engineered a collapse in the oil price as an attack on US shale oil producers, which have increased their production dramatically in recent years. Opec publishes its long-term strategy reports every five years and its 2010 report did not even mention shale oil as a serious competitor, highlighting the dramatic change the oil markets have undergone in the past few years.

Still, as shale oil is technically difficult to extract, these wells are only profitable at some point above an average of $62 per barrel, according to a recent report from independent oil and gas consultancy Rystad Energy, although the actual breakeven price depends on the deposit. The problem is that even if shale is more expensive to extract, these higher costs are partly mitigated by continuously growing demand, driven by the economic development of emerging markets.

While global oil production has not fallen, the number of new oil wells being drilled in the last six months has. Given that US shale production is largely financed by the issue of junk bonds on the US capital markets, analysts believe that Opec would have to keep prices low for at least a year in order to bankrupt any of the shale producers, or at least make it impossible for them to refinance their debt.

However, the success of Opec's apparent plan remains in doubt. Rystad Energy suggests that shale oil production will continue to climb as producers respond to lower prices by cutting costs. The consultancy predicts that while there was a dip in unconventional oil production in the first quarter of this year, output of shale oil will continue to rise from 4mn b/d in 2005 when the industry got going, to 15mn b/d by the end of 2017 - half as much again as Russia currently produces.

Having said that, the biggest, fastest-growing oil producer in the US plans to keep its output almost unchanged this year, halting its breakneck pace of growth and delivering another signal that shale producers are ready to cut when needed. EOG Resources, which has boosted its oil production by almost 50% annually for the past five years, is slashing spending 40% and will drill half the wells it did in 2014, Bloomberg reports. The company follows other leading US shale producers that have slashed expansion plans; the number of US oil rigs drilling in American basins has fallen for 24 straight weeks, plunging by 59% from their peak last October.

Still, overall US production of oil is expected to continue to climb this year despite the lower prices and could surprise on the upside. A report released last month by the US Energy Information Administration said that US oil production surged to 9.56mn b/d, its highest level in 44 years. And the EIA is predicting US production will continue to expand by 7.8% in 2015.

The global glut in oil has been exacerbated by the lower-than-expected worldwide demand for oil, which will increase by only 800,000 b/d, according to recent research from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The faster-than-expected recovery of Libyan oil production in September and unaffected Iraq production, despite unrest, have also pushed supplies up.

The bottom line is that if Opec's plan is to reduce US shale production, it will only be partially successful; countries like Russia will simply continue to produce oil at lower prices as it continues to make them a profit. By 2019, Opec crude supply at 28.7mn b/d will still be lower than in 2014, the Opec long-term strategy report said, and demand for its oil will start rising only after 2018-19, reaching almost 40mn b/d by 2040. Taking all this into consideration, the IMF researchers predict that prices will rise slowly in the coming years to reach $73 per barrel by 2019.

 [return to Contents] 

 #16
Moskovskiy Komsomolets
May 25, 2015
Pundit notes failings of Russian foreign policy over past year
Vladislav Inozemtsev, Russia as backdrop against which it is easier to depict Europe's future

Few people today doubt that the majority of Russia's recent foreign policy steps - from the annexation of Crimea to the fast-tracked formation of the Eurasian Union, from the demonstrative rapprochement with China to the sly attempts to participate in resolving the crisis in the east of Ukraine - are due to Moscow's desire to return to being one of the "geopolitical leaders" in the modern world and to demonstrate its status as a great power, whether as the heir to the Russian Empire or to the Soviet Union. However the start of the 21st century is not the end of the 19th century or the middle of the 20th. The world has changed substantially and although the Kremlin is trying not to notice it, an entirely different situation is developing around Russia to the one that could have been predicted using the foreign policy logic of past centuries.

The modern international order has developed not as a result of the Second World War but of the first 50 post-war years. Three tectonic shifts occurred in the world during this time.

Firstly, the confrontation regarding equally-positioned military-political blocs ended in one of them abandoning further strife; as a result - the emergence of a new balance became impossible (you may recall that all the previous ones were achieved as a result of war and a new world war is not on the agenda).

Secondly, it became clear in the wars of the second half of the 20th century that modern armies can crush their opponent but the victorious powers can neither subjugate the losers (like the USSR in Afghanistan and America in Iraq) nor derive real benefits from their successes.

Thirdly, and most importantly, in the modern world economic and financial instruments of power and domination have become much more significant than military-political, and - something that is often forgotten - much more effective. As a result, in the modern world almost all the previous methods of influence do not work and using some of them can produce completely unexpected results.

All of this is perfectly illustrated by our country.

The peak of its post-Soviet development occurred in 2007-2008 and was the result of several factors. The first was economic development: from 1999-2008, Russia's nominal GDP moved from 14th to 6th place in the world; it became attractive to foreign investors, it turned into a desirable market for major international companies, and it began to be perceived as "an energy super power". The second was its positioning in Europe: despite a number of difficulties Russia actively participated in European politics, and in 2003-2004 it essentially entered into a coalition with Germany and France opposing America's policies in Iraq, and proposed projects for pan-European security and cooperation. The third was Russia turning into a "centre of gravity" in the post-Soviet space - moreover, chiefly economic and not military-political.

All of these factors made Russia an important and prominent player in the big world game. However, it turned out that it was taking part in this game without intending to agree to its rules. It wanted to gain advantages from market relations with Europe without accepting the logic of the expansion of the European Union; it enjoyed the advantages of economic influence on the CIS countries without being willing to accept their political sovereignty (which, in fact, actually enabled it to enjoy the resource of cooperation with poorer countries without incurring the costs that would have been required if they were part of the same state as us, as was the case in the USSR); it was rolling in money from the increase in the price of oil resulting from the actions of the American monetary authorities while entertaining the hope that it could oppose America. The result was Moscow breaking the rules that it had not itself set in the spring of 2014 - with the aim of changing these rules.

A year (and a bit) later it can be stated that this attempt has failed. Russia has left the "G8", ceased its consultations with the EU and America, sanctions have been introduced, and the main consumers of Russian energy products have started to turn away from us. The world shuddered at Crimea and the Donetsk Basin but no attempts were made to discuss a new order that would satisfy Russia. Vladimir Putin was treated as a person who simply "lives in a different world" - and something very unexpected for Moscow happened: the West has got used to this state of affairs over the past year. People there have realized that Russia is lost for productive dialogue for a certain time and they have decided to fix the new reality in place. It was de facto recognized that Crimea and the Donetsk Basin were territories lost by Ukraine, similar to Transnistria [Dniester region] or South Ossetia. At the same time, it was realized that Ukraine and Moldova (and in the future Belarus) would sooner or later become part of Europe. There is no chance that Moscow will have a voice in relation to these countries. It is similar with the expectations of good news from the East as well.

A particular feature of the situation now is that Russia, even though it has done everything that it was capable of, has not started to be taken more into account as a player but rather it has found itself in the role of a sort of backdrop against which it is easier to depict Europe's future. The Russian threat has united the West rather than split it - and no-one now in Europe or America has an interest in it disappearing. They wanted to see Russia as an opponent or rival before as well - and now the dream has finally come true. So in the near future, political and economic processes will be reshaped in such a way that people can distance themselves from remote Muscovy [medieval principality in west-central Russia] and forget about it, as far as this is possible in the global world.

A classic example here is Germany. For a quarter of a century, since Gorbachev allowed the German people to unite, Berlin has focused on close relations with Moscow. Immediately after Crimea and during the attempts to achieve a settlement in the Donetsk Basin Merkel was the most active participant in the negotiations with Russia. But progress is needed to improve relations - and it has not happened.

And in Berlin people realized: dialogue is pointless. And they started to curtail it. It quickly became clear that extremely diverse forms of "public interaction" with Russia - the German-Russian Forum, Petersburg Dialogue, and many others - were nothing more than a means of obtaining money and business lobbying. The activities of these structures stopped and only their functionaries shed some tears about it. Initially it seemed that German businesses would not survive the break in relations - but it is now clear that this is not the case: it is Russian exports that fell by 30.7 per cent in March 2015 by comparison with March 2014, while German exports increased year on year by 12.5 per cent. Russia is not the only market, there are others as well.

And then Miller talks at an event organized by the Valday Club and the German Council on Foreign Relations about what huge capacities Gazprom has for extracting gas, but no-one intends to increase purchases of Russian gas. And each month the subject of Russia (and Ukraine as well) occupies less and less space on the pages of German newspapers and in political analysts' discussions.

Russia, as the West sees it, is not the partner in efforts to overcome "global disorder", which Moscow was obviously reckoning on, but one of the incarnations of the chaos that it is easier to stay aloof from than to try to overcome. There are many problem zones in the world, it seems: take the "Islamic State" for example. No-one wants it to spread but no-one will send troops into neighbouring countries to fight it, just as no-one will attempt to reach agreement with ISIS on matters relating to the new world order. There is also Zimbabwe, North Korea, and several other countries that have been living in "different worlds" for a long time. Unfortunately, it has to be admitted: we are surely heading towards adding to their numbers. Of course Russia will attract greater attention than all of them put together, but even this does not increase the desire to enter into contact with us.

History tells us that it is always better to be involved in decision making in global politics than to suffer the consequences of these decisions at one time or another. Exactly two hundred years ago, in 1815, Russia took one of the leading roles in the Congress of Vienna, establishing the rules of the world game. That year, I note, the major economies of the world were not Britain or Russia but the Empire of the Qing (32.9 per cent of gross world product) and the state of the Great Moguls (16.1 per cent). Just one hundred years later, the first was in  ruins, and the second was a European colony. This points to an obvious fact: it is better to be a participant - even if not the main one - in the drawing up of regulations and rules than it is to be the strongest of those for whom they are not written.

Russia, alas, has chosen a different path. What it will lead to still remains to be seen - and probably not even in one hundred years, after all, history is constantly picking up speed.

 [return to Contents] 

 #17
Politico.com
June 1, 2015
What Putin Gets Right About America
FIFA's crimes are none of our business.
By ZACHARY KARABELL
Zachary Karabell is head of global strategy at Envestnet and author of The Leading Indicators: A Short History of the Numbers That Rule Our World. He is a contributing editor at  Politico Magazine.

I hate to say it, but Vladimir Putin might be right. America says it no longer wants to be the world's policeman. So why, as Putin complained, is the U.S. now acting like the world's prosecutor?

The U.S. Justice Department charging multiple members of FIFA with corruption extends America's legal jurisdiction well beyond its national boundaries. Yes, Putin fits the definition of a man living in a glass house throwing stones, and yes, FIFA may be one of the most corrupt multinational institutions in the world, but the question is a real one: Why is the United States taking it upon itself to go after a soccer organization domiciled and largely functioning outside of U.S. borders?

The case against FIFA uses racketeering laws to prosecute the rogue officials who allegedly demanded and accepted bribes that may have exceeded $150 million. That activity, venal and corrupt though it may be, isn't America's business in any obvious way. Even if this is within the theoretical purview of U.S. law, dropping the hammer on FIFA seems like an unwise use of American power. We shouldn't confuse specific support for action against FIFA with general support for Americans acting as a global judge and prosecutor. Such actions are likely to generate backlash abroad and needlessly risk damaging America's standing in the world.

This is hardly the first time that the U.S. has tried to use its laws to extend its influence. In fact, as Noah Feldman of Harvard has pointed out, there is a long and controversial legal history of American prosecutors and regulators attempting to apply American laws abroad.

Loretta Lynch, the U.S. Attorney General, explained that because U.S. banks were used to distribute the cash; because at least one of the arrested FIFA officials, Chuck Blazer, is American; and because U.S. national soccer leagues are governed by a division of FIFA, Americans indeed have jurisdiction to bring charges. The problem, however, is that the activity did not really take place on U.S. soil.

U.S. courts have routinely reigned in prosecutors who have attempted to apply domestic U.S. laws to foreign jurisdictions. The principle is the "presumption against extraterritoriality," which is judicial speak for "our laws are our laws, not everyone's laws." This principle was reinforced by the Supreme Court most recently in the 2010 case Morrison v. National Australia Bank, which held, that no, U.S. laws (in this case concerning the sale of securities) do not apply willy-nilly throughout the world.

In the FIFA case, the United States has considerable international support. Many have railed helplessly against the soccer federation for years, and the U.S. action is a welcome relief in that respect. But what about when such stretching of U.S. laws is less welcome, and what of the precedent this extension sets?

Take the recent case of how authorities pursue action against companies suspected of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Enacted in 1977 for the entirely reasonable goal of preventing American companies from engaging in bribery abroad, the act has recently been put to some rather unusual uses. In recent months, for instance, the SEC has issued subpoenas to JP Morgan Chase asking for information about correspondence with senior Chinese government officials whose sons and relatives may have been hired by the bank in China as a quid pro quo for influence. Included in the list of 35 Chinese officials was none other than Wang Qishan, who is the head of the Chinese government's own anti-corruption initiatives.

Subpoenaing JP Morgan is clearly within the legal rights of the SEC, but publically listing the names of senior Chinese officials and demanding all private communications with them is hardly a tactful or adept way of conducting international relations. Are the lattice of U.S. interests with China best served by actions that both stretch the meaning of an American statute on bribery and risk embarrassing senior officials of a major world power who broke no laws of their own and likely no laws at all?

Just because something can be done and can be justified does not mean that it should be done or that doing it is wise. Is jeopardizing already tenuous U.S.-China relations over something so grey and potentially insignificant worth the price?

There is an emerging pattern of regulators and prosecutors filling multiple voids left by inert legislatures and moribund international institutions. It is a cliché that nature abhors a vacuum, but it is a powerful truth nonetheless. Within the United States regulatory bodies take action on climate change and structural financial system weaknesses where Congress cannot or will not act forcefully or deliberately. Outside the United States, most international institutions have been frozen in form from the time of their mid-20th century founding and have only partially evolved to a changing world order. Joint action on anything is a challenge, even where interests are shared.

Into those voids, U.S. regulators find themselves drawn. But they are drawn because of an American tendency to view the world through a 20th century lens as a global policeman and superpower. Powerful the United States is, but using that power judiciously is vital. Overreach is as tempting here as it is with the deployment of troops, and as self-defeating.

Such self-defeat can be obscured when many cheer the actions taken. Having FIFA and Putin against you can seem like a validation that what you are doing is spot on. But using the fact that much of the world's commerce flows through American banks as a peg to hang nearly limitless possible enforcement actions guarantees that other enforcement actions of this sort will smack not of justice but of naked attempts to grab power and influence using domestic American laws and American regulators as judicial Marines establishing beach-heads.

The investigation into China is one such attempt, but there are others and likely will be ever more. Balancing overall interests against such overreach is imperative, else the United States may find itself not just only lonely crusades but on questionable and losing ones as well.

 [return to Contents] 

 #18
Russia's Gazprom presses on with Turkey pipeline despite questions
By Katya Golubkova, Denis Pinchuk and Orhan Coskun

MOSCOW/ANKARA, June 3 (Reuters) - Russia's Gazprom plans to start building a pipeline to Turkey this month to get gas to Europe without going through Ukraine, company sources said, although it has no firm agreement with Ankara and faces opposition from the European Union.

With the EU determined to reduce its energy dependence on Russia and Turkey seeking big discounts for its gas for participating in the new pipeline, Russia may pay dearly for its ambition or even see it thwarted.

Moscow has stepped up efforts to find alternative gas supply routes to Europe, its biggest market, that avoid Ukraine, since Ukrainian protesters ousted a pro-Russian president last year.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine soon afterwards and pro-Russian rebels began a conflict in eastern Ukraine which has sent Moscow's relations with the West to post-Cold War lows.

In December, Russia scrapped its South Stream pipeline project which would have supplied gas to southern Europe without crossing Ukraine because of objections from the European Union on competition grounds.

It instead announced the planned construction of an alternative pipeline, dubbed the Turkish stream, with the aim of delivering 63 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas per year, 47 bcm of it to Europe, by 2020.

Gazprom had already begun to upgrade its domestic pipeline system so it could link up to the more modern South Stream project and spent 271 billion roubles ($5 billion) in 2013-2014.

It says it will build on this work and spend another 278 billion roubles this year, part of a total 715 billion on modernising Russia's gas system to fit now with the Turkish Stream, Gazprom documents on its website show.

Two sources at Gazprom said the state-controlled company planned to start laying pipes beneath the Black Sea by the end of June. Gazprom declined to comment.

HARD BARGAIN

Its plans may have to stop there.

The pipeline will consist of four lines, which each have an annual capacity of 15.75 bcm, with the first line reaching Turkey.

Gazprom hopes to create a gas hub at the Turkish-Greek border for transit to Europe, but depends on Turkey agreeing to build on its territory and needs EU countries - many of which want energy independence from Russia - to develop required infrastructure.

Turkey, Gazprom's second biggest export market after Germany, is driving a hard bargain for its participation in the pipeline project.

Gazprom supplied Turkey with a total of 27.4 bcm of gas last year split between two routes: the offshore Blue Stream pipeline and the Transbalkan pipeline, known as the Western line in Turkey.

Ankara secured a 10.25 percent gas discount in late February for the Russian gas but is pressing for more now. Gazprom is forecasting an average gas price for Europe, including Turkey, of $242 per 1,000 cubic metres this year.

Turkey also wants a new price for the gas it will get via its portion of the Turkish Stream, sources in Turkey say.

"The last word for Turkey has not been said yet," a senior Turkish official said. "There are two important points for Turkey here: the insufficiency of the 10.25 percent reduction Gazprom is giving to us. This should be close to 15 percent."

A Turkish energy sector insider with knowledge of the project confirmed that this was Turkey's stance.

The first source also said that Turkey wanted a new price for when the new pipeline was brought on stream.

"There is intense traffic of meetings but the final point has not been reached," a Turkish energy insider with the knowledge of the Turkish Stream said.

Leonid Chugunov, head of Gazprom's project management department, was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency that despite starting work this month, the company needed permission from Turkey to lay 280 km of pipes along the Turkish coast.

FIRST LINE ONLY

The plans could also be torpedoed by the European Union, which is at loggerheads with Russia over the Ukraine crisis.

It is supporting rival projects in the Caspian region: The Trans Anatolian and Trans Adriatic Pipelines (TANAP-TAP) should bring 6 bcm of gas from Azerbaijan to Turkey and another 10 bcm to Europe in 2020.

"The arrival of Azeri gas is sharply reducing Gazprom's chances of extending its own contracts," said Mikhail Korchemkin of East European Gas Analysis. "It is much less expensive to ship gas to Turkey from (Azeri) Shah-Deniz than from (Russian gas fields in) Yamal."

Last week, Chief Executive Alexei Miller met the energy minister of EU member Greece to discuss Gazprom's possible involvement in gas infrastructure construction in the country.

This was seen as a possible reversal of Russia's previous position that EU countries had to do their own construction if they wanted to get Russian gas after the transit contract with Ukraine expires in 2019.

Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, a European Commision spokeswoman, also warned that "any pipeline... needs to comply to the EU rules", telling a briefing on Monday that the bloc had not yet received any specific plans from Russia.

EU rules mean a single company, irrespective of the country, cannot control the full supply chain, from production to distribution, and should give access to a third party - rules that ruined the South Stream project.

"It is clear that the first line will be built," said Alexander Kornilov, an analyst with Alfa Bank. "I doubt Gazprom will be building the second one until firm agreements (with Europe) are reached." ($1 = 53.2100 roubles)

 [return to Contents] 

 #19
Interfax
June 2, 2015
Documentary about 1968 events passes no judgments, features historians', witnesses' accounts - VGTRK

The all-Russia state television and radio broadcasting company VGTRK said the film, titled "Warsaw Treaty, the Declassified Pages" accumulates accounts by witnesses and participants in events dating back to 1968, without passing any judgments.

"The film conveys opinions by historians, witnesses and participants in those events. Nothing is said in the voice-over narration that this was right, or correct. It is just an accumulation of witnesses' stories," Pyotr Fyodorov, the head of the VGTRK's international relations directorate, told Interfax.

The film was made compliant with all canons of journalism and with the observance of all ethical norms, he said.

"However, many facts depicted in the film, are not quite comfortable to watch for present-day Central Europe. But they are facts, and they may be uncomfortable. When we watch documentaries made by British journalists we, too, can feel uncomfortable at seeing some facts. But they are facts," Fyodorov said.

Unfortunately, Europeans are applying old Soviet-era yardsticks, "when each word spoken on television was taken for the word spoken by the Kremlin," he said.

"We are absolutely open to various opinions and judgments. The situation itself, in my view, is not so much a Russian problem, as a problem experienced by Europe, where a look back on the past is generalized and everything that does not fit into this formula is branded incorrect, or propaganda," he said.

In this particular case, journalists, not politicians should react to a piece of journalistic work, he remarked.

"I would advise European colleagues to move the focus from diplomats to professional journalists. One could start a discussion and exchange facts," Fyodorov said, adding that he sees no problem or tragedy in what happened.

The documentary "Warsaw Treaty, the Declassified Pages" was aired on May 23. On June 1 Slovak Foreign Ministry spokesman Peter Stano told the press in Bratislava that the film had raised many eyebrows in Slovakia.

Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek summoned Russian Ambassador to Prague Sergei Kiselyov to the Foreign Ministry to provide explanations about the film. Czech Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Michaela Lagronova said, citing the foreign minister, that the film "deludes the public."

 [return to Contents] 

 #20
Reuters
June 2, 2015
Sink or sell? Russia spat leaves France with warships to spare
PARIS | By John Irish and Cyril Altmeyer

For sale: two French-built helicopter carriers, tested by Russians. Buy now for only 1.2 billion euros($1.33 billion). Shipping extra.

Tensions between the West and Russia over Ukraine have blocked a deal in which Moscow was to buy the ships, leaving Paris trying to negotiate a face-saving compromise and work out CAwhat to do with two unwanted warships.

"There are three possibilities: deliver the boats to Russia, sell them to someone else or destroy them," said a source close to the matter.

It is an embarrassment that is not of French President Francois Hollande's making. The deal stems from his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy's decision in 2011 to make the West's first major foreign arms sale to Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.

But it will be difficult for Hollande politically and underlines the difficulty for France to reconcile its ambitions as a global arms supplier - a sector on which thousands of French jobs depend - with commitments to NATO allies.

It may also be very costly.

At present the delivery of the ships remains indefinitely suspended rather than formally canceled. But even Russian officials say now that they are not interested in taking the Mistral-class carriers.

Moreover France's NATO allies, notably the United States and Poland - with whom Paris is negotiating 6 billion euros of defense deals - would be outraged if France tried to get the deal back on track with the crisis in Ukraine far from resolved.

That leaves the Russians demanding not only a full refund but also the penalties that go for pulling the deal.

"That Russia won't take them (the ships) - that's a fait accompli," Oleg Bochkaryov, deputy head of Russia's Military Industrial Commission, told daily Kommersant last week. "There is only one discussion going on now: the amount of money that should be returned to Russia."

SINK OR SELL?

The first carrier, the Vladivostok, had been due for delivery in 2014; the second, named Sebastopol after Crimea's crucial seaport, was supposed to be delivered by 2016.

Russia and French sources say Moscow wants 1.163 billion euros ($1.29 billion) which includes what it has already disbursed - about 800 million euros - plus compensation for costs incurred for the purchase of equipment and training of sailors.

France's special envoy Louis Gautier, who has been shuttling between the two capitals since end-March, has offered just 785 million euros, according to Russian media citing officials who also described the offer as "unacceptable."

Gautier has asked Russia to either contribute to the cost of dismantling them or allow France to sell the Mistrals to another country. Canada and Singapore have been mooted, as has Egypt which has just bought French fighter jets and naval frigates.

Yet senior defense ministry official Yury Yakubov, quoted by Interfax news agency, argued they could not be sold on because the carriers were built to specific Russian navy requirements and therefore it was a "matter of state security."

That may turn out to be just a bargaining position. But even if Russia relents, there would be a cost to France.

For one thing, it is already costing 5 million euros a month to maintain them at their current port on the Atlantic.

The Mistral is known as the Swiss army knife of the French navy for its versatility. But DCNS, the 65-percent state-owned manufacturer, nonetheless estimates any adaptation for another country would cost hundreds of millions of euros - and it would seek compensation.

An intriguing outside bet might involve China.

Amid a warming of Paris-Beijing ties under Hollande, the Dixmude - another Mistral-class vessel - attracted speculation when it docked in Shanghai earlier this month for a week.

But for now, analysts suggest the geopolitical context is just too dicey to contemplate a sale to China.

With growing tensions in the South China Sea, France is not seen willing to risk alienating Japan, with which it has just signed a defense cooperation deal, let alone suffer the displeasure that such a move would incur in Washington.

Said General Christian Quesnot, chief military adviser to Hollande's mentor, the late president Francois Mitterrand: "The cheapest thing would be to sink them."

 [return to Contents] 

 
#21
Moscow Times
June 3, 2015
The West Needs More Russophiles
By Mark Galeotti
Mark Galeotti is professor of global affairs at New York University.

Current dialogue between Russia and the West scarcely deserves the name. Too often, it is simply a contest of postures and a recitation of grievances, each side clinging to positions stripped of nuance or scope for compromise. This is doing no one any good. For all kinds of reasons, the West needs more unsentimental Russophiles.

A Russophile is not the same thing as a Kremlin stooge, the kind of abject apologist described as a Putin Versteher, a "Putin understander" in the German political lexicon. Instead, it is someone who feels an affinity, sympathy and regard for Russia, an outsider who enjoys Russia and Russians, who wishes the country well.

Why unsentimental? Russian Studies courses in the West are liberally populated with starry-eyed young things who fell in love with Pushkin, Dostoevsky or Bulgakov. Expecting the spiritual, the deliberative, the darkly philosophical, they take one look at Moscow's high-octane nightlife, glitzy chain stores, ubiquitous cellphones and, whether they admit it or not, feel betrayed, or feel Russians have betrayed themselves.

In my experience, Russians are able to reconcile Pushkin and Pizza Hut, and they deserve to be more than convenient outsiders' caricatures. Instead, true Russophiles need to appreciate Russia as it is now, and in its own terms.

That said, Russophiles need not be Kremlophiles. An excellent reason to criticize the current administration is not what it is doing to Ukraine but what it is doing to Russia. Push through the tattered curtain of orange-and-black St. George's ribbons and there is a country being systematically isolated from a modern, liberal, developed world that is the aspirational goal of so many Russians.

A country where spending on education and infrastructure takes second place to empire and pageantry. A country where a 17-year-old girl can be forced into a polygamous marriage but a 70-year-old woman cannot get painkillers and cancer medication.

There needs to be room for nuance. Russians cannot simply be characterized as either the malicious collaborators with Russian imperialism, nor its hapless victims. They can be either, both or neither. Likewise, not everything the Kremlin does is wrong, selfish or vicious. True Russophiles need to have a clarity of vision and openness of mind to distinguish between the good, the bad, and the ugly.

But why does this kind of nuance matter, what good would it be for more clear-sighted Russophiles to be heard in the West?

Above all, to inform policy. There are some smart, well-informed Russia hands in the United States and in other Western diplomatic and political elites. There are also many who are none of the above.

A continued policy of rotation in foreign services, in part precisely to avoid the risk of officials "going native," often means expertise and empathy is misallocated. Too many within some embassies live their lives in the expat bubble, and others build up a knowledge of Russia, its language and its ways, only to end up working in Rwanda or Romania.

The irony is that whether the goal is regime change or to build new bridges with the Kremlin, the odds are that it will be done better by people who don't just know Russia intellectually, or through briefings and classes, but feel it.

So where do you find these open-eyed Russophiles? First and foremost, you probably find them in Russia. Some expats never really engage with the country, especially those living within the gated community bubble, but most are there because they want to be, because something in Russia speaks to them.

Being in Russia is one of the best inoculations against being naively seduced by the official line (I've heard some of the most devastating critiques of the Kremlin come from RT employees who by day have to peddle it), and it probably ensures an understanding of the complexities of this country.

In the long term, of course, it means also cultivating them. Not every student studying Russian at school, reading Gogol as an undergraduate, or even grappling with Russian politics at graduate school will end up becoming a Russia hand, let alone managing to avoid the seductions of the extremes.

But the new generations willing to work, study and travel in Russia, to open themselves to it, will come from this cohort. At a time when Western teaching of Russia remains under pressure, when research grants are harder to get, and also when Moscow itself is much less open to outsiders, this is sometimes an uphill struggle.

The irony is that both Washington and Moscow would benefit from the rise of the unsentimental Russophiles. The West could do with sharper policy, and Russia needs better friends and interpreters than the self-interested opportunists and self-righteous conspiracy theorists on which it too often relies at present.

They might also have to abandon some of their comfortable stereotypes and grapple with a more complex and contradictory notion of Russia. Growing up is always tough, though.

 [return to Contents] 

 #22
www.foreignpolicy.com
June 2, 2015
What Russian Literature Tells Us About Vladimir Putin's World
The country's great authors put Russia's aggression in context better than any intel briefing can.
BY JAMES STAVRIDIS
James Stavridis is a retired four-star U.S. Navy admiral who serves today as the dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Want to really understand what's going on in Russia? Get rid of that CIA report full of dusty Cold War tropes. Forget the NSA intercepts or spy satellite imagery. And drop the jargon-filled scholarly analysis from those political science journals.

Instead, get back to the richest literary gold mine in the Western world: Russian novels and poetry. Read Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn, and Bulgakov. That's where you'll really find how Russians think. And it's all unclassified!

Begin with Nikolai Gogol's 1842 masterpiece, Dead Souls. It is the blackest of black humor, a story in which a mysterious businessman moves through the Russian countryside "buying up souls" (i.e., taking away a tax burden from the estate owners). It is an absurdist construct, and the novel functions as a satiric portrait of the dysfunctional Russian landowner society that eventually fell in the 1917 revolution. It tells us that Russians see the world as somewhat absurd and contradictory, and hardly a place where overarching humanist value systems triumph. For a nation whose leader struts around the world stage without a shirt on, plays with a pet Siberian tiger, and flies in a motorized mini-plane chasing white storks, there is a certain appeal to the absurd. It is a novel that evokes the most skeptical and cynical in the human condition and appropriately ends abruptly in mid-sentence - a signal of the inability to predict a coherent future.

How will Russians fight and what kind of leaders do they follow? Want to understand their patriotism? Go read the master, Leo Tolstoy.How will Russians fight and what kind of leaders do they follow? Want to understand their patriotism? Go read the master, Leo Tolstoy. His sweeping 1869 epic, War and Peace, shows us how the Russians think about their ability to fight, and illuminates the deep patriotism that fuels today's nationalist tendencies. Tolstoy makes clear the largest landmass under national sovereignty in the world is literally unconquerable, even by the brilliance of Napoleon. Moscow might burn, but the Russian military will never give up. Tolstoy also debunks the 19th-century theory of world events once-called "the great man" approach, arguing instead that events are driven by the collision of thousands of small events coming together. And when it comes to leaders, Russians throw the cosmic dice: One time they get an Ivan the Terrible, the next a Peter the Great. They know that eventually the dice will roll again, and a new leader will emerge. The bad news is that what comes after Putin may be even worse, given the growing xenophobia and ultra-nationalism. As we look at Putin's dominance, we should remember that the dice will roll again. The Russians do.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky in Crime and Punishment spins a tale that captures the Russian sensibility perfectly: A deeply troubled protagonist chooses to kill, but then is haunted by guilt and - encouraged by the good people around him - eventually confesses. He is then purified and ultimately achieves redemption. The central character, Raskolnikov, is a largely sympathetic figure, full of tragic contradictions, who strays into a brutal crime but is redeemed through punishment and faith. While it is hard to see Putin as a Raskolnikov, perhaps there is a touch of that pattern of redemption in the life and times of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oligarch turned political opposition leader, who was jailed and then finally released. The next chapter of his journey will be an interesting one. Russians have a deep belief in their own goodness and justness, recognizing mistakes will be made along the road to righteousness. They believe in both crime and punishment in a very literal sense.

Think the Russians will crack under sanctions? Try reading One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the 1962 novel by dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn. His protagonist, a convict in a Siberian gulag, finds a hundred ways to scrape through the day, dealing with the petty corruption, laughing at the predicaments, occasionally reveling in the harsh conditions of his imprisonment, and powerfully exhibiting the ability to overcome adversity. Like Denisovich, Russians will find an ironic pleasure in overcoming the pain of sanctions, and we should not put too much faith in our ability to break their will through imposing economic hardships.

For something more modern, try One Soldier's War by Arkady Babchenko. It's a foot soldier's memoir set in Chechnya during the height of the war there in the 1990s waged by the Russian conscript military against the rebellious population. This is counterinsurgency turned upside down - the Russians aren't trying to win the hearts and minds; they are quite content with putting a bullet into each. The book is a good view into the mind of any conscripted force sent to Ukraine - which explains why it is the Spetsnaz special forces, not regular troops, who are operating across the border. There is much to learn here about the Russian military's operational approach: The Russians have learned from their mistakes in Chechnya and in Afghanistan, and the new so-called hybrid war is full of lessons they took away. In Ukraine, the use of social media, strategic communications, humanitarian convoys, insurgent techniques, and cyber dominance all come from the Chechnya experience.

And finally, to understand the view of the Russian émigré, the brilliant Russian-American novelist Gary Shteyngart's Absurdistan captures the post-Soviet space better than any book of non-fiction. Set in Moscow and a thinly disguised Azerbaijan (a former republic of the USSR, in case you forgot), it serves up a portrait of Russian "capitalism" with a huge dose of black humor. It echoes Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, a magical realist novel written in the 1930s, in its evocation of the Russians' ability to exist quite happily in a world where everything is half a beat off the music.

As Russia becomes increasingly isolated from Europe and the West over everything from the annexation of Crimea to the jailing of Pussy Riot and the treatment of gays and lesbians, their society will increasingly reject the "norms" of the West and become more "the other" - a place they have been before. What does all this tell us about the current flow of events?

Russians correctly view themselves as inheritors of something bigger than just another a huge country - they see Mother Russia as the repository of deep and powerful life philosophies through a vibrant literature. They are unbelievably tough under pressure and take a perverse pleasure in demonstrating they can outlast anyone.

The Russian military, while still largely a conscripted brute force instrument, can be crafty and wily in combat, trying and adopting new techniques like the hybrid warfare we see in Ukraine today. Russians are skeptical of alliances, remain xenophobic and nationalistic, and have enormous doubts about everyone else's motives. They see a dark world of forces aligned against them and will continue to use their traditional tools - a bitter reservoir of dark humor, superhuman endurance in the face of adversity, and a clever tactical approach - to try and carry the day. They are masters of playing a bad hand of cards well.

And what of Russian leaders? Dostoyevsky said about one key character in his masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov, that "Anger was buried far too early in a young heart, which perhaps contained much good." A description of the young Putin? Perhaps. Certainly, the soaring polls that buoy the Russian president today contain a component of sympathy which stems from intense nationalism, Orthodox faith, an appreciation of the fickleness of the hand of fate, and the salving power of dark humor - all of which run consistently through Russian literature. It bodes well for Vladimir Putin.

We can, of course, learn a great deal about Russia from traditional sources of non-fiction and analysis - history, biography, memoir, political science, and international economics - but literature is the true lens. If you want to understand the Russian mind, remember that no other culture esteems its writers more than Russia. Every Russian can - and frequently does - quote Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Gogol; whereas you would be hard pressed to get a line of Whitman, Hemingway, or Toni Morrison out of a typical American. Whether or not Putin reads on a daily basis (though some reports indicate he enjoys Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy) Russian literature shapes his worldview and illuminates the decisions of the Kremlin in powerful, focused prose. Maybe don't start with War and Peace (if you haven't heard, it's pretty long), but pick up a novel and start reading.

 [return to Contents] 

 #23
Interfax
June 2, 2015
Book on Kremlin history since 12th century brought out in Russia

A book, titled 'Moscow Kremlin. Monuments and Shrines' was presented in Moscow on June 2.
 
The author, spokesman for the Federal Security Guard Service Sergei Devyatov, said that he had worked on the book for about six years. The book has been released with a print run of 1,350 copies. It has more than 2,000 illustrations and has been brought out in Russian and English.

"The Kremlin is a purely Russian phenomenon. Historical records have information about 62 Russian kremlins, some of which have survived to this day. The Moscow Kremlin's role is dominant and its phenomenon is in that it is a center of Moscow's big-time political life and a concentration of supreme Orthodox spiritual authority, while being a citadel and powerful fortress," Devyatov said.

The publisher, Yelena Rychkova, said that the book depicts the history of the Kremlin, starting from the 12th century to the present day, as well as the history of the persons and events connected with the Kremlin all throughout this period.

"The book is rich in illustrations and is very informative," she said.

It contains unique old photographs, including a photograph of a religious procession in Red Square in 1918 from the private album of leader of the 1917 Revolution Vladimir Lenin.

"The reader will find several plans of the Kremlin in the book, dated 1812 and 1910, the last pre-revolution plan, the present-day plan and the plan drawn in 1920 and signed by Leon Trotsky's wife Natalya, with notes about the value of various buildings and recommendations as to which buildings need to be erected," Rychkova said.
 
The 550-page monograph carries unique materials and documents taken from archives, including photographs and plans of the Chudov and Ascension monasteries, formerly located in the Moscow Kremlin.

 [return to Contents] 

 #24
www.euractiv.com (Brussels)
June 1, 2015
Ukraine's second ever gay pride march faces axe

The second gay pride demonstration in Ukraine's history will be cancelled for the second time in as many years, unless promises of police protection are made for the marchers before this Saturday (6 June).

EurActiv has learned that the planned protest in Kyiv could still be forbidden by court order, if Mayor Vitali Klitshko applies for one.

But it is up to the Kyiv Police to offer security to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights activists, who want to demonstrate on 6 June.

"Without this protection, they will be killed. It will be a massacre," Bogdan Ovcharuk, of Amnesty International, told EurActiv in Kyiv.

The first, and so far only, protest for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights in Ukraine was targeted by far larger homophobic mobs in Kyiv in 2013.

About 100 protestors were shielded by an estimated 1,000 cops, who arrested 13 people for trying to break up the meeting.

Ovcharuk said the counter-protestors were a mix of about 1,000 far-right groups, football fans and religious organisations. LGBT activists were bussed in under protection and circled by officers to protect them, as they would have to be again this year, if the march goes ahead.

Last year's march was cancelled after Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said that the crisis in Ukraine meant such "entertainment events" were inappropriate. There were also no guarantees of police protection for LGBT activists.

Amnesty International is lobbying both the city administration and the police to back the march. It called on the European Union to increase political pressure to ensure it goes ahead.

"The first event was only held because of EU pressure," said Ovcharuk.

A meeting last Thursday with officers to discuss this year's march was postponed until this week. Today, (Monday 1 June), is a bank holiday in Ukraine, meaning time is running out for the guarantees to be delivered.

"Nobody knows if this is going to go ahead," said Ovcharuk, when he met EurActiv in Kyiv on Friday.

Ovcharuk told EurActiv that the small group of demonstrators would not turn up without police protection. He expected 60-100 protestors if security was guaranteed.

"The police is able and it must provide security, not just for LGBT protestors, but everybody who wants to peacefully gather, including the counter-protestors," he said.

Homophobia in Ukraine remains widespread. One Western European working in Kyiv said anyone of the same sex holding hands in public faced being attacked. He joked he would not be surprised if people took time off work to try and break up the demonstration.

As part of Ukraine's negotiations with the EU on a visa-free regime, it must adopt certain laws. Among them is legislation guaranteeing equal treatment for LGBT people in the workplace.

"As far as I know," said Ovcharuk, "that is the only law that has not been supported by the parliament".

Although homosexuality is legal in Ukraine, in 2012, on first reading, lawmakers adopted a draft law to make the promotion of homosexuality a criminal offence.

In May, the European Commission said a review of Ukraine showed distinct progress in meeting the standards required to allow citizens to enter EU nations for short stays without needing a visa.

"The assessment found that, despite the exceptional circumstances that Ukraine currently faces, the progress achieved [...] has been noteworthy," the Commission said in a statement.

 [return to Contents] 

 #25
Moscow Times
June 3, 2015
MH17 Was Not Shot Down by Russian Missile - Russian Defense Firm
By Matthew Bodner

The Russian maker of an anti-aircraft missile widely thought to be behind the destruction of a civilian airliner over east Ukraine last summer presented evidence Tuesday that suggested that Ukrainian forces were responsible for the attack.

Almaz-Antey, Russia's largest defense contractor, announced its findings as the basis for a court appeal against EU sanctions placed on the firm last year in the wake of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 disaster, which caused the death of 298 people.

Based on the findings of a technical study of the MH17 wreckage, the firm concluded that a missile not used in Russia but found in Ukraine's arsenal destroyed the plane, and that the launch location was in territory allegedly held by Ukrainian forces.

But the appeal may fall on deaf ears. A report issued Sunday by a well-known team of citizen journalists concluded that similar claims made by the Russian Defense Ministry last summer were based on altered satellite photographs.

Old Missile

Almaz-Antey at its press conference Tuesday concluded that an outdated missile, no longer used in Russia but widely sold abroad, was likely responsible for the plane's destruction.

The holes found in the skin of MH17 were characteristic of a specific type of missile once built for the Buk-M1 system - the discontinued 9M38-M1 - said Mikhail Malyshevsky, a technical adviser to the company who led the presentation.

"If MH17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile, it could only have been done by a 9M38-M1 missile fired from a Buk-M1 launcher," air defense firm Almaz-Antey's CEO Yan Novikov told reporters.

The 9M38-M1 missile went out of production in 1999 and all stocks have been sold abroad, Novikov said. Ukraine was a large buyer of the weapons, he added.

Ukrainian Territory

After examining the direction of the shrapnel penetrations, the Almaz-Antey study also concluded that the missile could not have been launched from the town of Snizhne, a rebel-held territory that international investigators have identified as the likely site of the Buk launch.

Instead, the missile had to be fired from the south of the Zaroshchenskoye township, Malyshevsky asserted.

Malyshevsky and Novikov declined to answer questions concerning who controlled Zaroshchenskoye at the time, but Russia's military earlier said that Ukrainian forces held power in the area.

Ukraine's General Staff issued a statement later Tuesday saying it was not in control of Zaroshchenskoye on July 17, news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Novikov told reporters that the firm was so confident in its findings that it would go out of pocket to recreate their version of the incident using a real Boeing 777 and a Buk-M1 armed with a 9M38-M1 missile.

Breaking Sanctions

Novikov and Malyshevsky presented the company's findings as an attempt to clear the air of some of the wilder conspiracies surrounding MH17's crash and appeal against EU sanctions imposed last year on the firm over its alleged role in supplying pro-Russian separatists with the missile.

Almaz-Antey was created in 2002, and cannot be held responsible for a missile built in 1999, especially those sold abroad, Novikov argued. An appeal has been filed to the EU Secretariat and a lawsuit filed to the General Court of the European Union to annul the sanctions.

Novikov said that Almaz-Antey's business was not suffering from the sanctions, but that it has been forced to look to other component suppliers "who won't tell us no" when orders are placed. He did not specify who the alternate suppliers were.

Conspiracies Abound

Almaz-Antey's new theory may be met with skepticism in the EU, where the majority of MH17 victims were from.

Dutch investigators in charge of a high-profile investigation have said that the destruction of the plane by a Buk missile launched from rebel-held territory was the "most realistic and important scenario," The Wall Street Journal reported in March.

A report published by respected citizen journalist website Bellingcat on Sunday, meanwhile, cast doubt on Russian Defense Ministry satellite images released last summer that allegedly showed a unit of Ukrainian Buk-M1 launchers leaving their base and moving into the flight path of MH17.

The satellite photos were doctored, Bellingcat said, and in fact appeared to be more similar to Google Earth satellite images of the territory taken the month before.
---

Evidence Breakdown
The Moscow Times

In a series of technical slides, Almaz-Antey expert Mikhail Malyshevsky explained to reporters on Tuesday how the company arrived at its conclusions that an out-of-production Buk-M1 missile, fired from the town of Zaroshenskoe, downed flight MH17.
 
Malyshevsky first identified the likely cause of MH17's crash as a surface-to-air missile, which explodes sideways and leaves distinctive blast patterns.
 
Then, Malyshevsky explained the blast patterns found on MH17. These patterns are distinct to a specific type of missile built for the Buk-M1, the 9M38-M1, he said.
 
Malyshevsky explained that the Defense Ministry declassified the information about the 9M38-M1's warhead damage because the missile is no longer in use in Russia.
 
After identifying the type of missile fired, he set out to explain how the company determined Zaroshenskoe was the launch site, and not Snizhne, as Western investigators have said.
 
According to Malyshevsky, the shrapnel that destroyed the plane entered from just above the pilot's head and traveled mostly down the length of the plane, with other debris hitting the left engine and control surfaces on the wing and tail.
 
As such, the missile had to approach MH17 from the direction of Zaroshenskoe - and not dead on, as is contended in the Snizhne scenario.
 
Once this had been established, Almaz-Antey traced back the missile's most probable flight path to Zaroshenskoe, which Russia's military has said was controlled by Ukrainian forces at the time.

 [return to Contents] 

 #26
Russia Insider
www.russia=insider.com
June 2, 2015
BUK Manufacturer Almaz-Antey Speaks Out on MH17 Tragedy
Presentation provided by Almaz-Antey debunks SU 25 theory and points to MH17 having been shot down by a Ukrainian controlled BUK missile launched from Zaroschshenskoe.
By Alexander Mercouris
Alexander Mercouris is a writer on international affairs with a special interest in Russia and law.  He has written extensively on the legal aspects of NSA spying and events in Ukraine in terms of human rights, constitutionality and international law.  He worked for 12 years in the Royal Courts of Justice in London as a lawyer, specializing in human rights and constitutional law.

His family has been prominent in Greek politics for several generations.  He is a frequent commentator on television and speaker at conferences.  He resides in London.

The theory that one of the BUK missile launchers controlled by the Ukrainian military and shown by the Russian satellite imagery shot down MH17 has now received strong public endorsement as a result of a presentation made today (2nd June 2015) by the BUK missile system's manufacturer Almaz-Antey.

The presentation was made in connection with Almaz-Antey's case in the European Court of Justice to have the sanctions imposed upon it lifted. The same findings presumably will also be made available to the two official inquiries investigating the MH17 tragedy.

Almaz-Antey's presentation incidentally shows that the engineers' report previously published by the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which I discussed previously (see Russian Report Points to Ukrainian BUK Missile as Responsible for MH17 Tragedy, Russia Insider, 8th May 2015) was prepared for or by Almaz-Antey.

The Almaz-Antey presentation confirms MH17 was shot down by a BUK missile, burying once and for all the SU 25 theory, about which regular readers of Russia Insider will know I have always been skeptical.  

As regular readers of Russia Insider will also know, I have always vigorously opposed what I have always insisted was the false binary: SU 25 = Ukrainians / BUK missile = militia.

As to that, let me repeat again that contrary to various claims, the SU 25 theory has never been publicly endorsed by the Russian government.

On the strength of a technical study of the aircraft damage Almaz-Antey claims MH17 was shot down by a BUK missile of a type not made in Russia since 1999.

Almaz-Antey claims the BUK was launched from near the settlement of Zaroschshenskoe, which is in the area where the Russian satellite imagery show a Ukrainian BUK missile launcher present on the day of the tragedy.

Almaz-Antey rules out on technical grounds any possibility of MH17 having been shot down by a BUK missile launched from Snizhnoe, which is the theory favoured by those who say MH17 was shot down by the militia.

As the BUK missile system's manufacturer Almaz-Antey's opinions carry particular weight and this is by some distance the most authoritative discussion of the cause of the tragedy we have seen to date.

Almaz-Antey's evidence is what lawyers call "opinion evidence".  However it is the opinion evidence of an expert, in this case of the manufacturer of the system in question, produced moreover for use in a court case. As the BUK missile system's manufacturer Almaz-Antey must be considered the best qualified experts in this field. In most legal proceedings involving a BUK missile their opinion would be considered conclusive.

Perhaps in anticipation of Almaz-Antey's presentation, the British Bellingcat blog, which has been amongst the most fervid proponents of the theory that MH17 was shot down from Snizhnoe by a BUK missile provided to the militia by the Russians, has published its own report that seeks to cast doubt on the Russian satellite imagery.  

In my first discussion of MH17 published by Russia Insider (see MH17: The Facts and the Cover-Up, Russia Insider, 3rd December 2014) I said the Russia satellite imagery had to be treated as among the evidence that is completely reliable. I said that though the Ukrainians had tried to dispute the evidence they had done so in such an unconvincing way that it effectively confirmed its truth.

Significantly the US, which is in a position to know one way or the other (Almaz-Antey has confirmed US satellites were over the area on the day of the tragedy), has never publicly challenged the Russian satellite imagery.  

Nor has the BND, the German intelligence agency, which has however (according to reports) privately informed the German parliament and government that some of the photographs produced by the Ukrainians were fakes.

I have not discussed Bellingcat in my previous discussions because I do not fully understand what they are about.  

So far as I can tell they appear to be undertaking their own investigation of the MH17 tragedy in parallel with the two official ones.  

As there are two official investigations of the tragedy underway, both working under a Security Council mandate whose conduct Bellingcat (unlike me) completely endorses, I do not understand the point of this.

Amateur investigations of a crime or tragedy, conducted simultaneously with an official investigation, are the bane of a professional investigator's life.  

More often than not they throw up false leads, which the professional investigator then has to waste precious time and resources investigating.  

By publicising false theories to potential witnesses they also risk contaminating the evidence pool, making the conduct of the official investigation much harder.

This is because, almost by definition, amateur investigators seek to prove true whatever theory they have adopted.  Inevitably this causes them to shape the facts to suit their theory.

Bellingcat's report on the Russian satellite imagery is a case in point.

Given the vested interest Bellingcat has in this matter as one of the chief proponents of the Snizhnoe theory, it is strongly motivated to find reasons to debunk the Russian satellite imagery, given that in conjunction with Almaz-Antey presentation the Russian satellite imagery is potentially fatal to the Snizhnoe theory. That all but guarantees that any report Bellingcat produces is going to find reasons to question the Russian satellite images.

Sure enough, that is precisely what has happened.  Equally predictably, Russian sources are already finding grounds to ridicule Bellingcat's report.

The one point I would make about Bellingcat's report is that it is based on the misunderstanding that it is the images themselves rather than what they show that is the evidence in this case.

Much of the report looks like an effort to prove that the Russian satellites images were made earlier than the dates the Russians say the Ukrainian BUK missile launchers were present in the locations shown in the images. This is based on comparisons of certain topographical features that appear in the images with earlier images of the same locations obtained from Google Earth.

The Russian satellite images were not however produced to show the topographical features about which Bellingcat writes so much about.  Nor were they produced as evidence to the two official inquiries or in a court case, who would doubtless want to see the raw data, which in this case would be the images in their original form.

The Russian satellite images were produced at a press conference to show the location of the Ukrainian BUK missile launchers the Ukrainians denied were there.  It is the Russian military who say the BUK missile launchers were there on the day MH17 was shot down. It is the provenance with the Russian military of the images and the claim about the date that lends them both weight.

There would be nothing surprising or sinister in the Russian military, for the purpose of a press conference, retouching images with the help of earlier images to make the images look clearer, and there is no reason to think there is anything more to it than that.

The Almaz-Antey presentation now brings us a significant step closer to the truth.

We can now definitely say that MH17 was shot down by a BUK missile.  

As to Almaz-Antey's claims that it was of a type no longer made in Russia and that it was launched from an area where Russian satellite imagery show a Ukrainian BUK missile launcher was present, it is open for those who disagree to show why this is wrong.  

Given Almaz-Antey's particular expert knowledge of the BUK missile system as its manufacturer, on the question of the precise type of BUK missile that was used and the point of its launch, that looks like a hard task for anyone to do. Any challenge to Almaz-Antey's claims on these questions would have to be of at least similar technical competence to be convincing, even if it did not have to be fully equal to it.

I note Almaz-Antey's offering help with physical tests and simulations.  I will be interested to see if anyone takes up this offer.

Since Almaz-Antey is only capable of providing expert evidence, quite properly it refuses to speculate about who was operating the launcher that launched the BUK missile, which it says was located at Zaroschshenskoe.  

It is the Russian military - not Almaz-Antey - that identifies this BUK missile launcher as Ukrainian.

I restate my longstanding view that it is only through interviews of all of the military personnel involved - on both sides - and through an examination of the relevant unit log books, that the full truth of what happened will finally be established.  

I note with interest - on the strength of certain comments made by one of Russia's Deputy Defence Ministers - that the Russian Defence Ministry appears to be of the same view.

 [return to Contents] 

 #27
Interfax
June 2, 2015
Russia air defence firm denies its MH17 claims based on fake satellite photos

The evidence presented by Russian air defence systems manufacturer Almaz-Antey to show that flight MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian missile was based only on preliminary data from the Dutch investigation, said Yan Novikov, the company's general director, as reported by privately-owned Russian military news agency Interfax-AVN on 2 June.

Novikov was commenting on media reports that Almaz-Antey had presented fake satellite photos at a news conference in Moscow earlier on 2 June.

"Reports disseminated by a number of media outlets on 2 June that the concern used fake photos as evidence about the crash of the Malaysia Airlines aircraft last summer in the skies over southeast Ukraine have nothing to do with reality," Interfax-AVN quoted Novikov as saying, citing a statement from the company's press service.

He said that Almaz-Antey was ready to provide the material of the presentation for all who have any doubts about the investigation carried out by the company's specialists.

"We are also ready to carry out a full-scale live experiment: to detonate a 9Ì38Ì1 missile warhead as it draws near to an aircraft, as indicated in our presentation," Novikov said.

"Claims that missiles of this type were present at 9 May victory parades [on Red Square] in recent years are not true either," he said.

"The latest air defence systems Buk-M2 with 9M317 missiles have taken part in parades," he said.

At the news conference earlier, Novikov had said that evidence suggested that flight MH17 was shot down by a 9M38M1 missile fired from a Buk-M1 launcher. This missile could not have been supplied by Russia as Buk-M1 was taken out of production in 1999, he said.

 [return to Contents] 

 #28
Irrussianality
https://irrussianality.wordpress.com
June 2, 2015
THEY'RE NOT GOING AWAY, YOU KNOW
By Paul Robinson
Professor at the University of Ottawa. Paul Robinson holds an MA in Russian and Eastern European Studies from the University of Toronto and a D. Phil. in Modern History from the University of Oxford. Prior to his graduate studies, he served as a regular officer in the British Army Intelligence Corps from 1989 to 1994, and as a reserve officer in the Canadian Forces from 1994 to 1996. He also worked as a media research executive in Moscow in 1995. Having published six books, he has also written widely for the international press on political issues. His research focuses generally on military affairs. In recent years, he has worked on Russian history, military history, defence policy, and military ethics.

On Friday I chaired a panel at the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Slavists on the subject of the war in Ukraine. One theme which repeatedly came up was the need for dialogue between Kiev and the inhabitants of Eastern Ukraine in order to find a peaceful solution to the conflict. That, however, raised the question 'dialogue with whom?', and that is where the difficulties begin.

Many critics of the Ukrainian government have complained that it has repeatedly refused to engage in dialogue with the people of Donbass. The government's supporters, however, respond that doing so isn't easy. The collapse in February 2014 of the Party of the Regions, which had previously dominated Eastern Ukrainian politics, meant that Eastern Ukraine was left without leadership. There was at that point, it is said, nobody with whom the new authorities in Kiev could have held meaningful negotiations. As for now, the leaders of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR), Aleksandr Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky, allegedly lack any legitimate claim to speak on behalf of the people of Donbass.

Against this, others complain that while it might have been difficult for Kiev to find credible interlocutors in Donbass in the early stages of the conflict, it never even tried to do so. Nor is it trying today. There are, for instance, civil society groups operating in Donbass, some of them pro-Ukrainian (in the sense of wanting to remain part of Ukraine), but the Ukrainian government refuses to talk even to them, because although they are pro-Ukrainian they also demand political autonomy for Donbass. Were the authorities in Kiev to reach out to such people and make suitable political concessions, they might, it is claimed, find a way of bypassing the DPR and LPR authorities to get the support of the people of Donbass for a political settlement.

This last idea is, in theory, a good one, but I fear that it comes a year too late. Thirteen or fourteen months ago, when the DPR and LPR consisted of nothing more than a handful of people sitting in buildings in Donetsk and Lugansk, it might have worked. At that point in time, a concerted effort to find influential interlocutors, along with some timely and substantial political concessions, could have isolated the more radical elements from the mass of the population. In the terminology of Maoist insurgency theory, the government could have drained the sea in which the fishes swam. Now, that is no longer possible. Day by day the DPR and LPR acquire more and more of the attributes of real states. They have also amassed large armies, with tens of thousands of troops, as well as hundreds of tanks, armoured personnel carriers, and artillery pieces. The rebel republics have power, and people and institutions which have acquired power through bitter struggle don't just give it up without getting something in return.

In this sense, the issue of whether Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky can legitimately claim to represent the people of Donbass is beside the point. Whatever the right and wrong of the matter, they have the guns. The Ukrainian government is incapable of defeating them by force. The only way it can regain its lost territories is through negotiation, and the people it has to negotiate with are those who control the rebel states. In saying this, I am not trying to make a moral comment about the worthiness or otherwise of the rebel cause. This is a purely practical conclusion. If Kiev wants to reunite its country in a peaceful way, sooner or later it is going to have speak to its enemies.

 [return to Contents] 

 #29
DPR defense spokesman says east Ukraine shelled by Kiev troops, not by militia forces

MOSCOW, June 3. /TASS/. The militia of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) don't not conduct offensive operations, in spite of provocations by Kiev-controlled units, DPR defense ministry spokesman Eduard Basurin told reporters on Wednesday.

"We are not conducting offensive operations, we just take adequate measures against strengthening the genocide of the people of Donbas," the Donetsk news agency quotes him as saying.

He noted that the order to shell DPR cities and villages had been issued by commanders of the Ukrainian armed forces. "DPR cities have been shelled by the Ukrainian army, not by battalions or other units. Only commanders of the Ukrainian armed forces can issue an order to open fire," he added.

The defense minister of the unrecognized republic said the militia's losses have reached 15 men as Kiev forces have been shelling their positions since last night.

He noted that the Ukrainian army's actions had been "planned in advance". "They are aimed at disrupting Minsk-2, this is an attempt to show that the situation has gone out of control," he said.

"Our positions came under fire along the whole frontline: in Shirokino, Yelenovka and Maryinka. Shells of three calibers (120 mm, 122 mm and 152 mm) were used. We have conducted defensive operations for seven hours," the Donetsk news agency quotes Vladimir Kononov as saying.

"To date, around 15 people have been killed, these are DPR losses since the first provocation at 03:45," Kononov said, adding that this number included both militia fighters and civilians.

Sixty civilians wounded in Donetsk shelling

At least of 60 civilians in Donetsk have been injured as a result of shelling attacks, director of the Republican Traumatology Centre Alexander Oprishchenko told the Donetsk news agency on Wednesday.

"Some 60 people with injuries have been admitted to our hospital alone," he said.

According to Oprishchenko, five people are in extremely grave condition. "There are people with varying degrees of injuries, some without arms and legs. Many are now undergoing surgery," he said.

According to the Traumatology Centre head, the hospital has all the needed medicaments for the patients. "The blood bank has also not failed us yet," he added.
Gallery 14 photo

Shelling traps hundreds of coal miners in east Ukraine

Defense ministry spokesman Basurin also said some 375 coal miners remained trapped in the Skochinsky coal mine and another 576 people were trapped in the Zasyadko coal mine after the pits lost power in shelling.

Shells hit the Skochinsky coal mine and a market in Donetsk's Kirovsk district, Donetsk news agency quoted spokesman Eduard Basurin as saying.

"The coal pit lost power. Two people have been wounded," Basurin said, adding that information about casualties was being verified.

 [return to Contents] 

 #30
Reuters
June 3, 2015
Why investors who bet big on Ukraine should shoulder their own losses
By Josh Cohen
Josh Cohen is a former USAID project officer involved in managing economic reform projects in the former Soviet Union. He contributes to a number of foreign policy-focused media outlets and tweets at @jkc_in_dc

Ukraine is flat broke. Kiev is running out of hard currency reserves to pay its foreign debts. Inflation is at 60 percent due to huge increases in gas prices. The country's economy collapsed at an annualized rate of 17 percent last quarter. A full-scale economic depression is unfolding.

There may be only one way out of this mess for Ukraine: to default on its international debts and tell its foreign creditors to take a hike. While some argue that government debt restructurings are akin to theft from "powerless" creditors, Ukraine's foreign bondholders are sophisticated investors - including one of America's biggest investment firms - who knew the risks of investing there. No money from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is injecting cash into the Ukrainian economy, should go toward repaying Ukraine's debts to foreign creditors.

To assist Ukraine, the IMF and other Western donors recently agreed to lend Kiev $40 billion to stabilize its economy. This number, while huge, is deceiving. A good chunk of the $40 billion was already promised to Ukraine in an earlier IMF loan. More importantly, the IMF requires $15 billion of this assistance to come from the restructuring of Ukraine's international bonds - in essence, demanding that Ukraine's foreign creditors accept a loss on their investments.

Kiev and its creditors, however, disagree on how to achieve this savings. Ukraine is demanding that its creditors accept a "haircut" - or loss in the face value of the bonds. Creditors such as Franklin Templeton - the country's largest creditor, which reportedly owns almost half of the government's foreign debt - assert a "haircut" is not necessary, and that reducing interest payments and extending the maturities of the bonds yields the necessary savings that the IMF demands.

If Ukraine cannot negotiate a debt reduction plan with its investors by June 15, when the next IMF review of Ukraine's bailout program occurs, its IMF loan could collapse - sending Ukraine's economy into an even deeper tailspin. In response, Ukraine's parliament just passed a law authorizing the government to impose a moratorium on bond payments to its foreign investors if negotiations fail.

Some of Ukraine's foreign creditors buy assets in struggling countries at low prices, hoping to sell at a big profit when prices recover later. They seem to be savvy at finding one-way bets. For example, as the value of Templeton's Ukrainian bonds dropped from 80 cents on the dollar to 50 cents when the war in Ukraine's east began, the head of the firm's Global Bond Fund spoke publicly about Ukraine's merits as an investment destination, explaining to nervous investors that billions in IMF cash backstopped his Ukrainian bond holdings.

Counting on the IMF has worked so far. Ukraine received almost $10 billion from the IMF in the last 12 months, some of which went right back out to pay foreign bondholders. While it's natural that foreign creditors want to limit their losses, Ukraine's collapsing economy and massive defense expenditures makes it likely that Kiev's $40 billion aid program will not be sufficient.

Kiev should therefore stick to its guns and insist that foreign creditors share in the pain of its citizens and take a loss on the principal of their investments. If foreign creditors continue to refuse this "haircut," then the government should stop paying interest on these bonds until its creditors agree to accept one. The aim is not to forgo repaying its creditors indefinitely, but to push its investors to accept better terms than they are offering. Citigroup argues that prices of Ukrainian bonds indicate markets already expect a 20 percent haircut - and Kiev has an obligation to its citizens to secure the best deal it can.

Indeed, Ukraine's citizens are already suffering. The average monthly salary in Ukraine is only $186, and skyrocketing inflation is decimating the purchasing power of ordinary citizens. Kiev is also implementing a painful IMF-mandated economic austerity program involving massive cuts in social spending programs of nearly $30 billion. While Ukraine's current unemployment rate is just shy of 10 percent, if the results of the Greek economic crisis are any guide, both the unemployment and poverty rates could easily double. The Ukrainian government's first responsibility is to its people, and if Kiev implements the painful social spending cuts mandated by the IMF, then at a minimum Ukraine's IMF money should not be used to protect sophisticated foreign bondholders from the consequences of their poor investment decisions at the expense of ordinary Ukrainians.

While Ukraine's central bank governor worries that Ukraine risks becoming a "pariah country" if it does not meet its obligations, she needn't be concerned. There have been 187 sovereign debt restructurings between 1970 and 2013, and recent IMF research found that emerging market governments almost always come to terms with their creditors eventually and return to international markets with a clean bill of health. Moreover, once a country's debt load becomes manageable, inflation drops substantially while economic growth rates at least double - exactly what Ukraine desperately needs after years of economic crisis.

Ukraine does not control its own destiny on the battlefront. On the financial front, however, Kiev holds a strong hand - and should not hesitate to play it.

 [return to Contents] 

 #31
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
June 2, 2015
IMF Adrift as Kiev Sinks
IMF claims to see "signs of stabilisation" as Ukraine's economy collapses.  A bit like saying "steady as she goes" as the Titanic sinks
By Alexander Mercouris

One of the strangest things those of us who write about the Ukrainian conflict constantly come up against is the cognitive dissonance so many Western officials seem to suffer from whenever the subject of Ukraine comes up.

The worse the situation in Ukraine gets, the more optimistic they have to pretend to be.

It seems this strange malady is now affecting even as notoriously hard-nosed an organisation as the IMF.

By any objective measure Ukraine has so far had a terrible 2015.

GDP in the first quarter was down 17.6%. Industrial production was down 20%. Inflation is officially running at 35% and is expected to grow. Most people think it is already much higher. Ukraine is again running a trade deficit and though, largely because of Western aid, foreign currency reserves have risen to a very low $9.7 billion from a potentially catastrophic $5.7 billion, this is nowhere near enough to get Ukraine through the coming winter.

Meanwhile Ukraine is threatening to default and its debt negotiations are in deadlock. Ukraine has just rejected an offer from its private Western creditors to reschedule its debt payments because the creditors have refused an actual debt write-off.

The hard line Ukraine's creditors are taking is not because they are insured against Ukraine's default through credit default swaps. As the writer Ben Aris correctly says, the amount at risk if Ukraine defaults is almost certainly too big to be fully covered by credit default swaps.

The more likely reason for the hard line Ukraine's creditors are taking is because they calculate that Ukraine is a big and potentially rich country that can fully pay its debts if it is run properly. They almost certainly know this will not happen under the present government, but they are probably looking to deal with its eventual successor. As big companies, they can afford a temporary hit while they wait, which, the way things are going, they probably calculate won't be for very long.

Meanwhile, as the Ukrainian economy implodes and the debt negotiations remain deadlocked, an IMF team has produced a preposterous report that claims to detect "signs of stabilisation".

Where the evidence of this "stabilisation" is, it is difficult to see. From media reports it appears to boil down to more promises of more "reform" by the Ukrainian government. There have been any number of such promises since the Maidan coup and up to now they have amounted to nothing.

The cynical reality behind this report is that the IMF is due to disperse $2.5 billion in June out of its loan to Ukraine, and that without a report that puts a positive spin on the "progress" made, it cannot do so.  Since the political imperative to disperse the money remains overriding, if only because without this money what's left of Ukraine's economy will probably collapse, a report that puts a positive spin on the "progress" made is what we have.

There is one thing that might prevent the IMF from giving Ukraine the money. That is a formal breakdown of Ukraine's negotiations with its private creditors. At that point even the IMF will have to face the fact that its latest plan for Ukraine - which depends on an agreement with the creditors - has failed. In that case the default will become official and the IMF will be forced to pull the plug.

In the meantime the IMF's officials (already unhappy by all accounts) will have to go on writing nonsense.

 [return to Contents] 

 #32
Christian Science Monitor
June 2, 2015
Clean sweep? Ukraine cans all its bribe-hungry traffic cops.
The country's traffic police are notorious for pulling motorists over to extract bribes. Following a model that worked in Georgia, Ukraine is terminating the entire department and replacing them with new, Western-style patrol cops.
By Sabra Ayres, Correspondent

KIEV, UKRAINE - Ukraine's blue-uniformed traffic police have a reputation for being nothing short of state-sponsored bribe takers.

Across the country's highways, the officers stand on the side of the highway and wave their white batons to signal random motorists to pull over. From there, drivers say, a shakedown for any number of trumped up or real traffic violations typically results in the motorists emptying their wallets to "resolve" the issue.

"They don't serve the people, they serve themselves," says Volodymyr Kuzhekyn, a former mechanic. "Public respect for them is lower than the curb."

That's all about to change, as part of sweeping anti-corruption reforms to the country's law enforcement agencies.

Ukraine is shuttering its traffic police department entirely and firing all of its officers. In its stead, the government is rolling out a new, community-oriented police force - training Mr. Kuzhekyn and some 2,000 others under Western instructors - that will break from corrupt practices of the past and drawing on techniques that the project overseer, new Deputy Interior Minister Eka Zguladze, used to succeed in her native Georgia 10 years ago.

Rife corruption

Ukraine is still struggling with crises on multiple fronts. Eastern Ukraine clings to a tenuous cease-fire between government forces and Russian-backed rebels, who have sought to turn the industrial east an independent "people's republic." Ukraine's economy, fragile even before protests erupted in late 2013, is on the brink of collapse. The country's currency has lost about two-thirds of its value and inflation has depleted ordinary Ukrainians' purchasing power. And the Western-leaning government in Kiev has yet to meet promises made to last year's Euromaidan protesters to weed out the crippling corruption and oligarchs' influence in politics.

The lack of anti-corruption reform weigh heavily on Ukraine. A poll conducted in March across the country's regional capitals showed that 87 percent of Ukrainians still considered corruption a serious problem. Transparency International, a global anti-corruption organization, ranked Ukraine 142 out of 175 countries in its annual corruption perception index last year, a year after the Maidan protests started.

In a country as rife with corruption as Ukraine, implementing police reforms may seem trite. But advocates of the move say it may be just what the country needs now.

On a day-to-day scale, Ukrainians are more likely to feel the brunt of corruption in small measures, such as paying a bribe to get out of a speeding ticket.

"People need to see tangible results, so these police reforms are important because they will be felt immediately," says Olena Halushka of the nongovernmental organization Platforma Reforms in Kiev.

However, without reforming the courts and prosecutor's offices, police reforms will only be part of the puzzle, she notes. "If the rest of the system isn't changed, then it won't matter. Everything is connected, and everything needs to be reformed in a complete overhaul."

'An exercise in building public trust'

The new patrol service is scheduled to hit the streets of Kiev on July 1 with 2,000 freshly trained officers, chosen from more than 30,000 applications. And from the start, the service is designed to filter out graft: instead of paying several thousand dollars in bribes to secure a slot, applicants must pass vigorous physical exams and aptitude tests.

The old traffic police model, where officers stand on the side of the highway, will be abandoned completely. Instead, patrol units will act much like duty officers in the US, responding to community issues like with domestic violence, speeding, or street fights.

The Interior Ministry already plans to expand the initiative to Ukraine's other large cities, including Odessa, Lviv, and Kharkiv. That is partially due to Ms. Zguladze's experience running a similar project in Georgia, soon after its Rose Revolution in 2004 ushered in a Western-leaning government intent on battling the country's pervasive corruption.

Like police in Ukraine, those in Georgia were notorious for extracting bribes from the public to supplement their meager state salaries, says Eka Gigauri, the executive director of Transparency International in Georgia. Georgia's reforms immediately addressed this issue by raising the salaries of the new recruits by nearly 10 times the previous amount.

"The salary change was the most successful part of the reform, because it made the police care about their jobs," Ms. Gigauri says in a telephone interview from her office in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. "We really could see immediately that the new police were helpful and friendly, and you could feel it was a new type of service. It was an exercise in building public trust and it worked."

Ukraine's reforms will raise the starting salaries of the patrol officers from 2,000 Ukrainian hryvnia a month, or about $95, to 8,000 hryvnia, or $380. Whereas traffic police had to pay for their patrol car's gas and their own notebooks to write up reports, the new patrols will be issued supplies.

"When a police officer has to pay for his own gas and notebook to respond to a crime, he's also a victim of the rotten system because he can't survive on what they were paying him" says Anna Karayluk, a new patrol officer recruit from Kiev currently taking part in the 10-week training sessions.

"We're all doing this because we want to see change in our country," Ms. Karalyuk says. "We will show by our behavior that we are different from what they previously knew as police here."

 [return to Contents] 

#33
Sputnik
June 3, 2015
US Effort to Rebuild Ukraine Army Doomed to Fail

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said in an interview that the Iraqi army, which the US military helped train following the 2003 invasion, lacked the "will" to defeat the Islamic State militant group that had seized large areas of Iraq last year.

Cautious support for the Carter statement was provided by White House spokesman Josh Earnest, saying Iraqi army's unwillingness to fight is a significant factor in the territorial gains of the Islamic State.

Yakov Kedmi, a retired high-ranking Israeli intelligence official, said Iraq's armed forces had been the best in the Middle East prior to US involvement which very quickly brought them down to the level where they became helpless in the face of half-trained militias.

"We can draw a parallel with Ukraine in that Ukrainian authorities have managed to reduce it [the army] to the same level over the past 24 years of the country's independence with no influence from the United States," Kedmi said.

The expert said that US training had not succeeded in boosting morale in South Vietnam or any other of the many countries in which the United States has taken broad military action.

"The only thing Americans do now is support the Ukrainian army financially, but even the United States does not have enough cash to rebuild the Ukrainian army today," he said, adding that troop morale is low because they are forced to fight against their own people in the east.

The US Congress has been considering supplying Ukraine with lethal military aid since the conflict in southeast flared up in spring 2014. The current level of assistance has been reduced to military training and millions of dollars worth of what the US describes as defensive military equipment. A bill authorizing US lethal arms deliveries to Ukraine in 2016 will be put up for vote in the US Senate later this week, after it cleared the US House in May.

Yevgeny Satanovsky, the president of the Moscow-based Institute for Middle East Studies, told Sputnik that the current government of Ukraine's joy at the news of possible arms deliveries was premature, considering the detrimental effect that US military training has had on Vietnamese, Afghan, and Iraqi armies.

"The protection that the US promised to South Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq wasn't worth a dime either, same as it won't be worth a dime in Ukraine, Baltics or Poland," the Middle East expert stated.

In April, Washington redeployed a reported 300 military instructors from Italy to the Ukraine's city of Yavoriv, near the Polish border, as part of a mission to train the Ukrainian National Guard. Kiev is also planning to hold three joint drills with US troops later this year.
 

 [return to Contents] 

 #34
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
June 2, 2015
Ex-Ukrainian President Yanukovych Tried to Bargain with Puppet Master and Lost
Viktor Yanukovych tried to play both EU and Russia but the US had already decided his fate. Rostislav Ishchenko argues that:
Yanukovych attempted to use Russia's resources to pay for the integration with the EU
He was naïve enough to believe that just because he is presenting the West with the whole of Ukraine he will be allowed to stay president
US and EU wanted free trade agreement with Ukraine to act as the "wormhole" from the US directly into the CIS and make Eurasian Customs Union worthless, thus negating all integration plans of Russia in Eurasia
By Rostislav Ishchenko

The text below is an excerpt from a longer essay from Rostislav Ishchenko, a prominent Russian commentator.

This article originally appeared at the Russian website Odnako. [http://www.odnako.org/blogs/s-treskom-provalivsheesya-gosudarstvo/] It was translated by Eugenia at The Vineyard of the Saker. [http://thesaker.is/one-miserably-failed-state/]

At that time [end of 2010], the oligarchic-nationalistic block believed that Russia should be treated as a source of all possible economic preferences, whereas the policy should be geared towards the West. By 2010, the "orange" Maidan team was completely discredited and lacked significant public support. Furthermore, the team had demonstrated total inability to create an acute conflict with Russia (like the one with Georgia) that would have tied up the Russian resources at the Ukrainian direction preventing Russia from interfering with the global affaires.

For that reason, the US did not object against the election of Yanukovich as President in 2010. Washington knew that Yanukovich would try to return to the Kuchma-style policy of multi-vector that presupposed the use of Russia's resources to pay for the integration with the EU.

At the beginning of 2000s, such policy no longer suited the US, and that was what prompted the coup of 2004. Then Washington no longer needed allies (no matter how loyal and dependent); it needed executors of already made decisions. But in 2010 the situation has changed: the US was pushed to support the Ukrainian multi-vector stance by the general weakening of its global geopolitical position as well as by the growing problems in the American economy. The US no longer had money to support its allies. Now the voiceless vassals were expected to pay for the American policy out of their own pocket.

In the situation of 2010, Yanukovych was the only Presidential candidate suitable for the US. The Yushchenko team (including the present day "heroes" Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko) was completely discredited, and it would require time to restore its image. Timoshenko earned the reputation of been unpredictable and prone to constantly cheat her partners. The only dirt the US had on her (her cooperation with Lazarenko) has already been presented in the Ukrainian media and produced minimal effect. On the contrary, Yanukovych was not only under control of the American agents (the group of Levotchkin-Firtash) but sincerely wanted to "integrate into the EU" by signing the association agreement. Apparently Victor Feodorovitch decided to prove to all who deposed him in 2004 that he was the only one who could "unite Ukraine" reconciling the East and the West. In reality it meant the refusal to honor his election promises and the beginning of the pro-Western policies.

Yanukovych was expected to sign the association agreement that would destroy the Ukrainian industry, completely discredit himself, concentrate everything negative on his own persona and then lose the 2015 elections to the American protégée. To make sure this scenario is followed (in case Yuanukovych refuses to go peacefully), another Maidan was being prepared for 2015.

Yanukovych was naïve enough to believe that just because he is presenting the West with the whole of Ukraine, he would be allowed to get reelected in 2015. To that end, he and his surrounding actively financed and supported Nazi organizations (not only "Freedom" but also "Ukraine Patriot", UIA-OUN and others). "Dander of fascism" was supposed to unite around Yanukovych the anti-fascist voters from the South-East.

For moderate nationalists and "eurointegrators", the signed association with the EU was expected to serve as the incentive. Finally, to preserve the loyalty of the majority of the population, particularly those concerned exclusively with their economic wellbeing, it was planned under the pretext of the association to obtain a 15-20 billion credit from the EU, which would be enough, according to Azarov's calculations, to keep up or even improve the living standards until the 2015 elections.

The plan of Yanukovych was logically perfect. The EU getting its hands on Ukraine - an assest worth trillions - was expected to open up its wallet for a mere twenty billions. Yanukovych and Azarov thought that if Greece received 200 billions, then Brussels could find 20 billions for Ukraine.

The problem was that the US did not plan on keeping in power Yanukovych, who represented the interests of the national industry, and those interests would sooner or later collide with the abstract but unprofitable "European values". He was supposed to be replaced by completely tame comprador, and the national Ukrainian business was supposed to die out replaced by the European companies.

Maidan instead of the golden key

As result of that 5-year operation, the US would have established in Ukraine by early 2015 perfectly tame and legitimate Russophobic regime. The EU would have the free trade zone with Ukraine, which, first, after the demise of the Ukrainian industry, provided Europe with the 45 million-strong Ukrainian market (albeit with the decreasing buying power but still able to last a while longer), but, most importantly, via the free trade zone within the CIS the EU should obtain the access to the market of all CIS countries, particularly that of Russia. That would have minimized the European losses from the planned free trade agreement between the EU and US that was disadvantageous for the EU. Europe hoped to cover the losses form the free trade zone with the US at the expense of Russia and CIS.

Obviously, the US cared not about the compensation of the European financial and economic losses but about its own geopolitical interests. Most importantly, that free trade agreement acting as the "wormhole" from the US directly into the CIS made the Custom Union [Eurasian Customs Union] worthless and negated all integration plans of Russia in Eurasia. In one hit, the US would restore its political and economic dominance in the world, and the most dangerous American rival - Russia - was expected to pay for it.

That was a very elegant plan, and I can imagine how mad the Washington politicians were when that lummox Yanukovych finally realized that he would never see the European billions to support the social stability and suddenly only three months before the signing of the association agreement postponed the event. Yanulovych thought that he would bargain, get the money, and then sign. To make the EU more amenable, he went to Moscow, in accordance with the old Ukrainian tradition, where the coveted billions were promised to him on much easier terms. Putin tried at the last moment to play the Ukrainian cards he was dealt, that was why the decisions were made quickly and big money was given freely.

In contrast to Yanukovych, people in Washington know full well what the window of opportunities is. All interconnected elements - from the signing of the association Ukraine-EU agreement to Maidan-2015, including the free trade agreement the US-EU - were built into a rigid scheme and coordinated in time. Taking out one block made the whole building come down. As a result, Yanukovych got himself Maidan as early as the end of 2013.

 [return to Contents] 

 #35
Transitions Online
www.tol.org
June 2, 2015
Europe's Seven Deadly Sins
Or, seven reasons why Europe gets the Russia-Ukraine crisis wrong.
By Andrew Wilson
Andrew Wilson is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a reader in Ukrainian Studies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London.

These remarks were delivered as part of the annual Vaclav Havel European Dialogues on 29 May in Prague.
 
The recent Riga Summit was a typical product of a method born in the EU's internal politics, where doing nothing - or seeking compromise and making marginal adjustments in the hope of changing policy next time - is often the only way to proceed. The summit also showed the characteristic EU tendency toward politics as textual improvement: more effort went into negotiating the final declaration that getting the over-arching politics right. But given the scale of the current crisis, neither approach is adequate. Our panel looks at the EU from the perspective of the eastern partners, where I can find at least seven underlying reasons why Europe has gotten the Russia-Ukraine crisis so wrong.
 
1. BUREAUCRATISM: THE EUROPE OF RULES
 
I will begin unoriginally. As my colleague Volodymyr Yermolenko has eloquently written, this conflict pits the "Europe of rules" against the "Europe of values":
 
"There is the Europe that presents a more or less emotionless face of rules and regulations. This Europe ends somewhere along the frontier between Germany and Poland. A kind of Euro-Protestantism prevails: it has lost faith in European civilization but preserved its sense of morality. The European idea has been transformed into a set of rules and a collection of institutional procedures. Where there is no faith, rules become paramount. The other Europe is spontaneous and emotional, the Europe of faith. This is Young Europe, comprising in the main the countries of the former socialist bloc. For the people living in these countries, Europe is still a vision, an ideal utopia."
 
This is a useful distinction that can be taken further, on both sides. I actually see four related problems with the "Europe of rules." First, Old Europe can't think beyond rules. The EU no longer has any grand projet or moral élan. It sits behind the forest of thorns that is the acquis communautaire, which was designed a generation ago.
 
Second, the rules-based approach of the Eastern Partnership is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how post-Soviet societies work. They are anti-Weberian. The EU is founded on the Weberian assumption that rules are applied by rational and benign bureaucracies, and that rules are Kantian, in the sense that they are universally applicable and applied blind. But in post-Soviet societies, "rules" are deliberately arbitrary. The law is deliberately capricious - a means of punishing enemies and rewarding friends. Bureaucracy is a sinecure, a means of extracting rent from the hapless general public. When government positions come with a price list, you know something is wrong.
 
So the EU's Eastern Partnership offer of "more rules" doesn't actually make sense, unless politics is changed locally and unless local states and political cultures are changed first. The EU should start by trying to strengthen the rule of law, not the mis-rule of bureaucracy.
 
If a tipping point is reached toward the rule of law, rules can help rein in corruption and rent-seeking; if not, they may actually end up strengthening them. Too often, the technocratic bias of the Eastern Partnership has translated into a de facto form of "autocratic modernization." Partnership with existing states through trade and functional economic reforms is designed to make those states stronger, but it risks making local autocracies stronger too.
 
Third, if EU rules are for export, they are a hard sell in a competitive market, and in places like Ukraine where there is war and a highly emotional existential struggle.

Fourth, the rules are too often hollow. The EU assumes that states like Ukraine are more interested in declaration than implementation but maintains the rule-export process anyway. Tick-box cynicism means that genuflecting to the rules is all that matters. I heard this a lot in private in early 2013 - let's sign the Association Agreement with Ukraine, but we don't expect Yanukovych to actually implement it.
 
It is therefore pretty obvious what's wrong with the Eastern Partnership. The offer of rules, and an apparatus checking compliance with those rules, has created a giant patron-client, donor-NGO relationship. The Eastern Partnership only pretends to be an exercise in systemic transformation and is aimed primarily at economies and societies; it seems incapable of transforming local states, and it is local states that are the problem. The Eastern Partnership has been unable to lever the key things that matter, such as preventing the consolidation of authoritarianism under Yanukovych, preventing state capture by two oligarchs with entrenched spheres of influence in Moldova, and preventing political prosecutions in Georgia.
 
2. THE EUROPE OF VALUES, AND THE EUROPE OF VARIABLE GEOGRAPHY

Although the ENP exists for both East and South, and has not been formally split, the Eastern Partnership implicitly acknowledges the difference. The East is assumed to be vaguely but indeterminately European, in a way the South is not. The northern, western, and southern borders of Europe are supposedly clear; it's only the eastern border that we are not sure about. The East is supposed to become more clearly European by adopting policies based on the values of the Copenhagen Criteria; so the problem is one of wavering commitment.

This vague and permeable border in the east might be thought to be an advantage for the six Eastern Partnership states, but the assumptions it depends on are trebly wrong. Historically Europe's borders have never been clear in any direction. All of Europe's nation-states have varied over time in their commitment to Europe. And Europe is not just about a choice of values; it is also about history and geography.
 
The EU's version of "European values" is doubly new. Western Europe embraced democracy only after 1945 (and Spain, Portugal, and Greece even later) and embraced multiculturalism (gradually and still far from entirely) only after 1968.
 
All European states, East and West, define themselves by histories much older than 1945. And a history of variable, instrumental, and often opportunistic relations with Europe is also true of all. Historically, Eastern European states have sometimes been part of Europe, sometimes not. But so has everybody else. The idea that only the eastern border of Europe is undefined is ahistorical. In the south, the Greco-Roman world invented the idea of the Medi-terranean. That world was the reverse of today's Euro-Europe: instead of the frugal north against the profligate south, there was a civilized south against a barbarian north. The Romans didn't often march beyond the Rhone or the Danube, but the Black Sea was an integral part of their world. In Roman terms, Romania and Georgia are therefore more European than Germany or Poland. Scandinavia was off the map. The north is often the edge of civilization, as viewers of Game of Thrones will know.
 
Europe's Western states, open to the Atlantic, often looked beyond Europe. To the north and west is mainly sea, but the sea was a bridge rather than a barrier in the pre-modern past. It's not just the UK that has trans-Atlantic interests and identities: so does Spain, so once did France. There are still strong undercurrents of a trans-oceanic pan-Celticism and an island-hopping Scandinavian geography that reaches as far as Maine.
 
Almost every European pole state therefore has three alternative identities - and larger powers have a fourth, post-imperial identity. There are nativist myths that place individual nations on their own. There are kinship myths to build alliances: the idea of Scandinavia, or of north versus south, of "new Europe," or Protestant Europe. And there are identities that link any given nation to Europe, but this can be done in many ways: the nation as the leader of or best of Europe, the nation as the edge of or defender of Europe.
 
The choice among them depends on circumstance - both in the west and in the east. Georgia has seen the return of both nativism and Russophilia after the almost über-Westernizing Saakashvili era. The Baltic states have not. One reason why they have been so relatively successful in absorbing themselves into the EU and NATO is that the historical carriers of the Russophile idea were the Baltic Germans, and they are long gone.
 
In the West, an independent Scotland would not be likely to have Celtic allies and would more likely adjust to an alternative "Scandinavian" identity instead. Ireland has gone back and forth: although it is now one of the EU's most open states, it used to be the opposite, having opted for a Romantic isolationist nationalism after 1922 because Eamon de Valera wanted to disentangle the new state from residual commitments to the United Kingdom, not join new organizations.
 
So "Europe" is both chicken and egg. If Europe is a success, it's attractive - both to potential new members and within the current borders of the EU. Even advocates of a Wider Europe with whom I am naturally sympathetic have it the wrong way round. They assume the European project will be complete when it ticks all the boxes, when it has expanded to include all parts of objective Europe. In fact it is the relative success of subjective Europe that determines how the pole states choose among their three options. If the EU is a success, in other words, it will get bigger. If not, it may well shrink.
 
3. MERCANTILISM
 
There is a recession paradox. The more that EU standards of living have been threatened since 2008, the keener we are to preserve them. As one Ukrainian activist recently put it, "Western politicians live and die by tenths of GDP. We [Ukrainians] are prepared to endure the wreck of our economy, even though you are so much richer." Actually, not all Ukrainians: the number prepared to make sacrifices in the name of economic reforms has risen (pdf) to 41.4 percent, but there is a marked difference between the figure of 56.2 percent in the west and 22.9 percent in the east.
 
But it's not just that EU Europeans are materialist. Mercantilism is essentially a philosophy of marginal gain, predicated on the assumption of stable politics. But at the moment the math fails to add up - those gains disappear when the politics isn't right. France defends the Mistral contracts worth $1.7 billion, but Western companies have lost billions more in Russia from missed investment opportunities, trade wars, and bond losses, because the politics isn't right. Ukraine's bondholders face a "haircut" because the politics isn't right. Ukraine's oligarchs, for that matter, have lost billions because the politics isn't right.
 
The eastern states of course also want prosperity, but their path to prosperity depends on getting the politics right first.
 
4. POST-MODERNISM
 
Next are three intellectual sins. Seen from the Eastern Partnership states, so-called modern "European values" are not necessarily the values of Weber or Kant, but the values of post-modern Europe. The crisis has exposed the limits of moral or even factual relativism. The intellectual revolution since 1968 has run its course. We need a paradigm shift, one that would keep the critical theory, the underlying commitment to emancipation from outdated authorities, and our belief in cultural pluralism, but ditch nonjudgemental relativism and clichéd responses in the garb of world-weary "realism" or cynicism.
 
The manner in which Russian propaganda exploits Western journalism has been well-described elsewhere. Here I will add three common intellectual traps.
 
(i) What-about-ism
 
According to which we cannot criticize A, because B is the same - which all too easily becomes a disarming moral pacifism. In the opposite permissive form of this paradigm, if X can do Y, then why can't we do it too? Russia is particularly adept at framing its actions as the mirror-image of America's. Crimea is the same as Kosovo; if America can invade Iraq we can invade eastern Ukraine.
 
(ii) An aversion to moral clarity
 
The first paradigm precludes what should be easy judgments. As Ukrainian writer Yuriy Andrukhovych put it when receiving the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought in 2014:
 
"My foreign acquaintances doubt. To doubt is an altogether positive trait of a true European. And my acquaintances as true Europeans also doubt. They ask me, 'Is it possible in general that good is only on one side, and evil on the other. Isn't the truth somewhere in the middle, or at least in between?' ...
Post-modern consciousness foresees the removal of conflict and excludes a black-and-white approach. 'Court-martials' and torture [on the Russian side] are not enough [evidence] for my acquaintances. They are looking for villains on both sides of the conflict."
 
The Western view of events in Ukraine is distorted by the constant search for "balance." But Ukrainians often see a simpler picture, preferring to err on the side of moral clarity. It was interesting how much Ukrainian social media during the Euromaidan increasingly used popular culture tropes of the Yanukovych regime as Mordor, or depicted the final confrontation in Kyiv as a moral showdown equivalent to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
 
(iii) It's-all-our-fault-ism
 
According to which the West provoked Russia by NATO expansion, or somehow the opposite, by giving it too much assistance in the 1990s. This is false moral piety; not self-abnegation, but a narrowing of moral agency to the self. Fault never lies with the other side. Some Europeans know full well that Russia is an aggressor, but such language is squeezed out of a public diplomacy based on the search for "peace."  Even worse, other Europeans have lost the language needed to define an "aggressor."
 
5. (NOT) THINKING ABOUT RUSSIA
 
Paradoxically or not, these post-modern European reflexes are even more damaging when combined with fossilized Weltanschauung, like German war guilt (Kollektivschuld ) exclusively oriented toward Russia, or interpreting the conflict in Ukraine through the Soviet "anti-fascist"' prism of 1941-1945. There are Spaniards fighting in Donbas to "pay back" the debts of the Spanish Civil War, which is, to put it politely, a static view of history at best.
 
One of the most dangerous fossils is anti-Americanism. Either in its domestic forms, particularly in France, Germany, and the UK, where criticism of American methods and motives has deep cultural roots. Or in the mindset that transfers American agency and omnipotence to Eastern Europe. Events in Kyiv or Tbilisi are always assumed to be somehow orchestrated in Washington. The United States is assumed to be "behind" the Maidan, when the real story of the last few years has been Washington's radical relative absence.
 
The other key fossil is the remnant of German Ostpolitik. Germany has a special term for Rußlandversteher (understanders of Russia), though their equivalents exist throughout Europe.  But "understanding" is precisely what such people do not do. This type of "understanding" is a one-way process. There is no critical analysis, just the constant refrain of how we must listen to Russia's worries, interests, and legitimate concerns, and assuage its supposed psychology of "humiliation." All are treated as objective givens.
 
And this is a broader tendency among so-called "realist" commentators. I used to warn my students about the pitfalls of using the cliché that "Russia is different." Now I have to warn them about the pitfalls of using the cliché that "Russia is normal," that is, just a normal state defending what anyone would agree are Russian national interests.

Putin's Russia is constantly on the lookout for perceived slights. But the real problem is that both supposed Russian national interests and tropes like "humiliation" are not objective givens but are the product of Russia's political technology propaganda machine. Tropes like "Russia has been humiliated," "Russia is surrounded by enemies," "The West destroyed the USSR" - none of these is really true. Deep-seated structural problems caused the USSR's decline but not its collapse. The Soviet Union reached a negotiated end, and the only negotiators were Russians, Ukrainians, and the leaders of the other then-Soviet republics.
 
Russia is a propaganda state or "political technology" state. Its day-to-day diet is myth. Its foreign policy is full or dubious assertions and fake facts, such as the current process of "reassuring" Russia over entirely spurious objections to the trade agreement with Ukraine.
 
Our problem in the West is therefore not just classic appeasement. Nor is it even that we have internalized so much of Russia's agenda. It is that we do not understand the nature of that agenda, and the modus operandi that generates it.
 
6. POST-ORIENTALIST THINKING ABOUT UKRAINE
 
We are no better at understanding the European East. We are now used to following Edward Said's invitation to inverse perspective and see the problems of the Middle East and Near East as the legacy of empire. But European intellectuals are not so good at doing the same for our other orient, the European East.
 
There are many dangers in deconstructing Orientalism. It could easily make Eastern Europe free of all responsibility for its own ills. Analysts who try to give the region voice can accept that voice too uncritically, simply reproducing local myths and stereotypes.
 
But Ukraine has been made triply subaltern. The Eastern Partnership makes it a supplicant of Europe. Russia behaves toward Ukraine as an imperial power. But, worst of all, Europe all too often views Ukraine through the eyes of Russia, without recognizing Moscow's imperial perspective. How else would the European left be able to talk about Russia's "legitimate interests" in Ukraine? One cannot imagine similar talk about Britain's' "legitimate interests" in south Asia, or France's "legitimate interests" in the Maghreb.
 
Ukraine is not allowed to be a subject. This is bad enough at the diplomatic level, as with the notorious Boisto process, to which Ukraine was not even invited. It is even worse at the cultural level and the level of popular understanding, where the classic Orientalist tropes about Eastern Europe - it is always in crisis, it is full of neo-Nazis and ethnic hatreds - still color perceptions of events.
 
7. THE EASTERN PARTNERSHIP IS AN INADEQUATE RESPONSE TO RUSSIA'S PUSH FOR A YALTA II
 
So, finally, seen from the Eastern Partnership states, it's clear that the EU and Russia don't just speak a different diplomatic language; they are on different foreign policy planets. The EU seeks solutions, Russia seeks crises. The EU abjures "military solutions" and relies on the soft power of economic sanctions. Even Russia's "soft power" is really hard. I have written elsewhere that Russia does not have "hard power" and "soft power" in our sense, but a choice between groznaya syla and grubaya syla - the power of public intimidation and the power of private sleaze.
 
Russia's different type of power is also put to different use. The language of a new Yalta is openly stated in Russia. Whereas in the West, "Yalta," like "Munich," is a synonym for bad diplomacy and the betrayal of the sovereignty of small states to realpolitik, in Russia it is spoken of positively.
 
According to Sergei Naryshkin, the chairman of the Russian Duma, by condemning the 1945 Yalta Agreement, the West is "deleting from its own history and the history of world diplomacy one of its best and noblest moments." Yalta kept the peace because of its "military realism" and created a "system of international relations that was more effective than the previous one" until "almost until the end of the 20th century" and prevented a Third World War.
 
Which only shows again how different the Russians are. The implications of praising an agreement with such a bad reputation in the West are startling.
 
CONCLUSIONS
 
The Eastern Partnership is at least three gear shifts out of date. It would still have had trouble working in a world in which only the EU existed. It is expansion on the cheap, free-riding on the assumption that the neighbors are prepared to march toward Brussels and do all the hard work themselves. In which case, the policy's labeling was self-defeating - "neighborhood policy" is existentially offensive.
 
The Eastern Partnership also mistakenly copies the EU's traditional Schuman Method - start with economic transformation and political transformation will follow - but in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus "it's the politics, stupid." Transformation needs to start at the top, with corrupt elites and inefficient and/or predatory states.
 
Second, the world has changed radically since 2008, when the Eastern Partnership was conceived. The EU is much weaker. The United States is more withdrawn. Russia is not necessarily stronger, but it is more competitive. In fact, to be exact, Russian overreach at a time of growing Russian domestic weakness is the precise nature of the problem. But Russian ambition has more impact and more resonance in an increasingly multipolar world in which the EU's famously post-modern foreign policy project is not only one of many poles of influence, but is increasingly clearly unique.
 
Third, the Eastern Partnership doesn't address our own inadequacies. "Partnership" should be about both sides. But the Eastern Partnership is designed as a technocratic policy to isolate Eastern Europe from national politics in EU nation states where immigration has become one of the key issues since 2008. It is not just that our increasingly inward focus prevents us from designing a proper policy for the East - the Eastern Partnership is designed to protect that inward focus. There was actually a sense of pan-European solidarity in 1989 that has now been lost. "Solidarity" is increasingly an internal issue, not an asset for revenue-sharing and burden-sharing with potential new members.
 
But the difference between Ukraine today and Afghanistan in 2001 or Syria since 2011 or Bangladesh in 1971 is obviously only one word long: Europe. We are not in Ukraine to be the world's policeman or because of a post-imperial reflex or as a blundering and ineffective mega-NGO. We are in Ukraine to decide the future of Europe. Ukraine is at war. But our policy is far from being based on these basic facts. "Neighborhood policy," in other words, is not based on strategic thinking, but it has strategic consequences that too often remain unrecognized. But we continue to act like a giant EU-NGO.
 
The current crisis is not just about Ukraine. It's also not just about "losing" Eastern Europe; it's about Europe losing itself. Plenty of EU countries are rediscovering their inner nativism. Ukraine, you may be surprised to hear, is in some ways an island of multiethnic tolerance compared with the toxic nationalisms on either side, in Russia and in European states like Hungary and France. But choice depends on circumstance. If Ukraine fails, because Putin's Russia is so desperate for it to fail, then we will see a much more dangerous downward spiral across borders, with nationalisms and protectionisms feeding off one another, west and east.

 [return to Contents]