#2
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
June 19, 2015
Great Russian literature 'probes the ultimate questions of human life'
Gary Saul Morson, a professor of Slavic literature at Northwestern University and one of the foremost authorities on Russian literature in the United States, spoke to RBTH about his love for Tolstoy, the ongoing popularity of the Russian classics and what, if anything, politicans can gain from studying literature
Elena Bobrova, RBTH

RBTH: The courses you teach are devoted to single novels, including Anna Karenina, The Brothers Karamazov, War and Peace, and The Idiot. Why have you chosen these works? What about these 19th century novels can be relevant for young Americans? Do you think they are still important for understanding modern Russia?

Gary Saul Morson: I chose these books because they are among the greatest works of world literature and the first three are, by common consent, the greatest novels written anywhere.

Saying this means I do not agree with the common view among American academics that there is no such thing as intrinsic or objective literary value - the idea that value is just what hegemonic powers of oppression want you to believe has value. On the contrary, these great Russian novels tower over other great novels, in Russia and elsewhere.

These books are relevant to young Americans because they are relevant to all human beings. They probe the ultimate questions of human life - what makes a life meaningful, what is honesty, what responsibility we owe to others, and similar timeless questions. They answer these questions sometimes with profound answers and even more often with a deepening of the questions themselves.

RBTH: How do you explain to your students why it's important to read Russian literature?

G.S.M.: I don't explain it, I show it. We read the books, I take them through key passages, read them expressively, then explain what is going on. They see what is important from following that process.

RBTH: This year you participated in the ceremony of the Read Russia literary prize, in which special jury awards were given to new translations of Anna Karenina. Why is this book still so popular that new translations keep appearing - even two new ones just this year?

G.S.M.: In part, Tolstoy is the greatest examiner of human consciousness who ever lived. The book also challenges prevailing views about love. People have accepted the same myth that Anna lives by, the myth of love as transcendent romance rather than everyday intimacy. That romantic myth is even more prevalent today than in Tolstoy's time, and so his polemic against it strikes people as all the more relevant.

"Because Everyone Needs a Little Russian Literature" - Gary Saul Morson lecture. Source: Youtube

RBTH: Why are there so few translations of modern Russian literature in English? Is it not as interesting for publishers as the old classics?

G.S.M.: Well, let us face it. There are no writers today, in Russia or anywhere else I know, as great as the classic Russian authors. It is harder to get people interested.

RBTH: Are there any modern Russian writers you like and find worth teaching in American Universities? Which modern books can you recommend to your students?

G.S.M.: It depends on what you mean by modern. If Bulgakov and Solzhenitsyn are modern, then those are definitely worth teaching. I tend to think we do not know who will be a classic for at least 50 years, since people always overestimate the quality of current works. The reason is that all a writer has to do is endorse currently fashionable beliefs and he will seem profound.

RBTH: Recently Russian literary critic Igor Vinogradov passed away. Are you familiar with his work? In your opinion, who are the most important Russian literature critics?

G.S.M.: I would like to see him, and other great critics, translated and commented upon.  I myself have written many works on Mikhail Bakhtin, whom I regard as the best thinker about literature in the past hundred years or more.

RBTH: Do you have a favorite Russian writer?

G.S.M.: Tolstoy, of course!

RBTHL You have written many articles about Dostoevsky as well as Bakhtin, who is one of the most authoritative experts on Dostoevsky's work. Do you think Bakhtin's research is still accurate or are there things new critics can discover in Dostoevsky?

G.S.M.: No great writer is ever exhausted. The idea that all the important things have been said about a writer means either that the writer is not a great one or that the critic lacks imagination. Bakhtin himself explains why that is so, why the greatness of literary works includes their potential to mean new things in different contexts.

Bakhtin is not in any sense authoritative, nor would he have wished to be.  His whole career was directed against the very notion of authoritative, final interpretation.  He believed in open-ended dialogue.

RBTH: Do you think reading Russian literature could help American politicians better understand their Russian colleagues?  

G.S.M.: Politicians are not great readers of literature. But if the educational system that shapes them includes great literature, they will develop the habit of seeing the world from perspectives other than their own.

Americans have a tendency to think that everyone wants to be just like them, and so understand Russians, and other people as well. Literature helps overcome that narrowness.

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 #3
Le Monde diplomatique
July 2015
EU and Russia antagonistic by accident
No need for this cold war
A little forethought and less dogma would have prevented the deterioration of the situation in Ukraine into a revived cold war. Demonising Putin's Russia won't help.
By Jean-Pierre Chevènement
Jean-Pierre Chevènement was France's defence minister (1988-91) and interior minister (1997-2000).

The breakup of the Soviet Union, agreed in 1991 by Boris Yeltsin, then the new Russian president, and his Ukrainian and Belarusian counterparts, happened peacefully because the USSR's president Mikhail Gorbachev chose not to stand in its way. But it was pregnant with potential future conflicts: in this multinational space, 25 million Russians were left outside the borders of Russia (which had 147 million inhabitants at the last pre-breakup census in 1989; there were 286 million in the USSR), itself very ethnically diverse. The arbitrary drawing of borders exacerbated tensions between successor states and minorities (in Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Adjara). Many of these multi-ethnic states had never existed before. This was true of Ukraine, which had only been independent for three years in its history (1917-20), after the collapse of the tsarist armies.

The Ukrainian state that came into being in December 1991 was a composite entity. Its western regions had belonged to Poland between the two world wars and the inhabitants of its eastern regions were Orthodox and Russian-speaking. Its Black Sea coast had been Ottoman. Crimea had never been Ukrainian until Nikita Khrushchev decreed it should be in 1954. Ukraine as a state dates back less than a quarter of a century. The privatisations of the 1990s created a class of oligarchs who dominate the state; the economy has deteriorated significantly and debt levels are high. Ukraine's future - as a member of NATO or as a neutral state - is inseparable from the reconfiguration of power relations at European and global level. In 1997 Zbigniew Brzezinski said that the only way to prevent Russia becoming a great power again was to remove Ukraine from its sphere of influence (1).

A reminder of the facts is essential to understand the situation today. The current crisis had been predictable since the Orange revolution of 2004 and Ukraine's first attempt to join NATO. The crisis could have been avoided if the EU had, in launching its Eastern Partnership in 2009, framed the negotiation of the association agreement with Ukraine compatibly with the objective of the 2003 strategic EU-Russia partnership: creating "a single economic space from Lisbon to Vladivostok".

It would have been necessary to take into account the close link between the Ukrainian and Russian economies. Had it done so, the EU would have avoided being used by proponents of an eastward expansion of NATO. But Brussels presented Ukraine with an impossible choice between Russia and Europe. As Russia's financial offer was substantially better than Europe's, Ukraine's president Viktor Yanukovych asked for the signing of the association agreement, scheduled for 29 November 2013, to be postponed.

I do not know if Stefan Füle, the EU commissioner, took direction from (then) Commission president José Manuel Barroso or if the Commission ever discussed this issue, though it had the potential to turn into the most serious geopolitical crisis in Europe since the missile crisis of 1982-7. President Putin claimed that in January 2014 the EU authorities - Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy - ruled out any discussion of the content of the association agreement with Ukraine on the grounds that that would infringe Ukrainian sovereignty.

'Exporting democracy'

Yanukovych's postponement of the signing sparked the "pro-European" Maidan demonstrations, which led to his removal on 22 February 2014. It is understandable that the prospect of joining the EU is attractive to a significant proportion of Ukrainians. But it is worth asking whether the EU has a mandate for promoting European norms and standards beyond its borders. The Maidan demonstrations were encouraged by many visits from EU, and especially US, officials, often prominent figures (2), while NGOs and the media conducted an information war. This explicit support for the demonstrations, which were mostly policed by far-right organisations - Pravyi Sektor and Svoboda - was a potential source of confusion over what fell within the EU's purview or that of NATO or the US. "Exporting democracy" can take many forms.

The non-application of the February 2014 agreement, which made provision for presidential elections at the end of the year, and the sudden unconstitutional removal of a president who may have had many faults but had been elected, may count as a "revolution" - or as a coup. Russia took the latter view. Although Crimea had been Russian until 1954, it is undeniable that Russia's decision to annex it, even cloaked in a referendum, was a disproportionate reaction, and ran counter to the principle of respect for the territorial integrity of other states, constantly asserted by Russia, notably when it was flouted by Kosovo's exit from Yugoslavia. Putin put Russia's strategic interests in the Black Sea first, probably fearing that the new Ukrainian government would not respect the leasing agreement that gave Russia use of Sebastopol until 2042.

So this crisis was an accidental escalation. The annexation of Crimea was not planned. In February, Putin attended the closing ceremony of the Sochi winter Olympics, intended as a showcase for Russian achievement. He then overreacted to an event that the EU had not planned, but encouraged through carelessness. The question now is whether the EU can regain control of the situation.

Putin probably did not suspect that the US would seize on the annexation of Crimea to impose limited (July 2014) and then more stringent sanctions (September). In May 2014, he said he was ready to contain the conflict. He encouraged Ukraine's Russian-speaking regions to seek a solution to their problems within the country. On 10 May, François Hollande and Angela Merkel talked about incorporating decentralisation into Ukraine's constitution. On 25 May, Petro Poroshenko was elected president and immediately recognised by Russia. The "Normandy format" (Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine) was sketched out on 6 June and it seemed the crisis might be defused peacefully.

Spiralling out of control

But things began to get out of control in the summer: the Ukrainian authorities launched an "anti-terrorist" operation against the "self-declared republics", which riled the population of the Donbass. The operation was short-lived because the Ukrainian army crumbled, despite the support of pro-Maidan "volunteer battalions". The Minsk I accords, signed on 5 September, declared a ceasefire. Six days later, on 11 September, the US and EU implemented severe sanctions, officially to ensure the ceasefire. With the banks paralysed by US sanctions, EU-Russian trade was progressively restricted and effectively frozen. Russia announced counter-sanctions on food and looked to emerging markets, particularly China, to diversify its foreign trade and industrial cooperation.

Simultaneously, the price of crude collapsed. The rouble fell against the dollar, from 35 to 70 roubles by the end of 2014. Through lack of follow-through, the ceasefire agreements stalled. Ukraine launched a second military offensive, no more successful than the first. Through an initiative coordinated by President Hollande, new accords - Minsk II - were signed on 12 February 2015.

The trap closed again: western sanctions are made to be lifted. But although the military component of Minsk II is being observed, more or less, the political component is problematic. It follows a well-defined sequence: the passing of an electoral law by the Rada (Ukrainian parliament); local elections in the Donbass; constitutional reform; a law on decentralisation; further elections; and finally Ukraine regaining control of its border with Russia. But on 17 March the Rada voted to overturn this sequence by making the "withdrawal of armed groups" a precondition. The Ukrainian government's block on the political component of Minsk II threatens to turn the Ukrainian crisis into a frozen conflict. The prospect of sanctions being lifted is caught in a vicious circle. In principle, they can only be renewed by unanimous agreement. In reality, there is a risk that the law of consensus will be applied: Angela Merkel announced on 28 April that European sanctions were likely to be renewed in June.

The crisis is a war in all but name. The muted debate between those who wish, quietly, to maintain the EU-Russian partnership as conceived in 2003, and the supporters of a policy of containing or even pushing Russia back (a new cold war) reflects a clash of wills between Russia and the US. There is a proxy war on the ground between the Ukrainian army plus "volunteer battalions", supported by the US and its allies, and the "separatist" militias who draw their support mainly from Russian-speakers in the east, with Russian aid that purports to be humanitarian. The pursuit of this conflict may turn Ukraine into a lasting source of conflict between the EU and Russia. Through a widely echoed ideological crusade, the US is attempting both to isolate Russia and to tighten its control over the rest of Europe.

Prophets of a new cold war refer to Russia as a dictatorship, fundamentally hostile to universal values, that wants to rebuild the USSR. To those who know contemporary Russia, that seems exaggerated, even a caricature. Putin owes his popularity to the economic recovery he achieved in Russia after GDP had fallen by half in the 1990s, and his halting of the disintegration of the state. His project is national, not imperial. It is to modernise Russia, which, like any other state, has security concerns.

Putin is not Russia

Old fears can be agitated, but Vladimir Putin is not Russia. The country is being transformed. There is a large and growing middle class, many of whom opposed Putin's return to power in 2012 but now seem to support him. Even Mikhail Gorbachev believes that since 1991 the West has unjustly treated Russia like a defeated country, though it is a great European nation (3). That Russia paid the heaviest price in the war against Nazi Germany has been airbrushed out of history, as though anti-communism had to outlive communism forever.

The material basis for the cold war - the opposition of antagonistic economic and ideological systems - no longer exists. Russian capitalism has its own particular character, but it is capitalism. Putin believes his conservative values can heal the wounds of 70 years of Bolshevism.

The real issue in the Ukrainian crisis is whether Europe can assert itself as an independent actor in a multipolar world or will take a permanently subordinate role to the US. Current media Russophobia resembles the attempt to shape public opinion at the time of the first Gulf war (1990-1). This conditioning relies on ignorance of what contemporary Russia is really like, if it is not an ideological construction intended to manipulate.

Russia is showing resilience. It is up to France to represent Europe's best interests, through the Normandy format. It is hard to accept that France's foreign policy should be undermined by extremist and revisionist tendencies. I see no equivalence between communism and Nazism, unlike the "memorial laws" passed by the Rada in Kiev on 9 April. In the Ukrainian crisis, Germany under Angela Merkel is far too closely aligned with the US. Germany may be tempted to temporarily abandon its traditional Ostpolitik towards Russia to achieve an economic breakthrough with Ukraine. There were 1,800 German industrial concerns in Ukraine in 2010, and just 50 French. Ukraine is a natural extension of the pool of low-cost labour in Mitteleuropa, which has given German industry a comparative advantage, though wage increases in central and eastern Europe have been eroding it. Germany must convince its European partners that it is not just the US's proxy in Europe, the impression given by the National Security Agency drawing on the services of the BND (4). The Normandy format must be the way to implement Minsk II and lift Ukraine's opposition to pushing through the political component of the accord. Europe has financial levers.

It is time for a "European Europe" to show itself. It could start by trying to convince the US that its true interests are not served by driving Russia out of the West, but in participation in redefining mutually acceptable rules of the game that can restore reasonable confidence.

(1) Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives, Basic Books, New York, 1998.
(2) These include Victoria Nuland, US assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, US senator John McCain and the German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle.
(3) Speech in Berlin on 9 November 2014.
(4) Bundesnachrichtendienst, Germany's intelligence service.

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 #4
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
July 2, 2015
Russia comes out worst in wealth equality study
Henry Kirby in London
 
Over four-fifths of Russia's national wealth is held by just one-tenth of the overall population, according to the 2014 Global Wealth Databook, produced by financial services group Credit Suisse.

The 84.8% of wealth held by the top decile of Russia's population was the highest proportion measured in any of the countries that were analysed. The second highest proportion was recorded by Turkey at 77.7%.

Only twice since 2000 has another country's top decile held more of its national wealth than Russia's - in 2000 and 2001, when The Philippines' respective scores of 79% and 77.4% were higher than Russia's scores of 77.1% and 76.9% in the same period.

Russia topped the inequality tables when measuring the wealth of the top 5% and 1% too, with scores of 79.1% and 66.2%, respectively.

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 #5
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
July 2, 2015
As the Western Media Focuses on Phony Russia 'Yoga Ban' Story, ISIS Runs Riot...
As the attention of the western politicians and public is directed at 'the problem of Russia' - the real problem of ISIS and religious extremism continues to escalate...
By Johanna Ross

For those people who had the misfortune to read various misleading articles in the western media yesterday on 'the latest Russian ban - yoga' - I'm sorry to disappoint you. No, Russia has not banned yoga. Nor has it banned singing, dancing or homosexuality for that matter. What these various publications - including The Times and The Independent - omitted to mention, was that the Nizhnevartovsk city administration mistakenly sent out letters to two hatha yoga clubs in the city banning them from future use of municipal facilities - letters that were aimed at cult societies - and which have since been retracted. It was a mistake. That was all. Finito.

On the subject of the targeting of cults, however, I think Russian authorities' concerns are absolutely warranted. It is time for all nations to seriously tackle religious extremism as a whole. Instead of promoting this, the western media gets excited over another apparent sign of Russian totalitarianism in its eternal crusade to somehow prove the country is a dictatorship and more inaccurate reporting makes headline news in what are considered 'respected' publications.

The real question of how the west is going to tackle religious extremism in the wake of consecutive terrorist attacks, is, meanwhile, left hanging. How can it possibly be that a minor bureaucratic blip can make it on to the headlines of British national newspapers at a time when the world faces the overwhelming challenge of combatting global terrorism?

President Putin has persistently called on the international community to join together in defeating such religious extremism and yet, apart from limited cooperation with President Bush after the 9/11 attacks, his calls have gone largely unheard. Instead, the US remains obsessed with the Russian 'threat' and ISIS has been allowed to reign free over the Middle East, leaving destruction in its wake. When are western leaders finally going to wake up and acknowledge the real aggressor; how many more lives will be claimed by Islamic terrorists?

Putin's recent call for all Middle Eastern states to join forces to combat ISIS was a timely one, and one which should have been immediately supported by western leaders. There needs to be more symbolic denouncement of ISIS within the Islamic world in in order to break the ideology which attracts so many followers - the idea that Islamic state is a crusade of the Muslim world against the secular west. It needs to be recognised that western military intervention has been the root cause of such Islamic militancy in the Middle East and therefore intervention alone is not going to offer long-term solutions. And yet if the West does not overcome the 'issues' it has with Russia, and cooperate with Putin and Syria's Assad, ISIS will continue its evil campaign of terror.  

Distracted by an imaginary threat of Russian expansionism, western politicians are leading their populations down a road to hell (or at least WW3) while Islamic State literally laugh all the way to the bank. If ISIS can't be stopped, no amount of yoga will save us.

#6
Channel One TV (Moscow)
June 20, 2015
Russian TV talk show discusses new initiative to blacklist NGOs

The 30 June episode of Russian state-controlled Channel One TV's late-night talk show "Structure of the Moment" (Rus: Struktura momenta) focused on the initiative to draw a so-called "patriotic stop list" of foreign-funded NGOs whose activities the authorities believe to be "undesirable" on grounds of national security.

Konstantin Kosachev, president of the Federation Council committee for international affairs, said that the initiative emerged in response to "what is going on in Russia's neighbour states and attempts to do [the same] in Russia".

He suggested that foreign countries, above all the USA, were engaged in "attempts to form a loyal government in Russia".

In his words, the "patriotic stop list" is one of legislative initiatives aimed "to protect the sovereignty and rights of Russian citizens" against "encroachment from abroad".

According to Kosachev, the list is yet to be drawn by the Federation Council with the "broad involvement of civil society and competent agencies", the next meeting being scheduled for 3 July.

The list will not have any legal power, he added, but would rather serve as a "warning" to "undesirable" NGOs that their "their violations do not go unnoticed" and as a "recommendation" to Russian organizations to not cooperate with them.

However if any such NGOs gets reported to the Prosecutor-General's Office, it may decide to ban its operations in Russia following a consultation with the Foreign Ministry, he said.

Leonid Kalashnikov, deputy chairman of the State Duma committee for international affairs, expressed his support for the "stop list" as, in his opinion, some NGOs, in which "incumbent deputy prime ministers are board members", are "headed by certain former heads of intelligence agencies, including from the USA and the UK and various others, and get their funding from there".

Konstantin Kostin, board chairman of the Civil Society Development Fund, who also welcomed the initiative, suggested that some foreign-funded NGOs are "projects in disguise" of the US Department of State.

US journalist Michael Bohm, for his part, objected by saying that "most NGOs had nothing to do with state funding" and that it was "inappropriate" to talk about the Department of State's involvement.

Nikolay Uskov, editor in chief of Snob.ru website, suggested that the legislation is "too vague" and that "an absolutely loose procedure is being created for settling scores with any organization which falls out of favour with someone".

Lawyer Boris Nadezhdin also appeared sceptical of the initiative.


 

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#7
TASS
July 1, 2015
Russian university denies sacking US professor after TV report

A Nizhniy Novgorod university has denied media reports that it has fired an American professor, Russian state-owned TASS news agency reported on 1 July.

Earlier on the following day, Russian bloggers discussed the sacking of an American citizen, Kendrick White, from the post of vice-rector at Lobachevskiy State University in Nizhniy Novgorod due to his American citizenship. Bloggers were speculating whether his sacking had anything to do with the recent Dmitriy Kiselev's "Vesti Nedeli" TV show on Russian state-controlled Rossiya 1 TV channel on 28 June. In the show, White was mentioned in the feature on "the patriotic stop list of undesirable NGOs".

"Everybody reported that he had been fired. However, we said that he had been relieved of his responsibilities as vice-rector responsible for innovation," TASS quoted the university public relations representative, Nikita Avralev, as saying. "Associate Professor White remains a university employee," Avralev  said.

"He is currently out of town and when he returns, [we] will discuss further prospects for cooperation," Avralev said.

Earlier, the university published a statement on their website saying that White had been released from his responsibilities "due to restructurization" at the university after working in Russia for 20 years.

Some Facebook users also commented on White's dismissal.

"I am at a loss for words. I got acquainted with Kendrick in 2003 when he was still working for Quadriga Capital. One of the most vivid impressions after our very first conversation was his exceptional patriotic attitude towards Russia in general and Nizhniy Novgorod in particular. A classic of the genre. Am I surprised? No. It is naive to expect anything from a country where cynicism and xenophobia have won. However, [it is] very sad. And shameful. Kendrick, forgive us," user Masha Adamian wrote.

 

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#8
www.rt.com
July 2, 2015
Russians are confident in their military, poll shows

An overwhelming majority of Russian citizens believe that their military forces are capable of repelling any threats, shows the latest poll conducted by the state agency VTSIOM.

Sociologists say this year's polls mark a change in the tendency of mostly negative attitude to the military that existed in the Russian community over the past several years. Moreover, the approval of the forces and people's desire to join them have reached their historical maximums.

The share of those who said that they did not doubt the capabilities of the Russian military was 86 percent - up from just 66 percent a year ago. Only 10 percent claimed to harbor contrary beliefs, down from 25 percent in 2014.

The respondents also said that they had generally positive attitude towards the military. Forty percent said they felt respect towards the forces and 39 percent described their feelings as pride. A further 20 percent claimed that they had hopes attached to the nation's defenders.

The negative assessments included disappointment (7 percent), lack of trust (4 percent), skepticism (2 percent) and disapproval (2 percent).

The proportion of Russians who said that they would like to see their own relatives in the military ranks was 59 percent, while 34 percent said they preferred a different situation. Some 59 percent of respondents said that the military service was a good way to find one's destination and build a career. Fifteen percent said that in their view the service had a contrary influence on a person and obstructed the fulfillment of certain life plans.

Thirty-four percent of those polled said that the Russian military was primarily a defensive institution aimed against external threats and that it had little or no influence on other spheres of life. Twenty percent said that defense from foreign threats was the main task of the forces, but admitted their influence to the community on other aspects as well.

Deputy Director of the VTSIOM agency, Konstantin Abramov, said in comments with Vedomosti daily that the military forces had become one of Russia's most approved institutes, along with the president and the Church, over the past years. MP Frants Klintsevich of the parliamentary majority United Russia party and an activist of the NGO 'Citizen and Army', Sergey Krivenko, said that the current situation can be explained by high professionalism of Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and his team and also by the fact that the military reform that started several years ago is beginning to yield results.

Klintsevich also noted such factor as constant demonstration of the priority of the defense sector by top Russian officials.

The general lines of the military reform that started in 2008 are a radical cut in the number of servicemen, replacing conscripts with professional soldiers, re-arming the military with the latest weapons and changing the financial system so that it matches the new force.

In October 2014, Shoigu told reporters that in this month the Russian military for the first time had more contract servicemen than conscripts. The minister added that that this was a proof of the growing prestige of a military career and its popularity among young Russians.
 

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 #9
Kremlin regrets confrontational tone of US national military strategy

MOSCOW, July 2. /TASS/. A new version of Russia's national security strategy, currently in the draft phase, will envisage countermeasures against all likely threats, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in reply to a question from TASS. As he commented on Washington's new military strategy, he expressed regret the document by no means contributed to the cause of normalizing relations with Russia but on the contrary carried an outspokenly confrontational message.

"True, such work is underway," he said about the drafting of a new version of Russia's strategy. Peskov believes it is too early to disclose the contents. "Let us wait for the publication of the document," he said. "Naturally, all national security threats are being taken into account and scrutinized and the corresponding countermeasures devised."

Peskov expressed regret the US strategy described Russia as a "revisionist state" that allegedly does not respect the sovereignty of its neighbors and is prepared to use force to attain its aims.

"As far as the United States is concerned, one can merely express regret, because the security concept is a medium-term and long-term document. The document's wording is indicative of a confrontational mood, devoid of any impartiality towards our country," Peskov said.

He believes that this confrontational attitude was likely to last. The Kremlin official is certain "this can hardly contribute to attempts to somehow steer our bilateral relations towards normalization, which is extremely necessary for joint struggle against the existing challenges no single country can cope with on its own, such as the dangerous expansion of the Islamic State and other manifestations of terrorism."

The US new military strategy

The Pentagon on Wednesday published its own national military strategy. It describes so-called "revisionist states" and extremist groups as the worst threats to security. However, the strategy contains the recognition that Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, referred to as revisionist states, do not wish military confrontation with the United States. As follows from the strategy, Russia, although it made contributions to some security areas such as counternarcotics and counterterrorism, repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to use force to achieve its goals. "It also has repeatedly demonstrated that it does not respect the sovereignty of its neighbors," the strategy states.

The authors of the strategy claim that "Russia's military actions are undermining regional security directly and through proxy forces."

Russia's National Security Strategy extending till 2020 was authorized in 2009. The document sets the task of the country's transition from a raw materials export-based development scenario to an innovative one, to creation of a highly professional army, special services, an increase in the people's life expectancy and acquisition of indisputable authority in the international scene.

Last May, National Security Council secretary Nikolay Patrushev said the Security Council had made a decision to reconsider the National Security Strategy extending till 2020. "First and foremost this stems from the emergence of new military threats and challenges. Their manifestations were well seen in the Arab Spring events, in Syria and Iraq, and in Ukraine and around it," Patrushev said.

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 #10
US 2015 military strategy adds chill to new Cold War against Russia - Rogov
By Tamara Zamyatina

MOSCOW, July 2. /TASS/. The US national military strategy for 2015 the US Joint Chiefs of Staff published on Wednesday provides doctrinal support for the United States' new Cold War against Russia, the director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of US and Canada Studies, Sergey Rogov, told TASS in an interview.

"Over the past year Russia-US relations have degraded to the level of confrontation, to a condition many analysts have already dubbed another phase of the Cold War. In contrast to the first phase - a global standoff of two antagonistic social systems - the current ideological differences have been lifted, but the entire set of Cold War tools, including the arms race, economic sanctions and propagandistic attacks, is still there," Rogov said.

"Six months ago the Obama Administration adopted the United States' new national security strategy, which contains a dozen mentions of a threat of aggression coming from Russia. The Pentagon's 2015 national military strategy in fact builds up from the fundamental national security doctrine. Russia's policies are interpreted as a threat to the United States' world order. Russia is a 'revisionist state,' the strategy claims, and it has 'repeatedly demonstrated that it does not respect the sovereignty of its neighbors.' the strategy states. "Russia's military actions are undermining regional security directly and through proxy forces." The other states on the list of 'revisionist' stats are China, Iran and North Korea. As follows from the strategy, the United States' task is to contain the revisionist countries' aggression and defeat them in case of their aggression," Rogov said.

"Although the document contains a recognition of Russia's contribution to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and the struggle against narcotic drugs and terrorism, in reality the United States in its military policy has focused on stepping up confrontation with Russia and restored the Cold War vocabulary for public use," he believes.

"At the end of last year Russia adopted its own military doctrine covering the newly-emerged military threats from NATO and the West. At the moment Russia's Security Council is working on a new version of this document. The sharp aggravation of Russian-US relations will certainly be reflected in it," Rogov said.

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 #11
Washington Post
June 30, 2015
It seems the Pentagon can never have enough deployed nuclear warheads
By Walter Pincus
Walter Pincus reports on intelligence, defense and foreign policy for The Washingon Post. He first came to the paper in 1966 and has covered numerous subjects, including nuclear weapons and arms control, politics and congressional investigations. He was among Post reporters awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.

Rhetoric about nuclear weapons is heating up between Washington and Moscow, but there is no need to reinstate the foolish and wasteful arms race that dominated the Cold War period.

For one reason, the security challenges have changed.

Having 1,500 or more deployed U.S. nuclear warheads on land- or sea-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, or strategic aircraft with nuclear bombs or missiles, will not help a U.S. president defeat terrorists or deal with proxy wars somewhere in the world - or even protect American assets in the new confrontational arenas of space and cyberspace.

There also are the astronomical costs for modernizing not just the current triad of delivery systems - the strategic submarines, bombers and land-based ICBMs - but also continuing the life-extension programs for the nuclear stockpile and upgrading the nuclear weapons-building complex itself.

Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work told the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday that the cost for all that modernization would average $18 billion a year from 2021 through 2035 - or $252 billion over that 14-year period.

That annual average is nearly double the proposed nuclear weapons spending for next year and would mean 7 percent of the entire Defense Department budget would be devoted in those out years just to the nuclear weapons program, up from around 3 percent today.

"We'll start replacing our Trident boats [strategic submarines at about $6.6 billion each] first. Then will come...the bomber in the mid-20s [at $550 million each]. And then will come the ground-based strategic deterrent...in 2030 [at an unexplained price]," Work told the committee.

"Carrying out this plan is going to be a very expensive proposition, and we recognize that," Work said, adding that it "will require very, very hard choices and will impact the other parts of the defense portfolio, particularly our conventional mission capability." He also warned that these "20-year cost estimates are uncertain."

The real question now should be why does the United States need that many new delivery systems and that many deployed nuclear warheads and bombs for the coming decades?

Let's pause for a moment and listen to the explanations given to Congress last week by Pentagon officials.

Work told the committee: "The only existential threat to our nation is a nuclear attack....The one step down is preventing a catastrophic attack, which we believe would be one or two nuclear weapons being fired at the continental United States or blowing up in the continental United States."

He talked about "Russian military doctrine that sometimes is described as 'escalate to de-escalate,''" which apparently means that Moscow would threaten to use or actually use a few nuclear weapons in a situation where it was losing to larger conventional forces. The threat or use of nuclear weapons would thereby get Russia's enemy to hold up or withdraw.

"Anybody who looks at the way that the international environment is moving, especially the way that Russia has been describing its nuclear deterrent posture, has to say: Nuclear weapons remain the most important mission we have," Work said.

This, however, is Cold War talk.

Adm. James Winnefeld Jr., vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked at Thursday's hearing about the Russians modernizing their nuclear weapons systems.

He responded that his major concern with Moscow's program was its shift to mobile, land-based ICBMs. Why? Because, he said, they "would be hard for us to hit in a first strike." That would happen only if the time came that the United States wanted preemptively to wipe out Russia's nuclear forces, before Moscow attacked us - an extremely doubtful scenario, but Cold War first-strike fears led to the building of tens of thousands of warheads.

As for the rest of Russia's nuclear forces, Winnefeld testified that "their bomber leg is not as good as ours" and "their submarine-launched ballistic missile force, even with their improvements, is not as good as ours."

Why not reduce U.S. forces? Winnefeld gave the traditional post-Cold War reply: "We still believe that any reductions in weapons must be done in concert with our potential antagonists, because unilateral gestures of goodwill have little standing with authoritarian regimes."

Meanwhile, each U.S. commander justifies continuing his own role in the triad.

"If we look at the world environment today, it's more dangerous than the Cold War and more unpredictable, and the ICBM force is as valid today as it was in the 1960s," Air Force Maj. Gen. Jack Weinstein, commander of the 20th Air Force, told the House committee Thursday.

One of the new Ohio-class strategic submarines "will be in the water through approximately 2084," said Vice Adm. Terry Benedict, director of the Navy's strategic systems programs. "As we try and project out the threats through that time frame, the major focus...was to ensure...that we don't find ourselves surprised in the future."

The bomber fleet "is the most flexible and the most visible part of the triad. That's what the bomber fleet offers. And I think from a flexibility standpoint, there's not a lot of argument there," were the words of Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard Clark, commander of the 8th Air Force.

And to any unilateral reduction, Work supplied an old answer, "This is not a time for us to say that nuclear weapons are useless."

I am not saying nuclear weapons are useless. I am suggesting the United States doesn't need a nuclear force large enough to survive a decapitating first strike because there is no such threat - the idea of a Soviet first strike was a myth, but nonetheless it led to the Cold War nuclear arms race. Let's not do it again.

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 #12
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
http://thebulletin.org
June 30, 2015
Interview: Thomas Pickering on diplomacy, Iran, Korea, Russia, realpolitik, and the ethics of war. (excerpt re Russia)
By Dan Drollette Jr.

Diplomat Thomas R. Pickering draws upon his 40 years of experience in the US State Department to give the Bulletin's Dan Drollette Jr. his take on a wide range of current affairs-such as the progress of negotiations with Iran over its nuclear capabilities, the assassination of Iranian scientists, North Korea's weaponry, Russia's attitudes toward the West, the effectiveness of realpolitik, and the possibilities for eliminating all nuclear weapons.

Early in his career, Pickering was special assistant to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, later rising to become undersecretary for political affairs-the department's third-highest position, where he was in charge of daily operations around the clock.

Pickering went on to serve as ambassador to Jordan, Nigeria, El Salvador, Israel, the United Nations, India, and Russia. Fluent in French, Spanish, and Swahili, Pickering also has a working knowledge of Russian, Hebrew, and Arabic.

Time magazine once called Pickering "the five-star general of the diplomatic corps," and King Hussein of Jordan described him as "the best American ambassador I've ever dealt with." Before he retired, Pickering was granted the agency's highest title: Career Ambassador.

(Editor's note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.)
---

Bulletin: As the former US ambassador to Russia from 1993 to 1996, what is your take on what has been happening under Vladimir Putin, such as his speech last summer that "other countries should understand it's best not to mess with us." Or the November Pravda article that said: "Russia prepares a nuclear surprise for NATO." Is all that just rhetoric designed for the home front?

Pickering: Part of it's rhetoric; part of it's a genuine concern. When the Soviet Union went out of business, they thought there would be no NATO enlargement, and certainly no forward deployment of nuclear weapons. And so far as I know, there hasn't been any forward deployment, but they are still very worried about it.

And they are still concerned about NATO enlargement and encirclement, especially about the prospect of NATO enlargement to Ukraine. Now, up until recently, it was quite clear that the Ukrainian population was not in favor of closer ties with NATO. But lately, the Russians have reasons to be-let's put it that way-nervous and jumpy. And Putin has been finding ways to exploit that, to ensure that he can continue to run Russia as his own fief.

So, he's exploiting this for some propagandistic grounds, but there's reason for people to be concerned.

Bulletin: So there are some genuine issues from the point of view of the Russians?

Pickering: Yes, I think there are. The Russians have never lost the view of NATO that was formulated for them by old Soviet propaganda. And they're not alone in this old-style thinking; we in the West do it as well.

I often give speeches and talk about Russia, and usually about the third or fourth questioner talks about "the Soviet Union" when they mean "Russia." I myself have said "Soviet Union" when I meant to say "Russia." And that's a serious mistake; it represents a mind-set.

Old habits, and old ways of thinking, die hard.

Along those same lines, the Russian fear of invasion goes way back. Russia has a long history of being invaded, going back to the Tatars and the Mongols. And then there were the Poles, Lithuanians, French, and Germans. Russia's had a difficult history; they don't have what we would call firm, natural borders like we do in the United States. We've got oceans on either side, which are essentially two giant moats protecting us-and the Russians don't have any of that.

Now, intercontinental ballistic missiles have changed all that. But it's still useful to think about in terms of their and our formative histories.

Bulletin: A January article in The Guardian said that a main US concern is "Russian testing of a medium-range cruise missile which the Obama administration claims is a clear violation of the 1987 intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) treaty, the agreement that brought to an end the dangerous standoff between US and Russian cruise missiles in Europe. By hugging the contours of the Earth, cruise missiles can evade radar defenses and hit strategic targets with little or no notice, raising fears on both sides of surprise pre-emptive attacks." What's your opinion?

Pickering: I think those are hyperbolic representations. They're not unreal, but they are a bit exaggerated. We're in a constant search in this country either for new enemies we haven't discovered, or new clear ways to portray countries like China and Russia as deadly enemies that are in no way placated and will rise again. It's a neoconservative mantra-but part of our political life.

Of course, we obviously have to be cautious and careful. But if we operate our foreign policy on the basis that they are enemies, and implacable and never going to change, then we make them into enemies.

On these same lines were a series of articles, including one written by my old friend Dennis Ross, that try to push Iran in that direction. We talked earlier about whether there'll be an agreement-certainly it's in the interests of both countries to have one-but we'll have to wait and see if good sense prevails. A treaty means working out a hard-driven compromise that may not be completely satisfactory to each side, but will be workable-and sufficiently well crafted to withstand domestic objections

Bulletin: And the same approach toward relations with Russia?

Pickering: I hope so. My hope is that the continued pressure on Russia is a useful and important course of action.

But what is missing, in my view, is giving Mr. Putin a face-saving exit strategy-one that doesn't require him to grovel, or grind his nose in the dirt. That's important to dealing diplomatically with Putin and Russia.

So, he needs to save face, and we need to genuinely address some of the issues that bother him: There really was a hard right in the Ukraine that wanted to do away with the Russian language.

We in the West should be thinking about how to open a door for him: How to create an opportunity for him to work together with us and the IMF and the EU and the Ukrainians? How do we rebuild the Ukrainian economy-a root cause behind all these latest problems? How do we ensure that all Ukrainian citizens, whatever language they speak, are treated on a fair basis?

Maybe Ukraine, in economic and political terms, could become a bridge between the EU as a partner state and the state that Mr. Putin wants to create-which is a kind of expanded customs union among old Soviet Union countries. This would require asking Ukraine to stay out of NATO for a while, but it could possibly be dealt with in a series of agreements that would provide the kind of real security and stability that the Ukrainians would like.

So, the end goal could be that Ukraine becomes a kind of bridge country. And that's not so far-fetched: Kiev was historically always sort of the Russian bridge to the West; it was the beginning of Russian Christianity. There was less distinction between Ukrainians and Russians in the ninth century than there is now.

Now, we can't dictate any of this, but we can certainly help to influence things in that direction. And this approach would begin to drain away the exaggerated Soviet-style propaganda that the Russians have embraced.

Bulletin: Do you think this can be achieved?

Pickering: With good diplomacy, I think so.

Bulletin: What is good diplomacy?

Pickering: Good diplomacy is two-thirds listening and one-third talking. You get a lot more out of listening than talking.

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 #13
The National Interest
July 2, 2015
Why Russia Shouldn't Fear NATO
"Far from threatening Russia, a strong NATO has a much greater incentive to act with self-restraint toward Russia than individual countries."
By Mark N. Katz
Mark N. Katz is a professor of government and politics at George Mason University.

President Putin and many other Russians have complained bitterly about the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe and the Baltics after the end of the Cold War. Putin in particular has been determined to stop NATO from expanding into any other former Soviet republics, including those such as Georgia and Ukraine whose leaders have expressed interest in joining. Indeed, many Russians are indignant that NATO was not dissolved like the Warsaw Pact was at the end of the Cold War. Putin in particular sees NATO's expansion as directed against Russia. With this as his premise, it is clearly in Russia's interest not only to prevent NATO's further expansion, but to undermine the Atlantic alliance and even promote its dissolution.

It is not in the West's interests to allow this to happen. What is more, it is not in Russia's interests either. Indeed, a case can be made (and will be made here) that Russian security interests are better served by NATO's continuation and expansion than by its weakening or dissolution. This is because Putin and his supporters fundamentally misunderstand NATO's actual purpose-or more accurately, purposes. Unfortunately, many in the West do too.

During the Cold War, one of NATO's most important-and most obvious-set of goals was to deter a Soviet attack and to respond to it effectively should it occur. As the Soviet Union never launched such an attack, NATO appears to have succeeded at deterring one. Once the Cold War ended, though, Moscow's former Warsaw Pact allies as well as the three Baltic states all sought NATO membership. One reason why they did so was their fear that Russia might become a threat to them again in the future-or even that it still was a threat.

This contrasted with the view of many older NATO members in Western Europe. After the Soviet Union withdrew from Eastern Europe and then collapsed, many of them did not see post-Soviet Russia as being very much of, or even any, threat to them. They saw Russia instead as a useful source of gas and oil as well as a potential market for their exports. These West European governments did not want East European concerns about Russia to get in the way of their doing business with Moscow. But these West European views were based on the belief that since Russia was not a threat to them, it was not really a threat at all.

But the presence or absence of a threat from Moscow was never the only reason for NATO, in the words of Hamlet, "to be or not to be." NATO's first secretary-general, Lord Ismay, observed that the purpose of NATO was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." In 2010, Admiral Giampaolo di Paola, Chairman of NATO's Military Committee, described the purpose of NATO as having become "to keep North America in, Europe up, and Russia with." Both of these formulas now seem outdated: Germany is now one of the principle upholders of the liberal European order, and Russia clearly does not want to be "with" NATO.

Lord Imay's and Admiral di Paola's formulations, though, underline that NATO has two other purposes besides dealing with Russia. Although di Paola's formula acknowledges the role of Canada while Lord Ismay's does not, both clearly see NATO as an important means of keeping the United States committed to maintaining European security. Further, their seemingly contradictory calls to keep "the Germans down" and "Europe up" both point to the need to protect European security not just from external threats, but from strife within NATO as well. The East European and Baltic states that sought NATO membership after the end of the Cold War did not just do so out of fear of Russia. They did so because being accepted into NATO-as well as into the EU-showed that these nations were now a part of the West. Not wanting Russia to be part of the West, Russia's leaders and much of its public simply cannot understand that this is something that East Europeans, Balts, and, most especially, Ukrainians and Georgians would actually want. Nor can they seem to understand that the more threateningly Russia behaves, the more that those who feel most immediately threatened by it-Poles, Balts, Ukrainians, and Georgians-either want to cling to their NATO membership or acquire it.

It is also important to remember that at the end of World War I when the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian empires all collapsed and several new states as well as new borders emerged, tensions arose between many Eastern and Southeastern European states during the interwar years. At the end of World War II, Stalin redrew Eastern Europe's borders and the Soviet Union forcibly maintained peace among its East European satellites. There was a danger when Soviet forces withdrew from Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War that conflict would re-emerge in this region-as it actually did in Yugoslavia when the general collapse of European communism resulted in that country breaking up. But the overwhelming desire of the East European and Baltic states to be accepted into NATO, the EU, and the West as a whole resulted in their acceptance of the existing borders (including those drawn by Stalin) and their not pursuing claims to lost territory. Indeed, NATO made resolving territorial disputes with neighboring states a condition of acceptance for new members.

One of Putin's motives for separating Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia in 2008, annexing Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, and supporting separatists in eastern Ukraine since then has been to create the sort of territorial disputes with neighbors that would make Georgia and Ukraine unacceptable as members to the existing ones in Western Europe in particular which have no desire to become embroiled in active conflicts on their behalf. And Putin, it appears, has succeeded in this regard.

The corollary of Moscow belief that the expansion of NATO is a threat to Russia is that the retraction, incapacitation, or dissolution of NATO would make Russia safer. Indeed, Putin's support for anti-NATO and anti-EU political parties throughout Europe indicates that he does indeed aim at undermining these two institutions. Nor does Putin necessarily need to bring about their dissolution in order to undermine them. Since NATO and the EU both tend to operate on the basis of consensus, the fact that the current political leaders of Hungary and Greece are hostile to the existing European order and are quite friendly with Moscow may go a long way toward furthering Putin's goal of rendering NATO inoperable. And if any more such leaders are elected to power, NATO might indeed become unable to respond effectively to actions taken by Putin to "protect" Russian speakers elsewhere in Ukraine or even in the Baltic states. This clearly would not benefit the West. But it would not benefit Russia either. For the decline of NATO is less likely to lead to the unopposed rise of Russian influence than to the re-emergence of conflicts that common membership in NATO has suppressed or (in the case of Greece and Turkey) kept under control.

Putin has had relatively cooperative relations with the often anti-Western Erdogan government in Turkey. He also has good relations with Greece's new leftist leadership that is at odds with the EU. But if (whether as a result of Putin's actions or not) NATO becomes inoperable, the Greek-Turkish animosity that NATO helped keep from escalating after Turkey's 1974 intervention in Cyprus might soon re-emerge. And if it does, it is highly doubtful that Russia will be able to calm it down.  Moscow may then be faced with the choice of alienating one party because it sides with the other, or alienating both because it sides with neither or (as Putin has attempted elsewhere) tries to side with both simultaneously. Despite Turkey's troubled relations with the West recently, Turkey may regard Russian support for Greece against it as an existential threat and thus go all out to support Chechen and other Muslim opponents of Moscow's rule in the North Caucasus and other Muslim regions of Russia.

The decline of NATO might also embolden an increasingly nationalist and pro-Russian Hungary to revive its claim to "lost territories." Moscow might not mind if Budapest does this with pro-Western Ukraine or Romania (with which Russia also has difficult relations), but would not be pleased if Hungary sought the return of territory that is now part of pro-Russian Serbia or Slovakia (where Moscow has also sought to cultivate illiberal tendencies).

Another problem for Moscow is that for every anti-Western government elected to office anywhere in Europe, one or more of its neighbors are likely to feel threatened by it and so turn to America for support. Further, while German public opinion may care little about what Russia is doing in faraway Crimea or Eastern Ukraine, Berlin is likely to take more active measures to thwart Moscow's efforts to expand Russian influence in countries closer to it. Finally, the more that Western states see Russian actions as directly harming their security, the more incentive they will have to respond by arming Ukraine or others actively resisting Russia.

In other words, the decline of the pax Americana in Europe resulting from a weakened NATO is less likely to be replaced by a pax Russica there, but by a chaotic situation in Europe that Russia will be unable to control or prevent from negatively impacting not just Russia's external ambitions, but its internal security as well.

Ironically, Russia could avoid all this if NATO remained strong and intact. Far from threatening Russia, a strong NATO has a much greater incentive to act with self-restraint toward Russia than individual countries (both members and non-members) being undermined by Russian actions. Indeed, offering NATO membership to what remains of Ukraine may be the surest means of inducing Kiev and the West as a whole to acquiesce to (though not formally accept) the loss of Crimea and eastern Ukraine to Russia. In other words, Moscow is better off with a strong NATO that keeps America in, Europe peaceful, and Russia by itself (if that's what it wants) than a weak NATO (or NATO at all) that keeps America, Europe, and Russia all embroiled in needless conflict and tension.

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 #14
New York Times
July 2, 2015
Russia Sees a Threat in Its Converts to Islam
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

ERZURUM, Turkey - As a teenager in St. Petersburg, Maksim Baidak hung out with neo-Nazis and right-wing nationalists, but the Russian security services mostly left him alone.

It was not until he abandoned white-Slavic supremacy and instead found God - as a convert to Islam and leader of a group of ethnic Russian Muslims - that he came under near-constant surveillance and was often forced into cars at gunpoint by security agents.

Then, one morning in 2013, masked commandos from a special counter-extremism unit busted into his apartment and arrested him. For two days, he was interrogated, at times with a black hood over his head - "tortured," he said, by choking, electric shock and death threats.

"I was arrested like a terrorist," said Mr. Baidak, 28, who now lives in Erzurum, a university town in northeast Turkey, where he fled after a judge released him for lack of any criminal charges. "Look at me, I am a journalist. I am a blogger," he said. "I am a political activist, pro-democratic oriented, Sufi-oriented, but I was arrested like - I don't know - bin Laden."

While nations across Europe are grappling with the relatively recent peril of homegrown Islamic terrorists, Russia has long lived in fear of a jihadist uprising within its own borders, particularly in the Caucasus, where it fought two brutal wars to suppress Muslim separatists.

For President Vladimir V. Putin's Russia, Slavic, ethnic Russian converts to Islam like Mr. Baidak pose an especially subversive threat, not only by stoking Russia's deep paranoia over separatist extremism, but also by challenging the Orthodox Christian national identity that Mr. Putin has used to unite the country in place of Soviet Communism.

The government also worries that ethnic Russian Muslims have shown a willingness to link up with an array of other anti-Kremlin forces, including nationalists, pro-democracy groups and even gay rights organizations.

"I worked with the L.G.B.T. society; it's unbelievable for Muslims, yeah?" Mr. Baidak said, describing a group, Islamic Civil Charter, now banned in Russia.

"I don't support this orientation of men and women, but I cannot change them," he said in an interview. "If they are agents of freedom and we fight for freedom also, we fight for our common values. Let's fight together, not be divided."

Russia's security services, however, were not about to let that happen.

An aggressive crackdown that began before last year's Winter Olympics in Sochi never ended, leading to widespread arrests not just in the predominantly Muslim Caucasus but throughout European Russia and as far north as Novy Urengoi, just below the Arctic Circle, where the authorities this year demolished a building that had housed a mosque and an Islamic preschool.

The pressure by the security services, in the name of combating extremism, has set off a wave of refugees seeking safety and religious freedom, especially in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

Muslim leaders and human rights advocates say that Russia's often brutal approach has also added to the appeal of the Islamic State, with the Russian authorities saying recently that hundreds of Russian Muslims have gone to Syria.

For moderate converts who have fled Russia, one obstacle to obtaining political asylum, or even more basic social service help, has been a lack of awareness among some officials that Slavic Muslims even exist.

"Lawyers who were to speak about our problem with the authorities, they said that the first thing to do was to explain to the Turkish government that there is a group of ethnic Russian Muslims, because no one has the slightest idea of this," said Dmitri I. Chernomorchenko, who was born to Christian parents in Cherkessk in the North Caucasus, but took the name Khamza when he converted and now lives in Istanbul.

"We know Tatars, Chechens; we know that Dagestanis of various ethnicities are killed, but that there are suppressed Russians and that you actually have a large ethnic group, we don't know about this," Mr. Chernomorchenko said, explaining the reaction he faced when he moved to Turkey.

The aggressive scrutiny by the Russian security services on converts to Islam is based partly on a belief, shared by some experts on religious fundamentalism, that they are more likely to embrace extremism and carry out terrorist attacks.

Many converts are adherents to the Salafist movement of Sunni Islam, which is often linked with extremism, if unfairly so, because it espouses more orthodox religious practices.

Still, human rights advocates say the Russian security services take a heavy-handed approach that often persecutes innocent people, including native-born Muslims and converts alike. "Statistically, the number of converts who turn to fundamentalist Islam, as opposed to traditional Islam, is disproportionately high, so it's not surprising that they draw the attention of the security services," said Tanya Lokshina, the Russian program director for Human Rights Watch.

Vyacheslav Ali Polosin, a former Russian Orthodox priest who converted to Islam in 1999, said that Christian Russians became Muslims for many reasons. Some women adopt the religion after marrying a Muslim man, and others are hoping to find a Muslim husband because of the religious prohibition on drinking alcohol.

"They know Muslims don't drink," said Mr. Polosin, noting Russian society's long struggle with alcoholism.

Others, he said, are drawn for political or financial reasons, preferring Islam's approach to money matters. And still others, he said, are drawn purely as a matter of faith.

In any event, Mr. Polosin said, converts encounter the same deeply entrenched discrimination that all Muslims do in Russia, including efforts to prevent the construction of new mosques even as the population swells.

Estimates of Russia's Muslim population now range from 16 million to 20 million, including more than two million in Moscow, where there are just four mosques.

"The Russian Orthodox believers are saying Moscow is our holy city, and we only want traditionally the cupolas of Russian churches," Mr. Polosin said. "In Stavropol, there is a mosque which was built in the czar's time, and they don't allow it to reopen. They say that Stavropol would cease to be Stavropol, because Stavropol means city of the cross."

Grigory A. Mavrov, 35, a corporate lawyer who converted to Islam, now lives with his wife in a tidy apartment complex in Istanbul, where there is a community swimming pool.

Mr. Mavrov, who helped found two Muslim groups now banned in Russia, has been arrested three times. The first time was at the center of the National Organization of Russian Muslims in Moscow. The second time was in St. Petersburg, where he and his wife were both arrested at the apartment where they lived with her aunt and grandmother.

After that, they decided to leave for Turkey.

Last year, Mr. Mavrov was arrested in Turkey at the request of Russia and ordered deported, although, he said, officials gave no reason. He is now fighting that decision and hoping to receive political asylum in Turkey or elsewhere.

"Our activity was very peaceful," Mr. Mavrov said in an interview in his kitchen. "We had no connection with anything which is extremist, terrorists, et cetera. We had not, and have not now, of course."

Still, he said, Moscow opposes any Islamic activity not affiliated with the Kremlin-sanctioned Council of Muftis, viewed by many Muslims as promoting a watered-down version of Islam.

"They don't want independent structures, independent organizations in Russia," Mr. Mavrov said of the Russian government. "They are afraid of them. They need to control everything. If they don't control it, they recognize it as an enemy."

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 #15
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
July 1, 2015
Lavrov and Kerry discuss coalition against ISIS in Vienna
The fight against terrorism in the Middle East was the main subject of discussion between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Vienna on June 30. Having exchanged "concrete opinions," the ministers decided that consolidation is needed to effectively fight the Islamic State. However, some experts say that the two countries are not prepared for this.
Yekaterina Sinelschikova, RBTH

A meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was held on Tuesday, June 30 in Vienna. The central issue of this year's fourth meeting between the ministers was counteraction to the Islamic State in the Middle East.

The meeting had been organized by the leaders of Russia and the U.S., and as Lavrov had said earlier, its objective would be to exchange opinions on how "to unite the efforts of our two countries and other countries in the region more effectively" in the fight against Islamic State extremists.

Lavrov had also stated that in Vienna the Russian side intended to avoid rhetorical questions and be concrete and "push for joint practical actions." One of the proposals that the Russian Minister had expressed prior to the talks was the creation of a coalition composed of regional and non-regional players.
 
A questionable coalition

After more than two hours of talks, the exchange of "concrete opinions" had taken place, said Lavrov. Kerry agreed that "the situation in the region requires more active measures." As had been expected, both ministers discussed ways of consolidating "all those who believe that ISIS is an absolute evil" and agreed to stop using questionable militant groups for tactical purposes.

However, it is not clear which "concrete" measures were agreed on. But in the view of Vitaly Naumkin, the director of the Middle East Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences, the fact alone that the Russian and American presidents are sending their foreign ministers to talk about the issue is "a step forward."

"It means that there is mutual understanding, a common interest, which doesn't exist concerning Ukraine," Naumkin says.

Yet, it is very difficult to figure out what both sides are proposing. The first impediment is the U.S.'s reluctance to cooperate with the Syrian government and the second is either governments' lack of resolve to begin a political dialogue, remarks Naumkin, citing a recent statement made by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem in Moscow.

The distrust on the Syrian side was on display the day before the meeting in Vienna when Muallem held talks with Lavrov and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. There Muallem said that, "the Americans are demanding a political solution but at the same time are allotting billions of dollars in the support of terrorists," referring to the various groups fighting in opposition to the official Syrian government, several of which Washington supports with non-lethal aid and training.

Additionally, the conflict between the authorities in Damascus and Turkey, which is demanding the resignation of the Syrian government, is casting doubts on the possibility of forming a coalition in the region.
 
A missed opportunity

Experts are unsure whether to expect concrete action in the fight against ISIS in the short term. The process of consolidation may become a long or a short-term one, notes Naumkin, since ISIS is advancing quickly and "this could push the disagreeing sides to embrace each other."

Other analysts interviewed by RBTH do not believe in the coalition. The coalition already exists - it is the U.S. and its satellites, and it is not working, says Alexei Mukhin, a political analyst and the general director of the independent Center for Political Information. "On the contrary, experts are noticing that it was the coalition's actions that had led to the expansion of ISIS's control over various territories," Mukhin said.

Deputy Dean of the World Economy and World Policy Department at the Higher School of Economics Andrei Suzdaltsev believes that while sanctions are in effect against Russia, it will never enter any coalition. In his words, ISIS is a consequence of America's policy in the Middle East. But to destroy it, America does not have enough strength.

"The anti-terrorist fight announced by Washington in 2001 was a complete failure," says Suzdaltsev. "But in those years America was fighting the underground, now it is fighting a terrorist state."

Experts believe that schemes such as air raids and targeted strikes have also been unsuccessful. "The moment in which they could have worked is gone," says Mukhin. "Most likely the talks (between Lavrov and Kerry) were about the consolidated efforts against the mobilization of ISIS volunteers in various countries," adding that it is necessary to impose an economic blockade on ISIS. "While certain countries continue buying oil from ISIS, while weapons are flowing into ISIS territory, unfortunately it will be impossible to stop its expansion," says Mukhin. "Perhaps this is what Kerry and Lavrov talked about."

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 #16
www.rt.com
July 1, 2015
'No legal prospects' for MP request to review Baltic States' break with USSR

A request by Russian MPs to review a 1991 decision recognizing the independence of Baltic States has no legal prospects, said the general prosecutor's spokeswoman, adding that some queries the office recieves are "devoid of common sense altogether."

The office of Russia's Prosecutor General earlier received a query from two members of the State Duma, reportedly from the ruling United Russia party, to review the decision made by the Soviet Union in 1991 to recognize the independence of the Baltic States.

"In this particular case it is clear that the affair has no legal prospects," Prosecutor-General Office spokesperson, Marina Gridneva, told TASS on Wednesday.

She said that under Russian law the Prosecutor General is obliged to review any request it receives, adding that some are "devoid of common sense altogether."

The controversial request also stirred confusion in the Kremlin, with President Vladimir Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, telling reporters on Tuesday that he was not aware of the initiative.

"And frankly speaking, I personally find it difficult to understand the essence of this initiative," Peskov added.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he knew nothing about the request, expressing skepticism while answering a reporter's question in Vienna on Tuesday.

"What I do know is that we have diplomatic relations and interstate treaties with these Baltic countries," he said.

The query prompted harsh reactions from Baltic officials, despite its questionable nature. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius called it "a provocation to say the least" and "legally, morally and politically absurd".

Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia split from the Soviet Union after the USSR's State Council, a temporary body, recognized their independence in September 1991. The two MPs who filed the query claimed that the Baltic States' independence was authorized by an unconstitutional body, as the Soviet Union's constitution required a referendum and a transitional period in order to settle disputed matters.

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 #17
Armenia sees abortive attempt at orange revolution - analysts
By Tamara Zamyatina

MOSCOW, July 1. /TASS/. Attempts at lending a political and anti-Russian flavor to Armenia's social protests are a sure sign the West remains determined to push ahead with its color revolution technologies, polled experts have told TASS.

The latest protest actions in Yerevan began on June 19, when thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to express their anger over electricity price hikes. On June 22 they blocked Bagramian Avenue, the street where Armenia's president has his residence. The opposition at once demanded the resignation of the government. On June 23 the police dispersed hundreds of protesters, but the demonstrations resumed in the evening of the same day to have continued up to this very moment, although on a smaller scale.

Analysts remark that while at first the demonstrators had several coarse-sounding loud-hailers, within days they obtained powerful loudspeakers. Well-organized groups of volunteers were bringing foods, drinks and medicines to the center of Yerevan. Journalists agree that the scenario of events in Yerevan was an exact replica of the protest marathon in Kiev at the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015. What made the resemblance still more striking was the demonstrators were being urged to chant anti-Russian slogans: ostensibly, it was Russia's businessmen controlling Armenia's electric power grids who were to blame for the soaring electricity bills.

On Tuesday, board chairman of Russia's Inter-RAO company, Boris Kovalchuk, told TASS the complex situation in Armenia's electric power industry stemmed from exclusively economic, and not political issues. Mostly, it was a result of systemic problems in controlling the sector. Inter RAO manages Armenia's power grids, the country's distribution network monopolist. The company is currently in a grave financial condition and it asked Armenia's regulator for permission to raise prices by 40%. The regulator agreed to a partial price rise, by 16%.

The deputy director of the CIS Countries Institute, Vladimir Zharikhin, believes that "color revolution moderators" have decided to check in what way the Armenian leadership will respond in case of mass protests in support of political demands. "The protesters' zeal eased a lot after police on June 23 used water cannon and detained 237 people. By now the number of protesting activists has been down to several dozen. In other words, the attempt at staging a colour revolution in Armenia failed," Zharikhin said.

Caucasus department chief at the CIS Studies Institute, Vladimir Yevseyev, believes that number one aim of the West, first and foremost, the United States and Britain, is not so much to topple Armenia's current authorities as to make President Serzh Sargsyan, who had turned his back on eurointegration to opt for Eurasian cooperation, more pliable and controllable. "The large Armenian communities in the United States and France have been working hard along the same lines. Both are agents representing Western interests in Armenia. Both provide lavish funding for the opposition. In Armenia, there is an impressive representation of western media and non-governmental organizations, numbering 2,500. This is a lot for a small country," Yevseyev told TASS.

"One should neither exaggerate nor belittle the risk youth may be used for destabilizing the situation in Armenia. The actors inside Armenia, interested in 'rocking the boat', may use this group as a fuse to detonate political upheavals and stage an operation code-named 'successor'." President Serzh Sargsyan had proposed a meeting with the protesters' activists and to order an audit of the electricity tariffs only to hear in reply there was nothing to talk about," Yevseyev recalled.

"Armenia's legal political parties, including oppositional ones, should be urged not to stay on the sidelines in the current situation, but to act as a political force responsible for stability in the country," Yevseyev said.

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 #18
Carnegie Moscow Center
July 1, 2015
Maidan Redux in Armenia?
By Paul Stronski
Paul Stronski is a senior associate in Carnegie's Russia and Eurasia Program, where his research focuses on the relationship between Russia and neighboring countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.Until January 2015, Stronski served as a senior analyst for Russian domestic politics in the U.S. State Depar tment's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He was director for Russia and Central Asia on the U.S. National Security Council Staff from 2012 to 2014, where he supported the president, the national security advisor, and other senior U.S. officials on the development and coordination of policy toward Russia.

According to the Kremlin narrative, the protests that have rocked Armenia over the past two weeks are the result of the hidden hand of Western intelligence operatives. This narrative is part of a tried and true script of the Western "color revolution," modeled on similar events in Ukraine and Georgia. However, that view profoundly misreads these protests, which arose for domestic, Armenian reasons and are not part of a geopolitical tug-of-war.  

With unfriendly neighbors (Turkey and Azerbaijan) on either side, Armenia is dependent on Russia for its economic and military security. These ties, combined with political pressure from Moscow, explain why Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan pivoted from the European Union's Association Agreement to the Russian-dominated Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) in 2013. However, unlike in Ukraine, there were no mass protests after Sargsyan's pivot. Armenians recognize the country's dependence on Moscow. There is no clear split, like in Ukraine, between a pro-Western opposition and pro-Russian government officials. When push-comes-to-shove, Armenian politicians across the spectrum look to Russia because Yerevan has few other options. That dependence on Russia-and the growing perception that Armenia is taken for granted by Moscow and reaps few benefits from EEU membership-has fueled grievances.

Discontent spiked in January after the murder of an Armenian family by a Russian soldier outside Russia's military base in Gyumri. Russia's economic slowdown-exacerbated by Western sanctions-is rumbling into Armenia and undermining Armenians' sense of economic security. But it was the recent decision to raise electricity rates at the request of Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA), the country's electricity provider, that sparked these protests. ENA is a subsidy of InterRAO UES, a Russian energy conglomerate with ties to Kremlin-friendly oligarchs. Protestors accuse ENA of providing lavish perks for managers and overpaying its oligarch-owned suppliers. ENA has become a symbol of Armenian corruption as well as the murky connections between the government and oligarchs and between Moscow and Yerevan.

What lessons should we draw from these protests?

Armenians are pushing back at the regional turn toward authoritarianism. These protestors are young, and they are not led by well-known opposition leaders. This youth is positive because it shows that civil society is rejuvenating itself, and negative because it lacks leadership. Individual protesters who have risen to prominence defer to the crowd in deciding how the movement should engage the government. However, democracy by crowd rarely brings stable change. It is unclear whether this movement can develop a platform or a strategy to sustain itself.

The protestors are motivated by socio-economic issues and the desire for social justice-not larger notions of democracy that constitute international human rights advocacy. This desire for economic fairness is not uniquely Armenian but forms part of a regional trend that has been seen in Russia as well. The West might therefore have more success in promoting reform in Eurasia by stressing this more narrow theme as opposed to its traditional advocacy for elections, political parties, and human rights across the board.

Armenian authorities are learning from their mistakes. The June 23 police crackdown ended with violence, but only fueled more protests and hardened demonstrators' demands. The government has behaved better since. It is trying to meet the protestors halfway-a sign that civil society can succeed in pushing the government to address its concerns. Sargsyan announced that his government would bear the costs of the rate hike until an audit of ENA determines whether the hike is justified. Yet, it is unclear where he will get the money, and his government has a poor record of engendering trust. Some protestors rejected his concession and remain in the street, defying police and organizers' calls to move the protest to a nearby park. There are now two dueling demonstrations, frictions between them, and signs of the waning of the protests. Though this may be a potential success for the government in defusing the situation, the lull is likely to be temporary since the underlying grievances remain.

The West is learning from its mistakes too. In 2013, the European Union forced regional leaders to make a definitive choice between Europe and Russia. It did so based on an artificial schedule of EU leader summits no matter whether countries were ready for that commitment. Its new effort to negotiate an alternate arrangement with Armenia recognizes that each country is unique and that the failed one-policy-suits-all approach was unrealistic. The new approach provides the EU with leverage to urge restraint. Another violent crackdown could freeze those negotiations-something Sargsyan seems keen to avoid given Armenia's struggling economy.

The United States has been careful not give the impression that it is taking sides in this internal dispute, signaling instead that it is watching and that Armenians should resolve it peacefully through constitutional means. It has not implied that anyone should make zero-sum decisions between Russia and Europe.

While the West is taking an appropriately cautious stance, it is unclear whether Moscow has learned its lesson. Just as it did with former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014, the Kremlin is likely pressuring Armenian authorities to make that zero-sum decision and to quell the protest decisively. Unfortunately, we all know how well that approach worked out.

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 #19
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
July 1, 2015
Russia Direct: No cherry-picking, just analysis
As Russia Direct celebrates its second anniversary this month, our editorial team answers some of your frequently asked questions - including about our efforts to ensure editorial balance, and about how we handle criticism from those who think we're pushing propaganda from the Kremlin (which we're not) or from the CIA (which we're not).   
By Ekaterina Zabrovskaya and Pavel Koshkin
Ekaterina Zabrovskaya is the Editor-in-Chief of Russia Direct and is an experienced journalist and editor with an extensive background covering Russian domestic politics and foreign-affairs for dufferent media outlets. Prior to her appointment as the editor-in-chief of Russia Direct, she worked as Deputy Chief Editor for Foreign Affairs at Russia Beyond the Headlines where, among other duties, she produced RBTH supplements to The New York Times, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Pavel Koshkin is Executive Editor of Russia Direct and a contributing writer to Russia Beyond The Headlines (RBTH). He also contributed to a number of Russian and foreign media outlets, including Russia Profile, Kommersant and the Moscow bureau of the BBC.

Question 1: What's your editorial policy?

Our team strives to produce well-balanced content. We seek to engage a diverse array of experts, analysts and newsmakers from Russia and abroad in a discussion of the most pressing issues in the international arena.

One of our guiding principles is to showcase contrasting opinions -sometimes, extremely divergent ones - so our readers can reach their own conclusions.

We avoid imposing any agenda. We see cherry-picking as intellectual and journalistic sin. Russia Direct truly believes that a certain level of objectivity is possible, given enough effort and diligence.          

Question 2: So how do you find balance?

Russia Direct aims for balance by bringing both Russian and foreign experts together and creating a space for them to debate issues, express views and develop arguments. We aim to provide a platform for dialogue. This approach incorporates multiple formats including debates, analytical articles, and opinions.

We publish contrasting viewpoints on controversial issues, and we visually direct our reader towards the opposing viewpoint by inserting a box in plain view that reads: "For a very different take on this issue, read [title]."   
 
Question 3: Where does your funding come from?

Russia Direct is funded by advertising and sponsorship sales, as well as through financial support from Russia's official daily, Rossiyskaya Gazeta. However, this summer we are launching a paid subscription model and will begin to charge for analytical reports. Our website will remain free for all readers.

To learn more about the Russia Direct paid subscription model launching this summer, see this FAQ.

Question 4: Since you're funded by Russia's official newspaper, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, do you follow their editorial policy?

No. The Russia Direct editorial team is independent from the editorial staff of Rossiyskaya Gazeta. We have different editorial guidelines, different goals and we target a different audience. What we have in common is that our Moscow offices are in the same building and, yes, we do receive funding from Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

Question 5: Are you just pushing Kremlin propaganda?

No, we're not. We are passionate about Russia, but we don't idealize it. We're not out to promote only one side of the story, or push an agenda on our readers. We strive to create a platform for dialogue and debate between Russian and international analysts, businesspeople, and decision-makers. We aim to introduce Russian voices to English-speaking audiences, and to bring a nuanced understanding of Russia that we believe is all-too-often missing in Western press coverage.

Question 6: Are you guys actually a bunch of CIA agents?

Ironically, we get asked this question as frequently as the inverse (as in, "Aren't you guys just a bunch of Kremlin shills?"). And, no, for the record, neither is true. We are not a CIA front. We have never received funding from, nor ever been in contact with, the CIA.

Question 7: Who's your target audience?

Our target audience includes English-speaking analysts, politicians, academics, decision-makers, businessmen, and students with a deep interest in Russia and U.S.-Russia relations.

We also target what we'd call "cosmopolitans" - those who truly believe in global multipolarity, and who seek to understand Russia's stance on certain issues or its relations with other states.

As of today, Russia Direct has almost reached 7,000 subscribers to our analytical reports. We're proud to say our subscriber list includes prominent foreign politicians, decision-makers, experts, researchers and academics from the world's top universities.

Question 8: What is the format of Russia Direct? Are you a think tank, or actually part of the media?

Russia Direct is something of a hybrid between a media outlet and a think tank. We have a website that is updated daily with analytical articles, op-eds, videos, quizzes, and the like. Our authors are mostly foreign affairs experts. We issue monthly and quarterly analytical reports written by academics and experts. In addition, we host round tables and panel discussions that bring together foreign and Russian pundits.

Importantly, however, we don't consider ourselves to be a news publication as such - in the sense that we don't cover the news itself, but rather provide analysis.

Question 9: What is your usual traffic?

Russia-direct.org has between 65,000 and 85,000 visitors per month. Our goal is to reach 100,000 visitors per month this year. In February, the Russia Direct website reached a major milestone: 1,000,000 page views.

Question 10: Have you ever faced censorship? Does the Kremlin influence your editorial policy?

No. The Kremlin doesn't influence our editorial policy at all. Only Russia Direct editors decide what should be published and what should not.

Question 11: What kind of feedback do you get from your readers?

Feedback from our readers runs the gamut. Some readers thank us for being well-balanced, and for giving them an opportunity to understand the role of Russia in the international affairs. These readers tell us that they use our website and our reports in their research, and that they find our content valuable and robust.

We also face a wide range of accusations from our more skeptical readers, including attempts to discredit us and to dig into our funding.

For example, we're frequently accused of either being a mouthpiece for the Kremlin (we're not) or for the CIA (we're not), a fifth column (we're not) or "a wolf in sheep's clothing" (we're not). Our hope is that catching flak from all sides means that, actually, we're on to something - and that we're meeting our goal of maintaining a healthy balance and hosting a wide range of viewpoints.  
    
Question 12: How do you specifically respond to the accusation of being Kremlin propaganda?

Skepticism about our independence simply spurs us on to be ever-more rigorous in pursuing a diverse array of opinions, including those that radically contradict the Kremlin's position. In our view, the way to persuade doubters is to keep calm, and let the quality of our work stand as the best rebuttal against questions to our integrity.

If you see us as Kremlin propaganda, check out our website. Read through the different opinions. See for yourself. We believe our articles, and editorial standards, speak for themselves.

We've never shied away from covering controversial and pressing issues. Take a look what we've published on the downing of flight MH17, or the assassination of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov in Moscow.

Question 13: Who can submit articles to Russia Direct?

We are open to submissions from anyone with an expertise in foreign affairs, Russia, and U.S.-Russia relations. We welcome unsolicited submissions to editor@russia-direct.org if they meet our editorial guidelines.

Questions 14: Could you please tell Mr. Putin that I disagree with him/admire him/want to buy a helicopter from him?

We do get these kinds of questions all the time. However, we have to disappoint our readers: None of our staff has ever been in touch with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and we can only recommend sending these requests to the president's official website.

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#20
World Policy Journal
www.worldpolicy.org
July 1, 2015
Taking on Russia
By James W. Carden
James W. Carden, a Nation contributing writer, is the executive editor of EastWestAccord.com.

An important step in the growing movement challenging the established foreign policy consensus with regard to U.S.-Russia policy has been taken with the launch of the new American Committee for East-West Accord.

As the Washington foreign policy establishment finds itself firmly in the grip of a bipartisan consensus, which seeks to fan the flames of conflict in eastern Ukraine by, among other moves, agitating for weapons deliveries to Kiev, U.S.-Russian relations have sunk to their lowest point since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.

The Committee hopes to impact the tenor of the debate over U.S.-Russian policy and the crisis in Ukraine by elevating the tone of the discussion from one dominated, at least in the United States, by ad hominem attacks and baseless assertions to a dialogue that centers around a civil discussion regarding the interests of the nations involved and the ethics of the means chosen to achieve those interests. This we hope will be done though open debate and civilized dialogue with those who are opposed to achieving any sort of detente or a modus vivendi with Russia.

The parties opposing any kind of rapprochement with Russia have been, and clearly remain, ascendant. From the time the crisis in Ukraine began in late 2013, leading foreign policy voices within the Obama administration including UN Ambassador Samantha Power and Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, have strived to paint the crisis in simple black and white terms: the Maidan revolutionaries like Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk are the good guys and Vladimir Putin is the bad guy, and but for Putin's often-described aggression the crisis would not have occurred on the first place.

Yet those who have repeatedly (and so-far with little success) pointed out that perhaps matters aren't so simple, have been the target of critics who question not only their premises but their patriotism as well. Anyone who has had the temerity to question whether NATO's relentless expansion eastward to Russia's borders has contributed to the crisis, can look forward to being labeled a "useful idiot," a "dupe," or a "Kremlin apologist." The trend towards character assassination in lieu of substantive debate has been one of the defining features of the debate over US-Russia policy in the late Obama years.

And so, one of the reasons the time is right for a new Committee is that there are increasing similarities between debates of a generation ago, particularly with regard to our opposite numbers, who, by and large, are made up of a band of neoconservative activists who during the height of the Cold War comprised the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD). To give a sense of how little has changed in the ensuing decades, the CPD, anticipating much of the overheated rhetorical bombast aimed at Vladimir Putin's government that we hear today, issued a statement in 1977 that read, in part:

"The Soviet military build-up of all its armed forces over the past quarter century is, in part, reminiscent of Nazi Germany's rearmament in the 1930s."

That type of rhetoric, it seems, has never gone out of fashion for neoconservatives of a certain stripe and remains one of the true stumbling blocks towards holding a civilized and enlightened dialogue which the current iteration the Committee for East-West Accord hopes to inspire.

The Committee's founding board is made up of several eminent former public servants, businessmen and scholars whose diverse backgrounds and careers who all share a sense of alarm over what is fast developing into a new Cold War and perhaps even an armed U.S.-Russia confrontation in eastern Europe. The Board includes former Senator and presidential candidate Bill Bradley, former American Ambassadors William vanden Heuvel and Jack Matlock, businessmen with long experience in Russia, such as former Procter and Gamble CEO John Pepper and the Brussels-based executive Gilbert Doctorow, as well as two eminent scholars of U.S.-Russian relations and Soviet History, Ellen Mickiewicz of Duke and Stephen F. Cohen of Princeton and NYU.

While the Committee is new, its name evokes a distinguished predecessor, the Committee on East-West Accord, which was the leading pro-detente group in the latter half of the Cold War. The old Committee on East-West Accord boasted such luminaries as the scholar, diplomat George F. Kennan, former Under Secretary of State George Ball, Pepsico Chair Donald Kendall, and our own Stephen F. Cohen.

To help achieve its goals, the Committee has launched a companion web site, EastWestAccord.com which features its Mission Statement, several initial proposals for ending the crisis, biographical information on the Founding Board and updates from our European coordinator, Gilbert Doctorow. The site also features the latest opinions and headlines on U.S.-Russia and the Ukraine crisis in the News and Analysis sections as well as a small but growing archive of Official Statements from the American and Russian governments.

We hope that the site will serve as a non-partisan resource for policymakers and citizens who are concerned about what seems to be a headlong rush into a new and potentially more dangerous new Cold War with Russia.

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 #21
Russia ready to return over 20 Ukrainian ships based in Crimea to Ukraine

ST. PETERSBURG, July 1 /TASS/. Russia is ready to hand over more than 20 Ukrainian warships that are still based in Crimea to Ukrainian military when such a decision is made, a source at the General Staff of the Russian Navy told journalists on Wednesday.

"As soon as peace is established, we will take more than 20 Ukrainian ships to the neutral waters to hand them over to Ukrainian Navy representatives," the source said.

According to him, the Ukrainian ships are deployed at the Russian Black Sea Fleet's home bases. They are fully isolated and are not used in everyday activities. The Russian military guarantee their security.

The source clarified that Ukraine had received 45 out of 66 ships and vessels. "There had been 70 Ukrainian ships and vessels in Crimea before March 2014. Several vessels were scrapped early in March 2014 by decision of the Ukrainian military agency," the source explained.

In April last year, the Russian Defence Ministry suspended the handover of Ukrainian weapons and military hardware left over in Crimea to Ukraine. However, that did not apply to warships and aviation. By early June 2014, the Ukrainian military had received 44 vessels and ships. In autumn 2014, it became known that the Crimean Council of Ministers had assigned part of the ships and boats which used to be part of the Ukrainian Navy to Crimean ministries and agencies.

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 #22
Kyiv Post
July 2, 2015
Nearly half of young Ukrainians consider emigration
By Sandra Mackenzie

Young Ukrainians believe in democracy and identify themselves as patriots, although a sizeable minority would consider leaving the nation to live somewhere else.

A survey by the British Council of 1,200 Ukrainians aged between 16-35 delved into topics such as political engagement, studying abroad and social attitudes to find out how the next generation is responding to a rapidly changing world.

Published on June 30, the survey collected responses from across Ukraine, but excluded Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk. The results of several questions were divided geographically into Kyiv, north, south, east, west and central, revealing telling disparities among the regions.

Nationalism, internationalism

A total of 82 percent of respondents identified themselves as Ukrainian patriots, but the impact of the war on the east is evident throughout the survey results. Just 16 percent of young people in the east felt that the future of Ukraine would be better than it was before 2014, as compared to 50 percent in Kyiv and a high of 60 percent in the west.

Posing the question: "In your opinion, Ukraine should...", the survey provided four possible options: join the European Union; join NATO; join a union with Russia; or remain a non-aligned independent country.

The west and east again provided disparate responses, with only 2 percent of young people in the west favoring a union with Russia, compared to 29 percent in the east. However, there was a marked preference for independence over a Russian union in both the east (40 percent) and south (43 percent).

Predictably, the highest approval rating for the EU came from the west, which was also the only region in which more than half the respondents favored joining NATO. In total, EU accession received 54 percent approval, with joining NATO receiving 36 percent support. Overall, only 11 percent want closer ties with Russia.

Politics and preferences

Although 58 percent agreed that "democracy is better than dictatorship in all cases," other answers revealed reservations.

Two thirds felt that Ukraine needed a "strong leader" and not a parliament, which the report describes as "an enduring attraction in many of the countries that were part of the former Soviet Union."

This can be interpreted as a sign of frustration with the government's current slow pace of reform. Assessing the factors that prevent their country's development, Russian intervention received the highest number of votes, but the "passivity and irresponsibility of its citizens" was close behind.

The young people surveyed also proved themselves to be more politically engaged than the population at large, voting in higher numbers (67 percent) than the nationwide figures (52 percent). However, 44 percent agreed that sometimes politics was too complicated for many people to understand, and 51 percent didn't think that people like them could influence the authorities' actions.

Learning and languages

Challenging the much-discussed ideological divide between Russian and Ukrainian speakers, only 11 percent saw the nation's bilingualism as a barrier to progress. Asked if there were any population groups that they would not want in their close circle, a majority of 62 percent answered that they may dislike individuals, but not all representatives of a given group. Of the remaining responses, significantly more people registered prejudice against the LGBT community (21 per cent) than Russians (9 per cent) or Russian-speakers (3 per cent).

Over half of the young people surveyed would like to study abroad, with the UK emerging as top choice both for general education and specifically for studying English, while Canada is seen the best option for emigration. Of the 45 percent who are considering temporary or permanent emigration, financial reasons, job opportunities and security concerns ranked as the leading motivations.

An impressive total of 82 percent chose "interested in the country's culture" as the reason why they'd like to learn English in the UK; a culture which, according to later results, consists primarily of Harry Potter, the Royal Family, Manchester United and copious amounts of tea.

Cultural questions

The responses paint a picture of a politically engaged but justifiably skeptical demographic who hope for the best for their country while acknowledging that studying abroad might be their best option, at least in the short-term. Their optimism for the future is restrained by awareness of the challenges Ukraine faces, particularly concerning corruption and the continuing war in the East.

The international questions reveal tensions that can be seen as representative of the country at large. Politically, the majority lean towards the west, but discomfort remains with the liberal values of the countries that offer educational opportunities. They want to learn English, and in many cases hope to study in the UK or Canada - but one in five would be uncomfortable with lesbian and gay people in their friendship community.

Concluding its report, the British Council observes that the coming months will be decisive in Ukraine. The report recommends that the UK must continue to invest in and support Ukraine, particularly in civil society, education and culture.

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 #23
Counterpunch.org
July 1, 2015
A Participant in the 2014 'Russian Spring' Movement in Donetsk Speaks
'Donbas is Returning to its Russian Roots'
By SERGEI BARYSHNIKOV
Sergei Baryshnikov is a professor of political science and former rector of the National University of Donetsk in the Donetsk People's Republic.

The following is the transcript of a talk by Sergei Baryshnikov, professor of political science and former rector of the National University of Donetsk in the Donetsk People's Republic. The talk was delivered on April 16, 2015 to a group of foreign writers and journalists visiting Donetsk at the invitation of the Russian/German media NGO 'Europa Objektiv'. The transcript includes answers to questions from the audience. Translation and editing by NewColdWar.org.

During the events of spring 2014 [in eastern and southern Ukraine] known as the 'Russian Spring' (a metaphorical name first used by a Russian journalist), intellectuals in Donetsk, especially those in humanities studies, did not participate actively. Active participants could be counted on the fingers on one hand.

From the vantage point of classical theory, it is still difficult to explain the class or social character of these events. None of the classical theories proved with a suitable explanation.

As we look back today, one year later, there were two social forces driving events forward. One was young people with different professional backgrounds, including high school students, university students and unemployed youth. These were the most active participants due to their unstable social situations. The second was people of the so called third age-the elderly. These two polar groups were the most active, driving forces of the Russian Spring in Donbas.

Initial responses to the rise of the Euromaidan movement in Kyiv

The first timid and not well organized attempts to offer an alternative to the Maidan movement that was already a fact in Kyiv took place in November/December of 2013. At the time, we did not yet fully understand the degree of the threat emanating from Kyiv. We hoped that President Yanukovich would be a more firm and adequate leader. But after the beginning of the new year, during the first weeks of January, the picture became clearer. Authorities in Kyiv were reacting less and less adequately to events.

The starting point of our consolidation here was the 25th of January, 2014. On that day, activists of several dozens of organizations, not large, rather marginal by their size and influence, created the movement called anti-Maidan. Regardless of some contradictions and disagreements within the 'pro-Russian' movement here in the east of ex-Ukraine, including that each leader wanted to be the chief, common ground which united all was found. This was based on the ideological and political rejection of those values that were being promoted under the slogans of Maidan.

The first occasion of direct action was on March 1 when opponents of the self-proclaimed government in Kyiv gathered at the central Square in Donetsk city named after Lenin. They gathered at the fountain (then not working due to the winter season) wearing St. George ribbons as a distinctive feature of the pro-Russian movement. Some stayed at the square and continued with the rally while the most active ones headed in a column towards the regional administration building. There, authorities were trying to organize their own rally, neither in support of Kyiv nor in support of the outraged masses. They tried to maneuver and survive in the difficult situation that came to be. The rally was organized by former leaders from the Party of Regions and the former governor. All official representatives were there - representatives of the church, social organizations, and so on.

It was during the rally at Lenin Square that Pavel Gubarev was proclaimed people's governor. The most active participants there were small networks such as the Donetsk Republic, Russian Bloc, the South-East Movement and, a little later, the Eastern Front, Donbas Rus', the Patriotic Forces of Donbas and so on. We marched in columns with Andrey Purgin, one of the leaders of Donetsk Republic. Many people carried Russian flags or self-made banners. The main slogans were: 'Russia', 'Putin', 'Referendum'.

There was also a slogan about federalization. With time, that slogan vanished because even then it was clear that any 'federalization' would be with the puppets in Kyiv who had seized power.

Why 'Russia', 'Putin', 'referendum'? Because here we were all really inspired by the example of Crimea. We hoped that we would also organize such a quick referendum.

We basically drowned out the organizers of that official rally on March 1 because we were more numerous and because the ordinary people that were brought to the official rally joined us and began rallying under our slogans.

Demands for election, referendum

The referendum question for us was one of the most important ones then. We wanted to obtain approval from the Donetsk Regional Council/ deputies to hold a referendum, like the one held in Crimea. We counted on the deputies' support because we thought that if they represented the interests of people or territorial community of the Donetsk Region, then they must listen to and support people's demands.

Unfortunately, none of them turned out to be ready to take the people's side. That's why we began putting forward our own leaders, in place of relying on deputies who proved incapable of rising to the occasion.

The whole power structure was paralyzed and that's why it was not capable of using force against the protestors during those first days. Essentially, Donetsk became one permanent rally. Every day, during weekdays and weekends, people would come to Lenin Square for rallies. There were tens of thousands of people. It was a scale of activism I have never seen ever before.

Not a single participant of the rallies and meetings was armed. It was a peaceful, mass, civic protest. But Kyiv authorities had more or less settled in and become stronger over time and they did not wish to hear or notice us. They used the most primitive and ineffective methods of repression - terror. Those who rose as leaders during March were arrested, including the previously mentioned Pavel Gubarev (a former student of mine and a graduate of the Faculty of History, he has three young children) and Mikhail Chumachenko (my good friend).

Later, these two were freed through a prisoner exchange and returned after the Donetsk People's Republic was formed. However, during those days, their destiny was an example of what could have happened to any of us, that any of us could have been administratively punished or repressed by the authorities.

The culminating point of this first stage of the development of the events was the night of April 6-7, when people lost hope in the capabilities and willingness of the authorities to negotiate and hold peaceful dialogue. For the third time since March 1, they entered the building of the former state regional administration. This time for good.

Donetsk Peoples Republic

Myself, I did not take part in these events in the late evening of April 6 because by request of Purgin, I was preparing for a meeting that would take place on April 7 with a representative of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, to whom I was to explain our position, our issues and our version of events. This was a political-diplomatic mission.

After that meeting with them, around 12 pm, I entered the building and saw a picture of mass, revolutionary activity. There were young soldiers of the internal security forces with frightened faces who were huddling on the staircases. No one hurt them and they realized that it was useless for them to do anything.

At 12 pm, elections took place, based on the decisions made during rallies by the participants of the first revolutionary authority, which was first called People's Council and later renamed Supreme Council. And this People's Council of approximately 150 people proclaimed the Donetsk People's Republic.

During the overnight and early morning of April 7, in accordance with international legal acts and other documents, the declaration of independence of the DPR was drawn up and proclaimed. This is how the first political, institutional representative organ of the self-proclaimed republic began its work.

Development of the DPR

In April, our events began attracting attention. Political activists and leaders began appearing here who, in Ukraine, expressed support for developing relations with Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. One of the most prominent figures who got ambiguous reactions from the activists of the first wave was the then-deputy (not any longer) of the Supreme Council of Ukraine (Verkhovna Rada), Oleg Tsarev. He became a prominent figure in April. Tsarev's situation was a little ambiguous, because he is not from Donetsk region but from the neighbouring Dnepropetrovsk region.

It was unavoidable that people began appearing from other regions or other places because the Party of Regions and its leaders had fully discredited themselves as politicians and people's servants. The visitors tried to become prominent figures and even lead the protest movement here.

Konstantin Dolgov showed a lot of interest. He is from Kharkov. Representatives of Kharkov came here regularly, as did representatives of large southern centres, including Nikolaev, Kherson, Crimea and, until their tragic events in May, Odessa.

Gradually, a common political course of the young DPR developed. It is still in the stage of development.

The process of forming political and government structure here turned out to be very long and uneasy. There was lack of experience and a lack of true leaders with sufficient charisma and capability for serious, positive action. It is a problem when people are active and there is an absence or lack of true leaders. It is still a serious problem. That is why support from Moscow and Russia was very important to us. But only political and ideological support, not military.

In May, also due to lack of experience, we didn't stop Kyiv's landing operation in the airport area. (Maybe we couldn't have stopped them, regardless of the lack of experience.) Military action started in Donetsk itself. Even earlier, as of April 12, in the north of Donetsk region, military actions started around Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, and then Druzhkovka. Gradually, the DPR was being drawn into military confrontation.

The events at Slavyansk are associated directly with the name Igor Strelkov, who was at that moment the most known and most popular military leader. However, he didn't have the necessary experience, he is mostly a theorist-idealist, not a politician or military. I, for example, would never take on leadership in a military campaign because I am also a theorist-idealist. I can only lecture or give talks and make speeches.

Reactions at the university

All this time, the DPR didn't have enough time to reach out to higher educational institutions. Even though at the end of May, beginning of June, I tried explaining to Purgin that we needed to enter the university and take control because students could potentially rally to either side-Kyiv or the Donetsk people. It would all depend upon what DPR could offer them and how it could show itself. But no one would listen to me. Everyone was occupied with other issues, they didn't have time for this.[1]

During June-July the situation would exacerbate with each day. Unexpectedly for us, Igor Strelkov and his military forces withdrew from Slavyansk and came here to Donetsk. Along with the insurgency troops and their families and wives came refugees. In the beginning of July, they inhabited the whole of the university residencies.

The previous university authorities could do nothing better than to call upon all professors and university staff to leave for 'vacation', in other words leave the city.

The shelling of the city began from the other side of the airport, an area that we missed and were not capable of forcing out the paratroopers of the Ukrainian Army. They began getting on our nerves and getting in the way of everything by shelling even some areas in the centre of the city.

But the technical staff of the university-workers, mechanics, plumbers and janitors-continued to work here all this time. The infrastructure of the university, which is a complex unit, had to be maintained.

(Professor Baryshnikov explained more of how the university functioned during the summer of 2014, including how he came to be appointed rector.)

The staff that worked throughout the whole summer didn't get a penny of their wages for July, August and September. For three months, people didn't get any pay. Only in October did we manage to get funds, but we could not pay salaries, only social allowances of some two, three or four thousand hryvnia [in the few hundreds of dollars]...

Today, we are transitioning to a dual currency system of rubles and hryvnia. Our students have begun getting their first bursaries. We are gradually entering, de facto, the Russian financial and economical space. This is more important, even, than our international recognition. Even though we are waiting and hoping that soon we will be both officially and legally recognized. But in order for this to happen, we need to strengthen our potential and expand our borders to those administrative borders that Donetsk Region previously had.

The Minsk ceasefire agreement of February 12, 2015

The agreement is not being respected either way. There wasn't a day when its conditions were fulfilled. Primarily, it is the Ukrainian side which is failing to do so.

We are inevitably committed to expansion to regain the historic territory of Donetsk and Lugansk presently occupied by Kyiv forces... I want you to understand and pass on to your readers and your audiences that the objective picture, the objective reality, forces us to begin the liberation of those territories. You can call that expansion, but we must do it.

We need to control our water resources, which are in our north. We have deposits of salt, a strategic product which will help us enter not only the Russian market but the world market. The Severskiy Donetsk Channel supplies our whole former territory with water, and near Artemovsk there are huge deposits of salt. We could have a monopoly in the whole of Eurasia. And, of course, in the south we have the metallurgical plants and an exit to the sea through Mariupol.

Ideally, we need to consolidate all of Donbas. During June and July of last year, the first attempts were made to consolidate the DPR and Lugansk People's Republic. Oleg Tsarev proposed a scheme to create a coordinating representative body that would act on behalf of both republics. Later, if everything went well, it could act on behalf of other republics. It was named the Parliament of Novorossiya.[2]

Political parties in Donetsk

There isn't a single political party in DPR today. Today we have only social movements and socio-political associations-'proto-parties'. Based on the social organization called 'Donetsk Republic', it has been decided to create a party which would probably dominate here. Some leaders of the DPR have such plans in mind. They are planning a project to create a party similar to the Communist Party of Soviet Union during Soviet times. It will be a leading party called 'Donetsk Republic'.

I am personally against this project. Because we will repeat the same mistakes and repeat the sad experience and therefore the unfortunate destiny of the late Soviet epoch and the fairly recent experience that we had here of one party [Party of Regions] monopoly and domination.

The intellectual level is not sufficient. There are not enough experts and professionals. A lot of former activists of the Party of Regions are already in Donetsk Republic taking leading or secondary positions.

I would, instead, like to see a truly democratic system, so that initiatives would come from the bottom, from territorial communities and even from working collectives. There should be political representation of all basic social groups of the population-from businessmen to farmers and workers. Otherwise, we will once again have a monopolist party which will control the main trade unions and professional associations-where all people will be administratively 'invited' to be members-and it will be in charge of youth movements. There will be a vertical range of power but not a horizontal one.

To follow the Chinese path [of one party rule], we need to be Chinese. The whole world divides into the Chinese and the rest. No, we are not trying to adapt the Chinese system. We need a democracy which, according to the before-revolution experience, will have horizontal lines of power and representation of territorial communes as well as vertical power representing those of the political right, left and centre.

State intervention in the economy

At the beginning of the events I have mentioned, socialist and semi-socialist ideas were very strong. But as of now, I believe that a mixed economy will be developed because that's the only option. Private property and private business within certain borders are essential in the modern world.

We managed to achieve military success. Not victory, but certain success. We have resisted. We all understand that it would not be possible without Russia's help. But Putin's politics, I mean politics by Putin personally, turned out to be so unique, exclusive and subtle that Russia is not a direct participant of the conflict. And at the same time, it provides us with protection. We are under Russia's protection. This is a very interesting fact for future historians.

Donbas as part of Ukraine?

In conclusion, I would like to say and emphasize, and maybe you can pass this on to your readers, that almost 24 years ago, Moscow, as the capital of the Soviet Empire, let Ukraine go and obtain its sovereignty: That was done without a single drop of blood spilled.

Therefore, Ukraine, the Ukrainian people, should treat Donbas as they were treated 24 years ago. They should act peacefully. If Donbas wants to live without Ukraine, either as part of Russia or with its own sovereignty, let it be. There is no point in trying to forcefully keep us as part of Ukraine.

Since Kyiv has not done this, which should have been done in the spring or beginning of summer one year ago, now we are objectively interested in the disintegration of Ukraine and a construction of Novorossiya on part of its former territories...

I, personally, was dissatisfied with the whole 23 years of our existence within Ukraine. I didn't conduct any kind of subversive activities, didn't form any subversive organizations, but I always believed that we would not stay as part of Ukraine for long.

Overall, the territory of current Ukraine-more precisely, Ukraine before Euromaidan-is a result of totalitarianism, of Bolshevik, communist, totalitarian policy. They are destroying monuments of Lenin, but he created Ukraine in its modern borders. One hundred years ago, Lenin said that Donbas should forget about being Russian. There is documented evidence of this, But the events we discussed before simply confirm that even after 100 years, Donbas hasn't forgotten that it's Russian.

This is not about ethnic purity or belonging, it is about historical truth. Donbas appeared as an historical product of the politics of Russia, as its economic, geopolitical and geographic product. Now Donbas is going through a difficult process of returning back to Russia, of that I am sure.

Notes:
[1] The National University of Donetsk formerly had around 16 000 students. Today, there are some 8,000. The largest decline of enrolment was in the departments of the humanities.

[2] Read more about the Parliament of Novorossiya in an April 2015 interview with one of its deputies, Aleksander Kolesnik.

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#24
The International Institute for Strategic Studies
www.iiss.org
June 29, 2015
The perilous Line of Contact in southeastern Ukraine
By John Drennan, Research Assistant and Programme Officer, Russia and Eurasia Programme

Clashes between the Ukrainian government and Russia-backed separatists have occurred regularly along the Line of Contact (LoC) in southeastern Ukraine since the February ceasefire agreement was signed in Minsk. Both sides seemingly lack the will to fully implement the agreement, so the conflict looks likely to remain unresolved for the foreseeable future.

The Line of Contact (LoC) in southeastern Ukraine - a jagged semicircle bounded by the Russian border to the east and wrapping well north of Luhansk city, northwest of Horlivka and Donetsk city and ending west of Novoazovsk on the Sea of Azov - is ossifying into a treacherous, unstable administrative boundary line. Low-intensity clashes have occurred regularly between the Ukrainian government and Russia-backed separatists from the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DNR and LNR, respectively) since the February ceasefire agreement was signed in Minsk, occasionally escalating into larger confrontations. Both sides have exploited the relative decline in violence since 'Minsk II' was signed to reinforce their positions. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government has enacted a series of increasingly strict provisions that limit access to and from separatist-held territory, a move intended to isolate it from the rest of the country.

A major flaw in the February Minsk agreement was the lack of an officially delineated armistice line; the parties merely agreed to a line from which to withdraw heavy weaponry. The lack of an armistice line has provided ample opportunity for both sides to contest strategically significant points along the LoC. The battle for Debaltseve, a transportation hub between Donetsk and Luhansk cities, was the clearest example of problems arising from the lack of an armistice line. The town changed hands several times in 2014, but in January 2015 the separatists enacted a campaign to retake it permanently. The fighting paused as the presidents of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany met in Minsk on 12 February to negotiate a ceasefire. Disputes over control of the town reportedly consumed many hours of negotiations. However, the issue was left unresolved at the end of the talks, and fighting subsequently intensified. The main highway into Debaltseve from government-controlled territory became virtually impassable, destroyed by artillery fire and heavily mined. By 17 February separatist forces had fought their way into the town. Ukrainian government forces began withdrawing the next day, suffering heavy losses during a haphazard retreat.

Several areas remained fiercely contested after the Minsk II agreement was signed. The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) reported heavy fighting and shelling near Donetsk airport and Shyrokyne (a village 20km east of Mariupol, a major port city). Monitors noted large troop movements throughout the region and an increase in the construction of defensive fortifications along the LoC. Throughout early 2015, the OSCE SMM reported a gradual increase in the tempo of fighting in separatist-held territory, particularly in Donetsk region. On 26 April OSCE monitors noted intense fighting around Shyrokyne, while observing large troop movements near the town. On 3 June, renewed fighting broke out near Mariinka, a town approximately 25km southwest of Donetsk city centre, which threatened to derail the fragile ceasefire once again. The town sits on a strategic highway near checkpoints along the LoC. After witnessing tank and heavy weaponry movements in the area, the OSCE SMM reported the use of artillery and Grad multiple-launch rocket systems by both sides. However, intense clashes lasted only throughout the day, dying down by the evening.

As fighting has ebbed and flowed along the LoC, the Ukrainian government has attempted to sever the region from the rest of the country. In response to the separatists' leadership elections in Donetsk and Luhansk on 2 November 2014, which Kyiv deemed illegal, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko issued a decree calling for the closure of state-run institutions and an end to social benefit payments in separatist-controlled areas. As a result, the region has lost most of its access to the country's energy grid. On 21 January 2015, an order issued by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) came into force, requiring those who wished to travel to and from separatist-held territory to obtain a permit and transit through one of seven government-controlled checkpoints. Restrictions on obtaining permits were onerous and the process was subject to long delays. Furthermore, the OSCE SMM reported that the locations accepting permit applications were 'within areas of active hostilities and [could] only be reached through roads prone to shelling and crossfire'. The SBU amended the order on 16 June, stipulating that goods - apart from humanitarian aid - could only be shipped to the region by rail, while softening the travel provision to allow people who experienced 'threats to life or health' to travel without a permit.

Despite agreeing to a ceasefire and political settlement at Minsk, neither side has demonstrated the political will to fully implement the document's provisions. As things stand, on one hand the Ukrainian military is ill-equipped and poorly trained. The national economy is in tatters, making it increasingly difficult to fund war efforts. On the other hand, separatist forces cannot hope to capture additional territory without serious Russian backing. The Russian military has intervened before to buoy the separatists, but it has not done so in support of any far-reaching expansionist goals. As a result, an uneasy status quo has emerged - one where both sides lack the will or confidence to implement the provisions of the Minsk agreement, but neither side is willing to back down - setting the stage for a showdown by the 31 December Minsk II implementation deadline. Without implementation of that document, the most likely scenario is a slow-burning conflict that will remain unresolved for the foreseeable future.

This post originally appeared in ACD News.

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 #25
Sputnik
July 2, 2015
CyberBerkut: Volunteer Battalions 'Out of Control' in Eastern Ukraine
[Documents here http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150702/1024127420.html]

On Tuesday, Ukrainian hacker collective CyberBerkut published excerpts from a report by Ukraine's Southern Region Military Prosecutor Pavel Bogutsky, detailing the criminal activity of Kiev-allied volunteer battalions in eastern Ukraine, as well as that of units of the Armed Forces and the Security Service.

"We have obtained official documents confirming that the so-called volunteer battalions are completely outside Kiev's control," CyberBerkut notes in its introduction to the documents. "Factually, they have turned into organized crime groups, robbing and killing their own people. In the course of their punitive operations, they have become so accustomed to impunity and all-permissiveness that they feel themselves to be above the law and outside [any] moral code," the hackers add.

The fighting groups in question include Aidar, Donbass, Chernihiv, Luhansk-1, Kiev-12 and volunteer battalions, most of them under the formal command of Ukraine's National Guard. Bogutsky's report, running 80 pages, shows that over the past months, the battalions in the area of the Lugansk Region under Ukrainian control have committed over 200 crimes, ranging from armed assault, to robbery, to kidnapping and murder.

Bogutsky's report on criminal activities entered into the Single Registry for Pre-Trial Investigation, documenting illegal actions by territorial defense battalions and other military units involved in the Anti-Terrorist Operation in the Lugansk Region, and listing the number of crimes committed by each group.

Bogutsky's report on "criminal activities entered into the Single Registry for Pre-Trial Investigation," documenting "illegal actions by territorial defense battalions and other military units involved in the Anti-Terrorist Operation in the Lugansk Region," and listing the number of crimes committed by each group.

The uncovered report also notes that some battalions ignore the orders of National Guard commanders. CyberBerkut comments that "in his report, deputy Chief of the Eastern Operational-Territorial Associations of the National Guard for Work With Personnel V.P. Pylypenko reports that the command of the Azov battalion does not comply with, and sometimes deliberately ignores the orders of the leadership of the National Guard."

The documents uncovered by CyberBerkut also show that personnel from the Ukrainian Security Service is also "actively engaged in criminal activity. Whether by their own initiative of under secret instructions, they kidnap people viewed as objectionable to the regime [in Kiev]. Relevant appeals by citizens have been made to Deputy Southern Region Military Prosecutor K. Ignatov," the hacker group notes, citing a document by Ignatov asking to check on the SBU's activities in the Dnipropetrovsk Region.

Hacktivists from CyberBerkut leaked information claiming that the United States helped Ukraine to come up with a new radio station designed to turn the residents of the self-proclaimed Donbass republics pro-Kiev. The project was also supposed to spread panic and separatist ideas within Russia.

Finally, Bogutsky's report also documents cases of armed clashes between the volunteer formations and units of the National Guard, with one document showing a National Guard commander asking that his troops be awarded medals for their detention of Aidar Battalion militants.

CyberBerkut is a group of hackers opposed to the post-Maidan government in Kiev. Since the start of the conflict in Ukraine in late 2013, the group has released a series of high-profile hacks. It has previously reported on the details of US plans to send arms to Ukraine, released information revealing the high casualty figures among the Ukrainian Army, information about snipers on Maidan Square, and Victoria Nuland's famous "F**k the EU!" exchange with US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt.

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 #26
Kiev forces violate ceasefire regime in DPR 46 times over last 24 hours

MOSCOW, July 2. /TASS/. The Ukrainian forces have violated the ceasefire regime 46 times over the last 24 hours, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) defense ministry said on Thursday.

"The intensity of shellings by the Ukrainian side constituted 46 violations of ceasefire regime over the last 24 hours," the Donetsk News Agency quoted the DPR defense ministry as saying.

The Kiev forces used multiple rocket launchers, artillery, tanks, anti-aircraft guns and small arms, the defense ministry said. Among the settlements that came under fire were Belaya Kamenka, Gorlovka, Novolaspa, Shirokino, Sakhanka, Lozovoye, Sanzharovka and Spartak. In Donetsk, the Oktyabrsky settlement, airport, Kievsky and Kuybyshevsky districts were shelled.

Minsk agreements on Ukraine

The Minsk accords on the Ukrainian settlement were signed on February 12, after negotiations in the so-called "Normandy format" in the Belarusian capital Minsk, bringing together Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The talks lasted for around 14 hours. Simultaneously, a meeting of the Contact Group on Ukrainian settlement was held in Minsk.

The Minsk agreements envisage ceasefire, heavy weaponry withdrawal, prisoner exchange, local elections in Donbas, constitutional reform in Ukraine and establishing working sub-groups on security, political, economy and humanitarian components of the Minsk accords.

The Ukrainian forces and the self-defense forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk republics have repeatedly accused each other of violating ceasefire and other points of the Minsk agreements.

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 #27
AFP
July 1, 2015
Ukraine leader lays out vision of new war-time constitution

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Wednesday proposed constitutional changes giving sweeping powers to the regions but critically failing to address demands of pro-Russian militants in the separatist east.

Poroshenko's new vision of the ex-Soviet state's basic law trims presidential controls over the provinces and extends to local towns and councils the right to oversee how their tax revenues are spent.

But it also refuses to add to the constitution the semi-autonomous status demanded by insurgency leaders who control an industrial edge of Ukraine that is home to 3.5 million people and accounts for a tenth of its economic output.

"The president is not ready to inscribe (the separatist regions') separatist status in the basic law," said International Centre for Policy Studies' analyst Anatoliy Oktysyuk.

"This carries huge political risks for the authorities. It is an unpopular decision that would open the entire presidential coalition in parliament to criticism."

The westward-leading leader -- elected in the wake of the February 2014 ouster of Russian-backed president Viktor Yanukovych -- said the amendments would decentralise power but never turn Ukraine into a loose federation that Moscow has sought.

"Decentralisation would bring our political system closer to that of Europe," Poroshenko said in a nationally televised address.

He argued the changes -- still to be approved by parliament -- would hand locally-elected administration leaders and councils "a vast amount of rights and financial resources that today are overseen by the president and the government."

"Decentralisation safeguards us from authoritarianism and dictatorship," said the 49-year-old former business baron.

"Decentralisation will be our civilised distinction from our neighbours in the Soviet camp," he added in apparent reference to Russia and Belarus.
Rebel-controlled parts of the mostly Russian-speaking Lugansk and Donetsk regions would like to see their semi-autonomous status spelled out in clearly-defined constitutional amendments that would be enormously difficult to overturn.

But Poroshenko's draft only makes reference to an existing piece of legislation that gives insurgency leaders partial self-rule for an interim period of three years.

The separatists fear that the law could be revoked or suspended by Ukraine's strongly pro-European parliament.

'Shooting from all sides'

"None of these changes were agreed with us in advance," separatist leader Andrei Purgin told Russian news agencies.

Kiev's Western allies have long pushed Poroshenko to loosen the central authorities' dominant role in Ukrainians' lives.

Washington believes regional rights would make politics more transparent and help break the corrupt bonds forged in the past two decades between decision-makers and tycoons.

But Moscow has argued that only a "federalised" Ukraine in which regions form their own diplomatic and trade relations with other nations can finally end a bloody revolt that has claimed more than 6,500 lives in 15 months.

Poroshenko has expressed concern that such rights could see the two main separatist regions block Kiev's attempts to join the European Union and apply for eventual NATO membership.

Militias in control of swathes of the war zone -- now strewn with landmines and the smouldering remains of coal mines and steel mills -- have cut ties with Kiev and receive humanitarian and diplomatic support from Moscow.

They and the Kremlin both fiercely deny the presence of Russians soldiers and arms on their lands.

But insurgency commanders still stage periodic attacks aimed at expanding their holdings far past the heavily fortified frontline.

An AFP team in the frontline city of Gorlivka -- home to nearly 300,000 people who depended on the local coal mine before the war -- heard intense overnight shelling that forced the remaining residents to seek shelter in basements for the second consecutive week.

"We do not know who is doing the shooting. It comes from all sides", said a 49-year-old resident who identified herself only as Alla out of security concerns.

If the rebels "decide to continue attacking, we will have a lot of victims. We need a peaceful solution", she said.

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#28
Local elections in DPR to take place on October 18 in line with Minsk accords - Zakharchenko

DONETSK. July 2 (Interfax) - Leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic Alexander Zakharchenko has ordered that local elections across the DPR be held on October 18, 2015 in accordance with the Minsk agreements.

Zakharchenko's relevant statement was circulated by the Donetsk news agency on Thursday.

"In today's situation, which emerged through Kyiv's fault, the Donetsk People's Republic has to independently start to implement the Minsk agreements in order to rescue them. We will begin acting immediately, without waiting for Kyiv to come to its senses and return to real, not fake, talks, because any further procrastination and delays will benefit only the Ukrainian party of war," the DPR leader said.

"First, the DPR, in compliance with Points 4 and 11 of the Set of Measures, declares that in line with the republic's constitution and laws in so far as they are not at variance with them, a special self-rule regime is in force in its [DPR] territory, certain conditions of which are mentioned in Ukraine's law On Special Status of Donbas ('On special local self-rule regulations...'), in Point 11 of the Set of Measures, as well as in the draft amendments to Ukraine's constitution proposed by us," Zakharchenko said in his statement.

"Second, in compliance with Points 4 and 12 of the Minsk Set of Measures, I set local elections over the whole of the DPR for October 18 of this year. As required by Points 4 and 12 of the Set of Measures, the elections will take place 'on the basis of Ukraine's Law on temporary self-rule status of individual districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions' in so far as they are not at variance with the constitution and laws of the DPR," he said.

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 #29
Kiev needs reading again text of Minsk Accords - Putin's spokesman

MOSCOW, July 2. /TASS/. Moscow calls on the Kiev authorities to carefully re-read the text of the Minsk Accords as of February 12 on the settlement of the ongoing Ukrainian conflict, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

"Moscow as a guarantor of the Minsk Accords has repeatedly expressed its concern at different levels regarding Kiev's failure to implement these agreements," Peskov told a news conference.

President Vladimir Putin's spokesman added that "there is no need in any interpretations whatsoever, but there is an urgent need to re-read what have been signed, in particular the text of the Minsk agreements."

"It would lead to the conclusion that Kiev, unfortunately, is not implementing them," Peskov said.

Speaking about the recently approved Ukrainian constitutional amendments of the decentralization of power in the country, Peskov said "there were still no contacts at all between Kiev and representatives of Donbas."

"No doubt that approval of such bills without the consideration of the Donbas representatives' opinion can be hardly staying in line with the implementation of the Minsk Accords," he said.

Under point 11 of the package of measures on implementing the Minsk agreements, the reform that includes the entry into force of a new constitution should be carried out by late 2015.

A constitutional commission approved a basic text of amendments to Ukraine's key law on decentralization on June 26. Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko said that "the Donbas representatives participated in devising these amendments."

However, the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics, which comprise Donbas area in the southeast of the country, later said their representatives were not delegated to participate in the work of Kiev's constitutional commission.

Minsk accords on Ukraine

The Belarusian capital of Minsk hosted on February 12 summit talks of Normandy Four leaders - Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The over 16-hour marathon summit negotiations ended in a package of agreements, which in particular envisaged ceasefire between the Ukrainian conflicting sides starting from midnight on February 15.

Prior to the summit talks Minsk also hosted the meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine involving Ukraine's ex-president Leonid Kuchma, Kiev's special representative for humanitarian issues Viktor Medvedchuk, the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky, and Russia's ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov and OSCE's envoy Heidi Tagliavini, who both acted as mediators.

As a result of the meeting, it was announced that an agreement was reached on the ceasefire in certain districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the heavy weaponry pullout and measures on a long-term political settlement of the crisis.

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 #30
Kyiv Post
July 2, 2015
Yatsenyuk's party drops in polls as scandals swirl around prime minister
By Veronika Melkozerova

The polls show that Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk is headed to President Viktor Yushchenko-land in terms of nosediving popular support.

Yushchenko, of course, went from popularly elected Orange Revolution hero on Dec.16, 2014 to the political dustbin in the 2010 presidential election, getting just 5.5 percent of the vote in the first round. Yushchenko's Our Ukraine Parliament faction also disintegrated, failing to enough votes in the 2012 election.

While the public doesn't elect the prime minister, strong Parliament support is crucial to securing and keeping the post.

And Narodny Front, the party headed by Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, has suffered a massive fall in public support, according to a recent nationwide poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

The poll, which was published on June 11, indicates that the party's rating has plummeted from 22 percent last October after the parliamentary elections to only 1.6 percent last month.

Narodny (People's) Front commands 81 seats in the 422-seat parliament as part of the ruling coalition with President Petro Poroshenko's bloc and Samopomich Party, among other lawmakers.

Yatsenyuk has a 24 percent public approval rating, polling firm Research & Branding found in March. Last year his popularitystood at 36 percent.

"In Ukraine (responsibility for) the authorities' performance is often placed on the shoulders of one person in the popular consciousness,"said Volodymyr Fesenko of the Penta Center for Political Studies.

Yatsenyuk's supporters would say that he is losing support because he is making the unpopular, but necessary, economic reforms to rid the nation of its post-Soviet legacy of crony capitalism and corruption. His critics would say the opposite - that the prime minister is not undertaking the radical transformations necessary for Ukraine to emerge as a democratic, free-market nation.

Political scandals are also damaging the prime minister's reputation, according to Fesenko, especially public ones.

One notable incident involved the dismissal of Mykola Gordienko as head of the State Financial Inspection in April after he accused Yatsenyuk's government of corruption totaling more than Hr 7.6 billion.

And Yatsenyuk has also made powerful enemies.

The prime minister has threatened to reclaim property belonging to oligarch and media mogul Dmytro Firtash, alleging the oligarch's firms owe Hr 6 billion in debts to state-owned energy monopoly Naftogaz.

Firtash denies the claims, saying that, in fact, it is the state that owes him money. A statement from Firtash's Group DF said: "Arseniy Yatsenyuk has made a statement about the possible government expropriation of two Ostchem (Firtash's chemicals business)companies. We believe this is provocative and designed to manipulate public opinion with an intention to redraw the market of mineral fertilizers."

Narodny Front lawmakers then said that Russia's state-owned First Channel has bought a 29 percent share of Firtash's Inter TV channel. A spokesperson for Inter TV, who refused to give his name, said this had been a necessary step to protect Firtash's assets from "political persecution."

"The government wants to find a scapegoat for its failures," Firtash said on Inter. "First, they blamed the war, and this was a very convenient excuse. When they saw that this strategy was no longer working, they started to fight against the so-called oligarchs."

Yatsenyuk has also struck out against his political opponents, claiming that many are putting their personal popularity ahead of the national interest, according to a news conference he gave in Kyiv on June 22 following an official visit to the United States.

Most likely, Yatsenyuk's party will take part in upcoming local elections scheduled for October in political tandem with President Petro Poroshenko's bloc, according to political analyst Taras Berezovets.

But the Penta Center's Fesenko disagrees, saying that Poroshenko would need to think carefully about allying himself with the unpopular prime minister.

More recently, Yatsenyuk came into conflict with Ecology Minister Igor Shevchenko, fired by Parliament on July 2, after accusing the prime minister of blocking economic reforms and running the government in a closed and controlling manner.

Yatsenyuk's aim, Shevchenko said, is to install the prime minister's loyalists in positions of power to advance their business interests. The prime minister's press people did not respond to multiple inquiries seeking Yatsenyuk's side of the story in his dispute with Shevchenko.

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 #31
Interfax-Ukraine
July 2, 2015
To resign now would be betrayal of Ukraine and cowardice - Yatseniuk
 
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk has said that if he resigned in the current situation it would be a betrayal of the country.

"In the current situation, resignation would be a betrayal of the country and a display of weakness and lack of willpower. We have to fight to the last," Yatseniuk said in an interview with the Novoye Vremia weekly.

The interview was published in the print version of the magazine on June 26, 2015 and was posted on the publication's website on Thursday, July 2.

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 #32
Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
July 1, 2015
Nalivaichenko Naming Names
By Olga Talova
Translated from Russian by J.Hawk
[http://antifashist.com/item/eks-glava-sbu-nalivajchenko-nachal-sdavat-podelnikov.html]

The dismissed SBU head Nalivaichenko started giving up his accomplices. The former press service director clearly understands that the Prosecutor General could "hang" all the junta's crimes, starting from the Maidan shootings and ending with the Odessa burnings. Therefore Nalivaichenko started to deliver suitcases of incriminating evidence. One of the first published dossier concerned his predecessor Aleksandr Turchinov who currently heads the SNBO.

Nalivaichenko leveled pretty heavy accusations against Turchinov. He claims he had to restore documents destroyed on Turchinov's orders. They included information on Semyon Mogilevich, destroyed in 2005 when Turchinov headed the SBU.

"In late May 2006, President Yushchenko transferred me to the SBU and ordered me to clarify the situation around Mogilevich, including his connections to Ukrainian politicians and businessmen. I can confirm that all the documents pertaining to the diversion of billions of hryvnya from the budget into shady operations ran by organized criminals, for which Mogilevich was responsible, were destroyed in 2005," Nalivaichenko said.

When asked a follow-up question by a Glavred journalist whether it happened during Turchinov's tenure, he answered affirmatively. Nalivaichenko also said he was able to restore 70% of the dossier.

"Until the end of 2008, I was responsible for cooperation between SBU and various foreign special services, which made it possible for us to restore 70% of the documents concerning the Mogilevich case," said Nalivaichenko. He also announced that he personally ordered to arrest Mogilevich in case he tried to leave Ukraine. "Our foreign partners were also prepared to do so. We understood that the key element in his arrest would be ascertaining additional information pertaining to criminal activity in the gas industry in which Ukrainian officials participated. He was a very valuable source of information. I am sure they understood it in Russia, where Mogilevich was ultimately arrested." "Moreover, in the process of restoring the case we were able to prevent the government from establishing a gas intermediary in Switzerland that would be under his control."Nalivaichenko noted.

The April 2006 US ambassador report concerning his meeting with the Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko, published by Wikileaks and the Russkiy Reporter web site, states that Lutsenko was tasked by the Prosecutor General office to arrest the closest associates of Yuliya Timoshenko--Turchinov and Kozhemyakin--as part of the investigation of the "Mogilevich case" destruction by the SBU.

Lutsenko ignored these recommendations since "he worked for Yuliya." Nalivaichenko's current revelations directly affect Turchinov as well as Lutsenko, the leader of the presidential Rada faction who provided cover for corruption. This is a very untimely set of revelations on the eve of another elections, but it's clear that Nalivaichenko still has a lot to share with the patriotic public.

J.Hawk's Comment: The more of this stuff is coming out, the less likely it seems Poroshenko is behind the whole thing. Indeed, the only real beneficiaries are the likes of Lyashko, Semenchenko, Tyagnibok (currently out of the Rada, but that's what the next elections are for, right?), and other extreme parties who can quite correctly point out they had nothing to do with any of it! Poroshenko appears to be going along with it, though. Is it fear? Or simple opportunism?

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#33
Sputnik
July 1, 2015
The Hand That Feeds: Kiev Now Unable to Survive Without Extremist Support

The further existence of the Kiev regime depends on its willingness to yield to the demands of radicals from extremist groups, according to the French magazine Nations Presse.

French journalist Jacques Frere has argued in an article published by the Nations Presse magazine that the future of the ruling regime in Ukraine hinges on whether it will yield to extremism.

"The Kiev regime will inevitably collapse if it does not obey the demands by extremists from the Right Sector group and neo-Nazis who joined from the Azov volunteer battalion and similar organizations," Frere said.

According to him, the radicals very unambiguously delivered an ultimatum to the Ukrainian authorities prior to a planned demonstration organized by Right Sector on July 3.

Earlier, the group posted an appeal to the Kiev authorities on its official website, demanding, in particular, that President Petro Poroshenko's regime abandons the Minsk ceasefire agreements and resumes offensive operations in eastern Ukraine.

Right Sector, which was originally strung together from an array of radical nationalist founding organizations, is now a far-right Ukrainian political party that originated as a paramilitary group during anti-government protests on Kiev's Maidan Square in November 2013.

Between January and April 2014, Right Sector members were involved in clashes with police and the seizure of administrative buildings, as well as the suppression of protests in eastern Ukraine.

In November 2014, Russia's Supreme Court dubbed Right Sector an extremist organization and banned its activities on Russian territory. Earlier, a criminal case was opened against Right Sector leader Dmitry Yarosh over incitement of terrorism.
 

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#34
The Daily Mail (UK)
June 30, 2015
Ukraine cages its soldiers to stop them getting drunk: Alcohol problem is so bad army has to put troops in an open air drunk-tank
Video footage shows Ukranian soldiers crammed into small metal cages
The men are shoved into the enclosures as punishment for getting drunk
Alcoholism in some army units has been been described as an epidemic
By JENNY STANTON
[Video here http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3144833/Ukrainian-troops-locked-metal-cages-punishment-drunk.html]

Tanked-up Ukranian troops are crammed into small metal cages as a punishment for getting drunk.

Video footage of the soldiers being shoved into the cages to sober up in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine has been published online.

The men are forced to sit on the floor of the metal enclosure as it is not high enough for them to stand. The scene is described by an onlooker as a 'f***ing embarrassment'.

The disgraced men are only released when they have sobered up and are then forced to go on a course before being handed back their weapons.

They are questioned about their discipline and run the risk of being thrown out of the army.

The extraordinary video was shot from inside a car, and a man, believed to be another soldier, is heard saying: 'This is an f***ing embarrassment.'

War reporter Andrei Tsaplienki explained the reason these soldiers were punished so harshly.

'In some army units, alcoholism has come to the level of an epidemic,' he said. 'So, radical measures are needed.

'To some of them, if they keep breaking discipline, the army would be ready to inform their wives about it. That is a shame many want to avoid.'

Ukrainian officials are said to be worried about soldiers being on duty while under the influence of alcohol and recently 150 litres of vodka were seized from barracks.

Some of it was homemade, having come from illegal distilleries in war-torn Peski village.

An army source said: 'Drinking in the army is a big problem, even greater now there is a ceasefire.

'There is nothing for the men to do so they drink vodka.

'They are all used to drink in their civilian lives and they are just carrying the habit on, but even more so because they are bored.'

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 #35
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
July 2, 2015
Ukraine cancels gas supplies from Russia in pricing row
bne IntelliNews

Ukraine suspended Russian natural gas purchases on July 1, citing its inability to secure from Gazprom a heavily discounted price for the third quarter of the year. Henceforth, the country's state-owned monopoly Naftogaz will rely on supplies from the European Union, and claims that volumes bought from EU neighbours will suffice for the coming winter.

In a June 30 statement, Naftogaz announced the suspension of gas purchases following the expiration of the second quarter package of terms set in April due to the "absence of agreed supply conditions for the upcoming periods". This followed EU-Russia-Ukraine negotiations held in Vienna earlier that day. Transit supplies to Europe are unaffected by the move by Gazprom, which has said it will bypass Ukraine entirely by 2020 in its EU supply operations.

Gazprom offered a gas price package of $247 per 1,000 cubic metres, which represented a $40 discount on the contractual price. However, Kyiv was not satisfied with that proposal, insisting on the extension of the $100 discount it had received from the second quarter of this year, Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn said.

According to the Kyiv-based Concorde Capital, that discount had appeared from a reduction by Russia in the export duty to 16% or $46 per 1,000 cubic metres from 30% or $86 per 1,000 cubic metres.

'Political reasons'

"The Russian government's intention to charge $46 in duties per 1,000 cubic metres of gas supplied to Ukraine is hard to accept for the Ukrainian government for political reasons," Alexander Paraschiy at Concorde Capital said in a note to clients. "The idea of Ukrainian gas consumers directly financing the aggressor state's budget looks to be a provocation."

The previous gas package envisaged a down payment for Russian gas, and Gazprom's reaction to Kyiv's decision to suspend purchases was quite moderate. "Gazprom will not supply gas to Ukraine at any price if there is no prepayment," the company's CEO Alexei Miller said in a statement published on July 1.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak described the suspension of Russian gas purchases as "political decisions because there are no economic reasons behind them", the Russian state news agency Sputnik  reported.

"Naftogaz is ready to renew gas purchases from Gazprom after a comprehensive temporary agreement has been reached between the parties," the Ukrainian company added in a statement, pointing out that such an agreement should cover all unresolved issues related to the disputed gas supply contract "at least until 31 March 2016".

What's next?

Despite Kyiv's move to halt gas purchases, Russian gas transit via Ukraine to the EU has been unaffected for now. "Starting today, Ukraine does not receive gas from Russia. Transit supplies are as normal," Ukrtransgaz spokesman Maksim Belyavsky said, as quoted by Reuters.

Previously, Naftogaz assured in its statement that the delivery of Russian gas via Ukraine to Gazprom's clients in the EU and Turkey "will continue in full in accordance with the existing transit contract." The Russian gas company accounts for a third of Europe's gas needs and around half of these volumes is pumped via Ukraine.

At the moment, Ukraine's gas inflows are limited only by supplies from Slovakia. "Gas is not being supplied via other routes for the needs of Ukrainian consumers," Belyavsky told Interfax news agency on July 1.

According to Ukrtransgaz's statistics, the reverse gas import from Europe increased 10.5-fold y/y to 6.3bn cubic metres in January-June. The largest gas volumes, 716mn cubic metres, were imported from Slovakia. At the same time, Ukraine reduced natural gas imports from Russia by 73.4% y/y to 3.7bn cubic metres in the first half of the year.

In its efforts to replace its dependency on direct Russian gas supplies, Ukraine has been importing reverse gas volumes from Slovakia, Hungary and Poland.

Alexander Kornilov, a Moscow-based analyst at Alfa Bank, believes Kyiv will continue to follow this strategy, with more reverse gas purchases from neighbouring countries, rather than directly buying from Russia. "Even if Naftogaz stops buying gas from Gazprom this summer, Gazprom will not be affected, as it will simply ship the extra gas Eastern Europe would need for reverse flows to Ukraine," Kornilov said in a note to clients.

Meanwhile, Concorde's Paraschiy underlined that Ukraine and Russia expressed their intention to come back to their talks in late August. Accordingly, "we will see a repetition of the last year's saga, when an interim gas deal between Ukraine and Russia was signed in late October", he forecast.

"Ukraine does not need much Russian gas in the summer, meaning that the trilateral gas talks will likely remain muted until autumn, at which time we believe they will intensify as the heating season approaches, and European customers start to worry about the reliability of Russian gas supplied through Ukraine," agreed Alfa Bank's Kornilov.

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 #36
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
July 1, 2015
Press digest: Ukraine and EU work on building ties
RBTH presents a selection of views from leading Russian media on international events, featuring reports on the situation concerning Ukraine's gas supply, the visit of the President of the European Parliament to Kiev and continued challenges in talks concerning Iran's nuclear program.
Darya Lyubinskaya, RBTH

1. Ukraine's contract for Russian gas expires

Expert business magazine reports that the deadline for the additional agreement between Naftogaz Ukraine and Russia's Gazprom expired on June 30, 2015. However, the conditions for future supplies of Russian gas to Ukraine were not agreed on, which is why Naftogaz is halted its purchases of gas from the Russian company beginning on July 1, 2015.

In order to avoid an undesirable escalation in the gas dispute and prevent the risk of interruptions of gas supplies to European consumers in the winter, the Ukrainian and European sides proposed to agree on a temporary solution.

According to Naftogaz, Russia has still not approved the proposal and has not agreed to sign the trilateral government protocol. The company hopes that with the European Commission's help the sides will soon come to an agreement on acceptable terms for supplying Russian gas to Ukraine. The issue of the final calculations between Naftogaz and Gazprom will be resolved during the trial concerning the supply contract between Naftogaz and Gazprom at the Arbitration Court in Stockholm.  

Meanwhile, the transportation of gas on Ukrainian territory for Gazprom's European clients will continue in full accordance with contractual conditions.

"Ukraine's decision is a direct result of the fact that the sides did not agree," said independent analyst Dmitri Adamidov. As history shows he suggests, all Russian-Ukrainian gas contracts are made according to the same scenario: the sides do not intend to agree until the last moment, but after all deadlines expire they reach a compromise. "I think it will be the same now," adds Adamidov. "Now Ukrainian transit is primarily an EU problem, which is why Russia will not be particularly active in resolving it."
 
2. The EU intends to send a reform controller to Kiev

The centrist newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports that Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, is travelling to Kiev on Friday July 3. Citing Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, the newspaper writes that the visit will be dedicated to the first anniversary of the signing of the association agreement between Ukraine and the EU. As is expected, Schulz will sign the cooperation agreement between the European Parliament and the Ukrainian Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada.

The newspaper recalls that a year ago the sides stipulated that the political part of the agreement, which proposed that Ukraine carry out radical reforms, would begin immediately. The implementation of the economic part of the agreement, however, which proposed to create a free trade zone between Ukraine and the EU, was postponed until January 1, 2016.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta adds that last week several European parliamentarians asked the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini to establish the position of a plenipotentiary for communications with Ukraine. This meant the creation of a new office in Kiev that would coordinate the process of convergence between Ukraine and the EU.

The newspaper remarks that residents of Ukraine reproach the EU for not having enough control over the expenditures and the implementation of the reforms, as well as for the fact that EU leaders have a compromised position on issues related to Donbass. The postponement of the introduction of the visa-free regime also engenders much frustration in Ukraine.

Director of the International Democracy Institute Sergei Taran explained that despite the criticism, Ukrainians are not disillusioned with European integration. At the same time, experts say that delays with the reforms and the preservation of corruption schemes may lead to demonstrations against the Ukrainian government and increase the number of people who are skeptical of integration with Europe.
 
3. Talks on Iran's nuclear program continue

The business daily Kommersant is following the talks on Iran's nuclear program. The June 30 deadline, by which time the six international mediators and Tehran were supposed to sign an agreement, was not met. The sides decided to extend the talks by another week.

Some Russian experts are convinced that the untying of the "Iranian knot" does not promise anything good for Moscow, since after the lifting of international sanctions Iran would practically become Russia's main competitor in the energy markets and would likely start moving closer to western countries in an active manner. However, in Vienna Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov explained that Russia is interested in the talks' success no less than the other members of "the group of six."

One of Kommersant's sources close to the Russian delegation said that the probability of concluding the deal is at 99 percent. In his words, both Washington and Tehran "need the deal very much." Yet, another diplomatic source close to the negotiation process said that we "should not hurry with predictions."

"Prospects are still vague concerning some points in the deal," the source said. "The agreement will probably be signed, however, for resolving the remaining issues a full-fledged round of talks will be necessary between the ministers."

Moreover, even if it is possible to resolve all the issues and the agreement is finally signed, there will be many obstacles on the way to its implementation. These include the skepticism of defense "hawks" in the U.S. Congress and the Iranian political establishment, as well as opposition from Israel and Saudi Arabia, Kommersant concludes.

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 #37
Wall Street Journal
July 2, 2015
Ukraine Looks to Privatization to Counter Budget Woes
Government searches for buyers for moribund state enterprises, such as an old silk farm in Shovkove
By LAURA MILLS

SHOVKOVE, Ukraine-In his 50 years at the state farm here, Volodymyr Polutskiy says his work has dwindled from producing silk for Red Army parachutes to eking out a living chopping wood and growing wheat.

Now, Ukraine's government is trying to sell this farm and hundreds of other state-owned enterprises, hoping that private investment and management will revive the mostly unprofitable businesses and bring funds to its recession-hit budget.

The privatization drive is central to efforts by the country's pro-Western government to overhaul the moribund economy, which is forecast to contract 9.5% this year.

Officials have listed 342 companies they want to sell this year, including thermal-power plants and a horse-breeding farm.

But amid fighting with Russia-backed separatists in the east and complaints that the government is making slow progress combating corruption, it isn't clear who will buy. Backers of the plan say the currency collapse has made Ukrainian assets cheap for foreign investors, but critics say local tycoons-who already wield enormous political and financial influence-are more likely to benefit by snapping up the best assets cheaply, leaving other entities struggling to find a buyer.

Ukraine has a spotty record selling off state assets since the collapse of the Soviet Union, with plum companies ending up with politically connected tycoons, while less-desirable state enterprises were neglected, often falling into debt.

After a revolution last year calling for an overhaul of the country, the new government has hired a young team at the Ministry of Economy to oversee a selloff of many of the enterprises, which employ 1.3 million people from a working population of 20 million. In the first nine months of 2014, the companies posted net losses of 74.4 billion hryvnia ($3.5 billion).

The companies on the block this year are those that officials think have the best potential for growth, including five thermal-power plants, 13 ports and several mines. Companies of strategic or social importance, such as the railways, won't be sold.

"It's like having a private-equity fund with 2,000 companies," says Adomas Audickas, the 32-year-old team leader, who previously helped run a privatization effort in his native Lithuania. "The average Joe should understand that he is the shareholder of these companies, and these companies do not perform very well."

After joining the Ministry of Agriculture in January, 44-year-old Alexei Zubritsky wrote to all 571 state-owned farms requesting updated earning reports. He received 96 answers, of which only 20 reported profits. He then spent months driving around the countryside knocking on doors. So far, he has found 150 farms that went bankrupt years ago.

"This is what they gave us for privatization," he says of one bankrupt sugar-storage plant. "There's nothing there-no office, no buildings, nothing but $100 million in debt."

Dressed in a shirt and tie, Mr. Zubritsky stands out at the silk farm in Shovkove, where workers were busy fixing a tractor radiator when he visited in May. For decades, more than 200 employees cultivated silk at the farm, attracting delegations from all over the Soviet Union for training.

But with the Soviet collapse, orders dwindled. Silk production was halted altogether nine years ago. Now, the mulberry trees that fed the silkworms are charred stumps after a fire several years ago, and old cocoons litter the farm's dilapidated buildings. The remaining nine employees make ends meet by chopping wood and growing wheat for wages worth about $50 a month.

Mr. Polutskiy, who has been there since 1965, says he is in favor of privatization-but he isn't convinced it will happen. "We always hoped for privatization but we've waited so long, we've lost hope a little bit," he says.

The farm isn't yet officially up for sale, though the Ministry of Agriculture says it is pushing for it to be added to the list. Mr. Zubritsky says the government doesn't expect to make much money from selling small enterprises like the farm. It would prefer the farms to be sold at a token price to the workers themselves, giving them ownership of the property and taking it out of the state's hands.

The Ministry of Economy says it is working hard to ensure transparency in the privatization process and to push through business-friendly legislation.

The team is pressing for legislation that would make CEO appointments to state-owned enterprises more transparent. After hearing concern from foreign investors about Ukraine's notoriously corrupt judiciary, they are exploring the possibility of allowing buyers the right to litigate potential problems under Ukrainian law but in foreign courts.

Some critics don't think that's enough.

"It is clear that no [foreign investors] are going to come and invest hundreds of millions of dollars into a company with the current level of corruption and poor judicial system," says Viktoria Voytsitska, a member of parliament with the Samopomych party, which is part of the governing coalition.

"Who are we left with? Local oligarchs, and of course they are interested in reinvesting their cash into Ukrainian assets at a considerable discount," she said.

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#38
Forbes.com
July 1, 2015
Ukraine Can Defeat The Separatists
By Adrian Bonenberger
Mr. Bonenberger was an infantry officer in the U.S. Army from 2005-2012 and served twice in Afghanistan. He is now a freelance journalist.

For those following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, an ongoing source of concern is where Russia will draw the line. Common wisdom says if Ukraine continues to resist, Russia will commit more forces and overrun Ukraine-possibly continuing its momentum into Estonia or Poland. As members of NATO, an attack on either of those two countries risks invoking Article V, NATO's common-defense clause, thus drawing Europe and America into war with Russia, inexorably leading to World War III and nuclear exchange.
Well, there's another cause for concern.

Ukraine is much stronger than people give it credit for. Up until now, the Ukrainians have been fighting with one arm tied behind their back-much of their combat power has deliberately been held in reserve, to risk provoking Russia into allocating more forces to the fight. The last time the Ukrainian military mounted a calculated offensive against the separatists, in August of last year, it experienced quick success. Russia had to move thousands of soldiers across the border to shore up separatist resolve, and assisted the separatists with artillery, tanks and anti-air assets (including the Russian AA battery that shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17). Since then, there has been a status quo of sorts-not to be confused with a cease-fire, as casualties by the dozens occur every day. The battle in East Ukraine has reached equilibrium.

Many in the West believe that Russia can decide to break this status quo at any time with a quick push; it can blitz through Ukrainian lines and make its way to Kyiv and Odessa-or beyond. Ukraine is incapable of standing up to the Russians, and their defensive capabilities are barely adequate to resist an invasion. Presumably, conventional wisdom is the same in Russia because its military has not made any serious, concerted effort to overwhelm Ukrainian positions. Up to this point it has made strong probes against Ukrainian lines, or maneuvered to surround National Guard positions, and then negotiated surrender with Ukrainian authorities.

But Ukraine does have sophisticated defensive capabilities, which are increasing with every day. The Ukrainian population-especially Kyiv and parts of the West and South-feels more and more invested in the struggle as friends and relatives are killed or wounded on the front lines. And Ukrainian military formations are training hard.

On the ground in Ukraine

I spent a week in Yavoriv recently, watching my old unit, the 173rd, train two companies of Ukrainian National Guardsmen (NGU). It was very impressive: Ukrainian soldiers moving and communicating tactically at a level that matched or exceeded most conventional U.S. units. For nearly seven years, I served as an infantry officer (over two of which I spent in Afghanistan) in combat; in my time training Afghan police and soldiers, I never saw a unit of Afghans that looked as professional as the Ukrainians.

Throughout that week, I heard artillery and tank fire-Ukrainian artillerymen training to increase their capacity to fight together as small units, working with mechanized assets, calling for fire from mortars and from artillery. They were part of a unified military based on principles of merit and organization rather than Soviet authority.

How Ukraine can pull ahead

If the Ukrainians continue to train hard, and build combat power-and I suspect that their incentive to do so is greater than that of their (mostly Russian) adversaries-there is a possible outcome here that I have yet seen described in Western media, nor have I heard it in Russian media, either: Ukraine can defeat the separatists. Ukraine can defeat Russia on the battlefield. Ukraine and its military does not know this, but it is possible. In fact, Russian overconfidence, Russian complacency and broken Russian doctrine makes it not just possible but even likely that a decisive, surprise combined-arms attack by a well-trained, reinvigorated Ukrainian military will be able to achieve complete surprise over its adversaries, surround them, and wipe them out.

Russia is fragile. The longer it waits in Ukraine, the greater the chances that its military forces will encounter a disaster not faced since World War II: the encirclement and destruction of a Russian battle group. Every week that passes, the Ukrainian military is growing stronger and more confident. Every week that passes, the Russian soldiers and units become more certain that they have the advantage, and that their Ukrainian adversaries are weak and unmotivated.

Risks of an endgame

This is the greatest risk we face for World War III. Not that Russia defeats Ukraine and moves toward Poland and Estonia, but that Ukraine wipes out the Russians currently in Ukraine, and Putin is forced to take some drastic action to prevent further losses. After all, why should Ukraine not feel entitled to take some of Russia's territory in return for their lost Crimea? And who will be there to stop them, save demoralized and confused Russian conscripts?

I hope Western negotiators are able to help Putin see the folly of his position in Ukraine, and sooner rather than later-the longer he stays in Ukraine, the more likely it is that he will suffer a dangerous and humiliating reverse.
 

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 #39
Reuters
July 2, 2015
Want to escalate U.S.-Russia tension? Arm Ukraine.
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

United States-Russian military tensions are exploding. On June 23 the Pentagon announced plans to station hundreds of tanks, howitzers and other armor in the Baltics and throughout other East European NATO countries. Russia meanwhile is increasing its forces in Belarus and speeding up the deployment of Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, the heavily armed Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania.

While both the United States and Russia should step back from the brink, many Obama administration officials are pushing for a dangerous escalatory step: the shipment of billions of dollars of lethal weapons to the post-Maidan government in Ukraine.

The lobbying to arm Ukraine began in February when three of the nation's leading think tanks released a widely-read report arguing for the United States to provide Ukraine with $3 billion of lethal arms. Since then both the Senate and House passed legislation calling for the United States to arm Ukraine, while Secretary of State Kerry, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and U.S. Air Force General and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Philip Breedlove publicly advocated this policy. In fact, the only senior official not pushing this agenda is President Barack Obama - though the pressure on him to do so is growing.

Washington's legion of escalation argues for "raising the costs" to Russia by increasing the number of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine. The Kremlin has been hiding the number of battlefield casualties in Ukraine from Russian citizens to reduce domestic opposition to the war. If the volume of casualties became public, some U.S. officials argue, Putin would have to back down from Ukraine to prevent a domestic backlash.

This rationale is logical on its face, but in practice does not account for the gap between the Russian and American stake in Ukraine. Kiev's geopolitical orientation is supremely important to Russia, while American interests' via-a-vis Ukraine are peripheral at best. It's a case of "must have" for the Russians, versus "nice to have" for the United States.

If Putin's sky-high approval ratings are anything to go by, he has successfully convinced Russia's citizens that Ukraine is an existential issue for their country, and he cannot now retreat without undermining his political standing at home. Therefore, Putin's likely response to an increase in Kiev's military capabilities would be to double down on his support for the separatists. In a worst-case scenario, Russia could invade Ukraine outright. The end result would be even greater death and suffering for those living in eastern Ukraine - the exact opposite outcome that the West would like to see.

Those who still doubt Russia's willingness to escalate should consider what happened in August, when Ukraine's military was on the brink of routing the separatists. Putin poured Russian troops into the Donbass and inflicted a bloody defeat on the Ukrainian forces at Ilovaisk. Russian troops also played a key role helping to defeat Kiev's forces at Debaltseve in February. These incidents show that Putin is prepared to escalate as necessary, and the "Arm Ukraine" advocates do not provide a satisfactory explanation why he would not do so again.

Russia's geopolitical interest in Ukraine is also matched by hard power. The Russian military possesses what military strategists call "escalation dominance," and even those in favor of arming Ukraine admit that an American-supplied Ukrainian army still cannot defeat a determined attack by the Russian military. If Kiev appears on the verge of another significant defeat, do those demanding Ukraine be armed stand down? Or do they invoke "American credibility" and demand even tougher countermeasures? How might Moscow escalate even further in return? None of the answers to these questions are clear - and neither is the endgame.

Those who support arming Kiev also overlook the possibility that Putin could choose to escalate asymmetrically, outside of Ukraine. Russia already announced its intention to begin supplying Iran with advanced surface-to-air S-300 missiles by 2016. Moscow has promised this before, but then backed down, and Putin has left himself some wiggle room by saying Moscow won't deliver S-300s to Iran "in the near future."

However, if the United States arms Ukraine, Putin could accelerate the delivery of S-300s to Iran, and perhaps the even more lethal S-400s as well. These missile systems would make it much harder for the United States or its allies to carry out air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, for example. Acquiring advanced weapons would strengthen the position held by Iranian hard-liners who oppose a nuclear deal with the West.

Putin also recently hinted that Russia could supply S-300s to the Assad regime in Syria. Israel would naturally worry about these systems ending up in the hands of Hezbollah, a close Assad ally and sworn enemy of Israel. A jittery Jerusalem might launch a pre-emptive strike before the S-300s are even out of their crates, and events would spiral down from there.

If Putin wants to hit the "rogue regime trifecta" Russia could expand its relationship with North Korea. Moscow and Pyongyang already announced their intentions to deepen economic and political ties under the banner of a "year of friendship." With the pariah Kim regime determined to expand its nuclear arsenal, anything that reduces North Korea's isolation is inimical to American interests.

Finally, there is the issue of "blowback."

Last July, poorly trained Russian-backed separatists allegedly shot down a commercial airliner with a Russian-supplied Buk anti-aircraft missile, killing all 283 people onboard. Meanwhile, numerous privately-funded battalions fight for the post-Maidan government. Although they are nominally under the government's control, some of the most controversial battalions - such as Azov - warn they could "bring the war to Kiev" if conditions in Ukraine do not improve.

This raises a frightening question: What if American military hardware sent to Ukraine ends up in the wrong hands? We've seen this story before. In the 1980s the United States supplied advanced Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and other arms to the Afghan mujahedeen fighting the Soviet occupation. When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, the United States packed its bags and went home - but its military equipment stayed behind.

When the Soviets' puppet regime collapsed in 1992, the country was left in the hands of warlords and armed groups. Some reports indicate that these American Stingers ended up as far afield as Iran, North Korea and Libya, while others disclosed that al Qaeda ended up with advanced American sniper rifles.

More recently, Islamic State has reportedly seized "significant quantities" of American-made weapons from Iraqi government forces and moderate Syrian rebels. As the United States engages in an ongoing campaign to degrade and destroy Islamic State, the American military must now confront its own weapons. Ukraine is certainly more stable than Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria, but as history demonstrates American military aid sometimes goes missing.

While the United States should provide Ukraine political and economic support, shipping billions of dollars in lethal arms is just too risky.

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 #40
Chernobyl area fire poses risk to neighboring regions - Polish expert

WARSAW, July 2. /TASS/. Fire near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine poses a danger to the surrounding regions, expert of the Polish branch of Greenpeace Jan Haverkamp told TASS on Thursday.

"We are monitoring the situation. Fortunately, the fire has not yet reached the NPP reactor zone. It's very dangerous that everything is happening in the nuclear power plant area. If the fire spreads there, a huge amount of radiation will get into the atmosphere," he said. "It's a risk, but the risk primarily to Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, as they are located in close vicinity," Haverkamp said.

According to him, there will be no explosion, similar to the 1986 accident, and Eastern European countries, including Poland, have now nothing to worry about.

"We welcome the efforts of Ukrainian authorities that are doing their utmost to prevent the fire from spreading," the expert said.

Fire in Chernobyl NPP exclusion zone

The fire in the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl NPP occurred on June 29. Dry grass and reed caught fire to spread over an area of about 130 hectares. There have been a total of 6 fire seats, 5 in the exclusion zone.

On Wednesday, Ukraine's state nuclear inspectorate identified radiation levels one order of magnitude above the natural background in some spots inside the area affected by fire near the Chernobyl NPP. "In the air sample taken in the area of the fire on the outskirts of the abandoned village of Polesskoye the content of caesium-137 is 0.0025 becquerel per one cubic metre, which is one order of magnitude above the control level set under the current norms of hygiene," the watchdog's statement said.

"In other words, the data available from the existing systems monitoring the radiation situation in the exclusion zone and adjoining territories indicate the changes in the basic parameters of the radiation situation, except for those in the fire-affected areas, do not exceed the levels acceptable in the given territories. In Kiev, the radiation level is at the level of the natural background," the watchdog said. Caesium-137 is one of the most dangerous radioactive pollutants. It accumulates readily in soil and bottom sediment, as well as in living organisms.

Meanwhile, Russia's Ministry for Emergency Situations said on Wednesday night it was prepared to dispatch firefighting planes for helping to put out a major wildfire in the Chernobyl Forest, which is located in so-called 'exclusion zone' around the Chernobyl nuclear plant.

"The Emergencies Ministry is prepared to render the assistance that might be necessary in putting out the fire on the territory of the Chernobyl Forest forestry area, including the dispatch of Ilyushin-76TD water bombers that can drop 42 tons of water on the hotbeds of fire at one haul, as well as Beriev-200CS amphibious planes," a ministry spokesman said.

He indicated that the planes could be refuelled on the territory of Russia.

In addition to planes, the ministry was ready to dispatch a group of rescuers and experts and specialized equipment to the zone of the emergency to help Ukrainian counterparts organize the fire-extinguishing efforts. Along with it, the ministry stressed the absence of whatever risks from the fire to residents of Russia's territories adjoining the border with Ukraine. No increases of radiation levels above the norm have been registered.

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