#2
Idiots 'Useful' and Otherwise on the Rise in Russia and the West
Paul Goble

Staunton, July 31 - Idiotism is on the rise in both Russia and the West, with its spread in Russia having transformed that country from "a land of liars to one of idiots," according to Vitaly Portnikov, and in the West having become the latest iteration of the "useful idiots" Lenin and the Bolsheviks always viewed as among their most useful, albeit tactical allies.

But as a third commentator, former Russian deputy prime minister Alfred Kokh, has noted, pointing this development out may be dangerous because "psychiatrists do not advise telling their patients unpleasant things directly as that may result in seizures" or worse (nv.ua/opinion/koh/tuchi-nad-rossiej-sgushchajutsja-61800.html).

Nonetheless, because of the dangers such "idiots" Russian and Western present, it is important to keep track of such trends, even if, as Kokh notes, one must be as polite as a Swiss journalist was when he remained silent after Vladimir Putin asked rhetorically, "do you consider me a madman?"

The occasion for Portnikov's observations on what has happened in Russia is the divergence between the official position of Putin as shown in the Russian veto of a UN Security Council resolution calling for an international tribunal on the downing of the Malaysian airliner and the attitudes of Russians about such a step (grani.ru/opinion/portnikov/m.243267.html).

What Putin did makes perfect sense, the Ukrainian analyst says. He "understands perfectly well" the problems such a tribunal could create for him and his regime. But the view of many Russians that such a tribunal should be established because it would find the Ukrainians and Americans guilty is not only less easily explained but more frightening.

Born in the USSR, Portnikov says, he "grew up in a country of liars" and understood from childhood that not only for advancement but even personal security "it was necessary to say one thing, do another and think a third."  And that understanding was almost universal, even extending into the ranks of "Pravda" journalists with whom he once worked.

"It turned out," he continues, "that in the main paper of the country, there was not a single communist true believer." Like any group, the journalists of "Pravda" were a varied lot, but "the main thing which united them was a lack of faith in official information, in that which "Pravda" published."

In Soviet times, Portnikov adds, "no one believed anything from top to bottom despite the fact that there was no Internet, that the authorities concealed information about the catastrophes and crimes of the authorities themselves," and that it was difficult to listen to "Western voices" through jamming.

Despite all this, "we all the same knew that they were deceiving us, that such a power could not speak the truth. We always knew this and to such an extent that we did not believe the authorities even in those rare moments when they ceased to lie," the Ukrainian commentator recalls.

But now in Putin's Russia, things appear to have changed - and not for the better. The Levada Center poll results are shocking. Of course, people sometimes lie to pollsters because of fear, "but then they would lie in harmony with the official line." The line on the tribunal has failed to convince Westerners, but more seriously, it has failed to convince Russians.

To the extent the poll is correct, Portnikov says, what this shows is that today those in Russia who think Ukraine or the US shot down the Malaysian plane and that an international tribunal would show that are not cynics or liars; they are idiots.  "This is much more dangerous" because "this is a completely different community of people than the Soviet one."

Morever, it means that it is "a completely different country. Not a country of liars. [But] a country of idiots."

"We, the Soviet people," he argues, "knew precisely that it wasn't we who were idiots. The idiots were those who ruled us. Some even liked that. Others tried not to notice. And stome attempted to struggle against that." But this understanding was "an important unifying and restraining factor."

It is why when the CPSU was banned on August 24, 1991, "no one, let us repeat, not one individual" went into Red Square to protest, and it is why when on December 25th of that year, when the Soviet flag came down over the Kremlin, not "even Comrade Putin came out into Red Square to tell his compatriots about the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century."

"But what is the situation now," Portnikov asks, "if the majority of Russians are so certain that they live in a kingdom of infallibility," they think that they can ignore the warnings of their "national leader" against the formation of an international tribunal on the shooting down of the Malaysian aircraft?

And "how will "this majority react when the kingdom of infallibility collapses on its head?"  Some of course will say they really didn't know what was going on, but others, and this is "much more realistic," Portnikov suggests, will tell their children that "Putin was great, the Yukes downed the Boeing, Crimea is ours. And the Donbass is ours. And Finland too."

Such a country is not the Soviet Union: it is much more dangerous and for a much longer time into the future.

Igor Yakovenko focuses on the other side of this rise of idiotism, that of "useful idiots" among Western elites.  In a commentary on Kasparov.ru, he points out that Russia's veto of a resolution calling for the creation of a tribunal to examine the shooting down of the Malaysian airline highlights Moscow's isolation (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=55BAF16EF114A).

But at the same time, he notes that "democracy and freedom of speech in the West gives to opponents of democracy the right to freely use these opportunities to undermine the foundaitons of democracy. And in Europe and in the US, there are many politicians and intellectuals who in fact are playing into Putin's hands.

Some are doing so for domestic political advantage, Yakovenko argues others out of self-interest as in what he calls "the 'Schröder-ization' of European elites; and still a third are doing so because they do not understand what the Putin regime in fact represents and thus speak out in its defense.

He does not address the fact that in all too many cases, these are interrelated and mutually re-enforcing factors. Instead, he suggests that the first two categories are of less interest and should be dealt with by the citizens of the countries involved.  But the third category, which "Lenin crudely but precisely called 'useful idiots' is interesting" because one can interact with it.

Yakovenko discusses the recent work of two British writers, but his comments about them could be extended to many others in Europe and the US.  He says that is clear that "part of the Western establishment still does not understand who is Mr. Putin," that it fails to recognize what is driving him, and that it acts as if the West is somehow responsible for what he does.

The clear evidence that "namely he led the forcible annexation of Crimea, the unending lies about miners and tractor drivers on tanks" and much else besides "does not convince these 'intellectuals' that this man and his closest entourage understands only the language of force and uses negotiations only for cover."

"These people," he continues, "apparently are not in a position to understand that anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism form the main foundation of Putin's domestic rather than his foreign policy" because he needs an enemy to mobilize people. Consequently, for him, it doesn't matter what the West says: "Moscow will nonetheless claim that the West for a thousand years has been trying to destroy Holy Rus."

Moreover, such people, the analyst continues, fail to understand that what Putin is doing reflects his personal grandiosity, a grandiosity bordering on the psychopathic much like the feelings of Osama bin Laden or others who take pride in being "number one" in something regardless of what it is - and are more worried about being feared than respected.

And these "useful idiots," he points out do a real service for Putin by arguing that any effort to stand up to him will only make the situation worse. That is certainly what the Kremlin leader would like people to believe - it makes his task easier - but it is exactly backward given his lack of respect for anything but toughness.

"The only means of removing the threat to humanity which today emanates from the Putin regime is to seek the dismantling of this regime," Yakovenko says. "For this, there needs to be a consolidation against this threat of the entire civilized world, one that will require the ability to call things by their proper names."

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 #3
The Economist
August 1, 2015
Russia's prisons
Putin v Punk Pussy
A brave, brassy singer highlights the plight of Russia's other inmates

THREE years ago Nadia Tolokonnikova donned a balaclava and, with two partners in the Pussy Riot band, cavorted near the altar of Moscow's biggest cathedral, screeching out a "punk prayer" in protest against the imminent re-election of Vladimir Putin as president. For her pains she was sentenced to two years in a penal colony. Though still an ardent opponent of Russia's leader, Ms Tolokonnikova has narrowed the focus of her dissent to the conditions of prisoners in the country's far-flung archipelago of jails. It is a worthy cause.

At the last count there were 657,000 Russians behind bars, one of the world's highest ratios of prisoners to population. "Our current, vile law-enforcement system", she says, "still grinds people to a pulp and spits them out into their graves." The frequency of deaths in custody amounts to a "Russian Ebola". Tuberculosis is the commonest killer, she says, followed by HIV-AIDS, which may affect 75,000 prisoners. The offences for which Russians are most often imprisoned, she says, concern drugs.

When she was first incarcerated in Penal Colony 14 in Mordovia, a Stalin-era camp about 500km (310 miles) south-east of Moscow, prisoners routinely had to work for 16 hours a day. Ms Tolokonnikova shared a dormitory and three functioning (and seatless) toilets with 100-150 women. They were each allowed one shower a week. The food was barely edible. Corrupt prison administrators, she says, would steal part of the money allocated for food. "You might get a pig's ear or tail, drowning in cooking oil."

There was no television and no radio apart from the camp tannoy, and no time to read. Family visits were restricted to one every two months. Few prisoners could afford telephone calls; most women had one a month. Bullying, especially by old lags favoured by the warders as discipline-enforcers, was routine.

Thanks in part to a hunger strike and the publicity generated by Ms Tolokonnikova's imprisonment, the regime in Penal Colony 14 improved a bit during her time. The workload was shortened generally to eight hours a day. But conditions in Russian prisons are still, says the singer, appalling.

These days she has an unlikely supporter in Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once reckoned to be Russia's richest man thanks to being the main owner of Yukos, then the country's biggest oil company. A political foe of Mr Putin, he was put in prison in 2003 for alleged fraud after what was widely considered to have been a politically motivated trial, until freed by the president in December 2013; Ms Tolokonnikova was released around the same time. Now resident in Switzerland, Mr Khodorkovsky helps finance an outfit she founded called Zona Prava, which promotes the rights of prisoners and their families. Ms Tolokonnikova also calls for fairer trials, noting that in magistrates' courts fewer than 1% of defendants are acquitted.

Mr Khodorkovsky is paying for the creation of a map to locate all the places of detention, said to number around 1,000, scattered across Russia. He was imprisoned for much of his time behind bars near Chita, more than 7,000km east of Moscow. Ms Tolokonnikova spent a month being shuttled around the prison system (unbeknown to her family and child, who was four when she was sentenced) before ending up in Krasnoyarsk, 3,400km to the east.

Judith Pallot, an expert on Russian prisons at Oxford University, says there have been marginal improvements since Russia ratified the European Convention on Human Rights in 1998, such as ensuring more space for prisoners. But severe structural problems remain, mainly due to the "Gulag inheritance" and its brutal subculture affecting prisoners and jailers alike. "Russian prison colonies are supremely dangerous and unhealthy places," says Ms Pallot. "What is needed is root-and-branch restructuring of the prison estate, management practices, the introduction of serious alternatives to incarceration and a fair, uncorrupt criminal justice system, from the police all the way through to prison governors, officers and guards."

Meeting Ms Tolokonnikova in Moscow today, it is hard to imagine her as a broken and bedraggled prisoner. Sipping red wine in a fashionable coffee bar not far from the Kremlin, dressed in hotpants and a red-checkered blouse, she is sprightly and chic, her dyed blonde hair with a blue streak tucked neatly under a yellow alice band.

Though dedicated to ending Mr Putin's reign and vociferous in her condemnation of his policy towards Ukraine, she can hardly be labelled a Western stooge. Indeed, she is happy to be called a punk and even an anarchist. All the same, she is plainly conscious that the publicity she gets in the West may well be her best protection. "I am a punk who reads The Economist," she says.

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 #4
Moscow Times
July 31, 2015
Russia Won't Be Rushed by the West
By Pyotr Romanov
Pyotr Romanov is a journalist and historian.

The West's attitude toward Russia is strongly reminiscent of the relationship between Russia's "leading" intelligentsia and its ordinary citizens. The more "progressive" group has mixed feelings of fear and misunderstanding as to why all of its diatribes on good behavior seem to fall on deaf ears.

If the Russian people were little children, the West could remove "fear" from that list. However, they are not little children, and they can get very angry at times with both the "leading" intelligentsia at home and with the West. That's the truth. But it is also true that these highbrow "mentors" often provoke that anger - something neither Russia's pro-Western intelligentsia nor the West itself is willing to recognize.

As a result, the same pattern repeats for centuries. Countries that consider themselves more civilized attempt to instruct and reason with their "stubborn" Russian student, and finally throw up their hands in anger and frustration. Pro-Western Russians like to explain this phenomenon with the Biblical parable about "dividing the sheep from the goats" - with the implication that Russia is an incorrigible "goat."

To avoid getting so impatient and angry with Russia, outsiders should try to understand what makes Russians tick. That seems unlikely to happen.

But it could: this is not rocket science, after all. World leaders need to finally understand and take into account the fact that countries and peoples are not only different, but also live in different historical contexts: Western Europeans in one, Afghans in another and Papuans in a third.

It is both foolish and counterproductive to forcibly drag someone out of feudalism or tribal society into socialism - as Vladimir Lenin so doggedly attempted in Central Asia - or to try to impose democracy on Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, as the United States has done with Bolshevik-like zeal.

The 19th-century Russian revolutionary Andrei Zhelyabov once lamented that history moves too slowly and needs pushing along. Of course, he meant to push it in the direction he saw fit. It is an unpleasant comparison, but many pro-Western Russian intellectuals and the West itself are doing about the same thing as Zhelyabov by insisting on trying to speed up Russian history. It won't work.

Of course, Russians differ from Papuans and Afghans, but like them, they live in their own historical context. Every fruit ripens at its own pace, and many factors play a role in that process.

The West often accuses Russia of failing to abandon its imperial ambitions. Even assuming that is true, how long and painful a process was it for other countries to abandon theirs? For example, how long did Britain hold onto its imperial ambitions, and did it ever completely get over them? Apparently not, judging from the conflicts over the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar.

And digging a little deeper, what about Britain's attitude toward India? The British clung tenaciously to the colony, spilling rivers of blood in that foreign land. How many years did it take British "patriots" to finally relax enough to relinquish all claims over India?

How long did it take France to outlive its imperial ambitions? Maybe some people have forgotten, but it was the French themselves and not Muslim terrorists who tried to kill former French President Charles de Gaulle for his decision to withdraw from Algeria. And how long did the Spanish Empire rue the loss of its overseas colonies?

The question is why Russia, a country that experienced the tumultuous collapse of both the Russian and Soviet empires in a single century, should somehow navigate this complex and painful period of transition in a breathless sprint. Is it simply because some Western politicians and domestic liberals cannot wait?

Just give it some time and the U.S. will give up its imperialist and missionary dreams of world leadership with roughly the same degree of agony and reluctance.

Or consider another example, the so-called "progress" to which many in the West ascribe almost magical powers, but that actually conceals both good and evil. It is not necessarily obscurantist to be wary of such progress when morality lags behind technology. After all, progress has brought the world not only new drugs to fight off illness and disease, but also nuclear, biological and chemical weapons - not to mention many controversial moral "innovations."

It is axiomatic that we cannot stop progress, but that does not automatically mean everyone must like it in all its forms. Those reservations did not arise today: such wariness is a universal phenomenon. To quote Spanish author Miguel de Unamuno, one of the founders of existentialism:

"In reality, only we, those who are more or less justly called intellectuals, a few public figures, constantly rant about the revival of Spain. But the people, or those whom we, in contrast to ourselves, refer to with the catch-all term of 'the populous' - i.e. the masses, ordinary folk or, as the Greeks put it, the 'idiotas' (ignoramuses), Plato's 'rabble' - remain silent. For them, all this talk is like the dull sound of falling rain ...

"Can it be that the conscious citizen of a great nation lives more at peace with himself than a peasant in some forgotten village? Damn this science, trade, manufacturing - everything that gives us progress, if it so intoxicates us that we are unable to hear the voice of eternal wisdom as it repeats vanitas vanitatum (vanity of vanities)!

"How ignorant are the pundits who believe they know so much more than the ordinary people ... The body knows more than all the physiologists that treat wounds, and the people, the body social, know much more than the sociologists that emerged from among them ... Is it right, as the Germans suggest, to sacrifice the people so that they become part of the civilized nations?"

Now substitute the word "Russia" for "Spain" in the above text and read it again. In other words, history shows that someone has always been ahead of others on the path - but on the path to where? Who can answer that?

It is not necessary to agree with everything Unamuno said here, but it is worthwhile to reflect on his words. This essay was written in 1898 and, of course, Spain has changed a great deal since then. And yet, even with the passage of all those years, the process remains incomplete: the Civil War, Franco, the monarchy, Basques, and now Catalonia.

Russia will ripen when it ripens. And it will become whichever tasty fruit it alone chooses - and not some artificial "homunculus" contrived in a Western test tube.

In short, stop trying to instruct Russians and prodding them to meet others' expectations. Russia has just one healer and helper - time.

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 #5
Irrussianality
https://irrussianality.wordpress.com
BOOK REVIEW
WHAT PUTIN REALLY REALLY WANTS
By Paul Robinson
Paul Robinson is a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, and the author of numerous books on Russia and Soviet history, including 'Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich: Supreme Commander of the Russian Army'

Political commentators regularly line up to tell us 'What Putin wants' (see for instance this, this, and this). In the early years of Putin's rule, analysts tended to the view that Putin was non-ideological, and that he was above all a pragmatist, perhaps even an opportunist. More recently, though, there has been a tendency to regard the Russian president as having become more conservative in his outlook. Yet, despite this, there have been very few serious efforts to attempt to understand his beliefs. For the most part, 'What Putin wants' is assumed to be self-evident, based on the particular commentator's own attitude (normally very negative) towards the actions in question. Little genuine research is done to back up the assertions. In particular, the conservative ideas dominating much of contemporary Russian discourse remain understudied, as do their historical and philosophical roots. 'As a result,' I wrote in an article a few years ago, 'Western commentators nowadays, lacking any knowledge of Russia's conservative heritage, are unable to place contemporary Russian government within the correct intellectual context.'

A new book by veteran historian Walter Laqueur, entitled Putinism: Russia and its Future with the West, constitutes a rare effort to come to grips with the subject. Drawing on a solid knowledge of Russian intellectual history, Laqueur attempts to analyze the ideology guiding the current leadership of the Russian Federation, and thereby to answer the question 'What is Putinism?'

Laqueur's answer is that it isn't fascism, but it is something close to it - a paranoid, nationalist, far right doctrine, made up of six components: 'religion (the doctrine of the Orthodox Church, Russia's holy mission, the third Rome, and the New Jerusalem), patriotism/nationalism (with occasional leanings towards chauvinism), geopolitics Russian style, Eurasianism, the besieged-fortress feeling, and zapadophobia (fear of the West).' Underlying the contemporary search for Russian identity, Laqueur says, is a 'conviction that Russia is not Europe and that there is a giant conspiracy to destroy Russia. Accompanying it is another set of beliefs that whatever went wrong in Russia is the fault of foreigners.' Laqueur concludes that 'Among the Russian weaknesses is the fatal belief in all kinds of conspiracy theories and strange ideas, such as neo-Eurasianism, neogeopolitics, confabulation, and zapadophobia, accompanied by an enduring persecution mania and the exaggerated belief in a historical mission.' In these circumstances, a 'retreat from authoritarian rule toward a more democratic system seems ... unlikely.'

To reach this conclusion, Laqueur embarks upon a potted history of Russian politics, and then upon a rather rambling examination of various other subjects including conservative and far right philosophy, demography, post-Soviet attitudes towards Stalin, and Russian foreign policy. The effect is somewhat incoherent, as the text leaps backwards and forwards in time and space and from topic to topic. But an overall theme does emerge, namely that a lot of Russians believe in a lot of really crackpot ideas.

In some respects, I agree with this. I share, for instance, Laqueur's negative appraisal of Eurasianism. The reactionary pronouncements of some high-ranking members of the Russian Orthodox Church are also fair game. And Laqueur's observation that Russian political culture has a paranoid streak is accurate. There are, however, some weaknesses in his thesis. In the first place, he doesn't do a very good job of showing that the loopy rantings of far-right philosophers and historians really have an impact on how Russia's rulers think, let alone prove that they have any impact on their behaviour. He says, for instance, that the Russian government's current alleged support for Eurasianism (which I think in any case is much exaggerated) 'has to do in part with their aversion toward Europe, which (they feel) rejected it, but it is also a reflection of the immense popularity of the ideas of Lev Gumilev'. But are the ideas of Lev Gumilev really 'immensely popular'? I can't say that I see any strong evidence for that assertion. Laqueur then goes on to say: 'Putin and his colleagues believe that the long search for a new doctrine has ended and that in [Ivan] Ilyin they have found the prophet to present their much-needed new ideology'. But is that really so? I have suggested elsewhere that Putin is fond of Ilyin, but it is not clear how many others share his preference, and in any case Ilyin could hardly be said to be the sole source of the modern 'Russian idea', even if it could be shown that such a thing exists. It also makes little sense on the one hand to claim that modern Russia is Eurasianist in orientation and on the other hand to say that Ilyin is the country's prophet, given that Ilyin most definitely was not a supporter of Eurasianism.

Laqueur does not appear to like the conservative trend in Russian thinking, and as a result emphasizes its negative side to the detriment of anything positive which might be found in it. One can see this in his treatment of Ilyin, which concentrates almost entirely on the favourable things the philosopher had to say about fascism. But there is more to Ilyin than that. Similarly, while it is true that contemporary Russian politics contains more than its fair share of crazy talk, not all Russian conservatives are loony conspiracy theorists. As Paul Grenier showed in a recent article, 'anti-Western Eurasianism is part of contemporary Russian conservatism. But it is only one part.'  Russian conservatism, Grenier notes, is very varied, and its adherents contain many intelligent, creative, and in some instances even quite liberal people. It deserves a deeper and if not sympathetic, at least more empathetic, analysis than Laqueur is willing to give it.

Grenier comments that, 'If we wish to understand Russia in something like its true complexity, we have to take the trouble to listen to it, to let it speak in its own voice instead of constantly projecting onto it all our own worst fears.' Laqueur's Putinism doesn't do this. My worry is that rather than deepening its readers' understanding of Russia, this book will serve only to convince them that Russians really are a bunch of crazies with whom no civilized conversation is possible.

 
#6
Moscow Times
July 31, 2015
Average Bribe in Russia Doubles in Rubles, Remains Steady in Dollars

The amount of the average bribe in Russia has nearly doubled this year, reaching 208,000 rubles ($3,485 at today's rate), as the country's currency has shed value amid Western sanctions and an economic downturn, according to Interior Ministry estimates cited by pro-government Izvestia daily on Friday.

This compares to about 109,000 rubles Russians are believed to have been paying or receiving as an average bribe in 2014, though police concede that their estimates may not be completely accurate, the report said.

The increase in bribe amounts is substantially less significant in their dollar equivalent, because the Russian ruble traded at around 35 to the dollar at the start of 2014, but has slumped to around 60 to the dollar as of this week.

"Functionaries have grown used to taking bribes in dollars, or tying their amount to the Central Bank's exchange rate," a member of the Public Chamber, Dmitry Chugunov, was quoted by Izvestia as saying.

But the chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, Kirill Kabanov, said police estimates of an "average" bribe may not be worth much, Izvestia reported.

"My colleagues and I tried to make our own estimates, but then we realized that it's just impossible, because this type of crime is latent, and so all calculations would be incorrect," he was quoted as saying.

Roman Vernega, a lawyer, argued that bribery is essentially a victimless crime, benefiting the both parties in the transaction, so neither is likely to complain to the police, Izvestia reported.

But he conceded that police informants or undercover agent who help expose corruption also allow to record the amounts of bribes that change hands, according to the report.

A corruption perception index by Transparency International ranked Russia 136th last year, just behind Nigeria.

Essentially admitting defeat, Russia's President Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill this spring slashing fines for giving and receiving bribes, after a Kremlin envoy, Garry Minkh, scoffed corruption penalties are rarely being honored anyway.

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 #7
Moskovskiy Komsomolets
July 29, 2015
Russian electoral law precludes "new, unauthorized players" - newspaper
Mariya Rybakova, Rules for removal from elections: Opposition put through filter; signature submission conditions like these exist nowhere except perhaps for Africa

The 2015 regional election campaign, which had got off to a sluggish start, has resulted in high-profile scandals: Parnas [People's Freedom Party], which had concluded a Democratic Coalition with Aleksey Navalnyy's unregistered party, has been denied registration in Novosibirsk. Those who were refused registration have gone on hunger strike.

And in Kostroma the head of this coalition's election staff has been arrested. He was allegedly trying to buy from a police officer access to passport data bases in order to check the information indicated on the signature lists...

What is this - a system focused on preventing on any pretext the so-called "nonsystemic" but utterly legal opposition from having access to the elections? If that is the case, then we are faced with a dress rehearsal for the federal elections to the State Duma to be held in September 2016. All those who are "out of line" will be barred from them.

But perhaps these are just individual local excesses?

Over the last 22 years Russian electoral legislation has been rewritten more or less radically on numerous occasions. Each new version of the laws has been more voluminous and given an increasingly detailed account of what had previously only been hinted it. Suffice to say that in 1994 the basic law "On the basic guarantees of citizens' electoral rights..." contained 36 articles, but now there are over 80 of them.

And for some reason it has so happened that on each occasion when the electoral laws have been rewritten the number of grounds for denying access to the elections has increased...

Signatures as a kind of filter existed before 2012 - first, all parties and candidates wanting to take part in elections at various levels had to collect them, and then it only applied to those not represented in the State Duma. In 2012 that requirement was abolished for elections of all levels apart from the presidential elections.

But that didn't last long. As early as the spring of 2014 signatures returned - for all parties except the parliamentary ones (at present that means One Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, A Just Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia). And they returned in a very harsh form. Previously their maximum number at elections of various levels never exceeded 2 per cent of the number of voters in the district - now they have raised the bar to 3 per cent. In previous years they refused registration to parties and candidates who had submitted 15-25 per cent invalid signatures - now it is enough to "screw up" by 10 per cent.

Some experts believe that the toughening of the "signatures" issue is connected to the results, displeasing to the authorities, of 2013, when Aleksey Navalnyy came second at the Moscow mayoral elections, while in Yekaterinburg Yevgeniy Royzman became city mayor. You only have to familiarize yourself with the current rules for collecting and checking signatures to understand that they now provide a great multiplicity of opportunities for "discarding" almost any inconvenient candidate at this stage.

Aleksandr Kynev, a specialist in electoral legislation, told Moskovskiy Komsomolets that signatures as a condition for access to elections in the form that we have in our country "exist nowhere except perhaps for Africa". "The consolidated opinion of the community of experts is that if it is worth retaining signatures at all, then it is only in a small number - from 0.1 to 0.5 per cent of the number of voters - and they should be collected in a specific place in the presence of a representative of the authorities so that the signatory comes in person and everyone can see that he really has signed." And Kynev believes that an alternative scenario for registration is also needed - in the form of a  deposit, for instance. "Throughout the world this is a basic condition of registration proving the seriousness of the candidates' intentions. While in Europe the deposit is a few hundred euros, in our country it could be a few thousand roubles," the expert suggests. He is convinced that this will not generate any kind of rush of people anxious to take part in elections.

Incidentally, the deposit as an alternative means of registration also used to exist in Russia, but was abolished a few years ago...

Our laws are written in such a way as to make it as difficult as possible for new, unauthorized players to enter organs of power of any level.

We are faced with a system which allows the manual regulation - locally or from the centre - of the results of elections by blocking undesirable candidates...

But on the other hand, how then are we to understand the words recently uttered by first deputy head of the presidential administration Vyacheslav Volodin? "We must do everything to ensure that we do not have the complaints which arose in 2011," he said, meaning the mass protest demonstrations against the State Duma elections caused by doubts as to their results, and for that it is necessary for "the formation of power to proceed openly, legitimately and on a competitive basis"? And in the regions too...

If there is a possibility of getting a docile, tame parliament (federal or regional) it is very hard to refrain from the temptation not to share even a few seats with the as yet undomesticated street opposition. But then you must honestly enshrine in the laws the fact that the 14 per cent of Russians who, if we are to believe the polls, do not support the incumbent regime, have no right to representation in the organs of power.

And 14 per cent of the electorate is 12.5 million people, incidentally.

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 #8
Meduza
https://meduza.io
July 29, 2015
Russia's most foreign agent
How one human rights group became the country's most harassed organization
By Andrey Kozenko
Moscow

The independent elections-monitoring organization Golos is on the brink of closure. The organization has been branded a "foreign agent," and NGOs placed on this list are banned from monitoring elections. In order to shake the label, Golos has had to restructure several times and surrender all of its foreign funding. For a time, Golos found itself in a peculiar situation: harassed by the Russian government on one hand, and a recipient of Russian government grants on the other hand. Now, the government won't give out new grants, and other potential investors (Russian oligarchs) either don't see the point of investing in a struggling NGO, or they're scared of running into problems with state officials. Since 2011, there have been hundreds of court cases launched in connection with Golos' activities. The leaders of the organization are sure that their phones are tapped and that state-funded tabloid journalists are waiting for them around every corner. Meduza's special correspondent Andrey Kozenko tells the story of how Golos became the first victim of the Kremlin's crusade against human rights organizations and "foreign agents."

The noun "Golos" translates from Russian to both "vote" and "voice." The Golos office looks just like any other office, unless you count the copies of government search protocols strewn across one of the desks. Law enforcement conducts searches here regularly. Since 2011, this is the sixth office Golos has occupied; they constantly run into problems with landlords asking them to leave, tabloid journalists waiting at their doorstep every day, and pro-Kremlin groups protesting against Golos at the office entrance.

The organization's co-chair Grigory Melkonyants has a lot of stories to tell. Just recently, his home was searched at 6:30 a.m. A furious knocking woke him up, and eventually someone started sawing at the door. He thought it could be another provocation orchestrated by the pro-Kremlin media, but when he looked through his peephole, he saw it had been taped closed with a piece of paper featuring the words "Public Prosecutor's Office." The paper blocked from view whatever was happening outside. Eventually, the door was broken down, and people burst into Melkonyants's apartment. "It was a good door, too," he recalls. Police searched his apartment thoroughly.

Another time, Melkonyants got a call from Lilia Shibanova, the executive director of Golos' Astrakhan office. "Come to the train station, I've got an envelope and salt-dried fish for you," she said. When he got there, the police and journalists from Russia's state-owned NTV channel were already waiting for him, demanding to see the contents of the envelope. The envelope had money in it for Shibanova's and Melkoyant's godson. But instead of paying attention to this minor detail, the journalists aired a smear report about Golos on TV that very evening, showing Shibanova passing undocumented foreign funding to Melkonyants for the organization's activities.

Golos was established back in 2000. Shibanova says that year's presidential elections were ridden with so much fraud that it was high time to establish civil-elections monitoring. The task was to set up a network of organizations that could observe how election campaigning is done, how elections are set up, and how the votes are counted. It took two years to coordinate the activities of several NGOs, including the human rights organization Moscow Helsinki Group, several eco-activists, and a women's rights movement. It took another two years to work out a system for elections monitoring.

I talked to Shibanova via Skype. Two years ago, fearing criminal prosecution, she left Russia for Lithuania. She talked about 2007, when human rights activists could easily find ways to work with local regional electoral committees across 40 Russian regions. Electoral committee lawyers constantly attended Golos seminars on electoral law back then. It was harder to work with representatives of Russia's Central Electoral Committee, headed by Alexander Veshnyakov at the time (Russia's current ambassador to Latvia), but there were no open conflicts. Most of the 2007 elections violations had to do with pre-election campaigning, which included bribery and smear campaigns. The votes were counted more or less in an orderly and lawful fashion. Shibanova told me that most of the problems with vote counts were found in Russia's Tatarstan republic and in the North Caucasus. Later that year, however, Vladimir Churov took over as head of the Central Electoral Committee. Little was known about him then, but he gained a reputation after his renowned interview with the newspaper Kommersant, which was titled "Can Putin Ever Be Wrong?" Shibanova told me that this marked the beginning of "all-encompassing pressure" on electoral committees and on those who monitor elections. NGOs were banned from monitoring the 2004 elections, but Golos managed to bypass this rule by registering their election observers as journalists. To do this, Golos founded its own newspaper to cover elections, and Melkonyants became chief editor. "This was a sly move, but it wasn't too deceitful," he says. "Everything that happened during the elections was reported in the newspaper anyway." After that, Churov began to push the press out from voting stations, too.

Shibanova recalls that the removal of observers, the rewriting of protocols, and vote rigging using the "carousel" method (when buses of voters are driven to cast multiple ballots at different voting stations) began that year. "The 2008 presidential elections were not very different from elections in 2011 in terms of the amount of dirt," said Shibanova. "It's just that in 2008 there wasn't any public outcry, people weren't interested in elections, at all. The first spark of interest came one year later, and in 2011 it quickly snowballed."

In September 2011, independent polling organizations estimated that the ruling United Russia party would get 20-28 percent of the vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections in December. Polling organizations with government links (such as the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, or VTsIOM) estimated that United Russia support stood at 47 percent. Shibanova said, "that September, we warned that this difference [in estimates] means only one thing: get ready for mass elections rigging."

That fall, Golos and the Russian newspaper Gazeta.ru launched an online "Fraud Map" ahead of parliamentary elections. Activists from across Russia would photograph or film election fraud and report it to the newspaper. "Fraud" included violations of campaigning rules, violations of media use, using government resources for unfair advantage, the influence of law enforcement on citizens, the influence of employers on employees, bribery, violations of candidates' rights, vote rigging, protocol rigging, and so on. The map was soon covered in red dots. In one of their elections reports, the state-owned news channel NTV called these red dots "zits" and claimed that NGOs funded by foreign countries are trying to cover Russia with acne.

This was just the beginning of Golos's problems. At a time when human rights organizations across the country were struggling, Golos was arguably fighting the hardest battle. "It's hard to say which Kremlin tower was behind all of it, but it doesn't really matter," says Shibanova. The Golos office was frequented by Russian secret service officers and officials from the Attorney General's Office. Gazeta.ru also fell under intense state scrutiny at that time, and the newspaper was forced to remove links to the "Fraud Map" from its homepage. In an act of protest, deputy chief editor Roman Badanin left the newspaper. By the time elections came around, the "Fraud Map" was covered with almost 4,000 red dots. The vast majority of rigging instances gave the ruling United Russia party an advantage.

Parliamentary elections were to take place on December 4. On December 1, everyone from Golos was called into court. On December 2, the judge fined Golos 30,000 rubles (nearly $980, according to the exchange rate at that time) for violating "the informational coverage of elections." The website featuring the "Fraud Map" came under a massive DDoS attack. It became accessible only on December 6, two days after the elections. Moscow's residents poured out into the streets, protesting the official elections results.

Also around election day, the hacking began. The personal inboxes of Golos employees were broken into; the phone lines of regional offices of Golos were cut off. On election day, Golos observers were deliberately sought out and removed from polling stations by force.

But according to Melkonyants, the presidential elections (which took place three months later, in March 2012) were much easier to work in. "They probably realized that they went overboard with all the media attention focused on us, and this made their fraud obvious," he says. "After that, the number of volunteer observers grew, so [the state's actions] had the opposite effect." Melkonyants noted that presidential elections in Moscow were more fair than the parliamentary elections. "But the day of reckoning was bound to come," said Melkonyants.

That day came in April, 2012. Detailed tax inspections began at all organizations that participated in Golos activities. The inspections lasted for an entire year, and the only violation police uncovered was that one accountant distributed income to employees on a Friday, but notified the tax office only the following Monday. The organization was fined 4,000 rubles ($130, at the time). "It was a huge amount of work. They interviewed all of our observers who ever got any reimbursements for their train tickets or meals. The tax inspectors came with their experience of checking businesses, and they were sure they would find something. You can always find something in businesses, but NGOs are different. We only had target expenses, and we were constantly audited. If you distribute money wrongly once, you never get money again. This is a question of reputation. The inspectors later told us they had never seen such 'clean' accounting before," recalls Melkonyants.

In September 2012, Russia informed the United States that USAID must stop its activities and end its Russia programs. USAID had worked in Russia since 1992 and was the main sponsor of Golos projects. Two months later, the law on "foreign agents" was passed, requiring all organizations that conduct "political activities" and receive foreign aid to register as "foreign agents" and undergo debilitating levels of bureaucratic scrutiny. Shibanova recalls that Tatyana Vagyna, a representative of the Justice Ministry, came to one of the Presidential Human Rights Council meetings and simply said that the law was written specifically to target Golos. Since then, countless other NGOs in Russia have fallen victim to this law.

Officials decided that Golos's political activity includes publishing an "electoral code" for Russia, which is a series rules and regulations for conducting elections, drawn up by several NGOs over the course of two years. It was more difficult to prove that Golos had any foreign funding, as they had been cut off from USAID money, by that time. In 2012, however, Golos had received an Andrei Sakharov Freedom Award from the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, which included a prize of 7,700 euros ($8,500). Golos declined the money, but the Norwegian Helsinki Committee sent it to a transit account at an intermediary Russian bank anyway. Golos declined the final transfer of the funds to its account, and the intermediary bank sent it back to the issuing organization. Despite the fact that Golos never touched the funds or finalized its access to them, the court ruled that it had the chance to use the money as it pleased, which counts as foreign funding. Thus, Golos became the first Russian "foreign agent." In April 2013, a court fined the organization 300,000 rubles ($9,630) because it failed to enter the "foreign agents" registry voluntarily, and Lilia Shibanova was personally fined 100,000 rubles ($3,200).

As the court hearings were going on, the tax inspections were wrapping up. Inspectors did not find any violations, but announced that USAID money was not used as target funding, and should have been taxed. The inspectors maintained that Golos must also pay a fine for receiving aid from USAID, since it was banned in Russia. The fine amounted to 12 million rubles ($385,000). Shibanova's lawyers said that she could face a prison sentence for failing to pay this fine, and she departed for Lithuania. That was the closest the organization had come to complete dissolution.

Golos spent all of 2013 and 2014 dealing with courts and taxes, and struggled to shake the "foreign-agent" label. The organization ended up paying off its tax debt using donated money and funding from various European organizations for democracy development. They took the very law on "foreign agents" to Russia's Constitutional Court, but the court ruled to keep the law in place. Nonetheless, human rights activists managed to push through one major change: the Constitutional Court ruled that funding can only be considered "foreign" if it was transferred to the organization's account and recorded in its accounting reports. This had not been done with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee funds, and by September 2014, Golos won a lawsuit, and a Moscow court ruled the organization did not owe the fines associated with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee money. Next, the Justice Ministry was supposed to take Golos off the "foreign-agent" registry, but this never happened. The same Moscow court ruled that the 2013 fine for failing or register as "foreign agents" was still lawful, despite its own previous ruling that the Norwegian Helsinki Committee funding was never finalized. So the same court issued two contradictory rulings: one stating there was no foreign funding, and one stating that Golos was a "foreign agent." Ultimately, Golos remained on the registry. And in 2014, "foreign agents" were banned from all election-related activities.

Remarkably, Golos survived and continued to work in Russia. The organization became a social movement modeled after the All-Russia People's Front, a movement launched by Vladimir Putin in 2011 as a coalition between the ruling United Russia party and various NGOs. The organization gets its money through two independent legal bodies called Golos-Povolzhye (located in Samara) and Golos-Ural (located in Chelyabinsk). Human rights activists argued through the Presidential Human Rights Council that if NGOs were discouraged from receiving foreign aid, the Kremlin should provide its own grants instead. The Kremlin listened to the human rights lobbyists, and allocated grants to Golos-Povolzhye and Golos-Ural. Some of the activists say this was a face-saving move on the part of the country's leadership.

Golos received two grants totalling 12 million rubles ($202,000). This money has been used for monitoring small local elections in villages and rural areas. Melkonyants says this was an enriching experience: the observers learned a lot, and the local administrations did not want to risk anything by rigging local elections in front of them, so the organization really had an impact. Moreover, Golos's appearance in some of Russia's regions stirred up the population and its regional leaders. They were surprised that state TV channels were branding Golos as spies one day, and the next day the very same organization is coming to observe elections for Belprudsky Village Council in Volgograd region. Regional officials could not fathom how an organization branded as a "foreign agent" could be working at the local level with papers saying they have a Presidential grant. What will happen when presidential elections come around?!

But it looks like Golos might not live to see Russia's 2016 presidential elections. Golos' latest grant will last until this coming September, and no new grants are expected. The human rights lobby has lost its steam, more and more Presidential Administration members are becoming part of the grant-making committee, and Golos did not make it into the lists of finalists in the last two rounds of grant applications.

In addition to problems with grants, the Samara and the Chelyabinsk chapters of Golos have run into issues with taxes and police raids. The homes of former and current Golos employees in Samara and in Moscow have been searched by law enforcement. Moreover, investigators have requested that Lyudmila Kuzmina, the head of the Samara Golos chapter, undergo a psychiatric assessment. A pamphlet written by the late opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was found on her desk, and law enforcement has labeled this "political activity." In Chelyabinsk, tax inspectors found traces of foreign funding, and Golos-Povolzhye has already been registered as a foreign agent. Golos-Ural will soon follow.

The Central Electoral Committee would not comment on the complaints against Golos, but its representatives recently sent out a press release to all Russian regions stating that Golos "is acting in the interest of foreign governments" and that its activities on election day "may lead to the defamation of the institution of observers, as well as to creating conditions for destabilizing the democratic process of public office formation." The press release has since been deleted from Central Electoral Committee's website.

Shibanova says the current situation faced by Golos is "catastrophic." She is working on a letter to the Presidential Council on Human Rights. Notably, she is still a member of this council. She says that the story of Golos is an example of what might happen to all other NGOs in Russia.

Melkonyants is trying to think of ways the organization can survive. He is trying to attract investors from the private sector. Golos doesn't need much; organizing observers for one day of general elections of public officials countrywide costs only 3 million rubles ($50,500). But businessmen are wary of getting involved. One potential investor told Melkonyants that Golos is "legitimizing an illegitimate process" by participating in the elections at all. "What you're doing is basically describing a dead man's reflexes," he said. "You can take a blood sample from a dead man and see how good his hemoglobin levels were. You can give him an electric shock. But what's the point?"

The "Fraud Map" (which now has its own website) is already breaking out in red dots. Election day in Russia is less than two months away.

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 #9
Consortiumnews.com
July 30, 2015
Why Russia Shut Down NED Fronts
By Robert Parry
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.

Exclusive: The neocon-flagship Washington Post fired a propaganda broadside at President Putin for shutting down the Russian activities of the National Endowment for Democracy, but left out key facts like NED's U.S. government funding, its quasi-CIA role, and its plans for regime change in Moscow, writes Robert Parry.

The Washington Post's descent into the depths of neoconservative propaganda - willfully misleading its readers on matters of grave importance - apparently knows no bounds as was demonstrated with two deceptive articles regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin and why his government is cracking down on "foreign agents."

If you read the Post's editorial on Wednesday and a companion op-ed by National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, you would have been led to believe that Putin is delusional, paranoid and "power mad" in his concern that outside money funneled into non-governmental organizations represents a threat to Russian sovereignty.

The Post and Gershman were especially outraged that the Russians have enacted laws requiring NGOs financed from abroad and seeking to influence Russian policies to register as "foreign agents" - and that one of the first funding operations to fall prey to these tightened rules was Gershman's NED.

The Post's editors wrote that Putin's "latest move, announced Tuesday, is to declare the NED an 'undesirable' organization under the terms of a law that Mr. Putin signed in May. The law bans groups from abroad who are deemed a 'threat to the foundations of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation, its defense capabilities and its national security.'

"The charge against the NED is patently ridiculous. The NED's grantees in Russia last year ran the gamut of civil society. They advocated transparency in public affairs, fought corruption and promoted human rights, freedom of information and freedom of association, among other things. All these activities make for a healthy democracy but are seen as threatening from the Kremlin's ramparts. ...

"The new law on 'undesirables' comes in addition to one signed in 2012 that gave authorities the power to declare organizations 'foreign agents' if they engaged in any kind of politics and receive money from abroad. The designation, from the Stalin era, implies espionage."

But there are several salient facts that the Post's editors surely know but don't want you to know. The first is that NED is a U.S. government-funded organization created in 1983 to do what the Central Intelligence Agency previously had done in financing organizations inside target countries to advance U.S. policy interests and, if needed, help in "regime change."

The secret hand behind NED's creation was CIA Director William J. Casey who worked with senior CIA covert operation specialist Walter Raymond Jr. to establish NED in 1983. Casey - from the CIA - and Raymond - from his assignment inside President Ronald Reagan's National Security Council - focused on creating a funding mechanism to support groups inside foreign countries that would engage in propaganda and political action that the CIA had historically organized and paid for covertly. To partially replace that CIA role, the idea emerged for a congressionally funded entity that would serve as a conduit for this money.

But Casey recognized the need to hide the strings being pulled by the CIA. "Obviously we here [at CIA] should not get out front in the development of such an organization, nor should we appear to be a sponsor or advocate," Casey said in one undated letter to then-White House counselor Edwin Meese III - as Casey urged creation of a "National Endowment."

NED Is Born

The National Endowment for Democracy took shape in late 1983 as Congress decided to also set aside pots of money - within NED - for the Republican and Democratic parties and for organized labor, creating enough bipartisan largesse that passage was assured. But some in Congress thought it was important to wall the NED off from any association with the CIA, so a provision was included to bar the participation of any current or former CIA official, according to one congressional aide who helped write the legislation.

This aide told me that one night late in the 1983 session, as the bill was about to go to the House floor, the CIA's congressional liaison came pounding at the door to the office of Rep. Dante Fascell, a senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a chief sponsor of the bill. The frantic CIA official conveyed a single message from CIA Director Casey: the language barring the participation of CIA personnel must be struck from the bill, the aide recalled, noting that Fascell consented, not fully recognizing the significance of the demand.

The aide said Fascell also consented to the Reagan administration's choice of Carl Gershman to head the National Endowment for Democracy, again not recognizing how this decision would affect the future of the new entity and American foreign policy. Gershman, who had followed the classic neoconservative path from youthful socialism to fierce anticommunism, became NED's first (and, to this day, only) president.

Though NED is technically independent of U.S. foreign policy, Gershman in the early years coordinated decisions on grants with Raymond at the NSC. For instance, on Jan. 2, 1985, Raymond wrote to two NSC Asian experts that "Carl Gershman has called concerning a possible grant to the Chinese Alliance for Democracy (CAD). I am concerned about the political dimension to this request. We should not find ourselves in a position where we have to respond to pressure, but this request poses a real problem to Carl."

Currently, Gershman's NED dispenses more than $100 million a year in U.S. government funds to various NGOs, media outlets and activists around the world. The NED also has found itself in the middle of political destabilization campaigns against governments that have gotten on the wrong side of U.S. foreign policy. For instance, prior to the February 2014 coup in Ukraine, overthrowing elected President Viktor Yanukovych and installing an anti-Russian regime in Kiev, NED was funding scores of projects.

A second point left out of the Post's editorial was the fact that Gershman took a personal hand in the Ukraine crisis and recognized it as an interim step toward regime change in Moscow. On Sept. 26, 2013, Gershman published an op-ed in the Washington Post that called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and explained how pulling it into the Western camp could contribute to the ultimate defeat of Russian President Putin.

"Ukraine's choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents," Gershman wrote. "Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself." In other words, NED is a U.S. government-financed entity that has set its sights on ousting Russia's current government.

A third point that the Post ignored is that the Russian law requiring outside-funded political organizations to register as "foreign agents" was modeled on a U.S. law, the Foreign Agent Registration Act. In other words, the U.S. government also requires individuals and entities working for foreign interests and seeking to influence U.S. policies to disclose those relationships with the U.S. Justice Department or face prison.

If the Post's editors had included any or all of these three relevant factors, you would have come away with a more balanced understanding of why Russia is acting as it is. You might still object but at least you would be aware of the full story. By concealing all three points, the Post's editors were tricking you and other readers into accepting a propagandistic viewpoint - that the Russian actions were crazy and that Putin was, according to the Post's headline, "power mad."

Gershman's Op-Ed

But you might think that Gershman would at least acknowledge some of these points in his Post op-ed, surely admitting that NED is financed by the U.S. government. But Gershman didn't. He simply portrayed Russia's actions as despicable and desperate.

"Russia's newest anti-NGO law, under which the National Endowment for Democracy on Tuesday was declared an "undesirable organization" prohibited from operating in Russia, is the latest evidence that the regime of President Vladimir Putin faces a worsening crisis of political legitimacy," Gershman wrote, adding:

"This is the context in which Russia has passed the law prohibiting Russian democrats from getting any international assistance to promote freedom of expression, the rule of law and a democratic political system. Significantly, democrats have not backed down. They have not been deterred by the criminal penalties contained in the 'foreign agents' law and other repressive laws. They know that these laws contradict international law, which allows for such aid, and that the laws are meant to block a better future for Russia."

The reference to how a "foreign agents" registration law conflicts with international law might have been a good place for Gershman to explain why what is good for the goose in the United States isn't good for the gander in Russia. But hypocrisy is a hard thing to rationalize and would have undermined the propagandistic impact of the op-ed.

So would an acknowledgement of where NED's money comes from. How many governments would allow a hostile foreign power to sponsor politicians and civic organizations whose mission is to undermine and overthrow the existing government and put in someone who would be compliant to that foreign power?

Not surprisingly, Gershman couldn't find the space to include any balance in his op-ed - and the Post's editors didn't insist on any.

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 #10
Pundits predict ruble's fluctuations, not instant slump
By Tamara Zamyatina

MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/. The Russian national currency's latest fall to the 60-ruble mark against the US dollar - a record-low since last March - is fraught with no major risks for the economy. Given the Central Bank's accumulated anti-crisis experience one should feel no fear the ruble may plummet overnight, polled experts have told TASS. The Central Bank's declaration it had stopped purchasing hard currency for building up the gold and foreign exchange reserves has already "put much muscle" into the ruble.

On May 13 this year the dollar was selling for less than 50 rubles, while at the beginning of this week it was above 60 rubles. Before the opening of Wednesday's exchange trading the Central Bank declared that on Tuesday it made a decision to suspend currency purchases for the gold and foreign exchange reserves, high volatility on the market being the main reason. On Wednesday, the Central Bank reduced interventions from the usual $200 million dollars a day to $160 million. Immediately after the CBR's statement the ruble firmed to 58.81 rubles per dollar.

"The ruble's 20%-fall against the dollar from 50 rubles to 60 rubles was strongly felt, of course. Regrettably, such volatility is typical of the national currencies of export-dependent economies, such as Russia, Brazil or Kazakhstan. We are not secure from the ruble's further fluctuations within a range of 55 rubles to 65 rubles per dollar," the head of the Vneshtorgbank's supervisory council, former CBR governor Sergey Dubinin, told TASS.

"It was the changes on the market of hydrocarbons, observed over the past few weeks, and the falling oil prices that triggered speculative ruble sales. The exchange rate of the ruble will now get back to normal slowly but surely. Its fluctuations pose no risks to the economy, although they may create more problems for economic entities pegged to international settlements in hard currencies," Dubinin said.

Vneshekonombank's strategic analysis and research director, Vladimir Andrianov, believes the ruble's smooth devaluation is the regulator's well-considered decision.

"This measure surely contributes to budget revenue growth," Andrianov told TASS. "External factors, such as falling oil prices, have played a role in the ruble's weakening, too. The barrel of Brent crude has been on the decline for two weeks in a row to $54. While in many oil producing countries the national currency's exchange rate does not depend on the price of oil, in Russia these two factors are closely correlated," Andrianov told TASS.

"Another major test for the ruble is due soon. Wednesday's session of the US Federal Reserve provided no hints as to the outlook for a rise in the key rate. Market participants are curious if some sort of surprise is due by the Federal Reserve's meeting in September. If the Federal Reserve declares a key rate rise in September, the dollar will soar to above 60 rubles. I believe the CBR is properly prepared for that. The trend is bound to change. All financiers are expecting that," Andrianov said.

"As for the claims the stock market crisis in China is a factor working against the ruble, I do not believe this. It is a purely local phenomenon occurring once in 5-7 years. The stock market fall and subsequent growth follow each other in a spiral-like fashion. We have been able to see that in South Korea and in Singapore," Andrianov said.

"I do not rule out a smooth decline of the ruble's rate, but there will be nothing like the steep fall of December 2014. The CBR has learned the lesson and it will not permit speculations on the money market again. The regulator will keep the situation under control with reliance on the available reserves," Andrianov forecasts.

And the president of the Association of Russian Banks, Garegin Tosunian, remarks that although replenishing the country's gold and foreign exchange reserves is an important task, it would be not very logical for the regulator to go on purchasing $200 million a day, thereby supporting another country's currency. "It is very good the Bank of Russia has arrived at the decision to suspend currency purchases to help the ruble get firmer," Tosunian said.

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 #11
http://readrussia.com
July 31, 2015
Russia's Housing Sector, Amazingly, Is Still In the Middle of Bloom
By Mark Adomanis
[Chart here http://readrussia.com/2015/07/31/russias-housing-sector-amazingly-is-still-in-the-middle-of-bloom/]

It unfortunately doesn't take much skill to find negatives in Russia's current economic environment. Outside of agriculture, which is but a tiny part of the economic pie, the news is bad pretty much right across the board. The banking system is a total mess, kept afloat by significant infusions of government cash and aggressive accounting policies that have allowed banks to limit losses on their loan portfolios. The oil industry is also under significant pressure: prices for oil collapsed by almost 50% over the second half of 2014, and, after a tentative rally, have recently resumed their downward march. The Russian automotive sector might have been the hardest hit of all: pervasive economic, uncertainty, tighter credit, and spiking inflation have all combined to make Russian consumers much more reluctant to make big-ticket purchases. 2015 car sales could be as much as 40% below the 2014 level.

In addition to agriculture, which, as noted previously, is a very minor part of Russia's total economic output and which cannot serve as the foundation of economic growth, there is at least one other bright spot, however, and it was in a place that I very much did not expect to find it. Housing.

Rosstat just released information about housing construction in the first half of 2015 and, at first glance, the numbers are remarkably good. On a year over year basis, total output was up by 15%. That would be good even in the midst of a strong economy, in the midst of a Russia today it is nothing short of remarkable.

But a year to year comparison doesn't say all that much. Maybe 2014 was just a lousy year for the Russian housing industry and the apparent "bump" in 2015 is just a dead cat bounce.

The thing is, when you look at Rosstat's long-term data series on housing construction, you see that 2014 was also a very good year. In fact, during 2014, the country produced a larger quantity of housing than at any other point since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Depending on exactly how you do the counting (Rosstat's data before 1990 are patchy at best) you could realistically make the argument that Russia is on track to build more housing in 2015 than it has in any other year in its history.

When you take a step back and combine Russia's recent demographic trends with the recent performance of the housing industry, it seems very clear that, on a per-capita basis, Russia is building more housing now than it ever has before. Remember that, minus Crimea, Russia's population now is where it was in roughly 1986. In 1980, a representative year of the Brezhnev stagnation, Russia produced about 60 million square meters of housing, roughly the same amount that it did ten years later.

The lack of historical growth, in fact, is one of the things that really jumps out from the data: the Soviet housing industry simply was not able to increase its capacity very much. From 1956 to 1960 Russia produced an average of 70.2 million square meters a year of new housing. A decade later that had grown by a mere 1.3%, to 71.1 million. Ten years after that the situation still hadn't changed very much: from 1976-80 average annual output grew by a still-paltry 3.7%. There is a reason that the Soviet "housing crisis" was never solved: the country never built enough housing!

It turns out that markets are a lot more efficient than central planning even in a field like housing where the market's shortcomings can be all too apparent.

And the overall totals of gross square footage mask important regional shifts: the Soviets didn't just built too little housing, they built far too much of the housing that they built in the wrong place. These regional discrepancies seem to have been, if not eliminated, than quite dramatically curtailed. In the first half of 2015, the city of St Petersburg saw as much new housing built as Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Kemerovo, and Omsk oblasts combined. St Petersburg oblast built more than twice as much new housing as the entire Far Eastern Federal district. Fast-growing Krasnodar Krai, one of those rare Russian regions where the current population is an all-time high, has about 66% more people than famously depressed Nizhny Novgorod, a by-word for industrial decline and decay. Krasnodar, however, built more than five times as much housing.

The above would suggest, at least to me, that the link between supply and demand is holding. In other words, desirable, livable, economically vibrant regions with growing populations are building a lot more housing than undesirable, stagnant ones. There aren't any Chinese ghost cities, in other words, just lots of apartments in regions where people genuinely want to live.

How much longer can the housing boom last if the broader economy continues to deteriorate? Well, obviously not that long: you can't have a rollicking housing industry while real wages are declining and overall output continues to shrivel. Unless the broader economy comes back into health, housing will inevitably weaken, and weaken quite significantly.

But it's worth remembering that Russia is a very large, complicated, and diverse place, a place where simplistic storylines of "good" and "bad" are not of terribly great use. Housing isn't the only thing in the world but it's a very important part of modern life: that Russia is building more and more housing and building more of that housing in desirable areas with better standards of living is a clear win for human welfare.

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 #12
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
July 31, 2015
Sanctions Have Failed. 'Buy Russian' Is Working
Western sanctions may result in the resurrection of a food super-power which competes with the EU on global export markets
By Gilbert Doctorow
Gilbert Doctorow is a professional Russia watcher and actor in Russian affairs going back to 1965. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College (1967), a past Fulbright scholar, and holder of a Ph.D. with honors in history from Columbia University (1975). After completing his studies, Mr. Doctorow pursued a business career focused on the USSR and Eastern Europe. For twenty-five years he worked for US and European multinationals in marketing and general management with regional responsibility. From 1998-2002, Doctorow served as the Chairman of the Russian Booker Literary Prize in Moscow. A number of his early scholarly articles on Russian constitutional history under Nicholas II drawn from his dissertation remain 'in print' and are available online. Mr. Doctorow has also been an occasional contributor to the Russian language press including Zvezda (St Petersburg), Russkaya Mysl (La Pensée russe, Paris) and Kontinent (a journal sponsored by Alexander Solzhenitsyn) on issues of Russian cultural and political life. He regularly publishes analytical articles about international affairs on the portal of the Belgian daily La Libre Belgique. Mr. Doctorow's current research interest is trends in U.S. area studies programs. He is a Visiting Scholar of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University during the 2010-2011 academic year.Mr. Doctorow is an American citizen and a long-time resident of Brussels, Belgium.

It is now more than a year that Russia imposed its food embargo on the EU and other states which had applied sanctions to it over its absorption of Crimea and intervention in southeastern Ukraine. The results of the change-over in overseas suppliers and rising import substitution through the efforts of domestic producers have now become fairly clear.

In this brief report based on visits to retail outlets ranging from convenience stores and market stalls to hypermarkets and from the St Petersburg city center to hamlets 80 km away in the hinterland, I will try to make some sense of what has occurred, how Russians' shopping basket has changed so far and where the trend lines are leading. Put another way, I will start with a number of small and specific observations and end with some generalizations and forecasts of what broad processes are underway and how they can affect the global food trade.

The provenance of food in Russia's retail chain is fairly easy to determine. Many sellers across the retail distribution universe identify the foreign country or domestic region responsible for any given product. And at the popular level of municipal markets, the vendors go a step further, acting as hawkers for certain producing areas that are in the public eye. Today this means in particular Crimean products like wines, strawberries, tomatoes and the like. Then there are the especially profitable early fruits and vegetables (primeurs) coming from the Russian South, meaning from Rostov-on-Don down into the enormously fertile Krasnodar region. A very unsentimental lot, the market stall vendors are pitching to the self-reliant, patriotic mood that is very much in the air across Russian society today.

In this regard, it was particularly instructive to spend some time at one of the most prestigious municipal markets in downtown St Petersburg, the Maltsevsky Rynok. Fish mongers there were both well informed and talkative on my several visits. Their assortment has changed dramatically since the introduction of the embargo. Greek farmed dorade and sea bass are gone. Russian sourced fish has stepped up its presence. Europe's largest fresh water lake, Ladoga, located just 40 km from the Northern Capital, is now a big factor in the wild fish varieties on offer, meaning the whitefish (sig) that otherwise is a favored lake fish in neighboring Finland and large lake trout that approach the size of a salmon. Farmed trout from the republic of Karelia that abuts the Leningrad oblast on Ladoga's northern and eastern coasts are also featured.

The fishing industry of the Murmansk region further to the northeast, at 1,000 km from St Petersburg, has stepped up its presence in the St Petersburg market, moving beyond its traditional flounder and other low -prestige fish to supply the gorbusha salmon variety native to the Far East. The gorbusha was introduced into these northern waters in Soviet times and now has made a return to the market within the import substitution drive. Fresh whole gorbusha arrives here with egg sacs intact. The raw roe is now also available in the stalls at nominal prices for those who are keen to clean and salt their own red caviar at a savings of 80% on the price of the tinned variety.

Also the luxury end of the fish offer in the Rynok, old favorites like tinned Kamchatka crab and black caviar (now certified), smoked sturgeon and eel are holding their own. The same goes for fresh domestic sterlet (sturgeon) which arrives at the St Petersburg market live from the fishing industry of Dagestan, a republic bordering the Caspian. In addition, wholly new categories of high-quality smoked fish from Siberian rivers have made their appearance.

Norwegian salmon is now distant memory. However, this king of farmed fish is still to be had, and legally too, through a new supplier. The Faroe Islands, nominally part of the Danish state but not members of the EU, have been flouting the anti-Russian sanctions from the start. You might not expect your fish monger to be a specialist in geography, not to mention geopolitics, but mine in the Maltsevsky Rynok told me all about the Faroe Island relationship before I had a chance to look it all up in Wikipedia.

If I have directed a lot of attention to fish, it is because Russian consumption patterns have changed in recent years and continue to evolve even as the food market as a whole is undergoing change. In the past, the attitude of consumers here was rather similar to that in Serbia, where there was the common saying that "the best fish is a pig." That was justified in the Russian case by the repellant nature of the fish on sale from Soviet times in both markets and retail stores: frozen, "industrial" grade fish displayed in various stages of rigor mortis. Now fresh fish counters are common not merely in downtown municipal markets and supermarkets, but even in outlets of the chain stores in the suburbs and in the hinterland. The price of sig or gorbusha may be well beyond the pocket book of most consumers, but the geographic spread has reached out to middle class consumers wherever they live.

In both meats, and fruits and vegetables, it is less obvious what changes in sourcing have occurred at the Rynok. Given the visible control of stands by either "representatives of the Caucasus nationalities" or Central Asians, these products, both in past and present, tended to come from places like Azerbaijan, Turkey or Uzbekistan, rather than Western Europe. The prices are high, but then the appearance is excellent.

Moving from the top of the municipal markets to a private food emporium within the Stockmann's department store in St Petersburg, patterns of new sourcing and newly featured Russian products emerge at this serious arbiter of food fashion. Imported fish remains on offer, but with suppliers switched to meet the law. Where there were Greek fish, there now are Turkish substitutes.

However, the bigger change would appear to be in the smoked fish displays. This is a very popular product variety in which Russians have long looked up to the Finns. It was a common St Petersburg middle class habit to make weekend outings across the border over to Lappeenranta to shop for the superior smoked fish for themselves and relatives. Now the flagship Finnish store in St Petersburg has filled its smoked fish counters with Russian made products that look and taste good, are authentically hardwood fire smoked and cost 40% less than what is on offer over in Finland. It would be safe to say, given the quality of what I sampled, that the Russian masters have raised the level of their offer to match or better what is made abroad now that 'Made in Russia' has become a source of pride to the domestic consumers rather than a point of derision, as in the past.

Wines are a product category that also are moving along with politics. Though there is no Russian embargo on wine from countries participating in sanctions against them, and all the French, Spanish and Italian wines of yesteryear are present today on store shelves, the pride of place is given to Crimean and South of Russia wines wherever you go. In Stockmann's there is a related gesture acknowledging political realities; they are currently featuring wines from Abkhazia, the break-away province of Georgia now under Russian protection.

A rising tide raises all boats. Russian farmers in a variety of product categories have moved swiftly to occupy niches abandoned by Western Europeans. Poultry, to be more specific, ducks, seems to be a case in point. Stockmann's is now featuring 2-kg pre-packaged, chilled eviscerated whole ducks coming from Rostov-on-Don. This is quite remarkable since it addresses a problem that stymied even highly patriotic restaurateurs in the recent past: the absence of standardized portions and consistency of supply which forced them to work only with frozen French ducks. Russian farm complexes seem now to have met the challenge.

Less commonly, product categories have simply disappeared with the departure of Europeans. For example, frozen soups were supplied in the past by Poland and Hungary, who offered products from their home market that matched closely the taste expectations of Russian consumers. With the embargo, those goods have disappeared and so far there are no Russians or others to have filled the space.

The same goes for certain categories of cheeses. Whereas Serbia is now supplying the feta type cheese which formerly came in from Greece and Russian domestic producers are offering decent Mozzarella substitutes to replace the prohibited Italian product, hard cheeses have not yet found credible producers in Russia or comparable alternative sources outside the EU. To be sure, some supermarkets still appear to have a rich cheese offer that raises questions of legality; however, the tightening of controls, and in particular, the newly approved authorization to destroy contraband at the border may wind down scofflaws in the cheese sector soon.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, a stroll through Russian food retailers at all points of the price continuum shows that nearly all product categories that were offered before the sanctions and embargo remain available. Many domestic products held their ruble prices, meaning they are priced now 40% below comparable goods in Western Europe. New foreign sources are often from developing countries, meaning they are priced below the levels of Europe. Still other imported goods reflect the adverse ruble exchange rate and are one-third or more higher in price than before the sanctions.

Markets always find an equilibrium between supply and demand. For the exhortations from the political class for import substitution to work, there had to be a radical change in consumer perception of domestically produced foodstuffs. My overriding conclusion from visits to retailers and seeing how goods are promoted is that 'Buy Russian' is working because it corresponds to the new patriotic mood.

In turn, increased nationwide demand has brought to the fore producers who can deliver genuinely world-class foodstuffs at prices in line with middle class spending power. And one can add to this picture the increased assortment of locally produced vegetables in hothouses. These were at the fringes when Dutch and Polish produce was established in the market at competitively keen prices based on economies of scale across the EU. But now local hothouse producers in the various metropolitan areas have muscled their way onto store counters as primary suppliers.

All of this has to be read in the context of Russian history when, in the years just before the Russian Revolution, when the agricultural reforms of Petr Stolypin were working their magic, Russia was a major agricultural exporter, not only of grains but of other basic foodstuffs, to the point where in 1912, Russia was shipping butter to Denmark.

Whereas Russia today is again one of the world's top grain exporters, it has been hard to imagine that it could be an exporter of other agricultural products that are grain-dependent, such as poultry and pork, not to mention an exporter of completely different food categories that are more labor intensive.

Given the trend lines of the past 18 months, these possibilities merit consideration. In that sense, the showdown with Russia over Ukraine and the imposed sanctions may eventually cost Europe much more than the present or future foregone sales of European produce in Russia. They may result in the resurrection of a food super-power which competes with the EU on global export markets.

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 #13
BBC
July 31, 2015
Russian debtors despair as boom turns to bust

Millions of Russians took out loans during the economic boom years, but now they face crippling debts and the law is not on their side, the BBC's Oleg Boldyrev reports.

At the start of each month Elena, a 40-year-old Muscovite, spreads all the family cash on the table and starts dividing it into small piles.

"When I do this I shake, I feel nauseous," she says.

"This goes to one bank, that to another, then the third one... There's one more bank, but we don't have the money for them - I had to go and buy some food. I guess we'll have to put up with their telephone reminders."

Elena and her husband owe well over 1m roubles (about £10,800; $17,000) to those four banks.

After the cash piles are sorted the family of three is left with only 10,000 roubles (£107; $167). That puts them below the poverty line - and recently Elena lost her job.
Debt mountain

Millions of those in debt live like Elena.

According to the Russian United Credit Bureau (UCB), 40 million Russians have loans or mortgages.

By June, 12.5m of those loans had not been paid for at least a month, and in another 8m cases the arrears stretched back over three months.

The Russian Central Bank says those chronic debts now total 1tn roubles (£10.7bn; $16.7bn). And that is at least 10% of the total personal debt - 10% which cannot be recovered by the banks.

For Elena and her husband, this is a story of almost two decades of borrowing. They started getting loans in the mid-1990s to pay for their daughter's medical treatment. Then they took a bigger loan to pay off the smaller ones.

It all seemed manageable, says Elena, but then new expenses came along - and two banks offered credit cards with generous conditions.

"We were a bit stupid," Elena says. "They told us the minimum payment was 5,000 roubles a month and we paid that every month. But that was just the interest, not the loan itself."

Sudden shocks

During Russia's boom years credit history checks meant virtually nothing. An individual already saddled with loans could take out another one, hoping to pay off previous debts.

The small print was often too small to bother about.

Then the music stopped. Money got tight after the 2008 global financial crisis and Western sanctions against Russia over its role in the Ukraine conflict.

The average personal loan in 2014 was 54,600 roubles.

Olga Mazurova is head of Sentinel Credit Management, one of Russia's largest debt-collecting agencies. She says that often Russians are hit by a sudden drop in income, because "the firm goes bankrupt, the working week is cut, there are layoffs or wage cuts - we see that especially in industrial cities in Siberia and the Urals". Few Russians have insurance for such contingencies, she says.

Debtors cannot get much help. There are plans to amend the law on insolvency, to allow individuals to be declared bankrupt. But nothing will happen on that until October.

Russian MPs decided that criminal courts were unprepared for the likely flood of such cases and that courts of arbitration should handle debt cases instead.

Each debtor has to beg the bank to cut them some slack. But Russia's financial ombudsman Pavel Medvedev says that rarely works if someone owes money to more than one institution.

A former adviser to President Vladimir Putin, he knows many top Russian financiers personally - but that does not help him to lobby on behalf of indebted callers. Typically, he says, lenders refuse to restructure personal debts with the words: "I've got a business to run and shareholders demand profits - I can't do it!"

Mr Medvedev says his success rate in helping debtors has dropped from 51% to 33% and "this year it's probably going to be around 16%".

No escape

He had no solution for one caller, Vladimir Frolov, living near Moscow.

Mr Frolov started borrowing four years ago to help his partner, living separately from him, in Ukraine. The debts snowballed. Finally, unable to get an unsecured loan, he mortgaged the flat he shares with his elderly parents.

His father Anatoly, who co-signed the agreement, is bewildered when asked which bank it was. "How should I know? They took us into some room, the light was dim and the print was tiny. I just asked if everything was alright and they told me it was."

Besides the mortgage, Vladimir Frolov's parents took out two loans to help him, which eat up 18,000 of their 22,000-rouble monthly pension allowance.

And now Vladimir has defaulted on the mortgage. The bank is suing and they may well lose their only dwelling.

"There must be a normal way out - maybe give the bank a fixed share of my wages?" Vladimir wonders. But so far he has not found anyone at the bank to discuss his dilemma.

"Isn't there a law against this?" asks his father, equally helplessly. "How can they let people borrow so much without checking them first?"

After the good years many Russians are now getting a harsh lesson in capitalism - and inadequate regulations mean there is nothing to soften the blow.

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 #14
www.rt.com
July 31, 2015
Scotland Yard's Litvinenko charges 'linked to EU sanctions against Russia'

The Litvinenko Inquiry has been going on since 2006, because the UK links it to the current EU sanctions on Russia over Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, said author and Russia analyst Martin McCauley. It is part of a package which presents Russia as a bad guy and puts it in the worst possible light, he added.

London's Metropolitan Police say Moscow was involved in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent who worked for British intelligence. Litvinenko died in hospital in London in 2006 after drinking tea allegedly laced with a radioactive isotope.

RT: The case is supported by the assertion that Russia had the means and the motive. Is that enough to make such an accusation?

Martin McCauley: It is only an accusation, because in law you have to prove your accusation. It's no use saying the Russian state was involved without bringing proof that it was involved. What is meant by the term 'Russian state'? Does it mean the official government agencies, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Defense, does it mean President Putin, or does it mean somebody could be a rogue traitor, a rogue FSB [Federal Security Service] operative that could take polonium out of the state, out of Russia. So you have a problem here: the term 'state involvement' is very vague and very difficult to pin down.

RT: Apart from the Scotland Yard investigation, there's also a Russian probe. Do you think that Russian results will be taken into account by the British side?

MM: They should be, because the Russians have access to Russian facilities and perhaps they will interview Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun, who were the two former KGB operatives believed by the British to be involved. So perhaps they could interview them, get information from them. Mr. Lugovoy said that he was going to give evidence to the London inquiry, but in the end he didn't. So that was an opportunity for the Russian authorities to question him and find out what he knows and take his evidence. And then that can be sent to London...

RT: It is almost a decade since Litvinenko passed away. Why do you think this investigation is being carried out now?

MM: You have to go back to November 2006 when Litvinenko unfortunately died a horrible death. It is almost nine years. So why is this rambling on? One thing you can say: It's linked to the sanctions which the EU has imposed on Russia over Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. This heaping blame on Moscow, heaping blame on Russia, pointing the finger at Russia, saying that it committed more crimes besides annexing Crimea and military involvement in Eastern Ukraine. If you like it is part of a package which presents Russia as a bad guy and puts it in the worst possible light.

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 #15
CBSNews.com
July 30, 2015
Donald Trump: "I'd get along very well with Vladimir Putin"

Presidential candidate and businessman Donald Trump predicted Thursday he would "get along very well with Vladimir Putin," Russia's president who is often at odds with the current administration.

Elaborating on the relationship between Putin and President Obama, Trump said, "Obama and him, he hates Obama, Obama hates him. We have unbelievably bad relationships." His comments came during a press conference in Scotland, where he is attending a golf tournament at the Trump Turnberry course.

He explained that he had been to Russia during when he had a "major business" there and said he "had a great relationship with the people of Russia."

Asked later to elaborate on what he admires about Putin, Trump said, "I didn't say I admire him." He declined to answer a follow up question about which world leaders he admired, saying, "I don't want to get into that."

He didn't just predict a good relationship with Putin. Trump also said he would be "very close" with Britain and that the U.S. would have "such a great relationship with this part of the world and I think many other parts of the world." He said he would also be able to get along well with people from China.

"The problem we have is the people running China, Mexico, Japan, all of the leaders of those countries are much sharper, smarter, more cunning than our leaders and they're taking advantage of us," Trump said.

Trump placed first among 2016 Republican candidates in a new poll by Quinnipiac University. Twenty percent of Republican voters said they would vote for him to be the GOP nominee, though he also the candidate with the highest unfavorable numbers: About 30 percent of respondents said they would definitely not vote for him.

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 #16
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
July 30, 2015
Can Moscow bet on 'Trump card' in U.S.?; Obama takes Africa for a tango; Kyrgyzstan casts its lot in with Russia
RBTH presents its weekly analytical program TROIKA REPORT, featuring a look at three of the most high-profile recent developments in international affairs
Sergey Strokan, Vladimir Mikheev, special to RBTH

1. Engaging the West
U.S. presidential race: Can Moscow bet on 'Trump card'?

The meteoric rise of eccentric billionaire Donald Trump to become the favorite Republican candidate in the U.S. presidential nomination race has catapulted the issue of disengagement with Russia back onto the political agenda. Washington's policy of containment toward Russia has been pushed back to the forefront of the usually U.S.-centered campaign, with Trump positioning himself as a better partner for the Russian president than Barack Obama.

The biggest surprise came at a public meeting when Trump said, on the topic of potential relations with Russian leader Vladimir Putin: "I think we would get along very, very well." He also rejected the neoconservative foreign-policy orthodoxy, putting to doubt the expediency of Washington's involvement in the Middle East since the 2003 war in Iraq, and suggesting it would better suit American national interests to engage Putin's Russia rather than alienate it and force it to search for allies elsewhere.

It was not the first time that Trump had made fine-tuned comments about Russia. In April last year, after what is seen in the West as the Russian takeover of Crimea, Trump, in an interview with Fox News, said that Putin deserved credit for strengthening the international prestige of his country. In June this year, Trump reminded that everyone in the U.S. agreed that everything should be done to avoid Russia and China coming together, yet Obama did just the opposite.

The American mainstream media mocks Trump. But since voters with a distinct pro-Republican leaning are still shopping for an acceptable candidate to run for the presidency, it does not make sense to dismiss the messages of Donald Trump as pure demagoguery. Nor should too much attention be devoted to his politically incorrect lambasting of Mexican migrants, which, while deserving the outrage with which it was met, does not constitute the essence of the alternative embodied in the figure of this flamboyant maverick.

Trump's critical assessment of the U.S. administration's foreign policy seem to resonate with Republican supporters. Still, what is the root cause of Trump's appeal and current ratings? Edward Lozansky, president of the American University in Moscow (and member of the Republican Party), provided his insight into Trump's phenomenon:

"Nobody expected that Trump can be a serious candidate... and then suddenly the public, which is supposed to make the ultimate decision, took a liking to him. Other politicians, they talk, talk, talk and promise many things but cannot deliver. Trump is the guy who can deliver. It is not easy to build a business empire worth some 9 billion dollars. He's got property all over the place, he is well known. People are hungry for some new personality. But the Republican Party's establishment does not want him. And what can happen, he can create a third party. We had a precedent with Ross Perot. Trump does not need fund-raising; he's got his own money. It could be a very interesting phenomenon. The campaign was pretty boring. Now it is exciting."

- Trump's positive pronouncements about a dialogue with Russia have reopened the debate among the U.S. Democrats and Republicans on "who lost Russia." Is this something that remains on the radar of U.S. politicians?

"At this point, Trump is the only candidate for nomination in the presidential race, both from the Republican and the Democratic side, who believes he can improve relations with Russia, which are now reaching a dangerous point. Almost every day we hear from an American general or a politician that Russia is the greatest threat to the United States. It might be said to score some political points. But the American people, I think, do not want confrontation with Russia. Trump claims he is the only one who can make a deal. Trump is a businessman, and business people, they want to make deals. He believes that he and Putin can make a deal."

- Plenty of American political scene-watchers believe that Donald Trump will not secure nomination approval, let alone become the next U.S. president...

"If I were Trump or his advisor, I would definitely advise him to form a third party instead of fighting the Republican Party's establishment. And then, who knows, a miracle could happen, and we could see not only a new face on the American political stage but also a dramatic improvement in U.S.-Russia relations."

You do not need to be a fortuneteller to predict that Donald Trump will not last the course in this race. Yet Troika Report strongly believes that the legacy of his participation is here to stay. The final Republican nominee for the 2016 presidential race may well incorporate a good portion of the bold approach articulated by the daredevil outsider into their policy.

Moscow would dearly love to bet on this "Trump card" but his chances of making it to the top are unconvincing at best. Yet his surge to prominence serves as an indication that some Americans are seeking alternatives so desperately that they can forgive the man for his boisterous claim to become the "greatest jobs president that God ever created" and make America "great again."
 
2. Globally speaking
Obama takes Africa for a tango as Russia looks on

Africa has once again become a much-sought prize in the geopolitical "great game." While U.S. President Barack Obama danced the Lipala, a traditional Kenyan dance, voiced his concern over the plight of elephants and rhinos, and promoted gay marriage on a visit to the land of his ancestors last week, the proceedings were watched closely in Moscow, and especially in Beijing.

The billion dollar question was whether Obama's trip signals that the United States is planning a drive to push aside the Chinese in Africa. Most expectations centered on the co-chairmanship of Obama and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta of The Global Entrepreneurship Summit held in Nairobi. Surprisingly, forecasts fell flat.

Obama gave himself credit for prolonging for another 10 years the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which provides a favorable regime for business endeavors. But apart from praising Africa as one of the most dynamic markets in the world and the tenacity of its people, Obama made no specific commitment to facilitate the continent becoming, as he professed, the "new center of global economic growth."

Obama brought to East Africa no aid packages or social programs to be financed by the U.S. federal budget. He did not intend to steal the thunder from the Chinese, either due to a lack of available giveaways or sensing the futility of the task.

Furthermore, Obama slipped on a banana skin when pushing for gay and lesbian marriages in Kenya. "Our culture, our societies don't accept. This is why I repeatedly say that, for Kenyans today, the issue of gay rights is really a non-issue," President Uhuru Kenyatta declared. However, this controversy did not spoil everything irredeemably, and Obama made the most out of the nostalgic visit to meet his distant relatives.

Does Barack Obama's diplomatic offensive have the potential to challenge the dominant position of China in Africa? Andrei Urnov, ex-Russian ambassador to Namibia, and head research fellow at the Institute of African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, made this comment for Troika Report:

"I can say that he has been trying, quite persistently, from the very beginning of his presidency. In 2013, Obama toured Africa, visiting three countries. Then, in August 2014 there was a U.S.-Africa summit in Washington, D.C. Today, he is pursuing this policy line to strengthen the U.S. position on the continent. He is motivated by geopolitical considerations. After all, he did declare that the United States is going to be the world leader. Yet there is a problem: competition and even rivalry with China. Most observers claim that the U.S. is losing the 'battle for Africa' to China. Now the U.S. is trying to re-establish its dominant position on the African continent.

"It's unclear whether Obama will succeed but from the point of view of American interests, what he is doing is quite rational. He has scored some successes."

- Where does Russia stand in this tug-of-war given that its predecessor, the Soviet Union, had plenty of strongholds and strong influence in Africa?

"Russia is competing neither with China nor with the United States. There are two sets of opinions in our expert community. Some say that Russia has been coming back to Africa recently. Others claim that it had never left. I am inclined to support the first opinion: We are coming back. We have a productive relationship with Egypt, among others, and with South Africa which is a member of the BRICS group. Our companies are not very persistent or skillful in opening up Africa. We are not in competition with anyone. We simply have our own niche."

Despite not being in the frontline trenches, Russia is viewed by Washington policy-makers as an integral part of any potential threat posed by the BRICS alliance given its more articulate tension with the G7/NATO groupings.

"The major East African states of Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania are orienting themselves eastward towards the BRICS", claim analysts and frontier markets specialists at DaMina Advisors, a research and regulatory consulting firm.

The trade turnover between Africa and China has reached $200 billion compared to $73 with the United States. The threefold disparity demonstrates how far ahead China is in its courting of the energy- and mineral-rich continent.

Just one telling detail: When Barack Obama addressed the 54-nation African Union states in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, he was speaking from the podium of AU headquarters buildings built with funds provided by China.

To some extent, this fact compromises the axiom spelled out by Henry Kissinger that "foreign policy should not be confused with missionary work." China's missionary overtures to Africa are paying back, are they not?
 
3. Going Eastward
Kyrgyzstan dismisses U.S. in favor of Russia and China

After a quarter of a century of independence, Kyrgyzstan, a small and impoverished nation in Central Asia, has finally chosen its strategic partners, parting ways with the United States and joining Russia and China.

Bishkek's recent decision to declare null and void the 1993 Bilateral Agreement with the United States coincided with the finalization of Kyrgyzstan's accession to the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Customs offices will be closed down in early August.

As a follow-up, Kyrgyz leaders have publicly defined other priority foreign partners: China, Iran and Germany. Not a single mention of the United States. This signal implies that Bishkek has finally sorted out its geopolitical orientation and chosen those in its geographical proximity as its patrons.

The great "chess game" around Kyrgyzstan's allegiance was a saga in itself. The retreat of the U.S. went through several stages. From 2001 onward the U.S. had strong footprint here due to its air supply hub at Manas International Airport, near the capital of Kyrgyzstan. The base served to source Western troops with ammunition and supplies in Afghanistan during the campaign against the Taliban.

However, the U.S. air base, which was the target of criticism by local officials, some of them counting on extortion tactics in order to secure a bigger rent payment, was dismantled last year.

The sudden rupture of multiple ties with Washington was largely triggered off by the provocative move of the U.S. State Department to award a human rights prize to Azimjon Askarov, an ethnically Uzbek Kyrgyz activist who is serving a life sentence for killing a policeman and on charges of inciting ethnic hatred that led to ethnic riots and violence between the country's Kyrgyz and Uzbek communities in 2010.

The "suddenness" of the renouncement of the agreement with the U.S. was long prepared by the simmering suspicions of the Kyrgyz leadership that Washington was using NGOs and grants to selected opposition groups as part of the "regime-change strategy" critics claim it has actively pursued in a number of the post-Soviet republics.

The cancelation of the agreement with the U.S. came in the wake of a special law ratified by the parliament of Kyrgyzstan on June 4, 2015. The law, which essentially replicates controversial legislation passed in Russia in 2012, demands that NGOs which receive money from public and private sources abroad register as "foreign agents," a politically loaded term. All in all, this represents a significant turnaround in Bishkek's foreign policy because it has been involved in a number social and security arrangement with the United States since gaining independence in 1991.

Troika Report spoke with Alexander Karavayev, deputy director of the Center of post-Soviet space and CIS Studies at Moscow State University, asking for his take on the implications of Bishkek's decision to abandon its time-honored equidistant foreign policy towards, in general terms, the West and the East:

"In the last 25 years, the Kyrgyz elite were balancing between several centers of global power without making a final choice on whom to join. Development trends placed Kyrgyzstan in the frontier zone between a dynamically expanding China and Russia's attempts to rally post-Soviet republics into an economic union.

"The United States positioned itself as sponsor of social modernization in Central Asia, although these states were actually choosing between the two powerful players closer to them, China and Russia, or welcoming both of them. Kyrgyzstan went for the second option, which left no space for the third player, the U.S."

Bishkek's "pivot" to its neighboring major powers was driven by the economic and politically strategic benefits of this long-term alignment. The Kyrgyz economy is kept afloat predominantly by the resale of cheap Chinese commodities like electronic devices and agricultural products: Three-quarters of these "Made in China" goods are shipped further on to other Central Asian states and Russia.

While Chinese electric fans and microwaves stock local warehouses for re-export, it is Russian oil that powers and heats Kyrgyzstan. Russia accounts for nearly 34 percent of Kyrgyz imports. Together, Russia and China form a unique duo of trading partners and purveyors of energy, goods, and investment for Bishkek.

However, on Kyrgyz terrain Russia and China cannot but compete with each other for profits and influence. In particular, by joining the EEU, Kyrgyzstan will be forced to abide by certain procedures and standards, making it difficult to make extra profits from the re-export of Chinese cheap products.

The most pluralistic of the Central Asian republics, with a peculiar political class consisting of Moscow-leaning integrationists, pagan nationalists, and small-time opportunists (seeking fast profits from rich donors), Kyrgyzstan faces another serious challenge: the choice of security providers, both internally and externally.

The ruling elite are apprehensive of the dangers of dissent, both home-grown and sponsored from abroad, as well as of the ethnic hostilities, which for now have been swept under the carpet. The threat of local nascent Islamists and potential incursions by the established brands of Islamic radicals (Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Al-Qaeda, Islamic State, etc.) articulates the need to seek partnerships and alliances.

For these reasons, and not only due to economic rationale, Moscow and Beijing are viewed by the team in command in Bishkek as the best guarantors of peace and stability in the region.

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 #17
Washington Post
July 31, 2015
Small thaw in U.S.-Russian relations at the Alaska frontier
By Ryan Schuessler
Schuessler is a freelance writer.

ANCHORAGE - The United States and Russia are in the midst of their most tense relations since the Cold War, but for a small number of residents of both countries, things are warming up a bit.

It will now be easier and cheaper for Alaska Native and Russia Native residents to travel across the Bering Strait to visit relatives on the other side.

Last week, officials announced updates to an agreement that allows such indigenous residents of Alaska and Russia's Chukchi Peninsula to travel between the two countries without a visa for stays of up to 90 days.

This will mean that some Alaska Natives will be able to visit friends and family in Russia without having to pay for a visa - a cost of at least $160 - or wait for that application to be processed.

The agreement requires that these travelers be residents of the designated areas in Alaska or Chukchi and have a documented invitation from a resident on the other side.

The indigenous people of the region share cultural, linguistic and family ties with their counterparts on either side of the maritime boundary between Russia and the United States. After the end of the Cold War, the Russian and American communities started to ­reestablish ties long cut off by the "Ice Curtain."

"I think it's important, because culturally and traditionally it's an exchange that's been happening for a long time," said Vera Metcalf, an Alaska Native leader in Nome who worked closely with the State Department to get visa-free travel to Russia established. "Hopefully, it will continue, and our relatives and friends can see each other and visit," Metcalf said.

The bilateral agreement was originally signed between the United States and the Soviet Union in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in 1989. Native residents of Chukchi have been traveling to Alaska without a visa since 1989, peaking when 355 people crossed in 1994, according to the regional government's Web site.

But over the past three years, eligible Alaska Natives had not been allowed the same opportunity, according to a State Department spokesperson, because of unspecified "administrative issues."

Those issues have been resolved, and Alaska Native residents of the Nome and Kobuk census areas can now travel to Chukchi without a visa.

"I know we have family and relatives over there, and we want to keep visiting," Metcalf said.

At their closest point, the Russian and American mainlands are separated by 55 miles of water, though there are small islands in the Bering Sea that are less than three miles apart.

American entry checkpoints for the program are in the Alaskan towns of Nome and Gambell. In Russia, they are in Anadyr, Provideniya, Lavrentiya and Uelen.

Not all indigenous residents of Alaska or Russia are eligible. Only those in the Bering Strait region can travel without a visa. Other indigenous populations that stretch across the border, such as the Unangax, who live in Alaska's Aleutian and Pribilof islands and Russia's Commander Islands, must continue to apply for visas.

Since the Cold War ended, Patricia Lekanoff-Gregory has made five trips from her home in Alaska's Aleutian Islands to visit Russian Unangax to participate in cultural exchange programs in the Commander Islands.

Since the early 1990s, Russian and American Unangax have been visiting each other's communities, including as part of a short-lived student exchange in the early 2000s.

But for the islands' native Unangax, there is no visa-free arrangement to shield them from deteriorating relations between Russia and the United States that have hampered efforts to reconnect communities across the strait.

Lekanoff-Gregory, who has been waiting weeks for her visa to be approved, added that it has become more difficult to make the trip in recent years. She will have to fly from Alaska to Los Angeles, then to East Asia before making her way north to Russia and then to the Commander Islands, which are only 500 miles west of her home.

"Maybe in the future, we can start thinking about including other locations in the agreement," Metcalf said. "But there would have to be other negotiations to include other areas."

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#18
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
July 30, 2015
Moscow can't remain indifferent to ISIS threat in Afghanistan
As ISIS shows growing signs of extending its scope and reach to Afghanistan, it's leading to difficult new questions for Russia about how best to deal with this emerging security threat.
By Nikolay Pakhomov
Nikolay Pakhomov is a geopolitical risk consultant and an expert at the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC). He is a commentator in a number of Russian and international media outlets.

The start of officially recognized talks with the Taliban, sanctioned by Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, is in itself a remarkable event. But a closer look reveals a more curious underlying motive - the growing presence of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Greater Syria (ISIS) is forcing the participants in the Afghan conflict to rethink their tactics and strategy.  

On the one hand, the chances of reaching an agreement are improving, but on the other, any arrangement might prove ineffective in dealing with the ISIS threat. All told, the complex fight against radical Islamism requires not just the intervention of a leading power, but also cooperation among several influential countries.  
Given the proximity of Afghanistan to the post-Soviet republics of Central Asia and Russia's borders, Moscow cannot remain indifferent to Afghanistan, where ISIS is a growing menace.

What's behind Kabul's call for conciliatory talks?

The dispatch of a delegation to Pakistan to begin talks with the Taliban was announced in early July by Ashraf Ghani himself. The announcement triggered numerous questions: Why in Pakistan? Why right now? Is it the recognition of the Taliban's defeat or official Kabul's failure? What common ground is there?

At first glance, the Afghan president's announcement was not directly related to the increasing reports of intense fighting in eastern Afghanistan, where groups swearing allegiance to ISIS are battling not only the official Afghan army, but also units under the Taliban, which traditionally has a strong footing in the east.

Against the backdrop of these reports, it is difficult not to be struck by how rapidly and effectively ideas and information spread in the modern world, taking physical form and forcing even the most powerful players in world politics to sit up and take note.

The explosive potential of ISIS

Just one year has passed since the official proclamation of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Greater Syria. Even if one acknowledges that ISIS militants have proved themselves an effective force on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria, it is hard not to wonder at how quickly the idea of ISIS has gained momentum among Islamic extremists thousands of kilometers from Iraq and Syria with no direct link to ISIS.

It used to take groups such as Al-Qaeda years of toil to build a command and operational structure, which even then resulted in a fringe organization known only to members and experts for a long time. Today, however, after just one year, ISIS has the allegiance of both experienced groups (for instance, in Afghanistan) and lone wolf terrorist amateurs.

ISIS effectively exists in two forms - as a functioning terrorist proto-state and as the inspiration for a global alliance of militant Islamic fundamentalists. In the space of just one year, this idea has been sold all over the planet, attracting even Taliban members in eastern Afghanistan, who have turned their weapons against their former commanders and leaders in Qatar and Pakistan.

Curiously, the news about the start of talks in Pakistan revealed a split between these two factions of the Taliban leadership - the Qatar group, until recently internationally recognized as the official representation, protested against what it saw as the machinations of the Pakistani intelligence services in the negotiating process.

Pakistan's elaborate game

Needless to say, it is completely unexpected to see the Taliban criticizing the Pakistani intelligence services, which many consider to be the creators and chief sponsors of their movement. To all appearances, the Qatari faction either fears losing control over Taliban troops in Afghanistan, or has already lost it.

Recently some observers (though not officially) in Afghanistan have voiced accusations against Islamabad that ISIS units on Afghan soil are just another project on the part of the Pakistani intelligence services, which have lost faith in the Taliban. If these allegations are true, Pakistan is clearly playing with fire: if the number of groups pledging allegiance to the "terrorist international" is on the rise, they are set to become a self-sufficient force, which will reduce the ability of Pakistani intelligence to control events in Afghanistan.

In any case, Islamabad's support for the talks between the Taliban and official Kabul testifies to Pakistan's interest in stabilizing the situation in its neighbor.

Given that all sides in the region want stability in the country, it is not surprising that they are eager to sit behind the table: ISIS is a new player in Afghanistan, but one that could shuffle the cards. For ordinary fighters inspired by the ideas of Islamic fundamentalism and the struggle against the West, the contrast is plain to see: on one side is the Taliban, a regime which held out for just a few weeks against the international intervention in Afghanistan, and on the other is ISIS, which continues to expand its influence in a climate of general confusion and indecision on the part of both Middle Eastern rulers and Western capitals.

The common enemy

The reality is, of course, more complicated, but propaganda-wise the Taliban is finding it hard to compete with ISIS. Therefore, there is every indication that the consolidation of ISIS in Afghanistan is one of the main reasons for kick-starting talks between the Taliban and Kabul.

These negotiations even have the backing of the United States, and U.S. officials are involved as observers, as too are Chinese diplomats. A quick glance at the map shows that the east of Afghanistan, where ISIS has a foothold, is a stone's throw from Chinese Turkestan, where Islamic fundamentalists are not in short supply and ISIS propaganda is making the rounds.

As ISIS becomes more active in the east, the Taliban is consolidating in the north - the past couple of months have seen sporadic heavy fighting around the region's central city of Kunduz. Eyewitnesses note that the ranks of local Taliban units are swelling with soldiers and commanders from Central Asia. If the appeal of ISIS spreads to the north of Afghanistan, the ISIS threat to Central Asia will rise sharply.

It is not surprising that since spring Tajikistan has been keen to draw the attention of its partners under the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to the need for more thorough monitoring of the situation in Afghanistan, and to keep the organization on high alert should the situation deteriorate. Russia has the final say on CSTO matters, and for Russian foreign policy the influence of ISIS in Afghanistan is a serious challenge.

The challenge is common to both Russia and China. Unsurprisingly, the situation in Afghanistan was widely discussed at the recent SCO summit in Ufa, the final declaration of which expressed concern about the rise in international terrorism, spoke of the intention to combat religious extremism, and announced support efforts aimed at establishing peace in Afghanistan. The process, launched at Ufa, of admitting Pakistan and India as SCO members could enhance the organization's future capacity to address the problems of Afghanistan.

One should keep in mind that the circle of countries interested in the quickest possible settlement of the situation in Afghanistan is not limited to Pakistan, China, India and Russia.

Fortuitously or otherwise, the news of the talks in Pakistan coincided with an article in The Washington Post by General David Petraeus and senior fellow Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution. The authors recommend not only abandoning the idea of a near-total withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan before the end of 2016 (even U.S. officials are now skeptical that it can be done), but, on the contrary, increasing America's presence in the country.

Their argument is that without the United States, Afghanistan will become a haven for Islamic terrorists, including ones loyal to ISIS. Against the backdrop of events in Afghanistan today, this argument could resonate, if not with ordinary Americans, then with the decision-makers - never mind that the last decade has illustrated the limits of U.S. policy in the resolution of Afghan issues. However, in collaboration with the SCO or its leaders - Russia and China - the potency of U.S. efforts would increase significantly.
 

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 #19
The Economist
August 1, 2015
Russia and the world
Making waves, if not ruling them
With a mixture of bluff and opportunism, Vladimir Putin is talking up his country's diplomatic and strategic power

MORE than a year after America and its allies set out to punish the Kremlin for backing rebels in Ukraine and annexing Crimea, Russia is finding new friends and dealing with the West from a position of growing strength. At any rate, that is the message that Vladimir Putin has been delivering to his own people and anybody else who will listen.

In his latest flexing of muscles, the president set out a naval doctrine on July 26th which aspires to challenge the Atlantic alliance in all its areas of operation, in reply to NATO's "unacceptable" plans to move some forces close to Russia and expand its global reach. He wants an ocean-going navy, especially active in the Arctic and the Atlantic, to replace a fleet whose ageing ships mostly hug the coast.

This capped a month of diplomatic showmanship, in which the Russian city of Ufa, on the boundary between Europe and Asia, hosted summits of two organisations which aspire to challenge America's global leadership. One is a mainly economic club known as the BRICS (including Brazil, India, China and South Africa); the other is the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO), focused on defence, which includes China and the ex-Soviet republics of Central Asia and has just gathered in both India and Pakistan.

As Russia's state media told the story, the BRICS meeting was a new step in the construction of a counter-weight to the Western financial system; it established a $100 billion currency reserve fund which would emulate the IMF's role as a stabiliser of monetary crises, and confirmed plans for a $100 billion development bank. The clear message was that, despite being excluded from Western capital markets, Russia has alternative economic partners.

In the tart words of Andrei Klimov, deputy head of the Federation Council's foreign relations committee: "When a person turns his back on you, you have two choices-you can run after that person, or you can start to talk to other people."

Meanwhile the sealing on July 14th of a nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, led by America but including Russia, allowed the Kremlin to argue that the West still needs it. When Barack Obama thanked Mr Putin for his help with the accord, this seemed to boost the hope of some Russian officials that the West might give ground over Ukraine, or elsewhere in eastern Europe, because it craves Russian help in places like Iran or Syria.

In a quieter display of soft power, Mr Putin's advocacy of "traditional values" got a fillip on July 3rd when, at the UN Human Rights Council, a motion lauding the conventional family was carried by a clear majority, led by Russia and Islamic states, against opposition from America and western Europe, which wanted a mention of new realities like gay partnerships.

Alexei Pushkov, who chairs the Duma's foreign-affairs committee, sees in the American Supreme Court ruling establishing gay marriage one more chance for Russian-led pushback. America will try and fail to propagate such unions, he says.

But behind all the self-confident talk, over economics, defence or values, how well is Russia resisting Western pressure? In the cold light of day, Mr Putin's rhetoric looks like a mixture of vain boasts and calculated realism (see article).

Above all, China seems unlikely to meet Russia's hopes, either as a provider of capital or as a security partner. Its economy towers over Russia's and it does not share Mr Putin's keenness to pick fights with the West. According to Angela Stent, a professor at America's Georgetown University, most of the economic benefits from Sino-Russian co-operation are still far off. Talks on a pipeline taking Russian gas to China foundered this week. In China plans for an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a development body that excludes America, takes priority over any BRICS project.

Nor is the SCO about to become a close-knit club comparable to NATO. Although China buys Russian weapons, the countries have their differences over security; for example, China resents Russia's enduring ties with Vietnam. And Russia's expansionism in Ukraine has made other neighbours, like Kazakhstan, more wary.

The Iran accord is also a mixed blessing for Russia. As Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the journal Russia in Global Affairs, points out, Russia resisted economic sanctions against Iran (while going along with them in deference to its Western partners) so it should logically gain from their removal. But the deal could hurt Russia by lowering world oil prices and bringing new gas supplies to Europe; and under the letter of the deal, Russia will not be able to sell arms to Iran, as it badly wants to do, for at least five years. The real prize for Russia could come from unhappiness over the deal in Saudi Arabia, which is annoyed with America and looking for fresh financial partners.

Of all Russia's initiatives, it is the naval expansion, part of a big drive to rearm that seems immune to budget cuts, that will be studied most in Western capitals. Russian yards have lost the capacity to build big surface ships, especially without access to parts from Ukraine. Its sole aircraft carrier is 30 years old and hardly seaworthy. It will be lucky if, as proposed, a new one can be launched towards 2030.

But Russia has always been able to make stealthy, deadly submarines, and it seems to have solved some problems with new types of conventional and nuclear-capable subs. Three of the latest sort of nuclear-armed boat are now plunging the ocean's depths; seven more are planned. Although America's navy, which soon aims to exceed 300 large ships, dwarfs all others, Russia's naval effort is serious. The new doctrine implies eventually being able to confront NATO in every ocean where Western navies sail, albeit in ways short of war, says Peter Roberts, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a think-tank in London.

With its economy crimped-more than it admits-by Western sanctions, Russia's best hope of fulfilling such a plan lies in persuading citizens to tighten their belts for the sake of a nation that supposedly faces a perpetual American peril. For Anna Glazova, of the Kremlin-linked Institute of Strategic Research, there is ample evidence of such a threat: proof positive is provided by the fact that Mr Obama once mentioned Russian misbehaviour, the Ebola virus and Islamic State terror all in the same speech.

For anyone who recalls Soviet times, this mix of defensiveness and defiance feels familiar. And in case proof were needed of Russia's determination to say nyet, it vetoed, on July 29th, a UN security council resolution to create a tribunal to probe last year's downing of a Malaysian airliner over rebel territory in Ukraine.

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 #20
www.rt.com
July 30, 2015
Why does the Western liberal media love Russian criminals?
By Bryan MacDonald
Bryan MacDonald is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and teacher. He began his career in journalism aged 15 in his home town of Carlow, Ireland, with the Nationalist & Leinster Times, while still a schoolboy. Later he studied journalism in Dublin and worked for the Weekender in Navan before joining the Irish Independent. Following a period in London, he joined Ireland On Sunday, later the Irish Mail on Sunday. He was theater critic of the Daily Mail for a period and also worked in news, features and was a regular op-ed writer. Bryan also worked in Los Angeles. He has also frequently appeared on RTE and Newstalk in Ireland as well as RT. Bryan is particularly interested in social equality, European geopolitics, sport and languages. He has lived in Berlin, Russia and the USA.

When you lie down with the dogs, you wake up with the fleas. Western media is shattering its own credibility by soft-soaping post-Soviet criminals.

"We have lost all the things we had with Yeltsin. It's a great tragedy for Russia and its people." One reads the line twice, to absorb the distance between perception and reality, and to realise how superficial the media can be.

According to the Guardian's Luke Harding, Sergei Pugachev uttered the above last week in Nice, France. If I didn't know better, I'd swear Harding and Pugachev were trying to be funny. Alas, I do know better and they were not.

Anybody who knows even the smallest amount about Russia is fully aware that the 90s are regarded as the nation's nadir. Most political figures of the age are about as well regarded as tooth-extraction, without anesthetic. Russians over-30 can't help but shudder when the subject is broached. It was a stretch of extraordinary suffering in Russia. It was also a period when lawlessness ruled.

The Yeltsin-era is remembered as a time when the president was an alcohol-swilling halfwit, and Chechnya was trying to separate from the then chaotic Russian state. Supermarket shelves, while not necessarily empty, certainly lacked variety. Medical specialists were earning a meager $75 a month (if they were lucky) and life expectancy for males had dropped to a shocking 57 years.

By the start of Yeltsin's second term, Russia's death rate had passed immediate post-war levels. Curable diseases such as measles and diphtheria had reached epidemic numbers unseen since the Romanov's ruled from Petrograd. At the same time, rates of cancer, heart disease and tuberculosis were the highest of any industrialized country in the world.

The birthrate had collapsed. In Moscow, it was as low as 8.2 per 1,000 population. Amidst all this, the world's largest country was being run by a small clique of amazingly wealthy oligarchs. Some of them - like Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky and Gusinsky - became household names and hate figures for ordinary Russians. Rather than investing their stolen money in the Russian economy, the kleptocrats shipped their cash to New York and London. Naturally, Yeltsin was very popular with politicians in the West - especially in the US and Great Britain.

That Riviera Touch

Back in 2008, the Guardian hadn't completed its commercially-driven about-turn to American style right-wing values. Still clinging to the compassionate British left philosophy that was once its trademark, it told the truth about Yeltsin's Russia. The oligarchs were "about as popular with your average Russian as a man idly burning bundles of £50s outside an orphanage,"wrote Andrew Mueller.

In a bout of revisionism that would impress Plato himself, Harding and Pugachev want us to believe that 90's Russia was a great place. In reality, it was a humiliated country on the verge of implosion; a wild society where basic human dignity was frequently absent. In the interview - in which Harding notably questions Pugachev in English - the Guardian reporter makes no attempt to query how the fugitive manages to live in the south of France after his passports were impounded in Britain. Nor does he establish why Pugachev would feel safer in Nice than in London. Proportionally, there are far more Russians on the Cote D'Azur than in the UK capital.

Pugachev is currently on an Interpol wanted list. In 2010, his Moscow bank Mezhprombank defaulted on its debts and lost its license. Since then, Russia's Deposit Insurance Agency has been trying to prosecute the former billionaire. Back in March, Pugachev told the Financial Times that he couldn't afford a lawyer. He revealed to Harding that he still had $70 million. British justice, while expensive, is not that expensive.

Harding's interview with Pugachev was just the latest in a series of Western media puff-pieces where post-Soviet criminal suspects can have the past practically whitewashed in exchange for delivering a few anti-Putin sound bites.

It's "just not right"

Just imagine the London media reaction if Moscow-based financial newspaper Vedomosti, for example, began to soft-soap wanted English criminals because they were prepared to bad-mouth David Cameron? Russia's ambassador to London, Alexander Yakovenko, mentioned on Twitter that "dozens of persons on Russia's extradition list" are in the UK.

This was in response to David Cameron's 'crusade' against dirty money. A movement he has joined with all the enthusiasm of a 'Sloane Ranger' sipping pints at a Workingman's club in Sunderland.

There's also the case of Andrei Borodin. Wanted in Russia on corruption and fraud charges, he bought Britain's most expensive house for £140 million in Henley-on-Thames. That's $218 million for a house. The UK media aren't interested in where the money came from, of course. Alexander Lebedev, part-owner of Russia's leading opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta, has described Britain's decision to grant Borodin asylum as "just not right." It should be noted that Lebedev is no fan of the Kremlin, or President Putin.

Another former Guardian favorite was the late billionaire businessman Boris Berezovsky, who admitted to helping fix the 1996 Russian Presidential election, via his TV channels, as mentioned by Harding in 2013 (Berezovsky, wanted by the Russian authorities, died in strange circumstances in 2013). However, in Harding's interview with Pugachev, he leaves unchallenged the latter's assertion that 1996 was "Russia's last free election." Even former Yeltsin-era Minister Anatoly Chubais has admitted violations in the 1996 poll. This Exile magazine piece from 2007, by Alexander Zaitchik and Mark Ames, gives more background on how the West cynically ignored wrong-doing to serve its own ends.

The Kremlin critics do not necessarily have to be Russian. Georgia's former President Mikhail Saakashvili, for example, is regularly wheeled out for some Putin bashing. Here in the Wall Street Journal for instance and also on BBC's HARDtalk show. This particular episode probably should have been dubbed 'Softtalk' - the questions were so harmless. Yet what most Western media ignores is that Saakashvili is a wanted criminal suspect in his homeland.

The Western press uncritically accepts convicted Russian criminals and fugitives from justice as martyrs. In obviously PR-agency organized interviews, they are allowed to embellish their reputations to their heart's content. However, there's a proviso, they must bad-mouth Russia's current government to the greatest possible extent. The more alleged insights into Putin's 'inner-circle' the more prominent the puff piece will be. If you only care about moral standards when they can be used against your enemies, then you probably don't really care about moral standards.

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 #21
The Economist
August 1, 2015
Russian foreign policy
Blind alley
Without a foreign-policy rethink, Russia is doomed to irrelevance and decline

Russia and the New World Disorder. By Bobo Lo. Brookings Institution Press and Chatham House; 341 pages; $34 and £25.50.

SEEN from the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin's foreign policy is a series of triumphs. He has killed NATO expansion, regained Crimea and exposed the weakness and hypo-crisy of the West. In Russia's eyes, argues Bobo Lo in a thoughtful new book, "the humiliated nation of the 1990s has metamorphosed into a resurgent global power". It is now "more independent, more indispensable, more self-confident, and more influential than at any time since the fall of the Soviet Union". As a result, it believes it can dictate the terms of its engagement with the West. The outside world must adjust to Russia, not the other way round, treating it as an equal, respected partner.

Mr Lo, a former Australian diplomat who now works at the Chatham House think-tank in London, adopts a commendably calm approach to a topic which attracts plenty of polemic. At every stage he outlines Russian views of the world fairly, and highlights Western mistakes and misapprehensions, before proceeding to paint the full picture in precise and sometimes scathing terms.

The fundamental problem is that the Kremlin's perception of the world is skewed. It exaggerates the West's weakness and its own strength. It prizes hard power, which it lacks, and persistently puts form over content in diplomacy. The international organisations that Russia trumpets, for example, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (a broad-based talking shop for Russia, China and Central Asia), the Eurasian Economic Union (a post-Soviet version of the European Union) or the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (an answer to NATO) are all empty shells. China regards Russia as a handy source of raw materials, not an ally: its priority is not confrontation with the West, but modernisation (at which Mr Putin's Russia has signally failed).

It gets worse. Russia depicts itself as a Eurasian power, but neither half of that idea works: it has marginalised itself in Europe, but is seen as an outsider by most Asian countries. Russia has largely failed to play a serious and constructive role in any attempts to solve the world's big problems.

Even its most vital interests in neighbouring ex-Soviet countries are ill-served. The war in Ukraine brought modest gains at a huge cost: a more patient approach, given the West's stinginess and apathy, could have kept the country firmly in the Kremlin's camp. Russia's bellicose stance has alarmed countries such as Kazakhstan and Belarus, which were previously its most loyal allies.

Some hawkish readers may find Mr Lo too fair-minded. He is quite kind about the Obama administration's ill-starred "reset". He underplays Russia's ability to make mischief in other countries, particularly the overlaps between organised crime, espionage, energy exports and propaganda. The growing recklessness in Kremlin decision-making, and swaggering talk about nuclear weapons, adds an alarming new element to the picture.

Somewhat puzzlingly, Mr Lo believes a better Russian foreign policy is not just necessary, but also possible. He berates pessimists for their "lazy fatalism" without fully explaining why gloom is misplaced. Russia still has assets: vast territory, resources and brainpower, he argues. It can and should use them, developing constructive relations with its neighbours, running its eastern territories properly in order to be taken seriously in Asia and promoting an image of reliability and pragmatism.

Perhaps. Russia's co-operative stance on brokering the nuclear deal with Iran shows that the country is not always and everywhere a deluded spoiler in world affairs. But Mr Lo's advice to the West is probably more practical. Outsiders should be braced for "episodes of unpleasantness". Responding to aggression with ingratiation is both ineffectual and immoral. In particular, the West should stop apologising for NATO enlargement, which has brought "unparalleled security and prosperity" to central and eastern Europe.

Mr Lo's book is the best attempt yet to explain Russia's unhappy relationship with the rest of the world. It does not make comforting reading. Nor should it.

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 #22
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
July 30, 2015
Ukraine's PM Yatsenyuk in 2012: Putin Is Russia's Saviour
By RT staff
[Yatsenyuk video here http://russia-insider.com/en/yatsenyuk-2012-putin-saved-russia-and-completed-his-historical-mission/ri9047]

Only three years ago Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk praised Putin as the man who saved Russia and implied Putin could be a model for him to follow in taking on the oligarchs

Nowadays he says Putin is worse than Hitler and a global threat more dangerous than ISIS

Drugs will do wonders! We too want some of those Nuland cookies he has been eating!

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 #23
Interfax-Ukraine
July 30, 2015
Avakov calls for Ukrainian military to become volunteer force due to difficulties with mobilization
 
Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has spoken in favor of rapidly reforming the Armed Forces of Ukraine into a professional volunteer army after the difficulties with mobilization.

"The army needs to be urgently switched to a professional contract basis, reducing the number of troops and increasing the pay to real skilled servicemen, as well as [increasing] their provision. Discipline, preparedness and motivation have advantages over numbers. This approach has a future, while catching conscripts in the streets and trams has none. As a minister and a member of the National Security and Defense Council I will put forward a proposal to apply such an approach without delay. I will appeal to the supreme commander-in-chief," Avakov wrote on his Facebook page on Thursday afternoon.

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#24
Valdai Discussion Club
http://valdaiclub.com
July 30, 2015
What Ukrainians Think About Their Leaders
By Mikhail Pogrebinsky
Mikhail Pogrebinsky is Director of Kiev Center for Political and Conflict Studies.
[Tables here http://valdaiclub.com/near_abroad/79880.html]

This article uses the latest opinion polls conducted by the Social Monitoring Center (SMC) and the Yaryomenko Ukrainian Institute for Social Studies jointly with the monitoring department of the Economics and Forecasting Institute of the National Academy of Sciences, the Kiev International Sociology Institute (KISI), the Razumkov Center (RC), and the Gorshenin Institute (a July poll in Kharkov).
 
There was a stormy media reaction in Ukraine to the latest KISI poll (conducted using the random sample personal interview method involving 2,022 respondents in Ukrainian-controlled areas - i.e., without Crimea but with Ukrainian-controlled parts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions - from June 27 to July 9, 2015).
 
The main news was the explosive growth of Yulia Tymoshenko's and her Batkyvshchina Party's ratings. Table 1 compares KISI polls for March, May and July (the latest), 2015, as well as the October 2014 parliamentary election returns. For convenience, the data represent both all respondents and those who know their own mind and are ready to go to the polls.

The presidential ratings changed along with the party rankings, and did so as dramatically in favor of Tymoshenko:

I am led to believe that the main reason why Tymoshenko and her party improved their ratings so dramatically in a matter of just one month (!?) is largely due to the adjustment of the sample. In July, in fact, 5% fewer respondents opted for "None of the above," and the number of self-declared election dodgers declined by half, with these shifts being particularly obvious in eastern and southern Ukraine, where the attitudes to Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk are highly negative. In the meantime, Tymoshenko, who has joined the majority coalition, reaches out for every opportunity to publicly accuse the prime minister of all mortal sins. Of course, there is also a flight of support votes from Yatsenyuk's Popular Front to Tymoshenko, whom public opinion does not hold accountable for the disastrous government policy.

Where Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk are concerned, the shrinking of their support base has been recorded throughout the last six months. Only 2% rate Poroshenko's performance as "very positive" and 25% as "rather positive" (27% in total). Negative ratings came from 55% of respondents (22%: "very negative"; 33%: "rather negative).  

Yatsenyuk's showing is even worse. Only 17% gave his performance good marks as against 67%, who think of him unfavorably.

However, these figures are not much different from assessments of any Ukrainian government's work a year or two after its advent to power. President Kuchma, President Yanukovych, Prime Minister Azarov and others were given approximately the same marks. In this sense, the Revolution of Dignity has even slightly aggravated the situation rather than improved it.

Held in 24 regions of Ukraine and in Kiev from March 13-20, 2015, the SMC poll involved 2,800 respondents, providing a detailed panorama of Ukrainian attitudes to the current national leaders. Almost a third (31.3%) said that they were only concerned with their personal well-being and career; 16.4% characterized them as weak persons incapable of wielding power and ensuring order and a consistent political course; 17.7% regard them as patriotic, albeit incompetent, people who don't know how to lead the country out of its economic crisis; 13.7% see them as "puppets" fully dependent on outside management; and only 14.5%  said that they were a good team of politicians that stayed on the right course. Let me add that the poll was conducted in March, when no one knew that foreigners would be appointed to government posts, that Saakashvili would be Odessa's governor, that a British company would be invited to run customs on the Western border, and so on.

Table 3 shows the level of trust in the key figures of the current Ukrainian ruling elite and in three former Ukrainian presidents. Since the SMC poll was conducted three-odd months earlier than the KISI poll, we should take into account the above-mentioned negative dynamics and the fresher KISI data. But here let us focus on two things. First, let us compare the levels of trust in Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk and in the Right Sector leader, Dmitry Yarosh. At 28.4% and 5.8% for Yatsenyuk (rather and fully trust, respectively) and 28.5% and 5.8% for Yarosh, the levels are pretty close. The only difference is that the number of those who do not trust Yatsenyuk is 3% higher than for Yarosh. One can hardly shed the sensation that these responses were obtained from the same groups of people. Regrettably, I cannot check this hypothesis for lack of access to the authentic data. Another thing is the characteristically close negative estimates of the level of trust in three Ukrainian ex-presidents, who pose as national gurus and support the policy of the current Ukrainian authorities.

The following table demonstrates that the so-called Revolution of Dignity has brought no qualitative changes, if anything, to the top ruling echelons.

It is only natural that the Kharkov polls (conducted by the Gorshenin Institute from July 4-17 using the random sample personal interview method; 1,214 respondents) were due to show more negative attitudes to the authorities than in Ukraine as a whole. Suffice it to say that 54% of respondents in Kharkov still have a positive attitude toward Russia (an aggressor country in the Verkhovna Rada terminology). President Poroshenko's performance is judged positively by 13% of respondents, twice as little as on the national scale. But the proportion of those who view his work negatively is 56%, the same as in Ukraine as a whole. Predictably, the indicator is heterogeneous internally: 33% gave him extremely negative marks, and 23%, just negative (the proportion is reversed in Ukraine!).

The Kharkov rating of presidential hopefuls is headed by Poroshenko (10% of respondents are ready to vote for him), for Kharkov residents have no candidate of their own. The runner-up is Yury Boiko (9%), leader of the parliamentary group of the Opposition Alliance (OA). The OA lead in the all-party ratings is incontestable (the line-up is approximately the same for local elections), with more than 21% of respondents prepared to vote for them. Following close on its heels is Lvov Mayor Anatoly Sadovy's Samopomich Party (8%), with Batkyvshchina and Poroshenko Bloc trailing behind with approximately 6% apiece.   

Let me present yet another poll conducted by the Razumkov Center's sociological service from March 6-12, 2015. They polled 2,009 respondents aged 18 years and older in all Ukrainian regions except Crimea and areas in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions uncontrolled by Kiev, using a sample representing the adult population by the main socio-demographic indicators. The theoretical margin of error is 2.3% with a probability of 0.95. The poll data are not particularly new, and I use them here simply to illustrate the similarity of results obtained by different sociological companies.

The poll indicates that President Poroshenko has the full support of 12.6 % of respondents, with 40.7% supporting only individual measures and 39.9% not supporting him (35.7% in December 2014). Verkhovna Rada Chairman Vladimir Groysman is fully supported by 6.2% of respondents, with 31.9% supporting only individual measures and 48.1% not supporting him (37.0% in December 2014). The Ukrainian government is fully supported by 4.5% of respondents, with 31.4% supporting only individual measures and 56.8% not supporting it (45.0% in December 2104). Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk is fully supported by 7.8% of respondents, with 29.3% supporting only individual measures and 56.7% not supporting him (44.5% in December 2014).

The activities of the National Bank of Ukraine is fully supported by 1.9% of respondents, with 10.5% supporting only individual measures and 77.3% not supporting it (71.0% in December 2014). Enjoying the most confidence among other institutions are the Church (66.2%), the Ukrainian Armed Forces (60.9%), the Ukrainian National Guard (56.7%), the Ukrainian media (50.2%) and public organizations (45.7%). These have more confidence than non-confidence votes.

The Ukrainian president is trusted by 43.6% of respondents and distrusted by 50.0%. National Bank Governor Valeria Gontareva is distrusted by 81.8% of respondents and trusted by a mere 5.0%, which is by far the highest level of distrust in the country.

The fact that a half of those polled trust the Ukrainian media, which have operated for two years under strict censorship performing propaganda functions, can explain the still decent level of trust in the president.

 

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 #25
AFP
July 31, 2015
Ukraine court permits pro-Russia rebels' self-rule

Ukraine's highest court on Friday allowed parliament to vote on Western-backed constitutional amendments aimed at stemming daily bloodshed by giving pro-Russian insurgents partial autonomy in the separatist east.

The idea of granting limited self-rule to rebellious parts of Ukraine's industrial war zone for three years has struck a note of disquiet among many lawmakers and much of the Kiev media.

But it was inscribed in a truce deal that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russia's Vladimir Putin signed off on in February in the Belarussian capital Minsk.

Parliament voted by an overwhelming majority on July 16 to ask Ukraine's constitutional court to rule whether such changes to the basic law were legal.

The former Soviet country's justice Vasyl Brintsev concluded without reservations that it was.

The idea of militia-run regions holding their own elections and setting up separate police forces "do not break or limit the rights and freedoms of (Ukrainian) people and citizens," Brintsev said in the decision.

The self-rule clause is part of a broader "decentralisation" proposal that should see Kiev cede some of its powers to all regions -- and assign especially broad ones to pro-Russian lands -- in the months to come.

One top Ukrainian deputy said a second of three votes on the changes should take place by the end of next month. Parliament would then need to muster a two-thirds majority in a final reading for the amendments to take effect.

Poroshenko called Friday's court ruling "an important step that moves us closer to momentous changes for the state."

- Buffer zone -

Both Washington and its EU allies believe that autonomy could satisfy separatist fighters and remove any arguments Russia may have for arming and funding their campaign -- support Moscow firmly denies ever giving.

But the suggested changes have been denounced as insufficient by the rebels and are unlikely to make an immediate impact on the ground.

Four civilians and three Ukrainian soldiers have been reported killed since Thursday in shelling attacks on disputed towns that straddle a frontline splitting the self-declared "people's republics" of Lugansk and Donetsk from the rest of Ukraine.

The entire separatist region -- about the size of Wales -- accounted for just 2.6 percent of Ukraine's population but 15 percent of its industrial production before the war broke out with Kiev's new pro-Western government in April 2014.

Poroshenko's critics question whether Ukraine will ever be able to rebuild its imploding economy with the east's powerful coal mines and steel mills still under the insurgents' control.

But Kiev's Western governments are pushing for a resolution that could help start mending their relations with Russia and building stability across European Union's unsettled eastern edge.

The Minsk accord also demands the "withdrawal of all foreign armed formations" and Kiev's reestablishment of full control of Ukraine's border with Russia by the end of the year.
Poroshenko depends on foreign support in his standoff with Russia and has been defending the Minsk agreements against its fiercest domestic critics.

He hopes to strike a new demilitarisation agreement with the insurgents on Monday that requires both sides to pull back smaller-scale weapons from what should become a 30-kilometre-wide (18-mile-wide) buffer zone.

US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said "we strongly support President Poroshenko's call to sign an agreement on the withdrawal of heavy weapons under 100 millimetres in calibre."

"We urge all sides to implement such an agreement immediately," he told reporters on Thursday.

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 #26
Ukraine's self-proclaimed republics urge Kiev to agree on Donbas special status

MOSCOW, July 31. /TASS/. Chief negotiators of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics (DPR and LPR) have urged Ukraine's representatives in the Contact Group on the Ukrainian crisis resolution and the sub-group on political issues to make the final agreement on the special status of Donbas.

"We request that you reach the final agreements on issues of enactment of the law on the special status, granting amnesty to the combat operations' participants both from the side of the militias and Ukraine, as well as the organization of local elections in Donbas under a separate special law," the DPR and LPR negotiators, Denis Pushilin and Vladislav Deinego, said in the run-up to a meeting of the Contact Group and its working sub-groups in the Belarusian capital Minsk due on August 3.

They also said that they have "once again sent to the Contact Group proposals on the settlement of these issues."

The LPR and DPR representatives said the republics were committed to fulfilling all the requirements of the Package of Measures to implement the Minsk agreements within the established deadlines.

"Therefore, we consider it necessary to accelerate our work. If we fail to settle these issues on August 3, we propose to Ukraine's representatives to continue the work in Minsk until August 4 and August 5, if need be. If it takes a week, we are ready to stay in Minsk for the whole week," the LPR and DPR representatives said in a joint statement posted on the website of the Luhansk Inform Center.

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 #27
DPR accuses Ukrainian military of 47 strikes in past 24 hours

DONETSK. July 31 (Interfax) - The Ukrainian Armed Forces have violated the ceasefire on 47 occasions in the past 24 hours, the Defense Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) has said.

"Fifty artillery shells with 152mm and 122mm calibers, 51 tank shells and 198 mines with 82mm and 120mm calibers have been fired against the territory of Donbas. Grenade launchers and small arms have been used as well," Eduard Basurin of the DPR Defense Ministry told reporters on Friday.

The strikes targeted the localities of Horlivka, Kalynivka, Zaitseve, Oleksandrivka, Lohvynove, Lozove, Nizhne Lozove, Staromykhailivka, Bela Kamenka, Zhabunki, Spartak, the Donetsk airport area and the Petrovsky district of Donetsk, he said.

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 #28
Catholic Herald (UK)
www.catholicherald.co.uk
July 30, 2015
Ukraine faces mass starvation and the exodus of millions, says bishop
Bishop Sobilo says his country faces its worst crisis since the Second World War
By Jonathan Luxmoore

The Russian-backed separatist rebellion has plunged Ukraine into its worst humanitarian crisis since the Second World War and "millions of refugees" could soon head for Europe to escape starvation, according to a Ukrainian bishop.

"Huge numbers are now caught between hammer and anvil; the separatists aren't looking after them, and the Ukrainian government won't care for them because they haven't declared which side they're on," said Auxiliary Bishop Jan Sobilo of Kharkiv-Zaporizhia.

"Not since World War II have we seen such poverty and destitution," he said.

"People are continually arriving at our Catholic communities asking for food, medicines, money and shelter," he said, noting they included young widows with small children, whose husbands have stayed in the war zone or been killed.

The bishop spoke as the Catholic Caritas organisation also warned of growing starvation and desperation in separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine.

Bishop Sobilo told the Catholic News Service that a lack of water currently posed the biggest problem in eastern Ukraine, where food prices were three times higher than in the rest of the country.

He added that local children would be unable to start the new school year because most schools were closed and that the Ukrainian authorities had hushed up a spiraling rate of suicides.

"Whereas family members and friends were ready to help for a month or two, most have now exhausted their money and savings and had to ask the refugees to move on," Bishop Sobilo said.

"Many elderly educated people, who previously had jobs, have been unable to face begging on the streets and have thrown themselves from windows and bridges. Such people often have no means of survival and no one to turn to, and have ended up starving."

Although Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denied direct Russian involvement in Ukraine, Church leaders repeatedly have accused Moscow of military intervention in the war. A United Nations report published in June said more than 6,400 people had died and 16,000 had been wounded.

In an interview with Germany's Cologne-based Dom Radio, Andrij Waskowycz, president of Caritas Ukraine, said 700,000 Ukrainians had now left the country, while 1.4 million more were internally displaced by the fighting and lacked basic necessities.

He said a February ceasefire agreement had failed to prevent daily skirmishes and conflicts, adding that at least 100,000 people were now without water in the separatist-controlled Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Bishop Sobilo said Church leaders had been promised access to Catholics by separatist forces, but had been barred from visiting the "occupied territories" by the Ukrainian troops controlling the makeshift borders.

He added that Western aid often failed to reach those in need and was "not always the right kind of help". He said it was "more effective and less wasteful" for Church donors to send money.

"This is a war of oligarchs, and any future peace will depend on the conversion of those oligarchs in Russia and Ukraine who've kept the conflict going with their lies," the bishop said.

"The West should get ready to accept the millions of homeless, hungry refugees who will soon head across central and western Ukraine toward Europe," he said. "Pope Francis has urged help for refugees from Africa, and we now have parts of Africa right here. Unless solidarity is shown with them, countless innocent people will die simply because they happened to live in an unlucky place during a conflict ignited by those with a personal interest in war and suffering."

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 #29
AFP
July 30, 2015
IMF: Ukraine economic picture 'incredibly encouraging'

Washington (AFP) - Ukraine's government is determined to undertake long-needed reforms, making the economic picture in the country very encouraging, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said Wednesday.

After a horrible track record with the global crisis lender over the past two decades, Lagarde said the current government is taking the necessary steps on fiscal reform and fighting corruption to turn the country around.

"Ukraine has been an incredibly encouraging situation," she said in an online press conference.

Despite the ongoing security challenge with pro-Moscow rebels occupying large parts of the country's east, "we have seen political determination to change the face of Ukraine," she said.

Confronted by a long list of deep-seated policy challenges, the country's leaders understand that "they have to attack on all fronts."

Despite strong forces threatening to destabilize the country, "the Ukrainian authorities have actually delivered," she said, showing "very strong political deliberation."

The encouraging words came amid doubts that the country can surmount all of its challenges -- including restructuring huge debts with private creditors and fending off pressure from secessionists -- to be able to restore the economy to solid growth.

But Lagarde emphasized the gains that are being made, including in the talks with bondholders.

"We are encouraged that that negotiation is making progress," she said, adding she hopes the bondholders "are sensible on what can be achieved.

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 #30
Kyiv Post
July 31, 2015
Uncleansed: Justice Ministry says bureaucracy is foiling lustration
By Oleg Sukhov

The new Ukraine looks too much like the old Ukraine under ousted President Viktor Yanukovych. And that's the problem, say reformers. Last week, civic group Reanimation Package of Reforms gave mediocre to dismal scores on the nation's progress to improve electoral legislation, public administration, the law enforcement and judicial systems and the Constitution, and on combating corruption.

One reason is that a law intended to cleanse the government of officials linked to Yanukovych and the Soviet regime is often ignored or sabotaged by the nation's entrenched and bloated bureaucracy.

Ukraine's Justice Ministry acknowledged the subversive practice, which has prevented reform-minded officials from entering government. Many of the problems stem from the failure to implement Ukraine's law on lustration.

Passed last October, the measure envisages firing many governors, heads of regional administrations, ministers, heads of law enforcement bodies and their regional branches, and the deputies of all those officials. The law applies to those who served either more than a year during Yanukovych's truncated presidency in 2010-2014 or during the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution.

According to the Justice Ministry's website, a total of 654 officials have been fired under the lustration law. This number does not include those fired who couldn't account for their property holdings and those who quit of their own accord. The Justice Ministry does not yet have statistics for those categories.

Current Kirovohrad governor Serhiy Kuzmenko is subject to lustration because he was the head of that region's Oleksandriya district in 2010-2012, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the Justice Ministry and the Civic Lustration Committee say.

Dmytro Dymov, a deputy head of the Justice Ministry's lustration department, told the Kyiv Post that the department had sent inquiries to the president's office about Kuzmenko but received no response.

The presidential administration told the Kyiv Post that Kuzmenko was appointed governor before the lustration law came into effect. However, it failed to explain why he had not been fired after that, as stipulated by the law.

Kuzmenko was a member of Yanukovych's Party of Regions and voted for a package of legislation that severely curtailed civil liberties in January 2014, which triggered Yanukovych's overthrow. He has also been accused of recruiting and financing pro-government thugs who attacked EuroMaidan protesters.

The Kirovohrad Oblast Administration didn't respond to a Kyiv Post inquiry.

According to the Justice Ministry, presidential deputy chief of staff Oleksiy Dniprov should be dismissed because he was a deputy education minister and the ministry's chief of staff in 2013-2015.

The National Civil Service Agency justified Dniprov's appointment, telling the presidential administration that "a combined deputy minister and chief of staff" is not a deputy minister, and therefore should not be lustrated, Dymov said. The presidential administration told the Kyiv Post that the lustration law does not apply to Dniprov without providing an explanation.

Prosecutors have also successfully avoided cleansing among their ranks.

Oleh Valendyuk, acting head of the Kyiv prosecutor's office, is subject to lustration because he was a deputy head of the prosecutorial department for representation in court and the enforcement of court rulings in 2008-2014, according to the Justice Ministry.

Last October the Prosecutor General's Office said that Valendyuk should be fired.

However, Valendyuk challenged the decision in Kyiv's Administrative District Court. On the next business day, the court prevented the Prosecutor General's Office from firing him.

Karl Volokh, an activist of the Civic Lustration Committee, said by phone that the ruling was "unimaginable" and "impossible" from the standpoint of Ukrainian law.

Even Valendyuk has said that his position was subject to lustration. He told Radio Liberty earlier this month, however, that he was formally a deputy head of the department, but "de facto" only headed a sub-unit of the department - a claim that has raised eyebrows.

Viktor Danylyshyn, the judge who issued the favorable ruling in Valendyuk's case, is an acquaintance of the official, Dymov said.

Justice Danylyshyn himself is subject to lustration because he banned public gatherings on Kyiv's central streets on Nov. 21, 2013 when the EuroMaidan Revolution began, according to Markiyan Halabala, a deputy head of the Temporary Special Commission for Checking Common-Jurisdiction Courts.

Kyiv's Administrative District Court told the Kyiv Post by e-mail that the lustration law did not apply to him without explaining why.

The lustration law stipulates firing judges who issued unlawful rulings during the popular uprising. Not one judge has been dismissed under the lustration law from among the 7,590 that currently sit on the bench.

Another agency accused of blunting lustration efforts is the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, according to the Civic Lustration Committee.

The civic group says the SBU's main investigative department chief, Hryhory Ostafiychuk, should be fired because he served as a deputy of Kyiv's top prosecutor for more than a year under Yanukovuych - from May 14, 2007 until March 9, 2011.

But SBU spokeswoman Olena Hitlianska told the Kyiv Post by phone on June 26 that Ostafiychuk only occupied the position until Jan. 27, 2011 and was thus not subject to lustration. Later, in a written response to a Kyiv Post request, Hiklianska provided a different date for the end of Ostafiychuk's tenure - Feb. 22, 2011.

The Kyiv Post sent a request for a document proving the SBU's version on July 1 but has not received a response. Government agencies are supposed to comply with media requests for information within five working days.

Moreover, few officials have been fired for having links to the Soviet Union's Communist Party and KGB secret police, Dymov said.

Even getting information related to lustration checks is extremely difficult. "You can't even imagine how much effort it takes to get this information from a government agency," Dymov added.

For instance, the State Fiscal Service is required to give information to the Justice Ministry but has always refused to do so, Dymov said. The service declined to comment by e-mail.

The results of property lustration - the process of firing officials who cannot account for their property holdings - are also disappointing.

Dymov said that no top officials with immense wealth had been dismissed under property lustration, but a lot of rank-and-file employees had been fired on dubious and often illegal grounds, such as failing to say in their income statement that they inherited a car, a motorcycle, or a trailer.

"Many officials use the lustration law for their own selfish purposes," Dymov said, implying bosses simply replace lustrated subordinates with their protégés.

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 #31
Wall Street Journal
July 31, 2015
Ukraine, Bondholders Move Closer to Deal
After months at an impasse over $19 billion in bonds, creditors agree to small haircut to speed debt restructuring
By CHIARA ALBANESE

Long drawn-out negotiations between Ukraine and the major investors who own its debt are finally starting to thaw.

After months of relative stalemate, a group of the conflict-torn country's creditors has indicated it is willing to take a small reduction in the face value of Ukrainian bonds to speed up a debt restructuring process, according to two people close to the negotiations.

Ukraine and its creditors have stood at an impasse for months over about $19 billion worth of bonds, which have tanked in value because of concerns the country wouldn't be able to meet repayments.

Ukraine, assisted by financial adviser Lazard, has sought a restructuring of the bonds that would see investors take a haircut, or a reduction in the face value of their holdings. In June, Ukraine reiterated a proposed deal whereby bondholders would take a 40% haircut.

That proposal was initially met with short shrift from a committee of major bondholders, including the country's single largest creditor, Franklin Templeton Investments, who had steadfastly refused to accept a haircut. This week, however, the investor group, which holds about $8.9 billion of the bonds and is advised by Blackstone Group International Partners LLP, sent a new proposal to Ukraine's government that included agreeing to a haircut, two people close to the negotiations said.

A person close to the process said the committee made a conditional proposal subject to other terms and conditions.

"As long-term investors in Ukraine, the committee has led efforts to ensure a rapid, mutually acceptable and sustainable debt restructuring, while also retaining the country's vital access to capital markets," this person said.

Another person familiar with the negotiations said Ukraine had recently indicated it is also willing to settle for a less severe haircut than it has previously put on the table to strike a deal.

The progress comes after Ukraine paid a $120 million coupon on its bonds last week, seen by many as a key deadline in the process. The Ukrainian government had previously warned that it may decline to make such payments. The next key bond payment of $500 million is due in September.

The bonds have recently traded higher because of rising optimism a deal can get done. The country's two-year bonds rose slightly after The Wall Street Journal first reported the new proposal from the creditor committee. The bonds currently trade above 59 cents to the dollar compared with a low of 38 cents in March.

Analysts and investors warned there is still much to negotiate despite the apparent breakthrough.

"Bonds trading up on the news imply that the haircut will be smaller than the 40% demanded by Ukraine, " said Viktor Szabo, an investment manager at Aberdeen Asset Management. But other elements of the potential deal that remain unclear could include a reduction in the bond coupons or an extension to the maturity of the debt, he said.

Goldman Sachs Inc. analyst Andrew Matheny also said the terms of the proposal could yet prove a sticking point.

"Even if Ukraine has improved its offer in its most recent proposal, it appears that the sides remain fairly far apart, so progress seems to be slow, at best."

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 #32
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
July 31, 2015
US expands sanctions day after Russia vetoes MH17 UN tribunal
bne IntelliNews
[DJ: US Department of Treasury press release here http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl0133.aspx]

The US Department of Treasury announced on July 30 it would expand the sanctions against Russian and Ukrainian companies, officials and individuals, which "underscores US commitment to maintain the strength of existing sanctions and the unity of the international coalition concerned about Russia's activities in Ukraine".

The announcement, most of which clarifies the subsidiary entities formally already sanctioned under previous decrees, came shortly after the controversial UN Security Council veto by Russia over an international tribunal investigation into the downing of the MH17 airliner in rebel-controlled East Ukraine.

However, the connection to the timing of the decision has been formally denied by the US embassy in Moscow.

The additional sanctions are also going to put pressure on the Central Bank of Russia (CBR), which is set to make a key interest rate decision on July 31. The CBR had been expected to continue the monetary easing to support the declining economy and cut the key interest rate by up to 50bp to 11%.

Recent ruble and inflation volatility in July had many analysts changing their expectations and forecast the CBR to keep the interest rate unchanged. The US sanctions move has the potential to increase such volatility.

The expanded measures cover 11 individuals and 15 legal entities. Most notably, the expanded sanctions include subsidiaries of two major Russian state-controlled bodies already sanctioned previously: Russia's largest oil producer Rosneft and state development bank VneshEkonomBank (VEB).

Namely, VEB Asia Limited, VEB Engineering, VEB Capital, VEB Leasing, as well as Rosneft Trade Limited, Rosneft Trading, Rosneft Finans, Vankorneft (extraction subsidiary on one of the larger fields, and YugansNefteGaz are included in the sanctions list.

The press-release clarifies that the entities listed above were already subject as a matter of law to the same debt and equity financing restrictions as their parent entities per "50% rule guidance". The identifications "will help the public more effectively comply with the sanctions on VEB and Rosneft".

The expanded sanction list also includes Globex Bank (bailed out by VEB in 2009), Ukrainian PromInvestBank, VBRR (Russian Bank of Regional Development, main shareholder Rosneft), and state investment fund Russian Fund for Direct Investment (RFPI).

Crimean ports of Sevastopol and smaller ports are also included in the updated sanctions list.

Most notable additions to Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN) include Roman Rotenberg, the son of the Russian businessman Boris Rotenberg; Oleksandr Yanukovich, son of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych; and Kai Paananen, a business partner of sanctioned allegedly Kremlin-affiliated billionaire Gennady Timchenko.

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 #33
Interfax
July 31, 2015
Russia will respond to sanctions imposed against it using principle of mutuality, but asymmetrical actions are also possible

Russia will proceed from the principles of mutuality regarding the countries imposing sanctions against it, but it does not rule out an asymmetrical response as well, Russian presidential press officer Dmitry Peskov said on July 31.

"In general, the principle of mutuality, no doubt, is a basic principle in this sanctions exchange. At the same time, one cannot rule out asymmetrical actions," he told reporters, responding to a question as to whether Russia will respond with mutuality to further toughening of the sanctions against it.

At the same time, Peskov emphasized that the introduction of sanctions in response is not a goal in itself to Russia.

"Our attitude to such sanctions decisions by the U.S. is well-known. It has not changed and we believe these sanctions are illegal, contradict the norms of international law, inflict considerable damage to bilateral relations, and, most importantly, these are steps that the Americans are taking about any obvious reasons and without pursuing a specific goal," he said.

He said such steps do not bring anything but negative effects.

According to earlier reports, the U.S. has added to the list of sanctions against Russia some other companies and private individuals, specifically, VEB and Rosneft structures.

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 #34
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
July 30, 2015
Flight MH17: Russia blocks UN resolution on international tribunal
Russia has vetoed a UN Security Council draft resolution on the establishment of an international criminal tribunal in connection with the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in July 2014. While countries in favor of the resolution accuse Russia of insulting the families of the 298 victims of the disaster, Russia says the tribunal would have been premature, and questioned the impartiality of such an investigation. Experts, meanwhile, say the "no" vote may have tough consequences for Russia.
Yekaterina Sinelschikova, RBTH

As anticipated, Russia has used its veto to block a UN Security Council draft resolution to establish an international criminal tribunal into the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 near Donetsk in eastern Ukraine in July 2014.

Russia was the sole country on the 15-member council to veto the resolution in New York on July 29, which was upheld by 11 participants, while three - China, Venezuela and Angola - abstained.

The Russian veto met with a strong reaction from countries that supported the resolution, many of whom described the Russian move as an insult to the families of the victims of the disaster, most of whom were Dutch, Malaysian and Australian nationals.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop accused Russia of "an affront to the memory of the 298 victims of MH17 and their families and friends," while U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said that Russia had "callously disregarded the public outcry in the grieving nations."

The French representative called the blocking of the tribunal a "serious defeat" for the UN Security Council, while Ukraine and Malaysia said they would think about other options of prosecuting those responsible for this crime - in particular, about the establishment of a tribunal outside the UN.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin pointed out that Russia's vetoing of the resolution would only serve to heighten suspicions among the global community that Moscow had something to hide. "There is no reason to oppose [the tribunal] unless you are a perpetrator yourself," he said.

The draft resolution, which was submitted to the UN Security Council by Malaysia, and also signed on behalf of Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands and Ukraine, sought to "bring to justice those responsible for crimes related to the destruction of" the aircraft.

A Dutch-led investigation into the shooting down of MH17 is still underway, with findings expected to be published in October, though a preliminary report has already been released. The plane is widely believed to have been shot down by pro-Russian militants using a BUK missile launcher supplied by Russia, though Russian media and officials have put forward various other versions in the last year - most of which have attempted to implicate Ukraine - and the Russian government denies that it has sent either troops or military hardware to eastern Ukraine.
 
Tribunal 'premature'

As before, Russia sought to justify its decision to block the resolution by arguing that the UN Security Council had exceeded its powers, claiming that the idea of the tribunal was premature, ill-defined and unfounded.

Russia's permanent representative to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, had earlier repeatedly warned that Russia would say "no" to the resolution.

"In principle, the organization of criminal justice is not a matter for the Security Council," Churkin said in his speech.

He recalled that the Security Council had formerly made exceptions and initiated the establishment of tribunals in the cases of the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, but "this experience can hardly be considered successful in view of their complexity, susceptibility to political pressure, high cost and excessive length of proceedings."

Furthermore, Churkin claimed, the MH17 disaster in principle cannot be qualified as "a threat to international peace and security," and there was no reason to be confident that the tribunal's decision would be impartial.

He ended his speech by stressing that Russia is still in favor of a full, independent and objective investigation.

"The position that we took today has nothing to do with the promotion of impunity," he concluded.

Russia chose to submit its own parallel, so-called "compromise" draft resolution on MH17 to the Security Council on July 20, but it did not find support.

The representative of China to the UN, Liu Jieyi, also attributed his decision to abstain from voting by the "prematureness" of the tribunal and the fact that it could only lead to a split among members of the Security Council.

"It will not help the families of victims, will not help to establish the facts, will not to ensure that those responsible are brought to justice," he said.
 
Veto will bring consequences for Russia

Experts approached by RBTH for comment said that the results of the vote were predictable. Mikhail Korostik, an independent political analyst, said that Russia fears that in a criminal investigation, the line of enquiries would be extended from pro-Russian militias, "who would undoubtedly be blamed by the tribunal," to Russian military officials.

He also cast doubt on the objectivity of such a tribunal, referring to the previous tribunals on Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. While he agreed that they added either speed or quality to the investigation, but said they yielded "very thorough media coverage of precisely those aspects of the trial that were beneficial to the states that established those tribunals."

However, the veto imposed by Russia will have its consequences, at least in terms of media impact, said Andrei Kortunov, general director of the Russian Council on Foreign Affairs.

In particular, this may be linked to the need to strengthen the sanctions regime, or "at least against this background, it will be very difficult to talk about their removal," he said.

It cannot be excluded that the Russian veto will also strengthen the positions of those in America and Europe who stand for the supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine, he added.

Incidentally, seven more countries supported the extension of EU sanctions against Crimea and Sevastopol on July 30 - Montenegro, Iceland, Albania, Norway, Ukraine, Liechtenstein and Georgia. Six of them (all but Georgia) have also joined in the decision to extend EU economic sanctions against the Russian Federation.

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#35
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
July 30, 2015
Why Russia opposes an international tribunal on MH17
The establishment of an international tribunal would be a dangerous precedent and might lead to Russia being forced to give up some of its special privileges as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
By Ivan Tsvetkov
Ivan Tsvetkov is Associate Professor of American Studies, International Relations Department, St. Petersburg State University. He is an expert in the field of historical science and contemporary U.S. policy and U.S.-Russian relations. Since 2003, he has been the author and administrator of the educational website "History of the United States: Materials for the course" (http://ushistory.ru)
 
Russian has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution to set up an international tribunal to find and convict those responsible for the MH17 tragedy. Only the Russian delegation voted against the resolution, with two countries friendly to Russia - China and Venezuela - merely abstaining.

Many have interpreted Russia's blocking of the resolution as an indirect admission of guilt. Moscow does not want a tribunal for fear of being condemned by it, the argument goes. And only the guilty need be afraid.

Despite the obvious logic, the real motives behind Moscow's veto are quite different. Russia has little reason to fear accusations of involvement in the MH17 crash as such, especially since international public opinion fingered Moscow within hours of the tragedy without any kind of tribunal. The UN vote was about a much more fundamental issue: the future configuration of the system of international relations and Russia's place therein.

The establishment of an international tribunal on MH17 would be a precedent, since no previous tribunal has envisioned representatives of a permanent member of the UN Security Council as potential defendants. It is this fact, and not the official explanation that the resolution did not qualify the Boeing tragedy as a threat to international peace and security, which was the main reason for the Russian veto.

For modern Russia, a permanent seat on the UN Security Council is one of the two cornerstones of the country's international status, along with its strategic nuclear potential. An international tribunal could easily turn into a tool to loosen the first of these cornerstones. Russia's consent would be tantamount to a voluntarily renunciation of its special privileges as a great power, earned by the generation that sacrificed itself in World War II.

The very fact of some international institution combing through the Russian army for guilty officers would be a serious blow to national prestige. Regardless of the outcome, there would be the question of who could give orders to the military, which would turn the international tribunal into a trial of the state and its political leadership.

In such a climate, the long mooted plans for UN reform would inevitably acquire a solid foundation. The validity of the present configuration would be challenged as unrepresentative of the new international realities. The long cherished hopes of applicants wanting to raise their international status, such as Germany, Japan and India, would be bolstered by the huge reputational problems of one of the existing permanent members of the Security Council. The upshot could be, if not an outright lowering, then at least a blurring of Russia's status through the addition of new UN Security Council permanent members.

Weakened by an international tribunal, Russian diplomacy would be powerless to prevent it. By wielding its veto, Russia has managed to postpone this extremely unpleasant (for it) scenario, but its opponents still hold the trump cards.

The situation is overly complicated by the fact that the proposed tribunal is favored not only by the "hostile" West, but also countries that Russia considers as friends and partners. That means that Moscow can only rely on itself. There are bound to be attempts to set up an international tribunal in circumvention of the UN Security Council, whose activity would also be a thorn in the Kremlin's side.

It should be recognized that this mounting pile of problems is largely the result of the unduly upfront and uncompromising position of Russian diplomacy, which in recent times has drawn inspiration from the legacy of Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, a.k.a. "Mr. No."

Russia's full and categorical denial of any (even indirect) involvement in the MH17 disaster in no way contributed to international acknowledgement of its arguments and versions of events. Too many facts Moscow simply left without comment, which effectively confirmed international observers' suspicions of guilt.

However, it should be noted that the driving force behind the broad international campaign to find the perpetrators of the Malaysia Airlines tragedy is not "Russophobia" at all, as Russian propagandists try to portray it, but a sense of the injustice committed against the families of the deceased, who not only lost loved ones, but also became victims themselves of a big political game.

Anti-Russian forces are exploiting these natural human emotions, but at the same time, the Russian authorities are doing absolutely nothing to mitigate and resolve the situation.
Until international public opinion is convinced that the guilty have been punished, and the relatives and friends of those killed fairly compensated, the problems for Russian diplomacy will continue to mount. And the right of veto in the UN Security Council should not be relied upon as a barrier against any attacks.

Moscow would be advised to desist from stubbornly confronting the world on MH17, which does not befit a great power, and instead to seek a compromise, regardless of whether or not it played a part in the tragedy. At stake is not only Russia's reputation, but also its place in the future system of international relations.
 

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#36
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
July 30 2015
The Foreign Ministry's statement on the discussion of further steps related to the continuing investigation into the MH17 disaster at the UN Security Council
 
On July 29, one year after the crash of the Malaysian MH17 airliner in southeastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, the UN Security Council considered an initiative advanced by a number of countries to establish an international tribunal for the prosecution of those implicated in the tragedy.

Russia condemns the destruction by unidentified persons of the Malaysian MH17 airliner and reiterates its most sincere condolences to the families of all passengers and crew, who died as a result of this monstrous tragedy. We have constantly stressed our commitment to the unavoidability of punishment for the perpetrators of this crime.

Since July 21, 2014, when the UN Security Council approved Resolution 2166, which remains the only universally acceptable basis for international cooperation in the interests of an independent and transparent investigation into the MH17 crash, this country has repeatedly put forward proposals in favour of using the full potential of the Security Council to support the ongoing investigation.

This was precisely the aim of Russia's draft resolution of the UN Security Council, which suggested using on a broad scale, proceeding from Resolution 2166, the UN mechanisms with a view to an early accomplishment of a full, transparent and trustworthy international investigation into the disaster to facilitate the subsequent search for the most fitting judiciary formula. It is only the full implementation of Resolution 2166 that will help us understand who is to blame and should incur punishment.

We regret that the sponsors of yesterday's meeting neglected our proposal. Instead, they preferred to rush their international tribunal resolution through the Security Council without holding a discussion of other options. Our insistent explanations to the effect that this unprecedented step was both ill-timed and counterproductive, given that the ongoing investigation into the circumstances of the crash was far from complete, were left unheeded.

Under these circumstances, the Russian Federation, which in every way sought to avoid a split in the Security Council and shunt the issue to a constructive track, did not think it possible to endorse a politicised decision that was being forced on the Security Council and voted against it, with Angola, Venezuela and China abstaining.

We would like to reiterate our commitment to a thorough and unbiased international investigation into the crash of the Malaysian aircraft. Russia will continue to do its utmost to provide every possible assistance to the investigation.

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 #37
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
July 31, 2015
MH17: West Wants a Tribunal Without an Investigation
A prior Russia-drafted UN MH17 resolution already calls for an independent international investigation - yet it is Ukraine and the US which are withholding possibly useful data
So who's actually an obstacle to clearing up the issue?
By Alexander Chopov

Russia bashing season is at its peak in Western press today after Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for an international tribunal to prosecute those responsible for the shooting down of MH17 over Ukraine last year.

Russia's veto is being presented as a shameful confession of guilt. However, as usual the Western press uses half-truths, hypocrisy and double standards in its spinning of the facts.

First and foremost a tribunal and an investigation are two completely different things. No one in the Western press bothered to remember that immediately after the disaster, the UN Security Council passed Russian drafted Resolution 2166 that among other things:

"3. Supports efforts to establish a full, thorough and independent international investigation into the incident in accordance with international civil aviation guidelines" and

"11. Demands that those responsible for this incident be held to account and that all States cooperate fully with efforts to establish accountability".
However more than a year after the tragedy the investigation has been far from "thorough" and not in full "accordance with international aviation guidelines".

In an unprecedented move, Kiev has to this day refused to hand over the recording of Dnepropetrovsk tower communications, that would show the full picture of what was going on in the skies above Donbass.

Furthermore, since the start of the Donbass conflict in March of 2014, US has had satellites over the region, but has to this day released only Twitter-based evidence as proof of Russia's involvement.

William Hearst, in the run up to the Spanish-American War was famous for saying "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war". Unfortunately, when it comes to covering Russia-Ukraine crisis in general and the MH17 tragedy in particular, Western press has thrown the idea of investigative journalism out the window, and returned to the yellow press standards of early 20th century - "You furnish the tweets and I'll furnish the war."

Minutes after the crash, while the wreckage was still smoldering, the Western press knew for a fact who was responsible - Russia. No one cared about the fact that a few days before the tragedy Ukrainian TV showed Ukrainian BUKs in the area (now Ukraine says it sold all its BUKs years earlier, despite ample video evidence to the contrary), or that Kiev routed planes over east Ukraine despite obvious dangers of civil war on the ground - "Putin killed my child" plain and simple.

So this proposed tribunal was just another PR-stunt by the West to put Russia into a corner that would reinforce the "evilness" of Putin's regime, but would in absolutely no way affect the investigation. But who needs facts and proof when blame has already been assigned minutes after the tragedy?

Twisting and ignoring facts is only part of Western media hypocrisy, however. If Russia's veto is proof of Russia's involvement, then, by that logic, Canada's, Ukraine's and the US's "no" vote on last year's UN resolution "Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance " proves that those three countries are Nazi-racist-xenophobes.

By the way, two out of three of the above mentioned countries have themselves shot down civilian aircraft.

In October 2001 Ukraine shot down a Russian Tu-154 over the Black Sea killing all 78 civilians aboard. While initially denying involvement, then-president Kuchma had the following to say about the tragedy:

"Take a look around. What is going on in the world and in Europe. We are not the first or the last ones [to shoot down a civilian plane]. No need to make a tragedy out of this mistake. Mistakes happen all the time. Even bigger mistakes than this one."

The United States, too, has shot down civilian liners - an Iran Air flight 655 in July 1988 over Iranian airspace. After Iran called for the United Nations Security Council to condemn the United States for the downing, then vice president George H.W. Bush was even more blunt than Kuchma:

"I will never apologize for the United States - I don't care what the facts are... I'm not an apologize-for-America kind of guy."

But none of these present or historical facts are important to today's Western press. They are out on a mission to stoke up tensions and create hatred, and this UN vote was expertly played out just for that: for the picture of Russia vetoing an illegal and unnecessary resolution. "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war"?

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 #38
Wall Street Journal
July 31, 2015
Debunking Putin's 'Fascist Kiev' Myth
Jews from eastern Ukraine seek refuge from Russian invasion under the rule of a government Moscow claims is infested by neo-Nazis.
By SOHRAB AHMARI
Mr. Ahmari is a Journal editorial-page writer based in London.

Among the justifications Vladimir Putin has offered for his hostility to the democratic government of Ukraine is that it is led and supported by "anti-Semitic forces." But sit down with some of the Jews who have fled Russian-instigated violence in the east to find refuge in the capital of this supposedly neo-fascist state, and another story emerges.

Consider the Kvasha family, among several thousand Jews uprooted by Mr. Putin's invasion. You enter the family's building on the outskirts of Kiev through a dim reception, where the walls have long turned a dark gray and a dank stench hovers. The Kvashas-dad Sergey, mom Valeria and their two boys Nikita, 17, and Arseny, 8-are crammed into a one-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor.

Inside the neatly kept apartment, a menorah sits atop a piano that has seen better days. It's all a far cry from the Kvashas' happy former lives in eastern Ukraine.

When I visited on Tuesday, Mr. Kvasha was at work at a printing business, where he's a manager. Back in Luhansk, the family had its own printing firm, while Mrs. Kvasha worked as a general engineer at the local college. In addition to their apartment, the Kvashas owned a dacha, or vacation home. They were prominent and successful members of a vibrant Jewish community existing within what they describe as a tolerant Donbass society.

Then Mr. Putin launched his invasion. "When the fighting started a missile hit our building," Mrs. Kvasha recalls. Five of their friends and neighbors were killed in attacks. Having already sent the kids to Kiev in early June 2014, Mr. and Mrs. Kvasha caught the last train out of Luhansk a few weeks later. Two bags stuffed with summer clothes were all they managed to take with them, and by August they had depleted their savings.

Building new lives in Kiev hasn't been easy. Finding a permanent apartment was the first challenge. Landlords are reluctant to rent to refugees, seen as itinerant and unreliable. Donbass refugees, Jewish or otherwise, are sometimes stigmatized as uniformly pro-Putin, even though, as Mrs. Kvasha says, "None of the people in the east wanted this conflict, none of them wanted to separate from Ukraine." Employers who might at first take an interest in your resume, Mrs. Kvasha says, "will smile and politely show you the door when they find out you're from the east."

In dire straits, the Kvashas turned to the Joint Distribution Committee, an American-Jewish organization. While the parents were still unemployed, the JDC provided the family with some $142 in monthly food assistance as well as blankets and other winter relief-crucial assistance, since their flat, once they'd secured one, cost about $165 a month. The organization continues to help the family pay rent.

The JDC also helped the Kvashas find a sense of belonging. Like many of Ukraine's 350,000 Jews, the family's connection to Judaism is more cultural than religious. At a Jewish community center in Kiev called Beiteinu, or Our Home, they found new friends. The JDC supports 21 such centers across Ukraine, and Mrs. Kvasha now works at Beitanu, helping other refugees find their footing.

Elderly Jews displaced by the war suffer still more and have greater needs. Many of them are victims of Nazi-era crimes who had a found a measure of stability and prosperity after the Cold War.

"Only in our nightmares could we imagine going through this late in life," says Bela Brook, 70. Ms. Brook escaped from Donetsk to Kiev last summer with her husband, Alexander Fireman, 75. Both are physicians.

I sat down on Tuesday with Ms. Brook, Mr. Fireman and four other elderly displaced Jews at one of the 32 social-welfare centers, or Heseds, the JDC runs across Ukraine, normally serving some 65,000 elderly and impoverished Jews, to which 5,200 have been added since the war began. Most escaped with little more than the clothes on their backs, and the cost of medication alone often eats up state pensions ranging from $30 to $120 a month.

"We had money in Donetsk," says a 56-year-old lawyer. "We were the ones supporting vulnerable people. I was ashamed to come to Hesed and ask for assistance. I was crushed by embarrassment." She says she became physically ill as a result of the trauma, but gradually the support network at the Hesed healed her. In addition to receiving food, medicine and clothing, elderly Jews at the Hesed enjoy lectures, outings to the city and daily exercise.

Such Jewish charities operate openly here, under a government that frequently describes all Ukrainians displaced by the fighting, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, as compatriots. Ukraine, far from being the anti-Semitic nation of Putinist fantasies, has given them refuge. As one of the Hesed clients told me: "Write in your paper, we people from Donetsk and Luhansk love our country. We are patriotic. We don't want to leave Ukraine."

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 #39
Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
July 30, 2015
Stories from Oles Buzina: SS Galicia Division against Ukraine
[Graphics here http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/07/stories-from-oles-buzina-ss-galicia.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FortRuss+%28Fort+Russ%29]

By Oles Buzina, translated from the original Russian and Ukrainian by Nina Kouprianova. First published at Nina Byzantina.

Foreword to the translation:

With the onset of the Ukrainian crisis, I realized that I often looked forward to the work of certain journalists, who were both eloquent and informative. Oles Buzina was one of them. In addition to reading his columns, I, like millions of other Russians, watched his frequent appearances on political talk shows. I often found myself in disagreement, but had to admit that his points were well-argued and factually justified-a true sign of a charismatic erudite.

Thus, the news of his brazen murder on April 16 of this year, in broad daylight and outside his home, was particularly distressing. Later, I found out that Oles-a well-known author and historian, in addition to his journalistic career - had been receiving threats for quite some time. Yet he consistently turned down offers to relocate to Russia. Like a true patriot of a country in peril, he continued to love Ukraine. But Ukraine - today's Ukraine - did not return that sentiment.

Like clock-work, Western mainstream media called Buzina "pro-Russian" in a political climate, where this term has become a slur, in order to reduce the significance of his violent death. Unlike the recent murder of 1990s politician Boris Nemtsov at the Kremlin walls, no Western embassies solemnly changed their Twitter cover images to his portrait, and no emotional condemnations came from the highest levels of foreign governments within hours of the news. Considering the official West's backing of the current state of Ukraine, I suppose we should be glad that there was any coverage at all, double standards notwithstanding.

To add insult to injury, since his murder, some book stores in Kiev even stopped carrying Buzina's work. At the same time, however, there seems to be greater interest in them online. But posthumous recognition and growing book sales are of little consolation to the women he left behind: his mother, wife, and daughter.

Some of his friends and fellow journalists described Buzina as an "imperial Maloros." ("Maloros" is a historic term for the residents of central Ukraine within the Russian Empire- ed.) He believed in a cultural and historic unity of Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians. And, if this unity were to materialize as it once had, the capital should be in Kiev - which is often called the Mother of Russian Cities - not Moscow.

In particular, it was the Kiev of Mikhail Bulgakov that Buzina loved. And for me, not a single trip home goes without a solitary walk through Bulgakov's Moscow. We are not so different after all. Indeed, his focus on historic figures like the author of the timeless Master and Margarita - who was, arguably, one of Kiev's most famous residents-emphasizes his thinking in civilizational categories, rather than those of petty nationalism professed by a vocal minority and the negative identity of today's official Ukraine, 24 years in the making. And it was this real challenge-one embodied in the following article from 2009- that his ideological approach continued to create for post-Maidan Ukraine that led to his murder, regardless of who was behind it, specifically.

The views of the original author do not necessarily reflect those of the translator.
---

1969-2015.

STORIES FROM OLES BUZINA: SS GALICIA DIVISION AGAINST UKRAINE (2009)

("Stories from Oles Buzina" was a regular column for Segodnya newspaper, covering historic subjects. In the Russian language, "story" and "history" (istoriia) are the same word, which plays an important role in this context.)

The inglorious path of this SS Division is the biography of one bitter Galician illusion that some are trying to revive even today. Not Ukrainian, but specifically Galician.

The inglorious path of this SS Division is a biography of one particular Galician illusion. Not Ukrainian, but specifically Galician. Starting from the 12th century, this Slavic tribe had its own small history-at first, it was separate from Rus, then-from Ukraine. Having broken away from the princely Kiev early on, Galicia did not gain freedom, but slavery, initially ending up under Polish rule, and then- under Austria. Not only did Galicians fail to support the Bohdan Khmelnytsky uprising, but they actually opposed it, being on the side of the Poles. Lvov was the only major city before the Carpathian Mountains that showed armed resistance to the Cossacks and received certain privileges from King John II Casimir for loyalty to Warsaw. In the 17th century, Galicia was still called Red (Chervnonnaia) Rus (Russia Rubra in Latin), but there was little Russian spirit left there, especially after Joseph Szumlanski, a Polish cavalryman, having become a bishop, converted the Galician diocese from Orthodoxy to the Uniate Church that suited Poland.

Prior to the beginning of the 20th century, no one referred to Galicia as "Western Ukraine." Officially, it was known as the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria and belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Austrians continued to customarily refer to its local rural population (cities were dominated by Poles and Jews), as Ruthenians (or Rusyns-ed.), but did not fully understand what to do with them. Vienna either supported the Poles against the Galicians, or the Galicians against the Poles, using their tribal contradictions to its benefit. But since Galicia had no other defender than the Viennese court, thus the legend about the "kind Kaiser" was born. In 1914, yet another one of these "kind men," Franz Joseph, incited Austria-Hungary to participate in World War I, after which his empire collapsed, and Galicia became part of the newly independent Poland.

Prior to the start of the Second World War, this region remained a tangled ball of ethnic contradictions. Many Galicians, like before, saw themselves as Ruthenians, others-as Ukrainians, based on the fact that their dialect was close to the language of the so-called Great Ukraine- the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic within the USSR. Galicia remained one of the most backward regions of Europe. Characteristically, the majority of the population in Lvov, a local capital (!) were still Poles, whereas the largest industrial enterprise was ... a brewery.

Then came the Germans that had beaten Poland in a month. The Red Army replaced the Germans. In 1941, the same Germans and many Galicians-that were not of Jewish or Polish descent-already kicked it out of Lvov, deciding that the new "kind Kaiser" is Adolf Hitler. Banderite and Melnykite factions-from the broken Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), a small, but extremely malevolent terrorist organization that lived before the war thanks to German intelligence-both raced to serve him.

But Hitler quickly dispelled Bandera's illusions that he would conquer Kiev for him and give him power over all of Ukraine. He imprisoned foolish Bandera, and made Galicia into the fifth District (oblast) of the General Government-an occupation zone that was put together mainly from the former Poland. German was declared the official language, the head of the region was now the governor, whereas the raions were named in a true European fashion-"Kreishauptmannschaft."

Hitler would hear nothing of independent Ukraine. He considered the Ukrainians, in general, and Galicians, specifically, to be Untermensch-subhuman. In the future, Galicia was subject to Aryanization, i.e., complete Germanization. In the meantime, Galicians were taken only into the police force and used in the dirtiest line of work, up to burning villages and executing prisoners of war, as was the case with the so-called Bukovinian Battalion (Bukovina Kuren-ed.) that burned down the entire Khatyn village with all its residents.

However, a crushing defeat at Stalingrad and Kursk at the hands of the Red Army, in which one in four soldiers was Ukrainian, forced the Führer to make certain amendments to his racial theory. Since those that the Nazis called "subhumans" with contempt ended up largely beating the true Aryans, then it was decided to use the other "subhumans" in the occupied territories to form individual units to fight the Red Army.

Thus, one by one, the Germans got 36 SS divisions formed mainly not out of native Germans, but out of those that were "sympathetic" to them-Wiking (out of Norway and Denmark natives), Charlemagne (out of the French), Wallonien (out of the Belgians), Nederland (this one is obvious), 15th (Latvian), 20th (Estonian), Handschar (Croatian), etc. Galizien was the 14th of these based on numeric chronology and the time of establishment.

The motivation for its creation came from below. Lvov professor of geography Vladimir Kubiiovich (or Wolodomyr Kubiyowich-ed.), member of OUN (M), was particularly interested in this idea. He approached Dr. Wächter, the Governor of Galicia and an Austrian by descent, who was well acquainted with local specifics. As Kubiiovich later recalled in emigration, "capable and ambitious" Wächter, who had some influence on Reichsführer-SS Himmler, believed that "Galicia was a country that must renew the German (Austrian) influence that was happening since the second half of the 18th century."

Rather quickly, he convinced Himmler to establish this unit. The latter agreed, but pointed out that it should consist only of Galician residents, since this region was part of the Austrian Reich in 1772-1918 and was thus more credible than the other parts of Ukraine. On April 28, 1943 Lvov newspapers officially publicized this decision.

However, as the Reichsführer-SS insisted, the Division was not to be Ukrainian, but rather Galician. The Germans still did not recognize the existence of any Ukraine and, in the future, were going to return to their plan of Aryanizing the East. The newly formed unit was officially called the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician). (The word "Waffen" meant "weapon" and was added to those units of the SS that were formed from foreigners, not true Aryans.) This was one of the traits of its inferiority. Even the trident that the Germans allowed Ukrainian Polizei to wear was prohibited as the emblem of SS Galicia Division. According to contemporary Lvov historian Andrei Bolianovskii, in the book Ukrainian Military Units in the Armed Forces of Germany (1939-1945) (Ukraiinski viiskovi formuvannia v zbroinykh silakh Nimechchiny), Himmler allowed:

"regional distinction only in their national colors. This was the emblem that was supposed to symbolize the local identity of this area and, at the same time, its association with the West (the combination on a blue background of ZUNR [West Ukrainian People's Republic, 1918-1919-ed.] coat of arms of a yellow Galician lion, with three golden crowns that appear on it, was given to Galicia by the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa). The latter was instituted for the Galician Division, and the soldiers were to be called 'Galicians'."

Why Lvov nationalists hoped for a change in Hitler's political course with this turn of events-we should ask them. Perhaps, for the same reason that their spiritual heirs are currently naively hoping to join the European Union.

"Treasure of the German Nation"

One of the neo-Nazi parties that currently preaches the tradition of SS Galicia Division in Ukraine calls it the "treasure of the nation." Which nation, I wonder. Like the Austrians during the Habsburg days, Germans did not place much value in the Galicians as war material. If in the Russian army, the natives of Ukraine became generals and field marshals, then in the Austrian one, they became junior officers, at best. An Austrian, Hungarian, or a Croatian native could have a brilliant military career in the Habsburg Empire, but not Galicians. Certain reasons for this did exist.

For instance, during the famous 1916 Brusilov offensive, Russian troops broke through the Austrian front specifically in those areas, where they faced units with a high percentage of Galicians. It was they that ran off first. Hitler's military men noted that experience.

Not only the commanders of Galicia Division were German, but also the entire headquarters and the vast majority of officers all the way to the company members. Brigadeführer Fritz Freitag led the Division. Major Wolf-Dietrich Heike ran the operations department. Intelligence was under Hauptsturmführer Fritz Niermann. Supply department-under Hauptsturmführer Herbert Schaaf. Sturmbannführer Erich Finder was the Commander's aide. Friedrich Lenhardt and Herbert Hähnel were assignments officers. Karl Wildner, Hans Otto Forstreuter, Paul Herms, Karl Bristot, and Friedrich Beyersdorff commanded the regiments. Even the pharmacist was German-Hauptsturmführer Werner Benecke (not to be confused with any Beniuk [a Ukrainian name-ed.] by any means!). According to Andrei Bolianovskii, the Division "got a German command spine."

Then what was left for the Galicians-those that wore their golden lion granted by Maria Theresa, giving it more attention than it deserved? The honorable mission of serving as cannon fodder for the Third Reich! Pedantic Germans took special care of this product. According to various sources, there were between 70 and 80 thousand volunteers that ran to sign up for this SS Division. They rushed to do so the same way they do toward 'guest work' in Europe today!

But the vast majority of them was turned away. Only 14 thousand were accepted into Galicia Division. The rest did not pass the medical examination, largely because of height that had to be no less than 165 cm (5 feet 4 inches-ed.). Vain Himmler could not allow shorties to serve in the SS troops. The man of the SS must have a frightening appearance! Thus, the tallest human material was picked for Galicia, so there is no need to be surprised that nowadays this area doesn't produce basketball players.

Adventures of Svejk of the SS

Let us not overestimate these volunteers' enthusiasm. On the website for SS Galicia, you can find a humorous book that was published by its former soldier, Yurii Tis-Krokhmaliuk, during emigration to Argentina, where he fled after his "feats." It is called The Diary of a National Hero Selepko Lavochka (Shchodennik natsionalnogo geroia Selepka Lavochki). A certain emulation of The Good Soldier Svejk:

"July 2, 1943. Rode the tram carrying saccharin. German Schutzmanns were rounding people up. They caught me, too. They found my goods and confiscated them, of course, whereas I was taken to Gorodetske. There, they took my documents and put me behind the wired camp fence. I had to go work in Germany. They asked: What kind of work do you know? I said: all kinds. I can be an engineer, director, magister. They appointed me to look after pigs in a certain Prussian village.

July 3, 1943. Slept well and calmly all through the night. In the morning I stated that I'd like to volunteer for the Ukrainian Division. They released me immediately."

In this text, if anything is untrue, then it is the name of the Division. In 1954, when it was published, it was uncomfortable to admit that you served in an SS division even in Buenos Aires. Thus, the author timidly renamed it to "Ukrainian."

Even the order on establishing the Division clearly states: "Command language-Galician; order language-German."

Crushing Defeat at Brody

Recruits underwent a standard training course, and, in the summer of 1944, they ended up near the town of Brody outside of Lvov. In an eloquent coincidence, they resisted the troops of the First Ukrainian Front. On July 13, the latter made a brilliant breakthrough, and SS Galicia immediately found itself surrounded. A week later, Galicia Division took off running, trying to escape in small groups. Two thousand soldiers ended up as Soviet POWs. The rest were either killed or fled.

According to military historians, this Division had virtually ceased to exist by July 22. Only three thousand people escaped from being surrounded. Incidentally, one of the first members to flee was the Commander of this Division, Brigadeführer Freitag.

The Germans filled Galicia with new soldiers from among those volunteers that they initially rejected, no longer embarrassed of their height, but ones who were almost never used in open battles against the regular units of the Red Army. The main task for these "divisioners" was fighting Slovak and Yugoslav guerrillas. Once Galicians even had a skirmish with Ukrainian partisans under Kovpak, who carried out a sabotage raid into Slovakia.

German command valued the military qualities of SS Galicia very little. For example, only one of its members was awarded the Iron Cross-Commander Freitag himself-whereas these awards were not uncommon in other Waffen-SS divisions.

Saved Their Own Skin...Pretending to be Poles

The following question arises: why was the majority of those survivors, who fought for SS Galicia, able to avoid being handed over to the USSR, as per agreement between Stalin and Western Allies? The "Polish card" saved them! Since Galicia was part of Poland before 1939, and only former Soviet citizens were subject to being extradited, Western lawyers decided that their Polish citizenship had precedence over the short-lived Soviet period of 1939-1941. This is what the author of The SS: Hitler's Instrument of Terror, Gordon Williamson, wrote on this subject:

"The bulk of this division was able to withdraw westwards in the closing days of the war and surrender to Anglo-American forces. Allied confusion over the status of personnel labelled as Galicians led to many being able to avoid forced repatriation to the Soviet Union. Despite their having served in the Waffen-SS, Polish General Anders took the pragmatic view that their past could be forgiven in consideration of their potential future usefulness as dedicated anti-Communists, and he supported their claim to be Polish..."

They were the "cream of the crop" of this nation all along, apparently! And where did real Ukrainians serve at that time? In the Red Army-the four Ukrainian fronts! That same one, in which General Rybalko commanded the tank army, Malinovskii, Cherniakhovskii, and Kirponos-the fronts, where Marshal Timoshenko was a Commissar (i.e., Minister) of Defense, and Kozhedub was the most famous flying ace in the anti-Hitler coalition. Can some pathetic, demolished SS Galicia Division outweigh ALL THIS?

P.S. The brain behind the establishment of SS Galicia, professor Kubiiovich, did not participate in any battles and died in emigration in Paris in 1985 at the age of 85. Most of those who believed him died in their twenties.

 [return to Contents] 

 #40
The Vineyard of the Saker
http://thesaker.is
July 30, 2015
What is "Ukrainian nation", and what are its future options?
By Tatzhit
source: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e8b_1438150640

There are a lot of arguments for the fact that Ukrainian nation does not exist, all Ukrainians are Russians brainwashed to hate their nation, Ukrainian history is fake, etc. Mostly, these arguments are put forth by people who do not understand the difference between "nation" and "ethnicity".

The idea of a "nation" really originated in the age of gunpowder, when mass armies and industrialization brought the need for countries to be united by something greater than a common language, feudal overlord and religion, and this idea was spread via mass literacy and education*.

"Nation" is not the same as ethnic or language group - there are plenty of nations that unite multiple ethnicities or languages, and plenty of ethnic/language groups split across several nations.

A "nation" is a powerful idea - similar to an ideology or even a religion.
In fact, when it comes to nation-building, the lines between nationalism, ideology and religion blur. Was there a "Soviet" nation? Many would say that there was.
Western invaders of today trying to bring the light of "democracy" to the unwashed savages - how different is their blind belief that their way is the best way, from that of medieval religious crusaders? The results are certainly much the same.

And idea can not be "fake" as long as some people believe in it. The Mormon or Scientologist religions aren't "fake" simply because the man that made their fanciful claims happened to live more recently than other "prophets".  Nor is it necessary for an idea to perfectly match reality. Sure, Ukrainian national myth is quite far from historical facts. So what? After all, Americans and Russians still believe they brought "freedom / equality" around the world despite millions of innocent people that perished in their imperial escapades, but that doesn't make these nations "fake".

However, an idea can be bad. Virtually all religions and ideologies constantly need to be updated and the parts carried over from cruel times of old thrown out.

Some religions and political ideologies are bad enough to where people call them "cults", "nazis" and such, and ban em. National ideas are no different - they are constantly changing, and may have bad parts.

For example, national superiority, "natural white supremacy", Aryan race, all that.
Sure, these days it has PC names like "American exceptionalism", but the essence is the same: Americans know ~four and a half thousand US soldiers died in Iraq, but have the arrogance to not count or care how many brown people needlessly died as a result of their invasion (estimates range from 100 thousand to millions).

And Ukrainian national idea certainly has its share of problems.

For starters, it has indeed been co-opted by various foreign powers literally for centuries, and its message bent to their will to be used as a weapon against Russia and Russians. And that's a problem because Russians and Ukrainians are very close, as much as, say, Americans and Texans**.

Yes, Texans. A Russian would have an easier time understanding a Ukrainian than a Yankee would have with a rural Texan, and Ukraine has been part of Russia twice longer than Texas was part of US. Tack on a couple centuries of foreign funding, and a large dose of subversive actions by powerful agencies, some quality NGO work - you'll have "Texan language" and America-hating "Texan nation" on your hands in no time. And the fact that the Dust Bowl wasn't an American plot to starve the Texas farmers into submission won't matter - as I said, even if an idea isn't true, as long as people believe it, it has power.

Heck, a weakening of the federal government and some Soros funds is probably all it would take for "Texan nation" or "Cascadian nation" to emerge:

"A September 2014 Reuters/Ipsos poll found over 34% of people in the southwest favored their state seceding from the United States". There are a number of similar polls showing that result is broadly correct.

This is similar to Ukraine in spring 1991 - on a referendum, 28% of people voted to split from USSR, while 70% voted to stay ... But the same referendum in after just a few months of propaganda yielded 92% vote for secession .

These facts aren't good or bad by themselves. That's just how reality is - nations are ideas, new ones can be formed, and they aren't necessarily any less "legitimate" or "good" than the previous ones.

In some cases, a "national idea" is composed well and can bring greater social unity and better, local self-government. In some cases, nationalists can use the wrong tools, divide society and ruin the country... And with that, we're back to Ukraine.

As I've said, Russians and Ukrainians are extremely close; so much so that "Russian" and "Ukrainian" in modern Ukraine are more self-chosen ideological labels than clearly separate ethnic/cultural groups***.

That is the root cause of "Judeo-Banderite" meme* and the fact that many "Ukrainian nationalists" grew up as "Russians" and do not, in fact, speak Ukrainian. By the same token, there are plenty of people that grew up speaking Ukrainian and yet believe that Ukraine should be one country with Russia.

Also, "Russia" and "Ukraine" are closely intertwined not just in the minds of the local population, but economically - ~350 years of economic ties makes for an extremely close cooperation .

So, what do you think would happen in Texas if "Texan nationalists" forbid anyone who doesn't speak "proper, rural Texan" from holding government positions, banned "American" symbols as "legacy of oppression", declared Timothy McVeigh their national hero, etc. etc.? There you have it - Ukrainian civil war explained.

What do you think would happen if "Texan nation" cut ties with America and instead tried to join Mexico (who, though initially interested, would soon realize it wants nothing to do with the nationalist maniacs)? There you have it - the economic ruin brought about by Ukraine's EuroIntegration summed up.

However, just because the current "Banderite" brand of Ukrainian nationalism is tainted by Nazi collaboration, fratricide, falsification of history, serving foreign interests above their own people, etc. etc. does not mean that any and all ideas that envision Ukraine as a separate state are bad.

Buzina was a Ukrainian nationalist, and so were most Bolsheviks, for example - they preferred a strong and vibrant Ukrainian autonomy with the Soviet "federation" rather than an anti-Russian "European Ukraine", but the fact that "Ukrainian national idea" re-emerged after being suppressed by the Tzars is largely due to Bolshevik efforts .

Then there are people like Tatiana Montyan - with their own "Ukrainian national ideas" that aren't like that of Buzina or the Bolsheviks, but aren't like that of "Banderites" either.

So, the options for a "Ukrainian national ideology" aren't limited to worshiping the butchers of Volyn and selling anything that isn't nailed down to foreign masters.

What conclusions can we make to sum this article up?

- Ukrainian national idea is definitely real and powerful, no less real than many other national ideas.

- From the start, it has been used, and by 2014 got wholly subverted by, the sort of people who would kill their neighbors for the sake of foreign money and seizing power.

- In this "Banderized" state, it is bad for literally everyone (in Ukraine, Russia, Europe) including even the poor rank-and-file "banderites" themselves. The only ones who benefit are the leaders of the banderites, some oligarchs, and certain foreign interest groups controlling them.

- Whether the ideology of a "Ukrainian nation" can be healed to unite and strengthen the nation, or whether the nation would continue fracturing and collapsing under the weight of hate and lie-based "Banderizm", remains to be seen.

Of course, the answer doesn't depend purely on ideology - political, economical, and even purely military events may shift the balance towards one or the other outcome. For example, another likely, if sad, scenario is that ideological debates will become pointless in a few decades if the sharp decline of the local population continues - Ukrainian nation, language, and history will simply go the way of the dinosaurs.

Which scenario will come to pass, if Ukrainian national idea can be re-built without the destructive parts, and whether the country of Ukraine will exist in the future - is ultimately up to Ukrainians.

Such cases (c)

Notes:

* This article by a Ukrainian nationalist (not translated) expands the idea is greater depth. While he does not share my bleak view of the current situation, his view of the nature of "national idea" and his arguments for the existence of "Ukrainian nation" are much the same. Worth reading.

**Jews following the Banderite brand of Ukrainian nationalism - which is weird, because original, WWII Banderites considered Jews their enemies and helped Nazis exterminate them . But as I said, historical facts matter little - modern Ukrainian "history" tends to whitewash these crimes.

*** Not that there are not real "Russian" and "Ukrainian" ethnicities or sub-cultures - but without the nationalism, the distinction would have as much importance as say Minnesotan / Floridian differences.

 [return to Contents] 

 #41
Zerkalo Nedeli (Kyiv)
July 10, 2015
Ukrainian ambassador to the USA says Russia seeks to "blackmail" West with Donbass escalation

Valeriy Chalyy, Ukraine's newly appointed ambassador to the USA, has said in an interview with an analytical weekly that Russia can no longer put pressure on Ukraine and is escalating the situation in Donbass rather to "blackmail" Kiev's partners in the West. He suggested that the conflict regulation in the east may require a new, "broader" format of negotiations and shared scepticism about the elections scheduled by separatists for the autumn. He said his main tasks as an ambassador would include building trust and raising Ukraine's investment and culture profile in the USA. The following is the text of Chalyy's interview with Tetyana Sylina entitled: "Valeriy Chalyy: 'Ukraine having given up 1,240 nuclear warheads must have a right to receive at least a thousand Javelins'" and published in the Ukrainian influential analytical weekly Zerkalo Nedeli on 10 July; subheadings have been inserted editorially:

Appointed Ukrainian ambassador to the USA on 10 July, Valeriy Chalyy told ZN.UA about relations between Ukraine and the USA, about arms supplies to Ukraine from the west and about the future elections in Donbass and difficulties in regulating the conflict with Russia.

One does not need to introduce Valeriy Chalyy to Zerkalo Nedeli. Ukraine readers. Our long-time author, respected expert on international issues, has worked in the non-governmental sector and for the state and has always stayed a decent person in any position.

His career rise is connected to Petro Poroshenko. Back when he was a foreign minister, he invited Chalyy as his deputy. In the subsequent whirlwind of events that took over our country, Chalyy becomes a member of the Maydan council and one of the creators of Ukrainian crisis media centre, then he finds himself at Petro Poroshenko's elections headquarters and after he gets elected he takes the position of the deputy head of the presidential administration. On 10 July, he was appointed Ukrainian ambassador to the USA by the president's order.

Valeriy Chalyy is Poroshenko's undoubted confidant on international issues. He can be loyal but he cannot lackey. He has his own point of view, is not afraid to argue within the team but does not like to speak about the differences in opinions publicly. That may be why it will be interesting to read his memoirs in many years. Chalyy will have something to say - in the course of last year he had to participate in the negotiations with the planet's most influential people, discuss issues representing the world's interests and able to influence the fates of the millions. It was a very busy year.

On conflict regulation in Donbass

[Zerkalo Nedeli] Valeriy Oleksiyovych, which period or a moment seemed the most difficult to you?

[Chalyy] The most difficult one was, of course, February Minsk - almost 18 hours in a closed space with the Russian delegation. It was serious diplomatic work. At the very beginning there were blackmail attempts on the background of possible surrounding and taking a large group of our soldiers' hostage. At that time each minute could have become either a breaking or a tragic one. Today we know that as a result our soldiers with their heroism and professionalism gave us a possibility to find a diplomatic solution.

And emotionally most difficult moments, of course, are related to the deaths of our soldiers and peaceful citizens. It is very hard to get daily news about the dead and the wounded, who constantly demonstrate the real value of that peace which until now, unfortunately, has not been established.

It was not easy when the first Russian so-called "humanitarian convoy" was approaching Ukraine's borders. It was hard to foresee what would happen next. At that time, by the president's order and so to say a preimage of the war cabinet, which gathered for this reason, I spoke live and said about the situation which could have led to the unforeseeable consequences. There was a lot of tension at the studio and I felt that I needed to say that we shall overcome, I felt that our citizens were ready to defend the country, but they count that the state, the president and the Armed Forces will provide the defence and protection of the country.

[Zerkalo Nedeli] I have read right before the interview that NATO secretary-general said that Russia had been amassing heavy weapons on the occupied territory. According to your sources, is there a possibility of a serious escalation of the situation in Donbass?

[Chalyy] According to expert estimates (and not only Ukrainian but foreign as well), this possibility is not only there, there are certain preparations taking place. It is true that there are no such actions which would testify to the possibility of the offensive in the next few days or weeks, but general preparation reserves the possibility of Russia's and Russia-supported militants' offensive. But everyone agrees that any offensive cannot end in common strategic success for that simple reason that one should keep the occupied territory. Our army is in a completely different condition now, whereas a year ago we essentially did not have one. Now our Armed Forces with the volunteers' support have created such a situation that the price for the aggressor will be huge.

[Zerkalo Nedeli] But if everyone including Russia understands this, then why new hardware is brought in and the situation is being escalated? Maybe this is just psychological pressure in order to scare Ukraine and the West, so that our country would seriously compromise within the framework of the Minsk agreements, and  this is what they are pushing us towards at the moment?

[Chalyy] First of all, today it is impossible to put pressure on Ukraine, its leadership, Armed Forces and the people. If certain blackmail is carried out this way, then, most likely, it is about our partners involved in the peace plan implementation. Obviously, this signal is, first of all, for them and not for Ukraine.

Second, Russia is actively testing the most modern weapons systems. It is using the current situation to train their unit. I want to emphasize once again - nobody said that possible escalation of the military action cannot take place, and for this rear provision and other preparations are needed which is done by Russia now.

Third, Russia not only needs to support the military and military-industrial complex, but also to divert the attention inside Russia from other problems.

I want to add that there were a few quite complicated situations when escalation attempts stopped after very clear support from our partners and after sending "cargo 200" [dead soldiers] to Russia.

Interceptions show that the most combat-ready units of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate of the Armed Forces report that they are resisted by a professional and very serious defence from Ukraine. Besides, there are assessments from Western experts, for instance retired US Army general Wesley Clark, that operations carried out by the Ukrainian army are the most complicated in the last decade. And in Russia there are smart from the military and not political point of view generals, who understand that the price of the issue has increased for Russia.

[Zerkalo Nedeli] But our partners are losing it - Brussels, Washington. Lately I have an impression that they are singing a trio together with Moscow. There is no condemnation of the truce violation but the talks of Donbass elections sound more and more serious. Tell me, do our Western partners really believe that it is realistic to hold elections "in certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions", according to all the OSCE standards?

[Chalyy] One of the reasons why Russia and [Vladimir] Putin behaved the way they did was because they underestimated the possibilities of the EU countries and first of all, Germany and France to act together with support and solidarity with Ukraine and in union with the USA. This unity was hard to keep but we managed to do so. I think nobody will deny that this was also the success of the Ukrainian diplomacy and personally that of President Petro Poroshenko.

It is obvious that everyone is losing economically, including the West. But the scale of these losses, and Ukraine constantly emphasizes this, is not comparable to the price our country is paying - over 1,700 dead soldiers and more than 7,000 peaceful residents.

Russia is actively working in the West (including countries which are participants of various negotiations formats), and its resources are not comparable with ours. But it is also obvious that we and all other parties must implement the Minsk Agreements. Russia's attempts to blackmail and to insist only on having their positions represented failed. But Ukraine has also taken on certain duties and our partners insist on us implementing them.

Now the problem is the following - our partners insist that we must implement all the agreements at once. But we have a clear understanding that without the withdrawal of the machines, without closing the border, through which all these machines are brought in, without releasing all the hostages, it is hard to imagine holding any kind of elections. And when the situation comes to the dead end, then European partners start stimulating Ukraine to be more active in the implementation of the Minsk Agreements, even if some points are not implemented by Russia.

[Zerkalo Nedeli] But Russia has not implemented a single point. The war goes on, we hear about the dead and the wounded almost every day, all military machines are not withdrawn. Is it easier for the West to pressure Ukraine than Russia?

[Chalyy] No, just now we are cooperating with the OSCE mission, with all the partners much better than Russia. They know how the situation is developing. And in case of some provocations, when shooting starts and offensive operation begins, we warn our partners and have a right to adequately react and defend our country. Today nobody can say that Ukraine is not able to keep to the agreements and be a responsible partner. All attempts to show that it is Ukraine that violates the Minsk Agreements have failed. This could be seen from the OSCE report which registered Russian weapons and Russia's regular army on the territory of Ukraine.

But some preparatory steps, really, can be done. We took the responsibility of defining the peculiarities of the local self-government in certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and we have done it. We took the responsibility on decentralization and constitutional reform and these things are taking place. We suggest new things - to discuss the withdrawal of not only large-calibre weapons but also weapons of less than 100-milimetre calibre. We are trying to maximally implement the agreements and suggest new initiatives.

But it is absolutely unacceptable for us that Ukraine would agree to all political decisions and at the same time in Donbass elections people with guns would "provide" the election process. We have clearly expressed our conditions which in no way contradict the Minks Agreements, since Ukraine is a European country and our elections are held based on the Ukrainian legislation, let it be with some peculiarities in some regions, then the elections must be held in accordance with the ODIHR-OSCE norms, with all Ukrainian parties and mass media's access. We are ready to do this because it is necessary to speak with Donbass via the people that represent it. But these people are not the armed militants who have shown their complete inability to make people's lives normal. It is convenient for them to fight. They make money on it, for instance by organizing smuggling. Russia has already started thinking what to do when these people, many of whom are simply criminals, can come to the Russian territory. Russia is interested in the fact that such "elements" would remain on Ukrainian territory.

[Zerkalo Nedeli] But even all Ukrainian parties and all mass media will have access to the Donbass elections, how can the elections be held with a border with Russia that is not controlled? More than a million Ukrainian citizens were forced to leave their homes. Who will vote in Donbass? Those "elements that you mentioned?

[Chalyy] I think the border should be closed. It is one of the country's sovereignty attributes. How can one close it? There is an option to first provide control with the help of the OSCE and then renew full control by Ukrainian border service. But these processes must go at least simultaneously and not at first Ukraine implements all that is required and then Russia will think whether it is worth sending heavy weapons and contract soldiers through the border. This is unacceptable. That is why our position is clear - on the one hand we carry out all our duties and on the other, we demand the same strict implementation of the Minsk Agreements by all other parties.

[Zerkalo Nedeli] Is it true that Victoria Nuland [Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the United States Department of State] in one of the meetings advised responding to Ukraine's statement that holding elections on the occupied territory is unrealistic, "to look for strong personalities who are able to win the elections"? Is the West that tired of Ukrainian events that they are ready to put Kiev at the negotiation table with anyone from Donetsk and Luhansk in order to wash their hands of it as soon as possible?

[Chalyy] As to advice and suggestions - many are giving them now. But the fact that Donetsk and Luhansk should be represented by the people respected there and those who are not criminals, it is absolutely logical and this is the reason why we need elections. But as to advice to find someone... [ellipses as published throughout] To be honest, I personally did not hear Nuland say this. But I can confirm that similar suggestions came from the Russian party, during the negotiations as well, with witnesses there, like let us define the candidates and then "elect" them. But this is not our approach; we do not do things this way in Ukraine. Such suggestion also brought a smile to Europeans' faces. The citizens of Ukraine living in Donbass should make a decision. Whether it will be easy for Kiev to accept their choice - this is another question...

[Zerkalo Nedeli] With taking "tiredness of Ukraine", are you not afraid that in order to elect more or less adequate representatives of the "rebelling" regions, the elections will be acknowledged by the OSCE and other international observers "on the whole" as democratic, despite "some violations"? For instance, now western representatives say that yes, there are some incidents but "on the whole" the cease-fire is being implemented.

[Chalyy] In reality there is no cease-fire. We daily inform our partners about what is going on. The same situation will be with the elections - if it is ODIHR-OSCE, then they have strict criteria and standards of holding the elections. This is an issue of organization's reputation. That is why I do not think that such situation will occur that the democratic institution can act against its own rules. We simply need to prepare the process in such a way so that later we will not have to look for complicated compromises.

On Donbass elections

[Zerkalo Nedeli] Do you believe that Donbass elections can take place this autumn?

[Chalyy] Bases on how the fake elections were held there and on the current statement of their "leaders", I think that normal, democratic elections are hard to imagine there so far.

In order to do this, people who stayed in these regions must change their way of thinking. Moreover, probably, those people that were forced to leave have to go back there. Their views are also undergoing a transformation now. Today more and more people understand the difference between what used to be in Ukraine before and what they got today both in Crimea and on the occupied territories in Donbass.

Besides, we understand that Europe, the West do not have a decision what to do next year if Russia cardinally changes its positions. But I hope that Russia starts to understand to where its current position is taking it. I think that everyone understands that it is time to come to some decisions.

[Zerkalo Nedeli] Will it be Minsk-3?

[Chalyy] I would not call it that way. I do not exclude that at some stage a meeting of the presidents of representatives on the very high level can take place. I think that it can be a broader format to stop the escalation and the conflict on the whole. This can happen. But it is very hard to foresee when exactly. Because lately, really, there is no serious progress either on cease-fire or hostages exchange (the principle "all for all" is not carried out). There is also tiredness of Ukraine. Plus, Greece, Syria and Middle East are in the limelight. But nevertheless, I am convinced that it is for the first time in the US history that Ukraine-Russia issue will be so important for the election campaign. The EU, as you know, has extended its sanctions until the end of January of the next year, and for Crimea - until 23 June 2016. Although this was not that simple at all. What will happen next it is very hard to say now. But there is a clear signal that in case of serious escalation, some offensive activities on behalf of the militants, western countries are ready to increase the sanctions. And this signal was clearly explained to the Russian leaders.

On Western assistance to Ukraine

[Zerkalo Nedeli] Is the issue of providing Ukraine with the defence weapons still on the agenda? Has Kiev not taken it off the table out of despair of not being able to convince the White House?

[Chalyy] In reality there is very wide support of such a step in the USA, to provide Ukraine with more weapons, defensive as well. And Freedom Support Act for Ukraine and 2016 draft budget for the needs of the national defence which were passed by the congress, this is all evidence that such support can be provided. The question about weapons is raised with the American party all the time. Ukraine is already receiving means of communications, night vision devices, medical equipment, counterbattery radars, armoured combat vehicles, for demining as well and space intelligence data.

We receive weapons, lethal as well and nobody can deny this to the sovereign Ukraine. Another thing that it should not be advertised which countries are doing this but it is over a dozen countries just from Europe. We have different levels of military-technical cooperation with them and it is developing at this stage.

But what else do we want to see? We want to know what to do, what the plan is if mass offensive starts from Russia and the militants supported by it. Ukraine cannot deal with one of the best equipped armies in the world on its own. Some preventive decisions need to be made for this which will allow everyone to react fast. We are consulting with our partners about it. The fact that the NATO and the USA reconsidered their presence in Europe that they really increased their possibilities in the regions bordering on Ukraine, this is a real limiting factor of possible escalation from Russia.

[Zerkalo Nedeli] So how can they help us concretely?

[Chalyy] Let us be realists, neither the USA nor other countries will fight on the Ukrainian territory for sure. But they provide, possibly, even more important things - training programmes and their provision. And now some Ukrainian subdivisions, according to the Americans' assessments, which hold trainings in Yavoriv, have a very high professional level, and with such dynamics Ukraine can come up to the key positions in Europe on combat capability of the Armed Forces.

It is necessary to understand that one has to be ready for any situation. And to understand that Ukraine which has given up 1240 nuclear warheads, must have a right to receive, if necessary, at least a thousand Javelins.

[Zerkalo Nedeli] It is a good argument.

[Chalyy] This argument sounds often and causes quiet nods of our partners' heads. That is why we have all the possibilities, even without having necessary numbers of weapons on the Ukrainian territory, to receive them fast in the time of need. Our western partners are sticking to approximately the same logic. They do not want to give additional reasons for Russia, since in their opinions, any increase even of the defence weapons may provoke a desire to start offensive. Although I do not share this view and I think that Ukraine's weakness provokes Russia more than our strength. But fast reaction in case of possible offensive to help us effectively defend ourselves is in the plans that we are developing now with our western partners.

On his goals as an ambassador to the USA

[Zerkalo Nedeli] Soon you will go to Washington. What other embassies will get new heads?

[Chalyy] I admit that this process could have been more dynamic but the quality of the appointments is also important for us. The president has already appointed 15 ambassadors after he was elected and another 11 candidates are expecting the agrement. In particular, the agrement requests were sent to Australia, Algeria, the UK, Iran, Lebanon, Lithuania, Moldova, Portugal, India, Slovenia and Singapore. We are expecting most of the embassy appointments by September.

[Zerkalo Nedeli] But I will add that critics often count those embassies where ambassadors' appointments are not planned. Because due to current conditions of total savings the Foreign Ministry and diplomatic service are under serious pressure as well. There are countries where Ukrainian ambassadors will work part time; some diplomatic establishments will be eliminated, although I think that we should maximally avoid such decisions. There is no politics here. For instance, Denmark closed its embassy in Ukraine in 2002 due to budget cuts. Our main task is to survive in difficult financial conditions. "Hub" embassies are being created in Africa, the ambassadors have already been appointed there and each ambassador is responsible for three to eight countries. It is a big workload, but it is the only way to carry out the tasks in the regime of cutting the financial resources.

Plus, I have not heard harsh criticism that the appointed ambassadors do not correspond to their position. We are trying to be very selective, but I must note that the reserve bench, is, unfortunately, short. It turned out this way that the "old guard" is unlikely to be involved in the current conditions, that is why we wanted to involve the current diplomats, those who are of very active professional age and have motivation to grow and show result. So far everyone who has been appointed is a professional diplomat. But I suppose that the first appointment of the politician with media experience can be for Canada. Because there are countries where communications issues are a number one priority. We also want to meet the requests of the Ukrainian diaspora.

[Chalyy] Valeriy Oleksiyovych, we often hear about the meetings, telephone conversations between President Poroshenko and the US State Secretary [John] Kerry, US Vice President [Joe] Biden, the US President [Barack] Obama. Is there a field of work left for the Ukrainian ambassador to the USA? What will you start your work with in Washington?

[Chalyy] It is true that now main communications are taking place (and uniquely often) on the level of the US and Ukrainian presidents, vice president, there is also a constant dialogue between the foreign ministers as well. The role of the ambassador is important in this situation but it is not always visible. Although, for instance, the US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, refutes this opinion proving that the ambassador can play an important role. Additionally, my colleagues who headed embassy No 1 before me - Oleh Bilorus, Yuriy Shcherbak, Anton Buteyko, Kostyantyn Hryshchenko, Mykhaylo Reznik, Oleh Shamshur, Oleksandr Motsyk - had extensive diplomatic experience and this puts a very high bar for my future work.

The USA is a key country and a lot of work here is carried out for providing contacts, negotiations, cooperation on the ground. I think that our possibilities are unique - Ukraine has support of both main parties. After the president of Ukraine spoke at the legislative body of the United States, many say that Petro Poroshenko has united the congress.

What do I have to do? I think that the key point is not even weapons, as many think, not even financial assistance, which is also very important (we were already given 2bn dollars of credit guarantees and another billion is being planned to be given, 450m dollars - practical aid), not the cooperation with the IMF, support at the UN and other international formats. The key word now is trust. This is the most important.

[Zerkalo Nedeli] Do we not have it?

[Chalyy] We do. But I want to say openly that now many things will depend on our internal political situation, on reform success, on the sequence of statements and actions. And if the US ambassador will have assistance inside the country, then it will be much easier to defend our position in Washington. As well as trust to Ukraine and country's leaders.

I count on cooperation, receiving information and coordination with the key personas in Ukraine - the president, prime minister, the head of the parliament, Foreign Minister and all those who are involved in the work inside the country.

Another issue to what many American partners drew my attention is the necessity of broad communication, constant information exchange and Ukraine's support at the congress - in both houses, in the executive structures. This is daily, painstaking work. And now, despite the serious support of Ukraine by the congress, there is lobbying from Russian side of some legislative acts, that is why we need constant work not with the ten congressmen, but with dozens, also with their office staff. It is a lot of work.

There are also issues that due to current situation are in the shade. For example, trade-economic cooperation. Goods turnover decreased by 25 per cent last year. There is also a problem of non-differentiation of Ukrainian export.

As of August 2015 we can import products to the USA of more than 3800 kinds in the regime of generalized system of preferences without taxes. Now people in the USA are cautious about the Russian businesses. And we need to fight for the niches that are becoming available. That is why the first Ukrainian-American business forum, which we plan to hold next week, will be a very important event; at the forum a Ukrainian delegation, he aded by the prime minister will share our position on the reforms and business projects. By the way, this forum will become a result of work of Ukrainian-American trade council as well, which started its work again on 28 May last year after a three-year break. Even in the war conditions I see the task of investment attraction.

There is a huge area of work outside the negotiation process and communications, visit preparation. There is a lot of work to be done with the diaspora. There is a problem of creation of a full-scale Ukrainian cultural centre in Washington. Of course many things come down to the lack of resources but we need to look for them.

There are many new initiatives which appeared after the Russian aggression. Volunteer movement appeared, there are groups in different American towns, not only in Washington or New York. And their actions must be coordinated, assisted with what they need. I count on more productive cooperation with the heads of general consulates of Ukraine in New York, San Francisco and Chicago and using Ukrainian honorary consuls' potential on the whole US territory and of course tight cooperation with Ukraine's permanent mission to the UN before the 70th anniversary of the General Assembly in September of this year and the expected visit of the president of Ukraine.

By the way, before leaving for Washington I negotiated with Yevhen Afineyevskyy's documentary producer's team, a film which was made according to all Hollywood standards. His goal is to tell the world community and politicians about Ukraine, starting with Euro-Maydan. In essence, he is telling about the Ukrainian people, its fight for the freedom, about how today Ukraine is defending democratic values and safety in the world. This picture makes it obvious for the world audience that our people with their heroism deserve a better future. I think we will arrange a closed viewing in Washington and New York. This film can realistically receive the highest awards in the world of cinematography. So far I have not seen anything that so exactly reflects the moods and chronology of Maydan. I think that after America this film will have to be shown in Ukraine in order to remind everyone for what everything has started.

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