#2
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
July 10, 2015
Why Russians fear August
Chris Weafer of Macro-Advisory

As we all know only too well, winters are long and cold in Russia while summers are relatively short but quite pleasant. Once Easter has passed, people start marking the calendar until they can throw off their winter armour and re-open their dachas. August is the main vacation month and should, therefore, be the most eagerly anticipated month of the year.

But, as with many issues in Russia, all is not what it seems even when it comes to what should be the most carefree of the 12 months. In fact people approach August with almost a sense of dread. It is a case of "if something bad is going to happen it is more likely to happen in August". History certainly confirms that to be less of a paranoia and more a precedent-based reality.

In recent memory there have been a number of accidents and disasters which are firmly rooted in people's memory and which add to the August phobia. These are some of those episodes:

In August 1998 Russia defaulted on its domestic debt. That led to a complete collapse in the capital markets and the RTS equity index reaching an all-time low of 38.5 on October 5th. Foreign investors exited Russia in 1998 and, apart from trading funds, did not return until 2004. It piled misery onto an already depressed economy and left a legacy of fear about ruble volatility and suspicion about banks for many years.

August can also be an accident-filled month, such as in August 2000 when there were a number of serious accidents including the sinking of the Kursk submarine and a fatal fire in Moscow's landmark Ostankino TV tower. In August 2006, 170 people died in an airplane crash on a flight from the Black Sea resort of Anapa to St. Petersburg. In August 2005 the first case of bird (avian) flu was reported and while thankfully that did not develop as had been feared, it did lead to a sense of heightened concern for the month. In August 2009 one of the country's largest hydro-power stations suffered a catastrophic explosion in which 75 people died.

August is also associated with various acts of terrorism. In August 2004 the country was rocked with a series of terrorist actions including a car bombing in Moscow and the destruction of two passenger aircraft. A thoroughly miserable and fear-filled month was rounded off with one of the biggest tragedies to hit post-war Russia when terrorists took over the school in Beslan in southern Russia with such tragic consequences.

Even when such serious tragedies are avoided the weather can often be less of a positive contributor to the vacation season and pile on its share of misery. In August 2002 widespread fires raged in the peatlands around Moscow and blanketed the city in a nasty and health-damaging haze. August 2013 brought very destructive flooding to much of Russia's Far East, which led to both expensive economic disruption and loss of life. The worst weather-related disruption, however, came in August 2010 when large swathes of the country were hit with high temperatures and forest fires. That combination contributed to drought conditions across much of the farming belt and led to a big drop in the year's harvest.

August surprises are not only confined to domestic events as events in 2008 and again last year proved. The Russia-Georgian war took place in August 2008 and, along with the rapidly declining oil price, led to an acceleration in capital flight and a loss of investment. The oil price decline was the more important of these events but the war headlines certainly added to the negative pressure.

August 2014 saw the step-up in western sanctions against Russia and, in particular, the damaging block on access to western debt and credits. Later that month Moscow retaliated with a ban on some food items from the EU and other western countries and that directly contributed to the high level of inflation, especially food price inflation, through the winter months. Here again the ratcheting up of sanctions took place just as the oil price started to roll over very sharply, in late August, so it is impossible to allocate the damage between sanctions and oil price weakness. Both have certainly hurt.

Apart from accidents and terrorism August is also a month when events with a significant and lasting legacy can take place. Most notable was the first appearance of Vladimir Putin in a high-profile political role when he was appointed prime minister in August 1999. That was the month when we saw the precursor of the second Chechnya War. On August 2nd the Islamic International Brigade (IIB) invaded the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan, in support of the Shura of Dagestan separatist rebels. The war ended with a Russian victory and the retreat of the IIB. The following month the apartment block bombings in Moscow were blamed on the IIB and the war formally started.

Even in relatively quiet Augusts, of which there have been very few over the past fifteen years, there is always something noteworthy or just odd. In August 2001 the North Korean leader, Kim Jong IL, visited Moscow. But because of his fear of flying he rode his private train across Russia and caused havoc to passenger services. Such was the frustration of the inconvenienced people that when the train arrived at a Moscow station there were multiple bullet holes clearly visible on the side of the train. In August 2007 a group of nationalist politicians paid for a mini-sub to take them to the floor of the Arctic where they planted a Russian flag in support of the country's claim to sovereignty over the Lomonosov Ridge.

Rounding off the sequence of memorable events which have had a lasting impact on the country and the economy, in August 2012 Russia was finally admitted into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) after almost 19 years of negotiations. In August 2003 BP-TNK was created and apart from being the biggest foreign investment in Russia at that point it also created a great deal of continuing controversy until it was finally acquired by Rosneft in 2013. In August 2011 the so-called Golden Welds were made to the Nordstream gas pipeline and that marked the completion of the first major new gas pipe into Europe which by-passed Ukraine and Belarus.

Not wishing to leave you with the impression that the August syndrome only started in 1998, Russia's history is filled with events which had a significant legacy impact on the country. The effect dates back to, e.g. August 1530 when Tsar Ivan the Terrible was born in August that year. In the last century Russia entered World War I in August 1914 and declared war on Japan in August 1945 which, technically, still continues. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed in August 1939 and the start of the construction of the Berlin Wall was in August 1961. Soviet troops entered Prague in August 1968 and, in August 1991, there as an attempted coup against Gorbachev by those looking to prevent the ending of the Soviet Union.

It is tempting to blame the relaxed mood and high temperatures for the spate of accidents and, possibly, the distraction of holidays as to why political and terrorist actions take place so often in August. But that is probably not valid given the sheer diversity of notable events which have occurred in this particular month.

And it is also wrong to point at these events as all negative. The various accidents led to long overdue changes and safety improvements and, after the 2009 dam explosion, a national debate over the poor state of the country's infrastructure. The drought of August 2010 led to the awareness of Russia's vulnerability in such basic areas as food production and is the origin of the import substitution debate which received such a major boost after last year's sanctions.

Finally, to reinforce the message that sometimes August events can have a positive legacy and can create an opportunity; consider this: if you had invested $10,000 in Sberbank shares during the default of 1998 and sold them 10 years later you would have pocketed a profit well in excess of $1mn. Be lucky.

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 #3
Moscow Times
July 10, 2015
Russians Must Step Up and Pay for Health Care
By Mikhail Kopitayko
Mikhail Kopitayko is the deputy CEO of Russian Standard Insurance and an AEB expert.

With rapidly shrinking free health care, Russians are increasingly asking questions like "What now?" "How are we going to receive health care now?" and "What was the purpose of mass closures of health care facilities and medical staff redundancies?"

All conspiracy theories aside, we have no choice but to take into account what is an objective fact - Russian health care is extremely costly.

Russia has many more professional doctors, bed spaces and inpatient stay days per thousand people compared to many developed nations. This is the reason that Russian medical salaries are so low compared to those abroad, and hence the inability of the government to finance the traditionally cumbersome infrastructure in times of crisis.

This was the case in the 1990s, when doctors' salaries had dropped to as low as several dozen dollars a month and the equipment in health care institutions dated back to the 1980s.

This is to a great extent what is happening now too. The difference is only that this time the government chose not to botch up its efforts in health care, by pretending that doctors do not need decent salaries to provide high-quality medical services, opting instead for decisive steps toward health care reforms.

In brief, the essence of these reforms is that the aim of outpatient health care is to help avoid hospitalization of patients by means of preventive measures, modern diagnostic methods and early treatment. When hospitalization is nevertheless required, the treatment provided should be intensified. This will therefore result in a reduction of beds needed and massive staff redundancies.

Needless to say, reforms are hardly ever welcomed by the population, let alone such unwelcome ones as health care reforms. It seems, however, that the fact that Russian health care will never again be what it was is something we will all need to accept.

And here we come to answering the initial question: "How are we going to receive health care now?" Well, the answer is simple - we will have to pay for it.

There is no other way about it. There are only a few countries in the world where health care is both effective and free. Such countries include Sweden, Switzerland and Britain to a certain degree, and other countries with large GDP per capita.

Russia, in its turn, cannot be described as such, and those of us to whom the quality of health care is more important than the cost will have to decide what we are going to do in these new realities.

There are two options here. One is to keep cursing the reformers, accusing them of fraudulent motives and expressing nostalgic sentiments about the Soviet health care system (which the majority avoided by all means possible, preferring private dentists and to pull necessary strings to get an appointment with the required specialist), or there is the second option, and that is to find ways of arranging "paid health care services" for ourselves.

The second option is more effective, of course.

We should not focus on debating "Which is better - free or paid health care?" That debate would be truly pointless, considering that there is no such thing as "free health care." That which we traditionally refer to as "free" health care is in reality just another kind of paid health care, it is only that here it is not individuals who pay, but the state represented in this case by health insurance funds and the budgets of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

The so-called "free" health care sector is afflicted with many drawbacks. Doctors whose duty it is to treat us are people just like us, and as soon as their income declines to the subsistence level, they begin to consider leaving the public sector in favor of private clinics, simply because this is where they can earn much more. Paid health care providers moreover can afford new medical equipment.

It makes little sense to claim that paid health care is devoid of any kind of problems, yet it has the resources to provide high-quality modern medical services, whereas public health care is experiencing a growing crisis of resources.

Paid health care services is by no means a cure-all solution, but it is definitely more efficient, since it envisages civil law relations between patients and health care institutions which are explicitly stipulated in the insurance contract, along with the liability of each party to the contract.

The patient always knows what he or she pays for, while the clinic is held legally and financially liable in case of personnel incompetence or poor quality of services. A private clinic or hospital usually values its reputation and seeks to avoid to losing clients. The same should all, of course, in theory be true of the "free-of-charge" health care, yet in practice is rarely the case.

And here a question arises: how should such paid health care function in Russia?

Global practice provides an unambiguous answer here - health insurance, which is both a way to а) organize provision of medical services and b) provide oneself with financial protection against all risks related to receiving medical care.

The existing practice is non-contributory voluntary health insurance.

There are, however, quite a few companies that cannot afford to provide voluntary health coverage for their staff. The economic recession exacerbates this situation, and even those employers who have been providing VHI coverage for their employees until now will no longer be able to afford this in 2015.

And that is where we come to a point of no return, so to speak, when it is time for an employee to step forward and split the social security burden with their employer.

Should they carry this burden alone, both the employer and the employee may find it hard to afford full-fledged medical insurance. In Moscow, an insurance policy providing comprehensive coverage would cost in the area of 55,000 to 70,000 rubles (at the very least), whereas to calculate the amount that the employer will have to incur we need to multiply this figure by the number of employees and their family members. In a company with some 1,000 staff this amount could reach 55-70 million rubles ($972,000 to $1.24 million).

For employees too, insurance policies for themselves, dependent spouses and one child could cost to the tune of 165,000-210,000 rubles ($2,900-3,710), which is also quite expensive. By splitting this amount they would, however, find it much easier to afford it. For example, if an employee covers 30 percent of the policy cost, which amounts to some 50,000-65,000 rubles a year, this would be fairly affordable for their household.

The result pleases everyone: the employee is able to choose the insurance scheme that he or she wants, and not the one chosen on their behalf by their company's HR department, and yet only have to pay 30 percent of its actual cost from his or her own pocket. Employers will keep the key element in the benefit load - voluntary health insurance, while retaining staff loyalty.

And this is the answer to the first question we asked at the beginning of this article: "What now?" - everything is going to be all right as long as we are determined to think productively and unite in searching for sources of paid health care funding.

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 #4
Washington Post
July 10, 2015
Russia's economic crunch puts pain drugs out of reach, even for the sickest
By Karoun Demirjian
Karoun Demirjian is a reporting fellow in The Post's Moscow bureau. She previously served as the Washington Correspondent for the Las Vegas Sun, and reported for the Associated Press in Jerusalem and the Chicago Tribune in Chicago.
 
NAKHABINO, Russia - For the five years that doctors have battled the cancerous tumor pressing on her son's spine, Elena Knyazeva has faced an ever-harder struggle to help him weather the pain.

Diagnosed with virulent neuroblastoma at 4 months, Artyom - now 5 - has had multiple surgeries and rounds of chemotherapy. As a Russian citizen whose family has state-mandated health insurance, he is, in theory, entitled to all the benefits of the Russian public health-care system.

But in practice, while doctors treat his cancer, the burden of treating his pain has fallen on his family. And as the Russian economy has faltered, pain management for people with severe illnesses, like Artyom, has become all but unaffordable.

The fall of the ruble has driven the price of drugs - many of which are imported - nearly out of reach for many. And that has complicated an already bleak outlook for palliative-care patients in Russia, who are often thwarted in their quest to lessen their pain by entrenched cultural prejudices and doctors' legitimate fears of legal repercussions for prescribing controlled narcotics.

When faced with such barriers, desperate children and adults are forced to find a way around the system.

"The government helps, but only a very little bit," said Knyazeva, 38, explaining that her husband's salary as a military officer didn't cover skyrocketing costs of medications. "We practically have no free medicine or free medical care. You have to pay for everything."

Knyazeva is one of the lucky ones. Two months ago, she contacted the Vera Hospice Charity Fund on the advice of a friend. Artyom made the cut for private aid, keeping Knyazeva from having to choose between going broke and continuing to care for her only child, whom she'd tried 12 years to conceive. Not  that it was ever a choice.

Others are not so lucky. Private charities such as Vera, which provide comprehensive physical and mental health services to families of children with severe and terminal diseases, are few. Demand is so great they have to turn dozens away each month, and there is no public option: Russia has no dedicated pediatric hospices.

"A palliative-care patient needs medical equipment and drugs. Parents usually pay their own money to get that, and it's about $1,000 a month," said Lida Moniava, who runs children's programming at Vera. That is about 1 1/2 times the average Russian urbanite's salary. "Nobody helps. Parents try to raise money themselves. They create Web sites for their children. But the drugs are much more expensive. They cost 1 1/2 , twice as much as they did before."

As for adults, those in pain wrench fewer hearts. And while public hospices for adult cancer patients do exist, there are not nearly enough, forcing many families into financial straits when they find they can't rely on public channels that are becoming ever more complicated to navigate.

As a result, a spate of adults with life-threatening conditions is reportedly choosing a more drastic way out: suicide.

Following one high-profile case last year in which a naval officer took his life for lack of access to pain medications and, in his note, laid blame directly on the government, officials punished his doctors and doubled down on enforcing a law against reporting the causes of suicides.

"There's a huge, huge problem," said Irina Agayan, a nurse at the First Moscow Hospice, describing a days-long process of securing signatures, waiting in lines and shuttling between clinics to obtain medications. "There are ways to get around it, through paid services, but that's not the system. Even if you pay, there's still a problem because you have to be registered to go through many agencies. And all this time, the person is in pain."

As Russia's palliative-care patients struggle with the rising cost of pain relief in a worsening economy, they have also become collateral damage in the government's intensifying war against drug trafficking.

According to Russian reports, less than 1 percent of illegally trafficked drugs are peddled through prescriptions, yet more than half of drug trafficking cases are brought against health-care workers. This spring, lawmakers pushed for rules prohibiting promotion of narcotics as "propaganda," further spooking doctors who might otherwise help palliative-care patients.

"The sphere of painkilling is very much regulated by the Federal Drug Control Service. They have a lot of money and so-called quotas of how many people they have to imprison in a year," said Nyuta Federmesser, who founded Vera. "It is much easier to find the guilty among nurses and doctors and patients rather than be somewhere out in Tajikistan or Afghanistan looking for people who bring illegal drugs into the country."

What results are avoidable problems. Renata Valeyeva, 8, had a brain tumor - the doctors found it when she was 5, drained it and left in a stent. But when she began complaining of headaches again this January, nobody wanted to treat her.

For two days straight her family called for an ambulance, Renata's great-aunt and chief caretaker, Natalia Sultanova, said, showing the medical workers who responded health forms documenting her condition. But they refused to take her to the hospital, offering only a light analgesic.

On the third day, Renata fell into a coma. Now, she struggles to hold her head up, has difficulty eating and drinking, and cannot speak.

"Can you imagine? Two days in a row we called the ambulance, and they just did not want to take a child with such symptoms," Sultanova said.

Because of Renata's condition, her family receives about $250 a month from the government, which Sultanova said barely covers two weeks' worth of Renata's canned nutritional supplements, much less the cost of medications, wheelchairs and incidentals. They, too, turned to Vera a month ago.

There are some signs things may improve. As of July 1, a new law allows Russians to fill prescriptions for 15 days instead of five, and eases certain other bureaucratic restrictions on medications. But there is a wide gap to close.

Russia ranks 38th out of 42 European countries in the consumption of internationally regulated medical narcotics, according to a 2010 study by the International Narcotics Control Board. Russian use of such drugs amounts to just a fraction of a percentage point of consumption in the United States, even when adjusted for the two countries' different population sizes.

There is also a difference in how cancer patients thrive: Though the cancer rate is lower in Russia than in the United States, the rate of death from cancer is higher.

Cultural norms exacerbate the situation.

"There is an attitude that if you're in pain, you've got to be in pain," Moniava said. "Even dentists don't always give anesthesia."

In some cases, especially in Russia's regions, aversion to palliative treatment is so strong that many doctors still advise parents to abandon their children at the first sign of serious trouble.

But there are bright spots. When he was a baby, Artyom wasn't expected to survive his cancer. But two months ago, his family learned he is in remission.

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 #5
Interfax
July 10, 2015
Most Russians oppose same-sex marriage - poll

Less than a quarter of Russians believe sexual orientation is a person's personal business and a majority oppose the legalization of same-sex marriage, a public opinion poll conducted by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) shows.

The poll, which surveys 1,600 people living in 130 populated areas of 46 regions of Russia, was conducted on April 11-12 and July 4-5.

Almost a quarter of the respondents (22 percent) believe sexual preferences are a person's private business and said they don't care about the sexual orientation of people they talk with. Meanwhile, 20 percent of respondents said people of non-traditional sexual orientation need medical assistance and another 20 percent believe they should be isolated from society.

Fifteen percent of respondents believe homosexuals are normal people, but said they personally would not like to communicate with them. Another 15 percent said homosexuality is a social disease and treatment should be given to society, not gays and lesbians. Eight percent of the respondents were undecided.

Meanwhile, 80 percent of respondents believe homosexuals should not have a right to marry people of the same sex. Only 8 percent said they believe such unions should be legalized and 6 percent believe they are undecided on the issue of the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Responding to a question as to what the state policy on sexual minorities should be, 41 percent of respondents said that the authorities should eradicate homosexuality as a phenomenon and prosecute gays and lesbians. Most of these respondents are people older than sixty (53 percent).

Thirty-two percent of respondents believe the state should not take an interest in citizens' social orientation and citizens, for their part, should not try to advertise their preferences. Twelve percent of respondents believe the state should defend the rights of sexual minorities, but should not allow them to make families, adopt children or use in vitrio insemination. Three percent of respondents believe same-sex marriage should be legalized, but without the right to raise children. Another 3 percent of respondents believe homosexual couples should have the same rights as straight couples. Nine percent of respondents were undecided.

 #6
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
July 9, 2015
Now Even Kudrin Says It - Russia's Economy Will Resume Growth in Final Quarter
Emerging consensus of a return to growth in final quarter points to short and shallow recession and an economy that has adjusted well to falling oil prices
By Alexander Mercouris

Aleksey Kudrin, Russia's former Finance Minister and one of the most pessimistic voices in Russia on the state of the economy, has now said that he too expects signs of recovery to become apparent in the last quarter of 2015.

This brings Kudrin into line with the forecasts of the Finance and Economics Ministries and of the Central Bank.

Meanwhile inflation is continuing to fall.  It is now estimated to be running at an annualised rate of 15.2%, with the Economics Ministry predicting deflation (ie. falling prices) in August.

Meanwhile the Finance Ministry is predicting a total budget deficit for 2015 of just 3% of GDP, the Central Bank's reserves grew by $4.8 billion in June and the ruble seems to have shrugged off the brief plunge in oil prices that took place because of the Greek crisis.

Against this Andrey Kostin, Chairman of VTB, Russia's second biggest bank, has said that he expects the next cut in interest rates to be no more than 50 basis points.  This comes despite the ruble's stabilisation, the fall in inflation and a significant fall in investment and manufacturing output in the period March to June caused in large part by the high interest rates.

Concerning interest rates, in conditions of falling prices such as are now forecast for August, the real burden of interest rates is actually growing despite the nominal decline since the start of the year.  This tends to reinforce the impression that the Russian authorities and the Central Bank have made a conscious decision to trade a short but relatively shallow recession for a long term reduction in inflation.

As to the severity of the recession, it has resulted in a significant cut in real incomes - the first since Putin came to power - but no steep rise in the rate of unemployment, which remains low.

Given the growing consensus of a return to growth in the fourth quarter, it would now be something of a surprise if that didn't happen.  There are in fact no obvious reasons why it should not.

Overall the Russian economy has responded well to last year's collapse in oil prices.  The adjustment has been surprisingly fast and far less painful than was anticipated.

Further confirmation that Obama's claims that Russia doesn't make anything and that Putin is wrecking Russia's economy by trying to restore the USSR are nonsense.

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 #7
Interfax
July 9, 2015
Putin says Eurasia's not a chessboard, it's our home

Russia and its neighbours in the Eurasian landmass should not be treated as a "chessboard" or a "geopolitical playing field", Russian President Vladimir Putin said on 9 July in remarks reported by privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax.

"For us, this isn't a chessboard, it's not a geopolitical playing field - this is our home, and all of us together want our home to be calm and affluent, and for it not to be a place for extremism or for attempts to protect one's interests at the expense of others," Putin said in the Russian city of Ufa, at an official reception for heads of state from members of the BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) groups.

The BRICS countries and members of the SCO and the Eurasian Economic Union "in many ways share similar traditional values, common laws of morality, truth and justice", Putin added.

"We are united in the sense that the aims that have been set can only be achieved by acting collectively, on the basis of genuine partnership, trust, equal rights, respect and acknowledgment of each other's interests," Putin said. "We call for the drawing-up of coordinated responses to global challenges, for the affirmation of just foundations for contacts between states, with the UN playing a key role, based on international law, the principles of indivisibility, security and peoples freely determining their own destiny."

The city of Ufa is hosting two summits in the course of this week: the BRICS summit (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the SCO summit (Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan).

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 #8
Sputnik
July 10, 2015
President Putin Holds Final Press Conference in Ufa

Russia's President Vladimir Putin, addresses assembled media on the final day of the BRICS / SCO meeting of global leaders in Ufa, Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that improving cooperation in the financial sphere is one of the priority tasks for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and noted the prospects of the project of creating the center of project financing.

"Of the priority tasks is improving cooperation in the finance sphere. We are participating in the work for creation of the SCO development bank and special account. The idea of establishing an international project financing center on the basis of the SCO inter-bank association seems promising," Putin said at the SCO summit.

Moscow also hopes that the SCO will become a platform to solve international issues, including those with India and Pakistan.

"We hope that the SCO platform will become an extra forum where we will be able to look for compromises and solutions for disputed issues together," Putin said.

"We must solve the issue with full-fledged inclusion of India and Pakistan," the president stressed.

New Delhi and Islamabad entered an ascension process into the political, economic and security alliance with documentation signed earlier in the southwestern Russian host city. The two SCO observer states lodged their admission applications in September 2014.

Speaking on international issues, Putin noted that the large US foreign debt is a serious problem for the entire world economy.

"There is a decline of the rate of growth in the United States. It is well-known that the levels of debt are higher than the levels of GDP there. I'm afraid to be mistaken, but I think that the GDP of the country is $17.8 trillion, while the debt is $18.2 [trillion]. This is a serious issue not only for the United States, but for the entire world economy," Putin said during a press conference.

The US state debt is the highest in the world and the biggest it has ever been. It has doubled since the level recorded at the end of 2007. Since 1960, the US Congress had to act 78 times to permanently or temporarily increase the debt limit, according to the US Treasury Department.

In March, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warned that the US government could run out of money by October or November unless the US lawmakers once more act to allow additional government borrowing.

Russia's President said that China remains the engine of the world economy, despite its current issues.

At present, China is facing an economic slowdown.

According to the China National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the average growth of the local economy in 1979-2010 was 9.91 percent. In 2014, the Chinese economy grew 7.4 percent, on the slowest pace in 24 years.

"I agree with the Chinese estimates, which consist of the fact that in the previous period...there has been a certain downward correction, but the latest data [shows] slight rise again. So there is nothing special here. I believe that China will remain the engine of the world economy," Vladimir Putin said.

Moscow is hoping for substantial contribution of Chinese companies into development of Siberia and Russia's Far East.

"I believe that the Chinese companies could make a substantial contribution to those plans, tasks that we concern ourselves with, [they] could take part in solving them. With profits for themselves, of course," Putin stated.

When asked on the issue of the Iranian nuclear programm, Russia's President said that all negotiators have their own opinions, including on sanctions and  expressed hope that compromise will be found soon.

"We stand for the full scale [anti-Iran sanctions] lifting, as soon as possible, because we do believe that it is not the right way to solve international questions and issues. All of the participants of those talks have their own opinion, compromise must be found. I believe it will be found in the near future," Putin said in a press conference.

"I hope that everything will end in the nearest future by the signing of essential documents and coordination of guarantees, which are very important, I believe," Putin added.

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 #9
BRICS and SCO summits filled with important decisions - Putin

UFA, July 10 /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he is pleased with the results of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) summits held in Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia's constituent region in south-western Urals.

"We believe that the BRICS and SCO summits were not only filled with substantive talks and important decisions. They were also well-organized," the Russian president told the final news conference on Friday. Putin thanked the leadership and the people of Ufa and Bashkortostan for hospitality and the event's good organization.

The Russian president said that the BRICS and SCO summits had become a serious step in developing multi-dimensional cooperation among states represented in Ufa. He noted that the summits had assembled the leaders of 15 countries from various continents. "The strength and the enormous potential of BRICS and SCO are certainly hidden in this diversity and the combination of traditions," Putin said.

He also recalled that the leaders of countries members of the Eurasian Economic Union /EEU/ also gathered in Ufa. Putin has held plenty of bilateral meetings. He will meet the presidents of Afghanistan and the prime minister of Pakistan after the briefing/ and has taken part in a trilateral meeting between Russia, Mongolia and China.

President Putin enumerated the main decisions adopted at the two summits. He said the documents approved by the BRICS summit contained concrete agreements to develop and strengthen the group's international status. "It marked the beginning of operation of BRICS financial institutions - the New Development Bank and the Pool of Foreign Exchange Reserves - with an aggregate capital of 200 billion US dollars," the Russian president said.

The SCO summit decided to enlarge the organization for the first time in 15 years, Putin said adding the summit had also adopted the SCO's development strategy until 2025 and the SCO Ufa Declaration.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is a permanent regional association founded in Shanghai, China, on June 15, 2001. Its priority tasks include joint counteraction to terrorism and extremism; cooperation in education as well as in the energy, oil and gas, transport, communication and other spheres. At present, the SCO comprises Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Afghanistan, India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan have an observer status while Belarus, Turkey and Sri Lanka are partners for dialogue.

The BRICS group unites five countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It was founded in June 2006. Russia took over the BRICS presidency on April 1, 2015. One of its main goals will be to implement agreements on creation of BRICS financial institutions such as the New Development Bank and the Pool of Currency Reserves. The BRICS states cover 26% of the territory of Earth. The group's total population accounts for 42% of global population. In 2013, the BRICS share in global trade stood at 16.1%.

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 #10
The BRICS Post
http://thebricspost.com
July 8, 2015
BRICS Summit in Ufa: Yoga for Putin, Finance for Crimea, Stability for the World?    
By Dmitry Babich
Dmitry Babich is a senior journalist based in Moscow who has worked with the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, Moscow News and Ria Novosti. He is currently a political analyst for Voice of Russia.

The summit meeting of the BRICS countries in Ufa (the capital of the autonomous republic of Bashkortostan in the Russian Federation) is significant for Moscow.

Just a few months after US President Barack Obama declared Russia "isolated" with its economy "in tatters," President Vladimir Putin is welcoming the heads of state of China, Brazil and South Africa, India - as fellow BRICS members - and Pakistan.

Ufa will also play host to a summit meeting of the prime ministers of India and Pakistan; both of these South Asian giants and arch-rivals will formally be passing the admission procedures for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan's Nawaz Sharif are also meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS summit. So much for Russia's "isolation" by Mr. Obama.

On the eve of the summit. the central banks of the BRICS' member countries signed an agreement on mutual assistance, creating a common pool of hard currency reserves (in US dollars).

If a BRICS member has problems with financial liquidity, it can benefit from the pool's reserves, fulfilling an established procedure.

The pool's capital was established with an amount of $100 billion, with China contributing $41 billion, Russia, Brazil and India will provide $18 billion each, and South Africa will come up with $5 billion. So much for Russia's economy being in Mr. Obama's "tatters."

Economic yoga, not ego

Putin was clearly happy to host his guests, promising Modi to experiment with yoga and saying he was "especially pleased" to see China's Xi Jinping. But the summit was not just about pleasure and symbolism - it was about money, too.

Money-wise, the most important event was the opening for business of the New Development Bank (NDB), established by BRICS. The institution is set up to finance infrastructure projects, with a charter capital of $50 billion. In future the bank plans to switch from the US dollar to a basket of currencies and to increase the amount of charter capital to $100 billion. The NDB is expected to become fully operative in the year 2016.

"Russia and other BRICS members, we are all unhappy about a certain monopolization of the world's mega-finances by the International Monetary Fund (the IMF)," explained Alexei Mukhin, the head of the Moscow-based Center for Political Information.

"Initially, there were hopes to resolve the problem by a reform inside the IMF. But this reform was put on hold by the US Congress a year ago, and BRICS decided to act on its own."

It is critically important for the BRICS members not to create an impression that their organization is pursuing purely egotistic goals. Instead, at the summit, the accent is made on showing that the "peaceful rise" of China, Russia and other BRICS' members can be beneficial for other countries.

It can also offset the imbalances in international relations, where the United States and Washington's G7 partners often try to assume a domineering posture.
For example, Russia's Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said it would be enough for the indebted and embattled Greece to buy a few NDB shares to be eligible for funding.

However, Russia's Finance Minister Anton Siluanov explained that BRICS' financial institutions were not yet prepared to help non-members resolve their budget problems.

"The main emphasis will be made on infrastructure development," Siluanov explained.

Other Russian, Chinese and Indian officials before the summit were at pains to persuade the public that BRICS does not force its solutions on other countries, as the US and the EU often do. Greece itself has shown interest in NDB, after the Athens government recently had an unpleasant confrontation with their creditors in the EU.

Vadim Lukov, Russia's ambassador-at-large and one of the "sherpas" at the summit in Ufa, warns against viewing BRICS as a tool for gaining short-term economic profits.

"BRICS is not based on volatile economic conjuncture," Lukov said at a briefing in the office of Rossija Segodnya, a Moscow-based media holding busying itself with disseminating information about Russia worldwide.

There are four strategic goals, which make BRICS a team.

"First, each BRICS member wants to pursue an independent policy line on the world stage; second, we all want a reform of the global financial system, reforming IMF in the first place. Third, we want to strengthen the role of the UN and the primacy of law in international relations. Fourth, we want to use the factor of complementarity of our economies to speed up these economies' development," Lukov said.

Non-confrontational resolutions

BRICS representatives are expected to come up with a resolution on recent armed conflicts, including the tragic civil war in Ukraine.

Unlike the resolutions of the US and the EU, which Washington and Brussels also forced on some members of the EU's Eastern Partnership (all of them former Soviet republics), the resolution from Ufa will not be confrontational and it will not put the blame on just one side of the conflict.

None of the BRICS' members joined the anti-Russia sanctions designed by the US, the EU and their Anglo-Saxon allies in Canada and Australia.

"Crimea, just like any other Russian region, can be a platform for certain projects of the BRICS and its bank, but all applications will be reviewed according to the same procedure, and decisions will be taken depending on the economic effectiveness of the proposed projects," Russia's Finance Minister Siluanov explained.

Even if the NDB is not yet giving loans (it is expected to start doing so in April 2016), it is becoming clear that BRICS is indeed not driven by short-term economic interest.

BRICS is getting political - in the good sense. The world can view it as a new sensible force - complementing the formerly great Eurocentric "teachers of humanity" with some cautious Asian/Latin American wisdom.

The summit in Russia's Eurasian city of Ufa, home to a mixed Muslim-Christian population and European lifestyle, is therefore symbolic in that sense.

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 #11
Christian Science Monitor
July 10, 2015
Islamist threat to Russia looms large at Central Asia security summit
The Kremlin is increasingly concerned about an Islamist uprising in one of the weak autocracies along its southern flank, all of which will be attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit today in Ufa, Russia.
By Fred Weir, Correspondent

MOSCOW - For all Washington's intense focus on the self-declared Islamic State and other Islamist militants, the threat such groups pose is largely a distant one. The danger is real, but it is one where the risks are primarily to US interests and allies thousands of miles away, not the homeland itself.

But for Russia, just a few hundred miles from Islamist territory in Afghanistan, the danger really could emerge right next door.

The threat of Islamist takeover in one or more of the three weak, authoritarian post-Soviet states - Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan - that border Afghanistan is a long-standing fear in Moscow. And it will be a major topic of discussion as Russia hosts a summit of the Central Asia-oriented Shanghai Cooperation Organization [SCO] in the Urals city of Ufa today.

All members of the group, which is led by Russia and China, have an intense interest in stability in Central Asia. But efforts to forge a security component for the SCO have foundered on sharp differences among its six members.

Experts say Russia is taking the lead through the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization [CSTO], a military alliance that includes Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, partly to lay down defensive preparations, but also to strengthen its own grip on the turbulent region.

"There seems no doubt that Russia will face serious threats in Central Asia within a few years," says Alexander Golts, an independent military expert. "Even before Islamic State appeared it was clear that radical Islam will ultimately prevail in Afghanistan. No one in Moscow any longer believes the US is going to prevent that outcome, and it will be left to Russia to deal with the fallout."

Vulnerable regimes

In recent months, Russia has held anti-terrorist war games in Tajikistan, where it maintains a permanent military presence, involving thousands of troops from all CSTO countries. Tajikistan has an 800-mile border with Afghanistan, which has been largely peaceful since Afghan-based militants provoked a bloody civil war in the country in the 1990s. But Taliban activity has reportedly spiked across the Amu Darya river in northern Afghanistan, leading Moscow to recently pledge an unprecedented $1.2 billion in military aid to the mountainous former-Soviet country. Russia also plans to beef up its own contingent in Tajikistan from 6,000 to 9,000 troops, and deploy its own newly produced drones to help patrol the frontier.

A bigger headache for Moscow is Uzbekistan, a populous and deeply impoverished country ruled by Islam Karimov, an aging Soviet-era autocrat. Russian experts say the danger of a succession crisis, which could erupt any time, could open the door for seismic unrest in the country.

Mr. Karimov, fearing Russian intentions, pulled out of the CSTO a few years ago, and has since concentrated on building the strongest army in Central Asia. But he is accused of brutally putting down an Islamist-inspired uprising in the volatile Ferghana Valley a decade ago and has suffered strained relations with Western countries ever since. Nevertheless, the US appears on track to  provide 300 specialized armored vehicles to help Uzbekistan control its own 90-mile border with Afghanistan.

"Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are vulnerable regimes, and many terrorist groups of Uzbek and Tajik ethnicity maintain bases in Afghanistan and cooperate with the Taliban there," says Leonid Gusev, an expert with the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Relations, which trains Russian diplomats. "The threat has dwindled in recent years, but it could certainly reappear if the situation changes."

The third post-Soviet republic that shares a border with Afghanistan is the gas-rich, authoritarian hermit state of Turkmenistan. Mr. Gusev says that its leader, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, recently appealed to Moscow and Beijing to provide "private military services" to help secure the Turkmen-Afghan border after a string of Taliban bombings destroyed electrical infrastructure.

"The Russian leadership has understood that this region, particularly Uzbekistan, with its huge population and crushing poverty, provides excellent grounds for militant Islam. Unrest is inevitable," says Mr. Golts. "Unfortunately, Moscow's response so far is only a military one."

Over the past five years, Russia has been training a rapid deployment force, under CSTO auspices, that could react quickly to any regional threat. "The CSTO is being used here to grant legitimacy, if Russia decides it needs to intervene quickly in any part of the region," Golts adds.

A Kazakh scenario

Moscow's worst nightmare is that a breakdown in Kazakhstan, ruled since Soviet times by an aging authoritarian president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, could bring waves of refugees - and potentially jihadists - into the heart of Russia. Though Kazakhstan is currently stable, a struggle to succeed Mr. Nazarbayev could change that.

"Russian strategists used to believe that Kazakhstan would shield Russia [from serious turmoil in Central Asia], but not any longer," says Golts. "If Nazarbayev goes, there is a real fear that Kazakhstan could become unstable. The border between Russia and Kazakhstan is wide open. That threat is scary and real."

Reports suggest that thousands of Central Asians have traveled to Iraq and Syria to join IS and experts worry about the impact on unstable regional regimes if those fighters return. There have even been claims that the extremist Islamic State may be establishing itself in Afghanistan,

Gusev says Moscow may be exaggerating the threat as it pursues its own geopolitical goals, but the future is uncertain.

"It really doesn't look like there's much to the reports of IS establishing itself in Afghanistan," he says. But the Middle Eastern terror group does has an ecumenical appeal to young Muslims, which can transcend the ethnic differences that limit the Taliban's potential reach.

"If IS keeps growing and being perceived as a success, young jihadis are going to want to affiliate with it. It's something to worry about."

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#12
New York Times
July 10, 2015
Putin Criticizes U.S. Role in Afghanistan, Saying Security Hasn't Improved
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

MOSCOW - President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Friday sharply criticized the American-led war effort in Afghanistan, telling a gathering of regional leaders that a decade of Western military intervention had failed to improve security in the country.

"The deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan, where a 10-year presence of the international military contingent has not brought any qualitative improvement of the situation, raises serious concern," Mr. Putin said in a speech to heads of state, including President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan.

"The situation is aggravated by the growing activity of the so-called Islamic State, a terrorist organization striving to extend its influence," Mr. Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript, at a gathering in Ufa, Russia, for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Russia had shown support for the American-led military effort in Afghanistan, including by allowing supply shipments along a route of more than 3,200 miles through Russia and the former Soviet Union, called the Northern Distribution Network.

In May, however, Russia formally rescinded its permission for NATO to use the route, and Mr. Putin's remarks on Friday signaled a new, tougher assessment of the legacy that United States forces are leaving behind.

While the American-led combat operation in Afghanistan formally ended on Dec. 31, about 10,000 United States troops remain in the country, and plans for a further withdrawal have been delayed because of the worsening security situation.

With Russia under serious international pressure, including economic sanctions, over its intervention in Ukraine, Mr. Putin has sought to use improved ties with Asia to demonstrate that his country retains a prominent place on the world stage.

Relations between Russia and the United States are at perhaps their lowest point since the end of the Cold War, and the Kremlin regularly issues criticism of American foreign policy, especially over the role of the United States in the Middle East, including in Iraq, Libya and Syria.

Afghanistan has observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, whose full members are Russia, China and the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India, Iran and Pakistan are expected to become full members within the next year or so.

In remarks at the meeting, Mr. Ghani said his government was committed to engaging in peace talks with the Taliban, though efforts to improve that dialogue have had mixed success in recent weeks.

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#13
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
July 10, 2015
Putin calls for BRICS to assert financial independence from West
bne IntelliNews

With a total GDP of $32 trillion and uniting 43% of the world's population, the BRICS grouping of emerging powers took an assertive global stance at its annual summit in the Russian city of Ufa, as it unrolled plans to rival Western-dominated financial institutions.

Marking the organisation's seventh summit meeting, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa hailed its most significant achievements to date as it establishes itself as a powerful new global financial institute.

"We welcomed the completion of the creation of the New Development Bank and reserve currency pool with total resources of $200bn," Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his opening remarks. He also took the opportunity to remind listeners of the growing external debt of some unnamed leading countries, and called for BRICS members to be self-sufficient.

"We are worried about instability on the markets, high volatility of energy prices, the building up of sovereign debts by some big countries," Putin said, adding that the BRICS countries will use their own resources to deal with the unpredictable financial climate. The New Development Bank will ensure BRICS' independence from Western financial markets, he said.

Headed by Indian financier Kundapur Kamath and conceived as an alternative to the existing US-dominated World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), the New Development Bank is scheduled to implement its first projects in 2016.

BRICS, which held its first summit in 2009 and was known as BRIC before the inclusion of South Africa in 2010, will have a broad spectrum of operation outside finance, Putin said in his remarks to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and South African President Jacob Zuma.

"Our union will continue to do its part in ensuring international security and global growth and the resolution of key problems of our time", Putin said, naming also energy policy and the fight against terrorism, narcotics and piracy as areas of cooperation.

Zuma, meanwhile, praised the benefit to his country since its accession to the grouping in 2010. "Since joining BRICS, trade has grown exponentially," said Zuma.  "In 2011, South Africa's trade with BRICS countries was ZAR268bn ($21.5bn)," said Zuma. "In 2014, there was an increase to ZAR382bn."

"New word centre"

Other government officials also hailed the event's significance with lofty statements.

"BRICS is in fact an already established new centre of the multi-polar world and a new and more democratic system of international relations," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said. "BRICS is a phenomenon of the 21st century and this is its difference from military and political unions that come from another epoch and alliances of states built under a principle of hierarchism."

While revelling in their combined weight, the leaders were careful not to stoke international tensions. Xi said it was  "necessary to draw lessons from history, to abandon the Cold War ideology", but also pointed to the need to "jointly safeguard peace and stability around the world".

The summit was held from July 8-9 in Ufa, located nearly 1,170 km southeast of Moscow, chosen for its location on the threshold between Europe and Asia. The significance of the event was reinforced by a parallel summit on July 10 of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a Eurasian political, economic and military organisation that was founded in 2001 in Shanghai by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan are expected to be admitted as full members in 2016, bringing an additional 1.5 billion people to the organisation's territory.

The dual summits are an especially valuable platform for Putin as his team reposition Russia towards Asia in response to Western sanctions over Moscow's actions in Ukraine, and following Russia's suspension from the Group of Eight (G8) industrial powers for its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The participants had no differences of opinion over Crimea's recognition as part of Russia after a referendum on the matter held on the peninsula in March 2014, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed. "The BRICS, in addition to their economic and pragmatic agenda, have become an influential factor in world politics," Lavrov said. "None of our partners declare their non-recognition of the referendum's results, which became the basis for Crimea's reunification with Russia," the minister told a press briefing, adding that the Crimean issue "had been closed by the Crimean people".

A number of major deals were closed and memorandums of cooperation were signed during the summit. Among these, Russian oil major Rosneft signed a 10-year, 100m tonne oil supply contract with India's Essar Oil, and has agreed to buy up to 49 per cent of a refinery owned by the company.

The Russian state nuclear power agency Rosatom also signed a memorandum of understanding with South Africa's Energy Ministry on the training of 200 South African nuclear industry workers, as Russia angles for an estimated $100bn worth of contracts for the construction and maintenance of eight nuclear power plants.

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#14
Irrussianality
https://irrussianality.wordpress.com
July 9, 2015
The Main Enemy
By Paul Robinson
Paul Robinson is a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, and the author of numerous books on Russia and Soviet history, including 'Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich: Supreme Commander of the Russian Army'

Back in the Cold War, the Soviets used to refer to the United States as the 'glavnyi protivnik' ('main enemy'). When presidential candidate Mitt Romney declared in 2012 that Russia was America's 'number one geopolitical foe', he was roundly condemned for hyperbole. Now, his point of view seems mainstream. Today, the nominee for America's top military post (the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), General Joseph F. Dunford, told a Congressional hearing that, 'My assessment today, Senator, is that Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security'. He went on to say 'If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I'd have to point to Russia. And if you look at their behavior, it's nothing short of alarming.'

In terms purely of capability, Dunford isn't wrong that Russia 'could' pose an existential threat to the United States. Russia owns the world's second largest nuclear arsenal, and there is no other power on earth able to cause as much destruction to America as Russia. But threat is more than a question of capability. It is also a matter of intent. The United Kingdom's nuclear weapons could destroy numerous American cities; so could those of France. America does not consider those countries threats because there is obviously no intent to attack. Why is Russia any different?

Even during the Cold War, there was good reason to doubt that the Soviets had any real wish to wage war against America. However, an argument could at least be made that Soviet ideology was incompatible with that of the United States. Communist theory predicted the collapse of the capitalist order, and communist leaders sought to hasten that day. There was some hostile intent.

That simply isn't the case today. Russia is a trading nation, thoroughly linked into international markets, dependent upon the ups and downs of the world economy. Seeking the collapse or destruction of the United States and its associated global order would be suicidal. That does not mean that Russia will not react to defend its interests against what it considers (rightly or wrongly) American encroachments, but that is not at all the same as having aggressive intent.

The Soviet Union didn't destroy the United States. The idea that contemporary Russia, which is much weaker, much less ambitious, and actually much less hostile, might ever wish to do so, is absurd. That does not mean, however, that Dunford doesn't believe what he says and that Russians can lightly dismiss it. As I have written elsewhere, perceptions frequently matter far more than reality. It is important for political leaders to correctly understand how others perceive them, and choose their behaviour accordingly. In Ukraine and elsewhere, Russians may believe that they are acting defensively, but they need to be aware that others perceive their actions very differently.
 

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 #15
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
July 9, 2015
How the US military plans to neutralize Russia
The new military strategy of the United States, which now includes Russia in the list of top threats, indicates that Washington is trying to maintain its global influence that was established after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
By Alexey Fenenko
Alexey Fenenko is an associate professor at the Faculty of World Politics of the Moscow State University. Previously, he was a leading researcher at the Institute of International Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2004-2013), a project coordinator at the Academic Educational Forum on International Relations and a co-editor for ˝International Trends˝ magazine (2004-2011). He has a Doctorate in History (2003).

With the U.S. Air Force Secretary, Deborah James having described Russia as "the biggest threat" to the American interests on Wednesday, July 8, the latest version of the "National Military Strategy of the United States" seems to echo James. The document has alredy generated a wave of expert comments. Within Russia, the media focus has been on two of its provisions, especially the one that refers to Russia as a "revisionist power."

The new U.S. military strategy first and foremost intends to counter "revisionist powers" that violate the norms of the world order. Secondarily, it plans to counter extremist organizations that, as the experience of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Greater Syria (ISIS) shows, have the capacity to create armed units. Both postulates are accompanied by arguments about the need to improve the flexibility, mobility and available technology of the U.S. Armed Forces.

All these provisions have been repeated countless times in U.S. military planning documents. Of more interest is that the new National Military Strategy suggests that the strategic thinking of the U.S. elite (regardless of individual party affiliation) is based on a combination of two trends.

The U.S. leadership is in favor of preserving the rules of international cooperation established since 1991. At the same time, the White House is beginning to sense that the existing mechanisms for its protection are not sufficient.

The "new" US military strategy can be traced back to 1991

Back in the late 1980s, U.S. experts bandied about four ideas that came to form the basis of American foreign policy. All these provisions were set forth in the 1991 National Security Strategy of the United States:

- The end of the Cold War has not led to the achievement of a key U.S. objective: Soviet military potential has not been dismantled on the model of Germany and Japan after World War II;
- In the foreseeable future, Russia will remain the only country in the world with the technical capacity to destroy the strategic potential of the United States;
- Washington needs to justify the presence of its Armed Forces on the territory of its allies, such as the European countries of NATO, Japan and South Korea;
- The United States must lead the fight against "non-traditional threats," including transnational terrorism.

These points were ultimately enshrined in the 1995 National Military Strategy of the United States, which stipulated that the U.S. Department of Defense would counter states attempting to revise the post-1991 world order.

To achieve these goals, the United States needed to maintain military superiority, provide security guarantees to allies, and demonstrate willingness to use force in proportion to the nature of the threat.

The latter point meant that Washington reserved the right to use force even against great powers like Russia and China. But the talk was less about direct confrontation, and more about Washington's carefully prepared intervention in a potential conflict between Russia or China and their neighbors.

Since then, U.S. military policy has continued to develop within the framework of this paradigm.

Russia has now been prioritized as a top threat

The novelty of the 2015 National Military Strategy is in the setting of priorities.

Foremost among the potential threats is Russia. The document states that Moscow "has repeatedly shown disregard for the sovereignty of its neighbors and willingness to use force to achieve its goals."

Next is Iran, which is accused of developing nuclear weapons and destabilizing the Middle East. In third place is North Korea, similarly castigated for producing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, and threatening America's regional allies, Japan and South Korea.

Fourth place is occupied by China, described as a threat to regional security, especially in the South China Sea. Only then is the fight against terrorist organizations mentioned.

Moreover, Russia and China are cited in the same context as Iran and North Korea. Almost all U.S. administrations have segregated these countries, stressing that Iran and North Korea are "rogue states." Now the Obama administration has put all four countries in one context. Does this mean that the current U.S. administration has moved Russia and China into the category of "rogue states"?

Another alarming signal is that the international community is said to be coordinating efforts in the fight against all four threats. The fact that Iran and North Korea are excluded from the "international community" in the U.S. meaning is taken as a real fact.

But if Russia and China are also excluded, the situation takes on a new dimension. Washington either recognizes that the world is essentially split, or is counting on a marked weakening of Russian and Chinese resources in the foreseeable future.

The third problem is Russia's return as a priority adversary. There is nothing fundamentally new in this. Even the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review of 1994 noted that Moscow remains a priority adversary as long as it has nuclear parity with Washington.

However, in its public rhetoric the White House has tried not to focus attention on this. (At the semi-official level it is postulated that China is the new Soviet Union). Now the official rhetoric seems to be coming into line with material and technical capabilities.

China remains at the bottom of the list of potential threats. At first glance this seems strange, since back in 2009 Obama announced his "pivot to Asia."

Perhaps the current Democratic administration still harbors hopes of negotiating with Beijing. Or perhaps the Americans are just performing another foreign policy U-turn.

The Ukraine crisis put the priority spotlight back on the Baltic-Black Sea region. Meanwhile, the Asia-Pacific region will come to the fore once more when the United States prepares the necessary back areas and creates the desired situation in the South China or East China Sea (the exact region is not so important).

U.S. prepares for the resurgence of wars between great powers

The new National Military Strategy makes regular mention of the growing danger of war with "state actors" - more precisely, a war with great powers. From the previous section, there can be no doubt as regards the perceived opponents. Of greater interest is that the "Strategy" constantly highlights that the United States has weak mechanisms to counter other powers in regional wars.

Behind this there lurks a serious strategic problem. Over the past century U.S. strategy has been inspired by the ideas of Italian General Giulio Douhet about the unconditional superiority of air power. In war, command of the air forces the enemy to capitulate. This postulate served as the basis for the logic of nuclear deterrence, with its threats to wipe out enemy cities and infrastructure.

But no one explained what would happen if, instead of capitulating, the enemy began to take retaliatory measures. The U.S. military establishment worried that it would become increasingly difficult to find soldiers for ground operations. Unlike during the Cold War, its allies are in no hurry to provide infantry under U.S. "air cover."

For the authors of the National Military Strategy, the solution lies in building military infrastructure at the regional level. Not by accident is the first objective in a hypothetical conflict to thwart the primary goals of the aggressor. This is possible only with real U.S. forces on the ground in problem areas (from Washington's viewpoint). In a sense, the Americans plan to tweak their technical means with a view to implementation.

But at the same time, the deployment of U.S. infrastructure on the borders of Russia and China is alarming Moscow and Beijing. Back in the 1970s, a large-scale ground war between the Soviet Union and the United States was fraught with technical difficulties.

With the appearance of U.S. military infrastructure near Russia and China (including various kinds of regional missile defense systems), it is becoming technically more feasible. In the medium term, will the prospect of such a conflict lead U.S. politicians into temptation?

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#16
Los Angeles Times
July 9, 2015
Future of nuclear arms control looks bleak, experts say
By W.J. HENNIGAN AND RALPH VARTABEDIAN  

The nuclear weapon treaties that have helped preserve peace for nearly half a century have begun to fray.

Stirring concern are recent Russian treaty violations, growing tensions between nuclear powers and the continuing ambitions of nations seeking their own strategic weapons.

The latest blow came with Russian President Vladimir Putin's announcement last month that he would add 40 new intercontinental nuclear missiles to his arsenal - not a treaty violation, but a powerful message about Russia's robust plans for its nuclear forces.

Over the last half-century, weapons treaties have led to a dramatic drop in the number of warheads. At the peak of the Cold War in the 1960s, the U.S. had more than 30,000 nuclear weapons - 400 targeted on Moscow alone.

Although both the U.S. and Russia are still below treaty limits set in the years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the prospect is growing dim for continued reductions in weapons.

The State Department recently concluded that Russia had violated a 1987 treaty by testing an intermediate-range missile - considered one of the most destabilizing weapons during the Cold War because of its ability to strike with no early warning.

The U.S. is now considering deploying its own medium-range missiles in Europe, a serious blow to the era of arms control.

"It might be unraveling," said Siegfried Hecker, former director of the nuclear weapons design center at Los Alamos, N.M., and now a professor of management science and engineering at Stanford University.

Alexei G. Arbatov, a respected arms control expert and a former Russian legislator, agrees that the future for arms control appears bleak.

"Although arms control has faced difficulties in the past, never before have virtually all negotiating tracks been simultaneously stalled, existing treaties been eroded by political and technological developments, and the planning for next steps been so in doubt," he wrote in a recent report published by the Carnegie Moscow Center.

Putin's plan for 40 new missiles exacerbates the already tense relations between Russia and the U.S. following the seizure of Crimea and assistance to Ukrainian rebels. Putin boasted that the new missiles could penetrate even the most technologically advanced U.S. missile defense systems.

Some European and even U.S. analysts say Putin is merely updating his arsenal, just as the U.S. is planning to do with its forces over the next decade.

But the new missiles reverse years of nuclear weapons reductions, though they would not immediately violate the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed in 2010.

That agreement requires Russia and the U.S. to reduce deployed intercontinental missiles to 700 and overall warheads to 1,550 each. Russia is below the missile ceiling, while the U.S. is above it. Both sides are close to the limits on warheads. The two nations have until 2018 to meet the limits.

Still, U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry rejected any backsliding "to a kind of a Cold War status."

"Nobody should hear that kind of announcement from a leader of a powerful country and not be concerned about what the implications are," he said last month.

The U.S. and Soviet Union had begun to limit the arms race early in the Cold War, striking their first deal in 1963 to eliminate radioactive fallout from atmospheric tests.

About a dozen nuclear arms deals have been struck between the U.S., Russia and most other countries, according to Linton Brooks, who helped negotiate the first arms reduction treaty during the Reagan administration.

The most ambitious agreement, eventually signed by 190 nations, was the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, which aimed to eventually eliminate nuclear weapons. Other agreements locked down or eliminated surplus inventories of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium to reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism.

But over recent years, cooperation began to break down as the views of nuclear weapons diverged between the U.S. and Russia.

The U.S. has come to see nuclear weapons as expensive, dangerous and militarily impractical.

"The U.S. is reducing the role of nuclear weapons in its national security doctrine, while Russia is increasing it," Hecker said.

Russia considers itself surrounded by unfriendly neighbors - China to the southeast, Muslim republics in the southwest and North Atlantic Treaty Organization nations to the west - and it doesn't have the conventional forces to handle the threats, said Stephen Rademaker, a former assistant secretary of State who helped implement the intermediate-range weapons treaty.

The result is that the intermediate-range treaty "is not going to be with us for the long term, because Russia wants out and evidently is taking concrete steps in anticipation of getting out," Rademaker said. "We need to make sure when that day comes, we and our allies do not find ourselves at a disadvantage."

The State Department has concluded Russia has violated the treaty by testing the R-500 intermediate-range cruise missile - the most serious breach of the accord signed in 1987 by President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Earlier this month, the State Department issued an annual report that found that Russia violated a verification agreement and backed out of another agreement on nuclear cooperation.

In December, Russia also ended a 20-year program that helped stop nuclear materials from being stolen or sold on the black market.

Russian experts are also concerned about the loss of common ground. But they blame the U.S. because of its development of a long-range missile-defense system and precision long-range conventional weapons, even if they are intended to defend against rogue nuclear powers like North Korea and potentially Iran.

"The developments moved the U.S. and Russia far apart," Arbatov said in an interview. "Unless those are dealt with, it will be very difficult to have future treaties."

A future arms race among more than half a dozen nuclear powers could be more dangerous than even the Cold War, which largely revolved around the U.S. and Russia. The Non-Proliferation Treaty was supposed to prevent that problem, but it is under severe strain as a growing number of nations seek nuclear status.

At a monthlong treaty conference in New York this year, nonproliferation officials left United Nations headquarters empty-handed despite 125 impassioned speeches and thousands of documents filed to push toward eliminating the current 16,000 warheads.

They could not agree on a future meeting because of disagreements over a proposal to make the Middle East a nuclear-free zone. Such a goal would put Israel's undeclared nuclear capability at issue.

No nation has loomed as a bigger threat to arms control than Iran. Six nations, including the U.S., are trying to negotiate a treaty to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. An agreement was supposed to be reached last week, but Iran would not agree to future inspection requirements. Talks are continuing.

Proponents of the treaty say it would be an important step in controlling nuclear weapons. But critics say it is a destabilizing deal that would fuel a new arms race in the Middle East, cementing Iran in place as a threshold nuclear power. Critics point to a similar 1994 deal with North Korea that later fell apart, resulting in the country developing its own weapons.

Old hands of the Cold War say current tensions are unlikely to permanently thwart arms control.

"I think there is still the prospect for modest reductions in weapons," said Philip E. Coyle III, former senior Obama national security advisor. "It will require a cooling of the rhetoric between the U.S. and Russia. It may have to wait until the next president."

Rademaker also does not foresee another arms race, despite the turmoil over treaties.

"I don't think there are fundamental conflicts between the U.S. and Russia that would get us into a war," Rademaker said. "We are not in conflict over the future direction of the world, which we had during the Cold War."

But the erosion in the nuclear treaties has created a momentum of its own.

The House Armed Services Committee has repeatedly tried to block implementation of New START because it reduces U.S. military readiness.

And Republican and Democratic defense experts have been pushing for heavy investments in developing new nuclear weapons.

The Obama administration began work last year on a proposed $355-billion plan to modernize U.S. nuclear forces.

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 #17
Vice.com
July 9, 2015
Now Would Be a Pretty Good Time to Launch a Nuclear Attack on Russia
By Ezra Kaplan

Russia's space-based early warning system, designed to alert the nation to an inbound nuclear missile attack, is offline, leaving Moscow partially blind to potential intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) attacks.

Since the Cold War, both the US and Russia have used a combination of satellites and ground radars as part of early warning systems to alert their governments to any incoming ICBMs. Russia announced last year that it would be replacing its aging Soviet-designed missile-warning system, which was decommissioned in January, this month. But last week, they announced that the replacement satellites had been delayed by four months.

"Today we are nearly prepared to launch the first satellite into a highly elliptic orbit, the launch of which will take place in November 2015," Major General Oleg Maidanovich, commander of Russia's Aerospace Defense Forces, said Tuesday. Maidanovich, however, did not offer an explanation as to why the launch had been postponed.

Signs of an ICBM missile launch include heat and infrared signatures coming from the hot plume of rocket exhaust created during the missile's ascent phase. Early warning satellites are then complemented by an array of ground-based radars to detect incoming missiles.

"The major difference is that [the detection] range on the ground is limited because of the curvature of the Earth, so you don't have as much warning that a missile is incoming," Michaela Dodge, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, told VICE News. She explained that ground-based systems have to look for different kinds of indicators because a missile's heat signature decreases significantly within five minutes of a launch.

So with its satellites out of commission, Russia can only depend on ground radar, leaving the country vulnerable to a surprise nuclear attack at a time when tensions with the rest of the world are growing.

Last weekend, while Russian President Vladimir Putin called President Barack Obama to wish him a happy Fourth of July, the US Air Force intercepted four Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers off the coasts of California and Alaska.

But despite that incident, recent antagonism in the Baltic Sea, and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, experts point out that a pre-emptive strike against the Russians - even with their defenses down - would be exceedingly unwise.

"If you are going to do a first strike, you want be able to take out as much of the Russian nuclear force as you can so that you reduce the prospects of retaliation," Steven Pifer, director of the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative at the Brookings Institution, told VICE News. "Nobody has the capability to execute that."

It's also highly unlikely that the US would be willing to make the first move against the former Soviet republic.

"I can conceive of no circumstance in which the United States would launch a 'bolt from the blue' first strike on Russia - not gonna happen," Pifer said. The only way an American president would launch a nuclear attack, he says, would be in retaliation to another country's strike.

The decision for any nuclear strike has to come from the president, who would access the infamous nuclear "football," a super-classified briefcase that is always kept near him. Though its contents are a secret, it is widely believed that the black leather case contains everything the president needs to initiate a nuclear attack, whether preemptive or retaliatory.

Were the president to give the order, it would swiftly move through the chain of command until it reached the three legs of the nuclear triad: Ohio-class submarines carrying Trident D5 ballistic missiles, the 450 underground missile silos holding Minuteman III missiles spread throughout the Great Plains, and long-range nuclear bombers like the B-2.

But no matter how effective the early warning systems, neither Russia nor the United States is capable of defending itself against an all-out missile attack from the other.

"The United States has been very clear that it would be impossible, foolhardy, and a fool's errand to try to defend against a Russian nuclear attack," Tom Collina, director of policy at Ploughshares Fund, an anti-nuclear proliferation think tank, told VICE News. "The only thing defending against a nuclear attack is Russia's own self-restraint and wisdom. Nuclear deterrence is what holds the balance of terror in place, not defenses."

The greatest danger posed by Russia's hobbled early warning system, according to Collina, is the risk of misinterpretation.

"We want Russia to have full information about what threats might be coming towards it, because the situation here is not that the United States is going to launch a pre-emptive war against Russia, but that Russia will launch nuclear weapons under the misinformed impression that it is being attacked," Collina said. "From the US perspective, the more situational awareness, the more early warning Russia has, the better."

In other words, the lack of early warning satellites doesn't make the world more dangerous because it increases the likelihood of a surprise nuclear attack. It makes the world more dangerous because it increases the fear of a surprise nuclear attack.

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 #18
Unlike in Ukraine, a Russian Maidan Would Likely Be Violent and Destructive, Shevtsova Says
Paul Goble

Staunton, July 10 - "Unfortunately, Russia is different from present-day Ukraine in many ways," Lilya Shevtsova says; and consequently, if a Maidan does occur there, it is likely to be different as well, violent rather peaceful, destructive rather than constructive, and divisive rather than unifying.

In the course of an interview this week with Artem Dekhtyarenko of "Apostropha," the Russian analyst outlines the ways in which Ukraine is very different from Russia.  First of all, she says, "Ukraine provides an example of pluralism," of acceptable differences within the society and the polity (szona.org/vozmozhno-put-rossii-eto-raskol-na-melkie-chasti/#t20c).

Second, she continues, "Ukraine has shown the possibility and ability of a Slavic society in a post-communist country to change power by relatively peaceful means." And third, Ukraine has displayed the ability to articulate and maintain a civil society based on horizontal rather than vertical ties alone.

In that sense, Shevtsova says, "Ukraine differs from Russia where horizontal ties which began to be formed in the 1990s are very weak, broken or even destroyed altogether."  Thus, she argues, Russia's problem "is not in the vertical of the powers that be but rather in the divisions of society."

That in turn means that the coming together of society to promote change will be far more difficult in Russia than it has been in Ukraine. Given "the weakness of horizontal ties and the absence of authorities, [a Russian Maidan] could assume not only an explosive but a destructive character."

"Moreover," she adds, "Ukraine has the experience of cooperation of varies opposition groups as was demonstrated in the Maidan; there is the experience of dialogue between the pragmatic part of the former elite which has the habits of administration and the opposition." The "peace pact" between Yatseniuk and Poroshenko is an example of this.

But "in Russia, the probability of the conclusion of such a pact which would guarantee a peaceful scenario is not great. Russian pragmatists within the regime have discredited themselves" and that means that Russia could have its own Maidan, "but it could turn out to be destructive."

"Even the opposition is worried about this. For [its members]," the Russian analyst says, "the chief question is whether or not [they] will be able to establish [their] own political alternative to the Kremlin before the current system begins to collapse and the people simply go into the streets."

Further complicating the situation in Russia is the fact that the Kremlin cannot be certain how the force structures will respond to a Maidan-like challenge.  In 2011-2012 during the last wave of major protests, an MVD colonel told Shevtsova that if the demonstrators exceeded the number they were allowed, he would disperse them.

But if their number grew to half a million, the same colonel said, "'then we will join you.'" He and his unit were brought in from Khanti-Mansiisk, but it should be clear what this means: "even the powers that be cannot be certain how the force structures will conduct themselves."  And that may be true of the military as well.

Given her insistence of the enormous differences between Russia and Ukraine, Shevtsova was asked whether she viewed the future of Russia to be European or Asiatic. Her answer to this almost inevitable question also speaks to the differences between the nature of politics and society in the two Slavic countries.

"As a civilization, Russia up to now does not belong either to Asia or Europe," she argues. Nonetheless, it has "very many European aspects" in its culture and significant fractions of the population support the idea of a government of laws, oppose corruption, and "would support the idea of a European order."

But it is "another matter" entirely and "in this is our difference from the Ukrainians," whether very many Russians are prepared to "struggle for a legal state."  Russians are "prepared to accept the idea of a legal state if it will be offered them by the elite," but it is unclear that they see that as requiring action on their part.

As far as Asia is concerned, Shevtsova says that "the Russian Federation will never be real Asia." It lacks almost all Asian characteristics, "with the exception of the manner of rule which we took from the history of the Golden Horde." Russians may remain in this holding pattern or interregnum between the two for some time.

"It is possible," she continues, that the country will split up into "small parts," and one of them might thrive "as a European state." Given its complex and compound nature, however, the Russian Federation "as a whole" may not be able to transform: "One can't build a contemporary state including therein the European part of Russia and let us say Chechnya's Kadyrov regime."

But there is some hope, Shevtsova suggested: There are a number of people who are calling for "a transition to a legal state. The only problem is what is the price [they] are willing  to pay for that."  The Ukrainians have shown themselves willing to pay a high price; it is not clear whether Russians will as well.

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 #19
Interfax
July 10, 2015
Peaceful settlement in Ukraine stalling over Kiev's unwillingness to hold dialogue with Donbass - Putin

The process of peaceful settlement in Ukraine is having difficulties because Kyiv has no wish to hold talks with Donbas, but chances of success are higher than chances of failure, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a news conference in Ufa on July 10.

"It does seem to me that to a certain extent the settlement stalls because our partners in Kyiv have no wish to hold direct talks with Donbass - Lugansk and Donetsk," he said.

This looks a bit strange because "partners from Kiev insisted that leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk republics appear in Minsk so that namely they sign these documents," Putin said.

"Now we see that they do not want to deal with them [the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic], then why did they ask them to come and sign the documents? This is somewhat strange," the president said.

"We will proceed from the premise that after all this is a tactical move. I am inclined to think that we rather have more chances of success than of failure," Putin said.

According to the Russian president, "there is no other solution for the Ukrainian issue but the possibility of resolving it peacefully and via complete and unconditional execution of agreements reached in Minsk."

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 #20
AFP
July 9, 2015
Ukraine offers huge state firms to foreign investors

Ukraine said Thursday it would offer nearly 350 state firms for sale to foreign investors at an upcoming US conference aimed at saving the war-shattered country's imploding economy.

The huge privatisation effort -- due to kick off in October -- hopes to raise billions of dollars that could be used to plug a leaking budget and deal with the consequences of neighbouring Russia's effective economic blockade.

But foreigners have been wary of plowing cash into a country still torn by a pro-Moscow separatist crisis that has claimed the lives of more than 6,500 people and brought swathes of Ukraine's devastated industrial heartland under rebel control.

The privatisation plan has also been hurt by some ministers' refusal to hand over companies under their jurisdiction into private -- and possibly foreign -- hands.

Ukrainian Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius said a total of 345 government-run properties would be presented to major US and European investors Monday.

"These properties will be included in the first wave of privatisations," Abromavicius told reporters.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said 150 chief executives had promised to visit the Washington roadshow.

Big ambitions, bigger hurdles

Yatsenyuk is expected to promote the potential returns of acquiring chunks of struggling electricity companies and an outdated portside plant in Odessa -- the Black Sea region now governed by former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

But economists and some of Yatsenyuk's own allies warn that this may be a terrible time for Ukraine to part with some of its largest holdings.

The economy shrank by 17.2 percent in the first three months of the year compared to the same period in 2014. Property values are collapsing and the unpredictability of the ongoing war turns standard economic forecasting into an very imprecise science.

Kiev's SigmaBleyzer venture capital firm reported a private investment decline in this year's first quarter of 25.1 percent.

Yatsenyuk seems undeterred by the data and intends to see $500 million raised by the sale of the Odessa port plant alone.

He told a tense meeting of ministers Wednesday that the government would also part with a massive but loss-making power generator called Tsentrenergo "by the end of the year."
The initial sales package also includes six regional power generation and distribution companies.

"I demand that we reach a transparent decision to privatise these assets," Yatsenyuk said.

Yet the Washington crowd will be keenly aware of Ukraine's spotty privatisation record. Most important firms have previously been hoovered up by oligarchs -- some of them based in Russia -- who offered low bids but enjoyed close powerful contacts in Kiev.

Ukraine's new pro-Western leadership has vowed to clean up its act in order to apply for EU membership by 2020.

But Yatsenyuk has been openly challenged by ministers and senior officials who oversee the very properties being advertised in the United States.

Ukrainian Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn told Yatsenyuk at Wednesday's meeting that he would not give up Tsentrenergo until "the entire power generation market has been de-monopolised."

And the head of Ukraine's state property fund said it might be wiser to let foreigners operate the Odessa port plant rather than own it outright.

"Personally, instead of selling ports, I would prefer to see them being put under public-private-ownership -- the way it is done all over the world," Igor Bilous told reporters.

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 #21
Sputnik
July 10, 2015
Fire Sale, Everything Must Go! Ukraine Puts 345 State Firms Up For Sale

Ukrainian Economic Development Minister Aivaras Abromavicius clarified exactly how many state companies would be offered up for sale to US and European investors at the upcoming Ukrainian-American investment conference in Washington D.C on Monday, stating that 345 state-run firms would be put on offer to the highest bidder.

Speaking before reporters on Thursday, Abromavicius noted that the 345 firms offered for sale "will be included in the first wave of privatizations," which he earlier confirmed would begin in the fourth quarter of this year.

Kiev's effort is ostensibly aimed at raising billions of dollars for the country's cash-strapped budget, as the economy, hit by a decline in trade with Russia, financial panic, and civil war, lies in tatters and on the verge of default.

Companies on the docket include the electricity generation firm Tsentrenergo and six of its regional distributors, gas transportation companies, the Odessa Port Plant, mining operations and agricultural holdings, which together are projected to bring 17 billion hryvnia (about $790 million) into the country's coffers.

Earlier this year, Ukrainian officials held similar conferences in Washington, Berlin and Paris. As late as last month, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk met with Ukrainian-Americans in Washington, telling them that his government wants "to see American owners on the territory of Ukraine," stating that "they will bring not only investment, but also new standards, new ways of managing the companies, and a new investment culture."

But with the IMF (conservatively) projecting a 9 percent decline in Ukraine's GDP in 2015, with inflation hitting nearly 50 percent and the country approaching debt levels amounting to 100 percent of GDP, analysts warn that the present may be the worst possible time for Kiev to sell off its large, state-owned firms. The country's economic decline, political instability and the war in the east have hit property values hard, which means that Kiev is unlikely to collect significant sums for the large, valuable, strategic assets offered up for sale.

Analysts also suggest that Western investors will have little appetite for the purchase of the unwieldy, heavily-indebted state firms, many operating at a loss since the collapse of the Soviet Union, noting that the most profitable companies were already bought up in crooked schemes by the country's oligarchs a long time ago. In this connection, AFP recently reported that Rada MPs connected with the country's oligarchic clans are likely to use their influence to prevent the sale of the profitable state assets under oligarchs' influence. Moreover, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung columnist Konrad Schuller recently poured cold water on the entire privatization initiative, noting that in an environment of speedy, murky, clan-dominated privatization, Western investors will have no time to assess whether the state companies offered up for sale are truly lucrative or not.

Furthermore, while Yatsenyuk recently announced that over 150 major investors have already RSVP'd to attend the Washington conference, he has already been hit by dissention from within his own cabinet, with officials from the Energy Ministry and the State Property Fund challenging the pace and scale of privatization.

In April of this year, Ukraine agreed to an International Monetary Fund-monitored austerity program, which called for the shedding of 24,000 government jobs, higher taxes, privatization of state assets and the withdrawal of subsidies on utilities in exchange for a total of about $40 billion in IMF-led foreign assistance over the coming four years.

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 #22
Sputnik
July 7, 2015
One-Third of Ukrainians to Live Under Poverty Line by Year End

The poverty rate in Ukraine is expected to reach 32 percent in 2015, a joint study conducted by the UN under its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Ptoukha Institute for Demography and Social Studies of the National Academy of Sciences in Kiev and Ukraine's Ministry of Economic Development.

For a long time the number of people living below the poverty line in Ukraine was gradually decreasing. However, due to the conflict in the eastern part of the country this number is expected to increase again.

The war in Donbass brought the Ukrainian economy to its knees. A significant part of the population became poorer due to soaring inflation and loss of jobs caused by the war, the study said.

Families with children are the most vulnerable group, making up the largest and the poorest segment of the society. One third of households with children currently live below the poverty line. Every child increases the chance of a household being poor by 17 percent; 42 percent of families with three or more children live below the poverty line, according to the study.

Fitch Ratings Inc. predicted that the hryvnia, Ukraine's currency, will devalue by 97 percent compared to 2014.

Meanwhile, the World Bank predicted that the Ukrainian economy will shrink by almost 8 percent in 2015. 

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 #23
Interfax
July 10, 2015
UN: At least 5 million Ukrainian citizens in need of humanitarian aid

At least 5 million Ukrainian citizens are in need of humanitarian aid, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on July 10.

And 1.4 million of them are internally displaced persons.

According to the information of the UN, the most vulnerable group is people living in the area of the so-called "contact line" in eastern Ukraine.

Western media outlets report that since the year started, humanitarian organizations have provided assistance to over 450,000 people. In particular, they were supplied with food, temporary accommodation, medical assistance, psychological consultations and other essentials.

The UN World Food Programme has recently reported its plans to increase food assistance for Ukrainians by the end of the year.

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 #24
www.rt.com
July 10, 2015
Thousands of Ukrainian citizens to sue Kiev regime over human rights violations - Russian activists

Russian human rights groups will soon file about 17,000 lawsuits from Ukrainian citizens in the European court. They seek compensation of about $5.6 billion over numerous rights violations committed by pro-Kiev military during the conflict in Donbass.

The court action is coordinated by the Russian Public Chamber. Activist Georgy Fyodorov, a co-chairman of the chamber's committee for humanitarian aid to the southeastern regions of Ukraine, said in comments with Izvestia daily that each lawsuit is prepared on behalf a single person or a family whose rights had been infringed.

Fyodorov said that the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg had accepted about 400 cases and was considering 500 more. He said that at first the ECHR tried to reject the applications offering "far-fetched excuses," but stopped doing so after the cases started flowing en masse.

The activist noted that the first process on one of these cases should start before the end of this year.

The average compensation sought by the Donbass residents from the Kiev government amounts to €300,000 (US$335,000). The total amount of money sought by all plaintiffs could reach €5 billion ($5.58 billion).

The activist said that Russian rights groups had collected materials for 10,000 cases from refugees who fled to the Russian Federation from the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions after the start of Kiev's military campaign. Seven thousand more lawsuits were written in southeastern Ukraine, both in the self-proclaimed republics in Donbass and on territories controlled by the Ukrainian government, such as the Kharkov and Odessa Regions.

Lawyer Karina Moskalenko, who works as an advisor to the Presidential Council for Human Rights, said that even if the European Court of Human Rights accepts all the lawsuits, the hearing into the cases can last for many years. Another lawyer, Vadim Klyuvgant, told Izvestia that the court could unite all cases in one and also noted that the ECHR does not have any fixed terms for consideration of lawsuits and this process can take a very long time.

In May 2014, the Russian Foreign Ministry prepared and released the so-called 'White Book' - a major work describing numerous human rights violations, law abuses, use of torture, inhuman treatment and other crimes committed in Ukraine from the end of November 2013 to the end of March 2014. The report was based on Ukrainian, Russian and some Western media reports as well as eyewitnesses' accounts and statements made by pro-Kiev officials and their supporters. The White Book has been updated twice since its first release and in December 2014 Russian Foreign Ministry said that the facts described in this document had been confirmed by international rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch.

The war in Ukraine caused about 1 million Ukrainian citizens to flee their homes and seek asylum in Russia that offered the refugees simplified registration and various aid. Due to this situation the Russian Federation became the first nation in the world by the number of asylum applications, according to the annual report by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

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 #25
DPR intelligence spots Ukrainian army's heavy weapons at contact line

MOSCOW, July 10. /TASS/. Intelligence of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) has spotted new concentration of military equipment and personnel of the Ukrainian armed forces along the contact line, DPR defence ministry spokesman Eduard Basurin said on Friday.

"We have spotted the arrival of three self-propelled artillery systems in the Krasnogorovka settlement; four units of the Grad multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) and two self-propelled artillery systems in the Andreyevka settlement; in the Granitnoye settlement - two Grad MLRS and four self-propelled artillery systems; in the Novoselovka Vtoraya settlement in the forest belt area - one Uragan MLRS," Basurin is quoted by the Donetsk news agency.

The DPR defence spokesman said that "all the weapons spotted by the intelligence are located near the contact line, which testifies to Kiev authorities' unwillingness to resolve the conflict in Donbas peacefully."

The DPR defence spokesman added that the 72nd separate mechanized brigade of the Ukrainian army shelled the Krasny Oktyabr and Belaya Kamenka settlements of the Telmanovsky district. "The same as the day before, the Ukrainian army units used heavy weapons with the calibre more than 100 mm that are banned by the Minsk agreements," Basurin said.

The DPR defence ministry earlier reported 46 instances of violation of the ceasefire regime by the Ukrainian security forces over the past 24 hours. In particular, the Ukrainian army opened fire on the cities of Donetsk (Kiev district), Gorlovka and Dokuchayevsk, as well as the Krasny Oktyabr, Belaya Kamenka, Staromikhailovka, Zaitsevo, Yelenovka and Yasnoye settlements.

The ceasefire regime in the Donbas region in the south-east of Ukraine officially came into force on February 15. A peace deal struck on February 12 in Minsk, Belarus, by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France envisaged a ceasefire between Ukrainian forces and people's militias starting from February 15, followed by withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line of military engagement and prisoner release. The package of measures for the implementation of the Minsk agreements envisages the pullback of all heavy weapons by both parties to locations equidistant from the disengagement line in order to create a security zone at least 50 kilometres wide for artillery systems with a calibre of 100 mm or more, a zone of security 70 kilometres wide for multiple rocket launchers and a zone 140 kilometres wide for multiple rocket launchers Tornado-S, Uragan and Smerch and the tactical rocket systems Tochka-U. The final document says that the Ukrainian troops are to be pulled back away from the current line of engagement and the militias of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, from the engagement line set by the Minsk Memorandum of September 19, 2014.

The weapons withdrawal was to be completed in the first half of March. However, DPR populated localities still come under intensive fire of the Ukrainian armed forces that also use heavy artillery and MLRS.

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 #26
Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.ru
July 9, 2015
US Ambassador: DPR Militia killed Children in the Donbass, Independence was not a Coup d'Etat
politnavigator - translated by Joaquin Flores

In Ukraine, the result of Euromajdan was not a coup, and the war was provoked by Russia, who sent their agents into Donbass, said US Ambassador to Russia John Tefft, in an interview with the newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets".

"I do not agree with the argument that the US did something wrong. I categorically dismiss allegations that the events on Majdan led to a coup in Ukraine ", - he said.

"We believe that the violence is fueled by people in the Donbass, who penetrate the border from Russia. We do not believe in the story of the civil confrontation. You will, I am sure, remember the famous 'little green men'? "- Says Tefft.

To the question of the journalist as to why the US turned a blind eye to the killing of civilians by the shelling of the cities of Donbass by Ukrainian army, the ambassador said that the children in the Lugansk and Donetsk could have been killed by the D/LPR militia, not the UAF.

"How can you be sure that these people were killed by the Ukrainian army, not the separatists? How do you know? Were you personally present for this? "- He said.

Tefft expressed clear confidence that the Boeing passenger plane in the Donbass was hit by Russia or its agents.

"We know. We just know that. I can not talk about the details. But we do know who shot down the plane. We are all very clear. And I think that most of the world also knows who shot down the plane. But now we are waiting for the end of the investigation, in which every aspect of this tragedy is being carefully studied, "- said the US ambassador.

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 #27
Ukraine Today
http://uatoday.tv/
July 4, 2015
Russia's Donbas army swells to 80,000 as Moscow warns NATO

Moscow threatens to use nuclear weapons to defend annexed Crimea

More than 50,000 Russian troops and over 30,000 militants are concentrated along the Ukrainian border and in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian army officials claimed on Friday (July 03).

The announcement came days after a drone video was published online appearing to show a large Russian military camp deep inside Ukraine's Donbas region. The video shows T-72 tanks, scores of soldiers, construction equipment and tents, and shows that activity had increased in recent weeks.

NATO's chief Jens Stoltenberg said the US-led response, involving more exercises and an increased military presence on its eastern borders was not intended to spark a new arms race but was a much-needed reaction to Russia's military threat in eastern europe.

"First we decided to increase further the strength and capability of the NATO response force, including its air, maritime and special operations components. Altogether, the enhanced NATO response force will consist of up to 40,000 personnel. This represents a substantial increase from the previous level of 13,000."

Estonia's Defence Minister Sven Mikser has welcomed the decision to place US heavy armour in the baltics.

"We are not talking about entering into a new Cold War type of arms race, we are not trying collectively to match Putin, I mean, tank by tank or helicopter by helicopter in the Baltic sea region either. But the problem is that Putin sees himself as having two advantages: one of space, the other of time. Basically he believes that he can move things very quickly, he can do things very quickly because he...It's a very Putin-centric, autocratic system and he can take decisions and start implementing them immediately, and secondly because of the geographic proximity, he has quite significant assets immediately on the other side of the border."

Russia has described the US plan to station tanks and heavy weapons in NATO states near Russia's border the most aggressive US act since the Cold War and has hinted it would use nuclear weapons to defend Crimea, the Ukrainian territory Moscow seized in 2014.

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 #28
Sputnik
July 10, 2015
US Reviews All Kiev's Assistance Requests, Lethal Aid Policy Unchanged

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - On Thursday, US Joint Chiefs Of Staff Chairman Nominee Joseph Dunford said in his confirmation hearing that it would be "reasonable" to provide Ukraine with counter battery systems as well as anti-tank missiles.

"We continue to review and examine all Ukrainian requests for assistance as we have," Kirby said, when asked if the United States might start arming Ukraine after Dunford's statement.

The spokesperson stressed that Washington has not changed its policy about assistance to Kiev.

"The focus of the support that's been provided has been on non-lethal side."

After Kiev began a military operation to suppress independence supporters in Donbas in April 2014, Ukrainian authorities repeatedly asked western states for lethal aid.

Washington has provided non-lethal military assistance to Ukraine, but has stopped short of extending lethal aid over concern it will escalate the conflict. US officials have stated the option remains on the table.

The European Union largely opposes Washington arming Ukraine with lethal weapons.

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 #29
Washington Times
July 9, 2015
Is Russia backing down in East Ukraine?
By L. Todd Wood

Russian President Vladimir Putin is a master of the art of escalation and de-escalation. In the recent past, we have seen Moscow make nice statements and actually pull back from the conflict zone in East Ukraine, only to reappear in strength and apply significant deadly force to help pro-Russian separatists wrest territory and key logistical nodes from Ukrainian control.

Once again, there are mixed signals emanating from the Kremlin. There are reports that Russia has cut off electricity supplies to some separatist-controlled areas in the East as the bills were not being paid. Pro-Russian militants have pulled back from the strategically important city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov which, if controlled by Russia, could provide a land bridge for resupply to the Crimean Peninsula, a capability Mr. Putin covets. And Moscow is making noise that it wants the Minsk agreements to be fully implemented to "defuse" the crisis in East Ukraine.

What is the motivation behind these developments? It is hard to read the tea leaves and discern Moscow's agenda. However, a case could be made that Russia has overextended itself. The annexation of the Crimean Peninsula is proving to be very expensive. The sanctions from the European Union are crippling the region as tourism has dried up. The continuing conflict in East Ukraine has sapped the Kremlin of resources and respect on the international stage. The price of oil is crumbling as the Chinese bubble is bursting. The "pivot East" by the Kremlin doesn't look so productive.

There are also signs that the Russian public may be tiring of the Kremlin's policy as social services are cut and Russian soldiers continue to die. In addition, another frozen conflict in Transniester (near Ukraine) is showing signs of re-igniting as Ukraine cuts off supply routes to Russian forces in the breakaway region.

Amid all of this, Ukrainian drones have released video evidence of a Russian base full of armor and supplies very near the city of Mariupol. So, the evidence is mixed as to Russia's intentions. However, it seems that Moscow is indeed backing off its support of the rebels, at least in the short term, having achieved its aim of destabilizing the government in Kiev.

The more aggressive posture coming out of NATO and Washington could also have dampened the Kremlin's appetite for further aggression. American commanders in the region have suggested Russia is simply using the time to re-arm and reposition its forces.

Whether we are witnessing a real change in Russian behavior or simply a lull in a continued and more violent conflict remains to be seen.

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#30
New Statesman
July 9, 2015
This is what it's like to be a Russian in Kiev
The growing feud between the two nations is traumatising: nearly everyone in Russia has relatives in Ukraine.
BY JANA BAKUNINA

As a Russian, I felt apprehensive, stepping off the plane in Kiev. Since the so-called Euromaidan revolution, which led to the ousting of the incumbent president Viktor Yanukovich in February 2014, the Ukrainians have plenty of reasons to dislike the Russians. Yanukovich, whose corrupt regime caused the public to begin a peaceful protest on Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in the capital of Ukraine in November 2013, is now reportedly hiding near Moscow, having fled from Kiev after the riot police had opened fire against the protesters. The Crimea, a peninsula in southern Ukraine (transferred from the Russian to the Ukrainian republic within the USSR in 1954), was annexed by Russia in March 2014, following the referendum, which had breached the constitution of Ukraine. The civil war in eastern Ukraine between the Donbas (the area of the river Donets) separatists and the government forces has been fuelled by Kremlin from the outset. Since the beginning of the conflict, at least 6,500 people have been documented as killed and another 16,287 as wounded, according to the UN.

It was a relief to enter Kiev's metro, so uncannily similar to Moscow's, step out to Khreschatyk, Kiev's main street, as grand and leafy as any Moscow boulevard, and to hear Russian being spoken as commonly as Ukrainian. An imposing building between Khreschatyk metro station and Maidan was unmistakably a smaller cousin of Stalinskie vysotki, a product of Stalin's urban architecture of 1950s. The golden domes of St. Michael's Cathedral in the prevalent Baroque style favoured by the Orthodox Church in the 18th century, looked familiar too.

Russia and Ukraine's shared history dates back to the end of the 9th century when Oleg, son of Varangian chieftain Ryurik, who had first united and settled nomadic Eastern Slavs, took Kiev and established Kievan Rus', the precursor to the Russian Empire. Throughout the centuries the countries were united in fighting the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Ottoman Empire and Napoleon. Both Russians and Ukrainians suffered through the famine of the early 1930s, Stalinist repressions and the World War Two. Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the relations between the two states and especially their people remained amicable.

This is what I was hoping for, when I came to Kiev. In stark contrast to the animosity cultivated by the mass media in the last eighteen months, I found genuine hospitality. People I spoke to were happy to talk to me in Russian and discussed current events openly. Resentment of Putin is pervasive, but the hardest thing for the Ukrainians to accept is that their Russian relatives and friends believe no Russian troops are fighting in Donbas. "Putin has brainwashed them all," complained a soft drinks vendor by the People's Friendship Arch (built in 1980s to commemorate friendship between Ukrainian and Russian republics of the Soviet Union.) "I no longer talk to my family in Russia because we end up fighting." The growing feud between the two nations is traumatising: nearly everyone in Russia has relatives in Ukraine.

Amidst challenging times in both countries, I could not help but notice that Kiev's vibe had felt dramatically different from Moscow's. Despite skyrocketing prices and social problems with over a million of internally displaced people due to the ongoing conflict, Kiev's streets were buzzing. Young and hip artists rocked the streets; in city's many parks entrepreneurs sold iced lattes and homemade lemonade from the back of their cars. "People think and say what they want. It was not possible under Yanukovich," explained a 37-year old IT consultant. Even a club of chess enthusiasts in their sixties, playing in Kiev's Shevchenko Park, talked to me about the new sense of freedom. "We have become more aware and independent after decades of being told what to do."

Just over a month ago I was in Moscow for the Victory Day celebrations (pictured above). People there seemed less willing to talk and generally suspicious. Was that because I asked them whether we need a grand military parade to commemorate peace or because of my slight western accent? Even my cousin was cautious not to talk in public about the sanctions against Russia or his fears about his son being drafted to join the army. Only in the privacy of his own kitchen did we talk about people being laid off without compensation, media propaganda focussing on foreign affairs and steering attention away from the country's economic problems. "It's just like in Zvyagintsev's film Leviathan: if you keep quiet and accept things as they are, you'll stay out of harm's way," said my cousin with a sigh.

When Crimeans voted to join Russia in early 2014, I thought result (however exaggerated) reflected common sense. I too would have preferred the promise of stability in a larger economy to the chaos of post-Euromaidan Ukraine. Besides, for a Russian, it's not uncommon to think of Ukraine as a "little brother", a follower, not the leader. I have now changed my mind. The optimistic, liberal spirit of Kiev would get my vote. Anna Sankina, mother of two I had met in Kiev, put it bluntly: "People in Ukraine realise how shitty their lives are. Russians don't.

 

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 #31
www.academia.edu
Interview with Jyllands-Posten (Denmark) Concerning the "Snipers' Massacre" on the Maidan and its Investigation in Ukraine (Full-Text English Version)
June 19, 2015
Ivan Katchanovski, Ph.D. University of Ottawa
[Text with links here https://www.academia.edu/13844648/Interview_with_Jyllands-Posten_Denmark_Concerning_the_Snipers_Massacre_on_the_Maidan_and_its_Investigation_in_Ukraine_Full-Text_English_Version_]

- How has the Ukrainian investigation in your view progressed over the past six-seven months?

A trial of two policemen from a Berkut special company began in January 2015. They are charged with killing 39 protesters. But this trial, like the investigation, has been delayed, and currently the court proceedings still concern selection of members of the jury. The lawyers of the two arrested Berkut members stated that the 71-volume investigative file of the Maidan massacre does not identify specific protesters purportedly killed by specific Berkut members, and that the evidence of their responsibility for killings of the protesters is based on their presence in the area of the massacre and videos of Berkut shooting from Kalashnikovs there. The investigation established the exact place of the killing for only half of these 39 protesters. The evidence in killings of specific protesters, such as results of ballistic and medical examinations, ammunition, is still not made public by the investigation. A pro-Maidan journalist reported that the government investigation failed to the establish circumstances of killings of nine other  protesters.
'
A report of the International Advisory Panel, which was set up by the Council of Europe, revealed that, contrary to public statements by the Prosecutor General Office, the official investigation had evidence that at least three protesters were killed from the Maidan-controlled Hotel Ukraina and that at least 10 protesters killed from other buildings. However, the version of Maidan shooters killing both the protesters and the police has not been pursued by the investigation in spite of various evidence pointing to them.

A new report by Euromaidan SOS and lawyers of the killed protesters a month ago also concluded that the government investigation is ineffective and is stonewalled. This report contains new striking information that was not made public by the investigation. It named three  protesters whom the government investigation determined as being likely killed from the Hotel Ukraina. One of them is Oleh Ushnevych. A video showing massacre of his group of the  protesters was broadcast by numerous Western and Ukrainian TV channels and social media. This video was likely watched by billions of people around the world, and it was presented as the evidence that government snipers or the police killed these protesters. He is seen falling to the ground during a gunfire at 9:44am while trying to run away with a few other protesters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fns42rViXlA. In my paper, I cited testimonies of two of these wounded protesters that their group was targeted from the Hotel Ukraina, from which the video was filmed, and from other Maidan-controlled buildings.

The revelation made in this report confirms my analysis and provides another evidence that the official investigation is fabricated and that the Ukrainian and the Western media, with some exceptions, misrepresented the massacre. My study, based on numerous videos, eyewitness reports, and other sources, show that at least 22 protesters were killed in in the same exact area, and the evidence indicates that they were also shot by concealed groups of Maidan shooters from the Hotel Ukraina and other Maidan-controlled buildings. But while the investigation finally admitted presence of "snipers" at the Hotel Ukraina, it still claims that their affiliation remains unknown and it continues to deny that there were any "snipers" in other Maidan-controlled  buildings.

- A report from the Council of Europe earlier this year criticized the pace and quality of the investigation. Do you expect this to have any impact and do you see any room for Western  governments to push for a more transparent investigation?

As my comments above indicate, the Council of Europe report has not had any apparent impact on the progress and quality of the investigation. Interpol recently rejected the Ukrainian government's requests to put ex-president Viktor Yanukovych, a number of his ministers, and the commander and members of the Berkut special company on its wanted list on murder-related charges for the Maidan massacre. The Western governments have shown little interest in transparent investigation of the Maidan massacre, in spite of it being one the worst human rights violations in Ukraine and entire Europe in recent years.

It is almost certain that at least some of these governments, particularly American and British, know from their analysis of open sources and intelligence information that the actual organizers and perpetrators of the massacre were from the Maidan side. The US Congress and US government officials are also aware about my analysis of the Maidan massacre. The office of a senior US congressman requested my academic study of the massacre when the US Congress considered legislation concerning Ukraine. I was informed that my analysis of the massacre was  brought by an American scholar to the attention of US diplomats working in the region. A few days after the mass killing on February 20, 2004, British experts, reportedly working for the government of the UK, examined the site of the massacre. But in their BBC interview, they only revealed bullet impact signs from the positions held by the government forces and failed to disclose easily visible live ammunition impact signs pointing to shooters from the Hotel Ukraina and other Maidan-controlled buildings: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-26333525. Results of the British and other Western government assessments of the massacre have not been made public. The puzzling lack of interest in such transparent investigation of the Maidan massacre by governments of the Western democratic countries can be explained by the priority to geopolitical considerations in the internal and international conflict in Ukraine over human rights and democratic values.

- Have you been able over the past months to strengthen the case for the views you laid out in  your paper last fall?

My findings that Maidan shooters killed and wounded the police and forced them to flee in the morning of February 20 were confirmed by investigative reports produced by BBC and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on the first anniversary of the massacre. I also completed a revised and updated version of my paper on this anniversary: https://www.academia.edu/8776021/The_Snipers_Massacre_on_the_Maidan_in_Ukraine. I now prepare a new version of this study for the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in San Francisco. This version would include important new evidence that I found recently and video appendixes containing relevant excerpts from numerous videos referred to in my paper.

My new findings include publicly available but previously unreported videos confirming  presence of "snipers," spotters, and their coordinators in the Hotel Ukraina, Zhovtnevyi (October) Palace, Kinopalats, Finbank, and Trade Union buildings during the massacre and control of these buildings at that time by the Maidan side. There are several videos, such as a German ZDF video, showing groups of the Maidan shooters, who were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and hunting rifles and shotguns on the top floors of the Hotel Ukraina at the same very time or within minutes when protesters and a BBC crew were shot from the same floors of this hotel, specifically with Kalashnikov-caliber bullets and hunting ammunition: https://www.facebook.com/ivan.katchanovski/videos/vb.100000596862745/989716864391533/?type=2&theater . Other videos show one of these groups of armed shooters led by a special Maidan company commander, entering and leaving the hotel Ukraina in presence of Svoboda deputies during the time when protesters were massacred from the hotel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YUDbQ-4r6w. The same Maidan commander recently admitted that his unit shot the police in the morning of February 20, 2014 and he issued an ultimatum from the Maidan stage the next day to Yanukovych to resign. I also found videos and a testimony by one of the wounded protesters suggesting that the protesters were lured to the site of their massacre by one of the members of this armed group of Maidan "snipers,"and that this and some other members of his group then went the hotel roof, which was another location of "snipers" reported by eyewitnesses among the protesters.

A recently posted video provides a direct evidence of shooters killing an entire group of Maidan  protesters from the Hotel Ukraina near Zhovtnevyi Palace. It corroborates other evidence mentioned in my study, such as eyewitness reports, directions of entry wounds, and bullet trajectories. During the time when this video was filmed at 9:28-9:32am and a few minutes  before and after at least 11 protesters were killed and many other wounded in this area. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVXLbkJsX0

I established specific time, locations, likely directions, and eyewitness testimonies concerning killings of the absolute majority of protesters on February 20. My timeline of the massacre was generally corroborated by a precise time-stamped synchronization of various videos. This video synchronization confirms that specific live ammunition shots by government forces in widely reported videos do not coincide with the known exact time of killings of the specific protesters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYjEp1C4hzI. The new finding also point towards the Maidan shooters. But the shooting of some of the protesters by the police still cannot be excluded, because specific location, time, and other circumstances of killings of several  protesters remain undisclosed.

- How do you rate the so-called "Rossisky Sled," the view that Kremlin-loyal forces and/or advisers were active on and around Independence Square in February 2014?

My analysis of the vast amount of various publicly available sources of evidence has not produced any reliable evidence of the involvement of Russia or any other "third force" in the Maidan massacre. The head of the Security Service of Ukraine claimed on the first anniversary of this mass killing that Vladislav Surkov, President Putin's aide, was personally coordinating "snipers" n the Maidan. The claims about Surkov's involvement in the Maidan massacre were also made then by President of Ukraine and the Head of the National Security and Defense Council, and they were disseminated by the media in Ukraine and the West. However, Serhii Leshchenko, a member of the Poroshenko's faction in the parliament and a former Ukrainska  Pravda journalist, later revealed that Surkov arrived in Kyiv by plane in the evening of February 20 after the massacre was over. The Prosecutor General of Ukraine said in his interview in April 2015 that he did not have any information about Surkov's involvement in the massacre. The head of the investigative unit stated recently that the investigation did not have any evidence of such involvement and that the documents submitted by the SBU head in support of his claims were in fact unrelated to the massacre. This is another confirmation that the Maidan massacre is deliberately misrepresented at the highest level of the Ukrainian government.

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