#2
The Guardian
July 23, 2015
Vladimir Putin's approval rating at record levels
Almost nine out of 10 Russians approve of their president, according to survey that also highlights support for Ukraine strategy
Alberto Nardelli, Jennifer Rankin and George Arnett
[Charts here http://www.theguardian.com/world/datablog/2015/jul/23/vladimir-putins-approval-rating-at-record-levels]

Vladimir Putin's approval rating is at record levels, with nine out of 10 Russians saying they have a positive view of their president. Putin had an approval of 87% in July, and an all-time high of 89% in June, according to Levada Centre polling.

Following a drop in popularity in 2012 and 2013, when Putin's approval ratings dropped into the 60s, the Russian president's popularity picked up again last year on the back of events in Ukraine.

According to separate Levada figures from June, 66% believe that western sanctions are meant to humiliate and weaken Russia, and only 5% think they are about ending the conflict in Ukraine.

Some 70% of Russians believe the country should stick to its current position on Ukraine, while 20% say it would be better to make concessions in order to avoid sanctions. 87% support the annexation of Crimea, and only 4% think that the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk should return to their pre-conflict status.

However, when it comes to the economy, only 13% describe Russia's current predicament as good, while 53% describe it as average and 31% as either bad or very poor.

With nine out of 10 Russians approving of Putin, the president's ratings are now better than they were in 2008, at the start of the Russian-Georgian war.

They are also unusually high compared with the popularity of other world leaders. Only Angela Merkel comes anywhere near Putin, with nearly seven in 10 Germans approving of the chancellor.

How has Russia changed under Putin?

It is more than 15 years since Putin became Russia's president. The former KGB officer was a virtual unknown when he was picked to be prime minister by Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin. After Yeltsin's shock resignation on New Year's Eve 1999 elevated Putin to the Kremlin, Putin confounded pundits again by winning the presidential election in March 2000 with 53% of the vote.

Russia faced huge problems in 2000: almost one third of Russians lived below the poverty line, Moscow was embroiled in a second brutal war in Chechnya, and Russia's leaders had yet to come to terms with the political and economic legacy of the Soviet Union.

Putin served two terms as president (2000-08) and became prime minister between 2008-12 to get around constitutional limits restricting terms of office. In 2012, he returned to the presidency amid protests.

One explanation for Putin's consistently high approval ratings is the state's dominance of the media and how it shapes Russian public opinion.

As independent voices have been pushed off the airwaves, the internet has bloomed, though it too is coming under increasing government control.

Russians are the most socially engaged internet users in Europe, spending nearly 13 hours a month on Facebook and (more popular) local equivalents. As the internet has become a space for dissent, the government has cracked down on social media companies and their users.

Russians have become richer under Putin
Economic output per person has almost doubled since 2000, although the pace of growth has slowed since 2007. However, more than half of Russians (53%) still live off the state budget, either as state employees, pensioners or as benefit claimants, according to Russia analyst Ben Judah in his book The Fragile Empire.

Some became staggeringly wealthy. Russian oligarchs were hit hard by the 1998 financial crisis, but many rebuilt their fortunes under the "capitalism for friends" system created by Putin. Moscow is now home to more billionaires than any other city in the world.

This year the number of billionaires is expected to hit 88.

Poverty has fallen

When Putin came to power, 29% of the population were living below the poverty line. In 2013, this had dropped to 11%, but experts at the World Bank recently warned that poverty reduction was stalling.

The murder rate has dropped

But it remains higher than anywhere else in Europe.

Prosperity was underpinned by oil prices

The Putin years have coincided with a decade of rising oil prices. The Russian government uses oil and gas revenues to pay for half of all public spending and was banking on an oil price of $100 for its budget to break even, roughly double the current price.

Russian wealth is disproportionately dependant on natural resources. According to World Bank calculations, natural capital is 43% of overall wealth in Russia. In Australia, Canada, Norway, and New Zealand the ratio is between 8% and 13%.

The era of steady rouble-dollar exchange rates came to an abrupt end in 2014, as a result of falling oil prices and western sanctions.

The exchange rate has since improved but it remains distant from the preceding years of stability.

Russia has become one of the most corrupt countries in the world

Putin's rule has regularly been linked to corruption, which reached extravagant heights with the Sochi Winter Olympics. A report by opposition politicians estimated that $25bn-$30bn of public money was pocketed by corrupt officials.

The migration of capital and people

The elite have moved more than $550bn out of Russia since 2008. Wealthy Russians have been voting with their money: in 2014 alone $150bn was moved out of the country. Even after Russia rebounded from the 2008 economic crisis, money continued to drain out of the country.

So far this year $52.5bn has flown out of the country.

The harsh political climate since Putin's return to the presidency has also contributed to an increase in emigration. Net migration though remains in the black.

Methodology: the Levada surveys on the economy and approval ratings were conducted in June and July on a representative nationwide sample of urban and rural population of 1,600 people aged 18 years and older in 134 settlements of 46 regions of Russia. Margin of error is +/- 3.4% points. The survey on the economic sanctions and Ukraine asked 800 people in June. The margin of error is +/- 4.1% points.

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 #3
www.rt.com
July 22, 2015
'Winning the Cold War with propaganda': New Dutch-Polish 'content factory' to challenge Russia

Poland and the Netherlands are joining forces to counter so-called "Russian propaganda" with a new Russian-language "content factory," after US Senator John McCain insisted that propaganda is key to "winning the Cold War" without a single shot.

The Dutch-Polish news agency will offer TV, radio, and online content in the Russian-language across in the countries of Russia and eastern Europe. It is planned that the agency will start working next year, with the Netherlands and Poland hoping that other EU States will join them.

The project will "give the tools and the capacities for Russian language [media] and Russian social media to work on the basis of objective information ... with the exchange of different viewpoints", said Bert Koenders, the Dutch foreign minister. Koenders added that that there was a "broad support" for the endeavor from EU foreign ministers.

The new news agency will be "something which doesn't use the language of propaganda or aggression, but which has real, reliable information," said Polish Foreign Minister, Grzegorz Schetyna. He added that a donor conference for the initiative will kick off in Warsaw in September with the Hague hopefully hosting another fundraising later this year.

The idea to create a Russian-language news agency stems from a Dutch-funded study on counter-propaganda by the European Endowment for Democracy (EED). The EED, a "brainchild of the Polish government," as the Carnegie institute calls it, was established in October 2012 to support pro-democracy activists and organizations in Eastern Europe. In December 2014, EDD decided to expand their reach into Russia.

In May the organization recommended creating a "news hub" to exchange news material among leading Russian language media and launch a "content factory," as well as a research center to study audience behavior.

A source within the project at EED told the EU observer that the new agency will be a "content factory" working as "a kind of European BBC". The publication also reports that foreign service agencies from other EU states are also "taking action" since March to "challenge Russia's ... disinformation campaigns."

So far five experts, from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, and the UK, have been employed to lead a new communications cell called East StratCom Team.

In an interview with Carnegie Europe, Jerzy Pomianowski, the EDDs executive director said that the organization is working with a group of 90 experts and media representatives to analyze their target audience and "what kind of content is needed."

"With the support of a grant from the Dutch government, we have launched a feasibility study on Russian-language media initiatives. This is about providing Russian-language alternatives to Russian state broadcasting for societies in the Eastern Partnership countries and beyond," Pomianowski said in March.

Meanwhile at stateside, US Senator John McCain has once again called on Washington and the US Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to spread its outreach to counter Russian messaging. In June, McCain co-sponsored a bill requesting $728.2 million for the BBG to carry out international communications campaigns. That is in an addition to BBG's $15.4 million request in April to expand its Russian-language programming and social media content projects.

"I love our folks in Prague and Radio Free Europe and all that, but we have got to catch up. We've got to catch up and understand that this is also a message of loyalties and truth. And we're going to need to do a lot more," McCain said in a speech to the Hudson Institute.

The Senator stressed that Russia's news outreach could be countered by propaganda means alone, something that was done during the Cold War.

"One of the key elements of winning the Cold War without firing a shot...is the propaganda - the message, the social networking," he said. "My friends, there is an inundation today in the Baltic, in Moldova, in Romania, and Poland even of Russian constant, incessant sophisticated messages that we have to counter."

Russia's Foreign Ministry earlier criticized EU drafted information warfare initiatives to target so-called Russian propaganda. According to the ministry such activity is "clearly aimed at pushing out Russia's presence in the international media field."

Last month it was reported that EU has drafted a plan to counter what it sees as "Russian disinformation activities" calling for the promotion of EU policies in the post-Soviet space and the implementation of measures against Russian media, including RT.

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#4
Moscow Times
July 23, 2015
Russian Election Monitoring NGO Golos Removed from Foreign Agents List
By Anna Dolgov

The Justice Ministry is revoking the registration of election-monitoring group Golos as a "foreign agent" and has refunded the fines the non-governmental organization has paid for refusing to register voluntarily, the group said.

In a surprise announcement that followed searches at the organization's offices and its employees' homes earlier this month, the Justice Ministry has begun the process of removing Golos from its lists of "foreign agents," the group said Wednesday via Twitter. Ruling that the designation was an "error," the ministry has also refunded the fines, it added.

"Unexpectedly, the Justice Ministry has shown support for our fundraising campaign! The fines have been refunded!" Golos quipped in another message.
Founded in 2000, Golos played a key role in exposing widespread violations during the 2011 parliamentary elections. In 2013, it became the first organization in Russia to be slapped with the "foreign agent" label.

Investigators raided its offices and the homes of Golos leaders on July 7, seizing computers and memory cards, in what the group's lawyer described as an attempt to paralyze its work.

But Golos has passed a Justice Ministry "screening," allowing it to be removed from the "foreign agents" list, Grigory Melkonyants, a member of the NGO's council, told Dozhd television.

Melkonyants said his group "got a refund of a 400,000 ruble fine that we paid for not having voluntarily registered [as a 'foreign agent']," Dozhd reported. The amount equals about $6,975 at today's rate.

But while pressure seemed to be off Golos, a court in the Urals imposed the same fine Wednesday on non-governmental group Perm-36 for failing to register as a "foreign agent." The group operated a museum commemorating gulag prisoners on the site of a former labor camp.

Russian law requires groups that receive funding from abroad and engage in vaguely defined political activities to register as "foreign agents" and identify themselves as such on any printed material - a dismal prospect in the eyes of many activists, given that the Soviet-era term dates had for decades been used to mean "spy."

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 #5
Interfax
July 22, 2015
Russian human rights activists lodge appeals against law on "foreign agent" NGOs

A number of Russian human rights advocacy organizations have lodged court appeals against their classification as "foreign agents", privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 22 July.

Earlier the Russian Justice Ministry released a statement saying it had sent messages to a number of NGOs working in the human rights sector and included on the ministry's list of "foreign agents", warning them of the potential punishment for failing to abide by the regulations envisaged by their inclusion on the list. Amongst the organizations in question were the Civil Assistance committee, the Memorial centre, the movement For Human Rights and the Committee Against Torture.

However, several of the NGOs have decided to prove that the status of "foreign agent" should not apply to them, lodging separate appeals with Russian courts and a collective appeal with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

"We do not agree with our inclusion in this register. We will go to court," Civil Assistance committee head Svetlana Gannushkina said, adding: "We are already litigating, and as we consider our inclusion in the foreign agent register to be wrong, there is nothing to warn us about."

Gannushkina noted that her organization had placed information on its website about its inclusion in the foreign agent register, as required by the law. "Further we publish photographs of the people due to whom we are considered foreign agents - that is, the children we help," she said.

Lev Ponomarev, head of the movement For Human Rights, also announced that his organization was set to go to court over the Justice Ministry's warning, which he called "nonsense".

"We are appealing against this situation and against the law on foreign agents itself. In addition, we are going through the procedure of being removed from the foreign agent register, but in practice it turns out that this is quite difficult to do. We have submitted the documents necessary for removal, but were refused, because one of our regional organizations has not gone a full year since receiving foreign funding. We need to wait until next May," Ponomarev said.

The Memorial centre is also planning to go to court over the warning, its head Aleksandr Cherkasov said. "We will react to the Justice Ministry's various demands in various ways. We do not agree with Memorial's inclusion in the foreign agent register. It does not correspond to reality, and is insulting. We are like bees. First of all, bees work, and secondly, they have stingers, and we are going to appeal. Not all of our previous appeals have been considered by the courts," Cherkasov said.

#6
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
July 23, 2015
Majority of Russians think it is impossible to make millions honestly
Francesca Moll in London

Most Russians believe that the country's millionaires earned their money dishonestly, according to a recent survey.

In a survey by the independent pollster Levada Centre, an overwhelming 70% of respondents answered "no" when asked if they thought you can earn millions of rubles honestly now in Russia.

47% also confessed that they disapproved of millionaires because of this belief, although 30% said they would have nothing against wealthy people as long as the money was acquired honestly.

At the same time, close to one in 10 Russians believe that severe income inequality could be useful in their society, acting as a motivating factor for ordinary people to work hard.  Many more - around 60% - would tolerate a gap between the wealthiest and the poorest, as long as it was not too large.

These findings come at a time when the wealthiest 10% in Russia own a staggering 84.8% of the country's wealth, according to a recent Credit Suisse study.

Scepticism about the honesty of Russia's wealthy has decreased since 2006, when 83% of respondents believed that you had to bend the rules to make millions of rubles.


 

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 #7
Moscow Times
July 14, 2015
Putin frees small business from inspections for three years

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law giving small companies a three-year holiday from regular inspections, a measure lawmakers hope will spur the development of small business in the country, according to a document published Tuesday [14 July] on the government's legal information website.

Small business is relatively underdeveloped in Russia, making up only 21 per cent of the country's gross domestic product, President Vladimir Putin said in April. In developed economies, small business constitutes more than 50 per cent of GDP, Putin said, according to a statement on the government's website.

High taxes, lack of state support, excess bureaucracy and poor access to loans are all among the systemic issues that have impeded growth in the sector.

Lawmakers hope that the new legislation will serve to improve the business climate in the country, according to the bill.

Under the new legislation, regional and federal authorities will not be allowed to conduct regular checks of small companies or individual entrepreneurs from 1 January of next year through the end of 2018.

The law will not apply to companies that have received administrative punishments for serious legal violations or had a license revoked in the past three years, according to the document.

The ban on carrying out regular inspections also won't apply to state inspections regarding fire safety, environmental standards, radiation control, state secrets or nuclear energy.

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#8
Moscow Times
July 23, 2015
Russian Single-Industry Towns Face Crisis

Most of Russia's single-industry towns are at risk of economic collapse that would cause massive social dislocation and see millions of Russians lose their livelihoods, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was quoted as saying Wednesday.

Some 14 million Russians live in the 319 Russian towns that, in a holdover from the Soviet era, rely on one industry, and often a single factory, for their economic survival. Many of these require subsidies to survive, and Russia's recession has worsened their plight.

Medvedev said only 79 of them were economically stable, and added that the government did not have the money to save them.

"There is not enough money for all of the single-industry towns that are in crisis," Medvedev was quoted by news agency RIA Novosti as saying on a visit to Usolye-Sibirskoye, a single-industry town support by a chemicals plant in Irkutsk Oblast, near Lake Baikal.

With Russia's economy set to shrink by around 3 percent this year and the price of Russia's main export commodities on global markets at lows, the number of single-industry towns facing difficulties is rising, said Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev, who accompanied Medvedev.

Nineteen cities have entered the "red zone" this year, bringing the total number of single-industry towns in crisis up to 94 cities, RIA Novosti cited Ulyukayev as saying.

The government in 2014 created a support fund for single-industry towns, but its 30 billion rubles ($525 million) are enough only to help only 20-30 towns through 2017, Ulyukayev said, RIA reported.

The government plans to create fast-track development zones around these towns with zero tax rates on profit and other measures to stimulate business activity.

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 #9
Gazprom's large-scale project plans suspended - experts
By Lyudmila Alexandrova

MOSCOW, July 22. /TASS/. Gazprom's large-scale project plans to build new gas pipelines are complicated both by political and economic reasons, Russian experts say.

The construction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline's new stretches along the Baltic Sea bed is blocked by the European Commission's position while the talks with Turkey on the Turkish Stream project are delayed along with the signing of a deal with China on gas supplies via the 2nd stage of the Power of Siberia gas pipeline.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper recently that gas consumption in Europe and Europe's dependence on gas imports would grow.

"This is one of the reasons why the issue of building the third and fourth stretches of the Nord Stream gas pipeline with a capacity of 55 billion cubic meters has emerged again today. Now work is beginning on a new project and its feasibility study," the minister said.

Meanwhile, the Russian energy minister's optimism can hardly be shared by European officials who regularly say that the EU will take all efforts to get rid of Europe's dependence on gas imports from Russia. The European Commission has spoken against Russia's plans to give up gas transit across Ukraine from 2019, saying the EU will not support any of Russian projects "endangering" Ukrainian gas transit. The European commission has already disrupted Gazprom's plans for building the South Stream gas pipeline, which was closed in December 2014.

Even though gas production in Northern Europe is declining, the construction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline's third and fourth stretches (Nord Stream-2) is thrown into question, Director of the National Energy Institute Sergey Pravosudov was quoted by Actual Comment web portal as saying.

"Theoretically, no permission is required from the European Commission for building a gas pipeline. However, this permission is required for the gas pipeline's operation. For example, in accordance with the decision by the European Energy Commission, Gazprom can use the OPAL gas pipeline, which has already been built, only by 50% while the pipeline's remaining capacities should be filled by other gas suppliers, which are simply absent," the expert said.

The demand for gas in Europe has been declining in recent years and will grow in a perspective but hardly strongly, Senior Researcher at the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies Vladimir Blinkov told TASS.

"Many large European companies have said they would want to participate in the construction of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline. But the absence of any agreements with the European Commission is the main restraining factor. If this problem were resolved, this would also help resolve the problem with gas transit via Ukraine because gas volumes pumped through the pipeline's four stretches would be enough. However, if the European Commission is against this, we won't be able to build this gas pipeline because there will be no economic sense in it," the expert said.

There has been no progress in this gas pipeline construction so far and the closer to 2019, when the contract with Ukraine expires, the weaker Gazprom's positions will be, the expert said. The point is that Europe also has another energy source in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG), he added.

"They [Europeans] have many capacities for LNG, which are utilized by a third but their can increase their utilization, although this will be more expensive," the expert said.

However, Gazprom and the European Commission can hardly resolve the gas pipeline problem in the current situation, Blinkov said.

"Such problems can be resolved at the level of the leadership of Russia and the largest countries of the European Union," the expert said.

The Turkish Stream gas pipeline will mostly likely be built after all, "although hardly in a volume Russia would like to see," he added.

"The first stretch will go to Turkey but the other three to Europe and, in this regard, political aspects begin to play a big role," the expert said.
"But we'll be able to build 1-2 stretches at least," he added.

Meanwhile, the situation with the Power of Siberia-2 gas pipeline is quite different, the expert said.

The Chinese are beginning to rely increasingly on renewable energy sources and their requirements for gas are somewhat decreasing, he said.

'They are now delaying the plans and waiting, estimating whether or not they need this gas, which will be supplied to them in 5-8 years. But Russia can't afford to reduce the gas price any further," the expert said, adding he estimated the chances of concluding this gas contract with China as 50x50.

"The issues on all of Gazprom's large-scale gas projects can be resolved only at the level of the heads of state and governments," the expert said.

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 #10
Five Russian companies are in Fortune Global 500 rating this year

MOSCOW, July 22. /TASS/. Five Russian companies joined the Fortune Global 500 annual rating of the largest global corporations by revenues in 2015 against eight in 2014. Three companies from the base materials sector and two largest Russian banks are in the rating.

Gazprom is 26th in the Fortune Global 500 rating [17th in 2014]. Lukoil remains 43rd. Rosneft climbed to 46th position in the rating [51st in 2014].

Two largest Russian banks in the 2015 year rating strengthened their positions. Sberbank is 177th [186th in 2014] and VTB turns to be 404th [443rd a year earlier].

US retail chain Wal-Mart continues to hold the top position in the rating.

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 #11
www.rt.com
July 23, 2015
Cheaper ruble & oil make Russia more competitive than US and China - Boston Consulting

Russia has overtaken the US and China in terms of competitiveness, says a report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) obtained by Russian media. The main reasons are a weak ruble and a drop in world energy prices.

BCG has evaluated the competitiveness of 25 economies, which account for almost 90 percent of world exports of manufactured goods, based on the index of production costs. The lower it is, the lower the cost of goods and services and the higher is competitiveness compared to the biggest economy in the world, the United States, RBC explains.

The index consists of four components: wages, productivity rates, energy prices and exchange rates.

According to the document, in 2014-2015 the competitiveness of Russia in production costs increased by nine percentage points. The index of production costs fell to 90 points, down nine percentage points. The US rating is considered as 100.
As for China, its manufacturing costs index is 97 points, rising by one point from last year's index of 96.

Russia is fourth on the list, Indonesia tops it with 83 percentage points, India and Thailand are runners-up. According to BCG, in 2004-2014 Russia's competitiveness was falling almost level with US production costs.

For 10 years, since 2004, US competitiveness was continuously grown in relation to all the other countries with the exception of Mexico, but began to decline in 2015 as the dollar strengthened.

Since the beginning of the second half of 2014 until the end of the first half of 2015, the euro against the US dollar fell by 18 percent. That resulted in the majority of European exporters improving their positions by up to 12 percentage points. For example, the Canadian dollar dropped by 13.9 percent led to a fall of the Canadian index from 115 to 106.

So, it's hardly a surprise that with the Russian ruble losing more than 30 percent against the US dollar and crude prices declining 45 percent in a year the Russian rating grew.

This is a temporary phenomenon, says Justin Rose, Partner and Managing Director at BCG. "The fundamental trends that made the US competitiveness in terms of the levels of production costs grow continuously over the last decade, have not changed," he told Russian media RBC. "Manufacturers understand that the national currencies that significantly depreciated against the dollar, can quickly win back their positions," he added.

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 #12
Inside Higher Ed
www.insidehighered.com
July 22, 2015
In Russia, a crackdown on foreign funding and influence
By Elizabeth Redden

Does a continuing crackdown on foreign influences in Russia threaten to interrupt the internationalization agendas of the country's top universities?

The recent removal of an American as vice rector of Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod after the host of a state television show questioned why a Russian university would have an American in such a senior position has been widely viewed as chilling, as has a remark by Russian President Vladimir V. Putin describing foreign organizations offering scholarships as "vacuum cleaners" sucking up and taking away talented Russian students.

There's also been a growing clampdown within Russia on nongovernmental organizations with foreign ties. Russian lawmakers have compiled a list of 12 NGOs that they've proposed banning under a new "undesirable organizations" law: the list of NGOs that could be banned includes ones with ties to science and higher education worldwide, such as the Open Society Foundations and the MacArthur Foundation.

At the same time, a private foundation supporting Russian science, Dynasty, announced this month that it would close after running afoul of a two-year-old "foreign agent" law targeting NGOs with international funding that are found to have engaged in "political activity." The Moscow Times reported that the foreign funding at issue came from the overseas bank accounts of Dynasty's founder, a Russian telecommunications mogul named Dmitry Zimin, while the alleged political activity involved the foundation's funding of an NGO called Liberal Mission that, according to Dynasty's website, brings together liberal academics and aims "to develop and distribute liberal values and ideas throughout Russia."

"Of all the actions of the Russian government, the one that's most surprising and dismaying to me in terms of science is the forcing of the Dynasty Foundation out," said Loren Graham, a professor emeritus of science, technology and society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an expert on the history of Russian science. Dynasty, Graham noted, didn't have an overt political agenda. However, he said, it should be acknowledged that some of the NGOs on the proposed list to be banned, groups like MacArthur and Open Society, "were interested in funding not just science and education. Those organizations were interested in creating a more democratic, just society. The tragedy is that's suddenly seen by Putin as a threat."

Graham said that the atmosphere for international collaboration has worsened significantly since Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine. Graham stressed that individual-level collaboration between Russian academics and their foreign colleagues is continuing as normal -- as is international travel by Russian scientists -- even as he said that the door for cooperation between American and Russian organizations has been partially closed. "The lesson that [Russian scientists] are hearing now is a lesson that is psychologically very depressing to them and that lesson is that it's wrong to take foreign money -- it's wrong to work with foreign organizations," Graham said. "And that has poisonous effects far beyond the financial loss of the individual grants that are being canceled now."

Dmitry Dubrovsky, a fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy -- one of the 12 NGOs on the proposed list of banned organizations -- and the former director of the human rights program at St. Petersburg State University, said he is concerned that scholars could be punished for even past associations with organizations deemed to be "undesirable."
"That is my concern about the legislation about undesirable organizations -- that people could be punished even though they had these grants several or even 10 years ago, but that somehow could be a reason for people to be fired," Dubrovsky said.

As for the American who lost his vice rector post at Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod, Kendrick White, the university has cited "restructuring" as the reason for White's removal and indicated that he will retain a position of some kind at the university. A university spokeswoman said via email that "a restructuring of university organizational structure is underway at UNN in order to enhance its global competitiveness .... It is expected that in the course of the restructuring process, UNN Associate Professor Kendrick White will be offered some additional functions in accordance with his qualifications and experience."

In an email thanking his supporters White said that the university's vice rector for science will take over all of his previous responsibilities, including directing the university's technology commercialization center, which he developed.

"It is a sad comment on our times that in spite of my 20 year plus history of supporting Russia's modernization, a popular Moscow TV personality could be allowed to present an unverified report depicting me with unsubstantiated innuendo as a harmful threat to Russia's security," White wrote.

"This situation is all the more ironic, given that only four months ago I was invited by the Russian Ministry of Science and Education to make a presentation to both Russian and American scientists at the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC on the successful new model of technology commercialization which we have developed in Lobachevsky as a breakthrough for Russian science collaboration in the world."

Philip G. Altbach, a research professor and founding director of Boston College's Center for International Higher Education, noted that White's university is one of 15 institutions participating in the 5-100 project, a government initiative to improve the international standing of top Russian universities (and their performance in international rankings). The irony is that "one of the main goals of what the 5-100 campaign is trying to do is internationalize the universities -- to hire internationally," said Altbach, who is part of the international council overseeing the 5-100 program.

Altbach continued, "My Russian friends say like everything else there it's complicated in the sense that there are a lot of people in the Russian establishment who are very serious in having Russia participate internationally, to be globally engaged and join the rest of the world in higher education and science. It's going on at the same time as all these ultra-nationalists, many of them in the Duma, in the Parliament, are mouthing off all the time."

Russia's minister of education and science, Dmitry Livanov, has weighed in on the Kendrick White case. He was quoted Friday in the Russian-language newspaper Gazeta as saying that it's not right for a university to dismiss someone based on a television program. "Are we interested in foreign specialists coming to us? Of course, if they're qualified," the minister said to the paper

Andrei Volkov, a professor and former dean at the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo and the deputy chair of the international council of the 5-100 program, said that "it's not an easy time for every rector who decided to make his university much more global." At the same time, he emphasized that the Ministry of Education and Science has issued clear guidance that the 5-100 project -- with its emphasis on publication in international journals and the recruitment of international students and faculty -- should continue to move ahead.

"There is no question we should continue to follow the same way as when we created this program three years ago," Volkov said. "We should attract faculty, administrators and students as much as possible from outside of Russia. It doesn't mean we should discriminate against Russians -- not at all -- but we should attract as much as possible."

"I hope," Volkov said of the Kendrick White case, "it will not spoil the atmosphere for hiring new faculty and administrators in Western countries."

Timothy O'Connor, an American in Russian higher education administration -- he's the vice rector of academic affairs at the National University of Science and Technology MISIS (another 5-100 participating institution) -- described the press reports about Kendrick White as "most unfortunate" and said they certainly gave him "cause to think about my own situation and in general about the situation of other Westerners placed in universities in Russia."

But he also said that at his university, "people have not treated me any differently with the deterioration of formal relations between the United States and Russia."
"As far as I'm concerned," O'Connor said, "it's been business as usual."

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 #13
New York Times
July 23, 2015
MacArthur Foundation to Close Offices in Russia
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

MOSCOW - The MacArthur Foundation is closing its offices in Russia after more than 20 years of grant-making here, becoming the latest casualty of new restrictions meant to limit the influence of foreign organizations in Russia.

The foundation's Russian employees and the civil-society organizations that receive its grants would be put at risk if it continued to operate in the country, the foundation said in a statement.

This month, Russian lawmakers published a preliminary list of 12 nongovernmental organizations that could be banned under a law signed in May by President Vladimir V. Putin. The MacArthur Foundation was on the list. The new law gives the Russian authorities power to shut down groups that are deemed to be "undesirable" and to pose a threat to Russia's security.

The new law and public statements made by Russian lawmakers "make it clear that the Russian government regards MacArthur's continued presence as unwelcome," the foundation said.

The group, based in Chicago, has awarded more than $173 million in grants in Russia since 1992. The grants finance activities related to higher education, human rights and limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Responding to accusations that the 12 groups on the Russian blacklist were acting on the American government's behalf, the foundation said in its statement: "We are entirely independent of the United States government and receive no funding from it. We have never supported political activities or other actions that could reasonably be construed as meeting the definition of 'undesirable.' "

A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, declined to comment on the foundation's announcement, the Russian news agency Interfax reported. Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Foreign Relations Committee in the upper house of the Russian Parliament, said the fact that the foundation was pulling out of Russia meant that lawmakers were right to single it out.

"The fact that the fund is ending its activities means only one thing: that it directly or indirectly acknowledges the basis for the questions and the claims that were directed against it," Mr. Kosachev said, according to Interfax.

Nongovernmental organizations have been shutting down their activities in Russia at a quickening pace in recent weeks. The Dynasty Fund, a Russian group that has given millions of dollars to programs dedicated to the sciences, decided on July 5 to close down because it had not been able to get its name off a government list of groups deemed to be "foreign agents."

The push against such groups, especially those that receive money from abroad, is part of a tide of nationalism in Russia that has been rising since last year, after a revolution in Ukraine and Russia's subsequent annexation of Crimea. The mood in the country has turned patriotic and defensive, and there is broad acceptance of moves to tamp down and control foreign groups that the Kremlin sees as a threat. American organizations are seen as particularly suspect, in line with claims that the United States is trying to foment revolution in Russia.

Other groups on the lawmakers' list of 12 include George Soros's Open Society Foundations, Freedom House and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

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 #14
Moscow Times
July 23, 2015
Russian Homophobia Is a Convenient Diversion
By Andrew Kornbluth
Andrew Kornbluth is a doctoral student at the University of California at Berkeley.

With the attention garnered by the recent publication on YouTube of a hidden-camera experiment in which two young men hold hands as they walk through central Moscow, enduring a barrage of verbal and physical assaults from passers-by, the attitudinal gulf across which many in the West and Russia regard each other is certain to widen. While the filmmakers' earlier efforts included less serious fare - their previous clip involved girls with fake mustaches - the 6 million views that this latest video accumulated in the space of three days show that the authors have hit a nerve. The contours of the outrage are predictable enough; Western viewers will tend to condemn the spectacle of people being humiliated simply for who they are, while Russian viewers will tend to condemn the filmmakers for "provoking" public feeling. Lost in the emotional turmoil, however, is the question of just why many residents of the world's largest country - Russia - should feel so much antipathy toward such a tiny minority - homosexuals?

The truth goes beyond the usual answer, namely that homophobia is a top-down political distraction orchestrated by the government. To be sure, the administration's "traditional values" campaign has fanned the flames of hatred. Inaugurated in 2012 by Putin's lament over a "deficit of spiritual links" and a wave of official hysteria surrounding the adoption of Russian children by Americans, one of the cornerstones of the campaign has been the juxtaposition of "Holy Russia" with "sodomitic" America and "Gayropa."

But in Russia's consensual autocracy, the government is careful to only advance initiatives which it is sure will meet with popular approval. Nor is Russian society in the grip of especially conservative sexual mores - premarital sex, adultery and prostitution are as much a fact of daily life as they are in the West. Rather, homophobia is a psychological coping strategy, modeled on patterns of behavior from the Soviet period and which responds to a distinct trauma: the long-ago disintegration of the same "traditional values" that the homophobes profess to be defending.

Much like the phenomenon of pain from a phantom limb, the yearning for the values of a supposedly more pure epoch is a reaction to the catastrophic state of gender and domestic relations inside Russia. Widespread domestic abuse is only the most extreme end result of a deeply patriarchal society in which a woman's energies are supposed to be dedicated to finding and keeping a husband, no matter how poorly he treats her. Although the Russian government keeps no official statistics on victims of domestic violence, the authorities have estimated that anywhere from 10,000 to 14,000 women are murdered every year by their husbands or partners; by comparison, in the United States, a country with a population twice the size of Russia's, 1,000 to 2,000 women a year are murdered by partners or family members.

The situation for the other pillar of the household trinity, the children, is hardly less bleak. The horrific plight of disabled and abandoned children in the country's orphanage system is all too well-known. But substance abuse, poverty, and violence haunt many other young people. As recently as 2013, the government acknowledged that Russia had Europe's highest rate of teenage suicide; this year, the head of Moscow's anti-suicide hotline stated that the number of calls for help regarding adolescents had not changed since then. If the situation in Moscow is serious, one can imagine the conditions that prevail in more depressed areas like southern Russia or the Urals.

Finally, the extent to which the restoration of "traditional values" is a fairy tale totally out of touch with the reality of Russian society is evident in the grim figures from the country's HIV epidemic. The number of people infected with HIV has doubled to almost 1 million since 2010 and could reach 3 million by 2015. These are increases that Vadim Pokrovsky, chief of Russia's Federal AIDS Center, attributes mainly to unprotected heterosexual sex.

Gays and lesbians would seem to have little to do, then, with Russia's plagues of disease, hopelessness and violence. But old habits die hard; in the Soviet Union, people were rarely encouraged to look for the actual sources of the country's problems, with the guilty parties instead being sought among fictional "wreckers" and "fifth columnists." Moreover, any "deviation" from the norm, whether biological or ethnic, was treated as an inherently ideological choice; millions suffered state-sponsored persecution merely because of their class background or ethnicity.

According to this ingrained logic, homosexuality is not just about genetics or sexual preference, but represents a form of political dissent. And just as the Soviet Jews' enthusiasm for the foundation of Israel in 1948 provided a pretext to convert traditional anti-Semitism into a decades-long "anti-cosmopolitan" campaign, so too has popular discomfort with the gradual emergence of homosexuals from the closet now been used to create a new class of "enemies of the state" in Russia. On a deeper level, at a time of general decay and crisis, homosexuals, "flaunting" their individuality, are seen to be the most "insolent" violators of collective solidarity and therefore the most likely culprits for the collective's corrosion.

While many outsiders might be tempted to dismiss the fixation on homosexuality in Russia as yet another example of the country's inscrutability, the enthusiasm for homophobia has its roots in very specific Russian problems and is expressed in a manner reflecting Russia's distinct intellectual heritage. That does not change the fact that homophobia, like anti-Semitism before it, remains the "socialism of fools."

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 #15
Moscow Times
July 23, 2015
The Year in Theater: Murky Demons on the Loose
By John Freedman

Words can be fashionable. They may be dangerous. The word of this year in Russian culture, I would argue, has shades of both.

The lexical item of "obscurantism"-"mrakobesie" in Russian, suggesting demonic murk and gloom - is everywhere to be found in discussions of art these days.

"In my opinion, it is total obscurantism," director Roman Viktyuk told newspaper Izvestia in late June when asked about a request from the prosecutor's office about potential pornographic content in his theater's production of Oscar Wilde's "Salome."

Respected critic, administrator and translator Pavel Rudnev listed the "gloomy obscurantist forces" that "ganged up on theater" this year as the season's biggest failure in a list compiled for Teatral magazine of the waning season's best and worst events.

It was a season of unsettling developments, in which culture at large was repeatedly put on the defensive.

Arguably, the year's most scandalous incident took place in February when a church organization accused a production of Wagner's "Tannhauser" at the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater of "offending the faith" of believers. It took its complaint to court, demanding that director Timofei Kulyabin and the theater's managing director Boris Mezdrich both be jailed.

The suit failed, the judge throwing it out of court just five days after the trial began on March 5.

By then the damage was done, however. Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky fired Mezdrich anyway, replacing him with a patsy who immediately pulled "Tannhauser" out of the theater's repertory.

Not far behind the "Tannhauser" scandal was the season-long soap opera involving Moscow's Teatr.doc.

For the first 12 years of its life the tiny independent theater prided itself on being the "theater where no one acts," but it added two new slogans this year: "the theater that does not fear," and "the theater that moves."

Doc, as the playhouse is known colloquially, was kicked out of two spaces in the course of the season. Unbowed by the harassment, it settled into its third home at the end of June.

The city pushed Doc out of its historic space on Tryokhprudny Pereulok in late December, claiming the reason was fire safety violations, but using a bomb squad and heavy-handed tactics, including detentions and threats, to accomplish its goals.

Doc reopened at a new space in the Baumansky neighborhood just six weeks later. But when it opened a show called "The Bolotnaya Square Case" on the third anniversary of the infamous May 6 clash between protesters and police on Bolotnaya Square, the authorities were not amused.

Three weeks of investigations and interrogations by criminal investigators, fire inspectors and local beat policemen followed, after which Doc's new landlord informed them he was canceling their lease. They were given one month to vacate the premises.

No official reason can be identified for the sudden move for, under the law, the landlord need not declare a reason for evicting a tenant. For good measure, however, the city slapped a 300,000 ruble fine (nearly $16,000 in early June) on Doc for allegedly violating fire regulations again.

As the season wound down and the second Doc scandal of the year played itself out, a cluster of other restrictive or repressive incidents unfolded.

Russian President Vladimir Putin in late May signed the so-called law of "undesirable organizations," the chief aim of which is to ban so-called "foreign agents" from having impact on Russian cultural or political life. No theatrical organizations have actually been named yet under this law, although there are concerns it could affect the Sakharov Center and the Memorial Society. Both have conducted active theatrical programs in recent years.

In mid-June a self-proclaimed cultural organization named Art Without Borders asked the Moscow Prosecutor's Office to investigate six Moscow theaters for potential "pornography." The theaters singled out were the Gogol Center, the Satirikon, the Meyerhold Center, the Moscow Art Theater, the Sovremennik, and the Viktyuk Theater.

In all cases, the theaters were obliged to divulge information about the directors of certain shows, provide descriptions of the shows, and to declare if minors were included among the casts of actors. Many, like the Viktyuk and the Satirikon, satisfied the prosecutor's demands merely by sending copies of the play texts.

As such, the flap appears to have ended without any actions taken by officials, but in the overall atmosphere of increasing intimidation, one suspects this is not the last we will hear from Art Without Borders.

Finally, recent weeks have seen the venerable Golden Mask Festival come under attack from various camps, including the Ministry of Culture, which has stated that the festival should be more proactive in supporting "traditional Russian values." Other detractors have accused the festival of becoming a monopoly, both in financial and ideological terms.

The bickering among those defending and supporting the festival administration has taken on a contentious, occasionally foul-mouthed nature.

As sad as that may be, it suits the mood of the cultural world these days. Murky demons do seem to be on the loose.

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 #16
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
July 23, 2015
OBITUARY: Gennady Seleznyov, night rider of Russia's rowdy parliament
Nick Allen in Berlin

With President Vladimir Putin's executive fist dominating the 'vertical of power', while parliament toes the Kremlin line, it's easy to forget Russia's heyday of real rough-and-tumble oppositional party politics in the first years after the Soviet collapse.

So defiant from the outset was the legislature, still known after 1991 as the Supreme Soviet, that it was finally shelled into submission by President Boris Yeltsin in 1993 as he drove the country's shift to a market economy.

But what seemed like the final destruction of legislative power gave rise to a vivid and meaningful - if often shambolic - new assembly. Formed from a volatile mix of factions, agendas and personalities, it needed a firm hand on the reins to prevent Russia's new State Duma being confused with the state circus.

After Ivan Rybkin's two-year tenure as speaker, this task fell in January 1996 to Communist Party member and former editor of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, Gennady Seleznyov, who died on July 19, at age 67, after a long illness.

Riding the Duma-coaster

Born in 1947 in the Urals town of Serov, Seleznyov nurtured a love of horses and riding on his path from lathe worker to army conscript, journalism student and editor, to the man charged with breaking in the country's most recalcitrant parliament.

"There were always stables in my life, working horses: me and the boys used to love standing in for the grooms at night and taking the horses off for a ride," Seleznyov wrote.

He rarely got an easy ride in the parliament. During his two terms as speaker from 1996-2003, Seleznyov "patiently admonished lawmakers like rowdy schoolchildren, sometimes telling them to step outside to settle their differences", according to the The Moscow Times.

Reliably unruffled but seldom seen outside the chamber without a cigarette in his hand or mouth, Seleznyov flavoured proceedings with his characteristic dry wit. "All of our multifaceted lawmaking activity ... boils down to the law on beekeeping," he said in a 1999 speech summarising the results of the preceding four years of the Duma's work.

A Western journalist who reported from the lower house in the late 1990s described the Duma as a far more colourful place than it is today, because the pro-Kremlin parties had not yet established complete dominance.

"There were lots of hard-line Communists, people going on hunger strike in their offices in protest at government policy, and of course, [ultranationalist] Vladimir Zhirinovsky with his brawling and shouting in the parliament chamber," he wrote. "Seleznyov presided over it all with a mixture of wry amusement and exasperation," and with "the air of someone who could see the ridiculousness of it all".

Rich with ridiculousness, but not ridiculous of itself, might be fairer to say of this very Russian-flavoured plunge into Western-style parliamentary politics: The Duma-coaster that twisted and turned towards Putin's ascendancy to presidential power in 1999 was a necessary ride: it was a coming of age for a society emerging from 75 years of totalitarian rule, like a rebellious adolescence steeped in heady farm cider, and a process that through its very chaos marked the assembly's rite of political passage.

The Duma also provided a valuable counterweight at times to the Tsar-like impulses of Yeltin's presidency. Seleznyov as speaker personally protested against many of Yeltsin's reforms, while his party outright rejected some, such as the proposed complete denationalisation of land in 1998. When Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko opened the markets, Seleznyov objected, saying the Russian economy wasn't ready yet.

But some critics of the speaker say he later yielded to Yeltsin's direct pressure not to encourage the Duma in its planned impeachment vote against him over the war in Chechnya and the "genocide of the Russian people" through harsh reforms. The impeachment failed at voting, but in 1999, the Communist Party again took the largest number of seats and Seleznyov was re-inaugurated.

Saddling up for change

Everything changed with Yeltsin's handover over power to Prime Minister Putin on New Year's Eve 1999, and the ex-KGB agent's subsequent election as president on a wave of support for the second war in Chechnya.

This flagged the end for the old guard of Duma stalwarts, Communists included. After the party lost many seats in the Duma in 2001 Seleznyov wanted reform within its ranks, while the Communist leadership called for his ousting as speaker. He refused to go, was expelled from the party but stayed in the chamber's top seat for another two years.

Seleznyov lost his speaker position after the pro-Kremlin United Russia party won a majority of seats in the 2003 elections. While he was an early supporter of Putin, he was scathing about the new Kremlin-subservient Duma chaired by the dour former interior minister Boris Gryzlov: "All the deputies did was click their heels and say 'Yes Sir!' It was simply repellent to watch this. Some kind of barracks and not a parliament," Seleznyov said.

Although regarded by many as "one of the founding fathers of modern Russian parliamentarianism",  Seleznyov "could not adapt to the new realities", political scientist Konstantin Kalachev told gazeta.ru. After founding his own party but failing to win re-election as an MP in 2007, Seleznyov saw out his working life as board chairman of a bank in the Moscow region.

As many remarks on his passing shows, he is remembered for his measured control of the parliamentary helter-skelter, steady wit and consistent principles. "He stood at the pinnacle of politics in the toughest years of the rule of Tsar Boris, and was able to create parity between the authorities," wrote one internet commentator. "He knew how to reconcile both the left and the right, and I loved his intelligent humour, but the main thing was his decency and statesmanship."

Gennady Seleznyov is survived by his wife and son.

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 #17
The National Interest
July 23, 2015
Russia Opens Its Doors... To Asia
By Salvatore Babones
Salvatore Babones (@sbabones) is an associate professor of sociology & social policy at the University of Sydney and an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).

On July 13, Russia's President Vladimir Putin signed a law to establish a "free port" in Vladivostok, Russia's Pacific gateway. The free port opens for business on January 1, 2016. It will be a customs-free zone with an extremely low corporate income tax rate of just 5 percent.

Vladivostok is a city of 600,000 people that has often been called "the San Francisco of the East"-though not often by people who have actually been there. Famous as a bastion of conservatism, in the Russian revolution it was the last major city to fall into communist hands.

In 2003, the city fathers actually rebuilt a monument to Tsar Nicholas II that had been destroyed in 1930.

Still, the city has San Francisco's steep hills, San Francisco's foggy weather, and even some of San Francisco's old world charm. And now San Franciscans will have the opportunity to go see it for themselves. The open port initiative includes an 8-day visa on arrival. There is no word yet on what countries will be included, but if the Russian government is at all serious about the initiative it will include Americans.

The visa on arrival will be a welcome first for Russia. Citizens of most developed countries face a tortuous visa bureaucracy when visiting Russia. A visa on arrival-even if only for a week-will do much to improve Russia's prospects of integrating its Pacific territories with the rest of northeast Asia.

The free port itself is likely to be less important. Simply declaring Vladivostok open for business is not enough to turn it into a major Asian port. Serious infrastructure bottlenecks will almost certainly reduce the utility of the port, even though Russia just spent some $20 billion on infrastructure in the region in preparation for the 2012 APEC summit.

One beneficiary of that APEC binge was Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU), the flagship educational institution of the Russian Far East. The university got to keep the summit site as a brand-new campus on pristine Russky Island, a former military reserve across the bay from Vladivostok. The campus is so nice that Vladimir Putin himself stays there when he is in town.

But over the last few years, Russians have learned the hard way that building a high-achieving educational institution is about much more than just constructing some nice new buildings. The building and the campus' park setting are very nice indeed. But faculty salaries are low and international linkages are relatively weak.

Building a high-productivity industrial cluster is just as difficult and depends just as much on the human touch. Low taxes are nice but low taxes alone do not incubate real industries. In business as in education and research, human mobility and human capital are all-important.

A looser visa regime will make it easier for schools, universities, and businesses of all kinds to attract international visitors and international staff. It will make it easier to bring in management and technical consultants from around the region. Head offices will be able to visit the local branch without advance warning. Businesspeople will be more willing to relocate to Russia if their families can visit anytime.

An eight-day visa on arrival won't change the world, but it may change Russia for the better. The heaviest millstone holding down Russian economic development is not an over-reliance on energy or even Western economic sanctions. It is Russia's lack of openness to the outside world. In Russia, a little openness may go a long way.

But a little openness is only a start. If the Vladivostok free port initiative is to amount to anything more than a massive duty-free shopping subsidy for the region's ill-conceived casino resort developments, it will have to be followed up by increasing openness and increased funding for the region's human and research infrastructure.

The worry is that in Russia, a special-interest tax concession is all the much-hyped "free port" will turn out to be. The real San Francisco thrives on its culture of openness and its investments in education and human capital. Las Vegas, with its low taxes and glitzy casinos, is a poor cousin to the Bay area.

Human capital may be expensive, but openness is cheap. The Russian Far East, 4,000 miles away from Moscow and sitting at the juncture of China, Korea, and Japan, may be the best place for Russia to open first. As Europe increasingly turns inward (and away from Russia), the countries of northeast Asia are turning ever more outward. Asia may turn out to be much more receptive to Russian business than Europe ever was.

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 #18
Sputnik
July 23, 2015
Political Tensions Have No Impact on Space Cooperation - Roscosmos

BAIKONUR (Sputnik) - A Russian Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft successfully brought Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren to the ISS earlier in Thursday.

"Difficult relations between our countries have never had any impact on ties between space agencies or on the cooperative ISS exploitation program," Komarov told journalists after the successful launch.

NASA administrator Bill Gerstenmaier, in turn, said space cooperation in the face of political differences could be an example for governments of how to work together. He added the recent extension of this cooperation until 2024 proved the project was a success.

Komarov said Thursday that Moscow had agreed to prolong the exploitation of the space station for another nine years.

The ISS program is a joint project among five participating space agencies: the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Russia's Roscosmos, the European Space Agency (ESA), Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

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 #19
Russia Beyond the Headlines/Izvestia
www.rbth.ru
July 22, 2015
Trade turnover between Russia and United States falls sharply
In the first five months of 2015, trade between Russia and the United States has plunged 34 percent. Earlier, despite sanctions and the Ukrainian crisis, the United States was one of the few countries with which Russia increased the volume of trade at year-end 2014, but now the Russian authorities are trying to replace U.S. products with goods from the BRICS countries.
Anzhelina Grigoryan, Natalya Korchmarek, Izvestia
 
In the first five months of 2015, trade turnover between Russia and the United States declined by 34 percent, the Russian daily Izvestiya reports, citing data from the U.S. Commerce Department. Imports from the U.S. dropped by $1.8 billion, while exports to the U.S. from Russia decreased by $3.5 billion compared to the same period last year.

In particular, Russian companies have started to buy less transportation equipment, including aircraft, cars and tractors. In addition, the supply of books and fertilizers has dropped.
 
Main reasons

According to Alexander Knobel, the director of the Center for Research on International Trade at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), the current reduction in trade with the United States is a temporary phenomenon related to the crisis. In particular, he said, the demand for U.S. equipment, including tractors and harvesters, will remain at the same level, since there are no equivalent products with which to replace them.

However, the export of Russian goods to the United States has declined in the same way as imports: In the first five months of 2015 it decreased by almost 33 percent to $7.2 billion. Oil, petroleum products and metals account for about 70 percent of Russian supplies.

Compared with the same period last year, the cost of oil and petroleum products has decreased by 11 percent to $2.3 billion, while the cost of metal has dropped by 2 percent to $1 billion. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the peak of Russia's oil imports was achieved in 2011, when shipments amounted to 227.8 million barrels, and was followed by a gradual decline; in 2012, 2013 and 2014, the figure was 174.6 million, 168 million and 119 million barrels, respectively.
 
Recent growth

It is noteworthy that, despite sanctions and the Ukraine crisis, the United States was one of the few countries with which Russia increased trade volumes at the end of 2014; according to the Federal Customs Service, trade turnover between the two countries increased by 5.6 percent and amounted to about $29.2 billion. As a result, the U.S. share of Russia's foreign trade increased in 2014 from 3.3 to 3.7 percent.

"The indicators of trade between Russia and the United States have indeed significantly decreased," the World Trade Center Moscow's CEO Vladimir Salamatov said.

"But if individual industries and product groups have strongly sunk - in particular, products of the metallurgical industry - the others, on the contrary, have made a sharp jump."

For instance, in comparison with 2013, the imports of nickel and nickel products from Russia to the United States have risen by 40 percent to $224 million.

According to RANEPA's vice-rector Andrei Margolin, the reduction of trade turnover between Russia and the United States is directly related to the political situation in the world. "The States will continue to seek to replace Russian supplies; at the same time, Russia will seek to build partnerships in the East," he says. In particular, he said, the other countries in the BRICS grouping (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) want to increase deliveries of agricultural products to Russia; currently, the countries' supervisory authorities are negotiating about a possible increase in trade.
First published in Russian in Izvestia.

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#20
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
July 22, 2015
Why Iran deal doesn't threaten Russian energy interests in Europe
There are five reasons why speculation about the impact of Iranian nuclear deal on the global energy market is overstated.
By Alexey Khlebnikov
Alexey Khlebnikov is the Senior Editor of Russia Direct. Before joining the Russia Direct team, he received his Master's degree in public policy from the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota in the United States as an Edmund S. Muskie Scholar. Currently he is working towards his Ph.D. in international relations at Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod.

A truly historic nuclear deal with Iran, sealed on July 14 between Tehran and the P5+1 (the permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany), will have a long-lasting impact on both Middle Eastern and global developments. One of the most discussed implications of the deal in Russia is its possible impact on global oil prices and Iran's ability to enter the European energy market, thereby challenging Russia's positions there.

However, this is unlikely to happen for five key reasons, at least in the short- and mid-term.

#1: Shifts in global oil consumption

According to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Actions (JCPOA) adopted last week in Vienna, international sanctions against Iran might be gradually lifted in the first half of 2016 at the earliest. However, no sanctions relief will be granted until Iran has taken steps to fulfill the Plan.

According to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), anticipated improvement in global economic activities in 2016 will be translated into higher oil consumption. As a result, world oil demand is forecast to grow by 1.34 million barrels a day (mb/d) in 2016 with total oil consumption reaching 93.94 mb/d. It will likely help decrease the gap between world oil production and consumption, easing the impact of the Iranian oil inflow to the market.

World oil supply and demand

Even considering that Tehran has repeatedly stated that it may increase its oil output by one million barrels a day within six months of sanctions being canceled, the Iranian oil might be back on the market only in the second half of 2016 (more likely, at the end of 2016) after the sanctions will be lifted. This timeframe is likely to downplay the possible mid-term impact on global oil prices.

#2: The weakened state of the Iranian oil industry

The Iranian oil industry was hit by international and individual state sanctions the hardest, especially by financial sanctions and the oil embargo imposed in 2011-2012. In 2012, the oil industry's output dropped by 15 percent  (from 4.4 mb/d to 3.7 mb/d).Iran's oil output, consumption and exports
This, consequently, decreased Iran's oil exports to Europe in 2012 by 80 percent, from 0.78 million barrels in 2011 to 0.16 million barrels in 2012. In 2014, Iran exported only 0.11 million barrels to Europe. This led to the loss of Iranian share of the oil market, which was quickly taken by Libyan and Nigerian oil.

Even after the sanctions are lifted, it's going to be extremely hard for Iran to regain its share of the European energy market.

Also consider the fact that OPEC countries don't want to lose their share of the market. In the best-case scenario, when the sanctions are lifted, Iran's economy will start a period of rapid growth (by some estimates, by 8 percent annually), which will lead to the increase in both oil consumption and production. However, the latter is likely to grow slower. Iran's aging infrastructure and lack of capital investments should not be ignored as well.

#3: The outdated Iranian gas sector

Despite the sanctions under which Iran has been living for quite a long time, its gas production demonstrated quite impressive results. Even after introduction of the most severe sanctions in 2011-2012, Iran was slowly, yet steadily, increasing its gas production. In 2014 the growth was 8 percent from the level of its 2011 output, which estimates place at 172.6 billion cubic meters (bcm).

This means that it's unlikely that after the sanctions relief Iranian gas output will immediately skyrocket. Iran does not possess modern equipment, facilities and investment, which is not a quick task to accomplish even after the sanctions relief and foreign investment inflow. The Iranian government estimates that the energy sector needs investments worth about $300 billion over eight years.

According to the most recent available BP statistical review, in 2014 Iran exported gas almost solely to Turkey -8.9 bcm (about 18 percent of Turkish gas imports including LNG), while Russia supplied 26.9 bcm to Turkey (56 percent of Turkey total gas imports) and about 147.7 bcm to Europe (30-35 percent of its total gas imports including LNG).

As Iran consumes about 97 percent of its own gas, it needs to import gas to be able to export it to Turkey. For more than a decade Iran has been buying Turkmen gas, e.g. 4.7 bcm in 2013, 6.5 bcm in 2014.

To increase its gas output, Tehran needs significant investments into its gas industry as, in the case of oil, this industry lacks modern equipment and technologies. Thus, it is doubtful that Iran can suddenly become a game-changer in the gas market, even with the help of Europe.

#4: Lack of pipeline infrastructure

Another obstacle for Iran to enter the European market and potentially challenge Russia there lies in its poor exporting pipeline infrastructure.

Tehran has only one pipeline, Tabriz-Ankara, which delivers its gas directly to Turkey and can potentially connect Iran to the European market. Aside from that, Iran can potentially use pipelines that run through Azerbaijan and Georgia to Europe. However Caspian petro-states are unlikely to let Iran take their share of the European market.

Although potentially Iranian gas can get access to European markets through the existing South Caucasus Pipeline (throughout capacity is over 7 bcm annually) and proposed Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP), which is planned to be finished in 2018 and carry some 16 bcm per annum.

Thus, Iran needs to construct another pipeline to Turkey to increase its supplies of gas or to build a new pipeline to Azerbaijan, which requires huge investments.

At the same time, Russia has already sealed a deal with Ankara to construct the Turkish Stream pipeline. Its planned annual throughput is 63 bcm per annum and the first deliveries are expected in December 2016.

This will make Turkey the major regional energy hub - this means that Iran will have to deal with both Turkey and Russia to get its gas to Europe.

Another issue is that Iran has neither operating LNG plant for maritime supply of gas to Europe nor a substantial fleet of tankers for active LNG transportation. To finish ongoing construction of the Iran LNG Company on the west coast of Iran at Tombak (Bushehr province) is going to take several years more because the project is very expensive.

#5: The Chinese challenge

Another important fact is the growing competition for Caspian gas, including Iranian gas, from China.

Chinese demand for natural gas is growing and is expected to grow in the future as the country seeks to decrease the use of coal amidst environmental concerns and to increase the share of natural gas.

In 2014 Chinese pipeline imports of natural gas were up 14.7 percent year-over-year. China already works closely with Turkmenistan and actively increases its gas imports from other Caspian countries such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

China seeks alternative sources of gas imports in order to increase overall volume of gas imports, but not to diversify them as the EU does. That is why it will need more gas every year.

In April of 2015 Iran's Ambassador to China Ali Asghar Khaji announced that Iran has ambitious plans to extend its energy delivery network to China under Beijing's massive "One Belt, One Road" project. Iran has already built a natural gas pipeline to its border with Pakistan. Now, when the Iranian nuclear deal is sealed, Islamabad is just waiting for the sanctions against Iran to be lifted and with Chinese funding it is going start building its section of the pipeline.

Thus, the EU has China as a serious competitor for Iranian and Caspian gas. Moreover, Iranian gas can potentially flow to China via existing pipelines of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which is not an unrealistic scenario at all.

Thus, Iran faces major obstacles to becoming a large energy exporter, including the need to ramp up gas and oil production and build new transport infrastructure. Even when the sanctions will be lifted, Iran will need a lot of time to renovate its production capacities and to construct supply pipelines. This makes it almost unrealistic for Iran to become a substantial energy supplier to the European market anytime soon.
 

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 #21
www.tomdispatch.com
July 23, 2015
The Eurasian Big Bang
How China and Russia Are Running Rings Around Washington
By Pepe Escobar
Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times, an analyst for RT and Sputnik, and a TomDispatch regular. His latest book is Empire of Chaos.

    Let's start with the geopolitical Big Bang you know nothing about, the one that occurred just two weeks ago. Here are its results: from now on, any possible future attack on Iran threatened by the Pentagon (in conjunction with NATO) would essentially be an assault on the planning of an interlocking set of organizations -- the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), the EEU (Eurasian Economic Union), the AIIB (the new Chinese-founded Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank), and the NDB (the BRICS' New Development Bank) -- whose acronyms you're unlikely to recognize either.  Still, they represent an emerging new order in Eurasia.

    Tehran, Beijing, Moscow, Islamabad, and New Delhi have been actively establishing interlocking security guarantees. They have been simultaneously calling the Atlanticist bluff when it comes to the endless drumbeat of attention given to the flimsy meme of Iran's "nuclear weapons program."  And a few days before the Vienna nuclear negotiations finally culminated in an agreement, all of this came together at a twin BRICS/SCO summit in Ufa, Russia -- a place you've undoubtedly never heard of and a meeting that got next to no attention in the U.S.  And yet sooner or later, these developments will ensure that the War Party in Washington and assorted neocons (as well as neoliberalcons) already breathing hard over the Iran deal will sweat bullets as their narratives about how the world works crumble.

    The Eurasian Silk Road

    With the Vienna deal, whose interminable build-up I had the dubious pleasure of following closely, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and his diplomatic team have pulled the near-impossible out of an extremely crumpled magician's hat: an agreement that might actually end sanctions against their country from an asymmetric, largely manufactured conflict.

    Think of that meeting in Ufa, the capital of Russia's Bashkortostan, as a preamble to the long-delayed agreement in Vienna. It caught the new dynamics of the Eurasian continent and signaled the future geopolitical Big Bangness of it all. At Ufa, from July 8th to 10th, the 7th BRICS summit and the 15th Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit overlapped just as a possible Vienna deal was devouring one deadline after another.

    Consider it a diplomatic masterstroke of Vladmir Putin's Russia to have merged those two summits with an informal meeting of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Call it a soft power declaration of war against Washington's imperial logic, one that would highlight the breadth and depth of an evolving Sino-Russian strategic partnership. Putting all those heads of state attending each of the meetings under one roof, Moscow offered a vision of an emerging, coordinated geopolitical structure anchored in Eurasian integration. Thus, the importance of Iran: no matter what happens post-Vienna, Iran will be a vital hub/node/crossroads in Eurasia for this new structure.

    If you read the declaration that came out of the BRICS summit, one detail should strike you: the austerity-ridden European Union (EU) is barely mentioned. And that's not an oversight. From the point of view of the leaders of key BRICS nations, they are offering a new approach to Eurasia, the very opposite of the language of sanctions.

    Here are just a few examples of the dizzying activity that took place at Ufa, all of it ignored by the American mainstream media. In their meetings, President Putin, China's President Xi Jinping, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi worked in a practical way to advance what is essentially a Chinese vision of a future Eurasia knit together by a series of interlocking "new Silk Roads." Modi approved more Chinese investment in his country, while Xi and Modi together pledged to work to solve the joint border issues that have dogged their countries and, in at least one case, led to war.

    The NDB, the BRICS' response to the World Bank, was officially launched with $50 billion in start-up capital. Focused on funding major infrastructure projects in the BRICS nations, it is capable of accumulating as much as $400 billion in capital, according to its president, Kundapur Vaman Kamath. Later, it plans to focus on funding such ventures in other developing nations across the Global South -- all in their own currencies, which means bypassing the U.S. dollar.  Given its membership, the NDB's money will clearly be closely linked to the new Silk Roads. As Brazilian Development Bank President Luciano Coutinho stressed, in the near future it may also assist European non-EU member states like Serbia and Macedonia. Think of this as the NDB's attempt to break a Brussels monopoly on Greater Europe. Kamath even advanced the possibility of someday aiding in the reconstruction of Syria.

    You won't be surprised to learn that both the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the NDB are headquartered in China and will work to complement each other's efforts. At the same time, Russia's foreign investment arm, the Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), signed a memorandum of understanding with funds from other BRICS countries and so launched an informal investment consortium in which China's Silk Road Fund and India's Infrastructure Development Finance Company will be key partners.

    Full Spectrum Transportation Dominance

    On the ground level, this should be thought of as part of the New Great Game in Eurasia. Its flip side is the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the Pacific and the Atlantic version of the same, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, both of which Washington is trying to advance to maintain U.S. global economic dominance. The question these conflicting plans raise is how to integrate trade and commerce across that vast region. From the Chinese and Russian perspectives, Eurasia is to be integrated via a complex network of superhighways, high-speed rail lines, ports, airports, pipelines, and fiber optic cables. By land, sea, and air, the resulting New Silk Roads are meant to create an economic version of the Pentagon's doctrine of "Full Spectrum Dominance" -- a vision that already has Chinese corporate executives crisscrossing Eurasia sealing infrastructure deals.

    For Beijing -- back to a 7% growth rate in the second quarter of 2015 despite a recent near-panic on the country's stock markets -- it makes perfect economic sense: as labor costs rise, production will be relocated from the country's Eastern seaboard to its cheaper Western reaches, while the natural outlets for the production of just about everything will be those parallel and interlocking "belts" of the new Silk Roads.

    Meanwhile, Russia is pushing to modernize and diversify its energy-exploitation-dependent economy. Among other things, its leaders hope that the mix of those developing Silk Roads and the tying together of the Eurasian Economic Union -- Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan -- will translate into myriad transportation and construction projects for which the country's industrial and engineering know-how will prove crucial.

    As the EEU has begun establishing free trade zones with India, Iran, Vietnam, Egypt, and Latin America's Mercosur bloc (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela), the initial stages of this integration process already reach beyond Eurasia. Meanwhile, the SCO, which began as little more than a security forum, is expanding and moving into the field of economic cooperation.  Its countries, especially four Central Asian "stans" (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan) will rely ever more on the Chinese-driven Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the NDB. At Ufa, India and Pakistan finalized an upgrading process in which they have moved from observers to members of the SCO. This makes it an alternative G8.

    In the meantime, when it comes to embattled Afghanistan, the BRICS nations and the SCO have now called upon "the armed opposition to disarm, accept the Constitution of Afghanistan, and cut ties with Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist organizations." Translation: within the framework of Afghan national unity, the organization would accept the Taliban as part of a future government. Their hopes, with the integration of the region in mind, would be for a future stable Afghanistan able to absorb more Chinese, Russian, Indian, and Iranian investment, and the construction -- finally! -- of a long-planned, $10 billion, 1,420-kilometer-long Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline that would benefit those energy-hungry new SCO members, Pakistan and India. (They would each receive 42% of the gas, the remaining 16% going to Afghanistan.)

    Central Asia is, at the moment, geographic ground zero for the convergence of the economic urges of China, Russia, and India. It was no happenstance that, on his way to Ufa, Prime Minister Modi stopped off in Central Asia.  Like the Chinese leadership in Beijing, Moscow looks forward (as a recent document puts it) to the "interpenetration and integration of the EEU and the Silk Road Economic Belt" into a "Greater Eurasia" and a "steady, developing, safe common neighborhood" for both Russia and China.

    And don't forget Iran. In early 2016, once economic sanctions are fully lifted, it is expected to join the SCO, turning it into a G9. As its foreign minister, Javad Zarif, made clear recently to Russia's Channel 1 television, Tehran considers the two countries strategic partners. "Russia," he said, "has been the most important participant in Iran's nuclear program and it will continue under the current agreement to be Iran's major nuclear partner." The same will, he added, be true when it comes to "oil and gas cooperation," given the shared interest of those two energy-rich nations in "maintaining stability in global market prices."

    Got Corridor, Will Travel

    Across Eurasia, BRICS nations are moving on integration projects. A developing Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar economic corridor is a typical example. It is now being reconfigured as a multilane highway between India and China. Meanwhile, Iran and Russia are developing a transportation corridor from the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman to the Caspian Sea and the Volga River. Azerbaijan will be connected to the Caspian part of this corridor, while India is planning to use Iran's southern ports to improve its access to Russia and Central Asia. Now, add in a maritime corridor that will stretch from the Indian city of Mumbai to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas and then on to the southern Russian city of Astrakhan. And this just scratches the surface of the planning underway.

    Years ago, Vladimir Putin suggested that there could be a "Greater Europe" stretching from Lisbon, Portugal, on the Atlantic to the Russian city of Vladivostok on the Pacific. The EU, under Washington's thumb, ignored him. Then the Chinese started dreaming about and planning new Silk Roads that would, in reverse Marco Polo fashion, extend from Shanghai to Venice (and then on to Berlin).

    Thanks to a set of cross-pollinating political institutions, investment funds, development banks, financial systems, and infrastructure projects that, to date, remain largely under Washington's radar, a free-trade Eurasian heartland is being born. It will someday link China and Russia to Europe, Southwest Asia, and even Africa. It promises to be an astounding development. Keep your eyes, if you can, on the accumulating facts on the ground, even if they are rarely covered in the American media. They represent the New Great -- emphasis on that word -- Game in Eurasia.

    Location, Location, Location

    Tehran is now deeply invested in strengthening its connections to this new Eurasia and the man to watch on this score is Ali Akbar Velayati. He is the head of Iran's Center for Strategic Research and senior foreign policy adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Velayati stresses that security in Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and the Caucasus hinges on the further enhancement of a Beijing-Moscow-Tehran triple entente.

    As he knows, geo-strategically Iran is all about location, location, location. That country offers the best access to open seas in the region apart from Russia and is the only obvious east-west/north-south crossroads for trade from the Central Asian "stans." Little wonder then that Iran will soon be an SCO member, even as its "partnership" with Russia is certain to evolve. Its energy resources are already crucial to and considered a matter of national security for China and, in the thinking of that country's leadership, Iran also fulfills a key role as a hub in those Silk Roads they are planning.

    That growing web of literal roads, rail lines, and energy pipelines, as TomDispatch has previously reported, represents Beijing's response to the Obama administration's announced "pivot to Asia" and the U.S. Navy's urge to meddle in the South China Sea. Beijing is choosing to project power via a vast set of infrastructure projects, especially high-speed rail lines that will reach from its eastern seaboard deep into Eurasia. In this fashion, the Chinese-built railway from Urumqi in Xinjiang Province to Almaty in Kazakhstan will undoubtedly someday be extended to Iran and traverse that country on its way to the Persian Gulf.

    A New World for Pentagon Planners

    At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum last month, Vladimir Putin told PBS's Charlie Rose that Moscow and Beijing had always wanted a genuine partnership with the United States, but were spurned by Washington. Hats off, then, to the "leadership" of the Obama administration. Somehow, it has managed to bring together two former geopolitical rivals, while solidifying their pan-Eurasian grand strategy.

    Even the recent deal with Iran in Vienna is unlikely -- especially given the war hawks in Congress -- to truly end Washington's 36-year-long Great Wall of Mistrust with Iran. Instead, the odds are that Iran, freed from sanctions, will indeed be absorbed into the Sino-Russian project to integrate Eurasia, which leads us to the spectacle of Washington's warriors, unable to act effectively, yet screaming like banshees.

    NATO's supreme commander Dr. Strangelove, sorry, American General Philip Breedlove, insists that the West must create a rapid-reaction force -- online -- to counteract Russia's "false narratives." Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter claims to be seriously considering unilaterally redeploying nuclear-capable missiles in Europe. The nominee to head the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Commandant Joseph Dunford, recently directly labeled Russia America's true "existential threat"; Air Force General Paul Selva, nominated to be the new vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, seconded that assessment, using the same phrase and putting Russia, China and Iran, in that order, as more threatening than the Islamic State (ISIS). In the meantime, Republican presidential candidates and a bevy of congressional war hawks simply shout and fume when it comes to both the Iranian deal and the Russians.

    In response to the Ukrainian situation and the "threat" of a resurgent Russia (behind which stands a resurgent China), a Washington-centric militarization of Europe is proceeding apace. NATO is now reportedly obsessed with what's being called "strategy rethink" -- as in drawing up detailed futuristic war scenarios on European soil. As economist Michael Hudson has pointed out, even financial politics are becoming militarized and linked to NATO's new Cold War 2.0.

    In its latest National Military Strategy, the Pentagon suggests that the risk of an American war with another nation (as opposed to terror outfits), while low, is "growing" and identifies four nations as "threats": North Korea, a case apart, and predictably the three nations that form the new Eurasian core: Russia, China, and Iran. They are depicted in the document as "revisionist states," openly defying what the Pentagon identifies as "international security and stability"; that is, the distinctly un-level playing field created by globalized, exclusionary, turbo-charged casino capitalism and Washington's brand of militarism.

    The Pentagon, of course, does not do diplomacy. Seemingly unaware of the Vienna negotiations, it continued to accuse Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons. And that "military option" against Iran is never off the table.

    So consider it the Mother of All Blockbusters to watch how the Pentagon and the war hawks in Congress will react to the post-Vienna and -- though it was barely noticed in Washington -- the post-Ufa environment, especially under a new White House tenant in 2017.

    It will be a spectacle.  Count on it.  Will the next version of Washington try to make it up to "lost" Russia or send in the troops? Will it contain China or the "caliphate" of ISIS? Will it work with Iran to fight ISIS or spurn it? Will it truly pivot to Asia for good and ditch the Middle East or vice-versa? Or might it try to contain Russia, China, and Iran simultaneously or find some way to play them against each other?

    In the end, whatever Washington may do, it will certainly reflect a fear of the increasing strategic depth Russia and China are developing economically, a reality now becoming visible across Eurasia. At Ufa, Putin told Xi on the record: "Combining efforts, no doubt we [Russia and China] will overcome all the problems before us."

    Read "efforts" as new Silk Roads, that Eurasian Economic Union, the growing BRICS block, the expanding Shanghai Cooperation Organization, those China-based banks, and all the rest of what adds up to the beginning of a new integration of significant parts of the Eurasian land mass. As for Washington, fly like an eagle? Try instead: scream like a banshee.

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 #22
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
July 13, 2015
Success in the U.S.: How 3 young Soviet-born entrepreneurs made it
Strong family ties and work ethics were key for these young businessmen.
Aleksandra Efimova, special to RBTH

I recently spoke with three young entrepreneurs, each born in the Soviet Union. I wanted to discover if these sharp and accomplished young businesspeople shared common threads that could be followed back to their Soviet origins.

Leon Oks, founder of iCanvas, is 34 years old and was born in Minsk, Belarus. He finds constant inspiration and motivation remembering the obstacles his parents overcame as they built a new life for their family in the United States.

"When I think of the challenges and complexities of the move my parents made from the Soviet Union to the United States, I gain greater respect and appreciation for them," he says.

"Coming to the U.S. was traumatizing, but I had the advantage of growing up fast," Oks continues. Some of his American peers seem "cocooned" to him, without the life experience and multi-cultural perspective that he feels have given him an open mind. "Seeing how my family struggled for every dollar makes me want to give back and take care of them," he adds.

Remembering his family's challenges affects Leo Friedman's perspective, too. Aged 32 and born in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, Friedman is the founder of iPromo. Like Oks, he believes that living in different countries has had a positive impact, giving him multi-cultural problem-solving skills.

He also understands the value of money, noting that when he sees a penny in the street, he picks it up, remembering that his family came to the United States with only $1,000.

Edward Lichstein, the 29-year-old founder of THMotorsports, doesn't remember living in the Soviet Union; he was born in Kharkov, Ukraine but emigrated to the United States at the age of just five.

Lichstein remembers vividly, though, his parents' example of hard work. They survived on limited resources and always stuck together, an example that nurtured his attitude toward work and what he considers his strength to compete. "I didn't succeed because I am Russian, but because of my work ethics," he says.

Each of these young entrepreneurs also demonstrates the power of recognizing opportunities, which really can be found anywhere. What do watching a street artist in New York, selling leftover computer hard disks on eBay, and being obsessed with cars all have in common? Mixed with an entrepreneurial spirit, an immigrant's survival skills and a lot of hard work, each has formed the core of a successful business.

Nine years ago, Oks traveled to New York City to sell T-shirts to fund a vacation. He watched a street artist selling prints on canvas for $400, and his imagination started working.  The result was iCanvas, an online store that today offers over 30,000 prints by both historic artists (such as Rembrandt and Van Gogh) and current artists from around the world.

The iCanvas store is truly innovative, allowing customers to shop by artist, genre or subject, but also by size, color and canvas design (such as horizontal or vertical, or split into multiple panels). Oks calls the art pieces that iCanvas offers "no-hassle" - ready to hang, with free returns, on canvases with groundbreaking resistance to scratching, water and stretching problems.

The company has licensing agreements with over 300 current artists; for some it's their first opportunity to achieve a worldwide audience, with their work seen by millions within days.

The iCanvas corporate culture is also innovative, at the facility in Morton Grove, Illinois where products are assembled. During lunch and after work, employees can be seen playing pool, practicing yoga or meditation, or serving on a "fun committee" (not a committee that's fun to serve on, but one dedicated to fun).

Friedman, who founded iPromo in 1999 with a strikingly modest start-up, has some sound advice for those thinking of striking out on their own in the business world: "Don't think outside the box. Walk away from the box and then think."

At the age of 17, he had had some computer hard disks left over from building computers for his friends. One day, he listed them on eBay before school. When he got home that afternoon, he saw that he'd made $50 in profit.

Inspired by this small success, he convinced his mother to believe in his business plan, which consisted of ordering more inventory using the family's credit card. His mother's words rang in his mind as he went forward: "Leo, if your idea fails, the family will lose the house."

In the early days of the business, his mother did the accounting, his father packaged products, and Friedman developed different voices for imaginary company employees, transferring calls from himself to himself.

Today, iPromo has worked with over 30,000 customers worldwide, providing customized promotional merchandise that goes beyond the norm, including computer power banks and flash drives as well as the more-traditional bags, pens and drinksware.

Recent iPromo innovations include a privacy screen for smartphones that provides a clear straight-on view but a dark view from the side, with the customer's logo highlighted. Friedman explains that the design was successful after 175 failed attempts, and is now a great seller.

For Lichstein, meanwhile, valet parking at a country club was his dream job at age 16 (On his first day of work, the first car he had to park was a Lamborghini).

The next year, when he was only 17, he founded THMotorsports (originally called True Honda) to combine his passion for vehicles with providing service to likeminded car fanatics. He started with Honda parts because he owned a Honda and knew the make well, but today's THMotorsports provides performance parts for many makes.

"Service is the main way to gain customers, not price," Lichstein says. "We are service-oriented and we know our customers." On his website, he explains it this way: "We have the technology of the Amazons of the world, to deliver products with super-fast efficiency, yet have a staff of car nerds who know every 2jz, B18, 4G63, LS1 and more."

For Oks, Friedman and Lichstein, innovation is a key success factor for the growth and differentiation of their companies. Oks has created a culture of innovation with his team in a Google-like environment, knowing that e-commerce is a young world in which it is critical to stay ahead of the curve.

Each of these entrepreneurs can look to parents and family as their greatest teachers of strong character, effective leadership skills, work ethics, and having the courage to make sacrifices and take risks. Each had a family that believed in mutual support. "Mom didn't always understand what I was doing, but she supported me," comments Friedman.

All three keep their focus on core values and goals, without falling into a "Twitter-verse" where that core might be obscured. Lichstein maintains constant attention to the service and expertise that have always been at THMotorsports' core. Oks speaks about a never-ending learning process and says that one minute of planning can save 10 minutes of execution. Friedman knows his company is successful when people want to work with iPromo because of positive employee referrals.

The stories of these young entrepreneurs confirm that creativity working overtime, plus problem-solving skills, strength of character and an international viewpoint - all traceable to their family backgrounds - can result in flourishing business success.

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 #23
Interfax-Ukraine
July 23, 2015
Pentagon preparing to send large radar to Ukraine

The U.S. Department of Defense intends to supply a long-range radar to Ukraine to help the country counter artillery attacks by Russia-backed militants, the Wall Street Journal has reported, referring to a representative of the department.

"The Pentagon is moving toward providing Ukraine with bigger, longer-range radar to help it counter artillery being used by Russia-backed rebels, as U.S. military officials [have] signaled a growing willingness to bolster the country's defenses," the newspaper said.

However, the initiative is subject to approval by the White House.

"The administration decided early this year against sending Ukraine deadly weaponry, such as artillery or portable air-defense systems, for fear of escalating the more than year-old conflict or provoking Russia. But administration officials say that the new radar doesn't count as offensive or lethal aid, and so wouldn't require a policy shift," the newspaper said,

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 #24
Al Jazeera
July 23, 2015
Ukraine conflict causes spike in domestic violence
PTSD and economic crisis are blamed for increase in violence - and stigma often prevents victims from seeking help.
By Kristina Jovanovski

Kiev, Ukraine - When Tamara's son Maxim was sent to fight in eastern Ukraine by the Ukrainian army, he did not want to go but believed he had to.

After a battle against the rebels near the town of Debaltseve , which saw some of the conflict's most intense fighting, he came home a different person - at times quieter, and at other times more easily agitated at the people around him.

"They have been taken from a normal life and they were thrown into fighting," said Tamara, who requested that her last name not be used.  "Of course, they have unusual reactions for us."

After two weeks home with his mother, Maxim cut his break short and went back to the front lines.

Since last year, when pro-Russian rebels took over parts of east Ukraine, more than 6,500 people have been killed. Despite a ceasefire that took effect in February, the conflict has continued.

The stress of having her 25-year-old son fighting in a war eventually changed 45-year-old Tamara, too. She said she lost most of her friends as a result.

"I was living in another world with other problems... I did not just become more emotional, I even became aggressive," Tamara said.

To deal with her problems, Tamara sought the help of a Kiev-based women's organisation called Public Movement of Empowering Women in Ukraine.

She found volunteer Tatiana Korbut, who has helped soldiers and their families with emotional problems since the conflict began.

Like other soldiers, Maxim had sudden outbursts and became aggressive if a sensitive topic were raised in the wrong way, Korbut noted.

"The guys on the front line, they are quiet, quiet, quiet - and just something small happens and they explode."

Korbut said many men have divorced because of the increased aggression and their inability to connect with loved ones.

This aggression is contributing to a rise in domestic abuse in Ukraine, according to Ukrainian NGO La Strada, which runs a hotline for people needing help with domestic violence, human trafficking, and gender discrimination.

In 2014, the hotline received 7,725 calls, two-thirds of which involved domestic violence. The first four months of 2015 have seen a 30 percent increase in the average number of calls.

Domestic violence under-reported

Military families are not the only ones experiencing higher rates of abuse. La Strada spokesperson Aliona Zubchenko said Ukraine's economic crisis has been a major source of stress for people who are also surrounded by images of violence and reports of deaths.

"They become more aggressive in [their] families and as a result of it, men and women start to [hurt] their children or men start to [hurt] their wives," Zubchenko explained.

La Strada's 70 employees - who work with social workers, teachers and police across the country - have also noticed an increase in domestic violence. And, unlike previous years, they are witnessing more aggression from children.

In the NGO's office, posters show Vasyl Virastyuk - who won a "Strongest Man Alive" competition - holding a red card alongside the words "No domestic violence."

Domestic abuse and gender-based violence are significantly under-reported in Ukraine, according to the United Nations Population Fund  (UNFPA) representative in the country, and statistics are hard to gather. Due to a deeply rooted stigma, victims often feel too embarrassed to talk about it.

A survey by the UNFPA in 2014 found that 22 percent of women in Ukraine aged 15 to 49 reported experiencing physical or sexual violence, most often committed by a current or former partner.

However, the connection between conflicts and domestic violence is so strong that there is little doubt that Ukraine is seeing an increase from the levels reported by last year's survey, according to Nuzhat Ehsan, Ukraine's representative for the UNFPA, which handles gender-based violence for the United Nations.

Families who have loved ones fighting in east Ukraine often have to deal with a specific challenge: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Fighters become used to the high adrenaline rush, and when they go back to normal life this mind-set remains, according to Anna, a therapist for Health Right, an NGO that helps victims of abuse in Ukraine.

"Even the people who didn't show any aggression before being at war, after coming back started to act aggressively," said Anna, who did not want to give her last name because of safety concerns for her clients.

Stigma against seeking help

However, many men who suffer from PTSD do not want to seek help because of stereotypical notions in Ukraine that this would be a sign of weakness. As a result, many turn to alcohol instead.

"It's so rigid, that this is what a woman should be and what a man should be," said Ehsan.

UNFPA is launching a campaign this month portraying men doing housework, to show that husbands can help out at home and still be masculine.

Only one-third of victims of physical or sexual violence seek help, according to a UNFPA survey. Those who do, find there are few resources available to them. There is no standard police procedure to deal with allegations of domestic abuse, and few shelter spaces or trained personnel.

The Ukrainian government laid off more than 500 social workers in Kiev last year, although funding has returned for about 100 positions, according to Lyudmila Cherkashyna, a deputy director of a government centre, the Kyiv City Centre of Social Services for Families, Children and Youth, that runs special programmes for wives of soldiers and pro-government fighters.

There has been a 12 percent increase in requests for help from Cherkashyna's centre, although she said many do not want to seek help from a public institution because of lack of confidence in the government.

At the same time, the centre cannot meet the current demand because it does not have enough specialists to help.

Cherkashyna said she has also heard from the women she has spoken with, that abuse has gotten worse over the last year. However, victims usually only reveal the full extent of the abuse if they leave their partners.

"If it doesn't come to divorce," she explained, "it doesn't come out".

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 #25
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
July 22, 2015
Right Sector Vs. Ukraine Government: Battle Between the Fading Force and the Imploding Object
The conflict between the Ukrainian government and Right Sector is a factional one inside a revolution that is increasingly unpopular and discredited
By Alexander Mercouris
Alexander Mercouris is a writer on international affairs with a special interest in Russia and law.  He has written extensively on the legal aspects of NSA spying and events in Ukraine in terms of human rights, constitutionality and international law.  He worked for 12 years in the Royal Courts of Justice in London as a lawyer, specializing in human rights and constitutional law. His family has been prominent in Greek politics for several generations.  He is a frequent commentator on television and speaker at conferences.  He resides in London.

The violent conflict between the Ukrainian government and Right Sector exposes (1) the weakness of the Ukrainian government and (2) the unpopularity of Right Sector.

Since it was officially formed in November 2013 during the Maidan protests Right Sector has been on a rampage.

It played a key - and violent - role in the Maidan protests. It was involved in attacks on both the police and protestors. Its leader Dmitro Yarosh played a key role in rejecting the 21st February 2014 agreement, which precipitated the Maidan coup.

Since the Maidan coup its activists have been at the forefront in the violence and disorder that has plagued Ukraine.

Its members have been filmed extorting money and property from Ukrainian businesses.

It has violently dispersed anti-Maidan protests - playing a key role in the fire that killed scores of opposition supporters in the trade union building in Odessa.

It has led attacks on opposition politicians and pushed for the banning of Ukraine's two main opposition parties - the Communist Party and the Party of the Regions.

It has been heavily involved in the so-called "anti-terrorist operation" in the Donbass.

It has also been a key driver in the campaign to destroy monuments somehow associated with Ukraine's Russian and Soviet pasts, including notably statues of Lenin.

Much of this activity is of a straightforwardly criminal nature and it is sometimes suggested that Right Sector has degenerated from a far right (actually neo-Nazi) political movement into a criminal organization.

That is certainly wrong. Right Sector has been a criminal - or highly criminalized - organization from the start. It has also at all times been a far right neo-Nazi movement. The two are not in conflict and should not be discussed as if they are.

The fact that Right Sector operates to some extent as a franchise, allowing criminal groups, like the one involved in the recent shoot-out in Mukachevo, to become affiliates, has not changed the underlying nature of the organization. Violence and criminal activity have always been its essential features.

Since the Maidan coup Right Sector has enjoyed the tolerance of the formally constituted Ukrainian authorities.

It has also been almost entirely ignored by the West. In Britain where I live it is doubtful that more than a fraction of Britons who take their news about Ukraine from the mainstream media have heard of it.

Nicolai Petro has recently discussed the Ukrainian government's weak response to Right Sector (see"Ukraine's Post-Maidan Government Stands on Feet of Clay", Russia Insider, 22nd July 2015).

It remains remarkable that the Ukrainian government has so far failed to disband or suppress an armed group that not only openly engages in criminal activity but which is seeking to overthrow the government and whose chief spokesman has even taken to making statements warning Poroshenko - Ukraine's President - that he risks "execution in some dark cellar" if he fails to toe the line.

The latest confrontation has however also exposed Right Sector's unpopularity and its inability to lead Ukraine.

With industrial production in Ukraine showing a further 18% decline in June the economy remains in freefall. There is no doubt Ukrainians are suffering increasing economic hardship. Not surprisingly the government's popularity has collapsed together with the economy.

There is also no doubt that the government's popularity has been badly shaken by successive military defeats and by the common perception that it is at least as corrupt as the government it replaced.

It is striking that the challenge from Right Sector has produced no counter-demonstrations in support of the government or of the country's elected President or parliament, such as Yanukovych's supporters were able to organize during the Maidan protests.

Notwithstanding the collapse in the government's support, Right Sector has been unable to capitalize on it.

The organization's attempts to set up checkpoints in various regions and cities have been consistently unsuccessful. The number of participants in its rallies has been small. Russian reports say some people otherwise unaffiliated with the organization did turn up to the rally in Kiev on 21st July 2015. The number of people attending even that rally was small.  Most reports put the numbers at between 3,000-6,000.

There is no sense here of a protest wave on anything like the scale as the one that began on Maidan in November 2013 or in the Donbass in April 2014.

This provides further confirmation that the fanatical Nazi beliefs that characterize the group, and which have been so prominent since the start of the Maidan protests, are shared by only a small minority of Ukrainians. The great majority of Ukrainians appear to be at least as opposed to Right Sector as they are to the government.  

Many are no doubt repelled by its beliefs and its criminality and violence. Most no doubt see it as simply part of the same Maidan movement as the government - the spearhead of a revolution that is becoming increasingly discredited.

One gets the sense of politics increasingly taking place inside a vacuum, with the population disillusioned and distanced from the entire political process, spectators to a play in which they no longer feel they have a stake.

Despite the difficulty the government is having facing down the challenge from Right Sector, the probability is it will survive. In the end the power of the state should suffice against a challenge from an organization like Right Sector.

In the unlikely event that it does not and Right Sector succeeds in establishing itself as the governing power in Ukraine, the country's disintegration will accelerate.

It will be difficult - and probably impossible - for the West to support a Right Sector dominated government. It is difficult to believe that what remains of Ukraine's bureaucracy and security forces would willingly serve such a government and there would probably be mass defections. Quite possibly other regions would split away. The economy would finally collapse and hyperinflation would take hold as whatever confidence remained in the state and its institutions, including the currency, melted away.

In the more likely event that the government were to suppress Right Sector, then a key component of the Maidan system, able to control the streets where Ukrainian governments have historically been made and unmade, would have been eliminated at precisely the point when the government's popularity is hitting crisis levels and opposition is likely to grow.

More probably there will be no resolution, with neither the government nor Right Sector able to defeat each other.   

This is consistent with the impression of a revolution that has reached a state of suspended animation, lacking the strength to move either forward or back, as the society upon which it depends disintegrates around it. 

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 #26
Fort Russ
July 21, 2015
Ukrainian junta losing people's trust
By Rostislav Ishchenko
http://rusprav.tv/rostislav-ishhenko-xunta-teryaet-doverie-naroda-43819/
Translated from Russian by J.Hawk

The latest political ratings of Ukrainian parties indicate the electorate is losing trust toward the current authorities and political party leaders. According to most recent opinion surveys, the Petro Poroshenko Block is supported by only 13.3% of the population, about the same as Yulia Timoshenko's Batkivshchina [Fatherland] Party, while Yatsenyuk's People's Front is supported by only 1.5% of voters.

Since the government bears responsibility for the situation in the country, including for the economy, it's not surprising that the governing parties' ratings are falling. But there's more to the story. The three above-named parties which represent the interests of the Euromaidan and define Ukraine's politics collectively enjoy the support of fewer than 30 percent of voters. Considering there is no competition and that all opposition points of view have been suppressed, these figures indicate the authorities are experiencing a catastrophic loss of trust.

Nevertheless, in spite of the loss of trust, the current government cannot be changed through elections. Those who came to power through force will not be removed by elections. The current authorities will ensure it has the necessary representation at regional elections since the local self-governments don't play a big role. While people are no longer willing to vote for the current leaders, there is no real alternative to them--it's a dead end. All of this can lead to an even greater destabilization of life in Ukraine and the emergence of right radicals as the alternative. The nearest elections will see mass rigging by the government and a high degree of apathy among the population.

The authorities has two options--govern or go to jail. They clearly don't want to go to jail and they have real power, the power of arms, at their disposal. So the elections will be carried out in a way that suits the regime, in other words through falsification. It's unlikely the radicals will attract many votes because the authorities won't permit it. But we can anticipate apathy and a low turnout.

J.Hawk's Comment: I think that even the control over the "means of violence" cannot be taken for granted because they are demoralized by defeats, poor conditions of service, and the ever-present corruption. Not to mention that the Right Sector or other radicals no doubt have many adherents within the UAF and the National Guard. Yarosh's embrace of political action and of slogans that diverge from the Euromaidan dogma indicates he thinks time is at long last ripe to take action and try to fill Ukraine's vacuum of power.

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 #27
No weapons withdrawal by Kiev from contact line seen, despite Poroshenko promises - DPR

MOSCOW, July 23. /TASS/. The Defense Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) has not observed the withdrawal of weapons by the Ukrainian army from the contact line, despite promises of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, DPR defense spokesman Eduard Basurin told reporters on Thursday.

"Despite yesterday's announcement by [Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko of the establishment of a 30-kilometer demilitarized zone along the sides' separation line and the withdrawal of weapons from the zone of contact, no withdrawal of weapons and military equipment by the Ukrainian army units has been observed," the Donetsk news agency quoted him as saying.

According to Basurin, the Ukrainian armed forces, on the contrary, are moving additional heavy artillery pieces to the front line.

On Wednesday, Poroshenko said he had instructed his representatives in the Contact Group on the Ukrainian crisis resolution to sign an agreement on a 30-km buffer zone in Donbas. "I have instructed our representatives to sign with the OSCE and Russia, which is member [of the Contact Group] an agreement that will guarantee a 30-km buffer zone in the contact zone - to withdraw tanks, artillery and rid Severodonetsk, Lisichansk, Popasnaya of cannonades," he said. According to Poroshenko, the sides "reached these agreements" in the Belarusian capital Minsk on Tuesday, July 21. The Ukrainian president said he hoped that "the weapons withdrawal under the OSCE control will begin in several days."

"I very much hope that it's a real ceasefire beginning, release of hostages and ensuring control over the peace observance," Poroshenko added.

On July 18, the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR) announced their plans to unilaterally withdraw heavy weaponry from the contact line. LPR also completed the withdrawal of weaponry from the contact line, leaving tanks and armoured vehicles on positions only near the Shchastye settlement.

On Tuesday, the Contact Group on Ukrainian settlement at a meeting in Minsk reached an agreement on gradual withdrawal of tanks, armored vehicles and weapons of less than 100mm calibre by both sides to a distance of 3 km from the contact line.

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 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 kilometers wide for artillery systems with a calibre of 100 mm or more, a zone of security 70 kilometers wide for multiple rocket launchers and a zone 140 kilometers 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 from the current line of engagement and the militias of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, from the engagement line set by the Minsk Memorandum of September 19, 2014.

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 #28
Facebook
July 22, 2015
Unreported Revelations from the Maidan Massacre Trial in Ukraine
By Ivan Katchanovski
Ph.D. School of Political Studies & Department of Communication University of Ottawa  

A delayed trial of two Berkut members in the Maidan massacre case have already produced striking new revelations that provided further confirmations of major findings of my Maidan "snipers' massacre" study about Maidan "snipers" killing both police and protesters and subsequent cover up and falsification of the official investigation. But these striking revelations have not been reported by the Ukrainian and Western media, even though the trial proceedings were open to the media, were streamed live over the Internet, and their recordings were posted on YouTube. On July 15, 2105, prosecution for the first time made public in court its charges alleging that two arrested members of the Berkut special company massacred 39 out of 49 killed protesters on February 20, 2014 (0h19-2h07) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td7aRVjSHGc.

However, the prosecution case already unraveled on July 17 when brother of one of the victims during his questioning by the prosecutors stated that Andrii Saienko was killed not from Berkut positions but from a top floor of the Maidan-controlled Hotel Ukraina (0h20) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFzDj-tBQLs. He made this conclusion on the basis of his brother's position in a video at the moment of his killing and an entry wound location in upper right chest area and a steep wound channel to the backbone. The prosecutors and relatives of some of the victims reported during the trial that technical expert reports in the investigative file established that Saienko and at least 9 other protesters were killed from the same exact 7.62mm caliber weapon. This revelation alone means that that a significant proportion of the protesters were shot from this Maidan-controlled hotel, since this caliber bullets were extracted from bodies of 16 protesters. But the prosecution charged two Berkut members with their killings, even though Saienko's brother and his lawyer officially handed to investigators this video file in October 2014.

His brother identified the moment when Saienko was killed on Instytutska Street at 9:08:34am in the video, which was initially filmed from the Hotel Ukraina by Radio Svoboda and then synchronized and time-stamped: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IQkB0jZ39k. This video also shows the moment when Bohdan Solchanyk was killed at 9:08:16am less than 20 seconds before Saienko in the same area, reportedly with a 7.62mm bullet. His apparent position, the blood on the right side of the neck and louder and different sounds of several shots in rapid succession, compared to the AKMS shots fired by Berkut at the same time indicate that Solchanyk was most likely shot dead from the Hotel Ukraina. At that time, the Berkut policemen were in front and somewhat to the left from Solchanyk and the other protesters; and a specific shot, which was presented in the video synchronization, made by his acquaintance, as the evidence of his killing by Berkut, was from a 12mm caliber Fort pump rifle. In the same video, Ihor Zastavnyi is seen in a yellow helmet falling nearby several seconds after Solchanyk was killed. Zastavnyi said in various interviews that he fell to the ground after he was wounded there third time and his leg was severed. He stated that the prosecution informed him earlier this year that they lost a bullet extracted from his body  http://hromadskeradio.org/.../slidchi-prokuraturi-zagubili-ku....
The analysis of the content of the same video and photo compilation indicates that Maksym Shymko was killed in the same are at about the same time, since he was last seen alive at 9:07:15am alive and by 9:07:46am he was shot and his stick was on the pavement near a wooden shield. Although the exact moment of his killing is missing from the video, his mother in her court testimony confirmed this location and indicated that the investigation found that he was killed from the same weapon as 9 other protesters, including Saienko. Another bullet, which was stuck in Shymko's neck and which was publicized as evidence of government snipers, was not of 7.62mm caliber. His mother supported the prosecution charges that Berkut killed her son, but she stated that he was wounded in his neck with an exit wound below his shoulder blade (2h32) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YqC2pw2dFs. This indicates a sharp angle, which is consistent with similar location of the Saienko's killer and an announcement from the Maidan stage at 9:10am about two or three "snipers" on the pendulum floor of the Hotel Ukraina. This announcement relayed reports of Maidan protesters concerning killings of Shymko, Solchanyk, and Saienko, since they were a part of the first group of the protesters that came under deadly live ammunition fire. One of the charged Berkut members indicated during the trial that the investigative file contained testimonies of protesters about Maidan "snipers" at the Hotel Ukraina.

The list of the 39 protesters whose killing the prosecution attributed to Berkut was only released almost 1 year and a half after the massacre. The killings of the other 10 protesters were simply omitted from the charges, even though 8 of them were shot dead at the same time and place as these 39 protesters. The Council of Europe commission reported that the Ukrainian investigation had evidence that 10 protesters were killed by "snipers" from top of the buildings, but that investigation did not found any evidence that these were snipers from the Security Service of Ukraine Alf unit and other government units.

The omitted list confirmed information that the investigation omitted killings of Oleh Unshnevych, Evhen Kotliar, Ustym Holodniuk, and Oleksander Kharchenko, because of clear evidence they were killed from the Maidan-controlled locations, such as Hotel Ukraina. In addition, the prosecution charges also omitted killings of Vasyl Aksenyn, Vladyslav Zubenko, Volodymyr Chaplynsky, and Volodymyr Melnychuk. My study presents various evidence that these protesters were also killed from the Maidan-controlled buildings, mostly Hotel Ukraina, starting from about 9:18am till almost 5pm. For instance, the much publicized Zelenyi Front video shows at 10:26am (32:13) that Chaplynsky was shot dead when he was running away from the massacre area https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdFHNE8WxOA. A Spline TV recording of its live broadcast, which is now removed from a list of its videos on the Internet, shows sparks flying from the Hotel Ukraina when a loud gunshot killed this protestor. Zubenko was killed in the same area at 9:49am, reportedly with a 5.45 caliber bullet.

The prosecution charges confirmed earlier reports that the investigation did not find specific evidence linking specific Berkut members to specific killed protesters. But these charges also revealed that the prosecution did not specify exact time of killing of specific protesters and policemen, although such information can be determined from live broadcasts and synchronized and time-stamped videos, and it is presented in my study. These charges deliberately omitted various evidence, including videos, interviews, and public admissions, of Maidan "shooters" of the police.

The prosecution case for the first time de facto admitted an absence of a specific top government order to massacre the protesters on February 20. The prosecution stated that after an unspecified escalation of the conflict around 8am on February 20, the Berkut commander himself ordered the commander of the special Berkut company to disperse the protesters on the Maidan and block them from advancing to the parliament and presidential administration. It would have been irrational for the Berkut commander to issue such an order on his own and use only about two dozen members of a special company. The prosecution itself stated that then president Viktor Yanukovych and the Minister of Internal Affairs ordered to disperse the protesters on the Maidan by force close to midnight on February 18. The attempt to storm the parliament on February 18 was presented by the prosecution a peaceful rally, and subsequent clashes, the killing of some 30 policemen and protesters and a computer technician at the Party of Regions were omitted. The charges stated that following the Berkut commander order, the Berkut special company commander ordered to use AKMs and Fort 500 pump guns with lead pellets, although no evidence was presented as to why this elite police unit would start using hunting ammunition. Contrary to the prosecutor charges account, various evidence cited in my study and later confirmed by BBC and other sources, show that the Maidan protesters forced Berkut and Internal troops, which did not have then live ammunition, units to flee from the Maidan around 8:50am by killing and wounding about 20 of them, specifically with pellets and 7.62mm bullets, from the Music Conservatory and Trade Union buildings. The Berkut special company was first filmed been deployed and shooting with live ammunition on Instytutska street at 9:05am and then briefly moving to Zhovtnevyi Palace to allow remaining policemen there to flee.

The prosecution claimed that around 9am on February 20, 2014 unidentified persons of unknown allegiance started to shoot at the police, and that they killed from an unknown weapon one member of the Berkut special company and wounded another. In response to this, the accused from the Berkut company and unidentified members of this company and other law enforcement units became hostile to protesters and started to shoot in the direction of the unarmed protesters with AKMS and Fort 500 with lead pellets in order to kill them. This timeline is also deliberately misleading, because recordings of live broadcasts, time-stamped and synchronized videos, cited in my study, show that at least 5 protesters were killed starting at exactly 9:00 am before the member of the special Berkut company was shot dead with pellets at 9:16am. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYjEp1C4hzI.

The prosecution charged two Berkut members of being a part of an organized group that killed 39 protesters with 7.62mm caliber AKMS during the assault of the Maidan and from two barricades on Instytutska Street from 9am till 1pm. During the testimonies and cross-examination of relatives of 6 killed protesters, only a single direct witness of the killing of one of these protesters (Eduard Hrynevych) was identified, and this witness now happens to serve in a paramilitary unit of the Right Sector, which was involved in the massacre. My study cited videos of protesters referring at 10:25am to killing of Hrynevych in the head several meters from them and referring to "snipers" on the pendulum floor of the Hotel Ukraina https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yUingq7eyI. This and other videos show many protesters and journalists witnessing and recording shooting of these protesters. Remarkably, a recently posted video, which shows "snipers" on the top floors of the Hotel Ukraina shooting at the Maidan protesters was referred to during the trial as evidence of the killing of Kostenko by Berkut. This video shows Ihor Kostenko seconds before and after (0:59) when he was shot at 9:29am. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVXLbkJsX0. At least 7 other protesters were killed within less than 3 minutes in the same area.  

My study presents various evidence, such as videos and eyewitness testimonies, indicating that these and almost all other 39 protesters were also killed from the Hotel Ukraina and other Maidan-controlled buildings, and that the Right Sector, Svoboda, and Fatherland were involved in the "snipers" massacre. There are a few protesters whose location and time of the killing are still publicly undisclosed. https://www.academia.edu/.../The_Snipers_Massacre_on_the_Maid...

A Google News search shows that none of these revelations during the Maidan massacre trial have been reported by the media in Ukraine and the West. In contrast, there were numerous reports in the Ukrainian media about each of these protesters. Similarly, the New York Times, the Telegraph, and the Associated Press previously published articles, respectively, about killings of Solchanyk and Saienko and wounding of Zastavnyi. The "Maidan" documentary, made by Sergei Loznitsa and shown at the Cannes film festival, included the above-mentioned excerpts of the Radio Svoboda live Internet video stream showing the killings of Shymko, Solchanyk, and Saienko. In media reports and this documentary, these and other killings of the protesters were typically directly or indirectly attributed to Berkut or government snipers. In contrast, the Maidan stage announcements concerning the "snipers" at the Hotel Ukraina and other various other evidence of the concealed Maidan shooters there and in other Maidan-controlled areas were omitted. The failure to report the striking new revelations from the ongoing trial suggests that the misrepresentation in Ukraine and the West of the Maidan mass killing is driven not by lack of information but by politics.
Засідання від 15.07.2015 у справі про «Вбивства 39 людей 20.02.2014 під час Євромайдану»
Онлайн трансляція засідання «Вбивства 39 людей 20.02.2014 під час Євромайдану»

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 #29
Moscow Times
July 23, 2015
Ukrainian President's Russian Candy Factory Wins Case Against Russian Taxman

A local court has sided with a Russian chocolate factory owned by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in a dispute with the tax authorities, news agency RIA Novosti reported Wednesday citing a court statement.

The decision is a rare victory for the Roshen Confectionary Factory in Lipetsk, about 440 kilometers south of Moscow, which has faced court cases, police raids and criminal investigation following Moscow's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine last year.

The Lipetsk court ruled that Russia's Federal Tax Service unlawfully added 35.5 million rubles ($621,00) to the factory's tax bill and refused the company a deduction on VAT worth 25.9 million rubles ($455,000) last year, RIA reported. The court did not provide an explanation for the ruling. The tax service has a month to appeal.

The decision leaves the factory with other problems. In April, investigators opened a criminal case into alleged fraud by the company of 180 million rubles during construction work in 2012-13. Russian authorities then seized assets belonging to the factory worth 2 billion rubles ($35 million) to block their sale.

Poroshenko, a Ukrainian oligarch dubbed "the chocolate king," pledged to sell his business empire after becoming president last year, though he has not yet done so.

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#30
Ukraine to hold new local elections after decentralization amendments to constitution take effect - parliamentary speaker

KYIV. July 23 (Interfax) - After amendments to the Ukrainian constitution aimed at decentralizing the governance system take effect, Ukraine will hold new local elections, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk said.

"After the constitutional amendments take effect, we will hold elections for local self-government bodies again, because these constitutional amendments invest territorial communities with absolutely different powers," Yatsenyuk said at a board meeting of the Regional Development, Construction, and Utilities Ministry on Thursday.

The Ukrainian authorities should prepare for switching to a new governance system within the next two years, he said.

Local government bodies will play a significantly greater role than the central ones for ordinary people in the new governance system, Yatsenyuk said. "They [the people] will have to remember the president's name, will hardly recall the prime minister's name, and certainly won't know the government ministers' names. But what name they should know is that of their mayor, the head of their executive body, and their local deputy, who, once getting the mandate, would bear responsibility to the concrete people who came to polling stations and cast their ballots," he said.

The central government will be responsible for national security and defense, the law enforcement and judicial systems, and foreign policy, Yatsenyuk said.

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#31
Kiev makes list of 567 artists 'threatening Ukraine's national security'

KIEV, July 22. /TASS/. Famous actor Gerard Depardieu and 566 other actors, musicians and performers have been put on Ukraine's list of "personae non gratae", Ukraine's Culture Ministry said on Wednesday.

According to the culture ministry, the people on the list present a threat to Ukraine's national security. The list has been sent to Ukraine's Security Service, National Security and Defense Council and National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting, the ministry's press service confirmed adding that it was compiled by activists who demanded "to ban these people on Ukraine's television and radio."

A source in the Ukrainian government earlier told TASS that among "personae non gratae" are also Serbian singer and composer Goran Bregovic and US actor Steven Seagal.

Ukraine's Culture Minister Vyacheslav Kirilenko said that it was possible that Kiev will introduce certain restrictions against the people on the list. "The list consisting of 500 people that was compiled by activists was sent to Ukraine's Security Service that will investigate whether there are threats to territorial integrity, issue a statement. Only after that the sanctions regime [against the people on the list] may be imposed," the minister said.

Kirilenko reminded that "there is a list of 117 Russian entertainers who are threatening Ukraine's national security." The list was sent to Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council in January, and Depardieu was put on the list, he added.

French actor Gerard Depardieu who obtained Russian citizenship in 2013 said in August last year that he loves "both Russia and Ukraine, which is part of Russia". The Kiev authorities expressed concern with the statement.

Serbian singer and composer Goran Bregovic visited Sevastopol on March 26. After that, all his concerts in Ukraine were cancelled. Kiev said that the singer broke Ukrainian laws by entering Crimea through checkpoints not controlled by the Ukrainian authorities. US actor Steven Seagul also paid a visit to Crimea last year.

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 #32
To Save Their Own Country, Russians Must 'Forget Ukraine,' Inozemtsev Says
Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 23 - Vladimir Putin has successfully counted on the war he launched in Ukraine to distract the attention of Russians from their problems at home, but if Russians are to emerge from the current crisis and save their own country, they will have to "forget about Ukraine" and focus on Russia instead, according to Vladislav Inozemtsev.

            Russian rulers have often used "good little wars" to distract attention from domestic problems, although over the longer term, these conflicts have not always worked to the benefit of these rulers. Instead, when Russians have recognized what is going on, they have often turned to radical, even revolutionary means to change the situation.

            In a commentary on Snob.ru yesterday, the economist points out that while the Kremlin talks about raising Russia from its knees, its own "warriors on the ideological front" have done everything possible to transform their own country into a backward information province" (snob.ru/selected/entry/95553).

                They have done so by focusing on other countries and especially Ukraine and not talking about what is going on and going wrong in Russia. Last week, he notes, the top three stories - the anniversary of the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner, the conflict in Mukachevo, and the situation in Odessa - were about Ukraine.

            Only the fourth most discussed story - the collapse of a military barracks in Omsk which killed 24 young Russian soldiers - was about Russia; and even it had a foreign dimension because the way in which Moscow has chosen to spend money on the military is distorted by its campaigns in Ukraine.

            According to Inozemtsev, a cursory examination of the major news outlets, government and "even liberal," shows that "in the majority of them, news from Ukraine takes up no less than a third", and on certain days even more than half, of the news space."  That creates some unexpected and unwelcome realities.

            As a result, Russians "are better informed about how the Verkhovna Rada voted on 'federalization' of the eastern part of Ukraine than about how [Russia's] regions east of the Urals live." They "know more Ukrainian political leaders than they do Russian ones;" and they "hear a great deal more often about Ukrainian 'banderites' than about neo-Nazis in [their] own country."

            But as many have observed, "'Ukraine is not Russia," he continues. And "by shifting the focus of attention from our own country, we give birth in ourselves to ever greater neglect to our own daily life," forgetting about dead soldiers and a collapsing economy, ignoring corruption and avoiding discussions of problems in education and health care.

            Two years ago, Ukraine filled no more than a few percent of news stories in the Russian media; and that was a more appropriate level, Inozemtsev suggests. He cites with approval Eli Wiesel's observation that "the opposite of love is not hatred but indifference" and argues that Russia should show rather more of that to Ukraine in the future.

            "If Russia were 'to forget' about Ukraine," he argues, "this would be the best political move it could take now." First, he says, Russians are tired of news that doesn't affect their daily lives.  Second, "the disappearance of Ukraine from Russia's information space could become a serious hit also for Ukraine" because it would lead to less Western coverage of Ukraine.

            Third, it would bring benefits because it would keep Russians from feverishly responding to developments in a place which "interests us approximately in the same amount as Paraguay or Laos." And fourth - and this is the most important thing, Inozemtsev says - it would allow Russians to focus on what they should do to improve the situation at home.

            "Therefore, I am convinced," he writes, that those in Russia who want good things both for Russia itself and its neighbors ought to as quickly as possible 'change the record' and do everything possible in order to drop from the agenda foreign policy discussions.""

Inozemtsev continues: "Unfortunately, the Russian political and intellectual elite is fanatically devoted to concentrating on themes which cannot play a decisive role in the social and economic development of their own country."  In support of that argument, he points to something many would find surprising.

            Vladimir Putin has stressed the importance of gas exports throughout his reign.  He has devoted 14 of the 16 meetings he has had with foreign leaders in the last year to precisely that topic.  But Gazprom provides only one out of every 200 Russians with a job, and it brings in only 12 percent of the country's export earnings. Important but not as decisive as presented.

            Ukraine is a similar kind of issue, Inozemtsev suggests. Whatever its future course will be, he says, Ukraine "will not define the historic path of Russia." Those who assert the contrary "denigrate the size of their own country and forget about its problems. And if the Russian nation does not want to be transformed into a community of psychopaths 'obsessed' with minutiae, it would to immediately think about a new agenda."

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 #33
www.rt.com
July 23, 2015
Russian senator proposes suing Ukraine over sanctions damage

Senator Mikhail Marchenko, representing a Russian region bordering Ukraine, wants to sue Kiev in the European Court of Human Rights over damages inflicted on the Russian economy by Western sanctions and the huge influx of refugees from war-torn Donbass.

"Ukraine is constantly putting forward claims against Russia, blaming us for damages that they suffer because of their own internal conflict. But the Russian Federation has taken significant hits in this situation, resulting from sanctions that hurt both businesses and ordinary citizens, and the humanitarian disaster that forces our border regions to accept hundreds of thousands of refugees," senator Marchenko said in comments to the Izvestia daily.

The senator acknowledged that Russia had slim chances of winning a lawsuit in a European court, but added that Ukraine's chances were not great as well. "But I still think we must have an adequate answer," he told reporters.

Lower House MP Vasily Likhachev (Communist Party), said the lawsuit against Ukraine was possible and necessary, because many Russian citizens had suffered due to the Ukrainian conflict and protecting citizens' rights is one of the primary functions of the state. The politician noted that as a member of the United Nations, Russia could even address the international criminal court.

Another Duma deputy, Leonid Kalashnikov (Communist Party) opined it would be better if parliament helped ordinary people from Russia and Ukraine to sue the Kiev administration for damages sustained in the conflict. Kalashnikov also said he believed that not all international courts were biased and politicized, and that future plaintiffs had a chance of persuading judges.

Earlier this month, the Russian Public Chamber reported that several NGOs had prepared about 17,000 lawsuits from Ukrainian citizens in the European court. They are seeking compensation of about $5.6 billion over numerous rights violations committed by pro-Kiev military during the war in the southeastern regions of the country. Activists told reporters that the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg had already accepted about 400 cases and was considering 500 more. They added that they expected the first process in one of these cases to start before the end of this year.

The war in Ukraine caused about 1 million Ukrainian citizens to flee their homes and seek asylum in Russia, which offered refugees simplified registration and various aid. This put Russia top of the world list for asylum applications, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees' annual report.

Russian officials and human rights activists have repeatedly called for steps to make the lives of Ukrainian refugees easier, and the Federal Migration Service has already introduced some measures.

Russian authorities have altered the rules and laws to help Ukrainian refugees and migrants. In August 2014, Deputy PM Olga Golodets said in a radio interview that all Ukrainian refugees of pension age would receive their pensions in Russia, and refugee children would have the opportunity to go to Russian schools.

The authorities also simplified procedures for getting official refugee status and temporary asylum for Ukrainian citizens arriving in Russia from the regions engulfed in the conflict.

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 #34
Rossiyskaya Gazeta
July 21, 2015
Moscow daily looks at Russia's call for "compromise" resolution on MH17 probe
Yevgeniy Shestakov, Russia says no to haste. Moscow proposes its own version of resolution on Malaysian Boeing disaster over Donetsk Region

Russia has proposed making the transition from political games over the resolution on the Malaysian Boeing disaster in Donbass to a search for a compromise that will enable all those involved in the debate to give a new boost to the investigation being conducted in the Netherlands.

Vitaliy Churkin, the Russian Federation's permanent representative at the United Nations, has reported that the UNSC held a closed discussion of a Russian draft resolution that has a number of fundamental differences from the Malaysian version originally submitted. The outcome was an atypical situation, in which it was proposed that the Security Council discuss not amendments to the already existing document but two resolutions based on different approaches to the tragedy that occurred. Moscow's move in return appears extremely timely, since it knocks the main propaganda trump card out of its opponents' hands: Russia is allegedly not interested in an objective investigation into the Malaysian airliner disaster. The version of the resolution suggested by Churkin totally refutes that cliche.

As distinct from the Malaysian version of the resolution, the Russian one does not provide for an international tribunal on the Boeing to be set up, at least not until the completion of the investigation being conducted in the Netherlands. The document submitted by Churkin to the Security Council for discussion states that the present investigation into the disaster is not being conducted transparently enough and is using methods that might influence its result. In the spirit of the Malaysian resolution Moscow advocates "establishing the true causes of the aviation incident and demands that the guilty persons are called to account". However, it does not regard the tragedy in the skies over Ukraine as "a threat to international security and stability" and views what happened as a crime. To conduct more objective expert appraisals, the Russian resolution proposes involving the International Civil Aviation Organization in the investigation.

On the whole, as Vitaliy Churkin explained with regard to the results of the Security Council session, "it seems to me that this haste over setting up a tribunal has been overcome, and if we work calmly and thoroughly, then it will be possible to reach a worthy decision".

The Russian permanent representative criticized the logic of his UN partners who had been seeking to adopt a resolution on the Boeing without fail by the anniversary of the disaster: "I see no grounds for hurrying. This is a tragic date that must be marked by a minute's silence, not by producing some hastily prepared documents."

However, doubts exist that the emergence of the Malaysian resolution, which proposed setting up an international tribunal, had not been a political move prepared in advance by Moscow's opponents. As Churkin himself had hinted earlier, the representatives of the USA and the UK had campaigned far more actively in the Security Council for this version of the resolution than Malaysia itself - something that points indirectly to their involvement in creating the document.

After the Russian version of the resolution on the Boeing appeared, Kuala Lumpur made it clear that, while not finally abandoning the idea of an international tribunal, Malaysia is prepared to soften its position. Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai admitted that the creation of a tribunal is just one mechanism for punishing those to blame for the airliner's loss. But by no means the only one. Malaysia is also considering the possibility of setting up an international criminal court on the disaster, although it still believes that a tribunal would have greater authority.

The Russian and Malaysian approaches to the resolution on the Boeing undoubtedly coincide in the desire to increase the role of the United Nations in the investigation being conducted and to involve Ban Ki-moon, the organization's secretary general, in it. Thus, the Malaysian Foreign Ministry proposed that the judge, prosecutor, and other participants in the trial relating to the Boeing be appointed directly by the UN secretary general.

"It is very important that we have abandoned the mood to try to find a common denominator and to look both at the approach proposed by the Malaysian side and at the one proposed by us to unite so that the Security Council can take the next step," Churkin commented on the results of the discussion of the Russian version of the resolution.

However, it is not yet clear whether the states that supported the Malaysian document - Belgium, the UK, Australia and Ukraine - are ready for such a dialogue. A number of Security Council members - this was shown by the discussion of the Russian version of the resolution - are still using the debate over the Malaysian Boeing disaster over Donbass to fan anti-Russian sentiments in the West. The resolution prepared by Moscow, which demonstrates our country's adherence to an objective and independent investigation into the tragedy involving all the interested parties, cuts the ground from under their feet. So, instead of looking for a common denominator - which Vitaliy Churkin is urging his partners to do - these countries' representatives will go on striving to put to a UNSC vote the Malaysian version of the resolution with cosmetic amendments that do not alter the essence of the document. This is indicated by a comment by New Zealand's permanent representative Gerard van Bohemen. He reported that the discussion of the resolution on the Boeing downed over Donbass was "very positive" and that during the meeting "strong support was heard for the idea of setting up a tribunal", while acknowledging that Russia has "other views on this score, of course".

As Dmitriy Peskov, the Russian president's press secretary, declared last week, Moscow had not decided whether it is worth using the right of veto in the vote on the draft resolution. A great deal will depend on the degree to which the Russian initiatives and wording are taken into account in the document.

The vote on the resolution scheduled for 21 July, had earlier been postponed until 27 July, although recent events show that this date may also prove to be not final. For, as Churkin recalled, when the UNSC was drawing up the documents associated with setting up the tribunal on the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, this process took months...

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#35
New York Times
July 23, 2015
Editorial
Russia's Empty Gesture on the Downed Malaysian Jet

A year after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people aboard, Russia has asked the United Nations Security Council and the International Civil Aviation Organization to take a more active role in investigating the incident and bringing those responsible to justice.

On the face of it, that looks like an accommodating gesture from the government that is backing the Ukrainian separatists believed to have fired the fatal missile on July 17, 2014, and that probably supplied it to them. It's not.

The real goal of the draft resolution Russia proposed on Monday at the Security Council is to thwart a Dutch-led criminal investigation of what happened and a Western call for a United Nations-backed tribunal.

The Netherlands, Malaysia, Australia, Belgium and Ukraine are expected to allege that the plane was shot down by a Russian surface-to-air missile fired by Russian-backed separatists or Russian soldiers, and they have asked the Security Council to set up a tribunal to prosecute those responsible.

Separatists in eastern Ukraine rode by a memorial to the victims of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 last week. Credit Mstyslav Chernov/Associated Press
From the outset, Russia has denied any role in the incident, concocting various alternative accounts that put the blame on Ukraine and the West. By pushing for a greater role for the United Nations in the investigation, Russia hopes to be better positioned to interfere with the inquiry. As for the tribunal, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, has described it as an attempt to set up a "grandiose, political show."

The diversionary tactic is typical for the way Russia has behaved in Ukraine from the time Russian soldiers without insignia appeared in Crimea, before Moscow's annexation of the territory in March 2014, to the bloody and inconclusive fighting that continues to this day in separatist-held regions of eastern Ukraine. Throughout it all, President Vladimir Putin has baldly denied the obvious fact that Russian forces are fully engaged in the fighting inside Ukraine. He has blamed Ukrainian "fascists" manipulated by the United States and its allies for all the troubles in Ukraine.

Nobody outside Russia believes this, and the Russians themselves make little effort to conceal their extensive military support for the separatists. The bloodshed continues, giving Ukraine no chance to start rebuilding its economy or reform its corruption-riddled government. That may be just what Mr. Putin wants - to ensure that Ukraine remains a broken mess.

The relatives of the people who died on the Malaysian airliner, most of whom were Dutch, deserve answers and justice. There is little question that Russia will block any tribunal. But the Security Council should not be fooled into believing that the Russian counterproposals are an honorable alternative, any more than anyone should be fooled by any of Mr. Putin's lies about Russia's military interference in Ukraine.

Russia played an important and respected role, along with the United States and other major powers, in reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran. At the same time, Mr. Putin seems content to draw the world's sanctions and disdain with his destructive actions in Ukraine.

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 #36
The Blog Mire
www.theblogmire.com
July 22, 2015
News Corp Australia Inadvertently Puncture Another Hole in the Western Narrative of MH17
By Rob Slane

News Corp Australia have, I believe, inadvertently released some of the strongest evidence yet as to why the official Western narrative behind the shooting down of flight MH17 is to be treated with the utmost suspicion. Even before any new evidence, that version of events - that flight MH17 was shot down by "pro-Russian" separatists using a BUK M1 missile system supplied to them by the Russian Federation - ought to have raised a number of questions in the minds of any reasonably open-minded person seeking the truth about what happened, for the following reasons:

1. Within hours of the crash, Western governments and media had apportioned blame on both the separatists and on the government of the Russian Federation. Yet the fact that this rush to judgment occurred before the commencement of an investigation ought to have struck any person with a concern for the truth and the presumption of innocence as nothing short of scandalous.

It is indeed true that the rebels were possible suspects, since the plane was brought down close to an area under their control and they had been known to have downed military aircraft in the days prior to the crash. However, it is equally true that the plane was brought down close to areas under the control of Ukrainian armed forces and, what is more, it is certain that they were in possession of the kind of missile or aircraft that could have been used to bring down a plane flying at that altitude. Impartial observers would have clearly seen that there were at least two sets of potential suspects, yet the fact that Western governments and media have never treated the Ukrainian armed forces, or perhaps one of their "volunteer battalions", as suspects is dubious to say the least.

2. After the initial rush to blame the separatists and the government of the Russian Federation, the Russian military gave their own presentation which was subsequently either ignored or ridiculed by the Western media. But ignorance and ridicule are never a substitute for hard facts and there were a number of claims made in the presentation that required serious attention, yet which have never been dealt with, let alone refuted, either by Western governments, the Western media, or the Government of Ukraine. Amongst these claims were:

a) Radar readings from nearby Rostov showing the presence of a Ukrainian fighter jet (possibly a Sukhoi SU-25) within 3-5 kilometres of the Boeing when it came down

b) Satellite evidence that the Ukrainian government had BUK systems in the near vicinity of the crash area (this evidence has supposedly been debunked by the investigative website Bellingcat, but then their own study has itself been debunked fairly comprehensively by other investigative websites)

c) Evidence of increased activity of Kupol-M19S18 radars (used to coordinate BUK missiles) in the days prior to and including July 17th

Now it could be that all these claims are false, but the fact that neither Western governments nor the Kiev government have made a proper attempt to refute them, but have instead chosen to ignore them, again ought to set the alarm bells ringing in the heads of those who seek the truth. It is also worth pointing out that whilst the Russian Federation produced these substantial claims in a presentation open to the press, the West, by contrast, has produced nothing similar and we still await the U.S. satellite evidence to be revealed to the world.

3. The flight and cockpit recorders from MH17 were taken to RAF Farnborough to be analysed, but to date the full recordings have never been made publicly available. In addition, the Air Traffic Control recordings were confiscated by Kiev and have never been released. Had the Russian Federation taken the Black Boxes and refused to release the information ... well I hardly need to tell you what the Western media would make of that, and rightly so.

4. The flight took an inexplicable diversion directly over the conflict zone. No reasonable explanation has ever been given for this, and I've yet to read of a Western leader demanding an answer from Kiev as to why this critical manoeuvre was made.

5. The evidence for the supposed transfer of a BUK missile system from Russia to the South East of Ukraine relies on some extremely suspect videos on social media and to date neither the U.S. nor its allies have provided any hard intelligence analysis to confirm what these films purport to show. But even if we suspend our judgement for a moment, there is still a huge problem for the "BUK missile system supplied by Russia theory", and that is that no witnesses have ever come forward to say that they heard the launch, saw the missile, or witnessed the smoke trail. This stretches credibility for that theory somewhat, since BUK launches are a) extremely noisy and b) leave a lengthy trail of smoke in the air. In the case of MH17, given the trajectory involved, the column of smoke would have been something like 15 kilometres long and would have stayed in the air for some time after the missile was fired. Yet no eyewitnesses or credible photographic evidence?

On the other hand, there were eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen military aircraft in the vicinity, for example in a BBC report, made days after the crash, but which has since been taken down from the BBC website and blocked on YouTube. To my knowledge, the investigative committee looking into the accident have made no attempt to contact those alleged witnesses.

Now, a year after the tragedy, a four minute video purporting to show the separatists arriving at the crash area has just been released by News Corp Australia, along with a transcript containing not only the conversation shown in the video, but also dialogue covering another 13 minutes of video footage which they didn't release. I cannot vouch for the authenticity of the film or the transcript. Certainly the images look genuine, but there is never any clear shot of faces and so it is possible that the film has been dubbed.

Nevertheless, there is good reason to believe that the film and the transcript are authentic. The four minute video was shown on the anniversary of the disaster purely to further vilify the separatists. That this is so is shown by the headline of the article: "For 17 minutes, they ransacked the luggage of innocent people who had just been shot out of the sky. The full transcript of the never-before-seen footage reveals what they were looking for." However, the transcript of the full 17 minutes actually serves not to bolster the Western narrative, but rather to puncture its credibility even further. If RT, Sputnik or Tass had released the transcript, we would be right to ask questions about its authenticity. But since it was released by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, and since it inadvertently works against the narrative his organisation has spun from the outset (remember "Putin's Missile"?), I think it reasonable to assume it is indeed genuine.

So what does it show? Well, the four minute portion of the video shown by News Corp, wrenched from the context of the whole 17 minutes of footage, appears to show the separatists rummaging through belongings that had fallen from the plane (I say wrenched out of context, because the whole 17 minute transcript gives some context as to why they were doing this, and no it wasn't because they were intent on looting). But what is far more important in terms of what actually happened to the plane is the dialogue that takes place in the 13 minutes of footage which was not released on video. I would urge readers to go and read the whole thing for themselves here, but the most crucial portions are the following exchanges:
[http://mobile.news.com.au/national/full-transcript-russian-backed-rebels-ransack-the-wreckage-of-mh17-in-shocking-17-minute-video/story-e6frfkp9-1227444629703]

Cmdr: The other plane that fell down, they are after them, the pilots.

Background: The second one?

Cmdr: Yes, there's 2 planes taken down. We need the second.

Background: The second one is a civilian too?

Background: The fighter jet brought down this one, and our people brought down the fighter.

Background: They decided to do it this way, to look like we have brought down the plane.

...

Background: But there are two planes, from my understanding.

Background: And what's the other one? A Sukhoi?

Cmdr: A Sukhoi.

The Sukhoi brought down the plane and we brought down the Sukhoi.

Is it far from here? Where did it fall?

What is the significance of this? Chiefly two things.

Firstly, it throws into doubt one of the main claims made by Western governments and mainstream media. The claim, based on (highly dubious) audio recordings posted on YouTube, was that the separatists had shot down a plane thinking it was a military aircraft, only to find out to their surprise that they had actually downed a civilian airliner.

What this new transcript does is to show that this is not the case at all. The people speaking in the transcript are in no doubt whatsoever that the plane they shot down was a military aircraft, not a civilian one, but they are also in no doubt whatsoever that it was a Ukrainian military aircraft that shot down the Boeing.

In other words, a key part of the claims of the West against the rebels is that they shot down the "wrong" plane. That is, they brought down the civilian plane believing it to be a Ukrainian military jet. But this transcript, taken moments after the crash, shows that they actually believed they had shot down the "right" plane - a Sukhoi - and that it was this plane, or perhaps even a second Sukhoi, which was responsible for the downing of the Malaysian plane.

Note that this is not to say you need to accept their claims that a Sukhoi shot down MH17 - maybe it did, maybe it didn't. Rather, the point is that the claim made by the West - that the separatists shot down MH17 thinking it to be a Sukhoi - is simply not borne out by this transcript. They shot down a Sukhoi thinking it was a Sukhoi, and they believed it was this plane, or perhaps even a second Sukhoi, which had shot down the Boeing.

It should also be borne in mind that the conversations on the transcript occurred immediately after the crash and therefore well before the Russian military had made their claims about a Ukrainian military plane being picked up by radar at Rostov, and also well before any theories of MH17 being shot down by a SU-25 began circulating on the Internet. Of course none of this proves who shot down MH17 or how it was shot down, but what it does show is that one of the key claims behind the Western narrative is based on a false premise.

The second point, which is closely connected with the first, is that the claim of there being at least one military aircraft in the area is - assuming the transcript to be accurate - surely now established beyond all reasonable doubt. This is not on the strength of this transcript alone. Taken on its own it would prove nothing. However, we now have at least three independent sets of witnesses claiming that at least one (or possibly more) Ukrainian fighter jets was airborne in the near vicinity at the time that MH17 came down:

1. The eyewitnesses in the area that testified to this (and who still haven't been interviewed by the accident investigators)

2. The radar evidence given by the Russian military in their presentation shortly after the crash (ignored by the accident investigators)

3. And now the News Corp transcript from a video shot moments after the crash showing that the separatists had seen a Ukrainian fighter jet in the area, and had apparently shot it down

Piecing these three independent witnesses together, it would seem that the evidence that there was a Ukrainian fighter (or fighters) in the area is now irrefutable. This is not to say that the claim made by the separatists in the transcript that the Sukhoi shot down MH17 is also irrefutable. It is a real possibility, but without other evidence, nothing more than that. Yet on the strength of three independent witnesses, we ought now to be able to say that there was at least one Ukrainian Sukhoi within the near vicinity of the shoot down.

The reason this is significant is that the Ukrainian government has categorically denied this to be the case, claiming that none of their military aircraft were operating in the area at that time. But given the strength of witnesses now contradicting their claim, we can either conclude that the Ukrainian government was and still is completely unaware that one or more of their military aircraft was in the vicinity of MH17 at the time of the shoot down (highly unlikely), or that they are just plain lying.

Just to be clear, the evidence from this new transcript does not prove that MH17 was shot down by a fighter jet. What it does show, however, is that the narrative put forward by the Ukrainian government and their Western sponsors, is based on extremely flimsy evidence. That the separatists believed that they had shot down a Sukhoi and not a civilian airliner is established by this transcript. That there was at least one Ukrainian fighter jet in the vicinity of MH17 is now shown to be beyond reasonable doubt. It is for the Ukrainian government and their Western sponsors to tell us why the Sukohoi(s) was there and, even more importantly, why they have chosen to cover it up.

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 #37
Russia Insider/Politikus.ru
www.russia-insider.com
July 22, 2015
New Polish Blockbuster About Ukraine Nazis a PR Disaster for Kiev
During WW2, Ukrainian Nazis committed the most extreme atrocities against the Poles, murdering about 80,000 mostly defenseless civilians - children, women, etc. Babies on pitchforks, torture, terror - extreme stuff. Now it is going to be immortalized on film
By Igor Ingatiev

Not surprisingly, the Poles are still mad as hell, and this movie is a result of that anger. When the Red Army finally ran these Nazis out of Ukraine the hardest core emigrated to the UK, US, and most of all Canada, welcomed by the CIA in their fight against Communism.

These people were never "de-nazified", as the population of the Germany was after the war, which explains why they popped up like a fiendish jack-in-the-box when the USSR dissolved.  These people are no figment of Russian propaganda, they are for real.

This article originally appeared at Politikus. Translated by Kristina Rus at Fort Russ

In Poland the filming of the movie "Volyn" about the atrocities of Bandera is almost completed. It was reported by "Politnavigator" referring to a Ukrainian blogger Vladimir Kornilov.  

http://tvzvezda.ru/news/vstrane_i_mire/content/201507192022-hlox.htm

Feature film "Volyn" about the atrocities of Ukrainian nationalists was filmed by a Polish director Wojciech Smarzowski, whom critics rightly call the "king of modern Polish cinema". The film is scheduled for opening in the spring of 2016, and after that it will be impossible for the European Union not to notice the banderism in Ukraine. Poland is Europe too, and a member of the EU.

Wojciech Smarzowski is a quite famous Polish director and received numerous prestigious awards at Polish film festivals. To "shut up" and "ignore" his "Volyn" in Poland will be almost impossible, which means that the poles will sharply cool off towards the free and independent Ukraine, especially on the background of Ukrainian marches in Kiev with portraits of Bandera.  

In Ukraine this news, of course, caused a storm of discontent, which the poles frankly don't understand. Polish website of "Newsweek Polska" received a lot of comments in support of this film. Here are some of them:  

Leniwiec: This is the perfect time to make such a film. The truth hurts, and we need to shout loud about it, especially now, when the new Ukrainian government began the glorification of the murderers from the UPA. If this is the cause of the deterioration of our relationship, it just shows that there is something wrong with our Eastern neighbors.

Mateusz: I'm looking forward to the release of this movie, but, on the other hand, I can't understand the indignation of Ukrainians that we insulted them - we are not the ones who organized the marches in honor of the UPA and Bandera! I read a book (with detailed descriptions) about what happened in Volhynia - it really was a hell, it's great that this film is coming out.

jola: I know the history of Volhynia from my grandfather, who was the only one from a big family who survived by hiding in a cemetery at night during the massacre. With the help of Russians and Germans, ironically, he managed to escape to Krakow. Now I want to compare the images seen through the eyes of my grandfather, with images created by pan Smarzowski.

The director himself commented on his decision to make a film about the Volyn massacre as follows: "You can't make a film that will satisfy everyone. I have my own version, my own truth and I'm sticking to it. I'm Polish and I am making a movie from the Polish perspective", and to a question by a journalist whether the film will be cruel, he replied: "It will be as it should be".

Ukraine, in its schizophrenic desire to join Europe, actually is moving further away from its dreams. Nurturing the ideological heirs of OUN-UPA, Ukraine actually is repelling even those who until recently supported it.  

A striking example was the virtual abolition of the so-called shopping-visas for "free and European" Ukraine and the introduction of simplified entry to Poland for the citizens of the "totalitarian" Belarus. 

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 #38
The National Interest
July 22, 2015
Russia's Rising Military: Should the U.S. Send More Nuclear Weapons to Europe?
NATO needs to pay attention to territorial defense and its own military capabilities. But deploying more U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe is not a good response.
By Steven Pifer
Steven Pifer is a senior fellow and director of the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative at the Brookings Institution.

Russia's actions in Ukraine, its military modernization program, and its more bellicose stance toward the West in general have raised concerns in NATO. The alliance needs to pay attention to territorial defense and its own military capabilities. But deploying more U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe is not a good response.

Russia's More Aggressive Posture

Relations between Moscow and the West have crashed to a post-Cold War low over the past two years. Russia's military seizure of Crimea violated the cardinal rule of the European security order dating back to the 1975 Helsinki Final Act: states should not use force to change borders. Since then, the Kremlin has supported armed separatists in eastern Ukraine, where it has provided heavy weapons, leadership and Russian soldiers-despite agreements calling for withdrawal of all foreign forces.

These actions in Ukraine have taken place as the Russian military upgrades its nuclear and conventional capabilities. The modernization program's stated goal is to equip the armed forces with 70 percent new equipment by 2020, or shortly thereafter. This apparently includes modernization of Russia's non-strategic nuclear arsenal, which comprises ground-, sea- and air-based weapons. By conservative estimates, Russia has at least 1,000-2,000 non-strategic weapons, a significant portion of which are believed to be deployed west of the Ural Mountains, that is, in European Russia.

Furthermore, over the past eighteen months NATO has intercepted Russian Bear bombers at three to four times the rate they did in 2013. Suspected Russian submarines have probed coastal waters in the Baltic Sea. And Russia's President Vladimir Putin has caused additional jitters with his loose talk about nuclear weapons.

The West has noticed. On July 8, the nominee to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he considered Russia the number one threat to U.S. national security. NATO members are increasing their defense budgets, if slowly. They have agreed to take steps to strengthen conventional forces in the Baltic and Central European regions and increase the alliance's rapid reinforcement capability.

A Worrisome, if Unlikely, Scenario

The modernization of Russian non-strategic nuclear arms and Putin's regular references to things nuclear worries some analysts. On the one hand, Russia's unclassified military doctrine regarding nuclear weapons seems benign. It says that Moscow could resort to nuclear weapons in two cases: if nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction were used against Russia or a Russian ally, or if conventional forces were used against Russia and the existence of the state was at stake. That differs little from NATO nuclear doctrine in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, which envisaged the possible use of nuclear weapons in the event of a conflict with the Warsaw Pact, in which the conventional defense of the alliance failed.

On the other hand, we do not know what the classified Russian doctrine says. Recent exercises appear to have incorporated use of nuclear arms. Moreover, there is considerable talk in Russia about "de-escalating" a conflict by using small, non-strategic nuclear weapons. De-escalation and how it figures in Russian military planning are not well understood in the West.

Here's the scenario that now makes Western analysts nervous: the Russian military, perhaps after a period of hybrid warfare, uses conventional forces to seize part of Estonia or Latvia, citing the need to "protect" ethnic Russians.

NATO would likely be unable to immediately defeat the attack with forces in place, but would have to marshal its conventional military power for a drive to liberate the occupied territory. (While Russia has conventional force advantages in the Baltic region, NATO continues to hold overall advantages, particularly in long-range strike capabilities.)

Then comes the rub: what if Moscow threatened to escalate to non-strategic nuclear weapons to deter a NATO conventional counterattack, or to stall or reverse a NATO counter offensive that had begun to evict Russian forces?

To be clear, this is not a likely scenario, nor is any Russian conventional military operation against a Baltic state. But is the probability zero? Three years ago, few would have foreseen what the Russian military has done in Crimea and the Donbas.

More U.S. Nukes in Europe?

As unlikely as the above scenario may be, some analysts have called for NATO to bolster its nuclear presence, including with new American nuclear weapons. And in considering how to respond to the Russian violation of the 1987 treaty on intermediate-range nuclear forces, one of the options being considered by the Department of Defense reportedly would entail deployment of new land-based, nuclear missiles in Europe.

Any new nuclear weapons systems in Europe would add to the current U.S. stockpile of some 200 B61 nuclear bombs for use by dual-capable aircraft such as the F-16.

Before deciding to deploy any new U.S. nuclear systems, Washington and NATO should ask whether doing so would reduce the odds of the above scenario happening, or would it leave the alliance better prepared to respond in the unlikely event that the scenario played out. With those questions in mind, the deployment of new nuclear arms does not appear to be a wise choice. Five observations are in order.

First, few members of NATO would welcome new American nuclear arms on the continent. Indeed, just five years ago, a sizeable number of allies favored withdrawal of the B61 bombs. The Kremlin's policies have put that debate to rest for the time being, and modernization of the B61 is moving forward. But it would be a mistake to assume that finding a European home for another U.S. nuclear weapons system would be easy.

Second, the fact that Russia deploys a large number of non-strategic weapons of various types does not mean that the United States must match that number or variety. NATO doctrine envisages employment of non-strategic nuclear weapons less for their military effects than for the political message that their use would send: the conflict has reached a point where it is on the verge of spinning out of control and escalating to use of strategic nuclear forces, so it is time for an adversary to back off. The combination of dual-capable aircraft and B61 bombs is sufficient to carry out this mission.

Third, an American president is extremely unlikely to resort to nuclear weapons if nuclear arms have not been used first against the United States, an American ally or U.S. military forces. Over the 70 years since the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the U.S. government has on several occasions considered using nuclear arms in conflicts, but has always decided not to. Given NATO's conventional force advantages, the president would be even less likely to authorize the first use of nuclear weapons. The availability of a land-based, nuclear missile or some other new system would not affect this decision.

Fourth, in the scenario described above, additional U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe would hardly affect the Kremlin's calculus regarding the threat or actual use of non-strategic nuclear weapons in response to a NATO conventional counterattack in the Baltics. That would be a colossal and risky gamble for the Russians. If NATO went ahead with its conventional counterattack, Moscow would face the choice of having its bluff called or actually launching a nuclear strike against targets on alliance territory.

If Moscow unwisely decided to cross the nuclear threshold, Russia's first use of nuclear arms would dramatically raise the probability of an American nuclear response-to near certitude. The Kremlin presumably would understand the likelihood of this response to a Russian first use of nuclear weapons. The presence of nuclear missiles in Europe in addition to B61 bombs would not change Moscow's calculation in a meaningful way.

Fifth, the best way for NATO to respond to Russia's military build-up is to bolster its conventional force capabilities. This will become more important as Russia seeks to erode NATO advantages through its modernization program. The alliance should maintain its lead in numbers of key conventional weapons systems and, in particular, its qualitative edges, so that it has forces that allow it to deter and, if necessary, defeat aggression at the conventional level. NATO should leave the decision to use nuclear weapons first-a hugely difficult, highly risky and dubious bet-to Moscow.

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