#2
Euromaidan Press
http://euromaidanpress.com
August 30, 2015
"DNR" will shell schools on September 1 and ask for Russian "peacekeepers" - Ukrainian defense official

The "DNR" unit of the Russian hybrid military has planned provocative actions for September 1: to fire on schools and other educational institutions in the region and to falsely accuse Ukrainian military.

Andriy Lysenko, the defense spokesman for the Administration of the Ukrainian President stated this in a press briefing.

"The 'DNR' criminal organization has developed a plan of provocative actions for 1 September [September 1 is the traditional First Day of School in Ukraine - Ed.] . This is a cynical crime - to shell schools and other educational institutions in the region and to falsely accuse Ukrainian forces," - he said.

"They are planning to use this provocation as a pretext for a request to the Russian Federation for an open and formal introduction of the so-called "peacekeeping forces"- said Lysenko.

The speaker of the Presidential Administration urged all to be vigilant, especially - the inhabitants of the East.

As is known, in the course of an telephone conversation earlier today between French President Hollande, German Chancellor Merkel and Russian President Putin a comprehensive ceasefire was agreed on, starting on September 1.

Leaders of the three countries also noted the key role of the OSCE in solving the conflict in the east of Ukraine, as well as the need for removal of heavy weapons from the line of contact and reminded that the process of withdrawal of heavy weapons and weapons of the caliber less than 100 mm should be completed as quickly as possible.

Translated by: A. N.
Source: Ukrayinska Pravda

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 #3
Ukraine Today
http://uatoday.tv
August 29, 2015
Russia poised for new Ukraine offensive after increase in troops

Russia has prepared the ground in Ukraine for a major new invasion of the country, according to Vasyl Hrysak Ukraine's state security chief.

Hrysak said heavy weaponry and troops had been pouring into occupied areas of Donbas in eastern Ukraine throughout August.

He claimed Russia had deployed the troop build-up by using railway lines from Russia to occupied Donbas and through uncontrolled segments of the 400km stetch of the Russian-Ukrainian border; which Ukraine no longer has any control over.

Kyiv linked the escalation in the combat zone with the arrival of a group of Russian army commanders led by Aleksandr Lentsov.

According to reports by Ukrainian news agency UNIAN, quoting sources from the SBU, Russia's 1st and 2nd Army Corps in Donbas is controlled by Colonel-General Aleksandr Lents, General of the Army of the Russian Federation Valery Gerasimov, Colonel-General Aleksandr Galkin, Colonel-General Andrei Serdyukov, Lieutenant-General Andrey Gurulyov, Lieutenant-General Sergei Solomatin and Major-General Sergei Yudin.

Russia's military build-up in Ukraine has coincided with the deadliest week in months. Seven soldiers were killed on Thursday and on Saturday military spokesman said another two troops were killed on Friday.

Heavy fighting continues especially around militant-controlled Donetsk and around the strategic port city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine.

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 #4
Reuters
August 31, 2015
Guardsman killed in protests as Ukraine MPs back more autonomy for rebel regions
By Richard Balmforth and Natalia Zinets

A national guardsman was killed and nearly 90 others protecting Ukraine's parliament were wounded by grenades hurled by protesters on Monday, the Interior Ministry said, as deputies backed reforms to give more autonomy to rebel-held areas.

The violence, which Interior Minister Arsen Avakov blamed on the main nationalist party, and division in the pro-Western camp in parliament suggested President Petro Poroshenko faces an uphill battle to push through key parts of a faltering peace agreement reached in February for eastern Ukraine.

Poroshenko's spokesman said the president would address the nation later on Monday following the clashes outside parliament, where deputies loyal to him managed to push through a first reading of a "decentralization" draft law - but only in the face of strong criticism from some of his political allies.
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The violence came after the deputies voted by 265 in favor of the first reading of the bill - 39 more than that required to pass - at a boisterous session with many deputies shouting "Shame!" and rhythmically beating parliamentary benches.

Opponents of the bill said it played into Russia's hands and would lead ultimately to Ukraine losing control over the Donbass - the name given to the industrialized east, swathes of which are controlled by separatists now.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, in a tweet, said nearly 90 national guardsmen had been hurt, four of them with serious wounds to the eyes, stomach, neck and legs, by several explosive devices that were lobbed at them from crowds massed outside.

Blaming members of the main Ukrainian nationalist party, Svoboda (Freedom), Avakov addressed himself to Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok, saying: "Tell me, how does Svoboda differ from the bastards who shoot at our national guard at the front?"

One of his advisers, Anton Geraschenko, said a 25-year-old national guardsman, who had been called up only in spring, had died of a gunshot wound in the heart.

But Avakov himself later said this account was not true. "He died of splinters from grenades, not a gunshot wound," he said.

Though the bill passed on its first reading, many coalition allies, including former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, spoke against it and it is open to question whether Poroshenko will be able to whip up the necessary 300 votes for it to get through a second and final reading later this year.

Approval of legislation for special status for parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which are largely controlled by Russian-backed separatists, is a central element of a peace agreement reached in Minsk, Belarus, in February.

Though a ceasefire is under pressure from sporadic shelling and shooting which government troops and rebels blame on each other, Western governments see the deal as holding out the best possible prospects for peace and are urging Ukraine to abide by the letter of the Minsk agreement.

BORDER CONTROL

"This (the bill) will give our Western partners the ability to put pressure on Russia to fulfill three basic points of the Minsk agreement - the ceasefire, withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine and re-establishment of control over the border," said Maksim Burbak of Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk's Popular Front party.

"We have to support the international 'anti-Putin' coalition," said Yuri Lutsenko of the Poroshenko bloc, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Opponents say it gives Putin the upper hand in the east.

We believe that these anti-Ukrainian changes to the Constitution ... are a road to realization of Putin's plan for destroying Ukraine," said Radical party leader Oleh Lyashko.

"This is not the road to peace but to decentralization. This is a diametrically opposed process which forces us to lose territory," said Tymoshenko.

"Putin does not need the Donbass. He needs war in Ukraine. Our task in the vote is to get back to negotiations on the right road to bring peace, not the illusion of peace," she said.

The foreign ministers of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France will meet by the middle of September to discuss the conflict, Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov told reporters on Monday.

The dissent in parliament and protests outside showed that Poroshenko might be facing an uphill task to "sell" vital parts of the Minsk agreement to his people and increasingly restive pro-government paramilitary groups before the turn of the year.

That is when other elements of the agreement, including local elections, are supposed to be in place and Ukraine is supposed to have regained control of its border with Russia.

More than 6,500 people have been killed in the east since pro-Russian separatists rebelled against the Kiev government after Russia annexed Crimea in response to the ousting of a Moscow-backed president by street protests and his replacement by a pro-Western leadership.

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 #5
Kyiv Post
August 31, 2015
Riot policeman killed, several wounded in grenade attack outside nation's parliament

One National Guard serviceman was killed and several policemen badly wounded on Aug. 31 when an explosive device was thrown at them from among a crowd of far-right Svoboda Party and Right Sector organization protesters outside parliament.

Anton Gerashchenko, a lawmaker and adviser to the Interior Ministry, wrote on his Facebook page that 25-year-old Igor Derbin, a National Guard serviceman who had just started his service last spring, died in hospital from a wound to his heart incurred during the attack.

"Apart from grenades, the provocateurs were using firearms, shooting secretly," Gerashchenko wrote.

Ukrainian television channel 112 Ukraina reported four officers had been seriously injured in the attack, while dozens of others received lighter injuries.

Earlier, some Ukrainian media, citing Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitchko, reported that one of the officers had died of injuries received from the blast, but there had been no official confirmation.

Video footage uploaded to YouTube showed what appears to have been a hand grenade being thrown from the crowd of protesters at police. The explosion knocked one officer to the ground, and several others can be seen limping immediately after the blast. Some viewers may find these images disturbing.

Photographs from the scene posted online shortly after showed patches of blood on the steps and on the ground near the side entrance of the Parliament, and Svoboda flags and riot gear lying on the ground. In one picture, a riot officer is seen lying on the ground and being given first aid beside the wall of the parliament building.

The violence broke out shortly after parliament passed a controversial bill on decentralizing power in Ukraine. Opponents of the bill says it capitulates to Russian demands that Ukraine adopt a federalized system of government.

As news spread that MPs had voted to approve the first stage of the bill's passage through Parliament, nationalist protesters, some masked, pushed at police lines, beating officers with sticks and snatching riot shields from them. A smoke bomb was then thrown at the side of parliament.

Riot police were then moved forward in force to form a cordon about five officers thick around the parliament. Protesters continued to attack them. Live broadcasts from the scene showed police using tear gas on the crowd, and protesters apparently hurling the gas canisters back at police.

About 100 police officers were injured, and 10 of them were heavily injured, the police said. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said that Deputy Interior Minister Vasyl Paskal had also been injured.

A Kyiv Post reporter at the scene estimated that there were over 1,000 protestors gathered at the Parliament building. Police sources said 3,500 officers were protecting the building.

About 30 protesters were detained during the clashes, Avakov said.

Avakov said that the demonstrator who threw the grenade at the police had also been detained. He is a member of Svoboda and a fighter of Svoboda's Sich volunteer battalion, he added.

Avakov blamed Svoboda and its leader Oleh Tyahnibok for the clashes.

Protesters interviewed by the Kyiv Post argued that the constitutional amendments passed by the Verkhovna Rada were betrayal of Ukraine's national interests.

"The amendments deprive Ukraine of its independence and legitimize terrorists," Ihor, a 57-year old retired law enforcement official, said.

Valentyn Lebed, a 58-year old Right Sector activist, said he believed President Petro Poroshenko was under Russian influence. The amendments will turn Donbas into something similar to Russian-annexed Crimea and Moldova's Russian-backed breakaway republic of Transdniester, he added.

Radislav, 36, objected to the provision that would amnesty Russian-backed separatists. "That means Ukrainian troops were killed in vain," he said.

The bill on decentralization, which is designed to satisfy Ukraine's commitments under the Minsk II peace agreement signed on February 12, caused serious splits in Ukraine's governing coalition, but in the end it was passed in the first reading by 265 votes - well above the 226 needed for such a bill to pass.

The bill now goes on to the next stage of scrutiny in parliament, and will have to garner 300 votes from the 450-member Rada to proceed, as it entails amendments to Ukraine's constitution.

#6
www.rt.com
August 31, 2015
Multiple injuries in Kiev as grenade explodes during protest against constitutional law
[Photos and videos here http://www.rt.com/news/313880-ukraine-radicals-protest-parliament/]

Dozens are feared to have been injured during clashes in front of the parliament in Kiev, the Ukrainian National Guard said. Crowds of protesters came to oppose amendments to the constitution that would provide for decentralization of the country.

There are conflicting reports about the number of casualties near the Ukrainian parliament. Initial reports said that at least five officers were killed in the clashes.

The Ukrainian National Guard has claimed that "about 50" people sustained injuries.

Kiev police chief Alexander Tereshchuk has claimed that some 100 law enforcement officers have been wounded in the blast, according to 112 Ukraine TV channel. He added that the person who threw the combat grenade into a crowd of officers has been detained.

According to Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, the people who threw the combat grenades were wearing T-shirts of the Svoboda political party.

"About 30 people have been arrested. Police have detained the man who threw the combat grenade," Avakov said on his Facebook post.

Other reports in the Ukrainian media allege that one of the servicemen has died from his injuries.

"A combat grenade has been thrown at the Ukrainian special forces. Some of the servicemen from [Ukraine] National Guard have been seriously injured. Their life is in danger," Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Kiev's Interior Ministry, wrote on his Facebook page.

Tweets from journalists at the scene said supporters of the radical group Right Sector were brutally attacking police officers.

The Svoboda party issued a statement where it put responsibility for the clashes on the Ukrainian government, in particular on Arsen Avakov.

"It was the police who first used force against the protesters, prompting numerous clashes. However, the police failed to take appropriate measures to neutralize the provocateurs. We demand the resignation of the Interior Minister of Ukraine Arsen Avakov, whose criminal inaction led to the tragedy," the group added.

The demonstrators attacked police with long sticks and threw at least one smoke bomb grenade, Russia's RIA Novosti and TASS news agencies reported.

The Ukrainian UNIAN news agency also reported that smoke bombs were being thrown along with stones. Police are now trying to stop the demonstrators from storming the parliament building.

Both protesters and police officers are using tear gas against each other, UNIAN said.

The agency added that the protesters are reportedly shouting "Shame!" and "Impeachment!" in front of the parliament building, which is currently blocked from the outside.

 Earlier in the day, the parliament passed amendments to the Constitution on decentralization in the first reading. The amendments proposed by President Petro Poroshenko were supported by 265 of the parliament's 450 lawmakers.

The lawmakers did not discuss giving a special status to Donbass, a historical area in eastern Ukraine that includes the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. Since April 2014 the area has been fought over by pro-Kiev and anti-government forces.

Despite the special status for the war-torn areas being a separate bill, the protesters who came out in the capital Monday were angered by the prospect of Eastern Ukraine getting autonomy from the central government. Photos posted on social media showed people holding banners saying, "No to special status of Donbass," and "Occupants in Donbass, go away."

The protesters on Constitution Square in Kiev are from the right-wing Radical, Self-Help, Svoboda (Freedom) and Republican Platform parties. TASS news agency has estimated their number to be around 1,000.

Inside the parliament, members of the Radical party attempted to block the tribune as the debate got under way. The disruption was led by the leader of the Radical Party, Oleg Lyashko.

Lyashko, along with his fellow party member Igor Mosiychuk, have recently been accused of organizing a criminal group, kidnappings and torture. On Saturday, Ukraine's prosecutor general opened a case against the two right-wing politicians
 

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 #7
Ukrainian Interior Ministry accuses Svoboda party, its leader of organizing riots in Kiev

KIEV, August 31. /TASS/. Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has accused the Svoboda (Freedom) party and its leader Oleg Tyagnibok of organizing the riots near the Verkhovna Rada building on Monday, which have left more than 100 people injured.

"I accuse Tyagnibok and Svoboda [party]. This is a crime, not a political action," Avakov said. "Tagnyabok has brought not the protesters. He brought the bandits who killed and maimed our soldiers."

He also noted that he had "watched the video and saw photos, where Tyagnibok was standing nearby when National Guard soldiers were beaten."

For its part, the Svoboda party demanded the resignation of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.

"It was the police that used force against picketers provoking numerous clashes. Law enforcers failed to take appropriate measures to neutralize agent provocateurs," the party's official statement says.

Svoboda believes that the use an explosive device that the unknown persons threw at law enforcers "is a pre-planned provocations aimed against Ukrainian patriots."

More than 3,000 opponents of amending the Ukrainian Constitution from various regions picketed the parliament building earlier on Monday, where the voting was underway on the draft amendments to the Ukrainian Constitution. Then an unknown protester from the crowd threw a grenade at the police cordon near the parliament building.

According to the Interior Ministry, about 100 law enforcers were injured in the clashes near Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada, more than 10 police officers are in grave condition.

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 #8
www.counterpunch.org
August 28, 2015
Decentralization Reform in Ukraine
By Halyna Mokrushyna
Halyna Mokrushyna is currently enrolled in the PhD program in Sociology at the University of Ottawa and a part-time professor. She holds a doctorate in linguistics and MA degree in communication. Her academic interests include: transitional justice; collective memory; ethnic studies; dissent movement in Ukraine; history of Ukraine; sociological thought.  Her doctoral project deals with the memory of Stalinist purges in Ukraine. In the summer of 2013 she travelled to Lviv, Kyiv, Kharkiv and Donetsk to conduct her field research. She is currently working on completing her thesis. She can be reached at halouwins@gmail.com.

One of the sources of the ongoing, and deepening, political and economic crisis in Ukraine is the excessive concentration of power in Kyiv's hands. It is a key issue underlying the civil war in the east of the country.

Kyiv has always maintained a policy of 'one nation, one language' for Ukraine. Even two Russian-speaking presidents of Ukraine from the Russian-speaking southeast of the country-Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yanukovych-remained loyal to that mantra, betraying electoral promises they had made to grant the Russian language a status as a second, official language of Ukraine.

In the realm of the economy, Kyiv has always kept the lion's share of taxation revenues, denying a fare share to the regions. According to Tatiana Muntian, a lawyer and activist defending the interests of ordinary Ukrainians, under Yanukovych, this share constituted 80 per cent of revenue, with only 20 per cent remaining in the regions. The new, "democratic" regime in Kyiv is today taking 82%.

The delegation of powers to different levels of government is a feature of Western democracies, more pronounced in some than in others. Local autonomy is particularly important in countries composed of diverse regions with different histories, languages and cultures. It provides regions with the opportunity to manage their own finances and define their own social, educational, economic, and health policies and preserve distinctive cultural or regional identities.

One of the main reasons for the current civil war in Ukraine is the refusal of Kyiv to grant such autonomy to the regions of the country. The people of the Donbas region (Donetsk and Lugansk) rebelled because they did not approve of the extreme-nationalist ideology and interpretation of history being imposed on the whole country by the pro-Western regime which came to power in Kyiv as a result of the coup d'état of February 2014 (or call it the "Revolution of Dignity", if you will). If Donbas and other regions of Ukraine had more autonomy in deciding how to spend the money they raise through taxation and which languages receive official status, the present war would not have happened. Kyiv refused to grant the autonomy, so Donbas had no choice but to fight for it.

Russia, in turn, provided political support to Donbas' grievances by repeatedly requesting of the Kyiv government that it respects Donetsk and Lugansk and negotiates with them as equals and by getting involved in working on a peaceful solution of the conflict through Minsk agreements. Russia also supports the rebel region by sending its own humanitarian aid convoys, facilitating others, and declining to follow Western diktats that it block the movement and activities of Russian volunteers supporting the insurgency.

Europe hints that it understands the situation. European Union leaders encourage Ukraine's leadership, which aspires so desperately to join Europe, to decentralize power. Ukraine is required under the terms of the Minsk-2 ceasefire agreement of February 12, 2015 to write and approve a much-talked about legislation on decentralization. This is not only crystal clear in the agreement, but it is also very much needed for a variety of compelling reasons internal to the country. Clause number 11 of Minsk-2 stipulates that Ukraine must adopt and apply by the end of 2015 a new constitution that has as a key element a decentralization which takes into consideration the "particularities" of "certain districts" of Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts, agreed upon with the representatives of these districts.

Ukraine has pledged to adopt by the end of 2015 permanent legislation on the special status of "certain districts" of Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts. Note 1 of the agreement spells out detailed measures that must be included in the legislation. (The Russian original of Minsk-2 can be found on the website of the OSCE; the English version can be found on UNIAN news agency).

The evasive formula of "certain districts of Donetsk and Lugansk" is a compromise between Russia and Europe, the latter as represented by France and Germany. The presidents of these countries plus Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko and Russian president Vladimir Putin negotiated these agreements during unprecedented several-hours talks in Minsk in February of this year. It is clear from this phrasing, and confirmed by Russia's own declarations, that Russia had no intention of recognizing the rebellious Donbas regions as independent political entities or accepting them into membership of the Russian Federation. Otherwise, the "certain districts" would be called by their self-identification names - Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Lugansk People's Republic (LPR). For its part, the leaders of Europe, who refused to see DNR and LPR as legitimate formations, recognized in Minsk the distinctive character of this region of Ukraine.

Footnote 1 of the Minsk agreements is a clear and simple roadmap for the creation of an autonomous entity of Donbas as part of the Ukrainian state: in addition to guaranteeing the exemption from punishment, persecution and discrimination of individuals "involved in the events that took place in certain districts of Donetsk and Lugansk Regions", Ukraine pledged to assure that:

- these regions would have linguistic self-determination;

- local government would participate in the appointment of the heads of the Prosecutor's office and courts;

- local executive power organs would be able to sign agreements with the central organs of the executive power (the Cabinet of Ministers) regarding the economic, social, and cultural development of "certain districts";

- the Ukrainian state would support the socio-economic development of the districts; central executive bodies would assist the districts in their cross-border cooperation with regions of the Russian Federation;

- local councils would have the authority to create people's militia units in order to maintain public order;

- the powers of local council deputies and officials, elected in early elections, called by the Verkhovna Rada according to this law, could not be prematurely terminated.

All of these provisions are already written and adopted as a law of Ukraine "On a special local government order in certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions", which came into effect on September 16, 2014. However, this "special order", according to the law, will be temporary - only for three years. Ukraine avoided granting autonomy to Donbas on a permanent basis.

The bill on decentralization, which was proposed to the Verkhovna Rada by President Poroshenko on July 1, 2015, had the same flaw - it stipulated only in the "transitional provisions" in its concluding section that the local self government in certain regions of Donetsk and Luhansk regions are determined in a separate law. This has provoked criticism by representatives of Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics that the provision for their autonomy is not included in the main body of the Constitution of Ukraine. The representative of the DPR Denis Pushilin, stated also that Ukraine did not send its proposed amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine to the Lugansk and Donetsk working groups of Minsk-2 which are supposed to work on implementing the agreement. This failure by Ukraine is in violation of clause 11, according to which constitutional reform should be "agreed with representatives of these "districts of Donetsk and Lugansk".

The official proposals of Donetsk and Lugansk on decentralization, sent in May of 2015, were completely ignored by Kyiv, stated Pushilin. He said that the republics will insist on a detailed formulation of their special status in the main body of the Constitution of Ukraine, not just an interim passim in the "transitional provisions". The Kremlin, through the words of Dmitri Peskov ,the press-secretary of President Putin, reiterated the criticism formulated by the DPR and LPR. Volodymyr Hroysman, the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, stated on May 2015 that the constitutional commission of Ukraine did not receive any "official" proposal on behalf of the DPR and LPR. So, Kyiv still refuses to treat DPR and LPR representatives as partners in negotiations, ignoring their legitimate requests, based on Minsk-2 agreements.

Criticism by Donetsk, Lugansk and Russia of the Ukraine's bill was duly noted by the West. Leaders in Europe and the United States covertly put pressure on Kyiv to amend the bill. The vice-speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Oksana Syroid, stated recently that on July 14, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande telephoned the speaker of the Rada, Volodymyr Hroysman, urging him to ensure that the bill is voted for .

On July 15, one day before the bill was scheduled for a vote in the Rada, Victoria "f*** the EU" Nuland flew to Kyiv to assist her disciples in the science of democracy and vote correctly. On the same day, Poroshenko tabled a new, revised draft of the bill, in which the provision that the local governments in certain regions of Donetsk and Luhansk regions are determined in a separate law was moved from "transitional provisions" to chapter XV "Transitional provisions" of the main body of the Constitution. No elaborate formulation of this "local government", no permanent status, neither. On the day of the vote on July 16, three high officials from the West were present in the Rada to make sure that their Ukrainian disciples do the right thing and vote for the bill. These officials were the Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, the US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Payette, and the Head of the EU delegation to Ukraine Jan Tombinski.

Having voted for the revised bill, the Rada sent it to the Constitutional Court, which verified the bill for the validity of statute and on July 30 delivered the verdict that the bill conforms to the Constitution of Ukraine. Now the bill is to be voted for the second time in the current session, which will expire on August 31. It will be voted for the third time in a new session due to open on September 1. At the second and third reading, the bill must receive the support of 300 deputies. It received 288 votes at the first reading. Two factions in the Rada, the Radical Party of Oleh Liashko and Samopomich (Self-reliance), voted against.

The bill has been criticized in several points by the Radicals and Samopovich. Liashko, who is known for highly emotional speeches in the Rada and for reciting poems and signing of the national anthem, stated that his party will never vote for a constitution which contains a clause providing special status of Donbas. "Our volunteers did not fight for the country so that Motorola, Givi [military leaders of the Donbas rebellion] and other terrorists obtain a special status", stated Liashko, although Poroshenko himself acknowledged from the podium of the Rada, that the proposed changes to the Constitution "only admit the possibility of a specific order of the realization of the local (stress by Poroshenko) government in certain administrative and territorial units of Lugansk and Donetsk regions, which is determined by a separate law". So here we go: no special status, no autonomy, only a "temporary", special local government.

The bill on decentralization has been criticized by the Radical Party and by many others, including the former leader of the Socialist Party, Olexandr Moroz, and the Samopomich party, for centralizing power instead of delegating it to the regions. The bill provides for the introduction of the institution of prefects, which will replace current heads of regional state administrations. Prefects would exercise executive power on a local level and would be appointed directly by the President of Ukraine on the proposal of the Cabinet of Ministers, being accountable before both. They would supervise local governments to ensure the compliance of their actions with the constitution and laws of Ukraine, as well as the compliance of the "territorial organs of the central organs of the executive power". (This latter formula is vague and hard to understand, as are many passages of the bill on decentralization).

A prefect will have the power to decree acts which will be mandatory for the respective territory (article 110) and to block the acts of local governments if a prefect deems them anti-constitutional (article 144). In cases where a local government or its head adopts an "act" which does not respect the Constitution of Ukraine or threatens state sovereignty, territorial integrity or the national security of Ukraine, the president of the country is empowered to veto this act, suspend the offending local government (councils) and appoint an interim "state representative" who will "direct and organize" the work of the local executive organs of power. The president would concomitantly send a request to the Constitutional Court to examine the act in question and determine whether it violates the constitution. In cases where the Constitutional Court decides that a local act does violate the constitution, the Rada, upon the proposal of the president, would terminate the powers of the head of the local government or of the entire local council and call early elections (article 144).

The current regional and district administrations do not have the power to dismiss local councils and cannot stop or suspend the decision of local governments, as Liashko rightly remarks. Moreover, local councils can dismiss the head of the state administration if two thirds of the deputies of local councils express non confidence. In such a case, the President of Ukraine is required to decree the dismissal of the head of the local administration (http://w1.c1.rada.gov.ua/pls/zweb2/webproc4_1?pf3511=55812 ).

The head of the parliamentarian fraction of Samopomich party, Oleh Bereziuk, criticizes the institution of prefects because it introduces a dual executive power on the local level - both prefects and regional or city councils will have it. However, the prefects also have control and coordination functions, which imply a possibility of punishment - prefects can intimidate local councils by threatening to dissolve them, since the president has the power to dissolve the council upon prefect's suggestion.

The member of the Opposition Bloc fraction in the Rada, Mikhail Papiev, also voiced cautions of his party regarding the decentralization bill. He believes that prefects should only effectuate a state supervision, not to be the head of the executive power; the executive local organs should have the full executive power. Papiev also cautioned that imprecise wording of the clause would allow, or open the door to, the president to suspend (or, in the literal translation from Ukrainian, temporarily halt) activities of a local council. The Constitutional Court would then examine immediately whether the decisions of the council are anti-constitutional, threatening a situation where in territories out of favor with the central power, there would be no councils and state commissioners would perpetually rule the region. Papiev also reminded that the proposed bill was not discussed and agreed upon with the representatives of Donetsk and Lugansk and that the special statute of Donbas is not written explicitly as an article in the Constitution. A special law, which is mentioned instead in the proposed bill, could be declared as anti-constitutional and revoked.

The representative of the Batkivshchyna [Fatherland] Party, Ihor Lutsenko, noted that there is no provision for the revocation of the right of a prefect to suspend legal acts adopted by a local government. Nobody can hold him accountable on the local level. Under such circumstances, a prefect can become a sole source of power in the region, an autocrat who watches over the local government. It can be interpreted as the interference of the state power into the local governance. The right of the president to suspend local governments and to appoint an interim state commissioner means that the Rada could allow the president in peacetime to halt the functioning of local authorities on some far-fetched pretext and introduce direct rule. For instance, under the current legislation, even corruption is considered a threat to national security of Ukraine. Lutsenko qualified this provision as a "legal perversion".

The former head of the Socialist Party of Ukraine, Olexandr Moroz, stressed that the prefect will be the "the man in charge" in the region, which goes against the affirmation that the power in the region is controlled by the population. It is not clear, according to the proposed changes to the Constitution, what exact powers a prefect will have, what his status will be or what he/she will do, outlined Moroz.

I have already mentioned that the bill on decentralization suffers from many vague formulations. For instance, in the chapter on the prefect's powers, it is stipulated that he/she "coordinates the activities of the territorial organs of the central organs of the executive power". What are these territorial organs? The central organs of executive power in Ukraine are the Cabinet of Ministers and various ministries, state agencies and services. There is no such thing as "territorial organs" in the current political-administrative system of Ukraine. Probably, they will be created as part of the planned reform in Ukraine.

According to the proposed article 133, the new administrative-territorial division (ATD) of Ukraine will consist of communities (hromady), districts (rayony), and regions. The community is the primary, the smallest unit. It is called "a territorial community". Communities form a district, and several districts form a region. In the current administrative-territorial system in Ukraine, a village is the smallest unit. A district is a formation of many villages and towns, with a city as an administrative centre of a district. An oblast is a regional formation, regrouping several districts. The planned reform of the ATD in Ukraine was outlined, prior to the proposed bill on decentralization, in the law of Ukraine "On the voluntary merging of territorial communities", adopted by the Rada on February 5, 2015. The goal of this law was to solve a chronic problem of the Ukrainian state: shortages of funds for the financing of schools, hospitals or first-aid centres, other elements of social infrastructure, and the bureaucratic apparatus of village and city councils. The goal was to reduce the number of villages and districts, thus reducing the costs of administration and of services.

The voluntary merging, according to the law, is initiated by the head of a village or a city, deputies of the village or city council (at least one third of them), or members of a "self-organization" of the population (again, they have to represent the interests of at least one third of the members of the local community). The question has to be publicly debated, and after that the local council adopts a decision on the voluntary merger. The decision is then directed to the regional state administration which approves it.

The territorial communities of neighboring villages, towns, and cities are the subjects of the voluntary merging. An administrative centre of a newly formed territorial community should be a locality that has a developed infrastructure and is situated close to the geographical centre of the community. The name of that locality becomes the name of the territorial community.

Territorial communities will form districts (raions), which will be much bigger than the existing ones. Currently there are dozens of raions within an oblast. In the new system, these dozens will be amalgamated into 4-7 larger raions, with the population of each to be between 150,000 to 400,000 residents. In total, around 120-130 enlarged raions will be created in Ukraine. The geographical borders of oblasts will remain the same, but instead of oblasts they will be called rehiony (regions).

In regions and raions both, there will be local governments as well as organs of state power, similar to current state administrations. The central power will be represented by prefects. The executive power will be given to the executive committees of raion and region councils.

At the lowest level of governance,-a territorial community-there will be no representative of the central power. A community will take over the major part of services to the population, which currently are provided by raion centers. A universal centre of administrative services will be created in each community (ibid).

The bill stipulates that heads of communities, as well as deputies of the councils of communities, raions, and oblasts, are elected in a free election, by exercising a general, equal and direct right to vote through a secret ballot. What "oblast councils", if no such administrative unit will exist anymore?

In general, the terminology of the administrative division of Ukraine is a weird patchwork of various historical terms. To start with, hromada is an old Ukrainian word which denotes more than a type of settlement-it denotes a collectivity of people, united by common life, interests and a territory. Therefore, to use it in the sense of an administrative unit is not appropriate. Raion comes from the former Soviet administrative system, while the word "region" has been employed in Ukrainian in the sense of a geographical entity which is larger than an oblast and has its own cultural, historical, and natural particularities, such as the Donbas region, Carpathian region, Southern Ukraine region etc. The new proposed terminology is awkward and confusing.

The bill on decentralization states that the territorial community directly or through the community council will manage the communal property, form a budget and control its implementation, adopt programs of social-economic and cultural development and control its implementation; establish local taxes and fees and other local matters in its competencies (article 143). However, the proposed article 142 significantly reduces the competencies of the communities because it stipulates that the state "ensures the commensurability of financial resources and the scope of competencies of organs of local governance" and that "a change in the competency of the organ of local self-governance is made concomitantly with the respective changes in the repartition of financial resources". What does that mean? According to the Ukrainian philosopher and blogger Serhiy Datsiuk, it means that the state determines the scope of formal competencies of the local governments by equating it with the finances available, and the state itself determines the scope of finances. That is, the state continues to distribute resources to regions "in a manual mode", without strict rules and principles. Again, it means that the budgets will be formed not from the bottom up but from the top down, which goes against the logic of decentralization.

The bill also stipulates that the raion and oblast councils adopt raion and oblast budgets and "resolves other issues in its competency, determined by the law". The oblast councils also adopt a regional program of the social-economic and cultural development of the oblast. So, again, what we are talking about here - a region or an oblast? And why is the raion council not involved in the adoption of these programs, only the community and oblast councils?

One paragraph later, the bill stipulates that the law (which law?) delimits powers of local governments on the three levels of self-governance "on the principle of subsidiarity" (art. 143), without explaining what exactly this principle means.

And speaking about elections on the local level, following the old schedule they will take place in October of this year. The elected officials will then carry out the major part of their administrative duties while the central power organs will carry out the reform. New local elections will then take place in October of 2017, and the new local governments, provided for in the bill, will start functioning fully. The question that I have, given the dire economic situation in the country is, why not start implementing the reform now, keeping the current local self-governance organs in place, and then, once the transitional period is over and a new power structure is in place, to call local elections then? I guess an answer to this question, at least partly, maybe that the power holders in Kyiv need to assure the presence of their fellow party members on the local level, especially in the "non-reliable" regions of Southern and Eastern Ukraine, where many of the former Party of Region members (the party, of sorts, of President Yanukovych) work in local councils.

My conclusions, after a long analysis of the proposed bill on decentralization, are that it is not really decentralization but, rather, a reinforcement of the presidential "vertical" power. It is a document written hastily and without clear formulations. It is a document that was pushed through the Verkhovna Rada by President Poroshenko and Prime-Minister Yatsenyuk in order to please their Western allies and to pretend that the current regime in Kyiv is fulfilling its obligations under the Minsk-2 agreement. This document has not been discussed with the representatives of Donetsk and Lugansk, which undermines negotiations which are already practically non-existent and it undermines a possible political solution between Kyiv and Donbas.

As to the roadmap of real decentralization, which Ukraine desperately needs, this bill will need to be significantly improved to remove vague formulations and make the clauses more precise and clear. As it is, the bill is but a variation of the existing administrative-territorial division of Ukraine and a reshuffling of the current legislation. The old adage "the more things change, the more they remain the same" holds true in Ukraine.

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 #9
www.rt.com
August 28, 2015
Balkanization? Southeast Ukrainian region demands greater autonomy

Lawmakers in a Ukrainian region are demanding greater autonomy from Kiev, saying more locally-paid taxes should go to the local budget so it can handle the ongoing economic crisis. The president rejected the idea.

The 69-seat legislature of the Zaporozhye Region in southeastern Ukraine on Tuesday approved a draft that would give the regional authorities greater autonomy from Kiev. The bill received 66 'yes' votes with none voting against or abstaining.

In essence it redistributes tax flows to keep more money in and gives more authority to locals, allowing them to decide on how to tackle social benefits, medical care, education and environment protection.

The draft legislation is for the country's parliament in Kiev to pass, which may prove to be challenging, since in a country fighting against rebel forces in the east any calls for autonomy are viewed by many politicians as separatist. Sponsors however say it is in line with what the central government is doing itself.

"The draft is aimed at making the region and entire Ukraine prosperous. It is also in line with the administrative and territorial reform that was declared in Ukraine and may become an integral part of it," local newspaper Golos Zaporozhya cites MP Elena Semenko as saying.

"The socio-economic situation in the region is worsening every day. At the same time the high concentration of industrial objects in its territory impacts the environment and the health of the citizens. What we suggest is a working roadmap for solving these issues," she added.

As the legislature was in session, hundreds of people gathered in front of the regional parliament to support the bill. Sponsors of the draft say 400,000 people in the region signed a petition in its favor and that they would be sent to Kiev as proof of the public support for autonomy.

Various regional and ethnic groups voiced similar calls to Kiev over the year. Not only eastern industrial regions like Zaporozhye, which borders the rebellion-gripped Donetsk Region, but even some western regions were affected.

The authorities in Kiev however seem unconvinced, with President Petro Poroshenko rejecting the idea on Friday.

"No federalization, no special status. We will be voting on it on Monday in the parliament. We will unveil all that lies and preserve the unitary nature of our country," he said.

Poroshenko is seeking legislative support for his constitutional reform, which would provide limited decentralization of Ukraine. The reform introduced in July was welcomed by Kiev's foreign sponsors as a right move in the framework of the Minsk peace agreement with rebels.

But there is a strong resistance against it: both from those considering it too big a concession and from those concerned that it would actually strengthen the president's office. Poroshenko has to secure at least 300 votes in the 450-seat national parliament to push through the legislation. Voting is expected to happen later this month, but may be postponed.

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 #10
Reliefweb
http://reliefweb.int
August 31, 2015
Humanitarian Bulletin: Ukraine Issue 01 | 01 - 31 August 2015
Report from UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Overview of humanitarian access and challenges

Humanitarian organizations are facing the major challenge of accessing the most vulnerable of an estimated 5 million people affected by the conflict that began in April 2014 in eastern Ukraine. Access challenges vary from security concerns, bureaucratic impediments, and logistical and legal constraints. An estimated 2 million people living in areas along the contact line between Government forces and armed groups are the most vulnerable and the highest priority group in terms of aid operations. Half of these people are estimated to be living in Government-controlled areas (GCAs), while the remainder live in non-GCAs (NGCAs). Fire exchanges and shelling in many hot-spot locations along the contact line are constantly endangering the lives of many civilians and exacerbating their suffering. Their plight has been compounded by their inability to flee to safety, particularly across the contact line (from NGCAs to GCAs) due to complicated procedures on population movements in the area. This has been further aggravated by the lack of social services, disruption of trade, lack of access to pensions and other social-benefit payments, and lack of functioning banking systems in NGCAs. People living in GCAs have been similarly affected and cannot access basic services.

Most of the 2 million people have received limited or no assistance from humanitarian agencies, as aid organizations have been unable to reach these people due to insecurity and bureaucratic hurdles.

An additional 2 million people in NGCAs, further away from the contact line, are another priority group for humanitarian organizations, as they are trying to eke out living while facing similar everyday challenges of a lack of social-welfare payments, livelihood opportunities and functioning banking systems.

Humanitarian agencies are also concerned about the protracted displacement of 1.4 million people in GCAs. About 60 per cent of the registered IDPs are elderly people and about 13 per cent are children. Meeting their needs requires interventions by humanitarian and recovery/development actors in the immediate and longer term.

The humanitarian community has repeatedly advocated to all parties to the conflict to guarantee free and unimpeded humanitarian access, including limiting bureaucratic procedures to the strict minimum. Under international humanitarian law (IHL) and customary IHL, parties to the conflict are responsible for facilitating access for humanitarian organizations to affected people. Intense discussions are under way at various levels to resolve the issue and find practical solutions, focusing on the humanitarian imperative of providing assistance to the people who need it most.

Positive steps have been undertaken to engage with the Government of Ukraine on facilitating access to vulnerable people, and on bringing various laws and by-laws and the temporary order on population movements and movement of humanitarian cargo and personnel in line with the laws of Ukraine and international humanitarian principles. The Government recently announced many positive changes in terms of facilitating humanitarian cargo to NGCAs, including opening two new crossing lines, simplifying procedures, ensuring fast-track processes and dedicated lines for humanitarian cargo, and establishing staging areas away from the contact line.

The Government also announced that special humanitarian logistics centres will be established near operating crossing points, from which civilians from NGCAs will be able to access various services. However, concerns remain, partly because these logistics centres are located in insecure areas.
Aid organizations have been unable to reach vulnerable people in NGCAs since 21 July.

Aid convoys have been suspended since then. This came after 14 July, when the de-facto authorities in NGCAs of Donetska oblast issued a decree regarding registration to all aid agencies operating in the area.

The Logistics Cluster leads, organizes and facilitates inter-agency aid convoys to NGCAs. However, since the suspension on 21 July, the cluster has more than 5,000 metric tonnes (MT) of humanitarian assistance in the pipeline, including food, shelter and non-food relief supplies, pending to be delivered to thousands of people in NGCAs. More than 16,000 MT of relief aid are in the pipeline for delivery to NGCAs up to the end of 2015, according to the Logistics Cluster.

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 Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
August 28, 2015
Will escalation in Donbas turn into full-fledged war?
At a panel discussion in Moscow, Russian experts discussed the odds of the fragile Minsk Agreements holding together and mulled over possible scenarios of how the Ukraine crisis might develop.
By Pavel Koshkin and Sofia Grebenkina

Amidst the ongoing escalation in Eastern Ukraine and this week's Berlin meeting of French, German and Ukrainian leaders, a group of Russian foreign policy experts came together at a panel discussion hosted by the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) in Moscow to discuss the future of the increasingly fragile Minsk Agreements.

The experts made an attempt to understand the origins, implications and prospects of the conflict in Ukraine. In particular, several well-known experts presented their reports on the Minsk Agreements: Andrey Sushentsov, a political expert from Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO-University), and Sergey Markedonov and Alexander Gushchin, both experts from Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH).

According to Sushentsov, what is going on in Ukraine today is the continuation of the collapse of the Soviet Union. He sees the events in Donbas as the delayed civil war that didn't happen after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. All this indicates that the Ukraine conflict resulted from the structural flaws in the international system after 1991.

And today one of the important challenges for Russia and Ukraine is to decrease their deep interdependence that formed during the Soviet era in order to reach a new balance. An asset during times of friendly cooperation between Kiev and Moscow, this interdependence is a liability during a crisis. And so the Kremlin is trying to get rid of this asset today.

Because of this multilayer interdependence - which includes the energy sector, finance, trade, industry and the labor market- the relations between Russia and Ukraine "cannot be dissolved very fast" and this process will take a great deal of time, according to Sushentsov. And economic interdependency exacerbates the situation. For example, in 2013 Ukraine received 85 percent of its gas and 100 percent of the fuel for its nuclear power stations from Russia. This type of economic activity cannot be curtailed quickly unless there are extraordinary circumstances.

"Never ever had Ukraine been an easy and loyal partner for Russia," he said, pointing to the lack of certainty in Kiev's policy toward Moscow. "More often, Moscow has dealt with an unfriendly Ukraine."

As a result, this has forced Russia and Ukraine to often divide what's happening in the political realm from what's happening in the economic realm. Each country has strived to protect its economic relationship. Yet recently it has become more difficult to draw the boundary between economics and politics.  That's why Russia now seeks to loosen its ties with Ukraine.

Political relations between the two countries have meanwhile deteriorated. In the latest National Security Strategy of Ukraine, Russia is considered to be a long-term threat to the country's security. At the same time, Ukraine is described as a Western outpost to counter Russia's influence in the post-Soviet space. This bears long-term effects on Ukraine's military planning and creates an inability for Russia to treat the country as its partner.

At the same time, Moscow prefer to see Kiev as a bridge between the West and Russia, which means that Ukraine should be neutral, as seen by the Kremlin. And Sushentsov doesn't rule out this scenario.

Identity crisis in Ukraine

One of the factors that spurred the conflict in Ukraine is the country's identity crisis, which resulted from the collapse of the Soviet Union and was given greater impetus by the votes of Ukrainians on the country's integration into Europe and its accession to NATO.

In particular, Sushentsov identifies three main groups in the division of the population.

One "mainstream" group includes the patriots, or the Nationalists, who believe that Ukraine is for Ukrainians. The second group includes Russians, who now want Russia to play a greater role in Ukrainian politics, pushing the situation to the brink of open warfare between the two countries. The third group, a minority that Sushentsov refers to as the "statists," include those who acknowledge that Ukraine needs to embrace a spirit of integration and the diversity that it inherited after the collapse of the Soviet Union

This third group speaks for geopolitical and economic balance when it comes to cooperation with the West and with Russia. Yet, they are marginalized and their opinions are often sidelined as pro-Russian sycophancy.

Likewise, Markedonov believes that the identity crisis is a very serious challenge, because it reveals to what extent ordinary Ukrainians are loyal to the project of the Ukrainian state as an outpost of the West to counterbalance Russia's clout in the post-Soviet world.  

At the same time, Sushentsov admits that Russia was wrong in its estimates that Ukraine was an unimportant problem for the last 20 years. When asked about the Kremlin's negligent attitude toward Ukraine as an object of international relations, the expert said that the problem stems not from Russia, but from Kiev's difficulties in coming up with its own identity. Instead of becoming a subject of international relations, Ukraine remained an object of international relations. Markedonov echoes this view: It is easy to announce a country independent, but it is much more difficult to form identity.  

Russia's foreign policy in Ukraine

Sushentsov sees Russia's policy toward Ukraine in last two years as a case of "force majeure." He argues that the Kremlin's goal in Donbas is not to defeat Ukraine, and not to ensure victory for the rebels, but to put all participants of the conflict at the negotiation table.
"Russia is for reintegration of the Donbas into Ukraine," he said, adding that the Minsk Agreements are futile because Kiev is not ready to incorporate Donbas under the terms of the Minsk Agreements.

Sushentsov argues that Russia only started to "energetically support" the resistance in the middle of summer 2014 when force was implemented. He believes that the conflict could remain in a "frozen state" until the next Ukrainian elections in 2018.

Meanwhile, it is almost certain that until the next electoral cycle, Russia will also face a lack of cooperation from Ukrainian leaders, forcing it to diminish its century-long connection to the country.

Ukraine: "Big Bosnia" or "Big Croatia"?

Experts agree that on a more global scale, what the international community can do now is cooperate to create a unified approach to Ukraine and the conflict. The question now remains whether an anti-Russian sentiment will become a permanent feature of Russian-Ukrainian relations and whether Ukraine will be able to solve its structural problems and create an identity.

Over a longer period of time, such as the next twenty years, Sushentsov sees the most likely development as Ukraine and Russia becoming ordinary neighbors. He dismisses the two extreme scenarios - Russia-West cooperation or their extensive confrontation over Ukraine - as highly unlikely. He takes a more realistic approach. Ukraine is problem for all, he said, and nobody will resolve this challenge together. Instead,stakeholders will try to minimize the consequences of the problem and at least prevent it from escalation.   

According to Markedonov, the problem is the conflict of interests of the major stakeholders. Moscow prefers to see Ukraine as "a Big Bosnia" with its numerous factions and diversity. Certain parties see themselves as outposts of the West, while others identify themselves as pro-Russia, which creates a sort of balance and a sort of safety net against Ukraine's membership in NATO.Meanwhile, Kiev is more interested in creating "a Big Croatia," a homogeneous Ukraine that has much higher chances to enter NATO.

So, this is the reason why everybody should be concerned. Most experts at the RIAC panel discussion agree that while a frozen conflict is a good scenario, it also has it nuances. To quote Gushchin, freezing the Ukrainian conflict is the lesser of two evils. He points out that "this is also an evil," because the Donbas rebels will further depend on Russia, which could increase the risks of toughening sanctions from the West. So, the expert is very pessimistic, because freezing the conflict is not beneficial for Russia strategically.    

Meanwhile, Markedonov warns against what he calls the "total unfreezing" of the Ukrainian crisis, which means an absolute disregard of the Minsk Agreements. What brings more optimism in today's highly charged atmosphere is the fact that all sides admit the urgent need to observe the Minsk Agreements. However, this compromise doesn't resolve the impending challenges amidst the ongoing escalation in Eastern Ukraine. Gushchin is very skeptical about a "total unfreezing," but doesn't rule it out, because from both sides of the barricades there are enough players who are very interested in a thawing and escalation of the Donbas war.

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 #12
The Guardian (UK)
August 30, 2015
Editorial
The Guardian view on the latest Ukraine ceasefire call: why this could be the one that works
It is too soon to be confident but this time the economic and political pressures may be mounting on Vladimir Putin to make agreements that will stick

The prospects are not good that the new international call for a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine will be heeded any more rigorously than its predecessors were. Yet in the continuing 16-month war on Europe's fringes, some of the dynamics may perhaps be shifting in some important ways. On Saturday the leaders of Germany, France and Russia held a three-way phone conversation in which they backed a joint announcement made by Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists last week, that a ceasefire would be reinstated on 1 September.

The weekend initiative is the latest attempt to put some life back into February's Minsk agreement, which has all but fallen apart as the fighting has continued. The agreement remains a fragile plant; both sides came out on Saturday with separate statements with very different emphases. Vladimir Putin laid all the blame on the Ukrainian government, while Kiev has been warning that Russia is readying for new offensives. The Minsk agreement will also come under further international scrutiny as the end of the year nears. This marks the deadline for the internationally recognised border to come back under Ukrainian government control. At the moment, however, the Russians maintain an exclusive grip. So other European states will have to decide soon whether to prolong sanctions against Russia, which arms the rebels and continues to give them backing through covert paramilitary involvement.

The Minsk agreement may have been largely ignored by both sides, and may now have very little chance of being fully implemented. The 1 September ceasefire may go the way of the others that have failed to hold. Yet a lot is at stake. Some argue that the agreement has nevertheless reduced the number of deaths in eastern Ukraine, though there are victims almost every day and one report, not independently verified, suggests Russian deaths may have reached 2,000.

President Putin's recent language may nevertheless indicate that he is looking for a way out of what may have turned into something of a military and political quagmire. Russia's economy is suffering from low oil prices, and sanctions are hurting. After annexing Crimea last year, Mr Putin raised the stakes by launching a conflict in the Donbass and firing up Russian nationalist sentiment. Yet the separatist forces are a disorderly group that have shown themselves incapable of carving out a territory that could be held sustainably. This could explain why there is less talk these days in Moscow of creating a revived "New Russia" territory from the Donbass to the Black Sea.

Western assistance to Ukraine remains substantial. A debt reduction programme has also been put in place. That is not to say that Russia has given up on destabilising its neighbour, nor on trying to redraw Europe's security architecture to its advantage. Both must be consistently resisted, while Ukraine must be encouraged to carry out reforms at the same time. The larger European interest remains that of getting Mr Putin to withdraw Russian forces from eastern Ukraine and ultimately of reasserting that international boundaries are inviolable. For this to be achieved, it won't be enough to keep setting new ceasefire dates. It will be essential to demonstrate both a readiness to talk to Mr Putin and a determination to prolong, and possibly even to increase, sanctions until the pull-out of forces takes place.

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 #13
www.i24news.tv (Israel)
August 30, 2015
Two-state solution for Ukraine?
By Yossi Beilin
Yossi Beilin is president of the business consulting firm Beilink. He served in three Israeli governments and in the Knesset for Labor and Meretz. He was one of the pioneers of the Oslo Accords, the Geneva Initiative and Birthright.

Several days ago, Ukraine's ambassador in Israel announced that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would soon visit Kiev, and Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko would reciprocate with a visit to Jerusalem for the first time in his term (he was here on a secret visit last April as a presidential candidate). Poroshenko will certainly not be surprised if his Israeli counterpart brings up the possibility of dividing Ukraine into two states in order to resolve the ongoing tragedy in his country. While everyone in Ukraine talks about territorial integrity, Kiev's control over Donbass has long been a mere formality, whereas the bloodshed between the pro-European west of the country and the pro-Russian east shows no sign of abating.

China's stock market crash has shifted the world's attention to the possibility of a global financial crisis, the first in seven years, pushing off the global agenda other important issues. Yet the Ukraine problem keeps festering and the Minsk II Agreement (signed after negotiations between Vladimir Putin, Poroshenko, Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel) has yet to be implemented. It seems the world has come to terms with the "low intensity" conflict in Ukraine, "reasonable bloodshed", with 50,000 Russian soldiers stationed on the border as a "subtle" hint of Putin's real intentions, and 9,000 others inside the country, wearing different uniforms.

Those following events in Ukraine will see some provocative steps on the side of the regime against Russia. On the one hand, Russia annexed Crimea, in violation of international law, and the world accepted it as a fait accompli. On the other hand, Poroshenko named ex-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili as governor of the Odessa region - the same president who got his country involved in a war with Russia and then fled Georgia following corruption allegations. The two-month old nomination forced Saakashvili to give up his Georgian citizenship and receive a Ukrainian one. Ukraine is a sovereign country, backed by the West, but the nomination, designed to spite Putin, might not have been the wisest.

The deadlock and continued violence have generated some problematic solution proposals. US Senator John McCain, who recently visited eastern Ukraine, has called on the US administration to arm the Ukrainians with defensive weapon. He did not explain, however, what would happen if the Russians insist on regarding the weapons as offensive. He did not explain if Ukrainian armament, significant as it might be, would enable it to stand alone against the Russian forces. If the answer is "no", the only solution is a diplomatic one.

The Washington Post, surprisingly, suggested in an editorial the division of Ukraine: mostly Russian-speaking east Ukraine, with its clear affinity to Russia, is an important industrial region but also very poor; handing Russia could annex the region and assume responsibility for its economy, providing its inhabitants with autonomy. Western Ukraine would then be free to join NATO, like its Baltic neighbors, without angering Russia.

Another solution is to understand that Russia is serious, that NATO will never help Ukraine and that it is better to recognize a Russian entity inside Ukraine. Some urge Ukraine to recognize the rebels (who have been ignored so far by the government), and discuss with them the future of east Ukraine, recognition of Russian as the formal language of that area, greater autonomy and investment in the region's failing economy. In that case Crimea would obtain, with time, the same status as Turkish Cyprus (which is recognized by Turkey alone) or the Golan Heights (which only Israel recognizes as its own).

Dividing Ukraine while recognizing the Russian Ukrainians seems to the outsider as the most reasonable way to ensure Ukraine's unity, but the real question is how important this territorial unity is to the Ukrainians themselves. A "two-state solution" is not necessarily the best solution in every situation, and both sides might not want it, but holding on to a fake sovereignty while living under constant Russian threat might not be better. Minsk III must take place as soon as possible in order to choose among all the options. This is a challenge from which Europe cannot escape.

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#14
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
August 28, 2015
Odds grow for Ukrainian default on $3bn Russia debt
bne IntelliNews

Despite an initial surge of optimism about Ukraine's financial health after it appeared to clinch a crucial restructuring deal with private creditors, the country is increasingly expected to default on a $3bn Russian-held Eurobond due for redemption in December 2015.

The likelihood of the scenario grew after the preliminary agreement was reached with a committee of Eurobond holders on August 27, giving the green light for a 20% haircut on the principal, postponement of redemption by four years, with interest of 7.5% and a mechanism to ensure that returns reflect any major surge in GDP.

"The government of Ukraine officially declares that Russia will not under any circumstances gain better conditions than the other creditors," Ukraine's prime minister Arseny Yatsenyuk stated defiantly after the deal was reached after six months of mutual snubs and wrangling beteen the sides. However, the restructuring deal is not signed and sealed yet, as more shareholders have to give their consent.

Meanwhile, Russian officials rigidly refuse to accept any restructuring of the Kremlin-held debt. "We will emphatically demand full repayment in December this year of $3bn taking into account interest payments," Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on August 27. But Russia has a far weaker position now that Ukraine has reached a deal with the private creditors, Ukrainian officials are hoping.

Regrouping for next round

According to a Ukrainian government source quoted by the website Apostrof, a Ukrainian default on the Russian-held bond will no longer trigger a cross default on other Eurobond debts following the August 27 deal. This only leaves Russia the option of going to court against Ukraine in London, if Ukraine restructures the Russian-held bond. Russia may have a hard time in court, however, since Moscow is in fact being offered better terms from the restructuring than the private creditors, according to Oleh Ustenko of the International Bleyzer Fund.

The Russian-held Eurobond has a coupon rate of 5%, well below the market rate at the time of issue, which was politically motivated. The restructured bonds will be paid at an interest rate of 7.5% which will at least partly compensate Russia for the haircut, and constitutes more favourable conditions than offered to the private bondholders.

Even if Russia were to win a case likely to last several years, that would leave the Kremlin with the limited option of seizing Ukraine's overseas assets. But as Ukrainian Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko argues, Ukraine has few overseas assets to take anyway.

The other leverage the Kremlin believes it has, is that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has a policy of not lending to countries that are in arrears on official debt, meaning that Ukraine's default on the Russian held-bond would effectively freeze the IMF bailout.  

But given clear signs of Western and IMF willingness to support Ukraine as far as possible, the Fund has at least two ways of getting round this, say experts. One would be for it to accept Ukraine's arguments that the Russian-held Eurobonds are not official debt, as Russia claims they are. "They are listed for trading on the Irish Stock Exchange - how can this be official debt?" Yatsenyuk said on August 27.

To date, IMF officials have notably to commit on whether the Fund would count the Russian-held Eurobonds as private debt or not. Even if Russia's counter-arguments - that the bonds were bought at a coupon rate significantly lower than the market rate - hold, the IMF might simply change or reinterpret its rule on not disbursing loans to countries who are in default on official debt to other countries.

IMF policy shift?

Indeed, in 2013, the IMF prudently considered changing this policy, fearing that it "subjects the Fund to the risk that it could not assist a member in need due to one or more holdout official bilateral creditors who seek favorable treatment of their claims", according to a policy review study. IMF experts argued that in this case "[c]onsideration could be given to extend the [lending into arrears] policy to official bilateral arrears".

"The basic question will be the verdict of the board of directors of the IMF on the status of the debt," says Olena Bilan of Dragon Capital in Kyiv. The IMF board of directors reached decisions based on a majority of votes.
Ukraine sounds determined to go the distance against Russia on the issue. "The prime minister's comments point to a potential application of debt-payment moratorium," says analyst Oleksiy Andriychenko of the brokerage Art Capital.

Cocking a thumb at Russia would also go down well politically, important for a government seeing popular support erode due to the economic collapse. The West would also support the move politically, with internationally well-connected economic adviser to Ukraine's government, Anders Aslund, coming out strongly in favour of non-payment of the bond. "Why should Ukraine pay anything to its aggressor?" Aslund blogged on August 27. "The United States and the European Union need to reinforce their manifold sanctions against Russia by providing full legal and political support to Ukraine and insist that the country should not pay Russia."

Playing safe

But some voices in Ukraine still counsel caution, with the aim of getting Russia off Ukraine's back as quickly as possible. "If we are serious about reducing our dependency on Russia, my recommendation is to pay the money in December 2015," advises Ustenko of the International Bleyzer Fund, adding that Ukraine can make the payment from IMF funds received this year.

In July, Russian President Vladimir Putin made the same suggestion regarding the IMF funds and stressing, like a raft of ministers and officials beneath him, that Moscow wants its money back in full.

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 #15
The Nation
August 28, 2015
Ukraine Has Reached a Debt Deal. Now What?
The deal has worrying implications for the IMF's treatment of Russia.
By James Carden
James W. Carden is a contributing writer at The Nation and the executive editor for the American Committee for East-West Accord's EastWestAccord.com.

Yesterday, with the announcement that the Ukrainian government had reached an agreement on restructuring its private debt with a consortium of bond holders led by Franklin Templeton, there was much rejoicing. In Kiev, the American-born former State Department official turned Ukrainian finance minister, Natalie Jaresko, was presented with a painted artillery-shell casing as a token of the government's thanks for her work on the deal.


In Washington, Kiev's legion of cheerleaders, led as usual by the virulently Russophobic think tank the Atlantic Council, declared that "things are looking up for Ukraine." No less an authority than Anders Aslund, who served as an economic adviser to Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma from 1994-97, crowed that the "resolution of Ukraine's debt saga looks like a great success for all parties involved."

While most analysts agree that the deal buys time for the authorities in Kiev, the terms of the deal seems to favor the lenders over the Ukrainian government. Yesterday Goldman Sachs noted that the likelihood that bondholders would vote against the bond restructuring was small "given the attractiveness of the offer relative to market expectations." In return for a four-year extension on payments of the remaining debt, Ukraine agreed to a higher coupon (interest rate) of 7.75 percent, up from 7.25 percent. Further, after the four-year period expires in 2019, Ukraine will be obliged to spend 40 percent of any GDP growth over 4 percent on debt repayment.

Jaresko's original bargaining position, that bondholders would have to take a 40 percent haircut, was whittled down to 20 percent. Forbes magazine economics and demography blogger Mark Adomanis told me the deal "is clearly better than nothing, but given the increasingly poor performance of the economy, more drastic action was called for." "The deal," he continued, "seems less like a solution and more like a postponement."

Immediately after the deal was announced, reports began to appear to the effect that Russia, unlike Ukraine's private sector lenders, will not accept a 20 percent write-down on the $3 billion Eurobond due in December. This deserves some examination, because this part of the story has potentially worrying ramifications over the long term.

It should be noted that it is, of course, entirely conceivable that Russia would have voluntarily acquiesced to the terms of the debt restructuring if its own economy (which by some estimates is expected to shrink by 3.4 percent in 2015 and as much as 9 percent over the medium term) wasn't being targeted by Western sanctions.

Russia's enthusiasm to lend Kiev a helping hand was no doubt dampened by Ukrainian President Poroshenko's promise-in direct violation of the IMF's articles of agreement-to use part of the IMF's $17.5 billion loan to carry out Ukraine's "anti terrorist operation" against its own citizens. Still worse, the IMF loan and the debt restructuring's attendant benefits (such as they are) will do little to address either the oligarchical nature of the economy or widespread government corruption.

Nevertheless, Russia's position is that it is not legally bound to accept the terms of the package, since its debt is classified as "official," or government-to-government debt. Yet Jaresko and the Ukrainian government insist that Russia's $3 billion loan is a commercial debt and insist on its restructuring.

University of Missouri economist and author of a forthcoming exposé of the global financial crisis Michael Hudson calls Kiev's position "incredible." Hudson told me yesterday that in refusing to rebut Kiev's position on its Russian debt, the IMF "seems to have broken new ground in not insisting that Russia's sovereign wealth fund investment is a government investment."

If the IMF allows Ukraine to abrogate its commitment on its Russian bond payment, the consequences could be drastic. As Hudson notes, it will then become clear that "the IMF no longer applies international law to Russia" giving Russia and the BRICS (the other BRICS being Brazil, India, China, South Africa) "little reason to remain in the IMF and World Bank."

Hudson warns that should Ukraine, with the IMF's acquiescence, purposefully default on its bond payment to Russia in December, what "will be lost is access to international law by whatever government the US opposes."

So while yesterday's deal was perhaps a (very) modest victory for the Ukrainian economy, the IMF's blurring of the rules governing private and official (or government-to-government) debt could herald worse things to come.

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 #16
www.zerohedge.com
August 28, 2015
Putin To Get $3 Billion From US Taxpayers After Ukraine Bond Debacle
By Tyler Durden
 
On Thursday, Ukraine struck a restructuring agreement on some $18 billion in Eurobonds with a group of creditors headed by Franklin Templeton. The deal calls for a 20% writedown and a reprofiling that includes a maturity extension of four years and an across-the-board 7.75% coupon. All told, Kiev should save around, let's just call it $4 billion once everything is said and done (there are some miscellaneous loans and bonds that still have to be worked out).

That's the good news.

The bad news is that Ukraine also owes $3 billion to Vladimir Putin.

Now obviously, owing Vladimir Putin $3 billion is not a situation one ever wants to find themselves in, but this particular case is exacerbated by the fact that Putin did not loan the money to Ukraine as we know it now, he loaned the money to a Ukraine that was governed by Russian-backed Viktor Yanukovych. Of course Yanukovych was run out of the country last year following a wave of John McCain-attended protests.

Well, one thing led to another and here we are 18 months later with a festering civil war and a sovereign default and on Thursday, Ukrainian finance minister Natalie Jaresko offered the same restructuring terms to Russia that it offered to Franklin Templeton and T. Rowe. In effect, Jaresko was attempting to tell Vladimir Putin that Ukraine would allow him to take a 20% upfront loss on the $3 billion he loaned to Yanukovych who was overthrown by the current Ukrainian government with whom Moscow is effectively at war. As you might imagine, Putin was not at all interested.

So what happens now?

Well, it's very simple actually. Someone owes Vladimir Putin $3 billion which he intends to collect in full and he could care less if Franklin Templeton and T. Rowe Price are willing to take a 20% hit.

Who's going to pay him, you ask? Probably the US taxpayer. Here's BofAML:

"The $3bn Russian bond is included in debt restructuring, but Russia will not participate in debt restructuring and will either be paid $3bn from reserves in December or there will be a political decision to agree on an extension, likely without haircuts. We believe the $3bn bond is likely to be classified as sovereign debt and the IMF would likely be forced to pay it (as a holdout) in order to continue the program in December."

Got that? The IMF (so, the US with the tacit support of the taxpayer) is going to pay Vladimir Putin his $3 billion which he loaned to Viktor Yanukovych who the US effectively helped to overthrow.

And if that isn't hilarious enough for you, consider that the rationale behind paying Putin 100 cents on the dollar is that the IMF needs to be able to justify the continual flow of IMF bailout funds to Kiev, some of which must be used to pay Gazprom which immediately remits the funds to Putin's personal money vault.

So in a nutshell, the US is going to pay Putin in order to ensure that it can continue to pay Putin.

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 #17
Ukraine's prospects to repay $3 bln debt to Russia look gloomy
By Lyudmila Alexandrova

MOSCOW, August 28. /TASS/. Ukraine's prospects to repay its debts to Russia look gloomy so far, Russian experts say. In their opinion, either long and complex negotiations or judicial proceedings with no quick results lie ahead.

International creditors agreed on Thursday to write down $3.6 billion out of Ukraine's $19.3 billion private debt. Both sides also agreed that the repayment of the remaining debt would be extended to 2019. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian authorities officially announced that Ukraine's debt to Russia wouldn't be paid in full and offered Moscow to agree to the same terms of debt write-down.

"Russia is not taking part in this debt operation," Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak told TASS on Thursday. He also said "the Finance Ministry of Russia has not received any official proposal from Ukraine on debt restructuring."

Russia purchased Ukraine's sovereign bonds worth $3 billion in late 2013. Ukraine is due to repay its debt to Russia before December 20, 2015. The Ukrainian financial authorities have said on many occasions they consider Russia's loan as a commercial debt and insist on its restructuring. Moscow, however, considers this loan as Ukraine's state debt and demands its full repayment on time.

The Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, adopted a law in May allowing the country's authorities to impose a moratorium on debt repayment to external commercial creditors "in order to protect national interests."

"The situation, on the one hand, looks quite favorable for Russia in the sense that the IMF refers this $3 billion debt to inter-state liabilities, which are regulated by the Paris Club and should be treated separately from the pool of commercial debts," Senior Expert at the Development Center Institute of the Higher School of Economics Sergei Pukhov told TASS.

"The IMF should not grant a loan to the country, which has not settled these debts. Actually, Ukraine should not get new IMF tranches without repayment of its debt to Russia," the expert said.

Russia's position is that the debt has to be repaid but there is also another position, on which Ukraine insists, the expert said.

The whole matter has now come to Ukraine's threats to impose a moratorium on debt payment, he added. "There is also a third option, namely, a litigation process. Considering the judicial decision on Argentina, Russia has quite winning positions," the expert said.

"The very idea of pressure on Russia both from Ukraine and international creditors has always been present in this issue," Professor of the Higher School of Economics Ivan Rodionov told TASS.

"I don't rule out that it was a condition of the agreement on the debt write-down that Ukraine would not pay Russia," Rodionov said.

Last year, when the IMF started crediting Ukraine, a part of the funds was purposefully intended for debt repayment to Russia in several instances. But this never happened. In the expert's opinion, this was due to some agreement. "That is, it was not Ukraine that breached the terms because it later received next tranches after all and, therefore, everything is not so simple in this case and some accords existed. That is, Ukraine's creditors considered that Russia should suffer most of all," the expert said.

The negotiations on the repayment of debts to Russia "will go on constantly but they won't be acute," Rodionov said.

This is because if Russia halts gas supplies to Ukraine as a result of the dispute on the debt problem and Kiev retaliates by blocking Russian gas transit to Europe across the Ukrainian territory, this will cost Moscow even more, the expert said.

The option of taking the matter to a court of law holds little promise, the expert said.

"The examination of the matter will last long while a judgment will not be fulfilled after all. The sides will have to come to terms. There is no other option," Rodionov said.

Head of Nektorov, Saveliev & Partners international law firm Marat Davletbayev agrees that difficulties may emerge with the recovery of debts from Ukraine through a court of law.

"Even if a judicial or arbitration judgment is obtained, the plaintiff will have to find Ukraine's foreign assets that are not protected by immunity and could be seized. But they would most likely turn out to be few. Or the plaintiff should try to enforce the judgment in Ukraine, which may turn out to be even more complex," Russian business daily Kommersant quoted Davletbayev as saying.

Considering that Ukraine recognizes the debt, "creditors in similar situations in international practice prefer to agree on debt restructuring or rescheduling rather than to enter into long litigations with gloomy prospects," the expert said.

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#18
Kyiv Post
August 29, 2015
Azov fighters give military training to children, foster patriotism at Kyiv summer camp
by Faina Nakonechnaya, Volodymyr Petrov

The kids are arguing about who gets which wooden gun.

"That's my gun," says one young boy loudly. He likes it because it fits nicely into his small hands.

"That's a new American version of the rifle," says an older boy, knowledgeably. "I like it better as well."

Once the argument is settled, the kids run off to play at being soldiers.

It's a scene that one could see on playgrounds and at summer camps for kids all over the world.

But this particular camp is run by the Azov Battalion founded by lawmaker Andriy Biletsky, its former commander. Located in the wooded area of Kyiv's Pushcha Vodytsya district, kids at this summer camp aren't just playing soldiers - they're getting actual military training from soldiers who have fought on the front line in Russia's war against Ukraine.

Named Azovets, the camp has been the subject of negative coverage in the Russian media, pro-Russia websites and even U.K. tabloid The Daily Mail.

"Neo-Nazi summer camp: Ukrainian kids taught to shoot AKs by Azov battalion members (PHOTOS)," reads Kremlin-controlled RT's headline for its story about the camp.

"Shocking pictures from inside neo-Nazi military camp reveal recruits as young as SIX are being taught how to fire weapons (even though there's a ceasefire)," reads the headline in the Daily Mail's sensationalized and inaccurate article.

The Azovets summer camp accepts children of Azov Battalion members, as well as kids from Kyiv's nearby Obolon district and further afield. It opened on June 22, runs weeklong programs of activities for groups of 30 to 40 kids. Officially, it is for children aged from nine to 18, but there are kids as young as seven there. A few of the kids had already attended it for several weeks in a row.

What makes the camp most controversial is that it's run by Azov fighters, some of whom have been labeled as far-right supporters and neo-Nazis. Critics say the battalion's symbol is an inverted Wolfsangel that has oblique but uncomfortable associations with Nazism.

In previous interviews with Ukrainian media, Biletsky says the symbolism is misunderstood. The letters "N" and "I" make up Azov's insignia, which he says stand for "national idea."

Biletsky founded a neo-Nazi group in Ukraine called the Social-National Assembly, and there certainly are neo-Nazis among the battalion's ranks, some sporting Nazi tattoos. Some media have reported that up to 20 percent of Azov's fighters are neo-Nazis, though the battalion's press officers are always at pains to emphasize that Azov, as a military formation, does not share the ideology of its founder Biletsky, or indeed have any ideology other than fervent patriotism.

One of its most famous foreign members, a Swedish sniper called Mikael Skillt, has admitted his past far-right leanings, although he says he has since rejected neo-Nazi ideology. But others in the battalion haven't.

When the Kyiv Post visited the Azovets camp on Aug. 19 the kids were busy with a range of activities, including stripping down and assembling AK-47 assault rifles, target practice (with air guns), tackling assault courses, and practicing combat poses and patrolling. They also take part in various sports and games, do rappelling and climbing, and practice other more traditional scouting and woodcraft skills like tying knots.

"I've been here only for three days, but I've realized that it's not a camp where you just play games. We're getting military training here," one of the kids at the camp told the Kyiv Post.

Out in the forest next to the camp, a group of kids was getting some weapons safety advice from an Azov trainer.

"Do you know what would happen if you kept your fingers on the trigger? If it were a real gun, you could kill your comrades. So, don't do it!" the trainer barks.

"Yes sir!" the kids answer.

The children then practice medically evacuating wounded soldiers from the battlefield.

The militaristic atmosphere at the camp, including strict discipline, has plainly influenced some of the children.

"I got my hair cut really short yesterday," says one boy. "Just because I want it. I look more like a soldier now."

Two older kids, who, like many of the children at the camp, have taken noms de guerre (Medic and Physicist) in imitation of Ukraine's real soldiers, said they now wanted to join the Azov Battalion.

"I want to defend my homeland. There are comrades who support my idea. I think that if it's necessary, I will fight," 17-year old Physicist told the Kyiv Post.

The children at the camp are organized into four groups, depending on their age, with each group overseen by a trainer and caregiver. The camp's day starts early, at 7 a.m. sharp, and ends at 11 p.m. The children sleep in tents.

Access to Azov's own website and supporting websites was closed off to the public last September when the battalion was integrated into the National Guard of Ukraine, but the camp has a page on the Russian social network Vkontakte (https://vk.com/tabir.azovec) where it is promoted, and where people can apply to become volunteers, or contact the camp to send their children there.

"The Mission of the Camp: To form the Ukrainian of a new era - a patriot, who is ready to actively participate in building and defending Ukraine," the page's description reads.

It then goes on to describe the range of activities at the camp, which include "interactive lectures and films on historical and military-patriotic themes, which explain to children in simple terms the importance of the homeland and its place in the system of human values."

Some of children stay at Azovets for two or more weeks. Sofia, who has taken the nickname "Tarakan," is one of the kids who have attended the camp since it opened. Her parents are members of the Azov Battalion, stationed in Mariupol.

"I could just stay in Kyiv for the summer, but it's more interesting for me here," Sofia, who's in her mid-teens, tells the Kyiv Post. "A lot of things have changed in my life. Previously, for example, I only listened to foreign music, but now I enjoy Ukrainian patriotic songs."

Sofia's grandfather, Oleksandr Yemets, has regularly visited Sofia at the camp over the last nine weeks, bringing her fresh clothes and food.

"Sofia's parents are patriots. They've raised their daughter with dignity. She wants to be tough, (and) she wants to defend Ukraine," Yemets told the Kyiv Post.

He said that schools pay little attention to the patriotic training of children, and the Azovets camp helps make up for that. He said he believes the camp will be a good influence on his granddaughter.

The military-patriotic songs that the children sing every day as a part of the camp's program do seem to be one of the more popular activities for the kids. Late at night, sitting around a blazing campfire, they belt out their favorites - patriotic songs dating back to Ukraine's previous struggles for independence in the early- to mid-20th century.

The Kyiv Post listened to the words of one of the songs. Its lyrics were about Ukrainian soldiers defeating their enemies. Today that enemy is Russia. A boy who sits on a log softly whispers: "I want that this war will end and we will kill all the Russians."

Azov spokesman Stepan Badai said that the children are not taught songs that call for the killing of Russians or anybody else. "The children sometimes change lyrics when they sing, but they are taught traditional folk or patriotic songs," Badai said by phone.

The evening singalongs are one of Sofia's favorite activities too.

"Many of the songs are about the invincibility of the Ukrainian people. I like those that have words about people who fight to the death - these are the real patriots of their homeland," she said.

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 #19
Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
August 31, 2015
Why can't the UAF Mobilize? Defeats and Maltreatment

Politnavigator  - translated for Fort Russ by Soviet Bear -
http://www.politnavigator.net/ilovajjsk-i-debalcevo-otbili-u-dobrovolcev-zhelanie-voevat-priznanie-ukrainskogo-okruzhenca.html

The UAF military defeats in Donbass, and the Ukrainian people's attitude to the participants of the ATO, led to a dramatic decrease in the number of people willing to fight. This opinion at a press conference in Kiev was expressed by Nikolay Kolesnik - the curator of the territorial defense battalion "Krivbas", who has been in the cauldrons twice- first in Ilovaisk, and then in Debaltsevo.

"We all remember the queues at the military recruitment stations, when everybody wanted to go to defend and to fight the Motherland, said Kolesnik. - Where are these queues now? These queues were killed in the cauldrons. They were killed in DAP, they were killed in Ilovaysk. They were killed in Debaltsevo. When people receive summons from the recruitment stations, do they watch TV? No, they look at their neighbors, their friends and acquaintances. And they see how the injured are treated, how families of the victims are treated, how ATO guys struggle to get their medals".

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 #20
Interfax
August 29, 2015
Russian nationalist says followers fight on in Ukraine despite internal disputes

Russian nationalist politician Eduard Limonov, leader of the banned National Bolshevik party (whose members make up most of the Other Russia party), says his members are continuing to fight with the separatist militias in southeast Ukraine, despite not being allowed to lead units or engage in political activity there, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 1033 gmt.

"We will fight in Donbass (Russian-speaking area of Ukraine) to the last man and will never give this up," he said on 29 August at the Other Russia party's fifth congress in Moscow.

Other Russia has come up against certain problems on the territory of the self-proclaimed republics, he said. "Attempts to set up independent sub-units with our commanders end up with disbandment or they throw out or disperse the 'National Bolsheviks' and 'international brigade' men among different sub-units," he said.

Some of the National Bolsheviks taking part in the congress said that among the international fighters in the conflict in Donbass there were men from Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Serbia and other nations, the report said.

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 #21
Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
August 27, 2015
Zakharchenko Interview Exclusive: "The war can only end in our unconditional victory"
By Valentin Filipov, PolitNavigator
http://www.politnavigator.net/zakharchenko-vojjna-mozhet-prekratitsya-tolko-nashejj-bezogovorochnojj-pobedojj.html  - Fort Russ translation by J. Arnoldski

"Zakharchenko: The war can only end in our unconditional victory"

Head of the DPR Alexander Zakharchenko - he's not a politician. He's not an oligarch. He's simply a man who became a soldier when the time came. He's one of us. He's like the rest of us. Precisely because we are all represented and contained in his story, he became the commander. We gave him the right to speak on our behalf. And on behalf of each of us, he storms cities, sleeps by the fire, opens stew with a knife, and leads negotiations with the enemy. Valentin Filipov, columnist for "PolitNavigator," spoke with Alexander Zakharchenko about the reality of war, the illusory nature of the world, the borders of states, and common sense.

VP: Greetings, Alexander Vladimirovich!

AZ: Greetings.

VP: Everyday, people are dying. These deaths are difficult to attribute to accident or the stupidity of Ukrainian soldiers. What's next? Minsk-3? Or no more speaking with anyone about anything?

AZ: There's always something to talk about. With whom is another question. I have repeatedly stated that if there is any chance for a peaceful solution to the conflict, our duty is to use this chance. The Donetsk People's Republic is ready for dialogue. The Kiev authorities are obviously not. You rightly pointed out: shelling continues, people are dying. Each day, citizens of the republic hear cannons. This doesn't seem like agreeing with the Ukrainian side.

With regards to "Minsk-3", I am afraid that there are no alternatives  to the memorandum which was signed in Minsk in February. I am sure that stopping the war will not succeed purely by political methods or purely by military methods. Kiev will probably begin to listen to the voice of reason when it is dealt a defeat by our army. Like what already happened after Debaltsevo.

However, when we're talking about Kiev's punitive forces, appeals to reason are meaningless. For them, only one thing is important - to hang onto the power which they got by illegal means. For this, they will stop at nothing. So we will not allow a "Minsk-3." That would be stupid, and I'm sure that Kiev will not abide by agreements.

VP: Is there hope for the "Normandy format?" Doest anyone have any sort of influence on the Kiev junta?

AZ: As they say, hope dies last. In Ukraine today, it is fashionable to portray themselves as Europe, listening to European and American curators. It's possible that the intervention of Paris and Berlin could have some influence on Kiev. Another question is whether or not Europe needs the war in Donbass to cease. European politicians are playing their game and I'm afraid that in this game, Ukraine is just a pawn in a greater geopolitical confrontation with Russia. As long as the war we have is beneficial to Europe, it is unlikely to end. Surely, the war will only stop with our unconditional victory.

VP: If Kiev decides to attack, what is the minimum-program for the republics? The borders of the regions? A Greater Novorossiya? Or a "coercion to peace"?

AZ: I've already said more than once that the minimum-program - this is a DPR with the borders of the former Donetsk region. Accordingly, the achievement of this goal will largely be by so-called "coercion to peace." It is unlikely that punitive forces will be able to quickly deal with such a defeat. Most likely, in this case there will again be a "Maidan" in Kiev and different people will come to power. Maybe we can find a common language with them. As for Greater Novorossiya, it's too early to speak about this. We will decide this question when we win.

VP: It's not even a question. You know this, but i want to repeat. Not only Mariupol and Slavyansk await you. Kharkov and Odessa await you. Nikolaev and Kherson. Even Tiraspol is waiting for you. What would you like to tell us all? What can we do to help?

AZ: We will liberate Mariupol and Slavyansk from the punitive forces for sure. The ranks of the army of the DPR contain many fighters from these cities. As for the rest of so-called Ukraine, I can say one thing. It's not needed to sit and wait idly by. If you want to get rid of the illegal government, destroy the fascists, and make it so that Ukraine ceases to be a puppet in the hands of the American puppeteers, then you should take a more active position. Nobody will make your life better for you. Ukrainian politicians and oligarchs only needs you as cannon fodder to achieve their goals. Victory is not served on a silver platter; victory is produced by sweat and blood. And think further for yourselves - sit and wait or take the situation into your own hands.

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 #22
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
August 28, 2015
Ukrainian premier Yatsenyuk's party drops out of elections
bne IntelliNews

The People's Front party founded by Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk and allies has effectively thrown in the towel, annnouncing that it will not participate in local elections on October 25, 2015. The move follows a catastrophic drop in ratings to under 3%.

"People's Front party will not field candidates in local elections," Yatsenyuk announced on August 28. "The party has conducted reforms and will continue to do so, but these are not national but local elections, and the Ukrainian people should elect new representatives to the local councils," he told media, adding that it was also important that Ukraine avoid "any split in the democratic camp".

The move comes as a fresh poll by the Kyiv International Institute for Sociology found that only 2.8% of respondents would vote for Yatsenyuk's party in elections, effectively making him the scapegoat for Ukraine's continuing economic collapse.

Fall before merger?

People's Front has seen a meteoric rise and fall in less than a year. Founded by Yatsenyuk and allies in September 2014, only weeks before Ukraine's parliamentary elections on October 26, the party took a surprise 22.14% of the vote. It thereby pipped President Poroshenko's eponymous party BPP, at 21.82%, to take the largest share of the vote - although BPP took more seats in parliament thanks to a strong showing in constituencies.

The electoral success of People's Front ensured that Yatsenyuk continued in his post of prime minister, with co-founders Arsen Avakov staying as interior minister and Oleksandr Turchinov remaining secretary of the National Security and Defence Council.

But the ongoing economic collapse in 2015, combined with hostile media coverage by oligarchs and perceived slow pace of reforms, saw the party's popularity evaporate as quickly as it had risen.

Now there are growing calls for Yatsenyuk to merge his parliamentary group with that of BPP, in return for staying in the post of prime minister. The head of the parliamentary group of BPP, Yury Lutsenko, reminded on August 28 that he had proposed to Yatsenyuk one year ago that the two parties should merge and fight the elections together. There have also been frequent media reports in recent days predicting such a merger.

BPP itself is only three weeks older than People's Front, created exactly one year ago, but has weathered the storm better than its peer, since direct criticism of Poroshenko himself is still largely taboo in the media, given the quasi-wartime situation with Russia. Moreover, Poroshenko has established a Ministry of Information run by a close friend to counter negative news allegedly spread by Russia, which critics say is a powerful media weapon influencing pro-presidential coverage.

The gloves are off

BPP has itself just announced a merger with its close ally, the UDAR party headed by former boxer Vitaly Klichko, who is now mayor of Kyiv. An alliance between the two politicians was negotiated by oligarch Dmitro Firtash in Vienna in March 2014 in the run-up to presidential elections, and has worked out well for Poroshenko, with UDAR largely removed as a political competitor. Klichko has agreed to become leader of the post-merger party BPP.

BPP's rating is looking respectable at 23.5%, according to the KIIS poll, but worrying for Poroshenko, the rating of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko's Batkyvschina party has surged to 22.7%, after taking only 6% in parliamentary elections.

Batkyvschina is formally part of the governing coalition, but firebrand populist Tymoshenko has harshly criticised government decisions to hike utility prices paid by the population, fuelling her resurgent popularity. Moreover, Tymoshenko is widely regarded as a bitter personal rival of Poroshenko.

The resurgence of Tymoshenko, together with persistent support for the equally populist Radical Party at 10%, and at 7% for the Opposition Bloc, the successor party to the ousted Party of Regions of former president Viktor Yanukovych, means that political opposition to the reform path in Kyiv is growing, additionally motivating the consolidation of pro-reform forces.

"Although the center-right Poroshenko Bloc's result of 24% is respectable, the only other reliably proeconomic reform party polling above 5% is Self-Help [party of mayor of Lviv Andriy Sadovyi, polling at 12.2%] ; this implies that difficult times may lie ahead for the passage of laws by parliament relating to economic liberalization," comments Dmitry Churin of Eavex Capital.

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 #23
Sputnik
August 30, 2015
US Considering Two Candidates to Replace Poroshenko?

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is an unbelievably weak leader in his nature, American historian Professor Stephen Cohen said. According to him, Poroshenko yields to foreign influence and is incapable of defending his own stance.

The comment followed a recent three-way meeting in Berlin, during which Poroshenko discussed with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande ways to settle the Ukrainian conflict.

According to Cohen, the fact that Russian leader Vladimir Putin was not invited to the talks proves Merkel and Hollande wanted to reprimand Poroshenko.

The professor believes that Poroshenko himself would like to observe the Minsk agreements because he is not a man of war. He has no skills required to be a military commander, he is businessman.

However, far-right radicals which threaten to topple Poroshenko would never let him reach a compromise, Cohen explained.

Former Ukrainian lawmaker Vadim Kolesnichenko underscored that the US was content with Poroshenko, but his time in politics is running out.

"The US appointed Poroshenko because he was the least ambitious of all the 'opposition politicians' who were running for president. During his term, Poroshenko has doubled his wealth. Despite the constitutional requirements, he has not sold his assets and he is still the head of a corporation. Poroshenko realizes his political career would be short," Kolesnichenko told to Sputnik Radio.

"Poroshenko was given some time to make money, but there is nothing for nothing. Poroshenko is personally responsibility for the blood and the military operation in Donbass. However, he would not be able to make a choice to resolve the situation," he added.

According to him, Poroshenko has completed his mission and now the US is preparing a candidate to replace him.

"The US is considering two people to replace Poroshenko - Valentin Nalivaichenko, former head of the Ukrainian Security Service, and Sergei Levochkin, former chief of staff for [toppled Ukrainian president] Viktor Yanukovych. Both are in good standing with the US State Department," the politician said.

He also added that Poroshenko has little support in Ukraine and there is a growing number of those who are discontent with his political course.

"In Autumn, the Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian Parliament] plans to impeach Poroshenko. In addition to the situation in Donbass, Ukraine has seen other problems, including the Rusyn issue in the Zakarpattia Region," Kolesnichenko said.

Commenting on the settlement in eastern Ukraine, he hypothesized that Poroshenko's encirclement would not let him stop the war.

"Maybe, Poroshenko would like to stop the war, but his encirclement is against peace. Two-thirds of the Rada lawmakers are hawks and those who make money on war. Thus, Poroshenko cannot stop the war in Donbass, it is not his prerogative," Kolesnichenko said.

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 #24
Current Politics in Ukraine
https://ukraineanalysis.wordpress.com
August 23, 2015
Ukraine at 24
By David Marples
Distinguished University Professor, University of Alberta, Canada

On its 24th anniversary, Ukraine's problems continue to multiply: the GDP continues to fall, if not as catastrophically as last year and the possibility of default in payment of debts remains high; the Minsk-2 ceasefire barely holds in the east as conflict continues with the separatist "governments" of the DNR and LNR; the government has not yet made much progress in eliminating the power of oligarchs; and the popularity of the pro-Western leaders President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk has plummeted since last year.

Underlying its problems are relations with Russia, its largest and most powerful neighbor. Over the twenty-four years the relationship has fluctuated though the debating points have invariably been the same.

First of all, the territorial divisions resulting from the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 remained unresolved. For the Russians, the presence of Crimea and the port of Sevastopol in newly independent Ukraine caused concern, mainly but not exclusively because of the presence and potential fate of the Black Sea Fleet. The Russian Duma, rather than Russia's first president Boris Yeltsin, flatly opposed the "loss" of an autonomous republic that it had "donated" to Ukraine in 1954.

Yeltsin and Leonid Kravchuk, the first Ukrainian president, held several meetings on the future of the Fleet while a noisy pro-Russian nationalist movement flourished on the peninsula. The Treaty of Friendship signed by the two presidents in 1997 appeared to have clarified most questions, with Russia retaining over 80% of the fleet, and leasing two bays in Sevastopol. Ukraine previously has abolished the position of Crimean president ending attempts to hold a referendum on the future of the region.

Second, Ukrainian independence in 1991 came with an announcement that the new state would be neutral and non-aligned. After some initial reluctance, the country relinquished its Soviet arsenal of nuclear weapons, as did Belarus and Kazakhstan before it, having been guaranteed its security by United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom, in 1994. Ukraine never formally ratified the CIS Treaty and there was little thought of joining NATO.

Third, Ukraine found itself dependent on Russia for energy resources, first and foremost oil and gas. It provided the pipeline in turn for much of Russian gas exported to Central and Western Europe. Disputes over gas prices highlighted most high-level summits between the leaders. Russian government involvement in Gazprom dates from late 1992 when company Chairman Viktor Chernomyrdin was appointed Prime Minister of Russia. Privatization of the company in 1993-94 ended in 2005 when the Russian government obtained a majority stake. Since that date, Gazprom and the Russian government have operated as one.

Ukraine's own gas interests run deep (including the infamous United Energy Systems of Ukraine company of the 1990s run by Yulia Tymoshenko), but it has fought hard to control its own assets by and large. Most Ukrainian oligarchs successfully built mini business empires without intrusion from their powerful counterparts in Russia. Others, like Dmytro Firtash and his company RosUkrEnergo, made careers out of bargaining between the two, while maintaining close ties with the government leaders in Kyiv and Moscow.

Perhaps the key difference to development in Russia and Ukraine is that in the latter, the business empires were diverse and constituted separate centers of power. In Russia after 2000, though oligarchs remained very powerful, they either refrained from political aspirations or else formed close ties with the leadership. In Ukraine the restraints were few. And once they entered the political arena, they controlled it closely. Ukraine's richest man, Rinat Akhmetov, financed the Regions Party and its leader Viktor Yanukovych, as well as running successfully for the party in the parliamentary elections of 2006. The eastern oligarchs reached the culmination point of their power in 2005 when Yanukovych became president.

Critics, correctly, have blamed Yanukovych for the mass corruption during his presidency, a time when the rule of law receded before a system of cronyism and mass aggrandizement of wealth in government circles and among deputies of parliament. The ultimate failure of the Orange Revolution manifested itself in the willingness of former president Yushchenko to work with Yanukovych, appointing him Prime Minister in 2006-07 as well as supporting his imprisonment of former Orange partner but now implacable enemy, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Frequently Western media refer to Yanukovych as a "pro-Moscow" leader. The appellation is only partially true. Yanukovych, like his patron Akhmetov, was interested first and foremost in personal success, affluence and power of the Donetsk region, and his acolytes there and in government. Vladimir Putin was a reliable friend and partner, who did not intrude in Yanukovych's fiefdom, which appeared secure and was a more dependable neighbor than under his predecessor Yushchenko. But the relationship has many facets and it is doubtful whether Putin fully trusted him, not least because Ukraine's business elite also sought closer ties with the European Union.

During the years of independence, Ukraine achieved a number of positive steps that in terms of democratic steps outpaced its Slavic neighbors. Its presidential elections have been held regularly and by and large fairly-the first round in 2004 notwithstanding-and Poroshenko is its fifth president, compared to Russia's three and Belarus' one. The composition of its parliament likewise has changed regularly. There has always been diversity of opinion, and the media, though at times restricted under Kuchma and Yanukovych, has been largely free. It has also begun to wrest itself from reliance on Russia for energy imports.

Euromaidan illustrated, inter alia, the growth of civil activism, a desire to throw off shackles of the past, and to end corruption, in what was termed a "revolution of dignity." Ukrainians-perhaps in the majority (and especially amoung those under twenty-five)-perceived the EU as an ideal that could complete and consolidate the path to a western-style democracy. That the ideal was naïve or unrealistic, or that it became contorted and itself somewhat corrupted, should not detract from the initial impressive demonstration of public will, when tens of thousands braved bitterly cold nights to remain on the Maidan.

Yet Euromaidan brought a dramatic break with the past, the consequences of which are still being felt. Russia regards it as a pro-Western right-wing coup that removed a legitimate-if very weak-president from office. Russian troops snatched Crimea without warning, and tried to move further by backing separatists in Donetsk, Luhansk, Odesa, and other regions. But the'Novorossiya' concept was abandoned-at least by the Russian government-within a few months.

Ukraine responded by mounting an "anti-terrorist operation" (ATO) that was initially quite successful until direct Russian intervention halted its advance, and later by signing the Association Agreement with the EU, which Yanukovych had opted to reject, as well as the more recent banning of the Communist Party. It moved away from the careful multi-vectored foreign policy of Leonid Kuchma (1994-2004) and committed itself to a pro-Western and pro-European path, albeit one hardly strewn with roses or clear direction.

Activists of the late 1980s and of the Orange Revolution justifiably see links between the events of their eras and Euromaidan. But perhaps those connections lie more in the origins than what took place on the square. The violence of the past year has exceeded by far anything in the history of independent Ukraine, and one would need to reach back to the 1950s for any analogies in the Soviet period.

Euromaidan was also about the forming of a national identity, interpretations of the past, and visions of the future. Some critics maintain that extremists are dictating policy and trying to limit free expression. Others claim that Russia's truculence derives from Western and NATO advances rather than the Kremlin's beligerence. The situation in the disputed regions resembles in its devastation that in North Africa or Iraq and Ukraine's ATO played its own role, though the question of how one deals with an enemy esconced within major towns is one with which Western governments have also struggled to deal.

Former president Kravchuk now advocates the abandonment of the separatist enclaves, while the DNR and LNR leaders promise a referendum after local elections in the fall on "union with Russia," a notion hardly palatable to Moscow. The alternative to voluntary relinquishment of the breakaway regions seems to be a frozen conflict, sapping the finances of Ukraine, and perpetuating the economic crisis. The imperfect analogies of Transnistria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetiya are hardly cause for optimism.

Perhaps the biggest dilemma for the Ukrainian leadership is what to do next. Any form of compromise with Vladimir Putin would be regarded by some as a sign of weakness; yet a failure to reach some accommodation suggests intransigence. Armed battalions doing much of the fighting in the east are openly dissatisfied with the Poroshenko leadership and threaten another Maidan. Yet a wholesale government crackdown on anti-separatist/anti-Russian elements is inconceivable. The leaders can take some solace from the fact that the extremists could not win a democratic election-but they are unlikely to lay down their weapons.

In the midst of such turmoil, the questions about economic and administrative reforms appear peripheral, but they are too pressing to ignore. The formerly powerful steel industry is in deep decline; the venerable Donbas coalfield is yet another victim of the conflict and many coal mines are faced with closure, their miners often unpaid. Akhmetov's company DTEK stands accused of fueling miners' unrest and protests, which have focused on removing Energy and Coal Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn.

The twenty-four years have shown above all, that Ukrainians wish to live in an independent state, with limited influence from and no control by outside neighbors. They would benefit if the holders of wealth invested in Ukraine rather than their own companies and interests. They would also gain by moving closer to the EU agreement but not necessarily as NATO members, following the examples of Finland (the closest case to Ukraine as part of the former Russian Empire), Sweden, Austria, Ireland, and Switzerland.

But if such a route were taken, it could only be through a binding treaty with Russia and the United States, guaranteeing its territorial integrity, possibly without Crimea (though its annexation should not be recognized) and the conflicted regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Should Russia refuse to come to the table, then NATO membership could be advanced as the only alternative. Russia in turn would have to abandon the DNR and LNR "governments" to their fates. Internal fighting and vendettas such as the recent purge of the Cossacks will likely see their demise shortly in any case, a consequence that one suspects would be acceptable to the Kremlin but for the loss of prestige it would signify.

Lastly, on the relationship with Russia: the crass propaganda emanating from government-paid sources in that country has been unceasing for over a year. But the cacophony of anti-Russian statements and editorials on the Western side has also been sustained, if less vociferous. Yet this year marks just two decades since the abandonment of the pro-Western foreign policy by the Kremlin. Even in 1996, Western agencies were helping the ailing Russian president Yeltsin to win reelection. In short, the current situation-what some have termed a "new Cold War-is not immutable.

And while full reengagement may appear far-fetched, overt hostility toward Russia on the part of the West is plainly counter-productive. Putin's cooperation with the United States in Iran shows that some avenues for dialogue exist, and several EU countries would prefer to keep the window to the east open for trade. In short there is no united front against the Russian Federation. Moreover, it is facile to blame Russia for all Ukraine's economic problems, which by some indicators were worse in 2011 than they are today.

Ultimately, Ukraine cannot choose its neighbors. Hence it has to coexist with them one way or another. The same can be said of its relations with opposition political parties, and former Regions-era oligarchs, as long as they wish to work for and within the country-it would be difficult to make progress without using the assets of its business elite, including those who were missing-in-action during Euromaidan. The country also needs a period of stability that may depend on rapprochement between the Western powers and Russia, but which can be catalyzed by its own actions.

All these requirements suggest that Ukraine's 25th year might be best spent in seeking solutions and compromises to the problems that engulf the state: working with the EU while improving relations with Russia; ensuring that oligarchs, if they are to remain, work with the government and not in their own interests; improving the training and equipping of the army; implementing economic and administrative reforms; and using foreign loans to offset the financial impasse.

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 #25
Engineering and Mining Journal
www.e-mj.com
August 17, 2015
Ukraine's Iron Ore Hangs in the Balance
Iron ore miners will likely survive the loss of Crimean port facilities and the battles between Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists, but not excessive taxation from Kiev
By Vladislav Vorotnikov
[Photos here http://www.e-mj.com/features/5487-ukraine-s-iron-ore-hangs-in-the-balance.html#.VeRjrtNVikp]

Similar to Ukraine's coal and power sectors, the current conflict and economic crisis is having an impact on the country's iron ore production, which may lead to a significant decrease in the coming years. Statistics indicate that in recent years, the industry has developed rapidly with an average annual growth rate from 4% to 7% with bright forecasts for increases in exports. Most of the predictions at the end of 2013 said the general prospects of the industry were very favorable. However, 2014 was a real shock for iron ore producers in Ukraine.

The problems began in March, when as a result of the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula, Ukraine lost the Kerch iron ore basin, which has the country's second largest reserves of iron ore, and all of the projects implemented there. According to Ministry of Natural Resources statistics, the Kerch basin accounted for about 14% of Ukraine's iron ore reserves.

The Russian annexation of the peninsula created another serious problem for iron ore miners as Ukraine lost access to the Crimean ports, which shut down the potential for increasing exports. Today, the mainland ports-Odessa in particular-are overloaded. Exports through Odessa are associated with higher logistic spends.

The greatest problems, however, came later. When the armed conflict began in the East, logistics for most iron ore producers were disrupted. Ukraine's largest iron ore producer Metinvest, for example, faced serious challenges. Several of its plants for ore enrichment, operated by the Azovstal subsidiary, are located in the Donetsk Oblast (or region), an area now controlled by the pro-Russian separatists.

Further complicating matters, in April 2014, the Ukrainian government decided to increase the tax burden on iron ore producers by six times to generate additional funds to support the country. By September, the government was considering an additional tax increase. So far, it has not been approved, but remains a possibility today.

According to the head of the Federation of Metallurgists of Ukraine (FMU) Sergei Belenky, the "rental fee" for iron ore was recently increased to $3.60/mt from $3.10/mt. In the first quarter of 2014, the royalty stood at $1/mt. With iron ore currently trading for $50/mt to $60/mt, he said several Ukraine iron ore mines could go bankrupt in the next year or two, which will result in the loss of 40,000 jobs with a knock-on effect of about 100,000 jobs in related industries.

Potential Production Growth

Iron ore production in Ukraine grew to 81.2 million mt in 2013, an increase of 5 million mt or 4.8% compared with 2012. The mining business reported increases for all types of products, including marketable ore (715,000 mt or 5.3% year-on-year) and concentrate (635,000 mt year-on-year or 1.6%).

Forecasts from Ukraine's Industrial and External Expertise (UIEE) published in the beginning of 2014 projected that iron ore volumes should reach 82.1 million mt, a 900,000 mt increase (or 1.4% year-on-year), but it actually dropped by 2%. In January, the pace of decline accelerated to 13% compared to January 2014. This was expected to be temporary and related primarily to the decrease of iron ore prices worldwide.

Referring to foreign experts, Ukraine's Ministry of the Economic Development at the beginning of the year estimated the price for iron ore to be more than $100/mt. The average cost of production in the Ukraine is estimated to be $30/mt to $40/mt and that figure probably decreased during 2014 as Ukraine's currency (the hryvnia) depreciated against the dollar. Ukraine's costs are relatively inexpensive compared to Russia's costs of $40/mt to $50/mt.

Forecasts for production growth have been made based on a projected increase in demand from both foreign and domestic markets. At the beginning of 2014, exports of iron ore were expected to total 38.3 million mt, which is 500,000 mt higher than 2013. At the same time, domestic demand was also projected to raise from 46.3 million mt in 2013 to 47.1 million mt in 2014.

Iron ore production, however, has been cut short by crisis. Steelmakers reported a 14% year-on-year decline and and a loss of $916 million for the first nine months of 2014, which saw a decrease in domestic demand for iron ore. Iron ore producers had to increase prices for domestic consumers.

Ukraine has 49 known deposits of iron ore, with total reserves of about 28 billion mt, which amounts to 8% of total world resources. The deposits occur in three grades: rich (with iron content 51%-58%), relatively poor ferruginous quartzite (with an iron content of 30%-34%) and oolitic brown (with an iron content of about 38%).

About 70% of all iron ore production is concentrated in the Krivoy Rog Basin, which is the largest basin in the post-Soviet era with total reserves of 20 billion mt. This basin is located mostly in the territory of Dnepropetrovsk Oblast, not far from the battle zone between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian rebels.

A number of large-scale iron ore projects were slated for production in four other basins, including Kremenchug, Belozersk-Orekhovskaya, Azov and the Kerch, but so far they have not been implemented. In the middle of 2014, Russian authorities from Crimea promised to launch mining in the Kerch basin, but so far no investment projects have been announced, and experts in general say that given the unclear international status of the peninsula, any prospects of such projects would be quite questionable.

Ukrainian iron ore mining costs average $30/mt to $40/mt.

Raising Taxes

To prevent a "financial catastrophe," Kiev increased the taxes on subsoil resources by five to six times in the beginning of 2014. As a result, the tax (or royalty) to mine and produce iron ore jumped from about 2.5% to 15% of production costs. At the end of 2014, the country's government was planning an additional increase that would roughly double the current tax burden. The share of taxes in the production cost may amount to 30%. This initiative has been announced by the representatives of Ukraine's Ministry of Finance; so far, it has not been approved. Unless prices worldwide increase substantially, and there is no sign of that in the near future, the new taxes will likely bankrupt Ukraine's largest iron ore producers who will be unable to compete with Russian counterparts.

"The government's initiative to increase the fee for the extraction of iron ore will bring a negative impact on the development of mining and metallurgical complex of Ukraine," said the lead analyst of UIEE, Dmitry Zheltyakov. "Over the past year, the price of iron ore in the world fell by about 30%. Given this fact, it is obvious that today is not the best time to raise fees for iron ore production.

"This may seriously reduce the competitiveness of Ukrainian enterprises, because now the mining companies in the world are fighting for every dollar. For example, today, Russian iron ore producers have substantially lower production costs than the Ukrainian companies," Zheltyakov said, adding that currently the charge for the use of mineral resources in the Ukraine is one of the highest in the world.

The measure makes no sense. It will not generate revenue if miners are bankrupt. In fact, just the opposite. The government will have to pay for social services for displaced workers. "When Ukrainian mining and processing companies stop operating, the government will lose several billion hryvnia in taxes. It will also contribute to rising unemployment in regions where the mining companies are based," Belenky said. Russian companies, he explained, could import iron ore from other sources too.

Without guarantees from the government, investments in Ukraine's iron ore business will likely cease.

"Russia has much better conditions for mining and processing iron ore. They pay less for gas and electricity for metallurgists," Belenky said, adding that in Russia the tax burden for iron ore producers already is five times lower than in the Ukraine.

Belenky also predicts that all new initiatives will ruin the investment attractiveness of the mining industry, and all companies will simply abandon investment projects. "Just last year, Kryvyi Rih mining and processing works paid more than UAH 6.9 billion ($900 million, late 2014 exchange rates) in taxes and invested more than UAH 2.8 billion ($360 million) in development," Belenky said. "If taxes are increased, the state will lose both taxes and investments in new mining projects."

His opinion is also shared by Chairman of the Independent Trade Union of Miners (ITUM) Mykhailo Volynets, who made an official appeal to Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, members of the cabinet and the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada, asking not to allow a further tax increase on subsoil resources.

Volynets in particular believes the increase in rates probably will let the government temporarly increase the income of the state budget. But in the long term, the initiative of the second increase of tax burdens on iron ore producers during the recent year will result in iron ore producers ceasing to exist in the country, just like a number of other segments of the mining industry.

"Difficult conditions for mining iron and uranium ore, as well as zirconium and other nonferrous metals in Ukraine, along with a decrease of prices for commodities in global markets have already placed once profitable industries on the brink of survival," Volynets said.

At a roundtable discussion on the socio-economic implications of increasing the tax rate on the extraction of subsoil resources for Ukrainian industry, Deputy Minister of Industrial Policy Alexander Kalenkov explained that it is necessary to increase the taxes on iron ore and even coal producers, and the miners will have to learn how to work with the new costs.

It's likely some Ukrainian iron ore producers won't survive to see 2016. A large Ukrainian iron ore producer, wishing to remain anonymous, said, "We estimate that about 40% of mines may go bankrupt in 2015 and another 30% during the next couple of years if the April's tax increase initiatives are not canceled. The average profitability of the industry is now standing at minus 5%-7% and a further tax increase will obviously increase this figure."

Many of the mines still use antiquated equipment.

Problems With Exports

The biggest concern is that within the next two to three years, Ukraine will be unable to export iron ore to China. Industry analysts believe deliveries of iron ore from Ukraine to China will soon become unprofitable. Urainians producers would need a price of $76/mt to $80/mt, which would be $10/mt to $20/mt higher than current spot prices, to break even. Fluctuations in foreign exchange rates could help their case.

"Given the current situation, it can be concluded that Ukraine will have to reduce production volumes. Producers still have the opportunity to improve margins with the conversion of the facilities for the production of iron nuggets [pellets] and export them instead of iron ore. But such conversion needs about $600-$700 million of investments," said Roman Topolyuk, an analyst for Concorde Capital in Ukraine. "In a falling market, such costs will not be approved by shareholders."

Topolyuk estimated production costs for iron ore concentrate at $30/mt to $35/mt, and iron ore [pellets] would be $45/mt. "Taking this into account, the cost of shipping by rail and sea transport, with the current price of the concentrate in China at around $60/mt, profitability of iron exports from Ukraine are already now close to zero if not less," Topolyuk said. The high margin for pellets is observed thanks to the high prices for these products, which are currently standing at $123/mt. This, according to Topolyuk, so far allows exporters to earn about $20/mt of production in 2015. However, this is about two times lower than in 2013. "Most likely, the margin will decline further in the coming years," Topolyuk said.

Experts at the UIEE estimate that with prices in China below $75/mt, Ukraine will lose $800 million to $900 million per year. China is not the only customer for Ukrainian iron ore, but exports to Europe will not be able to completely offset Chinese exports. China accounted for 75%-80% of all Ukraine's iron ore exports.

Currently, the miners are scared by forecasts that world prices for iron ore will remain at or below $60/mt. "I don't believe that at such prices we can conduct any export supplies to China. Moreover, I don't think that our company and a large part of other mines in Ukraine will survive the crisis of low prices. When such crises happen, the producers with the highest production costs and the lowest margin leave the market first. And, I believe that thanks to our authorities, we should prepare to stop export supplies, cut production and possibly even close operations," said another Ukrainian iron ore operator wishing to remain anonymous.

At the same time, it is clear the Ukraine has no chances to affect the global prices for iron ore production. With the total export of 38 million mt/y, Ukraine accounts for only 3% of the global supply. A fall in domestic demand forced mining companies to turn to exports. The future of the country's iron ore export as well as the future of the industry in general is now quite questionable.

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 #26
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
August 31, 2015
A Top US Foreign Policy Magazine Warns Negotiations Preferable to US Defeat in Ukraine
Article in The National Interest warns against escalation and says US is setting itself up for a humiliating defeat in Ukraine
Washington urged to seek a negotiated solution with Moscow - which holds all the cards in the conflict - to avoid humiliation
TNI is a magazine connected to the Center for the National Interest representing the realists in the US foreign policy establiment
By Alexander Mercouris

As we first disclosed in January, a debate is underway within the foreign policy establishment in Washington about what to do with the Ukrainian crisis.

On the one hand are the realists, who appear to be led within the administration by Secretary of State John Kerry.

Pitted against them are the hardliners, who include Obama's National Security Adviser Susan Rice, US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.

Obama, characteristically, refuses to commit himself clearly to one side or the other.  Instead, he tilts one way or the other, depending on which side appears stronger.

Since the late autumn, as Russia's help for the deal with Iran has moved into focus, and as it became clear that Russia would not let the Ukrainians overrun the Donbass, the balance of advantage has tilted towards the realists.

However, as we discussed shortly after the Kerry-Putin meeting in Sochi, it is essential to understand the nature of the discussion.

The realists in Washington are not friends of Russia.  On the contrary, they think of Russia as an adversary - just as the hardliners do.

The people we call the "realists" are not seeking friendship or a rapprochement with Russia.  They simply see no sense in confronting Russia in Ukraine where Russia is strongest, whilst at the same time being willing to work with Russia on some issues such as the deal with Iran where there is a mutual interest in doing so.

True realists, people like (from their very different perspectives) Henry Kissinger and the historian Stephen Cohen, who understand that US national interests are best served by good relations with Russia, and that these require an honest acknowledgement of Russia's legitimate interests, have no voice in the present administration, or in any likely succeeding one.

An article (attached below) [DJ: not here. JRL#170. Paul Saunders] has just appeared in The National Interest, an international affairs magazine published by the Center for the National Interest, a US think-tank known to be close to the realists in the US foreign policy establishment, which provides a clear statement of their views, and which is obviously intended to make them public as part of the ongoing policy debate.

What sets this article apart is its frank admission of the point we repeatedly make: in Ukraine it is Russia that holds all the high cards.

That admission could not be made more clearly.  In essence what the article says is that Ukraine matters a lot to Russia, but does not matter anything like as much to the US - and matters even less to the US's European allies.

The result is that US and EU support for Ukraine is essentially rhetorical.  Though they talk big about backing Ukraine and "stopping Putin", what they do in practice is less than little.

The result is that Ukraine actually gets from the West microscopic amounts of economic and military support, whilst the West's overblown rhetoric simply  encourages it to engage Russia in a conflict it cannot win.

The author of the article has previously warned against arming Ukraine.  In this article he makes the point that if weapons deliveries to Ukraine are to be part of a deeper commitment involving some sort of grand policy to confront Russia, then the fact has to be made clear to the American and European publics, who have to be told of the consequences:

"..... if the advocates of this course see small arms deliveries as the first step in a substantially broader effort, they should be honest with the American people about their proposed objectives and the costs and benefits they foresee.

If the United States is to make confronting Russia an organizing principle of its foreign policy, it will require an extended national commitment that will be unsustainable without broad public support (and difficult to pursue without virtually nonexistent European public support)."

It is quite obvious from the rest of the article that the author does not believe public support either in the US or Europe for a policy of extended confrontation with Russia - in Ukraine or elsewhere - would be forthcoming.  Recent opinion polls in the NATO states lend strength to that view.

Since the US cannot defeat Russia in Ukraine, the author draws the two obvious conclusions: first, that it is contrary to the US's interests to encourage Ukraine to get drawn into a conflict with Russia, which it is bound to lose; and second, that it is better for the US to acknowledge these realities and seek a negotiated solution to the Ukrainian conflict, rather than court certain defeat.

The author could not make these points more plainly.  On the first, he puts it this way:

"If the United States is not willing to make a commitment to defending Ukraine sufficient to ensure success, how can we encourage Ukrainians to fight and die in a conflict with a very powerful neighbor and with no clear endpoint?

Allowing the government in Kiev and the Ukrainians resisting Moscow to think that America is behind them when we are not-or when we are pretending to ourselves that we are-is functionally equivalent to encouraging the 1956 uprising in Hungary, or the 1991-92 Shi'ite uprisings against Saddam Hussein, and then watching the devastating consequences for the courageous people who believe us."

On the second, he puts it if anything plainer still:

"A half-hearted policy (or, for that matter, a 5 percent-hearted policy) to confront Moscow will likely produce outcomes demonstrably worse than a settlement-better to get the most advantages possible negotiated terms than to set up ourselves and the NATO alliance for a high-profile defeat."

This is the first time I have seen the word "defeat"- a big and very serious word normally avoided in Washington when discussing US foreign policy outcomes - used to describe the likely outcome of the US's present Ukrainian policy in any US publication known to voice the opinions of any part of the US foreign policy establishment.  The author has undoubtedly chosen this word carefully, in order to give the point he is making maximum emphasis.

That despite the rhetoric it is the realists who have been in the ascendant in Washington for some time is confirmed by the whole pattern of negotiations that has taken place since the fighting in the winter.

The result of that fighting was Minsk II - an accord, which the hardliners in Kiev and Washington are known to be unhappy with.

Kiev has since tried to sabotage Minsk II.  In recent weeks it has stepped up preparations for an offensive.  However, as we discussed recently, declarations of support from Western governments this time were conspicuous by their absence.  Instead the word from Western capitals is of the importance of sticking by Minsk II.

The result is that - for the moment - the offensive appears to have been called off, and where a week ago Poroshenko was talking about "endless war", he has now resumed talking about the importance of implementing Minsk II.

To say all this however is to notice the problems.

Though the author of the article obviously thinks of himself as a realist, and though his reasoning on its own terms looks flawless, the article nonetheless betrays a complete lack of understanding of Ukrainian realities.

The author seems oblivious to the fact that the sort of negotiated compromise he is talking about is completely unacceptable to the Maidan movement, many of whose members would undoubtedly prefer to go down fighting in "glorious defeat" than accept it.

As discussed previously, the only way the sort of negotiated compromise the author writes about could be achieved would be if the present Ukrainian government were replaced with a different one.

As we have also said, it seems the Russians have probably come round to that view.  However in the West it is far from clear even self-identifying "realists" like the author have done so.

There is also inevitably going to be intense resistance from the hardliners in Washington and elsewhere.  They of course adamantly refuse to accept the logic of the points made in the article - however flawless it may appear to be - and continue to push for more confrontation.

The great problem is that these conflicts in Washington between hardliners and "realists" are never finally resolved.  In one form or another they have been going on since the 1960s (think of the battles between "hawks and doves" during the Vietnam war).

Sometimes one group gains the ascendancy and sometimes the other, depending on the domestic political mood in the US.  However neither group has ever been able to win the argument and impose its views for very long.  The result is that US policy is subject to constant abrupt reversals, making it unpredictable and erratic.

Even if the "realists" are presently in the ascendant, there is no guarantee they will remain so.  It is easy to see how, with a Presidential election looming, the policy and the rhetoric might harden again, with none of the contenders for the Presidency wanting to look "soft".

There is also no guarantee, even if Obama in the final months of his Presidency does fully commit himself to the realists (as he has just done over Iran), that this will be carried over to any new administration that takes over once he is gone.  On the contrary it is easy to see how a Republican administration, or a Democratic administration led by Hillary Clinton, might toughen the policy again.

The article does nonetheless offer a possible guide to what might happen in the remaining months of Obama's Presidency, even though for domestic US political reasons it will probably be left to Merkel to do the running.  We have previously written about the sort of outline for a settlement that the Russians have in mind, and we could from now on see increasing diplomatic efforts to achieve it.

Given Kiev's intransigence, such a settlement still looks very unlikely.  
 
The article is nonetheless interesting because of its frank acceptance of the overriding reality of the Ukrainian conflict - that it is the Russians who hold the high cards, and that it is the US which will be defeated if things continue as they are.  
 
It is both interesting and important that there are influential people in Washington who can see and are saying that - if only because it confirms that proposals for further escalation will encounter strong resistance.  
 
In light of that the article provides further confirmation of what we have been saying since the signing in February of Minsk II, that the worst period in the international part of this crisis appears to be over.

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 #27
Subject: ON TREATING UKRAINE LIKE GEORGIA - A REPLY TO PAUL SAUNDERS
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 201
From: Kirk Bennett <kirkbennett7@yahoo.com>

ON TREATING UKRAINE LIKE GEORGIA - A REPLY TO PAUL SAUNDERS
By Kirk Bennett
Kirk Bennett was the Senior Georgia Desk Officer at the State Department from 2007-09.

Kudos to Paul Saunders for his spot-on exposition of U.S. policy in the run-up to the Russo-Georgian War of 2008 ("How the U.S. Can Help Solve the Ukraine Crisis: Treat Ukraine Like Georgia?" in The National Interest and Johnson's Russia List, August 28).  Indeed, the U.S. message to Tbilisi was consistent to the point of monotony - there could be no military solution to the country's separatist problems, so Georgia must exercise restraint and not react to Russian provocations.  Saunders' analysis is a welcome refutation of the widespread but baseless conviction that an irresponsible George W. Bush, for no apparent policy reason, foolishly goaded a reckless Misha Saakashvili into attacking Russia.

What is puzzling, however, is the notion that this policy in Georgia was a rousing triumph worthy of emulation in Ukraine.  The Bush Administration, in fact, had only one-half of a winning policy in Georgia; the pressure on Tbilisi to resist provocations was never accompanied by any pressure whatsoever on Moscow to cease provocations.  

Russia's tactic of hybrid warfare in Ukraine received its beta testing in Georgia.  Fully six years before the war Moscow embarked on a series of blatant infringements of Georgian sovereignty - handing out Russian passports to residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and then proclaiming Russia's right to defend "its" citizens; organizing polling places in the separatist territories during Russian elections; violating Georgian airspace and conducting a missile strike near the village of Tsitelubani in August 2007; sending Russian officials to run the separatist governments (defense ministers, chiefs of staff and heads of security services in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia were Russians seconded by Moscow) and to command separatist units (two Russian officers, former "peacekeepers," were killed in a clash in Abkhazia in early 2008); shooting down an unarmed Georgian UAV over the Black Sea; and illegally deploying railroad troops to Abkhazia.  

Each of these actions was deeply alarming to the Georgians.  None of them generated anything more than a pro forma response from the West.  Individually ignored as inconsequential, collectively they constituted creeping annexation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia by Russia. Confronted by indications of Russian troop movements through the Roki Tunnel into South Ossetia in August 2008 - at a time when summer weather favored the invader, Georgia's best troops were deployed to Iraq, and military equipment had been stockpiled in western Georgia in anticipation of a Russian move from Abkhazia - Tbilisi gambled on a desperate preemptive strike.  The Georgians did not even request U.S. military assistance; they had been given no reason to hope any would be forthcoming - and it wasn't.

It is now Ukraine's turn to face concerted Russian pressure, and the Ukrainians are doing what most people in most countries at most times have done in their situation - they are resisting a foreign invader.  When it comes to "stopping Putin," Mr. Saunders need not fret about who will do the work - Ukrainians have done, and will continue to do, all the heavy lifting.  They will do so whether they receive security assistance from the West or not, for the simple reason that they value their sovereignty and independence - not because American hawks on some crazed anti-Russian crusade want to "fight to the last Ukrainian" in order to spite Putin.  The analogy is not Hungary in 1956, but Afghanistan in the 1980s.  Ukrainian resistance will continue, if only because Russia - notwithstanding its enormous military advantages - lacks the wherewithal to subdue Ukraine completely.  The misplaced humanitarian concern about sparing Ukrainian lives therefore rests on the curious logic that the more poorly Ukrainians are equipped to fight, the fewer of them will be killed in battle.  Moscow has repeatedly ratcheted up tensions with its smaller neighbors, taking advantage of the restraint that the West has urged on Tbilisi and Kyiv.  The weakness and isolation of Georgia and Ukraine invited Russian invasion.  On the other hand, a credible threat to inflict casualties would be a more logical deterrent to deeper Russian penetration into Ukraine, and a far more effective way to save Ukrainian lives.  It would behoove Ukraine's Western well-wishers to cease their counsel of despair and stop trying to capitulate preemptively on Kyiv's behalf.  Rather than assuming they know what's best for Ukrainians, Western opponents of security assistance might consider the novel idea of asking the Ukrainians themselves whether they would be better or worse off receiving Western defensive capabilities.

The Russian invasion of Georgia could have been dismissed as a one-off, with local roots in ancient, intractable ethnic conflicts, and blame to be shared by a mercurial Georgian president and - for those politically inclined to think so - an inept White House.  However, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we are, as the saying goes, beginning to see a pattern.  The tactic of bringing maximal pressure for restraint upon the weaker party, while doing nothing to deter the stronger party, has not succeeded in preventing war.  It failed abysmally in Georgia, and would fare no better in Ukraine.  The Obama White House, cautious to a fault and leery of foreign entanglements, seems to be taking aboard this lesson, which was apparently lost on the reputedly bellicose, interventionist, bear-baiting Bush Administration.

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 #28
New York Times
August 30, 2015
With Ruble's Decline, Russian Tourists Gain Appreciation for the Motherland
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

VYATSKOYE, Russia - The tourists streamed out of the tall white bus onto an asphalt parking lot in the middle of this spruced-up village. Wearing sun hats and wielding cameras, they peered into the gardens of brightly painted houses and listened to a tour guide talk about enterprising peasants.

They were Russians vacationing in Russia, a sight that has become ever more common since a fall in the ruble that started late last year put foreign vacations out of reach of many in the middle class.

And while that may be causing a tinge of regret among Russian vacationers as the season wanes, on this bus, in this town, the tourists were taking it in stride.

"Paris is O.K., but there's no place better than home," said Olga Korovina, 53, a businesswoman from nearby Yaroslavl with a camera around her neck who was taking photographs of her friends in front of a restored 19th-century cabin. She scrapped plans to drive through Europe this summer after the ruble's fall made it too expensive.
A Moscow currency exchange Tuesday, when the ruble fell below 80 to the dollar.As the Ruble Swoons, Russians Desperately ShopDEC. 16, 2014
One of the most profound changes in the lives of Russians since the fall of the Soviet Union has been the ability to travel abroad. The shift opened up a closed society, and as soon as they could afford it, Russians went. Foreign air travel rose exponentially, and members of the expanding middle class filled beaches in Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia and Thailand on package tours that became a symbol of newfound affluence.

But last year, a tectonic shift occurred. After Russia's annexation of Crimea, and the subsequent divorce from the West, officials in Russian security services were encouraged not to travel abroad.

By summer, rank-and-file workers of state-owned companies began vacationing in Russia in order to avoid annoying their bosses, whom politics - and in some cases economic sanctions - prevented from traveling abroad, said Maya Lomidze, executive director of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia.

By the end of the year, the ruble had slid to a historic low against the dollar, and the suggestion that the security service workers not travel abroad had turned into a ban that Ms. Lomidze estimated affected about 4 million people, including family members.

The currency's loss has been the domestic tour industry's gain. Early estimates indicate sales of domestic tours are up by nearly 20 percent this year, Ms. Lomidze said, while foreign tours are down sharply. Sales to Thailand are down by about half, and those to Greece are down by a third.

For Russians, vacationing in Russia has another benefit: It is good for their country. Russia is awash in patriotism, stirred up by the government of President Vladimir V. Putin, and vacations are not immune from the fervor.

The state tourism agency has trumpeted the rising numbers as evidence of Russians' love for the motherland. In July, the Kremlin weighed delaying the start of the school year so people could vacation longer.

And this month, Mr. Putin held a government meeting on domestic tourism in Yalta, a town in Crimea, the Black Sea Peninsula that Russia annexed last year. In Sochi, a resort on the Black Sea that has experienced the largest surge of visitors, the Russian anthem is played through loudspeakers on the beach every day. Videos show people in bathing suits getting to their feet out of respect.

Vyatskoye - a village of restored houses from the 19th century about 165 miles north of Moscow - takes a subtler approach.

The museum's benefactors, an affluent couple from Yaroslavl, restored a house for themselves in Vyatskoye some years back and decided to keep going.

There are now 10 museums, including one on the theme of Russian entrepreneurialism featuring elaborate window frames, musical instruments and old bricks. There are restored banyas (Russian saunas), wells with water whose purity has not changed - its proprietors say - since it was first tested at the turn of the century and a bright green house set up to look like a home from the 19th century, when the village was populated by artisans who were experts in, among other things, roofing and sculpture.

"It allows you to look a little differently at yourself and your country," said Oleg Zharov, the complex's benefactor, a mathematician in Soviet times who said he made his money in purification systems for the oil industry and in real estate.

Visitors have voted with their feet. More than 80,000 visited the complex last year, Mr. Zharov said, enough to have it pay for itself for the first time in the five years since it opened. He does not expect ever to make up the $20 million investment.

The museum complex includes a hotel and a restaurant, where the walls are dotted with turn-of-the-century clocks. (In a nod to the patriotic mood, some salads are named after religious and political leaders, including Nikolai Patrushev, the current secretary of the Russian Security Council. Its main ingredients are cherry tomatoes, pieces of beef and olives.)

Pavel Yegorov and his wife, Elena Yegorova, were sipping beer outside the restaurant on a recent Tuesday after visiting four of the museums. They had left their Moscow apartment before dawn to reach Vyatskoye in time for lunch, their first stop in a week of travel around the Golden Ring, a series of picturesque towns and cities in western Russia known for onion-domed churches and fortresses.

Last year, they traveled by train through France and Switzerland. They loved it, but they could not afford anything like that this year.

"Russia is cheaper!" said Mr. Yegorov, grinning, when asked why they had come.

There were downsides. At breakfast, the only coffee was instant. The Internet did not work in the hotel (though they did not need it anyway). The museums did not open until 11 a.m., so they had to wait for two hours after breakfast.

Still, they were happy.

"This is ours, our native land," he said, reclining in a large plastic chair. "Look, they gave me a pickle with my beer. In Geneva, they wouldn't have done that."

The museums were already open when the modern white tour bus arrived from Yaroslavl, and the visitors pored over their contents. There was a big book of confessions from the local church, old kitchen utensils and musical instruments, even an old-fashioned dental drill.

"Joy isn't the word," said Olga Alexandrovna, a retired accountant who was writing effusive comments in the guest book. "It's spirituality. To see what we were. To see what we were able to do."

Ms. Korovina, the businesswoman, said learning about the past satisfied a craving she and her friends were experiencing as Russians.

"Now Russians have really started to rise from their knees," she said. "You feel really proud, like you can spread your wings and your heart beats stronger."

Sophia Kishkovsky, Alexandra Odynova, and Nikolay Khalip contributed reporting from Moscow.

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#30
Moscow Times
August 31, 2015
Preparing a Child for a School Year Gets Too Expensive For Russian Parents
By Anastasia Bazenkova

As Russian children get ready to start a new school year this week, their parents have to cough up a record amount of money to equip them with everything they need, according to the latest study by a state-run pollster.

An average Russian family will spend almost 20,000 rubles ($300) to prepare a child for the new school year. School-related expenses have risen by 47 percent compared to last year and 225 percent compared to 2005, the survey by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) issued on Friday said.

Getting a child ready for the new school year is more expensive than ever, VTsIOM's sociologists said.

Dramatically increased expenses are a big challenge for the budgets of the Russian families.

"We had to save money for three months to buy all the necessary things for the new school year," said Yulia Yurova, mother of a Year-Two student. The family spent nearly twice more than last year preparing their daughter for school, Yurova said.

The residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg will spend more than an average Russian family. Those living in Russia's biggest cities are planning to spend or have already spent 30,818 rubles ($490) on getting all the necessary school supplies, according to the survey.

The biggest expense for parents of schoolchildren is traditionally a school uniform, sportswear and indoor shoes. However, this year the cost of these items, according to the parents, have risen to 7,191 rubles ($114), compared to 4,709 rubles last year.

Meanwhile the average Russian salary as of July is 33,980 rubles ($505).

All school-related costs have increased this year, apart from voluntary donations made by parents for the benefit of the school, according to the parents, the survey said.

School clothing is followed by textbooks and paper notebooks on the list of school-related costs. This year the parents of schoolchildren are planning to spend on average of 3,077 rubles ($47) on these items, 60 percent more than last year, the survey said.

A schoolbag ranked third among the most expensive school supplies. The average family is planning to spend 2,855 rubles ($45) this year, up from 1,940 ($31) last year.

The survey was conducted from Aug. 22-23, among 1600 respondents in 46 Russian regions.The margin error does not exceed 3.5 percent, according to VTsIOM.

Despite the fact that prices for school supplies have increased this year, Yurova said they had tried to avoid buying low-quality, cheap items.

If you buy the cheapest pencils, children just can't write with them properly, she said.

Therefore the costs of Yurova's family were considerably higher than the average budget of Moscow residents buying school supplies.

However, Yurova said they still tried to find ways to cut expenses wherever possible.

"For example, I found the uniform in a store and later bought it online because it was cheaper," she said.

According to Igor Berezin, president of the Guild of Marketing Specialists of Russia, it is too early to reach conclusions on how much parents will spend on school supplies this year, as most of the school shopping is being done now or in September.

The expenses of parents will definitely increase this year as the prices for school supplies have climbed by up to 20 percent over the year, he said.

However, the actual expenses of the parents may turn out to be lower than the survey suggests, according to Berezin.

There is a hysteria resulting from the rising prices, so parents might subconsciously prepare themselves to spend twice as much as last year, Berezin said.

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 #31
Moscow Times
August 31, 2015
Who Really Needs Social Assistance in Russia?
By Vladimir Nazarov and Olesya Feoktistova
Vladimir Nazarov is director of the Financial Research Institute of the Russian Finance Ministry. Olesya Feoktistova is a senior fellow of the Center of Budget Policy at the Financial Research Institute of the Russian Finance Ministry.

The current economic crisis has already contributed to an increase in those living below the poverty line in Russia. The poverty rate rose to 15.9 percent in the first quarter of this year - 2.1 percent higher than in the first quarter of 2014. Between January and June 2015, the number of citizens with incomes below subsistence level rose from 19.8 million to 22.9 million people.

The Russian government spends a substantial amount of money to support the needy population. In 2014, expenditures on pensions and social assistance amounted to 8.6 percent of the GDP and 3.3 percent of the GDP respectively.

However, the allocation of these resources does not depend on the revenues of recipients. The evidence is the fact that just 5 percent of all social expenditures are allocated for means-tested programs. At the same time, the share of poor households among targeted social assistance recipients is no more than 40 percent. Moreover, targeted social benefits amount to less than 10 percent of recipients' revenue.

To raise the revenues of these households to subsistence level, and to nullify the number of poor families raising children, it is sufficient to spend 1 percent of GDP and 0.5 percent of the GDP, respectively. The reallocation of 15 percent of social expenditures from the well-off to the poorest population groups will dramatically reduce the number of households with income levels below subsistence level.

Unfortunately, the current social assistance system does not provide support for those who really need it. There are more than 760 measures of social support used by the federal government. The provision of the most of them depends on recipients' social status rather than on their income levels.

Another example is benefits that are allocated to the victims of radiation accidents (1.58 million people fall into this category). In 2014, the government spent 11.39 billion rubles to pay these residents monthly benefits; and as a result, the average size of the benefits - per person - amounted to less than 600 rubles. Such a sum simply cannot be enough for the health care these people need. This brings to light the main drawback of the social assistance system: The number of support measures is too large and they have no real effect.

In July, the Labor Ministry proposed changing the rules that regulate the allocation of social benefits at the regional level. Thus, programs for families that raise children and use kindergarten services will have a means-tested character. The support for rural teachers and doctors will be changed in the same way. However, the nature of the social assistance programs will not be modified at the federal level. The crisis should have been reason enough to take steps to make the social support system more targeted.

First, the government should stop paying benefits for families of those citizens whose merits have been distinguished by the state: The assistance should be provided just for these citizens and not for their relatives (Heroes of Russia, veterans of the Great Patriotic War, etc). Second, the Cabinet should refuse to pay money to those who work in harmful conditions or who may suffer from radiation, as these groups of people should receive free medical treatment.

Third, civil servants and young researchers should not be given monetary benefits to buy real estate: These social categories should be provided with subsidized mortgage loans in and of themselves.

In the medium-term, the government should establish a universal targeted social assistance based on means-tested principles. Will the Cabinet hunker down and do this? Doing so will help soften the blows of the crisis. The decision, however, is all a matter of political choice.

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 #32
New York Times
August 31, 2015
A Tug of War Over Gulag History in Russia's North
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

SOLOVETSKY ISLANDS, Russia - Yuri Brodsky, who has dedicated his life to exposing the dark secrets of the ancient Solovetsky Monastery, pointed at a small, dirty courtyard window blocked by a crooked red brick wall.

The bricks were a rare leftover from the nearly two decades when the fortresslike monastery served as the Soviet Union's first gulag, remnants of a horrific period initially detailed by the Nobel laureate and historian Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn.

"All traces of the labor camp are gradually being destroyed and removed," said Mr. Brodsky, a disheveled figure with short white hair.

Russia has been wrangling over how to commemorate the gulag victims, an emotionally charged process that culminated this month when Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev recognized the millions who suffered under Soviet political repression.

Activists were encouraged by a directive he signed, but expressed several misgivings. First, it was essentially nonbinding, with no legal or budgetary weight. Second, it was Mr. Medvedev who signed it, not the man who matters most in Russia, President Vladimir V. Putin.

Finally, it contradicted what has actually been happening in places like Solovetsky: downplaying the legacy of oppression. For the first time since the fall of communism, neither the church nor the government sent a representative to an annual ceremony on Aug. 7 commemorating the camp's victims.

Likewise, Perm-36, a former gulag that had been preserved as a museum of political repression, was transformed this year into one that focuses on the camp's labor history. A recent exhibition there extolled Perm-36's achievements in timber production.

Such dilution has become more prevalent, especially at sites now controlled by the Russian Orthodox Church. Critics say the church sidesteps questions of accountability as it emphasizes the ecclesiastical role of these sites.

That trend produced an intense tug-of-war over the remote islands on which the monastery is found. The Solovetsky Islands, informally known as Solovki, are in the White Sea 100 miles below the Arctic Circle.

The debate pits monks and religious pilgrims against those who believe the site should be consecrated to the countless political prisoners who died here. Villagers who fear expulsion by the church have been drawn into the argument too, as have tour operators who promote the area's spare beauty and the chance to view beluga whales and other wildlife. Unesco is also involved, warning that excessive reconstruction might jeopardize the status of the fortified monastery, founded in 1436, as a World Heritage site.

The church sees the monastery as an important testament to the power of faith because it has survived so long in such a remote location.

"Many national holy shrines were created in desertlike silence, but as time went by, cities rose around them," the monastery's abbot, Archimandrite Porfiry, said in an emailed response to written questions. "At Solovki it is easy to find solitude, so important for the soul."

He characterized the gulag period at the site, from 1923 to 1939, as a mere interlude in the monastery's long history. However, it looms large for those who want to commemorate its victims.

For one thing, the monastery is the only place where the Bolshevik government ever - albeit briefly - acknowledged holding political prisoners. (The czars used it for that purpose, too, until 1903.) Among the monastery's first political prisoners were Russian leftists who allied with the Bolsheviks during the revolution.

"This is a very complicated problem," said Arseny B. Roginsky, chairman of Memorial, an organization founded in 1992 to commemorate Stalin's victims, but which is now frequently attacked by Putin loyalists as a nest of "foreign agents."

Mr. Roginsky said the clergy at Solovetsky and other sites pray for the dead without examining culpability. "There are two memories competing there," he said. "Our memory is looking for who is guilty, and the church is not. The state feels safe passing this memory to the church."

Several historians said that was especially true under Mr. Putin, who once worked for the K.G.B., the secret police agency whose precursors created the camp. In Mr. Solzhenitsyn's telling, the labor camp system was a secret police experiment that spawned a prolonged nightmare, "born and come to maturity on Solovki."

In the long days of the Arctic summer, it is hard to picture the dystopian scenes described by camp survivors. The main island, covered by thick pine forests and dotted with lakes, has a bucolic if dilapidated air. Cows and goats graze freely outside the monastery walls, in a village with a year-round population of about 1,000.

The islands were considered sacred long before the monastery was built; pre-Christian cultures left behind complex stone labyrinths, built as portals to the afterlife. The monastery's turreted granite walls were finished around 1601, and withstood a British naval bombardment during the Crimean War.

When Mr. Brodsky, 69, first visited the islands in 1970, many traces of the long-closed labor camp remained. An engineer and photographer, Mr. Brodsky began documenting it all. He tracked down camp survivors across Russia, at a time when even mentioning the Solovki gulag was taboo. The K.G.B. learned of his project and tried to get him fired.

After the Soviet Union collapsed and some archives were opened, Mr. Brodsky created an exhibit and wrote a book, "Solovki," a 527-page compendium of documents, photographs and testimony from former prisoners.

Former prisoners told him that inmates worked 12 hours a day at arduous tasks like felling trees, often with little more than their bare hands. They wore whatever clothes they were arrested in, which eventually fell to rags. In the winter they slept in piles to ward off the icy cold; in the summer, the mosquitoes were so aggressive that one excruciating punishment was simply to be tied up naked outdoors. A remote church on Sekirnaya Hill became a "special punishment chamber"; few sent there returned.

"The idea of this camp was to change someone from an individual into part of an anonymous crowd," Mr. Brodsky said. It cost many of them their lives, though the overall toll has never been publicly revealed.

The monks - these days, about 100 - began restoring the monastery a decade ago. Archimandrite Porfiry, the abbot, said major reconstruction was necessary because many of the buildings were in terrible shape. The government plans to spend about $1.7 million a year for five years there.

Mr. Brodsky said the monks whittled away at his exhibition in the monastery, and eventually pushed it out. In 2011, the Ministry of Culture replaced the exhibit with a small museum in a former barracks in the village, with the abbot as director. Mr. Brodsky says the museum soft-pedals gulag life by emphasizing gentler aspects like the prison theater. The only exhibit within the monastery grounds now focuses on the repression of the clergy.

The abbot said it was appropriate to house the gulag museum in a building built for the camp, and some visitors, like Vitaly Korzhikhin, 24, agreed. "People come to the monastery for different purposes - some seek salvation or support," said Mr. Korzhikhin, a churchgoing mobile phone engineer. "For them, it would be unpleasant to see this exhibition inside the walls."

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, a senior church official, said that in the last years of the Soviet Union, the monastery was plagued by "barbarous tourism," including camping, loud music and public drunkenness.

"It is a place of prayer, it is place of mourning, it is where many innocent people, who were outstanding representatives of the intelligentsia, died," Father Chaplin said. "It is a memorial place for many people, believers and not. It should remain such a memorial place."

Even so, efforts to commemorate gulag victims without church approval have tended to disappear. The Memorial organization erected a monument in 2003 to the first six political prisoners who were shot, for example, but the stone slabs vanished within days.

The commemoration tug of war has played out in other odd ways. A depiction of the monastery on Russia's 500-ruble note initially showed it as it was during the gulag period - without crosses. The image was later altered under church pressure.

The whole story of Solovki deserves to be studied and remembered, Mr. Brodsky said, but with Russia in such a nationalist mood, he saw little hope of that.

"History cannot be changed, but it can be analyzed," he said. "We should admit the errors we made. Repentance does not mean we should hide our heads under the floor; rather, we should look back and think about the path we followed."

Nikolay Khalip contributed reporting.

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#33
http://newcoldwar.org
August 27, 2015
Russian government announces sweeping policy to commemorate repressions of Soviet era

The government of Russia has announced a sweeping new policy commemorating the victims of past repressions during the era of the Soviet Union. The 'State Policy on Commemorating the Memory of Victims of Political Repression' was signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on August 15 and published on the government's website on August 18. The announcement by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation is here in English  and is reproduced below.

The policy was developed by order of President Vladimir Putin, the presidential administration and the Human Rights Council. The HRC requested its formulation in a meeting with the president last October.

The Russian news agency TASS publishes a commentary on the policy on August 19 by Lyudmila Alexandrova . The writer cites the government document: "Russia cannot become a full-fledged state ruled by law or occupy a leading position in the world community unless it memorializes the millions of its citizens who perished during the years of political repressions."

Alexandrova continues:

The document sets out the task of laying down the conditions for free access to archival materials and for educational and informative programmes related to repressions and their inclusion in TV and radio schedules as well as in the curricula of secondary schools.

The document envisions a network of museums and memorial sites, creation of an all-Russia Memory Book and identification of mass burials of those purged in the epoch of political repressions.

In addition to it, results of a competition for the best conception of an all-Russia monument to the victims of repressions will be summed up on October 30 when the nation marks the Day of Memory of Political Repression Victims, which will also be erected at the President's instruction.

Publication of this concept crowns four years of efforts on the part of the Presidential Council for Human Rights and the Kremlin Administration, Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily quotes Sergei Krivenko, a members of the board of the Memorial International Society.

The entire text of the TASS article is below.

News of this decision by the Russian government is hard to find in English. Two commentaries in The Moscow Times and in Deutsche Welle consist of strident editorial arguments belittling the significance of the Russian government decision. Western media has, typically, self-censored any reporting of the significant decision.

--

Russia condemns political repressions officially
New reports by Lyudmila Alexandrova, TASS, Aug. 19, 2015

MOSCOW-Adoption of a state concept of the policy on monumentalizing the memory of victims of political repressions is an extremely important event that signals the start of huge and complicated work, as the number of Russians who treat political repressions tolerantly has been growing of late, experts say.

The Russian government has endorsed the concept of a state policy on memorializing the victims of political repressions.

"Russia cannot become a full-fledged state ruled by law or occupy a leading position in the world community unless it memorializes the millions of its citizens who perished during the years of political repressions," the document says.

It puts forward the task of laying down the conditions for a free access to archival materials, educational and informative programmes related to repressions and their inclusion in the TV and radio schedules, as well as in the curricula of secondary schools.

The document also envisions a network of museums and memorial sites, creation of an all-Russia Memory Book, and identification of mass burials of those purged in the epoch of political repressions.

In addition to it, results of a competition for the best conception of an all-Russia monument to the victims of repressions will be summed up on October 30 when the nation marks the Day of Memory of Political Repression Victims, which will also be erected at the President's instruction.

Publication of this concept crowns four years of efforts on the part of the Presidential Council for Human Rights and the Kremlin Administration, Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily quotes Sergei Krivenko, a members of the board of the Memorial International Society.

An inter-departmental commission set up specifically for this purpose had come to face with instances of bitter resistance," Krivenko said. "There are forces in this country that try to put up monuments to Stalin and don't want any discussions on the victims of repressions."

The number of immediate victims of Stalin's purges that lasted from the end of the 1920's through to the beginning of the 1950's runs into millions of people but the exact figure is unknown.

A poll taken by Levada Center in May showed that the percentage of Russians believing the sacrifices the Soviet nation had suffered during the Stalinist epoch were justified by the greatness of the then objectives and results achieved had risen from 25% in 2012 to 45% in 2015.

"Such is the outcome of Stalin's popularization by separate politicians and in some TV shows," said Dr. Valery Khomyakov, the Director General of the Center for National Strategy.

Read also Putin: Nazism, Stalinism can't be equalized What's behind Russian Communists' plans for re-creating monuments to Stalin Russia remembers victims of political repression Russia revives May Day demonstration tradition on Red Square

"On the face of it, the number of programmes that would expose the reality of Stalin's regime has become far fewer compared with the 1990's or the early 2000's," he went on.

Khomyakov supported endorsement of the concept. "I'd like to believe this is the beginning of huge, thorny but important work. It's important to tell the nation the full scope of truth about events of the 1930's through the 1950's and the role that Stalin and his henchmen played then. It's important because we're still walking up and down the city streets named after them."

The government's concept is a signal that the government has set a task of this kind for itself and what is important now is to ensure that this effort does not melt down into a yet another campaign with a zero effect, he said.

Adoption of the concept is critically important if it is followed by practical steps, agrees Lev Ponomaryov, the executive director of the Movement for the Rights of Man.

"I surely support the proposal to include programmes on victims of political repressions in the TV channel schedules, since television is the prime instrument in shaping up the public opinion," he told TASS. "Let's wait and see the concrete actions that will be made in this sphere."

As for this moment, however, the official position of the federal government and the action of regional and/or local authorities on the issue do not match one another while the attempts on the part of some political forces to whitewash Stalin and even to erect monuments to him do not always meet with a resounding rebuff, Ponomaryov said.

--

Endorsing the Government policy concept for the remembrance of victims of political reprisals
By the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, 18 August 2015 07:30

The resolutions on the remembrance of victims of political reprisals are meant to promote the state partnership with civil society, contacts between generations, the succession of cultural experience, and youth patriotism.

Reference

The decree has been submitted by the Ministry of Justice in compliance with the presidential order summarising the meeting of the Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation of 14 October 2014 (No Pr-2783, Para 2, of 2 December 2014).

The present decree approves the Government Policy Concept for the Remembrance of Victims of Political Reprisals (hereafter, Concept).

The Concept bases on the premises of the Concept of Long-Term Socio-economic Development of the Russian Federation until 2020, approved by Government Decree No 1662-r of 17 November 2008. The draft Concept complied with the National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation to 2020, approved by Presidential Order No 537 of 12 May 2009, the Strategy of State Nationalities Policy of the Russian Federation through 2025, approved by Presidential Order No 1666 of 19 December 2012, and the state programme, Culture and Tourism Development, 2013-2020, approved by Government Decree No 2567-r pf 27 December 2012.

The Concept pursues the following key goals:

- to elaborate and implement an effective state policy for practical patriotism and the remembrance of victims of political reprisals;

- to provide the social conditions necessary for Russia's innovative development based on the active cooperation of state and civil society institutions;

- to enhance personal intellectual and cultural potential;

- to promote the nation's moral health, particularly through practical patriotism, in partnership with public organisations and religious communities;

- to guarantee free public access to archival and other materials pertaining to political reprisals;

- to guarantee public access to memorials of victims of political reprisals; and,

- to launch relevant educational programmes.

The implementation of the Concept envisages the establishment of museums, memorial complexes and exhibitions dedicated to the history of political reprisals, the elaboration of relevant educational programmes, learning materials and databases, the publication of books, magazines, and audio and video materials, research on the topic, conferences, seminars, etc.

The Concept is envisaged as being implemented in two stages: 2015-2016 and 2017-2019.

The centenary of the 1917 events and the 80th anniversary of the year 1937 both fall on 2017.

The present resolutions on the remembrance of victims of political reprisals are meant to promote the state partnership with civil society, contacts between generations, the succession of cultural experience, and youth patriotism.
 

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 #34
Moscow Times
August 31, 2015
Russians Are Facing a Stark Choice
By Mark Adomanis
Mark Adomanis is an MA/MBA candidate at the University of Pennsylvania's Lauder Institute.

Back in May, it seemed as if the worst was over for Russia. Oil was cautiously rebounding into the $70 a barrel range, the economy (although clearly shrinking) was faring modestly better than expectations, inflation (although high) was starting to moderate, and the ruble had recovered a good deal of its earlier losses against the dollar, and the Central Bank was confident enough in the economy's prospects to begin gradually ratcheting down its emergency rate increase.

Yes, quite a lot of economic and financial damage had already been done, popular living standards were strongly impacted by the ruble crisis and the subsequent spike in inflation and the banking sector was being held together with bubblegum and duct-tape, but a plausible narrative could be constructed in which Russia had gone toe-to-toe with the West and emerged a bit scuffed but basically intact.

Now, however, it is obvious for all to see that Russia is in for a much rougher ride than initially expected. Pretty much all of the trends that, in the spring, served as the basis of cautious optimism have reversed. Even after a modest rally earlier this week, the price of Brent crude sits around $50 a barrel, substantially lower than it was just a few months ago. Persistent oversupply makes any short-term rally an unlikely prospect.

The ruble, too, has fared quite poorly: over the past three months it has lost about 20 percent of its value against the dollar, and as recently as last week was flirting with all-time lows. Considering what is expected to happen with oil prices, a ruble rally also seems, if not impossible, highly unlikely. This makes another spike in inflation, and the attendant decline in living standards, essentially inevitable.

Russia's recession, then, will be sharper, longer, and more painful than initially anticipated. And it's not just because of the "meddlesome" West or its financial sanctions. Russia is squarely in the crosshairs of some ongoing changes in the world economy, changes that are going to make the next few years a lot more challenging than the past few.

During the early and mid 2000's Russia was buoyed by seemingly insatiable Chinese demand for raw materials. Prices for a wide range of commodities hit historic highs and Russia, as the world's largest commodity exporter, benefited enormously.

Now, however, that story is also being turned on its head. The headlines now are not about a China that is surging to world dominance but about a China with a scary debt overhang, a stock-market bubble, and a real economy that is growing at its slowest rate in over 30 years. Ever since the standoff over Ukraine escalated last year, Russia has quite consciously decided to cast its lot with China. That now appears to have been a much riskier decision than anyone expected at the time.

As is becoming increasingly clear, Russia needs to be prepared to deal with a new normal in which the conditions of the world economy, broadly considered, are a hindrance and not a help. For at least the next several years Russia will not be able to count on any positive "headwinds" from the rest of the globe: if it wants to grow, it's going to have to work for it.

If the Russian authorities have a plan for dealing with this new reality, aside from allowing the ruble to freely float, they've kept uncharacteristically mum. Oh yes there's been lots of talk about "import substitution" but it's been just that: talk.

There's been no progress of any kind in changing the regulatory and business climate to promote investment, and there's been no substantive progress in developing transport infrastructure to reduce Russia's (notoriously high) transportation costs. There's just a hand-wave about "domestic producers" and some vague gestures toward the patriotism of Russian consumers. First-year MBA students have produced more coherent strategies.

This is the point at which most Western commentators will go off on an extended rant about Russians' supposedly innate insouciance, passivity, or stupidity, drawing liberally on history to argue that the country has some kind of fatal flaw within its collective DNA.

This doesn't seem to be a terribly effective tactic, as it inevitably degenerates into an orgy of whataboutism and pop history. People, understandably, tend to get a bit defensive

So, rather than proscribe what Russians should think or how they should think it, I will simply note that Russia currently faces a choice about what type of country it wants to be. It can be a place with an integrated, open, and transparent economy, an economy that trades extensively with countries near and far and that is open to and accepting of foreign investment. Or it can be a place that focuses on military "glory" and on the protection of "the Russian world" from the forces of darkness.

These are very different and mutually exclusive trajectories. A country obsessed with the protection of its ethnic brethren is unlikely to be very economically dynamic, and a country with an open, liberal economy is unlikely to be overly concerned with hunting imaginary "Nazis."

Given the choice between the refrigerator (consumer goods) and the television (patriotic propaganda) I certainly know which one I would choose. Russians need to choose for themselves, but if they vote for the television (as polls strongly suggest they would!) they should be aware of the costs

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 #35
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
August 31, 2015
How Russia plans to win the Arctic
Russia is beginning to activate its presence in the Arctic and develop new infrastructure for trade, shipping and resource extraction. In addition, Russia is boosting its ability to project military force in the Arctic region.
By Cameron Gordon Judge-Becker
Cameron Gordon Judge-Becker is a rising junior at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, where he studies political science and the Russian language. For the month of June, Cameron worked as Russia Direct's first summer intern, and will return to Russia in September 2015 to continue his Russian language studies at Novgorod State University.
[Charts here http://www.russia-direct.org/analysis/how-russia-plans-win-arctic]

Five countries possess land and territorial waters in the Arctic: Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the U.S. These five countries claim "exclusive economic zones" (EEZs), which extend to up to 200 miles from their coasts.

Control of the Arctic has strategic economic implications not only for the five Arctic powers but also for the world. Within the next decade, the melting polar ice will facilitate the creation of new shipping lanes. A proposed Russian Northern Sea Route from Europe to East Asia would be 13 days or 40 percent shorter than the existing route through the Suez Canal. This would make it the number one trade route in the world and would also add strategic importance to Russia, as it controls this route.

Furthermore, the U.S. estimates that 15 percent of the world's oil and up to 30 percent of its natural gas lie in the Arctic seabed, making the pursuit of the Arctic all the more intense.

Russia extends its Arctic territorial claims

Russia has expanding Arctic territorial ambitions. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) allowed Russia to make claims to an extended continental shelf, giving it exclusive rights to the territory and resources of that shelf area. In March 2014, Russia successfully petitioned the UN to accept its territorial claim over the Peanut Hole, an area beyond the Russia EEZ and rich in resources.

In August 2015 Russia filed another application with the UN to expand the boundaries of the Russian continental shelf in the Arctic. Moscow submitted a similar claim in 2002, but the UN rejected it for lack of scientific support. The Russian application covers an underwater space covering an area of about 1.2 million square kilometers at a distance of over 350 nautical miles from the coast. To justify this bid for expansion, Russian experts used extensive scientific data collected during many years of Arctic research.

Not less importantly, Russia's claims on these vast swaths of territory in Arctic are reinforced by its ability to project force in the region. Its fleet of several dozens of icebreakers, including nuclear, as compared to America's six icebreakers, gives Russia an economic and military advantage in the Arctic.Icebreakers fleet of five Arctic states

The Deputy Prime Minister of Russia in charge of the defense industry, Dmitry Rogozin, stated that Russia has already launched the construction of a new nuclear icebreaker fleet and that three units will start their operations by 2017, 2019 and 2020, respectively.

How the Arctic fits into the new Russian naval doctrine

On the Navy Day festivities on July 26, 2015 Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the approval of a new Maritime Doctrine-2015 for the Russian Federation. The doctrine, which codifies the country's naval priorities, strategy, and procurement, was initially adopted in 2001.

However, since 2001, according to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, "The international political situation has changed." In addition, there has been "the objective strengthening of Russia as a great naval power." These factors served as the two main drivers for an update in Russia's maritime doctrine.

By the "changed international situation," Rogozin is referring to NATO's military infrastructure expansion towards Russian borders, which is seen as a major threat to Russian national security. The document gives special attention to the Atlantic and the Arctic. The Deputy Prime Minister explains: "Attention to the Atlantic stems from NATO's active development and the alliance approaching our borders."

At the same time, the focus on the Arctic is explained by the growth of the Northern Sea Route, the need for free entry into the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the resource wealth of the continental shelf, which is rich with oil and gas.

This is why the doctrine develops the shipbuilding strategy that aims to resurrect the Russian shipbuilding sector, which has been in decline over the past 10 to 15 years. It will allow enforcement of the Russian naval presence in the high seas. Russia also plans to update the structure and performance of the Northern fleets.

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 #36
New York Times
August 30, 2015
U.S. Is Playing Catch-Up With Russia in Scramble for the Arctic
By STEVEN LEE MYERS

ABOARD COAST GUARD CUTTER ALEX HALEY, in the Chukchi Sea - With warming seas creating new opportunities at the top of the world, nations are scrambling over the Arctic - its territorial waters, transit routes and especially its natural resources - in a rivalry some already call a new Cold War.

When President Obama travels to Alaska on Monday, becoming the first president to venture above the Arctic Circle while in office, he hopes to focus attention on the effects of climate change on the Arctic. Some lawmakers in Congress, analysts, and even some government officials say the United States is lagging behind other nations, chief among them Russia, in preparing for the new environmental, economic and geopolitical realities facing the region.

"We have been for some time clamoring about our nation's lack of capacity to sustain any meaningful presence in the Arctic," said Adm. Paul F. Zukunft, the Coast Guard's commandant.

Aboard the Alex Haley, the increased activity in the Arctic was obvious in the deep blue waters of the Chukchi Sea. While the cutter patrolled one day this month, vessels began to appear one after another on radar as this ship cleared the western edge of Alaska and cruised north of the Arctic Circle.

There were three tugs hauling giant barges to ExxonMobil's onshore natural gas project east of Prudhoe Bay. To the east, a flotilla of ships and rigs lingered at the spot where Royal Dutch Shell began drilling for oil this month. Not far away, across America's maritime border, convoys of container ships and military vessels were traversing the route that Russia dreams of turning into a new Suez Canal.

The cutter, a former Navy salvage vessel built nearly five decades ago, has amounted to the government's only asset anywhere nearby to respond to an accident, oil spill or incursion into America's territory or exclusive economic zone in the Arctic.

To deal with the growing numbers of vessels sluicing north through the Bering Strait, the Coast Guard has had to divert ships like the Alex Haley from other core missions, like policing American fisheries and interdicting drugs. The service's fleet is aging, especially the nation's only two icebreakers. (The United States Navy rarely operates in the Arctic.) Underwater charting is paltry, while telecommunications remain sparse above the highest latitudes. Alaska's far north lacks deepwater port facilities to support increased maritime activity.

All these shortcomings require investments that political gridlock, budget constraints and bureaucracy have held up for years.

Russia, by contrast, is building 10 new search-and-rescue stations, strung like a necklace of pearls at ports along half of the Arctic shoreline. More provocatively, it has also significantly increased its military presence, reopening bases abandoned after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Russia is far from the only rival - or potential one - in the Arctic. China, South Korea and Singapore have increasingly explored the possibility that commercial cargo could be shipped to European markets across waters - outside Russia's control - that scientists predict could, by 2030, be ice-free for much of the summer.

In 2012, with great fanfare, China sent a refurbished icebreaker, the Xuelong, or Snow Dragon, across one such route. Signaling its ambitions to be a "polar expedition power," China is now building a second icebreaker, giving it an icebreaking fleet equal to America's. Russia, by far the largest Arctic nation, has 41 in all.

"The United States really isn't even in this game," Admiral Zukunft said at a conference in Washington this year.

He lamented the lack of urgency in Washington, contrasting it with the challenges of the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union confronted each other in the Arctic and beyond. "When Russia put Sputnik in outer space, did we sit with our hands in pocket with great fascination and say, 'Good for Mother Russia'?"

Polar Opposites

"The Arctic is one of our planet's last great frontiers," Mr. Obama declared when he introduced a national strategy for the region in May 2013. The strategy outlined the challenges and opportunities created by diminishing sea ice - from the harsh effects on wildlife and native residents to the accessibility of oil, gas and mineral deposits, estimated by the United States Geological Survey to include 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and 30 percent of its natural gas.

In January, the president created an Arctic Executive Steering Committee, led by the director of the White House's Office of Science and Technology, John P. Holdren. The committee is trying to prioritize the demands for ships, equipment and personnel at a time of constrained budgets.

Dr. Holdren said in an interview that administration officials were trying "to get our arms around matching the resources and the commitment we can bring to bear with the magnitude of the opportunities and the challenges" in the Arctic.

What kind of frontier the Arctic will be - an ecological preserve or an economic engine, an area of international cooperation or confrontation - is now the question at the center of the unfolding geopolitical competition. An increasing divergence over the answer has deeply divided the United States and its allies on one side and Russia on the other.

Since returning to the Kremlin for a third term in 2012, President Vladimir V. Putin has sought to restore Russia's pre-eminence in its northern reaches - economically and militarily - with zeal that a new report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies compared to the Soviet Union's efforts to establish a "Red Arctic" in the 1930s. The report's title echoed the rising tensions caused by Russia's actions in the Arctic: "The New Ice Curtain."

Decades of cooperation in the Arctic Council, which includes Russia, the United States and six other Arctic states, all but ended with Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the continuing war in eastern Ukraine. In March, Russia conducted an unannounced military exercise that was one of the largest ever in the far north. It involved 45,000 troops, as well as dozens of ships and submarines, including those in its strategic nuclear arsenal, from the Northern Fleet, based in Murmansk.

The first of two new army brigades - each expected to grow to more than 3,600 soldiers - deployed to a military base only 30 miles from the Finnish border. The other will be deployed on the Yamal Peninsula, where many of Russia's new investments in energy resources on shore are. Mr. Putin has pursued the buildup as if a 2013 protest by Greenpeace International at the site of Russia's first offshore oil platform above the Arctic Circle was the vanguard of a more ominous invader.

"Oil and gas production facilities, loading terminals and pipelines should be reliably protected from terrorists and other potential threats," Mr. Putin said when detailing the military buildup last year. "Nothing can be treated as trivial here."

In Washington and other NATO capitals, Russia's military moves are seen as provocative - and potentially destabilizing.

In the wake of the conflict in Ukraine, Russia has intensified air patrols probing NATO's borders, including in the Arctic. In February, Norwegian fighter jets intercepted six Russian aircraft off Norway's northern tip. Similar Russian flights occurred last year off Alaska and in the Beaufort Sea, prompting American and Canadian jets to intercept them. Russia's naval forces have also increased patrols, venturing farther into Arctic waters. Of particular concern, officials said, has been Russia's deployment of air defenses in the far north, including surface-to-air missiles whose main purpose is to counter aerial incursions that only the United States or NATO members could conceivably carry out in the Arctic.

"We see the Arctic as a global commons," a senior Obama administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss matters of national security. "It's not apparent the Russians see it the same way we do."

Russia has also sought to assert its sovereignty in the Arctic through diplomacy. This month, Russia resubmitted a claim to the United Nations to a vast area of the Arctic Ocean - 463,000 square miles, about the size of South Africa - based on the geological extension of its continental shelf.

The commission that reviews claims under the Convention on the Law of the Sea rejected a similar one filed in 2001, citing insufficient scientific evidence. But Russia, along with Canada and Denmark (through its administration of Greenland), have pressed ahead with competing stakes. Russia signaled its ambitions - symbolically at least - as early as 2007 when it sent two submersibles 14,000 feet down to seabed beneath the North Pole and planted a titanium Russian flag.

Although the commission might not rule for years, Russia's move underscored the priority the Kremlin has given to expanding its sovereignty. The United States, by contrast, has not even ratified the law of the sea treaty, leaving it on the sidelines of territorial jockeying.

"Nobody cared too much about these sectors," said Andrei A. Smirnov, deputy director for operations at Atomflot, which operates Russia's fleet of six nuclear-powered icebreakers, "but when it turned out that 40 percent of confirmed oil and gas deposits were there, everybody became interested in who owns what."

Some have questioned whether Russia, whose economy is sinking under the weight of sanctions and the falling price of oil, can sustain its efforts in the Arctic.

"It is rather difficult to find rationale for this very pronounced priority in the allocation of increasingly scarce resources," said Pavel K. Baev of the Peace Research Institute Oslo. He added that Russian claims that it was protecting its economic interests from NATO were "entirely fictitious."

"The only challenge to Russian exploitation of the Arctic came from Greenpeace," he said.

American commanders are watching warily. The United States and its NATO allies still have significant military forces - including missile defenses and plenty of air power - in the Arctic, but the Army is considering reducing its two brigades in Alaska. The Navy, which has no ice-capable warships, acknowledged in a report last year that it had little experience operating in the Arctic Ocean, notwithstanding decades of submarine operations during the Cold War. While it saw little need for new assets immediately, it predicted that could change.

Adm. William E. Gortney, head of the Pentagon's Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, said that Russia was increasing its capabilities after years of neglect but did not represent a meaningful threat, yet. "We're seeing activity in the Arctic, but it hasn't manifested in significant change at this point," he said in a recent interview.

Despite concerns over the military buildup, others said that some of Russia's moves were benign efforts to ensure the safety of ships on its Northern Sea Route, which could slash the time it takes to ship goods from Asia to Europe. Russia had pledged to take those steps as an Arctic Council member.

"Some of the things I see them doing - in terms of building up bases, telecommunications, search and rescue capabilities - are things I wish the United States was doing as well," said Robert J. Papp Jr., a retired admiral and former commandant of the Coast Guard. He is now the State Department's senior envoy on Arctic issues.

Less Ice, More Traffic

Aboard the Alex Haley, the crew made contact with each of the ships it encountered plowing the waters, recording details of the owners, courses and the number of crew members who might need to be plucked from the sea in case of disaster.

The cutter's captain, Cmdr. Seth J. Denning, was a young ensign when he first crossed the Arctic Circle just north of the Bering Strait 19 years ago. "I never really realized that the Arctic was going to open up as much as it has - enough to allow this much activity," he said. "I think it surprised many people."

What had been a brief excursion for Ensign Denning when the Arctic was choked with ice has now become routine.

The Alex Haley - named after the author of "Roots," who was a 20-year Coast Guard veteran - is one of five ships that the Coast Guard is deploying to the Arctic from June to October. It will be replaced by an advanced cutter, the Waesche, based in Alameda, Calif. The Coast Guard has also stationed two rescue helicopters at the airport at Deadhorse, the town where the Trans-Alaska Pipeline begins.

The deployments are part of an annual summer surge that was started in 2012 when Shell first explored the oil fields off Alaska's North Slope. The challenges of the new mission have been exacting, given the vast distances and limited support infrastructure on land. For several days this month the Alex Haley's only helicopter, which operates from a retractable hangar on the ship's aft was out of service, awaiting a spare part that had to be flown in on several hops from North Carolina.

This year's deployments are intended to assess the requirements for operating in the Arctic, but the expected increase in human activity there will put new demands on the service.

"As a maritime nation, we have responsibility for the safety and security of the people who are going to be using that ocean," said Mr. Papp. "And we have a responsibility to protect the ocean from the people who will be using it."

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 #37
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
August 28, 2015
Press Digest: U.S. will block Russia's geopolitical course, says Carter
RBTH presents a selection of views from leading Russian media on international events, featuring reports on a speech given by U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and the easing of rules on acquiring Russian citizenship for Ukrainian refugees, as well as analysis of a shooting rampage at a military base in the Kostroma Region.
Ilya Krol, RBTH

Pentagon chief vows to impede Russia's geopolitical course

The Kommersant business daily cites U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter as saying that the Islamic State terrorist group (ISIS) and Russia are the main threats to the United States.

The Pentagon chief made the announcement in front of servicemen at a U.S. Marine base in Pendleton, California. He describes Russia's current foreign policy as Russian President Vladimir Putin's "desire for respect for Russia's greatness" and "regret for the collapse of the Soviet Union."

"We have to impede this [Russia's foreign policy course - RBTH] from the perspective of our national security interests and also because we have important allies and partners in that part of the world, because we have important NATO obligations," said Carter.

Carter called Washington's approach to Russia "solid and balanced." "It is solid because we are developing opportunities in the military field aimed directly at restraining Russia's force. In the last 25 years we have not done this, but we are doing it now."

But at the same time, according to the Pentagon chief, the U.S. is trying to work with Russia on issues "where its geostrategic interests converge with ours." This includes terrorism, as well as interactivity with Iran and North Korea.
 
Russian citizenship to be fast-tracked for Ukrainian refugees

The centrist daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports that almost half a million Ukrainian refugees will soon be able to obtain Russian citizenship according to a simplified scheme.

The bill has already been developed by the Federal Migration Service (FMS). Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes that the FMS is suggesting to drastically ease access to Russian citizenship for refugees from southeast Ukraine and their family members. They will be relieved of such delaying bureaucratic procedures as the requirement to have resided in Russia for a certain period of time, the confirmation of a legal source of income, and the Russian language exam.

The head of the Russian government has the final decision on whether or not to given the refugees citizenship. According to Yevgeniya Bobrova, head of the migration committee at the Presidential Council on Human Rights, this was one of the conditions introduced by the presidential administration, which for a long time had refused to support the initiative.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes that with a relatively small financial outlay the government could obtain a propaganda coup, which could then be used in the information war with Ukraine and the West.
 
Kostroma soldier's friends baffled by killing spree in military camp

Journalists from the Gazeta.ru online newspaper analyze an incident at a military base in central Russia and try to understand what drove a young Russian serviceman to kill his comrades-in-arms before shooting himself.

The incident took place in the 71211 military unit at Kostroma (200 miles northeast of Moscow), where conscript Pavel Bakhtin killed four people and wounded two others. Bakhtin's acquaintances say that he was profoundly religious and had never come into conflict with his fellow servicemen. Now, after the incident, all the units at Kostroma are being subjected to a general exam to test the psychological stability of the servicemen.

"He was a great guy, very communicative," said one of Bakhtin's friends, who wished to remain anonymous because he is still serving. "I can't believe that he would start such a thing. Surely he was provoked."

One of the "personal" theories to the murder is a conflict with other servicemen or bullying, since Bakhtin was the youngest of the soldiers who died.

However, one of his friends from his native city of Yoshkar-Ola (470 miles east of Moscow) said that he had spoken with Bakhtin on the eve of the incident and that Bakhtin had not complained about anything.

However, although Bakhtin's acquaintances do not all share the theory of his psychological problems, the military units in Kostroma will all undergo a mass test. Gazeta.ru obtained this information from a serviceman from one of the units. "They said that everyone would have to take the exam," said the soldier, who also wished to remain anonymous.

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 #38
Moscow Times
August 31, 2015
Preventing War, Step by Step
By Thomas Frear
Thomas Frear is a research fellow at the European Leadership Network.

The increased frequency of military air and sea encounters between NATO and NATO partner states and the Russian Federation is a serious cause for concern among policy makers.

A recent statement by the Task Force on Cooperation in Greater Europe alludes to the possibility of a Memorandum of Understanding between NATO and Russia, as a way to determine the behavior of military units should they come into contact with their opposite numbers. This would introduce some much needed predictability into these encounters.

This memorandum builds on two bilateral agreements between the United States and the Soviet Union made during the Cold War, namely the 1972 Agreement on the Prevention of Incidents On and Over the High Seas, and the 1989 Agreement on Prevention of Dangerous Military Incidents.

These documents were negotiated after particularly hostile periods of the Cold War confrontation, during which U.S. and Soviet units operating in the Baltic Sea engaged in overtly dangerous actions against one another. Such actions involved warships ramming one another and the use of lasers to temporarily blind personnel in aircraft cockpits.

The Cold War agreements contained a series of behavioral procedures to be observed should U.S. or Soviet units encounter one another. The 1989 agreement stipulates not only pre-agreed radio frequencies but also a series of visual signals should electronic communication fail or in the case of no mutual language capability. The 1972 agreement stipulates further that approaching aircraft should use "the greatest caution and prudence" and are not permitted to perform simulated attacks on their opposite numbers.

These procedures were only to be observed in full within what the 1989 Agreement termed 'Special Caution Areas' (SCAs). A further stipulation connected to the SCA regulations was that task force commanders entering such an area must fully notify their opposite number of the purpose of their mission. Such a provision would be an important trust-building mechanism were it to be implemented by NATO and Russia.

Due to the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991 there is no evidence that any SCAs were actually created, however in present circumstances it seems appropriate that they be reconsidered

If the premise is expanded beyond its original bi-lateral nature to a full multilateral format inclusive of all NATO member states, Russia, Sweden and Finland, SCAs have the potential to dramatically reduce the risk of escalation.

An area beyond the remit of these documents is the interaction between military units and civilian aircraft and ships. Several of the more serious incidents involved near collision or otherwise short-notice avoidance of Russian military aircraft operating inside civilian air traffic corridors. The fact that military aircraft are often flying with their transponders switched off makes their detection by civilian air traffic control difficult.

The reasoning behind this seems to be that this then requires air defense systems to utilize more of their capacity to track the aircraft, allowing more and better intelligence to be gathered.

Efforts have been made to harmonize NATO operating procedure with that of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), but Russia remains outside of this framework. It is improbable that Russia would take similar measures to equalize its military procedures, but an April 2015 report by the EASA does provide two recommendations that could conceivably be implemented by all parties to a Baltic Sea SCA.

The first is a recommendation that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) initiate amendments to Article 3 of the 1944 Chicago Convention in a way that requires contracting states to publish their regulations or procedures currently in force regarding the 'due regard' concept for the safety of civil aircraft.

The second concerns the shared civil/military use of primary radar. While such radar sharing has become relatively common the EASA emphasizes that primary surveillance radar data be provided to civil air traffic control units to the maximum possible extent.

Implementation of these recommendations would institutionalize a culture of caution and information sharing, thus lowering the chance of a collision involving a civilian airliner or an escalatory confrontation between military ships and aircraft. Crisis management mechanisms in the Euro-Atlantic area are in a poor state of repair, and their reassessment is crucial. The future of Euro-Atlantic security might very well depend on it.

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 #39
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
August 28, 2015
Can a new UN cyber agreement be a win-win for Russia, US?
The UN experts recently agreed to suggest stricter rules of responsible state behavior in cyberspace and the use of information and communications technologies. Both Russia and the U.S. applaud the move, but for different reasons.
By Alexandra Kulikova
Alexandra Kulikova is Program Coordinator "Global Internet Governance and International Information Security" at PIR-Center think-tank focusing on the issues of ICT policy and regulation, global Internet governance and cyber-security. MSc in Media and Communications Governance, London School of Economics and Political Studies (2013).

In late August, the United Nations Group of Government Experts (UN GGE) released a new report that can be best viewed as a code of conduct defining a new era in cybersecurity policy. The report indicates that the world's leading cyber powers, including the U.S., Russia, China and the United Kingdom, alongside developing nations, largely agree on a more restrictive regulation of the Internet and cyberspace.    

In general, the UN GGE panel - a team of representatives from 20 countries acting voluntarily - decided that information technologies (ICT) should only be used to achieve peaceful goals. For example, ICT could be used to tackle any attempts at cyber crime, including espionage and hacking.

Just a few months ago in April 2015, the global Conference on Cyberspace didn't give much optimism to those expecting any sort of unanimous international agreement on norms of state behavior in cyberspace. Despite the clear understanding that the international community does need to search for a common denominator for global peace and security, any mention of a legally binding treaty was mostly frowned upon. The discussions on the nuances of the application of international law in cyberspace revealed a wide array of differences of interpretations.

And four months later, the UN GGE has emerged from their fourth session in the past decade with a vision of the minimum norms to be adopted by states to ensure a more secure digital future. While the resolution outlining the agreed upon measures is clearly a sign of progress and success for the Group at a time of scarce trust and mutual understanding among nations, there are certainly caveats and challenges to these achievements to face and consider in the following months and years.

Rules of the game in cyberspace require a concerted effort by all major international players

The movement towards this settlement started a while ago, and Russia has been putting a lot of effort into lobbying for a commitment to certain rules of the game in cyberspace, including within the UN GGE framework.

The best known endeavors so far to set forth a concrete proposal are the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Code of Conduct for information security and the Russian draft UN convention on international information security in 2011. Both take the same focus on ensuring information space stability, sovereign control over national Internet segments, and the demilitarization of cyberspace. These concepts have not found much support from Western nations.

This might have put a stigma on the revised version of the Code submitted in January 2015; however, both contain generally recognized recommendations on technical cooperation as well as the protection of individual rights online. Moreover, the new Code also mentions confidence and capacity building measures.
Bilateral attempts at codification of state relations in cyberspace were made between Russia and the U.S.in 2013 and most recently between Russia and China in 2015. The former ground to a virtual halt after the eruption of the conflict in Ukraine, while the latter is yet to prove its viability.

However, all these documents share the same language and conceptual understanding in certain instances - and these very instances are now reflected in the UN GGE report as the common denominator, the foundation and launch pad for any further consensus.

In particular, the  report calls for commitment to peaceful use of information and communications technologies (ICT) and warns against committing cybercrimes. In addition, it warns against inflicting damage on each others' critical infrastructure and cyber emergency responders, or knowingly allowing third party illegal cyber activity from their territory. In addition, the Code assumes a duty to assist in the investigation of cyber attacks and cybercrimes launched from a country's territory.

What makes this agreement a milestone is the fact that it not only shows visible progress on these issues since the previous report was published in June 2013, but it also reveals the goodwill of the participants to flesh out the minimum of measures they do see eye-to-eye on despite a host of conceptual differences.

The increasing amount of illegal activity online and the threat of terrorism with the use of Information and communications technologies have made a strong point in favor of fleshing out the principles of maintaining stability. This is especially true when cyber aggression can all too easily lead to a kinetic conflict in the absence of well-defined attribution and verification mechanisms. As Special Representative of the President of Russia on International Cooperation on Information Security, Ambassador at Large Andrey Krutskikh, who represents Russia within the UN GGE, remarked in his recent interview to Kommersant newspaper on the shared responsibility for fighting threats in cyber space.

"We all understand that in the sphere of information and communication technology (ICT), threats are common and transnational," he said. "We can only fight these threats jointly."

He pointed out, however, that the consensus was far from an easy one. However, it was the desire to find a palatable decision and wording that helped the Group come up with a final resolution. At the same time, as follows from the above, the differences in threat assessment and differences in ideas of how to respond to those threats, combined with a lack of trust, currently set a limit to the scope of possible agreement.

For instance, the clauses on the commitment not to attack critical infrastructure and to cooperate in dealing with such attacks on another state does not spell out the exact types of these attacks, while the definitions and classifications of critical infrastructure differ per country. In fact, it was expected earlier that more specific agreements could emerge for the banking and financial industry or nuclear energy sector, two areas where it is probably the easiest to find a consensus.

The clause on non-compromising ICT products with exploits ("harmful hidden functions") is hard to meaningfully implement without a viable tool of verification, which is yet to be developed. While signals intelligence is part and parcel of each country's foreign policy it's not clear whether the states that have such a capacity are indeed ready to commit at this time of geopolitical turbulence.

Equally, the commitment to investigate thoroughly cyber attacks before pointing the finger at a culprit runs against the problem of attribution, which despite all existing tools and approaches, is still an assumption based on a collection of usually indirect evidence.

All these lead to the essential question of the value of an agreement, which even if binding, is tough to implement. In fact, its voluntary, non-binding nature, while begging the same question of practical use and real commitments, allows for tentative rule setting. This, in turn, seems to be an inevitable and important stage in the process of potentially establishing clear legal norms in the future.

At this stage, the Group is focusing on crystallizing what appear to be "customary norms," i.e. norms already widely accepted in the respective communities. It is also preparing the ground for "aspirational norms" that are yet to be digested and accepted. These are "the expectations of the international community, to set standards for responsible State behavior and allow the international community to assess the activities and intentions of States."

"One step at a time" looks like the most feasible strategy here as the agreed upon principles of behavior lay the groundwork for more details. At the same time, they are helping to build a new culture of international interaction in this field and an ecosystem for relations with non-state actors. As Krutskikh argues, the principles do not exist in a vacuum and the new legal context eventually should help national and international counterterrorist and anti-crime activities.

At the same time, one shouldn't overestimate the restrictive potential of the norms set out in the agreement. Defined in the text as mere moral obligations at present, they don't have a sufficiently strong deterrence mechanism guaranteeing the implementation to "prevent conflict in the ICT environment."

The Group admits that, "Their implementation may not immediately be possible, in particular for developing countries, until they acquire adequate capacity." As such, the Group commits to developing more norms over time. The report will be presented at the 70th UN General Assembly this autumn and the Group intends to continue its work at the development of the norms next year if approved by the General Assembly. Therefore we might be in for a long journey towards a document which is ripe, detailed and balanced enough to become binding. However, the next big cyber conflict would be a good litmus test of the signatories' commitments and the amount of political leverage behind them.
What Russia and the U.S. get out of the  UN  GGE agreement

The first media accounts of the Group's work in both the U.S. and in Russia praised the new code of conduct as a success for their country. This is not just complacency, as it took a long time to reconcile very differing stances, but also a sign that both sides saw their points of view reflected in the final document.

For Russia, it was essential to highlight its principal position that the prevention of the use of ICT for political and military goals should remain a priority ahead of conflict regulation, which indirectly legalizes their mere existence. The emphasis is therefore on their peacetime regulation rather than on the application of the law of military conflict in cyberspace, which, however, was agreed on in principle in the UN GGE 2013 report.

This also fits Russia's consistency of norms building efforts through the SCO and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) partners towards an internationally binding convention under the aegis of the UN on the maintenance of global information security, which the Russian negotiator openly admits, with the caveat that this is a long route to take but it is worth taking.

Besides, it was important to reiterate the principle of the states' "refraining in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations" as well as "non-intervention in the internal affairs of other States."

This clause, echoing the SCO Code of Conduct, is one of the paramount principles of international law application to cyberspace for Russia.

The U.S. sources specifically praised the agreement on not attacking the critical infrastructure of other nations and other nations' duty to assist in the investigation of cyber attacks and cybercrimes launched from their territories, as well as other confidence and capacity building measures.

All of these reflect the official White House vision of the principles of behavior in cyberspace voiced in particular by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in May 2015 in Seoul, apart from one on the obligation not to "conduct or support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, trade secrets, or other confidential business information for commercial gain," most probably blocked by China.

Another stumbling block was Article 51 of the UN Charter enabling a nation to retaliate upon being attacked, which Russia didn't want singled out in the text of the Group report as suggested by the US since it already follows from the UN Charter provisions applying to cyberspace.

The entire Group didn't advance much on spelling out further how "the established international legal principles, including, where applicable, the principles of humanity, necessity, proportionality and distinction" apply to cyberspace in wartime. This work has previously been attempted in the Tallinn Manual (TM) on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare. Also work is currently being carried out in the Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the application of international law to situations below the "armed attack" threshold.

Finally, the sections on confidence and capacity building indicate the intention to make a big step forward in proactive cybersecurity and stability. The former stems from the work done by the Organization of Security of the Council of Europe (OSCE) in its 2013 set of draft confidence-building measures (the second set is being developed).

The detail in which it is laid out in the UN GGE report suggests much optimism about the goodwill of the United Nations to engage in mutual threats and risks revelations, vulnerability patching, security awareness and bridging the knowledge and skills divides.

However, the actual implementation is yet to be seen. If actively implemented as recommended at the bilateral or regional level, cooperation and development alone would mean a very positive step forward. At the same time, capacity building is very much reliant on the private sector, and the states will have to establish and/or promote an even more dynamic relationship with market leaders to implement the recommendations. For example, an attempt to bring together states and business for capacity building in cyber was made earlier on the sidelines of the GCCS2015 where the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise was launched.

All in all, the UN GGE has achieved a remarkable accomplishment - and managed to do despite serious mutual trust issues among any of the 20 participating nations. This renders the presented consensus even more significant. But, as it happens, time will show its true value.

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 #40
Russia Beyond the Headlines/RBC Daily
www.rbth.ru
August 28, 2015
TV series about Russian occupation of Norway sparks furor
A new TV series in which Russia occupies Norway and seizes its oil fields has been criticized by the Russian Foreign Ministry, with the Russian embassy in Oslo labelling it as reminiscent of the "worst traditions of the Cold War."
Anastasia Lyalikova, RBC Daily

A new Norwegian TV series in which Russia occupies the Nordic country and takes control of its oil fields has been described by Russia's Foreign Ministry as being "in the worst traditions of the Cold War" and representing a "non-existent threat from the east."

The series is to be launched by the largest Norwegian independent television channel TV2, the local media outlet LO News reports.

Events in the TV show evolve around the invasion of Norway by the Russian army - backed by the European Union - after environmental radicals come to power in the Scandinavian country and stop its oil industry.

According to the script, Russia occupies the country and subsequently seizes its oil fields.

The announcement of the TV series has already caused a negative reaction at the Russian Foreign Ministry, the BBC reports.

The Russian embassy in Norway has expressed regret at the upcoming premiere.

"Although the authors painstakingly emphasize the fictional nature of the plot, allegedly having nothing to do with reality, the film is about very real countries, and Russia, unfortunately, is given the role of the aggressor," the embassy said in statement.

Historian Bjorn Ditlef Nystad, Associate Professor of the University of Oslo, said in an interview with the television channel that the TV show is offensive to residents of Norway, liberated by the Soviet Union from German occupation in 1944.

"Such shows have never been made anywhere. Perhaps only in the United States during the Cold War - and still it is doubtful. I am sure that Norwegians will be shocked at the release of this film to the screen, and it clearly will not improve relations with Russia," said Nystad.

First published in Russian by RBC Daily.

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 #41
Washington Post
August 31, 2015
Editorial
Russia's truncheon

WHEN VLADIMIR Putin first became Russian president, a decade and a half ago, he promised to bring about what he called "dictatorship of the law." It is an awkward phrase, but the meaning was clear: to bring order out of the tumultuous decade of the 1990s, for the law to reign supreme.

Mr. Putin supervised the rewriting and modernization of many obsolete laws from the Soviet years. But as he turned more authoritarian, the law became just a tool. Mr. Putin followed a long line of predecessors in the Kremlin who have used the police and courts to punish their enemies and stifle dissenting views. Today, this is one of the profound failings of Mr. Putin's rule - establishing the rule of law is a distant dream.

The latest example was the sentencing in a Russian military court on Aug. 25 of Oleg Sentsov, a 39-year-old filmmaker, to 20 years in a prison camp after conviction on charges of terrorism in the Crimean Peninsula. Mr. Sentsov was active in protests against Viktor Yanukovych , the Russian-backed president of Ukraine, who abandoned his office in the face of widespread demonstrations last year. Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine soon after.

Mr. Sentsov pleaded not guilty to charges by the Russian prosecutors of creating a radical nationalist group in Crimea and setting fire to the offices of pro-Kremlin organizations. Another Crimea activist, Alexander Kolchenko , an ecologist, was sentenced to 10 years as an accomplice. The trial was marked by irregularities; the main prosecution witness recanted in the courtroom and said his evidence had been extracted under duress. Mr. Sentsov said he had been pressed to confess but refused. "I am not going to beg for leniency," he declared. "Everything is already clear. A court of occupiers cannot be just, by definition." After the presiding judge read out the sentence and asked Mr. Sentsov and Mr. Kolchenko if they understood, the two men, standing in a glass defendants' cage, started singing Ukraine's national anthem, as many did during the protests against the president last year.

The harsh sentences were clearly political, aimed at sending a message to anyone who might oppose the seizure of Crimea. This use of the law as a weapon is hardly isolated. It was employed against the musicians in Pussy Riot, a punk rock band that staged a brief protest against Mr. Putin in Moscow's central cathedral and were sent to jail. Others who challenged Mr. Putin have suffered the same fate. At the same time, Mr. Putin has signed new laws giving the authorities wide latitude to pressure or close down organizations such as those defending human rights or monitoring elections. These are just as pernicious as the prosecution of individuals who cross Mr. Putin.

They all reflect a sad truth that Russia has not achieved rule of law, but instead is ruled by the arbitrary power of a boss.

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 #42
History News Network
http://historynewsnetwork.org
August 30, 2015
Militarism Run Amok: Russians and Americans Get Their Kids Ready for War
By Lawrence S. Wittner
Dr. Lawrence Wittner (http://lawrenceswittner.com) is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany. His latest book is a satirical novel about university corporatization and rebellion, "What's Going On at UAardvark?"

In 1915, a mother's protest against funneling children into war became the theme of a new American song, "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier." Although the ballad attained great popularity, not everyone liked it. Theodore Roosevelt, a leading militarist of the era, retorted that the proper place for women who criticized war was "in a hare--and not in the United States."

Roosevelt would be happy to learn that, a century later, preparing children for war continues unabated.

That's certainly the case in today's Russia, where thousands of government-funded clubs are producing what is called "military-patriotic education" for children. Accepting both boys and girls, these clubs teach them military exercises, some of which employ heavy military equipment. In a small town outside St. Petersburg, for example, children ranging from five to 17 years of age spend evenings learning how to fight and use military weapons.

These efforts are supplemented by the Voluntary Society of Cooperation with the Army, Air Force, and Navy, which prepares Russian high school students for military service. This society claims that, in the past year alone, it has held 6,500 military patriotic events and channeled more than 200,000 young people into taking the official "Ready for Labor and Defense" test. Government funding of the society's budget is lavish, and has grown dramatically in recent years.

Russia's "patriotic education" also benefits from frequent military historical reenactments. The head of the Moscow branch of the All-Russian Military History Movement observed that groups hosting such reenactments help people "realize that they can't spend their whole life playing with Kinder Eggs or Pokemon."

Apparently sharing that opinion, the Russian government opened a vast military theme park in June 2015 in Kubinka, an hour's drive from Moscow. Frequently referred to as a "military Disneyland," Patriot Park was proclaimed "an important element in our system of military-patriotic work with young people" by President Vladimir Putin. On hand for the opening and backed up by a military choir, Putin also brought the good news that 40 new intercontinental missiles had been added to Russia's nuclear arsenal. According to news reports, Patriot Park, when completed, will cost $365 million and draw up to 100,000 visitors per day.

Those attending the park's opening found the rows of tanks, armored personnel carriers, and missile launching systems on display, plus the riding of tanks and shooting of guns, deeply moving. "This park is a gift to Russian citizens, who can now behold the full power of the Russian armed forces," declared Sergei Privalov, a Russian Orthodox priest. "Children should come here, play with the weaponry and climb on the tanks and see all the most modern technology." Alexander Zaldostanov, the leader of the Night Wolves, a violent biker gang planning a similar park, remarked: "Now we all feel closer to the army" and that is "a good thing." After all, "if we don't educate our own children then America will do it for us." Vladimir Kryuchkov, a weapons demonstrator, admitted that some missile launchers were too heavy for very small children. But he maintained that smaller rocket-propelled grenade launchers would be perfect for them, adding: "All males of all ages are defenders of the motherland and they must be ready for war."

They are certainly ready in the United States. In 1916, Congress established the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC), which today flourishes in some 3,500 American high schools and enrolls well over half a million American children. Some government-run military training programs even operate in U.S. middle schools. In JROTC, students are taught by military officers, read Pentagon-approved textbooks, wear military uniforms, and conduct military parades. Some JROTC units even use automatic rifles with live ammunition. Although the Pentagon covers some of the expense of this costly program, the rest of it is borne by the schools themselves. This "youth development program," as the Pentagon calls it, pays off for the military when JROTC students come of age and join the armed forces--action facilitated by the fact that U.S. military recruiters are often right in the classrooms.

Even if high school students do not participate in JROTC activities, military recruiters have easy access to them. One of the provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires high schools to share students' names and contact information with military recruiters unless students or their parents opt out of this arrangement. In addition, the U.S. military uses mobile exhibit--replete with gaming stations, huge flat-screen television sets, and weapons simulators--to reach children at high schools and elsewhere. GI Johnny, an inflatable, goofily-grinning doll dressed in Army fatigues, has been a great hit among young children. According to one military recruiter, "the little kids are very comfortable with Johnny."

In 2008, the U.S. military, recognizing that video arcades with first person shooter games were far more popular than its dreary recruiting centers in urban ghettoes, established the Army Experience Center, a giant video arcade in the Franklin Mills mall just outside Philadelphia. Here children immersed themselves in hi-tech warfare at computer terminals and in two large simulation halls, where they could ride Humvee vehicles and Apache helicopters and shoot their way through waves of "enemies." Meanwhile, Army recruiters circulated through the youthful throngs, signing them up for the armed forces.

Actually, video games might do a better job of militarizing children than do the recruiters. Created at times in cooperation with major arms contractors, violent video games played by children dehumanize opponents and provide justifications for "wasting" them. They not only promote a level of ruthless aggression that the Wehrmacht might well envy--see, for example, the immensely popular Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter--but are very effective in warping children's values.

How long will we continue raising our children to be soldiers? 

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 #43
www.rt.com
August 30, 2015
American, not Russian, aggression is the real problem
By Bryan MacDonald
Bryan MacDonald is a journalist. He began his career in journalism aged 15 in his home town of Carlow, Ireland, with the Nationalist & Leinster Times, while still a schoolboy. Later he studied journalism in Dublin and worked for the Weekender in Navan before joining the Irish Independent. Following a period in London, he joined Ireland On Sunday, later re-named the Irish Mail on Sunday. He was theater critic of the Daily Mail for a period and also worked in news, features and was a regular op-ed writer. He has also frequently appeared on RTE and Newstalk in Ireland as well as RT.

Russia didn't want a new Cold War. The myth of a "revanchist Russia" is convenient spin. The real issue is American interventionism.

Ordinary Russians generally like and admire American culture. They consume American TV and movies. Teenagers in Siberia follow the street fashion of New York. Even in isolated Yakutia you will find people who can rap along to Kanye West or Jay Z. Many older people can manage a few bars of Elvis or Sinatra.

The reverse is not true in the States. Few Americans could quote a bit of Pushkin. In fact, most US citizens have probably not even heard of him. Or Pasternak. Or Tolstoy. Regrettably, if you ask an average American for an opinion on Russia, the current likely answer is something that depicts the nation as their enemy.

This is very, very sad. Especially when Russia has no desire to be an enemy of the US and is not a threat to any genuine American interests. Actually, Russia is not even much of a danger to most of the things it's supposed to be a danger to. Like the Baltic States, for instance. Or the EU project.

However, relentless anti-Russia propaganda in the US corporate media has brought us to this point. American elites are now more united in their disdain for Russia than they ever were during the Cold War. During that period, dissenting voices were heard. Now, they are completely frozen out.

Indeed, anybody with any real knowledge of Russia is condemned as "Putin's shill" these days. Even academic heavyweights like Stephen Cohen. Thus, we have the bizarre situation where most American mainstream media commentators on Russia are people who have either never lived in the country or haven't been there for years. Or both. If old Joe McCarthy himself was around, he'd be on CNN every five minutes.

Nasty neocons

The fact that genuine Russia analysts, who understand the country, have been replaced by neocon nutters who lump the nation in with the likes of Syria, ISIS and North Korea is, frankly, disturbing. Russia is not some martial lightweight; it's the globe's second strongest military power. Or maybe that's the whole point? Russia is bigger and scarier than the aforementioned and presenting it as an imminent danger is more likely to secure increases in defense spending?

It's also interesting to note that, almost to a man (or woman), the media figures calling for confrontation with Russia are the same people who pushed for conflict with Iraq, Libya and Syria.

The current climate is toxic. Washington-Moscow relations are at all time low. The media, in both countries, fuels the tension. Yet, to understand where we are, we first need to understand how we got here.

The American establishment hates Russia's president, Vladimir Putin. For daring to challenge Washington's authority, he's been designated as the bad guy du jour. With Bin Laden and Saddam dead, many imagined that North Korea's Kim Jong-un would inherit this role. However, unlike Al Qaeda, North Korea is too weak and insular to threaten the US directly. To preserve the military budget, which increased dramatically since 2001, they need an existential danger. Russia fits the bill.

It wasn't always like this. After Bin Laden's henchmen attacked the US on September 11, 2001, Putin was the first foreign leader to call President George W Bush. He offered what the US needed and far more than any NATO members did. Intelligence, supplies, access to central Asia and transit across Russian territory. Putin even threw in the Northern Alliance to help America defeat the Taliban. This wasn't popular with the Russian elite.

Before Putin, the 90s-era Boris Yeltsin government bent over backward to help the US. Indeed, Yeltsin even gave Bill Clinton a map of the electronic bugs in the US embassy in Moscow as a sign of friendship. At this stage, NATO had just 12 member states to resist the "Soviet threat."

How did the Bush administration repay Russian loyalty? They continued to expand NATO eastward, despite assurances to the last Soviet government that it would never happen. Now, NATO comprises 28 countries - and there are a few more on its waiting list.

America continued to support every country and politician who portrayed themselves as a potential victim of Russia. While Putin was trying to foster a new era of cooperation, Washington just couldn't tear itself away from Cold War thinking. Kremlin bad, Kremlin's enemies good.

Since the turn of the century, politicians in ex-USSR states have had a clear path to riches. Simply sound as anti-Russian as possible and voila, money and support beyond their wildest dreams will suddenly appear, all thanks to Uncle Sam. The formula is repeated time and time again. Thus, we have the bizarre situation where US taxpayers are bankrolling a smorgasbord of ex-Communists, neo-Nazis and corrupt oligarchs across the former Soviet Union.

Russia has responded by developing ties with leaders opposed to the US. Syria's Assad, Venezuela's Chavez and Hungary's Orban. Again, a nonlinear combination of conflicting left-wingers and their right-wing opposites. Amid all these geopolitical games, it's like the Reagan-Gorbachev detente never happened. That said, Russia has so far restrained itself from actively supporting American enemies. If US hostility encourages Moscow to change tack, expect a run on tinned food and a Bay Of Pigs redux.

Bought journalism

Alas, US aggression appears to be intensifying. In this year's State of the Union speech, President Obama named only one country as an American enemy - Russia. The other adversary mentioned was ISIL.

In an earlier address, he also equated Russia to the Ebola virus. A gloating Obama claimed that Russia's economy was "in tatters" and that the state was "isolated." Neither of these statements is true. In actual fact, in many regions - including Asia and Latin America - Russia has more friends than the US.

Incessant propaganda reduces hopes of a thaw. Especially when most popular western press seems to simply regurgitate the government line these days. Again, the same useful idiots who shilled for the illegal Iraq war now turn their sights to Russia. For evidence of this, see Gekaufte Journalisten (Bought Journalism) by German journalist Udo Ulfkotte. In the bestseller, the former editor at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung explains how many stories in the German media are essentially planted by the CIA.

At the same time, anti-Russia rhetoric in the US reaches new levels. Americans are bombarded with daily fear-mongering propaganda about "Russian aggression." This is particularly pronounced on Fox News and CNN, where figures such as retired Major General Robert Scales bombard the airwaves daily. Scales recently called for America "to start killing Russians ... killing so many Russians that even Putin's media can't hide the fact that Russians are returning to the motherland in body bags."

Oddly, Russia is reducing media spending. This year, TASS news agency announced a 25 percent staff reduction and Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the state's official publication service (which also oversees Russia Beyond The Headlines and Russia Direct in foreign languages), released 10 percent of its employees. Also, RT's budget is down 46 percent in dollar terms this year.

Shaken, not stirred

Meanwhile. Putin is smeared as a cross between a new Hitler and a James Bond villain. The Russian president is accused of nostalgia for the Soviet Union. In reality, Putin is a Russian nationalist. Indeed, his political mentor was Anatoly Sobchak, a noted and outspoken opponent of communism. Putin's KGB past is also frequently used against him. In fact, the President was a low-ranking administrator, not a *Stirlitz-esque spy.

Putin himself believes that the west is implementing a policy of "containment" against Russia. Even the "shadow-CIA," US-political intelligence firm Stratfor broadly agrees with this assessment. The agency's chief, George Friedman, has often stated that US policy is to prevent a rival power emerging in Eurasia. In simple terms, this means that Washington loves Moscow when it's weak, as in the 90s, but fears a successful Russia which could rival it.

Hence, the Kremlin now realises that using cooperation with the west to fuel economic growth is futile. This explains Russia's enthusiasm for the BRICs movement. It has also led to a nascent alliance with China, one that may not be in Moscow's long-term interests. However, Putin has calculated that the alternative, meekly cowering before Washington, is worse.

As Moscow-Washington relations atrophy, there are now two scenarios in play. America can continue its aggression and Putin, a moderate by Russian standards, could feel compelled to dust off the Soviet playbook. This would mean a tit-for-tat campaign to destabilise America's near abroad as Washington has done, or attempted to do, in Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Moldova. The far better option would be for the US to take a step back and attempt a rapprochement with Moscow before the present acrimony becomes systemic.

*Stirlitz (Maxim Maximovich Isaev) was a fictional Soviet spy, created by Yulian Semyonov. Best described as the USSR's answer to James Bond.

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 #44
New York Times
August 31, 2015
Review: 'The End of Tsarist Russia' by Dominic Lieven
By Serge Schmemann
Serge Schmemann is a member of the New York Times editorial board and author of "Echoes of a Native Land: Two Centuries of a Russian Village."

THE END OF TSARIST RUSSIA
The March to World War I & Revolution
By Dominic Lieven
426 pages. Viking. $35.

Dominic Lieven's stated reason for this contribution to the centenary literature on World War I is to place Russia "where it belongs, at the very center" of the war's history. Certainly the war proved to be at the center of Russian history, leading to revolution, dictatorship, repression and more war.

But Mr. Lieven, a well-respected British scholar of Imperial Russia, makes the convincing case that World War I was really about the struggle of Russia and Germany for territory, status and influence in Eastern and Central Europe, in which the fate of Ukraine - shades of today - played a central role. At the end, Russia and Germany both lost, leading to a peace in which neither played a constructive part, and making a second conflict likely.

In giving Russia's side of the story - as he did in his well-received study of an earlier war, "Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814" - Mr. Lieven punctures the popular Western image of a reactionary autocracy stumbling into a suicidal war through misguided Slavic nationalism. There is that, to be sure, but his Russia is also a vast empire and an economic powerhouse in the making, where a fledgling civil society and influential press often contributed to nationalist passions while a counterintuitively capable aristocratic elite wrestled with legitimate questions of where Russia's national interests lay in the complex and rapidly changing world of the early 20th century.

Mr. Lieven's empathy with the well-born men who ran Russia and its foreign policy under Emperor Nicholas II may be explained in part by his own descent from an illustrious family of Baltic aristocrats - one of whom, Prince Alexander Lieven, makes a delightful cameo appearance in the book as chief of the Naval General Staff from 1911 to 1914, who "liked to work with his pet monkey perched on his shoulder."

But it would be wrong to dismiss Mr. Lieven's portrayal of the imperial elite and its role as solely the product of his heritage. On the contrary, his intimate familiarity with the Russia he describes and his extensive study of the letters, diaries and books of the chief actors in Russia's descent "towards the flames" - many not hitherto accessible to historians - are what render this work so authoritative and readable.

In Mr. Lieven's telling, the primary cause of the war was "the conflict of interests, fears, and ambitions created by the decline of the Ottoman and Austrian empires." The crises this generated could have been resolved only through the collaboration of the rising German and Russian states. But that was neither simple nor obvious at the time in St. Petersburg, torn among the imperatives of ensuring access to Black Sea ports through the Straits; sustaining a Slavophile "mission" to the Balkan Slavs; managing the costs of a vast land empire; and balancing dynastic links to Germany against fears of its rising power.

"The options open to Russia were difficult, and there were powerful and rational arguments to justify the foreign policy adopted by Petersburg," Mr. Lieven writes. As someone who also has Russian roots, I found his portraits of the men from the "nest of the aristocracy and gentry" who made or disputed that policy - like the foreign ministers Aleksandr Izvolsky and Sergey Sazonov, or the diplomat-journalist Prince Grigorii Troubetskoy - among the most interesting passages of the book. Contrary to the notion of self-serving noblemen leading Russia to disaster, these men, as portrayed by Mr. Lieven, "were far from stupid" and generally decent. They were also, as he makes clear, closely linked by class, rank and often marriage to the aristocratic elite that predominated in most European governments.

Nicholas II, in Mr. Lieven's telling, is also more complex and sympathetic than the hapless monarch of Western lore. The subject of another earlier Lieven study, Nicholas is "above all else a Russian patriot," steeped in the ideology of a unique communion between Orthodox czar and people, caught between equally dangerous demands for reform and status quo.

Mr. Lieven's ability to empathize with the different forces of the old order isn't limited to the elites. The book is liberally sprinkled with personal asides like this one: "Personally, my sympathies are with the soldiers: I too would have been deeply unwilling to sacrifice my life for the Straits." I particularly liked the brusque dismissal of popular myths about the power of the holy wanderer Rasputin: "Grigorii Rasputin's influence on policy was grossly exaggerated then and has been ever since."

This book is not, however, always an easy read for the general reader, who may at times become lost in the thickets of names, arguments and events. And only fellow historians are likely to fully appreciate how Mr. Lieven disagrees with them, since he often does not identify them. But for anyone interested in the First World War, the effort is well worth the exposure to a side of the war that is often given short shrift in Western histories.

Inevitably, an account of European maneuvers and passions on the eve of cataclysm prompts a search for contemporary parallels, especially when issues like the fate of Ukraine are described as pivotal, and the main protagonists - Russia and Germany - are again at the center of European politics. Mr. Lieven acknowledges the echoes, but he is quick to note that Angela Merkel's Germany is very different from Kaiser Wilhelm II's; Vladimir Putin's Russia is not Nicholas II's; Ukraine does not hold the key to Russian imperial power; "and Europe is no longer at the center of the world."

Yet some of the forces that Mr. Lieven describes behind Russian policies and politics - messianism coupled with a sense of inferiority, backwardness coupled with brilliance and great wealth, the vastness of the land and the determination of the rulers to be recognized as a great power - are all very much on display in Putin's Russia.

Mr. Lieven sees more worrisome parallels in Asia. On the last page, he writes that he conceived and wrote the book at his home on a Japanese mountain, and thinking about the dangers of geopolitical brinkmanship and strident nationalism in east Asia "is not a comforting experience." Hopefully discomfort will prove to be the worst of it this time around.

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 #45
Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
August 30, 2015
E-book: Kurchatov -The Father of the Russian Nuclear Bomb. Part 1. Foreword
Peter Astashenkov: "Kurchatov"
Published by "Molodaya Gvardiya", 1968
http://www.informaxinc.ru/lib/zhzl/kurchatov/
Translated by Kristina Rus

From the translator: You can read Russian news every day and not understand Russia, or you can read a book spanning a lifetime from the Russian Empire to 1960 and get a glimpse into the formula behind one of the greatest Soviet, Russian and personal achievements.

This book has not been translated into English before, and FR will publish it as a series of daily installments. This book is provided to you free of charge, but if you enjoy it and wish to thank FR, your donation will be greatly appreciate.

"Kurchatov"
*1968*

"I am happy I was born in Russia and dedicated my entire life to nuclear science of the great Soviet Country." - Igor Kurchatov

Preface

Many of our scientists have immortalized their names by great contributions in establishing the framework and further development of the Soviet atomic science and technology. A worthy place among them takes Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov, who led the development of the Soviet production methods of atomic energy, creation of nuclear weapons, immeasurably increasing the power of the beloved homeland.

Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov embodied the best traits of the scientist of our country - burning patriotism, collectivism, broad scientific knowledge, highly developed sense of the new, leadership talent. The life of I. V. Kurchatov - is a continuous working and academic achievement. His life reflected all the main stages of the struggle of our science for the conquest of the atom.

The Soviet school of the atomic nucleus was born not in 1943, when work on the release of nuclear energy was underway, but much earlier, in the early 30-ies. Among the first researchers of the nucleus was I. V. Kurchatov, then head of a division of General physics of the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute (LPTI). The results of scientific works of employees of LPTI and other researchers of the atom, who worked in Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov, were regularly reported at the all-Union conferences and meetings on the nucleus.

Especially fruitful were the conferences of 1933, 1937 and 1940. They all took place with participation of prominent foreign scientists and received a wide response in the world press. At the conference of 1940 I. V. Kurchatov, in his report on the fission of heavy nuclei came close to the problems of practical implementation of the nuclear chain reaction in uranium as with a moderator, and without it, which meant the theoretical justification of the possibility of creating nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Interestingly, he himself with the group of closest disciples had to practically prove the reality of his scientific predictions.

In all the periods of the storming of the atomic nucleus Igor Vasilyevich was at the critical posts. In the USSR at the same time with leading foreign research centers of the atomic nucleus developed an authentic and very active school of nuclear science. As a result, by the beginning of the Great Patriotic war all theoretical prerequisites for realizing a controlled chain reaction and the reaction of the explosive type were created. The treacherous attack of the Nazis on our Motherland, unfortunately, pushed back the practical implementation of the idea of Soviet atom-scientists by several years.

 In this book the readers will learn the details of the storming of the nucleus, which was undertaken by a huge team of our scientists, engineers and workers at the call of their dear party. The author is right by not smoothing out the difficulties that stood in the path to ambitious goal, focusing on how these difficulties were overcome, what heroism and bravery was shown by all the fighters of the nuclear front and the commander, Igor Kurchatov.

Launch of the first Soviet reactor, creation of industrial installations for the production of fissile materials, first tests of uranium, and then hydrogen bombs, the commissioning of the first nuclear power plant in the world, the grandiose start of research of controlled thermonuclear reactions - all this is contained in a space of little over a decade. You can imagine what great fulfillment and energy marked the different activities of Igor Kurchatov, who was solving a variety of problems almost simultaneously. How much effort and energy, desire and inspiration!

In his book Peter Astashenkov recreated the environment of the early studies of the nucleus and the period of rapid onset on the problem of atomic energy. It is hoped that the book about Igor Kurchatov will interest a wide range of our readers. It will be useful to mature professionals and youths just starting their life. We can all learn from Kurchatov about pursuing life goals, inexhaustible desire to be useful to the Motherland, self-discipline, integrity and modesty.

Member-correspondent of the USSR Academy of Sciences,
Lenin prize laureate, G. N. Flerov

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