#2
Sputnik
August 7, 2015
Russia Blamed for Pentagon Hack, Once Again, Without Evidence

Following a cyberattack on the Pentagon late last month, US authorities are pointing fingers at a usual suspect: Russia. But, in a familiar pattern, sources have given no evidence for their claims.

According to anonymous US officials, the Pentagon experienced a "sophisticated cyber intrusion" on or around July 25. While no classified information was hacked, the breach affected nearly 4,000 military and civilian personnel who work for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The entire email system of the Joint Staff was shut down, and is expected to operational again by the end of this week.

Speaking to NBC News, officials say that the intrusion utilized an automated system which gathered information and then distributed that data to thousands of separate accounts across the Internet, largely through encrypted social media accounts.

With little more to go on, the US has blamed the attack on an old scapegoat: Russia.

"It was clearly the work of a state actor," an official told NBC.

The allegations sound suspiciously reminiscent of claims made by US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter after a similar Pentagon breach in April.

"Early this year the sensors that guard DoD [US Department of Defense] unclassified networks detected Russian hackers accessing one of our networks," Carter said during a speech at Stanford University.

This followed other baseless allegations picked up by the US media, which purported that Russia was responsible for a breach of the White House's internal computer network. While CNN was quick to report that it was culprits who "worked for the Russian government," the White House later dialed back those claims.

"I think what is prompting the news is that there are sources attributing this attack to one specific country and I'm just not in a position to do that," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in April.

The Kremlin denied any involvement in either of those breaches, and in July, spokesman Dmitry Peskov criticized the US government's irresponsible habit of attributing blame before gathering all of the facts.

"Hacking is an international issue and speaking of governmental sponsoring is, again, a completely unfounded accusation," Peskov told journalists.

Russia isn't the only target of hysterical American accusations, of course. A data breach of the US Office of Personnel Management in June was almost immediately blamed on the Chinese government.

This, too, was later retracted by the White House.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that after a US official blamed Russia of hacking the White House's secret computers that such claims have become a type of sport for the West.

"I can't promise you that we'll be in a position at any point in the future to make a grand pronouncement about who may have been responsible for this particular intrusion," Earnest said during a June 9 news brief.

Beijing has also urged Washington to exercise caution before making unfounded claims.

"The United States, which made a mistake last year when it brought false charges against Chinese officers, should not repeat the mistake by taking retaliatory measures against China over the OPM incident," read an op-ed from state-run news agency Xinhua.

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 #3
Moscow Times
August 6, 2015
A Newbie's Guide to Taking the Moscow Metro
By Andreea Rujan

For tourists and residents alike, the metro is the simplest, cheapest and fastest way to get around the Russian capital. However, there are some basic things new arrivals should know before hopping on the subway in order to master the art of metro-riding like a true Muscovite.

1. Be prepared to push. The metro, particularly during rush hour, is crowded. You must be willing to use your elbows and make your way through the crowds of people getting on and off. Double your efforts if you want any chance of getting a seat.

2. Be fast! Make sure you are positioned right in front of the doors when they open. Let the people coming off the train get out first, then sprint into the carriage and push your way further in.

3. Respect the clearly defined hierarchy of the groups most worthy of a seat. These include: pregnant women, old people, children, people with big bags and women wearing heels. If you fear you are not able to accurately judge whether or not you should give someone a seat, chances are your fellow riders will help you out. If you're a young man, the answer to whether you should get up is "always."

4. Look the part. Russians are generally expressionless on public transport and its not uncommon to be stared at if you are smiling broadly. If you're in conversation with a friend, it's ok, but standing alone and smiling will just make you look crazy - or like a foreigner.

5. Reassess how you feel about personal space. As previously noted, the metro is crowded. Don't be bothered by other riders bumping up against you, especially as trains have been known to stop abruptly. And no matter how full the carriage seems, every stop proves there is always room for a few more.

After following these rules for a while, you'll notice that they become second nature and you won't even remember that you spent your first days in the Moscow metro staring at the mosaics on the walls and hanging back from the crowd hoping to get on the next train.

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 #4
www.rt.com
Moscow 7, 2015
Most Russians oppose ban on Soviet symbols - poll

An overwhelming majority of Russian citizens do not support the idea of banning public demonstration of Soviet symbols, while 73 percent confessed their positive attitude towards the hammer and sickle emblem.

On Friday the state-owned polling agency Vtsiom released the results of the research conducted earlier this year, according to which 73 percent of respondents claimed to have a positive attitude towards the Soviet hammer and sickle and 66 percent said they liked the red star. Only 11 percent said they have negative attitude to these symbols.

Seventy-two percent of respondents categorically objected to the possible ban on the hammer and sickle and 68 appeared to be against a ban on the red star. Seven percent said they would support such a ban if it were to take place.

At the same time 6 and 10 percent respectively of those polled said they were not aware of the symbolism behind the hammer and sickle emblem and the red star.

The attitude to various other symbols appeared to be generally positive. Forty-one percent of Russians said they had positive thoughts about the Muslim crescent and 23 rated their emotions as negative. The Star of David was more controversial, with 32 percent saying they had positive attitude to this symbol and 28 percent confessing a negative attitude.

The Ukrainian trident draws positive emotions from 27 percent of the Russian population, with 34 percent professing a negative attitude to the coat of arms of the neighboring state. Still, the idea of banning Ukrainian state symbols in Russia received support from only 20 percent of the people, with 46 percent maintaining this would be a bad idea.

The only definitively negative symbol in the eyes of Russians is the Nazi swastika. Some 74 percent said it caused bad feelings and 62 percent supported a ban on its exhibition, with only 19 percent opposing such measures.

The poll was conducted in connection with the controversial Ukrainian law passed in April this year. The act bans the communist and national-socialist totalitarian ideologies and all their symbols and orders that all organizations, political parties or media found guilty of propagating communism or Nazism will be closed down.

This week Kiev authorities published the Law on Local Elections banning Communists and National Socialists from participating in regional and municipal polls scheduled on October 25.

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 #5
Most Russians Like Soviet Symbols But Lack Knowledge about Soviet Past - and That is Dangerous
Paul Goble

Staunton, August 7 - A VTsIOM poll shows that the overwhelming majority of Russians have a positive attitude toward Soviet symbols but that a significant share of them do not know what those symbols stand for, a measure of the extent to which the Soviet past is being rapidly transformed for many of them from a harsh reality to an attractive myth.

More than two thirds of Russians, the poll finds, have a positive attitude toward the hammer and sickle and the red star, while about only one in ten have a negative one. At the same time, six percent don't know what the hammer and sickle stands for, and ten percent don't know what the red star symbolizes (nr2.ru/News/politics_and_society/VCIOM-bolshinstvo-rossiyan-lyubyat-sovetskuyu-simvoliku-103322.html).

That this should be a concern not only for Russians but for everyone is suggested by Dmitry Bykov in his appreciation of Robert Conquest who made "a more principled and in a certain sense more significant" contribution to the understanding of the Soviet period and the Great Terror than even Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (novayagazeta.ru/arts/69454.html).

Unlike Solzhenitsyn, Bykov points out, "Conquest justly suggested that Stalin was not a communist and in general for us Bolsheviks ideas were not a fetish" and argued instead that terror was something independent of ideology but very much rooted in certain national traditions like those of Russia.

That insight is important, he suggests, both for Russians and the West, many of whom in both places are too quick to assume that having ceased to be communist, Russia is no longer a place where the most horrific things can happen. Conquest understood that this was not the case, and it is unfortunate that his words have not been attended to as much as they should.

"Russia, communist or Bolshevik or Stalinist, call it what you like, was an organic continuation of tsarist Russia and passed through the same oprichniki" that had been true of the time of Ivan Grozny, Bykov says. "And this is what Conquest showed," that terror was an attractive option for its leaders and its people all too often.

There are several reasons for this, the Moscow commentator says. First, terror has the great advantage for many in that it eliminates any sense of personal responsibility and always allows people who are part of it to deny that fact. Second, terror isn't based on ideology; it is based on the interests of the rulers. And third, terror doesn't need or promote a strong economy.

Conquest's "The Great Terror" was not devoted to any "ideological unmasking," Bykov says. In fact, the historian found much "useful and healthy" in Russian socialism.  Instead, he showed that Russian history, including its Stalinist period, was "an extra-ideological history," one that occurred not because of a specific set of ideas but rather because of specific interests.

The time may have come in Russia again to ban Conquest's book again, Bykov suggests, "because the moral of this book is horrific:" guilt may lie not with what was Soviet but rather with what is Russian and "that Russia alone hasn't been able to think of anything more interesting than the Great Terror."

"That is what Conquest showed the world," Bykov concludes, "and that is why his book hasn't generated any interest in Russia since the perestroika period."

To say this is not to say that the horrors of the Stalinist period were not worse than those Putin has visited upon the country - at least to date. Information about those horrors continues to come out, although just like Conquest's great book, it seldom attracts the attention either in Russia today or the West.

One especially noxious feature of the Stalin system, for example, was the existence of special "hospital laboratories" where Soviet counterparts of the Nazi Dr. Mengele experimented on human victims. Few want to talk about that or about the fact that the NKVD/MGB doctor who headed them was given only a ten year sentence.

His case, which involved the death by poisoning of many Soviet citizens and Russians abroad, has now been documented by Vladimir Ignatov, Executioners and Executions in the History of Russia and the USSR (in Russian, Moscow, 2014) and now summarized online at
ttolk.ru/?p=24493.

 #6
Medium
https://medium.com
August 3, 2015
Running for Office in Siberia
Part I in a Series on the District #35 Election for Novosibirsk City Council
By Sarah Lindemann-Komarova
Sarah Lindemann-Komarova one of the founders of the Siberian Civic Initiatives Support Center, a Novosibirsk-based nongovernmental organization that supports grassroots democratic development in Siberia.
[Photos here https://medium.com/@ECHOSiberia/running-for-office-in-siberia-7b426f574249]

This is the first in a series of reports that will cover an independent candidate's campaign for Novosibirsk City Council in the September 13th election. Every election and campaign is unique so no candidate experience represents the status of the democratic process in a country. It can provide insight on the people and opportunities available for them to be active and promote an agenda. I have chosen this candidate, Natalia Pinus, because win or lose it demonstrates the evolution of a person from working mother, to volunteer, to candidate hoping to represent a complex and legendary community, Akademgorodok, Russia.

I first met Natalia at a party around 6 years ago. We chatted and I was surprised she was genuinely interested in my work as a civil society development activist. Most people stare politely bored until they can escape. Natalia planted herself in a chair across from me and asked follow-up questions about NGOs and volunteerism. She also told me about her company that supplies lighting and other equipment to theatres in Russia. At the time she was the mother of two young girls, now 3 with the addition of a boy. Her husband is also successful with a big job at an international company. We exchanged contact information and I forgot about our talk until months later she called and wanted to meet. Her company was doing fine, she didn't need to be there all the time and making money was no longer an interesting challenge. She wanted to do something to make the community where she, and now her children, grew up a better place, "Can you recommend an NGO where I can volunteer?".

This phone call was one of the "green shoots" I had been waiting for since 1992 when I became an activist in Siberia. I know and work with hundreds of extraordinary women dedicated and sacrificing to address issues they are passionate about. This was the first time a woman expressed interest in becoming active because of a shift in priorities, a value shift from money and personal gain to community. I asked what field she was most interested in and listed numerous possibilities such as education, health, environment, children, the elderly. Her response was "all of those things, everything". This now became a phone call that would make several people I knew excited. The Akademgorodok Community Development Foundation had been dormant for over a year because there was no one qualified to be Executive Director. Most grassroots NGOs in Russia start on a volunteer basis and even when salaries are possible they are rarely enough to provide a living wage. Finding someone who does not need an income and is capable of generating the results necessary for a community foundation to increase its stature and funding opportunities is difficult. In a community as diverse and complex as Akademgorodok, it was starting to look impossible, until Natalia's call. The rest, as they say, is history and the latest chapter of that history will be the focus of this series.

The other reason this particular race is interesting is its location, Novosibirsk. The 3rd largest city in Russia, the results of the 2014 Mayoral race surprised many when the Communist Party candidate defeated the United Russia (ruling party associated with President Putin) candidate. That election was also notable for the way this happened when a couple of opposition party candidates withdrew from the race at the last minute to support the Communist and increase the chances of a United Russia defeat. The City has also assumed national notoriety as an epicenter for the conservative cultural movement. Highlights include the cancellation of a Marilyn Manson concert, nightclub blockade of the Polish death metal band Behemoth's "Russian Satanist Tour" performance and the most significant event this spring when the production of Tannhauser was canceled and the Director of the Opera Theatre fired after protests from Orthodox activists. Another cultural moment came when the newly elected Mayor refused to give permission for Monstration , the creative class alternative to the traditional May Day parade, to march down the main street and insisted it be moved to a marginal location. This cultural backlash is like a dog whistle in a City where local theatre productions and artists are the recipients of countless national awards and that has produced such artists as 2014 Academy Award nominee Andrey Zvyagintsev ("Levianthon"), Yanka Dyagileva, the most famous female punk singer in the Soviet Union and the internationally recognized Blue Noses provocateur artists group. Natalia is unusual because she serves on government cultural committees and has been active in public meetings questioning government positions on the issues described above.

The 35th district that Natalia wants to represent is famous for science. Akademgorodok was established in 1957 when an academic, Mikhail Lavrentyev, talked Nikita Khrushchev into building a science center in Siberia. The plan included a university that would be associated with institutes where Professors do their scientific work and graduate students gain experience before leaving to apply their skills and knowledge at enterprises throughout Siberia. Only the third element in the model turned out to be a problem, no one ever wanted to leave. In order to entice scientific talent to abandon the more reasonable climates of Moscow and Petersburg they had to make Akademgorodok lifestyle attractive. Only the hotel was taller than five stories, a sandy beach was created on the shores of the Ob Sea (a water reservoir) and cross country ski trails wander through the woods that surround the town. Lavrentyev believed that walking to and from work through the birch tree forest was conducive to scientific thinking so trees were replanted after the cut down necessary to accommodate housing. While most people live in apartments, one scientist explained to me the reason he decided to stay in the 60's, "The houses where the people in power live were not hidden behind high walls, everything was visible". Others felt the distance from Moscow allowed for more creative and intellectual freedom. Proof of that came when the concept that would be the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union was born here, perestroika. Sociologist Tatyana Zaslavskaya and economist Abel Aganbegyan first introduced the term in relation to the reality that the agriculture sector was failing economically and needed restructuring . The confidential report was read and appreciated by Gorbachev and leaked to the Washington Post. So, if there are places worth watching for trends in Russia today, this is one of them.

The final reason I wanted to focus on Natalia is when I asked her why she was running one of the reasons was, "I want to run a modern campaign". To western ears that might sound meaningless (politicians blah blah blah to check off a list of necessary rhetoric), trite (who doesn't?) or scary (unlimited money, robot calls, keeping the vote down, stats and polls). In Russia, it is refreshing because it means old fashioned campaigning as in getting out the vote hand to hand, being as visible as possible on the street. This is pretty much an anomaly where in local elections the campaigns have consisted mostly of posters followed by one or two flyers in your mailbox. When I ran into her all aglow from a meeting with the Aikido Babyshka Club I knew she wasn't kidding and this would be interesting.

The next installment of the series will look at Natalia Pinus's development as a community activist.

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 #7
Politkom.ru
August 3, 2015
Russian website looks at opposition's setback ahead of regional elections
Svetlana Samoylova, Elections without Democratic Coalition: Victory tough line?

The situation surrounding the participation of the non-systemic opposition in the elections scheduled for September is developing dramatically. Following the Novosibirsk electoral commission's refusal to register the Parnas [People's Freedom Party] electoral list, the opposition activists declared hunger strike, but then were arrested and fined. There is an equally complex situation in Kostroma. There, Andrey Pivovarov, head of the Democratic Coalition's election staff, has been arrested.

Pivovarov, chief of the Democratic Coalition's Kostroma staff, has been arrested for two months. He is suspected of an attempt to gain unlawful access to personal data. Operations officer Aleksey Nikanorov, who, according to the investigation's version of events, intended to provide access to passport databases, admitted his guilt in court and was arrested for two months. Admittedly, he himself soon stated that he had given his evidence under duress.

According to Pivovarov's lawyers' version of events, the opposition activist himself got in touch with the police on 27 July in order to check the passport data of those who had signed in support of putting forward the coalition's list in Kostroma - on that day, the Novosibirsk electoral commission had refused his comrades in arms registration of their list because of discrepancies between the data in the lists of signatures and the Federal Migration Service administration's database. The Kostroma staff chief had suspicions regarding certain collectors, and he asked one of the police staffers to check the data for the lists of signatures. He agreed, [Parnas deputy chairman] Ilya Yashin asserted, and invited the head of the staff to his office, after which police arrested both of them. In the opinion of lawyer Stefanishina, Pivovarov's arrest might have been the result of an act of provocation, RBK wrote. Stefanishina also pointed out the unlawfulness of using the Criminal Code article "Unlawful access to computer information," incriminating Pivovarov. That is, a crime is considered to have been committed only on condition that one or several consequences listed in the article have taken place: the destruction, blocking, modification or copying of data. None of these took place, and criminal intent was even lacking, she reported to RBK.

In court, Pavel Yevshov, investigator for specially important cases, presented a character testimonial from St Petersburg local police officer Marianna Kocherina to the effect that "Pivovarov is a participant in the radical Parnas movement."

Parnas has until 3 August to be registered in the elections in Kostroma Region. The party's plans to take part in the elections for the legislative assemblies of other regions have also turned out to be on the brink of failure. Before 29 July, the working group for checking signatures recommended that the electoral commission of Magadan Region should refuse to register the coalition list. On 27 July the coalition was barred from taking part in the elections in Novosibirsk. Leonid Volkov, chief of the democrats' local staff, and the leaders of their list Yegor Savin and Sergey Boyko are continuing hunger strike as a sign of protest.

The Parnas party has complained to the Central Electoral Commission about the refusal of the Novosibirsk Region electoral commission to register its party list. As the complaint says, the address of one voter, contained in the list of signatures, which the Federal Migration Service directorate for Novosibirsk Region considered wrong, is recorded on the information service "Find yourself in the list of voters" on the Central Electoral Commission's website. The information presented to the Federal Migration Service directorate cannot be used to confirm the invalidity of the signatures, party lawyers are convinced, since the electoral commission made mistakes when sending the request to the Federal Migration Service directorate, and there is unreliable information in the Federal Migration Service's address and information databases. Furthermore, representatives of Parnas believe that in this case the law "On political parties", which bans organs of state power and their officials from interfering in the work of parties, has been violated. Since the Federal Migration Service has no up-to-date passport database, this calls the entire procedure of checking the signatures into question, which leads to the violation of the rights of voters and parties, and that is why a complaint was written regarding the unlawfulness of the interference of the Federal Migration Service, party lawyer Ivan Zhdanov explained. A total of 10,657 signatures was required for registration. The Parnas staff submitted 11,682 signatures to the electoral commission, and 1,495 of these were deemed invalid. Later 153 signatures were removed from this list, and thus 317 signatures were required for the party's registration.

By 31 July the Democratic Coalition had made a statement that it will not put forward its electoral list in Kaluga Region: "We have come up against an unprecedented special operation to introduce into our staff an organized group of fabricators of false signatures - by analogy with the exposed 'toxic' collectors of signatures in Novosibirsk", the coalition's statement said. In addition, the Russian Investigations Committee is not ruling out instituting criminal proceedings over "a case of the party supplying false lists of signatures" to the electoral commission. Parnas considers this to be a provocation. Parnas was also not allowed to take part in the elections in Magadan Region, where over 20 per cent of signatures collected in support of Parnas were deemed invalid, and also the party was accused of bribing voters (at the admission of one of the collectors). Parnas has been removed from the Perm city election.

Barring the coalition from the elections leaves the non-systemic opposition outside the framework of the legitimate system of political participation, which weakens it in the eyes of the "liberal-protest" part of society, which is widely represented in the politicized section of the internet. By and large, for voters in the given regions, this subject is of a peripheral nature, but scandals strip the elections of the emphatically respectable nature which the Kremlin would like to achieve.

At the same time, the question arises of the extent to which there is a consensus on the tough line against Parnas among the authorities. According to some information, it is initiated not only by regional leaders afraid of any uncontrolled competition, but also by security agencies who are aiming to toughen up the political system as much as possible (these actions are on a par with the expansion of the number of noncommercial organizations deemed to be foreign agents, and the adoption of a law on undesirable organizations). And all the indications are that they have managed to secure the adoption of a political decision regarding Parnas.

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 #8
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
August 6, 2015
Russians cheesed off as authorities destroy 'EU' food
bne IntelliNews

Nine tons of presumed EU-made cheese seized after entering Russia from Ukraine were bulldozed into the ground on August 6 as officials enforced Kremlin orders to destroy prohibited Western products, despite protests from citizens struggling with rising food prices.

The first batch of hundreds of tons of food earmarked for destruction, the cheese was confiscated in June near the border, a spokeswoman for the Russian veterinary and phytosanitary control authority Rosselkhoznadzor in the southern Belgorod region told Interfax. "There were no labels on the products and its origin is unknown. It is quite possible the cheese was made in one of the countries under sanctions," she said.

The load was crushed by bulldozers on the first day of implementation of a decree on food disposal signed by President Vladimir Putin on July 29. Packs of EU bacon were also burned in Belgorod, while another 20 tonnes of cheese were destroyed in Orenburg. "The cheese is called Russian but has Latvian labels," said another spokesperson for the agency, adding that, "the products were delivered from Kazakhstan while the driver was a German national".

According to reports, Russia had by the end of the day destroyed 55 tonnes of peaches, nectarines and tomatoes; 29 tonnes of cheese and 28 tonnes of meat. Not everyone waited for the Kremlin starting gun either: The Moscow Times reported that 114 tons of pork seized in April and found to be misclassified as being Brazilian in origin were destroyed on August 3. To speed up the overall process, the Ministry of Agriculture has announced a tender to buy "mobile food crematoria".

However, the newspaper noted that in many of the cases there was no proof that the destroyed products fell under the Western food import ban, Officials were equally eager to destroy products with improper labeling and incomplete documentation.

Backlash as poverty deepens

But the Kremlin campaign to shut out EU products in retaliation for Union sanctions against Russia for its actions in Ukraine risks backfiring. With food inflation exceeding 20% and 16% of the population now living in poverty, scenes of the destruction shown on national television have not been well received.

More than 260,000 people have so far joined an online petition on Change.org, an international website that hosts petition campaigns, calling on Putin to revoke the decision and give the food to the needy instead.

"Sanctions have led to a major growth in food prices on Russian shelves. Russian pensioners, veterans, large families, the disabled and other needy social groups were forced to greatly restrict their diets, right up to starvation," the petition says. "If you can just eat these products, why destroy them?"

One priest from the Russian Orthodox Church, which enjoys close ties with the Kremlin, expressed anger at the campaign, Reuters reported. "My grandmother always told me that throwing away food is a sin," the cleric, Alexei Uminsky, was quoted as saying by the website 'Orthodoxy and the World'. "This idea is insane, stupid and vile."

"Such an idea can only appear with a man who has been in no need for anything in recent decades and is ready to do something like that for populism and quasi-patriotism," Uminsky added.

Suggestions for the food's further use included giving it to people in Africa or the war-torn Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, or processing it into animal food.

According to Rosselkhoznadzor, vegetables and fruits will be disposed of at dumps, while meat and milk products will be incinerated due to high biological risks. Small batches of products will be destroyed at refuse destruction plants at the border.

Russian condoms to fill the gap

The ban on EU products was announced one year ago in response to sanctions imposed by the EU in July 2014 over Russia's annexation of Crimea and support for pro-Moscow rebels in East Ukraine. Recently extended by the government until August 2016, the countermeasures have been effective, say Russian officials.

"Prohibited imports have now declined by 10 times," Rosselkhoznadzor chief Sergei Dankvert said, adding that the amounts of food destroyed would not be enormous. "I don't think there will be a large volume, I believe there will be hundreds of tons but no more than several hundred tons," TASS news agency quoted the official as saying.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov offered little hope that the president will revoke his decision, saying: "The presidential decree is taking effect and must be carried out."

While conceding that from a moral perspective, the picture "definitely does not look good", Peskov said the issue should not be exaggerated either, given the possible health risks stemming from the products. "We are talking here about smuggled goods, which had no certificates and other documents and no one would assume responsibility and guarantee that the goods, which can look very palatable, do not pose risk to human health," he said.

Meanwhile, federal authorities are now proposing to extend the ban on EU goods to limit imports of X-ray machines and defibrillators for hospitals, which are already complaining of poor equipment. Condoms are another possible item that will be barred under the Kremlin's import substitution drive to make Russia more efficient at producing its own goods.

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#9
Russian authorities to take account of petition against destruction of sanctioned food
   
MOSCOW, August 6. /TASS/. Petition against the destruction of foodstuffs, which are brought to Russia from the EU in spite of the sanctions imposed by Moscow, will be taken account of by the authorities, the Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

"We haven't verified it (the petition) so far and there have been more requests and activists actually have appeared who are saying they are ready to prove their authenticity," he said. "They also say they outnumber 200,000 already."

"Quite naturally, this is taken into account and is reported to the appropriate state agencies," Peskov said.

He said, however, that the main consideration behind the steps towards destroying consignments of contraband Western manufacture was the absence of any documents or identification codes on the products.

Kremlin advises against overreaction to destruction of sanctioned foodstuffs

Peskov also noted that the issue should not be exaggerated as the confiscated products were smuggled and could pose risk to health.

"This all definitely does not look good," Peskov told journalists when asked to comment on the moral side of the issue.

Peskov said the issue "should first of all not be exaggerated."

"We are talking here about smuggled goods, which had no certificates and other documents and no one would assume responsibility and guarantee that the goods, which can look very palatable, do not pose risk to human health," he said.

Russia's government has ordered the Federal Customs Service, agriculture watchdog and consumer rights watchdog to destroy all products on its sanctions list the moment they enter Russian territory.

The initiative was proposed by Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachyov at a government meeting with Vladimir Putin on July 24.

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 #10
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
August 6, 2015
Press Digest: Russia to fight $50 billion Yukos ruling in U.S. court
RBTH presents a selection of views from leading Russian media on international events, featuring reports on Russia's decision to fight Yukos shareholders in a U.S. court, hopes that Poland will move to improve relations with Moscow; and furthers cuts to the budget for the FIFA World Cup 2018 in Russia.
Yelena Temchenko, special to RBTH

Russian authorities agree to participate in proceedings over Yukos award

The Russian business daily Kommersant reports that after the seizures of Russian state assets in France and Belgium, the authorities have decided to participate in proceedings in the U.S. in the case brought by former shareholders of now-defunct Russian oil company Yukos. The plaintiffs are seeking the enforcement of the decision of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which awarded them $50 billion.

According to the newspaper, the interests of the Russian state will be represented by the law firm White & Case, which has already been able to agree to extend the deadline for the submission of objections by the Russian side.

The lawyers cited the "extraordinary" nature of the case and the particularly large amount claimed by the plaintiffs as grounds for the postponement. They also referred to the enormous volume of data in the case, which has lasted for almost a decade - 3,300 pages of transcripts, 6,500 pages of written explanations, 11,000 testimonies and items of physical evidence, writes Kommersant.

Under the amended schedule, Russia has the right to send its position on the case until Oct. 20, inclusive; the applicants have the right to submit their objections until Dec. 22, after which Russia is allowed to give its reply until Jan. 29, 2016.
 
Poland hopes to improve relations with Russia

The online publication Vzglyad tells its readers that Poland hopes to improve relations with Moscow. According to the website, this is evidenced by the words of Poland's ex-Prime Minister Leszek Miller.

"We hope that the new head of the Polish state will attempt to start cooperation with Russia," he said.

The Polish Social Democrats hope that the new President, Andrzej Duda, will try to "unfreeze those icy relations that have been established between Moscow and Warsaw in recent years," he added.

The director of the European Center of Geopolitical Analysis, former Polish parliamentarian Mateusz Piskorski, said in his comments to the website that "ahead of the parliamentary elections (to be held in fall), Duda will probably make a few symbolic steps to improve relations with Russia, in accordance with the expectations of a large part of the electorate."

However, on the whole, Piskorski advises not to expect drastic changes with the arrival of a new president, since the powers of the head of state are rather limited and his decisions are largely symbolic, writes Vzglyad.

A member of the Democratic Union of Left Forces, Tadeusz Iwiński, told the website that Poland should establish diplomatic cooperation with Russia.

"Poland has become a country that does not have a dialogue with the Kremlin at a high level. In the last six months, neither the president nor the prime minister spoke with their Russian counterparts," he said.
 
Budget for FIFA World Cup 2018 to be cut again

Preparation costs for the World Cup in 2018 are to be reduced to 151.4 million rubles ($2.3 million), reports centrist newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, citing a decree issued by the government of the Russian Federation.

According to the initial decree on preparations for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, 664.1 billion rubles ($10.4 billion) was to be spent on the whole program. Of this, 336.2 billion rubles ($5.2 billion) was to be allocated from the federal budget, 101.6 billion rubles ($1.5 billion) from regional budgets and another 226.3 billion rubles ($3.5 billion) from extra-budgetary sources, writes the newspaper.

Starting from May this year, the overall costs have been reduced almost on a monthly basis; according to government documents, it is funds from regional budgets and off-budget sources that are being reduced, but not from the federal budget, writes Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

Igor Nikolayev, director of FBK's Strategic Analysis Department, said in comments to the newspaper that the 2018 World Cup is no longer such a significant prestige project for Russia. Therefore, he said, the decision to reduce the budgets for the World Cup looks logical.

"At a time when social expenditures are shrinking, to increase spending on major sports events could only bring image losses to the state and the government," he told Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

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 #11
Moscow Times
August 6, 2015
Russian Official Lauds Condom Restrictions
By Howard Amos, Anna Dolgov

A senior Russian official has praised plans to restrict condom imports as part of a drive to reduce reliance on foreign-made goods, suggesting Wednesday that a dearth of the rubber contraceptives will make people more "disciplined" and boost birth rates.

Fewer condoms will make people "more strict and discriminating in choosing partners, and maybe will do a favor to society in respect to solving demographic problems," former public health chief Gennady Onishchenko said, news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Onishchenko's remarks came a day after the Industry and Trade Ministry proposed limiting imports of condoms and other medical equipment including X-ray and ultrasound machines, defibrillators and incubators.

Officials have moved in recent months to reduce the country's dependence on foreign goods in a range of sectors amid a surge of patriotism that has swelled following the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine last year.

Sexually transmitted diseases are widespread in Russia and HIV infection rates are on the rise, even as most European countries have succeeded in bringing them down. There are expected to be over 1 million Russians infected with HIV by the beginning of next year.

Onishchenko also denied there would be any possible repercussions for public health. "Rubber technical goods [condoms] have nothing to do with health," he said, according to RIA Novosti.

The move to cut condom imports appeared not to have been agreed with President Vladimir Putin. The president's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that the Kremlin "had not thought about" the issue, RIA Novosti reported.

Industry executives were quick to point out that Russia is overwhelmingly dependent on foreign-made condoms. Russian producers supply up to 4 percent of the domestic market, according to Yesenia Shamonina, the head of Russia's largest contraceptive supplier, the Russian News Service reported.

Most of Russia's domestically manufactured condoms are produced by one factory, the Armavirsky Factory in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia.

The proposal by the Industry and Trade Ministry concerns only state procurements - not purchases by companies or individuals - and so would only affect 2 percent of the condom market.

In 2013, Russians used 418 million condoms - 3 percent more than the year before - and the value of the market was 9.8 billion rubles ($156 million), according to a study published by the Discovery Research Group and reported by the RBC website last year.

Russians used 51 percent more condoms in April 2015 than they did in the same month a year earlier, according to figures cited Tuesday by the Vesti.ru news website.

Russia also reportedly has a serious problem with an illicit condom trade, in which cheaply made condoms are falsely marketed as established brands. About half the condoms sold in Russia are counterfeit, the Bolshoi Gorod magazine reported last month, citing industry experts.

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 #12
Moscow Times
August 5, 2015
Abandoned Mistral Deal Still Divides Russian Officials, Analysts
By Matthew Bodner

France has agreed to reimburse Russia for the two Mistral-class helicopter carriers purchased under a 2011 contract, ending a months-long dispute over the fate of Russia's largest foreign arms purchase in the post-Soviet era.

But the question of whether Russia really needs such expensive ships other than for mere power projection is still dividing Russian officials and military analysts.

Russia paid 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) for the ships, but the contract was suspended last year in response to Moscow's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and subsequent support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Thursday that the money has been returned to Russia. President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the news the same day.

The vessels were ordered by former Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov in 2011 in what some observers described as a favor to France.

Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, former commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, told the RIA Novosti news agency on Thursday that the purchase of the two French-built ships was a political decision rather than a military one.

"The decision to purchase the Mistrals was purely political, we didn't really need them. Our ships are better armed, and ships of the Mistral-class could only have been used in the Far East, where there is open access to the ocean - such as in the area around the Kuril Islands," said Komoyedov, who is now head of the State Duma's defense committee.

What Next?

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the defense industry, has repeatedly said during the past year that Russia was capable of building its own ships similar to the Mistral.

The Soviet Union built several types of smaller ships that were considered to be helicopter carriers, but they were only capable of carrying a handful of helicopters and were designed to assist the fleet in hunting U.S. submarines.

Now Russian naval design bureaus such as the esteemed Krylov State Research Center in St. Petersburg, perhaps hoping to see some of the refunded Mistral money thrown their way for a similar project, have been leaking their design proposals to the Russian media.

"Russian defense industry firms decided to join the party and have designed several original Russian projects in an effort to prove that they could also be reliable suppliers of helicopter carriers," said Vadim Kozyulin, a military expert at the Moscow-based PIR Center think tank.

In mid-June, an unidentified defense industry source told RIA Novosti about a Krylov helicopter carrier proposal known as the Lavina-class ship. The Lavina would be slightly larger than the 21,000-ton Mistrals, weighing in at 24,000 tons displacement.

Another proposal leaked to RIA Novosti came from the Nevsky Design Bureau, also in St. Petersburg. Nevsky's design, known as the Priboi-class helicopter carrier, would be smaller than the Mistrals, displacing a mere 14,000 tons of water, according to an unidentified defense industry source.

Unnecessary Burden?

While industry officials continue to argue over whether or not Russia should build its own versions of the Mistral, Russian defense analysts are divided over whether Russia needs such ships.

"The cancellation of the [Mistral] deal will be a real relief for the Russian defense budget and for the Russian navy," said Kozyulin.

"Helicopter carriers [like Mistral] are not armed and require huge air, anti-missile and anti-submarine defenses, which means they need to be escorted by a wide net of support vessels, and this is burdensome for any navy budget," Kozyulin said.

With Russia's economy in the doldrums, defense spending has been trimmed by 5 percent in 2015 to 3.1 trillion rubles ($48 billion) - forcing the Defense Ministry to choose between cutting procurements of new weapons, such as ships, or reducing spending on operations such as escorts for large vessels.

Even if Russia could afford to operate helicopter carriers, Kozyulin argued that they are more trouble than they are worth.

While naval planners found a Russia-specific mission for the oceangoing carriers - such as serving as command posts in small-scale conflicts such as the 2008 five-day war with Georgia - the operational sphere of such carriers is limited by the range of its helicopters.

This means that for the Mistral to be useful in an assault on enemy territory, it may have to approach the shore, which puts it in range of missiles, enemy aircraft, and even at risk of being shelled into the sea by enemy artillery.

However, former naval officer Maxim Shepovalenko, now an expert at the Center for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, argued that Russia needed the Mistral vessels, "not so much for Russia's standoff with NATO, but rather for the Pacific theater."

Russia cannot secure its strategic interests in the Pacific with its current force, Shepovalenko said, and the deployment of two Mistral-type ships to the Far East would give Russia a powerful asset to identify and deal with any intruders.

"As for escorts, these are already available, in particular Udaloi-class and Sovremenny-class destroyers from the Pacific Fleet, or nuclear or conventional submarines," he said.

One of the Mistrals, named Vladivostok, was supposed to be deployed in the Pacific. The other ship, the Sevastopol, was set to join the Pacific Fleet as well, but some Russian military officials suggested it might have eventually ended up in the Black Sea Fleet. However, port infrastructure for the two Mistral ships was only constructed in Vladivostok, indicating that Black Sea deployment was not on the cards in the short term.

Shepovalenko also noted Russia's recent naval doctrine update that prioritized the development of a blue-water, or oceangoing navy.

"Any navy with blue-water aspirations should have large aircraft-capable ships displacing over 20,000 tons," he said.

Russia only has one such ship, the Soviet-built Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, which is part of the Northern Fleet, which largely operates in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans.

"There is no "flattop" [aircraft carrier] in the Pacific, which is wrong. [Furthermore], the practical experience of running a large aircraft-carrying ship is, and should be, a key performance requirement for Russia's cadre of naval officers," Shepovalenko said.

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 #13
Subject: re Antony Beevor's book re WWII
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2015 15:51:31 +0100
From: Antony Penaud <antonypenaud@yahoo.fr>

Antony Penaud completed his D.Phil. (University of Oxford) in 2000. He is French and lives in London.
His essays on Russia and Ukraine can be found on www.scribd.com/antonykharms
---

The headline of Beevor's article in The Guardian (1) is "By banning my book, Russia is deluding itself about its past".

There are two mistakes (lies?) in this headline: there is no ban (2), and what happened was not at state level but at regional level.

The reader who just read the headline of that article now thinks that Russia banned a book written by Beevor, which is not true.

In his article, Beevor writes "Jewish officers, who might have far greater reasons for revenge, did what they could to save women from attack."

Just imagine if a historian had said the opposite (that Russian officers tried to stop Jewish soldiers (3)) in a newspaper column: the reader would be - rightly - shocked.

This tendency to differentiate between the bad Soviets (Russians) and the good ones (non Russians) is not new: I had noticed it in an extraordinary BBC article (4) that was published on 5 June 2014  in which the author claimed that the Ukrainian war effort was greater than the Russian war effort.

In her commitment to rearrange the truth to make it fit her ethnic based ideologies, the author wrote that Stalin was Russian!

But back to Beevor.

Why doesn't he mention the rapes committed by soldiers of other countries?(5)

Why so little reference about the suffering of Soviet people?

In the article, Soviet suffering is only mentioned by the Russian ambassador, and by Beevor when he implies that Jewish suffering was "far greater" than Soviet suffering: we don't want to do a hit parade of suffering, but by writing about Soviet suffering in this manner, Beevor is ambiguous about it.

Is it the role of a historian to write a column in a national newspaper in which he cherry picks bad things about a country, omits to say that other countries did the same bad thing, and omits to say that far worse things (over 25 million Soviet people died following the German invasion, most of them in horrific circumstances) had happened to that country before?

Following Beevor's reasoning, one might argue that Soviet soldiers "might have far greater reasons for revenge" than say American soldiers (over 25 million Soviet victims, and they had just liberated the concentration camps)...

A couple of days later, Beevor wrote another column, this time in The Telegraph (6).

After having mentioned "the Ukraine famine unleashed by Stalin", Beevor triumphantly ends his article with a quote from Solzhenitsyn, which was not the following:

"The great famine of 1921 shook our country, from the Urals, across the Volga, and deep into European Russia. It cut down millions of our people. But the word Holodomor was not used at that time. The Communist leadership deemed it sufficient to blame the famine on a natural drought, while failing to mention at all the grain requisitioning that cruelly robbed the peasantry.

"And in 1932-33, when a similar great famine hit Ukraine and the Kuban region, the Communist Party bosses (including quite a few Ukrainians) treated it with the same silence and concealment. And it did not occur to anyone to suggest to the zealous activists of the Communist Party and Young Communist League that what was happening was the planned annihilation of precisely the Ukrainians. The provocative outcry about "genocide" only began to take shape decades later - at first quietly, inside spiteful, anti-Russian, chauvinistic minds - and now it has spun off into government circles of modern-day Ukraine, who have thus outdone even the wild inventions of Bolshevik agitprop.

"To the parliaments of the world: this vicious defamation is easy to insinuate into Western minds. They have never understood our history: you can sell them any old fairy tale, even one as mindless as this."

(1) http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/05/banning-book-russia-past-holocaust-red-army-antony-beevor
(2) According to a leak, Beevor's books should be removed from the schools' libraries of a region in the Urals.
A ban is when a book cannot be sold legally: this is not the case here. Beevor's books can be sold everywhere in Russia.
It would be interesting to know how many Beevor books (if any) have been removed, and how frequently such things happen: do schools (in other countries for comparison) have total freedom when purchasing History books?
(3) It seems hard to establish such affirmation as a "fact".
Moreover, why does Beevor choose to write such a thing when he is given a Guardian column?
When Ukrainian ultranationalists blame Jewish Bolsheviks for the Holodomor they are rightly called anti-Semitic.
Conversely, it is suspicious to blame a particular type of Soviets (here the Russians) for the Berlin rapes.
(4) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-27708741
(5) For example http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/book-claims-us-soldiers-raped-190-000-german-women-post-wwii-a-1021298.html
(6) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11788523/When-will-Russia-stop-trying-to-re-write-history.html

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 #14
New York Times
August 7, 2015
Editorial
As the Arctic Thaws, New Temptations

Russia made a formal claim to a vast stretch of Arctic territory on Tuesday before the United Nations committee that oversees sea boundaries. The move is, in itself, neither surprising nor threatening.

As the Arctic rapidly thaws and surrenders access to its awesome wealth of energy and precious minerals, it is inevitable that nations in the far north will stake claims over huge exclusive economic zones beyond their northern shores, while powers like the European Union or China will demand a say in how the riches and shipping routes are apportioned.

What is imperative is that the process take place cooperatively, as the Arctic states demonstrated when they recently approved a temporary ban on Arctic fishing.

Russia's bid was a resubmission of an earlier claim - which was rejected by the United Nations in 2002 for insufficient evidence - that the continental shelf abutting its land mass extends far into the Arctic Ocean and therefore allows it to claim an exclusive economic zone over that part of the ocean.

Other states whose territories abut the Arctic - the United States, Canada, Denmark and Norway - are also pursuing claims, some of which may prove to overlap. The process of sorting these out could take many years. The U.N. commission on the limits of the continental shelf, formed under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is not expected to take up the Russian claim until 2016, and it cannot rule on conflicting claims.

Many negotiations lie ahead. Russia's evident readiness to play by the rules, however, is not the full story. President Vladimir Putin has also called for a greatly increased military presence in the area. Earlier this year, Russia conducted large military maneuvers there, and many Soviet-era bases have been reactivated under the newly formed Arctic Joint Strategic Command. The hard-line deputy prime minister in charge of the arms industry, Dmitri Rogozin, traveled to the North Pole earlier this year and proclaimed it a "Russian Mecca."

It is not surprising that a country with the longest Arctic coastline should want to strengthen its northern defenses as the region opens up to shipping and economic exploitation. And it would be understandable for the United States and Canada to want to do the same. But an arms race is not the answer to the Arctic's future.

Just as President Obama argued in his American University speech for the primacy of institutions and diplomacy in seeking peace for the Middle East, so should the United States and its allies seek to limit Russian influence in the Arctic through cooperation on the eight-nation Arctic Council and at the United Nations. That is another compelling reason why the United States should join the 162 countries that have ratified the Law of the Sea, an action blocked by a clutch of bullheaded right-wing senators.

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 #15
Sputnik
August 6, 2015
Western Media Hysteria Over Russia's Arctic Bid
By Danielle Ryan

Russia has this week submitted a revised bid to the United Nations to expand its Arctic shelf borders - but if you'd been perusing some of the headlines in the Western press yesterday, you'd have been forgiven for believing that Vladimir Putin had launched an unprovoked attack on the North Pole.

Putin has made his "most audacious land grab bid yet," screamed the Daily Express. Russia launches "Arctic land grab," shouted the Mail Online. "Move over Santa: Putin claims the North Pole" wrote the Fiscal Times, before suggesting that polar bears might soon see "little green men" moving in.

Conservative blog, the Washington Free Beacon got it completely wrong, reporting that along with its bid, Russia had just planted its flag on the ocean floor - a purely symbolic move by Russia that actually happened in 2007.

To be fair, most of the pieces did then grudgingly explain that a number of other countries have also made claims to parts of the Arctic.

But what is immediately obvious is that the vast majority of headlines framed the issue in such a way that the uninformed reader is led to believe that Russia's claim is something provocative or unusual. Indeed some of the headlines look like they could have been copied and pasted straight out of a NATO press release.

In an age where clicks are king, headlines need to be attention-grabbing - but there is a difference between attention-grabbing and intentionally misleading, as seems to be the standard with much Russia-related content coming from Western media these days.

Add to that this recent research pointing to the fact that about 60 percent of Americans "don't read beyond the headline" - and you can see why this matters. Dramatic and misleading framing does more to provoke unwarranted outrage than to inform. The result is an inevitable dumbing down of the conversation, and nowhere is that dumbing down more blatant than in the realm of geopolitics.

Geopolitics of the North Pole

Another headline, from the Washington Times, claimed that Russia was "demanding the North Pole" while "still digesting its meal of Crimea".

But let's instead digest some facts for a second.

The North Pole and its surrounding Arctic waters do not belong to any one nation. Russia is one of five countries that have made claims to various swathes of the territory, the others being the United States, Canada, Denmark and Norway.

According to the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea - UNCLOS - coastal countries have the rights to marine resources up to 200 nautical miles offshore. That constitutes their exclusive economic zone. UNCLOS allows some countries to expand their claim further than that - but they must provide strong proof that their continental shelf extends beyond their economic zone.

This has led to some verbal spats between the five countries with claims on the territory - unsurprisingly, given that it's been estimated that about 13 percent of the world's undiscovered conventional oil resources and 30 percent of undiscovered gas resources could lie in the region.

Russia has claimed space covering an area of about 1.2 million square kilometers, 350 nautical miles from its coast. A similar claim was made by Moscow in 2002 but was turned down due to lack of scientific support. This time around, Russian scientists believe they have ample data to back up their claim.

There is nothing new or unusual about this - it is part of an ongoing (and legal) battle to control coveted resources as melting ice makes them more accessible.

Surprisingly, some of the fairest coverage on the issue this week has come from Canada - unusual given that Ottawa has been neither very diplomatic, nor restrained in its dealings with Moscow of late.

In actual fact, Russia's bid represents a "soft line" on the issue, UK-based expert Mikå Mered told the Canadian newspaper, Nunatsiaq News.

Mered, a consultant with Polarisk, told the newspaper that there was nothing surprising in Russia's latest submission - noting in particular that Russia did not claim the seabed beyond the geographic North Pole, as Denmark did last year.

That shows that Russia "doesn't want to heat up Arctic discussions at this point," he said, adding that Moscow would not want to scare away investors by making a move that would be seen as provocative.

No Cause for Hysteria

Michael Byers, Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia, told the Toronto Star that he "certainly wasn't expecting" Russia to "behave so very well" where the Arctic is concerned. He said:

"Russia is following the rules and has made a very restrained submission."

It is unclear what exactly Byers expected, but his premature assumption of bad behavior is evidence enough that Western media's anti-Russia campaign is having a real effect.

The fairer coverage from Canada is likely due less to any desire to present Russia in a decent light and more to do with the fact that Canada will not want to be left looking like the unreasonable party in any negotiations it may have to enter into with Moscow.

The US Navy has started to deploy underwater drones beneath the arctic ice both to study the deterioration of the ice sheet due to climate change and to help plan for anticipated increases in traffic as previously frozen waterways open up.

An unreasonable approach from Canada would leave Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government in an undesirable position and could potentially cause divisions between Ottawa and Washington, who themselves dispute ownership of the Beaufort Sea. Already, the US has, according to reports, chastised Ottawa for making events in Ukraine an issue at an Arctic Council meeting last spring.

The bottom line is that Russia is acting within its rights and according to international law. Its most recent Arctic pitch also clearly states that it is willing to abide by the results of the international process. No cause for hysteria.

There is a dangerous dearth of balanced Western reportage on Russia of late. Let's not extend that to the North Pole.

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 #16
Georgia rejects anti-Russian sanctions - PM

TBILISI, August 6. /TASS/. Georgia will not support European Union sanctions against Russia, the country's Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili told reporters on Thursday.

"As a government leader, I have always been considering that Georgia should not join anti-Russian sanctions," he said. "We held that position last year and we are not going to change it this year."

Moscow may take retaliatory steps against countries that support sanctions

Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev earlier said Russia may expand the list of countries which are subject to its counter-sanctions. Medvedev said that it concerns the countries that previously did not support sanctions against Russia, and therefore were not covered by the Russian response.

Medvedev did not name any specific countries such measures may concern.

In late July, seven European countries - Montenegro, Albania, Iceland, Norway, Lichtenstein, Ukraine and Georgia reaffirmed to the EU Council they prolonged the participation in the EU's sanctions against Crimea and Sevastopol till June 23, 2016. Six of these countries except Georgia also joined the EU's decision of July 22 to prolong economic sanctions against Russia till January 31, 2016.

The EU membership aspirants (Montenegro and Albania and the countries affiliated with the European Free Trade Association: Iceland, Norway and Lichtenstein and also Ukraine and Georgia, which are neither EU aspirants or members of EFTA (European Free Trade Association), joined the EU Council's declaration of June 19 prolonging the operation of the EU's restrictive measures against Crimea and Sevastopol till June 23, 2016.

On August 7, 2014 Russia imposed a one-year ban on imports of a number of food products from Australia, Canada, the European Union, the United States and Norway as a response to anti-Russia sanctions imposed by those countries.

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 #17
Moscow Times
August 7, 2015
Now Boarding: New York - Moscow - Tbilisi
By Tinatin Japaridze
Tinatin Japaridze is a Georgian-born, Russian-bred Columbia University student currently studying cultural psychology and Russian studies.

Western newspaper headlines tirelessly warn their readers that anti-Americanism in Russia is exploding. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the fluctuating attitudes of Russians toward the United States have been monitored on a regular basis by the Levada Center, Russia's leading independent pollster.

The latest Levada poll results confirm that just over 80 percent of Russians view the U.S. in a negative light. It is worth noting that this is the highest negative rating for the U.S. since the center first began tracking the views of Russians on the other superpower in 1988.

While Russia's growing anti-American sentiment is no longer a secret, is the reverse also true for Americans? Although cultural stereotypes about Russia in the West are gradually fading into the Cold War past of the Soviet era, Russophobia in the U.S. is also on the rise.

A Gallup poll conducted in February demonstrates that Americans' views of Russia are at their least favorable (70 percent) in Gallup's 26-year trend. These were sociological polls conducted among a broad cross-section of American society.

There is a personal motivation behind my interest in the current state of U.S.-Russian relations. My original plan to pursue the far less political field of child psychology was sidetracked when, by the end of my first year at Columbia University, I became increasingly interested in the question of post-Soviet national identity and the peculiar political relations and cultural ties between the two former superpowers.

Born in Soviet Georgia and bred in post-Soviet Russia, I spent the majority of my post-formative years in the West, which may partially explain why I am drawn to the complexities of national identity and the psychological impact of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

On a frosty winter morning in the early 1990s, as my mother and I - recent immigrants from war-torn Georgia - walked into the supermarket on Novy Arbat, I was surprised to see a vast store jammed with shoppers, the majority of whom, due to astronomical price tags, were strolling along with empty carts and curious eyes.

Although the shelves were no longer empty, the term "consumerism" continued to sound tantalizingly exotic to our post-Communist ears. A distant American illusion implied by formerly banned Western commodities, aspirations and ideals served my generation as a colorful escape from the mundane reality, providing us with a faint glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

Alas, those days appear to have long vanished, and along with Russia's sanctions on many Western food products came the inevitable intolerance for most things American.

These days, anti-Americanism is often synonymous with die-hard patriotism and Russian nationalism.

I am now contemplating an academic shift in the direction of Russian studies as my primary focus. With the pending shift in mind, I pondered how my faculty would view my unexpected decision to switch gears.

Even though both anti-Americanism and Russophobia seem to be on the rise among our two nations, the ever-growing interest in and to a certain degree fascination with what's next for the U.S.-Russian relationship is difficult to ignore.

Some 3,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean, I typed these words on the ultimate capitalist-consumerist machine of our time - a Mac laptop - and considered the irony of the 24-hour route to my final destination. Boarding the plane in New York's JFK Airport, flying into Moscow for a morning meeting and immediately afterward catching my next flight to Tbilisi all in one day encompassed the three contrasting ideologies of my childhood in the dying days of the Soviet Union.

This particular route offers a telling snapshot of my cross-linguistic, socio-psychological research trip to study the intricacies of the Georgian national identity in correlation with the cultural and political post-Soviet heritage of the Russian language. Not surprisingly, this is a subject that some of my compatriots in Georgia view as a potentially hazardous can of worms that may be better left unopened.

Announcing the decision to study my adopted country and analyze its current - and undoubtedly bumpy - relations with my homeland was met with a mixture of excitement and intrigue among university peers and faculty members, especially during the seven-year anniversary of the Russian-Georgian War of 2008.

It is, without a doubt, a symbolic time for me to embark on a research trip that aims to analyze the relationship between Georgian national identity in the post-Soviet era and the role of Russian as the former mandatory second language.

Over the past decade, the U.S. government and private foundations have reduced funding for Russian studies, but the interest in the area remains alive and kicking. Unlike my Georgian peers who skeptically raised their eyebrows, my mentors in the academic field welcomed the shift, stating that the theme is both "pertinent" and, sadly, unexplored.

While Russophobia in Georgia has been on a rapid rise in the aftermath of the five-day war, speculation about the growing anti-Russian sentiment inside U.S. academic circles may be inaccurate. Of course, one could view the increase of fascination, interest and intrigue fueled by the current political climate in the Russian Federation and its tumultuous affairs with the West as a sign of partially anti-Russian sentiment.

However, in the words of the Chinese military general, Sun Tzu, it is best to "Know your enemy and know yourself, and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster."

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#18
http://readrussia.com
August 6, 2015
Don't Trust the KGB!
By Mark Adomanis

There's been an un-ending stream of writing about Russia's intensifying "information war" against the West. Rare is the day that yet another article about RT's perfidy and malevolence isn't written*. Entire reports have been commissioned about Russia's "weaponization of information," and the tendency of its intelligence services to engage in elaborate operations of deception.

There is, quite obviously, something to all of this. In comparison to Western spy organizations, the KGB, and its primary successor the FSB, really do have a knack for inventing elaborate forgeries, fakes, and other kinds of fantasies. Research has shown that more than a few conspiracy theories that are still in wide circulation (e.g. about the JFK assassination, the US military's role in creating the AIDs virus, or even the origins of the crack cocaine epidemic) were not the random musings of oddballs and loons, were but quite deliberately invented by the KGB as part of "disinformation" campaigns.

Given this history of (extremely successful!) deceit and forgery, it makes sense to apply a very high discount rate to any information received from the FSB. No the FSB isn't automatically wrong (over the past decade its intelligence about Iranian and Iraqi WMDs, or the lack thereof has been at least as good as the CIA's) and it has occasionally passed along claims that have been borne out. Broken clocks are right twice a day, and all that.

But anyone with a modicum of knowledge about its institutional pedigree ought to be extremely suspicious about the veracity of FSB claims. Very few people in the West are either credulous or foolish enough to put their faith solely in unproven, unsourced allegations leaked from the Lubyanka. Not many people, in other words, trust information whose only source is Russian spies.

This background about the KGB and its long history of successful disinformatsiya serves to an introduction to a thoroughly bizarre story that recently came out of war-torn eastern Ukraine: "Ukraine rebels 'building dirty bomb' with Russian scientists." The Times and Newsweek both ran essentially identical versions of the article, which alleges that Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk are planning to build and detonate a radiological device.

The article's allegations are extremely grave. What's been happening in Ukraine is awful enough on its own terms, it's a humanitarian tragedy of the first degree, but the weaponry employed by both sides has thankfully remained conventional. Indeed one of the only ways the situation in the Donbass could realistically get worse is if some type of WMD was employed. The article suggests that the rebels are actively preparing to cross that bridge, and are planning to turn the conflict in Ukraine into a nuclear one. If true, the story could be a turning point in the war, rallying a reluctant West to rescue Ukraine from the clutches of madmen with their finger on the button.   

The problem with the article, however, is clear: it is based entirely upon a dossier provided by Ukraine's secret intelligence service, the SBU. This is not an exaggeration. The SBU dossier is the only source cited in the article for the allegation that Russian scientists are aiding rebels in the creation of a radiological device. Indeed the SBU is the only source of information that the rebels are even interested in the radioactive material in question, which has apparently been sealed in a vault since the late 1960's.

Now, as you might imagine, the SBU is also a spinoff of the KGB. Just like its Russian cousin the FSB, the SBU is deeply steeped in that institution's particular culture and modus operandi. The SBU's top leadership, in other words, was also trained in the arts of disinformation and maskirovka and made to understand their importance.

So, just like the FSB, the SBU has also regularly leaked an enormous amount of fraudulent nonsense to the media. Since their cause is more just and their budget much tighter the SBU's fakes have tended to be rather less elaborate than the FSB's (there haven't been any stories about "corpse planes") but their approach suggests the very same disdain for truth and an almost identical "weaponized" approach to information.

Is it possible that the story is true and that the separatists are preparing a nuclear device? Yes, it is entirely possible. I have a feeling we won't have to wait very long to find how who is right. But I have a hard time imagining that a major Western newspaper would print a front page article sourced entirely from an FSB dossier. Editors would rightly suggest that given its provenance, unless it was independently corroborated the information should be assumed be fraudulent. That's exactly the right approach to take when dealing with an organization as steeped in institutional deceit as the FSB.

But what's good for the goose is good for the gander: if you're going to distrust one KGB successor organization then, quite logically, you ought to distrust all of them. Even though it now is on "our" side of the conflict, the SBU is an organization whose outlook and operating procedures are still thoroughly Soviet. We ought to keep that in mind when trying to sift through the truth about the "dirty bomb" supposedly being constructed in Donetsk.

*I would love to see someone crunch the numbers on the ratio of articles written by RT to the number of articles written about RT. I suspect it would be far closer to 1:1 than for any other media outlet

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 #19
www.rt.com
August 6, 2015
'Russia-EU economic partnership will take years of trust-building to restore'

Western sanctions against Russia will backfire, because Russia is moving towards the BRIC countries and new institutions such as the New Development Bank, said Folker Hellmeyer, chief economist at Bremer Landesbank.

The economist added that the EU will lose out on a lot of projects.

Moscow banned certain EU and US food imports last August. The food embargo has been prolonged for another year. Customs officials ordered the destruction of any produce seized at the border. The measure has prompted an online petition for the food to be handed over to the most vulnerable members of society, such as pensioners and orphans.

RT: Russia says it will only lift the food embargo when Europe lifts its sanctions. Do you think we could see things easing any time soon? Who is going to blink first here, do you think?

Folker Hellmeyer: First of all I think it would be very reasonable to get out of this sanction regime on both sides in order to improve relations, and also to improve the situation in Ukraine. Who is going to blink first? I'm not quite sure. I think that the pressure within the EU is mounting. Look, the agricultural business in Germany is only 0.9 percent of our own GDP. But if you look at Romania, at Bulgaria it is something like 6 percent; if you look at Poland, it's 3.5 percent. The EU is getting weaker regarding the sanctions regime against Russia. In that respect, the likelihood of the EU blinking at the very end of this project is quite likely.

RT: Farmers, businessmen and some political groups in Europe are actively calling to resolve the situation, a year after the embargo was launched. Do you think they are being listened to?

FH: They are being listened to, but at least in Germany the political elite is not ready to react. We've just recently had our annual meeting of our farmer's association. It was very, very outspoken that, in particular, the milk business and the pork and piglet business is under strain and people are losing out here. The structure in Germany is endangered. But Berlin is not ready to listen as yet. But I think the pressure from other countries where the agricultural business has a much bigger role, and the whole GDP is more outspoken and politicians are more ready to react. We see that from Italy, when Matteo Renzi [Prime Minister of Italy] is talking about these issues it sounds quite different from what Merkel is saying.

RT: Washington initiated the sanctions. However they've hurt Europe's economy much more. Why is Brussels so prepared to take the hit here?

FH: The idea was from Brussels to associate Ukraine into the EU. Though the Ukraine doesn't have any prerequisites to join given their structures - politically as well as in the administration. It is a question of losing composure to the whole political worldwide scenery. In that respect we were ready to go when the pressure was on from Washington - there is no question. I know that a lot of countries within the EU tried fend that off - that was impossible. And thus we are caught in this regime of sanctions, and the political readiness to leave that is at the moment improving at the periphery of the EU, but [not] at its core.

RT: This year, Russia substituted European producers for those from Asia, and South America among others. Could this be a permanent shift?

FH: I think it will get [to be] a permanent arrangement, and not only on the agricultural side. I think the sanctions imposed by the West will backfire quite significantly... Russia is on the verge of moving towards a different political sphere with the BRIC countries, with the Shanghai cooperation organization, with those new institutions like AIIB and the New Development Bank. And it means that we will lose out on a lot of projects, not only on the agricultural side. Once the Russian bear starts to move, it's not a yo-yo. He will stick to these loyalties which are being built up now. I think it is very, very naïve for Europe to think once the sanctions regime is lifted that everything will be normalized as it used to be. It will take years and years of building trust to get back to that economic partnership we used to have before.

RT: Do you think in any way that the sanctions on Russia have reached the intended objective here?

FH: Not at all. And I think the best call on that was given by the IMF when they said a month ago that they are quite startled as to how well the Russian economy is doing. And let's look forward: I think there are another 6-12 months of economic hardship at the most in Russia. But setting up this infrastructure in Eurasia with this Silk Road will be the biggest economic event since building the Chinese Wall, and it will free economic powers within Russia, but also China.

In that respect the outlook for Russia with another 6 or 12 months of hardship and then reasonable growth is much better than the outlook for the EU, which has basically put its economic reliability to all countries not being the closest friends of the US at stake.  

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 #20
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
August 6, 2015
Russia and the US, in search of a Syrian solution
Instead of offering competing plans and visions for Syria, Moscow and Washington should be working together to develop a compromise diplomatic solution.
By Maxim Suchkov
Dr. Maxim A. Suchkov is an expert of the Russian International Affairs Council and a columnist for Al-Monitor's Russia Pulse. He is also an Associate Professor at Pyatigorsk State Linguistic University's School of International Relations. In 2010-2011 he was a Fulbright Visiting Fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies (CERES).

In the fall of 2013 U.S. President Barack Obama described the Russian proposal to take Syrian chemical weapons under international control as a "possible breakthrough." At the time, the Middle East was on the verge of another potentially devastating military conflict with the real prospect of a third large-scale American intervention in ten years. As a result, some portrayed the suggestion put forward by Moscow as a face-saving measure for Washington.

But most importantly, the Russian proposal was instrumental in that it managed to work around the "red line" established by President Obama. It was also deemed an example of Russians and Americans being able to compromise despite bitter disagreements and the overall negative context of the bilateral relationship.

For a while, the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Greater Syria (ISIS) somewhat sidelined any discussion of the domestic political situation within Syria. However, a series of recent events demonstrate the "Assad Dilemma" has remained as a topic of discussion very much alive in the cabinets of high-ranking policymakers.

Which leads to the following question: Is the Syrian president the "worst best option" to dismantle ISIS under the current circumstances, or does he have to be removed in order to let the "moderate opposition" run the country?

Recently President Obama authorized air strikes on ISIS as well as on the Syrian army if it could endanger training camps for Syrian moderate opposition forces. As expected, the decision triggered a backlash in Russia. Moscow believes such moves complicate the war with terrorist groups in the region. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov insisted that, "The previous experience of American instructors preparing fighters of the 'moderate opposition' shows they ended up among the extremists."

Earlier this year, Washington launched the U.S. Syrian Rebel Program, which presumes the professional training of 5,400 fighters annually. Moscow sees moves such as these as shortsighted and counter-productive. Moreover, many Russian policymakers even share the vision that Washington regards the current crisis not through the lens of defeating ISIS but, rather, as an opportunity to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.

In the current situation it is critical for both Moscow and Washington to do their own part of the homework in order not to let the existing discrepancies transform into yet another spoiler to the relationship.

It is important that the Russian leadership should not overreact. Another surge of public anti-American sentiment would be detrimental for potential bilateral work on solving the Syrian problem.

First, America's support for opposition forces - negative as it may look to Moscow for regional security - is something the Obama administration is committed to, and thus, can be considered inevitable.

Second, the supply of weapons and ammunition as well as training by U.S. military instructors and air strikes may indeed become enough to tip the balance in favor of opposition forces.

Third, the "American solution" to the problem, which to Moscow looks like a product of an inaccurate perception of the reality on the ground, might not get a UN Security Council mandate but will receive broad support from U.S. allies among the Gulf monarchies.

Trying to alter the first, stopping the second and upsetting the third would only further alienate Moscow's position on the issue.

However, what now looks like a golden opportunity to get rid of a weakened Assad may prove harmful for American long-term interests in the region. The analogies with Iraq and Libya are obvious.

Whether one agrees to them or not, it is easy to foresee that a power vacuum created should Assad be overthrown will not make the region safer or more predictable. The number of interested players on the ground will multiply while the relationship between them would be more chaotic.

The Assad regime may embody everything that the democratic strivings of the Arab spring have been struggling against, but if the responsible stakeholders are serious about destroying ISIS, the Syrian army looks like a much stronger and reliable partner in this fight than a disjointed group of people with dubious backgrounds and uncertain priorities.

If anything, there's still no clear vision of what comes next for Syria and the Middle East if and when Assad is gone. Even if there's a clear idea of a new state building approach for the country, it doesn't look timely now that ISIS is gaining momentum.

Instead, the Syrian dilemma could have become a promising successor to the effective joint diplomacy on the Iranian deal. In this respect, the plan outlined by Lavrov in Doha may be worth looking into. It focuses on defeating ISIS by uniting efforts of all regional actors, using the manpower of the Syrian and Iraqi armies as well as the Kurds. It also would require a strong UN Security Council mandate.

Moscow is realistic in that the practical implementation of the plan would never be easy taking into account "complexities between the states in previous years." But Russia seems determined to promote this agenda during the 70th session of the General Assembly next month in New York. Had this idea been adopted as a rough framework for a bilateral initiative on the issue, the huge international influence Washington exerts would have been a key component to its success.

Washington is not interested in an all-out engagement. However, military campaigns in such a complicated region can easily transform from "targeted strikes" into a years-long quagmire should Americans suffer any human or technical losses. Any action beyond those already taken would be disastrous for the personal legacy of President Obama, which the American leader is seriously concerned about and could inflict serious damage to others in the Democratic party.

On the brink of U.S. presidential elections, any initiative of such a scale should be shrewdly calculated and cautiously implemented. These are the political restraints that may leave space for a more comprehensive solution. In this case, the "Russian plan" like the one in September 2013 can also be useful as it minimizes the risks for Western involvement, especially since it presumes a more active role of regional players.

In addition, the Russian solution could once again prove to be a face-saving measure should the drawn red lines be violated, requiring a more muscular reaction from the United States. The difference from the plan of 2013 in political terms is that it can be adopted now that there's yet no need to "save face," which in theory minimizes reputation costs for Washington and Moscow alike.

However in order for this framework to get on track, the whole discourse on Russian-American relations should not be presented as a competition of "two visions" or "two respective plans." Instead, it should be a jointly elaborated strategy for confronting the most dangerous terrorist organization in history.

So far, interested regional stakeholders don't appear to be united in tackling this threat. This creates a perception that most of them are taking advantage of the situation to achieve their own goals: Turkey wants to downgrade the "Kurdish challenge," the Gulf monarchies want to topple Assad, the U.S. wants to showcase its power and leadership, and Russia wants to score its own points by pointing to policy errors by the West.

However, when global security is under existential threat, the choice of personal ambition and political grievances over pragmatism and common sense may end up being too costly.

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 #21
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
August 6, 2015
Cuba still matters for Russia (but not for the reason you think)
The new rapprochement between the U.S. and Cuba is further proof of the ability of diplomacy to overcome seemingly irreconcilable differences between two sides. Russia should take note.
By Eugene Bai
Eugene Bai is an expert in USA, Latin America and international relations, a contributor to Politcom.ru, The New Times, World and Politics magazine.

The restoration of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba has garnered broad international support, yet at the same time, has provoked a barrage of obsolete propaganda clichés in both Russian and Western media.

In the debate on the U.S.-Cuba rapprochement, the Russian press was more focused on the fate of the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay and Russia's potential use of the island for military purposes than on the improved prospects for ordinary Cubans from the lifting of sanctions and the gradual return to democracy.

Part of the controversy surrounding the base stems from a statement by the director of the Miami Institute of Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, Jaime Suchlicki, that the White House and the Pentagon do not want to return the base at Guantanamo to the Cubans for fear that they will let Russia use it.

"[Russia] doesn't need the base at Guantanamo. It's a wretched place with a bad reputation, and Havana should seek permanent closure and realignment," stated National Defense magazine editor-in-chief Igor Korotchenko.

"As for our military interests in Cuba, the country is certainly of interest as a calling point for Russian warships and nuclear submarines on combat missions in the Western Hemisphere to take a breather, change crews, stock up on water and fuel, and carry out maintenance."

The military expert believes the same holds true for Russian long-range aircraft making scheduled landings for rest and refueling.

Retired KGB Lieutenant General Nikolai Leonov in Moscow also voiced Cuba's considerable military interest in Russian eyes during a presentation of his new book Raul Castro.

Recall that after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu's visit to the island in February this year, Russian media was awash with speculation about the possible reactivation of the Lourdes signals intelligence facility, which for many years had electronically eavesdropped on America.

Hence, in the minds of many Russian politicians and experts, Cuba is still viewed as an unsinkable aircraft carrier under the nose of the United States, and a springboard in the event of confrontation between Moscow and Washington.

Such hopelessly outdated political philosophizing does not reflect the current realities. President Barack Obama has made it abundantly clear that he wants to see Guantanamo Bay closed as soon as possible, and the U.S. Navy has long stated that the base itself is of no strategic interest to the United States.
Cuba's mooted use as a refueling point for Russian strategic aviation and nuclear submarines is also utterly groundless.

Raul Castro's government does not intend to change the political order in the country. It is striving to maintain friendly relations with Russia, yet is also very keen to be rid of the U.S. economic embargo (improperly described in Russian media as a "blockade"), establish direct contacts with U.S. companies, and lift the travel restrictions on U.S. tourists to Cuba.

From this angle, greater military cooperation with Russia would not help, only hinder, the island's economic recovery.

There have been assessments by objective and politically unaffiliated media both in Russia and the United States on the restoration of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba.

One such source, U.S. business magazine Cuba Standard, predicts economic growth in Cuba this year of 3.4 to 3.7 percent.

The main reason is the tourist boom. By mid-July the island had been visited by 2 million tourists, and the figure is set to rise to 3 million by the end of the year.

At the same time, Miami-based Cuban economist Pavel Vidal notes that GDP growth is making the Cuban government more willing to refinance its foreign debt, leading to more flexible credit conditions, particularly in Western Europe, and a more liberal policy on imports.

Cuba Standard highlights another important process taking place in the Cuban economy: its decreasing dependence on Venezuelan aid. In recent years many experts have suggested that the curtailment of free oil supplies from Venezuela to Cuba (up to 100,000 barrels per day) would cause economic collapse on the island. However, this has not happened.

According to the magazine, trade with default-threatened Venezuela this year fell by 5 percent, but had no effect on GDP growth. "As Cuba opens up to the world, it is set to become less 'pegged' to Venezuela without the threat of economic collapse hanging over Havana," says the article in Cuba Standard.
"However, much depends on the depth of the economic crisis in Venezuela and the ability of the Cuban authorities to take advantage of the new opportunities in the world market."

The rapprochement between the United States and Cuba, two bitter enemies that for 54 years have teetered on the brink of open military confrontation, is certainly a positive development whatever the skeptics say. International diplomacy as a universal tool for conflict resolution should not be written off just yet.

"Global politics in recent years shows that mankind has basically forgotten how to negotiate," writes independent Russian journalist Semyon Novoprudsky. "Diplomacy seemed to be nothing more than an empty, costly talkfest - propaganda posing as dialogue. But in the case of Iran and Greece, we see that, although not universal, mechanisms for agreement do exist."

The same applies to the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Havana (the August 14 ceremony will be attended by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry) and the already-hoisted Cuban flag over the country's diplomatic mission in Washington.

Novoprudsky is right to assert that the war in Ukraine and other major conflicts around the world can be brought to an end, not simply frozen, as now, by non-military means.

As the United States in the case of Cuba and Iran, and the European Union in the case of Greece, Russia must be mature enough to swallow the pill that can cure it of its foreign policy ills.

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 #22
www.thedailybeast.com
August 7, 2015
Russia Slides Back to the Middle Ages
Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia has been sliding back toward the middle ages.
By Anna Nemtsova

MOSCOW - After Russia vetoed a United Nations Security Council draft resolution last week, many Russians started to panic.

Their beloved country, famous for groundbreaking novels and poetry, for fabulous nature, perfect ballet- for sending the first man into space!- looked like the odd man out on the global scene.

The resolution in question would have set up a tribunal to investigate and try those responsible for shooting down a Malaysian airliner, MH17, over Ukraine last year. All 298 people aboard were killed, and Moscow-backed rebels are widely thought to have launched the missile that blew up the plane.

So when 11 of the 15 members of the Security Council voted for the resolution, three abstained, and only Russia voted no, the move met with near-universal condemnation.

In the aftermath, many in Moscow began to wonder how far backward Russia is going to slide.

"The veto at the UN is a bright, clear sign of wild, medieval times coming to a once-great country," independent political observer Sergei Porkhomenko posted on Facebook. He invited Russians to comment on a page discussing the new "medieval morals," hundreds did, and examples poured in:

The Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko, who had been on hunger strike in a Russian prison for weeks, was denied a jury trial because she was a woman.

An Orthodox priest is being appointed director of a site of Greek ruins and a pagan temple in Crimea, and that's just a minor symptom of a major phenomenon: the Russian Orthodox Church plays an increasingly important role in domestic politics, not only in various Russian regions but in rebel-occupied eastern Ukraine.

 It is rare in modern Russia for a public or political event to place without the church present. In the insurgent Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, priests bless armed rebel soldiers going to war against Kiev. Some experts have compared the Russian president to Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian leader, who also surrounded himself with priests.

When did this Russian retrogression begin? Duma deputy Dmitry Gudkov, an critic of the government so bold and outspoken he's sometimes called Russia's "enfant terrible," tells The Daily Beast that the major turning point was the Crimea annexation, which "let the genie out of the bottle."

Gudkov insists that many parliamentary deputies are ashamed of the way Russian institutions are degrading, but that the decisions were not made in the Duma.

"The church dominates," says Gudkov. "The legitimate state is being destroyed by censorship and persecutions. Hardly anybody has the power to stop the country sinking into obscurantism and lawlessness. ... The clans who really make decisions in Russia calculate their moves by reading Putin's gestures, his moods. Nothing makes sense any longer."

On the surface, life in Moscow looks civilized enough: lots of wonderful restaurants, even free WiFi in the subway, taxis ordered online arrive instantly, pedestrian streets are trimmed with flowers. In big Russian cities people live a much more comfortable life than 20 years ago, shopping in Western malls, driving Western cars, relaxing on the verandas of cafes.

"Hardly anybody has the power to stop the country sinking into obscurantism and lawlessness."
But at what cost? Complacent public opinion is rapidly growing hostile to free speech. On Monday the pro-Kremlin polling center VTSIOM reported that nearly half-49 percent-of Russians welcomed Internet censorship.

The Kremlin's officials seem satisfied as they look out of their vehicle windows and live in their own parallel world.

On Monday, Russian media discussed the $65,000 watch on the wrist of President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov. Why would a top official demonstratively mock his poor countrymen with such a bauble when millions live on less than $500 a month? And for good measure Peskov's 17-year-old daughter, Yelizaveta, told the online publication gazeta.ru she plans to reside in France.

"No officials at the top of the power pyramid think of Russia's future," said Gudkov. "Their families live abroad, while they steal millions of state dollars from Russian society."

By refusing to let an international tribunal investigate the MH17 tragedy, Russia chose self-isolation. Since last summer millions of law enforcement officials and bureaucrats had been banned from traveling abroad, and the country is losing its chances to integrate into the Western world. Indeed, in the quarter century since the Iron Curtain came down, Russia has never opened fully to the West.

Domestic politics looked darker this year than in a long time. A Human Rights Watch researcher, Tatyana Lokshina, said that the Kremlin took a huge leap backward by intensifying its crackdown on civil society, media, and the Internet, as it sought to control the narrative about developments in Ukraine. "Russia's parliament adopted laws, and authorities engaged in practices, that increasingly isolated the country and inflamed anti-Western hysteria unseen since the Soviet era," Lokshina told The Daily Beast.

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 #23
www.thedailybeast.com
August 6, 2015
Pentagon: Team Obama Is 'Too Timid' on Putin
America's military brass keeps calling Russia an 'existential' danger to the U.S.-and the White House isn't exactly thrilled.
BY Nancy A. Youssef and Noah Shachtman
Noah Shachtman is the executive editor of The Daily Beast.

Every time a U.S. military commander calls Russia the biggest threat to the United States, the White House fumes.

In recent weeks, there's been a dramatic, if little noticed, shift in how the Pentagon talks about the world. Russia-once dismissed as a military has-been-is now being regarded as an enemy with the potential to do "existential" damage to America. Everyone from the incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on down is raising the alarm about a Russia that is revamping its nuclear arsenal, launching ultra-sophisticated cyberattacks, and, of course, stirring up trouble in Eastern Europe. And that talk is not sitting well with the staff at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Russia is just one of myriad threats, White House officials say-calling it a top threat is a step down a slippery slope toward the risk of conflict. And the talk from the Pentagon about arming the Ukrainians, so they can resist Putin? The White House is having none of it. Putting more weapons in the hands of Russia's enemies would only create an excuse for more Russian violence, the White House worries, just as they are trying to secure a sustainable cease-fire.

The Ukrainians and America's NATO allies in the Baltics "need to see us take action right away," a senior defense official said. But the administration's approach is to avoid "getting involved in any kind of conflict...They're being a little too timid."

Of course, nobody wants a wider war with the Russians; that's a recipe for courting Armageddon. "But is giving lethal defensive weapons to the Ukrainians really going to do that?" the senior defense official asked. "Remember, the Russians don't want to go to war with us, either."

The questioning of the Russia threat has exposed an administration-and at times a Pentagon-divided about how to respond to threats to the United States. While the White House is seemingly focused on the nuclear deal with Iran-a deal forged with Moscow's cooperation-the commanders are increasingly worried about the return of the Russian bear.

Top defense leaders believe that calling Russia a top threat paves the way to arm Ukrainians confronting Russian forces. Politically, they want the administration to recognize Russia as a top threat so they can devote the proper budget, sourcing, and troop resources to it. So far: no dice.

"The administration thinks the ranking of threats is not the most productive way to devise a strategy. But we are saying, 'How else do we allocate increasingly limited resources?'" a second defense official explained.

"We have a nation that has used force to change internationally recognized boundaries," General Philip Breedlove, commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Europe, told PBS NewsHour last week, the latest example of a commander talking about the Russia threat. "Russia continues to occupy Crimea. Russian forces now are in the Donbass in eastern Ukraine. So this nation has used force to change international boundaries. And this is a nation that possesses a pretty vast nuclear inventory and talks about the use of that inventory very openly in the past."

The military's pleas are a public manifestation of a 16-month assessment that has been making its way around the world to top U.S. generals. The warnings grew more dire with each Russian provocation, bellicose statement, and violation of hard-fought cease-fire negotiations in the war with Ukraine.

"Most assumed that the means of Russian pressure on Ukraine would be economic and perhaps an energy cutoff," not military action, Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told The Daily Beast.

That's not what happened. Russia seized the Crimea region of Ukraine and then backed Russian-speaking rebels in eastern Ukraine with weapons, training, and elite Russian troops.

"They are seeking a Cold War sphere of influence," explained a third defense official, referring to Russia.

Russia's ascent, among top U.S. military generals, as the top threat to the U.S. began with a widely circulated classified briefing born out of Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, the defense official told The Daily Beast. It was February 2014, and Russian forces had entered Crimea and installed a pro-Russian government. A month later, the Black Sea peninsula had seceded, and Russia successfully redrew the region's map, all while dismissing international norms.

With each Russian move-its incursion into eastern Ukraine, its president's bellicose rhetoric, its violations of cease-fire negotiations-the military updated its brief, each time raising its assessment of the Russian threat.

Like their counterparts in the Middle East caught off guard by ISIS's capture of the Iraqi city of Mosul, U.S. commanders for Europe hastily began preparing a brief about the Russian threat. Soon, the intelligence community, the Pentagon, and the State Department added their input. And one four-star after another got the brief that Russia was a growing threat.

With each Russian move-its incursion into eastern Ukraine, its president's bellicose rhetoric, its violations of cease-fire negotiations-the military updated its brief, each time raising its assessment of the Russian threat.

In February 2014, the U.S. Air Force deployed 12 A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft and approximately 300 airmen to train alongside their NATO counterparts. That spring, the Army deployed a company of troops to each of the Baltic states and Poland. Military equipment followed.

But it was the publication of Russia's revised military doctrine at the end of 2014 that raised the threat from a regional matter to a global one. Not only did the document list NATO as the top threat to Russia, it also claimed for Moscow "the right to use nuclear weapons...in a case of an aggression against her with conventional weapons that would put in danger the very existence of the state." In other words: a nuclear first strike.

The publicly pro-nuclear position-combined with Russia's new investment in strategic weapons and advanced satellites, Moscow's new willingness to deploy its nuclear-capable bombers, and the Kremlin leaders' loose talk about using that nuclear arsenal-began to worry the Pentagon brass deeply.

"At DOD, we deal in worst-case scenarios," the senior defense official said, using an acronym for the Department of Defense. "And now we've got this guy [Putin] deciding whether to launch? It's a little bit scary."

Compounding the concerns was a growing belief that Russia was the United States' most sophisticated adversary online-even more so than China's hackers, who recently made off with the personal information of tens of millions of government employees and their families. "I worry, frankly, more about the Russians, who are a lot more subtle and a lot more sophisticated about purloining our information," Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Congress.

Russia's sophistication in the war of ideas-with a global machine in the RT network and a small army of Twitter trolls-only added to the sense of a worldwide face-off.

At the same time, the Pentagon underwent an unusually high turnover period, replacing nearly every top general. Each one appeared before Capitol Hill to answer the same question: What is the biggest threat to the United States?

General Joseph Dunford, slated to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, his soon to be vice chairman, General Paul Selva, and the Army's next top general, Mark Milley, agreed with a longtime assessment by General Breedlove that it was Russia. It is the only country in the world that could destroy the United States, given its vast nuclear weapons program and its president's aim to break up the NATO alliance, they concluded.

"Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security," Dunford asserted during his congressional confirmation hearing last month.

Dunford received a quick rebuke from the White House immediately afterward.

"These kind of assessments are dynamic," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said after Dunford's statement. The general "has his own view, but I think he would be the first to admit that that's-reflects his own view, and not-and doesn't necessarily reflect the view of-or the consensus analysis of the president's national security team," Earnest said.

Regardless, the Pentagon already has begun making modest military adjustments. The U.S. military has moved 150 troops into the Baltic region and Central Europe, pre-positioned heavy equipment, conducted more exercises with its allies, and allotted nearly $1 billion to address the rising military threat.

The Pentagon's 2015 budget allotted nearly $1 billion to "provide near-term flexibility and responsiveness to the evolving concerns of our allies and partners in Europe, especially Central and East Europe." But the White House has said no to any efforts to provide lethal aid to Ukraine.

In his February confirmation hearing, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter all but endorsed giving the Ukrainians weapons. The White House quickly shot the idea down, much to the consternation of the Pentagon.

But while the military has been ringing the alarm bells, not everyone has been listening. Even some of the Pentagon's top leaders aren't convinced.

And it should be noted that each of the generals who spoke about a Russia threat came up through the ranks of a military that prepared for a war with the Soviet Union. It is a construct they have known-and been getting ready for-for decades. To resurrect that threat, some argue, is to bring back a comfortable, conventional foe in the face of a rising asymmetric one like ISIS.

An April CNN poll among Americans asked what is the biggest threat to the country. Russia came in behind ISIS, Iran, and North Korea.

Michael McFaul, professor of political science at Stanford University and former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said ranking the Russia threat was ancillary. The military's responsibility is to make the public aware of future threats, he said.

The U.S. military leadership "is trying to bring attention to this new threat. They will be the ones that will go before the president and say, 'This is the contingency plan,'" McFaul said. "We are going to be dealing with the Russian challenge for a long time. Preventative action could help you avoid military action later."

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 #24
Washington Post
August 5, 2015
Russia or ISIS? Who is America's No. 1 Enemy?
By Karoun Demirjian

Who poses the biggest threat to America? For the last few weeks, the nation's top security chiefs were pressed to answer that existential security question.

And as luck would have it, the experts don't seem to fully agree on the identity of America's No. 1 enemy.

But they've laid out some interesting options:

Russia:

For a while, it seemed, Russia was the front-runner. The new chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, made a splash at his confirmation hearing last month by saying: "Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security." Why? Because it's a nuclear power. As such it "could pose an existential threat to the United States." And Russia's behavior in recent years is "nothing short of alarming," in Dunford's estimation.

Dunford's comments briefly sparked a trend among the military brass who succeeded him at their confirmation hearings.

"I would put the threats to this nation in the following order: Russia, China, Iran and North Korea," Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, nominated to be Dunford's vice chairman, told the Senate Armed Services Committee a few days later.

And a week after that, the Army's prospective head, Gen. Mark Milley, echoed the same warning about the Kremlin.

"I would put Russia, right now, from a military perspective, as the number-one threat," Milley said.

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But then two days later, another official opened the matter to some discussion.

"If you are asking me about a country," Lt. Gen. Robert Neller, nominee to be Marine commandant said at his confirmation hearing, "I would agree with General Dunford that Russia has the most increasing capable force, and their actions and the fact that they have strategic forces make them the greatest potential threat."

"Although I don't think they want to fight us. Right now, I don't think they want to kill Americans," Neller continued. "I think violent extremists want to kill us. And their capacity is not that great but their intent is high...they concern me equally."

So, the terror groups moved up the list.
 
The Islamic State:

In fact, Neller was not the first prominent national security figure to shift focus away from acknowledged nation-states and towards the rising dangers posed by terrorist organizations claiming ownership or sovereignty over large swaths of particularly unstable parts of the globe.

Out in Colorado, Federal Bureau of Investigations Director James Comey said that the Islamic State, by recruiting Americans at home via social media, had in fact become a greater threat to the United States than al-Qaeda, and was - in the eyes of the homeland security-focused agency - the No. 1 threat of our time.

"ISIL is not your parents' al-Qaeda - it's a very different model," Comey told the audience at the Aspen Security Forum. "By virtue of that model it's currently the threat that we're worrying about in the homeland most of all."

To be sure, Comey wasn't asked to directly compare Russia with al-Qaeda, or with the Islamic State. Russia isn't wooing misanthropic Americans online to engage in acts of violent extremism on American soil  (Russia's online campaign against the United States is of an entirely different character). So it's a fair assumption to take Comey at his word that he believes the Islamic State, the new formidable terrorist kid on the Middle Eastern block, is the most fearsome threat of all.

If it's terror we're worried about, does that mean U.S. security chiefs can at least agree that the Islamic State poses the biggest threat?

Not exactly.
 
Iran:

A week after Comey's comments, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was up on Capitol Hill, facing a grilling before the Senate Armed Services Committee about the Iran deal. That's when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) tossed him this question: "Do you believe that Iran represents the world's foremost sponsor of terrorism?"

Carter hemmed and hawed a little.

"Let's see. State sponsor, probably so. I - there are - unfortunately, it's such a kaleidoscope these days, there are lots of courses of terror," Carter said, "but I think for state sponsorship, that's probably accurate."

Eagle-eyed readers will note that Carter didn't refute Comey's position that the Islamic State was the worst threat, since no countries actually recognize the Islamic State as, well, a state. The Islamic State and Iran really don't like each other, incidentally. Islamic State fighters consider Shia Muslims - and the vast majority of Iranians are Shia - an enemy, and have attacked Shia mosques with as much deadly abandon as they have Arab Christians and other religious groups they oppose. Meanwhile, Iran is funding some of the most powerful militias fighting the Islamic State on the ground (though in Syria, Iran also backs President Bashar al-Assad).

Carter's answer at least puts Iran in the mix as a possible No. 1 threat, which could move it closer to the top spot on Washington's unofficial list as lawmakers dive deeper into the Iran deal over the next several weeks.

China:

No one has straight-up named China as the No. 1 threat, either. But like Iran, the Asian economic and naval giant has been getting special attention lately from the security brass, particularly at a recent hearing to consider the nomination of Adm. John Richardson as chief of naval operations.

"Is China an adversary?" Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked Richardson, point-blank.

"Many of the things that they do sort of have an adversarial nature to them," Richardson offered, not really taking the bait. "They've got a vastly growing nation, their activity in the South China Sea and land reclamation certainly has potential to destabilize that region."

Nobody asked him which country, or unaligned actor, was the No. 1 threat.

Verdict?

With the field somewhat divided, we turn to the American people to weigh in - in the form of a Pew poll from last month.

To be certain, the country's security brass doesn't usually consult the public when compiling their threat assessments. But since there seems to be some discord between the military and the homeland security chiefs as to whether our old Cold War enemy or the latest generation of terrorists poses a greater threat to American security, it's worth noting that Americans seem to be siding with...the FBI director.

The Islamic State scares Americans most of all global threats, according to the poll. Then Iran. Then cyber attacks. Then global economic instability. Then - in fifth place - Russia.

Karoun Demirjian covers defense and foreign policy and was previously a correspondent based in the Post's bureau in Moscow, Russia. Before that, she reported for the Las Vegas Sun as its Washington Correspondent, the Associated Press in Jerusalem, the Chicago Tribune, Congressional Quarterly, and worked at NPR.

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 #25
Foreign Affairs
August 4, 2016
Time for a New Strategy in Russia
The Current Sanctions Regime Has Failed-Here's What to Do Next
By Mark Galeotti
Mark Galeotti is Professor of Global Affairs at New York University's School of Professional Studies Center for Global Affairs.

Whether or not the West's sanctions against Russia have been a success depends to a considerable degree on what one thinks the sanctions were meant to achieve and how quickly. More than a year on, Crimea remains occupied, Russia continues to interfere in Ukraine, and the longer-term goal of forcing the Kremlin to accept and abide by the accepted norms of international behavior remains out of reach. The Russian economy is suffering, but more because of low oil prices and structural economic weaknesses than the impact of sanctions, and Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have concluded that the costs are bearable.

So what now? Should the West simply be patient, or is it time for a change in strategy?

One of the reasons that the sanctions regime has not been more effective is that Moscow believes it can easily strike back at the West, dividing the allies and undermining their will to maintain the current restrictions. So long as Moscow believes an end to sanctions is on the horizon, it will not be tempted to enact any substantive change.

The West should ensure not only that it is as resistant as possible to Russian manipulation, but also that it is seen as such. Measures such as accelerating the development of the European Energy Union can minimize Russia's ability to use its oil and gas supplies as leverage against the West. The energy union may not exist fully until 2030, but by simply giving it priority, Europe can communicate its commitment to denying Moscow markets and options. This is, after all, a war of signals and symbols as much as it is one of concrete action.

So long as Moscow believes an end to sanctions is on the horizon, it will not be tempted to enact any substantive change.
The rest of Russia's leverage comes from propaganda and the buying of influence-especially through Moscow's often-covert support for political movements abroad that undermine Western unity, from anti-federalist parties in Europe all the way to Texan separatists. It is crucial for the West to bring greater transparency to the flow of money into and out of Russia and to counteract Moscow's information warfare. The latter will require not fighting propaganda with propaganda, but discrediting biased media, challenging outright lies, and cultivating a climate of skepticism toward Russian disinformation.

The West will also need to counter Russia's political use of military force, from launching long-range bomber patrols in NATO airspace to Putin's regular boasts about Russian nuclear capabilities. Contrary to recent hyperbole, these actions do not presage a military attack. Rather, they are meant to distract, dismay, and divide the West. Although NATO and EU resolve has been greater than Moscow seems to have expected, on- and off-the-record many politicians and observers wonder how long this can last.

Two can play at that game, however, especially because the Kremlin knows that NATO can outman, outmaneuver, and outgun Russia's forces. The West could show its teeth more directly, making explicit that it is not in Russia's interests to provoke a match of military capabilities. Beyond existing plans to pre-position U.S. heavy armor in the Baltic states, the West could establish a permanent NATO forward base in the region for a rotating force of U.S. and European combat troops. Likewise, Washington's current plan to create a Europe-wide missile defense system by 2018 could be oriented away from a notional focus on Iran, especially in light of the recent nuclear deal, to explicitly include Russia. Although such a move would not, on its own, defend Europe against a full-scale Russian attack, it would be a symbolic statement about the extent to which Moscow is considered a genuine threat.

TOUGH LOVE

Given that Moscow seems to have a penchant for heavy-handed geopolitical games, perhaps the best tactic is to concentrate on its vulnerabilities. Above all, Russia is dependent on Western capital and financial systems, and Russia's elites are globalized and eager to enjoy the security, facilities, and lifestyle of the West.

This is a war of signals and symbols as much as it is one of concrete action.

Although the Kremlin appears willing to let ordinary Russians pay the price of sanctions, it is hard to believe that the Russian elite will bear such burdens willingly. The first round of sanctions targeted not whole sectors of the Russian economy but key individuals responsible for the annexation of Crimea and incursion into Ukraine, blocking their ability to travel abroad and freezing their assets. Many more names could be added to the lists-every parliamentarian who voted for the annexation of Crimea, for example-and the sanctions could be made broader and more draconian, complemented by a more aggressive push to punish gangsters and kleptocrats. Adding the names of spouses and children to the lists poses legal challenges, of course, but would also end an obvious loophole, as potential targets of sanctions often transfer assets to relatives.

Of course, the tougher the line, the more the West plays into Putin's own nationalist narrative: that Russia is a beleaguered fortress in a hostile world, and that to compromise with the West is to undermine the country's sovereignty and betray its history and destiny. Backing Putin into a corner and alienating Russians who seek compromise with the West are dangerous moves. The West must balance confrontation with reassurance. After all, Russia needs support, both moral and political, as it adjusts to its new, reduced place in the global order.

One possible avenue of reassurance would be for Washington to restart the U.S.-Russian Bilateral Presidential Commission, a bid to reengage Russia in a multi-track negotiation process that emphasizes key areas, from the fight against the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) to nuclear security, in which the two countries share real common interests. By seeking small but substantive agreements, and by eschewing some of the more alarmist Western rhetoric and symbolic snubs that play so badly in Moscow (think of the recent decision by Western leaders to decline an invitation to a military parade in Moscow's Red Square celebrating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II), it may be possible to edge toward a new era of positive engagement. It will be essential for the Washington to reconnect with Moscow as a pragmatic partner, not least because neither Russia nor the United States can find sustainable solutions to the crises in Syria or Ukraine on its own.

Western policy needs to be more imaginative and multivectored. The sanctions regime can be sharpened, but it needs to be supplemented by a range of additional measures if it is to have any measurable impact other than to accelerate the miserable and counterproductive slide into bickering and mutual suspicion.

By every objective standard, Russia is vastly weaker than the West. Its greatest strength, though, is that as an authoritarian state, it can mobilize a unified political will that an alliance of democracies cannot match. Western policy, therefore, needs to focus on those sanctions that will most affect the Kremlin-rather than on those that are easiest for the West to enact-and consider them part of a much broader strategy that not only provides Moscow with positive reasons to engage with the West, but also reduces its ability to retaliate. The real battle will ultimately be won in the hearts and minds (and perhaps bank accounts) of Putin and his closest cronies and allies.

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 #26
Harvard University
Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures
August 6, 2015
In Memoriam: Professor Svetlana Boym

We are tremendously saddened to inform the community that Svetlana Boym, Curt Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature, passed away yesterday, August 5, after a year-long struggle with cancer. Our memory of her remains of one who was brimming with vitality, brilliance, and wit. Her warm yet fiercely independent personality together with her influential scholarship attracted students and colleagues from around Harvard, and indeed around the world. We will miss her terribly.

Svetlana Boym was born in Leningrad and studied Spanish and English at the Herzen Institute. She emigrated to the United States and received her Master's Degree at Boston University in Hispanic Literatures before enrolling in Harvard's PhD program in Comparative Literature, where she received her degree in 1988. She was hired first as an Assistant Professor in History and Literature and Comparative Literature, and she joined the Slavic Department upon her promotion to Professor in 1995. She was awarded several prizes during her career, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Bunting Fellowship, and an award for her mentoring of students at Harvard.

Svetlana was a prolific scholar. Her many academic publications include: Death in Quotation Marks, Common Places: Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia, The Future of Nostalgia, and Another Freedom: The Alternative History of an Idea. She gave very many scholarly talks around the world. But she was famous at Harvard for her courses on literature, art, and visual culture in the Soviet era. She spoke passionately to students about writers and thinkers such as Viktor Shklovsky, Vladimir Nabokov, and Hanna Arendt, who shaped and inspired her. Svetlana was a formidable and incisive presence among her colleagues in Departmental and University meetings, where she frequently championed the causes of graduate students. Her independence and passion was almost always accompanied by great wit and laughter. One looked forward to spending time at an academic talk, conference, or meeting with Svetlana.

As much as she was a devoted to academia, Svetlana was also a longtime artist and author. In the past several years, in particular, her photography became more important. She had numerous exhibitions and participated in the 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art in 2013. She wrote a play, The Woman Who Shot Lenin, and a novel, Ninochka. And in the last year she was immersed in many projects, including autobiographical work and plans for a film, not to mention several academic projects. Her personal website, www.svetlanaboym.com, reflects the great diversity of her interests.

A funeral service for Svetlana will take place on Friday, August 7 at the Levine Chapels in Brookline, MA, at 470 Harvard Street. The Harvard Comparative Literature Department and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures are planning a joint event in her memory to take place in the coming year. We will announce the details of that event as they become available.

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 #27
Euromaidan Press
http://euromaidanpress.com
August 6, 2015
Pro-Moscow "republics" in Ukraine likely to end as did Serbska Kraina in Croatia, Kyiv columnist says
By Paul Goble

The analogies people employ, even if they are far from exact, often say more about how people see a situation than do more immediate descriptions. Consequently, it may prove extremely telling that a Ukrainian commentator says the way in which Serbska Kraina ceased to exist is how the "DNR" and "LNR" will pass into history as well.

In a commentary today in Kyiv's "Segodnya," Ihor Lyashenko suggests that events almost exactly 20 years ago in Croatia are suggestive of the ways in which Moscow's efforts to destroy Ukraine by setting up the two pro-Russia "peoples republics" may eventually end.

Serbska Kraina is "the part of Croatia in which Serbs lived." When the Croatians declared their independence from Serbian-dominated Yugoslavia, the Croatian Serbs created their own state. "The Croatian army was weak and could not do anything" especially as "behind the Serbs stood the powerful Yugoslav cadres peoples army," Lyashenko says.

The parallels with Ukraine's situation today are obvious, he suggests.

The columnist continues: "Serbska Kraina lasted four years, from 1991 until 1995." Twenty years ago this month, "the Croatian army in the course of a few days restored the integrity of its country having destroyed the armed forces of the separatists." As a result, "practically all 400,000 Serbs of the Kraina became refugees."

"On the eve of the attack by the Croatian army," the Kyiv columnist says, "no one believed this would be possible." The Serbska Kraina army was well-equipped, it was backed by Serbia's military, and it had the advantage of topography and of being on defense. But nonetheless, the Croatians attacked and they won.

The reasons are instructive, he suggests. The Serbska Kraina army had decayed "after four years of inactivity. The militants didn't think about service but focused instead on their own gardens. [And] many even left their posts and went abroad seeking work. "In general," the Kyiv writer says, "the Serbska Kraina army turned out to be not militarily effective."

Moreover, by 1995, Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic was less interested in building "Greater Serbia" than it had been; and despite its declarations and its basing of forces on the border with Serbska Kraina, it wasn't willing to do much. It might have been able to stop the Croatians with artillery fire, but the Serb military did not fire one shot in the event.

Instead, Lyashenko says, "Serbian forces looked on at the gigantic flows of refugees," largely because Serbs by that time had begun to ask themselves whether it was worthwhile "sacrificing a rich European future on the altar of Greater Serbia? After several years of sanctions, they were increasingly answering that in the negative.

"Why should we know as much as possible about this event," Lyashenko asks rhetorically. The answer should be obvious: "this is the most realistic variant for the restoration of Ukrainian control over the separatist 'DNR' and 'LNR.'"

The "Segodnya" writer does not draw out the conclusions for Ukraine Serbska Kraina suggests, but there are at least three that are worth stressing.

First, sanctions and time will work to Ukraine's advantage.
Second, eliminating the "DNR" and "LNR" is going to require military force.
And third, when Ukraine retakes the Donbas, most pro-Moscow Russians there will flee.

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#28
Wall Street Journal
August 7, 2015
In Ukraine's Capital, a New Show of Force
Kiev hires new police officers with little experience, in a bid to head off systemic corruption
By LAURA MILLS

KIEV, Ukraine-A pro-Western government that swept into power last year with a promise to end corruption has largely disappointed Ukrainians, but one of Kiev's new programs has been an instant hit: a new police force mostly made up of people with no law-enforcement experience.

Ukrainians tired of handing over bribes to traffic police have welcomed the force, which hit the streets in July and includes former cooks, drivers and students who have been trained in part by officers from the U.S.

Kiev residents have snapped photos with the new officers, who sport dark-blue uniforms similar to those of U.S. police officers and drive shiny new Toyota hybrids donated by Japan.

One new officer, Ludmila Milevich, was so tired of bribes she said she was forced to pay in the course of raising her 6-year-old daughter that she jumped at the chance to join the new 2,000-strong first-responder force, whose main focus is on traffic issues.

"You go to kindergarten and you pay money so that she gets in. You go to school and pay money so that she gets in. You go to the hospital and pay money so that they'll look at her," said the 27-year-old, who had been a stay-at-home mom. "Nobody wants to live like that anymore."

While the Interior Ministry says it plans to expand the program to three more cities this summer, the numbers are a drop in the bucket among the country's roughly 170,000 current police officers. There have been few successful efforts to clean up other law-enforcement agencies, and Western allies have urged Ukraine to speed up overhauls.

"It's not enough to talk about change...you have to deliver change," Vice President Joe Biden said while discussing corruption at a U.S.-Ukraine investor conference in Washington in July. "They've got to put people in jail."

The Interior Ministry says it is doing everything to ensure the new force stays clean. It raised monthly base salaries for officers by about three times-to as much as 10,000 hryvnia ($460)-and has outfitted the officers with electronic tablets and body cameras to monitor their interactions. In training, the recruits-who range from 21 to 35 years old-are taught to form relationships while patrolling by stopping to talk to people.

"When a policeman has a respected place in society...it protects from petty corruption because it's damaging, you lose everything," said Eka Zguladze, first deputy interior minister, who spearheaded similar police overhauls in her native Georgia before being granted Ukrainian citizenship and a job here this year.

Konstantin Drongal, one of only about 50 former police officers on the new force, said he believes it will work. Mr. Drongal, 23, admits to taking bribes in his old job, but said a salary of just 2,000 hyrvnia a month left him with little choice. Other policemen said they collected bribes to kick up to their superiors, pay for their own uniforms and even gas in their cars.

"Everybody in the system is compromised," Mr. Drongal said. "That's why if you arrest some drug dealer but you get a call from up high that says to let him go, you as an officer have to let him go because there is dirt on everyone, including you....Now it's impossible to control us because there is no way to compromise us."

Many have reacted ecstatically to the appearance of the police, and the 405 female officers on the new force have been a particular hit: Ms. Milevich, whose Instagram account attracted more than 8,000 followers in a few days, was mobbed with photo requests as soon as she stepped out of her car.

The Interior Ministry said that trust goes deeper, with calls to the Ukrainian equivalent of 911 more than doubling in the recruits' first month. Sometimes, there are false alarms: Ms. Milevich was once called to a mass brawl that was actually a prankster complaining about an unruly neighborhood rooster. She said she was also summoned to a purported drug den that turned out to be one woman's attempt to end a neighbor's house party.

Still, broader doubts remain. Law enforcement remains largely unchanged outside the new Kiev squad, and much of the old guard remains in place.

"It reminds me a little bit of trying to attach the branch of a pear tree to a cactus in the hopes it will grow," said Yegor Sobolev, a member of Parliament with the Samopomich party, which is in the ruling coalition.

Meanwhile, corruption allegations extend to the judicial system. Two judges detained in July on suspicion of accepting bribes were found with at least $500,000 in cash and 65 diamonds, said a member of Parliament. Several days later, the men were released on bail of about $150,000, sparking widespread outrage. Both judges have maintained their innocence.

Ukraine's Parliament passed a law in July revamping the setup of the country's police, which Mr. Sobolev called imperfect but "a step in the right direction."

Ms. Zguladze said the new Kiev patrol force may be most important as a symbol of change. After more than a year of war, economic collapse and halting overhauls, symbolism matters.

"It's about giving the Ukrainian people hope in reforms, the message that we want to build a state...that is serving and protecting you rather than bullying, punishing and absorbing money from you," she said. "This is visible and this is tangible."

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#29
Poroshenko regime unable to keep oligarchs at bay
By Lyudmila Alexandrova

MOSCOW, August 6. /TASS/. Ukraine's Poroshenko regime has failed to launch an effective crusade against oligarchs to this day, the more so since the president is one of them, and it is very unlikely the big business tycoons will ever manage to plot a coup, let alone nation-wide protests, analysts believe.

Ukraine's big business people are tired of the current authorities, a member of parliament from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, Sergey Leshchenko said in his blog. According to the legislator, Kiev on August 1 saw an informal get-together of former and current oligarchs and other big business figureheads.

Reportedly they were discussing ways of resisting the authorities. "In attendance were: Rinat Akhmetov, Sergey Taruta, Viktor Pinchuk, Vasily Khmelnitsky, and Yuri Kosyuk," he said. The partakers agreed that "something in the country is going wrong" and made an attempt to plan a concerted response.

Some western media of authority have agreed that the struggle against the oligarchic regime in Ukraine has ended in failure. Germany's Der Spiegel magazine has published an article entitle Poroshenko's Doubtful Connections. In particular, the article says that Poroshenko has failed to keep his promise to sell up his business and strip big business tycoons of power. The Guardian in an article titled Oligarchs Nouveaux? Why Some Say Ukraine is Still in Thrall to an Elite says that government supporters, western diplomats and opposition figures tend to reply to inquiries about how the process of "de-oligarchisation" is proceeding in the country with exactly the same response: hearty laughter.

The director of Eurasian Studies Centre, Vladimir Kornilov, is quoted by the Svobodnaya Pressa (Free Press) portal as saying that de-oligarchisation process is in fact the replacement of "national bourgeoisie by comprador bourgeoisie."

No effective struggle against the oligarchs is anywhere in sight, Georgy Chizhov, an expert at the political technologies centre, has told TASS.

"Poroshenko himself is an oligarch, although he claims he has been doing his best to sell up the assets he owns. No systemic control of the oligarchs has been established and most of them feel themselves rather comfortably. The authorities have no understanding of how to go about the business of dismantling the oligarchic system. It should be born in mind that oligarchic structures are behind many social affairs - wages, jobs, and the enterprises that support mono-industrial towns. That's the reason why they have to co-exist for the time being.

The oligarchs will be unable to spark another "Maidan", understood as a major, nation-wide protest, Chizhov believes. They are more likely to arrange for media campaigns. He believes that the oligarchs will be pressing for the dismissal of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and their attempt may prove successful, given the catastrophic slump of the current government's popularity ratings. The oligarchs will be waging a war of political annihilation.

The oligarchs lack the resources to arrange for another "Maidan," says the director of the Political Studies Centre, Sergey Markov. "It would be a government coup arranged by US special services," Markov told TASS. "In the meantime, Poroshenko quite suits the US secret services, so they will keep him in place."

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 #30
Kyiv Post
August 7, 2015
Ukraine's top oligarchs weather storm, retain political influence
by Johannes Wamberg Andersen

Ukraine's oligarchs have hit a rough patch financially, but they still wield too much influence over the nation's politics and economic life, according to a report published by Transparency International Ukraine on Aug. 5. Political parties are dependent on them for money, and reforms get undermined as a result.

Comparing net worth assessments conducted by Focus magazine, practically all of Ukraine's richest have seen their wealth plunge since 2013, as revolution and war pummeled the country. The top 15 richest are worth only $22.8 billion, down a whopping $19 billion from 2013, according to Focus.

Some have lost a lot less than others, however.

Viktor Pinchuk is one of them. One of Ukraine's longest-serving oligarchs, Pinchuk has weathered political and economic storms before, and he looks to be riding out the present one as well.

Pinchuk started out acquiring assets at fire-sale prices and profited without much reinvestment, according to Mykhailo Honchar, president of the Centre for Global Studies Strategy XXI. Such oligarchs also benefited from state spending at inflated prices, he said.

"They wouldn't survive in a competitive economy," Honchar said, putting Rinat Akhmetov, Dmytro Firtash and Ihor Kolomoisky in the same category. "But Pinchuk has established a state-of-the-art metals plant, and is slowly transforming into another breed - the investment-focused oligarch."

Another oligarch who has risen relative to others is Russian citizen Konstantin Grigorishin.

The Ukraine-born Grigorishin has fared well because of his close affiliation to President Petro Poroshenko, but his luck might be running out, Honchar said. Recently the Security Service of Ukraine blocked and nullified a major Hr 6 billion deal for Grigorishin to supply the power grid with new transformers.

Vitalii Kulyk, from the Center for Civil Society Studies, agreed, said that Grigorishin is a temporary ally of Poroshenko, who sees him as a competitor since Poroshenko is branching out into offshore banking and energy.

So while the participants in the oligarch system are plainly suffering at present, the oligarch grip remains firmly in place.

Much of the fall in wealth of Ukraine's richest can be attributed to the hemorrhaging of the value of the national currency, the hryvnia, which has lost more than 50 percent of its value since 2014, amid mass public protests against the corrupt rule of Viktor Yanukovych.

Still, many of their present problems stem from the system they created.

Economists Basil Kalymon and Oleh Havrylyshyn, writing in the New Atlanticist on Aug. 3, see the culture of oligarchic corruption in Ukraine as the root of economic woes.

"The system of bureaucrats, police, prosecutors, judges, and politicians controlling governance for the oligarchs' benefit must be broken or Ukraine will sink under the weight of a totally failed economy," Kalymon and Havrylyshyn warned.

Unfortunately, there's no clear evidence that either President Poroshenko or Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, while loudly proclaiming a drive to mitigate the influence of oligarchs, are actually doing anything to bring one about.

Poroshenko, an oligarch himself, has moved up the rich list in relative terms, and is yet to divest himself of assets he promised to get rid of once he was elected head of state in May 2014.

Moreover, Kalymon and Havrylyshyn say that Ukraine's oligarchs, far from being under attack by the new authorities, are still enjoying their protection.

"Many of the oligarchs who supported the Yanukovych regime, (such as Akhmetov, Firtash and Serhiy Lyovochkin, for example), continue to thrive - abusing their control over state companies and manipulating blocks of deputies in the Verkhovna Rada, Kalymon and Havrylyshyn wrote. "Their interests, together with those of regime-affiliated oligarchs continue to be protected at the highest levels of government."

The Aug. 5 Transparency International report arrives at a similar conclusion.

Evaluating Ukraine's fight with corruption, the report found that while some progress has been made, the influence of the government and oligarchs is undermining reform efforts.

"The research states that the major reason why parties cannot represent social interests is their strong dependence on wealthy donors, i.e. oligarchs, due to the lack of limits on private donations and lack of annual public financing," the group's news release reads.

Taras Beresovets, the director of the PR-company Berta Communications, said on the other side said the political leadership had done a lot to diminish oligarch influence - pointing at new energy laws and regulations that sidelined both Firtash and Kolomoisky.

The biggest problem remains the oligarchs' control over the media, he said.

Meanwhile, Honchar sees hope that the "parasite" oligarchs will slowly transform into ones that invest in an even "playing field." He counted Poroshenko as being among them.

"They're trying to preserve the old corruption (system), but they will be unsuccessful," Honchar said. "Reforms will proceed slowly, like an old Soviet car, and Poroshenko will go with the flow rather than lead the reform drive. He will try to avoid sharp underwater stones in the stream, but he can't stop the stream itself."

Honchar added that Poroshenko was a product of the system that formed under second Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, and much like the latter, he sees himself as an arbiter of the oligarch system, not its nemesis.

Kulyk said that although the oligarch system will undergo change, its days are not yet numbered in Ukraine.

"(Poroshenko) will civilize the oligarch system, not dismantle it," he said.

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 #31
Ukrainian military bombarded Donetsk Republic 32 times over past 24 hours

MOSCOW, August 7. /TASS/. Ukrainian military over the past 24 hours bombarded the territory of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Republic 30 times to have fired more than 170 shells, the Donetsk Republic's Defense Ministry said.

"Ceasefire was violated 32 times over the past 32 hours," the Donetsk news agency quotes the Defense Ministry's spokesman as saying.

In particular, the Defense Ministry pointed out that large caliber artillery was used: 38 152 mm and 122 mm artillery shells, 30 tank shells and 103 82 mm and 120 mm caliber mines crashed on the Donetsk republic's territory.

"Artillery and mortar attacks were mounted against the village of Spartak and the area of the Donetsk airport from the villages of Opytnoye and Avdeyevka," the Defense Ministry said.

Ceasefire in Donbas officially took effect on February 15. It was an integral part of the package of measures for the implementation of the Minsk Accords, which the Contact Group (the Donetsk Republic, Luhansk Republic, OSCE, Russia and Ukraine) signed on February 12.

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 #32
LPR to hold elections on November 1 - Plotnitsky

LUHANSK. Aug 7 (Interfax) - The leader of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR), Igor Plotnitsky, has said that the local government elections scheduled for November 1, 2015, will be held regardless of Kyiv's stance on the matter.

"We declared them [the elections] and we will hold them whether Ukraine wants it or not," he told members of the LPR people's police on Friday.

"They don't want it. They are trying to pass their own laws for us to comply with what they want. This is not going to happen," said the LPR leader.

Earlier on Friday the leaders of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), too, finally decided on an election date.

"October 18 is the final date. One of these days we will be meeting with LPR representatives to discuss the matter," DPR leader Alexander Zakharchenko told reporters.

Commenting on the 'Local elections' law published on Friday in the gazette of the Ukrainian Vekhovna Rada, LPR people's council speaker Alexei Karyakin said that, "if the current government in Ukraine had genuinely considered Donbas to be part of Ukraine and wanted to hold free elections here, it would have done whatever is possible and even impossible at talks in order to implement the Minsk agreements."

"Kyiv's policy is one of war until [a] victorious end, blockades, ultimatums, full non-recognition of the natural right of a people to self-determination even in the framework of an extremely limited special status spelt out in the set of measures," the LPR people's council speaker said, according to the Luhansk Information Center.

"This is why the point is not only that the law was passed without us being consulted. For us, to agree to an aggressor's elections would be tantamount to helping a pack of wolves organize a voting by lambs," Karyakin said.

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 #33
Gazeta.ru
July 28, 2015
Poll cites attitudes to Russian troops presence in eastern Ukraine
Danila Rozanov, Those who are fighting in Donbass. One-fourth of Russians believe that there are Russian troops in eastern Ukraine

One-third of Russians would react positively if they learned that career Russian military men are present on the territory of Donbass [Donetsk Basin] and 40 per cent would view this information negatively, according to a Levada Centre poll. In the space of a year the level of fears connected with the threat of the escalation of the conflict has fallen. The number of those who fear that it will lead to an open military clash between Russia and Ukraine, a protracted civil war, or World War III has fallen.

One-fourth of Russia's residents (26 per cent) believe that the Russian military are operating in eastern Ukraine, whereas one-half (52 per cent) believe that there are no Russian troops in Donbass. And this correlation is virtually unchanged over the year, according to the latest Levada Centre poll.

Over one-half of those polled (53 per cent) respond positively to the fact that Russian volunteers are fighting in the ranks of the volunteer militia in eastern Ukraine and a little over one-fourth (27 per cent) respond negatively.

Career Russian military men have a different attitude towards possible participation in the conflict. In response to the question "If you were to learn that career Russian military men are fighting in the ranks of the volunteer militia in eastern Ukraine, how would you react to this?", 9 per cent of respondents replied "wholly positively", 24 per cent replied "rather positively", 26 per cent replied "rather negatively" and 14 per cent replied "extremely negatively". In other words, the ratio of for and against is 33 to 40.

"People do not want to be drawn into the conflict," is how political analyst Aleksey Makarkin explains his fellow countrymen's feelings. "When it is question of volunteers, people have the image of those enthusiasts with a rifle who went independently in order to defend their relatives, for example, and the state is not responsible for them at all." Despite numerous media items about the actions of Russian volunteers, this image remains surprisingly persistent in the mass mind.

"But the presence of the Russian military is perceived as a threat that the conflict will develop," Makarkin says.

The level of anxiety within society remains very high even though over the year the fear that the conflict could develop into a protracted civil war, a war between Russia and Ukraine, or even World War III has fallen quite significantly.

The number of those who seriously fear that the conflict will progress to the stage of a protracted civil war has fallen from 36 to 22 per cent over the year. Some 48 per cent of those polled still had "some apprehensions" on this score. Twenty-six per cent were seriously afraid of war between Russia and Ukraine in July last year, whereas now it is 13 per cent. And the number of those who really fear the start of World War III has fallen from 21 to 13 per cent (30 per cent have "some apprehensions").

"There have been no radical changes during the crisis," Levada Centre director Lev Gudkov comments. "In spring-summer 2014 people expected a rapid development of events, even the introduction of Russian troops into Donbass territory, but this has not happened. There was a second wave of the worsening of military actions in August last year. Then, too, there were heightened expectations and anxiety on this score. Subsequently there followed the long cycle of Minsk talks and some signs not so much of a ceasefire as of a freezing of the conflict and for this reason the anxiety began to diminish a little."

So long as there is no war

Russians' attention to events in Ukraine remains steady: 15 per cent of those polled are following events in this country "very attentively", 36 per cent are following them "quite attentively" and a further 38 per cent are following them but "without particular attention". Interest in the topic, however, does not greatly contribute to an understanding of what is going on. "From time to time we ask the question of how well people understand events in Ukraine and, on average, 63-65 per cent say that they do not understand them very much," Gudkov says.

But Russians are sure who is to blame for the Ukrainian crisis: the West remains the main enemy and perpetrator of the crisis. Although the correlation of opinions on the causes of the conflict has nonetheless changed over the year.

The number of those who consider the conflict the result of the West's interference, has fallen from 64 to 45 per cent. The emphasis has shifted to the Ukrainian authorities' actions.

The present conflict is "the result of the Ukrainian leadership's nationalist policy", 27 per cent of those polled believe (in July 2014 the figure was 20 per cent). A further 15 per cent believe that the crisis is linked to "the protest of the population of eastern Ukraine against the new authorities in Kiev" (last year it was 7 per cent) and only 4 per cent consider what has happened "the result of Russia's interference".

"The official interpretation of events is being accepted," Gudkov says. "In the Russians' mind the West and, above all, the United States, are still the main perpetrators of the conflict." But the shift of emphasis towards the Kiev authorities, according to the sociologist, is attributed to a change in the Russian propaganda agenda.

"A sense is forming that people do not want big confrontation with the West, there is a desire to localize the problem and reduce it to Ukrainian affairs," Makarkin says, citing another possible explanation.

Society is sending the authorities two conflicting signals: on the one hand, it wants Russia to win this mythical confrontation with the West without backing down from its principles, but on the other, it does not want an intensification of the confrontation.

At the same time, the political analyst agrees that there has been a propaganda adjustment: according to his observations, alarmist ideologists have begun to appear less often on the federal channels' airwaves. "Anti-Western propaganda is taking place but there are fewer people in the public space who would say that confrontation with the West is an aim in itself for us and that we must fight to a victorious end, come what may.

"Another viewpoint is being expressed to a greater extent now: the West, of course, is completely wrong but it should realize this, renounce the sanctions and apologize to us, and then perhaps we will begin to live again," Makarkin says.

But despite the small detente, anxiety remains a mobilization factor, Gudkov is sure. A reassessment of problems takes place rapidly with the appearance of the threat of a big war. The level of questions and claims falls and people begin to concentrate on the most important thing - daily life and family security. In the sociologist's words, an old Soviet maxim has already begun to operate among Russians. They are prepared to put up with whatever it takes so long as there is no war. "On the one hand, this is sustaining the high level of approval of the authorities, but on the other, it is creating a longer-term factor that erodes stability."

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 #34
Counterpunch.org
August 5, 2015
Well-Known Canadian Journalist Visits Ukraine and Praises Neo-Nazis
by ROGER ANNIS
Roger Annis is an editor of the website The New Cold War: Ukraine and beyond.

One of Canada's most known journalists was in Ukraine last month on reporting duty. Readers of mainstream media in Canada will be surprised to read Diane Francis' observations of her visit. She has penned several articles in the World Post praising the extreme-right and neo-Nazi paramilitary forces that are allied with the Ukrainian government in waging civil war in the east of the country.

The World Post is an international collaboration by Huffington Post.

Francis is one of the more recognized names in Canadian journalism. She is Editor at Large at the National Post, one of two national dailies in Canada. She is a longtime editor and columnist with the Financial Post, now published as the business section of the National Post. She is Distinguished Professor at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University in Toronto.

Francis is a renowned conservative and pro-capitalist ideologue, but open support for the far-right in Ukraine comes as an eye-opener. Her articles have received no attention or critique, an all-too common sign these days of the political impunity which proponents of war against the people of eastern Ukraine enjoy in Canada.

'Poignant moments with Right Sector neo-Nazis'

In a July 13, 2015 article in the World Post, Francis sings the praises of Ukraine's far-right, calling them "remarkable patriots". The article is incongruously titled, We are all Ukrainians.

Francis' evident mission in Ukraine is to warn the world of-you might guess-a creeping Russian takeover of Ukraine. She writes from Kyiv, "This trip, I saw more [Ukrainian] flags than ever and met some remarkable patriots who have realized that the public itself must rally to the cause of trying to stop, and eventually reverse, the steady takeover [of Ukraine] by Russia since independence in 1991."

"The most poignant moment for me on this visit," she continues, "was an interview in a Kiev hospital with a young member of the Right Sector, led by Dmytro Yarosh. Make no mistake: these volunteers and others made the difference last year and helped Ukraine's rag tag army hold the Russians at bay..."

Right Sector "patriots" earn her praise. So do thousands more like them in other paramilitary forces. She calls all of them Ukraine's "hidden army of volunteers".

Francis laments the public relations problems which Ukraine's neo-Nazi "army of volunteers" is facing. Though she does not mention it specifically, this would include the vote in the U.S. Congress in May saying it will deny arms and military training to one of the extremist paramilitary battalions-Azov.

In an understatement for the ages, she writes, "But recent publicity that some Ukrainian militias are comprised of neo-Nazis frightens some politicians and donors. And there's concern about the corrupt army leadership and whether it's under control." And who is contesting control of the army? We are left to guess, but presumably she is talking about the ongoing incorporation into the army of the neo-Nazis.

Not to worry, though. Francis explains reassuringly, "As for militias, however, Canada's Defense Minister Jason Kenney said in Lviv 'We should not allow a small number of bad apples in one battalion to characterize the new Ukraine'."

Ah, Jason Kenney, one of the most hardline of the neo-conservatives in the Canadian government assures us that the tens of thousands of far-right battalion legionnaires are but "a few bad apples". Are you feeling reassured already, dear reader?

Francis explains the means by which the Ukrainian army and the battalions are trying to work their way around the 'fright' of potential foreign arms donors. She describes ingenious citizen "projects" in Ukraine which are manufacturing military equipment and calls this part of ongoing "reforms" of the armed forces. Somehow, such "reforms" are how Ukraine may solve the problem of corruption in its army and the embarrassing questions surrounding who, really, runs the institution and who, exactly, is being trained by the military training missions of the U.S., Britain and Canada.

Francis continues, "All of these military reforms [sic] and citizen activism must continue if Ukraine is to win the war against Russia and the war against corruption at home.

"But more Western help, in terms of military equipment and debt relief, must arrive soon."

Interested supporters of Ukrainian extremism are encouraged by Francis (and inferentially by the World Post editors who published her article) to go to "a crowd funding site called peoplesproject.com - where interested donors from around the world can scan a shopping list of projects and causes [sic] for donors and use their credit cards to make donations. Millions have been raised so far."

Francis ends her article in the heroic theme she has given to its title: "I am not Ukrainian myself, but we are all Ukrainians."

"Free trade" between Canada and Ukraine

A July 17 article by Francis, this one written from Lviv, extols the "free trade" deal which Canada recently signed with Kyiv. By way of stressing the importance of the deal, she writes, "Ukraine remains the world's biggest producer of grains, sunflower oils, mushrooms for Europeans and is now blanketed with apple orchards and processing plants to produce juice and cider."

Francis gets her "sunflower oils" claim correct, and maybe she is correct about mushrooms. But she hugely exaggerates Ukraine's cereals ("grains") production, presumably for the sake of boosting her argument for more support to the Kyiv government and its present war in eastern Ukraine and a future war against Russia.

Ukraine is, indeed, an important producer of cereals in the world. If only it were not saddled with a vicious civil war and a venal ruling, capitalist class, the country's agricultural potential could provide a huge boost to living standards and hope for the future.

In production of major cereals in the world, Ukraine is listed as a top-five producer in only one cereal commodity-it is fifth in the production of corn. Ukraine was ninth in the world in overall cereals production in 2013, according to the World Bank.

According to Index Mundii, Ukraine was eighth in the world by country in wheat production in 2014. But that placing is exaggerated because Index Mundii groups all 27 countries of the European Union as one in its agriculture charts. France and Germany each produce more wheat than Ukraine. EU wheat production in 2014 was just under seven times that of Ukraine.

As for the Canada-Ukraine "free trade" deal, Moscow-based writer and financial analyst John Helmer titled a July 15 analysis of the agreement, Free trade for the birds-How Canada forces Ukraine to repay $400 million in loans.

Helmer explains that the main features of the deal will see a surge of highly competitive Canadian food exports to Ukraine while offering little in return excepting, notably, a likely writing-off of a $400 million "loan" (payoff?) by Canada to the Ukrainian government earlier this year.

Helmer goes on:

"Harper is saving the Ukraine by damaging its farmers," a Toronto source says, "and keeping Canada's steel mills protected from one of the few exports the eastern Ukraine can still turn out. [The "free trade" deal maintains restrictions on Ukrainian steel and other metallurgical imports into Canada.-RA] If that's not cynical politics for gullible voters, I don't know what is."

He cites an official of the Canadian Export Development Corporation:

She acknowledged that EDC recently issued a bulletin warning Canadian exporters of the "prohibitive" risks in doing business with the Ukrainians. "We haven't issued a bulletin on the positive [opportunities of the trade deal]," she added. "Not yet."

Helmer dresses a long list of Canadian products that will now have easier access to Ukrainian markets thanks to "the dismantling of Ukrainian protection for domestic agriculture".

Financial advice to Ukraine and international bankers

Dianne Francis is a conservative economic analyst and a career financial writer. Even for a conservative, her suggestions to the Ukrainian government and the international governments and financial institutions backing it are unusual or downright zany.

An article by her from May 2014 bemoans what she considers the lacklustre support for post-Maidan Ukraine coming from some countries. "The defenseless country is under siege from Russia and next week, on May 25, an election will be held to determine its future. The prospects are far from propitious. The last President of Ukraine was driven out of power but managed to disarm the country further by selling its military equipment, for personal profit, to African dictators.

"Another nation-state culprit [for leaving Ukraine in the lurch] is Germany. The world's most reluctant superpower has done nothing because it's been politically and economically co-opted by Russia."

Carrying forward this extreme interpretation of the crisis in Ukraine, her article highlights the views of an American commentator who recommends that the victor of the presidential election should immediately invite NATO military forces to occupy the country and simultaneously cut the flow of natural gas from Russia to Europe. The cutting of gas transport would "bring everyone [in Europe] to the table" to discuss Ukraine's future and, presumably, open the floodgates of weapons' supplying to Ukraine. This could then create a credible military threat to Russia. Francis called this "calling Putin's bluff on Ukraine".

Revealing the full scope of her plan-nothing less than regime change in Russia-Francis continued, "Tougher measures by Ukraine could eventually bring Putin down."

Readers will know that such plans haven't exactly worked out. President Putin is more popular than ever in Russia, in no small part due to the growing awareness by the Russian people of what Western governments and wacko advisers such as Dianne Francis have in mind for their country. And there is the pesky problem of Ukraine's financially and politically bankrupt state and leadership.

A July 5, 2015 article on Ukraine's debt situation by Francis explained that notwithstanding the country's growing and apparently unpayable debt (now approaching 135 per cent of GDP, double the number of one year ago), its notorious corruption and the grim war against its population in the east of the country, the Ukrainian government should hold an honored place in the family of indebted nations.

The article is titled, 'IMF holds key to helping Ukraine escape from Russia's stranglehold' and it argues, "Greece is a deadbeat nation, Puerto Rico is a party that lives beyond its means, but last year, war-torn Ukraine made more interest payments to its lenders than it spent trying to defend itself against Russia." Ergo, this beleaguered country deserves much more financial support than "deadbeats" such as Greece.

Francis offers a novel approach for the Ukrainian government to offload its debts to international creditors: Ukraine should be declared an "occupied country". Then the IMF could continue to provide loans to the country without the thorny provision that Ukraine display some will and capacity to pay them back.

Even better, Ukraine could then decide how much of its outstanding, "official" debt of $3 billion owed to Russia it will pay without having to worry about repercussions from international financial institutions of such a partial default. Presently, the money owed to Russia is "official" debt, meaning the result of a government-to-government agreement. That was made in 2013, including with a condition, long-since violated, that Ukraine keep its government debt lower than 60 per cent of GDP.

Being an "official" debt obligation, Ukraine's $3 billion owed to Russia must be honoured or the country risks becoming an international financial pariah. A commentary in the May 25 Moscow Times explained, "Ukraine's $17 billion IMF bailout [granted in March 2015] would be effectively frozen if the country is found to have defaulted on any official debt."

Complicating the financial picture for the neo-conservative government in Kyiv is the huge, unpaid natural gas bills owed by Ukraine's state-owned gas company, Naftogaz, to Russia's giant gas producer Gazprom. Reuters reported, also in May, that according to Gazprom, that unpaid bill amounts to $29.5 billion. Naftogaz has taken the matter to an international disputes tribunal, but even a lesser amount will be extremely difficult if not impossible to pay under present circumstances.

According to Francis, Ukraine's entire mess could find resolution provided Ukraine and its backers stick, quite literally, to their guns. She writes in the July 5 article, "The country's populace is rebuilding its army, gutted by the previous administrations and corruption. An "army" of grassroots volunteers [sic] has taken up arms, millions in donations are being raised to replace equipment that went missing, and operations and corrupt practices are being addressed."

Canada is at the outset of the most lengthy federal election campaign in more than 60 years, to wrap on October 19. Extremist views such as those of Dianne Francis are not uncommon in mainstream media and they are de rigeur within the halls of the House of Commons and the (appointed) Senate.

Most liberal columnists, even, are blind to the stakes of the war in Ukraine. The Toronto Star's Rick Salutin, for example, praised Liberal Party MP and incumbent candidate in Toronto Centre district, Chrystia Freeland, in his weekly column on July 31.

Freeland, Salutin wrote, "would make a fine [repeat] MP". Freeland happens to be an ideologue in favour of the war in Ukraine and the hard-right forces prosecuting it, notwithstanding her paradoxical authoring of the 2012 book Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else.

Speaking of the House of Commons, there has not been a hint of opposition by a single one of Canada's 308 (soon to be 338) parliamentarians to the pro-war course in Ukraine of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative government.

But there are important voices in Canada questioning the pro-war course in Ukraine, including in mainstream media. A second article in this series will look at where the parties in Parliament stand and what prospects may exist to challenge their united, pro-war stand during the election campaign now underway.

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 #35
Kyiv Post
August 6, 2015
Editorial
Steal smart Russians

On Aug. 4 two notable Russians, Maria Gaidar and Vladimir Fedorin, got their Ukrainian passports from President Petro Poroshenko in a pompous ceremony.

Both have joined the team of Mikheil Saakashvili, governor of Odessa Oblast and former president of Georgia. Since Ukraine's law allows for only Ukrainian citizens to hold public office, the two Russians and their Georgian boss received their citizenship within days after taking the job.

Given their impressive background, one would consider them a great addition to the country's decreasing population of 42.8 millions, as well as to Ukraine's clumsy army of officials. Gaidar is a Harvard-educated opposition activist, and Fedorin used to lead Ukraine's edition of Forbes magazine.
Their only flaw is that they're successful RUSSIAN professionals. It was enough to anger many Ukrainians.

"Don't we have enough professionals of our own?" people asked both in Kyiv Post's Vox Populi (see page 5) and the comment section on Poroshenko's Facebook page.
Even more questioned the act of granting citizenship freely to citizens of the aggressor country that is at war with Ukraine. Allowing them in state jobs is a misdeed close to treason, goes the line of argument.

But - emotions aside - is it really wrong to take in Russians?

In fact, it is genious. Attracting smart Russians that are dissatisfied with Vladimir Putin's dictatorship may be one of the best ideas Ukraine's authorities ever had.

For the first time in its history Ukraine has a chance to attract brainpower from Russia. After hundreds of years of losing intellectuals to Moscow and St. Petersburg, where many brilliant Ukrainians went to pursue careers in the times of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, Ukraine can finally have its payback.

The EuroMaidan Revolution and the unequal confrontation with Russia has given Ukraine a trump card: an image of a proud and heroic country - and the antithesis to the pariah country that Russia is turning into.

It makes Ukraine attractive for Russians that are disgusted with the politics Vladimir Putin - most of whom, as the protests in 2012 proved - are middle class. It is also the cheapest immigration option for them.

We say: use it. Poroshenko's passport-giving stunt was broadcast on national TV for a reason. It sends Russians a clear message: "If you're a friend, you're welcome."

Steal smart Russians while Putin isn't looking.

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 #36
The Hill
www.thehill.com
August 5, 2015
Trump is right on Crimea
By Bernie Quigley
Quigley is a prize-winning writer who has worked more than 35 years as a book and magazine editor, political commentator and reviewer. For 20 years he has been an amateur farmer, raising Tunis sheep and organic vegetables. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and four children.

The mainstream media fell silent last Friday when Donald Trump made comments on Crimea. His answer to a reporter's question sent shockwaves through the 70-year-old bipartisan military industrial complex.

"Europe's problem," he said.

"But why isn't Germany leading this one?" Trump added. "You know Germany is a very rich, very powerful nation. Why aren't they dealing on it moreso? Everything's the United States - we're like the policeman of the world."

This is the advantage of sending a businessman or CEO to solve the problem. He or she is free from the blinders of partisan-ized generations which pass on dogma as if it were religion, generation after generation, kept in lockstep with outrageous and even half-mad policies. Please view PBS's recent documentary, "The Bomb," with new eyes 70 years after Hiroshima and Bikini Atoll to experience the dangerous and pathological past that still haunts and shackles us today.
Next year, we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the publication of the "long telegram." It was a plan for the future with America at center, designed by the legendary policy adviser George Kennan, from which came the domination of world culture by American initiatives. NATO rose from this and the wall of containment of the Soviet Union.

But Dwight Eisenhower, the first Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe in 1951, did not see American dominance as a perennial condition. "If in 10 years, all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole project [NATO] will have failed," he said.

Trump exhibits that he, and quite possibly he alone in the long lineup of those who want to be president in 2016, can step away the past. And for the very next charge sure to follow, that "this is isolationism," it is not. The world is multifaceted with varied needs, various threats, various friends and enemies. One approach does not fit all. The knee-jerk "isolationist" charge is a classic, mnemonic slander of mainstream media tied at the hip to government and military policy.

And for a second time, Trump trumps the former governor of Massachusetts and 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney. He did so recently when Romney used the word "severe" in reference to Trump's commentary on the presence of "rapists" among illegal immigrants. But when Trump fought back, his poll numbers advanced. Previously, presidential candidate Romney had declared the greatest national threat to America today to be Russia with resounding authority in a single one-word declarative sentence. "Romney was right," was repeated endlessly by partisan stalwarts and conservatives everywhere - in dentist offices; at the dinner table.

But Romney was wrong. Trump is right. Conservative culture turns increasingly now on Trump. But can America exist without viewing Russia as our enemy; can we live by ourselves, can we look East to West equally? Or do we remain prisoners of our long-dead past?

When Russian troops moved into Ukraine, many in the mainstream media reactively turned to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) "We are all Ukrainians," he tweeted "#Ukraine - straight out of the Soviet playbook." And Trump supporter Sarah Palin, McCain's 2008 running mate and not one to say I told you so, was there within seconds to say, "I told you so."

Interestingly enough, Trump here is not that far away from the former congressman from Texas, Ron Paul (R), who might be considered the Hawthornian "Gray Champion" and creative visionary of the Tea Party movement before it descended into adolescent arrogance and globalist militarism.

"The former Republican congressman and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul has launched a scathing attack on what he calls a US-backed coup in Ukraine, insisting the Crimean people have the right to align their territory with Moscow and characterising sanctions against Russia as 'an act of war.' ... 'Our hands are not clean,' said Paul," The Guardian reported in March 2014.

And incidentally, son Rand Paul, the Republican senator from Kentucky who, like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and some of the other young mini-McCains who want to be president, has pretty much signed up with the foreign policy establishment. "[Russian President Vladimir] Putin must be punished," he wrote in TIME magazine.

"It is America's duty to condemn these actions in no uncertain terms. It is our role as a global leader to be the strongest nation in opposing Russia's latest aggression," he wrote.

Calling to mind the classic Cold War observation of the immortal character Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper from "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb": "Mandrake, have you ever seen commie drink a glass of water?"

But what I want to know is this: How does Trump feel about the Oslo Accords, the first actions of the first Clinton co-presidency which split Israel in half, cost thousands of lives and led a benign and indifferent world in opposition to Israel? They might bring it up in the debate.

Prediction: The Oslo Accords will not survive a Trump presidency. Nor will the recent Obama-Kerry Iran agreement.

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 #37
International Business Times
www.ibtimes.com
August 6, 2015
To Defeat Russia, Ukraine Needs More Troops, Billions Of Dollars To Expand Military
By Cristina Silva

To defeat pro-Russian rebels, Ukraine needs more troops, Yuriy Biriukov, an adviser to Ukraine's defense minister, said this week. Ukraine must increase its military budget by 100 billion hryvnia, or $4.65 billion, per year to sufficiently increase the number of professional troops in its armed forces, Biriukov said, DefenseNews reported Wednesday.

A bigger defense budget is necessary to build a military in which "the ratio of professional troops to conscripts is 60 to 40," Biriukov told local broadcaster Hromadske TV. Roughly 50,000 of Ukraine's 250,000 troops have professional contracts. This year, the Defense Ministry has a budget of some 40 billion hryvnia.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a law in March that called for growing the country's military personnel to 250,000. Ukraine also hopes to modernize its weapons and equipment. State-run defense giant Ukroboronprom claims it has supplied 3,936 units of new military equipment to the country's armed forces so far this year.

Ukraine's soldiers have been under attack from pro-Russian rebels in east Ukraine since April 2014. Kiev said Monday that the rebels had four of its soldiers and injured 15 over the weekend in a conflict area near rebel-held Donetsk, the BBC reported.

"Our army has been systematically destroyed and disarmed, ...and its best personnel dismissed," Deputy Defense Minister Petro Mehed said last year.

Ukraine, the United States and NATO have blamed Russia for backing the rebels by arming them with heavy weapons. A peace plan was established in February, but the government and rebels have largely ignored the agreement.

Some Ukraine soldiers have complained that Kiev is not fully supporting them against the rebels. "Why doesn't the president come here?" Vasyl, a Ukrainian army soldier, told the Financial Times. "Then he'll see firsthand how poorly supplied we are - although we're dodging artillery almost every day under this ceasefire he himself brokered."

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 #38
Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
August 5, 2015
US instructors are in Ukraine to learn how to fight Russia

Kristina Rus:

What advantage can the 10 times bigger defense budget buy for the US army over Russia?

"We have great signals intelligence, and we can listen all day long, but we can't shut them down one-tenth to the degree they can us"

Joaquin Flores:  

We saw this article and thought our readers would find it interesting.  While reinforcing the western narrative of intimate Russian involvement, it also talks about a technology gap that the US seems to be suffering in the area of jamming. This may or may not be true: during the Cold War the US often would inflate Russian military prowess in order to justify its own increased expenditures.  These resulted in windfall profits for the military industrial complex.  At the same time, the claim in itself seems possibly true.  The US has not had to focus on developing these technologies, as it had specifically targeted countries that were technologically deficient.  Now that the US is against a more formidable opponent, whether directly or through proxies, it seems to make sense that its own short-comings would be pronounced more now than at any point in the recent past.
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Defense News
August 4, 2015
Electronic Warfare: What US Army Can Learn From Ukraine
By Joe Gould

WASHINGTON - The US military has for weeks been training Ukrainian forces in US tactics, but the commander of US Army Europe says Ukrainian forces, who are fighting Russian-backed separatists, have much to teach their US trainers.

Ukrainian forces have grappled with formidable Russian electronic warfare capabilities that analysts say would prove withering even to the US ground forces. The US Army has also jammed insurgent communications from the air and ground on a limited basis, and it is developing a powerful arsenal of jamming systems, but these are not expected until 2023.

"Our soldiers are doing the training with the Ukrainians and we've learned a lot from the Ukrainians," said Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges. "A third of the [Ukrainian] soldiers have served in the ... combat zone, and no Americans have been under Russian artillery or rocket fire, or significant Russian electronic warfare, jamming or collecting - and these Ukrainians have. It's interesting to hear what they have learned."

Hodges acknowledged that US troops are learning from Ukrainians about Russia's jamming capability, its ranges, types and the ways it has been employed. He has previously described the quality and sophistication of Russian electronic warfare as "eye-watering."

Russia maintains an ability to destroy command-and-control networks by jamming radio communications, radars and GPS signals, according to Laurie Buckhout, former chief of the US Army's electronic warfare division, now CEO of the Corvus Group. In contrast with the US, Russia has large units dedicated to electronic warfare, known as EW, which it dedicates to ground electronic attack, jamming communications, radar and command-and-control nets.

Though Ukrainian troops lack the materiel to protect themselves from this form of attack, the Ukrainian military's institutional knowledge as a former Soviet republic will help it understand how Russia fights, and its troops will have trained to operate while being jammed, Buckhout said. That's something US ground forces can learn.

"Our biggest problem is we have not fought in a comms-degraded environment for decades, so we don't know how to do it," Buckhout said. "We lack not only tactics, techniques and procedures but the training to fight in a comms-degraded environment."

It's not hard to see why EW is an attractive option for Russia while the eyes of the world are on it. Not only is it highly effective, but as a non-kinetic form of attack, it is harder to trace and less likely to be viewed as overt aggression, and as such, less likely to incite the ire of the international community, Buckhout said.

In a fight, Russia's forces can hinder a target's ability to respond to, say, an artillery attack, allowing them to fire on an enemy with impunity. Ukrainian forces would be unable to coordinate a defense against incoming rockets and missiles, or release counter battery fire.

"If your radars don't see incoming fire, you can't coordinate counterfire," Buckhout said.

The US, Buckhout said, lacks a significant electronic attack capability.

"We have great signals intelligence, and we can listen all day long, but we can't shut them down one-tenth to the degree they can us," she said. "We are very unprotected from their attacks on our network."

Multifunctional EW

Col. Jeffrey Church, the Army's electronic warfare division chief, acknowledged that since the Cold War, adversaries have continued to modernize their EW capabilities, while the Army began reinvesting its capabilities for Iraq and Afghanistan. Church called the fielding of Army electronic warfare equipment the "No. 1 priority" of his job.

"The  Army must have electronic warfare capabilities that could be used to dominate key terrain on the electromagnetic spectrum against any adversary," Church said.

A developing Army program, Multifunctional Electronic Warfare (MFEW), is intended to provide an offensive electronic attack capability, able to jam cell phone, satellite and GPS signals, said Lt. Col. Gregory Griffin, chief of the Electronic Warfare Division's programs and requirements branch. However, the focus had been until recent years on "defensive electronic attack," namely counter-radio-controlled-IED devices that create bubbles of protective jamming around vehicles and people, and signals collection for intelligence purposes.

The Army has demonstrated some ability to counter enemy communications, not under formal acquisitions programs but as quick-reaction capabilities. In Afghanistan, the Army used a handful of C-12 aircraft equipped with Communications, Electronic Attack, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (CEASAR) jamming pods to jam insurgent push-to-talk radios, and two fixed-site systems - Ground Auto Targeting Observation/Reactive (GATOR) jammer and Duke V2 EA - to jam radios and repeater towers.

On an ad hoc basis, troops in Afghanistan used GATOR - conceived to protect forward operating bases - to suppress repeater towers while on patrol or training Afghan forces, providing themselves the freedom to maneuver while denying communications to potential enemies, Griffin said.

"It was unlimited capability, limited by the number of systems," Griffin said. "Honestly, we just did not have enough to support the demand that was in the Army."

The Army's electronic warfare cadre, which totals 813 officers, warrant officers and noncommissioned officers,  has wielded more theory than hardware, except when deployed. In garrison, it was common for these troops to be assigned other jobs, leading to the joke that EW stands for "extra worker" - though this is changing as the Army ramps up its electronic warfare materiel strategy, Griffin said.

MFEW, due to reach initial operating capability in 2023 and full operating capability in 2027, is intended to offer a suite of powerful, sophisticated sensors and jammers for in the air, on ground vehicles and in fixed locations. The Army is due to consider a capability design document for the "air large" capability, akin to Caesar, potentially for a C-12 or a MQ-8 Fire Scout drone. Last year it tested the Networked Electronic Warfare Remotely Operated (NERO), a jamming pod attached to the Gray Eagle drone.

The Defense Department in March set up a panel to address its electronic warfare shortfalls, which, Griffin said, has generated discussion about accelerating the timeline for MFEW.

'Future of War Is in the Ukraine'

Forces with US Army Europe have for the last 10 weeks been training three battalions of Ukraine Ministry of the Interior troops, known as Ukraine's national guard. The second cycle of that training was paused so that troops could participate in a combined multinational exercise, underway through early August, and it will resume and conclude with the third battalion in August.

The Ukrainian military - which is in the midst of a reform and modernization effort even as it wars with Russia - has shown interest in creating a noncommissioned officer corps modeled after that of the US, Hodges said. Ukrainian military officials charged with reform efforts visited Washington in recent weeks and, in a press conference, acknowledged the challenges of corruption and shoddy soldier equipment, which they sought to correct.

But Konstiantyn Liesnik, an adviser to the Defense Ministry's reform office and head of its working group for logistics and procurement, noted the US military's experience in recent years has concerned insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, not a powerful, organized and well-equipped adversary like Russia.

"The future of war is in the Ukraine, and I think in this case our experience is very important to US personnel how war should be in this century and next century," Liesnik said.

Beyond electronic warfare, Russian anti-aircraft rockets have prevented Ukrainian forces from using their airplanes, and it has had to consider personal armor that can protect against artillery.

Ukrainian forces interacting with US soldiers have spoken frankly about their difficulties, something Hodges said he saw firsthand when the chief of the Ukrainian Army, at an event attended by senior leaders from other countries, discussed with a group of officers  his force's battlefield experiences and shortcomings.

"I have been very impressed with the earnestness of the Ukrainian military to fix their shortcomings and improve their capabilities," Hodges said. "It was one of the most professional things I have ever seen of any army, and they were very candid: We were not prepared to do this, and here's how we adapted."

Ukrainian troops have not only had to adapt to Russian electronic warfare, but its artillery and unmanned aerial systems. The Ukrainian Army official, Hodges said, also detailed how unprepared Ukrainian troops have been for the number of casualties and their treatment.

The US provided Ukraine with lightweight counter-mortar radars in November 2014, which Hodges said its troops have "used in ways we have not used it ourselves, and made it more effective than we thought was possible." These troops, he said, would be savvy enough to operate a more advanced radar with a wider range - which the Pentagon is reportedly in talks to send.

An official at the US State Department said the administration believes there is no military resolution to this crisis, but Ukraine has the right to defend itself. To that end, it announced a $75 million Defense Department aid package in March that includes 30 armored Humvees, 200 other Humvees, radios and unarmed surveillance drones, night-vision devices and medical supplies.

The 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, based in Vicenza, Italy, had been training Ukrainian troops in western Ukraine, in battlefield medicine, casualty evacuation, and tactical tasks such as anti-roadside bomb techniques and basic battlefield movement.

Saber Guardian, a command post exercise which rotates between Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria, this year was linked to Rapid Trident, an annual field training exercise held in Ukraine, according to the US Army. The combined exercise, which includes roughly 1,800 soldiers from 18 different nations, is meant to focus on defensive operations to ensure a safe and secure environment within the operating environment.

This year's scenario consists of a host nation that comes under attack. The nation is able to defend itself at great cost. A multinational force is sent to assist the host nation and the challenge is to bring together and train a multinational brigade, which would then be sent to assist the host nation in its defense.

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